What do you think of the "alternative news media"? [rant]

Broadly, much of the alternative news media is news media minus journalist standards, and rejecting things that may rebuke their opinions, such as facts. It tends to do more harm than good in many cases, rarely breaks real news, often releases stories before the facts breaks, and so often they get the story first, they get the hits, but they also jump to conclusions and accept poor sources. The tabloid press are often reaching, but even they have a standard, a very low one. The alternative news media has no bar, so they make even the tabloid press and yellow journalism look like extremely good. While the serious news sources are are not very well balanced as they create a theory to explain the facts, but the facts are never balanced. Someone is going to be mistaken or just plain wrong.  Just my general thoughts. 

Mussolini From Socialist Roots to Nationalist Dictatorship.

[Some historical notes on the roots of Italian National-Socialism which would become Fascism.]

Firstly, this is not an attack piece on Socialism as Italian fascism changed a great deal from socialist ideas that Mussolini originally accepted into a revolutionary nationalist reform party. It had roots in Socialism in some key ways but differed greatly. This series of notes is not complete and was written a couple of months ago when I was looking into the subject matter.

Mussolini avoided the draft in Italy in the early 1900s by working in Switzerland. He actually met Lenin in exile during this period. And the Italy socialist movement operated in-part in exile in Switzerland. He supported a general strike, was arrested then sent home to Italy. Upon his return he drafted. Later, he got deeply into working with the socialist party again in what is now Italy but was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Working as a journalist he wrote various pieces on the role of the class struggle, the importance of unions, and other work as a mainstream left-socialist. He was considered an intellectual and well-read. He studied the great philosophers and seemed to value Marx and Engels very highly.

By 1911, after much hard work, he was one of the best-known socialists in Italy. Although, Italy back then was a very old fashioned and backward nation in some ways, not an industrial powerhouse like France, Germany or Great Britain, yet with a historical past that gave it much pride. In fact, Mussolini was in riots against the government at that time, due to the war in Libya, which was labelled as an 'Imperialist War', we was imprisoned for five months. Italy was late to empire, and Mussolini helped expel the socialists in the party who supported the war. He then edited socialist papers and was a great propagandist for the hard-left in Italy. Yet, by this period he had concluded that social equality was not the right direction. Nietzschean ideas added to socialism was considered to be a way to reinvigorate socialism. The early roots of fascism in the socialist party.

In WW1, Mussolini was against the war that the liberal party was pushing for and the socialists caused a general strike. Yet, while using the issues of war and the influence of Italian solidarity and the popular nationalism that was promoted by the other parties, he ended up supporting the war to free the Italians under Austrian imperial rule. He condemned the Central Powers as Imperialist aggressors as they engaged in a war over Belgium, Serbia, etc. And the occupied Italians were just another oppressed people group. His flip from Socialist Party darling to a practical politician soon get him expelled from the party. Even though he had expelled others who thought as he had only a few years earlier.

With the war that was to spread to every power of the world, Mussolini switched from socialism with a new philosophy to the more comparable ideas within nationalism. As a new thinker on these matters, adding socialist ideas to nationalist cries gave him support from both nationalists and dissident socialists. Mussolini decried orthodox socialism for their ideological limitations, mostly over the war and their inability to appeal to the nationalistic feelings of many Italians who swayed far more by other parties as the Socialist Party was impotent in such matters.

Mussolini's inner group he imagined running a brave new Italy were no longer the workers and their socialist guides, but rather people of any class. At this time he termed himself a national socialist. One who was respective of the history and people, the legacy of Italy.

Within a few years he became seen as a man of revival and strength, he claimed socialism had failed and his was a key organiser in anti-socialist activities. Breaking up protests, producing propaganda, etc. Italian-Fascio squads were used to crack the skulls of those who risked revolution and other failures in Italian society and production. The ideological basis of the fascist movement came from Mussolini's personal beliefs, inspired by Plato's republic, Nietzsche, the legend of ancient Rome, and a variety of selected ideas weaved together. Including Social-Darwinian concepts of how a society should be run, imperialism is justified to allow space for the Italian people, inferior people, including slavs, deserve to be treated as lesser people. Although, racism in this sense was less extreme than German National Socialism which was in the process of being an ideology at the same time, such as with the German Workers Party(1919-1920).

Economically, they were modern and for radical reform of what was a stagnating post-war economy with a lack of modernisation.

In 1922, the fascists had a vast following, the elites and the workers, and marched upon Rome, given few choices the prime minister resigned and the King handed power to Mussolini. Soon he was prime minister of Italy and form a coalition to rule and reform Italy. A task founded on false claims then on vast debts to built up the nation and its economy. And the first few years if Italian Fascism were troubled by unrest. Over this period a slow movement to remove restraint of governmental power was removed and local authority was abolished, leaving the corporate structured state in its place. A system in which Mussolini was practically dictator, in principle, he was only answerable to the King. Clearing lands and draining swamps by executive planning, modernising the rail services and the navy. There was much to be admired in the modernisation of Italy under this tyrant, much under various reformers given the power to offer radical reform throughout history.

Over the years leading up to the second world war, Italian fascism would make some great leaps moving Italy out of the victorian era, but at the cost of turning it into a police-state with ambitions of empire. They would extend Italian imperialism beyond Libya and other pre-fascist imperial grabs, including Eritrea and Somaliland(Somalia), Abyssinia(Ethiopia) would be conquered in 1935, in 1939 they would conquer Albania. Italy would have its fair share of genocides, concentration camps in Libya in the 1920s and 30s, even chemical weapons used to clear the "inferior" people. Methods were not dissimilar to what most colonial empires used at one point or another in occupied lands. And much like other nations and empires of the time, the Italian Empire had a very low-view of "half-cast" people, making inter-racial relations a criminal offence. And Italy adopted antisemitism in the late-1930s. Italian fascism tolerated Jewish people, as they did various groups, as useful tools, once the Germans under Mr Hitler were seen as a far more useful tool for Italian gains, they were turned upon. Later handing over many Italian Jews to the Germans in WW2.

During the Second World War showing its deep failings and poor modernisation when facing various militaries. Losing their imperial possessions and Allied forces taking most of Sicily, until only until Mussolini was removed from office by his own grand council and some power was handed back to King Vittorio.

Don't Panic, It's Not Quite The News. [a random post]

Don't Panic, It's Not Quite The News.

Minor outbreaks of new viruses have been common in recent years. Almost all have been off the mainstream news, almost utterly unworthy of note. Recent new viruses in places like China, or new outbreaks of old viruses, seem to be nothing of a vast amount of note. The Coronavirus issue is the only important outbreak at this time. The news are covering minor numbers of 17 new COVID cases, a small number of plague cases, a pig virus, etc. In China. Largely, this isn't very newsworthy. Just as a few other minor virus news stories in America have been filler and fear that sells. Note that the areas involved are often vast and the human cost is minor and because viruses are viral(trending) news every news website tries to capitalise on a new angle or the latest scoop.

The Coronavirus is obviously the news worth subject. That said, young Jewish baby boys injured from traditional circumcision method related infections, herpes causing brain injury for example, in cities like New York, is a continuous cost in human suffering. Yet, that isn't a COVID related subject matter. Honour killing in Pakistan kill thousands of young women and girls every year, but that isn't worth stating right now?? Equally, concentration camps in China aren't as important as a few more coronavirus cases in the same nation?? Methinks that many of our great news providers are busy being whores for attention, which at least makes the BBC cover a story just because everyone else has published an article on the subject. Such as Trump-related news, it is often a matter of a slight blunder, a dumb point or question, then the reaction causes the news to linger and even flourish. Thus, the news story derived from the old causes the need for the mainstream to march over old ground.

News is news-worthy because news sources have stated a thing as the news, the New Story. A great amount of the olds seems to be sold as news, or a new angle on an old story. Meanwhile, we see next to nothing on many other stories. And those stories rarely trend on twitter or are seen on the news search headlines on google or bing. I do sometimes feel that the art of news reporting is past its prime and the common news method is steeped in mediocracy and repetition between news services. Leaving often very little room for intellectualism, as something very close to copy-and-paste in lieu of journalist ability. Yet, at least regarding the present crisis of Corona, we can understand com0pletely why we might see a great amount of repetition.

Fake News... How "Ben.S." does it.

While looking at the twitter of Ben, a conservative American of some note as a character, as a polemic.  I noticed a common enough trick or theme.  One need not rebuke the facts but claim them in principle.  In principle, we need not fear the facts even as we avoid then in practice.  Ben on his twitter and through other mediums selects easy targets, insists they're the mainstream, even if they're fringe or not linked to political influence and power and grumbles upon the nature of the liberalist insanity that hath unfurled before us.  And when insisting upon the falsity of the news reports in the main of the press, Ben insists that use of a stock image or video, or the same borrowed from elsewhere, is a primary piece of evidence that the mainstream news media are the producers of propaganda.  What Ben.S might call "Fake News."  And from this suggestion of fake news and the previously noted insanity of the fringe of the left, he paints a picture of a surreal world.  A world believed to be real by many, even if it is a manifestation of deception through the eyes of a very limited social media perspective.  Ben is a propagandist who picks targets and re-enforces conservative values in a way that leaves little room for introspection.  Which is, after all, the whole point.  

Fake News, with broad strokes.

I should like to note the dangers of false news, many crow on social-media about a statist that turns-out to be inaccurate, a quote that has lost some context, or a picture or video clip that is used in a report that seems to be misplaced.  The social media reactionaries think this makes a news report fake, yet they use the idea of fake news to insert totally incorrect claims.  News reporting errors in action and judgement occur, largely this is benign, and one should not dismiss the artist for one misplaced stroke of the brush upon the canvas. 

The World Is Watching... Bernie Sanders BACKS Joe Biden. Simple??

You may have seen that Bernard Sanders has endorsed Joe Biden as the candidate to stand up against Donald Trump in the 2020 election if things are back on track by then. 
The Coronavirus, COVID-19, has made the game of politics harder and the death toll and how it is handled will be key to the election in the United States.  Which may lead to a delay in the American Republic's process of representation, as voters may have a delay if Corona ends up as a great evil upon the world than we have yet considered.  Yet, in this time of political confusion and wide support amongst the public for Donald Trump, a great unity behind Joe Biden is consolidating. 

Just recently, Bernard Sanders, a left-leaning independent who aligns with the Democrats on most issues, dropped out of the candidacy race for the Democrats.  And with Joe Biden doing so very well from the get-go, it was a clear fact that it was right to see Sanders step back and endorse Biden.  In a news interview, of the two gentlemen, Sanders and Biden, Mr Bernard "Bernie" Sanders endorsed very clearly Mr Biden's campaign to enter the Whitehouse.  What more need be said, other than the differences between such politicians are mild compared to the vast differences between democrats and the Trumpublicans who have taken the worst aspects of Republicanism to the mainstream of American Politics. 

The only cure to Trumpublicianism is a correction of the values expressed by The Office of the President of the United States, as a democratic and representative political view that accommodates progress.  Progress in how high the bar should be for the world's greatest economic, political, military and cultural power.  A mega power that for a long time has been ruined by republican economics and balanced by democratic values.  Until out of this back-and-forth the vile game-changer has risen to the top of the corrupted Republican party. 


Now, I would ask you one thing, what might ensure a return to dignified political discussion, a sound political process and real progression in the United States of America in a way that will benefit the many and not just a small few.  Is it this new age of Trumpublicanism, a disorganised mess that cannot handle the power it abuses, or might it not be a return to sanity with a new vitality that will lift millions out of poverty and secure the future at home and abroad for the American people?

I only wish my American friends the best in this endeavour, and remind them that the world is watching and hoping for strong and stable friendship with a more wisely lead United States. 

"Trump And Biden Are Both Suffering From Dementia"?

"Trump And Biden Are Both Suffering From Dementia"??? Does Trump have dementia? Does Joe Biden? Odds are they don't, odds are they're both medicated. Joe likely suffers from a few health issues and gets some help with that, after a long day he isn't on form in an interview. Trump is likely on lots of meds, above and under the table, lower his stress and blood pressure but boost him to stay active enough, a built-in ego problem on a scale that makes Hillary Clinton, Obama and Biden[etc.] look meek. I don't think Biden is really suffering from dementia, we'd need Evidence of that before we even suggest it, and a few video clips don't cut it. Trump's many blunders suggest his narcissism and instability, odds are he is, like many wealthy older gents, on a number of medical drugs to stay on form. I think this explains much about him. I doubt either of them is truly suffering from dementia, but evidence may go the other way in the future. And one could argue that one or both of them show the signs, but you're buying that bullshit from biased sources. So in practice, you're shared faux news based on who you like, which set of politics you respect. And, because this is primarily a matter of social media speculation, I believe that points at the obvious way that social media is a failed social experiment. As many other efforts on social media that are meant to express the will of the people, or the news as it is, or whatever the case may be, tends to be inaccurate at the very least.

COVID-19 [Note #1]

I'm not likely to create a series of thoughts on this matter.  I am however likely to note a thing or two in the future, directly or not, regarding this matter. 

I am worried about the future.  Not because I think things will get that bad due to coronavirus disease, but rather, I suspect a general period of stagnation.  Fear on one hand and disruption on the other as thousands die.  Our ill-prepared system is shown to be as it is.  Our experts and government officials over-estimating risks to ensure they limit those risk factors.  People then rejecting the inflated risks and so creating the risk factors that can lead to worsening problems.  Many try to lower risk as much as possible, others ignore advice, jobs at risk, future hopes placed on hold, but for a cause that is not unfair.  A likelihood is normality returns within months, or months longer if handled poorly.  Yet, with much debate on the matter of how to handle the situation, the question of how the cope is much contested.  A pondered question by some is would the cost of mass illness even be as bad as the concerns, or should those with health issues be isolated while the rest keep calm and carry on.  But how can you Isolate such people when society mingles.  And many don't know what they do or do not have.  Health concerns and unseen problems conspiring to up the toll.  Equally, if on matters of carers, if they are expected to be the plague doctors of the modern-day, then how can they limit risk unless we all limit together??  No easy answers, no simple tricks, but in a year's time some will laugh about this.  And, indeed, Some are laughing now.  Is this wisdom or folly, no person may say until the passage is scribbled into the history books.  I suspect that it would not be as bad as some suggest, yet a trivial matter it is not. 

An undercurrent of racism? [ramble]

[Just a few thoughts I noted on Facebook, I wanted to preserve them here.]

An undercurrent of racism?

Race or ethnicity is the least interesting thing to me. some people get annoyed or offended if I say it of my background, but to me it wouldn't matter where I or you are from. And if you base your life and sense of belonging on race, then I think you're missing something important.
I get this from nationalists who say they "aren't racist, but..." But they worry about the death of the white race, they don't see Islam as a race but they assume Indian(south Asian, in general) and middle eastern people are Muslims. And yes, they're the same people who worry about extremist Islam but mock Muslims who don't stick to a hardline view of the faith, thus condemning moderation within the faith to a degree. Islam isn't a race, but a lot of critics of Islam, mostly older men, see a brown person from north Africa, middle east or Indian or maybe Indonesia, and they assume they're Muslim and they might be the enemy to some degree. Basically, suggest; "If they aren't here to attack us they're here to outbreed us." So I'm not a fan of the not-racist-racists, or closeted racists, or those who otherwise don't see that they're the kind of commenting fools who gives, anyone who wants it, an example of ignorance and casual racism.

When I begin to feel like the anti-racists begin to become the racists. [Ramble]

When I begin to feel like the anti-racists begin to become the racists. [Ramble]

When raised as a kid, in the 80s, I didn't see race. PC culture worked as early as the late 80s for me. Working-class, had very little. Didn't see race. I recall a very dark-skinned girl called Natalie, we were good friends, I thought nothing of skin colour differences as I recall. Most friends in that town were white, very few people at that time in that town were anything else.

Much later, I was about 11, a person who was taught racist opinions, who bullied a Malaysian boy. I didn't know it was racist. It just seemed like a joke, as it must have done to the lad who was the bully, but not the boy who was bullied. The bully got that from this family, as a joke, the older generational casual racist humour. If we didn't magnify racial divides and what makes us different we wouldn't have racial divides.

Sadly, the shoe can be on the other foot. Where many magnify the issue of race politics to correct injustice, but often they generalise and promote division. Which makes the new political correctness in some situations conflict with old skool political correctness. As not treating others differently according to race is treated by some as if it is somehow racist. And being of the right or wrong ethnic background or skin tone can allow generalisations that throw some rich black african people who abuse power into the same rank as the abuse and slaved black Africans used as cheap labour across much of the empires of the colonial empires.

This kind of generalisation also means a person of average working-class who is white-European of average poverty ancestry is junked in with the wealthy slave owners and their descendants. And the preachers of this new political view claim to be socialists as they forget class struggles, as they forget those that still exist, preferring to see things only through racial lines and not in a wider view that accounts for many injustices.

I wouldn't say you're a socialist, or even a liberal or conservative if you claim socialism primarily applies via race. Yet many of the shady opinions that I see as racist now are expressed as socially progress. And it is very concerning political shorthand. As when one generalises, it can, as it goes around, become where they don't express a difference between Jewish people and Israelis and the Israeli government(and military). I know it is cliche to bring things back to anti-Semitism, but it is in vogue with many who claim to be educated anti-racists. And as an example it expresses so much of the kind of confusion that is common if you didn't know better. And, in some ways, it not a great distance away from the confusing the average Jew for an extremist Zionist settler on the West Bank.

And it is not unlike mistaking the character of the average UK-Muslim with the stories of ISIS and Grooming gangs.

There is this idea that if you could find someone associated with the greatest ills of the world, as you see it, even if by a stretch of the imagination and by the blurring through generalisation, that even obvious prejudice is justifiable. It is as if the radical voices on the left have taken a few broad notes from the far-right. Where characterisation matters more than the quality of each person's character. And, it is made more socially acceptable if it wrap it in academic language. In the same way that racism has, from time to time, been wrapped up in the words of the church, if only to gain value in the eyes of the people. And more recently, the racist will toy with pseudoscience, just like the snake oil salesman.

I worry only about one thing, that those who think themselves informed lead society with their little collection of ideas, while those who doubt them and those who know better remain muted.

Some sketchy areas?? [random thoughts on grey areas of gender and gender identity politics.]

Some sketchy areas?? [random thoughts on grey areas of gender and gender identity politics.]

I'm told by some on the left that transgenderism isn't a thing you're wrong about. I know of a few people who tried it and realised it wasn't for them. In fact, before surgery or other treatments, in most cases. And the counselling for those who think they're transgender tends to see most change their mind on this matter. I think a lot of progressives generalise and don't get that some people are mistaken in their choices. They support the idea so much because of those who do transition, and stay the course, don't turn back. That in itself creates the idea that there is no changing your mind. By generalising, intolerance is the broad result. As with some of those who did live their life as trans for a number of years, as soon as they returned to what is, in general, cisgender. They might find hatred from those who can be ideological about these things. The social media abuse between sides who set standards is troubling. And most people who have tried and considered transgender lifestyles or differing ways of life, don't feel comfortable talking about it. I think there is a mainstream polarity, which leaves behind those between. Who may have other reasons behind why they thought they were trans. And in modern times, the watering down of gender identity has created a popularity of calling a thing a gender, when if it is a personality type. And oddly, most mainstream UK conservatives seem to not mind people undergoing gender assignment. We're very liberal in the UK, it seems. I think what many are confused about are the nebulous areas of special identity. Or a unique identity. Where some seem to confuse character traits and personality types with gender issues, and some, in some cases, confuse sexual kinks with gender identity. Hardline conservatives blur the lines to throw out the baby with the bathwater. While the progressive-left blur things in their own way with ever-expanding lists of things that people are or are meant to be, and seem to ignore some things that are sometimes bigger issues. Such as those former-trans people, those who were gender-confused, sexually confused gender relating identity issues, those who reverse transition, and many other types or groups. These outnumber the new specialist and semi-unique labellings for gender identities that many are obsessed with. It begins to make a mockery of what is gender or gender identity by making out that some things are gender types or identity types that may not be best described by gender political terms.

[Thank you for reading, I trust no one will characterise me based on interpretation or suggestion, employing characterisation to suggest that I must be on the right-wing or an alt-right cartoon. I am happy to discussion points that are worth consideration. Thanks]

World peace because an epidemic, and I doubt that'll be coronavirus(2020).

World peace could come about because of an epidemic, but I doubt that'll be this coronavirus. As you might know, coronavirus is a bit of a blanket term for a series of similar viruses. SARS and a few others you may have heard of are in the same group or family of viruses. The recent coronavirus is a variation upon a theme, in the present cases, we see the transition from bats and possibly other mammals to humans. The overall potential of coronavirus is high, even as deaths are low. As it is an adaptive virus that can mutate and become far more dangerous. We have had various similar viruses over recent years, they all took a small toll. And it might be that to unite powers of the world under a single alliance that we might have to see a disastrous viral outbreak on the scale of 1918 influenza(Spanish flu). Naturally, such types of outbreaks are rare, and the Spanish flu is considered the worst outbreak in human history. Although, one must admit that more common viruses kill many thousands per year and lead to greater figures over the course of decades. Vast numbers of people are killed by regular viruses, seasonal influenza has caused a vast death toll. Other conditions cause great devastation, diarrhoea is commonly an infection of the intestines leading to watery bowel movements and resulting dehydration, caused by viruses, bacteria infection or parasites. Resulting in millions of deaths. I have to ask myself on the matter of outbreaks if there would be serious cooperation between nations on a scale never seen before if we don't see a serious threat to our civilisation as we know it. What are we willing to do or blunder through over this new wave of coronavirus does not present the best case if even great threats should endanger mankind. With other threats to human health, often in the poorest parts of the world, we do far less than we could, even as the death toll is far greater than corona. So I'm left to ponder whether or not we would only unite too late, if and when a true danger appears. It seems likely to me, that we would unite if a new 1918 flu enters the stage of human events. And, I do not, at this time think we're going to see that occur any time soon.