Relotius, meanwhile, has "gone underground," according to the Guardian, returning several
awards for his work while being stripped of others, such as CNN's two Journalist of the Year
awards. A German publication also stripped the journalist of a similar accolade.
At least 14 articles by Relotius for Der Spiegel were falsified , according to Steffen
Klusmann, its editor-in-chief. They include an award-winning piece about a Syrian boy called
Mouwiya who believed his anti-government graffiti had triggered the civil war. Relotius
alleged he had interviewed the boy via WhatsApp .
The magazine – a prestigious weekly – is investigating if the interview took
place and whether the boy exists. Relotius won his fourth German reporter prize this month
with a story headlined "Child's Play".
Klusmann admitted the publication still had no idea how many articles were affected. On
Thursday it was revealed that parts of an interview with a 95-year-old Nazi resistance
fighter in the US were fabricated. -
The Guardian
According to Relotius' Der Spiegel colleague Juan Moreno - who busted Relotius after
conducting his own research after his bosses failed to listen to his doubts , released a video
in which he attempted to describe how Relotius got away with his fabrications.
"He was the superstar of German journalism if one's honest, and if his stories had been
true, that would have been fully justified to say so, but they were not," said Moreno. "At the
start it was the small mistakes, things that seemed too hard to believe that made me
suspicious."
In addition to having several awards stripped from him, the 33-year-old Relotius now faces
embezzlement charges for allegedly soliciting donations for Syrian orphans from readers "with
any proceeds going to his personal account," according to the BBC . On Thursday, Relotius denied the
accusations.
While not specifically labeled, this look like an open thread. So....
The French MSM (and the BBC) are doing the usual underreporting of the numbers involved in
todays GJ activities. If interested, check out the RTL coverage: the "reporter" is standing
on a street that is filled shoulder to shoulder as far as the lens can see with yellow vests,
and states "there are about 50, maybe a hundred people here..."
The police concentrated their manpower around Versailles, and the GJ are everywhere but
there, so no gas, no violence. The infiltrators/casseurs didn't get the memo.
Speaking of the gas, one of the men seen bathing in the stuff these past weekends has put
out (FB? Twitter? This is being passed along from my French family members) that he has been
diagnosed with cyanide poisoning. I am not a chemist, but I don't think this is a usual
component of "tear gas ". Probably the Russians tampering with the gendarmes CS supply.
"The last two Democratic presidencies largely involved talking progressive while serving
Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. The obvious differences in personalities and
behavior of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama diverted attention from their underlying political
similarities. In office, both men rarely fought for progressive principles -- and routinely
undermined them."
"Presidents, prime ministers, congresspersons and parliamentarians worldwide regularly negate
the democratic will of their nation's voters by refusing to support legitimate election
results. Strangely, their treasonous actions continue without serious reprisal or punishment
by the voter. This emboldens them. The reality of votes cast and "democracy" past does not
does bode well for the people of the United Kingdom, their future as a nation or their
hopeful return to sovereignty once called, "Brexit."
Dynamite opening paragraph by Brett Redmayne-Titley.
It defines the vital issue of -To be or not to be – for our Planet's citizens who
struggle (or aught to), for functioning Democratic Republics founded upon the ideal of
Liberty and Justice for All.
Titley's ending mention of the trials of the Greek nation, and others, is well placed and
a tribute to his worldview, that is key to analyzing the situation in any particular
corner.
"Britains should consider this arbitrary bullying of Italy and of the UK. Then they should
consider the sad EU imposed current condition of Greece. Next, they might dwell on the failed
outcomes of previous elections within the nearby EU nations, and how similar movements were
defeated in their nation as well. Last, they must pay closest of attention to what is
actually in the souls of their own politicians and what they truly support."
In America, we lost our Democratic Republic and our last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy , in a hail of bullets in the Coup D'état of November 22, 1963.
The Citizen Yellow Vests in France , supported by their 2 leading Resistance
Fighters, Dieudonné , and Alain Soral , display the next step forward in
the Resistance to Tyranny.
Step 1 – Committees of Correspondence (mainstream media free – websites, &
communications).
2. Step away from the TVs – & breathe the free air outside as the Citizen
Militia Yellow Vests(Minutemen), regain the streets and stretch their muscles.
3. Final Step: We are Joined by free police, military, even CIA & other police agency
employees, in the act of regaining their Countries, with their Sovereignty, and their Honor.
We Restore Our Republics!
a. Zionist imperialist/racists to jail and awaiting Trial.
b. Cleanup & rebuilding.
c. Unbought electoral process - no $ allowed in the process (equal media access for
all candidates), Debates between the candidates. Let a hundred flowers bloom (what democrat
said that?)?
It has become all too easy for democracy to be turned on its head and popular nationalist
mandates, referenda and elections negated via instant political hypocrisy by leaders who show
their true colours only after the public vote. So it has been within the two-and-a-half year
unraveling of the UK Brexit referendum of 2016 that saw the subsequent negotiations now provide
the Brexit voter with only three possibilities. All are a loss for Britain.
One possibility, Brexit, is the result of Prime Minister, Theresa May's negotiations- the
"deal"- and currently exists in name only. Like the PM herself, the original concept of Brexit
may soon lie in the dust of an upcoming UK Parliament floor vote in exactly the same manner as
the failed attempt by the Greeks barely three years ago. One must remember that Greece on June
27, 2015 once voted to leave the EU as well and to renegotiate its EU existence as well in
their own "Grexit" referendum. Thanks to their own set of underhanded and treasonous
politicians, this did not go well for Greece. Looking at the Greek result, and understanding
divisive UK Conservative Party control that exists in the hearts of PMs on both sides of the
House of Commons, this new parliamentary vote is not looking good for Britain. Brexit:
Theresa May Goes Greek! "deal" -- would thus reveal the life-long scars of their true
national allegiance gnawed into their backs by the lust of their masters in Brussels. Brexit:
Theresa May Goes Greek!, by Brett Redmayne-Titley - The Unz Review
Ironically, like a cluster bomb of white phosphorous over a Syrian village, Cameron's Brexit
vote blew up spectacularly in his face. Two decades of ongoing political submission to the EU
by the Cons and "new" labour had them arrogantly misreading the minds of the UK
voter.
So on that incredible night, it happened. Prime Minister David Cameron the Cons New Labour
The Lib- Dems and even the UK Labour Party itself, were shocked to their core when the
unthinkable nightmare that could never happen, did happen . Brexit had passed by popular
vote!
David Cameron has been in hiding ever since.
After Brexit passed the same set of naïve UK voters assumed, strangely, that Brexit
would be finalized in their national interest as advertised. This belief had failed to
read
Article 50 - the provisos for leaving the EU- since, as much as it was mentioned, it was
very rarely linked or referenced by a quotation in any of the media punditry. However, an
article published four days after the night Brexit passed,
" A Brexit Lesson In Greek: Hopes and Votes Dashed on Parliamentary Floors," provided
anyone thus reading Article 50, which is only eight pages long and double-spaced, the info to
see clearly that this never before used EU by-law would be the only route to a UK exit.
Further, Article 50 showed that Brussels would control the outcome of exit negotiations along
with the other twenty-seven member nations and that effectively Ms May and her Tories
would be playing this game using the EU's ball and rules, while going one-on-twenty-seven
during the negotiations.
In the aftermath of Brexit, the real game began in earnest. The stakes: bigger than
ever.
Forgotten are the hypocritical defections of political expediency that saw Boris Johnson and
then Home Secretary Theresa May who were, until that very moment, both vociferously and very
publicly against the intent of Brexit. Suddenly they claimed to be pro- Brexit in their quest
to sleep in Cameron's now vacant bed at No. 10 Downing Street. Boris strategically dropped out
to hopefully see, Ms May, fall on her sword- a bit sooner. Brexit: Theresa May Goes Greek!, by
Brett Redmayne-Titley - The Unz Review
So, the plucky PM was left to convince the UK public, daily, as the negotiations moved on,
that "Brexit means Brexit!" A UK media that is as pro-EU as their PM chimed in to help
her sell distortions of proffered success at the negotiating table, while the rise of "old"
Labour, directed by Jeremy Corbyn, exposed her "soft" Brexit negotiations for the
litany of failures that ultimately equaled the "deal" that was strangely still called
"Brexit."
Too few, however, examined this reality once these political Chameleons changed their
colours just as soon as the very first results shockingly came in from Manchester in the wee
hours of the morning on that seemingly hopeful night so long ago: June 23, 2016. For thus would
begin a quiet, years-long defection of many more MPs than merely these two opportunists.
What the British people also failed to realize was that they and their Brexit victory would
also be faced with additional adversaries beyond the EU members: those from within their own
government. From newly appointed PM May to Boris Johnson, from the Conservative Party to the
New Labour sellouts within the Labour Party and the Friends of Israel , the
quiet internal political movement against Brexit began. As the House of Lords picked up their
phones, too, for very quiet private chats within House of Commons, their minions in the British
press began their work as well.
Brexit: Theresa May Goes Greek!, by Brett Redmayne-Titley -
The Unz Review
This article by Brett Redmayne is certainly right re the horrific sell-out by the Greek
government of Tsipras the other year, that has left the Greek citizenry in enduring political
despair the betrayal of Greek voters indeed a model for UK betrayal of Brexit voters
But Redmayne is likely very mistaken in the adulation of Jeremy Corbyn as the 'genuine
real deal' for British people
Ample evidence points to Corbyn as Trojan horse sell-out, as covered by UK researcher
Aangirfan on her blogs, the most recent of which was just vapourised by Google in their
censorship insanity
Jeremy Corbyn was a childhood neighbour of the Rothschilds in Wiltshire; with Jeremy's
father David Corbyn working for ultra-powerful Victor Rothschild on secret UK gov scientific
projects during World War 2
Jeremy Corbyn is tied to child violation scandals & child-crime convicted individuals
including Corbyn's Constituency Agent; Corbyn tragically ignoring multiple earnest complaints
from child abuse victims & whistleblowers over years, whilst "child abuse rings were
operating within all 12 of the borough's children's homes" in Corbyn's district not very
decent of him
And of course Corbyn significantly cucked to the Israel lobby in their demands for purge
of the Labour party alleged 'anti-semites'
The Trojan Horse 'fake opposition', or fake 'advocate for the people', is a very classic
game of the Powers That Be, and sadly Corbyn is likely yet one more fake 'hero'
My theory is, give "capitalism" and financial interests enough time, they will consume any
democracy. Meaning: the wealth flows upwards, giving the top class opportunity to influence
politics and the media, further improving their situation v.s. the rest, resulting in ever
stronger position – until they hold all the power. Controlling the media and therefore
the narrative, capable to destroy any and all opposition. Ministers and members of
parliaments, most bought and paid for one way or the other. Thankfully, the 1% or rather the
0.1% don't always agree so the picture can be a bit blurred.
You can guess what country inspired this "theory" of mine. The second on the list is
actually the U.K. If a real socialist becomes the prime minister of the U.K. I will be very
surprised. But Brexit is a black swan like they say in the financial sector, and they tend to
disrupt even the best of theories. Perhaps Corbin is genuine and will become prime minister!
I am not holding my breath.
However, if he is a real socialist like the article claims. And he becomes prime minister
of the U.K the situation will get really interesting. Not only from the EU side but more
importantly from U.K. best friend – the U.S. Uncle Sam will not be happy about this
development and doesn't hesitate to crush "bad ideas" he doesn't like.
Case in point – Ireland's financial crisis in 2009;
After massive expansion and spectacular housing bubble the Irish banks were in deep
trouble early into the crisis. The EU, ECB and the IMF (troika?) met with the Irish
government to discuss solutions. From memory – the question was how to save the Irish
banks? They were close to agreement that bondholders and even lenders to the Irish banks
should take a "haircut" and the debt load should be cut down to manageable levels so the
banks could survive (perhaps Michael Hudson style if you will). One short phone call from
the U.S Secretary of the treasury then – Timothy Geithner – to the troika-Irish
meeting ended these plans. He said: there will be no haircut! That was the end of it.
Ireland survived but it's reasonable to assume this "guideline" paved the road for the
Greece debacle.
I believe Mr. Geithner spoke on behalf of the financial power controlling – more or
less-our hemisphere. So if the good old socialist Corbin comes to power in the U.K. and
intends to really change something and thereby set examples for other nations – he is
taking this power head on. I think in case of "no deal" the U.K. will have it's back against
the wall and it's bargaining position against the EU will depend a LOT on U.S. response. With
socialist in power there will be no meaningful support from the U.S. the powers that be will
to their best to destroy Corbin as soon as possible.
My right wing friends can't understand the biggest issue of our times is class war. This
article mentions the "Panama papers" where great many corporations and wealthy individuals
(even politicians) in my country were exposed. They run their profits through offshore tax
havens while using public infrastructure (paid for by taxpayers) to make their money. It's
estimated that wealth amounting to 1,5 times our GDP is stored in these accounts!
There is absolutely no way to get it through my right wing friends thick skull that
off-shore accounts are tax frauds. Resulting in they paying higher taxes off their wages
because the big corporations and the rich don't pay anything. Nope. They simply hate taxes
(even if they get plenty back in services) and therefore all taxes are bad. Ergo tax evasions
by the 1% are fine – socialism or immigrants must be the root of our problems.
MIGA!
Come to think of it – few of them would survive the "law of the jungle" they so much
desire. And none of them would survive the "law of the jungle" if the rules are stacked
against them. Still, all their political energy is aimed against the ideas and people that
struggle against such reality.
I give up – I will never understand the right. No more than the pure bread
communist. Hopeless ideas!
" This is because the deal has a provision that would still keep the UK in the EU Customs
Union (the system setting common trade rules for all EU members) indefinitely. This is an
outrageous inclusion and betrayal of a real Brexit by Ms May since this one topic was the
most contentious in the debate during the ongoing negotiations because the Customs Union is
the tie to the EU that the original Brexit vote specifically sought to terminate. "
Here I stopped reading, maybe later more.
Nonsense.
What USA MSM told in the USA about what ordinary British people said, those who wanted to
leave the EU, I do not know, one of the most often heard reasons was immigration, especially
from E European countries, the EU 'free movement of people'.
"Real' Britons refusing to live in Poland.
EP member Verhofstadt so desperate that he asked on CNN help by Trump to keep this 'one of
the four EU freedoms'.
This free movement of course was meant to destroy the nation states
What Boris Johnson said, many things he said were true, stupid EU interference for example
with products made in Britain, for the home market, (he mentioned forty labels in one piece
of clothing), no opportunity to seek trade without EU interference.
There was irritation about EU interference 'they even make rules about vacuum cleaners', and,
already long ago, closure, EU rules, of village petrol pumps that had been there since the
first cars appeared in Britain, too dangerous.
In France nonsensical EU rules are simply ignored, such as countryside private sewer
installations.
But the idea that GB could leave, even without Brussels obstruction, the customs union,
just politicians, and other nitwits in economy, could have such ideas.
Figures are just in my head, too lazy to check.
But British export to what remains of the EU, some € 60 billion, French export to GB,
same order of magnitude, German export to GB, far over 100 billion.
Did anyone imagine that Merkel could afford closing down a not negligible part of Bayern car
industry, at he same time Bayern being the Land most opposed to Merkel, immigration ?
This Brexit in my view is just the beginning of the end of the illusion EU falling
apart.
In politics anything is connected with anything.
Britons, again in my opinion, voted to leave because of immigration, inside EU
immigration.
What GB will do with Marrakech, I do not know.
Marrakech reminds me of many measures that were ready to be implemented when the reason to
make these measures no longer existed.
Such as Dutch job guarantees when enterprises merged, these became law when when the merger
idiocy was over.
The negative aspects of immigration now are clear to many in the countries with the imagined
flesh pots, one way or another authorities will be obliged to stop immigration, but at that
very moment migration rules, not legally binding, are presented.
As a Belgian political commentator said on Belgian tv 'no communication is possible
between French politicians and French yellow coat demonstrators, they live in completely
different worlds'.
These different worlds began, to pinpoint a year, in 2005, when the negative referenda about
the EU were ignored. As Farrage reminded after the Brexit referendum, in EP, you said 'they
do not know what they're doing'
But now Macron and his cronies do not know what to do, now that police sympathises with
yellow coat demonstrators.
For me THE interesting question remains 'how was it possible that the Renaissance
cultures manoevred themselves into the present mess ?'.
@Digital
Samizdat Corbyn, in my opinion one of the many not too bright socialists, who are caught
in their own ideological prison: worldwide socialism is globalisation, globalisation took
power away from politicians, and gave it to multinationals and banks.
@niceland The
expression class war is often used without realising what the issue is, same with tax
evasion.
The rich of course consume more, however, there is a limit to what one can consume, it takes
time to squander money.
So the end of the class war may make the rich poor, but alas the poor hardly richer.
About tax evasion, some economist, do not remember his name, did not read the article
attentively, analysed wealth in the world, and concluded that eight % of this wealth had
originated in evading taxes.
Over what period this evasion had taken place, do not remember this economist had reached a
conclusion, but anyone understands that ending tax evasion will not make all poor rich.
There is quite another aspect of class war, evading taxes, wealth inequality, that is
quite worrying: the political power money can yield.
Soros is at war with Hungary, his Open University must leave Hungary.
USA MSM furious, some basic human right, or rights, have been violated, many in Brussels
furious, the 226 Soros followers among them, I suppose.
But since when is it allowed, legally and/or morally, to try to change the culture of a
country, in this case by a foreigner, just by pumping money into a country ?
Soros advertises himself as a philantropist, the Hungarian majority sees him as some kind of
imperialist, I suppose.
For me THE interesting question remains 'how was it possible that the Renaissance cultures
manoevred themselves into the present mess ?'.
Well , I am reading " The occult renaissance church of Rome " by Michael Hoffman ,
Independent History and research . Coeur d`Alene , Idaho . http://www.RevisionistHistory.org
I saw about this book in this Unz web .
I used to think than the rot started with protestantism , but Hoffman says it started with
catholic Renaissance in Rome itself in the XV century , the Medici , the Popes , usury
This whole affair illustrates beautifully the real purpose of the sham laughingly known as
"representative democracy," namely, not to "empower" the public but to deprive it of
its power.
With modern means of communication, direct democracy would be technically feasible even in
large countries. Nevertheless, practically all "democratic" countries continue to delegate
all legislative powers to elected "representatives." These are nothing more than consenting
hostages of those with the real power, who control and at the same time hide behind those
"representatives." The more this becomes obvious, the lower the calibre of the people willing
to be used in this manner – hence, the current crop of mental gnomes and opportunist
shills in European politics.
I would only shout this rambling ignoramus a beer in the pub to stop his mouth for a while.
Some of his egregious errors have been noted. and Greece, anyway, is an irrelevance to the
critical decisions on Brexit.
Once Article 50 was invoked the game was over. All the trump cards were on the EU side.
Now we know that, even assuming Britain could muster a competent team to plan and negotiate
for Brexit that all the work of proving up the case and negotiating or preparing the ground
has to be done over years leading up to the triggering of Article 50. And that's assuming
that recent events leave you believing that the once great Britain is fit to be a sovereign
nation without adult supervision.
As it is one has to hope that Britain will not be constrained by the total humbug which
says that a 51 per cent vote of those choosing to vote in that very un British thing, a
referendum, is some sort of reason for not giving effect to a more up to date and better
informed view.
@Digital
Samizdat Hypothesis: The British masses would fare better without a privatized
government.
"Corbyn may prove to be real .. .. old-time Labour platform [leadership, capable to]..
return [political, social and financial] control back to the hands of the UK worker".. [but
the privateers will use the government itself and mass media to defeat such platforms and to
suppress labor with new laws and domestic armed warfare]. Why would a member of the British
masses allow [the Oligarch elite and the[ir] powerful business and foreign political
interests restrain democracy and waste the victims of privately owned automation revolution?
.. ..
[Corbyn's Labour platform challenges ] privatized capitalist because the PCs use the
British government to keep imprisoned in propaganda and suppressed in opportunity, the
masses. The privateers made wealthy by their monopolies, are using their resources to
maintain rule making and enforcement control (via the government) over the masses; such
privateers have looted the government, and taken by privatization a vast array of economic
monopolies that once belonged to the government. If the British government survives, the
Privateers (monopoly thieves) will continue to use the government to replace humanity, in
favor of corporate owned Robots and super capable algorithms.
Corbyn's threat to use government to represent the masses and to suppress or reduce
asymmetric power and wealth, and to provide sufficient for everyone extends to, and alerts
the masses in every capitalist dominated place in the world. He (Corbyn) is a very dangerous
man, so too was Jesus Christ."
There is a similar call in France, but it is not yet so well led.
Every working Dutch person is "owed" 50k euro from the bailout of Greece, not that Greece
will ever pay this back, and not as if Greece ever really got the money as it just went
straight to northern European banks to bail them out. Then we have the fiscal policy creating
more money by the day to stimulate the economy, which also doesn't reach the countries or
people just the banks. Then we have the flirting with East-European mobsters to pull them in
the EU sphere corrupting top EU bureaucrats. Then we have all of south Europe being extremely
unstable, including France, both its populations and its economy.
It's sad to see the British government doesn't see the disaster ahead, any price would be
cheaper then future forced EU integration. And especially at this point, the EU is so
unstable, that they can't go to war on the UK without also committing A kamikaze attack.
@Brabantian
Thank you for your comment and addition to my evaluation of Corbyn. I do agree with you that
Corbyn has yet to be tested for sincerity and effectiveness as PM, but he will likely get his
chance and only then will we and the Brits find out for sure. The main point I was hoping to
make was that: due to the perceived threat of Labour socialist reform under Corbyn, he has
been an ulterior motive in the negotiations and another reason that the EU wants PM May to
get her deal passed. Yes, I too am watching Corbyn with jaundiced optimism. Thank you.
I agree Jilles, and with many other of the commenters.
Read enough to see that the article has many errors of fact and perception. It is bad
enough to suspect *propaganda* , but Brett is clearly not at that level.
An important point that you hint at is that the Brits were violently and manipulatively
forced to accept mass immigration for many years.
Yet strangely, to say anything about it only became acceptable when some numbers of the
immigrants were fellow Europeans from within the EU, and most having some compatibility with
existing ethnicity and previous culture.
Even people living far away notice such forced false consciousness.
As for Corbyn, he is nothing like the old left of old Labour. He tries to convey that
image, it is a lie.
He may not be Blairite-Zio New Labour, and received some influence from the more heavily
Marxist old Labour figures, but he is very much a creature of the post-worst-of-1968 and
dirty hippy new left, Frankfurt School and all that crap, doubt that he has actually read
much of it, but he has internalised it through his formal and political education.
By the way, the best translation of the name of North Korea's ruling party is 'Labour
Party'. While it is a true fact, I intend nothing from it but a small laugh.
After Democratic party was co-opted by neoliberals there is no way back. And since Obama the trend of Democratic Party is
toward strengthening the wing of CIA-democratic notthe wing of the party friendly to workers. Bought by Wall Street leadership is
uncable of intruting any change that undermine thier current neoliberal platform. that's why they criminally derailed Sanders.
Notable quotes:
"... When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism, would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism. ..."
"... To quote Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!" ..."
"... "Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad." ..."
"... "It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent upon the Democratic Party." ..."
"... "And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting the Democrats ..."
"... It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of their class. ..."
"... First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious! ..."
"... from Greenwald: The Democratic Party's deceitful game https://www.salon.com/2010/... ..."
they literally ripped this out of the 2016 Green Party platform. Jill Stein spoke repeatedly
about the same exact kind of Green New Deal, a full-employment, transition-to-100%-renewables
program that would supposedly solve all the world's problems.
When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address
the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism,
would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non
threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism.
In 2016, when the Greens made
this their central economic policy proposal, the Democrats responded by calling that platform
irresponsible and dangerous ("even if it's a good idea, you can't actually vote for a
non-two-party candidate!"). Why would they suddenly find a green new deal appealing now
except for its true purpose: left cover for the very system destroying the planet.
To quote
Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!"
"Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to
everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions
currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad."
Their political position not only lacks seriousness, unserious is their political
position.
"It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent
upon the Democratic Party."
For subjective-idealists, what you want to believe, think and feel is just so much more
convincing than objective reality. Especially when it covers over single-minded class
interests at play.
"And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical
policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and
exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth
face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of
world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting
the Democrats
It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically
fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient
facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of
establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with
delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of
their class.
First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the
Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back
into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious!
Only an International Socialist program led by Workers can truly lead a "green revolution" by
expropriating the billionaire oil barons of their capital and redirecting that wealth into
the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" is a nice laugh. Really, it sure is funny hearing
these lies given any credence at all. This showmanship belongs in a fantasy book, not in real
life. The Democratic Party as a force for good social change Now that's a laugh!
Lies, empty promises, meaningless tautologies and morality plays, qualified and conditional
declarations to be backpedalled pending appropriate political expediencies, devoid any
practical content that is what AOC, card carrying member of DSA, and in fact young energetic
political apparatchik of calcified political body of Dems establishment, duty engulfs. And
working for socialist revolution is no one of them.
What kind of socialist would reject socialist revolution, class struggle and class
emancipation and choose, as a suppose socialist path, accommodation with oligarchic ruling
elite via political, not revolutionary process that would have necessarily overthrown ruling
elite.
What socialist would acquiesce to legalized exploitation of people for profit, legalized
greed and inequality and would negotiate away fundamental principle of egalitarianism and
working people self rule?
Only National Socialist would; and that is exactly what AOC campaign turned out to be all
about.
National Socialism with imperial flavor is her affiliation and what her praises for
Pelosi, wife of a billionaire and dead warmonger McCain proved.
Now she is peddling magical thinking about global change and plunge herself into falacy of
entrepreneurship, Market solution to the very problem that the market solutions were designed
to create and aggravate namely horrific inequality that is robbing people from their own
opportunities to mitigate devastating effects of global change.
The insidiousness of phony socialists expresses itself in the fact that they lie that any
social problem can be fixed by current of future technical means, namely via so called
technological revolution instead by socialist revolution they deem unnecessary or
detrimental.
The technical means for achieving socialism has existed since the late 19th century, with the
telegraph, the coal-powered factory, and modern fertilizer. The improvements since then have
only made socialism even more streamlined and efficient, if such technologies could only be
liberated from capital! The idea that "we need a new technological revolution just to achieve
socialism" reflects the indoctrination in capitalism by many "socialist" theorists because it
is only in capitalism where "technological growth" is essential simply to maintain the
system. It is only in capitalism (especially America, the most advanced capitalist nation,
and thus, the one where capitalism is actually closest towards total crisis) where the dogma
of a technological savior is most entrenched because America cannot offer any other kind of
palliative to the more literate and productive sections of its population. Religion will not
convince most and any attempt at a sociological or economic understanding would inevitably
prove the truth of socialism.
Trump most probably will be a one time President... The American people will elect the next time another bullshit artist
but this time probably from Democratic Party..
Notable quotes:
"... I'll give the congressman all of that, especially ..."
"... When the economy is bad, nobody wants a bullsh*t artist in the White House. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "He came to our community and said, 'Don't sell your house. These jobs are coming back,' " Green said. "We've seen nothing but job losses around here." ..."
"... What you can blame Trump for is exploiting the hopes of Rust Belt people by telling them that he could bring those jobs back. ..."
Part of the retrenchment is a response to a slowdown in new-car sales that has prompted automakers to slim their operations
and shed jobs. And earlier bets on smaller cars have had to be unwound as consumers have gravitated toward pickup trucks and sport-utility
vehicles in response to low gasoline prices.
In addition, automakers have paid a price for the trade battle that Mr. Trump set in motion. In June G.M. slashed its profit
outlook for the year because tariffs were driving up production costs, raising prices even on domestic steel. Rising interest
rates are also generating headwinds.
Ms. Barra said no single factor had prompted G.M.'s cutbacks, portraying them as a prudent trimming of sails. "We are taking
these actions now while the company and the economy are strong to stay in front of a fast-changing market," she said on a conference
call with analysts.
More:
But demand for small and midsize cars has plunged. Two-thirds of all new vehicles sold last year were trucks and S.U.V.s. That
shift has hit G.M.'s Lordstown plant hard. Just a few years ago, the factory employed three shifts of workers to churn out Chevy
Cruzes. Now it is down to one. In 2017 the plant made about 180,000 cars, down from 248,000 in 2013.
More broadly, the years long boom in car and truck sales in North America appears to be ending, said John Hoffecker, vice chairman
at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm with a large automotive practice. "Sales have held up well this year, but we do see
a downturn coming," he said. AlixPartners forecast that domestic auto sales will fall to about 15 million cars and light trucks
in 2020, from about 17 million this year.
Watching cable news tonight at the gym, I heard an Ohio Democratic Congressman blast the president over this. He ripped Trump
for having made promises to industrial workers in his state in 2016, about how he would bring jobs back. He ripped Trump over the
steel tariffs that have driven up costs of production. And he ripped Trump for not taking his job seriously, for caring more about
Twitter than coming up with a strategy that might save jobs.
I'll give the congressman all of that, especially on Trump being a lazy, golfing-and-tweeting buffoon who doesn't
care about his job. Trump can get away with that when the economy is booming, but now it looks like things might be turning downward.
In Lordstown, workers planned to pray for a miraculous reversal of the company's decision, according to David Green, president
of United Auto Workers Local 1112.
"It's like someone knocks the wind out of you," he said of GM's announcement. "You lose your breath for a minute."
About 40 percent of the local's members voted for Trump, Green said. Now workers want to see the president keep his promises,
he said.
"He came to our community and said, 'Don't sell your house. These jobs are coming back,' " Green said. "We've seen nothing
but job losses around here."
Indeed, even before Monday's announcement, Lordstown had been bleeding jobs. Since Trump took office, GM has eliminated two
shifts and roughly 3,000 jobs at the plant, according to John Russo, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz
Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
But we have to face some facts. People aren't buying what GM is making. Aside from the move away from small cars, an effect of
lower gasoline prices, sedan sales have been declining across all manufacturers. This summer, I got a good deal on a 2018 Honda Accord,
a car I really love, and that received rapturous praise from the automobile press when it came out. Honda struggled to sell the cars.
It's not because they're lousy cars. They're actually terrific cars. It's that consumers are losing interest in sedans. What good
does it do GM to manufacture cars that people will not buy?
You can't blame Trump for that.
What you can blame Trump for is exploiting the hopes of Rust Belt people by telling them that he could bring those jobs back.
The Rust Belt made the crucial difference for Trump in 2016. Unless the Democrats' 2020 nominee is someone who is more or less a
space alien, it's going to be hard to win those voters' support when you've improved your Twitter game and your golf score, but those
plants are idle.
"... Despite the animals' increasingly desperate circumstances on the farm, Squealer's barrage of untruths ultimately convince the lowly, overworked animals that "things were getting better." ..."
"... Anymore, whether it's in the company of dictators Trump keeps or among the multi-millionaires and billionaires that our purported Capitol Hill representatives mingle with at home and abroad, it's becoming increasingly harder to tell "which is which." ..."
If the demogagic President Donald Trump and his greedy loyalist Republican abettors had
their way, the American citizenry would be consigned to a life of Farm -like
drudgery.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" becomes the leader
pigs' contorted "Commandment" to the rest of the farm animals by the end of Animal
Farm .
... ... ...
Orwell himself, indicated that his simplistic foreboding fairtale held "a wider application"
about "power-hungry people."
"I meant the moral to be that revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses
are alert.." Orwell writes Politics magazine founder Dwight Macdonald in a 1946 letter.
"What I was trying to say was," Orwell continues, "'You can't have a revolution unless you
make it for yourself; there is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship.'"
Disillusioned Americans, who weren't so much "alert" as they were desperate, clearly were
swindled by Trump's disingenous populous revolution of sorts.
Now, in the flotsam wake of the midterm election's Democratic blue wave -- demonstrating a
new found citizen alertness that will flood the House in January -- the mistake of ever
allowing a Trump Presidency, is coming into sharp, unsettling focus.
Oppression is oppression. Greed and abuse of power produce essentially the same result
whatever the misanthropic ideology – Communism or Fascism or some other hybrid demagogic
"ism" to which Trump and his loyalists aspire.
If Washington D.C's plutocratic pigs had their druthers, Americans would be so dumbed down
by the con-in-chief's exhaustive lies and grating vitriol, endorsed by congressional majority
party Republicans, that we would have about as much say in our Republic's affairs as Animal
Farm 's befuddled barnyard animals had on the farm under the pigs.
"Napoleon is Always Right"
Trump is akin to Farm 's ruthless ruling pig, Napoleon, a Berkshire boar who, Orwell
writes, has a knack for "getting his own way."
Napoleon counted on his propagandist pig, Squealer, who "could turn black into white" to
brainwash the farm animals with lies about their tyrannical leader's supposed benevolence.
Even Clover the mare, who notices the changes the pigs sneakily make to Animalism's
Commandments, eventually is lulled into a sense of complacency, convincing herself that she
must have "remembered it wrong."
As the Farm animals work harder for less, the beloved, but dim-witted carthorse Boxer
declares, "I will work harder" and routinely motivates himself by extolling the pigs' most
controlling lie of all: "Napoleon is always right."
To advance his doubtless premeditated assault on truth and civility from the start of 2017,
President Trump has employed his own tag team versions of Squealer – in imaginative
mouthpieces Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Sanders, White House press secretary, seems eternally lost in an alternate reality where if
President Trump "says it, it must be true" – just as Farm's animals were
programmed to parrot of Napoleon, no matter how absurd the lie.
... ... ...
And we Americans, like Farm 's flock of mindless sheep taught by Squealer to
obediently bleat "Four legs good, two legs better ," are supposed to believe it all.
... ... ...
Pigs Hoarded Milk and Apples; Repubs, Tax Cuts For Rich
Just as Farm 's pigs reason early on that they need all of the farm's "milk and
apples" to lead the rest of the animals, Trump and his complicit Republican chums insisted at
the outset that billionaires' tax breaks are the key to economic revival for all.
Never mind that Reaganomics trickled down – and out, decades ago. Never mind that
corporate profits are soaring, while workers' wages have stagnated.
And that now, in order to pay for corporate big wigs' tax cuts, Republicans contrive to
carve up the people's Medicare and Medicaid, while sinisterly eyeing social security
benefits.
Who is the real "enemy of the people"?
"The turning-point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples
for themselves," Orwell writes in the 1946 letter to Macdonald, published in George Orwell: A
Life In Letters , 2013.
"If the other animals had had the sense to put their foot down then," Orwell continues, "it
would have been all right."
At the first sign of feebleness, Boxer, the farm's hardest worker -- instrumental in the
farm's success from which the pigs alone capitalized -- is hauled off to the
slaughterhouse.
Despite the animals' increasingly desperate circumstances on the farm, Squealer's barrage of
untruths ultimately convince the lowly, overworked animals that "things were getting
better."
Think of Trump's grandiose claims of new plant openings and soaring jobs numbers. When Fox
News' asked him this past weekend how he would grade his job as President so far, Trump
offered, "A plus."
And look no further than Trump's scripted, dictator-esque, brainwashing rallies, where
gullible Reality TV "fans" pathetically worship a snake oil salesman, cheering on command and
smiling idiotic smiles.
Which is Which?
In Farm' s last pages, the pigs have rewritten Animalism's "Seven Commandments" to
suit them, embracing the ways of the animals' sworn enemy humans.
"Comrade Napoleon" and his fellow privileged porkers have moved into overthrown (Manor Farm)
owner Mr. Jones' farm house, are dressed in his clothes and are walking upright on their two
hind legs.
By then, the incoherent sheep under the absolute sway of Napoleon's propagandist pig
Squealer, no longer are sounding off on command: "Four legs good, two legs bad," but rather,
"Four legs good, two legs better ."
Animal Farm leaves us with the animals peering through the farm house dining room
window as the pigs inside schmooze and toast mugs of beer with neighboring farmer, Mr.
Pilkington and his associates.
The pigs and humans end up squabbling over a card game in which Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington
each play an ace of spades.
Who is cheating?
In the novella's last line, the baffled animals at the window look from face to face, from
the humans to the pigs, but: "It was impossible to say which was which."
Anymore, whether it's in the company of dictators Trump keeps or among the
multi-millionaires and billionaires that our purported Capitol Hill representatives mingle with
at home and abroad, it's becoming increasingly harder to tell "which is which."
"... Operating on a budget of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway, Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region ..."
"... The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government agencies." ..."
The hacking collective known as "Anonymous" published a
trove of documents on November 5 which it claims exposes a UK-based psyop to create a " large-scale information secret service
" in Europe in order to combat "Russian propaganda" - which has been blamed for everything from
Brexit to US President Trump winning the 2016 US election.
The primary objective of the " Integrity Initiative " - established
in 2015 by the Institute for Statecraft - is "to provide a coordinated
Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare."
And while the notion of Russian disinformation has become the West's favorite new bogeyman to excuse things such as Hillary Clinton's
historic loss to Donald Trump, we note that "Anonymous" was called out by WikiLeaks in October 2016 as an FBI cutout, while the report
on the Integrity Initiative that Anonymous exposed comes from Russian state-owned network
RT - so it's anyone's guess whose 400lb
hackers are at work here.
Operating on a budget
of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists,
military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference
in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.
The UK establishment appears to be conducting the very activities of which it and its allies have long-accused the Kremlin,
with little or no corroborating evidence. The program also aims to "change attitudes in Russia itself" as well as influencing
Russian speakers in the EU and North America, one of the leaked
documents states. -
RT
The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway,
Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its
sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region .
The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts
embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government
agencies."
The initiative has received Ł168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and Ł250,000 from the
US State Department , the
documents allege.
Some of its purported members include British MPs and high-profile " independent" journalists with a penchant for anti-Russian
sentiment in their collective online oeuvre, as showcased by a brief glance at their Twitter feeds. -
RT
Noted examples of "inedependent" anti-Russia journalists:
Spanish "Op"
In one example of the group's activities, a "Moncloa Campaign" was successfully conducted by the group's Spanish cluster to block
the appointment of Colonel Pedro Banos as the director of Spain's Department of Homeland Security. It took just seven-and-a-half
hours to accomplish, brags the group in the
documents .
"The [Spanish] government is preparing to appoint Colonel Banos, known for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin positions in the Syrian
and Ukrainian conflicts, as Director of the Department of Homeland Security, a key body located at the Moncloa," begins Nacho Torreblanca
in a seven-part tweetstorm describing what happened.
Others joined in. Among them – according to the leaks – academic Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, who wrote that "Mr. Banos is to
geopolitics as a homeopath is to medicine." Appointing such a figure would be "a shame." -
RT
The operation was reported in Spanish media, while Banos was labeled "pro-Putin" by UK MP Bob Seely.
In short, expect anything counter to predominant "open-border" narratives to be the Kremlin's fault - and not a natural populist
reflex to the destruction of borders, language and culture.
"... It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" ..."
"... "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016." ..."
"... "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..." ..."
"... this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war ..."
"... Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK. ..."
"... The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth ..."
"... British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me ..."
"... It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations ..."
"... A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants? ..."
"... I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins. ..."
"... The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval. ..."
"... Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda ..."
"... This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap. ..."
"... Pat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification ..."
"... It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling ..."
"... As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love? ..."
"... They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites. ..."
"... The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation. ..."
"... Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power. ..."
"... Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government. ..."
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear CampaignsSteveg , Nov 24,
2018 11:43:44 AM |
link
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen
many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who
does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign
against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but
seems to be part of a different project.
The ' Integrity
Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military
personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via
social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of
Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster
determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media
smear
campaign (pdf) against him.
The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its
documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and
posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .
The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in
cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of
politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed
by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North
America.
It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and
promises that:
Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical
competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster
community. [...] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed,
Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster
participants as you desire).
The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is 'Defending Democracy Against Disinformation'. It
covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the
Middle East.
On its About page
it claims: "We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and
agencies who share our aims." The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the
Initiative's funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State
Department. All the 'contact persons' for creating 'clusters' in foreign countries are
British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British
government that hides behind a 'civil society' NGO.
The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who
receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.
To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by: expanding the
knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of
experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and
to help build national capacities to counter it .
The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a "we are the good ones"
illusion. When "we" 'educate the public' it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it
its disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative's existence itself,
created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.
If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from
behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It's
applications seek funding from a larger "Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme"
run by the Foreign Office.
The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received
£102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19
budget application shows a
planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO
and the Lithuanian MoD, but
also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with
£100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each
country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.
One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled
Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):
Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a
range of countries with different circumstances
Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big
picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack
by Russia
Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of
the "golden minute"
Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:
- Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact
on policy and society: ( Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV )
Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a
self-contradicting concept.
Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:
We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal
contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to
try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;
- Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor's Office and MOD
- Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD
- Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps
- Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM's office (NB this may change very soon
with the new Government)
- Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD
- HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen's office.
We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the
clusters develop.
A look at the 'clusters' set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.
Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to
censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also
includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council
shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person
of interest is Andrew Wood who
handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over
alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah
Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus
of the BBC.
A ' Cluster
Roundup ' (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another
file reveals (pdf) the local
partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.
The Initiatives Guide
to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of
flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the
Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation". But at least two of these events,
Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of
British intelligence disinformation operations.
The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the 'Project Plan' laid out at
pages 7-40 of the
2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under 'Sustainability' it notes:
The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters
established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and
demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be
expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have
begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some
countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source
of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the
same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from
institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal
disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been
resolved and funding should now flow.
The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society
(think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is
proving to be mutually reinforcing . Creating the network of networks has given each
national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international
access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the
need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and
in various forms.
The
third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and
outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes 'Risks' to the initiative. These
include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:
Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by
political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting
the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.
We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.
Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM |
Permalink
"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to
prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election
meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil
throughout 2016."
"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that
Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In
Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling
custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele
dossier..."
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and
propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex
corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the
voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war.. i guess the idea is to get the
ordinary people to think in terms of hating another country based on lies and that this would
be a good thing... it is very sad what uk / usa leadership in the past century has come down
to here.... i can only hope that info releases like this will hasten it's demise...
Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of
illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a
financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same
laws as the rest of the UK.
The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to
me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth
@6 ingrian... things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of Russia after the fall of
the Soviet Union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit Russia
fully, as they'd intended...
Let the Doxx wars begin! Sure, Anonymous is not Russian but it will surely now be targeted
and smeared as such which would show that it has hit a nerve. British hypocrisy publicly
called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me.
I think we've all noticed the euro-asslantic press (and friends) on behalf of, willingly
and in cooperation with the British intelligence et al 'calling out' numerous Russians as
G(R)U/spies/whatever for a while now yet providing less than a shred of credible
evidence.
It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The
interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint
does not bode well for such relations.
Meanwhile in Brussels they are having their cake and eating it, i.e. bemoaning Europe's
'weak response' to Russian propaganda:
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of
the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you
have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?
Yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be
black at all; it's just the pot making up things. "These Russian criminals are using
propaganda to show (truths) like the fact the DNC and Clinton campaigns colluded to prevent
Sanders from being nominated, so we need to establish a clandestine propaganda network to
establish that the Russians are running propaganda!"
"In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia
propaganda into the western media stream."
I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit
and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been
launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins.
The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's
explicit approval.
Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed
by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to
have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are
not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own
party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda
BUT...the author assures us that the "deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding
should now flow" Huh?? In other words, the fix is in. Mueller will pardon Trump on collusion charges but the
propaganda campaign against Russia will continue...with the full support of both parties. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it...
This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been
about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had
plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap.
A lot of
sour grapes with this so-called 'integrity initiative', IMO. BP was behind a lot of this, I
would also think. When Assad pulled the plug on the pipeline through the Levant in 2009, the
Brits hacked up a fur ball. It's gone downhill for them ever since. Couldn't happen to a
nicer lot. If you can't invade or beat them with proxies, you can at least call them names.
If Trump was taking dirty money or engaged in criminal activity with Russians then he
was doing it with Felix Sater, who was under the control of the FBI... And who was in
charge of the FBI during all of the time that Sater was a signed up FBI snitch? You got it
-- Robert Mueller (2001 thru 2013) ...
It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6
meddling, including:
Steele dossier: To create suspicion in government, media, and later the public
Leaking of DNC emails to Wikileaks (but calling it a "hack"):
To help with election of Trump and link Wikileaks (as agent) to Russian election
meddling
Cambridge Analytica: To provide necessary reasoning for Trump's (certain) win of the electoral college.
Note: We later found that dozens of firms had undue access to Facebook data. Why did the
campaign turn to a British firm instead of an American firm? Well, it had to be a British
firm if MI6 was running the (supposed) Facebook targeting for CIA.
As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The
election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was
the best candidate for the job.
The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love?
"things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the soviet
union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia fully, as
they'd intended..."
They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent
Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course
the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass
psychological pathology among the elites.
The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist
"order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US
and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation.
Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it
all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is
Strength." The three pillars of political power.
Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his
pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always
been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so
called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK
government...and in this context, new empowerished sovereign governemts into the EU should
consider the possibility expelling these traitors as spies of the UK....
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:
Germany: Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland
Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian
Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
Sweden, Norway, Finland: Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre
Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus
Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
Netherlands: Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan,
Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
Spain: Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri
Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio
Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis
Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi,
Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
US, Canada:
Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler
Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado,
Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland
Todd Leventhal
UK: Chris Donnelly
Amalyah Hart William Browder John Ardis
Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham Deborah Haynes
Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon Mungo Melvin
Rob Dover Julian Moore Agnes Josa David Aaronovitch Stephen Dalziel Raheem Shapi Ben
Nimmo
Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy
Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall
Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede Alan Riley [email protected]Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson
Primavera Quantrill
Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick
Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant
Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell
Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier
Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew
Foxall Alex Finnen
Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov
Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw
Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey
Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French
Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman
James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles
Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider
Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood
Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell
Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz
Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw
Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros
Papaioannou
Paddy Nicoll
Trump administration policy on Ukraine is also strictly adhere yo the neocon playbook. As if
Victoria Nuland is strill working in State Departemetn and Cheney is the vice president.
Notable quotes:
"... in style and substance, there was no greater avatar for Trump's statement Tuesday than Gaffney's worldview. ..."
"... Trump explicitly namechecked the Muslim Brotherhood, a career-long hobby horse of Gaffney's, and depicted the Middle Eastern theater as straightforward. ..."
The controversial Washington think-tanker denied
to me in August 2017 that he'd directly advised the administration. To the contrary, he'd
actually endorsed and counseled Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's bitter primary rival, in the late
stretches of the trench warfare 2016 primary (something, like most who have come over to Trump
after the primary, he has sought to minimize). But in style and substance, there was no
greater avatar for Trump's statement Tuesday than Gaffney's worldview.
Trump explicitly namechecked the Muslim Brotherhood, a career-long hobby horse of
Gaffney's, and depicted the Middle Eastern theater as straightforward. David Reaboi, an
alumnus of Gaffney's Center for Security Policy and now with the administration-friendly
Security Studies Group, fleshed the statement out Wednesday morning in an illuminating radio
interview. Reaboi has commented to
me in this publication before; there should be no reason to doubt his sincerity. But for
Reaboi, the joint action of last week's indictments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia coupled with
U.S. sanctions was sufficient, and it's time to get back to business.
... ... ...
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on
Twitter: @CurtMills .
The same things were said when the Queen of Great Britain as Head of State requested
President Eisenhower American Support for their Plans to overthrow an Iranian Democracy
in 1953 to save British Anglo-Persian Oil Revenues for Britons.
Or when Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle requested President Truman
American Millions in late 1944-45 intended to hold on to France's Indochina Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos Colonies to consolidate French control of the territory against Ho Chi
Minh determination for independence. Leading to the French 7 year war largely funded by
the United States few recall America refusing them costing another 2 Decades and another
5 Presidents inheriting this French Fiasco Imperialism.
Or when America Allied with Communists Joseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili known as
Joseph (Koba) Stalin, murdered and imprisoned over 30 million Kulaks, Eastern Slavic
Europeans, and Soviet Union Subjects after making Peace with Adolph Hitler to carve up
Poland, and then required American Assistance of Billions to save Stalin's Communism from
Hitler no one objected?
All Presidents must weigh and decide past, current and future Alliances whether it be
President Carter and Reagan freezing American Iranian Assets and later returns by
President Obama in the Billions while Iran used the money to fund more Middle Eastern
Chaos and terror elsewhere. While President Trump reversed that signed Agreement and
added Sanctions to challenge Iranian Behavior. As well as promoting an Arabian Coalition
in the Middle East after 39 years of failure by the Aaytiollah's Regimes.
These controversies, policies, and outcomes are always up for debate, spin, and
accusations, and often depends on America being force to act and react Deeds of Deception
caused by other Nations Leaders especially, Absolute Monarchs, Communist, Socialist,
Fascist Dictators, and Theocratic Ayatollahs.
Saudi Arabia hosts US military bases. Saudi Arabia buys $billions upon $billions of US
weapons. Saudi Arabia is a major oil producer that aligns its activities with US oil
interests. Saudi Arabia is a big investor in the US. Saudi Arabia is a strong ally in the
Middle East. Murder is murder. It's never OK, and God will judge. However, the US has
massive vital interests at stake.
Trump administration is complicit in Khashoggi murder.
The US intelligence had intercepted calls between Riyadh, Washington and Istanbul about
Khashoggi a few days before the killing. It was aware of MbS plans to abduct or kill the
Journalist.
Instead of alerting Khashoggi, the American government let him walk in the Saudi
Consulate and be butchered there.
"... When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also. ..."
"... Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. ..."
"... This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the WEST? This is nuts. ..."
One of the documents lists a series of propaganda weapons to be used against Russia. One is
use of the church as a weapon. That has already been started in Ukraine with Poroshenko
buying off regligious leader to split Ukraine Orthodoxy from Russian Orthodoxy. It also
explicitly states that the Skripal incident is a 'Dirty Trick' against Russia.
The British political system is on the verge of collapse. BREXIT has finally demonstrated
that the Government/ Opposition parties are clearly aligned against the interests of the
people. The EU is nothing more than an arm of the Globalist agenda of world domination.
The US has shown its true colours - sanctioning every country that stands for independent
sovereignty is not a good foreign policy, and is destined to turn the tide of public opinion
firmly against global hegemony, endless wars, and wealth inequity.
The old Empire is in its death throes. A new paradigm awaits which will exclude all those
who have exploited the many, in order to sit at the top of the pyramid. They cannot escape
Karma.
The Western world needs to come to terms with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its
aftermath. Today, Russia is led by Putin and he obviously has objectives as any national
leader has.
Western "leaders" need to decide whether Putin:
Is trying to create Soviet Union 2.0, to have a 2nd attempt at ruling the world thru
communism and to do this by holding the world to ransom over oil/gas supplies. OR
Is wanting Russia to become a member of the family of nations and of a multi-polar world to improve the lives of
Russian people, but is being blocked at every twist and turn by manufactured events like Russia-gate and the Skripal affair
and now this latest revelation of anti-Russian propaganda campaigns being coordinated and run out of London.
Both of the above cannot be true because there are too many contradictions. Which is it??
Yes because imagine that that we lived in 1940 without any means to inform ourselves and
that media was still in control over the information that reaches us. We would already be in
a fullblown war with Russia because of it but now with the Internet and information going
around freely only a whimpy 10% of we the people stand behind their desperately wanted war.
Imagine that, an informed sheople.
Can't have that, they cannot do their usual stuff anymore.... good riddance.
"250,000 from the US State
Department , the documents allege."....... Interesting.
"During the third
Democratic debate on Saturday night, Hillary Clinton called for a "Manhattan-like
project" to break encrypted terrorist communications. The project would "bring the government and the tech communities together" to find a way
to give law enforcement access to encrypted messages, she said. It's something that some
politicians and intelligence officials have wanted for awhile,"........
***wasn't the Manhatten project a secret venture?????? Hummmmm"
Hillary Clinton has all of our encryption keys, including the FBI's . "Encryption keys" is
a general reference to several encryption functions hijacked by Hillary and her surrogate
ENTRUST. They include hash functions (used to indicate whether the contents have been altered
in transit), PKI public/private key infrastructure, SSL (secure socket layer), TLS (transport
layer security), the Dual_EC_DRBG
NSA algorithm and certificate authorities.
The convoluted structure managed by the "Federal Common Policy" group has ceded to
companies like ENTRUST INC the ability to sublicense their authority to third parties who in
turn manage entire other networks in a Gordian knot of relationships clearly designed to fool
the public to hide their devilish criminality. All roads lead back to Hillary and the Rose
Law Firm."- patriots4truth
When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with
plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also.
FBI/Anonymous can use this story to support a narrative that social media bots posting
memes is a problem for everybody, and it's not a partisan issue. The idea is that fake news
and unrestricted social media are inherently dangerous, and both the West and Russia are
exploiting that, so governments need to agree to restrict the ability to use those platforms
for political speech, especially without using True Names.
Oilygawkies in the UK and USSA seem to be letting their spooks have a good-humored (rating
here on the absurd transparency of these ops) contest to see who can come up with the most
surreal propaganda psy-ops.
But they probably also serve as LHO distractions from something genuinely sleazy.
Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. Anything that is
remotely like Nationalism is the true enemy of these Globalist/Internationalists, which is
what the Top-Ape Bolshevik promoted: see Vladimir Lenin and his quotes on how he believed
fully in "internationalism" for a world without borders. Ironic how they Love the butchers of
the Soviet Union but hate Russia. It is ALL ABOUT IDEOLOGY to these people and "the means
justify the ends".
Basically, if one acquires factual information from an internet source, which leads to
overturning the propaganda to which we're all subjected, then it MUST have come from Putin.
This is the direction they're headed. Anyone speaking out against the official story is
obviously a Russian spy.
Better to call it the Anti-Integrity Initiative. UK cretins up to their usual dirty tricks - let them choke on their poison. The judgement of history will eventually catch up with them.
A good 'ole economic collapse will give western countries a chance to purge their crazy
leaders before they involve us all in a thermonuclear war. Short everything with your entire
accounts.
This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have
such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the
WEST? This is nuts.
Isn't it just as likely someone in the WEST planted this cache, intending Anonymous to
find it?
Any propaganda coming from the UK or US is strictly zionist. EVERYTHING they put out is to
the benefit of Israel and the "lobby". Russia isn't perfect, but if they're an enemy of the
latter, then they should NOT be considered a foe to all thinking and conscientious
people.
Yesterday, the BBC had a thing on Thai workers in Israel, and how they keep dying of
accidents, their general level of slavery etc. Very odd to have a negative Israel story, so I
wonder who upset whom, and what the ongoing status will be.
Thai labourers in Israel tell of harrowing conditions
A year-long BBC investigation has discovered widespread abuse of Thai nationals living
and working in Israel - under a scheme organized by the two governments.
Many are subjected to unsafe working practices and squalid, unsanitary living
conditions. Some are overworked, others underpaid and there are dozens of unexplained
deaths.
England and the U.S. don't like their very poor and rotten social conditions put out for
the public to see. Both countries have severely deteriorating problems on their streets
because of bankrupt governments printing money for foreign wars.
More of the same fraudulent duality while alleged so called but not money etc continues to
flow (everything is criminal) and the cesspool of a hierarchy pretends it's business as
usual.
This isn't about maintaining balance in a lie this is about disclosing the truth and
agendas (Agenda 21 now Agenda 2030 = The New Age Religion is Never Going To Be Saturnism).
The layers of the hierarchy are a lie so unless the alleged so called leaders of those layers
are publicly providing testimony and confession then everything that is being spoon fed to
the pablum puking public through all sources is a lie.
Operating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity
Initiative consists of "clusters" of (((local politicians, journalists, military personnel,
scientists and academics))).
The (((team))) is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian
interference in European affairs, while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes,
the documents claim.
If this is Trump policy, then Trump is 100% pure neocon. It took just three months for the Deep state to turn him.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton shrugged off the reality that Iran is still doing business internationally, saying that he believes Iran is "under real pressure" from the sanctions, and that he's determined to see it keep getting worse. ..."
With the newly reimposed US sanctions against
Iran having little to no perceivable economic impact, national security adviser John Bolton
is talking up his plans to continue to escalate the sanctions track, saying he will "
squeeze
Iran until the pips squeak ."
Bolton shrugged off the reality that Iran is still doing business internationally, saying
that he believes Iran is "under real pressure" from the sanctions, and that he's determined
to see it keep getting worse.
Bolton went on to predict that the European efforts to keep trading with Iran would
ultimately fail. He said the
Europeans are going through the six stages of grief , and would ultimately led to
European acceptance of the US demands.
Either way, Bolton's position is that the US strategy will continue to be
imposing new sanctions
on Iran going forward. It's not clear what the end game is, beyond just damaging
Iran.
"... [Don't miss Barndollar discussing the forever war, the military industrial complex, and military reform at our fifth annual foreign policy conference on November 15 in Washington, D.C. Full schedule and free registration here] ..."
"... Gil Barndollar is Director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National Interest and Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for the Study of Statesmanship. He served as a U.S. Marine infantry officer from 2009 to 2016. ..."
Flickr As we near the halfway point of President Donald Trump's first term, U.S. foreign
policy is being widely portrayed as off the rails. Yet when one looks past the Trumpian
bluster, the predetermined media narrative, and the serial incompetence of an understaffed and
often inexperienced administration, one finds a foreign policy agenda that differs far more in
style than in substance from its predecessors'.
Donald Trump ran for president as a foreign policy Buchananite in all but name. Thoughhe
made pro forma genuflections before the altars of primacy and American military supremacy,
Trump repeatedly bemoaned America's disastrous interventions in the Greater Middle East. The
South Carolina Republican presidential debate in February 2016 seemed like a watershed moment:
Trump attacked George W. Bush's war leadership and proclaimed the Iraq war a disaster, a bold
stance in a Republican Party that still refused to acknowledge reality more than a decade after
the invasion. Despite being booed by some in the audience, Trump won the state easily and drove
"Low Energy" Jeb Bush out of the race.
Candidate Trump offered a radical break with the U.S. foreign policy establishment. He said
was NATO obsolete and warned of the danger of a third world war with Russia. He rightly
declared the Libyan intervention to be another fiasco, and an illegal one at that. Hillary
Clinton, by comparison, bragged about Muammar Gaddafi's death and compared Vladimir Putin to
Hitler. Foreign policy realists and restrainers were understandably receptive to a Trump
presidency, warts and all.
Much of Trump's rhetoric revolved around the undeniable fact that our allies are prospering
under an American security umbrella they do not pay enough to support. He famously said that
the United States should "take Iraq's oil" as payback for the American blood and treasure
invested there. Trump seemed to sum up his view of America in the world when he told The
Washington Post in March 2016: "We certainly can't afford to do this anymore."
Two years later, it is clear that "America First" was negotiable. U.S. troops aren't coming
home, entangling alliances are expanding not contracting, and American client states are even
more likely to drag us into war in the Middle East. When one pushes the media and the
president's personality out of view, the most remarkable thing about Trump's foreign policy is
how unremarkable it is. Beneath the rhetoric, American foreign policy these past two years has
remained shackled to the traditional pillars of primacy, interventionism, and hubris.
Afghanistan: The war in Afghanistan offers the clearest evidence of business as usual
in American foreign policy. The administration's brief attempt at unconventional thinking on
Afghanistan was the risible Prince plan, whereby the U.S. would continue to prosecute the war
but outsource it to a "modern East India Company." Erik Prince, formerly head of the Blackwater
security firm and more recently a logistics provider in Africa and trainer of Chinese security
services, proposed to turn Afghanistan over to a brigade of contractors and a "viceroy" with
total command of the U.S. war effort. Though many of Prince's critiques of the current strategy
are sound, mercenaries cannot fix a country with massive culture and governance problems. This
idea was thankfully rejected. More creative thinking, like a real effort to work with Russia,
China, and Pakistan to stabilize Afghanistan, or a withdrawal and a pledge to return in force
if necessary, appears to have been unwelcome.
Instead, a vaunted new strategy offered little substantive change. U.S. forces in
Afghanistan were increased by 4,000 troops, and the number of airstrikes shot up. But the
situation there has only gotten worse. Casualties for both civilians and Afghan security forces
have risen dramatically in the past year while Pakistan still shelters and abets the Taliban.
The Afghan military is still not able to hold territory without U.S. assistance. In fact,
independent assessors like the Long War Journal believe that nearly 60 percent of Afghanistan's
districts are either under Taliban control or contested. The Department of Defense even briefly
trotted out enemy body counts as a metric for progress before The New York Times rightly
invoked the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, 17 years after 9/11, the Pentagon claims there are now upwards of 20 terror
groups operating in Afghanistan, including what's left of ISIS, the heir to al Qaeda. For that
reason, Americans are told we cannot leave.
Europe: Early in his presidency Trump briefly declined to endorse NATO's Article 5,
provoking predictable hysteria on both sides of the Atlantic. A year later, he gave America's
European allies a tongue-lashing in Brussels, calling them delinquent in their contributions to
collective defense. Germany received special attention, with the president labeling Europe's
largest economy a "captive of Russia." In Helsinki a few days later, Trump appeared to dismiss
charges of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, igniting yet another firestorm of criticism.
Back stateside, he concurred during an interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson that starting a
war over Montenegro, NATO's newest member, would be folly.
Yet when the dust finally settled, little had changed. The United States continues to
support Ukraine in its war against Russian-backed separatists, even selling Kiev Javelin
anti-tank missiles and other "lethal aid" that the more cautious President Barack Obama had
refused to provide. Sanctions against Russia pile up, dampening that country's long-term
economic development. European armies remain largely impotent while mindless NATO expansion
continues apace. Despite what he said on Fox News, Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate had
already signed off on the addition of Montenegro (and its tiny army of fewer than 2,000
soldiers) to NATO in 2017. Macedonia, another mouse that roared, is next. Poland has recently
entertained the idea of a "Fort Trump" to permanently house U.S. troops on its soil -- yet
another American tripwire force.
The Middle East: Iran remains the Trump administration's abiding foreign policy
obsession. Here, at least, one cannot blame false advertising. The president was explicit about
his plans to tear up Obama's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that limited Iran's
nuclear ambitions, and make a better deal.
Once in office, the president's instincts on the regime were further fortified by the Saudis
and Israelis, to whom he has clung more tightly than any previous administration. He surrounded
himself with paid advocates of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a cult that is hated in Iran.
Trump's lawyer and national security advisor, Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton respectively, have
spoken on MEK's behalf, despite it being a U.S.-designated terrorist organization until 2012.
Bolton now officially abjures regime change, but in July 2017 he promised an MEK gathering in
Paris that they would celebrate together in Tehran in 2019.
[Don't miss Barndollar discussing the forever war, the military industrial complex, and
military reform at our fifth annual foreign policy conference on November 15 in Washington,
D.C. Full schedule
and free registration here]
In May, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented Iran with a list of 12 demands that bring
to mind Austria-Hungary and Serbia on the eve of World War I. Pompeo's conditions were not a
starting point for negotiations or normalization; they were a call for surrender. The
administration now believes it can crush Iran through economic sanctions and force it to the
negotiating table.
Trump's Iran obsession has had baleful effects beyond the Persian Gulf. U.S. sanctions on
Iran are damaging relations with a host of other nations by restricting their trade, even as
the president extolled the primacy of sovereignty at the United Nations General Assembly in
September.
Tethered to the increasingly reckless Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the U.S. has
continued to fuel, arm, and otherwise aid the Saudi-led coalition's brutal, stalemated war in
Yemen -- a policy begun by Barack Obama.
In Syria and Iraq, the U.S. can take credit for a successful campaign against the Islamic
State. Yet in the wake of this victory, U.S. troops seem to be staying put in Syria, despite a
promise by Trump to pull them out earlier this year. Top officials announced in September that
American forces will not be leaving Syria until the Iranians do. The risk of our presence in
Syria dragging us into a war with either Iran or Russia is more real than ever.
In Israel, Trump has doubled down on support of Benjamin Netanyahu and the hardline Likud
party. The U.S. finally moved its embassy to Jerusalem, as promised to pro-Israel donors during
the campaign, and cut off all funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA),
the UN's Palestinian refugee agency. These moves only cemented a growing impression that Trump
never planned to be an honest broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Many now
believe that the peace process is dead.
North Korea: North Korea dominated headlines and fears of during 2017 and early 2018.
While the president tweeted about "fire and fury" and "Little Rocket Man" Kim Jong-un,
ultra-hawks in Washington pushed for a "bloody nose" preventive attack or even full-on regime
change in North Korea. Thankfully, this was one case where Trump's status quo foreign policy
prevented conflict. Both sides climbed down, conducted a historic summit in Singapore, and made
over-hyped and easily reversible concessions. The president's personalization of diplomacy
resulted in a victory, albeit in a verbal conflict that he had done much to create.
Substantively, little has changed. North Korea will keep its nuclear weapons and ballistic
missiles, American troops will remain in South Korea, and further negotiations are
promised.
This is a good thing: a preventive war with North Korea would be the ultimate expression of
Bismarck's line about "committing suicide out of fear of death." It appears that North Korea
wants to slowly open itself to the world, a prospect that has South Korean businessmen quietly
ecstatic and China relieved. Nonetheless, this is basically business as usual: North Korea
threatens, is granted concessions, and the status quo is preserved. We have seen this before.
We may be on the cusp of a permanent change in relations with North Korea, but the jury is
still out.
China: There is one shining exception to the Trump administration's conventional
foreign policy: China. Trump, unencumbered by free trade ideology, is challenging China's
economic ascent. Gone is the mindless determinism of Clinton, Bush, and Obama, the
evidence-free belief that free trade would somehow gradually end Chinese totalitarianism and
mercantilism. The Chinese have never competed on a level playing field and as a result we have
spent 20 years ceding American industry and supply chains to China. The hour is late, but there
is still time for the United States to fundamentally reorient its relationship with China.
Despite the chimera of a 355-ship navy, America will not win or lose this fight in a
Gotterdammerung in the South China Sea. The contest with China may be existential, but it is
primarily an economic, technological, and political battle. For all of the deep structural
problems in the U.S. economy, China has more to lose from a trade war right now than America
does.
It is not clear, though, if we are in the midst of a trade war or a trade bluff. If it is
the latter, we are likely to get a slightly better arrangement for U.S. businesses and then
proceed towards the same endpoint. If we are fighting a real trade war, however, there is an
opportunity to unwind "Chimerica" and bring manufacturing, if not necessarily jobs, home. It is
an open question whether the president has the stomach for the economic and political pain that
this will entail, as his oft-invoked roaring stock market tanks and Americans feel the bite of
tariffs in their wallets.
As with most things this administration does, competence is also an enormous question mark.
A trade war with China may be necessary and prudent. Simultaneously battling the Europeans and
our NAFTA partners while conducting a trade war with China is neither. If we want to
fundamentally reorder our economic relationship with China, for reasons of both national
security and long-term prosperity, we need to do it in concert with the other liberal
democracies, especially our North American neighbors. They could benefit greatly from a
reorientation of American trade. A strategy is needed, not an impulse and a series of tactical
tariffs.
How did America First so quickly become business as usual, China excepted? Diehard Trumpists
are inclined to defend the president's foreign policy U-turns by painting him as a prisoner of
his own administration, surrounded by conventional Republicans who subvert his
non-interventionist instincts. The writing was on the wall immediately, they claim, as a trio
of generals -- John Kelly, James Mattis, and H. R. McMaster -- were chosen to drive national
security policy. As veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, all three were unlikely to support any
radical reexamination of America's place in the world. Steve Bannon, who would and did support
such a change, was forced out of the White House within a year.
Personnel is policy, as the cliché goes, and the administration's foreign policy team
is dominated by men who are conventional internationalists at best, unrepentant
neoconservatives at worst. Rex Tillerson presided over a State Department in unprecedented
disarray and often found himself focused on limiting the damage of the president's bombast. His
successor has been a reliable agent of foreign policy orthodoxy, dutifully dealing with North
Korea on the one hand and threatening Iran on the other.
There is undoubtedly something to the narrative of internal betrayal, as Bob Woodward's
Fear and the recent anonymous New York Times editorial attest. America may not
have a true Deep State, but Trump's personality and some of his policies have provoked
unprecedented resistance from within government bureaucracies and even from his own political
appointees. Realigning American foreign policy in the face of an obdurate establishment was
always going to be a significant challenge. Succeeding in this task without a united team is
likely impossible.
But this is not an entirely tenable defense. These are men the president chose, and they are
doing his bidding, inasmuch as he knows and communicates what that is. The bench of realists
and non-interventionists may be small, but the president has put some of the worst warmongers
in Washington into positions of real power and influence.
So those who believe in foreign policy realism and restraint are left with the worst of both
worlds: a presidency that espouses an America First agenda but then proceeds to sabotage
support for these policies through reckless rhetoric, incompetent implementation, and a refusal
to carry out anything approaching a thoughtful, non-interventionist strategy.
Perhaps the next two years will see a drastic change in American foreign policy. Hope
springs eternal -- but there is scant reason for anything more than hope.
Gil Barndollar is Director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National
Interest and Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for
the Study of Statesmanship. He served as a U.S. Marine infantry officer from 2009 to
2016.
The Democrats are politically responsible for the rise of Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... As Obama said following Trump's election, the Democrats and Republicans are "on the same team" and their differences amount to an "intramural scrimmage." They are on the team of, and owned lock stock and barrel by, the American corporate-financial oligarchy, personified by Trump. ..."
"... The Democrats are, moreover, politically responsible for the rise of Trump. The Obama administration paved the way for Trump by implementing the pro-corporate (Wall Street bailout), pro-war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, drone killings) and anti-democratic (mass surveillance, persecution of Snowden, Assange, Manning) policies that Trump is continuing and intensifying. And by breaking all his election promises and carrying out austerity policies against the working class, Obama enabled the billionaire gangster Trump to make an appeal to sections of workers devastated by deindustrialization, presenting himself as the anti-establishment spokesman for the "forgotten man." ..."
"... This was compounded by the right-wing Clinton candidacy, which exuded contempt for the working class and appealed for support to the military and CIA and wealthy middle-class layers obsessed with identity politics. Sanders' endorsement of Clinton gave Trump an open field to exploit discontent among impoverished social layers. ..."
Pelosi's deputy in the House, Steny Hoyer, sums up the right-wing policies of the Democrats,
declaring: "His [Trump's] objectives are objectives that we share. If he really means that,
then there is an opening for us to work together."
So much for the moral imperative of voting for the Democrats to stop Trump! As Obama said
following Trump's election, the Democrats and Republicans are "on the same team" and their
differences amount to an "intramural scrimmage." They are on the team of, and owned lock stock
and barrel by, the American corporate-financial oligarchy, personified by Trump.
The Democrats are, moreover, politically responsible for the rise of Trump. The Obama
administration paved the way for Trump by implementing the pro-corporate (Wall Street bailout),
pro-war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, drone killings) and anti-democratic (mass
surveillance, persecution of Snowden, Assange, Manning) policies that Trump is continuing and
intensifying. And by breaking all his election promises and carrying out austerity policies
against the working class, Obama enabled the billionaire gangster Trump to make an appeal to
sections of workers devastated by deindustrialization, presenting himself as the
anti-establishment spokesman for the "forgotten man."
This was compounded by the right-wing Clinton candidacy, which exuded contempt for the
working class and appealed for support to the military and CIA and wealthy middle-class layers
obsessed with identity politics. Sanders' endorsement of Clinton gave Trump an open field to
exploit discontent among impoverished social layers.
The same process is taking place internationally. While strikes and other expressions of
working class opposition are growing and broad masses are moving to the left, the right-wing
policies of supposedly "left" establishment parties are enabling far-right and neo-fascist
forces to gain influence and power in countries ranging from Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland
to Brazil.
As for Gay's injunction to vote "pragmatically," this is a crude promotion of the bankrupt
politics that are brought forward in every election to keep workers tied to the capitalist
two-party system. "You have only two choices. That is the reality, whether you like it or not."
And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy
is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting
you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today --
falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war.
The Democratic Party long ago earned the designation "graveyard of social protest
movements," and for good reason. From the Populist movement of the late 19th century, to the
semi-insurrectional industrial union movement of the 1930s, to the civil rights movement of the
1950s and 1960s, to the mass anti-war protest movements of the 1960s and the eruption of
international protests against the Iraq War in the early 2000s -- every movement against the
depredations of American capitalism has been aborted and strangled by being channeled behind
the Democratic Party.
"... For his first two years in office, he sunk nearly all his political capital into enacting huge tax cuts for the rich, wholesale Wall Street deregulation, large increases in military spending, and an extremely pro-Israel foreign policy -- exactly the sort of policies near-and-dear to the establishment conservative candidates whom he had crushed in the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, his jilted grassroots supporters have had to settle for some radical rhetoric and a regular barrage of outrageous Tweets rather than anything more substantive. ..."
"... With Republicans in full control of Congress, finding excuses for this widespread betrayal was quite difficult, but now that the Democrats have taken the House, Trump's apologists can more easily shift the blame over to them. ..."
"... Both Trump's supporters and his opponents claim that his presidency represents a drastic break from Republican business-as-usual, and surely that was the hope of many of the Americans who voted for him in 2016, but the actual reality often seems rather different. ..."
"... Although the net election results were not particularly bad for the Republicans, the implications of several state races seem extremely worrisome. The highest profile senate race was in Texas, and Trump may have narrowly dodged a bullet. ..."
Perhaps the loss of the House may actually prove to be a mixed blessing for Trump. Democrats
will achieve control of all the investigative committees and their accusations and subpoenas
will make Trump's life even more miserable than it was before, while surely removing any chance
that significant elements of Trump's remaining agenda will ever be enacted.
However, although Trump had reached the presidency by advocating a radical
populist-nationalist agenda, he has hardly governed in those terms. For his first two years in
office, he sunk nearly all his political capital into enacting huge tax cuts for the rich,
wholesale Wall Street deregulation, large increases in military spending, and an extremely
pro-Israel foreign policy -- exactly the sort of policies near-and-dear to the establishment
conservative candidates whom he had crushed in the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, his jilted
grassroots supporters have had to settle for some radical rhetoric and a regular barrage of
outrageous Tweets rather than anything more substantive.
With Republicans in full control of
Congress, finding excuses for this widespread betrayal was quite difficult, but now that the
Democrats have taken the House, Trump's apologists can more easily shift the blame over to
them.
Meanwhile, a considerably stronger Republican Senate will certainly ease the way for Trump's
future court nominees, especially if another Supreme Court vacancy occurs, and there will be
little chance of any difficult Kavanaugh battles. However, here once again, Trump's supposed
radicalism has merely been rhetorical. Kavanaugh and nearly all of his other nominees have been
very mainstream Republican choices, carefully vetted by the Federalist Society and other
conservative establishment groups, and they would probably have been near the top of the list
if Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio were sitting in the Oval Office.
Both Trump's supporters and his opponents claim that his presidency represents a drastic
break from Republican business-as-usual, and surely that was the hope of many of the Americans
who voted for him in 2016, but the actual reality often seems rather different.
Although the net election results were not particularly bad for the Republicans, the
implications of several state races seem extremely worrisome. The highest profile senate race
was in Texas, and Trump may have narrowly dodged a bullet. Among our largest states, Texas
ranks as by far the most solidly Republican, and therefore it serves as the central lynchpin of
every Republican presidential campaign. The GOP has won every major statewide race for more
than twenty years, but despite such seemingly huge advantages, incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz faced a
very difficult reelection race against a young border-area Congressman named Beto O'Rourke, who
drew enormous enthusiasm and an ocean of local and national funding.
Perhaps the loss of the House may actually prove to be a mixed blessing for Trump. Democrats
will achieve control of all the investigative committees and their accusations and subpoenas
will make Trump's life even more miserable than it was before, while surely removing any chance
that significant elements of Trump's remaining agenda will ever be enacted.
However, although Trump had reached the presidency by advocating a radical
populist-nationalist agenda, he has hardly governed in those terms. For his first two years in
office, he sunk nearly all his political capital into enacting huge tax cuts for the rich,
wholesale Wall Street deregulation, large increases in military spending, and an extremely
pro-Israel foreign policy -- exactly the sort of policies near-and-dear to the establishment
conservative candidates whom he had crushed in the Republican primaries. Meanwhile, his jilted
grassroots supporters have had to settle for some radical rhetoric and a regular barrage of
outrageous Tweets rather than anything more substantive. With Republicans in full control of
Congress, finding excuses for this widespread betrayal was quite difficult, but now that the
Democrats have taken the House, Trump's apologists can more easily shift the blame over to
them.
Meanwhile, a considerably stronger Republican Senate will certainly ease the way for Trump's
future court nominees, especially if another Supreme Court vacancy occurs, and there will be
little chance of any difficult Kavanaugh battles. However, here once again, Trump's supposed
radicalism has merely been rhetorical. Kavanaugh and nearly all of his other nominees have been
very mainstream Republican choices, carefully vetted by the Federalist Society and other
conservative establishment groups, and they would probably have been near the top of the list
if Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio were sitting in the Oval Office.
Both Trump's supporters and his opponents claim that his presidency represents a drastic
break from Republican business-as-usual, and surely that was the hope of many of the Americans
who voted for him in 2016, but the actual reality often seems rather different.
Although the net election results were not particularly bad for the Republicans, the
implications of several state races seem extremely worrisome. The highest profile senate race
was in Texas, and Trump may have narrowly dodged a bullet. Among our largest states, Texas
ranks as by far the most solidly Republican, and therefore it serves as the central lynchpin of
every Republican presidential campaign. The GOP has won every major statewide race for more
than twenty years, but despite such seemingly huge advantages, incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz faced a
very difficult reelection race against a young border-area Congressman named Beto O'Rourke, who
drew enormous enthusiasm and an ocean of local and national funding.
I was actually in Texas just a couple of days before the vote, speaking at a Ron
Paul-related conference in the Houston area, and although most of the libertarian-leaning
attendees thought that Cruz would probably win, they all agreed with the national media that it
would probably be close. Cruz's final victory margin of less than three points confirmed this
verdict.
But if things had gone differently, and O'Rourke had squeaked out a narrow win, our national
politics would have been immediately transformed. Any Republican able to win California has a
near-lock on the White House, and the same is true for any Democrat able to carry Texas,
especially if the latter is a young and attractive Kennedyesque liberal, fluent in Spanish and
probably very popular with the large Latino populations of other important states such as
Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. I strongly suspect that a freshman Sen. O'Rourke
(R-Texas) would have been offered the 2020 Democratic nomination almost by acclamation, and
barring unexpected personal or national developments, would have been a strong favorite in that
race against Trump or any other Republican. Rep. O'Rourke raised an astonishing $70 million in
nationwide donations, and surely many of his contributors were dreaming of similar
possibilities. A shift of just a point and a half, and in twenty-four months he probably would
have been our next president. But it was not to be.
"... You know something is fundamentally wrong when the average high school drop-out MAGA-hat-wearing Texan or Alabaman working a blue collar job has more sense, can SEE much more clearly, than the average university-educated, ideology-soaked, East Coast liberal. ..."
"... Trump is a "nationalist". More or less every administration previous to his, going back at least 100 years, was "globalist". For much of its history, the USA has been known around the world as a very patriotic (i.e., nationalist) country. Americans in general had a reputation for spontaneous chants of "USA! USA! USA!", flying the Stars And Stripes outside their houses and being very proud of their country. Sure, from time to time, that pissed off people a little in other countries but, by and large, Americans' patriotism was seen as endearing, if a little naive, by most foreigners. ..."
"... Globalism, on the other hand, as it relates to the USA, is the ideology that saturates the Washington establishment think-tanks, career politicians and bureaucrats, who are infected with the toxic belief that America can and should dominate the world . This is presented to the public as so much American largess and magnanimity, but it is, in reality, a means to increasing the power and wealth of the Washington elite. ..."
"... Consider Obama's two terms, during which he continued the massively wasteful (of taxpayer's money) and destructive (of foreigners' lives and land) "War on Terror". Consider that he appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, who proceeded to joyfully bomb Libya back to the stone age and murder its leader. Consider that, under Obama, US-Russia relations reached an all-time low, with repeated attacks (of various sorts) on the Russian president, government and people, and the attempted trashing of Russia's international reputation in the eyes of the American people. Consider the Obama regime's hugely destructive war waged (mostly by proxy) on the Syrian people. Consider the Obama era coup in Ukraine that, in a few short months, set that country's prospects and development back several decades and further soured relations with Russia. ..."
"... The problem however, is that the Washington elite want - no, NEED - the American people to support such military adventurism, and what better way to do that than by concocting false "Russian collusion" allegations against Trump and having the media program the popular mind with exactly the opposite of the truth - that Trump was a "traitor" to the American people. ..."
"... The only thing Trump is a traitor to is the self-serving globally expansionist interests of a cabal of Washington insiders . This little maneuver amounted to a '2 for 1' for the Washington establishment. They simultaneously demonized Trump (impeding his 'nationalist' agenda) while advancing their own globalist mission - in this case aimed at pushing back Russia. ..."
"... The US 'Deep State' did this in response to the election of Trump the "nationalist" and their fears that their globalist, exceptionalist vision for the USA - a vision that is singularly focused on their own narrow interests at the expense of the American people and many others around the world - would be derailed by Trump attempting to put the interests of the American people first . ..."
Billed as a 'referendum on Trump's presidency', the US Midterm Elections drew an
unusually high number of Americans to the polls yesterday. The minor loss, from Trump's
perspective, of majority Republican control of the lower House of Representatives, suggests, if
anything, the opposite of what the media and establishment want you to believe it means.
An important clue to why the American media has declared permanent open season on this man
transpired during a sometimes heated post-elections press conference at the White House
yesterday. First, CNN's obnoxious Jim Acosta insisted on bringing up the patently absurd
allegations of 'Russia collusion' and refused to shut up and sit down. Soon after, PBS reporter
Yamiche Alcindor joined her colleagues in asking Trump another loaded question , this time on the 'white
nationalism' canard:
Alcindor : On the campaign trail you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw
that as emboldening white nationalists...
Trump : I don't know why you'd say this. It's such a racist question.
Alcindor : There are some people who say that now the Republican Party is seen as
supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?
Trump : Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African Americans?
That's such a racist question. I love our country. You have nationalists, and you have
globalists . I also love the world, and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to
straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems ...
The US media is still "not even wrong" on Trump and why he won the 2016 election.
You know something is fundamentally wrong when the average high school drop-out
MAGA-hat-wearing Texan or Alabaman working a blue collar job has more sense, can SEE much more
clearly, than the average university-educated, ideology-soaked, East Coast liberal.
Trump is a "nationalist". More or less every administration previous to his, going back at
least 100 years, was "globalist". For much of its history, the USA has been known around the
world as a very patriotic (i.e., nationalist) country. Americans in general had a reputation
for spontaneous chants of "USA! USA! USA!", flying the Stars And Stripes outside their houses
and being very proud of their country. Sure, from time to time, that pissed off people a little
in other countries but, by and large, Americans' patriotism was seen as endearing, if a little
naive, by most foreigners.
Globalism, on the other hand, as it relates to the USA, is the ideology that saturates the
Washington establishment think-tanks, career politicians and bureaucrats, who are infected with
the toxic belief that America can and should dominate the world . This is presented to the
public as so much American largess and magnanimity, but it is, in reality, a means to
increasing the power and wealth of the Washington elite.
Consider Obama's two terms, during which he continued the massively wasteful (of taxpayer's
money) and destructive (of foreigners' lives and land) "War on Terror". Consider that he
appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, who proceeded to joyfully bomb Libya back to
the stone age and murder its leader. Consider that, under Obama, US-Russia relations reached an
all-time low, with repeated attacks (of various sorts) on the Russian president, government and
people, and the attempted trashing of Russia's international reputation in the eyes of the
American people. Consider the Obama regime's hugely destructive war waged (mostly by proxy) on
the Syrian people. Consider the Obama era coup in Ukraine that, in a few short months, set that
country's prospects and development back several decades and further soured relations with
Russia.
These are but a few examples of the "globalism" that drives the Washington establishment.
Who, in their right mind, would support it? (I won't get into what constitutes a 'right mind',
but we can all agree it does not involve destroying other nations for profit). The problem
however, is that the Washington elite want - no, NEED - the American people to support such
military adventurism, and what better way to do that than by concocting false "Russian
collusion" allegations against Trump and having the media program the popular mind with exactly
the opposite of the truth - that Trump was a "traitor" to the American people.
The only thing
Trump is a traitor to is the self-serving globally expansionist interests of a cabal of
Washington insiders . This little maneuver amounted to a '2 for 1' for the Washington
establishment. They simultaneously demonized Trump (impeding his 'nationalist' agenda) while
advancing their own globalist mission - in this case aimed at pushing back Russia.
Words and their exact meanings matter . To be able to see through the lies of
powerful vested interests and get to the truth, we need to know when those same powerful vested
interests are exploiting our all-too-human proclivity to be coerced and manipulated by appeals
to emotion.
So the words "nationalist" and "nationalism", as they relate to the USA, have never been
"dirty" words until they were made that way by the "globalist" element of the Washington
establishment (i.e., most of it) by associating it with fringe Nazi and "white supremacist"
elements in US society that pose no risk to anyone, (except to the extent that the mainstream
media can convince the general population otherwise). The US 'Deep State' did this in response
to the election of Trump the "nationalist" and their fears that their globalist, exceptionalist
vision for the USA - a vision that is singularly focused on their own narrow interests at the
expense of the American people and many others around the world - would be derailed by Trump
attempting to put the interests of the American people first .
This is somewhat naive, but still useful stance of US elections.
Notable quotes:
"... In 2004 Tom Frank, a Kansas author, wrote: "The poorest county in America isn't in Appalachia or the Deep South. It is on the Great Plains, a region of struggling ranchers and dying farm towns, and in the election of 2000, George W. Bush carried it by a majority of greater than 75 percent." Inattentive voters are vulnerable to voting against their own interests. They are vulnerable to voting for politicians who support big business and ignore their interests as farmers, workers, consumers, patients, and small taxpayers. Big Business will not spur change in a political system that gives the fatcats every advantage. ..."
"... President Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress are masters at flattering voters and lying about their positions on issues ranging from health care to the minimum wage. Before you vote, rid yourself of all preconceived, hereditary, ideological, and political straitjackets. Use two general yardsticks for candidates for elective office: Are they playing fair and are they doing right? ..."
"... Ask candidates to speak of Solutions to the major problems confronting our country. Politicians often avoid defining solutions that upset their commercial campaign contributors. ..."
"... Ask about a range of issues, such as energy efficiency, livable wages, lower drug prices, massive government contractor fraud, corporate crimes against consumers, workers and investors, reducing sprawl, safer food, and clean elections. ..."
Let's face it. Most politicians use the mass media to obfuscate.
Voters who don't do their homework, who don't study records of the politicians, and who can't
separate the words from the deeds will easily fall into traps laid by wily politicians.
In 2002, Connecticut Governor John Rowland was running for re-election against his
Democratic opponent, William Curry. Again and again, the outspent Curry informed the media and
the voters about the corruption inside and around the governor's office. At the time, the
governor's close associates and ex-associates were under investigation by the U.S. attorney.
But to the public, Rowland was all smiles, flooding the television stations with self-serving,
manipulative images and slogans. He won handily in November. Within weeks, the U.S. attorney's
investigation intensified as they probed the charges Curry had raised about Rowland. Rowland's
approval rating dropped to record lows, and impeachment initiatives and demands for his
resignation grew. He was prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned. Unfortunately, enough voters
were flattered, fooled, and flummoxed to cost Bill Curry the race.
In 2004 Tom Frank, a Kansas author, wrote: "The poorest county in America isn't in
Appalachia or the Deep South. It is on the Great Plains, a region of struggling ranchers and
dying farm towns, and in the election of 2000, George W. Bush carried it by a majority of
greater than 75 percent." Inattentive voters are vulnerable to voting against their own
interests. They are vulnerable to voting for politicians who support big business and ignore
their interests as farmers, workers, consumers, patients, and small taxpayers. Big Business
will not spur change in a political system that gives the fatcats every advantage. Change must
come from the voters, and here's how:
President Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress are masters at flattering voters and
lying about their positions on issues ranging from health care to the minimum wage. Before you
vote, rid yourself of all preconceived, hereditary, ideological, and political straitjackets.
Use two general yardsticks for candidates for elective office: Are they playing fair and are
they doing right?
Stay open-minded. Avoid jumping to conclusions about candidates based solely on their
stance on your one or two top issues. Pay attention to where these politicians are on the many
other issues that profoundly affect you and your family. If you judge them broadly rather than
narrowly, you will increase your influence by increasing your demands and expectation levels
for public officials. There are numerous evaluations of their votes, easily available on the
Internet.
Know where you stand. A handy way to contrast your views with those of the incumbents and
challengers is to make your own checklist of twenty issues, explain where you stand and then
compare your positions, the candidates' votes and declarations. Seeing how their positions or
their actual record matches up to your own positions makes it harder for politicians to play
you. Compare candidates with their votes or declarations.
Ask the tough questions. These are many issues that politicians like to avoid. They
include questions about whether candidates are willing to debate their opponents and how often,
why they avoid talking about and doing something about corporate power and its expanding
controls over people's lives, or how they plan specifically to shift power from these global
corporate supremacists to the people. After all, the Constitution starts with "We the People"
not "We the Corporations." The words "corporations" and "company" are never mentioned in our
Constitution!!
Ask candidates to speak of Solutions to the major problems confronting our country.
Politicians often avoid defining solutions that upset their commercial campaign
contributors.
Ask about a range of issues, such as energy efficiency, livable wages, lower drug
prices, massive government contractor fraud, corporate crimes against consumers, workers and
investors, reducing sprawl, safer food, and clean elections.
Ask members of Congress to explain why they keep giving themselves salary increases and
generous benefits, and yet turn cold at doing the same for the people's frozen minimum wage,
health insurance, or pension protections.
All in all, it takes a little work and some time to become a super-voter, impervious to
manipulation by politicians who intend to flatter, fool,and flummox. But this education can
also be fun, and the pursuit of justice can offer great benefits to your pursuit of
happiness.
Such civic engagement will help Americans today become better ancestors for tomorrow's
descendants.
Unfortunately, Debsisdead is correct. The United States cannot be fixed. It could be
that Trump knows what's needed and is deliberately trying to set the US on a course towards
sanity using shock treatment, and is deliberately trying to wean America from the petrodollar
in such a manner that Americans have no other country to blame/bomb, thus saving civilization
from America's inevitable spasm of ultraviolence when the BRICS succeed in taking the
petrodollar down. This seems unlikely, though.
The sad reality is that the delusion Americans suffer from (result of their universal
cradle-to-grave brainwashing that I mentioned earlier) is too deeply rooted as a core
component of their identities.
That mass-based delusion must be overcome before America's psychotic behavior on the world
stage can be addressed, but I see no forces within the US making any progress in that
direction at all.
Even the brightest and most humanistic Americans are horribly twisted to appalling
evil by unquestionable faith in their own exceptionalism. As a consequence it could be
that the only hope for humanity lies in a radical USA-ectomy with the resulting stump being
cauterized.
I certainly wish there were some other way, but I don't see one.
"The perpetrators and their conspiracy is not a theory since it has been proved."
By "proved" I assume you are referring to "proofs" such as the fantastical claim that
Mohammed Atta's passport was allegedly and fortuitously "found" when it supposedly survived
the 600 mph impact of the 767 he was supposedly piloting with a huge steel and concrete
building, survived the huge fireball it was supposedly in the middle of unscorched, and
conveniently fluttered to the ground intact to land at the feet of an FBI agent who
immediately realized it must have belonged to one of the hijackers!
Even Hans Christian Andersen couldn't invent Fairy Tales like that.
Now, this works much better if your disturbed individual is actually obsessed with something
political, like, say, if he's a Donald Trump fanatic who has plastered the windows of the van
he's living in with all sorts of blatantly psychotic artwork deifying Donald Trump and
demonizing Donald Trump's political opponents, but you'll have to work with what your lunatic
gives you. In any event, whatever his pathology, you will need to de-pathologize your psycho,
so you can misrepresent him as a "domestic terrorist," and then associate whatever "ideology"
you've just painted onto him with "terrorism."
If that sounds a little complicated, don't worry, folks, it's really not! The ruling classes
and the corporate media just provided us with a demonstration of the
Putin-Nazi-Terrorist-O-Matic in action, which proves how easy-to-use it is. In the span of just
a single week, they whipped up so much mass paranoia that
These Putin-Nazi Terrorist "bomb-like devices" were "intercepted" throughout last week.
Their targets were a roll call of Resistance heroes, Soros, Obama, Hillary Clinton, John
Brennan, the offices of CNN, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters, Joe Biden, and, yes, even Robert De
Niro! Putin-Nazi panic paralyzed the nation! The neoliberal corporate media (who, remember, are
serious, respected professionals, not conspiracist nuts like Alex Jones) began pouring out
pieces informing the world that Donald Trump was behind these attacks, or had encouraged,
"emboldened," or "inspired" whoever was with
his violent, neo-Hitlerian rhetoric .
So far I haven't heard exactly what the chemical make-up of these "pipe bombs" is none of
which detonated or even initiated a detonation sequence. No doubt the authorities will get
around to this trifling little fact in their own good time (ie when it has best propaganda
affect)
The problem with the angriest whites who want change is that they don't have any F@CKING
money.
Even if the Left did not have the money to suppress the Alt-Right like Gavin, they have
the money for better production values. More people will watch Oprah than the Alt-Right. They
can get more air time. Hollywood will spend more money. They always have more
Our White Nationalist leaders are not billionaires. Tommy Morrison is not a self-made
millionaire. Richard Spencer the same.
These are average whites you meet in the street.
Tech billionaires, media moguls and globalists are all much more wealthy. They are not
white proles with few contacts in the business or media world who are out with the other
squirming proles on the street.
The problem with the angriest whites who want change is that they don't have any F@CKING
money.
Even if the Left did not have the money to suppress the Alt-Right like Gavin, they have
the money for better production values. More people will watch Oprah than the Alt-Right. They
can get more air time. Hollywood will spend more money. They always have more
Our White Nationalist leaders are not billionaires. Tommy Morrison is not a self-made
millionaire. Richard Spencer the same.
These are average whites you meet in the street.
Tech billionaires, media moguls and globalists are all much more wealthy. They are not
white proles with few contacts in the business or media world who are out with the other
squirming proles on the street.
Good piece, though I miss the historical dimension. The described mechanism seems to me to
have been taken right out of the Goebbels manual, or if you like the Comintern manual. Which
were in turn inspired by the instructions of people like Edward Bernays.
What strikes me is that the US empire and its faithful servants are resorting to
old-fashioned and imported (stolen, "un-American") techniques to try and maintain their hold
on public opinion. I guess, here the economic benefits of the systematic dismantling of the
educational system all over the "West" are paying off! Which just proves the advantages of
stubbornly concentrating publc spending on armaments instead of education: it has a side
effect of making people so stupid they believe just anything.
Still, I wonder how it will be possible to keep repeating the old fairytale of why it was
necessary to fight the evil Nazis. If outright Nazism is what the US empire is all about, why
did they bother about fighting Hitler?
Probably because he was not "American." Or was it because the original Nazis spent quite a
bit on education?
I suspect Cesar Sayoc is a straight up patsy. As Mr Hopkins points out, none of the
bombs(sic) had an earthly chance of exploding. Mr Sayoc was discovered due to DNA evidence no
doubt left on the beer cans he made the bombs out of. Its straight out of the Anthrax post
9/11 playbook but fortunately without deadly consequences. How the dumb American Sheeple
(apart from most Unz.com readers of course) can't see it is beyond me.
In terms of lone nut being the harbinger of domestic terrorism we had this in the UK with
the Jo Cox case in 2016, where the mentally ill individual ( who I strongly suspect was
controlled by the Deep State) was hustled off to the Old Bailey accused of being a white
supremacist Brexit supporting terrorist and convicted in 3 days flat. No explanation of where
he actually acquired his gun, why for such a racist he didnt harm Cox's Asian assistant even
when she hit him with a handbag etc etc
Robert D Bowers is of course a homicidal maniac, Trump hater and gift horse to the ADL who
have their first real anti- semitism case in decades. Makes a change from blacks or policemen
shouting 'oy vey' or some other gross obscenity at Brooklyn Jews
@Hans
Vogel Absolutely agree the dumbing down of education especially the absence of any
critical thinking despite the presence of so called civics or citizenship on the curriculum
is crucial to the success of the propaganda effort
No society can manage all of its fringe lunatics all of the time. So when one occasionally
goes off rails ("postal" as they used to say) the ideologues who manage the propaganda
outlets know that pointing to the obvious reality of the event doesn't advance the agenda.
And, luckily for them there is always a handy abstraction, a scary "ism" or "obia" to hang on
the event and smear a whole bunch of folks whose manners they disapprove of.
Neoliberal Multicultural Globalist Capitalism is the new Marxism. Its true believers have
learned from the failures of Marxists to rule the world forever, forcing the deplorable white
trash to accept being cogs for ideological good, how to get the job done.
Whats more concerning is something stormy daniels said about trump ..that he is out of his
depth.she might have ulterior motives but it somehow rings true.Combine that with sayoc and
bowers types and one has to wonder how many more are there out there just waiting to make
america great again
" news is just coming in from Guardian columnist Christina Patterson that Jeremy Corbyn and
the Labour Party are also responsible for the Pittsburgh attack, "
I wonder if it is known that Soros owns the Guardian, so that, I fear, to the list CNN,
Washpost and NYT, Guardian can be added.
As I wrote here just a few hours ago, I wondered why there was no political follow up on the
Pittsburgh massacre.
But possibly this is it.
Cynics like me, who understand Pearl Harbour, Liberty, possibly Kennedy and Diana, certainly
Sept 11, now wonder 'who did it ?', and 'why were just ten jews killed ?'.
Automatic weapons are freely available in the USA, what a few Muslims can do in Paris should
be quite easy in the USA.
It is common practice with political murders to kill the murderer, such as Lee Harvey Oswald,
dead men cannot talk.
But after the murder of Anna Lyndh it seems possible that better ways have been found to hide
political murders.
@Hans
Vogel If Hitler was the problem, why was not Germany beaten in 1938, when both the Chech
and the Polish armies still existed ?
Attacked by Poland, Chechoslovakia, Britain and France, possibly the USSR too, Hitler Germany
would have been beaten in a few weeks, historians agree on this.
Historians debating this question agree on the only possible solution: that Roosevelt wanted
a long war, in which the USA would be the victor.
Dividing up Germany somehow between the mentioned four or five countries would bring the USA
nothing.
These false flags are a part of the deep states efforts to keep the American people in a
state of terror and hysteria to accept more and more government control over our lives and as
long as the people accept these acts at face value without doing any checking on the facts ,
the deep state will have succeeded.
" as if your wack job was actually a rational person and not just a totally paranoid geek who
decided to attempt to assassinate Reagan because he couldn't get a date with Jodie Foster ."
Whats more concerning is something stormy daniels said about trump ..that he is out of
his depth.she might have ulterior motives but it somehow rings true.
its true, he's probably nowhere as intelligent as obozo but somehow he gets by
stormy sounds like an expert, maybe she can judge a man's IQ by the taste of his sperm
May 4, 2017 False Flag Exposed Caught Red Handed and Prevented
In this video, we give you the latest news of a false flag that has been prevented in
Germany, the historical context of false flags, and importance in current politics.
May 07, 2014 The Oldest Trick In the Book: Empire Pretends It Has to Launch Wars to
"Defend" Itself
Empires – almost by definition – fight imperial wars to gain land and
resources. But if they admitted to their citizens what they were up to, people wouldn't be
that excited in sacrificing their families' blood and treasure to fight a series of wars.
@jilles
dykstra World War 2 may have continued indefinitely had not Russia been preparing to
invade Japan, thus forcing the United States into dropping the bombs.
Anyone assuming the Jewish-controlled Deep State would have any qualms about killing a few
Jewish senior citizens to assure the revolution continues, are badly mistaken.
@Carroll
Price FORCED to drop nuclear bombs? There is always a choice, even for a rogue state like
the US. (Rather, a state, inhabited by many decent, trusting people, but run by ruthless
criminals such as FDR, the Bushes, Obomba and the like). Besides, in early 1945 FDR received
a detailed report by one of his generals to the effect that Japan was ready to surrender. Yet
FDR, may he burn in hell, decided to ignore this and continue bombing Japanese cities: in
March of 1945, Tokyo was bombed, and over 100.000 Japanese civilians were murdered. The
Soviet Union had promised to join in the final assault on Japan, doing FDR a favor because he
did not want to go it alone.
People who never resort to 'foul' language are either dead inside, or are scheming
scumbags trying to get one over on the crowd.
No one is in a position to determine whether "People never resort "
In the early 80s, I was at a social function where foul language use was part of the
general conversation. A woman in her mid to late 40s who was sitting at the table rebuked us
gently by stating that our profanities were a poor excuse for a bad vocabulary. There is a
time and place for profanity, spouting off profanely at a political opponent in a public
place does nothing for credibility.
As for calling a fig a fig, I seldom use the word cunt for the simple reason that a cunt
has a use , while those who are often called cunts, don't.
I am immediately suspicious about anyone whose 'authority' includes a costume –
judges, pigs, TSA etc; likewise, anyone who relies on 'gravitas' or presentation
(politicians, senior bureaucrats, diplomats, marketing shitheads).
If every one of those people were put to the sword by people screaming "FUCK YOU" at the
top of their lungs, humanity would be better off.
I enjoyed your comment.
and agree wholeheartedly
(except for including 'pigs' with your litany of scoundrels. It's not fair to the
inoffensive four-legged kind ; )
@anon Nice
try. But, first of all, learn to write simply. Like the man said, all those words don't fit
on a phone.
Secondly, you are absolutely right. ID politics is what our owners want. They want us to
fight over who is oppressing whom. So it don't matter if you are pro-white or anti-white,
pro-racism or anti, you are doing our master's bidding.
The only answer is blacks and whites and homosexuals and heterosexuals and women and men
etc etc, all together, all as one, screaming, "Mo money mo money mo money mo money." But that
won't happen because they find it easier to shame each other over meaningless nonsense like
race and sex and other ridiculous identities.
To be a dissident in the 1960′s meant that one objected to the standard narrative of
White-European greatness and blamelessness for conquering much of the world. Today it means
just the opposite. The roles have reversed. Not only are Europeans not viewed as great but
they are blamed for everything that is wrong anywhere, anytime. To be a dissident is to
insist that Europeans aren't quite so bad as they are currently portrayed.
I never thought I'd say this but if Nixon were alive today he would appear as the very
soul of rationality and a bastion of sanity compared to the current crop of rat-faced,
unprincipled traitors who dominate the news. At least Nixon had the integrity to not sell out
his country to an alien tribe of sleazy money changers, usurers and unpatriotic off-shore
operators.
At one point in his life, Hunter Thompson thought things couldn't get any worse than
Tricky Dick. Little did he suspect. It's likely that Thompson, at some point before he pulled
the trigger, came to the belated realization that, compared to the debased venality of our
present leaders, Nixon was an honorable man, a lover of his country and a loyal patriot.
Watergate was a misdemeanor B & E compared to the rape and genocide of whites that is
taking place today.
@Hans
Vogel 'The English' in WII did not exist.
Many sympathized with Hitler
Ian Kershaw, ´Hitlers Freunde in England, Lord Londonderry und der Weg in den Krieg',
(Making Friends with Hitler. Lord Londonderry and Britain's Road to War, 2004, London),
München 2005
The Marquess of Londonderry, ´England blickt auf Deutschland, Um die deutsch-englische
Verständigung, Essen 1938 (Ourselves and Germany, 1938)
Churchill loved war, he refused all Hitler's attempts at peace.
There seems to be a book Churchill's Toy Shop, did not read it, Churchill's personal weapons
gadget development facility.
In this he was supported by his scientific advisor Lindemann
C.P.Snow, ´Science and government', 1961, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior, 'Double standards, The Rudolf Hess cover-up',
London 2002
Günther W.Gellermann, 'Geheime Wege zum Frieden mit England , Ausgewählte
Initiativen zur Beëndigung des Krieges 1940/1942', Bonn 1995
Stürmer, Teichmann, Treue 'Striking the Balance Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. A family
and a Bank', London 1994
Thomas E. Mahl, 'Desperate deception, British covert operations in the United States
1939-44', Dulles, Virginia, 1998
However, in Casablanca Churchill found out he was at the mercy of FDR
Francois Kersaudy, ´De Gaulle et Roosevelt, Le duel au sommet', Paris, 2004
If Churchill ever realised that LendLease was the end of the British empire, I wonder
R.F. Harrod, 'THE PROF, A personal memoir of Lord Cherwell', London, 1959
John Charmley,'Churchill's Grand Alliance, A provocative reassessment of the "Special
relationship" between England and the U.S. from 1940 to 1957', 1995, London
John Charmley, 'Der Untergang des Britischen Empires, Roosevelt – Churchill und
Amerikas Weg zur Weltmacht', Graz 2005
But the two essential books explaining why Chamberlain steered towards war, without wanting
war:
Lawrence R. Pratt, 'East of Malta, West of Suez', London, 1975
Simon Newman, ´March 1939, The British guarantee to Poland, A study in the continuity
of British Foreign Policy', 1976, Oxford
The genocidal folly of bombing German women, children and old men:
Solly Zuckermann, 'From Apes to Warlords, an autobiography, 1904- 46', London 1988
Even the official post WWII British report on the bombing of Germany concluded that the
damage to GB was equal to German damage, British damage defined as building and maintaining
bombers, producing bombs, and, last but not in the least least, losing a whole generation of
Britain's promising young men
Peter H. Nicoll, ´Englands Krieg gegen Deutschland, Ursachen, Methoden und Folgen des
Zweiten Weltkriegs', 1963, 2001, Tübingen ( Britain's Blunder, 1953)
This last book also contains a calculation of how WWII impoverished the USA.
@Hans
Vogel said:
"The described mechanism seems to me to have been taken right out of the Goebbels manual "
Oh really? What "manual" was that? Your indoctrination is showing.
Pie drops the ball when he talks about 'the Nazis' & the Battle of Britain, which was
a result of British initiation of bombing purely civilian targets.
The New York Times explained how Trump was employing a strategy called "stochastic
terrorism," i.e., inspiring random acts of violence that are statistically predictable but
individually unpredictable!
Wow. Quasi-treasonous scumbaggery from the dominant press outlets has become so common, it
rarely registers on me anymore. But this is an unusually detestable example.
But that won't happen because they find it easier to shame each other over
meaningless nonsense like race and sex and other ridiculous identities.
if this was true there would be no problem allowing hundreds of millions of africans into
Europe, the U.S. etc but sub-saharan africans have IQs as low as 70 and have never built
anything of substance in their existence
they have nothing to contribute except violence and crime
@jilles
dykstra Thanks for your bibliographical suggestions!
As for the English, I prefer this to the awkward term "British." (see also AJP Taylor's
introduction to his English History, 1914-1945 ). As long as the English and English
speakers usually refer to the Netherlands as "Holland," and US people call their country
"America" and themselves "Americans," why should we not say English instead of British?" The
English better get used to foreign usage, as have the Greeks ("Hellenes") and Hungarians
("Magyars").
Btw, the translator of Nicoll's book on your list agrees with me: he calls Britain
"England!"
@wayfarer
Here is a video that Ron Unz should feature of a truly honest and great young American Jewish
activist: Jeremy Rothe-Kushel and Greg McCarren of The Anecdote speak about
this Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting:
"... Most importantly, there is now more than one choice facing the citizens of the world. The "one game in town" era of IMF dictates, the "Washington Consensus," is dead, although the dinosaurs have so far failed to concede their demise. The Belt and Road is being embraced across Asia, Africa and Ibero-America, and increasingly in both Eastern and Western Europe. This is what the Lords of the City of London and Wall Street fear most. When they heard this past week that Trump plans to meet Vladimir Putin in Paris immediately after the election, and that he is also to meet with Xi Jinping at the end of November in Argentina, all the King's horses and all the King's men have been deployed to prevent this affront to the British Empire's division of the world by the upstart President of the breakaway colony across the Atlantic. But Humpty Dumpty is about to take a great fall. ..."
There is Panic Among the Oligarchs That Trump May Turn the Election -- Dangerous
Diversions Are Appearing Everywhere October 26, 2018 President Trump draws a massive crowd at a campaign rally at the Toyota
Center in Houston TX. October 22, 2018 (Donald J Trump/Facebook) 20181026-panic-among-oligarchs.pdf
President Donald Trump is fully deployed to assure that the "Impeachment Party" -- once known
as the Democratic Party -- is denied their effort to take over the Congress and launch an
impeachment. He has held 12 rallies across the country in support of Republican candidates,
repeating everywhere that a vote for Democrats this year is a vote against himself. He plans to
hold 10 more rallies in the final days preceding the election on Nov. 6. Although he seldom
engaged the press in his first two years, in the past three weeks he has held numerous press
conferences and interviews, fully confident and determined in his role as President. The
LaRouchePAC-sponsored Independent Congressional candidacies in Texas and South Dakota of Kesha
Rogers and Ron Wieczorek are rallying people around the country, regardless of party
affiliation, to defend the nation against the British-orchestrated coup attempt, and organizing
Americans to back Trump's intention to establish peace and friendship with Russia and China,
restore American System economic policies in the U.S., while calling on Trump to join in the
new paradigm for global development represented by the Belt and Road Initiative.
The British and their assets in the U.S. are not pleased. In the past week we have seen the
"caravan" of people from Honduras and Guatemala, openly mobilized and financed by George
Soros's NGOs, being driven toward the U.S. border, trying to force a showdown that they believe
will undermine Trump's resolve and public support. Even the Presidents of the these two
impoverished nations have denounced the operation as a destabilization of their own countries,
and created a "Safe Return" fund to entice the marchers back to their homelands. Mexican
President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has offered jobs and work visas to
the marchers if they would stay in Mexico.
And now we have the mail-bomb operation, with primitive pipe-bombs mailed to Obama, Hillary
Clinton, CNN and others -- even George Soros himself -- although they may have been so poorly
constructed that they could not explode. CNN President Jeff Zucker immediately blamed Trump and
his press spokesperson Sarah Sanders, claiming that their attacks on the press constitute an
invitation for terrorist assassinations! Trump, in fact, strongly denounced the criminal acts
and swore to catch the perpetrators. The {Washington Post} headlined an article: "Amid
Incendiary Remarks, Targets of Trump's Words Become Targets of Bombs." They also denounced
those who questioned the bombs as a possible "false-flag" operation, of the sort now widely
recognized due to the fake chemical weapons attacks in Syria by the terrorist White
Helmets.
The New York Times went so far as to publish a short story by a British pulp novelist
about a Russian hit-man, with help from the U.S. Secret Service, assassinating President
Trump.
These actions have a destabilizing purpose, but there is a process underway in humanity at
large which can not easily be stopped. The British people have rejected the EU dictatorship,
and now the same sentiment has led to a new government in Italy which is putting the health and
livelihood of their citizens ahead of the unelected Brussels oligarchs. The elections of
Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Donald Trump in the U.S.A. demonstrate the old Abe
Lincoln saying: You can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Most importantly, there is now more than one choice facing the citizens of the world.
The "one game in town" era of IMF dictates, the "Washington Consensus," is dead, although the
dinosaurs have so far failed to concede their demise. The Belt and Road is being embraced
across Asia, Africa and Ibero-America, and increasingly in both Eastern and Western Europe.
This is what the Lords of the City of London and Wall Street fear most. When they heard this
past week that Trump plans to meet Vladimir Putin in Paris immediately after the election, and
that he is also to meet with Xi Jinping at the end of November in Argentina, all the King's
horses and all the King's men have been deployed to prevent this affront to the British
Empire's division of the world by the upstart President of the breakaway colony across the
Atlantic. But Humpty Dumpty is about to take a great fall.
It is the power of ideas which has created this mass strike ferment around the world, ideas
conceived and set in motion by Lyndon LaRouche over the past half-century, finding resonance in
the minds of creative people in nations around the world. These ideas have drawn on the rich
classical culture of Plato and Schiller, the Confucian view of a harmonious society, the
American concept of the general welfare, the scientific spark of Krafft Ehricke's
Extraterrestrial Imperative, among others. It is these universal ideas which must guide us in
this moment of decision for the fate of mankind.
If we ask question "que bono" this really lloks like decmocts false flag operation. And after
Russogate there is no doubt that Democrats are cable of dirty tricks usually reserved for
intelligence agiances.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump has made the elections a referendum on himself. His rallies are aimed at whipping up a fascistic mentality that combines extreme nationalism, racism and anti-immigrant chauvinism with pseudo-populist demagogy against the "elites." ..."
"... The Democrats do not represent a genuine opposition to the threat of dictatorship, but an alternate route to it. They base their nominal opposition to Trump on powerful sections of the military-intelligence establishment represented by figures such as Brennan and Clapper. They fundamentally agree with Trump's pro-corporate domestic policies such as tax cuts for the rich and attacks on Medicaid and food stamps. They do not seriously oppose his police-state attacks on immigrants and assault on democratic rights more generally. On the contrary, they are in the forefront of the demands for more overt and systematic censorship of the internet. ..."
"... On foreign affairs, they support a massive expansion of the military and largely oppose Trump from the right -- using the trumped-up anti-Russia campaign to demand a more aggressive policy against Moscow and in the Middle East ..."
"... Both parties rest on narrow social bases and are held in contempt by broad sections of the population. Under conditions of a deepening economic and financial crisis in the US and internationally, and a resurgence of class struggle, the ruling class is lurching toward dictatorship. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Right-wing, pro-Trump media outlets such as Breitbart News ..."
While Sayoc has been apprehended, many questions remain unanswered and caution should be
exercised about jumping to conclusions. In light of the precarious circumstances of the
suspect's life, the precise nature of his alleged involvement in the incidents, as well as the
possibility that Sayoc has been manipulated by others, demands careful investigation.
But one thing is certain: this event, on the eve of a major national election, reflects the
extreme crisis of American democracy. The mail bombs are a symptom of a deepening social and
political crisis in the United States, the center of world capitalism.
Trump has made the elections a referendum on himself. His rallies are aimed at whipping
up a fascistic mentality that combines extreme nationalism, racism and anti-immigrant
chauvinism with pseudo-populist demagogy against the "elites." It is not an accident that
those sent potentially lethal mail bombs were all the targets of Trump's vilification.
The Democrats do not represent a genuine opposition to the threat of dictatorship, but
an alternate route to it. They base their nominal opposition to Trump on powerful sections of
the military-intelligence establishment represented by figures such as Brennan and Clapper.
They fundamentally agree with Trump's pro-corporate domestic policies such as tax cuts for the
rich and attacks on Medicaid and food stamps. They do not seriously oppose his police-state
attacks on immigrants and assault on democratic rights more generally. On the contrary, they
are in the forefront of the demands for more overt and systematic censorship of the
internet.
On foreign affairs, they support a massive expansion of the military and largely oppose
Trump from the right -- using the trumped-up anti-Russia campaign to demand a more aggressive
policy against Moscow and in the Middle East .
Both parties rest on narrow social bases and are held in contempt by broad sections of
the population. Under conditions of a deepening economic and financial crisis in the US and
internationally, and a resurgence of class struggle, the ruling class is lurching toward
dictatorship.
The media hysteria over the mail bombs, despite their having been intercepted and having
failed to detonate, showed no signs of abating on Friday. The Democrats and media outlets
aligned with them, such as the New York Times , the Washington Post , CNN and
NBC, hope to leverage the bomb scare to their advantage in the November 6 midterm
elections.
The media banished from public attention such issues as Trump's witch hunt against
immigrants -- including the dispatch of active troops to the US-Mexico border and plans to
effectively abolish the right to asylum for Central American refugees -- the decision to pull
out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and trigger a new nuclear arms race with Russia,
and the ongoing mass slaughter in Yemen. The Democrats for their part maintained their silence
on these issues and instead attacked Trump for "sowing divisions."
Right-wing, pro-Trump media outlets such as Breitbart News , which had called
the mail bombs a "false flag" operation carried out by the Democrats and allied intelligence
officials, joined Trump himself in blaming the mainstream media for stoking up
violence.
At a campaign rally Friday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump attacked the media for
promoting "the politics of personal destruction." He went on to blame a "Bernie Sanders
supporter" for the attack on Republican congressmen in June 2017 that severely wounded
Representative Steve Scalise, and added: "Nor do we blame the Democrat Party every time radical
leftists seize and destroy public property and unleash violence and mayhem."
Neither side raised as an issue the implications of the massive police mobilization less
than two weeks from a national election, including cordoning off entire sections of midtown
Manhattan twice during the week following the interception of mail bombs, and the first
activation of a new program for the state to take control of the cell phone system. That took
the form of a text sent to everyone located within a certain radius of the Manhattan
headquarters of Time Warner following the interception of a bomb addressed to Brennan at
CNN.
Instead, both Trump and the Democrats lavished praise on the FBI, the New York Police
Department and local police in Florida and California, making clear that the bomb scare will be
used to step up attacks on democratic rights, including more intensive internet censorship and
a further strengthening of police powers and mass surveillance.
Typical were the remarks of MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle, who pointed to the provocative
decals on Sayoc's van and demanded to know why he had not been immediately arrested on that
account. A national security "expert" on anther cable channel declared that the American people
had to consider themselves on 24-hour alert to detect terrorist threats, and should treat this
as the "new normal."
Looks more and more like a pre-election "false-flag" operation, of the sort now widely
recognized due to the fake chemical weapons attacks in Syria by White Helmets and Skripals.
Media headlines have been dominated for the last two days by the news that pipe bombs are being
sent to Democratic Party elites and their allies, a
list of whom as of this writing consists of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle
Obama, Joe Biden, George Soros, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder, Robert De Niro, and the CNN office
(addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan who actually works for NBC). As of this writing
nobody has been killed or injured in any way by any of these many explosive devices, and there
is as of this writing no publicly available evidence that they were designed to. As of this
writing there is no evidence that the devices were intended to do anything other than what they
have done: stir up fear and grab headlines.
And of course it is a good thing that nobody has been hurt by these devices. Obviously
targeting anyone with packages containing explosive materials is terrible, even if those
devices were not rigged with the intention of detonating and harming anyone, and it is a good
thing that not a single one of them has done so. It is a good thing that none of America's
political elites were targeted by the sort of explosive device that America drops on people in
other countries every single day. You know, the kind that actually explode.
Apparently some Acme comedy bombs mailed to a number of extremely rich people, which
thankfully did not hurt anybody at all, are infinitely more newsworthy than the real bombs
which maim and destroy children in Yemen on an industrial scale.
It is good that Barack Obama was never sent anything resembling the
26,171 bombs that his administration dropped in the final year of his presidency, for
example. It is good that neither
the first US president to serve every minute of his administration under wartime, nor those
who served as part of that administration like Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, were targeted with
the kinds of weapons which were deployed against impoverished people in other nations every
single day for all eight years. People would have been killed and badly injured if anyone had
been sent anything like those kinds of explosive devices, their bodies ripped to shreds like
the countless civilians killed in the airstrikes which resulted from the Obama administration's
expansion of
Bush's so-called "war on terror" .
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
"A major federal investigation is now underway,"
said the president who continues to assist Saudi Arabia in murdering
untold tens of thousands of civilians in Yemen. "The full weight of our government is being
deployed to conduct this investigation and bring those responsible for these despicable acts to
justice."
Right now the only political debate happening over these bomb scares is who is responsible
for them. I am being told by everyone to the left of Ted Cruz that I am required to believe
that this was with 100 percent certainty a terrorist plot orchestrated by a Trump supporter due
to the president's hateful rhetoric against the people who've been targeted, and if I don't
subscribe to that belief it means I'm a Nazi. Meanwhile Trump supporters are telling me this is
a deep state false flag designed to get Democrats elected in the midterms, because
<sarcasm> Republicans are totally not in bed with the alliance of plutocrats and
government agencies known as the deep state.</sarcasm>
But the fact of the matter is that next to nothing is known about this case; as of this
writing there isn't even a suspect yet. The proper thing to do when the mass media is telling
us with a unified voice to be afraid of something is to remain agnostic and very, very
skeptical of everything we are being told. There are any number of possible explanations for
this spate of impotent pipe bombs, many of which don't involve a partisan explanation at all.
Without endorsing any particular one, there are for example a few sociopathic government
agencies in the US which would love nothing more than to manufacture support for more intrusive
domestic "counter-terrorism" powers.
But partisan explanations are possible as well; maybe there really is a Trump supporter out
there who either (A) wanted to scare Democratic elites without hurting them and didn't realize
doing so would only generate sympathy and unify Democrats right before midterms, or (B) is
really, really consistent in being really, really bad at making pipe bombs. Who knows. The
important thing is to remain agnostic and skeptical.
Meanwhile, while we wait for copious amounts of facts and evidence before forming a solid
opinion one way or the other, how about a little interest in the people who are being targeted
with actual bombs that actually explode by the empire these Democratic elites serve? That, in
my opinion, is one debate we should all always be having.
Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please
consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook , following her antics on Twitter , checking out her podcast , throwing some money into her hat on
Patreon or Paypal , or buying her book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
This article was originally published by "
Medium " -
"... Rochelle Ritchie, a Former Press Secretary for Congress spoke on Fox News on October 11 and was harassed by Sayoc online afterwards...She reported him to Twitter but they said he didn't violate any rules or exhibit abusive behavior and did not penalize his account. ..."
[Right, that's because Deep State scum-bag Jack Dorsey is too busy shadow-banning free
speech advocates.]
A political analyst has revealed that she was harassed by the bombing suspect just two weeks
ago and reported him to Twitter, but they didn't deem him a threat. And it turns out Cesar
Altier Sayoc, the suspect arrested for a mail bomb spree targeting Democrats, was a prolific
tweeter who repeatedly sent threats to celebrities and political figures like Joe Biden, Jim
Carrey, and Ron Howard.
Rochelle Ritchie, a Former Press Secretary for Congress spoke on Fox News on October 11
and was harassed by Sayoc online afterwards...She reported him to Twitter but they said he
didn't violate any rules or exhibit abusive behavior and did not penalize his account.
Don't get your SJW panties in a twist. The irrelevant detail of what party some criminal
supports is always made the central focus in US politics. The clown who sent (without proper
postage) a bunch of fake pipe bombs to precious Democratic Party leaders was driving around
in a van covered with pro-Trump posters and made sure to tell everyone he supports Trump. So
this was ammunition for the US MSM and Democratic Party to attack Trump.
Meanwhile the butcher (Stephen Paddock) who massacred 58 Republicans at a country and
western even in Las Vegas remains a "man of mystery" with no hint as to his party
affiliation. How convenient.
Regarding the "MAGA Bomber", a serial Law offender, apparently, never jailed (How is that?
An informant?), sending innocuous failed bombs (the kind that these plants are always given)
to the most rabid Trump's critics, just weeks before mid-terms, prompting these critics to
air their "higher moral ground", non-stop. Sting operation, anyone? The kind of Peter
Strzok's "insurance policy".
Consider the man they just arrested for the mail bomb scare. Reportedly, this person was
a career criminal with drug dealing and grand theft on his record and he was caught in
possession of a white van with decals on it depicting his targets. This man is a caricature
of a Trump supporter, ready-made for the cable news broadcast. Does anyone else see the
absurdity of it? Can this guy be for real?
"Breaking Proof of Deep State Hoax!"
"Clapper Talks About Cesar Sayoc Before He's Named as Suspect!"
The question is why the Deep State still is trying to depose him, if he essentially obeys the dictate of the Deep State ?
Notable quotes:
"... The Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Actually that's Trump. He demands total and utter loyalty from his people and gives none in return. ..."
"... The significance here is that Bolton and Pompeo represent just about everything Trump ran against during his 2016 presidential campaign. He ran against the country's foreign policy establishment and its rush to war in Iraq; its support of NATO's provocative eastward expansion; its abiding hostility toward Russia; its destabilization of the Middle East through ill-conceived and ill-fated activities in Iraq, Libya, and Syria; its ongoing and seemingly endless war in Afghanistan; and its enthusiasm for regime change and nation-building around the world. Bolton and Pompeo represent precisely those kinds of policies and actions as well as the general foreign policy outlook that spawned them. ..."
"... Trump gave every indication during the campaign that he would reverse those policies and avoid those kinds of actions. He even went so far, in his inimitable way, of accusing the Bush administration of lying to the American people in taking the country to war in Iraq, as opposed to making a reckless and stupid, though honest, mistake about that country's weapons of mass destruction. He said it would be great to get along with Russia and criticized NATO's aggressive eastward push. He said our aim in Syria should be to combat Islamist extremism, not depose Bashar al-Assad as its leader. In promulgating his America First approach, he specifically eschewed any interest in nation-building abroad. ..."
"... Still, generally speaking, anyone listening to Trump carefully before the election would have been justified in concluding that, if he meant what he said, he would reverse America's post-Cold War foreign policy as practiced by George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ..."
"... Thus any neutral observer, at the time of Mattis's selection as defense secretary, might have concluded that he was more bent on an adventurous American foreign policy than his boss. But it turned out to be just the opposite. There are two reasons for this. First, Mattis is cautious by nature, and he seems to have taken Trump at his word that he didn't want any more unnecessary American wars of choice. Hence he opposed the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal prior to Trump's decision to pull America out of it. That action greatly increased the chances that America and Iran could find themselves on a path to war. Mattis also redeployed some military resources from the Middle East to other areas designed to check actions by Russia and China, which he considered greater threats to U.S. security. ..."
"... That seems to have presented a marvelous opportunity to Bolton and Pompeo, whose philosophy and convictions are stark and visible to all. Bolton has made clear his desire for America to bring about regime change in Iran and North Korea. He supported the Iraq war and has never wavered in the face of subsequent events. He has advocated a preemptive strike against North Korea. Pompeo harbors similar views. He favored withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and has waxed bellicose on both Iran and Russia. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Bolton was put in power to ensure unswerving loyalty to the dictates of Bibi Netanyahu and local neocons. Have we forgotten Iraq and endless wars since? ..."
"... this is all about Israel's hold on the Oval Office. Bolton and Pompeo are far, far closer to Israel than Mattis and that's a problem for him. Sorry Robert Merry, but you clearly didn't catch Trump's first foreign "policy" speech in 2016. He suddenly revealed his priorities for all to see. There are four words that Trump apologists simply cannot bring themselves to utter: "Trump is a neo-con". Suckers. ..."
"... Military adventurism is another disappointment. We can't afford more neocon disasters. We don't need to be the world's police force. We should be shrinking the military budgets. It is dismaying to watch the neocons gaining power after the catastrophic failures of recent decades. ..."
"... "Still, generally speaking, anyone listening to Trump carefully before the election would have been justified in concluding that, if he meant what he said, he would reverse America's post-Cold War foreign policy as practiced by George W. Bush and Barack Obama." ..."
"... Come on, anyone listening to Trump before the election realized that he said whatever drew the most applause from the crowd. He never, in his entire life, has meant what he said. ..."
"... He will continue down the neo-con line until Fox News and NY Times run front-page articles about how Bolton and Pompeo are manipulating him and actually running US foreign policy, at which time he will dump them and make up something else. ..."
"... Arrest the warmongering "leaders" who create havoc around the world ..."
"... I guess DJT offered you a "Bad Deal" then? Past performance does predict future results. ..."
In covering President Donald Trump's recent pregnant comments about Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis, The Wall Street Journal tucked away in its story an observation that hints at
the president's foreign policy direction. In an interview for CBS's 60 Minutes , the
president described Mattis as "sort of a Democrat if you want to know the truth" and suggested
he wouldn't be surprised if his military chief left his post soon. After calling him "a good
guy" and saying the two "get along very well," Trump added, "He may leave. I mean, at some
point, everybody leaves . That's Washington."
Actually that's Trump. He demands total and utter loyalty from his people and gives none in
return. In just his first 14 months as president, he hired three national security advisors,
reflecting the unstable relationships he often has with his top aides. Following the 60
Minutes interview, Washington was of course abuzz with speculation about what all this
might mean for Mattis's fate and who might be the successor if Mattis were to quit or be fired.
It was just the kind of fodder Washington loves -- human drama revealing Trump's legendary
inconstancy amid prospective new turmoil in the capital.
But far more significant than Mattis's future or Trump's love of chaos was a sentence
embedded in the Journal 's report. After noting that recent polls indicated that
Mattis enjoys strong support from the American people, reporter Nancy A. Youssef writes: "But
his influence within the administration has waned in recent months, particularly following the
arrival of John Bolton as national security adviser and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo as
secretary of state."
The significance here is that Bolton and Pompeo represent just about everything Trump ran
against during his 2016 presidential campaign. He ran against the country's foreign policy
establishment and its rush to war in Iraq; its support of NATO's provocative eastward
expansion; its abiding hostility toward Russia; its destabilization of the Middle East through
ill-conceived and ill-fated activities in Iraq, Libya, and Syria; its ongoing and seemingly
endless war in Afghanistan; and its enthusiasm for regime change and nation-building around the
world. Bolton and Pompeo represent precisely those kinds of policies and actions as well as the
general foreign policy outlook that spawned them.
Trump gave every indication during the campaign that he would reverse those policies and
avoid those kinds of actions. He even went so far, in his inimitable way, of accusing the Bush
administration of lying to the American people in taking the country to war in Iraq, as opposed
to making a reckless and stupid, though honest, mistake about that country's weapons of mass
destruction. He said it would be great to get along with Russia and criticized NATO's
aggressive eastward push. He said our aim in Syria should be to combat Islamist extremism, not
depose Bashar al-Assad as its leader. In promulgating his America First approach, he
specifically eschewed any interest in nation-building abroad.
The one area where he seemed to embrace America's post-Cold War aggressiveness was in his
attitude toward Iran. But even there he seemed less bellicose than many of his Republican
opponents in the 2016 primaries, who said they would rip up the Iran nuclear deal on their
first day in office. Trump, by contrast, said it was a bad deal but one he would seek to
improve.
Still, generally speaking, anyone listening to Trump carefully before the election would
have been justified in concluding that, if he meant what he said, he would reverse America's
post-Cold War foreign policy as practiced by George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Now we know he didn't mean what he said, and the latest tiff over the fate of Mattis
crystallizes that reality. It's not that Mattis represents the kind of anti-establishment
outlook that Trump projected during the campaign; in fact, he is a thoroughgoing product of
that establishment. He said Iran was the main threat to stability in the Middle East. He
supported sending arms to the Syrian rebels. He decried Russia's intent to "break NATO
apart."
Thus any neutral observer, at the time of Mattis's selection as defense secretary, might
have concluded that he was more bent on an adventurous American foreign policy than his boss.
But it turned out to be just the opposite. There are two reasons for this. First, Mattis is
cautious by nature, and he seems to have taken Trump at his word that he didn't want any more
unnecessary American wars of choice. Hence he opposed the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal
prior to Trump's decision to pull America out of it. That action greatly increased the chances
that America and Iran could find themselves on a path to war. Mattis also redeployed some
military resources from the Middle East to other areas designed to check actions by Russia and
China, which he considered greater threats to U.S. security.
And second, it turns out that Trump has no true convictions when it comes to world affairs.
He brilliantly discerned the frustrations of many Americans over the foreign policy of the
previous 16 years and hit just the right notes to leverage those frustrations during the
campaign. But his actual foreign policy has manifested a lack of consistent and strong
philosophy. Consider his approach to NATO. During the campaign he criticized the alliance's
eastward push and aggressive approach to Russia; then as president he accepted NATO's inclusion
of tiny Montenegro, a slap at the Russians; then later he suggested Montenegro's NATO status
could force the U.S. into a major conflagration if that small nation, which he described as
aggressive, got itself into a conflict with a non-NATO neighbor. Such inconsistencies are not
the actions of a man with strong convictions. They are hallmarks of someone who is winging it
on the basis of little knowledge.
That seems to have presented a marvelous opportunity to Bolton and Pompeo, whose
philosophy and convictions are stark and visible to all. Bolton has made clear his desire for
America to bring about regime change in Iran and North Korea. He supported the Iraq war and has
never wavered in the face of subsequent events. He has advocated a preemptive strike against
North Korea. Pompeo harbors similar views. He favored withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and
has waxed bellicose on both Iran and Russia.
Thus a conflict was probably inevitable between Mattis and these more recent administration
arrivals. The New York Times speculates that Bolton likely undermined Mattis's
standing in Trump's eyes. Writes the paper: "Mr. Bolton, an ideological conservative whose
views on foreign policy are more hawkish than those of Mr. Mattis, appears to have deepened the
president's suspicions that his defense secretary's view of the world is more like those of
Democrats than his own."
The paper didn't clarify the basis of this speculation, but it makes sense. Bolton and
Pompeo are gut fighters who go for the jugular. Trump is malleable, susceptible to obsequious
manipulation. Mattis is an old-style military man with a play-it-straight mentality and a
discomfort with guile. Thus it appears we may be seeing before our eyes the transformation of
Trump the anti-establishment candidate into Trump the presidential neocon.
Bolton was put in power to ensure unswerving loyalty to the dictates of Bibi Netanyahu and
local neocons. Have we forgotten Iraq and endless wars since? We need more folks like Phil
Giraldi at TAC. Love him or hate him – but please bring him back. The First Amendment
needs him. And many of us still long for his direct and well-informed comments.
"Come on now!" as sports analysts say in a sarcastic segment about football blunders on ESPN.
Did GWB really make just an honest mistake based upon faulty intelligence? Does this writer
really believe his assertion? This intellectually dishonest essay comes on the heels of a
puff piece by another so-called "conservative" writer who asserted that had JFK not been
assassinated and won a second term, he would have surely withdrawn American soldiers from
South Vietnam. And then later in this essay the writer finally admits that these wars in the
global war on terror, excluding the war in Afghanistan, were unnecessary. But if these other
wars were unnecessary, then it historically follows they were illegal wars of aggression
against humanity. That was the legal basis under which we tried Nazi leaders as war criminals
at Numenberg. By the way, if Trump does get rid of Mattis, there are plenty more, one could
even say they are a dime a dozen, at the Pentagon who would be willing to toe the line under
Trump. They're basically professional careerists, corporate suits with misto salads of
colorful medals on their uniforms. They take their marching orders from the
military/industrial complex. I'm a Vietnam vet and realized long ago how clueless these
generals actually are when we crossed our Rubicon in Vietnam. The war on terror now rivals
the Vietnam War as a major foreign policy debacle. All these other unnecessary wars are part
of the endgame as we continue our decline as a constitutional republic and we eventually hit
bottom and go bankrupt by 2030.
Absolutely right General Manager, this is all about Israel's hold on the Oval Office. Bolton and Pompeo are far, far closer to Israel than Mattis and that's a problem for
him. Sorry Robert Merry, but you clearly didn't catch Trump's first foreign "policy" speech in
2016. He suddenly revealed his priorities for all to see. There are four words that Trump apologists simply cannot bring themselves to utter: "Trump is a neo-con". Suckers.
When was Trump's foreign policy anything but Neo-con? Oh, he had a few good lines when he was
running – that was the "con" part. I didn't fall for it but many did. But since he took
office, he's been across-the-board anti-Russian, anti-Iran, pro-Saudi, uber-Zionist, and
enthusiastic shill for the military-industrial complex.
Trump surprised many of us with some very positive conservative actions but has also
disappointed smaller government conservatives. The deficits and debt grows as the economy
improves. What in the world happens in the next recession?
Military adventurism is another disappointment. We can't afford more neocon disasters. We
don't need to be the world's police force. We should be shrinking the military budgets. It is dismaying to watch the neocons gaining power after the catastrophic failures of
recent decades.
"Still, generally speaking, anyone listening to Trump carefully before the election would
have been justified in concluding that, if he meant what he said, he would reverse America's
post-Cold War foreign policy as practiced by George W. Bush and Barack Obama."
Come on, anyone listening to Trump before the election realized that he said whatever drew
the most applause from the crowd. He never, in his entire life, has meant what he said.
He will continue down the neo-con line until Fox News and NY Times run front-page articles
about how Bolton and Pompeo are manipulating him and actually running US foreign policy, at
which time he will dump them and make up something else.
And second, it turns out that Trump has no true convictions when it comes to world
affairs.
Fixed:
And second, it turns out that Trump has no true convictions.
This is another article that attempts to overlay some sort of actual logical policy or
moral framework over the top of Trumps actions. Please stop. Next week or next month this
whole line of reasoning will be upended again and you will have to start over with another
theory that contradicts this one.
Are are you implying that Mattis is a slacker? Like, he isn't doing a good job? And,
specially, what is he failing to do?
Even if he wasn't doing anything at all, you don't fire Mattis. He is beloved among the
military. While a fair number revere and maybe even keep their own little "St. Mattis" shrine
as a joke, it is only half a joke.
Mattis is one of the few modern military generals with a cult of personality who, I have
little doubt, could declare crossing the Rubicon and would get a good number of veterans and
active marching in support.
I believe a good peaceful and appropriate "Foreign Policy" would be to:
"Arrest Them"
Arrest all those responsible for the plight of the Refugees
These people are in camps, or drowning in unfriendly seas
And when these unwanted, reach "safety," or a foreign land
They are treated like garbage and the rulers want them banned
Arrest these "rulers" who created this hell on earth
Who act, that human lives, don't have any worth
They are examples of evil and should not be in power
They really are disgraceful and an awful bloody shower
Arrest the warmongering "leaders" who create havoc around the world
Authorizing bombings and killings these "leaders" should be reviled
Instead we give them fancy titles and homes to park their asses
Will there ever be a day of reckoning and a rise up of the masses?
Arrest the financiers of these bloody wars of destruction
This is how these blood sucking parasites get their satisfaction
Drag them away in chains and handcuffs, and orange prison attire
These are the corporate cannibals who set the world on fire
Arrest the fat and plump little "honourable" Ministers of Wars
They are the "useful idiots" for the leading warmongering whores
They never fight in battle or sacrifice any of their rotten lives
They get others to do their evil work while they themselves thrive
Arrest the corporate chieftains who feed off death and destruction
And who count their bloodstained profits with smiling satisfaction
These are the well dressed demons who call their investments "creating jobs"
Meanwhile, around the world the oppressed are crying, and nobody hears their sobs
Arrest the uniformed generals who blindly obey their marching orders
To bomb, kill, maim and destroy: they are the brainwashed enforcers
Years ago there were trials for war crimes committed by those in charge
Now we need them again for we have war criminals at large
Arrest all the aforementioned, and help clean up the world
We cannot afford these people in power: Are they mentally disturbed?
They are a danger to all of us and we better wake up
Is it time to arrest all of them: Have you had enough?
[more info at links below]
"The significance here is that Bolton and Pompeo represent just about everything Trump ran
against during his 2016 presidential campaign. "
Yes. Those two names are the main reason that this lifelong Republican is voting against
Trump and the GOP in a few weeks. I voted against this kind of crap in 2016.
"[G]enerally speaking, anyone listening [..] before the election would have been justified in
concluding [Trump] would reverse America's post-Cold War foreign policy as practiced by
George W. Bush and Barack Obama."
What did Judas Goat 43 say again?
"Fool me once, shame on me. Full me twice in the long run we'll all be dead."
I guess DJT offered you a "Bad Deal" then?
Past performance does predict future results.
If Trump loses at least one house of Congress this year, he can put it down to 1) failure on
immigration and border control, 2) failure to control government spending, and 3) failure to
get us out of the Middle East.
His new neocon friends are responsible for 3) and couldn't care less about 1) and 2).
No, Mr. Merry. We knew that long ago. I don't know how much attention you've been paying,
but it's been so obvious for so long. But better late than never, I suppose.
It's nearly impossible to read major newspapers, magazines, or online publications in recent months without
encountering a
plethora
of articles
contending that the United States is
turning
inward
and "going alone," "abandoning Washington's global leadership role" or "retreating from the world."
These
trends
supposedly herald
the
arrival
of a new "isolationism." The chief villain in all of these worrisome developments is, of course, Donald
Trump. There is just one problem with such arguments; they are vastly overstated bordering on utterly absurd.
President Trump is not embracing his supposed inner isolationist. The policy changes that he has adopted regarding
both security and international economic issues do not reflect a desire to decrease Washington's global hegemonic
status. Instead, they point to a more unilateral and militaristic approach, but one that still envisions a
hyper-activist U.S. role.
For instance, it's certainly not evident that the United States is abandoning its security commitments to dozens of
allies and clients. Despite the speculation that erupted in response to Trump's negative comments about the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other alliances during the 2016 election campaign (and occasionally since
then), the substance of U.S. policy has remained largely unchanged. Indeed, NATO has continued to expand its
membership with Trump's blessing -- adding Montenegro and
planning
to
add Macedonia.
Indeed, Trump's principal complaint about NATO has always focused on European free-riding and the lack of
burden-sharing, not about rethinking the wisdom of the security commitments to Europe that America undertook in the
early days of the Cold War. In that respect, Trump's emphasis on greater burden-sharing within the Alliance is simply
a less diplomatic version of the message that previous generations of U.S. officials have tried sending to the
allies.
Moreover, Trump's insistence at the July NATO summit in Brussels that the European nations
increase
their military budgets
and do more for transatlantic defense echoed the comments of President Obama's Secretary
of Defense
Chuck
Hagel
in 2014. Hagel warned his European counterparts that they must step up their commitment to the alliance or
watch it become irrelevant. Declining European defense budgets, he emphasized, are "not sustainable. Our alliance can
endure only as long as we are willing to fight for it, and invest in it." Rebalancing NATO's "burden-sharing and
capabilities," Hagel stressed, "is mandatory -- not elective."
Additionally, U.S. military activities along NATO's eastern flank certainly have not diminished during the Trump
administration. Washington has sent forces to participate in a growing number of exercises (war games) along Russia's
western land border -- as well as in the Black Sea -- to demonstrate the U.S. determination to protect its alliance
partners. Trump has even escalated America's "leadership role" by authorizing the sale of
weapons
to Ukraine
-- a very sensitive step that President Obama carefully avoided.
Trump even seems receptive to establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Eastern Europe. During a state visit
to Washington in mid-September, Poland's president, Andrzej Duda, promised to provide $2 billion toward construction
costs if the United States built a military base in his country. Duda
even
offered
to name the base "Fort Trump." Trump's reaction was revealing. Noting that Poland "is willing to make a
very major contribution to the United States to come in and have a presence in Poland," Trump stated that the United
States would take Duda's proposal "very seriously."
American Conservative
columnist Daniel Larison
notes
that
while Trump often is accused of wanting to "retreat" from the world, "his willingness to entertain this proposal
shows that he doesn't care about stationing U.S. forces abroad so long as someone else is footing most of the bill."
U.S. military activism does not seem to have diminished outside the NATO region either. Washington persists in its
futile regime-change campaign in Syria, and it continues the shameful policy of
assisting
Saudi Arabia
and its Gulf allies pursue their atrocity-ridden war in Yemen. Both of those Obama-era ventures
should have been prime candidates for a policy change if Trump had wished to decrease America's military activism.
There are no such indications in Europe, the Middle East, or anywhere else. The U.S. Navy's
freedom
of navigation patrols
in the South China Sea have actually increased in size and frequency under Trump -- much to
China's
anger
. Washington's diplomatic support for Taiwan also has
quietly
increased
over the past year or so, and National Security Advisor John Bolton is on record suggesting that the
United States move some of its
troops
stationed on Okinawa
to Taiwan. The
U.S.
military presence
in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, both in overall size and the number of host countries.
Those are all extremely strange actions for an administration supposedly flirting with a retreat from the world to
be adopting. So, too, is Trump's push for increases in America's already bloated military budget, which now exceeds
$700 billion -- with even higher spending levels on the horizon.
Accusations of a U.S. retreat from the world on non-military matters have only slightly greater validity. True,
Trump has shown little patience for multilateral arrangements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris
climate agreement, or the United Nations Human Rights Council that he concluded did not serve America's national
interests. On those issues, the president's actions demonstrated that his invocation of "America First" was not just
rhetoric. However, regarding such matters, as well as the trade disputes with China and North Atlantic Free Trade
Agreement partners, the administration's emphasis is on securing a "better deal" for the United States, not
abandoning the entire diplomatic process. One might question the wisdom or effectiveness of that approach, but it is
a far cry from so-called isolationism.
Indeed, Americans would have been better off if Trump had been more serious about challenging the policy status
quo, especially with respect to security issues. A reconsideration of Washington's overgrown and often obsolete
security commitments to allies and clients around the world is long overdue. Abandoning the disastrous twin
strategies of humanitarian military intervention and regime-change wars is a badly needed step. And waging a new cold
war against Russia is the height of dangerous folly that needs to be reversed.
But contrary to Trump's shrill -- and sometimes hysterical -- critics, America has had no meaningful reconsideration of
such misguided policies or a willingness to adopt a more focused, limited, and prudent U.S. role in the world.
Notions that there has been a pell-mell U.S. retreat from global leadership -- i.e., Washington's hegemonic
pretentions -- under Donald Trump are a myth. What Trump has adopted is merely a more unilateral and militarized version
of a stale foreign policy that does not benefit the American people.
"... Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars increasingly bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to their worldview. ..."
"... This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. For many, this problem has been growing increasingly obvious, but strong evidence has been lacking. For this reason, the three of us just spent a year working inside the scholarship we see as an intrinsic part of this problem." ..."
"... We spent that time writing academic papers and publishing them in respected peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as "cultural studies" or "identity studies" (for example, gender studies) or "critical theory" because it is rooted in that postmodern brand of "theory" which arose in the late sixties. ..."
Three scholars wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous
conclusions.
Harvard University's Yascha Mounk writing for The Atlantic:
"Over the past 12 months, three scholars -- James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter
Boghossian -- wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous
conclusions, and tried to get them placed in high-profile journals in fields including gender
studies, queer studies, and fat studies. Their success rate was remarkable
Sokal Squared doesn't just expose the low standards of the journals that publish this kind of
dreck, though. It also demonstrates the extent to which many of them are willing to license
discrimination if it serves ostensibly progressive goals.
This tendency becomes most evident in an article that advocates extreme measures to
redress the "privilege" of white students.
Exhorting college professors to enact forms of "experiential reparations," the paper
suggests telling privileged students to stay silent, or even BINDING THEM TO THE FLOOR IN
CHAINS
If students protest, educators are told to "take considerable care not to validate
privilege, sympathize with, or reinforce it and in so doing, recenter the needs of privileged
groups at the expense of marginalized ones. The reactionary verbal protestations of those who
oppose the progressive stack are verbal behaviors and defensive mechanisms that mask the
fragility inherent to those inculcated in privilege."
In an article for Areo magazine, the authors of the hoax explain their motivation:
"Something has gone wrong in the university -- especially in certain fields within the
humanities.
Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances
has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars
increasingly bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to their
worldview.
This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. For many, this problem has
been growing increasingly obvious, but strong evidence has been lacking. For this reason, the
three of us just spent a year working inside the scholarship we see as an intrinsic part of
this problem."
We spent that time writing academic papers and publishing them in respected
peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as "cultural
studies" or "identity studies" (for example, gender studies) or "critical theory" because it
is rooted in that postmodern brand of "theory" which arose in the late sixties.
As a result of this work, we have come to call these fields "grievance studies" in
shorthand because of their common goal of problematizing aspects of culture in minute detail
in order to attempt diagnoses of power imbalances and oppression rooted in identity.
We undertook this project to study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance
studies, which is corrupting academic research.
Because open, good-faith conversation around topics of identity such as gender, race, and
sexuality (and the scholarship that works with them) is nearly impossible, our aim has been
to reboot these conversations.''
To read more, see Areo magazine + "academic grievance studies and the corruption of
scholarship"
White people who voted for Trump for his Supreme Court list have been duped so many times.
First, when Trump promised us "America First!" Voters, apparently content to trust mere
words, have ignored Trump's apparent definition of "America First!" as "America has the right
to antagonize Iran and Russia, and launch pointless attacks upon Syria." Second, when Trump
added Kavanaugh's name to a list of judges after he had gotten into office. Third, when Trump
negotiated with scum Anthony Kennedy, who obviously demanded a Kavanaugh nomination in
exchange for his retirement.
Christine Ford is, quite frankly, a distraction from the real intrigue: how Donald Trump
motivated his base to support a candidate from the elitist wing.
But good luck finding conservatives with the balls to publicly point out the truth: the
President we elected has stabbed us in the back with an establishment nomination.
This is a really apt quote: "America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with
one another on war, neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases
the power and profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both."
Notable quotes:
"... The buzzword "bipartisan" gets used a lot in US politics because it gives the illusion that whatever agenda it's being applied to must have some deep universal truth to it for such wildly divergent ideologies to set aside their differences in order to advance it, but what it usually means is Democrat neocons and Republican neocons working together to inflict new horrors upon the world. ..."
"... America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war, neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs are more evil. ..."
If there's one thing that brings a tear to my eye, it's the inspiration I feel when watching
Republican-aligned neoconservatives and Democrat-aligned neoconservatives find a way to bridge
their almost nonexistent differences and come together to discuss the many, many, many, many,
many, many many many things they have in common.
In a conference at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, "Resistance" leader and
professional left-puncher Neera Tanden met with Iraq-raping neocon Bill Kristol to discuss
bipartisanship and shared values. While leprechauns held hands and danced beneath candy
rainbows and gumdrop Reaper drones, the duo engaged in a friendly, playful conversation with
the event's host in a debate format which was not unlike watching the Pillsbury Doughboy have a
pillow fight with himself in a padded room after drinking a bottle of NyQuil.
To get the event started, the host whose name I refuse to learn asked the pair to discuss
briefly what common ground such wildly different people could possibly share to make such a
strange taboo-shattering dialogue possible.
"Issues around national security and believing in democratic principles as they relate to
foreign policy," replied
Tanden . "And opposing authoritarianism, and opposing the kind of creeping populism that
undermines democracy itself."
Neera Tanden, in case you are unaware, is a longtime Clinton and Obama insider
and CEO of the plutocrat-backed
think tank Center for American Progress. Her emails featured prominently in the 2016
Podesta drops by WikiLeaks, which New Republic described as revealing "a
pattern of freezing out those who don't toe the line, a disturbing predilection for someone who
is a kind of gatekeeper for what ideas are acceptable in Democratic politics." Any quick glance
at Tanden's political activism and Twitter presence will render this unsurprising, as she often
seems more concerned with attacking the Green Party and noncompliant progressive Democrats than
she does with advancing progressive values. Her entire life is dedicated to keeping what passes
for America's political left out of the hands of the American populace.
Kristol co-signed Tanden's anti-populist rhetoric and her open endorsement of
neoconservative foreign policy, and went on to say that another thing he and Tanden have in
common is that they've both served in government, which makes you realize that nothing's black
and white and everything's kinda nebulous and amorphous so it doesn't really matter if you, say
for example, help deceive your country into a horrific blunder that ends up killing a whole lot
of people for no good reason.
"I do think if you've served in government -- this isn't universally true but somewhat true --
that you do have somewhat more of a sense of the complexity of things, and many of its
decisions are not black and white, that in public policy there are plusses and minuses to
most policies," Kristol said
.
"There are authentic disagreements both about values, but also just about how certain
things are gonna work or not work and that is what adds a kind of humility to one's belief
that one is kind of always right about everything."
I found this very funny coming from the man who is notoriously always wrong about
everything, and I'd like to point out that "complexity" is a key talking point that the
neoconservatives who've been consistently proven completely wrong about everything are fond of
repeating. Everything's complicated and nothing's really known and it's all a big blurry mess
so maybe butchering a million Iraqis and destabilizing the Middle East was a good thing . Check
out this short clip of John
Bolton being confronted by Tucker Carlson about what a spectacular error the Iraq invasion was
for a great example of this:
I listened to the whole conference, but it was basically one long smear of amicable
politeness which was the verbal equivalent of the color beige, so I had difficulty tuning in.
Both Tanden and Kristol hate the far left (or as those of us outside the US pronounce it, "the
center"), both Tanden and Kristol hate Trump, and hey maybe Americans have a lot more in common
than they think and everyone can come together and together together togetherness blah blah. At
one point Kristol said something about disagreeing with internet censorship, which was weird
because his Weekly Standard
actively participates in Facebook censorship as one of its authorized "fact checkers".
The buzzword "bipartisan" gets used a lot in US politics because it gives the illusion that
whatever agenda it's being applied to must have some deep universal truth to it for such wildly
divergent ideologies to set aside their differences in order to advance it, but what it usually
means is Democrat neocons and Republican neocons working together to inflict new horrors upon
the world.
America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war,
neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and
profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up
the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality
the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs
are more evil.
Neera Tanden and Bill Kristol are the same fucking person. They're both toxic limbs on the
same toxic beast, feeding the lives of ordinary people at home and abroad into its gaping mouth
in service of the powerful. And populism, which is nothing other than support for the
protection of common folk from the powerful, is the only antidote to such toxins. Saying
populism undermines democracy is like saying democracy undermines democracy.
Keyser , 29 minutes ago
The only thing the neocons care about is money and dead brown people, in that order,
because the more dead people, the more $$$ they make...
Jim in MN , 28 minutes ago
You mean, neolibcon globalist elite sociopath traitors, right?
bshirley1968 , 38 minutes ago
I am confident that if I ever spent time around Caitlin there would be a whole host of
things we would disagree about......but this,
" America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war,
neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and
profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up
the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality
the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or
legs are more evil."
.....is something we can absolutely agree on. This FACT needs to be expounded and driven
down the sheeple throats until they are puking it up. Why don't they teach that in screwls?
Because school is where the foundation for this lie of two parties is laid .
DingleBarryObummer , 29 minutes ago
It's funny that you say that. I was just thinking about how high school was a microcosm of
how the world is.
The football stars were the "protected class." They could park like assholes, steal food
from the cafeteria, and show up late, and wouldn't get in trouble.
That's just one of a multitude of examples. That's a whole nother article in itself.
DingleBarryObummer , 39 minutes ago
Tucker Carlson made Bolton look like the dingus he is in that interview. We all know
(((who))) he works for.
+1 to tucker
WTFUD , 43 minutes ago
Campaigns are funded, career Politicians become made-men, conduits for the scramble of
BILLIONAIRES gorging bigly on-the-public-teat, with a kick-back revolving door supernova
gratuity waiting at the end of the rainbow.
Of course they can ALL AGREE . . . eventually.
Chupacabra-322 , 54 minutes ago
"How many people have Kristol and his ilk murdered in their endless wars for israel?"
Countless.
ChiangMaiXPat , 58 minutes ago
As a Trump voter, I believe I have more in common with Caitlin Johnstone then "any"
Neocon. Her articles and writing are mostly "spot on." I imagine I would disagree on a couple
key social issues but on foreign policy I believe most conservatives are on the same page as
her.
ChiangMaiXPat , 54 minutes ago
I thought her piece was "spot on," she's a very good writer. The Neo CONS will be the
death of this country.
If you don't know all the local issues and controversies -- and I'll admit I don't -- it
makes the mid-terms hard to call.
In general–about 80% of the time–midterms go against a sitting president. But
in this case, I agree with the Derb: I think the Dims are in a rude awakening.
It's nice that our Israeli embassy has been moved to Jerusalem
Nice? Speak for yourself!
It's nice that Senator Graham has found his high dudgeon at last. Now that he's found
it, though, how long will it be before he turns it against immigration patriots?
That's probably the only reason Graham was chosen to publicly throw a fit: he's
inside-the-Beltway safe. He can huff and puff and talk tough on this hearing, precisely
because the Establishment knows he'll never really go against them on issues like immigration
or foreign policy. Remember the Clarence Thomas hearings? Remember how Arlen Specter was the
Republican standard-bearer back then? Nuff said.
@ advancedatheist It is difficult in these trying times to find good entertainers.
I thought confirmation hearings,were to test for qualifications required to be a
Supreme?
Such things as ability to write, understanding of the complexities of the constitution,
beliefs and past rulings, convictions about the bill of rights, and things like that? The
Constitution is supposed to create the structure of government, authorize payment of fat
salaries to 527 elected entertainers and limit the scope of the personal financial activities
while in office. I can't image a confirmation hearing that would review the judicial history
of the past rulings and professional activities of a candidate. The audience would not be
interested to hear what those who practice law and interact with the candidate had to say
about him and his legal abilities. When and in which tent are those hearings to begin?
Where are the opinions by Judge Kavanaugh? Why have they not been produced for inspection
in the hearings? What does this man think? Why did Trump select Judge Kavanaugh to be a
supreme? At the moment it looks like the the hearings have been conducted to cover for the
attacks by Israel on Russian Airplanes in Syria. I can think of no other reason for such a
circus?
What I have seen, heard and read describe another propaganda guided privately owned media
production with side shows by two of the best known acts in circus life ( shows by the Gods
of poop and by the Democraps were featured).
I still don't know anything about Judge Kavanaugh do you?
I hereby claim that Lindsey Graham and Larry Kudlow are horrible whores for the GOP Cheap
Labor Faction. Both Lindsey Graham and Larry Kudlow push wage-reducing open borders mass
immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.
I also strongly suggest that Larry Kudlow and Lindsey Graham were big backers of the Iraq
War debacle.
Larry Kudlow and Lindsey Graham both push sovereignty-sapping trade deal scams.
Larry Kudlow has no memory whatsoever of any guest ever at his house. Is Larry Kudlow a
ruling class louse?
Trump brought on board his ship of state all sorts of louts such as Larry Kudlow, Gary
Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, Nikki Haley, John Bolton and many other no good bastards. Trump invited
the swamp into the White House.
"... Christine Ford has taken the false allegations racket a bit too far. She is probably lying, as how come she did not call 911 or file a police report if this happened? She comes from a family of lawyers. She has an army of attorneys who would have rushed and filed police reports and filed civil suits if any man had dared touch her. ..."
Christine Ford has taken the false allegations racket a bit too far. She is probably
lying, as how come she did not call 911 or file a police report if this happened? She comes
from a family of lawyers. She has an army of attorneys who would have rushed and filed police
reports and filed civil suits if any man had dared touch her.
That did not happen for 3 decades for one reason -- nothing happened on the night in
question.
The Democrats, who are a criminal party, must have coached her and offered her a few 100K
under the table, disguised as speaking fees, or scholarship, for manufacturing this
racket.
Kavanaugh has proved himself unfit for the position of supreme court justice. Under heavy
fire, he has shown that he is a spineless coward, a crying baby incapable of fighting back
like a man. Moreover, he is a total idiot.
What did he expect, that the baby killers were going to accept even the possibility of a
supreme court justice who may vote to overturn Wade VS Roe and the end of Planned Parenthood?
He has shown that this totally expected attack took him by surprise. What a fool!
Courage under fire? Call the Marines, but not Kavanaugh.
The key word there is of course "gentlemanly." Could any concept be more at odds with
the zeitgeist than gentlemanliness? It's hard not to think there's a demographic dimension
to this. That older style of courtesy, forbearance, and compromise that used to inform our
politics was a white-European thing, perhaps particularly an Anglo-Saxon-Celtic thing.
I agree that politics in the US is coarsening like our pop culture and increasingly
looking like 3rd world politics. This is where America is headed as we become more culturally
enriched:
The neocons and neolibs has always been the indignant, end justifies the means crowd.
Since Trump's election they've completely gone off the rails....
You're right about Trump being a big disappointment so far in immigration. Caving here and
calling for an FBI investigation makes him look as stupid as Flake. Fat chance FBI will close
it in a week. This is the same agency that gave us Mueller, Comey, McCabe, Ohr, Strzok, Page,
the Steele Dossier, owned by Deep State and corrupt to the core. These GOP fools are once
again playing right into the hands of the (((Dems))) – Feinstein, Blumenthal, Schumer
and Ford's lawyer Bromwich, already complaining about the 'artificial timeline'. No one can
ever outcon the financial elite.
"... Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy of Islamists. ..."
"... The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump. For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty. ..."
"... But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness to be "presidential." ..."
"... Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day. ..."
"... Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning out to be just another agent of the power elite. ..."
"... Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? ..."
"... Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy ..."
"... Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion." ..."
"... " while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it without establishment support." ..."
Did the Deep State deep-six Trump's populist revolution?
Many observers, especially among his fans, suspect that the seemingly untamable Trump has already been housebroken by the Washington,
"globalist" establishment. If true, the downfall of Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the new
presidency may have been a warning sign. And the turning point would have been the removal of Steven K. Bannon from the National
Security Council on April 5.
Until then, the presidency's early policies had a recognizably populist-nationalist orientation. During his administration's first
weeks, Trump's biggest supporters frequently tweeted the hashtag #winning and exulted that he was decisively doing exactly what,
on the campaign trail, he said he would do.
In a flurry of executive orders and other unilateral actions bearing Bannon's fingerprints, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, declared a sweeping travel ban, instituted harsher deportation policies, and more.
These policies seemed to fit Trump's reputation as the "
tribune of poor white people
," as he has been called; above all, Trump's base calls for protectionism and immigration restrictions. Trump seemed to be delivering
on the populist promise of his inauguration speech (thought to be written by Bannon), in which he said:
"Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration
to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American
People.
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories
closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their
triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling
families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration.
And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January
20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country
will be forgotten no longer.
Everyone is listening to you now." [Emphasis added.]
After a populist insurgency stormed social media and the voting booths, American democracy, it seemed, had been wrenched from
the hands of the Washington elite and restored to "the people," or at least a large, discontented subset of "the people." And this
happened in spite of the establishment, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and "polite opinion" throwing everything it had at Trump.
The Betrayal
But for the past month, the administration's axis seems to have shifted. This shift was especially abrupt in Trump's Syria policy.
Days before Bannon's fall from grace, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley declared that forcing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad
from power was no longer top priority. This too was pursuant of Trump's populist promises.
Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They
are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending
American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also
saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy
of Islamists.
The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump.
For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies
of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these
libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the
state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty.
But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack
on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same
excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness
to be "presidential."
Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold
water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced
an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day.
Here I make no claim as to whether any of these policy reversals are good or bad. I only point out that they run counter to the
populist promises he had given to his core constituents.
Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning
out to be just another agent of the power elite.
Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? Or, after constant obstruction,
has he simply concluded that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
Regardless of how it came about, it seems clear that whatever prospect there was for a truly populist Trump presidency is gone
with the wind. Was it inevitable that this would happen, one way or another?
One person who might have thought so was German sociologist Robert Michels, who posited the "iron law of oligarchy" in his 1911
work Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy .
Michels argued that political organizations, no matter how democratically structured, rarely remain truly populist, but inexorably
succumb to oligarchic control.
Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable
of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of
persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion."
This practical limitation necessitates delegation of decision-making to officeholders. These delegates may at first be considered
servants of the masses:
"All the offices are filled by election. The officials, executive organs of the general will, play a merely subordinate part,
are always dependent upon the collectivity, and can be deprived of their office at any moment. The mass of the party is omnipotent."
But these delegates will inevitably become specialists in the exercise and consolidation of power, which they gradually wrest
away from the "sovereign people":
"The technical specialization that inevitably results from all extensive organization renders necessary what is called expert
leadership. Consequently the power of determination comes to be considered one of the specific attributes of leadership, and is gradually
withdrawn from the masses to be concentrated in the hands of the leaders alone. Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than
the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the mass and become independent of its control.
Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union,
or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly."
Trumped by the Deep State
Thus elected, populist "tribunes" like Trump are ultimately no match for entrenched technocrats nestled in permanent bureaucracy.
Especially invincible are technocrats who specialize in political force and intrigue, i.e., the National Security State (military,
NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). And these elite functionaries don't serve "the people" or any large subpopulation. They only serve their own
careers, and by extension, big-money special interest groups that make it worth their while: especially big business and foreign
lobbies. The nexus of all these powers is what is known as the Deep State.
Trump's more sophisticated champions were aware of these dynamics, but held out hope nonetheless. They thought that Trump would
be an exception, because his large personal fortune would grant him immunity from elite influence. That factor did contribute to
the independent, untamable spirit of his campaign. But as I
predicted
during the Republican primaries:
" while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it
without establishment support."
No matter how popular, rich, and bombastic, a populist president simply cannot rule without access to the levers of power. And
that access is under the unshakable control of the Deep State. If Trump wants to play president, he has to play ball.
On these grounds, I advised his fans over a year ago, " don't hold out hope that Trump will make good on his isolationist rhetoric
" and anticipated, "a complete rapprochement between the populist rebel and the Republican establishment." I also warned that, far
from truly threatening the establishment and the warfare state, Trump's populist insurgency would only invigorate them:
"Such phony establishment "deaths" at the hands of "grassroots" outsiders followed by "rebirths" (rebranding) are an excellent
way for moribund oligarchies to renew themselves without actually meaningfully changing. Each "populist" reincarnation of the power
elite is draped with a freshly-laundered mantle of popular legitimacy, bestowing on it greater license to do as it pleases. And nothing
pleases the State more than war."
Politics, even populist politics, is the oligarchy's game. And the house always wins.
Dan Sanchez is the Digital Content Manager at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), developing educational and inspiring
content for FEE.org , including articles and courses. The originally appeared on the
FEE website and is reprinted with the author's permission.
"... Luckily there are still groups of our species that don't live totally controlled by the Western way and the cancer it represents to humanity. They on the outside and "us" on the inside are trying our hardest to shine lights on all the moving parts in hopes that humanity can throw off the shackles of ignorance about private/public finance. ..."
Which is the cohort of voters who allegedly are leaning toward voting Republican in the
mid-terms but who allegedly would refrain if Trump accepted Rosenstein's resignation? And
which is the cohort not already motivated to turn out to vote Democrat but who allegedly
would be motivated by a Rosenstein resignation? Is there real data on these?
I think if I had been a 2016 Trump voter I'd be feeling pretty disappointed about how he's
unable to enforce the most basic discipline and loyalty even among his closest administration
members, and this Rosenstein episode would be yet another egregious example.
If the Republicans do lose either/both houses, the main reason will be that for once
they've taken on the normal Democrat role of being confused and feckless about what they want
to do (they can't bring themselves to whole-heartedly get behind Trump; but a major
Republican strength has been how they normally do pull together an present a united front).
And Trump himself, in his inability to control his own immediate administration, also gives
an example of this fecklessness.
@ Circe who is writing that any who like any of what Trump is doing must be Zionists.
Get a grip. I didn't vote for Trump but favored him over Clinton II, the war criminal.
Trump represents more clearly the face of the ugly beast of debauched patriarchy, lying,
misogyny, bullying and monotheistic "everybody else is goyim" values. Trump very clearly
represents the folks behind the curtain of the Western private finance led "culture". He and
they are both poor representations of our species who are in power because of heredity and
controlled ignorance over the private finance jackboot on the lifeblood of the species.
Luckily there are still groups of our species that don't live totally controlled by
the Western way and the cancer it represents to humanity. They on the outside and "us" on the
inside are trying our hardest to shine lights on all the moving parts in hopes that humanity
can throw off the shackles of ignorance about private/public finance.
I am taking a beginning astronomy class and just learned that it took the monotheistic
religions 600 years to accept the science of Galileo Galilei. We could stand to evolve a bit
faster as we are about to have our proverbial asses handed to us in the form of extinction,
IMO.
In my own words then. According to Cook the power elites goal is to change its
appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are
increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their
expense.
Since they do not actually want change they find actors who pretend to represent change
, which is in essence fake change. These then are their insurgent candidates
Trump serves the power elite , because while he appears as an insurgent against the
power elite he does little to change anything
Trump promotes his fake insurgency on Twitter stage knowing the power elite will counter
any of his promises that might threaten them
As an insurgent candidate Trump was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of
Syria. He wanted good relations with Russia. He wanted to fix the health care system,
rebuild infrastructure, scrap NAFTA and TTIPS, bring back good paying jobs, fight the
establishment and Wall Street executives and drain the swamp. America First he said.
Trump the insurgent president , has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched
US missiles at Syria, relations with Russia are at Cold War lows, infrastructure is still
failing, the percentage of people working is now at an all time low in the post housewife
era, he has passed tax cuts for the rich that will endanger medicare, medicaid and social
security and prohibit infrastructure spending, relaxed regulations on Wall Street, enhanced
NAFTA to include TTIPS provisions and make US automobiles more expensive, and the swamp has
been refilled with the rich, neocons , Koch associates, and Goldman Sachs that make up the
power elites and Deep State Americas rich and Israel First
@34 pft... regarding the 2 cook articles.. i found they overly wordy myself...
however, for anyone paying attention - corbyn seems like the person to vote for given how
relentless he is being attacked in the media... i am not so sure about trump, but felt cook
summed it up well with these 2 lines.. "Trump the candidate was indifferent to Israel and
wanted the US out of Syria. Trump the president has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and
has launched US missiles at Syria." i get the impression corbyn is legit which is why the
anti-semitism keeps on being mentioned... craig murrary is a good source for staying on top
of uk dynamics..
(a) talk coherently
(b) have some kind of movement consisting of people that agree with what is says -- that
necessitates (a)
Then he could staff his Administration with his supporters rather than a gamut of
conventional plutocrats, neocons, and hacks from the Deep State (intelligence, FBI and
crazies culled from Pentagon). As it is easy to see, I am describing an alternate reality.
Who is a Trumpian member of the Administration? His son-in-law?
The swamps been filled with all kinds of vile creatures since the Carter administration.
This is when the US/UK went full steam ahead with neoliberal globalism with Israel directing
the war on terror for the Trilateral Empire (following Bibis Jerusalem conference so as to
fulfill the Yinon plan). 40 years of terror and financial mayhem following the coup that took
place from 1963-1974. After Nixons ouster they were ready to go once TLC Carter/Zbig kicked
off the Trilateral era. Reagan then ran promising to oust the TLC swamp but broke his
promise, as every President has done since .
"... It does seem to me that Rosenstein is an agent of those opposed to Trump or is another part of the Jewish control apparatus in the US. He is the one who appointed Mueller as the Special Prosecutor. Mueller is definitely a minion of the "Deep State". ..."
"... It seems obvious to me that Trump had real estate dealings with the Russian Mafia. This will never be investigated. These would mostly be about money. So this would be the Jewish Russian Mafia contingent. ..."
I assume the Awan brothers and their scandalous spying on the US congress through all
those democrats has been bipartisanly removed from public eye. If Trump has the cards to
play to keep his team in majority NOW is the time to play them.
This is the biggest scandal since Hillary and her crappy email server.
The USA is a dopes circus.
it is obvious that Trump is not in charge. Or he is as stupid as the Dems would
like to think he is. It would be obvious to most politicians that Sessions was a terrible
choice as attorney General. Just like Agnew was deposed as VP before Nixon was deposed as
President, Rosenstein would have to go before Sessions would be replaced. It would take quite
a while to get the new AG confirmed. Rosenstein would then be acting AG.
It does seem to me that Rosenstein is an agent of those opposed to Trump or is another
part of the Jewish control apparatus in the US. He is the one who appointed Mueller as the
Special Prosecutor. Mueller is definitely a minion of the "Deep State".
It seems obvious to me that Trump had real estate dealings with the Russian Mafia.
This will never be investigated. These would mostly be about money. So this would be the
Jewish Russian Mafia contingent.
There is Israeli collusion in meddling with American election outcomes. Somehow this will
never be investigated.
"... Trump's worldview is dominated by a zero-sum view of international relations in which the U.S. is constantly being ripped off by everyone. ..."
"... Trump is a militarist by instinct and as a matter of policy, and his progressive critics repudiate that as well. ..."
"... Trump's critique of past U.S. foreign policy boils down to complaining that other countries don't pay us for protection and that the U.S. doesn't plunder resources from the countries it invades. This is not, to put it mildly, what progressives consider to be wrong with U.S. foreign policy. ..."
"... The key failing in Brands' column is that he buys into the falsehood that Trump is in favor of "global retreat," and so he worries that both parties will soon be led by candidates advocating for that. For one thing, there has been no "retreat" under Trump, and everything he has done since taking office has been to mire the U.S. more deeply in the multiple wars he inherited. ..."
"... Literally never heard a Democratic Socialist advocate for anything other than what you summarized – threat de-escalation, reduce US military footprint abroad, don't use the threat of military force as a "diplomatic tool", stop the drone war, end the war in Afghanistan, etc. ..."
"... Of course right now Dem Socialists are just as marginalized within the Democratic party as you are within the Trumpian Neocon hellscape of the current Republican leadership. Maybe one day the Senate will have more Rand Pauls and Chris Murphys but right now we've just got a bunch of Grahams and Schumers perfectly happy to let Trump continue down this dark path. ..."
According to Brands, "the ideas at the heart of Trump's critique of U.S. foreign policy are also the ideas at the heart of the
progressive critique," but that's also simply not true. Trump's worldview is dominated by a zero-sum view of international relations
in which the U.S. is constantly being ripped off by everyone.
The progressive critics he cites specifically reject that assumption and emphasize the importance of international institutions.
Trump is a militarist by instinct and as a matter of policy, and his progressive critics repudiate that as well.
Trump's critique of past U.S. foreign policy boils down to complaining that other countries don't pay us for protection and
that the U.S. doesn't plunder resources from the countries it invades. This is not, to put it mildly, what progressives consider
to be wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
The key failing in Brands' column is that he buys into the falsehood that Trump is in favor of "global retreat," and so he
worries that both parties will soon be led by candidates advocating for that. For one thing, there has been no "retreat" under Trump,
and everything he has done since taking office has been to mire the U.S. more deeply in the multiple wars he inherited.
For another, progressives aren't calling for a "retreat" from international engagement, either. They are opposed to certain aggressive
and destructive policies, but they don't eschew engagement and cooperation with other states.
On the contrary, they are advocating
for more of that while rejecting the militarism that Trump embraces. Indeed, Bessner anticipates Brands' silly criticism and explicitly
says, "None of this means the United States should retreat from the world."
Anthony M says: September 26, 2018 at 5:30 pm
Literally never heard a Democratic Socialist advocate for anything other than what you summarized – threat
de-escalation, reduce US military footprint abroad, don't use the threat of military force as a "diplomatic tool", stop the
drone war, end the war in Afghanistan, etc.
Of course right now Dem Socialists are just as marginalized within the Democratic party as you are within the Trumpian
Neocon hellscape of the current Republican leadership. Maybe one day the Senate will have more Rand Pauls and Chris Murphys
but right now we've just got a bunch of Grahams and Schumers perfectly happy to let Trump continue down this dark path.
"It is past time for Donald Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to pull the plug on
American engagement in Syria and terminate the seemingly endless cycle of wars in the Middle
East."
Orange Clown's a liar whose presidential campaign was a calculated bait and switch fraud
from the beginning. Our presidential poseur obviously had no intention of following through
on most of his pre-election intimations and campaign promises.
Netanyahu might have considered it all a win-win either way, with the Russian plane
masking and enabling the Israeli attack without consequence for Israel or, perversely,
producing an incident inviting retaliation from Moscow, which would likely lead to a
shooting war with the United States after it inevitably steps in to support Israel's
government.
There we go! Glad someone gets it.
I had to read Saker's article suggesting that just maybe it could have been an
actual accident on Israel's part through my fingers as I could not manage to lift my face
from my palm the entire time.
It is past time for Donald Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to pull the plug on
American engagement in Syria and terminate the seemingly endless cycle of wars in the
Middle East.
I'd love to see this happen, but let's be real. If we pulled out of Israel's terror wars,
Mossad would stage a false flag to bring us right back in less than 12 months later. There's
only one way to stop fighting wars for Israel and that's to end Israel. We've got to strike
at the roots, not the branches.
If
Russia shot down Israeli aircraft or bombed the airbase from which they took off, or even
obliterated Israel, America would do nothing but bitch and complain. The American military
does not want a war with Russia, because they know they cannot win a conventional war with
Russia. I would go so far as to say that even if Russia sank American warships including an
aircraft carrier America would not go to war.
America does not go to war with countries that have nuclear weapons and the means to
deliver them to the continental United States. That is why she would bend over backwards to
prevent a war with countries like Russia, China or North Korea, and the reason these
countries need not fear America. The prevention of nuclear war is the underlying premise of
American foreign policy. It has been since the nuclear age began. America would only use its
nuclear weapons if the American mainland is hit with nuclear weapons.
America would accept the loss of hundreds or even thousands of its servicemen rather than
have the continental USA turned into a wasteland. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment
of US unwillingness to fight a nuclear power, but .I also can't forget that the US ruling
elites are pathological. Psychotic with hubris, greed & egoism. The "exceptional", the
"indispensable" nation .& worse, the wagging dog to the Israeli tail.
Trump
is owned by israel, I wish I was wrong, but there is no way around it. I mean, I expect him
any day to convert to judaism.
No way around it. Trump's infamous campaign slogan of MAGA
quickly mutated into MIGA which is the originally intended version anyways. Obedience to
Israel has become a norm in presidential election campaigns. Even the disenfranchised
minority caucuses, including and especially the Black one is firmly in Israel's pockets now.
The Black leadership role has now been essentially reduced to making the odd noise after the
shooting of an unarmed Black by a White cop.
Trump is presently at the U.N. repeating all the American foreign policy propaganda. The hubris he's delivering is off the
charts. Disgusting doesn't begin to cover how deceptive and slimy his zionist-authored rhetoric is. He's a sad, pathetic
mouthpiece for his masters in Israel.
A university professor in Sweden is under investigation after he said that there are
fundamental differences between men and women which are "biologically founded"
Published
If Trump is a Deep State puppet, then why Deep stat fight it with such intensity. Why "Steele dossier", w3hy Mueller, why "Mistressgate"
But it is true that Trump essentially conduct typical Republican President policy, like Obama betraying his electorate.
Notable quotes:
"... So the Deep State which is far more than entrenched bureaucrats as the naive define it (it includes the ruling elite in finance, MIC, oil, MSM, retired intelligence/military/state/congress, etc), brought in a controlled Trojan horse pretending to be a populist who was all about the working class and anti establishment, anti war and anti globalist while those he served were opposites. Look at what he has done and who he has surrounded himself with. Lol ..."
"... offshore money coming home due to tax breaks and of course the plunge protection team removing the risk of a major drop until after the mid term elections. We are already seeing the beginning of the next housing market collapse. ..."
Stormy Daniels supposedly said she was surprised to hear Trump was running for President
because he had said to her he didnt want to be be President. After all, why would he? Rich
guy with maybe 5 years left to live. Who needs it?
So why did he run. He had no choice. Look at the ease in which government can bring dawn
anyone with tax and money laundering charges and look at his partners and a number of his
dodgy financial dealings not to mention the ongoing audit firing his campaign. His buddy
Felix Sater cut a deal and so didn't Trump. Run and serve and keep your wealth and stay out of
jail, and make a few billion with insider deals while you are at it.
So the Deep State which is far more than entrenched bureaucrats as the naive define it (it
includes the ruling elite in finance, MIC, oil, MSM, retired
intelligence/military/state/congress, etc), brought in a controlled Trojan horse pretending
to be a populist who was all about the working class and anti establishment, anti war and
anti globalist while those he served were opposites. Look at what he has done and who he has
surrounded himself with. Lol
So what is the endgame for this Russiagate and this phony Deep State vs Trump nonsense?
Why Trump?
Not sure I know for sure. Polarizing and dividing the US with perhaps a civil war when
Trump gets impeached and resigns, or at least imposition of permanent martial law. Get
support for massive censorship which all authoritarian regimes need. And of course as the US
goes down this path its puppet states in EU, UK and elsewhere will follow. I guess we will
have to wait and see.
In the meantime, Trump will feed the beast (tax cuts for rich, tarrifs for middle class,
higher Military spending, cuts to Medicare/Medicaid/social security, higher insurance
premiums/HC costs, phony economic figures to mask deteriorating economic conditions for the
median (remember when Trump said the same of Hillary using the same bogus figures)
Fewer people are working in the US under Trump as more people are disappeared from the
work force. GDP growth per MH is due to higher extraction of wealth from middle class by the
rentier class, and stock market growth is due to central bank purchases, offshore money
coming home due to tax breaks and of course the plunge protection team removing the risk of a
major drop until after the mid term elections. We are already seeing the beginning of the
next housing market collapse.
"... If the so-called "Resistance" to Trump was ever actually interested in opposing this administration in any meaningful way, this would be the top trending news story in America for days, like how "bombshell" revelations pertaining to the made-up Russiagate narrative trend for days. Spoiler alert: it isn't, and it won't be. ..."
"... The US Senate has just passed Trump's mammoth military spending increase by a landslide 92–8 vote . The eight senators who voted "nay"? Seven Republicans, and Independent Bernie Sanders. Every single Democrat supported the most bloated war budget since the height of the Iraq war . Rather than doing everything they can to weaken the potential damage that can be done by a president they've been assuring us is a dangerous hybrid of equal parts Benedict Arnold and Adolf Hitler, they've been actively increasing his power as Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. ..."
"... They're on the same team, wearing different uniforms. ..."
"... US politics is pretty much the same; two mainstream parties owned by the same political class, engaged in a staged bidding war for votes to give the illusion of competition. ..."
"... In reality, the US political system is like the unplugged video game remote that kids give their baby brother so he stops whining that he wants a turn to play. No matter who they vote for they get an Orwellian warmongering government which exists solely to advance the agendas of a plutocratic class which has no loyalties to any nation; the only difference is sometimes that government is pretending to care about women and minorities and sometimes it's pretending to care about white men. In reality, all the jewelers work for the same plutocrat, and that video game remote won't impact the outcome of the game no matter how many buttons you push. ..."
"... The only way to effect real change is to stop playing along with the rigged system and start waking people up to the lies. As long as Americans believe that the mass media are telling them the truth about their country and their partisan votes are going somewhere useful, the populace whose numbers should give it immense influence is nullified and sedated into a passive ride toward war, ecocide and oppression. ..."
"... Reprinted with author's permission from Medium.com . ..."
"... Support Ms. Johnstone's work on Patreon or Paypal ..."
A new article from the Wall Street
Journal reports that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
lied to congress about the measures Saudi Arabia is taking to minimize the civilian
casualties in its catastrophic war on Yemen, and that he did so in order to secure two billion
dollars for war profiteers.
This is about as depraved as anything you could possibly imagine. US-made bombs have
been conclusively tied to civilian deaths in a war which has caused the single worst
humanitarian crisis on earth, a crisis which sees
scores of Yemeni children dying every single day and has
placed five million children at risk of death by starvation in a nation where families are
now eating
leaves to survive . CIA veteran Bruce Riedel
once said that "if the United States of America and the United Kingdom tonight told King
Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow, because the Royal Saudi Airforce cannot
operate without American and British support." Nobody other than war plutocrats benefits from
the US assisting Saudi Arabia in its monstrous crimes against humanity, and yet Pompeo chose to
override his own expert advisors on the matter for fear of hurting the income of those very war
plutocrats.
If the so-called "Resistance" to Trump was ever actually interested in opposing this
administration in any meaningful way, this would be the top trending news story in America for
days, like how "bombshell" revelations pertaining to the made-up Russiagate narrative trend for
days. Spoiler alert: it isn't, and it won't be.
It would be so very, very easy for Democratic party leaders and Democrat-aligned media to
hurt this administration at the highest level and cause irreparable political damage based on
this story. All they'd have to do is give it the same blanket coverage they've given the
stories about Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort which
end up leading nowhere remotely near impeachment or proof of collusion with the Russian
government. The footage of the starving children is right there, ready to be aired to pluck at
the heart strings of rank-and-file Americans day after day until Republicans have lost all hope
of victory in the midterms and in 2020; all they'd have to do is use it. But they don't. And
they won't.
The US Senate has just passed Trump's mammoth military spending increase by
a landslide 92–8 vote . The eight senators who voted "nay"? Seven Republicans, and
Independent Bernie Sanders. Every single Democrat supported the most bloated war budget
since the
height of the Iraq war . Rather than doing everything they can to weaken the potential
damage that can be done by a president they've been assuring us is a dangerous hybrid of equal
parts Benedict Arnold and Adolf Hitler, they've been actively increasing his power as
Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen.
The reason for this is very simple: President Trump's ostensible political opposition does
not oppose President Trump. They're on the same team, wearing different uniforms. This is the
reason they attack him on Russian collusion accusations which the brighter bulbs among them
know full well will never be proven and have no basis in reality. They don't stand up to Trump
because, as Julian Assange once said , they are
Trump.
In John Steinbeck's The Pearl, there are jewelry buyers set up around a fishing community
which are all owned by the same plutocrat, but they all pretend to be in competition with one
another. When the story's protagonist discovers an enormous and valuable pearl and goes to sell
it, they all gather round and individually bid far less than it is worth in order to trick him
into giving it away for almost nothing. US politics is pretty much the same; two mainstream
parties owned by the same political class, engaged in a staged bidding war for votes to give
the illusion of competition.
In reality, the US political system is like the unplugged video game remote that kids give
their baby brother so he stops whining that he wants a turn to play. No matter who they vote
for they get an Orwellian warmongering government which exists solely to advance the agendas of
a plutocratic class which has no loyalties to any nation; the only difference is sometimes that
government is pretending to care about women and minorities and sometimes it's pretending to
care about white men. In reality, all the jewelers work for the same plutocrat, and that video
game remote won't impact the outcome of the game no matter how many buttons you push.
The only way to effect real change is to stop playing along with the rigged system and start
waking people up to the lies. As long as Americans believe that the mass media are telling them
the truth about their country and their partisan votes are going somewhere useful, the populace
whose numbers should give it immense influence is nullified and sedated into a passive ride
toward war, ecocide and oppression.
If enough of us keep throwing sand in the gears of the lie
factory, we can wake
the masses up from the oligarchic lullaby they're being sung. And then maybe we'll be big
enough to have a shot at grabbing one of the real video game controllers.
Reprinted with author's permission from
Medium.com .
Actually, it was b h o who opened the Fed borrowing window to the Wall Street
investment crowd who were able to borrow at 1/4 % interest so that they could play the
markets with impunity.
b h o played both sides against the middle telling folks to vote for him and 'hope and
change' bullshit and to shake his fist at Wall Street -- all the while enabling them to make
more money than they thought existed.
Like so many of his predecessors in the White House, Trump has surrounded himself with
Zionists in almost every important position imaginable and they're more than willing to screw us
into the ground -- just because they can.
That's true only in sense of using "bait and switch" with the electorate. Trump partially
destroyed previous model created by Clinton-Bush-Obama and introduced "national naoliabralism" --
neoliberalism without globalization. He also openly rely on brute force.
Notable quotes:
"... Partisan battles focusing on personalities get people to invest emotionally in "the system". A system which is NOT democratic and doesn't work for the people. ..."
"... Draining the Swamp cannot be taken seriously. Trump installed in the Trump Cabinet, Swamp Creatures through and through, most notably Goldman Sachs dudes we've seen in Dubya Bush, Obama and now Drumpf. ..."
"... Trump is his own man and just like Obama he has minions spread garbage that he is being undermined and the bad stuff is not his fault. Trump showed his true colors when he stocked up on neocons and warmongers and gave the military $100 billion when they were asking for 50. ..."
"... His meetings with Kim and Putin were just theater as Trump gleefully puts more sanctions on Russia and has done nothing but threaten pain for those cheating on sanctions to help North Korea. ..."
Partisan battles focusing on personalities get people to invest emotionally in "the
system". A system which is NOT democratic and doesn't work for the people.
Agree completely. There's nothing political about these "politics", fake-populist
politicians are just another kind of celebrity (thus Trump fits in well), cable news is a
(highly toxic) genre of entertainment, and partisan Repbots and Dembots aren't political people
at all, but competing celebrity or sports fan clubs. None of them cares about any aspect of
reality, which is why the system can commit such horrendous real-world crimes; for the
political class these crimes aren't real. They're all sociopaths, which is the only way it's
possible to be a partisan of either flavor of the Corporate One-Party.
And that's how unelected operatives and the NYT can openly express such contempt for
democracy and the open society without fear of provoking any significant reaction from the
people: For the kinds of people who read the NYT, such things are meaningless abstractions. Any
of them would happily endorse Hitler-level crimes (which the US is very close to anyway) on the
part of their "team".
If Trump is a fourth of fifth grader, looks like we have a third grade coup d etat. As you
pointed out, these people are not the brightest lights but perhaps the most easily
bribed/threatened? I suspect a hidden hand behind the insurrection rather than a stunning
example of bureaucratic unity. Ditto for the rash of anti Trump 'literature'. Woodward crawled
in bed with the ruling elite decades ago.
Trump is probably not the first president to be 'Trumped' by his bureaucratic minions?n
Obama didn't keep a single campaign promise.during his eight disappointing years. Perhaps not
all of his betrayal of the electorate is because he was just another lying weasel.
Jr @ 19 said:"Trump and Obama are only heros if you believe that USA is democracy and the
democratically elected 'populist' truely represents his/her base. That is a fantasy."
"Partisan battles focusing on personalities get people to invest emotionally in "the
system". A system which is NOT democratic and doesn't work for the people."
Jr, you nailed it.
Forget ideology, follow the $, you'll understand more..
Draining the Swamp cannot be taken seriously. Trump installed in the Trump Cabinet, Swamp
Creatures through and through, most notably Goldman Sachs dudes we've seen in Dubya Bush, Obama
and now Drumpf.
Also, we see nothing of any draining at this point and but simply an assault on the commons
(and a gift giving for the rich) as would be expected from any boilerplate Republican
asshole.
Now foreign policy may be his strong suit but, there has been nothing much to impress here
either. Just follow Israel.
Trump is his own man and just like Obama he has minions spread garbage that he is being
undermined and the bad stuff is not his fault. Trump showed his true colors when he stocked up
on neocons and warmongers and gave the military $100 billion when they were asking for
50.
His meetings with Kim and Putin were just theater as Trump gleefully puts more sanctions
on Russia and has done nothing but threaten pain for those cheating on sanctions to help North
Korea.
His body language and emphatic delivery, and sometimes glee, when announcing these new
sanctions, and his telling Russia to get out of Syria and give back Crimea, belie the fiction
that Trump is being forced to do so.
If that was the case he could have had his minions announce it. One can see the insincerity
when he claims the US is getting out of Syria and his confident matter of fact delivery when
threatening to bomb Syria over what he knows is a fake gas attack. It was no accident that
Trumps 2 hurried missile strikes on Syria happened as Israel was butchering Palestinians thus
diverting attention from the dastardly deeds. Trump has been best buddies with Israel and Saudi
Arabia and stays mum on Israel bombing Syria and Saudi Arabia killing over tens of thousands of
innocent people in Yemen and creating the humanitarian crisis there.
There's the bonus of weapons sales to those "humanitarian" regimes. Up until recently
organizations have ignored the inhumane UN sanctions that forbade sending medicines into North
Korea and nothing was said. Suddenly last month ALL of them stopped. Somebody gave them the
word stop or else. Trump says nothing of the efforts to scuttle better relations between the US
and North Korea or the fake news that the Norks are still making missiles and nukes offered
with no proof.
While the US is sabotaging the efforts North and South Korea are making great progress which
makes me expect South Korea is going to be hit sanctions for "unfair trade." South Korea could
defuse the whole thing and announce they are taking possession of the Norths nukes but they
know the US would punish them badly as the the US does not want any nukes in the Korea's and
needs a boogie man north to justify it's out sized military presence in the area.
Once Trump sat in the big boy chair in the oval office the focus of Making America Great
Again switched to continue the drive for US world domination by destroying the economies of the
competition and create world wide chaos with sanctions, tariffs, and local currency destruction
making the world come crawling to the US to save them. Thus turning the cleanest dirty shirt in
the laundry to snow white.
b: "Why is no public figure expressing concern about this subversion of democracy? How
come no one protests?"
Trump is the Republican Obama.
'Trumptards' blame others for the failings of their hero just like 'Obamabots' did. This
is not an accident. Apologists are an important part of the faux populist leadership
model.
Trump and Obama are only heros if you believe that USA is democracy and the
democratically elected 'populist' truely represents his/her base. That is a fantasy.
Partisan battles focusing on personalities get people to invest emotionally in "the
system". A system which is NOT democratic and doesn't work for the people.
I have made these points many times over the last year. Sadly, people nod their heads
and continue to engage on terms set by the establishment.
You don't have to get into any deep conspiratorial rabbit hole to consider the
possibility that all this drama and conflict is staged from top to bottom. Commentators
on all sides routinely crack jokes about how the mainstream media pretends to attack
Trump but secretly loves him because he brings them amazing ratings. Anyone with their
eyes even part way open already knows that America's two mainstream parties feign intense
hatred for one another while working together to pace their respective bases into
accepting more and more neoliberal exploitation at home and more and more neoconservative
bloodshed abroad. They spit and snarl and shake their fists at each other, then
cuddle up and share candy when it's time for a public gathering. Why should this
administration be any different?
...
The more I study US politics, the less useful I find it to think of it in political
terms. The two-headed one party system exists to give Americans the illusion of choice
while advancing the agendas of the plutocratic class which owns and operates both
parties , yes, but even more importantly it's a mechanism of narrative control. If
you can separate the masses into two groups based on extremely broad ideological
characteristics, you can then funnel streamlined "us vs them" narratives into each of the
two stables, with the white hats and black hats reversed in each case. Now you've got
Republicans cheering for the president and Democrats cheering for the CIA, for the FBI,
and now for a platoon of covert John McCains alleged to be operating on the inside of
Trump's own administration. Everyone's cheering for one aspect of the US power
establishment or another .
The whole nonsense about Russian interference, which was obviously nonsense from Day One
and has never, for a moment looked like anything but nonsense, seems to indicate that we
have entered a post political era in which policy discussions and debates are forgotten and
smears and false accusations take their place.
Currently in the US the Kavanaugh nomination which ought to be about the meaning of the law
and the consequences of having a Supreme Court which will make Judge Taney look like
Solomon at his most impressive. Instead it is about an alleged teenage incident in which
the nominee is said to have caressed a girls breasts at a drunken party when all involved
were at High School. Before that we had a Senatorial election in Alabama in which the
Republican candidate was charged with having shown a sexual interest in teenage girls-
whether this was a 'first' in Alabama is unknown but it is believed to have happened
elsewhere, in the unenlightened past.
Then we have the matter of whether Jeremy Corbyn is such a danger to Jews that they will
all leave the country if he is ever elected to power. This long campaign, completely devoid
of evidence, like 'Russiagate' has the potential of going on forever, simply because there
being no evidence it cannot be refuted.
Which is also the case with the Skripal affair, because of which even as we speak, massive
trade and financial sanctions are being imposed against Russia and its enormous, innocent
and plundered population.
In none of these cases has any real evidence, of the minimal quality that might justify the
hanging of a dog, ever advanced. But that doesn't matter, the important thing is to choose
a side and if it is Hillary Clinton's to believe or to pretend to believe and to convince
others to believe (as Marcy at Emptywheel has been doing for close to three years now) in
the incredible.
Who says that we no longer live in a Christian society in which faith is everything?
"... A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics." ..."
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while
serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue
to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill
any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
Linh Dinh, as published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016
The election's only apparent benefit to the people of this country has been the exposure
of corruption and sedition within the Establishment. But that, too, may be part of the show,
another way to channel dissidence into another meaningless election. Even here at The Unz
Review, some columnists and many commenters tell the readership that this November is
critical to protecting President Trump and his agenda, blah, blah, blah.
@Diversity Heretic I applied through the GreatAgain website and never received the
courtesy of a reply despite having conributed to the Trump campaign before Iowa, nine years
working on Capitol Hill (for Republicans) and seven years in a regulatory commission (working
for a Republicaén commissioner), a JD and an MBA. So I'm not surprised to hear that
applications through the website were not even considered and jobs filled with Washington
insiders. (The first inclination that I had that something was seriously wrong in the
staffing area was when Calista Gingrich was named as ambassador to the Vatican.) Trump has
the classic problem of the outsider: no institutional mechanism to staff an administration.
(Jesse Ventura had a similar problem when he was elected as governor of Minnesota as an
independent). He compounds that problem by making poor choices that involve his personal
judgment and consideration (e.g., John Bolton and Nikki Haley?!).
Increasingly, I see no electoral way to influence or remove the Deep State. I think we're
in for a rough ride and hope that things don't get nuclear with Russia.
Increasingly, I see no electoral way to influence or remove the Deep State. I think
we're in for a rough ride and hope that things don't get nuclear with Russia.
It is astonishing that after all the fraudsters and con masters masquerading as politicians
there are huge numbers who claim to believe in the system where humans have voluntarily given
away their freedoms.
Hope and Change, replaced by MAGA.
Do you honestly believe that your Founding Fathers would rebel against King's Tyranny if it
were possible to change it by peaceful means?
@anonymous None of this should have come as a surprise.
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war
abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his
election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
Linh Dinh, as published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016
The election's only apparent benefit to the people of this country has been the exposure
of corruption and sedition within the Establishment. But that, too, may be part of the show,
another way to channel dissidence into another meaningless election. Even here at The Unz
Review, some columnists and many commenters tell the readership that this November is
critical to protecting President Trump and his agenda, blah, blah, blah. Voting in our
national elections has become another example of evil paraded before us as a moral duty. It
ironically results in disenfranchisement by perpetually legitimizing a federal government as
much at war with its own citizens as with every other people who oppose the new American
Proposition -- the antithesis of a fulfilling human culture wherever it's found, and which
today amounts to claiming that freedom and democracy equate to owning stuff and vicariously
participating in unbridled avarice, sexual depravity, war, torture, and mass murder. Either
party and all that horror is a constant.
So, instead of girding middle America mentally, spiritually, and physically to fight to
the death for what's worth living for, and while there's still some chance to save ourselves
and our nation, we get the Republican leadership, Fox News, and Conservatism Inc blowing
smoke in our eyes, temporizing on behalf of the Deep State by pretending these veiled and
overt calls for white genocide are just in bad taste or that curtesy and cowardice are an
effective policy toward a wildly homicidal left.
This is a very weak article, but it raises several important questions such as the role or neoliberal MSM in color revolution
against Trump and which social group constituted the voting block that brought Trump to victory. The author answers incorrectly on
both those questions.
I think overall Tremblay analysis of Trump (and by extension of national neoliberalism he promotes) is incorrect. Probably the largest group
of voters which voted for Trump were voters who were against neoliberal globalization and who now feel real distrust and aversion to
the ruling neoliberal elite.
Trump is probably right to view neoliberal journalists as enemies: they are tools of intelligence agencies which as agents of
Wall Street promote globalization
At the same time Trump turned to be Obama II: he instantly betrayed his voters after the election. His
election slogan "make Ameraca great again" bacem that same joke as Obama "Change we can believe in". And he proved to be as
jingoistic as Obama (A Nobel Pease Price laureate who was militarists dream come true)
In discussion of groups who votes for Trump the author forgot to mention part of professional which skeptically view neoliberal
globalization and its destrction of jobs (for example programmer jobs in the USA) as well as blue color
workers decimated by offshoring of major industries.
Notable quotes:
"... "Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people [journalists], the fake news Just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. " ..."
"... Donald Trump (1946- ), American President, (in remarks made during a campaign rally with Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Kansas City, July 24, 2018) ..."
"... "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." ..."
"... This is a White House where everybody lies ..."
"... I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power ..."
"... The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them into his own tools of propaganda. ..."
"... ad hominem' ..."
"... Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical showman diva , behaving in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians. ..."
"... He prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and emotions (as if he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel of communication. ..."
"... checks and balance ..."
"... The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political consequences, both for the current administration and for future ones. ..."
"Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people [journalists], the fake news Just remember, what
you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. "
Donald Trump (1946- ), American President, (in remarks made during a campaign rally with Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Kansas
City, July 24, 2018)
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-1950), English novelist, essayist, and social critic, (in '1984', Ch. 7, 1949)
" This is a White House where everybody lies ." Omarosa Manigault Newman (1974- ), former White House aide to President
Donald Trump, (on Sunday August 12, 2018, while releasing tapes recording conversations with Donald Trump.)
" I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power ." Benjamin Franklin (
1706 –
1790 ), American inventor and US Founding Father, (in 'Words of
the Founding Fathers', 2012).
***
In this day and age, with instant information, how does a politician succeed in double-talking, in bragging, in scapegoating and
in shamefully distorting the truth, most of the time, without being unmasked as a charlatan and discredited? Why? That is the mysterious
and enigmatic question that one may ask about U. S. President Donald Trump, as a politician.
The most obvious answer is the fact that Trump's one-issue and cult-like followers do not care what he does or says and whether
or not he has declared a
war on truth and reality , provided he delivers the political and financial benefits they demand of him, based on their ideological
or pecuniary interests. These groups of voters live in their own reality and only their personal interests count.
1- Four groups of one-issue voters behind Trump
There are four groups of one-issue voters to
whom President Donald Trump has delivered the goodies:
Christian religious right voters, whose main political issue is to fill the U. S. Supreme Court with ultra conservative
judges. On that score, Donald Trump has been true to them by naming one such judge and in nominating a second one.
Super rich Zionists and the Pro-Israel Lobby, whose obsession is the state of Israel. Again, on that score, President
Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to them and he has unilaterally moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in addition
to attacking the Palestinians and tearing up the 'Iran Deal'.
The one-percent Income earners and some corporate owners, whose main demand to Trump was substantial tax cuts and
deregulation. Once again, President Trump has fulfilled this group's wishes with huge tax cuts, mainly financed with future public
debt increases, which are going to be paid for by all taxpayers.
The NRA and the Pro-Gun Lobby, whose main obsession is to have the right to arm themselves to the teeth, including
with military assault weapons, with as few strings attached as possible. Here again President Donald Trump has sided with them
and against students who are increasingly in the line of fire in American schools.
With the strong support of these four monolithic lobbies -- his electoral base -- politician Donald Trump can count on the indefectible
support of between 35 percent and 40 percent of the American electorate. It is ironic that some of Trump's other policies, like reducing
health care coverage and the raising of import taxes, will hurt the poor and the middle class, even though some of Trump's victims
can be considered members of the above lobbies.
Moreover, some of Trump's supporters regularly rely on
hypocrisy and on excuses to exonerate their favorite
but flawed politician of choice. If any other politician from a different party were to say and do half of what Donald Trump does
and says, they would be asking for his impeachment.
There are three other reasons why Trump's rants, his
record-breaking lies , his untruths, his deceptions and his dictatorial-style attempts to
control information , in the eyes of his fanatical supporters, at least, are like water on the back of a duck. ( -- For the record,
according to the
Washington Post , as of early August, President Trump has made some 4,229 false claims, which amount to 7.6 a day, since his
inauguration.)
The first reason can be found in Trump's view that politics and even government business are first and foremost another form
of
entertainment , i.e. a sort of TV reality show, which must be scripted and acted upon. Trump thinks that is
OK to lie
and to ask his assistants to
lie
. In this new immoral world, the Trump phenomenon could be seen a sign of
post-democracy .
The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and
manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them into his own tools of propaganda.
When Trump attacks the media, he is in fact coaxing them to give him free coverage to spread his
insults , his fake accusations, his provocations, his constant
threats , his denials or reversals, his convenient
changes of subject or his political spins. Indeed, with his outrageous statements, his gratuitous accusations and his attacks
' ad hominem' , and by constantly bullying and insulting adversaries at home and foreign heads of states abroad, and
by issuing threats in repetition, right and left, Trump has forced the media to talk and journalists to write about him constantly,
on a daily basis, 24/7.
That suits him perfectly well because he likes to be the center of attention. That is how he can change the political rhetoric
when any negative issue gets too close to him. In the coming weeks and months, as the Special prosecutor
Robert Mueller's report is likely to be released, Donald Trump is not above resorting to some sort of "
Wag the Dog " political trickery, to change the topic and to possibly push the damaging report off the headlines.
In such a circumstance, it is not impossible that launching an illegal war of choice, say against Iran (a
pet
project of Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton), could then look very convenient to a crafty politician like Donald
Trump and to his warmonger advisors. Therefore, observers should be on the lookout to spot any development of the sort in the
coming weeks.
That one man and his entourage could whimsically consider launching a
war of aggression is a throwback to ancient times
and is a sure indication of the level of depravity to which current politics has fallen. This should be a justified and clear
case for impeachment .
Finally, some far-right media outlets, such as
Fox News and
Sinclair Broadcasting , have taken it upon themselves to systematically present Trump's lies and misrepresentations as some
'alternative' truths and facts.
Indeed, ever since 1987, when the Reagan administration abolished the
Fairness Doctrine for licensing public radio
and TV waves, and since a Republican dominated Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for the
mass conglomeration of local broadcasting
in the United States, extreme conservative news outlets, such as the Fox and Sinclair networks, have sprung up. They are well
financed, and they have essentially become powerful
political propaganda machines , erasing the line between facts and fiction, and regularly presenting fictitious alternative
facts as the truth.
In so doing, they have pushed public debates in the United States away from facts, reason and logic, at least for those listeners
and viewers for whom such outlets are the only source of information. It is not surprising that such far-right media have also
made Donald Trump the champion of their cause, maliciously branding anything inconvenient as 'fake' news, as Trump has done in
his own anti-media campaign and his sustained assault on the free press.
2- Show Politics and public affairs as a form of entertainment
Donald Trump does not seem to take politics and public affairs very seriously, at least when his own personal interests are involved.
Therefore, when things go bad, he never volunteers to take personal responsibility, contrary to what a true leader would do, and
he conveniently
shifts the blame on somebody else. This is a sign of immaturity or cowardice. Paraphrasing President Harry Truman, "the buck
never stops at his desk."
Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical
showman diva , behaving
in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than
a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians.
3- Trump VS the media and the journalists
Donald Trump is the first U.S. president who rarely holds scheduled press conferences. Why would he, since he considers journalists
to be his "enemies"! It doesn't seem to matter to him that freedom of the press is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution by the First
Amendment. He prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and emotions (as if
he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel of communication.
The ABC News network
has calculated that, as of last July, Trump has tweeted more than 3,500 times, slightly more than seven tweets a day. How could he
have time left to do anything productive! Coincidently, Donald Trump's number of tweets is not far away from the number of outright
lies and misleading claims that he has told and made since his inauguration.
The Washington Post has counted no less than 3,251 lies or misleading claims of his, through the end of May of this year, --
an average of 6.5 such misstatements per day of his presidency. Fun fact: Trump seems to accelerate the pace of his lies. Last year,
he told 5.5 lies per day, on average. Is it possible to have a more cynical view of politics!
The media in general, (and
not only American ones), then serve more or less voluntarily as so many resonance boxes for his daily 'tweets', most of which
are often devoid of any thought and logic.
Such a practice has the consequence of demeaning the public discourse in the pursuit of the common good and the general welfare
of the people to the level of a frivolous private enterprise, where expertise, research and competence can easily be replaced by
improvisation, whimsical arbitrariness and charlatanry. In such a climate, only the short run counts, at the expense of planning
for the long run.
Conclusion
All this leads to this conclusion: Trump's approach is not the way to run an efficient government. Notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution
and what it says about the need to have " checks and balance s" among different government branches, President Donald Trump
has de facto pushed aside the U.S. Congress and the civil servants in important government Departments, even his own
Cabinet
, whose formal meetings under Trump have been little more than photo-up happenings, to grab the central political stage for himself.
If such a development does not represent an ominous threat to American democracy, what does?
The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political consequences, both for the current
administration and for future ones.
'Hypocrisy', though a tendentious sort of word, is the key, I think. In electoral politics
40% on either side are going to vote the way they vote regardless of how persuasive the
electoral campaign of candidate A, or the unfittedness of candidate B; so the game is:
persuading those 20% who used to be called 'floating voters'.
And the way you do that is by blank-screening yourself and letting the electors project
onto you, by presenting yourself as Conservative even though you're Labour (as Blair did), or
conversely presenting yourself as radical even though you're a straight-down-the-line
tax-cutting defense-budget-ballooning Republican.
Trump's campaign persuaded many that he would in no way 'conserve', but would rather tear
down the establishment.
Brexit was masterminded by a group of elite hard right wingers who somehow managed to
persuade a large tranche of the electorate that it Remain were all metropolitan elites and
that they were the true voice of the people.
The real challenge is not finding a definition of conservatism that can bracket a genius
like Burke with a moron like Sarah Palin; it's finding a definition that enables a
billionaire playboy to define himself as a man of the people; that allows him to promise eg
free healthcare for all and kicking Wall Street out of politics on the campaign trail without
losing his Conservative bona fides.
Mostly reflexively, not always consciously, The Powers That Be seek to retain and
enlarge their sphere of influence. Nothing, not even the venerated vote, is allowed to
alter that "balance."
That's why the 'Deep State' or whatever one wants to call that malignant organism that has
taken over DC–and much of the West–needs professional toadies like Woody, who
will dutifully report whatever smelly lump of fertilizer the PTB are trying to sell. Bet
Woody's the best paid stenographer in the world, doing a good job of confusing Americans,
keeping them anxious of the unknown, so the PTB can keep herding us towards the NWO
slaughterhouse.
The washed-out journalist then blurted out this in disbelief: "Trump said the 'World
Trade Organization is the worst organization in the world.'"
Another bit of propaganda, as those central banks–like the toxic FED–keep the
world under their thumb by controlling the money flow, printing currencies out of thin air,
then getting paid outrageous sums of interest each year–around 500 Billion in the
US–for their counterfeiting scheme.
That kind of power can and does crash stock markets and wreck economies, as the FED has
been doing since it was spawned in 1913. They and their buddies then buy homes, businesses,
MSM outlets and costly toys for pennies on the dollar, while us 'deplorables' wonder if
they're going to be able to keep making their mortgage payments if they lose their job.
To repeat, this was promised on the campaign trail and in Trump position papers. We now
know who stole those promises from the American people.
"We know?" Some do, but many don't, as they rally around Tubby the Grifter to protect
their savior from those nasty Democrats.
"Drain the Swamp" and "MAGA" were skillfully crafted psyops, most likely from the inner
sanctum of the most pernicious lobbying outfit on Capitol Hill, AIPAC. RT, a news outlet, got
mugged by a sold-out Congress and forced to register as a lobbying outfit, but not AIPAC. No
Sir, why that would be anti-Semitic and only foul, Jew hating Neo-Nazis would even think
about making AIPAC follow the law.
What AIPAC has and continues to do needs to be kept hidden from the American public, lest
they engage in the dangerous behavior of actually wondering if Israel is an ally or a
well-disguised enemy.
Trump was bought and paid for a LONG time ago, and 2016 was when the bill came due. He was
'Chosen,' not be We the People, but AIPAC and Israel as the best POTUS to do their bidding,
since Hillary carried way too much baggage.
Trump has been the best POTUS for Israel since the traitorous liar LBJ.
All Trump has to do to get rid of the Op Ed guy is to fire all those who want to go to war
withRussia. That would leave him with no staff.
But Trump is not fooling me. You do not make a campaign promise to cooperate with Russia,
and then hire all these people who want to go to war with Russia.
It tells me that Trump was lying during his campaign.
He told us Iraq was the wrong decision, and now he has bombed Syria twice and is ready to
bomb them again; he told us that he wants out of the mid-east; he told us he wanted to
cooperate with Russia.
So I voted for him, but he was lying. I already found out he is a brazen liar. He took
those Clinton women to his debate to humiliate Hillary and Bill Clinton, when all the while
he was doing the same thing with women. That is what I call a brazen liar.
He is a pawn of the State of Israel, nothing more and nothing less. They probably told him
to hire Bolton and all the other war-mongers around him. He's not surrounded by the enemy. He
is surrounded by his friends.
The biggest mystery of this whole presidency is why the guy who went to battle against the
GOP foreign policy establishment turned over those policy positions to them, instead of
putting people into office who actually looked favorably on him and shared areas of agreement
with him (paleocons, realists, non-interventionists, etc.). The only foreign policy promise
he's kept is the one that happened to align with the neocon preferences: backing out of the
Iran deal.
I guess it must come down to Jared Kushner and his close ties with Israel and the Gulf
Arabs, but still find it bizarre that Trump never reached out to Pat Buchanan, Rand Paul,
Steve Bannon, etc., in selecting foreign policy officials.
@Admiral
Assbar The biggest mystery of this whole presidency is why the guy who went to battle
against the GOP foreign policy establishment turned over those policy positions to them,
instead of putting people into office who actually looked favorably on him and shared areas
of agreement with him (paleocons, realists, non-interventionists, etc.). The only foreign
policy promise he's kept is the one that happened to align with the neocon preferences:
backing out of the Iran deal.
I guess it must come down to Jared Kushner and his close ties with Israel and the Gulf
Arabs, but still find it bizarre that Trump never reached out to Pat Buchanan, Rand Paul,
Steve Bannon, etc., in selecting foreign policy officials. "The biggest mystery of this whole
presidency is why the guy who went to battle against the GOP foreign policy establishment
turned over those policy positions to them "
It seems fairly clear that, whenever a new President is sworn in, he immediately receives
a "pep talk" in which he is informed what he will and will not say and do, and what will
happen to him, his family, their pets, and everyone they have ever spoken to if he disobeys.
Probably this "offer that he can't refuse" is concluded by words along the lines of: " and if
you want to get what the Kennedys got, just try stepping out of line".
J. Edgar Hoover used to do something of the kind when he was head of the FBI, but that was
relatively benign – just a threat of blackmail accompanied by kindly advice never to
fight the FBI.
@AlbionRevisited I was
referring to the campaign, of course we're in a different situation now. It's amazing the way
in which they were able to co-oped his administration. AlbionRevisted wrote: "It's amazing
the way in which they (Neoconservatives) were able to co-oped his (Trump)
administration."
Greetings AlbionRevisited!
Many were disappointed with Trump and that might even include a percentage of the voting bloc
known as "Deplorables."
Nonetheless, after honing into candidate Donald Trump's awful 2017 homage to AIPAC, it
becomes dramatically less amazing how Neoconservatives crept into the White House.
Recall how rabid leftist Neoconservatives wanted Hillary, and how suddenly the naysayer,
Extra-Octane Neoconservative, John Bolton, stuck with the phoney populist, "America
First-After-Israeli-Interests," talkin' Donald J. Trump?
The essence of American presidential campaigns/elections boil down to powerful international
Jewry needs & timing, and disemboweled citizens must take-it or leave-it. Uh, support the
immoral wars and pay the bill!
Thanks, AlbionRevisted.
Herald says: September 12, 2018 at 10:53 am GMT • 100 Words
@Tom Welsh
I am not convinced that Trump started out with good intentions but quickly bowed to threats. Trump was never a principled
person and it seems much more likely that he was always a stooge for the Israel lobby and the MIC.
I used to think that things would have been worse under Hillary but these days I'm even beginning to have doubts on that
score.
jacques sheete, September 12, 2018 at 11:19 am GMT • 100 Words
@Admiral Assbar
The biggest mystery of this whole presidency is why the guy who went to battle against the GOP foreign policy establishment
turned over those policy positions to them
No mystery at all. It was all campaign rhetoric like the Shrub's promises of "a humble foreign policy" and "compassionate
conservatism," O-bomba-'s "hope and change"and Woody 'n Frankies promises to keep the US out of war.
KenH, September 12, 2018 at 12:20 pm GMT
Trump is now becoming more "patriotic" by the day with his willingness to get us into another no-win, forever war in Syria
for Israel. I say we air drop John Brennan into Idlib so he can fight and die like a real man.
"... I agree that this is possibly the case, but what about Rosenstein's Monster? ..."
"... IOW, why is Mueller being allowed to run amok? Does Trump have a plan to contain the damage, however fabricated, other than (rightly) criticizing Jeff Sessions for recusing himself? ..."
"... I agree with Bob. It's all of them. Dump them all, including Trump, his creepy family and cronies, and the garbage GOP who passed the biggest deficit budget in US history. ..."
"... Trump already totally betrayed voters like me, who wanted our troops out of the Middle East and our resources and focus back on America, Americans, and American infrastructure. ..."
"... Liam, the "suckers who voted for Trump" happen to be the electorate. A similar group of suckers voted for Obama, Bush and Clinton. This trio who preceded Trump were not golden gods of leadership as I recall. The last two doubled and redoubled the total national debt, and squandered trillions in pointless wars. ..."
"But a savvy Donald Trump saw the conspiracy right away. And he realized immediately that in
order to carry his campaign agenda to Make America Great Again he must of necessity first
preserve his presidency from the conspiracy of the Deep State, the mainstream media, and the
establishment elites of both political parties"
I agree that this is possibly the case, but what about Rosenstein's Monster?
IOW, why is Mueller being allowed to run amok? Does Trump have a plan to contain the
damage, however fabricated, other than (rightly) criticizing Jeff Sessions for recusing
himself?
I agree with Bob. It's all of them. Dump them all, including Trump, his creepy family and
cronies, and the garbage GOP who passed the biggest deficit budget in US history.
Trump already totally betrayed voters like me, who wanted our troops out of the Middle
East and our resources and focus back on America, Americans, and American infrastructure.
The smell coming from Washington, Wall Street, the MSM, and Silicon Valley is
overpowering.
Liam, the "suckers who voted for Trump" happen to be the electorate. A similar group of
suckers voted for Obama, Bush and Clinton. This trio who preceded Trump were not golden gods
of leadership as I recall. The last two doubled and redoubled the total national debt, and
squandered trillions in pointless wars.
Trump had the sense to encourage development and transport of natural resources. He
slashed mindless regulations and reduced taxes. The economy is growing after the long Obama
depression. His was the worst economy in my lifetime. In the Carter years of stagflation
companies would not hire young grads. In the Obama years that was also the case but many
middle aged workers were let go as well. We might now be seeing real wage increases across
the board. If Trump is a clown, as so many describe, perhaps we should recruit future
presidents from clown schools.
The negligence with which he selected his cabinet is pretty telling
Notable quotes:
"... I've been saying for over a year that Trump is the Republican Obama. He is a faux populist front man. ..."
"... Just like "Obamabots", "Trumptard" apologists blame hardliners for the failings of their hero. It's all a game. It's part of the faux populist political model. Faux populists SERVE THE ESTABLISHMENT so they destined to betray their 'base'. ..."
"... Party and Personality are the masks used to keep us divided and maintain the illusion of democracy. ..."
At some point even the most ardent Trump acolyte will have to admit this [Syria]
is now Trump's policy. It is not something done by the neocons, the deep state, the
anonymous resister or the ghost of John McCain without Trump's acquiescence. [And]
He is not ... clueless, oblivious ...
Pat is half right.
I've been saying for over a year that Trump is the Republican Obama. He is a faux
populist front man.
Just like "Obamabots", "Trumptard" apologists blame hardliners for the failings of
their hero. It's all a game. It's part of the faux populist political model. Faux populists
SERVE THE ESTABLISHMENT so they destined to betray their 'base'.
There are two other fallacies that keep cropping up to confuse things:
1) Triumph of Democracy. While some may recognize that USA is no longer a democracy, others continue to insist that
"Trump won" and are incline to suspect Russian interference (even while acknowledging the
flaws in that theory). Few care to delve much deeper (i.e. engage brain cells).
2) President's Constitutional power. You see this mistake made as Pat Lang declares that Trump 'owns' the Syrian mess now. The
President has great power in the US Constitutional system and (sadly) that is why it is so
important to the establishment that it be controlled. Trump was SELECTED, not ELECTED.
Party and Personality are the masks used to keep us divided and maintain the illusion of
democracy.
"... "Just get rid of Trump and you'll have a nice, neat, ultra-right-wing Republican as President." No need for that Diana – for what you describe is what we presently enjoy in the form of the current President, most especially as it relates to his efforts to bring "peace" to regions such as the Mideast. ..."
"... It is becoming something of a dark joke listening to Trump's apologists endlessly repeat the meme that those opposed to him represent "war" – while he is our hope for "peace" (despite his never demonstrating one iota of that sort of behavior). ..."
"... With every further, obvious display of the President's shocking belligerence towards countries that do not threaten the United States and in areas and matters where it possesses no valid security interests, the Diana Johnstones of this world spin the prayer wheel faster, repeat their mantras more urgently and come up with some silly excuses for why what we observe from Trump is not really what we observe. "It's not Trump – it's every one around him. You must believe us!" ..."
"... There's no need for 4- and 5-D chess masters to interpret Trump – what we sees is what we gots. If there's a "conspiracy" anywhere, it's among those unwilling to remark the obvious ..."
We gave Trump the presidency, what he does with it is his responsibility. He was warned
repeatedly about the neocons et al, but has chosen to staff up with the same swamp creatures
he ostensibly meant to expurgate.
We are left to wonder how much of this "reality" TV?
"Just get rid of Trump and you'll have a nice, neat, ultra-right-wing Republican as
President." No need for that Diana – for what you describe is what we presently enjoy in the
form of the current President, most especially as it relates to his efforts to bring "peace"
to regions such as the Mideast.
It is becoming something of a dark joke listening to Trump's apologists endlessly repeat
the meme that those opposed to him represent "war" – while he is our hope for "peace"
(despite his never demonstrating one iota of that sort of behavior).
With every further, obvious display of the President's shocking belligerence towards
countries that do not threaten the United States and in areas and matters where it possesses
no valid security interests, the Diana Johnstones of this world spin the prayer wheel faster,
repeat their mantras more urgently and come up with some silly excuses for why what we
observe from Trump is not really what we observe. "It's not Trump – it's every one
around him. You must believe us!"
There's no need for 4- and 5-D chess masters to interpret Trump – what we sees is
what we gots. If there's a "conspiracy" anywhere, it's among those unwilling to remark the
obvious.
Another sign that the political divisions are 'pretend' is that the 'Dems', the ostensive
losers re. Trump, have not behaved like a political party who loses. These generally disband,
retire, fold, or make efforts at reform, re-orientation etc. Renewal may be tough but they
often try. (As did the Repubs after Obama's election, though the effort was incredibly weak.)
Nothing like that is going on, because the fight is not political. It is based on tribal
desperate angst at the 'surprise' election of an outsider who holds cards in his hands nobody
can speak about.
To 'True Believers', if [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] seems equivocal, or even confused, about
the nature of (Democratic) socialism or expresses anodyne, conformist, safe positions, they
will justify this as sensible reticence. AOC has to appeal to the elusive "center", and
charm skeptical voters by not appearing unduly extreme or, God forbid, radical.
As with Obama and others similarly situated, they pretend that once the ostensible Third
Way newcomer is accepted and established, they can and will gradually disclose their true
political selves, and act accordingly. Regardless of how often this scenario fails to work
as hoped, they remain convinced that it's both unavoidable and prudent.
Ocasio-Cortez is merely a willing actress poster-babe (she will earn a LOT). The role is
not different from prancing about in lovely swish skirts on some MSM-TV series. She was
selected for her looks / background (not the best re. the background, but there aren't many
candidates, which is very hopeful imho), her naiveté, ignorance, and submissive
stance. Some 'fake' younger figures -only women and male gays, girls are more acceptable to
the general public- have to be pictured as up-n-coming Dems, in a kind of sketchy and
unconvincing parade of 'diversity' and so on.
Posted by b on August 30, 2018 at 01:07 PM | Permalink
JR is spot on; The Orange Buffoon and the "witchhunt" against him (just like the "Qanon"
Hollywood-style drama-thriller) are smoke and mirrors to keep the peasants occupied with
bullcrap, while the
cleptofascists are done robbing you blind...
The simple truth is that all "western" societies and democracies are hijacked by
(((Transformer Borgs))) and, contrary to what (((snake-oil salesmen))) in $5 000 suits tell
you, there is no way out of this mess through a ballot.
"... Western media monopolies, appendages of the billionaire ruling class, select for narratives which glorify criminal foreign policies. Hence, these monopolies are cheerleaders for uninterrupted wars of aggression. ..."
"... Ruling class policymakers hide their criminality beneath banners of freedom, democracy, and human rights. [1] These lies provide cover for what amounts to a Western- orchestrated and sustained overseas holocaust and the thirdworldization of domestic populations. ..."
"... The lies and misplaced adulation also serve to legitimize the West's proxies, which include al Qaeda [2] in Syria, and neo-Nazis [3] in Kiev. ..."
"... The adulation, then, is part of the apparatus of deception. It brands those who should be facing trials at the Hague as heroes, as it erases the truth, which is a vital component for Peace and International Justice. ..."
Western media monopolies, appendages of the billionaire ruling class, select for
narratives which glorify criminal foreign policies. Hence, these monopolies are
cheerleaders for uninterrupted wars of aggression.
Ruling class policymakers hide their criminality beneath banners of freedom,
democracy, and human rights. [1] These lies provide cover for what amounts to a
Western- orchestrated and sustained overseas holocaust and the thirdworldization
of domestic populations.
The lies are further reinforced when those who advance these toxic policies are
celebrated as heroes. This misplaced adulation negates the struggle for Peace
and the rule of International Law. The lies and misplaced adulation also serve
to legitimize the West's proxies, which include al Qaeda [2] in Syria, and
neo-Nazis [3] in Kiev.
What's great thing about the pic accompanying this piece
in the Washington Post sanctifying McCain as a human
rights advocate is that the guy to his left is an actual
Nazi. He's Oleh Tyahnybok, a Ukrainian Nazi. Too good!
The adulation, then, is part of the apparatus of deception. It brands those who
should be facing trials at the Hague as heroes, as it erases the truth, which is
a vital component for Peace and International Justice.
"... The "soft" neoliberal bloc in the US, individuals and organizations alike, have become so pathologically consumed with the conviction that Donald Trump is the Great Orange Satan who must be removed from office forthwith, and by any means necessary, that they hysterically embrace any public figure who opposes (opposed) Trump. ..."
"... Now, the Democratic Party establishment and fellow-traveling organizations have realigned– flipped their lids– to a point in which they reflexively support everything that purports to oppose and undermine Trump. They even regard the nefarious state-security apparatchiks in the FBI and CIA, and the "brutal fixers" in the Department of "Justice" who have been assiduously working to construct a frame-up job, or crucifix upon which to hang Trump, as heroes. ..."
"... As with Obama and others similarly situated, they pretend that once the ostensible Third Way newcomer is accepted and established, they can and will gradually disclose their true political selves, and act accordingly. Regardless of how often this scenario fails to work as hoped, they remain convinced that it's both unavoidable and prudent. ..."
The "soft" neoliberal bloc in the US, individuals and organizations alike, have
become so pathologically consumed with the conviction that Donald Trump is the Great Orange
Satan who must be removed from office forthwith, and by any means necessary, that they
hysterically embrace any public figure who opposes (opposed) Trump.
I frequent prog-lib sites in the US, where I live, principally to read and post in the
comments threads. The prog-lib moderates are not really of the "left", a term which has
become a semantic placeholder for anyone or anything that doesn't explicitly identify as
right-wing or politically conservative.
But before they were traumatized by, in their view, the abominable Trump usurping the
imperial Oval Office Throne, they used to be reliably antiwar, anti-imperialist,
anti-military, anti-police state, etc.
Now, the Democratic Party establishment and fellow-traveling organizations have
realigned– flipped their lids– to a point in which they reflexively support
everything that purports to oppose and undermine Trump. They even regard the nefarious
state-security apparatchiks in the FBI and CIA, and the "brutal fixers" in the Department of
"Justice" who have been assiduously working to construct a frame-up job, or crucifix upon
which to hang Trump, as heroes.
@ karlof1 | 15
The self-proclaimed Social-Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's words praising the late
War Criminal John McCain prove she's not what she declares. _____________________________
So many bees have accumulated in my bonnet that by now I should be drenched in a
perpetually-flowing coating of honey. One of the bees is what I call Progressive-Liberal
Electoral Politics 101.
This refers to the tendency of "lesser-evil" moderates to rebut and reject doubts and
criticisms of politicians with supposedly knowing, savvy "inside politics" rationales that
explain away the criticisms.
It really hit home during Obama's 2008 campaign, when an intelligent but moderate
"progressive" relative, "Joe", became infatuated with Bonnie Prince Barry; he vainly hoped
I'd become enthralled too. Just a couple of examples:
I was outraged (but not surprised) when Obama reneged on his repeated "vows" to oppose
draconian FISA legislation that gave carte blanche to government/corporate surveillance, and
immunized corporations who'd illegally and illicitly assisted in conducting such
surveillance. Joe responded to my outrage by superciliously explaining, "Oh, he had to
do that! He can't just say and do things to keep progressives happy-- he has to reassure a
fearful and desperate public that he's 'tough' on national security issues!"
Joe also whipped out this "Oh, he had to do that!" justification at the drop of a
hat every time Obama did or didn't do something that seemed to conflict with his progressive
"Third Way" image; when nominee and president-elect Obama packed his transition team and
cabinet with reactionary Clintonista retreads and Goldman-Sachs banksters, Joe praised this
as a shrewd "pragmatic" gambit to "consolidate his support within the party". There was
always some pat prog-lib catechism blurb explaining why "he had to do that", case closed.
I've seen exactly this logic applied to AOC. To True Believers, if she seems equivocal, or
even confused, about the nature of (Democratic) socialism-- or, as here, expresses anodyne,
conformist, safe positions, they will justify this as sensible reticence. AOC has to
appeal to the elusive "center", and charm skeptical voters by not appearing unduly extreme
or, God forbid, radical.
As with Obama and others similarly situated, they pretend that once the ostensible Third
Way newcomer is accepted and established, they can and will gradually disclose their true
political selves, and act accordingly. Regardless of how often this scenario fails to work as
hoped, they remain convinced that it's both unavoidable and prudent.
Trump definitely is hell-bent of destroying the dollar system. He
created four powerful allied: China, Russia, Iran and Turkey that will work
to weaken dollar hegemony and create alternative systems. It is unclear why.
Smartphones present a viable alternative to credit cards and it is just
a matter of time that credit cards became obsolete.
Despite his promises of restraint, America has become a cat's paw in a Middle East intrigue
likely to lead to war.
Notable quotes:
"... Editor's note: This is the editorial from the July/August 2018 print edition of ..."
"... So now Israel and those Gulf states want to put Iran back in its box, and they want America to supply the muscle. Pompeo demonstrated Trump is prepared to do so with demands that no sovereign nation could accept. As our Dan Larison wrote, they would require Iran "to surrender its foreign policy decision-making to Washington and U.S. clients and to abandon all of the governments and groups that have relied on its support." ..."
"... The New Yorker piece leaves no doubt that Trump and his team welcome the new alliance aborning among Israel, the Saudis, and the UAE, pulled together by their fear and animosity directed at Iran ..."
"... So America under Trump has become a cat's paw in a Middle East intrigue that is very likely to lead to war. This is not how he campaigned in 2016, and it is not what the American people want. If Trump doesn't veer away from this path to war and the result is further Mideast blood and woe, he likely will go down in flames. That would be fitting and proper. But the rest of the world wouldn't deserve the result. ..."
Editor's note: This is the editorial from the July/August 2018 print edition of The
American Conservative.
We must confess that we never read Donald Trump's famous book, The Art of the Deal .
And we don't know if there is a chapter called "Bait and Switch." But that's precisely what
Trump perpetrated upon the American people when he crafted a campaign decrying America's
destructive and costly military Middle East involvement -- and then, as president, set in
motion events seemingly calculated to get us into another war there.
The president also promised to pull the United States out of the Iranian nuclear deal.
However foolish, it was at least an honest representation of what his intention. And ultimately
he did it. Thus it was possible to conclude that Trump was sincere on both his resolve to avoid
further Mideast wars and his intention to exit the Iranian deal. Voters could draw their own
conclusions about whether the two campaign promises were mutually exclusive or not.
But voters had no reason to conclude during the campaign that he would deal with Iran so
aggressively as to force a dangerous showdown. Two significant developments suggest Trump's
intentions far surpass his campaign rhetoric. One is the recent ultimatum delivered to Iran by
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He listed 12 demands on what Iran must do to avoid
"unprecedented" economic pressure designed to crush Iran's ability to play a major role in its
home region. The other is a remarkable New Yorker story by Adam Entous detailing how the
Trump administration has joined hands with Iran's regional enemies -- Israel, Saudi Arabia, and
the United Arab Emirates -- to strip Iran of its regional influence.
As Pompeo put it, "Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East." Of
course Iran has not dominated the region in any serious way for centuries, but it does have
significant influence there by dint of its size, population, economy, and military. And its
geopolitical influence expanded exponentially when America destroyed Iraq's Sunni regime and
removed a major impediment to Iran's freedom of action.
So now Israel and those Gulf states want to put Iran back in its box, and they want America
to supply the muscle. Pompeo demonstrated Trump is prepared to do so with demands that no
sovereign nation could accept. As our Dan Larison wrote, they would require Iran "to surrender
its foreign policy decision-making to Washington and U.S. clients and to abandon all of the
governments and groups that have relied on its support."
Indeed, they are reminiscent of Austria's 1914 demands of Serbia after the assassination of
Arch-Duke Ferdinand and the aggressive ultimatum delivered to Japan by U.S. Secretary of State
Cordell Hull on November 26, 1941. Both were were designed to induce war.
The New Yorker piece leaves no doubt that Trump and his team welcome the new alliance
aborning among Israel, the Saudis, and the UAE, pulled together by their fear and animosity
directed at Iran. The headline: "How the President, Israel, and the Gulf states plan to fight
Iran -- and leave the Palestinians and the Obama years behind." One Trump friend said
Netanyahu, mastermind of the anti-Iranian alliance, encountered at the White House a "blank
canvas" for his bold brush strokes. This person added: "Israel just had their way with us."
So America under Trump has become a cat's paw in a Middle East intrigue that is very
likely to lead to war. This is not how he campaigned in 2016, and it is not what the American
people want. If Trump doesn't veer away from this path to war and the result is further Mideast
blood and woe, he likely will go down in flames. That would be fitting and proper. But the rest
of the world wouldn't deserve the result.
"... The Russians were not pleased by U.S.-NATO involvements in the former Yugoslavia, a traditional Russian ally, in 1995 and 1999, and the expansion of NATO in the latter year (to include Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary) in violation of the agreement between Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for Russia's acceptance of German reunification NATO would not spread "one inch" towards Russia. They protested meekly. But Russia was not an adversary then. ..."
"... Nor was it an adversary when, in 2001, under its new president Vladimir Putin, it offered NATO a route through Russia to provision forces in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. The real change only came in 2004, when NATO suddenly expanded to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. This brought alliances forces right to the Russian border. ..."
"... We are your adversary. ..."
"... Russia is an adversary. ..."
"... Russia is an adversary. ..."
"... He worked with our adversary to undermine our election. ..."
The question is finally being asked, by the
president himself: what's wrong with collusion? Or at least his lawyer asks the question, while
Trumps tweets:
Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn't matter because there was No Collusion.
The problem, of course, is that of collusion with an alleged adversary. Russia, we
are constantly informed, is one such adversary, indeed the main state adversary, with Putin is
its head.
Adversary is a very strong term. The Hebrew word for adversary is Satan. Satan is
the ultimate symbol of evil in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Satan tempted Eve at the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil, causing her to eat the fruit, and so evil entered the
world.
Just like some want you to think that evil entered the (good, pristine) U.S. electoral
process due to this Russian adversary in 2016.
(Sometimes listening to TV pundits vilifying Putin I find Luther's famous hymn floating
through my head:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.
Luther's referring to Satan, of course. But the current mythology around Putin -- as someone
who still , like Lenin and Stalin before him, and the tsars of old, wishes us
harm; is an unbridled dictator with a powerful great nuclear arsenal; is the wealthiest man on
earth; and hates democracy -- resembles the mythology around the Adversary in the Bible.)
But let us problematize this vilification. When did Russia become a U.S. adversary?
Some might say 1917 when in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution Moscow became the center of
the global communist movement. But surely that period ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact and the USSR.
Throughout the 1990s the U.S. cultivated Boris Yeltsin's Russia as a friend and even aided
the drunken buffoon in winning the 1996 election. Bill Clinton and Yeltsin signed the Start II
treaty. Harvard professors advised Moscow on economic reform.
The Russians were not pleased by U.S.-NATO involvements in the former Yugoslavia, a
traditional Russian ally, in 1995 and 1999, and the expansion of NATO in the latter year (to
include Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary) in violation of the agreement between Ronald Reagan
and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for Russia's acceptance of
German reunification NATO would not spread "one inch" towards Russia. They protested meekly.
But Russia was not an adversary then.
Nor was it an adversary when, in 2001, under its new president Vladimir Putin, it offered
NATO a route through Russia to provision forces in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. The real
change only came in 2004, when NATO suddenly expanded to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. This brought alliances forces right to the Russian
border.
It was a clear statement by the U.S. to a friendly country: We are your adversary.
But, of course, the Pentagon and State Department always pooh-poohed Russian concerns, denying
that NATO targeted any particular country.
Four years later (2008) NATO announced intentions to draw Ukraine and Georgia into the
alliance. Meanwhile the U.S. recognized Kosovo as an independent state. Kosovo, the historical
heart of Serbian civilization, had been wrenched from Serbia in 1999 under the pretext of a
"humanitarian" intervention that included the first bombing (by NATO) of a European capital
city since 1945. The province had been converted into a vast NATO base.
Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, emboldened by the prospect of NATO membership and
western backing, attacked the capital of the separatist republic of South Ossetia, provoking
(as the Russians explain it) a proper punitive response: the Russo-Georgian War of August 7-16
. After this Moscow recognized South Ossetia and a second breakaway republic, Abkhazia, in a
tit-for-tat response to Washington's recognition of Kosovo.
Now Russia was labelled an aggressive power -- by the power that had carved up Yugoslavia,
and invaded and occupied Iraq on the basis of lies and killed half a million in the process.
Plans to include Georgia in NATO had to be put on hold, in large part due to European allies'
opposition (why provoke Russia?) but the U.S. intensified efforts to draw in Ukraine. That
meant toppling the anti-NATO elected president Viktor Yanukovych.
The U.S. State Department devoted enormous resources to the Maidan coup in Kiev on February
23, 2014. Its agents helped topple the government, ostensibly for its failure to negotiate an
agreement for Ukrainian associate membership in the EU, but really to bring pro-NATO forces to
power and expel the Russian Fleet from the Crimean Peninsula where it has been based since
1783. Moscow's limited support for the Donbass ethnic-Russian separatists and re-annexation of
Crimea were, of course, depicted by the U.S. as more aggression, more mischievous opposition to
"U.S. global interests."
But from Moscow's point of view these moves have surely been defensive. The main problem is
(obviously) NATO and its dangerous, unnecessary and provocative expansion. Throughout his
presidential campaign Trump questioned the continued "relevance" of NATO. Characteristically he
focused on budget issues and allies' failure to meet the goal figure of 2% if GDP for military
expenses (misleadingly depicting investment shortfalls as a betrayal and rip-off of the
victimized U.S.). But he did -- to the alarm of many, and probably to Moscow's delight --
express little enthusiasm for the alliance's historical purpose.
The most rational proposition Trump voiced before his election that the U.S. should "get
along" with Russia. That is, get along with the so-called adversary. Trump as we all know had
been in Russia on business, hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013, and maintains
interest in building a Trump Tower in the city. He has met and befriended Russian oligarchs. He
quite possibly sees Russia as just another country, like Germany or France.
If "the French" had had dirt on Hillary, would it have been okay to "collude" with them to
influence the election result? France is, of course, a NATO ally. Would that make it different?
Now that the president and his layers are openly questioning whether "collusion", per
se, is even illegal, the specific nature of the colluder becomes more relevant.
Russia is an adversary.
Russia is an adversary.
Putin in Helsinki acknowledged to a reporter that he had hoped Trump could win, because he
had expressed hope for better relations. He might have added that he dreaded the prospect of a
Hillary victory because of her warmongering and characterization of him as a Hitler. Naturally
the Russian media favored Trump over Clinton at a certain point when he emerged as a credible
candidate. So when Trump on July 27, 2016 called on Russia to release Hillary's missing emails
("if you've got 'em") the Russians probably felt invited to make contact through channels. And
when informed that they had dirt, Don Jr. wrote: "If that's what you say, I love it." (Who can
blame him?)
Let's say there was some collusion after the June 6 Trump Tower meeting. Trump has suddenly
acknowledged that the meeting with the Russians was indeed to "seek political dirt." He adds
that this is "totally legal," and this may be true. Some are now saying that Don Jr. may have
violated a federal statute (52 USC 30121, 36 USC 5210) forbidding any foreign person to "make a
contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise
to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local
election.' and for anyone to knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any
contribution or donation prohibited by [this law]." But the language is vague. If a Canadian
speechwriter works gratis for a U.S. political candidate, in order to help him or her win, is
this not "a thing of value" intended to affect an election?
If Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner had met with Canadian agents in Trump Tower I
doubt there would have been any controversy. The fact is, Trump won the election and many of
those stunned by that wish to undermine him using revived Cold War-type Russophobia. They
insist: He worked with our adversary to undermine our election. And now they hope
they've got him on this charge.
*****
Five years ago a young man named Edward Snowden (now living in forced exile in Russia)
revealed to the world the extent of the U.S.'s global surveillance. He showed us how the NSA
wiretaps EU meetings, popes' conversations, Angela Merkel's cell phone and maintains metadata
on virtually all U.S. residents. He showed us what the contemporary advanced state can do in
this respect. We should suppose that Moscow has, if not similar capacity, at least enough
expertise to hack into the DNC emails or John Podesta's g-mail account. Is that surprising?
What none of the TV anchors is allowed to say needs to be said again: The U.S. interferes in
foreign elections all the time, including Russian ones. It should surprise no one if Russian
intelligence responds in kind. The point is not the provenance of the leaked emails but their
content.
Those horrified by the leaked material complain that their release was designed to
"undermine faith in our democratic system." Really? Don't the workings of the system itself
undermine one's faith in it, once they are exposed? Was it adversarial of the leaker to inform
us that the DNC had no intention of allowing Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic nomination,
and thus that the process was rigged? Was it unfriendly to reveal that Podesta was hoping the
media would hype Trump, as an easy target for his candidate?
The question that will no doubt be debated in the coming days is whether seeking dirt on a
political opponent from any foreigner is indeed illegal, or whether there are specific legal
ramifications of meeting with someone from an "adversary" country. But it seems to me that
Russia has not been defined as such officially. So we may have a discussion less about legality
than the politics of Russophobia.
I am happy to see Trump besieged, rattled, possibly facing impeachment. But to bring him
down on the basis of "Russian collusion," on the assumption that Russia is an adversary, would
only advantage the warmongers who want no-fly zones over Syria and military support for the
Kiev regime against the Donbas separatists. Vice President Pence I believe favors both.
Trump has said that he cannot host Putin in Washington this year, or until the Russian Hoax
witch hunt is over. But Putin has invited him to Moscow. One senses he wants some agreements
with Trump before he is ousted by his gathering adversaries, including the press, courts,
Democrats, select Republicans, turncoat aides and he himself sometimes in his unguarded
tweets.
Gary Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University, and author of
numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: [email protected] . Read other articles by Gary .
Lavrov suggests that Skripals were intentionally poisoned by BZ which temporary disable a person (for approx 4 days) and
Novichok was injected in samples to implicate Russia. He impliedly suggests that this was a false flag operation.
Notable quotes:
"... First, US sanctions against Russia, then the Skripals mystery, and last the Attack at Syria....What the masters of the world trying do??? ..."
"... I'm an American. I'm disgusted with the mafia cartel bankrupt corporation that masquerades as the government. I don't like or trust any government but after listening to this guy, he certainly comes across as way more trustworthy than anyone puppet we have in the Trump regime. ..."
I'm an American. I'm disgusted with the mafia cartel bankrupt corporation that masquerades
as the government. I don't like or trust any government but after listening to this guy, he
certainly comes across as way more trustworthy than anyone puppet we have in the Trump
regime.#IDONOTCONSENT
Sometimes he continues talking without look at paper..... bcs he say true.... and USA,
BRITAIN and France cant do that bcs they are lying and scared if they will say something
wrong.
In both cases CIA and neocons run the show. But there is new powerful factor: emergence of CIA democrats like Brennan and the conversion
of intelligence agencies into political tool, the Cerberus that safeguard the castle of neoliberalism in the USA. The USA people (bottom
90%) be damned.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's guilt in " Russiagate " is now assumed by much of the American left, and reaches greater levels of fervor with every passing day. ..."
"... Coulter was confident and she wasn't alone. Virtually the entire mainstream American right -- from pundits like Coulter and Sean Hannity to President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress -- was deeply invested in the notion that Hussein possessed WMDs and that the Iraq war was justified based on that unshakeable premise. This belief was so ingrained for so long that many excitedly rushed to pretend that chemical weapons discovered in Iraq as reported by the New York Times ..."
"... Now, "Russian collusion" could be becoming the new WMDs. ..."
declared liberal celebrity
activist Rosie O'Donnell at a protest in front of the White House last week. "We see it, he can't lie about it," she added. "He is
going down and so will all of his administration." "The charge is treason," O'Donnell declared. Protesters held held large letters
that spelled it out: " T-R-E-A-S-O-N ."
O'Donnell is by no means alone in her sentiments. Trump's guilt in "
Russiagate " is now
assumed by much of the American left, and reaches greater levels of fervor with every passing day.
This kind of partisan religiosity is not new.
In the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, conservative pundit Ann Coulter accused war opponents of "
treason " and
insisted of Saddam Hussein, "We know he had weapons of mass destruction."
Coulter was confident and she wasn't alone. Virtually the entire mainstream American right -- from pundits like Coulter and
Sean Hannity to President George W. Bush and
the Republican Congress -- was deeply invested in the notion that Hussein possessed WMDs and that the Iraq war was justified based
on that unshakeable premise. This belief was so ingrained for so long that many
excitedly rushed to
pretend that
chemical weapons discovered in Iraq as
reported by the New York Times in 2014 were somehow the same thing as the "
mushroom cloud " the
Bush administration said Saddam was capable of.
Now, "Russian collusion" could be becoming the new WMDs.
The post-2016 left's most dominant narrative is arguably their deeply held belief -- with all the ferocity and piety of yesterday's
pro-war conservatives -- that Russia colluded with Trump's campaign to undermine the presidential election. Many believe that the
president and anyone who supports his diplomatic efforts like
Senator Rand Paul
are in the pocket of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It really was plausible that Iraq had WMDs in 2003 based on what our intelligence agencies knew, or purported to know. Today,
it is feasible that American democracy really has Putin's fingerprints on it based on things revealed by U.S. intelligence.
But isn't it also possible that the left is reading far too much into Russiagate?
The Nation 's Aaron Maté believes
liberals are overreaching, and that's putting it mildly:
From the outset, Russiagate proponents have exhibited a blind faith in the unverified claims of US government officials and
other sources, most of them unnamed. The reaction to special counsel Robert Mueller's recent indictment of 12 Russian military-intelligence
officers for hacking of Democratic party servers and voter databases is no exception. Mueller's indictment is certainly detailed.
Most significantly, it marks the first time anyone has been charged for offenses related to Russiagate's underlying crime.
But while it is a major step forward in the investigation, we have yet to see the basis for the allegations that Mueller has
lodged. As with any criminal case, from a petty offense to a cybercrime charge against a foreign government, a verdict cannot
be formed in the absence of this evidence.
Then the irony kicks in. Maté continues, "The record of US intelligence, replete with lies and errors, underscores the need for
caution. Mueller was a player in one of this century's most disastrous follies when, in congressional testimony, he endorsed claims
about Iraqi WMDs and warned that Saddam Hussein 'may supply' chemical and biological material to 'terrorists.'"
Noting Mueller's 2003 WMD testimony
is not an attempt to undermine him or his investigation, something Maté also makes clear. But it does serve as an important reminder
that "intelligence" can be flat-out wrong. It reminds us how these scenarios, which so much of Washington and the elite class fully
endorse, can be looked back on as lapses of reason years later.
Mass psychology is real. Political classes and parties are not immune.
"Suppose, however, that all of the claims about Russian meddling turn out to be true," Maté asks. "Hacking e-mails and voter databases
is certainly a crime, and seeking to influence another country's election can never be justified."
He continues, "But the procession of elite voices falling over themselves to declare that stealing e-mails and running juvenile
social-media ads amount to an 'attack,' even an 'act of war,' are escalating a panic when a sober assessment is what is most needed."
The U.S. could have certainly used less hyperbole and more sobriety in 2002 and 2003.
And there's good chance that when the history books are written about American politics circa 2018, much of Russiagate will be
dismissed as more Red Scare than
Red Dawn .
With Russia, as with WMDs, left and right have elevated slivers of legitimate security concerns to the level of existential threat
based mostly on their own partisanship. That kind of thinking has already proven to be dangerous.
We don't know what evidence of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia might yet come forth, but it's easy to see how, even
if this narrative eventually falls flat, 15 years from now some liberals will still be clinging to Russiagate not as a matter of
fact, but political identity. Russia-obsessed liberals, too, could end up on the wrong side of history.
No one can know the future. Republicans would be wise to prepare for new, potentially damaging information about Trump and Russia
that may yet emerge.
Democrats should consider that Russiagate may be just as imaginary as Republicans' Iraq fantasy.
All this may be as Hunter would have it. Yet there is the nagging doubt that Trump, who could only find major financing for his
enterprises following his last bankruptcy through Putin-controlled banks, could be free of any entangling ties or obligations.
And if those doubts prove true, what then?
From the Nation: "From the outset, Russiagate proponents have exhibited a blind faith in the unverified claims of U.S. government
officials and other sources, most of them unnamed."
This is a key point, because now Democrats and the most of the Left are ready to embrace a guy like Brennan a.k.a. Mr. Torture,
merely because they hate Trump.
I'll also admit to not knowing what's coming in the future, but as of now there's a strong circumstantial case to be made that
this reactions to Russian election meddling, which when all was said and done amounted to providing the voting public with the
truth about the DNC and its own election-fixing operation, that this reaction is only about losing the 2016 presidential election
to a guy who was only given a 1% chance of winning by almost everyone.
This is the most sensible commentary on "Russiagate" I have seen anywhere in a long time.
At present, there is some suggestive evidence in the public arena, but nothing conclusive.
What we probably need, actually, is a moratorium on commentary about this until the investigation reaches its conclusion. That
can take a long time. But until then, the endless partisanship-motivated speculation we hear daily is, frankly tiresome.
Thank you, Mr. Hunter, for your temperate perspective on this. I wish this would be the last word on the subject until the
investigation ends.
'"Russian collusion" could be becoming the new WMDs.'
I suspect I agree with the author's sentiment, but it is not easy to tell.
Who stands accused? Trump? Russia? Both?
The claim that Trump is colluding with Russia is not the same as the claim that Iraq War opponents were colluding with Saddam
Hussein.
The manufactured "Russia!" hysteria campaign orchestrated by the Obama/Clinton Democratic Party leadership, as deplorable and
dubious as it might be, has nothing in common with the "5th column" smears Sullivan et.al. were peddling in 2002-2003 and beyond.
The claim that Trump committed "treason" would be legally incorrect on the worst case. Without a formal Congressional declaration
of war, we are not at war with Russia, and Russia is not the enemy, no matter how much irresponsible mouthbreathing is broadcast
from the biparty Congress members. However corrupt and corrupted Trump may be, corruption does not qualify as treason. If corruption
were treason, Congress, in support of Israel and Saudi Arabia at the expense of the US (and certainly not in support of Russia)
would be a house of traitors.
In comparison, the claim that opponents of the Iraq war were traitors was not just idiotic, but morally inexcusable. If anybody
violated their oath, it was Bush himself, his appointees, and the ranking officers of the US military, for issuing illegal orders
and/or following them.
"Russian election meddling" is the new WMD only the extent it is used as a pretext for war against Russia. It is the new "stained
dress" in the attempt to challenge the ballot and paralyze an inconvenient President. I have no doubt that the Clintons are corrupt,
and the GOP has engaged in many a Congressional effort to "investigate". The Clinton campaign adopted this playbook, and the damage
to the Republic done by all is growing every day.
The real corruption here is the pretense that Congress is any better than Trump, that Russian oligarchs have more impact on
the eroding Republic than Israeli-American, Saudi and UAE oligarchs, and that the biggest threat to the integrity of our elections
and the franchise is Russia, and not the Roberts Court, Democrat apparatchiks like Sunstein, or Republican frauds like Kobach.
Both parties are actively conspiring and plotting to make sure our votes are meaningless and cannot harm incumbents and the war
profiteering classes, and where there used to be an opposition to illegal war and to oligarchs and plutocrats, there is now willing
participation in manufactured hysteria to extend the 2016 campaign indefinitely.
WMDs? The very concept is a scam -- there is nukes, and nothing else. Nuclear arsenals outsized to end us all, and trillion
dollar waste to expand them, are the tie that binds the US and Russia, and I suspect that Russia would be a lot more rational
about reducing those arsenals than the US. If the author wants to worry about ending up on the wrong side of history, he should
stop worrying about partisan points and focus. Politics is not a team sports, and anybody who picks a favorite is a failure as
a citizen. Nobody who wants power is suitable for it.
Ask yourself, if Saddam Hussein had had "WMD" -- say, some of those chemical and biological stocks Reagan envoy Rumsfeld helpfully
provided to Saddam Hussein -- would that have made the Iraq invasion legal, right just, necessary, successful? Or if Powell's
little phials and mobile weapons labs actually existed?
Heck, let's say Saddam managed to make actual nukes out of tubes that weren't and yellowcake that wasn't. North Korea has nukes.
Does that make invasion and aggressive war legal, right, just necessary, successful?
WMD or not was a lie wrapped within a deception inside a fraud. That's the one thing that it has in common with "Russiagate".
Every layer, every aspect of it is a lie, a distraction, and everybody -- Trump included -- is perpetuating the hysteria for their
own benefit. The stupidity of it is only barely rivaled by the mendacity.
Trump is proving to be the Republican Alger Hiss. The partisanship of 1948 quickly crystallized into pro- and anti-Hiss camps
in which the then limited evidence was trumped by ideology. It was not until the Verona tapes were released in the early 1990s
that Hiss was proven to be guilty. Had Nixon and his allies called for a special prosecutor in 1948 and the facts both open and
classified been examined intensely, Hiss would never have become the progressive Victim that he was to be for over thirty years.
Ditto with Trump. Absent Mueller's investigation, these accusations against Trump (and I believe them to have serious weight and
substance as well as potential for policy changes to prevent election fraud) would be mere ideological shrapnel to be argued over
for another thirty years. Let the investigations proceed unimpeded and a final accounting be published at the very least for the
sanity and integrity of the Republic. Don't let Trump become the Right's Alger Hiss.
In other words, let's imagine that Putin has really tried to change election results. Let's imagine that Trump really has been
bribed by Russian oligarchs.
Is that why we are at this juncture? Is that why Congress has not served the People and upheld the Constitution in decades?
Is that why citizens and voters lose trust in our institutions, and doubt election results?
Really?
We cannot even own up to our own mistakes, our own greed, our own malignancy. We have to blame it not on our "business partners"
and "allies" and their hundreds of billions of dollars of arms purchases, we will blame it on Russia.
How small we have become.
It is not just Trump, it is Congress. It is not just this administration and this Congress, it is the previous ones, and the
ones before it, and so on.
The point is not whether or not the "Russia!" hysteria and the allegations against Trump are accurate or not. The point is
that, in comparison to everything else, it would just be more of the same, and we brought it upon ourselves.
@Collin-
Isn't it extremely Orwellian to say that 'information isn't really information/should be censored or disregarded if it comes from
a subversive (Russia) source'?
Naturally, it allows for a very easy way to control and censor information.
Now, as far as pure security threats, aside from information that should've been public anyway, experts deem that the DNC information
came from on site:
Now this is also an appeal to authority, but VIPs has a better track record and I've seen them actually elaborate on their
claims, not just assert them.
"... They're kind of like a five year old child who desperately wants to keep believing in Santa Claus, even though he just found dad's Santa costume in the closet and he's holding it in his own hands. ..."
"... Sorry, but two years into this we should be way beyond this kind of – "I can't believe Santa's not real"- denying, dissembling, rationalizing nonsense. Then again, this is America. ..."
"... America is after all a country in which half the population believe in the creation myth. ..."
"... "Two years after the Iraq War began, 70 per cent of Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks, according to a Washington Post survey." The Big Lie works, and since Obama gutted Smith-Mundt, the CIA/ State Department can legally keep Americans tracking on their propaganda narratives. ..."
"... I agree with Lawrences point that this is an issue of social psychology. Rational argument over the facts is simply over taken by some kind of mass hysteria. There certainly precedent for this kind of behavior. Indeed this was described in 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' 180 years ago. In my lifetime I have witnessed two episodes of this kind of mass hysteria. The first was the red scare of the early 1950's (I not so much witnessed that as experienced it) and the second was the day care hysteria of satanic cults abusing our children that flared between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now this is a third manifestation of mass hysteria. ..."
It is quite interesting how many uninformed posters and/or trolls would love to find a way to show the "Russiagate" nonsense
is somehow plausible in spite of the evidence. They're kind of like a five year old child who desperately wants to keep believing
in Santa Claus, even though he just found dad's Santa costume in the closet and he's holding it in his own hands.
I will say that the amount of mental gymnastics required to continue not believing evidence that is right in front of one's
eyes is quite impressive – but I'd never underestimate the American people's creativity when they want to maintain their illusions/delusions.
And I'd certainly never underestimate the Russiagate troll army's persistence.
At this rate I expect to soon encounter some version of the following "observation" in the comments section for this article:
– "maybe space aliens hired by the Russians downloaded the files to a to a new fangled thig-a-ma-jig and then shape-shifted so
Craig Murray would be fooled into thinking a real-like-human insider provided him the files on a flash drive." – "oh, oh, wait,
maybe the aliens abducted Murray too, and then just made him "think" a fellow human gave him the drive in person." "yeah, yeah,
and maybe Assange just says he didn't get the files from the Russians because "he's a space alien too." "Yeah, prove to me that
it didn't happen this way – you can't – ha! there! I win!"
Sorry, but two years into this we should be way beyond this kind of – "I can't believe Santa's not real"- denying, dissembling,
rationalizing nonsense. Then again, this is America.
"Two years after the Iraq War began, 70 per cent of Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in
the 9/11 attacks, according to a Washington Post survey." The Big Lie works, and since Obama gutted Smith-Mundt, the CIA/ State
Department can legally keep Americans tracking on their propaganda narratives.
ToivoS , August 14, 2018 at 4:26 pm
I agree with Lawrences point that this is an issue of social psychology. Rational argument over the facts is simply over
taken by some kind of mass hysteria. There certainly precedent for this kind of behavior. Indeed this was described in 'Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' 180 years ago. In my lifetime I have witnessed two episodes of this kind of mass
hysteria. The first was the red scare of the early 1950's (I not so much witnessed that as experienced it) and the second was
the day care hysteria of satanic cults abusing our children that flared between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now this is a
third manifestation of mass hysteria.
It all began with Hillary's shocking defeat. Many millions of her supporters knew that she was so good that she had to win.
But then she lost. Those millions of Democrats could not accept that in fact their assessment of her talents were totally wrong
and that she lost because she has to be one of the worst candidates in American history. That is a reality those people refused
to accept. Instead they had to concoct some crazy conspiracy to explain their break with reality. This is a classic case of cognitive
dissonance which often leads to mass hysteria.
GM , August 14, 2018 at 5:01 pm
People choose to believe what they feel that they most need to believe to assuage their insecurities fostered by what they
perceive to be the dangerous and scary world in which they exist. The simple fact that we know that life is finite by the time
we're three years old fosters the creation of such constructs as that of the myth of everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven
complete with a mortgage-free condo and an extra parking space for all repentant sinners are mainstream beliefs.
ToivoS, you are right about Hillary. She simply couldn't accept her defeat. She was the one who began Russiagate by the lie,
"17 intelligence agencies" said the Russians hacked the emails.
As for times of mass-swallowing of a lie in the 1930s every German thought that Poland was about to invade Germany and they were
scared so much that they believed their leaders who "false flagged" them into invading Poland "first." Of course, Poland had no
intention of invading Germany.
Notice every time the US attacks another sovereign country, there's a false flag waved for the citizens to follow?
Don't you appreciate that we have consortiumnews?
"... Thus ends another episode in the seemingly interminable serial, "Bernie Sanders Tries, and Fails, to Put a Progressive Coat of Paint on the Democratic Party." Since he rocketed to political prominence in 2016 in his challenge to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, Sanders has played this role again and again. ..."
"... First, he appeals to the idealism of young people and the economic grievances of working people, claiming to represent a genuine alternative to the domination of American politics by the oligarchy of "millionaires and billionaires." Then he diverts those who have responded to his campaign back into the existing political framework, endorsing whatever right-wing hack emerges from the Democratic wing of the corporate-controlled two-party system. ..."
"... In the 2018 campaign, where he is not a candidate except for reelection in Vermont, Sanders has endorsed and campaigned for a number of supposedly left-wing candidates in the Democratic primaries, always based on the same pretense, that the Democratic Party can be reformed and pushed to the left, that this party of corporate America can be transformed into an instrument of social reform and popular politics. ..."
"... The requirements for receiving Sanders' support and that of "Our Revolution," the political operation formed by many of his 2016 campaign staffers, are not very demanding. The self-proclaimed socialist does not demand that his favored candidates oppose capitalism or pay lip service to socialism -- and almost none of them do. ..."
"... In other words, Sanders uses the image of radicalism and opposition to the status quo that surrounded his 2016 campaign to lend support to very conventional, pro-capitalist candidates, whose policies are well within the mainstream of the Democratic Party -- a party whose leadership has embraced most of the measures cited above, secure in the knowledge that it will not keep a single one of these promises and can always blame the Republicans for blocking them. ..."
"... In Michigan, Sanders spoke at rallies for El-Sayed, and his supporters were quite active on college campuses and on social media, mobilizing support among young people. But as in 2016, there was little effort to reach the working class, particularly minority workers in Detroit, Flint, Saginaw and other devastated industrial cities. ..."
"... Sanders and the supposedly "left" Democrats he promotes all fervently support the trade union bureaucracy, which is working overtime this year to prevent strikes by angry and militant workers -- as at United Parcel Service -- and to isolate, terminate and betray them where they break out -- as with the state-wide teachers' strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona earlier this year. ..."
"... Under these conditions, the Democratic Party is not a party that can or will can carry out social reforms in order to save capitalism, as in Roosevelt's day. It is a party that will carry out the dictates of the ruling class for war and austerity while using the services of "left" politicians like Sanders to confuse and disorient working people and youth. ..."
Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed went down to a double-digit defeat Tuesday in the Democratic primary, overwhelmed
by the near-unanimous support of the Democratic Party establishment for former state senator Gretchen Whitmer. The daughter of
former Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO Richard Whitmer won every county in the state and will go on to face Republican State Attorney
General Bill Schuette in the November general election.
In a tweet to his supporters, El-Sayed declared: "The victory was not ours today, but the work continues. Congratulations to
@gretchenwhitmer on her primary win. Tomorrow we continue the path toward justice, equity and sustainability."
When tomorrow came, however, that "path" led to a unity luncheon at which El-Sayed and the third candidate in the race, self-funding
millionaire Shri Thanedar, pledged their full support to Whitmer. "Today we all retool and figure out how we make sure that Bill
Schuette does not become governor. I'm super committed to that," El-Sayed said. "Never has it been more important to have a Democrat
lead state government."
Thus ends another episode in the seemingly interminable serial, "Bernie Sanders Tries, and Fails, to Put a Progressive
Coat of Paint on the Democratic Party." Since he rocketed to political prominence in 2016 in his challenge to Hillary Clinton,
the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, Sanders has played this role again and again.
First, he appeals to the idealism of young people and the economic grievances of working people, claiming to represent
a genuine alternative to the domination of American politics by the oligarchy of "millionaires and billionaires." Then he diverts
those who have responded to his campaign back into the existing political framework, endorsing whatever right-wing hack emerges
from the Democratic wing of the corporate-controlled two-party system.
In 2016, this involved appealing to his supporters to back Hillary Clinton, the candidate of Wall Street and the military-intelligence
apparatus. The Clinton campaign refused to make the slightest appeal to the working class in order to preserve its support within
corporate America and, in the process, drove millions of desperate workers to stay home on Election Day or vote for Trump, allowing
the billionaire demagogue to eke out an Electoral College victory.
In the 2018 campaign, where he is not a candidate except for reelection in Vermont, Sanders has endorsed and campaigned
for a number of supposedly left-wing candidates in the Democratic primaries, always based on the same pretense, that the Democratic
Party can be reformed and pushed to the left, that this party of corporate America can be transformed into an instrument of social
reform and popular politics.
The requirements for receiving Sanders' support and that of "Our Revolution," the political operation formed by many of
his 2016 campaign staffers, are not very demanding. The self-proclaimed socialist does not demand that his favored candidates
oppose capitalism or pay lip service to socialism -- and almost none of them do.
Their platforms usually include such demands as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, implementing "Medicare for all," interpreted
in various fashions, establishing free public college education for families earning less than $150,000 a year, and enacting universal
pre-K education. They usually promise not to accept corporate money and to support campaign finance reform.
These Sanders-backed candidates, like Sanders himself in 2016, have very little to say about foreign policy and make no appeal
whatsoever to the deep anti-war sentiment among American youth and workers. There is no discussion of Trump's threats of nuclear
war. As for trade war, most, like Sanders himself, embrace the economic nationalism that is the foundation of Trump's trade policy.
In other words, Sanders uses the image of radicalism and opposition to the status quo that surrounded his 2016 campaign
to lend support to very conventional, pro-capitalist candidates, whose policies are well within the mainstream of the Democratic
Party -- a party whose leadership has embraced most of the measures cited above, secure in the knowledge that it will not keep
a single one of these promises and can always blame the Republicans for blocking them.
In Michigan, Sanders spoke at rallies for El-Sayed, and his supporters were quite active on college campuses and on social
media, mobilizing support among young people. But as in 2016, there was little effort to reach the working class, particularly
minority workers in Detroit, Flint, Saginaw and other devastated industrial cities.
Sanders and the supposedly "left" Democrats he promotes all fervently support the trade union bureaucracy, which is working
overtime this year to prevent strikes by angry and militant workers -- as at United Parcel Service -- and to isolate, terminate
and betray them where they break out -- as with the state-wide teachers' strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona earlier
this year.
The real attitude of Sanders and El-Sayed to genuine socialism was made clear when they sought to ban supporters of the Socialist
Equality Party and SEP candidate for Congress Niles Niemuth from distributing leaflets and holding discussions outside campaign
rallies for El-Sayed.
This year, Sanders has been campaigning with a sidekick, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of
America who won the Democratic congressional nomination in the 12th District of New York, defeating incumbent Representative Joseph
Crowley, the fourth-ranking member of the Democratic leadership in the House.
Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for El-Sayed in Michigan and also for several congressional candidates, including Brent Welder in
Kansas and Cori Bush in Missouri, who also went down to defeat on August 7. Like Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez claims that the Democratic
Party can be transformed into a genuinely progressive "party of the people" that will implement social reforms.
But at age 28, Ocasio-Cortez has less practice in performing the song-and-dance of pretending to be independent of the Democratic
Party establishment while working to give it a left cover and prop it up. She was clumsier in her execution, attracting notice
as she walked back a campaign demand to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and sought to downplay her previous
criticism of Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.
After her campaign swing through the Midwest, Ocasio-Cortez traveled to the Netroots Nation conference in New Orleans, an annual
assemblage of the left flank of the Democratic Party. She told her adoring audience that her policies were not radical at all,
but firmly in the Democratic mainstream. "It's time for us to remember that universal college education, trade school, a federal
jobs guarantee, a universal basic income were not all proposed in 2016," she said. "They were proposed in 1940, by the Democratic
president of the United States."
The reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt was inadvertently revealing. Roosevelt adopted reform policies, including many of those
suggested by the social democrats of his day such as Norman Thomas. He was no socialist, but rather a clever and conscious bourgeois
politician who enacted limited reforms in a deliberate effort to save the capitalist system.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez likewise seek to save the capitalist system, but under conditions where no such reforms are possible.
The American ruling class no longer dominates the world economy, but is beset by powerful rivals in both Europe and Asia. It is
pouring resources into the military to prepare for world war. And at home, even the most modest measures run up against the intransigent
opposition of the super-rich, who control both parties and demand even greater wealth for themselves at the expense of working
people.
Under these conditions, the Democratic Party is not a party that can or will can carry out social reforms in order to save
capitalism, as in Roosevelt's day. It is a party that will carry out the dictates of the ruling class for war and austerity while
using the services of "left" politicians like Sanders to confuse and disorient working people and youth.
Thus, at Netroots Nation, the assembled "left" Democrats gave a loud ovation to Ocasio-Cortez, but also to Gina Ortiz Jones,
the Democratic nominee in the 23rd Congressional District of Texas, also young, nonwhite and female. Ortiz Jones has another characteristic,
however. She is a career Air Force intelligence officer who was deployed to Iraq, South Sudan and Libya -- all the scenes of US-instigated
bloodbaths.
Ortiz Jones is one of nearly three dozen such candidates chosen to represent the Democratic Party in contested congressional
districts around the country. Another such candidate is Elissa Slotkin, who won the Democratic nomination Tuesday in Michigan's
Eighth Congressional District. Slotkin served three tours with the CIA in Baghdad before being promoted to high-level positions
in the Pentagon and the Obama-era National Security Council.
The fake leftism of Bernie Sanders in alliance with the CIA: That is the formula for the Democratic Party in 2018.
"National Socialism made use of various means in dealing with various classes, and made
various promises depending upon the social class it needed at a particular time. In the spring
of 1933, for example, it was the revolutionary character of the Nazi movement that was
given particular emphasis in Nazi propaganda in an effort to win over the industrial workers,
and the first of May was "celebrated," but only after the aristocracy had been appeased in
Potsdam. To ascribe the success solely to political swindle, however, would be to become
entangled in a contradiction with the basic idea of freedom, and would practically exclude the
possibility of a social revolution. What must be answered is: Why do the masses allow
themselves to be politically swindled? The masses had every possibility of evaluating the
propaganda of the various parties. Why didn't they see that, while promising the workers that
the owners of the means of production would be disappropriated, Hitler promised the capitalists that
their rights would be protected?"
― Wilhelm Reich , The Mass Psychology of
Fascism
"Living in the Age of the Big Lie" [Stephen Gold, Industry Week ]. Gold is
President and Chief Executive Officer, Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and
Innovation (MAPI):
All this has created the potential for an American cultural crisis of distrust,
authoritatively captured in two recently published analyses.
In "Truth Decay," [cute! –lambert] the RAND Corporation lays the blame for the
deteriorating role of facts and data in public life on four primary causes:
1. The rise of social media
2. An overtaxed educational system that cannot keep up with changes in the "information
ecosystem"
3. Political and social polarization
4. And -- perhaps due to all of these factors -- the increasing tendency of individuals to
create their own subjective social reality, otherwise known as "cognitive bias."
"The Death of Truth" by Pulitzer-Prize winning book critic Michiko Kakutani explores the
waning of integrity in American society, particularly since the 2016 elections. Daniel
Patrick Moynihan's observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his
own facts," is more timely than ever, Kakutani says: "polarization has grown so extreme that
voters have a hard time even agreeing on the same facts." And no wonder: Two-thirds of
Americans get at least some of their news through social media -- a platform that has been
overwhelmed by trolls and bots, and which uses algorithms to decide what each of us gets to
see.
Executives ignore the cultural shift away from honesty at their peril.
Social media has its own problems, gawd knows -- break them up and outlaw the algos, and
they'd be a lot more like the public utilities they should really be -- but it's amazing how
vague hand-wringing pieces like this ignore at least four seismic events since 2000, all of
which involve perceived legitimacy and the nature of truth: (1) Bush v. Gore, (2) Iraq WMDs,
(3) Obama's "hope and change" campaign, followed by (4) the crash, the bailouts, the free
passes for bankers, and a brutal recession. The official narrative and its maintainers didn't
lose credibility because of trolls and bots, who might be regarded as opportunistic infections
overwhelming an already weakened immnune system.
Grassroots and/or AstroTurf?
Our Famously Free Press
"The Press Doesn't Cause Wars -- Presidents Do" [
The Atlantic ] • One of a ginormous steaming load of revisionist and defensive
articles prompted by Trump's tweet that the press can "causes War." Anyone who was present for
the build up to the Iraq War knows that Trump's claim is true; in fact, the "media critique"
that began then was prompted by the Iraq WMDs scam, in which the press -- *** cough *** Judy
Miller ***cough*** -- was not merely compliant or complicitous, but active and vociferous,
especially in shunning and shaming skeptics. Of course, everybody who was wrong about Iraq was
wrong in the right way, so they all still have jobs (David Frum, Bush speechwriter and Hero of
the Resistance, at the Atlantic, among hundreds of others). So revisionist history is very easy
for them to write.
Class Warfare
"The New Class-Blindness" [ Law and Political Economy ]. "It
is true that class-based discrimination does not trigger heightened scrutiny under equal
protection in the way that race-based and sex-based discrimination do . Some judges -- even
some Supreme Court Justices -- have begun to argue that it is constitutionally impermissible
for courts to take class into account under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit reached
this conclusion a few years ago in the Whole Woman's Health case, in which it asserted that
judges could consider only obstacles created by "the law itself" when determining whether a law
unduly burdens the right to abortion -- a category that excluded obstacles such as lack of
transportation, childcare, days off from work, and money for overnight stays. When Whole
Woman's Health reached the Supreme Court, some of the Justices (in dissent) expressed support
for this approach."
"Vermont's Striking Nurses Want A Raise for Nonunion Workers Too" [ Labor
Notes ]. "Yet when 1,800 nurses and technical staff struck for better wages July 12-13 at
the state's second-largest employer, the University of Vermont Medical Center, the people of
Burlington came out in force to back them up. 'We had policemen and firefighters and UPS
drivers pulling over and shaking our hands' on the picket line, said neurology nurse Maggie
Belensz. 'We had pizza places dropping off dozens of pizzas, giving out free ice cream.' And
when a thousand people marched from the hospital through Burlington's downtown, 'we had
standing ovations from people eating their dinners,' she said. 'It was a moving experience.'
One reason for such wide support: these hospital workers aren't just demanding a raise
themselves. They're also calling for a $15 minimum wage for their nonunion co-workers, such as
those who answer the phones, mop the floors, cook the food, and help patients to the
bathroom."
"What Are Capitalists Thinking?" [Michael Tomaskey, New York
Times ]. "I write today with some friendly advice for the capitalist class about said
socialists. You want fewer socialists? Easy. Stop creating them . I understand completely why
it's happening. Given what's been going on in this country, it couldn't not have happened. And
if you're a capitalist, you'd better try to understand it, too -- and do something to address
the very legitimate grievances that propelled it." • Finally, reality begins to penetrate
the thickened craniums of the better sort of liberal
"In 2008, America Stopped Believing in the American Dream" [Frank Rich,
New York Magazine ]. (The "American Dream" being one of the official narratives.) "It's not
hard to pinpoint the dawn of this deep gloom: It arrived in September 2008, when the collapse
of Lehman Brothers kicked off the Great Recession that proved to be a more lasting existential
threat to America than the terrorist attack of seven Septembers earlier. The shadow it would
cast is so dark that a decade later, even our current run of ostensible prosperity and peace
does not mitigate the one conviction that still unites all Americans: Everything in the country
is broken. Not just Washington, which failed to prevent the financial catastrophe and has done
little to protect us from the next, but also race relations, health care, education,
institutional religion, law enforcement, the physical infrastructure, the news media, the
bedrock virtues of civility and community. Nearly everything has turned to crap, it seems ."
• Ditto
I think I would put it much earlier than that. Anyone who watched Newt Gingrich during his
Contract on America days, who watched Max Cleland be attacked by Saxby Chambliss,
who watched as Clinton deregulated the media in favor of Rupert Murdoch even as they slagged
him, knew something was afoot.
"I have mixed feelings about this socialism boomlet. It has yet to prove itself
politically viable in general elections outside a handful of areas, and by 2021 we could wake
up and see that it's been a disaster for Democrats."
What is a Democrat? Are they inherently good? Is failing the Democrats OK, if doing so
improves the lives of the 90%?
Mr. Tomasky seems to have missed that Democrats throwing out the concerns of the working
class to court wealthy donors for its Clintonian politics boomlet has been distinctly, well
not all that long term politically viable. It has been a disaster for the Democrats. There
were signs prior to 2000, but it took starting an unpopular and largely unsuccessful war and
attempting to undermine Social Security for the Democrats to make a come back. That their
success was pretty much over by 2010, with the exception of the Presidency is very clear in
the massive loss of Governorships, State Houses and yes Congress leading up to the 2016
debacle when they foolishly nominated the Grand Dame of that 'can't give me lots of money
– suck on it' political position to be their Presidential nominee.
But why let facts get in the way of a good narrative meant to convince the rubes to
continue voting for polticians who have no interest in their concerns because of the right
pronouns and Russia!
The biggest cause is spin , that has become an art form, a business and career
path.
Telling the truth in public is an invitation to cut short your career. The only time when
officials tell the truth is when they are comfortably retired.
Especially with economists and journalists (the conscience keepers), it is not so
important what they are saying, but why they are saying it (basically lack
of trust in the narrator).
I personally blame Bill Clinton. The turning point was the report that he told Lewinsky
"deny deny deny there's nothing they can do."
Which is true but that was the point in the timeline when a critical mass of people began
to live like that. Or when it became obvious to me. Perhaps it was exactly like that for a
long time before and it is not BC's fault.
It's cheering that coal shipment and use in the US has declined. The good news for our
coal industry is that coal exports January to June 2018 have risen, in particular to Africa,
Asia (largely to India which is voracious) and South America.
The current Administration can thank the previous one for increasing our capacity to
export coal, I believe.
Sarah Jeong is a piece of work, is her desk next to Judy Miller's?
Good grief, the cultural differences between different parts of SE Asian Countries can be
profound let alone the cultural differences between countries.
I'm reminded of a boss who told me that monopolies increase competition, with a straight
face.
My impression is that Ms. Jeong's job is and will be to start plenty of cultural "fires",
so
that while the citizenry is distracted with them, the looting and pillaging of the many by
the few can continue.
But to answer the question you actually asked the Federated timeline includes your local
timeline, which itself includes your home timeline. So if you want to see it all, just use
the federated timeline. If you only want to see people you follow, use the home timeline,
etc.
What's an Asian woman doing criticizing a white guy for commenting on a predominantly, but
not exclusively, black art form? I mean, why is she even speaking English and how about that
name Sarah for an egregious example of cultural appropriation? And, as I have previously
queried on this site: how is it even permissible for Yo-Yo Ma to play Bach on the cello? And
in case you ask: yes, identity politics has finally driven me insane. Or is it they who are
mad?
She (Sarah Jeong) wrote: "After a bad day, some people come home and kick the furniture. I
get on the Internet and make fun of The New York Times." "I don't feel safe in a country that
is led by someone who takes Thomas Friedman seriously." "Hannah Rosin shatters ceiling by
proving women writers can be as hackish as Tom Friedman, too." "[David] Brooks is an absolute
nitwit tho." "Notajoke: I'm being forced to read Nicholas Kristof. This is the worst." "if I
had a bajillion dollars, I'd buy the New York Times, just for the pleasure of firing Tom
Friedman ."
combining the articles, it sounds like she's got a lot of opinions. Good for an aspiring
pundit but also opening herself up for a greater possibility of errors.
it's amazing how vague hand-wringing pieces like this ignore at least four seismic
events since 2000, all of which involve perceived legitimacy and the nature of truth: (1)
Bush v. Gore, (2) Iraq WMDs, (3) Obama's "hope and change" campaign, followed by (4) the
crash, the bailouts, the free passes for bankers, and a brutal recession.
Good list to which I would add the Katrina debacle.
The New Class-Blindness" [Law and Political Economy]. "It is true that class-based
discrimination does not trigger heightened scrutiny under equal protection in the way that
race-based and sex-based discrimination do . Some judges -- even some Supreme Court Justices
-- have begun to argue that it is constitutionally impermissible for courts to take class
into account under the Fourteenth Amendment.
================
In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in
the streets and steal loaves of bread. Anatole France
Not much concern over the disconnect between voter preference and policy outcome which was
documented in the 2014 Gilens/Benjamin study or Jimmy Carter statement that the U.S. is a
defacto oligarchy, or the massive voter fraud that is part and parcel of our voting system
(see https://www.gregpalast.com/ ),
or the disclosure of HRC/DNC collusion documented in wiki leaks and Donna Brasil's "tell all
book", not much concern their at all.
Do you find it curious this obsession of the MSM with Russia meddling in our
elections?
"Do you find it curious this obsession [ ] w/ Russia meddling [ ]?" The Russian meddling
isn't the curious part; Russia tries it in every election west of the river Pina. The
abnormal part is a sitting US President, on Twitter, accused his son of a felony aka
violating 52 U.S. Code § 30121 (a)(2), soliciting contributions [things of value] from a
foreign national. Talk about "Blue on Blue" fire. Nothing "friendly" about that. Especially
given the prima facie evidence of violating 18 U.S. Code § 3, accessory after the fact,
by dictating Don the Younger's response to the story.
I read the book Q a couple of years ago. It's real good. Especially if you're into the
gory details of European religious history. There's a lot of things they didn't mention in my
confirmation classes
Social media has its own problems, gawd knows The official narrative and its maintainers
didn't lose credibility because of trolls and bots, who might be regarded as opportunistic
infections overwhelming an already weakened immnune system
Well said. The official narrative, the swamp, is very good at blaming effects and ignoring
causes.
Qanon seems like a honeypot site(s) for retribution futures. Read anything, go into a
database for future reference. Unz and others have likely multiple uses and followers,
NOC/NotForAttribution and other.
On decline in coal shipments: look what is happening elsewhere! "Germany had so much
renewable energy on Sunday that it had to pay people to use electricity!",
https://qz.com/680661/germany-had-so-much-renewable-energy-on-sunday-that-it-had-to-pay-people-to-use-electricity/
"Power too cheap to meter," just like nuclear was promised to be! And that is an old 2016
article. I saw another piece, I believe in Business Insider or Bloomberg, complaining that
the big energy companies are facing "profit stress" because of grid-ties from solar and wind
requiring them to pay people for energy in excess of the load. And having, gasp! to shut down
coal fired plants, each closure being a pretty expensive anti-profit center! I would tend to
think of it being a re-internalization of costs that the power companies have dumped on us
(health effects from heavy metal and carcinogen emissions, smog, CO2/climate interruption.
Too bad the paybacks won't come from clawbacks of CEO paydays or any of the lobbying money
spent to bribe legislatures, deceive the public/consumers, spent on getting legislative
approval for nuclear power plants that WILL NEVER BE BUILT like Duke Energy has done (and
besides, they get to cllect a billion or more from customers to "pay for" those plants that
will never be built. Kind of like an ISDS "judgment" in favor of a megacorporation because
'regulation and market conditions' impaired said corporations' "expectations of profit "
Well, that green-energy surfeit may have something to do with the combination of a
record-smashing heat wave in a country where A/C systems have not been needed at scale,
historically speaking. But good on them if they are in fact doing it sustainably.
Of course, a good bit of that "trade" includes genetically modified soybeans. Monsanto is
happy to sell their "intellectual property," immune from consequence of course, pure profit
all the way down.
And of course there are NO POSSIBLE RISKS OR CONCERNS about the propagation of
gene-fiddled stuff like soybeans and canola, " Genetically Modified Canola 'Escapes' Farm
Fields,
August 6, 2010 , https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129010499
, just for example, I mean it's not like the World Health Organization has not kind of
flagged some things that "policymakers" might want to keep in mind when confronted by the
Cropporate Corrupters wanting to peddle their 'risk free innovations:'
"Frequently asked questions on genetically modified foods
May 2014
Posting this because sometimes it's more about WHO is saying it, rather than what is being
said. It's not often I look at a Rick Newman column and say, 'wow, he's really making a
strong case'.
The chickens are raised covered in their own filth and along with the filth comes
salmonella. They attempt to contain the infection with antibiotics.
And if the conditions in the "chicken factory" aren't filthy enough the slaughterhouse
ensures that the end product comes with salmonella by running the line speed so fast that
punctured intestines insure that the end product comes out covered in salmonella-containing
fecal matter. Which they try to contain with a chlorine bath.
If you like eating chicken shite eat store chicken. If you don't, and if you can, raise
your own. Raising chickens for meat is a lot of work but they taste better and you won't be
eating chicken shite.
Jeez, Frank Rich needs to get out of New York City more. Everything has been completely
broke around Memphis since 2006. It just mostly broke before that.
Was it Trump's election, the rise of Bernie/AOC, Obama's $32 million worth of
post-presidency houses, 60,000 people dying from opiods, or the broken subways in NYC that
caused Frank Rich's awakening?
"Obama didn't cause that broken spirit any more than Trump did."
Obama made it perfectly clear that the Democratic party was going to do nothing to correct
2008. Instead he put the very same people that wrecked the world economy back in charge. I
will no longer vote for the "have no alternative" Democrat. I will vote for those that are
going to enact the polices that will fix this mess. If that means we get twenty Trumps a row
– so be it.
Re: On average for the year-ended this May, 58.5 percent of the job gains were in
counties that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 , and this excerpt from that
Associated Press link:
The jobs data shows an economy that is as fractured as the political landscape ahead of
the 2018 midterm elections. As more money pools in corporate hubs such as Houston,
San Francisco or Seattle , prosperity spills over less and less to smaller towns and
cities in America's interior. That would seem to undercut what Trump sees as a central
accomplishment of his administration – job creation for middle class and blue-collar
workers in towns far removed from glitzy urban centers.
Looking at those cities noted, especially Seattle and San Francisco – both of which
now have an inhuman level of inequality and homelessness -- a further dive into the details
is necessary.
Specifically, are those job gains ™ out of state imported employees from: Ivy
League Schools (predominately under 26, mostly white males from elite families); along with
H-1B, and Opt Program ™ imported employees (predominately under 26, mostly
males from mostly upper middle class Asian families, paid far, far less than those Ivy
Leaguers) [1]; while the displaced unemployed -- yet, highly qualified for employment --
residents in those cities are continually being forced out (if they can afford the move
and have somewhere they are able to move to), or made homeless.
[1] Admittedly, I'm not sure whether they are included in those job gains, but if
the job gains are based on ADP reports, it might well be likely that they are; of course a
search on two search sites brought up no answer to my query.
I find Mastodon's user interface to be fairly unintuitive myself. Presumably it would be
possible to make your own "mixed" view as it's open source and based on open protocols, but
not sure if Mastodon supports it out of the box.
AOC is one of their candidates, as are Cynthia Nixon, Ayana Pressley etc. There is a
prevalence of Democrat buzzwords, but I think they are aiming to be agnostic regarding left
factions:
We're excited to make gains in 2018, but Indivisible 435 isn't just about notching wins.
Our organization is not a wing of the Democratic party. While we care deeply about electing
officials to oppose the Trump agenda, we care just as much building a strong progressive
community nationwide and pushing the conversation back to the interests of the people.
This would be well off message for establishment Democrats.
I'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, but still
watch what they do.
I would posit that most of the job gains in the last decade maybe even two were probably
in areas that voted for Clinton. That the Texas boom and the oil boom in the Dakota's were
exceptions not the rule. I would also posit that the few Trump areas that did see job growth
in that decade saw that growth in minimum wage low to no benefit jobs. (That last one wasn't
much of a stretch since that has been the majority of jobs created during both the Bush 2 and
Obama administration.)
Things like this have led me to comment in the past and every comment on this particular
subject has failed to print. I figure I am tripping some kind of auto-filter.
So I will try again with indirect spelling.
We need a new word for this sort of thing. It would emerge from the new acronym we
need.
The letters would be . . . arrr peee ohhh ceee
that stands for . . . rayciss purrsuns ovv cuhluhr.
"Dockless bike, scooter firms clash with U.S. cities over regulations"
I have a solution to these tech-companies which strew towns and cities with their bikes
without coordinating or even asking to enter such a town and let the town try to adapt to
their needs. It is called an impound lot. You have city workers pick them up and cart them
there. If that company wants their bikes back again, they will have to pay to spring them
from the lot. Rinse and repeat until that tech company gets the message. If that tech company
doubles down, announce a $5 bounty for any bike driven to the impound lot till the company is
ready to negotiate.
"How a Pair of Kentucky Pols Are About to Legalize Hemp"
Please help me here. Hemp can be sold in all 50 states. The 2014 Farm bill allowed each state
to decide whether hemp oil could be sold for medicinal purposes w/i that year. My first
package sent to me was from a reputable company and was mailed through Amazon from Kentucky.
I was experiencing severe pain and now have a better alternative.
"How to keep young people from fleeing small towns for big cities"
Not so hard. See that there are jobs for them. You cannot do much in modern society
without money and a job provides this. A job provides dignity, discipline and the money it
provides lets a young person to satisfy not only their needs but many of their wants as well.
It is hard for a young guy to take a girl out but having no money to do so and a job's money
will help a couple set up a household and marry and have children. The drop in marriage rates
as well as the birthrate speaks volumes of the lack of decent paying jobs for young people,
even those that have achieved credentials. Supply good paying jobs and most kids will stay
put. Not so hard to work out.
Re. "Trump v. Fed" [Money and Banking], bolds mine: "Last month, interrupting decades of
presidential self-restraint, President Trump openly criticized the Federal Reserve. Given the
President's penchant for dismissing valuable institutions, it is hard to be surprised
investors are reasonably focused on the selection of qualified academics and individuals with
valuable policy and business experience the President's comments are seriously
disturbing and -- were they to become routine -- risk undermining the significant
benefits that Federal Reserve independence brings."
As Lambert would say, for some definition of 'valuable', 'benefits' and
'independence'.
"... The identity politics phenomenon sweeping across the Western world is a divide and conquer strategy that prevents the emergence of a genuine resistance to the elites. ..."
"... Each subgroup, increasingly alienated from all others, focuses on the shared identity and unique experiences of its members and prioritises its own empowerment. Anyone outside this subgroup is demoted to the rank of ally, at best. ..."
"... Precious time is spent fighting against those deemed less oppressed and telling them to 'check their privilege' as the ever-changing pecking order of the 'Oppression Olympics' plays out. The rules to this sport are as fluid as the identities taking part. One of the latest dilemmas affecting the identity politics movement is the issue of whether men transitioning to women deserve recognition and acceptance or 'whether trans women aren't women and are apparently " raping ..."
"... It is much easier to 'struggle' against an equally or slightly less oppressed group than to take the time and effort to unite with them against the common enemy - capitalism. ..."
"... There is a carefully crafted misconception that identity politics derives from Marxist thought and the meaningless phrase 'cultural Marxism', which has more to do with liberal culture than Marxism, is used to sell this line of thinking. Not only does identity politics have nothing in common with Marxism, socialism or any other strand of traditional left-wing thought, it is anathema to the very concept. ..."
"... 'An injury to one is an injury to all' has been replaced with something like 'An injury to me is all that matters'. No socialist country, whether in practice or in name only, promoted identity politics. Neither the African and Asian nations that liberated themselves from colonialist oppression nor the USSR and Eastern Bloc states nor the left-wing movements that sprung up across Latin America in the early 21st century had any time to play identity politics. ..."
"... The idea that identity politics is part of traditional left-wing thought is promoted by the right who seek to demonise left wing-movements, liberals who seek to infiltrate, backstab and destroy said left-wing movements, and misguided young radicals who know nothing about political theory and have neither the patience nor discipline to learn. The last group seek a cheap thrill that makes them feel as if they have shaken the foundations of the establishment when in reality they strengthen it. ..."
"... Identity politics is typically a modern middle-class led phenomenon that helps those in charge keep the masses divided and distracted. ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
"... Tomasz Pierscionek is a doctor specialising in psychiatry. He was previously on the board of the charity Medact, is editor of the London Progressive Journal and has appeared as a guest on RT's Sputnik and Al-Mayadeen's Kalima Horra. ..."
The
identity politics phenomenon sweeping across the Western world is a divide and conquer strategy
that prevents the emergence of a genuine resistance to the elites. A core principle of
socialism is the idea of an overarching supra-national solidarity that unites the international
working class and overrides any factor that might divide it, such as nation, race, or gender.
Workers of all nations are partners, having equal worth and responsibility in a struggle
against those who profit from their brain and muscle.
Capitalism, especially in its most evolved, exploitative and heartless form - imperialism -
has wronged certain groups of people more than others. Colonial empires tended to reserve their
greatest brutality for subjugated peoples whilst the working class of these imperialist nations
fared better in comparison, being closer to the crumbs that fell from the table of empire. The
international class struggle aims to liberate all people everywhere from the drudgery of
capitalism regardless of their past or present degree of oppression. The phrase 'an injury
to one is an injury to all' encapsulates this mindset and conflicts with the idea of
prioritising the interests of one faction of the working class over the entire collective.
Since the latter part of the 20th century, a liberally-inspired tendency has taken root
amongst the Left (in the West at least) that encourages departure from a single identity based
on class in favour of multiple identities based upon one's gender, sexuality, race or any other
dividing factor. Each subgroup, increasingly alienated from all others, focuses on the
shared identity and unique experiences of its members and prioritises its own empowerment.
Anyone outside this subgroup is demoted to the rank of ally, at best.
At the time of writing there are apparently over
70 different gender options in the West, not to mention numerous sexualities - the
traditional LGBT acronym has thus far grown to LGBTQQIP2SAA
. Adding race to the mix results in an even greater number of possible permutations or
identities. Each subgroup has its own ideology. Precious time is spent fighting against
those deemed less oppressed and telling them to 'check their privilege' as the ever-changing
pecking order of the 'Oppression Olympics' plays out. The rules to this sport are as fluid as
the identities taking part. One of the latest dilemmas affecting the identity politics movement
is the issue of whether men transitioning to women deserve recognition and acceptance or
'whether trans women aren't women and are apparently " raping "
lesbians'.
The ideology of identity politics asserts that the straight white male is at the apex of the
privilege pyramid, responsible for the oppression of all other groups. His original sin
condemns him to everlasting shame. While it is true that straight white men (as a group) have
faced less obstacles than females, non-straight men or ethnic minorities, the majority of
straight white men, past and present, also struggle to survive from paycheck to paycheck and
are not personally involved in the oppression of any other group. While most of the world's
wealthiest
individuals are Caucasian males, millions of white men exist who are both poor and
powerless. The idea of 'whiteness' is itself an ambiguous concept involving racial profiling.
For example, the Irish, Slavs and Ashkenazi Jews may look white yet have suffered more than
their fair share of famines, occupations and genocides throughout the centuries. The idea of
tying an individual's privilege to their appearance is itself a form of racism dreamed up by
woolly minded, liberal (some might say privileged) 'intellectuals' who would be superfluous in
any socialist society.
Is the middle-class ethnic minority lesbian living in Western Europe more oppressed than the
whitish looking Syrian residing under ISIS occupation? Is the British white working class male
really more privileged than a middle class woman from the same society? Stereotyping based on
race, gender or any other factor only leads to alienation and animosity. How can there be unity
amongst the Left if we are only loyal to ourselves and those most like us? Some 'white' men who
feel the Left has nothing to offer them have decided to play the identity politics game in
their search of salvation and have drifted towards supporting Trump (a billionaire with whom
they have nothing in common) or far-right movements, resulting in further alienation, animosity
and powerlessness which in turn only strengthens the position of the top 1%. People around the
world are more divided by class than any other factor.
It is much easier to 'struggle' against an equally or slightly less oppressed group than
to take the time and effort to unite with them against the common enemy - capitalism.
Fighting oppression through identity politics is at best a lazy, perverse and fetishistic form
of the class struggle led by mostly liberal, middle class and tertiary-educated activists who
understand little of left-wing political theory. At worst it is yet another tool used by the
top 1% to divide the other 99% into 99 or 999 different competing groups who are too
preoccupied with fighting their own little corner to challenge the status quo. It is ironic
that one of the major donors to the faux-left identity politics movement is the privileged
white cisgender male billionaire
George Soros , whose NGOs helped orchestrate the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that gave
way to the emergence of far right and neo-nazi movements: the kind of people who believe in
racial superiority and do not look kindly on diversity.
There is a carefully crafted misconception that identity politics derives from Marxist
thought and the meaningless phrase 'cultural Marxism', which has more to do with liberal
culture than Marxism, is used to sell this line of thinking. Not only does identity politics
have nothing in common with Marxism, socialism or any other strand of traditional left-wing
thought, it is anathema to the very concept.
'An injury to one is an injury to all' has been replaced with something like 'An injury
to me is all that matters'. No socialist country, whether in practice or in name only, promoted
identity politics. Neither the African and Asian nations that liberated themselves from
colonialist oppression nor the USSR and Eastern Bloc states nor the left-wing movements that
sprung up across Latin America in the early 21st century had any time to play identity
politics.
The idea that identity politics is part of traditional left-wing thought is promoted by
the right who seek to demonise left wing-movements, liberals who seek to infiltrate, backstab
and destroy said left-wing movements, and misguided young radicals who know nothing about
political theory and have neither the patience nor discipline to learn. The last group seek a
cheap thrill that makes them feel as if they have shaken the foundations of the establishment
when in reality they strengthen it.
Identity politics is typically a modern middle-class led phenomenon that helps those in
charge keep the masses divided and distracted. In the West you are free to choose any
gender or sexuality, transition between these at whim, or perhaps create your own, but you are
not allowed to question the foundations of capitalism or liberalism. Identity politics is the
new opiate of the masses and prevents organised resistance against the system. Segments of the
Western Left even believe such aforementioned 'freedoms' are a bellwether of progress and an
indicator of its cultural superiority, one that warrants export abroad be it softly via NGOs or
more bluntly through colour revolutions and regime change.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Tomasz Pierscionek is a doctor specialising in psychiatry. He was previously on the
board of the charity Medact, is editor of the London Progressive Journal and has appeared as a
guest on RT's Sputnik and Al-Mayadeen's Kalima Horra.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. Read more
"... The author is a prominent American Christian conservative who was a presidential candidate for the paleoconservative Constitution Party in 2008, when he was endorsed by Ron Paul. ..."
"... He is the pastor of Liberty Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Montana, and he is a popular radio host and columnist . His weekly sermons are available on his YouTube channel. ..."
"... He is a relentless foe of neoconservatism and frequently criticizes the neocon hostility towards Russia. His views are representative of an influential and substantial part of Trump's popular support. ..."
"... Here is an archive of his excellent articles which we have published on Russia Insider , when they were relevant to the debate over Russia. ..."
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"... The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East ..."
"... The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East ..."
"... The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East ..."
"... The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East ..."
"... The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East ..."
"Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map
of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims ..." Chuck Baldwin Wed, Aug 1, 2018 | 14,261
389 MORE: HistoryRevisionist HistoryThe author is a
prominent American Christian conservative who was a presidential candidate for the
paleoconservative Constitution Party in 2008, when he was endorsed by Ron Paul.
He is a relentless foe of neoconservatism and frequently criticizes the neocon hostility
towards Russia. His views are representative of an influential and substantial part of Trump's
popular support.
What if everything we've been told about 9/11 is a lie? What if it wasn't 19 Muslim
terrorist hijackers that flew those planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon? What if the
Muslims had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks on 9/11? What if everything we've been
told about the reasons we invaded two sovereign nations (Afghanistan and Iraq) is a lie?
What if the 17-year-old, never-ending "War on Terror" in the Middle East is a lie? What if
our young soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have given their lives in America's "War on
Terror" died for a lie? What if G.W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been nothing but
controlled toadies for an international global conspiracy that hatched the attacks of 9/11 as
nothing more than a means to institute a perpetual "War on Terror" for purposes that have
nothing to do with America's national security? Would the American people want to know? Would
the truth even matter to them?
The sad reality is that the vast majority of Americans who would read the above paragraph
would totally dismiss every question I raised as being unrealistic and impossible -- or even
nutty. Why is that? Have they studied and researched the questions? No. Have they given any
serious thought to the questions? No. They have simply swallowed the government/mainstream
media version of these events hook, line and sinker.
It is totally amazing to me that the same people who say they don't believe the mainstream
media (MSM) and government (Deep State) versions of current events -- which is why they voted
for and love Donald Trump -- have absolutely no reservations about accepting the official story
that the 9/11 attacks were the work of jihadist Muslims and that America's "War on Terror" is
completely legitimate.
These "always Trumpers" are dead set in their minds that America is at war with Islam; that
Trump's bombings of Syria were because President Assad is an evil, maniacal monster who gassed
his own people; and that Trump's expansion of the war in Afghanistan is totally in the
interests of America's national security.
BUT WHAT IF ALL OF IT IS A BIG, FAT LIE?
What if the Muslims had NOTHING to do with 9/11?
What if Bashar al-Assad did NOT gas his own people?
What if America's "War on Terror" is a completely false, manufactured, made-up
deception?
What if America's military forces are mostly fighting for foreign agendas and NOT for
America's national security or even our national interests?
What if America's war in Afghanistan is a fraud?
What if the entire "War on Terror" is a fraud?
The Trump robots have bought into America's "War on Terror" as much as Obama's robots and
Bush's robots did. Bush was elected twice, largely on the basis of America's "War on Terror."
Obama campaigned against the "War on Terror" and then expanded it during his two terms in
office. Trump campaigned against the "War on Terror" and then immediately expanded it beyond
what Obama had done. In fact, Trump is on a pace to expand the "War on Terror" beyond the
combined military aggressions of both Bush and Obama.
But who cares? Who even notices?
America is engaged in a global "War on Terror." Just ask G.W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald
Trump, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News, The Washington Post, the New York Times and the vast
majority of America's pastors and preachers. They all tell us the same thing seven days a week,
twenty-four hours a day. Liberals scream against Trump, and conservatives scream against Maxine
Waters; but both sides come together to support America's never-ending "War on Terror."
But what if it's ALL a lie? What if Obama and Trump, the right and the left, the MSM and the
conservative media are all reading from the same script? What if they are all (wittingly or
unwittingly) in cahoots in perpetuating the biggest scam in world history? And why is almost
everyone afraid to even broach the question?
Left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, secular or Christian, no one
dares to question the official story about the 9/11 attacks or the "War on Terror."
And those who do question it are themselves attacked unmercifully by the right and the left,
conservatives and liberals, Christians and secularists, Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews. Why is
that? Why is it that FOX News and CNN, Donald Trump and Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer and Ted
Cruz equally promote the same cockamamie story about 9/11 and the "War on Terror?"
Why? Why? Why?
Tell me again how Donald Trump is so different from Barack Obama. Tell me again how Ted Cruz
is so different from Chuck Schumer. They all continue to perpetuate the lies about 9/11. They
all continue to escalate America's never-ending "War on Terror." They are all puppets of a
global conspiracy to advance the agenda of war profiteers and nation builders.
The left-right, conservative-liberal, Trump-Obama paradigm is one big giant SCAM. At the end
of the day, the "War on Terror" goes on, bombs keep falling on people in the Middle East who
had absolutely NOTHING to do with 9/11 and the money keeps flowing into the coffers of the
international bankers and war merchants.
All of the above is why I am enthusiastically promoting Christopher Bollyn's new blockbuster
book
The War on Terror .
Of course, Bollyn is one of the world's foremost researchers and investigators into the
attacks on 9/11. He has written extensively on the subject. But unlike most other 9/11
investigators, Bollyn continued to trace the tracks of the attacks on 9/11. And those tracks
led him to discover that the 9/11 attacks were NOT "the event" but that they were merely the
trigger for "the event." "What was the event?" you ask. America's perpetual "War on
Terror."
As a result, Mr. Bollyn published his findings that the attacks on 9/11 were NOT perpetrated
by Muslim extremists but by a very elaborate and well financed international conspiracy that
had been in the planning for several decades. Bollyn's research names names, places and dates
and exposes the truth behind not just 9/11 (many have done that) but behind America's "War on
Terror" that resulted from the attacks on 9/11.
IT'S TIME FOR THE TRUTH TO COME OUT!
And Christopher Bollyn's investigative research brings out the truth like nothing I've read
to date. His research connects the dots and destroys the myths.
Mr. Bollyn's research is published in a book entitled (full title):
The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East . I mean it when I say that if
enough people read this book, it could change the course of history and save our republic.
This is written on the book's back cover:
The government and media have misled us about 9/11 in order to compel public opinion to
support the War on Terror.
Why have we gone along with it? Do we accept endless war as normal? Are we numb to the
suffering caused by our military interventions?
No. We have simply been propagandized into submission. We have been deceived into thinking
that the War on Terror is a good thing, a valiant struggle against terrorists who intend to
attack us as we were on 9/11.
Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map
of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims in order to start the
military operations for that strategic plan. Recognizing the origin of the plan is crucial to
understanding the deception that has changed our world.
Folks, 9/11 was a deception. The "War on Terror" is a deception. The phony left-right
paradigm is a deception. FOX News is as much a deception as CNN. The "always Trump" group is as
much a deception as the "never Trump" group. America has been in the throes of a great
deception since September 11, 2001. And this deception is being perpetrated by Republicans and
Democrats and conservatives and liberals alike.
I do not know Christopher Bollyn. I've never met him. But I thank God he had the
intellectual honesty and moral courage to write this book. I urge readers to get this explosive
new book. If you don't read any other book this year, read Mr. Bollyn's investigative
masterpiece:
The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East .
Again, I am enthusiastically recommending this book to my readers, and I make no apologies
for doing so. The truth contained in this research MUST get out, and I am determined to do all
I can to help make that possible.
Order Christopher Bollyn's blockbuster book The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The
Middle East here:
I am confident that after you read this book, you will want to buy copies for your friends
and relatives. The book is under 200 pages long and is not difficult reading. However, the
facts and details Bollyn covers are profound and powerful. I have read the book three times so
far and I'm not finished.
Frankly, Bollyn's book made so many things make sense for me. His book dovetails and tracks
with much of my research on other topics. Truly, his book helped me get a much fuller
understanding of the "big picture."
What if everything we've been told about 9/11 and the "War on Terror" is a lie? Well,
Bollyn's book proves that indeed it is.
Again, here is where to find Christopher Bollyn's phenomenal new book The War On Terror:
The Plot To Rule The Middle East :
Worked that out, when following events in Ukraine. All main events, since my birth and
long before then, were no more than Operation Gladio false flags. It takes a lot to get
your head around that, without feeling blind fury to your Governments, of each and every
day. Plus media manipulation.
One thing I don't understand about MAGA. The rallying cry is to make America great again,
but the actions are to revert the government and tax system to when America wasn't that
great.
The height of American civilization was the 50s or 60s, but all the actions are to bring
the state back to how it was in pre-WW1 or the 1920s. It was the stronger labour controls and
high taxes of the 50s that coincided with American dominance. The kind that if someone tried
to introduce them today they'd be called socialist.
" Indeed, socialism sounds good but, when practiced, leads to disaster"
Im sure the author is thinking of Venezuela. But Venezuela, like all of South America, is
a cartel infested, militaristic, corrupt country run by a megalomaniac. It's more oligarch
than socialist.
He should ask the question: if socialism in a stable society, like say Sweden, means free
health care & education, why do people say the US has a low tax rate? Just add that cost
right to your taxes, and bim bam boom the US tax rate is probably more than a 100%, because,
lets be honest, the average $55k/year for a family of 4 will NEVER EVER cover the $1 million
it would take to send your kids to college debt free.
"... It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda. ..."
"... Blowback , Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire ..."
"... The Common Good ..."
"... Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber ..."
In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows.
Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom
imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown
has been kept secret.
It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the
newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in
our own propaganda.
― Chalmers Johnson,
Blowback , Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
There are no more leaps of faith, or get out of jail cards left anymore. The first casualty of
war is truth.
Lofty heights of defining the first amendment are just overlooks onto the crumbling mythology
of a democracy, where the people – citizens -- vote for laws directly. We have a republic,
a faulty one, the source of which is the power derived from billionaires, financiers, arms
merchants, K-Streeters and the attendant moles allowing the government to break every charter of
human concern. So, in that regard, we in this corptocracy have the right to be fooled every
minute, suckered to not know a goddamned thing about democracy in big quotes.
The very concept of manufactured consent and a controlled opposition destroys much of the
power of agency and so-called freedom of assembly, association and travel.
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of
acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.
But, alas, we have blokes who see the world not as a black and white dichotomous illusion of
the for v. against bifurcation, but a world of flowing back to what words should mean, a world
that allows the filters to be smashed like high polished glass and instead deploying a magnifying
glass to point toward the very source of the blasphemies and strong arm robberies that have been
occurring in the Republic the very first moment the beaver hat was put on and the first treaty
scripted by the powdered wigs of Washingtonian Fathers and broken, ripped to shreds, seeded with
the dark force that is the white race.
Here comes Tools for
Transparency into the mix of triage to uphold the declaration of independence, and the few
tenets of the constitution that are supremely directed to we-by-for-because of the people, AND
not the corporation, monopoly,
Military-Retail-Finance-Ag-Energy-Pharma-Prison-Medical-Toxins-IT-Surveillance-Legal Complex.
This project is the brainchild of a former Marine who "came to life late in the world" of pure
skepticism about the powers that be and his own questioning of the motivations and machinations
of his government and political representatives.
... ... ...
...we talked about Mad
Men , the Edward
Bernays and Milton Friedman
schools of propaganda, framing stories (lies) and setting out to paint good people as bad, heroic
politicians like Salvador Allende of Chile as Commie Baby Killers. Even now, Bush, the instigator
of chaos in the Middle East, with all the cooked up lies and distractions of his own stupidity
(like Trump), and, bam, W is reclaimed (in the mainstream mush media) as something of a good
president, and especially by the likes of the Democratic Party misleadership
.
... ... ...
His Tools for Transparency
cuts through the opinion, and as he proposes, makes the world news and the even more Byzantine
and elaborate proposed legislation and lobbying groups behind "the news" approachable, again,
consumable.
He taps into his college days taking courses in industrial organizational psychology,
seemingly benign when the American Psychological Association gets to mash the term into a
three-fold brochure by defining it for prospective students as business as usual for
corporations, and humanity is better because of this sort of manipulative psychology, but . .
.
In reality, it's the science of behavior in the workplace, organizational development,
attitudes, career development, decision theory, human performance, human factors, consumer
behavior, small group theory and process, criterion theory and development and job and task
analysis and individual assessment. It's a set of tools to keep workers down spiritually and
organizationally, disconnected, fearful, confused and ineffectual as thinkers and resisters, and
inept at countering the abuse of power companies or bureaucracies wield over a misinformed
workforce.
The shape of corporations' unethical behavior, their sociopathic and the draconian workplace
conditions today are largely sculpted and defined by these behavior shapers to include the
marketers and the Edward Bernays-inspired manipulators of facts and brain functioning. This begs
the question for Hanson, just what are today's hierarchy of needs for the average American?
Physiological; Safety; Love/Belonging; Esteem; Self-Actualization.
... ... ...
Brian believes there is an awakening today in this country, and that the examples of movements
such as those in Portland where youth are out yelling against the police state, and then how we
are seeing individual officers returning firing with violence against those youth:
We talk a lot about the devaluing of language and intentional discourse which includes the
abilities of a society to engage in lively and cogent debate. For me, I know the forces of
propaganda are multi-headed, multi-variant, with so much of American life seeded with lies,
half-truths, duplicitous and twisted concepts, as well as inaccurate and spin-doctored history,
which has contaminated a large portion of our society, up and down the economic ladder, with mind
control.
Unfortunately, our language now is inextricably tied to emotions, as we see leftists (what's
that?) and so-called progressives screaming at the top of their lungs how Trump is the worst
president ever. Black
so-called activists , journalists, stating how the
empire (sky) is falling because Trump talked with Putin . Imagine, imagine, all those
millions upon millions of people killed because of all the other presidents' and their thugs'
policies eviscerating societies, all those elections smeared, all those democracies mauled, all
those citizens in the other part of the world hobbled by America's policies, read "wars,
occupations, embargoes, structural violence." It is a daily reminder for us all that today, as
was true yesterday, that we are ruled by masters of self-deception and our collective society
having a feel good party every day while we plunder the world. Doublethink. Here:
To tell deliberate lives while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has
become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion
for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while
to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in
using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one
admits one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge;
and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
Herein lies the problem – vaunting past presidents on pedestals while attacking this
current deplorable, Donald Trump. The reality is the US has been run by an elite group of
militarists, and by no means is Trump the worst of the worst, which is both illogical and
unsupported by facts:
Yet, we have to mark the words and wisdom of those of us who have been marking this empire's
crimes, both internal and external, for years. Here, Paul Edwards over
at Counterpunch hits a bulls-eye on the heart of the matter:
After decades of proven bald-faced crime, deceit and the dirtiest pool at home and abroad,
the CIA, FBI, NSA, the Justice Department and the whole fetid nomenklatura of sociopathic rats,
are portrayed as white knights of virtue dispensing verity as holy writ. And "progressives" buy
it.
These are the vermin that gave us Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Chile, the Contras, Iraq's WMD,
and along the way managed to miss the falls of the Shah and Communism.
Truly an Orwellian clusterfuck, this. War Party Dems misleading naive liberal souls sickened
by Trump into embracing the dirty, vicious lunacy Hillary peddled to her fans, the bankers,
brokers, and CEOs of the War Machine.
Trump is a fool who may yet blunder us into war; the Dems and the Deep State cabal would
give us war by design.
... ... ...
Paul Kirk Haeder has been a journalist since 1977. He's covered police,
environment, planning and zoning, county and city politics, as well as working in true small
town/community journalism situations in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico and beyond. He's been
a part-time faculty since 1983, and as such has worked in prisons, gang-influenced programs,
universities, colleges, alternative high schools, language schools, as a private
contractor-writing instructor for US military in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Washington. A
forthcoming book (Dec. 15, 2016),Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo
Chamber, looks at 10 years of his writing atDissident Voice, and
before, to bring defiance to the world that is now lobotomizing at a rate never before seen in
history. Read his autobiography, weekly chapter installments, atLA Progressive.
Read other articles by
Paul , or visit Paul's
website .
"... Sanders's support for the anti-Russia and anti-Wikileaks campaign is all the more telling because he was himself the victim of efforts by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party leadership to block his 2016 campaign. In June and July 2016, Wikileaks published internal Democratic emails in which officials ridiculed the Sanders campaign, forcing the DNC to issue a public apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email." ..."
"... In the aftermath of his election campaign, Sanders was elevated into a top-level position in the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate. His first response to the inauguration of Trump was to declare his willingness to "work with" the president, closely tracking remarks of Obama that the election of Trump was part of an "intramural scrimmage" in which all sides were on the same team. As the campaign of the military-intelligence agencies intensifies, however, Sanders is toeing the line. ..."
"... The Sanders campaign did not push the Democrats to the left, but rather the state apparatus of the ruling class brought Sanders in to give a "left" veneer to a thoroughly right-wing party. ..."
"... There is no contradiction between the influx of military-intelligence candidates into the Democratic Party and the Democrats' making use of the services of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to give the party a "left" cover. Both the CIA Democrats and their pseudo-left "comrades" agree on the most important questions: the defense of the global interests of American imperialism and a more aggressive intervention in the Syrian civil war and other areas where Washington and Moscow are in conflict. ..."
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on the CBS interview program "Face the Nation"
Sunday and fully embraced the anti-Russia campaign of the US military-intelligence apparatus,
backed by the Democratic Party and much of the media.
In response to a question from CBS host Margaret Brennan, Sanders unleashed a torrent of
denunciations of Trump's meeting and press conference in Helsinki with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. A preliminary transcript reads:
SANDERS: "I will tell you that I was absolutely outraged by his behavior in Helsinki, where
he really sold the American people out. And it makes me think that either Trump doesn't
understand what Russia has done, not only to our elections, but through cyber attacks against
all parts of our infrastructure, either he doesn't understand it, or perhaps he is being
blackmailed by Russia, because they may have compromising information about him.
"Or perhaps also you have a president who really does have strong authoritarian tendencies.
And maybe he admires the kind of government that Putin is running in Russia. And I think all of
that is a disgrace and a disservice to the American people. And we have got to make sure that
Russia does not interfere, not only in our elections, but in other aspects of our lives."
These comments, which echo remarks he gave at a rally in Kansas late last week, signal
Sanders' full embrace of the right-wing campaign launched by the Democrats and backed by
dominant sections of the military-intelligence apparatus. Their opposition to Trump is centered
on issues of foreign policy, based on the concern that Trump, due to his own "America First"
brand of imperialist strategy, has run afoul of geostrategic imperatives that are considered
inviolable -- in particular, the conflict with Russia.
Sanders did not use his time on a national television program to condemn Trump's persecution
of immigrants and the separation of children from their parents, or to denounce his naming of
ultra-right jurist Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, or to attack the White House
declaration last week that the "war on poverty" had ended victoriously -- in order to justify
the destruction of social programs for impoverished working people. Nor did he seek to advance
his supposedly left-wing program on domestic issues like health care, jobs and education.
Sanders' embrace of the anti-Russia campaign is not surprising, but it is instructive. This
is, after all, an individual who presented himself as "left-wing," even a "socialist." During
the 2016 election campaign, he won the support of millions of people attracted to his call for
a "political revolution" against the "billionaire class." For Sanders, who has a long history
of opportunist and pro-imperialist politics in the orbit of the Democratic Party, the aim of
the campaign was always to direct social discontent into establishment channels, culminating in
his endorsement of the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Sanders's support for the anti-Russia and anti-Wikileaks campaign is all the more
telling because he was himself the victim of efforts by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic
Party leadership to block his 2016 campaign. In June and July 2016, Wikileaks published
internal Democratic emails in which officials ridiculed the Sanders campaign, forcing the DNC
to issue a public apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and
sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the
inexcusable remarks made over email."
In the aftermath of his election campaign, Sanders was elevated into a top-level
position in the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate. His first response to the
inauguration of Trump was to declare his willingness to "work with" the president, closely
tracking remarks of Obama that the election of Trump was part of an "intramural scrimmage" in
which all sides were on the same team. As the campaign of the military-intelligence agencies
intensifies, however, Sanders is toeing the line.
The experience is instructive not only in relation to Sanders, but to an entire social
milieu and the political perspective with which it is associated. This is what it means to work
within the Democratic Party. The Sanders campaign did not push the Democrats to the left,
but rather the state apparatus of the ruling class brought Sanders in to give a "left" veneer
to a thoroughly right-wing party.
New political figures, many associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are
being brought in for the same purpose. As Sanders gave his anti-Russia rant, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez sat next to him nodding her agreement. The 28-year-old member of the DSA last
month won the Democratic nomination in New York's 14th Congressional District, unseating the
Democratic incumbent, Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking member of the Democratic leadership in
the House of Representatives.
Since then, Ocasio-Cortez has been given massive and largely uncritical publicity by the
corporate media, summed up in an editorial puff piece by the New York Times that
described her as "a bright light in the Democratic Party who has brought desperately needed
energy back to New York politics "
Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders were jointly interviewed from Kansas, where the two appeared
Friday at a campaign rally for James Thompson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the
US House of Representatives from the Fourth Congressional District, based in Wichita, in an
August 7 primary election.
Thompson might appear to be an unusual ally for the "socialist" Sanders and the DSA member
Ocasio-Cortez. His campaign celebrates his role as an Army veteran, and his website opens under
the slogan "Join the Thompson Army," followed by pledges that the candidate will "Fight for
America." In an interview with the Associated Press, Thompson indicated that despite his
support for Sanders' call for "Medicare for all," and his own endorsement by the DSA, he was
wary of any association with socialism. "I don't like the term socialist, because people do
associate that with bad things in history," he said.
Such anticommunism fits right in with the anti-Russian campaign, which is the principal
theme of the Democratic Party in the 2018 elections. As the World Socialist Web
Site has pointed out for many months, the
real thrust of the Democratic Party campaign is demonstrated by its recruitment as
congressional candidates of dozens of former CIA and military intelligence agents, combat
commanders from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and war planners from the Pentagon, State
Department and White House.
There is no contradiction between the influx of military-intelligence candidates into
the Democratic Party and the Democrats' making use of the services of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez
to give the party a "left" cover. Both the CIA Democrats and their pseudo-left "comrades" agree
on the most important questions: the defense of the global interests of American imperialism
and a more aggressive intervention in the Syrian civil war and other areas where Washington and
Moscow are in conflict.
"... There is a vast literature analyzing the political prophecy of George Orwell 's Nineteen Eighty-Four . Big Brother, double-speak, telescreens, crimestop, etc. – all applied to our current political situation. The language has become part of our popular lexicon, and as such, has become clichéd through overuse. Blithe, habitual use of language robs it of its power to crack open the safe that hides the realities of life. ..."
"... There is no doubt that Orwell wrote a brilliant political warning about the methods of totalitarian control. But hidden at the heart of the book is another lesson lost on most readers and commentators. Rats, torture, and Newspeak resonate with people fixated on political repression, which is a major concern, of course. But so too is privacy and sexual passion in a country of group-think and group-do, where "Big Brother" poisons you in the crib and the entertainment culture then takes over to desexualize intimacy by selling it as another public commodity. ..."
"... The United States is a pornographic society. By pornographic I do not just mean the omnipresent selling of exploitative sex through all media to titillate a voyeuristic public living in the unreality of screen "life" and screen sex through television, movies, and online obsessions. I mean a commodified consciousness, where everyone and everything is part of a prostitution ring in the deepest sense of pornography's meaning – for sale, bought. ..."
"... As this happens, words and language become corrupted by the same forces that Orwell called Big Brother, whose job is total propaganda and social control. Just as physical reality now mimics screen reality and thus becomes chimerical, language, through which human beings uncover and articulate the truth of being, becomes more and more abstract. People don't die; they "pass on" or "pass away." Dying, like real sex, is too physical. Wars of aggression don't exist; they are "overseas contingency operations." Killing people with drones isn't killing; it's "neutralizing them." There are a "ton" of examples, but I am sure "you guys" don't need me to list any more. ..."
"... This destruction of language has been going on for a long time, but it's worth noting that from Hemingway's WW I through Orwell's WW II up until today's endless U.S. wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, etc., there has been the parallel development of screen and media culture, beginning with silent movies through television and onto the total electronic media environment we now inhabit – the surround sound and image bubble of literal abstractions that inhabit us, mentally and physically. In such a society, to feel what you really feel and not what, in Hemingway's words, "you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel" has become extremely difficult. ..."
"... But understanding the history of public relations, advertising, propaganda, the CIA, the national security apparatus, technology, etc., makes it clear that such hope is baseless. For the propaganda in this country has penetrated far deeper than anyone can imagine, and it has primarily done this through advanced technology and the religion of technique – machines as pure abstractions – that has poisoned not just our minds, but the deepest wellsprings of the body's truths and the erotic imagination that links us in love to all life on earth. ..."
"... Orwell makes it very clear that language is the key to mind control, as he delineates how Newspeak works. I think he is right. And mind control also means the control of our bodies, Eros, our sex, our physical connections to all living beings and nature. Today the U.S. is reaching the point where "Oldspeak" – Standard English – has been replaced by Newspeak, and just "fragments of the literature of the past" survive here and there. ..."
"Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but
degenerated to Vice." – Frederick Nietzsche , Beyond Good and Evil
"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has
happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little
hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or
scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen." –
D. H. Lawrence , Lady Chatterley's Lover
"The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a
second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The
need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing gadgets, devices, instruments,
engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of
one's own destruction, has become a 'biological' need." – Herbert Marcuse , One
Dimensional Man
There is a vast literature analyzing the political prophecy of George Orwell 's Nineteen
Eighty-Four . Big Brother, double-speak, telescreens, crimestop, etc. – all applied
to our current political situation. The language has become part of our popular lexicon, and as
such, has become clichéd through overuse. Blithe, habitual use of language robs it of
its power to crack open the safe that hides the realities of life.
There is no doubt that Orwell wrote a brilliant political warning about the methods of
totalitarian control. But hidden at the heart of the book is another lesson lost on most
readers and commentators. Rats, torture, and Newspeak resonate with people fixated on political
repression, which is a major concern, of course. But so too is privacy and sexual passion in a
country of group-think and group-do, where "Big Brother" poisons you in the crib and the
entertainment culture then takes over to desexualize intimacy by selling it as another public
commodity.
The United States is a pornographic society. By pornographic I do not just mean the
omnipresent selling of exploitative sex through all media to titillate a voyeuristic public
living in the unreality of screen "life" and screen sex through television, movies, and online
obsessions. I mean a commodified consciousness, where everyone and everything is part of a
prostitution ring in the deepest sense of pornography's meaning – for sale, bought.
And
consumed by getting, spending, and selling. Flicked into the net of Big Brother, whose job is
make sure everything fundamentally human and physical is debased and mediated, people become
consumers of the unreal and direct experience is discouraged. The natural world becomes an
object to be conquered and used. Animals are produced in chemical factories to be slaughtered
by the billions only to appear bloodless under plastic wrap in supermarket coolers. The human
body disappears into hypnotic spectral images. One's sex becomes one's gender as the words are
transmogrified and as one looks in the mirror of the looking-glass self and wonders how to
identify the one looking back.
Streaming life from Netflix or Facebook becomes life the movie.
The brilliant perverseness of the mediated reality of a screen society – what Guy Debord
calls The Society of the
Spectacle – is that as it distances people from fundamental reality, it promotes that
reality through its screen fantasies. "Get away from it all and restore yourself at our spa in
the rugged mountains where you can hike in pristine woods after yoga and a breakfast of locally
sourced eggs and artisanally crafted bread." Such garbage would be funny if it weren't so
effective. Debord writes,
The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by
images .Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings
and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior.
Thus sex with robots and marrying yourself are not aberrations but logical extensions of a
society where solipsism meets machine in the America dream.
As this happens, words and language become corrupted by the same forces that Orwell called
Big Brother, whose job is total propaganda and social control. Just as physical reality now
mimics screen reality and thus becomes chimerical, language, through which human beings uncover
and articulate the truth of being, becomes more and more abstract. People don't die; they "pass
on" or "pass away." Dying, like real sex, is too physical. Wars of aggression don't exist; they
are "overseas contingency operations." Killing people with drones isn't killing; it's
"neutralizing them." There are a "ton" of examples, but I am sure "you guys" don't need me to
list any more.
Orwell called Big Brother's language Newspeak, and Hemingway preceded him when he so
famously wrote in disgust In a Farewell to Arms ,
"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice, and the expression
in vain. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene "
This destruction of language has been going on for a long time, but it's worth noting that
from Hemingway's WW I through Orwell's WW II up until today's endless U.S. wars against
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, etc., there has been the parallel development of screen
and media culture, beginning with silent movies through television and onto the total
electronic media environment we now inhabit – the surround sound and image bubble of
literal abstractions that inhabit us, mentally and physically. In such a society, to feel what
you really feel and not what, in Hemingway's words, "you were supposed to feel, and had been
taught to feel" has become extremely difficult.
... ... ...
But as we learn in 1984 and should learn in the U.S.A. today , "seemed" is the
key word. Their triumph was temporary. For sexual passion reveals truths that need to be
confirmed in the mind. In itself, sexual liberation can be easily manipulated, as it has been
so effectively in the United States. "Repressive de-sublimation" Herbert Marcuse called it
fifty years ago. You allow people to act out their sexual fantasies in commodified ways that
can be controlled by the rulers, all the while ruling their minds and potential political
rebelliousness. Sex becomes part of the service economy where people service each other while
serving their masters. Use pseudo-sex to sell them a way of life that traps them in an
increasingly totalitarian social order that only seems free. This has been accomplished
primarily through screen culture and the concomitant confusion of sexual identity. Perhaps you
have noticed that over the past twenty-five years of growing social and political confusion, we
have witnessed an exponential growth in "the electronic life," the use of psychotropic drugs,
and sexual disorientation. This is no accident. Wars have become as constant as Eros –
the god of love, life, joy, and motion – has been divorced from sex as a stimulus and
response release of tension in a "stressed" society. Rollo May, the great American
psychologist, grasped this:
Indeed, we have set sex over against eros, used sex precisely to avoid the
anxiety-creating involvements of eros We are in flight from eros and use sex as the vehicle for
the flight Eros [which includes, but is not limited to, passionate sex] is the center of
vitality of a culture – its heart and soul. And when release of tension takes the place
of creative eros, the downfall of the civilization is assured.
Because Julia and Winston cannot permanently escape Oceania, but can only tryst, they
succumb to Big Brother's mind control and betray each other. Their sexual affair can't save
them. It is a moment of beauty and freedom in an impossible situation. Of course the
hermetically sealed world of 1984 is not the United States. Orwell created a society in
which escape was impossible. It is, after all, an admonitory novel – not the real world.
Things are more subtle here; we still have some wiggle room – some – although the
underlying truth is the same: the U.S. oligarchy, like "The Party," "seeks power entirely for
its own sake" and "are not interested in the good of others," all rhetoric to the contrary. Our
problem is that too many believe the rhetoric, and those who say they don't really do at the
deepest level. Fly the flag and play the national anthem and their hearts are aflutter with
hope. Recycle old bromides about the next election when your political enemies will be swept
out of office and excitement builds as though you had met the love of your life and all was
well with the world.
But understanding the history of public relations, advertising, propaganda, the CIA, the
national security apparatus, technology, etc., makes it clear that such hope is baseless. For
the propaganda in this country has penetrated far deeper than anyone can imagine, and it has
primarily done this through advanced technology and the religion of technique – machines
as pure abstractions – that has poisoned not just our minds, but the deepest wellsprings
of the body's truths and the erotic imagination that links us in love to all life on earth.
In "Defence of Poetry," Percy Bysshe Shelley writes:
The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of
ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man,
to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the
place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasure of his species must become his
own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.
We are now faced with the question: Can we escape the forces of propaganda and mind control
that run so very deep into American life? If so, how? Let's imagine a way out.
Orwell makes it very clear that language is the key to mind control, as he delineates how
Newspeak works. I think he is right. And mind control also means the control of our bodies,
Eros, our sex, our physical connections to all living beings and nature. Today the U.S. is
reaching the point where "Oldspeak" – Standard English – has been replaced by
Newspeak, and just "fragments of the literature of the past" survive here and there.
This is
true for the schooled and unschooled. In fact, those more trapped by the instrumental logic,
disembodied data, and word games of the power elite are those who have gone through the most
schooling, the indoctrination offered by the so-called "elite" universities. I suspect that
more working-class and poor people still retain some sense of the old language and the
fundamental meaning of words, since it is with their sweat and blood that they "earn their
living." Many of the highly schooled are children of the power elite or those groomed to serve
them, who are invited to join in living the life of power and privilege if they swallow their
consciences and deaden their imaginations to the suffering their "life-styles" and ideological
choices inflict on the rest of the world. In this world of TheNew York Times ,
Harvard, The New Yorker , Martha's Vineyard, TheWashington Post , Wall
St., Goldman Sachs, the boardrooms of the ruling corporations, all the corporate media, etc.,
language has become debased beyond recognition. Here, as Orwell said of Newspeak, "a heretical
thought should be literally unthinkable, at least as far as thought is dependent on words. Its
vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every
meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express." The intelligently orthodox, he
adds, must master the art of "doublethink" wherein they hold two contradictory ideas in their
minds simultaneously, while accepting both of them. This is the key trick of logic and language
that allows the power elites and their lackeys in the U.S. today to master the art of
self-deception and feel good about themselves as they plunder the world. In this "Party" world,
the demonization, degradation, and killing of others is an abstraction; their lives are
spectral. Orwell describes doublethink this way:
To tell deliberate lives while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has
become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion
for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while
to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in
using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink . For by using
the word one admits one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one
erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the
truth.
... ... ...
*
Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely; he is a frequent contributor
to Global Research. He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website
is http://edwardcurtin.com/ .
"... This short communiqué is to my friends who are trapped in hating Donald Trump so much that any "alternative fact" (as long as it is against President Trump) is virtue to them. They are not realizing that the feud among the 1%, regardless of their Party affiliation is a family feud. The extreme right wing politicians and billionaires run both the Democratic and Republican parties. Their arguments are not about our state of healthcare, education or jobs. ..."
"... Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above
This short communiqué is to my friends who are trapped in hating Donald Trump so
much that any "alternative fact" (as long as it is against President Trump) is virtue to them.
They are not realizing that the feud among the 1%, regardless of their Party affiliation is a
family feud. The extreme right wing politicians and billionaires run both the Democratic and
Republican parties. Their arguments are not about our state of healthcare, education or
jobs.
Friends who are dissatisfied with the current political situation (instead of organizing
against the reactionary policies of the current administration or question the congress for
approving the Tax Cut for the rich) are competing in posting the Democratic Party
hysteria against Russia on the social media. They are distracted by the false narrative that
"American Democracy" is under "attack" by one man in Russia, President Putin who has Mr. Trump
in his "pocket".
Those who believe such an absurd storyline rely on the U.S. Intelligence agencies reports
and findings! These are the same agencies that informed Americans that Saddam Hussein had
Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are the same people who justified war against Iraq in 2003
which opened the gates of hell in that region for decades. Now, after they had succeeded in
blowing up people and countries in the Middle East on false information, the ladies and
gentlemen of the U.S. intelligence agencies have found a new bogeyman to scare the American
people. This is just another DISTRACTION , period.
The fascistic minded President of the U.S. is not in anybody's pocket. As a matter of fact,
today it is the political pocket pickers in Washington who are robbing the American working
people and holding us as hostages. When was the last time that you saw the White House or
Congress address the working people's real needs and problems? Some friends are mesmerized by
the nastiness of the 1% cultural values. However exposing Mr. Trump sexual affair with a "Porn
Star" will not help the American people's struggle for the Minimum Wage or Protecting
Environment, Immigration and so on. This is just another DISTRACTION .
Under bright light, President Trump and his opponents play out their childish, embarrassing
show against each other in front of the corrupt media, while in the shadow of
DISTRACTION they are limiting our FREEDOM OF SPEECH and taking away our democratic
rights. Both parties are afraid of the energy and determination of workers, farmers, women and
youth which eventually could challenge the entire existing miserable system. Historically, they
are well aware of the potential of revolt by people who are organized and conscious. The ladies
and gentlemen in charge of the U.S. foreign and domestic policy are incapable of solving our
social or political problems; the only thing they are good at is to create decoys and
DISTRACTION . The gossip shows on the corporate media are blindfolding us to see the
slaughters in Gaza or Yemen or the devastating consequences of the Trump administration Trade
War drive against the EU and China 1 on American farmers and workers.
Independent and democratic minded people SHOULD NOT take any side between the different
factions of the 1%. We should not allow the 1% use us as their pawns to propagate their hate
and disunity among people.
The White House and Congress are obsolete. Independent and democratic minded people should
UNITE, ORGANIZE and seek a new operating system – a system that puts people's need over
profit.
*
Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the
United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
"... The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is called "The Third Way" and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political center, nothing "extremist" or "marginal." But didn't liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans -- they attract flies and billionaires, but not many votes. And didn't the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 -- and the Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27 March 2009, "I'm not out there to go after you. I'm protecting you." And, he did keep his promise to them, though not to his voters .) ..."
"... They want another Barack Obama. There aren't any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest). But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again -- after the disaster of 2016? ..."
"... Maybe the Third Way is right, and there's a sucker born every minute. But if that's what the Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America's stunningly low voter-participation rate is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt driven to do in 2016). ..."
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is
called "The Third Way" and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political
center, nothing "extremist" or "marginal." But didn't liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson
Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans -- they attract flies and
billionaires, but not many votes. And didn't the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with
millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the
narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 -- and the
Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he
actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27
March 2009, "I'm not out there to go after you.
I'm protecting you." And, he did
keep his promise to them, though not to his voters .)
They're at it, yet again. On July 22nd, NBC News's Alex Seitz-Wald headlined
"Sanders' wing of the party terrifies moderate Dems. Here's how they plan to stop it." And
he described what was publicly available from the 3-day private meeting in Columbus Ohio of The
Third Way, July 18-20, the planning conference between the Party's chiefs and its billionaires.
Evidently, they hate Bernie Sanders and are already scheming and spending in order to block
him, now a second time, from obtaining the Party's Presidential nomination. "Anxiety has
largely been kept to a whisper among the party's moderates and big donors, with some of the
major fundraisers pressing operatives on what can be done to stop the Vermonter if he runs for
the White House again." This passage in Seitz-Wald's article was especially striking to me:
The gathering here was an effort to offer an attractive alternative to the rising
Sanders-style populist left in the upcoming presidential race. Where progressives see a rare
opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to
win over Republicans turned off by Trump.
The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, cohosted the event
and addressed attendees twice, underscored that this group is not interested in the class
warfare vilifying the "millionaires and billionaires" found in Sanders' stump speech.
"You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be
rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to
laughs.
I would reply to congressman Ryan's remark: If you want to be rich, then get the hell out of
politics! Don't run for President! I don't want you there! And that's no joke!
Anyone who doesn't recognize that an inevitable trade-off exists between serving the public
and serving oneself, is a libertarian -- an Ayn Rander, in fact -- and there aren't many of
those in the Democratic Party, but plenty of them are in the Republican Party.
Just as a clergyman in some faiths is supposed to take a vow of chastity, and in some faiths
also to take a vow of poverty, in order to serve "the calling" instead of oneself, anyone who
enters 'public service' and who aspires to "be rich" is inevitably inviting corruption
-- not prepared to do war against it . That kind of politician is a Manchurian
candidate, like Obama perhaps, but certainly not what this or any country needs, in any case.
Voters like that can be won only by means of deceit, which is the way that politicians like
that do win.
No decent political leader enters or stays in politics in order to "be rich," because no
political leader can be decent who isn't in it as a calling, to public service, and as a
repudiation, of any self-service in politics.
Republican Party voters invite corrupt government, because their Party's ideology is
committed to it ("Freedom [for the rich]!"); but the only Democratic Party voters who at all
tolerate corrupt politicians (such as Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York State) are actually
Republican Democrats -- people who are confused enough so as not really to care much about what
they believe; whatever their garbage happens to be, they believe in it and don't want to know
differently than it.
The Third Way is hoping that there are
enough of such 'Democrats' so that they can, yet again, end up with a Third Way Democrat being
offered to that Party's voters in 2020, just like happened in 2016. They want another Barack
Obama. There aren't any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest).
But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again -- after the
disaster of 2016?
Maybe the Third Way is right, and there's a sucker born every minute. But if that's what the
Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America's stunningly low voter-participation rate
is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the
Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt
driven to do in 2016).
The Third Way is the way to the death of democracy, if it's not already dead . It is no answer
to anything, except to the desires of billionaires -- both Republican and Democratic.
The center of American politics isn't the center of America's aristocracy. The goal
of groups such as The Third Way is to fool the American public to equate the two. The
result of such groups is the contempt that America's
public have for America's Government . But, pushed too far, mass disillusionment becomes
revolution. Is that what America's billionaires are willing to risk? They might get it.
"... Congress wasted no time jumping on the Treason bandwagon, led by Chuck Schumer conjuring the spectre of the KGB, Marco Rubio as neocon point-man (one imagines Barbara Bush rolling in her grave at his usurpation of Jeb's rightful role) proposing locked-and-loaded sanctions in case of future "meddling," and John McCain , still desperate to take the rest of the world with him before he finally kicks a long-overdue bucket, condemning the "disgraceful" display of two heads of state trying to come to an agreement about matters of mutual interest. The Pentagon has invested a lot of time and money in positioning Russia as Public Enemy #1, and for Trump to put his foot in it by making nice with Putin might diminish the size of their weapons contracts – or the willingness of the American people to tolerate more than half of every tax dollar disappearing down an unaccountable hole . Peace? Eh, who needs it. Cash , motherfucker. ..."
"... The Intelligence Community believes it is God, and it hath smote Trump good. Smelling blood in the water, the media redoubled their shrieking for several days, and crickets. ..."
The Helsinki hysteria shone a spotlight on the utter impotence of the establishment media
and their Deep State controllers to make their delusions reality. Never before has there been
such a gaping chasm visible between the media's "truth" and the facts on the ground. Pundits
compared the summit to Pearl Harbor and
9/11 , with some even reaching for the brass ring of the Holocaust by likening it to
Kristallnacht , while
polls revealed the American people reallydidn't care .
Worse, it laid bare the collusion between the media and their Deep State handlers –
the central dissemination point for the headlines, down to the same phrases, that led to every
outlet claiming Trump had "thrown the Intelligence Community under the bus" by refusing to
embrace the Russia-hacked-our-democracy narrative during his press conference with Putin.
Leaving aside the sudden ubiquity of "Intelligence Community" in our national discourse –
as if this network of spies and murderous thugs is Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood – no one
seriously believes every pundit came up with "throws under the bus" as the proper way of
describing that press conference.
The same central control was apparent in the unanimous condemnations of Putin – that
he murders
journalists , breaks
international agreements , uses bannedchemical
weapons ,
kills women and children
in Syria , and, of course,
meddles in elections . For every single establishment pundit to exhibit such a breathtaking
lack of insight into their own government's misdeeds is highly unlikely. Many of these same
talking heads remarked in horror on Sinclair Broadcasting's Orwellian "prepared statement"
issuing forth from the mouths of hundreds of stations' anchors at once. Et tu, Anderson
Cooper?
The media frenzy was geared toward sparking a popular revolt, with tensions already running
high from the previous media frenzy about family separation at the border (though only one
MSNBC segment seemed to recall that they should still care about that, and belatedly included
some footage of kids
behind a fence wrapped in Mylar blankets). Rachel Maddow , armed with the crocodile tears that
served her so well during the family-separation fracas, exhorted her faithful cultists to
do something.
Meanwhile, national-security neanderthal John Brennan all but called for a coup, condemning the
president for the unspeakable "high crimes and misdemeanors" of seeking to improve relations
with the world's second-largest nuclear power. He called on Pompeo and Bolton, the two biggest
warmongers in a Trump administration bristling with warmongers, to resign in protest. This
would have been a grand slam for world peace, but alas, it was not to be. Even those two
realize what a has-been Brennan is.
Congress wasted no time jumping on the Treason bandwagon, led by Chuck Schumer conjuring
the spectre of the KGB, Marco Rubio as neocon point-man (one imagines Barbara Bush rolling in
her grave at his usurpation of Jeb's rightful role) proposing locked-and-loaded sanctions in
case of future "meddling," and John McCain , still desperate to take the rest of the world with
him before he finally kicks a long-overdue bucket, condemning the "disgraceful" display of two
heads of state trying to come to an agreement about matters of mutual interest. The Pentagon
has invested a lot of time and money in
positioning Russia as Public Enemy #1, and for Trump to put his foot in it by making nice
with Putin might diminish the size of their weapons contracts – or the willingness of the
American people to tolerate more than half of every tax dollar disappearing down an unaccountable
hole . Peace? Eh, who needs it. Cash , motherfucker.
Trump's grip on his long-elusive spine was only temporary, and he held another press
conference upon returning home to reiterate his trust in the intelligence agencies that have
made no secret of their utter loathing for him since day one. When the lights went out at the
climactic moment, it became clear for anyone who still hadn't gotten the message who was
running the show here (and Trump, to his credit, actually joked about it). The Intelligence
Community believes it is God, and it hath smote Trump good. Smelling blood in the water, the
media redoubled their shrieking for several days, and crickets.
On to the Playmates .
Sacha Baron Cohen 's latest series, "Who is America," targeted Ted Koppel for one segment.
Koppel cut the interview short after smelling a rat and expressed his
high-minded concern that Cohen's antics would hurt Americans' trust in reporters. But after
a week of the entire media establishment screaming that the sky is falling while the heavens
remain firmly in place, Cohen is clearly the least of their problems. At least he's funny.
*
Helen Buyniski is a journalist and photographer based in New York City. She covers
politics, sociology, and other anthropological/cultural phenomena. Helen has a BA in Journalism
from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University.
Find more of her work at http://www.helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski .
Note: The term Progressive is now so mutilated that it's no longer effective as an identifier
of political affiliation. To be a real Progressive: one must be Anti-War, except in the most dire
of circumstances, which includes being Anti-Imperialist/Anti-Empire; 2nd, one must be Pro-Justice
as in promoting Rule of Law over all else; 3rd, one must be tolerant and willing to listen to
others; and 4th, work for Win-Win outcomes and denounce Zero-sum as the smoke screen for
increasing inequality
The so-called "insurgents" are no such thing. That's a standard Democrat scam to keep
potential apostates roped in. Bernie Sanders always has been a con artist. Not that it's any
secret: His entire senate record is of worthless grandstanding and zero real monkey-wrenching
or grid-locking action .
As for his campaign, from day one he proclaimed he was a loyal Democrat soldier and that
he would support Clinton and do all he could to deliver his supporters to her. He dutifully
kept that promise. Along the way and since the 2016 election he's done zero toward building
any kind of grassroots alternative. That's because he never intended to be part of any real
alternative in the first place. And that's why the DNC always has supported his "independent"
senate campaigns - he does an excellent con-job on behalf of their agenda.
And today he's fully on board with the Russiagate campaign, doing all he can to rope in
"progressives" who might be having doubts about the anti-Russia lunacy. His usual job.
As for the latest wave of progressive heroes, for just one typical example I'll observe
that Ocasio-Cortez immediately after her primary win lost no time scrubbing the anti-war
plank from her site and publicly retracting her previous statements on behalf of the
Palestinians. The Democrat con always runs like clock-work.
And as the post describes, with Russiagate the fake insurgents provide a new service to
the Party: To serve as bogeymen for internally-directed Party propaganda, as an
organizational vehicle to "get out the vote" among establishment loyalists.
There's no way forward with the Democrat Party. It always has been a death trap for all
progressive, let alone radical aspirations. The Party and its partisans must politically
perish completely, as a prerequisite for any good transformation of America.
"... By the way, I should note the date of that exchange with Jay: October 2008. We were still in the Bush era. The entire discussion -- of lies and facts, the disregard for facts, and such -- was framed by the Iraq War and the epic untruths that were told in the run-up to the war. It should give you a sense that the world of fake news that so many pundits seem to have suddenly awakened to as a newborn threat has been with us for a long time. The Bush era may seem like ancient history to some, but in the vast, and even not so vast, scheme of things, it was just yesterday. ..."
"... Once the facts aren't a threat to power, they can generally be revealed. ..."
"... Bush appeared confident the facts won't matter, after the invasion. They did matter–if you're just talking about the truth. The non-existence of the WMDs wasn't widely denied (though a few in the administration would try) –the fact was simply swept away because they weren't politically relevant anymore. ..."
"... Isn't that why everyone is saying we're in a 'post-truth' moment? ..."
"... Prior to this, an unsavory or humiliating or shameful or dangerous truth was extremely salient, and would be fuel for a response. It's partly the power of gaslighting – denying the obvious creates a sufficient level of confusion to let you keep going when normally others would stop you. ..."
"... I understand the difference between the two types of truth, truths of logic vs empirical facts that are contingent, but I think the difference between the liar and the sophist is mostly nonexistent. People who lie about empirical facts are also unwilling to follow chains of logic if they don't want to accept the necessary conclusion. ..."
As Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism , "The ideal
subject of totalitarian rule ... [are] people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction
(ie the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie the standards of
thought) no longer exist."
By the way, I should note the date of that exchange with Jay: October 2008. We were still in
the Bush era. The entire discussion -- of lies and facts, the disregard for facts, and such --
was framed by the Iraq War and the epic untruths that were told in the run-up to the war. It
should give you a sense that the world of fake news that so many pundits seem to have suddenly
awakened to as a newborn threat has been with us for a long time. The Bush era may seem like
ancient history to some, but in the vast, and even not so vast, scheme of things, it was just
yesterday.
Ray Vinmad 07.16.18 at 8:11 am (no link)
"Should enough people come to believe the liar's claim, the facts about which he lies could
be lost from the world forever. "
This isn't what happens, usually. When the interests connected to the lies change, then
the truth is usually admitted. In the US, the truth often becomes irrelevant, even if real
horrors are admitted to. Americans are fairly disinterested in the dirty particles of most of
the nation's past.
Once the facts aren't a threat to power, they can generally be revealed.
That's not to say that certain false narratives won't be retained, but the revival of
these is generally shaped to current interests, and even if lies are borrowed from the past,
the main way they get a hold on the present is because they serve certain interests.
Bush appeared confident the facts won't matter, after the invasion. They did
matter–if you're just talking about the truth. The non-existence of the WMDs wasn't
widely denied (though a few in the administration would try) –the fact was simply swept
away because they weren't politically relevant anymore.
In these cases, it seems that salience or irrelevance is a better way to understand what's
driving the weak practical impact of the facts rather than truth or falsity.
Isn't that why everyone is saying we're in a 'post-truth' moment? Trump's trick is to make his story the salient
story, and his denials have a way of disabling or thwarting action, even when people are fully aware of the truth. Except for
the total fanatics, Trump's enablers are vaguely or even completely aware they are operating on a lie. What matters isn't that
the claims are factual disprovable but that they drive action toward the pursuit of particular interests, and disable action
that harms those interests.
Prior to this, an unsavory or humiliating or shameful or dangerous truth was extremely
salient, and would be fuel for a response. It's partly the power of gaslighting – denying
the obvious creates a sufficient level of confusion to let you keep going when normally
others would stop you.
There's something odious and misleading in the way you distinguish between types of truth and
their role in politics, though I can't put my finger on it, and perhaps whatever error I
can't quite describe might explain why you fell for Trump so neatly, but perhaps part of it
can be easily seen here:
Having staked his presidency on the claim that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction, he's going to have to wage war against Iraq in order to eliminate those
weapons.
This gets the nature of Bush's lies completely wrong. He wanted to invade Iraq and he knew
he could lie his way into it because of the way American politics rewards muscular action and
militarism, and because of the recklessness of his political supporters. He didn't stake his
presidency on a lie, he staked his presidency on a war and lied his way into it. In 2008 did
you really believe bush had been sincere about his belief in wmds?
This definition of lies here seems weird and unnecessary.
Donald 07.16.18 at 4:18 pm (no link)
I understand the difference between the two types of truth, truths of logic vs empirical
facts that are contingent, but I think the difference between the liar and the sophist is
mostly nonexistent. People who lie about empirical facts are also unwilling to follow chains
of logic if they don't want to accept the necessary conclusion.
That aside, I think politics is full of lies because the system collapses otherwise. I
think this ties in with the endless debate people have here about Trump and Trump's
opposition. Like Hidari in the other thread, I think Trump's war crimes ( listed below) are
far more significant morally speaking than Russiagate, but in our political system collusion
with a foreign power in dirty tricks during a political campaign is much easier to attack
than war crimes and US complicity in genocide. Both political parties would collapse if we
started holding politicians of both parties along with various government officials
accountable. We have a functioning democracy by some definition of " functioning" precisely
because we allow the biggest crimes to be treated as policy choices and not crimes, while
pretending that the worst crime an American politician has or could commit would be to
collude with a foreign power in stealing some emails to embarrass the other party.
For those curious, Trump's biggest war crimes are the bombing of civilians in Iraq and
Syria and the assistance to the Saudi assault on Yemen. According to the Airwars site the
killing of civilians by our bombs increased dramatically under Trump, probably because of
loosened restrictions. The policy in Yemen continues what Obama did. In both cases it isn't
just the President who is guilty, unless Obama and Trump singkehandedly carry out all
functions of our government in the Mideast. Holding them accountable would mean holding a lot
of other people accountable.
michael 07.16.18 at 6:06 pm (no link)
This is the first intelligent thing Robin has written, in my view. It also helps me formulate
more explicitly some of my longstanding discomfort with Arendt, which is rooted in the way
her predilection for natality leads her to posit a rather simplistic political ontology.
After all, we do not enter politics with a given floor and horizon; politics is about which
floor and which horizon does and should exist. This is what makes factual truth coercive: not
its validity, but its tendency to impose rather than set out from a set of political givens.
Which is to say, natality is always already operating within the status quo; it is not
introduced there by "politics."
I know I have in the past quoted from Twitter (which would seem to be where the most
interesting conversations are nowadays, as opposed to the blogosphere) but Branko Milanovic
has some interesting insights (he also has the inestimable advantage of not coming from the
UK/US/Australasia AKA the 'Anglosphere': he has more of a cosmopolitan sensibility).
His basic point is that you really can't understand Trump unless you look at what came
before his (Frederic Jameson: 'Always historicise!'). Since Thatcher/Reagan (and Clinton and
Blair were not really much different) we have been taught to look up to 'entrepreneurs' as
'wealth creators'. Or, to put it another way, to obsequiously grovel to semi-earned wealth
and power. But politics, we were told, floated above the grubby world of 'material interests'
like a soap bubble.
Trump tears the veil aside. He doesn't govern on behalf of capitalists as Thatcher/Blair
and the rest did. He IS a capitalist. And he self-evidently became President to help his
business interests (including, yes, those in Russia. But that's probably as far as the Russia
thing goes). This is terribly disturbing for liberals, who have been taught to see
'capitalist' ('liberal' is normally the euphemism) 'democracy' as being merely a neutral
description of the 'mode of production' of our current set up, as opposed to being a harsh
description of political realities: politicians are allowed to govern insofar as their
policies benefit capitalists.
Hence to talk about Trump lying is like talking about an advert 'lying'. Do adverts 'lie'?
Of course to a certain extent. But then they were never supposed to tell the truth. Their
purpose is to sell a product. Truth is irrelevant.
Every word that comes out of Trump's mouth is to help Trump PLC. It's true (sic) that some
of his statements are false. But to assess it in these terms is like to point out that
Heineken is not, in fact, probably the best lager in the world, or that one should not, in
fact, necessarily Drinka Pinta Milka day.
Again, I think this is what disturbs people. Bush et al, consciously lied. Trump I don't
think he knows what truth is, and I don't think he cares. What boosts profits that's what's
good and true.What doesn't isn't good (or true).
But these are the value of capitalism, and Trump is, in this sense, the logical end
product of where Western society has been heading since 1979 (1981 in the 'States).
Orange watch, the order of the claim seems important to me. Stumbling into a war because you
told a lie about a possible cause of a war ends all the other options to deal with it dried up
is one thing; setting up a war and lying your way into it is a different thing. Eg you decide
to cheat on your wife and set up an incredibly thin lie to do it, versus you have a habit of
lying to your wife that ultimately ends with you having a chance at an affair.
Also the empirical difference between these types of liar seems irrelevant. Everyone who
lied about the true cause of the war also lied about basic facts like global warming. As the
commitment to one kind of lie has grown so has the magnitude oft he other kind. Why waste
time distinguishing? And why did Arendt? The liars of her time lied in both ways as well.
AND somebody -(even if it is "not actually being a U.S. citizen) needed to point to "the
truth" of this:
"He wanted to invade Iraq and he knew he could lie his way into it" – as lying in
politics is (sadly) nothing but "another tool" or "another strategy" to get what any
-"political actor" (even some of the lesser evil) – want.
And the Sawyer-Bush example is about the best example for this fact:
"Sawyer: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed
to the possibility that he [Saddam] could move to acquire those weapons.
Bush: So what's the difference?"
For somebody who wants to start a war – or wants to become US President? – and
who realizes that the best "strategy" in ending up with "a war" or "becoming US President"
-is lying -(day and night) – lying becomes just a a very "practical solution"
– (especially if the liar is dealing with a bunch of people who might believe that "France
isn't France anymore" – if just a Clownsticks tells them)
And I fear that by conflating the above described type of liar with "the type of liars
described in the OP – WE may have allowed the virtues – or at least the charms
– of the ones to obscure the vices of the others.
In "Lying in Politics," Arendt writes:
A characteristic of human action is that it always begins something new, but this does not
mean that it is ever permitted to start ab ovo, to create ex nihilo. In order to make room
for one's own action, something that was there before must be removed or destroyed, and
things as they were before are changed. Such change would be impossible if we could not
mentally remove ourselves from where we are physically located and imagine that things might
as well be different from what they actually are. In other words, the ability to lie, the
deliberate denial of factual truth, and the capacity to change facts, the ability to act, are
interconnected; they owe their existence to the same source, imagination."
So she directly links lying to natality. And this paragraph, like much of her work,
describes what she takes to be the ontological conditions of politics. That is what she is
doing when she invokes "something that was there before," furnishing the ground for action.
And this in turn commits her to a view of the "already there" which is not itself political,
as she herself defines the term.
I completely agree that Stevenson likely has it all wrong meta-ethically. But my point was
that I was offering an explanation to describe what Trump, Giuliani, etc. are engaging in,
even if they don't know they're doing it. Emotivism is an attempt to explain what we usually
denote as moral language and behavior. It maintains that moral language and action amount to
the expression of emotional attitudes and nothing more. Therefore, beyond the fact that an
individual or group has some attitudes, there is nothing left for morality to do but for
individuals and groups to try and influence one another in attitude–to achieve
agreement in attitude. Any means to do so–lies and bullshit–are legitimate to try
and achieve agreement in attitude. Just listen to Trump's crowds. They don't care what he
says, or what he does, they just feel that he "gets" how they feel–shared attitudes. If
that's the case, then the Trump phenomenon might be best explained as reflecting a practical
embrace of such expressivism. Again, I have no claim to anything approaching political
expertise here–I'm just advancing a way of looking at the Trump phenomenon conceptually
to see if it's at all helpful.
16: "Such change would be impossible if we could not mentally remove ourselves from where
we are physically located and imagine that things might as well be different from what they
actually are. In other words, the ability to lie, the deliberate denial of factual truth, and
the capacity to change facts, the ability to act, are interconnected; they owe their
existence to the same source, imagination.""
This reminds me a lot of modern management speak: "Everybody said it was impossible
until someone came along who didn´t know that .. and just did it!"
To me, Arendt's claim makes no sense. Yes, mentally removing oneself from reality to
imagine a different one is difficult but it's not lying, it's not denial of reality.
Imagination isn't synonymous with delusion. I'll counter this weird idealistic view with Rosa
Luxemburg's materialism (quoting Ferdinand Lassalle): "Wie Lassalle sagte, ist und bleibt es immer die revolutionärste Tat: "laut zu sagen,
was ist"".
The most revolutionary act is to say loudly what is (what is true).
Btw Michael what do you mean by "natality"? It literally means birth rate, no?
Any means to do so–lies and bullshit–are legitimate to try and achieve
agreement in attitude.
It is empirically obvious that people use lies and bullshit in attempts to try and achieve
agreement in attitude; but the statement quoted is made different from that empirical
observation by the introduction of the word 'legitimate', which in this context is moral
language. Those who affirm that it is legitimate to use lies and bullshit to achieve
agreement in attitude reveal their moral bankruptcy. On an emotivist theory, that statement
expresses my moral attitude; what I have to say about that is that yes, it does express my
moral attitude, and if your moral attitude differs from mine on that point, what do you
suggest we do about it?
Arendt's NYRB piece, kindly linked @13, holds this very interesting nugget [for footnoting
-- see original]: As regards the domino theory, first enunciated in 1950 and permitted to survive, as it has
been said, the "most momentous events": To the question of President Johnson in 1964, "Would
the rest of Southeast Asia necessarily fall if Laos and South Vietnam came under North
Vietnam control?" the CIA's answer was, "With the possible exception of Cambodia, it is
likely that no nation in the area would quickly succumb to Communism as a result of the fall
of Laos and South Vietnam." When five years later the Nixon Administration raised the same
question, it "was advised by the Central Intelligence Agency that [the United States] could
immediately withdraw from South Vietnam and 'all of Southeast Asia would remain just as it is
for at least another generation.' "According to the study, "only the Joint Chiefs, Mr. Rostow
and General Taylor appear to have accepted the domino theory in its literal sense,"and the
point here is that those who did not accept it still used it not merely for public statements
but as part of their own premises as well.
"... Propaganda works, proved effective time and again – why it's a key tool in America's deep state playbook. ..."
"... Virtually anything repeated enough, especially through the major media megaphone, gets most people to believe it – no matter how preposterous the claim. ..."
"... Normalized relations with Russia and world peace are anathema notions in Washington. Bipartisan neocons infesting the US political establishment want none of it. America's hegemonic aims matter most – wanting dominance over planet earth, its resources and populations. Endless wars of aggression, color revolutions, and other unlawful practices harmful to human rights and welfare are its favored strategies. ..."
Propaganda works, proved effective time and again – why it's a key tool in
America's deep state playbook.
Virtually anything repeated enough, especially through the major media megaphone, gets
most people to believe it – no matter how preposterous the claim.
Not a shred of evidence suggests Russia meddled in America's political process –
nothing.
Yet an earlier NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed most Americans believe the Russia
did it Big Lie. A months earlier Gallup poll showed three-fourths of Americans view Vladimir
Putin unfavorably.
Americans are easy marks to be fooled. No matter how many times they were deceived before,
they're easily manipulated to believe most anything drummed into their minds by the power of
repetitious propaganda – fed them through through the major media megaphone – in
lockstep with the official falsified narrative.
America's dominant media serve as a propaganda platform for US imperial and monied interests
– acting as agents of deception, betraying their readers and viewers time and again
instead of informing them responsibly.
CNN
presstitute Poppy Harlow played a clip on air of Reuters reporter Jeff Mason asking Putin
in Helsinki the following question:
"Did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials
to help him do that?"
Putin said: "Yes," he wanted Trump to win "because he talked about bringing the US-Russia
relationship back to normal," as translated from his Russian language response.
Here's the precise translation of his remark:
"Yes, I wanted him to win, because he talked about the need to normalize US-Russia
relations," adding:
"Isn't it natural to have sympathy towards a man who wants to restore relations with your
country? That's normal."
Putin did not address the fabricated official narrative notion that he directed his
officials to help Trump win. Yet CNN's Harlow claimed otherwise, falsely claiming he ordered
Kremlin officials to help Trump triumph over Hillary.
He did nothing of the kind or say it, nor did any other Kremlin officials. No evidence
proves otherwise – nothing but baseless accusations supported only by the power of
deceptive propaganda.
Time and again, CNN, the NYT, and rest of America's dominant media prove themselves
untrustworthy.
They consistently abandon journalism the way it's supposed to be, notably on geopolitical
issues, especially on war and peace and anything about Russia.
After rejecting, or at least doubting, the official narrative about alleged Russian meddling
in the US political process to aid his election, Trump backtracked post-Helsinki –
capitulating to deep state power.
First in the White House, he said he misspoke abroad – then on CBS News Wednesday
night, saying it's "true," deplorably adding:
Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, and he "would" hold Russian President
Vladimir Putin responsible for the interference – that didn't occur, he failed to
stress.
GLOR: "You say you agree with US intelligence that Russia meddled in the election in
2016."
TRUMP: "Yeah and I've said that before, Jeff. I have said that numerous times before, and
I would say that is true, yeah."
GLOR: "But you haven't condemned Putin, specifically. Do you hold him personally
responsible?"
TRUMP: "Well, I would, because he's in charge of the country. Just like I consider myself
to be responsible for things that happen in this country. So certainly as the leader of a
country you would have to hold him responsible, yes."
GLOR: "What did you say to him?"
TRUMP: "Very strong on the fact that we can't have meddling. We can't have any of that
– now look. We're also living in a grown-up world."
"Will a strong statement – you know – President Obama supposedly made a strong
statement. Nobody heard it."
"What they did hear is a statement he made to Putin's very close friend. And that
statement was not acceptable. Didn't get very much play relatively speaking. But that
statement was not acceptable."
"But I let him know we can't have this. We're not going to have it, and that's the way
it's going to be."
There you have it – Trump capitulating to America's deep state over Russia on national
television.
From day one in power, he caved to the national security state, Wall Street, and other
monied interests over popular ones.
The sole redeeming part of his agenda was wanting improved relations with Russia and
Vladimir Putin personally – preferring peace over possible confrontation, wanting the
threat of nuclear war defused.
Despite tweeting post-Helsinki that he and Putin "got along well which truly bothered many
haters who wanted to see a boxing match," his remarks on CBS News showed he'll continue dirty
US business as usual toward Russia.
Anything positive from summit talks appears abandoned by capitulating to deep state power
controlling him and his agenda.
Normalized relations with Russia and world peace are anathema notions in Washington.
Bipartisan neocons infesting the US political establishment want none of it. America's
hegemonic aims matter most – wanting dominance over planet earth, its resources and
populations. Endless wars of aggression, color revolutions, and other unlawful practices
harmful to human rights and welfare are its favored strategies.
Will Americans go along with sacrificing vital freedoms for greater security from invented
enemies – losing both? Will US belligerent confrontation with Russia inevitably follow?
Will mushroom-shaped denouement eventually kill us all?
*
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research
based in Chicago.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US
Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III. http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html "
"... Indeed, although knowledge is power,; true, absolute knowledge may be unattainable and thus call forth, even demand an attitude
of deep humility with respect to the true nature of the universe as a whole and a sharply critical stance towards all publicly held
theories, beliefs, and viewpoints. ..."
It's simple. Given that there might well be an absolute nature/structure of the universe and our perhaps fundamentallylimited cognitive position/abilities within it can we be certain that we can be sure about the true nature of anything?
Can there be fundamental forces, matter, and material relationships of which we will never know?
While unanswerable in principle, the mere possibility of such an epistemological situation has many consequences.
Firstly, it considerably lets out the air out of our current secular hubris.
Science and technology have given us what is perhaps a false impression of our own cognitive and technical omnipotence. While
we rightly marvel at what we have achieved during the last five centuries, it does not necessarily give us the right to think that
we can, even theoretically, master and understand all that there is.
Would it be so far fetched to think that the human mind, both as it is now and will be in the future, will always be limited in
what it can know?
Although we cannot even judge the actual probability of such a proposition it should nevertheless give us pause while constructing
brash anthropocentric scenarios which inflate our own importance within the universe.
If we stop to consider the possible theoretical implications of this axiom of uncertainty we will quickly realize that
we may never know more than a part, even just a small part of existence past, present, and future.
Of course that does not mean we should stop trying to know all we can.
On the other hand, it does mean that we should be far more circumspect when offering explanations about everything whether
scientific, political, or religious.
In each of these domains, we may, it might turn out, be far off the mark.
Yet, the deeper point is that according to the above axiom we can never know for sure.
Do such thoughts open the door then to superstition and fantastical ideas of all kinds?
Yes and no.
Privately, one can believe in whatever one wants to.
However, publicly, the commonly accepted standards of reason, logic, and evidence would still apply.
In order for a proposition such as "Three-eyed pink giraffes eat hamburgers on Titan" to be even remotely true there would have
to be substantial scientific research to back it up.
Yet, even if there is credible evidence for totalistic viewpoints of any kind the axiom of uncertainty can always,
potentially, call them into question. For if there are indeed fundamental aspects of existence that are forever closed off to us;
then it follows that no comprehensive theory of everything could be completely and forever considered true. Such an axiom
will always allow for some doubt, however small, to remain.
Indeed, although knowledge is power,; true, absolute knowledge may be unattainable and thus call forth, even demand an attitude
of deep humility with respect to the true nature of the universe as a whole and a sharply critical stance towards all publicly held
theories, beliefs, and viewpoints.
Within minutes MSM had the theme to broadcast. It was from their puppet masters in the FBI/CIA. They're told what to say. There's
no doubt about that now.
Also, there's no doubt that they are pushing for war with Russia, within months or a few years, depending on what happens to
Trump.
The Russians will know this now. All the post WWII wars were done in the same way: demonizing leaders, "defending democracy",
false flag ops. But this present push is for the end game of killing the host; which is the life strategy of the parasitoid. The
complete destruction of humanity and total ecocide.
The parasitoid corporate fascists are now in full control of the media and their disease vector politicians/bureaucrats, not
just in the US but the EU/NATO as well.
A parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its
host and at the host's expense, and which sooner
or later kills it. Parasitoidism is one of six major
evolutionary strategies within
parasitism . Parasitoidism is distinguished by the fatal
prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to
predation .
In epidemiology , a disease vector is any agent that
carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another
living organism; [1] [2]
This is one of the reasons Americans of all colors and stripes will not receive the the benefits of the powers of economic equality,
transparency, literal meanings of the health of the economy and economic freedom.
Because they will remain blinded by partisan worship of the presidents. We agree with Obama's criticism of big banks or of Bush's
conducts of the war. We agree with Trump's criticism of the wars raging in the ME . We agree with his take on illegal immigrants.
Instead of holding their feet to the fire, we condone, ignore, and then come out in support of them when they fail miserably and
intentionally on other vital areas or when they go against the election promises.
We believe he shits about economy coming out of FOX CNN MSNBC NYT NY POST because we worship the candidates they support or don't
support , or because the support or don't support our views on other areas .
American economy has been growing without the accompanying growth of the worker's compensation for 45 years . Nothing new . Presidents
have no role for the existing condition of the economy . Presidents may claim some success down the line years after presidency is
over . Our economic knowledge is doled out by the same psychopaths who dole us out the knowledge and the faith about wars and about
other countries from the unclean perches of the media . Yes its a handout Its a dole because we have all along built up our world
view and our view of US as told by these guys dictated to us and shoved down us . The folks whose income have suffered and hours
have increased don't have the time or the brains to explore and verify . They are just happy to know that they heard this "Trust
but verify " and heard this " make America Great Again " . They are happy to go to war because a lesbian was killed in Uganda or
in Syria or a girl was raped in Libya or gas was smelt in Dara and Hara , Sara Bara and Laora - just throw some names any name, and
these folks will lend their names and sign up .
This is the underlying mindset and the intellectual foundation which explain our deepest attachment to liar like Obama and to
Trump. Combined with helplessness ,this experience of reality can be disorienting and can lead to Stockholm Syndrome .
If this president wants no immigration to EU, he should stop supporting France's exploitation and military adventures in Africa,
stop adding to war efforts in ME and will pay the restitution for ravaging those countries . He should focus on US and stop talking
about EU's immigration.
" If this president wants no immigration to EU, he should stop supporting France's exploitation and military adventures
in Africa, stop adding to war efforts in ME and will pay the restitution for ravaging those countries. He should focus on US
and stop talking about EU's immigration. "
THE great cause of migrants coming to Europe is the USA, the wars in and destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria Mali,
as far as I know hardly anyone comes from Mali to us. Sudan was split by the USA, oil, the USA is building a drone base in Nigeria,
oil again...
Possibly Brussels now understands that an attack on Iran will cause a new flood of migrants, Netanyahu has been warned. A new
flood is the deadsure end of the EU.
Newly popular Democratic politician hero and nominee for a seat in the U.S. Congress
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used to have these words on her website:
A Peace Economy
"Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has entangled itself in war and
occupation throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As of 2018, we are currently
involved in military action in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and
Somalia. According to the Constitution, the right to declare war belongs to the Legislative
body, not the President. Yet, most of these acts of aggression have never once been voted
on by Congress. Alex believes that we must end the forever war by bringing our troops home
and ending the air strikes and bombings that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism and
occupation throughout the world."
Now they're gone. Asked about it on Twitter, she replied:
"Hey! Looking into this. Nothing malicious! Site is supporter-run so things happen --
we'll get to the bottom of it."
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez will/can maintain her position on Israeli
crimes. Public figures have a long history of backpedaling after getting the riot act read to
them from the hebrew masters.
Sergey Krueger is wrong about questioning of gender roles. That comes from the necessity to
to have an identity wedge during neoliberal period of the USA society.
Well, you put it yourself. Liberalism as is it was during the Enlightenment was
questioning all dogmas and everything that is considered normal here we have a double aged
sword. When and what you stop questioning and reasoning about logic of certain things.
Logically they started with kings and after all things were questioned they came now to
roles of males and females, sex, gender and god forbids where this can takes us.
There are certain things that cannot be questioned for society to have a back bone. A
moral and cultural one. Otherwise things turn the way they are now. There is nothing sacred
and everything can be questioned and reasoned about.
The general adaptation syndrome, he said, unfolded in three stages: alarm, resistance,
and exhaustion.
First thought was that's what political party elites use to keep their base from changing
their party elites policies: 'alarm' the base about the horribleness of the 'other side',
rally the base to 'resist' any actions by 'the other side' (while not changing course and not
offering policies the base wants/needs), and finally, 'exhaust' the base with resistance
movements designed not to succeed politically but to exhaust the base so they'll 'adapt' to
whatever the party elites dictate as policy.
OK, I'm trying to force a comparison here, straining the metaphor, which is stressful.
;)
says: June 5, 2018 at
8:29 pm GMT 800 Words The fates of Christianity and Communism are both strange and
ironic.
Christianity was the New Faith of heretical Jews who turned against Jewish Tradition. It was
led by radical Jews at odds with Traditional Jews. But even though spread overwhelmingly by
Jews, it became the Faith of non-Jews who came to oppress Jews.
Communism was the New Ideology of radical Jews who reviled Jewish Community and Culture.
Karl Marx loathed Jewishness and its association with greed, exploitation, and capitalism. And
he inspired a generation of radical Jews who were committed to universal justice based on
'scientific' and 'materialist' reading of history. Early communism was dominated by radical
Jews as early Christianity was dominated by heretical Jews.
But as with Christianity, Communism eventually came to be owned by non-Jews who turned
anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist. Why did this problem arise? Because even as many Jews turned
toward universalism and against their own tribalism, many Jews remained tribal or made common
cause with forces at war with radical universalism. Suppose ALL JEWS around the world had
embraced universal socialism when Soviet Union was coming into its own. Soviet Union would
likely not have turned against Jews. But, in fact, even as many Jews did become full-fledged
communists and univeralists, many Jews remained either Jewish or allied with International
Capitalists that waged war on Communism.
And over time, there were signs of second thoughts or dual loyalty among Communist Jews. Were
they communist first or Jewish first? Or did they try to be both at the same time? But can one
be Jewish-tribalist and communist all at once? (Can one be Jewish and Christian at once?)
Likewise, there would have been no Christian 'antisemitism' IF All Jews had converted to
Christianity and gave up on tribalism. But even as a good number of Jews did adopt the New
Faith, the bulk of the Jewish community kept with Tribalism. So, even though Christianity was
founded by Jews, it turned into an anti-Jewish religion. Too many Jews were seen as resistant
and even hostile to the Universal Faith.
Furthermore, there is something intrinsic to Jewish personality and temperament that
ultimately recoils from universalism. Even as secularists, Jews tend to feel 'special' and
'unique', indeed superior over dimwit goyim. This egotism among Jews makes them both
universalist and anti-universalist. It makes them universalist ON THEIR OWN TERMS. Because they
are so smart, wise, and prophetic, their superior ideas must be good and right for all of
mankind. They want to play the role of Moses laying down the Laws for all peoples. But once the
goy masses adopt the New Law as universal truth, Jews begin to grow bored with established
universalism that now seems mediocre and humdrum. It was exciting when they conceived of it and
presented it to humanity as The Shining Truth. But once that Truth becomes official dogma to
every idiot on the street, Jews grow bored and react against univeralism that has lost its
luster.
This contradiction is seen in Judaism itself. It says there is only one God, the only true God;
Jews know better than pagans who believe in silly stupid idols. And yet, Jews want to keep this
God for themselves through the special Covenant. Thus, Jewish God is universal in conception
but tribal in contract(to Jews).
Of late, Jews came up with a new faith that might be called Homomania. Will it also go the
way of Christianity and Communism? Will it turn against Jews and/or will Jews grow tired of
it?
And yet, Homomania may remain as a weapon of Jews because, unlike Christianity and Communism,
it favors elite-minoritism. It is essentially a special alliance between homo minority elites
and Jewish minority elites. So, even as majority of dimwit goyim become enamored of Homomania,
it can never belong to them in the way the Christianity or Communism could. No matter how many
goyim worship Homomania, the object of worship won't be universal brotherhood of man but elite
tooter-hood of fancy neo-aristo fruits(financed by Jews). Also, unlike Christianity and
Communism that eventually came to favor mediocrity -- Jesus favored the meek, and Marx &
Lenin stood for common workers -- , the very nature of Homomania is celebration of elitism,
vanity, egotism, narcissism, privilege, new fashions & fads, and fancy-pants stuff that
homos love so much. As Jews are rich and homos are whoopsy-vain, they make natural allies in
the Current Year.
'Neoconservatism' also isn't likely to fall into the hands of non-Jews. Unlike the spiritual
populism of Christianity and economic populism of Communism, Neoconservatism was devised to be
esoteric-elitist-hegemonic based on carefully crafted coordination among media, academia,
think-tanks, Intelligence services, Deep State, and Israel. So, even though Neo-conservatism
pays lip-service to Humanitarianism and Spreading Democracy, its real agenda and operations are
a very exclusive affair. Leo Strauss came up with a way to Talk the Walk and Walk the Talk.
Debsisdead @43. I love your piece detailing things I've seen you post here. You've got my CT
juices flowing more this time, though.
But regarding your query about CounterPunch, I've been a reader for a long time. Then,
shortly after Bernie Sanders announced his campaign, CP began running what ended up being
dozens of articles denouncing him.
Now, I was very slow in endorsing Sanders. I was aware of his record, and once he announced,
I really dug into it, and found even more troubling stuff. Mostly it was his rather spotty
foreign policy record. But eventually, I decided that he was not so much a 'lesser evil" as the
"best good" that the Democratic Party could ever nominate. Having campaigned for alternative
candidates many times, I decided to give this "Occupy the DP" thing a chance.
But since I was delving into his record as CP was writing these articles, I noticed that
they misstated, exaggerated and sometimes out and out lied about Sanders. I won't f*ckbook, so
didn't reply to them, but did post their statements with citations to the correct information
all over the place.
For everywhere I went, I conversed with other lefties about giving Bernie a chance in the
Primaries. Sure, maybe he'll sheepdog if he loses, but why not help him win and not have to
deal with that? Surely getting even a "democratic socialist" in would awaken much of the public
who would then say "I'll have some more of that, thank you very much." But everywhere I came
across people citing CP and other "lefty" sites that denounced him as "not pure" enough.
Just before the actual election, St. Clair
actually wrote an entire book on how " Sanders campaign faltered, undone by the missteps of
its leader and by sabotage from the elites of the Democratic Party."
Well, the DP and the lefties who denounced Sanders and ridiculed his followers might have
played a role, eh?
They did publish an "In Defense of
Caitlin Johnstone" the next week, but the meme that Johnstone was some sort of shill for
the alt-right had been planted, and is still sprouting shoots to this day.
But even though they'd published Johnstone before, they refused to publish the rebuttal she
and Cobb wrote to the piece smearing them.
And of course, as regards your post, Caitlin is one of the most active defenders/supporters
of Julian Assange.
Then there was that whole thing where they were publishing articles written by an avatar going
by the name of Alice Donovan. I don't know what to make that whole thing. I will say that some
of her articles did discuss inconvenient truths that the MSM tries to play up as "conspiracy
theories" (eg. Obama Administration sent weapons to Syria that ISIL received). But, she also
wrote really bizarre stuff indicating she was not whom she claimed to be.
"... Trump was trumped up as the foil, same as Sanders, to sweep up all the anti-establishment sentiment on the other side of the isle, and really as an ace in the hole for Hillary, as he was considered a completely unelectable buffoon who would do nothing but make a laughingstock out of all Republicans. If you recall, Hillary and the establishment press were actually giving Trump all the love early, to make him the strongest poison pill possible. Of course, much later when there began to be fears that he was actually a threat (largely because of Hillary being so painfully phony and unlikeable), all political and press guns were turned against him, but since he had positioned himself as anti-establishment, this had the unexpected effect of actually increasing his popularity. ..."
"... Any time Trump gets off script (which is what makes me think he might have had some actual populist tendencies), he is quickly "corrected." So in the end, the Deep State doesn't have to actively field sleeper candidates; it has become so entrenched that it knows it can ultimately control whoever wins, and so while it has its preferences (Hillary), and will actively assist them, I don't think it feels the need to fear those it doesn't control at the outset. ..."
As early as January, Catlin voiced suspicion when she tweeted:
There's good conspiracy theory and there's bad conspiracy theory. #QAnon is bad
conspiracy theory. It's either a really good LARPer or a really bad psyop. Informed
insiders do not leak via 4chan. Does not happen. It's an anonymous message board for
trolls. Always has been.
But Catlin recently goes a bit further, warning that:
This administration is advancing longstanding neoconservative agendas with increasing
aggression, perpetuating the Orwellian surveillance state of Bush and Obama, and actively
pursuing the extradition and imprisonment of Julian Assange. Ignore the narratives and
watch the behavior, and he [Trump] looks very much like his predecessor. So cut out the
narratives. Cut out the manipulators. Cut out QAnon from the equation and look at what's
really happening here.
My take [on Qanon] : it is similar to the Obamabots promising good things to
come. Those 'good things' never came, of course.
Further proof, IMHO, that Trump is the Republican Obama. The play book is the
same.
I've written, here and at my blog (over a year ago!), that Trump and Obama both follow
the same political model , that of the faux populist leader . They both claimed to
be outsiders. They both faced crazy opposition that called into question their loyalty to
America. They both had amorphous apologists (Obamabots, Trumptards) that excuse any
betrayal.
Furthermore, I've said that it is logical to assume that the election of these faux
populists have been arranged (by the Deep State). We have many tantalizing clues that
this is so, like:
The nature of the US political system.No real populist has a chance in our
money-driven political system
Non-starter opponents.McCain, Hillary are the embodiment of the
establishment that everyone loves to hate.
Clear manipulations.In a time of great dissatisfaction, there were only
TWO populists that ran for President in 2016 - Trump and Sanders. Sanders was a
'sheepdog' (bogus candidate) who pulled many punches and betrayed his base.
Very different stated agendas, yet staying true to Deep State goals.Tax
cuts, military adventures, etc.
Forgiveness."No drama Obama" refused to pursue legal action against Bush
Administration officials and, immediately upon his election, Trump said that he would not
pursue Hillary, saying that they Clintons had been thru enough.
@ Jackrabbit
"I've said that it is logical to assume that the election of these faux populists have been
arranged (by the Deep State)."
While this is of course possible, and likely sometimes happens (might have been true with
Obama's first run), I think the Deep State has such firm grip on power they aren't really
worried about their ability to co-opt and control whoever wins. It's more about bleeding off
steam from the masses, preserving the illusion of democracy. So "populists" serve a useful
function, dividing would-be contenders, which along with general voter disgust means it
actually takes a very small number of votes to control the ultimate outcome of the
election.
Sanders was allowed to continue to energize pissed off people of the left, with the PTB
knowing that when he was eventually canned and turned the vast bulk of his voters would
either not vote at all or vote for their completely owned Hillary. But his presence in the
Democratic mix meant the Democrats could at least pretend to have some relation to the more
socially minded Dems of old.
Trump was trumped up as the foil, same as Sanders, to sweep up all the
anti-establishment sentiment on the other side of the isle, and really as an ace in the hole
for Hillary, as he was considered a completely unelectable buffoon who would do nothing but
make a laughingstock out of all Republicans. If you recall, Hillary and the establishment
press were actually giving Trump all the love early, to make him the strongest poison pill
possible. Of course, much later when there began to be fears that he was actually a threat
(largely because of Hillary being so painfully phony and unlikeable), all political and press
guns were turned against him, but since he had positioned himself as anti-establishment, this
had the unexpected effect of actually increasing his popularity.
No worries. Plenty of preemptive sabotage had been implanted prior to the election, such
that long before he was even sworn in any actual populist tendencies he may have had (I
suspect some were real, some were electioneering) were completely hamstrung. The Deep State
flexed its muscles, and once again the US had its "populist," but the Deep State was again
holding the reigns. Any time Trump gets off script (which is what makes me think he might
have had some actual populist tendencies), he is quickly "corrected." So in the end, the Deep
State doesn't have to actively field sleeper candidates; it has become so entrenched that it
knows it can ultimately control whoever wins, and so while it has its preferences (Hillary),
and will actively assist them, I don't think it feels the need to fear those it doesn't
control at the outset.
J Swift,
I dont' know if that is completely true. Although maybe the higher ups believe that. You can
tell by the texts they really didn't want Trump. At least the lower level grunt workers in
the deep state. Probably because they aren't completely sure he won't go off script. I do
believe if they thought he would be a problem they would just kill him.
...
Incidentally, along the same lines and to revive some of the Korea discussion, here's an
interesting article discussing how the Deep State is ramping up its opposition to real peace
in Korea.
(link omitted by HW)
Posted by: J Swift | Jun 24, 2018 12:57:43 PM | 14
That thought bubble seems to contradict the paragraph immediately preceding it.
i.e. The Deep State/ Swamp wants to perpetuate tensions with NK/ China to keep arms
sales flourishing and it's worried that Trump will cause peace to break out (which he will do
- and make it look like either an accident, or (that old Right Wing Chestnut) Someone Else's
Fault.
You make some good points. There was a time when I also believed that Hillary and her
cronies had masterfully set up the election so that she could win. But as it became clear how
much Trump's politics resembled Obama's, I began to believe that TRUMP was meant to win all
along.
My view is underscored by what I believe was a need to turn the page on the Obama years.
Hillary could not have done that because she was so closely associated with Obama. This is
especially true wrt USA's support for extremist proxies. A 'political reversal' can best
excuse what many extremist supporters would otherwise see as a 'betrayal'. (Note: The
elevation of MbS may also be a part of the necessary 'shift' - the alternative was conflict
with Russia/WWIII) .
I think the Deep State has such firm grip on power they aren't really worried about
their ability to co-opt and control whoever wins.
That may be. But even that mild view indicates that the US govt has a legitimacy
problem. A problem that they would be acutely aware of.
It seems very likely to me that the role of the President is so key that it must be
secured by someone that is sure to "play ball". That means an ambitious money-driven,
narcissist social climber that explicitly agrees to serve the establishment (as per
our 'inverted totalitarian' form of government).
Trump was trumped up as the foil, same as Sanders ...
Maybe. One could make a case that this is how it was planned to be but Hillary's email
troubles (and the need to "turn the page" on the Obama years) caused the establishment
to turn on her. In fact, the efforts to paint Trump as a dupe of Putin via the 'Trump
dossier' began in earnest in Spring 2016 after it was clear that Hillary's email troubles
could not be swept under the rug (which prompted Bloomberg's offer to run so as to prevent
the 'disaster' of Trump or Sanders winning the Presidency) .
By June 2016 Trump was no longer a foil (if he ever was). Trump pushed back HARD on
Hillary after the Orlando Pulse Nightclub attack. He didn't defer to Hillary's experience and
the Democratic Party's ties to the gay community.
In July 2016, Hillary made herself even more hated by hiring a disgraced DWS into a high
position in her campaign. That is as self-defeating as using a private email server for State
Dept business. Such 'sloppiness' calls into question her desire to win the Presidency.
Trump also said, at one point, that he could kill someone in Times Square without
consequence. That is a very strange statement to make. Anyone that says such a thing is
either looney or believes that he has full and complete support from powerful interests.
Lastly, Hillary is simply not a populist and has too much baggage. The 'smart move' for a
Deep State that is fully in control is to 'hire' someone that can perform as a faux populist.
In fact, Hillary might be viewed as dangerous because Clinton loyalists that constitute a
political machine.
Jackrabbit. The very best I can say to defend the narrative we were told during and about the
2016 election is that the 0.01% were going to win whether Trump or HRC moved into the White
House.
But like you, I long ago came to think it more likely that Trump was the chosen one from
before he even took his escalator ride down into history (where paid actors wearing MAGA gear
given to them cheered and jeered on cue).
Everyone knew this was the "election of rejection." Establishment politics was no longer
acceptable by either the "left" or the "right." The Democratic Primary was so crooked that
even many Democratic partisans couldn't bring themselves to support HRC. Especially after she
doubled down with DWS and Tim Kaine.
In retrospect, the entire show appears to have been what they call in professional
wrestling, "a work." A brilliant piece of propaganda.
No, Trump was not the chosen one. Hillary had been schooled and trained specifically for
this. Trump was considered perfect opposition - dumb-ass but clever and likely to score with
a few punches - unlike the miserable row of other Republicans. Trump is merely a symbol of an
Empire coming to an end. Do you not get this?
Yep, Lockhearn @29, I read all that stuff, and totally believed it myself right up until
about the time of the Conventions.
There it was right there, HRC's team demanding MSM to promote Trump as the "pied
piper."
It was all laid out so brilliantly. We were almost all led down that pied piper path,
following all the bread crumbs laid out for us to "discover," and feel so smart for having
read the "hacked" emails and DNC documents (the latter of which were actually published by
that Guccifer 2.0 creation).
We're to believe that CNN's Jeff Zucker did everything in his power to stop Trump. The
same Jeff Zucker who broke into live programming to show Trump's escalator ride (the ONLY
candidate who got live coverage of his announcement). Then, CNN aired hour after hour of live
and uninterrupted coverage of Trump rallies.
"Uninterrupted" is the key word there as it puts to lie the claim he did it for "ratings."
No advertising sold means ratings were not the goal. Besides, Sanders was drawing larger
crowds, so if Jeff wanted ratings, he would have shown Sanders rallies, too.
Oh, and that same Jeff Zucker used to be CEO of NBC, back when it was wholly owned by GE
(one of the world's largest military contractors). And he gave Trump his very own Reality TV
Show which imprinted the Trump character on the minds of USAmerica. And even though its
ratings dropped year after year, Jeff kept pumping more and more resources into the Trump
Project.
Oh, but Jeff made fun of Trump you say. And he also ridiculed Trump supporters.
Bearing in mind that polls before the Primaries showed that at best 1/3 of USAmericans
trusted the MSM, and hated MSM for condescending to us and telling us what to believe and
do....
How would the brilliant propagandists behind MSM expect voters to react to being ridiculed
on national TV?
You're quite intelligent enough to engage your critical thinking and reconsider the past
few years of MSM coverage on all things leading up to the campaign and the campaign and Trump
Administration.
Once again I ask, "what would a propaganda designed for people who know the MSM is
propaganda look like?"
I think it's important to note that even within the clever and long practiced trickery of
the powers that be, everything changes. Every move that they make means one less time that
the same move can be made in the future.
Every time they perceive how the people feel, and run another lie to accord with this
feeling, they come closer to burning out the entire system of trickery and foolery. And no
one knows quite how burned it is today.
To think that the PTB have it all under control is - in my opinion - an error on the same
scale of magnitude as thinking that the people of the US are going to keep taking it forever.
Actually, no one knows what will happen. There's a lot of calculation of risk that goes into
deception, and frankly I don't see the current elites as possessing much acumen in this risk
evaluation. Hubris saturates deep into the bone, as deep as the state.
I haven't seen the PTB do one thing right in the last few years. They misunderstand the
forces of history marching against them. Or rather, they are completely wary of these forces
but don't know how to learn new ways to triumph in the face of them. They are separated from
the source-beds and aquifers of real experience which feed learning. So they keep screwing
up. In my view, although I don't think it matters much either way, it's more likely that
Trump is in office because they screwed up than because they brilliantly planned and executed
it that way.
Grieved @39. I absolutely agree that TPTSB are quite ready and willing to make changes to
their tactics in response to reactions "on the ground." Of course, as both Milton Friedman
and Rahm Emanuel said, a crucial part of their planning is to have alternative plans already
in place. Like in chess, it's often a matter of how many possible moves ahead they have
planned.
But if a plan really "goes south" on them, they are quite able to step in and do whatever
is necessary. And yet, no matter how much we're told the "Deep State" hates Trump, well,
there he is. And his supporters even get to use the Obama-bots' 8-year long apologia that The
President is being FORCED to continue/escalate US policies by those dark forces.
Similarly, I think it wrong to assume that TPTSB are some sort of monolith. Within any
group there are competitions and sometimes those are very severe differences. Recently we
reread Winston Churchill's 1920s oped about the "International Jewish Conspiracy." He posited
that even they were divided into the globalist Bolsheviks and the nationalistic Zionists (and
that Britain should back the Zionists).
You write, "I haven't seen the PTB do one thing right in the last few years."
But of course, you are assuming you know what were their goals. I don't pretend to know.
I'm mostly listing facts - things we can all see that have happened. And I ask cui bono?
Again, the 0.01% were going to win whichever of their candidates was (s)elected. But
looking back at everything from the suddenly greatly increased MSM racial divisionism and
Russia-demonizing starting in 2013/2014, right up to the present non-stop hysteria about the
latest shocking Tweet (while no one notices Congress pass another record-breaking military
budget), and I am suspicious of the official MSM narrative.
And I find it fascinating that both Trump supporters and Trump haters are completely
sucked into the story the MSM presents us.
But having us divided over everything sure does help TPTSB.
Debsisdead @43. I love your piece detailing things I've seen you post here. You've got my CT
juices flowing more this time, though.
But regarding your query about CounterPunch, I've been a reader for a long time. Then,
shortly after Bernie Sanders announced his campaign, CP began running what ended up being
dozens of articles denouncing him.
Now, I was very slow in endorsing Sanders. I was aware of his record, and once he
announced, I really dug into it, and found even more troubling stuff. Mostly it was his
rather spotty foreign policy record. But eventually, I decided that he was not so much a
'lesser evil" as the "best good" that the Democratic Party could ever nominate. Having
campaigned for alternative candidates many times, I decided to give this "Occupy the DP"
thing a chance.
But since I was delving into his record as CP was writing these articles, I noticed that
they misstated, exaggerated and sometimes out and out lied about Sanders. I won't f*ckbook,
so didn't reply to them, but did post their statements with citations to the correct
information all over the place.
For everywhere I went, I conversed with other lefties about giving Bernie a chance in the
Primaries. Sure, maybe he'll sheepdog if he loses, but why not help him win and not have to
deal with that? Surely getting even a "democratic socialist" in would awaken much of the
public who would then say "I'll have some more of that, thank you very much." But everywhere
I came across people citing CP and other "lefty" sites that denounced him as "not pure"
enough.
Just before the actual election, St. Clair
actually wrote an entire book on how " Sanders campaign faltered, undone by the missteps
of its leader and by sabotage from the elites of the Democratic Party."
Well, the DP and the lefties who denounced Sanders and ridiculed his followers might have
played a role, eh?
They did publish an "In Defense of
Caitlin Johnstone" the next week, but the meme that Johnstone was some sort of shill for
the alt-right had been planted, and is still sprouting shoots to this day.
But even though they'd published Johnstone before, they refused to publish the rebuttal
she and Cobb wrote to the piece smearing them.
And of course, as regards your post, Caitlin is one of the most active
defenders/supporters of Julian Assange.
Then there was that whole thing where they were publishing articles written by an avatar
going by the name of Alice Donovan. I don't know what to make that whole thing. I will say
that some of her articles did discuss inconvenient truths that the MSM tries to play up as
"conspiracy theories" (eg. Obama Administration sent weapons to Syria that ISIL received).
But, she also wrote really bizarre stuff indicating she was not whom she claimed to be.
To think that the PTB have it all under control is - in my opinion - an error ...
"PTB" is a shorthand that conflates many different power centers (Banks, MIC,
AIPAC, etc.).
While its true that they can't control everything, they don't have to. They don't have to
control every member of Congress, for example. But the Presidency - which is the linchpin of
foreign policy as well as holder of the "bully pulpit" - is important enough that some degree
of control would make sense. Especially when the country is stressed and discontent is high.
Then, MAYBE, you don't want to leave anything to chance. MAYBE, you want a guy that will lie
well, and do what he's told.
J Swift @14 tempers Jack's post and goldhoarder @16 goes one step further. (No criticism,
just another view. See also Jack @26.) More:
The expression Deep State: implies a 'state' which the various strands of power behind the
scenes are not; the word 'deep' implies hidden, again, not specially, at least some vague
description can be made.
The US is a corporate oligarchy and the politicians are brokers of influence and votes (in
congress, senate, and from their constituents..) They are paid to 'support' or 'champion'
this or that in a complex criss-cross of relationships and money/favor exchanges. The
complexity makes for obscurity. The fake Dem-Rep duopoly in fine rests only on a kind of
tribal preference linked to cultural issues (abortion, sex, race, identity politics, hate of
communism, religion, splinter oddities, etc.) as touted to Joe Public.
Behind the scenes, in no order of importance:
Banking and Finance, Big Energy/Oil, Military-industrial (entwined with the two previous),
Social (medical, insurance, Big Pharma, education, all partly controlled by non-Gov. and/or
privatised to the max), Real Estate + Territorial (linked to banking and finance, water
control, mining, energy and transport), Big Agri (Monsanto, etc.) Manufacturing is not up
there (see Trump trying to correct) except in small splintered stakes. For ex. one might
speak of a Security Industry which includes TSA employees (fastest growing employment)
to airbags (car industry) to anti-virus programs to Guns sales who are they supposed to pay?
etc.
The joker in the pack is the MSM coupled with a section of the performance arts
(Hollywood) and communications in general (internet, Silicon Valley, etc.)
Overall, the free-wheeling secretive corrupt system of deal-making and pretend-governance
makes it that the USA has not a Gvmt for the people and is thus, it follows
inexorably, extremely vulnerable to any outside influence. First is of course the Israel
lobby/infiltration, but others, very varied, try the same tricks and succeed. Globalisation,
in a kind of supposedly 'more moral', purely greed-based, i.e. commercial vein, move, is
implemented to re-create a better, different Empire (as compared to the British, too heavy
handed..) is another facet of the picture. That is now failing.
Noirette@62 - Well said. Deep state is a hopelessly nebulous term, but one I have
grown fond of using lately precisely because of the qualifier deep . The 'problem'
with the U.S. government should be defined by the mechanism of it's vulnerability to
usurpation , not the individual psychopathic oligarchs or agents of foreign
governments/potentates that invariably line up to exploit that vulnerability. Start listing
all the players, and US citizens' eyes will glaze over in - oh - 15 seconds, give or take.
That mechanism is beyond the comprehension (or the willingness to comprehend) of most of
us in the US. No matter, as we would only try to fix the problem with the two tools of
democracy intentionally corrupted to be incapable of fixing it: voting and the law.
That's not to say that concepts of voting and the law are inherently flawed - that's just an
observation of their current debased and useless form in the US for fixing our government.
Which is why the Deep State has no problem encouraging a mindless, religiously slavish
devotion to them, i.e., "We are a nation of laws. It's your responsibility to vote. How
dare you question the power of the divine tools bestowed upon you by the magnanimous God of
State!"
Deep State at least emphasizes the intentionally hidden aspect. I'll settle for the
effect of that less-than-precise, but comic book-simple single concept to stick in the
minds of my fellow Americans. Where we would go from there is anyone's guess, but we're in no
danger (at least in the US) of having to worry about that anytime soon. I mean, if there ever
was a treasonous, seditious deep state here, then the FBI would be furious and arrest them
all. Thank God! See? Impossible...
Guerrero @66: WHAT is the source of the badness of the current system?
You're right that corruption is not new. IMO What's different is the extent of
mal-investment, disenfranchisement, and control.
>> ME wars : trillions of dollars, thousands of US lives lost and millions of
local lives lost or disrupted
>> New Cold War : trillions to upgrade nukes and maintain an aggressive
posture;
>> Ponzi Finance : Global Financial Crisis is estimated to have cost on the
order of 1 year of global gdp (trillions)
>> "I got mine!" price gouging and corporate welfare :
- healthcare It is estimated that Americans pay four times as much for healthcare as other
developed countries;
- environment: Monsanto, and other chemical/agricuture companies destroy our environment (bye bye
bees, hello gmo); global warming (or the potential for global warming) is largely
ignored;
- finance: legal usury in the form of payday loans and credit card interest rates; Dodd-Frank
rules were mostly written by the financial industry and even those weak protections are
now being rolled back.
- defense: over-priced weapons systems; virtually impossible to close bases or reduce the defense
budget;
- and more! Virtually every industry gets their profit-maximizing perks.
Furthermore, I've said that it is logical to assume that the election of these faux populists
have been arranged (by the Deep State). We have many tantalizing clues that this is so, like:
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 24, 2018 10:38:59 AM | 10
I have several objections here. One is "nature or nurture" problem, how political leaders
divert from popular positions that they were promising, were they already
"brainwashed/trained" before political campaigns in which they claimed those positions or
afterwards. I do not have enough empirical data either way, but upon reaching an elected
office politicians are swamped with information and they must rely on "filters" in the form
of staff etc., moreover they get media attention with concomitant media pressure. And under
that pressure and perceived "consensus" their positions evolve in the rotten direction.
Rather painfully, many "training moments" are well documented. As the First Lady, Hillary
Clinton was polite when hosting the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafats which got her
vilified for years. Giving speeches to AIPAC meetings is much less traumatic. Obama tried to
move Israel/Palestinian situation in a positive direction for something like a year, and then
he gave up when it look futile and seemed to conflict with "other priorities". Very recently
we could observe "training" of Jeremy Corbyn resulting in admission that "of course he does
not trust Russia" and some perfunctory purge of "anti-Semites".
Basically, without a supporting and lasting political movements solidifying their
positions, politicians abandon those positions or are eliminated. This allows to keep some
hopes about "Corbynism", and in the case of USA, a more remote hope that a wider progressive
and/or sensitive movements will grow beyond their current narrow niches.
I have no intention to promote populism/nationalism. I am simply stating that when one
strips a population of its sovereignty and democracy, as the 'Globalist' project does,
eventually it leads to a revolt.
At this point the revolt is being led by the 'populists/nationalists'. As the devastation
that is being caused by the 'Globalist' project continues there will be fewer and fewer
people who to drink the 'Globalism' kool-aid.
There are many other clear traces of evolution (constantly developing antibiotic resistance of disease-causing bacteria being
one of the most obvious), but the funniest argument for evolution I know is this: "Bush junior is the best argument against intelligent
design: nobody intelligent would ever design that".
"... our government's support for Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not exceptions to the rule at all. They are the rule ..."
"... The problem here isn't just liberal hypocrisy and double standards. The deeper issue is that, as the great American iconoclast Mark Twain knew, you cannot maintain democracy at home while conducting an authoritarian empire abroad. ..."
"... "It was impossible," Twain wrote, "to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home." ..."
"... "Just a decade after Twain wrote those prophetic words," the historian Alfred W. McCoy has observed , "colonial police methods came home to serve as a template for the creation of an American internal security apparatus in wartime." The nation's first Red Scare, which crushed left and labor movements during and after World War One, drew heavily on the lessons and practices of colonial suppression in the Philippines and Cuba. As McCoy shows in his latest book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power , ..."
"... "The fetters imposed on liberty at home," James Madison wrote in 1799 , "have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers abroad." Those are wise words well worth revisiting amidst the current endless Russiagate madness, calculated among other things to tell us that the FBI, the CIA, and the rest of the nation's vast and ever more ubiquitous intelligence and surveillance state are on our side. ..."
A final matter concerns the problem of imperial chickens coming home to roost. Liberals
don't like to hear it, but the ugly, richly documented historical fact of the matter is that
their party of binary and tribal choice has long joined Republicans in backing and indeed
crafting a U.S. foreign policy that has imposed
authoritarian regimes (and profoundly undemocratic interventions including invasions and
occupations) the world over . The roster of authoritarian and often-mass murderous
governments the U.S. military and CIA and allied transnational business interests have backed,
sometimes even helped create, with richly bipartisan support, is long indeed.
Last fall, Illinois Green Party leader Mike Whitney ran some fascinating numbers on the 49
nation-states that the right-wing "human rights" organization Freedom House identified as
"dictatorships" in 2016. Leaving aside Freedom House's problematic inclusion of Russia, Cuba,
and Iran on its list, the most remarkable thing about
Whitney's research was his finding that the U.S. offered military assistance to 76 percent
of these governments. (The only exceptions were Belarus, China, Central African Republic, Cuba,
Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria.). "Most
politically aware people," Whitney wrote:
"know of some of the more highly publicized instances examples of [U.S. support for
foreign dictatorships], such as the tens of billions of dollars' worth of US military
assistance provided to the beheading capital of the world, the misogynistic monarchy of Saudi
Arabia, and the repressive military dictatorship now in power in Egypt apologists for our
nation's imperialistic foreign policy try to rationalize such support, arguing that Saudi
Arabia and Egypt are exceptions to the rule. But my survey demonstrates that our
government's support for Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not exceptions to the rule at all. They
are the rule ."
The Pentagon and State Department data Whitney used came from Fiscal Year 2015. It dated
from the next-to-last year of the Obama administration, for which so many liberals recall with
misplaced nostalgia. Freedom House's list should have included Honduras, ruled by a vicious
right-wing government that Obama and his Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton helped install in a June 2009 military coup .
The problem here isn't just liberal hypocrisy and double standards. The deeper issue is
that, as the great American iconoclast Mark Twain knew, you cannot maintain democracy at home
while conducting an authoritarian empire abroad. During the United States' blood-soaked
invasion and occupation of the Philippines, Twain penned an imaginary history of the
twentieth-century United States. "It was impossible," Twain wrote, "to save the Great Republic.
She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the
helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at
home."
"Just a decade after Twain wrote those prophetic words," the historian
Alfred W. McCoy has observed , "colonial police methods came home to serve as a template
for the creation of an American internal security apparatus in wartime." The nation's first Red
Scare, which crushed left and labor movements during and after World War One, drew heavily on
the lessons and practices of colonial suppression in the Philippines and Cuba. As McCoy shows
in his latest book, In the Shadows of the
American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power , the same basic process --
internal U.S. repression informed and shaped by authoritarian and imperial practices abroad and
justified by alleged external threats to the "homeland" -- has recurred ever since. Today, the
rise of an unprecedented global surveillance state overseen by the National Security Agency has
cost the US the trust of many of its top global allies (under Bush43 and Obama44, not just
under Trump45) while undermining civil liberties and democracy within as beyond the
U.S.
"The fetters imposed on liberty at home," James Madison wrote in 1799 , "have ever
been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary
dangers abroad." Those are wise words well worth revisiting amidst the current endless
Russiagate madness, calculated among other things to tell us that the FBI, the CIA, and the
rest of the nation's vast and ever more ubiquitous intelligence and surveillance state are on
our side.
Neoliberals are a flavor of Trotskyites and they will reach any depths to hang on to power.
Notable quotes:
"... Just as conservative Christian theology provides an excuse for sexism and homophobia, neoliberal language allows powerful groups to package their personal preferences as national interests – systematically cutting spending on their enemies and giving money to their friends. ..."
"... Nothing short of a grass roots campaign (such as that waged by GetUp!) will get rid for us of these modern let-them-eat-cake parasites who consider their divine duty to lord over us. ..."
Just as conservative Christian theology provides an excuse for sexism and homophobia, neoliberal language allows powerful
groups to package their personal preferences as national interests – systematically cutting spending on their enemies and giving
money to their friends.
And when the conservative "Christians" form a neoliberal government, the results are toxic for all, except themselves and their
coterie.
Nothing short of a grass roots campaign (such as that waged by GetUp!) will get rid for us of these modern let-them-eat-cake
parasites who consider their divine duty to lord over us.
Half the population prefers a politics that is racist and unethical, that demonises the poor
and idolises the rich, that eschews community and embraces amoral individuality. These people
don't care about the economic inconsistencies of neo-liberalism, they are far more attracted
to the divisive societal aspects of free market fundamentalism.
"... Opinions expressed in FRBSF Economic Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of the management of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. ..."
Is GDP Overstating Economic Activity?, by Zheng Liu, Mark M. Spiegel, and Eric B. Tallman
: Two common measures of overall economic output are gross domestic product (GDP) and gross
domestic income (GDI). GDP is based on aggregate expenditures, while GDI is based on
aggregate income. In principle, the two measures should be identical. However, in practice,
they are not. The differences between these two series can arise from differences in source
data, errors in measuring their components, and the seasonal adjustment process.
In this Economic Letter , we evaluate the reliability of GDP relative to two
alternatives, GDI and a combination of the two known as GDPplus, for measuring economic
output. We test the ability of each to forecast a benchmark measure of economic activity over
the past two years. We find that GDP consistently outperforms the other two as a more
accurate predictor of aggregate economic activity over this period. This suggests that the
relative weakness of GDI growth in recent years does not necessarily indicate weakness in
overall economic growth.
Discrepancies between GDP and GDI
What drives the discrepancies between GDP and GDI is not well understood. The source data for
the components that go into GDP and GDI are measured with errors, which may lead to
discrepancies between the two. Further discrepancies can arise because those different
components are adjusted for seasonality at different points in time (see, for example, Grimm
2007).
The differences between these two series can be large. For example, in the last two quarters
of 2007, inflation-adjusted or "real" GDI was declining whereas real GDP was still growing.
The year-over-year growth rate of GDP exceeded that of GDI by almost 2.6 percentage points.
Over long periods, however, final measures of growth in GDP and GDI tend to yield roughly
equivalent assessments of economic activity. Since 1985, real GDP grew at an average annual
rate of about 3.98%, while real GDI grew at a similar average rate of 4.02%.
Since late 2015, the two series have diverged, with real GDP growth consistently exceeding
real GDI growth (Figure 1). The differences in growth are significant in this period. For
example, if we used GDI growth to assess overall economic activity since July 2015, then the
size of real aggregate output by the end of 2017 would be $230 billion smaller than if GDP
growth were used. This divergence between the two sends mixed signals regarding the strength
of recent economic activity.
Figure 1
Mixed signals from GDP and GDI growth
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Evaluating GDP, GDI, combination
Researchers often debate which of these series measures economic activity more accurately.
Nalewaik (2012) argues that GDI outperforms GDP in forecasting recessions. GDI does appear to
exhibit more cyclical volatility than GDP. One reason may be that GDI is more highly
correlated with a number of business cycle indicators, including movements in both employment
and unemployment (Nalewaik 2010). On the other hand, the Bureau of Economic Analysis has
resisted this conclusion, arguing that GDP is in general based on more reliable source data
than GDI is (Landefeld 2010).
To evaluate the relative reliability of GDP versus GDI for measuring economic output, we
compare their abilities to forecast a benchmark measure of economic activity. We focus on the
Chicago Fed
National Activity Index (CFNAI) as the benchmark, since it is publicly available. The
CFNAI is a monthly index of national economic activity, generated as the common component of
85 monthly series in the U.S. economy. These underlying series include a wide variety of data
covering production and income, employment and unemployment, personal consumption and
housing, and sales and orders. The CFNAI has been shown to help forecast real GDP (Lang and
Lansing 2010). We use the CFNAI as a benchmark activity indicator to evaluate the relative
forecasting performances of GDP and GDI and their combinations. Since the discrepancy between
these two series has persisted for several years, we focus on the final releases of the GDP
and GDI series.
Some have argued that, because the GDP and GDI series contain independent information, it may
be preferable to combine the two series into a single more informative activity indicator.
One series that uses such a combination is the Philadelphia Fed's GDPplus
series, which is a weighted average of GDP and GDI, with the weights based on the approach
described by Aruoba et al. (2016). As a weighted average, GDPplus indicates activity levels
between the two individual series. We therefore also consider the forecasting performance of
the GDPplus series over this period of extended discrepancy between reported GDP and GDI
growth.
To confirm the accuracy of our approach, we repeated our investigation with two alternative
series constructed using methodologies similar to the CFNAI. The first alternative is an
aggregate economic activity index (EAI) we constructed by extracting the common components of
90 underlying monthly time series. The EAI covers a broader set of monthly indicators than
the CFNAI, since we also include information from goods prices and asset prices.
The second alternative indicator we considered is an activity index constructed by Barigozzi
and Luciani (2018), which we call the BL index. Like our index, the BL index includes price
indexes and other measures of labor costs. The authors base their estimates on the portions
of GDP and GDI that are driven by common macroeconomic shocks under the assumption that they
have equivalent effects on GDP and GDI. This restriction implies that deviations between GDP
and GDI are transitory, and that the two series follow each other over time.
The EAI and the BL index are both highly correlated with the CFNAI and thus yielded similar
conclusions. We describe the source data and our methodology for constructing the EAI as well
as the analysis using both it and the BL index in an
online appendix .
Empirical results
To examine the relative performances of GDP, GDI, and GDPplus for forecasting the CFNAI, we
first estimate an empirical model in which the CFNAI is related to four lagged values of one
of these measures of aggregate output. Ideally, we would have used the full sample of postwar
data in our model, but there are some structural breaks in the data related to factors such
as changes in the monetary policy regime since the mid-1980s and the Great Moderation that
make this challenging. We therefore choose to focus on the sample starting from the first
quarter of 1985 in this discussion; our results using the full sample are similar, as we
report in the
online appendix .
To examine how well each of the measures of aggregate output are able to forecast the CFNAI,
we estimate the model using the sample observations up to the end of 2015, the period before
GDP and GDI diverged. Once we determine the estimated coefficients that describe each
relationship, we use those values to estimate forecasts for the period when discrepancies
developed, from the first quarter of 2016 to the end of 2017. We then calculate the
prediction errors, measured by the root mean-squared errors, for each measure of aggregate
output. The smaller the prediction error, the better the forecasting performance.
In addition to examining the forecasting performance of GDP, GDI, and GDPplus for predicting
the CFNAI economic activity indicator, we also examined their forecasting performance for the
unemployment rate as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figure 2 displays the prediction errors from 2016 to 2017 for each of the alternative output
measures -- GDP, GDI, and GDPplus -- estimated from our model for CFNAI and unemployment. For
ease of comparison, we normalize the prediction errors from the model with GDP to one. The
figure shows that the prediction errors over this period based on the GDP series are
substantively lower than those based on GDI or GDPplus. This finding holds true not just for
these proxies for economic activity but also for our EAI and the BL index (see the
online appendix ). Moreover, formal statistical tests of forecasting performance indicate
that the forecasts based on GDP are significantly better than those based on GDI or GDPplus
at the 95% confidence level. This result suggests that, in recent periods, GDP has been a
more reliable independent indicator of economic activity than either GDI or GDPplus.
Figure 2
GDP outperforms GDI, GDPplus in predicting activity
Note: Figure shows prediction errors with GDP indexed to 1.
Conclusion
While GDP and GDI are theoretically identical measures of economic output, they can differ
significantly in practice over some periods. The differences between the two series have been
particularly pronounced in the past two years, when GDP growth has been consistently stronger
than GDI growth. Based on this observation, some analysts have claimed that GDP might be
overstating the pace of growth and that GDI, or some combination of GDP and GDI, should be
used to evaluate the levels and growth rate of economic activity.
To evaluate the validity of this claim, we compared the relative performances of GDP, GDI,
and a combined measure, GDPplus, for forecasting the CFNAI, which we use as a benchmark
measure of economic activity over the past two years. We find that GDP consistently
outperforms both GDI and combinations of the two, such as GDPplus, in forecasting aggregate
economic activity during the past two years. In this sense, GDP is a more accurate predictor
of aggregate economic activity than GDI over this period. Therefore, the relative weakness of
GDI growth observed in recent years does not necessarily indicate weakness in overall
economic growth.
Zheng
Liu is a senior research advisor in the Economic Research Department of the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Mark M. Spiegel is a
vice president in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San
Francisco.
Eric B. Tallman is a research associate in the Economic Research Department of the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
References
Aruoba, S. Boragan, Francis X. Diebold, Jeremy Nalewaik, Frank Schorfheide, and Dongho Song.
2016. "Improving GDP Measurement: A Measurement-Error Perspective." Journal of
Econometrics 191(2), pp. 384–397.
Landefeld, J. Steven. 2010. "Comments and Discussion: The Income- and Expenditure-Side
Estimates of U.S. Output Growth." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , Spring,
pp. 112–123.
Nalewaik, Jeremy J. 2010. "The Income- and Expenditure-Side Estimates of U.S. Output Growth."
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , Spring, pp. 71–106.
Nalewaik, Jeremy J. 2012. "Estimating Probabilities of Recession in Real Time Using GDP and
GDI." Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 44, pp. 235–253.
Opinions expressed in FRBSF Economic Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of
the management of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System.
Fine, "Vickrey macro," but every time that is asserted there needs to be a reference to a
clear summary statement of what that means. A Wikipedia reference would do, but the assertion
has almost no influence unless made immediately, simply meaningful.
Just one simple reference summary will do, continually repeated.
Fifteen Fatal Fallacies of Financial Fundamentalism
A Disquisition on Demand Side Economics
By William Vickrey
Much of the conventional economic wisdom prevailing in financial circles, largely
subscribed to as a basis for governmental policy, and widely accepted by the media and the
public, is based on incomplete analysis, contrafactual assumptions, and false analogy. For
instance, encouragement to saving is advocated without attention to the fact that for most
people encouraging saving is equivalent to discouraging consumption and reducing market
demand, and a purchase by a consumer or a government is also income to vendors and suppliers,
and government debt is also an asset. Equally fallacious are implications that what is
possible or desirable for individuals one at a time will be equally possible or desirable for
all who might wish to do so or for the economy as a whole.
And often analysis seems to be based on the assumption that future economic output is
almost entirely determined by inexorable economic forces independently of government policy
so that devoting more resources to one use inevitably detracts from availability for another.
This might be justifiable in an economy at chock-full employment, or it might be validated in
a sense by postulating that the Federal Reserve Board will pursue and succeed in a policy of
holding unemployment strictly to a fixed "non-inflation-accelerating" or "natural" rate. But
under current conditions such success is neither likely nor desirable.
Some of the fallacies that result from such modes of thought are as follows. Taken
together their acceptance is leading to policies that at best are keeping us in the economic
doldrums with overall unemployment rates stuck in the 5 to 6 percent range. This is bad
enough merely in terms of the loss of 10 to 15 percent of our potential production, even if
shared equitably, but when it translates into unemployment of 10, 20, and 40 percent among
disadvantaged groups, the further damages in terms of poverty, family breakup, school truancy
and dropout, illegitimacy, drug use, and crime become serious indeed. And should the implied
policies be fully carried out in terms of a "balanced budget," we could well be in for a
serious depression.
Fallacy 1
Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future
generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital. This fallacy seems
to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals.
Fallacy 2
Urging or providing incentives for individuals to try to save more is said to stimulate
investment and economic growth. This seems to derive from an assumption of an unchanged
aggregate output so that what is not used for consumption will necessarily and automatically
be devoted to capital formation.
Fallacy 3
Government borrowing is supposed to "crowd out" private investment.
Fallacy 4
Inflation is called the "cruelest tax." The perception seems to be that if only prices
would stop rising, one's income would go further, disregarding the consequences for
income.
Fallacy 5
"A chronic trend towards inflation is a reflection of living beyond our means." Alfred
Kahn, quoted in Cornell '93, summer issue.
Fallacy 6
Fallacy 7
Many profess a faith that if only governments would stop meddling, and balance their
budgets, free capital markets would in their own good time bring about prosperity, possibly
with the aid of "sound" monetary policy. It is assumed that there is a market mechanism by
which interest rates adjust promptly and automatically to equate planned saving and
investment in a manner analogous to the market by which the price of potatoes balances supply
and demand. In reality no such market mechanism exists; if a prosperous equilibrium is to be
achieved it will require deliberate intervention on the part of monetary authorities.
Fallacy 8
If deficits continue, the debt service would eventually swamp the fisc.
Fallacy 9
The negative effect of considering the overhanging burden of the increased debt would, it
is claimed, cancel the stimulative effect of the deficit. This sweeping claim depends on a
failure to analyze the situation in detail.
Fallacy 10
The value of the national currency in terms of foreign exchange (or gold) is held to be a
measure of economic health, and steps to maintain that value are thought to contribute to
this health. In some quarters a kind of jingoistic pride is taken in the value of one's
currency, or satisfaction may be derived from the greater purchasing power of the domestic
currency in terms of foreign travel.
Fallacy 11
It is claimed that exemption of capital gains from income tax will promote investment and
growth.
Fallacy 12
Debt would, it is held, eventually reach levels that cause lenders to balk with taxpayers
threatening rebellion and default.
Fallacy 13
Authorizing income-generating budget deficits results in larger and possibly more
extravagant, wasteful and oppressive government expenditures.
Fallacy 14
Government debt is thought of as a burden handed on from one generation to its children
and grandchildren.
Fallacy 15
Unemployment is not due to lack of effective demand, reducible by demand-increasing
deficits, but is either "structural," resulting from a mismatch between the skills of the
unemployed and the requirements of jobs, or "regulatory", resulting from minimum wage laws,
restrictions on the employment of classes of individuals in certain occupations, requirements
for medical coverage, or burdensome dismissal constraints, or is "voluntary," in part the
result of excessively generous and poorly designed social insurance and relief
provisions.
It is thought necessary to keep unemployment at a "non-inflation-accelerating" level
("NIARU") in the range of 4% to 6% if inflation is to be kept from increasing
unacceptably.
"Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future
generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital. This fallacy seems
to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals."
Except, we do not say a worker with $1000 a week income buying a $100,000 home first week
in May ran a $99,200 deficit (still needed food and gas) that week.
But government might run a $10 billion per week deficit from paying workers to build
infrastructure that will last a century plus with maintenance which will be repaid with
higher taxes over the next 50 years plus higher taxes for operations,....
Or the $10 billion per week deficit might be from ending all infrastructure building and
slashing spending on operations so a $11 billion per week tax cut could be implemented ($1
billion in taxes to repay and operate the infrastructure being built at $10 billion per
week).
Households and businesses maintain four ledgers, one pair is income and expense, and the
other is assets and liabilities. Buying a car, house, factory or car is not an expense, but
an addition to assets with offsetting liability. They are expensed over time as depreciation.
Excess income over expense is added to assets, in a cash account. Paying cash for an asset
moves the value from one part of the asset ledger, unless you have a separate fund for
emergency or retire and you borrow from it to pay for the car creating two new entries, a
liability for borrowing your money offset by the asset car.
I did this in the 60s and 70s with a ledger I then punched on IBM cards so I could create
multiple reports from one set of transactions, like a business. In the 90s, I did this for a
year or two with Quicken. It was not part of the "quick" entry and report which was more like
a check register, but it had all the options for asset and liability ledgers, with tied
entries between ledgers, mostly focused on investment accounts. It lacked a comprehensive
asset ledger function to tally house, car, truck, boat, home theater, cabin, and then
depreciate them, but I'm guessing QuickBooks has these functions.
For the Federal government, and State governments, many assets are on the books of local
government or government subunits, but finance by a bigger government. For example, NH State
government funds building most of new schools out of a cash account, while half a century
ago, a local government would hike a tax to fund issuing a bond, which means the State
mandated school was easy to fund for the rich towns, but almost impossible for poor towns
with very low tax base. Once moved to the conservative State level, issuing tax backed bonds
became politically difficult.
In the 60s, government debt was for building assets and bonds had tax revenue streams to
repay them. But conservatives hated the investment part of government because while it meant
jobs, it also required taxes.
For example, the highway trust fund was based on taxes to fill it to pay States to pay
workers. If a bunch of States wanted more jobs, that led to higher taxes.
Social Security Trust funds are based on an investment asset and liability model. The
assets are the current and future workers plus trust funds and the liabilities are current
and future beneficiaries being paid and to be paid. The Trustees report on these two ledgers
annually, along with income and expense. For a number of years, they have reported the
liabilities are growing slightly faster than assets.
But the rise of free lunch economics that basically rejects capitalism and it's
accounting, simply call liabilities the FICA revenue and the expenses and claim there are no
SS assets.
Progressives seem to live hand to mouth, rejecting capitalist principles.
You make claims like this all the time. Without a shred of evidence. Why don't you
SPECIFICALLY point to a time when you think pgl misrepresented something.
You did this for me once, and it became instantly clear that you cannot read - or at least
read things into comments that are not there. What did pgl misrepresent. Waiting.
Vickrey wrote on a wide range of topics besides macroeconomics. Now he also had certain
progressive Keynesian views, which I share. Of course I'm not into the mindless name dropping
that Paine is into. I would rather actually read what economists wrote. A couple of us
provided the 1996 Fifteen Fallacies paper he wrote which is an excellent read.
I do wonder if Paine himself ever bothered to read it as he sure has never bothered to
explain what it said.
Yes, I agree with the ideas of Vickrey and can use my abstract of the 15 fallacies as a
guide. I am pleased. The post below can then be linked to in future...
Last night found and read the Vickrey reference. Made a bet with myself that the toxic
troika's response would be to hurl low quality insults and disrupt.
Looking to housework in China, and how it has been radically changed with development, I
realize to my surprise that per capita GDP growth and distribution of income surely measures
housework. A house with electricity alone allows for a revolution in housework. Detergent
(non-phosphate) works wonders...
Neoliberal Economics being the creation of middle aged upper middle class men during the
1940's through the 1990's places value of zero on 'women's work'
Despite that much of it involves supporting current workers, birthing and raising next gen
workers.
The Socialist/Communist Critique is families require some amount of resources in order to
effectively perform that work. As such if you're going to have paid work then the state
should require that the level of pay is adequate.
The neoliberal response is to get the vapors and engage in gate keeping behavior.
As a child grows up and receives all forms of social training and other preparation to
participate in society ("get a job"), it is generally a quantity of "women's' work" that is
"spent" to do this. But it's not "spent" so much as "invested", as the product of the work is
a much improved human being. The young person embodies the investment. I guess we now call
this "human capital". In any event, it's an investment of women's work that creates it.
Now, one would think that someone possessing such capital might face better prospects than
one who does not, and that seems to be true. But it seems you can look at how competitive the
asset is by looking at how it faires in the market. In recent decades, look at the gain in
starting salaries. I have not seen a good series, but it seems they have lagged inflation,
let alone GDP per capita. Thus the real yield on the asset has been negative, or one could
say the yield has been on average entirely captured by employers. Others might make
statements using "exploitation".
The job market for young people has been a cruel game of musical chairs: make a lifetime
of investment just to join a circle for which there are too few chairs, and the employer gets
all the yield.
Fifteen Fatal Fallacies of Financial Fundamentalism
A Disquisition on Demand Side Economics
By William Vickrey
Much of the conventional economic wisdom prevailing in financial circles, largely
subscribed to as a basis for governmental policy, and widely accepted by the media and the
public, is based on incomplete analysis, contrafactual assumptions, and false analogy. For
instance, encouragement to saving is advocated without attention to the fact that for most
people encouraging saving is equivalent to discouraging consumption and reducing market
demand, and a purchase by a consumer or a government is also income to vendors and suppliers,
and government debt is also an asset. Equally fallacious are implications that what is
possible or desirable for individuals one at a time will be equally possible or desirable for
all who might wish to do so or for the economy as a whole.
And often analysis seems to be based on the assumption that future economic output is
almost entirely determined by inexorable economic forces independently of government policy
so that devoting more resources to one use inevitably detracts from availability for another.
This might be justifiable in an economy at chock-full employment, or it might be validated in
a sense by postulating that the Federal Reserve Board will pursue and succeed in a policy of
holding unemployment strictly to a fixed "non-inflation-accelerating" or "natural" rate. But
under current conditions such success is neither likely nor desirable.
Some of the fallacies that result from such modes of thought are as follows.
Fallacy 1
Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future
generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital. This fallacy seems
to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals.
Fallacy 2
Urging or providing incentives for individuals to try to save more is said to stimulate
investment and economic growth. This seems to derive from an assumption of an unchanged
aggregate output so that what is not used for consumption will necessarily and automatically
be devoted to capital formation.
Fallacy 3
Government borrowing is supposed to "crowd out" private investment.
Fallacy 4
Inflation is called the "cruelest tax." The perception seems to be that if only prices
would stop rising, one's income would go further, disregarding the consequences for
income.
Fallacy 5
"A chronic trend towards inflation is a reflection of living beyond our means." Alfred
Kahn, quoted in Cornell '93, summer issue.
Fallacy 6
It is thought necessary to keep unemployment at a "non-inflation-accelerating" level
("NIARU") in the range of 4% to 6% if inflation is to be kept from increasing
unacceptably.
Fallacy 7
Many profess a faith that if only governments would stop meddling, and balance their
budgets, free capital markets would in their own good time bring about prosperity, possibly
with the aid of "sound" monetary policy. It is assumed that there is a market mechanism by
which interest rates adjust promptly and automatically to equate planned saving and
investment in a manner analogous to the market by which the price of potatoes balances supply
and demand. In reality no such market mechanism exists; if a prosperous equilibrium is to be
achieved it will require deliberate intervention on the part of monetary authorities.
Fallacy 8
If deficits continue, the debt service would eventually swamp the fisc.
Fallacy 9
The negative effect of considering the overhanging burden of the increased debt would, it
is claimed, cancel the stimulative effect of the deficit. This sweeping claim depends on a
failure to analyze the situation in detail.
Fallacy 10
The value of the national currency in terms of foreign exchange (or gold) is held to be a
measure of economic health, and steps to maintain that value are thought to contribute to
this health. In some quarters a kind of jingoistic pride is taken in the value of one's
currency, or satisfaction may be derived from the greater purchasing power of the domestic
currency in terms of foreign travel.
Fallacy 11
It is claimed that exemption of capital gains from income tax will promote investment and
growth.
Fallacy 12
Debt would, it is held, eventually reach levels that cause lenders to balk with taxpayers
threatening rebellion and default.
Fallacy 13
Authorizing income-generating budget deficits results in larger and possibly more
extravagant, wasteful and oppressive government expenditures.
Fallacy 14
Government debt is thought of as a burden handed on from one generation to its children
and grandchildren.
Fallacy 15
Unemployment is not due to lack of effective demand, reducible by demand-increasing
deficits, but is either "structural," resulting from a mismatch between the skills of the
unemployed and the requirements of jobs, or "regulatory", resulting from minimum wage laws,
restrictions on the employment of classes of individuals in certain occupations, requirements
for medical coverage, or burdensome dismissal constraints, or is "voluntary," in part the
result of excessively generous and poorly designed social insurance and relief
provisions.
Government debt is thought of as a burden handed on from one generation to its children
and grandchildren."
So, Trump, and the GOP starting with Reagan, but especially in the 21st century, have
created great fantastic wealth to lift away all burden from future generations!
Huge lifting of burden!
The future is life of ease in a huge hammock of debt!
I think Trump's victory broke the brains of the toxic trio (PGL, EMichael, kurt). They say
it's pure racism. America is racist. We knew that, but Obama won twice. Oh it was a
"backlash." Nah, Ben Rhodes knows.
How Trump's Election Shook Obama: 'What if We Were Wrong?'
By Peter Baker
May 30, 2018
WASHINGTON -- Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election,
President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump's victory.
"What if we were wrong?" he asked aides riding with him in the armored presidential
limousine.
He had read a column asserting that liberals had forgotten how important identity was to
people and had promoted an empty cosmopolitan globalism that made many feel left behind.
"Maybe we pushed too far," Mr. Obama said. "Maybe people just want to fall back into their
tribe."
His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another
term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama,
the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. "Sometimes I wonder whether I
was 10 or 20 years too early," he said.
In the weeks after Mr. Trump's election, Mr. Obama went through multiple emotional stages,
according to a new book by his longtime adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes. At times, the departing
president took the long view, at other points, he flashed anger. He called Mr. Trump a
"cartoon" figure who cared more about his crowd sizes than any particular policy. And he
expressed rare self-doubt, wondering whether he had misjudged his own influence on American
history.
[Obama's painfully slow recovery influenced history. Read Benjamin Friedman and Chris
Dillow]
...
Mr. Obama and his team were confident that Mrs. Clinton would win and, like much of the
country, were shocked when she did not. "I couldn't shake the feeling that I should have seen
it coming," Mr. Rhodes writes. "Because when you distilled it, stripped out the racism and
misogyny, we'd run against Hillary eight years ago with the same message Trump had used:
She's part of a corrupt establishment that can't be trusted to bring change."
Funny you call me toxic when you just posted a smear and a lie. I have NEVER said it was all
racism or only racism and you know it. What I have said is that 1. economic insecurity does
not appear - due to study as opposed to your feelings - to have been a primary factor in the
decision of Trump voters, and 2. that the studies show that the primary motivators were
racism, fear of cultural change, sexism, and fear of immigrants. Economic insecurity fell
several orders of magnitude below the primary motivators. In fact, you missed the "fall back
into tribalism" part of your own post. Then again, you have never displayed even the
slightest modicum of reading comprehension ability.
U.S. Foreclosure Activity Drops to 12-Year Low in 2017
But New York Foreclosure Auctions, New Jersey REOs Both at 11-Year High;
Biggest Backlogs of Legacy Foreclosures in New York, New Jersey, Florida
IRVINE, Calif. – Jan. 18, 2018 – ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation's
largest multi-sourced property database, today released its Year-End 2017 U.S. Foreclosure
Market Report, which shows foreclosure filings -- default notices, scheduled auctions and
bank repossessions -- were reported on 676,535 U.S. properties in 2017, down 27 percent from
2016 and down 76 percent from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010 to the lowest level since
2005...
*
[When people that voted for Trump answer the question "Why" would it be too much to expect
that their answer might change over time with their perception of both the economy and Donald
Trump? There has always been a shortage of real world ceteris paribus in economics going back
before Adam Smith.]
You're being obtuse again. The effect of the center left liberal (see the Toxic Troika)
campaign to mock economic anxiety's explanatory power is to deny it had anything to with
Trump winning. They (you) deny he was populist when his rhetoric was very anti-elite and he's
a new kind of Republican whose dog whistles are out in the open. THAT's why Obama was alarmed
you obtuse moron!!!!
Benjamin Friedman and Chris Dillow are not hard to understand. A stagnating economy causes
people to retreat to tribalism and become susceptible to demagogues. Of course a lot of
people were already racist, but if the recovery had been good, had the last 40 years been
prosperous for your average voter Hillary would have won instead of Trump.
Yet just yesterday the Toxic Troika's hero Krugman tweeted this straw man:
Hey, Roseanne Barr is only worth $80 million, and was being paid only 250K per episode. So
her tweets were clearly driven by economic anxiety
1:49 PM - 29 May 2018
----------------------------------------
Does Krugman understand how dislike he is by the Left? I think he does. This kind of thing
is him lashing back at the Left.
-----------------------------
As Krugman blogged about Bernie Sanders's policies during the primary, he said they didn't
combat populism in Europe which is clearly wrong.
You can keep going about your stupid meaningless studies/paid propaganda but Krugman went
on to contradict himself by saying populism in Italy WAS CAUSED by economic anxiety!!!
If the European Central Bank hadn't forced slow growth on Italy maybe the new government
wouldn't be made up of populist parties who blame immigrants and the EU.
Not hard to understand but no doubt the Italian center left party Democrats (who nobody
voted for) sad it was all about anti-immigrant racism nothing more.
Wow you are thick. You are completely unable to understand the nuance of reality. You
continue to claim things that are not true - about what I posted and about what Krugman
posted. You cannot understand that what motivated Americans was different - substantively -
than what motivated Italians. You claim that Krugman was wrong, yet provide zero evidence.
Krugman provided evidence. Where is yours. Why do you deny study. Why do you deny rigor? I
think I know - it is because your entire world view comes crashing down in the face of
evidence. The world is not binary no matter how much you want it to be. It is complicated and
messy.
I think the Toxic Troika would agree on the bad effects of Fox news and conservative UK
tabloid media. This helps translate economic stagnation into conservative majorities.
[I always thought Thoma did the website as a way to combat this with free discussion among
experts and hobbyists. Banning people as the Troika wants isn't going to help.]
Saturday, 2 December 2017
If we treat plutocracy as democracy, democracy dies
by Simon Wren-Lewis
The snake-oil salesmen
There are many similarities between Brexit and Trump. They are both authoritarian
movements, where authority either lies with a single individual or a single vote: the vote
that bindsthem all. This authority expresses the movement's identity. They are irrational
movements, by which I mean that they cast aside expertise where that conflicts with the
movements wishes. As a result, you will find their base of supporters among the less well
educated, and that universities are seen as an enemy. Both groups are intensely
nationalistic: both want to make America or England great again.
It is easy to relate each group to familiar concepts: class, race or whatever. But I think
this classification misses something important. It misses what sustains these groups in their
beliefs, allows them to maintain their world view which is so often contradicted by reality.
Both groups get their information about the world from a section of the media that has turned
news into propaganda. In the US this is Fox, and in the UK the right wing tabloids and the
Telegraph.
A profound mistake is to see this media as a symptom rather than a cause. As the study I
spoke about here clearly demonstrates, the output of Fox news is not designed to maximise its
readership, but to maximise the impact of its propaganda on its readership. I think you could
say exactly the same about the Sun and the Mail in the UK. Fox and the Sun are owned by the
same man.
Even those who manage to cast off the idea that this unregulated media just reflects the
attitude of its readers, generally think of this media as supportive of political parties.
There is the Conservative and Labour supporting press in the UK, and similarly for the US. In
my view that idea is ten or twenty years out of date, and even then it underestimates the
independence of the media organisations. (The Sun famously supported Blair in 1997). More and
more it is the media that calls the shots, and the political parties follow.
Brexit would not have happened if it had remained the wish of a minority of Conservative
MPs. It happened because of the right wing UK press. Brexit happened because this right wing
press recognised a large section of their readership were disaffected from conventional
politics, and began grooming them with stories of EU immigrants taking jobs, lowering wages
and taking benefits (and sometimes much worse). These stories were not (always) false, but
like all good propaganda they elevated a half-truth into a firm belief. Of course this
grooming played on age old insecurities, but it magnified them into a political movement.
Nationalism does the same. It did not just reflect readers existing views, but rather played
on their doubts and fears and hopes and turned this into votes.
This is not to discount some of the very real grievances that led to the Brexit vote, or
the racism that led to the election of Trump. This analysis of today's populism is important,
as long as it does not get sidetracked into debates over identity versus economics. Stressing
economic causes of populism does not devalue identity issues (like race or immigration), but
it is the economics that causes the swings that help put populists in power. It was crucial,
for example, to the trick that the media played to convince many to vote for Brexit: that EU
immigrants and payments were reducing access to public services, whereas in reality the
opposite is true.
Yet while economic issues may have created a winning majority for both Brexit and Trump,
the identity issues sustained by the media make support for both hard to diminish. Brexit and
Trump are expressions of identity, and often of what has been lost, which are very difficult
to break down when sustained by the group's media. In addition both Trump and Brexit
maintain, because their proponents want it to be maintained, the idea that it represents the
normally ignored, striking back against the government machine in the capital city with all
its experts.
But to focus on what some call the 'demand' for populism is in danger of missing at least
half the story. Whatever legitimate grievances Brexit and Trump supporters may have had, they
were used and will be betrayed. There is nothing in leaving the EU that will help the
forgotten towns of England and Wales. Although he may try, Trump will not bring many
manufacturing jobs back to the rust belt, and his antics with NAFTA may make things worse.
Identifying the left behind is only half the story, because it does not tell you why they
fell for the remedies of snake-oil salesmen.
As I wrote immediately after the vote in my most widely read post, Brexit was first and
foremost a triumph for the UK right wing press. That press first fostered a party, UKIP, that
embodied the views the press pushed. The threat of that party and defections to it then
forced the Prime Minister to offer the referendum the press wanted. It was a right wing press
that sold a huge lie about the UK economy, a lie the broadcast media bought, to ensure the
Conservatives won the next election. When the referendum came, it was this right wing press
that ensured enough votes were won and thereby overturned the government.
Equally Donald Trump was first and foremost the candidate of Fox News. As Bruce Bartlett
has so eloquently written, Fox may have started off as a network that just supported
Republicans, but its power steadily grew. Being partisan at Fox became misinforming its
viewers, such that Fox viewers are clearly less well informed than viewers of other news
providers. One analysis suggested over half of the facts stated on Fox are untrue: UK readers
may well remember them reporting that Birmingham was a no-go area for non-Muslims.
Fox became a machine for keeping the base angry and fired up, believing that nothing could
be worse than voting for a Democrat. It was Fox News that stopped Republican voters seeing
that they were voting for a demagogue, concealed that he lied openly all the time, that
incites hatred against other religions and ethnic groups, and makes its viewers believe that
Clinton deserves to be locked up. It is not reflecting the views of its viewers, but moulding
them. As economists have shown, the output of Fox does not optimise their readership, but
optimises the propaganda power of its output. Despite occasional tiffs, Trump was the
candidate of Fox in the primaries.
We have a right wing media organisation that has overthrown the Republican political
establishment, and a right wing press that has overthrown a right wing government. How some
political scientists can continue to analyse this as if the media were simply passive,
supportive or even invisible when it brings down governments or subverts political parties I
do not know.
The plutocracy
Trump and Brexit are the creations of a kind of plutocracy. Politics in the US has had
strong plutocratic elements for some time, because of the way that money can sway elections.
That gave finance a powerful influence in the Democratic party, and made the Republicans
obsessive about cutting higher tax rates. In the UK plutocracy has been almost non-existent
by comparison, and operated mainly through party funding and seats in the House of Lords,
although we are still finding out where the money behind the Brexit campaign came from.
By focusing on what some call the demand side of populism rather than the supply side, we
fail to see both Trump and Brexit as primarily expressions of plutocratic power. Trump's
administration is plutocracy personified, and as Paul Pierson argues, its substantive agenda
constitutes a full-throated endorsement of the GOP economic elite's long-standing agenda. The
Brexiteers want to turn the UK into Singapore, a kind of neoliberalism that stresses markets
should be free from government interference, rather than free to work for everyone, and that
trade should be free from regulations, rather than regulations being harmonised so that
business is free to trade.
It is also a mistake to see this plutocracy as designed to support capital. This should
again be obvious from Brexit and Trump. It is in capital's interest to have borders open to
goods and people rather than creating barriers and erecting walls. What a plutocracy will do
is ensure that high inequality, in terms of the 1% or 0.1% etc, is maintained or even
increased. Indeed many plutocrats amassed their wealth by extracting large sums from the
firms for which they worked, wealth that might otherwise have gone to investors in the form
of dividends. In this sense they are parasitic to capital. And this plutocracy will also
ensure that social mobility is kept low so the membership of the plutocracy is sustained:
social mobility goes with equality, as Pickett and Wilkinson show.
It is also a mistake to see what is happening as somehow the result of some kind of
invisible committee of the 1% (or 0.1% and so on). The interests of the Koch brothers are not
necessarily the interests of Trump (it is no accident the former want to help buy Time
magazine). The interests of Arron Banks are not those of Lloyd Blankfein. Instead we are
finding individual media moguls forming partnerships with particular politicians to press not
only their business interests, but their individual political views as well. And in this
partnership it is often clear who is dependent on whom. After all, media competition is slim
while there are plenty of politicians.
What has this got to do with neoliberalism? which is supposed to be the dominant culture
of the political right. As I argued here, it is a mistake to see neoliberalism as some kind
of unified ideology. It may have a common core in terms of the primacy of the market, but how
that is interpreted is not uniform. Are neoliberals in favour of free trade, or against? It
appears that they can be both. Instead neoliberalism is a set of ideas based around a common
belief in the market that different groups have used and interpreted to their advantage,
while at the same time also being influenced by the ideology. Both interests and ideas
matter. While some neoliberals see competition as the most valuable feature of capitalism,
others will seek to stifle competition to preserve monopoly power. Brexiters and their press
backers are neoliberals, just as the Cameron government they brought down were
neoliberals.
I think there is some truth in the argument, made by Philip Mirowski among others, that a
belief in neoliberalism can easily involve an anti-enlightenment belief that people need to
be persuaded to subject themselves fully to the market. Certainly those on the neoliberal
right are more easily persuaded to invest time and effort in the dark arts of spin than those
on the left. But it would be going too far to suggest that all neoliberals are
anti-democratic: as I have said, neoliberalism is diverse and divided. What I argued in my
neoliberal overreach post was that neoliberalism as formulated in the UK and US had made it
possible for the plutocracy we now see to become dominant.
Nobody wants you banned because you provide alternative opinions. I actually enjoy having a
well considered argument with people who have differing opinions. We want you banned because
you lie - constantly - about other peoples positions and you constantly gaslight. You are an
expert propagandist, but not an expert in much else. In fact, you get most things wrong. Also
- you are obnoxiously rude all the time. And you are always on the side of the Alex
Jones/Rush Limbaugh types.
It's not so much that he lies but that he never defends his arguments when countered with
facts and logic, basically doubling down like Trump in attacks on liberals arguing with facts
and logic.
But most important, he never explains why an African economy or Cuba economy or
Chavez-Maduro economy would be so much better. If they have such great economies, why hasn't
he moved there?
Hey Cuba is close by. And the fact trade is been cut off by the US embargo should be a big
plus given global trade is horrible for workers. The US government trade embargoes on Cuba
are providing great benefits to Cuban workers who never lose their job from evil imports from
the US.
And workers in Cuba benefit from lack of competition.
Lemmings get what they deserve.
Almost always as the iron law of oligarchy implies. Period of
revolution and social upheaval are probably the only exceptions.
In 2018 there is no doubt that Trump is an agent of Deep State, and
probably the most militant part of neocons. What he the
agent from the beginning or not is not so important. He managed to
fool electorate with false promises like Obama before him and get
elected.
Ask yourself why Sessions ordered Rosenstein to resign and Trump
declined his resignation? Likely because Sessions was recused from
Russia investigation and could not be told Rosenstein was working for
Trump from day 1.
(Mueller also met with Trump the day before Rosenstein appointed him
SC.)
Also relevant, Rosenstein is Republican and in 2007/8 was blocked
from getting a seat on appeals court by Dems. Doesn't seem he would be
loyal to the Obama crowd and trying to take down Trump with a phony
investigation.
You better
believe it. What's happened to the NYC detectives who viewed
the "insurance policy" on Weiner's laptop? The kiddie stuff is
the real hot potato here. The power "elite" are pure
unadulterated filth.
Yes....when you start to add up various facts coming from this
investigation it is easy to argue that the prime beneficiary has
been Trump. Why would Trump even consider firing this guy? The
more Mueller digs the more crap surfaces about the Dems, and they
are in full support of it without any seeming awareness of the
results. They are so blinded by their hatred they cannot see
reality.
The info from Weiner's computer is really going to make for
major popcorn sales. All Hitlery's "lost" emails are in there. All
the names in his address book will also make for some interesting
reading. Just a guess but there are a lot of very nervous NYC
elected officials and pedos making sure their passports are up to
date. The Lolita Express to Gitmo....
You guys see everything through Trump colored glasses. Trump is dirty and just
because the evidence hasn't been shown to you doesn't mean it isn't there.
Mueller has the dirt on Trump. It will show. Does everyone here forget that
Watergate took 2 1/2 years to play out?
Being in the business he is in, there is little doubt that Trump has paid
out millions of dollars over the years in bribes and payoffs to greedy
politicians, regulators, and zoning commissioners given to filthy lucre in
return for building permits, zoning variances, and law changes.
I know he
is but what are they? This could be one reason the politicians, regulators,
and zoning commissioners hate him so much. He knows what they know.
Trump is no dirtier than other politicians and much less than some.
He is just dirty in a way (he was usually the payer, they were the payees)
that bothers the other ones.
There is no man or
woman who has or ever will run for office that is not dirty.
As Dershowitz so acutely pointed out, every one of them with an
opposition Special Counsel on his case, can find at least 3 crimes they
committed.
The only reason theBamster wasn't probed at all is because no one dared
go after the only black man to ever run and win for POTUS. HE instead, was
protected from any probes.
You're an idiot that doesn't know anything about what this is really all
about. Or pretending to. Or a troll. Fuck you for being any of them.
Obama has a history of taking out his opponents in their personal life, so
that he doesnt have to meet them in the political arena, just look at his
state campaigns, and then his senate campaign. Look at how he used the
bureaucracy during his admin to preempt opposition, not allowing opposition
groups to get tax exempt status and sending osha/fbi/treasury etc to harrass
people that were more than marginally effective.
With that context set I would like to know the following.
1. Did the brennan/comey/clapper cabal have investigations running on all
the gop primary front runners?
2. Did they promote Trump to win the GOP primary, to eliminate those
rivals from consideration, just to attempt to destroy him in the general with
the russian collusion narrative and his own words.
3. Was Comey's failure to ensure Hillary's victory due to incompetence or
arrogance? I say arrogance, because his little late day announcement of the
new emails was obviously ass covering so that he could pass whatever senate
hearing that would be required for his new post in the hillary administration.
Having to learn how to deal with mobbed-up lawyers and unions in NYC turns out
the be pretty damned good preparation to be President Of The United States. I
love watching this guy work.
The illegitimate liberal MSM is sucking all the oxygen out of the room for
legitimate criticism of Trump. This Russian Collusion stormy daniels stuff is
a bunch of bologna, and it's making a smokescreen for Trump to carry out his
zio-bankster agenda.
Hegelian dialectic, Divide and conquer, kabuki
theater
For the most part I like Peter Schiff. I don't think he talks
enough about the criminal manipulation of commodities by the
banksters and the seemingly endless reluctance by our glorious
leaders to prosecute them.
On this topic: The lawlessness of
the 17 agencies is beyond the pale. They have set themselves
apart and for this they will have to pay eventually. I have no
doubt that in the minds of the Bureau principals there was motive
and there was opportunity. I don't believe anything that comes
out of their mouths. Robert Mueller is a three letter word for a
donkey. He is a criminal and a totally owned puppet of the deep
and dark state. Last I heard, the FBI planted a mole in the Trump
campaign. Iff true, that speaks volumes...
It is amazing that President Trump is still standing on his feet and still out
there swinging. The man is no coward. I'm glad I voted for him, although I am
disappointed in some of his failings.
"although I am disappointed in some of his failings."...
Yeah I know
just what ya mean...
The treason of war crimes he's committed exceeding all of his
predecessor(s) in his short assed existence as President and threatening
war on two nuclear superpowers that could easily wipe his office and 4
thousand square miles of CONUS "
off the map
"!...
Endorsing a torturer murder to head the CIA condoning her efforts in
public "thumbing his nose" at Article 3 Geneva the U.S. Constitution and
for his military to tacitly continue disobeying the UCMJ as a response
to that "selection"!...
Telling the parasitic partner that owns him through blackmail that
Jerusalem is the Capital of IsraHell as over 200 Palestinians are
murdered and 3 thousand others injured in joyous celebration of that
violation of international law which is the equivalent of pouring
"gasoline" on a building that has already been reduced to "ash"...
They didn't really think things through when they plotted against Trump and
figured Hillary would win and they could sweep this under the rug and then she
lost. Funnier is that many expected her to lose as she never won an election
in her life despite her being "The Most Qualified" candidate as her parrots in
the media lovingly called her. Now Trump and his team will stomp them all into
the ground. My guess is that he'll pinch others in her gang who have big egos
so that they'll talk and drop a dime which they will. The libtards are turning
on themselves in every area now. Look at Hollywood and the sexual harassment
cases in the pipeline.
It's just so pleasurable watching your enemy fall on their sword while you
sit back and enjoy life and smile....
Was the Trump campaign "Set-up"? It's just another way the oligarchy
is deflecting what the real problem is. Americans are fed up with the
political status quo in this country, and wanted a change. Neither political
party offers any change for the better. It is also why Bernie Sanders had a
huge following, but no one is calling his campaign a "set-up", and he would
have been the more likely choice the Russians would have helped.
It really doesn't make any sense why the Russians would have selected
Trump, but it makes a lot of sense why the oligarchy would want to discredit
Trump any means availble to them. And since they have always hated Russia so
much, that is the big tip-off of who comes up with these stupid stories about
Russians meddling in our elections.
We voted against the powers that be. With Truman, we got a decent man that
was manipulated by the Deep State. With Trump, we got a not-so-decent man,
but still manipulated by the Deep State. Sigh.
there needs to be a schedule drawn up of charges against individuals. it's
all very well talking and talking anf talking around the water cooler, but
until the charges are drawn up and a grand jury empowered, it is all
pissing into the wind.
the individuals range from obama through clinton,
through the loathsome slimebags in the alphabet soup, through foundations,
through DNC leaders/politicians, through Weiner, Abedin, Rice and the
witches cabal (Wasserstein Schulz etc), UK intel agencies, awan brothers,
pakistan intel supplying Iran with classified documents and so on.
there are charges (of treason, sedition, wilful mishandling of classifed
documents, bribery, corruption, murder, child trafficking, election
rigging, spying for/collusion with foreign powers, funding terrorism, child
abuse, election rigging/tampering, misappropriation of federal funds, theft
etc as well as general malfeasance, failure to perform duties and so on)
that are not being brought that are so obvious, only a snowflake would miss
them.
what charges can be brought against the MSM for propaganda,
misdirection, lying, fabrication and attempting to ovetthrow a legitimately
elected president using these techniques to further their own ends? there
is no freedom of the press to lie and further civil unrest.
a list of charges against individuals in the DNC/alphabet soup is what
is needed. if the DoJ is so incompetent or corrupt that it is unable to do
its job, private law suits need to be brought to get all the facts out in
the open.
someone needs to write the book and make it butt hole shaped to shove up
all those that try to make a living out of making up gossip in the NYT,
WaPo, CNN, BBC, Economist, Madcow, SNL, Oliver and so on.
these people are guilty of being assholes and need their assholes
(mouths) plugged with a very think fifteen inch book.
Trump might become a deep stater but he definitely wasn't one of
them. Google "offer to pay trump to drop out of election" and see
how many stories there were. Here is one of them.
I hope someone writes a book on this with all of the timing and all of the
"little" things that happened on the way to the coronation of Hillary.
Comey "interviews" Hillary on 4th of July weekend. Wraps up case by 9am
Tuesday after 4th of July. By noon, Hillary and Obama are on Air Force 1
to begin campaign. Within a few weeks Seth Rich is dead and DWS avoids
being "killed in an armed robbery gone bad" when she steps down as head of
DNC. Above article forgets to mention that GPS also hired the wife of
someone in the government as part of the "fact gathering" team.
"... There could be no eye witnesses to such sadism, and the very extremism sounds very much like war propaganda – Germans carving up Belgian babies. ..."
"... The notion that Assad himself infected the rebellion with Islamic fanaticism is at best a hypothesis concerning not facts but intentions, which are invisible. But it is presented as unchallengeable evidence of Assad's perverse wickedness. ..."
"... a beleaguered state very much at the mercy of a rapacious Western imperialism that was seeking to carve the country up according to the appetites of the US government and the International Monetary Fund ..."
"... In reality, a much more pertinent "framing" of Western intervention, taboo in the mainstream and even in Moscow, is that Western support for armed rebels in Syria was being carried out to help Israel destroy its regional enemies. ..."
"... The Middle East nations attacked by the West – Iraq, Libya and Syria – all just happen to be, or to have been, the last strongholds of secular Arab nationalism and support for Palestinian rights. ..."
"... There are a few alternative hypotheses as to Western motives – oil pipelines, imperialist atavism, desire to arouse Islamic extremism in order to weaken Russia (the Brzezinski gambit) – but none are as coherent as the organic alliance between Israel and the United States, and its NATO sidekicks. ..."
"... No other mention of Israel, which occupies Syrian territory (the Golan Heights) and bombs Syria whenever it wants to. ..."
"... The Trotskyists keep yearning for a new revolution, just like the Bolshevik revolution. Yes, but the Bolshevik revolution ended in Stalinism. Doesn't that tell them something? Isn't it quite possible that their much-desired "revolution" might turn out just as badly in Syria, if not much worse? ..."
"... In our era, the most successful revolutions have been in Third World countries, where national liberation from Western powers was a powerful emotional engine. Successful revolutions have a program that unifies people and leaders who personify the aspirations of broad sectors of the population. Socialism or communism was above all a rallying cry meaning independence and "modernization" – which is indeed what the Bolshevik revolution turned out to be. ..."
"... "In the context of a global neoliberalism, where governments across the board were enacting the most pronounced forms of deregulation and overseeing the carving up of state industries by private capital, the Assad government responded to the heightening contradictions in the Syrian economy by following suit -- by showing the ability to march to the tempo of foreign investment while evincing a willingness to cut subsidies for workers and farmers." The neoliberal turn impoverished people in the countryside, therefore creating a situation that justified "revolution". ..."
"... This is rather amazing, if one thinks about it. Without the alternative Soviet bloc, virtually the whole world has been obliged to conform to anti-social neoliberal policies. Syria included. Does this make Bashar al Assad so much more a villain than every other leader conforming to U.S.-led globalization? ..."
"... One could turn that around. Shouldn't such a Marxist revolutionary be saying: "if we can't defeat the oligarchs in the West, who are responsible for the neoliberal policies imposed on the rest of the world, how can we possibly begin to provide class-struggle leadership in Syria?" ..."
"... The trouble with Trotskyists is that they are always "supporting" other people's more or less imaginary revolutions. They are always telling others what to do. They know it all. The practical result of this verbal agitation is simply to align this brand of Trotskyism with U.S imperialism. The obsession with permanent revolution ends up providing an ideological alibi for permanent war. ..."
I first encountered Trotskyists in Minnesota half a century ago during the movement against the Vietnam War. I appreciated
their skill in organizing anti-war demonstrations and their courage in daring to call themselves "communists" in the United
States of America – a profession of faith that did not groom them for the successful careers enjoyed by their intellectual
counterparts in France. So I started my political activism with sympathy toward the movement. In those days it was in clear
opposition to U.S. imperialism, but that has changed.
The first thing one learns about Trotskyism is that it is split into rival tendencies. Some remain consistent critics
of imperialist war, notably those who write for the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).
Others, however, have translated the Trotskyist slogan of "permanent revolution" into the hope that every minority uprising
in the world must be a sign of the long awaited world revolution – especially those that catch the approving eye of mainstream
media. More often than deploring U.S. intervention, they join in reproaching Washington for not intervening sooner on behalf
of the alleged revolution.
A recent article in the International Socialist Review (issue #108, March 1, 2018) entitled "Revolution and counterrevolution
in Syria" indicates so thoroughly how Trotskyism goes wrong that it is worthy of a critique. Since the author, Tony McKenna,
writes well and with evident conviction, this is a strong not a weak example of the Trotskyist mindset.
McKenna starts out with a passionate denunciation of the regime of Bashar al Assad, which, he says, responded to a group
of children who simply wrote some graffiti on a wall by "beating them, burning them, pulling their fingernails out". The
source of this grisly information is not given. There could be no eye witnesses to such sadism, and the very extremism
sounds very much like war propaganda – Germans carving up Belgian babies.
But this raises the issue of sources. It is certain that there are many sources of accusations against the Assad regime,
on which McKenna liberally draws, indicating that he is writing not from personal observation, any more than I am. Clearly,
he is strongly disposed to believe the worst, and even to embroider it somewhat. He accepts and develops without the shadow
of a doubt the theory that Assad himself is responsible for spoiling the good revolution by releasing Islamic prisoners
who went on to poison it with their extremism. The notion that Assad himself infected the rebellion with Islamic fanaticism
is at best a hypothesis concerning not facts but intentions, which are invisible. But it is presented as unchallengeable
evidence of Assad's perverse wickedness.
This interpretation of events happens to dovetail neatly with the current Western doctrine on Syria, so that it is impossible
to tell them apart. In both versions, the West is no more than a passive onlooker, whereas Assad enjoys the backing of
Iran and Russia.
"Much has been made of Western imperial support for the rebels in the early years of the revolution. This has, in fact,
been an ideological lynchpin of first the Iranian and then the Russian military interventions as they took the side of
the Assad government. Such interventions were framed in the spirit of anticolonial rhetoric in which Iran and Russia purported
to come to the aid of a beleaguered state very much at the mercy of a rapacious Western imperialism that was seeking
to carve the country up according to the appetites of the US government and the International Monetary Fund ", according
to McKenna.
Whose "ideological lynchpin"? Not that of Russia, certainly, whose line in the early stages of its intervention was
not to denounce Western imperialism but to appeal to the West and especially to the United States to join in the fight
against Islamic extremism.
Neither Russia nor Iran "framed their interventions in the spirit of anticolonial rhetoric" but in terms of the fight
against Islamic extremism with Wahhabi roots.
In reality, a much more pertinent "framing" of Western intervention, taboo in the mainstream and even in Moscow,
is that Western support for armed rebels in Syria was being carried out to help Israel destroy its regional enemies.
The Middle East nations attacked by the West – Iraq, Libya and Syria – all just happen to be, or to have been, the
last strongholds of secular Arab nationalism and support for Palestinian rights.
There are a few alternative hypotheses as to Western motives – oil pipelines, imperialist atavism, desire to arouse
Islamic extremism in order to weaken Russia (the Brzezinski gambit) – but none are as coherent as the organic alliance
between Israel and the United States, and its NATO sidekicks.
It is remarkable that McKenna's long article (some 12 thousand words) about the war in Syria mentions Israel only once
(aside from a footnote citing Israeli national news as a source). And this mention actually equates Israelis and Palestinians
as co-victims of Assad propaganda: the Syrian government "used the mass media to slander the protestors, to present the
revolution as the chaos orchestrated by subversive international interests (the Israelis and the Palestinians were both
implicated in the role of foreign infiltrators)."
No other mention of Israel, which occupies Syrian territory (the Golan Heights) and bombs Syria whenever it wants
to.
Only one, innocuous mention of Israel! But this article by a Trotskyist mentions Stalin, Stalinists, Stalinism no less
than twenty-two times !
And what about Saudi Arabia, Israel's de facto ally in the effort to destroy Syria in order to weaken Iran? Two mentions,
both implicitly denying that notorious fact. The only negative mention is blaming the Saudi family enterprise for investing
billions in the Syrian economy in its neoliberal phase. But far from blaming Saudi Arabia for supporting Islamic groups,
McKenna portrays the House of Saud as a victim of ISIS hostility.
Clearly, the Trotskyist delusion is to see the Russian Revolution everywhere, forever being repressed by a new Stalin.
Assad is likened to Stalin several times.
This article is more about the Trotskyist case against Stalin than it is about Syria.
This repetitive obsession does not lead to a clear grasp of events which are not the Russian revolution. And
even on this pet subject, something is wrong.
The Trotskyists keep yearning for a new revolution, just like the Bolshevik revolution. Yes, but the Bolshevik revolution
ended in Stalinism. Doesn't that tell them something? Isn't it quite possible that their much-desired "revolution" might
turn out just as badly in Syria, if not much worse?
Throughout history, revolts, uprisings, rebellions happen all the time, and usually end in repression. Revolution is
very rare. It is more a myth than a reality, especially as Trotskyists tend to imagine it: the people all rising up in
one great general strike, chasing their oppressors from power and instituting people's democracy. Has this ever
happened?
For the Trotskyists, this seem to be the natural way things should happen and is stopped only by bad guys who spoil
it out of meanness.
In our era, the most successful revolutions have been in Third World countries, where national liberation from Western
powers was a powerful emotional engine. Successful revolutions have a program that unifies people and leaders who personify
the aspirations of broad sectors of the population. Socialism or communism was above all a rallying cry meaning independence
and "modernization" – which is indeed what the Bolshevik revolution turned out to be. If the Bolshevik revolution
turned Stalinist, maybe it was in part because a strong repressive leader was the only way to save "the revolution" from
its internal and external enemies. There is no evidence that, had he defeated Stalin, Trotsky would have been more tender-hearted.
Countries that are deeply divided ideologically and ethnically, such as Syria, are not likely to be "modernized" without
a strong rule.
McKenna acknowledges that the beginning of the Assad regime somewhat redeemed its repressive nature by modernization
and social reforms. This modernization benefited from Russian aid and trade, which was lost when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Yes, there was a Soviet bloc which despite its failure to carry out world revolution as Trotsky advocated, did support
the progressive development of newly independent countries.
If Bashar's father Hafez al Assad had some revolutionary legitimacy in McKenna's eyes, there is no excuse for Bashar.
"In the context of a global neoliberalism, where governments across the board were enacting the most pronounced
forms of deregulation and overseeing the carving up of state industries by private capital, the Assad government responded
to the heightening contradictions in the Syrian economy by following suit -- by showing the ability to march to the tempo
of foreign investment while evincing a willingness to cut subsidies for workers and farmers." The neoliberal turn impoverished
people in the countryside, therefore creating a situation that justified "revolution".
This is rather amazing, if one thinks about it. Without the alternative Soviet bloc, virtually the whole world has
been obliged to conform to anti-social neoliberal policies. Syria included. Does this make Bashar al Assad so much more
a villain than every other leader conforming to U.S.-led globalization?
McKenna concludes by quoting Louis Proyect: "If we line up on the wrong side of the barricades in a struggle between
the rural poor and oligarchs in Syria, how can we possibly begin to provide a class-struggle leadership in the USA, Britain,
or any other advanced capitalist country?"
One could turn that around. Shouldn't such a Marxist revolutionary be saying: "if we can't defeat the oligarchs
in the West, who are responsible for the neoliberal policies imposed on the rest of the world, how can we possibly begin
to provide class-struggle leadership in Syria?"
The trouble with Trotskyists is that they are always "supporting" other people's more or less imaginary revolutions.
They are always telling others what to do. They know it all. The practical result of this verbal agitation is simply to
align this brand of Trotskyism with U.S imperialism. The obsession with permanent revolution ends up providing an ideological
alibi for permanent war.
For the sake of world peace and progress, both the United States and its inadvertent Trotskyist apologists should go
home and mind their own business.
"... I am reading Taleb's recent book "Skin in the game" which has interesting material about the disconnection between risky behaviors and their consequences in modern USA. He also has a chapter about the mechanics involved in why minority viewpoints in our culture become dominant. It's an interesting read. ..."
"... Finally, the Police partially acknowledged their mistake and accused the Russians of not having been completely fair play. Indeed, these thuriferous bastards of Vlad the Impaler had put poison on the OUTDOOR handle of the front door of the house. It's infinitely subtle of these savages. The Brit Police did not suspect what strong part it had to make, the unexpected thwarting its learned calculations. Presumption, again and again. Nevertheless, the detectives are formal: the Russians did the trick well. The evidence is obvious. In this dramatic case, we are not going to make a comparison between insular and continental logic. The hour is too serious for these trifles. Lots of laughter. ..."
"... It's very difficult in any case to believe that such a notice could have been issued. Can't see why it would be needed. The scripting of the official story on such matters as this seems to be a joint enterprise between the media and the press officers. That's a time-honoured consensus so why would the media need bullying to stay in line? ..."
"... My personal view on all this is that the No. 10 press officers aren't that good at this new-fangled information stuff. They don't seem to have their hearts in it somehow. Time for them to go back to counting paperclips and for information campaigns to be handled by the experts. The BBC have a proven track record in this field and it's time that was officially recognised. ..."
Sir Mark, bless him, has told an MP during a committee meeting, that the armed forces, MI-5, MI-6 and GCHQ do not know who or
indeed what sickened the Skripals, pere et fille , in Salisbury. He doesn't seem to have mentioned the police. So, basically,
pilgrims, Teresa May, the queen's first minister has insistently and incessantly accused the Russians of a crime of which our British
cousins know precious little. In a closely related development, it is now revealed that the Britishers sealed up Skripal's house
after the poisoning event leaving the black Persian shown above and two guinea pigs to die of thirst and hunger within. It would
seem likely that they knew they were doing this since they would have searched the house first. No? Perhaps they thought that the
cat might be a threat as a being of possible Iranian descent. This is impressive stuff. pl
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-05-01/uk-has-not-yet-identified-skripal-poisoning-suspects
These false flag ops are all so shabby in their execution. The lack of thoroughness and imagination on the part of the governments
running them is really disappointing. For example, if I was running an investigation into the Skripal incident, I would have captured
the cat and rodents and run pathology tests on them to see what bio/chem agents might be in their systems. Also, because they
might escape and become a vector of further infection. That seems like it would be SOP. So I'd do it even if I knew the story
was BS to create the appearance of reality. Then, I could always state that the pets should signs of Russian engineered bio/chem
agents. Could even create a video of the pets dying some horrible death due to the agents. That's more better BS.
And yet, this appears to be a lie as well. An earlier piece in the British news claims the pets were taken to Porton Down for
examination and testing soon after the incident. Seems more likely they eliminated evidence and then came up with the cover story
about how the animals were "forgotten about" and locked in the house for a month, implying totally unimportant for the investigation.
http://metro.co.uk/2018/03/...
I hope she and Johnson pay the price for this folly. May it be steep! Very. very steep.
How these two suckered so many nations foolishly into sending diplomats home reflected respect for UK policy toward Russia.
These nations will need to think long and hard about following any such UK lead in future.
This week, the US took down the Russian flag flying over Russian real estate in Seattle. Shameful!
I don't know much about the dynamics of British politics but as a light observer of British news I wonder why Theresa May remains
prime minister? She became prime minister after the historic Brexit vote. Promptly takes the country to an election and botches
it for the Tories. Then bungles the Brexit negotiations. Runs a floundering government. Now comes up with accusations against
the Russians in the Skripal affair with no evidence presented but looking more foolish as her story comes under scrutiny.
I am reading Taleb's recent book "Skin in the game" which has interesting material about the disconnection between risky behaviors
and their consequences in modern USA. He also has a chapter about the mechanics involved in why minority viewpoints in our culture
become dominant. It's an interesting read.
2 cats and 2 guinea pigs were locked up for 9 days in Skipal's house, in the hope of proving that the Russians are guilty.
When the police reopened the house, they found four bodies. the veterinary faculty is positive, both cats died of starvation.
Guinea pigs, some say, began to be worked by hungry cats, accelerating their deaths. Unspeakable bloodshed. In this whole case,
it's THE revolting detail, among many others. Poor beasts.
Finally, the Police partially acknowledged their mistake and accused the Russians of not having been completely fair play.
Indeed, these thuriferous bastards of Vlad the Impaler had put poison on the OUTDOOR handle of the front door of the house. It's
infinitely subtle of these savages. The Brit Police did not suspect what strong part it had to make, the unexpected thwarting
its learned calculations. Presumption, again and again. Nevertheless, the detectives are formal: the Russians did the trick well.
The evidence is obvious. In this dramatic case, we are not going to make a comparison between insular and continental logic. The
hour is too serious for these trifles.
Lots of laughter.
Presumably there are bigger guns in the background if information that would really threaten national security or the lives
of serving officers is in danger of being released. The D-Notice system itself seems to be a more or less voluntary affair -
It's very difficult in any case to believe that such a notice could have been issued. Can't see why it would be needed.
The scripting of the official story on such matters as this seems to be a joint enterprise between the media and the press officers.
That's a time-honoured consensus so why would the media need bullying to stay in line?
My personal view on all this is that the No. 10 press officers aren't that good at this new-fangled information stuff.
They don't seem to have their hearts in it somehow. Time for them to go back to counting paperclips and for information campaigns
to be handled by the experts. The BBC have a proven track record in this field and it's time that was officially recognised.
"... A McClatchy journalist investigated further and came to the same conclusion as I did. The 'leak' to the New York Times was disinformation. ..."
"... Russia has not pinned the Novichok to Sweden or the Czech Republic. It said, correctly, that several countries produced Novichok. Russia did not blame the UK for the 'nerve gas attack' in Syria. Russia says that there was no gas attack in Douma. ..."
"... The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make to not hold up to scrutiny. Meanwhile there pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation. ..."
"... Wait for an outbreak of hostilities on the Ukraine-Donbass front shortly before the beginning of the World Cup competition which is as internationally important as the Olympic Games -- as they did in 2014 with Maidan and 2016 with the Sochi Winter Olympics drug uproar, the CIA will create chaos that will take the emphasis off any Russian success, since as to them, anything negative regarding Russia is a positive for them. ..."
"... No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of Russian responsibility) have been shattered. ..."
"... Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are the Russian denials! It is hard to see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation. ..."
"... The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote." ..."
"... Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: "Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?" ..."
"... Whataboutism seems to deny that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth. ..."
"... 1984, anyone? ..."
"... The absurd story that the OPCW says there was a 100gm/100mg who knows which on the door and other sites is just so stupid its painful. ..."
"... Presumably the Skripals touch the cutlery, plates and wine glasses in the restaurant, so why weren't the staff there infected as they must have had to pick up the plates etc after the meal. Even the door to the entrance of the restaurant should be affected as they would have to push it open, thus leaving the chemical for other people to touch. Nope, nothing in this stupid story adds up and the OPCW can't even get the amounts of the chemical right. ..."
"... Biggest problem with the world today is lazy insouciant citizens. ..."
"... One very important point Lavrov made was the anti-Russian group consists of a very small number of nations representing a small fraction of humanity; ..."
"... while they have some economic and military clout, it's possible for the rest of the world's nations to sideline them and get on with the important business of forming a genuine Multipolar World Order, which is what the UN and its Charter envisioned. ..."
"... Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy' disinformation. ..."
"... Yes, exactly. The Western hegemony, i.e. the true "Axis of Evil" led by the US, and including the EU and non-Western allies, have invented the Perpetual Big Lie™. ..."
"... Witnesses? They're either confederates, dupes, or terrified by coercion. Evidence and/or technical analysis? All faked! A nominally reliable party, e.g. the president of the Czech Republic, makes statements that undermine the Big Lie Nexus? Again-- he's either been bought off or frightened into making such inconvenient claims. Or he's just a mischievous liar. ..."
"... And, as I seemingly never get tired of pointing out, the Perpetual Big Lie™ strategy arose, and succeeds, because the "natural enemies" of authoritarian government overreach have been coerced or co-opted to a fare-thee-well. So mass-media venues, and even supposedly independent technical and scientific organizations, are part of the Perpetual Big Lie™ apparatus. ..."
"... Putting Kudrin -- an opponent of de-dollarization and an upholder of the Washington Consensus -- in charge of Russia's international outreach would be equal to putting Bill Clinton in charge of a girls' school. ..."
"... In the Guardian I only read the comments, never the article. Here, I read both. That is the difference between propaganda and good reporting. ..."
The Grauniad is slipping deeper into the disinformation business:
Revealed: UK's push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance is the headline of a page one piece
which reveals exactly nothing. There is no secret lifted and no one was discomforted by a
questioning journalist.
Like other such pieces it uses disinformation to accuse Russia of spreading such.
The main 'revelation' is stenographed from a British government official. Some quotes from
the usual anti-Russian propagandists were added. Dubious or false 'western' government claims
are held up as truth. That Russia does not endorse them is proof for Russian mischievousness
and its 'disinformation'.
The opener:
The UK will use a series of international summits this year to call for a comprehensive
strategy to combat Russian disinformation and urge a rethink over traditional diplomatic
dialogue with Moscow, following the Kremlin's aggressive campaign of denials over the use of
chemical weapons in the UK and Syria.
...
"The foreign secretary regards Russia's response to Douma and Salisbury as a turning point
and thinks there is international support to do more," a Whitehall official said. "The areas
the UK are most likely to pursue are countering Russian disinformation and finding a
mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons."
There is a mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons. It is the
Chemical Weapon Convention and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
It was the British government which at first
rejected the use of these instruments during the Skripal incident:
Early involvement of the OPCW, as demanded by Russia, was resisted by the British
government. Only on March 14, ten days after the incident happened and two days after Prime
Minister Theresa may had made accusations against Russia, did the British government invite
the OPCW. Only on March 19, 15 days after the incident happen did the OPCW technical team
arrive and took blood samples.
Now back to the Guardian disinformation:
In making its case to foreign ministries, the UK is arguing that Russian denials over
Salisbury and Douma reveal a state uninterested in cooperating to reach a common
understanding of the truth , but instead using both episodes to try systematically to divide
western electorates and sow doubt.
A 'common understanding of the truth' is an interesting term. What is the truth? Whatever
the British government claims? It accused Russia of the Skripal incident a mere eight days
after it happened. Now, two month later, it admits that it
does not know who poisoned the Skripals:
Police and intelligence agencies have failed so far to identify the individual or
individuals who carried out the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the UK's national security
adviser has disclosed.
Do the Brits know where the alleged Novichok poison came from? Unless they produced it
themselves they likely have no idea. The Czech Republic just admitted that it
made small doses of a Novichok nerve agent for testing purposes. Others did too.
Back to the Guardian :
British politicians are not alone in claiming Russia's record of mendacity is not a personal
trait of Putin's, but a government-wide strategy that makes traditional diplomacy
ineffective.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, famously came off one lengthy phone call with Putin
– she had more than 40 in a year – to say he lived in a different world.
No, Merkel never said that. An Obama administration flunky planted that
in the New York Times :
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking
with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call
said. "In another world," she said.
When that claim was made in March 2014 we were immediately suspicious
of it:
This does not sound like typically Merkel but rather strange for her. I doubt that she said
that the way the "people briefed on the call" told it to the Times stenographer. It is rather
an attempt to discredit Merkel and to make it more difficult for her to find a solution with
Russia outside of U.S. control.
A day later the German government
denied (ger) that Merkel ever said such (my translation):
The chancellery is unhappy about the report in the New York Times. Merkel by no means meant
to express that Putin behaved irrational. In fact she told Obama that Putin has a different
perspective about the Crimea [than Obama has].
A McClatchy journalist investigated
further and came to the same conclusion as I did. The 'leak' to the New York Times was
disinformation.
That disinformation, spread by the Obama administration but immediately exposed as false, is
now held up as proof by Patrick Wintour, the Diplomatic editor of the Guardian , that
Russia uses disinformation and that Putin is a naughty man.
The British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson
wants journalists to enter the UK reserve forces to help with the creation of
propaganda:
He said army recruitment should be about "looking to different people who maybe think, as a
journalist: 'What are my skills in terms of how are they relevant to the armed forces?'
Patrick Wintour seems to be a qualified candidate.
Or maybe he should join the NATO for Information Warfare the Atlantic Council wants to
create to further disinform about those damned Russkies:
What we need now is a cross-border defense alliance against disinformation -- call it
Communications NATO. Such an alliance is, in fact, nearly as important as its military
counterpart.
Like the Guardian piece above writer of the NATO propaganda lobby Atlantic Council
makes claims of Russian disinformation that do not hold up to the slightest test:
By pinning the Novichok nerve agent on Sweden or the Czech Republic, or blaming the UK for
the nerve gas attack in Syria, the Kremlin sows confusion among our populations and makes us
lose trust in our institutions.
Russia has not pinned the Novichok to Sweden or the Czech Republic. It said, correctly, that
several countries produced Novichok. Russia did not blame the UK for the 'nerve gas attack' in
Syria. Russia says that there was no gas attack in Douma.
The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make to not hold up to scrutiny.
Meanwhile there pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation.
The bigger aim behind all these activities, demanding a myriad of new organizations to
propagandize against Russia, is to introduce a strict control over information within 'western'
societies.
Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed
with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy'
disinformation.
That scheme will be used against anyone who deviates from the ordered norm. You dislike that
pipeline in your backyard? You must be falling for
Russian trolls or maybe you yourself are an agent of a foreign power. Social Security? The
Russians like that. It is a disinformation thing. You better forget about it.
Excellent article, in an ongoing run of great journalism.
I am curious - have you read this? https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/
It purports to be a book by an American military man intimately familiar with the covert ops
portion of the US government. The internal Kafka-esque dynamics described certainly feel
true.
One of the reasons newspapers are getting worse is the economics. They aren't really viable
anymore. Their future is as some form of government sanctioned oligopoly. Two national papers
-- a "left" and a "right" -- and then a handful of regional papers. All spouting the same
neoliberal, neoconservative chicanery.
Genuine journalist Matt Taibbi warned of this sort of branding of disparate views as enemy a
month ago. He was also correct. Evil and insidious. The enemy of a free society.
Wait for an outbreak of hostilities on the Ukraine-Donbass front shortly before the beginning
of the World Cup competition which is as internationally important as the Olympic Games -- as
they did in 2014 with Maidan and 2016 with the Sochi Winter Olympics drug uproar, the CIA
will create chaos that will take the emphasis off any Russian success, since as to them,
anything negative regarding Russia is a positive for them.
I agree that it's difficult to see how the drive to renew the Cold War is going to be
stopped. I presume that, with the exception of certain NeoCon circles, there isn't a desire
for Hot War. Certainly not in the British sources you quote. Britain wouldn't want Hot War
with Russia. It's all a question of going to the limit for internal consumption. Do a 1984,
in order to keep the population in-line.
thanks b... i can't understand how any intelligent thinking person would read the guardian,
let alone something like the huff post, and etc. etc... why? the propaganda money that pays
for the white helmets, certainly goes to these outlets as well..
the uk have gone completely nuts! i guess it comes with reading the guardian, although, in
fairness, all british media seems very skewed - sky news, bbc, and etc. etc.
it does appear as though Patrick Wintour is on Gavin Williamson's propaganda
bandwagon/payroll already... in reading the comments and articles at craig murrays site, i
have become more familiar with just how crazy things are in the uk.. his latest article
freedom no
more sums it up well... throw the uk msm in the trash can... it is for all intensive
purposes, done..
Meanwhile, OPCW chief Uzumcu seems to have been pranked again, this time by his own staff
(this is how I interpret it):
He claimed that the amount of Novichok found was about 100 g and therefore more than
research laboratories would produce, i.e. this was weaponized Novichok.
Q: What is our reaction to the Guardian article on a "comprehensive strategy" to "deepen
the alliance against Russia" to be pursued by the UK Government at international forums?
A: Judging by the publication, the main current challenge for Whitehall is to preserve
the anti-Russian coalition that the Conservatives tried to build after the Salisbury
incident. This task is challenging indeed. The "fusion doctrine" promoted by the national
security apparatus has led to the Western bloc taking hasty decisions that, as life has
shown, were not based on any facts.
No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the
US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political
justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of
Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was
built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of
Russian responsibility) have been shattered.
Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian
logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are the Russian denials! It is hard to
see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting
countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation.
Hmmm... My reply to c1ue went sideways it seems. Yes, The late Mr. Prouty's book's the real
deal and the website hosting his very rare book is a rare gem itself. Click the JFK at page
top left to be transported to that sites archive of writings about his murder. The very important essay by
Prouty's there too.
The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is
his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote."
This one detail tells us so much about how propaganda works, and about how it can be
defeated. Successful propaganda both depends upon and seeks to accelerate the erasure of
historical memory. This is because its truths are always changing to suit the immediate needs
of the state. None of its truths can be understood historically. b makes the connection
between the documented but forgotten past "truth" of Merkel's quote and its present
reincarnation in the Guardian, and this is really all he *needs* to do. What b points out is
something quite simple; yet the ability to do this very simple thing is becoming increasingly
rare and its exercise increasingly difficult to achieve. It is for me the virtue that makes
b's analysis uniquely indispensable.
Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime,
"whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: "Whataboutism" is the attempt to
understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted
contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does
this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?"
Whataboutism seems to deny that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no
essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth.
The absurd story that the OPCW says there was a 100gm/100mg who knows which on the door and
other sites is just so stupid its painful. This implies that the Skripals both closed the
door together and then went off on their day spreading the stuff everywhere, yet no one else
was contaminated (apart from the fantasy policeman).
Presumably the Skripals touch the
cutlery, plates and wine glasses in the restaurant, so why weren't the staff there infected
as they must have had to pick up the plates etc after the meal. Even the door to the entrance
of the restaurant should be affected as they would have to push it open, thus leaving the
chemical for other people to touch. Nope, nothing in this stupid story adds up and the OPCW
can't even get the amounts of the chemical right.
The problem is,,, most know it's all BS but find it 'easier' to believe or at most ignore, as
then there is no responsibility to 'do something'. Biggest problem with the world today is
lazy insouciant citizens. (Yes,,, I'm a PCR reader) :))
Did you catch the Lavrov interview I linked to on previous Yemen thread? As you might
imagine, the verbiage used is quite similar. One very important point Lavrov made was the
anti-Russian group consists of a very small number of nations representing a small fraction
of humanity; and that while they have some economic and military clout, it's possible for the
rest of the world's nations to sideline them and get on with the important business of
forming a genuine Multipolar World Order, which is what the UN and its Charter
envisioned.
"I cannot sufficiently express my outrage that Leeds City Council feels it is right to ban
a meeting with very distinguished speakers, because it is questioning the government and
establishment line on Syria. Freedom of speech really is dead."
Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed
with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy'
disinformation. _______________________________________
Yes, exactly. The Western hegemony, i.e. the true "Axis of Evil" led by the US, and
including the EU and non-Western allies, have invented the Perpetual Big Lie™.
This isn't a new insight, but it's worth repeating. It struck me anew while I was
listening to a couple of UK "journalists" hectoring OPCW Representative Shulgin, and
directing scurrilous and provocative innuendo disguised as "questions" to Mr. Shulgin and the
Syrian witnesses testifying during his presentation.
It flashed upon me that there is no longer a reasonable expectation that the Perpetual Big
Liars must eventually abandon, much less confess, their heinous mendacity. Just as B points
out, there are no countervailing facts, evidence, rebuttals, theories, or explanations
that can't be countered with further iterations of Big Lies, however offensively incredible
and absurd.
Witnesses? They're either confederates, dupes, or terrified by coercion. Evidence and/or
technical analysis? All faked! A nominally reliable party, e.g. the president of the Czech
Republic, makes statements that undermine the Big Lie Nexus? Again-- he's either been bought
off or frightened into making such inconvenient claims. Or he's just a mischievous liar.
And, as I seemingly never get tired of pointing out, the Perpetual Big Lie™ strategy
arose, and succeeds, because the "natural enemies" of authoritarian government overreach have
been coerced or co-opted to a fare-thee-well. So mass-media venues, and even supposedly
independent technical and scientific organizations, are part of the Perpetual Big Lie™
apparatus.
Even as the Big Liars reach a point of diminishing returns, they respond with more of the
same. I wish I were more confident that this reprehensible practice will eventually fail due
to the excess of malignant hubris; I'm not holding my breath.
Is Putin capitulating? Pro US Alexei Kudrin could join new government to negotiate "end of
sanctions" with the West.
Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin will be brought back to "mend fences with the West"
in order to revive Russia's economy. Kudrin has repeatedly said that unless Russia makes her
political system more democratic and ends its confrontation with Europe and the United
States, she will not be able to achieve economic growth. Russia's fifth-columnists were
exalted: "If Kudrin joined the administration or government, it would indicate that they have
agreed on a certain agenda of change, including in foreign policy, because without change in
foreign policy, reforms are simply impossible in Russia," said Yevgeny Gontmakher . . . who
works with a civil society organization set up by Mr. Kudrin. "It would be a powerful
message, because Kudrin is the only one in the top echelons with whom they will talk in the
west and towards whom there is a certain trust."
Putting Kudrin -- an opponent of de-dollarization and an upholder of the Washington
Consensus -- in charge of Russia's international outreach would be equal to putting Bill
Clinton in charge of a girls' school.
It would mark Putin's de facto collapse as a leader. We
shall know very soon. Either way, if anyone wondered what the approach to Russia would be
from Bolton and Pompeo, we now know: they will play very hard ball with Putin, regardless of
what he does (or doesn't do), and with carefree readiness to risk an eventual snap.
Certainly looks like @ 18 is a fine example of what b is presenting.
A good way to extract one's self from the propaganda is to refuse using whatever meme the
disinformation uses, e.g. that Sergei Skripal was a double agent -- that is not a known, only
a convenient suggestion.
Military intelligence is far better described as military
information needed for some project or mission. Not surreptitious cloak and dagger spying.
This is not to say Sergei Scripal was a British spy for which he was convicted, stripped of
rank and career and exiled through a spy swap. To continue using Sergei Scripal was a double
agent only repeats and verifies the disinformation meme and all the framing that goes with
it. Find some alternative to what MSM produces that does not embed truthiness to their
efforts.
I realize it's from one of the biggest propaganda organs in the world... take this New
York Times report of the OPCW's retraction with a 100 grams -- 100mg? -- of salt:
Kudrin is a neoliberal and as such is an
enemy of humanity and will never again be allowed to hold a position of power within Russia's
government. Let him emigrate to the West like his fellow parasites and teach junk economics
at some likeminded university.
The dramatic rise fo the number of CIA-democrats as candidates from Democratic Party is not assedental. As regular clintonites
are discredited those guys can still appeal to patriotism to get elected.
Notable quotes:
"... Bernie continuously forcing Hillary to appear apologetic about her campaign funding from big financial interests. She tries hard to persuade the public that she will not serve specific interests. Her anxiety can be identified in many cases and it was very clear at the moment when she accused Bernie of attacking her, concerning this funding. Hillary was forced to respond with a deeply irrational argument: anyone who takes money from big interests doesn't mean that he/she will vote for policies in favor of these interests! ..."
"... Bernie drives the discussion towards fundamental ideological issues. He forced Hillary to defend her "progressiveness". She was forced to speak even about economic interests by names. A few years ago, this would be nearly a taboo in any debate between any primaries. ..."
"... After the disastrous defeat by Trump in 2016 election, the corporate Democrats realized that the progressive movement, supported mostly by the American youth, would not retreat and vanish. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders' popularity still goes up and there is a wave of progressive candidates who appear to be a real threat to the DNC establishment and the Clintonian empire. ..."
"... It seems that the empire has upgraded its dirty tactics beyond Hillary's false relocation to the Left. Seeing the big threat from the real progressives, the empire seeks to "plant" its own agents, masked as progressives, inside the electoral process, to disorientate voters and steal the popular vote. ..."
"... This is a Master's class in blatant historical revisionism and outright dishonesty. Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration in its ever-expanding crime against humanity in Iraq. ..."
During the 2016 Democratic party primaries we wrote that
what Bernie achieved, is to bring back the real political discussion in America, at least concerning the Democratic camp. Bernie
smartly "drags" his primary rival, Hillary Clinton, into the heart of the politics. Up until a few years ago, you could not observe
too much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, who were just following the pro-establishment "politics as usual",
probably with a few, occasional exceptions. The "politics as usual" so far, was "you can't touch the Wall Street", for example.
Bernie continuously forcing Hillary to appear apologetic about her campaign funding from big financial interests. She tries hard
to persuade the public that she will not serve specific interests. Her anxiety can be identified in many cases and it was very clear
at the moment when she accused Bernie of attacking her, concerning this funding. Hillary was forced to respond with a deeply irrational
argument: anyone who takes money from big interests doesn't mean that he/she will vote for policies in favor of these interests!
Bernie drives the discussion towards fundamental ideological issues. He forced Hillary to defend her "progressiveness". She was
forced to speak even about economic interests by names. A few years ago, this would be nearly a taboo in any debate between any primaries.
After the disastrous defeat by Trump in 2016 election, the corporate Democrats realized that the progressive movement, supported
mostly by the American youth, would not retreat and vanish. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders' popularity still goes up and there is
a wave of progressive candidates who appear to be a real threat to the DNC establishment and the Clintonian empire.
It seems that the empire has upgraded its dirty tactics beyond Hillary's false relocation to the Left. Seeing the big threat from
the real progressives, the empire seeks to "plant" its own agents, masked as progressives, inside the electoral process, to disorientate
voters and steal the popular vote.
Eric Draitser gives us valuable information for such a type of candidate. Key points:
One candidate currently generating some buzz in the race is Jeff Beals, a self-identified "Bernie democrat" whose campaign website
homepage describes him as a " local teacher and former U.S. diplomat endorsed by the national organization of former Bernie Sanders
staffers, the Justice Democrats. " And indeed, Beals centers his progressive bona fides to brand himself as one of the inheritors
of the progressive torch lit by Sanders in 2016. A smart political move, to be sure. But is it true?
Beals describes himself as a "former U.S. diplomat," touting his expertise on international issues born of his experience overseas.
In an email interview with CounterPunch, Beals describes his campaign as a " movement for diplomacy and peace in foreign affairs
and an end to militarism my experience as a U.S. diplomat is what drives it and gives this movement such force. " OK, sounds
good, a very progressive sounding answer. But what did Beals actually do during his time overseas?
By his own admission, Beals' overseas career began as an intelligence officer with the CIA. His fluency in Arabic and knowledge
of the region made him an obvious choice to be an intelligence spook during the latter stages of the Clinton Administration.
Beals shrewdly attempts to portray himself as an opponent of neocon imperialism in Iraq. In his interview with CounterPunch, Beals
argued that " The State Department was sidelined as the Bush administration and a neoconservative cabal plunged America into the
tragic Iraq War. As a U.S. diplomat fluent in Arabic and posted in Jerusalem at the time, I was called over a year into the war to
help our country find a way out. "
This is a Master's class in blatant historical revisionism and outright dishonesty. Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted
into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration
in its ever-expanding crime against humanity in Iraq.
Moreover, no one who knows anything about the Iraq War could possibly swallow the tripe that CIA/State Department officials in
Iraq were " looking to help our country find a way out " a year into the war. A year into the war, the bloodletting was only
just beginning, and Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the other corporate vultures had yet to fully exploit the country and make billions
off it. So, unfortunately for Beals, the historical memory of the anti-war Left is not that short.
It is self-evident that Beals has a laundry list of things in his past that he must answer for. For those of us, especially Millennials,
who cut our activist teeth demonstrating and organizing against the Iraq War, Beals' distortions about his role in Iraq go down like
hemlock tea. But it is the associations Beals maintains today that really should give any progressive serious pause.
When asked by CounterPunch whether he has any connections to either Bernie Sanders and his surrogates or Hillary Clinton and hers,
Beals responded by stating: " I am endorsed by Justice Democrats, a group of former Bernie Sanders staffers who are pledged to
electing progressives nationwide. I am also endorsed for the Greene County chapter of the New York Progressive Action Network, formerly
the Bernie Sanders network. My first hire was a former Sanders field coordinator who worked here in NY-19. "
However, conveniently missing from that response is the fact that Beals' campaign has been, and continues to be, directly managed
in nearly every respect by Bennett Ratcliff, a longtime friend and ally of Hillary Clinton. Ratcliff is not mentioned in any publicly
available documents as a campaign manager, though the most recent FEC filings show that as of April 1, 2018, Ratcliff was still on
the payroll of the Beals campaign. And in the video of Beals' campaign kickoff rally, Ratcliff introduces Beals, while only being
described as a member of the Onteora School Board in Ulster County . This is sort of like referring to Donald Trump as an avid
golfer.
Beals has studiously, and rather intelligently, avoided mentioning Ratcliff, or the presence of Clinton's inner circle on his
campaign. However, according to internal campaign documents and emails obtained by CounterPunch, Ratcliff manages nearly every aspect
of the campaign, acting as a sort of éminence grise behind the artifice of a progressive campaign fronted by a highly educated and
photogenic political novice.
By his own admission, Ratcliff's role on the campaign is strategy, message, and management. Sounds like a rather textbook description
of a campaign manager. Indeed, Ratcliff has been intimately involved in "guiding" Beals on nearly every important campaign decision,
especially those involving fundraising .
And it is in the realm of fundraising that Ratcliff really shines, but not in the way one would traditionally think. Rather than
focusing on large donations and powerful interests, Ratcliff is using the Beals campaign as a laboratory for his strategy of winning
elections without raising millions of dollars.
In fact, leaked campaign documents show that Ratcliff has explicitly instructed Beals and his staffers not to spend money on
food, decorations, and other standard campaign expenses in hopes of presenting the illusion of a grassroots, people-powered campaign
with no connections to big time donors or financial elites .
It seems that Ratcliff is the wizard behind the curtain, leveraging his decades of contact building and close ties to the Democratic
Party establishment while at the same time manufacturing an astroturfed progressive campaign using a front man in Beals .
One of Ratcliff's most infamous, and indefensible, acts of fealty to the Clinton machine came in 2009 when he and longtime Clinton
attorney and lobbyist, Lanny Davis, stumped around Washington to garner support for the illegal right-wing coup in Honduras, which
ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in favor of the right-wing oligarchs who control the country today. Although
the UN, and even U.S. diplomats on the ground in Honduras, openly stated that the coup was illegal, Clinton was adamant to actively
keep Zelaya out.
Essentially then, Ratcliff is a chief architect of the right-wing government in Honduras – the same government assassinating feminist
and indigenous activists like Berta Cáceres, Margarita Murillo, and others, and forcibly displacing and ethnically cleansing Afro-indigenous
communities to make way for Carribbean resorts and golf courses.
And this Washington insider lobbyist and apologist for war criminals and crimes against humanity is the guy who's on a crusade
to reform campaign finance and fix Washington? This is the guy masquerading as a progressive? This is the guy working to elect an
"anti-war progressive"?
In a twisted way it makes sense. Ratcliff has the blood of tens of thousands of Hondurans (among others) on his hands, while Beals
is a creature of Langley, a CIA boy whose exceptional work in the service of Bush and Clinton administration war criminals is touted
as some kind of merit badge on his resume.
What also becomes clear after establishing the Ratcliff-Beals connection is the fact that Ratcliff's purported concern with
campaign financing and "taking back the Republic" is really just a pretext for attempting to provide a "proof of concept," as it
were, that neoliberal Democrats shouldn't fear and subvert the progressive wing of the party, but rather that they should co-opt
it with a phony grassroots facade all while maintaining links to U.S. intelligence, Wall Street, and the power brokers of the Democratic
Party .
"... disgusting how anti-war pre-president trump becomes military pandering trumpanyahoo after election...his handlers, knowing he will need them in the near future, set him to constantly stroke the military every opportunity he has... ..."
"... The Western globalist billionaires and elites are ultimately responsible for any aggression coming from Israel. If they can conquer and control Iran and take over its oil and gas reserves, risking the fate of the millions of people in Iran, Syria and in Israel, then the losses to them will be incidental. ..."
"... I'm sure I'm missing some of the many "dots" but it logic suggests that both Obama and Trump are faux populists that - at least in foreign policy (where Presidential powers are greatest) - are greatly influenced by foreign(albeit "allied") interests. ..."
"... IMO Apologists for the faux populists also play an important part. They respond voraciously to the "crazy opposition" and thereby keep alive faith in the faux hero. ..."
"... Faux populist leaders seem to be a natural fit for our inverted totalitarian form of government. Perhaps any Empire will naturally gravitate to such a compromised government? Funny thing is, most Americans would say that USA is NOT an Empire. ..."
Not that there was much doubt who was behind it, but two days after "enemy" warplanes
attacked a Syrian military base near Hama on Sunday, killing at least 11 Iranians and dozens of others, and nobody had yet "claimed
responsibility" the attack, US officials
told
NBC that it was indeed Israeli F-15 fighter jets that struck the base,
NBC News
reported .
Ominously, the officials said Israel appears to be preparing for open warfare with Iran and is seeking U.S. help and support .
"On the list of the potentials for most likely live hostility around the world, the battle between Israel and Iran in Syria is
at the top of the list right now," said one senior U.S. official.
The US officials
told
NBC that Israeli F-15s hit Hama after Iran delivered weapons to a base that houses Iran's 47th Brigade, including surface-to-air
missiles. In addition to killing two dozen troops, including officers, the strike wounded three dozen others. The report adds that
the U.S. officials believe the shipments were intended for Iranian ground forces that would attack Israel.
Meanwhile, as we reported yesterday, the Syrian army said early on Monday that "enemy" rockets struck military bases belonging
to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. According to several outlets, the strikes targeted the 47th Brigade base in the southern
Hama district, a military facility in northwestern Hama and a facility north of the Aleppo International Airport.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday that Israel on Tuesday morning had four problems, one more than
the day before: "Iran, Iran, Iran and hypocrisy." The comment came one day after Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu "revealed" a cache
of documents the Mossad stole from Iran detailing the country's nuclear program, which however critics said were i) old and ii) not
indicative of Iran's current plans.
"This is the same Iran that cracks down on freedom of expression and on minorities. The same Iran that tried to develop nuclear
weapons and entered the [nuclear] deal for economic benefits," Lieberman said.
"The same Iran is trying to hide its weapons while everyone ignores it. The state of Israel cannot ignore Iran's threats, Iran,
whose senior officials promise to wipe out Israel," he said. "They are trying to harm us, and we'll have a response.
Iran's Defense Minister Amir Khatami threatened Israel on Tuesday, saying it should stop its "dangerous behavior" and vowing that
the "Iranian response will be surprising and you will regret it." Khatami's remarks came Following Netanyahu's speech which Khatami
described as Israeli "provocative actions," and two days after the strikes in Syria.
* * *
Meanwhile, in a potential hint at the upcoming conflict,
Haaretz writes that two and a half weeks after the bombing in which seven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were killed
at the T4 base in Syria, Israel is bracing for an Iranian retaliation for the Syrian strikes (and if one isn't forthcoming, well
that's what false flags are for).
As Haaretz writes, the Iranians' response, despite their frequent threats of revenge, is being postponed, screwing up Iran's war
planning. It's also possible that as time passes, Tehran is becoming more aware of the possible complex consequences of any action.
Still, the working assumption of Israeli defense officials remains that such a response is highly probable.
The Iranians appear to have many options. Revenge could come on the Syrian border, from the Lebanese border via Hezbollah,
directly from Iran by the launch of long-range missiles, or against an Israeli target abroad. In past decades Iran and Hezbollah
took part, separately and together, in two attacks in Argentina, a suicide attack in Bulgaria and attempts to strike at Israeli
diplomats and tourists in countries including India, Thailand and Azerbaijan.
In any case, Lebanon seems all but out of bounds until the country's May 6 parliamentary elections, and amid Hezbollah's fear
of being portrayed as an Iranian puppet. The firing of missiles from Iran would exacerbate the claims about Tehran's missile project
a moment before a possible U.S. decision on May 12 to abandon the nuclear agreement. Also, a strike at a target far from the Middle
East would require long preparation.
* * *
For now, an Israeli war with Iran in Syria is far from inevitable: the clash of intentions is clear: Iran is establishing itself
militarily in Syria and Israel has declared that it will prevent that by force. The question, of course, is whether this unstable
equilibrium will devolve into a lethal escalation, or if it will somehow be resolved through peaceful negotiation. Unfortunately,
in the context of recent events, and the upcoming breakdown of the Iran nuclear deal, the former is looking like the most likely
outcome.
disgusting how anti-war pre-president trump becomes military pandering trumpanyahoo after election...his handlers, knowing
he will need them in the near future, set him to constantly stroke the military every opportunity he has...
The Western globalist billionaires and elites are ultimately responsible for any aggression coming from Israel. If they
can conquer and control Iran and take over its oil and gas reserves, risking the fate of the millions of people in Iran, Syria
and in Israel, then the losses to them will be incidental. The Western-globalist-Zio-hawk Axis no doubt feels it has to act
now against Iran in case everything settles down in the ME with the Syrian war cooling off. Any expansion of Israeli turf or getting
control of resources to the north would be stymied with further waiting and allowing both Syrian and Iranian defense systems to
be further fortified. The Israelis appear to be completely confident that if they can instigate a war with Iran that it will be
backed by the US, the UK, France and other NATO nations.
That confidence could only come from the Western elites running things. However, after their last fizzled false-flag poison-gas
attack in Syria, the support by many NATO nations for more Axis aggression may not be that solid. So what does the Israeli tough
talk and threats mean at this time? Perhaps it means that Israel is in the process of concocting a massive and much more sophisticated
false-flag attack, like the taking out of a US war ship and blaming Iran for starting the war.
Remember Five points:
Isreal will fight to the very last American Soldiers Death.
The Zionist screams in Pain as he Stikes you.
The Yinon Plan.
Operation TALPIOT.
Qatari Pipeline Petro Dollar Vs. Russia / China Petro Yaun.
One bright aspect is the Anti-Isreal / Jew Zionist movement is gaining steam. More & more Individuals are speaking openly against
Israel's War Crimes, False Flag involvements, The Yinon Plan along with Pro Zionist immigrantion policy of migrating Muslim's
& Arabs to the EU & US without fear of retribution. Pro migration policy which supports territory boarder expansion via the Yinon
Plan & ethnic cleansing & migration of Arabs & Muslim's.
Not to mention the Billions in US foreign aid, AIPAC, ZioNeoConFascist NGO's & dual Israeli Citizen's which hold Political
Office in CONgress. Which must be outlawed.
As people become more disillusioned with Trump I think it's worthwhile to spend a moment to take stock of what happened in th
2016 election.
1) The US President is the primary determinant of US foreign and military power. The President is much weaker when addressing
domestic policy / internal affairs. Any small, paranoid nation with ambitious plans in its neighborhood would want ensure that
they have the President's ear ( or his balls). Too much at stake to take chances. And political influence is even easier when
you've developed close relation with an oil-rich ally (Saudis) with deep pockets.
2) US democracy is money-driven and no real populist stands much of a chance.
3) Despite a groundswell of discontent on both the left and the right, here were only two populists that ran in the election
(note: I'm not counting Rand Paul's because he didn't make an outright populist appeal - he merely spoke in a sensible way.
4) When Obama was President, he was kept in line by the "Birthers". Trump is kept in line by the allegation of Russian interference.
5) "Never Trump-ers" were mainly Jewish (AFAIK) and almost certainly pro-Israel. The Never Trump campaign began in earnest
with Kagan's Op-Ed in February 2016 ( some might date it to Bloomberg's public statement in January 2016 that neither Sanders
or Trump could be allowed to win).
6) AFAIK Pro-Israel oligarchs (like Saban, Soros, Bloomberg) are big donors to Democratic Party. Hillarry and DNC are known
to have colluded against 'sheep-dog' Sanders. Wouldn't Hillary just as easily collide FOR Trump (the Cinton's And Trump's are
known to have had close ties - and their daughters are still close).
I'm sure I'm missing some of the many "dots" but it logic suggests that both Obama and Trump are faux populists that -
at least in foreign policy (where Presidential powers are greatest) - are greatly influenced by foreign(albeit "allied") interests.
IMO Apologists for the faux populists also play an important part. They respond voraciously to the "crazy opposition" and
thereby keep alive faith in the faux hero.
Faux populist leaders seem to be a natural fit for our inverted totalitarian form of government. Perhaps any Empire will
naturally gravitate to such a compromised government? Funny thing is, most Americans would say that USA is NOT an Empire.
I should point out that "kept in line" (point #4) appears to be a convenience needed to excuse the faux populist's betrayals.
Both Obama and Trump seem more than willing to do as they are told.
And don't bother citing Obama's Iran deal as "proof" that Obama was independent. IMO That deal was made simply to buy time
because regime-change in Syria was taking longer than expected. It is foolish to think that Obama did everything the establishment
wanted but refused IN THAT ONE MATTER.
Trump betrayal of his voters is as staggering as Obama betrayal. May even more so.
Notable quotes:
"... It is fitting that one of the first things that will happen during Pompeo's tenure as chief diplomat is the repudiation of a successful diplomatic agreement solely for reasons of spite and ideology. That reflects the contempt for diplomacy and compromise that Pompeo shares with the president. It is an early reminder why having Pompeo in charge of U.S. diplomacy is so dangerous and why it would have been better not to confirm him. ..."
"... North Korea wasn't going to give up its nuclear weapons anyway, and now it will look at Trump's reneging on the nuclear deal as proof that they are right to keep them. ..."
"... Pompeo's recent statements are those of an ignorant and incompetent jackass. Barely two weeks in and sane Americans are already nostalgic for Tillerson. ..."
"... Instead, as Pompeo's current trip and whereabouts make very clear, he's aping the same old tired Bush/Obama Middle East crap and still running errands for the corrupt rulers of Israel and Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... And if Trump doesn't stop betraying his voters with all this pointless, staggeringly expensive Middle East crap, he'll be gone in 2020. ..."
It is fitting that one of the first things that will happen during Pompeo's tenure as chief
diplomat is the repudiation of a successful diplomatic agreement solely for reasons of spite
and ideology. That reflects the contempt for diplomacy and compromise that Pompeo shares with
the president. It is an early reminder why having Pompeo in charge of U.S. diplomacy is so
dangerous and why it would have been better not to confirm him.
Pompeo also
said this weekend that he didn't think North Korea would care if the U.S. withdrew from the
agreement:
"I don't think Kim Jong Un is staring at the Iran deal and saying, 'Oh goodness, if they
get out of that deal, I won't talk to the Americans anymore,'" Pompeo told reporters
traveling on his plane en route from Saudi Arabia to Israel. "There are higher priorities,
things that he is more concerned about than whether or not the Americans stay in the
[agreement]."
It is obvious that North Korea has bigger concerns than U.S. adherence to the JCPOA, but it
doesn't follow that they won't take U.S. withdrawal as another sign that negotiating with
Washington is pointless. North Korea already has other reasons to doubt U.S. trustworthiness.
John Bolton's
endorsement of using negotiations with Libya as a model couldn't be more tone-deaf, since
North Korean officials frequently cite the overthrow and death of Gaddafi as a cautionary tale
of what happens when a government makes a deal with the U.S. It is possible that North Korea
won't put much stock in what happens to the JCPOA one way or another for a very different
reason: unlike Iran, North Korea has no intention of making significant concessions, and it is
engaged in talks with the U.S. to get as much as it can out of the fact that it is now a
full-fledged nuclear weapons state.
North Korea wasn't going to give up its nuclear weapons
anyway, and now it will look at Trump's reneging on the nuclear deal as proof that they are
right to keep them.
Our involvement in international "diplomacy", already weird, embarrassing, and destabilizing
because of Trump's random behavior, now seems to be spinning out of control. Pompeo's
recent statements are those of an ignorant and incompetent jackass. Barely two weeks in and
sane Americans are already nostalgic for Tillerson.
Wake me up when any senior member of this government turns out to be something other than
crooked, stupid, vulgar, incompetent, or some kind of foreign agent. We voted for Trump
hoping for a radical re-dedication to American interests. Instead, as Pompeo's current
trip and whereabouts make very clear, he's aping the same old tired Bush/Obama Middle East
crap and still running errands for the corrupt rulers of Israel and Saudi Arabia.
November 2018 is already slated to be a Republican bloodbath, in great part because our
government, the Congress in particular, is serving foreign interests and Wall Street instead
of America. And if Trump doesn't stop betraying his voters with all this pointless,
staggeringly expensive Middle East crap, he'll be gone in 2020.
I suspect Goad is verboten on UR, but allow me to excerpt from "I Didn't Vote for
This" of recent Goad production.
I voted for Trump because he promised to build a wall. Fifteen months into his
presidency, the wall has not been built.
He promised to repeal Obamacare. It has not been repealed.
He promised to focus on domestic rather than foreign issues and pledged a huge program
to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure. No such program has materialized.
He promised to remove the nation's millions of illegal aliens. They are still here.
He promised to defund sanctuary cities. They have not been defunded.
He promised a complete ban on new Muslim immigration.
He promised to eliminate the massive federal debt in eight years. Rather than even
beginning to leave a dent in the debt, it is now over $1.1 trillion higher than it was the
day he took office.
One of the keystones of his campaign was that China was a currency manipulator and
therefore needed to be dealt with harshly. Only three months into his presidency, he
reneged and declared that China was not a currency manipulator.
On the campaign trail, he relentlessly hammered the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Only
three days into his presidency, he withdrew the US from the TPP. And now he's openly
considering rejoining it.
Cogent points, in Reed's context. The only consolation is recognition that a Clinton
presidency would have been much worse. Maybe so, huh?
Yes, but the order of magnitude ebbs. Not that I would make the trade, but dammit, what
happened to America? We've been fucked, and fucked ROYAL, yet all that climbs out of the
political woodwork is flying monkeys.
Aye, clobbering time it may well come to. But pray do not leave out the media whores when
loving ministrations are being meted out. The whole bunch of these lying, whoring, war
drumbeating progeny of Satan need special ministrations, perhaps even more care than the
flying monkeys. Stringing these bastards upside down from meat hooks in public squares may be
too ordinary a ministration, so better and brighter ideas need to be supplied by minds keener
than mine.
Nudge was the title of a book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein on how to manipulate
people in their supposed best interest, like in cafeteria lines, to put whole fruit before
desserts made with sugar.
If you liked Nudge , you'll love " cognitive infiltration ":
Conspiracy Theories
Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 08-03
Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled
epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best
response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas,
such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to
ignore them, are explored in this light.
Keywords: conspiracy theories, social networks, informational cascades, group
polarization https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
Is not this what discerning MIC's all do these days, via FBI FB?
And of course we mopes have been "nudged" into pretty much that blind serfdom alluded to.
Back in the Cave, with not much chance of dispelling the belief in and subjection to the
shadows projected on the wall we are forced to face
I rather detest the notion of someone or entity 'nudging' me in the direction of some
behavior, especially in a paternalistic mode where the assumption is that they know better
than I what I 'should' be doing or thinking.
On one level, isn't that a working definition of advertising? On another, it smacks of
authoritarianism. Don't we have enough of this kind of thing already? Worse, what's the first
reaction one naturally has when they realize they're being manipulated? Seems to be a
strategy fraught with risk of getting exactly the wrong response.
If I'm to be encouraged to behave in a given way, show me the respect of offering a
conscious, intelligent argument to do so on the merits, or kindly go (family blog)
yourself!
In economics, the single most important thing to understand is debt.
If you understand debt; you won't have any debt.
Debt and freedom are the antithisis of each other.
Without debt; nudges have no influence.
The term scientism generally points to the facile application of science in unwarranted
situations not amenable to application of the scientific method.
Soddy's attempts at linking the physical world via a quasi scientific approach without
doing a thorough heterodox examination of our species wrt monies is my point i.e.
"Being scientist/technologists, Fuller and Soddy felt the need to define wealth, to
quantify it in an equation. They knew the components of wealth were physical resources
– matter and energy – and the level of knowledge available to most effectively
employ these resources. Simplistically stated:
WEALTH = (MATTER + ENERGY) x HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
Energy stored in fossil fuels – Earth's energy savings account – is, of
course, unavailable after the fuels are burned. But both Fuller and Soddy understood that
expanding human knowledge would eventually make it possible for humanity to operate on
Earth's energy income using solar, wind, tidal, biofuels, etc. (but for lack of political
will and resistance from the fossil fuel industry, we have reached this potential today).
Additionally, the First Law of Thermodynamics says the total amount of matter and energy in
the universe is constant and can be neither created nor destroyed, only interchanged. Since
knowledge can only grow, wealth can only grow.
It is critical to understand that wealth is governed by the laws of physics and is
incorruptible, whereas money is governed by the laws of man and is infinitely
corruptible."
I could start with models and applications of theory between interdisciplinary modes of
inquire – chalk and cheese. Was Soddy an accountant, deal with issues like sound
finance vs functional, or have any depth wrt international systems – no. Worse bit in
my book is it moralizes the money question without dealing with the broader social ethos and
how that is forwarded via dominate ideology.
To that quandary I brought up atomistic individualism on this blog some time ago, Syll has
recently mentioned it. Its in these things that proceed baked in human tool user problems
like money.
Thank you skippy and the follow-on commenters for a serious genuine reply-to-and
discussion-of my question.
It has been years since I read " Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt – – The
Solution of the Economic Paradox". In light of this subthread I will have to dig it back out
of my bookpile and read it again . . . and slower next time . . . to see what I end up
thinking.
Why would I even bother to do that? Because it still seems to me that Soddy was at least
trying to understand "economics" in terms of the biophysical world in which we all live and
in which we do everything we do, including trying to understand "economics". He was at least
trying to see how matter-and-energy harvesting in order to do thing-making and stuff-doing
could actually be reality-based understood in terms of the best actual knowledge of
matter-and-energy reality
existing in his day. If that fails to take account of all the cultural/psychomental/etc.
things that humans will do within the picture frame of nature's biophysical constraints, that
is a problem we will have to try taking account of in our own extremely troubled day.
But his scientism was at least an effort to ground "economic" understanding within real
scientific knowledge. His scientism is still better than the cardboard replica scientism
practiced by today's mainstream economists who are merely spray-painting a bunch of scientism
onto the paper-mache' sewage-filled pig which is all that their mainstream discipline of
mainstream economics ever even is.
"... The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers. ..."
"... Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues," in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history with fake history. ..."
PCR's latest is really good. I love it when he gets to ripping, and doesn't stop for 2000+ words or so. It reads a lot better
than Toynbee, fersher.
The working class, designated by Hillary Clinton as "the Trump deplorables," is now the victimizer, not the victim. Marxism
has been stood on its head.
The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups
and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming
at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers.
The ruling elite favors a "conversation on race," because the ruling elite know it can only result in accusations that will
further divide society. Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues,"
in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history
with fake history.
All of America, indeed of the entire West, lives in The Matrix, a concocted [and false] reality. Western peoples are so
propagandized, so brainwashed, that they have no understanding that their disunity was created in order to make them impotent
in the face of a rapacious ruling class, a class whose arrogance and hubris has the world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
History as it actually happened is disappearing as those who tell the truth are dismissed as misogynists, racists, homophobes,
Putin agents, terrorist sympathizers, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists. Liberals who complained mightily of McCarthyism
now practice it ten-fold.
The United States with its brainwashed and incompetent population -- indeed, the entirety of the Western populations are
incompetent -- and with its absence of intelligent leadership has no chance against Russia and China, two massive countries
arising from their overthrow of police states as the West descends into a gestapo state. The West is over and done with. Nothing
remains of the West but the lies used to control the people. All hope is elsewhere.
Trump's actions have not matched his election rhetoric. Just like faux populist Obama. Obama also "caved" to pressure, and
even set himself up for failure by emphasing "bipartisanship".
That is how the political mechanism of faux populism works.
Obama: Change you can believe in
Trump: Make America Great Again
Obama: Most transparent administration ever
Trump: Drain the Swamp
Obama: Deceiver: "Man of Peace" engaging in covert ops
Trump: Distractor: twitter, personal vendettas
Weakened by claims of unpatriotic inclinations:
Obama: Birthers (led by Trump who was close to Clinton's) - "Muslim socialist"!
Trump: Russia influence (pushed by 'NeverTrump' Clinton loyalists) - Putin's bitch!
Now the color revolution against Trump just does not make any sense. We got to the point
where Trump=Hillary. Muller should embrace and kiss Trump and go home... Nobody care if Trump is impeached anymore.
Donald Trump's far-right loyal fans must be really pissed off right now after permanently
switching himself to pro-war mode with that evil,
warmongering triplet in charge and the second bombing against Syria. Even worse,
this time he has done it together with Theresa May and the neoliberal globalist Emmanuel
Macron.
We can tell that by watching the mind-blowing reactions of one of his most fanatic alt-right
media supporters: Alex Jones. Jones nearly cried(!) in front of the camera, feeling betrayed
from his 'anti-establishment', 'anti-interventionist' idol and declared that he won't support
Trump anymore. Well, what did you expect, Alex? expect, Alex?
A
year before the 2016 US national elections, the blog already warned that Trump is a pure
product of the neoliberal barbarism , stating that the rhetoric of extreme cynicism
used by Trump goes back to the Thatcherian cynicism and the division of people between
"capable" and "useless".
Right after the elections, we supported that the US
establishment gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in
power, against the only candidate that the same establishment identified as a real threat:
Bernie Sanders. Right after the elections, we supported that the US
establishment gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in
power, against the only candidate that the same establishment identified as a real threat:
Bernie Sanders.
The only hope that has been left, was to resist against starting a war with Russia, as the US
deep state (and Hillary of course) wanted. Well, it was proven to be only a hope too. Last
year, Trump bombed Syria under the same pretext resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war
disaster. Despite the fact that the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational
level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the targeted airport was
operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep
state that he is prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of
confrontation with Russia. Indeed, a year later, Trump already built a pro-war team that
includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish triplet.
And then, Donnie ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neo-colonial
friends.
It seems that neither this strike was a serious attempt against the Syrian army and its allies.
Yet, Donnie probably won't dare to escalate tension in the Syrian battlefield before the next
US national elections. That's because many of his supporters are already pissed off with him
and therefore, he wants to go with good chances for a second term.
Although we really hope that we are are wrong this time, we guess that, surrounded by all these
warmongering hawks, Donnie, in a potential second term, will be pushed to open another war
front in Syria and probably in Iran, defying the Russians and the consequent danger for a
WWIII.
Poor Alex et al: we told you about Trump from the beginning. You didn't listen ...
We have moved way beyond the Skripals case now. Simply put, if US shoots in Syria, Russia
will shoot back this time, yes back at US. USS Donald Duck has been placed as a bait to be
sent to the bottom of Mediterrenain sea by the Russians, similar to Arizona et al at Pearl
Harbour.
Many dissenter websites are currently under attack by the cyber forces of the Western
regimes and Israel, one of them being this one. Another site under attack is my favorite
johnhelmer.com. In addition to saying that he is under attack, the current message from John
is:
WHEN THE RULE OF LAW WAS DESTROYED IN SALISBURY, LONDON AND THE HAGUE, AND THE RULE OF FRAUD
DECLARED IN WASHINGTON, THAT LEAVES ONLY THE RULE OF FORCE IN THE WORLD. THE STAVKA MET IN
MOSCOW ON GOOD FRIDAY AND IS READY. THE FOREIGN MINISTRY ANNOUNCED ON SUNDAY "THE GRAVEST
CONSEQUENCES". THIS MEANS ONE AMERICAN SHOT AT A RUSSIAN SOLDIER, THEN WE ARE AT WAR. NOT
INFOWAR, NOT CYBERWAR, NOT ECONOMIC WAR, NOT PROXY WAR. WORLD WAR.
The West is utterly bankrupt, morally as well as financially and we are experiencing the
Western remedial plan and actions – war!
"In 2016 an official British government inquiry determined that Bush and Blair had indeed
together rushed to war. The Global Establishment has nevertheless rewarded Tony Blair for his
loyalty with Clintonesque generosity. He has enjoyed a number of well-paid sinecures and is
now worth in excess of $100 million."
– The character of Blair and the Establishment is well established: Blair is a major
war criminal supported by the major war profiteers. His children and grandchildren are a
progeny of a horrible criminal.
What is truly amazing is the complacency of the Roman Catholic Church that still has not
excommunicated and anathematized the mass murderer. Blair should be haunted and hunted for
his crimes against humanity.
With age, Blair's face has become expressively evil. His wife Theresa Cara "Cherie" Blair
shows the same acute ugliness coming from her rotten soul of a war profiteer.
Keep in mind how long ago all this is:
Skripal was recruited around 1990 and arrested in 2004. Guess that the Russian attitude
towards Skripal took the chaos of the 90′s as mitigating circumstances into
account.
Skripal served his sentence of only 13 years till 2010 when he was pardoned and given the
option to leave. Russia did not revoke Skripal's citizenship. The UK issued Skripal a
passport too. On arrival in the UK Skripak was extensively debriefed by UK intelligence
services. Skripal has lived for 8 years in the UK now.
And now out of the blue this incident nicely dovetailing with May ratcheted up anti Russia
language only a few months before this false flag incident and the rapidly failing traction
of the Steele/Orbis/MI6 instigated Russia collusion story on the basis of that fake Trump
Dossier. By the way Orbis affiliated Steele and Miller have been among Skripal's
handlers.
Paul Craig Roberts is correct when quoting The Saker:
"The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an
infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been
hopelessly zombified." -- The Saker
White Helmets was the greatest war propaganda invention since Goebbels "big lie"
The sheeple might realize that they were duped only when it's too late... It's all very darwinian: Elite is too nasty and common
people are too stupid and too busy with surviving in economic uncertainty to decipher lies
Notable quotes:
"... "the West is ruled by a gang of thugs" ..."
"... It is depressing to see that there are very few people in the MSM speaking out for reason. One of the few ones is Tucker Carlson. ..."
"... The US, British etc. taxpayer funded propaganda arm of Islamists, the media trained "white helmets" are delivering videos that look almost as real as Hollywood products and most of the sheeple in the western world don't question their propaganda narrative. ..."
"... Well here you go Dutti. Both Glen Greenwald and Amy Goodman are out there in media land championing the 'truth' for good old Isramerika. ..."
It is depressing to see that there are very few people in the MSM speaking out for reason. One of the few ones is Tucker Carlson.
Unfortunately, even among friends and acquaintances, the story about "evil Assad killing Children" is often readily believed.
The US, British etc. taxpayer funded propaganda arm of Islamists, the media trained "white helmets" are delivering videos that
look almost as real as Hollywood products and most of the sheeple in the western world don't question their propaganda narrative.
"... Without sufficient domain knowledge, you have no immunity from MSM narratives. And, to acquire that knowledge you need to read non-MSM sources (or know people with first-hand experience). ..."
Reasonably intelligent people? Like this Iranian woman (in US) whose postings during the war
for Aleppo was full of righteous indignation for the rebels. when I told her that the people
whose fate she was bemoaning would do many evil things to her as a Shia Iranian woman; she
would not hear of it.
Couldn't agree with you more Babak. My dad is a 78 year old Orthopedic physician here in the
US. He would be considered intelligent by most people. And he is. Except when it comes to
Geopolitics. He believes everything the MSM parrots and I gave up long ago in voicing my
opinion to him. It's hopeless. And consider the vast majority of the citizens of my country
are far less intelligent than him. In my opinion, the forces that push for war know they are
lying and don't care if a small percentage are on to them. They have the microphone and we do
not.
Yes, people like that. Without sufficient domain knowledge, you have no immunity from MSM
narratives. And, to acquire that knowledge you need to read non-MSM sources (or know people
with first-hand experience).
The Brits blinked and did not punish the criminal liar Blair. Since then, the war
profiteering based on false flag operations has become a national British pastime.
Notable quotes:
"... The problem for governments using false flag operations like this is many more people are no longer trusting their own governments and quite rightly so. ..."
Hi, I am from the government. I am here to lie to you. I have so many lies on top of other
lies that sometimes they are true. Even the government has lost track. I am not sure if even
MIC or Israel knows anymore.
The problem for governments using false flag operations like this is many more people are
no longer trusting their own governments and quite rightly so. Human minds are reinforcing
the concept of untrustworthy governments that actually lasts far longer than the elected
period of time of those who purport to represent the population we now know to be a
deceit.
As example, take Blair ex-UK prime minister who concocted the whole Iraq dodgy dossier in
the UK who most people I know now call him a war criminal but nobody will put on trial in the
Hague. He has not been PM since 2007 but nobody forgets the criminal acts he instigated and
supported and will be remembered for a long time for this. So how do you make Blair appear
human again to the population?
You can apply this concept to so many elected criminals in the west ... join it up those
that rule us are in fact criminals not ordinary people. The psychos rule over us and to them
we are no more than dead meat.
Good institutions that limit cheating and rule violations, such as corruption, tax evasion
and political fraud are crucial for prosperity and development. Yet, even very strong
institutions cannot control all situations that may allow for cheating. Well-functioning
societies also require the intrinsic honesty of citizens. Cultural characteristics, such as
whether people see themselves as independent or part of a larger collective, that is, how
individualist or collectivist a society is, might also influence the prevalence of rule
violations due to differences in the perceived scope of moral responsibilities, which is
larger in more individualist cultures.
If cheating is pervasive in society and goes often unpunished, then people might view
dishonesty in certain everyday affairs as justifiable without jeopardising their self-concept
of being honest. Experiencing frequent unfairness, an inevitable by-product of cheating, can
also increase dishonesty. Economic systems, institutions and business cultures shape people's
ethical values, and can likewise impact individual honesty.
I described Gachter and Schultz's work in April 2016, and thought I could immediately see a
problem with the interpretation that the authors placed on the results. Putting forward a
different perspective took a few days. Getting that new approach published has taken 2 years.
For how long will researchers put up with these absurd delays which impede the prompt
assessment of arguments?
The authors of this very interesting study, having revealed the cheats, interpreted the
national differences as being due to cultural factors, particularly whether there were
institutions in each society which encouraged honesty. Of course, this leaves open why one
society would have such institutions and another would not. Culture must come from somewhere. A
reasonable hypothesis is that the institutions of a county are built by the people who live
there. Here is our reply:
Honesty, rule violation and cognitive ability: A reply to Gächter and Schulz
Heiner Rindermann, David Becker, James Thompson.
Intelligence, Volume 68, May–June 2018, Pages 66–69.
Our argument is that both institutions and honesty are determined by the intelligence of
people, and that bright people can see the long-term benefits of honesty and of institutions
that support honest behaviour. Any institution with a code of conduct leads its members toward
probity, and shows prospective applicants what standards are expected of them. However, those
institution do not arise randomnly.
Gächter & Schulz assumed that institutional rules affect individual honesty.
We added cognitive ability as further factor explaining national differences.
Stronger effect of IQ (total 0.55) than of rule violation (total −0.34) on honesty.
Stronger effect of IQ (total −0.68) than of honesty (total −0.26) on rule
violation.
________________________________________
Abstract
Gächter and Schulz (2016) assumed an effect of institutional rule violation on
individual honesty within societies. In this reply we challenge this approach by including a
nation's cognitive ability as a further factor for cross-national variations in the
prevalence of rule violations and intrinsic honesty. Theoretical considerations,
correlational and path analyses show that a nation's cognitive ability level (on average
β = |.62|) better explains and predicts honesty and rule violation. While
institutional and cultural factors are not unimportant, cognitive factors are more
relevant.
The paper argues that there is a causal link between intellectual development and moral
awareness: the individual process of development represents an advance from cognitive
egocentrism to de-centered thinking, from ethical egocentrism to the consideration of the
interests and rights of others.
Cognitive ability seems to have the strongest causal effect on the honesty of a society:
The same pattern holds true if you assume that social levels of honesty intermediate
individual levels of honesty as shown by rule violation.
Either way, it seems that intelligence explains whether some societies cheat at games and
cheat in real life.
Society rots from top and doesn't matter who is at the top. It still remains valid even when
the so called least intellectually developed honest poor people get shafted for hundred of
years by so called high IQ nations who bring cheating,dishonesty,and violations of existing
laws and destruction of existing institutions without replacing them nationwide. Often these
newly created institutions are nothing but vehicle to whitewash the corrupting and corrupted
new system.
Public moral status has a lot to do with corruption at the top -both local and
international in these days of neoliberalism and post -colonization. It sounds painful and
hurtful though.
Interesting work! I am amazed academics have the patience to deal with such a long lag time
for letting arguments play out.
Is there any chance of you publishing a scatter plot matrix of the variables you used
and/or the data itself?
Do you have the correlation matrix for your variables? By any chance did you try single
and multiple variable models to try to predict rule violation from the other variables? It
would be interesting to see how much variance an assortment of those models explained.
Has anyone explored the idea of "cheater fraction" (analogous to smart fraction) to
explain dishonesty in societies?
It's an interesting question. Some years ago The Economist did a "European Honest Test "
leaving a wallet with a fair amount of cash in it (but also including clear contact details
of the owner), in capital cities around Europe.
The test was to see how many wallets were returned – and they found that the
Scandinavians returned almost all of them, and the Italians returned almost none – with
a clear North/South gradient in the results.
By coincidence, at about the same time, I found a wallet beside some rubbish bins with
€ 400 in it and some credit cards (one from my own bank). So on my next visit, I told
them about it and soon got a call from the owner ( a Spanish carpenter working in Germany).
His reaction was 1) to check that the money was still in the wallet 2) say that not many
people would return a wallet with € 400 in it 3) leave 2 bottles of wine at my front
gate.
I checked this reaction with my secretary at the time, and asked her what she would have
done, with the answer that it would be a "Regalo de Dios" (Gift of God), i.e. it was not
going to be returned to the owner, so there seems to be some anecdotal evidence for the
result.
China's position on the Intrinsic Honesty chart is puzzling both at the macro level
(remarkably honest, competent policy-makers) and at the individual level (above average IQ).
The Edelman Corporation, which has a lock on international surveys of personal and
institutional honesty has consistently found the Chinese to be among the most trusting people
on earth, as have World Values Surveys in their own, independent polls of the Chinese.
The source of the discrepancy appears to be the source of the data: "a n indicator of
political rights by Freedom House that measures the democratic quality of a country's
political practices; the size of a country's shadow economy as a proxy for tax evasion; and
corruption as measured by the World Bank's Control of Corruption Index (Supplementary
Methods)".
Relying on George Soros' Freedom House for information about China is akin to relying on
the neighborhood fox to keep an eye on your chickens while you go on vacation. Garbage in,
garbage out
I would rate Japan pretty high for getting things returned, but this ethic has eroded over
the past three or four decades.
Also, in the past you'd see adult males scolding unrelated misbehaving teens in public,
who'd slink away with their tails between their legs. This you do not currently see: men are
less masculine and assertive and some teens at least are more beligerant.
I think, David Perkins' findings about high IQ-people being also very tribal would make for a
nice addendum here, to better understand how IQ and honesty are related.
I refer to Jonathan Haidt's argument, that he bases explicitly on Perkins' findings, that
because of the tendency of high IQ-people to be even more tribal than the lower IQ ranks, ist
is so crucial, to understand with J. S. Mill's On Liberty (and I add: with Kant and
– – the Kantian Habermas' "Theory of Communicative Action"), that the core
achievement of modernity is the institutionalization of disconformation in the
democratic/liberal rational discourse and liberal public sphere (universities, the media,
etc.).
Here's Jonathan Haidt, referring to Perkins and Mill to make clear, how important the
institutionalization of disconformation actually is:
Correlation≠causation. Maybe honesty leads to brighter minds. Is it your knowing the right
answer that makes you follow it, or is it you looking at the situation, as it is, considering
evidence and proof, and getting the right answer through correct deductive reasoning, which
is then to be followed? You can't be honest and act ideologically, because by definition you
follow your observations of the world, not your ideas of the world. An honest person is bound
to direct observation, an intelligent person is not. Honesty is probably primary to an
accurate understanding of the world.
I think that 16 per cent is a bit arbitrary. In a class or caste dominated society you
might, if of a class which can choose to avoid countries, decide that it really doesn't
matter if your butler and housekeeper have to terrify the lower orders to stop them ripping
you off (and the butler and housekeeper have enough relations they want to place in
employment to keep them to the rules as to how much they cheat you).
I recently lost my wallet for a short time in a supermarket-plus-other-shops complex as I
wheeled my trolley to the car park. I thought my pocket had been picked so went to a nearby
poluce station to see if they could accelerate access to CCTV. Mr Plod was useless and
unhelpful. (Fortunately I didn't start cancelling credit cards immediately as he pretty well
demanded). Back in the shopping centre I was directed to a caretaker's office where a 30 ish
man of Pakistani origin had my wallet that had fallen out of my pocket as I went up a ramp.
He had taken the trouble to count the cash and wrap it separately with a note on it that the
amount was $915 or whatever. I never bothered to count it myself or even unwrap it for
several days. What does that say about the standard of civilisation in one of Australia's
biggest cities?
As anyone who has seen how inadequate religion is today to form moral young people may have
thought, the obvious starting point is to ask oneself how I bring up my children and what
moral rules I rub in (preferably by example as well as preaching). One knows children are not
going to be cunning ruthless sophisticates by nature – unless psychopaths – and
will not benefit from being taught to think immediately how they can get away with some theft
or lie. So you bring them up with rules which will help to make sure they are both trusted
and trustworthy – seeing you return the small amount of change over paid for exsmple to
rub in the message about rules they should still be obeying without thought when they have
children. Morality is about the customs of the tribe, its mores, and children are rarely done
any sort of favour by not being trained to be strictly moral (even if taught Christian
forgiveness, especially for the "poor in spirit"). However ..
It occurs to me that the place of intelligence in this may extend to what hss been called
Divergent Thinking (does this overlap with Lateral Thinking? Or imagination?)
A quick imaginative laterally thinking brain may think of several ways some dishonest
subterfuge may go wrong almost st the moment temptation arises. So honesty for him he quickly
concludes is the best policy. And so down the speculative path on which little evidence is to
be found. After all what is one to make of the arrogant lawyer that one reads about in the
big tax case who thought arrogantly he could get away with something and the Mr Plods of the
tax office would never sus him out and prove his wrongdoing to a court?
I was guided by my recollection of the modelling of neighbourhood crime risk, but it is a
sliding scale, I agree. I assumed, years ago, that at the 16-20% level one would begin to
notice a difference from base rate. See, in this particular example, Fig 2 and Fig 3
What does that say about the standard of civilization in one of Australia's biggest
cities?
It doesn't really say anything. You need some standardized parameters and a reasonable
sample size. Then you can draw some conclusions and assess the level of accuracy – like
The Economist did with their wallet test – quite a good experiment.
However , at the individual level, a continuing positive outcome would be the wallet owner
saying thank you, and being more inclined to return the favor one day.
It occurs to me that 5 per cent might be a horrible worrying prospect if you, as a lawyer
or doctor, thought it applied to the five or ten thousand you might come across as fellow
professionals in your city or state. But then it could be that you rarely gossip about others
and only regard as liars and cheats those who have done it to you (apart from the few who
have been busted for insurance fraud). Maybe 16 per cent sometimes fudge or fiddle something
but you don't know so you remain happily (and honestly) complacent, and proud of your
profession.
More intelligent people may be more adept at calculating the possible negative consequences
of personal dishonesty and they are likely to have more to lose. However, put them in a
corporate situation and no doubt they will be as gung-ho as anyone to figure out ways to rip
off customers.
I've lost a wallet once and then I was visited home by shop owner, who carefuly tracked
where I could live by using data from the wallet. She wanted nothing in exchange.
On university, I also was also given back a wallet once; I got back also a cellphone
(which was quite expansive at the time) I left somewhere few years ago.
OTOH once I left a wallet with cash at university and it was not returned.
So, here you are my anecdotal evidence from Poland: three wallets and one cellphone, one
time not returned, two plus one times returned.
More intelligent people may be more adept at calculating the possible negative
consequences of personal dishonesty and they are likely to have more to lose. However, put
them in a corporate situation and no doubt they will be as gung-ho as anyone to figure out
ways to rip off customers.
The purpose of the institution in question is to "figure out ways to rip off customers."
It's neither dishonesty nor cheating. The trick is not to have a culture that puts
corporate/employer concerns first.
Obviously smarter people are going to tend to be more moral; you need to
know what the fuck morality and ethics even are, and assess the circumstances, before
you can make your decisions. Retards can't even get to the point of making a decision. Stupid
people are great at missing the moral implications of their behavior. Smart people are the
ones who need to come up with rationalizations.
All "honesty" begins with the self. Lying to your self, about your self is the basis of
delusion and
in-authenticity. How can you know reality when reality is constantly reinterpreted to fit the
needs of a run-away ego ?
The general point, that intelligence is linked to long term thinking seems sound to me.
Dishonestly is often about immediate gratification: a question of gaining or avoiding
immediate pleasure/displeasure. Honesty is a strategy that "pays off" over the long term.
Honesty, or truth telling (in so far as one can) is also a factor in an Honour culture. The
liar is a "base" person, a person who has no sense (or no care about) their own social (self
conscious) standing. Honesty also has a close correlation with such things as "loyalty",
"promising" etc.
Oh yes !
That's the joy of the corporate structure: no one is responsible. EVERYONE acts because they
"owe" obligations to another. (Executives to higher executives; Higher executives to the
Board; the Board to Shareholders) Personal, moral responsibility becomes entirely lost in
this deliberately confected ethical melange. The Large organisation is the perfect
environment for crafting crimes safe from individual consequence.
It says you are damn lucky. If I had $ 915 in my wallet I'd super-glue the damn thing to
my chest. Rather lose a couple layers of skin than that kind of dosh.
Self honesty is a long tortuous process.
Ideology is a relief: it removes the constant anxiety of needing to "question".
Science is -- should be -- the strictest form of public honesty.
Its frightening how many reports we so often get now about the systemic "dishonesty" in the
scientific realm. (Dishonesty driven usually (not exclusively) by the demands of corporate
profits)
Sublime opportunism, entwined inside collective incentives, converges into supreme ethics,
moral behaviour.
Sadly, the convergence is beyond the gradients of our elites.
The why of hard-wired human elites as are, cannot transcend to long term survival strategies,
and society resembles a chicken coop.
To add another factor randomly, embedded into the above, it does not matter, how
intelligence plays out between individuals, because individual opportunity feeds back into a
pool of extended family, group, tribe, waves of culture and ad-hocs, lastingly and durably
not encased in cognitive ambition, itself a consequence of cognitive genetic effort. Colleges
and universities worldwide are a better example of petty games.
The "truth" and other concepts of "honesty" are a psychological, relative variant,
depending on context. The agnostic concept of real and it's pursuit is unknown to our
archaic, analogue brain without the preposition of a limited context, opportune in the
now.
I would be interested in how honesty was explicated. And the valuation of cross cultural
rules that note the value of said rule equally across cultures. Now perhaps, these are fully
layed out in the study, but I was unable to access the sight provided.
I would also be interested how the study rated honesty as a national value. Thus far the
model looks to be applied by survey data. As I was reading I kept thinking of the multiple
national scandals in which dishonesty played a central role. Once one figures out the
definition and meaning of what constitutes honesty among individuals and or societal groups
as agreed upon by those groups, then a model of measuring said honesty is built. This is
essential because the article indicates that the difference in variable is largely cultural.
So I have to conclude that a standard was established that recognizes what honesty is across
cultures.
Because even withing culture, honesty varies. If intelligence is the key demarcation than
one would expect those groupings with supposedly higher intelligence to have a higher degree
of honesty. But again, even withing culture an agreed upon understanding of honesty is
required.
Assuming intelligence matters to some set post of morality, in this case honesty -- could the
model replicate supposed intelligence to honesty withing a given system in which the rules
are more readily identifiable and agreed upon. Assuming that the students at the US military
academies rank higher in intelligence than say the students at any comparable sized
university would the students among the military academies rank higher or lower as to the
being or practicing honesty. Considering the value placed on meritocratic institutions such
as Harvard when measuring that intelligence grouping demonstrate a higher degree of honesty
than a comparable public university.
Assuming we agree what the rules are,
"The paper argues that there is a causal link between intellectual development and moral
awareness: the individual process of development represents an advance from cognitive
egocentrism to de-centered thinking, from ethical egocentrism to the consideration of the
interests and rights of others"
it could be interesting whether said tested data is measuring awareness verses
adherence.
Here are a bare list of some developed nation's honesty issues regarding rule
adherence.
Again assuming that the players agree on what the rules are across countries or cultures a
comparison of honesty across varying fields as to scandals and or practices might tell us
something regarding the impact of intelligence to honesty across said cultures.
Found the article interesting and just expressed to thoughts on the read.
Well, I'll speak (honestly) from the other perspective.
I used to ride my bike of a Sunday morning on a scenic route that boasted a few first
class restaurants. Twice I found wallets lying on the pavement just downstream from these
establishments. Apparently, the owners, a little tipsy, had set their wallets on top of their
cars while they fumbled for their keys and then drove off.
The first I took to the local police station. The second I took home and called the owner
(who lived in Canada) using their credit card number to pay for the call and left a message
reassuring her that her wallet (and money) was safe and sound, not to worry (because I knew
she would, having lost it outside her home country). I didn't want to take it to the police
because I figured they'd begin to suspect me of stealing the wallets if I kept showing up
with them.
She and her husband drove down to a prearranged place to meet me for the return. She was
very grateful.
The owner of the first lost wallet called me and asked if they could donate $100 in my
name to my favorite charity.
Another time I found a perfectly nice fleece-lined, leather aviation jacket lying in the
road just outside a golf course. Luckily there was a receipt from his fee for 18 holes in the
pocket. I called him and arranged to return the coat. We met. He treated me as though I had
stolen the jacket from his car. Not so much as a thank you.
I don't know if I'm inclined to honesty because I'm bright, it's just that I've lost my
wallet in the past and it's such a pain in the butt that I feel sorry for anyone who shares
that fate. Credit cards, ID etc. the money is the least of it.
"Good institutions that limit cheating and rule violations, such as corruption, tax
evasion and political fraud are crucial for prosperity and development."
I'd argue that these institutions derive from a well-functioning, high-trust society and
are rarely a catalyst for more honesty in other societies.
As for the connection to intelligence, look at India and China to test your
hypothesis.
"Another time I found a perfectly nice fleece-lined, leather aviation jacket lying in the
road just outside a golf course. Luckily there was a receipt from his fee for 18 holes in the
pocket. I called him and arranged to return the coat. We met. He treated me as though I had
stolen the jacket from his car. Not so much as a thank you."
TC, yep. I found a wallet stuffed with cash and credit cards on the campus of our local
state university. A campus policeman was nearby so I turned the wallet over to him. He
cautioned me that people who recover lost or abandoned property are sometimes blamed by the
owners of that property for any real or imagined loss, damage, or inconvenience to the
owners.
My rough rule of thumb is that if the property can be readily linked to an owner, I return
it. If not, and the property has trivial value, say under USD $100, it's a judgment call.
Found a few bottles of liquor, seals unbroken, in a trash can. Kept them. Found an untagged
but well-kept dog once, which I judged to have strong sentimental value to its owner, so I
placed an ad in a local newspaper, got a response, and returned the dog. His children were
very grateful.
The Gachter experiment on rule violation is based on die throwing in sterile experimental
conditions where the financial incentives are trivial and more seriously there are no
competition between the participants and there are no mechanism to identify specific
individual cheating and no resulting blemish to ones' reputation. So how much of that are
relevant to real life situations?
Real life cheating data where there are great advantage to be gained and also with
consequences that might affect ones future are more appropriate to be studied. One aspect of
the OECD TALIS project dealt with real life cheating in 8645 schools and over 100K? teachers
globally,
Table 2.20.Web. School climate – Frequency of student-related factors
(cheating)
Percentage of lower secondary education teachers whose school principal reports that the
following student behaviours occurred 1 Never, 2 Rarely, 3 Monthly, 4 Weekly, 5 Daily in
their schools.
Answers 3, 4 and 5 are considered to be serious indicator of cheating in schools. With the
intention to mash the TALIS data with the PISA 2012 data, the primary school data were
excluded.
Many popular pre-conceived ideas about cheating in schools were not proven by the data. In
fact considerable efforts were needed to find any significant statistical trend. For example
at the national levels cheating were not correlated to the average PISA scores,
fraction of top or bottom PISA scores, teachers' practice of spliting the class to teach and
to test part of the class differently, etc.
The factor that show statistical significance is the proxy factor for competition or
meritocracy. Countries have adopted various shades of "no child left behind" policy and that
is reflected in the age profile of the class. In country that practice strict "no child left
behind", the students are automatically promoted to the next grade in the next academic year
regardless of the ability of the students with the results that the student will be exclusive
of the same 'academic age'. When meritocracy is practiced, poorly performing students might
have to repeat the same grade one or more times resulting in 'academic age' distribution in
class. Since the PISA project has data of percentage of 15 yo for that grade, the idea can be
tested. To be polite, the marked datapoints are not labelled. Two countries separated by a
narrow channel can have drastically different cheating levels.
The school cheating levels is statistically significant to be linearly dependent on the
percent of the 15 yo in class. The levels of cheating is dependent on the level of
meritocracy practiced. With automatic promotion to the next academic grade there is little
need for the students to cheat. The governments are doing the cheating instead. The
out-criers of cheating in other countries do not realized that they are in countries with
lesser meritocracy.
The paper argues that there is a causal link between intellectual development and moral
awareness: the individual process of development represents an advance from cognitive
egocentrism to de-centered thinking, from ethical egocentrism to the consideration of the
interests and rights of others.
This is what Jean Piaget concluded from his studies of Swiss children. He believed that
empathy was an integral part of a child's intellectual development. It doesn't follow,
however, that there is some kind of genetic linkage between intellectual capacity and the
capacity for empathy. These are two different mental traits. It's more likely that the same
selection pressure that favored an increase in intellectual capacity also favored an increase
in the capacity for empathy.
It's impossible to build an advanced society unless most of its members have a high
capacity for both intelligence and empathy. On an individual level, however, high
intelligence can co-exist with low empathy. There have been many cases of ruthless sociopaths
who are very intelligent and yet totally self-centered. Such people can be very successful as
long as they aren't too numerous. Otherwise, they'll destroy the very society that makes
their existence possible.
An advanced society requires a combination of high intelligence and high empathy, although
this may come about in different ways. In northwest Europeans, a high intellectual capacity
co-exists with high capacities for guilt proneness and affective empathy. In East Asians, a
high intellectual capacity co-exists with high capacities for cognitive empathy and
pro-social behavior. In other words, there is more emphasis in East Asian societies on
learning correct moral rules.
I am not following the credit gift of empathy to East Asians, or the connection of
morality and intelligence to the obeying of complex rules, because of the stolen oranges in
the Book of Rites and the counterfeit antiques that impressed the Emperor. The Chinese
literally explain how to lie in their moral teachings. "Lying" is right there among the
morality-guaranteeing complex rules. There are examples in the Talmud I will not specify, or
regard as unreasonable, but I will note that nobody saw the Talmud as less than a downright
complex system of rules. Some African tribes have rules so stringent (eg, no wet dreams) that
nobody could possibly obey them. If anything I would expect that systems of compelled
obedience to complex rules guarantee dishonesty. The only alternative is Billy Budd getting
the captain to take his side.
What I would start with is power. In China, even in periods of decay or civil war, power is
always centralized to a degree only approached in Europe by a few temporarily competent
monarchs, and with an effectiveness that has never been accomplished in Europe. I think this
and not math scores or cheap shoes is the basis of the elite adoration of the Han. The man
who observes that a cow is not a nightingale, or that two and two are four, when the opposite
is being claimed by an officer of the government (be it communist, imperial, or partisan) is
an idiot. He, and probably his family, maybe his hamlet, will be exterminated with efficiency
the European Enlightened Despots could only dream of. Truth, insofar as it is objective, is
the hair of Liberty. It cannot exist at all except in the empty space left by the rolling
back of power. The trick here is embracing negativism instead of falling into the
positivistic trap. We in the West accidentally stumbled across Liberty and Truth and Science,
not because we are good, objectively not because we are smarter, but because we just couldn't
get that mandate of heaven thing together, despite the unambiguous desires of numerous
monarchs. I predict that this will be an unpopular answer but it will not go away.
(but the Japanese are massively more ethical than the Chinese. Yeah. And they are also all
but European, especially in a lot of their political history. They dreamed of imitating
Chinese centralization but never came close.)
Also, how soon can we expect an update to that graph, now plotting IQ (or PISA, or tetris
scores, etc) against something like the Transparency Index? Apologies if this has already
been done and I missed it.
What can we learn about ourselves from the things we ask online? US data scientist Seth
Stephens‑Davidowitz analysed anonymous Google search results, uncovering disturbing
truths about our desires, beliefs and prejudices
Have no idea where the data come from, but scandals with Dutch politicians seem to increase
all the time, most with Rutte's VVD.
Condemned politicians for fraud etc., a novelty.
But until now just one behind bars.
But about honesty, our prime minister Rutte is nicknamed Pinocchio for his lies.
The VVD quickly rid itself of the chairman Keiser, who manipulated himself into possession of
the crematoria of the organisation he advised.
The Dutch tax authority presented him with a claim of € 12 million, our FIOD, the
authority for fiscal crimes is investigating him.
Condemned business men for fraud, more than we like.
Even the former Philips CEO Boonstra was condemned for trade with foreknowledge.
Solicitors also are not above suspicion any more.
At the recent municipality elections measures were applied to prevent criminals being
elected.
Unreliable policemen, also a novelty, the first serious conviction was a short time ago,
he sold information from police data bases to criminals.
How he was not discovered earlier, unbelievable, police salaries are insufficient for driving
Porsches.
Catholic bishop Fulton J. Sheen said it best: "It is much easier for an educated person to
rationalize evil".
All one has to do is look at abortion supporters who insist that abortion merely removes "a
clump of cells", when they damn well know better, that it is HUMAN LIFE that they are
destroying.
The old "ends justifies the means" excuse also comes into play, which is used by communist
societies to purge millions of those who oppose them, not unlike the purges in the old Soviet
Union, China, Cuba, and other communist "paradises".
I would state that it is easier for an educated person to rationalize evil–this
including dishonesty
Do I detect a matter of class? The golfer seems not to have been a gentleman belonging to
a golf club where proper behaviour was de rigeur, very likely passed from father, uncle and
club pro to son. The sort of chap who pays green fees could be a wannabe upwardly mobile
agent for subdivided swamp land
PS I gave up golf after my father died 20+ years ago. Not so much that I couldn't match
his ethical standards but that after two heart attacks and hip replacements he was still a
scratch golfer and all I could do was occasionally outdrive him if my slice or pull
allowed.
1. Perhaps smart people are just better at not getting caught?
2. Overall, there is one major factor in the honesty of a society, and that is poverty.
When an overpopulated third-world society is crushed into misery, when people cannot earn a
half-way decent living – or indeed, any living – through honest effort,
eventually they come to cheat. This has been demonstrated in all cultures and all races.
Does integrity promote prosperity? Surely. But the reverse is if anything more powerful:
poverty promotes corruption and nepotism. For people to behave honorably, yes there must be a
culture of this, but it must also be the case that behaving honorably is not cutting your own
throat. Because few people are saints.
"Found a few bottles of liquor, seals unbroken, in a trash can. "
Dumpster-diving is a different thing than keeping lost goods. I think you're *morally* in
the clear, there, even if sorely lacking in judgement. This doesn't seem very wise. Did it
not occur to you that they were probably in the TRASH for a reason? Probably not poisonous or
anything, since the seals were on. Probably some alcoholic decided to quit drinking. But do
you want to take the chance that this wasn't a bootleg batch full of lead? Obviously the
answer was yes. Your butt, I reckon
We have been flooded here at the University of Chicago by Mainland/Communist Chinese
students. There are lots of accusations that the Chinese Communist government assists these
students by cheating, getting other English language proficient students to take the English
part of the SAT tests.
There appear to be lots and lots of Mainland Chinese/Communist China students here who
supposedly aced the English SAT test but can't seem to speak English.
"like The Economist did with their wallet test – quite a good experiment."
But, The Economist is hardly a bastion of truth. I would tend to dismiss their entire
story of the wallet experiment as a fabrication, having caught their writers in so many
lies.
But certainly that accounts for the fact that politicians are dull, ignorant, dissemblers
at best.
In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law; and, if
they can attain the object of their ambition, they have no fear of being called to account
for the means by which they acquired it. They often endeavour, therefore, not only by
fraud and falsehood, the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal; but sometimes
by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, by murder and assassination, by rebellion
and civil war, to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their
greatness.
Honesty to me seems a cultural phenomenon.
Once people get away with dishonesty, others think 'why not me ?'.
The Dutch erosion, in my recollection, already began in the seventies, with leftist
people, at the time social democrats.
It was said then 'thinking left, filling pockets at the right'.
People as my father, life long socialists, left the party in great numbers.
It took a long time for THE socialist party, PvdA, to disappear, until the last parliamentary
elections.
The self destruction had much to do with EU support, socialism is at odds with globalisation,
even within the EU.
Few in the USA will have followed all the French scandals before the last presidential
elections.
Even Macron was accused of not declaring all his possessions.
And indeed, I also cannot understand how he spent or lost the millions he got while working
for the Rothschild bank.
Another well known politician, presidential candidate, cannot now remember the name,
disappeared after gifts for suits for some € 50.000 were published, there was also a
very expensive watch, the job his wife had, what she in fact did, nobody understands, and the
temporary jobs for his children.
When one sees the small castle where the family lives one understands that he could not buy
his suits himself.
Now at last there seems to be sufficient proof against Sarkozy.
Now many French presidents were persecuted after their immunity ended, when they no longer
were president.
But the frauds etc. they seem to have perpetrated seem worse and worse, in the Sarko case,
intimidating a judge, among other things.
When Hollande will be persecuted, I wonder.
He had a reputation for sacking editors in chief.
Ask Ghandi, alas he does not live, when Britain was an ethical country.
Just a few years ago, in BBCW Hard Talk, I saw an Indian minister getting quite angry 'the
British did not have to teach the Indians anything'.
Cindy, both gut and butt survived my "rescue" hooch. I did some due diligence: examined
the bottles, carefully tasted the contents, etc. My guess was a domestic quarrel in the
parking garage over the high-end vodka and liqueurs, perhaps over someone's drinking problem,
and the quarrel was settled by chucking the booze.
" . . . [S]orely lacking in judgment." Not really. My judgment turned out to be okay,
because I was informed by the totality of the circumstances and then made my call. Had the
booze been low-end stuff found in an unfamiliar location, etc., I might have judged
differently.
BTW-I didn't dumpster-dive. The booze was clearly visible at the top of the trash can.
How did they measure such 'honesty index' ?
Placing 100 wallets in a park and observe how many are returned to the owners ?
But when the anglos lie, they always lie big time !
Goebel famously oberved .
The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one
should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous
Waging wars by false pretexts surely is the highest form of duplicity ?
They dont call them perfidious albions for nuthin you know !
How does the author explain the link between the supposed highest IQ group – the Jews,
and their reputation for utmost dishonesty, greed and lust throughout history? Same goes for
the Chinese.
Propensity for Honesty is the biggest reason why we need to restrict immigration from low
trust cultures, i.e. all 3rd world countries. It's why they're 3rd world, because they are
low trust, everyone is dishonest from the top down, the few honest ones are called "stupid"
and get ripped off left and right. The more we import from these cultures, the more dishonest
our society will become, this includes all of Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Africa,
Southern & Eastern Europe esp. Russia. The only truly honest people in the world are
Northwestern Protestant Europeans, and maybe the Japanese. All other groups are
dishonest.
Interesting work? This article is a pure misuse of statistics, a fabrication and a classic
work of evil minded Eurocentrist attempting to give a new lease of life to their declining
rotten Eurocentrism in facing of the rising progressive, peaceful, and pragmatic East.
Look at the graph, its racist Eurocentrism is glaring, all the Western nations are on the
good side while rest of the world on the bad side. History has shown all those on the good
side are liars, cheaters, murderers, bandits, and pirates, while those on the bad side are
the victims of those perpetrators on the good side. The missing of the USA in the chart makes
this article an unapologetic white supremacy lie.
To study the link between brightness and honesty, it should pull data from the same pool
of population who are in the same environment, i.e. within a nation, then we even can study
whether cognitive ability, intellectual development, moral awareness, culture factor, and
institutions have any effect on honesty and their relationships.
Besides in spite of being bright, and having cognitive ability, intellectual development,
moral awareness, culture factor and strong institutions, the West still bombs, kills and
waterboards others on the fabricated phantom allegations as humanitarian intervention without
showing remorse; and recently the West lied about the poisoning episode in UK, and brought
the world to the edge of anther world war crisis, those evidences prove the Western societies
are not honest despite the qualities they processed as prerequisite for honesty, it seems it
proves the West is either hypocritical or innate psychopathic.
Ask Ghandi, alas he does not live, when Britain was an ethical country.
Exactly. What a pack of criminals. They were much worse and for a longer period of time,
than what they accused the Nazis of doing.
Churchill refused to divert supplies away from already well-supplied British troops at
the same time he allegedly blocked American and Canadian ships from delivering aid to India
either. Nor would he allow the Indians to help themselves: the colonial government forbade
the country from using its own ships or currency reserves to help the starving masses.
Meanwhile, London pushed up the price of grain with hugely inflated purchases, making it
unaffordable for the dying and destitute. Most-chillingly of all, when the government of
Delhi telegrammed to tell him people were dying, Churchill allegedly only replied to ask
why Gandhi hadn't died yet.
If all this is true -- and documents support it -- then Winston Churchill may well
have starved to death as many innocent people as Stalin did in the Ukrainian genocide.
Could the man who held out against Hitler really be capable of such an atrocity? Judging by
the rest of this list, it wouldn't be surprising.
I cannot play golf without committing a certain amount of larceny. In my mind a mulligan
is a reasonable option to excuse a particularly poorly played shot. And I have been known to
sweeten my lie on the not rare occasion, which, of course, is a form of lying.
I have often wondered if my ease at dishonesty on the links might suggest a propensity
towards darker deeds?
And don't even ask me about gimme putts. That for sure must reflect a lower
intelligence!
Who decides who cheats or being dishonesty? Is misleading advertising cheating? Is empty
campaign promises cheating? Is abusing legal loopholes cheating? Is putting one's
self-interest ahead of the ones they supposed to serve cheating? Is price fixing cheating?
Are cartels of all kind cheating? Are selective reporting, wrongful labelling, and spreading
ideology cheating? . . .
Mind you, the people involved in the above activities are all bright, well educated,
intelligent, having strong institutions, within well-functioning societies, and a sense of
moral responsibilities too, would they be more than 16% in the western societes?
The assumptions behind this are so fragile and unsupportable.
Honesty, as with most of the Judeo-Christian values, largely serves to keep the compliant
majority self-correcting while the predatory and parasitic top and bottom of society maintain
a more productive relativistic approach – long term dishonesty for the elites, short
term dishonesty for the undesirables. In-group honesty is always far more valued than
universal honesty – whether you're talking about stockbrokers or Romani.
The most intelligent in any class or group are far more likely to utilize dishonesty when
it best serves their needs. To do otherwise would be a clear sign of lack of
intelligence.
The idea that intelligent people are more likely to see the purpose of honesty in the long
term is not only an unsupportable assumption, it's also ignoring the countless undeniable
historical instances of intelligent leaders deploying adaptive fictions to achieve positive
social goals (anything from religion to the concept of inalienable rights).
Anyone who uses the phrase "speaking truth to power" can absolutely be counted upon to be
utterly dishonest when that power comes knocking.
As a boy I had the privilege to attend a Catholic grade school. Part of the education was to
go to confession. Admitting to a third party your wrongs, is very powerful. Forgiving the
past frees one. Being truthful builds character, and getting over the past is a blessing. It
was a struggle to be totally truthful all the time. As a mid to late teen, I fell away from
Catholicism.
In my early twenties I came back to believing that truthfulness is the best policy. I
attribute that to the Catholic culture and the confessional. I would not say that it was my
intelligence that led me.
Confession has nothing to do with honesty; it breeds psychopath, unrepentance,
irresponsibility and repeat offending. The churches use confession to cleanse perpetrators'
sins, so the perpetrators can repeat their crimes without moral burden; this is not
hypothesis, history bear witness of such fact. This is the trait of the Western culture, it
reflects in all aspects of the westerners' behaviour. Most common expression of such morally
defunct mentality is that the western governments and officials have no trouble to apologize
the wrongs they have done, but they keep on doing the same wrong over and over again after
apologizing. The Native Americans are the most abused victim of such morally defunct
practice.
The churches use confession to recruit and dominate its members (mentally colonized
serfs), expand their domains. Confession is one of the most effective mechanisms that corrupt
the basic decency of humanity.
Adam Smith apparently had their number when he was alive. It seems that little has changed
in the quality of politicians between the 19th and 21st centuries. If anything, today's
politicians are even more dimwitted and venal. The average Congress member is a moron, and
nearly inarticulate in unscripted speaking.
I really enjoyed reading Henry Mencken's observations on political campaigns of the early
20th century. He also seemed to enjoy making those observations as well. It comes through in
the way he describes the candidates.
The government of the UK seems completely unconcerned with ethics, in the same way the US
government is. Most members of both governments seem, to me, to be morally retarded.
Flash! Flash! Flash! Stop the press. This is not yet 1st April.
Currently there are a lot of news about cheating in sports, e.g. cricket. Out of a whim
the relationship of sports with academic cheating is tested. The OECD PISA project has data
on the percentage of students who exercise before or after school PctExercise, and
PctCheatRpt=+1.044*PctExercise-46.25; #n=29; Rsq=0.234; p=0.007889 ** (V Sig)
It is very statistically significant that PctExercise is positively highly correlated
to academic cheating. The effect is more than double that for the other percentage
variables whether they are statistically significant or not. If students spend too much time
on tracks and fields and little time at home studying the results can easily be inferred. Now
you know those loud mouths screaming about cheating in another countries and that the
students there spend too much time studying, they are on average themselves doing most of the
academic cheatings and they might be trying to divert attention away from them.
To be fair, the situation for the nerds should also be checked. The OECD PISA has data on
the percentage of students who have more than 4 hours per week of off-school maths tuition
PctMathTuitGt4hr,
It is statisticaly not significant. What about those academically very competitive, the
percentage who wanted to be the best PctWantBest,
PctCheatRpt=-0.445*PctWantBest+54.07; #n=29; Rsq=0.222; p=0.009944 ** (V Sig)
It is statistically very significant that PctWantBest negatively correlated with
cheating, i.e, on average the more academically competitive they are the lesser they will
cheat.
It is intuitively that most self-confident students will not cheat. The OECD data can be
transformed and normalized into confident quotient CQ similar to the IQ scale where CQ ≥
115 is considered to be over-confident. However,
Most common expression of such morally defunct mentality is that the western governments
and officials have no trouble to apologize the wrongs they have done, but they keep on
doing the same wrong over and over again after apologizing.
Amen!
What's even worse is the goofy idea that one is automatically "forgiven" if s/he's a
"believer." It's the works vs faith idea. Some of those people feel free to break every rule
in the book (even the 10 supposedly written in stone) with complete impunity.
Those people routinely engage in behavior that's as disgusting as those from the the tribe
who think they're "chosen."
G-wd's special ones, goy and non-goy, are forgiven in advance I guess.
If anything, today's politicians are even more dimwitted and venal. The average Congress
member is a moron, and nearly inarticulate in unscripted speaking.
True.
I think much the same could be said for all hierarchical systems and that includes
religious as well as academic ones. I've always been as much amused as amazed at how
dimwitted and venal priests and professors usually are.
Rereading this reaction comes to mind
Edward W. Said & Christopher Hitchens, ed., Blaming the Victims, Spurious scholarship and
the Palestinian question', 1988, London
How did these two 'ethical' countries keep churning out world class psychopaths as
leaders .since 1600 ?
Beg no longer, fine sir! This dude may have an answer.
Henceforth, Britain will do the bidding of her real masters ; she has
become the tool of the schemers against all she holds dear, namely, her
faith, her patriotism, traditions, civilisation. She grants the " returned "
aliens equality of civil rights ; they may and do become mayors over
Christian population, and within a short time Britain is ruled by a
Jewish Prime Minister, Disraeli, first and foremost a Jew and the
flunkey of the powerful Rothschild financiers.
One of the consequences of this disastrous political mistake is the
transformation of the national attitude of Great Britain and her
colonies into that of the British Empire. Disraeli who inspired it
knew what he was scheming for, the British people did not. But with
him, Zionism is carried up to the very heights of the British Throne, a Zionist World Empire is on the high road to realisation.
-Leslie Fry, "the Jews and the British Empire," 1935
In the light of what Jonathan Haidt in the above linked video says with regards to David
Perkin's findings, I tend to say this question of yours
Do Brighter Minds Incline to Honesty?
has to be answered: "Yes. But ."
The But has to do with the the history of the term "honesty".
People might say wrong things, while being (and feeling!) honest, because honesty is not
necessarily rooted in speaking the truth.
Honesty is a social category alltogether (with close ties to knighthood, chivalry and the
like). It therefor is a category, which in it's very core hints at obedience and fellowship,
and that's at times what keeps people away from speaking the truth – cf. David
Perkins and Jonathan Haidt above (ok – full circle).
Hit-and-run is common all over the world not just in China, it is a sign of moral decay,
confusion, and irresponsibility. Those perpetrators must be denounced.
But if one follows the West or the unrepentant war criminal Japanese, it is easy to white
wash those hit-and-run crimes by saying the percentage of such crime in China is way lower
than in the US though the absolute number might be higher, so Chinese is more honest than
average in the world.
On the other hand killing people with car faces less consequences in the West, most
perpetrators in the West get slap on the wrist for such crime, such as suspension of driving
license, insurance company paid compensation, short term imprisonment, or get way free by
claiming medical conditions, but in China the perpetrators may have to pay their lives for
their crimes. It seems the West does not have a balanced morality, harsh on the victims and
lenient on the criminals.
In the honesty index graph,
Germany is higher than China, OK, thats fair.
As for the five eyes lies , their rightful place is right at the
bottom.
UK [half of fukus] the ethical country ? hehehehhe
Web Of Deceit: Britain's Real Foreign Policy
by Mark Curtis
In his explosive new book, Mark Curtis reveals a new picture of Britain's role in the
world since 1945 and in the 'war against terrorism' by offering a comprehensive critique of
the Blair government's foreign policy. Curtis argues that Britain is an 'outlaw state',
often a violator of international law and ally of many repressive regimes. He reasons not
only that Britain's foreign policies are generally unethical but that they are also making
the world more dangerous and unequal.
Why do you condemn over 100,000 years of homo sapiens behaviour. Destroying human lives
has been continuously the most effective natural way to achieve important utilitarian ends
tight up to today. And given the ancient Hebrew enthusiasm for genocide is it surprising that
God's Ten Commandments not only said nothing about abortion but assumed that limiting killing
was about the best that could be hoped for.
Did I mention the top 100 hoaxes of the century chart, kid ?
Here's a partial list,
Iraq WMD
IRAQ babies incubators
Racak 'massacre'
RUSSIAGATE,
Chinagate,
Indo./China war 1962
Indon genocide 1965
GCHQ fake foto
Tibet fake foto,
Tibet genocide,
Libya
Syria
Sinking of the Maine,
Gulf of Tonkin,
911
War OF terror,
R2p[lunder]
TAM 'massacre'
Tibet 2008
Xinjiang 2009
100 reasons why fukus should be at the bottom of the 'honesty' chart !
These are not just hit and run. In China you do not run until you make sure the victim is
dead. And if the victim is not dead you hit them second time to make sure he/she is dead and
then you run. This is very pragmatic and congruent with all Chinese philosophical systems.
That's why I suggested to your compatriot (denk) here that a bit of Christian mercy and
compassion would do Chinese some good.
As Amryata Sen has pointed out. The problem in Bengal was not a lack of food but the lack
of purchasing power by the poorest peasants. Hoarding by merchants is a traditional driver of
famine in India. The Punjab actually had a good harvest but Bengal ate rice. Churchill's
nvolvement was ncidental. India was governed com India, often by Indians. Churchill was an
outrageous racist but by no means representative of the British of the time. He lost the post
war election.
I am surprised that you posted that first link. Its 1500 tested people (selected how?)
from 15 countries simply reminded me that the "Climategate" emails also belonged to the
University of East Anglia.
I didn't take the time to understand WTF PUBG was all about (third link).
As to the second link it is indeed interesting to learn of what appears to be a formal
recognition by the Chinese Communist Party that part of what contributed to the earlier
economic success of the West was trust and comparative honesty (as Amy Wax might point
out).
First of all Christians have no mercy, and they only have crusade and conversion.
Christians are cult. The Christians have been committing crimes against humanity, crimes
against peace and war crimes using evil and sadist inquisition methods for a very very long
time. Their forte is racial and culture genocide. Before Columbus time they only did their
carnage between themselves and Muslims within the European continent and ME. After Columbus
they spread their plague all over the world.
The most unfortunate victims are the Americans (from North to South). Christian not only
took the American's land, and killed them into nearly extinct, they also burnt all books of
South Americans, so that there is no indigenous South American civilization left to tell
their history and to refute what the Christian casted them as savages.
In China during the late Qing time, the Christians treated Chinese culture and traditions
as witchcraft, backed by their governments' guns they used extraterritorial right to expand
their control of people and land with organized violence and insidious crimes. Their
unscrupulous activities forced Chinese to resist thru Boxer movement because Qing Court was
incompetent. The West labelled Boxer as terrorists and crashed them with Eight Nations
Alliance armed intervention, Christian was a major force that caused China Century
Humiliation.
Since WWII all wars were led by the Christians, their false Christian mercy calls paved
the way for the Western governments and war mongers to bomb, kill and waterboard on moral
high ground just like their barbaric Christian forebears who have done to the native South
Americans and rest of the world.
That kind of morally defunct drivers are not unique to China, they appeare in the West
too. In some incidences the driver in the West made sure nobody survives in the other car by
pushing the car over the road side, so they have better chance not to be convicted due to no
witness.
While guys using assault rifles mowing down tens of school kids for no reasons and claim
it is their constitution rights to do so, and tens of millions of killed, tortured and maimed
by the NATO false flag wars, why don't you suggest your compatriots in the USA and other NATO
nations that a bit of Christian mercy and compassion would do their souls some good? Is it
because Christian mercy is myth, fantasy and snakeoil?
You are being racist, propagating the pink skin pigs' trashes in HK irresponsibly. You
should know those noxious racist trolls in the SCMP are posted by the pink skin pigs and
their mentally colonized wannabes in HK out of resentment and frustration, because they lost
their colonial privileges in HK and they are being rejected as uneducated unscrupulous
colonials back home. They fell from master caste to the bottom of the society and become
worthless trash.
Japanese are unrepentant war criminals, their whole society are liars and they have been
lying since WWII about their war crimes, their past, their present and their future, they
even are lying about the massive toxic nuclear leaking in the Fukushima cripple nuclear power
plants that are causing millions of people died of cancer and extinction of marine creatures.
While the British is the mentor of the Japanese.
Britain was a ruthless global tyrant and liar, but you seem to believe that all the crimes
against humanity and peace and war crimes British committed around the world can be forgiven
and glossed over by claiming Britain a democracy; what a lie and morally defunct double think
evil psychopathic expression. People said British imitates the Romans and the American is
born out of the British, no wonder the American is adopting the same double think logic to
white wash and gloss over the war crimes, crimes against humanity and peace they have been
committing around the world.
Winston Churchill was a classic imperialist with no moral bearing, he believed for the
empire everything goes. WWII is nothing but a dog-eat-dog play rough over the monopoly to
plunder the rest of the world; they squandered all the wealth they obtained thru stealing,
looting and murdering hundreds of millions of people all over the world in that
scrabbling.
About cheating in the exams you must have never seen what the Greeks and Indian are
capable of. PUBG is sour grape, they cannot beat the Chinese so they banned Chinese on the
fabricated allegation, just like the Opium Wars, the British could not beat Chinese
manufactured goods, so they used Opium and wars to steal and cheat Chinese wealth.
Why do you waste time displaying your prejudices without even acknowledging what question
was asked? Your English is up to it – just – so you have no excuse.
All Utu was pointing out is that deliberately killing someone with a car to escape
prosecution is pretty heinous behavior and does suggest something really wrong with the
Chinese culture at a fundamental level.
And the treatment of animals in China is generally deplorable compared with Western
standards with little concern for their well being. How does this obvious cruelty fit on the
ethical plane?
Ethical behavior among human beings is probably more unusual than we would like to believe
and we can all be better people. The Chinese are no exception to that rule. If Christian
ethics or Buddhist ethics can advance that cause, I support this.
I was intrigued to find on the listverse.com site some readable and/or intriguing stuff,
e.g. on Charles Darwin, but your particular, well debunked, choice of anachronistic and
inaccurate story to believe and post suggests to me that anyone whose intellectual standards
allow them to rely on one of those list (usually of 10) sites should not pollute UR. Are you
aware that people are paid $100 (with possibility of bonuses) for those lists?
You are wrong, not everybody demands the same quality, and Chinese provides different
quality for different needs in the market. Besides you get what you paid for, it is
fundamental principle of capitalism if you don't count the first principle of capitalism
which is monopoly which is charge as much as you can bear and cost is irrelevant, that is not
only cheating and it is also blackmailing and looting.
The video just claims but shows no proof what the guy claims. Chinese machinery and parts
are taking more markets around the world, this simply fact proves the video is made out of
bad faith, and pure propaganda.
Coins can stand up on Chinese High Speed Rail running more than 300km/hr, no German,
Japanese or any other nation can do that, it proves the bearing quality in China HSR is
unprecedented, it further proves the guys in the video is a troll out of jealous, resentful
and fear Chinese achievements.
In China you do not run until you make sure the victim is dead.
cuz you watch some videos from youtube, forchrissake !
Can you give me some credible statistics , the percentage of such alleged crimes in
China ?
How does such alleged crimes stack up against fukus state terrorism like double
tapping , sniping at women and chidlren, obliterating the whole neighborhood of a suspect
hideout just to make sure, ?
And .
How does this elevate fukus from its rightful position at the bottom of that honesty
chart, thats all I wanna know ?
It is propaganda. People tell me that the same stories were circulated when Japan
was becoming a tech powerhouse. It will probably take another 5-10 years before it
dissipates.
I merely point out the misconception about Christians supported by historical facts.
Indian treats animals even worse while China has humane protection laws, it seems you are as
impartial as utu.
Your first paragraph comes over as so silly that perhaps it shouldn't surprise that your
second paragraph is, to say the least, extremely puzzling. Where did Anonymous [216] say or
suggest that China eould collapse? The post you are replying to implies no such thing.
After every of your visit by you at unz.com I keep wondering to what degree your primitive
chauvinism is representative of China. How many millions primitive and hateful Joe Wongs are
there? Then I wonder that perhaps you are not Chinese. That you are employed by enemies of
China. That Chinese are too smart to show their cards that early in the game. If they really
hate they would not show it because only fools show hate.
You, see I carry a positive stereotype of Chinese which is supported by my personal
experience with them but you and your sidekick deng do everything possible to undermine it
and change it into: Yes, Chinese can be really stupid and thus more dangerous than we
thought. Watch, out for stupid and dangerous Chinese. Go to the Plan B: Poke NK and the
Rocket Man more to the point that Japan get so paranoid that it starts arming itself with
nukes. If there is to be a war let it start with the yellow races killing each other. They
hate each other anyway. Ask Joe Wong if you have any doubts.
So what is it? Are you Chinese or an agent of revanchist militarist unreformed Chinese
hating interests of Japanese imperialism? And then, if you are Chinese, how many more stupid
ones like you are there?
It seems your only defense for the Christians is denying historical facts, and stating
something that Christians are not.
Naïve? Are you saying the crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and war
crimes committed by the Christians were carefully planned, deeply thought through, determined
and maturely decided like holocaust?
Bible is zero-sum based narrative, the fundamental dogma of Christianity is "you are
either with us or you are with the devil" therefore all Christians have a mission to convert
everyone else into "one of us" on the moral high ground with whatever means necessary,
Christians believe whatever the Christians do it is necessary with good intention, even
bombing, killing and waterboarding on the fabricated allegations is humanitarian
intervention.
Christianity assumes humans are primitive and born evil, they need divine force to
threaten (go to hell) them not to do harm, and it is tribal. While some other civilizations
believe humans are sane, rational, intelligent and compassionate, humans do not need divine
force to tell them how to behave properly in order to achieve peace, harmony, cooperation,
development and mutual benefits, just logical explanation and some directions will be
suffice.
If the past can be any reference, the crimes have been committed against humanity in the
name of Christianity, it is doubtful that Christians have any morality, mind you it does not
mean the Bible does not have good points in it, there are other way better ways and means to
serve as a framework to guide human behaviour for the good.
Chauvinism is someone claims what he is not and based that false claim to demonize others
what they are not on the moral high ground, this is what the West has been doing since
1492.
Stating facts does not involve emotion, so please refrain yourself from sensationalize any
topic unnecessary that makes dialog on difficult issues impossible, Theresa May and Nikki
Haley are not your role model to follow.
For over seventy years the US has dominated Asia, ravaging the continent with two major
wars in Korea and Indo-China with millions of casualties, and multiple counter-insurgency
interventions in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, Pakistan and
Afghanistan. The strategic goal has been to expand its military and political power, exploit
the economies and resources.
Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked
havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing,
looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, 'pious'
fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In fact it is hard to tell the
difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal
and barbaric to Asians until the Pearl Harbour incident.
If the past can be any reference, the crimes have been committed against humanity in
the name of Christianity, it is doubtful that Christians have any morality
Do you really believe this???? No morality in any Christians?
You are even more locked into hate and racism than I thought possible.
Have you attended any of the lectures by the anti-racist Tim Wise??
You might get some talking points from him that can help you in your future postings.
And keep up the good work, you have a bright future in any number of our MSM outlets.
And you have not even met the hardcore commies, who would like to explain that the only
thing that Mao did wrong, terribly wrong was that he did not kill nearly enough people.
And the answer to your question is that there are idiots in every country and race, though
in China they are mostly excluded from political positions(because insanity is not welcome),
so they troll online message boards within and without China.
Like various other fanatics and crazies, they can be entertaining in the appropriate
context. If you've been to Finland, he's the equivalent of the old drunk men yelling
propositions at girls in some train stations of the small towns. Entertaining in small
doses.
So you couldnt even give one good reason why UK should be on top of that 'honesty
chart' eh ?
well I can give you 100 why UK should be right at the bottom,
Perfidious albions
exhibit one
How to ethnic cleanse an entire island ? Declare the residents as tresspassers !
'What the files also reveal is an imperious attitude of brutality. In August 1966, Sir
Paul Gore-Booth, permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, wrote: "We must surely be
very tough about this. The object of the exercise was to get some rocks that will remain
ours.
There will be no indigenous population except seagulls." At the end of this is a
handwritten note by DH Greenhill, later Baron Greenhill:
"Along with the Birds go some Tarzans or Men Fridays " Under the heading, "Maintaining the
fiction", another official urges his colleagues to reclassify the islanders as "a floating
population" and to "make up the rules as we go along".
@joe Wong You are a foolish, ignorant person. At least in regard to Christianity. The
perpetrators of the holocaust and genocide are Christians? You absolutely have no clue about
Christianity. Yes, they came from a Christian based culture but Nazis (and American war
criminals) have nothing in common with Christianity. The best countries in the world are ones
based on Protestant Christianity, meaning Christianity that is the closest to the Biblical
teachings. I admire Chinese culture and history (especially the technology which benefited
the West) but you need the ability to admit the faults of your culture which has some serious
problems.
Though I am convinced that honesty is more rational in the long term than lying, I definitely
don't believe that people with high IQ are more honest than those more modestly gifted with
intellectual talent. Smart people just know better to juggle with fallacies so they are more
likely to get away with it than dummies, that's all.
Logic does say that truth is lower maintenance, as it exists per se and is always consistent,
and lies so they are not exposed need to be cared of constantly, as they are always
intrinsically inconsistent with reality, but people are people, driven by the seven sins, of
which greed and vanity are possibly the worst, with the former being more evenly distributed
while the latter tends to affect the bright rather than the dim.
Logic and ethics are different categories. Equating them is a sign of, well, vanity.
Only a moron equate honesty = quality using ball bearing as example. There are countries
may be very honest like Bhutan, yet they don't produce high quality product.
The US top elites are very intelligent, are producing lots of quality products like Boeing
plane & precision weapons for murdering everywhere, yet their politicians & bankers
are known habitual liars, with British & French close behind, and Germans
reluctantly.
Japanese is producing high quality products, look how frequently their politicians are
caught outright lying, corrupted & nepotism, and researchers are now caught recently in
their published papers using fake data, with big corporates like Toshiba, Nissan, Steel
factories caught cheating systematically for long period.
Its true Germany make top notch quality, undisputed, better than Japan imo.
But look at the chart, beside Germany, who else is producing better ball bearings than
China, or precision tools that run aerospace, manned space craft, rockets, 5th gen J20,
satellites, nuclear plants(light water pebble), nuclear sub, FSR, a long list to go yet they
are rated more honest than China.
Fyi, only 2 countries are able to produce precision steel ball bearings for tiny ball
point pen tip, Germany & Japan. So China is importing billion of them for its ball point
pen production annually.
Why can't China factory produce it? There was some uproar in China media over this last
year. Guess what? Within a mth, some factory is churning out perfect ball bearings, but in
better material – ceramic that is cheaper & longer lasting. And the producer
explained, its not economical worth the effort & machining to produce those bearings as
they cost only $200K p. a. to import. But for national pride, they do it.
And i highly suspect you are either from HK or Taiwan with some bad memory of old China
that you simply like to smear China without taking a fairer stand that, out of 1.4B Chinese
how many % is doing those crimes, vs 400M murkans more serious crimes.
The new generation Chinese should not be continuously viewed through old communist color
lens & West propaganda, they are not responsible for the history but the future. Pres Xi
is a good example, he is leading China to their peaceful rise now. He suffered in culture
revolution, do you want to blame him for those history?
This chart simply look so questionable. Why not include US, France, Oz, Canada, Bhutan,
India, Brazil, Agentina, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, HK, Japan, Korea, HK, Taiwan, to give
a wider comparison. And how the author do his samplings to derive this graph is very much
questionable.
And to say brighter mind = honesty, just look at how honest are most world politicians
that are generally top intellectuals of their cohort. I would say more wise = more
honesty.
To use wallets returning as a test of honesty is also overly simplified. When a country is
poor, these are godsend present unless they are true perfect communist.
As a country get wealthier, their people generally get better education & well off,
become indoctrine with social norm of what is so called good behavior(persuaded by praise
& blame). They are more inclined to return a wallet found with money that aren't so
attractive to them compare to poor. But that can never be equate to genuine honest, im sure
most US Pres & UK PM will return wallets.
Take UK as the most glaring example, with its brightest in parliament are consistently
been outright shameless liars, such as Blairs lies for Iraq WMD war, and now May's lies of
Skripal case, which all getting near unanimous support from their parliament members speak
great volumes.
There is a Unz article written on how UK has been the mecca of paedophiles, global capital
in grooming children for sexual exploitation, with systematic covered up over decades by
their politicians because they & those powerful elites were all involved.
Their police chief even suggested not to criminalize Britons watching/owned child porno as
so high a proportion of their nation are doing will overwhelm their prisons & judicial
system.
So what honesty are we talking about here, UK as over 60% honest? Even their moral value
is highly questionable if you ask most UK white people.
And Malaysia getting 3rd highest honesty of near 80% is a great joke just shy from UK. Its
one of well known highest crimes & corruption that the West themselves criticized much,
even Spore ex-PM LKY openly condemn as violent crime infested. I never know violent criminal
is honest, may be yes for the author country when compared to their politicians.
"... Much of what Cambridge Analytica claimed to be able to do for its clients has an exaggerated ring to it. As with the Steele dossier, several of the Cambridge Analytica documents are unintentionally funny, such as a letter from Aleksandr Kogan, the Russian-American academic researcher, suggesting that finding out if people used crossbows or believed in paganism would be useful traits on which to focus. ..."
"... What is lacking in these scandals is much real evidence that Russian "meddling" or Cambridge Analytica "harvesting" – supposing all these tales are true – really did much to determine the outcome of the US election. Keep in mind that many very astute and experienced American politicians, backed by billions of dollars, regularly try and fail to decide who will hold political office in the US. ..."
Many people who hate and fear Donald Trump feel that only political
black magic or some form of trickery can explain his election as US President. They convince
themselves that we are the victims of a dark conspiracy rather than that the world we live in
is changing, and changing for the worse.
Cambridge
Analytica has now joined Russia at the top of a list of conspirators who may have helped
Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. This is satisfactory for Democrats as it shows that they
ought to have won, and delegitimises Trump's mandate.
In the Russian and Cambridge Analytica scandals, dodgy characters abound who claim to have a
direct line to Putin or Trump, or to have secret information about political opponents or a
unique method of swaying the voting intentions of millions of Americans. The most doubtful
evidence is treated as credible.
The dossier by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, about Trump's
romps in Moscow, struck me when I first read it as hilarious but entirely unbelievable. The US
media thought the same when this document was first being hawked around Washington before the
election, and refused to publish it. It was only after Trump was elected that that they and the
US security agencies claimed to find it in any way credible.
Much of what Cambridge Analytica claimed to be able to do for its clients has an exaggerated
ring to it. As with the Steele dossier, several of the Cambridge Analytica documents are
unintentionally funny, such as a letter from Aleksandr Kogan, the Russian-American academic
researcher, suggesting that finding out if people used crossbows or believed in paganism would
be useful traits on which to focus.
We are told that Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users have been "harvested" (a
good menacing word in this context, suggesting that the poor old users are being chopped off at
the ankles), and that information so garnered could be fed into the Trump campaign to put him
over the top on election day. In reality, information gathered from such a large number of
people is too generalised or too obvious to be of much use.
What is lacking in these scandals is much real evidence that Russian "meddling" or Cambridge
Analytica "harvesting" – supposing all these tales are true – really did much to
determine the outcome of the US election. Keep in mind that many very astute and experienced
American politicians, backed by billions of dollars, regularly try and fail to decide who will
hold political office in the US.
It simply is not very likely that the Kremlin – having shown extraordinary foresight
in seeing that Trump stood a chance when nobody else did – was able to exercise
significant influence on the US polls. Likewise, for all its bombastic sales pitch, Cambridge
Analytica was really a very small player in the e-campaign.
The Russian "meddling" story (again, note the careful choice of words, because "meddling"
avoids any claim that the Russian actions had any impact) and the Cambridge Analytica saga are
essentially conspiracy theories. They may damage those targeted such as Trump, but they also do
harm to his opponents because it means that they do not look deeply enough into the real
reasons for their defeat in 2016, or do enough to prevent it happening again.
Since Clinton lost the election by less than 1 per cent of the vote in the crucial swing
states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, almost anything that happened in the campaign
can be portrayed as decisive. But there are plenty of common-sense reasons for her defeat which
are now being submerged and forgotten, as the Democrats and a largely sympathetic media look to
Russian plots and such like to show that Trump won the election unfairly.
It is worth looking again at Hillary Clinton's run-for-office in 2016 to take a more
rational view of why she unexpectedly lost. A good place to start is Shattered: Inside
Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign , by the journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes,
which was published a year ago and is based on interviews with senior campaign staffers.
Ironically, the Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook based his approach on a similar sort of
analysis of vast quantities of data about voters that Cambridge Analytica claimed it could use
to great effect.
Mook's conviction that this data was a sure guide to where to invest the Democrats' best
efforts had disastrous consequences, even though Clinton outspent Trump by 2 to 1. For
instance, she did not campaign in Wisconsin after winning the nomination, because her election
team thought she was bound to win there. She put too little effort into campaigning in
Michigan, though her weakness there was underlined there in March when she lost the primary to
Bernie Sanders.
Traditional tools of electioneering such as polls and door-to-door canvassing were
discounted by Mook, who was absorbed by his own analytical model of how the election was going.
In major swing states, the book says that "he declined to use pollsters to track voter
preferences in the final three weeks of the campaign".
Clinton carried a lot of political baggage because she had been demonised by the Republicans
for 25 years. She had bad lluck, such the decision of the FBI director, James Comey, to send a
letter to Congress about her emails two weeks before the election – but Trump somehow
managed to survive even worse disasters, such as boasting of how he groped women.
Opponents of Trump tend to underestimate him because they are convinced that his faults are
so evident that he will implode when the electorate find him out. Somehow they never do, or at
least not those parts of the electorate which votes for him.
The very scandals that Trump's critics believe will sink him have enabled him dominate the
news agenda in a way no American politician has ever done before. The New York Times
and CNN may detest him, but they devote an extraordinary proportion of their news
output to covering his every action.
The accusation that the Kremlin and companies like Cambridge Analytica put Trump in the
White House may do him damage. But I suspect that the damage will mostly be among people who
never liked him and would never vote for him.
Perhaps the one thing would have lost Trump the election is if his campaign had truly relied
on Cambridge Analytica's data about the political proclivities of pagan crossbow
enthusiasts.
(theverge.com)BeauHD on Friday
March 16, 2018 @11:30PM from the violation-of-terms dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report
from The Verge: Facebook said late Friday that it had suspended Strategic
Communication Laboratories (SCL), along with its political data analytics firm, Cambridge
Analytica, for violating its policies around data collection and retention. The companies,
which
ran data operations for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign , are widely
credited with helping Trump more effectively target voters on Facebook than his rival, Hillary
Clinton. While the exact nature of their role remains somewhat mysterious, Facebook's
disclosure suggests that the company
improperly obtained user data that could have given it an unfair advantage in reaching
voters . Facebook said it cannot determine whether or how the data in question could have
been used in conjunction with election ad campaigns.
In a blog post, Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal laid out how SCL came into
possession of the user data. In 2015, Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at the University
of Cambridge, created an app named "thisisyourdigitallife" that promised to predict aspects of
users' personalities. About 270,000 people downloaded it and logged in through Facebook, giving
Kogan access to information about their city of residence, Facebook content they had liked, and
information about their friends. Kogan passed the data to SCL and a man named Christopher Wylie
from a data harvesting firm known as Eunoia Technologies, in violation of Facebook rules that
prevent app developers from giving away or selling users' personal information. Facebook
learned of the violation that year and removed his app from Facebook. It also asked Kogan and
his associates to certify that they had destroyed the improperly collected data. Everyone said
that they did. The suspension is not permanent, a Facebook spokesman said. But the suspended
users would need to take unspecified steps to certify that they would comply with Facebook's
terms of service.
(theguardian.com)umafuckit
shared this article from The Guardian: The data analytics firm that worked with Donald
Trump's election team and the winning Brexit campaign
harvested millions of Facebook profiles of U.S. voters , in one of the tech giant's biggest
ever data breaches, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence
choices at the ballot box... Christopher Wylie, who worked with a Cambridge University academic
to obtain the data, told the Observer : "We exploited
Facebook to harvest millions of people's profiles . And built models to exploit what we
knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built
on."
Documents seen by the Observer , and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show
that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been
harvested on an unprecedented scale . However, at the time it failed to alert users and
took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million
individuals... On Friday, four days after the Observer sought comment for this story,
but more than two years after the data breach was first reported, Facebook
announced that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica and Kogan from the platform, pending
further information over misuse of data. Separately, Facebook's external lawyers warned the
Observer on Friday it was making "false and defamatory" allegations, and reserved
Facebook's legal position...
The evidence Wylie supplied to U.K. and U.S. authorities includes a letter from
Facebook's own lawyers sent to him in August 2016, asking him to destroy any data he held that
had been collected by GSR, the company set up by Kogan to harvest the profiles... Facebook did
not pursue a response when the letter initially went unanswered for weeks because Wylie was
travelling, nor did it follow up with forensic checks on his computers or storage, he said.
"That to me was the most astonishing thing. They waited two years and did absolutely nothing to
check that the data was deleted. All they asked me to do was tick a box on a form and post it
back."
Wylie worked with Aleksandr Kogan, the creator of the "thisisyourdigitallife" app, "who has
previously unreported links to a Russian university and took Russian grants for research,"
according to the article. Kogan "had a licence from Facebook to collect profile data, but it
was for research purposes only. So when he hoovered up information for the commercial venture,
he was violating the company's terms...
"At the time, more than 50 million profiles represented around a third of active North
American Facebook users, and nearly a quarter of potential U.S. voters."
Authored Among
Western political leaders there is not an ounce of integrity or morality . The Western print
and TV media is dishonest and corrupt beyond repair. Yet the Russian government persists in its
fantasy of "working with Russia's Western partners." The only way Russia can work with crooks
is to become a crook. Is that what the Russian government wants?
Finian
Cunningham notes the absurdity in the political and media uproar over Trump (belatedly)
telephoning Putin to congratulate him on his reelection with 77 percent of the vote, a show of
public approval that no Western political leader could possibly attain. The crazed US senator
from Arizona called the person with the largest majority vote of our time "a dictator." Yet a
real blood-soaked dictator from Saudi Arabia is feted at the White House and fawned over by the
president of the United States.
The Western politicians and presstitutes are morally outraged over an alleged poisoning,
unsupported by any evidence, of a former spy of no consequence on orders by the president of
Russia himself. These kind of insane insults thrown at the leader of the world's most powerful
military nation -- and Russia is a nation, unlike the mongrel Western countries -- raise the
chances of nuclear Armageddon beyond the risks during the 20th century's Cold War. The insane
fools making these unsupported accusations show total disregard for all life on earth. Yet they
regard themselves as the salt of the earth and as "exceptional, indispensable" people.
Think about the alleged poisoning of Skirpal by Russia. What can this be other than an
orchestrated effort to demonize the president of Russia? How can the West be so outraged over
the death of a former double-agent, that is, a deceptive person, and completely indifferent to
the millions of peoples destroyed by the West in the 21st century alone. Where is the outrage
among Western peoples over the massive deaths for which the West, acting through its Saudi
agent, is responsible in Yemen? Where is the Western outrage among Western peoples over the
deaths in Syria? The deaths in Libya, in Somalia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Afghanistan? Where is the
outrage in the West over the constant Western interference in the internal affairs of other
countries? How many times has Washington overthrown a democratically-elected government in
Honduras and reinstalled a Washington puppet?
The corruption in the West extends beyond politicians, presstitutes, and an insouciant
public to experts. When the ridiculous Condi Rice, national security adviser to president
George W. Bush, spoke of Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction sending up a
nuclear cloud over an American city, experts did not laugh her out of court. The chance of any
such event was precisely zero and every expert knew it, but the corrupt experts held their
tongues. If they spoke the truth, they knew that they would not get on TV, would not get a
government grant, would be out of the running for a government appointment. So they accepted
the absurd lie designed to justify an American invasion that destroyed a country.
This is the West. There is nothing but lies and indifference to the deaths of others. The
only outrage is orchestrated and directed against a target: the Taliban, Saddam Hussein,
Gaddafi, Iran, Assad, Russia and Putin, and against reformist leaders in Latin America. The
targets for Western outrage are always those who act independently of Washington or who are no
longer useful to Washington's purposes.
Orchestrations this blatant demonstrate that Western governments have no respect for the
intelligence of their peoples. That Western governments get away with these fantastic lies
indicates that the governments are immune to accountability. Even if accountability were
possible, there is no sign that Western peoples are capable of holding their governments
accountable. As Washington drives the world to nuclear war, where are the protests? The only
protest is brainwashed school children protesting the National Rifle Association and the Second
Amendment.
Western democracy is a hoax. Consider Catalonia. The people voted for independence and were
denounced for doing so by European politicians. The Spanish government invaded Catalonia
alleging that the popular referendum, in which people expressed their opinion about their own
future, was illegal. Catalonian leaders are in prison awaiting trial, except for Carles
Puigdemont who escaped to Belgium. Now Germany has captured
him on his return to Belgium from Finland where he lectured at the University of Hesinki
and is holding him in jail for a Spanish government that bears more resemblance to Francisco
Franco than to democracy. The European Union itself is a conspiracy against democracy.
The success of Western propaganda in creating non-existent virtues for itself is the
greatest public relations success in history. Tags Politics
"... Evidence of Israel's role in gas attacks in Syria was overwhelming even though Russia was blocked from presenting same to the United Nations time and time again. ..."
"... the Likudist extremists who run that nation are mostly former Russian gangsters and enemies of Russia's current leadership. ..."
"... As anger grew toward Cambridge Analytica on Monday after Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a report showing company executives boasting about their extreme propaganda strategies, including filming opponents in compromising situations with Ukrainian sex workers, authorities in the U.K. and the U.S. also questioned whether Facebook mishandled the alleged breach and it's now facing damaging investigations that will further tarnish its brand. ..."
"... Britain's information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, confirmed she was applying to the courts for a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London offices and said Tuesday morning that she has been left frustrated by the company's reluctance to cooperate with her investigation. ..."
Now
we know they not only kept files on 50 million Americans through Facebook, using the data there
to profile fears and emotions, targeting and manipulating millions but when Google added their
incredible mass of data, billions of illegally read emails and more, the American people became
little more than pawns.
Again we reiterate, Russia didn't do it. It was the tech companies, all working as is now
being made public, for Israeli intelligence and the mob. From the Daily Beast, March 20, 2018
by Jamie Ross:
"Facebook has been plunged into crisis over the allegations that Cambridge Analytica misused
data from more than 50 million people to help elect Donald Trump. Nearly $40 billion was wiped
off Facebook's market value Monday, an emergency meeting is due to be held Tuesday morning, and
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been criticized for remaining silent during what some analysts are
describing as a threat to the company's existence.
Zuckerberg has been summoned to the British parliament to give evidence about the how it
handles people's personal data. The head of a British inquiry into 'fake news,' Damian Collins,
has accused Facebook of previously 'misleading' a parliament committee, adding: 'It is now time
to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate
account of this catastrophic failure of process.'"
What is being left out is more telling, that Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, has
long openly worked for Israeli intelligence and that evidence now exists that Israel not only
ran the program to rig the American election, as many believe it did in both 2000 and 2004,
leading to the destruction of Iraq, but that it did so again in 2016.
Few note the real policies of former Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama, the even
handedness in the Middle East and their use of leverage against Israel. Obama never accepted
wild claims made against Syria as Trump has and never attacked Damscus.
Evidence of Israel's role in gas attacks in Syria was overwhelming even though Russia was
blocked from presenting same to the United Nations time and time again.
But then we hypothesize, what are we speaking of when we talk of Israel? This is where so
many back off as anyone who questions Israel is smeared as an "anti-Semite" though the Likudist
extremists who run that nation are mostly former Russian gangsters and enemies of Russia's
current leadership.
The reason for what appears to be Israeli animosity toward Russia in reality originated when
Putin cleaned out the oligarchs that looted Russia for two decades, plunging that nation into
poverty and then fleeing to Tel Aviv or New York with endless billions of ill gotten gains.
This is real history, not the history written down in books or reported in fake news.
More on happenings in London as reported by Jamie Ross:
"As anger grew toward Cambridge Analytica on Monday after Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a
report showing company executives boasting about their extreme propaganda strategies, including
filming opponents in compromising situations with Ukrainian sex workers, authorities in the
U.K. and the U.S. also questioned whether Facebook mishandled the alleged breach and it's now
facing damaging investigations that will further tarnish its brand.
Britain's information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, confirmed she was applying to the
courts for a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London offices and said Tuesday morning
that she has been left frustrated by the company's reluctance to cooperate with her
investigation.
[ Editor's Note : There appears to have been the classic "fix" in at the British Court by
delaying for days the seizure of Cambridge's computer files, giving the needed time to remove
any incriminating evidence Jim W. Dean ]
Fears have also been raised that the investigation may have been compromised by the presence
of cybersecurity consultants from Stroz Friedberg -- the company hired by Facebook to audit
Cambridge Analytica on its behalf -- who were in the London offices on Monday evening, until
they were asked to leave by the information commissioner.
Asked if there was a risk of Cambridge Analytica or Facebook destroying evidence, Denham
said on Sky News: "As this point we're not satisfied with the cooperation we're getting from
Cambridge Analytica, so the next step is for us to apply to the court and to do an audit to get
some answers as to whether data was misused and shared inappropriately."
British Parliament Culture Committee Chairman Damian Collins said:
'This is a matter for the authorities. Facebook sent in data analysts and lawyers who they
appointed. What they intended to do there, who knows? The concern would have been, were they
removing information or evidence which could have been vital to the investigation? It's right
they stood down but it's astonishing they were there in the first place.'"
The issue now is one of accepting what is happening for all to see rather than absorbing the
fake narrative sold the world. For those unaware, it isn't just millions of Americans but
government officials as well, who form their opinions and prejudices against nations, races of
people, religions and even ideas themselves.
The are imprinted via fictional television shows like Homeland , whose writers and
producers are in actuality as complicit in psychological warfare as those who run Cambridge
Analytical, Google or Facebook, the groups now under the public microscope.
As for Mueller and his investigation, it is pure theatre. As for Trump, more theatre as
well, a buffoon long shown to be a mob asset, now wielding nukes and threatening the world,
holding it hostage to his bad brain chemistry and his criminal handlers.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and
POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He's a
senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine
"New Eastern Outlook."
I would not exaggerate the voodoo science behind Cambridge Analitica activities -- all this
crap about the Big Five personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness,
conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
But it really can create "plausible lies" to targeted groups of voters in best "change we can
believe in" style. Essentially promoting "bat and switch" politics.
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... In July 2005, SCL underwent a dramatic transformation. It very publicly rebranded itself as a psychological warfare company by taking part in the UK's largest military trade show. ..."
"... The company's efforts paid off. Over the next ten years, SCL won contracts with the US Defense Department's Combatant Commands, NATO, and Sandia National Labs. ..."
"... Along the way it created Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary firm which differs from SCL Group in that it focuses primarily on political campaigns. Its largest investors include billionaire Robert Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who is best known for his advocacy of far-right political causes and his financial support of Breitbart News. Steve Bannon briefly sat on Cambridge Analytica's board of directors. ..."
"... Although Cruz ultimately failed, Cambridge Analytica's CEO, Alexander Nix, claimed that Cruz's popularity grew largely due to the company's skillful use of aggregated voter data and personality profiling methods. ..."
"... Cambridge Analytica relies upon "psychographic" techniques that measure the Big Five personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. ..."
"... In the US, Cambridge Analytica developed psychological profiles of millions of Americans by hiring a company called Global Science Research (GSR) to plant free personality quizzes. Users were lured by the prospect of obtaining free personality scores, while Cambridge Analytica collected data–and access to users' Facebook profiles. Last week, The Guardian ..."
"... Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet ..."
"... Twitter And Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest ..."
"... Roberto J. González is chair of the anthropology department at San José State University. He has written several books including American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain and Militarizing Culture: Essays on the Warfare State . He can be reached at [email protected] . ..."
In the days and weeks following the 2016 presidential elections,
reports surfaced about how a small British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica,
might have played a pivotal role in Donald Trump's surprise victory. The company claimed to
have formulated algorithms to influence American voters using individually targeted political
advertisements. It reportedly generated personality profiles of millions of individual citizens
by collecting up to
5000 data points on each person. Then Cambridge Analytica used these "psychographic" tools
to send voters carefully crafted online messages about candidates or hot-button political
issues.
Although political consultants have long used "microtargeting" techniques for zeroing in on
particular ethnic, religious, age, or income groups, Cambridge Analytica's approach is unusual:
The company relies upon individuals' personal data that is harvested from social media apps
like Facebook. In the US, such activities are entirely legal. Some described Cambridge
Analytica's tools as "
mind-reading software " and a " weaponized AI
[artificial intelligence] propaganda machine ." However, corporate media outlets such as
CNN and the
Wall Street Journal often portrayed the company in glowing terms.
Cambridge Analytica is once again in the headlines–but under somewhat different
circumstances. Late last week, whistleblower
Christopher Wylie went public , explaining how he played an instrumental role in collecting
millions of Facebook profiles for Cambridge Analytica. This revelation is significant because
until investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr published her exposé in The
Guardian , Cambridge Analytica's then-CEO Alexander Nix had adamantly denied using
Facebook data. And although Facebook officials knew that Cambridge Analytica had previously
gathered data on millions of users, they did not prohibit the company from advertising until
last Friday, as the scandal erupted. To make matters worse, the UK's Channel 4 released
undercover footage early this week in which Cambridge Analytica executives boast about
using dirty tricks–bribes, entrapment, and "beautiful girls" to mention a few.
The case of Cambridge Analytica brings into focus a brave new world of electoral politics in
an algorithmic age–an era in which social media companies like Facebook and Twitter make
money by selling ads, but also by selling users' data outright to third parties. Relatively few
countries have laws that prevent such practices–and it turns out that the US does not
have a comprehensive federal statute protecting individuals' data privacy. This story is
significant not only because it demonstrates what can happen when an unorthodox company takes
advantage of a lax regulatory environment, but also because it reveals how Internet companies
like Facebook have played fast and loose with the personal data of literally billions of
users.
From Public Relations to Psychological Warfare
In order to make sense of Cambridge Analytica it is helpful to understand its parent
company, SCL Group, which was originally created as the PR firm Strategic Communications
Laboratory.
It was founded in the early 1990s by Nigel Oakes , a flamboyant UK businessman. By the late
1990s, the company was engaged almost exclusively in political projects. For example, SCL was
hired to help burnish the image of Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid–but Oakes and
SCL employees had to shut down their operations center when SCL's cover was blown by the
Wall Street
Journal .
In July 2005, SCL underwent a dramatic transformation. It
very publicly rebranded itself as a psychological warfare company by taking part in the
UK's largest military trade show. SCL's exhibit included a mock operations center
featuring dramatic crisis scenarios–a smallpox outbreak in London, a bloody insurgency in
a fictitious South Asian country–which were then resolved with the help of the company's
psyops techniques. Oakes told a
reporter : "We used to be in the business of mindbending for political purposes, but now we
are in the business of saving lives." The company's efforts paid off. Over the next ten
years, SCL won contracts with the US Defense Department's Combatant Commands, NATO, and Sandia
National Labs.
Over the past few years SCL–now known as SCL Group –has transformed itself yet again. It no longer
defines itself as a psyops specialist, nor as a political consultancy–now, it calls
itself a data analytics company specializing in "behavioral change" programs.
Along the way it created Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary firm which differs from SCL
Group in that it focuses primarily on political campaigns. Its largest investors include
billionaire Robert Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who is best known for
his advocacy of far-right political causes and his financial support of Breitbart News. Steve
Bannon briefly sat on Cambridge Analytica's board of directors.
Cambridge Analytica first received
significant media attention in November 2015, shortly after the firm was hired by
Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz's campaign. Although Cruz ultimately failed,
Cambridge Analytica's CEO, Alexander Nix, claimed that Cruz's popularity grew largely due to
the company's skillful use of aggregated voter data and personality profiling methods.
In August 2016, the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica as part of a desperate effort
to challenge Hillary Clinton's formidable campaign machine. Just a few months later,
reports revealed that Cambridge Analytica had also played a role in the UK's successful
pro-Brexit "Leave.EU" campaign.
Hacking the Citizenry
Cambridge Analytica relies upon "psychographic" techniques that measure the Big Five
personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion,
agreeableness and neuroticism.
In the US, Cambridge Analytica developed psychological profiles of millions of Americans
by hiring a company called Global Science Research (GSR) to plant free personality quizzes.
Users were lured by the prospect of obtaining free personality scores, while Cambridge
Analytica collected data–and access to users' Facebook profiles. Last week, The Guardian reported that Cambridge Analytica collected data from more than
300,000 Facebook users in this way. By agreeing to the terms and conditions of the app, those
users also agreed to grant GSR (and by extension, Cambridge Analytica) access to the profiles
of their Facebook "friends"–totalling approximately 50 million people.
Psychographics uses algorithms to scour voters' Facebook "likes," retweets and other social
media data which are aggregated with commercially available information: land registries,
automotive data, shopping preferences, club memberships, magazine subscriptions, and religious
affiliation. When combined with public records, electoral rolls, and additional information
purchased from data brokers such as Acxiom and Experian, Cambridge Analytica has raw material
for shaping personality profiles. Digital footprints can be transformed into real people. This
is the essence of psychographics: Using software algorithms to scour individual voters'
Facebook "likes," retweets and other bits of data gleaned from social media and then combine
them with commercially available personal information. Data mining is relatively easy in the
US, since it has relatively weak privacy laws compared to South Korea, Singapore, and many EU
countries.
In a 2016
presentation , Nix described how such information might be used to influence voter opinions
on gun ownership and gun rights. Individual people can be addressed differently according to
their personality profiles: "For a highly neurotic and conscientious audinece, the threat of a
burglary–and the insurance policy of a gun. . .Conversely, for a closed and agreeable
audience: people who care about tradition, and habits, and family."
Despite the ominous sounding nature of psychographics, it is not at all clear that Cambridge
Analytica played a decisive role in the 2016 US presidential election. Some charge that the
company and its former CEO Alexander Nix, exaggerated Cambridge Analytica's effect on the
election's outcome. In February 2017, investigative journalist
Kendall Taggart wrote an exposé claiming that more than a dozen former employees of
Cambridge Analytica, Trump campaign staffers, and executives at Republican consulting firms
denied that psychographics was used at all by the Trump campaign. Taggart concluded: "Rather
than a sinister breakthrough in political technology, the Cambridge Analytica story appears to
be part of the traditional contest among consultants on a winning political campaign to get
their share of the credit–and win future clients." Not a single critic was willing to be
identified in the report, apparently fearing retaliation from Robert Mercer and his daughter
Rebekah, who is also an investor in the firm.
Not-So-Innocents Abroad
By no means has Cambridge Analytica limited its work to the US. In fact, it has conducted
"influence operations" in several countries around the world.
For example, Cambridge Analytica played a major role in
last year's presidential elections in Kenya, which pitted incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta of the
right-wing Jubilee Party against Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement. The
Jubilee Party hired Cambridge Analytica in May 2017. Although the company claims to have
limited its activities to data collection, earlier this week Mark Turnbull, a managing director
for Cambridge Analytica,
told undercover reporters a different story . He admitted that the firm secretly managed
Kenyatta's entire campaign: "We have rebranded the party twice, written the manifesto, done
research, analysis, messaging. I think we wrote all the speeches and we staged the whole
thing–so just about every element of this candidate," said Turnbull.
Given the most recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica's planting of
fake news stories , it seems likely that the company created persuasive personalized ads
based on Kenyans' social media data. Fake Whatsapp and Twitter posts exploded days before the
Kenyan elections. It is worth remembering that SCL Group has employed disinformation campaigns
for military clients for 25 years, and it seems that Cambridge Analytica has continued this
pattern of deception.
The August elections were fraught with accusations of vote tampering, the inclusion of dead
people as registered voters, and the murder of
Chris Msando , the election commission's technology manager, days before the election. When
the dust settled, up to 67 people died in post-election violence–and Kenyatta ultimately
emerged victorious. Weeks later, the Kenyan Supreme Court annulled the elections, but when new
elections were scheduled for October, Odinga declared that he would boycott.
Given Kenya's recent history of electoral fraud, it is unlikely that Cambridge had much
impact on the results.
Anthropologist Paul Goldsmith , who has lived in Kenya for 40 years, notes that elections
still tend to follow the principle of "who counts the votes," not "who influences the
voters."
But the significance of Cambridge Analytica's efforts extends beyond their contribution to
electoral outcomes. Kenya is no technological backwater. The world's first mobile money service
was launched there in 2007, allowing users to transfer cash and make payments by phone.
Homegrown tech firms are creating a "Silicon Savannah" near Nairobi. Two-thirds of Kenya's 48
million people have Internet access. Ten million use Whatsapp; six million use Facebook; two
million use Twitter. As Kenyans spend more time in the virtual world, their personal data will
become even more widely available since Kenya has no data protection laws.
Cambridge Analytica doesn't need to deliver votes so much as to create the perception that
they can produce results. . .Kenya provides an ideal entry point into [Africa]. . .Embedding
themselves with ruling elites presents a pivot for exploiting emergent commercial
opportunities. . .with an eye on the region's resources and its growing numbers of
persuadable youth.
Recent reports reveal that Cambridge Analytica has ongoing operations in Mexico and
Brazil (which have general elections scheduled this July and October, respectively).
India (which has general elections in about a year) has also been courted by the company,
and it is easy to understand why: the country has 400 million smartphone users with more than
250 million on either Facebook or Whatsapp. India's elections are also a potential gold mine.
More than half a billion people vote in parliamentary elections, and the expenditures are
astonishing: Political parties spent $5 billion in 2014, compared to $6.5 billion in last
year's US elections. India also has a massive mandatory ID program based on biometric and
demographic data, the largest of its kind in the world.
Cambridge Analytica's global strategy appears focused on expanding its market share in
promising markets. Although many people might describe Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, and India as
developing countries, each in fact has a rapidly growing high-tech infrastructure, relatively
high levels of Internet penetration, and large numbers of social media users. They all have
weak or nonexistent Internet privacy laws. Though nominally democratic, each country is
politically volatile and has experienced episodic outbursts of extreme political, sectarian, or
criminal violence. Finally, these countries have relatively young populations, reflecting
perhaps a long-term strategy to normalize a form of political communication that will reap
long-term benefits in politically sensitive regions.
The capacity for saturating global voters with charged political messages is growing across
much of the world, since the cost of buying Facebook ads, Twitterbots and trolls, bots for
Whatsapp and other apps is cheap–and since more people than ever are spending time on
social media. Such systems can be managed efficiently by remote control. Unlike the CIA's
psyops efforts in the mid-20th century, which required extensive on-the-ground
efforts–dropping leaflets from airplanes, bribing local journalists, broadcasting
propaganda on megaphones mounted on cars–the new techniques can be deployed from a
distance, with minimal cost. Cambridge Analytica relies upon small ground teams to do business
with political parties, and partnerships with local business intelligence firms to scope out
the competition or provide marketing advice, but most of the work is done from London and New
York.
Weaponizing Big Data?
From its beginnings, Cambridge Analytica has declared itself to be a "data-driven" group of
analytics experts practicing an improved form of political microtargeting, but there are
indications that the firm has broader ambitions.
In March 2017,
reports emerged that top executives from SCL Group met with Pentagon officials, including
Hriar Cabayan, head of a branch which conducts DoD research and cultural analysis. A decade
ago,
Cabayan played an instrumental role in launching the precursor to the Human
Terrain System , a US Army counterinsurgency effort which embedded anthropologists and
other social scientists with US combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A few months later, in August 2017, the Associated Press reported that
retired US Army General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as National Security Director in the
Trump administration, had signed a work agreement with Cambridge Analytica in late 2016, though
it is unclear whether he actually did any work for the firm. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to
the FBI about his contacts with Russian operatives in late 2017, when he was working with
Trump's transition team. Given his spot in the media limelight, it is easy to forget that he
once headed US intelligence operations in Afghanistan, advocating for a big data
approach to counterinsurgency that would, among other things, include data collected by
Human Terrain Teams.
The connections between Cambridge Analytica/SCL Group and the Pentagon's champions of
data-driven counterinsurgency and cyberwarfare may be entirely coincidental, but they do raise
several questions: As Cambridge Analytica embarks on its global ventures, is it undertaking
projects that are in fact more sinister than its benign-sounding mission of "behavioral
change"? And are the company's recent projects in Kenya, India, Mexico, and Brazil simply
examples of global market expansion, or are these countries serving as laboratories to test new
methods of propaganda dissemination and political polarization for eventual deployment here at
home?
Here the lines between military and civilian applications become blurred, not only because
ARPANET–the Internet's immediate precursor–was developed by the Pentagon's Advanced
Research Projects Agency, but also because the technology can be used for surveillance on a
scale that authoritarian regimes of the 20th century could only have dreamed about. As Yasha
Levine convincingly argues in his book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet , the Internet
was originally conceived as a counterinsurgency surveillance program.
Neutralizing Facebook's Surveillance Machine
It appears that many people are finally taking note of the digital elephant in the room:
Facebook's role in enabling Cambridge Analytica and other propagandists, publicists, and
mind-benders to carry out their work–legally and discreetly. As recently
noted by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai in the online journal Motherboard ,
Cambridge Analytica's data harvesting practices weren't security breaches, they were "par for
the course. . .It was a feature, not a bug. Facebook still collects -- and then sells --
massive amounts of data on its users." In other words, every Facebook post or tweet, every
g-mail message sent or received, renders citizens vulnerable to forms of digital data
collection that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder. The information can be used for
all kinds of purposes in an unregulated market: monitoring users' emotional states,
manipulating their attitiudes, or disseminating tailor-made propaganda designed to polarize
people.
"If your business is building a massive surveillance machinery, the data will eventually
be used and misused. Hacked, breached, leaked, pilfered, conned, targeted, engaged, profiled,
sold. There is no informed consent because it's not possible to reasonably inform or
consent."
Cambridge Analytica is significant to the extent that it illuminates new technological
controlling processes under construction. In a supercharged media environment in which
Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) have become the primary means by which
literally billions of people consume news, mass producing propaganda has never been easier.
With so many people posting so much information about the intimate details of their lives on
the Web, coordinated attempts at mass persuasion will almost certainly become more widespread
in the future.
In the meantime, there are concrete measures that we can take to rein in Facebook, Amazon,
Google, Twitter, and other technology giants. Some of the most lucid suggestions have been
articulated by Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early Facebook investor.
He recommends a multi-pronged approach : demanding that the social media companies' CEOs
testify before congressional and parliamentary committees in open sessions; imposing strict
regulations on how Internet platforms are used and commercialized; requiring social media
companies to report who is sponsoring political and issues-based advertisements; mandating
transparency about algorithms ("users deserve to know why they see what they see in their news
feeds and search results," says McNamee); requiring social media apps to offer an "opt out" to
users; banning digital "bots" that impersonate humans; and creating rules that allow consumers
(not corporations) to own their own data.
In a world of diminishing privacy, our vulnerabilities are easily magnified. Experimental
psychologists specializing in what they euphemistically call "behavior design" have largely
ignored ethics and morality in order to help Silicon Valley companies create digital devices,
apps, and other technologies that are literally irresistible to their users. As the fallout
from Cambridge Analytica's activities descends upon the American political landscape, we should
take advantage of the opportunity to impose meaningful controls on Facebook, Google, Twitter,
and other firms that have run roughshod over democratic norms–and notions of individual
privacy–in the relentless pursuit of profit. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Roberto J. González
Tonight at 7pm ET/PT,
60 Minutes
will air a controversial interview with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, the
adult-film star who says she had an affair with Donald Trump. Daniels will talk to Anderson Cooper
about the relationship she says she had with Trump in 2006 and 2007, unveiling details that bring her
story up to the present. It will be the first - and so far only - television interview in which she
speaks about the alleged relationship.
The 60 Minutes interview will include an examination of the
potential legal and political ramifications of the $130,000 payment that Trump's attorney Michael
Cohen says he made to Daniels using his own funds. Daniels accepted the money in return for signing a
confidentiality agreement, although she recently violated the CA, claiming Trump never signed it.
The president has denied having an affair with Daniels, while Trump's legal team - in this case led
by Charles Harder who won a $140MM verdict for Hulk Hogan against Gawker - is seeking to move the case
to federal court and claims that
Stormy is liable
for up to $20 million in damages. This in turn prompted Daniels to launch a
crowdfunding
campaign to fund her lawsuit
against Trump, which at last
check had raised over $290K
.
Cooper conducted the interview earlier this month, shortly after Cohen obtained a temporary
restraining order against Daniels. Meanwhile, Daniels is seeking a ruling that the confidentiality
agreement between her and the president is invalid, in part because Mr. Trump never signed it. The
president's attorneys are seeking to move the case to federal court and claim Daniels is liable for
more than $20 million in damages for violations of the agreement.
On Thursday, the lawyer representing Daniels fired off a tweet with a picture of what appeared to
be a compact disc in a safe - hinting that he has video or photographic evidence of Clifford's affair
with President Trump.
"If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how many words is this worth?????" tweeted lawyer
Michael Avenatti.
Avenatti has been a frequent guest on cable news as he promotes Stormy's upcoming 60 minutes
tell-all about her alleged affair with President Trump. When CBS Evening News' Julianna Goldman asked
Avenatti if he had photos, texts or videos of her alleged relationship with Trump, he replied "No
comment," adding that Clifford just "wants to set the record straight." (which you can read more about
in her upcoming book, we're sure).
Previewing today's 60 Minutes segment, Avenatti purposefully built up the suspense, tweeting that,
among other things,
"tonight is not the end – it's the beginning"
And while it is highly unlikely that the Stormy Daniels scandal will escalate into anything of
Clinton-Lewinsky proportions, not to mention that Trump has enough other headaches on his hands, here
according to The Hill
, are seven things to watch for in tonight's interview:
1. Will she give details about the nondisclosure agreement?
Daniels has never spoken publicly about the nondisclosure agreement that purportedly bars her from
speaking about her alleged affair with Trump. But a lawsuit filed by Daniels earlier this month
confirmed the existence of such a document, arguing that it is invalid because it was never co-signed
by Trump himself.
Whether Daniels will discuss the details of the agreement in the "60 Minutes" interview remains to
be seen. Her lawsuit seeking to void the contract is still pending, and NDAs often prohibit
signatories from speaking about the agreements.
Daniels has hinted that is true of her NDA. During an interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel
in January, Kimmel pointed out that Daniels would likely be barred from discussing the agreement if
it, in fact, existed. "You're so smart, Jimmy," was her cagey response.
2. Will she talk openly about the alleged affair?
Daniels has implied she was paid $130,000 by Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen weeks before
the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about the alleged affair.
Speaking openly about
her claims would certainly violate the terms of the disputed NDA, and could subject Daniels to legal
penalties.
In court papers filed earlier this month, Trump's lawyers said that Daniels could face up to $20
million in damages for violating the terms of the agreement. One question that remains is whether
Daniels could toss out the NDA completely in her "60 Minutes" interview, and provide details about her
alleged relationship with the president. The last time she spoke about it was 2011, when she gave an
interview to In Touch magazine that wasn't published until this year.
3. Will she mention possible video or photographic evidence?
Avenatti has repeatedly hinted that video or photographic evidence of Daniels's alleged affair with
Trump exists. The March 6 lawsuit filed by Daniels to void the nondisclosure agreement with Trump
refers to "certain still images and/or text messages which were authored by or relate to" the
president. While the NDA reportedly required her to turn over such material and get rid of her own
copies, Avenatti has suggested that Daniels may have retained it.
Avenatti hinted this week that he may be in possession of such material, tweeting a cryptic photo
of a compact disc inside of what appeared to be a safe. "If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how
many words is this worth?????" he wrote on Twitter.
4. Will she address whether she was physically threatened?
Avenatti prompted questions earlier this month when he said that Daniels had been threatened with
physical harm in connection with the alleged affair with Trump. Asked on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" whether
Daniels had been physically threatened, Avenatti bluntly replied, "yes." Exactly who may have
threatened Daniels or what the nature of those threats may have been is unclear, and Avenatti has
declined to discuss the matter in greater detail. Daniels herself has not addressed any potential
physical threats that she may have gotten, leaving open whether she will discuss the topic in the "60
Minutes" interview.
5. Will she discuss whether Trump knew about the $130K payment?
Cohen himself has acknowledged making the payment to Daniels, but has insisted that the money came
from his personal funds and that Trump was never made aware of the transaction. White House press
secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said she does not believe Trump knew about the payment. But
Avenatti has argued otherwise, saying the fact that Cohen used a Trump Organization email address
backs up his claim that the real estate mogul was aware of the transaction. In an interview on
"Morning Joe" last week, Avenatti also suggested that he had more evidence that Trump knew about the
payment. Asked by Willie Geist if his "belief that the president directed this payment is based on
more than a hunch," Avenatti simply replied, "yes," but declined to provide any evidence.
6. Why does she want to talk about the affair now?
Daniels's lawsuit claims she expressed interest in discussing the alleged affair publicly in 2016
after The Washington Post published a 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape in which Trump could be heard
boasting about groping and kissing women without their permission. It was at this point that Cohen and
Trump "aggressively sought to silence Ms. Clifford," according to the lawsuit, which claims that the
$130,000 payment and nondisclosure agreement soon followed. But for more than a year after that,
Daniels was silent about the alleged affair, and it was only in recent months that the accusations
resurfaced. One thing to watch for is whether Daniels addresses her motives in the "60 Minutes"
interview, or answers questions about what she hopes will happen next.
7. What happens next?
There may be hints of what Daniels's next steps are in the interview. A planned court hearing for
Daniels's lawsuit is still months away. However, whatever Daniels reveals in the interview may force
the hand of Trump's own legal team. After news broke that CBS intended to air the "60 Minutes" segment
with Daniels, speculation swirled that Trump's lawyers would take legal action seeking to block the
broadcast. Such legal action would have been unlikely to proceed, because courts rarely allow such
prior restraint of speech, particularly regarding the news media.
But Trump's legal team has already signaled they're willing to fight Daniels on her claims. They
reportedly asked for a temporary restraining order against her last month and have asked to transfer
the lawsuit from California state court to a federal court in Los Angeles. But how Trump and his
lawyers respond to the interview after it airs will be closely watched.
Tags
Law
Crime
News Agencies
Internet Service Providers
Glasses, Spectacles & Contact lenses
Initially, this ridiculous scandal was mildly amusing.
Now, it
has become a tedious circus sideshow that serves to distract the
masses from much more important issues.
The disgusting fact that Trump chose to throw his dick into
this cum-dumpster skank is bad enough, but now that her lawyer
apparently has a Trump dick-pic or some other pornographic
evidence, he intends to exploit and extort as much publicity and
money that he can in an effort to embarrass the POTUS.
Is it any wonder that the USA has become the laughing stock of
the world?
Creating a malware application which masks itself as some kind of pseudo scientific test and
serves as the backdoor to your personal data is a very dirty trick...
Especially dirty it it used by academic researchers, who in reality are academic scum... An
additional type of academic gangsters, in addition to Harvard Mafia
Notable quotes:
"... By Ivan Manokha, a departmental lecturer in the Oxford Department of International Development. He is currently working on power and obedience in the late-modern political economy, particularly in the context of the development of new technologies of surveillance. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... The current social mobilization against Facebook resembles the actions of activists who, in opposition to neoliberal globalization, smash a McDonald's window during a demonstration. ..."
"... But as Christopher Wylie, a twenty-eight-year-old Canadian coder and data scientist and a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, stated in a video interview , the app could also collect all kinds of personal data from users, such as the content that they consulted, the information that they liked, and even the messages that they posted. ..."
"... All this is done in order to use data to create value in some way another (to monetize it by selling to advertisers or other firms, to increase sales, or to increase productivity). Data has become 'the new oil' of global economy, a new commodity to be bought and sold at a massive scale, and with this development, as a former Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff has argued , global capitalism has become 'surveillance capitalism'. ..."
"... What this means is that platform economy is a model of value creation which is completely dependant on continuous privacy invasions and, what is alarming is that we are gradually becoming used to this. ..."
"... In other instances, as in the case of Kogan's app, the extent of the data collected exceeds what was stated in the agreement. ..."
"... What we need is a total redefinition of the right to privacy (which was codified as a universal human right in 1948, long before the Internet), to guarantee its respect, both offline and online. ..."
"... I saw this video back in 2007. It was originally put together by a Sarah Lawrence student who was working on her paper on social media. The ties of all the original investors to IN-Q-Tel scared me off and I decided to stay away from Facebook. ..."
"... But it isn't just FB. Amazon, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Apple, Microsoft and many others do the same, and we are all caught up in it whether we agree to participate or not. ..."
"... Platform Capitalism is a mild description, it is manipulation based on Surveillance Capitalism, pure and simple. The Macro pattern of Corporate Power subsuming the State across every area is fascinating to watch, but a little scary. ..."
"... For his part, Aleksandr Kogan established a company, Global Science Research, that contracted with SCL, using Facebook data to map personality traits for its work in elections (Kosinski claims that Kogan essentially reverse-engineered the app that he and Stillwell had developed). Kogan's app harvested data on Facebook users who agreed to take a personality test for the purposes of academic research (though it was, in fact, to be used by SCL for non-academic ends). But according to Wylie, the app also collected data on their entire -- and nonconsenting -- network of friends. Once Cambridge Analytica and SCL had won contracts with the State Department and were pitching to the Pentagon, Wylie became alarmed that this illegally-obtained data had ended up at the heart of government, along with the contractors who might abuse it. ..."
"... This apparently bizarre intersection of research on topics like love and kindness with defense and intelligence interests is not, in fact, particularly unusual. It is typical of the kind of dual-use research that has shaped the field of social psychology in the US since World War II. ..."
"... Much of the classic, foundational research on personality, conformity, obedience, group polarization, and other such determinants of social dynamics -- while ostensibly civilian -- was funded during the cold war by the military and the CIA. ..."
"... The pioneering figures from this era -- for example, Gordon Allport on personality and Solomon Asch on belief conformity -- are still cited in NATO psy-ops literature to this day ..."
"... This is an issue which has frustrated me greatly. In spite of the fact that the country's leading psychologist (at the very least one of them -- ex-APA president Seligman) has been documented taking consulting fees from Guantanamo and Black Sites goon squads, my social science pals refuse to recognize any corruption at the core of their so-called replicated quantitative research. ..."
Yves
here. Not new to anyone who has been paying attention, but a useful recap with some good
observations at the end, despite deploying the cringe-making trope of businesses having DNA.
That legitimates the notion that corporations are people.
By Ivan Manokha, a departmental lecturer in the Oxford Department of International
Development. He is currently working on power and obedience in the late-modern political
economy, particularly in the context of the development of new technologies of surveillance.
Originally published at
openDemocracy
The current social mobilization against Facebook resembles the actions of activists who,
in opposition to neoliberal globalization, smash a McDonald's window during a
demonstration.
On March 17,
The Observer of London and The
New York Times announced that Cambridge Analytica, the London-based political and corporate
consulting group, had harvested private data from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million
users without their consent. The data was collected through a Facebook-based quiz app called
thisisyourdigitallife, created by Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge psychologist who
had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 Facebook members after they had
agreed to use the app to undergo a personality test, for which they were paid through Kogan's
company, Global Science Research.
But as Christopher Wylie, a twenty-eight-year-old Canadian coder and data scientist and
a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, stated in a video interview , the
app could also collect all kinds of personal data from users, such as the content that they
consulted, the information that they liked, and even the messages that they posted.
In addition, the app provided access to information on the profiles of the friends of each
of those users who agreed to take the test, which enabled the collection of data from more than
50 million.
All this data was then shared by Kogan with Cambridge Analytica, which was working with
Donald Trump's election team and which allegedly used this data to target US voters with
personalised political messages during the presidential campaign. As Wylie, told The Observer,
"we built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons."
'Unacceptable Violation'
Following these revelations the Internet has been engulfed in outrage and government
officials have been quick to react. On March 19, Antonio Tajani President of the European
Parliament Antonio Tajani, stated in a twitter message that misuse of
Facebook user data "is an unacceptable violation of our citizens' privacy rights" and promised
an EU investigation. On March 22, Wylie communicated in a tweet that he accepted
an invitation to testify before the US House Intelligence Committee, the US House Judiciary
Committee and UK Parliament Digital Committee. On the same day Israel's Justice Ministry
informed
Facebook that it was opening an investigation into possible violations of Israelis'
personal information by Facebook.
While such widespread condemnation of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica is totally justified,
what remains largely absent from the discussion are broader questions about the role of data
collection, processing and monetization that have become central in the current phase of
capitalism, which may be described as 'platform capitalism', as suggested by the Canadian
writer and academic Nick Srnicek in his recent book
.
Over the last decade the growth of platforms has been spectacular: today, the top 4
enterprises in Forbes's
list of most valuable brands are platforms, as are eleven of the top twenty. Most recent
IPOs and acquisitions have involved platforms, as have most of the major successful startups.
The list includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Instagram,
YouTube, Twitch, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Waze, Uber, Lyft, Handy, Airbnb, Pinterest, Square, Social
Finance, Kickstarter, etc. Although most platforms are US-based, they are a really global
phenomenon and in fact are now playing an even more important role in developing countries
which did not have developed commercial infrastructures at the time of the rise of the Internet
and seized the opportunity that it presented to structure their industries around it. Thus, in
China, for example, many of the most valuable enterprises are platforms such as Tencent (owner
of the WeChat and QQ messaging platforms) and Baidu (China's search engine); Alibaba controls
80 percent of China's e-commerce market through its Taobao and Tmall platforms, with its Alipay
platform being the largest payments platform in China.
The importance of platforms is also attested by the range of sectors in which they are now
dominant and the number of users (often numbered in millions and, in some cases, even billions)
regularly connecting to their various cloud-based services. Thus, to name the key industries,
platforms are now central in Internet search (Google, Yahoo, Bing); social networking
(Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat); Internet auctions and retail (eBay, Taobao, Amazon,
Alibaba); on-line financial and human resource functions (Workday, Upwork, Elance, TaskRabbit),
urban transportation (Uber, Lyft, Zipcar, BlaBlaCar), tourism (Kayak, Trivago, Airbnb), mobile
payment (Square Order, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet); and software development (Apple's App
Store, Google Play Store, Windows App store). Platform-based solutions are also currently being
adopted in more traditional sectors, such as industrial production (GE, Siemens), agriculture
(John Deere, Monsanto) and even clean energy (Sungevity, SolarCity, EnerNOC).
User Profiling -- Good-Bye to Privacy
These platforms differ significantly in terms of the services that they offer: some, like
eBay or Taobao simply allow exchange of products between buyers and sellers; others, like Uber
or TaskRabbit, allow independent service providers to find customers; yet others, like Apple or
Google allow developers to create and market apps.
However, what is common to all these platforms is the central role played by data, and not
just continuous data collection, but its ever more refined analysis in order to create detailed
user profiles and rankings in order to better match customers and suppliers or increase
efficiency.
All this is done in order to use data to create value in some way another (to monetize
it by selling to advertisers or other firms, to increase sales, or to increase productivity).
Data has become 'the new oil' of global economy, a new commodity to be bought and sold at a
massive scale, and with this development, as a former Harvard Business School professor
Shoshana Zuboff
has argued , global capitalism has become 'surveillance capitalism'.
What this means is that platform economy is a model of value creation which is
completely dependant on continuous privacy invasions and, what is alarming is that we are
gradually becoming used to this.
Most of the time platform providers keep track of our purchases, travels, interest, likes,
etc. and use this data for targeted advertising to which we have become accustomed. We are
equally not that surprised when we find out that, for example,
robotic vacuum cleaners collect data about types of furniture that we have and share it
with the likes of Amazon so that they can send us advertisements for pieces of furniture that
we do not yet possess.
There is little public outcry when we discover that Google's ads are racially biased as, for
instance, a Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney
found by accident performing a search. We are equally hardly astonished that companies such
as Lenddo buy access to
people's social media and browsing history in exchange for a credit score. And, at least in
the US, people are becoming accustomed to the use of algorithms, developed by private
contractors, by the justice system to take decisions on sentencing, which often result in
equally unfair and racially
biased decisions .
The outrage provoked by the Cambridge Analytica is targeting only the tip of the iceberg.
The problem is infinitely larger as there are countless equally significant instances of
privacy invasions and data collection performed by corporations, but they have become
normalized and do not lead to much public outcry.
DNA
Today surveillance is the DNA of the platform economy; its model is simply based on the
possibility of continuous privacy invasions using whatever means possible. In most cases users
agree, by signing the terms and conditions of service providers, so that their data may be
collected, analyzed and even shared with third parties (although it is hardly possible to see
this as express consent given the size and complexity of these agreements -- for instance, it
took 8 hours and 59 minutes for an actor hired by the consumer group Choice to read Amazon Kindle's terms and
conditions). In other instances, as in the case of Kogan's app, the extent of the data
collected exceeds what was stated in the agreement.
But what is important is to understand that to prevent such scandals in the future it is not
enough to force Facebook to better monitor the use of users' data in order to prevent such
leaks as in the case of Cambridge Analytica. The current social mobilization against Facebook
resembles the actions of activists who, in opposition to neoliberal globalization, smash a
McDonald's window during a demonstration.
What we need is a total redefinition of the right to privacy (which was codified as a
universal human right in 1948, long before the Internet), to guarantee its respect, both
offline and online.
What we need is a body of international law that will provide regulations and oversight for
the collection and use of data.
What is required is an explicit and concise formulation of terms and conditions which, in a
few sentences, will specify how users' data will be used.
It is important to seize the opportunity presented by the Cambridge Analytica scandal to
push for these more fundamental changes.
I am grateful for my spidey sense. Thanks, spidey sense, for ringing the alarm bells
whenever I saw one of those personality tests on Facebook. I never took one.
The most efficient strategy is to be
non-viable . They may come for you eventually, but someone else gets to be the canary,
and you haven't wasted energy in the meantime. TOR users didn't get that figured out.
Never took the personality test either, but now I now that all of my friends who did
unknowingly gave up my personal information too. I read an article somewhere about this over
a year ago so it's really old news. Sent the link to a few people who didn't care. But now
that they all know that Cambridge Analytical used FB data in support of the Trump campaign
it's all over the mainstream and people are upset.
You can disable that (i.e., prevent friends from sharing your info with third parties) in
the privacy options. But the controls are not easy to find and everything is enabled by
default.
I haven't FB'd in years and certainly never took any such test, but if any of my friends,
real or FB, did, and my info was shared, can I sue? If not, why not?
Everyone thought I was paranoid as I discouraged them from moving backups to the cloud,
using trackers, signing up for grocery store clubs, using real names and addresses for online
anything, etc. They thought I was overreacting when I said we need European-style privacy
laws in this country. People at work thought my questions about privacy for our new
location-based IoT plans were not team-based thinking.
And it turns out after all this that they still think I'm extreme. I guess it will have to
get worse.
In a first for me, there are surface-mount resistors in the advert at the top of today's
NC links page. That is way out of the ordinary; what I usually see are books or bicycle
parts; things I have recently purchased or searched.
But a couple of days ago I had a SKYPE conversation with a sibling about a PC I was
scavenging for parts, and surface mount resistors (unscavengable) came up. I suspect I have
been observed without my consent and am not too happy about it. As marketing, it's a bust; in
the conversation I explicitly expressed no interest in such components as I can't install
them. I suppose I should be glad for this indication of something I wasn't aware was
happening.
No keyboard search. I never so much as think about surface mount components; the inquiry
was raised by my sibling and I responded. Maybe its coincidental, but it seems quite odd.
I decided to click through to the site to generate a few pennies for NC and at least feel
like I was punishing someone for snooping on me.
Its been happening to me a lot recently on my Instagram, I don't like pictures or
anything, but whenever I have a conversation with someone on my phone, I start seeing ads of
what I spoke about
What we need is a total redefinition of the right to privacy (which was codified as a
universal human right in 1948, long before the Internet), to guarantee its respect, both
offline and online.
Are we, readers of this post, or citizens of the USA supposed to think there is anything
binding in declarations? Or anything from the UN if at all inconvenient for that matter?
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to
the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Platforms like facebook allow individuals to 'spy' on each other and people love it. When
I was a kid i always marveled at how some households would leave a police scanner on 24/7.
With the net we have this writ large with baby, puppy and tv dinner photos. Not to forget
it's a narcissist paradise. I have friends who I've tried to gently over time inject tidbits
of info like this article provides for many years and they still just refuse to try and get
it. If they looked over their shoulder and saw how many people/entities are literally
following them everywhere they go, they would become rabid gun owners (don't tread on me!)
overnight, but the invisible hand/eye registers not at all.
A side note: If Facebook and other social media were to assume ANY degree of
responsibility for content appearing on their platforms, they would be acknowledging their
legal liability for ALL content.
Hence they would be legally responsible just as newspapers are. And major newspapers have
on-staff lawyers and editors exquisitely attuned to the possibility of libelous content so
they can avoid ruinous lawsuits.
If the law were applied as it should be, Facebook and its brethren wouldn't last five
minutes before being sued into oblivion.
Non-liability is a product of the computer age. I remember having to agree with Microsofts
policy to absolve them of -any- liability when using their software. If they had their
druthers, -no- company would be liable for -anything-. It's called a 'perfect world'.
Companies that host 'social media' should not have to bear any responsibility for their
users content. Newspapers employ writers and fact checkers. They are set up to monitor their
staff for accuracy (Okay, in theory). So you can sue them and even their journalist
employees. Being liable (and not sued) allows them to brag about how truthful they are.
Reputations are a valuable commodity these days.
In the case of 'social media' providers, liability falls on the authors of their own
comments, which is only fair, in my view. However, I would argue that those 'providers'
should -not- be considered 'media' like newspapers, and their members should not be
considered 'journalists'.
Also, those providers are private companies, and are free to edit, censor, or delete
anything on their site. And of course it's automated. Some conservative Facebook members were
complaining about being banned. Apparently, there a certain things you can't say on
Facebook.
AFAIC, the bottom line is this: Many folks tend to believe everything they read online.
They need to learn the skill of critical thinking. And realize that the Internet can be a
vast wasteland; a digital garbage dump.
Why are our leaders so concerned with election meddling? Isn't our propaganda better than
the Russians? We certainly pay a lot for it.
. .. . .. -- .
Today, Musk also made fun of Sonos for not being as committed as he was to the
anti-Facebook cause after the connected-speaker maker said it would pull ads from the
platform -- but only for a week.
Musk, like Trump, knows he does not need to advertise because a fawning press will
dutifully report on everything he does and says, no matter how dumb.
A thoughtful post, thanks for that. May I recommend you take a look at "All You Can Pay"
(NationBooks 2015) for a more thorough treatment of the subject, together with a proposal on
how to re-balance the equation. Full disclosure, I am a co-author.
I saw this video back in 2007. It was originally put together by a Sarah Lawrence
student who was working on her paper on social media. The ties of all the original investors
to IN-Q-Tel scared me off and I decided to stay away from Facebook.
But it isn't just FB. Amazon, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Apple, Microsoft and many
others do the same, and we are all caught up in it whether we agree to participate or
not.
Anyone watch the NCAA Finals and see all the ads from Google about being "The Official
Cloud of the NCAA"? They were flat out bragging, more or less, about surveillance of players.
for the NCAA.
Platform Capitalism is a mild description, it is manipulation based on Surveillance
Capitalism, pure and simple. The Macro pattern of Corporate Power subsuming the State across
every area is fascinating to watch, but a little scary.
It was amusing that the top Google hit for the Brandeis article was JSTOR which requires
us to surrender personal detail to access their site. To hell with that.
The part I like about the Brandeis privacy story is the motivation was some Manhattan rich
dicks thought the gossip writers snooping around their wedding party should mind their own
business. (Apparently whether this is actually true or just some story made up by somebody
being catty at Brandeis has been the topic of gigabytes of internet flame wars but I can't
ever recall seeing any of those.)
" Two young psychologists are central to the Cambridge Analytica story. One is Michal
Kosinski, who devised an app with a Cambridge University colleague, David Stillwell, that
measures personality traits by analyzing Facebook "likes." It was then used in collaboration
with the World Well-Being Project, a group at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive
Psychology Center that specializes in the use of big data to measure health and happiness in
order to improve well-being. The other is Aleksandr Kogan, who also works in the field of
positive psychology and has written papers on happiness, kindness, and love (according to his
résumé, an early paper was called "Down the Rabbit Hole: A Unified Theory of
Love"). He ran the Prosociality and Well-being Laboratory, under the auspices of Cambridge
University's Well-Being Institute.
Despite its prominence in research on well-being, Kosinski's work, Cadwalladr points out,
drew a great deal of interest from British and American intelligence agencies and defense
contractors, including overtures from the private company running an intelligence project
nicknamed "Operation KitKat" because a correlation had been found between anti-Israeli
sentiments and liking Nikes and KitKats. Several of Kosinski's co-authored papers list the US
government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, as a funding source. His
résumé boasts of meetings with senior figures at two of the world's largest
defense contractors, Boeing and Microsoft, both companies that have sponsored his research.
He ran a workshop on digital footprints and psychological assessment for the Singaporean
Ministry of Defense.
For his part, Aleksandr Kogan established a company, Global Science Research, that
contracted with SCL, using Facebook data to map personality traits for its work in elections
(Kosinski claims that Kogan essentially reverse-engineered the app that he and Stillwell had
developed). Kogan's app harvested data on Facebook users who agreed to take a personality
test for the purposes of academic research (though it was, in fact, to be used by SCL for
non-academic ends). But according to Wylie, the app also collected data on their entire --
and nonconsenting -- network of friends. Once Cambridge Analytica and SCL had won contracts
with the State Department and were pitching to the Pentagon, Wylie became alarmed that this
illegally-obtained data had ended up at the heart of government, along with the contractors
who might abuse it.
This apparently bizarre intersection of research on topics like love and kindness with
defense and intelligence interests is not, in fact, particularly unusual. It is typical of
the kind of dual-use research that has shaped the field of social psychology in the US since
World War II.
Much of the classic, foundational research on personality, conformity, obedience,
group polarization, and other such determinants of social dynamics -- while ostensibly
civilian -- was funded during the cold war by the military and the CIA. The cold war was
an ideological battle, so, naturally, research on techniques for controlling belief was
considered a national security priority. This psychological research laid the groundwork for
propaganda wars and for experiments in individual "mind control."
The pioneering figures from this era -- for example, Gordon Allport on personality and
Solomon Asch on belief conformity -- are still cited in NATO psy-ops literature to this
day .."
This is an issue which has frustrated me greatly. In spite of the fact that the
country's leading psychologist (at the very least one of them -- ex-APA president Seligman)
has been documented taking consulting fees from Guantanamo and Black Sites goon squads, my
social science pals refuse to recognize any corruption at the core of their so-called
replicated quantitative research.
I have asked more than five people to point at the best critical work on the Big 5
Personality theory and they all have told me some variant of "it is the only way to get
consistent numbers". Not one has ever retreated one step or been receptive to the suggestion
that this might indicate some fallacy in trying to assign numbers to these properties.
They eat their own dog food all the way and they seem to be suffering from a terrible
malnutrition. At least the anthropologists have Price . (Most of
that book can be read for free in installments at Counterpunch.)
This is really deception as an art form: presenting a specially crafted false message to
group of voters bating them into voting for this candidate with explicit goal to deceive. This is
the same method pedophiles used to groom victims.
Notable quotes:
"... "CA was able to provide the campaign with predictive analytics based on more than 5,000 data points on every voter in the United States. From there, CA's team of political consultants and psychologists guided the campaign on what to say and how to say it to specific groups of voters." ..."
"CA was able to provide the campaign with predictive
analytics based on more than 5,000 data points on every voter in the United States. From there,
CA's team of political consultants and psychologists guided the campaign on what to say and how
to say it to specific groups of voters."
This is a vocal acknowledgement from Trump's data guru that he was able to change the
behaviour of American voters in favour of a Trump victory in the presidential election, but
unfortunately, the American deep state blamed Russia for hacking American democracy – a
claim which is totally baseless and untrue. In a total disingenuous move, American mainstream
media tried to link-up CA with WikiLeaks. While CA did contact Wikileaks, Julian Assange is on
the record as rebuffing CA's advances.
American warmongers within the deep state worked for a Hillary Clinton victory through their
control of American mainstream media, but they nevertheless failed to elect her. As a result,
Clinton's team blamed her loss on Russia, in order to accelerate hostility towards Moscow and
to apply pressure on President Trump so that he could not establish friendly relations with
Russia. They have succeeded in this regard as Trump surrendered to the war hungry deep state.
That being said, the fight within the deep state between FBI and CIA also helped Trump to use
the situation in his favour, as the FBI investigated Clinton after emails leaks scandal.
The CIA blamed Russia for hacking Hillary Clinton's DNC emails and allegedly passing them to
Wikileaks. The purpose of this blame was to influence the FBI investigation against her. To a
degree they succeeded. While she did not go to jail, she ended up losing the election. US
intelligence agencies propagated a myth that Wikileaks worked for Russia, but it is a fact that
Russia has no links with Wikileaks.
... ... ...
Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin held up a mirror to western global
manipulator elite and addressed their baseless 'blame campaign' against Russia. Speaking with
NBC news anchor Megyn Kelly, Putin said, "We're holding discussions with our American friends
and partners, people who represent the government, by the way, and when they claim that some
Russians interfered in the US elections, we tell them and we did so fairly recently at a very
level, 'But you are constantly interfering in our political life'. Can you imagine, they don't
even deny it, you know what they told us last time? They said, 'Yes, we do interfere but we are
entitled to do it because we are spreading democracy and you're not, and you can't do it'. Does
this seem like a civilized and modern approach to international affairs? At the level of the
Russian government and the level of Russian President, there has never been any interference in
the internal political process of the United States."
President Putin further explained, "Not long ago President Trump said something, he said
that if Russia goal was to sow chaos it has succeeded, but that's not the result, that's the
result of your political system; the internal struggle, the disorder, and division. Russia has
nothing to do with it. Whatsoever we have nothing to do with it all. Get your own affairs in
order first and the way the question's been framed as I mentioned –that you can interfere
anywhere you want because you bring democracy but we can't –that's what causes conflicts.
You have to show your partners respect and they will respect you."
President Putin's statement clearly indicates that it is the USA who is behind the effort to
hack democracy and bring about regime changes throughout the world with the aim to install
puppet regimes in targeted states. Cambridge Analytica and its mother company SCL are working
for the strategic interests of the USA and its western partner NATO in order to achieve these
regime change ambitions. Hence, this is the reason that Facebook after the publication of my
previous article, suspended the CA/SCL group from its social media network by saying,
"Protecting people's information is at the heart of everything we do, and we require the same
from people who operate apps on Facebook. In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at
the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform
Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica,
a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. He also passed that
data to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, Inc."
Manipulating democracy -- brainwashing the public for a large fee
Cambridge Analytica, the data harvesting firm that worked for the Trump campaign, is in the
midst of a scandal that should make everyone who cares about a clean political process demand
major investigations of anyone who has procured the services of the company, major prosecutions
of those who have violated laws across multiple nations and a wholesale revitalisation of
electoral laws to prevent politicians from ever again procuring the services of unethical
companies like Cambridge Analytica.
Days ago, whistleblower Christopher Wylie went public about his time
working for Cambridge Analytica and specifically about how the firm illegally obtained the
public and private data, including the private messages of 50 million Facebook users. He also
exposed how Cambridge Analytica used this data to run highly scientific social manipulation
campaigns in order to effectively brainwash the public in various countries to support a
certain political candidate or faction.
Cambridge Analytica's dubious methods were used to meddle in the US election after the Trump
campaign paid Cambridge Analytica substantial sums of money for their services. The firm also
meddled in the last two Kenyan Presidential elections, elections in Nigeria, elections in Czech
Republic, elections in Argentina, elections in India, the Brexit campaign, UK Premier Theresa
May's recently election and now stands accused of working with the disgraced former
Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif in an attempt to reverse his judicial ban on holding public
office, while helping his PML-N party win the forthcoming general election.
Beyond the scandalous use of personal data from Facebook users and the illegal access to
people's private messages, Cambridge Analytica has now been exposed as a company that, by the
hidden-camera admission of its CEO Alexander Nix, engages in nefarious, illegal and outrageous
activities across the globe.
The UK Broadcaster Channel 4 just released a video of Cambridge Analytica's CEO and Managing
DIrector Mark Turnbull in a conversation with an undercover reporter posing as a Sri Lankan
businessman interested in meddling in domestic elections. During the conversation Nix boasted
of Cambridge Analytica's history of using entrapment, bribery and intimidation against the
political opponents of its wealthy clients. Furthermore, Nix boasted about his firm's ability
to procure Ukrainian prostitutes as a means to entrap adversaries while also procuring the
services of "Israeli spies" as part of dirty smear operations.
The activities that Nix boasted of using in the past and then offered to a prospective
client are illegal in virtually every country in the world. But for Nix and his world of
ultra-rich clients, acting as though one is above the law is the rule rather than the
exception. Thus far, Cambridge Analaytica has been able to escape justice throughout the world
both for its election meddling, data harvesting, data theft and attempts to slander politicians
through calculated bribery and entrapment schemes.
One person who refused to be tempted by Cambridge Analytica was Julian Assange. Alexander
Nix personally wrote to Julian Assange asking for direct access to information possessed by
Wikileaks and Assange refused. This is a clear example of journalistic ethics and personal
integrity on the part of Assange. Justice must be done
Cambridge Analytica stands accused of doing everything and more that the Russian
state was accused of doing in respect of meddling in the 2016 US Presidential election. While
meetings and conversations that Trump campaign officials, including Steve Bannon had with
Cambridge Analyatica big wigs were not recorded, any information as to what was said during
these exchanges should be thoroughly investigated by law enforcement and eventually made public
for the sake of restoring transparency to politics.
Just as the Hillary Clinton campaign openly conspired to deprive Bernie Sanders of the
Democratic Party's nomination, so too did Donald Trump's campaign pay Cambridge Analytica to
conspire against the American voters using a calculated psychological manipulation campaign
that was made possible through the use of unethically obtained and stolen data.
While Facebook claims it was itself misled and consequently victimised by Cambridge
Analytica and has subsequently banned the firm from its platform, many, including Edward
Snowden have alleged that Facebook knew full well what Cambridge Analytica was doing with the
data retrieved from its Facebook apps. Already, the markets have reacted to the news and the
verdict is not favourble in terms of the public perception of Facebook as an ethical company.
Facebook's share prices are down over 7% on the S&P 500. This represents the biggest tumble
in the price of Facebook share prices since 2014. Moreover, the plunge has knocked Facebook out
of the coveted big five companies atop the S&P 500. Furthermore, Alex Stamos, Facebook's
security director has announced that he will soon leave the company.
The Trump myth and Russia myth exposed
Donald Trump has frequently boasted of his expert campaigning skills as being the reason he
won an election that few thought he could have ever won. While Trump was a far more charismatic
and exciting platform speaker than his rival Hillary Clinton, it seems that for the Trump
campaign, Trump ultimately needed to rely on the expensive and nefarious services of Cambridge
Analytica in order to manipulate the minds of American voters and ultimately trick them into
voting for him. It is impossible to say whether Trump would have still won his election without
Cambridge Analaytica's services, but the fact they were used, should immediately raise the
issue of Trump's suitability for office.
Ultimately, the Trump campaign did conspire to meddle in the election, only it was
not with Russia or Russians with whom the campaign conspired, it was with the British firm
Cambridge Analytica. Thus one sees that both the narrative about Trump the electoral "genius"
and the narrative about Trump the Kremlin puppet are both false. The entire time, the issue of
Trump campaign election meddling was one between a group of American millionaires and
billionaires and a sleaze infested British firm.
Worse than Watergate
In 1972, US President Richard Nixon conspired to cover-up a beak-in at the offices of his
political opponents at the Watergate Complex. The scandal ultimately led to Nixon's resignation
in 1974. What the Trump campaign did with Cambridge Analytica is far more scandalous than the
Watergate break-in and cover-up. Where Nixon's cronies broke into offices to steal information
from the Democratic party, Trump's paid cyber-thugs at Cambridge Analytica broke in to the
private data of 50 million people, the vast majority of whom were US citizens.
Richard Nixon, like Donald Trump, was ultimately driven by a love of power throughout his
life. Just as Trump considered running for President for decades, so too did Nixon try to run
in 1960 and lost to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, while he also failed to become governor of
California in 1962 election. By 1968 he finally got into the White House at the height of the
Vietnam War. When time came for his re-election, Nixon's team weren't going to take any chances
and hence the Watergate break-in was orchestrated to dig up dirt on Nixon's opponent. As it
turned out Nixon won the 1972 by a comfortable margin, meaning that the Watergate break-in was
probably largely in vain.
Likewise, Trump may well have won in 2016 even without Cambridge Analytica, but in his quest
for power, Trump has resorted to dealing with a company whose practices have done far more
damage to the American people than the Watergate break-in.
New laws are needed
While existing laws will likely be sufficient to bring the fiends at Cambridge Analytica to
justice, while also determining the role that Trump campaign officials, up to and including
Trump played in the scandal, new laws must be enshrined across the globe in order to put the
likes of Cambridge Analytica out of business for good.
The following proposals must be debated widely and ideally implemented at the soonest
possible date:
-- A total ban on all forms of data mining/harvesting for political purposes.
-- A total ban on the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in any political
campaign or for any political purpose.
-- A mandatory seizing of the assets of any company involved in data mining/harvesting for
political purposes, after which point such a company would be forcibly shut down
permanently.
-- A mandatory seizing of the assets of any company involved in the use of artificial
intelligence or algorithms in the course of a public political campaign.
-- A total ban on the use of internet based platforms, including social media by political
candidates and their direct associates for anything that could reasonably be classified as a
misinformation and/or manipulation scheme.
-- A total ban on politicians using third party data firms or advertising firms during
elections. All such advertising and analysis must be devised by advisers employed directly by
or volunteering for an individual candidate or his or her party political organisation.
-- A total ban on any individual working for a political campaign, who derives at least half
of his or her income from employment, ownership and/or shares in a company whose primary
purpose is to deliver news and analysis.
-- A total ban on anyone paid by a political candidate to promote his or her election from
an ownership or major share holding role in any company whose primary purpose is to deliver
news and analysis until 2 years after the said election.
If all of these laws were implemented along with thorough campaign finance reform
initiatives, only then can anything remotely resembling fair elections take place.
The elites eat their own
While many of the media outlets who have helped to publish the revelations of whistleblower
Christopher Wylie continue to defame Russia without any evidence about Russian linkage to the
2016 US election (or any other western vote for that matter), these outlets are nevertheless
exposing the true meddling scandal surrounding the Trump campaign which has the effect of
destroying the Russia narrative.
In this sense, a divided elite are turning against themselves. While the billionaire
property tycoon Donald Trump can hardly be described as anything but a privileged figure who
moved in elite public circles for most of his life, his personal style, rhetoric and attitude
towards fellow elites has served to alienate Trump from many. Thus, there is a desire on the
part of the mainstream media to expose a scandal surrounding Trump in a manner that would be
unthinkable in respect of exposing a cause less popular among western elites, for example the
brutal treatment of Palestine by the Zionist regime.
In this sense, Trump's own unwillingness or lack of desire to endear himself to fellow
elites and instead present himself as a 'man of the people', might be his penultimate undoing.
His rich former friends are now his rich present day enemies and many ordinary voters will be
completely aghast at his involvement with Cambridge Analytica, just as many Republicans who
voted for Nixon, became converts to the anti-Nixon movement once the misdeeds and dishonesty of
Richard Nixon were made public. Many might well leave the 'Trump train' and get on board the
'political ethics express'.
Conclusion
This scandal ultimately has nothing to do with one's opinion on Trump or his policies, let
alone any of the other politicians who have hired Cambridge Analytica. The issue is that a
company engaged in the most nefarious, dangerous, sleazy and wicked behaviour in the world, is
profiting from their destruction of political institutions that ought to be based on open
policy debates rather than public manipulation, brainwashing and artificial intelligence.
The issue is also one of privacy. 50 million people have been exploited by an unethical
company and what's more is that the money from the Trump campaign helped to empower this
unethical company. This is therefore as unfair to non-voters as it is to voters. Cambridge
Analytica must be shut down and all companies like it must restrict the scope of their
operations or else face the same consequence.
Look at this great interview with Adam Garrie. This is a must watch video.
This scandal is HUUUGE
He discusses Cambridge Analytica involvement in basically all elections, involvement of
Facebook and its Sugar daddy, UK ,US gov. How they tried to co-opt Mr.Assange and he said
FO.
How UK tries to cover it up . There is a whistleblower and soon more ,it seems
I ran onto something about that when researching SCL/Cambridge Analytica
The Mercer/Cambridge Analytica US wing of SCL put a lot of funding into the leave campaign
which was undeclared. Like a political campaign, donations above a threshold have to be
declared.
Threshold for declaring donations I think was around 3 to 7000 and CA put in over 300
000.
I have been researching SCL the last few days now. It is starting to look as though,
rather than being political mercenary's working for whoever pays, they seem to back
nationalist leaning groups or individuals. They have a political or geo-political agenda but
not sure what at the moment. Always anti Russia. Involved in operations in most of the ex
soviet countries to create a hatred of ethnic Russians and I think will work with non
nationalist types who are very anti Russia.
"... According to the British spy tale, a former Russian military intelligence colonel, Sergei Skripal, who spied for Great Britain in Russia from the early 1990s until 2004, was poisoned, along with his daughter, on March 4 in Salisbury, England, using a nerve agent "of a type developed by Russia." In 2010, Skripal had been exchanged in a spy swap between the United States and Russia. He had served six years in a Russian prison for spying for Britain. He had been living in the open in Britain for the last eight years. Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller, listed himself as a consultant to Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele's British company, on his LinkedIn profile. When the London Daily Telegraph called attention to the Orbis reference, it was removed from the profile. Steele, who worked on the Trump dossier through his company Orbis, has denied that Miller worked directly on that dossier. ..."
"... Rather than following the protocols of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which require that evidence of the alleged agent be presented to Russia, the eccentric and unpopular May instead delivered an ultimatum to Russia, and whipped up war fever throughout the UK. She now seeks to pull Donald Trump and NATO into ever more aggressive moves against Russia. ..."
"... A short statement of the reasons why the British are now staging the Skripal provocation can be found in a March 14 London Daily Telegraph call to arms by Allister Heath, who rants: "We need a new world order to take on totalitarian capitalists in Russia and China. Such an alliance would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China. Britain needs a new role in the world; building such a network would be our perfect mission." Across the pond, as they say, a similar foundational statement was made by 68 former Obama Administration officials who have formed a group called National Security Action, aimed at securing Trump's impeachment and attacking Russia and China. ..."
"... China's "Belt and Road Initiative" now encompasses more than 140 nations in the largest infrastructure-building project ever undertaken in human history. This project is a true economic engine for the future. At the same time, the neo-liberal economies of the trans-Atlantic region continue to see their productive potentials sucked dry by the massive piles of debt they have created since the 2008 financial collapse. ..."
"... Just look at the events of February and March from this standpoint. It is no accident that Christopher Steele turns up, smack dab in the middle of the Skripal poisoning hoax. ..."
"... None of the true facts about the actual motive for, and sponsors of, the DOJ applications involving Carter Page were revealed to the FISA Court in the filings made by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Director James Comey, or current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. ..."
"... Since Steele has been discredited in the United States, a huge fawning publicity campaign has been undertaken on his behalf. The campaign involves journalists who have collaborated directly with Steele in his smear job against Trump. Books by Luke Harding and Michael Isikoff seek to rebuild Steele's reputation. ..."
"... A fawning piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, as implausible as it is long, has been foisted on the public for the same reason. ..."
"... Steele described his business to Luke Harding as primarily providing research and reports to competing and feuding Russian oligarchs, many of whom use London as a base of operations. This is obviously a perfect cover for intelligence operations. It is also a very violent theater of operations. The oligarchs intersect both Western intelligence operations and Russian organized crime. They engage in deadly gang warfare. ..."
"... Steele and his partners are mentored by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and a critical player in the infamous "sexing up" and fabrication of the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, ..."
"... Steele had been tasked to claim that Russia was interfering in Western elections during the entire post-Ukraine coup time-frame, when this black propaganda line began to be circulated widely. ..."
"... The background to Porton Down's reluctance, is of course former Prime Minister Blair's phony dossier on Iraqi WMD, which Lyndon LaRouche fought, alongside the late British arms expert David Kelly, who exposed the "dodgy dossier," at the time. ..."
"... Thus, after being disclosed by a dissident Russian chemist living in the United States, novichoks have been widely copied by other countries, according to the press accounts. ..."
"... The insane McCarthyite reactions to Corbyn's simple statements of fact show that he hit the nail on the head. If you want to find Skripal's poisoners, then, like Edgar Allen Poe, you must take in the whole picture first. The field of play involves the British intelligence services and the anti-Putin Russian oligarchs, each of which services the other, acting on behalf of British strategic objectives. It is no accident that the coup against Donald Trump and the latest British intelligence fraud, putting the entire world in peril, absolutely intersect one another. ..."
March 18 -- In this report, we will explore the strategic significance of major events in the world starting in February 2018.
Our goal is to precisely situate British Prime Minister Theresa May's March 12-14 mad effort to manufacture a new "weapons of mass
destruction" hoax based on the alleged Skripal poisoning, using the same people (the MI6 intelligence grouping around Sir Richard
Dearlove) and script (an intelligence fraud concerning weapons of mass destruction) which were used to draw the United States into
the disastrous Iraq War.
The Skripal poisoning fraud also directly involves British agent Christopher Steele, the central figure in the ongoing coup against
Donald Trump. This time the British information warfare operation is aimed at directly provoking Russia, while maintaining the targeting
of the U.S. population and President Trump.
As the fevered, war-like media coverage and hysteria surrounding the case make clear, a certain section of the British elite seems
prepared to risk everything on behalf of its dying imperial system. Despite the hype, economic warfare and sanctions appear to be
the British weapons of choice -- Vladimir Putin, as we shall see, recently called the West's nuclear bluff. With the British "Russiagate"
coup against Donald Trump fizzling, exposing British agent Christopher Steele and a slew of his American friends to criminal prosecution,
a new tool was desperately needed to back the President of the United States into the British geopolitical corner shared by most
of the American establishment. The tool they are using to do this is an intelligence hoax, a tried-and-true British product.
According to the British spy tale, a former Russian military intelligence colonel, Sergei Skripal, who spied for Great Britain
in Russia from the early 1990s until 2004, was poisoned, along with his daughter, on March 4 in Salisbury, England, using a nerve
agent "of a type developed by Russia." In 2010, Skripal had been exchanged in a spy swap between the United States and Russia. He
had served six years in a Russian prison for spying for Britain. He had been living in the open in Britain for the last eight years.
Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller, listed himself as a consultant to Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele's
British company, on his LinkedIn profile. When the London Daily Telegraph called attention to the Orbis reference, it was removed
from the profile. Steele, who worked on the Trump dossier through his company Orbis, has denied that Miller worked directly on that
dossier.
Theresa May and her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, insist there is only one person who could be responsible for the poisoning
-- described as an act of war -- and that person is Vladimir Putin. No evidence has been offered to support this claim. No plausible
motive has been provided as to why Putin would order such a provocative murder now, ahead of the World Cup, when the Russiagate coup
in the United States has lost all momentum.
Rather than following the protocols of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW), which require that evidence of the alleged agent be presented to Russia, the eccentric and unpopular May instead
delivered an ultimatum to Russia, and whipped up war fever throughout the UK. She now seeks to pull Donald Trump and NATO into ever
more aggressive moves against Russia.
Thus, as with Christopher Steele's dirty dossier against Donald Trump, the British claims against Putin are an evidence-free exercise
of raw power. The Anglo-American establishment instructs us: "trust this, ignore the stinky factless content presented in this dossier
-- just note that it is backed by very important intelligence agencies which could cook your goose if you object."
A short statement of the reasons why the British are now staging the Skripal provocation can be found in a March 14 London
Daily Telegraph call to arms by Allister Heath, who rants: "We need a new world order to take on totalitarian capitalists in Russia
and China. Such an alliance would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight
back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China. Britain needs
a new role in the world; building such a network would be our perfect mission." Across the pond, as they say, a similar foundational
statement was made by 68 former Obama Administration officials who have formed a group called National Security Action, aimed at
securing Trump's impeachment and attacking Russia and China.
Russia and China have embarked on a massive infrastructure building project in Eurasia, the center of all British geopolitical
fantasies since the time of Halford Mackinder. China's "Belt and Road Initiative" now encompasses more than 140 nations in the
largest infrastructure-building project ever undertaken in human history. This project is a true economic engine for the future.
At the same time, the neo-liberal economies of the trans-Atlantic region continue to see their productive potentials sucked dry by
the massive piles of debt they have created since the 2008 financial collapse. This debt is now on a hair trigger for implosion.
It is estimated by banking insiders that the City of London is sitting on a derivatives powderkeg of $700 trillion, with over-the-counter
derivatives accounting for another $570 trillion. The City of London will bear the major impact of the coming derivatives collapse.
In this strategic geometry, President Trump's support for peaceful collaboration with Russia during the campaign, and his personal
friendship with China's President Xi Jinping, have marked him for the relentless coup-drive waged by the British and their U.S. friends.
On top of that, President Putin delivered a mammoth strategic shock on March 1, showing new Russian weapons systems based on new
physical principles, which render present U.S. ABM systems and much of current U.S. war-fighting doctrine obsolete, together with
the vaunted first strike capacity with which NATO has surrounded Russia. Not only is the West sitting on a new financial collapse,
its vaunted military superiority has just been flanked.
It is very clear that a strategic choice now confronts the human race. In 1984, Lyndon LaRouche wrote a very profound document,
"
Draft Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. " In it, he developed the concrete basis for peace between the
two superpowers at the moment when the United States had adopted the LaRouche/Reagan doctrine of strategic defense. Both Reagan and
LaRouche had proposed that the Russians and the United States cooperate in building and developing strategic defense against offensive
nuclear weapons, based on new physical principles, thereby eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation.
According to the LaRouche Doctrine, "The political foundation for durable peace must be: a) the unconditional sovereignty of each
and all nation states, and b) cooperation among sovereign states to the effect of promoting unlimited opportunities to participate
in the benefits of technological progress, to the mutual benefit of each and all."
Both China, in President Xi's October Address to the Party Congress, and Russia, in Putin's March 1 address to the Federal Assembly,
have set a course to produce technological progress capable of being shared in by all. They both outline major infrastructure projects
and dedicating massive funding to exploring the frontiers of science, technology, and space exploration. Donald Trump, in both his
campaign and his presidency, has embraced similar views. The British and their American friends, however, are devotees of a completely
different and failing economic system, a system soundly rejected in Brexit, in the election of Donald Trump, and most recently in
the Italian elections.
Just look at the events of February and March from this standpoint. It is no accident that Christopher Steele turns up, smack
dab in the middle of the Skripal poisoning hoax.
Exposure of British as U.S. Election Meddlers Weakens Anti-Trump Coup
On Feb. 2, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a memo demonstrating that the Obama Justice Department
and FBI committed an outright fraud on the FISA court in obtaining surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a volunteer for Donald Trump's
2016 presidential campaign. The bogus warrant applications relied heavily on the dirty British dossier authored by MI6's "former"
Russian intelligence chief, Christopher Steele, who had been paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee
to paint Donald Trump as a Manchurian candidate -- as a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the House Intelligence memo and other aspects of its investigation, Steele confided to Bruce Ohr, a high official
in the DOJ, that he, Steele, hated Trump with a passion and would do "anything" to prevent Trump's election. Steele was using the
fact of an FBI investigation of his allegations as part of a "full spectrum" British information warfare campaign conducted against
candidate Trump with the full complicity of Obama's intelligence chiefs. (See Peter Van Buren, "
Christopher Steele: The Real Foreign Influence in the 2016 U.S. Election? " The American Conservative, February 15, 2018.)
None of the true facts about the actual motive for, and sponsors of, the DOJ applications involving Carter Page were revealed
to the FISA Court in the filings made by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Director James Comey, or current
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The House Intelligence Committee memo was quickly followed by a declassified letter on Feb. 5, in which Senators Chuck Grassley
and Lindsay Graham referred Christopher Steele to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal prosecution, based on false statements
he made to the FBI about his contacts with the news media. No doubt the criminal referral sent chills down the spines not only of
Christopher Steele and his British colleagues, but also of those former Obama officials conspiring against Trump.
In the same week, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes announced that he would be conducting investigations into the role of
the Obama State Department and intelligence chiefs in the circulation and use of Christopher Steele's dirty dossier. These investigations
have been widely reported to focus on John Brennan and James Clapper -- Brennan for widely promoting the dirty British work product,
and Clapper for leaks associated with BuzzFeed's publication and legitimization of the dirty British work product. Remind yourself
every time you hear media explosions against Trump by either Clapper (congressional perjurer and proponent of the theory that the
Russians are genetically predisposed to screw the United States) or Brennan (gopher for George Tenet's perpetual war and torture
regime and Grand Inquisitor for Barack Obama's serial
assassinations by baseball card). They are next in the barrel, so to speak.
The January 11, 2017 BuzzFeed publication of the Steele dossier was meant to permanently poison Trump's incoming administration,
and is the subject of libel suits both in Florida and London. In the London case, the British are ready to invoke the Official Secrets
Act to protect Christopher Steele. In the Florida case, Steele has been ordered to sit for deposition despite numerous delays and
stalling tactics.
The Congressional investigation of the State Department is focused on John Kerry, Kerry's aide Jonathan Winer, Victoria Nuland,
and Clinton operative Cody Shearer. Nuland utilized Christopher Steele as a primary intelligence source while running the U.S. regime
change operations in Ukraine in alliance with neo-Nazis. She greenlighted Steele's initial meetings with the FBI about Donald Trump.
Winer deployed himself to vouch for Steele to various news publications collaborating with British agent Steele and his U.S. employer,
Fusion GPS, in Steele's media warfare operations against Trump.
On March 12, the House Intelligence Committee announced that it had completed its Russia investigation. It stated that it
found "no collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia." Its draft final report was to have been
provided to the Democrats on the Committee on March 13 for comment and then submitted to declassification review.
On March 15, four U.S. Senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and Thom
Tillis, called for the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate the DOJ and FBI with respect to the Russiagate investigation.
They particularly focused on the use of the Steele dossier, FISA abuse, the disclosure of classified information to the press,
and the criminal investigation and case of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Separately, House Oversight Chairman
Trey Gowdy and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte have asked the Justice Department to appoint a Special Counsel on similar
grounds.
On March 16, James Comey's Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, was fired as the result of recommendations by the FBI's Office
of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The OPR recommendation resulted from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's
investigation of McCabe's actions with respect to the Clinton email investigation and the Clinton Foundation. McCabe claimed that
this was part of a plot against himself, Comey, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Michael Horowitz, however, is an actual Washington
straight shooter appointed to his post by Barack Obama. The OPR is the FBI's own disciplinary agency. Horowitz's report is expected
to be extremely critical of McCabe, citing a "lack of candor" (i.e., lying) with respect to the investigation. Whatever the corrupt
media might claim, the facts here have been thoroughly investigated by McCabe's former FBI subordinates. They think his lies and
other actions disgrace the FBI and don't entitle him to a pension.
Horowitz's report on the Clinton investigations -- which have already unearthed the texts between former Russiagate lead case
agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, proclaiming their hatred of Donald Trump and the need for an "insurance
policy" against his election -- is expected to be released very soon. According to the House Intelligence Committee, the Strzok/Page
texts also reveal that Strzok was a close friend of U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras. Contreras sits on the FISA court,
took Michael Flynn's guilty plea, and then promptly recused himself from Michael Flynn's case for reasons which remain undisclosed.
Despite its exoneration of the President and thorough discrediting of the British Steele operation, the House Intelligence Committee
dangerously accepts the myth that the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,
and the emails of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, and then provided the hacked information to WikiLeaks for publication.
Its final report states, however, that Putin's intervention was not in support of Donald Trump, as previously claimed by Obama's
intelligence chiefs. The Senators seeking a new Special Counsel also salute this dangerous fraud.
As we have previously reported, the myth that Putin hacked the Democrats and provided the hacked emails to WikiLeaks, has been
substantively refuted by the investigations of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). In summary, the evidence
points to a leak rather than a hack in the case of the DNC. Further, the NSA would have the evidence of any such hack or hacks, according
to former NSA technical director Bill Binney, and would have provided it, even if in a classified setting. It is clear that the NSA
has no such evidence. It is also clear that the United States and the British have cyber warfare capabilities fully capable of creating
"false flag" cyber war incidents.
North Korea Talks Planned, While Russia and China Continue to Create the Conditions for a New Human Renaissance
In addition to the fizzling of the coup, the Western elites suffered through February and March for additional reasons. To the
shock of the entire, smug Davos crowd, Donald Trump, working with Russia, China, and South Korea, appears to have gotten Kim Jong-un
to the negotiating table concerning denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Substantive talks have been scheduled for May. The
breakthrough was announced by President Trump and South Korea on March 8.
On March 1, President Putin gave his historic two-hour address to the Russian Federal Assembly and the Russian people. Like President
Xi's address to the Chinese Party Congress in October 2017, Putin focused on the goal of deeply reducing poverty in Russian society.
Xi vowed in October to eliminate poverty from Chinese society altogether by 2020. In addition, Putin emphasized that Russia would
undertake a huge city-building project across its vast rural frontiers and dramatically expand its modern infrastructure, including
Russia's digital infrastructure. He put major emphasis on directing funds to basic scientific and technological progress. He emphasized
that harnessing and stimulating the creative powers of individual human beings is the true driver of all economic progress.
China's Belt and Road Initiative also continued to advance. Great infrastructure projects are popping up throughout the world,
including most specifically in Africa, which had been consigned to be a permanent, primitive looting-ground for Western interests.
Among the recent breakthroughs is the great project to refill Lake Chad, a project known as "Transaqua," involving the Italian engineering
firm Bonifica, the Chinese engineering and construction firm PowerChina, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission, which represents the
African countries directly benefiting from the project. But the biggest strategic news of the last six weeks was contained in the
last part of President Putin's speech. He showed various weapons, developed by Russian scientists in the wake of the U.S. abrogation
of the ABM treaty and the Anglo-American campaign of color revolutions and NATO base-building in the former Soviet bloc. These weapons,
based on new physical principles, render U.S. ABM defenses obsolete, together with many U.S. utopian war-fighting doctrines developed
under the reigns of Obama and Bush. Putin emphasized that the economic and "defense" aspects of his speech were not separate. Rather,
the scientific breakthroughs were based on an in-depth economic mobilization of the physical economy. He stressed that Russia's survival
was dependent upon marshalling continuous creative breakthroughs in basic science and the high-technology spinoffs which result,
and their propagation through the entire population. He stressed that such breakthroughs are the product of providing an actually
human existence to the entire society.
Compare what Russia and China have set out to accomplish with respect to the physical economy of the Earth, with the second and
third paragraphs of Lyndon LaRouche's prescription for a durable peace in the LaRouche Doctrine:
The most crucial feature of present implementation of such a policy of durable peace is a profound change in the monetary, economic,
and political relations between dominant powers and those relatively subordinated nations often classed as "developing nations."
Unless the inequities lingering in the aftermath of modern colonialism are progressively remedied, there can be no durable peace
on this planet.
Insofar as the United States and the Soviet Union acknowledge the progress of the productive powers of labor throughout the planet
to be in the vital strategic interests of each and both, the two powers are bound to that degree and in that way by a common interest.
This is the kernel of the political and economic policies of practice indispensable to the fostering of a durable peace between those
two powers.
This is the perspective which has the British terrified and acting-out, insanely. Were Trump, Putin, and Xi to enter into negotiations
based on the LaRouche Doctrine, a breakthrough will have occurred for all of mankind, a breakthrough to a permanent and durable peace.
No neo-liberal, post-industrial, unipolar order can match this, no matter how much Allister Heath, Ms. May, or Boris Johnson rant
and rave about it.
Christopher Steele's British Playground
As is well known by now, Christopher Steele was a long-time MI6 agent before "retiring" to form his own extremely lucrative private
intelligence firm. The firm is said to have earned $200 million since its formation. Steele was an MI6 agent in Moscow around the
time Skripal was recruited. He also later ran the MI6 Russia desk and would have known everything there was to know about Skripal.
Pablo Miller, who recruited Skripal, worked for Steele's firm according to Miller's LinkedIn profile, and lived in the same town
as Skripal.
Since Steele has been discredited in the United States, a huge fawning publicity campaign has been undertaken on his behalf.
The campaign involves journalists who have collaborated directly with Steele in his smear job against Trump. Books by Luke Harding
and Michael Isikoff seek to rebuild Steele's reputation.
A fawning piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, as implausible as it is long, has been foisted on the public for the same
reason.
There are some fascinating facts, however, in all this fawning prose:
Steele described his business to Luke Harding as primarily providing research and reports to competing and feuding Russian
oligarchs, many of whom use London as a base of operations. This is obviously a perfect cover for intelligence operations. It
is also a very violent theater of operations. The oligarchs intersect both Western intelligence operations and Russian organized
crime. They engage in deadly gang warfare.
Steele and his partners are mentored by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and a critical player in the infamous
"sexing up" and fabrication of the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, creating the rationale for
the disastrous and genocidal Iraq War.
Steele had been tasked to claim that Russia was interfering in Western elections during the entire post-Ukraine coup time-frame,
when this black propaganda line began to be circulated widely. According to Jane Mayer's account, Steele called this "Project
Charlemagne," and completed his report on it in April 2016, just before he undertook his hit job against Donald Trump. In his
report, Steele claimed that Russia was interfering in the politics of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Turkey.
He claimed that Russia was conducting social media warfare aimed at "inflaming fear and prejudice and had provided opaque financial
support to favored politicians." He specifically targeted Silvio Berlusconi and Marine Le Pen. Steele also suggested that Russian
aid was given to "lesser known right wing nationalists" in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, implying that the Russians were behind
Brexit, with an overall goal of destroying the European Union.
Leaving aside Sergei Skripal's relationship with the central figure in the British-led coup against Donald Trump, it is clear
that the May government's claim that he and his daughter were poisoned by a "novichok" nerve-agent, even if it is true, by no means
makes a case that Putin's government was responsible. (It is of interest that as we were going to press on March 19, the foreign
ministers of the European Union, after a briefing by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that indicted Putin as responsible,
issued a statement which condemned the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter, but pointedly failed to blame Putin or Russia.)
Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan who maintains contacts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, wrote March
16 that Britain's chemical-warfare scientists at Porton Down, "are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture,
and have been resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so. Porton Down would only sign up to the formulation of a type
developed by Russia, after a rather difficult meeting where this was agreed as a compromise formulation. The Russians were allegedly
researching, in the novichok program, a generation of nerve agents which could be produced from commercially available precursors
such as insecticides and fertilizers. This substance is a novichok in that sense. It is of that type. Just as I am typing on a laptop
of a type developed by the United States, though this one was made in China."
The background to Porton Down's reluctance, is of course former Prime Minister Blair's phony dossier on Iraqi WMD, which Lyndon
LaRouche fought, alongside the late British arms expert David Kelly, who exposed the "dodgy dossier," at the time.
"To anybody with a Whitehall background this has been obvious for several days," Murray continues. "The government has never said
the nerve agent was made in Russia, or that it can only be made in Russia. The exact formulation of a type developed by Russia was
used by Theresa May in Parliament, used by the U.K. at the UN Security Council, used by Boris Johnson on the BBC yesterday and, most
tellingly of all, 'of a type developed by Russia,' is the precise phrase used in the joint communique‚ issued by the U.K., U.S.A.,
France, and Germany yesterday."
The main account of the chemical weapons cited by Theresa May was written by a Soviet dissident chemist named Vil Mirzayanov who
now lives in the United States and published a book about his work at the Soviets' Uzbekistan chemical-warfare laboratory. In his
much-publicized book, Mirzayanov sets out the formulas for the claimed substances. According to the March 16 Wall Street Journal,
that publicity led to the novichoks' chemical structure being leaked, making them readily available for reproduction elsewhere. Ralf
Trapp, a France-based consultant and expert on the control of chemical and biological weapons, told the Journal, "The chemical formula
has been publicized and we know from publications from then-Czechoslovakia that they had worked on similar agents for defense in
the 1980s. I'm sure other countries with developed programs would have as well."
But it does not seem that those "other countries" include Russia. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
the independent agency charged by treaty with investigating claims like those just made by the British government, certified in September
2017 that the Russian government had destroyed its entire chemical weapons program, inclusive of its nerve agent production capabilities.
In addition to Trapp's account, Seamus Martin, writing in the March 14 Irish Times, posits, based on personal knowledge, that novichoks
were widely expropriated by East Bloc oligarchs and criminal elements in the Russian economic chaos of the 1990s.
Thus, after being disclosed by a dissident Russian chemist living in the United States, novichoks have been widely copied
by other countries, according to the press accounts.
Further trouble for May's attempted hoax is found in the condition of the Skripals and of a police officer who went to their home.
All were made critically ill, although they are still alive. Yet the emergency personnel who treated the Skripals, allegedly the
victims of a deadly and absolutely lethal nerve poison, suffered no ill effects whatsoever.
The Skripal poisoning is being compared in the British press to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The former KGB
and FSB officer was granted asylum in London and worked for the infamous anti-Putin British-intelligence-directed oligarch Boris
Berezovsky in information warfare and other attacks on the Russian state, inclusive of McCarthyite accusations against any European
politician seeking sane relations with Putin.
Litvinenko's case officer was none other than Christopher Steele, and Christopher Steele conducted MI6's investigation of the
case, which, of course, found Putin himself culpable. Berezovsky's use of the disgraced British PR firm Bell, Pottinger is also credited
with a significant role in public acceptance of this result. Berezovsky was a prime suspect in organizing the murder of American
journalist Paul Klebnikov. Many believe that Berezovsky arranged Litvinenko's demise. Berezovsky himself died in Britain in mysterious
circumstances following the loss of a major court case to another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich.
In the parliamentary debate in which Theresa May issued her provocation, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn cautioned against a rush
to judgment and pointed to the bloody playing field of Russian oligarchs and Russian organized crime as alternative areas for investigation.
Had Corbyn added to that mix, "Western intelligence agencies," he would have been entirely on the right track. Corbyn also pointed
out that these oligarchs had contributed millions to May's Conservative Party. The reaction by the British media, May's Conservatives,
and Tony Blair's faction of the Labour Party was to paint Corbyn as a Putin dupe, including photoshopped images of the Labour leader
in a Russian winter hat in front of the Kremlin.
The insane McCarthyite reactions to Corbyn's simple statements of fact show that he hit the nail on the head. If you want
to find Skripal's poisoners, then, like Edgar Allen Poe, you must take in the whole picture first. The field of play involves the
British intelligence services and the anti-Putin Russian oligarchs, each of which services the other, acting on behalf of British
strategic objectives. It is no accident that the coup against Donald Trump and the latest British intelligence fraud, putting the
entire world in peril, absolutely intersect one another.
"... Just like MH17, or the alleged (but fake) poison gas attacks in Syria, the policy has been to launch an initial barrage of accusations completely unsupported by the slightest shred of evidence – and then drop the matter abruptly, leaving the public with a strong impression of "Russian wickedness" although nothing has actually been proved. ..."
"... Skripal and daughter cheap, convenient, collateral damage for the warmongers. A person trained to handle organic nerve material introduces it into Skripal's car, they go for a morning drive and stop to have a pizza. After pizza, they begin to feel a little queasy. Go sit on a park bench. A passing citizen sees them, calls for medical assistance. Doctor says probably poisoned by toxic agent. Doctor knows it was not highly refined military grade. ..."
"... Car is lifted by straps so as not poison others and hauled to Potent Downs or whatever the Nerve Agent Factory is called. Now it can be doctored to fit the crime and I don't mean the Russians. How am I doing? Got a better tale? ..."
"... Now, I do understand that you – and most Brits – think that you are special. That there is one set of rules for you, and another for the ' others '. You have been conditioned by propaganda to assert this without any shame and to demonise Russia based on decades of half-witted stories (most taken out of context and exaggerated). Why would anyone take you seriously? ..."
"... People who walk around saying that they are exceptional, meaning they are 'Gods', or that they talk 'to God', are generally ignored or kept in an institution. Claiming that you are 'exceptional and special' is the same as claiming that you are divine – that's what it has meant historically. ..."
"Sir, Further to your report ("Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment", TIMES Mar
14)' may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in
Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several
people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None
has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have
shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent
involved."
Stephen Davies. Consultant in emergency medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
Meanwhile, a doctor who was one of the first people at the scene has described how
she found Ms Skripal..She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying "there was no
sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripals face or body."
The woman, who asked not to be named, told the NNC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery
position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father.
she said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical
agent on Ms Skripal's face or body.
The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, hut added that
she "feels fine".
Some nerve agent.
We read that Vladimir Putin's passport was found three days later at the scene.
One wonders how the Skripals are right now. Have they recovered completely, or partially? Are
they still deathly ill? Has one or both of them died?
In any case, why have there been no public announcements of these important facts? It is
useless to cite privacy, when the government hastened to trumpet the case – and its own
dubious conclusions – as publicly as possible.
Just like MH17, or the alleged (but fake) poison gas attacks in Syria, the policy has been
to launch an initial barrage of accusations completely unsupported by the slightest shred of
evidence – and then drop the matter abruptly, leaving the public with a strong
impression of "Russian wickedness" although nothing has actually been proved.
Incidentally, I wonder where the Skripals are and why. Apparently the Russian government
applied for consular access to Yulia (who is a Russian citizen) but this was bluntly refused
– against all norms of international law and civilized behaviour.
Skripal and daughter cheap, convenient, collateral damage for the warmongers. A person
trained to handle organic nerve material introduces it into Skripal's car, they go for a
morning drive and stop to have a pizza. After pizza, they begin to feel a little queasy. Go
sit on a park bench. A passing citizen sees them, calls for medical assistance. Doctor says
probably poisoned by toxic agent. Doctor knows it was not highly refined military grade.
How does the doctor know this: He is just down the street from the British Nerve Agent
Factory and has been trained to recognize and treat real exposures to potent nerve agents. A
policeman ends up in same hospital as Skripal because he sees car parked overtime or
illegally, opens door to check for ownership gets zapped by toxic agent. Car is lifted by
straps so as not poison others and hauled to Potent Downs or whatever the Nerve Agent Factory
is called. Now it can be doctored to fit the crime and I don't mean the Russians. How am I
doing? Got a better tale?
Good, understanding that you are a joke is the first step on the road to possible
recovery.
Try for once to imagine a reverse scenario: an Englishman dies under suspicious
circumstances in a provincial town in Russia. (Or 3-4 of them over 15-20 years.) He was
considered a 'traitor' by UK for whatever reason. Immediately Russia declares that it was an
' unacceptable attack on Russia's sovereignty, that Britain did it, and that it is 'highly
likely' that Teresa May ordered it herself' . Russian government also says that they will
not disclose any details, show no evidence and will not even allow basis diplomatic protocol
for UK embassy. Why? For reasons of ' state security '. Wouldn't any rational outsider
consider that a joke?
Now, I do understand that you – and most Brits – think that you are
special. That there is one set of rules for you, and another for the ' others '. You
have been conditioned by propaganda to assert this without any shame and to demonise Russia
based on decades of half-witted stories (most taken out of context and exaggerated). Why
would anyone take you seriously?
People who walk around saying that they are exceptional, meaning they are 'Gods', or
that they talk 'to God', are generally ignored or kept in an institution. Claiming that you
are 'exceptional and special' is the same as claiming that you are divine – that's what
it has meant historically.
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing
them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to
repudiate morality while laying claim to it ( ) To tell deliberate lies while genuinely
believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it
becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to
deny the existence of objective reality"
In an essay "The Decay of Lying" (1889), Oscar Wilde launched that famous sentence: "Life
imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life".
In November 2017 British TV presented the 6th session episode 5 of 'Strike Back", a
British/American action-adventure/spy-drama television series based on a novel of the same
name by novelist and former Special Air Service (SAS) soldier Chris Ryan. In it the Section
20 ("a secretive unit of British military intelligence, a team of special operations
personnel conducting several high risk missions across the globe") foiled a terrorist attack
with the gas Novichok made by Karim Markov, a Russian scientist who allegedly killed his
colleagues who invented the gas. The team duly trace the labs where Markov continues to
produce more Novichok, in Ukraine and Belarus. The cast is full with the assorted jihadis,
Russian Mafia bosses with their cruel henchmen, Hungarian white supremacists and nasty
Serbians.
You find summaries of the episodes
@https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Back:_Retribution
"It is strange that a British-American intelligence TV drama Strike Back had several
episodes featuring Novichok nerve agent and Evil Russkies last year. Someone orchestrating
political theater in the UK watches a lot of TV, or is advised by its producers."
Nobody will miss the fact that the countries which emitted the 'Joint statement' blaming
Russia's aggression are the countries which repeatedly aggressed and invaded Russia or allied
themselves with Russia's enemies. None of them were ever invaded by Russia but in pursuit of
the repelled invaders. None of them were ever threatened by a Russian invasion.
"... Russian Envoy to the UN #Nebenzya: Curious fact. Although Russia stopped all its CW programmes in 1992, the UK & the US received specialists/defectors & documentation on these projects incl. so-called Novichok in mid-1990s, continued researching CW as evidenced by open sources ..."
"... .@RussiaUN: in 1992 Russia closed all Soviet chemical weapons programmes. Some of the scientists were flown to the West (incl UK) where they continued research. To identify a substance, formula and samples are needed – means UK has capacity to produce suspected nerve agent. ..."
"... Craig Murray's excellent essay's been heavily attacked, and he's written a stimulating and educational response that further bolsters the initial essay. Quite interesting the so-called journalists supporting May's propaganda. ..."
"... Oh dear, in sacred Europe!! How about the West using nerve agents on a grand scale against its enemy Iran in the Middle East (since the Second World War)? Twenty thousand Iranians were killed on the spot by nerve gas, according to reports, with thousands of people hospitalized. According to Iraqi documents, assistance in the development of chemical weapons was obtained from firms in many countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France. A report stated that Dutch, Australian, Italian, French and both West and East German companies were involved in the export of raw materials to Iraqi chemical weapons factories. ..."
"... This is the same sort of "highly likely" language that has worked so well with the false-flag attacks in Syria. It's obviously "highly likely" that there is no actual evidence. ..."
In joint statement, world leaders agree Russia behind nerve agent attack on former spy
This is the joint statement of the whirled leaders:
We, the leaders of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, abhor the attack that took place against Sergei
and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK, on 4 March 2018. A British police officer who was also exposed in the attack remains seriously
ill, and the lives of many innocent British citizens have been threatened. We express our sympathies to them all, and our admiration
for the UK police and emergency services for their courageous response.
This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve
agent in Europe since the Second World War. It is an assault on UK sovereignty and any such use by a State party is a clear
violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all.
The United Kingdom briefed thoroughly its allies that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack. We
share the UK assessment that there is no plausible alternative explanation, and note that Russia´s failure to address the legitimate
request by the UK government further underlines its responsibility. We call on Russia to address all questions related to the
attack in Salisbury. Russia should in particular provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok programme to the Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Our concerns are also heightened against the background of a pattern of earlier irresponsible Russian behaviour. We call
on Russia to live up to its responsibilities as a member of the UN Security Council to uphold international peace and security.
. .
here
Russian Envoy to the UN #Nebenzya: Russia destroyed all of its chemical weapons arsenals by 2017, a fact attested by @OPCW.
No research, development or manufacturing of projects codenamed Novichok has ever been carried out in Russia, all CW programmes
were stopped back in 1991-92
-
Russian Envoy to the UN #Nebenzya: Curious fact. Although Russia stopped all its CW programmes in 1992, the UK & the US received
specialists/defectors & documentation on these projects incl. so-called Novichok in mid-1990s, continued researching CW as
evidenced by open sources
-
later:
-
.@RussiaUN: in 1992 Russia closed all Soviet chemical weapons programmes. Some of the scientists were flown to the West (incl
UK) where they continued research. To identify a substance, formula and samples are needed – means UK has capacity to produce
suspected nerve agent.
Craig Murray's excellent essay's been heavily attacked, and
he's written a stimulating and
educational response that further bolsters the initial essay. Quite interesting the so-called journalists supporting May's
propaganda.
. . . the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War
Oh dear, in sacred Europe!! How about the West using nerve agents on a grand scale against its enemy Iran in the Middle East (since
the Second World War)? Twenty thousand Iranians were killed on the spot by nerve gas, according to reports, with thousands of
people hospitalized. According to Iraqi documents, assistance in the development of chemical weapons was obtained from firms in
many countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France. A report stated that
Dutch, Australian, Italian, French and both West and East German companies were involved in the export of raw materials to Iraqi
chemical weapons factories.
. . . it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack
This is the same sort of "highly likely" language that has worked so well with the false-flag attacks in Syria. It's obviously
"highly likely" that there is no actual evidence.
With "principles" such as the end justifies the means and the wholesale violation of the
Ten Commandants all "for the greater glory of God" the western civilization got cozy with
the idea that there was no real, objective truth
Excuse me? What about western civilization before the ten commandments? Was it better or
worse in your eyes? What's so damn special about your ten commandments that their (forced)
acceptance by westerners should mark some sort of magical beginning of the true western
civilization? So we had no morality of any kind before this?
I can think of other civilizations that have nothing – and I mean nothing – to
be proud of. They make us look like amateurs in the rejection of real, objective truth.
"... Ask this, "who is pathologically obsessed with execution by gas?" Who is spearheading the "Russia is Evil" propaganda campaign? ..."
"... If Russian leadership wanted KGB/FSB/GRU/SVR to kill him, they'd done it while the man was in Russia in their custody. He would have never left the Russian prison alive, and nobody would be wiser. ..."
"... He is just not that important, that is why he was let out in a swap after spending only a few years in jail. The orchestrated hysterics and the oversize overreaction by the NATO gang is clear tell that they are the one who did it. ..."
"... Do you remember the Wikileaks about CIA having hacking tools whereby they could spoof cyber attacks form their computers yet have the signature they came from Russia (or some other country)? ..."
"... There is nothing uniquely Russian about the poison. There are no unique poisons or nerve agents. Everybody has the same things. All is being said is that the nerve agent is military grade. And England is refusing to give samples to Russia for analysis, so we don't know what it is. ..."
"... why wouldn't FSB off him by simply clubbing him to death and making it look like a mugging gone wrong: why use a military grade nerve agent of all things. Ridiculous that _anyone_ believes Russians did it. ..."
"... Boris Johnson confirmed widespread suspicions that the attack on Skripal was part of a recycled WMD hoax to justify another U.S. war of aggression, this time in Syria instead of Iraq. ..."
Because of the poison involved, they (Rus/Putin) almost certainly did it. Just
because something like this is stupid doesn't mean it should be written off. Stupid things
happen.
As I constantly iterate, never attribute to complex conspiracy what can be easily
explained by gross stupidity. Look at the Billion plus followers of the lunatic ramblings of
a desert cave dwelling freak, or the State of Utah and Planet Kolob. But your Occam's Razor
analysis also fails the smell test.
If I want to assassinate someone, using a gas, in public, is about the dumbest way to go
about it. Russia may well have wanted to send a message "for the encouragement of others" not
to betray mother Russia, but why a gas rather than oral or injected poison? Why not the old
favorite of defenestration? Or a simple GSW using Russian manufactured firearm/ammo?
Ask this, "who is pathologically obsessed with execution by gas?" Who is spearheading
the "Russia is Evil" propaganda campaign?
If Russian leadership wanted KGB/FSB/GRU/SVR to kill him, they'd done it while the man was
in Russia in their custody. He would have never left the Russian prison alive, and nobody
would be wiser.
He is just not that important, that is why he was let out in a swap after spending only a
few years in jail. The orchestrated hysterics and the oversize overreaction by the NATO gang
is clear tell that they are the one who did it.
{Do I think Russia is involved with the Skripal hit? Of course.}
Based on what?
{Because of the poison involved, they (Rus/Putin) almost certainly did it.}
Really?
Do you remember the Wikileaks about CIA having hacking tools whereby they could spoof cyber
attacks form their computers yet have the signature they came from Russia (or some other
country)?
There is nothing uniquely Russian about the poison. There are no unique poisons or nerve
agents. Everybody has the same things. All is being said is that the nerve agent is military
grade. And England is refusing to give samples to Russia for analysis, so we don't know what
it is.
{Just because something like this is stupid doesn't mean it should be written off.
Stupid things happen}
Well, yeah: stupid things happen, and smart individuals sometimes do stupid things –
but almost always for a reason, even if their actions are stupid. This should be written off,
for a very simple reason: what is the Russian motivation? This guy was released in 2010. He
was arrested in 2004: whatever damage he caused was very long ago. Why would Russian
leadership risk almost certain exposure? for what?
And as poster [Meyer] posits above in #23, why wouldn't FSB off him by simply clubbing him
to death and making it look like a mugging gone wrong: why use a military grade nerve agent
of all things. Ridiculous that _anyone_ believes Russians did it.
Speaking of "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies," in an article in the
Washington Post on Wednesday, Boris Johnson confirmed widespread suspicions that the
attack on Skripal was part of a recycled WMD hoax to justify another U.S. war of aggression,
this time in Syria instead of Iraq.
The fact that Prime Minister May has produced no evidence that Russia was behind the
attack on Skripal, and that Secretary of Defense Mattis admits he has no evidence the Syrian
government used sarin against its own people, doesn't deter Boris Johnson from blaming Russia
for chemical attacks in both England and Syria.
From Johnson's article:
How much easier does it become for a state [Russia] to deploy chemical weapons when its
government has already tolerated and sought to hide their use by others? I would draw a
connection between Putin's indulgence of Assad's atrocities in Syria and the Russian
state's evident willingness to employ a chemical weapon on British soil.
So a neocon-orchestrated Russiagate hoax merges with a neocon-orchestrated WMD hoax in
Syria. It's all coming together.
The neocon strategy of "regime change by jihadi" in Syria has failed, and they're now
forced to dust off the bogus WMD script that wreaked so much havoc on Iraq. Unfortunately for
the neocons, Vladimir Putin has decided that Russia has nothing to lose, and probably much to
gain, by taking a stand against imperialism now, in Syria, instead of later in Iran.
Now the world is both hostage and spectator to a game of nuclear chicken. If neither
player swerves in time, planet Earth dies.
If Trump orders a climb down, the neocons will impeach him for losing Syria. But more
appeasement by Putin would only embolden the neocons to further acts of aggression.
So Putin asks: "why do we need a world if Russia ceases to exist?" He is right to frame
the showdown in Syria as a fight for Russia's existence, and Trump knows it.
Trump will have to take his chances with Mueller and the neocon crazies. Maybe the neocons
will overplay their hand and bring about their own downfall, a happy outcome for all of
humanity.
"... the fact that freedom of speech is under threat shows that the rise of mere emotive speech is still a long way from dominant. Facts and logic can still be heard and make a difference. This is why the political media elite cannot tolerate reasoned evidenced argument and is so concerned to censor dissenting voices. ..."
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing
them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to
repudiate morality while laying claim to it ( )
To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has
become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from
oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality"
Whilst there is much to be said in favour of the argument, the fact that freedom of speech is
under threat shows that the rise of mere emotive speech is still a long way from dominant.
Facts and logic can still be heard and make a difference. This is why the political media
elite cannot tolerate reasoned evidenced argument and is so concerned to censor dissenting
voices.
Up until now, I was in favor of Putin trying to keep cool demeanor and be reasonable. Time
works in favor of Russia, so simply trying to wait the Western collapse out is not
unreasonable strategy. But with the West starting to resort to something as extreme as
poisoning its own lapdogs and blaming Russia for it without presenting a single shred of
evidence, it might be a good time to reconsider and join the escalation train in earnest.
If we are in the age of ultimatums, then Moscow may want to start issuing a few of its
own. One would be to warn the West about its intention to abandon START framework within a
year and ultimately rearm to Soviet levels – 20000 strategic warheads at a minimum.
Another would be to ask Syrian government to outsource its air-defense to Russia, then issue
blanket no-flight order to all aircraft not authorized by Damascus.
Third, start arming insurgencies around the world that struggle against NATO/US presence.
Fourth, eliminate USD and GBP from its trade completely. Fifth, consider formalizing military
alliance with Iran.
There are many more steps that Russia can undertake. But whatever it chooses to do, the
somnolent posture it maintained until yesterday is no more feasible.
Respectfully, I think what he means is something that I've learned to do in the last few
years in a rather automatic fashion. Namely, it's to realise that, in the immediate aftermath
of any event, it's best to just sit back and wait a bit before you come to any sort of
conclusion about blame. In the very short term, the water, the stream is very muddy and
clouded as anybody and everybody who has – or think that they have – an interest
in the event du jour tries to spin it to their own advantage.
The truth will reveal itself inasmuch as the Internet is the World's best fact checker.
The initial story will *always* be shown to have a good deal of exaggerations,
contradictions, anomalies and omissions. But those revelations take a (usually relatively
short) bit of time. So better to look at whatever the immediate story might be with a good
deal of patient skepticism and not immediately fly off the rails in a fit of hand-waving,
eye-rolling and pearl-clutching hysterics.
Do this consistently, and I think you'll discover that:
-The truth of the matter is usually gray, with plenty of blame to go around.
-And/or you're being fed a line of pandering BS by people who think that you're a naive
and trusting idiot.
In short, act like an adult and not a dimwitted child. Use your brain and not your
emotions.
Hope this helps.
Just a thought.
VicB3
P.S. A pithy thought from Mike Rivero:
If it doesn't affect you directly, then it's either advertising or propaganda.
Re: "Almost from day one, the early western civilization began by, shall we say, taking
liberties with the truth, which it could bend, adapt, massage and repackage to serve the
ideological agenda of the day. It was not quite the full-blown and unapologetic relativism of
the 19th century yet, but it was an important first step. With "principles" such as the end
justifies the means and the wholesale violation of the Ten Commandants all "for the greater
glory of God" the western civilization got cozy with the idea that there was no real,
objective truth, only the subjective perception or even representation each person might have
thereof."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
Saker is a good military analyst, but as a historian he is a laughable dilettante. He is a
very self-righteous, touchy Orthodox Christian ideologue and moralist.
The timing is once again highly suspicious with the fifa world cup around the corner. The
Empire does not want Russia on center stage with the whole world watching. Trust me, we can
expect much more to come regarding this world cup. Boycotting, sanctions and more underhanded
tactics happening are what the next month has in store for us.
I wonder just how much more Russia is able to take before it decides not to turn the other
cheek. Eventually Russia will start saying that "hold on a second, we are being judged and
punished continuously so why dont we start doing some things to at least warrant all this
punishment?"
Also, the poison, Novichok, was stored by the Soviets in states on its borders, like
Georgia and Ukraine, and Baltic states, so after those republics broke off from the USSR
during its collapse the poison fell into the hands of anti-Russian countries. It is
inconceivable that western intelligence at the collapse of the USSR would not have swooped in
and grabbed what it could in those stockpiles. In fact, in 1999 American agents spent six
million dollars in decommissioning a plant that produced Novichok in the Uzbek city of Nukus.
If you don't think that they took a little for a false flag in the future you don't know our
intelligence services.
This week poroshenko has been trying to convince the EU to designate Russia as the
Aggressor nation and to attempt to end Minsk obligations.
Chumpsky , March 14, 2018 at 10:04 pm
The Russian presidential election is coming up on Sunday. A great opportunity now for the
CIA / MI6 / Mossad backed candidate to make some noise over Putin's near-guaranteed, shoe-in
victory by planting an illegitimate narrative.
The gassing, using Novichok (an open-source formula), is just another in a long list of
false flag events carefully crafted to turn Russia, and Putin in particular, into an
international pariah and bogeyman in particular. Such an event is an attempt to throw cold
water on Trump's thawing of relations by discrediting him now that Steele has been exposed as
a fraud.
"... nd, on June 26, 2006, The Washington Post reported that "the CIA acknowledged that Curveball was a con artist who drove a taxi in Iraq and spun his engineering knowledge into a fantastic but plausible tale about secret bioweapons factories on wheels." ..."
Venal Visors. And the all too easy convenience of Socializing The Costs, while Privatizing
The Profits.
Oliver North, while under oath during the IranContra Hearings: "..We didn't lose the
Vietnam war over there, we lost that war, in this city."
(..take your pick..) .. Too BIG to jail?
On April 8, 2005, CIA Director Porter Goss ordered an internal review of the CIA in order
to determine why doubts about Curveball's reliability were not forwarded to policy makers.
Former CIA Director George Tenet and his former deputy, John E. McLaughlin, announced that
they were not aware of doubts about Curveball's veracity before the war. However, Tyler
Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA's European division, told the Los Angeles Times that
"everyone in the chain of command knew exactly what was happening." .. A nd, on June 26,
2006, The Washington Post reported that "the CIA acknowledged that Curveball was a con artist
who drove a taxi in Iraq and spun his engineering knowledge into a fantastic but plausible
tale about secret bioweapons factories on wheels."
(..take your pick..) .. Too BIG to jail?
While Mueller Was Head Of The FBI -- Hillary's email firm was run from a loft apartment in
Denver with its servers in the bathroom, which of course, should raise some questions over
security of sensitive messages (the public's property) that she held.
(..take your pick..) .. Too BIG to jail?
And, is there a softer side -- to actively engaging in war?? .. James Le Mesurier, the
creator of the White Helmets, who just happens to be a British private security specialist
and a former British military intelligence officer, he has said very recently, "who would you
trust more than the fire brigade or a first response NGO?" And, as reported by Vanessa Beeley
in a recent Corbett Report interview: "James Le Mesurier, he is now recruiting in Brazil. We
know that the White Helmets have appeared in Malaysia and in Venezuela, and in the
Philippines."
~ Rep. Luther Johnson (D.-Texas), in the debate that preceded the Radio Act of 1927
"American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate
these stations, for publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a republic.
And when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one person, or a single selfish group is
permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership or dominate these broadcasting
stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them. It will
be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people."
Trump's game looks more and more like a V2.0 of Obama's "bait and switch" game... Another "change we can believe in" scam to
artificially extend the shelf life of neoliberal as a social system.
Notable quotes:
"... My take on his support: DT support is far higher than one would expect (duh.. it just isn't visible in the MSM, remember I predicted he would win when he threw his hat in). ..."
"... DT has lost some who voted for him, typically 'anything but Hillary' types, "give him a chance", who are disapointed at his poor performance on some/any/all issues. Some others have checked out of any involvement in MS pols. and have joined Doomsters, Refusniks, and even (imho) to my surprise, quasi-anarchists (who lack a platform.) ..."
"... The rapidly degrading US socio-economic landscape is no doubt responsible, more so than the person of DT. (Arguably he is contributing to the decline, other story.) Poverty, sagging life expectancy, opioid crisis, homelessness, student debt, crumbling infrastructure, cuts in social aid or 'benefits' as the brits say, no future generation, etc. ..."
"... On the other hand, DT supporters have become more 'radical and committed' ..."
"... The USA has become completely a-political, an oligarchy run by a convoluted circuit of top-dogs and gals, fights going on at the top (mafia 1 vs. team 2) for grabbing the leftovers of power/revenue/capture/ etc., not new but now evident. ..."
"... The top 20% chooses sides, as they have to, merely in function of who is paying them, where their status comes from, what hopes for children. The rest can check out and face their fate, or choose a cult, a tribe The next question is, what are the attitudes to civil war? How is that going to play out? ..."
I keep vague track of Trump support by consulting various sites. DT enthusiasts are all very
keen on GAB, the censorship on twitter - reddit - youtube and other pop. drives them totally
crazy.
My take on his support: DT support is far higher than one would expect (duh.. it just isn't
visible in the MSM, remember I predicted he would win when he threw his hat in).
DT has lost
some who voted for him, typically 'anything but Hillary' types, "give him a chance", who are disapointed at his poor performance on some/any/all issues. Some others have checked out of any
involvement in MS pols. and have joined Doomsters, Refusniks, and even (imho) to my surprise,
quasi-anarchists (who lack a platform.)
Technotopists are going out of fashion (> global warming disasters.) -- The rapidly
degrading US socio-economic landscape is no doubt responsible, more so than the person of DT.
(Arguably he is contributing to the decline, other story.) Poverty, sagging life expectancy,
opioid crisis, homelessness, student debt, crumbling infrastructure, cuts in social aid or
'benefits' as the brits say, no future generation, etc.
On the other hand, DT supporters have become more 'radical and committed' as is always the
case in these kind of 'tribal' belonging scenes, they have dragged in family members / friends,
through the usual conduits of social influence in micro-circles. Which has been made
exceptionally easy by the terminal idiocy, blindness and contradictions of the MSM, Dems and
the PTB (incl. top Republicans, corporations, etc.) generally. Authoritarian impulses (which DT
embraces in part - the WALL is a good ex. - for the rest, hmm..) will flourish up to a
point.
The USA has become completely a-political, an oligarchy run by a convoluted circuit of
top-dogs and gals, fights going on at the top (mafia 1 vs. team 2) for grabbing the leftovers
of power/revenue/capture/ etc., not new but now evident.
The top 20% chooses sides, as they have to, merely in function of who is paying them,
where their status comes from, what hopes for children. The rest can check out and face their
fate, or choose a cult, a tribe The next question is, what are the attitudes to civil war? How
is that going to play out?
About non-posts, I was going to go into the murder of Kim Jong-Nam (brother of today's Kim)
which ties two threads together - NKorea and murder by nerve gas. (Hoarse mentioned this in the
other thread.)
Machiavelli recounts Livy's tale of the sons of Brutus, consul of Rome, to make his point
about eradicating foes of a new regime. Roman republicans had just deposed the Tarquin
monarchy, and Brutus' sons intrigued to bring the kings back. Why? "As the history shows,"
observes Machiavelli, the youths "were induced to conspire with other young Romans against the
fatherland because of nothing other than that they could not take advantage extraordinarily
under the consuls as under the king, so that the freedom of that people appeared to have become
their servitude."
In other words, the sons of Brutus subverted the republic because they couldn't turn its
institutions to their personal gain. Their enmity left the fledgling regime in an uncomfortable
predicament: "a state that is free and that newly emerges," contends Machiavelli, "comes to
have partisan enemies and not partisan friends." Those who profited by the old order become
implacable foes of the new order, while friends of the new order hedge their bets until and
unless the new rulers consolidate their hold on power.
In other words, the new republic faced resolute opposition while commanding only tepid
support. The consul had to vanquish Rome's enemies in dramatic fashion to win wholehearted
allegiance from the populace. "If one wishes to remedy these inconveniences and . . .
disorders," maintains Machiavelli, "there is no remedy more powerful, nor more valid, more
secure, and more necessary, than to kill the sons of Brutus." Brutus oversaw the scourging and
beheading of the conspirators -- and endeared himself to generations of republicans.
Don't worry about republicans ..democrats are ruining themselves all alone .every time the
deplorables see something like this they will double down on anything but a Dem.
Regardless of one's view on blacks or whites this is a major Stupid for a politician.
Chuck Schumer votes against South Carolina federal judge nominee because he's
white
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected President Donald Trump's nominee for a
long-vacant South Carolina federal judgeship not because of his qualifications but because of
his race.
The decision drew the quick ire of South Carolina's two U.S. senators and U.S. Rep. Trey
Gowdy, R-Spartanburg, a former federal prosecutor.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a Senate floor speech Wednesday he would not support
Greenville attorney Marvin Quattlebaum for a vacancy on the U.S. District Court in South
Carolina
Voting for Quattlebaum, he said, would result in having a white man replace two
African-American nominees from the state put forth by former President Barack Obama.
Schumer said he would not be a part of the Trump administration's pattern of nominating
white men.
"The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President
Trump's selections for the federal judiciary," Schumer said.
"It's long past time that the judiciary starts looking a lot more like the America it
represents," he continued. "Having a diversity of views and experience on the federal bench
is necessary for the equal administration of justice."
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate's sole black Republican, pushed back on
Schumer's rationale and urged other Senate Democrats to instead address diversity issues by
starting with their offices.
"Perhaps Senate Democrats should be more worried about the lack of diversity on their own
staffs than attacking an extremely well-qualified judicial nominee from the great state of
South Carolina," Scott tweeted Thursday morning.
"... "This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our allies, Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight," said Under Secretary Goldstein. "It is not merely a defensive posture that we should take, we also need to be on the offensive. ..."
"... Israel is long known for such information operations in which its paid trolls not only comment on issues on social media but actively manipulate Wikipedia entries. Such astroturfing has since become a common tool in commercial marketing campaigns. ..."
"... With regard to the larger issue, it seems that the US is getting more and more like its allies Ukraine (drives out any press concerned with printing the truth, relies on a bombastic and entirely false narrative to try and convince its hapless citizens that all is great and everything is Russia's fault) and Israel (an early leader in manipulating online info as b states). ..."
"... If it sounds like a PR monkey banging away on a regurgitated theme, it probably is. For example, the endless repetition in US media about "Syrian chemical weapons attacks" with no on-the-ground supporting evidence is typical of a Rendon Group disinformation campaign; so then they hire a hundred trolls to post outraged comments about 'Syrian chemical weapons use' in comment sections and on twitter; then they hire some State Department intern to write a book about the horrors of the Assad regime, and at the end they collect their $10 million paycheck. ..."
"... The hypocrisy of the U$A continues to be staggering.. If the collective IQ's of the general public approached double digits, the disinformation and propaganda afoot, couldn't gain much traction. As comedian Richard Pryor once said, " Who you gonna' believe, the propagandists, or your lying eyes." ..."
"... money for propaganda... that was back in 1984 - we have progressed from Orwell's version of reality to a new one where reality is what you make of it... meanwhile there will be more dead people that the sponsors of these troll farms, could care less about... although they will frame it - 180% of that... ..."
The U.S. State Department will increase its online trolling capabilities and up its support
for meddling in other countries. The Hill
reports :
The State Department is launching a $40 million initiative to crack down on foreign
propaganda and disinformation amid widespread concerns about future Russian efforts to
interfere in elections.
The department announced Monday that it signed a deal with the Pentagon to transfer $40
million from the Defense Department's coffers to bolster the Global Engagement Center, an
office set up at State during the Obama years to expose and counter foreign propaganda and
disinformation.
The professed reason for the new funding is the alleged but unproven "Russian meddling" in
the U.S. election campaign. U.S. Special Counsel Mueller indicted 13 Russians for what is
claimed to be interference but which
is likely mere commercial activity.
The announcement by the State Department
explains that this new money will not only be used for measures against foreign trolling but to
actively meddle in countries abroad:
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steve Goldstein said the
transfer of funds announced today reiterates the United States' commitment to the fight.
"This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to
malign influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our
allies, Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight," said Under Secretary Goldstein.
"It is not merely a defensive posture that we should take, we also need to be on the
offensive. "
The mentioning of Silicon Valley is of interest. The big Silicon Valley companies Google,
Facebook and Twitter were heavily involved in the U.S. election campaign. The companies
embedded
people within the campaigns to advise them how to reach a maximum trolling effect:
While the companies call it standard practice to work hand-in-hand with high-spending
advertisers like political campaigns, the new research details how the staffers assigned to
the 2016 candidates frequently acted more like political operatives, doing things like
suggesting methods to target difficult-to-reach voters online, helping to tee up responses to
likely lines of attack during debates, and scanning candidate calendars to recommend ad
pushes around upcoming speeches.
Hillary Clinton's well-heeled backers have opened a new frontier in digital campaigning, one
that seems to have been inspired by some of the Internet's worst instincts. Correct the
Record, a super PAC coordinating with Clinton's campaign, is spending some $1 million to find
and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about the Democratic
front-runner.
In effect, the effort aims to spend a large sum of money to increase the amount of
trolling that already exists online.
Clinton is quite experienced in such issues. In 2009, during protests in Iran, then
Secretary of State Clinton pushed Twitter to defer
maintenance of its system to "help" the protesters. In 2010 USAid, under the State Department
set up a
Twitter-like service to meddle in Cuba.
The foreign policy advisor of Hillery Clinton's campaign, Laura Rosenberger,
initiated and runs the Hamilton68 project which
falsely explains any mentioning of issues disliked by its neo-conservative backers as the
result of nefarious "Russian meddling".
The State Department can build on that and other experience.
Since at least 2011
the U.S. military is manipulating social media via sock puppets and trolls:
A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command
(Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop
what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman
or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.
...
The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing
background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be
able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by
sophisticated adversaries".
It was then wisely predicted that other countries would follow up:
The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to
users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments,
private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.
Israel is long known for such information
operations in which its paid trolls not only comment on issues on social media but
actively
manipulate Wikipedia entries. Such astroturfing has since become a common tool in
commercial marketing campaigns.
With the new money the State Department will expand its Global Engagement Center
(GEC) which is running "public diplomacy", aka propaganda, abroad:
The Fund will be a key part of the GEC's partnerships with local civil society organizations,
NGOs, media providers, and content creators to counter propaganda and disinformation. The
Fund will also drive the use of innovative messaging and data science techniques.
Separately, the GEC will initiate a series of pilot projects developed with the Department
of Defense that are designed to counter propaganda and disinformation. Those projects will be
supported by Department of Defense funding.
This money will be in addition to the large funds the CIA
traditionally spends on manipulating foreign media:
"We've been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947," said Mr. Johnson,
now at the University of Georgia. "We've used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners -- you
name it. We've planted false information in foreign newspapers. We've used what the British
call 'King George's cavalry': suitcases of cash."
...
C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into
foreign news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day.
Part of the new State Department money will be used to provide grants. If online trolling or
sock puppetry is your thing, you may want to apply now.
Posted by b on February 26, 2018 at 02:02 PM |
Permalink
"to find and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about the Democratic
front-runner"
I call these social media watchers rather than trolls. Rather than simply trying to
disrupt any and all social media threads they don't like, social media watchers look for
comments or comment threads that are disparaging or damaging to their employer.
#2 @Peter AU 1 - I would say the language "to find and CONFRONT" sounds pretty much like
troll behavior.
With regard to the larger issue, it seems that the US is getting more and more like its
allies Ukraine (drives out any press concerned with printing the truth, relies on a bombastic
and entirely false narrative to try and convince its hapless citizens that all is great and
everything is Russia's fault) and Israel (an early leader in manipulating online info as b
states).
That $40 million will probably be pissed away on a couple sweetheart contracts to Tillerson
friends and nobody will see a difference. US State Department propaganda programs, labeled as
"public diplomacy" and other monikers, have been around for a long time but haven't been
executed very well.
From the State Dept. historian office, 2013: . .(excerpt):
Public Diplomacy Is Still in Its Adolescent Stage in the State Department , etc.
. . . The process of convergence has been evolutionary. Secretary Powell grasped the power
of the information revolution, reallocated positions and resources from traditional
diplomatic posting to new areas and recognized the power of satellite television to move
publics and constrain governments even in authoritarian regimes. Secretary Rice forwarded
this reconceptualization under the rubric of "Transformational Diplomacy," which sought to
help people transform their own lives and the relationship between state and society.
Secretary Clinton continued the theme under the concept of "Smart Power." "Person-to-person
diplomacy in today's work is as important as what we do in official meetings in national
capitals across the globe," Clinton said in 2010.The work done by PD officials in Arab
Spring countries beginning in 2011 was as much about capacity-building as advocating U.S.
policies or directly trying to explain American culture. . . here
Prior efforts were targeted more at traditional news outlets, this is just an expansion into
social media along the lines of previous work, example A being the Rendon Group in Iraq,
etc. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rendon_Group
If it sounds like a PR monkey banging away on a regurgitated theme, it probably is. For
example, the endless repetition in US media about "Syrian chemical weapons attacks" with no
on-the-ground supporting evidence is typical of a Rendon Group disinformation campaign; so
then they hire a hundred trolls to post outraged comments about 'Syrian chemical weapons use'
in comment sections and on twitter; then they hire some State Department intern to write a
book about the horrors of the Assad regime, and at the end they collect their $10 million
paycheck.
Media watchers target specific comments or comment threads, in the case stated by b, those
disparaging or damaging to Clinton.
What I term trolls target blogs or social media accounts that are considered targets, no
matter the content of a particular article or comment thread. Social media media watchers are
a little more specialized than trolls and look for specific content.
P.S. it's funny that you can find out what these clowns are up to by looking for job listings
and salary reports:
The Rendon Group Social Media Specialist Salary | Glassdoor
Average [monthly] salaries for The Rendon Group Social Media Specialist: $2,520. The Rendon
Group salary trends based on salaries posted anonymously by The Rendon Group employees.
Talk about a soul-destroying job. Right up there with Wikipedia page editor.
I see what you are alluding to, but the only problem with it is that, irrespective of the
differing definitions, at heart, these infiltrators are a disrupting force on the message
boards, whether paid to be or not. Their medium is disruption and obfuscation. I tried to
wade into the neoliberal viper's den at slate.com un the past to post "alt-right" stuff and
was quickly attacked by multiple avatars.
In essence, one troll disrupts because he has a need for recognition, and the latter
disrupts for money. Both are netgain for the troll and loss for the rest of us.
The hypocrisy of the U$A continues to be staggering.. If the collective IQ's of the general public approached double digits, the disinformation
and propaganda afoot, couldn't gain much traction. As comedian Richard Pryor once said, " Who you gonna' believe, the propagandists, or your
lying eyes."
thanks b... troll farms looks like a good name for it... farming for the empire.. they could
call it that too.. russia as trend setter, lol.. i don't think so!
speaking of troll farms, i see max Blumenthal came out with some 'about time' comments on
the sad kettle of fish called 'democracy now'... here is his tweet - "If @democracynow is
going to push the neocon project of regime change in Syria so relentlessly and without
debate, it should drop the high minded literary NPR aesthetic and just host Nikki Haley for a
friendly one-on-one #EstablishmentNow https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/967123918237655041
7:07 AM - Feb 25, 2018 "
money for propaganda... that was back in 1984 - we have progressed from Orwell's version of
reality to a new one where reality is what you make of it... meanwhile there will be more
dead people that the sponsors of these troll farms, could care less about... although they
will frame it - 180% of that...
The silver lining here is that the state dept. is in a sense admitting that there is nothing
"in the pipe" relating to outright censorship whether through nefarious agreements between
ISP providers and the IC via the repeal of net neutrality.
$40 mil is a lot for liberal college graduates however.
Nonsense Factory @ 8, Peter AU 1 @ 9: There are plenty of communities in rural Australia
who'd be glad to have troll farms paying that sort of money (even as Australian dollars - 1
Australian dollar being worth about US$0.76 at this time of posting) a month. Real farmers
could do trolling on the side during slow seasons of the year and make some money.
What we need are some Mole Trolls, or maybe that's Troll Moles--double agents if you will
that work for 6-12 months recording 100% of all they do then reveal it all in an expose.
Getting ready for mid-terms. It's going to be interesting to see if the Democrats get wiped
off the map. They should be able to hire quite a few people for $40 million. Don't be
surprised if they deploy AI in the first wave, then follow up with a real person.
ben @13:
Turn off your I phones, and think a little.
ROFL After wandering aimlessly in the mall with Her Majesty over the weekend, I'm not sure
if that's even possible now.
"The big Silicon Valley companies Google, Facebook and Twitter were heavily involved in the
U.S. election campaign. The companies embedded people within the campaigns to advise them how
to reach a maximum trolling effect:"
It went much further than that . Google actually tweaked its algorithms to alter search
recommendations in favor of the Clinton campaign. A comparative analysis of search engines
Google, Bing and Yahoo showed that Google differed significantly from the other two in
producing search recommendations relevant to Clinton.
The entire U.S. MSM is a F'ing troll farm, disinformation, Orwellian world on steroids. The
U.S. public is fed a constant never ending stream of complete Bull sh**, self serving crap.
How to stop it is the only question, to stop the impunity with which these criminals like
Bush and Trump and Obama and Mattis et.al. lie with their pants on fire and .....they all
suck .01% dick.
It's surprising to see the NYT admit the US does it, too. The alt media has been all over
this including Corbett's recent video with the Woolsey interview with Fox News where he
laughs it off and then says it was for a good cause.
Two days before 9/11, Condoleeza Rice received the draft of a formal National Security
Presidential Directive that Bush was expected to sign immediately. The directive contained
a comprehensive plan to launch a
global war on al-Qaeda , including an "imminent" invasion of Afghanistan to topple the
Taliban. The directive was approved by the highest levels of the White House and officials
of the National Security Council, including of course Rice and Rumsfeld. The same NSC
officials were simultaneously running the Dhabol Working Group to secure the Indian power
plant deal for Enron's Trans-Afghan pipeline project. The next day, one day before 9/11,
the Bush administration formally agreed on the
plan to attack the Taliban.
The Highlands Forum has thus played a leading role in defining the Pentagon's entire
conceptualization of the 'war on terror.' Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a retired IMB vice
president who co-chaired the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee from 1997
to 2001, described his experience of
one 2007 Forum meeting in telling terms:
"Then there is the War on Terror, which DoD has started to refer to as the Long War, a term
that I first heard at the Forum. It seems very appropriate to describe the overall conflict
in which we now find ourselves. This is a truly global conflict the conflicts we are now in
have much more of the feel of a battle of civilizations or cultures trying to destroy our
very way of life and impose their own."
Yeah well since the writer of the 'quiz' exposes themself as bein a troll of the worst
sort there is nothing to be said. I'm currently attempting to ingest only those newstories
where the publisher provides space for feedback from readers since if a story is truthful it
should be able to withstand challenge. yeah riight cos that means there's bugger all out
there anymore. The biggest 'win' populism has had this far is in driving all feedback off all
sites with a readership of more than a few hundred. Many of those that do allow feedback only
permit humans with credentialed facebook or google accounts to indulge and the comments are
only visible to similarly logged in types. That tells us a lot about the lack of faith the
corporate media actually have in the nonsense they publish.
Of course 'trolls' are the ones held to be the guilty for causing this but if you actually
watch what happens in a feedback column such as the rare occasions when the graun still
permits CIF comments it isn't the deliberately offensive arseholes spouting the usual cliches
who get deleted, it is those who put forward a considered argument which details why the
original writer has reached a faulty conclusion.
We all know this yet it seems as though none of us are prepared to confront it properly as
the censorship it is.
IMO media outlets which continually lie or at least distort the truth to advance a particular
agenda need to be called to account.
Massed pickets outside newsrooms would be a good way cos as much as media hate us loudmouths
who won't swallow their bromides, they like their competition even less. A decently organised
picket of NYT, WaPo or the Graun would be news in every other spineless, propagandising &
slug-featured media entity.
Said troll was published in Richmond and God only knows who else picked it up. I refuted
it in the comments as best I could, also excerpting MOA. Regardless:
Among Rendon's activities was the creation of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC)
on behalf of the CIA, a group of Iraqi exiles tasked with disseminating propaganda,
including much of the false intelligence about WMD . That process
had begun concertedly under the administration of George H W. Bush, then rumbled along
under Clinton with little fanfare, before escalating after 9/11 under George W. Bush.
Rendon thus played a large role in the manufacture of inaccurate and false news stories
relating to Iraq under lucrative CIA and Pentagon contracts -- and he did so
in the period running up to the 2003 invasion as an advisor to Bush's National
Security Council: the same NSC, of course, that planned the invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq, achieved with input from Enron executives who were simultaneously engaging the
Pentagon Highlands Forum.
Mass surveillance and data-mining also now has a distinctive operational purpose in
assisting with the lethal execution of special operations, selecting targets for the CIA's
drone strike kill lists via dubious algorithms, for instance, along with providing
geospatial and other information for combatant commanders on land, air and sea, among many
other functions. A single social media post on Twitter or Facebook is enough to trigger
being placed on secret terrorism watch-lists solely due to a vaguely defined hunch or
suspicion; and can potentially even land a suspect on a kill list.
In 2011, the Forum hosted two DARPA-funded scientists, Antonio and Hanna Damasio, who are
principal investigators in the 'Neurobiology of Narrative Framing' project at the
University of Southern California. Evoking Zalman's emphasis on the need for Pentagon
psychological operations to deploy "empathetic influence," the new DARPA-backed project
aims to investigate how narratives often appeal "to strong, sacred values in order to evoke
an emotional response," but in different ways across different cultures
This goes a long way toward explaining what is occurring in Hollywood and Nashville.
One year later we can say with confidence, yes he morphed into a neocon in foreign policy.
What is especially bad is that Trump executed "bait and switch" maneuver as smoothly as Obama. Devastating.
Notable quotes:
"... So now it gets me thinking like this: Who are Mr. Bandow's clients today? ..."
"... Some say that the reason for Trump's total reversal of his campaign-position on Russia is the American Deep State (the U.S. aristocracy and its agents). I agree with that view. ..."
"... I believe the American people are beginning to realize the CIA has the obsession for multiple, unending wars all for the benefit of Wall Street. ..."
"... It appears "military-industrial complex" or "deep state" refuses to take step back and insists on sucking more money from taxpayers. On first glance all is great for them, bombing of Middle East will continue, and so will military expansion at cost of civilian programs. However, ramifications to rest of the world should not be dismissed. EU countries are divided on following Washington hard line against Russia or diverge with USA. Currently, EU is cracking and might fall apart. Some in USA would cheer it but in long run it will mean loss of strongest US supporter against China. Regarding Middle East, Trump punished victims of AlQaeda and did nothing against financiers of AlQaeda, which will only increase local tensions. So indeed, not a great start... ..."
"... While I basically agree that Trump is not following through on his campaign, we must keep in mind that the campaign of his opponent was for MUCH more of the same, new wars, vastly increased fighting in current wars. So more of the same is in fact a big step down from the alternative. ..."
"... Stop those wars. They don't serve us. ..."
"... Trump's a liar, and his whole campaign was a calculated fraud from the beginning. We're the victims of a "bait-and-switch" scam. ..."
"... Because he lied. Just like he lied about draining the swamp and just restocked it with new varmints from Goldman Sachs and even an ex-Soros employee. Nothing new for me. Been watching elections for about 60 years and this is same ole. America can't take much more of this before it collapses and splits apart. The world isn't going to take much more from dc either. God help us. We are in a pickle! ..."
Candidate Donald Trump offered a sharp break from his predecessors. He was particularly critical of neoconservatives, who
seemed to back war at every turn.
Indeed, he promised not to include in his administration "those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except
responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war." And he's generally kept that commitment, for
instance rejecting as deputy secretary of state Elliot Abrams, who said Trump was unfit to be president.
Substantively candidate Trump appeared to offer not so much a philosophy as an inclination. Practical if not exactly realist, he
cared more for consequences than his three immediate predecessors, who had treated wars as moral crusades in Somalia, the
Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. In contrast, Trump promised: "unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and
aggression will not be my first instinct."
Yet so far the Trump administration is shaping up as a disappointment for those who hoped for a break from the liberal
interventionist/neoconservative synthesis.
The first problem is staffing. In Washington people are policy. The president can speak and tweet, but he needs others to turn
ideas into reality and implement his directives. It doesn't appear that he has any foreign policy realists around him, or anyone
with a restrained view of America's international responsibilities.
Rex Tillerson, James Mattis and H. R. McMaster are all serious and talented, and none are neocons. But all seem inclined toward
traditional foreign policy approaches and committed to moderating their boss's unconventional thoughts. Most of the names
mentioned for deputy secretary of state have been reliably hawkish, or some combination of hawk and centrist-Abrams, John Bolton,
the rewired Jon Huntsman.
Trump appears to be most concerned with issues that have direct domestic impacts, and especially with economic nostrums about
which he is most obviously wrong. He's long been a protectionist (his anti-immigration opinions are of more recent vintage). Yet
his views have not changed even as circumstances have. The Chinese once artificially limited the value of the renminbi, but
recently have taken the opposite approach. The United States is not alone in losing manufacturing jobs, which are disappearing
around the world and won't be coming back. Multilateral trade agreements are rarely perfect, but they are not zero sum games.
They usually offer political as well as economic benefits. Trump does not seem prepared to acknowledge this, at least
rhetorically. Indeed he has brought on board virulent opponents of free trade such as Peter Navarro.
The administration's repudiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was particularly damaging. Trump's decision embarrassed
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who had offered important economic concessions to join. More important, Trump has abandoned
the economic field to the People's Republic of China, which is pushing two different accords. Australia, among other U.S. allies,
has indicated that it now will deal with Beijing, which gets to set the Pacific trade agenda. In this instance, what's good for
China is bad for the United States.
In contrast, on more abstract foreign policy issues President Trump seems ready to treat minor concessions as major victories and
move on. For years he criticized America's Asian and European allies for taking advantage of U.S. defense generosity. In his
March foreign policy speech, he complained that "our allies are not paying their fair share." During the campaign he suggested
refusing to honor NATO's Article 5 commitment and leave countries failing to make sufficient financial contributions to their
fate.
Yet Secretaries Mattis and Tillerson have insisted that Washington remains committed to the very same alliances incorporating
dependence on America. Worse, in his speech to Congress the president took credit for the small uptick in military outlays by
European NATO members which actually began in 2015: "based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning" to "meet
their financial obligations." Although he declared with predictable exaggeration that "the money is pouring in," no one believes
that Germany, which will go from 1.19 to 1.22 percent of GDP this year, will nearly double its outlays to hit even the NATO
standard of two percent.
Trump's signature policy initiative, rapprochement with Russia, appears dead in the water. Unfortunately, the president's strange
personal enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin undercut his desire to accommodate a great power which has no fundamental, irresolvable
conflicts with the America. Contrary to neocon history, Russia and America have often cooperated in the past. Moreover, President
Trump's attempt to improve relations faces strong ideological opposition from neoconservatives determined to have a new enemy and
partisan resistance from liberal Democrats committed to undermining the new administration.
President Trump also appears to have no appointees who share his commitment on this issue. At least Trump's first National
Security Adviser, Mike Flynn, wanted better relations with Russia, amid other, more dubious beliefs, but now the president seems
alone. In fact, Secretary Tillerson sounded like he was representing the Obama administration when he demanded Moscow's
withdrawal from Crimea, a policy nonstarter. Ambassador-designate Huntsman's views are unclear, but he will be constrained by the
State Department bureaucracy, which is at best unimaginative and at worst actively obstructionist.
"Unfortunately, the president's strange personal enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin undercut his desire to accommodate a great power
which has no fundamental, irresolvable conflicts with the America."
I did my due diligence on the writer after this absolutely baffling argument that has no basis on certain fundamental laws
of geopolitics. Referring to this:
https://www.bloomberg.com/n...
So now it gets me thinking like this: Who are Mr. Bandow's clients today? Figures...
Some say that the reason for Trump's total reversal of his campaign-position on Russia is the American Deep State (the U.S.
aristocracy and its agents). I agree with that view.
And other say you're a sap for believing a bunch of half-baked one-liners that Trump often contradicted in the same sentence...
He never had a coherent policy on anything, no less foreign policy... so don't complain now that he's showing his true colors
The USA should FORCE other nations to use DIPLOMACY as a means to preventing wars. If they don't, they lose all support, financial
and otherwise, from the USA. This would include Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The only thing Trump should take a look at in all this
is the INHUMANE policies that previous administrations have used to placate the military/industrial clique's appetite for money
and blood! If it's going to be "America First" for Trump's administration, it better start diverting this blood money to shore
up America's people and infrastructures!
Most of these issues come down to the fact that President Trump doesn't have anything resembling a "grand strategy", or even
a coherent foreign policy. His views are often at odds with each other (his desire to counter China economically and his opposition
to the TPP, for example), and I suspect that most were motivated by a desire to get votes more than any kind of deep understanding
of global affairs.
Most of his supporters, at least from what I can tell, are actually quite resolutely against entering a new war, and are strongly
condemnatory of the neo-conservatism that involved the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In fact, according to the polls taken at the time, more Democrats favored military intervention in Syria than Republicans did.
It appears "military-industrial complex" or "deep state" refuses to take step back and insists on sucking more money from taxpayers.
On first glance all is great for them, bombing of Middle East will continue, and so will military expansion at cost of civilian
programs. However, ramifications to rest of the world should not be dismissed. EU countries are divided on following Washington
hard line against Russia or diverge with USA. Currently, EU is cracking and might fall apart. Some in USA would cheer it but in
long run it will mean loss of strongest US supporter against China. Regarding Middle East, Trump punished victims of AlQaeda and
did nothing against financiers of AlQaeda, which will only increase local tensions. So indeed, not a great start...
While I basically agree that Trump is not following through on his campaign, we must keep in mind that the campaign of his
opponent was for MUCH more of the same, new wars, vastly increased fighting in current wars. So more of the same is in fact a
big step down from the alternative.
That does not excuse doing more of the same, but just asserts that we did get some of what we voted for/against.
We should get the rest of it. Stop those wars. They don't serve us.
There are similarities between Trump and Putin . The GOP and its rich corporate members have decided to use Trump as the oligarchs
in Russia used Yeltsin. The oligarchs used a drunken Yeltsin to pry the natural resources out of the public commons for the grabbing
by the oligarchs. Likewise, our rich are going to use an unwitting Trump to lower their taxes to nothing while delivering austerity
to the 99%.
To the oligarchs' surprise and dismay, Yeltsin's incompetence led to Putin and his scourge of the oligarchs. So will Trump's incompetence
lead to the end of our system of crony capitalism and the rebirth of socialism such as the New Deal, and higher taxes.
The crooked bastards can never be satisfied even with 3/4 ths of the whole pie, so no-one should pity them for being hoisted on
their own petard.
I'm sorry --- Trump had a foreign policy? As near as I can tell, he just said whatever the crowd in front of him wanted to
hear. Or do you have evidence to the contrary? Remember that this is a man who can be shown, in his own words, to have been on
all sides of almost every issue, depending on the day of the week, and the phase of the moon.
He, they, the US, that is, must obey Israel. Israel wants Assad gone in the end for their territorial expansion. It also helps
the oil companies and isolates Russia further into a geostrategic corner.
This headline is way over the top. The first and foremost foreign policy statement which brought numerous voters to Trump was
the US-Mexico wall and at least some of that wall will be constructed. Hence it is the only promise which has not (yet) changed
except for who will pay for it.
Why must we give Trump the benefit of the doubt and assume that his campaign presentations were made in good faith? That is
a very generous assumption.
There's a simple and more logical explanation for what's going on with "foreign policy" in the "Trump" administration:
Trump's
a liar, and his whole campaign was a calculated fraud from the beginning. We're the victims of a "bait-and-switch" scam.
Because he lied. Just like he lied about draining the swamp and just restocked it with new varmints from Goldman Sachs and
even an ex-Soros employee. Nothing new for me. Been watching elections for about 60 years and this is same ole. America can't
take much more of this before it collapses and splits apart. The world isn't going to take much more from dc either. God help
us. We are in a pickle!
The fundamental problem of exonerating Trump and blaming this non-reversal on the non-existing "deep state" is believing that
anything a candidate said on the campaign trail can be executed when that candidate becomes president. Such reversal has happened
so frequently in our history that it is truly amazing that " he does not do what he promised" still has adherents.
There is no reversal. I see reality clashing with words. I do not blame Trump for reversals. I see some shift from unrealistic
to more realistic. It is called learning on the job.
Every political position on the planet is stuck in the 80s. There is no one with a will to change what is happening, mostly
because no one wants to get tarred and feathered once the:
a) economy implodes upon itself in the most glorious Depression to
ever happen, and;
b) world war 3 erupts but engaging such a variety of opponents, from Islam to China and Russia and even minor
trivial players such as North Korea, and;
c) civil disobedience in the western world rivals that of even third world revolutions
as people revolt against a failure to protect them from Islamic violence, to preserve their standard of living and their perceived
futures. Lots of change coming, but nothing that any politician is promising.
Politicians are dinosaurs. We are entering a world
where large numbers of people will make things happen. It's called Democracy.
Trump will remain close to Putin ideologically and he might continue to admire the man as a strong leader BUT there is one
thing that neither Putin nor Trump can change and it is that Russia and America are natural rivals. Geopolitics. Land vs Sea.
Eurasia vs Atlantic. Heartland vs Outer Rim.
Trump is hawk, don't be mislead. You cannot have a great country if you're not willing
to kill and die for it. Russia knows that. Which is why Putin made Russia great again after the horror of the Yeltsin years. Now
America knows that too.
"... We are all victims of the pernicious 24/7 scientifically-designed propaganda apparatus. It has little to do with the victim's intelligence since almost all human opinions are formed by emotional reactions that occur even before the conscious mind registers the input. ..."
We are all victims of the pernicious 24/7 scientifically-designed propaganda
apparatus. It has little to do with the victim's intelligence since almost all human opinions
are formed by emotional reactions that occur even before the conscious mind registers the
input.
Through critical thinking, we can overcome these emotional impulses, but only with effort,
and a pre-existing skepticism of all information sources. And even still, I have no doubt
that all of us who are aware of the propaganda still accept some falsehoods as true.
It could be that having former Intelligence Agency Directors as "news" presenters, and
Goldman Sachs alum and Military/Industrial complex CEOs running important government agencies
makes clear to some the reality that we live in an oligarchy with near-tyrannical powers. But
most people seem too busy surviving and/or being diverted by the circus to notice the depths
of the propaganda.
KAYFABE: kayfabe /ˈkeɪfeɪb/ is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true," specifically the portrayal
of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not of a staged or pre-determined nature
of any kind.
Kayfabe has also evolved to become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect
presence of the general public.
"... Trump inherited great wealth. He learned one big lesson in life early on. Hire competent people and they will save your ass
when you make a blunder. Trump's one skill is as a promoter of Trump. ..."
The White House's handling of the Comey firing looks a lot like a clip from The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight . The
Press Secretary hiding in the bushes, Trump sending virtually his entire staff under the bus with his various and rapidly shifting
versions of his reasons for the firing, and his unhinged Twitter rants at the press for covering the fiasco as a fiasco.
Once again, pundits are talking about impulse control, the ADD Presidency, rank amateurism in the Oval Office, threats to Democracy
-- all the stuff that they talked about in the campaign. The stuff that was supposed to doom his bid for the presidency to failure.
"It's worth considering what we are not talking about as we watch this political pornography play out."
All of this is grim stuff. We haven't seen a threat to democracy as serious as this since Watergate, so I'm not suggesting that
we shouldn't be addressing it.
But it's worth considering what we are not talking about as we watch this political pornography play out and also, how
does the focus on Russia undercut the Democratic Party? In other words, what if this is exactly what Trump intended when he fired
Comey? It's worth remembering Trump's mentor was Roy Cohn, who was a master at controlling the narrative and one of his favorite
techniques was to change the subject with an in-your-face outrage of one kind or another.
Let's examine what we're not talking about, and then what the effect of the whole Russian narrative is having on the Democratic
Party.
What We Aren't Talking About
Shortly before Trump tossed in the Comey Molotov Cocktail into the national living room, here's what was dominating the news:
The Republicans in the House had just passed a disastrous Health Care Bill that was essentially a giant tax cut for the rich
and a "screw you" to anyone who actually needs health insurance;
Trump had just put out a "budget" that exploded the deficit and gave huge tax cuts to corporations and the ultra-wealthy;
The Congressional Progressive Caucus had just released a budget that preserved social programs, cut the deficit, and increased
revenues using provisions that are popular with both Republicans and Democrats.
But none of that is being discussed much any longer. And if you ran as a populist, but all your policies are benefitting the top
1%, that's exactly what you'd hope for. Yes, the few Congressional members who are brave enough to hold town meetings are still getting
mugged by outraged constituents, but these meetings are not getting the kind of coverage they would have pre-Comey. And that means
the Health Care Bill isn't getting the kind of serious examination it would have if the media weren't doing all Comey, all the time.
Again, exactly what you'd want if you knew the guts of the legislation were so bad, that if it got out there, even the Trump bobble
heads would be pissed off. So folks aren't talking about the fact that it was rushed to the floor before getting scored by the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO), before we knew what its effects were and what its ultimate cost could be, before people caught on to the fact
that the state waiver provision stuck in the revised version of the bill turned it from merely a cruel piece of legislation to the
cruelest piece in modern history.
Or take the budget "proposal," which was getting panned by the media and even the few Republicans left in the Senate who actually
are fiscal conservatives. Hell, even Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took issue with some of the cuts. This reprise of "trickle down" and
"supply side" chicanery was being almost universally ridiculed by the press and economists, and it was heavily influenced -- if not
outsourced
to -- the Heritage Foundation, an outfit funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers. Here again, the last thing Trump wants after
running as a populist and a fiscal conservative is to get widespread coverage of just how much this plutocrat's budget resembles
the stuff he railed against in his campaign.
And speaking of budgets, the media once again ignored the sanest budget proposal in Washington, The Congressional Progressive
Caucus's Better Off Budget , which cuts the deficit
by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years -- Trump's budget would have increased it by at least
$1.4 trillion over that time period,
by the way -- while creating 8.8 million new jobs. The Better Off Budget uses policies that are wildly popular with the majority
of Americans to accomplish this.
Now, it must be said that the press always ignores the CPC's budget proposals, but maybe Trump was taking no chances -- after
all, if anyone held them up side-by-side, Trump and the Republicans would have been unmasked as the charlatans they are.
But there's no danger of that when it's all Comey, all the time.
Much is made of the fact that Trump's popularity among those who voted for him hasn't budged, despite the fact that he's screwing
them left and right with his policies. Well, these kinds of maneuvers may explain why. Look back. When the Russian stuff was first
heating up big time, we suddenly just had to bomb Syria. Wagging the dog is a time-honored way to change the subject. So is firing
a controversial senior public servant.
Comey, the Russians, and the Establishment Arm of the Democratic Party
If Trump isn't an idiot, then here's where his tactics are brilliant. The neoliberal elitists who control the Democratic Party
have been trying to keep the focus on the Russian intervention in our election as the reason Hillary Clinton lost. The progressives
in the Party have been attacking the Party's estrangement from the people and its rejection of the New Deal policies as the reason.
In short, there's a battle on for the heart and soul of the Party.
Firing Comey, brings the whole Russian thing to the fore, and works to sidetrack the real debate the Democratic Party needs to
have about its future.
"Firing Comey, brings the whole Russian thing to the fore, and works to sidetrack the real debate the Democratic Party needs to
have about its future."
Two things were working to undermine the establishment's hold on the Party until Comey's firing. First, Sanders continued to poll
as the most popular politician in America. Second, people were beginning to realize that it was the content of Secretary Clinton's
emails that hurt her, not the emails per se . And that content revealed the soft underbelly of the Democratic Party.
To wit: the neoliberal belief in small government, the power and goodness of the market, free trade, deregulation, and fiscal austerity
was simply too close to the Republican dogma to generate enough passion among progressives to get a good turnout, and Democrats need
a good turnout to win elections.
But now it's all Comey all the time, and the Democratic establishment is taking full advantage of that to deflect attention from
the real reason they're losing at all levels of government. It appears they'd rather risk losing elections than embrace a truly progressive
agenda, and Trump just reinforced their self-serving narrative.
Yeah. What if he's not an idiot?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
"But now it's all Comey all the time, and the Democratic establishment is taking full advantage of that to deflect attention
from the real reason they're losing at all levels of government. It appears they'd rather risk losing elections than embrace a
truly progressive agenda, and Trump just reinforced their self-serving narrative."
In my opinion you are right on the mark; especially with your last paragraph. Practically all the ultra rich in the world live
in the same "gated community". Their goal is to control the world's resources and somehow survive the coming mass die-off due
to severe climate disruption. To them their party never ends!
It's possible he's not stupid AND he has zero impulse control. That seems most likely. He's good at subverting the few things
he does think out.
But Democrats have quintupled down on Russia. For them, it's a battle for existence. They were completely exposed, and it's
going to take a lot of "Russia!" to keep that conversation about their profound corruption from taking place.
And Atcheson is also right that this party much prefers losing than giving up its donorship buffet. That's why they do nothing
to correct the course to get more votes. They're relying completely on their corporate media allies to keep the illusion going.
So far it's working, to the great shame of rank and file Democrats.
The D-Party would rather stumble back to electoral victory on the anti-Trump effect than offer policy that might
clash with the wishes of their corporate donors.
Case in point: Single Payer now back-burnered as a distraction from anti-trump hysteria.
Sad to see so many otherwise intelligent commenters here falling for the usual D-Party parlor tricks.
Whether Trump's just lucky or know how to work a room is unimportant. Results matter, and the result is that the important stuff's
not being discussed, and the Greatest Heist In The World continues. Lest we forget, that Heist is NOT just about the USA. There's
a reason they call it 'globalization.'
Corporate bribes, big salaries, perks and tv star jobs will have to be torn from Neoliberal Democrats' cold dead hands.
And Don, Rupert and the rest of Mammon's soldiers will soon have to deal with an Artificial Intelligence that learns in one
day what it took humans 40,000 years to learn. Interesting times.
Anyone who carefully followed the primaries knows that the democratic machine used all kinds of corrupt methods to defeat Bernie
Sanders. And, anyone who follows the general election knows that the election is easily rigged - especially computer voting that
leaves no paper trail and cannot be audited. The hypocrisy of Russians hacking our elections when they are hacked by our own politicians,
and Russians interfering with our elections when our corporate elite have no problem interfering with elections in other countries
all makes me ill. Don't know how many other voters out there are like me, but sure would like to hear from them.
Somehow almost none of this get mentioned in any press, progressive or otherwise.
Trump can't control what he himself thinks. He's been a promoter of the Trump name for 40-50 years. That is a reflex
with him. That is the extent of his thinking. There are many others around him, supporting him. Praising his genius, as this article
is inclined towards, is their means of exploiting his great weakness.
There is nothing behind the scenes. Everything is happening center stage. If you spend your time trying to see behind
the scenes you're going to miss the whole show.
Olhippy May '17
No, the seething undercurrent of the discontented is rarely reported on in the "news". Only when it explodes as in
Missouri riots or Occupy Wall Street takeovers, does it get coverage which is put down by government forces, either civilian or
feds. The Democratic primaries were changed, back in the 70's I believe, after anti-war candidate McCarthy got the nomination
nod. That's when the super delegates came about, so they had more control of things. Expect the GOP too, to change things to keep
future Trumps' from getting the nod.
Wereflea May '17 1
I see Atcheson's point but I think he needs to remember that Trump is a Prince of inherited wealth. Trump may be an idiot
(he really did seem more intelligent before he got elected and then we had a good look at him and listened to his sometimes unintelligible
speech patterns) but he has always been in a position where he delegated authority to people who got paid to be smarter than he
was, so his 'idiocy' didn't show as much.
Trump paid high priced lawyers to arrange his deals. He paid expensive consultants and investment managers and on and on and
all of those people were exceptionally intelligent. He paid someone to ghost write his book for him. Trump makes the same mistakes
as he was always wont to do but back then they were always covered and massaged for him by his staff! After all... he was the
Prince!
The Oval Office is not quite the same as a business conference with his lawyers, assistants, bankers and etc. Thus we see Trump
blurting out statements that his advisors pull him back from as soon as they get the chance . Being president means everything
you say gets publicized and despite all his billions that was not the case for the Prince back when he was just a wheeler and
dealer.
Trump runs without a script too often but who in his entourage will dare tell the Prince that when he speaks (without their
permission first) he ends up sounding like an idiot! Trump may be feeling constrained by his need to be less reckless and impulsive.
Trump unfiltered? Yeah well maybe he really is an idiot too!
Olhippy I think you need to go back and review the history of Democratic primaries. Until 1972 the candidates were
largely chosen in smoke-filled back rooms. George McGovern was instrumental in largely turning the Democratic primaries over to
the voters. And that is how he got the nomination. Unfortunately he only won a single state but he was the people's choice to
run. I wouldn't be concerned about the superdelegates. They always go along with the candidate who got the most pledged delegates.
It is unlikely they would ever do otherwise. Unless the people chose a candidate who was really off the charts like Trump. Without
superdelegates the Republicans were unable to stop Trump once the RNC backed him. Given what happened to the Republicans a case
can be made for the superdelegates. Parties can choose their candidates any way they want. They don't have to let the people vote.
Both parties now do and for the first time that turned into a complete disaster.
Godless May '17
The Comey firing also distracted from the Kushner family peddling visas for real estate deals in China; the Pence-Koback Commission
to make voter cross-checking a federal law; and Sessions reinvigorating the war on drugs and legal marijuana to strike more minority
voters from the rolls. El Presidente Naranja Mentiroso only cares about playing to his base and his base loves watching Democratic
heads explode. As long as his base is happy, and they are happy with his performance, the Reptilians in Congress will be afraid
to move against him. I thoroughly believe that the voter suppression moves will win the Reptilians the elections in 2018 and 2020.
With their control of gerrymandering for another decade and the paid-to-lose Democrats only concerned about donor money, the Reptilians
have clear sailing to gain 38 governorships and the ability to rewrite the constitution in their twisted image.
I agree with you on your points of Trump having smart lawyers, assistants,bankers etc. around him doing the "smart"
work, I am sure he allso used other tactics, of itimidation of one kind or another , taking it to the courts, threats of financial
ruin, he allso wasnt kidding when he said he "knew' the system and how it worked, ..or rather how to work it, but he didnt do
that singlehanded either, and i am sure there are more than one or two politicians at different levels from municipalitys on up,
in his pocket and or good graces.
But to think him not an idiot is getting to be a bit of a stretch, does he really believe that he actually came up with the
phrase "prime the pump"? I knew he was an idiot years before he made fun of the disabled reporter, but that single act confirmed
it for me.
Yeah "prime the pump" what is he going to lay claim to next? "four score and seven years ago" " E=mc2" or how about.."and Trump
said...let there be light"... I 'll tell you who else the idiots are...and that is any one taking this guy seriouslly any longer
at least in a presidentiall sense,... that is just ...idiotic in the extreme.
I think it's more likely that the Democrats are even more moronic than is Drumpf, which is why, as usual, they are serving only
to strengthen the GOPhers while pretending they're defenders of the public. Why do you think that hundred or so Democrats are
signed onto John Conyers' single-payer bill now that Drumpf is in the Oval office and the Republicans hold majorities in both
houses of Congress, when they could have done so when Obama was the chief executive and their party controlled Congress including
a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but instead passed a bill that was modeled on the Heritage Foundation's plan? It's
all so much political theater designed to distract the public from the last great plundering of the nation before it collapses
in on itself.
I'm with you. The whole Russian thing is ridiculous. And they've never been accused of actually hacking voting machines,
just the DNC emails which showed how slimy the DNC is. I have read that Georgia believed someone tried to hack their voting machines
and they hired a private firm to investigate. What they found was hacking was attempted the the Dept of Homeland Security.
The simple fact that, after losing in 2000 by voting manipulation and probably via voting machines in 2004, the Dems took over
the House in 2007 and 2 years later the Presidency and the Senate, they never, to my knowledge, introduced any legislation to
require paper trails in federal elections. As far as I'm concerned that said all one needs to know about the Dems. It would have
been a simple one page piece of legislation, Ok, maybe 2 pages.
Factor in his mafia connections here and abroad. To roll around in that slime at the high level he's in requires
cunning to kiss up to the really rich guys who can hurt him and whom, actually, he can hurt. Then he's learned how to survive
while he manipulates. Idiot? Define the term.
Cunning. Sociopathic. Narcissistic needing his constant narcissistic supply (adorers). Blackmailer and probably blackmailed.
I gotta get Barrett's biography of this POS.
I wore out years ago but it just goes on and on! Lol
Actually at this point in time I am very much engaged in this garbage since Trump is stunningly entertaining as a rightwing
boob out of his element and unraveling as we speak. Trump's adventures in incompetency fascinate me. It is just week after week
in a steady progression of mistakes, attempted corrections, attempts at re-correcting those corrections that make them even worse
and so forth. It would make for an interesting TV show (sort of like the 'apprentice got himself fired') except that this gross
and often crude person can trigger a nuclear war on a whim which puts a damper on the pleasures of watching him deconstruct in
front of our eyes.
Nevertheless, it is without doubt the most unexpected presidency of my life. Watergate was a comeuppance but Trump is bizzaro
world in action.
Btw... Trump inherited great wealth. He learned one big lesson in life early on. Hire competent people and they will save
your ass when you make a blunder. Trump's one skill is as a promoter of Trump. He was never a big brain and up until recently,
he never pretended to be.
He is rich and loves being the center of attention. However his being rich is often at the expense of others. You assume that
because Trump has long had shady connections that he must be an intellect to survive the association. Not really. Trump makes
sure that he is profitable for them and they have no problem with that. It isn't genius on his part. It is always having his projects
go way over budget. He guarantees them the cream and they 'have an arrangement'.
Prior to becoming president, Trump's associates, advisors, lawyers and accountants kept Trump making money and that made them
money.
Trump is truly like the medieval Prince who lives in a sumptuous palace but who needs his Grand Vizier to actually run things
in the country. Keep your eye on Kushner who has become the architect of oligarchy by being the real deal maker (he has the intellect)
that Trump only promotes (he has the ego and the big mouth)!
That was always one of the things that most unnerved me about Trump from the start: what,
exactly, motivated him to run? (The other thing about him that bothered me was his
overweening Zionism.) The idea that he was some kind of plant certainly did occur to me, but
the MSM didn't treat him the way they usually treat 'The Chosen One'. Compare him with the
treatment the MSM gave that other 'outside, nontradional' candidate, Emmanuel Macron.
So what did motivate Trump? Ego? Vainglory? Some burning conviction somewhere? I
still don't know. One way or the other, though, I'm pretty sure that MAGA is dead.
"So what did motivate Trump? Ego? Vainglory? Some burning conviction somewhere? I still
don't know."
Several lines of reasoning point me to the conclusion that Orange Clown is a "deep cover"
or "sleeper" agent that's been "waiting in the wings" for his Zionist masters' call.
I believe that the political ascendancy of Orange Clown should be seen as a sign of
Zionist desperation.
Anyway, one valid line of reasoning, IMO, is to rule out anything else. At 70 years old,
Orange Clown is no spring chicken. So why would he run run NOW?
If he had actually followed through on his campaign rhetoric, or at least some of it, he'd
be considered a true American hero, IMO. He's going to finally get us out of NATO? He's going
to pull out of the hopeless war in Afghanistan and cut out the costly and self-destructive
nation building crap? He's going to collaborate with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
and finally investigate the worst crime in U.S. history?
If so he'd go down in history as a modern American revolutionary. The guy that
single-handedly saved America from the "beast". And he's going to begin this herculean task
at the age 70 years old? Seriously? How many historical examples are there where a 70 year
old all of a sudden became a political visionary and led a revolution?
He's at the age where most people suffer cognitive decline, prostate problems, etc., but
he's going to square off against "the powers that be", put himself at risk of assassination
and lead a revolution in American politics? I just can't accept that.
Okay, but what about if he wanted to be president "just for a taste of power"? And that's
a fair question, IMO.
That may explain why he wouldn't necessarily give a damn about following through on his
campaign promises, but it doesn't explain why he would reverse himself on everything of
major
"... Neocon power in Big Government is directly connected to neocon media access and neocon media visibility. This is why 'experts' such as Boot, Kristol, Weinstein, Cohen, Stephens, Glasser, Podhoretz, Dubowitz, etc., are not only never stepping down from their appointed roles as high media priests–they're actually failing their way into positions of tenure and (undue) respectability. ..."
"... Under any other circumstance, their bulletproof status would defy logic. But because of Israel's unique place in American life, this makes perfect–though astonishing–sense. This above list of scoundrels may resemble the guest list of a Jewish wedding, but this ongoing affair will produce no honeymoon. These operatives function as soft double agents. Their devious mission is to justify US war(s) of aggression that benefit Israel. ..."
"... More subversion and more conflict. This explains why Pres. Trump has reversed course. He's caved. Once elected, Trump decided to would be suicide to try to frustrate the Israeli Lobby. So he cucked his Presidency and dumped several major campaign pledges. ..."
"... Candidate Trump also stated: "I don't want your [Jewish] money" to an auditorium full of wealthy Jews. Well, that's changed too. Pres. Trump is now surrounded by wealthy and powerful Israeli-firsters now, including mega-billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, who ended up feeding the Trump campaign untold millions. Sadly, Trump has totally rolled over for the Israelis. ..."
"... Regarding Israel, Washington will foot their war bill, supply the arms, lend diplomatic cover and even wage war on their behalf. No country in the world receives this kind of treatment. And no country in the world deserves it. ..."
"... Ironically, US security would be improved if we simply minded our own business and did nothing in the Middle East besides pursue normal and peaceful trade policies. But that's not to be. ..."
"... America's 'special relationship' with you-know-who is the quintessential red line that no establishment figure will cross. And those who do cross that line tend to fade rapidly into oblivion. This phenomena has not gone unnoticed. ..."
"... When you control the media, you control the message. That message is that America just has to keep busting up nations for the glory of Apartheid Israel. ..."
"... Much is said about "we dumb Americans." We are not all that dumb – but we are 100% misinformed. Propaganda works. It is a fact that the human mind is susceptible to repeated lies. (It is also true, that people hate being lied too.) ..."
"... The whole US media scene can be summed up as "don't believe their pack of lies. Believe my pack of lies"! ..."
Neocon power in Big Government is directly connected to neocon media access and neocon media
visibility. This is why 'experts' such as Boot, Kristol, Weinstein, Cohen, Stephens, Glasser,
Podhoretz, Dubowitz, etc., are not only never stepping down from their appointed roles as
high media priests–they're actually failing their way into positions of tenure and
(undue) respectability.
Under any other circumstance, their bulletproof status would defy logic. But because of
Israel's unique place in American life, this makes perfect–though
astonishing–sense. This above list of scoundrels may resemble the guest list of a
Jewish wedding, but this ongoing affair will produce no honeymoon. These operatives function
as soft double agents. Their devious mission is to justify US war(s) of aggression that
benefit Israel.
Being a successful neocon doesn't require being right. Not at all. It's all about sending
the right message. Over and over. Evidence be damned. The neocon mission is not about
journalism. It's about advancing the cause: Mideast disruption and a secure Jewish state.
More importantly, Washington's impenetrable array of Zio-centric PACs, money-handlers,
bundlers, fund-raisers, and billionaires want these crypto-Israeli pundits right where they
are–on TV or in the your local newspaper–telling Americans how to feel and what
to think. And Big Media–which happens to be in bed with these same powerful
forces–needs these Zions in place to not only justify the latest Mideast confrontation,
but even ones being planned. It's one big happy effort at group-think, mass deception, and
military conquest. Unfortunately, it's not being presented that way.
So what lies ahead?
More subversion and more conflict. This explains why Pres. Trump has reversed course. He's
caved. Once elected, Trump decided to would be suicide to try to frustrate the Israeli Lobby.
So he cucked his Presidency and dumped several major campaign pledges.
The first to go was his pledge to normalize US-Russian relations ('make peace' with
Russia) and after that 2) avoid unnecessary wars abroad. That's was a huge reversal. But
Trump did it and few pundits have scolded him for it. The fix is in.
Candidate Trump also stated: "I don't want your [Jewish] money" to an auditorium full of
wealthy Jews. Well, that's changed too. Pres. Trump is now surrounded by wealthy and powerful
Israeli-firsters now, including mega-billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, who ended up feeding the
Trump campaign untold millions. Sadly, Trump has totally rolled over for the Israelis.
So Trump (the President) now sees things differently. Very differently. When it comes to
the Middle East, Trump has been Hillary-ized. This means there's no light between what Israel
desires and what Washington is willing to deliver. The hyper-wealthy, super cohesive,
extraordinarily well-positioned and diabolically cleaver Israeli lobby has Trump over a
barrel. Shocking, yes. But true.
So watch Israel's roughshod expansion continue, along with the typically meek and
accommodating responses from Washington.
Regarding Israel, Washington will foot their war bill, supply the arms, lend diplomatic
cover and even wage war on their behalf. No country in the world receives this kind of
treatment. And no country in the world deserves it.
What's worse, our 'independent' MSM will be there to sanitize Washington's pro-Israel
shenanigans and basically cheer the whole bloody process on. This is where the Zio-punditry
of Kristol, Cohen, Stephens, Dubowitz, and Co. come in. They soothe the nervous nellies as
they gently justify the death and destruction that come with these military strikes. Media
tactics include:
Don't count enemy war dead. Don't count civilian war dead. Don't count displaced refugees.
Don't connect Europe's immigration crisis to Zio-Washington's destruction of Iraq, Libya and
Syria.
At the same time: Always praise Israeli 'restraint'. Always refer to Israel as a
'democracy'. Sneer and jeer the 'terrorist' Republic of Iran. Treat every Mideast warlord or
rebellion as if it threatens the sanctity of Disneyland or even the next Superbowl. Oh
my!
It's a slick, highly-coordinated, and very manipulative affair. But the magic is working.
Americans are being fooled.
Ironically, US security would be improved if we simply minded our own business and did
nothing in the Middle East besides pursue normal and peaceful trade policies. But that's not
to be.
The reason for this phenomena is that Washington's major PACs, syndicates, heavy hitters,
influence peddlers, oligarchs, and Big Money handlers (and who also have their clutches on
our corrupt MSM) want more Mideast disruption.
Why? Israeli 'security'. Israeli 'survival'. Considering Israel's extraordinary military power, this might seem silly. But this is what
the entrenched Israeli lobby desires. And both Parties are listening. To make matters worse, how one 'thinks' and 'talks' about Israel has unacknowledged
limitations and restrictions in Big Washington as well as Big Media.
Diversity of opinion stops at Israel's doorstep. Like it or not, Zionist Israel is the
Third Rail of American discourse. Watch what you say. Even the typically rancorous disputes
between Democrats and Republicans gets warm and fuzzy when Israel's 'special place' in
American life is raised. America's 'special relationship' with you-know-who is the
quintessential red line that no establishment figure will cross. And those who do cross that
line tend to fade rapidly into oblivion. This phenomena has not gone unnoticed.
So America is stuck with pro-Israel speech codes and a militantly pro-Zionist foreign
policy that has caused immense cost, dislocation, suffering and destruction. It's been
designed that way. And 'outsider' Trump is stuck with it. Few dare examine it.
Here's the short list of Israel's primary Enemies. Significantly, these are the countries
that also get the worst press in American media:
The (anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian) Republic of Iran.
Syria, which still claims land (Golan Heights) stolen by Israel in 1967.
Lebanon (where Hezbollah roams)
Palestine (will they never give up?)
Russia (allied with Iran and Assad's Syria)
N. Korea is even a player here. Iran and N. Korea have allegedly shared nuclear
technology. This infuriates nuclear Israel.
So the Israel angle in this picture is huge. Overwhelmingly so. This is where the
oligarchs, media lords, and corrupt journalists come together.
Thus, Israel's tenured Hasbara brigade in US media will remain firmly in place.
The local DC 'conservative' radio station has Bolton as a guest all the time. Same old neocon
crap that we don't want any more. Bolton had his day 15 years ago and he sucked then; yet,
they keep bringing him on, slobbering all over him ("Ambassador Bolton"), and letting him
blather about blowing up everyone. I still see a lot of online comments about how people
would love to have John Bolton as our ambassador to the UN. Good grief wise up people.
'Stephens' article, entitled Finding the Way Forward on Iran sparkles with throwaway gems
like "Tehran's hyperaggressive foreign policy in the wake of the 2015 nuclear deal" and "Real
democracies don't live in fear of their own people" and even "it's not too soon to start
rethinking the way we think about Iran." Or try "A better way of describing Iran's
dictatorship is as a kleptotheocracy, driven by impulses that are by turns doctrinal and
venal."'
Hmmmmm . I can immediately think of another nation to which those strictures are far more
applicable.
"Hyperaggressive foreign policy"
"Kleptocracy"
Sounds more like the USA, doesn't it?
As for "Real democracies don't live in fear of their own people", that's a real home
run.
1. The USA is not, never has been, never will be, and was never meant to be "a real
democracy". (Except by unrealistic visionaries like Jefferson).
When you control the media, you control the message. That message is that America just has to
keep busting up nations for the glory of Apartheid Israel.
From an April 2003 Haaretz article:
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them
Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them,
journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible.
This is a war of an elite. [Tom] Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25
people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if
you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have
happened.
If this insanity keeps up, America will either be destroyed by financial collapse from
waging all these wars or we'll stumble into WW III and the last thing we'll see is a mushroom
cloud.
Former Brit PM Tony Blair at the Chilcot inquiry:
What role did Israel play in the run-up to the Iraq war?
"As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going
to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue
at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations
that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major
part of all this."
"Whether print, air, or both the Neocons want to be players. They have the friends in high
–media– places to do it."
– They, neocons, are devoid of dignity. This explains why none of them feels any
responsibility for the mass slaughter in the Middle East -- picture Madeleine Albright near
thousands of tiny corpses of Iraqi children or the piggish Kristol next to the bloody bags
with shredded Syrian children. They are psychopaths, the profiteering psychopaths. There is
no other way to deal with neo/ziocons but through long-term incarceration.
My fine tuning of this excellent article begins, and perhaps ends, with this quote: "The fact
is that Iran is being targeted because Israel sees it as its prime enemy in the region and
has corrupted many "opinion makers" in the U.S., to include Stephens, to hammer home that
point."
The 'corruption' is not recent and is not about any one issue or series of issues. It
springs from Deep Culture. It is part of the WASP worldview.
WASP culture is the direct product of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, which was a Judaizing
heresy. Judaizing heresy always produces culture and politics that are pro-Jewish,
pro-Semitic.
At least by the beginning of the Victorian era, virtually 100% of British Empire Elites
were hardcore pro-Semitic. Most were pro-Jewish, but a large and growing minority were
pro-Arabic and pro-Islamic.
The Saudis are Arabic. The Iranians are NOT Arabic; Iranians are Indo-European.
Siding with both wings of Semitic culture – Jewish and Arabic/Islamic –
against an Indo-European people is exactly what WASP cultural Elites will do. It is roughly
analogous to Oliver Cromwell allying with Jews to wage war against the vast majority of
natives of the British Isles.
Excellent piece. I'd just like to add that Stephens' op-ed in the NYT ought to be view like
Judith Miller's misleading articles about aluminum-tubes-for-nuclear-centrifuges which
appeared in the Times during the run up to the Iraq war: Preparation of the Times' readership
for yet another war in the middle east, this time against Iran.
Ron Unz is another courageous man. I wish and pray to God, that people like Ron Unz,
Philip M. Giraldi, Paul Craig Roberts, Saker and their likes to move away from FAKE NEWS too,
and tell us the TRUTH.
Evil can be fought only with TRUTH ..
Your idea about an article on political Islam by either Ron Unz or Philip M. Giraldi is an
excellent idea, and I am willing to help provided we keep away from sectarianism and stick to
TRUTH. The war the First Caliph abu Bakr which he fought with Yemen's Muslims within six
months of Prophet's demise is very important to show how the rights given by Prophet Mohammad
(saws) were taken away as soon as his demise. Our aim should be to shine the light on the
Prophet. This is what Yemen's war did, just to start with:
1. Prophet did away with excommuniting someone from the fold as he saw a very powerful
tool in the hands of Rabbis and Preacher. Who gave them the right to remove someone from
Synagogue or Church.
2. So abu Bakr came up with much stronger tool, he called all the Yemeni Muslims en masses as
apostate.
3. Brought back the slavery.
4. Claimed that he the Caliph abu Bakr was appointed by Will of Allah through
predestination.
5. Thus, the ideology of ISIS calling everyone kafir, kafir, kafir .. and chopping their
heads.
6. Used Islam as a disguise to bring other countries in to the fold for power and mammon
(money), thus bring Islam by Sword.
The list is extensive and I can go on and on. The divide / confuse / rule was used against
the Muslims.
The objective of the article should be to bring TRUTH about the Prophet.
Don't lose heart, Mark Green. There is a very good chance that Trump is actually with you,
and that he's winning. He cannot afford to be straight at all. His strategy is to take up
highly charged strands of the dominant discourse and to short circuit them. A strong play of
a weak hand. He's run with the demands of Adelson, Netanyahu and Kushner regarding Jerusalem
and other maximal Israeli demands. It's all in response to the worst Jews. The result is that
Shias are united with Sunnis, Hamas with PLO, Iran with Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The whole
world against America, Israel and some specks of guano. The Iran caper is the same. The
Pakistan caper even better. Trump gives the military a free hand to show what they can do in
Afghanistan. Then he blows his twitter top to insult Pakistan so there will no longer be a
land route. He's doing his damndest and always failing. What a clueless asshole. Yet every
failure is undoing the empire, and leading to a one-state resolution in Palestine.
That's just the foreign policy part.
By the time he's finished there will be no Democrat party left as we know it, and the GOP
will be transformed as well.
There will be no more Fed. No more debt based currency. A paid off national debt.
And there will be single payer medical coverage.
God willing.
That was a great summary of our foreign policy situation, Mr. Giraldi. You have a lot of guts
to write out all the truth that you see, as you have in all of the articles of yours I've
read on unz.
I really liked this line, too:
To be sure, Iran is a very corrupt place run by people who should not be running a
hot dog stand, but the same applies to the United States and Israel .
I have one question for you, Phil, and this is not hypothetical or snarky – just
looking for your opinion: What do you think the neocons' attitude about the Orient is? I
realize that China is on the road to kicking our ass economically , but
that's the "war" we need to fight, not a military war. Then, there's N. Korea, which, in my
opinion, is none of our business. Rest of the question – Trump seems to get sucked into
the standard invade-the-world mode in the Far East also – do you think that is
neocon-inspired, and, since that part of the world is no threat to Israel, if so, why? Would
they possibly be masking their intentions by expanding the range of their invade-the-world
program?
I don't usually read that filthy rag other than to skim the headlines, but this was just
so bizarre, I couldn't resist. Brooks seems to admit that they (Jewish neocons/Bolsheviks)
are losing the battle to take down Trump. He openly criticizes the media for being so obvious
and self-discrediting.
Is this a total retreat for the neocons / Bolsheviks? Or is Brooks merely rallying the
troops? Or simply a desperate attempt to regain credibility by telling the truth, for a
change?
Or maybe he is preemptively refuting Mr. Giraldi's premise in this piece, a semi-novel
tactic one might call Jewish Preemptive Vengeance getting even BEFORE the fact?
Do some research, Israel and the U.S. deep state blew up 7 buildings at the WTC on 911 and
blew up a section of the pentagram, the Saudis were the patsys , and as corrupt and evil as
the Saudis are they had on part in it.
The Zionist neocons did 911 to set the Mideast wars in motion, do some research, hell
every thinking American knows Israel did it.
Mr. Giraldi has gone after the real power center in America – the Jew controlled US
media. Much is said about "we dumb Americans." We are not all that dumb – but we are 100%
misinformed. Propaganda works. It is a fact that the human mind is susceptible to repeated
lies. (It is also true, that people hate being lied too.)
Much is said about "Christian Zionists." Why is it, that NO Christian broadcast media
tells the truth about Palestinian suffering? Of course, it is because of Jew media control.
If Christian stations were to tell the truth, there would be a lot less Christian Zionists
– they would be a small segment of Christianity.
Thanks to Mr. Giraldi and others on the internet – more and more people are
listening and learning and getting mad. A base is building. Truth will out!
The more the psychotic control freaks
publically expose themselves, what with social media, the internet, and disenchanted leakers
in their own group the more of humanity wakes up to a great sense of absolute disgust in
them. We, humanity, are gradually winning and the disgusting pyschopaths are losing.
Does Mr Giraldi really expect us to believe that the US internet is any better than the media
outlets he criticizes? The whole US media scene can be summed up as "don't believe their pack
of lies. Believe my pack of lies"!
I wish Robert Parry quick and full recovery after his minor stoke. He is a magnificent journalist !
Notable quotes:
"... In the past, America has witnessed "McCarthyism" from the Right and even complaints from the Right about "McCarthyism of the Left." But what we are witnessing now amid the Russia-gate frenzy is what might be called "Establishment McCarthyism, " traditional media/political powers demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives. ..."
"... This extraordinary assault on civil liberties is cloaked in fright-filled stories about "Russian propaganda" and wildly exaggerated tales of the Kremlin's "hordes of Twitter bots," but its underlying goal is to enforce Washington's "groupthinks" by creating a permanent system that shuts down or marginalizes dissident opinions and labels contrary information – no matter how reasonable and well-researched – as "disputed" or "rated false" by mainstream "fact-checking" organizations like PolitiFact. ..."
"... For instance, PolitiFact still rates as "true" Hillary Clinton's false claim that "all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies" agreed that Russia was behind the release of Democratic emails last year. Even the Times and The Associated Press belatedly ran corrections after President Obama's intelligence chiefs admitted that the assessment came from what Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called "hand-picked" analysts from only three agencies: CIA, FBI and NSA. ..."
"... And, the larger truth was that these "hand-picked" analysts were sequestered away from other analysts even from their own agencies and produced "stove-piped intelligence," i.e., analysis that escapes the back-and-forth that should occur inside the intelligence community. ..."
"... And this was not a stand-alone story. Previously, the Times has run favorable articles about plans to deploy aggressive algorithms to hunt down and then remove or marginalize information that the Times and other mainstream outlets deem false. ..."
"... Congress has authorized $160 million to combat alleged Russian "propaganda and disinformation," a gilded invitation for "scholars" and "experts" to gear up "studies" that will continue to prove what is supposed to be proved – "Russia bad" – with credulous mainstream reporters eagerly gobbling up the latest "evidence" of Russian perfidy. ..."
"... And, given the risk of thermo-nuclear war with Russia, why aren't liberals and progressives demanding at least a critical examination of what's coming from the U.S. intelligence agencies and the mainstream press? ..."
"... So, as we have moved into this dangerous New Cold War, we are living in what could be called "Establishment McCarthyism," a hysterical but methodical strategy for silencing dissent and making sure that future mainstream groupthinks don't get challenged. ..."
In the past, America has witnessed "McCarthyism" from the Right and even complaints from the Right about "McCarthyism of the
Left." But what we are witnessing now amid the Russia-gate frenzy is what might be called
"Establishment McCarthyism,
" traditional media/political powers demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives.
This extraordinary assault on civil liberties is cloaked in
fright-filled stories about "Russian
propaganda" and wildly
exaggerated tales of the Kremlin's "hordes of Twitter bots," but its underlying goal is to enforce Washington's "groupthinks"
by creating a permanent system that shuts down or marginalizes dissident opinions and labels contrary information – no matter how
reasonable and well-researched – as "disputed" or "rated false" by mainstream "fact-checking" organizations like PolitiFact.
It doesn't seem to matter that the paragons of this new structure – such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and,
indeed, PolitiFact – have a checkered record of getting facts straight.
For instance, PolitiFact still
rates as "true" Hillary Clinton's false claim that "all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies" agreed that Russia was behind the release
of Democratic emails last year. Even the Times and The Associated Press belatedly
ran corrections after
President Obama's intelligence chiefs admitted that the assessment came from what Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
called "hand-picked" analysts from only three agencies: CIA, FBI and NSA.
And, the larger truth was that these "hand-picked" analysts were
sequestered away
from other analysts even from their own agencies and produced "stove-piped intelligence," i.e., analysis that escapes the back-and-forth
that should occur inside the intelligence community.
Yet, the Times and other leading newspaper routinely treat these findings as flat fact or the unassailable "consensus" of the
"intelligence community." Contrary information, including WikiLeaks' denials of a Russian role in supplying the emails, and
contrary judgments from former
senior U.S. intelligence officials are ignored.
The Jan. 6 report also tacked on a seven-page addendum smearing the Russian television network, RT, for such offenses as sponsoring
a 2012 debate among U.S. third-party presidential candidates who had been excluded from the Republican-Democratic debates. RT also
was slammed for reporting on the Occupy Wall Street protests and the environmental dangers from "fracking."
How the idea of giving Americans access to divergent political opinions and information about valid issues such as income inequality
and environmental dangers constitutes threats to American "democracy" is hard to comprehend.
However, rather than address the Jan. 6 report's admitted uncertainties about Russian "hacking" and the troubling implications
of its attacks on RT, the Times and other U.S. mainstream publications treat the report as some kind of holy scripture that can't
be questioned or challenged.
Silencing RT
For instance, on Tuesday, the Times published a front-page story entitled "
YouTube Gave Russians Outlet
Portal Into U.S ." that essentially cried out for the purging of RT from YouTube. The article began by holding YouTube's vice
president Robert Kynci up to ridicule and opprobrium for his praising "RT for bonding with viewers by providing 'authentic' content
instead of 'agendas or propaganda.'"
The article by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Nicholas Confessore swallowed whole the Jan. 6 report's conclusion that RT is "the Kremlin's
'principal international propaganda outlet' and a key player in Russia's information warfare operations around the world." In other
words, the Times portrayed Kynci as essentially a "useful idiot."
Yet, the article doesn't actually dissect any RT article that could be labeled false or propagandistic. It simply alludes generally
to news items that contained information critical of Hillary Clinton as if any negative reporting on the Democratic presidential
contender – no matter how accurate or how similar to stories appearing in the U.S. press – was somehow proof of "information warfare."
As Daniel Lazare wrote at Consortiumnews.com
on Wednesday, "The web version [of the Times article] links to an RT interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that ran shortly
before the 2016 election. The topic is a September 2014
email obtained by Wikileaks in which Clinton acknowledges that 'the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing clandestine
financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.'"
In other words, the Times cited a documented and newsworthy RT story as its evidence that RT was a propaganda shop threatening
American democracy and deserving ostracism if not removal from YouTube.
A Dangerous Pattern
Not to say that I share every news judgment of RT – or for that matter The New York Times – but there is a grave issue of press
freedom when the Times essentially calls for the shutting down of access to a news organization that may highlight or report on stories
that the Times and other mainstream outlets downplay or ignore.
And this was not a stand-alone story. Previously, the
Times has run favorable
articles about plans to deploy aggressive algorithms to hunt down and then remove or marginalize information that the Times and
other mainstream outlets deem false.
Nor is it just the Times. Last Thanksgiving, The Washington Post ran
a fawning front-page article
about an anonymous group PropOrNot that had created a blacklist of 200 Internet sites, including Consortiumnews.com and other
independent news sources, that were deemed guilty of dispensing "Russian propaganda," which basically amounted to our showing any
skepticism toward the State Department's narratives on the crises in Syria or Ukraine.
So, if any media outlet dares to question the U.S. government's version of events – once that storyline has been embraced by the
big media – the dissidents risk being awarded the media equivalent of a yellow star and having their readership dramatically reduced
by getting downgraded on search engines and punished on social media.
Meanwhile, Congress has
authorized $160 million to combat alleged Russian "propaganda and disinformation," a gilded invitation for "scholars" and "experts"
to gear up "studies" that will continue to prove what is supposed to be proved – "Russia bad" – with credulous mainstream reporters
eagerly gobbling up the latest "evidence" of Russian perfidy.
There is also a more coercive element to what's going on. RT is facing demands from the Justice Department that it register as
a "foreign agent" or face prosecution. Clearly, the point is to chill the journalism done by RT's American reporters, hosts and staff
who now fear being stigmatized as something akin to traitors.
You might wonder: where are the defenders of press freedom and civil liberties? Doesn't anyone in the mainstream media or national
politics recognize the danger to a democracy coming from enforced groupthinks? Is American democracy so fragile that letting Americans
hear "another side of the story" must be prevented?
A Dangerous 'Cure'
I agree that there is a limited problem with jerks who knowingly make up fake stories or who disseminate crazy conspiracy theories
– and no one finds such behavior more offensive than I do. But does no one recall the lies about Iraq's WMD and other U.S. government
falsehoods and deceptions over the years?
Often, it is the few dissenters who alert the American people to the truth, even as the Times, Post, CNN and other big outlets
are serving as the real propaganda agents, accepting what the "important people" say and showing little or no professional skepticism.
And, given the risk of thermo-nuclear war with Russia, why aren't liberals and progressives demanding at least a critical
examination of what's coming from the U.S. intelligence agencies and the mainstream press?
The answer seems to be that many liberals and progressives are so blinded by their fury over Donald Trump's election that they
don't care what lines are crossed to destroy or neutralize him. Plus, for some liberal entities, there's lots of money to be made.
For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union has made its "resistance" to the Trump administration an important part of its
fundraising. So, the ACLU is doing nothing to defend the rights of news organizations and journalists under attack. When I asked
ACLU about the Justice Department's move against RT and other encroachments on press freedom, I was told by ACLU spokesman Thomas
Dresslar: "Thanks for reaching out to us. Unfortunately, I've been informed that we do not have anyone able to speak to you about
this."
Meanwhile, the Times and other traditional "defenders of a free press" are now part of the attack machine against a free press.
While much of this attitude comes from the big media's high-profile leadership of the anti-Trump Resistance and anger at any resistors
to the Resistance, mainstream news outlets have chafed for years over the Internet undermining their privileged role as the gatekeepers
of what Americans get to see and hear.
For a long time, the big media has wanted an excuse to rein in the Internet and break the small news outlets that have challenged
the power – and the profitability – of the Times, Post, CNN, etc. Russia-gate and Trump have become the cover for that restoration
of mainstream authority.
So, as we have moved into this dangerous New Cold War, we are living in what could be called "Establishment McCarthyism,"
a hysterical but methodical strategy for silencing dissent and making sure that future mainstream groupthinks don't get challenged.
It you need to read a singe article analyzing current anti-Russian hysteria in the USA this in the one you should read. This is
an excellent article Simply great !!! And as of December 2017 it represents the perfect summary of Russiagate, Hillary defeat and, Neo-McCarthyism
campaign launched as a method of hiding the crisis of neoliberalism revealed by Presidential elections. It also suggest that growing
jingoism of both Parties (return to Madeleine Albright's 'indispensable nation' bulling. Both Trump and Albright assume that the
United States should be able to do as it pleases in the international arena) and loss of the confidence and paranoia of the US
neoliberal elite.
It contain many important observation which in my view perfectly catch the complexity of the current Us political landscape.
Bravo to Jackson Lears !!!
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberals celebrate market utility as the sole criterion of worth; interventionists exalt military adventure abroad as a means of fighting evil in order to secure global progress ..."
"... Sanders is a social democrat and Trump a demagogic mountebank, but their campaigns underscored a widespread repudiation of the Washington consensus. For about a week after the election, pundits discussed the possibility of a more capacious Democratic strategy. It appeared that the party might learn something from Clinton's defeat. Then everything changed. ..."
"... A story that had circulated during the campaign without much effect resurfaced: it involved the charge that Russian operatives had hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee, revealing embarrassing emails that damaged Clinton's chances. With stunning speed, a new centrist-liberal orthodoxy came into being, enveloping the major media and the bipartisan Washington establishment. This secular religion has attracted hordes of converts in the first year of the Trump presidency. In its capacity to exclude dissent, it is like no other formation of mass opinion in my adult life, though it recalls a few dim childhood memories of anti-communist hysteria during the early 1950s. ..."
"... The centrepiece of the faith, based on the hacking charge, is the belief that Vladimir Putin orchestrated an attack on American democracy by ordering his minions to interfere in the election on behalf of Trump. The story became gospel with breathtaking suddenness and completeness. Doubters are perceived as heretics and as apologists for Trump and Putin, the evil twins and co-conspirators behind this attack on American democracy. ..."
"... Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and their overlords. Its scriptural foundation is a confused and largely fact-free 'assessment' produced last January by a small number of 'hand-picked' analysts – as James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, described them – from the CIA, the FBI and the NSA. ..."
"... It is not the first time the intelligence agencies have played this role. When I hear the Intelligence Community Assessment cited as a reliable source, I always recall the part played by the New York Times in legitimating CIA reports of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's putative weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the long history of disinformation (a.k.a. 'fake news') as a tactic for advancing one administration or another's political agenda. Once again, the established press is legitimating pronouncements made by the Church Fathers of the national security state. Clapper is among the most vigorous of these. He perjured himself before Congress in 2013, when he denied that the NSA had 'wittingly' spied on Americans – a lie for which he has never been held to account. ..."
"... In May 2017, he told NBC's Chuck Todd that the Russians were highly likely to have colluded with Trump's campaign because they are 'almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favour, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique'. The current orthodoxy exempts the Church Fathers from standards imposed on ordinary people, and condemns Russians – above all Putin – as uniquely, 'almost genetically' diabolical. ..."
"... It's hard for me to understand how the Democratic Party, which once felt scepticism towards the intelligence agencies, can now embrace the CIA and the FBI as sources of incontrovertible truth. One possible explanation is that Trump's election has created a permanent emergency in the liberal imagination, based on the belief that the threat he poses is unique and unprecedented. It's true that Trump's menace is viscerally real. But the menace posed by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was equally real. ..."
"... Trump is committed to continuing his predecessors' lavish funding of the already bloated Defence Department, and his Fortress America is a blustering, undisciplined version of Madeleine Albright's 'indispensable nation'. Both Trump and Albright assume that the United States should be able to do as it pleases in the international arena: Trump because it's the greatest country in the world, Albright because it's an exceptional force for global good. ..."
"... Besides Trump's supposed uniqueness, there are two other assumptions behind the furore in Washington: the first is that the Russian hack unquestionably occurred, and the second is that the Russians are our implacable enemies. ..."
"... So far, after months of 'bombshells' that turn out to be duds, there is still no actual evidence for the claim that the Kremlin ordered interference in the American election. Meanwhile serious doubts have surfaced about the technical basis for the hacking claims. Independent observers have argued it is more likely that the emails were leaked from inside, not hacked from outside. On this front, the most persuasive case was made by a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, former employees of the US intelligence agencies who distinguished themselves in 2003 by debunking Colin Powell's claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, hours after Powell had presented his pseudo-evidence at the UN. ..."
"... The crucial issue here and elsewhere is the exclusion from public discussion of any critical perspectives on the orthodox narrative, even the perspectives of people with professional credentials and a solid track record. ..."
"... Sceptical voices, such as those of the VIPS, have been drowned out by a din of disinformation. Flagrantly false stories, like the Washington Post report that the Russians had hacked into the Vermont electrical grid, are published, then retracted 24 hours later. Sometimes – like the stories about Russian interference in the French and German elections – they are not retracted even after they have been discredited. These stories have been thoroughly debunked by French and German intelligence services but continue to hover, poisoning the atmosphere, confusing debate. ..."
"... The consequence is a spreading confusion that envelops everything. Epistemological nihilism looms, but some people and institutions have more power than others to define what constitutes an agreed-on reality. ..."
"... More genuine insurgencies are in the making, which confront corporate power and connect domestic with foreign policy, but they face an uphill battle against the entrenched money and power of the Democratic leadership – the likes of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and the DNC. Russiagate offers Democratic elites a way to promote party unity against Trump-Putin, while the DNC purges Sanders's supporters. ..."
"... Fusion GPS eventually produced the trash, a lurid account written by the former British MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele, based on hearsay purchased from anonymous Russian sources. Amid prostitutes and golden showers, a story emerged: the Russian government had been blackmailing and bribing Donald Trump for years, on the assumption that he would become president some day and serve the Kremlin's interests. In this fantastic tale, Putin becomes a preternaturally prescient schemer. Like other accusations of collusion, this one has become vaguer over time, adding to the murky atmosphere without ever providing any evidence. ..."
"... Yet the FBI apparently took the Steele dossier seriously enough to include a summary of it in a secret appendix to the Intelligence Community Assessment. Two weeks before the inauguration, James Comey, the director of the FBI, described the dossier to Trump. After Comey's briefing was leaked to the press, the website Buzzfeed published the dossier in full, producing hilarity and hysteria in the Washington establishment. ..."
"... The Steele dossier inhabits a shadowy realm where ideology and intelligence, disinformation and revelation overlap. It is the antechamber to the wider system of epistemological nihilism created by various rival factions in the intelligence community: the 'tree of smoke' that, for the novelist Denis Johnson, symbolised CIA operations in Vietnam. ..."
"... Yet the Democratic Party has now embarked on a full-scale rehabilitation of the intelligence community – or at least the part of it that supports the notion of Russian hacking. (We can be sure there is disagreement behind the scenes.) And it is not only the Democratic establishment that is embracing the deep state. Some of the party's base, believing Trump and Putin to be joined at the hip, has taken to ranting about 'treason' like a reconstituted John Birch Society. ..."
"... The Democratic Party has now developed a new outlook on the world, a more ambitious partnership between liberal humanitarian interventionists and neoconservative militarists than existed under the cautious Obama. This may be the most disastrous consequence for the Democratic Party of the new anti-Russian orthodoxy: the loss of the opportunity to formulate a more humane and coherent foreign policy. The obsession with Putin has erased any possibility of complexity from the Democratic world picture, creating a void quickly filled by the monochrome fantasies of Hillary Clinton and her exceptionalist allies. ..."
"... For people like Max Boot and Robert Kagan, war is a desirable state of affairs, especially when viewed from the comfort of their keyboards, and the rest of the world – apart from a few bad guys – is filled with populations who want to build societies just like ours: pluralistic, democratic and open for business. This view is difficult to challenge when it cloaks itself in humanitarian sentiment. There is horrific suffering in the world; the US has abundant resources to help relieve it; the moral imperative is clear. There are endless forms of international engagement that do not involve military intervention. But it is the path taken by US policy often enough that one may suspect humanitarian rhetoric is nothing more than window-dressing for a more mundane geopolitics – one that defines the national interest as global and virtually limitless. ..."
"... The prospect of impeaching Trump and removing him from office by convicting him of collusion with Russia has created an atmosphere of almost giddy anticipation among leading Democrats, allowing them to forget that the rest of the Republican Party is composed of many politicians far more skilful in Washington's ways than their president will ever be. ..."
"... They are posing an overdue challenge to the long con of neoliberalism, and the technocratic arrogance that led to Clinton's defeat in Rust Belt states. Recognising that the current leadership will not bring about significant change, they are seeking funding from outside the DNC. ..."
"... Democrat leaders have persuaded themselves (and much of their base) that all the republic needs is a restoration of the status quo ante Trump. They remain oblivious to popular impatience with familiar formulas. ..."
"... Democratic insurgents are also developing a populist critique of the imperial hubris that has sponsored multiple failed crusades, extorted disproportionate sacrifice from the working class and provoked support for Trump, who presented himself (however misleadingly) as an opponent of open-ended interventionism. On foreign policy, the insurgents face an even more entrenched opposition than on domestic policy: a bipartisan consensus aflame with outrage at the threat to democracy supposedly posed by Russian hacking. Still, they may have found a tactical way forward, by focusing on the unequal burden borne by the poor and working class in the promotion and maintenance of American empire. ..."
"... This approach animates Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis, a 33-page document whose authors include Norman Solomon, founder of the web-based insurgent lobby RootsAction.org. 'The Democratic Party's claims of fighting for "working families" have been undermined by its refusal to directly challenge corporate power, enabling Trump to masquerade as a champion of the people,' Autopsy announces. ..."
"... Clinton's record of uncritical commitment to military intervention allowed Trump to have it both ways, playing to jingoist resentment while posing as an opponent of protracted and pointless war. ..."
"... If the insurgent movements within the Democratic Party begin to formulate an intelligent foreign policy critique, a re-examination may finally occur. And the world may come into sharper focus as a place where American power, like American virtue, is limited. For this Democrat, that is an outcome devoutly to be wished. It's a long shot, but there is something happening out there. ..."
American politics have rarely presented a more disheartening spectacle. The repellent and dangerous antics of Donald Trump are
troubling enough, but so is the Democratic Party leadership's failure to take in the significance of the 2016 election campaign.
Bernie Sanders's challenge to Hillary Clinton, combined with Trump's triumph, revealed the breadth of popular anger at politics as
usual – the blend of neoliberal domestic policy and interventionist foreign policy that constitutes consensus in Washington.
Neoliberals celebrate market utility as the sole criterion of worth; interventionists exalt military adventure abroad as a means
of fighting evil in order to secure global progress . Both agendas have proved calamitous for most Americans. Many registered
their disaffection in 2016. Sanders is a social democrat and Trump a demagogic mountebank, but their campaigns underscored a
widespread repudiation of the Washington consensus. For about a week after the election, pundits discussed the possibility of a more
capacious Democratic strategy. It appeared that the party might learn something from Clinton's defeat. Then everything changed.
"... Stop right there. Rather than the generously imply that Trump had good intentions in the first place, isn't it time to at least consider the possibility that Trump's campaign was a calculated "bait and switch" fraud from the beginning? ..."
"... Not "paranoid" but "PNAC" as in PNAC manifesto for world domination and control ..."
"... "It is plainly obvious that the Neocons are now back in total control of the White House, Congress and the US corporate media. Okay, maybe things are still not quite as bad as if Hillary had been elected, but they are bad enough to ask whether a major war is now inevitable next year." ..."
"... "Rather than generously imply that Trump had good intentions in the first place, isn't it time to at least consider the possibility that Trump's campaign was a calculated "bait and switch" fraud from the beginning?" ..."
"... A point that cannot be made often enough, IMO. Trump is the Republican Bill Clinton. ..."
"... Maybe it's time for Americans to admit that their quadrennial Mr. America contest amounts to little more than a "suck Satan's c *** " audition for the deep state, and that the contestants have no qualms about getting on their knees. It is far more comforting to believe that "your" guy was subverted after the (s)election, but that's not how it actually works. ..."
"... I'm imagining a bumper sticker with Trump's laughing face and a sad-looking deplorable in a baseball cap, with the caption "Bait and Switch- the American Way." Someone also once suggested "There are two kinds of Republicans: millionaires and suckers." ..."
"Not only has the swamp easily, quickly and totally drowned Trump "
Stop right there. Rather than the generously imply that Trump had good intentions in the first place, isn't it time to
at least consider the possibility that Trump's campaign was a calculated "bait and switch" fraud from the beginning?
"Furthermore, the Trump Administration now has released a National Security Strategy which clearly show that the Empire
is in 'full paranoid' mode."
Not "paranoid" but "PNAC" as in PNAC manifesto for world domination and control.
"It is plainly obvious that the Neocons are now back in total control of the White House, Congress and the US corporate
media. Okay, maybe things are still not quite as bad as if Hillary had been elected, but they are bad enough to ask whether a
major war is now inevitable next year."
Maybe Trump was the "deep state" candidate of choice? Maybe that's why they ran Clinton against him rather than the more electable
Sanders? Maybe that's why Obama started ramping up tensions with Russia in the early fall of 2016 – so as to swing the election
to Trump (by giving the disgruntled anti-war Sanders voters a false choice between Trump or war with Russia?
"Rather than generously imply that Trump had good intentions in the first place, isn't it time to at least consider
the possibility that Trump's campaign was a calculated "bait and switch" fraud from the beginning?"
A point that cannot be made often enough, IMO. Trump is the Republican Bill Clinton.
Maybe it's time for Americans to admit that their quadrennial Mr. America contest amounts to little more than a "suck Satan's
c *** " audition for the deep state, and that the contestants have no qualms about getting on their knees. It is far more comforting
to believe that "your" guy was subverted after the (s)election, but that's not how it actually works.
I'm imagining a bumper sticker with Trump's laughing face and a sad-looking deplorable in a baseball cap, with the caption
"Bait and Switch- the American Way." Someone also once suggested "There are two kinds of Republicans: millionaires and suckers."
"... Whitehead documents how hard a not guilty verdict is to come by for an innocent defendant. Even if the falsely accused defendant and his attorney survive the prosecutor's pressure to negotiate a plea bargain and arrive at a trial, they are confronted with jurors who are unable to doubt prosecutors, police, or witnesses paid to lie against the innocent defendant. ..."
"... The question is: why do Americans not only sit silently while the lives of innocents are destroyed, but also actually support the destruction of the lives of innocents? Why do Americans believe "official sources" despite the proven fact that "official sources" lie repeatedly and never tell the truth? ..."
"... The only conclusion that one can come to is that the American people have failed. We have failed Justice. We have failed Mercy. We have failed the US Constitution. We have failed Truth. We have failed Democracy and representative government. We have failed ourselves and humanity. We have failed the confidence that our Founding Fathers put in us. We have failed God. If we ever had the character that we are told we had, we have obviously lost it. Little, if anything, remains of the "American character." ..."
"... The failure of the American character has had tremendous and disastrous consequences for ourselves and for the world. At home Americans have a police state in which all Constitutional protections have vanished. Abroad, Iraq and Libya, two formerly prosperous countries, have been destroyed. Libya no longer exists as a country. One million dead Iraqis, four million displaced abroad, hundreds of thousands of orphans and birth defects from the American ordnance, and continuing ongoing violence from factions fighting over the remains. These facts are incontestable. Yet the United States Government claims to have brought "freedom and democracy" to Iraq. "Mission accomplished," declared one of the mass murderers of the 21st century, George W. Bush. ..."
"... The question is: how can the US government make such an obviously false outrageous claim without being shouted down by the rest of the world and by its own population? Is the answer that good character has disappeared from the world? ..."
"... Or is the rest of the world too afraid to protest? Washington can force supposedly sovereign countries to acquiesce to its will or be cut off from the international payments mechanism that Washington controls, and/or be sanctioned, and/or be bombed, droned, or invaded, and/or be assassinated or overthrown in a coup. On the entire planet Earth there are only two countries capable of standing up to Washington, Russia and China, and neither wants to stand up if they can avoid it. ..."
"... For whatever the reasons, not only Americans but most of the world as well accommodate Washington's evil and are thereby complicit in the evil. Those humans with a moral conscience are gradually being positioned by Washington and London as "domestic extremists" who might have to be rounded up and placed in detention centers. Examine the recent statements by General Wesley Clark and British Prime Minister Cameron and remember Janet Napolitano's statement that the Department of Homeland Security has shifted its focus from terrorists to domestic extremists, an undefined and open-ended term. ..."
"... Americans with good character are being maneuvered into a position of helplessness. ..."
"... When Clinton's Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was asked if the Clinton's regime's sanctions, which had claimed the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children, were justified, she obviously expected no outrage from the American people when she replied in the affirmative. ..."
"... ... Americans are "intentionally ignorant" of other countries' rights and sovereignty while other countries had been well-informed of America's malicious intents of destroying other countries' rights and sovereignty ... ..."
"... No, I don't think Americans are intentionally ignorant, any more than other nationalities. What they are tribal. Tribal peoples don't care whether their policies are right or wrong; they are instinctively loyal to them and to those who formulate them. ..."
"... "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind." -- Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda ..."
"... "Americans need to face the facts. The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise." ..."
"... "When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility." ..."
"... Look at the demographics of the Western Hemisphere. If you have a shred of honesty you just can't hang the blame on 'whites', put it on a bumper sticker or a #shittyhashtagmeme and go back to fucking off. The disgusting fraud of Manifest Destiny was a fig leaf to hide the enormity of these crimes; but, they are most obviously European crimes....& has Europe changed since the West was settled? Did Europeans even stop their warring amongst themselves? ..."
"... "The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise." ..."
"... I agree with Paul Craig Roberts. He asks "Why" and "How." Well, Paul, here is my answer. Decades of Public Education and over 50 years of mass media monopoly. In an age where FOX is the top rated News station and CNN is considered liberal? Where kids in Public school are offered Chocolate milk and frozen pizza for school breakfast before going to class rooms with 30-40 kids. When Texas political appointees chose school text book content for the nation? A nation where service has ended, replaced with volunteer soldiers signing up for pay and benefits, instead of just serving as service, like we did in the 70's? ..."
"... There is a difference between IGNORANCE and STUPIDITY. As Ron White said, "YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID". In todays information age, ignorance is a choice. ..."
"... The problem is that we have no "Constitution." That is a fable. The constitution of the separation of powers has been undermined from almost day one. Witness the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. ..."
"... Yes sir. Globalization has failed us. The infinite growth paradigm has failed us, as we knew it would. Castro's Cuba, based in a localized agrarian economy, is looking pretty good about now. Localization is the only way back to sustainability. ..."
"... Books? Who said books? You mean reading books? Let me throw a couple out there: I read 'The Image: A Guide To Pseudo-Events In America' last year, it was published 50+ years ago by a very recommended writer and accomplished historian. Boorstin's observations are truer today and even more concerning thanks to our modern, ubiquitous "connectivity". http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159979.The_Image ..."
"... Adorno famously pointed out in 1940 that the "Mass culture is psychoanalysis in reverse." ..."
"... He doesn't blame the masses because he simply points out the fact that Americans are completely ignorant and blindly believe anything MSM spoon-fed to them. ..."
"... Paul Craig Roberts believe that the people are capable of creating a better and more just society. Instead the people have voted against their own best interest and overwhelmingly believe the propaganda. ..."
"... "... the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise ..." ..."
"... Governments were created by the history of warfare, which was always organized crime developing on larger and larger scales. In the context, the greater problem is that people like Paul Craig Roberts are reactionary revolutionaries, who provide relatively good analysis, followed by bogus "solutions" based upon impossible ideals. ..."
"... The "American People" are the victims of the best scientific brainwashing that money could buy. As Cognitive Dissonance has previously stated on Zero Hedge: "The absolute best controlled opposition is one that doesn't know they are controlled." ..."
"... The article above was another illustration of the ways that the typical reactionary revolutionaries, Black Sheeple, or controlled opposition groups, respond to recognizing the more and more blatant degrees to which there has been an accelerating "transformation of government into a criminal enterprise." THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY CONTINUE TO STAY WITHIN THE SAME OLD-FASHIONED BULLSHIT-BASED FRAME OF REFERENCE, INSTEAD, AROUND AND AROUND WE GO, STUCK IN THE SAME DEEPENING RUTS, since they do NOT more fully "face the facts" regarding how and why the only realistic solutions to the real problems would require developing better organized crime. INSTEAD, they continue to promote the same dualities based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the associate bogus "solutions" based upon impossible ideals ... ..."
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.-Bob Dylan, "Hurricane"
Attorney John W. Whitehead opens a recent posting on his Rutherford Institute website with these words from a song by Bob Dylan.
Why don't all of us feel ashamed? Why only Bob Dylan?
I wonder how many of Bob Dylan's fans understand what he is telling them. American justice has nothing to do with innocence or
guilt. It only has to do with the prosecutor's conviction rate, which builds his political career. Considering the gullibility of
the American people, American jurors are the last people to whom an innocent defendant should trust his fate. The jury will betray
the innocent almost every time.
As Lawrence Stratton and I show in our book (2000, 2008) there is no justice in America. We titled our book, "How the Law Was
Lost." It is a description of how the protective features in law that made law a shield of the innocent was transformed over time
into a weapon in the hands of the government, a weapon used against the people. The loss of law as a shield occurred prior to 9/11,
which "our representative government" used to construct a police state.
The marketing department of our publisher did not appreciate our title and instead came up with "The Tyranny of Good Intentions."
We asked what this title meant. The marketing department answered that we showed that the war on crime, which gave us the abuses
of RICO, the war on child abusers, which gave us show trials of total innocents that bested Joseph Stalin's show trials of the heroes
of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the war on drugs, which gave "Freedom and Democracy America" broken families and by far the highest
incarceration rate in the world all resulted from good intentions to combat crime, to combat drugs, and to combat child abuse. The
publisher's title apparently succeeded, because 15 years later the book is still in print. It has sold enough copies over these years
that, had the sales occurred upon publication would have made the book a "best seller." The book, had it been a best seller, would
have gained more attention, and perhaps law schools and bar associations could have used it to hold the police state at bay.
Whitehead documents how hard a not guilty verdict is to come by for an innocent defendant. Even if the falsely accused defendant
and his attorney survive the prosecutor's pressure to negotiate a plea bargain and arrive at a trial, they are confronted with jurors
who are unable to doubt prosecutors, police, or witnesses paid to lie against the innocent defendant. Jurors even convicted
the few survivors of the Clinton regime's assault on the Branch Davidians of Waco, the few who were not gassed, shot, or burned to
death by US federal forces. This religious sect was demonized by Washington and the presstitute media as child abusers who were manufacturing
automatic weapons while they raped children. The charges proved to be false, like Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction,"
and so forth, but only after all of the innocents were dead or in prison.
The question is: why do Americans not only sit silently while the lives of innocents are destroyed, but also actually support
the destruction of the lives of innocents? Why do Americans believe "official sources" despite the proven fact that "official sources"
lie repeatedly and never tell the truth?
The only conclusion that one can come to is that the American people have failed. We have failed Justice. We have failed Mercy.
We have failed the US Constitution. We have failed Truth. We have failed Democracy and representative government. We have failed
ourselves and humanity. We have failed the confidence that our Founding Fathers put in us. We have failed God. If we ever had the
character that we are told we had, we have obviously lost it. Little, if anything, remains of the "American character."
Was the American character present in the torture prisons of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and hidden CIA torture dungeons where
US military and CIA personnel provided photographic evidence of their delight in torturing and abusing prisoners? Official reports
have concluded that along with torture went rape, sodomy, and murder. All of this was presided over by American psychologists with
Ph.D. degrees.
We see the same inhumanity in the American police who respond to women children, the elderly, the physically and mentally handicapped,
with gratuitous violence. For no reason whatsoever, police murder, taser, beat, and abuse US citizens. Every day there are more reports,
and despite the reports the violence goes on and on and on. Clearly, the police enjoy inflicting pain and death on citizens whom
the police are supposed to serve and protect. There have always been bullies in the police force, but the wanton police violence
of our time indicates a complete collapse of the American character.
The failure of the American character has had tremendous and disastrous consequences for ourselves and for the world. At home
Americans have a police state in which all Constitutional protections have vanished. Abroad, Iraq and Libya, two formerly prosperous
countries, have been destroyed. Libya no longer exists as a country. One million dead Iraqis, four million displaced abroad, hundreds
of thousands of orphans and birth defects from the American ordnance, and continuing ongoing violence from factions fighting over
the remains. These facts are incontestable. Yet the United States Government claims to have brought "freedom and democracy" to Iraq.
"Mission accomplished," declared one of the mass murderers of the 21st century, George W. Bush.
The question is: how can the US government make such an obviously false outrageous claim without being shouted down by the
rest of the world and by its own population? Is the answer that good character has disappeared from the world?
Or is the rest of the world too afraid to protest? Washington can force supposedly sovereign countries to acquiesce to its
will or be cut off from the international payments mechanism that Washington controls, and/or be sanctioned, and/or be bombed, droned,
or invaded, and/or be assassinated or overthrown in a coup. On the entire planet Earth there are only two countries capable of standing
up to Washington, Russia and China, and neither wants to stand up if they can avoid it.
For whatever the reasons, not only Americans but most of the world as well accommodate Washington's evil and are thereby complicit
in the evil. Those humans with a moral conscience are gradually being positioned by Washington and London as "domestic extremists"
who might have to be rounded up and placed in detention centers. Examine the recent statements by General Wesley Clark and British
Prime Minister Cameron and remember Janet Napolitano's statement that the Department of Homeland Security has shifted its focus from
terrorists to domestic extremists, an undefined and open-ended term.
Americans with good character are being maneuvered into a position of helplessness. As John Whitehead makes clear, the
American people cannot even prevent "their police," paid by their tax payments, from murdering 3 Americans each day, and this is
only the officially reported murders. The actual account is likely higher.
What Whitehead describes and what I have noticed for many years is that the American people have lost, in addition to their own
sense of truth and falsity, any sense of mercy and justice for other peoples. Americans accept no sense of responsibility for the
millions of peoples that Washington has exterminated over the past two decades dating back to the second term of Clinton. Every one
of the millions of deaths is based on a Washington lie.
When Clinton's Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was asked if the Clinton's regime's sanctions, which had claimed the
lives of 500,000 Iraqi children, were justified, she obviously expected no outrage from the American people when she replied in the
affirmative.
Americans need to face the facts. The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government into a
criminal enterprise.
benb
The American people have been scientifically mis-educated, propagandized, and beaten down. A disproportionate number of the
under 30's are societal DOAs thanks to ... weaponized TV. But I am being too optimistic...
PrayingMantis
... Americans are "intentionally ignorant" of other countries' rights and sovereignty while other countries had been well-informed
of America's malicious intents of destroying other countries' rights and sovereignty ...
BarnacleBill
No, I don't think Americans are intentionally ignorant, any more than other nationalities. What they are tribal. Tribal
peoples don't care whether their policies are right or wrong; they are instinctively loyal to them and to those who formulate
them.
Also, I have to say that I believe the US empire is a long, long, way from collapse. It is still expanding, for goodness sake.
Empires collapse only when the shrinking process is well under way. (The recent Soviet Empire was exceptional, in this regard.)
It will take several more generations before the darkness lifts, I'm afraid.
macholatte
The only conclusion that one can come to is that the American people have failed.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element
in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the
true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely
by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers
of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost
every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking,
we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the
masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
-- Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
OldPhart
"Americans need to face the facts. The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government
into a criminal enterprise."
I think that happened August 13, 1971, but didn't get fully organized (as in Mafia) until 2000.
PT
The majority have their nose to the grind stone and as such can not see past the grind stone. They rely on "official sources"
to put the rest of the world in order for them, but have no time to audit the "official sources". Would public education suffer
if mothers and fathers were monitoring what the children were learning? But who has got time for that when both parents are working?
How many non-work organizations were your parents and grand-parents involved in (both the wage-earner and the housekeeper)? How
many organizations are you involved in?
Do you constantly hassle your local politicians or do you just say, "I'll vote 'em out in four years time"? (Yes, I know, you
just don't vote. Fair enough, this question is for the voters.)
Yes, some of us are guilty of not fighting back. We had "Shut up and do as you're told" and "Well, if you're not happy with
what you've got then work harder" beaten into us. Some of us are a little awake because, despite all our efforts, the grind stone
was removed from us and then we got to see the larger picture of what lies behind the grind stone. Others are still busy, nose
to the wheel, and all they see is the wheel.
And that is before we even consider HypnoToad on the Idiot Box. Some "need" the idiot box to help them wind down. Some can
no longer enjoy the silence. (Remember Brave New World? It's true. Many people can no longer stand to be around silence, with
nothing but their own thoughts.) I tell everyone that TV is crap. Radio is crap. Newspapers are crap. Turn that shit off for six
months to a year, then go back to it and see what you really think of it. But they can't handle the thought of being away from
"the background noise".
Ever spoken to grandparents who remember wars and depressions? And even amongst the rations and the hardships they still find
positive memories? Time to talk to them again. Or not. I guess we'll get first-hand experience soon enough.
Allow me for a moment to share a brief anecdote about the new "American Character".
Last Sunday I was at the local supermarket. I was at the bakery counter, when suddenly a nicely dressed, Sunday best, non-Caucasian
woman barrels into my cart riding a fat scooter. She rudely demands from the counter person a single cinnamon bun and then wheels
off towards the front. Curious, I follow her up the aisle as she scarfs down the pastry in three bites. She then proceeds to stuff
the empty bag between some soda bottles and scooters through the checkout without paying for her item. In the parking lot she
then disembarks from her scooter, easily lifts it into the trunk of her Cadillac and walks to the drivers side, gets in and speeds
off with her kids, who were in the back seat.
Amazed at what I had just witnessed, I went back into the store, retrieved the empty bag, included it in my few items at checkout
and then went to the manager to share this story with him. He laughed and said there was nothing he could do.
The new "American Character" is that of a sense of entitlement and apathy.
I weep for the future.
Headbanger
Having character is not politically correct. Plus there's no need to develop character anymore because there's no jobs requiring
any!
Consumption is the ONLY value of the inDUHvidual today.
And the less character they have, the more shit they'll consume to feel fulfilled cause they can't get that from themselves.
clymer Sat, 07/25/2015 - 07:34
Macholatte, i don't think PCR is writing from a point of view that is haughty and contemptful of the American people, per se,
but rather from a perspective that is hopeless and thoroughly depressed after contemplating what the American people of many generations
ago has taken for themselves as natural rights from a tyrranical government, only to see the nation slowly morph into something
even worse than what was rejected by the founders.
"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within...
He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body
politic so that it can no longer resist."
ThroxxOfVron
"The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise. "
"I think that happened August 13, 1971 "
The entirety of the Western Hemisphere, not just 'The United States', was seized by invaders from Europe.
It is not an 'American' disease: it is a European disease and always was.
The indiginous populations of the Western Hemisphere were suystemaically and with forethought expropriated, ensalved, and slaughtered.
The indiginous persons that dwelled within the geographical domain that presently comprise the USA were still being margialized,
forcibly relocated, and murdered, long after the so-called 'American Civil War' had been decided.
...& As much as it is fashionable and/or politically expedient to vilify and blame the 'white' Europeans both for this history
and extenuate that history to inform the present state of affairs, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the Spanish ( most
eggregiously IMHO) were brutal and savage.
Look at the demographics of the Western Hemisphere.
If you have a shred of honesty you just can't hang the blame on 'whites', put it on a bumper sticker or a #shittyhashtagmeme
and go back to fucking off.
The disgusting fraud of Manifest Destiny was a fig leaf to hide the enormity of these crimes; but, they are most obviously
European crimes.
...& has Europe changed since the West was settled? Did Europeans even stop their warring amonsgst themselves?
Neither in Europe itself, nor in the settled West.
The Pacific Ocean wasn't named for calm waters.
It was named thusly because it is the natural geographic boundary where the mayhem and brutality and genocide ceased, if only
because the greedy and ruthless Europeans had run out of land in the Western Hemisphere with people upon it to plunder and murder...
El Vaquero
The US will collapse within the next decade if some serious new technology is not developed and the infrastructure to use it
is put in. There is too much debt and not enough material resources to continue growing the ponzi scheme that is our monetary
system at an exponential rate without something breaking. The question is, will it be at the end of this boom-bust cycle, or the
next? And if you look at what is being done on the financial front, which is the backbone of our neo-empire, that is shrinking.
The USD is slowly falling out of favor. There will come a point where that rapidly accelerates. We've been in a state of collapse
for 15 years.
Abitdodgie
ignorance is choice these days and Americans love it.
AetosAeros
Not only a choice, but the ONLY choice they are prepared to accept. Cognitive Dissonance at it's finest. And to make matters
worse, in only the best American fashion, we've asked if if it can be Supersized to go along with the Freedom Lies we feed ourselves.
I've seen the enemy, and....
But only if I'm willing to look in the mirror. Today's American doesn't look for what's right there in front of him/her, we
look for all the new 'Social Norms' that we aren't living up to. This article is completely on target, and I hope Roberts hasn't
decided to do any remodeling, cause too many idle nails guns make for a great Evening News sidebar mention.
Damnit all to hell.
Fun Facts
Fun Facts's picture
protocol #1 - Take control of the media and use it in propaganda for our plans
protocol #2 - Start fights between different races, classes and religions
... ... ...
protocol #13 - Use our media to create entertaining distractions
protocol #14 - Corrupt minds with filth and perversion
protocol #15 - Encourage people to spy on one another
Rubicon727
We educators began seeing this shift towards "me-ism" around 1995-6. Students from low to middle income families became either
apathetic towards "education" or followed their parent's sense of "entitlement." Simultaneously, the tech age captured both population's
attention. Respecting "an education" dwindled.
Fast forward to the present: following the 2007-8 crash, we noted clear divisions between low income vs middle/upper class
students based on their school behavior. Low to slightly middle income students brought to school family tensions and the turmoil
of parents losing their jobs. A rise in non-functioning students increase for teachers while the few well performing students
decline significantly.
Significant societal, financial shifts in America can always be observed in the student population.
reader2010
Mission Accomplished.
"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments,
when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business
a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility."
- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985
Lea
"The American people have been scientifically mis-educated".
You've got the answer there. The education system is the root cause of the problem. I'm from Europe, but if I've understood
correctly, the US education policy is to teach as little as possible to children, and expect them to fill in the gaps in the Universities,
past a certain age.
Only, it can't work. Children WILL learn, as childhood is the time when most informations are stored. If the schools don't
provide the knowledge, they will get it from the television, movies or games, with the consequences we can see: ignorance, obsession
with TV and movies stars, inability to differentiate life from movies, and over-simplistic reasoning (if any).
In Europe, we knew full well children learn fast and a lot, and that was why the schools focused on teaching them as much general
knowldge as possible before 18 years old, which is when - it is scientifically proved - the human brain learns best.
Recently, the EU leading countries have understood that having educated masses doesn't pay if you want to lead them like sheep,
so they are perfidiously trying to lower the standards... to the dismay of parents.
My advice, if I may presume to give any, would be to you USA people: teach your children what they won't learn at school, history,
geography, literature (US, European and even Asian, why not), a foreign language if you can, arts, music, etc; and keep them away
from the TV, movies and games.
And please adapt what you teach them to their age.
Refuse-Resist
Bang on! One anecdotal example: insisting that all 3rd graders use calculators "to learn" their multiplication tables. If I
didn't do flashcards at home with my kids they wouldn't know them. As somebody who majored in engineering and took many many advanced math courses, I always felt that knowing your 'times tables'
was essential to being successful in math.
What better way to dumb down otherwise intelligent children by creating a situation where the kid can't divide 32 by 4 without
a calculator. Trigonometry? Calculus? Linear Algebra? Fuggedaboudit.
doctor10
The CB's and MIC have Americans right where they want them. the consequences of 3-4 generations of force feeding Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny
ThroxxOfVron
Some of US were never fucking asleep. Some of us were born with our eyes and minds open. We were, and are: hated, and reviled, and marginalized, and disowned for it. The intellectual repression was, and is, fucking insane and brutal. Words such as ethics and logic exist for what purpose? What are these expressions of? A bygone time? Abstractions?
Those that have tried to preserve their self awareness, empathy, and rationality have been ruthlessly systematically demeaned
and condemed for confronting our families, our culture and institutions. We all have a right to be angry and disgusted and distrustful of the people and institutions around us. I am very fucking angry, and disgusted, and distrustful of the people and institutions around me.
But I still have hope. Nothing lasts forever.. This self-righteous nation called The United States, this twisted fraud of a culture called America, is most dangerously overdue
for receipt of chastisment and retribution. It would be best if the citizenry of the United States taught themselves a lesson in stead of inviting Other nations and cultures
to educate them.
A serious self education may be tedious and imperfect; but, it would be far far cheaper than forcing someone to come all the
way over those oceans to educate Americans at the price they will be demanding for those lessons...
I do not require representation. I will speak my own mind and act of my own accord.
Every time other so-called Americans take a shit on me for thinking and speaking and acting differently it is a badge of honor
and a confirmation of my spiritual and intellectual liberty. They don't know it but they are all gonna run out of shit before
I run out of being free.
ThroxxOfVron
"The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise. "
"I think that happened August 13, 1971 "
The entirety of the Western Hemisphere, not just 'The United States', was seized by invaders from Europe. It is not an 'American' disease: it is a European disease and always was.
The indiginous populations of the Western Hemisphere were suystemaically and with forethought expropriated, ensalved, and slaughtered.
The indiginous persons that dwelled within the geographical domain that presently comprise the USA were still being margialized,
forcibly relocated, and murdered, long after the so-called 'American Civil War' had been decided.
...& As much as it is fashionable and/or politically expedient to vilify and blame the 'white' Europeans both for this history
and extenuate that history to inform the present state of affairs, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the Spanish ( most
eggregiously IMHO) were brutal and savage.
Look at the demographics of the Western Hemisphere. If you have a shred of honesty you just can't hang the blame on 'whites', put it on a bumper sticker or a #shittyhashtagmeme
and go back to fucking off. The disgusting fraud of Manifest Destiny was a fig leaf to hide the enormity of these crimes; but, they are most obviously
European crimes....& has Europe changed since the West was settled? Did Europeans even stop their warring amongst themselves?
See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
That would be: Hell NO. Neither in Europe itself, nor in the settled West. The Pacific Ocean wasn't named for calm waters. It was named thusly because it is the natural geographic boundary where the mayhem and brutality and genocide ceased, if only
because the greedy and ruthless Europeans had run out of land in the Western Hemisphere with people upon it to plunder and murder...
Mini-Me
"The loss of character means the loss of liberty and the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise."
I agree with the first part. As for the latter, "government," by definition, is a criminal enterprise. It doesn't start out
pure as the driven snow and then change into something nefarious over time. Its very essence requires the initiation of violence
or its threat. Government without the gun in the ribs is a contradiction.
The fact that those in power got more votes than the losing criminals does not magically morph these people into paragons of
virtue. They are almost without exception thoroughly deranged human beings. Lying is second nature to them. Looting is part of
the job description. Killing is an end to their means: the acquisition and aggrandizement of power over others, no matter how
much death and destruction results.
These people are sick bastards. To expect something virtuous from them after an endless string of wanton slaughter, theft and
abuse, is simply wishful thinking.
Jack Burton
I agree with Paul Craig Roberts. He asks "Why" and "How." Well, Paul, here is my answer. Decades of Public Education and over
50 years of mass media monopoly. In an age where FOX is the top rated News station and CNN is considered liberal? Where kids in
Public school are offered Chocolate milk and frozen pizza for school breakfast before going to class rooms with 30-40 kids. When
Texas political appointees chose school text book content for the nation? A nation where service has ended, replaced with volunteer
soldiers signing up for pay and benefits, instead of just serving as service, like we did in the 70's?
Paul Craig Roberts points out the police war against the people. That comes right from the very top, orders filter down to
street cops. Street Cops are recruited from groups of young men our fathers generation would have labeled mental! But now they
are hired across the board, shaved heads, tatoos, and a code of silence and Cops Above Justice.
Schools
Media
Crazed Cops
And a corporate owned government.
The people have allowed the elites to rule in their place, never bothering to question the two fake candidates we are allowed
to vote for.
Jtrillian
There is a difference between IGNORANCE and STUPIDITY. As Ron White said, "YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID". In todays information age, ignorance is a choice.
Part of the problem that no one is talking about or addressing is the population explosion. And it's not linear. Those who
are the least educated, fully dependent others for their survival (welfare), the most complacent, and often with violent criminal
records are breeding the fastest.
Evolution is not guaranteed. It can be argued that the apathy we experience today is a sign of the human race de-evolving.
It takes a certain amount of cognitive ability to observe and question what is going on.
Further, the society we have created where "60 is the new 40" creates very little time to pay attention to what is going on
in the world. Many people rely on mainstream media which is not really news any more. When six corporations control more than
90% of the news, it's the message of the corporate elite that we are fed. This becomes painfully obvious when you start turning
to other sources for information like social media and independent news. Mainstream media today is full of opinion bias - injecting
opinion as though it were fact. They also appeal to the lowest commmon denominator by focusing on emotionally charged topics and
words rather than boring facts. Finally, the mainstream media is extremely guilty of propaganda by omission, ignoring important
events altogether or only presenting one side of the story as is being done with regard to ISIS, Syria, and Ukraine today. People
who watch the mainstream media have no idea that the US played a significant role in arming ISIS and aided in their rise to power.
They have no idea that it was likely ISIS that used chemical weapons in Syria. They have no idea that the US has propped up real
life neo nazis in high government positions in Ukraine. And they have ignored the continuing Fukushima disaster that is STILL
dumping millions of gallons of radioactive water into the ocean every single day.
To sum up, democracies only work when people pay attention and participate. People are either too stupid, too overworked, are
are looking to the wrong sources for information.
Until we break up mainstream media, remove incentives for those who cannot even care for themselves to stop breeding, and make
fundamental changes to our society that affords people the time to focus on what is happening in the world, it will only get worse.
Much worse.
serotonindumptruck
A dying empire is like a wounded, cornered animal.
It will lash out uncontrollably and without remorse in a futile effort to save itself from certain death.
Enough Already
The problem is that we have no "Constitution." That is a fable. The constitution of the separation of powers has been undermined
from almost day one. Witness the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
In the centuries since then, there has been no "separation of powers." Marbury v Madison (1803) gave the Supreme Court the
right to "decide" what the "law" was. Although, only in the 20th century did the "Supreme" court really start "legislating" from
the bench.
We're just peons to the Overall Federal Power; the three "separate" parts of the federal government have been in collusion
from the first. But like all empires, this one is in the final stage of collapse; it has just gotten too big.
gswifty
Yes sir. Globalization has failed us. The infinite growth paradigm has failed us, as we knew it would. Castro's Cuba, based
in a localized agrarian economy, is looking pretty good about now. Localization is the only way back to sustainability.
napples
Books? Who said books? You mean reading books? Let me throw a couple out there: I read 'The Image: A Guide To Pseudo-Events In America' last year, it was published 50+ years ago by a very recommended
writer and accomplished historian. Boorstin's observations are truer today and even more concerning thanks to our modern, ubiquitous
"connectivity". http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159979.The_Image
Another by Boorstin, The Discoverers was my fav, like Bryson's 'Short History' on steroids:
I'm currently trying to fathom all of the historical implications of the claims Menzies is making in his book '1434', where
apparently everything I learned about history is a lie. While he's making a lot of claims(hoping some sticks?) I'm not truly convinced.
It is a very good, believable thought experiment. It almost makes perfect sense given the anglo/euro history of deceit & dishonesty,
but I digress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies
Adorno famously pointed out in 1940 that the "Mass culture is psychoanalysis in reverse." It takes 75 years for someone
such as PCR to reiterate. He doesn't blame the masses because he simply points out the fact that Americans are completely
ignorant and blindly believe anything MSM spoon-fed to them.
George Orwell once remarked that the average person today is about as naive as was the average person in the Middle Ages. In
the Middle Ages people believed in the authority of their religion, no matter what. Today, we believe in the authority of what
Adorno called Culture Industry and MSM, no matter what. Today we are indeed in another Dark Age
PoasterToaster
"Americans" are not one person. Individuals are not fungible. Reasoning from the "average American" leads to false conclusions.
reader2010
Jacques Derrida says, "The individualism of technological civilization relies precisely on a misunderstanding of the unique
self. It is the individualism of a role and not of a person. In other words it might be called the individualism of a masque or
persona, a character [personnage] and not a person." There are many Americans but they all play the same role in the Pursuit of
Happiness, aka wage slaves, career slaves, debt slaves, information junkies, and passive consumers.
Moccasin
Paul Craig Roberts believe that the people are capable of creating a better and more just society. Instead the people have
voted against their own best interest and overwhelmingly believe the propaganda.
When do the people or the society take responsibility for its greater good or own the crimes of those they put into power?
Blaming the aristocracy or the oligarchs seems like a scapegoat when the people have never stood up to the corruption in a
cohesive or concerted way. imho, After a few generations of abuse and corruption the people need to take responsibility for their
future. I expect that most will just buy into the charade and live the lie, on that basis as a society we are doomed to live in
a corporatocracy fascist state.
Aldous Huxley called it a scientific dictatorship, Edward Bernays referred to us as a herd.
Moccasin
In the USA being white, monied and having the capacity to afford a good education is privileged. To his credit he speaks to
the greater population, the 'average citizen' and not the plutocratic class.
MSorciere
What we have is the result of conditioning and commoditizing a population. The country is filled with consumers, not citizens.
Teach the acquisition of money and goods as the main goal and individualism as the only acceptable social unit. We end up with
a nation of insatiable sociopaths, ruled by power-hungry psychopaths.
Divisive politics, jackbooted authority from the DC scumpond down to the cop on the beat, the constant preaching of the cult
of the individual as a sustitute for true liberty... all of these have served to destroy a sense of community and decentness between
Americans.
The ONLY thing that could threaten the ruling class is a banding together of the people - in large numbers. 'They' have purposefully
and effectively quashed that.
TrulyStupid
Shifting responsibility to the usual suspects is simply a manifestation of the American moral collapse. Man up and do some
self evaluation.
T-NUTZ
"what I have noticed for many years is that the American people have lost, in addition to their own sense of truth and falsity,
any sense of mercy and justice for other peoples"
Unfortunately, Paul, the American people have lost any sense of mercy and justice for their own people.
Painful as it may be, we need to rationally look at US history/society. The nascent US was formed by stealing land from the
native population and using human capital (read African Slaves) to generate wealth (it took a civil war with circa 500K casualties
to stop this- one could argue the US "civil war" never ended). More recently, the US has been almost continuously at war since
1940, we dropped atomic bombs on Japan. Currently, the US/NATO war theater extends from the Levant, to Caspian Basin, Persian
Gulf, China Sea, Indian Ocean, Horn of Africa (Saudi/US war on Yemen), the Maghreb and E Europe and Russian Border.
"... the transformation of government into a criminal enterprise ..."
Governments were created by the history of warfare, which was always organized crime
developing on larger and larger scales. In the context, the greater problem is that people like Paul Craig Roberts are
reactionary revolutionaries, who provide relatively good analysis, followed by bogus "solutions" based upon impossible ideals.
The "American People" are the victims of the best scientific brainwashing that money could buy. As Cognitive Dissonance
has previously stated on Zero Hedge: "The absolute best controlled opposition is one that doesn't know they
are controlled."
It is practically impossible to exaggerate the degree to which that is so, on such profound levels, because of the ways that
most people want to continue to believe that false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals are
valid, and should be applied to their problems, despite that those mistaken ideas cause the opposite to happen in the real world,
because those who promote those kinds of false fundamental dichotomies and their related impossible ideals, ARE "controlled
opposition."
Rather, the place to begin would be by recognizing that all human beings and civilizations must necessarily operate as entropic
pumps of energy flows, which necessarily are systems of organized lies operating robberies. Everyone has some power to rob, and
power to kill to back that up. Governments assembled and channeled those powers. There was never a time when governments were
not organized crime. There could never be any time when governments were not organized crime. The only things that exist are the
dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies. Those dynamic equilibria have become extremely
unbalanced due the degree that the best organized gangs of criminals were able to control their opposition.
Paul Craig Roberts, as well as pretty well all of the rest of the content published on Zero Hedge, are presentations
of various kinds of controlled opposition groups, most of which do not recognize that they are being controlled by the language
that they use, and the philosophy of science that they take for granted. THAT is the greatest failure of the American People,
as well as most of the rest of the people everywhere else. They believe in false fundamental dichotomies, and the related impossible
ideals, and therefore, their bogus "solutions" always necessarily backfire badly, and cause the opposite to happen in the real
world.
After all, the overwhelming vast majority of the American People operate as the controlled opposition to the best organized
gangs of criminals that most control the government of the USA. Therefore, the FAILURES of the American People are far more profound
and problematic than what is superficially presented by guys like Paul Craig Roberts, and also, of course, his suggested bogus
"solutions" are similarly superficial.
The ONLY things which can actually exist are the dynamic equilibrium between different systems of organized lies operating
robberies. The degree to which the American People, as well as most of the rest of the people in the world, FAIL to understand
that is the degree to which they enable the best organized gangs of criminals to control them, due to the vast majority of people
being members of various controlled opposition groups. Controlled opposition always presents relatively superficial analysis of
the political problems, which are superficially correct. However, they then follow that up with similarly superficial "solutions."
Therefore, magical words are bandied about, that express their dualities, through false fundamental dichotomies, and the related
impossible ideals.
Governments must exist because organized crime must exist. Better governments could be achieved through
better organized crime. However, mostly what get presented in the public places are the utter bullshit of the biggest
bullies, who dominate the society because they were the best organized gangs of criminals, who were also able to dominate their
apparent opposition. Therefore, instead of more realistic, better balancing of the dynamic equilibria between different systems
of organized lies operating robberies, we get runaway developments of the best organized gangs of criminals being able to control
governments, whose only apparent opposition is controlled to stay within the same bullshit frame of reference regarding everything
that was actually happening.
The mainline of the FAILURES of the American People have been the ways that the international bankers were able to recapture
control over the American public "money" supply. After that, everything else was leveraged up, through the funding of the political
processes, schools, and mass media, etc., being more and more dominated by that fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting
system. Of course, that FAILURE has now become more than 99% ... Therefore, no political possible ways appear to exist to pull
out of that flaming spiral nose dive, since we have already gone beyond the event horizon into that social black hole.
Most of the content on Zero Hedge which is based upon recognizing that set of problems still acts as controlled opposition
in that regard too. Therefore, the bogus "solutions" here continue to deliberately ignore that money is necessarily measurement
backed by murder. Instead of accepting that, the controlled opposition groups like to promote various kinds of "monetary reforms."
However, meanwhile, we are actually already headed towards the established debt slavery systems having generated debt insanities,
which are going to provoke death insanities.
In that context, the only realistic resolutions to the real problems would necessarily have to be monetary revolutions,
that may emerge out of the future situations, after the runaway debt insanities have provoked death insanities. Indeed, the only
genuine solutions to the problems are to develop different death control systems, to back up different debt control systems, which
must necessarily be done within the context that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best
organized gangs of criminals.
The various controlled opposition groups do not want to face those social facts. Rather, they continue to want to believe in
the dualities expressed as false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals, which is their greatest overall FAILURE.
In my view, the article above by Roberts contained a lot of nostalgic nonsense. There was never a time when there
were any governments which were not based on the applications of the principles and methods of organized crime, and there
could never be any time in the future when that could be stopped from being the case.
The greatest FAILURE of the American People, as well as most of the rest of the world's people, has been to become so brainwashed
to believe in the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, that there is no significant opposition that is not controlled by thinking
inside of the box of that bullshit. The government did NOT transform into a criminal enterprise. The government was necessarily
ALWAYS a criminal enterprise. That criminal enterprise has become more and more severely UNBALANCED due to the FAILURE
of the people to understand that they were actually members of an organized crime gang, called their country. Instead, they were
more and more scientifically brainwashed to believe in bullshit about everything, including their country.
The ONLY connection between human laws and the laws of nature is the ability to back up lies with violence. The development
of the government of the USA has been the developed of integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. Those
systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS have been able to become more extremely unbalanced because there is almost nothing which is publicly
significant surrounding that core of organized crime but various controlled opposition groups.
Of course, it seems politically impossible for my recommendations to actually happen within the foreseeable future, as the
current systems of debt slavery drive through debt insanities to become death insanities, but nevertheless, the only theoretically
valid ideas to raise to respond to the real problems would have to based upon a series of intellectual scientific revolutions.
However, since we have apparently run out of time to go through those sorts of paradigm shifts sufficiently, we are stuck in the
deepening ruts of political problems which guys like Roberts correctly present to be the case
... HOWEVER, ROBERTS, LIKE ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE, CONTINUE TO PRESUME UPON DUALITIES, AND THEREFORE,
HAVE THEIR MECHANISMS REGARDING "SOLUTIONS" ABSURDLY BACKWARDS.
Rather, we should start with the concept of SUBTRACTION, which then leads to robbery. We should start with the recognition
that governments are necessarily, by definition, the biggest forms of organized crime. Governments did NOT transform
into being that. Governments were always that. The political problems we have now are due to the best organized gangs
of criminals, which currently are primarily the biggest gangsters, which can rightly be referred to as the banksters, having dominated
all aspects of the funding of politics, enough to capture control over all sociopolitical institutions, so that the American People
would more and more be subjected to the best scientific brainwashing that money could buy, which was built on top of thousands
of years of previous history of Neolithic Civilizations being based on backing up lies with violence.
The runaway systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS, or the integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, that more
and more dominate the lives of the American People are due to the applications of the methods of organized crime, and could not
be effectively counter-balanced in any other ways. However, the standing social situation is that there is no publicly significant
opposition that is not controlled to stay within the same frame of reference of the biggest bullies, which is now primarily the
frame of reference of the banksters. Indeed, to the degree to which people's lives are controlled by the monetary system, they
are debt slaves. Moreover, the degree to which they do not understand, and do not want to understand, that money is necessarily
measurement backed by murder, then they think like controlled opposition groups, who have their mechanisms absurdly backwards,
when they turn from their superficial analysis of what the political problems, to then promote their superficial solutions of
those problems.
I AGREE that "Americans need to face the facts." However, those facts are that citizens are members
of an organized crime gang, called their country. "Their" country is currently controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
However, there are no genuine resolutions for those problems other than to develop better organized crime. Since the controlled
opposition groups that are publicly significant do not admit any of the deeper levels of the scientific facts regarding human
beings and civilizations operating as entropic pumps of energy flows, but rather, continue to perceive all of that in the most
absurdly backward ways possible, the current dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies
continue to become more and more extremely UNBALANCED.
In the case of the article above, Roberts does NOT "face the facts" that governments were
always forms of organized crime, and must necessarily be so, because human beings must live as entropic pumps of energy
flows. Rather, Roberts tends to illustrate how the controlled opposition takes for granted certain magical words and phrases,
such as "Liberty" or "Constitution," that have no adequate operational definitions to connect them to the material
world.
We are living inside of an oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, which has applied the progress in science primarily to become
better at backing up lies with violence, while refusing to allow scientific methods to admit and address how and why that has
been what has actually happened. Therefore, almost all of the language that we use to communicate, as well as almost
all of the philosophy of science that we take for granted, was based on the biggest bullies' bullshit, which is now primarily
manifested as the banksters' bullshit, as that bullshit developed in America to become ENFORCED FRAUDS.
ALL of the various churches, corporations, and countries are necessarily various systems of organized lies operating robberies.
Those which are the biggest now were historically the ones that were the best at doing that. The INTENSE PARADOXES are due to
human systems necessarily being organized lies operating robberies, wherein the greatest social successfulness has been achieved
by those who were the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. That flows throughout ALL of the established systems,
which are a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition groups.
The degree to which the American People, as well as the rest of the world's people, have been more and more scientifically
brainwashed to believe in bullshit about governments in particular, and human beings and civilizations in general, is the degree
to which the established systems based upon ENFORCED FRAUDS are headed towards some series of psychotic breakdowns. For all practical
purposes, it is politically impossible to get enough people to stop acting like incompetent political idiots, and instead start
acting more like competent citizens, because they do not understand, and moreover have been conditioned to not want to understand
that governments are necessarily organized crime.
Roberts ironically illustrated the deeper nature of the political problems that he also shares, when he perceives that governments
have somehow transformed into being criminal enterprise, when governments were always necessarily criminal enterprises.
Similarly, with those who recognize that, but then promote the impossible solutions based upon somehow stopping that
from being the case, which is as absurdly backwards as stopping human beings from operating as entropic pumps of energy
flows, which then also presumes that it would be possible to stop human civilizations from being entropic pumps of energy
flows.
Rather, the deeper sorts of intellectual scientific revolutions that we should go through require becoming much more
critical of the language that we use to communicate with, and more critical about the philosophy of science that we presumed was
correct. Actually, we were collectively brainwashed to believe in the biggest bullies' bullshit, which is as absurdly backwards
as it could possibly be. However, due to the collective FAILURES of people to understand that, as reflected by the ways that the
core of organized crime is surrounded by nothing which is publicly significant than layers of controlled opposition, there are
no reasonable ways to doubt that the established debt slavery systems will continue to drive even worse debt insanities, which
will provoke much worse death insanities. Therefore, to be more realistic about the foreseeable future, the development of new
death control systems will emerge out of the context of crazy collapses into chaos, wherein the runaway death insanities provide
the possible opportunities for new death controls to emerge out of that situation.
Of course, the about 99% FAILURE of the American People to want to understand anything that I have outlined above
indicates that the foreseeable future for subsequent generations shall not too likely be catalyzed transformations
towards enough people better understanding their political problems, in order to better resolve those problems. Rather, what I
mostly expect is for the psychotic breakdowns of the previous systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS to give opportunities to some possible
groups of controlled opposition to take advantage of that, to perhaps emerge as the new version of professional liars and immaculate
hypocrites, who will be able to operate some new version of organized lies, operating robberies, who may mostly still get away
with being some modified versions of still oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, due to social success still being based upon the
best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, who were able to survive through those transformations, so that the
new systems arise from some of the seeds of the old systems.
At the present time, it is extremely difficult to imagine how the human species could possibly reconcile progress in
physical science by surpassing that with progress in political science. Rather, what mostly exists now is the core of
organized crime, which gets away with spouting the bullshit about itself, such as how the banksters dominate the mass media, and
the lives of everyone else who depend upon the established monetary system (which is dominated by the current ways that governments
ENFORCE FRAUDS by privately controlled banks), while that core of organized crime has no publicly significant opposition that
is not controlled by the ways that they think, which ways stay within the basic bullshit world view, as promoted by the biggest
bullies for thousands of years, and as more and more scientifically promoted to brainwash the vast majority of people to believe
in that kind of bullshit so completely that it mostly does not occur to them that they are doing that, and certainly almost never
occurs to them that they are doing that in the most profoundly absurd and backward ways possible.
That is how and why it is possible for an author like Roberts to correctly point out the ways in which the government of the
USA is transforming into being more blatantly based on organized crime ... HOWEVER, Roberts is not willing and able to go through
deeper levels of intellectual scientific revolutions, in order to recognize how and why governments were always necessarily manifestations
of organized crime. Therefore, as is typically the case, Roberts does not recognize how ironically he recommends that Americans
should "face the facts," while he himself does not fully do so.
The whole history of Neolithic Civilizations was social pyramid systems based on being able to back up lies with violence,
becoming more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which currently manifest as the globalized
electronic frauds of the banksters, were are backed up by the governments (that those banksters effectively control) having atomic
bombs. Those are the astronomically amplified magnitudes of the currently existing combined money/murder systems. Therefore, it
appears to be politically impossible at the present time to develop better governments, due to the degree that almost everyone
is either a member of the core groups of organized crime, or members of the surrounding layers of groups of controlled opposition,
both of which want to stay within the same overall bullshit frame of reference, because, so far, their lives have been socially
successful by being professional liars and immaculate hypocrites.
Ironically, I doubt that someone like Roberts, or pretty well everyone else whose material is published on Zero Hedge
is able and willing to recognize the degree to which they are actually controlled opposition. Indeed, even more ironically, as
I have repeated before, even Cognitive Dissonance, when he previously stated on Zero Hedge:"The
absolute best controlled opposition is one that doesn't know they are controlled." DOES NOT "GET IT" regarding the
degree to which he too is controlled opposition, even while superficially attempting to recognize and struggle with that situation.
(Indeed, of course, that includes me too, since I am still communicating using the English language, which was the natural language
that most developed to express the biggest bullies' bullshit world view.)
Overall, I REPEAT, the deeper problems are due to progress in physical science, NOT being surpassed by progress in
political science. Instead, while there EXIST globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, practically nothing
regarding the ways of thinking that made that science and those technologies possible has found any significant expression through
political science, because political science would have to go through even more profound paradigm shifts within itself in order
to do that.
The INTENSE PARADOXES continue to be the manifestation of the oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, that deliberately refuses
to become any more genuinely scientific about itself. Therefore, the banksters have been able to pay for the best scientific brainwashing
that money could buy, for generation after generation, in order to more and more brainwash most of the American People to believe
in the banksters' bullshit world view. While there exist electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, practically nothing regarding
the physical science paradigm shifts that made that possible have even the slightest degree of public appreciation within the
realms of politics today, which are almost totally dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, despite that being as
absurdly backwards as possible, while the controlled opposition groups, mostly in the form of old-fashioned religions and ideologies,
continue to stay within that same bullshit world view, and adamantly refuse to change their perceptual paradigms regarding political
problems.
However, I REPEAT, the issues we face are NOT that governments have transformed to become criminal enterprises,
but that governments were always necessarily criminal enterprises, which had the power to legalized their own lies, and
then back those lies up with legalized violence. Thereby, the best organized criminals, the international bankers, as
the biggest gangsters, or the banksters, were able to apply the methods of organized crime through the political processes. Meanwhile,
the only "opposition" that was allowed to be publicly significant was controlled, to basically stay within the same bullshit world
view, which is what Roberts has done in his series of articles, as well as what is almost always presented in the content published
on Zero Hedge.
The NEXT LEVEL of "the need to face the facts" is to recognize that the political economy is based
upon ENFORCED FRAUDS, or systems of debt slavery backed by wars based on deceits. However, the NEXT LEVEL "the need
to face the facts" is the that the only possible changes are to change the dynamic equilibria between the different
systems of organized lies operating robberies, i.e., change those ENFORCED FRAUDS, in ways which CAN NOT STOP
THOSE FROM STILL BEING ENFORCED FRAUDS, because of the degree to which money is necessarily measurement backed by murder.
For the American People, as well as the rest of the world's people, to stop being such dismal FAILURES would require them to
become more competent citizens. However, at the present time they appear to be totally unable to do that, because they are unwilling
to go through the profound paradigm shifts that it would take them to become more competent citizens inside of world where there
exist globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs. The vast majority of the American People would not like
to go through the severe cognitive dissonance that would be required, to not only recognize that "their" government was a criminal
enterprise, but that it also must be, and that they too must necessarily be members of that organized crime gang. However, without
that degree of perceptual paradigm shifts of the political problems, then enough of the American People could not become more
competent citizens.
Somehow, most people continue to count on themselves never having to think about how and why progress was achieved in physical
science, by going through series of profound paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceived the world. Most people continue to
presume that it is not necessary for their perception of politics to go through profound paradigm shifts, that surpass those which
have already been achieved in physical science. We continue to live in an oxymoronic scientific dictatorship, that employs science
and technology to become better at being dishonest and violent, but does not apply science and technology to "face
the facts" about that scientific dictatorship as a whole.
At the present time, technologies which have become trillions of times more capable and powerful are primarily used as special effects within the context of repeating the same old-fashioned, stupid social stories, such as promoted by the biggest
bullies, and their surrounding controlled opposition groups. Ironically, especially when it comes to politics, that tends to manifest
the most atavistic throwbacks to old-fashioned religions and ideologies being relied upon to propose bogus "solutions," despite
that those kinds of social stories adamantly refuse to change their paradigms in light of the profound paradigms shifts which
have been achieved in physical science.
The article above was another illustration of the ways that the typical reactionary revolutionaries, Black Sheeple, or controlled
opposition groups, respond to recognizing the more and more blatant degrees to which there has been an accelerating "transformation of government into a criminal enterprise." THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY CONTINUE TO STAY WITHIN
THE SAME OLD-FASHIONED BULLSHIT-BASED FRAME OF REFERENCE, INSTEAD, AROUND AND AROUND WE GO, STUCK IN
THE SAME DEEPENING RUTS, since they do NOT more fully "face the facts" regarding how and why the only
realistic solutions to the real problems would require developing better organized crime. INSTEAD, they
continue to promote the same dualities based upon false fundamental dichotomies, and the associate bogus "solutions" based upon
impossible ideals ...
Given that overall situation, that there there almost nothing which is publicly significant than the core of organized crime,
surrounded by controlled opposition groups, I see no reasonable hopes for the foreseeable material future of a civilization controlled
by ENFORCED FRAUDS, since there is no publicly possible ways to develop better dynamic equilibria between the different systems
of organized lies operating robberies, since the biggest forms of doing that were most able to get away with pretending that they
are not doing that, which was facilitated by their controlled opposition promoting the opinions that nobody should do that, while
actually everyone must be doing that.
Roberts' article above, to me, was another typical example of superficially correct analysis, which implies some bogus "solutions"
because those are based upon the same superficiality. It is NOT good enough to recognize "transformation of government
into a criminal enterprise," unless one goes through deeper levels of analysis regarding how and why that is what
actually exists, and then, one should continue to be consistent with that deeper analysis when one turns to proposing genuine
solutions to those problems, namely, I REPEAT THAT the only realistic resolutions to the real political
problems requires the transformation of government into a better organized criminal enterprise, which
ideally should be based upon enough citizens who are competent enough to understand that they are members of an organized crime
gang, which should assert themselves to make sure that their country becomes better organized crime.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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They are the Pigs in Animal Farm , preaching righteousness, peddling preposterousness and hoarding all the "milk and apples" for themselves.
President Trump draws a massive crowd at a campaign rally at the Toyota Center in Houston TX. October 22, 2018 (Donald J Trump/Facebook)
20181026-panic-among-oligarchs.pdf President Donald Trump is fully deployed to assure that the "Impeachment Party" -- once known as the Democratic Party -- is denied their effort to take over the Congress and launch an impeachment. He has held 12 rallies across the country in support of Republican candidates, repeating everywhere that a vote for Democrats this year is a vote against himself. He plans to hold 10 more rallies in the final days preceding the election on Nov. 6. Although he seldom engaged the press in his first two years, in the past three weeks he has held numerous press conferences and interviews, fully confident and determined in his role as President. The LaRouchePAC-sponsored Independent Congressional candidacies in Texas and South Dakota of Kesha Rogers and Ron Wieczorek are rallying people around the country, regardless of party affiliation, to defend the nation against the British-orchestrated coup attempt, and organizing Americans to back Trump's intention to establish peace and friendship with Russia and China, restore American System economic policies in the U.S., while calling on Trump to join in the new paradigm for global development represented by the Belt and Road Initiative.
