Some kudos to Die Welt for publishing the opinion piece by one of the rare remaining fighters for liberty in Germany, Henryk Broder.
Leading German politician Volker Kauder (photo) of the CDU party aims “to ban lies from the Internet” thus suggesting the establishment of a Ministry of Truth. Image cropped from volker-kauder.de/index.html, CDU.
With the stunning anti-establishment results coming from Brexit and the US presidential election, and the surging populist right wing parties across Europe, it is not an overstatement to say that the old continent’s established political class is in a state of sheer panic. And they are now reacting with disturbing proposals: policing the Internet for lies.
“Climate deniers” on trial?
Broder is now asking at Die Welt: “Are we getting a Ministry of Truth? Will ‘climate deniers’ be soon put on trial?”
The basis for the proposed Internet intervention is, of course, the claim that Internet users are too stupid to recognize “true” information and thus they unwittingly accept Russian “propaganda”, for example, as facts. Responsible for the distribution of false information are especially the large social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter – and so a clamp-down is necessary and overdue.
Leading politician Volker Kauder of Angela Merkel’s CDU party recently wrote in an opinion piece in Welt am Sonntag: “If the Internet continues to lie, then it’s over with freedom.”
Readers are free to interpret that sentence as they wish. I certainly would not take it lightly, however.
Government as keepers of the truth? “Wishful thinking”
First Broder calls Kauder’s belief that traditional news sources such as “governments, parties and associations” are neutral and doing a good job of informing the public as “wishful thinking” and he reminds readers that these elements too are also driven by their own self interests and commit the sins of “defaming critics, spreading untruths and distorting reality”.
A major target of Internet control are “climate deniers“. Broder writes:
The use of the term “climate denier’ is a nice example for this type of demagogic self-appraisal. It sounds similar to ‘Holocaust denier’ and suggests the affirmation of a crime against humanity; when in fact no one denies there is climate and that it changes – as it has for millions of years.
The question that remains is what is man’s share and whether the travelling Climate Conference circus can agree on an end to climate change. Just asking that question today is heresy.”
Broder then criticizes Kauder’s statement that “criticism is a part of democracy, even when it’s harsh and caustic, but that it must not be ‘vulgar’“, and asks who shall judge what is what?
I have a suspicion. Could it be that the vulgarity of the citizens results from the feeling that they are being screwed and deceived by politicians, if I may express this in vulgar terms? Is it possible that this feeling may not be without justification?”
Flipside of the contempt shown by the elites
German politicians such as Kauder also are lashing out at the brutalization witnessed in the public discourse, especially in the Internet. However Broder argues that it is simply the flipside of the contempt shown by politicians, citing German Green party honcho Claudia Roth who insulted protesters directly to their face at a rally in Dresden earlier this year. Broder writes that Roth ought not be surprised when protesters angrily shouted “piss off” in response.
Now Kauder is calling for a body of laws for regulating the Internet, claiming that that the discussion has gone on long enough. He openly proposes fines for site operators who spread “lies”.
Banning lies would mean banning the occupation of politician
In summary Broder thinks it all smacks of “megalomania” and that what Kauder proposes sounds like “more surveillance, more state, more protection for politicians and fewer rights for citizens“.
Broder warns of the dangers of arbitrarily determining what is a lie, and what isn’t. Will claims that the refugee and euro policies are a failure and that the German Energiewende will crash and burn qualify as lies too and thus be subject to punishment?
Broder then brings up the subject of politicians and their habit of constantly telling lies:
And if the government plans to ban all lies, then won’t it mean a de facto ban for the occupation of politician?”
Clearly politicians such as Kauder have not thought this out at all. We suspect what is driving the latest political initiative is not the lies that are circulating in the Internet, but rather the inconvenient truths they don’t want us to see. Ultimately George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth was in fact “The Ministry of Public Deception.”
History shows it’s a bad idea
Too often societies have been burned in history by those who claimed to be the keepers of the truth. Yet everyone knows that anyone making that dubious claim is very likely an outright liar, and is in fact just the desparate loser in the forum of open public debate.
Germany’s mainstream politics are looking more and more dangerous by the day (if I may be so vulgar). Little wonder that neglected and insulted voters are finding “alternatives” increasingly attractive.
Earlier in the year I published:
“Denier Pride”
Can be Googled
So you are “Fake and vulgar” now, I see. Now you just need a little jackbooted character up there, with “AGW” (and lightning bolts, of course) insignia, pointing sternly to the “Fake and vulgar” and tapping his foot. And maybe with an officer’s cap with “AMF” on it (for “Arbeit Macht Frei”). Keep up the good work; they can’t kill us all.
You are right when you say they can’t kill us all. However governments managed to murder over 200 million of their own citizens in the 20th century alone:
http://reason.com/archives/2014/05/15/be-antigovernment-and-proud
One wonders if the latest meme of the US losercrats about “fake news” isn’t all a part of an organized effort to gain control of communication by the obviously well-organized and well-funded globalists.
Of course it is.
THEY are the ones that will decide which FAKE news is publish, and which REAL news is hidden from the public.
“If you want to keep your doctor, you can.”
“The cost of your health insurance will go down.”
“The sea will stop rising.”
“The cost of energy will skyrocket.”
One of the above is true.
Volker Kauder is as dumb as a stump.
This last one fits the second part of this:
“False eloquence is exaggeration;
true eloquence is emphasis.” [William R. Alger]
“One of the above is true.” – J.F.H.
LOL. And it’s the only one they can’t screw up, because they have no control of it.
It occurred to me recently that we climate realists should have taken up the use of “Climate Deniers” at least ten years ago, to use on the alarmists.
I recall, distinctly, that the Hockey Stick assumed a steady temperature from 1000AD onwards (they didn’t dare go further back) until recent decades when, of course, a dramatic rise in temps was “clear” in the signal.
To make the Hokey Stick work, the alarmists had to ignore the Mediaeval Warm Period (and never acknowledge the Roman Warm Period, just in the last 2000 years) and also to deny the Little Ice Age. Goodness knows what the warmists would have said if forced to confront the last Ice Age, and the warming which ended it.
Who, then, are the Deniers?
I proposed a few years ago to use ‘climate deniers’ as a so called ‘nom des gueux’, referring to the water beggars in the sixteenth century in my country. What are water beggars? You have to know the history to understand this. The two words here are ideal as a nom des gueux because they sound so obviously absurd. It sounds like water deniers. Every reasonable person will wonder in the future what climate deniers were denying. ‘Climate’ has become after a number of other verbal tricks the name of a big pile of lies as employed by the climate swindlers, to be explained in our history books.
In my ongoing research for the reason for the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the CDU. and here their goon Kauder, I would offer this explanation:
CDU is on the prog-soc side (of the chasm in the Deep State), on the side of the Clinton machine, of Obama, of Catholics In Action.
THis side has LOST the battle in USA.
How SMART is this side?
Well they tried it with HILLARY as a candidate, with a granny with advanced Parkinson. THAT TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEM.
I mean they had hundreds of thousands of corrupt puppets to choose from and they chose CLINTON.
The conclusion is: The side of the Clinton machine is NOT smart. And it will continue losing.
More about the idea of the CDU to outlaw all freedom of opinion on the Internet (that is what Kauder says, “And it’S OVER WITH FREEDOM”).
a) CDU members do not understand the tiniest bit (pun intended) of information theory or computer technology. He literally does not know what he is talking about.
b) They probably think striking a name off the usual DNS servers makes the content go away.
c) Or even sillier, prevent Google from listing a server.
d) Their attempt of wiping out all non-aligned opinion will make them look as stupid and tyrannical as they are.
e) It will bind all their resources.
f) Driving something underground increases the price of it.
g) When the price of a good rises, SUPPLY RISES.
You will see a huge mass die-off of newspapers as people SCRAMBLE to get the hot exciting underground news.
Correction, point c) reads wrong:
c) Or even sillier, that preventing Google from listing a server makes the content go away.
The fake news are real. Just look at the latest false claim about Künast:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/kampf-gegen-fake-news-kuenast-stellt-strafanzeige-wegen-falschnachricht-auf-facebook-14568472.html
And it is also obvious, that russia is a source of this fake news.
The article is also totally wrong on denialist. Trump is a denier. several of his cabinet picks are denialists.
Even former Bush cabinet members are disgusted by his picks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/george-w-bush-environment-chief-donald-trump-climate-change-denier-scott-pruitt-rick-perry-epa-a7471496.html
sod is clearly ‘Stuck on STUPID.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEyT8uh8xT8
Bwahahahahahahaha!!!
You are into name calling,with a dose of speculation on the side.
Don’t you get it,Sod? You say nothing as usual.
Sod, of course FAKE NEWS are real. GWBush justified his Iraw war with CIA-made FAKE NEWS.
You’re a leftist and you don’t know that? That’s funny.
I have loads of fun examining the daily DELUGE of FAKE NEWS by SPIEGEL, ZEIT – one of my favorites! They’re so deep into the loony bin! – FAZ etc justifying war with Russia and all other MADCAP schemes of the Clinton Machine Globalism…
As to Kuenast, poor girl, one time she DOESN’t express sympathy for an imported murderer and somebody fakes a statement of her and OF COURSE everyone believes it because it’s so in her character.
(Her FIRST REACTION after the mutilation of 5 people by the hand of an Afghan import in Würzburg by axe was asking “WHY OH WHY HAD THE POLICE TO SHOOT THE POOR TRAUMATIZED 17 YEAR OLD DEAD???” . Paraphrased!)
They are NOT deniers.
They are REALISTS. They understand that AGW and the anti-CO2 agenda is NOTHING BUT A SCAM.
And sop, here will you find anywhere to post if they ban LIES from blogs. LIES is all you have, its all you are.. it is embedded deep in your worthless soul.
Most of the fake news comes from the far left MSM and you lap it up like a brain-dead idiot.
sod, from your link…
“The United States’ top environment official under George W Bush has condemned Donald Trump’s decision ”
So here’s a Green Leftist giving credence to a member of the GWBush administration …. which used CIA-made FAKE NEWS to invade Iraq…
I knew this day had to come. I don’t know whether I should celebrate or shake my head in despair over the sorry state of your poor brain, sod.
“So here’s a Green Leftist giving credence to a member of the GWBush administration …. which used CIA-made FAKE NEWS to invade Iraq…”
that was a right wing lie. And the false claims about 9/11 were also right wing lies.
What do you want to show with these examples?
As usual Sod is all wind and piss.
You have NOTHING substantive to offer, but the usual babbling garbage,you haven’t changed after 12 years, since I have first seen you post dumb comments.
You have been banned in many places because of your idiotic drivel that wears out blog and forum owners patience.
“that was a right wing lie. And the false claims about 9/11 were also right wing lies.
What do you want to show with these examples?”
Wait, are you saying that when a rightwinger says the CIA “evidence” was made up he is lying?
Is it possible that your brain damage is getting progressively worse and you are now unable to parse sentences?
Christie Todd Whitman: an ex Bush employee who said she would vote for Hillary Clinton Over Trump.
Another sour old outcast.. Who cares what she says !!!!!
She is striving for relevance, almost as much as you are, sop.
Also LIED about NY air quality after 9/11 endangering thousands of workers.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/epa-head-wrong-911-air-safe-new-york-christine-todd-whitman
What a despicable act, which you no doubt, condone.
Christine Todd (W) has an arts degree in government and comes from New Jersey. She became governor of NJ and got the EPA job because she was involved in Republican affairs. Science is not one of her strong points. “Whitman appeared twice in New York City after the September 11 attacks to inform New Yorkers (sic) that the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health.” [Wikipedia]
This is one of the worst appeals to authority that you or anyone else has ever made.
Poor sod, also from the poor sods at the “Independent”.
Children just aren’t going to know what snow is
Whither the weather? As you may have heard, a conference of national forecasters assembled this week in Exeter: to discuss the future of the British climate, following the spate of harsher than expected winters, and unusually wet summers, since 2007.
Already, commentators are asking if global warming is to blame. In particular, some are wondering if the direction of the Jet Stream is being altered by Arctic ice melt. Others are speculating that natural variations, such as the “Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation”, might be responsible for recent evolutions.
However, most of this reportage has been second-hand. Unprecedentedly, I had direct access to the meteorologists concerned, as I was in Exeter in spirit form, and I managed to speak to the principal actors.
First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied,
“Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”
Startled by this sobering analysis, I moved on to Professor Rowan Sutton, Climate Director of NCAS at the University of Reading. Professor Sutton said that many scientists are, as of this moment, examining the complex patterns in the North Atlantic, and trying to work out whether the current run of inclement European winters will persist.
When pressed on the particular outlook for the British Isles. Professor Sutton shook his head, moaned eerily unto the heavens, and stuffed his fingers into the entrails of a recently disembowelled chicken, bought fresh from Waitrose in Teignmouth.
Hurling the still-beating heart of the chicken into a shallow copper salver, Professor Sutton inhaled the aroma of burning incense, then told the Telegraph: “The seven towers of Agamemnon tremble. Much is the discord in the latitude of Gemini. When, when cry the sirens of doom and love. Speckly showers on Tuesday.”
It’s a pretty stark analysis, and not without merit. There are plenty of climate change scientists who are equally forthright on the possibilities of change, or no change, and of more hot, or less hot, or of rain, or no rain, or of Britain turning into the Sahara by next weekend, or instead becoming a freezing cold Frostyworld ruled by a strange, glistening ice-queen – crucially, it all depends on the time of day you ask them, and whether or not they had asparagus the day before.
So who are we to believe? For a final word, I turned to the greatest climate change scientist of all, Dr David Viner, one-time senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, who predicted in 2000 that, within a few years, winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event”.
However, he was trapped under a glacier in Stockport, so was unable to comment at the time the Telegraph went to press.
Sean Thomas’ Telegraph Blogs.
“Even former Bush cabinet members are disgusted by his picks.” – sod
Bush appointees?! hahahahahah
“She said she feared experienced EPA staff might decide to leave because of Mr Pruitt’s appointment.” – (from sad’s reference)
EPA staff leaving that bloated and out of control agency could only be a blessing for us.
“Mr Trump is expected to pick former Texas Governor Rick Perry, also a climate change sceptic, to run the US Department of Energy.” – (ibid)
Unless Rick Perry has changed his opinion on big wind, he is NOT the right man to be setting our energy policy!
http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2015-01-03/perry-legacy-texas-now-hands-down-leader-wind-power#.WE_BOlzkqTV
As usual, sob is about as out to lunch as he could be.
I read all the time that Russia is the source of ‘denialist’ news. I often look at Russian sites like Sputnik News and I think they are tending toward Climate Change being caused by humans.
Could sod please give us chapter and verse of this Russian influence against climate change? He seems to know a lot about this. I don’t mean opinions about Russian influence, I mean actual examples. Thanks in advance ‘sod’.
Yo. Pierre. Where’s my comment?
It’s yonason 14. December 2016 at 12:49 AM
I posted it last night, and it’s still lost in spam.
Thanks in advance.
Oops. It may have got caught in the spam….will check. Sorry for the trouble.
George Orwell envisaged this in “1984”. The ruling elites (aka Big Brother) maintain control by doublethink that inverts truth and falsehood:
“When BIG BROTHER and the Party say PEACE they mean WAR, when they say LOVE they mean HATE, and when they say FREEDOM they mean SLAVERY.”
Thus anyone who speaks the truth ends up in jail next to Winston Smith.
The elites are getting desperate………dangerous times lie ahead.
Please watch this announcement made a few days ago in Phoenix, Arizona, about an explosive discovery which will ultimately bring an end to the climate change scare:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLuBgZ1bgoY
This, from the IPCC itself, shows they know prediction of future climate is impossible.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cza8-0vUsAA2BSl.jpg
Obviously, the climate scam is a vehicle for advancing multiple special interest agendas, none of them good for anyone in the long run, even those advancing them, despite their beliefs to the contrary.
Not the first time Germany has silenced dissenting voices so I’m not surprised. I am surprised that the US seems to be just as willing despite a steadfast ‘freedom of speech’ stance. Guess freedom of speech is in the eye of the beholder, eh comrade?
Duke Silver 14. December 2016 at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Reply
“Not the first time Germany has silenced dissenting voices so I’m not surprised”
a) Abe Lincoln had 70 or so newspaper editors jailed for sedition. Anyone he didn’t like while starting an illegal war.
b) This is not “Germany” it is a bunch of Clinton machine politicians at the top of our parties SPD and CDU. Let’s see how long they continue to function without a master. CIA also still trys to steal the election back with their “Russian influence” “secret report” which EVERY newspaper got.
We will see whether SPD and CDU will purge their leadership OR that leadership will do a complete turncoat the moment Trump is inaugurated. It will be quite the spectacle.
@DirkH
“This is not “Germany” it is a bunch of Clinton machine politicians at the top of our parties SPD and CDU.”
They are all linked, as evidenced by the similar subversive policies they push in sinc with each other, accompanied by similar or even the same narratives to justify them.
CONNECTIONS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PblVo9y735k
Dirk: “By mid-May 1864, Lincoln’s patience with the oppositional Copperhead press had begun to fray. What triggered Lincoln’s wrath was a bogus item that appeared in two Copperhead newspapers out of New York — the Journal of Commerce and the World. The papers ran a FAKE TSTORY that reported a presidential proclamation to the effect that the Lincoln administration was about to draft 400,000 men. According to Tedford and Herbeck, “Lincoln ordered the two newspapers closed and their owners arrested and imprisoned.”
(emphasis mine)
https://notrickszone.com/2016/12/12/another-new-paper-reveals-no-discernible-human-or-co2-influence-on-global-ocean-temperatures-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-1153503
THe big difference: Lincoln was morally in the right, as we all now recognize.
Should have linked to this:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/civil-war-tested-lincolns-tolerance-for-free-speech-press
german ministry of truth-
Volkswagen emissions scandal live: VW boss steps down amid claims …
http://www.independent.co.uk › News › Business
23 Sep 2015 – … down amid claims Merkel government knew of rigged emissions tests .
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me the only reason there’s a scandal is because the emissions targets were impossible to meet, and corporate VW were too cowardly to stand up to those demanding them.
The solution is to close the EPA permanently.
Close the EPA, and go back to the smog-filled days of 1970 and earlier.
Google: 1948 Denora smog, only about 30 miles from where I grew up.
Why does Galloping Camel want Americana to choke and die again?
[…] – Germany’s Coming “Ministry of Truth”? …Leading German Politicians Aim To Ban Lies …”Clim… […]
Germany has always had problems with freedom, it seems.
Why can’t you get the free speech part right, at least?
How very Orwellian!!