Month: February 2018

I have been talking about this since 2010.

Originally shared by Olivier Malinur

I have been talking about this since 2010. Till recently, accusing Oxfam, ACF or Medecins Sans Frontieres of sexual abuse was like pooing on the altar of a St Peter basilica.

Now, journalists are suddenly talking. They knew what happened.

But it is now they talk. So courageous.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/20/oxfam-abuse-scandal-haiti-colonialism

Pinker remains the preeminent bard of liberal self-satisfaction and complacency.

Pinker remains the preeminent bard of liberal self-satisfaction and complacency. Naturally his historical treatment of the Enlightenment is deeply ahistorical.

Originally shared by Jeff Zahari

“For the sceptical reader the whole strategy of the book looks like this. Take a highly selective, historically contentious and anachronistic view of the Enlightenment. Don’t be too scrupulous in surveying the range of positions held by Enlightenment thinkers – just attribute your own views to them all. Find a great many things that happened after the Enlightenment that you really like. Illustrate these with graphs. Repeat. Attribute all these good things your version of the Enlightenment. Conclude that we should emulate this Enlightenment if we want the trend lines to keep heading in the right direction. If challenged at any point, do not mount a counter-argument that appeals to actual history, but choose one of the following labels for your critic: religious reactionary, delusional romantic, relativist, postmodernist, paid up member of the Foucault fan club.”

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/02/20/4806696.htm

Adrien Chen did the original journalism in the NYT which introduced people to Russia’s Internet Research Agency…

Adrien Chen did the original journalism in the NYT which introduced people to Russia’s Internet Research Agency troll farm back in 2015 https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?referer=https://www.google.com.au/ (I posted about it at the time and in 2016. https://plus.google.com/+JohnAHardy/posts/eMuj1R1r9BN)

Here he is on Chris Hayes’ program saying that the current national freakout about a fairly small and ineffective social media campaign is a little overblown. In fact he thinks the paranoia on display at the moment is worrying.

People need to get a sense of proportion quickly because they are currently being manipulated by people far more dangerous than Putin’s supposed troll army. The neocons and warpigs are getting ready for a more aggressive stance and confrontation with Russia is top of their list.

The worst thing is that progressives are being sucked into this nightmare just like they were in 2001.

https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/965960691697049601?s=12

I heard nothing but war propaganda on the Australian ABC network this morning.

I heard nothing but war propaganda on the Australian ABC network this morning. The warhawks and neocons are really preparing us for a confrontation with Russia.

Expect some shit to go down soon.

* Context: Australia is America’s running dog when it comes to military adventures. Australia can always be relied upon to heed the call of its master when it’s time to get a war on.

Whatever messages were flying around on Facebook during the election, there were plenty of American voters around…

Whatever messages were flying around on Facebook during the election, there were plenty of American voters around who supported those messages. This fact seems to escape the establishment media who keep demonstrating that they have no comprehension about how politics actually works. No wonder the election result caught them completely offguard.

https://twitter.com/cnn/status/966134015337140229?s=12