نگاهی به مستند Silenced

Silenced Movie Review

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AJ Hoge: Silenced. Silenced. That is our topic today, Silenced. Silenced is a movie, a documentary that I recently watched. I watched it two days ago. It’s a documentary about censorship and free speech. An excellent documentary. An excellent video about free speech and censorship in the United States. Free speech, it’s our most important right. It’s the most important one. Free speech guarantees that we can get a true education. Without free speech, we have lies, we have propaganda, and we can’t find out the truth. We can’t figure out the truth. That’s the most important part of free speech, for me. I want to be able to hear a lot of different voices, a lot of different ideas, learn from lots of people.

Some of them might be people or ideas that I don’t like, that I disagree with but that’s okay. It’s part of education.

When one group starts to control the speech in silence, people they don’t like, then we get propaganda, animal farm, 1984, brave new world. That’s what America is becoming.

So sad. America used to stand for free speech. Even though America has done a lot of bad things in their foreign policy, attacking countries and all of that, all of it bad of course, but at least during my lifetime until recently, at least, inside of America, we did have freedom of speech. Now, that’s dying. That is terrible. That is why every American, everyone who wants to come to America and I believe, everyone in the world should fight for free speech. If you value true, real education and learning, you must value free speech. We are now in an information war.

In America, where is the censorship coming from? Who is doing it? It’s not really the government, actually. It’s the big media including and especially social media; Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Terrible companies. It’s also the colleges, unbelievable, the universities. Big media and the schools, in other words, are the ones trying to silence people. See, American colleges and universities are controlled by crazy Marxist, Leftist, almost Communist, in some cases. It’s crazy. They are trying to silence anyone they don’t like. American colleges and universities are a joke now. A joke. They use to be the best in the world or among the best, at least. Now, a joke, a sad joke.

I’m going to focus today reviewing this movie, Silenced. I’m going to focus on the section about colleges and universities because of course, my focus is education, teaching, learning. The whole movie is fantastic. You should get it. It’s on amazon.com. You can rent the movie on amazon.com, Amazon Videos. I think to rent the movie is only $3. It’s cheap. Rent the movie, watch the movie. This is an important movie. It’s a lot of interviews about free speech in America and how free speech is being attacked in the United States. I know there are a lot of propaganda people in the world who think America is so free but that is changing. It’s an excellent movie and it’s an important movie. A very important movie. Not just for people in America but for people all over the world. Free speech is a right that we all need to fight for. If you want truth, if you want true education, if you want the freedom to hear many ideas and not just propaganda, then you must fight for free speech.

Okay. Now, let’s listen to some of the film, the movie. Now, the movie is mostly a lot of interviews. Interviews with lots of different people about free speech and censorship in the United States; what’s happening and why it’s important. The first guy, the first interview I’m going to play is from a teacher in the New York school system. In this first part, he talks about how the teachers in the schools now, they’re basically just teaching propaganda. They’re teaching propaganda. They’re not teaching truth anymore. They’re usually young especially the high schools. This is earlier than colleges and universities.

They’re also bad but in the high schools, he says that most of the teachers are young because people don’t want to stay teachers. They don’t want to stay in the school system very long. They quit after a few years, especially the good ones leave because the system is so terrible.

You get lots and lots of these young people as teachers in the schools. These young people, these teachers, they have always been in school their whole life. They have never succeeded in the real world. They went to high school, got a bunch of propaganda. They go to colleges and universities, more propaganda. They become teachers. They go back to high school as teachers and they teach the propaganda. They never go out into the real world to find the truth about anything. Let’s listen to this part of the interview.

Video : Especially in New York City. Most of the people employed are fresh out of college.

They’re young. They’re early to mid 20s. They’ve just been through a university and they’ve been taught all of these ideologies and they want to bring it into their classroom. I hear a lot about gender as a social construct, which to me, that’s an ideology. That’sAJ

Hoge: Okay. He says that the problem is, now, it’s almost like, I don’t know, the Red Guards or something. It’s that you got these college graduates. They go to college and then they go right into teaching high school. They’re never out in the real world. In college, they get all of these ideologies, this propaganda. They want to teach that propaganda in their classes in high schools or middle schools or elementary schools even. Then he gives an example of an ideology, a propaganda idea that gender is a social construct. Whether you’re a man or a woman, it’s just in your mind. It’s just something we decide socially.

He says, “That’s just propaganda. That’s not truth. That’s not biology. That’s just some crazy Marxist idea.” An idea that’s wrong, completely wrong, biologically obviously wrong and yet, these young guys, they have no life experience.

They go to college. They hear all this stuff from the professors. They think the professor is the big expert. They just believe it all. They just believe it. They never go out into the real world and test anything. They don’t have, really, any true life experiences other than school. They just go and they just teach the same propaganda to all the younger students when they become teachers, high school teachers, middle school teachers, and elementary school teachers. This is how American schools have become so terrible and how American schools are now teaching this crazy stuff like if a man or a boy says that he’s a woman, wears dresses that that means he actually is a woman. They’re actually teaching this in American schools and in American universities. Not just teaching it but enforcing it. If you say the opposite, if you say the truth that this is bullshit, this is an obvious lie, this is stupid, they will try to punish you. They will silence you.

Teachers and professors get fired for saying the truth. Students get punished, they get kicked out of schools or other kinds of punishments for saying this truth. They say that you’re hateful, that you hate these transgender people. This is the propaganda. This Marxist insane propaganda that has taken over American schools. Now, they’re trying to silence because see, this is why they silence. They silence because they’re lying. They can’t have a discussion, an honest discussion. They can’t have an honest argument because they lose. Because they’re lying and the truth is against them. Because they can’t win an argument, because they are lying, because the truth is not on their side, they then try to silence people. That’s their answer. They try to silence people, sensor people, fire people, block them because they can’t win the argument. They can’t win.

Let’s listen to more.

Video : Nothing based on fact and they’re trying to bring this into the classroom and they really are preaching it in the class because they truly believe that it’s the truth. You know what, I don’t blame them because they’re young or naïve. If you’re in your early 20s, you’re going to believe that if you’ve gone through the university like you think your professors and what you learn there is hardcore fact and they’re bringing it into the classroom. If my kid was in there, I would really be angry that they are teaching this as fact and like, “That’s how you get your A.”

AJ Hoge: He’s saying that, “I don’t blame these young teachers because basically, they’re stupid.

They’re young and stupid. They have no life experience. They believe everything the college professors taught them.” He says, “They’re basically just preaching like a religious person teaching something that, in this case, is not true at all.” To preach, it’s a Christian type word where a priest will or a minister will talk about some topic. It’s like you’re trying to persuade as the idea of persuasion. He’s saying that you’ve got these young teachers. They’re not teaching. They’re preaching. They’re trying to teach all these crazy things. He said, “If I was a parent, if my child was in one of these schools, I would be very, very angry.”

See, that’s the part that I can’t believe is, why are the parents in America not fighting this. Really getting angry. They should be down at the schools fighting, but this is the problem with schools. This is why I hate the school system so much. The parents are so passive. The parents are so weak. They just give up. They just send their children to school to learn this garbage. The parents never question, never fight, most of them.

Some do but most don’t. Even if the parents disagree, even if the parents think it’s terrible, they still continue to send their children to these terrible schools. Why? Take your kid out, teach them at home.

It’s the wimpy weak parents that are ultimately the problem because they’re too fearful.

The parents have been also propagandized, brainwashed. The parents think, “Oh, the school system is so good and school is the answer.” They’re wrong. Let’s go forward.

Video : If you agree with what we’re teaching you right now.

AJ Hoge: Okay. This next section, I’m going to go forward a little bit. Okay. Here we go. Okay. Next guy speaking is Alan Dershowitz. Alan Dershowitz is a liberal, classic liberal but not a Marxist. He’s a lawyer, a law professor. He use to teach law. He, maybe, still does teach law at Harvard or Yale. I can’t remember which one. Maybe Harvard. He’s very famous lawyer, super, super famous. In an earlier part of this movie, he talks about how free speech is so important for our society. He’s saying that the answer to speech you don’t like is not censorship. It’s not silencing. It’s fact, truth, better speech. He mentions how even though he’s Jewish, he still supports free speech for a Nazi. That people should be free to say, “Jews are bad,” and to say anything they want. He says, “The answer to that, how you fight that is that you then argue.” You have a better argument. You have better speech. You have better ideas and that wins. If you have truth on your side, you will ultimately win if we have free speech.

In this next section, he talks about how the schools in America are, perhaps, the worst places for free speech. It’s sad. Here we go.

Video : While free speech is expanding around the world and American universities, it’s contracting. It’s regarded as a danger.

AJ Hoge: Okay. That’s a short clip from Dershowitz, but it’s so sad. He says, “While free speech is expanding around the world.” If we look at the whole globe, all around the world, we see, in most places, speech is becoming more free. Not everywhere but in most or in many, many countries, in many, many places. Thanks to the internet, especially, speech is becoming more free, but in American Universities and colleges, free speech is seen as dangerous and that it’s contracting. It’s getting smaller. They’re trying to block free speech. They’re trying to stop free speech in American colleges and universities. How sad. How sad. American universities and colleges, they’re supposed to be where young people learn to think where they learn about lots and lots and lots of different ideas where their mind opens. Instead, now, American universities, that’s where their minds close. That’s where free speech is attacked. So sad, so dangerous.

All right. Let’s go forward and listen to another part. Okay. There we go. Here we go.

This next part, this guy talks about how, on colleges now, universities that speakers need bodyguards because the students are becoming violent. If they don’t like a speaker like a conservative speaker, someone who is not a Marxist, then they will actually try to become violent on many colleges and that the speakers need bodyguards to protect them. Here we go. This is David Horowitz. He’s a writer.

Video : I should say it all and it’s not just me. As you can see, I’m not imposing physical threat to anyone. “Why are you doing that? Who are you with? I’m not with anybody. Why are you recording kids?”

AJ Hoge: Okay. Sorry. Let me go back a little bit. He’s talking about, “I’m not an imposing guy.”

He’s saying that, “I’m not a dangerous guy. I’m a small guy. Why are they saying I’m dangerous? Why are they trying to attack me?”

Video : I can’t go to a college campus without bodyguards. I should say it all and it’s not just me.

As you can see, I’m not imposing physicalAJ

Hoge: Okay. That’s the beginning part. I missed that a little bit. He said, “I can’t go to a college campus or university without bodyguards.” He can’t visit. He can’t go. He can’t speak. He can’t even just go and walk around a university or a college in the United States without bodyguards. This guy, you can’t see him on the video, but he’s an older guy. He’s probably 60 something, small. He’s a writer. He’s got glasses. He’s not dangerous at all, not at all. He’s saying, “Isn’t this terrible that I can’t just go and speak without being threatened physically?” They’re actually threatening to attack. They attack people now.

This is happening in universities, colleges. Berkeley, I mentioned it happened. They’re attacking. They’re hitting people with sticks. They’re becoming violent to silence people they don’t like. It’s Marxist, feminists, leftist. Horrible.

All right. The final one. Let’s see if I can get this now. One more piece from the movie.

What do we got here. Okay. All right. Here we go. Let’s see. This is about censorship being bad at universities. Oh, we got a problem. My internet connection is stopping. All right. Well, I’ll just talk about it. In the next part, which I can’t play right now because my account here on Amazon is frozen. Anyway, I think it’s Dershowitz, again, talks about how that the worst censorship, the worst attacks on free speech in America are at the colleges, the universities. Unbelievable. That the place where we’re supposed to have the most openness, the most free speech has now become the worst, has now become propaganda and training for these leftist, Marxist, feminist groups to silence people they don’t like to attack them physically. This is the death of American education.

The universities and colleges are the worst but the high schools are also bad, the middle schools are bad. As I said, even this crazy stuff about gender and girls and boys. They’re actually teaching this crazy stuff to elementary school kids, little small children. It’s child abuse. It’s evil. It’s child abuse. We have to fight this. We have to fight this. If you are a parent, you need to find out what they are teaching your kid in school. Or even better, home school. Teach your own child at home. Don’t send them to this garbage. You need to join protest against these people, protest to support free speech, speak up online for free speech, support free speech, support the people who are being attacked, support the people who are being silenced. Yes, even if you disagree with them.

I’m doing this too online and sometimes with my Twitter account, with my personal Twitter. I will support people who are being censored, whose free speech is being attacked. I don’t agree with these people all the time, but I absolutely will fight for their right to speak even if I don’t agree with them all the time. Of course, I don’t agree with anyone all the time. None of us do. That’s not the point. It’s not about agreeing. It’s about the right to be able to say what you think is the truth and for us to have open discussions and learn from a lot of different viewpoints. That is real education, real learning. We must have free speech for that.

Now, another point for those of you, well, if you’re in the United States or if you’re living outside the United States, do not go to an American university. Don’t waste your money going to an American college or university. If you are a parent, do not send your child to an American college or university. It’s garbage. You’re wasting your money. Number one, it’s so expensive. You spend so much money. Either borrowing it and then you’ll have a big debt or if your parents have a lot of money or if you have a lot of money, then you’re wasting your own money, but either way, you’re spending tons of money for garbage. Just go to school, go to a university or a college in your own country or start your own business.

If you start your own business, you don’t need college at all. You don’t need university.

You can skip it completely, but I know, many people do want to go to college or university because they want a specific job that requires a degree. I understand that.

Okay. Fine, but get a cheap one. Don’t go to America where you have to learn this Marxist, leftist garbage where you don’t have free speech, where the classes are useless. You’re getting a bunch of useless lies. The education is not real anymore in America. Don’t waste your money. Just go to a college in your own country. It’s probably cheaper. It’s probably just as good or better. Just don’t do it. I’m warning you. Okay. Stay in your own country. Go to school in your own country or skip school and start your own business.

Let’s go to Twitter. Twitter time, (singing). All right. Too much coffee. Our Twitter question is, this is connected to what I was just talking about. [Umer Noman 25:31]. I’m not sure. Umer Norman. Let me see. It’s a guy. Umer Norman. I’m not sure where from, but he asked the question, “AJ, which is best, to get a job or to start your own business?

Please give a suggestion.” Actually, I have people ask me this question. This is not the first time people have asked me this question. “Should I get a job or should I start my own business?” Now, I have my own idea about this for myself, but I have learned that I cannot answer this question for you. I cannot answer this question for other people.

Now, for me, of course, I chose, start my own business. I believe that’s the best way.

However, I have learned that to be a business owner, to start a business, to be an entrepreneur, you need a certain mindset, a certain attitude. I have learned, because of the schools, most people don’t have it. Most people are too passive, too weak, too afraid to start their own business. That’s the sad truth. I’ve seen it because I have tried to help people in my life. People I know. I’ve tried to help them start businesses and again, and again, and again, I watch them fail. They failed because they were too passive. Because they thought like a school student, they thought like an employee, which means, they would wait for someone to tell them what to do. This is the biggest problem in schools. You wait for the teacher to tell you what to do. “Read page 5 through 8. Write a paper about this. Take this test. Study this.” You’re passive as a student. The teacher tells you what to do. You wait and then you follow what the teacher said.

Well, if that’s your personality, if that’s your mindset, then you need to be an employee.

You need to get a job because that’s what jobs are about. That’s what the schools are about. The schools are teaching you to be a good, obedient employee. That’s what they’re training you for. That’s why you’re taught to be passive in schools. If that’s you, get a job. Don’t try to start your own business because you won’t be able to do it. To be a business owner, you have to make your own decisions. Nobody is going to tell you what to do. Yes, you can read books to get ideas. Yes, you can talk to other business owners to get ideas, but in the end, you have to make the decisions yourself. No one will do it for you. You have to decide what product or service to offer. You have to decide on the price that you ask. You have to decide how to do marketing or advertising. You have to decide. Do you start cheap? Do you get a loan? Or do you get partners? You have to decide all of this. No one will make these decisions for you as a business owner.

As an employee, yes, you’ll be told. “Do this. These are your jobs. You must do this, this, and this.” I’m not even criticizing, okay, because I have learned that most people are better as employees. Most people really don’t have the thinking to become a business owner. You have to be decisive. I think that’s the first thing that’s so hard for people trying to start a business, being decisive because you’re never sure. That’s what scares people. You never know if you are making a good decision. There’s no guarantees. No one is telling you. “Oh, yeah, if you do this, it will automatically work.” That’s not true.

That’s not the reality. You’re always taking a risk as a business owner. You’re risking to fail and you will fail. I promise you that.

As a business owner, you’re going to fail sometimes. You’re going to make some bad decisions. I have many, many times. All business owners have. You have to learn to accept failure. That’s the second part of having a business owner’s mindset. This is something, again, that especially good students hate. They’re afraid of failure. They’re afraid of getting an F or a D or a bad score. Again, they’re good employees because at jobs, you’re not supposed to fail, but as a business owner, you will fail. You will have failures. You will make mistakes. That’s how you learn. That’s how you get better. You can’t be afraid of them. You got to do them and you got to accept them and you got to learn from them and keep going forward.

When someone asked me this question, “Should I start a business or should I get a job,”

I can’t answer the question. It’s not my decision. The fact that you’re asking me is telling me you’re not being decisive, which means, probably, you should get a job. No one can make that decision for you. You have to decide. If you want to start a business, you’re just going to do it. You don’t need me to tell you to do it. You don’t need anyone else to tell you to do it. Just do it. Don’t ask for permission.

As a business owner, you don’t ask for a permission. You just do things. You just decide and you do it. You do that every single day. “Everyday, I have decisions to make. Nobody tells me. I have no one to tell me what to do.” I like that, but many people don’t like that. Many people fear that. Sometimes, I make mistakes. Sometimes, I look stupid even because I do something stupid. I make a big mistake. I make a really bad decision. It’s a stupid decision. Later, I realize, “Oh, man. That was really stupid.” Oh, well. Keep going forward.

I encourage anyone. Anyone who is interested to be a business owner, I encourage you to do it. It’s wonderful, but you got to have the right mindset. That’s the key thing. Okay then, it’s a big topic. What I want you to do is to rent that movie, Silenced. Rent that movie on amazon.com, go to their on demand video. I can’t remember what it’s called.

It’s just their streaming video on Amazon. It’s 2.99 dollars or 3.99 dollars. It’s cheap. Watch the movie. It’s a really good movie. Very, very important ideas. It’s going to be good for your English to listen because these are real people. There’s a lot of people in this movie.

They interview lots and lots of people. I don’t know. 15, 20 or more people. You’re going to get a lot of different accents, a lot of different real English, real English speaking. It’s about an interesting and important topic. You can learn a lot from it and then you’re also supporting the people who made the movie. They’re fighting for free speech. That’s also good. Get that.

If you like, if enough people rent the movie and contact me on Twitter, maybe, I’ll do a short lesson about this movie, Silenced. Silenced. It’s s-i-l-e-n-c-e-d, silenced, past tense, silenced. Contact me on Twitter. My Twitter is AJ Hoge, H-o-g-e. Contact me on Twitter after you watch the movie. Tell me your favorite part. If enough people do that, then I’ll do a movie technique lesson with a section, with a part of that movie, but I have to get contacted by a lot of people. You got to go rent that movie first. Join my VIP program for just $1 at effortlessenglishclub.com. Speak English fluently, speak English powerfully, be an advanced English speaker, effortlessenglishclub.com. Thanks for joining me. I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.