I am not a Facebook user. I will never be a Facebook user.

The insidious manner in which Mark Zuckerberg controls the media narrative all under the guise of free speech is reprehensible.

Facebook’s real goal is to make money. It’s value is approaching a TRILLION dollars. Its share price is nearly $300.00.

There are no ethics involved where it concerns Mark Zuckerberg. It’s all about money under the touchy feely mantra of “free speech.”

Vanity Fair – The Hive – 8.28.2020.

Facebook users organizing vigilante justice in Kenosha earlier this week apparently didn’t set off alarms for the social media giant.

According to the Verge, the company received at least two complaints from users regarding the self-proclaimed militia group The Kenosha Guard prior to Tuesday’s shooting that saw two protesters killed and another injured in the Wisconsin city, which has been rocked by demonstrations since the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday.

The alleged shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, had apparently responded to a Facebook callout issued by The Kenosha Guard urging people to “take up arms and defend our city tonight from evil thugs,” a post later amplified by far-right site Infowars, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Facebook initially opted not to act on the complaints about Kenosha Guard because they did not violate the platform’s community standards, the Verge reported, though the company took down the page on Wednesday. When asked for comment, Facebook told the Verge that its investigation had not shown a direct link between the shooting and the Kenosha Guard account.

Rittenhouse, who reportedly expressed support for “Blue Lives Matter” and was spotted at at least one rally for Donald Trump, also appeared to consider himself part of a militia, though it’s unclear which one. On Tuesday, he allegedly walked past a group of police while carrying a rifle over his shoulder and was not stopped or questioned. Rittenhouse has been charged with first degree intentional homicide.

Since the beginning of the year, Facebook has come under increased scrutiny for its failure to act on the issue of far-right groups. Mark Zuckerberg has held that freedom of speech ought to be paramount, deflecting any culpability. The tension has reportedly come to a head inside the company itself. In June, several employees held a virtual walkout to protest Facebook’s decision to leave untouched a post by Trump inciting violence in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police. Some staffers reportedly threatened to resign. “Something big is happening,” Bloomberg’s Kurt Wagner said at the time. “In the many years I’ve covered [Facebook], I’ve never seen this kind of public criticism before.”

Although the company has recently begun to ban pages related to QAnon and the Boogaloo movement, it remains a home for far-right outlets including Breitbart and The Daily Wire; news sites known for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation. Users and researchers in Europe and Canada have likewise lodged complaints at the ease with which far-right and white supremacist groups have been able to take advantage of the platform. When asked why Facebook had chosen to place Breitbart on its news tab last year, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Part of having this be a trusted source is that it needs to have a diversity of views in there, so I think you want to have content that represents different perspectives.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/08/facebook-did-nothing-about-the-militia-group-in-kenosha

It’s frightening.

Germany was one of the countries which effectively stamped out the initial Pandemic wave last Spring. Now, several months later, as summer ends and the fall/winter Flu season is fast approaching, the insidious Covid-19 is back in Germany with a vengence.

What will happen in America where Trump and his Republican sycophants have blithely ignored and blown off all the warnings about the serious and long term impact of the Pandemic?

Time will tell.  It’s going to be a long winter.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.27.2020

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s 16 regional leaders have agreed to ban major public gatherings and impose a national fine for mask shirkers, as the country grapples with an increase in infections.

Daily infection numbers in Germany have risen to levels not seen since the end of April. 

German leaders have announced they will extend a ban on major public events until next year, as part of a raft of measures aimed at reducing the number of coronavirus cases in the country. 

The ban was agreed on during a video conference attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of the country’s 16 states — the first such meeting since June 17.

Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed after the meeting that “all in all, it is fair to say that we have come through this pandemic well so far. Nevertheless, we can see that the number of infections has risen in recent weeks.”

“We take this increase in these summer months very seriously,” she added.

Other measures include a minimum fine of €50 ($60) for anyone caught not wearing a mask in shops and on public transport.

There was no agreement on limiting the number of participants for private events. Instead, Merkel and the regional leaders asked Germans to “critically weigh” in each individual case whether private celebrations are “necessary” and “justifiable.”

The meeting between Merkel and the state premiers comes as the country grapples with a serious rise in coronavirus cases. 

The surge has been partly blamed on local celebrations, but returning holidaymakers are also held responsible for spreading the virus.

This explains why another measure agreed on Thursday was to end free coronavirus testing for travelers coming back from non-risk areas. Instead, the focus will be on quarantine rules for people returning from high-risk regions.

Moreover, public health officials say negligence has become a problem, referring to people who have stopped following hygiene and social distancing measures. 

This could explain the decision to impose the nationwide fine for mask shirkers. Previously, penalties varied wildly from state to state.

The return to nationwide decisions also marks a political shift in Germany.

When numbers started to fall a few months ago, leaders decided to drop sweeping restrictions and instead focus on local or regional measures to control specific outbreaks.

But the rise in numbers has prompted a change, and the new nationwide measures are already proving controversial.

Whereas some politicians believe consistency is necessary to avoid a confusing patchwork of decisions, others say blanket measures disproportionately affect states with a low coronavirus incidence.

Big states like Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia have registered nearly three times as many daily new coronavirus cases as all eastern states combined.

The leader of one of those eastern states, Reiner Haseloff of Saxony Anhalt, which registered 16 new cases on Wednesday, has already indicated mask fines will not be implemented in his region.

There was no decision on whether to give the green light for Germany’s beloved Christmas markets to operate. 

Under normal conditions, markets are full of people drinking mulled wine and looking at the souvenir and food stalls.

Meanwhile, organizers of the Cologne Christmas market at the city’s iconic cathedral already announced they would not be opening this year.

They argued they weren’t able to find a way to hold the event in a way that doesn’t lead to infections.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coronavirus-measures-masks/a-54714744

Trump is taking America down the road of Fascism as he rolls out his re-election campaign.

A toxic blend of racist taunts, law and order rhetoric, a bow to the Christian religious right and an attack on the entire progressive movement in America.

It’s bad and will only become worse.

Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 8.26.2020

“You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Vice President Mike Pence said from an outdoor stage lined with American flags. “Under President Trump…we’re not going to defund the police—not now, not ever.” He added, to cheers from the audience: “We will have law and order on the streets of this country.”

The focus on Mr. Trump’s support for law enforcement follows three nights of violent clashes, fires and looting in Kenosha, Wis., after police there shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back on Sunday, leaving him paralyzed for now.

Vice President  Pence hailed President Trump’s support for law enforcement during what he called a “time of testing” spurred by recent protests against police shootings and the coronavirus pandemic, as he accepted the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nomination Wednesday.

Since the killing of George Floyd in police custody in May spurred nationwide protests against police brutality, Mr. Trump has made clear he is more aligned with law enforcement than with the protesters. The Republican National Convention—where speakers cast the president as the champion of law enforcement and attacked his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, for being sympathetic to protesters—has thrown that alignment into sharper relief.

Mr. Pence, who spoke from Fort McHenry, the site of a War of 1812 battle that inspired the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” sought to tie Mr. Biden to efforts among some Democrats and liberal groups to defund police departments in response to cases of police brutality and racial inequity. The Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign has said he opposes efforts to defund the police, but would seek “transformative change” to the criminal justice system.

 

The Milwaukee Bucks walked out of the arena in Florida and refuse to engage in play time while their home state of Wisconsin is torn asunder.

The cowardly Kenosha cops who shot Jacob Blake in the back on August 23rd and left him paralyzed must receive the criminal justice they deserve.

The Bucks  protest  led to cancellation of several other playoff games.

It is one way to show the world that  renegade violent behavior by the cops must stop.

New York Times 8.26.2020

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The N.B.A. postponed multiple playoff games on Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks boycotted their matchup with the Orlando Magic in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Wisconsin.

Jacob Blake

The boycott was an extraordinary escalation of how players have demonstrated for social causes this season, with numerous athletes speaking out against systemic racism and police brutality.

The postponement affects first-round games between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers, and between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets. The games, including that of the Bucks and Magic, will be rescheduled.

The announcement came after the Magic were seen walking out of the arena and boarding their bus during what should have been Game 5 of their first-round series against the Bucks.

Make no mistake. The Republicans bloviating is outrageous and over the top.

Trump doesn’t care that the Speaker promoting obscene anti-Jewish conspiracy theories was nixed.

It’s what Trump wants.

Trump thrives on chaos and disruption.

Total discordant mayhem.

The Goal. Pay attention to the Audience of One.

Daily Beast 8.26.2020

Mary Ann Mendoza, an “angel mom,” was set to speak on Tuesday night. But then she took to Twitter to encourage followers to read a thread about the Rothschilds.

One of the speakers for the second night of the Republican National Convention was pulled from the program after The Daily Beast surfaced a tweet from her, earlier in the day, urging her followers to investigate a supposed Jewish plot to enslave the world.

“Do yourself a favor and read this thread,” Mary Ann Mendoza, who is a member of the Trump campaign’s advisory board, tweeted to her more than 40,000 followers Tuesday morning.

Mendoza, an “angel mom,” was scheduled to speak Tuesday about her son’s 2014 death at the hands of a drunk driver who was in the country illegally. But a Republican source familiar with the programming said the speech had been cancelled amid uproar over her tweet.

Hours earlier, Mendoza had linked to a lengthy thread from a QAnon conspiracy theorist that laid out a fevered, anti-Semitic view of the world. In its telling, the Rothschilds—a famous Jewish banking family from Germany—created a plot to terrorize non-Jewish “goyim,” with purported details of their scheme that included plans to “make the goyim destroy each other” and “rob the goyim of their landed properties.”

Liz Heidhues 8.25.2020

NBA Superstar LeBron James said that the Jacob Blake shooting shows why Black people in America are “terrified” of the American police.

Alluding to the never-ending spiral of violence by armed American cops against American citizens, LeBron said that, “Firearms are a huge issue in America … not only are they used for hunting for sport … we think you’re hunting us.”

Jacob Blake. Jacob Blake’s family

On Sunday 8.23.2020, a 29-year-old black man, Jacob Blake, was shot eight times in the back by cops in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

LeBron James

The cops bullets left Mr. Blake paralyzed from the waist down. The cops shot Mr. Blake in front of his child.

The cops shot Mr. Blake as he tried to get into the driver’s seat of his vehicle.

By the grace of a good and brave bystander, Raysean White, the activity between Mr. Blake and the armed police officers was recorded at the moment the cops fired their weapons.

Raysean said of Mr. Blake’s shooting, “He wasn’t being violent.”

Mr. White posted his citizen video of the Wisconsin shooting on social media.

Protests erupt in New York City after Blake shooting

The posting occurred just three months after another citizen video revealing the murder of the unarmed George Floyd by Minneapolis, Minnesota police was posted on social media.

The three officers involved in Mr. Floyd’s murder were eventually arrested and charged.

There are no comprehensive statistics available on problems with police integrity, and no government entity collects data on all criminal arrests of law enforcement officers in the United States.*

*Source:

“Police Integrity Lost: A Study of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested.”

Philip Matthew Stinson, Sr., J.D., Phd.

I want to be far away as possible from the “Audience of One” Trump show this week.

In my DVD collection I found the 2004 French film “Red Lights.”

The film allows me to escape the never ending Trump Dystopia .

“Red Lights” cinematically  scrutinizes the passive-aggressive human personality while interspersing the soundtrack’s repetition of excerpts from Debussy’s “Nuages.”

Excerpted from New York Times – Stephen Holden 9.3.2004

The brilliant, sinister French thriller “Red Lights,” which opens today in New York, is a twisty road movie in which every sign points toward catastrophe.

As night falls during the journey of Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), and Hélène (Carole Bouquet) Dunan, an unhappily married couple on their way from Paris to Bordeaux, the highway takes them into descending levels of psychosexual hell.

Antoine, a mousy, balding insurance salesman who suggests a dilapidated version of the 60’s James Mason, hates his job, and whines out loud that he wants to “live like a man” and “be free.” He complains to Hélène, a sleek, far more successful corporate lawyer whose success galls him, that’s she’s too consumed with work. The Dunans are headed south to pick up their two children from summer camp. But even before they leave Paris, the tension between them hangs in the air like stale, sour static with nowhere to escape.

Mr. Darroussin’s depiction of Antoine as a glowering textbook example of passive-aggression is so uncompromising that Antoine often infuriates you. One way he vents his hostility toward Hélène is by secretly drinking during the trip. As you watch him tanking up at rest stops and stoking his resentment while she waits impatiently in the car, your sympathy for him ebbs, and you want to taunt him as a gutless, drunken milquetoast busily destroying himself. Yet the marriage is not lost. There are signs that a core of loyalty still exists between the two.

As Antoine finds himself stuck in crawling traffic, with episodes of gridlock, “Red Lights” reminds you of Godard’s “Weekend,” and Claire Denis’s “Friday Night,” movies in which traffic jams are disquieting metaphors for something bigger. Antoine quickly succumbs to road rage, which escalates the more he drinks. Against Hélène’s wishes, he impulsively turns off the highway onto a darker route, and soon they are lost.

“Red Lights,” adapted from a Georges Simenon novel set in America, sustains an appearance of realism even while embracing symbolic and surreal elements. Its eeriness is enhanced by its soundtrack’s repetition of excerpts from Debussy’s “Nuages.” Above all, it is a chilly study of an uncomfortably common breed of male paranoia. A major reason the marriage has turned rancid is that Antoine feels himself less than an equal partner. And with a sly, malicious humor, the film dramatizes his alcohol-fueled rebellion, which precipitates a grisly solution to his masculinity crisis.

Kellyanne Conway is making a sudden exit from Trump land on the eve of the Republican convention.  

A zealous advocate for Trump, Ms. Conway will be long remembered for her classic turn of phrase when she described the lies being put out by the White House as “Alternative facts.”  

It was all captured on tape shortly after Trump’s 2017 inaugural when Ms. Conway appeared on Meet the Press. A link is attached.

Artwork – Liz Heidhues

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/jan/22/kellyanne-conway-trump-press-secretary-alternative-facts-video

Kellyanne Conway and husband George Conway – 2017

Long before Black Lives Matter there was the Black Panther Party founded in Oakland, California in 1966.

The Black Panthers served as a political organization and community leader.

Because of its success it ran afoul of law enforcement which brought the full weight of the government upon the Black Panther Party in an effort to destroy the organization, imprison and kill its leaders.

Dr. Huey Newton was a primary target.

Dr. Huey Newton shows the clenched fist (Circa late 1960’s)

Tyrone Robinson, a member of rival Black activist group Black Guerrilla Family and a local drug dealer, shot Black Panther party co-founder Dr. Huey Newton twice in the face on August 22, 1989. Robinson later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.

Charles Garry seated left of Huey Newton

Photo – Liz Heidhues

Artwork – “Soul of a Nation.” De Young Museum San Francisco 11.8.2019

We sat transfixed watching the powerful “Three Colours: Red” again. It is one of the deepest stories ever put on the screen.

Released in 1994 as the third story, and arguably the most profound, it was widely lauded as the best in the Three Colours trilogy directed by the late Krzysztof Kieślowski

The main strand in the plot line is the discovery by a young model Valentine Dussaut (Irene Jacob) of illegal surveillance conducted on his neighbors by a retired Judge Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trinitgnant).

By wiretapping his neighbors’ private phone conversations, Joseph Kern carries out his surreptitious surveillance.

The erosion of the border between what is private and what is public promises drama, danger, and romance.

In one case, Kern spies on a married man’s nightly pornographic phone calls to a homosexual lover with its ramifications for the unsuspecting wife and a suspicious teen daughter.

The young, idealist woman and the older, world weary man forge a relationship which goes from wariness and hostility to a deep affinity and understanding of one another.

Three Colours: Red was released at the dawn of the Internet and before the age of virtual communication. Cell Phones were a rarity. This is a story about human relationships on a very basic, deep and personal level.

In the current era of Pandemic, chaos and Trump it is a reminder there is another, better, more reflective world.

It is also a reminder that someone conducting electronic surveillance of their neighbors may end up paying a price including denunciation by all who find it out.

Liz and Lee Heidhues – 8.22.2020

This is the third in the series of four Posts on Surveillance in cinema.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Colours:_Red