Sickening Bastards: The 2018 Met Gala: Because the Industry Loves Blasphemy

I am not religious and this offends me. This, “I know best because I am famous and rich” attitude, is simply disgusting. Let’s have a parade portraying these celebrity sold-out pricks and imitate them. Let’s show how pathetic and empty these morons really are. The sad part is that most of them actually believe this crap and are involved in Satanism. Most of these empty souls don’t even realize that this is not a game.

If Sarah Jessica Parker, who is Jewish, can blaspheme another religion we all should be able to blaspheme the Jewish faith as well. You know, let’s all dress as rabbis covered in blood performing male genital mutilations, (vasectomies). Where’s the ACLU?

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vigilantcitizen.com

May 9, 2018

 

The theme of the 2018 Met Gala revolved around Catholic imagery. As a result, dozens of industry stooges paraded around in outfits trivializing, sexualizing and blaspheming Catholic and Christian symbolism.The theme of the 2018 Met Gala was Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. The title itself – which uses the expression “heavenly bodies” to allude to the sexy celebrities the masses lust for – perfectly encapsulates the philosophy behind this fashion event. It is about using symbolism associated with the holy, the spiritual and the divine and applying it to a fashion show that is about the exact opposite: Opulent materialism, crass sexuality, and desecration of the sacred.

 The event featured creations by major fashion houses owned by the occult elite such as Gucci, Balmain, and others. Here are some examples.

Long-time industry pawn Rihanna dressed as a silver pope.

Katy Perry as an angel. Not too long ago, she was accused of witchcraft by Catholic nuns. Makes sense.

She was also a witch being burned at the stake while a horned figure stood behind at the 2014 Grammys.

Katy Perry was at last year’s Met Gala dressed as a super-Illuminati slave.

Lana Del Rey’s dress had symbolism associated with the Virgin Mary. She held in her hand an owl-looking thing with protruding eyeballs – pure occult elite symbolism.

Lana Del Rey is into witchcraft and has been encouraging her fans to get into it as well. She posted this pic of her doing an occult hand sign.

A headline from Teen Vogue. Which is targetted to … teens.

Sarah Jessica Parker has the entire nativity scene on her head. And she’s Jewish so she believes in none of that. 

In 2009, I dubbed Madonna the “high priestess” of the music industry. Since then, everything she does fully lives up to that title.

During the gala, Madonna sang Just Like a Prayer – a song that caused controversy because its lyrics both apply to lust and religion. The video was accused of containing sacrilegious elements including a burning cross. A perfect fit for this event.

Ariana Grande wears a dress on which is printed Michaelangelo’s Final Judgement.

Kim Kardashian’s metallic dress was reminiscent of a chalice used during Christian Eucharist. More sexualization of sacred rituals. Kanye apparently stayed at home.

Lena Waithe wore a giant gay pride flag combined with brooches inspired by Catholic imagery.

There were lots of “weeping Virgin Marys” at the Met Gala, complete ironic halos and sun crowns. This is new industry favorite SZA.

Donald Glover – another industry favorite – does the 666 sign. On his back is the symbol of the “eye of providence” inside a triangle which is used in religious iconography to represent God. The occult elite uses this symbol to represent themselves. So you have 666 in front and God on the back.

In his video “This is America”, Glover (aka Childish Gambino) shoots down an entire church choir with an AK-47. While some praise this as “art with a message”, it is mainly Donald Glover shooting down an entire church choir with an AK-47. They want this kind of imagery to be part of popular culture.

I’m pretty sure Jared Leto’s been thinking he’s Jesus for some years now.

One would believe that the Vatican would not appreciate this display. Quite to the contrary, they even sent a representative to mingle with celebrities.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan was hanging out with George Clooney at this $30,000-per-head elitist event. Just like Jesus wanted.

Meanwhile, Taylor Hill was cosplaying as a sexy Cardinal. She plays in the movie The Neon Demon which is about the satanic fashion world. In the movie, she literally eats another model to obtain her vital essence (read my article about it here).

Black Mass

While some media sources timidly criticised the event as being “borderline blasphemous”, other’s just said it:

The headline from Noisey.

Everything about the Met gala recalled the concept of a black mass: A satanic ritual based on the inversion and desecration of Catholic symbols and rituals. Not unlike the gala, black masses look to corrupt the spiritual and godly essence of the traditional mass.

A 16th century woodcut depicting a black mass. Sex (earthly, animalistic urges) used to desecrate the holy and the spiritual.

In recent years, the industry has been taking great pleasure in conducting thinly veiled black masses disguised as music videos or fashion events.

Iggy Azalea’s video Savior features a black mass where everything is reversed. It culminates with a satanic wedding with a hooded figure. (Read my article about it here).

Last year, a fashion show took place inside St Andrew Church in London which incorporated heavy occult and satanic symbolism. It was another example of the industry indulging in a black mass (read my article about it here).

In Conclusion

While one can rationalize and explain away the 2018 Met Gala in all kinds of ways, it remains a clear and blatant display of the entertainment industry’s mindset. The concept of “creativity” is now tightly intertwined with occult elite’s ideology, and “art” is now at the service of dark spiritual deeds. Would this kind of display be accepted if it was “inspired” by any other religion or culture?

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Ex-FBI Director Comey: Trump ‘morally unfit’ to be president

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http://www.aljazeera.com

April 16, 2018

James Comey says US president treats women like ‘meat’ and there is ‘certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice’.

Comey was fired from his post as FBI director in May of last year [File: EPA]

 

Former FBI Director James Comey has accused US President Donald Trump of being “morally unfit” for the presidency and treating women like “pieces of meat” in his first television interview since being fired last year.

Speaking to ABC’s 20/20 programme, Comey said: “The challenge of this president is that he will stain everyone around him”.

The television interview on Sunday comes ahead of the release of Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty, on Tuesday.

According to the transcript of the four-hour interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Comey said he does not think Trump is “medically unfit to be president”, but rather “morally unfit to be president”.

“A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they’re pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person’s not fit to be president of the United States, on moral grounds,” Comey said.

The former FBI director was referring to last August’s  “Unite the Right” rally that turned deadly when a white supremacist allegedly rammed his car into a group of anti-racist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Trump blamed “both sides” for the violence.

‘Some evidence of obstruction of justice’

Comey has been embroiled in controversy since reopening an investigation into whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while US secretary of state during Barack Obama’s first term as president compromised national security.

Clinton said the release of a letter stating the FBI had uncovered new emails just days before the elections helped hand the election to Trump.

Once Trump took office, the president and Comey feuded over the FBI’s investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

Comey said there is “certainly some evidence” when asked whether the US president committed obstruction of justice when Trump allegedly asked top aides to leave the Oval Office to privately ask Comey to drop his investigation into then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Flynn was fired from his post last year.

Comey added that the prosecutor would need to evaluate if “other things reflected on [Trump’s] intent”.

‘Impeachment would let Americans off the hook’

Comey said he does not hope for Trump’s impeachment because “impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they’re duty bound to do directly”.

He added: “People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.”

‘Trump doesn’t value the truth’

Comey repeatedly pointed to how he feels like the president does not value the truth and how he has lied to the American people.

“There’s something more important than that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country,” Comey said.

“The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.”

Prior to Sunday’s interview, Trump took to Twitter, calling the former FBI director “not smart” and saying he “will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history”.

The White House has not commented on the interview, but the Republican National Committee did respond on Twitter saying Comey “isn’t credible”.

What else did Comey say?

On Clinton’s assertion the letter about the investigation into her use of a private email server help cost her the election:

• “I hope not…I honestly don’t know. I sure hope not. But – the honest answer is, it wouldn’t change the way I think about it.”

On whether he would send the letter on Clinton’s emails again knowing Trump would win the election:

• “I would…In fact, that was a question asked by one of my best people – a deputy general counsel in the FBI who is a very thoughtful and quiet person, who didn’t speak a lot. And that – that morning we were making that decision, she asked, ‘Should you consider that what you’re about do to may help elect Donald Trump president?’
• “And I paused, and then I said, ‘Thank you for asking that question. That’s a great question.’ But the answer is not for a moment because down that path lies the death of the FBI as an independent force in American life. If I ever start considering whose political fortunes will be affected by a decision, we’re done.”

On finding out about his firing from television:

• “One of the many great things about the FBI is we have some hilarious pranksters in that organisation, and so I thought it was a scam by someone on my staff. So I turn to them and I said, ‘Someone put a lotta work into that.’ And then I continued talking.
• “And then that changed on the screens, which showed the different networks, changed to, ‘Comey fired.'”

SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

Just One More (Illegal Syria Attack)

From my FB friend in Britain

Sam Spruce

April 14, 2018

JUST ONE MORE

My first impression of this attack on Syria is that it is a desperate attempt to muddy the waters to spoil any evidence, or lack of it, of the purported chemical attack in Douma. Given that Syria has been working with the OPCW to destroy or dispose of all chemical weapons capabilities or stockpiles then the likes of the CIA and MI5 will be fully aware of any chemical plants that exist and what they contain.

I don’t know if that scenario is accurate. But it is crystal clear that they don’t want the wider world to know what is going on. We are expected to believe that they are serious minded people dealing with complex world problems and that they are doing what is best. All of my life experience informs me that our culture and the majority of people go along with that manner of perception. We are endlessly told by parents and teachers and politicians to not worry about the details and to just ‘believe’ them. I don’t mind doing that to an extent but my mind remains open and I continue to wonder and even ask questions.

Of course all of the troubles in the Middle East are complex and nothing that happens occurs for simple singular reasons. Issues as different as world economics and individuals’ personal pragmatic attempts to survive impact on each and every event. No one could possibly understand exactly what is going on or how it all comes to pass. But it is clear to me that this behaviour of the UK (in cahoots with so many other actors like the US, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and who knows who else) is clearly wrong.

Syria, 4 years ago

It is wrong for several reasons. To start with it is violent when there were alternatives. It is also self contradictory on many levels not least of which being the espoused morality of violence being wrong. The UK is laughably a Christian country which is clearly contradictory since Christianity, regardless of Augustine’s nonsense, is non-violent. It is contradictory that evidence is needed prior to a conviction and yet, in the midst of current concerns about fake news, the government decides to use a most ridiculously inconclusive video that arrived from their pals in Syria (their ‘terrorist’ pals) as conclusive evidence of whatever they want to conclude. There was no evidence of a chemical attack in that video. It was an interpretation placed on it. Had there been a chemical attack the individuals with the cameras would have had the opportunity to film far more conclusive scenes. And there is the nonsensical claim that in the very days Assad is taking control of the area he decided to attack it with chemical weapons.

And who, reading this, is aware that 8,000 civilians, all known to the Syrian government and the UN, have gone missing from Douma? Jaish al-Islam (the ill-defined conglomerate of ideological ‘terrorists’ supported by the West) were holding Douma where the alleged chemical attack took place. They had informed the Syrian authorities years ago of at least 8,000 named and identified hostages in Douma. The various authorities like the UN are apparently aware of this information as are Western governments. There was an agreement in place that the terrorists could have safe passage out of the area in exchange for the hostages.

As far as I can piece this together only a day or so before the exchange the terrorists fired missiles from Douma into greater Damascus and the Syrian forces fired back at two known sources. It appears one building was hit and there were civilian casualties which were taken to the ‘field hospital’ where the video was sourced. This is where at least one cameraman entered the hospital and shouted out that it was a chemical attack and began filming the scene which then included people dousing themselves and some children with water. There were also people applying breathing masks to children. This video was then supplied instantly to the Western governments who have asserted it is proof of a pointless and meaningless act of a James Bond style evil madman to murder children with frightening ‘chemical weapons’.

Soon after this relatively insignificant event (relative to the current murder and mayhem around the world) the terrorists were given safe passage out of Douma but it then transpired there were less than a hundred of the hostages left. In all likelihood the hostages have been starved and murdered by the Western terrorists because they needed food and water which was in short supply for the terrorists. The White Helmets (who always appear well fed) have been embedded with these ‘friendly’ terrorists for years but have never managed to get any news out of the 8,000 people being starved and murdered. They have had nothing to say about what was going on in Douma except to report a few real or alleged attacks by Assad.

When I think on these things I imagine myself as a terrorist in Douma. Not a nasty terrorist but someone caught up in events and siding with people who are now engaged in violent resistance and revolution. It’s not hard to imagine given that if there were a civil war in the UK I would end up on the wrong side because I would be opposing the Tory government and they have all the power and weapons. It really is not hard to imagine how, trapped in a suburb for years with very little food and water and with only hostages to stop the government flattening the place, that the hostages would be the first to go.

Most of us, when we are being honest with ourselves, recall moments in life where we have ended up doing something we felt was wrong because at the time we were desperate and could see no other way. It takes a certain perspective to allow someone to hit you because you claim your own autonomy and will not be drawn into a fight. Many people, when forced to act against the paradigms and conceptual constraints of our culture, cannot put the pieces together either before or after the event and end up feeling bewildered and wracked with what feels like unjust guilt. This is because they conscribed to the rationale and moral framework of society by way of cooperating and co-existing with the people around them. When they break these rules they still have the moral framework in their brain and they know they are ‘wrong’ but they know it was not their fault. In extreme cases this can lead to attempted suicide and eventually the death of either themselves or someone else who appears to them to embody the malevolence of the social paradigms that are constantly constricting their ability to be autonomous. We are all subject to these forces.

It is not too hard to understand that the terrorists would kill off the hostages on account of their belief that they would die otherwise. They are so embedded in the wrong behaviour that a little more must seem par for the course. And, importantly, they could not tell anyone since once they had killed the hostages there would be nothing to stop their enemy obliterating them.

It seems quite plausible that the supporters of these terrorists would be in cahoots with them to dispose of, or obfuscate, the evidence and run. The UK, with all their other gang members, have done everything in their power to prevent the fall of Douma and, in the event of Syria liberating it, they have repeatedly tried to distract attention by pointing the finger at Russia and Assad with what they know will provoke outcry or, when that is failing, to resist and oppose any and every attempt to have a proper investigation.

It doesn’t matter if my analysis of one aspect of this disastrous affair is correct or not, only that it is entirely consistent with events, it is plausible, and the UK government has done everything in their power to prevent anyone from ascertaining if this could be the case or not. So whatever is going on it is at least as malevolent as this or worse. But it is certainly not better.

And who, in the lower echelons of wealth in the UK, who is watching what is going on, can be in any doubt that the same mode of operation is being applied by the Tory government on the population of Britain. We are literally their hostages and they are in the process of killing us off. The dismantling of the welfare state and the health service along with public services and education are all destroying society in Britain. This is without looking for specific references to numerous reports from various organizations naming and numbering the people actually killed as a direct result of the Tories actions.

The behaviour of the West is psychotic. Psychosis is loosely defined as a person perceiving or interpreting events differently from the reality of the events around them. We all suffer some degree of psychosis – we couldn’t do otherwise – but it becomes a problem when the divide between perception and reality becomes severe and harmful. It is typical behaviour based on unresolved historical events. Western culture has, for hundreds of years (but rooted in thousands of years) focused on an egocentric interpretation of reality. I don’t mean the Freudian ego so much as ‘central to the observer’. We have so assumed the validity and importance of ‘me’ the observer that our entire cultural, scientific, religious, and philosophical frameworks assumes us to be real and alive and meaningful in an unreal, dead, and meaningless universe. This has brought us in the West, not only to personal existential crises, but to a collective and cultural existential crisis too.

The powers that be are simply echoing the distorted interpretation of the culture. That is why their overtly incorrect behaviour is supported by so many that they get away with it. The population, along with various dynamics of conceptual interpretation of the world including cultural Stockholm Syndrome and cultural Cognitive Dissonance, are interpreting events in a way that seem more in line with their current paradigms. Those paradigms are false and deviating at an ever increasing rate from the actual reality. The existential crisis will cause the West to destroy the world rather than face the fact they don’t exist. Of course they do exist but not according to their distorted egocentric interpretation of the world. The West is imploding and liable to explode. China, Russia, and a few other observers are sitting on the sidelines hoping the catastrophic failure will not harm them too much.

The West is like Mr Creosote just about to eat that last wafer thin mint with Russia, Iran, and China looking on nervously from the next table.

Trump’s First Big Test: a Crisis for All of Us

Pic added by Tales

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With permission from

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Mel Goodman

April 13, 2018

The current crisis in Syria provides Donald Trump with his first genuine test as president and commander-in-chief.  On the basis of his first fifteen months in the White House, there is no reason to believe that he is equipped to manage a complex geopolitical and military situation that involves a failed Arab state as well as the military and political interests of many non-Arab states such as Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Israel in addition to the United States.

The delayed response to Syria’s unconscionable use of chemical weapons against its own people indicates that the U.S. national security bureaucracy as well as such key European allies as the UK, France, and Germany are trying to constrain the president and to limit the damage of greater U.S. involvement.

There is reason to believe that Trump lacks the cognitive ability to deal rationally, let alone successfully, with the complex Syrian situation.  Trump’s chaotic Twitter outbursts have already warned of “nice and new and ‘smart’” weapons; his handling of numerous personnel challenges in the White House; his constant contradictions on issues both foreign and domestic; his fixation with the presidency of Barack Obama and his presidential rival Hillary Clinton offer a pattern of bizarre and impulsive decision making. His bombastic threats over the past year have been a particular worry.

The Syrian situation requires serious cognitive capabilities.  The president must analyze and absorb large amounts of factual material, but Trump prefers to shoot from the hip without the benefit of background briefings.  His angry and implosive manner will complicate the necessity for calm and reasoned discussion of sensitive political and military matters.  His cavalier attitude toward the use of military force points to a reckless and aggressive manner that belies the seriousness of the crisis in the Middle East. He considers himself a “stable genius,” but repeatedly displays limited cognitive capabilities.

Trump’s manic behavior suggests that the White House and the United States would benefit from having key advisors around him who would be able to govern and moderate his behavior.  We’ve been told that the so-called “adults” in the room have performed that function, although I remain skeptical.  In the past month, in any event, we have lost two of those “adults” (Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster) and their replacements (CIA director Mike Pompeo and John Bolton) appear just as impetuous and authoritarian as the president himself.  Trump’s numerous references to himself as the only one “who can fix it” point to the difficulty of counseling an authoritarian president.

The stress of the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller adds to the danger of the current situation because President Trump may view the use of military force as buying time in a worsening domestic atmosphere. The fact that he views the Mueller investigation as “an attack on America” also points to his authoritarian style.

Any discussion of the Syrian situation involves a debate over the use of lethal military weaponry against a target where Russian and Iranian forces are deployed.  There are few military plans that survive the first round of fighting, but the Syrian situation is particularly complicated in view of the presence of foreign air and air defense forces.

We were lucky in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis because President John F. Kennedy was open to the use of diplomatic tools to solve the crisis, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was strong enough to reverse himself and withdraw strategic forces that shouldn’t have been deployed in the first place.  Ultimately, each side did an effective job of assessing the intentions and capabilities of its adversary, which is a fundamental issue in any foreign policy crisis.

There is no reason to believe that Donald Trump is capable of making such assessments, and the presence of too many military advisers and a dearth of diplomatic advisers only complicates the situation.  President Kennedy had the advantage of a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Llewellyn Thompson, to provide wise counsel and to give Russia the time and space to make a deliberative decision.

President Trump must rely on John Bolton and a hollowed out Department of State that is no position to contribute to a measured and realistic assessment of the problem.  Of course, Donald Trump prides himself on not needing intelligence briefings or even intelligent advisers.

Over the past year or so, President Trump has displayed that he has virtually no capability to assess his adversaries at home or abroad.  His grandiosity and his indifference to the concerns of others are obstacles to effective decision making.  The Syrian crisis is already testing the mettle of his entire national security team.  There is genuine reason for concern.

More articles by:Mel Goodman

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism, and Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider’s Account of the Politics of Intelligence.  His forthcoming book is American Carnage: Donald Trump’s War on Intelligence.  Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.

The Empire is Burning: What Imperialism Looks Like From Inside the Empire

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geopoliticsalert.com

Desmond Abrams

April 12, 2018

 

Washington D.C. (GPA) – Many people outside the U.S. don’t realize the devastating effects of imperialism right here inside the empire. As weapon companies rake in profits while lobbyists and politicians do their bidding, the U.S. population suffers from extreme poverty and militarized police. No one has felt these effects more than marginalized black and brown communities. In this piece, guest writer Desmond Abrams explains how imperialism wages war at home.

“The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities.” Martin Luther King Jr. spoke this truth in 1967, in his opposition of the Vietnam War and the military-industrial complex.

This April, of course, marked the 50th anniversary of MLK’s murder. In the 50 years that passed, the military industrial complex—the war profiteers and the chickenhawks who feed them an endless list of usually poor and brown nation states to conquer—have grown in magnitude and power. At the same time, the multi-billion dollar weapons systems collectively punish and terrorize the poorest and most exploited people on the planet. To top it off, some Americans increasingly find themselves gripped with fear and terror at home.

Black Americans, myself included, have often been at the epicenter of domestic wars waged by the United States government against its own. One of which is the “War on Drugs,” which gives the government sweeping powers to target and harass black and brown youth. The “War on Crime” and the “War on Gangs” similarly act to further criminalize black youth and destabilize communities of color as a whole. These wars on poor communities are so old and so entrenched in American culture we barely even question them. It’s always been normal to see a line of scared young men with their faces to the concrete while cops order them about at gunpoint.

To this day, I still remember walking home from school and watching as the older boys in my neighborhood were being “stretched.” The police pen you up against a wall and put a gun to your head — that simple. To this day, I remember every time I was stretched: penned against a wall with a gun to my head.

Throughout my formative years growing up in the Kensington-Bailey area, I was always either a direct victim or witness to the police and the sweeping powers they had over my friends and loved ones. Around that same time, the 43rd president of the United States was on TV flying in a fighter jet and proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” to a nation of poor people living paycheck to paycheck. While my community was being drained of wealth and the inhabitants starved for any type of freedom and self-determination, there was Bush and the neo-conservatives of America proudly proclaiming their dominance over the Iraqi people.

This recurring theme of US imperialism throughout the planet in search of the usual—cheap labor, raw materials, and new markets—and the decaying society of violence and punishment at home is exactly what MLK meant when he said the bombs abroad explode at home.

A government that green lights collective punishment of civilians and calls it collateral damage is an inhumane government. Any government that kidnaps people all over the world and calls it extra rendition is a dysfunctional government. In almost two decades of the “War on Terror,” the US government has murdered, kidnaped, tortured, and humiliated peoples in almost every corner of the world.

Yet Americans, average Americans regardless of race, have not seen any benefit to this bloodletting and fury. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Americans are poorer than we’ve been since the debacle in Vietnam that MLK spoke out against. While the roads and bridges crumble, the water becomes tainted and sullied, as homelessness reaches epic proportions throughout the country (especially in sprawling and seemingly wealthier cities like Los Angeles and Seattle), as the police are given more weapons (now leftover military-grade weapons from the various foreign adventures the US has conducted) and more powers over the masses of people.

It is safe to say that the empire is burning.

At this point in time, the society around us has degenerated and collapsed so viciously that besides the rich and connected, everyone is affected. The contractions between poor communities of color and their well-to-do and often white counterparts are narrowing. This isn’t to say that black and brown people are doing slightly better than our grandparents — by all quantifiable measures, we are not — but instead to point out the failure of the United States war economy to provide any standard of living for even the most privileged in society.

The poor and deprived people of America are starved out by a war economy. Out of frustration at this decaying society and the dissatisfaction it produces amongst the people, the powerful, knowing nothing but the hammer, are once again gearing up for another war on American families and our rights and dignities. More police powers from the militarization of the Southern border, the expansion of prison-like conditions in schools and other public spaces, and of course the ever-widening dragnet of the state surveillance apparatus are the only solutions that a war government feeding a war economy has.

Credit: U.S. Department of Defense

People are tired of that. People are sick of waving flags and cheerleading for the US while it lashes out at the world with guns and bombs, playing the simultaneous role of world cop and resource robber. What have I gained from the United States having over 700 military bases around the world? What pride does it bring you to see Trump in meetings with the Saudi government playing the role of salesman for weapons manufacturers? Meanwhile, a quarter of the children right here in the Nickel City are going to go to bed hungry on whatever night you get a chance to read this.

The only way for us to get a grip on this burning house we’re all sleeping in is to wake up! The US has been at war with either itself or some strange ‘other’ for the vast majority of my time on this earth. At the same time, I’m working poor and don’t know anyone who isn’t. I’m not standing for this any longer and you shouldn’t either.

The American Dunning-Kruger Epidemic (Or Why Ignorant People Are So Sure They’re Right)

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http://www.theorganicprepper.com

by Daisy Luther

April 10, 2018

 

It’s time to address an epidemic in the United States. It’s one that could be deadly, particularly to liberty.

It’s an epidemic of Dunning-Kruger. It’s why ignorant people are so certain that they’re right.

What’s that, you ask?

The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which individuals, who are unskilled at a particular task, believe themselves to possess above-average ability in performing the task. On the other hand, as individuals become more skilled in a particular task, they may mistakenly believe that they possess below-average ability in performing those tasks because they may assume that all others possess equal or greater ability. In other words, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.” (source)

And haven’t we all seen that lately? Let’s look at a recent example right here in the good ole USA.

Those who haven’t lived like the rest of us are the ones shouting the loudest.

Let’s start with the current gun control debate.

We have high school kids who think they are experts on policy, firearms, and the Constitution, smugly telling us how clueless they believe we are.

We have movie stars who make millions from movies where they shoot people and who are protected by armed security guards, telling us that we law-abiding citizens who have guns are vicariously responsible for every school shooting that has ever happened.

We have wealthy city dwellers who live in buildings with doormen telling the rest of us that we’re nuts for wanting to protect ourselves.

And all of these people who want to loudly tell the rest of us how to live our lives have one thing in common: they are completely out of touch with the real world.

When you live in your guarded castles, you don’t have to worry about defending yourself from a rapist who might break in through your bedroom window. When you’re a kid, you can’t fathom the vast responsibility one feels as a parent to protect one’s children from home invaders or kidnappers. When you haven’t yet gone out there and lived your life with jobs and crime and financial instability, you have no idea what it’s really like for the average American.

And yet, these out-of-touch people are the ones screaming the loudest that only they know what is right for America.

And that’s where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play.

Back in 1999, social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University performed tests on some subjects and discovered that in many cases, the lower the performance of a subject, the higher their confidence was that they had done well. They published their findings in a paper entitled, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.”

In an article by David Dunning called “We Are All Confident Idiots,” he wrote of his studies:

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.

What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot. (source)

Hmmm….that sounds familiar.

And the way Dunning applies this to politics vividly demonstrates why we have the polarization we’re currently experiencing in the US.

Some of our most stubborn misbeliefs arise not from primitive childlike intuitions or careless category errors, but from the very values and philosophies that define who we are as individuals. Each of us possesses certain foundational beliefs—narratives about the self, ideas about the social order—that essentially cannot be violated: To contradict them would call into question our very self-worth. As such, these views demand fealty from other opinions. And any information that we glean from the world is amended, distorted, diminished, or forgotten in order to make sure that these sacrosanct beliefs remain whole and unharmed…

…Political and ideological beliefs, too, often cross over into the realm of the sacrosanct. The anthropological theory of cultural cognition suggests that people everywhere tend to sort ideologically into cultural worldviews diverging along a couple of axes: They are either individualist (favoring autonomy, freedom, and self-reliance) or communitarian (giving more weight to benefits and costs borne by the entire community); and they are either hierarchist (favoring the distribution of social duties and resources along a fixed ranking of status) or egalitarian (dismissing the very idea of ranking people according to status). According to the theory of cultural cognition, humans process information in a way that not only reflects these organizing principles, but also reinforces them. These ideological anchor points can have a profound and wide-ranging impact on what people believe, and even on what they “know” to be true.

It is perhaps not so surprising to hear that facts, logic, and knowledge can be bent to accord with a person’s subjective worldview; after all, we accuse our political opponents of this kind of “motivated reasoning” all the time. But the extent of this bending can be remarkable. In ongoing work with the political scientist Peter Enns, my lab has found that a person’s politics can warp other sets of logical or factual beliefs so much that they come into direct contradiction with one another. (source)

And most importantly:

Sacrosanct ideological commitments can also drive us to develop quick, intense opinions on topics we know virtually nothing about. (source)

This isn’t just about gun control, though.

This article isn’t just about the hot-button topic of gun control. It’s about how we’re living our everyday lives.

Here’s an example: People either love President Trump so much they are unwilling to see any wrongdoing or they despise him to the point that they are unwilling to recognize any right-doing. Most people’s analyses of the actions of the President are completely warped by their sacrosanct ideologies of whether he is “good” or “bad.” They don’t weigh the merits of the actions – instead, they judge them from a place of deeply committed cognitive bias.

The same thing is true for many topics:

• Illegal immigration
• Freedom of speech
• Political ideologies
• Economic theories
• Gay rights
• Abortion
• The right to bear arms
• Taxes
• The bathroom drama at Target

All of us – myself included – can look at the list above and immediately say whether we are for or against these things, and what our specific belief is – but do we honestly know the details of these topics? Are our opinions sourced from cognitive bias or fact?

I have biases. You have them. We all do. However, the ability to recognize your own cognitive bias and not useit as “evidence” in a debate is the gold standard of intelligence.

This isn’t something that is going to change.

It’s completely normal for us to base our opinions on our own moral beliefs. As Dunning wrote, we are, at heart, either individualist or communitarian, hierarchic or egalitarian. These are core attributes that would be difficult, if not impossible, to change.

But what we CAN do is make a conscious effort to catch ourselves when we make rapid judgment calls without the facts. We can educate ourselves on both sides of an issue and make an effort to use facts instead of feelings in our arguments.

What we CANNOT do is expect everyone to play by these rules. But that’s okay because by understanding how an opposing view was developed, we can use that to fuel our own arguments. We can call out the cognitive biases. What we can’t expect is for facts to change their deeply held beliefs, no matter how ignorant those beliefs might be.

We can correct the lack of information, but we can’t really expect someone with a confident, sacrosanct opinion to change their minds. They’ll hold on to a belief even after it is proven factually incorrect because, as Dunning said, “We are all confident idiots.” Remember, facts have nothing to do with why they have their points of view.

The good news is that there are folks in the middle, who may not have a deeply held opinion on hot-button topics. These are the folks who can be reached by logic and facts.  It’s nearly impossible to battle confident ignorance, but with facts, you can influence people who are undecided.

If you ask me what is going to be the end of our civilization, the rampant epidemic of Dunning-Kruger seems to be the most likely cause. Let’s not be guilty of this confident ignorance ourselves. Let’s vow to inoculate ourselves with facts instead of enabling ourselves with emotional biases.

Hat tip to Suzanne

About the Author

Daisy Luther

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, leaving all links intact, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio. Daisy is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting, homeschooling blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. Daisy is the publisher of The Cheapskate’s Guide to the Galaxy, a monthly frugality newsletter, and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. She is the best-selling author of 4 books and lives in the mountains of Virginia with her two daughters and an ever-growing menagerie. You can find Daisy on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Syria threat by ‘manchild’ Trump is ‘most disturbing presidential statement ever made’ – Galloway

RT.com

11 Apr, 2018

Mosul, Iraq – Civilians, many injured and weak, walk past ancient Great Mosque of al-Nur © Carol Guzy / Global Look Press

Former MP George Galloway has called on the US cabinet to impeach Donald Trump, labeling him a “man child” and questioning the American president’s sanity after he promised to launch “smart” missiles at Syria.

Trump took to his Twitter account to warn Russia to “get ready” as missiles “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’” at its ally, Syria. Trump’s comments come following a pledge made by Moscow’s envoy to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, who said that the Russian military reserves the right to shoot down missiles and destroy launch sites in the event of US aggression against Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

Politician turned broadcaster Galloway spoke to RT exclusively about the latest threats from Trump.

“First of all the tweets from President Trump is undoubtedly the most disturbing statement ever made by any US president and calls into question the very sanity of the person issued it,” Galloway said.

“The world is watching on in horror even in the countries Britain and France that have already indicated they wish to join the putative American strike against Syria. We are on the point of what could develop into World War Three due to the unhinged, juvenile actions of a manchild.”

Galloway went on to urge Washington officials to take matters into their own hands and impeach the out-of-control president.

“I believe that the US cabinet, which has the power to do so under the 25th amendment to the US constitution, must now declare that the author of that tweet is no longer fit to discharge their duties and should be removed from office.”

Trump’s alarming tweets were followed shortly after by the Pentagon issuing a statement in which it said it “does not comment on potential future military actions” and referring questions about the tweet to the White House.

One hour after the threatening tweet, Trump shared a softer message about Russia. According to the POTUS, the fraught relationship between the US and Russia need not be that way.

Galloway told RT that the chance of an American missile strike seems “almost total,” and a Russian retaliation “equally almost total.”

“The earlier tweet has not been removed or deleted and therefore it stands. As we now know this is how Trump conducts his governmental duties – on Twitter. The subsequent tweet does not countermand the other one in any way.

“Of course it is a provocation but it couldn’t be more deadly in its potentialities. It is certainly causing widespread terror in international public opinion.”

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that pro-government forces were evacuating major airports and military airbases after Trump’s online threats.

Read more

‘Not in my name’: Galloway calls on British public to reject calls for Syria military action

While the calls for war from politicians and the media get louder, Galloway told RT that he does not think that the British people will support allied conflict in Syria. “The overwhelming sense I have of British public opinion – which may be beginning to rein in the British PM Theresa May – is that we are not prepared to go quietly into the good night of World War Three at the behest of Donald Trump…,” he said.

The US, UK and France have agreed to work together and are believed to be preparing for a military strike in response to the alleged chemical attack in Douma at the weekend.
On Wednesday, UK PM May told reporters in Birmingham that “the use of chemical weapons cannot go unchallenged.”

“We’re rapidly reaching an understanding of what happened on the ground,” May said.

“All the indications are that the Syrian regime was responsible, and we’ll be working with our closest allies to consider how we can ensure that those responsible are held to account, and also how we can prevent and deter the humanitarian catastrophe of the use of chemical weapons in the future.”