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"The whole point of science is to question accepted dogmas" (Freeman Dyson)[*] [Thus, the whole point of true scholarship is NOT and NEVER was to brutally impose any particular ideology. The issue is that effervescent propagandists and government entities rarely if ever abandon concepts perceived as 'effective communicating' in terms of steady increases in unquestioned control powers. Whether those concepts are false or a provable outright fraud hardly matters. Basically administrative 'Mission Creep' (something that has existed under ALL ideologies, within all eras). Any 'Science™' claiming to be 'settled' has ipso facto become nothing more than static (sterile) affimation / replication of dogma. That also makes it a blazing top favourite among all the lucrative Psychological 'Engineering' industries -- Propaganda / Censorship ('Reality' Management) / Behaviour Change -- with proximate origins in the 1920s and forward ties to for-hire 'fact-checkers'. Let us evoke here, e.g., the 1934 Technocracy Study Course (M. King Hubbard) [1903-1998), Fabianly non-innovative, basic Malthusian, and beholden to context (1920s-1940s) & the limits of 'back-when' knowledge. Thus the Malthusian point 3) “Provide a continuous inventory of all production and consumption”; and also point 4) “Provide a specific registration of the type, kind, etc., of all goods and services, where produced and where used”; and Digi-ID point 5) “Provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a record and description of the individual'. Did we point out that this goes way back to exactly 1934? Basically, Pol-Pot 1976 / Munich 1933 on steroids. Permanent (oh the stunning Singularity!) 'Emergency' Powers / Commissariat (Supply) Powers / Year Zero Powers / forever 'normalized' 'War Measures Act' / social 'emergency' detention without proof or process / GuLag & Comissar obsessive mindset / fanatical Totaleinsatz / eternalized Военный коммунизм / Total Dosadi Experiment. And the justificatory 'scholarship' is not to be debated. Agitprop 'messaging' will do just fine, plus coercion through 'Perma-Crisis'. As soon as one hears hears "The Science™ is Settled" or "The Scholarship is Settled" one should thus tactically move to 'do one's own research'. Einstein's humorous jab at Hans Israel, Erich Ruckhaber, Rudolf Weinmann et al., Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein [One Hundred Authors Against Einstein] (Leipzig, R. Voigtländer, 1931.)? “... why did 100 get together if one that refuted with evidence what I said was already enough …?” A fully apt jab at typical 'Consensus' Agitprop overkill and typical PR 'Reality' Management. ► Oh, we forgot of course -- humour and satire [and memes] are a dire Danger to Democracy (NB: WARNING! This line is satire, just in case you no longer know what satire is, or once was). And Danger to Tyranny. And to Plutocracy. And to Bureaucracy. And to the Persian Empire. And to 'Trusted' Fact Checkers. And to the Inquisition. And to Block-Snitch Agents of the Regime. And .. . "What I see all over the place is people who care about LOOKING good while DOING evil" (Elon Musk). Never mind who said it. Never mind that Elon Musk apparently said it. Juvenal (scrip. c. 100-127 CE) might very easily have said -- and in essence wrote -- the exact same. As did Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-104 CE). As did Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 BCE). As did Procopius of Caesearea (c.500 – 565 CE). And others. It is a valid targeted comment regarding an entire epoch of decline and PR-manipulation.
"Doubt is clearly a value in the sciences [NB: And in all scholarship; here we diverge from Feynman's "Whether it (i.e. doubt) is (i..e. clearly a value) in other fields is an open question and an uncertain matter"; for the PSR, there is no uncertainty regarding the perennial high value of free speech and doubt] … it is very important to doubt, and that doubt is not a fearful thing, but a thing of very great value" (Richard Feynman).
Note: To the right ►, in a gesture of intellectual 'back-to-the-roots' revolt, we mark the first note, in a generic sense, by an asterisk, the second one by an obelus (dagger), the third one by a diesis (double dagger), the fourth one by twin-double-dagger. None of these are related to any 'religious' symbols, regardless of what any fanatical 'fact-checkers' might pretend. The symbols date back to at least the far vanished age of Zenodotus (Ζηνόδοτος), thus c. 280 BCE. Thus, way before any of the later CE centuries' 'animosities'."Please, educate yourself!".
"Never worry about who will be offended if you speak the truth. Worry about who will be misled and deceived if you don’t.” Plus, “Ignorantia juris non excusat" ('ignorance of the Law is no excuse') they say. Thus, quite logically, "Ignorance of History is no excuse" either. As in, "we did not know, we only did our best [mandate, issue peremptory decrees, track, snitch, jail, sequester, send to prison camps, de-bank, 'label', ostracize, denounce, etc.] based on the imperfect information we had [while making money and smart 'career moves']." George Orwell, yet again, many years ago, expressed the deep essence of all these very ancient power games: "Real power is achieved when the ruling class [NB: or faction or ideology or 'current fad' or Greater (Public) Good Ideology or rampant bureaucracy -- it really does not matter whether it is labelled 'left', 'right', or 'centre' because the labels are just a self-declared group-ID matter of convenience, meaningless or designed to deceive / manipulate / 'alter behaviour'] controls the material essentials of life [NB: energy, food, mobility, communications, property and contract rights, means of exchange, and immaterials of banal everyday human contact {greetings, forms of address, forms of legal oath, etc. -- 'Comrade [Kamerad]' instead of civil greetings; 'Honour to Labour' instead of 'Good Day', 'Hail to the Leader' instead of anything else, etc.}], granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges [NB: as if they were contingent on 'embracing' a faction - system - worldview or at least faking faint compliance, in a 'Planet Prison' {ref. e.g. Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment (1977)}.
“It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.” (G. K. Chesterton) [we would propose, though, to change the "... to be certain we are right ..." to "... to suspect that we might be right ...". Yes, in a way, this is our revolt against the vastly solipsistic 'values' of Gen Z-ALPHA (and its all too frequent Lord of the Flies mind-set). We abhor intellectual and ideological shibboleths. "Derry" vs. "Londonderry"; "feesh and cheeps" vs. "fush and chups"; 'correctly voiced' "schild en vriend" [1302 CE]; 'correctly' mouthed "Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries" [1515-1523 CE]; or Fëanor's "We speak as is right, and as King Finwë himself did before he was led astray. ... Let them sá-sí, if they can speak no better" [Tolkien, The Peoples of Middle-Earth]). Oh well ... same old, same old, as always.
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” (George Orwell). Any State or politician or Magistrate -- bank or corporation or University -- arbitrating all this by lopsided 'rules', privileging 'protected' shibboleths (i.e. designated verbal / behavioural 'control-words,' ideological & in-group) has consequentially picked a side. Thus, it no longer possesses even minimal 'common authority'. "It is not Truth if you have not heard it from us" was a full-on declaration of would-be Despotism.
"Religion is a culture of faith (belief); Science is a culture of doubt" [†] (i.e. real Science should NEVER be a censorious culture of supine, paid-for, and 'mandated' Consensus) (Richard Feynman) (Thus, whatever ideology tells one to think for oneself, to always do 'one's own research', to steadily improve one's skills and one's critical faculties, to exercise individual Rational and expertise-based doubt, and to verify and verify and verify and then re-verify again, is in fact and always has been Scientific.Ipso facto, ideologies that (a) demand that one unquestioningly believe a top-down / official / corporate / PR -agency Narrative(‡‡) and that (b) pin their entire view of all data and of all Reality on 'alignment' by 'believers'', and treat all valid contrary evidence as 'infection', a virus to be 'pre-bunked' and eradicated, are a Thought-Control Cult. Even worse if they claim that distorting raw data is 'transparency', and that genuine raw data may 'endanger' Public Safety, Public 'Health', 'safe and healthy' conversation. Or inflict dire 'harms' [as defined by ► whom & for what exact agitprop 'I am just having fun' goals?]. That data may 'endanger' -- as per hired expert 'endangerment' findings -- The Wellbeing, The Common-weal, Commonwealth, The New State (Estado Novo), The Kraft durch Freude, The Thousand-Years Realm, The Tomorrows that Sing, Na věčné časy, The Comité de sûreté générale,The Newest Big Grand Co(co)terie in Official Power, The Shining Celestial Matrix ....
(‡‡) The PSR has never been any fan of the pre-modern Doctrine of Papal Infallibility (i.e. 'Popes NEVER make ANY mistakes'). "Structural sin"? Oh please, this tune has been played so many times in the past that it is laughable. Perhaps Pontiffs should read more Aristotle. Such a pity that the 2nd Book of Poetics [Περὶ ποιητικῆς], dealing with Comedy, has been lost and may survive only as, e.g., the Tractatus coislinianus. And they should learn how to ► laugh! Hired cubicularii Papae / PR Firms write the Exhortations, anyway, not the Pontifex in persona. Goes back to 1309, 1378, 1409, 1414-1418. Historical outcomes were -- speaking mildly -- a bit ► unpredictable. Those who grandly ignore History are condemned to repeat History. ► 1527 anyone? ~ We are thus not about to kiss digital AI-imaged EU DSA ground, worship a Doctrine of Total Bureaucrat Infallibility. "... and so it went on. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy ... Everything faded into mist. The past was erased (i.e. 'cancelled' / debanked / deplatformed / censored), the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth" (George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 7). NB: On the closely related topics of 'fact-checking' and ChatGPT-like 'writers', the PSR is Rationally evaluative -- odi et amo (Catullus 85). AI both (a) poses threats to credible academic publishing, and at the very same time (b) Governments and Establishments are really afraid of the empowering effect of cheap and quick AI (Policy Horizons Canada, The Future of Generative AI [September 2023]). Key danger, in the PH view? “... democratization [how very subversively horrible] of high-quality content production” which may “undermine social cohesion [or legacy media profits?]”. I.e. the (pseudo)elite -- which in fact is neither top-qualified nor consistently capable (never has been) -- might lose its Official 'Cultural' Narrative comparative advantage (such as it is). Catastrophically. The PSR is not elite- or nomenklatura- beholden. In terms of funding, support, whatever one would call it, we receive exactly $ 0.00 per annum. We would not take a single cent more. It is a guarantee of our total independence -- the right to say exactly what we want. The PSR thus would not shed a single fake tear for any TPTB (The Powers That Be). The Fall of the Berlin Wall comes to mind -- where is now, for instance, the all-powerful Genosse (Comrade) Erich Honecker (1912-1994) -- and the StaSi compliance enforcers of "Party Centralism"? Already the medieval French bard François Villon (c. 1431-after 1463) asked the biting question: "Où sont les neiges d’antan?" So, just a duly satirical clip here to offer a footnote comment ~ Sic transit Gloria Mundi, as a Mozart-style rondo of satirical laughter ►, — А иде ж гуси?
— В камыши ушли.
— А иде ж камыши?
— Девки выжали.
— А иде ж девки си?
— Девки замуж ушли.
— А иде ж казаки?
— На войну пошли
(Very traditional East European Колода-дуда [Bagpipe Koleda], the truly culturally 'authentic' original source for "Where Are All the Flowers Gone", for ref. allusion see Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don, 1925-1940. Let's just go the MD version ►, for nostalgic but keenly aware fun.
(‡‡). In this context, it is rather concenring that high-level programs are now afoot that seek to recruit 'digital armies' of juvenile "fact-checkers" (15-years and younger) who would replace all "false information" online with "real facts". This suggests that the proponents seek to subvert the core notion of "fact" ( "something that has actual existence"). I.e. no sort of Reality exists, except that which is ideologically useful. The manipulable 15-year-olds and younger, typically prone to age-cohort mass psychoses, are now instantly politically deified. E.g. in the style oif the incompetent, ignorant, privileged, coddled, solipsistic, and stage-manipulated Roman 'Emperor' Elagabalus, 204 CE-222 CE, regnavit merely 218-222 CE). From a family owning the hereditary and locally / fiscally very lucrative priesthood of Emessa's El {God} of the {local} Mountain {Hill} [إِلٰهُ الْجَبَلِ]. A very standard local-urban morph of the ubiqiutous utterly standard settlement-hillock (tell) deities {Ba'al -- The Lord}, 'residing' in a natural feature, tree, or perhaps a meteorite or other symbolic 'stone / rock from the sky'. 100% commonplace straight across the Copper Age and Bronze Age ancient Middle East. Similarly juvenile Elagabalus-morphs are now 'raised' to Planet-wide 'arbiters of Eternal Truth'. A 'Childrens' Crusade' (which ended in tragically comical disaster].
"Don’t pay attention to ‘authorities,’ think for yourself" (Richard Feynman) If one is NOT allowed to question something, or disagree with it, or is forced to undergo "mandatory re-education" to "hamonize" or "fully align" with "normalized mandates", one is being brutalized by Authoritarians masquerading as Experts or officially sanctified / funded 'Trusted Voices' / 'Trusted Sources'. Trust cannot be legislated or agitprop- / government--funded -- it has to be EARNED, the hard and very long way.
"The seeker after truth [i.e. the mocked and reviled 'Truther'] does not put his faith in any consensus, however venerable or widespread. Instead he questions what he has learned of it, applying to it his hard-won scientific knowledge, and he inspects and inquires and investigates and checks and checks and checks again. The road to the truth is long and hard, but that is the road we must follow” (Abū 'Alī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, c. 965 – c. 1040 CE) (Author of the seven-part Kitāb al-Manāẓir [Latin version, 1572, 'Opticae thesaurus': Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, nunc primum editi & eiusdem liber 'De crepusculis et nubium ascensionibus'], a pioneering empiricist, experimental-method, confirmable-test treatise on biological and instrumental optics. Like other pioneers, Abū 'Alī al-Ḥasan does teach us that the task of research is not to 'validate' or 'embrace' or 'align with' Narratives or 'trusted sources', but to find out what is wrong with all of the above.)
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The PSR / Baywolf Press ensure full-range academic publishing services • handling of manuscripts (articles, books, raw research data), with peer review • full-service development of periodicals and books • we operate in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French, and also offer a venue for Lusophone-related material in multiple languages ~ no linguistic-ideological 'cordon sanitaire' (thus, German, Italian, the entire Scandinavian and Slavic zone, Finno-Ugric zone, and more, are 100% fine with us: we are 'inclusive') • la revue PSR et Éditions Baywolf offrent une palette de services en langue française: plein examen par des pairs & appui rédactionnel complet pour monographies, anthologies d'essais, et recueils d'études savantes • in all publishing matters, contact us on-line. Notification: The PSR / Baywolf Press maintain stepped-up levels of Human (100% biological Human) referee and publishing process scrutiny for all submitted material (‡) • note also that we advise authors and entities communicating with us to seek alternatives to Gmail • regretfully, we cannot guarantee that our e-mail responses to any Gmail accounts will get delivered (the issue is Google-side, not at all at our end -- as we are not in the Google 'Community'; it also does not appear to be issue-specific to the PSR, but has affected various institutions, apparently also Trent University, Peterborough, ON [e.g. allegedly, with respect to students]) • the PSR cannot reasonably address such exogenous risk -- please seek stable e-mail alternatives: e.g. a free (basic), modular, encrypted Swiss Protonmail, and re-contact us •
A revista PSR deseja, a todos, saúde, veracidade, e PAZ nos anos de 2023-2024-2025. Never let honest & personal scholarly integrity yield to ideological / schematic (AI) / 'mandated' fall-in-step (a surrender of Rational 'agency'). It is fully Human informed & inquiring thought that critically matters for Earth's future (yes, along ancient lay-lines of calm probity embodied for instance in הַשְׂכָּלָה, if you want -- even though the PSR is not bound to any tradition: we are cross-rooted into all). Ideas, data, never become 'valid' by being 'mandated' or sponsored & endorsed by fanaticized corporation departments / milli - billi- trilli- onaires / or 'Advertising'. Whether or not ideas / research for instance 'align with the purposes and objectives of a Bank' is utterly irrelevant. It does not determine scholarly validity or value. Never will. The issue also is NOT whether data / thoughts are 'hurtful' or 'disturbing' or 'deemed incorrect'. One may 'deem' 'whatever' one wants -- Deeming and Proof have always been two different things.[*] When scholars self-censor valid, even critically valuable data / analysis, just to get published (and still face ideological 'cancelling'), we are at Full Break Point. In a key market-trade sense. A "condition ... at which discussion can no longer continue because people cannot agree". To filter thought by ideological 'alignment' ['partisanship'], i.e. to selectively suppress ('cancel') data or analysis regardless of actual quality or relevance, is (a) Humanity-sabotaging and (b) dishonest. It is a bureaucratic & dogmatic playbook -- extended ad absurdum to a domain where doubt-driven impartial search matters deeply, the realm of scholarship. Idolizing adherence to Party-Line, not actual competency, is a self-destructive societal 'blueprint'. While words flow, perceived through sober eyes, we might remain connected, thinly ... . The PSR thus will not 'exclude', on any side. Never in deference to ideological command or to coddle nepo-baby socialites. All scholars must have the logically useful right to speak freely, with honesty -- and they also must fully expect to be contradicted just as freely.[†] We defend (a) the right to ask questions, (b) the right to 'doubt' -- and above all (c) to 'do one's own research' without political reprisal. Those who adulate Censorship are those who existentially (often for lucrative 'brand' marketing -- personal, in-group, corporate & ideological & political & 'social media' & 'movement dynamics' [The Ladder to Faction Power]) also crave that crude Totalitarianism -- hugely self-sabotaging -- should enshrine, by 'law', as Truth™, slogan-ideas that rarely withstand actual scrutiny. It is thus quaint to hear fans of Censorship invoke, only when it suits their cause , 'free speech' as defence of their power to Censor. Age of 'Inversions'. Clearly, it is fair to call the shots at will. Therefore, for the PSR, research simply is not 'consensus'. 'Consensus' (like all top-down 'democratic'- / ideological-centralism -- The 'Party-Line') is a political and sterile process. It subverts, self-servingly, the scientific method (whatever remains of it after keen political / 'judicial' assault). It therefore also shields ideologies from critical scrutiny. Thus, it constitutes 'critical system-failure'.
[†] Contradicted, courteously and expertly -- not punitively 'de-banked', 'deplatformed', 'de-contracted', censored, 'handled' through covert 'switchboarding' of data / research / analysis, schematically 'labelled', 'milk-shaked', ritually forced to 'embrace' verbal dogma, criminalized, 'suspended' from professional existence (for two years, ten years, 'Eternity'), 'charged' on bogus pretences, and show-trialed. Indicted for 'felony' and fraudulently 'sentenced'. Told to 'remain silent', in a dictatorial KGB / NKVD voice -- "We are not here to hear what you have to say -- just answer the [scripted] questions that establish your guilt, Comrade! Now! Obey! Submit! Down! Grovel! Sit down!"). For instance, in Professional Association contexts, on grounds of purported "... evidence of Major [exclusively politicized] [Professional] Infraction as a result of repeating [so-called] offences, including prior warning". The mythical so-called 'rule of [so-called] law' at such junctures mainly consists in fake 'evidence' and 100% absurd ideological gaslighting. Full Break Point. What any so-called Discipline Panels act out as an admonitory 'spectacle of discipline' is of course relevant ONLY if one accepts their 'rules of the game' -- which become ever less coherent the more they grow manifestly politicized and divorced from very practical issues. Ultimately, this is a pitched contest about the core Structure of Reality. Yes, Planet Earth has indeed "crossed the Rubicon," [not unlike Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988)], amid obfuscation & collusion & systematized lavishly paid-for propaganda. Calm and steadfast Reason remains more essential than ever ... . In the final count, the only logical recourse might be to opt out. Walk away. Stop complying. Atlas Shrugged. Create one's own 'platform' and defend it through superior skill and means. 'Being deplatformed', i.e. ideologically persecuted & 'erased' & forced to 'comply' creates clarity. The core nature of things is revealed.
(‡) Note that (A) we discourage, unless functionally warranted by a research program's actual on-site and task-splitting needs, papers in the increasingly current fashion that feature one prominent 'lead' author and up to 17 or even more 'co-authors' whose practical contributions may be, charitably speaking, unclear. We also (B) recommend modulation of presentations that dodge broad scholarly debate and implicitly elevate theories to universally accepted absolute truths. Finally, (C) the PSR will preventatively turn down a manuscript, breaking off peer review, if we detect that a manuscript has been 'co-authored' by an AI (whether ChatGPT or any other LLM [Large Language Model]). Here we have no choice but to protect ourselves, in view of emergent lawsuits against various entities for 'padding' content with 'auto-written' AI-text. AI-assisted submissions frequently involve (i) tell-tale erroneous or vague references, (ii) false attribution of data or citations, (iii) non-existent -- i.e. 'faked' -- primary and secondary sources, etc. All of the latter are typical of chatbot tendencies to produce authoritative-sounding “hallucinations” -- data with no basis in reality, for which no individual bears due responsibility because it was generated by a machine. In the LLM-"hallucination" case, our position is the same as our refusal to consider as 'valid' any legislation or judicial ruling 'co-authored' by an LLM chatbot. The chatbot -- devoid of responsibility -- has no admissible judicial or legislative powers. The bottom line is -- in relevant instances, that the person claiming to have submitted an article, written a book, drafted a piece of legislation, or produced an analysis, did none of those things at all. That person submitted nothing, wrote nothing, drafted nothing, produced nothing. That person barely managed to type in a 49-word (or so) query. A lifeless algorithm did all the rest. The 'claiming' person in question may in fact not even remotely possess any relevant skills, qualifications, talent, discernment, understanding, knowledge, capabilities ... The person may very well be like a Roman (any equivalent civilization will do, here) owner of a captive scribe, libraririan, engineer, builder, philosopher ... The owner, bragging constantly about great accomplishments, amazes all friends and admirers -- but in fact is utterly incapable and vacuous. 'Social Elite', but fully useless. These issues are part of a broader pattern. The number of published scholarly papers known to have been officially retracted by authors or major journals, because the works ultimately proved to be sub-par / utterly 'compromised', was c. 40 in the year 2000. In 2022, the annual total was at least 5,500 -- a 13,650% increase. Add to this certain spectacular scandals, coming to dramatic resolution in 2019-summer of 2023, for instance at the highest levels of Stanford University and other establishments. Chronologically these tracked back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, with discipline-wide ripples in terms of impaired chain-of-citations. This in turn imperilled entire segments of scholarship. Our basic fiduciary duty as publishers is to stand on guard. Against 'paper mills', 'ideological coercion', 'authorship-brokering' -- with 'team authorships' advertised more or less for overt sale, and error-riddled 'automatic writing' by chatbots. On guard, also, against the well-acknowledged 'replication crisis' -- many research papers simply cannot be corroboratively replicated. Some of this "dizzying house of Narrative mirrors" is about as 'Real' as the concrete-3D-printed fake-bronze equestrian statue of Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany to 2021). It collapsed under its own slight weight and under simple weather effects in mid-September 2023. By comparison, for better or for worse -- we do not judge -- the notorious bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (121 CE - 180 CE) still exists now (even though even then the Later Roman Empire was already as undercut by corruption as many societies are today). What can one say? "... das andere Mal als Farce"? (Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon [New York: Weydemeyer, 1851-1852]). This powerful metaphor speaks, among other, to the fact that it is unwise to turn into 'cancelled' pariahs all those who rationally doubt or oppose a Grand Cult, a Grand 'Science' That May Not Be Debated, an Even Grander Ideology, etc.. Like ENRON or FTX, those Grand Things tend to collapse.
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Marcus Valerius Martialis, Epigrams, Book V, Epigram XX, "To Julius Martialis", "... pereunt ... et imputantur".

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1755/2023: Portugal and Morocco Earthquakes -- a Deep Commemoration
The 2023 Marrakesh-Safi earthquake (8 September 2023 at 23:11 DST (22:11 UTC), with an event epicentre near Ighil in foothills of the Atlas Mountain Range (sector Ait Abdellah, Ait Bouleguerade, Tala Kacem, Tagoumate, Tamazouzte, Dar El Mokhtar, etc.) poignantly reminds everyone both of the Lisbon Earthquake in the morning of Saturday, 1 November, Feast of All Saints, c. 09:40 local time, and of the near perfectly parallel 1755 Meknes Earthquake (historically estimated Moment Magnitude Scale of 6.5 - 7.0), initially rated as an aftershock of the iconic and culturally transformative Lisbon Earthquake and tsunami. The Meknes Earthquake was partly misdated to 18 November 1755, and was commonly highlighted in regional Arabic sources at the date-mark of 27 November 1755. The Meknes Earthquake had a serious impact on the cities of Fez and Meknes, and, at the lowest range of considerably imperfect pre-statistic estimates, killed 15,000+ people. For instance, of the deemed 16,000 Jews in Meknes, only 8,000 seem to have survived. Property damage across denominations and across all political / social categories was massive (Death as the Great Equalizer). The direct impacts and longer-run consequences remain poorly documented in historical and urban studies. In Fez alone, more than 3,000 people are estimated to have died, with many more wounded..
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Current Calls for Papers, 2024
The Lusophone Studies Association (LSA) Call for Papers, for the Fall and Winter 2024 LSA Conference. The conference will be in an on-line format, as a running series of individual-submission round-tables and / or organizer-proposed-and-managed session / discussion panel events. The deadline for preliminary paper or panel proposals / suggestions was 15 November 2023. To seek deadline extensions, in individual instances, please contact the PSR or the LSA. The LSA seeks individual and organizer proposals for innovative themes, advanced archival and traditional / new / mixed media research (including digital imagery, modelling, sensor data, sound, live performance, etc.), cutting-edge and thought-provoking material, etc. The event themes are open (organizer-initiated and managed -- the more genuinely varied the better), subject to Scientific Committee final approval. We seek to expand analytical and methodological envelopes, approaches, and techniques, as well as to ensure ample presentation groundwork for various neglected and / or emergent / contrarian datasets and contexts. The Scientific Committee structure is finalized. To be announced shortly. 
The PSR / Baywolf Press Our Standing General Call for Papers, 2024-2025 continues. We may also announce further specific Calls for Papers, during the winter of 2023-2024 (December 2023 to January 2024). These calls will be shaped by our heavily-in-demand publishing stream. Innovative proposals shall receive distinct editorial priority and support ('innovative' as to, e.g.: method, data, analytical technique, findings and cross-application, multi-level interpretation -- conventional as well as visualization-rooted [maps, exploratory visuals, striking or first-ever expressions of complex datasets], spatio-temporal approaches, challenging intersections of rival scholarly & ideological trends, unpublished / neglected documents, transcriptions of unknown or barely publicized archival / museum / private collection / heritage fund / hitherto restricted or classified sources). 
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Pre-Announcement: Forthcoming PSR / Baywolf Press Edited Volumes
Prof.ª Sirleia Maria Arantes et al., Escravidão e liberdades na América Portuguesa e no Império do Brasil (Peterborough/Toronto: Baywolf Press, release planned for the Winter Holidays 2023/2024 [December 2023 or January 2024]). ISBN number allocated: 978-0-921437-62-8. The volume is in advanced layout and pre-proofing. 
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Recent LSA Conferences
The Lusophone Studies Association (LSA) International Conference "Women, Gender and Intersectionality in the Lusophone World' took place 29 June to 2 July 2022, at Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal. The public part of the Conference site is archived and remains web-accessible as data-of-record relevant to professional profiles and development (i.e. scholarly meetings, records of academic activity and participation). 
The Lusophone Studies Association (LSA) International Conference "The Lusophone World and its Diasporas" took place June 28 to July 1, 2023 at York University, Toronto, Canada. For a compact vignette of the Conference on YouTube™, by CMC TV (Correio da Manhã TV Canadá), see here ►. The public part of the Conference site is archived and remains web-accessible as data-of-record relevant to professional profiles and development (see here ►). LSA Members have access to added features (video record of sessions):
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Endowed Prizes for LSA Conference Papers
The Lusophone Studies Association (LSA) is pleased to draw your attention to our two committee-adjudicated prizes for 'best paper', associated with the LSA Conferences: a Graduate Student Prize and a Post-Doctoral Prize, each in the significant amount of $ 1,000.00 CDN. For details, please consult the following link (blue target):
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Q: What is the simplest way to submit an article / proposal to the PSR?
Just e-mail it to the PSR as a mail attachment(s). > Editorial Contact: click here <. When sending material, make sure you have Javascript enabled, in your browser (depends on YOUR level of security comfort and tech-savvy-zone-settings that YOU implemented in your browser -- if you are absolutely paranoid, we do not criticize you at all, we salute you and value you). Click 'Send Mail to PSR' (between the two 'postal envelope' icons). If the file is very large (this will rarely be so), ZIP & attach the ZIP file. If you must send large image files (illustrations), ZIP them or post them up on a free or contract Cloud server (options are available worldwide, now, with introductory basic service almost always for free) & e-mail us the file share link so we could pull the material down. You can even password the link and / or the ZIP files. Just send us passwords through separate e-mail / channel. If you feel you need to do so over an entirely separate secure channel, tell us by e-mail without any details, and we shall mail you back so that you could 'respond' over same channel. Very simple. Whatever makes YOU secure. For basic submission requirements (a check-list), click here.
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Featured Lectures, Conference Info & Events ~ Fall 2023
• Caminhos da Historiografia: História e Ciências Sociais dos anos 40 à atualidade • entre outubro de 2023 e abril de 2024 • Encontra-se aberta a chamada de trabalhos para o ciclo de seminários Caminhos da Historiografia: História e Ciências Sociais dos anos 40 à atualidade. Organizado por Centros de Investigação de todo o país, com a colaboração da Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril, o ciclo decorrerá entre outubro de 2023 e abril de 2024. Estão previstos sete seminários, com frequência mensal e de acesso livre. As comunicações selecionadas serão posteriormente reunidas num livro. Esta iniciativa tem como objetivo desenvolver e aprofundar conhecimento sobre as orientações e práticas adotadas pela História e por outras Ciências Sociais e Humanas em Portugal desde os anos 40 do século XX, nomeadamente mobilizando jovens investigadores • Coordenação: Irene Vaquinhas (CHSC-UC) e Paulo Fonte (CEHR-UCP)• Data limite de submissão de propostas: 31 de julho de 2023 • Link: https://www.50anos25abril.pt/noticias/call-for-papers-caminhos-da-historiografia
Reminder: The LSA website formerly hosted at York University was relocated to the LSA / PSR platform way back, in the summer of 2022. The old site (lsa.apps01.yorku.ca) is no longer maintained. Your new 'member' passwords will not work on the old site. The two are not technically connected, for online safety reasons.
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The PSR and Baywolf Press support The 4 D's Framework -- Doubt, Dissent, Debate against Dogma
What does this mean? Firstly. we align, at this point, with those principles and underpinnings that are the MOST protective of genuine plural freedom of speech and have been endorsed by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars and by the Presidents of various Colleges and Universities across the United States. Some of the supporting universities include Duke, Cornell, Notre Dame, Rutgers, the University of Pittsburgh, the entire University System of Georgia (as per updates introduced by the Board of Regents and by Chancellor Sonny Perdue), the Arizona Board of Regents, the University of Houston System, Texas A&M University, the University of Texas Systems, etc. In full awareness, obviously, that viable future-oriented scholarship will not really proceed -- CANNOT EVEN EXIST -- in a 'Struggle Session' atmosphere of ever-escalating 'ideological purity checks' & 'politicized litmus tests' & programmatic 'oaths / affirmations of conformity'. THAT is a parody headed for richly deserved collapse. Those 'Persuasion Frameworks' (PFs) to 'develop' the "trust [of] the already trusting and persuade those with more malleable opinions"? I.e. 'targeting those deemed 'easily manipulable'? Such as children, youths (especially when badge-inducted into the serried ranks of 'remote-controlled' / 'fly-by-lavish-funding-wire' youth movements, plus adults demoted by a self-mesmerized Ideology Vanguard to a mere 'naughty child' status? Already the Jesuits, plus many others way before them, did THAT. So, yes, the PSR holds and always will hold that: (a) free speech is a cardinal virtue of higher education; (b) colleges should aspire to a diversity of opinion; (c) the need for intellectual diversity is absolutely paramount and not negotiable. The contrary, in intellectual terms, implies that one side, one faction, one mode of thought, one worldview has peremptorily declared that (i) it and it alone owns the Truth™; (ii) that its control over Truth™ is irrevocable; (iii) that any other set of ideas if "false" and represents eternal non-Truth™. Given that most fundamental scholarly advances in the past were accomplished by dissidents disagreeing with dominant Truth™ and in opposition to those holding the entrenched "commanding heights of education", our stance is logical. We insist on remaining scholarly, and NOT morphing into a mere battery(funding)-powered political megaphone.
Secondly, it is quite clear that rational freedom of speech, thought, and core (i.e. indispensable) Human research is under vast regulatory, institutional, legislative, and 'media'-owner attack. The defence of free speech is thus NOT an obsession or a Police-analyzable 'fixation', and it is NOT 'toxic'. 'Free speech' is functionally useful, and essential for any kind of even minimally forward-looking society. "If all think the same, no one is actually thinking at all". Reality as such turns repetitively vacuous. Shelves in school libraries suddenly also look quite empty -- because everything printed before Mandatory 'Year Zero' Reset Date (e.g. 2008 and earlier) had to be removed for being 'incorrect', "irrelevant", "inaccurate", "harmful", "not suitable", "of no discernible literary or scientific merit; poorly written or presented", "information ... factually inaccurate or obsolete" (all of which is decided solely by year of publication and a political agent 'opinion' -- "just following orders" ["ein Befehl ist ein Befehl"]). And the fate of those books that were "miswritten"? Stunning neologism, by the way, this "miswritten" thing. Given how much labour and commitment it actually takes to write a well researched book, one wonders how a book could be "miswritten". But, then, the system apparatchiks making the solemn determination of "miswritten" have of course never actually 'written' even one book (unless they hired a servile underpaid ghost-writer). In any case, the "miswritten" "mistruth" must of course be destroyed, 'cancelled', 'responsibly' too -- "... under ... [approved] environmental recycling guidelines". It is, you know, a MUSTIE (acronym for the master-guide Peel District School Board (Canada) book-sifting protocol -- Misleading – Unpleasant – Superseded – Trivial ("of no discernible literary or scientific merit; poorly written or presented") -- Irrelevant – Elsewhere). A template quite in line with an apocryphal quip from The Good Soldier Schweik (Švejk): "Ein Befehl is ein Befehl, das ist kein Knödel, das muß man gehorchen!" ('An order is an order. That's not just a dumpling. One must [MUSTIE] obey that!').The hypocrisy is massive. "Misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation", or "mistruth"? All these neologisms are in fact hysterically funny. "Milgram Experiment" -- invariant and therefore massively verified across timeframes and population cohorts (more, more! More! MORE! 450 voltage! EXPERTS and 'TRUSTED SOURCES' say the hesitancy subject needs more! 600 voltage! MORE! MORE IDEOLOGY! MORE SLOGANS! 1200 voltage! MORE IS ALWAYS BETTER! -- PARODY!). Especially when those who ferret out "mistruth" are for-profit semi-automated 'labelling machines' and / or 'pay-for-censorship' schemes that (a) simplistically work hand in hand with for-profit "reputation management providers", and (b) instead of generating ab initio countervailing and discipline-specific research use cherry-picking 'analysts' and call the dubious product 'journalism', or (c) rely -- in volume-driven 'scanning' -- on script-subjective AI text-recognition algorithms that can be deemed 'Artificial Intelligence' only very loosely (crude pattern-match engines without any autonomous contextual 'intelligence'). And if one does not 'obey'? "Ihre Papiere, bitte"? "Ausweis, bitte’? "Digi-ID sofort und richtig präsentieren"? How about, satirically: "Die Aufforderung 'Ausweis, bitte' ignorieren, und noch einmal die Taste ENTER drücken". The Good Soldier Schweig = Schweik = Švejk would presumably agree ['Silent Soldier' if one knows solid street-level vernacular German and Yiddish and thus all the grungy/grokking finesse of former classic European satire]. Of course, the parody is double-edged, like all useful parody: "Wer schweigt, stimmt zu!" / "Quem cala, consente".►
One can explore the iconic figure of Švejk, generally unfamiliar to many English readers and anyway part of 'all that "harmful" literature before 2008' (MUSTIE), in the anti-war work of Jaroslav Hašek, Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války [The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik in the Great War [1st World War], 4 vols. (1921-1923); subsequent vols. 5 and 6 by Karel Vaněk; vastly Bowdlerized (i.e. "non-threatening" ') English translation by Paul Selver (1930) [the worst existing 'translation'], then Cecil Parrott (1973) [poor, but fairly 'unabridged'], then Zdeněk Sadloň and Emmett Joyce [moderately acceptable]; further also used as a scathing knock-on platform for apt critique of East European Communism and Systemic Marxism [Josef Jaroslav Marek, Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka po druhé světové válce (The Fortunes of Good Soldier Schweik after the Second World War)]. The German translation was a favourite book of Bertolt Brecht. One of the books burned [environmentally 'cancelled'] by none other than the National Socialists in 1933. Yes, one of those bunches of words bound between two covers that can"give people ideas" and thus presumably must be banned as 'seditious'. Nothing has changed in hundreds of years, in this respect. Shadows. Of Radicals. Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) (Florence, Italy) as a controversial even if revered 'social-street-gang' enforcer of extreme expiatory ► 'Justice and Purity'-- and then a would-be urban ►Tyrant in his own right. Shadows. Of Rationalists. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) being burned alive by the Supreme Inquisition while hanging upside-down ('cancelled' for the sake of Dogma Consensus) [Photo: Monument to Giordano Bruno, 'Potsdamer Platz Station' in Berlin]. Are you quite SURE "this is who WE are"? In the name of 'Love' / 'Inclusion'? "We love your soul but to save the soul we must burn your body"? Other-thinkers must be "formally deprogrammed"? Please, quit that drama rhetoric and the 'signalling' red robes and dresses! Remember that ► 6 July 1415 (burning ['cancellation'] of John Hus at the stake, alive -- Jan Hus (1370-1415), critic of a 'fiscally advanced' Indulgences system: a 'structural sin offset' Ponzi engine of fear-driven fundraising), sparked an unexpected ► social and combat revolution. 'The Germanic Empire' and the Papacy lost quite a bit, to 'deplorable peasants' not keen on 'expiating' through endless purchases of sin-tax "salvation vouchers" (Purgatory 'Social Credits'). ►
Shadows of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) ► gazing at the stars. How "Dare You" speak, of course, against any PR-powered 'juvenile Prophets' or any Deified 97% Consensus! That would imperil "confidence in The Political Class". Shadows of ALL dissident and keenly thinking Rationalists. Yes, we know -- the mechanical answer is of course banging the benches in loud Consensus, and shouting "Prop, Prop, Prop, Prop"! Sure. On the WRONG side of any conceivable balanced scholarship. Well, so, for the sake of just an easy random selection: "Why do you laugh, Comrades? What, who, do you laugh at?" (Jozef Yuzovskiy [Burstein] [1902-1964], On Theatre and Drama, vol. 2, "Who do you Laugh At?" [Izvestia, 12/01/1940]). Or Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol [1809-1852], "What are you laughng at? You are laughing at yourselves ... That's just like YOU! [i.e. 'This is who you are']" (The Inspector, 1836). Please note, in this and other contexts, that the PSR simply refuses to render 'loyalty oaths', to any regime whatsoever, that would curtail academic freedom and the integrity of scholarship. We also do not respond well at all to whatever any nepotism-appointed millions-of-dollars corporate Head of 'Thought Leadership' happens to 'think'. We scrutinize data. We detect patterns -- a rational response to engineered 'appeals to ' "engaged' -- "emergency" -- "mobilized" and unthinking mass belief '. Our avowed skepticism [no, that is not a 'dirty' word] is somewhat along the lines of Shakai chōsa no uso: Risāchi riterashī no susume [「社会調查」のウソ: リサーチ・リテラシーのすすめ] (The Lies of Social Research), by Professor Ichirō Tanioka [谷岡一郎] (Tōkyō : Bungei Shunjū, 2000) -- overt statistics as often quite deceptive and simply serving the interests of entrenched bureaucracy and well-paid revolving-door politicians. No, very sorry, but we ARE NOT going to and CANNOT 'join' Jacinda Ardern and Harvard U in denouncing Rational Free Speech.
We espouse a New Humanism, a new Scholarly Rationality, and Pro-Humanity (Pro-People) practice -- exploring all arguments and solutions and data BUT totally resisting any Authoritarian Ideological Diktat. Historically, of course, Censorship has always been a sign of systemic collapse and Political Class panic. A brutal solution of 'last resort' -- because way too many things have simply become a manifest and perfectly documentable lie. Just like when one is actually losing a real and hot war while shouting that "Total Victory is Imminent". Censorship and Enforcement thus become the last two trenches of System Defence. Mandatorily limiting thought to one authorized worldview is of course a perilous societal course of action. It is fraught with haunting and brutal historical / archaeological precedents and dire warnings -- from 3,500 BCE ( at least, if not more) to the Present. It holds clear and present dangers for all Humans, into all imaginable futures. Historical example desired? Fernando Álvarez de Toledo the 3rd Duke of Alba (1507 – 1582). Low Countries. Sixteenth century. The 'Council of Troubles' (i.e. Crisis Management Think Tank and Star Chamber) which thereafter became utterly infamous and abhorrently corrupt -- aka the Government-Terror 'Council of Blood'. Context? The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak. The Nederlandse Opstand (1566 – 1648, 81 years, 5 months, 4 weeks and 1 day). The Sea Beggars [a 'Basket of Deplorables' -- "N'ayez pas peur Madame, ce ne sont que des gueux" (as per Charles de Berlaymont, Lord of Floyon and Haultpenne and Baron of Hierges, 1510 - 1578) ]. And as cinematized political farce, La Kermesse héroïque [Carnival in Flanders] (1935, dirs. Jacques Feyder and Arthur Maria Rabenalt, from a novel by Charles Spaak [1903 - 1975]). Guess who ultimately lost, in a very bad way, after 81 years and innumerable instances of manifest judicial malfeasance and of repressive / confiscatory brutality by The Authorities? The System did.
Yes, sure, corporations and governments can buy "fact-checker-certified Truth", for fiat (printed) currency equivalents of the ancient silver Akkadian šiqlu (also mithqal, ref. مثقال, ref. ثَقَلَ, ref. 𐤔𐤒𐤋, cryptic ref. "Mene, mene, teqel u-farsin"; 11 to 9.8 - 9.5 / 7.2 grams of silver, historically devalued to as little as paltry 4.5 grams), from vastly-overpaid ideological 'PR managers of "information threats" '-- as always. So very ancient, all of it. But only at severe societal cost. Yes, do let us talk here about Yuval Noah Harari and his vision of Planet Earth being ruled by "inorganic entities" that "don’t breathe; they don’t have emotions". Pseudo-entities (Golem) that do not display or possess (for now) any genuine 'intelligence'. As Harari is purported to have said, enthusiastically, "It’s very practical: today when you apply to the bank for a loan and
the bank basically lets an algorithm design your fate, and the algorithm
says ‘No, don’t give this lady a loan.’ And you ask the bank why, and
they say they don’t know; the algorithm said no ... Even the people who designed the algorithm don’t understand the decision that it is making.” THAT is an astounding confession of Human disempowerment. Just like with the Irish Senate (Seanad Éireann) and Pauline O’Reilly: "when one thinks about it, all law and all legislation is about the restriction of freedom. This is exactly what we are doing here. We are restricting freedom but we are doing it for the Common Good.” So, the exact same words as used by Danton, Roberspierre, Napoleon, Joseph Fouché, Stalin, Pol Pot (pseuds. "99", "Phem", etc.), Mussolini, and many other 'luminaries'. Government as the Comité de salut public (1793) and then the ominous, far-worse-than-the-Inquisition Comité de sûreté générale (whatever term / acronym one might want to deploy -- KGB, DGS, SNB, NKVD, Cheka, StaatsSicherheit, Okhrana, Political Police, 1984). For a literary impression set in a not-all-so-fictional late nineteenth century, read e.g. Umberto Ecos' sarcastic and brilliant The Cemetery of Prague. With all its imagery of corruption and official nonsense, amid comically shady dealings by Special Investigators, Special Agents, Special Prosecutors, etc.
"Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy" (Franz Kafka, 1883-1924). NB: With the 'new bureaucracy' doing its very best to morph into a 'hereditary [pseudo-elected] bureaucracy'. 'Mission creep' and 'neo-feudalism'. Like the various ministeriales of the early Middle Ages. Result? Digital Panopticon Insane Tyranny [but very Lucrative] (as discussed for instance in a very old non-digital framework by Michel Foucault in Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison [Paris: Gallimard, 1975]). Party-Line Bureaucrats (recently for the larger part on the 'left' rather than the 'right' [whatever such labels-of-convenience even remotely mean today]) utterly love the no-checks-and-balances Total Control and No Questions model. It is their fundamental raison d'être -- for they have none other. Like all the otherwise really unemployable arbitristas of the eighteenth century. What we have here is a historical hallmark of every Official(ized) 'Managing Class' -- Ministeriales Palatii, or any other historical variant of such structurally-dependent 'executives'. Heavily or totally dependent politically, financially, ideologically, in terms of 'career', hefty perks, progression-through-ranks, espoused 'discourse', instilled 'allyships', indoctrinated esprit de corps. Loyal to a sharply defined minority / Vanguard / declared Elite / ruling Party. If the sharply defined minority is completely nonsensical, that works even better -- the moment one has the power to force people to believe in nonsense, obey nonsense, and loudly declare existential allegiance to nonsense, one's Power is Absolute. Then the minsterialis can de facto despise the people at large and spit in their face, even while professing that all the ministerialis does is 'care for the People'. One might even think here in terms of a dynamic similar to the classic Mamluk & Ghulam model -- an enforcer cohort rooted in purchased / manufactured / youth-group-reared echo chamber loyalty to a Patron / Funds-Dispenser / Power and 'Cause'.
"There is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you" (Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513 [1532]) (Very many people, today, fail to comprehend this -- instead, they wish to deploy the full force of utterly corrupt partisan-stacked Law to ensure they will only hear what they demand to hear: endless dopamine-fix 'validation'. No comment).
"On juge mieux de certains faits et de certains principes quand on les voit en dehors du cadre où ils se meuvent habituellement sous nos yeux ; le changement du point optique terrifie parfois les regards ! " ([Maurice Joly], Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu, [Geneva, 15 October 1864] [Brussels: Mertens et Fils [Rue de l'Escalier 22 -- Trapstraat 22, now between "Work-Out Room" and the depressing bureau-box 'admin-tecture' of VDAB and RVA - Hoofdbestuur], 1864]). This is a maxim that cuts straight across ideological divides. The enlightening power of a 'reframing' ("changement du point optique") is basically a ''physical phenomenon' -- it is NOT a politically monopolizeable property or domain of any given ideology, movement, or factional rhetoric. That is why 'meme-inverting' and 'slogan-inverting' fundamentally works, as biting satire, and why politicians and ideologists are so panically afraid of it, so afraid that they put people behind bars for 'committing satire', with sentences longer than many criminals get for the vilest murder.
Does any of this sound 'uncomfortable' and 'not safe'? If yes -- which is as it should be -- and if you are interested, read up on ► core intellectual freedoms. Or do not read up -- no one compels and threatens and 'debanks' ("cause-led 'banking' ") and censors and obfuscates and cancels and manipulates and artfully gaslights, NOT on OUR site.
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