Rabbi Stephen Wise Was No Stranger At The Party

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Luke Ford

Henry Makow writes:

Rabbi Stephen Wise was the most prominent American Zionist and Jewish leader from the 1920’s until his death in 1949. On the Rockefeller-PBS website he is commemorated as “one of the greatest fighters for democracy and human rights of our generation.”

In her book, “Stranger at the Party ” Helen Lawrenson describes how, as a 23-year-old reporter for the Syracuse Journal in 1930, she was sent to interview “the most famous rabbi in America.”

She made the mistake of saying she admired him: “The next thing I knew he had toppled me backward on the sofa and was making love to me…Before I knew what had hit me, it was over and not a split second too soon either as someone was knocking at the door and calling his name. “My God!” cried Rabbi Wise, “it’s Rabbi Bienenfeld,” leaping up and buttoning his fly. And so it was, not only the leading Syracuse rabbi , but with him was Mrs. Wise who fortunately didn’t have her hotel key.” (p.44)

Later, Wise lured her back to his room and forced her to her knees before him saying, “Kneel before me in prayerful attitude, my darling.”

Her worship did not include un-zippering him “at that time” but she assumed “he acted in the same way in every city he visited” and she wondered if he wasn’t afraid of scandal. He replied that “every dynamic man had a powerful sex drive and should make the most of it.”

Three years later, they crossed paths in the course of her work for Vanity Fair and she found herself “on my back again, this time on the long table in his office, with Wise reciting in Hebrew,”Lift up your heads oh ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in.” Psalm 24:7-10 (45)

Apparently this is a Sabbatean (Illuminati) prayer after sex. The “King of Glory” is obviously the penis. The Sabbateans were a heretical Jewish Satanic cult that morphed into Illuminism, Communism, Freemasonry, Feminism, Zionism and “sexual liberation.” They were ostracized by Torah Jews for sex orgies and other forms of adultery in the 17th and 18th Century. The rulers of the world –Jewish and non-Jewish- belong to this pagan sex cult, and in the name of “progress,” inducted society into it. They were responsible for WWII and for the Jewish holocaust. Rabbi Wise was feckless in rescuing his fellow Jews from this calamity but better at thwarting the efforts of others.

Helen Lawrenson (1907-1982) was a good-hearted, literate, Leftist dupe of the kind the Illuminati liked to have around. The point is she is completely credible. She became the Managing Editor of Vanity Fair, and the lover and lifelong friend of both Conde Naste and Bernard Baruch. She and her husband, labor organizer Jack Lawrenson, were regular house guests of Clare and Henry Luce. Her book was published by Random House in 1975.

Posted in Rabbis | Comments Off on Rabbi Stephen Wise Was No Stranger At The Party

Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Luke Ford

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* THEY ARE HAVING A HARD TIME GETTING MUSLIM WOMEN TO PARTICIPATE

A few months ago, their executive director Sheryl Olitzky approached some Muslim women leaders to convince Muslim women to join this organization because she was having a hard time getting Muslim women to show up, despite what you see in this video. Sheryl said she keeps calling and emailing mosques but gets zero response from them; for people like me who are Muslim – not responding to calls/emails is the polite Muslim way of saying “no” without insulting you by saying an actual “no”. Heba Macksoud a known face in the Muslim community even requested, through a facebook post, Muslim women to join this organization. Sister of Salaam Shalom is a jewish funded and jewish run organization.

Here is a post on the facebook page of Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom on April 5:
” Hi Sisters, Yael Ridberg and Lallia Allali and I are excitedly preparing this event (see link). We have a bit of a conundrum that may open larger questions about Muslim-Jewish interfaith collaboration/dialogue: We have sold out all 18 tickets designated for Jewish women, but we have sold only 1 ticket designated for Muslim Women. This is mirrored by the fact that of the 10-12 people who signed up to show interest in a San Diego SoSS chapter, only 1 is Muslim while the others are all Jewish. Sheryl Olitzky, you mentioned that this is not uncommon. Do you have any suggestions (other than the obvious: posting the link in Muslim FB groups, attending Jummah,…) as to how to involve more Muslim women? (We have a San Diego Muslim-Jewish FB group with 200+ members, all women, roughly 1/3 Muslim, 2/3 Jewish.) Clearly this is partially due to the fact that I (a Jewish woman) started the group partly to address the fact that I know very few Muslims while I know (or am acquainted with) many more Jews…. Thoughts? Thank you in advance!”

Why do Muslim women don’t want to involve themselves? Well, most of them are busy with their careers and families. But in addition to that, 1. we are tired of constant Jewish interference in our communities. Most of the feminist, liberal and progressive organizations in the Muslim community are funded by Jewish people, which means they talk about everything except what is important to Muslims – Palestine, Democracy in the Middle East, Freedom from all oppressors (both Arab autocrats, and US/Israeli aggression). Steven SAiler, if you are genuine about understanding things, then you must do research on Jewish interference in Christian and Muslim communities, find out what are the commonalities etc. 2. Mainstream Jewish organizations have promoted Islamophobia in the US to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims, and to make Muslim Americans pariahs in their own country. I doubt SSS will allow any kind of honest discussion of that. If you want to know the truth of this point, simply look up who is funding Islamophobia materials, individuals, think tanks, churches etc – Hint:it aint Christians.

* What happened to Tupperware parties?

The disappeared with our culture. The elimination of Tupperware parties was part of the conspiracy to destroy us and change our country!

Tupperware parties gave our women something to be proud of as homemakers. The parties promoted good sanitation and organization, traits associated with our civilization. Can’t have that in a vibrant world. Gotta let Third World diseases run rampant and force women to go to market every day for fresh food.

My mother had a Tupperware party in Orange County when California was still American. As a boy, I particularly liked the way the containers snapped closed and locked the air out.

Bring back Tupperware parties! Bring back America!

* Funny how it is wrong to judge Muslims by ongoing Islamic terrorist activity but it is perfectly acceptable to judge white gentiles by the Holocaust that was committed by Nazi Germany.

* Ultra orthodox women don’t wear skullcaps. They wear $7,000 wigs and have at least 5 or 6 of them. It’s mandatory that they buy the wigs from a shop owned by their Rabbi’s brother. They don’t soil their hands with the manual labor of washing the wigs. The wigs are washed and styled once a month for about $800.00 at the hairdresser’s owned by their Rabbi’s nieces.

I skim the Los Angeles Jewish Journal and other Jewish publications weekly. First my neighborhood is littered with them. Second I like to keep an eye on the enemy. The articles are divided into 2 groups.

Half the articles are “muslims and Jews have so much in common and the evil White goyim of America must let everyone of them in so as to further dilute the White European Christian heritage that has persecuted and discriminated against Jews for 2,000 years.

The other half are send money, lobby politicians so the Israelis can kill every Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqui, Iranian etc so as to make Israel a safe place for Jews. Over the years the Arabs to be killed change. At times it has been Lebanese, Egyptians and others.

* Threats come in different forms.

He’s still a Muslim and hence a Jihadist. He may not be the sort that shoots up a mall, but he is still a soldier of Islam and will do everything to facilitate it’s spread into the U.S.

Remember our society has no real defenses against these creatures. Our judicial system now works against us and doubly so for Christians for whom it has nothing but sheer hatred for.

We can’t prevent them from joining the military, police or any government organ by law. And once they fully inserted themselves , we’re truly screwed.

We dare not publicly condemn and their filthy religion lest we bring down on our head the Left and legal sanction from the Feds.

Go ahead and openly try to dip a Koran in pigs piss in a public locale and see what response you get. You’ll probably be killed for it.

The bottom line for, is that Muslims are now part of the protected class much like Blacks, Gays and other sexual deviants.

Trump can’t change it because the elites want to eradicate whites and Western civ.

* They study “sacred texts” together? Wouldn’t most of these well-off attendees in practice actually be agnostics/atheists? Their religion is just a fashion statement at this point. Outside the castle walls are the true believers, sharpening their swords for the beheadings and plunder to follow. Perhaps the sisterhood should check out converting to Buddhism which sounds like a nice, safe alternative, group rates available.

* I read the Forward and I knew some of these people, or at least their type, growing up. They think any vaguely nationalistic group could be the next coming of the NSDAP. They are completely oblivious, likely willfully so, to any suffering caused by their actions, and think they are going to build the country into some multicultural happyland.

* Women’s intelligence is intuitive, sometimes almost eerily so. Women recognize patterns by remembering emotions linked to congruent observations, instead of hypothetical calculations. Women are great at guessing someone’s weight or age, or jellybeans in a jar. They can be good at sniffing out liars and frauds just by tiny elements not “adding up.”

For instance, back in the 90s my mom worked for an insurance defense law firm. A hospital was being sued because a male nurse alleged he contracted HIV from a hospital needle left carelessly on the floor in the E.R. He reported the “incident” at work right after it happened. He was straight and married, and had no other reason he should suddenly contract the disease. Except in discovery my mom saw he paid a bill with a personalized Winnie The Pooh cheque. She immediately spoke up and said the dude was a fraud, a homosexual with a phony cover story. Her superiors basically called her a bigot and a fool but said keep digging if she wanted to. She was right. The dude was a promiscuous homo who got HIV from gay orgies, then bribed a friend to marry him and sue his employer for millions.

The male attorneys saw the cheque as an irrelevant anomaly, and wanted to focus on the statutory duty of the hospital. They were missing the forest for the trees. My mom knew that 1) man with AIDS 2) man with ridiculously feminine personal tastes – is highly improbable to be a coincidence.

Women’s intuitive pattern recognition makes them great diagnostic doctors, but lousy chess players.

I find the 3 cushion carom billiards to be the most fascinating to watch.

* Of course I haven’t given up; I’m astounded by how many posters here are suddenly buying into the “Trump is a vain/shallow/opportunistic/idiotic/incoherent blunderer” story that’s been sold by the media ever since he announced his run for the Presidency. Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he’s a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner). Trump was talking about his signature trade and immigration issues as far back as the 1980s, long before he ever met Bannon; Bannon also didn’t come on board in his campaign until fairly late in the game. I definitely wish Trump hadn’t stuck his foot into the Syrian mess, but, unless he makes a more definite move (which God forbid), it seems to me that he’s almost certainly made this token strike merely to (1) silence the “Russian puppet” accusation, (2) forestall his enemies in both parties from claiming that his quasi-approval of Assad emboldened Assad’s alleged gas attack, and (3) throw a little scare into China, North Korea, and Iran. I don’t think he did it simply because Kushner suggested it to him, or because Ivanka started crying over pictures of gassed babies; to believe that, I’d have have to believe that he’s the mindless empty vessel that his enemies have painted him as, and he’s come too far for me to ever believe that.

If Trump’s improbable political career has shown anything, it’s that he’s not just the sum of the people around him. I remember hearing the doomsayers proclaiming that it was all over when Lewandowski was dumped for the slicker and shadier Manafort, or when Kellyanne Conway (with her dubious record on illegal immigration) came on board the campaign, and the doom didn’t come to pass. Also, Bannon hasn’t even been dumped yet; he went with Trump on Air Force One to the meeting with the Chinese, for goodness sake. In the meantime, we have Gorsuch on the Supreme Court (instead of Garland, or–gag–Obama, who might well have been put there by Hillary), we have Sessions as AG cracking down on sanctuary cities instead of Loretta Lynch strapping racism-detecting body-cams to Ferguson policemen, and we have bids being taken on the Great Border Wall. Until I see boots on the ground in Syria, I’ll continue to be far more pleased than disappointed by the outcome of the election.

* Another conspiracy theory is that there really is a Trump-Putin connection, except it goes through Kushner to his Chabad rabbi to Putin’s favorite Chabad rabbi to Putin, so nobody talks about it.

* I wasn’t happy about Syria but then again iSteve has been blackpill from top to bottom with the weirdest strain of masochism since Aug 2015.

* Santa Monica school district allows any child whose parent works in the city to attend Santa Monica City schools

The biggest industry of Santa Monica is medicine. There are 2 huge hospitals and thousands of medical offices.

There are also thousands of entertainment industry attorneys, agents, managers and studios. SM school district wants the Hispanic poor kids so as to rake in the state and federal money for under achievers and the Drs, nurses, attorneys etc kids to raise text scores.

Because there are more medical and attorney offices than restaurants and hotels the schools are reasonably civilized.

* I remember back in the ’60s when Santa Monica,
though already affluent, was a sleepy little village. RAND
near the beach, however, part of SoCal’s vast defense
industry, was already there. The Beach Boys were from
Hawthorne, i.e., the sticks, and so they looked with envy
toward Santa Monica. The Doors were just getting started,
and actually lived in the Ocean Park section of SM, a couple
of blocks from the beach, but it was cooler to say they
were from Venice Beach so that’s how they advertised themselves
on Sunset Strip. Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek would
catch a bus to UCLA on Main Street (near the Ocean Park
library that still exists). Right on the corner near the bus
stop was a well-known eatery that became immortalized as
the Soul Kitchen.

Today People’s Republic of Santa Monica (and why not?
It has its own foreign policy) is hopelessly overbuilt.
A one-bedroom apartment south of Wilshire will run you
$2200/month. North of Wilshire? Forget it. You can tell
it’s still very liberal. In a city that’s perhaps 90% white(read:
heavily Jewish), almost all employees at Von’s markets are
proudly black. Not that they can afford to live in Santa Monica,
of course.

Santa Monica nowadays is also a retirement community so
it’s full of hospitals and nursing homes. Who works in the
nursing homes? Mostly Filipinos and young African women,
very few whites.

* In a Zora Neale Hurston novel, a black character tells his employer, “Boss, if you could be colored for just one Saturday night, you’d never want to turn back.”

I think everybody would want to be white for brunch, however. Brunch is the whitest time of the week.

* Last night I watched a PBS/BBC science documentary focusing on recent discoveries about differences between male and female brains. Recent studies have shown that male and female brains are wired very differently and in ways that comport with common observations about how different male and female thought processes seem to be. Female brains are wired in ways that connect the right and left cerebral hemispheres. This type of wiring favors multitasking and the processing of emotional information. Male brains lack this hemispherical connectivity but each hemisphere is wired separately in ways that connect the frontal and posterior portions of that hemisphere. This facilitates manipulation of objects, quick decision making, systemic analysis and highly focused thinking, i.e., uni-tasking.

Unfortunately the women on the show were not going to let feminist dogma go down without a fight. One of the female researchers pointed out that girls and boys brains are much alike until puberty, when these newly discovered differences first arise. This suggested to her that it would be very difficult to separate out whether a surge in hormones or emerging social pressures created this difference, i.e. the difference might be a social construct rather than a result of biology.

No one on the show saw fit to point out that this same logic would suggest that it was impossible to determine whether swelling breasts in girls, increased testicle and genital size in men, male hirsuteness, and other secondary sexual characteristics were perhaps just the result of social pressure. Feminism appears to be destroying the intellectual capacity of even intelligent, skilled and technologically savvy women. It’s like some horrific alien infection.

Posted in America, Jews | Comments Off on Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom

The Lost City of Z (2016)

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Luke Ford

I respect the ambition of this movie, but I couldn’t get into it. I just couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters and the stories. I wanted to care. I wanted to like this story. I couldn’t. I am curious what might have brought some viewers to care about something in here. How did they do it?

I certainly didn’t care for the cheap feminist and cheap third-world mythology in the script.

From about 15 minutes in, I couldn’t wait for this movie to finish. Much of the dialogue was unintelligible, but the script was so bad that this was probably a good thing.

I am printing lots of amateur reviews on this movie because I wondered most of the time I was watching if I was missing something. But no.

From IMDB.com:

* It’s a really good example of how a terrible script can completely destroy a movie. There are too many things which make no sense to list, but the key issues are:

For a film that seems so keen to virtue-signal about white ignorance and racism, it does nothing to explain to us Fawcett’s theories about the people of Z. Who were they? How did their civilisation operate? Why did they disappear? Surely these explorers would have built up far more of a picture from the surrounding tribes, artefacts, and previous finds. There is a tiny smattering of these things, but in 2h21ms nowhere near enough to build up a mythology. Therefore it’s difficult to see why this obsesses Fawcett. You literally get more detail from the quests in the Indiana Jones movies.

Instead it focuses relentlessly on the most tedious and dangerous aspects of the trips, their suffering, or switches back to London with almost every old man of course a stiff- upper-lip racist and sexist cliché. Imagine a more insidious General Melchett from Blackadder Goes Forth and you won’t be far off.

There is an extremely cringey attempt to insert a modern feminist perspective. At one stage, Nina wants to go on the expedition. Her reasoning? She found an important document relating to it. This apparently makes her equal to Fawcett’s many years of soldiering and survival skills. It’s clumsy and anachronistic. The trip could very well kill them both and so would leave their children orphaned. Surely a more logical argument would be whether he has to go at all. He is, after all, a father, and has responsibilities at home.

The First World War section adds absolutely nothing and captures none of the horror of the battlefield. It’s all just tally-ho chaps, almost Hallmark channel-like. Just awful.

Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson and especially Charlie Hunnam wring what they can from such a sparsely-written script and should be commended for that, which is why this isn’t a 1.

Don’t be fooled by the title – it’s not about a lost city or even a lost man. It’s a lazy and pretentious destruction of what could have been a thrilling find.

* Based on the true story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who made several expeditions to the lost city of Z, believed to be the remains of El Dorado in the Brazilian jungle. The movie follows three of these expeditions and first picks up his life with a long introduction from his military career onwards. The movie becomes only interesting with the start of his first map making expedition on the border of Bolivia and Brazil in 1906. Based on documentary and field research (pottery finds), Fawcett became ever more convinced that a complex civilization had existed there. The movie then touches upon a second expedition initiated by the Royal Geographical Society that lead to controversy about his role in that expedition. The first World War comes in between before he makes his last expedition in 1925 with his son.

The script is based on the fascinating book by David Grann, who visited the region in 2005 and came back with interesting findings about Fawcett’s expedition. By now, Fawcett has turned into an icon of exploring ancient civilizations, making its way into popular culture, Indiana Jones and The Lost World come to mind.

The movie and script is however too obvious for the story at hand. It is painting by numbers, going from phase A to B in Fawcett’s life without any intelligent storytelling, ending up with a movie that I first thought was made for TV or online. Compare this to the classic Herzog movies Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo, and it is clear what went wrong here: Being about exploration, the movie itself shies away from exploring cinematic possibilities and just plays it safe. Wouldn’t it for example not be far more interesting to just focus on that final expedition and make the multiple accounts into a movie? Why Pitt’s Plan B saw anything in this is beyond me, as the company has by now a reputation of risk-taking (and often being awarded for that).

* This film lost all credibility when the expedition party were shown crossing the Atlantic on what looked like a 1950s cross channel steamer. Also clips were shown of an English Great Western Railway Castle class locomotive built in the 1930s with a train of 1960s carriages which was supposed to be the train on which they were travelling through Bolivia. British built locomotives were sold to Bolivia but not this type and anyway it was 30 years too modern. Although there do not appear to be any heritage railways using steam locos operating in Bolivia it would have been easy to arrange a shot of the steam locomotive hauled trains in Ecuador or even an Amerian steam tourist line such as the Cumbres and Toltec which uses convincing looking locos. Mistakes like this are lazy and contribute to a shoddy production. And by the way Stoke Canon is not by the sea or even on the Exe estuary.

* I found the experience of watching this film to be akin to that of listening to a person living with dementia telling you about their life, with an adoring relative interjecting only to say “Oh he was lovely!” every now and then.

It is, in essence, a series of episodes vaguely summarising various events of Fawcett’s life. Occasionally but briefly in intricate detail, but predominantly with a general lack of substance. To return to my analogy, I imagined myself at one point saying “That’s incredible! Tell me how you felt at that moment, did you realise right then the magnitude of your discovery? Tell me about the gruelling journey home, was it fraught with peril?” Only for the storyteller to continue.. “So I arrived back in London…”.

No! Please give me more details. I’ve dedicated over two hours of my life to hear your story, but I’ve come away with roughly the same amount of information as I could’ve gleaned from the back of a primary-school student’s pencil case. You know, like the ones that just have a time-line with monarchs’ names or some such alongside, but are lacking in any further description.

On the plus side, it was quite nicely shot at points although it did feel as if this, coupled with the apparent fact that this film was shown in selected, more ‘prestigious’ and therefore expensive theatres/screens were little more than candid narcissism and was tantamount to the director pleasuring himself in my face for the price of my £16 ticket. Additionally, and somewhat bizarrely, the first 20% of the film had a near-constant and somewhat mediocre musical score, immediately followed by a scene wherein some mediocre opera playing within earshot of the characters could be easily mistaken for a continuation of said score. This was intrusive and unnecessary, and although it didn’t continue throughout the duration of the film, this did not excuse its inclusion in the first place.

Due to the lack of detail or any attempt at interconnection between what I shall continue to refer to as ‘the episodes’ with a deliberate lack of capitalisation as I don’t consider them worthy of a title, alongside abrupt changes in setting, the experience could also be likened to that of being held hostage in a stranger’s living room as they mindlessly alternate channels between a Channel5 period drama and a recap of a Blue Peter trip to the Amazon told from the perspective of a donkey wearing blinkers, such is the lack of momentum and detail. Dialogue is painfully slow and, were this not the case, the running time could’ve been significantly shortened or better still been put to good use in filling in at least some of the notably absent detail. I am an advocate of a move away from the 90minute format of most films but this does nothing to support that argument.

There is also a borderline-distasteful adoration of Fawcett’s alleged delivery of faux-profound proclamations worthy of being printed on the back of a market-stall iPhone case. I am left unsure of whether this was artistic licence or if Fawcett really was that much of a nob. Similarly, little reference is made of his questionable attitude toward the role and capability of women or his insistence upon prioritising the recognition of his peers and reclaiming of the status of his family name over the emotional well-being of his dependents.

Ultimately, his blind faith led only by local legend and a randomly placed Russian fortune teller, and failure to commit to his children led Fawcett either to his death and that of his son or, according to this film, to his decision to remain in the utopia he may have discovered, thus abandoning his wife and remaining children and leaving them only with a faint hope that he survived. The former is likely more plausible, though the latter would come as no surprise.

In summary The Lost City of Z is a vacuous, self-indulgent and ultimately forgettable portrayal of what may have been a great man, but likely was the exploration equivalent of a modern-day philosophy student embarking upon a degree in order to suspend the responsibilities of adult life.

Recommended as an alternative to viewing your Auntie’s slide show of sunburn-heavy holiday snaps from her latest trip to Alicante or similar Sun holiday destination.

* Trying to film an unsuccessful man’s unsuccessful search for a city that did not exist is sure to cause problems. Early Spanish explorers from the 16th century onwards told of wide avenues, canals, palisades, cities of tens of thousands. Trouble was, when organised searches entered the land, everything was gone, and had disappeared into the jungle. So was it all hokum? Well no. There was never a city as Fawcett imagined, a Machu Picchu, made of stone. It was all earthworks, which after just two generations had been abandoned and returned to jungle. The Indians living there were all but wiped out by diseases brought by the first Spanish. They were not aware that their ancestors had built this remarkable system which only started to show up in the latest satellite imagery and was confirmed by on the ground digs in the past 20 years or so. Indian soil management techniques had reached a high level to transform human waste and leaves into rich compost enabling long term stay in villages. Fawcett was part adventurer, Indiana Jones, part David Attenborough, and part war hero, who was always skint. Rather than being a systematic geographer, he embarked on a poorly financed gung-ho expedition and vanished in 1925, being killed by Indians, without ever realising he had probably walked across part of the “city”.Just how big this complex was, what language they used, how it was commissioned, we will never know, nothing was ever written down. Did it all link the Amazon from north to south and from east to west? Perhaps it did. What drove Fawcett ? Certainly the lure of gold; he was skint after all. And he was sure there was a city. But is it the “sure” of the gambler, who is sure he has the winning lottery ticket?

* My main problem was the narrative. The story takes place over a few decades and follows the efforts of Fawcett to discover the “Lost City of Z”. He embarks on 3 “perilous” expeditions going up the Amazon but no sense of danger or suffering is at any point conveyed by the narrative.

The 3 trips are each expedited under 20 minutes of screen time. We have absolutely no idea of the time involved (apparently the expeditions lasted a few years each) nor any feeling towards the hardships the crew faces. To make matters worse, new crew members keep appearing out of nowhere and at some point even a horse!! which was nowhere to be seen on the raft in previous scenes. If this was not enough…. the raft keeps going downstream when they are supposed to go UPSTREAM, towards the source of the river…. oh well, I could have lived with these inconsistencies if I had a character to root for. Unfortunately we never feel any sympathy towards any of the protagonists. The character development is non existent and not helped by the fact the acting is very stiff at the best of time and downright awful for most of the movie. I didn’t find Charlie Hunnam convincing as a Hell’s Angel in SOA but he is seriously laughable as an English Army officer. This absence of feeling and empathy is also to be experienced towards the wife and children he leaves behind, every time he embarks on one of those trips. We simply do not care for them.

I obviously did not go into it expecting a new Fitzcarraldo or Apocalypse Now but for a movie which should have dealt with a man’s obsessive doomed quest for a Lost City, the jungle and/or the river should have been part and parcel of the movie, a character in itself, an omnipresent entity. No such thing. The whole movie could have been shot in a winter garden for all I saw… You never have the feeling you are in the mud with the protagonists. The only feeling you experience is one of utter detachment and an urge for the movie to finish as soon as possible.

Extremely disappointed. Do not believe the hype!

* After watching the trailer for the lost city of z i was excited to see the film. The cast was promising and i’m a huge fan of historical exploration films and unashamedly the Indiana jones franchise. Having recently watched Master and Commander i thought this could be of a similar calibre. Unfortunately the script was dire and the acting was so awkward and cringeworthy i thought of leaving the cinema (which i’ve never done) there were times where the film felt like a satire, the main character played by charlie hunnam was paper thin and had no believable or relateable character traits that made you care about his struggle. The plot was pieced together and i cant recall a single scene which felt gritty or believing, as you would hope an amazon rainforest set epic would be. Instead we saw a single dimensional poor acting display from almost the whole cast, with Tom Holland (protagonist son and upcoming actor of the new spider-man) breathing a slight breath of life into the film with a more believable and rounded character. The attempt at having a strong female character was a good idea but it was poorly done and not in sync with the usual characters submissive role, not seeming to care of her husband leaving her and their children in England. Overall possibly the worst film i’ve seen at the cinema, mainly because of my expectations being let down so drastically. I’d avoid this film and wait for it to be on TV or Online and watch on a rainy Sunday in August. I’d imagine if you went into this film with no expectations it could be enjoyable, but unfortunately a big disappointment from what could have been an enthralling period adventure.

* This is a film about exploration, about class structure, about being able to fit in, and about success and failure. The protagonist (Percy Fawcett) has a tainted reputation due to his father being a drunk and a gambler. Percy is a military officer who is offered an assignment to chart the Amazon and particularly the area around Bolivia where rubber production was the most lucrative industry, we learn there was a dispute over the position of the border, charting the area would avert a war between the rubber producers. He accepts the mission in an attempt to repair his family name and restore some reputation.

This film challenges the belief that Western Civilisation was the first to be established. Percy flits between jolly ‘Old Blighty’ and the Amazon several times to continue his obsessive search for this civilisation.

It’s hard to believe that he leaves his wife pregnant before leaving for every 3-4 year long expedition, she shows an incredible level of personal sacrifice. It might have been a good idea to have explored her character in more depth.

The film really irritated me because Percy was an absent parent, his eldest son had a justifiable hate / love relationship with him which seemed to miraculously improve from one scene to the next without any stimulus.

There could have been more dramatic filming of the jungle areas. Scenery around the Amazon should be easy to photograph, although we see far too little of this or the atmosphere.

This could have been a more fascinating epic. Although I really like true stories, this was extremely long and dull. A viewer at the end of my row actually fell asleep within the first 30minutes and remained that way for the majority of the rest.

Not a bad film but overlong and ultimately irritating (for me).

* I was really looking forward to this film, as how can the exploration of the Amazon be anything other than amazing? Well I was wrong, this was utterly boring, excruciatingly dull and just plain awful. I can only give it a 1 out of 5 rating. After the first 30 minutes I was looking at my watch and wondering if I should bother, as I had more important things to do, like clean the oven. How can anyone make the exploration of the Amazon so tedious? This could have been like real life Indiana Jones! There was absolutely no sense of danger at any point, just flat as a very thin pancake. The film should really be re-named The Lost City of Zzzzzzz.

It was a truly odd film, this bloke gets asked to go Bolivia for the Royal Society to do some maps and stuff, doesn’t want to go, But they offer him a shiny medal so he goes (leaving his wife and new born son), has a rubbish time, comes back to London, goes back to the Amazon (leaving wife, and second son), comes back to London, Goes to France for WW1, comes back to London and then goes to Amazonia again… For Heaven’s sake man – just choose one! I shouted through gritted teeth.

It’s terribly directed and the cinematography is really bad (and I say this as a trained cinematographer). It’s so dark that I actually wondered if the bulb in the projector was bust, but then it would cut to a scene outside in a garden and it would (almost) be correctly exposed. Some interiors were so badly lit I actually couldn’t see who was speaking, and a huge number of shots were so out of focus I again wondered if we were watching a dud print.

There was a really important (cough) scene with two blokes on a train having a chat about something. Now one bloke has a beard and one has a moustache, so that helps tell them apart in the dark, but for some reason we are looking at them over their shoulders and not ‘at’ them, and Mr Moustache-bloke turns away from camera (probably trying this ‘acting’ thing) and I can no longer see his face just his ear. Now it’s so dark I can’t tell if he has a nice ear, if it’s too big or too small or if it sticks out, and By God this must be damn boring if I’m wondering about the relative angles of ear projection rather than what the hell is going on.

The framing is really odd, and the eye lines are all over the place, so I don’t know who is speaking to who, and often the camera operator decided to be above or below eye-lines, making my head ache as it was so badly composed.

The first three scenes of the film could all be cut, or would serve better as flash backs, as they just don’t go anywhere at all. OK a bit of back story, but we know the Major wants a medal with a single line of dialogue, not three flipping scenes as dull as a rainy Sunday.

The main character Major Blokey-pants was utterly dull and his motivation was all rather thrust down out throats, and I didn’t care for him. Only after 90 minutes or so did his wife start talking about some bloke names Percy and I thought “Who is Percy?” and I realised it was the main character, who had been referred to as Major something or other (I forget) for the entire rest of the movie.

Couple of massive plot holes: they were in the middle of nowhere running low on food on a raft made of branches saying how no white man had ever been here before and clearly in the background is a bloke on a horse in a field. I kept thinking they would pan around and explain but they never did. I also wondered if they were travelling to seek the source of the river, how they were just floating along and not constantly rowing, as a river flows away from the source to the ocean.

They have been travelling down river for a year apparently and it all goes wrong and they decide to send this bloke back on a horse. Where did this horse come from?

And they are in the middle of the river all weak and dying and the other bloke (Beard-o) says to the main bloke “and here’s a letter from you wife.” FTAF??? Where had he been keeping that then?

When we finally get to the WW1 scenes the dead bodies in the trenches are clearly shop window dummies and for a film that is this expensive that is just rubbish. These scenes add absolutely nothing to the film, we could just have had a Voice over which went “After the first world war, where I saw active service in France and that bloke I knew who was on the trip to Bolivia with me, you know, thingie, was killed, I returned to London…”

Eventually we get back to Amazonia for the third time and Major Blokey-pants has bought his son with him this time Blokey-Pants minor, and they bang on about finding this lost city of Zzzz but never does he put forward a reason why he thinks there might be a lost city or indeed, why he is so keen to find it, he just wants to find it. Who were these people? Why did their civilisation die out? what was their favourite past time? Did they like cheese? None of these questions were answered or indeed even asked.

Compare this film to the savage Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972 Herzog) the bonkers Fitzcaraldo (1982 Herzog) or even the rather depressing The Mission (1986 Joffe) and you will be sorely disappointed.

* What was probably an incredibly interesting story has been turned into an incredibly dull film. Charlie Hunnam’s Fawcett is as flat as roadkill and Robert Pattinson might as well have stayed at home in bed for all he brings to the tale. As for Angus Macfadyen; he obviously thought he was in a different movie entirely. Three times during this film Fawcett travels to the Bolivian jungle yet we barely learn anything about the place or his expeditions. The director skips hastily from one badly written scene to another with all the depth of a Stephenie Meyer novel. This film is an episodic series of set pieces, many of which should have been left in a heap on the cutting room floor; the entire WW1 sequence brings absolutely nothing to the story except filling quarter of an hour of screen time with clichéd dialogue and hackneyed visuals. With Fawcett’s final trip to the jungle you might think that the fabled Lost City of Z might finally make an appearance; you’d be wrong. The film fizzles like a damp squib and then the credits roll, and not too soon either. Snore on.

Posted in Hollywood | Comments Off on The Lost City of Z (2016)

I’m Not Yet Worried About Trump’s Military Action In Syria

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Luke Ford

I don’t believe it presages greater military involvement in Syria. I think he was just bowing to media and political pressure to make a symbolic strike, just the same way he bows to the overwhelming force of the Israel Lobby. I think Trump understands that Syria has no vital strategic interest to the US.

I read in the media that Trump’s military advisers were united behind this strike. So I think, fine, do it. Not a big deal.

I differ from the Alt Right in this respect. They’re appalled. I cut Trump more slack. Ideological purity is not as important as pragmatic results. Trump has to make compromises and this Syrian strike is a compromise to change the news cycle, to please his critics so he can get important things done.

If the United States proceeds to get bogged down in Syria, I’ll obviously be shown to be wrong.

Trump needs some media Jews on his side. He doesn’t need them all, just a significant number, and this Syrian strike insures that some media Jews remain on his side.

This action also shows that Trump is not predictable, which is a strength in his position. It makes him look a little bit crazy. Crazy dangerous. Underestimate him at your peril.

I find Trump’s strike on Syria hilarious. I love all the former Trump supporters saying they feel “betrayed.”

“Betrayed” is simply a hyper-emotional response to other people having different priorities from what you expected. I never feel betrayed. I only feel surprised at times and disappointed that I was not in touch with reality.

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* It’s not very significant in and of itself but it’s part of a broader problem of not being able to stand up to establishment conservatives, which has been an issue since inauguration day but seems to be getting worse and worse.

* The Iraqi debacle soured Bush’s presidency.
The Libyan fiasco irrevocably marred Obama’s presidency, as Obama himself recognized. May have cost H. Clinton the presidency.
Trump himself said that Obama should NOT intervene in Syria years ago when Obama was in an identical situation.
People voted for Trump precisely because he promised to be a peace candidate.
The Internet is in an uproar. The_Donald on Reddit – a.k.a. Trump central – is vociferously against intervention.

It’s simple – don’t do it, Donald! Don’t listen to the Neocons who hate your guts. Listen to the people who voted for you. Learn from the errors of Obama and Bush. Don’t become another mass murderer and war criminal by engaging in an idiotic war. Don’t ruin your presidency three months in. Go after ISIS, not Assad. Be smart.

* The cool kids at treehouse and other places are saying OK Trump knew it was a false flag but calculated the benefits of this strike and decided it solved so many problems at once that he gave it the go ahead anyway.

So why wouldn’t the false flag perps do it again? The sickos might decide now is the time to stage a truly spectacular and gruesome operation. And what is Trump’s move then?

Seems like now the stage is set for the real chess move. Maybe another much larger false flag outside of Syria carried out by an angry supporter of Assad.

* Total Win for NeverTrumpers/Neocons. Trump is essentially a hostage of a Deep State & a Senate that won’t confirm Nationalists or Noninterventionists to his cabinet. A necessary precondition to a more nationalist presidency is to have an at least mildly nationalist Senate. It is getting harder to see what Trump can achieve this year with Deep State & their allies opposing him. The PaleoRight was purged from DC in the 98-2012 window & we are paying a big price for that now.

* Possible that the chemical bombing was a false flag operation by the CIA. Who knows? But overall, I think Trump made the right move sending in the Tomahawks. It accomplishes several things:
1. Sends message to the world that Trump is more aggressive than Obama. More willing to kick some ass.
2. Sends message to Premier Xi that he is willing to use direct intervention against North Korea, so they had better step up and help fix that problem.
3. Makes KJ Un wonder how far he can go before he may be next to get the Tomahawks.
4. Confounds Dems who are chasing the Trump-Russia connection, especially when this was a move against Russian interests (Tillerson saying Russkies were insincere or inept not to know about the gassing).
5. Provokes positive feelings for Trump from those (never Trumpers) who have seen the videos of the suffering children and feel good that ‘something’ wasa done about it.

There are probably some other benefits. Ultimately though, Trump will never send more than a few ground troops into Syria. His bigger play in the mideast is (or should be) destabilizing Iran politically to rid that country of the crazy Mullahs.

* I keep seeing people say this is a betrayal of Trump’s base. Do you really think so? He was the rank and file military’s candidate, not to mention the Israel lovers candidate. I would think a large part of his base is thrilled by this.

* In spite of media reaction, or perhaps befitting it, this was really nothing, like Bill C. dropping ordnance on the pharma factory in Sudan. By the way, there’s yer new headline talking-point, Trump wagging the dog to distract from his Russia Scandals or Kellyanne Conway’s feet on the couch. In other words, a day ending in Y.

I anticipate the Unz Rev bullpen getting disenchanted and crestfallen, and penning their new versions of The God That Failed to go on sale from CreateSpace for $8.95. Basically I still think Trump is non-interventionist, though not very ideological about it. Through the ideological lens, this looks like an error. The Colin Powell “If you break it you bought it” is true despite being clumsily expressed. We shouldn’t be prodding ISIS’s battlefield opponents except under utilitarian ends of protecting our soldiers (who shouldn’t be over there to begin with, yeah yeah, but guess what, they are). Through the barely ideological, shake-up-the-Beltway Trumpian amateur kabuki lens, this is easy for him to explain, like a caped superhero setting the drug dealer’s lab on fire. I think it will be hilarious to watch the contortions of the Russian Menace thumpers adjusting to this “nonsensical plot twist.” Day 28: Trump Still Offers No Evidence of R2P Quality-Assurance of Syria Strike.

* All that matters is that Trump does what he said he’d do on immigration. Who cares about anything else. God, I hope I never find myself in a fox hole with you cut and runners.

* I was with some friends tonight when the news broke, and they seemed genuinely confused that he’d attacked Syria because, in their words, “Isn’t he supposed to be friends with Russia?”

* If false flag atrocities are rewarded it will encourage more false flag atrocities.

With Trump accepting the latest performance by the White Helmets theater group at face value and giving the neo-cons what they want you can expect a made-for-the-cameras atrocity to take place in the Ukraine in the very near future.

* That’s one silver lining – more people woke to what a media con our entire society has become.

* We aren’t out as long as we are supplying Israel with $5 billion annually in military hardware and providing it with diplomatic cover.

* The “Strange New Respect” is right on schedule. I have always wondered why the Russians don’t simply threaten to retaliate against Israel in response to American aggression, this would probably be the most effective way to coerce America and the global media into total acquiescence. Hell, if Putin blackmailed our elites with a nuclear threat towards Israel, they would probably let him annex half of Europe without a peep.

* Trump is no George Bush in terms of rhetoric, but I note a distinct lack of passion for this.

The Washington Post ran a story that discussed the decision to use Tomahawk missiles. They are the least risky way to bomb something.

Trump did get burned on the covert mission in Yemen. That was the general’s idea. He started blaming them immediately.

This won’t go well and Trump, but Trump will be blaming it on someone else the second something goes wrong. He already blamed Obama for not doing it when he should have.

I was quite excited about Tillerson saying that we no longer cared about Assad last week. Why not pick the internationally recognized leader of state and winner?

If he is stupid enough to put boots on the ground …. and to actually try to remove Assad …. that makes him another Obama.

Somehow I can’t imagine Trump ‘taking one for the team’ and accepting any responsibility or blame. This deeply ingrained character trait could serve him well.

Overall, he looks like a sucker. For the moment.

* I think most of Trump’s cabinet picks and advisers are being influenced by the Neocons. Pence, Haley, McMaster, Perry, and even Mattis all sound like Neocons. I did kinda see this coming when John Bolton and Eliot Abrams were being seriously considered for key positions in the State Department. I guess Paul Gottfried was right when he said that the Neocons would survive a Trump victory.

* I don’t support attacking Syria either, but did you really expect the President of the United States to stay out of every single military confrontation in the world, especially in the Middle East? That just seems naive to me, expecting one man to overturn 40 years of Washington consensus in less than three months. I just think this isn’t as big a deal as some people are making it. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong in the coming days and weeks, we shall see.

* The Republicans decided in favor of the nuclear option regarding Supreme Court nominees.

However, I think we will see them start going nuclear on everything. I’ll admit I don’t fully get it, but the Senate Rules can be ignored with 50 votes plus the VP. It seems that a super majority is required to change the rules, but not to suspend them.

For all the handwringing over cloture, the filibuster was always just a work around. That is, it cut off debate. Period. But if the Senate was a well functioning deliberative body, they wouldn’t refuse to vote on most issues. Refusing to vote isn’t deliberation.

All votes (except treaties) are simple majority. It was only a beneficial tactic when it wasn’t used frequently. The media shorthand for the rules is that it takes 60 votes. Like 60 votes for everything.

This strikes me as potentially a huge deal.

Bombing something has become simply something to do when we don’t have a better idea. And this isn’t even bombing — just lighting up a military base.

I’m an optimist.

* This makes sense. Trump loves to throw curve balls and stay unpredictable. And seeending missiles is not the same as invading Iraq.

* Who cares about a few missiles? Israel bombs Syria every now and again and nobody thinks it’s going to be a prelude to an endless occupation. A superpower like the US can drop cruise missiles on whoever it wants, and will occasionally do so. Stop pissing your pants and focus on immigration.

* The evangelical Christians always enjoy a good war. They’ll be onboard.

What about the working-class voters in the Rust Belt states? Working-class voters are notoriously gullible when politicians start thumping the patriotic drum.

The big losers will be the alt-right. They’re about to be thrown under the bus. They’re no longer needed.

The thing about politicians who practise the gentle art of betrayal is that they usually thrive. Look at Churchill. Betrayal works.

* Yes, the last stand of traditional Americana failed. We will fade out like the Indians.

2020 won’t matter. Everyone politician has been bought by the Israel first eternal war lobby. I hate what my country is. I supposed it never really was what I thought.

Sexual perversion crammed down our children’s throats daily, anti-white hatred resulting in violence condoned by tptb, family & religious breakdown, cheerleading for poor foreign policy lest one be called unpatriotic, toxic feminism.

What exactly is there that is beautiful or meaningful to “conserve?”

* First problem: the US is the lone superpower.

That, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily bad since majority of Americans are decent people.

It’s the Second problem in combination with first problem that makes the world so toxic.

Among various groups in the US, there is only on superpower group. Jewish.

In the past, the lone superpower group within the US was Anglo or Wasp.

And then, esp after WWII, the power got more balanced among Wasps, Catholics, Irish, Ethnics, blacks, Jews. Also, there used to be the generational divide that pit Experience vs Youth.

But over time, Youth Culture took over everything, and even old people still listen to youth music and rock. And if boomer rebelled against elders, today’s youths take all their cues from teachers and Pop culture controlled by boomer/ X gen elders.

Wasp power declined fast. Ethnic power also faded as various ethnics — Italians, Irish, Polish, etc — just became generic Americans, hardly an identity to rally around. Blacks got stuck in rage politics and self-destruction. Religious identity faded and Catholics grew weak. Evangelicals and Southerners got numerical power but not much brains.

Meanwhile Jewish power rose and rose. In time, Jews became the superpower group in America. The only one. There was a time when Anglos were the lone superpower group. And then, there was balance among various groups since end of WWII. But then, the only group that was perpetually on the rise were Jews.

There has been massive non-white immigrants, but most Mexicans and other such are lackluster in gaining elite power. As for Asians, they do better in schools and make decent money, but they lack spark and unity among themselves. Whereas all Jews tend to become ONE in the US regardless of their national origin(Hungary, Poland, Russia, Germany etc), the various Asians groups don’t see eye to eye on anything. Chinese and Hindus as one people? Fat chance. Since Asians generally follow and suck up to power, they just do whatever is necessary to gain favor from Jewish elites.
Muslims haven’t amounted to much either.

So, we have a dangerous situation. US is the only superpower in the world, and the US is ruled by one ethnicity as the lone superpower group. This group is only 2% of the US population but have tremendous power over brain and nerve centers of law, economy, government, judiciary, and etc. If not for First Amendment of the US constitution, even this comment could be deemed illegal(as in Europe), and I could be hunted down. Thank Todd for the first amendment.

If Jews were the lone superpower group in a multi-polar world, it wouldn’t be so dangerous. In that case, even if Jews controlled the US, the US would not control the world that is multi-polar and balanced among other great powers. So, there would be balance, and the US, even if Jewish-dominated, would respect that balance.

But the US is the lone power and controls the world. So, WHO controls the US is very important to all the world. If there was balance of powers among various racial/ethnic groups within the US, it wouldn’t be so bad since different groups will balance each other’s interests.

It’s like various parties balance each other out in a democracy. One-party system can lead to autocracy. In the US, we have a one-group system despite there being many groups and despite the supreme one-group being only 2% of the population.

Suppose Palestinian Americans and Russian-gentile-Americans and Iranian-Americans also had considerable clout in the US. Then, US foreign policy wouldn’t be so rabidly Zionist and Judeo-centric. But since there is NO balance of powers among the various groups in the US, the US as lone superpower is essentially a War Machine for the Tribe as the only superpower group in the US. This is very dangerous. For all the world to tremble before the supremacist interests of such a small number… it’s out of whack. The New War on Russia is a Jewish War on Russia. Sure, Jews use homo proxies and pussy riots proxies — just like ‘white helmets’ are used as proxies in Syria —, but the puppet-masters are the Tribe.

Long ago, UK sought to maintain balance of power on the European continent so that no single nation will consolidate all of Europe and pose a threat to UK.
Now, something must be done to bring forth some kind of ethnic or group balance in America because Jewish lone-superpower-group domination is greedily exploiting and driving all of American power to serve very narrow interests, albeit under cover of ‘principles’ like ‘human rights’, ‘liberal democracy’, and etc.

Nikki Haley is just like the Azid kid. She will whore out in any way and anyhow to rise up the ladder and play the game. Just a whore of power and privilege.

Anyway, if the US were the lone superpower in the world BUT didn’t have a lone superpower group to hog all the power internally, there would be some restraint to US power. Even if US is the most powerful nation, its global agenda would be balanced due to various contending forces within the US. It’s like Greek Americans side with Greek Cypriots and Turkish Americans side with Turkish Cypriots. But as neither side is dominant, US doesn’t use its power to favor Turks or Greeks. Balance. And because Irish-Americans were very powerful, they applied pressure on the US to sue for peace in Northern Ireland than just side with UK. So, US respected both British interests and Irish interests. But pity the Palestinians. They got no power at all. So, even after so many yrs of Zionist occupation, all we hear from US politicians is “Israel, Israel, Israel”.

Problem is Jews have become the lone superpower group in the US. This is more dangerous than when Anglos were the only superpower group. For one thing, since Anglos were the majority for good part of US history, it seemed just that they wielded the most power. And even when wasps were no longer the majority, they made up substantial number of Americans, and besides, many ethnics had become Anglo-Americanized and shared in the values and interests.
So, Wasp power did represent many peoples and even groups within America.

But Jews have never been more than 3% of the US population. So, for them to have lone superpower status within the US throws things out of balance. If the US had three superpower groups, even that wouldn’t be so bad. If wasps, Jews, and Hispanics were three superpower groups, there would be some kind of balance among them. But Jews are the ONLY superpower group now. White gentiles could become a superpower group if they all pulled together, but white identity is deemed either suspect(even evil) or too generic. So, whites are like a slug with no backbone.

In the other scenario, suppose the US has Jews as lone superpower group but American power is on par with Iran or Brazil. In that case, Jews would dominate the US but the US would not dominate the world. And that makes for some balance in the world.

But when Jews are lone superpower in the US that is the lone superpower in the world, that is a dangerous mix.
Jews have achieved in America what Napoleon or Hitler sought in Continental Europe. Control over all.

Traditionally, the two powers that did most to maintain balance in the Continent were UK and Russia. Both feared the unification of Europe. Napoleon and Hitler who unified Europe attacked UK and Russia. In both wars, UK and Russia were allied. And it seems rather logical that UK would exit EU before others. Still, UK is no longer what it used to be. It’s a spent power, a poodle of the US. Russia is still a major power though also greatly diminished.

US and EU united under Jewish hegemony is very dangerous to the world. And we are seeing it.

* Trump was always a buffoon — the main point of supporting Trump was to keep HRC out of the White House — also to deliver a richly deserved kick in the teeth to the Establishment — the hope was that once in office, he would somehow grow into the job — surround himself with competent people ideologically aligned with his campaign rhetoric, especially on immigration and economic nationalism — people who would help him formulate a policy and legislative agenda — with this action he has alienated a great many of those who voted for him — but the people who always despised him will still despise him — which brings me back to where I started: he’s apparently too stupid to realize that, a buffoon — but then I already felt that way after seeing his son-in-law riding in a helicopter over Iraq.

* First thought: the US tipped off the Russians who, surely, tipped off the Syrians. Not much actual damage done.

1. A token display of force to divert his increasingly unhinged critics. Leverage with Russia in advance of Tillerson’s trip as they negotiate Assad’s exit and joint plan on squashing the cockroaches.

2. The bored generals and You-Know-Who’s finally got to him and it’s off to war and endless occupation of yet another country that deeply resents us. Billions to bomb them, billions to rebuild them. More immigrants, and more Muslims with a grudge.

The problem with 1 is, who do you put in power in the Big Man’s place? Syria is a snakepit and the Assads have spent so much time consolidating power that there’s nobody competent outside their circle left. Does anybody know ANYONE in Syria ready to step up to the plate? Or does the CIA have some gray-haired guy on ice in a Northern Virginia suburb ready to roll out, who’ll have to hire US mercs because he can’t trust his own countrymen?

I just don’t see how you implement 1 without it leading to 2.

I’m paused at grey-pill for now. But immigration was the issue that swept him into power (via the Electoral College) and he doesn’t seem to be doing much on it. And now he’s bit into something that could occupy his time 24/7 if he let it (like the perplexed LBJ with Vietnam).

* White people like me were hoping for a messiah who would kick the usurers from our temple instead we got a media driven charlatan we were hoping against all hope would turn out on our side.

* Sorry if I haven’t fallen in love and have been bedazzled by Ivanka Trump by so many others. I don’t dislike her, but she is a little too ambitious and aggressive for my tastes. I also think she is a bit light in her loafers.

I don’t think she has a core set of convictions and principles. She seems easily distracted and gloms onto stylish and fashionable things that are dragged in front of her. She has zero damned business being in the WH.

She is given an office there? WTH?!?!@@? NO! We didn’t vote for Ivanka, if she wants to hold office then let her run.

Ivanka should stick to her business and her line of clothing and so on. She has no business being involved in any national policy decisions and neither does her husband.

I am finding this all very disturbing and disappointing.

* The cynic and conspiracy theorist in me makes me think that Trump made a deal with some influential people where in exchange for bombing Assad, he gets Gorusch pushed through, some cabinet appointments that Democrats are dragging their feet on, and maybe some other deals not otherwise known to me at this time.

* Trump, if you or your staffers are reading this, I hope you’ve just done this to send a message to North Korea or China, or maybe one of your family just purchased some Raytheon stock. Learn from the example of GWB, whom you repudiated.

* What’s good for nothing is Trump’s base losing its shit because of something Bill Clinton used to do to distract from sex scandals. You have the first immigration restrictionist president of the modern era and you’re ready to throw it all out because he made Putin and the Iranians a little upset today? Take a chill pill and wait to see where this goes.

* Let’s build some context: Trump spent his life fighting for commercial and social legitimacy among New York Jews who would not let him into their elite country clubs and other circles in spite of Trump being a billionaire New York real estate mogul. Finally, Trump’s daughter is allowed to marry a wealthy New York Jew … but from a Jewish clan temporarily on the “out” because of the conviction of the clan’s patriarch for fraud and bribery.

So, Trump enters the political arena as a president caught between two New York Jews … his son-in-law acting as his senior advisor and New York Senator, Chuck Schumer, the Neocon leading the Democratic charge against the Trump administration — “good” Jew vs. “bad” Jew as it were. The pregnant question: Would Jared (and Trump) operate on the mantra, “What is good for Israel is good for the Jews …” or the original “America First” platform voiced by Trump during his election campaign?

Now we know. Although only 36 and without any political and foreign policy experience, Jared quickly purges the leading “Deplorables”, Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon, from the Trump administration and takes over effective control of the National Security Council. Then, as if a part of a pre-planned Jewish coup, the Trump administration quickly turns “180 degrees” in its foreign policy by joining the Neocon-sponsored anti-Russian crusade, announcing a plan for an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria, and attacking Syria.

The tally is in: Jews 1, Americans 0. Game over! It appears that the last presidential election was nothing more than an internal squabble between two Jewish clans in New York City. And, yes, we know they have made amends and now both support using US military power and wealth to eliminate Israel’s existential enemies in the Mideast, even if this takes us to WWIII and a nuclear exchange with Russia.

* It shows that the NY Democrats in the West Wing have defeated Breitbart. I suspect this will lead to a softening in other policy areas. NY Jews tend to be against Muslims but support high performing Asian and Indian immigrants. They are neutral on Hispanics. In the long run expect some kind of sensible amnesty policy along with reasonable but not fiscally destabilizing tax cuts. Trump’s popularity will soar, but probably among people who would never vote for him. If this makes him a one term President, this would still be the greatest third act for the NY showman in the history of the country.

* But the important thing is not the veracity of the evidence around WMD. The important thing is that, for the first time in history, a black man and a woman presented the evidence at the United Nations on behalf of the United States of America. We should all applaud the significance of that, regardless of the consequences.

* This debacle is a direct result of our negligence in failing to promptly hang the chiselers who lied us into Iraq. Though many believe the foreign policy establishment are incorrigible, I am quite sure that a row of corpses swinging from a hastily-built gallows on the National Mall would have done wonders to re-orient their priorities. If you find public hanging too gruesome, blindfolds and a pockmarked wall would have served equally well.

* If this is a one off rather than policy, this is not that big a deal. Reports indicate Russia was warned well in advance to remove their personnel, and statements from them indicate they no longer are giving Assad full support.

If however this is the first move in a ground war or more extensive military action in Syria, it’s a disaster. Would go against everything Candidate Trump’s sensibly said President Trump would not do. Further he had no Congressional authorization for this;’ he is walking into an impeachment trap should he go any further . For 3 decades our foreign policy has been dictated but what ever heart-wrenching video cable networks can show to pull at our heartstrings without concern for the cost in American blood and lucre.

* One hundred years ago – almost to the day – the United States entered WWI, sending us down the path to global empire while remaining a republic at home.

Around 50 years ago, we decided to turn a relatively homogeneous, prosperous nation into a multi-racial, multi-ethnic conglomerate and to adopt the national religion I call The Cult of Equality.

Now, we are witnessing the end of the Republic.

Trump was our last chance, as slim as it was. He had the money and arrogance to take on the establishment. He is failing us. There will not another politician who doesn’t need other people’s money or who is willing to get eviscerated in the press day after day.

Unless Trump start acting on immigration soon, we can list this time as the point where we knew for certain that the country was lost.

* For Israel? Is Israel pushing for a resolution to the Syria issue? Seems to me they’ve been enjoying watching their enemies kill each other. Plus, they get to hop across the border and bomb Hezbollah every now and then, and no one has the ability to do anything about it. Syria is a situation where the Iranians, the Assads and Hezbollah are fighting Al Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas. Why would Israel want to stop that? None of the refugees are going into Israel. None of the fighting has been aimed at Israel. And if Syria breaks up, there is less pressure for Israel to give up the Golan Heights.

* Trump’s election itself was really improbable, but the Trump administration is even more improbable, and the reason is that gloablism is so entrenched among elites and within the Beltway that staffing a nationalist administration, whether a left nationalist or a right nationalist one, is a big problem. Trump himself is an example, as his lack of government experience has really shown in the last seventy or so days, but no one with experience at all was running on his agenda.

For example, both Ron and Rand Paul are good on many issues, but as open borders types neither can be employed in high positions in an administration whose main reason for existence is reducing immigration. Its really that simple. Getting someone who is lined up correction on all three “invade the world”, “invite the world”, and “in hoc to the world” is pretty much impossible. The best you can do is someone like Sessions, who is good on both immigration and trade, but will decide that the highest priority is going after pot smokers.

Then you have the issue that the federal government itself, as Mulvaney noted publically on Meet the Press, is in worse shape than most people realized. If there is a real chance of default because Congress can’t pass a budget or raise the debt ceiling, you probably have to let Goldman Sachs continue to run the Treasury department for the time being. My own suggestion earlier was that Trump punt on foreign policy, keeping the Obama policies but intervening just enough to keep the US out of a ground war (this was basically Obama’s own approach) and concentrate on trade and immigration, until he got up to speed.

But this is really just saying that the federal government and associated institutions may have gotten to the point where they are un-reformable. Well at least we will find out over the next four years.

* The limited statement of aims that Trump gave wasn’t bad (Stephen Miller’s work?): chemical weapons are illegal under international treaties, and it is in our interest to punish any use of them. In so far as that goes, fine. If it is limited to that, then maybe this won’t betoken a return to invade-the-world (which Trump hadn’t really stopped so far anyway).

Assad will just have to go back to killing civilians with explosives and shrapnel, which is how civilized governments slaughter innocents.

* This attack, while it wrenched those of us opposed to ME interventions, it actually triangulated Trump to a center of sorts.

McCain and Graham immediately issued a statement urging further hawkish action, as will many neocon-biased media commentators. And anti-war people will flank Trump now.

So a targeted attack like this, if it doesn’t escalate, is actually the “moderate middle”. As stupid as it is, that is where we are.

Posted in America, Syria | Comments Off on I’m Not Yet Worried About Trump’s Military Action In Syria

What Constitutes An Honors Student At A Black High School?

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Luke Ford

Stan writes: The success bar is set lower for black men, as Tom Wolfe noted in The Bonfire of the Vanities:

‘‘Actually, I’m calling to inquire about one of your students, a young Mr. Henry Lamb.’’

‘‘Henry Lamb. Doesn’t ring a bell. What’s he done?’’

‘‘Oh, he hasn’t done anything. He’s been seriously injured.’’ He proceeded to lay out the facts of the case, stacking them rather heavily toward the Albert Vogel-Reverend Bacon theory of the incident. ‘‘I was told he was a student in your English class.’’

‘‘Who told you that?’’

‘‘His mother. I had quite a long talk with her. She’s a very nice woman and very upset, as you can imagine.’’

‘‘Henry Lamb … Oh yes, I know who you mean. Well, that’s too bad.’’

‘‘What I would like to find out, Mr. Rifkind, is what kind of student Henry Lamb is.’’

‘‘What kindl’’

‘‘Well, would you say he was an outstanding student?’’

‘‘Where are you from, Mr.—I’m sorry, tell me your name again?’’

‘‘Fallow.’’

‘‘Mr. Fallow. I gather you’re not from New York.’’

‘‘That’s true.’’

‘‘Then there’s no reason why you should know anything about Colonel Jacob Ruppert High School in the Bronx. At Ruppert we use comparative terms, but outstanding isn’t one of them. The range runs more from cooperative to life-threatening.’’ Mr. Rifkind began to chuckle. ‘‘F’r Chrissake, don’t say I said that.’’

‘‘Well, how would you describe Henry Lamb?’’

‘‘Cooperative. He’s a nice fellow. Never gives me any trouble.’’

‘‘Would you describe him as a good student?’’

‘‘Good doesn’t work too well at Ruppert, either. It’s more ‘Does he attend class or doesn’t he?’ ‘‘

‘‘Did Henry Lamb attend class?’’

‘‘As I recall, yes. He’s usually there. He’s very dependable. He’s a nice kid, as nice as they come.’’

‘‘Was there any part of the curriculum he was particularly good—or, let me say, adept at, anything he did better than anything else?’’

‘‘Not particularly.’’

‘‘No?’’

‘‘It’s difficult to explain, Mr. Fallow. As the saying goes, ‘Ex nihilo nihil fit.’ There’s not a great range of activities in these classes, and so it’s hard to compare performances. These boys and girls—sometimes their minds are in the classroom, and sometimes they’re not.’’

‘‘What about Henry Lamb?’’

‘‘He’s a nice fellow. He’s polite, he pays attention, he doesn’t give me any trouble. He tries to learn.’’

‘‘Well, he must have some abilities. His mother told me he was considering going to college.’’

‘‘That may well be. She’s probably talking about C.C.N.Y. That’s the City College of New York.’’

‘‘I believe Mrs. Lamb did mention that.’’

‘‘City College has an open-admissions policy. If you live in New York City and you’re a high-school graduate and you want to go to City College, you can go.’’

‘‘Will Henry Lamb graduate, or would he have?’’

‘‘As far as I know. As I say, he has a very good attendance record.’’

‘‘How do you think he would have fared as a college student?’’

A sigh. ‘‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine what happens with these kids when they enter City College.’’

‘‘Well, Mr. Rifkind, can you tell me anything at all about Henry Lamb’s performance or his aptitude, anything at all?’’

‘‘You have to understand that they give me about sixty-five students in each class when the year starts, because they know it’ll be down to forty by mid-year and thirty by the end of the year. Even thirty’s too many, but that’s what I get. It’s not exactly what you’d call a tutorial system. Henry Lamb’s a nice young man who applies himself and wants an education. What more can I tell you?’’

‘‘Let me ask you this. How does he do on his written work?’’

Mr. Rifkind let out a whoop. ‘‘Written work? There hasn’t been any written work at Ruppert High for fifteen years! Maybe twenty! They take multiple-choice tests. Reading comprehension, that’s the big thing. That’s all the Board of Education cares about.’’

‘‘How was Henry Lamb’s reading comprehension?’’

‘‘I’d have to look it up. Not bad, if I had to guess.’’

‘‘Better than most? Or about average? Or what would you say?’’

‘‘Well … I know it must be difficult for you to understand, Mr. Fallow, being from England. Am I right? You’re British?’’

‘‘Yes, I am.’’

‘‘Naturally—or I guess it’s natural—you’re used to levels of excellence and so forth. But these kids haven’t reached the level where it’s worth emphasizing the kind of comparisons you’re talking about. We’re just trying to get them up to a certain level and then keep them from falling back. You’re thinking about ‘honor students’ and ‘higher achievers’ and all that, and that’s natural enough, as I say. But at Colonel Jacob Ruppert High School, an honor student is somebody who attends class, isn’t disruptive, tries to learn, and does all right at reading and arithmetic.’’

‘‘Well, let’s use that standard. By that standard, is Henry Lamb an honor student?’’

‘‘By that standard, yes.’’

‘‘Thank you very much, Mr. Rifkind.’’

‘‘That’s okay. I’m sorry to hear about all this. Seems like a nice boy. We’re not supposed to call them boys, but that’s what they are, poor sad confused boys with a whole lotta problems. Don’t quote me, for Christ’s sake, or I’ll have a whole lotta problems. Hey, listen. You sure you couldn’t use a 1981 Thunderbird?’’

Posted in Blacks | Comments Off on What Constitutes An Honors Student At A Black High School?