Author: VD

Straining at gnats

David Bernstein aka the Volokh Conspiracy tries to spin why it’s just fine for states and the Federal government to try to force American businesses and sole proprietorships to do business with the foreign nation of Israel:

Texas has a law banning state entities from contracting with businesses, including sole proprietorships, that boycott Israel. As a result, just like local governments require contractors to certify that they adhere to many other state laws, such as anti-discrimination laws and financial propriety laws, they also must certify, in compliance with state law, that their business does not boycott Israel.

Here is the specific language Ms. Amawi was asked to sign (see appendix A):

Pursuant to Section 2270.001 of Texas Government Code, the Contractor affirms that it: 1. Does not currently boycott Israel; and 2. Will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract Pursuant to Section 2270.001 of Texas Government Code:

“Boycott Israel” means refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory, but does not include an action made for ordinary business purposes; and “Company” means a for-profit sole proprietorship, organization, association, corporation, partnership, joint venture, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, or any limited liability company, including a wholly owned subsidiary, majority-owned subsidiary, parent company or affiliate of those entities or business associations that exist to make a profit.

Note that, consistent with the language and obvious intent of the law (see the text here, it’s even titled “PROHIBITION ON CONTRACTS WITH COMPANIES BOYCOTTING ISRAEL”), the school district certification applies to the business, “it,” not the individual “she.” Contrary to what I’ve been reading all over the internet, Ms. Amawi is not being asked to pledge that she, in her personal capacity, will not privately boycott Israel, much less that, e.g., she will not advocate for boycotting Israel or otherwise refrain from criticizing Israel.

Briefly on the First Amendment issue, it’s no different analytically than requiring a contractor to pledge that the business does not refuse to hire Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, veterans, or another state-designated group. [Clarification: “it” means the First Amendment analysis. There are obvious moral, practical, historical, and other differences between boycotting Israel and boycotting members of American minority groups; those differences just aren’t constitutionally salient.] The sole proprietor contractor, or the certifying officer for a larger contractor, is still permitted to refuse to invite a Muslim to his house for dinner, or to advocate against Muslims in any way he chooses. The business simply can’t engage in action that the state disapproves of.

This is a typical lawyer’s perspective, focusing like a laser on the irrelevant LEGALITY of a law, at least, legality as it is defined by a few judges finding nonexistent emanations and penumbras in a text that says something entirely different.

Darkstream: the labor mobility problem

This mass-firing by Ryanair of all its Dutch personnel is an excellent example of the problem that labor mobility poses the ideology of free trade:

Ryanair has fired all its pilots and cabin crew members based in the Netherlands after they did not agree to be ‘voluntarily’ relocated to bases as far-flung as Morocco and Belarus.

The Irish low-cost airline officially filed for the collective firing of all personnel at the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (UWV), an autonomous government administrative authority that handles unemployment benefits.

Ryanair cites bad economic results for its Dutch base at Eindhoven, which was closed on 5th November, as the reason for the mass-dismissal.

To realize the full benefits of free trade, there can be no limits upon workers moving to where they can be most efficiently employed. It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak Ukrainian, if your family doesn’t want to relocate to Morocco, or if your ancestors have lived in Eindhoven for hundreds of years. If it is more efficient for the airline to fly from Belarus or Rabat, then you must go and live there or lose your job to a more cost-effective Moroccan pilot.

That’s not merely how free trade works, that’s what they mean by the necessity of immigration and the free movement of peoples. Of course, it will, incidentally, result in the complete destruction of every family and every national bond, but then, as Jordan Peterson reassures us, group identities are pathological anyhow, so it’s really for the best.

I addressed the issue in tonight’s Darkstream.

History is not hate speech

The Voxiversity video SINK THE SHIPS has been removed from YouTube. You can still view it on BitChute. YouTube has also assigned a warning strike to the Voxiversity channel.

Hi Voxiversity,

As you may know, our Community Guidelines describe which content we allow – and don’t allow – on YouTube. Your video “Sink The Ships” was flagged for review. Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines. We’ve removed it from YouTube and assigned a Community Guidelines strike, or temporary penalty, to your account.

Video content restrictions
We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express their points of view, even if unpopular. However, YouTube doesn’t allow hate speech. Sometimes there’s a fine line between what is and isn’t considered hate speech. If you’re not sure whether or not your content crosses the line, we ask that you don’t post it. Learn more here.

The impact of strikes
This is the first strike applied to your account. We understand that users seldom intend to violate our policies. That’s why strikes don’t last forever – this strike will expire in three months. However, it’s important to remember that additional strikes could prevent you from posting content to YouTube or even lead to your account being terminated.

How you can respond
If you believe this was a mistake, we’d like to hear from you. Please follow both of these steps as simply deleting the video won’t resolve the strike on your account.

    – The next time you sign in you will be asked to acknowledge this strike on your account.
    – If you would like to appeal this strike, please submit this form. Our team will thoroughly review your appeal and will contact you again very soon.

Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team

I appealed the strike and pointed out that history is not “hate speech”, that advocating the defense of national borders is not “hate speech”, and that endorsing military action is not “hate speech”. But this is yet another reminder of how it is vital to build our own platforms and utilize non-converged platforms like BitChute.

If YouTube does not remove the strike, I will investigate switching my Darkstream channel chat over to Stream.Me in the place of the YouTube chat until the strike expires. This action is further evidence, as if any was needed, that SJWs will attempt to eliminate history that contradicts the current narrative.

UPDATE: Upon further review, YouTube has decided that history is hate speech.

Dear Voxiversity:

Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube.

After further review of the content, we’ve determined that your video does violate our Community Guidelines and have upheld our original decision. We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

— The YouTube Team

I’m sure you’re just as shocked as I am.

Facebook doesn’t SELL your data

They just GIVE IT AWAY to all their SJW social media buddies:

When he stood before Congress in April, following yet another scandal at Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg declared ‘We don’t sell data to anyone’.

That may technically be the case, but a new New York Times expose has revealed that Facebook gave 150 companies access to hundreds of millions of users’ data without their knowledge or consent. Records obtained by the Times reveal that the amount of data Cambridge Analytica received from a Facebook app paled in comparison to the access that was granted to the social media giant’s biggest partners, including Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix.

Facebook gave Netflix, Spotify, and the Royal Bank of Canada the ability to read, write, and delete Facebook users’ private messages and to see all participants on a thread, according to the internal records. It also allowed Microsoft’s search engine, known as Bing, to see the name of all Facebook users’ friends without their consent.

Amazon was allowed to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and Yahoo could view streams of friends’ posts. As of last year, Sony, Microsoft, and Amazon could all obtain users’ email addresses through their friends.

It must be that amazing 115 IQ that has enabled Mark Zuckerberg’s astonishing success. It can’t be because he is a shameless, amoral deceiver who doesn’t even hesitate to ever-so-cleverly dazzle and confuse his inquisitors with his astonishing verbal skills.

Of course, it’s hardly surprising that the morons in Congress didn’t think to ask him any follow-up questions concerning the obvious variations and permutations on the privacy-violating theme in order to pin the evasive alien down. This revelation should be sufficient to shut down Facebook permanently for its repeated mass violations of privacy.

A revolution in publishing

You say you want a revolution? We have one right here just in time for Christmas. First, the audiobooks, all in DRM-free MP3 format:

This is all brand new to us, so if you have any problems with the process or if a file link is incorrectly assigned, please let us know and we will address it right away. Moira’s reading of her book is particularly good; her musical background is readily apparent.

Please note that we will never delay our ebook releases in order to create these digital bundles. Our production process is straightforward: ebook, print, audiobook. If you compare our prices with Audible and other audio options, it should be evident that you’re not paying for the ebook twice if you already own it, the inclusion of the ebook is merely added value for those who have not yet read the book and might like to be able to follow along with the audiobook.

In other book news, despite the metadata mixup that has temporarily the cover image out of the listing, THE DARK AVENGER’S SIDEKICK by John C. Wright is now available in a spectacular 596-page hardcover for $29.99 from Castalia House Direct. This is the trilogy that contains Moth & Cobweb Books 4-6: Daughter of Danger, City of Corpses, and Tithe to Tartarus and makes a handsome companion to The Green Knight’s Squire.

Some audiobook enthusiasts have asked us about the possibility of our developing a custom audiobook app that is integrated with our Arkhaven store. We have the technical capacity to do so, but our bandwidth is limited and it is a questionable use of our time and technical resources given the opportunity cost. Most likely, we would do a small crowdfunding for such a project in order to get an idea of the actual demand as opposed to the theoretical enthusiasm. If you have any thoughts on this, please feel free to share them here.

Why do you think?

The only thing more ridiculous than Justin Trudeau trying to deal with China is the thought of Jordan Peterson trying to do so:

A third Canadian citizen has been detained in China, Canada’s National Post newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing the Canadian foreign ministry. A spokesperson with Global Affairs Canada said it was ‘aware of a Canadian citizen’ who has been detained, but did not provide further details, citing the Privacy Act.

At a daily news briefing in Beijing, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was unaware of the situation.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – who said on Friday the detentions were unacceptable – told CTV his government was taking the situation very seriously.

‘We have engaged with the Chinese officials to determine what exactly conditions are they being detained under? Why are they being detained?’ he said in an interview aired on Sunday. McCallum met Kovrig for the first time on Friday.

Canada apparently doesn’t understand that Uncle Sam doesn’t have the global muscle that he used to have. What we’re seeing here is another of the death throes of the neo-Trotskyite globalist order.

Darkstream 10k

I look forward to being able to call it Darkstream 40k. But in the meantime, that’s not so bad.

By the way, I was just on with Alex Jones. He actually had a copy of the Jordanetics paperback, which is more than I can say. It’s really rather remarkable how the globalists are desperate to corral the nationalist Right with their approved and controlled opposition; things are fairly obviously spiraling out of their control despite the lamentable failure of the Trump administration to do the two things it was elected to do.
  1. Build the Wall
  2. Drain the Swamp

Seriously, what morons in the Republican Party even hesitate to shut down the government. The government is the primary problem! Threatening to shut down the government is like threatening to throw Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch.

The White House suggested Tuesday that President Donald Trump could back down from his demand for $5 billion to fund his proposed border wall in a year-end spending bill.

Trump’s push for the money has threatened a partial government shutdown when funding for seven agencies lapses after midnight Friday. Last week, the president said he would be “proud” to close parts of the government over border security.

“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion that we’ll work with Congress,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News on Tuesday morning. She added that the Trump administration could support $1.6 billion in border security funding proposed by Senate Democrats, as long as it can “couple that with other funding resources” to get to $5 billion. She added that “at the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government. We want to shut down the border.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have cast the potential lapse in funding as the “Trump shutdown.

Instead of spending $5 billion on the promised Big Beautiful Wall, Congress is just going to give $10.6 billion to Mexico.

The United States pledged $5.8 billion in aid Tuesday for strengthening government and economic development in Central America, and another $4.8 billion in development aid for southern Mexico.

Shut it down, Mr. President. You had two jobs. And to date, you haven’t finished either of them.

Shapiro replacing Savage

Convergence isn’t just for SJWs. The cuckservatives are getting into the game now and propping up the Littlest Chickenhawk on a national scale:

The voice of New York, come Jan. 7, may be no more.

That’s because WABC, one of the city’s premiere, preeminent stations, is poised to boot Michael Savage — to deplatform him, in broadcast-speak, said his attorney, Daniel Horowitz, in a telephone interview.

WABC isn’t saying such; in fact, a recent news release from the station indicates Savage will be moving into a new, fresher format designed to take advantage of emerging media, one that will see him do one hour of radio alongside one hour of podcast.

But the behind-the-scenes story is a bit different.

According to Horowitz, who said he’s seen “the emails back and forth” between his client, Savage, and the radio powers-who-be, “The Savage Nation” is actually poised to go dark on WABC on Jan. 7.

And not just on WABC: Horowitz said media powerhouses in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., are all giving the boot to Savage, as well.

Why? What’s going on?

Well, it’s not ratings, Horowitz said. And he’s right; the numbers bear the truth of Savage’s years-long radio dominance.

Take a look: “Michael Savage Proves a Ratings Tour-de-Force on Bay Area’s KSFO,” Newsmax blared in a headline in June of 2016, in a story on Savage’s domination in that West Coast market.

Then there’s this: In late 2017, Talk Stream Live listed Savage, with 14.8 million listeners, as the second most-listened to top talk radio voice in the nation, behind only Rush Limbaugh’s 16.5 million listeners — but far ahead of third place Laura Ingraham’s 6.8 million.

Meanwhile, Radio Insight reported in September that Westwood One was “shaking up its weekday afternoon Conservative Talk block” and that “Ben Shapiro To Go National As Michael Savage Cuts Back To One Hour.” The release went on to note that Cumulus just “launched Ben Shapiro on six stations in April including a live clearance on 770 WABC New York and delayed clearances on WMAL Washington DC, WLS Chicago, WYAY Atlanta and KABC Los Angeles.”

OK. So out with the old, in with the new?

Perhaps. Perhaps that’s how the radio gods might put it. But given Savage’s ratings and time-tested popularity with the people, that excuse doesn’t meet the smell test.

You can’t fool all, or even most, of the people all the time. But you can fool enough conservatives with a puppet repeating talking points long enough to make it worth your while.

Japan is not a long-term ally

Eamonn Fingleton, the author of In the Jaws of the Dragon, ($19.99 at Castalia Direct) observes that the USA would be very, very unwise to put much weight on its strategic alliance with Japan in the event of a serious war with China over the South Pacific:

The Japanese and the Chinese are pragmatic people who rarely let history get in the way of good business. And there is no question that, for both sides, the alliance is good business. The two economies are highly complementary: Japan’s ultra capital-intensive manufacturers supply the sophisticated components and complex equipment needed by China’s labour-intensive factories. As the resulting consumer goods are exported mainly to the west, the relationship is a win-win in trade terms for both nations. For Japan in particular, the benefits are far larger than is generally understood: it has an enormous interest in China’s exporting success. Thus although China’s exports to the U.S. now exceed even Japan’s, the widely voiced conclusion that China’s success has come at Japan’s expense is misguided. The truth is that a large proportion of the high-tech components and materials used in China’s exports originates in Japan. In effect, much of what Japan exports to the U.S. these days goes through China. This helps explain a crucial fact: Japan’s aggregate current account surpluses with the world as a whole are three to four times greater than China’s.

Short-term economic considerations are not the decisive factor in Japan’s changing diplomatic priorities. Japan’s preference for a world led by China rather than by the U.S. is based on culture. Though many westerners imagine otherwise, Japan is deeply uncomfortable with many aspects of western culture. Although Japan presents a thoroughly westernized face to the world, this reflects no sincere acceptance of Judeo-Christian values.

Japan and China share Confucian and Buddhist traditions. Both are ruled by a traditional East Asian ethos of father knows best. Citizens are saddled with a heavy burden of duties while being denied many rights taken for granted in the west.

Because of their common cultural heritage, the Japanese and Chinese think alike in economic matters, too. Officials in both nations have huge powers to direct savings flows, build export industries, and generally shape economic outcomes. This means the two nations find themselves making common cause in opposing American efforts to reshape other nations’ economies along U.S. lines.

Human rights is another area in which a common cultural heritage has helped align the two nations’ diplomatic interests. Japanese and Chinese leaders are at one in viewing a nation’s human rights policies as a purely internal affair. Thus Japan does not try to dictate China’s human rights policies, any more than China tries to dictate Japan’s.

I suspect Fingleton’s analysis is much more likely to be correct than the common foreign policy assumption that Japan is frightened of China and will rely upon the US military to protect it from its increasingly ascendant neighbor.

As difficult as it may be for the average Westerner to accept, the Japanese do not genuinely prize the Western values and social structures that were forcibly imposed upon them subsequent to their military defeat at the hands of the USA. The USA has twice imposed its will upon an unwilling Japanese people, first in 1853, then again in 1945, and I expect that the Japanese would be considerably more comfortable in a Chinese hegemony than in the entirely foreign one that the US hegemony represents.

The Japanese know perfectly well that the Chinese are not a naturally aggressive empire. For centuries, China has been internally focused, and far more sinned against by imperial Western powers than inclined to engage in any imperial adventures. True, the Japanese occupation of the 20th century was cruel, but considerably less cruel and less lethal than the Cultural Revolution that followed it.

And it is entirely evident that the superficial adoption of Western ways has not been good for the Japanese people. The malaise that affects them is entirely the result of the attempt to impose Western civilization on a foreign nation lacking any integral connection to its three foundations, Christianity, the Graeco-Roman legacy, and the European nations. I doubt it escapes Japanese observers that the West is presently suffering the same malaise as a result of its rejection of its own civilizational roots.

Amazon devours all

A recent promotion within Amazon signals that its Retail side has won out over its erstwhile Marketplace mentality. An explanation of how that affects the bookselling world and Castalia House’s strategy for 2019 and beyond.

Over the past few months, Amazon has applied intense pressure to consumer brands across different product categories — seizing more control over what, where and how they can sell their goods on the so-called everything store, these people say.

One apparent goal: To take more control over the price of goods on Amazon so the company can better compete with retailers. The power moves are also believed to be a prelude to a new internal system that Amazon has yet to launch called One Vendor. The new initiative will essentially funnel big brands and independent sellers alike through the same back-end system in a supposed effort to improve the uniformity of the shopping experience across Amazon on the public-facing side.

In the lead-up to that launch, this fall Amazon has been notifying brands that sell products in categories ranging from household consumables to fashion accessories that part of their business on Amazon would be shut down — with just 30 days notice.

“Amazon obsesses over the customer experience and your brand has opportunities for improvement that will be possible by transitioning your full business to Vendor Central,” read one email from Amazon to a brand. “As a result, we have made the decision to source your products for sale by Amazon only and your existing Seller Central account will be closed within 30 days of this email.”

Translation: Amazon is telling these brands that they can no longer sell directly to customers as an independent seller on the Amazon platform for third-party merchants known as the Amazon Marketplace. The advantages to selling on the Marketplace include the ability to control the sale price of the goods, run price promotions and get more data about how products are performing and who’s buying them.

Instead, the email is telling brands that they can only sell items to Amazon’s retail group at wholesale cost, and let Amazon act as the seller and determine the retail cost.

This policy is not completely new. For years, Amazon has had a policy that says if a brand sells its goods to retailers outside of Amazon and wants to also sell on Amazon, the company “expects” the brand “to give Amazon Retail the option to source those products at competitive terms for sale as Retail items only.” But it was not consistently followed — until now.

“The policy hasn’t changed but the enforcement is changing,” said Justin Leigh, a former Amazon product manager who for the last 10 years has run Ideoclick, a Seattle-based consultancy for brands that want to sell and advertise on Amazon.

An Amazon spokeswoman said the policy is intended to help reduce customer confusion.

But in addition to increased enforcement, an even bigger deal is a recent addition to the policy.

The new language not only bars some manufacturers and brands from selling their goods on the Amazon Marketplace if Amazon wants to sell the product itself — but also “their agents, licensees, and other representatives selling on their behalf.”

What this means is that Amazon is increasingly seeking to control and sell its own content rather than serve as a middleman. That’s precisely why Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited have been adopted, to change the structure of the ebook market as Amazon increasingly shifts the revenue split between Amazon and the author toward Amazon at the expense of the author.

In other words, now that Amazon has drained about as much of the revenue stream as it effectively can from the traditional publishers, it has no choice but to do the same to the independent publishers and the self-published authors if it is going to increase its sales. Because the overall market is not growing, the book market is a zero-sum game and Amazon cannot grow except at the expense of the ebook authors who in recent years have profited with Amazon at the expense of the traditional publishers.

This is why we are no longer participating in Kindle Select. And this is why it is going to be increasingly important for independent authors to either a) become part of the A9-favored Elect or b) find a way to succeed outside of Amazon. And while (a) is almost certainly the more profitable short-term move, it is not an option for most authors, and furthermore, requires the author to remain in the good graces of a moderately SJW-converged corporation, which is a dangerous place for anyone to be. While Amazon is considerably more professional and sane than Apple, Twitter, Patreon, and other more SJW-converged companies, it is very far from neutral.

How can I be so certain that the trend towards Retail and content control is inevitable? Because the individual who has driven the Retail side is now in charge of the whole shebang.

Earlier this year, Amazon made moves to consolidate much of the decision-making for its retail platform under a single leader, Senior Vice President Doug Herrington, who has spent nearly 14 years at the company. Herrington comes from the Amazon Retail side of the business, where Amazon sources products itself and acts as a seller. That, brand leaders and consultants say, has influenced recent moves.

Now, there is nothing wrong with what Amazon is doing. This is just a business strategy and it can’t be compared to the deplatformings and civil wrongdoings of companies like Indiegogo. One can still work with Amazon, one simply can’t take the risk of working exclusively with them as we have for the past four years. That is why we will be selling all of our new audiobooks from the Arkhaven store and why we are removing almost all of our books from Kindle Select, including the comics. We expect to have all of them removed from the exclusive system by the end of February.

This is great news for those of you who prefer DRM-free epubs, as we now have eight of the ten THERE WILL BE WAR books available for sale on the Arkhaven store, including the newly available Volume II, Volume III, Volume VII, and Volume X. The books also come in Kindle-compatible MOBI format for those of you who prefer to read on your Kindle devices.

We hope Castalia ebook and audiobook fans will continue to migrate to our direct stores, as so many of our print book buyers have already. Even though we only began our print direct sales in March, and even though the direct sales will not be available in the UK, Europe, and Australia until sometime in 2019, ONE-THIRD of all our growing print sales now go through Castalia Books Direct.  This is a tremendous strategic success. While Amazon is massively convenient and will always be an important retail outlet for us, it is vital for us to maintain our independence from it and it is those of you who buy our books that permit Castalia House, Arkhaven, and Dark Legion to do that.