Anti-Racists Should Think Twice about Allying with Socialism

From FEE.org (Nov. 14):

To start with, it is important to note that the meaning of the word “race” changed over time. Today, most people think of races in terms of color, as in “black” and “white.” Historically, however, race was also a synonym for a nation or, even, a family. In his 1933 book, Marlborough: His Life and Times, Winston Churchill noted: “Deep in the heart of the Prussian state and race lay the antagonism to France.” The English artist Mary Granville, in turn, referred to Churchill’s family as the “Marlborough race” in her 1861 book, Autobiography and Correspondence.

But race, whether narrowly (black and white) or broadly (skin color, nation, and family) understood, was always a part of socialist thought. In 1894, for example, Friedrich Engels wrote a letter to the German economist Walther Borgius. In it, Engels noted, “We regard economic conditions as that which ultimately determines historical development, but race is in itself an economic factor.”

In his 1877 Notes to Anti-Dühring, Engels elaborated on the subject of race, observing “that the inheritance of acquired characteristics extended … from the individual to the species.” He went on, “If, for instance, among us mathematical axioms seem self-evident to every eight-year-old child and in no need of proof from evidence that is solely the result of ‘accumulated inheritance.’ It would be difficult to teach them by proof to a bushman or to an Australian Negro.”

It is noteworthy that Engels wrote those words 16 years before Francis Galton, writing in Macmillan’s Magazine, urged humanity to take control of its own evolution by means of “good breeding” or eugenics. Speaking of which, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who were both socialists and eugenicists, bemoaned the falling birthrates among so-called higher races in the New Statesman in 1913. They warned that “a new social order [would be] developed by one or other of the colored races, the Negro, the Kaffir or the Chinese”.

Che Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary and friend of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, offered his views on race in his 1952 memoir The Motorcycle Diaries, writing, “The Negro is indolent and lazy and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.”

Socialists Are Historically Pro-Genocide

In addition to racism, early socialist writings contained explicit calls for genocide of backward peoples. The toxic mix of those two illiberal ideas would result in at least 80 million deaths during the course of the 20th century.

In the New York Tribune in 1853, Karl Marx came close to advocating genocide, writing, “The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.” His friend and collaborator, Engels, was more explicit.

In 1849, Engels published an article in Marx’s newspaper, Neue Rheinische Zeitung. In it, Engels condemned the rural populations of the Austrian Empire for failing enthusiastically to partake in the revolution of 1848. This was a seminal moment, the importance of which cannot be overstated.

“From Engels' article in 1849 down to the death of Hitler,” George Watson wrote in his 1998 book The Lost Literature of Socialism, “everyone who advocated genocide called himself a socialist.”

…………………

Adolf Hitler, who admired Stalin for his ruthlessness and called him a “genius,” was also heavily influenced by Marx. “I have learned a great deal from Marxism,” Hitler said, “as I do not hesitate to admit.” Throughout his youth, Hitler “never shunned the company of Marxists” and believed that while the “petit bourgeois Social Democrat … will never make a National Socialist … the Communist always will.”

The Strange Separation of "Race Hate" and "Class Struggle"

The Marxist theory of history focused on class struggle and posited that feudalism was destined to be superseded by capitalism. Capitalism, in turn, was destined to give way to communism. Marx saw himself chiefly as a scientist and thought that he had discovered an immutable law of evolution of human institutions, from barbarism at the one end to communism at the other end. (Hence the idea of “scientific socialism” that Engels promoted after Marx’s death.)

Peoples stuck in feudalism, like the Slavs, “as well as Basques, Bretons and Scottish Highlanders”, could not progress straight from feudalism to communism. They would have to be exterminated – so as not to keep everyone else back! Watson noted, “They were racial trash, as Engels called them, and fit only for the dung-heap of history.”  [read more]

A very enlightening article but not surprising.

Other articles about socialism from FEE.org:

• Millennials Get It Wrong about Socialism
• There Is Nothing Green about Socialism
• Central Planning Ignores the Needs of Women

New Brain Technologies Could Lead to Terrifying Invasions of Privacy, Warn Scientists

From Gizmodo.com (Nov. 9):

Imagine for a minute that you survive a terrible accident, and lose function of your right arm. You receive a brain implant able to interpret your brain’s neural activity and reroute commands to a robotic arm. Then one day, someone hacks that chip, sending malicious commands to the robotic arm. It’s a biological invasion of privacy in which you are suddenly no longer in control.

A future in which we can simply download karate skills a la The Matrix or use computers to restore functionality to damaged limbs seems like the stuff of a far-off future, but that future is inching closer to the present with each passing day. Early research has had success using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to move prosthetic limbs and treat mental illness. DARPA is exploring how to use the technology to make soldiers learn faster. Companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink want to use it to read your mind. Already, researchers can interpret basic information about what a person is thinking simply by reading scans of their brain activity from an fMRI.

As incredible as the potential of these technologies are, they also present serious ethical conundrums that could one day compromise our privacy, identity, agency, and equality. In an essay published Thursday in Nature, a group of 27 neuroscientists, neurotechnologists, clinicians, ethicists and machine-intelligence engineers spell out their concerns.

“We are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions; where individuals could communicate with others simply by thinking; and where powerful computational systems linked directly to people’s brains aid their interactions with the world such that their mental and physical abilities are greatly enhanced,” the researchers write.

This, they claim, will mean remarkable power to change the human experience for the better. But such technology may also come with tradeoffs that are hard to swallow.

………………………..

A few years ago, in a move that at the time seemed rooted in incredible paranoia, former Vice President Dick Cheney opted to remove the wireless functionality of his pacemaker, fearing a hack. It turned out he was instead incredibly prescient. This year, a report found pacemakers are vulnerable to literally thousands of bugs. Last year, Johnson & Johnson warned diabetic patients about a defect in one of its insulin pumps that could also theoretically allow an attack.  [read more]

Fascinating, yet scary. May you live in interesting times as the saying (curse?) goes.

Mysterious explosive zombie star refuses to stay dead

From CNET.com (Nov. 8):

Stars usually die in a flash (literally), but astronomers have found a mysterious specimen that keeps exploding and exploding.

"This supernova breaks everything we thought we knew about how they work," Iair Arcavi said in a statement. Arcavi is a NASA Einstein postdoctoral fellow at California's Las Cumbres Observatory. "It's the biggest puzzle I've encountered in almost a decade of studying stellar explosions."   

An Arcavi-led study on the zombie supernova appeared Wednesday in the journal Nature.

At the end of their lives, most large stars collapse into black holes or go out with a big bang in a supernova explosion that burns bright but then fades quickly, usually after just a few months. So it's very weird that a supernova named iPTF14hls appears to have exploded 50 years ago only to survive and start exploding again in 2014. In fact the ongoing explosion, or the remnants of it, can still be seen today. [read more]

That is strange. It’s almost like some stellar or gas debris is feeding it so it can explode again.

Merry Christmas!

There's an elaborate nativity scene in Cathedral Square in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It depicts everything from the baby Jesus to the three wise men and a collection of animals, including sheep and a camel. Researchers at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) have now rendered that scene in nanoscale proportions and nicknamed the project NanoJesus.

The team behind the nano-nativity says it's the world's smallest, and they've submitted it to Guinness World Records for certification. The scene is 10,000 times smaller than the real-world nativity it's based on.

The entire nativity could sit on a human eyelash, and the baby Jesus is smaller than a human cell. [read more from CNET.com]

Cool!

An Invitation to Touch the Skin of Infinite God

This time of year adds a completely new dimension to the miracle of childbirth. Long ago in a quiet, crude place where animals sleep, Mary reached down and felt the soft, human skin of infinite God.

The humanity of this scene pulls us in for a closer look. We can identify with Joseph’s amazement, Mary’s wonder, and the irony of God’s quiet arrival in such an inhospitable world…all of those thoughts are magnificent to ponder. But we cannot stop there. These are only an entrance to wonders far more significant. Just beneath the soft, newborn skin of this beautiful story is the flesh and bone of a theological truth. [read more from dts.edu]

------------------

Fact 1: God is knowable and has made himself known.
Fact 2: God reveals himself through various means.
Fact 3: Scripture is true in all it affirms.
Fact 4: Jesus Christ is the center and goal of Scripture.
Fact 5: The goal of theology is transformation – not just information.

Education Is the State's Greatest Tool for Propaganda

From FEE.org:

In chapter 10 of The Road to Serfdom, Hayek describes how some of the worst people always end up rising to the top of the political heap. Continuing to touch on this theme in the eleventh chapter, Hayek digs even deeper and discusses the control of information and the very basis of truth in a planned society.

In a society where totalitarianism reigns, truth is found not in objective principles, but in a government’s desired ends. Once these ends have been established, all other forms of information are tailored to reinforce that “truth.” Reason is henceforth thrown out the window and the state’s version of truth is beyond contestation. As George Orwell wrote:

Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. ... The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, “It never happened” – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs.

But this on its own is not enough to sway entire nations. Instead of the people merely accepting these “truths” it is important that the state convince them that these truths are their own. When individuals begin to tie their interests to the state’s interests a terrifying unity occurs, the likes of which can be seen in almost every deceptive dictatorship throughout history.

As Hayek says:

The most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends. It is essential that the people should come to regard them as their own ends.”

In order to do this, all propaganda is orchestrated to reinforce these ends in order to push individuals in the desired direction. Common themes and slogans are repeated over and over again in order beat these goals into the minds of the people. Anything contrary to the end goal must be squashed immediately. Anyone speaking out against them must too be destroyed in the name of national security. As Hayek says, “But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced.”

And while most people associate propaganda with political posters and multimedia, there is no greater tool for propaganda than a nation’s education system.

State-Controlled Education

No matter how intelligent an individual may be, almost every person is susceptible to propaganda. This is because, in many instances, most are unaware that they are falling prey to it. It seeps into our lives through all forms of entertainment but most especially through state-sponsored education.

In Nazi Germany, indoctrinating the youth was one of the easiest ways to ensure the fervent support of future generations. Adolf Hitler himself said, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” Children were forced into youth groups where their role in the Third Reich was reinforced continually. Germany even tailored toys, games, and books towards the desired ends of the Reich, ensuring that children would believe whatever they wanted them to believe.  [read more]

The above is why free public education is one of the planks of Communism.  

How the Electoral College Helps Protect Against Voter Fraud

From Daily Signal.com (October 26):

“Our new Constitution is now established,” Benjamin Franklin wrote to a French physicist in 1789, “and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Perhaps Franklin should have added one more item to his list of certainties: dishonest people will always exist—and they will always cheat. It’s part of the human condition.

Unfortunately, no election system can turn dishonest people into honest ones. Where people are vying for power, there will always be motivation for fraud. The best that an election system can do is to throw up as many hurdles as possible to dishonesty and to minimize its effects.

The Electoral College accomplishes both of these goals far better than a direct national election can.

With the Electoral College in place, an election cannot be stolen unless a few factors come together simultaneously.

First, at the national level, the election needs to be close enough that altering the results in only one or two states would change the outcome.

Second, the margins in those contested states must also be very close. Such elections are fairly rare. The election of 2000 was one such election: Florida could have changed the outcome, and the margin in that state was vanishingly small.

The election of 1960 was another: Both Texas and Illinois had narrow margins—they could have flipped the election to Richard Nixon. Most elections are won by wider margins.

A third criterion may be the hardest to meet. Assuming the election is close, dishonest actors must be able to predict which state (or states) will be close enough to influence the final results.

This is harder than it sounds. In 2000, no one could have known in advance that a few hundred stolen votes in Florida could change the election outcome.

In fact, if the media had not called the state for Al Gore too early—before polls closed in the Republican-leaning panhandle—the result might not have been so narrow. [read more]

NASA’s Next Mars Rover Is Going to Be Seriously Badass

From Gizmodo.com (Nov. 2):

Should all go according to plan, NASA will launch its next Martian rover in July 2020. The robotic probe is still under construction, but early signs are that the next-gen rover will be equipped with an impressive assortment of high-tech gadgets.

The rover is currently under construction at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and doesn’t have a name yet aside from “Mars 2020.” Like its predecessors, the future rover will scour the Red Planet for signs of previous habitability, and conduct scientific analyses of Mars’ geology, atmosphere, and other natural phenomena. But unlike those rovers that came before it, this one has a few more tricks up its metallic sleeve.

As NASA announced earlier this week, the probe will be equipped with no less than 23 different cameras. That’s 13 more than Spirit and Opportunity, and six more than Curiosity. Of its 23 cameras, nine will be dedicated to engineering tasks, seven to science, and another seven for tracking the probe’s entry, descent, and landing. These “eyes” will allow the probe to create sweeping panoramas, uncover obstacles, and study Mars in exquisite detail. Importantly, these cameras will work in tandem with the many scientific instruments onboard.

During its descent, cameras will snap photos of the parachute unfurling and as it slowly drifts down onto the planet’s red-stained surface. Once it’s out-and-about, an internal camera will peer closely at rock samples. When it’s done playing lab technician, the robot will “cache” the samples and deposit them onto the rocky surface for a future mission to collect (yes, this robot is going to be a litterbug). [read more]

The Mars Rover will also have sensors on it like X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to examine Martian surface materials and and “even a Mars Helicopter Scout (HMS)—a two pound solar powered drone that would buzz above the rover, helping it to select future exploration targets.” Sounds pretty cool.

AI Can Never Be Made “Unbiased”

Commentary by Bill Frezza on FEE.org (Nov. 7):

This month’s issue of MIT Technology Review, my alma mater’s flagship magazine of technology fashion, is entirely devoted to Artificial Intelligence (AI), making the rounds for at least the third time in my career as both panacea and bogeyman. Sprinkled among the long form articles are colorful little one-page warnings with titles like “The Dangers of Tech-Bro AI” and “How to Root Out Hidden Biases in AI.” In addition to the timeless fear of losing our jobs to machines, these pieces argue that right-thinking people must be on the lookout for algorithms that generate unfairness, demanding instead that our AI behave ethically.

Grab the popcorn, this should be fun to watch.

Ethics Are Not, and Never Have Been, Absolute

History shows that people can be made to believe that all sorts of things are ethical, recoiling in horror over things that other people consider ethical. Our tribal nature renders us vulnerable to the will of the leader, or the mob, doing things in groups that we would never consider doing individually. We also have a proven track record of embracing logical contradictions, using post hoc rationalization to justify decisions as it suits us.

……………………………

So next time you hear an expert demand that we develop ethical AI, ask who will be the arbiter of what constitutes correct and incorrect ethics? And once they solve the ancient problem of who watches the watchmen (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?), exactly how do they plan to translate their demands for “fairness” into code? Sure, software is capable of dealing with uncertainty, incomplete knowledge, and complex conditional circumstances. It can even use fuzzy logic to solve certain classes of problems. But be careful what you ask for when you feed murky definitions into a computer while expecting it to embrace blatant contradictions.

Ambiguity Abounds

Let me give an example of a murky definition. Define race, ethnicity, and, these days, gender in a manner that a computer can use as the basis for making ethical decisions. How many races are there? How do we classify mixed-race people? What are the unambiguous determinants of ethnicity? Which are the privileged ones and which are the underprivileged ones? And while I used to believe there were only two genders and that these were biologically determined, I am now assured that I am wrong.

…………………………….

Then there is the problem of embracing contradictions; that is, simultaneously believing that something can be A and not-A at the same time, and in all respects. Admit it: we do it all the time. It makes us human. Even doctrinaire Aristotelians like Ayn Rand fall into this trap. The dynamic tension generated by the contradictions swirling in our heads provides rich fodder for religion, humor, art, drama, and macroeconomics.

Imagining an “ethical” AI trying to please its human masters operating under these conditions brings up images of Captain Kirk outsmarting evil computers by forcing them to perseverate on some glaring contradiction at the root of their programming. The computers ended up smoking until they blew themselves up. Unlike the guy who tried to outsmart his fellow citizens by rubbing their noses in their contradictions. They made him drink hemlock.

Do I have an answer to how we can make AI unbiased? Of course not. And neither do the self-appointed experts demanding that we do. Long-haul truck drivers may well be at risk of losing their jobs to AI, but tendentious pundits and class-action lawyers will never be short of work. [read more]

The reader could imagine a scenario where an extreme animal-rights programmer of a driverless car having a car sacrifice a person instead of hitting a wild animal. This could be deadly situation especially if you are driving on a mountain road. Ideology can influence ethics.

Why Bernie Sanders' Single Payer Health Care Plan Is a Total Disaster

From Heritage.org (Sept. 14):

Americans face a stark choice on what their health care will look like in the future.

They can adopt a government-run health-care system, financed by new and heavy federal taxation, with federal officials making all the key decisions about medical benefits and services. Or, they can adopt a system in which individuals control health-care dollars and decisions, including the kinds of health plans, benefits and treatments that best suit their needs.

Option one, commonly referred to as a “single payer system,” makes health care a government monopoly. Option two, based on personal choice, relies on voluntary collaboration and competition among plans and providers to control health care costs.

Today, we have neither.

What we have is a highly bureaucratic system: one in which the government controls financing for roughly half of U.S. health care; one in which personal choice and competition are rapidly declining; one in which the health-care costs are excessive. Additionally, federal officials are exercising detailed regulatory control over health plans, benefits and even the practice of medicine itself.

…………………………………

Sen. Bernie Sanders, with the cosponsorship of sixteen Senate Democrats, has decided to give the current drift to a government monopoly a giant shove by introducing “The Medicare for All Act of 2017.” The bill would replace private health insurance, including employer-sponsored health insurance, with a new and expanded version of the traditional Medicare program.

…………………………

Economists and health-policy specialists will spend the next few weeks and months analyzing Sanders’ bill. At the end of that process, we should have a pretty clear idea of how this particular proposal will affect doctors, patients and taxpayers.

But we can already predict some of the economic consequences, at least in general terms. That’s because imposition of a government health-care monopoly—be it in the form of the Medicare fee-for-service system, the British National Health Service or the Canadian health system—has certain economic features in common.

First, such a system will rely on broad-based taxation, usually in the form of some sort of payroll tax. For example, liberals in Colorado pushed a single-payer initiative in 2016 to be financed by a 10 percent payroll tax, but it failed at the ballot box. Sen. Sanders has proposed a number of “options” to finance his proposal: a 7.5 percent payroll tax on employers, plus a 4 percent “income-based premium” on all Americans, the elimination of the tax breaks on employer-sponsored health insurance, and a series of new taxes on the wealthy.   

Last year, Sanders proposed a more modest 6.2 percent employer payroll tax, plus a 2.2 percent universal income tax, as new taxes on “the rich.” A 2016 analysis of that proposal by Emory University Professor Kenneth Thorpe concluded:

The new tax burden would vary dramatically by income. Low-income working families would pay 2.2 percent of taxable income and face a 6.2 percent reduction in wages traced to the employer payroll tax. Individuals and families earning over $250,000 would face a 40 percent increase in taxes to finance the plan and pay for most of the new costs of the plan.

……………………

Congressional liberals have a clear vision of health care. They know just where they want to take America. Their agenda is based on is heavier taxation, higher federal spending, larger government programs and ever greater government control over the economy.

Congressional conservatives need to offer America something better: a positive vision of health reform based on personal freedom, choice and voluntary collaboration. They need to get back to work, and back in the game.  [read more]

In other words what the Left wants to do is from the same old playbook: Big gov’t spending. That’s all they know. It’s like a reflex.

Why Democrats Are Obsessed With Wealth Inequality

From Daily Signal.com (Oct. 31):

Material inequality is the predominant concern of the Democratic Party. Indeed, material inequality has been the predominant concern of the left since Karl Marx.

This raises two questions:

How important is material inequality?

And if it is not that important, why does it preoccupy the left-wing mind?

The answer to the first question is: It depends.

It depends, first of all, on the economic status of the poorer members of the society.

If the bottom percentile society has its basic material needs met, then the existence of a big gap between its members and the wealthiest members of the society is not a moral problem.

But if the members of the bottom rung of society are in such an impoverished state that their basic material needs are not met, and yet there is a supremely wealthy class in the same society, then the suffering of its poorest class renders that society’s inequality a moral problem.

And what most matters in both cases is whether the wealthiest class has attained its wealth honestly or corruptly. If the wealthy have attained their wealth morally and legally, then the income gap is not a moral problem.

In a free society, wealth is not a pie—meaning that when a slice of pie is removed, there is less of the pie remaining. And the poorer members of society have the ability to improve their economic lot.

Through hard work, self-discipline, marriage, and education—and with some degree of good luck—the poor can join the middle class and even the wealthy class.

The latter is generally the case in America. Unlike in most societies, for most Americans being poor is not a fate. The only time being poor becomes permanent is when noneconomic factors render it so.

…………………..

So, why is the left preoccupied with inequality in a society in which most poor people have the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty?

Because of its class-based materialist ideology.

Because seeing some people own luxury vehicles, multiple homes, and even private jets while others live in small apartments feels wrong to the left—and leftism is based on feelings.

Because it prefers that the state, not the individual citizen, has as much wealth as possible.

And because when you don’t fight real evils (communism during the Cold War, and now Islamism, Russian expansion, Syria’s use of chemical weapons), you fight non-evils. And material inequality is non-evil.  [read more]

They are also obsessed with power.

Single-Payer Health Care Would Be Even Worse than Obamacare

From FEE.org (Nov. 3):

The late, great Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman said it best: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Friedman’s pithy proverb reminds us that there is also no “free health care.” It’s a timely reminder, as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is making a public push for his “Medicare for All” bill.

While liberals have long advocated “single-payer” systems for health care, what’s new this time is that they are coalescing around a plan. Sixteen Senate Democrats are co-sponsoring Sanders’ bill, and 120 Democrats in the House have signed on to a similar approach.

Free Care?

This latest push for “single-payer” features the provision of “free health care” at the point of service from doctors, hospitals, and all other medical institutions.

………………..

Last year, two separate analyses – one from the Urban Institute and another from professor Kenneth Thorpe at Emory University – outlined in dreadful detail the fiscal consequences of Sanders’ 2016 proposal.

Though the analysts differed on their assumptions and calculated conclusions based on different models, they both came to the same conclusion: The Sanders “single-payer” bill is going to cost the American people far more than the senator and his academic and congressional allies claim, and the taxes to finance this massive enterprise are going to be huge.

Loss of Freedom

There are other costs beyond the dollars and cents. As we have noted in a recent Heritage Foundation analysis of Sanders’ updated version of his bill, Americans would lose big chunks of their personal and economic freedom.

………………..

Sanders and his 16 Senate Democratic colleagues deserve applause for their refreshing honesty. They make no pretense whatsoever that you can keep your health plan, regardless of your personal wants, needs, or preferences. You don’t count.

Under the Sanders bill, almost all private health insurance would be outlawed, including your employment-based health coverage. Today, nearly 60 percent of working-age Americans get their health insurance through private, employer-based plans.

Likewise, persons enrolled in existing government health programs – Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program – would be absorbed into the new government health plan.  [read more]

And probably the Congress would be exempt from the Sanders bill.

Antifa Is Not Fighting For Freedom, But For Communist Revolution

From The Federalist.com (Nov. 1):

In the immediate aftermath of the Charlottesville violence, several prominent figures—including CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic—equated left-wing “Antifa” activists with the thousands of Allied soldiers who stormed Normandy’s beaches to invade Adolph Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” on D-Day.

A more appropriate equation would be with the thousands of soldiers in the Red Army, who brutally marched toward Berlin, where they would establish Soviet hegemony in the so-called German Democratic Republic after defeating Hitler.

………………….

Antifa Is Anti-West and Anti-Capitalist

Bernd Langer, whose “80 Years of Anti-Fascist Action” was published by Germany’s Association for the Promotion of Anti-Fascist Literature, succinctly defined the rhetorical subterfuge. “Anti-fascism is a strategy rather than an ideology,” wrote Langer, a former Antifa member, for “an anti-capitalist form of struggle.”

Short for the German phrase, “Antifaschistische Aktion,” Antifa served as the paramilitary arm of the German Communist Party (KPD), which the Soviet Union funded. In other words, Antifa became the German Communists’ version of the Nazis’ brown-shirted SA.

The KPD made no secret of Antifa’s affiliation. A 1932 photo of KPD headquarters in Berlin prominently displayed the double-flagged Antifa emblem among other Communist symbols and slogans. In a photo from the 1932 Unity Congress of Antifa in Berlin, the double-flagged banner shared space with the hammer and sickle and with two large cartoons. One supported the KPD, the other mocked the SPD, Germany’s Social Democratic Party.

Today’s Antifa embrace those roots. During February’s protest in Berkeley, masked Antifa agitators caused nearly $100,000 in damage by starting fires, breaking windows, assaulting bystanders with pepper spray and flagpoles, painting graffiti on nearby businesses, and destroying automatic teller machines. “Refuse Fascism,” the group organizing Saturday’s protests, is controlled by the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, which seeks to create a Marxist United States through violent revolution. [read more]

Radio talk show host Glenn Beck says Antifa is combination of anarchists, Communists and Socialists. In other words, basically the far-Left.

This artificial intelligence may start tracking you soon

From Fox News.com (Oct. 27)":

It’s already 1984 in China.

For the last year, the people of Hangzhou, China – a city of more than nine million – have had every moment of their lives tracked.

“City Brain,” an artificial intelligence system that interlinks with a city’s infrastructure was installed in October 2016, through a partnership with Alibaba and Foxconn.

In an effort to optimize Hangzhou and make urban life easier, the system tracked everything from robberies to traffic jams and learned the city’s unique patterns and needs.

Residents were also tracked through their activity on social media. Their commutes, purchases, interactions and movements were all learned and absorbed by the AI database.

“In China, people have less concern with privacy, which allows us to move faster,” Xian-Sheng Hua, an AI manager at Alibaba, said during a presentation at the World Summit AI meeting in early October.

And, according to New Scientist, the system works. [read more]

So, Big Brother is already in China? Not too surprising. That’s what usually happens in a totalitarian society. I wonder if the system is used to track down or monitor dissent? If not now, probably in the future. Well, the article did say residents were tracked on social media. So, there you go.