Okay, so I am not being honest with this title. But hey, since Harvard does list my blog as a ‘fake news’ source, I might as well indulge, at least once, into some absolutely shameless click baiting and “fake newsing” :-)
Seriously, my friend Steve Lendman wrote an interesting post on his blog about Harvard University’s “guide to fake news”. Check it out, he does a great job explaining it all. Also, it’s not like Harvard University focused on my blog. In fact, their full list is much longer (see here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/).
But yeah, they do list the Saker blog :-)
Make sure to also read their “guide to fake news” right here: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/fake – it is amazing.
What a fall from grace, really. Harvard University, arguably THE symbol of US academia, has now joined such “prestigious” (not) actors like CNN or the BBC in the ideological scramble to discredit free information sources. For somebody like me who studied in US colleges and who got two degrees in the USA, it is really sad.
There used to be a time when US colleges were *really* a beacon of intellectual freedom. For example, while at the School of International Service (SIS) at American University in Washington, DC, in the late eighties, I remember that we had the former ambassador of Grenada as an academic and while the Reagan administration was not happy about this, there is absolutely nothing they could do to remove her. In fact, a lot of our faculty was very much opposed to the Reagan administration, and yet no attempts were made to pressure anybody in any way. Had there been any such attempts they would have resulted in an energetic protest on our part, probably supported by all other colleges in DC (George Washington U, Maryland U, Georgetown U, Howard U). Call me naive, but I do believe that it would have never crossed the mind of anybody in the White House or Congress to mess with academic freedom or, even less so, to try to use colleges as a tool in a color revolution against the President.
My other degree is from The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University, with a campus based in Washington, D.C. SAIS became notorious for being a breeding ground for some of the worst Neocons out there. And that reputation is quite deserved. Our ‘bad guys’ list ranges from Ambassador April Glaspie to the infamous Eliot Cohen and even includes Zbigniew Brzezinski! But even at SAIS we had real ideological pluralism and real political diversity, if only because the student body would never have put up with any notion of walking in lockstep with the ideological mantra of the day (in my department, Strategic Studies, we must have been well over 50% foreigners and all “our” Americans were well-traveled and educated – which greatly helped). We also had some absolutely wonderful teachers who were true expert in their fields and who never lied to us (I considered naming a few here, but that would do them more harm then good. So I will mention my favorite one, and under a code name only he will understand: yf23 – thank you, Sir!).
The USA can be blamed and criticized for a lot of things, but I don’t think that it can be denied that the academic quality and diversity of US colleges was one of the best ones on the planet. Americans were rightly proud of their universities and students from all over the world would put a great deal of effort to come and study in the United States, even those who did not at all agree with US politics.
To be honest, I always considered Harvard to be a gang of pompous asses (sorry HU alumni – nothing personal). But pompous asses or not, Harvard was undeniably a symbol and now that they are endorsing this idiotic ‘fake news’ narrative this symbol is making a massive faceplant. Sooner or later, I guess sooner, this new anti-Russian hysteria will peter out, just like McCarthyism and the “Red Scare” did, and all that will be left of this is an immense sense of shame and self-loathing for those who took part in it.
It would have been the natural calling for US colleges to be at the forefront of the struggle *against* the current anti-Russian witch-hunt, but instead they are now taking the lead in making sure that this hysteria now also infects academic circles. The impact of such a policy will be devastating not only for the student body, but also for the teachers.
Did you notice this part of HU’s “fake news guide” (see pic): when in doubt, ask a librarian. Think about it – this means a number things: first, that librarians have now been co-opted in the struggle for ideological purity; second, that librarians better make darn sure that they full abide by the current ideological dogmas lest they be fired for not being able to fulfill their (new) duties. Third, that students will now be encouraged to turn to a member of the faculty or staff to ask whether source “x” has received the official imprimatur of the university, college or school.
Nope, this is not the DPRK. This is the “the land of the free and the home of the brave” – no kidding!
Against this background, let me do something of a “community service” here and explain how you can evaluate news and news sources without having to ask for an “ideological purity minder” (aka “librarian”) for help.
The system is rather simple, really.
First, judge a tree by its fruits: a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit (Matt, 7:18). Give yourself enough time to establish a ranking of news sources. I would suggest you separate them into “reliable”, “sometimes reliable”, “mostly unreliable” and “unreliable”. But don’t stop here.
The next step is to measure any information you get against all the other information you have and see if they corroborate each other or not.
Finally, take each information and give it a rating indicating how reliable the source is and whether this info corroborates what you otherwise know. This source+info ranking system is used by most intelligence agencies in some form or another. Typically, a combo of letters and numbers would be used. For example, an info rated as “A1” would indicate “reliable source” and “info corroborates”. A3 would indicate “reliable source” “does not corroborate”. Whatever your system, make sure to include the “unknown” category which you can apply to both sources and the info itself. Over time, you will built yourself a pretty good info ranking system, you will see.
Let me reveal a state secret here, but a very little one. There is an advanced country out there which has a very prestigious newspaper which everybody reads and which has a lot of credibility. And yet, this country’s intelligence community rates this newspaper as a “C” source – a very mediocre rating. Now you can imaging where CNN, NBC, NTY, WaPo and all the rest of them would rank ;-)
[Sidebar: if you wonder, B-2 is typically the kind of info which would be used for regular day to day analysis]
This Harvard University faceplant is also very good news. Think of it – would the US elites ever bother sinking so low if they thought that they are winning the information war? Look at the AngloZionist elites in general – they are all at each other’s throats, not only in the USA but everywhere (just look at the fight between Turkey and the EU taking place and please pass the popcorn!). I assure you that this latest anti-Russian hysteria is not caused by a sense of confident power, to put it mildly. And while CNN is freaking out about Putin being the “most powerful man in the world“, we – all those who want to bring down the Empire by using the weapon of truth – are winning our battles every day. And for all his undeniable merits and achievements, there is much more happening here than just Putin.
“Putin” has become a collective placeholder for every and all the forms of resistance to the AngloZionist elites and their empire. This is why “Putin” is personally responsible for ‘weaponizing’ Russian soccer fans and personally giving the order to hack the DNC. I would not be surprised one bit if in the coming days we see an ‘investigation’ by CNN about how ‘Putin personally ordered the Russian military to use their climate weapons to attack the USA’s eastern shores with a snowstorm’. World-class “Putin specialists” like Masha Gessen would immediately confirm, while John McCaine would demand that the US take “firm retaliatory action to show the Russian dictator that he cannot pour snow on the USA with impunity”. Needless to say, such report would not raise any eyebrows from Harvard University.
Yes, they are desperate and they are terrified. Hence all the silly histrionics.
Friends, we are winning! Yes, we are. Even if the Neocons end up overthrowing Trump or make him their lackey. We are winning. And that is nothing short of amazing (especially considering our means – hint hint about the next thing I will post here…). Look at the big picture and see how the USA are self-destructing, how the EU is collapsing, how Turkey has completely switched sides and now works with Iran and Russia, how the Syrian people are winning against the transnational terrorist gangs which attacked them, look at Libya and how terrified NATO is by the obvious desire of the new authorities to turn to Russia, look at how confident China is in the face of a barrage of US threats, look at how Hezbollah played a crucial role in Syria and yet managed to deter the IDF in Lebanon. Look at how Russia has survived both the (rather ineffective) sanctions and the (immensely damaging) drop in oil prices. Look at how Iran is standing firm and single-handedly confronts the huge US+Zionist+Wahabi regional coalition and shows no sign of weakness.
Sure, this is far from over, we are only winning battles, and we are still far from having won the war. And we will lose battles in the future (the latest news out of France is not good at all). But the overall momentum is clearly and undeniably on our side and this is why our enemies are freaking out and resorting to desperate measures like this ‘fake news’ canard.
I think that some high-fiving and back-slapping are in order :-)
Having indulged in this short moment of celebration, let’s now return to the struggle and fight for the final victory!
The Saker
This really is an honour, to be vilified by the university that awarded a law degree to Barry Obumbler. Many years ago Einstein wrote that, when the Nazis came to power and re-organized German universities “in the national interest”, he looked to the champions of academic freedom for resistance – and found none. Likewise, not a peep from the vaunted champions of press freedom. Only among the clergy did he note some resistance. Of course this was only one man’s impression, and he might not have heard of honorable outcasts like the White Rose group, but Einstein’s words spring to mind in times like these …
Funny — the google doc won’t load — claims there’s an “error” it’s reporting & advises reloading. Same deal. May just be my hacked computer.
The Saker blog are listed follows in the long list provided.
“Unknown (tag unidentified): Sources that have not yet been analyzed (many of these were suggested by readers/users or are found on other lists and resources). Help us expand our resource by providing us information!”
Should we give them a helping hand then?? Analyzing this site I mean.
Take Care
Kent
Should we give them a helping hand then?? Analyzing this site I mean.
Nah, don’t waste a second of your precious time on these losers.
Besides, it’s not like facts have any relevance or interest for them.
Hugs and cheers, my friend,
The Saker
I think a more appropriate use of a person’s time is compiling a list of Faux news, publications and web sites etc. complete with some fact based reasons.
The BBC should be top of the list and Harvard obviously should have an honourable mention.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/03/12/march-madness-fake-news-final-four-starts-this-week/
Nice idea S1. I agree with you re. the BBC. The list perhaps should contain a link to indicative example. In the case of the BBC, might I suggest the Jane Stanley? item announcing the collapse of WTC7 ahead on time.
Punctuality is of the utmost importance you know and the state funded British Bloviator Corp. likes to be early to get best dibs on manufacturing consent for war. It also likes to prosecute those who don’t cough up the ‘fee’ of £145.50 ($US 178) per year per household. Fee evasion is a criminal offence and makes 10% of all cases prosecuted in magistrate courts in the UK.
They certainly have the gift and if propaganda is what you want you certainly get your money’s worth.No matter how outrageous the vilification, they embrace, extend and broadcast it, but only if the target is Russia.
In one of their recent pieces a reader could be forgiven for thinking that Crimea was under siege by the invading Russian hordes. They showed an armoured personnel carrier/tank with the caption that went something like ‘Russian military tightens its grip on Crimea’.
Up to now, I wasn’t sure if I had enough sources of alternative news, but with the list “endorsed” by Harward, I might find time to look around.
@ vernon: Look around, but beware… those lists are “anything not Deep State-approved MSM”.
So there will also be half-truth, permissible-dissent outlets that mildly critique the opposing-party/corporate agenda, but stop short of exposing the worst of the entire rotten edifice from the 0.001% down.
And of course, the lunatic irrational/radical extremists will also make the Harvard-type lists, if only to increase the lists effectiveness as Weapons of Mass Distraction in creating a massive amount of noise which makes finding sites like The Saker more difficult. Saker as one of a handful of worthwhile needles in the endless haystacks of MSM/faux-protest/insane media noise.
I saw you were on the list with many other I read daily. The money site NC ran this the other day and thanks for the link.
Yes we are winning small steps forward.
Hi Saker
On another note,I read on Sputnik (another fake news) that Russia is still undecided on UN Ambasador.I would like to make a sugestion that i hope Russia might get wind of.
Since Nicky Haley and likes of Powers need some education on diplomacy i hereby nominate non other than Maria Zakharova.She would do justice to Russia and its people.
Just my opinion.
“What Harvard University said about the Saker blog will leave you SPEECHLESS”
and here, I’ve remixed some other headlines in order to get you more clicks
Iran and Hezbollah respond to Donald Trump —> “Donald Trump spoke to Hezbollah, you WON’T BELIEVE what happened next”
Here’s why Ukraine is suing Russia in the International Court of Justice —> “15 Things Only Ukranians Suing Russia Will Understand”
Just think of the possibilities!
“this symbol is making a massive faceplant”
we are in cool company, “faceplant”
Yves Smith took me 2008
with words like this to lingua franca
seems to me – we have won the war and will
have to keep spending a helluva time
with the aggressive outcomes
Donald Trup might be sent to balance
He might, with God’s help, be humble
enough for a halfe continent’s half
while Vladimir is doing Eurasia
and Saker is doing coming rats
in a multi polar Vineyards on Earth
like Henry’s Big Sur
C.G.Jung’s Küssnacht places
all of us under the same stars
in different angles
each one required at his place
When I was young, the mantra was never to trust someone over 30. A better mantra for our time is never to trust someone worth more than a million dollars. Three other reliable criteria for whether to pay attention to what someone is saying, are these: (1) Did they support the Iraq War?; (2) Do they accept the official explanation of 9/11?; and (3) Do they buy into the current Russophobia? One “yes” here, and you’re OUT. I’ve found this simple system to save a lot of time and allow energy to be focused on pondering points of view that might matter.
Excellent criteria, Newton Finn!
Also, don’t trust someone who sets him- or herself up as your intellectual guide and filter.
Such people, like this semiliterate Ed feller at Harvard (who uses the reflexive pronoun “myself” incorrectly), think they know more than you! They think that they know how to read critically and you, or Harvard undergraduates or possibly PhDs do not. These guides are saying don’t read something—shield your eyes!—because you do not have the critical judgment to assess it. We are placing it on an index.
Whereas in fact, the only way to develop one’s own critical judgment is to read for oneself, constantly, a lot.
I recently mentioned to a friend, in passing, something that I had read in Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews—it was basically a historical fact. This friend went to Wikipedia to look up Paul Johnson, then emailed to warn me not to accept the views of Paul Johnson. He hadn’t even read the book!!! But on the basis of what he read in a Wiki entry he felt authorized to suggest that I desist reading this book. I was dumbfounded. I told him never, ever again to attempt to “filter” what I read.
These fake news gurus are doing the same ridiculous thing: Setting themselves up as the authorities on the truth. This is the same impulse as those who deputize themselves to look at pornographic materials to decide what the rest of the world can safely view! Totally laughable. Even worse than the fake news purveyors are the self-appointed fake news *arbiters.*
It goes without saying that someone who recommends Snopes as a check for fake news is totally . beneath ridicule. I cringe for Harvard.
Katherine
@ Katherine
Good to know that someone still knows what a reflective pronoun is – and how to use it properly. When academia descends to such lows it discredits itself.
Cheers
My mother was German. She understood English grammar and insisted I speak properly!
Katherine
@ Katherine: What was the “historical fact”? Even if we read the book, we have no way of assessing the accuracy of Johnson’s particular claim you found so convincing.
And I’m with your friend, anyone who (as but a couple questionable life-choices) supported Thatcher and defended Pinochet deserves extreme scrutiny of any position. He claimed “the Soviet Union, whose propaganda machine successfully demonised [Pinochet] among the chattering classes all over the world. It was the last triumph of the KGB before it vanished into history’s dustbin”.
Reflexive pronouns are too often an affectation intended to give the impression the writer has some intellectual authority, which is usually a false impression. If I were being a wag, I might say it behooves us not to fall prey to the self aggrandizement of those who hold themselves superior to others.
On further thought… could it be the “historical fact” that underpins the entire modern Israel project? That the Jews ruled Palestine and environs for many centuries, and were subsequently unfairly displaced by their non-Jewish neighbours? And any serious discussion must eliminate the entire premise that the Jews were given title to “Israel” by God as obvious theology, not historical fact.
Johnson would not be the first author to put Biblical “archeology” above the work of independent, dispassionate researchers. While the archeological jury is still out, the newest evidence is increasingly pointing away from the Bible being largely based on historical fact (beginning with that whole “the universe is only 6,000 years old” premise). The Flood? Ya probably, but not as the Bible tells it.
Turns out the Dead Sea Scrolls have many significant differences from the later established texts. In one salient change in Deuteronomy, a section was added which materially changed the meaning to ensure only Jewish descendants could be considered as inheriting from Joshua. Why might that be? So Christians (or Muslims?) could not claim their due under the original texts which outlined “70 nations of the world divided according to the 70 divine sons of the Most High God”. The later versions state only “the 70 divine sons of Israel”…
As always, religion is about land, money and power.
And oddly, Canaanite traditions also mention 70 nations, and “in Syria, there were found 20,000 clay tablets, 4500 years old, a thousand years before the biblical David and Solomon supposedly lived. These tablets contain the names of various apparent Canaanite gods, such as “Ab-ra-mu (Abraham), E-sa-um (Esau), Ish-ma-ilu (Ishmael), even Is-ra-ilu (Israel), and from later periods names like Da-‘u’dum (David) and Sa-‘u-lum (Saul).” (published NYT, 2000)
Just more proof that religion is more a tool to be cynically wielded by the rich and powerful to control the masses, rather than some repository of divine knowledge and source of all morality.
I strongly recommend Tom Thompson’s great book ‘How History is Invented.’
And Schlomo Sand’s ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’.
Both are an antidote to the rubbish Zionist’s pass of as ‘proof’ of the legitimacy of their land grab in the Middle East and their phoney cultural identity.
Congratulations! This is an honor and a true accolade for quality. This all reminds me of “Made in Germany”, which the good old British imperialists introduced in the hope to prevent their citizens from buying from Krautland. It quickly turned into a world wide seal of quality. Ha!
I’m sure they’ve never heard of the Streisand effect.
@ Serge
That’s a good one! Thanks for sharing.
Same ploy post-WW2 (made stricter, even though the marking requirement went back to the late 1800’s) by the US vs. Japan… with the same results. And ironically, Japan is now facing the problem of jobs and component/product-quality being offshored to Thailand, Malaysia, etc.
Harvard has actually honoured you – by adding you to its list of “fake news” sources. Personally, I would be extremely cautious in evaluating information obtained from any source NOT on that list.
What a coincidence! Here is the eminent Paul Craig Roberts complaining bitterly that Harvard has classified him as a purveyor of “fake news” (fifth paragraph onward):
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/14/federal-courts-say-foreigners-not-us-citizens-entitled-due-process-paul-craig-roberts/
Not everyone will agree with your characterization of Roberts ‘complaining bitterly’.
I thought it was a rather effective broadside against a failed institution – Harvard.
Rick Mercer, a Canadian comedian, ‘took the mickey’ out of Harvard profs and students so many times
that Canadians know more about Harvards ‘ex’ status than Americans do. https://www.buzzfeed.com/cylapanin/best-moments-from-rick-mercer-talking-to-amercans?utm_term=.oxjg91d09#.la17YlweY
If you actually read Paul Craig Roberts’s post (instead of mischaracterizing it), the truth quickly becomes clear.
November 7, 2016 was the last real date in human history. REAL news sources, like WaPo and NYT, will proclaim that from the mountaintops. Anyone who suggests that perhaps our country was doing something wrong during the Obama years is suspect and probably fake.
Thanks for the epistemology primer and for the reminder that war is won by truth.
And your hint is well taken. I am sending $100 cash by snail mail immediately after posting this for value received.
It’s a minor one but a truth nevertheless: “Put your money where your mouth is.”
Harvard’s action is what I’d expect from the self-appointed top dog of the Outlaw US Empire’s Indoctrination System. IMO, it’s credibility as an educational institution was compromised long ago.
As for your blog being deemed a fake news site, you don’t even attempt to disseminate news, other than providing videos of press conferences that in no way could be considered fake, and sit-reps that are mostly a collection of links to news items generated at other sites; rather, you provide numerous viewpoints that would be considered op/ed essays which differ greatly from news reports, along with a platform for user interaction/discussion.
As you note, Harvard’s acts are a sign of desperation, that the hoi polloi no longer willingly accept the diet of bullshit they’ve been fed over decades. I wonder if Hari Seldon would’ve predicted such an event? I’m sure his creator did and is smiling wherever his soul is located.
The value of a Harvard Degree on the stockmarket is going bearish!
Well he is probably rolling ( with laughter) in his grave over this story.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/24/alqaida.sciencefictionfantasyandhorror
The author of that is quite the Orientalist, an Exceptionalist and Proagandist, and has no clue as to how al-Ciada was born and nurtured. I think Asimov would sue for slander.
Dear The Saker,
Congratulations ; ). Harvard only disgraces itself – people don’t believe the MSM so they think a so called “renowned” University should do the trick.
Well it looks like CNN heard you:
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201703141051581065-cnn-trump-putin/
Yet another of their wonderful documentaries about Putin………you can smell the desperation……
Guess it was a one-two punch. Here is CBS’s hit piece, run on “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening, March 12.
Most despicable charges based on no evidence at all — nothing even resembling evidence. Total propaganda piece.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/putin-critic-says-hes-one-of-the-lucky-ones-im-still-here/
This kind of propaganda works REALLY WELL for people who have never met anyone who has been to Russia.
I know liberal arts types who hung out with Pussy Riot’s friends for a few years in Russia and became rabidly anti-Putin, but even they are getting a little freaked out by this level of propaganda. Most of us on this blog probably either know someone from Russia or have lived there ourselves so we know that this story is despicable nonsense. But those in the country who still trust Harvard, the media, and this entire “fake news” meme think that the media is just telling them the facts, and they are growing more and more delusional as the weeks go on.
Russia was always full of whackos. They are basically harmless but can be very compelling especially to the weak-minded and foreigners.
@Seagull’s ‘friends of friends’ of Pussy Rot are a case in point. I can see them heroically talking together of the KGB and state oppression all around. There was none of course but it created a feverish pitch of self-importance.
Like unwashed female Rasputins, the various rotten pussies of Russia have the power of attraction, but they healed no one and performed indignities to themselves and to their friends in the poultry world. Russia allows this now and usually has historically. I can see how attractive it would be to Americans but the power of Pussy Rot was the power of a vacuum.
Thanks! “Pussy rot” made me cry of laughter. Btw, another (french) version would be ‘Pussy roti’. Fry’em! ;-)
Saker,
So obviously you would like to see the hegemon and all its immoral activities in the pursuit of uni-polarity go away. But I have seen very little detailed discussion on what should replace this void. Everyone wants a multi-polar world, but I take this to mean that no nation is strong enough to control all others absolutely, but this does not mean war will disappear. Nor does it mean this is necessarily an ideal state of affairs – it’s just better than the current where one group in power is making moves and we have to live by the repercussions. So, the meat of this, is what type of world structure is ideal to you? Nation-states competing, without aggression, in a capitalistic environment with democracy (in all it’s variants)? Or is a one world government, which as Stephen Hawking has decribed is better equipped to deal with world-destroying technology like advanced A.I., a better approach? Can a society be engineered top down into a better structure? Is even trying to change others society’s in your view moral/acceptable? Is this paragraph a waste of electrons for attempting to ask such an open-ended question?
Regards,
Nils
Indeed Nils!, a valid question recognizing that global issues can only be fully resolved by a global authority, something the currently pathetically underachieving United Nations was hoped to be.
The abberant AngloZionist/Transnational elite empire wants to be that authority, the destruction it has created in it’s attempts reflects it’s impatience when a slower but kinder process should be the order of the century.
Try a little thought experiment here. Suppose you and 222 other people (the # of nations on earth) decided to have a picnic with a flea market, a few concession stands, and a shooting range because some of there people are into guns. You personally only know about 12 of the people, but you also know that people want to be on their best behavior and not get ostracized. The gun nuts are in charge of the professionally designed shooting range and it’s a long walk away.
Such events exist in the real world. In the US, there are Rainbow Family gatherings, rural gun clubs, Burning Man Festival, huge family reunions, and so on. If you’ve never to anything like that, you are missing something interesting and instructive. None of these events are very top down. Almost always, there’s an unobtrusive committee that provides continuity and planning for such an annual event. For a mere 223 people, there may not even be any designated minders wearing some colored tee-shirt, and any minders would have neither an “Article 7” piece of paper, nor any weapons to deal with disruptive people because, really, there’s no need. I’m not even going to have to invoke the truism that “An armed society is a polite society.” YOu might object that this thought experiment depends on an outside police force, but what I’d say to that is, calling the cops is very rarely needed.
So what would be the use of a top-down ambitious control-freak corrupt outfit like the UN ? Any annual event that had a central committee like the real UN, would go out of business after one event. In the real world, and if no one at the event is starving to death like Puntiland or Haiti, then there need not be any great problem. And with just 223 people of average income, they would be okay with passing the hat, even if they don’t know the person. People really can be that generous; I’ve seen it happen.
If you don’t trust the 223 nations of the world to get along, then why would you trust any top-dwon authority ? On a more conspiratorial tone, you might want to check out the history of how the League of Nations and the UN each came to be. Which people were making it happen, and what were the goals of those people. Power attracts psychopaths like moths to a flame, and there needs to be multiple centers of power to prevent domination by colluding psychopaths.
Multipolarity, baby ! That’s the strategic design of the US constitution to protect government from psychopaths, and the same principle is used in a great many other situations. No one has found anything better yet.
Crazy people wherever they are still remain crazy and uncontrollable. The fact is one government can more easily create morality and immorality. The structure is more efficient regardless if we trust people to manage it.
@ Cosimo: You had me until the the “strategic design of the US constitution to protect government from psychopaths”… then why did US voters have the “democratic” right to practically (as it stands, 3rd party/independent votes are as meaningful as not voting) choose between psychopaths Killary, or tweeter-in-chief, led-around-by-the-nose-by-the-warmongers Trump?
The US Constitution was designed to set up gov’t By and For the white, wealthy, land-owning, politically connected men who signed it and intended to ensure the US gov’t was passed on to men like them. Women, slaves, people of colour, the poor, the sick, let alone gays, needed not even think about sharing power or wealth. But a Civil War, a couple world wars plus a Bonus Army and Depression kinda put a crimp in the covert white supremacists plans.
The excuse that “No one has found anything better yet.” is in large part due to the fact any better post-WW2 examples have been strangled in their cradles by US/NATO/Corporatist/0.001% interventionism. Russia and China are governed as they must be to keep the US/NATO juggernaut at bay, and still are run by a pair of the least psychopathic leaders of major nations today, if not ever.
In my opinion, the problem with a world government (in fact any government) is that there are not enough people psychologically fit for being benign leaders.
Federally organized nations appear more resilient against unbalanced hostile takeovers by power frenzy maniacs, although they are not immune either. However, it is easier to revert unpleasant episodes if there are good examples abroad. In addition, local circumstances ask for local solutions that cannot be provided by a world government.
For these reasons alone, a world government would most likely turn into disaster quickly.
“I would rather be ruled by one lion than by a hundred rats.” Voltaire.
I have been wondering for the last many years whether monarchy is not the very best form of government.
I find that, with increasing knowledge of all the alternatives, monarchy looks better and better.
And I mean compared ‘raw’, without all the provisos of ‘enlightened’ ‘despotic’ etc. which can be applied to ALL systems of governance, not only monarchy.
Monarchy’s biggest problem is that it has been written about by those who destroyed it.
First I would need to find a monarch who is better, kinder, smarter, more moral, and wiser than me, and, for all my faults, I haven’t seen anyone who qualify, and those in power don’t even come close. Second, even if someone could be found, no one has the right to rule over me and I will resist all tyranny (so-called benevolent or not). I grew up a long time ago and will never accept ‘parenting’ and being treated as a child. There are enough others who will also resist that monarchy is inherently unstable. It’s also inherently stupid and ignorant: no monarch can approach the collective intelligence and knowledge, only repress it and exploit it.
Anarchists of the world, unite!
I am sure you are joking when you find it so difficult to find someone better than you. If not, perhaps you could try being king of some place small and see if it catches on.
I defy you to find a run of bad luck in a single monarchy that is as horrible as say Bush the First, Clinton. Bush the Second, Obama and let us say, Clinton as that was a close call.
We do need some sort of order. Better a father or mother figure (I am trying to meet you half way here) than a Big Brother or a Sugar Daddy.
It is hard to imagine any monarchy, infantilising a population more completely and effectively than the USA has done.
Isn’t ‘United Anarchists’ an oxymoron?
No, I am not joking. There are plenty of people with more education and who know more math or somthing, and better in some other ways — like playing music, or just walking — but I’ve never run into anyone who is qualified to make decisions for me, and most people who want to (like politicians or ‘bosses’) are not anywhere near as competent.
As for being a king, why would I even want such a thing, the agita, the attention needed, the responsibility, and time and energy? It’s bad enough just kibitzing, commenting, and passing information on the web over the years. When I was leading groups when younger, such as for the scouts, my purpose was to teach and organize enough so everyone could do for themselves and I could sit in the shade and relax, or go off and do my own thing. Trying to be in charge of anyone else is terrible, unpleasant, and time consuming. There’s something wrong with people who want to do that.
The problem with Bush, et al, is that they do want to do that — boss other people around — and there is something wrong with them — psychological problems. They would certainly be monarchs or tyrants if they could get away with it, and it isn’t like they haven’t tried, but they meet resistance, most effective by the rest of the oligarchy who want to be in charge themselves. The whole political class now — the ‘ruling class’ — is into this control freak and authoritarian stuff, and think they are better than other people and are entitled to rule over them.
(You will never find a cat who does that — they are far more sane than humans in this regard. That’s one of the things people should learn from cats. We may be social but we should not be herd animals.)
And forget about the mommy or daddy thing — most of them don’t have a clue about how to raise kids and do a lot of bullying, and get into what Bradshaw calls ‘undifferentiated ego mass’, and dysfunctional families — and never really grew up themselves. The only way most people are ‘qualified’ to be parents are that engaged in reproductive activity. The holdover from these rotten ‘parenting’ attitudes and practices, and that of the schools, churches, mass media, and economic and production systems, is the main detriment to having a free and democratic society, which people need to to wake up from. This is also why we see so many problems from the youth, who have an inherent understanding of how authoritarianism is bad but have not been raised or educated to be self-directed, free, and responsible for their own existence and forming healthy relationships with others and society at large — they don’t know how to do it and have been conditioned to be slaves and placid ‘workers’ to be exploited.
Anarchy means ‘no chiefs’, and anarchist certainly can, have, and do unite, and do things, solve problems, develop, in democratic and consensual ways, with free association and voluntary ‘contractual’ arrangements, as equal members of a group. Happens all the time, even in cultures where people have been brainwashed into authoritarianism and hierarchical leadership models by the ‘ruling class’ — such as Harvard. The clowns at Harvard who think they are qualified or entitled to control what people read and think are endemic of this problematic attitude and the idea that people should compete to be in charge of everyone.
CF http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ — and the PDF download of his book to see how the culture has been perverted by these attitudes.
(Notice that what I’m saying in neither ‘right wing’ nor ‘left wing’, but well out of such limiting thinking.)
I agree with you, totally… on ‘cats’.
Actually I agree on other points as well. Your reply is as eloquent as it is passionate and formidable.
Allow me to put off replying until I have more time.
We may have the foundation for a good discussion here.
Waste of electrons. Unquestionably.
However, I am impressed you managed to compress so many wrong questions with so many wrong premises, in so little space Nils.
You have talent brother.
thanks for the input. the world is better for it.
Alright. I was being cheeky, for lack of time and being on a phone.
Since I am still on a phone, I have to be brief. The world is tripolar. Refer to Owell’s tripartite structure from 1984. Orwell’s analysis is deep, and it’s origins are mythological and biblical.
In the bible you have Leviathan, monster or dragon of the sea, Behemoth, monster of the land, and Ziv, monster of the sky. Your perfect analogues are Anglo-America (water), Russia (earth) and China (air).
Are you begining too see how deep it goes? Together these three dragons jostle and fight for position but none is capable of completely conquering the other. Together (unilpolarity) they find a tripolar balance.
Now, give it some thought and if you know anything about history and mythology quite a few remarkable ideas might come into your mind. Think of the biblical flood, which is actually a much older story from ancient babylon, of Gilgamesh. When the land was inundated by water Leviathan was master of the world, but when the water receded Behemoth was renewed. Always the air floated over it all but never could nor would it displace land and sea. Again, this is China.
Look into it Nils and you will be fascinated. Obviously the three great dragons all engage in an eternal struggle and if you want to know how people at the top really think about the world, this is your very best model.
I have neglected fire and though my study is incomplete, fire is the ultimate source of earth, water and air. For me this is clearly best represented by India.
Back in the 1980s I referred to harvard research as the best prearranged test results money could buy.
“Think of it – would the US elites ever bother sinking so low if they thought that they are winning the information war?”
While the question does have merit, I think it’s even more to the point asking:
“Have they failed to notice their lies and imbecilities are wearing off?”
The fact of the matter is that they have always resorted to lies, slanders, and demagoguery through their “intelligentsia”. Today, the rotting West has become so terminally ill that fewer and fewer people care about what its despicable rulers have to say, no matter what “prestigious” echo chambers they choose.
Don’t know who said it but during wwii, without navigation, bombers knew they were on target because of the increased flak they’d be getting.
Saker, If Harvard, a prestigious Ivy League University, deems it necessary to call out a blog, a blog! as fake news….
Bombs away!!
Thank you Saker, that was an enjoyable read and a set of eye opening links you have provided. I used the list Harvard has published and visited a few sites, some meeting their approval and some listed as conspiracy, biased and satire.
I found the promotion of secularism, American foreign policy and homosexuality on the Harvard approved sites while on the ‘not approved sites’ I found news from around the world and information on events that the U.S./British and other aligned government media would rather people didn’t read, all of it verifiable through different sources.
Does Alphabet own Harvard?
So I am afraid that if the intelligentsia is russophobic there won’t be any future for respected cooperation in decades ahead. Russia must arm itself to the teeth , nationalize central bank, close down ISS, kick Boeing out of Russia and replace it with Tupolev, heavily invest in Elbrus CPU, and there is no need for Windows OS ( Windows su*ks anyway ), create own and we have Kaspersky OS for embedded systems already. In short time for industrialization ( Stalin’s way ) and deport those traitors to banana Islands, can’t stand see their faces anymore.
How Dare they!? Harvard University has besmirched the noble name of ‘Bush’ and lord knows how many equally noble names besides. Jeffrey Skelling of Enron fame comes to mind. As do the evil mortgage derivatives scandal perps, Robert Rubin and Larry Somers, and Mark Zuckerberg – CIA collaborator and Judas to the US people non pareil.
‘Harvard’ is as much as stigma and mark of shame to overcome as it is a sign of superior… anything. The US has been in the ‘surfaces’ game for so long, promoting postal codes where you reside over what you have accomplished that it is nice to see them finally come out of the closet and side with the 1%ers who think that Harvard is anything to be proud of.
I am a little shocked though that librarians have gone over to the dark side.
Hear! Hear!
You know, Librarians in my experience are a pretty crafty breed. They have ways of stashing books where no one will find them, and giving them to interested parties. “Oh, we lost that… no, wait…” I think this was as true in Rome under Tiberius and Caligula through the Alexandria days to today. Even at Harvard? I don’t know but since many librarians actually, duh, read a lot of books, they tend to have more appreciation of books and may end up as 5th columnists in a Brave New Harvard. We shall see, but when in doubt, when looking for that obscure book, ask the librarian. Also, big Uni’s pride themselves on their libraries, almost as a selling point to faculty/students. Not having certain books means you have to Interlibrary Loan them, a pain in the a*se. So, Harvard’s current BS is actually non-competitive in the Uni markets. We shall see!
I was/am in love with a certain librarian. So I am biased FOR them.
They were resisters under Bush. Perhaps Harvard found some particularly bad ones – educated at Harvard I assume.
I am really glad that you are what you are: a beacon of great information. Keep up a good work. Harvard? not even the pieces of former “glory” are left. Why bother to cite them or their “analysis”.
Harvard is home for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) and the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
http://www.huri.harvard.edu/
https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/
Could be read as HURL. Much closer to truth in acronyms.
Ivy, schmyvie. The Ivy League schools have provided refuge for scoundrels, for many decades. The recruiting grounds of the c.i.a.; what more needs to be said? Kissinger, Brzezinski, Summers, B.F. Skinner, Wilson Center for Int’l Peace (sic), polluting many academic disciplines and rationalizing the destruction of society.
True story: the summer after his freshman year, my son commuted to two Harvard intro-courses (Macro and micro Econ.). He also learned how to drive and got his Driver’s License, and also got a Bartending License. Of all this, he said the Harvard courses were the easiest: A & A-, never opened the books.
Harvard has to maintain the facade of integrity in order to get people to pay the enormous amounts. People go there hoping to ‘make connections’, ‘get in the club’, without realizing the club status was made long before college.
I’d say that the side of truth and justice is on the run, big time, in Latin America, where the Bolivarian tide has been almost completely pushed back by the neocons and neoliberals. That is a massive loss that has been going apace since Chavez’ death. Most of Latin America, somewhat free just a few years ago, is now under the Hegemon’s thumb once again.
In Syria, what seems to be happening is a carve up. Maybe that’s less than the Hegemon wanted to ‘accomplish’ there, but they’ve got Assad reduced to a rump state and they have their pipe line, as it seems. It looks like Israel will get a chunk, Turkey will get a chunk and Russia will get a chunk and the Hegemon will get a big chunk.
The biggest loss for Russia and for the human future, in my view, is that Putin has demonstrated that his words are sometimes very wise, but his actions seem to follow a less inspiring path and his affections seem to be directed towards some of the nastiest characters on the planet. He’s a deal maker, it seems, and he doesn’t seem to care how awful the person he’s shaking hands with is. Really, the fouler the better. Putin has restored Russia’s credibility, but in a way that will ultimately destroy that restored credibility, which Russia has gained mainly through force of arms. Russia has demonstrated that its military is very powerful. But how is it used? I would say that what Putin and Russia seek to achieve is debilitating stalemated local conflicts, which raise its status as a power, while helping the US to crush independent minded states.
When countries around the world look at what happened to Syria and Libya, they surely think that it’s not such a great idea to be Russia’s friend.
And how many times has Putin met with Netanyahu and showered him with affection? How many times has he met with Assad? Is it a four to one ratio? Putin seems so eager to help Israel with its stolen oil. What a mensche, right? So helpful.
When it comes to information sources, we have to use our dormant powers of critical thinking. As for Harvard. it has covered itself in shame many times, as has the rest of the academic world. What is striking about what Harvard has done now is that it is so shameless. It’s almost like the elites don’t feel that they need to hide their corruption anymore. Are they desperate? Making rash moves? Or are they simply confident that they have most people so confused and controlled that they barely need to hide their despicable moves anymore? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
Putin looks more and more like a very smart mafia boss. What he wants, it seems, is a seat at the Big Boss table and a cut.
Wow. A thinly veiled Russophobic rant, predicated on pretend mindlessness, and the Admin let it through on The Saker?
If VVP had wanted to be a “Big Mafia Boss” with “a seat at the table”, he could easily have been exactly that 17 years ago, and ever since. It’s very difficult to study the hundreds of hours of speeches and actions of this man and come to your conclusion.
Much of the swamp came from Harvard.
This list is a travesty not only because it is sponsored by a university, but also because it is sponsored by a library. Librarians are usually pretty good about opposing censorship. Maybe the annual Ignoble prize needs to be diversified to include academic dereliction of duty.
My all time favorite example of academic dereliction has to be the refusal of the Association of Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) to accept a grant from Stephen Cohen to support Russian studies because of his non-mainstream views about Ukraine:
reconsideringrussia.org/2015/02/13/laffaire-stephen-f-cohen-and-academic-dissent-and-division-on-ukraine/
Have these so-called slavic experts not noticed that there is a massive propaganda campaign going on about the events in Ukraine?? Maybe instead of participating in this scam or being a passive bystander a more laudatory role for ASEEES would be to ensure the public debate is factual? Besides the astonishing spectacle of ASEEES violating basic rules of scholarship, there is also the spectacle of academics refusing grant money. Maybe accepting the Cohen grant would have cost ASEEES more grant money elsewhere.
The day the Slavic Studies Department of a major Canadian University died was the day some fool endowed a Ukrainian Studies Chair.
“Much of the swamp came from Harvard. ”
Be fair!
Much of it also comes from Yale (Skull & Bones, etc.) and Princeton.
Katherine
I take your point; the “best and the brightest” aren’t limited to Harvard.
Well, sheepishly, I extend my sincere congratulations to The Saker for inclusion on that list!! Sheepishly, I do so because about fifteen years ago, I considered pursuing a Master’s degree and was absolutely thrilled when I discovered that Harvard showed some interest in me. “Wow! Harvard!” :-)
I also do blame human intervention (not Putin though) for the extreme weather in Canada this winter. Not that I have exact proof or anything, but weather forecasts suddenly became… vague, suspiciously, a year or two ago. Whereas before I could get an accurate by the hour forecast for rainfall, for example, it changed to just “showers”. Frequently, this would turn out to be heavy rainfall, the kind that would previously have warranted a warning or something… now, it’s “showers” or some such propagandised label. I suspect the Empire is seeking to force Canada into submission to its wishes – maybe by bankrupting local municipalities or threatening the national government… or something. Just a guess without evidence – no wonder Harvard showed interest in me. :-)
Bravo to The Saker and the rest of the Vineyard crew
I noticed the same thing in Britain. Weather forecasts have become very inaccurate since 2014. I have a theory for that. After sanctions have been imposed on Russia, meteorological exchange of info has stopped. This is actually true. Now, how can you have good forecasts if you ignore info from 1/6 of the planet’s landmass?
I am no expert at all in this, but I live on the coast and it’s difficult for me to believe that info from Russia is necessary to determine the trajectory and timing of approaching rainfall within the next 6 or 10 hours (which previously was totally reliable). Unless something is altering the path as it makes landfall (sudden, not forecast high winds are also no longer uncommon.) It’s hard for me to blame climate change or Russia for this incapacity to forecast weather in the immediate term like this. Since more chaos is the result, I tend to look towards the technologically advanced Empire of Chaos as potential culprits.
It’s a good thing that the Rockefeller Foundation funded those Chief Resiliency Officers in a bunch of Canadian cities, though. At least we’re prepared for extreme conditions! Prepared for something, alright!!
Some food for thought on this subject: Prof. Claudia von Werlhof calls for an end to geoengineering.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-planet-is-not-warming-up-but-drying-out/5580779
Lately I’ve been watching videos by economics professor Richard D. Wolff who is openly Marxist. Think of it what you will. He posts regular “economic updates” about current issues every week, and in one of the latest ones in March he mentioned a hisotory research concerning the origins of Harvard and its’ ties to slavery. Apparently, Harvard is the richest University in US, thanks to the investments in stock market, but also thanks to a big head start it received from slave owners many years ago.
Professor Wolff claims that the Capitalism is the root cause of all the other ills in the society, a political system being owned by the rich elites, for example. One of the interesting things he mentions is that every University has TWO economic departments who don’t like each other very much; one is called Economic Department and the other Business school. Why? We don’t have two history departments or two biology departments, etc. Makes you think…
https://youtu.be/73_ds1xQmD4
See https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH_qQFmOkmhdLbf_aBSZNunCqmsds8O1B
Global Capitalism — monthly lectures (over and hour each).
Last one, for March, is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdMCTlHl5RQ&list=PLH_qQFmOkmhdLbf_aBSZNunCqmsds8O1B&index=1
and there is a playlist there of past lectures.
Also his material is at http://www.democracyatwork.info/
I’m listening to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdMCTlHl5RQ&list=PLH_qQFmOkmhdLbf_aBSZNunCqmsds8O1B&index=1
Global Capitalism: Is Capitalism Fading? [MARCH 2017]
[fits in with the US committing suicide post]
CONTENT:
00:00 – Announcements etc.
09:15 – Intro
10:19 – Why Republicans want to replace Obamacare
17:29 – Caterpillar’s tax evasion
25:25 – ICE raids and illegal slavery enforced on detained immigrants
31:23 – Harvard acknowledges its historical ties to slavery, fails to acknowledge its current ties to corporations and its tax exempt status
[He rips Harvard to shreds here — more than just slavery.]
42:57 – Greece & Puerto Rico: people being forced to pay for the actions of politicians and having their countries taken over by outside powers
49:38 – “The Trump Slump”: Trump’s policies harm tourism in the US leading to severe risks to the economy
52:23 – Bill Gates & Carlos Slim: The richest people in the world, what counts as a justified reward for contributions to society
59:42 – Why the US keeps increasing its already bloated defense spending
1:05:20 – An increasing number of US citizens over 60 have student loan debt
1:09:16 – Main topics: Women’s Day, women’s movements, social change and what to learn from the past, is capitalism fading?
Thanks Blue. You’re a source of good material and an inspiration. Your “confession” above gladdens one’s heart and gives comfort to like-minded souls who realise they are few but not alone.
Badge of honour, Saker.
Harvard is pretty much owned by Big Pharma and donors.
Its an indoctrination joint, where graduates produce ‘scientific’ papers like this:
http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/
It will be interesting to see what kind of bridges its engineers build.
None I’d risk crossing myself….
Melissa Zimdars, who launched the fake news meme, is the author of this list. Elizabeth Harrington introduces us to her in Fake Professor Calls Free Beacon ‘Fake News>
She has only been teaching 15 months.
She rejects the Lew Rockwell site for “bias”, yet it archives articles from across the spectrum.
She defended herself last year in The Washington Post!
But another reason fake (or unreliable, questionable, potentially misleading or “truthy”) news has become such a huge problem is the growing distrust and flaws of our actual news media.
Studies show a significant portion of the population distrusts “the media.” The level of distrust varies widely by news outlet and by reader, but in the aggregate, people no longer believe press reports the way they once did, especially if the news challenges their preexisting beliefs. Too many news organizations focus on short-term stories — horse-race election coverage, the daily twists of the stock market — and not enough deal consistently and seriously with issues that affect people’s lives in a way that explores not only what’s happening but also why and what can be done about it.
“She has only been teaching 15 months.”
That is 15 months longer than she ever spent learning anything.
You have to remember that Harvard University is the home of Cass Sunstein, currently a professor at Harvard Law and a founder of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. He was also Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affair in the Obama Regime.
Sunstein is infamous for authoring an article promoting the idea of Cognitive Infiltration, a strategy designed to infiltrate and discredit the 9-11 Truth Movement.
Oh yeah, Sunstein is married to a lovely demure lass named Samantha Power!
Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
https://davidraygriffin.com/cognitive-infiltration-an-obama-appointees-plan-to-undermine-the-911-conspiracy-theory/
Obama staffer wants ‘cognitive infiltration’ of 9/11 conspiracy groups
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24406.htm
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
Mama Cass Sunstein – wife of Sam Power.
He is destined to die eating a sandwich… if he is lucky!
As someone who attended a large public university in the US Midwest during the early to mid 2000s, I can not imagine US academia as being anything other than a wretched pack of Neocon vermin. My only professor who “criticized” the Iraq War simply said that “we could have attacked Cuba instead.” Wow, what an amazing “alternative point of view” they offered their students! The same professor also harshly bashed a Syrian international student in front of class simply for suggesting that Palestinians might deserve the same rights as anyone else on Earth. And then, the not-so-subtle CIA recruiting of own their students that another professor was clearly involved in. Yes, that is the state of “political science” departments across the United States.
The Stevan Lensman quote that the US is threatening WW111 is wrong. The US CIA is promising WW111. Start reading, publicly analysing Vault 7 as it is unfolded. Even how it is being unfolded.
The USA CIA has European medicine in a lockstep. Easier to begin murdering those who expose this. EU meds is legionly corrupt by now.
This Netherlands and Turkey spat has just assured the USA CIA it will be simplicity itself to begin removing long established Muslim NL families, sending them back to their country of origin. As US NATO’s ISIS proxie warrior branch of the US Pentagon such a Netherlands fomented spat is perfect.
The stubborn Dutch, well educated before this present era, are not liked, and intended is replacement of them until the inevitable “waters” come when all get washed away. And, good riddance to the Clinton holdovers of which Obama is one, or 30,000.
Not so sure the Dutch will be easily “replaced,” although my view is based on personal connections and observations (and reading of history), not political sophistication.
Yeah, the WW2 record was not impeccable—no one’s perfect—but AFAIK the Dutch are the only European country capable of effective multigenerational collective purpose and action to accomplish a common goal, which is why the country (physically) exists and persists.
As the actual and figurative waters rise, the Netherlands might be one of the safest places on earth to be. Unless someone starts bombing dikes and pumping facilities. And greenhouses.
Katherine
I understand that Switzerland is none of these stubbornly surviving countries. :-)
You can all come to my place – just bring a few beers:
http://thepowerofideas.ideapod.com/top-10-safest-countries-world-war-3-breaks/
It just shows the Orwellian times West are living in. Next step is censorship of Internet and burning of books.
(Still have 11 Tarzan books from 1970 and I dont care if they jail me, they are NOT going to get them).
This is a war that is not going to be won by logic and hoping that people will open their eyes and seeing the reality would say “stop right here and now” is not going to happen. Slavery of today is not too much different than slavery of past times. It just has a different name. Call it “addicted to media, tv, advertising, obedience to the system, retinyl,…” everything. Spartacus managed to create some ripples to the Roman system but he ended up on the cross too.
Academia has become a nest for the uneducated, narrow minded and arrogance. The development today (mostly in IT (computation, programming, modeling) is the responsibility of the autistic people (removed from reality). The corruption of the mind and soul has reached, by numbers a point of no return and by magnitude, it is beyond the event horizon.
This war needs to be fought by other means. To my thinking it needs to bring the society to its knees. A good example would be Ayn Rand strategy of retreat. Let the world collapse. As a matter of fact, help the world collapse. The establishment’s actions and reactions indicate fear, meaning all under the belt actions are allowed. We’re heading to a Tower of Babel scenario. And we know what happened to the end.
When I was part of academia it was this hoax of ozone hole shit. Many of them embarked in supporting this story. Yet, there were exceptions. The good and smart ones never bought in, but they retreated to their offices and never confronted the narrative of the day (all one had to do was to develop a fluid dynamics model in a rotating porous media subject to g and Coriolis to see that “the holes” were natural phenomena).
The world of Academia follows the same statistics as any other world. 80% of them are the crowd and only 20% are worthy of the name.
I think he may be referring to Macron, the elitists’ new chéri. Just what we need: a “socialist” banker!
As a Frenchman I don’t quite understand what you mean by “the latest news out of France is not good at all ”
A candidate to the next presidential election is doing a roaring business, his name was a state (and media) secret until he got qualified to enter the run last week .
François Asselineau and is UPR party is growing by several hundreds each day since then and his ground programm is nothing short of : immediate Frexit (by article 50 just like Brexit) and quiting Nato shortly after.
Could you pour a bit of your fabulous expertise commenting on that, to help us and all your readers: thank you, sir !
Dear Saker
The subject Fake-News has taken an important place in the public opinion this year. Also in Switzerland a very well recognized history researcher was publicly bashed live on TV. I copy here a statement from German TV to this topic, fairly said, alternative media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcWovWkT-fs
Unfortunately only in German.
Cheers
Vercia
Harvard deserves praise for finally unmasking itself as the massive fraud that many observers knew it has long been.
I always believed that Harvard was a place where students and professors knew more languages than just English. The list contains ONLY Englis-language web sites. Apparently, its makers take it for granted that no one at Harvard reads German, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, let alone Arabic, Hebrew, Persian. No better proof for the academic demise of Harvard!
Harvard University’s ill-advised, stupid action only proves that organizations with a tradition of outstandiing achievement always end up destroying themselves. Oxford University has walked the same path, and so has Leiden University and many other so-called excellent institutions.
History is a circular movement, but those at Harvard who knew this, have apparently already left the institution a long time ago.
yes, I noticed that they didn’t include Col. Cassad.
The accelerating demise of Harvard may be blow-back for the attempted US destruction of Moscow University, under agent Yeltsin, in the 1990s. Too bad the US understands nothing of karma or universal morality.
It is nevertheless subject to it.
In any event, as Oligarchies form and fill all the higher-learning slots with their inbred offspring, institutions begin to wither and die.
The US CIA got it’s new members from all US most prestigious and expensive universities when the CIA was young. My first cousin was chosen from a Yale graduating class, summa cum laude maybe, the only grandson of the most vital banker in the auto city of Detroit, Michigan at the time,1954. The year Queen Juliana of Netherlands gave Holland to the US CIA the Bilderberg Group to help Europe repel new war plans from ever developing. When the new Queen was asked could the US CIA help by funding this new royal group for a couple of years, Queen Julianna was delighted with “Yes!” her answer. The US CIA never left. Top secret Bilderberg Group now controls what happens in Europe is only of USA origin and planning.
Here you go…
https://sputniknews.com/russia/201703151051593812-rt-fake-news-project/
RT to Launch Special Project to Separate News Facts From Fakes – Editor-in-Chief
© Sputnik/ Konstantin Chalabov
Russia
11:33 15.03.2017(updated 12:32 15.03.2017
The RT broadcaster launches a special project aimed at correcting inaccuracies, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan told the RNS information agency.
RT to Negotiate With Banks After NatWest Closes RT’s Accounts – Editor-in-Chief
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The RT broadcaster launches a special project, FakeCheck, aimed at weeding out and correcting inaccuracies, bias, misinformation and falsehoods in global coverage of major news stories, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan told the RNS information agency.
[…]
Saker, you lucky bastard! (a term of endearment here) You should be jumping in joy for the accolade. Think this way: someone there, probably in the Psychology Department, heard about reactance, a devious way to promote something by forbidding it.
It’s old hat science, even illiterate societies practised it (“the grass is greener on the other side”) and Catholic schoolboys who had a particular attraction to the books listed in the Index.
Never shy of showing off a historical illustration of a current issue, here is a story you might remember from childhood.
There were food shortages in France in the XVIII century and King Louis XVI (almost as many Louis as centuries!) commissioned the chemist Parmentier to suggest ways to improve the food supply. Parmentier had been taken prisoner by the Prussians and was fed potatoes, an abominable tuber brought to Europe by the Spaniards two centuries before but the French had turned their noses away and gave them to the pigs instead.
So, Parmentier suggested potatoes as the best crop to finish once and for all the periodic food shortages. But the French would have none of it and a law was enacted forbidding potatoes for human consumption. With Gallic guile and practical psychology, Parmentier grew potatoes on his experimental farm near Paris under armed guards but gave them instructions to accept any bribes by anyone wanting to “steal” potatoes and, eventually, withdrew the guards at night to encourage more stealing.
While that was happening on his farm, in the salons of the high nobility Parmentier was busy concocting different ways to make the humble potato palatable to he fastidious habitues of the haute cuisine.
Meanwhile in the poor quarters of Paris the sans-cullotes were sharpening their bayonets, not to dig potatoes, but to skew the tender loins of the potato-eating aristocracy.
Victory to the pomme de terre and to the Revolution!
Love the story and the new word: “reactance.” Thanks.
PCR regarding this same topic:
“We have reached the point that even for Harvard University,no dissent from hating Russia is possible. This leaves war as the only option.
Are you ready to die for the military/security complex’s enormous budget?
That is all you will be dying for.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/14/revolutions-bloody-nothing-paul-craig-roberts/
When did Harvard take notice of the Saker blog? You must be kidding. Probably they did some quick and dirty copy and paste of the list of that ProPorn web site.
If there were the slightest grain of truth in that information – that they noticed your blog – this would indicate that Harvard really engages in actual intellectual work – and this doesn’t even include comprehending the columns of your blog.
A few years ago I came to the conclusion that all this talk about those “Ivy League” institutions is mainly propaganda. The US is excellent at marketing (even at advertising the “successes” of its universities), but in many fields they’re way behind other countries. Lots of professors are “purchased” from other countries and many “inventions” originated someplace else, but were marketed successfully in the US (for example many variants of steam engines had been developed in England, the Walkman is a Japanese invention, the first practicable petrol engine is a German invention, … the list goes on and on). Now the US is copying the method of becoming a dictatorship. In a few years they’ll brag that they invented the totalitarian system … It’s always the same with the US.
A dedication to The Saker (a contemplation on Truth)
Strange times are these, in which we live, forsooth ;
When young and old are taught in Falsehood’s school:–
And the man who dares to tell the truth,
Is called at once a lunatic and fool.
— George Francis Train
[as published in Edmunds, A. C. (1871). Pen Sketches of Nebraskans – with Photographs. p. 5]
(Ref: wiki-quotes)
Hiya,
if you do read the Google doc carefully there are caveats and a disclaimer saying that the analysis is a subjective and personal one of the author,
being of a generous spirit I took it as a genuine attempt to try and get an increasingly lumpen headed youth of America to use some critical faculties in their appraisal of online information,
what I did find curious was that the author Melissa Zimdars didn’t appear in the faculty or staff listings of Harvard,
this is because she is a recently qualified academic who works for the Merrimack College in Massachusetts,
from interviews with her posted on youtube it appears she created the resource as a teaching aid for her media students and provided it as an open source document on Google’s cloud,
subsequently the document has been picked up and co-opted by such notables as WaPo and in this instance Harvard Library,
in fairness to her I think you’d agree WaPo put quite a spin on the list being definitive and authoritative whereas she does state the classifications are her personal view and offers it as an example of how everyone should apply critical analysis to anything they read,
didn’t someone once say,
“a person who believes everything written in a book would be better off without books altogether”
I’m not defending her analysis but her right to have an opinion and her position that people should form their own opinions instead of accepting pre-packaged opinions uncritically,
this is her interviewed about the list:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXM8OftQ4os
there is also a brief interview with her at a student demo about tuition fees, it is from 2014 and at this point she claims to be reaching $60,000 in student debt,
maybe the mainstream media that co-opted her work and sought to spin it into a sh*tstorm owe her a gratuity for their plagiarism,
Prop or Not never identified themselves, did they also plagiarise her work?
the brief 2014 interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzNUPtn74U
it could be said there are three sides to the truth, one sides version, the other sides version and the actual reality of the situation which is somewhere in between,
as I am always in search of the elusive reality of what happens in our world I am always happy to entertain the Sakers viewpoint as it is often never that far from my perspective and enriches my overall appraisal,
Dosvidaniya ( I hope this is the appropriate parting phrase)
respectfully yours,
Matt :)
It is indeed laughable that Harvard University would attempt to cover its students’ tender ears by warning them away from sources of information or opinion which it judges as false. Some of the blogs and sites which Harvard would blacklist I myself consult profitably on a frequent if not daily basis, exercising no more or less caution than I do when reading the New York Times.
On the other hand, Stephen Lendman’s own reporting of the matter must itself be rated, following Harvard’s lead, as “biased” (though in this instance I myself would prefer “unreliable”), insofar as Lendman fails to note that the media blacklist includes a significant number of “unknown” sites that have not yet been assessed for their truth-value. That a blog would be included on a prejudicial list of “false, misleading, clickbait-y and satirical ‘news’ sources” even though its content was declared unknown suggests that the person who devised the list was resorting to the propagandistic tactic of guilt by association. In some jurisdictions this threadbare ruse may be treated as a libelous action.
Although the push towards a full-blown censorship regime is unmistakable in this foolish initiative, an adequate report would furthermore note that the blacklist is not actually posted at Harvard, but rather at a Google site [1], and that it was prepared, not by a Harvard faculty member, but by a certain Melissa “Mish” Zimdars, assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College [2]. At most, the Harvard Library has conferred its imprimatur upon Dr. Zimdars’ effort.
Since Harvard to this point has kept Google’s list at one remove, it need not take full responsibility for the many naive or wrong-headed judgments found therein. Nor need it mount a spirited defense on behalf of blacklisting as a practice appropriate in a university environment. This itself is newsworthy data in the activist sense, because if subjected to sustained critique and/or ridicule, Harvard may in future quietly erase this link with little or no loss of face.
1. https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/mobilebasic
2. http://www.merrimack.edu/live/profiles/586-melissa-mish-zimdars; Dr. Zimdars may be reached at zimdarsm@merrimack.edu
‘Look at the AngloZionist elites in general…”
I’m new to this site. What does this (above) prhrase mean? Who are the “AngloZionis eleites?” What powers and deedsdo you ascribe to them?
Please read here:
/terminology/
On terminology, an alternative to “American” could be “Yank” or “Yankee”.
The power of sooner asking stupid questions than ever answering good ones, is a chief identifier for me.
My own quick test for PC, bias and slant in Media is the file picture of Trump used before the lede. It is almost always an indication of the content these sad days.
https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/mr-bernays-to-dr-goebbels-to-s-h-i-t-3/
The more one reflects on this moment in American history, the more powerful it seems. Saker, of course, yuks it up. Ha ha ha, Revered American institution does faceplant. Lol.
Saker’s role is always, in my view, to obscure the real meaning of things.
What we have witnessed over the past few weeks, it seems, has been the roll out of what amounts to official censorship in America. Of course, censorship has long been a reality in our society, but this is something beyond that. First there was the uproar over “fake news”. Note that there was no such uproar when the government and the media lied in the past, regardless of how egregius and portentous those lies (or let’s say distortions of reality) were. Iraq war based on lies? NYT did an insincere “mea culpa” and that was it. And so it goes.
So first there was the monumentally hypocritical, not to say dishonest and massively exaggerated, outcry over “fake news”. Then there was the LA times – America’s third newspaper – promulgating a list of – what amounts to – banned web sites. Then this brilliant move by the ‘deep state’, executed by Harvard, America’s premier academic institution. The LA times could, in essence, PROPOSE a list of banned sites, but Harvard has the clout to make such a list stick.
It’s possible that the Harvard black list of web sites will be overturned by student and faculty protest. That’s unlikely though. Students almost universally see college as vocational training. The concept of education barely exists anymore. They do as told. Many are working multiple jobs and have no time to consider protest anyway. Faculty increasingly are treated as employees and increasingly see themselves that way. The older notion of the college as a gathering of peers in pursuit of knowledge barely exists anymore. No one is more keen to the way the wind blows than the typical academic. Most academics are sail boats.
Yet it is difficult to have a political or economic discussion today, even person to person, completely outside any power structure, without citing academia. If you don’t have studies and books to cite, you lose. All the more so within any power structure. Thus academics play a crucial role in society’s dialogue with itself, to the extent that such a thing really exists, but they in turn follow the wind created by power. In a way, if you control academia, you control everything. Academia plays a role not dissimilar to the banking system, but on a different level. Banks control what people can do (if they want to exert any degree of economic power). Academia controls what people can say (if they want to be taken at all seriously).
The power of what Harvard has done can be undone in two ways I think. Perhaps students and faculty will vociferously protest against it. That might even happen, except that this major step towards censorship is associated with the anti-Trump movement. Here you find an example of the usefulness of Trump to the ‘deep state’ and perhaps part of the reason he ran for President (he certainly wasn’t sincere about most of the populist concerns he espoused), or was designated to run for President. Trump’s presidency helps justify moves that the ‘deep state’ has probably long intended to make. Nothing is more useful than a handy excuse that also happens to shut down most of those who might have opposed. Many on the ‘Left’ are so obsessed with opposing Trump that they cannot discern the deeper meaning of anything that is happening.
So vociferous opposition is probably out. Secondly, students and faculty might ignore the list. That too is unlikely. The habit of feeling where the wind is blowing is deeply inculcated into ‘good’ students. Undergraduates will self censor, not wanting to be caught using ‘bad’ sources. Graduate students won’t want to defend papers and theses against challenges to their sources. Associate Professors already feel nearly helpless in the battles for increasingly difficult to achieve tenure. Even being published in the wrong place will be avoided.
What Harvard has done is a master stroke of unofficial official censorship by the Deep State. It might prove to be reckless, but more likely it is both a sign of high confidence and a sign of real thirst for a global war. The first step towards open war is silencing dissent on the homefront, I would say. What we are seeing is the gathering of a truly ominous storm cloud.
Or maybe it’s just a faceplant by an American Icon. I hope that’s closer to the truth, really.
It looks like it is the turn of the US to play in the sandbox of the worst days of the USSR.
And why not? The two were never further than two capital letters apart.
You should never have let Trotskyites into your country.
They have not only taken it over but are about to transform it in their own image.
“It’s possible that the Harvard black list of web sites will be overturned by student and faculty protest. That’s unlikely though.”
Perhaps you are just too pessimistic. The Saker is actually quite a cheery guy, or optimist, even in his pessimism.
Read the post by @J. L. Seagull a few posts down. It looks like Harvard is backpedaling.
What we need now, is a Financial crash, and Harvard will disappear into the shadows of history, without funding, teachers or students. Left with maintenance of unusable buildings and property taxes.
Leaving them as perfect targets for another false flag event. Problem being, that the upside from betting on puts in the stock market or getting large payout from insurance, seem to be slimmer than what TPTB is used to.
And that leaves Saker once again coming out as a very credible source.
” Harvard will disappear into the shadows of history, without funding, teachers or students. Left with maintenance of unusable buildings and property taxes.”
As long as no one stomps on the wonderful, magical glass flowers in the Harvard Museum, I’m OK with it.
The ‘darkness’ such obscenities represent are not for us- the awakened- but for the ‘lumpenproletariat’- the ‘sheep’ in Orwell’s Animal farm who are trained from birth to ***bleat out*** any alternative voice to that of the Deep State.
Come on, we all have friends and relatives who take every word of the mainstream press as ‘gospel’, and hapiily abuse us if we attempt to gently give them an alternative viewpoint. And since the Grand Demon Tony Blair first rose to ultimate power (and arranged the Kosovo War to draw the US into its first major ground action since Vietnam, and when that failed arranged the 9/11 false flag), the most important strategy of the Deep State is activating the sheeple mass as a blunt instrument against the enemies of the Demons.
The ‘new’ feminism, ultra ‘rights’ for gays and transexuals, and other PC initiatives are designed to give the sheeple ’causes’ to rally behind. At the same time such PC activity is designed to undermine the tradition intellectual bases of those that question the motives and actions of the Deep State.
It is an old zionist trick to place proof positive of zionist crimes against Humanity on ultra right-wing, ‘anti-semitic’ outlets so anyone refering to ***real*** zionist atrocities in places like Palestine is slandered by saying “you got that fact from a neo-nazi site”. This ‘fake news’ BS is the same propaganda play refined.
The Animal Farm/1984 training is “where did you read/see that ‘fact'” and obviously we are not going to say “the BBC” or “CNN” etc. Tony Blair even introduced so-called ‘academy’ schools in the UK to ensure generations of young sheeple get the very ‘best’ Deep State training.
But it gets worse. As the problematic Alex Jones pointed out years ago, having the ‘wrong’ facts about the real machinations of the Deep State gets you now labelled as ‘terrorist’. Orwell warned us about ‘thought crimes’ because in his youth he hung with the zionist propaganda masters that were laying the foundations of the modern Deep State. And this situation makes us self-censor- our voices become quieter while those that serve the demons (knowing or unknowing) become ever louder.
Britain (ruled by servants of Tony Blair in every way) is about to become the first nation on Earth to implement true censorship of the Internet. Until satellite and the Internet made it redundant, the powers in the UK banned all explicit sexual material of whatever type, so Britain has a recent history of total draconian censorship. While VPN will bypass such censorship, that misses the point because VPN users will represent the tiny fraction of society that never allows themselves to be ground down. Censorship of this type targets the 99%, and Britain wants to be an awful example for all the oppresive regimes on the planet to copy- especially Africa, Asia and the Middle East. America has a different culture when it comes to ‘freedom of speech’ and non-anglo-saxon West Europe has a different culture when it comes to Human sexuality. But ‘fake news’ and impending mass censorship go hand-in-hand.
We are to be driven ‘underground’ which means in practice we are to be kept as small a number of activists as possible. Wars with Iran and Russia have already been disrupted and delayed because of our efforts so far. The election of Trump over supreme Deep State war-monger Hillary Clinton was a wake-up call to the demons, and they are now in ‘take no prisoners’ mode.
Under ‘we are winning’…..
The last election marked a turning point in America. Many people have long since realized that ‘the media’ was lying to us. The last election marked the turning point where a majority of the American voters have all reached that conclusion. The split could very well be defined as the people who believe CNN and the NYT all voting for Hillary, and the new majority that does not believe all voting for Trump.
Interesting would be to study a whether there is a correlation with age. It seems like those of us who’ve lived through all of this and heard all the lies are strongest in the ‘disbelief’ category. While the propaganda still seems to have more effect on the young. Sigh, they’ll learn, just like we did. Hopefully before a million more bodies pile up around them.
Harvard is stepping back from the fight!
Look at their page: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/fake
Now it has a disclaimer: “(An informal list compiled by students for a class taught by Melissa Zimdars at Merrimack College.)”
Here’s what it said earlier today: http://archive.is/D4DFy “Huge list of fake news sites”
I guess they don’t feel so confident in endorsing the list now…
What an admission of failure Harvard made in the first act of gross censorship.
It means they know that they cannot, or will not, teach their students to actually think.
Let me reveal a state secret here, but a very little one. There is an advanced country out there which has a very prestigious newspaper which everybody reads and which has a lot of credibility. And yet, this country’s intelligence community rates this newspaper as a “C” source – a very mediocre rating. Now you can imaging where CNN, NBC, NTY, WaPo and all the rest of them would rank ;-)
I wonder which country and newspaper is being referred to here.
It must be a major Western power–either an Anglophone nation or European like France or Germany.
Or it could be a Western ally like Japan.
Or maybe it could be Israel–which would be hilarious if true.
Understanding the static …
When big banks gave up sound banking to create the Depression of 1929,
the explanation from Morgan Bank was as follows: we have decided to replace
sound banking with the “Institutionalization of Conflicting Interests.”
Zero hedge has a good piece on the – self-appointed? – ‘guardians-of-truth’:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-20/exposing-9-fakest-fake-news-checkers
Zimdars is an employee at Merrimack College, rumored to be little more than a diploma-mill.
She herself seems to be a typical ‘activists blogger’ who landed a communications teaching gig relatively recently.
Most of these courses are ‘ filler’ to bump up numbers for funding.
All the high-paid MSM gigs go to the connected anyway as the Industry uses internships for savings.
Maybe the publicity will get her further up the ladder – Hahvaahd ‘ approval ” wont go amiss.
Quality be damned.
Yes, we are winning. Because of this truth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W0Fsfrd8A8 :)
Sry, but dialogue is in Russian. It is from a movie Brat 2. I recommend both (also Brat 1) to anyone who try to understand Russia..
From Haavad U:
“Bio:
I am an assistant professor of communication & media, and this resource started as a tool for teaching my students about journalism/social media/media literacy.” This is titanic academic weight!
Media _literacy_! I remember in the 90’s when they bringing that monster into the ring. At the time, it was supposed to mean questioning what you saw and heard. Unfortunately, the ‘net was not the t-polar source of today. Now…there are frightening developments for Assistant Profs, such as people who actually read Russian and translate it. The horror!
Media studies depts in the 90’s said things like this (same doc):
“The best thing to do in our contemporary media environment is to read/watch/listen widely and often, and to be critical of the sources we share and engage with on social media. ”
“Widely and often”, hmmm, that could give you brain damage. The author leaves out the conclusion: “Then, blacklist anyone who doesn’t hate the Russians.”
She does at least admit her fondness for NPR. How much NPR you can stand without screaming at the radio (and bizarre NPR-accents of the presenters, almost none of whom speak any kind of normal American English, i.e. Siegel with his lisp, which has been copied by others) is perhaps an intelligence test.
Can you make a top 20 list of the websites that you think are of interest to you, arrange for a drop down menu for them and ask each of those websites to make their own top 20 with a drop down menu. This way the provided content is more varied and variable. At the same time the internet traffic in between the sites is increased. Actually a network of news is created as alternative to the MSM.
If Harvard trying to trove shit, why not go sniffing out the real shit located in Harvard:
Mapping the Real Deal…
The Real Deal About Enron
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0304/S00031.htm
I admit I have only read a few pages of your blog, mostly your “about me”, sort of a mini CV.
I find it fascinating, as someone who is fairly well travelled myself (Africa, Europe, The Middle East) in the military and out, that you have some of the views and opinions that you do.
I have a very good friend who has a background somewhat simillar to yours, less analyzing and more pointy end, but certainly white papers involved. His views could not be more different. Why is that?
How do two people with so many deep similarities (I would have to guess that you two possibly know each other, the locations and timelines are spot on, even the year of migration to the states) arrive at such a different take on Russia, Hezbollah, and the ultimate goal, arrived at by means that are both right and wrong, of keeping this “Empire” wheels up and rolling straight?
I am no longer active, in anything, and I certainly fall left libertarian on the chart you reference. We have much in common. I can’t help wondering if you should be a friend, or an enemy.
Love the blog, at any rate.
Over.
Perhaps a ” Real Fake-News ” site should be raised as an antidote to Fake ” Fake News” !
Nothing has changed between the 1980s in today. When the left was winning, they were rather quiet. Now that they are losing, they are extremely violent and angry. But it’s the same people, their attitudes haven’t changed a bit.
The Republican administrations such as Reagan, or even Trump, is sincere about free-speech. Democrats and the left, not so much. They believe in free speech when they are winning, and then they believe in suppression and censorship when they are losing.
Now that the left is not getting its way, they have suddenly decided to become the speech and thought police.
Harvard is an establishment joke. Having it on your resume does do a lot to get you hired, though. Getting accepted is largely about how much money your family has contributed to its endowment.
The LSE seems to be trying to compete with Harvard now:
Angelina Jolie is set to teach a master’s course at the prestigious London School of Economics this fall as a visiting professor.
Define “left”.
In my opinion the meaning of that word has shifted so many times that it’s some watered-down version of what it was intended to be – if it ever was supposed to be serious.
Wonder how Melissa Zimdars, the author of Harvard’s Fake News list, feels about the fake news lies the American Free Press peddled about non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
From the right wing media like Fox News, National Review, Wall Street Journal to their centrist and liberal counterparts like NPR, CBS, CNN, Washington Post, NBC, AP, ABC, and the New York Times, they all pushed these WMD deceptions to justify the crime of the century, the America aggression against Iraq.
The American Free Press in general is the ultimate purveyor of fake news–and they are able to get away with it because–like the United States as a nation–they conceal their true character behind the mask of freedom or liberty.
Indeed, this idea of America (a nation founded upon chattel slavery and the colonial theft of Native Indian lands) as the Land of the Free or Beacon of Liberty is the one of the greatest examples of “fake news” that ever existed.
Melissa Zimdars sound like some kind of encipherment which must lead eventually to Beelzebub.
In any event, I would not be surprised if she is soon ‘disappeared’.
Melissa was at it back in November 2016:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/breitbart-and-private-eye-among-websites-accused-of-false-misleading-clickbait-or-satirical-news-1591878
Where would we all be without her ‘nanny society’ telling us what to think and believe?
Melissa knows best!
Ahhh, finally!!!
Sadly, the US university system is thoroughly corrupted by the moneyed status quo. Harvard is the glowing example. Having gone to an expensive, private, Liberal Arts undergraduate school, I know. it is all about maintenance of wealth and power, at all costs. Their total abandonment of morality is really criminal (Satanic?). Let’s hope it is temporary.
Hey Saker, you are simply the best. You speak softly and carry a strong argument. Keep up the good work.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fake-scholarship-and-the-future-of-americas-university/5580252
“Fake Scholarship” and the Future of America’s University
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, March 21, 2017
Harvard University has established a modern version of the Catholic Church’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of prohibited online publications which are tagged as “fake” and “false”, broadly following the politically tainted “List” of censored independent and alternative media. As we recall the Catholic Church’s Index was a list of books “deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious”.1
x Cathedra, Harvard has decided in one fell swoop that virtually the entire US based “Alternative Media” pertaining to tens of thousands of authors would be categorized not only as fake news, but fake science, knowledge and analysis.
The Harvard Index however goes far beyond the Catholic Church’s Index which selectively banned books after careful reading, review and evaluation within the Church’s hierarchy. This frivolous decision by Harvard constitutes a violation of the most fundamental principles of university education which are debate, discussion, critique and analysis.
The Harvard Index acts as a Lynchpin. It establishes a “new normal”, a guideline to colleges and universities across the land, regarding what we can or cannot read, what we can or cannot write.
Ex Cathedra, Harvard has decided in one fell swoop that virtually the entire US based “Alternative Media” pertaining to tens of thousands of authors would be categorized not only as fake news, but fake science, knowledge and analysis.
The Harvard Index however goes far beyond the Catholic Church’s Index which selectively banned books after careful reading, review and evaluation within the Church’s hierarchy. This frivolous decision by Harvard constitutes a violation of the most fundamental principles of university education which are debate, discussion, critique and analysis.
The Harvard Index acts as a Lynchpin. It establishes a “new normal”, a guideline to colleges and universities across the land, regarding what we can or cannot read, what we can or cannot write.
[…]
Unable to compete with a multitude of sources, and heterogenous interpretation of facts and events, the Deep State has called for burning people who do so, at the stake.
It is much easier to simply silence the opponents of the Deep State’s Golem army of talking heads, than to turn from the decades-old practice of hiring Golem, who repeat a single, CIA-generated message ad-infinitum.
One of the main weaknesses of an Oligarchic Deep State is sheer laziness.
One Harvard graduate, an asian woman, did a very informative audio documentary on the criminal history of Harvard, and the Harvard Endowment for Pacifica Radio. It boggles the mind to think how many reputable institutions are really covers for clearly criminal activities. I do have friends and colleagues who have graduated from Harvard, so its not to say good people have not benefitted from the institution, but I wouldn´t send my son or daughter there. The veil lifting from hidden histories is a part of the great awakening.
So why is the National Enquirer not on this list? Must be that they’ve been publishing factual content all along. Btw, has anyone heard of any litigation against the libelous actors PropOrNot and their “journalistic” lackeys. I’ve heard nothing and I’m a lawyer. It seems a historic and unprecedented opportunity was missed by those on the 200 list to set the record straight in the public eye on who actually publishes “fake news” and from what sources this “news” stems from. This lapse to me is an epic battle missed that could have been won, thereby changing the official Western narrative and perhaps (with the emperor exposed) ushering in the era the Saker and his colleagues (and myself) yearn for. In my opinion, Harvard’s publishing of written materials on this issue is part of a continuous stream of libel against the Saker (a most decent, honest and scholarly writer), PCR, ICH, etc. PropOrNot, Harvard, WAPO, NYT and any other media outlet that published the 200 list as fake news purveyors should be SUED to JUDGMENT as their analysis/publications are defamatory on their face, and they had actual and/or constructive notice (knew or should have known) of this FACT!! Any lawyer worth his salt would realize the epic battle at stake and forsake any attempt at settlement, knowing the litigation and media spotlight thereon, would reveal the truth, vindicate their client(s), likely result in a substantial monetary verdict and make him/her/them renowned throughout the land. The notoriety of the matter would not deter competent counsel same as it didn’t deter Gerry Spence when he successfully defended Imelda Marcos in a New York City federal courtroom while wearing his signature 10-gallon hat!!
And look at all the US allies tiptoeing out the door — Philippines, Poland getting antsy about multi cult, ditto Hungary, Saudis looking around for a better deal