Standing aside the battlefield to describe the action — the normal behavior of an observer — is fraught with danger.
In these most vicious of partisan times, it seems impossible to remain above the fray, examining the issues dispassionately and with loyalty to no side.
It is a dangerous era when people feel compelled to take sides, in which the other is regarded as mortal enemies, who, without exception, are always deemed wrong. Gray area is banished as the grounds upon which treason grows.
Standing aside the battlefield to describe the action — the normal behavior of an observer — is fraught with peril. It invites attacks from all sides who insist on defining the undefinable, i.e., someone who belongs to neither side. Criticizing either side does not put you in the camp of the other.
But the prevailing tribalism will smear independent thinkers as belonging to the “the enemy.”
This became especially perilous when the major parties are united on foreign policy, for to critique that policy — the duty of journalism — is to be blackened as apologists for Saddam, Putin, Hamas, etc.
This is the ugliness an independent observer on foreign policy faces. The mainstream won’t tolerate neutrally informing the public of the intent and consequences of a foreign policy.
Lock-step obedience is demanded or you are a traitor. This has been the eternal tactic of ruling classes.
The united party of the establishment, made up of supposedly rival factions, is on the defensive against the rise of independent media and fed-up, independent politicians who are challenging elections in the U.S., U.K. and Europe. To defend their established privilege they are resorting more and more to open censorship.
Listen to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, explaining “pre-bunking” as another way to say “prior restraint.”
The survival of journalism depends on fighting under no flag and being free of ideology. We depend on readers who understand and defend our mission and the dwindling space we occupy.
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The demonization of Putin has been remarkably effective. It tells me several things about the United States. # 1, overall, our citizens are no longer as good as they once were at separating propaganda from news. Our public education system has achieved the Teachers Union intended result. # 2, propaganda works, # 3 the US national media has zero national outlets that are truly independent. They are all biased, with the Left capturing about 85%. # 4, there is little hope for a course correction. Trumps 1st term showed how viscous and effective the residents of Washington DC can get if even a bit of their power is reduced.
The “left” doesn’t exist on corporate MSM. The Dems are on the right. The Repubs are stone cold crazy. Our imperial government will do any and everything to stomp out the left. That’s where the real threat comes from to their absolute rule.
Vinnieoh: “This remains a no-go place between me and my younger brother.”
It’s a vexed issue, that’s for sure. I’m a born-and-bred citizen of NZ. Through my spouse, we have extended family in Russia, along with family connections to the Ukraine. They are Russophones, the older members born in what was then Russia, but which became part of the Ukraine when Lenin shifted the admin. boundaries in 1922.
My offspring put the situation best – this in the context of a NZ citizen having been killed in the Donbass. Said offspring’s comment: the citizens (particularly the children, I’d add) of the Donbass have never done anything to NZ, yet here our government is, giving aid to the régime in Kiev, which has been persecuting them since 2014. One couldn’t make this stuff up.
My own family knows our connections to that part of the world; thus family members for the most part carefully avoid the subject.
The same isn’t necessarily true of friends and acquaintances. Sometimes, such people go on an anti-Russia (and Putin) rant. These same people also rant about the mendacious MSM, often in the next (or previous) breath. My preferred tactic for stopping the anti-Russia narrative is to say: good grief, surely you don’t actually believe any of that?
It generally shuts them up. If that doesn’t work, I bore them to silence with a history lesson.
Yes, yes, but can ‘we’ please stop this current intellectual fad of using the term “tribal” as a pejorative?!!
Actual tribal people–ask Native North American scholars–seldom, if ever, behave this way.
And do note that “tribal” refers to sub-Saharan Africans, peoples of the Americas, and indigenous Australians. Never to white Europeans or their descendants. Those are ethnicities. The people whom the others of the world are expected to admire.
The ‘we’ is to call attention to unexamined assumptions, especially around the inclusive 1st person plural. In the ’60s there was a joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, who were apparently surrounded by hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger says: “we have to fight them, Tonto.” To which Tonto replies: “Who’s this ‘we,’ white man?!”
Rafi Simonton: “…can ‘we’ please stop this current intellectual fad of using the term “tribal” as a pejorative?!!”
The term is part of societal discourse here in NZ: Maori are tribal and set great store by it. Everyone of Maori descent is affiliated to a tribe or tribes. The term is often used here to characterise people who vote for particular political parties, and cannot be persuaded to change their political allegiance, no matter how awful their preferred party may be.
Humans are a groupish species. We prefer to live and socialise with people who look like us and share our language and mores. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this: it’s just the way humans are. Hence tribes, clans and so on. I myself, being of Irish and Scottish descent, fully understand the notion of the clan. It’s an intrinsic part of who we are.
“Actual tribal people–ask Native North American scholars–seldom, if ever, behave this way.”
When the first European explorers arrived in NZ, the indigenes were in a state of almost perpetual warfare, invading each other’s territories, killing, eating and enslaving. Here is an account of one of the most notorious incidents, though it was by no means isolated:
hxxps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori_genocide
And the Musket Wars, with the terrible death toll, were one of the drivers for the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, not so many years later. Many chiefs feared a recurrence and they wanted the British rule of law, so as to prevent it.
At the time of these events, there were very few Europeans in NZ, and they could only watch helplessly. They had no means to intervene.
Recently, a family member has been reading the following book. For Hongi Hika, war was a game.
hxxps://www.royalsociety.org.nz/150th-anniversary/tetakarangi/hongi-hika-warrior-chief-dorothy-urlich-2003/
I’d add that, when the first European explorers arrived in the Auckland isthmus, they found it almost unpopulated. So frequently had the area and its inhabitants been subject to depredation by Nghapuhi – Hongi Hika’s tribe – that the people had mostly fled to the southern and western hills, and into Tainui territory further south.
As to colonisation, below is an account of the failed Maori attempt at colonisation of the Auckland Islands. I read about this many years ago. The Maori in question had come from the Chathams, bringing with them Moriori, whom they’d enslaved.
hxxps://voyagingsouth.com/new-zealand-islands/auckland-islands/colonisation-and-shipwrecks/#:~:text=The%20first%20documented%20attempt%20at,158).
Skin colour is an extrinsic characteristic only, and isn’t a marker of major differences between humans. Given the right circumstances, we’re all capable of the most egregious violence. None of us should forget it.
Please don’t disappear! I will continue to support Independent Media like CN in any way I can! You are the ones who keep me sane while insanity runs amok in the world…
Also, the German police roughed up a Mexican journalist reporting on a protest. That made the news here in Mexico!
Vonder Leyan was brought up on corruption charges in Belgium by two serious attorneys who presented in a long ptess conference in French. Somebody changed the venue to eu. Nonetheless, Ursula likely still thinks she will get away with her usual “competing” interest shenanigans, as she recently did appointing a crony over better qualified candidates for a position regarding small business. I think things are closing in on her.
I do find Ursula to be very annoying, but she is an accomplished bureaucrat. The one I find even more annoying is the Michel guy. Watching videos of him quickly informs you that there is no substance in him. His highest skill is walking into rooms with a foreign dignitary, clapping like a trained seal, and using exaggerated gestures to indicate the spot both of them should stand. And he somehow manages to maintain a stupid grin on his face the entire time. Don’t know his background, but my guess is that he’s a 2nd or perhaps even 3rd generation bureaucrat.
Much of political discourse has always been more of a means of asserting one’s superiority than a way of learning from those who disagree with us. I agree that now there is much more viciousness and even violence involved because the greed of the most powerful Americans, has become much more insistent as it is being more and more knowledgeably opposed, and when mainstream media clutches even more desperately their false prestige. One can value so much more being open to learning from the “other side.”
Well said.
“Criticizing either side does not put you in the camp of the other…” Could not agree more.
I find saying things like “Putin did not wake up one morning and decide to invade Ukraine”, for example, seems to make people look at you as if you are some kind of rabid Putin apologist.
Crazy times.
This remains a no-go place between me and my younger brother. We can talk about most everything – and usually do – except for Ukraine and especially Putin. If I even say that things might not be quite like the official narrative he goes into an explosive rant, calls me an idiot, fool, etc. Mind you, I approach the subject cautiously, not even nearly as opinionated as I am on these pages. It’s sad.