IDIOTIZED PUBLICS

CJ HOPKINS—A week or so before the event, Felix Klein, Germany’s “Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism,” warned Jews not to wear kippahs in public, on account of the unprecedented explosion of anti-Semitism throughout the country. According to the interior ministry, there were 62 violent anti-Semitic attacks in Germany during 2018, compared to 37 in 2017, which, in a nation of 83 million people, and with a history of real-life, goose-stepping Nazis, and of perpetrating the Holocaust, and so on … well, you can understand the Commissioner’s alarm.

DANIEL CHALYAN—One shouldn’t be surprised by anything they see here. Red Sparrow is part of a compound assault on the Russian people: modern mainstream news and satire cover the political side of things, while films like this try to dehumanize through attacks on society – often by taking bits of truth and cleverly distorting and exaggerating them in order to foster believability. You can’t make Russia-bashing plausible within the framework of the media alone, because baseless narratives about “Russian actions in Syria” do not generate enough visceral hatred among those that can’t find Syria on a map.

PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—On this Memorial Day weekend all Amerikans should look back to the great essay written in 1935 by Marine General Smedley Butler. He named it ‘ War is a Racket’ and it still resonates nowadays perhaps even more powerfully. His essay should be required reading for all high school American History students. General Butler acknowledged that he became a ‘Gangster ‘ for the US corporate interests internationally. Realizing that what we call ‘ War’ is many times just an excuse for private business interests to A) make mega bucks from our tax dollars and B) to control the resources and markets of overseas nations, all under the protection of our flag. Has anything changed?

TIM HAYWARD—In promoting the new report, Deadly Detention, Amnesty International USA notes with pride how the organisation is now providing ‘real-time documentation of human rights abuses committed by government forces’. Not only is it providing rapid reporting, it is also making strong claims. Instead of measured statements suggesting necessary reforms, it now condemns Assad’s government for ‘a widespread, as well as systematic, attack against the civilian population, carried out in an organized manner and pursuant to a state policy to commit such an attack.’ The Syrian government is accused of ‘crimes against humanity’.