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It's really interesting to watch establishment media congeal around the notion that any speculation of foul play -- or indeed any deviation from the official line of "whoops he killed himself lol" -- is "baseless," to be placed in a category of "conspiracy theories" alongside chemtrails and reptilian overlords, a tragic consequence of the internet's proclivity to spread viral fake news, etc.

I mean, here you had a potential witness who we know may have had the goods on a member of the British royal family and a former U.S. Senator and state Governor, just from the slight trickle of documents that have made it out to the public (in addition to the Miami Herald reporter, we also have conspiracy nutbar Mike Cernovich to thank for that). Both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump had long associations with him. The source of his wealth is an utter black box, which suggests at the very least an absurdly rich benefactor, if not an extensive blackmail scheme or even support from some state actor. There's practically an entire army division's worth of people with their hands on the levers of power who may have had everything to lose if Epstein made it to trial. And Epstein himself was an unrepentant sociopath with delusions of grandeur who hardly fit the profile of a defendant who would off himself.

So far, all we've been told is that he was inexplicably not under 24/7 monitoring, that there may not even be conclusive video evidence of activity in and around his cell, and the body was taken to a hospital somewhere. And we're supposed to think it's just completely off-the-reservation crazy to cast doubt on the official narratives here? Even to think that maybe someone helped create the conditions at the prison under which it was even possible for Epstein to kill himself?

Literally half the world predicted this would happen in the first place! So color me a bit unconvinced that what the conspiracy theories really demonstrate is that the hoi polloi don't know how to distinguish fact from fiction on the internet. And if Bill Clinton didn't want to feature in those theories, well, maybe he could have not taken quite so many rides on the Lolita Express.

Of course, this is all coming from many of the same media sources which spent the first two years of Trump's presidency barking up the tree of secret Russian pee tape kompromat and Putin as the secret puppetmaster of Manchurian Candidate Trump.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20670011

There are perfectly obvious processes of centralization of control taking place in both the political and the industrial system. As far as the political system is concerned in every parliamentary democracy, not only ours, the role of parliament in policy formation has been declining in the years since WWII as everyone knows and political commentators repeatedly point out. The executive, in other words, become increasingly powerful as the planning functions of the state become more significant. The house Armed Services Commitee a couple of years ago described the role of Congress as that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle, who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe, but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and hands over the allowance. And careful studies of civil military decisions since WWII show that this is quite an accurate perception. Senator Vandenberg 20 years ago expressed his fear that the American chief executive would become "the number one warlord of the earth". That has since occurred. The clearest decision is the decision to escalate in Vietnam in February 1965 in cynical disregard of the expressed will of the electorate. This incident reveals I think with perfect clarity the role of the public in decisions about peace and war. The role of the public in decisions about the main lines about public policy in general, and it also suggests the irrelevance of electoral politics to major decisions of national policy.

Unfortunately you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place.

The corporate executives and the corporation lawyers and so on who overwhelmingly staff the executive, assisted increasingly by a university based mandarin class, these people remain in power no matter whom you elect and furthermore it is interesting to note that this ruling elite is pretty clear about its social role.

Noam Chomsky

Talk titled "Government in the Future" at the Poetry Center, New York, February 16, 1970

It’s Facebook. You’re the product, not the customer. The hot dog rolls at the supermarket don’t get a complaint button either.

https://np.reddit.com/r/a ... ok_muted_my_song/en4sm0h/

Der Stil ist die Physiognomie des Geistes. Sie ist untrüglicher als die des Leibes. Affektation im Stil ist dem Gesichterschneiden zu vergleichen.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Noch ein weiterer Umstand muß erwähnt werden, der sich für die Nazis und ihren ungeheuer mächtigen Unterdrückungsapparat als günstig erweist: Die Entwicklung der modernen Technik verschafft den Herrschenden, wie man lange ungenügend verstanden hat, einen Vorteil gegenüber den Beherrschten. Je wirksamer die Waffen werden und je weniger man sich gegen sie schützen kann, desto mehr ist der Bewaffnete den Unbewaffneten überlegen. Die Bastille könnte im Zeitalter der Flugzeuge und des Tränengases nicht erfolgreich erstürmt werden. Mit Gewehren ausgerüstete Bürgerwehren haben keine Chance mehr gegen motorisierte Polizeitruppen; es hat keinen Sinn, Barrikaden gegen eine Regierung zu errichten, die über Panzer verfügt. Und nicht nur die Waffenentwicklung begünstigt im Falle einer Revolution die Machthaber, den Staat gegenüber den einzelnen: Die moderne technische Entwicklung und die damit einhergehende ausgeklügelte Organisation wirken in der gleichen Richtung. Der Verkehr hat dazu geführt, daß die Länder klein geworden sind und sich leicht überwachen lassen. Wie viele Verstecke hab es in einem Land vor hundert Jahren! Jede Macht stieß damals gegen natürliche Schranken! Heute gibt es kein Schlupfloch und keinen Schlupfwinkel mehr für den Rebellen. Selbst die Gedanken, die Mauern zu durchdringen vermögen, sind "steuerbar" geworden, da sie an die massenhafte Verbreitung von Nachrichten, an Rundfunk, Film und Presse, gebunden sind. Wie lange wird es dauern, bis jedes Haus sein eigenes Mikrofon hat und jedes private Wort, wie heute jedes Telefongespräch, abgehört werden kann? Der Ameisenstaat ist nahe. Es ist vielleicht kein Zufall, daß solche Staaten wie Deutschland und Rußland die Technik in den Rang einer Religion erhoben haben. Umgekehrt macht diese Entwicklung der modernen Technik die Bewahrung der Freiheit zu einer Menschheitsaufgabe, die dringlicher denn je ist. Aber das führt zu weit ab vom jetzigen Thema.

Sebastian Haffner

"Germany: Jekyll & Hyde (1939 - Deutschland von innen betrachtet)" (1940), S. 162

Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans.

Hayao Miyazaki

Nur dadurch, dass die Menschen alle Kräfte spannen und einander liebend helfen, erhalten sie sich in einer leidlichen Höhe über einer höllischen Tiefe, nach der sie wollen. Untereinander sind sie durch Seile verbunden, und bös ist es schon, wenn sich um einen die Seile lockern und er ein Stück tiefer sinkt als die andern in den leeren Raum, und gräßlich ist es, wenn die Seile um einen reißen und er jetzt fällt. Darum soll man sich an die andern halten. Ich habe die Vermutung, dass die Mädchen uns oben halten, weil sie so leicht sind, darum müssen wir die Mädchen lieb haben und darum sollen sie uns lieb haben.

Franz Kafka

Brief an Oskar Pollak, 20. Dezember 1903

[Humans] have been genetically programmed through hunting behavior: cooperation and sharing. Cooperation between members of the same band was a practical necessity for most hunting societies; so was the sharing of food. Since meat is perishable in most climates except that of the Arctic, it could not be preserved. Luck in hunting was not equally divided among all hunters; hence the practical outcome was that those who had luck today would share their food with those who would be lucky tomorrow. Assuming hunting behavior led to genetic changes, the conclusion would be that modern man has an innate impulse for cooperation and sharing, rather than for killing and cruelty.

Erich Fromm

"The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness"

Dennoch darf das Element des Verbrechers in keinem Konzentrationslager fehlen. [..] die Tatsache, daß sie fast ausnahmslos die Aristokratie der Lager bildeten und die administrativen Funktionen erfüllten, zeigt deutlich, daß es erheblich schwerer ist, die juristische Person in einem Menschen zu töten, der sich etwas hat zuschulden kommen lassen, als einem völlig Unschuldigen. Der Aufstieg des Verbrechers in die Aristokratie der Lager ähnelt auffallend der Verbesserung, die in der juristischen Lage der Staatenlosen, welche ja auch ihre bürgerlichen Rechte verloren haben, eintritt, sobald sie sich zu einem Diebstahl entschließen.

Hannah Arendt

"Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft", S. 656

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.

Frida Khalo

It really is the central view of, certainly, American and British media stars, that when, especially people with medals on their chests, who are called generals, but also high-ranking officials in the government, make claims, that those claims are presumptively treated as true without evidence, and that it's almost immoral to call them into question, or to question their veracity.

Glenn Greenwald

https://github.com/poppin ... /transcript/transcript.md

The ruling ideology sees to it that subversive discoveries are trivialized and sterilized, after which they can be safely spectacularized.

Guy Debord

Schon steige ich auf springende Säulen der Vision. Ich sehe mich auf dem Lukendeckel des Panzers stehen. Um mich her wogt hungerndes, dürstendes, sehnendes Volk. Und tausend Hände recken sich zum verhüllten Himmel. Ich will mit ihnen sein, ich will die abertausend Hände drücken, bis sie wachsen, immer länger und länger, immer höher und höher, bis sie in den Himmel reichen und den Vorhang zerreißen. Da umfließt es uns in goldner Helle: Frieden, Freiheit!

Eben noch blind und taub vom Strahl und Donner des Krieges, umarmen wir uns mit Kinderträumen im Herzen. Brüder, die Pforte steht uns offen, die Pforte zur Heimkehr in den Geist und die Liebe!

Unter mir aber, im Bauch der Maschine, knattern nicht mehr tödliche Entzündungen, ich höre den friedlichen Hammerschlag des neuen Schaffens, es riecht schon nach Brot und nicht mehr nach Brand. Und aus dem grauen Erz der Panzerwände sprießen die Sonnenstrahlen und reifen zu gelben Ähren. Und in den Armen halte ich die ewige Geliebte der Menschen, die niemals alternde Frau, die Freiheit!

Alle Geister erwachen, die Liebe siegt! Ich will nicht sterben, es ist eine Lust zu leben, und wenn in meinem Leibe tausend Zangen zerren!

Nichts mehr von feiger Selbstzerstörung, ich gebe mir Befehl, ich gebe mir den unumstößlichen Befehl: Du lebst, und du wirst leben! Roland Freisler, ich spotte deiner, du blutiger Hanswurst! Hinab in deine Hölle!

In unsern Panzern fährt der neue Geist. Aus unsern Panzern flammt das lebendige Wort.

Gerhard Schultze-Pfaelzer

"Kampf um den Kopf" (1948), Seite 65

The push for electronic medical records has nothing to do with the delivery of quality health care….it has everything to do with control.

G. Keith Smith

Surgery Center of Oklahoma Blog

Just as bombs follow oil, and drones follow drought, so boats follow both: boats filled with refugees fleeing homes on the aridity line ravaged by war and drought. And the same capacity for dehumanising the other that justified the bombs and drones is now being trained on these migrants, casting their need for security as a threat to ours, their desperate flight as some sort of invading army. Tactics refined on the West Bank and in other occupation zones are now making their way to North America and Europe.

Naomi Klein

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38 ... aomi-klein/let-them-drown

It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.

Stephen Hawking

[..] if one is in touch with one's own unconscious reality, I think one would have to admit that in all of us there is a piece of Eichmann, and if you ask why, on what basis do I say this, then I would ask you whether you have lost your appetite when you read that in India people were starving, or whether you have gone on eating. As soon as you have not lost your appetite, when you knew other people were starving, then your heart has hardened, and in principle, you have done the same which Eichmann did.

I don't think, that if we are really in touch with the inner reality of ourselves, that there is any crime, or perhaps any virtue, which we cannot discover in ourselves. We shut ourselves [off] from the awareness of our inner reality, we project the evil to our opponents and enemies, and believe that the good is in ourselves; individually, nationally, and group-wise in general.

But if you can really see that every one of us, carries all of humanity, the good and the evil, within himself, then indeed is very hard to be a fanatic, then indeed it's very hard to be a judge, then indeed would follow, a deep understanding, if not love, of your fellow man. Which is part of being truly a person.

Erich Fromm

lecture called "The Automaton Citizen"