Forked Tongues

It’s always a good day to learn something you did not know before, but it’s a better day when you learn things that confound your complacency and introduce you to post-Santa compassion.

There is a soundbite for every event taught in American classrooms — 90% of history curricula are either grossly twisted, are outright sanctified falsehoods, or are events not complimentary to sensitive Whiteous feelings: the eighth deadly sin.

Genocide on American soil is slathered over with sugary white icing before it can meet publishing standards established in Texas. Before Columbus, Indigenous Americans were a tapestry of tribes. Should they be thankful for Western Evilization?

Blacks lived in the tapestry that was Africa before the Europeans arrived. Should they be thankful for being saved by the generous very nice plantation system that offered better? Better Lives Through Slavery?

Somehow most White genealogies trace back to families that were very very nice to their slaves. Who the hell ever learns about the Black Stock Market of Greenwood, OK that was burned to cinders in 1921? What of their American dream?

“According to eye-witness accounts, the scope of the attack was equal to warfare: homeowners shot dead in their front yards, planes dropping turpentine bombs onto buildings, a machine gun firing bullets on a neighborhood church. It was a living nightmare, and for many decades Tulsa treated it as such, a dark apparition of the mind that might fade from memory so long as it was repressed.”


Fox News doesn’t have to be your only source for faux news, you can turn the channel, change the dial, read a “newspaper of record” and mislearn about current regime changes in the process. Perhaps you watch, perhaps you hear, perhaps you think you know about what happens in Venezuela. Here is something by Greg Palast that inspired me, something I promised to post: In Venezuela, White Supremacy is a Key Driver of the Coup.


Additional unnerving, disturbing, real-time coverage is available at Shelby Courtland dot com. Truth can be unsettling sometimes.

…”The New York Times, NPR and other mainstream outlets in the US reported on marches against the Chavez government, describing the tens of thousands of Venezuelans calling for Chavez’s removal. The light-skinned protesters were overwhelmingly wealthy — and they wanted you to know it. Many of the women marched in high heels, the men peacocking in business suits, proudly displayed in the uniforms of their privileged class. The Chavistas wore patriotic yellow, blue and red T-shirts, sneakers, jeans.”

Most people do not even participate in their own lives, life happens in an autonomic way — if you prefer that the cranium function as autonomically as breathing, it will do so. Existing-While-Black, Existing-While-Palestinian, Existing-While-LGBQT+, Existing-While-Living InMyNeighborhood? Cognitive dissonance happens. I think myself a cognitive dissonancer because I am a lightning rod for the cognitively dissonanced. You must learn to expect such when you speak for the most exploited among us, and I even include all sentient animal beings among the most exploited. Factory farms really are death camps. It’s always a good day to eschew blood-laden “resources” — for all parties involved, both the muncher and the munched.

Avoiding television frees up the time to think independently, in my opinion. The tube/screen has always been a popular passive way to address boredom, a popular alternative to thinking, a stress-reducing mechanism. Propagandists, marketers and people like DJT know how to direct their messages to target audiences by any means possible, such as eye-scanning apps that detect minute movements in a supermarket, process the scanned data at the checkout, and follow you home. Technology is very good. Technology is very bad.

Thanks for reading.

Author: Bill Ziegler

I am a former resident of Delhi Township. These are memories of my life and times in that community during the 1950s and 1960s. A time capsule.

20 thoughts on “Forked Tongues”

  1. I would think this link could have been included: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_Venezuela
    As for the 1948 war in Palestine as that is what the country was called this may help https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/14/israel
    This tells of the Jews thrown out or who fled Arab lands after the state of Israel was formed. Read this but remember it is 10 years old. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/03/israel-arab-jewish-mizrahi
    I would hope you would all read this book by the same author as it is more factual: https://www.amazon.com/Uprooted-Jewish-Civilization-Vanished-Overnight/dp/191038366X
    I would also suggest you not only watch the BBC and CNN – watch all the channels even Aljezera in English.

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    1. Hello Mike, Thank you for your comments.
      I try to avoid Wikipedia to follow rapidly moving events, particularly when they are highly charged political topics, such as “Crisis in Venezuela.” Investigative journalists who place their name, reputation, and previous publications on the line, those are the authors I value — whether they lean left, right or anywhere along the spectrum. At least that link to “Crisis in Venezuela” actually takes you to a page titled “Crisis in Venezuela.” There is a certain honesty there. Compare that to a Wikipedia search for “hasbara”, where the name suddenly changes en route. Try it yourself by clicking on https://www.wikipedia.org/
      Type “hasbara” into the box. Type the letters in slowly for more dramatic effect. h a s b a r a (Hong Kong…Ha…HAS…Hasbara Fellowships…Hasbara Fellowships…Public diplomacy of Israel.
      Now, click on https://www.wikipedia.org/
      Enter “propaganda”, “Irish setter”, “Black Wall Street” or any other search term. You’re taken to propaganda, Irish Setter, The Black Wall Street. WTF.
      The American Empire is responsible for a long sordid list of “regime changes” for geopolitical or corporate advantage. I have blood on my hands simply by holding a US Passport, I don’t hide behind a flag that may as well have the 50 largest corporations’ logos instead of stars on that blue field. The American Empire’s insatiable appetite for fossil fuels promises to kill many more million innocents. Does it matter that Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserve? Uh, no it’s about democracy…and, of course, we need oil and we like lower prices at the gas station/food desert, and there’s the Monroe Doctrine, and…
      Actually, I trust Al Jazeera more than I do The Times of Israel.
      And speaking of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, a map of the West Bank shows what displacement really looks like — to me, it looks like a rifle-spray on a traffic sign. The Nakba displaced homeowners, homeowners who brought their keys with them into their diaspora in 1948, occupied, and with the presence of Israeli Occupation Forces (Naksa 1967). There are as many Israeli settlers in the West Bank as Palestinians expelled in 1948.

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    2. We were taught patriotism when I was in school, not history. Lies my teacher told me by James W. Loewen exposes a lot of that nonsense. No wonder history was boring.

      Fox News, as in foxy for devious–has done significant harm.

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      1. Thanks Terry! A Big Lie is a soundbite endlessly repeated, a soundbite that gradually rises to join other Big Lies atop the most frequently repeated memories of history. The most complimentary soundbites become National holidays, best celebrated by buying ephemera.
        Fox New selects the most devious soundblights and shares them with the one branch(es) of government:
        https://billziegler1947.com/2019/01/19/the-one-branches-of-government/

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  3. Thanks most kindly, Rosaliene. I am *always* my most severe critic and sweat profusely as I measure each word, but it takes a lot of heat to melt *this* snowflake. It’s also a labor of love because I am a quite proud snowflake indeed, thank you very much 🙂 To me the entire universe depends on what I write. Better than aiming low and missing — with credit to Chris Riddell for the inspirational wording:
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2019/jan/26/theresa-mays-disappearing-act-cartoon
    I also heartily, heartfully, and artfully recommend Rosaliene’s blog “Three Worlds One Vision” 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Rosaliene. I share your regret that Brexit blame gets assigned to a woman. Misogyny and White-male Supremacism is responsible for the vast majority of crimes committed by sanctified “Western Civilization.” Theresa May was actually the only one standing after Cameron left the stage, the others were either too cowardly or were outmaneuvered. Corbyn has only muddied the murk by not seeking a second referendum. Brexit was already a delusion before the resolution, its writers had not anticipated its approval, and none of those White Males summon the integrity to accept their Frankensteinian creation.

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  5. Humanity has a shameful past and present and the future holds no promise. Unfortunately, despicability is not confined to the white race, although they seem to be the masters of iniquity — at least for the time. Adding to the whole of degradation, many non-whites have taken — in fact, enjoy an unjust, stereotypical stand against all whites which does nothing but stir the pot of animosity on all sides. Shame on everyone who victimizes by skin, scale, fur, feather, or leather.

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    1. A level playing field would be a tapestry of sentient animal beings that share the only inhabitable planet within reach of all. Eye contact is the lowest common denominator, but one that connects two universes simultaneously. Gazing into sentient eyes affirms inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
      I experienced a bit of an epiphany in 1973 when I first embraced sustainability as the only hope for Earth. By 1980 those who chose otherwise gained the ascendant in political/corporate mindsets, and those guys haven’t yielded yet — an extinction event, suicide by fossiled biomass at an even higher level of rapaciousness funnels wealth upward to those 26 individuals who have already funneled half of the planet’s worth into 26 large coffers. End-game capitalism gives trickles to the most marginalized and exploited.
      White Supremacism has been on the ascendant for millennia, their ugly ways have always found comfort in the highest places. They kill and enslave the most, they commit the greatest crimes, mass shootings, deaths by whim, serial killings… The presumed end of slavery here moved in a heartbeat to the beginnings of Jim Crow. It kept the “slavery in perpetuity” perpetuated.
      The massacre in Greenwood OK has not made its way into the history books of our de facto (nearly de jure) segregated school systems. Actually, that event in 1921 doesn’t even rate a soundbite *outside* school history classrooms. But soundbites are what we share as a culture, it’s why I call them “soundblights.”

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  6. [Most people do not even participate in their own lives, life happens in an autonomic way — if you prefer that the cranium function as autonomically as breathing, it will do so.]
    I couldn’t agree more Bill. Thinking original thoughts and living outside the culturally established boxes of any given society is scary and down-right hard work, but once we’ve had a taste of that true freedom, there’s no going back.

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  7. This post was a longer read than I expected. I especially was surprised about the Tulsa race riot, definitely NOT something taught in schools. The photo comparison of light- versus dark-skinned protesters is equally alarming and worthy of conversation. Is it one we Americans are comfortable having? (I think not.) BTW, the link appears to be broken as embedded into your post, but I was able to repair. https://truthout.org/articles/in-venezuela-white-supremacy-is-a-key-driver-of-the-coup/

    I’m sure I’ve read this quote attributes to someone more famous than I, but it rings true: ‘As long as we normalize exploiting others for our food, we will never know peace.’

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  8. Thanks, Shannon. I think that American Exceptionalism means only remembering the parts of our history that make us look good — retelling everything that shines a bright light, remembering all the events with the *exception* of the awful stuff. I am always grateful for the mention of broken links. Going to repair that mistake right now!
    “As long as we normalize exploiting others for our food, we will never know peace.’ ”
    I completely agree (and you are ‘famous’ to me, so there!).

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  9. Very interesting points. Mainstream media is chock full of propaganda. There was so much history I didn’t even learn at school and Black Wall Street was one of them. I saw the documentary Hate Crimes in the Heartland and it shocked me with how cruel that event was when innocent people’s lives were destroyed by jealous racists.

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    1. Thank you, ospreyshire. The Big Lie becomes conventional wisdom when repeated enough, propaganda morphs into fact. I do not know of anyone who learned about Black Wall Street in any school. I attended a showing of Hate Crimes in the Heartland here in Cincinnati in 2015. The director, Rachel Lyon, participated in a panel that followed and it included a question and answer session. For anyone who would like to learn more, here is an excellent review that includes a film trailer:
      https://www.filminquiry.com/hate-crimes-in-the-heartland-2015-review/

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      1. You’re welcome. I’m certainly in the same boat. You saw that documentary? That’s great! It is one of my favorite documentaries. Not going to lie, I shed a tear when one of the survivors talked about how her mom warned her about the attack where the mob had American flags. She told her “Your country is shooting at you!” and I lost it.

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        1. That documentary hit me full force. I liked how Rachel Lyon wove the 1921 event full circle into the present and fits seamlessly with the in-your-face American flag frenzy. It may as well be a Confederate flag, racism is patriotism for these creeps.

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