Orwell's Unpublished Intro to Animal Farm

This makes for some interesting reading. In his unpublished introduction he talks about how even in free England censorship is just as much prevalent as it would be in a totalitarian regime like Stalin's Soviet Union. Here are a few excerpts.

Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian 'co-ordination' that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news - things which on their own merits would get the big headlines - being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed.

The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicize famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.

The Consent of the Governed

Here's an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

And then here are the results of a secret poll conducted by the British Ministry of Defense in 2005 regarding the attitudes of Iraqi's. A mere 82% were strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops. They want troops out. Of course the puppet regime installed there thinks they should keep the coalition forces. Probably because they know they'd be the first ones hanging from the lamposts if U.S. forces did withdraw. But we need to ask ourselves something. Do we believe that a government derives it's just powers from the consent of the governed, and if so what is our responsibility towards the Iraqi people?

A Real Grass Roots Movement

I would say for me the most important realization I had in 2009 was that our media is far more propagandizing, far more advocating against popular sentiment and in favor of privileged opinion than I realized. The first shocker was the realization that Gulf War I was sold to the American people on a pack of lies exposed after the fact and our media didn't care but foreign press did. Since then I learned of several other stories that are easily accessible and in a lot of cases common knowledge outside the U.S., but simply are not discussed and for the most part unknown to Americans. For instance, who knows what happened on September 11th, 1973? Who's heard of Iran Air Flight 655? Who knows that the U.S. and Israel stand virtually alone against the entire world, including the Arab world, opposing a peaceful resolution in Palestine? Americans are not informed about such things and it just so happens that this is beneficial to the privileged. The media, far from looking out for the little guy and being a watchdog, in fact enables ignorance in key areas, which is very helpful for some sectors of the population, namely the wealthy and powerful.

One politician that is not a favored candidate for the wealthy and powerful is Ron Paul. He really doesn't serve the special interests. So if the media is propagandizing as I said we would expect, then we would not expect him to get favorable coverage. We would expect, for instance, if he were to win the straw pole at CPAC by a wide margin, the media to downplay the significance of that. So here's our media's reaction to Paul's big win.

The USA Today headline is Step by step, Romney lining up support for 2012

The Washington Post article never once even mentions Ron Paul.

Fox News goes in to damage control mode.

We're to believe that Sarah Palin represents some sort of grass roots movement. Nonsense. As if she is some sort of "Rogue" candidate, bucking the system and standing for principle. Banker bailouts, bridges to nowhere. Give me a break. She's Hannah Montana. She is not in the least someone that rose to stardom because of grass roots support. She was selected in a board room and the Republican establishment is trying to make her a star. Ron Paul sustains wide and passionate support despite key efforts on the part of major media to marginalize him, make him out to be kooky, etc. That's a real grass roots movement, and it continues.

What It Takes To Be A Terrorist

It takes being a Muslim, as Glenn Greenwald observes.

All of this underscores, yet again, that Terrorism is simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon. The term now has virtually nothing to do with the act itself and everything to do with the identity of the actor, especially his or her religious identity. It has really come to mean: "a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies." That's why all of this confusion and doubt arose yesterday over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist: he's not a Muslim and isn't acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the "definition." One might concede that perhaps there's some technical sense in which term might apply to Stack, but as Fox News emphasized: it's not "terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to . . . terrorism in that capital T way." We all know who commits terrorism in "that capital T way," and it's not people named Joseph Stack.

Illegality of Threats

It's fairly common knowledge that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. Law that the United States has signed and agreed to comply with. There's a decent summary here. What many people don't realize though, as shown at the preceding link, is that it's not just illegal to invade a country without going through the proper procedures. It's also illegal to threaten another country under normal circumstances, such as when a country is not engaging in threatening behavior towards you, etc.

Iran has in no way threatened the United States, so threats against Iran are illegal. Dick Cheney and other high ranking officials have repeatedly threatened Iran (See Article 3 of House Resolution 333, which was articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney). This is a threat that is not to be taken lightly of course as the United States has the capability and has demonstrated the propensity to in fact carry out such threats.

We must demand that laws apply equally to the powerful and the weak.

Thoughts on the Loftus/D'Souza Debate

Hey John. I listened to your debate with Dinesh D'Souza and I'd like to share my thoughts.

First of all unfortunately I do have to score it as a victory for D'Souza. Not so much on substance as on his skillful misdirection and dodging.

I would summarize your opening statement as follows. Several facts about the world make better sense as natural phenomenon. The fact that cultural and geographic factors seem to be the primary drivers of religious belief. The fact that God's revelation comes via history, which is notoriously unreliable and prone to falsehood and silliness. The fact that the Christian god story is wedded to stories that sound very fictive. The fact that evil natural disasters are present and could be non-existent if an all powerful, all good God, like the Christian God, existed. These things would be expected if there were no Christian God, but are unexpected if there were a Christian God.

Dinesh's immediate response is somewhat baffling. He dismisses all these factors as irrelevant. How are they irrelevant. "The fact that geography plays a role in religious affiliation is not proof that a particular religion is wrong." No it isn't. It's also nothing like the claim that you made. Did you say that Christianity can't be true because of geographic factors? No. That's not the argument. The argument is we would expect geography to play a prominent role in religious affiliation if there were no God, however if there were a God we would expect him to shower his grace on people equally, whether they lived in Mexico or the Congo. So Dinesh mischaracterized your argument. That's to be expected. Your mistake, John, is that you did not pounce on this misrepresentation, and the impression left with the listener is that he had responded to your point.

Dinesh would have us believe that your argument is that because the Christian God supposedly revealed himself via the imperfect medium of history this means Christianity IS FALSE. That's an easy straw man to knock down. Your real argument is that this shows that Christianity IS IMPROBABLE. That's a more reasonable and difficult to defeat claim, so Dinesh wants nothing to do with it. You allowed him to avoid this question and spin your argument into something that sounds absurd. The listener walks away thinking you adhere to an absurd argument.

It would not be the last time this would happen. At the start of your questions to him you asked the following, which I'll paraphrase:

John-Today you wouldn't believe a person if they said their donkey talked without seeing it for yourself. Why believe the Bible when it says the same thing?

Dinesh-If someone said certain people had 10 eyes I wouldn't believe because I have no experience with that. However if they tell me something about a place for which I have no experience (they eat cockroaches in Singapore, there is life after death) I'm not going to dismiss it because I have no evidence to the contrary. I haven't been to the afterlife, so I can't dismiss claims about the afterlife.

Let me just point out the obvious. THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION. You didn't ask about belief in the afterlife. You asked about belief in talking animals. His logic is sound. If he has experience with a thing and the claim contradicts his experience he rejects it. OK. Does he have experience with whether or not animals talk? I would assume he does. Based upon his own logic he should reject the biblical story. He doesn't. John, your mistake is that you allowed him to change the subject and dodge your question.

In addition it seemed that rather than respond to his off topic reply you likewise moved into a different subject. You said "Once you allow supernatural explanations, any explanation will do". He challenged that and you responded that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which I didn't see exactly how that was a response to what he had said. Finally he's the one who seems to be bringing things back on point. He pulls the discussion back to "Is there life after death", which is the very subject he brought up to distract from your initial question. You responded to this by saying you accept critiques religious people offer of other religions. Again, this doesn't appear to be a response to what he's saying. It looks like you are the one that is trying to distract. You needed to bring the discussion back to your actual question, never answered by Dinesh. Why believe in talking donkeys when you don't do this in normal experience? Unfortunately he is the one that appears to be sticking to the point. You appear to be switching topics. And yet he is the one that is in fact dodging your question.

Your closing statement contained no rebuttal to what we had heard. You encouraged people to read books. You asserted that agnosticisim is a good position. You talked about how other Christians critique people like Dinesh. This is an opportunity lost to rebut the statements we heard from Dinesh. Notice Dinesh's closing statement. He takes time to rebut the assertion that various critiques cancel the truth of Christianity. He's using his time to reject your arguments and you aren't using your time in the same way. He's scoring points with this.

Let me tell you something I've learned in debating Christians on the radio. A key element of their response is to simply not answer your question. It's to switch topics. When I first began calling Christian apologists this was what they did, and my mistake was that I allowed it. Since then I try to be more rigorous. In fact I've actually in some cases jotted down notes before calling so that I keep track of what I want to say and in CAPS I write to myself DID HE ANSWER THE QUESTION. On the radio I get overpowered by the host's microphone, so the best I can sometimes do is simply point out that he's not answering my question, but in a debate you have enough microphone time to make this clear. You have to call him out on that.

Don't be discouraged. You have the tools to be good at this. It will require practice.

Pravda and The New York Times Contrasted

This is a portion of an interview with Noam Chomsky from 1992 on Donahue/Pozner. The full interview is available here. One portion that may be interesting to some is a brief discussion as it relates to Pol Pot and East Timor.