#they really really love him. and he’s just out here spreading false ideology that will both abstractly and directly harm them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ultfreakme · 3 years

Text

Some To Veer the Tides notes

Yes I know no one cares about this kinda shit but I worked hard on creating this fic and need to get this out of my system because it’s literally only in my brain and echoing in there and disrupting my life. This is just word vomit. If, for some reason, you actually got through all the currently 50k + words of my akafuri fic and want some more, here’s some notes-

Overarching themes:

1. Sun and Moon

When it comes to AkaFuri, I use a lot of comparisons to sun, the sunlight, and metaphors regarding the sun. It plays a huge role, at least in my fics, in defining their relationship. Akashi seems to be influenced by the sun a lot. In his manga introduction, he was standing right in front of it, the light hiding his face(as far as I remember), and it stayed in my mind. He’s unreachable, and even if you manage to get close you get burnt. It can be cruel and kind, and it colours the sky in so many different colours and the one I most often remember when thinking of Akashi is the setting sun when the sky is red but the sun is this blazing ball of orange. (something like this)

Furihata’s always been filtered sun rays, the ones that peek through clouds, coming down like rain through leaves of trees. He’s Komorebi. His aesthetic and presence are meant to be gentle in the manga and he looks it. He looks sorta wispy and soft, the most beautiful and gentle form of sunlight to me. But it’s not something too many people think about because you get caught up in the grand colours of the sun.

(the pictures are here to make this less tedious. Also, nature’s cool.)

But they’re the one and the same. In the end they’re of the sun, from the sun.

In To Veer the Tides, a lot of the hard-hitting and emotional scenes happen based on the sun.

- Their first conversation was in the dead of the night which is neither of their domain. They haven’t met eye to eye it’s a dodgy interaction where both of them are hesitant. Their first kiss was in the night too. A kiss may seem like progress but it was the worst possible decision to have been made then.

- The time at the field was in full sunlight and it was the first time they met eye to eye.

- One thing I was giddy writing, was Furihata’s birthday. It starts at night, they aren’t meeting eye to eye, Furihata’s not having a good time and everything sucks. But as the night goes on and it gets close to sunlight, they slowly start to understand something with each other. Furihata was so averse to Akashi until the gift moment and suddenly he’s like. “Okay fuck what is happening I was planning on avoiding you forever.”

Was it annoying trying to line up events to time of days? Yes. Did I do it? Abso-fucking-lutely because I’m horny for symbolism in stories.

Now the MOON. In this fic, Nijimura is the moon. Sun and Moon parallels are the bread and butter of romantic analogies and the “we’re totally bros” (a no-homo cannot fix this) build-up in queerbaiting anime targeted at boys which are enjoyed better by people who aren’t cishet men.

Akashi and Nijimura are like that. One can’t live without the other, they depend on each other. They are seemingly different but of equal importance. I straight up said it in chapter one. In this fic, NijiAka are the soulmates. But the fic is called ‘To Veer the Tides” right? It’s about defying fate and what’s supposedly set in stone. It’s about Akashi learning that just because you are always winning doesn’t mean you can’t lose, and that just because you hit rock bottom doesn’t mean you can’t get back up.

Also, I do love the idea of two people being made for each other, fitting perfectly, but I love the idea of two people loving each other enough to say “fuck it!” to fate just to be together more.

Had the siege at Rakuzan not happened, NijiAka would’ve been satisfied and happy together, it would’ve been perfect. For Akashi and Furihata to be anything real, I feel like something radical would have to happen because, as we all know, it’s a crack pair.

(Even MayuAka falls into the Sun & Moon, Light & Shadow analogy. No hate to both ships, y’all actually have canon backing ;_; which is always fun.)

We as shippers and artists are what made it something legit. You could hypothetically ship Kawahara and Kagami but literally no one does and just the idea of it sounds a little ridiculous right? Well AkaFuri is like that for people who don’t get it. But then we made it into something plausible (and the cute art and fics dragged me in, man akafuri creators are convincing).

ANYWAYS- something stupid and impossible needs to happen for AkaFuri to have a chance- and where did our beloved ship originate? When the blessed Chihuahua-Lion thing happened and Akashi, THE AKASHI SEIJUUROU, miscalculated. Something that shouldn’t be happening, happened. And Akashi fell so hard. It was a ripple effect from Furihata standing up against Akashi, the making that basket, Seirin getting pumped up again, etc(I’m not saying “uwaaaah Furihata caused that” cuz he didn’t, Kuroko’s responsible for pushing Akashi to change but shipper brainrot dictates that I mention it).

So something like that needed to happen. Thus, Akashi fell.

2. Flowers

I started it for the aesthetics. Pretty boys in flowy clothes surrounded by flower symbolism. That’s how it began and then I accidentally put plot in it. It’s not as heavy as the Sun and Moon comparisons, but they do have a level of significance. Chrysanthemums are symbols of royalty and prestige in Japan, so obviously the Akashis get that. Camellias are for faithfulness. Zinnias, are for loyalty and perseverance. The flowers define the House, the state they’re in and the clans.

The biggest moment was with the Kiku and Niko story in chapter 12.

3. The concept of being truthful

The story, to one extent, is about how hypocritical and broken some of the land’s ideologies. If you look at it past the romance, it’s about how literally no one is sticking to the virtues of the land, or the basic decencies of being a human being. In canon, Akashi’s the ‘villain’.

I disagree.

The true villain of KNB are the adults. Teikou pushed middle school children into hierarchies in a basketball club just to keep up the prestige of their name. The coaches never approached the kids when they were emotionally broken and needed someone to ground them. Akashi’s dad pushed him so far that he developed a mental disorder.

We never see the actual villains and they’re never defeated. This is because in reality, the children are powerless. KNB lasts just one school year. What about when they get out? What happens when they face the real villains?

That’s what happens in this fic. They’re all more aged up, but Akashi suffered his worst defeat as a child in the conflict of adults. Now that he’s grown up, he stands a chance. The entire fic is, to an extent, the cruelty of the adults and the powerful.

People go on and on about honesty, truthfulness and being honourable but no one is, and no one should try to be so rigidly perfect. These phrases or virtues according to which people are supposed to live are taken to be used whenever it’s convenient for them.

Seirin is the biggest example of this because that’s where a lot of the story takes place. “Honesty Above”, but they’re always gossiping and rumours keep spreading like wildfire there. False and romanticized rumours. It’s what Akashi depends on to brush up on his reputation and it works.

Akashi didn’t really do much good in the grand scheme of things but his closeness to Furihata, Kawahara and Fukuda along with ratting out on Yuito and Toshi was enough to sort of sway their opinions on him. People used to be terrified of him in the main house but after a while he gets respect (though imposing and kinda scary).

Yes I’m trying to be a pretentious fuck but I’m no….idk insert awesome writer who actually can handle these kinda things. Writing like this is difficult ngl and I accidentally create analogies I don’t intend because of the already existing stuff.

Eg: To Veer the Tides- Nijimura’s the moon. What can ACTUALLY veer the tides and is associated with it? The moon. But Nijimura doesn’t have that big of a part in the story.

Anyways, here’s my word vomit. You can use these analogies for your fics to and jump off these ideas cause’ I need more fics dang it ;_;

#akafuri #furiaka #tvtt #to veer the tides #i made tha tag to keep track of my shit lol #knb #kuroko no basuke

6 notes · View notes

flutteringphalanges · 4 years

Photo

Summary: It is public knowledge that Zoe Van Helsing is the last of her blood line. Not to mention that, in a sense, Count Dracula is too. However, after an unexpected night of passion, both their lives dramatically change when Zoe becomes pregnant. Two unconventional parents, one extraordinary pregnancy. What could go wrong?

Rating: M

Pairings: Zoe Van Helsing/Dracula implied Agatha/Dracula

Read on FFN and AO3

A/N: Holy cow! This is one of the longest chapters I’ve written for anything in a long time! I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is greatly loved and appreciated! Stay safe and healthy! -Jen

Chapter Five

Courtship. The ideology behind romance to begin with never had settled with Zoe. If anything, one might argue she was married to her work. Dedicated. She'd had no time for dating, especially when it came to Count Dracula. But there she was, standing in a clothing store, feeling as if the very walls were closing in on her because she let it slip to one of her friends that she had an evening planned with a man that night.

"So you aren't even going to tell me who?" Meg, a fellow scientist at the Jonathan Harker Foundation, asked with a wide grin. "Is it Randall from Security?"

"Yes, because I find a man who sucks cheese puff powder off of his fingers and lacks the decency to use deodorant highly attractive," Zoe rolled her eyes. "And it isn't a date. It's more like a business meeting."

"He's cooking you dinner, Zo," the woman laughed, rifling through a rack of dresses. "If that doesn't spell romantic, I don't know what does. Here," she thrust a floral printed pink dress into the other woman's arms. "Anyway, can you at least humor me with where you met lover boy?"

"Oh God," the scientist moaned. "Please do not refer to him as that. Ever. I just started to get over my morning sickness." Zoe paused, trying to ignore Meg's pleading expression. "...If you must know, we met on the beach." She decided not to go with any further details on that account. The last thing she needed was for Meg to eventually put two and two together.

Meg squealed like a teenager and it took every bit of Zoe's energy not to conk her in the head. "That is literally the picture perfect setting for a romance novel. Oh, and this one," she draped another dress, this one yellow spotted, over the pregnant woman's forearm. "Is he cute? Tall, dark, and handsome?"

"Tall and dark," the other woman muttered. "But not in the way you're thinking." Macabre was a more fitting description. Handsome she didn't intend on going down that path. "Really, Meg, I appreciate the help, but this isn't a date. I'm just going over to chat. And trust me, it's the last thing I want to do." Hoping maybe to prove her point more, she motioned to the dresses. "I shouldn't even bother wearing something nice."

"Oh please, Zoe, you need new clothes anyway," Meg exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "Your closet looks like you came from the late 1800's." She shook her head, ignoring the other woman's glare. "Besides, you're pregnant. You need to expand your wardrobe to accommodate, well…"

Meg didn't need to finish her statement for Zoe to know what she was getting at. Absentmindedly, the scientist's free hand rested on the swell of her stomach. Accommodation. That certainly was one way to put it. It was better than openly expressing that she was outgrowing her normal clothes. Twice as fast as most expecting women. She had the twins to thank for that.

"I suppose there isn't any harm in stocking up." The woman finally admitted, Meg's eyes lighting up at her friend's surrender. "But I'm not doing it for him. There's nothing wrong with wanting to look good for myself."

"Whatever you say, Zoe." Meg smirked, taking a few dresses from her as they walked to the counter. "Anyway, he sounds like the ideal guy. I mean, showing interest in you despite the fact that you're about to have not one, but two babies." She paused, turning to meet her friend's gaze. "He does know you're pregnant right?"

Oh did he ever. It was his fault anyway. He'd been the one to knock her up in the first place. But admitting that to someone like Meg. Someone, who despite she loved dearly, had an issue with keeping her mouth shut and spreading the world's secrets to all. She inhaled, laying the dresses onto the counter before settling on an answer.

"Yes," she replied. And it wasn't exactly a lie. Just not the full truth. "He is aware of my pregnancy. It doesn't seem to concern him." Not in the slightest unfortunately.

"Who knows," Meg grinned widely. "Maybe if things work out, he could be your dream daddy! Knight of the dirty diapers! King of spit up, clean up! The royal…" She stopped abruptly when Zoe shot her a disapproving glare. "Look, Zo, all I'm saying is that this can be really good for you. Give the man a chance. Whoever he is. You of all people deserve to be happy."

"Yeah." Zoe muttered un-enthusiastically, retrieving her credit card from her purse. "If you say so."

Her idea of true happiness was being away from that vampire as far as possible. Especially with their-her children on the way. Christ, Meg merely suggesting that Dracula being the ideal family man and husband…No, she'd certainly have none of that.

As she grabbed the bulging bags of dresses and followed Meg out, she made a mental note to make a mock-tail of some sort once she arrived back home. She couldn't have alcohol, but she could at least pretend. Maybe then the disturbing images would vanish from her mind. Hopefully.

XXX

"If it were me, I'd go with that baggy pair of sweatpants of yours and that stained t-shirt in the closet? You know the one I'm referring to. I believe it's blue and has the name of that fish and chips restaurant you like so much?"

Zoe did her best to ignore Agatha's advice as she slipped into a navy blue dress. Simple. Nothing that particularly stood out. She didn't want to impress him, but at least look presentable at the clinic. Studying herself in the mirror, it was hard not to smile a little when her eyes landed on her stomach. What an odd thought it was knowing that two tiny...well, half humans had inhabited her womb. Growing rapidly day by day. Soon enough she'd be able to hold both of them in her arms-something she was greatly looking forward to.

"Despite your clear assumption, I am not dressing for Count Dracula." Zoe said as she glimpsed at her late niece's reflection in the glass. "I'm just fond of this dress."

"Yes, but you don't tend to wear those very often do you?" The woman frowned deeply at the ghost's words. "Do not go down an even slipperier slope, Zoe. Vampires are tricksters. He could reel you in before you even realized that he had."

"Patronizing me wouldn't get you anywhere." The scientist exclaimed as she gave her appearance one last look. "I am far more intelligent than you give me credit for. Not that this is, or has been, any of your concern to begin with."

Before the spirit could reply, there was a rhythmic knock at the front door. Grinding her teeth together, Zoe strode over and peered through the peephole. She was met by Dracula's wide grin as he stared right back at her. When he gave a friendly wave, she couldn't help but groan and pulled the door open.

"Are you going to invite me in?" The vampire inquired pleasantly. "You look quite lovely by the way. That dress does wonders." It was hard to tell if it was a genuine compliment or blatant sarcasm. It was difficult to know with him. "Well?"

"I suppose I don't have much of a choice…" Zoe exhaled as she stepped to the side. "Count Dracula, it is a great honor to allow you passage into my humble abode."

"Moody I see." Dracula commented as he entered. "Though I do appreciate the flair for the dramatic." His eyes immediately fell to her stomach, lips curving into a grin. "Twelve weeks?"

"Thirteen," she muttered. Christ, why did he have to stare at her like that? "We should get going if we don't want to be late. I could've just met you there, you know. I know how to operate a vehicle."

"I just thought this would allow us more bonding time." The Count responded as he reached to grab Zoe's fleece jacket from the coat rack. She didn't take it. "It's cold." He remarked with a slight frown. "And the waiting room is just as chilly."

"I'll take my chances." The scientist replied, pushing past the man.

She could feel Agatha's eyes staring at the back of her neck as she went. It didn't help matters when Dracula decided to bring the coat along anyway. Why was it so hard for people to just listen to her? When the vampire opened up the car door to let her in, she grew even more irritated. The Count could act as gentlemanly as he liked, but he'd always be just a bloodthirsty killer. Literally.

"Are you always so anti-social?" Dracula asked as he pulled onto the road. "You know, that isn't how you make friends."

"Shut up," Zoe grumbled. "And I'll have you know, I have plenty of friends."

"Really? Like who?"

The scientist snorted loudly at his question. "Do you honestly think I'd tell you? The last thing I need is for you to go about draining them dry." She folded her arms over her chest and stared idly out of the window. "I don't need you invading my social circles."

"That's a shame." He exhaled, though his disappointment was clearly false. "I came across this lovely little app that allows you to hook up with people."

Zoe grew rigid in her seat. An app? What was he talking about? "What do you mean an app?" The woman asked, trying not to sound at all interested. "A dating app?"

"Well," he shrugged. "I suppose you could use it for that. But I use it for other things."

She knew what he meant. It didn't take an expert. And yet, the idea that he was using it to find "victims" didn't upset her. No. No, it was the fact that it was a dating app. A strange sensation began to bubble in the pit of her stomach. An emotion that almost horrified her at the thought. Jealousy.

"Those things are rigged." She explained, trying to maintain her cool. "You could easily be cat-fished. I would've expected you to be smarter than to use some silly old site." Why should she even care? Why did she care? "I wouldn't bother with one of those."

Dracula looked at her in amusement as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of reacting further, she got out of the car and began to speed walk towards the entrance. She was so caught up in trying to get away from him that she didn't notice the small pot hole in the pavement. The tip of her shoe caught itself on the edge sending Zoe tumbling towards the ground. Just as she was about to hit the pavement, someone grabbed her from behind.

"Didn't anyone teach you not to run in the street?"

Zoe, still a little shaken, turned her head to see that her "hero of the day" was none other than the Lord of Darkness himself. Pulling away from his awkward embrace, she stabilized herself. He wasn't smirking. Or chuckling for that matter. Actually, he looked a little concerned.

"Are you alright?" He ventured, his eyes scanning her.

"I'm...fine," she decided. "Thank you for that." Blood began to rush to her cheeks and suddenly she felt rather hot. "Let's just go in. We're already running late."

Neither spoke as they made their way to the Obstetrics and Gynecology ward. Something that Zoe was more than fine with. After she signed in, she took her seat beside Dracula-who, currently, was immersed in a magazine about water birth.

"This sounds intriguing." He commented, pointing to an image of a very pregnant woman sitting in a plastic tub with her partner. "Shall I tear it out for future reference?"

"I'm not getting naked in a tub with you!" She hissed, snatching the paper away. "Giving birth or for pleasure."

Tossing the magazine aside, Zoe was relieved when a nurse leaned out of the door and called her back. Dracula was the first to rise, offering his hand to the doctor to help her up. Ignoring him completely, the woman stood up unaided and the two filed into the back.

"Go behind the curtain while I change into the gown." Zoe instructed as she snatched up the folded clothes. "I'll let you know when you can come out."

"I've already seen you naked before." Dracula called out as she yanked the blind in front of him. "And I'm sure it will happen again!"

"In your dreams." Zoe muttered, slipping into the outfit. God, how unsightly it made her look. Frowning, she ran a hand through her hair. "Alright, you're allowed back in."

Dracula grinned as he reappeared. "I preferred the other dress," he commented. "But I suppose I could also adjust to this one."

Before Zoe could snap back, the door opened and Dr. Clyde strode in. He smiled at the two, clearly not realizing the current feud happening. Throwing one last glare at Dracula, the scientist slid onto the examination table and forced a smile onto her face.

"Zoe, it's so lovely to see you." Dr Clyde expressed giving her a warm handshake. "And you as well." Dracula smirked at the recognition and the woman did her best not to snarl. "Let's have a look at your twins. It's been a few weeks, hasn't it."

The paper lining the bed crinkled as Zoe laid back feeling uncomfortably exposed. As the obstetrician pulled the ultrasound machine over, the vampire moved closer to her side. If he tried to reach for her hand, she would, without a doubt, do her best to rip it off.

"And how have you been feeling?" The doctor asked, preparing the gel to smear across her abdomen. "Nausea starting to settle down? Any spotting or bleeding?"

"None." Zoe replied, going slightly ridged as the cold slime touched her bare skin. "I've been feeling okay."

"That's perfect," Dr. Clyde grinned, grabbing the probe. "That's exactly what we liked to hear!" He began to run the device across her lower stomach. "And…" Suddenly, the room was filled with the sound of familiar thumping. It was as if a weight had been lifted off Zoe's shoulders. "There we go! Heartbeats located!"

Dracula and Zoe both peered up at the screen at the two blobs that looked much more human in appearance. Their blobs. The vampire smiled proudly as he studied the images carefully.

"Are they healthy?" Dracula asked, turning to the doctor. "Functional?" Functional. Zoe rolled her eyes at the word. "Why are they so close together?"

"Actually, a very valid question." The man smiled, taking his mouse to point at what seemed to be a thin line. A membrane. "It's around this stage that we can confirm what sort of twins we are dealing with. Fraternal or identical, I mean. And your two…" Again, he pointed at the screen. "Are, without a doubt, identical."

Identical. Identical. Jesus H. Christ. She was giving birth to clones! Well, not clones in the sense of copies of something. Well, they would look just like each other. How the hell was she supposed to tell them apart?! She didn't sign up to be pregnant. She didn't sign up for twins. And she sure as Hell didn't anticipate them being carbon copies of each other!

"Zoe? Zoe, are you alright?"

It was the sound of Dracula's voice that snapped her back into reality. When their eyes met, she was surprised how genuinely concerned he looked. Evidently her internal panic attack must've been a little external. She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. It was going to be okay. Everything was going to be just fine. She just needed to keep her grip on the string of her balloon of sanity and not let go.

"I'm fine." She assured them, nodding her head. "Just a lot to take in."

The two little creatures on the screen moved. Zoe watched as their little stubby limbs disappearing in and out of view as the doctor guided the probe around. Identical. She was still in utter shock, there was no denying that, but she already loved them dearly. Even though their father was Dracula. And that she might lose her mind figuring out which baby was which. They were her's and God she'd do anything for them.

"When can we learn the gender?" Zoe asked, her attention turning to the doctor. "Is it too soon?"

"Not for awhile, I'm afraid." Dr. Clyde admitted, wiping a towel across Zoe's midsection. "It's easiest to tell around eighteen to twenty weeks. There are ways to test earlier, but I'd suggest waiting. You're only a month or two away."

Zoe couldn't help but scowl as Dracula immediately grabbed the ultrasound images from the OBGYN. Proudly, he carefully folded them up and slipped them into his wallet. She made a mental note to attempt to reclaim them later on. They were equally her's after all.

"It was wonderful seeing you both again and I'm glad things are going well." Dr. Clyde smiled as he walked the couple out. "I'll have the receptionist schedule you for an appointment in a few weeks. Just to keep track since you are high risk. But no concerns whatsoever right now." He paused in the doorway. "If you have any questions, please feel free to call me and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible!"

It had begun to rain as they exited the hospital. When Dracula produced an umbrella, Zoe was not too shocked by it. The vampire always seemed to have many tricks up his sleeve. Though the idea of being close to him made her shutter, being wet wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling. Sucking it up, she got underneath and kept up his pace.

The drive from the clinic to Dracula's flat wasn't a long one which spared the need for small talk. Already the storm had begun to pass, the light of the moon reflecting in the puddles. The vampire seemed to move with more purpose and Zoe couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to avoid looking into them. Finally reaching the front door, the Count grabbed the knob and pulled it open.

"Ladies first." He smiled, motioning for the woman to enter.

Zoe frowned softly, but did as he said. Her eyes scanned the room as she took in the sight around her. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The past few times she visited, every appeared to be in order. Placing her purse on a nearby table, she took a seat on a leather couch. It felt surprisingly good to be off her feet.

"It's nice to have someone to cook for that I don't intend on having for dinner later." Dracula commented, moving towards the fridge to retrieve some ingredients. "I'll have you know I went great lengths to make this perfect. Farm's markets don't operate at night. I had to send Frank out to purchase what I needed." The smirk that plastered itself on his face made her want to smother him with a pillow. "Only the best for the mother of my children."

She didn't give him the satisfaction of a response as she settled back into the soft cushions. Exhaustion. That feeling was becoming more apparent as her pregnancy progressed. Though she dared not admit that to Dracula. He'd insist on her staying the night and she knew what happened last time when she did that.

"Where did you even learn to cook?" The scientist asked, hoping that talking would keep her alert. "It's not like you need to eat regular food."

"Over the years you pick up skills." Dracula replied simply, dumping chopped vegetables into a sizzling pan. "Besides, I have guests to impress. It wouldn't look good if I wasn't a proper host."

"No," she sighed. "I guess it wouldn't."

It was almost relaxing observing him work. He did so with surprising grace. Zoe couldn't help but secretly wish Agatha was here to berate her for her decisions. At least that would've stifled the yawn she'd been trying so hard to suppress.

"Tired are we?" The vampire inquired, looking up from a pot of boiling water. "You are more than welcome to lay down and take a snooze."

"I'm fine." Zoe insisted, forcing her eyes to open wider as she pushed herself up. "I'm just bored."

"The remote is on the lamp table beside you." He informed her as he returned his attention to the food. "There are hundreds of channels to watch on there. Surely you can find one to suit your desires."

Television hadn't exactly been a preferred choice of entertainment for Zoe. A novel or, at the most, an audio-book was more her style. Despite that, she grabbed the clicker and turned the thing on. Flipping through the channels, she skimmed through the various sports, music competitions, before deciding on BBC Knowledge. Nothing wrong with a good, old documentary.

As she watched the bold logo appear on the screen her nerves began to settle. At least her mind could be focused elsewhere than her current, problematic situations. That immediately changed when the title of the episode popped up: An Exploration into the Lives of Nuns Throughout the Centuries. Immediately she clicked it off, tossing the remote to the side.

"Done already?" Dracula asked, eyeing her with a cocked brow.

"Nothing of interest," she lied. "Are you almost finished? I'd like to get home at a decent hour."

"You're in luck." The vampire replied, grabbing a plate of something. Whatever it was, the smell wafted through the air. Intoxicating. Rich. And her stomach growled with hunger. "Come sit at the table."

Reluctantly, she stood up and made her way over to the dining room table. There were at least two positives when it came to having dinner with Dracula. The first being that even if she wasn't pregnant, he wouldn't poison her. That would certainly ruin his meal. And, of course, the obvious one. She was carrying his children. He seemed very intent on having a part in their lives-even though she was very intent on keeping that from happening.

"What is it?" Zoe asked as she sat down, eyeing the plate warily as he placed it in front of her.

Thick, speckled with herbs spaghetti noodles drenched in a rich, red sauce that was topped with a breaded piece of meat-chicken perhaps-sat before her on a white plate. God, did it look good. Almost too good to eat. She looked to Dracula who was smiling proudly at his dish.

"Chicken Parmesan." He stated as he took the seat opposite of her. "With less garlic than the recipe called for, of course." How thoughtful. "Well go on," he nodded. "At least try it."

Narrowing her eyes at him, she grabbed her fork. Taking the smallest amount possible on the tongs, she placed the bite into her mouth. So one could really experience an orgasm in their mouth. Zoe chewed it carefully, savoring the flavors.

"Well?" The Count ventured. "What's my Yelp rating?"

"It's...edible…" She admitted as she went in for another forkful. "I'm impressed that you know how to do more than just suck blood."

"I appreciate the compliment." He smiled, folding his hands onto the table. "Now, now that we're settled down, I think we should talk about the twins." The scientist stiffened at his statement. "We have our differences, Zoe. But I have an equal right over them too."

"They're babies," she glowered. "They aren't something to trade around like a prize. After all of your literal crimes against humanity, what makes you think you are suited to be a father? I'm willing to fight you for them." It wouldn't be that easy and she very well knew it. It just felt good to threaten him. "You don't deserve a family."

"A rather harsh statement." The vampire replied with a nod. "But I suppose I have done some questionable things in that past." He paused before adding. "And perhaps in the present as well." Dracula leaned back in his seat and continued. "Although, it isn't fair of you to immediately assume that I would be a toxic parent without allowing me to prove myself first."

Zoe let out a sharp laugh. "What makes you think you have the right to even ask me to do that?" Her fork clanked against the bottom of her dish. "It was my mistake of even telling you that I was pregnant in the first place. I should've kept my mouth shut. Then I wouldn't have to deal with your shit!"

"I don't want to argue with you, Zoe," Dracula said with a frown. "I invited you over and cooked you dinner in the hopes we could discuss this like adults." He fell silent for a moment seeming to consider something. "Come with me."

"Why?" She snapped, her arms folding over her chest. "Do you plan to hold me captive until you can claim my children?"

"Can I show you something without you immediately jumping down my back?" He asked coolly, rising up from his chair. "I want to show you something."

Part of her wondered if she could reach the front door fast enough to get out without him catching her. Knowing that wasn't a possibility, she ceded and reluctantly followed the vampire. When they stopped in front of a room, Dracula flipped a switch and a beam of light lit up the interior.

Zoe gawked in astonishment at what she saw. The walls were painted an off-white, decorated by framed pictures of shades of green and gray abstract shapes. There was a french dresser sandwiched between two changing tables and the highlight of it all, two beautifully crafted cribs. A nursery. The bastard had installed a nursery!

"You…" She swallowed hard, hands balling into fists. "You did this?"

"Well, it's not finished yet." Dracula explained as he stepped inside. "But it is a step in the right direction, don't you think?"

Not one thing. She hadn't gotten a single thing for the twins. She sure as hell wasn't anywhere close to being able to create a nursery. Where would she even put the damn thing?! And now here he was, goddamn parent of the year with a room already ready for two kids she didn't even want him to have access too. Whether it was from the stress of it all. The hormones. The emotions. Zoe began to ball. Really, truly sob like she never had before. Oh Christ she was going to be a terrible mother.

"Zoe?" Dracula asked worriedly. "Are you okay?"

"Do I look like I'm okay?!" She hissed through streaming tears. "Do you have any idea what I'm dealing with right now?! With what I'm going through?! You built a bloody nursery! What are you trying to prove?!" Zoe held up a hand before he could answer. "You're a complete and utter prick! And an asshole! And I hate you!" How unpleasant she both sounded and surely looked right now. "And I...I…"

A pair of arms wrapped around her and through bleary eyes she met Dracula's gaze. For whatever reason she didn't fight it, leaning into his chest as she cried and cried. She'd regret this later. Agatha would be sure to make a scene when she returned home. But for now she gave into her emotions and the vampire's hug. Until that moment, she hadn't really realized how badly she needed one. Even if it did come from him. It would bite her in the ass later, but for now she closed her eyes. It wasn't too terribly bad after all. Was it?

#Dracula #Dracula 2020 #Dragatha #Agatha Van Helsing #Dracula x Agatha #Gemini

19 notes · View notes

bustedbernie · 4 years

Link

Oh hai. Lately there have been a slew of think pieces about Bernie Sanders being the front-runner, discussing how his movement has threatened to withhold their votes from Democrats if Bernie isn’t the nominee. Hidden between the lines is the idea that Democrats, in general, owe their votes to Sanders if he is the nominee, regardless of the fact that his voters do NOT owe Dems their votes if he is not. So, rather than call them out for using the same tactics that lost the 2016 election, there is a faction in the media that is growing more and more permissive to the idea that Bernie and his Revolution are somehow the victims in all this, and that mainstream Dems have done them wrong time and time again when picking a candidate that appeals to the Dems masses.

Let me let you in on a little secret.

I don’t owe Bernie Sanders or his fucked off revolution of stanerific emo-marxist cyber-terrorists a goddamn bit of shit the fuck all. When these utter fucking geniuses in the media reflect on how energized and dedicated his enthusiastic fans are when engaging in their harassment of the average Dem, they seem to think the people who have been abused don’t fucking matter. These Dems are people who have never done anything whatsoever to deserve the constant bullying, cyber-stalking, targeting, threats, or in my case, being falsely reported to the FBI by fans of Bernie who seek to silence dissent. What these media personalities don’t understand is that the abuse by Bernie fans, in his name, actually causes the gap between MAGA and Berners to shrink to the point where it is non-existent. There is no real difference between the abuse from either side, and since Sanders isn’t the warm and fuzzy type that reaches out to the people who have been abused, often there appears to be no real difference between Sanders and Trump.

Slate:

Still, the Bernie-or-Busters, small as they may be, have spun their position into an argument for why others should vote for Bernie Sanders too, regardless of the platform they prefer. As efforts in political persuasion go, this contingent puts forward an openly hostile argument. Sanders is the only electable candidate, they suggest, not just because of his policies, but because of the single-mindedness of his followers. The reason you should vote for Sanders is that we won’t vote for anyone else. You don’t want Trump to win again, do you?

No. But I also don’t want Bernie Sanders to win. In a case of one not liking either candidate, people look to see which movement they feel most comfortable with, Bernie’s or Trump’s. If it turns out that both movements engage in racist behavior, sexism, and homophobia, it really doesn’t matter what they profess to be in favor of as far as policy is concerned, what matters is how they treat their fellow citizens by and large. We all know that unless we take back the Senate with a large majority that can defeat Republican attempts to stop legislation from hitting Sanders’ desk, nothing will pass anyway. So, if you’re not in favor of Bernie’s policies in the first place, and do not like him or his movement, why would you be enthusiastic about showing up for the guy who leads the movement that engages in attacks on you?

Yes, it sounds like ugly hostage taking—not a brilliant persuasive strategy but a crude ego-boosting exercise for a group of leftists who can’t resist the impulse to lord some power over an electorate that doesn’t normally consider them relevant. But that’s exactly what makes it so normal, even understandable, in a depressing “we’re all human” sort of way. [NO.] Because the truth is this: Every threat these Sanders stans are explicitly making is one the venerated Centrist Swing Voter makes implicitly—and isn’t judged for. The centrist never even has to articulate his threat.

Excuse me, it IS ugly hostage taking, it is NOT normal, and no, it doesn’t make me see them as more human.

Another thing is this: not everyone opposed to Bernie Sanders is a Centrist, Moderate, or a Swing voter. Many of us are as far left or to the left of Sanders, I for one am definately to his left, and had supported him in 2015. That was until his racist abusive Bern Mafia targeted me for expressing concern about his lack of outreach to black voters. I noticed his lack of history in hiring black people (D.C. is Chocolate City, we could not find one black staffer in 2015; I am open to correction on this point; if he had black staffers prior to 2015, please send me receipts because I have been looking for them.), lamented and mocked his poor showing at Netroots, fumed over his constant MLK appropriation, jeered at his white ass crowds, and felt humiliated by his inability to discuss black people in ways that were not centered on Poverty or Prisons. It is HIS FAULT that his voters have no clue how to engage Black people without resorting to stereotypes and outright bigotry, because he does the same thing.

Buzzfeed:

Sanders, seated across the table, a yellow legal pad at hand, responded with a question of his own, according to two people present: “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African American?” The candidate, whose aides froze in the moment, was quickly rebuffed: The answer, the activists told him, was no. Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error, the two people present said.

No. He did not apologize for spreading this stereotype, and yes, it shows how he views black people in general.

Slate:

One of many disorienting factors in this election cycle is the fact that the left is more popular and more viable than it has been in a long, long time. They have not one but two exciting candidates, and both are offering policies closer to what leftists actually want than most presidential contenders in U.S. history have.

I wanted the party to move to the Left towards the direction of where I stood too. I can’t really name my ideology because it’s so far left I am almost hitting the wall. Additionally, I am more Libertarian than Sanders, who trends more authoritarian. Yet, I instinctively know that playing a game of “my way or the highway” won’t lead to a place where poverty programs are expanded up and out, ensuring all necessities of life are provided. It will lead to gridlock and we will make zero progress.

Because folks at the center tend to be wooed by multiple candidates, they’re used to having options, and they’re used to the experience of their vote determining who ends up with the nomination. This means that they usually like the candidate they vote for, in the primary and in the general. Not so for leftists, who get to merely tolerate the candidates they end up having to vote for in order to mitigate the damage from a worse result.

Here’s the rub… I’m Black. None of this shit applies to me, because as a Black person, I rarely even LIKE or TRUST any of the candidates I have been voting for over the years. I also usually, especially in State and Locally, don’t have any say so in determining the nominee of any race. I am always stuck voting for whoever White People choose as the candidate, and as such, am merely tolerating whoever is chosen to prevent a worse outcome, which usually means preventing a racist shitmonger from winning a race.

Speaking of race… Progressives refuse to address race as a factor in anything; they like to ignore race in everything they do and allow Prison Policy to stand in for Racial Policy, so it’s impossible to get them to see my reality. They get this shit from Bernie.

From Buzzfeed:

“The real issue is not whether you’re black or white, whether you’re a woman or a man,” he said in a 1988 interview. “The real issue is whose side are you on? Are you on the side of workers and poor people or are you on the side of big money and the corporations?”

Not much has changed with Bernie, as you know, Bernie never changes, because he was born as a 72 year old yelly man, just like Benjamin Button, but louder and not as cute.

“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton”

Bernie’s attacks on Identity Politics filtered down to his base, causing them to feel confident in their attacks on Blacks, LGBTQ, and Women who brought up issues of race, sexuality, and gender over the past few years. They love to say shit to black people online that they would never say to an actual Black person IN PERSON, because they are scared as fuck of Black people. Kinda like Bernie. The refrain of “that’s identity politics, not real policy’ rang out constantly on social media the past few years to the point where pointing out racism, homophobia, and sexism was met with swarms of white men attacking Black people, All Women Who Dared To Be THAT Bitch, LGBTQ, and really, anyone worried about social justice issues that focused on identity. The attacks were and ARE bigoted in the extreme.

This is racist as fuck and is one of the ways the Bernie Titty-Babies managed to marginalize Kamala Harris and drive a wedge between her and Black Voters. Somehow they thought keeping it going would make us like dusty ass Bernie more, but they’re stupid, because we don’t even like that geriatric Bernadook now.

This is homophobic.

Bernie’s supporters are engaging in a hate campaign against Mayor Pete and are trying to convince the world that they are not being homophobic, they are just saying Pete is suppressing his dangerous serial killer nature by being so straight laced. This is fucked up because they are attacking a gay man for being “straight appearing” in spite of the fact that his seeming straightness is how he interacts with a world that hates gay people, and has at times (and Still Does) MURDERED men and women who are gay for not assimilating or conforming to hetero-normative stereotypes. Bernie ignores this behavior from his fans like he ignores all of their nasty hate campaigns. I blame him.

This is misogynistic. No explanation needed.

Racist and fat shaming. Black hair is not your fucking business, bitch. Back the fuck up.

This is just blatantly false and caused people to harass Kamala Harris supporters until they stopped using the Yellow Circles she asked supporters to wear, it stems from the misogynoir his fans engaged in towards Kamala. Bernie has never said shit, so I blame him.

Bigotry. Also erasure of Biden’s Black support in a effort to make it seem as if Bernie is the candidate of diversity. Bernie is at fault, he also erases minorities.

Sexist. Also, damn near all of his fans seem to hate Obama on the same level and with as much heat as MAGA. Why the fuck would we want to join in unity with this man when his fans HATE the first black President. Oh, you think Bernie has nothing to do with setting the tone?

“The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,” Sanders started, responding to a question about the young voters who supported his campaign. “People sometimes don’t see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

“He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years, Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country.”

Bernie doesn’t fucking like Obama either.

Sexism. Racism. Bernie does the worst with Black Women, and is often dismissive when asked a question by one of us. So, his fans see nothing to lose by targeting us in particular, and we in turn are likely the largest group of people willing to sit this one out if Bernie manages to come out on top. The media is no help whatsoever to marginalized people, because they ultimately weave a narrative where Bernie comes out the victim.

We can already see it happening amongst the Children of the Bern, where they have taken to labeling K-Hive, a movement started by a Black Woman (Me) for a Black Woman (Kamala Harris), “Liberal ISIS” for our resistance to Bernie and willingness to defend the other candidates from the attacks levied by the Berner Swarm.

Oh, cry me a fucking river! We don’t dox, cyberstalk, harass, abuse, try to get people fired, engage in bigotry, we learn from our mistakes, and we never make it our mission to ruin someone’s life.

We simply turn the tables on the bros and ask tough questions, like Kamala Harris. If that breaks you down, you were already broken before you found us. Oh, yeah. That’s another thing. We don’t go looking for Berners to abuse; we wait until they come to abuse US and refuse to play along.

Regardless of what poor Peter Daou says, there is no “Unadulterated Hatred” in asking if someone has checked on him.

So, yes, I can blame Bernie for the nastiness of his movement and choose not to ever join it no matter what. Progressives love to play forever victims, even while they engage in their vile abuse, but I do not have to empower their movement or help them elect Bernie. Maybe if enough people sound the alarm and let him know we will not be helping him in November while suffering constantly at the hands of his Branch Bernidians, then he will have no choice but to be a leader and fucking lead these assholes into being decent people. I don’t expect the abuse to magically end if Bernie becomes President or loses to Trump, and I also don’t expect him to do shit about it, so I guess I’m just Never Bernie. What I am now stuck with is the same as always; White States get to vote first and create the narrative that Dem voters are in favor of whoever these powerful white voters choose, and I am sick of it and sick of Sanders. I didn’t become a Democrat to not only be marginalized by the White Moderate, but to also suffer abuse from the punk ass White leftist bitchmade humdinger of a Revolution. I’m not here to empower shitfucks that search me out no matter where I am just to heap abuse on me, threaten me, or report me to the FBI as a possible MASS SHOOTER, all because I think Bernie is an old bigot who minimizes Black oppression to appease the white voters he thinks he’ll need to win the General.

I’m just Never Bernie, deal with it or die mad about it. I don’t care which.

#neverbernie #bernie #berniesanders #bernie sanders #berniebros #bernie bros #notmeus #feelthebern #long post #longpost #faq

34 notes · View notes

dee6000 · 3 years

Link

By JOHN ZMIRAK April 29, 2021

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched movies that try to make us sympathize with conmen, such as The Grifters.One thing they do to make us take sides with lifestyle liars and thieves is to demonize their victims. The filmmakers portray some greedy, dopey “mark” who is himself dishonest, but also “too dumb to live.” They make him so obnoxious that we kind of want to see him get ripped off. Then we do, and at once we’re living inside the conman’s head, even rooting for him.

Some Republicans really do seem to be that kind of “mark,” who almost deserve to get relieved of their cash, their pride, and their pretensions. In fact, let me just say it: Any Republican who wants to see Bruce Jenner (playing “Kaitlyn”) get elected as Governor of California fits that description. He sees an obvious con (known as the “Grifting RINO”), which countless Republicans like him have fallen for dozens of times. But his greed gets the better of him, and he signs on with the con man, agreeing to buy the Golden Gate Bridge.

Remember Governor Schwarzenegger? How’d that Work Out for Us?

Seriously, people. Just how much good did it do us to have “Republican” Arnold Schwarzenegger take over California? By “us” I mean pro-life, pro-family patriots trying to fight for our freedom. The socially liberal Chamber of Commerce types seeking only lower taxes can pick up move to Davos for all I care. Or get taxed out of existence by the votes of the low-wage immigrants they imported. They deserve it.

Californians got a few years of slightly less reckless financial governance of their far-left, profoundly dysfunctional state. And the GOP got a highly placed, pro-choice, pro-LGBT RINO who tapdanced across the MSM on President Trump’s head. Tell me, do the Democrats nominate pro-life, pro-family moderates to run in conservative states, in the hope of getting a term here and there, so they can make a few fiscal tweaks? Not anymore. They prefer having a coherent party and platform. They know that this is how you get and keep power.

Vichy Republicans Cutting Deals with the Enemy

But Bruce Jenner as governor would be infinitely worse than Ahnuld, for the party, the Church, and our country. Here’s why: The transgender madnessis the single greatest threat we face today. While it doesn’t pile up dead babies like abortion, it threatens our freedom of speech and religion. Its devotees, like castrated priests of Cybele, try to spread mental illness among our children. They use the law, our schools, and the medical profession to convince temporarily confused young teens to sterilize and mutilate themselves. In Canada, a dad is now facing prison time for refusing to use false pronouns to his own child at home. Lie or go to prison. That has a nice 1930s feel to it, doesn’t it?

The Trans ideology got popularized by a few white male billionaire perverts who likely acquired autogynephilia (they want to be lesbians) thanks to their addictions to porn. In just a few years it became a central tenet of our new, false civic religion. And Bruce Jenner led it. After years of attention-whoring on reality TV, he decided to make his mental illness public and profit from it. His nauseating drag act in glossy magazines and yet another reality TV voyeurism venture helped mainstream such grim, self-destructive behavior.

The Prodigal Son for Roman Governor

I don’t take any relish in casting stones at tortured souls. But when they’re unrepentant, in fact intent on luring others down the same path to destruction, to the point of running for public office, we need to overcome misguided compassion. If the Prodigal Son, before his money ran out or he’d repented, had run for Roman Governor of Judea, I wouldn’t have told the Zealot Party to back him. Neither would Jesus have done so.

Please Support The Stream

: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic and Moral Issues of Our Day.

Think about what a Bruce Jenner win would mean for our resistance to tyrannical transgender laws that tear apart families, destroy women’s sports, fill women’s prisons with male rapists, and encourage self-mutilation. Suddenly one of the highest officials in the only resistance party we have left, the GOP, would be a member of that sexual minority. Expressing our views wouldn’t just be “hate speech” in the eyes of the left. It would be bad manners on the right. You’d essentially have to insult a high-ranking Republican public official to tell the truth.

And if you know Republicans as I do, you realize that they’d stop us from doing so. Just as CPACbanned Mass Resistance as “extremist” for opposing the LGBT machine, the RINOs who run our party would quash pro-family activists on the trans question. You know, the way Gov. Kristi Noemjust did in deep-red South Dakota. And most of the folks in our party would shrug and put up with it. “It’s only good manners,” they’d mutter to themselves as security dragged out all those “rude” Christians from public events in handcuffs.

We should all declare ourselves definitively “NeverJenner.” I mean to the point of if need be supporting whatever Democrat runs against him. The LGBT machine wants to silence us, humiliate us, intimidate us, and force us to call evil “good.” They’d love to take away our last, ramshackle avenue — the one-eyed GOP — for any moral defense against this onslaught. They’d leave us a voiceless and helpless as … Tories who want to return the US to rule by the Queen of England. RINOs who’d do that to us aren’t just opponents, like the Democrats. They are our enemies, within.

Let Bruce Jenner go seek attention somewhere else. Maybe he can decide next to change his race and run for mayor of Detroit.

#gop #maga #california #neverjenner #transinsanity #rino #massresistance #President Trump #save children #cagop

0 notes

fika-wika · 3 years

Text

🌠Soulmates 👻Pt. 1

Are soulmates real? Do you believe in them? If so, Have you met yours? What was the experience like? What’s it like now that time has pasted? I hope with this topic of interest ill be able to not only show ya’ll my perspective of the ideology but also open your minds to the vast extent of what it is that this soulmate experience holds and tells about our lives in this human experience.

What are soulmates? Well to start, The correct word for soulmate is actually, Soul Family. A common misconception that has spread was that people believe that you only have this one soulmate, this one person who is said to be the one for you, the match for your soul and nobody else. That is actually false..Do you only have one family member that you click with? or do you also have cousins that you like some things about and other things u don’t? Same goes with our friends. There are things within people that we like because they bring out certain parts of ourselves that we also like. This same concept carries over into the soul family experience. There are people who’s souls we click and resonate with on a deeper level than just the human experience. Your soul family does not just consist of lovers, but also brothers, sisters, moms, dads and best friends. But the thing is they might not always appear that way in human form. For I do not believe that souls play the same gender and family roles as the human experience does. Someone in my human experience could be my best friend yet he’s my best friend because he feels like the mom of the group that cares for us and nurtures us all. So altho in human form he is of a similar age and a good friend, we click so well because my soul might recognize him as a mother in a past life. weird to wrap your head around? yea maybe but weather you believe in past lives or not. It’s generally hard to talk about a soul mate experience if you do not acknowledge that yall’s souls have met in a past life or on the other side in order to even be able recognize each other in this experience. So understanding that soul mate really means they are apart of your soul family really opens the mind to seeing not only the people you are connected with as a new reflection but also helps you understand why it is you might connect with them the way you do and what lessons you are really learning from them.

That brings me to my next question, Why do we have a soul family? Well my belief is that we have a soul family for the same reason we have a human family..to learn from, to teach lessons to, but lessons of the soul. Things that we learn outside of our human family karma and more connected to our souls karma. With in mind that we are all connected on a deeper level and reflecting ourselves onto one another understand that these lessons go both ways. That best friend of yours who knows you so well and you are able to understand her so well, you both recognize what it is you love about each other and what you bring out in each other, She helps nurture your soul and you give her the feeling of being appreciated. Maybe they struggle with appreciation by their family and friends growing up, maybe you didn’t have the best mother figure. But through each other can you both find the feeling of that experience. Because you’ve played the roll before, only difference is. In this life she is your friend and not your mother because back then when she was your mother maybe you did not have the best relationship and did not appreciate her where as in this life time getting to know each other as friends by choice in a way you couldn’t before as her child by nature. But her soul still feels that loving and caring connecting to you and vice versa. I know, I’m sure that sounds kind of confusing but we have to remember the soul is not a simple black and white concept, the universe itself is not so straight forward. There are so many layers behind a single encounter that we can’t assume the person we love is only here to show us love. No that person is also here to teach us how to love and be loving of self.

Which brings me to the purpose of the soul family. To teach us how to Love. To love ourselves! The thing about learning to love ourselves is that it can show up in so many different ways, even through a toxic relationship. Yes I said toxic. We do have soulmates that come into this life time to walk us through our toxic patterns. Altho the experience with them may seem negative on the outside, the ultimate point of the encounter is for you to bring out those traits of the soul that need reflection and healing. And sometimes the only way to see those parts of ourselves is through these kind of love relationships. A toxic relationship doesn’t have to just be a lover as well, these show up even in our households growing up. Some peoples lessons are to learn how to overcome the strictness and controlling aspect of their growing up family lives, so that they can learn how to stand on their own two feet and choose loving themselves over the love they’re family could not quiet give them properly. This isn’t to say that their family does not love them no, It just means the way a member of the family shows or expresses their way of loving does not speak or is not in alignment with what your soul might need to cultivate and grow in this life time and their expression is in fact hindering your own growth. But by going through the experience and growing from it by standing up for yourself and speaking your truths is your soul ultimately learning how to choose loving yourself properly over giving your power away to another. Another word for a toxic relationship is a Power Struggle. These power struggles are what keep us tied down in patterns that do not work for us or are unhealthy for our souls growth. Where have you felt yourself giving your power away? Where have you seen yourself exert too much power onto someone else that needed better controlling? Power over the mind, the heart, even the spirit.

Another example, you were in this relationship where you had a partner and lets say you had an issue with jealousy and so your partner would then cut off friends or people from their past in order to make the relationship work which in tern might have left your partner over time feeling lonely, maybe isolated from their world because the only person they showed attention to was you. This is not to say they do not love the attention they give and receive from you but it’s clear that this partner was not choosing to love themselves because they gave up what also brought them joy in order to satisfy you. But overtime that became limiting, not in a rude way but, you simply are not enough to keep this person happy forever and at some point in time it’ll hit them that they want to branch out and meet/ talk to people again but they don’t in fear of upsetting you, This is a power struggle. But the lesson here is to teach them how to stand up for what also brings them joy and to also help teach you to trust more in knowing that what loves you would not betray you or leave you so loosen your grip. Overall the lesson for you both, is better more open and clear communication to help one another understand your perspectives of the situation. You’re both fighting for power where one should be learning how to surrender their power/control and one is learning how to step into their sense of it. After communicating your truths do you then decide how something can move forward, which ever way it goes is for the better of your soul growth. Weather that’s together or apart. But you must try to come to an understanding otherwise the cycle will repeat. If not with them, then in your next relationship. The lessons don’t go away despite who you learn them with. One way or another your soul will have to learn/ overcome it. If not this life time, then the next. Our soul family is here to help guide us through that learning process.

So we know our soul family is here in this lifetime to teach us how to love ourselves, we know these can show up even in toxic encounters just as much as beautiful ones. But regardless you do feel a pull and deep wanting to be with these people. until the lessons are learnt and some of them might go their own way afterwards and that’s ok. We should still have the love and acceptance that they were in our lives for a reason and helped us see things we needed to see and experience for ourselves. That is ultimately what we take with us if they are to continue down their own path once again.

I think I’m going to cut this part right here, I have another section I want to touch on about this Soulmate topic but I feel this is a good spot for this half. The next part will be a bit deeper into the spiritual aspect of it. If you read this far I hope you were able to take something from this and I’m so grateful you took the time to read through it in it’s entirety, I very much value the time you put into reading my writing and I’m glad it can keep you enticed all the way through. Stay in tuned till part 2. Thank you, I Love you so much!

0 notes

catholiccom-blog · 7 years

Photo

A Primer on Richard Rohr

Full Question

I've heard that Fr. Richard Rohr teaches some pretty sketchy stuff. Do you know anyone who has a summary of his teachings?

Answer

For whatever good he does, Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., is not a reliable teacher of the Catholic Faith. All quotes below by Fr. Rohr are taken from his book Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer.

To Fr. Richard Rohr, Jesus Christ is an ideal guide of sorts, but he’s not truly Lord.

Jesus made clear that he came to save the world (John 3:16), and to this end he founded and commissioned his Church to make disciples off all nations (Matt. 28:18-20). Jesus made clear that he is uniquely the way, truth, and life (John 14:6), that his truth would set us free (John 8:31-32), that those who listened to his apostles and their successors listened to him, and that those who didn’t rejected him and his heavenly Father who sent him (Luke 10:16).

Jesus wasn’t afraid to be a demanding teacher, and many left him when they couldn’t stomach his teaching, e.g., on the Eucharist (John 6:47-71). Jesus also proclaimed that he came to bring a sword and not peace if peace meant a false irenicism in which merely human family members were chosen at the expense of faithful alliance with him, their Savior (Matt. 10:34-39).

Rohr’s Jesus is much more benign. For Rohr, Jesus merely gives “ideal eyes by which to see the real nature of reality” (emphasis added). “Real nature” is important, because Rohr does not present Catholicism as it really is. Rather, it’s a non-demanding, non-threatening, ultimately optional way of life: "The gospel is not a competing idea. It’s that by which see all ideas in proper context. We believe as Christians that Jesus gave us the ideal eyes by which to see the real nature of reality. He does not lead with his judgments"(95, emphasis original).

Some might say Rohr is at least partially right. For example, Jesus did not lead with judgment against the woman at the well (John 4). But after introducing himself as the Messiah and showing the woman her worth, he called her to holiness, noting she had been married five times and was living with someone to whom she wasn’t married. Rohr misses this in assessing the Gospel as he overlooks the hard words Jesus has about various sins in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere: "But note that Jesus’ concept of 'the reign of God' is totally positive—not fear-based or against any individual, group, sin or problem" (107, emphasis original).

Even more fundamentally, Rohr falls into religious indifferentism regarding the basic mission of Christ and his Church:

I think Christianity has created a great problem in the Western world by repeatedly presenting itself, not as a way of seeing all things, but as one competing ideology among others. . . . Simone Weil, the brilliant French resistor [a woman who sadly declined to be baptized and become Catholic], said that 'the tragedy of Christianity is that it came to see itself as replacing other religions instead of adding something to all of them.' I could not agree more (93, emphasis added).

Rohr provides insight into his spiritual outlook when he reveals that he believes in apokatastasis (also spelled apocatastasis), a heresy known more in modern times as “universalism,” which teaches that all the damned, whether men or women or fallen angels, will ultimately be restored and join God in heavenly glory for all eternity. This belief was made somewhat popular by the Church Father Origen, who was misguided on a number of doctrinal matters.

Citing unnamed early Church Fathers, Rohr describes this “universal restoration” as “the real meaning” of Christ’s resurrection, which means that God’s love is “so perfect and so victorious that in fact it would finally win out in every single person’s life” (131). He erroneously says that this view “gave rise to the mythology of purgatory” (131). He adds incorrectly that apocatastasis is not a heresy:

When I read the history of the church and its dogma, I see apokatastasis was never condemned as heretical. We may believe it if we want to. We were never told we had to believe it, but neither was it condemned (132, emphasis original).

It’s true that some people, like St. Gregory of Nyssa, espoused apocatastasis in the early Church when the Church had not pronounced definitively on the matter. But as the belief spread it was condemned by the regional Council of Constantinople in 543, and Pope Vigilius confirmed the council's pronouncements.

Ten years later, the Second Council of Constantinople, an ecumenical or universal council, reaffirmed the condemnation of various heretics and “their sinful works,” including Origen, with no correction on the recent condemnation of apocatastasis (canon 11). If apocatastasis were indeed true, the Church’s infallible teachings on mortal sin and the eternal punishment of hell, for example, would be rendered meaningless.

It is true, as Rohr says, that the Church has never pronounced that any particular person is in hell (132). But the Church has reaffirmed the existence of hell and its eternal punishments, most recently in Pope Paul VI’s Credo of the People of God (12) and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1033-37). Lest there be any doubt, the Catechism affirms—citing St. John Damascene, who lived from 676 to 749—“There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death” (393).

In light of his espousal of apocatastasis, Rohr’s book title—Everything Belongs—makes more sense. In the end, there is no condemnation, only reconciliation and eternal communion with God: “For me, the utter powerlessness of God is that God forgives. . . . God seems to be so ready to surrender divine power” (153). Rohr’s God is all mercy, and a distorted mercy at that, and thus there is no justice.

Consequently, for Rohr there is a tension between truth and love. Jesus says that his truth will set us free (John 8:32), but Rohr says “the law does not give life; only the Spirit gives life, as Paul teaches in Romans and Galatians” (40). But Paul is speaking of the Old Covenant law, not the liberating New Covenant law of Jesus, and Rohr overlooks St. Paul’s hard pronouncements on mortal sin and damnation. “True religion is always about love. Love is the ultimate reality” (103), Rohr adds, whereas “a lot that’s called orthodoxy, loyalty and obedience is grounded in fear” (102). “The great commandment is not ‘thou shalt be right,’” he says. “The great commandment is to ‘be in love’” (88).

Love trumps truth, because God will win out in every person’s life, Rohr says, since “God will turn all our human crucifixions into resurrection” (132). Here Rohr fails to see that hell is man’s “definitive self-exclusion from communion with God” (CCC 1033, emphasis added), and that true love entails not compelling one to have communion. God will not force us to accept heaven.

In citing Acts 3:21 to defend universal restoration, Rohr fails to see that those who will not listen to the prophet—namely, Jesus—will be destroyed (Acts 3:23). This is not to pronounce eternal judgment on non-Catholics and thus exclude invincible ignorance but rather to affirm further that hell exists and that human beings can choose it. Choices do have consequences, some of them possibly eternal. In that light, the Second Vatican Council Fathers teaches in sober urgency regarding non-Catholics:

But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, 'Preach the Gospel to every creature,' the Church fosters the missions with care and attention" (Lumen Gentium 16, emphasis added, footnotes omitted).

In contrast, even though Jesus founded Catholic Church (Matt. 16:18-19) and gave the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-20), for Rohr the Church and her mission are not so important and urgent:

Institutional religion is a humanly necessary but also immature manifestation of this 'hidden mystery' by which God is saving the world. . . . Institutional religion is never an end in itself, but merely a wondrous and 'uncertain trumpet' of the message (180, emphasis original).

I personally do not believe that Jesus came to found a separate religion as much as he came to present a universal message of vulnerability and foundational unity that is necessary for all religions, the human soul, and history itself to survive. Thus Christians can rightly call him “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42) but no longer in the competitive and imperialistic way that they have usually presented him. By very definition, vulnerability and unity do not compete or dominate. n fact, they make competition and domination impossible. The cosmic Christ is no threat to anything but separateness, illusion, domination, and any imperial ego. In that sense, Jesus, the Christ, is the ultimate threat, but first of all Christians themselves. Only then will they have any universal and salvific message for the rest of the world" (181-82, emphases added).

Jesus Christ does indeed love all and thus died for all, but the true unity he preaches requires a choice to accept or reject him and his Church, as he preached 2,000 years ago. The Christ whom Rohr preaches is not the authentic Jesus, and his related proclamation of the gospel is not the one that that the Church has proclaimed and safeguarded for 2,000 years with the power of Holy Spirit. As a result, Rohr remains an unreliable and spiritually dangerous guide for Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

#Catholic Answers #Richard Rohr #Tom Nash #Ask An Apologist #Contemplative Prayer

8 notes · View notes

originalcontent · 7 years

Text

On the Topic of Logic

Uuuuuugh okay. I don’t want to write a whole fucking essay in Skype of all things so here we go. Plus, I’m sure everyone is fucking tired of hearing from me rant from my polarizing anti-fascist biases. I guess I’m writing this here instead because while I will defend my ideals to the grave, it can get pretty exhausting.

If there’s something that I find morally objectionable, I have to go out of my way to argue it. I mean, I don’t always, I don’t even as much as I should, but leaving things unanswered gives me a gross feeling for a number of reasons. It’s fine if you’re looking to discuss things with me, but please, please, please actually look at my responses if that’s what you want to do? I can’t let other people in my direct circle of influence spread harmful ideologies in good conscious, I’m sorry. Something that people like to do is take my arguments and assume I’m making absolute statements, so I just want to say I’m not saying to never use logic, I’m not saying don’t call bullshit when necessary, I’m not saying violence is good. I’m sure you were all abundantly taught the merits of the converses by society already. You don’t need me to explain those to you. This isn’t a condemnation of well-accepted ideas, it’s just saying that there are flaws to them as well.

Part 1: Ethics do not follow formal logic

Before I start, I would like to ask a general favor. Please for the love of god, stop trying to explain logic and fallacies to me. I fucking know what a fallacy is. I’m especially partial to the straw man, or I must be, because that’s the one that I find used against me the most often. Some other fallacies that deserve honorable mentions. The slippery slope fallacy, that I may often seem to fall into. Except that historically, things actually are slippery slopes to bigger things. Plus, if you’re not going to speculate on potential consequences, what’s even the point of analyzing current events? I personally think it’s best to prepare for the worst case scenario, especially if the things you do to prepare are good and revolutionary acts that our society probably needs anyway. I know that I cannot predict the future. Next honorable mention is proof by repeated assertion. I will say statements and then a couple days/hours/minutes/whatever later, I will see the exact same arguments, again, that I had already refuted in the first place. I’m glad you like the nonviolent movements of the past in India and 60’s America! I’m glad you’re happy with the results! I hope that you can acknowledge that these movements were only successful because they were partnered with more radical, violent movements! Like, I understand that you don’t always want to read through all of the links I post, but in that case take my word for what they say, don’t just ignore them! And then there’s ad homenim. You know what, I think that itself needs its own section so let’s shelve that one and come back to it later. Same with false equivalencies, I’ll get to those soon. Point being I know what fallacies are. I know what logic is. I’m betting on the fact that most other people can conceptualize basic logic as well. They may not show their work every step of the way, but assuming that they don’t and that they need you to explain logic to them is incredibly disrespectful. If you’re telling someone to “be logical” then you’re really, really an asshole. If logic is flawed, sure, you can point that out, but that doesn’t discredit a whole argument, nor does it replace a counterpoint.

The title pretty much says it all here, but I’m currently taking philosophy classes, so let’s talk about formal logic.

First off, logic should not be your gold standard for truth. The (albeit very, very simplified) way that logic works is you take a set of precedents and deprive other statements from them. (You know, Socrates was a man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates was mortal. Not rocket science.) The way you measure logic is if it’s valid or invalid, not true and untrue. That’s right folks, just because logic is invalid, that doesn’t mean the conclusion is false! And the reverse is also true. Assuming that logic and reality match up is my actual, absolute, personal favorite fallacy, the fallacy fallacy, the assumption that imperfect logic leads to a wrong conclusion. For example: “others using formal logic as the end-all of discussions frustrates 312, 312 is frustrated, so others must be abusing their abilities to cite formal logic.” There are plenty of other things that could have frustrated me, the logic here is unsound, but the conclusion is still true. (Apologies for passive-aggression, although to be honest I’m not feeling all that kind right now.) Furthermore “312 enjoys debating ideas, 312 is currently debating ideas, so 312 must be enjoying this!” Here are some true premises with perfect logic and a false conclusion.

You might argue for the first case that the result was just come up with by chance, but it can’t be independently accepted as truth because the premises didn’t contain enough information to form a valid conclusion. For the second you might argue that my issue is in my premises here. My statements were true, but they weren’t universally true. And then I would congratulate you on having come up with such a great and original points that had in no way ever occurred to me before you so graciously enlightened me. Then, we can proceed to break them down. The first example was in fact a case where precedents didn’t fit together into a clear message, and the second indeed did not have precedents that always held. But I can’t possibly think of a real-world example that doesn’t have clear and objective premises. Oh wait, now that I’m typing it a few examples are coming to me.

Am I straw-manning your argument? I’m very sorry. You know what, to clear up the confusion, why don’t you send me all of your opinions on these issues and logically why you have them, fully explained and everything. If anyone needs that from me, message me because I’ve literally already done that on several occasions.

In the meantime, I’m going to do my own little logical proof, right here.

Premises:

There is no objective moral truth

Logic without inherently true premises will never lead to inherently true conclusions

Conclusion: You can’t use fucking logic to discuss moral issues and have it be correct.

I may have skipped a few steps there, but I don’t have the patience and I think you get the idea. When discussing ethics, you have to make up your own criteria, your own precedents, because nothing about ethics is logical. Sure, you could argue lots of things. For example, that if people are good to each other then that helps society which therefore benefits the people, but not all people benefit from society, and who’s to say what makes any society better than anything else? I have a set of premises that I deem to be correct. They basically boil down to “A fair and just society for all people is good.” And how about “all people deserve basic human rights.” I don’t know what yours all are! I do know that I don’t have any rational explanation for these ideas aside from that I believe them to be right. Because that’s how this whole thing works. There’s no formula for right and wrong, so stop trying to find one. Instead just do your best to make the world a better place however you feel that’s possible.

Part 2: Ad homenim does not necessarily apply in cases of politics.

Well, if that isn’t a provocative title. As I stated above, nothing in ethics is right by any objective measure. I really wish we could set down some objective truths, like say, genocide is a bad thing, but apparently that’s fucking controversial. So here we go.

I do need to put a huge disclaimer on this to say what I am not saying. I am not saying I think you can just take anything that anyone you don’t like says is false. 7+5=12 no matter who the person who says that is. As much as I hate it, you can’t always just listen to assholes and take the opposite of whatever they say (although honestly that’s not as bad a strategy as one would think.) I’m not saying that it never applies, I’m saying that it doesn’t necessarily apply.

For anyone who doesn’t know, ad homenim is the practice of targeting the person who made an argument rather than the argument itself. It is my belief that that should be reserved for purely logical debates, not as applied to society at large.

Some context for what specifically inspired me to make this post, earlier this week there’s been a theme of discussing violent resistance to nazism and fascism. On Wednesday someone posted, in response, “‘An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind’ -Mahatma Gandhi.” I made a comment that we should keep in mind all of the bad things Gandhi had done. The response was of course “ad homenim.” I had to go right then, but when I got back there were a shit ton of messages. One person said that I hadn’t argued with the quote, I had just made a statement, to which his response was “why bother putting that there in the first place.” Someone (bless her soul) cited the fallacy fallacy at him, and he responded with “well yeah but this was a very simple case of ad homenim. You shouldn’t use fallacies like that because they’re very easy to refute.” The two who had tried to defend me started trying to address him and the quote, and they kept getting the response of “well what 312 said wasn’t even relevant to the quote, you need to argue with the quote itself.” They were effectively shut down in terms of having an actual discussion, and I’m sorry for that because I had supplied him (and one other) with the means by which to do that. By the time I was online again I scrolled up to read the whole exchange, but everyone had moved on from this topic and it was abundantly clear that no one wanted to return to it, so I let it be. Then of course, I did as I do and grew bitter that I hadn’t been there to argue and started to stew in my bitterness until this post came into being. There we have it, the secret origin story of my unbridled rage.

Call that bullshit for unreliable narration, whatever. I’m not here to talk about that exchange any more than I’m going to express my pissed-off-ness at a couple people. I’m going to talk about why my original statement did not qualify as ad homenim!

I stress, earlier this week we had already been discussing violent resistance. We had already made all sorts of arguments on both sides. We had already pointed these people to a number of sources discussing why nonviolence is objectionable. Posting an image with this quote that all of us probably already knew added nothing new to this discussion. This quote did not stand alone in place of arguments. All it really managed to achieve was bringing famous people into the midst, in this case Gandhi. Whether or not you realized it, posting that quote was an entirely ethos-based argument. Ethos, for those who haven’t taken an english class, refers to an rhetorical tactic that appeals to authority. Thus it’s separate from pathos, emotional rhetoric, and logos, logical rhetoric, aka the literal only one of these three where logical fallacies apply in the first place. Like actually. The only response to appeals to authority is attack of character? How do you even expect me to argue with that quote? There’s nothing to argue! All the quote is is a baseless claim making a general statement meant to be inspirational. Which is great if there’s something new to take from it, but there’s not. Seriously, the fuck do you expect me to say? “No, actually the first person would lose an eye, then the second person would lose an eye, and then everyone else would be left alone”? Oh huh, I guess there is a logical response to that quote, my bad.

Actually, if you’ll indulge a tangent, remember when up there discussing fallacies I said I’d come back to false equivalencies later? Specifically the whole “eye for an eye” or “hate breeds hate” kind of thing. Other people on this website have stated that you can’t equate the hate of oppressors to the hate of the oppressed for their oppressors in far more eloquent terms than I can. Nazis hate jewish people, for instance, because they view them as inferior and inherently deserving of death. Jewish people might hate nazis because they literally want them dead. That hate is not just as bad! Violence coming from jewish people is self-defense! They can’t make a choice about their ethnicity, and nazis will want them dead regardless, whereas nazi ideologies are absolutely a choice, it’s people choosing to believe they’re superior and everyone else should be killed.

Back on the topic of ad hominem, in terms of politics and social change, everyone has an agenda. Many quotes seem very reasonable if you just take them at face value. You need to look at who’s saying them and why they’re saying them to understand what they mean. For example, the statement “Make America Great Again” might not sound too bad in of itself, but when you look at the platform associated with that line, you’ll realize that that’s a white supremacist statement. There’s nothing about that statement that’s white supremacist. It’s advocating for greatness, that’s all. I’m sure you know that to not be true. Political figures do this all the time, where they make a general, wide-reaching statement that you can critically analyze to see it doesn’t necessarily benefit who you think it would. (Such as conservatives calling for “safer neighborhoods,” when really what they want is stronger police forces.) Or where they call an initiative something seemingly unprovocative while including not-so-great policy in it if you bother to look past clever wording. Who says things matters. Who pushes things matters. Freedom and opportunity mean very different things to me then they do to libertarians, for instance. We could say the exact same sentence about wanting to protect freedom and opportunity, and it would still mean completely different things. So I’m just saying that if you decide to focus on statements themselves rather than who’s saying them, especially in the case of anything even remotely having to do with politics, you’re blind sighting yourself.

I had more to say, but to be honest I’m somewhat tired. Sorry, I’ll try to write more later.

One more thing:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/playing-devils-advocate/ Normally when I send this one to people I make sure to do it very nicely, but you know what? Right now I’m not feeling very nice. The role of a devil’s advocate is to represent perspectives not present in order to get somewhere constructive from a different angle. The role is not to argue against any points brought up. Read this, memorize this, love this, learn to live by this, I am actually 100% serious here.

That’s it for now.

Hope you got something out of it. I’ll probably write something about opinions, that’s another important issue. Well, 312 out.

#politics #logic #ethics #logical fallacies #objectivity #god i don't even have tags i'm not in the right headspace for this #if anyone can think of stuff this should be tagged as lmk #it's fine if you want to debate any of these points with me #i really don't mind #however i do INSIST that you listen to my points instead of focusing entirely on how to refute them #that's it #just listen #also some apologies to r and c wouldn't hurt #you guys really fucking upset them #i understand that these are purely theoretical academic concepts to you guys #but these are emotional topics for them and when they're upset like that they can't keep up with your bullshit 'logic'#yeah i'm bitter and angry right now #i don't hate anyone #but i'm also not apologizing for my tone #and they shouldn't have to either btw

9 notes · View notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

After Baghdadi death, Southeast Asia expects long fight against Islamic State's influence

By Martin Petty, Rozanna Latiff | Published October 28, 2019, 5:25 AM ET | Reuters | Posted October 28, 2019 |

MANILA/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Southeast Asian countries fighting Islamic State’s influence in the region lauded the killing of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi but said security forces were preparing for a long battle to thwart the jihadist group’s ideology.

The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, home to some of Asia’s most organized Islamist militants, said on Monday they were braced for retaliation by Islamic State loyalists, including “lone wolf” attacks by locals radicalized by the group’s powerful online propaganda.

Baghdadi killed himself in a tunnel in northwest Syria by detonating a suicide vest as U.S. forces closed in, according to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Though his death will unsettle Islamic State, it remains capable and dangerous, said Delfin Lorenzana, defense secretary of the Philippines, where the group’s influence has taken a hold among unschooled Muslim youth in its troubled Mindanao region.

“This is a blow to the organization considering al-Baghdadi’s stature as a leader. But this is just a momentary setback considering the depth and reach of the organization worldwide,” Lorenzana said. “Somebody will take his place.”

Southeast Asia has long been an important focus for Islamic State, which has inspired Islamist militants in West Africa, across the Middle East and Asia and through to Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are concerned Islamic State supporters from the region and those fleeing Iraq and Syria could exploit the porous borders, lawlessness and abundant arms found in Mindanao to take refuge in its far-flung villages.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for four suicide bombings since July last year in the Philippines, which fought its toughest battle since World War Two in 2017 when extremists seeking to establish an Islamic State laid siege to Marawi City and occupied it through five months of air and ground assaults.

Fighters from at least seven countries took part, including Malaysia, which remains on high alert and has arrested 400 people suspected of links to militant groups.

Malaysian police counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said the real concern was not Islamic State’s leadership but the effect of its teachings.

“It’s good news, but his death will have little impact here as the main problem remains the spread of the Islamic State ideology,” he told Reuters.

“What we are most worried about now are ‘lone wolf’ attacks and those who are self-radicalized through the internet. We are still seeing the spread of IS teachings online. IS publications and magazines from years ago are being reproduced and re-shared,” he said.

‘JIHAD WILL NEVER STOP’

Chatrooms in messaging applications used by Islamists such as Telegram showed defiant messages about Baghdadi’s death, according to a researcher who monitors activity by Islamic State sympathizers.

“God Willing, whatever happens, Islamic jihad will not rely on any one individual, but will always stand tall on the orders of God and His Prophet,” read one posting under the handle Ansurul Ummah.

Another participant, Abu Abdullah Asy Syami, posted: “Jihad will never stop, even if our own caliph dies.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a similar observation, and said Baghdadi’s death was by no means the end.

“This is a many-headed monster ... As you cut one off, another one inevitably arises,” he told reporters.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, is grappling with a resurgence in militancy and has detained hundreds of suspects this year under tightened anti-terrorism laws.

Authorities believe thousands of Indonesians draw inspiration from Islamic State and about 500 are thought to have joined the group in Syria.

Indonesia’s intelligence agency said it was ready for retaliation and though Baghdadi’s death would be a psychological blow, Islamic State would have a successor in place.

“It is a war. Usually, there must be a counterattack or the like. When it comes to security, we are sure that we will secure this country,” said its spokesman, Wawan Purwanto.

Security analyst Rommel Banlaoi said Baghdadi’s demise and uncertainty about the leadership could undermine operations of Islamic State loyalists seeking to regroup and establish their own territory in Southeast Asia.

“Pro-ISIS groups in the Philippines will surely re-examine their roles in the post-Baghdadi era,” he said.

Reporting by Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur, Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa in Jakarta, John Mair in Sydney and Martin Petty and Neil Jerome Morales in Manila; Editing by David Clarke

*********

AP FACT CHECK: Trump spins tales on bin Laden, Iraq war

By HOPE YEN | Published October 28, 2019 | AP | Posted October 28, 2019 |

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump falsely boasted that he predicted Osama bin Laden's 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and inaccurately asserted he had always opposed the war in Iraq in a news conference Sunday that often fell short on facts.

A look at some of the president's claims at the briefing, where he announced the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group:

BIN LADEN

TRUMP: "I'm writing a book ... About a year before the World Trade Center came down, the book came out. I was talking about Osama bin Laden. I said, 'You have to kill him. You have to take him out.' Nobody listened to me." Trump added that people said to him, "'You predicted that Osama Bin Laden had to be killed, before he knocked down the World Trade Center.' It's true."

THE FACTS: It's not true.

His 2000 book, "The America We Deserve," makes a passing mention of bin Laden but did no more than point to the al-Qaida leader as one of many threats to U.S. security. Nor does he say in the book that bin Laden should have been killed.

As part of his criticism of what he considered Bill Clinton's haphazard approach to U.S. security as president, Trump wrote: "One day we're told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin Laden is public enemy Number One, and U.S. jetfighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it's on to a new enemy and new crisis."

Trump: IS group leader killed in US raid in Syria

The book did not call for further U.S. action against bin Laden or al-Qaida to follow up on attacks Clinton ordered in 1998 in Afghanistan and Sudan after al-Qaida bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The U.S. attacks were meant to disrupt bin Laden's network and destroy some of al-Qaida's infrastructure, such as a factory in Sudan associated with the production of a nerve gas ingredient. They "missed" in the sense that bin Laden was not killed in them, and al-Qaida was able to pull off 9/11 three years later.

In passages on terrorism, Trump's book does correctly predict that the U.S. was at risk of a terrorist attack that would make the 1993 World Trade Center bombing pale by comparison. That was a widespread concern at the time, as Trump suggested in stating "no sensible analyst rejects this possibility."

Still, Trump did not explicitly tie that threat to al-Qaida and thought an attack might come through a miniaturized weapon of mass destruction, like a nuclear device in a suitcase or anthrax.

___

TRUMP: "Nobody ever heard of Osama bin Laden until really the World Trade Center."

THE FACTS: That's incorrect. Bin Laden was well known by the CIA, other national security operations, experts and the public long before 9/11, with the CIA having a unit entirely dedicated to bin Laden going back to the mid-1990s. The debate at the time was over whether Clinton and successor President George W. Bush could have done more against al-Qaida to prevent the 2001 attacks.

___

WAR IN IRAQ

TRUMP: "In Iraq — so they spent — President Bush went in. I strongly disagreed with it, even though it wasn't my expertise at the time, but I had a very good instinct about things. They went in and I said, 'That's a tremendous mistake.' And there were no weapons of mass destruction. It turned out I was right."

THE FACTS: There is no evidence Trump expressed public opposition to the Iraq war before the U.S. invaded, despite his repeated insistence that he did. Rather, he offered lukewarm support. He only began to voice doubts about the conflict well after it began in March 2003.

His first known public comment on the topic came on Sept. 11, 2002, when he was asked whether he supported a potential Iraq invasion in an interview with radio host Howard Stern. "Yeah, I guess so," Trump responded. On March 21, 2003, just days after the invasion, Trump said it "looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint."

Later that year he began expressing reservations.

___

RUSSIA

TRUMP, on Syria: "I want our soldiers home or fighting something that's meaningful. I'll tell you who loves us being there: Russia and China. Because while they build their military, we're depleting our military there."

THE FACTS: His assertion that a pullout of U.S. troops from Syria strategically hurts Russia is highly dubious.

Both Russia and Iran stand to gain, and Russia has taken steps to move in and expand its influence in Syria after Trump announced a pullout. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached a deal on divvying up control of an area along the Turkey-Syria border, allowing Syrian troops to move back into a large part of the territory and ensure Kurdish fighters stay out.

The Kurds once hoped an alliance with Washington in battling IS would strengthen their ambitions for autonomy, but now they are left hoping they can extract concessions from Russia and Syria to keep at least some aspects of their self-rule.

"The U.S. has essentially ceded its influence and power in Syria to the Russians, the Turks and the Iranians," said Seth Jones, a counterterrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Iran and Russia are both key allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, with troops on the ground in Syria. While they may publicly oppose a Turkish incursion into Syria, they probably don't mind an operation that diminishes the U.S.-allied Kurdish forces.

Some of Turkey's incursions into Syria appeared to have been coordinated with Russia and Iran.

*********

For Trump, Baghdadi death a signature moment, but troubles remain

By Steve Holland | Published October 27, 2019, 6:34 PM | Reuters | Posted October 28, 2019 |

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For President Donald Trump, the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a signature achievement that may help quell growing criticism from his own ranks, but it is unlikely to offer much relief from Democratic-led scrutiny of his dealings with Ukraine.

The raid could not have come at a better time for Trump, who is facing an impeachment investigation by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who say his attempt to persuade Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden was an abuse of power and may have put national security at risk.

He has also come under withering criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for an abrupt decision to pull U.S. troops out of northeastern Syria, which cleared the way for a Turkish invasion against America’s Kurdish allies in the area.

“I don’t think it alters the trajectory of our politics in any way necessarily, but without question, for the president it’s a huge win. There’s no other way to spin it,” said Lanhee Chen, a Hoover Institution scholar who advised Republican Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

Trump, who is up for re-election in November 2020, will be able to trumpet the successful raid on the campaign trail as another reason why he should not be thrown out of office, in addition to his tough stance on illegal immigration and his record on the economy.

He could not help but tease the win in a typically grandiose fashion: “Something very big has just happened!” he tweeted on Saturday night, apparently only minutes after U.S. special forces had safely landed back at their base.

Aware of the political capital suddenly at his disposal, Trump delivered the news on Sunday from the White House Diplomatic Reception Room standing before battle flags that had been brought from the Oval Office for the occasion.

Trump offered vivid and sometimes grisly details about the raid and Baghdadi’s demise, which he claimed was “bigger” than the 2011 U.S. killing of al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Afterwards, the White House deployed top national security aides to the Sunday talk shows to discuss the raid and its importance for national security.

The news prompted an outpouring of praise from senior Republicans, including those such as close Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham who had strongly criticized the president’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

“This is a game changer,” Graham told reporters during a second briefing at the White House. “This is a moment where we should all be proud of our American military and our intelligence community. This is a moment where President Trump’s worst critics should say, ‘well done Mr. President.’”

Senate majority leader Republican Mitch McConnell, who also strongly condemned the troop withdrawal, said on Sunday he applauded the news and was grateful “to President Trump and his team for their leadership.”

Even Senator Mitt Romney, Trump’s fiercest Republican critic, took to Twitter to thank the President for sending Baghdadi to “hell.”

SPEAKER BRIEFING

The good news brought only a brief truce with Democrats who hope to beat Trump in 2020 if they cannot remove him from office via impeachment, however.

Several senior Democrats, including Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, congratulated Trump.

But many were quick to point out that Baghdadi’s death did not put an end to Islamic State and that Trump had no strategy for the region. They also called out the president for breaking with tradition by failing to brief the full “Gang of Eight” Congressional leaders ahead of the raid.

Trump pointedly said on Sunday that he did not tell House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, his chief Democratic rival who has played a leading role in the impeachment drama, about the plan because of concerns the information would leak and put American soldiers at risk.

“The House must be briefed on this raid, which the Russians but not top congressional leadership were notified of in advance, and on the administration’s overall strategy in the region,” Pelosi said in a statement in which she praised the armed forces.

The takedown of Baghdadi is unlikely to distract lawmakers from the impeachment probe, which has gained momentum following a number of damaging witness testimonies which Republicans are increasingly struggling to rebut.

Speaking to reporters following a top U.S. diplomat’s closed-door testimony on Wednesday, John Thune, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, said the picture emerging from the investigation was “not a good one,” a possible sign that Republican support for Trump might be faltering.

“In years past you could see how this would pause the political rhetoric for at least a few days,” said the Hoover Institution’s Chen. “I don’t see that happening this time.”

*********

Kremlin says Islamic State leader's death a boost for Trump if true

Reuters Staff | Published October 28, 2019, 7:04 AM | Reuters | Posted October 28, 2019 |

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump will have made a major contribution to the fight against international terrorism if a U.S. assertion that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead is true.

Trump on Sunday announced that Baghdadi had killed himself during a daring overnight raid by elite U.S. special operations forces in Syria and thanked Russia, among others, for its support.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to say on Monday if the United States had informed Russia about the operation in advance or provide other details.

But he told reporters that the Russian military had spotted U.S. planes and drones in the area of Syria where Washington said it had carried out the raid.

“If this information (about Baghdadi’s death) is confirmed we can talk about a serious contribution by the president of the United States to the fight against international terrorism,” said Peskov.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence cast doubt on Trump’s assertion on Sunday however, saying in a statement it did not have any reliable information about the U.S. operation and citing four reasons why the U.S. version of events looked suspicious.

“The growing number of direct participants in the operation and countries who allegedly took part in this ‘operation’, each with totally contradictory details, gives rise to justified questions and doubts about whether it took place and in particular how successful it was,” the defence ministry said.

Unlike the Kremlin, the ministry also played down Baghdadi’s importance, saying that if his death was confirmed it would have “no operational significance” on the situation in Syria or on the actions of remaining militants in Syria’s Idlib region.

*********

0 notes

coolmohnishahluwalia · 5 years

Text

Juxtaposing two ideas of India (GANDHI 150 YEARS: BELIEFS)

Mahatma Gandhi regarded the terrorist methods adopted by early radical nationalists as a ‘suicidal policy’, his principal attack being towards Amritsar-born Madan Lal Dhingra, who had killed Sir William Curzon Wyllie in London in 1909

Mahatma Gandhi regarded Dhingra’s act as cowardly, and his defence, immature and unconvincing. He thought Dhingra had broken all norms and rules while enacting the murder; the rules, which, according to Gandhi, even some of the worst criminals observe when they commit crimes

IN 1909, on his return journey from England to South Africa, Gandhi wrote the classic text, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. This foundational text, as we know, offered the foremost trenchant critique of modern civilisation and modern state. Gandhi introduced the ideas of swaraj and satyagraha for the emancipation of India and the importance of passive resistance as a means to attain personal and political freedom. What is less known is that Hind Swaraj also offered, for the first time, Gandhi’s critique of violence as a powerful response to the early years of militant nationalism that had spread across the country, particularly in Punjab. Gandhi regarded the terrorist methods adopted by these early radical nationalists as a ‘suicidal policy’. Many of us would not know that his principal attack was towards Amritsar-born Madan Lal Dhingra, a man who had killed Sir William Curzon Wyllie on July 1, 1909, at the Institute of Imperial Studies, London. Sir Curzon was the political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India, Lord Morley.

Responding to Dhingra’s action, Gandhi offered a critique of his action in Hind Swaraj:

“Do you not tremble to think of freeing India by assassination? What we need to do is to sacrifice ourselves. It is a cowardly thought, that of killing others. Whom do you suppose to free by assassination? The millions of India do not desire it. Those who are intoxicated by the wretched modern civilisation think these things. Those who will rise to power by murder will certainly not make the nation happy. Those who believe that India has gained by Dhingra’s act and other similar acts in India make a serious mistake. Dhingra was a patriot, but his love was blind. He gave his body in a wrong way; its ultimate result can only be mischievous.”

After killing Sir Curzon Wyllie, Dhingra, as the pioneering work of VN Datta tells us, asserted that what he had done was just the right thing to do. Dhingra believed that neither the British Court of Justice nor British public opinion, not even the leaders of Indian opinion, especially Gandhi, who condemned the use of violence for political ends, could really judge his act objectively. He maintained that his real judge in a matter like this was his own ‘conscience’, and some of his close associates in India House, London, like VD Savarkar, HK Koregaonkar and Harnam Singh, who had organised the ‘brotherhood-in-arms’ against the colonial state in India and were advocates of militant nationalism. In London High Court, Dhingra asserted that he was a patriot and indicted the British rule for its grave and horrific injustices perpetrated on the people of India. He read out the following statement:

“I do not want to say anything in defence of myself, but simply to prove the justice of my deed. As for myself, I do not think that any English law court has any authority to convict me or detain me in prison or to pass sentence of death to me. That is the reason I did not have any counsel to defend me. And I maintain that if it is patriotic in an Englishman to fight against the Germans if they were to occupy this country, it is much more justifiable and patriotic in my case to fight against the English; I hold the English people responsible for the murder of eighty million of my countrymen, Indians, I mean, in the last fifty years. And they are also responsible for taking away £100,000,000 every year from India to this country. I also hold them responsible for the hanging and deportations of my countrymen, who do just the same as the English people here are advising their countrymen to do; and an Englishman who goes out to India, and say, gets £100 a month, that simply means that he passes sentence of death on 1,000 of my poor countrymen. …Just as Germans have no right to occupy their country, the English people have no right to occupy India, and it is perfectly justifiable on our part to kill an Englishman who is polluting our sacred land. I am surprised at the terrible hypocrisy, force and mockery of the English people. They pose as champions of oppressed humanity — the peoples of Congo and the people of Russia, when there is much terrible oppression and horrible atrocities committed in India; for example, the killing of two million people every year and the outraging of our women. In case this country is occupied by Germans, and an Englishman, not bearing to see the Germans walking with the insolence of conquerors in the streets of London, goes and kills one or two Germans, then that Englishman is to be held as a patriot by the people of this country, then certainly I am a patriot too, working for the emancipation of my motherland.”

Dhingra welcomed the British decision to sentence him to death as he thought this would inspire and embolden his own countrymen to resist and dismantle the British rule in India:

“I made this statement not because I wish to plead for mercy or anything of that kind. I wish that English people should sentence me to death, for in that case, the vengeance of my countrymen will be all the more keen. I put forward this statement to show the justice of my cause to the outside world, especially to our sympathisers in America and Germany. That is all.”

Dhingra’s final statement entitled “Challenge” focused upon his martyrdom for his country. He justified violence as means to achieve freedom of India from the tyranny of British rule. He expressed no remorse or guilt. He was convinced and confident that militant nationalism was the only way to attain freedom from the violent shackles of colonialism:

“I admit, the other day, I attempted to shed English blood as a humble revenge for the inhuman hangings and deportations of patriotic Indian youths. In this attempt I have consulted none but my own conscience. I have conspired with none but my own duty.

I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonet is in a perpetual state of war, since open battle is rendered impossible to a disarmed race. I attacked by surprise since guns were denied me. I drew forth my pistol and fired.

…The only lesson required in India at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach it is by dying ourselves. Therefore, I die and glory in my martyrdom.

My only prayer to God is may I be reborn of the same mother and may I re-die in the same sacred cause till the cause is successful, and she stands free for the good of humanity and the glory of God — Bande Mataram.”

Doubtless, Gandhi was among the severest of Dhingra’s critics. His denunciation stemmed from his ‘critique of violence’ propounded in the Hind Swaraj. Gandhi had gone to England with HO Ali in a delegation sent to protest the notorious “Black Ordinance” requiring the registration of Asiatics. During his short stay there, Dhingra’s case came up at the Old Bailey. He sent back to Natal for publication in the Indian Opinion his views on Dhingra’s assassination of Wyllie. Gandhi made copious notes on Dhingra’s act and ideology, and in his reading found nothing worthy in any aspect of his act of violence. He believed that his own deputation’s efforts to come to a political negotiation with the British received a serious blow due to Dhingra’s careless action. He feared it would alter the attitude of the British authorities from ‘sympathy into antipathy’. Gandhi was fearless in his analysis and what he found unacceptable and abhorrent was that Dhingra killed Wyllie when he was his guest. Gandhi wrote: “Wyllie was a guest of the Association. From this point of view Madan Lal murdered his guest in his own house and killed Dr Lalcaca who tried to interfere between them.”

According to Gandhi, Dhingra’s murder of Wyllie damaged the cause of India’s political future. He regarded Dhingra’s act as cowardly, and his defence, immature and unconvincing. He believed that Dhingra did not act on his own but was exploited by the machinations and ideologies of others like Savarkar; even the statement which he presented in the court was not his own — “someone else had written it”. Gandhi thought that Dhingra had broken all norms and rules while enacting the murder; the rules, which according to Gandhi, even some of the worst criminals observe when they commit crimes. Gandhi criticised Dhingra:

“His [Dhingra’s] defence is inadmissible. In my view he has acted like a coward. All the same one can pity the man. He was egged on to do this act by ill digested reading of worthless things.

His defence of himself too appears to have been learnt by rote. It is those who incited him to do so. In my view Dhingra was innocent. The murder was committed in a state of intoxication. It is not merely wine or bhang that make one drunk; a mad idea can do so. That was the case with Dhingra.”

Clearly, Gandhi was critiquing the tide of militant nationalism and radical ideologies endorsing violence as a means to achieve the political freedom of India. Gandhi raised the whole debate to a theoretical and political framework of futility and madness of violence. Dhingra’s lofty patriotism was informed by false reasoning and analogies, he said:

“The analogy of Germans and English is fallacious. If the Germans were to invade [Britain], the British would kill only the invaders. They would not kill every German or Germans, who are guests. If I kill someone in my house without a warning, someone who has done me no harm, I cannot but be called a coward. There is an ancient custom among the Arabs that they would not kill anyone in their own house; even if the person be their enemy. They would kill him after he had left the house and after he had been given time to arm himself. Those who believe in violence would be brave men if they observe those rules when killing anyone. Otherwise they must be looked upon as cowards.”

Gandhi was certainly not impressed by Dhingra’s facing the gallows as a consequence of his act. He conceded that though Dhingra may have been courageous in certain respects, his courage was expressed and employed in a wrong way. Gandhi argued:

“It may be said that what Dhingra did publicly and knowing fully well that he himself would have to die augurs courage of no mean order on his part. But as I have said above, men can do nothing in a state of intoxication and can also banish the fear of death. Whatever courage there is in this is the result of intoxication, not a quality of the man himself. A man’s courage consists in suffering deeply and over a long period. That alone is a brave act which is preceded by careful reflection. Those who believe in this madness are ignorant, who will rule in their place — murderers. India can gain nothing from this rule of murders. I am afraid some Indians will commend this murder. I believe they will be guilty of a heinous crime.”

Critiquing the use of violence as a political strategy, Gandhi wrote: “One of the accepted and time-bound methods to attain the end is that of violence. The assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie was an illustration in its worst and [most] detestable form of that method.”

Gandhi firmly believed that Dhingra’s sacrifice was futile, calculated to do immense harm to Indian’s political struggle. Gandhi was not willing to consider Dhingra a hero or a martyr. For him, Dhingra was a misguided youth, who under the influence of some ‘mad idea’, was incited and manipulated by ideologues designed to only destroy his own life for an inconsequential, ill-fated, futile pursuit. The ‘suicidal policy’ adopted by Dhingra, he maintained, disagreed with his own idea of India which was committed to personal, moral and political freedom, i.e. swaraj.

Gandhi constantly, throughout his political life, advocated and practiced the ‘futility of violence’ and juxtaposed the transformative possibilities of non-violence with the destructive potentialities of violence. This juxtaposition of violence and non-violence continued to shape and craft the Mahatma’s political language in the twentieth century. This difference also constitutes two alternative ideas of India in our own contemporary times.#MohnishRANotes

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2osiOOp via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

newsnigeria · 6 years

Text

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/crash-course-anti-semitism/

A Crash Course on the True Causes of “Anti-Semitism”, part II: the hunt for anti-Semites

[This article was written for the Unz Review]

First, anti-Semites everywhere!

It has been over a year since I wrote an article entitled “A Crash Course on the True Causes of “Anti-Semitism “. I tried to illustrate how the kind of ideology and worldview of what ought to be called Rabbinical Phariseeism but is, alas, usually referred to as “Orthodox Judaism,” results in an inevitable hostile backlash from those whom this ideology and worldview even deny the status of “human being.” Today, I want to do something a little different: look at a political tactic which appears to give Jews a very desirable position but which in reality places them all at risk: the use of the accusation of “anti-Semitism” on practically anybody who dares to be critical of anybody and anything Jewish. The following recent headline on RT was what inspired me to discuss this issue:

Trump accused of anti-Semitism over claim Soros funds ‘elevator screamers.’

I won’t take up space here by quoting the article at length so please check it out on the original RT page. Here is just a short excerpt:

Critics of US President Donald Trump were quick to accuse him of anti-Semitism over a tweet claiming that women accosting senators over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were paid by liberal billionaire George Soros. “The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it!” Trump tweeted on Friday. “Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love!” Outrage ensued, obviously. ThinkProgress, the media arm of John Podesta’s Center for American Progress think tank, immediately accused the president of anti-Semitism. A Slate editor chimed in, calling Trump’s words an “anti-Semitic dog whistle.” And a staff writer for The Atlantic called it a “conspiracy theory that a rich Jewish boogeyman is making women claim to have been raped and assaulted.”

I have no idea why the RT reporter wrote that outrage ensued “obviously,” but let’s first note that none of those who accuse Trump of anti-Semitism makes any effort to explain why exactly Trump’s words are anti-Semitic.

[Sidebar: I know, “anti-Semitism” is a misleading and basically meaningless notion. In this article “What is Antisemitism” Michael Neumann how this already ambiguous and misleading concept became fundamentally meaningless (he concluded his analysis by saying “the real scandal today is not antisemitism but the importance it is given”). I will be using this term only because it is so widely used by Jewish organizations to discredit pretty much all those who dare to express a critical thought.]

Think Progress simply tweeted this: “Trump tweets out anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about George Soros.” Here we have a classical double-whammy: anti-Semitism, of course, but also a “conspiracy theory.” We will come back to this conceptual pair.

But first, the basics.

Is there any doubt at all that Soros sponsors all kind of protests in many different countries including the USA?

Let’s check the hyper-politically correct and doubleplusgoodthinking Wikipedia and see what we find there. In the 6th paragraph of the introduction to Soros’ entry, we see the following sentence:

“Soros is a well-known supporter of American progressive and American liberal political causes, to which he dispenses donations through his foundation, the Open Society Foundations.”

Really?! Not only does Wikipedia unambiguously state that Soros is sponsoring various US progressive and liberal causes, but he has also even created a special foundation to do that. Does this entry mean that Wikipedia is also part of an anti-Semitic campaign and is spreading conspiracy theories? Did Trump not say precisely the same thing as Wikipedia when he tweeted about “screamers are paid professionals” and “professionally made identical signs? Paid for by Soros and others”? It sure looks to me that Trump and Wikipedia are saying the exact same thing, yet one gets accused of being anti-Semitic while the other is left in peace. Why? Besides, what Trump said is really something which is common knowledge and which is not even denied by Soros himself. Even better, the “elevator screamers” themselves don’t even deny it either.

And yet, in spite of that, the Daily Beast says that “Trump goes full conspiracy nut” while the Deputy Washington Editor of The New York Times, Jonathan Weisman tweeted that “I’m sorry but the “Soros is paying them” trope from the president of the United States is … wow” and then proceeded to plug his book (((Semitism))) Being Jewish in American in the Age of Trump. That book was enthusiastically endorsed by The Washington Post: (“a passionate call to arms”), the Jewish Book Council: (“Could not be more important or timely”) and the inevitable Bernard-Henri Lévy: (“It would be wonderful if anti-Semitism was a European specialty and stopped at the border with the United States. Alas, this is not the case”).

Wait!

How do you go from “professional elevator screamers” to anti-Semitism?!

Trump says something which is both undeniable and actually undenied, and that somehow makes him a conspiracy nut and an anti-Semite and that, in turn, is supposed to suggest to us that Jews are in great peril in the USA (“call to arms” + “could not be more important”).

Does that make any sense to you at all?!

Trump is accused of being an anti-Semite because he had the nerve to actually openly state an undisputed fact. More specifically, Trump is guilty not just of stating an undisputed fact, but of stating an undisputed fact in reference to a Jew (hence the specific accusation of anti-Semitism and not of some other form of crimethink). But since Wikipedia and Soros himself pretty much say the same thing as Trump, albeit in a more educated way, what is the problem?

Setting aside the fact that Trump has proven to be the best shabbos-goy the Likud ever had (just his move of the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem was an act of truly abject servility to Israel), let’s deconstruct what is really going on here.

I submit that for all the official propaganda, everybody knows that free speech in the AngloZionist Empire is strictly limited: in the European colonies by means of fines and incarceration and in the USA by means of political hysterics. The methods are different (no First Amendment in Europe!) but the goal is the same: to smear, discredit and eventually silence the crimethinkers.

Let us look at two examples:

Next, anti-anti-Semites everywhere

First, check out this article about “conspiracy theories” in which the author writes: (emphasis added)

The term “conspiracy theory” is used to describe any theory that attempts to characterize observed events as the result of some secret conspiracy. The term is often used dismissively, implying that the theory is implausible. Although conspiracy theories (particularly aimed at Jews and Bankers) date back hundreds of years, the earliest usage of “conspiracy theory” does not always have this connotation, although the theories are quite often dismissed in other ways. Usually, it’s simply a way of identifying the theory from other theories – as in “the theory that happens to have a conspiracy.”

Therefore, since discussing Jews and Bankers is a typical “conspiracy theory” and since the term “conspiracy theory” is often used dismissively, implying that it is implausible, it is therefore implausible that Jews and bankers would have any special political or historical importance. But if this is so implausible, why are such theories particularly aimed at Jews and bankers and not at Buddhists and bakers? Where is the logic here?

The second example is from an article entitled “Holocaust denial and 9/11 “Truth”: Two crappy tastes that taste crappy together” which clearly states: (emphasis added)

Holocaust denial fits into the 9/11 “Truth” movement hand-in-glove. Think about it. Whenever you see claims by 9/11 Truthers that there was some sort of “conspiracy” to bring down the World Trade Center towers, who is inevitably part of the conspiracy in the paranoid vision of the “Truth” movement? Well, there’s usually the U.S. government, but almost invariably the Mossad is said to be involved. Yep, the Jews.

This is interesting. Let’s assume that 9/11 truthers mostly think that Israel was involved in the 9/11 false flag (I certainly believe that!), how does that in any way imply that “the Jews” did something wrong or, even more so, the denial of the so-called “Holocaust”?! Furthermore, how does reaching the basic and inevitable conclusions implied by high-school level Newtonian physics about WTC 7 in any way indicate that somebody is paranoid? Maybe the label of “paranoid” ought to be applied to everybody not trusting the government?

Would it not be much more fitting to apply the term “paranoid” to those who manage to jump from “paid elevator screamers” to anti-Semitism or from doubts about 9/11 to Holocaust denial? I think that the paranoid nutcases are the anti-anti-Semites who are constantly doing two very dangerous things:

1) strenuously denying obvious and well-known facts

2) accusing anybody capable of critical thought of being an anti-Semite

Make no mistake, those still capable of critical thought will challenge the official narratives about 9/11 or about the “Holocaust”. I would even argue that any good and interesting history book will always be revisionist, at least to some degree. Good historiography should always challenge widely accepted beliefs, should it not?

In a mentally sane and politically free society challenges to the official 9/11 conspiracy theory (because, make no mistake, the official fairy tale about 9/11 is quite literally a “conspiracy theory” and a most unlikely and most implausible one!) or to the official narrative about the “Holocaust” should be treated just like the “no moon landing” or “flat earth” or any other theory which should be discussed on its merits and not treated as a form of egregious and evil crimethink. Alas, as we all know, this is far from being the case today.

Personally, I don’t blame “the Jews” for this state of affairs, if only because I don’t even use a category like “the Jews” which I consider to be meaningless. However, I do lay the blame for this situation on organized Jewry; that is, the main Jewish/Zionist organizations who by their constant efforts to place such utterly ridiculous limits on free speech (and even free thought!) create a world in which two main camps struggle against each other:

First, the doubleplusgoodthinkers who are fully zombified by the mass media and who have fully internalized all the characteristics of the doublethink Orwell described in his book 1984: these brainwashed zombies can fully accept and believe two mutually contradictory things with no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.

Second, the crimethinkers who dare to doubt the official views about any topic and who, once they realize that they have been lied to about almost anything which matters, distrust and even challenge those ideas which are the most widely and systematically propagandized.

Of course, this state of affairs is bad for non-Jews, but it is even much worse for Jews because it creates an extremely dangerous mechanism: by rabidly enforcing such outrageous limits on free speech, Jewish organizations are profoundly alienating all those capable of independent thought. Even worse, once they start doubting one thing, e.g., the official narrative about 9/11, they inevitably wonder if they have been lied to in another matter, e.g., the “Holocaust.” In fact, what this pressure to conform to the official doxa of the day, the Zeitgeist if you wish, results in, is what I would call a “chain reaction of doubts,” including very unreasonable doubts. Let me give just one example:

After having read many books and articles about this topic, I find it extremely unlikely that the Nazis used gas chambers or crematoria in any large numbers. I would never presume to say that this “never” happened, but I personally don’t believe that this happened in any large numbers (this is why I consider the word “Holocaust,” which means “all/whole-burning,” a very misleading term). I also believe that the (quasi-obligatory) figure of 6 million is a vast exaggeration. Why? Because I read a lot about it, from both sides, and, frankly, the “revisionists” have much stronger arguments, both factual and logical.

However,

There is also no doubt in my mind at all that the Nazis were genocidal maniacs and self-worshiping racists who butchered millions of totally innocent people, including a very large number of Jews. I just believe that most of their victims were either murdered by the SS Einsatzgruppen or starved to death in various concentration camps (including many smaller, lesser known ones). Is that really less evil than using gas chambers or crematoria? I sure don’t think so. Neither do I think that four, three, two or even “just” one million murdered innocent is much better than six million. I know that there are many others out there who came to similar conclusions. But the problem is that there are also those who, once they began having doubts about gas chambers or crematoria, then decided the entire narrativeabout the “Holocaust” was one big lie and that no Jews at all were targeted or murdered by the Nazis.

My personal observation is that the vast majority of those who come to such a (completely unwarranted) conclusions are, indeed, Jew-hating folks who want to whitewash the Nazis and who would gladly parrot any inanity as long as it is somehow anti-Jewish or pro-Nazi. Not very smart, for sure, but it is nonetheless true that their hostility towards anything Jewish or their sympathies for the Nazis did not come out of nowhere but are a reaction to what they feel is the toxic and oppressive power of “the Jews” over their countries or society. Replace the “the Jews” with “Jewish and Zionist political organizations,” and they have a point, don’t they? One quick but honest look at US or French politics will immediately and easily confirm this.

Conclusion: anti-Semitism is something artificially kept alive

It seems to me that Jewish/Zionist organizations are apparently dead-set on creating as many enemies as possible or, at least, to alienate as many thinking people as possible. I can see how a rabid Zionist would find such a situation helpful for the Aliyah, but is it really good for the Jewish people? I very much doubt it.

The same goes for the mindset which makes any criticism of Soros or of Jewish bankers into a manifestation of anti-Semitism? Again, great for the Aliyah I suppose, but it is good for regular Jewish people? What about applying the label of “nutcase” to all those who dare to question an official theory? In the bad old days of the Soviet Union quite a few “dissidents” were declared suffering from “slowly-progressing schizophrenia” (вялотекущая шизофрения) by “official” psychiatrists and the “free and democratic world” was outraged (in spite of the fact that quite a few of these dissidents truly were suffering from mental issues). Is that profoundly different from placing the label of “nutcase” on somebody expressing doubts about an official theory?

What Jewish/Zionist organizations are trying to impose on the rest of the planet is a blanket immunity from any criticism for all Jews (except the “self-hating” ones, of course!) combined with a grim determination to crush anybody daring to oppose such plans.

The chances that most of the world will ever accept such mental shackles are virtually nil. What is much more likely is that the resistance to such efforts will grow, no doubt reported to the public as an “emergence of a new anti-Semitism” or something equally vapid. And at the end of the road, there will always be a powerful backlash against those who started it all. So what is the point?

I am left wondering whether all these Jewish/Zionist organizations are staffed merely by incompetent people, or whether creating more, not less, anti-Semitism might not be the *real* goal of these organizations.

Whatever may be the case, anti-Semitism is not something which “just exists.” It is something which must be rekindled over and over again. Left alone, it would just fizzle out.

The Saker

#Israel

0 notes

lopezdorothy70-blog · 6 years

Text

America's Vaccine Civil War: Baylor Doctor Attacks Mothers of Vaccine Damaged Children in Attempt to Silence Them

In 2017, in Scientific American magazine, Dr. Hotez called on the U.S. government and G20 nations to take steps to “snuff out” the “American anti-vaccine movement.” To “snuff out” means to “crush or kill.” Image Source.

Comments by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News

The vaccine civil war in America is heating up here in 2018. Thanks to the power of the alternative media, the true science, or lack thereof, surrounding vaccines and vaccine injuries is being published and read by millions of Americans, while the corporate-sponsored “mainstream” media continues to propagate the myth that all vaccines are safe and effective, and that “the science is settled.”

The claim that “the science is settled” is an intellectually and morally dishonest attempt to silence debate and discussion about the evidence and science, since vaccine products cannot exist in a free market, where lawsuits from those injured and killed by vaccines makes their manufacture and sales impossible without legal protection and government sponsorship. (The U.S. Government through the CDC and financed by American taxpayers is the largest purchaser of vaccines worldwide.)

The only reason the science is not debated today is because of a law passed in 1986 that gave pharmaceutical companies total legal immunity for any injuries or deaths caused by vaccines, and removed any shred of accountability for what has now become quite possibly the most dangerous, legal product in America: vaccines.

Since the data and the science does not support the claim that all vaccines are safe and effective for all people, the vaccine extremists resort to intimidation and threats, while controlling the corporate “mainstream” media and silencing any dissenters.

Debate and discussion of the data and science is not allowed.

What the vast majority of the American public still does not understand, is that the fact that vaccines kill and injure people is not even a fact that is in dispute.

The U.S. Vaccine Court has paid out billions of dollars in damages to American citizens who have suffered crippling injuries or death due to vaccines, and Health Impact News might be the only news source that publishes the Department of Justice (DOJ) reports submitted each quarter on vaccine injuries and deaths.

The Supreme Court of the United States has also ruled that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe.”

The only thing that is in dispute is how many people are being injured and killed by vaccines. The vaccine extremists, who control Big Pharma and public health policy in U.S. health agencies such as the CDC, would claim that the rate is 1 in a million, without providing any reasonable data to support that claim, and stifling debate that would allow vaccines to come under scrutiny and potentially lead to safer vaccines in the marketplace.

Now, because the alternative media has done an excellent job in educating the public to the real science and data surrounding vaccines, the attacks against anyone who dares to question vaccine safety are becoming more vicious.

Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor University has viciously attacked parents of vaccine damaged children, accusing them of “hating” their children, and calling on government leaders worldwide to silence their voices.

As editor of Health Impact News, I am presenting two dissenting responses by two extremely well-educated and informed women:

Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-Founder and President of the National Vaccine Information Center, and Mary Holland, law professor at New York University School of Law.

These two distinguished women represent the national cries for vaccine safety, and they represent the effort nationwide to support informed consent to medical procedures like vaccines, opposing the vaccine extremists agenda to mandate vaccines for ALL people in ALL situations ALL of the time, by force if necessary.

Ms. Fisher has been fighting this fight since the 1980s, and America can thank her and her national organization for the few remaining rights Americans have to refuse vaccines, or choose a vaccination schedule in consultation with their family physician that is tailored to the individual needs of their children.

Ms. Fisher opposed the 1986 law that gave legal immunity to Big Pharma, and was instrumental in establishing the National Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The national organization that she leads, the National Vaccine Information Center, has successfully stood up for parental rights and patient rights for decades now, with representatives in all 50 states watching legislative actions that attempt to take away those rights.

She is obviously a threat to the agenda of the Vaccine Extremists.

Last year, Fisher wrote an incredible treatise titled “From Nuremberg to California: Why Informed Consent Matters in the 21st Century” that I characterized like this:

The controversial topic of vaccines in the U.S. today is primarily a topic about beliefs, and people's trust in vaccines resembles a religious belief, not an informed opinion based on the facts.

I am not sure in all of my years in covering this very important and very controversial topic, that I have ever found a literary treatise on the subject as eloquent and comprehensive as this piece just put together by Barbara Loe Fisher, the founder of the National Vaccine Information Center.

Revolutions that have changed the course of history have begun on lesser documents and exposés than what Barbara has written here, and I am not exaggerating.

You can read it here.

Mary Holland's work to expose the legal ramifications of mandatory vaccines is also key in America today, as the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue of forced vaccinations since the 1908 Jacobson v. Massachusetts case, and much has changed since 1908.

For example, in 1908 the courts in the U.S. generally believed in eugenics, and forced sterilizations of people deemed mentally incompetent.

Much of that changed after WWII when the world viewed first hand one outcome of the philosophy of eugenics in Nazi Germany, and the Nuremberg trials set forth legal precedence to protect patient rights and informed consent to medical treatments.

Both Barbara Loe Fisher and Mary Holland are past contributors at Health Impact News. You can read Professor Holland's legal perspectives in this article:

Could Proposed Mandatory Vaccine Laws Survive Legal Challenges?

and watch her presentation to the United Nations on this issue in 2016:

N.Y. Law Professor Addresses U.N. on Government Vaccine Policies Violating the Nuremberg Code

Barbara Loe Fisher and Mary Holland have one more thing in common: they are both mothers of vaccine damaged children, the kind of mothers that Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor University is now attacking and trying to silence.

Baylor's Doc Hotez Bullies Parents of Vaccine Injured Children

by Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-Founder and President of NVIC The Vaccine Reaction

Many years ago when I was having a conversation with a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) during a public engagement meeting, we explored the reasons for why public health officials and parents of vaccine-injured children were at such odds with each other.

I said it was because we disagreed about the science.

He said, no, it was a disagreement over values and beliefs.

This week a physician dean at Baylor University College of Medicine made it clear that it is a lot about doctors getting off on demonizing and bullying parents of vaccine injured children.

According to an article in the Duke Chronicle, Peter Hotez, MD, PhD gave a global health lecture at Duke University in which he called on medical scientists to “engage the public” to promote more financial investment into the development of more vaccines. [1]

Apparently, he also called on them to counter what he labeled as the “anti-vaccine movement,” which he believes has been “propelled” because “anti-vaccine websites exist with names such as the National Vaccine Information Center.”

The article reported that Dr. Hotez castigated politicians from the “peace, love, granola” political left, who believe that “we have to be careful what we put into our kid's bodies,” and politicians from the political right, who tell doctors like him “you can't tell us what to do with our kids.”

But Dr. Hotez reserved the bulk of his venom for parents of vaccine injured children. Like a schoolyard bully who engages in name calling when he can't come up with anything intelligent to say, he slapped the label “anti-vaccine” onto parents of vaccine injured children speaking about what happened to their children after vaccination.

Then, he went further and viciously accused those parents of hating their children:

[Anti-vaccine organizations] camouflage themselves as a political group, but I call them for what they really are: a hate group. They are a hate group that hates their family and hates their children. [2]

In an email, he expanded on his personal feelings about the non-profit charity, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), founded by parents of DPT vaccine injured children, who have worked for 36 years to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to secure informed consent protections in vaccine policies and laws. [3, 4]

He said:

The National Vaccine Information Center, is the National Vaccine Misinformation Center. It's a phony website designed to intimidate and spread false and misleading information about vaccines. The NVIC is an important driver of the antivaxer movement and one that places children's [sic] in harm's way to perpetuate its twisted ideology.'

A vaccine developer, a former president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and director of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, Professor Hotez is a doctor with a lot of titles who brings a lot of prestige, power and money to any academic setting in which he works or appears. [5, 6, 7]

He is also the father of a daughter with autism, who he insists is not vaccine injured. [8]

Regardless of the cause of his daughter's brain and immune system dysfunction, as the parent of a developmentally disabled child, Dr. Hotez should know better than to vent his anger and frustration by striking out at other parents with children requiring special education and lifelong care.

This is not the first time that Dr. Hotez has revealed his prejudice against parents, who disagree with him about the safety of vaccines and one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination policies.

In 2017, in Scientific American magazine, Dr. Hotez called on the U.S. government and G20 nations to take steps to “snuff out” the “American anti-vaccine movement.” [9]

To “snuff out” means to “crush or kill.” [10]

In his interview for the Duke newspaper, Dr. Hotez chose to use the word “hate” four times in two sentences when he defamed the National Vaccine Information Center by calling it a “hate group.”

Branding an organization a “hate group” is not an inconsequential action, morally or legally.

In the 21st century, the term “hate group” is most frequently used to describe groups of individuals associated with “hate crimes,” which are defined by state laws and include threats, harassment or physical harm.

Hate crimes are motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability. [11]

In a July 2017 commentary, Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War, I described how some physicians and lawyers in academia have been systematically fomenting fear, hatred and prejudice against any parent or physician who talks about the reality of vaccine injuries and deaths and defends the informed consent principle, which has been the ethical standard for the ethical practice of medicine since World War II. [12]

A child health advocacy group that points out vaccine science research gaps, criticizes paternalism in medical practice, and challenges the use of utilitarianism as the moral foundation for public health policy does not qualify as a “hate group.” [13, 14]

Prestigious universities like Baylor and Duke, which receive substantial funding from government health agencies to develop and test new vaccines, should have a minimum standard of conduct for professors, whether they are employed to teach students or perform research. [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22]

Engaging in defamatory speech and using violent imagery to call on governments to “snuff out” people for exercising freedom of thought, speech, conscience and religious belief does not meet even a minimum standard for civil conduct.

Regardless of what vaccine developers and forced vaccination proponents like Dr. Hotez choose to do, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) will continue to publish well referenced information on NVIC.org anchored with links to the CDC, FDA, NIH, National Academy of Sciences, vaccine manufacturer package inserts, articles published in the medical literature, state vaccine laws and other information resources to assist those making educated decisions about vaccination for themselves and their minor children.

We will continue to provide a forum for Americans to testify about their personal experiences with vaccination, [23, 24] we will continue to defend the legal right to exercise freedom of thought, speech, conscience, religious belief and informed consent, all of which have been recognized internationally as human rights. [25, 26]

In a Valentine's Day 2018 vaccine education awareness campaign, supporters of the National Vaccine Information Center communicated the following two messages to their friends and families:

“I love my children and protecting all children” and “Let all that you do be done in love.”

Those are messages that Dr. Hotez and other doctors, who bully parents because they are upset with a challenge to their wisdom and authority on the subject of health and vaccination, do not understand. [27, 28]

The doctors operating the mandatory vaccination system with an iron fist, who refuse to acknowledge or address the suffering of people for whom the risks of vaccination turned out to be 100 percent, would do well to reflect upon the primary role they have played in the crisis of public trust in the safety of vaccines and doctors forcing everyone to use them.

Read the full article at TVR.org.

NYU Law Professor Mary Holland's Response

Mary S. Holland 22 Washington Square North, B-16 New York, NY 10011 (212) 998-6212

February 20, 2018

Dr. Peter Hotez, M.D. Dean, National School of Tropical Medicine Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX

Dear Dr. Hotez:

It is with sadness and distress that I read of your inaugural Victor J. Dzau Global Health Lecture Series at Duke University.

Based on reporting in the February 20, 2018 Duke Chronicle, I understand that you accused those whom you brand “anti-vaccine” as “a hate group that hates their family and hates their children.”

Let me explain why I find your remarks both offensive and off-the-mark.

Like you, I am the parent of a young adult with autism. Unlike you, I believe that vaccine injury is by far the most plausible explanation for my son's onset of autism in his second year of life.

Through extensive education and work with groups that you dub “anti-vaccine,” I came to understand that vaccine-induced encephalopathy, which can manifest with “features of autism,” is a well-known phenomenon.

Indeed, colleagues and I revealed that the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has been compensating such cases of brain injury, with concomitant autism, since the program's inception in 1988.

My mother, the late Dr. Jimmie C. Holland, a psychiatrist, was an early female graduate of Baylor College of Medicine in 1952; she was one of three women in her class.

In 1992, the College honored her with its Distinguished Alumni Award.

I regret that she died at the end of 2017, but until that time, she loved her grandson with autism with all her heart. She actively supported my advocacy to look more deeply into questions of vaccine-induced autism, making invaluable contributions to the Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy, the Autism Action Network, the Center for Personal Rights, and Health Choice, all organizations focused on the links between the autism epidemic and the sharp rise in infant vaccines since the late 1980's.

Was my mother, a distinguished alumna of Baylor College of Medicine an “anti-vaxxer who hated her family”? Really?

The powerful #MeToo movement has made the country understand that for too long, girls' and womens' assertions of sexual violence and abuse have been marginalized, disparaged and rejected.

Doctors, like Dr. Larry Nasser, and prestigious universities, like Michigan State University, have played shameful roles in these crimes against children and women.

The parallel to the female-dominated vaccine choice and vaccine safety movement is all too obvious. Ad hominem (or more accurately ad hominae) arguments, like labeling those who disagree with you as “hate groups,” does your viewpoint no favors.

The appropriate role for vaccines in national public health deserves serious discussion among all stakeholders, including those who advocate for vaccines, those who oppose them, and every stripe in between.

This is a serious, contentious debate, implicating fundamental questions of prior, free and informed consent; the medical principle of 'first do no harm;' public health; science; and even the role of government itself.

Academic institutions and leaders should be embracing this conversation, not seeking to squelch it.

I would welcome the opportunity to debate these questions with you in an open, respectful, academic setting. I would be pleased to invite you to come to the NYU School of Law, where I am on the faculty, or I would be pleased to come to Baylor or Duke or any place else to engage in such discourse.

I believe we would make far more progress in this thorny area by openly discussing the issues together than by making inflammatory, hurtful and simply false attributions to those with whom we disagree.

Sincerely yours,

Mary S. Holland, Esq.

Cc: Dr. Linda A. Livingstone, President, Baylor University

Take Action! Demand Dr. Hotez's Immediate Termination!

Baylor University, where Dr. Peter Hotez serves as Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, presents themselves as a “A Private Christian University and a Nationally Ranked Research Institution.”

Their About Us page states that this is their “Values and Vision” statement:

Baylor's mission is to educate students for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment in a caring community.

Do Dr. Hotez's attacks against parents of vaccine-injured children fit in with Baylor's supposedly Christian philosophy?

Linda A. Livingstone is the current president of Baylor University. The phone number to her office is published here. (254-710-3555)

The American Civil War regarding vaccines and the attempt to make vaccines mandatory for ALL Americans is not a fair fight.

On the one side is the massive pharmaceutical industry that is well-funded, and backed by the U.S. government supported by American tax dollars, which also controls the U.S. corporate media.

On the other side are leaders like Barbara Loe Fisher with her poorly funded non-profit organization staffed mainly by volunteers, and Mary Holland, who do not have the resources to really challenge these attacks against them.

They must rely on the Constitutional First Amendment of Freedom of the Press to present the other side of the conflict. They are dependent on YOU, the public, to supply grassroots efforts to fight this battle.

And we can start by demanding that Dr. Hotez be reprimanded and removed from Baylor University.

Comment on this article at VaccineImpact.com.

References

1 Chen Y. 'Part of this is our fault': Global Health expert talks anti-vaccine movement, preventable diseases. Duke Chronicle Feb. 20, 2018. 2 Ibid. 3 NVIC.org. NVIC's History. February 2018. 4 Fisher BL. The Moral Right to Conscientious, Philosophical and Personal Belief Exemption to Vaccination. National Vaccine Advisory Committee May 2, 1997. 5 Hotez P. Curriculum Vitae & Biography July 2017. 6 Nace M. 2nd Annual Vaccine Biotechnology Conference at Texas Medical Center Highlights Need for Further Commercial Participation. Bionews Texas Oct. 17, 2013. 7 Hotez P. In New Book: Dr. Peter J. Hotez Argues Most Neglected Tropic Diseases Can Be Found in World's Wealthiest Countries. TMC News Sept. 6, 2016. 8 Hotez P. Fathering Autism. Washington Post July 1, 2008. 9 Hotez PJ. Will An American Led Anti-Vaccine Movement Subvert Global Health? Scientific American Mar. 3, 2016. 10 Dictionary.com. Definition of snuff out. 11 US Legal. Hate Crime Law and Legal Definition. 12 Fisher BL. Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War. National Vaccine Information Center July 17, 2018. 13 Fisher BL. The Need for Better Quality Vaccine Safety Science. Presentation to the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Assessment of Studies of Health Outcomes Related to the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule. Feb. 9, 2012. 14 Fisher BL. Forced Vaccination: The Tragic Legacy of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. National Vaccine Information Center Nov. 2, 2016. 15 Baylor College of Medicine. Vaccine Research Grants. 16 Baylor College of Medicine. National Institutes of Health Funding. 17 Baylor College of Medicine. Vaccine Clinical Trials. 18 Baylor College of Medicine. Vaccine Clinical Trials. 19 Duke University School of Medicine. Duke Human Vaccine Institute. 20 Duke University. Department of Medicine Grants and Funding and Research Funding. 21 Idrus AA. Duke University scores $20M from NIH to develop HIV vaccine. Fierce Pharma Apr. 9, 2015. 22 Duke Health. Vaccine Clinical Trials. 23 National Vaccine Information Center. International Memorial for Vaccine Victims. 24 National Vaccine Information Center. Cry for Vaccine Freedom Wall. 25 Fisher BL. From Nuremberg to California: Why Informed Consent Matters in the 21st Century. National Vaccine Information Center Oct. 24, 2017. 26 National Vaccine Information Center. NVIC Advocacy Portal. 27 Fagone J. Will this Doctor Hurt Your Baby? Philadelphia Magazine June 2009. 28 Hotez P. Peter Hotez vs. Measles and the Anti-Vaccine Movement. Texas Monthly December 2017.

Say NO to Mandatory Vaccines T-Shirt

100% Pre-shrunk Cotton Order here!

Make a Statement for Health Freedom!

Big Pharma and government health authorities are trying to pass laws mandating vaccines for all children, and even adults.

Show your opposition to forced vaccinations and support the cause of Vaccine Impact, part of the Health Impact News network.

Order here!

Leaving a lucrative career as a nephrologist (kidney doctor), Dr. Suzanne Humphries is now free to actually help cure people. In this autobiography she explains why good doctors are constrained within the current corrupt medical system from practicing real, ethical medicine. FREE Shipping Available! Order here.

Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?

eBook – Available for immediate download.

One of the biggest myths being propagated in the compliant mainstream media today is that doctors are either pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, and that the anti-vaccine doctors are all “quacks.”

However, nothing could be further from the truth in the vaccine debate. Doctors are not unified at all on their positions regarding “the science” of vaccines, nor are they unified in the position of removing informed consent to a medical procedure like vaccines.

The two most extreme positions are those doctors who are 100% against vaccines and do not administer them at all, and those doctors that believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective for ALL people, ALL the time, by force if necessary.

Very few doctors fall into either of these two extremist positions, and yet it is the extreme pro-vaccine position that is presented by the U.S. Government and mainstream media as being the dominant position of the medical field.

In between these two extreme views, however, is where the vast majority of doctors practicing today would probably categorize their position. Many doctors who consider themselves “pro-vaccine,” for example, do not believe that every single vaccine is appropriate for every single individual.

Many doctors recommend a “delayed” vaccine schedule for some patients, and not always the recommended one-size-fits-all CDC childhood schedule. Other doctors choose to recommend vaccines based on the actual science and merit of each vaccine, recommending some, while determining that others are not worth the risk for children, such as the suspect seasonal flu shot.

These doctors who do not hold extreme positions would be opposed to government-mandated vaccinations and the removal of all parental exemptions.

In this eBook, I am going to summarize the many doctors today who do not take the most extremist pro-vaccine position, which is probably not held by very many doctors at all, in spite of what the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and the mainstream media would like the public to believe.

Read:

Medical Doctors Opposed to Forced Vaccinations – Should Their Views be Silenced?

on your mobile device!

$0.99

Dr. Andrew Moulden: Every Vaccine Produces Harm

eBook – Available for immediate download.

Canadian physician Dr. Andrew Moulden provided clear scientific evidence to prove that every dose of vaccine given to a child or an adult produces harm. The truth that he uncovered was rejected by the conventional medical system and the pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, his warning and his message to America remains as a solid legacy of the man who stood up against big pharma and their program to vaccinate every person on the Earth.

Dr. Moulden died unexpectedly in November of 2013 at age 49.

Because of the strong opposition from big pharma concerning Dr. Moulden's research, we became concerned that the name of this brilliant researcher and his life's work had nearly been deleted from the internet. His reputation was being disparaged, and his message of warning and hope was being distorted and buried without a tombstone. This book summarizes his teaching and is a must-read for everyone who wants to learn the “other-side” of the vaccine debate that the mainstream media routinely censors.

Read:

Read Dr. Andrew Moulden: Every Vaccine Produces Harm on your mobile device!

on your mobile device!

$3.99

0 notes

yourgodmoments · 7 years

Text

Beware of False Teachers and Counterfeit Christs - part 2

In part one, we looked at an author who was attempting to secularize Christ. Now, let’s look at (yet another Huffington Post offering) an article by one Keith Augustus Burton, who is the ‘Director of the Center for Adventist-Muslim Relations at Oakwood University.’

Mr. Burton’s bio tells us that he has received accolades for his ‘successful bridge building initiatives between Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities.’ In addition, it states that he teaches at the ‘School of Religion.’ Sounds impressive; yet the title of his article we’ll examine gives me pause: The Bible Has No Place In Modern American Society: Sobering Lessons from Donald Trump and Kim Burrell. His bio does not specifically state his particular theological beliefs, but some book titles he’s authored suggests a Christian perspective. We’ll see…

His article begins with his personal assessments of the Bible and of the so-called damage that it wreaks: ‘…many of the bigoted and outdated teachings have no place in our enlightened society.’ ‘…its content is seriously out of place with modern American values.’ and ‘…its teachings are a most meddlesome inconvenience that if embraced will place them (the followers) in a permanent state of cognitive dissonance.’

We can see then where Mr. Burton’s mindset is, by his own admissions. As we move into the body of his article, he presents his talking points:

1. The Bible is a relic of a Superstitious Past

His ‘proof’(?) consists of his assertion that because presidents have done bad things after placing their hands on a Bible during their inauguration, that the word of God has no power. In truth, his discursive prose consists only of a political rant at best. Nothing here that connects the Bible with a superstitious past.

2. The Bible is a Convenient Political Prop

This discussion is nothing more than a hate-filled pontification against our present president, the vice president, the ‘gullible masses who are still beguiled by the myth of a “Christian” America’, and ‘the cold-hearted “evangelicals” ‘ that voted for the present administration and their policies. Not anything of value about the Bible itself so far.

I’m beginning to feel that perhaps Mr. Burton has a grudge and that the mention of the Bible in his title is but an attempt to try to catch readers so that he can advance his agenda by political bashing.

3. The Bible is an Obstacle to American Freedom

Wow! his opening salvo demonstrates his true discriminations: ‘Whereas the conservatives’ repulsion to the Bible is guarded by a conniving cloak of acceptance, progressives are more honest. As far as they are concerned, the socially liberating sections of so-called “scripture” are not enough to redeem its bigoted and outdated parts.’ Who’s the bigot here? Again, no discussion of the Bible, just hurling hate against people whom he perceives thwart his beliefs.

Mr. Burton, your article purports to be about the Bible first. Your political candidate lost. Give it a rest. You’ll get a chance to change this in four years.

He doesn’t let up, finally getting around to attacking the Bible: ‘It is a dangerous book…that must be delegitimized…’

He then sounds off against marriage defined by the union of a man and a woman. Why? Because in his opinion, the 21st century mores and the Supreme Court defines it differently. (Thus, they are the greater authority?) Well, we see that Mr. Burton’s temple is constructed around himself.

4. The Bible informs “Personal” Belief and Behavior

In this, his last ‘talking point,’ Mr. Burton never really pinpoints what he means by this subtitle. What he expounds upon is that people should love and accept other people who have beliefs that are ‘contrary’ to the Bible, even if thy promote sex between men and boys. But according to him, most don’t because they are ‘ideological bigots.’

Pardon me, but I don’t see anywhere where the author makes his case for ostracizing the Bible from ‘modern society.’

What I would have you notice is not what Mr. Burton is saying specifically, but what he is lecturing about in general: he is a perfect example of those who denigrate the word of God because what God says does not suit them and their agenda. I daresay as well, that perhaps some of their bellicosity is rooted in a guilt from an inner conviction of their self-righteousness regarding their willful and knowing rebellion against God:

I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts… Jer. 31:33 NKJV

But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it. Dt. 30:14 AMP

The trouble is that many people don’t follow their hearts; thus, they can’t understand the message:

But that natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them for they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. 2:14 NKJV

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Cor. 1:18 NKJV

And that is the main point, isn’t it? We must endure and cling to our faith. We are called to evangelize everyone, even those who are presently following another drummer. Regardless of their bluster*, we must try to present the word, opening ourselves up to the Holy Spirit to do the talking:

*(The words of his mouth begin with foolishness, and the end of his talk is raving madness. Eccl. 10:13 NKJV)

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word [as an official messenger]; be ready when the time is right and even when it is not [keep your sense of urgency, whether the opportunity seems favorable or unfavorable, whether convenient or inconvenient, whether welcome or unwelcome]; correct [those who err in doctrine or behavior], warn [those who sin], exhort and encourage [those who are growing toward spiritual maturity], with inexhaustible patience and [faithful] teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold, and will turn their ears away from the truth and will wander off into myths and man-made fictions [and will accept the unacceptable]. 2 Tim. 4:1- 4. AMP

It is true that Jesus calls us to love our ‘enemy.’ And who are our enemies but God’s people who have gone astray due to unfavorable circumstances. Many parts of the world and the people in it are victims of poverty, cruelty and ignorance, who are desperately seeking relief from their misery. Many times, that search leads to self-defeating and destructive behavior. As followers of Christ, we must love them but not their aberrant practices. We must do our best to show them the way to salvation so that they can abandon the false teachers and counterfeit Christs:

“Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you (unbelievers) and obey you rather than God, you must judge [for yourselves; for we on our part, cannot stop telling [people] about what we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:19, 20. AMP

But when that enemy rejects us with spite, hatred and disregard, we are to turn the other cheek and place our efforts to spread the kingdom elsewhere:

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pears before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” Mt. 7:6 NKJV

Remember that we are entering the closing times. The devil knows his time is short, and he will drive his minions mercilessly to attempt to bring God’s kingdom down:

“…you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another…And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures till the end shall be saved.” Mt. 24:9, 10 & 12. NKJV

How do we endure? We do it by clinging to the Bible, the word of God, having faith in it and staying in line with it. That can only be done if we stand behind its purity:

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord our God which I command you. Dt. 4:2 NKJV

We can put our full faith in His undiluted word:

As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. 1 Sam. 22:31 NKJV

You can stand upon it because it does not change:

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Is. 40:8 NKJV

Things don’t bode well for those who don’t follow God’s word:

“Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant…” Jer. 11:3 NKJV

“But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself,” says the LORD, “that this house shall become a desolation.” Jer. 22:5 NKJV

Just what are those bad parts of the scriptures that Mr. Burton attests to?

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness… 2 Tim. 3:16 NKJV

Hmmm. Seems like there are no bad parts. Indeed, Christ seemed to think that all the parts were important:

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Mt. 4:4 NKJ

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” Mt. 24:35 NKJV

So, detractors (e.g. Mr. Burton) will sometimes say that Christ was okay, but the rest of the Bible is superstition. I invite them to meditate upon Jesus’ words:

“Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For I assure you and most solemnly say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke [of the pen] will pass from the Law until all things [which it foreshadows] are accomplished.” Mt. 5:17, 18. AMP

Goodnight and God bless.

#Beware of false teachers #Bible detractors #Bible relevancy #counterfeit Christs #defending our faith #loving our enemies #ungodly behavior

0 notes

catholiccom-blog · 7 years

Photo

A Primer on Richard Rohr

Full Question

I've heard that Fr. Richard Rohr teaches some pretty sketchy stuff. Do you know anyone who has a summary of his teachings?

Answer

For whatever good he does, Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., is not a reliable teacher of the Catholic Faith. All quotes below from Fr. Rohr are taken from his book Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer.

To Fr. Richard Rohr, Jesus Christ is an ideal guide of sorts, but he’s not truly Lord.

Even more fundamentally, Rohr falls into religious indifferentism regarding the basic mission of Christ and his Church:

#Catholic Answers #Tom Nash #Ask An Apologist #Richard Rohr #Catholic Teaching

5 notes · View notes