Mark Twain says what he thinks of Joseph Smith

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.

The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding sore,” “and it came to pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass” was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.

The title-page reads as follows:

THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI.

Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the House of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of God. An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also; which is a record of the people of Jared; who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to get to Heaven.

“Hid up” is good. And so is “wherefore”—though why “wherefore”? Any other word would have answered as well—though—in truth it would not have sounded so Scriptural.

Next comes:

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has “seen the engravings which are upon the plates,” and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.

Next is this:

The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen “books”—being the books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two “books” of Mormon, and three of Nephi.

In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Testament, which gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem of the “children of Lehi”; and it goes on to tell of their wanderings in the wilderness, during eight years, and their supernatural protection by one of their number, a party by the name of Nephi. They finally reached the land of “Bountiful,” and camped by the sea. After they had remained there “for the space of many days”—which is more Scriptural than definite—Nephi was commanded from on high to build a ship wherein to “carry the people across the waters.” He travestied Noah’s ark—but he obeyed orders in the matter of the plan. He finished the ship in a single day, while his brethren stood by and made fun of it—and of him, too—”saying, our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship.” They did not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe or nation sailed the next day. Then a bit of genuine nature cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken Nephi with Scriptural frankness—they all got on a spree! They, “and also their wives, began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness.”

Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings; but they tied him neck and heels, and went on with their lark. But observe how Nephi the prophet circumvented them by the aid of the invisible powers:

And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch that I could not move, the compass, which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to work; wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceeding sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea.

Then they untied him.

And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass, and it did work whither I desired it. And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed, the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm.

Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have had the advantage of Noah. Their voyage was toward a “promised land”—the only name they give it. They reached it in safety. Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and was added by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s death. Before that, it was regarded as an “abomination.” This verse from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter II. of the book of Jacob:

For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord God, will no suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.

However, the project failed—or at least the modern Mormon end of it—for Brigham “suffers” it. This verse is from the same chapter:

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and concubines they should have none.

The following verse (from Chapter IX. of the Book of Nephi) appears to contain information not familiar to everybody:
And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into heaven, the multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children, and did return to his own home.

And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni, and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenenhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah; now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen.

In order that the reader may observe how much more grandeur and picturesqueness (as seen by these Mormon twelve) accompanied on of the tenderest episodes in the life of our Saviour than other eyes seem to have been aware of, I quote the following from the same “book”—Nephi:

And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade them arise. And they arose from the earth, and He said unto them, Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, My joy is full. And when He had said these words, He wept, and the multitude bear record of it, and He took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. And when He had done this He wept again, and He spake unto the multitude, and saith unto them, Behold your little ones. And as they looked to behold, they cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were, in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them, and the multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they know that their record is true, for they all of them did see and hear, every man for himself; and they were in number about two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did consist of men, women, and children.

And what else would they be likely to consist of?

The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of if “history,” much of it relating to battles and sieges among peoples whom the reader has possibly never heard of; and who inhabited a country which is not set down in the geography. These was a King with the remarkable name of Coriantumr,^^ and he warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and others, in the “plains of Heshlon”; and the “valley of Gilgal”; and the “wilderness of Akish”; and the “land of Moran”; and the “plains of Agosh”; and “Ogath,” and “Ramah,” and the “land of Corihor,” and the “hill Comnor,” by “the waters of Ripliancum,” etc., etc., etc. “And it came to pass,” after a deal of fighting, that Coriantumr, upon making calculation of his losses, found that “there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children”—say 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all—”and he began to sorrow in his heart.” Unquestionably it was time. So he wrote to Shiz, asking a cessation of hostilities, and offering to give up his kingdom to save his people. Shiz declined, except upon condition that Coriantumr would come and let him cut his head off first—a thing which Coriantumr would not do. Then there was more fighting for a season; then four years were devoted to gathering the forces for a final struggle—after which ensued a battle, which, I take it, is the most remarkable set forth in history,—except, perhaps, that of the Kilkenny cats, which it resembles in some respects. This is the account of the gathering and the battle:

7. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people, upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether. And it came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz, were gathered together to the army of Shiz; wherefore they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children; both men, women, and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breast-plates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war, they did march forth one against another, to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not. And it came to pass that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their camps; and after they had retired to their camps, they took up a howling and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so great were their cries, their howlings and lamentations, that it did rend the air exceedingly. And it came to pass that on the morrow they did go again to battle, and great and terrible was that day; nevertheless they conquered not, and when the night came again, they did rend the air with their cries, and their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss of the slain of their people.

8. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle unto Shiz, desiring that he would not come again to battle, but that he would take the kingdom, and spare the lives of the people. But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people, for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle. And it came to pass that they fought all that day, and when the night came they slept upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought even until the night came; and when the night came they were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with wine; and they slept again upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought again; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine of the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they slept upon their swords that night, and on the morrow they fought again, and they contended in their mights with their swords, and with their shields, all that day; and when the night came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr.

9. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow. And they were large and mighty men, as to the strength of men. And it came to pass that they fought for the space of three hours, and they fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength, that they could walk, they were about to flee for their lives, but behold, Shiz arose, and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr, or he would perish by the sword: wherefore he did pursue them, and on the morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with the sword. And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood. And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died. And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no life. And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him, go forth. And he went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; and the hundredth part I have not written.

It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his dreary former chapters of commonplace, he stopped just as he was in danger of becoming interesting.

The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable- -it is “smouched” [Milton] from the New Testament and no credit given.

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Ted Koppel’s Terrible Media Criticism
Posted on 09/25/2012 by Peter Hart, FAIR

TV news veteran Ted Koppel has done two pieces on NBC’s Rock Center that attempt to critique the partisanship of today’s media system. But what the reports really illustrate is that some people aren’t very good at playing media critic–especially when they feel obligated to suggest that “both sides” are equally at fault.

Koppel’s first report (9/13/12) looked at right and left watchdogs, “an industry out there on both sides monitoring and recording anything that could hurt the political opposition.” That “industry” consists of the liberal  Media Matters for America and the right-wing Media Research Center.

As Koppel explains, “You got people sitting there with headsets…waiting for someone to make a misstep.” He goes on to wonder whether the groups on both sides are “feeding the sausage machine.”

But his argument starts to fall apart right away, as he begins to tell the story of Georgetown law student and women’s health advocate Sandra Fluke. Koppel explains that radio host Rush Limbaugh’s famous remarks about Fluke–in which he called Fluke, among other things, a “slut”–seemed to be inspired by a column published by the Media Research Center. (The piece in question ran under the subtle headline “Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate.”)

Limbaugh’s comments provoked an outcry, which Koppel explained this way:

Bingo. Limbaugh had committed the kind of gaffe that fuels an entire industry, and he gave the Obama White House a gift that keeps on giving.

Well, maybe. Or he’s a sexist creep who said exactly what he wanted to convey to his audience–which isn’t really a “gaffe” at all.

Koppel explains that a “counter-gaffe” came soon thereafter, when CNN pundit Hilary Rosen said that Mitt Romney’s wife Ann “has actually never worked a day in her life.”

“I mean, this is a two-sided fistfight,” anchor Brian Williams explained as the segment closed. But it’s hard to see how the two sides can be equated. One side published a nasty hit piece on an individual, which was echoed by the most powerful radio talk show host in the country. Apparently the offense on the liberal side was noticing Limbaugh’s sexist drivel. The other example consisted of a dopey comment from a relatively obscure TV liberal mostly known for doing corporate PR.

The second installment (9/20/12) was no better, as Koppel attempted to explain how the media make all of this even worse by giving a platform to combatants on both sides.

Williams set up the show with the expected riff on how both sides do it. The secret tape of Mitt Romney at a fundraiser talking about the “47 percent” was the first strike, but then came “the counterattack from the right–the tape of Barack Obama from 14 years ago saying he believes in redistribution.” Actually, the Obama tape was deceptively edited; the rest of that passage includes Obama talking about how to “decentralize delivery systems” in order to “foster competition” and “work in the marketplace.”

Koppel starts his argument by suggesting the media have gone from the likes of Walter Cronkite to the Fox News Channel’s shouting conservative Bill O’Reilly (ignoring  the flourishing of far-right broadcasters well before O’Reilly). Actually, Koppel argues that “the bar for civility on cable television and talk radio has fallen so low that by comparison, O’Reilly seems almost reasonable.”

Indeed, if the show was meant to be ironic, then it succeeded; much of it was Koppel allowing O’Reilly to hold forth on incivility and the coarsening of the political dialogue. O’Reilly, true to his character, turns the discussion  back into a complaint about the forces arrayed against him: “I have been vilified to the extent that I have to have bodyguards almost everywhere I go.”

The Koppel segment wanted badly to show that “both sides” are contributing to this destructive cycle: “The partisan ranting is more widespread than ever,” he says. But for a supposedly two-sided problem, it seemed like they had trouble finding the left-leaning equivalent to far-right talk show hosts like Michael Savage and Mark Levin, save for a few fleeting clips from MSNBC.

The segment closed with a discussion that perfectly illustrated the problem with Koppel’s approach: Far-right shock pundit Ann Coulter posing as a media critic, alongside comedian Bill Maher–presumably a stand-in for the left. (“Smart, stubborn, and ideological opposites,” Koppel explained.)

Even though the pairing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Maher wound up making the most coherent observation by challenging one of Koppel’s statements:

 KOPPEL: The bifurcation is really extreme. I mean, the left is further left and the right is further right.

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By: Paul Craig Roberts| September 29, 2012

In my last column, “A Culture of Delusion,” I wrote that “Americans live in a matrix of lies. Lies dominate every policy discussion, every political decision.” This column will use two top news stories, Iranian nukes and Julian Assange, to illustrate how lies become “truth.”

The western Presstitute media uses every lie to demonize the Iranian government. On September 28 in a fit of unmitigated ignorance, the UK rag, Mail Online, called the president of Iran a “dictator.” The Iranian presidency is an office filled by popular election, and the authority of the office is subordinate to the ayatollahs. Assange is demonized alternatively as a rapist and a spy.

The western media and the US Congress comprise the two largest whore houses in human history. One of their favorite lies is that the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, wants to kill all the Jews. Watch this 6 minute, 42 second video of Ahmadinejad’s meeting with Jewish religious leaders. Don’t be put off by the title. Washington Blog is making a joke. http://www.globalresearch.ca/horrifying-graphic-video-of-iranian-leader-savagely-abusing-jews/

Last week the news was dominated by the non-existent but virtually real Iranian nuclear weapons program. The Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu, blatantly intervened in the US presidential election, demanding that Obama specify the “red line” for attacking Iran.

Netanyahu believes his maximum leverage over Obama, the president of the “world’s only superpower,” is just prior to the election. Israel cannot attack Iran on its own without the risk of Israel’s destruction. But Netanyahu reasons that if he attacks Iran the week before the US election, Obama will have to join in or lose the Jewish vote for not supporting Israel in states such as Florida, which has a large Jewish population and many electoral votes. If the election is close, Netanyahu, a person consumed by arrogance and hubris, might exercise his threat and attack Iran, despite the opposition of former chiefs of Israeli intelligence and military, the opposition party, and a majority of the Israeli people.

In other words, the outcome of the “superpower’s” presidential election might depend upon whether the sitting president of the “superpower” is sufficiently obedient to the crazed Israeli prime minister.

That the outcome of the US presidential election could depend upon the agenda of the prime minister of a tiny country that exists only because of US financial, military, and diplomatic support, especially the UN veto, should disturb those Americans who think that they are the “indispensable people.” How indispensable are you when you have to do what the Israeli prime minister wants?

The US media makes certain that this question never enters american minds. Americans have been told that if Iran doesn’t have nukes, it has a nuke weapons program. This is what the politicians of both parties, the media, and the Israel Lobby tell them. Americans are told this despite the facts that the CIA and the National Intelligence Estimate stick to the conclusion that Iran abandoned its flirtation with a nuclear weapon in 2003 and the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors on the ground in Iran report no evidence of a nuclear weapons program and no evidence of any diversion of enriched uranium to a weapons program.

Moreover, what could Iran do with a nuclear weapon, other than use it against an aggressor? Any offensive use would result in Iran’s destruction.

Why do Americans believe Iran has nukes or is making nukes when the CIA says they are not? The answer is that Netanyahu says so, and the elected members of the US government in the House, Senate, and White House are afraid to contradict the Israeli prime minister, as are the American print and TV media. Some “superpower” we are! The “indispensable people” have to grovel in the dirt before Netanyahu. Americans are not even aware of their shame.

Iran, unlike Israel, signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Signatories to the treaty have the right to nuclear energy. Nuclear energy requires a low level of enrichment, 5% or less. The minute Iran announced a nuclear energy program, the Israeli government and its prostitutes in Washington lied that Iran was building a bomb. For exercising its legal rights under the treaty, Iran has been painted as a rouge criminal state and demonized.

A nuclear weapon requires 95% enrichment. To get to 5% from scratch and then to 95% is a long drawn out process. I think I first started hearing Israeli government claims of an Iranian nuke back in he 1990s of last century.

When Iran announced that, in view of the sanctions imposed by the US, sanctions that affect medical supplies, Iran was going to enrich uranium to 20% in order to supply itself with medical isotopes, the Israeli allegations that this would lead to a bomb resulted in Iran saying that the Iranian government was content for France or some other country to supply their medical isotopes and would not pursue enrichment beyond energy requirements. The US and Russia were also mentioned as suppliers.

According to the NY Times on September 29, 2011, “the Iranian president told the Washington Post and later, in basically the same terms, the New York Times: ‘if you [the United States and Europe] give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production.’” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/opinion/30iht-edvaez30.html?_r=0

On Israel’s orders Washington vetoed the Iranian concession. Solving the problem is not what the Israeli government wants. The problem has to be kept alive so that it can be used to foment an attack on Iran.

The Iranian nuke is one of those grand hoaxes, a lie designed to hide the real agenda.

What is the real agenda?

The real agenda hiding behind the hysterical concern about an Iranian nuke, is the rightwing Israeli government’s design on the water resources of southern Lebanon.

Twice the Israeli government sent the Israeli army into southern Lebanon to occupy and eventually annex the territory. And twice Hizbollah defeated and drove out the vaunted Israeli army.

The few thousand Hizbollah fighters were able to defeat the Israeli army, which is equipped and supplied by US taxpayers’ dollars while Americans are foreclosed out of their homes and left unemployed as Washington applauds the offshoring of their jobs, because Syria and Iran provide Hizbollah with financial support and weapons that destroy Israeli tanks.

Syria, of course, is currently resisting its destruction by Israel and its american puppet state. The overthrow of Syria hasn’t gone well, because the Russians and Chinese didn’t go along with it, like they stupidly did in Libya. But the far rightwing Israeli government has concluded that with american prestige involved in the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria, the deed will be done.

That leaves Iran. The Israeli government knows that it cannot be forthright and say that it wants Americans to go to war with Iran so that Israel can steal southern Lebanon. But if fear over nonexistent nukes can muster the Western populations to support an attack on Iran, Iran can be eliminated as Hizbollah’s supplier, and Israel can steal the water from Lebanon.

There is no discussion whatsoever of the real agenda anywhere in the US print and TV media. I doubt there is any discussion anywhere in Europe, which is a collection of American puppet states.

Will we get World War III for Christmas? Possibly, if the US election is close as it approaches. If the election is too close to call, Netanyahu might throw the dice and rely on Obama following his lead. Iran will be attacked, and the consequences are unknowable.

Let’s turn to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Like Iran, Assange has been demonized, not on the basis of facts but on the basis of lies.

Washington, which poses as a purveyor of human rights, has been mistreating if not torturing Bradley Manning since May 2010 without bringing him to trial in an effort to make Manning say that he and Assange constitute a spy team working against the US.

Assange is a celebrity, because Wikileaks publishes the news leaked to the organization that the Presstitute media suppresses. While in Sweden, Assange was picked up by two celebrity-hungry women who took him home to their beds. The women later bragged of their conquests on social media, but apparently when they found out that they were rivals, they turned on the “two-timer” Assange and made charges. One claimed that he had not used a condom as per her request, and the other claimed that she had offered one helping but he had taken two.

Whatever the accusations, the Swedish prosecutorial office investigated and dismissed the case.

Despite this known fact, the Western Presstitute media reports that Assange is a fugitive evading rape charges by hiding in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London. Even RT, an alternative media voice, has fallen for this disinformation.

After Assange was cleared in Sweden, a female prosecutor has tried to reopen the case. There is no evidence for her to bring charges, so she demanded that England arrest Assange and extradite him to Sweden to be questioned.

Normally, people are not subject to extradition for questioning. Only people who have been formally charged are extradited. But this detail wasn’t of interest to the Presstitute media or to the British courts which ruled as Washington desired.

Opinions vary as to whether the female prosecutor who wants Assange for questioning is an ideological feminist who believes no heterosexual sex is legitimate or whether she is in the pay of Washington. But experts agree that once Assange is in Sweden he is certain to be turned over to Washington, which will demand his extradition on trumped up charges. Extradition on trumped up charges is difficult in England but easy in Sweden.

Assange offered to be questioned in London, but the female prosecutor refused. Now the Ecuadoran Embassy is offering to send Assange to the Ecuadoran Embassy in Sweden to be questioned, but Washington, London, and the Swedish prosecutor have refused. They want Assange without the protection of the asylum that Ecuador has granted him.

Washington has how made this obvious. John Glaser writing in Antiwar.com, September 26, 2012, reports: “Newly declassified documents have revealed that the US military designated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange an enemy of the state, who can be killed or detained without trial.” http://news.antiwar.com/2012/09/26/declassified-documents-reveal-us-military-designated-assange-enemy-of-state/ See also http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/27/wikileaks-investigation-enemy

Assange is Washington’s enemy, because he let the truth get out. WikiLeaks is a journalistic enterprise, not a spy enterprise. It publishes information, some of which is leaked to it by whistleblowers, just as the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the New York Times. The information leaked to WikiLeaks has embarrassed Washington, because it shows Washington to be two-faced, a manipulator of other countries’ governments and medias, and overflowing with mendacity.

In other words, Washington is not the light upon the hill but the gates of Hell or Mordor.

Assange had best be careful. If he again speaks to supportive crowds from a balcony of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, he is likely to be shot down by a CIA sniper.

Approved by Obama, of course. Or his successor.

ABOUT PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

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By Julie Woestehoff, Black Agenda Report

The alleged “documentary,” Won’t Back Down, universally praised in corporate media as the true-to-life inspiring story of big-city parents fighting bad teachers, worse unions and failed, unresponsive public schools is pure right-wing propaganda. Financed by the same right-wing billionaire who paid for “Waiting For Superman,” its intention is to build support for “trigger” referenda on the ballot across the country which will greatly further the cause of school privatization.

Originally published in Substance News [4], the place to go for news of the movement to democratize public education and resist the corporate version of bipartisan “school reform.”  I saw the “Won’t Back Down” movie last night. The crowd loved it, and I would have liked it, too, if I hadn’t known why it was produced or been aware of the three big lies at the heart of the movie.

After all, it’s just a movie, right? And a successful feel-good movie at that. Not being at all connected to reality (despite the big announcement at the very beginning that it was “inspired by actual events”) shouldn’t matter, right? I mean, did “Coma” accurately depict the way medicine really works? Could scientists reproduce all the effects in the “Star Wars” movies? Would a celebrity impersonator like “Dave” really get away with switching places with a comatose president and make government serve the people again?  Of course not, and no one attacks those movies’ accuracy.

The difference here is that the producers of “Won’t Back Down” have publicly acknowledged that the movie was designed to sell parent trigger laws to parent and state legislatures. Our screening in Chicago was introduced by, among others, a staff member from New Schools for Chicago, which pushes charter schools. The “goody bag” we were all promised at the end of the movie ended up being a WBD totebag with a brochure for New Schools for Chicago in it. Oh, goody.

As propaganda, then, the movie’s lies are fair game.

WBD Big Lie #1: Teachers union contracts do not allow teachers to stay after school to give children extra help.  Anyone who has been in a public school for more than 10 minutes knows this is a lie. Teachers are there after school, before school, and during lunch and recess helping students.

But this lie is a critical dramatic device in the movie, Mom Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first major “aha” moment. When she runs into the classroom in the middle of what passes for a lesson in Terrible Teacher’s room, demanding that the teacher stay after school and tutor her child, the teacher says, “School ends at 3 pm.” Mom runs out of the room, a furious and defiant look on her face. Later conversations reinforce the lie that teachers are not allowed to stay after school to “give the children what they need.”

WBD Big Lie #2: School turnarounds result from parents and teachers voting to “change the school.”

The movie shows teachers agonizing over their vote on the”Fail Safe” program, the movie’s name for the parent trigger. But the real parent trigger laws DO NOT ALLOW TEACHERS A VOTE OR A VOICE. One could brush this difference off as mere dramatic license, but the movie depends completely on the alliance between Mom Maggie and Teacher Viola Davis, who is depicted as an angel of a teacher as well as a deeply loving mother. Yet the premise is a lie.

WBD Big Lie #3: Great schools are easy.

This was honestly the most idiotic part of the movie. Not that it’s easy to portray something complicated in movie language. But really. Mom Maggie goes to the district office. She has coffee with the receptionist who tells her about the “Fail Safe” law. Maggie’s takeaway? All you need to turn a school around is to “get one teacher, and stick it out.”

Later we see Mom With Two Part-Time Jobs and Dyslexia personally writing a 400-page proposal for the new school, which includes fun “ideas” from various teachers like “field trips” and “Shakespeare.” Hero Teacher Viola contributes the idea that the curriculum should be “integrated.”  Yes, it’s a movie. “Coma,” “Star Wars” and “Dave” didn’t have to prove that they were valid in the real world.

But when people use a movie to disrupt and potentially damage the real lives of real children and real adults, they do have to be held accountable to the rest of us.

Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/movie-review-3-big-lies-won%E2%80%99t-back-down-movie

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•••

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

If, as Michelle Obama claims, “voting is the new movement,” then Black people are going nowhere. Absent a genuine people’s struggle, the periodic ritual of voting empowers only “the same class that abandoned mass movement politics 40 years ago, in favor of pursuing their own corporate and electoral ambitions.”_______________

“A class that is concerned mainly with celebrating its own existence.”

Michelle Obama was the main attraction at the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual Legislative Weekend gala affair. She told the party-goers that voting, “going to the polls every single election…is the movement of our era.” That is part of the great tragedy that has befallen Black America. The same class that abandoned mass movement politics 40 years ago, in favor of pursuing their own corporate and electoral ambitions, now claims that going to the polls every couple of years is the same thing as having a movement. And that’s got a lot to do with why, by many key measurements, Black people are as bad off, or worse, than in 1965.

Some of us remember the days, after Martin Luther King’s death, when the aspiring Black political class lectured movement activists to get out of the streets and into the suites. They said Black folks needed to position themselves on the inside of power where they could, supposedly, do the most good for the Black masses. But these selfish actors were only looking out for their own upward mobility.

It would be unfair the say that these misleaders shut down the Black Freedom Movement in the late Sixties – the U.S. government’s hit squads made their own murderous contribution to the death of the movement, and a national policy of mass Black incarceration put lower class African Americans on permanent lockdown.

“Our history did not prepare us to fight Power when it wears a Black face.”

But some segments of Black America have done pretty well for themselves, as is on display every September at the Black Caucus weekend. With Barack Obama in the White House, the Black common folk experience a vicarious sensation of power – which, as it turns out, is not a very healthy thing, since African Americans as a group have never gotten anywhere without fighting the Powers-That-Be. However, our history did not prepare us to fight Power when it wears a Black face, a problem few of us ever expected to confront. It appears likely that we will experience another four years in which the Black political class makes no demands of Power, so as not to discomfort or embarrass the First Black President in his second term, a man who serves the financial oligarchs on Wall Street, not the folks on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

The Black Caucus also honored Eric Holder, the first Black U.S. attorney general. Holder has failed to prosecute any of the Wall Street plutocrats whose criminal financial enterprises threw millions out of work and set Black America back two generations. It was Holder’s job to explain why his boss’s preventive detention bill was not a death blow to due process of law in the United States – an impossible task. Even in the Age of Obama, most of the Black Caucus opposes indefinite detention without charge or trial – but not enough to let a little thing like the Bill of Rights get in the way of honoring a “first Black”…anything.

This is the logical end-result of what people like professor and preacher Michael Eric Dyson cynically call “getting in the game”: the empowerment of a slim sliver of a Black Misleaderhip Class that is concerned mainly with celebrating its own existence. That’s what happens when the money-soaked rituals of American electoral politics are mistaken for a people’s movement.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com [6].
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20120926_gf_CBC.mp3
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Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/content/its-party-time-black-misleadership-class

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