Camp Followers
Perhaps the only institution in America whose approval rating is beneath that of Congress is the media.
Both have won their reputations the hard way. They earned them.
Consider the fawning indulgence shown insider Joe Biden with the dripping contempt visited on outsider Sarah Palin.
Twice last weekend, Biden grimly warned at closed-door meetings that a great crisis is coming early in the term of President Obama:
Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. ... Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said … we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.
A "generated crisis"? By whom? Moscow? Beijing? Teheran?
This is an astonishing statement from a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who has access to the same intelligence as George Bush. Joe was warning of a crisis like the Berlin Wall of July 1961, where JFK called for a tripling of the draft and ordered a call-up of reserves, or the missile crisis where U.S. pilots like John McCain were minutes away from bombing nuclear missile sites in Cuba and killing the Russians manning them.
Is Russia about to move on the Crimea? Is Israel about to launch air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites? What is Joe talking about?
If one assumes Joe is a serious man, we have a right to know.
Instead, what we got was Obama's airy dismissal of Joe's words as a "rhetorical flourish" and a media—rather than demanding that Joe hold a press conference—acting as Obama surrogates parroting the talking points that Joe was just saying that new presidents always face tests.
Had John McCain made that hair-raising statement, he would have been accused of fear mongering about a new 9/11. The media would have run with the story rather than have smothered it.
Contrasting McCain with his hero, Joe declared a few weeks back, "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and ... said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"
Nice historical reference. Except when the market crashed in 1929, Hoover was president, and there was no television.
Can one imagine what the press would have done to Sarah Palin had she exhibited such ignorance of history. Or Dan Quayle?
Joe gets a pass because everybody likes Joe.
Fine. But Joe also has a record of 36 years in the Senate.
Has anyone ever asked Joe about his own and his party's role in cutting off aid to South Vietnam, leading to the greatest strategic defeat in U.S. history and the Cambodian holocaust? Has anyone ever asked Joe about the role he and his party played in working to block Reagan's deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe, and SDI, which Gorbachev concedes broke the Soviets and won the Cold War?
In the most crucial vote he ever cast—to give Bush a blank check for war in Iraq—Joe concedes he got it wrong.
Is Joe's record of having been wrong on Vietnam, wrong in the Cold War, wrong on the Iraq War, less important than whether Sarah Palin tried to get fired a rogue-cop brother-in-law who Tasered her 10-year old nephew to "teach him a lesson"?
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know," says Joe humbly. Given his record, it is understandable Joe has forgotten so much of it.
Saturday, the New York Times did a takeout on Cindy McCain that delved back into her problem with prescription pills. Yet when Hillary's campaign manager, Mark Penn, brought up Obama's cocaine use on Hardball, he was savaged by folks for whom the Times is the gold standard.
The people apparently had a "right to know" of Bush's old DUI arrest a week before the 2000 election, but no right to know about how and when Obama was engaged in the criminal use of cocaine.
The media cannot get enough of the Saturday Night Live impersonations of Palin as a bubblehead. News shows pick up the Tina Fey clips and run them and run them to the merriment of all.
Can one imagine Saturday Night Live doing weekly send-ups of Michelle Obama and her "I've never been proud" of my country, this "just downright mean" America, using a black comedienne to mimic and mock her voice and accent?
Saturday Night Live would be facing hate crime charges.
How do we know? When the New Yorker ran a cartoon of Michelle in an Angela-Davis afro with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder, New Yorker editors had to go on national television to swear they were not mocking Michelle, but the conservatives who have so caricatured Michelle and The Messiah.
Is there a media double standard? You betcha.
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Sure there is a double standard and there always will be. Nobody can serve two Masters -- not even the that silliest of assertions "an unbiased media." What Pat is lamenting is that there is a public that exists for Biden and not a very large public that exists for Pat or even Pallin. Some will say, " Oh if we could build it, the people would come and listen." Professor Gottfried is of this mind -- we need paleo media, paleo columnists, paleo candidates etc. etc. It is like trying to dumb down Sir Walter Scott so modern college students can read his "sentences that are almost a paragraph long" blah, blah, blah. We have paleo media, we have paleo columnists and Pat was, once upon a time, our candidate. What we don't have any longer is an audience and it is time we realize that we are a miniscule mole on the rear end of a dying beast. How many more experiments do Paleos need in order to understand the results? There are not very many of us compared to them or as Robert E. Lee put it, "Those people."
robert, I think there are a lot of "us" out there, but there is not great access to each other or ideas. Even good people tend to laze into the TV or their one newspaper and they figure that's that. The trick of the enemy is to first convince your opposition that resistance is futile and that socialism is coming no matter what. Furthermore, most conservatives just want to be left alone, and most liberal want to get out and run other people's lives. So there is good reason our political culture has trailed the beliefs of those most active people.
Certainly this site tends to preach to the choir and a consistent reader might start to feel like it's the same old faces consoling each other. When other commenters ask, "what can we do?", only cynical comments come back to the tune of "you're a half century too late."
The important thing is to use the true wisdom and knowledge of this site to repackage and send off to other friends where ever they be; and to not let the perfect get in the way of the good. For us to make use of the recoil from a strongly liberal President and Congress, we need to have some traction in place. To do that we only need to work on maybe 10% of the Congress. Forget about who the president is. We need to reestablish the base and make the rest of the GOP follow.
And there seems to be more than just Biden talking about this impending crisis. This is turning into a month-before-Iraq type media blitz, but who knows what it means?:
Obama: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081022/pl_nm/us_usa_politics_135
Powell, naming specific dates: http://nationalexpositor.com/News/1433.html
Still awaiting that Buchanan endorsement of Baldwin ... chirp ... chirp ... chirp ...
robert has it completely backwards. The reason the audience is small is because "paleo" has no voice. None.
This is a simple case of Marketing 101 -- in the marketplace of ideas. For any product, for any idea, customers must be *created*. They don't simply arise out of nothing.
If a company makes better widgets and no one knows about them, no one finds out that the widgets are better, then they won't sell. If a different company makes poor widgets but has hegemonic control of the media, and pumps out ads 24/7, the poorer widgets will sell.
Absolutely what is needed is paleo media and paleo columnists, but far more importantly, paleo Hollywood, or its equivalent. That's what shapes modern values.
Americans will continue to function in this climate until they loose their bread and their entertainment.
Unfortunately there will never be a revolution. Our government has become masters of soft power; additionally, they have the most powerful weapons systems, if they seem it necessary.
No one stands a chance against our government. They are your pater and your mother--but from this teet spews toxicity.
I am waiting for the Call to Rome. I would rather die in the name of Christ, tomorrow, than continue to live in this prison of intellectual pornography.
Who would join me?
#2 - But I'm sure you're not holding your breath, Dr. Phillips.
Karsten,
I prefer the word Tradition to paleo conservative. And the last thing our tradition needs is another interpretation from Hollywood.
This is what he critical of the media for?
I faulted them long ago on how they reported Waco, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Beslan and the recent Russia-Georgia conflict although some media have grudgingly re-evaluated how they reported on it.
In fact western foreign policy and media reporting seem to go hand in hand.
The fact that he quotes JFK insinuates that it will be the Crimea and the “missile shield” which is the Cuban missile crisis in reverse.
Then you have to factor who Obamas backers are senior foreign policy advisor Brezinski and major financier George Soros.
Isn't there a law in the US of foreign financial backing to political parties?
Soros I know was born Hungarian and probably has UK citizenship.
Lyndon LaRouche radio program of August 23rd talking about the Georgia conflict and an interesting article in the London Economist of March 17th 2007 in the Futurology section of a predicted Russian/Ukraine nuclear standoff in 2010 when Barack Obama is president the EU flexes its muscle then Russia makes steps towards joining the EU.
The London Economist part is 23 minutes 15 seconds into the broadcast.
http://asx.ljcentral.net/mp3/eir/tls/2008/tls080823_en_hi.mp3
Right click and select Save Target As... to download
I can’t find the article myself if anyone can I would appreciate if they would post a link to it.
Nope. Not holding my breath.
Karsten and Robert, What we need is a source that fuels the moral imagination toward virtue. But we already have that. It is called the Gospel of Christ. Its consistent proclamation and application is the only thing that will repopulate the depleted ranks.
Skepsis: Persecution for christians will come in this land in God's own good timing. No reason to artificially rush things, as flesh can accomplish nothing. If He wills us to flounder in mediocrity for another thousand years beffoe He powerfully moves, so be it. On the other hand, if the recent hullabaloo is truly the beginning of the end, our puny rallying cries will be drowned out like so much pop psychology.
Mr. McCabe #2. When I used the term "50 years too late" I was merely pointing to the belated recognition of the incurable evil of the Republican party. I was not saying that any endeavour was 50 years too late, which I do not believe.
It seems to me this and earlier discussions are somewhat off the point in worrying about Obama bringing in "socialism." We already have socialism and a ruling class in both parties that is committed to the total state at home and abroad. The situation we face now more portends something like the "Reconstruction" of the Southern people after the War. Forget about the bugbear of "socialism"---that is just playing the Republican game.
Since Biden is a known plagiarist, I would assume that AIPAC wrote that speech for him. Six months after the first Indonesian mulatto gets elected POTUS, look for a Mossad false flag action. Perhaps the US embassy in Israel will experience a King David Hotel re-enactment. The gutter press is so craven, and the voters so dense that we ought to consider 70 years of one party rule in the Union of Socialist States of Amerikkka.
@ 4 Karsten. The best place to start is stand-up comedy, then punk rock. Those are the cultural events trhat brought communism to its knees in Poland.
@5 Skepsis
Yes, I intend to.
@10
The first commandment is "be fruitful and multiply." The replacement rate is 2.3 births per womb. 2 is not enough, 3 is the bare minimum.
Skepsis, if I can offer a word of consolation, it is what my friends and I often say to each other: "chillax". I admire your passion and dedication but if there is ever a time for corporal struggle, it will come and find us without us going out and looking for it. Until then, consider joining the Campaign for Liberty. There is plenty to do there.
I agree with the many posters who note the need for information and marketing. First know that it will not come from a single source but from a collections of distributed sources. Have confidence that the truth is on our side and sells itself when presented simply and without political pollution: Small government and common sense foreign policy. There are so many people out there who will respond to that intuitively and immediately. Finding ways to restate the ideas of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights is invaluable. Finding youtube videos that can be shared quickly and succinctly with people who simply do not know. Remember 80% of Americans think we are on the wrong track. That is a statement against both parties.
Dr. Wilson, thank you for your clarification. You have a much greater depth and breadth of experience than I, so I always welcome your comments and elaborations. However, I will argue with you over the idea that we are already fully a socialist nation with nothing left to do but chase Europe down the drain. The 40-50 million people without healthcare insurance are proof enough to me that there is room for us to struggle. Although the foundations of socialism are clearly emerging in our country, (I believe Marx said, destroy private property ownership, destroy the family and destroy religion) they have not taken fatal hold.
And I bristle when some commenters start to play the suffering Christian bit. I am always looking to expand and deepen my own Christian identity, but it is disingenous to bury our heads in the sand as if we lived in parts of the Middle East or Africa where Christians literally are running for their lives. Although religion has taken a severe tumble in our culture -- again led by western europe's descent into national socialism -- we are still free to worship in peace, pray in public, etc. So let's not throw in the towell just yet.
I believe it was Mr. Buchanan himself who coined the term "Silent Majority" some years ago. Well I believe that concept to still be intact. And to borrow an unrelated phrase, perhaps it is time for that majority to "raise less corn and raise more hell."
Professor Wilson writes of "the incurable evil of the Republican party". While it may be true that all large-scale parties are destined to metastasizing and fatal corruption, I believe the Republicans are being singled out here based on a century-old grudge. Parties morph over time, and the GOP as a whole is no more tied organically today to Lincoln and his Reconstruction successors, than the modern Democrats are to Jackson or Cleveland. (Would that they were still akin to the latter!)
The Schlafly polemic "A Choice Not an Echo" described a stranglehold the business and internationalist elites held over the post-New Deal GOP; the Goldwater movement began to break that stranglehold, but never succeeded completely. This is different than an imagined "incurable evil". While I've learned much over the past twenty years from Chronicles, I do not believe it is a good thing to become fatalistic in outlook.
"The Schlafly polemic “A Choice Not an Echo” described a stranglehold the business and internationalist elites held over the post-New Deal GOP; the Goldwater movement began to break that stranglehold, but never succeeded completely."
Still waiting for that Schafly endorsement of Baldwin as well ... chirp ... chirp ... chirp ... Not holding my breath.
Dr. Wilson, don't you think that before one can concede the "incurable evil" of the Republican Party they must first be willing to vote for someone who belongs to another one?
#15: The CP will forever be one of those little asterisks on the page of electoral history. I'm sure they're great folks, but it is telling that the best they can come up with is a pastor/polemicist. One wonders why Rev Baldwin has chosen to seek lower office, as did "Rev" P Robertson before him, if he has been divinely called to be a pastor.
If a new, anywhere-near-normative political movement is to emerge in the coming years, it will have to come from a recognizable faction in one or both of the now-ascendant parties breaking off in a highly visible way.
There is a tendency among the young to equate the truth about modern politics with despair. It is really quite the opposite. It is a liberating wisdom and the foretaste of true freedom --- the most obvious contemporary example of the truth setting one free. But don't take my word for it, simply ask someone you respect who has spent a lifetime in politics. It is a simple truism that a person cannot give what they do not possess. The first task is not to change but to first understand, develope and draw out what is already present in each of us --our hearts and minds and our inherited customs and traditions. Salesmen are always disappointed when the customer "just says no" but it has nothing to do with despair or cynicism to say honestly ( to oneself or another ) that one simply doesn't need or want what is being offered. This is exactly what Mr. Buchanan will not say under the present circumstances and exactly what traditionalist conservatives want said. Sure the media has given Biden and Obama a pass but they gave W. Bush and Dick Cheney a pass too. Anybody willing to say, "Amen" to the agenda can get a pass, while those unwilling are excluded. Why should this type of duplicity be news to paleos or traditionalists?
Yes, it's unfair that the Left's comedy shows make fun of the GOP's nominees. But Republicans are especially risible this year. Also really stupid.
McCain's one surge in the polls came after the Palin nomination. So what did his staff do? Muzzle her. I'm not a fan, but she had what the existentialists called "authenticity." Now she doesn't.
When she appeared on SNL, she mouthed some bromides probably written for her by McCain's Neo"conservative" speechwriters, or maybe by the SNL staff. She should have ditched the dialogue and ad-lib attacks on SNL. How about mocking Alec Baldwin for threatening Henry Hyde's family a decade ago?
How about Sarah Palin about mimicking Tina Fey mimicking Sarah Palin?
As Steve Martin used to say on SNL 30 years ago, the GOP response was, "Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah."
They're losers and they deserve to lose.
Obama in his book argues for radical redistribution of wealth and power. To paraphrase him from his book, the suburban exectutive that does not want to pay taxes will have to give up his wealth for the benefit of the urban black who is supposed to increase his responsibility in return. Thus Obama is not merely satisifed with socialist ideas that will improve the life of the poor, but he demands a drastic change in the distribution of power in favor of the poor or those otherwise deemed lacking in privilege. This can only be achieved with policies that limit incomes, while instituting community watchdog groups with the power to enforce political and racial correctness with stiff penalites etc. As much as paleo sensibilities have been important in pointing out the inconsistencies and similarities between the Republicans and the Democrats, at some point such equating of the parties leaves us in a state of denial. That point has been reached at this time. Now with Obama, there is a huge difference between the parties! Obama wants massive revolutionary changes that will make paleo grudges seem like pet peeves. Is it really worth letting Obama win by sitting out these elections with the vain hope that his victory will dislodge the Neocons? For what we are gonna end up with is a one party system instead. Furthermore, Neocons might easily end up merging into this one party system and we'll end up with the worst of both worlds. I don't see how anyone can continue to claim that this is not the case and that these arguments against Obama are nothing but Republican and Neocon politicking. The point at which that may have been true has passed. So, are we gonna continue to be in a denial about these elections?
I hope nobody minds this post.
I'm as sick as everyone else with the media whores, so I've tried to find out for myself what's going on.
I spent a lot of time trying my best to research Dunham-Davis-Soetero-Obama.
I keep coming across comments on blogs and so on from people mystified about things I also wondered about.
I would urge anyone who doesn't know much about Obama to go here:
http://brianakira.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/obama-unfamiliar-with-truth
It includes many links to other related articles.
If you find it interesting and informative, then please pass it on to as many people as possible.
I don't have any advertising. I'm not a member of any political party.
If anyone goes through my site, they'll see that my main concern recently has been Obama, but I have been extremely critical of Bush, McCain, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Free Republic, etc.
Not into self-promotion. Copy the page and forward it as widely as possible, if you think people might appreciate it.
I am sure that an Obama presidency would be an unimaginable disaster.
Great postings to stimulate my diminishing neurons on a cloudy, wet south Georgia day. I can't differ with any contributions.
I often think what will the America I've experienced for two score and ten look like when by three youts are gray and exhausted fighting the good fight. I don't envision a euro socialist secular culture. No, Brazil continually comes to mind. Yuck...
Akira,
Thanks for the link. You have an interesting site that I will continue to explore.
20. Charlemagne you are right. People seem to be worried that it will be another Sweden. No, it will be another Brazil---except with nuclear weapons and a ruling class crazed with delusions of onipotence.
Those of us who live in Louisiana are a living preview of what is to happen to the rest of the country.
Years ago during the Cold War when I had occasion to visit, from time to time, a friend in East Germany, my friend would indicate through a pre-established code whether or not he believed those with him worked for STASI or not. If he thought them to be STASI, he referred to them with the German word for "colleague." If he thought them to be relatively safe, he referred to them with the German word for "co-worker." On my last visit before the collapse of the Wall and the system which had erected it, I was sitting with my friend in Dresden among "colleagues." When one is in the presence of STASI, this time in the form of a thirty-three-year-old lady and a professorial-type about sixty, one speaks of the mundane; so we talked about Louisiana. In the 80's, that meant a welfare state run by one political party. (That party now goes by two names - Democrat and Republican, in those days being under the control of the Democrats and that affable nave Edwin Edwards.) At sometime during the conversation, my friend and I transposed Louisiana and the GDR: every criticism of Louisiana was really a criticism of the GDR. In the GDR, this was known as "passive resistance." I suggest that Americans begin to cultivate the skill!
There have been more than rumblings on the airwaves that Obama is not, in fact, a native-born U.S. citizen and, despite his claims to the contrary, he was born in Kenya.
Is there any credibility to this assertion? If so, how long must we wait before it is brought to the attention of the American people?
All of us, to a greater or lesser extent, have profound issues with John McCain. But I don't believe any serious, thinking American wants to hand the country over to the likes of Obama and his imbecilic henchman Biden.
An Obama presidency heralds a turning point unlike any other in American history. If he is not a native-born citizen, will someone please forward this information to the American people?
@23 Robert
I believe you're right. Since the FBI and their cohorts at Mossad have infiltrated even the most ineffective groups in the US, the skills you mention will definitely come in handy for the next 70 years, or so. I think one party rule has been with us for at least 20 years, and the American public is finally wising up to this grim reality.
@19 Brian
Great stuff. Youtube is posting an "October Surprise" video which will promptly go nowhere, and on November 5th (Guy Fawkes' Night) the gutter press will be gaga over the first mulatto bastard Indonesian citizen ever elected POTUS. Fortunately alcohol is not illegal -- yet, but under a mohammedan chief exec who knows what will happen?
#23 I very respectfully disagree with you.New Jersey is a preview of what is to come
Rick @ 27
You might well be correct; however, we of Louisiana have considered ourselves to be a Banana Republic without bananas for scores of years.
#23. The point is not what place Obama happened to be born. The point is that he is the son of a foreigner. Our forebears would have understood this distinction.
Sorry, I meant to comment on #24.
Pat is astute. The value of his well-documented post is that it reminds us that no idea--no matter how good--- and no candidate---no matter how right----stands a chance of being fairly appraised by the public at large unless the MSM approves of that idea or candidate. So the average citizen who doesn't spend much time browsing the web will never be informed, and those good ideas and good candidates are at the mercy of the media which is indoctrinating, not informing.
@31 polemicscat
It's a sad state of affairs when I get an email inviting me to hear a third party debate at the National Press Club -- admission fee $50. But worst of all is that I have to tune in Russia Today (channel 195 for me) to get any kind of report on television about the event. Youtube has some 10 minute clips for anybody still interested. I like what I see and hear of Chuck Baldwin, but will vote Libertarian next month on the grounds that "Hill Rats" have told me Barr is the meanest congressman they ever dealt with. Good enough for me!
@28 robert
But you do have oil, shrimp, and distinct music and cuisine. And you're still alowed to own guns. New Jersey voted away the latter.
Response to comment #31:
Then one of our goals must be to smash the MSM to pieces, no matter how long it takes. And I mean a thorough smashing.
@34 Roy
I have started referring to them as the gutter press. It's encouraging to seel their revenues plummet, and they would sell out to the government to become the Ministry of Truth especially if it meant their comfort. Compared to the Sulzberger empire that stretches from Boston to New York (along with their Meyer-Graham ally in the capitol), the World Weekly News looks like a reliable source.
I cannot recommend enough to view Russia Today on one of the MHz channels. Thier coverage is beyond fair, and the presentation is young and hip.
I agree with Pat, but I think he is a quasi hypocrite in nailing his friend in the MSM. On Morning Joe Pat was totally in line with his MSM friends/handlers in saying that the bailout was indeed needed as well as his occasional 180 degree turns with regards to the war, which I find strange since his last book was about how WW II was indeed, an unecessary war. His rag TAC is mainly antiwar also, so I guess Pat is trying to play both sides of the "game"!
@35Etienne Gervaise
The coverage of the Ossetian war was very good especially when the mass media was tripping over itself to the point of being comical.
Globalresearch.ca also had good analysis.
I like the fact that McCain accidently asked the Russians for financial contribution to his campain at the UN.
I do have 2 critical points about RT tough.
1) The video reports to view on there website are to small.
2) They go along with the mass media version of what happened in the Balkans
The NY Times on the first day of the Ossetian conflict was spot on in telling it like it was, then it did a total 180 and went with the Russophobic wave that swept over the MSM. You have to really take everything with not just a grain, but a whole salt shakers worth of salt when listening to the MSM nowadays. Even the more reliable net sources can get out of hand anymore. It is really sad when our media is just like Pravda.
The "press" is anything but inquisitive, objective, or independent. It is a (necessary) component of the massive totalitarian complex that is composed together with the mega-media of the centralized government, banking & finance establishment, gutted industrial base, and equally unobjective and owned academies.
Our political forefathers understood the necessity for independent institutions and political subsiarity. Those people also understood loyalty. The majority of our present population of thoroughly brainwashed consumers does not understand liberty and is guided by consumption.
If one is to lament that the airhead news readers do not do a good job of objectively following a story, they might as well lament the rising of the sun, given the situation we have...
@39 george
Despite their faults, RT is the best for world news. The German DW, France 2, and Auntie BBC are all identical to New York news shows, that is to say infotainment. Let's hear it for the Ministry of Truth.
... the New York Times did a takeout on Cindy McCain that delved back into her problem with prescription pills ...
The Sulzberger family, which controls both the New York Times and the Boston Globe, are a force hell bent on the destruction of America. Nothing else can expalin their single-handed effort to bring about homosexual marriage via the liberal (jewish) judges in Massachusetts. Why would anybody expect such filth to say something nice about a pro-life governor?
Etienne, as a side question?
What are your views on other foreign media outlets like the CBC (which is too much like our own "mainstream media" and Japan's NHK television? Or Al-Jezeera? Or IBN in India?
NHK is aired here (Northern Virginia) in Japanese, I don't speak a word of it. The Indian Channel on MHz South Asia News is OK, but RT runs 24/7 so I can tune in anytime. Al Jazeera is not aired on cable, it is on satellite, and I'm not paying for both services. I can watch out-takes on YouTube. They have their moments, I suppose. RT does not seem either so virulently anti-American or anti-Christian, and their stories are more than 30 second sound bites.
Right now I think we could learn something about Russia's rising from the ruins of communism. They had their robber-baron tycoons, some of whom must live in exile watching their soccer teams. Tough life, but somebody has to live it.