The World As Phyllis Sees It

[capecodphyllis]

Sailaway21 suggested that I start this string and he promised to participate. Sailaway [gentiles to attack Iran] 21 also suggested that the title should be, The World As Phyllis Sees It. Very well.

There are only three rules:

1) No personal insults
2) Preview your post before hitting the 'send' button
3) Use a spell-checker

Here I go.

The standard response to the question, why were we attacked on 9-11, is that there is no good reason for it. We were attacked only because Osama bin Laden "hates our freedom." The attack certainly had nothing at all to do with American policy in the Middle East or with Israel. Not only did Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and Mr. Ashcroft and everyone else in the government -- and every media spokesman -- repeat this over and over again, but they tried hard to avoid the question. It became Politically Incorrect even to ask why we were attacked.

When it comes to the government and the media both claiming that the attack had nothing to do with the government's one-sided support for Zionist policy in the Middle East, there's no room for ambiguity: they're lying. And the things they're lying about are not trivial: not the sort of inconsequential lies that politicians always tell to get reelected. The lies about American foreign policy and its consequences are important lies, big lies, lies that impact heavily on America's security and survival.

Discussion of whether the United States should pursue America's interests in the Middle East, or Israel's interests instead, simply is not permitted. It is a taboo subject everywhere except on the Internet.

This leads me to my favorite subject, free speech.

Have you seen the film "V for Vendetta"? It has been described as a story about one man fighting against a corrupt system.

A BBC reviewer says that the setting is "a dark, futuristic London ruled with an iron fist by a totalitarian government that controls its citizens through fear and terror. Dissent, free expression and religious beliefs are crushed. Censorship is the order of the day."

Sounds like a pretty scary future. Unfortunately, that future is right now but few people even know it. Sadly, repression is seldom seen by most people as they live through such a time.

Because life is not tightly scripted and condensed into a two hour movie we often can't see the tyrants for the trees.

So, who are the real rebels against our present totalitarian society?

A few names that may occur to many people are those of Ernst Zundel, David Irving, Germar Rudolf and a whole bunch of other good, decent people who are being persecuted by those who don't like what these folks think, say, and write.

Have no doubt about it, it is precisely because of what these three thought, said, and wrote, that caused those who are against freedom to throw them in jail. They thought things that they weren't supposed to think and then they communicated their thoughts to others. Thought crimes. Period. They didn't throw bombs. They didn't attack anyone. They didn't hurt anyone. They just used their brains and they communicated their thoughts. They did what humans are made to do. For this, they were arrested and thrown in jail. Repression? You bet. That's real repression. That's not Hollywood.

Let's be very clear, these three didn't incite others to violence or even, as far as I know, use what reasonable people would call hate speech. All they did was independently investigate an historic event and then they wrote and spoke out about what they think really happened or didn't happen. That's it. For this, they're were tossed into jail. The issue here isn't really whether they're right or wrong in their views of the Holocaust or anything else. The principle is what is important, and the principle is that all humans should have the freedom to investigate, think about, write about and speak about whatever it is that interests them in a search for the truth. That's part of what it means to have human freedom -- freedom to use our brains. Freedom with a capital F.

Imagine someone being thrown in jail because they investigated the Civil War and then wrote and spoke out about it. Most people would probably be outraged and wouldn't let such repression stand, unless they had been propagandized to believe that this is also something that we shouldn't investigate or talk about. And in this case, the masses would probably calmly accept the repression. We know this is true because the masses are calmly accepting other repression. Society is so lacking in real freedom right now that most people buy the lies of the tyrants who say that speaking out and writing about the Holocaust is somehow different than doing the same thing about any other event in history. Why should any event in history be off limits? Why should any search for truth be a crime? It's absurd. To think otherwise is to return to the days when people had to accept as true the false idea that the earth was the center of the solar system. Do I think the Holocaust as usually presented is a lie? I haven't studied it and I have about as much interest in studying it as I have in studying the Civil War -- which is to say, my interest is nil. But, if others want to study either of these events or any other events, they should be allowed to do so. It's intellectual and personal freedom that I'm interested in, not these events per se.

But the repression goes even further in our dark present. The two other subjects that will land you in trouble today are race and religion with race being the most sacred of the two in most Western nations. And of course, we must not dig into why we were attacked on September 11.

My guess is that if the stories of Zundel, Irving and Rudolf were made into a movie, the public would see what a horrible injustice has been done to these three people and that many would then realize that when the free thinking and communication rights of a few are ground into the dust, then the free thinking and free communication rights of everyone else may be next. Then, maybe people would be clamoring for true intellectual freedom and demanding that those with power stop forcing others to think as the powerful want them to think.

Now, let's be clear that free speech does have limits. You've heard it a thousand times: You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. And, there's also no reason to gratuitously insult others because of their race or their religion or for any other reason. What's to be gained by doing so? That doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss race or religion in a robust fashion in our search for truth, but the problem in our current Dark Age is that the anti-freedom types have defined hate ever downward so that it now means just about any discussion of these subjects that questions the current orthodoxy about them. That's wrong and that's repressive.

Yes, Zundel, Irving and Rudolf were thrown in jail because, each, in his own way, questioned the current orthodoxy about the Holocaust. That's their crime -- they used their brains. They were skeptics. They didn't just blindly accept what they were told was the truth, but wanted to find out for themselves. They did what free and intelligent humans should be taught to do from earliest school days -- they questioned.

Two are still in jail, and will remain there for many years. We live in an age when the human mind is being held captive by bigots.

It does no good, in our topsy turvy times, to tell these real bigots that "bigot" means someone with a closed mind. The bigots have tacitly defined the term bigot to mean someone who has an open mind and who questions anything that the real bigots have put off limits.

Try to speak out about the sacred cows of our present dark age in a world ruled with an iron fist by a totalitarian society that controls its citizens through fear and terror, and you may end up in jail along with Zundel, Irving and Rudolf. Talk about race, even if not in clearly insulting, volatile or incendiary terms, and you'll find that your right to dissent, your right to free expression and your right to have your own beliefs are crushed by goons, who have defined hate to mean any discussion about such topics that doesn't parrot the company line. Censorship is the order of the day.

Read the wrong books, say the wrong things, raise your arm the wrong way and you'll end up in jail in Germany today. And, doesn't this seem like the very same Germany that did similar things in the past, but with different targets? What's changed? Tyranny is tyranny.

One of the people associated with "V for Vendetta" told a reviewer that if there is a message to the movie "it is about the individual's right to be an individual, and not be forced by fear into conformity."

It's too bad we don't have such freedom and it's too bad that more people don't understand this, because, today, we are being forced into a conformity that is robbing us of our humanity. Today, we are being told that we can only think inside the box. Today, we're being told that we must blindly accept as true, whatever the tyrants want us to accept as true.

F is for Freedom!

[PBzeer]

Interesting exposition, if somewhat funneled by your apparent prejudices. And no, there's nothing wrong with having prejudices. They are a natural and normal part of rational thought, despite what some would have us believe.

Censorship though, is not the sole property of government. To an even larger degree, it is embodied in the media, who decide, what we hear, how we hear it, and when we hear it. And this is fortified by a compliant academia, who subscribe to the "elite and sophisticated" outlook so readily parroted by those who do not have to deal with reality, but instead, use it to tear down as much of what makes their "freedom" to do so, possible.

To me, the most applicable quote around is from Edmund Burke ... "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in America is for good men to do nothing."

By and large, the US has become a nation of sheep, for many and various reasons. That though, is what all governments strive for, when they are allowed free rein. As government grows, and grow it must, if left unchecked, then individuality must be supressed, lest it interfer or hamper that growth.

I believe though, it's a much broader problem than you have outlined, though I can't say that that isn't part of the problem. It isn't though, the whole of the problem, nor even, in the larger picture, a major part. That's why I used the term funneled, in the beginning. In it's simplest form, it comes down to those in power, desire to keep power, and will do whatever it takes to do so. And do so, at the expense of those who trust them to use that power in a manner that is benefical to all.

Currently at 35 32 10 N 76 37 21 W

[capecodphyllis]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

Censorship though, is not the sole property of government. To an even larger degree, it is embodied in the media, who decide, what we hear, how we hear it, and when we hear it.

The biggest threat to America -- the biggest obstacle to our survival and progress -- is the Liberal control of the mass media of news and entertainment. The liberal bias of the media has been shown in many ways, one being that about 90% of top media people voted for Clinton in 1992.

Originally Posted by PBzeer

And this is fortified by a compliant academia, who subscribe to the "elite and sophisticated" outlook so readily parroted by those who do not have to deal with reality, but instead, use it to tear down as much of what makes their "freedom" to do so, possible.

The aim of our educational system is to produce citizens who have been conditioned to believe -- or to act as if they believe -- that men and women are interchangeable, essentially the same except for the configuration of their genitalia, and should be treated exactly the same by society and have similar roles.

The aim of our educational system is to produce citizens who have been conditioned to believe -- or to act as if they believe -- that homosexuality is as natural a condition as heterosexuality, that homosexuality is in no way undesirable or reprehensible, that the only difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals is in their choice of sexual partners.

And the aim of our educational system is to produce citizens who have been conditioned to believe -- or to act as if they believe -- that racial differences are the most unimportant, superficial, and inconsequential thing in the world; that the only real differences are in pigmentation; that Blacks and Whites and Australian Aborigines and Chinamen have the same way of viewing the world, the same intrinsic values and behavioral patterns, the same capacity for self-discipline, the same type and degree of intelligence, the same problem-solving ability, the same aptitude for building civilizations and maintaining them; and that to believe otherwise is not only wrong but sinful and shameful. In fact, the gravest possible sin, the most shameful possible error, is racism, and the severest means should be used to exorcise it and the severest penalties imposed to punish those who adhere to it.

American educational policy is egalitarianism; the purpose is to produce Politically Correct, "global citizens".

Originally Posted by PBzeer

To me, the most applicable quote around is from Edmund Burke ... "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil in America is for good men to do nothing."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is one of my favorite authors. In one of his books, the first volume of Gulag Archipelago, he wrote about how the communists in Russia, who consisted of a tiny minority of Russian criminals, amoral opportunists, and welfare rabble -- the sort of people who support Hillary Clinton in America today -- were able to maintain their grip on all of Russia by keeping the Russian majority, which hated them, too frightened to resist.

Solzhenitsyn writes of the period in 1934 and 1935, when the commissar Genrikh Yagoda headed the Soviet secret police, and Yagoda's black vans went out every night in St. Petersburg, known then as Leningrad, to round up "class enemies": former members of the aristocracy, former civil servants, former businessmen, former teachers, professors, and professional people, any Russian -- any real Russian -- who had graduated from a university. A quarter of the population of the city was arrested and liquidated by Yagoda during this two-year period.

Solzhenitsyn laments that the citizens of St. Petersburg cowered behind their doors when the black vans pulled up at their apartment houses night after night to arrest their neighbors. If only the decent Russians had fought back, Solzhenitsyn says, if only they had ambushed some of these secret police thugs in the hallways of their apartments with knives, pickaxes, or hammers, if only they had spiked the tires of the police vans while the thugs were in the apartments dragging out their victims, they could easily have overwhelmed Yagoda's forces and forced an end to the mass arrests. But they didn't fight back, and the arrests and liquidations continued. And so, Solzhenitsyn concludes, because of their cowardice and their selfishness the Russians deserved what the communists did to them. Do we deserve better?

Genrikh Yagoda: Biography and Much More from Answers.com

Originally Posted by PBzeer

By and large, the US has become a nation of sheep, for many and various reasons. That though, is what all governments strive for, when they are allowed free rein. As government grows, and grow it must, if left unchecked, then individuality must be supressed, lest it interfer or hamper that growth.

Patriots need to drop the pretense that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the rights of hunters, target shooters, and collectors of antique firearms. When Senator Boxer holds a semiautomatic rifle or pistol up for the television cameras and says that "no legitimate sportsman needs a weapon like this," she is laughing up her sleeve at the same time.

The needs of sportsmen and hobbyists are utterly without importance or significance when compared with the two serious needs served by the private ownership of firearms: the need of the individual for weapons with which to protect his person, his family, and his property against the growing hordes of criminals in our disintegrating society; and the need of the patriot for weapons with which to keep governmental tyranny in check.

Originally Posted by PBzeer

In it's simplest form, it comes down to those in power, desire to keep power, and will do whatever it takes to do so. And do so, at the expense of those who trust them to use that power in a manner that is benefical to all.

We will not vote our way out of our mess, and as long as we keep trying to, our situation will continue becoming worse. I know that there are many decent people who still are not ready to accept this conclusion. They will say, "Oh, yes, we know the situation is bad, but not all the politicians are crooks. Not every politician is in someone's pocket. Senator So-and-so is a good man, and Congressman Such-and-such actually has spoken out. We will vote for Senator So-and-so and Congressman Such-and-such, and they will get us out of this mess."

Well, I'm sorry, but they won't. Voting won't do the job. The crop of politicians has been getting worse and worse. There may still be one or two who say some of the right things, but 30 years ago there were more of them. Thirty years ago the Senate would have convicted Bill Clinton and removed him from office, for example.

I favor military law and a good, long clean-up period. An attack on Iran which the joint chiefs say is against America's interests could trigger it. Problem is, my kids may have to die to make it happen. -- It would be an honorable death tho. It would mean something.

.

[PBzeer]

Voting, as currently practiced, certainly will not solve the problem. As the majority of people vote on most any pretext EXCEPT, intelligence. But, neither do I think that giving up on the system, as invisioned by the Founders, is the right way to go either. Power does corrupt, and the greater the power, the greater the corruption, so turning over the power to anyone else, even the military, is not a long term solution.

I see, three major things that need to be done. One, take back the education process from the liberal leaning academia. Two, get rid of the culture of the "professional" politican (term limits, at all levels). Three, pare back government to it's constitutional boundries, and not those of the "Commerce Clause" and other penumbras.

Education though, must come first, or the others can not happen.

.

Currently at 35 32 10 N 76 37 21 W

[sailingdog]

Voting, under the current system is flawed as the electronic voting machines are easily tampered with and provide no real audit trail. If electronic election fraud is committed, Diebold has pretty much made sure it can not be disputed. The last two presidential elections prove this.

[PBzeer]

If you could channel the late Mayor Daly of Chicago, he could give you all the details of how to steal elections, without the benefit of electronics. Not to mention LBJ.

Election fraud, whether proved or not, is not the problem. Remember, it was those pesky "hanging chads" they cited in 2000, not electronic voting. Unless a Republican wins in a landslide, they will always try to blame it on fraud. Whatever the circumstances. But, the majority of people don't vote with their intellect, and that IS the problem.

Currently at 35 32 10 N 76 37 21 W

[Hawkeye25]

PBZeer,

Oddly enough, what you seem to be saying is - even if they cheat and scuttle the free election process, who cares? they are always right and should win anyway.

And I take it, THAT is your position. Regardless of truth, honesty, justice, and the Constitution.

It wasn't the 'hanging chads' that caused the problem in Florida - it was the REPUBLICAN COMMISIONER OF ELECTIONS who did exactly as she was told and kept beating that dead horse until people said 'stop' - then she declared the republicans winners. The electronic election fraud in both Florida and Ohio was so blatant that only an idiot or goosestepping member of the GOP would deny it. It was so overwhelming that Florida is now ripping out the entire system and starting over again, and even the crooked republicans can't deny, though they laughing state that 'you can't ACTUALLY PROVE it' - good people you've hitched your wagon to.

And yes, if there is a republican win with fraud, most people will call it fraud, but no one calls every republican win fraud - there are too many good candidates who SHOULD win, and do. This is supposed to be a two party system, but what we have seen in Washington is the republican denial of America and lockstep, arms locked, march as Bush says or pay the consequences. Do as you are told and not what your constituents want, or suffer fast at the hands of the rest of the 'gang'.

You think that doesn't exclude you. You think you're still their friend. It does exclude you and you're not their friend. You're just another loser, another chip of cannon fodder to be fired at any who oppose them. You're expendable, and not invited to any of their lawn parties. They are the newly super rich, and you are the unclean. Wake up and smell the coffee. These people are constructing the new great society and you're not part of it.

[ebs001]

Zundel was not persecuted because he questioned the Holocaust. He actively promoted hatred of the Jews and his questioning of the existence of the Holocaust was just one of his weapons. He was charged in Canada with and found guilty, in Canada, of promoting hatred against a race or identifiable group. He's also a bit of a nut case as well, believing UFOs were a secret Nazi weapon being launched from Anartica but he had nothing to do with hanging chads in Florida and non of us voted for Clinton either.
CCP, this really is a anti-jewish rant but remember Jesus was a Jew; not a WASP

[PBzeer]

Hawkeye - I suggest you go back and reread my post, as you have gotten a meaning from it that not only is not intended, but isn't there.

My point was, and is, it is the way people vote (not who for) that has allowed things to come to the point they have.

I align myself with no particular party and try to vote for whoever will best hold to the values I do. Too often, that means no candidate is available for me. Then it becomes a choice between who will do the least harm to my beliefs. The only box I am in, is 32 foot long. Anything else would just be a coffin.

Currently at 35 32 10 N 76 37 21 W

[Hawkeye25]

PBZeer,

My most sincere apologies. I see that you are right. I'm afraid I was all wound up over another post and reacted as if in road rage.

I try not to comment politically because, as you can see, I am not too good at it. Spewing venom is no way to enter a dialogue.

Again, my sincere apologies for my direction toward you. You are obviously much better behaved than I.

Hawk