It is disheartening that so much effort that is deliberately dishonest, would sway so many people into believing this propaganda. Even more disheartening is the damage to our countries resulting from it.
I remember your excellent article when it was released. The fact that the NYT editor was not convinced shows me they didn’t/don’t understand the situation and were perhaps looking to off-ramp it. If you were to submit an update to this one, would you be met with the same situation? IMHO It’s worth testing this.
Our diminished and deteriorating education system has given us many in the population who have no knowledge of history - ancient, the past century, and current events. It is tremendously sad to see what’s happened.
Try stating in a Substack comments section, this one excepted, that Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed JFK and watch what happens. You will be insulted by idiots: ridiculed as a hopeless cuck, indicted as an agent of The Deep State, told that you are simply too childish to grapple with the harshness of life.
And no, they really don't know anything. Years ago, I was acquainted with a man who had been born in 1964. I would describe him as being of average intelligence, bright enough to have done a little exploration on his own. He was shocked when I told him that the Oliver Stone film, "JFK," was an evil fantasia. It took him a few moments to find a way through his bafflement for himself. Finally, he said in complete seriousness, "I thought that movie was the truth! Are you sure?"
It's stunning to me that apparently a notable percentage of the American public believes we never landed anyone on the Moon. Not long ago on Facebook, I tried to convince someone of the preposterousness of the idea. First, I pointed out that if nothing else, the thirty or so men who comprised the astronaut corps in the 1960s would have made a hoax impossible. They were among America's best fighter/test pilots, neurotically responsible, obsessed with honor, driven to perform. Not for a moment could they have been persuaded to participate in such a thing.
Add to that the hundreds of other NASA personnel who would have had to cooperate, the aeronautical engineers, astrophysicists, computer programmers, and mathematicians. Add to that the thousands of sailors on our naval destroyers who pulled bobbing space capsules out of the ocean, and, oh yes, the hundreds more movie/TV tech people who would have been needed to connive in such a thing.
Of course, I concluded, the single most important thing for such a conspiracy to have succeeded would have been the moral flimsiness of everyone involved. None of them would have had any integrity. All of them would have to have been read by The Deep State as being easily corruptible. But, I finished, the threat of immediate liquidation by The Deep State wouldn't have been sufficient to keep many people from going to the media, the astronauts, especially, almost all of whom had been courting violent death in their work for many years.
All futile. "I don't care what you say! It never happened!"
It is disheartening and as I said at the time (or shortly thereafter), the money trail should be followed. It has morphed into the 'omni-cause' and is now closely associated with extreme climate change protest (see Greta Thunberg, the antics of the Ecologist or indeed the Fossil Free Books movement in the UK. FFB came very close to imposing a BDS resolution on the Society of Authors earlier this year. They even offered to pay for subscriptions if people would be willing to vote for certain resolutions.
I suspect it is because they prey on ignorance. Most people do not know how Gaza was run by Hamas or indeed how Lebanon was by Hezbollah or Iran by the IRGC. See the Centre for Peace Communications for testimony on life under Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah expose is on going but it has helped me spot various untruths which have been published in UK newspapers or just the uncritical publication of photos (ie the Mahdi Scouts are not benign and not part of the wider Scouting movement but rather an indoctrination into Hezbollah militarism). The video about the former drug runner made me aware of the drug catagen (Hezbollah is the world's largest producer) and how it is used to deaden emotions and create a state of euphoria (among other things it makes the user think they are participating in a video game rather than carrying out barbarous acts).
When I watched the BBC documentary Storyville: Surviving 7 October We Will Dance Again (available on iplayer and Paramount+) which details the Nova festival using testimony from people who survived, footage from their phones and indeed footage from Hamas, it was quite clear the Hamas fighters had taken the drug. I would recommend the documentary be viewed by everyone, particularly young people who like to party. Although I doubt if those who need to see it the most will watch it and take it in. I was very angry at what was done to those innocents. They were very much 'lambs to the slaughter'.
One does have to keep fighting the disinformation. Thank you (and your wife) for fighting the good fight.
No state has a right to exist, they are legal /political constructs. However people indigenous to the land deserve to live freely and equally amongst others also from the same land regardless of their religious or ethnic background.. you can carry out all the mental gymnastics and verbiage you like, doesn’t change the fact, that Zionist governments have continuously sabotaged every single peace negotiation.. the one that got close and their Prime Minister was assassinated by one of their own extremists. Israel have the luxury of being able to”flee” to Europe and the US when the going gets tough or when they feel like a holiday or a business trip.. the same cannot be said for millions of Palestinians who are stateless living in refugee camps and subjected to conditions that have been widely condemned by international humanitarian organisations not to mention the United Nations… one side is backed by the most powerful military on the planet the US the other side who are resisting their oppression with whatever they can get their hands on or fabricate… it’s not a balanced equation.. Because this is a contemporary conflict primary evidence exists in massive volumes… it’s plain to see what is really going on for anyone honest enough to care.
Because Israel had no role to play in any of this.. Everyone in the region is so utterly obsessed with this amazing country which works so hard to do the right thing and its Zionist creed which is totally benign, all loving, with equal rights and treatment for everyone within its jurisdiction.. They just don’t get it do they… These Arabs Christian and Muslim should be proud to chosen to be thrown out of their legally owned homes by settlers, shot at and often killed by snipers on the regular, detained without charge for decades, have their children detained have zero rights under the laws and no access to representation have to endure the “mowing of the lawn” in Gaza( Israel’s spokesmen’s official euphemism for carpet bombing and blockades known as “keeping them on a diet”.. ) ensuring no freedom of movement, students forbidden to travel after being awarded Fulbright scholarships in the U.S. Honestly, they are such an ungrateful bunch for not bowing down to their overlords in “the only democracy in the Middle East” They deserve whatever Israel decides they should get.
Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist, particularly when you take the break up of the Ottoman Empire including the establishment of Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan into account? If you haven't done, you should particularly look at the establishment of Greece and how non-Greeks aka non-Orthodox including the Jews of Thessalonica were forced to move. If you want to talk settler-colonizers, shall we talk about the Ottoman Turks and what they did to the people of the Byzantine Empire? Or Russia and how it took over the various stans? Or China?
The answer of course is that Israel does exist. 9 million people of many ethnic backgrounds and religions live there. It has armed forces and functioning economy. The UN recognised its right to exist after the bloody war at its inception where the Palestinians were badly let down by their leadership (a recurring theme) And Israel has a right to defend its borders.
Second that given what happened before and during WW2 should it have a special mandate to take in Jewish refugees in order to avoid another Holocaust as other countries including the US refused? I think it should. There was a definite need for one country but it should have been a last resort, only to be used in case of dire emergency option.
However the best way to ensure that provision was never used was to ensure that Jews were made to feel safe and not under threat in other countries so as to avoid population pressure. In other words, it was a safety valve which should never or very rarely have to have been used.
What actually happened? What did the Arab countries including those who had been part of the multi-cultural Ottoman empire do in the 1950s,those supposed friends of the Palestinians, particularly the displaced Palestinians? They decided to overwhelm Israel by imposing harsh conditions on the Jewish population and in many cases kicked them out. Israel was nearly overwhelmed but they managed to cope. Rather than keeping the Arab Jews in camps much as the Arab states such as Jordan or Egypt did to the displaced Palestinians, they resettled them in vacant homes and made them citizens. The Palestinians remain without a proper homeland and stuck in permanent camps. The Arab countries imho have been false friends to the Palestinians.
And then you can add Khomeini into the mix and his belief that the only way to ensure some glorious worldwide caliphate to is to provoke a fiery confrontation with the Jew. His religion was that of the takfiri movement which looks back to supposed heyday of Islam in the 7th century when various petty kingdoms were battling in the shadow of the Byzantine empire and just before the Ottoman Turks came on the scene. The Takfiri movement rises after the fall of the Ottoman caliphate and is a bottom up rather than a top down movement and is a direct reaction at Ataturk's secularization/Westernization of Turkey (both were trying to answer the question why did the Ottoman caliphate fail so badly) but I am sure you know all this. He used the Palestinian grievance as a way to further his aims, and the IRGC continues to do this not because they have any regard for the Palestinians but because they consider them expendable pawns.
Unfortunately the Palestinians have believed in these false friends who promised much but only delivered misery and are now paying a even more terrible price. The ordinary Palestinians deserve far better. They deserve a leadership which is dedicated to ensuring that their people thrive and are able to dance the traditional Arab dances, the ones which Hamas banned. (See the videos from the Centre for Peace Communications about what life was like for Gazans under Hamas fore example) A leadership which puts the safety of its people first and builds bomb shelters before terror tunnels. A leadership which chooses wise counsel and steadfast friends rather than false ones. I hope they get this.
I hope they decide to live in an honourable peace with recognised borders and a settlement can be reached. I hope then they prosper beyond all imagining.
I hope that when that happens Jewish people no longer feel the need to flee to Israel and put further population pressure on an already crowded area. I hope the moderates and not the ultra religious take charge in Israel.
I hope that takfiri movement worldwide withers as similar movements have done in the past (the Ottomans also fought against this) and that moderate/secular Islam comes to the fore once again. I personally dislike the totalitarian strands of all the Abrahamic religions and prefer the more moderate versions.
It is disheartening that so much effort that is deliberately dishonest, would sway so many people into believing this propaganda. Even more disheartening is the damage to our countries resulting from it.
I remember your excellent article when it was released. The fact that the NYT editor was not convinced shows me they didn’t/don’t understand the situation and were perhaps looking to off-ramp it. If you were to submit an update to this one, would you be met with the same situation? IMHO It’s worth testing this.
Our diminished and deteriorating education system has given us many in the population who have no knowledge of history - ancient, the past century, and current events. It is tremendously sad to see what’s happened.
Try stating in a Substack comments section, this one excepted, that Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed JFK and watch what happens. You will be insulted by idiots: ridiculed as a hopeless cuck, indicted as an agent of The Deep State, told that you are simply too childish to grapple with the harshness of life.
And no, they really don't know anything. Years ago, I was acquainted with a man who had been born in 1964. I would describe him as being of average intelligence, bright enough to have done a little exploration on his own. He was shocked when I told him that the Oliver Stone film, "JFK," was an evil fantasia. It took him a few moments to find a way through his bafflement for himself. Finally, he said in complete seriousness, "I thought that movie was the truth! Are you sure?"
It's stunning to me that apparently a notable percentage of the American public believes we never landed anyone on the Moon. Not long ago on Facebook, I tried to convince someone of the preposterousness of the idea. First, I pointed out that if nothing else, the thirty or so men who comprised the astronaut corps in the 1960s would have made a hoax impossible. They were among America's best fighter/test pilots, neurotically responsible, obsessed with honor, driven to perform. Not for a moment could they have been persuaded to participate in such a thing.
Add to that the hundreds of other NASA personnel who would have had to cooperate, the aeronautical engineers, astrophysicists, computer programmers, and mathematicians. Add to that the thousands of sailors on our naval destroyers who pulled bobbing space capsules out of the ocean, and, oh yes, the hundreds more movie/TV tech people who would have been needed to connive in such a thing.
Of course, I concluded, the single most important thing for such a conspiracy to have succeeded would have been the moral flimsiness of everyone involved. None of them would have had any integrity. All of them would have to have been read by The Deep State as being easily corruptible. But, I finished, the threat of immediate liquidation by The Deep State wouldn't have been sufficient to keep many people from going to the media, the astronauts, especially, almost all of whom had been courting violent death in their work for many years.
All futile. "I don't care what you say! It never happened!"
It is disheartening and as I said at the time (or shortly thereafter), the money trail should be followed. It has morphed into the 'omni-cause' and is now closely associated with extreme climate change protest (see Greta Thunberg, the antics of the Ecologist or indeed the Fossil Free Books movement in the UK. FFB came very close to imposing a BDS resolution on the Society of Authors earlier this year. They even offered to pay for subscriptions if people would be willing to vote for certain resolutions.
I suspect it is because they prey on ignorance. Most people do not know how Gaza was run by Hamas or indeed how Lebanon was by Hezbollah or Iran by the IRGC. See the Centre for Peace Communications for testimony on life under Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah expose is on going but it has helped me spot various untruths which have been published in UK newspapers or just the uncritical publication of photos (ie the Mahdi Scouts are not benign and not part of the wider Scouting movement but rather an indoctrination into Hezbollah militarism). The video about the former drug runner made me aware of the drug catagen (Hezbollah is the world's largest producer) and how it is used to deaden emotions and create a state of euphoria (among other things it makes the user think they are participating in a video game rather than carrying out barbarous acts).
When I watched the BBC documentary Storyville: Surviving 7 October We Will Dance Again (available on iplayer and Paramount+) which details the Nova festival using testimony from people who survived, footage from their phones and indeed footage from Hamas, it was quite clear the Hamas fighters had taken the drug. I would recommend the documentary be viewed by everyone, particularly young people who like to party. Although I doubt if those who need to see it the most will watch it and take it in. I was very angry at what was done to those innocents. They were very much 'lambs to the slaughter'.
One does have to keep fighting the disinformation. Thank you (and your wife) for fighting the good fight.
No state has a right to exist, they are legal /political constructs. However people indigenous to the land deserve to live freely and equally amongst others also from the same land regardless of their religious or ethnic background.. you can carry out all the mental gymnastics and verbiage you like, doesn’t change the fact, that Zionist governments have continuously sabotaged every single peace negotiation.. the one that got close and their Prime Minister was assassinated by one of their own extremists. Israel have the luxury of being able to”flee” to Europe and the US when the going gets tough or when they feel like a holiday or a business trip.. the same cannot be said for millions of Palestinians who are stateless living in refugee camps and subjected to conditions that have been widely condemned by international humanitarian organisations not to mention the United Nations… one side is backed by the most powerful military on the planet the US the other side who are resisting their oppression with whatever they can get their hands on or fabricate… it’s not a balanced equation.. Because this is a contemporary conflict primary evidence exists in massive volumes… it’s plain to see what is really going on for anyone honest enough to care.
Because Israel had no role to play in any of this.. Everyone in the region is so utterly obsessed with this amazing country which works so hard to do the right thing and its Zionist creed which is totally benign, all loving, with equal rights and treatment for everyone within its jurisdiction.. They just don’t get it do they… These Arabs Christian and Muslim should be proud to chosen to be thrown out of their legally owned homes by settlers, shot at and often killed by snipers on the regular, detained without charge for decades, have their children detained have zero rights under the laws and no access to representation have to endure the “mowing of the lawn” in Gaza( Israel’s spokesmen’s official euphemism for carpet bombing and blockades known as “keeping them on a diet”.. ) ensuring no freedom of movement, students forbidden to travel after being awarded Fulbright scholarships in the U.S. Honestly, they are such an ungrateful bunch for not bowing down to their overlords in “the only democracy in the Middle East” They deserve whatever Israel decides they should get.
I am not sure of what your argument is here.
Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist, particularly when you take the break up of the Ottoman Empire including the establishment of Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan into account? If you haven't done, you should particularly look at the establishment of Greece and how non-Greeks aka non-Orthodox including the Jews of Thessalonica were forced to move. If you want to talk settler-colonizers, shall we talk about the Ottoman Turks and what they did to the people of the Byzantine Empire? Or Russia and how it took over the various stans? Or China?
The answer of course is that Israel does exist. 9 million people of many ethnic backgrounds and religions live there. It has armed forces and functioning economy. The UN recognised its right to exist after the bloody war at its inception where the Palestinians were badly let down by their leadership (a recurring theme) And Israel has a right to defend its borders.
Second that given what happened before and during WW2 should it have a special mandate to take in Jewish refugees in order to avoid another Holocaust as other countries including the US refused? I think it should. There was a definite need for one country but it should have been a last resort, only to be used in case of dire emergency option.
However the best way to ensure that provision was never used was to ensure that Jews were made to feel safe and not under threat in other countries so as to avoid population pressure. In other words, it was a safety valve which should never or very rarely have to have been used.
What actually happened? What did the Arab countries including those who had been part of the multi-cultural Ottoman empire do in the 1950s,those supposed friends of the Palestinians, particularly the displaced Palestinians? They decided to overwhelm Israel by imposing harsh conditions on the Jewish population and in many cases kicked them out. Israel was nearly overwhelmed but they managed to cope. Rather than keeping the Arab Jews in camps much as the Arab states such as Jordan or Egypt did to the displaced Palestinians, they resettled them in vacant homes and made them citizens. The Palestinians remain without a proper homeland and stuck in permanent camps. The Arab countries imho have been false friends to the Palestinians.
And then you can add Khomeini into the mix and his belief that the only way to ensure some glorious worldwide caliphate to is to provoke a fiery confrontation with the Jew. His religion was that of the takfiri movement which looks back to supposed heyday of Islam in the 7th century when various petty kingdoms were battling in the shadow of the Byzantine empire and just before the Ottoman Turks came on the scene. The Takfiri movement rises after the fall of the Ottoman caliphate and is a bottom up rather than a top down movement and is a direct reaction at Ataturk's secularization/Westernization of Turkey (both were trying to answer the question why did the Ottoman caliphate fail so badly) but I am sure you know all this. He used the Palestinian grievance as a way to further his aims, and the IRGC continues to do this not because they have any regard for the Palestinians but because they consider them expendable pawns.
Unfortunately the Palestinians have believed in these false friends who promised much but only delivered misery and are now paying a even more terrible price. The ordinary Palestinians deserve far better. They deserve a leadership which is dedicated to ensuring that their people thrive and are able to dance the traditional Arab dances, the ones which Hamas banned. (See the videos from the Centre for Peace Communications about what life was like for Gazans under Hamas fore example) A leadership which puts the safety of its people first and builds bomb shelters before terror tunnels. A leadership which chooses wise counsel and steadfast friends rather than false ones. I hope they get this.
I hope they decide to live in an honourable peace with recognised borders and a settlement can be reached. I hope then they prosper beyond all imagining.
I hope that when that happens Jewish people no longer feel the need to flee to Israel and put further population pressure on an already crowded area. I hope the moderates and not the ultra religious take charge in Israel.
I hope that takfiri movement worldwide withers as similar movements have done in the past (the Ottomans also fought against this) and that moderate/secular Islam comes to the fore once again. I personally dislike the totalitarian strands of all the Abrahamic religions and prefer the more moderate versions.
Sometimes the only thing left is hope.