Archives For Political Theology

The Coronavirus, Australia & Beauty For Ashes: Even in Suffering We Should Aim to Affirm Life

March 19, 2020 — Leave a comment

So I penned some quick thoughts today for an old friend concerned about the state of things in Australia. I’ll post it here as I have on social media, because it might help put some things into perspective for you the same way it has for us.

Remember Italy has the highest older population in Europe. It also didn’t close down it’s borders until late in the game. Whereas Australia, followed the U.S and banned travel pretty much right of the bat – smart decision.

Australia is also an island continent, meaning the cases we have here, shouldn’t increase much more than they have – despite predictions; it can be contained better, and those who are infected can receive better treatment.

I think the bigger concern for us, is trade, the economic impact – purely because we are an island continent and import a lot of goods. This could be a good thing, though for local producers, though, as demand for their product increases, simply because it cannot be sourced anywhere else.

I’m not saying the COVID-19 issue is going away anytime soon, or that it’s not serious, it is. I’m saying our ability, say as compared to Italy and Spain to contain, treat, and slow infection rates, is far greater. Due largely to decisive, unpopular action early on from Morrison, and his continued vigilance, through working with Labor, and state governments in a “war cabinet” in order to better serve the needs of Australians.

He’s clearly putting party divisions and politics behind him in this regard, which is good leadership.

So a) we are already, as a nation, socially distanced because of our geography b) we have a war chest, so we’re better positioned economically, thanks to good management of the economy c) we have a leader who has taken the reigns and pushed beyond petty political manoeuvring (such as the Greens are doing) in order to see us through.

Strategically speaking we’re doing well so far. Let’s hope and pray it stays that way.

I’m not sold on the “things will never be the same again”. Neither should you be. This was said after 9/11, and sure things did change regarding security etc. But we’re smarter and understand a lot more about our world because of the event – call it beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3).

I believe the same Biblical example applies here.

We can either learn from this and improve ourselves, both as a society and as individuals, or fail to recognise what generations before us have. That even ‘in suffering we should aim to affirm life’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

We should recall that deliverance is the point of Easter. God cares for humanity, and has made Himself known through his covenant with Israel and in Jesus Christ. God redeems the irredeemable. We are not abandoned, though we may find Him silent from time to time. He isn’t beyond liberating in the present, having already proven Himself to be Our past and future liberator.

Bonhoeffer, D.2012.  God is On The Cross: Reflections on Lent & Easter, Westminster John Knox Press (p.52)

Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020

In Deliberative Theology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Political Theology , , ,
permalink

WATCH: Ben Shapiro cops it from Leftists, after Affirming Biological Facts

March 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

Ben Shapiro cops it from the Leftist outrage brigade, simply for speaking sense into a subject, which involves a very small minority wanting the power to determine what you think and how you speak. This was four years ago, but take note of the hate and hostility coming from those claiming Ben is being hateful.

Unfortunately, not much has changed. We’re still being told that “P” can equal “q”, and anyone who opposes this is faced with the threat of violence. Justified under the auspices of Marxism – critical theory, its perpetual revolution and the idea of Utopian reconstruction.

This is despite the fact that in the English speaking world, the letter “p” can never be the letter ”q”. A true ”q” can never be a true “p”. Displacing ”q” from its true value, will always be a false claim. In Shaprio’s terms: “fictionalised thinking”. This is because the identity and value of “q” is found in it’s relation to the truth value of “p”.

Anything outside this means we are no longer talking about ”p” or ”q”, but a distortion of relationship; a falsification that impacts, not just the value of ”q”, but also ”p”.

To confuse “p” with “q” is to undermine the meaning of both. Creating a false value; a construct that in the end, tyrannically imposes falsehood over the correct functions of both ‘p” and ”q”. This reassignment of value, doesn’t just surrender truth to an untruth, it creates confusion in communication by way of relational dysfunction and normalises the emotional disfiguration of it’s victims.

Biology is not a social construct. Demanding that the world eradicate and blur distinctions, in the name of so-called equality, diminishes the value of the biological union between a man and woman, and the commitment that marriage seals. This is an attempt at reconstruction, involving the creation of a social construct built up and imposed on society, by the very people who claim to fight against one.

What we appear to have here is a bunch of Leftists trying to dishonestly put a Jew on the same level as a Nazi. The message couldn’t be any clearer: line up, fall in, and salute, or else

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Politics , , ,
permalink

“Woke” Australian Universities Who Side-step the Corona-virus Travel Ban are Putting Profit before People

March 10, 2020 — Leave a comment

Astute assessments about the West’s dangerous over-dependency on China have been present in news feeds for weeks. As many financial sections of mainstream media will attest to, concerns over products and services, have alerted people, and corporations to an addiction that few, outside China’s industrial matrix, could see before the tragedy of Wuhan.

Setting aside any questionable theories about the ruling Communist regime, and their possible entrapment, the dependency is alarming. Many Western companies have either willingly, or through unbalanced quid-pro-quo deals, positioned themselves so heavily in China, that if China falls, so will they. Many appear to have fallen victim to the folly of placing every egg in one industrial basket. With the Wuhan tragedy and the outbreak of the Coronavirus, gold-fever in China has come to a spine jarring halt, replaced with a fever of a more deadly kind.

Western companies aren’t the only ones waking up to what looks a lot like a co-dependent relationship, with the Chinese political elite holding the balance of power. Australian Unis are losing money because of a high dependency on Chinese student enrolments. So they’re side-stepping Scott Morrison’s travel ban by using a loop-hole, providing grants of up to $7,500 for Chinese students to use a third-party country to enter Australia. However, according to a report in The Australian, some of those students are ignoring quarantine guidelines & are cashing in on an exotic holiday instead.

While it’s not up to us to tell someone how to spend money they’ve been gifted, it is up to us to question how Australian Universities can justify inviting potential economic disaster, in the hopes of avoiding what they see as a potential economic disaster.

As with many co-dependent relationships, when the person with the power breaks away, threatens to, or is removed, anxiety, irrational behavior, insecurity, sometimes violence and panic manifest itself in the person who had little to no power in that relationship.

Australian universities side-stepping Morrison’s travel ban, looks more like irrational self-sabotage or self-harm; raising questions about whether this behavior confirms that a toxic co-dependency between China and the academy in Australia exists. Has the impact of the travel ban, or to be more precise, the Coronavirus, thrown Australian Universities so far off, that they’re now operating like the powerless person in a co-dependent relationship?

If not, then the only possible explanation for such recklessness is greed, and desperation because of an addiction to China that threatens the lifeblood of these institutions, perhaps even more than the virus itself. Side-stepping the travel ban is a band-aid, quick-fix, which risks creating a greater financial disaster should that virus shutdown the academy and the cities those institutions are located in.

In sum,

1. It could be said, that Australian universities side-stepping travel ban are potentially paying to import the coronavirus.

2. Australian universities who give Chinese Uni Students, up to $7,500 in grants, in order to side step the travel ban, are being mocked by students, who are using those funds for an exotic holiday, ignoring quarantine guidelines.

3. Those Universities could wind up financially worse off, if the Coronavirus Spreads around campuses, creating a financial disaster in an attempt to avoid a financial disaster.

4. Australian Unis who are far too dependent on Chinese student enrollments. Thus raising questions about the relationship between China – as hinted at by ASIO last week – and the Academy in Australia.

Far be it for me to condemn the chancellors running our higher institutions of learning. After all, they have my respect. I’ve graced their ancient hallways, and benefited from their tertiary wisdom. I love the academy, but find myself drawing closer and closer towards Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s conclusion, as the institution was being overrun by totalitarianism, ‘I can no longer believe in the University. In fact I never really believed in it.’[i]

It’s true that Universities are businesses, and they need to be free to balance services, and product with profit. However, for our places of higher learning to recklessly undermine a travel ban, and the protections it offers to their institutions and customers (including those Chinese students who were already here) is negligence. They are abdicating responsibility for the health and welfare of current students in order to feed a financial addiction that is in need of an intervention, not a band-aid that props up their bottom line.

Regardless of whether the motivator is greed, pride, wokeness or desperation, such recklessness from the academy poses a greater threat to the academy than the travel ban does.

Don’t let the claims that this side-stepping is a fight against racism, and xenophobia. Even if it was, it’d still look like they’re trying to keep their stats high on China’s oppressive C.C.P social credit score, than fighting the imagined oppression of Morrison’s responsible travel ban. Make no mistake, universities who are side-stepping the Coronavirus ban aren’t putting people before profit, they’re putting profit before people.

References (not otherwise linked):

[i] Bonhoeffer, D. London, 1933-1935, DBWE 13, p.217

First published on Caldron Pool, 4th March, 2020

Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash

©Rod lampard, 2020

In Political Theology, Politics , , , , , , ,
permalink

Antifa Proves that Left-Wing Extremism is on the Rise. Don’t fall for the anti-fascist Disguise.

March 3, 2020 — Leave a comment

It’s not difficult to locate video footage, or testimonials from victims who’ve come face to face with mobs in masks, wielding weapons, intimidating, threatening and harassing people in the name of their ideology. They’re a global movement, have their own flag, wear a uniform, carefully manage their image via mass media, are well organized, sizably funded, and having been openly supported, on occasion, by politician and celebrity alike, have political clout.

Their tendency towards violence is well established. As is their willingness to incite violence, or the threat of violence to silence an opponent; this is often against a person deemed by their leaders, as being unworthy of having an opinion – usually because their target’s viewpoint doesn’t support the goals of their leaders, and the ideological hegemony this masked-mob is not only trying defend, but to further establish.

If you thought that this described some ridiculous fringe-dwelling “Right-wing extremist” groups looking for validation, you’d be wrong. This is Antifa. Antifa is a mainstream Left-wing (paramilitary) unit, who tag themselves as anti-fascists. Unlike their eco-“anti-fascist” cousins, Extinction Rebellion, Antifa are better organized, and funded, often recruiting online or via University campuses.

Antifa is joined by an academic collective who pride themselves on being outspoken Nazi haters. Yet, by the way in which this “anti-fascist” organization appears to be structured – the way in which they choose to deal with people, rather than exchange ideas in civil conversation – it’s becoming more and  more obvious that their DNA  matches the DNA of those they claim to be fighting against.

Appearing to consider themselves endowed with special knowledge, or powers, it’s not hard to categorize Antifa as a dangerous esoteric group. Antifa parades itself as though its soldiers have been given a special revelation from God – a special insight – that enables them to spot a Nazi, or “right-wing extremist”, where the rest of us “plebs” are unable to do so. This presumptuous self-importance powers Antifa’s contempt for the majority of Westerners. You are a suspected Nazi, or “right-wing extremist” unless you prove you’re not, or up until Antifa chooses to clear you of all suspicion.

Left-wing groups need “right-wing extremism” and Nazism, in order to stay politically relevant. Therefore these organizations need to manufacture both in order stay solvent. For example: if there are not enough Nazis to go around, hype, funds and support fall away. Consequently, they have to manufacture some, or more profitably, expand the criteria, whereby Left-wing groups can push something like the “white supremacist crisis” narrative, and then conveniently present themselves as political messiahs, selling themselves as the only ones with the special knowledge and special power to fight this new enemy. Antifa needs fascists to stay relevant. Since “right-wing extremists” are fringe groups, and there are not enough of them to fight, the quiet quest is now on to expand the criteria for what, and who can be labeled a “right-wing extremist”.

Follow the logic, and this potentially means that anyone who supports the national anthem, national flag, biological union of man and woman, binary gender, or traditional marriage, are squeezed into the “right-wing extremist” category. Under this expanded criteria “right-wing extremist” would potentially even include Grannies who serve tea at the local CWA hall on a Tuesday, who’d find themselves face to face with Antifa  bullies, dispatched (via social media) to put-down these new “right wing extremists”, deemed so by Antifa’s Left-wing overlords and apparatchik sycophants.

By default Antifa and Left-wing groups can then try to put their own organization on par with the significance of those who stormed onto Juno, Utah, Omaha, Gold, and Sword, into what Eisenhower called a ‘Crusade’ against the National Socialist abyss that was consuming Europe during the 1940s.

Left-wing groups like Antifa don’t seem to care that the West is already deeply aware of the evil and dangers of Nazism. This is because our social awareness, knowledge of history, and its inherent anti-Nazism, is an inconvenience to their political narrative. It hinders their ability to justify their claims and existence as an organization.

Through our annual remembrance of those who went head to toe with real Nazis and defeated them; by the blood and sacrifice of our forebears; every time we commemorate events like VE day, or Anzac Day, we remind these Left-wing groups of our inherent anti-Nazism.

This isn’t just something we give lip service to; it’s written into the DNA of our consciousness – the evil and danger of Nazism is written in blood on many a family tree, but this great cost is cheapened by Left-wing groups like Antifa, who call, or suspect anyone and everyone, who isn’t a card carrying member of the Left, a Nazi. They insult the memory of our forebears when they ignore the fact that anti-Nazism is carved into the imagination and social consciousness of Westerners.

National Socialism (Nazism) isn’t the only demon out there. The social consciousness of the West is yet to include the dangers and evils present within other man-made systems of salvation and condemnation, such as Islamism and Communism. These groups remain successful in hiding from Westerners the same satanic darkness, and devouring Nothingness, that embodies them.

The ability of Left-wing groups, such as Communists to control how we view the world, through the largely inadequate, left/right metaphor, has given them the ability to distance Communism from the same criticisms applied to Nazism. As long as the concerns and imagination of the world is captivated by fear of “right-wing extremism”, and a necessary focus on the evil that is Nazism, Communists can deflect attention away from their own sins; their own atrocities.

This carefully manufactured gap in Western education and its social consciousness has created a myth of the socialist as savior. By keeping Nazis in the rubric Far-Right, or right-wing extremism, Communists have been able to paint themselves into the social consciousness of the West as a hero fighting the great Satan on the opposite side of the political metaphor. Thus, Communists have been able to shift public opinion in its favor. Anything on the Right is easily stigmatized as Nazism. Whether it is so or not doesn’t matter, as long as the image of benevolence is maintained in order to conceal the true nature of the beast. The sins of socialism are not only quickly forgiven; they’re just as quickly forgotten.

Communists can then say that only Communists can spot a real Nazi. Subsequently, only a Communist can be trusted to fight Nazis because only Communists are true anti-fascists. The Berlin Wall is one such example of Communists hijacking the term anti-fascist, in order to advance their own ideology. It was constructed by Communists and called an Anti-fascist Protection Rampart. Such is the malevolence that hides behind the veneer of what the radical Left sells as “Anti-fascism”.

Everyone who questions this falls under the suspicion of being a Nazi or a “right-wing extremist”, simply because it questioned our self-appointed political messiahs. This is why Antifa can damage property, harm people and shut down businesses, all without any real accountability. Then parade as an angel of light and garnish support, simply by appearing so.

To question anti-fascism is to be exposed as, or bring oneself under the suspicion of being a Nazi or “right-wing extremist.” There can be no questioning of this new lord-of-lords. Not without punishment, or being made to grovel in a public display of penance for doubting the benevolence of the socialist system of salvation.

Though socialism is the common ancestor of Communism and Nazism, Communism has side-stepped the same global ramifications for its criminal actions that have rightly been imposed on the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis). Take for instance, the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), at which very few, if any raised an eyebrow at. This Soviet pact with the Nazis allowed the Soviets to invade Finland for its resources, and justified their invasion of Poland on one side, with the Nazis invading on the other.

Other examples of immunity for the crimes committed under Communism include the hushing up of the little known and rarely taught, Holodomor (1932-1933), Gulags, brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution (1956), Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968), Katyn massacre, invasion & occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989). These aren’t anomalies.

So wrote Eric Voeglin,

‘modern ideological mass movements and the dominant “philosophical” schools are in some sense continuations of the various anti-Christian, Gnostic sects, which were discredited as heretical in antiquity—there is both an historical continuity and an experiential equivalence between the ancient movements and such modern phenomena as positivism, Marxism, Freudianism, existentialism, progressivism, utopianism, revolutionary activism, fascism, communism, national socialism, and the rest of the “isms.” [i]

More pointedly stated by Roger Scruton, ‘Marxism shares the category of totality not only with traditional religion, but also with its own arch-enemy and blood brother, fascism.’[ii]

Suffice to say, Nazism and Communism are two wings on the same vicious bird.

Leftism is a crime against humanity.

As Jacques Ellul stated, ‘situating everything in Marxism is intellectual terrorism.’ [iii]

References:

[i] Voeglin, E. 1968. Science, Politics & Gnosticism: Two Essays, Regnery Publishing

[ii] Scruton, R. 2015. Fools, Frauds & Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left, Bloomsbury

[iii] Ellul, J. 1988. Jesus & Marx, (pp.22-26)’

* Augusto Zimmerman’s 2018 article ‘Adolf Hitler’s Debt to Karl Marx‘ on Quadrant discusses in a lot more detail the subject I’ve raised about the largely false dichotomy between Communism & Nazism; and how it shows that the Left/Right metaphor is problematic.

First published on Caldron Pool, 1st March, 2020. Also featured on The Spectator Australia, 2nd March, 2020

Pic. New York Times

©Rod Lampard, 2020

 

In Political Theology , , , , , , ,
permalink

Rev. George Bell: “[Communism & Nazism] are both manifestations of the devil posing as a political messiah”

March 2, 2020 — Leave a comment

 

 

[Communism & Nazism] are both manifestations of the devil disguising himself as a political messiah, both drive out the demon of unemployment with the demon of war, & call it “just”

– (George Bell, Christianity & World Power, 1940. paraphrased)

In Political Theology, Politics, World War two
permalink

ASIO’s Annual Threat Assessment Watered Down By The ABC’s Petty Political Posturing

February 28, 2020 — Leave a comment

Australia’s ASIO security chief, Mike Burgess presented the Director-General’s Annual Threat Assessment on Monday. The assessment laid out ASIO’s ‘principle concerns’ about national security, and the issues it views as threats to Australians both internally and externally.

Burgess didn’t mess around, stating from the start that he wanted ‘to move beyond the bureaucratic language of annual reports and help everyone understand the significant threats we see directed at Australia and Australians.’

The director spoke pointedly about the increasing challenges technology posed to the organizations ability to do what it does successfully. Adding that ASIO seeks to find a balance between the ‘need for new powers and privacy’, and how new laws have allowed ASIO to effectively keep up with these challenges, giving ASIO a sharper edge and ability to respond to these challenges with ‘energy and purpose.’

Burgess reminded Australians that ASIO’s ‘number one mission is to protect Australians from threats to their lives’, saying that the ‘terrorist threat remains PROBABLE [sic.]; and that it will remain unacceptably high for the foreseeable future.’ The ASIO Director made it clear terrorist elements are still ‘plotting to harm Australians; some occurring in small cells.’

Burgess noted that equally concerning is ‘the ease with which terrorists continue to use the internet to spread hateful messages, radicalize people to their cause and provide how-to-advice on committing atrocities against Australians.’ He followed this up by stating that he finds the ‘streams of hate spread across the internet by extremists of every ideology’ particularly troubling, where ‘extremists are trying to recruit children as young as 13 or 14.’ He then added that ‘violent Islamic extremism, e.g.: the type embodied by Islamic State and al’Qaida’  et.al. ‘remain ASIOs principle concern.’

Burgess’ assessment wasn’t sugar-coated, he pointed out that ‘there are now more Islamic extremists from more countries active in more places than ever before.’ He then spoke on what he called ‘other operators entering the ‘terrorism arena’, stating that the Christchurch shooting ‘had brought right-wing extremism into sharp focus.’ He labeled this ‘extreme right-wing threat real’, saying that it was on the rise in suburbs where small cells meet to salute Nazi flags inspect weapons, train in combat and share hateful ideology.’

While acknowledging the ‘low capability’ of any extreme right-wing terrorist attack, Burgess didn’t rule out the possibility of more ‘sophisticated attacks.’ Building on this he discussed the issue of ‘state-sponsored terrorism’, espionage, foreign interference, and the threat posed by extremists who are being released from prison. According to Burgess, ‘foreign espionage and interference activities are higher now, than it was at the height of the cold war.’

In his address, the ASIO director mentioned that the organization has ‘uncovered cases where foreign spies have travelled to Australia with the intention of setting up sophisticated hacking infrastructure targeting computers containing sensitive and classified information.’ Burgess also stated that ‘we’ve seen visiting scientists and academics ingratiating themselves into university life with the aim of conducting clandestine intelligence collection’ – adding that ‘this strikes at the very heart of our notions of free and fair academic exchange.’

Media responses to the threat assessment have been varied.

The Australian highlighted chief points made by the ASIO security director. Its headline read: ‘Spy Boss Comes out of the Shadows.’ The article summed up ‘Mr. Burgess’ threat stock-take, and acknowledged how the ASIO director didn’t flinch in calling out Islamic extremism, as being the No.1 concern; that the threat of espionage was far and away the most serious issue going forward.’ The article drew from The Australian’s Greg Sheridan who ‘argued on Tuesday that ASIO’s assessment showed “those folks who say that Chinese government is being demonized in Australian security discussions are simply refusing to face reality.’

The ABC went an entirely different route. Taking the opportunity to deflect the heat away from Muslims and the Chinese, The ABC  appeared to launch an opportunistic and subtle attack on anything and everything right-wing, the 1 billion dollar tax-payer funded organization choosing to run with the headline: ‘Neo-Nazis among Australia’s most challenging security threats, ASIO Boss Mike Burgess warns.’

While The ABC was generous enough to note Burgess’ comments about ASIO’s ‘principle concerns’, adding a brief mention of Islamic Terrorism, and tacking a note on at the end, acknowledging China as the ‘main culprit’, the tax-payer funded behemoth chose instead to focus its attention on the small fish. This is despite the ASIO Director having very clearly stated that ASIO’s ‘principle concerns’ are related to Islamic Terrorism, and foreign interference, not just externally, but within Australia, particularly Australian Universities.

Greens senator, Mehreen Faruqi appeared to do the same. Faruqi selectively responded on Twitter to comments from Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, who answered a reporter’s question about neo-Nazism, saying,

“If somebody is going to cause harm to Australians, I just don’t care whether they’re on the far right, far left, somewhere in between, they will be dealt with…and if the proliferation of information into the hands of rightwing lunatics or leftwing lunatics is leading to a threat in our country, then my responsibility is to make sure our agencies are dealing with it and they are.”

The Greens senator seemed to deliberately misconstrue Dutton’s comments, in what could rightly be viewed as an attempt to tar and feather the Minister as a right-wing extremist.

By 9:28 pm on the same day the Greens Senator had deleted her comments, and posted this apology:

Burgess’ delivery of the Director-General’s Annual Threat Assessment was straight to the point. The Home Affairs Ministers, and ASIO security chief didn’t play with semantics, seek to placate dishonest critics, or use the assessment as a political football. They called a spade a spade. It was impossible to misunderstand him, or Peter Dutton. In not passing on that information to the Australian public correctly, and in its proper context, The ABC and Greens Senator Faruqi have placed their own self-righteous, ideological, political posturing over against the safety of the Australian public they are funded by tax-payers to serve.

References:

FULL transcript of Mike Burgess’ Annual National Security Assessment.

First published on Caldron Pool, 27th February, 2020.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash  cropped and edited by me.

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Politics , , , , ,
permalink

George Soros’ Bizarre Anti-Trump Fiat: Calls for Mutiny at Facebook after Accusing Zuckerberg of being in league with Trump.

February 24, 2020 — Leave a comment

George Soros sent in a brief letter to the Financial Times, calling for the removal of Facebook’s CEO and COO, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Soros claims that Zuckerberg, who hasn’t followed Twitter in banning all political advertising, is helping Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in a ‘kind of mutual assistance arrangement with D.T.’ Soros goes on to demand Facebook take action stating, ‘Mark Zuckerberg should be removed from control of Facebook.’

The F.T. posted a copy and paste transcript of Soros’ proposition yesterday. Notably absent from the article was the lack of an introduction, and commentary from FT staff. The transcript was also published without any screenshot, or scanned image of the actual letter, which is strange for publishers who desire to maintain a rigorous level of journalism. Not validating the source of the original letter, casts doubt on its authenticity. However, if urban legend about the power of George Soros is to be believed, it’s possible this is how he intended it, and is exactly how he wanted the letter to be presented.

This isn’t the first time Soros has gone public with his desire to see the current leadership of Facebook face the business world equivalent of a firing squad.

He penned an article for the New York Times, published on the 31st January, arguing that Zuckerberg is engaged in a quid pro quo deal with Trump. As Soros sees it: the deal involves Trump protecting Facebook from government control, and in return Zuckerberg helps get Trump re-elected in 2020.

As evidence (and it’s flimsy), Soros went back to 2016, saying that ‘Facebook provided the Trump campaign with embedded staff who helped to optimize its advertising program. (Doing what Hilary Clinton’s election team declined to do).’ According to Soros, ‘Facebook gave Trump an edge, marking the beginning of a special relationship.’ He then stated that a recent meeting between Trump and Zuckerberg, ‘raised serious questions’.

The billionaire also accused Zuckerberg of only wanting to make a profit. Claiming that under Zuckerberg’s leadership Facebook was only about ‘making money’, not caring about ‘inflammatory and false content, and failing to adequately punish those who spread false information – nor does the company warn those who are exposed to lies.’

Note that Soros never mentions Facebook’s existing fact checking mechanisms when he claims Facebook isn’t doing them. Neither does Soros provide adequate examples or definitions of the terms he’s using. Perhaps what Soros means is that Facebook isn’t fact checking and blocking content that challenges his ideology, or content that he might arbitrarily consider to be false, hateful, phobic, bigoted etc.

The whole thing reeks of desperation. It’s an anti-Trump political manoeuvre. It has little to do with Facebook, and more to do with Soros’ unresolved issues over Hilary Clinton losing what was considered to be an unlosable election. If anything raises serious questions, it’s his inquisition of Trump and Zuckerberg. When a billionaire such as Soros cries victim wisdom should prompt us to ask why. There’s no doubt Soros lost money, and a special level of power because of Clinton’s election loss.

Trump isn’t protecting Facebook, Zuckerberg is. The CEO is doing what he’s paid to do. He is acting in the best interests of his customers, and company, not power-hungry would-be overlords, who think the world owes total allegiance to them, and their ideology.

Soros’ bizarre fiat shows that Zuckerberg is on the right track. This is probably why Soros wants his head. Zuckerberg is no longer buying what Soros is selling. Take for instance, Zuckerberg’s recent defence of free speech and the reforms he’s attempted to implement. They protect Facebook from the Left’s creeping arbitrary control of free speech, by labelling all opposing viewpoints as “hate speech”. Add to this the Left’s creeping arbitrary control over who is good and who is evil.

Zuckerberg appears to be diverging from the pre-approved narrative of leftism, and their zero-sum practice of achieving political goals, which only serve the interests of those who advocate political correctness, abortion, euthanasia, open borders, the imposition of new cultural laws via the LGBT religion, policing speech, thought and undermining the Biblical Christian foundation of Western Civilisation et.al.

As a result of Zuckerberg’s pro-free speech reform, Soros has called for a mutiny at Facebook. Instead of entering into a dialogue with Zuckerberg, Soros has gone behind his back in an attempt to remove him by proxy. One should ask, how this is not another coup attempt, in line with the now proven, Russian Collision hoax, and lies surrounding the attempt to impeach Trump. Soros, it would appear, is on the war path, and is seeking to take command of what he deems to be his enemy’s central communications hub.

Soros’ arrogance in presuming to control what happens at Facebook, must be blinding him to how much his reasoning and persistent demands here, confirm what many have suspected. That a) He’s too close to the Clinton’s b) He has far too much power and reach c) He funds Leftist divisive politics. Soros deliberately trying to undermine the CEO of an independent company, potentially putting that company and its employees at risk, would be enough evidence to support this.

Ironically, regardless of whether Facebook removes its CEO and COO under Soros-fiat, what he has achieved here is the opposite of what he intended. Soros has negated his questionable accusations against Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg by exposing himself as the real villain; a divisive manipulator, stamping up and down in frustration because he and others like him didn’t get their own way in October 2016. An event that, despite the lies, false accusations and hostile, undemocratic interference, coming from Soros’ own side of politics, looks set to, thankfully, repeat itself again in October, 2020.

References:

See hyperlinks embedded within the article.

First published on Caldron Pool, 19th February, 2020.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

In Political Theology, Socal Media, Western Civilisation , , , ,
permalink