infantilization

I was looking for a term to express the total disruption between reality and the media – especially TV’s ‘reality shows’ that are so far from reality, it is almost as though you are watching aliens. Then I found this article on Counter Punch – Bitch Fights and Tomorrow’s Top Models by Richard Neville - where he gives this phenomenon a name: infantilization:

According to academic Benjamin Barber, this disease is “affiliated with an ideology of privatization, the marketing of brands, and a homogenization of taste”.  It works to sustain our unsustainable consumer capitalism at the “expense of both civility and civilisation and at a growing risk to capitalism itself”. While capitalism once contributed “marginally to democracy, responsibility and citizenship”, according to Barber, he believes today’s version is allied with vices that undermine democracy. And let’s add that it undermines the eco system.  As Mike Davis wonders, “to what kind of future are we being led by savage, fanatical capitalism?”

Isn’t it significantly important to note that the channel which gave us the ‘greatest’ reality shows is Fox? Isn’t it significant that the one channel that is contributing to the stupidity of the masses is Foux News with its distortion of reality and with its substitution of reality with its own brand of ‘infantilization’ through ‘reality’ tV?

death penalty for bloggers

So what else is new? some government wants the death penalty for bloggers.  The Iranian government is debating this issue now:

Iran’s parliament is set to debate a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the internet… [The Committee to Protect Journalists]

It should be mentioned that Iran has some of the most outspoken and successful bloggers in the world.

I think we need to go in and ‘free the bloggers’ by killing the Iranians [or nuking them] in order to ensure they have democracy.

the ‘terrorist bulldozer’ that hit a Jerusalem street

Amazing, isn’t it, that for three days in the United States media, the headlines were all about the ‘Palestinian terrorist’ in the bulldozer who rammed into some cars in Jerusalem killing two people before being shot by a guard. The act was deliberate of course – it was no accident, and worthy of news – except of course since it is Israel and since the perpetrator is Palestinian, it had to be repeated over and over and over in the media.

But when Israeli drive American-made Caterpillars into Palestinian streets, demolishing homes and killing people inside their homes [for either not leaving quickly enough or for being crippled and unable to run] supported by Israeli overhead fighter planes [also American made nd funded], OR, when an American-made Caterpillar runs over an AMERICAN girl and kills her in a most brutal and deliberate fashion because she was standing there in support of the Palestinians, this is all not newsworthy. No one writes about it or talks about it in American media. The every day demolishing of homes and cars and property and agricultural land and uprooting trees – all committed by the Israelis are all no incident to the media. Not newsworthy. They are only called ‘incursions’ – or simply ‘targeting terrorists with unfortunate collateral damage that will be investigated’. After all, they are only destroying an indigenous peoples and their properties – people who somehow got to be equated with Al Qaeda and got equated with Bush’s terrorism wars.

Oh, another worthless  Palestinian terrorist damaged a few cars belonging to a ‘democratic and victimized’ Israel on a peaceful Jerusalem street, killing two very precious Israeli people.

interrogating and torturing mohammed

Mohammed Omar from Rafahtoday has received the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism- handed to him by John Pilger, no less – during a tour arranged by the Dutch Embassy and Ambassador. As usual Israel had originally refused to let him out, claiming he was a ’security risk’. After negotiations, he was finally out and received his award. However on his way back through Jordan, escorted by a Dutch official to ensure his safety, Mohammed was stopped and denied entrance initially. He emailed me saying he was stuck in Jordan and I posted it on his website.

Soon after, and because of the Dutch pressure and objections, he was allowed in, only to be immediately taken by Shin Bet and interrogated for hours. This was, of course after the Dutch official left. They ridiculed him, strip searched him, kept him without food or water or toilet for hours, and clawed at his eyes and face. John Pilger gives the excruciating details in an article in the Guardian. One guard had his boot on Mohammed’s neck and was squeezing it. When Mohammed finally fainted, he was taken to a hospital and escorted to Gaza where he remains in total silence.

Mohammed emailed me once after the incident. His email included only a reference to an article written about his ordeal. He has not written about it on his website/blog yet.

What is his crime?

That he is a ‘worthless’ Palestinian who the Israelis claim is a ’security threat’. Of course he is a security threat – a threat to the security of the image of Israelis before the world.

This is the behaviour of the ‘only democracy in the Middle East.’

communist coercive methods for eliciting individual compliance

The Memory Hole has again exposed yet another interesting [as in shocking] document – even though it seems that nothing is shocking any more. Gitmo is governed by a ‘torture list’ that is taken in its entirety from the Chinese. – techniques used during the Korean war. The only change to the document was its title.  We should be proud because of how much we regressed!!!

Here is the document: