Does Marine Le Pen stand a chance?

UPDATE– She lost, as predicted. Since Macron’s victory is even more pronounced than was indicated by the polls when I wrote my article (in fact it seems people gradually increased their support for the creepy puppet guy in the last few days before the election), I might add there’s one obvious, additional effect in place. The natural instinct for moderation that is part of our DNA, so to speak, has been quietly exploited to reinforce the transformational trend: more EU, more immigration, more gender theory indoctrination in schools, more euthanasia, more globalization, more appeasement efforts to reach out to Islamists, less freedom of speech. Since this revolution is the new…

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Syria, Sarin & Red Pills

A surprisingly widespread reaction to anti-Assad propaganda (UPDATED) As you probably already know, yesterday tens of people have been killed in Idlib, Syria, seemingly as a consequence of chemical weapons being released in the air. Horrible images of civilians and children, gasping for air or already dead, have been disseminated around the mediasphere. According to reports, the Syrian Army attacked the rebel-controlled territory using Sarin gas. The source: a so-called Observatory for Human Rights, a well-known propaganda operation based in London, part of an international concerted effort to remove the Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, favoring the “rebels” (essentially ISIS, Al-Qaeda spin-offs and their allies) that are at war with the…

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Believing your lyin’ eyes in the Age Of The Image

similaritier between fiction (Reservoir Dogs scene) and reality (Istanbul terror attack)

PARENTAL ADVISORY: some photos contained in this post may be disturbing for children.   In my last post I highlighted how easy it is to fall in love with a narrative, especially if it paints someone we don’t like as the culprit and/or it gives us the impression of being smarter than others. But in today’s media landscape, when you are bombarded with messages, photos and videos selectively perfected to capture your attention, where fashion models are routinely photoshopped and people merrily tweet and send unverifiable videos from war zones, a new question arises. Can you even trust your own eyes? Truth is elusive. The world is full of deception. Random…

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It’s all Putin’s fault! (Shameless)

What can you say? It’s ludicrous. Problem is, all those journalists are serious, and lots of people still listen to them.   Hillary Clinton is ranting about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” since 1998. It’s one of her recurring circus acts. I’d say now it’s a good time: it would be advisable to finally let her go. She’s an ex. And yet, here she was, again on TV, railing against those damn fake news that caused Trump’s victory. Obviously the mainstream media were indignant and eager to follow her advice, calling for a new form of censorship-under-a-different-name, against all those unauthorized voices spreading lies all over the internet. Of course the same mainstream media…

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From abortion to chemtrails, it’s only a small step

OK, let’s complain about idiotic, fake news memes making the rounds on social networks. I bet you too got a good excuse to lose your temper when you faced a scenario like the following one. An excited/indignant friend sharing on Facebook the n-th conspiracy theory/sensational fishy news bite/”anti-establishment” petition. Showing no self-awareness whatsoever. Spewing answers without ever seriously asking questions. Like saying that next week Mars will appear in the sky as big as the Moon, or that Facebook is becoming a pay service, or that you should rail against the Parliament for a new outrageous law that turns out to be imaginary, drafted by a non-existent Representative. That we…

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The Old Establishment Crank beat the Fresh Populist: does it matter?

Renzi and Bersani

A guy beat another guy in a Primary: big deal! Here’s a quick recap to understand some aspects of Italian politics; we can use what follows as a starting point, departing from there to get into more general stuff. In Italy the Partito Democratico (the most important party, founded in 2007) tried to mimic the US Democratic Party even in the choice of the name. It’s actually the inheritor, through a complicated series of transformations, of the defunct PCI (Italian Communist Party). Many things changed through the last 2 decades, but a strong sense of partisan commitment and a political apparatus that takes no prisoners are still a mainstay, a…

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