Thursday, January 27, 2011

The technique of reverse labeling

The technique of reverse labeling

by Olavo de Carvalho
Miguel Nicolelis is a neuroscience teacher at Duke University (USA), founder of the Edmond & Lilly Safra Neuroscientific Institute (Macaíba, RN) and member of the Brazilian and French Academies of Sciences. Added to that notable curriculum was his recent appointment by Pope Benedict XVI to the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The Viomundo website, directed by journalist Luiz Carlos Azenha, now introduces him in a still more attractive light, claiming the scientist is a defenseless victim of a vast hate and fear mongering campaign waged by the eternally abominable “extreme right.”
Shocked and intimidated by the murderous virulence of the campaign, Prof. Nicolelis, in a tone of spurious sincerity distinguishing him as an unconditional follower of the free and democratic debate, warns against the dangers of ideological radicalization:
“Your political, ideological opponent starts to be seen as your enemy. And that enemy is subject to any kind of punishment, even death. I cannot imagine that those people spreading hate, revenge and violent messages can at the same time be Christians.”
But, after all, what did the murderous campaign consist of? It consisted of two things: Firstly, a ten-line story, published at the Rorate Coeli website on January 5 (see: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2011/01/pope-names-pro-abortion-and-pro-gay.html), stating that Prof. Nicolelis is a fervent defender of abortion and the gay agenda (and also, as of last year, of the candidacy of radical socialist Dilma Rousseff). His presence in an institution linked to the Catholic Church is therefore a little strange. Then, an article written by American journalist Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, published on the website Last Days Watchman (see: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/defender-of-for-abortion-and-homosexualist-police-appointed-to-vaticans-to) and later reproduced with or without additions and comments on a few Christian websites, among them the Brazilian version of Lifesitenews, Notícias Pró-Família, administered by Brazilian writer Julio Severo (I will speak about him later on). Hoffman, who is a Catholic, commented, “Pope Benedict XVI is a staunch defender of the right to life and of family values, and it is unlikely that he was aware of Nicolelis’ record when he made the appointment.”
Was there some threat, any hint of injurious plans? Prof. Nicolelis admits, “No, there was none.”
In view of these perfectly inoffensive expressions of disagreement, how did Prof. Nicolelis react? By debating with his opponents? No way. He himself describes his argumentative procedures:
“My laboratory staff contacted Duke University, warned about those websites and the university police have already begun to monitor the case. The security of my laboratory was reinforced… Nobody enters there without going through security procedures.”
And he cautions: at the first threatening sign in Brazil, he will call the Federal Police immediately.
Among the potential aggressors of Prof. Nicolelis denounced by the Viomundo website, one has already been put under control. Julio Severo, wanted by Brazilian authorities for the heinous crime of having stated and insisted that homosexuality is a sin and curable, is hidden abroad, moving from one country to another, living in extreme poverty with a wife and four small children. Journalist Luiz Carlos Azenha mentions that fact with evident contentment. The Fórum website, by columnist Luis Nassif (http://blogln.ning.com/forum/topics/homofobia-em-preto-e-branco), also celebrates it as a sign that Brazilian democracy is progressing.
The logical premises forming the basis of Prof. Nicolelis’ statements and the reports of the Viomundo and Forum websites could not be more evident:
1) Uttering a single word against homosexuality, even in a generic way and with no threat, is incitement to violence, something unworthy of people professing to be Christians.
2) An informed citizen and lover of the free and democratic debate should react to those opinions by presenting himself publicly as a victim under imminent attack, calling police and having his unfortunate critics persecuted like criminals and hunted down like animals.
The brutally exaggerated reaction is expected to prompt the distinguished public to believe piously that the violent individuals are those who expressed opinions, not those who mobilized against them the armed forces of the repressive State system.
If the reader wanted a local illustration of what I have written previously on the technique of reverse labeling, this is it.
The constant and obsessive use of that technique is one of the most trivial manifestations of the general inversion of reality, characteristic of the revolutionary mentality.
Not by coincidence, but very significantly, Prof. Nicolelis had been railing some time ago against the “hysterical right.” Hysteria, by definition, is a hyperbolic reaction to some imaginary and false provocation. Therefore, when Prof. Nicolelis reacts hysterically, it is the others who are hysterical.
Translated by Julio Severo. Reviewed by Don Hank.
Portuguese version of this article: The technique of reverse labeling
Spanish version of this article:  La técnica de la rotulación inversa
Divulgation: Julio Severo in English
More articles:

Friday, January 21, 2011

Scientist appointed to Vatican academy admits he is ‘pro-legalization of abortion’

Scientist appointed to Vatican academy admits he is ‘pro-legalization of abortion’

BRAZIL, January 20, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) — A scientist recently appointed to the Vatican’s prestigious Pontifical Academy of Sciences has confirmed in an interview that he supports the legalization of abortion and civil unions for homosexuals, as LifeSiteNews.com and other websites had reported earlier this month.
Dr. Miguel Nicolelis
Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian neuroscientist who teaches at Duke University, complained that the websites “are hitting the same key: the Pope named a person for the Academy who defends the decriminalization of abortion and civil unions between people of the same sex, which is the pure truth.”
“I wasn’t abducted by any alien, nor did they put a microchip in my brain to make me say what I said,” Nicolelis added, laughing. The statements were made to the Brasilian online publication Vi o Mundo (I Saw the World), the same publication that had published the original comments that sparked the controversy.
The interview follows an article on the controversy by Vi o Mundo, which displayed an image of LSN’s original article on Nicolelis, as well as the blog post by the traditional Catholic blog Rorate Caeli, which first published the quotes by Nicolelis in English, and a reposting of the LSN piece in Portuguese on the blog of Brazilian pro-life activist Julio Severo.  The article calls them “sites of the American extreme-right.”
In addition, in comments attributed to Nicolelis on the blog of the prominent Brazilian journalist Luis Nassif, the scientist affirms that he is “atheist, pro-legalization of abortion,” and “pro-civil-unions for homosexuals.”

Are human life and family issues relevant to the Academy?
Nicolelis claimed in the Vi o Mundo interview that his personal political opinions and beliefs are irrelevant to his appointment.
“I never hid [the fact] that I don’t participate in the Catholic Church nor have a religious belief,” said Nicolelis. “What the staff of those sites does not understand is that if the Vatican had seen my ideological, political, and religious concepts as an obstacle, they wouldn’t have nominated me.”
“The scientific issue is the decisive parameter, such that no one asked me to take any position contrary to my personal beliefs,” added Nicolelis, noting that Stephen Hawking, who he says shares his views, is also a member of the Academy.
However, Human Life International, the world’s largest pro-life organization, disagrees. The organization’s acting president, Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro, has expressed “shock” that someone who is “on the record criticizing those who want to see abortion outlawed, and explicitly supporting homosexual unions” was appointed to the Academy.
He is joined by Luis Fernando Pérez Bustamante, director of the influential InfoCatolica, a widely-read Mexican Catholic website, who recently stated on his blog, “I can understand that the PAS is not shut to non-Catholics. But I cannot accept that people who are instruments of the culture of death are permitted to be members.”
He added, “I do not believe that being a good scientist is sufficient to belong to that Pontifical Academy. It should be established that the candidates have a minimum of ethical and moral agreement with the Church.”
Article 5 of the Academy’s constitution says that “candidates for a seat in the Academy are chosen by the Academy on the basis of their eminent original scientific studies and their acknowledged moral personality,” and adds that the choice is made “without any ethnic or religious discrimination.”
Contact information:
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Casina Pio IV, V-00120 Vatican City
Tel. +39 06 69883195 - Fax +39 06 69885218
Email: academy.sciences@acdscience.va
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
William Cardinal Levada, Prefect
Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy
Fax: 06.69.88.34.09
E-mail: cdf@cfaith.va
Pope Benedict XVI
benedictxvi@vatican.va
Related Stories
Divulgation: Julio Severo in English:

Friday, January 07, 2011

Defender of pro-abortion and homosexualist policies appointed to Vatican’s Academy of Sciences

Defender of pro-abortion and homosexualist policies appointed to Vatican’s Academy of Sciences

January 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian neuroscientist who was appointed yesterday to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is an open defender of the pro-abortion and homosexualist ideology of Brazil’s new president, Dilma Rousseff, LifeSiteNews has learned.
Miguel Nicolelis
Nicolelis, who teaches in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University, is known for his pathbreaking experiments with neurologically controlled robotics, but in recent months he has also become known for a public statement made during Brazil’s presidential election indicating that his views on life and family are in deep conflict with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
In an article published on October 26, Nicolelis expresses his outrage at the “hysterical right,” which at the time was campaigning against the candidacy of Rousseff because of her pro-abortion and homosexualist views.
Nicolelis complained that religious conservatives in Brazil were following the American example of campaigning and attacking “the apparent lack of Christian values of the opponent, manifested by her explicit acquiescence to abortion” as well as “her sexual libertinism and lack of moral values,” which Nicolelis says is represented by what he labels her “legitimate approval” of homosexual civil unions.
In addition to his endorsement of homosexual civil unions, Nicolelis goes on to offer a defense of Rousseff’s position in favor of the decriminalization of abortion.
Comparing Rousseff’s opponent to George Bush, Nicolelis writes that “because what is important is victory, cost what it might cost, it matters little to the Brazilian George Bush that thousands of humble and abandoned women die every year, in the hospitals and emergency rooms throughout Brazil, victims of horrendous infections caused by clandestine abortions.”
“George Bush, both the original as well as the generic version of the tropics, probably knows many women of his means that, because of the contingencies and vicissitudes of life, were forced to abort in well-equipped clinics, conducted by highly specialized professionals, royally paid for such work.  Neither of the two George Bushes, however, ever worked a shift in the emergency room of the Hospital of the Clinics of São Paulo and witnessed, with their own eyes and tears, the death of an adolescent victim of generalized septicemia, caused by an illegal abortion, committed by some butcher who passed for a doctor and savior,” he added.
Individuals selected for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences are appointed by the pope himself after being nominated by the eighty members of the Academy.  Members serve life terms.  The Academy publishes several scientific journals and acts in an advisory capacity to the Holy See.
Pope Benedict XVI is a staunch defender of the right to life and of family values, and it is improbable that he was aware of Nicolelis’ record when he made the appointment.
Human Life International’s acting president Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro expressed “shock” at the appointment of Nicolelis.
“I was shocked to read that Dr. Miguel A.L. Nicolelis, a Brazilian professor, was appointed to this prestigious post with the Vatican. He is on the record criticizing those who want to see abortion outlawed, and explicitly supporting homosexual unions,” Barreiro told LifeSiteNews.
“Let us hope that the Holy See will do some research into Professor Nicolelis’ background,” Barreiro continued. “We cannot allow the Pontifical Academy to be corrupted by ‘Catholics’ who claim to be personally against abortion, but who oppose the Church publicly on this and other crucial issues. This falsity of faith has no place so close to the heart of the Church as she dialogs with the sciences - this is where clarity and truth matter most.”
Requests for an interview with Nicolelis, made both by phone and email, were not answered by press time.
Contact information:
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Casina Pio IV, V-00120 Vatican City
Tel. +39 06 69883195 - Fax +39 06 69885218
Email: academy.sciences@acdscience.va
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
William Cardinal Levada, Prefect
Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy
Fax: 06.69.88.34.09
E-mail: cdf@cfaith.va
Pope Benedict XVI
benedictxvi@vatican.va
Related Stories
Divulgation: Julio Severo in English: