Russian Television's Way Of Separating Fake News From Real News

     Real news, for Russian television, is news favorable to Putin, his cronies, his self serving interests, his favorite theocracy; Iran, and his favorite dictators. Everything else is fake.

Fake News, The Best Friend Of Dictators, Demagogues, Theocracies

     Corrupt, brutal regimes and leaders want people to think that all news is fake news. In this way, any mention of their brutality, lying, stealing, thieving, murdering and corruption is simply dismissed as fake. Dismissing all news as fake except their propaganda works to their nefarious benefit.

Trump And Islam, The Need To Think Wisely

     Politicians like to tell the public what Islam is or is not, without ever having read (most likely) the Quran. Islam can be a religion of peace and goodwill, but it can also be a religion of war and intolerance, depending on what passages are followed in the Quran, and how Islam is taught and disseminated.

     There are oil rich Islamic regimes in which individual citizens or the government, or both, are aggressively spreading the most intolerant interpretations of Islam. Many children throughout the world are being taught hate, bigotry, rigidity; everything the opposite of goodwill to those of different faiths and beliefs. 

       Nations that think just because something is a school, therefore it must be good, better rethink what is being taught in some of those schools. Oil wealth used to promote intolerance and hate sows the seeds for the wars and terrorism of the future. It makes no sense to continuously fight enemies produced by allies spreading hate and intolerance.
       It is naive to think ISIS type organizations can be defeated on the battlefield alone. This is a battle for hearts and minds. Winning the battle includes no longer ignoring or excusing the spread of hate and intolerance by so called allies (or adversaries). Winning hearts and minds means supporting those that are the voices of moderation and tolerance.
       The Islamic world is vast and still diverse. Every effort should be made to support the places and people where there is tolerance and goodwill, and to not ignore those that promote the opposite. This includes well thought out policies that are not arbitrary, and that win hearts and minds.
       

        

A Coffee And An Internet Conglomerate, Big Business Is Not Always Best

   An internet article published as a news story turned out to be nothing but a thinly veiled ad for a coffee conglomerate. The article gushed with enthusiasm for a drink that will be coming out soon for a limited time. Unfortunately, the lines between news and advertisements no longer seem to exist. For those that want to load up on heart unhealthy saturated fats and sugars, by all means get the drink.

   There was a time when independent coffee shops thrived. Why the public wanted to lose this to one large, uniform, uninteresting conglomerate is beyond comprehension. If only the far more interesting, independant, small time coffee shops would return.  Their coffee and tea was often better tasting at a better price.And they did not have the insufferable politics of the conglomerate that seems contrived and insincere.

     

Islamist Push For Israel's Destruction And Islamic Domination

   An Islamist organization is propagating the lie, one amongst many, that the Israeli military is throwing Palestinian Arab children and grandmothers off of roofs. They want people to think Israel is no different than ISIS. Or even worse, that ISIS is Israel. This is their way of deflecting criticism away from fundamentalist Islamic organizations and countries that actually do throw people off of rooftops. This is their way to delegitimize Israel. Islamists believe that only Muslims are fit to rule, and only Muslims must be allowed to rule. Even though over 99 per cent of the middle east is ruled by Muslims, that is not enough. Islamists believe that once a land is conquered by Muslims, rule by non Muslim so called infidels can never be accepted. Since the middle east was once ruled by the Ottoman empire ( i.e.Turkey, which is a Muslim nation), including what is now Israel, every inch of land must go back to Muslim rule. This Islamist belief that land conquered by Muslims and then lost must return to Muslim rule, even if centuries have gone by under non Muslim rule, condemns Israel to endless war, Kashmir to endless war (Hindu vs Muslim), south Philippines to endless war (Muslim vs. Catholic), south Thailand to endless war (Buddhist vs. Muslim) and many other places.  After WW1, defeated Turkey, which had sided with Germany, lost the middle east to Great Britain and to a lesser extent France. After WW2, Britain rewarded corrupt kings with entire countries. Over 99 per cent of the middle east was placed under the control of Arab Muslims. Jews were given one tiny country that was immediately attacked by Arabs. Non Arab Kurds were given nothing.
    The Islamist belief that any and all lands conquered and ruled by Muslims and then lost to non Muslims, must be returned to Islamic rule, ensures that many conflicts will never be resolved. It is the recipe for endless war, terror and violence. Islamists claim that Jews are foreign occupiers, and therefore they have the right to murder and terrorize the civilian Jewish population at will. They neglect to mention that Muslims now occupy the lands previously owned and held by Jews all over the middle east and North Africa. The descendants of Jews that were expelled and fled persecution from Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Hebron and other places on the west bank, and other Muslim majority lands, now form the majority population of Israel. Jews, Yazidis, Christians,and others do not invoke the right to wage endless war against the Muslim occupiers that drove them from their homes. If Jews invoke the same rights that Islamists insist Muslims have, then Jews should demand their lands back not just in the many now Muslim controlled lands where they were recently driven out, but also in Saudi Arabia, where Jewish tribes lived until Muhammad slaughtered and drove them out.
      Islamists want this world washed in blood until only Muslims rule. Wanting a just resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs is not what Islamists want. Their goal is the complete destruction of Israel and the subjugation, rape and murder of its Jewish population. Under shariah law, Jews that survived the bloodshed must live as second class citizens at best, a forever vulnerable population.
      Within the last decade, Islamists have shown clearly what they do to the non Muslims in their midst. There has been the ethnic cleansing and genocide of middle east Christians and Yazidis. Yazidis have been around the middle east for thousands of years before there ever was an Islam. So have the Jews. Christians lived in the middle east for many centuries before the rise of Islam. Thousands of yazidi girls and young women are still held as sex slaves by Islamists that are raping and torturing these girls and young women daily.
     It is important to separate just and fair resolutions to the Israeli/ Arab conflict, the conflict in south Thailand, Kashmir, south Philippines, and elsewhere, from Islamist propaganda and demands. Islamists use words like occupation, freedom, armed resistance, but it is they that are the inflexible imperialist warmongers that want one thing, and one thing alone- Islamic domination and nothing less. Opposing the right wing government of Israel, or any Israeli government, is far different than what the Islamists and their supporters want. They want nothing less than Islamic supremacy. This is not limited to the Israeli/Arab conflict, where Islamists and others want the complete destruction of Israel. Israel must not stop pursuing peace and goodwill with Palestinian Arabs. But what Islamists have done to middle east Christians, to Yazidis, to Baha'is, to other religious minorities, should make all people of goodwill weary.

The Too Often Dark Side Of Religion

     Many times religion, which should tame the worst in people, instead does the opposite. Too often religion contributes to overpopulation and environmental degradation, hate, greed, violence and bigotry. Challenging religious harm is not the same as religious intolerance.

Illegal Immigrants And The Privileged American Underclass

      There is a safety net for Americans. It may be an inadequate, less than ideal safety net, but it is there nonetheless. For many of the poor in the world that are not American citizens, no safety net exists. For them, unlike those in the American underclass, no money means no medical care, no access to an adequate diet that prevents disease and malnutrition, no education at all, inadequate or no housing or shelter, no dental care, no access to pharmaceuticals when needed. No money, no doctor, no medicine, even if it means dying. Millions in the third world live in one room flimsy shacks at best with a mud floor, and without electricity, running water, or proper sanitation.
       Like it or not, the dysfunctional, unreformed (despite claims as to otherwise) costly American social welfare state has helped create a privileged American underclass.
       Few if any Americans, from the privileged underclass to the super privileged upper class, are willing to do the hard labor, difficult jobs that illegal immigrants perform. Illegal immigrants have no safety net or protections. They are often exploited and taken advantage of. If this is the population the Trump administration, or any administration, chooses to go after, it will hurt the United States economy. Decent, hard working people at the bottom performing essential jobs will be punished. Rather than make things better, it will only make things worse. It is not hard to deport the criminals amongst the illegal immigrant population, who represent a small percentage and are not reflective of the overwhelming majority of hardworking, honest illegal immigrants. Going after illegal immigrants that are honest, decent ,hardworking folks plays well to some not so hard working people's worst instincts, but it is not sound policy economically or in any other way.