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Puzzled by the title? It will all come clear.
Europeans have written to me with more information that raises questions about the Charlie Hebdo affair. Some point out the strange emptiness of the street on which the professional killers depart. Others point out the film has hallmarks of orchestration or staging. Still others point out the size and described physical attributes of the killers do not correspond with the accused brothers and that the getaway car turns away from the scene differently from the official description. Another puzzle is that the video of the police assault on the deli repeatedly shows police moving in front of other police who are firing their weapons, yet despite the pointblank range are not hit. And there are other matters.
All I can say is that clearly at least some Europeans notice and on the basis of what they have seen have a lot of suspicion. I cannot evaluate the information sent to me. I do not know the neighborhood in Paris or traffic patterns. I know nothing about film making. Those who know enough about these matters for their suspicions to be aroused are the ones who need to address these issues. Possibly some of these suspicions are contrived red herrings designed to redirect the focus of suspicion down dead ends and discredit skeptics.
In my articles I raised a question about the official story, which was so completely at the ready as to appear pre-packaged. I said that the official story had many of the characteristics of a false flag operation. I did not say it was one. My intent is for the media to make some effort to verify the story and not simply repeat the script handed to them. I made it clear that I thought it unlikely the story would be examined by the print and TV media. As Patrick Smith makes clear in CounterPunch, an embedded media is not a media. Journalism is absent along with truth.
My column was used both by neoconservatives and the leftwing People for the American Way to attack or to try to embarrass Ron Paul.
I learned of this when an email arrived from a Washington Post reporter asking if I had
considered the possible effect on Rand Paul’s presidential prospects before writing the article for a Ron Paul website. Apparently, the reporter had in mind a story: “Paul Craig Roberts Derails Rand Paul’s Presidential Hopes.” I suppose the story was going to be that by publishing the conspiracy kook Roberts, Ron Paul had destroyed his son’s chance to become President.
At the time I had no idea what the Washington Post reporter was asking about. I replied that I write for my website and that, once I post, many other websites from locations around the world pick up the column and repost it and that it is beyond my powers to consider what implications my columns might have for all the known and unknown websites that might choose to republish it.
Next I learned from readers that some non-entity named Luke Brinker, who doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry, had attacked Ron Paul on the tabloid site Salon: “Ron Paul defends insane Charlie Hebdo conspiracy theory,” and in the process called me a “paleoconservative crank and notorious 9/11 truther.”
What was this all about? It turned out that the notorious neoconservative William Kristol
had started it. Kristol’s way of defending the official story was to try to bring embarrassment to Ron Paul, with the result that libertarians would line up with the official story in defense of Ron Paul.
Misrepresentation of my article was essential to the plot. My statement that the Charlie Hebdo affair has characteristics of a false flag event was turned into an accusation that it was a false flag event. Of course, we don’t have proof one way or the other. On one side we have an official narrative that relies entirely on belief in the veracity of officials and their embedded media, which after Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, and Ukraine is not very high. On the other hand we have the suspicious aspects that many have pointed out.
When Ron Paul was deposed on People for the American Way’s RightWing Watch, he stated the obvious. He said that I had not said it was a false flag event but had pointed out reasons that suspicious needed to be investigated and answered for the sake of the credibility of the official account. Ron Paul said that he supports that sound approach and that it was important for people to think and not simply blindly accept government explanations.
That should have been the end of it. But no, libertarians responded not quite like Kristol had hoped but partially. Dale Steinreich wrote on LewRockwell.com that he “doesn’t buy Roberts’ posited theory,” thus perpetuating the misrepresentation as I have no theory, only suspicions. Steinreich then takes issue with the various neoconservative and leftwing obscurantists who are out to get Ron Paul.
I think that Steinreich is unnecessarily defensive. Ron Paul needs no defense from proven warmongers and ideological jerks. Nevertheless, Steinreich took the bait. Part of his defense of Ron Paul is to write: “For clarity, Paul Craig Roberts is not a libertarian. . . . he is a supporter of federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare.” As hardly anything could be worse than that, not even conspiracy suspicions, Steinreich concludes that “far more left progressives share the totality of [Roberts’] current views than libertarians.”
So here we have again the view about which I have written so often that the great mass of people cannot evaluate what is said or written without first classifying it into a prevailing ideological box. If what is said fits their box, it is correct. If not, it is wrong. According to this way of thinking, If you support Social Security and Medicare you are a leftwing progressive. Therefore the leftwing freaks attacking Ron Paul are really attacking their own Paul Craig Roberts.
Steinreich certainly turns the tables on the feeble-minded who tried to attack Ron Paul
through me.
This brings me now to the last part of my title, my real interest in this affair. Possibly on one occasion during his life William Kristol told the truth about something. I just don’t know what it was. As for Salon and RightWing Watch, they have no following among thinking people. Essentially they serve as gatekeepers and propagandists for Washington and private interest groups. Everyone knows that William Kristol and The Weekly Standard want more war, especially with Israel’s enemies, and that leftwing progressives hate people like Ron Paul, who believe in limited government and distrust the left progressives’ god, which is government.
What interest me is Steinreich’s opinion that I am a suspect supporter of freedom and liberty because I support Social Security and Medicare. Clearly, Steinreich knows little about my positions or the history of Social Security privatization, a debate I started with my Business Week column back in the 1980s.
During the 1980s and into the 1990s I supported Social Security privatization, or perhaps more precisely, looking at it closely. In one of my Business Week columns I wrote about the Chilean government minister who succeeded in privatizing the social security system in Chile. I do not know the current condition of Chile’s social security system, but when I wrote the system had proved to be a success, and many Chileans had become share owners in Chile’s economy.
The Chilean minister thanked me profusely for making him world famous. He travelled around the world explaining how he went about the task that he accomplished, and he ended up at the Cato Institute in Washington, at that time a libertarian think tank at which I spent several years before being evicted for being an independent thinker.
Back at the time I was advocating thought about Social Security privatization the Dow Jones was around 1,000. The subsequent rise in the market would have made privatization feasible. More importantly, perhaps, if Social Security had been privatized, it is unlikely Congress would have deregulated the financial system. It is one thing if gamblers wish to risk their money in a casino. It is another if it is the money of Social Security retirees.
Once the financial system was deregulated–a libertarian objective–it became impossible to privatize Social Security other than for insincere reasons of letting Wall Street rob retirees. The lack of accountability, which followed the last financial crash, and the declaration of financial institutions being too big to fail, and thus are carried on the nation’s budget or the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, also make clear that it is impossible to trust old age security to an unaccountable financial system.
Therefore, being practical and not a libertarian ideologue, I understand that Social Security privatization is no longer possible on the basis of a sound and sincere case. It might still happen as part of the normal corruption that now engulfs the US government.
Neoconservatives have an ideology of US world hegemony and an agenda to achieve it. Everything that they do and say relates to their agenda.
The leftwing progressives and neoliberals have their agendas, and, like the neocons,
admissible thought is agenda-specific.
Libertarians have an agenda, an honorable one but largely not practical. In the libertarian mind, it is government that misuses power. The remedy is to place power in private sector hands. Yet as all of history shows, private interests also misuse power.
The solution to the dilemma is countervailing power. Labor unions to offset capitalist monopolies and company stores. Private interests that government must both accommodate and regulate. The division of government power into executive, legislative and judicial, a distribution of power between federal, state, and local governments, and accountability of all to law and the Constitution.
Perfect results would not be forthcoming, but there would be more liberty and more justice than if one power rules us all. The goal is to keep Sauron off the throne.
Being impractical, libertarians have jeopardized a better outcome, and advanced a worse one, as much as have other groups. The rise of jobs offshoring, misinterpreted by libertarians as free trade, destroyed the countervailing power of labor unions. As this domino fell, it knocked over another–the Democratic Party. The decline in union financial support sent Democrats to the same influence purchasers as patronized by Republicans, with the consequence that the same interest groups now control both parties.
Conservatives worshiping presidential power have supported the accumulation of undue power in the executive branch, power that has over-ridden the Constitution.
America is now a closed-mind country. Minds are closed by ideological agendas, by narrow private interests, and by the view that only conspiracy kooks dissent from official explanations. Dissent and protest are gradually being criminalized. The government does not succeed all at once, but gradually step by step.
Before too long we will have to believe the most fantastic stories or be arrested. That is the path that both government and ideologues have us on.
Peter Koenig has a clear vision of Charlie Hebdo and where it is taking us. His case is certainly logically superior to the official case supported by William Kristol and Luke Brinker that defending free speech means shutting down dissenting opinion. (According to my French correspondents, Koenig failed to apply his skepticism of the Charlie Hebdo affair to the vastly over-reported size of the demonstrations.)http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40797.htm
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This write up covers several very important issues, as usual for the free-thinker PCR. But, I highlight one sentence: “The lack of accountability, which followed the last financial crash, and the declaration of financial institutions being too big to fail, and thus are carried on the nation’s budget or the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, also make clear that it is impossible to trust old age security to an unaccountable financial system.”
Yes, the US financial robber system is unaccountable (it is governed by the captured regulators and by totally unenforceable accounting rules) and it wants to spread over the Global Financial System. The US financial robber system has three types of victims in its site:
1) US retirees,
2) future US taxpayers (children), and
3) foreign country finances (in essence, foreign retirees and current and future taxpayers).
And as PCR says: everything is more-or-less connected!
Another perceptive article by PCR. The idea of countervailing power is what guided the Founding Fathers when they designed the Constitution at Philadelphia. Congress vs. Executive vs. Supreme Court, states vs. federal government. This wise system is now breaking down as we lurch toward tyranny.
But as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, the people have the ultimate right “to alter or abolish” the government itself! What other nation at its very founding declared that the people had the sovereign right to abolish it? We are now being faced with that possible necessity. Most of the people, as always, will support Big Brother, as the collaborators did in France during WWII.
Only a few, such as Dr. Roberts, will dare speak out, though jackals yap at his heels.
Were it in my power and if it still meant anything, I would nominate Dr. Roberts for the Nobel Peace Prize.
post Paris attack and free speech:
In this recent development Jews in France are now demanding even more censorship of free speech, this time about further censoring the internet and free speech on the ‘holocaust’ storyline.
see here:
http://freetheinternetfromdenial.wesign.it/en
Is this what the claimed “most documented event in history” requires? Or perhaps a little rational, scientific snooping has made the narrative unmanageable without suppression of free speech.
discussion here:
http://forum.codoh.com
Charlie who? Charlie what?
Je Suis Revisionniste
Jonnie, when are you going to give it a rest? You’re spamming your nonsense from one end of Unz.com to another. Ron Unz himself asked you to stop — you don’t work and play well with others, do you?
Vouz avez une tête de merde.
WTF are you talking about, stalking hasbara troll?
Unz knows the score, quit sucking up to him, troll.
It is you who is spamming this site.
Now that your record of crime is online, how’s that going for you, criminal? On probation? Served your time?
Vous êtes fou!
Only desperate supremacist Jews try to suppress free speech.
Of course we know why you want to distract from debate:
Here are examples, demolition of the Andrew Mathis first:
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2816
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2841
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2499
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=267
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=254
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2498
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=1526
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=280
See Sergey Romanov, implode here:
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=481
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=3354
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3525
for Roberto Muehlenkamp, aka ‘Cortavagatas’ see:
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=3706
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=4600
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=3703
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=224
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=420
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=88
This is too easy!
Are you kidding? All I want is a shot at Jonnie “Hannover” Hargis is a forum he doesn’t control. He won’t because he’s a big girl’s blouse. And you people that congregate around him are even more pathetic.
What is very clear from causal perusal of the CODOH forum is that Andy Mathis said whatever he wanted, but was soundly trounced in debate. He just can’t handle it. His problem.
Anyone can check that forum and see for themselves. Mathis is making a fool of himself with this curious obsession he has with this phantom ‘Jonnie’. Utterly bizarre.
But then again he is a typical hasbara troll. Those at this site are very familiar with those types.
Apologies to this site, but Andrew Mathis has physically threatened Revisionists, called their place of work to demand they be fired, stalked them, posted their phone nos., pictures, and addresses online in a wanted poster type arrangement. All this has been documented, the proof of such activities is in hand. There are many who can vouch for that.
This what those who demand free speech must suffer through.
Je Suis Revisionniste
And anyone here can simply click on my name and read the links about CODOH and about the refusal of the moderator at the forum there, Jonnie “Hannover” Hargis, to debate outside of the very forum he moderates. Of course he “won” under those terms. I’d win every hand at poker if I had an extra deck of cards up my sleeve.
Bottom line: Holocaust deniers are liars.
If unstable hasbara Zionist Andrew Mathis had facts on his side he would not threaten Revisionists with harm. Mathis is obsessed with and apparently owned by this phantom “moderator Jonnie/Hannover”. Think about it, it’s just downright creepy, and illegal.
Not a single on-topic sentence from Andrew Mathis has ever been deleted, banned, or censored. But seriously, Unz Review folks, should any forum allow a dangerous obsessive like Andrew Mathis to:
– physically threaten it’s participants
– to posts pictures & addresses of participants
– to call participants workplaces demanding they be fired
– to stalk forum participants
– to harass participants by phone
Would Ron Unz allow such vile behavior? I think not.
Andrew Mathis even threatened to turn Revisionists over to the FBI & CIA for using pseudonyms. Yes, he is a truly unstable little man. A Napoleon complex perhaps.
BTW, all that I have stated is documented and the evidence has been carefully gathered by numerous Revisionists.
I invite anyone to review what Andrew Mathis has posted at forum.codoh.com and witness for themselves how his absurd arguments have been demolished. Just go there and look, very simple. I gave some links above.
It’s not just Mathis who has posted there and been spanked, but countless others who have had complete freedom to make their points. Again, see for yourself. All views are available to read.
I invite anyone here to register at the codoh forum and ask questions, give your views, and let the views flow. There are basic, no name calling guidelines … which Andrew Mathis agreed to when he registered.
What is Andrew Mathis all about? Simple, he sees that the ‘holocaust’ storyline is crumbling under the weight of Revisionist research and is desperate to attack the messengers. He is not about truth, he’s a dangerous little man who wants to suppress free speech & free inquiry into the ‘holocaust’ narrative at the expense truth and freedom.
Thanks.
This is the last comment I’m going to make on this topic.
>If unstable hasbara Zionist Andrew Mathis had facts on his side he would not threaten Revisionists with harm. Mathis is obsessed with and apparently owned by this phantom “moderator Jonnie/Hannover”. Think about it, it’s just downright creepy, and illegal.
Illegal? Really?
I’ve already presented proof of who Jonnie “Hannover” Hargis is:
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-jonnie-hargis-is-pathetic-and.html
Also see LGF link below.
>Not a single on-topic sentence from Andrew Mathis has ever been deleted, banned, or censored.
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/02/codoh-forum-that-moderated-itself-to.html
>But seriously, Unz Review folks, should any forum allow a dangerous obsessive like Andrew Mathis to:
– physically threaten it’s participants
Never done this.
>- to posts pictures & addresses of participants
Same was done to me. Suck it up, Nancy.
>- to call participants workplaces demanding they be fired
Called? Yes. Demanding a firing? No. See:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/251521_Largest_Holocaust_denial_forum
>- to stalk forum participants
>- to harass participants by phone
Nope and nope.
>Would Ron Unz allow such vile behavior? I think not.
>Andrew Mathis even threatened to turn Revisionists over to the FBI & CIA for using pseudonyms. Yes, he is a truly unstable little man. A Napoleon complex perhaps.
Wow. You’re freaking delusional. I never did these things. I’m also taller than you, Jonnie, so back that one up, pal.
>BTW, all that I have stated is documented and the evidence has been carefully gathered by numerous Revisionists.
If you had any evidence whatsoever for what you allege, you’d have filed charges years ago.
>I invite anyone to review what Andrew Mathis has posted at forum.codoh.com and witness for themselves how his absurd arguments have been demolished. Just go there and look, very simple. I gave some links above.
See above link from HC blog.
>It’s not just Mathis who has posted there and been spanked, but countless others who have had complete freedom to make their points. Again, see for yourself. All views are available to read.
Ditto.
>I invite anyone here to register at the codoh forum and ask questions, give your views, and let the views flow. There are basic, no name calling guidelines … which Andrew Mathis agreed to when he registered.
>What is Andrew Mathis all about? Simple, he sees that the ‘holocaust’ storyline is crumbling under the weight of Revisionist research and is desperate to attack the messengers. He is not about truth, he’s a dangerous little man who wants to suppress free speech & free inquiry into the ‘holocaust’ narrative at the expense truth and freedom.
Sigh.
I already posted evidence of deleted threads above. I’ve made my point.
It would be one thing if Jonnie Hargis merely moderated the CODOH forum, rigged the debates in his favor, and let well enough be. Rather, what he did was do these things and then (probably because he actually believes it, which is super-mega-pathetic) brag publicly about winning. He was too God-damned stupid to hide his identity, so he baited people sufficiently and got himself dox’ed. Boo-hoo. I was dox’ed 20 years ago. Deal with it, Alice.
All I’ve *EVER* asked is a chance to debate Hargis in a neutral forum. That he won’t do so is proof of the bankruptcy of his position.
That’s all I’ve got to say. Mathis out.
Threats, physical and otherwise, stalking, incitement to violence against Revisionists, repeated harassment, on & on.
Yes, they are very illegal. But that’s what the hasbara trolls do on regular basis. That’s how they roll.
I apologize to Unz readers, but it was Andrew Mathis who dragged this topic into the sewer. I merely responded to the Charlie Hebdo hypocrisy with important news about the move to further censor the internet, please check this thread. I simply want on open environment for Revisionist research and hope to expose the double standard evidenced in France.
Thanks.
If it can’t happen as alleged, then it didn’t.
Je Suis Revisionniste
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/29/politics/mccain-boots-low-life-scum-from-hearing/index.html
Terrorist hugging bonker McCain is very unhappy with the protests at war criminal Kissinger.He loves protests when it takes place in Iran,Syria,Russia and Caracass.and against Putin or Basher . Theose foreigners are hero in America but these Americans are ” low life scum” in the rampart of the shining city on the hill!
It’s perfectly reasonable to question the events in France. “…Of course, we don’t have proof one way or the other…” Actually we do. If you shoot someone in the head from roughly three feet away with any caliber assault rifle it will make a mess.That there was no blood shows the whole thing to be a farce.
Oh and for the Hasbara who want to pipe up about using FMJ rounds please look up hydrostatic shock first.
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/declaring-supporter-urinates/comment-page-1#comment-743001
From France to Canada ,only a few thousands mile and already dementia has gripped the leaders of the free world .
http://www.timesofisrael.com/german-judge-rules-anti-zionism-is-code-for-anti-semitism/
German has its own method of framing the context,spice with details,color the petspective .Despite concerted efforts,it fails. So it throws in the towel and picks up the hammer to strike at the puny nail . Zionism is antisemitism and the demonstrators go to jail! . See how despite all those audacious claims of expression of racial hatred none is used or alluded to .