Architect Daniel Libeskind, who was born in Lodz, Poland after World War II,
in a recent interview with arts editor Diane M. Bolz about an exhibition
he designed marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, said
“You can try to manipulate truth. You can try to suppress it,
but, in the long run, truth always comes out.”
Filed under Knowledge & Wisdom, Quotations or Citations, Reflection Texts
“When we are unable to face the truth of our own feelings, we will vent our emotional pain upon anyone that goes against what we are trying to control, due to the exhaustion of representing our self as the truth, we wish we could be.”
True freedom can only be felt when we stop concealing our thoughts, desires, and beliefs, and stop pretending to be someone we are not, or pleasing others out of fear; for when our truth is spoken, our spirit emerges, and our fear becomes void, to which freedom of our true self takes flight.
~ WOW ~
Who does not want to be loved? Who is not longing for attention, recognition, acknowledgement and for being recognised as a human being, to be seen and heard and why not for receiving a hug?
I’m so confused.
There’s a big mess in my head.
I don’t know where to start and where to end.
There’s no problem in my life.
The only problems are made by me.
I’ve got no big threats against my life.
Then why is my brain fried?
Problems are problems, if you give them the space to be problems.
Because the only one recognizing those problems, is you.
It’s your brain telling you there’s a problem, but when is it really one?
My brain is fried with problems.
Or aren’t they such things?
Are they just thoughts, which pass my mind too many at the same time, so that I can’t see which one is which anymore?
I can’t differentiate between them.
I want things but do I have the right to?
I’m aware of my past and my failures.
I try to stop myself from doing weird things.
But…
View original post 1,147 more words
Filed under Being and Feeling, Lifestyle, Welfare matters
Bill Ziegler who started studying the Geography of the Middle East in 1965, two-years before the Six-Day War, completed his M.A. at Kansas State. Having got a translation eduction and Master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati, he followed a year of post-graduate studies at Justus Liebig Universitãt in Giessen, West Germany. Getting Around in German at Tristate German-American School for 22 years 1989 – 2013, now lives in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, where he specialises in
| Manufacturing | Business/Commerce (general) |
| IT (Information Technology) | Construction / Civil Engineering |
| Telecom(munications) | Materials (Plastics, Ceramics, etc.) |
As a Certified Teacher of German Language: State of Ohio Department of Education he also is a member of the American Production and Inventory Contro, TriState German-American School. He is presently teaching German language and culture to students ranging from Kindergarten to adults: beginners to advanced levels at the TriState German-American School and integrated techniques practised at Cincinnati Waldorf School to dramatically involve each student’s learning with a wide range of teaching methods.
He is aware that
The culture where I live does not seem particularly interested in learning foreign languages. But the written, the spoken, and the audible become a part of the soul and a blessing to humanity when civilized thought can gain a foothold. {Thinking about Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Gießen and Savak}
Main building of the research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
My interest in German language led to an opportunity for study in Giessen, at that time West Germany, from 1971 to 1973. Upon arriving at Justus Liebig Universität I learned German as a second language with fellow students from Iran, Japan, Egypt among others. German was the tongue we shared, so that we could talk to the brain. Then we could join the citIzenry and talk to the heart. {Thinking about Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Gießen and Savak}
Learning a second or 3rd or 4th language is like escaping the gravity of your native land. You probe about in another way of being, of thinking, of observing. Better still — if you’ve the inclination — learn another tongue via a second or third language. Meet the stranger in a place foreign to each. {Languages, Escape Velocity and Bigly Lies}
He reminds us of a fact we may never forget
Propaganda relies upon endlessly repeated mistranslations, designed to obfuscate. Weaponized language to serve hidden agendas, to move geopolitical stakes through sabotage, bigotry, racism, straw men, false flags, pacification, liquidation; in other words, chicanery of any convenient kind. Whatever works. No questions asked. {Languages, Escape Velocity and Bigly Lies}
In this world we can find lots of people who tell a lot of lies and nonsense bout other people or about other organisations. They are eager to make use of the knowledge that people can not check certain things because they do not know the language of the others. In many countries we find the presidents or leaders of that country telling lies about “the others”.
Mark Chmiel wonders about certain moments in history
Were the Democratic and Republican presidents who consistently lied to the American people merely making slips of the tongue? … or …. Were U.S. war crimes merely bumbled into, over and over, month after month for years, an oddly uncorrectable error? {Mistake}
All dictatorships are sexually repressive and anti-life. All affirmations of life are diametrically opposed to dogmatic regimes. It was logical for Fidel Castro to persecute us, not to let us fuck, and to try to suppress any public display of the life force.
-— Reinaldo Arenas {Our Only Salvation Lies in Words: On Arenas’s Before Night Falls}
The Crusades and the Inquisition (The Church Militant) were not good ideas. Spreading lies like Joseph Goebbels lends not a single grain of truth. Truth went into exile from 1933 to 1945. No literature or art of any value springs forth under Fascism. Nothing good comes of Fascism. “When I hear the word ‘culture’…”
Islamophobia (from the xeno family of racism) will not lead to a better gentler world.
~ Arabic is a tapestry
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On this day of “News and communication” we can’t escape to ponder on the last two years where we got bombarded with continuous streams of fake news and attacks on people and organisations.
All people who write on the internet should be aware of their social function and be conscious of their responsibility and impact on others. The last few months social media also showed its bad and dangerous side in being a weapon of opponents and misleader of the people. When you look at the fake news that could be spread in one week it should really alarm us.
Today the Roman Catholic Church Father Francis I looked at what is going on in this world and said
Made in the image and likeness of our Creator, we are able to express and share all that is true, good, and beautiful. We are able to describe our own experiences and the world around us, and thus to create historical memory and the understanding of events.
He is also aware and tells about what happened very early in the history of man, what too many have forgotten. We should remember that there was the inner thought of the mannin or first woman who doubted the sincerity and honesty of her Creator. Pope Francis has denounced fake news as evil, comparing it to the snake in the Garden of Eden, and urged journalists to make it their mission to search for the truth.
In his annual social communications message, Francis said fake news played on stereotypes and prejudices, and praised efforts to make social media users aware of false reports. Question hereby can bye how we ourselves want to see the world around us and how we want to be honest to others. Lots of our way of reaction against others has to do with our background, attitude of life and our pride.
The pope opened his sermon today with a warning.
But when we yield to our own pride and selfishness, we can also distort the way we use our ability to communicate. This can be seen from the earliest times, in the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 4:4-16; 11:1-9). The capacity to twist the truth is symptomatic of our condition, both as individuals and communities. On the other hand, when we are faithful to God’s plan, communication becomes an effective expression of our responsible search for truth and our pursuit of goodness.
In 1972 Pope Paul VI already for the World Communications Day had its theme: “Social Communications at the Service of Truth”. The present pope want also to contribute to our shared commitment to stemming the spread of fake news and to rediscovering the dignity of journalism and the personal responsibility of journalists to communicate the truth. for this pope it is not the first time he has scolded those who spread false news reports. He called it a “very serious sin” that not only hurts those who have been slandered but also hurts journalism itself.
We have come into a time when it looks like a sport or competition to bring the most deceiving and manipulating messages to the reader. Clearly the spreading of fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests, and is as such used.
The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible. Secondly, this false but believable news is “captious”, inasmuch as it grasps people’s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration. The ability to spread such fake news often relies on a manipulative use of the social networks and the way they function. Untrue stories can spread so quickly that even authoritative denials fail to contain the damage.
In Christendom we can see that lots of people are so caught by the arrangement between the clergy and the Roman emperor Constantine. Their agreement to equal the Roman gods with the Christian figures (or better the other way around) made that the Trinity was born and fostered.
The difficulty of unmasking and eliminating fake news is due also to the fact that many people interact in homogeneous digital environments impervious to differing perspectives and opinions. Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas. The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict. Fake news is a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes, and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred. That is the end result of untruth.
In Facebook Groups lots of people go very hard against people who have an other opinion than they or than mainstream groups. Many want others to believe as them and when they do not do that they come to abuse them and call them names.
It is not an easy task to get people to see what really happened and to get rid of the false information Awful is it when such false news is to blacken people or organisations. Since disinformation is often based on deliberately evasive and subtly misleading rhetoric and at times the use of sophisticated psychological mechanisms, plus when it gets multiplied or shared via social media it starts running its own life and often turns up a few years later when people have forgotten about the matter and do not recollect that it was classified as fake news.
The Pope finds it good that
praiseworthy efforts are being made to create educational programmes aimed at helping people to interpret and assess information provided by the media, and teaching them to take an active part in unmasking falsehoods, rather than unwittingly contributing to the spread of disinformation. Praiseworthy too are those institutional and legal initiatives aimed at developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon, to say nothing of the work being done by tech and media companies in coming up with new criteria for verifying the personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.
Yet preventing and identifying the way disinformation works also calls for a profound and careful process of discernment. We need to unmask what could be called the “snake-tactics” used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike at any time and place. This was the strategy employed by the “crafty serpent” in the Book of Genesis, who, at the dawn of humanity, created the first fake news (cf. Gen 3:1-15), which began the tragic history of human sin, beginning with the first fratricide (cf. Gen 4) and issuing in the countless other evils committed against God, neighbour, society and creation. The strategy of this skilled “Father of Lies” (Jn 8:44) is precisely mimicry, that sly and dangerous form of seduction that worms its way into the heart with false and alluring arguments.
The world is taken by its greed. So many people do want it all for themselves. Politicians do whatever they can to degrade their opponents and to let themselves look the better one.
What is at stake is our greed. Fake news often goes viral, spreading so fast that it is hard to stop, not because of the sense of sharing that inspires the social media, but because it appeals to the insatiable greed so easily aroused in human beings. The economic and manipulative aims that feed disinformation are rooted in a thirst for power, a desire to possess and enjoy, which ultimately makes us victims of something much more tragic: the deceptive power of evil that moves from one lie to another in order to rob us of our interior freedom. That is why education for truth means teaching people how to discern, evaluate and understand our deepest desires and inclinations, lest we lose sight of what is good and yield to every temptation.
At Facebook Groups we often find people, claiming to be Christian, using words unworthy for a lover of God and for a follower of Christ, calling those who are not in line with their thinking all sorts of names. By bringing all sorts of false ‘news’ they also try to bring others in discredit. In many of those groups we can see a constant contamination by deceptive language which can end up darkening our interior life.
Dostoevsky’s observation is illuminating:
“People who lie to themselves and listen to their own lie come to such a pass that they cannot distinguish the truth within them, or around them, and so lose all respect for themselves and for others. And having no respect, they cease to love, and in order to occupy and distract themselves without love they give way to passions and to coarse pleasures, and sink to bestiality in their vices, all from continual lying to others and to themselves.” (The Brothers Karamazov, II, 2).
Many people are thrown form one side to the other and become so confused, not able to see what is true , half-true and what is false. Lots of false messages look so engrossing that one can not resit the excitement and love to share it on social media which makes the ball rolling.
So how do we defend ourselves?
The most radical antidote to the virus of falsehood is purification by the truth.
In Christianity, truth is not just a conceptual reality that regards how we judge things, defining them as true or false. The truth is not just bringing to light things that are concealed, “revealing reality”, as the ancient Greek term aletheia (from a-lethès, “not hidden”) might lead us to believe. Truth involves our whole life. In the Bible, it carries with it the sense of support, solidity, and trust, as implied by the root ‘aman, the source of our liturgical expression Amen.
Those who call themselves Christian should have the aim in them to purify their body and spirit and to share the love of Christ with others, not wanting to hurt them by false sayings or awful words. they should work on their character, trying to become like Christ. By their daily meditations and reading of the Word of God they should discover and rediscover the truth when they experience it within themselves in the loyalty and trustworthiness of the One who loves them.
every person should know that the truth will set them free (Jn 8:32).
Freedom from falsehood and the search for relationship: these two ingredients cannot be lacking if our words and gestures are to be true, authentic, and trustworthy. To discern the truth, we need to discern everything that encourages communion and promotes goodness from whatever instead tends to isolate, divide, and oppose. Truth, therefore, is not really grasped when it is imposed from without as something impersonal, but only when it flows from free relationships between persons, from listening to one another. Nor can we ever stop seeking the truth, because falsehood can always creep in, even when we state things that are true. An impeccable argument can indeed rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt another and to discredit that person in the eyes of others, however correct it may appear, it is not truthful. We can recognize the truth of statements from their fruits: whether they provoke quarrels, foment division, encourage resignation; or, on the other hand, they promote informed and mature reflection leading to constructive dialogue and fruitful results.
When looking at news channels, social media (tweets and Facebook messages) we always should use our common sense and examine the truth as well as the value of the message.
The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and take responsibility for how they use language. If responsibility is the answer to the spread of fake news, then a weighty responsibility rests on the shoulders of those whose job is to provide information, namely, journalists, the protectorsof news. In today’s world, theirs is, in every sense, not just a job; it is a mission. Amid feeding frenzies and the mad rush for a scoop, they must remember that the heart of information is not the speed with which it is reported or its audience impact, but persons. Informing others means forming others; it means being in touch with people’s lives. That is why ensuring the accuracy of sources and protecting communication are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.
The pontiff wants to invite everyone to promote a journalism of peace. He said
By that, I do not mean the saccharine kind of journalism that refuses to acknowledge the existence of serious problems or smacks of sentimentalism. On the contrary, I mean a journalism that is truthful and opposed to falsehoods, rhetorical slogans, and sensational headlines. A journalism created by people for people, one that is at the service of all, especially those – and they are the majority in our world – who have no voice. A journalism less concentrated on breaking news than on exploring the underlying causes of conflicts, in order to promote deeper understanding and contribute to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes. A journalism committed to pointing out alternatives to the escalation of shouting matches and verbal violence.
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Preceding articles
Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #1 Abrahamic religions
Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #3 Cyberwars and prophesy
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Time for some or many may be their side, but for many it also may be against them. For many time can also slip through the shadows and get them frustrated and not knowing where and when to go.
Perhaps an old poet, but that does not mean one has become out of time. Today many companies wanting to get rid of the older persons, forgetting that they have the experience and knowledge. Though it looks like today their time is not any more accounted for. Therefore pleased to find some people not leaving themselves put aside but crawling into the pen and daring to let their voice be heard on the internet.
Today’s guestwriter remarks
We all grow up believing things we are told, to be correct, mostly. If we are told by our parents, teachers or Pastors that this or that is the truth most kids, if they have respect for these people tend to believe them. But you know, sometimes these people are simply incorrect. {Truth}
With the years , passing time, we come to see and experience different things and then time may give that we get more knowledge and insights, if we are willing to grow.
Today’s guest writer got to see that so many things told to him were not Biblical, so he dared to take the time to learn more about it by taking up the Book of books itself. He also writes on his blog
I did a somewhat quick read through the Bible just so I could say I had done it once. But, after I had finished reading through it I realized that these things my Mom had told me “the Bible says”, I didn’t remember seeing anywhere. So, I started rereading the scriptures more slowly and with pen and pad so that I could make notes. {Truth}
This is a good attitude which can bring man to think better about what he reads and about what he hears what should or could be written there – but is not. We always should remember that the others are not always telling lies but do not know the exact truth and have also been part of their time and their generation’s thougths.
After completing time two, I realized that these things Mom had told me weren’t correct, they just weren’t there. I know that Mom wasn’t lying to me, she was just wrong. We can grow old and comfortable with the stories of our youth’s no matter who they were told by, or we can use our own brains to think a little. Parents, teachers, priests, they all have stories they had been told in there youth’s, is it possible that on some items they were told wrong? {Truth}
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So they and we do have to take the time to come to know more and to correct those things we learned wrongly. By time we have to keep willing to learn and to adapt otherwise we shall become stain or a rock where the fast streaming water runs over and past, making us in a little grain of sand after some time.
We always should remember that time depends how we want to perceive it. When we are young all seems to take such a long time. When we are old all seems to go too fast. And when we look at the time of God
There are several places in scripture where we are told things like “My days are not your days”, and how a human life is like the twinkling (blink) of the eye to Gods time. Even in the New Testament the Apostle Peter told the people that one of Gods days are like unto a thousand of our years. In other words, our days and Gods days don’t match up. Think about it, even in our own orbits of the sun, the planets that are in this orbit with us have different amounts of time that make up their days. {Truth}
And in this world we so often are confronted by people who want to own our time. Often we look at time and wonder what we can do with it or what to do next, or how we missed doing things we wanted or should have done.
Facing the universe we can see that planets that surround us possess their own concept of time on a clock. And while they continue to circle around in the universe our own personal life’s hour-glass as the sand falling down.
Reading the Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Artists are the voice of or for society. They are the ones who look at things, analyse the situations and try to warn the people around them.
At 1:00pm on Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at Radio City Music Hall the New York City’s School of Visual Arts had activist and icon Gloria Steinem spokeeaking urgently on the state of the union at the College’s 41st annual commencement exercises.
On Tuesday, beginning around noon, a sea of buoyant figures in swirling red gowns descended on Rockefeller Center in New York City. Slowly disappearing into Radio City Music Hall, the some 1,170 students were gathering for commencement and graduation from the School of Visual Arts. In the auditorium, their robes billowed out over the velvet-red seats; the resulting camouflage effect seemed symbolically appropriate as a nod to their shared experience at SVA, in a last, unifying moment before they dispersed to start the next chapter of their lives.
Kicking off the program was a speech by Allison R. Schaller, soon to be an alumna with a BFA in Photography and Video.
“As artists, we can think up anything. But it’s the creating, the doing that’s important,”
Schaller said.
“We know many of the world’s problems, and largely the actions we need to take, it’s acting on that knowledge that’s challenging. But luckily for us, we now have a leg up, as we are armed with an education. Find a cause you believe in, find something you are great at, find a passion and make it yours. And please do so with empathy for others.”
SVA President David Rhodes spoke about how citizens in a democracy have an obligation to parse out the truths in the deluge of information circulating in public discourse.
Writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer Gloria Steinem when stepping up to the podium remembered that she grew up in Toledo,
” hoping, praying to be a Rockette.”
“I want to say to my 10-year-old self, I’m on the stage of Radio City Music Hall, and this is better!”
she declared to a cheering audience.
Addressing the students, Steinem implored them to realize their power as visual artists — namely, in their ability to appeal to sensations, even instincts, shared by all humans.
“To be universally understandable is to have the potential of bringing diverse people together, undivided by different languages or degree of education,”
she said.
The work that writers do, in contrast, takes shape internally, subject to the whims of consciousness, which are as fleeting as they are inscrutable, she implied.
“My joy in writing comes from having an idea and then from finally achieving it,”
she explained.
“But not so much from the tactical, visual and sensory processes in between.”
It was not lost on the room that Steinem’s calls for unity had uncommon urgency.
Women’s March in Washington – worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers’ rights.
“We are in a time of maximum change. On the one hand there is great danger, and I am not for a moment diminishing how great that danger is, and on the other hand, we are woke! I have never in my life seen so much organic, sustained, enthusiastic, inventive, created, and fan-f..cking-tastic activism as I did doing the March on Washington.”
I think we have come to a time where artists of all breed have to come out stronger again. It is perhaps not bad we can see a movement again like we had when we went on the barricades in 1968. Our egocentric capitalist society needs again some voices to bring awareness about climate change and our way to live.
Steinem looked back at the more recent march and said
Steinem raises a fist after being presented with a Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Glaser (left). Photo Copyright © 2017Joseph Sinnott.
“What we remember are the symbols, the hats! It’s a rebellion of the visual arts, the arts of the heart, the arts that are not limited by language, not limited by technology. There’s so much to be learned if you go beyond your boundaries and now is the time we need to blast those boundaries.”
Steinem called the graduates
“the arts of the heart,”
and cautioned them that from her experience, revolutionaries have to proceed in a way that will renew a world they want to be a part of.
“If you want to have fun and laughter and sex and poetry and music at the end of the revolution,”
she said, beaming at the cheering graduates and their families,
“You have to have fun and laughter and sex and poetry and music on the way.”
Reacting against the bad way our society is moving should not limit us to have fun at the same time that we react against the wrong going. By our creative work we can give criticism and can show a reflection of how our world is evolving, treating its past and showing where it wants to go. We need more artists who hold the mirror in front of us, like Rabirius does, for example.
Reflection to awaken the people around us. By all the social media and advertisements they have been taken asleep. So many are not any more interested in the welfare of animals and plants and think
“It will not be so bad”
Many like the present president of the U.S.A. are not interested in bringing the truth and are more concerned about their own positioning and ‘shining’ in the world. Many are even prepared to walk over corpses if necessary to create a better position for themselves. Others are just happy when they have their gadgets and daily fun.
Today we also can see lots of people are looking for the communal fun, to feel the vibration of togetherness, having the idea they may be between like minded people. Lots of festivals are “in”. It reminds me of the time we had also the many festivals, Woodstock being our ‘greatest one’. Now the Belgian organisers of ‘Tomorrow Land‘ manage to create a magic world and incredible worldwide feeling of unity again. They claim
We believe in enjoying life to the fullest without having to compromise everything. We are responsible for the generation of tomorrow and respect each other and Mother Nature. Respect, Health, Nature, Responsibility and Innovation are the five circles of Love Tomorrow. The Heart is the inner circle, representing passion, love and respect.
We can only hope that those who go and visit such Fantasy World festival shall come to think further their than the entrance gates of their magic world and shall rally spread that love and respect.
Let us hope they may meet others from all over the world to keep contact with and to exchange ideas, but also to get a preparedness to react to our present world and how politicians are screwing the people where they are standing next to them.
In any case it has become high time for the artists to let their political and world views be shown in their work again to bring a ‘voice to think’ again.
With the terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and now in Nice we can find lots of information and disinformation on the net.
Mark Evans, Loren Feldman, Cynthia Brumfield, Rachel Sklar
I must remark that in the blogging world there are lots of people who try to break down or crush all that is said in the media and want their readers to believe it is all fake. I noticed this with the lies about the Brussels Airport (where I also work and could see the real damage), of which bloggers said the published photo’s were fake or from other places, etc.
With certain bloggers I chatted and became convinced they intentionally wrote such lies, whilst others I became convinced they were not so good in their head. The last category hopefully would be recognised soon by their readers, but for the first category it is much more difficult for the readers to unmask their acts of false information giving.
Since the time of Pericles, defenders of human freedom have promoted the virtues of open debate within society, and for the full freedom of citizens to investigate their government and world. Whether in a household, a classroom, or a nation, a free flow of critically examined and openly discussed ideas gives us our best chance for intellectual growth and personal achievement. {Our Classified World}
When I was a teacher I demanded from my pupils that they thought for themselves and analysed everything which came in front of their eyes. They never had to take something as the full truth nor undiscussable or unmentionable.
Atiaf Alwazir, Yemeni activist and researcher speaking during session 1: “Hopes and Fears” of The London Conference on Cyberspace.1 November 2011
Everything should be checked … the problem is we can not check everything personally, so we hope we can have trustworthy sources. By time we can come to know who is trying to tell the truth and who does sincere research to tell the truth, opposite those who just tell some fantasies or bring irresponsible post. Biggest problem is when we allow ourselves to become dependent on the news or mass media. In industrialized and information-based societies, the danger exists that individuals tend to develop a dependency on the media to satisfy a variety of their needs, which can range from a need for information on a political candidate’s policy positions (to help make a voting decision) to a need for relaxation and entertainment, but also to be led in their decision making or news gathering so that they always can blame somebody else for the wrong information or when something went wrong. By allowing the media to direct them they put away their own responsibility.
When we look at the media and how certain states made it possible by the media to control their people, we see that the greater the number of social functions performed for an audience by a medium (e.g., informing the electorate, providing entertainment), the greater the audience’s dependency on that medium, and how easier they can be placed in line with the leaders thinking or wants. But we also notice the greater the instability of a society (e.g., in situations of social change and conflict), the greater the audience’s dependency on the media and, therefore, the greater the potential effects of the media on the audience. In that instance propaganda of the state is a very big weapon and ideal tool for control.
We do find countries which try to play with the “war within” being convinced that by silencing those who dare to speak, they shall win. also when there are factories or big commercial institutions which seem to loose grip on their customers they do not mind to secure their brand by providing enough funding for the leader in favour.
Media freedom is generally held to be necessary for democratic societies end as soon as leaders notice they start loosing control, they start limiting the freedom of the media (a beautiful example is Turkey with Erdogan, the 105th Caliph, his reactions).
Often we see that when certain who should keep law and order have done something wrong and others like to criticise it, they are being silenced. Even in a state which always shouts loud it is the land of freedom police arrest people because they tweeted on wrote negative things about the police force in their state. Arresting people for speech is something the Americans should be very careful about. They also should think twice before continuing supporting the billionaire who is able to bring the land in chaos and ruins and who is not afraid to say he would start a world war with what happens now in Europe.
The danger exist that leaders of a state want to silence those who have a voice or want to dissent, to notice things, to point out facts, to express an opinion.
Media are an outlet for public discussion and opinion and generally fulfil the functions of seeking truth, educating the public, and serving as a watchdog over government.
A blogger who claims to be a “Truth Connoisseur” and having “an inquiring and incisive mind”, saying he is also “an open-minded skeptic” wants to be “an avid learner” and “Part-Time Researcher” who looks also at this phenomena of reality and freedom of speech.
He has a website where he perhaps want to “breakaway” as an outgrowth/spawn from the notion of the ‘Breakaway Civilization’. He writes
The term ‘Breakaway Civilization’ was an idea that is the brainchild of historian and notable scholar Richard Dolan, who coined the term a few years ago.
Behind this particular premise lies [pun intended] a group of people so sophisticated they operated literally as a separate civilization from the rest of humanity. This is given to the extremely advanced knowledge and technological capabilities/infrastructure that they were able to create/reverse engineer not only by learning what they could from deeply classified black projects et al, but also from essentially monopolizing information and controlling access to it, thus preventing the rest of society/humanity from benefiting from such advanced progress. {What Does It Mean To ‘Breakaway’?}
Certain man of power have done everything to have the media telling what they want. Certain statesmen were even not afraid to have those killed who did not want to run in line and tell the people what the state wanted them to believe. Censorship has always been part of man’s life. Though we also had voices of those who were not afraid to uncover the dismal functions of state organisations or institutions. Every generation had its whistleblowers. To expose illegal or unethical activity of the state has proven dangerous for the one bringing it in the open, certainly as “external whistle-blowing” but by mass media spending more attention to them, the involved state became less able to easily harm the whistleblower. Though those persons mostly can not reclaim their previous life and some of them have even to leave the country. Data show that retaliation against whistleblowers is most severe and certain when the observed wrongdoing is systemic and central to the way the organization conducts its business and accumulates its profit {Joyce Rothschild and Terance D. Miethe 1999, Whistle-Blower Disclosures and Management Retaliation: The Battle to Control Information about Organizational Corruption; Joyce Rothschild, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2008}. Even in countries where whistleblower protection laws prohibit reprisal against federal employees they often find themselves in danger and have to flee the country. In case no effort was made to silence them, a number of individual federal officials have been dismissed or suspended. It is important that much more work is made in our society to protect such people who bring out the wrongdoing of an institution or a state. Whistleblower protection, like freedom of information laws and other open government provisions, supports the right of freedom of expression. This right is the foundation of democratic accountability and of democratic government.
The whistleblowers also can dismantle the propaganda fog which makes people not noticing what their government is doing. As such the more or less systematic effort to manipulate the citizens can be broken. Most countries have utilized propaganda techniques repeatedly through their history, particularly during periods of war and international crisis. And the last few years it looks like we are in a general worldwide crisis where disinformation is rife. In one big federation of states it has come so far that the inhabitants do not notice it that their country manipulates press continually. Americans have employed numerous euphemisms for their propaganda in order to distinguish it from its totalitarian applications and wicked connotations. Many industrialised countries are implement an “ideological warfare.” We also notice that the term “Cold War” in the previous century used to refer to propaganda techniques and strategy (as in “Cold War tactics”) has again become common talk. Also “special operations,” and “information warfare” have become fashionable again.
Propaganda is of all times. Constantly we hear the ‘state talk’ from the different sites at best, in the worst circumstances only from one party, the other having no chance to say how it really is.
Edward Bernays points to the danger for this widely used tool, by those holding positions in many facets of society, from politicians, religious leaders, agents of the state to corporate brass.
“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.” {[Review] Recommended Book – Progaganda, By Edward Bernays}
Edward Bernays magnum opus “Propaganda”, originally published in 1928, outlines in profound detail many aspects of how propaganda works and details how the mass manipulation of the human subconscious can place can take at unprecedented scale. {[Review] Recommended Book – Progaganda, By Edward Bernays}
Communication techniques have been employed by government agents to cultivate public opinion so as to put pressure on governments to pursue certain policies, while traditional diplomatic activities — negotiations, treaties — have been planned, implemented, and presented in whole or in part for the effects they would have on public opinion, both international and domestic. {Kenneth A. Osgood, Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, 2002}
Today we can see we are at the top of propaganda making and can not escape the state interfering with the mas media. The propaganda vice-grip has reached unfathomable levels. Most people do not notice how they are manipulated by those they so called vote for. Worst is it in the U.S.A. were people think they are the most free democratic country, though they do not seem to see how only those who have enough money and dare to go over corpses can win the elections for presidency. The present republican candidate is a very good example of the danger of grandiloquence.
Throughout centuries many have searched as an individual how they could stand apart in this world where the unseen mechanism of society constitutes an invisible government which is the true ruling power of that country, and survive. They looked for ways not to be part of this world or to breakaway from the control grid that was trying to have everybody in its hand and was taxing every facet of their life.
“Much of what is reported as ‘news’ is little more than the uncritical transmission of official opinions to an unsuspecting public,” wrote Parenti. Fox news commentator Brit Hume stated, “What [the mass media] pass off as objectivity, is just a mindless kind of neutrality.” – Jim Marrs, Rise Of The Fourth Reich – The Secret Societies That Threaten To Take Over America {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
Zy Marquiez had quite a few friends and acquaintances online and in person asking him how it is possible to figure out what information passes muster in our information overload reality of ours. This got him thinking about the simple things that experience has taught him over time.
He sums up what I and others repeatedly have told others also. Though he goes a step further saying it in a harsher way
“Don’t believe anything anyone says, including me.”
he writes. I am sure he means the same a I and my confraters (fellow creatures), demanding our readers to inform themselves and to check everything, also what we say or teach. We always have to be careful how we look at the news brought to us, reminding ourselves it is always just a “newsflash” a quick clocking at a moment when not everything is known.
Walter Lippman once said
“News and the truth are not the same thing…”.
They simply can’t be because at the moment of bringing the news it is a flash how people could perceive that what was happening , without knowing all details.
Zy Marquiez rightly remarks
If we take a cautious approach, we make sure we are not being mislead into opinions being passed off as facts, or a belief-system [i.e. the current race war propaganda nigh everywhere] at the outset that might work against us. If in the end, the information is still true, nothing is lost. But when news ‘happens’ to be incomplete, or if its disinformation, misinformation, or downright deception, we as individuals stand to pay a heavy price by believing news without verifying what’s being said. Be wary. {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
In this day and age, though the speed of development of information-access laws increased sharply, we may not forget that many are still ensuring deception putting more pressure and vesting greater economic and social power, investing lots of energy in false communication. Cheating may be a pan-cultural component of social life but politicians often make it not only their favourite sport but their profession.
There where the state leaders are investing lots of energy to get the people to consider themselves as one unit, one state more than as an individual, it is more problematic because countries are more corrupt if they feature a collective culture, rather than an individualistic culture.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks at a rally after endorsing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016. – Photo Alex Hanson
The general public is often not aware of the “Pinocchio phenomenon”, for example when the person every time when he does not say the truth goes for to touching his nose or striking his hair, the last action more to ask confirmation of the listener or giving a sign “you believe me hé!”.
In the old times liars may have been less forthcoming, but today they are not afraid any more to look sure of what they are saying and try to convince everybody of what for bully talk they are pronouncing. Mostly they take a peacock attitude, play the bully, making everybody else look a looser. How more they laugh with others, how more it seems the listeners are taking in their lies. This proofs why Donald Trump with his arrogant attitude could come so far in his candidacy for the presidential election. the biggest danger for the nation and for the world in general would be when such bullies win the election. We have seen that by Stalin who for some is still their god and worshipped as their best statesman. with beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, and subterfuge such people manage to propagate beliefs in things that are not true, but have convinced their listeners that “it must be so”.
We may not forget that in the end such major relational transgression mostly shall lead to feelings of betrayal and distrust and shall provoke a counter reaction which shall endanger the stability of the society.
Donald John Trump Sr. (1946) American business magnate, investor, television personality and author, chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts.
By shouting and trying to ridicule the other people are becoming afraid to express an other opinion, and there lies the power of such bullies or political clowns. The agenda at play has to much at stake, and the power hungry shall not unremittingly shall do everything he can to get others to believe him (or her) even if this demands to falsify ciphers and documents. All funds will be well found.
As individuals, it is imperative that we proceed in our search for facts with a devoted approach that’s as flexible as it is trenchant.
Asking shrewd questions is practically mandatory to get to the bottom of things, or at least to follow certain leads. {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
Receiving the information we have to keep an open mind and have to stay flexible as well.
The whole point is, when initially examining an issue, don’t get married to an opinion/statement, regardless who it’s done by. Many times evidence surfaces that blows holes in the official story large enough to ferry the titanic through. {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
Those graving for power do know that fear is a very good tool to get more credibility and power. We have come in an age where politicians and media are aware of the validity and commercial value of fear mongering.
Within a lot of the media, be it mainstream or alternative, there is an noticeable undercurrent of fear taking place. This causes individuals to not only live very limiting lives believing that the end is nigh [in some cases, literally] but also leaves individuals feeling powerless. {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
This fear and feeling powerless drives them in the hands of those who promise them heaven on earth and say they have the best solution to get rid of the problem causers. (Because there has to be some one at fault and therefore finger become pointed to other people, immigrants, other believers, other peoples, etc.)
We have to be mindful that
Information can be presented in a manner that is concerning, but still self empowering. {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
Always look who is behind the message and what the intention of the information might be.
Those who may benefit from certain events might be organizations or they might be specific people [i.e. George Soros]. However, always keep in mind almost always there are large factors at play that couple to institutions, organizations, or secretive groups who benefit from certain events taking place, or certain news being disseminated.
By following that rabbit hole, it will be easier to ascertain what kind of agendas these individuals might have given the discipline involved, the institutions involved, and any other poignant data that would be useful. {Zy Marquiez, TheBreakaway, 7 Actions Individuals Can Take To Navigate Through The Media Minefield}
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Preceding articles
Tolerance Ends When There Is No Tolerance Shown Towards Us
You might be an extremist if …
Human tragedy need to be addressed at source
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Having the Spring-cleaning it is also not bad to do some Spring cleaning in the heart and mind.
Coming closer to the days for which the Bible warns, looking forward to be able to cope in harder times to come, we should work on it to become a better Christian and to get others into the faith. Attracting others to the right faith can only be done by giving a good example and by a good knowledge of the Right Faith and sharing the Truth.
In the knowledge that religion is a man-made thing we should take care to be grounded on Biblical teaching, liberated from all those human doctrines, which only are a burden to the fulfilment of our religious ways of living.
Lets make sure that more people can hear the Word of God and come to see “Who is who” and get to understand that there is only One True God (Jehovah) and only one mediator between God and man (Jeshua = Jesus Christ, the Messiah).
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Preceding
Get the lenses out to getting closer again
Happy First Day of Spring: Spring Cleaning!
The works we have to do according to James
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Related articles
There are a myriad of ways in which one can become a
better Christian. Outlined below are some ways to attain a better relationship with God.
1. Devote every second of your life to Him and His
ways.
2. Keep your trust in the Lord.
3. Read the Bible day and night, as stated by
Joshua chapter 1 verses 8.
4. Understand that there is no such thing as a ‘utopian society’. Thus, as Christians, we are soldiers of God and should preach the word to those who have fallen behind.
5. Do not be a sanctimonious Christian. We are all humans. We all sin. We are far from flawless. If you become a sanctimonious Christian, there is a possibility that you will turn people away from God rather than towards Him.
6. Have faith not in religion, for it is man-made. It is a tool employed by humans to…
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We always have to speak the truth and shame the devil in a kind manner loving God’s Word more than the words of human beings.
The task given to his followers, by Jesus, is one which should have our hearts burning with a kind lovely fire, attracting those who want to hear the call of the Lord.
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To remember
- God gives us a three ingredient recipe to be successful evangelists. [Taking Ownership of Grace]
to receive full benefits of Christ’s completed work on the cross => declared righteous, acceptable, freely + fully forgiven
reality of Christ made known through God’s Word + revealed through transcendent grace = moment where invisible became visible through change of a hardened man into a tender + active soul
grace means undeserving love
- concept of universal justification = God’s way of saying “You have won the lottery! Now, come and receive the prize!”
- Faith = only winning ticket that is considered redeemable <= Faith alone receives that gift
- by faith, we receive the free + full forgiveness of sins.
- Come + claim prize = Believe in Lord Jesus Christ + you will receive gift far greater than anything that the earth can produce.
- Share gospel to listening ears = speak truth prompted by love + concern for the soul
- Demonstrations of love =one of those ingredients that God mixes together with truth + speak => one of these ingredients forgotten or not used = ruins whole recipe.
- Not enough for a Christian to be a humanitarian, nor is it the role of an evangelist to meet people’s needs. To fully love our neighbour means to share message of salvation + rescue them from the eternal consequences of sin.
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Preceding
Preaching Christ Is Not Enough
Beautiful feet of those who announce the good news
A Christian has to have eyes and ears and a tongue to use in good ways
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Related articles
Jesus’ greatest command is for Christians to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
We see images of destruction caused by natural disasters and are dismayed by the loss. Homes are destroyed. Families are left with nothing. Prompted by love, we extend a hand by offering financial support or materials goods to help those in need. Some are even willing to travel long distances to help pick up the pieces.
Are these demonstrations the type of love Christ is looking for, or is He calling on Christians to do something more?
In this growing impersonal and materialistic world being enveloped by today’s technology, perhaps Christians have lost touch on what Christ means to love our neighbor.
View original post 551 more words
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Warning: Some of the details in this story may be disturbing to some readers. Children taken away from their parents The last few decennia the Roman Catholic Church presented the world with some very worrying newsfacts, babies taken away from their mothers (in Ireland and the East bloc countries, to be sold to the West […]
Originally posted on Centre for Brexit Studies Blog:
By Ferry Biedermann, freelance journalist working both in the UK and in Europe. He has contributed to the Financial Times, CNBC, the Washington Post, Trouw newspaper in the Netherlands and many others. He is also a former correspondent in the Middle East for the FT and Dutch…
Originally posted on Centre for Brexit Studies Blog:
Dr. Steven McCabe Exactly five years ago the UK public were asked to vote on continued membership of the EU. This vote, we were told, would be a way of deciding whether we wished to continue to ne members of an organisation whose roots can be traced…
Time flies at lightning speed. Today it is already five years since the British public voted to leave the European Union, sparking perhaps the messiest divorce deal in history. Because certain Britsh political leaders telling so many lies about the EU and money that the UK could gain by leaving it, the British public was […]
Ursula von der Leyen will use all legal powers to ensure that the rights of all EU citizens are guaranteed Yesterday we got some very good news from the European Commission. The European Commission will take action against Hungary over planned new restrictions on LGBT rights, the head of the bloc’s executive announced on Wednesday, […]
To understand the current situation in Hungary, one needs to look back on what came before and examine the historical background of post-communist Hungary. The country’s shift from a Soviet satellite to a Western-oriented liberal democracy was – as elsewhere in the region – brutal, even more so taking into account the EU’s demands to […]
The King Baudouin Foundation is the major Belgian public benefit foundation which mission is to contribute to a better society in Belgium, in Europe and in the world. Forbidden Colours is a NPO linked to a fund managed by the King Baudouin Foundation. They are an international group of LGBTI activists exposing the rainbow flag […]
Zij vervolgen onze kijk op de man die in de Brief aan de Kolossenzen als “de arts” betiteld wordt en die een zeer nauwkeurig ooggetuige verslag wenste neer te schrijven.
Als Jezus zou gestorven zijn hoe is dat dan te rijmen met het feit dat hij drie dagen en nachten in het graf zou gebleven zijn of op de derde dag verrezen zou zijn? Wij werpen hier een eerste blik op “Drie dagen en drie nachten”.
‘Onze voeten staan in uw poorten, o Jeruzalem’(Ps. 122:2) De noodzaak van beproeving De reis naar Jeruzalem begint met geloof. Maar geloof op zich is niet genoeg. Jacobus waarschuwde ons, dat geloof zonder werken eigenlijk dood is (Jakobus 2:14-17). En als voorbeeld noemde hij deze geloofsdaad van Abraham, toen hij bereid was zijn zoon te […]
In het 4de hoofdstuk van Mattheüs konden wij enkele dagen geleden al lezen dat meerdere berichten over Jezus tot in Syrië circuleerden en dat veel mensen naar Jezus toe wilden komen om zijn wonderen te zien. Er werden allerlei zieken naar Jezus gebracht. Mensen die het slecht hadden, allerlei ziekten en kwellingen hadden, mensen die […]
Originally posted on Linda's Bible Study:
Col. 4:9. With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here. Onesimus with Paul Onesimus was to travel with Tychicus to take news of Paul to the churches in Colosse. He has quite a story of his own, which I’m considering making my next study. We’ll see. Onesimus was…
Het evangelie van Marcus De eerste drie evangeliën vertonen zoveel overeenkomst dat ze ‘synoptisch’worden genoemd, van sun= samen en optomai= kijken naar. Je kunt ze inparallelle kolommen afdrukken en ze zo in één oogopslag vergelijken. Matteüs, Marcus en Lucas heten dan de ‘synoptici’. Het evangelie van Marcus werd ooit algemeen als het oudste beschouwd, vanwege […]
In de vele voorgaande hoofdstukken hebben wij zo goed mogelijk een volledig antwoord trachten te geven op meerdere vragen van lezers over het sterven, de dood, de toestand van de doden, het al of niet naar de hemel, hel of vagevuur gaan na de dood, alsook over de Bijbelse leer betreft dood gaan en de […]
In de hof van Eden werd de dood uitgesproken als straf voor de daar begane overtreding, en het gehele Adamische ras werd daarin betrokken. Dit was het ongelukkige resultaat van het eerste grote oordeel over ons ras. – Rom. 5:12,16. ” Daarom, gelijk door één mens de zonde in de wereld gekomen is, en door […]
The Second Death In the Garden of Eden, death was pronounced as the penalty for the transgression there committed, and the whole of the Adamic race was involved in it. This was the unfortunate result of the first great Judgment of our race. — Rom. 5:12,16. “ Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into […]
Verhalen, eerste dood en hemelen Als mensen vragen wat er gebeurt na de dood (het heengaan of sterven) en waar de doden zijn, kunnen in God gelovende mensen alleen maar proberen een beeld te geven van wat de woorden in de Bijbel vertellen. Er zijn ook te veel mensen die zich christen noemen, maar veel […]
Door de eeuwen heen zijn er steeds mensen geweest die inzagen hoe alles rondom hen mogelijk was en hoe er geloof kon gesteld worden in Die Maker van alle dingen en hoe ze Hem als het ware als een schild en toevluchtsoord konden gebruiken.
In en met hun geloof durfden zij te spreken over hun geloof en wat de wereld mocht verwachten in toekomende tijden.
Telkens als er een dag voor je ligt moet je deze nemen alsof het de laatste dag van je leven is. En daar moet je dan van genieten en sterk maken dat je Leeft!
Meer dan een jaar zijn wij beperkt geworden in onze mogelijkheden en vrije beleving met anderen. Nu er versoepelingen aan komen mogen wij niet over het hoofd zien wat ons in die penarie heeft gebracht en hoe wij dit voor de toekomst moeten vermijden.
Zij die onder Gods Adem gezegend kunnen worden horen er naar te leven en handelen en die Adem van God uit te dragen. De liefde voor de waarheid noodzaakt ons de liefde van de Elohim aan anderen kenbaar te maken.
Zij die de Adem van God ontvangen zullen er zich bewust van moeten zijn dat zulk een begenadiging een verantwoordelijkheid met zich mee brengt
Ek het ‘n prentjie, sê ek vir hom. Ek kan nie onthou wanneer ek dit die eerste keer gesien het nie. Ek klim die berg (never-ending) en dit duur my hele lewe lank. Uiteindelik (ek het nooit verwag dit sal in my leeftyd gebeur nie), kom ek bo-op die berg. Daar wag ‘n baie ou, […]
Dit was ‘n besluit. Iets wat ek my voorgeneem het om te doen nadat ek my nier geskenk het. it is finished… ‘n Tattoo op my voorarm om my te herhinner dat ek niks meer het om te gee behalwe liefde, tyd en aandag nie. Verlede week vertrek ek oudergewoonte na ‘n stil plek om […]
