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January 13, 2019 (The Catholic Thing) China is a large, strange, complex, contradictory thing, even before you get to the large, strange, complex, contradictory, and murderous form of Communism that has come to dominate its various peoples. No one understands it very well. But those closest with a real say the Hong Kong protesters who know what submission to Beijing means, andTaiwanese voters who roundly resisted mainland pressurein elections this weekend are united in believing that China is simply not to be trusted.

Its worth trying to think through why the Vatican seems to have a different view.

Living in Washington, Ive met any number of sincere and dedicated public figures, as well as many scamps, scalawags, con men, and outright liars. But the few encounters Ive had with Chinese officials set the gold standard for shameless lying particularly about religious persecution.

Evensecular journalists with little love for religionroutinely report these days on Chinas increasing outrages against believers. Their reports tend to focus on religious groups Western secularists favor the 1 million Uighur Muslims in China, for example, who are now beingbrainwashed in re-education camps.

Journalists are much less interested in Chinas 100 million Christians (Protestants and Catholics). Or how religious bodies are being brutally sinicized, even forced incredibly to re-write their scriptures to bring them in line with Communist ideology.

Last week, a Congressional committee on China issueda blistering report, which began: Observers have described religious persecution in China over the last year to be of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution. It documented how not only foreign religions (i.e., Christianity and Islam) are being squeezed, but even traditional faiths like Buddhism and Hinduism are under a full-court press against religion now.

Just the next day, Pope Francis gavehis annual address to diplomats, and did not utter a word about Chinese persecution. Indeed, his 2019 address to the diplomats claimed that the Vaticans Provisional Agreement with China is the result of a lengthy and thoughtful institutional dialogue that led to the determination of certain stable elements of cooperation between the Apostolic See and the civil authorities. [Authors Correction: An earlier version of this column mistakenly attributed this quotation to the 2020 address. RR]

How is such stone-blindness possible?

Theres an answer perhaps inAHidden Life, Terrence Malicks moving new film about the martyrdom of Franz Jgersttter, an Austrian Catholic whose conscience would not allow him to swear allegiance to Hitler. Ive had an interest in him since I wrote my bookThe Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century.

Amea culpa: He was one of my very favorites among many modern heroic and holy figures, almost totally ignored by historians. But I had to write about him as a historian myself, with only the broad outline of his personal struggles as he thought about how his wife and children would have to cope without him. How his friends and fellow villagers regarded him as a traitor (they, of course, felt guilty that they had compromised with evil and took it out on him and his family). How, as the Nazis never tired of telling him, his death would change nothing; no one would ever know about it; his stubbornness would only bring suffering to those he loved.

Some have criticized the slow, lengthy treatment of these matters in the film. But how else to convey what its really like to live under relentless persecution, day after day, and deal with tortures and doubts to a degree that would drive most of us mad?

But even that was not the worst. Franzs pastor and bishop (Joseph Fliesser of Linz) nervously suggested he be obedient to public authorities, as St. Paul counseled (Rom. 13). These men were not monsters, or Nazi shills. They did not intend to destroy the Church, but thought that by passively going along they were actually saving as much of the Church as could be saved, in terrible circumstances. There was also personal cowardice, of course, mixed in with the other motives. They were wrong, massively wrong, as anyone can see today.

Something similar is going on in China right now. The Vatican, by its accord with an evil government, has essentially told Chinese Catholics that they are wrong to remain independent of a regime they see quite clearly is murderous and hell-bent on forcing the Church to be re-defined along lines that will make it harmless to government interests.

Reliable sources say that the same instruments of manipulation officials used so effectively in imposing the one-child policy are now carrying out the sinicization of religious bodies.

So where are the bold Catholic voices protesting the intimidation and taming of the Church? We have Hong Kongs retired Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, who just issued a heartfeltletter to all the Catholic Cardinals, which ends on a personal note to each of them, Your Eminence,can we passively witness the murder of the Church in China by those who should protect and defend her from her enemies? Begging on my knees, your brother. . .

Theres been silence about this letter to say nothing of the horrors it describes at the highest levels in the Vatican, i.e., Cardinal Parolin, the Secretary of State, who worked out the Provisional Agreement with China, and Pope Francis himself.

Weve heard from Parolin that we must be patient and keep up hope, but the facts on the ground are beyond dispute: the Church has been had. The belief that dialogue which like diplomacy has become something of an idol in certain internationalist circles is possible with certain forms of evil will someday be seen, as is clear already to many of us, as a foolish experiment that many Chinese and not only Chinese Catholics will pay for with their liberties and lives.

And it wont stop there because other malefactors around the world are watching. If you have to suffer and perhaps die anyway, better to do so like Franz Jgersttter as he told his captors, as a free man, although he was imprisoned than to accept a false peace, which is, sooner or later, only the peace of the graveyard.

Published with permission from The Catholic Thing.

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Vatican doesnt understand that communist China will never compromise - Lifesite

Just over an hour prior to Tuesdays latest 2020 Democratic presidential debate, longtime Democrat and former Clinton official James Carville appeared on MSNBCs Hardball to unspool his latest takes of lunacy.

This time, he insisted that Trumpism is the greatest threat this country has faced since the fall of communism and Republicans cannot ever be trusted to save the United States.

Carville declined to make the case for Bennet, but instead attacked Trump by claiming that, instead of radical Islamic terror thats killed thousands of Americans in the last three decades, its Trump and Trumpism thats the greatest threat this country has faced since the fall of communism and the only way to deal with it is defeat it resoundingly.

He added that it will not only need to be defeated at the polls, but decimated in the same way that itd look like Clemson looked last night against his LSU Tigers.

Later and in closing out their discussion, Matthews screeched with the utmost faux concern for the Republican Party (click expand):

MATTHEWS: What happened to the Republican Party? The opposition party

CARVILLE: They dont exist.

MATTHEWS: from your thinking, the party that wasn't evil, it wasn't stupid. Now, I mean, I noticed in the whole day of defending Trump, not a single Republican member of the House, and they're all some of them smart, not one of them said one good thing about Donald Trump personally. Nobody nobody spoke for his character. Nobody said he's a good, honest, guy. I mean, it was immaculate, immaculate. Not a single positive comment. And yet, they bow to him like he's the emperor of Siam. They bow to him without ever respecting him personally. How do you explain?

Similarly falsely claiming to have an interest in the future of a vibrant GOP, Carville stated that the Republican Party that you and I knew does not exist because [t]here's only Trump and Trumpism.

He added that, when it comes to stopping Trump, [i]t is up to the Democrats to eradicate this scourge and save the United States since [t]heres no Republican going to come up and save us.

Matthews then complimented Carville without missing a beat that he [s]peaks integrity and true partisanship.

Okay, sure, Chris.

To see the relevant transcript from MSNBCs Hardball on January 14, click expand.

MSNBCs HardballJanuary 14, 20207:50 p.m. Eastern

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Michael Bennet here you are, the pro, Im building you up and you come into this race in mid-January now and youre picking a candidate now? Why? This late? Why this one?

JAMES CARVILLE: Because I think I think that Trump and Trumpism is the greatest threat this country has faced since the fall of communism and the only way to deal with it is defeat it resoundingly. If Michael Bennet is the Democratic nominee, you're going to get 55 percent of the popular vote and youre going to pick up 55 senate seats. It will be the end of Trumpism. Trumpism doesn't have to just be defeated at the polls. It has got to be decimated. It's got to look like a beaten arm. It's got to look like Clemson looked last night. Beat and ready to quit and Michael Bennet is the best choice among any Democrat to accomplish that.

(....)

7:54 p.m. Eastern

MATTHEWS: What happened to the Republican Party? The opposition party

CARVILLE: They dont exist.

MATTHEWS: from your thinking, the party that wasn't evil, it wasn't stupid. Now, I mean, I noticed in the whole day of defending Trump, not a single Republican member of the House, and they're all some of them smart, not one of them said one good thing about Donald Trump personally. Nobody nobody spoke for his character. Nobody said he's a good, honest, guy. I mean, it was immaculate, immaculate. Not a single positive comment. And yet, they bow to him like he's the emperor of Siam. They bow to him without ever respecting him personally. How do you explain?

CARVILLE: Right. Look, the Republican Party that you and I knew does not exist. There's only Trump and Trumpism. The Republicans are going to do nothing about it. It is up to the Democrats. It is up to the Democrats to eradicate this scourge, and the way to do that is by massive and humiliating election defeat. Theres no Republican going to come up and save us. Thats not going to happen. Everybody keeps waiting. Well, you know, pretty soon, maybe Rob Portman will say something. They're not going to say something. They're scared to death.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

CARVILLE: And the Democrats have to save the United States. That's it. There's no other choice. The Republicans are not going to do it for you.

MATTHEWS: Okay. Spoken like a great partisan, sir. Thank you, James Carville.

CARVILLE: Geaux Tigers.

MATTHEWS: Speaks with integrity and true partisanship.

Go here to see the original:
Carville Rages on MSNBC: 'Trumpism Is the Greatest Threat' to America Since Communism - NewsBusters

On the occasion of the International Conference on Libya that is taking place in Berlin and the discussion about Greece's non-participation in it, the Press Bureau of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) issued a statement which was published on 902 portal.

The statement of the KKE reads the following:

"The International Conference for Libya in Berlin, the only purpose of which is the determination of this country's future based on the interests of the imperialists who first destroyed and dismembered it, is not a process that benefits that Libyan people and the other peoples of the region.

It is indicative that the participants in the Conference are NATO-affiliated and other forces which are responsible for the imperialist intervention in Libya, the bombing and dissolution of the country and which today compete and negotiate for the control of the energy resources. These forces are either on the side of the government of Tripoli, either with General Haftar or are bargaining with both at the same time.

The imperialist peace they are discussing about cannot solve for the people's benefit the problems that have been created.

As for the discussion and the controversy regarding Greece's participation or not in the Conference, it reveals the following:

First, the bumptious and unfouded assertion by the New Democracy (ND) government and its predecessor of SYRIZA about the alleged international isolation of Turkey, while Turkey plays an essential role in the developments within the context of the US-NATO plans, which tolerated the signing of her unacceptable maritime agreement with the Sarraj government.

Secondly, the deep agreement of all the other parties that claim Greece's participation in this International Conference, with the imperialist plans in the region, since this is exclusively the Conference's subject.

This further involvement of Greece, which is a commonplace for all the other political forces, serves only the participation of sections of the Greek capital in the sharing of the plunder and does not offer any benefit for the peace and security of the people, as well as to Greece's sovereign rights."

Excerpt from:
KKE: The Berlin Conference on Libya is not a process for the benefit of the Libyan people - In Defense of Communism

by Ari Paul

Coda (1/10/20) appears to have been the first to break the story of Instagrams Soleimani censorship, as part of the sites focus on authoritarian tech.

Instagram, and its parent company Facebook, took down posts regarded as too sympathetic to Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated January 3 in a controversial US airstrike. The news website Coda (1/10/20) was credited with breaking the news, and Newsweek (1/10/20) also reported that

Iranian journalists have reported the censorship of their Instagram accounts. Posts about Soleimani have disappeared from Instagram, which is currently the only operational international social media site within Iran.

According to the Facebook corporation, as quoted by CNN (1/10/20), removal of such posts is required by US sanctions; the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, of which Soleimani was a commander, was designated as a terrorist organization by the US government in April:

As part of its compliance with US law, the Facebook spokesperson said the company removes accounts run by or on behalf of sanctioned people and organizations.

One might rightly ask: What constitutes a post supportive of the late military commander? According to the CNN report, merely posting a photo of the general could get the Facebook authorities to take a post down.

The International Federation of Journalists condemned the censorship:

The measures have gone even further, and some accounts of Iranian newspapers and news agencies have now been removed from the social media platform. This poses an immediate threat to freedom of information in Iran, as Instagram is the only international social media platform currently still operating in the country.

The Washington Times (1/11/20) reported:

Ali Rabiei, a spokesperson for the Iranian government, complained from his Twitter account on Monday this week about the disappearance of social media discussions about Soleimani, accusing Instagram of acting undemocratic and unashamed.

Much of the coverage has centered on the fact that Instagram is one of the few social media networks not widely restricted in Iranthus, the blackout serves as a way of censoring information going into Iran. In fact, the US government news agency Voice of America (1/7/20) reported that the Iranian government was clamping down on social media posts too critical of Soleimani, and NBC News (8/21/19) reported on how Iranians used networks like Instagram to skirt government regulation. (The irony here is thick.)

Facebook says that in order to comply with US sanctions laws, it removes posts that commend the actions of sanctioned parties (CNN, 1/13/20).

But this news has also gotten journalists and press advocates worried about what this means for free speech and the First Amendment in the United States. On the one hand, as a private company, Facebook is free to make its own rules about acceptable content. Yet if the network is removing content because it believes it is required to do so by law, that is government censorshipand forbidden by the Constitutions guarantee of freedom of the press.

Shayana Kadidal, a senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told FAIR that while it was possible for the US government to restrict media companies from coordinating with sanctioned entities and providing material support to the IRGC, the US government cannot restrict Americans from engaging in what he called independent advocacy.

Independent advocacy, as the law stands, cant be banned, he said. For [Instagram] to remove every single post would mean it was pulling posts that are protected.

The Washington Post (1/13/20) reported that free speech advocates were worried, with the director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation calling it legally wrong. Others concurred:

Eliza Campbell, associate director at the Cyber Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, [said] that the existing laws had failed to keep up with online speech, calling it a field of law that hasnt been written quite yet.

The terrorist designation system is an important tool, but its also a blunt instrument, she said. I think were walking down a dangerous path when we afford these platformswhich are private entities, have no oversight, and are not elected bodiesto essentially dictate policy, which is whats happening right now.

Emerson T. Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, [said] that Facebook and Instagram are taking a very aggressive position and it may not be sustainable. He said it could result in Facebook removing any speech of any Iranian mourning Soleimanis death and could represent a harsh new precedent.

In the wake of the Soleimani assassination, the wrong joke can be career-ending (New York Times, 1/11/20).

Regardless of whether the government directed Facebook to take this action, the fact that a media company felt the need to do so is proof of a chilling effect on speech. Who, specifically, is to decide what is so unabashedly pro-Soleimani material that it violates US sanctions? Is an article that merely acknowledges that many Iranians mourned Soleimani and denounced his killing a violation? Is an anti-war editorial that doesnt sufficiently assert Soleimani was no angel constitute such a crime? Could satirical material that facetiously supported the Tehran regime get censored? (The last item isnt so hypothetical: A Babson College professor was fired for jokingly encouraging Iran to follow Trumps lead by targeting US cultural sites.)

All of these questions, and all this ambiguity, should be enough evidence that this kind of censorship would be capricious and unfairly applied, and thus inappropriate in the face of free speech protections.

Free press advocates in the United States should think seriously in the coming days about how to respond. If sanctions can be invoked by a social media network to take down certain content, what is next? In order not to find out, well need a concerted pushback to Facebooks censorship from journalists and civil libertarians.

You can send a message to Facebook via Twitter: @Facebook (or @Instagram). Remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.

See original here:
Facebook's Soleimani Ban Flies in Face of First Amendment - FAIR

When David Shanks presents himself at international conferences, his peers recoil slightly.

Id introduce myself as, Hi, Im David from New Zealand. New Zealands chief censor, he says. And basically these people would take an involuntary step backwards, almost, on many occasions.

Shanks is an independent, government-appointed official whose role is essentially that of a content regulator responsible for classifying, restricting or banning any material he deems objectionable that New Zealanders can access, including everything from Hollywood blockbusters to terrorist videos, child pornography to t-shirts and pamphlets. It is not an unusual role worldwide, although the scope of his job is broader than most.

But fellow attendees at the annual world meeting of classifiers those responsible for rating or, at times, restricting access to content in their countries omit the c-word from their job titles, he says.

They would introduce themselves and they were the head of the classifications group or general manager, Shanks says referring to his counterparts in other countries when he speaks to the Guardian in his offices in Wellington, New Zealands capital. What Ive kind of realised is Im the last censor standing in the western world.

At a time when the word censorship has never been more fraught, Shanks says the worlds classification bodies no longer even include it in the names of their organisations. It is rife with negative associations, from state suppression of information synonymous with autocratic authoritarian regimes in North Korea and China, Shanks says to a term thrown about liberally on social media to describe anything from being challenged on ones views to de-platforming speakers from events or venues.

But Shanks defends it. The interesting thing is, if you dont have any authority that makes those calls, you abdicate to private sector and also to a group of invisible kind of bureaucrats and groups, he says. Its still happening in various ways, but its happening in a disaggregated, disorganised way that nobody can make any sense of.

Perhaps New Zealands adoption of a system where a single, all-powerful individual along with a staff of fewer than 20 people makes decisions about an entire countrys access to content might have escaped global notice. But in March last year, a gunman stormed two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, killing 51 worshippers and injuring dozens more.

The attacks were streamed in a Facebook Live video by the shooter, and Shanks had ruled it was illegal to possess or share it within days of the attack. Those convicted of distributing publications deemed objectionable can face up to 14 years in jail. Several cases related to the Christchurch video are progressing through New Zealands courts.

Shanks decision to ban the shooting video captured global attention, particularly in the United States, where First Amendment rights are inviolable. Americans were tickled by Shanks job title, and taken aback that he had the power to bar New Zealanders from watching the footage.

He received death threats. We shoot people in the face who have that sort of approach around here, one emailer warned, adding that Shanks better not bring your censoring ways over here to the land of the free.

But his decision to prohibit the video, he says, has not been an ideological or moral one. Shanks has, he insists, been rational, professional and dispassionate.

He watched the 17-minute broadcast the day after the shootings as New Zealand roiled with grief, determined that this like numerous torture-kill videos from Iraq, Syria and Myanmar he had been forced to watch during his tenure as censor would be assessed against the framework he and his team had developed, rather than against his emotions.

The world is an incredibly brutal place and at times is incredibly cruel, Shanks says. We cant just insulate our public from that.

Sometimes, in other words, the public should bear witness to violence. But in this case and in the case of a manifesto purportedly written by the Christchurch gunman, and a later video game based on the killings the potential harms, and exhortations to further violence, were too great to allow, Shanks says.

The former lawyer talks a lot about the science of harm something measurable, quantifiable as a justification for the work he does.

Youve got to protect freedom of expression, he says. Youve got to protect this vital ability to have opinions, to spread them, to access information of any kind.

The only reason to diverge from that principle, ever, he says, is to prevent harm something he consults groups ranging from medical experts to high school students about. Before the Christchurch event he was appointed in May 2017 many of his highest-profile decisions had related to films and television series that dealt with self-harm, including in the show 13 Reasons Why, and the Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga vehicle A Star is Born, both of which feature suicides.

He is beyond making definitive decisions by himself about whats damaging, he says. Actually I listen to the young people on a panel and they go, Can you just warn us if there is self-harm in it? And can you make sure that we protect young people who we know are going to be impacted by it?

The same applies to pornography Shanks does not want to be New Zealands arbiter of taste, and instead favours education on sex and consent.

As chief censor, Shanks can have a cinema opened specially for him to preview a new film, and can chalk up binge-watching television series as overtime. But the job has taken a toll.

The kind of curious thing is you dont know whats going to be particularly harmful for you, and everyones got different vulnerabilities and resilience, Shanks says. I really dont like watching people get shot. Its something I found out in this role.

His relationship with his children 15, 12 and 6 is much more kind of open and richer than it typically would have been were he not the chief censor, he says. Its about actually figuring out how you can reconnect with your kids and talk about stuff that might be a feature of their online world.

Shanks teenage daughter had sent him a text when he appeared on breakfast television in December to discuss a report on New Zealanders pornography habits. She and her friends had thought it was really great he was talking openly about such matters.

In an era where access to ultra-violent material is unprecedented and where, Shanks says, many people believe anything they can find via Google is legal some of the public upsets besetting Shanks predecessors seem quaint in comparison. The previous chief censors highest-profile cases included an outcry over the banning of a young adult novel that contained drugs and sex, and the censoring of a brand of campervans that featured rude slogans.

Now Shanks finds himself wrangling with what social media giants have wrought on the quantity and availability of content including an unstoppable torrent of child sexual abuse material which he likens to the proliferation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere following the building of vast corporate transnational empires over the past 100 years.

I sort of cant help but see parallels with this massive digital industrial complex, he says. These huge transglobal, transnational corporations are making vast amounts of money by exploiting a new resource which is us, our data and our attention.

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'I'm the last censor in the western world': New Zealand's David Shanks tackles the c-word - The Guardian