Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Propagandists, nuke liars, frauds, publicists, dupes - but also some debunkers - of nuclear and other issues

Re: Book (and Film) Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 08 Feb 2012 19:22


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The Theory of the Leisure Class - by Thorstein Veblen
Removed by Amazon.com
1 star - Pedestrian gawping of little value, I'm afraid..., 4 July 2009


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I'd been to led to expect this book was an account of rather silly snobberies by the rich. And that it was exquisite in scholarship, writing style, and detail. Wrong.

Thorstein Veblen - 1857-1929 - and I only checked these details after reading this book - was one of many children of Norwegian immigrants into the USA. They were, or may have been, ripped off, though his father seems to have made money afterwards - I'd guess via a gift of land from the US governement, though if so he seems to have been ungrateful. 'The Theory of the Leisure Class', published in 1899 when he was about 42, caused a stir - or at least that's the story. It precedes Ida Tarbell on Standard Oil by a couple of years.

Veblen's writing style is agonisingly plodding, repetitive and dull. He includes a few Latin and other tags. This must have been a deliberate attempt to project an educated image. He took time to explain his use of some English terms (e.g. 'invidious'). Part of his effect is achieved by using words in slightly the wrong sense. He used 'evolution' rather than 'change' - it sounded more up to date. His typescript (or MS) must have been the sort publishers' readers dreaded. I can't quote a sample here for space reasons.
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His model of human history is very simple indeed. There *WERE* two types of people and societies:

[1] The sedentary village, low on force and fraud. He calls this 'quasi-peaceful'. There's a law of status. (pp 215 & 236). 'Savages' (undefined) have this sort of lifestyle.

[2] Barbarians, who hate manual work, and prefer 'exploits'. They are ferocious, self-seeking, clannish, disingenuous. They like hunting. A predatory type. Veblen often calls them 'peace-distubing dolicho-blonds'. (He himself had very dark hair - remember Norway and Sweden separated at about this time.)
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However, *NOW* (about 1900) there is industry.

[3] Veblen takes progress as given: 'as populations grow denser..', '.. stage of society..', '.. as the community advances in wealth and culture', are typical phrases. These days, the collective interests of modern industry work against the ferocious or selfish aristocrat type (p 227).

4] There is a 'hierarchical gradation of reputability. Ownership on a large scale [is]... the most reputable of economic interests. [then] banking .. law.. the lawyer is exclusively occupied with the details of predatory fraud..' (p.231).
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Veblen means by the 'Leisure Class' property and company owners, financiers, bankers, lawyers. In other words, anyone not concerned with direct manufacturing. Much of his book is concerned with the way they spend or waste money, and the way other people attempt to follow or imitate their behaviour.

What is of value in Veblen?
I have to say I was struck by the small number of piquant examples of oddities in spending and consumption; I'd expected more. Dogs as useless deferential mouths to feed; clean clothes uncontaminated by evidence of work; William Morris's Kelmscott Press. Of men - walking stick, and powdered wig (from Alexander Pope?) On women, bodices, bound feet in China, and general feebleness, were signs of wealth in the husband. He has an odd passage about public parks - men keep the grass tidy, and this is an example of conspicuous consumption, because they are more expensive than cows.

He doesn't seem to know about Chinese mandarins' fingernails, British sumptuary laws, rose gardens and knot gardens and huge country houses as statements of things which are attractive, but unnecessary. He doesn't know about follies, or for example the Hell Fire Club and the Parthenon, both of which in their ways offered employment. Moreover he doesn't seem to understand the economics: a US department store would not stock very cheap items - there's not enough money in them and will reduce other sales. They will cater preferentially for richer customers - and offer, say, sherry, wine, champagne, brandy and other glasses, just to make more money. Veblen's examples are a mostly natural outcome of normal economics. As further evidence, consider that, if Veblen was right, any conspicuous waste might happen: burning of notes, buying of things just to destroy them.

As to the 'leisure class', Veblen, surprisingly, barely considers inherited wealth. New England had many sons and daughters waiting to inherit and the 'leisure class' would seem to fit them perfectly. But Veblen concentrates on other targets. Like Marx, he assumes factory owners just sit back and collect loot - he doesn't seem to realise such people *may* work extremely hard. Similarly, many younger sons of British wealthy families went off to die in various white man's grave parts of the world. For that matter, the 'wolfish earls' in 'Shakespeare' weren't exactly leisurely.

Veblen comes across as a man who moved directly from a peasant society into a much more technologically advanced one. (This must be common now, with uncontrolled mass third world immigration into some modern societies.) It's not surprising such people gawp, and feel fear, and boost their egos with cautious contempt. But I don't think ultimately this book delivers very much.
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Re: Book (and Film) Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 08 Feb 2012 19:35

America's Atomic Bomb Tests: The Collection [DVD]
Removed from Amazon.com
2 stars - Nothing about H Bombs
, 30 Jan 2010


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Bit disappointing - Tumbler Snapper and Hardtack only, and ground zero. Total time 3 1/2 hours. Cover design misleading. - I bought this as part of a project to investigate faked films in supposed nuclear weapons tests. Not very helpful.
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Re: Book (and Film) Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 08 Feb 2012 19:39

DVD - History of Nuclear Weapons - The Ultimate Weapons (2-DVD Set) [2007]
Removed from Amazon.com
1 out of 5 stars - Only six b/w movies and nothing on H Bombs
, 15 Jan 2010


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The two DVDs only have three black and white films each, which are obtainable elsewhere anyway. (Bonica film, Bikini, 'Operation Cue', a casualty management thing which is of not much relevance, etc). There is nothing at all on H-bombs or the politics! It's not 'ultimate' in any way. And note it's not a 'history', unless you count half a dozen old films with no background information at all as 'history'. Also the insert seems to be laser printed then cut out with scissors; the colour cover design is entirely misleading - there's nothing in the old films like it; even the box was defective with mine. Try elsewhere. And dated 2004, not 2007.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 08 Feb 2012 23:26

Speaking for Myself: The Autobiography by Cherie Blair
Removed from Amazon.com
1 out of 5 stars - Read between the lines .. an insult to Britain
, 15 Jun 2009

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An interesting insight into the transmutation of 'left-wing views' when money appears. The Kinnocks and many others show a similar pattern. This book was another nail in Labour's coffin.

I bought this (remaindered) specifically to check [1] How 'New Labour' was invented, [2] Whether the string-pullers are mentioned, [3] whether the 'Human Rights Act' and related scams were deliberately designed to make money for Cherie B and others.

There's no mention anywhere of Bilderberg meetings and people like Kissinger, nor of Common Purpose and people like Julia Middleton. It's well known that Tony Blair was summoned to the Bilderberg meetings, and no doubt put on the act of his life. A barrister is as much an actor as a legal brain, perhaps more so, and Blair turned in the performance of a lifetime, unfortunately. At any rate, Blair, despite nil previous interest in politics, was soon keen on the EU. (Cherie B says nothing about its 'parliament' having no power to make laws, only to comment). Also of course he got rid of Clause 4 - presumably so public assets, the common wealth, could be sold off. Another thing was making the 'Bank of England' independent. All these policies are of course Bilderberg/ 'global'/ banker policies.

After only about a year of New Labour, the Human Rights Act was 'in the Queen's speech' - Cherie B doesn't say who put it there. (Before that Cherie B's work was in employment law). 'Matrix Chambers' with 26 practitioners was set up to aim at 'Human rights' work - they didn't want it to be just in Strasbourg! Cherie B says nothing about phoney 'asylum seekers', or the way lawyers manipulate legal aid. Incidentally one lawyer is quoted as shying away as it might be too 'left wing' - I wonder if he was troubled by the immigration aspect?

Anyway - there are fragments of information about 'New Labour' though Cherie B has no concept of the malignity of its effects. As with legal letters, nothing she doesn't like is mentioned. She says the Olympics were 'won' for London ('won' in the eBay sense); she doesn't mention the Dome. She mentions Mandela, but not corruption in South Africa or the fact its minerals remain under the same control as before. She comes across as a naive Catholic believer, with no clue about its history; ditto with so called 'trotskyites'. She supported war in Iraq because 'Tony would never lie to me.'

She seems to have no abstract ideas about law whatever: the only general statement she makes is that (in Rwanda) if there are hundreds of thousands of murders, it will be difficult and expensive to get three judges to assess each case. In fact I have some doubts whether her claim to have come first in bar finals was true - there's no evidence of any intellect. Maybe it was made up by the controlled media?
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 09 Feb 2012 18:15

Hilaire Belloc: A Biography - by A N Wilson
Removed from Amazon.com
Wilson is OK on things, but has no idea about ideas
, 18 May 2009

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) interested me because of his pro-Catholic outlook; could he perhaps have been onto something? Or at least present an alternative view of reality?

Wilson's biography is a fairly straightforward chronological account from Belloc's birth during a thunderstorm to death as an eccentric figure with a large white beard hiding facial asymmetry caused by a stroke. Wilson's sources are mostly documents in Boston College, Mass., but he energetically corresponded and met people with such surnames as Asquith and LeFanu, and such abbreviations as SJ.

There isn't much in the way of Belloc's personal history of ideas. Unless a certain envy of people who'd made, or held on to, wealth, counts as an idea. Let me look at a few topics....

[1] Catholicism and anti-Catholicism. Belloc was of course Catholic in the western sense, not Greek or Russian Orthodox; so far as I can tell he had no liking of these. Hunting through Wilson's index, I could find no trace of Joseph McCabe, born in almost exactly the same year, an incredibly prolific author of whom Belloc was certainly aware. As far as I know, Belloc never entertained any doubts as to the actual existence of Jesus. His Catholicism must have been reinforced by G K Chesterton, a lifelong friend. (According to Wilson, Belloc retained all his friends throughout his life). I have a copy of 'Survivals and New Arrivals', an account of heresies old and new; it is interesting but of course any rationalist will be unable to take the philosophical side very seriously. He mentions Islam, and in fact wrote a bit about it - for example, Mediterranean pirates being just about a living memory.

[2] Wilson discusses Belloc's pamphlet battle with H G Wells over 'The Outline of History'; it hadn't occurred to me that Belloc would have been jealous of Wells's sales figures. Wilson rather takes Belloc's side over Wells. Belloc thought the theory of evolution (which everyone attributed to Darwin) was taken over from Lamarck. Belloc's knowledge of science was in fact pretty much nil.

[3] Belloc's book 'The Jews' (1922) is unique in British publishing, I think. It was clearly prompted by the 'Russian Revolution', in fact of course a coup by Jews with backing from Jews in the USA. I don't think Belloc ever doubted that 'Jews' were descendants of people in the Bible, although cracks in this belief existed at the time. Wilson treats this book with evasive disdain; he is not a courageous writer. Incidentally a later edition, with a new preface, was published by Belloc in which he praised the new movement in Spain - i.e. the Spanish version of fascism.

[4] Another side to Belloc was the meditative travel book - a combination of historical speculation with a suggestion of energetic striding and/or footsore plodding to inns, eating wholesome peasant food, and orating poems - they surely couldn't have been intended for silent reading. Wilson omits his 1904 volume 'The Old Road', an attempt (I seem to recall) to relocate the Winchester to Canterbury pilgrim's way. He also enjoyed sailing and wrote a long essay on Caesar's invasion of Britain considered from the point of view of tides and wind.

[5] Belloc took the French side in the First World War; he had been anti-German for years. Wilson does not consider whether the First World War was a disaster to be avoided by the British.

[6] Just a note on Freud: Belloc was unimpressed. If man has unconscious impulses, that's an end to all planning.

[7] On history, Wilson found G. G. Coulton (seven pages on him), a Cambridge Professor of History specialising in ecclesiastical history, who exposed Belloc's historical dishonesty (page 359). Wilson doesn't like Coulton ('dedicated humourlessness', 'none of Dr Rowse's generosity of temper', 'There was, of course, no answering Coulton on his own terms'). Leo XIII of 1899 instructed French clergy not to doubt aspects of the faith when considering history; Wilson (356) says Catholics 'would inevitably feel torn in their loyalties'. As an illustration, 'Survivals and New Arrivals' is online, scanned in by a Catholic organisation: part has been garbled to elide Belloc's sympathy for the Spanish anti-'Communists'.

So while Wilson has made a creditable fist of the narrative part of his book, it's a pity the intellectual component is so confined and locked-up.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 09 Feb 2012 18:36

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women - by Naomi Wolf
Removed from both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
- Sun 24 May 2009

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My copy says 'Vintage 1991', 27th impression. I'd guess Wolf gets 50p a copy. References are collected at the back, listed by page; generally they are simple book titles. Page numbers in those books aren't given, so the reader, if inquisitive, has a bit of burrowing to do. None of the references dated later than 1991, as far as I could find; maybe after the 1990 edition was edited, it's been reprinted unchanged. Salaries therefore seem very low. Wolf is described online as having modelled for a magazine, and as being married to a magazine publisher. This is a bit of a warning to women who may be taken in by this book - if you think no makeup etc is the way to go - Wolf doesn't!

Many people are aware publishing in the USA is Jewish-dominated; this is part of the key to this book. I suspect some dogsbody was told to visit a reference library, maybe in New York - supplemented by some English feminist writings, and magazines - and told to find statistics, real or imagined, on anorexia, plastic surgery, fraudulent claims of cosmetics, rape figures, laws on sex discrimination, pornography, and so on. (Obviously, omitting taboos around race, censorship, money, war, and so on!)

The 'myth' of the title isn't used to mean that 'beauty' is mythical. (The title I'd guess was chosen to arouse curiosity). It's a 'myth' in the sense that beauty, in the promoted sense, is unattainable and out of reach. Wolf says the myth intentionally weakens and unbends women's power impulses and abilities. Some Amazon reviewers think the book changed their thoughts, or even their lives, but it's hard to believe anyone could be quite that unreflective. After all, girls are aware of the idea of desirable rich men from an early age and are perfectly aware of women as rivals and all the other related issues.

Some reviewers think this book is a serious attempt to put forward a reasoned argument. It isn't. It's to make money, probably (I'd guess) from the goyim. Any old rubbish goes in, provided it can be dressed up sensationally. There's a bit of anthropology and monkey behaviour, which may, or may not, be accurate, and some science, which, also, may or may not be accurate. Wolf's skill, such as it is, is to invent or find keywords and phrases ('PBQ', 'iron maiden', 'beauty myth', 'object lessons' meaning women as objects, 'cultural conspiracies' etc etc).

Any ideal is liable to corrosion and corruption. Think of 'democracy', 'state education', 'national health service', 'political union', 'universal suffrage'. I take it many or most people support feminism in the sense of encouraging independent free-thinking women, as opposed to bullied breeding-machines, or drudges, or hopelessly uneducated. But Wolf is remote from that. For example she agonises over women being unwanted for TV journalism [p 34]. It doesn't occur to Wolf that a team of one male and one female is competitive not just for women, but for men too. That's if they want to do the work: "I won't be pretty enough to do the news" agonises someone - essentially they are actresses reading out censored rubbish, to which again Wolf shows no sign of objection.

Wolf several times [e.g. p 17] quotes figures:
$33 billion diet and thinness industry
$20 billion cosmetics
$7 billion porn
$0.3 billion cosmetic surgery

Frivolous expenditure of course is men's fault. There's material on violence: for example Wolf pretends surgery is 'violent'. I'll spare the detail. For those interested in the actual thesis of the 'beauty myth' linking female power with unreal images of women, here are some bits of evidence:-

1918-1925: 'dieting ... female preoccupation when Western women received the vote around 1920' [p 184]
1939-1945 women responded and took men's higher paid work [63]
1945-1990: 'women swelled the work force' [p 21] they were immigrants 'feared for .. grueling work at low pay' [p 21]/ 22 women work twice as hard as men./ women have always been paid less than men for equal work [p 48]/ 23 a pakistani woman spends 63 hours a week on domestic work [p 23]/ 'awesome potential of this immigrant group must be thwarted' [p 25]
1965 'Twiggy appeared in .. Vogue .. simultaneous with the advent of the pill'
1970s 'women streaming into the professions' 33
1980s for every feminist action there is an equal and opposite beauty myth reaction [p 28]
1960-1990 woman lawyers, judges, doctors, engineers etc 7 to 25 times more [my figures]/ but women ... know that achievement is considered ugly and punished... [p 30]
1980-1990 '.. women breached the power structure; .. eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing medical specialty.' [p 10]
1990: 'Western economies are absolutely dependent now on the continued underpayment of women.'

It's simple-minded stuff... However, she did get a marriage and presumably money from it! Her website is naomiwolf.org - see what she's up to now.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 09 Feb 2012 18:53

McLagan, Graeme - Guns and Gangs [2005?]
Removed from both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
1 star - Be Aware This Book is by an Ex-BBC Liar
, 25 July 2010

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The BBC is Britain's state propaganda. McLagan it appears used to 'work' for the BBC. I haven't even read this book, which incidentally was promoted by the 'Guardian', but I can tell you with complete confidence that
[1] It will say nothing about the deliberate decision to allow immigrants to live on benefits in Britain, and to do nothing about the known relatively high criminality
[2] Capital punishment was abolished deliberately to damage white communities
[3] The farcical Stephen Lawrence case was deliberately intended to damage police authority and integrity. In all these cases, the BBC was staunchly opposed to British peoples' interests.
[4] The BBC continues to fail to report anti-white sex incidents, anti-white violence incidents, and other deliberately introduced aspects of immigration.

It's inconceivable that this book would come anywhere near telling the truth about crime. At present this seems only available through alternative outlets, mainly Internet, including some print-on-demand books from Amazon.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 09 Feb 2012 23:07

New Ideology of Imperialism: Renewing the Moral Imperative - by Frank Furedi (1994)
Removed by both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
1 star - A mock-Intellectual tribe who shall dwell alone
, 17 Sep 2010

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('Pluto Series in Racism & Imperialism')

1994 book, written (one gathers) by a Hungarian Jew. I'll write this review trying to adopt what I take to be the Kevin MacDonald evolutionary approach.

This is supposed to describe the 'New Ideology' that arose, or was invented, after the 'collapse' of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Furedi of course refers to the Jewish coup in 1917 as the 'Russian Revolution'. Throughout this book there is not the slightest recognition that mass murder carried out by Jews (funded largely from Jews in the US) was an immense danger to the whole of Europe. His description of 'Nationalism' and the reactions to it is entirely through the racist lens of Jewish interest. This of course makes for inconsistencies which he avoids by the simple device of not mentioning them. For instance, Israel is not even indexed, nor the war with Britain over it.

The 'Nazis' of course are unspeakably bad - Furedi naturally promotes the fraud of the 'Holocaust'. On the other hand, what he calls African nationalism - he doesn't distinguish tribes; 'tribes' aren't even in the index - they are just another lot of goyim, but he pretends to take their side, since he doesn't like whites. Incidentally the ANC and South Africa's 'non-racial democracy' are more or less coeval with this book - readers of Kevin MacDonald will be unsurprised that the minerals controlled by Jewish interests, a significant piece of 'imperialism', are unmentioned.

Furedi relies somewhat on Hobson/Lenin on imperialism - he has to, as Marx was moribund or dead when modern imperialism was being constructed. Probably this sort of thing helps make his book shaky and uncertain, since there's no holy writ to follow.

It's striking how little evidence there is here, though of course if you're of the chosen race this is dispensable. Neither old imperialisms or new are measured in any way; who knows whether India benefitted from railways and tea plantations, for example? There's nothing on modern aspects - oil, for example. Amusingly, Furedi is silent on what would become known as neo-cons; Jews aren't even indexed, nor of course is ZOG; even Kissinger isn't mentioned.

Furedi's technique is to quote - he resembles Chomsky in this respect. News clippings, bits of books, and some Public Records are quoted from - but it's impossible to know how representative his samples are. In any period, someone can be found saying pretty much anything, after all. There's a troubling index reference to the PRO being in 'Kew Gardens' which suggests Furedi may have dispatched an underling to harvest quotations. It's amusing to see some of the civil servants' comments; Furedi seems unable to realise most of these were public school/Oxbridge types who'd been offered a job in the colonies and had no special interest in them, or in imperialism. I couldn't find any acknowledgement in his historical comments on the ramshackle nature of empires - protectorates, small islands, large islands, militarily-assembled jigsaws, and what-have-you. Legalities are not of interest to the religious-minded.

Furedi is mainly concerned with Africa - he was at SOAS and wrote on Mau Mau quite early on. He is unconcerned about population issues: Africa's population will soon approach one billion, probably twenty times its 1900 level. But that's no problem - the goyim can cope with that. There are some references to Islam; there's an endnote on the brutal actualities of African slave trading tucked away; there's nothing at all on Biafra/Nigeria or war crimes in Vietnam - a curious mixture. The explanation is that Furedi shoves in anything that opposes whites, and omits anything which casts light on atrocities and frauds by his fellow cultists - as per MacDonald's evolutionary theories.

If you want to understand ideologies or power structures or economic webs as they were 15 years ago, or now, or in the future, this book is a waste of time. Properly speaking, this isn't a book at all; if Furedi had something worth saying about the 'New Ideology' it could fit on half a page - better to waffle. This is a publish-or-perish thing, in effect part of a continuous assessment scheme. Unfortunately Kent University swallowed it.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 12 Feb 2012 18:16

The Jewish Contribution To Civilisation by Cecil Roth
Censored from both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk


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NB This image is a modern paperback reprint, not the late 1930s/ 1940s hardback

See cecil-roth-jewish-contribution-to-civilization-myths.html for the publishing history and contents of Roth's book.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 14 Feb 2012 21:37

Homage to Catalonia by 'George Orwell'
Removed from Amazon.co.uk
1 star - See 'Pawns in the Game' for the Truth
, January 11, 2012

Yes. Download and read 'Pawns in the Game' by William Guy Carr, if you want the truth about this horrible and bloody war. It was the same sort of scenario as the USSR - a Jewish attempt to take over Spain. George Orwell had no idea - all his publishers were Jews; he was a 'useful idiot'.
_______________________

There's more on Orwell as 'useful idiot' on this site https://www.nukelies.com/forum/orwell-useful-idiot-ignorant-nukes-spain-jews.html
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 14 Feb 2012 23:33

The Lost Diaries by Craig Brown
Removed from Amazon.com
1 star - Satire and cowardice don't mix - disappointingly lightweight and superficial
, 4 Jan 2012

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Craig Brown writes parodies for Private Eye, a [British] magazine with an unjustified reputation for serious news exposure, and has written for years; his pieces typically occupying about half an Eye page. About 26 each year, therefore. I'm unsure if he has written 365 by now; quite possibly he's been at it for more than fifteen years. There may be some copyright issue with Private Eye; Hislop is listed as his 'editor' and the sources are not made clear. [NB for American readers, Hislop is on a 'current affairs' TV programme called 'Have I Got News for You' - mostly politically correct garbage]. However, I recognised some fragments originally in the Eye - our Queen explaining what a railway train is to Tony Blair, 'Ming' Campbell on Saddam Hussein being no friend of the Lib Dems, Michael Winner in a ridiculous anthropophagy story. Most of the 'diary entries' are too short to have been printed unchanged.

A cover blurb from the failing 'Sunday Times' says Brown's the 'greatest living satirist'. So what do we find here? This collection, or rewrite, is indexed, and as many names as possible are shoehorned in - thus a Shirley Williams reference proved only to be a mention in passing, not a joke diary entry. Many seem oddly dated, for example Edward Heath. There are such people as Clive Bell and Racine and Lord Lucan and George V; maybe some date coincidence justified their presence. But, given a quarter century or more, what a potential feast we have - ingredients spread on display perhaps including our Archbishop of Canterbury, a political appointee selected by a war criminal; Tony Benn, a consummate hypocrite; Ken Livingstone, Mandelson - well; whole clutches of official state media people - Yentob, Clive James, Dimblebies, Barry Norman; Callaghan, Major, sundry shadows. I'd have liked some satire at the expense of Susan Greenfield. (And Brian Cox. Maybe Dawkins) - too much to hope for, though. Diane Abbott? What about various black appointees who embezzled? What about the Stephen Lawrence propaganda fest? Maybe Dizaei (I think) and 'black police officers' introducing their cultural traits to Britain? Perhaps a Rothschild advising the Queen - surely there's satirical scope for comments on the murder of the Romanovs by Jews in Russia, maybe with smart rejoinders about German royalty?

Sadly, there's little of any merit. Brown has a narrow range of techniques: one is cartoonish exaggeration as with Winner - another example is Roger Scruton mounting a horse backwards. This can work - there's Esther Rantzen complaining about tight belts, though I have to say that plump Daily Mail chap did it better. Another is language, obviously - there's a simple divide between chavs and soap 'stars' - his Madonna has an American accent, and Jonathan Woss says "gweat" - and more-or-less literary figures (such as Hitchens - nothing on Elie Weisel - Isaiah Berlin, A L Rowse, Anthony Burgess etc) who are mostly pastiched with long words, as their underlying outlooks and concepts seem out of Brown's range. (The Dalai Lama pieces... couldn't Brown have done a bit of background work? Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser - ditto; not just a bit of foul-mouthed stuff touched with east end slang!) As a thought substitute there are walk-on parts for such as Murdoch and Kissinger, both handled with kid gloves.

Omitted names, in no particular order, as well as those listed above, include Andrew Neather, any Dimbleby, any BBC boss e.g. Dyke, J K Rowling, heads of any of the Civil Service, Intelligence, military, the Commission on Equality and Human Rights, the MacPherson Report, asylum barristers - surely there's food for the satirist there!!

An odd omission is Eye writers. Wheen, author of a very useless book on a serious topic, is missing. So is Booker. So is Hislop - a horrible prematurely aged pigfaced little clown, posing for his TV sound bites on Diane, 9/11, or whatever, obvious lies with obviously fake canned laughter. Nor his holiday novelist wife, who seems to thinks nice girls should forever get taxpayers' money for non-jobs..

Just as people of the defunct USSR must sometimes stumble across an old issue of Krokodil and gaze in wonder at its restricted little grubby porthole on the world, so must Craig Brown's books be viewed. Shallowness and parody don't mix; neither do satire and cowardice mix. Avoid this book.
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Re: Book, Film & DVD Reviews Censored by Amazon

Postby rerevisionist » 24 Feb 2012 01:19

Attitude Change and Social Influence by Arthur Cohen (Hardcover)
Laughable bullshit-baffles-brains Jewish attempts at enforced attitude changes
, February 9, 2012
Removed from Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk

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If you're interested in Jewish contributions to pseudo-science, and the use of elaborate BS as a disguise, plus also altering peoples' attitudes - for example, to things like 'busing of whites to black schools' in US parlance, this is an example of the genre. Worth having a copy for that reason.

This 1964 book has a foreword by Leon Festinger & Philip Zimbardo - two similar types. It has rather laughable stuff about the Korean War, and Negroes, but of course nothing on Jews.

There's no sense of the need for true information to reach true conclusions, which gives a rather strange feel to the whole thing - jargon which restates obvious stuff in a pompous but clumsy way, disguising the opinionated material with a sense of imposed views, where facts are automatically considered irrelevant.

Part of the genre of suspect social science research. Possibly funded by people wondering whether minorities would speak up - as in the experiment with one person among actors puzzled because everyone else said something clearly wrong.
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