The Iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the
German sociologist
Robert Michels in his book 1915 Political Parties.
The book is now freely available as copyright expired, and is well worth reading:
Robert Michels was a Professor of Political Economy and Statistics, University of Basle. He was an anarcho-syndicalist
at the time he formulated the Iron Law of Oligarchy. He later became an important ideologue of Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy.
Drawing on his own disillusioning as a member and supporter of a social democratic party in early 20th century Germany, Michels described
an interesting and convincing dynamics of large organizations such as political parties: as an organization grows and get older there is
a strong trend toward crystallization its own "party nomenklatura" -- unaccountable to rank-and-file members party elite. He called
this unaccountable part of political party leadership an oligarchy. The more current and more correct term is
"nomenklatura". It was derived from the
USSR history and was an actual, semi-official term used to define unaccountable Communist party and top management of Soviet
industry as well as their extended families.
The process of "crystallization" of "Nomenklatura" in large organizations, parties and government agencies (such
as the State Department, CIA, etc) is an objective self-reinforcing process. It inevitably
starts even within the most democratically-oriented leadership of the political organizations. As the party grows, members very
soon become divided into an elite (or more correctly a set of elites, or party oligarchs, with their own set of distinctive and
private interests) and the rank and file members, whose labor and resources are exploited by the elite.
That does not mean that rank-and-file members can't revolt against Party elite as we saw with Sanders followers within the Democratic
Party and Trump followers within the Republican Party in 2016 presidential elections. But such revolts are rare and usually successfully
squashed. Even if successful, the deviation from the law is temporary in nature, and the process just repeats itself on
a new level as new elite becomes more and more detached from rank-and-file members who secured its ascendance to political Olymp.
The first condition precipitating the drift to such an oligarchical system is, ironically, success in recruiting new members to the
organization’s cause. As organizations grow, the ability of members to participate equally in organizational decisions decline, both
because it is hard to find a place and time for all members to assemble and because decision-making is significantly slowed -- not infrequently
to a standstill -- as the number of decision-makers increases. The usual response is to such problems is creation of "leadership"
-- delegation of responsibility to a relatively small subset of members for formulating and recommending lines
of action and policies. This is the first and enviable step of creation "native" oligarchy within the political organization.
The second step is "bureaucratization" of the organization. At this point leadership no longer represents the interests of the
rank-and-file party members.
Although some members can see the writing on the wall and may attempt to maintain democratic control (for example,
via limits on the terms in the office), a number of forces weaken any attempts to reverse this process. For example,
effective administration requires both hard-to-gain, specialized knowledge of these aspects of the organization
(Michels referred to this as “administrative secrets”), as well as scarce organizing talents, such as the ability to manage interpersonal
relations, suppress dissent, and to conduct logistical planning. Those talents provide leverage, which limits the ability of rank-and-file
members to challenge leaders’ recommendations or decisions, and to replace the current leadership. Who gradually escape the control
of rank-and-file members and start controlling them (tail is wagging the dog).
Effective administration requires both hard-to-gain, specialized knowledge of well hidden aspects of the organization
(Michels referred to this as “administrative secrets”), as well as scarce organizing talents, such as the ability to manage
interpersonal relations, suppress dissent, and to conduct logistical planning. Only few people naturally have (or can
acquire) such capabilities, and some of them happen to be in a right time at the right place to be promoted to the top
So power in large organizations based on democratic principle, and that are ruled by the elected leadership,
such as parties, trade unions gradually tend to concentrated at the top with the same leaders elected again and again. Moreover, once elected leaders are likely
to acquire vested interests in maintaining their positions within the organization, especially due to the fact that with growing number
of members the complexity leads to the creation of full-time administrative positions. But as times passes the current elite ages,
stagnate, lost the grip with reality, and other faction of the party elite can depose them and seize the power. Nothing
is permanent under the Sun. In any case the rue of single person is limited by human longevity and rarely exceed 40 years (assuming
that a particular person came to power at 35 and lasted till 75.)
Organization arise from the need of weak to fight the strong, to fight for their right. And there is strength in numbers.
But the mere growth of organization changes organizational dynamics and requires new method of governance. That creates need for "management
professionals" who devote all their time to solving organizational problems. Those people no matter how idealistic in the beginning
by the weight of their position and acquired power gradually start abusing it detaching from the need of rank-and-file members. If organization
survives and prosper they later inevitably turn into organizational oligarchy. As Michels noted
" ...Be the claims economic or be they political, organization appears the only means for the creation of a collective will.
Organization, based as it is upon the principle of least effort, that is to say, upon the greatest possible economy of energy,
is the weapon of the weak in their struggle with the strong.
The chances of success in any struggle will depend upon the degree to which this struggle is carried out upon a basis of solidarity
between individuals whose interests are identical. In objecting, therefore, to the theories of the individualist anarchists that
nothing could please the employers better than the dispersion and disaggregation of the forces of the workers, the socialists, the
most fanatical of all 'the partisans of the idea of organization, enunciate an argument which harmonizes well with the results of
scientific study of the nature of parties.'
Iron law postulates that the process of "crystallization" of large organization bureaucracy starts spontaneously and at the end lead
to uncontrolled oligarchy at the top of the organization. Such bureaucracy initially consists only of elected members,
but later it is enhanced by unelected members. On state level the most important unelected members proved to be members of intelligence
agencies.
Such members can and often do ally with the "elected oligarchy" and form a clique to protect their interests.
And this often happens: for this "newly minted" elite holding the office becomes the way of making living,
which makes it likely that the leaders recognize their common interests in maintaining their positions within the organization, and
develop a sense of solidarity with one another (becoming, in Marxist terminology, something like a privileged class, a local aristocracy).
As such, they are inclined to act cohesively in fending off criticisms and warding off displacement efforts by the
membership. If serious challenges are not readily suppressed, the leaders may resort to cooptation of individual rank-and-file members
who challenge the status quo, thus effectively hobbling lower-level resistance.
In other words growth of the organization alone tend to lead to crystallization of oligarchy with this it. That means
that the simplest (and oversimplified) formulation of the 'Iron Law of Oligarchy' can be slogan-like: "Who
says organization, says oligarchy." The inevitability of oligarchy in political parties, trade
unions, and other "democratic" organizations impose severe limited in the realization of democratic principles with in the organization,/
Essentially democracy is gradually suppresses and subverted, only illusion of it is preserved (as, for example in any two party system
of governance) and serves to legitimize the ruling oligarchy.
This idea of Michel has been strikingly confirmed since the publication of the book. So now the "iron law of
oligarchy" is as close to a social law as one can get.
In essence, Iron law of oligarchy simply postulate that growth of any political (or simply complex) organization requires
creation of hierarchy which in turn self-generate its own elite, an oligarchy that has a disproportional influence on
the decisions made in the organization. Once created, such an elite becomes pretty autonomous from "rank-and-file" members and
is little affected by elections. As such Iron law of oligarchy stands in stark opposition to pluralism and the "ideal of
Liberal democracy". It suggests that "participatory democracy" is
a utopian ideal and that democracy is always limited to very narrow strata of existing oligarchy (top 0.01% in the USA). It also
stands in opposition to state autonomy theory.
At the very basic level strength (both physical and the character), intellect and cunning
are three qualities which typically set leaders apart from the masses of the led. Authority -- the right to lead -- is always gained
through some type of intra-party/intra-group competition that implicitly or explicitly tests these qualities. In small groups in the
past (and in high school even today) its can be even an actual fight. The desire to dominate, and the expectation of the rewards that
accompany domination, presumably are what motivate certain individuals to enter this competition and fight to win.
The suggested mechanism of self-selection of the elite has something in common with the neoliberal doctrine (which we
all know now is a false social doctrine, similar to Trotskyism),
which also claims that the competition for preeminence is the primary characteristic of human societies. It extrapolates the concept
of alpha male in primates to human societies.
Neoliberalism extrapolates the concept of alpha male in primates to human societies. Like
feudalism it creates unaccountable elite that is above the law.
Still on the level of particular political organization, it is probably undisputable, that the possession of some characteristic
highly valued in political sphere, can, with some luck, elevate an individual to the elite status. We saw such upward mobility in the
USA in the past: several US Presidents were from low middle class (for example Harry Truman, Bill Clinton, Barak Obama; in the two
last cases the role of CIA in their elevation is unclear and might well be decisive).
That means that those individuals who have the most of the qualities we would like to have ourselves, the most
organizational talent, can advance into elite, given persistence and luck. Or, those days, individuals with the initial affiliation with the "Deep State"
(the core of which are national intelligence agencies)
So we can assume ( nepotism notwithstanding) that political elites are those who are able to discern political trends better then
other and as a result are able to accumulate by various means political power. This is essentially Gaetano Mosca's definition of
the elite -- a minority set off from the masses by the possession of some prized qualities.
The elite is (at least initially) a minority set off from the masses by the possession of some prized qualities.
Although leadership by elites and the moral justification for it no doubt predated written human history, the philosophical origins
of the Western tradition of elitism lies with the Greeks, ironically also the creators of the first democracy. For example, Plato put forth an
unabashed apology for political rule by intellectual elites.
Speaking of elites in general, rather than political elites specifically, we can point out three main characteristics of elites:
exclusivity, superiority, and domination.
"Exclusivity" simply means separateness; they are separate and apart from the larger society. The degree of exclusivity
of elites can be assessed in terms of artificial boundary maintenance, gatekeepers of the recruitment process, and symbols of exclusiveness
in lifestyle, etc.
Superiority. In keeping with Mosca, "superiority" denotes material, intellectual, or moral qualities or traits markedly
above the level at which such qualities appear in the society.
Domination. Finally, "domination" means just that: elites dominate the sector of human life with which they are associated.
Suzanne Keller wrote that "elites are ultimately responsible for the realization of major social goals and for the continuity
of the social order." So they are what is called the vanguard of the society.
Suzanne Keller also pointed out that while there is a ruling class, at least in industrial societies, it is far from homogenous like Marxists
assume. Industrial societies are so differentiated, and there are so many areas of human activity, that no one particular social
group can dominate every aspect. So the different parts of the "elite", different factions, exist is this own social "pockets", which might overlap. There is also
hierarchy within the elites with the political and financial elites (aka financial oligarchy) being at the top of the pecking order.
Especially under neoliberalism, which, in a way, was the counter-revolution of financial elite -- a successful attempt of restoration
of the power that financial elite has had before the New Deal.
Of cause, with highly compartmentalized life typical for modern societies and advances in technology, the new "sub-élites" are
formed in in places that iether did not exist before, or were not that important. For example
military industrial complex now represent a formidable political force (as
President Eisenhower warned in his farewell address to he nation) , as are some other "strategically placed" strata of elites
(Silicon Valley billionaires from Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, CISCO and similar tech giants; Hollywood and media
elite; etc) that dominate different areas of life in modern societies and delegate their members into upper level of elite hierarchy.
A political elite is, by definition, a group that dominates/control the political life of a society (and that means the society as a whole), which
at least in the past (degeneration of elite is a real problem with gerontocracy) was superior in political skills (keeping in mind that the types of skills
valuable for politics vary and can include duplicity and murderousness as well as rhetorical skill and persuasiveness).
According to iron law of oligarchy they are by-and-large insulated from everyday contact with the larger society (including their
electorate; as in "The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go" ) and are unaccountable to voters. Moreover the
political elite policies are always pro-elite, not so much pro-people. Imperial ambitions of the USA political elite in this
area is a pretty convincing example. Only due to them Pentagon gets over trillion dollar annual budget and there are talks about
cutting Social Security to feed military industrial complex better.
A considerable literature exists around the problem of defining the boundaries of the political elite, how it is composed within
a given society (C. Wright Mills classic
The Power Elite was written in 1956), drawing the line between the elite and sub-elites, as well as social mobility issues.
Because the elite continued existence is linked to the survival of the organizations, leaders of initially radical
organizations with time tend to adopt more conservative, conciliatory positions in order to minimize chances of suppression of the organization
by the state (digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu).
For example, the leaders of large gangs try to establish links with law enforcement and bribe politicians to ensure their survival.
This is the second important effect observed in the context of the "iron law": not only hieratical structure spontaneously emerges,
the elite itself gradually, with time became more moderate and more corrupt. As Britannica article of the subject states (Britannica.com):
Michels insisted that the chasm separating elite leaders from rank-and-file members would also steer organizations toward
strategic moderation, as key organizational decisions would ultimately be taken more in accordance with leaders’ self-serving priorities
of organizational survival and stability than with members’ preferences and demands.
As it became entranced in power, the elite or any large organization has things to lose and thus tend to avoid excessive risks, especially
risks that put in danger the existence of the organization. Do no matter how radical the organization initially is with time it
becomes less radical. This trend was reflected in the old European saying "Social democrat who became a minister is not
a social-democratic minister".
Not only hieratical structure spontaneously emerges in large organizations, the elite itself gradually, with time became more moderate and more corrupt. As it became entranced in power, the elite or any large organization has things to lose and thus tend to avoid excessive risks, especially
risks that put in danger the existence of the organization. Do no matter how radical the organization initially is with time it becomes less radical. This trend was reflected in the old European saying "Social democrat who became a minister is not
a social-democratic minister".
The same sad trend, up to and including the total betrayal of the interests of rank-and-file members, is observable in the US trade union movement.
Still the most drastic example is the compete betrayal of the rank-and-file members was the betrayal of
the "Communist ideals" by the USSR Nomenklatura: members of the Politburo, KGB brass, administrative and academic elite of the USSR. In 70 years they went from radical left
wing neo-theocratic sect into a bunch of corrupt neoliberals (essentially turncoats) ready to fleece the country and sell its
industry, natural resources and infrastructure for pennies on the dollar to Western countries as long as at least one penny ends in their own pocket.
And some leaders of Young Communist League seamlessly turned into gangster-style capitalists in no time (Khodorkovsky). The level of
corruption of academics was also very notable and not less staggering (Arbatov, Berezovsky, etc). The USSR academic elite even
provided its share of
gangster-style capitalists (Berezovsky).
"Iron law of oligarchy" represents a powerful argument against possibility of "permanent stability" in human societies.
As Minsky told us "stability is destabilizing" and that observation looks even more pertinent in view of the
existence of the "Iron law of oligarchy".
As the elite which got power degrades and becomes more corrupt, newcomers want to displace it. But due to entrenchment of existing elite
(which, of cause, tried to make their rule permanent and practices nepotism) such a "regime change" often is possible only by violent
means. That's why the institutionalized mechanisms for the "rotation of elite" are so important.
Every solidly constructed organization, whether it be a democratic state, a political party, or a league of proletarians for the
resistance of economic oppression, presents a soil eminently favorable for the differentiation of organs and of functions. The more
extended and the more ramified the official apparatus of the organization, the greater the number of its members, the fuller its
treasury, and the more widely circulated its press, the less efficient becomes the direct control exercised by the rank and file,
and the more is this control replaced by the increasing
power of committees.
Into all parties there insinuates itself that indirect electoral system which in public life the democratic parties fight against
with all possible vigor. Yet in party life the influence of this system must be more disastrous than in the far more extensive life
of the state. Even in the party congresses, which represent the party-life seven times sifted, we find that it becomes more and more
general to refer all important questions to committees which debate in camera.
At the same time any revolution, at the end, is just a change on the top layer of elite. Which means that they seldom achieve stated
goals, especially if such goals include equality and social justice. The fundamental distinction between the elite and rank-and-file
members is always preserved and, paradoxically, often enhanced. So the net result is typically reflected in the unforgettable words of Russian Prime minister
Chernomyrdin about Russian Perestroika. Which while idiomatic has approximately the following implied meaning “Everybody wanted improvements
in the standards of living and in governance, but the net result we got is even worse than it was before..." (in the Economist
translation “We wanted to do our best, but got the usual crappy results.”
― Viktor Chernomyrdin - Wikiquote)
As Michels noted in his book Political Parties
...society cannot exist without a …dominant… or… political class, and that the ruling class, while its elements are subject to
frequent partial renewal, nevertheless constitutes the only factor of sufficiently durable efficacy in the history of human development.
[The government, or, … the state, cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority. It is
the aim of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a “legal order” which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and
of the exploitation of the mass …
Even when the discontent of the masses culminates in a successful attempt to deprive the bourgeoisie of power, this is … effected
only in appearance; always and necessarily there springs from the masses a new organized minority which raises itself to the
rank of a governing class…” (pp. 353-354).
The key here is that elite (oligarchy) on any complex organization always holds the lion share of political power and that
this power is independent of any democratic elections, or revolutions:
The practical ideal of democracy consists in the self-government of the masses in conformity with the decisions of popular assemblies.
But while this system limits the extension of the principle of delegation, it fails to provide any guarantee against the formation
of an oligarchical camarilla. Undoubtedly it deprives the natural leaders of their quality as functionaries, for this quality
is transferred to the people themselves. The crowd, however, is always subject to suggestion, being readily influenced by the eloquence
of great popular orators ; moreover, direct government by the people, admitting of no serious discussions or thoughtful deliberations,
greatly facilitates coups de main of all kinds by men who are exceptionally bold, energetic, and adroit;
It is easier to dominate a large crowd than a small audience. The adhesion of the crowd is tumultuous, summary, and unconditional.
Once the suggestions have taken effect, the crowd does
not readily tolerate contradiction from a small minority, and still less from isolated individuals. A great multitude assembled within
a small area is unquestionably more accessible to panic
... ... ...
The sovereign masses are altogether incapable of undertaking the most necessary resolutions. The impotence of direct democracy,
like the power of indirect democracy, is a direct outcome
of the influence of number. In a polemic against Proudhon (1849), Louis Blanc asks whether it is possible for thirty-four millions
of human beings (the population of France at that time) to carry on their affairs without accepting what the pettiest man of business
finds necessary, the intermediation of representatives.
... ... ...
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. The mechanism of the organization,
while conferring a solidity of structure, induces serious changes in the organized mass, completely inverting the respective position
of the leaders and the led. As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors
and a majority of directed.
...It has been remarked that in the lower stages of civilization tyranny is dominant. Democracy cannot come into existence until
there is attained a subsequent and more highly developed stage of social life. Freedoms and privileges, and among these latter the
privilege of taking part in the direction of public a change in the relationship between the leaders and the mass. For the comradely
leadership of local committees with all its undeniable defects there is substituted the professional leadership of the trade-union
officials.
Initiative and capacity for decision thus become what may be called a professional speciality, whilst for the rank and file is
left the passive virtue of discipline. There can be no doubt that this seamy side of officialism involves serious dangers for the
party. The latest innovation in this direction, in the German social democratic party, is the appointment of salaried secretaries
to the local branches. Unless the rank and file of the party keep very much on the alert, unless they are careful that these secretaries
shall be restricted to purely executive functions, the secretaries will come to be regarded as the natural and sole depositaries
of all power of initiative, and as the exclusive leaders of local party life.
In the socialist party, however, by the nature of things, by the very character of the political struggle, narrower limits are
imposed upon bureaucracy than in the case of the trade unions. In these latter, the technical specialization of the wage-struggle
(the need, for example, for the drafting of complicated sliding scales and the like) often leads the chiefs to deny that the
mass of organized workers can possess "a general view of the economic life of the country as a whole," and to deny, therefore, their
capacity of judgment in such matters.
The most typical outcome of this conception is afforded by the argument with which the leaders are accustomed to forbid
all theoretical criticism of the prospects and possibilities of practical trade-unionism, asserting that such criticism involves
a danger for the spirit of organization. This reasoning starts from the assumption that the workers can be won for organization
and can be induced to remain faithful to their trade-unions only by a blind and artless belief in the saving efficacy of the trade-union
struggle ' ' (Rosa Luxemburg, Massenstreih, Partei u. GewerTcschaften, Erdmann Dubber, Hamburg, 1906, p. 61).
Elite is an organized minority which always outmaneuver and outsmart the rank-and-file
of the particular organization ("unorganized majority").
Elite is an organized minority which always outmaneuver and outsmart
the rank-and-file of the particular organization ("unorganized majority").
It is important to understand that there is a hierarchy within the elites too: it is composed of the "the top guns" and the
sub-elites. and this there is an internal struggle within the elite (see
Russiagate and
Ukrainegate). It also can take the
violent forms (JFK assassination by CIA brass; Yeltsin shelling of Russian Parliament, Ukrainian Euromaidan, etc.)
Robert Michels observations were based on the fact that the socialist parties of Europe, despite their democratic ideology and
provisions for mass participation, were completely and irrevocably dominated by their leaders (often with the elements of the "cult
of personality"), just like the traditional conservative parties. Generalizing this phenomena he stated that all forms of organization, regardless of how
democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably evolve into oligarchies.
It is indisputable that the oligarchical and bureaucratic tendency of party organization is a matter of technical and practical
necessity. It is the inevitable product of the very principle of organization.
For technical and administrative reasons, no less than for tactical reasons, a strong organization needs an equally strong leadership.
... ... ...
To represent, in this sense, comes to mean that the purely individual desire masquerades and is accepted as the will of the mass.
In certain isolated cases, where the questions involved are extremely simple, and where the delegated authority is of brief duration,
representation is possible. But permanent representation will always be tantamount to the exercise of dominion by the representatives
over the represented.
... ... ....
Louis XIV understood the art of government as have few princes either before or since, and this was the case above all in the
first half of his reign, when his spirit was still young and fresh. In his memoirs of the year 1666, he lays down for every branch
of the administration, and more especially for the conduct of military affairs, the following essential rules: "que les resolutions
doivent etre promptes, la discipline exact, les commandements absolus, I'obeissance ponctuelle."^ The essentials thus enumerated
by Lous (promptness of decision, unity of command, and strictness of discipline) are equally applicable, mutaiis mutandis, to the
various aggregates of modern political life, for these are in a perpetual condition of latent warfare.
The modern party is a fighting organization in the political sense of the term, and must as such conform to the laws of tactics.
Now the first article of these laws is facility of mobilization. Ferdinand Lassalle, the founder of a revolutionary labour party,
recognized this long ago, contending that the dictatorship which existed in fact in the society over which he presided was as thoroughly
justified in theory as it was indispensable in practice. The rank and file, he said, must follow their chief blindly, and the whole
organization must be like a hammer in the hands of its president.
... ... ...
In the daily struggle, nothing but a certain degree of csesarism will ensure the rapid transmission and the precise execution
of orders. The Dutch socialist. Van Kol, frankly declares that true democracy cannot be installed until the fight is over.
The elite actually can be quite hostile to the society (or organization) at large and behave more like an occupation force then the
"best representatives". This detachment of elite from the interests of underling organization or society and the immanent tendency
to pursue their own, narrowly understood political and economic interests is the major source of instability in the society. This
is the case for the US neoliberal elite, the core of which is the financial oligarchy.
The detachment of elite from the interests of underling organization or society and the immanent tendency to pursue
their own, narrowly understood political and economic interests is the major source of instability in the society
In
this sense the "iron law of oligarchy" can be viewed as a "backdoor" way of introduction of the idea of class society, where
upper class suppress and exploit lower classes creating instability that lead to social cataclysms such as social revolutions,
uprising and such.
It is especially noticeable on the level of countries, not so much on the level of single political parties or other organization.
For example neoliberal elite in the USA unleashed vicious campaign for the redistribution profits up since 1980 and managed to
substantially lower the standard of living of working lass and lower middle class (while rapaciously enriching themselves), as well
as to eliminate large swats of well paying jobs via outsourcing and offshoring. They also decimated social security mechanisms
introduced by the New Deal, and converted a large part of work form to perma-temps. As the result they got Trump elected in
2016 and some period of time because they coerced him they lived in fear that their crimes might be exposed. That's why
Russiagate was launched.
Iron
law of oligarchy, in a way, can be viewed as a "backdoor" way of introduction of the idea of class society in sociology
postulating on a different basis than Marxism the idea that the upper class always suppress
and exploit lower classes.
Prominent examples here are Bolsheviks, national socialists as well as
neoliberal elite, especially neocons. The latter should be
understood as lobbyists of military industrial complex and the level of detachment of the USA foreign policy from the need of the
USA lower 90% of population is staggering. The waist of money on foreign military adventures beneficial for financial oligarchy and
MIC is simply astronomical (Pentagon alone consumes over trillion dollars of taxpayer money). This is quite an achievement of
neoliberalism because in the past such a huge and sustained levels of military spending was possible to achieved only in some
absolutists regimes like Nazi regime in Germany.
The elite actually can be quite hostile to the society (or organization) at large and behave more like an occupation force
then the "best representatives". This detachment of elite from the interests of underling organization or society and the
immanent tendency to pursue their own, narrowly understood political and economic interests is the major source of instability
in the society.
This gap between policies of the elite and desire of "masses" is not always negative. By definition, the elite can see
farther down the road. But it frequently acts completely against the interests of "common people" like in case of, say, US neocons,
who from the very beginning was an imperial, militaristic force in the US society, driving up the influence of military industrial
complex and serving as MIC lobbyists par excellence. At the expense of lives (it's the common people not the elite, who constitute
the "cannon fodder" in the USA mercenary army) and the standard of living of common people.
But typically the dynamics is more complex and at least some social changes hatched by the elite can sometimes improve the life of "masses", while initially those "masses" oppose them.
Such an idealization, in the form of uncritical idealization of workers (so called, "proletariat") is an immanent part of Marxism,
which make it somewhat similar to a secular religion.
In reality, common people, "masses" should not be idealized iether. There is the whole set of issues with mass
psychology including but not limited to the issues related to Conformism,
Groupthink and the
psychology of crowds. Typically "rank and file" members of the organization, or society as a whole display high level of "groupthink",
which makes possible such phenomenon as McCarthyism -- a witch hunt unleashed the elite which desire to increase the
cohesion of the organization and eliminate any opposition.
Universal voting exposes the level of thinking of "common people" quite nicely -- they can be easily brainwashing into supporting
very harmful for them policies. Which actually happened wth the election of Reagan and quit coup d'état that established the rule of
neoliberalim in the USA and start the decimation of the New Deal. Which was by and large accomplished by Clinton administration.
They tend to create the "cult of personality" within the particular organization. The key problem is that "common
people" often do not understand and
resent the ideas/policies of the leaders, rejecting those which, at the end, are the most beneficiary for them personally. Instead
they adhere to supporting
self-destructing policies based on some delusions of envy toward other social groups (this effect is called "What's the matter
with Kansas" as it was described in the book with the same title)
Most people are altogether devoid of understanding of the actions and reactions between that organism we call the state
and their private interests, their prosperity, and their life. As de Tocqueville expresses it, they regard it as far more important
to consider "s'il faut faire passer un chemin au bout de leur domaine"^ than to interest themselves in the general work of public
administration. The majority is content, with Stirner, to call out to the state, "Get away from between me and the sun!"
Stirner makes fun of all those who, in accordance vsdth the views of Kant, preach it to humanity as a ' sacred duty ' '
to take an interest in public affairs. ' ' Let those persons who have a personal interest in political changes concern themselves
with these. Neither now nor at any future time will 'sacred duty' lead people to trouble themselves about the
By studying the political parties of his time Michels came to the conclusion that the problem is connected with the very nature of
organizations. Development of the modern democracy allowed the formation of organization like political parties. Paradoxically, any
such organization, when growing in size also grow in complexity. And inevitably with this growth gradually become less and less democratic.
This process is immanent, objective
and does not depend of quality of leaders or nature of the organization. Michels outlines several important factors which serve
as a foundation of the "Iron Law of Oligarchy":
The growing number and complexity of duties, which obviates direct participation in administrative matters by the membership,
requiring instead a specialized and dedicated staff (bureaucracy). Problems of coordination that can be solved only by creating
a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy, by design, is hierarchically organized to achieve
efficiency -- many decisions that have to be made every day
cannot be made by consulting large numbers of people in an efficient manner. The effective functioning of an organization therefore
requires the concentration of power in the hands of a few people.[2]
Growing number and complexity of issues sharply curtail members participation in general decision making and raise importance
of knowledgeable leaders. Delegation is necessary in any
large organization, as thousands (or hundreds of thousands) members cannot make decisions using
participatory democracy. Two factors are in play
here:
The lack of technological means that would allow large
number of people to meet and debate;
The delegation leads to specialization: the development
of bases of knowledge, skills, and resources among a leadership, which further serves to alienate the leadership from the 'mass and
rank' and entrenches the leadership in office.
After certain size the number of members prevents direct lateral communicationthus enabling hierarchy with the organization,
and enabling the leadership to exercise the strategy of divide and conquer.Bureaucratization and
specialization create a specialized group of administrators
in a hierarchical organization. Which self-organizes
and this self-organization of elite effectively guarantee the unchallenged rule of the elite. Typical for bureaucracy rationalization
and routinization of decision-making leads both to suboptimal decisions and to suboptimal choices of leaders, a process that in more
cynical extent, is described by the Peter Principle.
In other words rule by an elite (aka "oligarchy") is inevitable within any large organization because the level of complexity of
managing of large organization (which presuppose existence of hierarchy of "managers") as well the set objectively
existing "tactical and technical necessities" immanent to complex organizations. People who initially can be
classified as intellectuals within such political
organizations and which were promoted to the leadership positions for their special qualities, useful for the organization, with
time tend to become oligarchs. The history of the USSR is a very sobering example of this trend.
Michels particularly
addressed the interaction of this law with the idea of democracy and found the latter illusionary in any large organization. He stated:
"It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators,
of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy".
He went on to state that "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention
of oligarchy."
The organizational characteristics that promote oligarchy are reinforced by certain characteristics of both leaders and members of
organizations. People achieve leadership positions precisely because they have political talent; they are adept at getting their way,
suppressing the opponents (and opposition in general)
and persuading others of the correctness of their views.
Once they hold high office, their power and prestige is further increased and "lock-in" quickly happens.
Leaders have access to, and control over, information and facilities that are not available to the rank-and-file.
They control the information that flows down in the channels of communication. Leaders are also strongly motivated to persuade the organization
of the rightness of their views, and they use all of their skills, power and authority to do so.[3]
By design of any complex organization as a hierarchical structure, and the rank and file members are less informed (and often are
less educated) than their "superiors." Finally,
from birth, people are taught to obey those in positions of authority. Therefore the rank and file members tend to look to leaders for policy
directives and are generally prepared to allow leaders to exercise their judgment on most matters even to detriment of their own interests.
Leaders also control and have the ability to apply very powerful negative and positive sanctions to promote the behavior of rank-and-file
members that they desire. Classic example is patriotic fervor during wars even if the war in clearly has offensive nor defensive character
like it was the case with the Vietnam and later with Iraq was. Int heboth cases the society as deceived by the mass media (which
works exclusively for the oligarchy) and forced to support the course of action the the elite wanted.
The leaders have the power to control communication, grant or deny raises, assign workloads, fire, demote and the most gratifying
of all sanctions — the power to promote. There is no doubt that they tend to promote junior officials who share their opinions
and can be counted on being loyal. The net result is that the oligarchy becomes more and more entrenched and self-perpetuating.
Therefore the very nature of large-scale organization makes oligarchy within these organizations inevitable. Bureaucracy, by
design, promotes the centralization of power and concentration it at the very top of the organization and perverts the organization
goals for their own clan interests.
While the US Democratic Party now is glaring example of internal (clan) wars (with Clinton clan clinging for power after humiliating
defeat), the total neoliberalization of this Party and Clinton-initiated switch from the party of trade unions to the party of
Wall Street lobbyists is not a new phenomenon. As Robert Michels observed (p 50)
In the life of modern democratic parties we may observe signs of similar indifference. It is only a minority which participates
in party decisions, and sometimes that minority is ludicrously small. The most important resolutions taken by the most democratic
of all parties, the socialist party, always emanate from a handful of the members. It is true that the renouncement of the
exercise of democratic rights is voluntary; except in those cases, which are common enough, where the active participation of the
organized mass in party life is prevented by geographical or topographical conditions.
Speaking generally, it is the urban part of the organization which decides everything; the duties of the members living in country
districts and in remote provincial towns are greatly restricted ; they are expected to pay their subscriptions and to vote during
elections in favour of the candidates selected by the organization of the great town.
There is here at work the influence of tactical considerations as well as that of local conditions. The preponderance of the townsmen
over the scattered country members corresponds to the necessity of promptness in decision and speed in action to which allusion was
made in an earlier chapter.
... ... ...
It may be added that the regular attendants at public meetings and committees are by no means always proletarians — especially
where the smaller centres are concerned. When his work is finished, the proletarian can think only of rest, and of getting to bed
in good time. His place at meetings is taken by petty bourgeois, by those who come to sell newspapers and picture-postcards, by clerks,
by young intellectuals who have not yet got a position in their own circle, people who are all glad to hear themselves spoken of
as authentic proletarians and to be glorified as the class of the future.*
The same thing happens in party life as happens in the state. In both, the demand for monetary supplies is upon a coercive foundation,
but the electoral system has no established sanction. An electoral right exists, but no electoral duty. Until this duty is superimposed
upon the right, it appears probable that a small minority only will continue to avail itself of the right which the majority voluntarily
renounces, and that the minority will always dictate laws for the indifferent and apathetic mass.
From this point of view the XXth century revolutions in Russia and China, were not "workers and peasants" revolutions, as Marxists
try to present. They were coups d'état of a narrow
circle of intellectuals representing interests of lower middle class and organized as a radical political party with the explicit
goal to depose existing elite and became a new elite themselves:
In Coup
d'État: A Practical Handbook, military historian
Edward Luttwak states that "[a] coup consists
of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from
its control of the remainder."
Those revolutions gave the birth of the world first totalitarian regimes which raised the level of detachment and hostility of
the elite to the rank-and-file members of society to a new historical level (now dutifully reproduced by the US neoliberal elite)
Similarly, the disintegration of the USSR was not so much due to the growth of democratic tendencies of the population. Even such
factors as inefficiency of the socialist mode of production and emergence of personal computers and Internet revolution that made state control of
information more difficult, were not decisive. All those factors were present, but the key factor was that the growth of new
flavor of globalism -- neoliberal globalism. That increased neoliberal tendencies of the corrupt and degenerated USSR
Communist Party and KGB elite (with the key role of KGB elite, which produced the blueprint for the conversion of the USSR into
the neoliberal capitalist society, the blueprint developed by Andropov and which Gorbachov tried to implement, but being mediocre
politician screw up. That screw up result in the dissolution of the USSR (not without help form Western states, and first of all the
USA and GB, which provided financial support and fueled nationalism in Soviet republics). One sign of this
transformation of KGB was several high raking defectors
to the USA including at least one general.
The Soviet elite decided to privatize the country and join the club or Western neoliberal elites in short and swift neoliberal Coup d'état,
essentially structured as a color revolution. This integration of the new
xUSSR elite with Western Elites for which Soviet nomenklarura strived so hard, did happened, but on West (aka vassal) terms, as nobody
eliminated hierarchy with in the global elite. So this romance, which flourished during Yeltsin years (which were years of economic
rape of Russia by he West and local, mostly Jewish oligarchs) partially came to an end with the election of President Putin. Some "neoliberal
oligarchs", who resisted the change ended in exile, and one even managed to get into jail.
In general any successful national-liberation and socialist movement which run under populist and democratic slogans in reality tend
to have the same "elite displacement" property, when old elite is replaced or supplemented by a new one. Which can be more cruel toward
population then the previous one.
In this sense Machiavelli idea that there is nothing more dangerous then to institute a social change has new, pretty menacing
meaning. Please look at EuroMaidan at the most
recent example of the elite change and what it brought to rank-and-file Ukrainians. The standard of living dropped at least by
half from 2014 to 2016.
The importance of the Iron Law of Oligarchy is that this law was the major contributing factor to the collapse of the USSR. While
founded under noble slogans by a radical party it quickly degraded into oligarchic republic (not plutocratic like the USA, but
oligarchic republic with strong technocratic flavor) in which Nomenklatura was full and unrestricted political power. The main
components of Soviet nomenklatura were high ranking members of the Communist party (and their extended
families), high level managers in various enterprises and high raking officials in various state ministries (so called "Apparatchiks"
similar in essence to MBA strata in the USA, but probably more competent ) and high level brass in military.
After the
death of Stalin, who tried to maintain the vitality of created by him theocratic system with ruthless terror and performed periodic "purges",
which provided the "forced" rotation of Nomenklatura they gradually started "enjoying their position" more and the process
of rotation of nomenklatura stagnated with fatal consequences for the state.
While their salaries were not
much higher than ordinary workers (with few exceptions, the ratio in the USSR probably was around 1:10), they created the society
within the society to service their needs (special vacations places, special shops, special everything), started sending their
children to Western universities, their wives could shop in Paris (like Raisa Gorbachov systematically did), so they were behaving like mini-oligarchs, without formally owning
anything. In some ways Soviet nomenklatura was really technocratic elite, although nepotism played some role too but mostly up to
middle range positions (there were case when such people got to the rank of minister, but they were exceptions).
In 1980th considerable faction of this class decided that the level of inequality that resulted from their
dominance made this new variant of theocracy unsustainable and is doomed to stagnation and technological backwardness (in condition of strict
embargo of export of technologies imposed by the USA and its allies). And that they can preserve their position and multiply their
wealth by switching to
neoliberalism. Which they did in a decade of 1990 -- Dissolution of the USSR was driven by, as paradoxically as it sounds, by KGB apparatus
(starting from Andropov -- the major architect of conversion of the USSR into neoliberal society) and the "renegade" tiny,
but dedicated (and supported by the West) faction of Politburo consisting of such people as Gorbachov (protégé of Andropov,
nicknames for his mediocre political abilities "combiner driver" as he started his career from this position),
Alexander Yakovlev (the "godfather of glasnost"[,
former ambassador in Canada, a Fulbright exchange student at Columbia University for one year ),
Yegor Gaidar (the victim of nepotism, being a child of prominent
revolutionary, the person educated in the USA) and Eduard
Shevardnadze (hand picked Gorbachov minister of Foreign Affairs) and several highly ranked academics such as
Georgy Arbatov from
Institute for US and Canadian Studies (actually
the role of academic turncoats in the collapse of the USSR is similar to the role of neoliberal turncoats such as Milton Friedman in
the USA in converting the country to neoliberalism.)
Their initial plan was just transition to neoliberal economy of the whole
USSR (perestroika), but being mediocre politicians (actually Gorbachov was below the level of mediocre) they rocked the boat too
much and it sunk -- the USSR dissolved (not without substantial help from the West which incited nationalistic feeling in the USSR
republics (and lavishly financed all nationalistic movements within the USSR) and then became the real political force in 1990th due
to the stagnation of the economy and financial crisis of the society, much like in 2016 they became a political force in the
USA )
Perestroika created some structural elements of capitalism with which coup d'état of the Soviet nomenklatura became possible. It
was the major
catalyst of the
dissolution of the
Soviet Union. Not without major help of friendly intelligence agencies from the USA, GB and several other countries, and
financial injection to help this transition happen ;-)
We also see this phenomenon, when a tiny faction dominates the whole party, quite clearly in DNC and Podesta emails leaks.
In essence Sanders was illegitimately deprives of the possibility to represent Democratic Party in the most recent Presidential elections
by the oligarchy of the Democratic Party (party Nomenklatura.) Color
revolution against Trump (aka Russiagate) is another, but more modern and subtle, demonstration of the validity of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Here
we see slow motion coup d'état against the leader that does nor "fit" onto ruling neoliberal elite (we leave the judgment or whether
Trump should or should not have been removed to the readers). In other words, on state level the term "Deep State"
describes essentially the same phenomenon as the "Iron rule of oligarchy." The only (and important) difference is that includes
elite of numerous intelligence services into it who now act as semi-autonomous political force (Comey, Brennan and "Parteigenosse"
Mueller are pretty educational examples in this area ;-).
Although Trump won election and being a billionaire belongs to the ruling class, he was not accepted by neoliberal oligarchy as a
legitimate POTUS because he strayed during the election from fundamental postulates of neoliberalism (such a neoliberal globalization,
offshoring of manufacturing and dropping of standard living of common Americans, permanent war for expansion and maintaining global
neoliberal empire led from Washington, etc). That's why a color revolution (Russiagate,
or Purple revolution) was launched to depose him. It took just three months -- till April-May, 2017 for plotters to emasculate
him. After that he essentially became a puppet. This is yet another demonstration of power of the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
The process of "crystallization" of "Nomenklatura" in large organizations, parties and government
agencies (such as the State Department, CIA, etc) is an objective self-reinforcing process. It inevitably
starts even within the most democratically-oriented leadership of the political organizations. As the party grows, members very
soon become divided into an elite (or more correctly a set of elites, or party oligarchs, with their own set of distinctive and
private interests) and the rank and file members, whose labor and resources are exploited by the elite.
The Iron law of oligarchy is generally recognized to be one of the most devastating propositions in all social sciences as it undermines
a cornerstone both liberal-democratic and Marxist theories -- the viability of democracy as direct rule of people.
The Iron law of oligarchy also suggests that competition for power in "Western democracies" is far from "perfect" and is limited
to competition between various factions of the political and economic elite (approximately top 0.01% of the population). Institutions which provide for minority rights, checks and
balances are just sweet political coatings over bitter socio-economic pills.
They also serve as the pressure valves for channeling discontent into more palatable forms, but are little more then that.
Looks like Marxists were right that without greater economic equality democracy is completely impossible (but economic equality
is impossible in its own right, at least within current civilizational framework).
But, at the same time, they were
wrong that an economically egalitarian society is viable, as self-generation of elites in any society and elite grabbing the society
resources can't be stopped. The history of the USSR is an interesting demonstration of a viability of iron law of oligarchy
even in the context of by-and-large theocratic society. At the end Bolsheviks elite changed (paradoxically with KGB elite
in the forefront of this betrayal) sides and adopted neoliberal model plunging the population into chaos and several times lowering
achieved (not that high) standard of living of Soviet people. Including confiscation of all saving and devaluing of currency, which
put pensioners on real starvation/survival mode.
In the USSR oligarchy (aka nomenklatura) self-emerged in
less then 10 years from the revolution and ruled for all the short USSR history. It is well described in Michael Voslensky book
Nomenklatura The Soviet Ruling Class . Actually Politburo of CPSU became a gravitational center of the new "soviet" oligarchy (which
like old aristocracy was hereditary) . In comparison with the USSR with its rigid one-party system, the USA employs more sophisticated
system of two party rule, which actually proved to be less brutal, but, at the same time, more efficient in sustaining of the
rule of oligarchy (Two Party System as Polyarchy).
Recently this system started to advance "false flag candidates" (Obama, Trump, candidates specifically selected due to lack of their
political experience and as such capable to promise "change we can believe in", performing brutal "bait and switch" maneuver after
the election.
Indirectly the "iron rule of oligarchy" also badly reflects on the US foreign policy, making "promotion
of democracy" to look like a smoke screen behind which naked economic and imperial interests hide. For example, the recent Hillary
Clinton stance on Libya and Syria looks like hypocritical nonsense that masks geopolitical and economic energy security considerations.
It is just a "regime change" in which a different, more friendly to US interests part of the national oligarchy, is
artifically propred to power on the "tips of bayonets". Not that dissimilar with the Trotsky idea of "permanent
revolution"
Still, improvement in socio-economic welfare matters as it does increase economic sovereignty of individuals and limit the number
of degrees of freedom that oligarchy enjoys. The poorer (and less economically secure) are the people, the easier they are manipulated.
So egalitarian ideal still has distinct democratic and general social value.
The official goal of democracy of eliminating elite rule is impossible,
and any "democracy" is always just a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite.
According to the "iron law," democracy and large-scale organizations are incompatible. In this sense democracy is and always will
be a utopian ideal. The official goal of democracy of eliminating elite rule is impossible, and any "democracy"
is always just a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite.
During the period of existence of the USSR, the US elite was forced to hide their cannibalistic tendencies and produced the period in the US history that was truly "golden age" for the US middle class.
But the "degree of separation" and attachment
of the elite to larger society goals can vary greatly. For example during the period of existence of the USSR, the US elite was forced
to hide their cannibalistic tendencies and produced the period in the US history that was truly "golden age" for the US middle class.
This period ended with the accent of neoliberalism in 1970th and culminated with the election of President Reagan, who started
destroying the New Deal society. This job was finished by President Clinton.
The degree of inequality in a given asset (e. g., income) depends, of course, on its dispersion or concentration of wealth across
the individuals in the population. Although many scholars seek to characterize the overall level of societal inequality with a single
parameter, such attempts will obviously be compromised insofar as some types of assets are distributed more equally than others.
This complexity clearly arises in the case of modern stratification systems, for instance, the recent emergence of "social rights"
suggests that civil goods are now more equally dispersed across all citizens, whereas economic and political goods continue to be disproportionately
controlled by a relatively small elite -- financial oligarchy. And under neoliberalism this level of concentration of ownership
of economic assets and corresponding level of inequality gradually rises putting the stability of the society at risk. From
the point of view of iron law if oligarchy neoliberalism much like Bolshevism in the past, is inherently unstable, doomed social system.
In nearly all models of advanced industrial society, education is the principal mechanism by which individuals are sorted into such
classes; in a way educational institutions serve to "license" human capital (if we use this neoliberal term) and convert it to
"cultural
currency." But is late phase of neoliberalism that we experience in the USA this process is broken and universities became mainly a
tool for reproduction of existing neoliberal elite: mediocre children of the elite has disproportionally higher chances to get to
the top educational institutions than gifted children of common people
One of the most recent social phenomenon is the emergence of global elite. It is represented by-and-large by parts of nations financial
oligarchy with some additions of employees of international organization (World Bank, IMF, etc), high-tech companies and transnational
corporations. Here the iron law of oligarchy which previously was limited to state borders started to operate on new transnational
level with the self-organizing Politburo world (with membership concentrated on top echelons of elites of G7 countries)
and vassals, subservient elites which in effect are not so different from a regular party members on the international scheme.
In other words some parts of the elite and first of all financial oligarchy concentrated at the West converted themselves into super
elite.
Financial oligarchy proved to be different from other types of oligarchy: from the very beginning it is transnational and as such is inclined to betray the interests of home country population.
Financial oligarchy proved to be different from other types of oligarchy: from the very beginning it is transnational and as such
is inclined to betray the interests of home country population. Also unlike other parts of oligarchy in the particular county,
financial elite it is more parasitic and exists mainly as additional tax layer for the population.
Despite the claims made by paid cheerleaders of megabanks, too big to fail financial institutions (TBTF) extract huge taxpayer subsidies. This capture of the countries by a parasitic transnational financial
elite is a new development and it changes the applicability of the law of oligarchy in a very unexpected way: the emerging clique of
super-rich financial moguls are practically becoming their own nation, buying houses and keeping assets outside their country of primary
residence.
Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, today’s this transnational oligarchy
is increasingly looks like a virtual "super nation". Those “Supercitizens” are by-and-large above law, unless the crime
is committed against another supercitizen.
Also within a single country we are now seeing not a single economy, but rather two fundamentally different and separate types
of economy. This growing gap between the rich and non-rich has been evident for years. In a 2005 report to investors, for instance,
three analysts at Citigroup advised that “the World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest”:
In a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” or “the UK consumer”, or indeed the “Russian consumer”. There are
rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. There are the rest,
the “non-rich”, the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie.
Unlike previous oligarchies, members of the global elite generally stick to a globalist perspective and do not contribute to the
economic growth of their home countries. They are becoming a transnational community of peers who have more in common with one another
than with their countrymen. Ordinary people find themselves living in a globalized plutocracy, in which the superrich display acute
indifference to the interest of "natives", and openly pursue narrow self-interest with callous indifference to anyone outside their
own rarefied economic kingdom.
Financial elite of international financial organization such as IMF and World Bank is an interesting special case:
"Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday
that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged.
As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year
is not subject to any taxes.
The former French finance minister took over as managing director of the IMF last year when she succeeded her disgraced compatriot
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign after he faced charges – later dropped – of sexually attacking a New York hotel
maid.
Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States
government, and he pays taxes on it.
The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees – article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961,
which has been signed by 187 states, declares: "A diplomatic agent shall be exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real, national,
regional or municipal."
According to Lagarde's contract she is also entitled to a pay rise on 1 July every year during her five-year contract.
Base salaries range from $46,000 to $80,521. Senior salaries range between $95,394 and $123,033 but these are topped up with adjustments
for the cost of living in different countries. A UN worker based in Geneva, for example, will see their base salary increased by
106%, in Bonn by 50.6%, Paris 62% and Peshawar 38.6%. Even in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, one of the poorest areas of the world,
a UN employee's salary will be increased by 53.2%.
Other benefits include rent subsidies, dependency allowances for spouses and children, education grants for school-age children
and travel and shipping expenses, as well as subsidized medical insurance.
For many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international
taxpayers' expense.
During the 1944 economic conference at Bretton Woods, where the IMF was created, American and British politicians disagreed over
salaries for the bureaucrats. British delegates, including the economist John Maynard Keynes, considered the American proposals for
salaries to be "monstrous", but lost the argument.
Officials from the various organizations have long maintained that the high salaries are a way of attracting talent from the private
sector. In fact, most senior employees are recruited from government posts."
Politicians from both sides of the aisle will swear pious oaths to protect and foster the well being of the middle class. They
will say that their policies and proposals are all designed for its betterment. And yet the state of the middle class continues to
dwindle into despair and disrepair. Why is this?
It is not because of the predominance of a right or left ideology, of taxation and deficits and austerity. It is not because of
the re-emergence of a perversion of the gospel, in the predestination of prosperity. We have seen all this before. It is not because
in our comfort we have lost the sense of the imperative of common cause.
It is because of the overwhelming corruption of power, and of the cynical amorality of thoroughly modern political managers
who worship power and personal wealth as ends unto themselves. They distract the people with artificially divisive social
issues and crises, while robbing them blind.
It is driven by the allure of the cartels, monopolies, and monied interests, and their corrupt political bargains. It is a child
of the subornation of perjury on a massive scale. It is the unscrupulous servility to power of those who have sworn to uphold and
protect the law. What is truth? Whatever suits us, whatever we say it is, by whoever has the power and the craft to define 'we.'
It is not the triumph of evil so much as the absence of any sense of the good, of honor, honesty, and
of simple common decency.
And it is marked by the daily subverting of the law as a matter of convenience and comfort to the insatiable few, and the cravenness
of their enablers, driven by personal ambition, ignorance, and fear. It is the will to power, the elevation of the ascendant self
and the system that supports it, above all else. Greed is good. Whatever works. And the enemy is all
that is not the self, which is the other.
And where there is nothing sacred, the people perish.
"... The Global Financial Syndicate will use all kind of distractions to mask the MONETARY power and divide the populace to continue its control & dominance through monetary imperialism. The world is a playground for "evil spirits." ..."
One need to understand the STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT correctly, clearly, and comprehensively
to live & light our world. What is your strategic construct of the national and
international control system?
The Global Financial Syndicate will use all kind of distractions to mask the MONETARY
power and divide the populace to continue its control & dominance through monetary
imperialism. The world is a playground for "evil spirits."
How does the Financial Empire increase its control & POWER over a region? It likes
turning each region into its suzerainty and an Animal Farm (Top-Down Control Structure -
Democracy/Republic/...) internally by controlling its money supply through the
central-private banking system.
Global Financial Empire's strategy:
– Capture LANDS
– Constitutionalize to control the suzerainty & LIVES
– Create LOANS through private creation of money by the private banking system
(Credit/Debt) & give preferential access-terms to kleptocrats (Kleptocrats/Finance --
> Business/Media -- > Politicians/Bureaucrats -- > people)
– Conserve control & power through Consumerism - lifestyles (Labor &
Leisure)
Monetary Power = Lands x Lives x Loans. The key CONTROL elements of the Financial Empire
within a suzerainty are:
– credit/debt - LOANS
– consumerism/desires - LIFESTYLE
– circuses/distractions. - LOST & trivial
When it comes to the international realm it seeks following freedoms:
– freedom of capital movement,
– freedom of trade,
– freedom to provide services, particularly financial
– freedom for warfare
The Global Financial Syndicate controls, finances and corrupts policies such as those in
the U$A administration by its financing the substitution of national leaders with employees
of the Financial Syndicate, such as Biden, Draghi, Yellen, Juncker, Macron,... Globalization
is meant to establish the global financial syndicate's rule everywhere, hierarchically from
top to bottom, in contrast to the democratic right of citizens to self-determination and the
responsibility of governments towards their citizens.
Who wants to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt?
No doubt the US/UK deep state, now more than ever, are busy trying to sow conflict and
division in Eurasia, to divide-and-rule Mackinder's "World Island" and hence the world.
I have just finished reading a couple of weighty tomes with similar themes: Dark Money by Jane
Mayer is about how some nominally right-wing libertarian sociopaths, (i.e. the Kochs and their
coterie) seek to control American politics through various 'charitable' think tanks and stealth
infiltration of top ranked universities; and
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, which is about how some nominally
left-wing(ish) libertarian whiz kid sociopaths seek to control the whole world through social
media.
My main take away is that libertarian ideology is just shorthand for narcissistic
entitlement and psychopathic greed.
...Some Republicans the past few years have talked of breaking from the two-party system and
starting a third. But that's not the way to go. Better to strengthen the system that for more
than a century and a half has seen us through a lot of mess. In its rough way the two-party
system, even without meaning to, functions as a unifying force: At the end of the day, for all
our differences and arguments, you have to decide if you were a constituency of Team A or Team
B. The parties, in their rough and inadequate way, had to be alive to your interests. Things
proceeded with a sense, an air, of majority rule. With a third party you can win the presidency
with 34%. That won't help national unity. And this being America, once we have a third party
we'll have a fourth and a fifth, and everything will be chaos, with a loss of any feeling of
general consensus.
Two parties are better for the country, and better for the Democrats. A strong Republican
party keeps them on their toes. As Oscar Hammerstein once said, liberals need conservatives to
hold them back and conservatives need liberals to pull them forward. One side should stop the
other when it goes too far, or boost it when it fails to move. Hammerstein was a cockeyed
optimist, but this isn't a bad time for that.
... ... ...
...I left the Republican Party at some point in the 2000s. I didn't like a lot of what I was
seeing. I began to say, honestly, that I was a political conservative but not a Republican.
Readers could see it in my work, and I heard from them a lot. I reregistered to vote in a
Republican primary in New York City, and have kept it that way, maybe for reasons of
orneriness.
But I've done a lot of mourning over it the past 15 years, shed literal tears over the GOP.
There were a lot of break points. Iraq was one: If that wasn't the country club at work, what
was? People to whom nothing much bad had ever happened, so they expected good fortune to follow
their decisions. Immigration was another, with the elite decision makers of the party not
caring at all how the unprotected see and experience life. It was a total detachment from their
concerns accompanied by a claim of higher compassion. Sarah Palin was another. I felt her
choice as a vice presidential candidate degraded a good insight, that an ability to do the show
business of politics is important -- FDR, JFK and Reagan knew that -- but you can't let
politics degrade into only showbiz; you need the ability to think seriously about
issues. It is wrong to reduce politics to a subset of entertainment. There were more.
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Patrick Jan SUBSCRIBER 12 minutes ago
Conservatives dominate the state governments and federal judiciary, and Republicans hold 50%
of the Senate and 49% of the House. Despite his many flaws, Trump lost the presidential
election by a mere 43,000 votes spread across 3 states. The GOP is hardly "shattered". On the
contrary, the country hasn't been this evenly divided in a long time.
Trump's populist conservative platform and fighting energy have made net gains for the
GOP. Trump's checkered personal life and lack of self-discipline have had the opposite
effect. So let's find a leader who maintains the Trump platform without the Trump
self-sabotage. How about Ron DeSantis?
Joan Lardin SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
My late father used to say:
"oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive."
All Republicans have to do to rehabilitate themselves and people's faith in
their party is speak truth about the Big Lie.
The truth will set them free.
But they can't or won't do it. They are held in the thrall of a six time bankrupt, lying
NY City conman. They are consummate cowards and panderers.
Jesse G SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
The "Big Lie" is being perpetrated by the Biden Administration and Democrats right in front
of your face. Lying about the border, lying about jobs, lying about infrastructure, lying
about voting laws. Everything's a lie. I'm curious what your father would think about this
new level of deception.
Gregory Caswell SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago
Money, Media Hacks and Socialist Union Educators have succeeded, over the years, and more
completely recently, to brainwash our youth, and our ever more naive, less thoughtful, more
fearful, overly occupied, and wee witted population, into believing they would far better
off, under a Socialist Dictatorship than a Democratic Republic! I do believe that will change
over the next four years, when the new 'woke" will have thoughtfully awakened from the
nightmare that is growing daily, through lies and disinformation from our Left-Wing Pelosian
Politician's and the Administration, bolstered by our Majority Media Outlet Hacks, each and
every day! We are, and appear to be to other Nations, quite naive in our Foreign affairs! We
have more illegals gaining entrance and more citizen jobless than ever, and the Government
handouts will of necessity cease, with many opportunities having failed, and employment and
pay less than before! They are greasing the slope, and making it much steeper!
Apparently it was "You pissed on my rug!". I guess if they update that book and article,
they'll include Trump characterizing Justin as "weak and dishonest" - which I would say,
based on his 7 years as PM, is blunt but accurate.
I think you're right that any US concessions are just a reprieve. That
non-agreement-capable thing. Freeland and Justin don't care, they're looking forward to
getting rich after leaving office, like the Clintons, Obama, etc. as a reward for their
service to plutocracy.
William Gruff @19, Hoarsewhisperer @16, agreed. That, it seems to me is the root of the
problem. Our politicians are for sale to the highest bidders. It's no longer democracy, but
full-fledged plutocracy with a veneer of "democracy" that's visibly cracked and flaking off
to anyone but the willfully blind.
solo @38, good point. Saudi Arabia also sided with China on Xinjiang:
Importantly, the Crown Prince said Saudi Arabia 'firmly supports China's legitimate
position on the issues related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong, opposes interfering in China's
internal affairs under any pretext, and rejects the attempt by certain parties to sow
dissension between China and the Islamic world.'
Plainly put, Saudi Arabia has undercut the current US campaign against China regarding
Xinjiang. It is a snub to the Biden administration.
Both major parties work according the the scheme of a pyramidal control. To control a
company A, you need to get majority of voting shares. Which belong to company B that owns,
say, 60%. In turn, 60% or shares of B belongs to C which controls A while having 60% x 60% =
36% of capital. After adding D, E etc., you can get away with the following: you start with
actual majority of shares, and the company prospers. Time to realize gains. But that would
deprive you of control. Thus you organize company B and sell 40% of its shares. Control
preserved. Wash and repeat.
In a similar spirit, a narrow circle can control a major party. Of course, the rules are
different and more hidden. On the bottom level, the equivalent of B controlling A, it was
observed that rational arguments are boring, and the wide masses have hard time following
them and following what (itself controlled) B advocates. So you invent easy to remember
[expletive deleted] like "Obama birth's certificate", "Russian collusion" etc. An energetic
group with group solidarity needs its tribal spirit and shibboleths.
The United States of America is now a classic oligarchy. The clarity that it has brought to
our situation by recognizing this fact is its only virtue...
"Either the Constitution matters and must be followed . . . or it is simply a piece of
parchment on display at the National Archives."
- Texas v. Pennsylvania et al.
T exas v. Pennsylvania et al. did not deny setting rules for the 2020 election contrary to
the Constitution. On December 10, 2020, the Supreme Court
discounted that . By refusing to interfere as America's ruling oligarchy serves itself, the
court archived what remained of the American republic's system of equal justice. That much is
clear.
In 2021, the laws, customs, and habits of the heart that had defined the American republic
since the 18th century are things of the past. Americans' movements and interactions are under
strictures for which no one ever voted. Government disarticulated society by penalizing
ordinary social intercourse and precluding the rise of spontaneous opinion therefrom. Together
with corporate America, it smothers minds through the mass and social media with relentless,
pervasive, identical, and ever-evolving directives. In that way, these oligarchs have
proclaimed themselves the arbiters of truth, entitled and obliged to censor whoever disagrees
with them as systemically racist, adepts of conspiracy theories.
Corporations, and the government itself, require employees to attend meetings personally to
acknowledge their guilt. They solicit mutual accusations. While violent felons are released
from prison, anyone may be fired or otherwise have his life wrecked for questioning
government/corporate sentiment. Today's rulers don't try to convince. They demand obedience,
and they punish.
Russians and East Germans under Communists Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in the 1970s
lived under less ruling class pressure than do today's Americans. And their rulers were smart
enough not to insult them, their country, or their race.
In 2015, Americans could still believe they lived in a republic, in which life's rules flow
from the people through their representatives.
In 2021, a class of rulers draws their right to rule from self-declared experts' claims of
infallibility that dwarf baroque kings' pretensions. In that self-referential sense, the United
States of America is now a classic oligarchy.
The following explains how this change happened. The clarity that it has brought to our
predicament is its only virtue.
Oligarchy had long been growing within America's republican forms. The 2016 election posed
the choice of whether its rise should consolidate, or not. Consolidation was very much "in the
cards." But how that election and its aftermath led to the fast, thorough, revolution of
American life depended on how Donald Trump acted as the catalyst who clarified, energized, and
empowered our burgeoning oligarchy's peculiarities. These, along with the manner in which the
oligarchy seized power between November 2016 and November 2020, ensure that its reign will be
ruinous and likely short. The prospect that the republic's way of life may thrive among those
who wish it to depends on the manner in which they manage the civil conflict that is now
inevitable.
From Ruling Class to Oligarchy
By the 21st century's first decade, little but formality was left of the American republic.
In 1942, Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism,
Socialism, and Democracy described the logic by which government and big business tend to
coalesce into socialism in theory, oligarchy in practice. But by then, that logic had already
imposed itself on the Western world. Italy's 1926 Law of Corporations -- fascism's charter --
inaugurated not so much the regulation of business by government as the coalescence of the
twain. Over the ensuing decade, it was more or less copied throughout the West.
In America, the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act's authors had erected barriers against private
oligopolies and monopolies. By maintaining competition between big business, they hoped to
preserve private freedoms and limit government's role. But the Great Depression's pressures and
temptations led to the New Deal's rules that differed little from Italy's. No matter that, as
the Supreme Court pointed out in Schechter Poultry v. U.S . , public-private
amalgamation does not fit in the Constitution. It grew nevertheless alongside the notion that
good government proceeds from the experts' judgment rather than from the voters' choices. The
miracles of production that America brought forth in World War II seemed to validate the
point.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had come to understand large organizations that feed on
government power and dispense vast private benefits, was not shy in warning about the danger
they pose to the republic. His warning about the " military-industrial
complex " that he knew so well is often misunderstood as a mere caution against militarism.
But Ike was making a broader point: Amalgams of public and private power tend to prioritize
their corporate interests over the country's.
That is why Eisenhower cautioned against the power of government-funded expertise. "The
prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and
the power of money is ever-present and is gravely to be regarded," he said, because "public
policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." Government money
can accredit a self-regarding elite. Because "a government contract becomes virtually a
substitute for intellectual curiosity," government experts can end up substituting their power
for truth.
The expansion of government power throughout the 1960s and '70s in pursuit of improving
education, eradicating poverty, and uplifting blacks created complexes of public-private power
throughout America that surpassed the military-industrial complex in size, and above all in
influence.
Consider education. Post-secondary education increased fourfold, from 9 percent of Americans
holding four-year degrees in 1965 to 36 percent in 2015. College towns became islands of wealth
and political power. From them came endless "studies" that purported to be arbiters of truth
and wisdom, as well as a growing class of graduates increasingly less educated but ever so much
more socio-politically uniform.
In the lower grades, per-pupil expenditure (in constant dollars) went from $3,200 in 1960 to
$13,400 in 2015. That money fueled an even more vast and powerful complex -- one that includes
book publishers, administrators, and labor unions and that has monopolized the minds of at
least two generations. As it grew, the education establishment also detached itself from the
voters' control: In the 1950s, there were some 83,000 public school districts in America. By
2015, only around 13,000 remained for a population twice as large. Today's parents have many
times less influence over their children's education than did their grandparents.
Analogous things happened in every field of life. Medicine came to be dominated by the
government's relationship with drug companies and hospital associations. When Americans went to
buy cars, or even light bulbs and shower nozzles, they found their choices limited by deals
between government, industry, and insurance companies. These entities regarded each other as
"stakeholders" in an oligarchic system. But they had ever less need to take account of mere
citizens in what was becoming a republic in name only. As the 20eth century was drawing to a
close, wherever citizens looked, they saw a government and government-empowered entities over
which they had ever less say, which ruled ever more unaccountably, and whose attitude toward
them was ever less friendly.
The formalities were the last to go. Ever since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 A.D.,
the rulers' dependence on popular assent to expenditures has been the essence of limited
government. Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution enshrines that principle.
Congressional practice embodied it. Details of bills and expenditures were subject to public
hearings and votes in subcommittees, committees, and the floors of both Houses. But beginning
in the early 1980s and culminating in 2007, the U.S government abandoned the appropriations
process.
Until 1981, Congress had used "continuing resolutions" to continue funding government
operations unchanged until regular appropriations could be made. Thereafter, as congressional
leaders learned how easy it is to use this vehicle to avoid exposing what they are doing to
public scrutiny, they legislated and appropriated ever less in public, and increasingly put
Congress' output into continuing resolutions or omnibus bills, amounting to trillions of
dollars and thousands of pages, impossible for representatives and senators to read, and
presented to them as the only alternative to "shutting down the government." This -- now the
U.S government standard operating procedure -- enables the oligarchy's "stakeholders" to
negotiate their internal arrangements free from responsibility to citizens. It is the practical
abolition of Article I section 9 -- and of the Magna Carta itself.
In the 21st century, the American people's trust in government plummeted as they -- on the
political Left as well as on the Right -- realized that those in power care little for them. As
they watched corporate and non-profit officials trade places with public officials and
politicians while getting much richer, they felt impoverished and disempowered. Since the
ruling class embraced Republicans and Democrats, elections seemed irrelevant. The presidential
elections of 2008 and 2012 underlined that whoever won, the same people would be in charge and
that the parceling out of wealth and power among stakeholders would continue.
Americans on the Right were especially aggrieved because the oligarchy had become culturally
united in disdain for Western civilization in general and for themselves in particular. The
cultural warfare it waged on the rest of America inflamed opposition. But it also diluted its
own focus on solidifying profitable arrangements.
By 2016, America was already well into the classic cycles of revolution. The atrophy of
institutions, the waning of republican habits, and the increasing, reciprocal disrespect
between classes that have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways
of life more different from one another, than did the 19th century's Northerners and
Southerners precluded returning to traditional republican life. The election would determine
whether the oligarchy could consolidate itself. More important, it would affect the speed by
which the revolutionary vortex would carry the country, and the amount of violence this would
involve.
The Trump Catalyst
By 2015, the right side of America's challenge to the budding oligarchy was inevitable.
Trump was not inevitable. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had begun posing a thorough challenge to
the "stakeholders" most Americans disrespected. Candidate Trump was the more gripping showman.
His popularity came from his willingness to disrespect them, loudly. Because the other 16
Republican candidates ran on different bases, none ever had a chance. Inevitably, victory in a
field so crowded depended on when which minor candidate did or did not withdraw. There never
was a head-to-head choice between Trump and Cruz.
Trump's candidacy drew the ferocious opposition it did primarily because the entire ruling
class recognized that, unlike McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012, he really was mobilizing
millions of Americans against the arrangements by which the ruling class live, move, and have
their being. Since Cruz's candidacy represented the same threat, it almost certainly would have
drawn no less intense self-righteous anger. Nasty narratives could have been made up about him
out of whole cloth as easily as about Trump.
But Trump's actual peculiarities made it possible for the oligarchy to give the impression
that its campaign was about his person, his public flouting of conventional norms, rather than
about the preservation of their own power and wealth. The principal consequence of the ruling
class' opposition to candidate Trump was to convince itself, and then its followers, that
defeating him was so important that it legitimized, indeed dictated, setting aside all laws,
and truth itself.
Particular individuals had never been the oligarchy's worry. In 2008, as Barack Obama was
running against Hillary Clinton and John McCain -- far cries from Trump -- he pointed to those
Americans who "cling to God and guns" as the problem's root. Clinton's 2016 remark that Trump's
supporters were "a basket of deplorables," -- racists, sexists, homophobes, etc. -- merely
voiced what had long been the oligarchy's consensus judgment of most Americans. For them,
pushing these Americans as far away as possible from the levers of power, treating them as less
than citizens, had already come to define justice and right.
Donald Trump -- his bombastic, hyperbolic style, his tendency to play fast and loose with
truth, even to lie as he insulted his targets -- fit perfectly the oligarchy's image of his
supporters, and lent a color of legitimacy to the utterly illegitimate collusion between the
oligarchy's members in government and those in the Democratic Party running against Trump.
Thus did the FBI and CIA, in league with the major media and the Democratic Party, spy on
candidate Trump, concocting and spreading all manner of synthetic dirt about him. Nevertheless,
to universal surprise, he won, or rather the oligarchy lost, the 2016 election.
The oligarchy's disparate members had already set aside laws, truth, etc. in opposition to
Trump. The realization that the presidency's awesome powers now rested in his hands fostered a
full-court-press #Resistance. Trump's peculiarities helped make it far more successful than
anyone could have imagined.
"Dogs That Bark Do Not Bite"
Applying this observation to candidate Trump's hyperbole suggested that President Trump
might suffer from what Theodore Roosevelt called the most self-destructive of habits, combining
"the unbridled tongue with the unready hand." And, in fact, President Trump neither fired and
referred for prosecution James Comey or the other intelligence officials who had run the
surveillance of his campaign. He praised them, and let himself be persuaded to fire General
Michael Flynn, his national security advisor, who stood in the way of the intelligence
agencies' plans against him. Nor did he declassify and make public all the documents associated
with their illegalities.
Four years later, he left office with those documents still under seal. He criticized
officials over whom he had absolute power, notably CIA's Gina Haspel who likely committed a
crime spying on his candidacy, but left them in office. Days after his own inauguration, he
suffered the CIA's removal of clearances from one of his appointees because he was a critic of
the Agency. Any president worthy of his office would have fired the entire chain of officials
who had made that decision. Instead, he appointed to these agencies people loyal to them and
hostile to himself.
He acted similarly with other agencies. His first secretary of state, secretary of defense,
and national security advisor mocked him publicly. At their behest, in August 2017, he gave a
nationally televised speech in which he effectively thanked them for showing him that he had
been wrong in opposing ongoing war in the Middle East. He railed against Wall Street but left
untouched the tax code's "carried interest" provision that is the source of much unearned
wealth. He railed against the legal loophole that lets Google, Facebook, and Twitter censor
content without retribution, but did nothing to close it. Already by the end of January 2017,
it was clear that no one in Washington needed to fear Trump. By the time he left office,
Washington was laughing at him.
Nor did Trump protect his supporters. For example, he shared their resentment of being
ordered to attend workplace sessions about their "racism." But not until his last months in
office did he ban the practice within the federal government. Never did he ban contracts with
companies that require such sessions.
Thus, as the oligarchy set about negating the 2016 electorate's attempt to stop its
consolidation of power, Trump had assured them that they would neither be impeded as they did
so nor pay a price. Donald Trump is not responsible for the oligarchy's power. But he was
indispensable to it.
#TheResistance rallied every part of the ruling class to mutually supporting efforts.
Nothing encourages, amplifies, or seemingly justifies extreme sentiments as does being part of
a unanimous chorus, a crowd, a mob -- especially when all can be sure they are acting safely,
gratuitously. Success supercharges them. #TheResistance fostered the sense in the ruling class'
members that they are more right, more superior, and more entitled than they had ever imagined.
It made millions of people feel bigger and better about themselves than they ever
had.
Logic and Dysfunction
Disdain for the "deplorables" united and energized parts of American society that, apart
from their profitable material connections to government, have nothing in common and often have
diverging interests. That hate, that determination to feel superior to the "deplorables" by
treading upon them, is the "intersectionality," the glue that binds, say, Wall Street
coupon-clippers, folks in the media, officials of public service unions, gender studies
professors, all manner of administrators, radical feminists, race and ethnic activists, and so
on. #TheResistance grew by awakening these groups to the powers and privileges to which they
imagine their superior worth entitles them, to their hate for anyone who does not submit
preemptively.
Ruling-class judges sustained every bureaucratic act of opposition to the Trump
Administration. Thousands of identical voices in major media echoed every charge, every
insinuation, non-stop and unquestioned. #TheResistance made it ruling-class policy that Trump's
and his voters' racism and a host of other wrongdoing made them, personally, illegitimate. In
any confrontation, the ruling class deemed these presumed white supremacists in the wrong,
systemically. By 2018, the ruling class had effectively placed the "deplorables" outside the
protection of the laws. By 2020, they could be fired for a trifle, set upon in the streets,
prosecuted on suspicion of bad attitudes, and even for defending themselves.
Because each and every part of the ruling coalition's sense of what may assuage its
grievances evolves without natural limit, this logic is as insatiable as it is powerful. It is
also inherently destructive of oligarchy.
Enjoyment of power's material perquisites is classic oligarchy's defining purpose. Having
conquered power over the people, successful oligarchies foster environments in which they can
live in peace, productively. Oligarchy, like all regimes, cannot survive if it works at
cross-purposes. But the oligarchy that seized power in America between 2016 and 2020 is engaged
in a never-ending seizure of ever more power and the infliction of ever more punishment -- in a
war against the people without imaginable end. Clearly, that is contrary to what the Wall
Street magnates or the corps of bureaucrats or the university administrators or senior
professors want. But that is what the people want who wield the "intersectional" passions that
put the oligarchy in power.
As the oligarchy's every part, every organ, raged against everything Trump, it made itself
less attractive to the public even as Trump's various encouragements of economic activity were
contributing to palpable increases in prosperity.
Hence, by 2019's end, Trump was likely to win reelection. Then came COVID-19.
The
COVID Fortuna
The COVID-19 virus is no plague. Though quite contagious, its infection/fatality rate (IFR),
about 0.01 percent, is that of the average flu, and its effects are generally so mild that most
whom it infects never know it.
Like all infections, it is deadly to those weakened severely by other causes. It did not
transform American life by killing people, but by the fears about it that our oligarchy
packaged and purveyed. Fortuna , as Machiavelli reminds us, is inherently submissive to whoever
bends her to his wishes. The fears and the strictures they enabled were not about health -- if
only because those who purveyed and imposed them did not apply them to themselves. They were
about power over others.
COVID's politicization began in February 2020 with the adoption by the World Health
Organization -- which is headed by an Ethiopian bureaucrat beholden to China -- and upon
recommendation of non-scientist Bill Gates, of a non-peer-reviewed test for the infection. The
test's chief characteristic is that its rate of positives to negatives depends on the number of
cycles through which the sample is run. More cycles, more positives. Hence, every test result
is a "soft" number. Second, the WHO and associated national organizations like the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control reported COVID's spread by another "soft" number: "confirmed cases." That
is, sick persons who tested positive for the virus.
When this number is related to that of such persons who then die, the ratio -- somewhat
north of 5 percent -- suggests that COVID kills one out of 20 people it touches. But that is an
even softer number since these deaths include those who die with COVID rather than of it, as
well as those who may have had COVID. Pyramiding such soft numbers, mathematical modelers
projected millions of deaths. Scary for the unwary, but pure fantasy.
For example, the U.S. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which modeled the
authoritative predictions on which the U.S. lockdowns were based, also predicted COVID-19
deaths for Sweden, which did not lock down. On May 3, the IHME predicted that Sweden would
suffer 2,800 COVID deaths a day within the next two weeks. The actual number was 38. Reporting
on COVID has never ceased to consist of numbers as scary as they are soft.
Literate persons know that, once an infectious disease enters a population, nothing can
prevent it from infecting all of it, until a majority has developed antibodies after
contracting it -- so-called community immunity or herd immunity. But fear leads people to
empower those who promise safety, regardless of how empty the promises. The media pressed
governments to do something . The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan screamed: "don't panic is
terrible advice." The pharmaceutical industry and its Wall Street backers salivated at the
prospect of billions of government money for new drugs and vaccines. Never mind the little
sense it makes for millions of people to accept a vaccine's non-trivial risk to protect against
a virus with trivial consequences for themselves. All manner of officials yearned to wield
unaccountable power.
Because the power to crush the general population's resistance to itself is the oligarchy's
single-minded focus, it was able to bend fears of COVID to that purpose. Thus, it gathered more
power with more consequences than the oligarchs could have imagined.
But only President Trump's complaisance made this possible. His message to the American
people had been not to panic, be mindful of the scientific facts -- you can't stop it, and it's
not that bad -- while mitigating its effects on vulnerable populations. But on March 15, Trump
bent, and agreed to counsel people to suspend normal life for two weeks to "slow the spread,"
so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. Two weeks later, the New York Times crowed that
Trump, having been told "hundreds of thousands of Americans could face death if the country
reopened too soon," had been stampeded into "abandoning his goal of reopening the country by
Easter." He agreed to support the "experts'" definition of what "soon" might mean. By
accrediting the complex of government, industry, and media's good faith and expertise, Trump
validated their plans to use COVID as a vehicle for enhancing their power.
Having seized powers, the oligarchs used them as weapons to disrupt and disaggregate the
parts of American society they could not control.
The economic effects of lockdowns and social distancing caused obvious pain. Tens of
millions of small businesses were forced to close or radically to reduce activity. More than 40
million Americans filed claims for unemployment assistance. Uncountable millions of farmers and
professionals had their products and activities devalued. Millions of careers, dreams that had
been realized by lifetimes of work, were wrecked. Big business and government took over their
functions. Within nine months, COVID-19 had produced 28 new billionaires .
Surplus and scarcity of food resulted simultaneously because the lockdowns closed most
restaurants and hotels. As demand shifted in ways that made it impossible for distribution
networks and processing plants to adjust seamlessly, millions of gallons of milk were poured
down drains, millions of chickens, billions of eggs, and tens of thousands of hogs and cattle
were destroyed, acres of vegetables and tons of fruit were plowed under. Prices in the markets
rose. Persons deprived of work with less money with which to pay higher prices struggled to
feed their families. This reduced countless self-supporting citizens to supplicants. By
intentionally reducing the supply of food available to the population, the U.S. government
joined the rare ranks of such as Stalin's Soviet Union and Castro's Cuba.
But none of these had ever shut down a whole nation's entire medical care except for one
disease. Hospitals stood nearly empty, having cleared the decks for the (ignorantly) expected
COVID flood. Emergency rooms were closed to the poor people who get routine care there. Forget
about dentistry. Most Americans were left essentially without medical care for most of a year.
Human bodies' troubles not having taken a corresponding holiday, it is impossible to estimate
how much suffering and death this lack of medical care has caused and will cause yet.
The oligarchy's division of all activity into "essential" -- meaning permitted -- and
"nonessential" -- to be throttled at will -- had less obvious but more destructive effects.
Private clubs, as well as any and all gatherings of more than five or 10 people, were banned.
Churches were forbidden to have worship services or to continue social activities. The "social
distancing" and mask mandates enforced in public buildings and stores, and often on the
streets, made it well-nigh impossible for people to communicate casually. Thus, was that part
of American society that the oligarchy did not control directly disarticulated, and its members
left alone to face unaccountable powers on which they had to depend.
Meanwhile, the media became the oligarchy's public relations department. Very much including
ordinary commercial advertising, it hammered home the oligarchy's line that COVID restrictions
are good, even cool. These restrictions reduced the ideas available to the American people to
what the mass media purveyed and the social media allowed. Already by April 2020, these used
what had become near-monopoly power over interpersonal communications to censor such
communications as they disapproved. Political enforcers took it upon themselves even to cancel
statements by eminent physicians about COVID that they judged to be "misleading." Of course,
this betrayed the tech giants' initial promise of universal access. It is also
unconstitutional. (In Marsh v. Alabama , decided in 1946, the
Supreme Court barred private parties from acting as de facto governments). Since these
companies did it in unison, they also violated the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. But the ruling
class that had become an oligarchy applauded their disabling whatever might be conducive to
conservatives' interests and inconvenient to their own candidates.
Private entities wielding public powers in coordination with each other without having to
observe any of government's constitutional constraints is as good a definition of oligarchy as
there is. Oligarchy had increasingly taken power in the buildup to the 2020 election. In its
aftermath, it would try to suffocate America.
Sovereignty of the Vote Counters
The oligarchy's proximate objective, preventing the 2020 presidential election from
validating the previous one's results, overrode all others. The powers it had seized under
COVID's cover, added to the plethora that it had exercised since the 2016 campaign's beginning,
had surely cowered some opposition. But as November 2020 loomed, no one could be sure how much
it also had energized.
Few people were happy to be locked down. It was a safe bet that not a few were unhappy at
being called systemically racist. The oligarchy, its powers notwithstanding, could not be sure
how people would vote. That is why it acted to take the presidential election's outcome out of
the hands of those who would cast the votes and to place it as much as possible in the hands of
its members who would count the votes.
Intentionally, traditional procedures for voting leave no discretion to those who count the
votes. Individuals obtain and cast ballots into a physical or electronic box only after showing
identification that matches their registration. Ballot boxes are opened and their contents
counted by persons representing the election's opposing parties. Persons registered to vote
might qualify to vote-by-mail by requesting a ballot, the issuance and receipt of which is
checked against their registration. Their ballots are counted in the same bipartisan
manner.
The Democratic Party had long pressed to substitute universal voting by mail -- meaning that
ballots would be sent to all registered voters, in some states to anyone with a driver's
license whether they asked for them or not and regardless of whether these persons still lived
at the address on the rolls or were even alive. The ballots eventually would arrive at the
counting centers, either through the mail, from drop boxes, or through "harvesters" who would
pick them up from the voters who fill them out, and who may even help them to fill them out.
Security, if any, would consist of machine-matching signatures on the ballot and on the
envelope in which it had come. The machine's software can be dialed to greater or lesser
sensitivity.
But doing away with scrutiny of ballots counted by representatives of the election's
contenders removes the last possibility of ensuring the ballot had come from a real person
whose will it is supposed to represent. Once the link between the ballot and the qualified
person is broken, nothing prevents those in charge of the electoral process from excluding and
including masses of ballots as they choose. The counters become the arbiters.
Attorney General William Barr pointed out the obvious: Anyone, in America or abroad, can
print up any number of ballots, mark them, and deliver them for counting to whoever is willing
to accept them and run them through their machines. Since the counters usually dispose of the
envelopes in which ballots arrive -- thus obviating any possibility of tracing the ballot's
connection to a voter -- they may even dispense of the fiction that there had ever been any
signed envelopes. That is especially true of late-found ballots. Who knows where they came
from? Who cares to find out?
Only in a few one-party Democratic states was universal vote-by-mail established by law.
Elsewhere, especially in the states sure to be battlegrounds in the presidential election,
mail-in voting was introduced by various kinds of executive or judicial actions. Questions of
right and wrong aside, the Constitution's Article II section 1's words -- "Each State shall
appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct " -- makes such actions
unconstitutional on their face. Moreover, in these states -- Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
and Wisconsin -- the counting of votes in the most populous counties is firmly in the hands of
Democratic Party bosses with a well-documented history of fraud.
To no one's surprise, the 2020 presidential election was decided by super-majorities for the
Democratic candidate precisely from these counties in these states. Yes, Trump's percentage of
the vote fell in certain suburbs. But Trump received some 11 million more votes in 2020 than
four years earlier, and nearly doubled the share of votes he received from blacks. The
Democrats' gain of some 15 million votes came exclusively from mail-in ballots, and their
victory in the Electoral College came exclusively from the supermajorities piled up in these
corrupt counties -- the only places where Trump's share of the black vote was cut by
three-quarters. Did people there really think so differently?
This is not the place to recount the list of affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury by
persons who observed ballot stuffing, nor the statistical anomaly of successive batches of
votes that favored Biden over Trump by precisely the same amounts, of un-creased (i.e., never
mailed) ballots fed into counting machines, nor the Georgia video of suitcases of ballots being
taken from under tables and inserted into counting machines after Republican observers had been
ousted. Suffice it to note that references to these events have been scrubbed from the
Internet. It is more important to keep in mind that, in America prior to 2020, sworn affidavits
that crimes have been committed had invariably been probable cause for judicial, prosecutorial,
or legislative investigations. But for the first time in America, the ruling class dismissed
them with: "You have no proof!" A judge (the sister of Georgia's Stacey Abrams) ruled that even
when someone tells the U.S. Postal Service they have moved, their old address is still a lawful
basis for them to cast a ballot. Certainly, proof of crime is impossible with such judges and
without testimony under oath, or powers of subpoena.
Just as important, Republicans in general and the Trump White House in particular bear heavy
responsibility for failing to challenge the patent illegality of the executive actions and
consent decrees that enabled inherently insecure mail-in procedures in real-time, as they were
being perpetrated in key states. No facts were at issue. Only law. The constitutional
violations were undeniable.
Pennsylvania et. al. answered Texas's late lawsuit by arguing it demanded the invalidation
of votes that had been cast in good faith. True. But Texas argued that letting stand the
results of an election carried out contrary to the Constitution devalued the votes cast in
states such as Texas that had held the election in a constitutional manner. Also true. Without
comment, the Supreme Court chose to privilege the set of voters on the oligarchy's side over
those of their opponents. Had the lawsuit come well before the election, no such choice would
have existed. Typically, the Trump Administration substituted bluster for action.
The
Oligarchy Rides its Tigers
Winning the 2020 election had been the objective behind which the oligarchy had coalesced
during the previous five years. In 2021, waging socio-political war on the rest of America is
what the oligarchy is all about.
The logic of hate and disdain of ordinary Americans is not only what binds the oligarchy
together. It is the only substitute it has for any moral-ethical-intellectual point of
reference. Donald Trump's impotent, inglorious reaction to his defeat offered irresistible
temptations to the oligarchy's several sectors to celebrate victory by vying to hurt whoever
had supported the president. But permanent war against some 74 million fellow citizens is a
foredoomed approach to governing.
The Democratic Party had promised a return to some kind of "normalcy." Instead, its victory
enabled the oligarchy's several parts to redefine the people who do not show them due deference
as "white supremacists," "insurrectionists," and Nazis -- in short, as some kind of criminals
-- to exclude them from common platforms of communication, from the banking system, and perhaps
even from air travel; and to set law enforcement to surveil them in order to find bases for
prosecuting them. Neither Congress nor any state's legislature legislated any of this. Rather,
the several parts of America's economic, cultural, and political establishment are waging this
war, uncoordinated but well-nigh unanimously.
Perhaps most important, they do so without thought of how a war against at least some 74
million fellow citizens might end. The people in the oligarchy's corporate components seem to
want only to adorn unchallenged power with a reputation for "wokeness." For them, causing pain
to their opponents is a pleasure incidental to enjoying power's perquisites. The Biden family's
self-enrichment by renting access to influence is this oligarchy's standard.
But the people who dispense that reputation -- not just the professional revolutionaries of
Antifa and Black Lives Matter, but "mainstream" racial and gender activists and self-appointed
virtue-crats, have appetites as variable as they are insatiable. For them, rubbing conservative
America's faces in excrement is what it's all about. A Twitter video viewed by 2.6 million
people urges them to form "an army of citizen detectives" to ferret out conservatives from
among teachers, doctors, police officers, and "report them to the authorities." No doubt,
encouraged by President Biden's characterization of opponents as "domestic terrorists," any
number of "authorities" as well as private persons will find opportunities to lord it over
persons not to their taste. This guarantees endless clashes, and spiraling violence.
Joseph Biden, Kamala Harris, and the people they appoint to positions of official
responsibility are apparatchiks, habituated to currying favor and pulling rank. They have
neither the inclination nor the capacity to persuade the oligarchy's several parts to agree to
a common good or at least to a modus vivendi among themselves, never mind with conservative
America. This guarantees that they will ride tigers that they won't even try to dismount.
At this moment, the oligarchy wields an awesome complex of official and unofficial powers to
exclude whomever it chooses from society's mainstream. Necessarily, however, exclusions cut
both ways. Invariably, to banish another is to banish one's self as well. Google, Facebook, and
Twitter let it be known that they would exclude anything with which they disagree from what had
become the near-universal means of communication. They bolstered that by colluding to destroy
their competitor, Parler. Did they imagine that 74 million Americans could find no means of
communicating otherwise? Simon and Schuster canceled a book by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
critical of communications monopolies. Did its officials imagine that they would thereby do
other than increase the book's eventual sales, and transfer some of their customers to Hawley's
new publisher ? The media effectively suppressed inconvenient news. Did they imagine that
this would prevent photos of Black Lives Matter professionals in the forefront of the January 6
assault on the U.S. Capitol from reaching the public?
In sum, intending to relegate conservative America to society's servile sidelines, the
oligarchy's members drew a clear, sharp line between themselves and that America. By telling
conservative Americans "these institutions and corporations, are ours, not yours," they freed
conservative America of moral obligations toward them and themselves. By abandoning
conservative America, they oblige conservative America to abandon them and seek its own
way.
Clarity, Leadership, and Separation
To think of conservative America's predicament as an opportunity is as hyperbolic as it was
for Machiavelli to begin the conclusion of The Prince by observing that "in order to know
Moses' virtue it was necessary that the people of Israel be slaves in Egypt, and to know the
greatness of Cyrus's spirit that the Persians be oppressed by the Medes, and to know the
excellence of Theseus, that the Athenian people be dispersed, so at the present, in order to
know the virtue of an Italian spirit it was necessary that Italy reduce herself to the
conditions in which she is at present . . ."
Machiavelli's lesson is that the clarity of situations such as he mentions, and such as is
conservative America's following the 2020 election, is itself valuable. Clarity makes illusions
of compromise untenable and points to self-reliant action as the only reasonable path. The
people might or might not be, as he wrote, "all ready and disposed to follow the flag if only
someone were to pick it up." But surely, someone picking up the flag is the only alternative to
servitude.
What, in conservative America's current predicament, might it mean to "pick up the flag?"
Electoral politics remains open to talented, courageous, ambitious leadership. In Florida and
South Dakota, Governors Ron DeSantis and Kristi Noem have used their powers to make room for
ways of life different from and more attractive than that in places wholly dominated by the
oligarchy. Texas and Idaho as well attract refugees from such as California and New York by
virtue of such differences with life there as their elected officials have been able to
maintain. Governmental and corporate pressures on such states to conform to the oligarchy's
standards, sure to increase, are opportunities for their officials to lead their people's
refusal to conform by explaining why doing this is good, and by personally standing in the way.
They may be sure that President Kamala Harris would not order federal troops to shoot at state
officials for closing abortion clinics or for excluding men from women's bathrooms.
For more than a generation, a majority of Americans have expressed growing distrust of, and
alienation from, the establishment. The establishment, not Donald Trump, made this happen. That
disparate majority, in many ways at cross purposes with itself, demands leadership. Pollster
Patrick Caddell's in-depth study of the American electorate, which he titled "We Need Smith," showed how the themes that
made it possible for the hero of the 1939 movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" to prevail
against the establishment then are even more gripping now and appeal to a bigger majority.
Trump was a bad copy of Mr. Smith.
More than ever, an audience beyond the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump hungers for
leadership. The oligarchy came together by ever more vigorously denigrating and suppressing
these deplorables. Already before the 20th century's turn, the FBI and some elements in the
Army and the Justice Department had concluded that they are somehow criminal, and that
preparations should be made to treat them as such. The official position of the administration
taking power after the 2020 election is that domestic terrorism from legions of "white
supremacists" is the primary threat facing America. No wonder those so designated for outlawry
demand protection.
The path to electoral leadership is straightforward. Whoever would lead the deplorables-plus
must explain their cause to friend and foe, make it his own, and grow it by leading successful
acts of resistance.
Increasingly, conservative Americans live as if under occupation by a hostile power. Whoever
would lead them should emulate Charles de Gaulle's 1941 basic rule for la résistance :
refrain from individual or spontaneous acts or expressions that produce only martyrs. But join
with thousands in what amount to battles to defeat the enemy's initiatives, weaken his grip on
power, and prepare his defeat. Thus, an aspirant to the presidency in 2024, in the course of
debunking the narrative by which the oligarchy seized so much power over America, might lead
millions to violate restrictions placed on those who refuse to wear masks. Or, as he pursues
legislative and judicial measures to abolish the compulsory racial and gender sensitivity
training sessions to which public and private employees are subjected, he might organize
employees in a given sector unanimously to stay away from them in protest. They can't all be
fired or held back.
Such a persuasive prospective president, or president, could finish the process that,
beginning circa 2010, initiated the process of reshaping the Republican Party into something
like Caddell's Mr. Smith would have personified.
Electoral politics, however, is the easy part. Major corporations, private and semi-private
institutions such as schools, publishing houses, and media, are the oligarchy's deepest
foundations. These having become hostile, conservative Americans have no choice but to populate
their own. This is far from impossible.
Sorting ourselves out into congenial groups has been part of America's DNA since 1630, when
Roger Williams led his followers out of Massachusetts to found Providence Plantations. In the
19th century, the Mormons left unfriendly environments to establish their own settlements.
Since 1973, Americans who believe in unborn children's humanity have largely ceased to
intermarry with those who do not. Nobody decided this should happen. It is in the logic of
diverging cultures.
As American primary and secondary education's dysfunction became painfully apparent, parents
of all races have fled the public schools as fast as they could. Businesses have been fleeing
the Rust Belt for the Sun Belt for generations. When Democratic governors and mayors used COVID
to make life difficult in their jurisdictions, people moved out of them. When Twitter's
censorship of conservatives became undeniable, Parler added customers by the hundreds of
thousands each day. Facebook and Twitter's stock lost $50 billion in a week. Much more
separation follows from the American people's diverging cultures.
As conservative America sorts itself out from oligarchy's social bases, it may be able to
restore something like what had existed under the republic. Effectively, two regimes would have
to learn to coexist within our present boundaries. But that may be the best, freest,
arrangement possible now for the United States.
While Special Counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe
is generally focused on the FBI's activities, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox
News the prosecution of high-ranking FBI officials, such as former Director James Comey, is
"unlikely."
In a report
published Tuesday, Fox News reports that sources told the publication that the investigation is
ongoing and that Durham last year concluded the part of his investigation looking into the CIA
and he is now examining the FBI's activities.
Additionally, another source told the news outlet that the special counsel had been pursuing
"new and credible leads" through the end of the Trump administration, however, Fox News noted
that it is unclear at this point what those lines of inquiry entail.
Moreover, a spokesperson for Durham told the outlet that they had "no comment from Mr.
Durham."
Durham's probe is looking into the origins of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as
now-debunked collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Former President
Donald Trump
and conservatives have called Mueller's yearlong probe a "witch hunt" and accused it of being
motivated by anti-Trump animus.
Mueller's investigation yielded no evidence that collusion occurred between the Trump
campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election.
Tuesday's report comes after the first and only criminal sentencing stemming from Durham's
investigation was issued last week.
Last Friday,
Kevin Clinesmith , a former FBI lawyer,
was sentenced to one year of probation and 400 hours of community service for altering an
email during the Mueller's investigation that was used as grounds for the surveillance of
former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Previously, Comey has said that investigators have yet to reach out to him.
"I have had no contact with him and haven't talked to him," the former FBI director
told CBS News' "Face the
Nation" back in August.
"I can't imagine that I'm a target."
Last summer, Durham's team also questioned former CIA Director John Brennan for about eight
hours at the CIA headquarters . Brennan later said through a spokesman he was assured he was
"not a target," according to Fox News.
Back in December, Brennan told
"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace that he had no issue with Durham's investigation extending
into 2021 and also divulged briefly about the eight-hour session.
"I think that is fine, I have no problems with it," the former CIA director said, adding
that Durham's team already talked with him for eight hours. "I do believe that John Durham is
going to carry out his responsibilities ably and hopefully not with any political influence."
5,713 64 NEV play_arrow
Clee Torres 4 minutes ago
No sh*t Sherlock.
You mean there are two levels of justice? One for me and one for thee?
When lynch met clinton on the plane and it barely made a ripple.
That's when I knew.
enough of this 11 minutes ago (Edited)
No surprise. Durham and his pals are milking the investigation for all its worth. In the
meantime, Comey skates and the amendment named in his honor remains in full force.
On a happier note, Mr. Durham is looking for a nice beachfront mansion...
WOODisGOOD 3 minutes ago
Deep State gotta protect Deep State. That's just the way it works.
squib 4 minutes ago
I remember, Strzok, Comey, Clapper, Brennan etc. always looked smug bc they knew that
they'd be taken care of.
PaulDF 3 minutes ago
"Insurance Policy" indeed
Alex Jones was right... 4 minutes ago remove link
In other news, water is wet...
Reaper 16 minutes ago
US Law makes Dunham a Principle who abeted the crimes he's investigating. As such, under
US Code, he's liable for the same punishment as the perps. Remember how quickly Roger Stone
was prosecuted for lying.
US Presidents are really puppets, figureheads, even if during their campaign they pretend
otherwise. As for the elections, every four years in the US, they are nothing but a grand
brainwashing show whose sole purpose is to give the illusion of people power. They could have
presidential elections every 2 years, or even every year, none of that would change the fact
that the US is a plutocratic dictatorship with much less people power than any other
state in the collective West.
In fact, the argument above is just a tiny fig leaf trying to conceal the undeniable fact
that the US are not ruled by a person, but are ruled by a class, in the Marxist sense of this
world. Personally, I call this ruling class the "US Nomenklatura ". And while both Obama and
Trump pretended to want real change, they both lost that chance (assuming they ever wanted this
is the first place, which I doubt) when they did not do what Putin did when he came to office:
crush the Russian oligarchs as a class (some fled abroad, some died, some lost it all, and some
agreed to play by Putin's new rules). Obama, being the vapid and spineless car salesman that
he, is probably never even contemplated any real move against the US Nomenklatura . As
for Trump, being the pompous narcissist that he is, he might have even entertained some
thoughts of showing "who is boss", but that lasted only 1 month, until the US
Nomenklatura forced Trump to fire Flynn (after that, it was all freefall ).
There was and is no great "American democracy" to be restored after Trump. As the
mainstream political scientists Martin Gilens (Princeton) and Benjamin Page (Northwestern) had
shown six years into Barack Obama's presidency, the nation had for many decades become
"an oligarchy" where wealthy "elites" and their corporations "rule" and
"ordinary citizens have virtually no
influence over what their government does."
That was clear during Obama's corporatist "Hope" and "Change" presidency,
which gave Americans what commentator William Greider memorably called "a blunt lesson about
power, who has it and who doesn't." Americans, Greider wrote , "watched
Washington rush to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They
learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it. 'Where's my
bailout,' became the rueful punch line at lunch counters and construction sites
nationwide." Then Americans beheld Obama embrace "entitlement reform" (nice-sounding
cover for attacking Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits) and pass a health
insurance reform (the so-called Affordable Care Act) that only the big insurance and drug
companies could love.
The Biden team has no more intention of acting sincerely on the Democratic Party's standard
manipulative populist-sounding campaign rhetoric in the wake of the Trump nightmare and the
2020-21 Covid-19 Recession than did the Obama White House in the wake of the George W. Bush
nightmare and the 2007-08 Great Recession.
Biden's cabinet picks are loaded with neoliberal center-right operatives
inherited from the fake-progressive Obama administration. They hail from the same Wall
Street backgrounds and corporate and imperial think tanks that
staffed the George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama
administrations.
The "diversity" that CNN and MSNBC applaud in Biden's cabinet and agency picks is all
about the race, ethnicity, and gender of his elections. It does not extend to ideology to
include genuinely progressive Democrats in the mold of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez. Under the faux-transformative cloak of identity, these are ruling-class
personnel trained and doctrinally committed to oppose the decent, humane, progressive,
social-democratic, and environmentally sane policies favored by the nation's silenced progressive
majority -- Single Payer health insurance, seriously progressive taxation, the abolition of
parasitic student debt, free public college, a doubling of the federal minimum wage, the
re-legalization of union organizing, and a planet-saving Green New Deal. As liberals fawn over
the many female, nonwhite, and gay people holding top positions, the Biden administration will
be a monument to the persistent rule of the nation's un-elected and interrelated dictatorships
of money and empire.
This follows in accord with the near-octogenarian Biden's promise to super-wealthy campaign
donors at a posh Manhattan hotel last year. Pledging not to "demonize anybody who has made
money," Biden told a gathering of tuxedo-wearing financial parasites that the rich were not
to blame for the nation's savage inequalities (so extreme that the top tenth of the upper US
One Percent had more wealth than the nation's bottom 90 percent by the end of the Obama years).
"Nothing will fundamentally change" and nobody's wealth or income would have to be
reduced if he became president, Biden
said . "I need you badly," he added.
njab 18 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 08:58 AM
What exactly is "left"? The author doesn't talk about being "anti-war" for example. And
frankly, some of the "left" policies, especially related to LGBQXYZ, I find abhorrent. What
is needed is neither "left" nor "right" but something that benefits the MAJORITY of the
population and not just a few fringe groups.
Ohhho HypoxiaMasks 12 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 03:11 PM
Americans is the most confused nation on Earth! They confuse plutocracy with democracy,
propaganda with news, debt with wealth, individualism with freedom, corruption with
influencing, bullying with leading, war with peace and looting with help!
ColdFacts 1justssayn 4 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 11:22 PM
trump is fake anti-establishment, he had 4 years and did not pardon Assange or Snowden, did
not expose corrupt elites, he did not declassify anything "interesting", even now with
exposed election fraud all he did was to file some pseudo lawsuits which were dismissed by
corrupt establishment owned courts.
rubyvolt 16 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 10:41 AM
'MuriKKKa is run by those who OWN it. Their muscle is the US military. Its fodder, the
citizens. The PEOPLE of this nation have no say and can't get into the streets as most of us
have been so poisoned and brainwashed that independent thought is not possible.
jjikss 13 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 02:03 PM
There is no such thing as "democratic empire". You either believe that majority decides or
you believe that power decides. America is undoubtedly an empire ( over 600 offshore military
bases), so the democracy part is just a form of " double think" that comes straight from
George Orwell's vision.
Vikiiing 19 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 08:08 AM
The election process could be fixed to be fair but neither party wants that. US elections
could be modelled after any scandanavian system to get rid of corruption, but there's big
money to be made keeping it corrupt.
DeadRassputin 8 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 07:05 PM
The working class elected Trump as an outsider in the hope he could curb the corruption that
was becoming apparent in the Federal Government. Second term they tried to elect him again,
however the career politicians were having none of that. MSM propaganda blitz plus social
media censorship added to unverifiable mail in ballots, and rigged counting machines sealed
the deal.
Khanlenin DeadRassputin 7 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 07:42 PM
Even though he never stopped stuffing millions into the pockets of the super rich, he did
offer some improvement to the economic conditions of the working classes which had been
stagnating since the 1970's Obama and Clinton had made sure any improvements in productivity
and technology were all going to benefit the top financial elites. Having an unstable ego, he
kept throwing grenades at everything he didn't understand. In the case of Iranian government
officials, the grenades were real
Khanlenin DeadRassputin 7 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 07:42 PM
Even though he never stopped stuffing millions into the pockets of the super rich, he did
offer some improvement to the economic conditions of the working classes which had been
stagnating since the 1970's Obama and Clinton had made sure any improvements in productivity
and technology were all going to benefit the top financial elites. Having an unstable ego, he
kept throwing grenades at everything he didn't understand. In the case of Iranian government
officials, the grenades were real
Joaquin Montano 12 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 02:54 PM
"There's no great 'American democracy' to be restored after Trump, ..." We used to say
"America is the best democracy money can buy". Not even that anymore. It is so disfunctional
it isn't worth the money ...
westernman 13 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 02:29 PM
Some 40 trillion dollars that the rich are stashing away in offshore fictitious bank accounts
if taxed even at 1% will more than pay for all social services like single payer health
insurance, student loan forgiveness, free college education and much much more. Correct Obama
was a faux progressive, he would take one step forward and two back. I agree that Biden seems
to be painting a diverse race cabinet portfolio but skin color is no guarantee at all of pro
working people ideologies.
Hasse1 14 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 12:59 PM
In reality (with hard evidence) Trump is NO different from his predecessors. In fact, if you
compared him with other U.S. presidents, Trump was less violent and caused the death of less
people than Clinton, Bush, Obama or Biden. Just to mention the latest few.
Khanlenin Bill Spence 6 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 08:57 PM
"general welfare" or "the welfare of the generals" You're correct. When ordinary citizens
opposed the invasion of Iraq, they showed that they did not have the expertise needed to make
the decisions in the best interest of the welfare of the generals (or Standard Oil).
czerenkob 13 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 01:40 PM
In the USA democracy is talked about, but not practiced.
SheepNotHuman 9 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 06:14 PM
Democracy a dreamy concept for children only. There is no such thing as Democracy when money
buys the elections and votes remain secretive. America was never a Democracy, from day one
it's a fraud. The first president old George Washington was a blood relative of the UK Royals
and his 50 secret society brothers set up America for 200 + years of fraud. Guess what, the
royals still run things folks. We on the other hand will only be remembered as man or woman
if we turn a blind eye to truth and care nothing for honesty. Some less than human! Now as
people catch on to the facts that they have been played their whole life long while they
pretend and live in the matrix the Deep State must act to clean us out. It's called Agenda
2030 schemed up by the evil WEF. Don't get tested and don't get vaccinated. Now my awakened
ones it's your turn!
shadow1369 15 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 11:48 AM
The US haas been mythologising its nature from day one, all is fraud and pretence there.
Ohhho 14 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 01:15 PM
All of it is just a bunch of nonsense by a naive American. All that "great republic" and
"democracy" garbage! Their dear POTUSes are just puppets to the Global financial oligarchy
that "bought them all and in the darkness bound them"! So they underestimated Trump and let
him slip by, big deal! Everything is back to normal baby, hallelujah!
athineos Ohhho 13 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 01:50 PM
Correct! US has been an Oligarchy since it's Founding when the theft and rape of the land of
the INDIGENOUS AMERICAN PEOPLE by the European Colonizers was being undertaken to benefit the
few as always. Now it has moved into its advanced cancerous stage where the middle class will
be completely assimilated into the poor class to bring about the New Feudal era of the NEW
WORLD ORDER.
Sovietski 10 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 05:18 PM
Biden's sole election slogan/promise has been: "I'm not Trump" He's a millionaire and
4-decade career political dinosaur. Of course nothing will change!
The_Chosenites 14 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 01:03 PM
Biden will spend most of his time as the Donald did. It will be Biden the Blind lead around
by his Israelis guide dog Bibi. Biden will be consumed with middle east policy and defeating
the enemies of Israel, allowing Israels continued expansionist policies. The American people
may have lost the election but there is always a clear winner!
IslandT 3 hours ago 20 Dec, 2020 11:45 PM
Trump administration is a complete failure, when Trump comes to power he has basically
started war on so many fronts and attacks so many swamp people which is the main reason why
so many top level people hate him and causes him to lost the presidency! The swamp in US
senate is simply too deep and there is nothing Trump can do about it, when he leaves the
office, the swamp people will come back and continue their party, those generals or officials
Trump puts on the important positions will be overthrew by Joe Biden, those rules that set by
Trump will also get overwritten by Joe Biden, basically it is a complete waste of time for
Trump to do all those unproductive works. Also the Mexican-US border wall will also be
stopped under Biden as well. If both the democrat and republican not realize they need to
change then there is nothing much a President can do to change the entire situation. US is in
the ending stage of it's empire and we will see de dollarisation after Trump steps down,
think about this, what will happen if other nations want US to buy their currency with the US
gold reserves so the American can buy their raw material or finished product? How much gold
reserves does the US actually has and how much money does the US owns the foreign countries
and how much gold does the us has to pay to foreign nations if de dollarisation actually
happen? Do you people realize that Mike Pompeo has just turned into Swamp people as well,
there goes the last hope for the American!
"... In a two-Party dictatorship, the important truths are kept away from being publicized on either side, Eric Zuesse writes. ..."
"... Mission accomplished ..."
"... Nice work, Mr. Putin. ..."
"... According to a US intelligence community report, Russia's chief goal in interfering in the 2016 election in support of Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton was to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process." Four years on, there have been two impeachments and an insurrection against the US legislature. Millions believe Trump's lies that he was illegally ejected from power, and doubt Biden's legitimacy. ..."
"... Conspiracy theorists have seats in Congress. There are serious questions about whether one of the country's great political parties is now anti-democratic. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in a federal system that grants vast power to the states. And America's self-appointed role as an exceptional nation and beacon of democracy is in the gutter. ..."
"... Most of the disorienting events of the last few years can be blamed directly on Trump and his particular skill at tearing at the social, racial and political divides that are just below the nation's surface. So the ex-KGB man in the Kremlin hardly deserves all the credit. But Russia, China and other autocratic nations are gaining much from Washington's agony. They're already using it to promote their own closed and totalitarian societies as models of comparative order and efficiency -- and to beat back brave local voices calling for democracy and human rights. ..."
"... In an effective declaration of victory for Russia's espionage offensive against the US more than four years ago, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian Parliament, slid home the knife. "Following the events that unfolded after the presidential elections, it is meaningless to refer to America as the example of democracy," he said. ..."
"... "We are on the verge of reevaluating the standards that are being promoted by the United States of America, that is exporting its vision of democracy and political systems around the world. Those in our country who love to cite their example as leading will also have to reconsider their views." ..."
In a two-Party dictatorship, the important truths are kept away from being publicized on
either side, Eric Zuesse writes.
Throughout history, aristocrats, and their flaks such as their 'news'-media, cast blame
downward, away from themselves who collectively control the government, and onto, instead, some
minority or other mass group, who can't even plan or function together so as to be
able to control the government.
The U.S. has a two-Party aristocracy, as is clear from the "Open Secrets" list of the 100
biggest political donors in the 2020 U.S. Presidential and congressional campaigns, the
"2020 Top Donors to Outside Spending Groups" . Those are only these individuals' publicly
acknowledged expenditures, none of the dark political money, which, of course, is donated
secretly. At the top there, of the donors' lists, is Sheldon Adelson (who just died, on January
11th in California, and was buried in Israel), who spent far more than anyone in all of U.S.
history had ever spent in any campaign cycle, $215 million, which amount far exceeded even
the $82 million that he had spent in 2016,
which in 2016 was second only to Thomas Steyer's $92 million (the previous all-time highest
amount donated in any campaign year). Adelson gave exclusively to Republicans, whereas Steyer
gave exclusively to Democrats. Steyer in 2020 gave $67 million, which -- though he was running
for President in 2020, and hadn't been running in 2016 -- was only 73% of his 2016 donations,
in that year, when he had been the nation's top political donor. He was only the 5th-biggest
donor in 2020, instead of #1.
The second-biggest donor in 2020 was the liberal Republican Michael Bloomberg, who ran in
the Democratic Presidential primaries in order to defeat the only progressive in that contest,
who was Bernie Sanders. Bloomberg spent $151 million of his own funds for that purpose. In
2016, he had spent
$24 million in order to help Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders, and then try to beat
Donald Trump.
The third-biggest in 2020 was Timothy Mellon, the son of Paul Mellon and grandson of
Andrew Mellon .
Timothy Mellon gave $70 million, all to Republicans.
In 2020, the top ten donors, collectively, spent $776 million to own their chunk of the U.S.
Government. The second group of ten (#s 11-20) donated only $187 million; and, so, the top
twenty together donated $963 million, just shy of $1 trillion. All 80 of the other top-100
donors, together, gave around $370 million, so that the total from all 100 was around
one-and-a-third trillion dollars. 47 gave to Republicans; 53 gave to Democrats.
The smallest publicly acknowledged donor among the top 100, Foster Friess , gave $2.4 million, all to
Republicans.
Most of these 100 donors are among America's approximately 700 billionaires; and, even the
ones who aren't are serving and doing business with the billionaires, and therefore are to some
extent dependent upon having good relations with them, not being enemies of any
billionaire. All of these 100 are, obviously, also dependent upon the governmental decisions
that the public officials whom they have purchased will be making, not only regarding
regulations and laws, but also regarding foreign policies. For example, Friess merged his
company into Affiliated Management Group, which "is a global asset management firm"
that "has grown to approximately $730 billion." Virtually all of the top 100 political
donors are internationally invested, and their personal wealth is therefore affected by
American foreign policies, in ways that the personal wealth of the rest of the population is
not.
When the U.S. invades a foreign country, or issues sanctions against a foreign country, it
benefits some American investors, not only in corporations such as Lockheed Martin and
ExxonMobil, but even in some foreign-headquartered corporations. America's spending around half of the entire world's military expenses
gives an enormous competitive boost to America's billionaires, which is paid for by all U.S.
taxpayers. It takes away money that would otherwise go toward the rest of the U.S. population
-- people who might even become crippled or killed by their military service for the benefit of
America's billionaires. Marketing this military service to thepublic, as "national defense" --
even at a time when no nation has invaded or even threatened to invade America after
1945 -- is good PR for America's wealthiest families, regardless of whether it's of any benefit
whatsoever to other Americans. Because of the success of this PR for the military, Americans
consider the U.S. military to
be America's best institution -- far higher than any other part of the U.S. Government or
any non-governmental institution, such as churches, the press, or the medical system. The U.S.
Department of Defense is, also, by far, the
most corrupt of all Departments of the U.S. federal Government . This fact is carefully
hidden from the U.S. public, so as to keep the public admiring the military.
Billionaires use their media, and their scholars, to point the finger of blame, for the
problems that the public does know about, anywhere else than against themselves; and, though
the billionaires have political differences amongst themselves, they are unified against the
public, so as to continue the gravy train that they all are on.
In order for the aristocracy not to be blamed for the many problems that they cause upon the
public, their first trick is to blame some minority or some other vulnerable mass within the
public. Or else to blame some 'enemy' country. But if and when such a strategy fails, then,
they and their media blame the middle class or "bourgeoisie," in order to fool the leftists,
and also they blame the "communists" and the poor, in order to fool the rightists. That's a
two-pronged PR strategy -- one to the left, and the other to the right. Since the aristocracy
is always, itself, fundamentally conservative, they would naturally rather blame the leftists
as being "communists," than to blame the middle class and poor, because to do the latter would
place the public's ideological focus on economic class, which then would threaten to expose the
billionaires themselves as being the actual economic "elite" who are the public's real enemy
(and as being the elite against which the propaganda should instead be focused). Blaming the
middle class and poor might work amongst their fellow-aristocrats, but if tried amongst the
public, it would present the danger of backfiring. Consequently, there is a return to the days
of Joseph R. McCarthy, but this time without communism. Thus, here is how the White House
correspondent for a Democratic Party 'news'-site, CNN, closed his 'news'-analysis, on January
14th, under the headline "Washington's
agony is a win for autocrats and strongmen" :
Mission accomplished
Nice work, Mr. Putin.
According to a US intelligence community report, Russia's chief goal in interfering in
the 2016 election in support of Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton was to "undermine public
faith in the US democratic process." Four years on, there have been two impeachments and an
insurrection against the US legislature. Millions believe Trump's lies that he was illegally
ejected from power, and doubt Biden's legitimacy.
Conspiracy theorists have seats in Congress. There are serious questions about whether
one of the country's great political parties is now anti-democratic. The Covid-19 pandemic
exposed weaknesses in a federal system that grants vast power to the states. And America's
self-appointed role as an exceptional nation and beacon of democracy is in the gutter.
Most of the disorienting events of the last few years can be blamed directly on Trump
and his particular skill at tearing at the social, racial and political divides that are just
below the nation's surface. So the ex-KGB man in the Kremlin hardly deserves all the credit.
But Russia, China and other autocratic nations are gaining much from Washington's agony.
They're already using it to promote their own closed and totalitarian societies as models of
comparative order and efficiency -- and to beat back brave local voices calling for democracy
and human rights.
In an effective declaration of victory for Russia's espionage offensive against the US
more than four years ago, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian
Parliament, slid home the knife. "Following the events that unfolded after the presidential
elections, it is meaningless to refer to America as the example of democracy," he
said.
"We are on the verge of reevaluating the standards that are being promoted by the United
States of America, that is exporting its vision of democracy and political systems around the
world. Those in our country who love to cite their example as leading will also have to
reconsider their views."
That's propaganda from "leftist" (i.e., Democratic Party) billionaires. A good example of an
independent American journalist who has been fooled by Republican Party billionaires to blame
some amorphous mass of "leftists" is Sara A. Carter's 12 January 2021 youtube "Rudy Giuliani talks big
tech censorship" , blaming America's problems on "the government," or "the bureacracy,"
and, of course, especially on Democrats. At 10:15 there, she said "My mother fled from
Cuba." Carter, as a conservative, is so obsessed with her visceral hatred of "communism," that
she interpreted America's dictatorship as being communists, instead of as being billionaires --
of both Parties: actually, fascists. In a two-Party fascist dictatorship , she fears the leftists. This is typical of
propagandists on the conservative side. But propagandists on the liberal side (such as the CNN
correspondent exemplified) are no better, just different.
Both propaganda-operations cast blame away from the real culprits.
In a two-Party dictatorship, the important truths are kept away from being publicized on
either side. What the public sees and hears, instead, is political theater, merely
tailored to different audiences.
"... One one hand, this is truly an absolute disaster, because when the US ruling Nomenklatura agrees to drop any past pretenses of objectivity, or even decency, things will definitely get ugly. On the other hand, however, this immense "coming out" of the US Nomenklatura is, of course, unsustainable (just look at history, every time these folks thought that they had crushed the "plebes", the latter ended up rising and showing their supposed "masters" to the door; this will happen here too). ..."
"... Trump really destroyed the USA externally, in terms of world politics. The Dems have done the same thing, only internally. For example, Trump is the one who most arrogantly ignored the rule of law in international affairs, but it was the Dems who destroyed the rule of law inside the USA. It was Trump who with his antics and narcissistic threats urbi et orbi who destroyed any credibility left for the USA as a country (or even of the the AngloZionist Empire as a whole), but it was the Dems who really decided to sabotage the very political system which allowed them to seize power in the first place. ..."
"... What comes next is the illegal rule of an illegitimate regime which came to power by violence (BLM, Antifa, Capitol false flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with senile figureheads pretending to be in power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the old, Obama-era, names which are circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two things: the new rulers will be as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their crass lack of education (even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be similar to the rule of Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of speeches and total social and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question now is: what will replace this US version of a Kerensky regime? ..."
"... "domestic terrorism" will, once again, become the boogeyman we will be told to fear. And, as all good boys and girls know, the best way to deal with such a horrible "domestic terrorism" threat is to dismantle the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution. Having corrupt kangaroo courts on all levels, from the small claims level to the Supreme court, will greatly help in this endeavor... ..."
...the US liberals decided that this vote was a slap in their face which, of course, is
quite correct (I still believe that most votes for Trump where not votes for Trump, but votes
against Hillary); it was, so to speak, a gigantic "f**k you!" from the revolting serfs against
their masters. And class consciousness told the US Nomenklatura that this was an
anti-masters pogrom , a US " Jacquerie " if you wish. This "revolt
of the serfs" had to be put down, immediately, and it was: Trump caved to the Neocons in less
than a month (when he betrayed General Flynn) and ever since the US Nomenklatura has
been using Trump as a disposable President who would do all the crazy nonsense
imaginable to please Israel, and who would then be disposed off. And yet it is now quite clear
that the US "deplorables" voted for the "wrong" candidate again! Hence the need for a (very
poorly concealed) "election steal" followed by a "test of loyalty" (you better side with us, or
else ) which eventually resulted in the situation we have today.
What is that situation exactly?
Simply put, this time the USNomenklaturahas truly achieved total
power. Not only do they control all three of the official branches of government, they now
also fully control the 4th one, the "media space", courtesy of the US tech giants which now are
openly silencing anybody who disagrees with the One And Only Official Truth As Represented By
The Propaganda Outlets. This is the very first time in recent US history that a small cabal of
"deep insiders" have achieved such total control of all the real instruments of power. The bad
news is that they know that they are a small minority and they realize that they need to act
fast to secure their hold on power. But for that they needed a pretext.
It is hardly surprising that after successfully pulling off the 9/11 false flag
operation, the USNomenklaturahad no problems whatsoever pulling off the
"Capitol" false flag.
Think about it: the legally organized and scheduled protest of Trump supporters was
announced at least a week before it had to take place. How hard was it for those in charge of
security to make sure that the protesters stay in one specific location? At the very least,
those in charge of security could have done what Lukashenko eventually did in Mink: place
military and police forces around all the important symbolic buildings and monuments and say
"you are welcome to protest, but don't even think of trying to take over any government
property" (that approach worked much better than beating up protesters, which Lukashenko
initially had tried). Yet what we saw was the exact opposite: in DC protesters were invited
across police lines by cops. Not only that, but even those protesters which did enter the
Capitol were, apparently, not violent enough, so it had to be one of the cops to shoot an
unarmed and clearly non-dangerous woman, thereby providing the "sacrificial victim" needed to
justify the hysterics about "violence" and "rule of law".
And the worst part is that it worked, even Trump ended up condemning the "violence" and
denouncing those who, according to Trump, did not represent the people.
The hard truth is much simpler: the "stop the steal" protestors did not commit any real
violence! Yes, they broke some furniture, had some fights with cops (who initially were
inviting people in, only to then violently turn against them with batons, pepper sprays and
flash-bang grenades). Some reports say that one cop was hit by a fire extinguisher. If true,
that would be a case of assault with a deadly weapon (under US law any object capable of being
used to kill can be considered a deadly weapon when used for that purpose). But considering the
nonstop hysteria about guns, the NRA and "armed militias", this was clearly not a planned
murder. Finally, a few people died, apparently from natural causes, possibly made worse by the
people trampling over each other. In other words, the Trump supporters did not kill anybody
deliberately, at most they can be accused of creating the circumstances which resulted in
manslaughter. That was not murder. Not even close. Want to see what a planned murder looks
like? Just look at the footage of the Ashli Babbitt murder by some kind of armed official. That
is real murder, and it was committed by a armed official. So which side is most guilty of
violating laws and regulations?
Furthermore, no moral value can be respected unless it is universally and equally applied.
Which, considering that the US deep state has engaged in a full year of wanton mass violence
against hundreds of innocent US citizens makes it unbelievably hypocritical for the US liberals
to denounce "the mob" now. Frankly, the way I see it, all the US liberals should now "take a
knee" before the pro-Trump protestors and declare that this was a "mostly peaceful" event
which, objectively speaking, it was .
Won't happen. I know.
What will happen next is going to be a vicious crackdown on free speech in all its
forms . In fact, and just to use a Marxist notion, what comes next is class warfare
.
We have all seen Pelosi and the rest of them demanding that Trump either be removed by Pence
and the Cabinet (25th A.), or they will unleash another impeachment. First, if impeached, Trump
won't be able to run in 2024 (which the liberals fully realize is a major risk for them). But
even more important, is to humiliate him, make him pay, show him once and for all "who is
boss"! These people thrive on revenge and victory is never enough to appease them, they simply
hate anybody who dares oppose them and they want to make an example of any and every serf who
dares to disobey them. That is why they always send "messages", no matter how inchoate: they
want to bully all the deplorables on the planet into total subservience.
But they won't stop with just Trump. Oh no! They will also go after all those serfs who
dared defy this Nomenklatura and who objected to the wholesale repudiation of the US
Constitution. For example, in a truly Orwellian move, the NY State Bar now wants to disbar
Giuliani for acting as Trump's lawyer (not a joke, check here ). Which,
considering that Trump already lost several lawyers to such tactics should not come as a
surprise to anybody: apparently, in the "new 2021 Woke-USA", some are more entitled to legal
representation than others.
Don't expect the ACLU to protest, by the way – equal protection under the law is not a
topic of interest to them. Here are a few screenshots take off their website , so see for yourself.
Clearly, the priority for the folks at the ACLU is to destroy Trump and anybody daring to
take up his defense.
One one hand, this is truly an absolute disaster, because when the US ruling
Nomenklatura agrees to drop any past pretenses of objectivity, or even decency, things
will definitely get ugly. On the other hand, however, this immense "coming out" of the US
Nomenklatura is, of course, unsustainable (just look at history, every time these folks
thought that they had crushed the "plebes", the latter ended up rising and showing their
supposed "masters" to the door; this will happen here too).
Last, but not least, let's keep another crucial thing in mind: even if you absolutely hate
Trump, you really should realize that it is not just "the vote" which was stolen, it was the
entire US Constitutional order . While we often focus on the SCOTUS, we should not remember
the many lower courts which showed a total absence of courage or dignity and which caved in to
the hysterical demands of the US Nomenklatura . It is impossible to have a country under
the rule of law when the courts shy away from their obligation to uphold the said rule of law
and, instead, place political expediency above the letter and spirit of the law.
Furthermore, when concepts such as "legal" and "illegal" lose any objective meaning, how can
any action be considered illegal or punishable?
Here is, just as an example, the Oath of Office taken by all Supreme Court Justices:
(emphasis added)
"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect
to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich , and that I will
faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE]
under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
And this is what each member of the US Armed Forces swears: (emphasis added)
"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend
the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ; that
I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the
President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
It does not take a genius to figure out that the SCOTUS is now in the hands of a small cabal
of people who clearly are "domestic enemies" of the US Constitution.
Finally, here is what the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence states: (emphasis
added)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it , and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
I don't think that there is any need to further beat this dead horse and I will simply
summarize it as so:
The regime which will soon replace the Trump Administration is an illegal occupation
government, with strong ties to foreign interests (and I don't mean China or Russia here!),
which all those who served in the US military have taken an oath to oppose; this is precisely
the kind of occupation regime which the Founding Fathers foresaw in their Declaration of
Independence . Furthermore, the rule of law has clearly collapsed, at least on the
federal level, this should give the states more freedom of movement to resist the decrees of
this new regime (at least those states still willing and able to resist, I think of TX and FL
here). The leaders of this US Nomenklatura understand this, at least on some level, and we
should expect no decency from them; neither should we expect any mercy. Revenge is what
fuels these ideology- and hate-filled people who loathe and fear all the rest of humanity
because nobody is willing to worship them as our "lords and masters ". But this is also
the beginning of their end.
Conclusion: now we are all Palestinians!
True, no "mob" won on the Capitol, unless we refer to the (disgraced, hated and useless)
Congress as "the mob". And, of course, neither did "the people" or the protesters. The only
real winner in this entire operation was the US deep state and the US Nomenklatura . But
they did not win any war, only the opening battle of a war which will be much longer than what
they imagine in their ignorance.
I have said it many times, Trump really destroyed the USA externally, in terms of world
politics. The Dems have done the same thing, only internally. For example, Trump is the one who
most arrogantly ignored the rule of law in international affairs, but it was the Dems who
destroyed the rule of law inside the USA. It was Trump who with his antics and narcissistic
threats urbi et orbi who destroyed any credibility left for the USA as a country (or
even of the the AngloZionist Empire as a whole), but it was the Dems who really decided to
sabotage the very political system which allowed them to seize power in the first
place.
What comes next is the illegal rule of an illegitimate regime which came to power by
violence (BLM, Antifa, Capitol false flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with
senile figureheads pretending to be in power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the
old, Obama-era, names which are circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two
things: the new rulers will be as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their
crass lack of education (even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be
similar to the rule of Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of
speeches and total social and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question
now is: what will replace this US version of a Kerensky regime?
It is way too early to reply to this question, but we should at least begin to think about
it, lest we be completely caught off guard.
But until then, "domestic terrorism" will, once again, become the boogeyman we will be
told to fear. And, as all good boys and girls know, the best way to deal with such a horrible
"domestic terrorism" threat is to dismantle the First and Second Amendments of the
Constitution. Having corrupt kangaroo courts on all levels, from the small claims level to the
Supreme court, will greatly help in this endeavor...
"Americans have been brainwashed into calling things they don't like, or don't understand,
as "Socialist" or even "Marxist". The sad reality is that most Americans sincerely believe
that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are "socialists", and when they see modern
movies ridiculously filled with "minorities" and gender fluid freaks – this is a case
of "cultural Marxism" (a totally meaningless term, by the way!). This is all utter nonsense,
neither Marxism nor Socialism have anything to do with BLM, Antifa, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck
Schumer (in fact, Marxism places a premium on real law and order!)."
"class" has been declared heretical and it has been replaced by identity politics
– the best way for a ruling class to (a) hide behind a fake illusion of pluralism and
(b) to divide the people and rule over them
It's a neat bait and switch scheme, identity being substituted for class. Billionaires can
now be hailed as people's champions by instituting 'gender-fluid' toilets and forcing their
peons to kneel. Who knows how much force they'll be willing to use against the deplorables
but probably it would know no limit. The shock and awe unleashed against foreign countries
could now be instituted domestically with things like the Phoenix Program being tried here,
among other things. Anything but relinquish power.
The old war-lovers are coming back in. Although he was considered belligerent the new regime
will be worse. War is probably part of the future agenda. Solidifying it's grip upon the
domestic population may be the precursor to embarking upon an unpopular and certain to be
costly war against Iran or perhaps even some clash with Russia.
From the I Ching: "Large ambitions coupled with meager talent will seldom escape
disaster."
The fervid machinations of the current crop of "self"-glorifying wannabes will not, as The
Saker reminds us here, be any exception to the rule, either. They're hardly the first bunch
of feckless opportunists to take a run at "full spectrum dominance" .aiming to trap Life
Herownself within the suffocating CONfines of their own little nut'shell.
The rampant insanity symptomatic of their virulent "self"-sickness, as it runs its
inevitable course, looks like being somewhat more than usually trying for the rest of us,
though .given all the electro-mechanical and institutional enhancement available to them, for
intensifying the degenerative effects of their folly. At the same time, our best response
will be just what we all know is always organically and in all Ways imperative for our Kind,
anyhow. All our precious attention is best devoted to taking care of the Earth and each
other. Our unconditional affection is best lavished on this Living Creation, all our
Relations, and The Great Spirit whose gift it is.
I see this article is quite relevant to another one on a different blog that I have been
fruitlessly attempting to comment upon. It keeps getting disappeared immediately and not even
sent to moderation where normally all submissions first go. Have had that trouble two days
running on two different articles about i) the impending crackdowns on free speech and ii)
the planned purge of Republican officeholders by the triumphalist Clinton/Obama/Biden mob.
I'll go with my remarks on the coming attempt at a purge since it is closer to the Saker's
treatment of the Nomenklatura (cognate to "nomenclature" specifying ordered classes of
things, including people or their offices, in English) or in American street language simply
identifying who is a "made man," i.e., an untouchable in the mafia. Yeah, the Dem hierarchy
are sure feeling they are all made men (and women) following the set to in the Capitol which
they most possibly facilitated and have certainly exploited to the limit.
Biden is clearly an enforcer for a faction of what we might call the permanent
establishment, the hidden real government that runs on automatic imperial pilot regardless
who is nominal US President.
That "permanent establishment" is currently becoming "dis-established" everywhere in the
world. It sees with horror that its grip on the entire world is crumbling.
It does only what it has always tried in such cases -- war, war, war. Only of late, those
wars -- war against Russia over Ukraine, war against Assad's Syria, an attempted war against
Erdogan in Turkey, a war against the growing economic muscle in the world of China -- have
been impotent flops.
Biden, a dutiful servant of those interests, carries the flag of war to where he is sent,
much like the character in Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks.
It is an Oligarchy of bond holders. I'm using the word bond as an stand-in for debt
instruments, or any sort of claim on productivity. Bond/Bondage/Debt are all closely related
concepts.
The entire Western World is inter-connected double-entry balance sheets.
One side of the balance sheet is "assets" and the other is "liabilities." One person's
liability is another persons asset.
It is best to view the western world as a balance sheet, especially as private bank credit
is the dominant money type of the west. Private banking and debt spreading has metastasized
like a cancer, and is now consuming the host. Debt instruments and finance paper are being
serviced in the finance sector with QE and 'CARES' act shenanigan's, which pays these finance
"assets."
If you want to call the bond holders in finance and elsewhere as a nomenklatura, go ahead
– but it obscures reality. These people are a class, a class of usurers, who are
"taking" wealth in sordid ways by gaming the system.
All through history, plutocracy has arisen out of the population because debts were not
annulled, or land was enclosed.
Oligarchs of various types are harvesting the world through various means, including the
growth of debt claims. These claims grow exponentially, and outside of nature's ability to
pay. The derivative bubble wants to be paid. What cannot go on, will not.
The balance sheet is not really balanced, one side (the debt instrument holder) is making
exponential claims on debtors.
I have, for some time, been mis-naming the Nomenklatura as the Politburo, with the commune
being the many tentacled international banking cartel. It's the same crowd that funded the
original Bolsheviks.
IMO they are only "Neo" by virtue of the old ones having died, but I'm not going to split
hairs. We all know it is those whose loyalty is to a shitty little country on the
Mediterranean.
I've come back to salute this essay as the compendium of truth that it is. Several of the
essays here this week have been intelligent and deserving of the Unz readership.
You are most correct when you say that the current set of Nomenklatura are too weak to
sustain rule. I'd call the Big Tech oligarchy the Nickelodeon class. They have digits, which
are really nothing to be afraid of, but any small farmer in the Midwest is more powerful than
they are.
Big changes are coming and it won't take violence to effect them, just a patriotic week or
two off of the social media.
"... I have, for some time, been mis-naming the Nomenklatura as the Politburo, with the commune being the many tentacled international banking cartel. ..."
FoxNews finally showed its true face during the election steal when it declared that Trump
had lost the election long before any evidence in support of this thesis materialized. It is
now abundantly clear that with a few exceptions (notably Tucker Carlson), FoxNews is very much
on the same page as CNN and the rest of them. So what just happened and what is taking place
now?
Americans have been brainwashed into calling things they don't like, or don't understand, as
"Socialist" or even "Marxist". The sad reality is that most Americans sincerely believe that
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are "socialists", and when they see modern movies
ridiculously filled with "minorities" and gender fluid freaks – this is a case of
"cultural Marxism" (a totally meaningless term, by the way!). This is all utter nonsense,
neither Marxism nor Socialism have anything to do with BLM, Antifa, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck
Schumer (in fact, Marxism places a premium on real law and order!). I can't take the time and
space here to discuss Marxism, but I do believe that there is one analytical tool which we can
borrow from Marxist thought to try to make sense of what just happened in the USA. Let's begin
by asking a simple question:
If "the mob" did not win, who did?
Most certainly not the abstract concept of "law and order". For one thing, it is now
abundantly clear that some cops deliberately let a (rather small) subset of protestors not only
across police lines but even inside the Capitol Building itself. That is not exactly law and
order, now is it? Furthermore, it is now also clear that Ashli Babbitt was very deliberately
shot by an (apparently black) cop who was then quickly hidden away from sight by the
authorities. Not exactly law and order either.
Neither did the abstract concept of "democracy" win anything that day. Many protesters were
recorded saying that the Capitol building belonged to the people, not to the people working in
it on behalf of the people. They are right. But even if we accept the notion that those who
entered the building were trespassing, the massive crackdown on free speech which immediately
followed the events at the Capitol is a clear sign that "democracy" did not win that day. More
about that later.
So who won?
Well, look who is celebrating and who is now demanding that punitive and even repressive
measures be taken against Trump supporters:
here
and
here ) The Russia-hating Lobby Antifa/BLM/etc The many freaks of nature leading
various "minorities" Big Tech megacorporations a la Google and Amazon
The list is longer, of course, and it includes pretty much all the folks afflicted with the
now famous Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
Our list looks like a cocktail of very different actors, but is that really the case?
I submit that if we look closely at this list of possible "winners" we can quickly see that
we are dealing with a single social category /group whose "diversity" is only apparent.
Here is what all these groups have in common:
They are numerically small, definitely a
minority They are very wealthy They are very close to the real centers of power They share the
same narcissistic (Neocon) ideology of self-worship They are driven by the same hate-based
ideology of revenge They don't care about the people of the USA They want to dismantle the US
Constitutional order
On the basis of these common characteristics, I believe that we can speak about a social
class united by a common ideology .
Now, of course, in the plutocratic oligarchy (which the United States in reality is), the
notion of "class" has been declared heretical and it has been replaced by identity politics
– the best way for a ruling class to (a) hide behind a fake illusion of pluralism and (b)
to divide the people and rule over them.
I have already written about what I consider to be a US version of the Soviet Nomenklatura , a
special ruling class which was official in the (comparatively much more honest) Soviet system
but which is always hidden from sight by the rulers of the United States.
The actual word we use are not that important: Nomenklatura , class, caste,
establishment, powers that be, deep state, etc. – they all approximate the reality of a
small gang of self-declared "elites" (as opposed to the "deplorables") ruling with total
impunity and no checks and balances mitigating their de facto dictatorship. Some
well-intentioned people began speaking about the "1%" – which is not bad, even if the
actual figure is even smaller than just one percent. Others used "Wall Street" (as in the
"occupy WS" movement), again – not a bad attempt to describe the problem. Whatever the
terms you chose, what is certain is that this entity has what Marx would call a " class
consciousness " which produces a single " class ideology " characterized by an
extremely strong sense of "us versus them" .
By the way, while I disagree with any notion that the US Nomenklatura is Marxist or
Socialist in any way, I very much agree that these "elites" are displaying an ideological
zeal very similar to what Trotskysts or Nazis typically exhibit, especially when confronted
with the "deplorables" or, like FoxNews says, the "mob" (the Polish word " bydło " – cattle
– very accurately renders this contempt for the masses).
In fact, they see us all as their "class enemy" . And they are quite correct, by the
way.
Their ideology is messianic, racist, violent and hate filled while the members of this US
Nomenklatura see themselves as the cream of the crop, the "chosen people", whose
"destiny" is to rule over the "dark and primitive" "mob".
This contempt for the "mob" is something which self-described "liberals" always try to
conceal, but which always comes out, be it in 1917 Russia or in 2021 USA. There is a weird
logic to this, by the way. It goes something like this: " we are clearly superior to the
plebes, yet these plebes seem to reject that notion, these plebes are therefore a "dark mob"
which absolutely needs to be strictly ruled by us ". The underlying assumption is that
plebes are dangerous, they can always riot and threaten "us". Hence the need for a police
state. QED.
We all remember how the Clinton gang was mega-super-sure that Hillary would easily defeat
Trump. And just to make darn sure that the US "plebes" don't do anything stupid, the US legacy
corporate ziomedia engaged in probably the most hysterical candidate bashing propaganda
operation in history only to find out that the "deplorables" did not vote as they were told to,
they voted for "Trump The New Hitler" instead.
What a truly unforgivable affront of these serfs against the masters which God, or Manifest
Destiny, placed above them!
And just as their pseudo-liberal colleagues from the past, the US liberals decided that this
vote was a slap in their face which, of course, is quite correct (I still believe that most
votes for Trump where not votes for Trump, but votes against Hillary); it was, so to speak, a
gigantic "f**k you!" from the revolting serfs against their masters. And class consciousness
told the US Nomenklatura that this was an anti-masters pogrom , a US "
Jacquerie "
if you wish. This "revolt of the serfs" had to be put down, immediately, and it was: Trump
caved to the Neocons in less than a month (when he betrayed General Flynn) and ever since the
US Nomenklatura has been using Trump as a disposable President who would do all
the crazy nonsense imaginable to please Israel, and who would then be disposed off. And yet it
is now quite clear that the US "deplorables" voted for the "wrong" candidate again! Hence the
need for a (very poorly concealed) "election steal" followed by a "test of loyalty" (you better
side with us, or else ) which eventually resulted in the situation we have today.
What is that situation exactly?
Simply put, this time the USNomenklaturahas truly achieved total
power. Not only do they control all three of the official branches of government, they now
also fully control the 4th one, the "media space", courtesy of the US tech giants which now are
openly silencing anybody who disagrees with the One And Only Official Truth As Represented By
The Propaganda Outlets. This is the very first time in recent US history that a small cabal of
"deep insiders" have achieved such total control of all the real instruments of power. The bad
news is that they know that they are a small minority and they realize that they need to act
fast to secure their hold on power. But for that they needed a pretext.
It is hardly surprising that after successfully pulling off the 9/11 false flag
operation, the USNomenklaturahad no problems whatsoever pulling off the
"Capitol" false flag.
Think about it: the legally organized and scheduled protest of Trump supporters was
announced at least a week before it had to take place. How hard was it for those in charge of
security to make sure that the protesters stay in one specific location? At the very least,
those in charge of security could have done what Lukashenko eventually did in Mink: place
military and police forces around all the important symbolic buildings and monuments and say
"you are welcome to protest, but don't even think of trying to take over any government
property" (that approach worked much better than beating up protesters, which Lukashenko
initially had tried). Yet what we saw was the exact opposite: in DC protesters were invited
across police lines by cops. Not only that, but even those protesters which did enter the
Capitol were, apparently, not violent enough, so it had to be one of the cops to shoot an
unarmed and clearly non-dangerous woman, thereby providing the "sacrificial victim" needed to
justify the hysterics about "violence" and "rule of law".
And the worst part is that it worked, even Trump ended up condemning the "violence" and
denouncing those who, according to Trump, did not represent the people.
The hard truth is much simpler: the "stop the steal" protestors did not commit any real
violence! Yes, they broke some furniture, had some fights with cops (who initially were
inviting people in, only to then violently turn against them with batons, pepper sprays and
flash-bang grenades). Some reports say that one cop was hit by a fire extinguisher. If true,
that would be a case of assault with a deadly weapon (under US law any object capable of being
used to kill can be considered a deadly weapon when used for that purpose). But considering the
nonstop hysteria about guns, the NRA and "armed militias", this was clearly not a planned
murder. Finally, a few people died, apparently from natural causes, possibly made worse by the
people trampling over each other. In other words, the Trump supporters did not kill anybody
deliberately, at most they can be accused of creating the circumstances which resulted in
manslaughter. That was not murder. Not even close. Want to see what a planned murder looks
like? Just look at the footage of the Ashli Babbitt murder by some kind of armed official. That
is real murder, and it was committed by a armed official. So which side is most guilty of
violating laws and regulations?
Furthermore, no moral value can be respected unless it is universally and equally applied.
Which, considering that the US deep state has engaged in a full year of wanton mass violence
against hundreds of innocent US citizens makes it unbelievably hypocritical for the US liberals
to denounce "the mob" now. Frankly, the way I see it, all the US liberals should now "take a
knee" before the pro-Trump protestors and declare that this was a "mostly peaceful" event
which, objectively speaking, it was .
Won't happen. I know.
What will happen next is going to be a vicious crackdown on free speech in all its
forms . In fact, and just to use a Marxist notion, what comes next is class warfare
.
We have all seen Pelosi and the rest of them demanding that Trump either be removed by Pence
and the Cabinet (25th A.), or they will unleash another impeachment. First, if impeached, Trump
won't be able to run in 2024 (which the liberals fully realize is a major risk for them). But
even more important, is to humiliate him, make him pay, show him once and for all "who is
boss"! These people thrive on revenge and victory is never enough to appease them, they simply
hate anybody who dares oppose them and they want to make an example of any and every serf who
dares to disobey them. That is why they always send "messages", no matter how inchoate: they
want to bully all the deplorables on the planet into total subservience.
But they won't stop with just Trump. Oh no! They will also go after all those serfs who
dared defy this Nomenklatura and who objected to the wholesale repudiation of the US
Constitution. For example, in a truly Orwellian move, the NY State Bar now wants to disbar
Giuliani for acting as Trump's lawyer (not a joke, check here ). Which,
considering that Trump already lost several lawyers to such tactics should not come as a
surprise to anybody: apparently, in the "new 2021 Woke-USA", some are more entitled to legal
representation than others.
Don't expect the ACLU to protest, by the way – equal protection under the law is not a
topic of interest to them. Here are a few screenshots take off their website , so see for yourself.
Clearly, the priority for the folks at the ACLU is to destroy Trump and anybody daring to
take up his defense.
One one hand, this is truly an absolute disaster, because when the US ruling
Nomenklatura agrees to drop any past pretenses of objectivity, or even decency, things
will definitely get ugly. On the other hand, however, this immense "coming out" of the US
Nomenklatura is, of course, unsustainable (just look at history, every time these folks
thought that they had crushed the "plebes", the latter ended up rising and showing their
supposed "masters" to the door; this will happen here too).
Last, but not least, let's keep another crucial thing in mind: even if you absolutely hate
Trump, you really should realize that it is not just "the vote" which was stolen, it was the
entire US Constitutional order . While we often focus on the SCOTUS, we should not remember
the many lower courts which showed a total absence of courage or dignity and which caved in to
the hysterical demands of the US Nomenklatura . It is impossible to have a country under
the rule of law when the courts shy away from their obligation to uphold the said rule of law
and, instead, place political expediency above the letter and spirit of the law.
Furthermore, when concepts such as "legal" and "illegal" lose any objective meaning, how can
any action be considered illegal or punishable?
Here is, just as an example, the Oath of Office taken by all Supreme Court Justices:
(emphasis added)
"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect
to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich , and that I will
faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE]
under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
And this is what each member of the US Armed Forces swears: (emphasis added)
"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend
the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ; that
I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the
President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
It does not take a genius to figure out that the SCOTUS is now in the hands of a small cabal
of people who clearly are "domestic enemies" of the US Constitution.
Finally, here is what the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence states: (emphasis
added)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it , and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
I don't think that there is any need to further beat this dead horse and I will simply
summarize it as so:
The regime which will soon replace the Trump Administration is an illegal occupation
government, with strong ties to foreign interests (and I don't mean China or Russia here!),
which all those who served in the US military have taken an oath to oppose; this is precisely
the kind of occupation regime which the Founding Fathers foresaw in their Declaration of
Independence . Furthermore, the rule of law has clearly collapsed, at least on the
federal level, this should give the states more freedom of movement to resist the decrees of
this new regime (at least those states still willing and able to resist, I think of TX and FL
here). The leaders of this US Nomenklatura understand this, at least on some level, and we
should expect no decency from them; neither should we expect any mercy. Revenge is what
fuels these ideology- and hate-filled people who loathe and fear all the rest of humanity
because nobody is willing to worship them as our "lords and masters ". But this is also
the beginning of their end.
Conclusion: now we are all Palestinians!
True, no "mob" won on the Capitol, unless we refer to the (disgraced, hated and useless)
Congress as "the mob". And, of course, neither did "the people" or the protesters. The only
real winner in this entire operation was the US deep state and the US Nomenklatura . But
they did not win any war, only the opening battle of a war which will be much longer than what
they imagine in their ignorance.
I have said it many times, Trump really destroyed the USA externally, in terms of world
politics. The Dems have done the same thing, only internally. For example, Trump is the one who
most arrogantly ignored the rule of law in international affairs, but it was the Dems who
destroyed the rule of law inside the USA. It was Trump who with his antics and narcissistic
threats urbi et orbi who destroyed any credibility left for the USA as a country (or
even of the the AngloZionist Empire as a whole), but it was the Dems who really decided to
sabotage the very political system which allowed them to seize power in the first place.
What comes next is the illegal rule of an illegitimate regime which came to power by
violence (BLM, Antifa, Capitol false flag). This will be a Soviet-style gerontocracy with
senile figureheads pretending to be in power (think Biden vs Chernenko here). Looking at the
old, Obama-era, names which are circulated now for future Cabinet positions, we can bet on two
things: the new rulers will be as evil as they will be grossly incompetent, mostly due to their
crass lack of education (even Nuland and Psaki are back, it appears!). The Biden admin will be
similar to the rule of Kerensky in "democratic" Russia: chaos, violence, lots and lots of
speeches and total social and economic chaos. The next crucial, and even frightening, question
now is: what will replace this US version of a Kerensky regime?
It is way too early to reply to this question, but we should at least begin to think about
it, lest we be completely caught off guard.
But until then, "domestic terrorism" will, once again, become the boogeyman we will be told
to fear. And, as all good boys and girls know, the best way to deal with such a horrible
"domestic terrorism" threat is to dismantle the First and Second Amendments of the
Constitution. Having corrupt kangaroo courts on all levels, from the small claims level to the
Supreme court, will greatly help in this endeavor. Of course, there will be resistance from the
deplorables who still love their country and their Constitution.
But no matter how long this takes (might be decades) and how violent this confrontation
becomes (and, it will, if only because the regime vitally needs more false flags to survive!),
what will happen with this occupation regime is what happened to all of them throughout history
(could that be the reason why history is not taught anymore?).
As the Russian poet and bard, Vladimir Vissotski, wrote " it is impossible to trample
upon souls with boots " (сапогами
не вытоптать
душу). Now we are all Palestinians. And we, like they, will win!
"Americans have been brainwashed into calling things they don't like, or don't understand,
as "Socialist" or even "Marxist". The sad reality is that most Americans sincerely believe
that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are "socialists", and when they see modern
movies ridiculously filled with "minorities" and gender fluid freaks – this is a case
of "cultural Marxism" (a totally meaningless term, by the way!). This is all utter nonsense,
neither Marxism nor Socialism have anything to do with BLM, Antifa, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck
Schumer (in fact, Marxism places a premium on real law and order!)."
"class" has been declared heretical and it has been replaced by identity politics
– the best way for a ruling class to (a) hide behind a fake illusion of pluralism and
(b) to divide the people and rule over them
It's a neat bait and switch scheme, identity being substituted for class. Billionaires can
now be hailed as people's champions by instituting 'gender-fluid' toilets and forcing their
peons to kneel. Who knows how much force they'll be willing to use against the deplorables
but probably it would know no limit. The shock and awe unleashed against foreign countries
could now be instituted domestically with things like the Phoenix Program being tried here,
among other things. Anything but relinquish power.
The old war-lovers are coming back in. Although he was considered belligerent the new
regime will be worse. War is probably part of the future agenda. Solidifying it's grip upon
the domestic population may be the precursor to embarking upon an unpopular and certain to be
costly war against Iran or perhaps even some clash with Russia.
From the I Ching: "Large ambitions coupled with meager talent will seldom escape
disaster."
The fervid machinations of the current crop of "self"-glorifying wannabes will not, as The
Saker reminds us here, be any exception to the rule, either. They're hardly the first bunch
of feckless opportunists to take a run at "full spectrum dominance" .aiming to trap Life
Herownself within the suffocating CONfines of their own little nut'shell.
The rampant insanity symptomatic of their virulent "self"-sickness, as it runs its
inevitable course, looks like being somewhat more than usually trying for the rest of us,
though .given all the electro-mechanical and institutional enhancement available to them, for
intensifying the degenerative effects of their folly. At the same time, our best response
will be just what we all know is always organically and in all Ways imperative for our Kind,
anyhow. All our precious attention is best devoted to taking care of the Earth and each
other. Our unconditional affection is best lavished on this Living Creation, all our
Relations, and The Great Spirit whose gift it is.
It is an Oligarchy of bond holders. I'm using the word bond as an stand-in for debt
instruments, or any sort of claim on productivity. Bond/Bondage/Debt are all closely related
concepts.
The entire Western World is inter-connected double-entry balance sheets.
One side of the balance sheet is "assets" and the other is "liabilities." One person's
liability is another persons asset.
It is best to view the western world as a balance sheet, especially as private bank credit
is the dominant money type of the west. Private banking and debt spreading has metastasized
like a cancer, and is now consuming the host. Debt instruments and finance paper are being
serviced in the finance sector with QE and 'CARES' act shenanigan's, which pays these finance
"assets."
If you want to call the bond holders in finance and elsewhere as a nomenklatura, go ahead
– but it obscures reality. These people are a class, a class of usurers, who are
"taking" wealth in sordid ways by gaming the system.
All through history, plutocracy has arisen out of the population because debts were not
annulled, or land was enclosed.
Oligarchs of various types are harvesting the world through various means, including the
growth of debt claims. These claims grow exponentially, and outside of nature's ability to
pay. The derivative bubble wants to be paid. What cannot go on, will not.
The balance sheet is not really balanced, one side (the debt instrument holder) is making
exponential claims on debtors.
Moritz Hinsch from Berlin collected what Socrates (470-399 BC) and other Athenians wrote
about debt, and the conference's organizer, Prof. John Weisweiler, presented the new view
of late imperial Rome as being still a long way from outright serfdom. The 99 Percent
were squeezed, but "the economy" grew – in a way that concentrated growth in the
hands of the One Percent . In due course this bred popular resentment that spread in
the form of debtor revolts, not only in the Roman Empire but that of Iran as well, leading
to religious reforms to limit the charging of interest and self-indulgent greed in
general.
By now Nazi references are getting thread-bare. We actually need to examine how the
national socialists operated because their situation is analogous to today.
I very much agree that these "elites" are displaying an ideological zeal very similar to
what Trotskysts or Nazis typically exhibit
National Socialism arose as a reaction to finance capitalism's excesses. The very things
we are seeing today, were present in Weimar Germany. The country was being bought up, and the
people were being denied their birthright. Self-indulgent greed of an arising Oligarchy was
smashed by the National Socialists to then re-balance German civilization.
Nazi zeal restoring civilizational balance is quite something different than leftist
bolshevism.
I have, for some time, been mis-naming the Nomenklatura as the Politburo, with the
commune being the many tentacled international banking cartel. It's the same crowd that
funded the original Bolsheviks.
IMO they are only "Neo" by virtue of the old ones having died, but I'm not going to split
hairs. We all know it is those whose loyalty is to a shitty little country on the
Mediterranean.
@Anonymous ties
extract, which makes politicians whores for their donor class. The donor class is the
"holders of debt instruments" as I explained earlier. Or, they can be part of the military
industrial complex, to then whore for more taxpayer dollars. In all cases it is for self
aggrandizement. By the same reasoning, press-titutes are whores for their paymasters.
The easy money is taken in by usury or other sordid schemes; then donated/recycled into
politicians, to then keep the game going. Average laboring people don't have this surplus
wealth to donate.
A Republic is, by definition, an oligarchy. We just refuse to acknowledge what it truly
is. Put some lipstick on the pig.
But ours is not a pure Republic because we do have democratic referendums all of the time
where the people get to make laws that a majority want. We need more of them.
We don't have any at the federal level but there is nothing that prohibits them. Under
Amendment 10 all powers not granted to the federal government are granted to the states and
the people . The implication is that powers left to the people can be exercised by
referendum. Referendums are really the only check on oligarchy.
"... Democrats decisively outraised their opponents, giving them a critical edge. Ossoff outraised Perdue by $138 million to $89 million while Warnock received $124 million to Loeffler's $92 million. With over 98% of the votes counted, Warnock has been declared the winner, with 50.6% of the vote. Ossoff, meanwhile, is all but assured of winning as well, and has already declared victory. ..."
"... Thus, both contests have conformed to political scientist Thomas Ferguson's "Golden Rule" of politics: that the party that spends the most almost always wins the election. Ferguson's 1995 thesis , "The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems," argued that elections are essentially contests between rival big businesses and that the two political parties compete to serve those who pay them, not the public. Nearly 20 years later, a University of Princeton study of 1,779 policy issues found that, ..."
"... Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." ..."
"... Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that, since 2000, the candidate spending the most money has won between 70% and 98% of their races in the House or Senate ..."
"... the real winners in this election were corporate America, who could not lose, whoever won. ..."
In order to beat GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the Georgia Senate
elections, Democrats had to spend big, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in the
process.
The two Georgia Senate elections -- called today for the Democrats -- were easily the most
costly in history, amounting to nearly $830 million in total ($468 million for the race between
Democrat Joey Ossoff and Republican David Perdue and more than $361 million for the special
election between Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock and Republican Kelly Loeffler.
The Democrats' massive war chest came in no small part from hefty contributions from
corporate America. According to data from the Center for
Responsive Politics , tech companies rallied around the Democratic challengers, plying the
two campaigns with millions of dollars. Alphabet Inc., Google's parent organization, was the
largest single source of funds, their PACs, shareholders, or employees donating almost $1
million to Ossoff's campaign alone with other big tech companies cracking his top ten, all with
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations from the like of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon,
Facebook, and AT&T. The rest of the top ten were made up by universities.
The Republican candidates also relied on large corporations for much of their funding.
Perdue's biggest donors included Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of
America, while Loeffler was generously supported by oil and chemical giant Koch Industries as
well as a number of financial institutions like Ryan LLC and Blackstone Group.
However, Democrats decisively outraised their opponents, giving them a critical edge.
Ossoff outraised Perdue by $138 million to $89 million while Warnock received $124 million to
Loeffler's $92 million. With over 98% of the votes counted, Warnock has been declared the
winner, with 50.6% of the vote. Ossoff, meanwhile, is all but assured of winning as well, and
has
already declared victory.
Thus, both contests have conformed to political scientist Thomas Ferguson's "Golden
Rule" of politics: that the party that spends the most almost always wins the election.
Ferguson's 1995 thesis , "The Golden
Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political
Systems," argued that elections are essentially contests between rival big businesses and that
the two political parties compete to serve those who pay them, not the public. Nearly 20 years
later, a University of Princeton
study of 1,779 policy issues found that,
Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial
independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest
groups have little or no independent influence."
https://cdn.iframe.ly/oNuYTi0?v=1&app=1
Empirical evidence seems to support this notion. Data from the Center for
Responsive Politics shows that, since 2000, the candidate spending the most money has won
between 70% and 98% of their races in the House or Senate
The 2020 election was already by far the most expensive in history, even before the Georgia
numbers were added into the mix. The sums of $468 million and $361 million are comfortably
higher than any of those from two months ago, the most expensive of which was the $299 million
contest in North Carolina between Thom Tillis (Republican) and Cal Cunningham (Democrat).
Many were heralding the Democratic upset in Georgia as the start of a new era and a victory
against racism and hate. "The votes of Black people have been suppressed in this nation for a
very long time. This is the dawning of a new day," said Bernice King, daughter of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Warnock, who will become the state's first black senator, agreed.
"Tonight we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible
All of us have a choice to make; will we continue to divide, distract and dishonor one another,
or will we love our neighbors as we love ourselves?" he said in his victory speech.
Yet while corporations continue to have such an outsized role in funding both major
political parties, it is unclear whether substantive change is even possible. The debate over
whether this represents a victory for racial justice can be had, but what seems unmistakable is
that the real winners in this election were corporate America, who could not lose, whoever
won.
Feature photo | Senate candidate Jon Ossoff introduces President-elect Joe Biden in Atlanta,
Jan. 4, 2021, as he campaigns for Raphael Warnock and Ossoff. Carolyn Kaster | AP
William Gruff # 97
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 18 2020 21:36 utc | 113
The 70s was when they started selling the good redwood saw logs to Japan instead of
cutting them up here because they could get more profit that way. At the time I do not think
it was considered that the Japanese would be able to compete with us as well as they did, and
I think the same applies to the other sellouts of our working class to foreign cheap
manufacturing centers. You have to remember these people really do think they are better.
They do think in class terms even if they avoid that rhetoric in public. The problem is they
thought they could control China like they did Japan. That was dumb then and it looks even
dumber now. You can see similar dumbness in their lack of grip on any realisitic view of
Russia. Provincials really. Rich peasants.
Thanks for the redfish video suggestion. Worth watching not only to get insight about the
current developments in India but also understanding the global Zeitgeist.
I couldn't avoid to identify the exact same type of developments and problems that working
class and increasingly also middle class facing in other parts of the world.
The globalization of capitalism since the fall of USSR and Warsaw pact, has caused
accelerated monopolization of political and economic power everywhere in the world,
this was achieved by enforcing the same neoliberal agenda globally. No matter if you look at
the USA, Germany, Iran or India, you discover the same type of "reforms". Reforms that result
in increased poverty, more and more middle class families are losing their socioeconomic
position and becoming part of working class.
One come to the understanding that the "Great Reset" we are talking about recently, is not
something new in the beginning and making, it's only the continuation of an agenda which has
been in implementation since 30 years ago.
have you noticed that terms like "Imperialism" and "Capitalist government" which were
natural parts of the political discourse in 20th century have been increasingly replaced by
"Nepotism" and "Oligarchy" in 21st century?
Thank you and I have noticed the shift in terminology. I try to avoid it as I believe in
the need to be extremely clear about socialism and capitalism. I prefer to avid CCP and
prefer Chinese Communist Party. I take care to compare western issues with how Cuba is
actually doing. Keep making it clear there is a range of alternatives to private finance
capitalism and IMF usury.
The weavers of deceit and theft that are private finance capitalists are indeed oligarchs
and they attempt to crush any discussion of repossessing their wealth and redistributing it
so that more people can do more work with it and generate stronger societies. The private
finance vultures live in dread of a Tobin tax so I say bring it on. Wherever cash is locked
away and idle - take it and give it to the people as it is they who know how to put it back
to work and generate security and peace within communities.
Wherever power is monopolised in industry then force a devolution of shares to workers and
unions and pay shares as taxes to the state so that dividends go to all including the state.
As it is now in many countries mega corporations extort tax holidays to set up production
units in the counties and dump the entire cost of infrastructure expansion onto those
counties as part of their extortion. Information monopolies are the most critical to
dismantle. Look at the west where critical journalism has been reduced to mediocre
stenography and those with integrity are entirely reliant on other monopolies to squeeze
their digital content between the pillars of censorious monopolies like twitter and facebook
etc. These monopolies are managing public content and creativity and should be in public
ownership - NOT just shareholder public but the entire public.
There is this ruse of oligarchs today just as in Venice in the 16th and 17th century where
the Doges in their magnificence spy on the citizens and reward citizens for spying on each
other, where social cohesion and solidarity is corroded and rots within. That is what the neo
liberal and private finance agenda is - to monopolise $$$ and power and decision making
within the hands of decrepit gerontocrats like Pelosi, Lord Rothschild, Rupert Murdoch, Queen
Elisabeth etc, etc.
Enough of this rant... thank you Framarz. Long live those countries that have for decades
repelled the evil that would crush their freedom and socialism. May Russia find its way to
reintegrate socialism within its future.
by: steven t johnson @ 13 says "the Presidency is essentially unchecked: Article II and
amendment 12 clearly state
that no one can challenge the president.." <= I add "unless congress can find something
they themselves are all
guilty of, and are collectively willing to accept the risk that they themselves might be
removed for the same crime
for which the Congress might impeach the President .. from elected Office impeachment is
impossible.
It is this improbability of removing the President from office that makes the control of
the content allowed or
pushed on the public by the main stream media so important to the stability of the government
and the ability of
the President to lead.
The only way a President can be impeached is to do to the President what the Lenin and
Tolstoy Bolshevik regime
change team accomplished to bring down the Czar of Russia. The media began its attacks on
Christian Czar led
Russia in 1875 by 1919 if the Czar had said it was raining outside the entire nation of
Russia wanting to know if
it were raining would go outside to see for themselves.
Tolstoy, a public hero, blamed the Czar for the problems caused by a pandemic and a famine
of 1891. The peasants
of Russia were trained by media content to distrust any and everything the Czar or any member
of his staff said or
did. Propaganda said there was evil behind every act of the Czar. Tolstoy's famous propaganda
undermined the
Christian faith held by millions of people.
"The Minister for the Interior told the Emperor Czar that Tolstoy's letter to the English
press 'must be considered
tantamount to a most shocking revolutionary proclamation': not a judgement that can often
have been made of a letter
to The Daily Telegraph. Czar Alexander III began to believe that it was all part of an
English plot and the Moscow
Gazette, which was fed from the Government, denounced Tolstoy's letters as 'frank propaganda
for the overthrow of
the whole social and economic structure of the world'." see destroys
Christain Russian government
Norecovery @ 22 says and I have added to what he said to make this list.
1. "The .. criminals have ..take[n] over foreign policy in the U.S.,
these criminals you are talking about are not part of the government, they are private
persons and corporations.
Allow me to remind you that Article II of the Constitution of the USA only concerns two
persons, The President
and the VP.. to them all power to act domestic and foreign is given, Congress has no power
that it cannot get
into law, and no power to govern the office of the President and that has been true since the
original constitution
was ratified in 1788. To conduct war around the world, it is necessary only to won the
president.
2. leveraging money power .. the oligarch network employees highly motivated highly-paid
promoters to force President control onto the world.
3. The Oligarch and their corporations control Congress, Intelligence Agencies, and the
content that MSM presents...
4. the MSM distributed content expresses total censorship as does Google, and social
media
5. Corona virus is bio-warfare designed to undermine small-scale economies and to
establish Oligarch autonomy
6. Using rule of law (generated by nation state power) oligarch owned corporations own all
non taxable property (copyrights and patents) and the right to use all technology (copyright
and patents).
7. Worldwide compliance is the goal of the oligarch. owning the nation state allows
military, financial, and media to be used to crush dissent and to extract wealth.
8. The pharma-promoted questionable gene editing vaccinations are questionable at
best.
9. Humanity is witnessing a worldwide COUPS, UBER-Fascism that exceeds all historical
examples.
10. WWI was a war to take control of the Ottoman owned oil rich land and to tame German
competitive strength.
11. Hilter return Germany to its former power, so WWII was to take German competition
completely out of the equation.
12. The wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, are about pipeline and
control of oil production, transport and profit
13. the wars in Belarus, Ukraine, Modldova, Bulgaria Romania, Hunary, Slovakia Cezech
Republic Poland are about getting Western Europe access into Russia.
14. Last week the House passed a bill designed to deny the president any authority to
reduce the US troops in Foreign land.
so your question at norecovery @ 22 will it succeed is relevant. I don't think it will, I
was told the Governor of Florida
has refused to take the vaccine, word is getting around; people everywhere in USA governed
America, in UK governed
Britain, in Republic of France governed France ( riots every weekend for over two years) ,
and Zionist governed
Israel (riots all over the place all of the time).. everyone is skeptical of the nation state
system.
I think the take over would have succeeded if the Oligarchs had not tried to force a
vaccination on people that
genetic engineers (changes the way their body works) the bodies those vaccinated were born
with.
Snake @ 36
You must have spent a lot of time and consideration on that far reaching summary !
That's MOA at its very best !!
I could only add -- - the disfunctional mindset that blights America right now is having an
immediate impact on all corners of the world.
I see it even in my tiny peaceful backwater.
If they create a fascist monster unleash it on the world -- it will consume everything and
everyone in its path.
Whithin a decade.
In 2008, Barack Obama received the names of his entire future cabinet already one month
prior to his election by CFR Senior Fellow (and Citigroup banker) Michael Froman, as a
Wikileaks email later revealed. Consequently, the key posts in Obama's cabinet were filled
almost exclusively by CFR members, as was the case in most
cabinets since World War II. To be sure, Obama's 2008 Republican opponent, the late John
McCain, was a CFR member, too. Michael Froman later negotiated the TPP and TTIP international
trade agreements, before returning to the CFR as a Distinguished Fellow.
In 2017, CFR nightmare President Donald Trump immediately canceled these trade agreements --
because he viewed them as detrimental to US domestic industry -- which allowed China to
conclude its own, recently announced RCEP free-trade area ,
encompassing 14 countries and a third of global trade. Trump also canceled other CFR
achievements, like the multinational Iran nuclear deal and the UN climate and migration
agreements, and he tried, but largely failed, to withdraw US troops from East Asia, Central
Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, thus seriously endangering the global US empire built
over decades by the CFR and its 5000 elite members .
Unsurprisingly, most of the US media , whose owners and editors are themselves members of the CFR ,
didn't like President Trump. This was also true for most of the European media, whose owners
and editors are members of international CFR affiliates like the
Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission, founded by CFR directors after the conquest of
Europe during World War II. Moreover, it was none other than the CFR which in 1996
advocated a closer cooperation between the CIA and the media, i.e. a restart of the famous
CIA Operation
Mockingbird . Historically, OSS and CIA directors since William Donovan and Allen Dulles
have always
been CFR members.
This is the case for Anthony Blinken (State), Alejandro Mayorkas (Homeland Security), Janet
Yellen (Treasury), Michele Flournoy and Jeh Johnson (candidates for Defense), Linda
Thomas-Greenfield (Ambassador to the UN), Richard Stengel (US Agency for Global Media; Stengel
famously called propaganda "a good thing"
at a 2018 CFR session), John Kerry (Special Envoy for Climate), Nelson Cunningham (candidate
for Trade), and Thomas Donilon (candidate for CIA Director).
Jake Sullivan, Biden's National Security Advisor, is not (yet) a CFR member, but Sullivan
has been a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (a think tank "promoting active international engagement by the
United States") and a member of the US German Marshall Fund's
"Alliance For Securing Democracy" (a major promoter of the "Russiagate"
disinformation campaign to restrain the Trump presidency), both of which are run by senior
CFR members.
Most of Biden's CFR-vetted nominees
supported recent US wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen as well as the
2014 regime change in Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, neoconservative Max Boot, the CFR Senior Fellow
in National Security Studies and one of the most vocal opponents of the Trump administration,
has called Biden's future cabinet "America's A-Team" .
Thus, after four years of "populism" and "isolationism", a Biden presidency will mean the
return of the Council on Foreign Relations and the continuation of a tradition of more than 70 years .
Indeed, the CFR was founded in 1921 in response to the "trauma of 1920" ,
when US President Warren Harding and the US Senate turned isolationist and renounced US global
leadership after World War I. In 2016, Donald Trump's "America First" campaign reactivated this
100 year old foreign policy trauma.
Was the 2020 presidential election "stolen", as some allege? There are certainly indications
of
significant statistical anomalies in key Democrat-run swing states. Whether these were
decisive for the election outcome may be up to courts to decide. At any rate, Joe Biden may
well be the first US President known to be involved
in international corruption before even entering office.
Why are most US and international media hardly interested in this? Well, why should
they?
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"Splitting the public up into two oppositional factions who barely interact and can't even
communicate with each other because they don't share a common reality keeps the populace
impotent, ignorant, and powerless to stop the unfolding of the agendas of the powerful."
Surely so. But I'm not sure whether this was deliberately planned by the plutocrats as a
political strategy, or whether this bifurcation spontaneously emerged from tech company
algorithms designed only to increase their profits.
Clearly, the plutocrats have seized upon this bifurcation to keep the populace divided and
engaged in a kind of civil war, but it's sort of like the pandemic – was it a plot
hatched or an opportunity exploited?
This might not seem to matter at this point, but IMHO the answer helps to determine not
only what we're up against but also the best ways to fight the bastards.
SHOCKER / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
https://www.wakingtimes.com/tyranny-standing-rock-govt-divide-conquer-strategy-work/
`
"Divide and conquer.
`
"It's one of the oldest military strategies in the books, and it's proven to be the police
state's most effective weapon for maintaining the status quo.
`
"How do you conquer a nation?
`
"Distract them with football games, political circuses and Black Friday sales. Keep them
focused on their differences -- economic, religious, environmental, political, racial
[gender- pandemic] -- so they can never agree on anything. And then, when they're so divided
that they are incapable of joining forces against a common threat, start picking them off one
by one."
JWK / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
"We live in different information universes, chosen for us by algorithms whose only
criterion is how to maximise our attention for advertisers' products to generate greater
profits for the internet giants,"
Which precisely explains how we got the recent POTUS candidates, displayed as the "best and
brightest". Really? That's the best they have? You can look across the board at ALL of the
two party's leadership and get the same picture. These are far from the "best and brightest".
They may be bright, since psychopaths are often quite intelligent, but they certainly have
zero qualification for best.
KHATIKA / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
Regardless. The democrats ignored people like Tulsi Gabbard and Sanders to flock to Biden.
This is just a sign of how brainwashed the people have become. The propaganda is working
quite well.
ANARCISSIE / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
This raises the question of why these people were selected. I think Trump sabotaged the
Republican fix for 2016 by exploiting weaknesses in its pseudodemocratic primary structure,
but the choice of Biden is hard to figure from any angle. Someone should investigate. About a
year ago I was conversing with some deplorables about Biden and a perfectly intelligent young
Black woman hotly defended him against all criticism. Anita Hill, the crime bill, the
invasion of Iraq, his creepiness, just bounced off her shell. How do people get this way?
JULIUS SKOOLAFISH / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
in passing
. WESTERN VALUES™ . The country that judges other countries' elections just
had an election. Somebody won. One day a court will tell us who. Apparently counting votes is
a tremendously difficult task, requiring enormous amounts of time.
. http://russiahouse.org/current_news.php?language=eng&id_current=3183
.
See also (via Fort Russ – Matthew Ehret)
Ah, Ms Johnstone, my fellow United States citizens love their " echo chamber comas "
because it allows them to completely suppress any and all logic, justice, empathy, and shame
for the blood-thirsty Evil Empire that they cherish and support. The Evil Empire has no soul
at all; and it requires its subjects to be soul-less as well. Resistance is futile!
"... "No crisis is more serious for our Money Power than an attempt by a head of government to assume personal control of intelligence and operations or to by-pass existing agencies by setting up parallel ones." ..."
"... Perhaps the most accurate overview of our intelligence community can be achieved by visualizing it as a "nationalized secret society." Our predecessors, in their struggle against the old order of kings and princes, had to finance secret societies such as the Illuminati, Masons, German Union, etc. out of their own pockets. ..."
"... At great expense and risk such secret societies were able to infiltrate the major governmental and private institutions of the nations that our noble predecessors targeted for take over by the Money Power. Such bureaucratic takeovers are expensive and time consuming. They can be considered complete only when promotions, raises, and advancements are no longer based on objective service to the stated organizational objectives, but are in the hands of the infiltrating group and its secret goals. ..."
"... By appealing to "national security" we are able to finance and erect secret societies of a colossal scope, far beyond the wildest dreams of our path breaking predecessors. Besides the benefits of public financing reaped by these "nationalized secret societies," we obtain a decisive advantage from the fact that these our "spook" operations are sanctioned by law! ..."
"... Maintaining discipline, loyalty, and secrecy is no longer solely a matter of propaganda, blackmail, patronage, and intimidation. Although these remain important tools, especially in emergency cases, ordinary discipline among initiates (now called agents) can be encouraged by appealing to patriotism and can be enforced in courts of law by prosecuting "national security violations." ..."
"No crisis is more serious for our Money Power than an attempt by a head of
government to assume personal control of intelligence and operations or to by-pass existing
agencies by setting up parallel ones."
9. PROFESSOR Y. ON COVERT OPERATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE ~
In our fully developed state-capitalist systems we have found absolute control of
governmental intelligence gathering and covert operations to be vital.
Besides providing a valuable tool in our struggle with rival dynasties, such control is now
an integral and necessary part of our day-to-day operations. Large intelligence communities are
inevitable, given the system of all encompassing governments which we have imposed upon the
world during our ascent to power. Our power would be short-lived indeed if the pervasive
influence and power of these iron-disciplined intelligence agencies fell into the hands of mere
politicians, especially those beyond our control.
We do not allow intelligence agencies to pursue the "national interest," the way the public
conceives "spies" to operate. Politicians cannot be permitted to divert the power and influence
of our intelligence community from the esoteric requirements of our Money Power to petty
political struggles.
Neither nationalistic aspirations of races and peoples nor ideological visions of
intellectuals for humanity can be allowed to pervert intelligence and covert operations. Our
rationalizations, both within the intelligence community and to the public at large, must be
diverse and flexible, but the intelligence community must further without exception the
inexorable goals we have set for humanity.
No crisis is more serious for our Money Power than an attempt by a head of government to
assume personal control of intelligence and operations or to by-pass existing agencies by
setting up parallel ones. Such intrusions must be met decisively. Although a contrived scandal
to remove the offending politician from office is the first line of defense, we dare not shrink
from assassination when necessary.
Perhaps the most accurate overview of our intelligence community can be achieved by
visualizing it as a "nationalized secret society." Our predecessors, in their struggle against
the old order of kings and princes, had to finance secret societies such as the Illuminati,
Masons, German Union, etc. out of their own pockets.
At great expense and risk such secret societies were able to infiltrate the major
governmental and private institutions of the nations that our noble predecessors targeted for
take over by the Money Power. Such bureaucratic takeovers are expensive and time consuming.
They can be considered complete only when promotions, raises, and advancements are no longer
based on objective service to the stated organizational objectives, but are in the hands of the
infiltrating group and its secret goals.
How much easier it is for us, the inheritors of a fully developed state-capitalist system!
By appealing to "national security" we are able to finance and erect secret societies of a
colossal scope, far beyond the wildest dreams of our path breaking predecessors. Besides the
benefits of public financing reaped by these "nationalized secret societies," we obtain a
decisive advantage from the fact that these our "spook" operations are sanctioned by
law!
Maintaining discipline, loyalty, and secrecy is no longer solely a matter of propaganda,
blackmail, patronage, and intimidation. Although these remain important tools, especially in
emergency cases, ordinary discipline among initiates (now called agents) can be encouraged by
appealing to patriotism and can be enforced in courts of law by prosecuting "national security
violations."
As massive as our intelligence community has become in itself, we still operate strictly on
the finance capitalist principle of leverage. Just as a rational finance capitalist never owns
more stock in a corporation than the bare minimum required for control, intelligence operatives
are placed only in as many key positions as are required to control the target organizations.
Our goal, after all, is agent control of all significant organizations, not intelligence
community member ship for the entire population.
The organizational pattern of baffling "circles within circles," characteristic of classical
secret societies, is retained and refined by our intelligence community. That "one hand not
know what the other is doing" is essential to the success of our operations. In most cases, we
do not allow the operatives themselves to know the ultimate, and when possible, even the
short-range objectives of their assignments.
They operate under "covers" that disguise our goals not only from the public and target
groups, but from the agents themselves. For instance, many agents operating under "left cover"
are led to believe that the agency, or at least their department, is secretly, but sincerely
motivated by socialistic ideology. Thus, they assume that the intelligence agency's ultimate
goal is to guide left-wing groups in "productive" directions, even though they cannot always
see how their own assignment fits into those assumed goals.
Other "left-cover" agents, those with right-wing predilections, are encouraged to believe
the agency is simply "monitoring" violence prone, subversive groups in order to protect the
public. When such agents are asked to participate in or even lead radical activity they assume
that the ultimate objective is to fully infiltrate and destroy the organization for the good of
the country. This is very seldom the case. We waste little or no money protecting the "public"
or defending the "nation."
Agents operating under "right-cover" are handled in symmetrical fashion. Agents with
right-wing prejudices are encouraged to believe the agency is right-wing. Left-prejudiced
agents are asked to operate under "right-cover" in order to "monitor" dangerous rightist
organizations. Most intelligence agents remain blithely ignorant of the big picture which is so
clear to us from our spectacular vantage point. Very few have enough information or
intelligence to reason out how their specific and sometimes baffling assignments promote the
legislative, judicial, operational and propaganda needs of our Money Power. Most would never
try. They are paid too much to think about such things.
Agents with a "gangster-cover" are of two types. First, there is the sincere gangster that
draws his salary from an intelligence agency. He is led to believe that the gangland
"Godfathers" control the government agency for their own purposes. Actually, the situation is
the opposite. The agency controls the gangster for other purposes. Second, is the sincere crime
fighter who is led to believe that the agency is at tempting to infiltrate and monitor the
gangsters as a preliminary step to destroying organized crime. Such "upstanding" agents commit
many crimes in their zeal to rid the country of organized crime!
To envision how we operate in this lucrative field, let's briefly look at the mechanics of
dope smuggling. Police and customs officials are told to leave certain gangsters alone, even
when transporting suspicious cargoes. This is made to seem perfectly proper since it is well
known that secret police infiltrators of organized crime must participate in crimes in order to
gain the confidence of gangsters.
What customs agent would want to upset a carefully laid plan to "set-up" the underworld
kingpins of dope pushing! But the agent, as well as the police who cooperate, are mistaken in
believing that the purpose of the assignment to help smuggle dope is ultimately to smash
organized crime. If he could see the big picture, as we can, the agent would see that
practically all our dope is smuggled by federal intelligence agents and secret police! How ever
could such a volume be transported safely? Real harassment and prosecution is reserved for
those who enter the field without our approval.
Here is our organized crime strategy: On the one hand we pass laws to ensure that mankind's
favorite pastimes (vices) are illegal. On the other hand, we cater to these "vices" at a huge
monopoly profit with complete immunity from prosecution.
A new and growing methodology of our intelligence community is psychologically and
drug-controlled agents. Properly, these are referred to as "behavior modified" agents, or, in
the vernacular, "zombies." With the use of hypnotic drugs, brain washing, sensory deprivation,
small group "sensitivity" training, and other behavior modification techniques, the scope of
which was hinted in the movie "Clockwork Orange," complete personalities can be manufactured
from scratch, to the specifications of value structure profiles we design by computer to suit
our purposes. Such personalities are quite neurotic and unstable due to defects in our still
developing technology, but still useful for many purposes.
The primary virtue of "zombies," of course, is loyalty. Agents that are subconsciously
programmed for the assignment at hand cannot be conscious traitors. All a "zombie" can do is
reveal how compulsive and psychotic he is with regard to his "cause." Even to trained
psychologists he simply appears to be the proverbial "lone nut." Although the "zombie" may have
memories of psychotherapy at a government agency when questioned under hypnosis, this is
unlikely to raise suspicion in the mind of court-appointed psychologists. After all, "lone
nuts" should be kept in insane asylums and subjected to psychotherapy! At most, the government
hospital will be reprimanded for letting a loony loose before he was cured.
Until our techniques can be perfected the use of "zombies" must be restricted to "national
dramas" designed to justify the growing power of our centralized governments over the lives of
our people. Most suicidal radicals and "crazies" who so mysteriously avoid arrest for years at
a time are "zombies" conditioned to terrorize the public in the name of some irrational
ideology. After repeated doses of such terror, the public is conditioned to accept the
necessity of our intrusive police state with very little objection.
The way is clear for an accelerated program of behavior modification research to be
conducted mostly at public expense in the name of mental health and rehabilitation. Such
research can be conducted with little complaint in prisons, refugee camps, drug rehabilitation
centers, government hospitals, veterans hospitals, and even public schools and day care
centers. Mental institutions, methadone maintenance centers, and prisons are fertile fields for
recruiting the deranged or drug-addicted persons most suitable for "zombie" conversions. Of
course, only a few of our most trusted agents actually participate in the creation of
"zombies." The brilliant researchers and experimenters who make most of the breakthroughs
earnestly believe that their techniques are destined strictly for the betterment of
mankind.
Inevitably, a fraction of the population objects to behavior modification as an infringement
of man's "sacred" free will even if they are convinced that our intentions are benign. We
carefully leak a few scandals to satisfy such persons that our experiments are being kept
within bounds and that excesses are being stopped. Our artificial scandals exposing the
"excesses" of coercive psychology are carefully designed to make the researchers seem
incompetent and clumsy to the point of maiming and killing their "patients." This effectively
conceals the fantastic strides we have made toward total behavioral control. Great things are
going to be possible in the future.
"... "Democracy" is little more than another word for "rule by money" – it can be nothing else. The entire world is falling under the delusion that "each vote counts". ..."
"... The world is utterly corrupt, ruled almost exclusively by monied interests. Jesus said: "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." ..."
"... Misinformed by the politicians and the MSM, presumably. So if establishment and career politicians are the enemies of the people, then anti-politicians and populist outsiders who want to drain the swamp deserve our fullest support. ..."
This is not just America. It is global. the decades old drive to convert the world's
governments to "democracy" is in fact a drive to place the elite in total control of the
populations. "Democracy" is little more than another word for "rule by money" – it can
be nothing else. The entire world is falling under the delusion that "each vote counts".
The world is utterly corrupt, ruled almost exclusively by monied interests. Jesus said:
"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."
Which is your choice?
I_left_the_left , Nov 16, 2020 10:29 AM Reply to Victor
Are voters really as corrupt as those they vote for?
Laurence Howell , Nov 16, 2020 12:44 PM Reply to I_left_the_left
No, just mis-informed
I_left_the_left , Nov 16, 2020 1:11 PM Reply to Laurence
Howell
Misinformed by the politicians and the MSM, presumably. So if establishment and career
politicians are the enemies of the people, then anti-politicians and populist outsiders who
want to drain the swamp deserve our fullest support.
They are programmed and propagandized, embracing the illusion that the electoral system is
not structured and controlled to make sure no significant change can occur, no matter who is
president. It is a sad reality promoted as democracy.
They will prattle on and give all sorts of reasons why they voted, and for whom, and how if
you don't vote you have no right to bitch, and how it's this sacred right to vote that makes
democracy great, blah blah blah. It's all sheer nonsense. For the U.S.A. is not a democracy;
it is an oligarchy run by the wealthy for the wealthy.
This is not a big secret. Everybody knows this is true; knows the electoral system is
sheer show business with the presidential extravaganza drawing the big money from corporate
lobbyists, investment bankers, credit card companies, lawyers, business and hedge fund
executives, Silicon Valley honchos, think tanks, Wall Street gamblers, millionaires,
billionaires, et. al. Biden and Trump spent over 3 billion dollars on the election. They are
owned by the money people.
Both are old men with long, shameful histories. A quick inquiry will show how the rich have
profited immensely from their tenures in office. There is not one hint that they could change
and have a miraculous conversion while in future office, like JFK. Neither has the guts or the
intelligence. They are nowhere men who fear the fate that John Kennedy faced squarely when he
turned against the CIA and the war machine. They join the craven company of Johnson, Ford,
Carter, Reagan G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama. They all got the message that
was sent from the streets of Dallas in 1963: You don't want to die, do you?
Ask yourself: Has the power of the oligarchic, permanent warfare state with its propaganda
and spy networks, its vast intelligence apparatus, increased or decreased in the past half
century? Who is winning the battle, the people or the ruling elites? The answer is obvious.
It matters not at all whether the president has been Trump or Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or
George W. Bush, Barack Obama or George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Jimmy Carter.
The power of the national security state has grown under them all and everyone is left to moan
and groan and wonder why.
All the while, the doll's house has become more and more sophisticated and powerful. It is
now essentially an electronic prison that is being "Built Back Better." The new Cold War now
being waged against Russia and China is a bi-partisan affair, as is the confidence game played
by the secret government intended to create a fractured consciousness in the population through
their corporate mass-media stenographers. Trump and his followers on one side of the coin;
liberal Democrats on the other.
Only those backed by the wealthy power brokers get elected in the U.S.A. Then when elected,
it's payback time. Palms are greased. Everybody knows this is true. It's called corruption. So
why would anyone, who opposes a corrupt political oligarchy, vote, unless they were casting a
vote of conscience for a doomed third-party candidate?
hether it's Tweedledee or Tweedledum – will result in the death and impoverishment of
so many, that being the end result of oligarchic rule at home and imperialism abroad.
Orwell called this Doublethink:
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind
simultaneously, and accepting both of them . 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 so long as it is needed, to deny the
existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one
denies – all this is indispensably necessary.
And while in Nineteen Eighty-Four Doublethink is learned by all the Party members
"and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox," today in the USA, it has
been mastered even by the so-called unintelligent.
To live in the USA is to live in the Church of the Good Hustler.
People often ask: What can we do to make the country better? What is your alternative?
A child could answer that one: Don't vote if you know that both contenders are backed by the
super-rich elites, what some call the Deep State. Which of course they are. Everybody
knows.
Reply
I_left_the_left , Nov 18, 2020 9:50 AM
"the U.S.A. is not a democracy; it is an oligarchy run by the wealthy for the wealthy."
Sorry, no. The whole point about Trump is that he is the great anti-politician, the outsider,
the patriot enemy of the corrupt ruling elites who only care about status, power and control,
not the interests of the American people or any other. By contrast, Biden is clearly the
perfect puppet of the oligarchy and political establishment. The ruling class expected their
ally Clinton to win in 2016, never Trump. The great election steal of 2020 is all about
reversing this little surprise, and to make sure that the irksome people power of US
democracy will finally be under full control. No more land of the free; the USA is now on the
cusp of becoming a leftist fascist dictatorship, in which US patriots are the new German
Jews, and in which future elections will be as meaningful as those of the Soviet Union.
A Texas Libertarian , Nov 18, 2020 6:05 AM
If you don't see that there is a big difference between Trump and Biden, then you are
still in the dollhouse. Trump certainly ain't perfect, but at least he wants to keep the
economy open. Biden is the lock down candidate. If that's all I knew about each of these
candidates, it'd be enough to vote for Trump. But there is a lot more.
Also, 'democracy' is the virus, not the cure, and Orwell was a dumb ass socialist.
Curmudgeon , Nov 17, 2020 11:55 PM
With all of his warts, Nixon did end the Vietnam war. Reagan ended the Cold War and
mutually assured destruction. Wilson got the US into WWI, FDR did WWII, Truman set up Korea
and Clinton tried to heat up Yugoslavia.
George Wallace circa 1965 said there wasn't a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats
and Republicans. They are different branches of the corporate party and globalists competing
for the speed of takeover. Trump is a corporatist but for all of his faults has gone off
script with his own corporatist agenda to cut in on the action, and the owners ain't havin'
it, because the Trumpian party is ever-so mildly nationalistic. Nationalism cannot be allowed
to rear its beautiful head, because people will love it. Trump is a turd, alright, but Biden
is a pile of shit.
I_left_the_left , Nov 18, 2020 9:53 AM Reply to Curmudgeon
Would Biden end endless wars of intervention against the wishes of the neo-cons and
military-industrial complex, as Trump has been doing?
Wow what a hopeless and dreary world you live in. I left the dollhouse in the weeks after
9-11 when I realized the official narrative was full of holes. But I don't find the world out
here quite so dreary as you. Call me a dreamer, but I still believe that good always
(eventually) wins over evil, and I believe the ideals of America – the very same ones
that were probably sold to us as a fake bill of goods a long time ago – is REAL and not
an illusion because so many people believe in it. Perception is reality. Donald Trump despite
all his personal quirks and flaws I sincerely believe to be a deal maker who is interested in
protecting and serving the American people. Even if it's out of his own narcissism that he
wants to do so I'll take it. Regardless, one good thing that has come out of the last 4 years
is that I think a LOT of people have gotten "woke" in their own ways. Not all have left the
dollhouse yet but many have. Have faith in people.
Lysias , Nov 17, 2020 2:01 PM
If it made no difference who won, why were the elites so fanatically opposed to Trump?
It does make a difference cf. the mad scramble to get GWB elected in 2000. At that time
the rulers had decided on years of aggressive foreign policy therefore they need the "war
party" in. When Obama was pitted against the lame duck McCain it was time for some "smiley
face" rule with a surge in the woke factor with the first (gasp!) African American
president.
With Trump, I think it was a genuine shock when he was elected. Like Brexit in the UK, it
just wasn't supposed to happen! Trump is too much of a wild card. Too revealing. Suggesting
there's a deep state and actually taking conspiracies seriously? How dare he!. More to the
point, he's not getting with the covid program.
I_left_the_left , Nov 18, 2020 10:01 AM Reply to wardropper
Trump had the perfect billionaire's lifestyle, but gave it all up to run for the
presidency. He donated all presidential salary to good causes and says he has lost billions
by becoming president, unlike any other political leader you care to mention. More seriously,
he has put himself and family in grave danger by opposing the corrupt ruling classes of the
USA, and by his insolent attempt to 'drain the swamp'. In the near future, the elites will
persecute and try to imprison him and his family, to prevent any further rebellion against
their control in the land of the unfree.
We don't really know how fanatically opposed to him they actually are.
What the media choose to show us always has several layers of superficial, misleading crap
attached to it.
Appearing to be opposed to something is a pretty old trick, after all.
It covers your ass.
Lysias , Nov 17, 2020 10:50 PM Reply to wardropper
Paying off the BLM rioters? That's not something you do just to create an appearance.
The election is being stolen but once again the establishment dramatically misread the lay
of the political landscape among the American population. The adjustments that were made
ahead of time to the paperless electronic voting machines were not sufficient to overcome the
votes for Trump and so the establishment has to fall back on much more difficult and risky
approaches to cooking the count. To help cover this more challenging and time-consuming
operation the "Mighty Wurlitzer" has the mass media chanting in chorus that the Trump
Administration's charges of fraud are "baseless" before investigations can be done to
determine if the charges have a basis.
There will be no "revenge" against the Democrats. If the American public accepts
the results of the fraud then the establishment (Democrats and Republicans) will heave a
"Huuuge" sigh of relief for dodging the bullet and things will return to
"normal" as they were with previous presidents as figureheads for the State. There
will be nothing remotely like the ludicrous "Russiagate" hysteria that the mass media
indulged in against Trump. Something truly baseless will have to be found for the Republicans
to rant at the Democrats about like Obama's birth certificate, but the real issues will be
dropped like hot potatoes by both "teams" .
The establishment will then try to restart "Project for a New American Century" .
This is bad news for Syria as the "Assad Curse" will start getting more exercise
again. This is also bad news for Russia as the PNAC crowd are entirely certain that the
Russians are bluffing about engaging the Empire kinetically. They are Russians, after all,
right? You just have to push them hard enough like Reagan did and they will roll over.
At least that is what the PNAC crowd thinks. The PNACers rely for their brainpower on the
PMC ( "Professional, Managerial class" ), who as c1ue pointed out are "...
the middle managers, doctors, lawyers, MBAs, tenured professors, finance types and what not
who are divorced from the actual hands-on labor." That part about being "divorced from
the actual hands-on labor" is important because it means they have nothing mooring them
to reality.
[Aside: I have often mentioned that economics is the keystone social science, and
contemporary economics being based around vacuous capitalist apologetics renders the entire
realm of the social sciences a limp and constantly shifting mass of liquid shite with no
predictive power and only serving to sell pop culture self-help books. Psychology is where
the social sciences bump up against the biological sciences. This is how economics plays such
an important role in real (not pop) psychology. One's occupation; how one makes a living; how
one puts food on the table, is the core of human identity (skin tone isn't anywhere close).
The more that individuals fulfill employment roles that are entirely socially constructed and
the further they are from direct involvement in the process of transforming natural resources
into tangible items humans use for living, then the more tenuous and, to put it politely,
more "abstract" and subject to reinterpretation their association with physical
reality becomes. This is why c1ue 's PMCs, despite being very intelligent and highly
educated, can make such profound mistakes that get hayseed farmers scratching their heads in
amazement.]
The PNAC gang (Biden/Harris is their front) will now "shirtfront" Russia and
"get in their face" . They will escalate until they succeed at their plans. Trump's
escalations were almost entirely symbolic and meaningless, but the PNACer's escalations will
be kinetic. When Iran is once again forced to retaliate against the empire and
missile-strikes some US assets, the PNAC people will escalate and respond with ten times the
violence where Trump had ordered the empire to stand down.
Unfortunately for the empire, America's economic decline is systemic; it is baked into
capitalism. It cannot be reversed. While Trump hastened the empire's diplomatic decline and
poisoned its "soft power" , Biden/Harris will hasten the empire's economic
decline.
As for the Fort Detrick flu, the mass media will now try to downplay it in order to get
workers back to making the elites some profits, but the cases and fatalities will continue to
increase. There will be no more effective countering of the pandemic by Team Blue than Team
Red because the US simply doesn't have the tools, either medically, culturally, or socially,
to do anything about it.
Four years of the deep state/establishment exposing itself in panicked hysteria, only to
now fade back into the background with nothing gained from those four years. I wonder how the
posters here who think it was all part of an elaborate plan will spin their tales of the
omnipotent empire now that it can no longer be said "Trump hasn't started a war YET
but he will once he cements his image as 'Glorious Leader'!!"
Biden/Harris being installed in such an obvious manner is not a display of the
establishment's power, but rather is proof of their weakness and incompetence.
Financial oligarchy fully controls neoliberal Dems and this "scholar" does even use the term neoliberalism to describe the US elections.
What a jerk.
"Mitt Romney and Donald Trump agreed on basically every issue, as did Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And yet, a bunch of people
changed their votes. And the reason that happened was because the salience of various issues changed." -- that a false, phoby statiment.
Election for Obama and for Hillary were conducted at the different stages of the crisis of neoliberalism. In Hillary case voters ejected
the candidate from neoliberal establishment.
David Shor got famous by getting fired. In late May, amid widespread protests over George Floyd's murder, the 28-year-old data
scientist tweeted out a study that found nonviolent
demonstrations were more effective than "riots" at pushing public opinion and voter behavior leftward in 1968.
Many Twitter users -- and
(reportedly) some of Shor's colleagues and clients at the data firm Civis Analytics -- found this post insensitive. A day later,
Shor publicly apologized for his tweet. Two
weeks after that, he'd lost his job as Civis's head of political data science -- and become a byword for the excesses of so-called
cancel
culture . (Shor has not discussed his firing publicly due to a nondisclosure agreement, and the details of his termination remain
undisclosed).
... ... ...
So there's a big constellation of issues. The single biggest way that highly educated people who follow politics closely are different
from everyone else is that we have much more ideological coherence in our views.
If you decided to create a survey scorecard, where on every single issue -- choice, guns, unions, health care, etc. -- you gave
people one point for choosing the more liberal of two policy options, and then had 1,000 Americans fill it out, you would find that
Democratic elected officials are to the left of 90 to 95 percent of people.
And the reason is that while voters may have more left-wing views than Joe Biden on a few issues, they don't have the same consistency
across their views. There are like tons of pro-life people who want higher taxes, etc. There's
a paper by the political scientist
David Broockman that made this point really famous -- that "moderate" voters don't have moderate views, just ideologically inconsistent
ones. Some people responded to media coverage of that paper by saying, "Oh, people are just answering these surveys randomly, issues
don't matter." But that's not actually what the paper showed. In a separate section, they tested the relevance of issues by presenting
voters with hypothetical candidate matchups -- here's a politician running on this position, and another politician running on the
opposite -- and they found that issue congruence was actually very important for predicting who people voted for.
So this suggests there's a big mass of voters who agree with us on some issues, and disagree with us on others. And whenever we
talk about a given issue, that increases the extent to which voters will cast their ballots on the basis of that issue.
Mitt Romney and Donald Trump agreed on basically every issue, as did Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And yet, a bunch of people
changed their votes. And the reason that happened was because the salience of various issues changed. Both sides talked a lot more
about immigration, and because of that, correlation between preferences on immigration and which candidate people voted for went
up. In 2012, both sides talked about health care. In 2016, they didn't. And so the correlation between views on health care and which
candidate people voted for went down.
So this means that every time you open your mouth, you have this complex optimization problem where what you say gains you some
voters and loses you other voters. But this is actually cool because campaigns have a lot of control over what issues they talk about.
Non-college-educated whites, on average, have very conservative views on immigration, and generally conservative racial attitudes.
But they have center-left views on economics; they support universal health care and minimum-wage increases. So I think Democrats
need to talk about the issues they are with us on, and try really hard not to talk about the issues where we disagree. Which, in
practice, means not talking about immigration.
... ... ...
The problem is that swing voters don't trust either party. So if you get Democrats to embrace Abolish ICE, that won't get moderate-
ish , racist white people to support it; it will just turn them into Republicans. So that's the trade-off. When you embrace
unpopular things, you become more unpopular with marginal voters, but also get a fairly large segment of the public to change its
views. And the latter can sometimes produce long-term change.
But it's a hard trade-off. And I don't think anyone ever says something like, "I think it was a good trade for us to lose the
presidency because we raised the salience of this issue." That's not generally what people want. They don't want to make an unpopular
issue go from 7 percent to 30 percent support. They want something like what happened with gay marriage or marijuana legalization,
where you take an issue that is 30 percent and then it goes to 70 percent. And if you look at the history of those things, it's kind
of clear that campaigns didn't do that.
... ... ...
But ultimately, when people hear from both sides, they're gonna revert to some kind of partisan baseline. But there's not a nihilism
there; it's not just that Democratic-leaning voters will adopt the Democratic position or Republican-leaning ones will automatically
adopt the Republican one. Persuadable voters trust the parties on different issues.
And there's a pretty basic pattern -- both here and in other countries -- in which voters view center-left parties as empathetic.
Center-left parties care about the environment, lowering poverty, improving race relations. And then, you know, center-right parties
are seen as more "serious," or more like the stern dad figure or something. They do better on getting the economy going or lowering
unemployment or taxes or crime or immigration.
... ... ..
What's powerful about nonviolent protest -- and particularly nonviolent protest that incurs a disproportionate response from the
police -- is that it can shift the conversation, in a really visceral way, into the part of this issue space that benefits Democrats
and the center left. Which is the pursuit of equality, social justice, fairness -- these Democratic-loaded concepts -- without the
trade-off of crime or public safety. So I think it is really consistent with a pretty broad, cross-sectional body of evidence (a
piece of which I obviously tweeted at some point
) that nonviolent protest is politically advantageous, both in terms of changing public opinion on discrete issues and electing parties
sympathetic to the left's concerns.
As for "the abolish the police" stuff, I think the important thing there is that basically no mainstream elected officials embraced
it.
... ... ...
But there's always a mix of violent and nonviolent protest; or, there's always some violence that occurs at nonviolent protests.
And it's not a situation where a drop of violence spoils everything and turns everybody into fascists. The research isn't consistent
with that. It's more about the proportions. Because the mechanism here is that when violence is happening, people become afraid.
They fear for their safety, and then they crave order. And order is a winning issue for conservatives here and everywhere around
the world. The basic political argument since the French Revolution has been the left saying, "Let's make things more fair," and
the right saying, "If we do that, it will lead to chaos and threaten your family."
But when you have nonviolent protests that goad security forces into using excessive force against unarmed people -- preferably
while people are watching -- then order gets discredited, and people experience this visceral sense of unfairness. And you can change
public opinion.
... ... ..
So, as a result, campaigns centered around this cosmopolitan elite's internal disagreements over economic issues. But over the
past 60 years, college graduates have gone from being 4 percent of the electorate to being more like 35. Now, it's actually possible
-- for the first time ever in human history -- for political parties to openly embrace cosmopolitan values and win elections; certainly
primary and municipal elections, maybe even national elections if you don't push things too far or if you have a recession at your
back. And so Democratic elites started campaigning on the things they'd always wanted to, but which had previously been too toxic.
And so did center-left parties internationally
... .....
Many on the left are wary of the Democratic Party's growing dependence on wealthy voters and donors. But you've argued that the
party's donor class actually pulls it to the left,
as big-dollar Democratic donors are more progressive -- even on economic issues -- than the median Democratic voter. I'm skeptical
of that claim. After all, so much regulation and legislation never crosses ordinary Americans' radar. It seems implausible to me
that, during negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration
fought to export America's generous patent protections on pharmaceuticals to the developing world, or to expand the reach of
the Investor
State Dispute Settlement process, because they felt compelled to placate swing voters. Similarly, it's hard for me to believe
that the primary reason why Democrats did not significantly expand collective-bargaining rights under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton,
and Barack Obama was voter hostility to labor-law reform rather than the unified opposition of business interests to such a policy.
So why couldn't it be the case that, when it comes to policy, a minority of big-dollar donors who are highly motivated -- and reactionary
-- on discrete issues pull the party to the right, even as wealthier Democrats give more ideologically consistent responses to survey
questions?
... ... ...
David Broockman showed in a recent paper
-- and I've seen this in internal data -- that people who give money to Democrats are more economically left wing than Democrats
overall. And the more money people give, the more economically left wing they are. These are obviously the non-transactional donors.
But people underestimate the extent to which the non-transactional money is now all of the money. This wasn't true ten years ago.
So then you get to the question: Why do so many moderate Democrats vote for center-right policies that don't even poll well? Why
did Heidi Heitkamp vote to
deregulate banks in 2018
, when the median voter in North Dakota doesn't want looser regulations on banks? But the thing is, while that median voter doesn't
want to deregulate banks, that voter doesn't want a senator who is bad for business in North Dakota. And so if the North Dakota business
community signals that it doesn't like Heidi Heitkamp, that's really bad for Heidi Heitkamp, because business has a lot of cultural
power.
I think that's a very straightforward, almost Marxist view of power: Rich people have disproportionate cultural influence. So
business does pull the party right. But it does so more through the mechanism of using its cultural power to influence public opinion,
not through donations to campaigns.
So, in your view, the reason that Democrats aren't more left wing on economic issues isn't because they're bought off, but because
the median voter is "bought off," in the sense of responding to cues from corporate interests?
... ... ...
So I think people underestimate Democrats' openness to left-wing policies that won't cost them elections. And there are a lot
of radical, left-wing policies that are genuinely very popular.
Codetermination is popular. A
job guarantee is popular. Large minimum-wage increases are popular and could literally end market poverty.
All these things will engender opposition from capital. But if you focus on the popular things, and manage to build positive earned
media around those things, then you can convince Democrats to do them. So we should be asking ourselves, "What is the maximally radical
thing that can get past Joe Manchin." And that's like a really depressing optimization problem. And it's one that most leftists don't
even want to approach, but they should. There's a wide spectrum of possibilities for what could happen the next time Democrats take
power, and if we don't come in with clear thinking and realistic demands, we could end up getting rolled.
... ... ...
The Senate is even worse. And much worse than people realize. The Senate has always been, on paper, biased against Democrats.
It overrepresents states that are rural and white, and mechanically, that gives a structural advantage to Republicans. For 50 years
or so, the tipping-point state in the Senate has been about one percentage point more Republican than the country as a whole. And
that advantage did go up in 2016, because white rural voters trended against us (it went up to 3 percent).
... ... ..
I think one big lesson of 2018 was that Trump's coalition held up. Obviously, we did better as the party out of power. But if
you look at how we did in places like Maine or Wisconsin or Michigan, it looked more like 2016 than 2012. Donald Trump still has
a giant structural advantage in the Electoral College.
The elites may control who gets nominated but no matter how flawed or repugnant their
candidate is or how obvious that the candidate was chosen for them the flocks that follow the
candidates act as if they did the choosing.
Trump was given 10 times the free advertising than all the other primary candidates
combined and yet his followers think they picked him.
And Biden will go down in history as the candidate who got more popular votes than any
other candidate ever has and yet he is about as popular as a hemorrhoid.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on
Twitter @velocirapture23
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign is using a vast reserve of donations
from the usual plutocratic suspects to pry even deep-red states away from an incumbent who's
done little to help the working class.
The Biden campaign broke all-time records for TV ad spending over the weekend, leveraging
Wall Street donors' unprecedented largesse in its effort to woo ordinary Americans back into
the establishment fold.
Given how Trump's record bristles with policies so 'pro-business' they can be seen as
anti-working-class, it's a strategy just crazy enough to work. Voters need only be reminded how
the incumbent cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations while printing trillions of dollars to
be diverted directly into the pockets of big banks and big companies during the pandemic. The
media is encouraged to do its part by hyping up Trump's " divisiveness. "
The same corporate-friendly policies that alienated many in Trump's 2016 base have somehow
failed to keep the .01 percent in the Republican camp, and Wall Street has poured $50 million
into the Biden campaign, CNBC reported on Monday, holding up former Goldman Sachs president
Harvey Schwartz as a typical contributor. Schwartz made his largest-ever political donation
earlier this month to the Biden Action Fund, a $100,000 gift that was also one of the biggest
donations the Fund received during that period.
And it's not just Wall Street - aside from hardcore Republican Zionists like casino mogul
Sheldon Adelson and vulture capitalist Paul Singer, the US oligarchy is firmly and vocally in
the Biden camp. Former New York City Republican-turned-Democrat mayor Mike Bloomberg announced
a $15 million ad buy in Texas and Ohio on Monday, two states where Trump won by a healthy
margin in 2016 but where the failed presidential candidate apparently smells weakness. That
hefty sum is in addition to over $100 million Bloomberg spent in the critical swing state of
Florida, where he also raised millions of dollars to pay off the court fees of black and
Hispanic ex-cons - whose votes the businessman believes will reliably land in the Biden camp,
never mind the candidate's history of supporting the kind of laws that probably landed them in
prison in the first place.
Overwhelming support for Biden among the ruling class is also amplified by wealthy
celebrities. From Cher's cringe-inducing ditty " Happiness is just a thing called Joe ,"
recently performed at a Biden benefit concert, to Taylor Swift's insistence that 2020's
election is " more important than I could even possibly say ," to questionable
statements from one-time anti-establishment stalwarts like Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys,
Americans are being cajoled, shamed, and pushed into the voting booth to deliver their support
to candidates who have never cared less about average Americans.
Working class people whose lives have been torn asunder by the coronavirus shutdowns Biden
has essentially pledged to expand aren't left with many options. While Trump resisted calls to
lock down the nation, his self-presentation as an anti-establishment maverick contrasts with
four years spent racking up debt and bombing Middle Eastern civilians. Recent polls suggest
that even the " poor and uneducated " - groups whose support for Trump has long been the
butt of liberal jokes - are defecting.
While a New York Times
analysis on Sunday showed Trump continuing to outperform Biden in low-income areas and
Biden's support remains concentrated in traditional liberal bastions on the East and West
Coasts, it showed middle-class suburban voters bailing out of the " Trump train " in
droves. Meanwhile, wealthy and college-educated voters have coalesced around Biden more firmly
than in the past, with even big-money establishment Republican types drawn to Biden's promise
of a return to the Obama-era status quo.
Where does that leave the poor, or those who lost their middle-class status in the last
crash? Trump's detractors have pointed out the irony of the man surrounded by gold presenting
himself as the people's champion, and the Biden campaign is spending relentlessly to poach
wavering Trump supporters, with ads and opinion
pieces featuring self- described
" Christian Republicans " embracing the Democrat.
Short of voting for a third party - described by the media establishment as something akin
to a war crime, especially for swing state residents - the working class is caught in an
unenviable bind. More than a few must be wondering if voting is merely a long con aimed at
drafting Americans into participating in their own oppression. Driving through rural western
Pennsylvania, a state polls insist Biden has bagged, a bumper crop of Trump signs - more than a
few of them handmade - has blossomed, suggesting the small farmers of the Rust Belt really are
expending their meager resources to re-elect the man with the gold-plated
bathroom . But if this is, indeed, what democracy looks like, it's no wonder the system is
losing support among the younger generation.
If you like this story, share it with a friend! Jojo jordan 1 day ago Sorry Helen but
you lost me where you claimed Trump didn't help the working class. Also, the Big companies got
rich during the pandemic due to Democrat Governors and Mayors shutdowns of small businesses.
Biden is THE definition of swamp creature. Trump is for the people. He's a realist. Reply 10 2
Zogg Jojo jordan 1 day ago Nope, Trump heavily damaged the working class when signed the law
having the corporate taxes halved and not halving the working class taxes. tracie72 1 day ago
"It's one big party, we aren't invited." George Carlin J_P_Franklin 1 day ago "wondering if
voting is merely a long con aimed at drafting Americans into participating in their own
oppression" Democracy is the problem. "Voting only encourages them." - Gore Vidal Juan_More
J_P_Franklin 1 day ago Actually it is the reverse. The more the people vote the more it scares
the politicians. It is usually non-aligned voters that make up the vast majority of those who
do not vote. That way the parties count on the party faithful to get out and vote. With all
those independent voters voting it makes those sure thing seats a lot less sure. Why are you
trying to discourage people from voting. From the number of comments like yours I've seen in
social media there would appear to be move to suppress people from voting. Lastly everyone
should keep in mind, there may not be anything worth voting for but there is always something
to vote against.
"... It is indeed more likely that an authoritarian regime can last longer than the current one, and they can more easily push the things they want this way. "Democracy" and "free speech" served their purpose for a time, now it's time to try something else. ..."
@romanempire
ionaires.
"How to consume the surplus capital? " I suspect you maybe confusing money/debt with capital
["-The latter [capital] is so cheap these days it costs nothing to a qualified borrower. "]
which is the capacity to use labour productively, usually combination with technology.
"surplus" capital then is non/under utilised factories etc & labour.
As to the vast inflation of debt/money .as Dr Hudson says, debts that can't be paid,
won't be paid. The easiest way to rid the world of the trillions that elites have, is to
liquidate the elites themselves. Either that, or like Samson, pull the whole shithouse down
around you .
@romanempire
e. the economy/dollar will collapse), or they realize that the global democratic neo-liberal
order is on its last legs, and can't last, so they are anticipating things.
It is indeed more likely that an authoritarian regime can last longer than the current
one, and they can more easily push the things they want this way. "Democracy" and "free
speech" served their purpose for a time, now it's time to try something else.
The final push will be when they make people complete slaves by embedding our bodies with
technology (i.e. Musk's project for a microchip in the brain, among other things). The
Unabomber wrote about that in his Manifesto.
You'd think that voting Republican would be an easy decision if you work on Wall Street,
especially given the lower taxes and the removal of burdensome regulations. But Democrats have
entangled themselves so deeply in the web of Wall Street, that the industry is now leaning to
the left, according to a new report from
Reuters .
The Center for Responsive Politics took a look at how the industry, and its employees, break
down for the 2020 election cycle.
It has been obvious that Democratic candidate Joe Biden has been outpacing President Trump
when it comes to fundraising, and this is also true of "winning cash from the banking
industry," Reuters notes.
Biden's campaign has been the beneficiary of $3 million from commercial banks, compared to
the $1.4 million Trump has raised. This is a far skew from 2012, where Mitt Romney was able to
raise $5.5 million from commercial banks, while Barack Obama only raised $2 million. In 2012,
Wall Street banks were among the top five contributors to Romney' campaign.
In 2020, campaign contributions to congressional races from Wall Street banks are about
even. Republicans have raised $14 million while Democrats have brought in $13.6 million. About
four years ago, Republicans pulled in $18.9 million, which was about twice as much as the
Democrats raised. In 2012, Republicans raised about 61% of total bank donations.
Interestingly enough, when Biden and Trump are removed from the equation, the highest
recipient from Wall Street is none other than Bernie Sanders, who has raised $831,096. Sanders
often tops contributions in many industries due to his grassroots following.
When you remove the employees from the equation and only look at how the bank's political
arms donate, the picture turns more Republican-friendly.
House of Representatives lawmaker Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, one of the senior
Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee, which is key for the banking industry,
tops the list, hauling in $226,000. Next up is Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the top
Republican on that panel, with $185,500 in cash from bank political committees.
The top 20 recipients of bank political funds comprise 14 Republicans and six Democrats.
Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, a senior member of the House banking panel,
received the most among Democrats, with $140,000.
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The shift in data shows that while Wall Street's top brass may still understand the value of
Republican leadership, bank employees themselves may overwhelmingly favor
progressives.
ay_arrow
tonye , 3 hours ago
It's obvious. Wall Street is part of the Deep State...
Le SoJ16 , 3 hours ago
How can you hate capitalism and work for a Wall Street bank?
tonye , 3 hours ago
Because Wall Street is no longer capitalist.
Main Street is capitalist, they create the GNP.
Wall Street is a casino owned by globalists and bankers. They don't create much
anymore.
Macho Latte , 2 hours ago
It has nothing to do with ideology. The Biden is FOR SALE!
Any questions?
Lord Raglan , 2 hours ago
It is because the majority of Wall Street are Jewish and **** overwhelmingly support
Democrats.
David Horowitz has said that 80% of the donations to the Democrat Party come from
****.
KashNCarry , 2 hours ago
What a bunch of ****. Wall St. elites are in it up to their necks casting their lot with
the globalists who want total control NOW. Trump is the only thing in their way....
artvandalai , 3 hours ago
Wall street people don't know much about the real economy. They also know little, nor do
they care about, the real problems faced by business people who have to work everyday to
overcome the policies put in place by liberals.
They do understand finance however. But all that requires is the ability to push paper
around all day.
But let them vote for the Libotards and have them watch Elizabeth Warren take charge of
the US Senate Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Committee. They'll be jumping
out of windows.
FauxReal , 3 hours ago
Wall Street favors free money?
sun tzu , 1 hour ago
Wall Street wants bailouts. 0bozo gave them a yuge bailout
American2 , 2 hours ago
Based on the massively coordinated MSM suppression of the Biden corruption scandal, now I
know why these folks back Biden.
CosmoJoe , 2 hours ago
Democrats as the party of the big banks,
bgundr , 2 hours ago
Of course banksters favor policies that make the average person a slave with less
agency
Homie , 2 hours ago
Especially if you like the endless bailouts, give-aways, and freedom from those pesky
rules limiting the Squid's diet
You'd think that voting Republican would be an easy decision if you work on Wall Street,
especially given the lower taxes and the removal of burdensome regulations.
mtl4 , 2 hours ago
The shift in data shows that while Wall Street's top brass may still understand the
value of Republican leadership, bank employees themselves may overwhelmingly favor
progressives.
The banks are big on corruption and that's one poll the Dems are definitely leading by a
longshot.......thick as thieves.
tunetopper , 2 hours ago
Wall St youngsters dont realize their job is to whore themselves out as much as possible
to the few remaining classes of folk they dont already have accounts with. The few
Millennials and Gen Xers that have enough capital saved up are their target market. Ever
since the take-down of Bear Stearns and Lehman, and the exit of many others from their
Private Client Groups- the Whorewolves of Wall St are very busy pretending to be Progs and
Libs.
And like this post says: " who really cares, they all live in NY, NJ and CT which are
guaranteed Dem states anyway"
So in essence- they have nothing to lose while pretending to be a Prog/Lib. in order to ge
the clients money.
radar99 , 36 minutes ago
I arrived to wall st in 2010. My female boss at a large investment bank hated me from the
moment I criticized Obama. I was and still am absolutely amazed you can work on wall st and
be a democrat
moneybots , 59 minutes ago
"The shift in data shows that while Wall Street's top brass may still understand the value
of Republican leadership, bank employees themselves may overwhelmingly favor
progressives."
So 50 Cent alone went Trump after finding out NYC's top tax rate would be 62% under
Biden?
Flynt2142ahh , 1 hour ago
also known as MBNA Joe Biden friends, you mean the privatize profits but liberalize losses
crowd that always looks for gubment money to bail out failures - Shocking !
invention13 , 1 hour ago
Wall St. just knows Biden is someone you can do business with.
Loser Face , 1 hour ago
Wall Street leans towards anyone who passes laws that benefit Wall Street.
Obamaroid Ointment , 1 hour ago
The Wally Street crowd has always been a bunch Globalist Mercedes Marxists and Limousine
Liberals, this article is ancient history.
Sound of the Suburbs , 2 hours ago
US politicians haven't got a clue what's really going on and got duped by the banker's
shell game.
When you don't know what real wealth creation is, or how banks work, you fall for the
banker's shell game.
Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy towards a financial
crisis.
On a BBC documentary, comparing 1929 to 2008, it said the last time US bankers made as
much money as they did before 2008 was in the 1920s.
Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy into a financial
crisis.
Money and debt come into existence together and disappear together like matter and
anti-matter.
The money flows into the economy making it boom.
The debt builds up in the financial system leading to a financial crisis.
Banks – What is the idea?
The idea is that banks lend into business and industry to increase the productive capacity
of the economy.
Business and industry don't have to wait until they have the money to expand. They can
borrow the money and use it to expand today, and then pay that money back in the future.
The economy can then grow more rapidly than it would without banks.
Debt grows with GDP and there are no problems.
The banks create money and use it to create real wealth.
Caliphate Connie and the Headbangers , 2 hours ago
The banks and corporations of America have been welfare queens since 2008. Regardless of
who wins, they will be the beneficiaries of moar US-style corporate welfare socialism.
Victory_Rossi , 3 hours ago
Wall Street loves globalism and hates the entire ethos of "America First". They're people
with dodgy loyalties and grand self-interests.
FreemonSandlewould , 3 hours ago
What a surprise. The Banking Cartel faction of the Jish Control Grid sent Trotsky and
company to Russia to implement the Bolshevik revolution. Should I be surprised they lean
left?
Well I guess not. But they are at base amoral - that is to say with out moral philosophy.
Their real motto is "Whatever gets the job done".
The $100-plus million blitz includes at least $22 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin
Moskovitz, according to an exclusive report from Recode, a subdivision of Vox. Another
Democratic megadonor involved is former Google and Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt, currently
advising the Pentagon on technology innovation.
Called Future Forward, the super PAC has filed federal paperwork on Tuesday disclosing that
it has raised $66 million between September 1 and October 15. It has contracted for $106
million of TV ads between September 29 and November 3, according to media tracking firm
Advertising Analytics. This makes it the largest Biden booster outside the Democrats' campaign
itself, already a fundraising juggernaut.
Recode also reported that Future Forward "has been recommended in private communications
by the team of Reid Hoffman." He is the LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor
previously caught funding a disinformation
campaign during the 2017 special Senate election in Alabama, in which a company called New
Knowledge created a Twitter army of 'Russian bots' pretending to back the Republican candidate.
It was unclear from the Recode story whether Hoffman had contributed any funding to Moskovitz's
super PAC.
Yves at nakedcapitalism.com sneaks in an endorsement of Trump?!?
Why not? After all, the Democratic Party is practically trying to elect him as they
stumble from one self-inflicted wound to the next.
Naturally, the reader that explains why he's voting for Trump complains that he's doing so
for rational reasons while ignoring the evident set-up. Nor does Yves offer any critical
analysis that might connect dots that have been memory-holed.
So, lets review: the Democrats went 'all in' on bogus Russiagate; on "all victims must be
believed"; and then on a failed impeachment while supporting Trump's domestic agenda (tax
cuts, nominations, etc.) and lending verbal/moral support for his foreign policy agenda
(increased militarism, anti-Maduro, TWO missile attacks on Syria, persecution of Assange,
etc.). With this in mind, more people should see that it's likely that Hillary threw the
election in 2016 this seasoned campaigner : screwed progressives, ignored blacks,
insulted white "deplorables", and chose not to campaign, in the closing weeks of the
election, in the three states SHE KNEW would decide the election.
But there's more. The history of recent Presidential elections indicates a persistent
manipulation:
1992 : Ross Perot re-enters the race so that Bill Clinton is
elected;
2000 : VP Gore concedes to GWBush despite actually winning;
2008 : Obama's "Change You Can Believe" naturally beats old establishment
warmonger (John McCain) but nothing changes - no-drama Obama won't hold intelligence
agencies or Bankers accountable; won't end the wars; won't provide a 'public option' for
Romney Care; won't allow the irresponsible Bush tax cuts to expire; etc.
2016 : Hillary throws the race to MAGA Nationalist Trump who has been selected
to lead the charge against Russia and China (and Iran);
Sheepdogs : it's clear that Sanders played sheepdog in 2016 and 2020 - he is
just the latest to be the Party-controlled 'progressive voice' that pulls punches and falls
in line.
As long as people continue to waste their vote by voting for a duopoly candidate,
nothing will change. Democracy propagandists that play along by, among other things, urge
others to vote for the lesser evil, promote disinfo and do a disservice to their
readers/followers.
What is needed is a root-and-branch reform of the corrupt, money-driven electoral system.
There will not be any real change until/unless that is done. Only real Movements and
third-party candidates offer the hope for such reform to happen peacefully.
Posted by: snake | Oct 5 2020 4:02 utc | 93 430,000,000 virgin Americans
Thought the population as of this year was 331 million? Typo?
True, dissatisfaction with states appears to be on the rise world-wide. The problem is
that people still are still thoroughly brainwashed into believing the problem is *their*
state, not "state" in the abstract. And because of that, *any* change they make is likely to
be for the worse, a la National Socialism. The likelihood of some form of "Chinese Communism"
in this country is next to zero - not that I would welcome that, either, but some here would.
France might swing toward some form of "council socialism", given their previous history with
left revolutions, but I don't see that spreading anywhere else; maybe Spain given their
anarchism history. No, I don't see any evidence that the state itself is under any
significant threat anywhere. States may collapse, even in the US, but they will reform almost
immediately. Any positive changes will be unlikely and even if implemented will quickly be
eroded.
The *only* solution is extermination of the ruling class. "The world will only be free
when the last politician is strangled with the guts of the last priest." And even then,
without some kind of "re-education" of everyone else, it won't last. A new ruling class will
simply arise.
Just looked up that Ben Franklin quote:
First reported by James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
This is what he wrote: "A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or
a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it." Another of his famous quotes
from that era comes just after Washington had been elected the first president. "The first
man put at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards," he said.
But that isn't the full quote. He continued, "The executive will be always increasing here,
as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy."
Well, here we are. We didn't keep it. And here we are: a lunatic in office who thinks he's
King George.
Hands up those who think the election will only have a 'marginal' effect?
"Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page
Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics -- which can be
characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and
two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism -- offers
different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public
policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or
business-oriented. A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of
one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these
contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We
report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key
variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing
business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while
average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent
influence.
The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for
theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or
Majoritarian Pluralism. "
"... Are you arguing that sociopaths have an inalienable right to hold office, even though they will inevitably use that office to aggrandize themselves at the expense of everyone else, and could spark a general war just for their own enjoyment and to gather yet more power to themselves? ..."
"... How do people who don't share your beliefs get represented if you rig the system to exclude them? People unlike you are sociopaths? It isn't even tempting. Your cost benefit study benefits you. The world is destabilized if your guys don't get in? No surprise. ..."
"... The under-employment rate is also very informative. People working less hours or in lower positions than their investment in education should have returned to them. They are working, but not enough to be able to independently sustain themselves, which makes them insecure in variety of ways. ..."
"... It all depends on what the penalties are. Confiscation of hidden assets would chill that behavior, strike one. Loss of the privilege to conduct business with federal and state entities would also chill such behavior, strike two. Finally, for persistent violations of the cap, loss of citizenship and expulsion form the country, three strikes and you are literally out, would be the ultimate penalty. ..."
"... The United States is actually both a federation (hardly unique by the way) and a representative democracy. Whether you call them members of Parliament or members of Congress, their representatives are elected by the people. ..."
Huge numbers of people who disagree with me and don't share my particular beliefs are not sociopaths, nothing would stop them
from running or holding office, and I've no problem with that.
Are you arguing that sociopaths have an inalienable right to hold office, even though they will inevitably use that office
to aggrandize themselves at the expense of everyone else, and could spark a general war just for their own enjoyment and to gather
yet more power to themselves?
How do people who don't share your beliefs get represented if you rig the system to exclude them? People unlike you are sociopaths?
It isn't even tempting. Your cost benefit study benefits you. The world is destabilized if your guys don't get in? No surprise.
Love this line: "the gig economy combined with record debt and astronomically high rent prices cancel out any potential economic
stability for millions of people."
The under-employment rate is also very informative. People working less hours or in lower positions than their investment in
education should have returned to them. They are working, but not enough to be able to independently sustain themselves, which
makes them insecure in variety of ways.
Do you think the interpreters might turn out to be agents, or perhaps even assassins, from other governments? Or maybe everybody
will be knocked out with fentanyl gas at dinner. In the dining room.
1. It all depends on what the penalties are. Confiscation of hidden assets would chill that behavior, strike one. Loss of the
privilege to conduct business with federal and state entities would also chill such behavior, strike two. Finally, for persistent
violations of the cap, loss of citizenship and expulsion form the country, three strikes and you are literally out, would be the
ultimate penalty.
The alternative, continuing to allow unlimited wealth accumulation will ultimately destroy democracy and end in a dictatorship
nearly impossible to remove without massive casualties. Is that preferable to trying to control the behavior of wealth addicts?
Make no mistake: billionaires are addicts, their uncontrollable addiction to more is an extreme form of hoarding dysfunction,
one that, like all uncontrolled addictions, has had disastrous consequences for everyone but them.
3. Fewer Representatives means you are concentrating power rather than dispersing it. More means smaller districts, which in
turn means more accountability, not less. As it stands now, Congresscritters can safely ignore the wishes of the public, because
when someone "represents" nearly a million citizens, it means they actually represent only themselves. If taken in conjunction
with item #2, more citizens would be invested in the political process and far more likely to pay attention.
4. The Hare test is a standard written exam that is difficult to cheat. Getting caught at cheating or attempting to cheat would
mark one automatically as a sociopath. The latest studies of brain structures show that sociopaths have physically different brains,
and those physical differences are detectable. Brain activity as shown by fMRI also clearly marks a sociopath from a normal, since
while they can fake emotional responses very well, their brain activity shows their true lack of response to emotionally charged
images, words, etc. Using a three-layer test, written>fMRI>genetic should be robust enough to correctly identify most. The stakes
are too huge to risk a set of sociopaths and their lackeys control of the machinery of government. The genetic test is the most
likely to give problematic results, but if the written is failed, the fMRI would then be done to confirm or reject the written
results, while the genetics would be a supplementary confirmation. Widespread genetic testing of politicians and would-bes would
undoubtedly advance research and understanding dramatically.
When you do even a casual cost-benefit study, the answer is clear: test them. Ask yourself: is the thwarting of an individual's
potential career in politics really that great a cost compared to preventing unknowingly electing a sociopath who could destabilize
the entire world?
Another big difference of course is a little thing called the law.
Are you under the impression the British don't have rule of law? Their elected representatives make their laws, not
their ceremonial royal family. Their royal family's job is to abide by the same laws as every other UK citizen, stay out of politics
and promote British tourism and gossip magazines.
The United States is actually a federal republic, not a democracy.
The United States is actually both a federation (hardly unique by the way) and a representative democracy. Whether you call
them members of Parliament or members of Congress, their representatives are elected by the people.
If we move the cheap manufacturing to the US, and wages are lower due to a depression, people will take the jobs, and the
job numbers will improve. And China will be toast.
We will never beat China at manufacturing cheap and efficient products using human labor. Robotic labor maybe, but that might
not happen for a decade or more at least--if they or another country doesn't beat us to retooling our factories.
Labor and manufacturing will never return in the US--unless we have another world war we win, in which all global production is
again concentrated in the US because the rest of the worlds factories are bombed to rubble. Besides, they have the most central
location for manufacturing in the world and a cheap source of endless labor.
What they don't have is innovation, tech and freedom to try products out on a free market. We are squandering those advantages
in the US when we cut education and limit college education to the masses.
Are Americans the most immoral people on earth? I don't think so. Do we have the strictest code of laws on earth? I don't think
so either. Yet we have the highest incarceration rate on earth. Higher than authoritarian countries like China & Russia.
This alone should tell you something is wrong with our system. Never mind the stats about differing average sentences depending
on race & wealth.
Doubt implies a reason behind the wrong, where uncertainty implies an unknowing trait--a mystery behind the wrong.
The right, what with all its fake news scams, deep state BS and witch hunt propaganda, is uncertainty at best, a mystery of sorts--it
provides us with a conspiracy that can neither be proved or unproven--an enigma.
Doubt, about if Russia meddled in the US election in collusion with the president or at the least his advisors, surely implies
something is wrong, especially in the face of criminal charges, doubt is inherent and well intentioned, but not always true and
can be proven false in the face of doubt.
At one time the US was agrarian and one could subsist via bartering. Consider reliance on for-profit healthcare, transportation
systems, debt, credit cards, landlords, grocery stores, and the lack of any ability to subsist without statewide and nationwide
infrastructure. Right now, people in the US already die prematurely if they can't afford healthcare. Many are homeless. And this
is when things are better than ever? What will happen here is what happened in Europe during WWII. People will suffer, and they
will be forced to adopt socialist practices (like the EU does today). People in Europe really did starve to death, and people
in India, Africa, and other countries are starving and dying today. China doles out food rations because they practice communism.
That's why they have cheap, efficient labor that serves to manufacture products for US consumers. Communism and socialism help
American corporations big time.
Citizens United is a First Amendment decision. Which part of the First Amendment do you want moot? What gives any government the
right to decide which assemblies of citizens have no free speech rights?
You are aware, I imagine, that the US can adjust its money supply to adapt to circumstances? We can feed ourselves. We have our
own power sources. We can improvise, adapt, and overcome. Prices go up and down. No big deal. Scaring people for political gain
doesn't have the clout it onvce did.
Too many virtue signalers seem to think that only the innocent are ever convicted.
The system is not crooked, but if you can set up a better one that doesn't bankrupt every community, have at it.
You really, really, really like screaming racist, don't you? And slide in a Godwin. Wow. The concept that black pastors would
be negatively impacted by financial attacks on their churches never ever occurred to you, did it? You get off on pretending to
care about people that you have no direct, routine connection to. How virtuous of you. Wouldn't deliberately harming black churches
make you the racist storm trooper?
Violence will break out when credit cards stop working. Can't even imagine what will happen if people are starving. No problem
in a socialistic country like Finland, but a big problem here. My guess is that Trump knows the economy is hanging by a thread,
so needs to create an alternate reason (trade wars). Or he figures he might as well have a trade war if it's all going to pieces
anyway. Of course China manufactures just about everything for the US. If we move the cheap manufacturing to the US, and wages
are lower due to a depression, people will take the jobs, and the job numbers will improve. And China will be toast.
Don't forget as the Trump trade war heats up and China decides to sell off US bonds en-masse (they own 1.17 trillion in US debt).
That's gonna put a hurt on the already low US dollar and could send inflation soaring. China could also devalue its currency and
increase the trade deficit. Combine those with all the things you've pointed out and you've got financial troubles the likes of
which no large government has ever dealt with in human history.
Starving people--China can handle in droves; not so much the US. We're talking nasty violence if that kinda stuff happens here.
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for
profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable,
unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection,
safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
Occupy Wall Street began due to income inequality when the worst effects of the Great Recession were being felt by the population.
Wealth inequality has only increased since then.
Right now, the population is held at bay because the media and politicians claim that the economy is so incredibly hot it's overheating.
But we know that's a lie. For one, the gig economy combined with record debt and astronomically high rent prices cancel out any
potential economic stability for millions of people. This year, 401(k) plans have returned almost nothing (or are going negative).
This was also the case in 2016. Savings accounts have returned almost nothing for the last decade (they should be providing approximately
5% interest).
The worker participation rate today is 3.2% below what it was in 2008 (during the Great Recession). The US population, meanwhile,
has increased by approximately 24,321,000. That's a 7.68% increase. The labor force has increased by 5% during this time (unemployment
rate was relatively similar, 5.6% vs 4%). From June 2008 to June 2018, the labor force increased by approximately 8 million. However,
if the worker participation rate was the same now as it was then, there would be approximately 8 million more people in the labor
force. If you add 8 million people to the current number of people who are counted as unemployed by the BLS, the unemployment
rate is approximately 9%. This is about as high as the unemployment rate got during the depths of the Great Recession, right when
Occupy Wall Street was born.
Now, OK, sure, the economy has REPLACED lost jobs, but it has not ADDED jobs for the last decade. The unemployment rate is false.
It should be at least 8%. There's many millions of Americans who do not have steady, gainful employment - or any employment -
and they are not counted.
The billionaires and their bought politicians are responsible for fixing this. They can fix it and should fix it. Otherwise, the
economy and their profits are going to fall off a giant cliff any day now. The next recession has basically already begun, but
it can still be alleviated. If things continue as they are, unemployment could be 16% by 2020, with the U6 measure approaching
or exceeding 25%. If stocks drop enough, people may starve to death.
Who supported Citizen's United? All cons and republicans
Who supports campaign finance reform and legislation that would make Cititzen's United moot? Democrats and progressives
Really tired of the false equivalencies. Republicans are now the polar opposite of Democrats in policy and principles. Vote Blue
this November and get rid of the republicans; every single one of them. It can be done if people get out and vote.
1. Anything is possible but I don't think this is practical. The rich can just cheat on the definition of ownership, pass it around
between family members, offshore it, sink it into their businesses in token ways, etc. When you try to take wealth (power) away
from the most powerful people in the country they will start devoting SERIOUS resources to getting around it.
3. I'm not saying we need fewer people doing congress's job in total. But we should be electing fewer of them, and letting
those fewer people do more hiring/delegating. The way things are now, most of the public only knows much about the president.
Everyone else is mostly just a vote for a party. But if the country only voted for 50 Congressmen in total - or even fewer - then
we would all have a more careful eye on them. We would know them better and see them more individually. They would have less pressure
to toe the party line all the time.
4. As long as there's a written test then it will get cheated. Right now the testing is rarely given and the specific consequences
don't determine powerful people's careers. Make it a widespread & important thing and people will learn to cheat it.
The genetic + fMRI research is interesting but the whole thing opens up serious cans of worms. We're talking about DQ'ing somebody
from an important career based partially on the results of a genetic screening for a character trait. That's a dangerous business
for our whole society to get into. Although I do realize the payoff for this specific instance would be very big.
1. Why do you think that? Using teams of forensic accountants and outlawing secret accounts would go a long way towards increasing
enforceability. But you are viewing it as a legal problem rather than a cultural problem. If an effective propaganda campaign
aimed on one level at the public and another level at the billionaires, it could work. Many billionaires are already committed
to returning their fortunes to the economy (mostly after they are dead, true). Convince a few and the rest will follow. Give them
the lure of claiming the title of the richest who ever were and some would be eager for that place in history.
Anything can be done if the will is there.
2. Income taxes are just a portion of the federal revenues, ~47%. Corporate taxes, parkland fees, excise taxes, ~18% taken
together and Social Security make up the rest. Revenues would increase as taxpayers topped off step amounts to keep control. The
beauty of it is that Congress would see very clearly where the nation's priorities were. Any politician trying to raise fines
so that they had more money under their control would soon find themselves out of office. Unpopular programs would
have to be financed out of the 18%, and that would likely make them increase corporate taxes. But most importantly, it would cut
the power of politicians and decrease the effectiveness of lobbyists.
3. Actually, we have too few, not too many. The work of governance suffers because there is too much to be done and too few
to do it. Spreading the workload and assigning responsibility areas would increase efficiency. Most importantly though, it would
break up the oligarchic duopoly that keeps a stranglehold on the nation's politics, and bring more third party candidates into
office giving Congress a more diverse culture by adding viewpoints based on other things than business interests.
4. Actually, advances in fMRI equipment and procedures, along with genetics and written testing can prove beyond a reasonable
doubt whether or not someone is a sociopath, do some research and you'l see it is true. False positives in any testing regime
are always an issue, but tens of millions of workers submit to drug tests to qualify for their jobs, and their jobs don't usually
run the risk of plunging the world into war, economic or environmental disasters. False positives are common in the workplace
and cost many thousands their jobs.
And there's an easy way to prove you aren't really a sociopath: be honest, don't lie, and genuinely care about people...things
sociopaths cannot do over time.
Seriously, it is a societal safety issue that demands to be done, protecting the few against false positives means opening
the floodgates for the many sociopaths who seek power over others.
Not just eliminate--alter and add to it, but since it takes 2/3 majority of the house and senate to amend the constitution--it's
not an easy feat--that's why there has only been 17 amendments altogether and two of them are there to cancel each other out!
You see, the beauty behind the National
Popular Vote Bill is that it's done on a state by state basis and will only work when the required 270 electoral votes are
gained with the bill--this means all voters would have their votes tallied in a presidential election and it eliminates swing
states with a winner takes all approach. The electoral college and state control of elections are preserved and every one is happy.
I feel like you've not read up on any of this even though I provide a link. 12 of these bills have been enacted into state law
already, comprising of 172 electoral votes and 3,112 legislative sponsors. That's more than halfway there.
To continue to say that changing the way we vote by altering the EC is a fantasy is in itself a fantasy because obviously it is
gaining traction across the country.
Which 'side' do you imagine I'm on Mike ? FYI.. Im not a member of any tribe especially regarding the republican or democrat parties...
you may have noticed that as part of the progress towards a globalized economy, 'Money' now has open borders...but the restrictions
of movement for people are growing as nationalism rises and wealth and the power it yields, becomes ever more concentrated in
fewer hands...this is a dangerous precedent and history repeats if lessons of the past are not learned.
I can well recall when humanity and the ability of the individual to attain freedom and liberty based upon the merit of the individual
was once celebrated.
What really irks me and causes me to voice my opinion on this forum, ( thank you Guardian for your continued efforts at informing
us all and especially for promoting participation) is how easily people are duped .. when 'others' can easily see that they are
being lied to. My parents fought for freedom and liberty against vicious tyranny in Europe and paid a HUGE price..by the time
the scales had tipped the balance towards fascism, it was far too late for anything other than all out war... the fact that they
survived the required sacrifice to pitch in to protect democracy, and the freedom and liberty which comes with it, still seems
miraculous..
Billionaires on the left should put some of that money into paying for and distributing subscriptions to newspapers and magazines
which live up to the standards of professional journalism. These papers should be made available, free, at high schools, colleges,
libraries, and commercial centers of loitering and "neighborly" discussions. May I suggest the NYT, WP, The Guardian, and The
Economist.
"What the country sorely needs is a new constitution."
No thanks! The Founders were quite a bit more intelligent than the current national 'brain trust' -- on the both sides
of the Aisle -- that would be charged with writing a new Constitution.
1) Democracy with a population that is at least minimally engaged and angrily stays that
way (including removing powerful special interests from premises with pitchforks)
2) Being "managed" on behalf of various power centers. This can be liveable or can turn into
strip mining of your "resources".
Sadly, there is no algorithm that allows you to detect whether your are engaged or are
being engaged on behalf of others. That would be easy. But one should start with a minimal
state, hard money and the sons of the upper crust on the front lines and forbidden from
taking office in government.
That being said, this article is a bit meandering. Came for Bellingcat but was
confused.
Who presented the Emmy Award to the film makers, but none other than the rebel
journalist Chris Hedges.
@El Dato "1) Democracy with a population that is at least minimally engaged and angrily
stays that way (including removing powerful special interests from premises with pitchforks)"
There are no revolutions by means of pitchforks in a democracy, everything is weakened by
compromise, false promises, infiltration, manipulation, etc. You cannot stay angry all the
time too, it is very bad for your health, it needs to be short and intense to be effective,
which is exactly what democracy prevents.
Democracy turns you into a petted animal.
CARLSON: But more broadly, what you are saying, I think is, that the Democratic Party
understands what it is and who it represents and affirmatively represents them. They do
things for their voters, but the Republican Party doesn't actually represent its own voters
very well.
VANCE: Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, look at who the Democratic Party is and look, I
don't like the Democratic Party's policies.
CARLSON: Yes.
VANCE: Most of the times, I disagree with them. But I at least admire that they recognize
who their voters are and they actually just as raw cynical politics do a lot of things to
serve those voters.
Now, look at who Republican voters increasingly are. They are people who
disproportionately serve in the military, but Republican foreign policy has been a disaster
for a lot of veterans. They are disproportionately folks who want to have more children.
They are people who want to have more single earner families. They are people who don't
necessarily want to go to college but they want to work in an economy where if you play by
the rules, you can you actually support a family on one income.
CARLSON: Yes.
VANCE: Have Republicans done anything for those people really in the last 15 or 20 years?
I think can you point to some policies of the Trump administration. Certainly, instinctively,
I think the President gets who his voters are and what he has to do to service those folks.
But at the end of the day, the broad elite of the party, the folks who really call the shots,
the think tank intellectuals, the people who write the policy, I just don't think they
realize who their own voters are.
Now, the slightly more worrying implication is that maybe some of them do realize who
their voters are, they just don't actually like those voters much.
CARLSON: Well, that's it. So I watch the Democratic Party and I notice that if there is a
substantial block within it, it's this unstable coalition, all of these groups have nothing
in common, but the one thing they have in common is the Democratic Party will protect
them.
VANCE: Yes.
CARLSON: You criticize a block of Democratic Voters and they are on you like a wounded
wombat. They will bite you. The Republicans, watch their voters come under attack and sort of
nod in agreement, "Yes, these people should be attacked."
VANCE: Yes, that's absolutely right. I mean, if you talk to people who spent their lives
in D.C. I know you live in D.C.
CARLSON: Yes.
VANCE: I've spent a lot of my life here. The people who spend their time in D.C. who work
on Republican campaigns, who work at conservative think tanks, now this isn't true of
everybody, but a lot of them actually don't like the people who are voting for Republican
candidates these days.
"... Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has not seen these levels of concentration of ownership. The Soviet Union did not die because of apparent ideological reasons but due to economic bankruptcy caused by its uncompetitive monopolistic economy. Our verdict is that the US is heading in the same direction. ..."
"... In a future instalment of this report, we will show that the oligarchization of America – the placing it under the rule of the One Percent (or perhaps more accurately the 0.1%, if not 0.01%) - has been a deliberate ideologically driven long-term project to establish absolute economic power over the US and its political system and further extend that to involve an absolute global hegemony (the latter project thankfully thwarted by China and Russia). ..."
"... In present-day United States a few major investors – equity funds or private capital - are as a rule cross-owned by each other, forming investor oligopolies, which in turn own the business oligopolies. ..."
"... A study has shown that among a sample of the 1,500 largest US firms (S&P 1500), the probability of one major shareholder holding significant shares in two competing firms had jumped to 90% in 2014, while having been just 16% in 1999. (*2). ..."
"... Institutional investors like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and JP Morgan, now own 80% of all stock in S&P 500 listed companies. The Big Three investors - BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – alone constitute the largest shareholder in 88% of S&P 500 firms, which roughly correspond to America's 500 largest corporations. (*3). Both BlackRock and Vanguard are among the top five shareholders of almost 70% of America's largest 2,000 publicly traded corporations. (*4). ..."
A close-knit oligarchy controls all major corporations. Monopolization of ownership in US
economy fast approaching Soviet levels
Starting with Ronald Reagan's presidency, the US government willingly decided to ignore the
anti-trust laws so that corporations would have free rein to set up monopolies. With each
successive president the monopolistic concentration of business and shareholding in America has
grown precipitously eventually to reach the monstrous levels of the present day.
Today's level of monopolistic concentration is of such unprecedented levels that we may
without hesitation designate the US economy as a giant oligopoly. From economic power follows
political power, therefore the economic oligopoly translates into a political oligarchy. (It
seems, though, that the transformation has rather gone the other way around, a ferocious set of
oligarchs have consolidated their economic and political power beginning from the turn of the
twentieth century). The conclusion that
the US is an oligarchy finds support in a 2014 by a Princeton University study.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has not seen these levels of concentration
of ownership. The Soviet Union did not die because of apparent ideological reasons but due to
economic bankruptcy caused by its uncompetitive monopolistic economy. Our verdict is that the
US is heading in the same direction.
In a later report, we will demonstrate how all sectors of the US economy have fallen prey to
monopolization and how the corporate oligopoly has been set up across the country. This post
essentially serves as an appendix to that future report by providing the shocking details of
the concentration of corporate ownership.
Apart from illustrating the monopolization at the level of shareholding of the major
investors and corporations, we will in a follow-up post take a somewhat closer look at one
particularly fatal aspect of this phenomenon, namely the
consolidation of media (posted simultaneously with the present one) in the hands of
absurdly few oligarch corporations. In there, we will discuss the monopolies of the tech giants
and their ownership concentration together with the traditional media because they rightfully
belong to the same category directly restricting speech and the distribution of opinions in
society.
In a future instalment of this report, we will show that the oligarchization of America
– the placing it under the rule of the One Percent (or perhaps more accurately the 0.1%,
if not 0.01%) - has been a deliberate ideologically driven long-term project to establish
absolute economic power over the US and its political system and further extend that to involve
an absolute global hegemony (the latter project thankfully thwarted by China and Russia). To
achieve these goals, it has been crucial for the oligarchs to control and direct the narrative
on economy and war, on all public discourse on social affairs. By seizing the media, the
oligarchs have created a monstrous propaganda machine, which controls the opinions of the
majority of the US population.
We use the words 'monopoly,' 'monopolies,' and 'monopolization' in a broad sense and subsume
under these concepts all kinds of market dominance be it by one company or two or a small
number of companies, that is, oligopolies. At the end of the analysis, it is not of great
importance how many corporations share in the market dominance, rather what counts is the death
of competition and the position enabling market abuse, either through absolute dominance,
collusion, or by a de facto extinction of normal market competition. Therefore we use the term
'monopolization' to describe the process of reaching a critical level of non-competition on a
market. Correspondingly, we may denote 'monopoly companies' two corporations of a duopoly or
several of an oligopoly.
Horizontal shareholding – the cementation of the
oligarchy
One especially perfidious aspect of this concentration of ownership is that the same few
institutional investors have acquired undisputable control of the leading corporations in
practically all the most important sectors of industry. The situation when one or several
investors own controlling or significant shares of the top corporations in a given industry
(business sector) is referred to as horizontal shareholding . (*1). In present-day United
States a few major investors – equity funds or private capital - are as a rule
cross-owned by each other, forming investor oligopolies, which in turn own the business
oligopolies.
A study has shown that among a sample of the 1,500 largest US firms (S&P 1500), the
probability of one major shareholder holding significant shares in two competing firms had
jumped to 90% in 2014, while having been just 16% in 1999. (*2).
Institutional investors like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and JP Morgan, now
own 80% of all stock in S&P 500 listed companies. The Big Three investors - BlackRock,
Vanguard and State Street – alone constitute the largest shareholder in 88% of S&P
500 firms, which roughly correspond to America's 500 largest corporations. (*3). Both BlackRock
and Vanguard are among the top five shareholders of almost 70% of America's largest 2,000
publicly traded corporations. (*4).
Blackrock had as of 2016 $6.2 trillion worth of assets under management, Vanguard $5.1
trillion, whereas State Street has dropped to a distant third with only $1 trillion in assets.
This compares with a total market capitalization of US stocks according to Russell
3000 of $30 trillion at end of 2017 (From 2016 to 2017, the Big Three has of course also
put on assets).Blackrock and Vanguard would then alone own more than one-third of all US
publicly listed shares.
From an expanded sample that includes the 3,000 largest publicly listed corporations
(Russell 3000 index), institutions owned (2016) about
78% of the equity .
The speed of concentration the US economy in the hands of institutions has been incredible.
Still back in 1950s, their share of the equity was 10%, by 1980 it was 30% after which the
concentration has rapidly grown to the present day approximately 80%. (*5). Another study puts
the present (2016) stock market capitalization held by institutional investors at 70%. (*6).
(The slight difference can possibly be explained by variations in the samples of companies
included).
As a result of taking into account the common ownership at investor level, it emerges that
the US economy is yet much more monopolized than it was previously thought when the focus had
been on the operational business corporation alone detached from their owners. (*7).
The
Oligarch owners assert their control
Apologists for monopolies have argued that the institutional investors who manage passive
capital are passive in their own conduct as shareholders as well. (*8). Even if that would be
true it would come with vastly detrimental consequences for the economy as that would mean that
in effect there would be no shareholder control at all and the corporate executives would
manage the companies exclusively with their own short-term benefits in mind, inevitably leading
to corruption and the loss of the common benefits businesses on a normally functioning
competitive market would bring.
In fact, there seems to have been a period in the US economy – before the rapid
monopolization of the last decade -when such passive investors had relinquished control to the
executives. (*9). But with the emergence of the Big Three investors and the astonishing
concentration of ownership that does not seem to hold water any longer. (*10). In fact, there
need not be any speculation about the matter as the monopolist owners are quite candid about
their ways. For example, BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink sends out
an annual guiding letter to his subject, practically to all the largest firms of the US and
increasingly also Europe and the rest of the West. In his pastoral, the CEO shares his view of
the global conditions affecting business prospects and calls for companies to adjust their
strategies accordingly.
The investor will eventually review the management's strategic plans for compliance with the
guidelines. Effectively, the BlackRock CEO has in this way assumed the role of a giant central
planner, rather like the Gosplan, the central planning agency of the Soviet command
economy.
The 2019 letter (referenced above) contains this striking passage, which should quell all
doubts about the extent to which BlackRock exercises its powers:
"As we seek to build long-term value for our clients through engagement, our aim is not to
micromanage a company's operations. Instead, our primary focus is to ensure board
accountability for creating long-term value. However, a long-term approach should not be
confused with an infinitely patient one. When BlackRock does not see progress despite ongoing
engagement, or companies are insufficiently responsive to our efforts to protect our clients'
long-term economic interests, we do not hesitate to exercise our right to vote against
incumbent directors or misaligned executive compensation."
Considering the striking facts rendered above, we should bear in mind that the establishment
of this virtually absolute oligarch ownership over all the largest corporations of the United
States is a relatively new phenomenon. We should therefore expect that the centralized control
and centralized planning will rapidly grow in extent as the power is asserted and methods are
refined.
Most of the capital of those institutional investors consists of so-called passive capital,
that is, such cases of investments where the investor has no intention of trying to achieve any
kind of control of the companies it invests in, the only motivation being to achieve as high as
possible a yield. In the overwhelming majority of the cases the funds flow into the major
institutional investors, which invest the money at their will in any corporations. The original
investors do not retain any control of the institutional investors, and do not expect it
either. Technically the institutional investors like BlackRock and Vanguard act as fiduciary
asset managers. But here's the rub, while the people who commit their assets to the funds may
be considered as passive investors, the institutional investors who employ those funds are most
certainly not.
Cross-ownership of oligarch corporations
To make matters yet worse, it must be kept in mind that the oligopolistic investors in turn
are frequently cross-owned by each other. (*11). In fact, there is no transparent way of
discovering who in fact controls the major institutional investors.
One of the major institutional investors, Vanguard is ghost owned insofar as it does not
have any owners at all in the traditional sense of the concept. The company claims that it is
owned by the multiple funds that it has itself set up and which it manages. This is how the
company puts it on
their home page : "At Vanguard, there are no outside owners, and therefore, no conflicting
loyalties. The company is owned by its funds, which in turn are owned by their shareholders --
including you, if you're a Vanguard fund investor." At the end of the analysis, it would then
seem that Vanguard is owned by Vanguard itself, certainly nobody should swallow the charade
that those funds stuffed with passive investor money would exercise any ownership control over
the superstructure Vanguard. We therefore assume that there is some group of people (other than
the company directors) that have retained the actual control of Vanguard behind the scenes
(perhaps through one or a few of the funds). In fact, we believe that all three (BlackRock,
State Street and Vanguard) are tightly controlled by a group of US oligarchs (or more widely
transatlantic oligarchs), who prefer not to brandish their power. It is beyond the scope of
this study and our means to investigate this hypothesis, but whatever, it is bad enough that as
a proven fact these three investor corporations wield this control over most of the American
economy. We also know that the three act in concert wherever they hold shares.
(*12).
Now, let's see who are the formal owners of these institutional investors
In considering these ownership charts, please, bear in mind that we have not consistently
examined to what degree the real control of one or another company has been arranged through a
scheme of issuing different classes of shares, where a special class of shares give vastly more
voting rights than the ordinary shares. One source asserts
that 355 of the companies in the Russell index consisting of the 3000 largest corporations
employ such a dual voting-class structure, or 11.8% of all major corporations.
We have mostly relied on www.stockzoa.com for the shareholder data. However, this and
other sources tend to list only the so-called institutional investors while omitting corporate
insiders and other individuals. (We have no idea why such strange practice is employed
Oligarchy owns the USA political system and tune it to their needs. Proliferation of NGO is one such trick that favor
oligarchy.
That kind of influence over expert opinion is immense—and it yields results. In April, Gates called for a nationwide total
lockdown for 10 weeks. America didn’t quite sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get absolutely
crushed small businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits. Microsoft stock is at an all-time high.
Notable quotes:
"... Non-profit activity lets super-elites broker political power tax-free, reshaping the world according to their designs. ..."
"... The American tax code makes all of this possible. It greases the skids for the wealthy to use their fortunes to augment their political power. The 501(c)(3) designation makes all donations, of whatever size, to charitable nonprofits immune from taxation. ..."
"... For the super-wealthy, political power comes tax-free. ..."
"... No one ever elected Bill Gates to anything. His wealth, and not the democratic process, is the only reason he has an outsized voice in shaping coronavirus policy. The man who couldn't keep viruses out of Windows now wants to vaccinate the planet. That isn't an unreasonable goal for a man of his wealth, either. Gates's foundation is the second largest donor to the World Health Organization, providing some 10 percent of its funds . That kind of influence over expert opinion is immense -- and it yields results. In April , Gates called for a nationwide total lockdown for 10 weeks. America didn't quite sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get absolutely crushed small businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits. Microsoft stock is at an all-time high . ..."
"... Eliminating the tax exemption for charitable giving would make it simple to heavily tax the capital gains that drive the wealth of America's richest one thousand people. One could also leave the exemption in place for most Americans (those with a net worth under $100 million), while making larger gifts, especially those over a billion dollars, taxable at extremely high rates close to 100%. Bill Gates wants to give a billion dollars to his foundation? Great. But he should pay a steep fee to the American people to purchase that kind of power. ..."
"... There is nothing socialist in these or similar tax proposals. We are not making an abstract commentary on whether having a billion dollars is "moral." These are simply prudential measures to put the people back in charge of their own country. Reining in billionaires and monopolists is a conservative free market strategy. ..."
"... An America governed by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and George Soros will be -- arguably, already is -- a disaster for the middle class and everyday Americans. Cracking down on their "selfless" philanthropy, combined with antitrust enforcement and higher progressive tax rates, is a key way for Americans to leverage the power of the ballot box against the power of the banker's vault. ..."
"... The rotting edifice that is the United States is coming down one way or another. Just accept it. ..."
"... I would end tax exempt status for organizations. When everyone pays taxes we all become better stewards of how that money is used. ..."
"... To think both Mr. Dreher and Mr. Van Buren just recently posted about the superwealthy leaving the big cities, citing as the main reasons the Covid thing on the one hand, and "excessively high" income taxes on the other. Most comments that followed were in the line of "that's what happens when you let socialists run things" and "stop giving money to the poor, then they'll work and get rich." And here we have someone proposing more and higher taxes on the wealthy to bust their political nuts. ..."
"... It's an interesting proposal, but it seems that if you're worried about super-elites brokering political power tax-free, you might focus on direct brokering of political power. For example, we could pass a law requiring full disclosure of all sources of funding for any political advertising. ..."
Non-profit activity lets super-elites broker political power tax-free, reshaping the world
according to their designs.
America's super-wealthy have too much power. A republican regime based on the consent of the
governed cannot survive when a few hands control too large a sum of money and too much human
capital. A dominion of monopolists spells ruin for the common man.
The Federal Reserve calculates that, at present, America's total household wealth equals
$104 trillion .
Of that,
$3.4 trillion belongs to America's 600 billionaires alone. Put another way, 3% of the
nation's wealth belongs to 0.0002% of the population. Those 600 names control twice as much
wealth as the least wealthy 170 million Americans combined . This is a problem. Economic
power means political power. In an era of mass media, it has never been easier to manufacture
public opinion and to manipulate the citizenry.
Look no further than the consensus view of
Fortune 500 companies as to the virtues of Black Lives Matter. That movement's incredible
cultural reach is, in large part, a function of its cachet among American elites. In 2016, the
Ford Foundation began a
Black-Led Movement Fund to funnel $100 million into racial and social justice causes.
George Soros' Open Society Foundation immediately poured in $33 million in grants.
Soros and company received a massive return on investment. The shift leftward on issues of
racial and social justice in the last four years has been nothing short of remarkable.
Net public support for BLM , at minus 5 percent in 2018, has surged to plus 28 percent in
2020. The New York Times estimates that some 15 to
26 million Americans participated in recent protests over George Floyd's death.
And the money keeps flowing. In the last three months, hundreds of millions of dollars have
poured into social and racial justice causes.
Sony Music Group , the
NFL ,
Warner Music Group , and
Comcast all have promised gifts in excess of $100 million. MacKenzie Bezos has
promised more than a billion dollars to Historically Black Colleges and Universities as
well as other racial and social justice organizations. Yet, as scholars like Heather
MacDonald have pointed out -- America's justice system is not racist. Disquieting anecdotes
and wrenching videos blasted across cyberspace are not the whole of, or even representative of,
our reality. But well-heeled media and activism campaigns can change the perception. That's
what matters.
The American tax code makes all of this possible. It greases the skids for the wealthy to
use their fortunes to augment their political power. The 501(c)(3) designation makes all
donations, of whatever size, to charitable nonprofits immune from taxation.
A man can only eat so much filet mignon in one lifetime. He can only drive so many
Lamborghinis and vacation in so many French chalets. At a certain point, the longing for
material pleasures gives way to a longing for honor and power. What a super-elite really wants
is to be remembered for "changing the world." The tax code makes the purchasing of such honors
even easier than buying fast cars and luxury homes.
For the super-wealthy, political power comes tax-free.
No one ever elected Bill Gates to anything. His wealth, and not the democratic process, is
the only reason he has an outsized voice in shaping coronavirus policy. The man who couldn't
keep viruses out of Windows now wants to vaccinate the
planet. That isn't an unreasonable goal for a man of his wealth, either. Gates's foundation
is the second largest donor to the World Health Organization,
providing some 10 percent of its funds . That kind of influence over expert opinion is
immense -- and it yields results.
In April , Gates called for a nationwide total lockdown for 10 weeks. America didn't quite
sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get absolutely crushed small
businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits. Microsoft stock is at an
all-time high .
No one ever voted on those lockdowns, either. Like the mask-wearing mandates, they were
instituted by executive fiat. The experts
, many of them funded through donations given by tech billionaires like Gates , campaigned for policies that
radically altered the basic structure of society. Here lies the danger of billionaire power.
Without adequate checks and balances, the super-wealthy can skirt the normal political process,
working behind the scenes to make policies that the people never even have a chance to debate
or vote on.
A republic cannot be governed this way. America needs to bring its current crop of oligarchs
to heel. That starts with constraining their ability to commandeer their massive personal
fortunes to shape policy. Technically, the 501(c)(3) designation prevents political activities
by tax-exempt charities. Those rules apply only to political campaigning and lobbying, however.
They say nothing about funding legal battles or shaping specific policies indirectly through
research and grants. America's universities, think tanks, and advocacy organizations are nearly
universally considered tax-exempt nonprofits. Only a fool would believe they are not
political.
One solution to the nonprofit problem to simply get rid of the charitable exemption all
together. If there is no loophole, it can't be exploited by the mega-wealthy. Most Americans'
charitable giving wouldn't be affected. The average American gives between $2,000 and
$3,000 per year . That is well under the $24,800 standard tax deduction for married
couples. Ninety
percent of taxpayers have no reason to use a line-item deduction. Such a change likely
wouldn't affect wealthy givers either. In
2014 , the average high-income American (defined as making more than $200,000 per year or
having a million dollars in assets) gave an average of $68,000 to charity, and in 2018
93 percent said
their giving had nothing to do with tax breaks.
Eliminating the tax exemption for charitable giving would make it simple to heavily tax the
capital gains that drive the wealth of America's richest one thousand people. One could also
leave the exemption in place for most Americans (those with a net worth under $100 million),
while making larger gifts, especially those over a billion dollars, taxable at extremely high
rates close to 100%. Bill Gates wants to give a billion dollars to his foundation? Great. But
he should pay a steep fee to the American people to purchase that kind of power.
There is nothing socialist in these or similar tax proposals. We are not making an abstract
commentary on whether having a billion dollars is "moral." These are simply prudential measures
to put the people back in charge of their own country. Reining in billionaires and monopolists
is a conservative free market strategy.
Incentives to make more money are generally good. The libertarians are mostly right --
people are usually better judges of how to spend and use their resources than the
government.
But not always. The libertarian account does not adequately recognize man's political
nature. We need law and order. We need a regime where elections matter and the opinions of the
people actually shape policy. Contract law, borders, and taxes are all necessary to human
flourishing, but all impede the total and unrestricted movement of labor and money. At the very
top of the wealth pyramid, concentrated economic power always turns into political power. An
economic policy that doesn't recognize that fact will create an untouchable class that controls
both the market and the regime. There's nothing freeing about that outcome.
An America governed by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and George Soros will be --
arguably, already is -- a disaster for the middle class and everyday Americans. Cracking
down on their "selfless" philanthropy, combined with antitrust enforcement and higher
progressive tax rates, is a key way for Americans to leverage the power of the ballot box
against the power of the banker's vault.
Josiah Lippincott is a former Marine officer and current Master's student at the Van
Andel School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College.
I'd like to thank the author for actually discussing policy proposals that actually
make sense. That's a rarity on TAC. However, he needs to keep a couple of things in
mind:
1. You can't just say something isn't socialist on a conservative website.
Conservatives have been conditioned for decades to believe that anything the GOP
considers to be bad is called by the name "socialism". And taxes are bad. Therefore
socialist. To bring any nuance to that word will be devastating to long-term conservative
ability to argue points.
2. This proposal won't just hurt the ability of left-leaning tech giants, but also
right-leaning oil and defense industry barons. A double-edged sword.
This is an interesting idea that might have had a shot, big maybe, 50 plus years ago.
America is too far gone to fix with political changes, not that you could make any major
changes like this in the current political environment.
The rotting edifice that is the United States is coming down one way or another. Just
accept it.
Certainly! Just so long as the word "organizations" encompasses churches as well, I
think lots of people on all sides of the political spectrum would agree.
Complicated argument. Basically, charitable people will always give charity, even from
taxed income. However, if people give charity from taxed income, the state can no longer
control what the institutions given money do with that money as long as salaries and
surplus are taxed.
Interesting proposal. Removing tax deduction should of course throw IRS out of
monitoring charitable giving. So less power to Lois Lerner and colleagues.
To think both Mr. Dreher and Mr. Van Buren just recently posted about the superwealthy
leaving the big cities, citing as the main reasons the Covid thing on the one hand, and
"excessively high" income taxes on the other. Most comments that followed were in the
line of "that's what happens when you let socialists run things" and "stop giving money
to the poor, then they'll work and get rich." And here we have someone proposing more and
higher taxes on the wealthy to bust their political nuts.
Note that the author carefully left out any mention of conservative megadonors shaping
public policy. Must be the quiet part, to avoid tarring and feathering by his own
side.
Say you like the game of Monopoly so much that you want it to last longer than
the few hours it takes for one player to dominate and beat the others. Well, you could
replace $200 as you pass Go with progessive taxation on income, assets, or a combination
thereof. If you do it right, you can make the game last into perpetuity by ensuring that
the dominance of any one player is only temporary.
It's an interesting proposal, but it seems that if you're worried about super-elites
brokering political power tax-free, you might focus on direct brokering of political
power. For example, we could pass a law requiring full disclosure of all sources of
funding for any political advertising.
If we wanted to be aggressive, we could even pass
a constitutional amendment to specify that corporations are not people. It seems odd to
worry about the political power exercised by institutions with no direct control over
politics, and ignore the institution whose purpose is politics.
Another approach to deal with the direct influence of the super-elite would be to make
lobbying expenses no longer tax deductible. I'm sure you could find support for that.
This is the 5th TAC article since May to take something word-for-word from a Bernie
Sanders-esque Leftist platform and call it something "Conservatives" want. GTFOOH.
Mr. Lippincott: That kind of influence over expert opinion is immense -- and it yields
results. In April, Gates called for a nationwide total lockdown for 10 weeks. America
didn't quite sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get
absolutely crushed small businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits.
Microsoft stock is at an all-time high.
So the argument here is that the experts were not going to call for a lockdown, but
Mr. Gates' outsized influence made them do it? The experts weren't going to do it anyway?
Did that outsized influence extend to every other country in the world which imposed
lockdowns? Was there a secret communique between Mr. Gates and the NBA so they suspended
their season in mid-March? In the US, CA, Clark Cty in NV, Illinois, Kansas City, MA, MI,
NY, OR, and WI all began lockdowns in March. Around the world, 80 countries began
lockdowns in March. No matter what Mr. Gates said, lockdowns were deemed to be
appropriate. Plus, Mr. Lippincott admits that Mr. Gates' proposal was not followed. In
terms of "massive tech firms making out like bandits" v small businesses, might that have
anything to do with their value?
I very much agree with this article and I think we need another Teddy Roosevelt
Monopoly (oligarchy) buster but much has changed in the 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt
was President. The first thing that comes to mind is that the aristocracy was mostly
protestant and the business class was mostly domestic with high tariffs keeping foreign
competitors out so we could break up these companies without a foreign country purchasing
them and possibly creating a national security risk.
Today's aristocracy is much more diverse. Its more Jewish and it has much more
minority representation from African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, etc so that creates
the first problem in breaking up a monopoly or an oligarchy which would be the accusation
of targeting minorities for discrimination. The second problem is that many of the
aristocratic class in the US consider themselves global citizens and have dual
citizenship. They can live anywhere anytime they choose so if you target them the way say
Cuomo and DiBlasio and Newsom do then they will leave. Third problem is our global
society particularly the digital / virtual society. If you break that up without
safeguards then you will only be inviting foreign ownership then you will have a national
security issue and even less influence.
The biggest problem is the NGOs, nonprofits that the rich set up to usurp the
government on various issues from immigration to gender identity to politics. These NGO
nonprofits arent your harmless community soup kitchen doing good works. The anarchy,
arson, looting, rioting in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, NYC, Baltimore these are paid for
by NGO nonprofits and they have the money to threaten local government, state government
and federal government. Trump was 100% correct when he started to tax college endowments
but he didnt go far enough. The tax laws have to be rewritten with a very strict and
narrow interpretation of what exactly constitutes the public good and is deserving on
non-profit status. If you say education then I will say you are correct but endowments
are an investment vehicle under the umbrella of an educational nonprofit. Thats like a
nonprofit hospital buying a mutual fund company or a mine or a manufacturing plan and
claiming its non-profit. For me its relatively simple unless someone has a some other
way. If you look at the non-profit community good...what are the budgets for say
hospitals, schools, orphanages, retirement homes, etc. Put monetary limits on nonprofits
which can vary depending on industry and the rest is taxed at a high rate. We simply
cannot have NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) using a nonprofit status to bring down a
country's financial system, over-throwing a country, financing civil strife and civil
war, usurping the government on things like immigration, etc.
Billionaires like Jeff Bezos aren't obscenely wealthy because they work harder than everyone
else or they're more innovative. They're obscenely wealthy because their corporate empires
drain society's resources -- and we'd all be better off without them.
This week, Amazon CEO
Jeff Bezos saw the largest single-day increase in wealth ever recorded for any individual. In
just one day, his fortune increased by $13 billion. On current trends, he is on track to become
the world's first trillionaire by 2026.Those on the right wing of politics argue that extreme
wealth is a function of hard work, creativity, and innovation that benefits society. But wealth
and income inequality have increased dramatically in most advanced economies in recent years.
The richest of the rich are much wealthier today than they were several decades ago, but it is
not clear that they are working any harder.
Mainstream economists make a more nuanced version of this argument. They claim that the
dramatic increase in income inequality has been driven by the dynamics of globalization and the
rise of "superstars." Firms and corporate executives are now competing in a global market for
capital and talent, so the rewards at the top are much higher -- even as competition also
constrains wages for many toward the bottom end of the distribution.
According to this view, high levels of inequality are a reward for high productivity. The
most productive firms will attract more investment than their less productive counterparts, and
their managers, who are performing a much more complex job than those managing smaller firms,
will be rewarded accordingly.
But here again the narrative runs aground on contact with reality. Productivity has not
risen alongside inequality in recent years. In fact, in the United States and the UK
productivity has flatlined since the financial crisis -- and in the United States, it has been
declining since the turn of the century.
There is another explanation for the huge profits of the world's largest corporations and
the huge fortunes of the superrich. Not higher productivity. Not simply globalization. But
rising global market power.
Many of the world's largest tech companies have become global oligopolies and domestic
monopolies. Globalization has played a role here, of course -- many domestic firms simply can't
compete with global multinationals. But these firms also use their relative size to push down
wages, avoid taxes, and gouge their suppliers, as well as lobbying governments to provide them
with preferential treatment.
Jeff Bezos and Amazon are a case in point. Amazon has become America's largest company
through anticompetitive practices that have landed it in trouble with the European Union's
competition authorities. The working practices in its warehouses are notoriously appalling . And
a study from last year revealed Amazon to be one of the world's most "aggressive tax
avoiders."
Part of the reason Amazon has to work so hard to maintain its monopoly position is that its
business model relies on network effects that only obtain at a certain scale. Tech companies
like Amazon make money by monopolizing and then selling the data generated from the
transactions on their sites.
The more people who sign up, the more data is generated; and the more data generated, the
more useful this data is for those analyzing it. The monetization of this data is what
generates most of Amazon's returns: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the most profitable part of
the business by some distance.
Far from representing its social utility, Amazon's market value -- and Bezos' personal
wealth -- reflects its market power. And the rising market power of a small number of larger
firms has actually reduced productivity. This concentration has also constrained investment and
wage growth as these firms simply don't have to compete for labor, nor are they forced to
innovate in order to outcompete their rivals.
In fact, they're much more likely to use their profits to buy back their own shares, or to
acquire other firms that will increase their market share and give them access to more data.
Amazon's recent acquisition of grocery store Whole Foods is likely to be the first of many such
moves by tech companies. Rather than the Darwinian logic of compete or die, the tech companies
face a different imperative: expand or die.
States are supporting this logic with exceptionally loose monetary policy. Low interest
rates make it very easy for large companies to borrow to fund mergers and acquisitions. And
quantitative easing -- unleashed on an unprecedented scale to tackle the pandemic -- has simply
served to raise equity prices, especially for the big tech companies.
As more areas of our lives become subject to the power of big tech, the fortunes of people
like Bezos will continue to mount. Their rising wealth will not represent a reward for
innovation or job creation, but for their market power, which has allowed them to increase the
exploitation of their workforces, gouge suppliers, and avoid taxes.
The only real way to tackle these inequities is to democratize the ownership of the means of
production, and begin to hand the key decisions in our economy back to the people. But you
would expect that even social democrats, who won't pursue transformative policies, could get
behind measures such as a wealth tax.
"Building back better" after the pandemic will be impossible without such a tax -- and the
vast majority of both Labour and Conservative voters support such an approach, according to a
recent poll. And yet it appears that Labour's leadership are retreating from the idea.
In an interview the other day, I was asked why we should care about Jeff Bezos's wealth
if it makes everyone else better off. But the extreme inequalities generated by modern
capitalism are making obvious something that Marxists have known for decades: the superrich
generate their wealth at the expense of workers, the planet, and society as a whole.
In a rational and fair society, the vast resources of a tiny elite would be put to use
solving our social problems.
Wishful thinking. The neoliberal oligarchy is in conrol of all political power centers. Looks like neoliberal ideas became completely discredited. Even Krugman abandoned them.
Notable quotes:
"... In the age of AI the US needs a grand rebuilding of our infrastructure including electrical grids, bridges, highways, mass transit systems, and conversion to renewable energy. ..."
"... Elizabeth Warren showed her chops years ago when she was a guest on Bill Moyer's PBS show, and I've been a fan ever since. But - we don't just need more of Teddy Roosevelt - we need a good dose of Franklin Roosevelt, too ..."
"... In Senator Warren we finally have a politician who understands the difference between wealth and income and is willing to start taxing wealth. This is especially important as the truly wealthy receive very little of their money in the form of income and are therefore taxed on far less than they are actually worth. This only serves to exacerbate our inequality problem. ..."
"... Extreme income inequality is damaging to social capital and to public health - and thus in the long run to sustainable prosperity. The American epidemic of depression, opioid abuse and suicide is is correlated with the acceleration of income inequality. ..."
"... Finally, Senator Warren's proposal seems like an acceleration of the estate tax. ..."
"... Having worked in trusts and estates law for decades, I suspect that this proposal will invite use of the same techniques used by estate planners, lawyers, and accountants to drive down the fair market value of assets. Her proposal may work, if it is ever enacted, but the devil, as usual, will be in the details. This is a very complex concept, simple as it may seem at first blush. That is not an argument for not trying, but for being very careful in the implementation, beginning with the statutory language. ..."
"... This tax will require staffing up the IRS and that will require dems control over both houses of Congress as the GOPers have defunded the IRS. ..."
"... Pretax income concentration at the top increased starting in the 1980s as a direct result of the large reductions in the top marginal income tax rates. ..."
"... Even if a 70% top marginal tax rate did not raise a penny more in tax revenue it would still be justified on the grounds of preventing extreme concentration of wealth and income. Recent economic research has shown that in a purely capitalistic society in which there is no taxation nor redistribution all wealth in the whole society will ultimately be owned by a single household. https://voxeu.org/article/what-would-wealth-distribution-look-without-redistribution ..."
"... I applaud Elizabeth Warren and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for espousing Teddy an Franklin Roosevelt's ideas about reducing the concentration of 90% of wealth in the upper 1/10th of 1 per cent (0.1%). That is the situation which can lead to major social unrest, widespread crime, and ultimately, civil war as happened in England in the 17th century, in Russia in 1917, and in the French Revolution that beheaded Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette - along with thousands of other members of the nobility. ..."
"... "wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans almost equal to that of the bottom 90 percent combined." The corrupt neoliberalism of the 1% is unsustainable but is reflective of a downward spiral of decline. While we experience continuous political campaigning the U.S. is, in reality, a criminal and corrupt corporate state enriching the 1% and masquerading as a democracy, an Inverted Totalitarianism. ..."
"... Great. The pendulum swings back to sensible taxation rates for the ultra wealthy. Hard to feel sorry for hedge fund managers. I can just see Sean Hannity railing against it now. He would have to cough up. ..."
"... Fascinating article. Thanks for sharing. Her Accountable Capitalism Act also addresses the root causes of inequality, although some critics have stated that it would lead to the semi-nationalization of business. ..."
@Horsepower the tax bill has, as predicted by almost everyone but the GOP lawmakers,
caused the deficit to balloon. Currently, the resulting debt must be paid by the descendents
of all of us but the ultra-wealthy. The alternative to that approach, openly proposed by the
GOP, was to take away vital services from most of us, like medical care, public education,
and retirement support. I'm surprised that you don't find those things "consequential to the
life of most Americans".
There is no reason -- economic, social or moral -- why anyone needs a personal fortune above
$500 million dollars.
Eddie Cohen M.D ecohen2 . com Poway, California Jan. 29
In the age of AI the US needs a grand rebuilding of our infrastructure including
electrical grids, bridges, highways, mass transit systems, and conversion to renewable
energy.
It also needs a medical care system that provides a high level of to all of our
citizens including the poor and those with pre-existing conditions. What better down payment
on these costly necessities than a tax on the ultra rich.
Elizabeth Warren showed her chops years ago when she was a guest on Bill Moyer's PBS show,
and I've been a fan ever since. But - we don't just need more of Teddy Roosevelt - we need a
good dose of Franklin Roosevelt, too.
Given where this country is at, taxing the uber-rich
alone isn't going to be enough to solve our problems. We need a jobs program - good, family
wage jobs - that have been chipped away at for decades by both automation and off-shoring.
Taxing will help fund much needed gov't infrastructure problems, but it's purchasing power
that drives the economy - and we can't have one without a vibrant middle class that's
actually making and doing stuff. Since the Clinton years, the USA has spawned a bloated
investor class, making a lot of money shuffling paper, but what do they produce that drives
this country forward? Our infrastructure is fast becoming 3rd world.
In Senator Warren we finally have a politician who understands the difference between
wealth and income and is willing to start taxing wealth. This is especially important as the
truly wealthy receive very little of their money in the form of income and are therefore
taxed on far less than they are actually worth. This only serves to exacerbate our inequality
problem. The big banks, in particular, are very worried about what would happen should Warren
become president. Like that other Roosevelt - Franklin - she welcomes their hatred. Good for
her.
Extreme income inequality is damaging to social capital and to public health - and thus in
the long run to sustainable prosperity. The American epidemic of depression, opioid abuse and
suicide is is correlated with the acceleration of income inequality.
Worldwide, countries
with high income inequality have more depression, more suicide and less happiness, even when
their per capita GNP is higher than their neighbors'. The toxic effects of inequality are
especially great in a nation like the US where children are taught that anyone can make it if
they work hard enough. In fact, there's a lot more upward mobility in those awful socialist
Nordic countries, where teaching public school is a prestigious and well-paid job, college
and vocational training are taxpayer-funded (not 'free'), and no one goes bankrupt from a
serious illness or injury.
Without endorsing anyone's proposals here, a couple of examples from recent history on
what's actually possible, despite what people may think: -- Six weeks before the Berlin Wall
fell and reunited Germany, the then-West German government issued a report projecting that
German reunification was at least 20 years away. -- Japan went from a highly-nuclear power
dependent country, with no prospect of changing, to one that drastically cut its dependence
on nuclear in just one year after the Fukushima disaster. -- One of my favorites: FDR sits
down with the leaders of General Motors at the dawn of WWII and says I need so many tanks, so
many trucks etc etc for the war effort. A GM exec responds on these lines: "Mr. President, we
can't fulfill those needs and still produce X-hundred-thousand cars a year." FDR: "You don't
understand. You're no longer a car company." So the lesson is, no one knows what's possible
in a society till you try.
Eliminating carried interest seems perfectly rational. Compensation by any other name is
compensation and taxable as ordinary income as it is for everyone else in this country. Once
upon a time, capital gains were taxed at 15% and ordinary income at rates as high as 91%.
That led to all sorts of devices to game the system, including the infamous collapsible
corporation.
But with the difference down to around 10-15%, we may as well bite the bullet
and tax income from capital at the same rate we tax income from work. I doubt this will hurt
savings, investment, or capital formation.
It is still nice to have money, and owning capital
assets will still beat the alternative.
Finally, Senator Warren's proposal seems like an
acceleration of the estate tax.
Having worked in trusts and estates law for decades, I
suspect that this proposal will invite use of the same techniques used by estate planners,
lawyers, and accountants to drive down the fair market value of assets. Her proposal may
work, if it is ever enacted, but the devil, as usual, will be in the details. This is a very
complex concept, simple as it may seem at first blush. That is not an argument for not
trying, but for being very careful in the implementation, beginning with the statutory
language.
@Steve B People receiving Social Security only pay taxes on the benefits if their income
exceeds the same thresholds that apply to people who go out and work for a living, and pay
Social Security taxes that go to the elderly. Ellen, stop treating Social Security like it's
a savings bank.
Your Social Security taxes paid for the generation before you, and the Social
Security taxes raised now are paying for you. The average Social Security recipient today
will receive twice as much as they paid into the system during their earning years.
So please
give the "I'm just getting back the money I paid into the system" routine a rest. It's a
fiction. The wealth of the over 65s is growing faster than any other age group in our
society, and the fraction of government spending on over-65s is the only part of government
that has grown in decades.
If you're making enough to pay income taxes, pay your taxes and
stop complaining. That means you're doing OK. You'd better hope young people don't wake up
and realize just how much of their hard-earned pay is going to pay for
retirees.
The seriousness in her policies is in her work ethics and brilliance. She means what she
says and works her heart out to achieve those goals. There isn't anyone out there that
matches those qualities.
This tax will require staffing up the IRS and that will require dems control over both
houses of Congress as the GOPers have defunded the IRS.
The ultra right, ultra rich will be
paying more and more of their fortunes to their already privately-owned senators to defeat
this and any other progressive tax proposals. We need more, more and more people to get into
the democratic process and VOTE to recapture the nation's leadership in 2020!
Pretax income concentration at the top increased starting in the 1980s as a direct result
of the large reductions in the top marginal income tax rates. Those who complain that a 70%
top marginal tax rate is confiscatory need to understand that's the whole point.
When top
marginal tax rates are confiscatory that leads to lower pre-tax income inequality because tax
aversion of the wealthy leads they to pay themselves less income to avoid paying the
government so much in taxes.
Unlike most workers, corporate executives can easily arrange for
their boards to pay them far more than their marginal product would justify.
Furthermore,
wealth tends to concentrate automatically when top marginal tax rates are low. This is simply
due to the math of compound interest. When investment returns are not taxed sufficiently by
the estate tax or by capital gains taxes, they will be reinvested leading to extreme wealth
accumulation over generations that is automatic and not the result of any kind of investing
skill.
Even if a 70% top marginal tax rate did not raise a penny more in tax revenue it would
still be justified on the grounds of preventing extreme concentration of wealth and income.
Recent economic research has shown that in a purely capitalistic society in which there is no
taxation nor redistribution all wealth in the whole society will ultimately be owned by a
single household. https://voxeu.org/article/what-would-wealth-distribution-look-without-redistribution
@Baldwin Actually, it's 2% on what is on top of those 50M, so 2% on 100M, if you have a
net worth of $150M. That being said, nobody with $150M net worth just "sits" on his money for
35 years. To get there in the first place, in the 21st century you usually have to pay an
expert and engage in financial speculation (= speculation about financial transactions, not
an investment in the "real" economy), and of course you won't stop paying that expert once
you reach $150M, so you continue to add millions to your wealth anyhow. On the other hand, if
you belong to the middle class, you easily pay $30,000 taxes a year.
After ten years, that's
$300,000, and after 33 years that's a million dollars paid in taxes. Seen in this way, even
having the middle class paying taxes seems "unfair", because when they only earn $75,000 a
year, why should they pay a million in taxes over 33 years ... ?
Conclusion: taxes are paid
year after year not in function of how many you will have paid in total at the end of your
career, but in function of what we collectively need to run this country smoothly (military,
government, education, roads and bridges, EPA, ...).
A "fair" tax code is a tax code that
allows anyone who works hard to live comfortably, weather your a hedge fund manager or
teacher. And in order to get there, we can't continue the GOP's constantly lowering taxes for
the wealthiest all while cutting services to the 99%. NO one with $150M will suffer by paying
$2M in taxes a year ...
I applaud Elizabeth Warren and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for espousing Teddy an Franklin
Roosevelt's ideas about reducing the concentration of 90% of wealth in the upper 1/10th of 1
per cent (0.1%). That is the situation which can lead to major social unrest, widespread
crime, and ultimately, civil war as happened in England in the 17th century, in Russia in
1917, and in the French Revolution that beheaded Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette - along with
thousands of other members of the nobility.
We see this anger and violence today in the
United States - in mass shootings, in failing public schools (the salaries are not sufficient
to attract qualified teachers who instead will work in more remunerative fields, like law and
computer technology. What works better is to reduce the concentration of wealth so people in
the lower 90% can have more prosperity and social stability in their lives.
All people need a
reliable source of food, healthcare, and a place for them and their families to live. All
people need access to good education, family planning, and higher education sufficient to alllow them to work. With so much reliance on mechanical work, we also need for all people to
have a minimum income - something that no one talks abou yet - but enough to live safely.
There is support for this not only among Democrats but also among Republicans. The help
should be for everyone, not based on need (Marxism). This is common sense not
socialism.
It was hilarious to read that Rush Limbaugh is SO terrified of AOC and Liz Warren that he,
the grandmaster of Goebbels-like mis-information, is calling them "hitlerian" as he and
Hannity push Trump every day to emulate Mussolini! But why is simple: I read that Limbaugh
makes about $100 million a year, which puts him in the super-rich category. I doubt highly
that he's paying the maximum 37(?)% on his income and if he is he needs better accountants
and tax lawyers! But AOC's proposal means that $90 million of his $100 million would be taxed
at 70%, leaving him "only" a measly $27 million a year to try not to starve on. Along with
whatever millions are left after taxes on the first $10 million, say, $5 million (again,
needs better tax advice). So he's stuck trying to survive on $32 million! (BTW, Hannity only
makes about $29 million before taxes, Oh! The Humanity!--Or is it "Oh! The Hannity"?) That's
really why they are vitriolic. Taxes are for the "little people", the suckers who call in and
rant, who watch Fox and believe, no matter how illogical their logic. Rush and Sean see a
REAL movement to tax their excessive income and will fight it tooth and nail, with fact and
fiction (mostly fiction) to protect themselves and their wealth.
Interesting how it is almost exactly a hundred years since this problem was dealt with in
the last Gilded Age. Enough time so that the generations that remember are long gone and so
the problem came back.
The Uber rich did this to themselves with their complete disconnect
from the economic realities facing the 99%. TARP was the kicker - we gave a trillion dollars
to the 1% while the 99% were left to fend for themselves. Despite the protestations of the
99%. Now that's political power in the hands of the few for the benefit of the few. Time to
stop it now.
"wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans almost equal to that of the bottom 90 percent
combined." The corrupt neoliberalism of the 1% is unsustainable but is reflective of a
downward spiral of decline. While we experience continuous political campaigning the U.S. is,
in reality, a criminal and corrupt corporate state enriching the 1% and masquerading as a
democracy, an Inverted Totalitarianism.
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can
have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." Louis D.
Brandeis
Great. The pendulum swings back to sensible taxation rates for the ultra wealthy. Hard to
feel sorry for hedge fund managers. I can just see Sean Hannity railing against it now. He
would have to cough up.
This column makes a good case for Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of the Treasury, or head
of the Consumer Protection Bureau which she invented following Dodd Frank legislation. But
the best way to reach the widest audience is a Presidential campaign. Most of the responses
here focus on enough wealth, extreme wealth and self-interest. Beyond their tax liabilities
is the reality of the power the the rich wield through lobbyists, campaign contributions,
corporate takeovers, and tax dodges over our politics, governments, and over us, the people.
It's a pity that any proposed tax fairness adjustments are reduced to epithets against
socialism.
The problem is that the big money against this will say (ie: fund ads saying) anything
(true or false) about any other subject to swing votes against any candidate who's a serious
chance of pushing such a tax increase. One can only hope I am wrong.
Fascinating article. Thanks for sharing. Her Accountable Capitalism Act also addresses the
root causes of inequality, although some critics have stated that it would lead to the
semi-nationalization of business. I think its effect would be commonsense regulation of the
economic playing field so that excesses do not occur in how rewards are distributed. It has
the potential to address issues early enough to prevent problems.
@George Thanks to the Republican budget busting tax holiday for rich folks we will need
every penny of revenue just to keep our fiscal boat afloat. We should add AOC's 70% rate just
to patch our leaks in infrastructure, healthcare, education and social security for the
retirees who were gutted by the 2008 Republican Great Recession.
Since the super-rich are already paying 2+20 for their wealth management, paying another 2
to the government hardly seems like it would kill incentive...
Throughout most of the history of civilizations, governments have been funded by a wealth
tax. This was in the form of property tax, as that was the only wealth there was. Somehow
when financial wealth started to build, it was made largely exempt. Proposals to close this
loophole are well overdue. It's not so radical as it is just restoring traditional funding
methods.
A sure sign of health when Warren, a veteran politician and Ocasio-Cortez, a first term
member of Congress publish ideas early in the election cycle. The next steps are laws that
dismantle Citizens United and protect voting rights.
Elizabeth Warren had better take care. If she doesn't tread softly on these plans to
progressively tax the rich and make them spread the wealth to all those millions of people
out there who have had a hand in generating their economic success, she'll be called
something equally invidious to a 'socialist' -- a 'Canadian'.
Prof. Krugman is speaking truth to power but power tends to speak back, telling our
citizens that progressives like Sen. Warren are aiming to increase taxes across the board.
Never EVER do they narrow the stated target of such projected increases to the uppermost
economic stratum. And progressives always manage to let them get away with this. Democratic
candidates for political office need to assign members of their campaign staffs to Republican
events and arm them with bullhorns for the expressed purpose of shouting out the words "for
the rich" every time a typically disingenuous Republican opponent announces that a specific
Democrat has a plan to raise Americans' taxes.
"More important, my sense is that a lot of conventional political wisdom still assumes
that proposals to sharply raise taxes on the wealthy are too left-wing for American voters."
It's just shocking to me that conservative voters supposedly hate liberal elites, yet refuse
continuously to tax the mega rich and/or ignore the tax cuts for those households. Do they
not see the hypocrisy they're being fed by Fox News?
I know that it's inconvenient, but the US Constituion prohibits a direct tax that is not
apportioned among the states on the basis of population. Hard to see how Ms. Warren's "plan"
meets this standard. Serious presidential candidates need to propose plans that actually have
a chance to work. After what we're experiencing now, we don't need four additional years of
bombast.
@Mkm Can you give any arguments as to why this is unconstitutional, or a source as to when
it was declared so? Note that once (ie, just a few generations ago) abhorrent laws concerning
voting rights and segregation were considered just fine.
@Paul Wortman We indeed tend to believe that the poor and lower middle class must be
(more) ignorant, and as such easier victims of the GOP's massive fake news campaigns. Studies
show however that a majority of those earning less than $100,000 a year voted for Hillary,
whereas a small majority of those earning more than that voted for Trump. That's because her
platform included VERY clear and urgent, fact-based measures that would have helped the poor
and middle class, after Obama already made serious progress on these issues (a public option
added to Obamacare, and many other things). So imho the only ones risking "forgetting" about
the needs of the 99% when it comes to voting, are those who don't carefully fact-check
politicians' achievements and campaign agenda, before voting (or deciding not to vote)
...
@BC The current standard deduction of $12K for single people means that the first $12K is
not taxed ($24K joint) which means that your wish has already come true.
Fundamentally, a fallacy of modern American society is a perversion of the golden rule.
Let's call it "tax not lest ye be taxed." Even though the electorate will never in their
wildest dreams make this kind of income, their wildest dreams persist. And thus they will not
permit the thought of "unfair" taxation on the ultra-rich, using all the talking points the
richest 1% have lobbied deep into our political system at every level.
At this stage in our history when wealth hasn't been more concentrated, raising taxes on
the ultra-rich is exactly what populism is about. Think TR and FDR, not DJT.
@Ronald B. Duke, I think I remember people saying that during the civil rights movement
too. Be patient. You'll get what you want by'n'by. Waiting for dynastic fortunes trickle away
is sort of like waiting for the mountain to be worn away by the wind. It's not gonna happen
in our lifetime. There's always a reason for not depriving the wealthy of any part of their
fortunes. Each time we fail to do that, the need to do it becomes more dire. Things just
don't get better by waiting for someone to voluntarily or even accidentally, divest
themselves of money or power. It can be done by legislation, and that's better than by
revolution. And, you know, the wealth accumulation has already begun. What has to happen now
is to keep it from falling over and crushing all of us (Make that almost all of
us).
@Rockets Pual Krugman is almost surely right about incentives on the individual level
since few of us will hold off just because the second $50 MM is slightly less lucrative. Buts
its funny how he ignores the macroeconomic effect. If the Bezos tax bill was $1 billion, I
think we agree it would come exclusively out of savings. *IF* the government simply used the
proceeds to reduce spending (below some credible prior baseline) then the net effect on
national savings is zero; interest rates unchanged, economic activity unaffected, and so on.
But if the government spends the money (as seems likely under President Warren) then national
savings is reduced and the fed will (in the current environment) probably feel obliged to
push back against a stimulative fiscal policy with a restrictive monetary policy: higher
rates, less investment, less consumer spending, etc. So Bezos has no incentive to invest less
but as a nation we will do just that. Is that good? Maybe - it would have been great in 2009.
Seems to merit a discussion.
The 2020 campaign for POTUS is shaping up to be very interesting. That is, if Trump makes
it. Combine Warren and Harris we would have a great team. Warren adds specifics with
intellectual heft and Harris inspires us with her open, honest and intelligent persona. Just
need to find room for Amy K. on that team.
This is far better than changing the rate on capital gains, which would tend to punish
middle class retirees for having invested over the years (Mr. Rattner's proposal today) and,
I think, would be difficult for the uber-wealthy to avoid. I'm not sure that $50 million is
the correct starting point (perhaps a meager $25 million of net worth should be taxed) but
this is a brilliant new concept that offers promise of slowing wealth inequality while not
terribly constraining the wealthy.
In reading this column and the associated comments, there seems to be one glaring
omission: the necessity of overturning the Citizens United decision which provides the
ultra-rich avenues to continually push their lower taxes agenda by hiring hoards of
lobbyists, by "buying" politicians with campaign contributions, by funding misleading and
excessive political advertising, and by controlling various media outlets that are little
more than propaganda mills. Until Citizens United is overturned much-needed, rational
progressive taxation reforms have little chance of becoming reality, and with the current
composition of the Supreme Court overturning this decision is unfortunately extremely
unlikely.
@Yabasta Yeah, Dr. Krugman must have sustained a hit to the head since 2016 and would not
recognize a photo of Hillary Clinton if it was flashed before him. His incessant savaging of
Bernie was positively embarrassing to witness and never adequately explained. Only goes to
show you that our much vaunted reason is designed to justify our emotions and that even Nobel
laureates have deep subconscious axes to grind.
Under Eisenhower marginal tax rates were approximately 90%. This "Greatest Generation"
built the interstate system. We can't even maintain the interstate system we have let alone
build a new one. Our national-level political system is dominated by the rich. Our economic
policies are totally skewed towards the rich. Our educational system is biased towards the
rich. We've let capitalism trump democracy. If making America Great Again means taxing the
rich back into reality, I have no problem with that. My only annoyance with Mr. Krugman's
essay is his monomaniacal avoidance of saying the word, "Sanders." What's that
about?
This makes perfect sense to me. Under Senator Warren's plan households with more than $50
million of annual income would pay a 2% wealth surcharge. I can't imagine this would have any
significant effect on any of the 75,000 wealthiest U.S. households. I'd much rather see
Michael Bloomberg and his financial peers support broader efforts to make college free or
reduce student debt levels than make more lavish gifts to elite institutions like John
Hopkins.
cks, broken promises, scandal. and a presidency in trouble – all pushed Bill Clinton
into taking a brand new tack: triangulation. In addition to the definition of triangulation
offered by Dick Morris in his Frontline appearance on PBS, here is a quote from his book:
"The idea behind triangulation is to work hard to solve the problems that motivate the other
party's voters, so as to defang them politically The essence of triangulation is to use your
party's solutions to solve the other side's problems. Use your tools to fix their car." The
problem with that is that triangulation has not quite worked out that way. "Their car" wasn't
what was actually being fixed. What the "tools" did address, however, were the goals of the
Republican party.
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/09/04/triangulation-when-neoliberalism-is-at-its-most-dangerous-to-voters-updated-dem-politics-on-blog42
/
@Jonathan....Current S+P 500 dividend yield is 2.02%. That would provide cash to cover
most of the wealth tax. A wealth tax might impact the market for high end art and
collectibles, but that is probably a very small fraction of total wealth.
@Duane McPherson I realize Warren may have some limitations re emotional appeal (also re
men not wanting to vote for a woman), which is why I said I put her "at the top of my list
for Dems, SO FAR." I'll see how this plays out on the campaign trail. Someone else may emerge
who has both the smarts and the charisma- or Warren may find an emotional niche. Time will
tell.
@Phyliss Dalmatian I'm afraid Sherrod is not liberal enough. Nowadays, if you talk about
bi-partisanship and reaching across the aisle, you're talking about making a deal with the
devil.
This is a pie pie-in-the-sky comment, but I'll stand by the overall premise based on our
history. It's all about the velocity of money and resources. You have to spend it to grow it.
Infrastructure also includes 100% healthcare cradle to grave, baseline living standards,
Social Security clean water, clean air, clean power, full education, etc. Infrastructure is
the key to everything throughout history, period. Close all tax loop holes. Reduce all
business taxes by at least half or more. Create a progressive tax rate starting at 0% raised
all the way to 80% up the ladder. If you don't like it, renounce your citizenship with all of
what that entails and leave. Completely get rid of the cap on Social Security. Everyone
except those at the 0% tax rate pays in 7%. That is fair. Make the business contribution 3%
of the first $100,000 Reinstate a stronger set of anti-trust guard rails. Re-instate a
stronger form of Glass/Steagle. Reinstate a stronger Fairness Doctrine Realize that a
corporation is NOT a person and if we think they are, subject them to the 13th amendment
regarding one person owning another. They also are not allowed participate in anything of a
political nature, in any way shape or form. Period. Full stop. Invest in the poor and middle
classes in all ways. Raising standards from the bottom up raises all boats. It's not "trickle
down" it's "trickle up". It's all about the velocity of money. You have to spend it to grow
it. We can do this in this country.
Why do by indirection what is better done directly? Income tax rates should be adjusted to
push the marginal rate to a percentage needed to produce the estimated revenue from Warren's
proposal. This would (1) not require creation of a new beauracracy and a new wealth tax code
to administer the new wealth tax, (2) not create incentives for lawyers and accounts to
redefine net worth and would (3) not change incentives for investments by wealthy
individuals, with unknown and unknowable side effects. If we also want to reduce fortunes
directly, enact a truly functional estate tax, not the joke which we have
now.
One other thought, the high tax rates of the 1950s and 1960s carried with them many, many
deductions which are no longer available -- -which were surrendered politically in exchange
for lower overall ages. Maybe something additionally to be considered would be combing
through the tax code and addressing the special interest provisions which conflate social
policy about certain companies/products/goals with tax policy.
@A P As you note, simply giving the money to their foundation can spare them the tax bill.
They don't actually need to have the foundation disburse that much of it. And my casual
impression is that Bill Gates' ability to direct billions through his foundation has
preserved his "social capital" - he is still invited to Davos, can tour Africa with Bono or
the Pope, get his phone calls returned by Important People, get his kids into whatever
college he chooses to endow, hop on private jets to wherever, and so on. As punishments go
forcing him to chair a major foundation is not much.
The government has never proven itself to be a good steward of capital. They will tax and
spend, tax and reallocate, tax and waste. No thanks. Would rather the incentives remain and
America push back against socialist notions. So expected from Krugman.
@CDN Eh? Real estate is already valued every year and taxed accordingly, it's called
property taxes. Art and antiquities are already valued for insurance purposes. It's not
difficulty at all.
@Shiv "I'm completely unable to determine how Jeff Bezos's work building Amazon has caused
me or anyone else to be worse off. In fact, we're all better off." So you know nobody who had
been making a decent living with a bookstore - or in publishing - or in many other small
businesses that have been priced into oblivion by Amazon if they'd been lucky enough to
survive the WalMart effect that came before. Robert Reich in "Supercapitalism" was right. The
consumer side of a person can so easily derange the thinking of the rest of the person. Not
following me? Than picture the dream world of big tech companies with their dreams of
stupendous individual wealth by "disrupting" something where people have been making their
livings. Each wave of disruption leaves people without their jobs. And these days, the chance
of getting into a better-paying job after being disruptive aren't all that terrific if you
look at the statistical outcomes. So is your view of morality served by the relentless push
to undercut older businesses that provided employment, simply because the disrupting model is
"more efficient"? Reconsider what "efficiency" is supposed to accomplish in the bigger
picture of society rather than just shareholder (and top executive) financial
reward.
As an authentic Republican, not one of the brigands who hijacked the party as a means to
plunder and pillage, I heartily endorse the Warren proposal. To make it somewhat more
palatable for voters I would suggest it earmark 50% of the revenue generated go to starting
to pay down the national debt. That would mean, using the 2.75 trillion estimate, that in the
first decade we would reclaim from the wealthiest approximately what Republicans gave away in
the deficit-financed tax cuts of 2017. In effect having had an interest-free loan from us for
a decade they would return the cash we have been paying interest on. Would be quite big of
them, actually.
@Alice It's not as if we ignore which tax loopholes for the wealthiest have to be closed
and how to do so, you know. Democrats have been trying to do this for quite some time
already, but the GOP blocks it. And Obamacare already includes a tax increase for the
wealthiest - that's one of the reasons why it cuts the deficit by $100 billion, rather than
adding to it. That proves that the wealthiest DNC donors and Democrats (such as Obama
himself, and Pelosi) FULLY agree to increase their own taxes. Conclusion: cynicism never
helped us move forward, fact-checking does ... ;-)
@Vink Why do you think they all own a dozen sprawling properties scattered around the
globe? They are all Bond villain wannabes never far from a secret citadel. I hope they've got
plenty of toilet paper on hand for the siege.
@Michael Blazin You think that... why? It's not at all clear. But it is clear that the law
could be written so that any transaction could be taxed. So unless the billionaires want to
hide their money under their mattresses.....
A progressive wealth tax is an"idea whose time has come". See Piketty, Thomas. Capital in
the Twenty-First Century . Harvard University Press. Use the revenue generated for
infrastructure repair.
@Blue Moon As far as Social Security and Medicare, all we have to do to fix that is tax
the millionaires' income the same as we do the peon- every dime that goes in their overseas
accounts should be taxed, same as the rest of us.
There are numerous holes in this proposal, none of which have anything to do with "greed".
1. What Krugman, Saez and Zucman fail to mention is that Denmark repealed its wealth tax in
1996 and Sweden repealed its wealth tax more than a decade ago. Not hard to understand why --
it is ultimately a self-defeating tax policy that just drives wealth out of your economy.
Krugman doesn't mention that Saez and Zucman's basic premise is that every country has to
implement a wealth tax for it to work, which is never going to happen. 2. Warren's proposal
is blatantly unconstitutional as a direct tax, so she would need to garner the political
support not just to pass the tax but amend the constitution similar to what was done for the
income tax. Highly unlikely. The bottom line is that the only way to actually pay for all of
the middle-class goodies that Democrats want to be provided by the Federal government (free
college, Medicare for all, free daycare, paid leave) is to tax the middle-class like what
they do in Sweden and Denmark through VAT and much lower income tax thresholds. Of course,
once everyone figures that out, those proposals won't poll nearly as well, which is why AOC
is now claiming that it will be magically paid for through the hocus-pocus of Modern Monetary
Theory.
For Warren's tax proposal that "wouldn't lead to large-scale evasion if the tax applied to
all assets and was adequately enforced ..." the IRS needs more staff and a bigger budget.
Past Republican congresses have purposely gutted the agency's audit and enforcement
capabilities at the direction of the very interests Warren's proposal targets.
"Would such a plan be feasible? Wouldn't the rich just find ways around it?" The most
likely way around it would be to bribe Congress not to vote for it. Isn't that why they
"... Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government's military budget. They're all corrupt. ..."
"... Numerous polls (for examples, this and this ) show that American voters, except for the minority of them that are Republican, want "bipartisan" government; but the reality in America is that this country actually already does have that: the U.S. Government is actually bipartisanly corrupt, and bipartisan evil. In fact, it's almost unanimous, it is so bipartisan, in reality. ..."
"... That's the way America's Government actually functions, especially in the congressional votes that the 'news'-media don't publicize. However, since it lies so much, and its media (controlled also by its billionaires) do likewise, and since they cover-up instead of expose the deepest rot, the public don't even know this. They don't know the reality. They don't know how corrupt and evil their Government actually is. They just vote and pay taxes. That's the extent to which they actually 'participate' in 'their' Government. They tragically don't know the reality. It's hidden from them. It is censored-out, by the editors, producers, and other management, of the billionaires' 'news'-media. These are the truths that can't pass through those executives' filters. These are the truths that get filtered-out, instead of reported. No democracy can function this way -- and, of course, none does. ..."
"... The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society , and we are as a people, inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings . ..."
"... But we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding it's fear of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections , on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not headlined. It's dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War in short with a wartime discipline, no democracy would ever hope or wish to match. ..."
The great investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how
America's billionaires control the U.S. Government, and here is an edited summary of its
opening twenty minutes, with key quotations and assertions from its opening -- and then its
broader context will be discussed briefly:
2:45 : There is "this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves,
their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and
the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional
proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea
what it is that the people they've voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and
reality is enormous."
Four crucial military-budget amendments were debated in the House just now, as follows:
to block Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
to block Trump from withdrawing 10,000 troops from Germany
to limit U.S. assistance to the Sauds' bombing of Yemen
to require Trump to explain why he wants to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear
Forces Treaty
On all four issues, the pro-imperialist position prevailed in nearly unanimous votes -
overwhelming in both Parties. Dick Cheney's daughter, Republican Liz Cheney, dominated the
debates, though the House of Representatives is now led by Democrats, not Republicans.
Greenwald (citing other investigators) documents that the U.S. news-media are in the
business of deceiving the voters to believe that there are fundamental differences between the
Parties. "The extent to which they clash is wildly exaggerated" by the press (in order to pump
up the percentages of Americans who vote, so as to maintain, both domestically and
internationally, the lie that America is a democracy -- actually represents the interests of
the voters).
16:00 : The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- which writes the nearly $750B
annual Pentagon budget -- is the veteran (23 years) House Democrat Adam Smith of Boeing's
Washington State.
"The majority of his district are people of color." He's "clearly a pro-war hawk" a
consistent neoconservative, voted to invade Iraq and all the rest.
"This is whom Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have chosen to head the House Armed
Services Committee -- someone with this record."
He is "the single most influential member of Congress when it comes to shaping military
spending."
He was primaried by a progressive Democrat, and the "defense industry opened up their
coffers" and enabled Adam Smith to defeat the challenger.
That's the opening.
Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are
almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government's military budget. They're all
corrupt. And then he went, at further length, to describe the methods of deceiving the voters,
such as how these very same Democrats who are actually agents of the billionaires who own the
'defense' contractors and the 'news' media etc., campaign for Democrats' votes by emphasizing
how evil the Republican Party is on the issues that Democratic Party voters care far more about
than they do about America's destructions of Iraq and Syria and Libya and Honduras and Ukraine,
and imposing crushing economic blockades (sanctions) against the residents in Iran, Venezuela
and many other lands. Democratic Party voters care lots about the injustices and the sufferings
of American Blacks and other minorities, and of poor American women, etc., but are satisfied to
vote for Senators and Representatives who actually represent 'defense' contractors and other
profoundly corrupt corporations, instead of represent their own voters. This is how the most
corrupt people in politics become re-elected, time and again -- by deceived voters. And -- as
those nearly unanimous committee votes display -- almost every member of the U.S. Congress is
profoundly corrupt.
Furthermore: Adam Smith's opponent in the 2018 Democratic Party primary was Sarah Smith (no
relation) and she tried to argue against Adam Smith's neoconservative voting-record, but
the press-coverage she received in her congressional district ignored that, in order to
keep those voters in the dark about the key reality. Whereas Sarah Smith received some coverage
from Greenwald and other reporters at The Intercept who mentioned that "Sarah Smith
mounted her challenge largely in opposition to what she cast as his hawkish foreign policy
approach," and that she "routinely brought up his hawkish foreign policy views and campaign
donations from defense contractors as central issues in the campaign," only very few of the
voters in that district followed such national news-media, far less knew that Adam Smith was in
the pocket of 'defense' billionaires. And, so, the Pentagon's big weapons-making firms defeated
a progressive who would, if elected, have helped to re-orient federal spending away from
selling bombs to be used by the Sauds to destroy Yemen, and instead toward providing better
education and employment-prospects to Black, brown and other people, and to the poor, and
everybody, in that congressional district, and all others. Moreover, since Adam Smith had a
fairly good voting-record on the types of issues that Blacks and other minorities consider more
important and more relevant than such things as his having voted for Bush to invade Iraq, Sarah
Smith really had no other practical option than to criticize him regarding his hawkish
voting-record, which that district's voters barely even cared about. The billionaires actually
had Sarah Smith trapped (just like, on a national level, they had Bernie Sanders trapped).
Of course, Greenwald's audience is clearly Democratic Party voters, in order to inform them
of how deceitful their Party is. However, the Republican Party operates in exactly the same
way, though using different deceptions, because Republican Party voters have very different
priorities than Democratic Party voters do, and so they ignore other types of deceptions and
atrocities.
Numerous polls (for examples,
this and
this ) show that American voters, except for the minority of them that are Republican, want
"bipartisan" government; but the reality in America is that this country actually already does
have that: the U.S. Government is actually bipartisanly corrupt, and bipartisan evil. In
fact, it's almost unanimous, it is so bipartisan, in reality.
That's the way America's
Government actually functions, especially in the congressional votes that the 'news'-media
don't publicize. However, since it lies so much, and its media (controlled also by its
billionaires) do likewise, and since they cover-up instead of expose the deepest rot, the
public don't even know this. They don't know the reality. They don't know how corrupt and evil
their Government actually is. They just vote and pay taxes. That's the extent to which they
actually 'participate' in 'their' Government. They tragically don't know the reality. It's
hidden from them. It is censored-out, by the editors, producers, and other management, of the
billionaires' 'news'-media. These are the truths that can't pass through those executives'
filters. These are the truths that get filtered-out, instead of reported. No democracy can
function this way -- and, of course, none does.
Patmos , 8 hours ago
Eisenhower originally called it the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
Was probably still when Congress maybe had a few slivers of integrity though.
As McCain's wife said, they all knew about Epstein.
Alice-the-dog , 2 hours ago
And now we suffer the Medical Industrial Complex on top of it.
Question_Mark , 1 hour ago
Klaus Schwab, UN/World Economic Forum - power plant "cyberattack" (advance video to 6:42
to skip intro):
please watch video at least from minute 6:42 at least for a few minutes to get context,
consider its contents, and comment:
Vot3 for trump but don't waste too much energy on the elections. All Trump can do is buy
us time.
Their plan has been in the works for over a century.
1) financial collapse with central banking.
2) social collapse with cultural marxism
3) government collapse with corrupt pedophile politicians.
EndOfDayExit , 7 hours ago
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Humans are just not wired for eternal vigilance. Sheeple want to graze and don't want to
think.
JGResearch , 8 hours ago
Money is just the tool, it goes much deeper:
The Truth, when you finally chase it down, is almost always far
worse than your darkest visions and fears.'
– Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
'The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are
not behind the scenes' *
- Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
This information helps understand the shift to the bias we are witnessing at The PBS
Newshour and the MSM. PBS has always taken their marching orders from the Council on Foreign
Relations.
Judy Woodruff, and Jim
Lehrer (journalist, former anchor for PBS ) is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. John McCain (United States Republican Senator
from Arizona , 2008
Republican Party nominee for the Presidency), William F. Buckley, Jr
(commentator, publisher, founder of the National Review ), Jeffery E Epstein
(financier)
The Council on Foreign Relations has historical control both the Democratic establishment
and the Republican establishment until President Trump came along.
Until then they did not care who won the presidency because they control both parties at
the top.
FYI: Hardly one person in 1000 ever heard of the Council on Foreign Relations ( CFR ).
Until Trump both Republicans and Democrats control by the Eastern Establishment.There
operational front was the Council on Foreign Relations. Historically they did not care who
one the election since they controlled both parties from the top.
The CFR has only 3000 members yet they control over three-quarters of the nation's wealth.
The CFR runs the State Department and the CIA. The CFR has placed 100 CFR members in every
Presidential Administration and cabinet since Woodrow Wilson. They work together to misinform
the President to act in the best interest of the CFR not the best interest of the American
People.
At least five Presidents (Eisenhower, Ford, Carter, Bush, and Clinton) have been members
of the CFR. The CFR has packed every Supreme court with CFR insiders.
Three CFR members (Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Sandra Day O'Connor) sit on
the supreme court. The CFR's British Counterpart is the Royal Institute of International
Affairs. The members of these groups profit by creating tension and hate. Their targets
include British and American citizens.
The CFR/RIIA method of operation is simple -- they control public opinion. They keep the
identity of their group secret. They learn the likes and dislikes of influential people. They
surround and manipulate them into acting in the best interest of the CFR/RIIA.
KuriousKat , 8 hours ago
there are 550 of them in the US..just boggles the mind they have us at each others throat
instead of theirs.
jmNZ , 3 hours ago
This is why America's only hope is to vote for Ron Paul.
x_Maurizio , 2 hours ago
Let me understand how a system, which is already proven being disfunctional, should
suddenly produce a positive result. That's craziness: to repeate the same action, with the
conviction it will give a different result.
If you would say: "The only hope is NOT TO TAKE PART TO THE FARCE" (so not to vote) I'd
understand.
But vot for that, instead of this.... what didn't you understand?
Voice-of-Reason , 6 hours ago
The very fact that we have billionaires who amass so much wealth that they can own our
Republic is the problem.
Eastern Whale , 8 hours ago
all the names mentioned in this article is rotten to the core
MartinG , 5 hours ago
Tell me again how democracy is the greatest form of government. What other profession lets
clueless idiots decide who runs the business.
Xena fobe , 4 hours ago
It isn't the fault of democracy. It's more the fault of voters.
quikwit , 3 hours ago
I'd pick the "clueless idiots" over an iron-fisted evil genius every time.
_triplesix_ , 8 hours ago
Am I the only one who noticed that Eric Zuesse capitalized the word "black" every time he
used it?
F**k you, Eric, you Marxist trash.
BTCtroll , 7 hours ago
Confirmed. Blacks are apparently a proper noun despite being referred to as simply a
color. In reality, no one cares. Ask anyone, they don't care expert black lies matter.
freedommusic , 4 hours ago
The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society , and we are as a people,
inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret
proceedings .
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be
seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official
censorship and concealment.
Our way of life is under attack.
But we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies
primarily on covert means for expanding it's fear of influence, on infiltration instead of
invasion, on subversion instead of elections , on intimidation instead of free choice, on
guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast
human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine
that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political
operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not
headlined. It's dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No
rumor is printed. No secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War in short with a wartime
discipline, no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
...I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country
to re-examine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the
present danger, and to heed the duty of self restraint, which that danger imposes upon us
all.
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second
obligation and obligation which I share, and that is our obligation to inform and alert the
American people, to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need and
understand them as well, the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program, and the
choices that we face.
I am not asking your newspapers to support an administration, but I am asking your help
in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people, for I have complete
confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens, whenever they are fully
informed.
... that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment. The only business in
America specifically protected by the constitution, not primarily to amuse and entertain,
not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it
wants, but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to
indicate our crises, and our choices, to lead, mold, educate, and sometimes even anger,
public opinion.
It's difficult to understand what's going on in the world because powerful people actively
manipulate public understanding of what's going on in the world.
Powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what's going on in the world
because if the public understood what's going on in the world, they would rise up and use their
strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful.
The public would rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful if they
understood what's going on in their world because then they would understand that the powerful
have been exploiting, oppressing, robbing, cheating and deceiving them while destroying the
ecosystem, stockpiling weapons of Armageddon and waging endless wars, for no other reason than
so that they can maintain and expand their power.
The public do not rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful
because they have been successfully manipulated into not wanting to.
divideand conquer 1. To gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful,
so that they cannot unite in opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new. ..."
"... The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. ..."
"... Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity. ..."
"... If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump. ..."
I've been thinking about the various versions of and critiques of identity politics that are around at the moment.
In its most
general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that
members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different
things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal,
but I'm hoping I can say something new.
You missed one important line of critique -- identity politics as a dirty political strategy of soft neoliberals.
To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been important to politics. But neoliberalism's
radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into
identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. Self-government requires uniting
through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared future.
When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the political community gets fragmented. It becomes
harder for people to see each other as part of that same shared future.
Demagogues [more correctly neoliberals -- likbez] rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism,
which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and
marketization of everything, thus indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for
a free and democratic society.
The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies.
As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary
neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that
some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they
then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy.
Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies
of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity.
Of course, the result is to leave in place political and economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals
claim to support. The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't fared much better
than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan
for 18 years and counting. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in
Iraq lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better. Instead, power in Iraq has
shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi
government -- and more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead.
Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy
but instead civil war and instability, with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups.
On the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And for those motivated to expand
human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.
Indeed, the central anchoring assumptions of the American foreign policy establishment have been proven wrong. Foreign policymakers
largely assumed that all good things would go together -- democracy, markets, and human rights -- and so they thought opening
China to trade would inexorably lead to it becoming a liberal democracy. They were wrong. They thought Russia would become liberal
through swift democratization and privatization. They were wrong.
They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political
system never corrected for trade's winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren't minor mistakes. And to be clear, Donald Trump
had nothing to do with them. All of these failures were evident prior to the 2016 election.
If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members,
who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump.
Initially Clinton calculation was that trade union voters has nowhere to go anyways, and it was correct for first decade or so
of his betrayal. But gradually trade union members and lower middle class started to leave Dems in droves (Demexit, compare with
Brexit) and that where identity politics was invented to compensate for this loss.
So in addition to issues that you mention we also need to view the role of identity politics as the political strategy of the
"soft neoliberals " directed at discrediting and the suppression of nationalism.
The resurgence of nationalism is the inevitable byproduct of the dominance of neoliberalism, resurgence which I think is capable
to bury neoliberalism as it lost popular support (which now is limited to financial oligarchy and high income professional groups,
such as we can find in corporate and military brass, (shrinking) IT sector, upper strata of academy, upper strata of medical professionals,
etc)
That means that the structure of the current system isn't just flawed which imply that most problems are relatively minor and
can be fixed by making some tweaks. It is unfixable, because the "Identity wars" reflect a deep moral contradictions within neoliberal
ideology. And they can't be solved within this framework.
"... The objective of the elites was to wrest control of resources eg land and/or timber plus so-called royal warrants that controlled who was allowed to produce, sell export products to who, grab allocation out of the control of the mobs of greedy royal favorites, then into the hands of the new American elites. ..."
"... The bagmen & courtiers grew fat at the expense of the colonists and generally the bagman, who also spied on the locals for obvious reasons, would go back to England once he had made his stash. ..."
"... The American elites wanted and, after the revolution got, the power to control economic development for themselves.Hence the birth of lobbyists simultaneous with the birth of the American nation state. ..."
"... IMO the constitution was about as meaningful to the leaders of the revolution as campaign promises are to contemporary politicians.That is, something to be used as self protection without ever implementing. ..."
I'm always amused, nah that is a little harsh - dumbfounded is more reasonable, when
Americans express dismay that 'their' constitution is not being adhered to by the elites.
The minutiae of American political history hasn't greatly concerned me after a superficial
study at high school, when I realized that the political structure is corrupt and was
designed to facilitate corruption.
The seeming caring & sharing soundbites pushed out by the 'framers' scum such as
Thomas Jefferson was purely for show, an attempt to gather the cannon fodder to one side.
This was simple as the colonial media had been harping on about 'taxation without
representation' for decades.
It wasn't just taxes, in fact for the American based elites that was likely the least of
it. The objective of the elites was to wrest control of resources eg land and/or timber plus
so-called royal warrants that controlled who was allowed to produce, sell export products to
who, grab allocation out of the control of the mobs of greedy royal favorites, then into the
hands of the new American elites.
A well placed courtier would put a bagman into the regional center of a particular colony
(each colony becoming a 'state' post revolution), so that if someone wanted to, I dunno, say
export huge quantities of cotton, the courtier would charge that 'colonial' for getting the
initial warrant, then take a hefty % of the return on the product - all collected by the
on-site bagman then divvied up.
The bagmen & courtiers grew fat at the expense of the colonists and generally the
bagman, who also spied on the locals for obvious reasons, would go back to England once he
had made his stash.
The system was ponderous inaccurate & very expensive. Something had to be done, but
selling revolutionary change to the masses on the basis of the need to enrich the already
wealthy was not likely to be a winner. Consequently the high faulting blather.
The American elites wanted and, after the revolution got, the power to control economic
development for themselves.Hence the birth of lobbyists simultaneous with the birth of the American nation state.
IMO the constitution was about as meaningful to the leaders of the revolution as campaign
promises are to contemporary politicians.That is, something to be used as self protection without ever implementing.
This happened prior to Crooke writing his current article
Just read that piece. I was fascinated to see him referencing an article by "Walrus" over
at SST (which was a particularly BS article in my view.) However, he referenced the concept
of Walrus' article about a "billionaire network" controlling everything by corrupting people
over 40.
My reaction to that is: Isn't that how it was always done throughout history? The rich
control the less-rich who control the less-rich - using his matryoshka example.
His main thesis is that younger ideologist are setting up a more serious divide in US
society than the old "Liberal vs Conservative" or "North vs South" division, and that this is
putting pressure on the "billionaires network."
I'm not sure how to regard that concept yet. On the one hand, I know that the old "young
vs old" dynamic is always at work - and generally irrelevant since it is the old that
controls the money and the military power. OTOH, there is a new phenomenon in the last
decades, starting with the availability of networks, and then growing with the availability
of affordable personal computers, and now exploding with the presence of the Internet. That
phenomenon is hacking. And it is the youth that control that technology.
I referenced the "cyberpunk" sci-fi genre a few threads back. If one is familiar with the
hacker community and the infosec profession, ne if struck by the massive disparity between
the capabilities of the attackers and that of the defenders of networks. No matter what the
defenders do, there is no stopping an adversary which has motivation, resources and time. The
defender has to always be right, the attacker only has to be right once.
This translates to the current situation socially - but only to a limited degree. Hackers
are a particular breed intellectually and emotionally. Their attitudes and abilities do not
translate to the rest of people their age. Their political and social attitudes *may*, to
some degree, depending on the hacker.
But most hackers have a decidedly anti-authoritarian, if not libertarian, or dare I say
anarchist, attitude. They can join with others, but that tends to be at arm's length. So I
don't see the majority of them empowering a "youth collectivism" or whatever one wants to
call the general social and political attitude of the young today.
I *do* see them being willing to take on political and social power. That was the entire
reference point of the cyberpunk genre: technically proficient iconoclasts marginalized as
criminals taking on (and frequently losing) TPTB depicted as corporations and the state.
I see the rise of hacking as a direct threat to the "billionaires network" (if such a
thing actually exists as a coordinated entity.) The only question is whether the hackers have
a coherent view of their potential. I suspect they don't, much like the "Woke" (see below).
But they could - and if they did, they'd be very dangerous since there is no real way to stop
them, and their numbers are growing worldwide as more Third World societies develop middle
classes that can afford to own computers while still not providing an adequate economy for
their people (places like India, Malaysia and Indonesia.)
"One aspect he apparently overlooks is the very poor understanding of history and
contemporary events exhibited on all sides--the "woke" are asleep as they know nothing of
Anti-Federalism or of the Class-based rationale related to the genesis of Police, although
they seem to be aware of the social control goals of that Genesis in both North and South
as we examined last week."
Agreed. That's my problem with the "Woke" - they're even more ignorant than their parents
were, even if they're more socially conscious. They believe things that aren't correct just
as much as their parents did - they just believe different incorrect things.
"The Class War is also sidelined despite the reality of it being the most important
factor in the equation--The .1% being the genuine looters..."
Agreed.
"IMO, there's no discernable ideological direction aside from some basic demands
related to policing and the racism connected to it because those in the streets lack the
tools to articulate a complete vision--something that's very difficult to do when you don't
know where you've actually been and the happenings over the past 75 years that have shaped
the current landscape"
Indeed. One has to burrow rather deeply into first principles to formulate a coherent
philosophy - and I don't see anyone doing that. I had nine years in a Federal prison to
re-orient myself and I benefited from having a previous forty years of exposure to concepts
outside the mainstream "left vs right" dichotomy. I doubt many of these people on the streets
have a clue as to what should be done either on their personal level or a social
level.
"... No one has benefited from the new rules more than the state of Israel, whose hundreds of support organizations and principal billionaire funders euphemized as the "Israel Lobby" have entrenched pro-Israel donors as the principal financial resources of both major political parties. ..."
The nearly complete corruption of the U.S. republican form of government has largely come
about due to the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court in January 2010 that basically
permitted unlimited donor-spending on political campaigns based on the principle that
providing money, normally through a political action committee (PAC), is a form of free
speech. The decision paved the way for agenda-driven plutocrats and corporations to largely
seize control of the formulation process for certain policies being promoted by the two
national parties.
No one has benefited from the new rules more than the state of Israel, whose hundreds of
support organizations and principal billionaire funders euphemized as the "Israel Lobby" have
entrenched pro-Israel donors as the principal financial resources of both major political
parties.
The ruling class only needs one tactic: divide and rule.
But how do I try to explain that to a black 16 year old math student who has recently
started looking at me with murder in his eyes? Everything i can think of just sounds like a
cliche.
Also... the media deserve no pity, they made their allegiances clear (for the
millionth time) with Assange.
Why (Oh, why) do the empires – or at least very successful countries collapse? The
answer is actually very simple. Because the elites of such successful entities lose touch
with reality.
The elites in every country, even the worst s ** tholes on the planet earth are always
going to be OK, better than the ordinary citizens – that's the whole point of being an
elite – to avoid the suffering of the common people.
And because there is no mechanism to increase the suffering of the elites in tandem with
the suffering of the ordinary population – when the times are tough – the elites
fail to respond to the difficulties that ordinary citizens face.
The elites start living in a fantasy world where they believe that as long as they are OK,
the country is OK. But the elites are going to be OK right up to the moment the country
collapses, so that's not an accurate measure of how the country is doing. The country can be
in the doldrums and the elites will still be OK.
That disconnect from reality is what prevents them to undertake measures that will
alleviate the plight of the majority of the population.
To make the things even worse, the elites of the enlightened west (that's how you call
countries that are struck by lightning) seems to have found a way to progressively increase
the benefits for themselves proportionately to the decrease of good fortunes coming the way
of the common citizens, thus further removing any incentive to act on behalf of the majority
of the population and further increasing the chasm that separates the haves from the have
nots.
@Cyrano Really good comment Cyrano.
1.
"Because the elites of such successful entities lose touch with reality."
2.
Elites have "found a way to progressively increase the benefits for themselves
proportionately to the decrease of good fortunes coming the way of the common citizens, thus
further removing any incentive to act on behalf of the majority of the population and further
increasing the chasm that separates the haves from the have nots."
In fact, the wealthier Elites become, the greater the chasm between them & the 99.9%
becomes, the more desperate Elites come to feel about their situation. Call it subconscious
guilt or conscious fear & insecurity but the richer & more powerful they feel, the
more they demand -- more .
The idea that they could at least fore-stall problems by a few reforms that would cost them
little (ie, a "people's QE") is unthinkable. "If we give 'em an inch, they'll demand a
mile"
Such acts of sensible benevolence are felt to be demeaning & dangerous.
And further, they've spent 40 years restructuring society & economy to serve their
interests, any reform now, however trivial, could undermine that structure. Reform itself is
an act of self contradiction to a class that has never missed a chance to take-take-take for
40 years.
US Elites are not a tree that can bend in the wind. They are completely rigid. Only events of
god-almighty significance will break them.
The current shenanigans will not do that. But, given rates of unemployment, & contraction
of GDP, given the distinct possibility of vast future immiseration, current events may be the
first breathe of a god almighty wind set to blow the whole shithouse down.
Unfortunately, current events are politically vacuous & offer no sign of real political
conscious.
Lack of political direction can only lead to anarchy -- & anarchy is just as likely to
strengthen the Elite hand as anything else.
Irrespective of whether either faction will succeed in instrumentalizing the riots, what
we are seeing today is a systemic collapse of the US society.
Amen. The collapse is systemic , it is social , and it has been gathering
momentum for decades. Thank you, Saker, for pointing that out. It's about time someone above
the battle invested serious thought in what's really going on in the hearts, minds and
streets. Your analysis is head and shoulders above the rabble-rousing we get from parochial
home-grown U.S. pundits, who deal only in labelling their personal heroes or villains du jour
(Blacks, Cops, White Supremacists, Jews, Climate Change, Empire, Bat viruses, Trump, and so
forth).
Those who agree with Saker's brilliant analysis and seek a deeper understanding of
mechanism at work may want to consult Joseph A. Tainter's The Collapse of Complex
Societies (Cambridge 1988). He invokes archaeological case studies to prove that what we
are seeing is actually a function of the law of diminishing returns (which is way broader
than economics). Complexity advances to a point at which the rulers' latest fixes for arising
problems do more harm than good since all these separate "solutions" invariably have an
unforeseen systemic effect.
At that point a system's traditional cheer-leading investment to engender social esprit
and voluntary compliance for a common good is no longer credible and the ruling elite is then
forced to resort to raw repression of dissent, which is much more costly than just benign
propaganda. All key institutions collapse not in isolation but systemically, and chunks of a
fragmenting society must spall off in order to save themselves from ruin. The inevitable
systemic collapse runs its course.
"And because there is no mechanism to increase the suffering of the elites in tandem
with the suffering of the ordinary population – when the times are tough – the
elites fail to respond to the difficulties that ordinary citizens face."
As you said: That's what makes them an elite.
"The elites start living in a fantasy world where they believe that as long as they are
OK, the country is OK. But the elites are going to be OK right up to the moment the country
collapses, so that's not an accurate measure of how the country is doing."
And when America finally does collapse, and their "fantasy world" ends, they'll fly off in
their private jet to one of their homes in New Zealand, Australia, or Switzerland.
The elites start living in a fantasy world where they believe that as long as they are
OK, the country is OK. But the elites are going to be OK right up to the moment the country
collapses, so that's not an accurate measure of how the country is doing. The country can
be in the doldrums and the elites will still be OK.
That disconnect from reality is what prevents them to undertake measures that will
alleviate the plight of the majority of the population.
I beg to differ a bit. This is true only as far elites are of capitalist and/or
aristocratic kind. You probably draw your conclusions from the French and Russian
revolutions.
However, I would argue that political elites in the former communist countries did try to
reform the system for the benefit of the citizens and, after seeing their efforts fail, had
the integrity to step down peacefully. The only possible exception being China where reforms
were fruitfull.
Unironically, one could argue that communist elites, having no personal wealth and stakes,
remained honest and true to their essential creed of serving the greater common good. When
the deep crisis of socialism in 1980s seemed to require that they step down and contries
abandon socialist order, they indeed steped down in the interest of the common good as it was
perceived at the time.
Now we see that we may have to reconsider the whole "fall of communism" thing again, but,
this theme is, off course, tangential to this article's topic.
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a
pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy
Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect
the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent
hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your
protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and
repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't
possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
A way to capture this change was thinking in terms of the traditional task of journalists to
interview or consult a variety of sources to determine was is truth or true. The shift
gradually became one of now interviewing or consulting various sources and reporting those
opinions.
Old-school journalism was like being assigned the task of finding out what "1+1 =?" and the
task was to report the answer was "1."
Now the task would be to report that "Some say it is 1, some say it is 2, some say it is
3."
"... The media would sensationalize any act of violence involving white on black and brown. They ignored all the violence of black and brown on white. This uneven media reporting was based on their desire to reinforce the mantra of "white people are evil racists, black and brown people are victims and good." ..."
"... Because it would paint themselves as supporters of "social justice" they created a false version of reality where everything bad in society was because of white people being racist. Never mind the actual causes of societal discontent being the exploitation by the elite. Because the media is the elite they don't want you to hate them. So they created a false victimizer they could blame for all the problems of society. ..."
"Partisan politics has created severe divisions in society. Such divisions restrict and
disturb people's thinking. People's support for a particular party is only a matter of
stance, which provides a shelter to politicians who violate people's interests.
"As elections come and go, it is simply about one group of elites replacing the other. The
intertwined interests between the two groups are much greater than those between the
victorious one and the electorate who vote for them.
"To cover such deception, the key agenda in the US is either a partisan fight or a
conflict with foreign countries. The severe racial discrimination and wealth disparities are
marginalized topics."
I wonder if the writer would like to see his conclusion proven wrong:
"Judging from the superficial comments and statements from US politicians on the protests,
the outsiders can easily draw the conclusion that solving problems is not on the minds of the
country, and elites are just fearlessly waiting for this wave of demonstrations to die
out."
In order to solve problems, one must know their components and roots, and that demands
honesty in making the assessment. Looking back at the assessments of Cornel West and the
producers of the Four Horsemen documentary, the main culprit is the broken political
system/failed social experiment, which are essentially one in the same as the flawed system
produced the failure. Most of us have determined that changing the system via the system will
never work because the system has empowered a Class that has no intentions on allowing its
power to be diminished, and that Class is currently using the system to further impoverish
and enslave the citizenry into Debt Peonage while increasing its own power. The #1 problem is
removing the Financial Parasite Class from power. Yes, at the moment that seems as difficult
as destroying the Death Star's reactor before it blows up Yavin 4, but the stakes involved
are every bit as high as those portrayed in Lucas's Star Wars , as the Evil of the
Empire and that of the Parasite Class are the same Evil.
What political demand could one possibly make by now, and of whom would you make it? Reform
is impossible, and there's no legitimate authority left (if there ever was in the first
place).
Posted by: Russ | Jun 1 2020 17:49 utc | 23
Indeed, apart from the shock of witnessing one of them murderd in plain daylight as if he
were a vermin, I think that the people, especially young, reacted that anarchic way because
they really see no future. They see how their country functions at steering wheel blows
especially through the pandemic, preview they will e in the need soon, even that they will be
murdered without contemeplation,and go out there to grab whatever they could...
We forget that they are under Trump regime and Trump has supported always their foes,
witnessing such assassination in plain daylight, without any officila doing nothing, not even
charging the obvious culprits was felt by tese people as if the hunting season on nigers and
lefties" had been declared. No other way yo ucan explain the sudden union of such ammount of
black and white young people. Thye felt all targets of the ops or of Trump´s white
supreamcist militias after four years of being dgreaded as subhumans. In fact, were not for
the riots to turn so violent, I fear carnages of all these peoples would have started.
The people, brainwashed or not, at least when they are young, still conserve some survival
instincts and some common sense too.
Yes, the republican model of organization is naturally unstable and doomed to collapse.
Everybody knows what happened to the Roman Republic: tendency to polarization, civil war and
collapse.
However, the reverse is also true: when the economy is flying high, every political system
works. Everybody is happy when there's wealth for everybody.
The present problem, therefore, is inherent to the capitalist system, not with the
republican system per se.
The media and politicians have repeated a mantra for years n order to gain power by
exploiting social and racial faultlines. They didn't want to deal with the actual cause of
societal discontent which is their own support of an exploitative economic system which
disempowers and pushed down everyone but the 1%. So they invented a false cause of discontent
in order to appear as saviors who are bringing a message of Hope and Change
White people are racist. White people are inherently evil and greedy. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Black and Brown people are good, Black and Brown people are victims of the racist greedy
evil white people.
White people are racist. White people are inherently evil and greedy. THAT IS THE
PROBLEM. Black and Brown people are good, Black and Brown people are victims of the racist
greedy evil white people.
After enough time has gone by, we have a generation of young people of all colors who
believe the above mantra with all their heart because of hearing that mantra every day in the
media, in schools, in movies, from leaders. The media knowing that, would then look for ways
to exploit their hatred of "white racism against black and brown people."
The media would sensationalize any act of violence involving white on black and brown.
They ignored all the violence of black and brown on white. This uneven media reporting was
based on their desire to reinforce the mantra of "white people are evil racists, black and
brown people are victims and good."
Because it would paint themselves as supporters of "social justice" they created a
false version of reality where everything bad in society was because of white people being
racist. Never mind the actual causes of societal discontent being the exploitation by the
elite. Because the media is the elite they don't want you to hate them. So they created a
false victimizer they could blame for all the problems of society.
Because violence from black and brown on white was never reported by the media except in
local news, people only heard from the national narrative of white violence of black and
brown because people don't pay attention to local news. They grew up believing the police
only abused black and brown people, they grew up believing that random street violence was
only from white people against black and brown. None of which is true.
This was bound to end up with a generation of people who believed the false narrative
where America is a nation where black and brown people are always the victims, and white
people are always the victimizers. And as you can see in the riots, the rioters are almost
all under 30. A generation has grown up being brainwashed by the mantra:
White people are racist. White people are inherently evil and greedy. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Black and Brown people are good, Black and Brown people are victims of the racist greedy
evil white people.
That is why so many people are perfectly fine with the violence and looting based on a few
recent incidents of white on black violence. During the same time period there was plenty of
black on black violence, plenty of brown on brown violence, and plenty of black and brown on
white violence. But the national media never highlights any violence but white on black and
brown. That is what has led to the new normal where any violence involving white on black or
brown will be blown up WAY out of proportion to the reality of violence in America. Which is
an equal opportunity game. A generation of people has grown up to believe that white racism
is the cause of all the problems.
Meanwhile the elites sit in their yachts and laugh. The rabble are busy fighting over race
when the real issue is ignored. The media has done their job admirably. Their job is to
deflect rage from the elite to racism. From wealthy exploitation of the commons, to racism.
As long as the underclasses are busy blaming racism then the politicians, business leaders,
and media are satisfied because they are the actual ones to blame. They are the enemy.
They blame racism for all the problems as a way to hide that truth of their own culpability
for the problems in society. THEIR OWN GREED AND CONTEMPT FOR THE UNDERCLASS.
MCC is married to a VC multi-millionaire. To have hubby's business friends throw a couple
hundred grand at her is unsurprising. It's kind of like when your kid has to sell chocolate
bars so the marching band to go to the Thanksgiving Day parade. I doubt she'll get a thousand
votes. It's a lark and great fun to talk about over cocktails with the other Masters of the
Universe.
But then again Claire Booth Luce was a Congressperson but she had the good taste to run in
Connecticut not the Bronx.
"... the Money Power, which is the collective term for the Central Bank and the "Princely Class" within the Outlaw US Empire. And their critique about Sanders, Biden and "Progressives" I agree with 100%. ..."
I see you're busy spreading BigLies. Please, jump out of your tree onto your head.
Thanks.
"Neofeudalism by design" is today's Keiser
Report Mantra --Max and Stacy present an excellent argument that tries to inform
people about what I call the Money Power, which is the collective term for the Central Bank and the "Princely Class" within the Outlaw US Empire. And their critique about Sanders, Biden
and "Progressives" I agree with 100%.
"... Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence . ..."
"... The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism." [Emphasis mine] ..."
"The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the State." – Antonio
Gramsci
Its somewhat bemusing that we discuss American politics ad nauseam, when it's been amply
demonstrated that voters in the USA cannot make changes to government policy through their
electoral process.
In fact, I would contend that American democracy has been non-existant since the JFK
assassination (57 years after the event with no charges having been laid) which was
essentially a coup d'état
Don't believe me? Read it and weep
A 2014 study from Princeton University spells bad news for American democracy –
namely, that it no longer exists:
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average
Citizens – Martin Gilens & Benjamin I. Page
"Each of 4 theoretical traditions in the study of American politics -- which can be
characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and
2 types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism -- offers
different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy:
average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or
business-oriented.
A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of
actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical
predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to
do so, using a unique data set which includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy
issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing
business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while
average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent
influence .
The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite
Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian
Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism." [Emphasis mine]
@PTG Mann This is my attempt to shed some light on the "democracy" reality show. In grade
11 I had a subject called Marxism. Yes, I did study Marxism for 1 year only – in high
school. One of the benefits of living in a "communist" country, I guess.
My Marxism professor, when he talked about capitalism, always used USA as an example. Not
because he was impressed with them, but because he believed that it was a common knowledge
that US was running the most austere form of capitalism possible. It's still like that today,
they are just using multiculturalism as a smoke screen to cover up the fact that their
capitalism is the most severe that they could get away with. And the stupid Europeans copy
them, believing that multiculturalism is what makes a country truly liberal. Sure.
Another interesting thing that I remember from my high school Marxism classes is that they
taught us that US has 2 types of elites. 1.Regular elites 2. Political elites. The regular
elites are the real elites, the economic ones, the real movers and shakers. The political
elites are just domestic help, a hired nobodies who do the rich men's bidding. The lines
between these 2 are almost never crossed. As many perks as there are to becoming political
elite, the benefits that you can milk from this new-found bonanza can never amount to the
point of making you qualified to join the real – economic elites. And it goes vice
versa as well. Economic elites usually don't have the interest (unless you are senile old guy
like Bloomberg) to waste time on personally participating in politics – it just doesn't
pay well enough by their standards. Of course, there are always exceptions – Donald
Trump. That's why the real elites hate him so much. Because he wants to sit on 2 chairs, to
belong to both the real elites and the political ones as well. The idea behind the political
elites is to pay them so you can influence them and tell them what to do. How do you
influence someone who doesn't really qualify as a hired help, who is one of you? It makes it
more difficult to boss around. I am not saying that Trump is unbossable, the problem is that
the real elites can't stomach the fact that Trump wants to boss THEM. Unforgivable.
The "democracy" has always been a pipe-dream, designed to prevent the rich f ** ks getting
at each other throats, more than anything else. That's why voting and elections are just a
mirage, political elites are not elected by voters, they are elected by the real (economic)
elites. That's why they throw millions of dollars on campaigns and lobbies and so on. So they
can have the final say about how things should be done, and not leave it to the political
"elites" initiatives.
Trump proved that the move from the economic elites into political elites is feasible,
even though it can be very unpopular with the economic elites, but the move from political
elites into real elites is almost impossible – despite occasional valiant efforts
– like Joe Biden and his son. The political elites simply lack any real cashable skills
that are required in order to make tons of money and qualify for the prestigious club of real
(economic) elites.
Sure the political elites can make a lot of money, but only from the perspective of the
poor. The money that the political elites make compared to the economic ones – is
pocket change. This is actually one of the positives of the American system, people who are
interested in making really big money, don't usually go into politics, because there are much
more and better ways to make more money. This is actually a feature of most of the developing
countries – where there is almost no distinction between real elites and political
elites and the only way to make money is to go into politics, and use corruption as a driving
force for becoming rich.
Sure the political elites can accomplish relative financial successes as well, and
sometimes this can get to their heads, making them delusional, like when Hillary –
white trash herself– called her own people – deplorables. The "democracy" pipe
dream serves another purpose – to create the illusion that the real elites (the rich)
and the poor are in the same predicament together – suffering under the unscrupulous
political elites. Yeah, right.
The other thing that people talk a lot about is communist propaganda. Sure there was some
of it. Having experienced living in both systems – capitalism and "communism" – I
can say that there is a big difference between capitalist and communist propaganda. Communist
propaganda was more of the wishful thinking type, trying to cover up reality because they
wished things could be better. Capitalist propaganda is much more sinister. The sole purpose
of existence of capitalist propaganda is not because they want things to be different and
better, but because they want things to stay the same as long as possible. The purpose of the
capitalist propaganda is to impede progress. Communists at least felt bad that their system
wasn't good enough to satisfy all the needs of the people. Capitalists have no such qualms.
The message that they convey through their "democracy" is that this is as good as it's going
to get, so you better get used to it. No regrets, no attempts to make things better.
It's funny that they bothered to teach us about different kinds of American elites way
back in high school, like that was going to have any practical application in our lives. It's
also unusual that I remember it, because I wasn't a particularly good student in any subject,
including Marxism. Maybe the reason why I remember it, is because after all these years it
still rings true.
Most discussions about and references to the US two-party system presidential elections
remain oblivious to the fact that for all practical purposes the US has only one political
party.
The US has the exact same political system that Mexico had for decades under the PRI: the
party elite decided on who was going to be the next president and then organized elections.
The US is essentially a none-party state (just read or reread Michael Parenti's Democracy
for the Few ).
The fact that the American voter can choose between a psychopath like Mrs. Clinton and a
guy like Trump, or between Trump and a senile moron like Biden (as may be the case this
year), merely serves to prove that the real political decisions are not made by the president
and that he is just a figurehead.
How can it be that a country with 330 million people cannot select even moderately
intelligent, decent, capable candidates for the highest office?
It is a good sign that most Americans understand this and don't bother to vote. Democracy
is a fake anyway, because if our votes would really count, we wouldn't have the right to
vote.
Half Of Young American Democrats Believe Billionaires Do More Harm Than Good by
Tyler Durden Sun,
03/15/2020 - 21:25 With income inequality the political hot potato du-jour and wealth
concentration at its most extreme since the roaring twenties, is it any wonder that even
Americans' view of what used to be called 'success' is now tainted with the ugly taste of
partisan 'not-fair'-ism.
Income inequality is roaring...
Wealth concentration is extreme to say the least...
But still,
according to Pew Research's latest survey , when asked about the impact of billionaires on
the country, nearly four-in-ten adults under age 30 (39%) say the fact that some have fortunes
of a billion dollars or more is a bad thing...
...with 50% of young Democrats.
"The recent reigning conventional wisdom over the last several decades of what I call the
'Age of Capital' is that [billionaires] are 'up there' because they are smarter than us," said
Anand Giridharadas, author of "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World."
But the Pew data, he says, suggest that young Americans are concluding that billionaires
have amassed their wealth "through their rigging of the tax code, through legal political
bribery, through their tax avoidance in shelters like the Cayman Islands, and through
lobbying for public policy that benefits them privately. "
"Bernie Sanders taught a lot of people [about wealth inequality], including people who did
not vote for him," Giridharadas said.
"The billionaire class is 'up there' because they are standing on our backs pinning us
down."
The good news - for the rest of America's "capitalists" - is that a majority (58%) say the
impact of billionaires on America is neither bad nor good.
Finally, one quick question - where were all these under-30s when Bernie needed them the
most in the Primaries? Was it all just virtue-signaling pro-socialist bullshit after all?
Looks like DNC run a pretty sophisticated smear campaign against Sanders ...
Notable quotes:
"... It really isn't about who the candidates are – hurtful as that may sound to some in our identity-saturated times. It is about what the candidate might try to do once in office. In truth, the very fact that nowadays we are allowed to focus on identity to our heart's content should be warning enough that the establishment is only too keen for us to exhaust our energies in promoting divisions based on those identities ..."
"... The Republican and Democratic leaderships are there to ensure that, before a candidate gets selected to compete in the parties' name, he or she has proven they are power-friendly. Two candidates, each vetted for obedience to power. ..."
The Democratic presidential nomination race is a fascinating case study in how power works
– not least, because the Democratic party leaders are visibly contriving to impose one
candidate, Joe Biden, as the party's nominee, even as it becomes clear that he is no longer
mentally equipped to run a local table tennis club let alone the world's most powerful
nation.
Biden's campaign is a reminder that power is indivisible. Donald Trump or Joe Biden for
president – it doesn't matter to the power-establishment. An egomaniacal man-child
(Trump), representing the billionaires, or an elder suffering rapid neurological degeneration
(Biden), representing the billionaires, are equally useful to power. A woman will do too, or a
person of colour. The establishment is no longer worried about who stands on stage
– so long as that person is not a Bernie Sanders in the US, or a Jeremy Corbyn in the
UK.
It really isn't about who the candidates are – hurtful as that may sound to some in
our identity-saturated times. It is about what the candidate might try to do once in office. In
truth, the very fact that nowadays we are allowed to focus on identity to our heart's content
should be warning enough that the establishment is only too keen for us to exhaust our energies
in promoting divisions based on those identities. What concerns it far more is that we might
overcome those divisions and unify against it, withdrawing our consent from an establishment
committed to endless asset-stripping of our societies and the planet.
Neither Biden nor Trump will obstruct the establishment, because they are at its very heart.
The Republican and Democratic leaderships are there to ensure that, before a candidate gets
selected to compete in the parties' name, he or she has proven they are power-friendly. Two
candidates, each vetted for obedience to power.
Although a pretty face or a way with words are desirable, incapacity and incompetence are no
barrier to qualifying, as the two white men groomed by their respective parties demonstrate.
Both have proved they will favour the establishment, both will pursue near-enough the
same policies , both are committed to the status quo, both have demonstrated their
indifference to the future of life on Earth. What separates the candidates is not real
substance, but presentation styles – the creation of the appearance of difference, of
choice.
Policing the debate
The subtle dynamics of how the Democratic nomination race is being rigged are interesting.
Especially revealing are the ways the Democratic leadership protects establishment power by
policing the terms of debate: what can be said, and what can be thought; who gets to speak and
whose voices are misrepresented or demonised. Manipulation of language is key.
As I pointed out in my previous post , the
establishment's power derives from its invisibility. Scrutiny is kryptonite to
power.
The only way we can interrogate power is through language, and the only way we can
communicate our conclusions to others is through words – as I am doing right now. And
therefore our strength – our ability to awaken ourselves from the trance of power –
must be subverted by the establishment, transformed into our Achilles' heel, a weakness.
The treatment of Bernie Sanders and his supporters by the Democratic establishment –
and those who eagerly repeat its talking points – neatly illustrates how this can be done
in manifold ways.
Remember this all started back in 2016, when Sanders committed the unforgivable sin of
challenging the Democratic leadership's right simply to anoint Hillary Clinton as the party's
presidential candidate. In those days, the fault line was obvious and neat: Bernie was a man,
Clinton a woman. She would be the first woman president. The only party members who might wish
to deny her that historic moment, and back Sanders instead, had to be misogynist men. They were
supposedly venting their anti-women grudge against Clinton, who in turn was presented to women
as a symbol of their oppression by men.
And so was born a meme: the "Bernie Bros". It rapidly became shorthand for suggesting
– contrary to all evidence
– that Sanders' candidacy appealed chiefly to angry, entitled white men. In fact, as
Sanders' 2020 run has amply demonstrated, support for him has been more diverse than for the
many other Democratic candidates who sought the nomination.
So important what @ewarren is saying to @maddow about the
dangerous, threatening, ugly faction among the Bernie supporters. Sanders either cannot or
will not control them. pic.twitter.com/LYDXlLJ7bi
How contrived the 2016 identity-fuelled contest was should have been clear, had anyone been
allowed to point that fact out. This wasn't really about the Democratic leadership respecting
Clinton's identity as a woman. It was about them paying lip service to her identity as a
woman, while actually promoting her because she was a reliable warmonger
and
Wall Street functionary . She was useful to power.
If the debate had really been driven by identity politics, Sanders had a winning card too:
he is Jewish. That meant he could be the United States' first Jewish president. In a fair
identity fight, it would have been a draw between the two. The decision about who should
represent the Democratic party would then have had to be decided based on policies, not
identity. But party leaders did not want Clinton's actual policies, or her political history,
being put under the microscope for very obvious reasons.
Weaponisation of identity
The weaponisation of identity politics is even more transparent in 2020. Sanders is still
Jewish, but his main opponent, Joe Biden, really is simply a privileged white man. Were the
Clinton format to be followed again by Democratic officials, Sanders would enjoy an identity
politics trump card. And yet Sanders is still being presented as just another white male
candidate , no different from Biden.
(We could take this argument even further and note that the other candidate who no one,
least of all the Democratic leadership, ever mentions as still in the race is Tulsi
Gabbard, a woman of colour. The Democratic party has worked hard to make her as
invisible as possible in the primaries because, of all the candidates, she is the most
vocal and articulate opponent of foreign wars. That has deprived her of the chance to raise
funds and win delegates.)
. @DanaPerino I'm not quite sure why
you're telling FOX viewers that Elizabeth Warren is the last female candidate in the Dem
primary. Is it because you believe a fake indigenous woman of color is "real" and the real
indigenous woman of color in this race is fake? pic.twitter.com/VKCxy2JzFe
Sanders' Jewish identity isn't celebrated because he isn't useful to the
power-establishment. What's far more important to them – and should be to us too –
are his policies, which might limit their power to wage war, exploit workers and trash the
planet.
But it is not just that Democratic Party leaders are ignoring Sanders' Jewish identity. They
are also again actively using identity politics against him, and in many different
ways.
The 'black' establishment?
Bernie Sanders' supporters have been complaining for some time – based on mounting
evidence – that the Democratic leadership is far from neutral between Sanders and Biden.
Because it has a vested interest in the outcome, and because it is the part of the
power-establishment, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is exercising its influence in
favour of Biden. And because power prefers darkness, the DNC is doing its best to exercise that
power behind the scenes, out of sight – at least, unseen by those who still rely on the
"mainstream" corporate media, which is also part of the power-establishment. As should be clear
to anyone watching, the nomination proceedings are being controlled to give Biden every
advantage and to obstruct Sanders.
But the Democratic leadership is not only dismissing out of hand these very justified
complaints from Bernie Sanders' supporters but also turning these complaints against them, as
further evidence of their – and his – illegitimacy. A new way of doing this emerged
in the immediate wake of Biden winning South Carolina on the back of strong support from older
black voters – Biden's first state win and a launchpad for his Super Tuesday bid a few
days later.
It was given perfect expression from Symone Sanders, who despite her surname is actually a
senior adviser to Biden's campaign. She is also black. This is what she wrote: "People who keep
referring to Black voters as 'the establishment' are tone deaf and have obviously learned
nothing."
People who keep referring to Black voters as "the establishment" are tone deaf and have
obviously learned nothing.
-- Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) March 3,
2020
Her reference to generic "people" was understood precisely by both sides of the debate as
code for those "Bernie Bros". Now, it seems, Bernie Sanders' supporters are not simply
misogynists, they are potential recruits to the Ku Klux Klan.
The tweet went viral, even though in the fiercely contested back-and-forth below her tweet
no one could produce a single example of anyone actually saying anything like the sentiment
ascribed by Symone Sanders to "Bernie Bros". But then, tackling bigotry was not her real goal.
This wasn't meant to be a reflection on a real-world talking-point by Bernie supporters. It was
high-level gaslighting by a senior Democratic party official of the party's own voters.
Survival of the fittest smear
What Symone Sanders was really trying to do was conceal power – the fact that the DNC
is seeking to impose its chosen candidate on party members. As occurred during the confected
women-men, Clinton vs "Bernie Bros" confrontation, Symone Sanders was field-testing a similar
narrative management tool as part of the establishment's efforts to hone it for improved
effect. The establishment has learnt – through a kind of survival of the fittest smear
– that divide-and-rule identity politics is the perfect way to shield its influence as it
favours a status-quo candidate (Biden or Clinton) over a candidate seen as a threat to its
power (Sanders).
In her tweet, Symone Sanders showed exactly how the power elite seeks to obscure its toxic
role in our societies. She neatly conflated "the establishment" – of which she is a very
small, but well-paid component – with ordinary "black voters". Her message is this:
should you try to criticise the establishment (which has inordinate power to damage lives and
destroy the planet) we will demonise you, making it seem that you are really attacking black
people (who in the vast majority of cases – though Symone Sanders is a notable exception
– wield no power at all).
Symone Sanders has recruited her own blackness and South Carolina's "black voters" as a ring
of steel to protect the establishment. Cynically, she has turned poor black people, as well as
the tens of thousands of people (presumably black and white) who liked her tweet, into human
shields for the establishment.
It sounds a lot uglier put like that. But it has rapidly become a Biden talking-point, as we
can see here:
NEW: @JoeBiden responds to @berniesanders
saying the "establishment" is trying to defeat him.
"The establishment are all those hardworking, middle class people, those African Americans
they are the establishment!" @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/43Q2Nci5sS
The DNC's wider strategy is to confer on Biden exclusive rights to speak for black voters
(despite his
inglorious record on
civil rights issues) and, further, to strip Sanders and his senior black advisers of any
right to do so. When Sanders protests about this, or about racist behaviour from the Biden
camp, Biden's supporters come out in force and often abusively, though of course no one is
upbraiding them for their ugly, violent language. Here is the famous former tennis player
Martina Navratilova showing that maybe we should be talking about "Biden Bros":
Sanders is starting to really piss me off. Just shut this kind of crap down and debate the
issues. This is not it.
This kind of special pleading by the establishment for the establishment –
using those sections of it, such as Symone Sanders, that can tap into the identity politics
zeitgeist – is far more common than you might imagine. The approach is being
constantly refined, often using social media as the ultimate focus group. Symone Sanders'
successful conflation of the establishment with "black voters" follows earlier, clumsier
efforts by the establishment to protect its interests against Sanders that proved far less
effective.
Remember how last autumn the billionaire-owned corporate media tried to tell us that it was
unkind to
criticise billionaires – that they had feelings too and that speaking harshly about
them was "dehumanising". Again it was aimed at Sanders, who had just commented that in a
properly ordered world billionaires simply wouldn't exist. It was an obvious point: allowing a
handful of people to control almost all the planet's wealth was not only depriving the rest of
us of that wealth (and harming the planet) but it gave those few billionaires way too much
power. They could buy all the media, our channels of communication, and most of the politicians
to ringfence their financial interests, gradually eroding even the most minimal democratic
protections.
That campaign died a quick death because few of us are actually brainwashed enough to accept
the idea that a handful of billionaires share an identity that needs protecting – from
us! Most of us are still connected enough to the real world to understand that billionaires are
more than capable of looking out for their own interests, without our helping them by imposing
on ourselves a vow of silence.
But one cannot fault the power-establishment for being constantly inventive in the search
for new ways to stifle our criticisms of the way it unilaterally exercises its power. The
Democratic nomination race is testing such ingenuity to the limits. Here's a new rule against
"hateful conduct" on Twitter, where Biden's neurological deficit is being subjected to much
critical scrutiny through the sharing of dozens of
videos of embarrassing Biden "senior moments".
Twitter expanding its hateful conduct rules "to include language that dehumanizes on the
basis of age, disability or disease." https://t.co/KmWGaNAG9Z
Yes, disability and age are identities too. And so, on the pretext of protecting and
respecting those identities, social media can now be scrubbed of anything and anyone trying to
highlight the mental deficiencies of an old man who might soon be given the nuclear codes and
would be responsible for waging wars in the name of Americans. Twitter is full of comments
denouncing as "ableist" anyone who tries to highlight how the Democratic leadership is foisting
a cognitively challenged Biden on to the party.
Maybe the Dem insiders are all wrong, but it's true that they are saying it. Some are
saying it out loud, including Castro at the debate and Booker here: https://t.co/0lbi7RFRqG
None of this is to overlook the fact that another variation of identity politics has been
weaponised against Sanders: that of failing to be an "American" patriot. Again illustrating how
closely the Democratic and Republican leaderships' interests align, the question of who is a
patriot – and who is really working for the "Russians" – has been at the heart of
both parties' campaigns, though for different reasons.
Trump has been subjected to endless, evidence-free claims that he is a secret "Russian
agent" in a concerted effort to control his original isolationist foreign policy impulses that
might have stripped the establishment – and its military-industrial wing – of the
right to wage wars of aggression, and revive the Cold War, wherever it believes a profit can be
made under cover of "humanitarian intervention". Trump partly inoculated himself against these
criticisms, at least among supporters, with his "Make America Great Again" slogan, and partly
by learning – painfully for such an egotist – that his presidential role was to
rubber-stamp decisions made elsewhere about waging wars and projecting US power.
I'm just amazed by this tweet, which has been tweeted plenty. Did @_nalexander and all the people
liking this not know that Mueller laid out in the indictments of a number of Russians and in
his report their help on social media to Sanders and Trump. Help Sanders has acknowledged
https://t.co/vuc0lmvvKP
Bernie Sanders has faced similar smear
efforts by the establishment, including by the DNC's last failed presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton – in his case, painting him as a "Russian asset". ("Asset" is a way to
suggest collusion with the Kremlin based on even more flimsy evidence than is needed to accuse
someone of being an agent.) In fact, in a world where identity politics wasn't simply a tool to
be weaponised by the establishment, there would be real trepidation about engaging in this kind
of invective against a Jewish socialist.
One of the far-right's favourite antisemitic tropes – promoted ever since the
publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion more than 100 years ago – is that
Jewish "Bolsheviks" are involved in an
international conspiracy to subvert the countries they live in. We have reached the point
now that the corporate media are happy to recycle evidence-free claims,
cited by the Washington Post, from anonymous "US officials" and US intelligence agencies
reinventing a US version of the Protocols against Sanders. And these smears have elicited not a
word of criticism from the Democratic leadership nor from the usual antisemitism watchdogs that
are so ready to let rip over the slightest signs of what they claim to be antisemitism on the
left.
But the urgency of dealing with Sanders may be the reason normal conventions have been
discarded. Sanders isn't a loud-mouth egotist like Trump. A vote for Trump is a vote for the
establishment, if for one of its number who pretends to be against the establishment. Trump has
been largely tamed in time for a second term. By contrast, Sanders, like Corbyn in the UK, is
more dangerous because he may resist the efforts to domesticate him, and because if he is
allowed any significant measure of political success – such as becoming a candidate for
president – it may inspire others to follow in his footsteps. The system might start to
throw up more anomalies, more AOCs and more Ilhan Omars.
So Sanders is now being cast, like Trump, as a puppet of the Kremlin, not a true American.
And because he made the serious mistake of indulging the "Russiagate" smears when they were
used against Trump, Sanders now has little defence against their redeployment against him. And
given that, by the impoverished standards of US political culture, he is considered an extreme
leftist, it has been easy to conflate his democratic socialism with Communism, and then
conflate his supposed Communism with acting on behalf of the Kremlin (which, of course, ignores
the fact that Russia long ago abandoned Communism).
Sen. Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell this to Putin -- the American people, whether
Republicans, Democrats, independents are sick and tired of seeing Russia and other countries
interfering in our elections." pic.twitter.com/ejcP7YVFlt
There is a final use of weaponised identity politics that the Democratic establishment would
dearly love to use against Sanders, if they need to and can get away with it. It is the most
toxic brand – and therefore the most effective – of the identity-based smears, and
it has been extensively field-tested in the
UK against Jeremy Corbyn to great success. The DNC would like to denounce Sanders as an
antisemite.
In fact, only one thing has held them back till now: the fact that Sanders is Jewish. That
may not prove an insuperable obstacle, but it does make it much harder to make the accusation
look credible. The other identity-based smears had been a second-best, a make-do until a way
could be found to unleash the antisemitism smear.
The establishment has been
testing the waters with implied accusations of antisemitism against Sanders for a while,
but their chances were given a fillip recently when Sanders refused to participate in the
annual jamboree of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent lobby group
whose primary mission is to ringfence Israel from criticism in the US. Both the Republican and
Democratic establishments turn out in force to the AIPAC conference, and in the past the event
has attracted keynote speeches from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
But Sanders has refused to attend for decades and maintained that stance this month, even
though he is a candidate for the Democratic nomination. In the last primaries debate, Sanders
justified his decision by rightly
calling Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "racist" and by describing AIPAC as
providing a platform "for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights".
Trump's Vice-President, Mike Pence,
responded that Sanders supported "Israel's enemies" and, if elected, would be the "most
anti-Israel president in the history of this nation" – all coded suggestions that Sanders
is antisemitic.
But that's Mike Pence. More useful criticism came from billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who is
himself Jewish and was until last week posing as a Democrat to try to win the party's
nomination. Bloomberg accused Sanders of using dehumanising language against a bunch of
inclusive identities that, he improbably suggested, AIPAC represents. He
claimed :
"This is a gathering of 20,000 Israel supporters of every religious denomination,
ethnicity, faith, color, sexual identity and political party. Calling it a racist platform is
an attempt to discredit those voices, intimidate people from coming here, and weaken the
US-Israel relationship."
Where might this head? At the AIPAC conference last week we were given a foretaste. Ephraim
Mirvis, the chief rabbi of the UK and a friend to
Conservative government leader Boris Johnson, was warmly greeted by delegates, including
leading members of the Democratic establishment. He boasted that he and other Jewish leaders in
the UK had managed to damage Jeremy Corbyn's electoral chances by suggesting that he was an
antisemite over his support, like Sanders, for Palestinian rights.
His own treatment of Corbyn, he argued, offered a model for US Jewish organisations to
replicate against any leadership contender who might pose similar trouble for Israel, leaving
it for his audience to pick up the not-so-subtle hint about who needed to be subjected to
character assassination.
WATCH: "Today I issue a call to the Jews of America, please take a leaf out of our book
and please speak with one voice."
The Chief Rabbi speaking to the 18,000 delegates gathered at the @AIPAC General Session at their Policy
Conference in Washington DC pic.twitter.com/BOkan9RA2O
For anyone who isn't wilfully blind, the last few months have exposed the establishment
playbook: it will use identity politics to divide those who might otherwise find a united voice
and a common cause.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating one's identity, especially if it is under threat,
maligned or marginalised. But having an attachment to an identity is no excuse for allowing it
to be coopted by billionaires, by the powerful, by nuclear-armed states oppressing other
people, by political parties or by the corporate media, so that they can weaponise it to
prevent the weak, the poor, the marginalised from being represented.
It is time for us to wake up to the tricks, the deceptions, the manipulations of the strong
that exploit our weaknesses – and make us yet weaker still. It's time to stop being a
patsy for the establishment. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jonathan Cook
The Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, AGAIN! Even the fact
that Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race was devastating to Bernie and allowed Sleepy Joe to
unthinkably win Massachusetts. It was a perfect storm, with many good states remaining for
Joe!
20 minutes later, Trump tweeted that it was " So selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the
race ," as she has "Zero chance of even coming close to winning, but hurts Bernie badly."
"So much for their wonderful liberal friendship. Will he ever speak to her again? She cost him
Massachusetts (and came in third), he shouldn't!"
So selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race. She has Zero chance of even coming
close to winning, but hurts Bernie badly. So much for their wonderful liberal friendship. Will
he ever speak to her again? She cost him Massachusetts (and came in third), he shouldn't!
Three hours later, Trump tweeted: " Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn't in the race, Bernie
Sanders would have EASILY won Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas , not to mention various other
states. Our modern day Pocahontas won't go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go
down as the all time great SPOILER! "
Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn't in the race, Bernie Sanders would have EASILY won
Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, not to mention various other states. Our modern day
Pocahontas won't go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go down as the all time
great SPOILER!
The article is mostly junk. But it contains some important insights into the rise of Trympism (aka "national neoliberalism") --
nationalist oligarchy. Including the following " the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not
actually pursuing policies that are economically populist."
The real threat to liberal democracy isn't authoritarianism -- it's nationalist oligarchy. Here's how American foreign policy should
change. The real threat to liberal democracy isn't authoritarianism -- it's nationalist oligarchy. Here's how American foreign policy
should change.
Notable quotes:
"... Fascism: A Warning ..."
"... Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America ..."
"... the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist. ..."
"... The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy ..."
"... Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority to overthrow them. ..."
"... Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out through ordinary political means. ..."
"... Classical Greek Oligarchy ..."
"... Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different -- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." ..."
"... We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. ..."
"... The view that money is speech under the First Amendment has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy," as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship. ..."
"... The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars ..."
"... The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic ..."
Ever since the 2016 election, foreign policy commentators and practitioners have been engaged in a series of soul-searching exercises
to understand the great transformations taking place in the world -- and to articulate a framework appropriate to the challenges
of our time. Some have looked backwards, arguing that the liberal international order is collapsing, while others question whether
it ever existed. Another group seems to hope the current messiness is simply a blip and that foreign policy will return to normalcy
after it passes. Perhaps the most prominent group has identified today's great threat as the rise of authoritarianism, autocracy,
and illiberal democracy. They fear that constitutional democracy is receding as norms are broken and institutions are under siege.
Unfortunately, this approach misunderstands the nature of the current crisis. The challenge we face today is not one of authoritarianism,
as so many seem inclined to believe, but of nationalist oligarchy. This form of government feeds populism to the people, delivers
special privileges to the rich and well-connected, and rigs politics to sustain its regime.
... ... ..
Authoritarianism or What?
Across the political spectrum, commentators and scholars have identified -- and warned of -- the global rise of autocracies and
authoritarian governments. They cite Russia, Hungary, the Philippines, and Turkey, among others. Distinguished commentators are increasingly
worried. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently published a book called Fascism: A Warning . Cass Sunstein
gathered a variety of scholars for a collection titled, Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America .
The authoritarian lens is familiar from the heroic narrative of democracy defeating autocracies in the twentieth century. But
as a framework for understanding today's central geopolitical challenges, it is far too narrow. This is mainly because those who
are worried about the rise of authoritarianism and the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics. Their emphasis
is almost exclusively political and constitutional -- free speech, voting rights, equal treatment for minorities, independent courts,
and the like. But politics and economics cannot be dissociated from each other, and neither are autonomous from social and cultural
factors. Statesmen and philosophers used to call this "political economy." Political economy looks at economic and political relationships
in concert, and it is attentive to how power is exercised. If authoritarianism is the future, there must be a story of its political
economy -- how it uses politics and economics to gain and hold power. Yet the rise-of-authoritarianism theorists have less to say
about these dynamics.
To be sure, many commentators have discussed populist movements throughout Europe and America, and there has been no shortage
of debate on the extent to which a generation of widening economic inequality has been a contributing factor in their rise. But whatever
the causes of popular discontent, the policy preferences of the people, and the bloviating rhetoric of leaders, the governments
that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist.
The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of
them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek
to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy , Jeffrey Winters calls it "wealth
defense." Elites engage in "property defense," protecting what they already have, and "income defense," preserving and extending
their ability to hoard more. Importantly, oligarchy as a governing strategy accounts for both politics and economics. Oligarchs use
economic power to gain and hold political power and, in turn, use politics to expand their economic power.
Those who worry about the rise of authoritarianism and fear the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics.
The trouble for oligarchs is that their regime involves rule by a small number of wealthy elites. In even a nominally
democratic society, and most countries around the world today are at least that, it should be possible for the much larger majority
to overthrow the oligarchy with either the ballot or the bullet. So how can oligarchy persist? This is where both nationalism and
authoritarianism come into play. Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics
to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority
to overthrow them.
The divide-and-conquer strategy is an old one, and it works through a combination of coercion and co-optation. Nationalism --
whether statist, ethnic, religious, or racial -- serves both functions. It aligns a portion of ordinary people with the ruling oligarchy,
mobilizing them to support the regime and sacrifice for it. At the same time, it divides society, ensuring that the nationalism-inspired
will not join forces with everyone else to overthrow the oligarchs. We thus see fearmongering about minorities and immigrants, and
claims that the country belongs only to its "true" people, whom the leaders represent. Activating these emotional, cultural, and
political identities makes it harder for citizens in the country to unite across these divides and challenge the regime.
Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political
marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The
common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out
through ordinary political means. Tactics like these are not new. They have existed, as Matthew Simonton shows in his book
Classical Greek Oligarchy , since at least the time of Pericles and Plato. The consequence, then as now, is that nationalist
oligarchies can continue to deliver economic policies to benefit the wealthy and well-connected.
It is worth noting that even the generation that waged war against fascism in Europe understood that the challenge to democracy
in their time was not just political, but economic and social as well. They believed that the rise of Nazism was tied to the concentration
of economic power in Germany, and that cartels and monopolies not only cooperated with and served the Nazi state, but helped its
rise and later sustained it. As New York Congressman Emanuel Celler, one of the authors of the Anti-Merger Act of 1950, said, quoting
a report filed by Secretary of War Kenneth Royall, "Germany under the Nazi set-up built up a great series of industrial monopolies
in steel, rubber, coal and other materials. The monopolies soon got control of Germany, brought Hitler to power, and forced virtually
the whole world into war." After World War II, Marshall Plan experts not only rebuilt Europe but also exported aggressive American
antitrust and competition laws to the continent because they believed political democracy was impossible without economic democracy.
Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different
-- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional
norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy
will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as
Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. Electoral losers in places
like North Carolina seek to entrench their power rather than accept defeat. The view that money is speech under the First Amendment
has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy,"
as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase
their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded
enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship.
Addressing our domestic economic and social crises is critical to defending democracy, and a grand strategy for America's future
must incorporate both domestic and foreign policy. But while many have recognized that reviving America's middle class and re-stitching
our social fabric are essential to saving democracy, less attention has been paid to how American foreign policy should be reformed
in order to defend democracy from the threat of nationalist oligarchy.
The Varieties of Nationalist Oligarchy
Just as there are many variations on liberal democracy -- the Swedish model, the French model, the American model -- there
are many varieties of nationalist oligarchy. The story is different in every country, but the elements of nationalist oligarchy
are trending all over the world.
... ... ...
... the European Union funds Hungary's oligarchy, as Orbán draws on EU money to fund about 60 percent of the state projects
that support "the new Fidesz-linked business elite." Nor do Orbán and his allies do much to hide the country's crony capitalist
model. András Lánczi, president of a Fidesz-affiliated think tank, has boldly stated that "if something is done in the national
interest, then it is not corruption." "The new capitalist ruling class," one Hungarian banker comments, "make their money from
the government."
The commentator Jan-Werner Müller captures Orbán's Hungary this way: "Power is secured through wide-ranging control of the
judiciary and the media; behind much talk of protecting hard-pressed families from multinational corporations, there is crony
capitalism, in which one has to be on the right side politically to get ahead economically."
Crony capitalism, coupled with resurgent nationalism and central government control, is also an issue in China. While some
commentators have emphasized "state capitalism" -- when government has a significant ownership stake in companies -- this phenomenon
is not to be confused with crony capitalism. Some countries with state capitalism, like Norway, are widely seen as extremely non-corrupt
and, indeed, are often held up as models of democracy. State capitalism itself is thus not necessarily a problem. Crony capitalism,
in contrast, is an "instrumental union between capitalists and politicians designed to allow the former to acquire wealth, legally
or otherwise, and the latter to seek and retain power." This is the key difference between state capitalism and oligarchy.
... ... ...
Ganesh Sitaraman is a professor of law
and Chancellor's faculty fellow at Vanderbilt Law School, and the author of The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the
Age of Small Wars and The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic
.
I have spent 16 years (since 2004) trying to figure out how deal with the spoiler effect --
or put much more relevantly, 'elite fronted party lock-in'. Understand that you may have a
government comprised of 100 parties, but there will nonetheless be no democracy at all if
they are all 'elite fronted' and ultimately controlled, no matter what policies they
superficially promote. This is the nature of the lock-in effect.
Right now, thousands of intellectually sophisticated fools are trying to promote totally
lock-in prone election systems such as ranked choice voting (RCV/IRV). These system will
leave the voters just as party locked-in as they are with the choose-one system they have
now. This is largely due to their requirement for extreme tabulationary opacity, and also
extremely high information traffic.
Presently, the best cure for this is 'simple positional voting', which I promote as
'ranked simple voting' (which sophisticated fools often confuse with the quite similar, yet
far more unobviously complicated 'Borda method'). It uses precisely the same ballot design as
RCV, so voters can simply check-off a box to indicate by which method they prefer their
ballot to be tabulated.
The ranked ballots reflect the pattern: =/ 10 > 9 > 8 > ... 1 > 0 /=. There
are ten ranked 'places', and voters can assign one candidate to each place, and each
candidate assigned to a 'place' will be granted a corresponding number of 'points' (and they
can also leave places blank if they prefer). Putting it very simplistically, the candidate
with the largest total of points wins. And it turns out that it is quite easy to fairly
combine the results of this ranked simple voting (RSV) with those of ranked choice voting.
Eventually all the voters will abandon RCV and all its unobvious complexity.
This is what people need to support!
As for poor Circe and dear Bernie, the poor chap has no chance. The best way to support
Bernie is to buy one of those billion dollar lottery tickets at the corner market, and
contribute the proceeds to the Bernie campaign. I am totally serious. This morning I received
my third expensive, super-glossy mailing from the Michael Bloomberg campaign (Money raised:
$200.4 million -- from himself!). Very sorry to bear such grim tidings! But you could still
direct your support to ranked simple voting. If we had that, somebody even better than Bernie
would run, and win. Think about it.
Technically, what you're proposing appears to be a form of positional voting -- with the
ballots marked from the top score down rather than from the lowest-numbered
(highest-preference) rank up, and with the option of not filling in all possible scores.
If it were possible for someone with two top favorites in your example field of ten to
give both of them a 10, or do the like at the bottom of the ranking range (or anywhere in the
middle), then you'd be closer to score voting (a/k/a range
voting).
In the US non-political world, you're pretty much talking about a sports poll. But some
places have adopted positional voting for their government elections, too.
(Of course, no voting system -- ordinal or cardinal -- can meet all desirable criteria.
It's up to each voting population to decide what it cares most about.)
Posted by: jalp | F
@ jalp | Feb 26 2020 20:11 utc | 47
=/ Technically, what you're proposing appears to be a form of positional voting... /= --
above
Yeah but I already stated that didn't I? And where does this "Technically" come from? That
is so often just an opening phrase for intellectually sophisticated fools. Forget the CIA
owned and operated 'Wikipedia'. Of course I know all about that 'score/range' voting. And
also about all the alchemy of election methods 'criteria', and the irrelevant 'Condorcet'
criterion, etc. It all means nothing in the real world.
There is one and only one criterion that makes any real difference: Does the system
provide escape from elite fronted party lock-in? That, truly, is all that matters. All the
rest of it is just intellectual masturbation of the most sordid kind.
Just allow ranked simple voting, and the psychopathy of elite fronted party lock-in will
fade away.
This was an outright declaration of "class war" against working-class voters by a
"university-credentialed overclass" -- "managerial elite" which changed sides and allied with
financial oligrchy. See "The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite" by
Michael Lind
Notable quotes:
"... By canceling the class compromise that governed the capitalist societies after World War II, the neoliberal elite saws the seed of the current populist backlash. The "soft neoliberal" backbone of the Democratic Party (Clinton wing) were incapable of coming to terms with Hillary Clinton's defeat -- the rejection of the establishment candidate by the US population and first of all by the working class. The result has been the neo-McCarthyism campaign and the attempt to derail Trump via color revolution spearheaded by Brennan-Obama factions in CIA and FBI. ..."
It looks like Bloomberg is finished. He just committed political suicide with his comments
about farmers and metal workers.
BTW Bloomberg's plan is highly hypocritical -- like is Bloomberg himself.
During the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, a "neoliberal revolution from above" was
staged in the USA by "managerial elite" which like Soviet nomenklatura (which also staged a
neoliberal coup d'état) changed sides and betrayed the working class.
So those neoliberal scoundrels reversed the class compromise embodied in the New Deal.
The most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the neoliberal managerial class and financial
oligarchy who got to power via the "Quiet Coup" was the global labor arbitrage in which
production is outsourced to countries with lower wage levels and laxer regulations.
So all those "improving education" plans are, to a large extent, the smoke screen over the
fact that the US workers now need to compete against highly qualified and lower cost
immigrants and outsourced workforce.
The fact is that it is very difficult to find for US graduates in STEM disciplines a
decent job, and this is by design.
Also, after the "Reagan neoliberal revolution" ( actually a coup d'état ), profits
were maximized by putting downward pressure on domestic wages through the introduction of the
immigrant workforce (the collapse of the USSR helped greatly ). They push down wages and
compete for jobs with their domestic counterparts, including the recent graduates. So the
situation since 1991 was never too bright for STEM graduates.
By canceling the class compromise that governed the capitalist societies after World War
II, the neoliberal elite saws the seed of the current populist backlash. The "soft
neoliberal" backbone of the Democratic Party (Clinton wing) were incapable of coming to terms
with Hillary Clinton's defeat -- the rejection of the establishment candidate by the US
population and first of all by the working class. The result has been the neo-McCarthyism
campaign and the attempt to derail Trump via color revolution spearheaded by Brennan-Obama
factions in CIA and FBI.
See also recently published "The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial
Elite" by Michael Lind.
One of his quotes:
The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist,
but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of
an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is
hidden in plain sight.
It should be clear on what the fight is really about in the US. It's about stopping the rise
of socialism. Regardless of party affiliation, the elites know what the populace wants and
are desperately trying to stop it. I refuse to accept that the Democrats have no idea what
they're doing.
I honestly can't see Sanders getting the nomination with all the corruption openly being
displayed. I would be pleasantly surprised if Sanders did manage to get it, but he still have
to deal with the ELECTORAL COLLEGE (EC). The Electors have the final say. Yes, one can point
out that some States have laws forcing Electors to vote what the populace wants, but that is
being challenged in court. The debate on whether such laws are unconstitutional or not,
remains to be seen. It's too late now to deal with the EC for this election, but people need
to be more active in politics at the State level as that's where Electors are (s)elected.
IF Sanders is genuine then he should prepare to run as an independent just to get the EC
attention.
RR @ 14;
Everything in the U$A today, is driven by the unofficial Party of $, and it's reach
transcends both Dems & repubs. It's cadre is the majority of the D.C. "rule makers", so
we get what they want, not what "we the people" want or need.
They own the banks, MSM media, and even our voting systems.
IMO, to assume one party is to blame for conditions in the U$A is a bit naive.
Question is, can anything the masses do, change the system? Or is rank and file America
just along for the ride?
I'm assuming us peons will get what the party of $ wants this November also.
P.S. If any blame is given, it needs to go to the American public, because " you get the
kind of Gov. you deserve" through your inactions...
It's a lot like living, death is certain, but until that occurs, I'll move forward trying
to mitigate current paradigms.
"... It was no accident that Davos, the promoter of globalization, is so strongly behind the Climate Change agenda. Davos WEF has a board of appointed trustees. Among them is the early backer of Greta Thunberg, climate multi-millionaire, Al Gore, chairman of the Climate Reality Project. WEF Trustees also include former IMF head, now European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde whose first words as ECB chief were that central banks had to make climate change a priority. Another Davos trustee is outgoing Bank of England head Mark Carney, who was just named Boris Johnson's climate change advisor and who warns that pension funds that ignore climate change risk bankruptcy (sic). ..."
"... Of note: Mark Carney upon leaving his position of Governor Bank of England will serve as global warming adviser to Boris Johnson. Who knew Carney was a scientist? ..."
'Greta, bonnie Prince Charles and the pirate billionaires and trillionaires'- In another
post I queried how did Greta go to Davos? Silly me; Greta was invited the keynote speaker.
"Stop Climate change" was this year's theme: the Vision - 'stop the natural cycle of the
universe' -
Now she intends to Trademark 'How Dare You' and set up a Foundation Indeed, Greta found
her sugar daddies. Adults who encourage truancy.
my grandpa was a wise bloke and admonished "when politicians and do gooders are in the
same room, keep an eye on your money."
It was no accident that Davos, the promoter of globalization, is so strongly behind the
Climate Change agenda. Davos WEF has a board of appointed trustees. Among them is the early
backer of Greta Thunberg, climate multi-millionaire, Al Gore, chairman of the Climate
Reality Project. WEF Trustees also include former IMF head, now European Central Bank head
Christine Lagarde whose first words as ECB chief were that central banks had to make
climate change a priority. Another Davos trustee is outgoing Bank of England head Mark
Carney, who was just named Boris Johnson's climate change advisor and who warns that
pension funds that ignore climate change risk bankruptcy (sic).
The board also includes the influential founder of Carlyle Group, David M. Rubenstein.
It includes Feike Sybesma of the agribusiness giant, Unilever, who is also Chair of the
High Level Leadership Forum on Competitiveness and Carbon Pricing of the World Bank Group.
And perhaps the most interesting in terms of pushing the new green agenda is Larry Fink,
founder and CEO of the investment group BlackRock.[.]
TCFD and SASB Look Closely
As part of his claim to virtue on the new green investing, Fink states that BlackRock
was a founding member of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). He
claims, "For evaluating and reporting climate-related risks, as well as the related
governance issues that are essential to managing them, the TCFD provides a valuable
framework."[.]
TCFD was created in 2015 by the Bank for International Settlements, chaired by fellow
Davos board member and Bank of England head Mark Carney. In 2016 the TCFD along with the
City of London Corporation and the UK Government created the Green Finance Initiative,
aiming to channel trillions of dollars to "green" investments. The central bankers of the
FSB nominated 31 people to form the TCFD. Chaired by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, it
includes in addition to BlackRock, JP MorganChase; Barclays Bank; HSBC; Swiss Re, the
world's second largest reinsurance; China's ICBC bank; Tata Steel, ENI oil, Dow Chemical,
mining giant BHP and David Blood of Al Gore's Generation Investment LLC. Note the crucial
role of the central banks here.[.]
Of note: Mark Carney upon leaving his position of Governor Bank of England will serve as
global warming adviser to Boris Johnson. Who knew Carney was a scientist?
Pre-alert:
Tax on Excessive garbage output is coming to your town. You will be restricted to xxxKGs/LBS
annually. Your garbage will be weighed and at December 31st any excess above the permissible
will attract additional tax.
Anyone see the unintended consequences?
"... they promote the nauseating center-right candidacies of the bewildered racist and corporatist Joe Biden, the sinister neoliberal corporate-militarist Pete Butiggieg and even the marginal Wall Street "moderates" Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris? ..."
"... "Follow the money" is the longstanding mantra in campaign finance research and criminal prosecution. ..."
"... At the same time, both U.S. corporate media managers and the advertisers who supply revenue for their salaries are hesitant to produce content that might alienate affluent folks – the people who hire pricey investment advisors, go to Caribbean resorts and buy Jaguars and Mercedes Benzes and count for an ever-rising share of U.S. consumer purchases. It is those with the most purchasing power who are naturally most targeted by advertisers. ..."
Is it any wonder that the nation's "liberal" cable news stations CNN and MSNBC can barely
contain their disdain for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and even (to a lesser degree)
for that of Elizabeth Warren while they promote the nauseating center-right candidacies of the
bewildered racist and corporatist Joe Biden, the sinister neoliberal corporate-militarist Pete Butiggieg and even the marginal Wall Street "moderates" Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris?
Next
time you click on these stations, keep a pen and paper handy to write down the names of the
corporations that pay for their broadcast content with big money commercial purchases.
I did that at various times of day on three separate occasions last week. Here are the
companies I found buying ads at CNN and MSDNC:
American Advisors Group (AAG), the top lender the American reverse mortgage industry (with
Tom Selleck telling seniors to trust him that reverse mortgages are not a rip off)
United Health Care, for-profit "managed health care company" with 300,000 employers and an
annual revenue of $226 billion, ranked sixth on the 2019 Fortune 500.
Menards, the nation's third largest home improvement chain, with revenue over $10 billion in
2017.
CHANITX, a drug to get off cigarettes ("slow Turkey") sold by the pharmaceutical firm
Pfizer, 65th on the Fortune 500.
Tom Steyer (billionaire for president)
Lincoln Financial, 187 th on the Fortune 500, an American holding company that
controls multiple insurance and investment management businesses.
Liberty Mutual, an insurance company with more than 50,000 employees in more than 900
locations and ranked 68 th on the Fortune 500 two years ago.
Allstate Insurance: 79 th on the Fortune 500, with more than 45,000
employees.
INFINITI Suburban Utility Vehicle (new price ranging from 37K to 60K), produced by Nissan,
the sixth largest auto-making corporation in the world.
RCN (annual revenue of $636 million) WiFi for business
Jaguar Elite luxury autos.
Porsche luxury autos, selling new models priced at $115,000, $145,000, and $163,00, and
$294,000.
Mercedes Benz luxury auto, including an SRL-Class model that starts at $498,000
Capital Group, one of the world's oldest and biggest investment management firms, with $1.87
trillion in assets under its control.
Otezla, a plaque psoriasis drug, developed by the New Jersey drug company Celgene and owned
by Amgene, a leading California-based biotechnology firm with total assets of $78 billion.
Trelegy, a CPD drug produced by the British company GSK, the world's seventh leading
pharmaceutical corporation, with the fourth largest capitalization of any company on the London
Stock Exchange.
HunterDouglass – elite windows made by a Dutch multinational corporation with more
than 23,000 employees and locations in more than 70 countries.
Humira – drug for Crohn's disease and other ailments, manufactured by Abbvie, with
28,000 global employees and total assets of $59 billion.
Primateme Mist – for breathing, produced by Amphastar Pharmaceuticals.
Glucerna – drug for diabetes, produced by Abbot Laboratories, an American medical
company with more than 100,00 employees and total assets of $67 billion.
Prevagen – a controversial drug for brain health produced by Quincy Bioscience
DISCOVER Credit Card, the third largest credit card brand in the U.S., with total assets of
$92 billion.
Fidelity Investments, an American multinational financial services corporation with more
than 50,000 employees and an operating income of $5.3 billion.
Cadillac XT-6 high-end SUV, starting at $53K, made by General Motors (no. 10 on the Fortune
500 for total revenue), which makes automobiles in 37 countries, employees 173,000 persons, and
has total assets $227 billion.
Comfort Inn, owned by Choice Hotels, one of the largest hotel chains in the world,
franchising 7,005 properties in 41 countries and territories.
Audible/Amazon – books on tape from the world's biggest mega-corporation Amazon,
ranked fifth on the Fortune 500, with 647,000 employees and total assets of $163 billion.
Ring Home Security, owned by Amazon
Coventry Health Insurance, no. 168 on the Fortune 500
SANDALS Resorts International, with 16 elite resort properties in the Caribbean.
Cigna Medicare Advantage, owned by the national health insurer Cigna, no. 229 on the Fortune
500
SoFi Finance, an online personal finance company that provides student loan refinancing,
mortgages and personal loans.
Ameriprise Finance, an investment services firm, no. 240 on F500.
It's not for nothing that bit Fortune 500 firms are represented in my anecdotal sponsor list
above. Last summer, SQAD MediaCosts reported that a 30-second commercial during CNN's
prime-time lineup (Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon), cost between $7,000 and
$12,000. The price has certainly gone up significantly now that Trumpeachment is bringing in
new eyeballs.
The three most prominent and recurrent advertising streams appear (anecdotally) to come from
Big Pharma (the leading drug companies), insurance (health insurance above all), and finance
(investment services/wealth management). These giant concentrated corporate and industry
sectors are naturally opposed to the financial regulation and anti-trust policy that Senator
Warren says she wants to advance. Amazon can hardly be expected to back the big-tech break-up
that Warren advocates.
Big corporate lenders certainly have no interest in making college tuition free, a Sanders
promise that would slash a major profit source for finance capital.
The big health insurance firms are naturally opposed both to the Single Payer national
health insurance plan that Sanders puts at the top of his platform and to the milder version of
Medicare for All that Warren says she backs. Warren and especially Sanders pledge to remove the
parasitic, highly expensive profit motive from health insurance and to make publicly funded
quality and affordable health care a human right in the U.S. The corporate insurance mafia is
existentially opposed to such human decency.
Both of the "progressive Democratic candidates" (a description that fits Sanders far better
than it does Warren) loudly promise to slash drug costs, something Pfizer, Abbvie, Amgene,
Amphastar, and Abbot Labs can hardly be expected to relish.
None of the big companies buying advertising time on CNN and MSNBC have any interest in the
progressive taxation and restored union organizing and collective bargaining rights that
Sanders advocates.
The big financial services firms paying for media content on "liberal" cable news stations
primarily serve affluent clients, many if not most of whom are likely to oppose increased taxes
on the well off.
The resort, tourism, luxury car, and business travel firms that buy commercials on these
networks are hardly about to back policies leading to the real or potential reduction of
discretionary income enjoyed by upper middle class and rich people.
So, gosh, who do these corporate and financial interests favor in the 2020 presidential
election? Neoliberal Corporatists like Joe Biden, Pete Butiggieg, Kamala Harris, and Amy
Klobuchar, of course. Dutifully obedient to the preferences and commands of the nation's
unelected dictatorship of money, these insipid corporate Democrats loyally claim that Sanders
and Warren want to viciously "tax the middle class" to pay for supposedly unaffordable excesses
like Medicare for All and the existentially necessary Green New Deal.
In reality, Single Payer and giant green jobs programs and more that We the People need and
want are eminently affordable if the United States follows Sanders' counsel by adequately and
progressively taxing its absurdly wealthy over-class (the top tenth of the upper 1% than owns
more than 90% of U.S. wealth) and its giant, surplus-saturated corporations and financial
institutions. At the same time, as Warren keeps trying to explain, the cost savings for
ordinary Americans will be enormous with the profits system taken out of health insurance.
Sanders reminds voters that there's no way to calculate the cost savings of keeping livable
ecology alive for future generations. The climate catastrophe is a grave existential threat to
the whole species.
These are basic arguments of elementary social, environmental, and democratic decency that
the investors and managers behind and atop big corporations buying commercials on CNN and MSNBC
don't want heard. As a result, CNN and MSDNC "debate" moderators and talking heads persist in
purveying the, well, fake news, that Sanders doesn't know how to pay Single Payer, free public
college, and a Green New Deal.
It's not for nothing that CNN and MSNBC have promoted the hapless Biden over and above
Sanders and Warren – this notwithstanding the former Vice President's ever more obvious
and embarrassing inadequacy as a candidate.
It's not for nothing that MSNBC and CNN have habitually warned against the supposed
"socialist" menace posed by the highly popular Sanders (a New Deal progressive at leftmost)
while refusing to properly describe Trump's White House and his dedicated base as pro-fascists.
MSDNC has even get a weekly segment to the silver-spooned multi-millionaire advertising
executive Donny Deutsch after he said the following on the network last winter:
"I find Donald Trump reprehensible as a human being, but a socialist candidate is more
dangerous to this company, country, as far as the strength and well-being of the country,
than Donald Trump. I would vote for Donald Trump, a despicable human being I will be so
distraught to the point that that could even come out of my mouth, if we have a socialist
[Democratic presidential candidate or president] because that will take our country so down,
and we are not Denmark. I love Denmark, but that's not who we are. And if you love who we are
and all the great things that still have to have binders put on the side. Please step away
from the socialism."
It's not for nothing that the liberal cable networks go out of their way to deny Sanders
remotely appropriate broadcast time. Or that they habitually and absurdly frame Single Payer
health insurance not as the great civilizing social and human rights victory it would be (the
long-overdue cost-slashing de-commodification of health care coverage combined with the
provision of health care for all regardless of social status and class) but rather as a
dangerous and authoritarian assault on Americans' existing (and unmentionably inadequate and
over-expensive) health insurance.
Dare we mention that the lords of capital who pay for cable news salaries and content are
heavily invested in the fossil fuels and in the relentless economic growth that are pushing the
planet rapidly towards environmental tipping points that gravely endanger prospects for a
decent and organized human existence in coming decades?
It's not for nothing that the progressive measures advanced by Sanders and supported by most
Americans are regularly treated as "unrealistic," "irresponsible," "too radical," "too
idealistic," "impractical," and "too expensive."
It's for nothing that Sanders is commonly left out of the liberal cable networks' campaign
coverage and "horse race" discussions even as he enjoys the highest approval rating among all
the candidates in the running.
With their preferred centrist candidate Joe Biden having performed in a predictably poor and
buffoonish fashion (Biden was a terrible, gaffe-prone politician well before his brains started
coming out of his ears) falling back into something like a three-way tie with the liberal
Warren and the populist progressive Sanders, the liberal cable talking heads and debate
moderators have naturally tried to boost "moderate" neoliberal-corporatist "second" and "third
tier" Democratic presidential candidates like Butiggieg, Klobuchar and the surprisingly weak
Kamala Harris. It's not for nothing that these and other marginal corporate candidates (e.g.
Beto O'Rourke) get outsized attention on "liberal" cable stations regardless of their tiny
support bases. Even if they can't win, these small-time contenders take constant neoliberal
jabs at Sanders and even at the more clearly corporate-co-optable Warren (who proudly describes
herself as "capitalist in my bones").
Thanks to Harris's curiously weak showing, Biden's dotard-like absurdity, and the likely
non-viability of Butiggieg (the U.S. is not yet primed for two men and a baby in the White
House), the not-so liberal cable channels are now joining the New Yok Times and
Washington Post in gently floating the possibility of a dark-horse neoliberal Democratic
Party newcomer (Michael Bloomberg, John Kerry, Michelle Obama, Sherrod Brown, and maybe even
Hillary Clinton herself) to fill Joke Biden's Goldman-and Citigroup-approved shoes in the
coming primary and Caucus battles with "radical socialist" Bernie and (not-so) "left"
Warren.
So what if running an establishment Obama-Clinton-Citigroup-Council on Foreign Relations
Democrat in 2020 will de-mobilize much of the nation's progressive electoral base, helping the
malignant white nationalist monster Donald Trump get a second term?
As the old working-class slogan says, "money talks and bullshit walks."
"Follow the money" is the longstanding mantra in campaign finance research and criminal
prosecution. It should also apply to our understanding of the dominant media's political news
content. U.S. media managers are employed by giant corporations (MSNBC is a division of Comcast
NBC Universal, no. 71 on the Fortune 500 and CNN is owned by Turner Broadcasting, no, 68 on the
Fortune 500) that are naturally reluctant to publish or broadcast material that might offend
the wealthy capitalist interests that pay for broadcasting by purchasing advertisements. As
Noam Chomsky has noted, large corporations are not only the major producers of the United
States' mass commercial media. They are also that media's top market, something that deepens
the captivity of nation's supposedly democratic and independent media to big capital:
"The reliance of a journal on advertisers shapes and controls and substantially determines
what is presented to the public the very idea of advertiser reliance radically distorts the
concept of free media. If you think about what the commercial media are, no matter what, they
are businesses. And a business produces something for a market. The producers in this case,
almost without exception, are major corporations. The market is other businesses –
advertisers. The product that is presented to the market is readers (or viewers), so these
are basically major corporations providing audiences to other businesses, and that
significantly shapes the nature of the institution."
At the same time, both U.S. corporate media managers and the advertisers who supply revenue
for their salaries are hesitant to produce content that might alienate affluent folks –
the people who hire pricey investment advisors, go to Caribbean resorts and buy Jaguars and
Mercedes Benzes and count for an ever-rising share of U.S. consumer purchases. It is those with
the most purchasing power who are naturally most targeted by advertisers.
Money talks, bullshit talks on "liberal" cable news, as in the legal and party and elections
systems and indeed across all of society.
Watch the wannabe fascist strongman Trump walk to a second term with no small help from a
"liberal" corporate media whose primary goal is serving corporate sponsors and its own bottom
line, not serving social justice, environmental sanity, and democracy – or even helping
Democrats win elections.
But the article was flimsy even by Russiagate standards, and so certain questions inevitably
arise. What was it really about? Who's behind it? Who's the real target?
Here's a quick answer. It was about boosting Joe Biden, and its real target was his chief
rival, Bernie Sanders. And poor, inept Bernie walked straight into the trap.
The article was flimsy because rather than saying straight out that Russian intelligence
hacked Burisma, the company notorious for hiring Biden's son, Hunter, for $50,000 a month job,
reporters Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg had to rely on unnamed "security experts" to
say it for them. While suggesting that the hackers were looking for dirt, they didn't quite say
that as well. Instead, they admitted that "it is not yet clear what the hackers found, or
precisely what they were searching for."
So we have no idea what they were up to, if anything at all. But the Times then quoted
"experts" to the effect that "the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians
could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens – the same kind of
information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the
Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment." Since Trump and
the Russians are seeking the same information, they must be in cahoots, which is what Democrats
have been saying from the moment Trump took office. Given the lack of evidence, this was
meaningless as well.
But then came the kicker: two full paragraphs in which a Biden campaign spokesman was
permitted to expound on the notion that the Russians hacked Burisma because Biden is the
candidate that they and Trump fear the most.
"Donald Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into lying about Joe Biden and a major bipartisan,
international anti-corruption victory because he recognized that he can't beat the vice
president," the spokesman, Andrew Bates, said. "Now we know that Vladimir Putin also sees Joe
Biden as a threat. Any American president who had not repeatedly encouraged foreign
interventions of this kind would immediately condemn this attack on the sovereignty of our
elections."
If Biden is the number-one threat, then Sanders is not, presumably because the Times sees
him as soft on Moscow. If so, it means that he could be in for the same neo-McCarthyism that
antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard encountered last October when Hillary Clinton blasted her as
"the favorite of the Russians." Gabbard had the good sense to
blast her right back.
"Thank you @Hillary Clinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a
concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know
– it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and
war machine ."
If only Sanders did the same. But instead he put out a statement filled with the usual
anti-Russian clichés:
"The 2020 election is likely to be the most consequential election in modern American
history, and I am alarmed by new reports that Russia recently hacked into the Ukrainian gas
company at the center of the impeachment trial, as well as Russia's plans to once again meddle
in our elections and in our democracy. After our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that
Russia interfered in the 2016 election, including with thousands of paid ads on Facebook, the
New York Times now reports that Russia likely represents the biggest threat of election meddle
in 2020, including through disinformation campaigns, promoting hatred, hacking into voting
systems, and by exploiting the political divisions sewn [sic] by Donald Trump ."
And so on for another 250 words. Not only did the statement put him in bed with the
intelligence agencies, but it makes him party to the big lie that the Kremlin was responsible
for putting Trump over the top in 2016.
Let's get one thing straight. Yes, Russian intelligence may have hacked the Democratic
National Committee. But cybersecurity was so lax that others may have been rummaging about as
well. (CrowdStrike, the company called in to investigate the hack, says it found not one but
two cyber-intruders.) Notwithstanding the Mueller report, all the available evidence
indicates
that Russia did not then pass along thousands of DNC emails that Wikileaks published in July
2016. (Julian Assange's statement six months later that "our source
is not the Russian government and it is not a state party" remains uncontroverted.) Similarly,
there's no evidence that the Kremlin had anything to do with the $45,000 worth of Facebook ads
purchased by a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency – Robert
Mueller's 2018 indictment of the IRA was completely silent
on the subject of a Kremlin connection – and no evidence that the ads, which were
politically all over the map, had a remotely significant impact on the 2016 election.
All the rest is a classic CIA disinformation campaign aimed at drumming up anti-Russian
hysteria and delegitimizing anyone who fails to go along. And now Bernie Sanders is trying to
cover his derrière by hopping on board.
It won't work. Sanders will find himself having to take one loyalty oath after another as
the anti-Russia campaign flares anew. But it will never be enough, and he'll only wind up
looking tired and weak. Voters will opt for the supposedly more formidable Biden, who will end
up as a bug splat on the windshield of Donald Trump's speeding election campaign. With
impeachment no longer an issue, he'll be free to behave as dictatorially as he wishes as he
settles into his second term.
After inveighing against billionaire's wars, he'll find himself ensnared by the same
billionaire war machine. The trouble with Sanders is that he thinks he can win by playing by
the rules. But he can't because the rules are stacked against him. He'd know that if his
outlook was more radical. His problem is not that he's too much of a socialist. Rather, it's
that he's not enough.
Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end.
This sentiment is bottom to top in America. Measured response? No way can Iran 'measure' a
response.
More generally the sentiment is that a little war in Iran, a few nukes, is not even a big
thing. Football scores more important.
"Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end."
That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from
English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed,
believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted,
good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade".
it seems they will be supportive of an attack on Iran, and if their maniac "leaders", the
basement crazies who got out of the basement, realise this, it increases substantially the
chances of a "hot" war. In that case, should it escalate out of control, your Chicago coffee
deadheads will get the Glass parking lot they want. It just wont be in the ME. Or Russia.
They can have their very own, in their own back yard.
Yes I also noticed this, what I believe is most depressing is how dumb people are.
Trump/White house tell alot of lies which then become the truth for alot of his supporters
and he also manage to get MSM where he wants, because MSM do not seems to care either, they
are on-board when it comes to war.
And yes additional to that, a clear psychological operation going on to get the propaganda
out.
I try to counter it on social media, I hope everyone here also do the same.
Its about conditioning people that its the new normal. Anything goes, "do as thou wilt".
So long as it serves the interests of our masters. With no fear that MSM or alt media can or
will provide sustained or effective criticism, and the corruption of religious or secular
morals among the population thanks to hollywoods cultural marxism/propaganda and corruption
of christianity , they can get support among the people for just about anything. People can
be made to believe anything. The past 100 years has proven that beyond all doubt. With all
doubt now removed they can show their true colors and this will be accepted as the new
normal.
The problem with the US is most everyone in the US military, US citizenry, and US government
believe their own Exceptionalism propaganda and act accordingly. Attacking the PMU units of
the Iraqi army was certainly an unwise decision, but killing Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi
Al-Muhandis is an act of complete moronic insanity!
The United States launched a war of aggression, the supreme crime, upon Iraq in 2003, based
on blatant lies, and are still there. Prior to that, they helped foment the war between Iraq
and Iran, then attacked Iraq in 1991, and on top of the overt warfare there was the economic
sanctions warfare. The death and maiming and poisoning of millions of Iraqis has been the
American contribution to Iraq, over the last several decades. What for? How has this helped
the United States? Or Europe? The main advocates for this supreme criminality has been the
Israel lobby, Israel, and the supporters of Israel.
The American Apache helicopters are still buzzing around over Baghdad, dealing out terror
and intimidation and death. The murder by the United States of yet more Iraqi soldiers and
officials recently has been largely absent from the propaganda narratives. But could those be
'the final straw'?
As far as Trump's 52 target threat, this comes after the apparent please don't escalate
and we'll make a deal - good cop-bad cop routine.
The 52 number was used to remind mind-controlled Americans that the evil Iranians
outrageously took 52 Americans hostage. American's don't just take people hostage; they give
them orange suits and torture them, unless they kill them. Apart from murdering and maiming
by the millions, they even stage fictional killings, like Osama bin laden, to entertain the
zombies, and stick out their chests, hand out medals and the like.
"I don't think there's any actual material reason that there should be any material wants
anywhere on this planet, instead "only" political and managerial ones but that's because I
believe (and I'm not an expert) one can add additional levels of safeguards -- both physical
and administrative -- to existing or new nuclear power-plants and "burn" most of the
byproducts into essentially new fuel thus buying humanity at least several thousands of years
of time instead of for example chopping up large volumes of air and everything in it be it
insects or birds.
We should already be in a post-scarcity world, no -isms required, only kindness and
applied knowledge. So to me that will be our death sentence if that is the final outcome; too
little kindness (towards all life), too little application and sharing of knowledge.
I don't know if that is inspiring or depressing or both :)"
I always find those thoughts scary - since you and I are both NOT Farmers - and depend
upon those little people to supply us with the foodstuffs we need to survive.
It's GREAT to be a rocket scientist - but before a rocket scientist can exist - ya need
Farmers.
Here is a synopsis of the behavioral loop described above:
Step 1. Individuals and groups evolved a bias to maximize fitness by maximizing power,
which requires over-reproduction and/or over-consumption of natural resources (overshoot),
whenever systemic constraints allow it. Differential power generation and accumulation result
in a hierarchical group structure.
Step 2. Energy is always limited, and overshoot eventually leads to decreasing power
available to some members of the group, with lower-ranking members suffering first.
Step 3. Diminishing power availability creates divisive subgroups within the original
group. Low-rank members will form subgroups and coalitions to demand a greater share of power
from higher-ranking individuals, who will resist by forming their own coalitions to maintain
power.
Step 4. Violent social strife eventually occurs among subgroups who demand a greater share
of the remaining power.
Step 5. The weakest subgroups (high or low rank) are either forced to disperse to a new
territory, are killed, enslaved, or imprisoned.
Step 6. Go back to step 1.
The above loop was repeated countless thousands of times during the millions of years that
we were evolving[9]. This behavior is inherent in the architecture of our minds -- is
entrained in our biological material -- and will be repeated until we go extinct. Carrying
capacity will decline[10] with each future iteration of the overshoot loop, and this will
cause human numbers to decline until they reach levels not seen since the Pleistocene.
Current models used to predict the end of the biosphere suggest that sometime between 0.5
billion to 1.5 billion years from now, land life as we know it will end on Earth due to the
combination of CO2 starvation and increasing heat. It is this decisive end that biologists
and planetary geologists have targeted for attention. However, all of their graphs reveal an
equally disturbing finding: that global productivity will plummet from our time onward, and
indeed, it already has been doing so for the last 300 million years.[11]
It's impossible to know the details of how our rush to extinction will play itself out,
but we do know that it is going to be hell for those who are unlucky to be alive at the
time.
And:
The Olduvai theory is defined by the ratio of world energy production and population. It
states that the life expectancy of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal to 100
years: 1930-2030. After more than a century of strong growth -- energy production per capita
peaked in 1979. The Olduvai theory explains the 1979 peak and the subsequent decline.
Moreover, it says that energy production per capita will fall to its 1930 value by 2030, thus
giving Industrial Civilization a lifetime of less than or equal to 100 years. This analysis
predicts that the collapse will be strongly correlated with an 'epidemic' of permanent
blackouts of high-voltage electric power networks -- worldwide.
Will Humans reach the Stars? I believe NOT - and that extinction is but a heart beat away. We
are not a Peaceful species - amongst many others - but the Universe lives in Harmony.
There is nothing wrong with hierarchy in and of itself. After all, is seniority to mean
nothing? Is demonstrated competence meaningless? Should an individual's efforts to build
skill sets be treated as equivalent to the couch potato's efforts to build up an epic Body
Mass Index (BMI)? Should notions of winners and losers be banned from athletic competitions
and sporting events, along with any associated prizes? Everybody gets a trophy whether they
run the race or not?
As I understand it there were plenty of routes through life in the Soviet Union in which
people could distinguish themselves, perhaps more than in the West. There were plenty of ways
to rise in society's hierarchy. None of those routes resulted in fabulous and opulent wealth,
but if some did then the society would necessarily be able to afford fewer such routes.
The only problems with hierarchy in society is if the process of rising in it is corrupt
(being born into wealth, for instance) or if the span between the bottom and the top of that
hierarchy is larger than what the population considers fair.
"...The only problems with hierarchy in society is if the process of rising in it is
corrupt (being born into wealth, for instance) or if the span between the bottom and the top
of that hierarchy is larger than what the population considers fair."
That is true, the only problem being (for the lower classes) that by the time the gap
becomes evident to all, mechanisms of 'law' and power (plus bread and circuses) have been set
in place to prevent or repress the necessary changes from happening from below. This is
evident to the US populace as the few who saw it coming and protested could not rouse enough
support when it could have mattered. We looked and still look for helpers among the children
of the hierarchs because those are the only ones who can work within the current system. So
far, such are few, if they exist at all. But we saw with FDR it only takes one or two. (I
don't know if you saw my previous post that finance was not the governmental powerhouse it
has become in FDR's time. First they came for the legislators!!)
I still have hope that the system in the US will of its own weight become unweildly. There
are already signs of that happening in the increasing inability of US powermongers to have
their way on the world stage, and in their search for ephemeral 'boltholes'. And while they
are still able to inflict harm on others and do so with reckless abandon, I do not believe
they are ready to risk their own skins or those of their near and dear - or the fortunes they
have staked everything to gain. My hope is that even that damaging ability will peter out as
climate change necessities force a refocus on what actually threatens said skins and
fortunes.
Despite the handwringing otherwise, there are quite a few well-off people outside the
coast who like decorating in gold and even being so tacky as to have cars that match.
At what point up the socio-economic ladder do these sorts of concerns become manifest? And
how does one know? I'm an upper lower-class "coastal," and I'm mostly concerned with eating
properly and keeping my dilapidated 50s rambler from leaking. Years ago, when my children
were at home, and our family was solidly upper middle-class (at least that's what I thought),
I still didn't consider what other people thought of my cars, nor did I think much about
decorating colors.
Honestly, I think I find simple survival more interesting.
All of my life, those with immense, some might claim obscene amounts of wealth have been
celebrated in these United States, but you can sense a backlash is coming to them & showy
displays that come with the territory.
Well there was that period–late 60s, early 70s–when people like Leonard
Bernstein dressed in jeans and conspicuous wealth was very un-hip. Tom Wolfe wrote an article
about it,
I really think the turning point came around 1975 when the first pro athletes got million
a year contracts, and you can just imagine the jealousy of Ivy League types on Wall*Street as
the pros started making moon money.
By the time we got around to Reagan, high finance figured out how to hit the long ball via
Milken, etc.
I mentioned a week or 2 ago in regards to a pitcher who inked a nearly 1/3rd of a Billion
$ contract, contrast that with the $125k 1 year deal that Sandy Koufax signed in 1966.
Koufax and Don Drysdale (1965 World Series heroes) asked, together, for a $1 million, 3
year deal. That equated to a yearly salary of $166,000 for each of them for 3 years. (The
highest paid player in MLB at the time was Willie Mays at $105,000.) The Dodgers, with by far
the highest game attendance in baseball, offered Koufax $120k and Drysdale $105k. I believe
that was the salary that they accepted.
Much has changed since then. TV has made MLB a 7-8 $Billion a year enterprise. The LA
Dodgers as a team are now worth billion$. Marvin Miller wrenched union power for the players.
And remember, players have a very short earning window; Koufax retired at the age of 30 due
to an elbow worn out from throwing curve balls. (Sandy was a condo neighbor of mine when I
lived in Sun Valley, ID. A very special man.)
I graduated from college in 1979. Women wore (depending on the season), T-shirts,
sweatshirts, and jeans. Only the women from the the colleges that were seen as matrimonial in
orientation (one was called "Pine Mattress") wore makeup.
2 years after that, I was part of the group that did campus recruiting. Just walking
around, you could see a significant % of women wearing makeup, skirts, and hose, just to go
to class. Gah.
I think you are missing the point of my comment, that of all the things to get upset about
re Trump, it's his taste? Really? IMHO this is another manifestation of the fact that a
significant amount of the upset about him is his being so flagrantly nouveau riche and not
caring.
And you managed to miss the status signaling from the bourgeois on up? Women who color
their hair feel unkept if their roots grow in. Cars are huge status symbols, up and down the
line. Try driving an early 2000s car, even if in fine shape, and watch the reactions if
someone you've first met walks you to it. People look at the quality of leather in shoes,
tailoring and fabric as other status markers. Being thin is another status marker, as are
teeth ..
If you are really rich, the signals include flying on private jets, what charities you
support, what art you collect, if you own a vineyard (or have your name on a hospital wing or
building at a school .)
I read that Nixon acquired his hatred step by step and it was only really baked in after
about the 20000th time he got snubbed. For a long time he wanted to be one of them and he
could hardly believe it that it wasn't ever going to happen.
That was my take as well.
Snobbery is snobbery, and I thought Yves was pointing that out in a forceful manner, not
criticizing R.V.'s comment.
In any event, I find R.V.'s comments a welcome point of view adding depth to the larger
economic picture and its effects.
"because the bourgeois flavor of this corner of the Internet just doesn't suit my
proletariat tastes"
I think you completely misunderstood her point. She wasn't defending Trump's tastes in any
way, but pointing out that ALL the wealthy share similar tastes and singling Trump out as
some kind of singular aberration leaves out that this is standard of our ruling class.
None of us here support this kind status consumerism, and many of us likely share your
'proletarian tastes', its just that around here notions that Trump is some unique monster
different from the rest of his class hold little water.
I can't relate to a world where what you wear, what you drive and what you drink and the
conveyance which moves you around, really means anything.
That said, it's all part of the pecking order on high, and I get it. If Trump was seen in
a 2007 Toyota Matrix with 136k miles, his world would come undone.
Added to what the others have said; don't cut off your nose to spite your face. It takes a
thick skin to comment anywhere on the internet.
Also, so what if this blog commenteriat skews a bit bourgeois? Do you want to lock yourself
in an echo chamber? What good would that do for your understanding of the 'reality' on the
ground? I and others admit to frequenting conservative blogs. It doesn't mean we fully agree
with the reigning philosophies on those blogs, but we do tend to learn much of a substantive
nature that is not displayed on the "standard" MSM 'news' sources.
The entire lesson of the internet is that "Knowledge Is Power." Control the 'knowledge' or
it's accessibility, and you "rule" the society. Thus, a wide range of sources of information
is required. Locking yourself away in the anarchist sphere of the internet is going to stunt
your knowledge set, and limit your range of options for action. To effectively fight one's
enemies, one must understand them. So, to discommode the bourgeois, you first must get to
know them.
Finally, class has always been "..an unbridgeable chasm in western society." Else why all the
revolts and movements on the part of the working classes?
Anyway, don't leave in a huff. You are better than that.
This particular line of attack on Trump is exactly the line that used to be taken by the
old rich and New England rich against the new rich. (And the ethnic rich)
started by an unemployed Englishman named Eliot Higgins
Good on him – being able to create a thing that rises to such prominence in such a
short space of time speaks volumes about this Higgins guy's entrepreneurial ability. And if he
wasn't mobbed-up to begin with, he sure as fuck is now – which is a double-
mitzvah (for him).
If he did so starting from being unemployed, then anybody who turned down a job application
from the guy must be kicking themselves. (' Unemployed ' is obviously used pejoratively
in the blockquote; 'Englishman' is purely-descriptive).
.
Also, the entire article accepts Bernays' conclusion, but disagrees as to which objectives
should be pursued.
Bernays' conclusions are hardly controversial: most people are gullible imbeciles .
It's not clear to me how much more empirical evidence we need before that becomes just a thing
that everyone with an IQ above 115 accepts.
So the question then becomes " OK, now what? ".
As usual, the right answer is " Depends " – and not just for those with bladder
control problems.
If you want to do things that are just , exploiting gullible imbeciles would appear
to violate the playing conditions. It would be hors jeu ; not done; just not
cricket .
As the Laconian famously said . " IF ."
For those for whom the 'if' condition returns 'false', it does very little to bleat about
how awful they are. You're not going to cause a little switch in their brain to flick on (or
off?), whereupon they realise the error of their ways and make a conscious decision to leave
the gullible imbeciles unexploited.
It's even unlikely to affect their victims (remember, they're imbeciles) – because
otherwise some infra-marginal imbeciles would have to process their way through quite a bit of
cognitive dissonance, and they're not wired for introspection (or processing).
So the sole real purpose (apart from κάθαρσις
catharsis ) is prophylaxis (προ +
φύλαξις – guarding ). Both good enough aims
obviously the writer is the one who gets the cathartic benefit, but who is going to be on
heightened alert as a result of this Cassandra -ish jeremiad -ing?
Non-imbeciles don't need it; imbeciles won't benefit.
Here's the thing: the gullible imbeciles are going to be exploited by someone
.
.
This is something that people of my persuasion struggle with. It boils down to the
following:
Let's assume that a reprehensible thing exists already, and is unlikely to be overthrown
by my opposition to it. Should I just participate and line my pockets?
The resources used are going to be used whether I participate or not, so it may as well be
me who gets them. After all, I will put them to moral uses – and while inside, I can do
things that are contrary to the interests of the reprehensible thing.
There is no satisfactory counter-argument to that line of reasoning, and yet I reject
it.
Then again: I was dropped on my head as an infant, so YMMV.
It has long required the support of the wealthy -- and a certain level of personal wealth --
to run for president of the United States. In 2016, billions of
dollars were raised by Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns. But the
rich control much
of this cash flow . In 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the
top .01 percent of all income earners in the United States accounted for 29 percent of all
political committee fundraising.
There are many reasons why this is a dangerous thing. But a big one is accountability.
How about the hysteria that led to the Spanish War? "Remember the Maine," The ship was
supposedly sunk in Havana Harbor by Spanish perfidy. In fact the Maine blew up because a coal
bunker fire burned through a bulkhead and set off something or other. That was the US Navy's
investigative finding after the war. Don't tell me about Hearst. Hearst was just selling
newspapers. The American people went into a hysteric rage against Spain and that was the cause
of war. Hearst just wanted to find "Rosebud." Figure it out.
And now we have the approaching end of the world through man made climate change. It would
be funny if there were not so many who believe it.
Science? Hah! For every study you can produce in support of this fantasy I will find you one
to rebut it. All you ecofreaks! Don't send me material about this. I will not help you support
the hysteric fantasy. Send money to the Democratic Party. They believe this crap. pl.
Now this is a post I can get behind. For me it has been the hysteria and the ease with which
people are manipulated through propaganda that has astonished me, because that is what the
climate change agenda is all about. We can all agree that humans have had a devastating
impact on every corner the environment, every ecosystem. However, it is a leap of
manufactured faith (manipulation) to claim that humans are responsible for climate change.
To support this bogus hypothesis, scientists strangle and manipulate data in an effort to
justify draconian laws and policies that can only line the pockets of the very rich at the
expense of the rest of the tax paying population. Carbon tax is the real aim here, a totally
bullshit pretext to suck more trillions of dollars from the economies of the world.
Self-selecting "experts" join the chorus because of fear of censorship and loss of status
while the brave ones are called, as always, climate change denialists, and thus
denigrated.
Oh man! Even most of the lefties I associate with believe it. They are supposed to,
through the tenets of their secular 'religion,' use solid evidence as their guides. The
evidence is not persuasive. The Earth has gone through fluctuations in climate for ever. The
dinosaurs made do in a much hotter earth, if the geologic evidence be true. It took a cosmic
strike to do them in.
Humans are the top predators here because they can adapt to change much quicker than any
other animal. Modern human civilization may not be recognizable to any of us in two hundred
years. That would be true with or without "climate change." We will carry on, one way or
another.
Similarly to what Bandit wrote above, I see various 'elites' angling to make book on whatever
does happen. The Science Fiction writer William Gibson has proposed in his book "The
Peripheral," a near future based on a massive world population die back that he calls "The
Jackpot."
Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral
All in all, we live in 'Interesting Times.'
Thank you for your indulgence.
"... The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to "social viscosity" in a large-scale organization. According to the "iron law," democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible ..."
The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist
sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties.
The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how
democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop
oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible,
especially in large groups and complex organizations.
The relative structural fluidity in a
small-scale democracy succumbs to "social viscosity" in a large-scale organization. According
to the "iron law," democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.
"... Iron Law of Oligarchy refers to the inherent tendency of all complex organizations to develop a ruling clique of leaders with interests in the organization itself rather than in its official aims. ..."
"... It became difficult for the mass membership to provide any effective counterweight to this professional, entrenched, leadership, the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Aristotle used the term oligarchy as a synonym for rule by the rich. Oligarchy is not always a rule by wealthy people, for which the term is plutocracy . Oligarchy means "the rule of the few" and monarchy means "the rule of the one" ..."
"... Oligarchy can also be compared with aristocracy . In an aristocracy, a small group of wealthy or socially prominent citizens control the government. Members of this high social class claim to be, or are considered by others to be, superior to the other people because of family ties, social rank, wealth, or religious affiliation. ..."
Civil Service is a self-perpetuating oligarchy, the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Many writers
believe that any political system eventually evolves into iron law of oligarchy. James Madison,
the fourth President of the United States said: "Never fear. The iron law of oligarchy always
obtains." In iron law of oligarchy, actual differences between viable political rivals are
small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an 'acceptable' and
'respectable' political position. Iron Law of Oligarchy was first defined by German sociologists like Robert
Michels (1876-1936).
According to writers, Zulma Riley, Keith Riley, and Robert Michels, modern Democracy should be considered
as elected Oligarchy
. They called this theory the iron law of oligarchy. Michels discovered that in the Iron Law of
Oligarchy, even in the most egalatarian movements, elites will call
most of the shots.
Iron Law of Oligarchy refers to the inherent tendency of all complex organizations to
develop a ruling clique of leaders with interests in the organization itself rather than in its
official aims.
It became difficult for the mass membership to provide any effective
counterweight to this professional, entrenched, leadership, the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
Aristotle used the term oligarchy as a synonym for rule by the rich. Oligarchy is not always a
rule by wealthy people, for which the term is plutocracy . Oligarchy means "the rule of
the few" and monarchy
means "the rule of the one".
Such power-sharing from one person to a larger group of persons
happened when English nobles got together in 1215 to force King John of England to sign the
Magna Carta, a recognition of failure of oligarchy. Magna Carta guaranteed greater rights to
greater numbers of people, thus setting the stage for English constitutional monarchy .
Oligarchy can also be compared with aristocracy . In an aristocracy, a small
group of wealthy or socially prominent citizens control the government. Members of this high
social class claim
to be, or are considered by others to be, superior to the other people because of family ties,
social rank, wealth, or religious affiliation.
Breaking the iron law of oligarchy: union revitalization in the American labor movement.
Voss, Kim and Sherman, Rachel - The American Journal of Sociology [AJS], 106(2), 303 - 49.
ABSTRACT: This article addresses the question of how social movement organizations are able to
break out of bureaucratic conservatism. The article concludes by drawing out the theoretical
implications of the finding that bureaucratic conservatism can sometimes be overcome in mature
social
movements .
I am sorry but I c/n remember if was the guy at the far end of the bar down near to the bathroom in the boots, bathing suit, and
top hat, or the guy at the seat nearest to the front door, in the grey flannel suit with polished boots, but it was one of them who
gave the bar, a few evenings back, much of what it needs to be coherent. It was hierarchy of elements that propagandist use to install
and support false narratives in their written and spoken words. It was system of analysis, given to us here at the bar, to establish
the gosh awful truth hidden within an intentionally wrong narrative.
That evening I had too much bar juice, so this all I can recall, 8 elements could be applied to the propaganda to diagnose and
debunk and discover the false in wrongful, misleading propaganda.. see the following.
1. EN always the propagandist must establish the general narrative God turned the blue sky, red.
2. WR the propagandist must make great wrongs into powerful strong rights.. The devil made him do it.
3. PE profession propagandists cherry pick the facts; include in the narrative only those facts that support the proposition.
The devil was seen talking to God on more than one occasion.
4. IS ignore damning or off point stuff that challenge or defeat the narrative or transform it into a positive
The fact that God had killed the devil two years before is ignored.
5. BV blame the victim.. don't give the victim a chance to speak.. The victim (God) did it..
6. MU make stuff up to support the narrative. A person on Jupitor saw God practising every evening He watched as God turned blue
seas red and red seas blue
7. AC Attack all challengers allow no one to intercede in the attack. The Pope said God could not show him that he could turn Blue
seas to red, or vice a versa
8. RL Repeat, and repeat and repeat the lie.. until it becomes embedded in the mind of the innocent. We are all tired of hearing
this story..
After sobering up and thinking about this list, I realized its content seems very close to what a lynch party seeking to get up
the never to hang an innocent slave for a criminal act "done by one of their kind" would do. The party would pretty much go through
the 8 things, attempting to convince itself that the slave was guilty, until finally one of the members of the lynching party would
swat the horse and the party would watch the victim swing..
We must develop a technology suitable to encoding these things, and to find other such things to add to this debunk the propaganda
list of 8 items; so that no one can pass off on us wrongful narrative?
Its ok to be innocently wrong, in fact, we all learn when we discover a wrong, but intentional wrong should be against the rules
of the bar.
We should adopt these 8 things and use them in our analysis..
"... The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution for the breach was ever attempted. ..."
"... In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers argued that it was the party's right to select candidates. ..."
"... The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was protected by the First Amendment . ..."
"... The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race, ..."
"... f Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district. Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election in which Canova ran as an independent. ..."
"... Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal ballot destruction , improper transportation of ballots, and generally shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the Sun-Sentinel reported at the time: ..."
"... Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies. Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments externalize what Gabbard called the "rot" in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet. ..."
"... Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled: " Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," ..."
Establishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that the DNC
acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media reporters
acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going so far as
to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred " pied-piper
candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever
to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured discussion
of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with the combined
use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan noted that
SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations "worldwide,"
specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear
to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid
and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to
selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled Senate
blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perception of the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a
recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled:
" Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective tactics
ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
* * *
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News. If you value this
original article, please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
"... In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers argued that it was the party's right to select candidates. ..."
Establishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that the DNC
acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media reporters
acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going so far as
to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred " pied-piper
candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever
to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured discussion
of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with the combined
use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan noted that
SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations "worldwide,"
specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear
to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid
and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to
selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Tim Canova with supporters, April 2016. (CanovaForCongress, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled Senate
blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perception of the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a
recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled:
" Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective tactics
ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
* * *
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News. If you value this
original article, please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
"... They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory. ..."
The defense counsel also took issue with Jared Beck for what they termed as: " Repeatedly promoted patently false and deeply offensive
conspiracy theories about the deaths of a former DNC staffer and Plaintiffs' process server in an attempt to bolster attention for
this lawsuit." This author was shocked to find that despite the characterization of the Becks as peddlers of conspiracy theory, the
defense counsel failed to mention the motion for protection filed by the Becks earlier in the litigation process.
They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID
corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly
appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory.
The DNC defense lawyers then argued:
" There is no legitimate basis for this litigation, which is, at its most basic, an improper attempt to forge the federal courts
into a political weapon to be used by individuals who are unhappy with how a political party selected its candidate in a presidential
campaign ."
The brief continued:
" To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege based on their animating theory would run directly contrary
to long-standing Supreme Court precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties,
especially when it comes to selecting the party's nominee for public office."
It appears that the defendants in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process
is protected under the first amendment. If all that weren't enough, DNC representatives argued that the Democratic National Committee
had no established fiduciary duty "to the Plaintiffs or the classes of donors and registered voters they seek to represent." It seems
here that the DNC is arguing for its right to appoint candidates at its own discretion while simultaneously denying any "fiduciary
duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the belief that the DNC would act impartially towards the
candidates involved.
Adding to the latest news regarding the DNC Fraud Lawsuit was the recent
finding by the UK Supreme
Court, which stated that Wikileaks Cables were admissible as evidence in legal proceedings.
If Wikileaks' publication of DNC emails are found to be similarly admissible in a United States court of law, then the contents
of the leaked emails could be used to argue that, contrary to the defendant's latest brief, the DNC did in favor the campaign of
Hillary Clinton over Senator Sanders and that they acted to sabotage Sanders' campaign.
The outcome of the appeal of the DNC Fraud Lawsuit remains to be seen.
Elizabeth Vos is the Co-Founder and Editor in Chief at
Disobedient Media .
"... At a first approximation, democracy is the alliance of the city dwellers for the power of the city, ignoring tribes and rural aristocrats, carefully contained so the landowners keep their land, and the slaves are kept under control. Or, to update it, the class collaboration of the wealthy (nowadays some sort of capitalist,) the middling strata and the common people for the power of the nation, carefully arranged so the people with great property make the decisions about the economy. ..."
"... As an example, it's only in the last few years I've wakened up to the extraordinary tendency to people to ignore either the progressive content of bourgeois revolutions, such as in pretending that destroying a national secular state in Iraq or Syria and replacing it with a cantonal confederation is a step backward. Or in surreptitiously pretending that democracy has nothing to do with the democratic state needing fighters against other states. Like most people on the internet, i do tend to get a little trendy, and repetitive. But apparently I'm too socially backward to get the memo on the correct trendy, and repetitive. ..."
"... The classic model of course was the Roman Republic. By coincidence I was reading Livy's first five books and the relationship between rights for the plebs and the need for them in war, stands out. Macchiavelli's Discourses on Livy makes this even plainer. In the US much of this was conveyed to the Americans via Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government as refracted through Cato's Letters. (I hope to live long enough to read Discourses on Davila by John Adams, solely because of the title.) ..."
"... It would seem to me that the answer to the question "what is democracy" is best answered by another question: who gets (and doesn't get) the franchise? ..."
I went to see occasional Timberite Astra Taylor's remarkable film What is
Democracy? last night. It takes us from Siena, Italy to Florida to Athens and from Ancient
Athenian democracy through the renaissance and the beginning of capitalism to the Greek debt
crisis, occupy and the limbo life of people who have fled Syria and now find themselves stuck.
It combines the voices of Plato and Rousseau with those of ordinary voters from left and right,
Greek nationalists and cosmopolitans, ex-prisoners, with trauma surgeons in Miami, Guatemalan
migrants in the US, with lawmakers and academics, and with refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
All the while it poses the questions of whether democracy is compatible with inequality and
global financial systems and the boundaries of inclusion.
steven t johnson 10.23.19 at 3:05 pm (no link)
At a first approximation, democracy is the alliance of the city dwellers for the power of the
city, ignoring tribes and rural aristocrats, carefully contained so the landowners keep their
land, and the slaves are kept under control. Or, to update it, the class collaboration of the
wealthy (nowadays some sort of capitalist,) the middling strata and the common people for the
power of the nation, carefully arranged so the people with great property make the decisions
about the economy.
It doesn't sound like this is very informative or useful, so I will wait until I have a
cheaper way to see it.
In my opinion, democracy as an actually existing property of a society is only imperfectly
described in terms of institutional arrangements, philosophical constructs, political system
or (as steven t johnson would have it) power relations between social groups. In addition to
all that, but probably prior to all that, democracy relies on principles which are
anthropological in nature, that pertains to the particular way human beings relate to
each other on a given territory.
This means that I absolutely believe in the necessity of a "we" to underlie democracy but
I doubt that this "we" needs to be (or indeed is ever) constitutive, it exists primarily if
not exclusively as a matter of human relations not as a constitutive abstraction. This also
means that I'm not surprised by the general absence of convergence in democratic forms around
the world (much to the bemusement of English-speaking political philosophers, or in the last
20 years, German and Flemish politicians) and that I believe that global citizenship is under
present circumstances a meaningless concept with respect to democracy. Some people understand
this to be arguing for a national, ethnic or cultural definition of democracy, in which only
people with a specific national identity, or a particular ethnicity, or specific cultural
practices or (in the contemporary American libertarian version) specific personality traits
may participate, as a matter of normative or positive judgment, depending on various
proponents of this theory. This seems to me to be a rather ironic analytical error: if indeed
a core property of democracy is rooted in the characteristic ways people relate to each
other, it is highly implausible that this could change under the influence of even a
substantial minority (in one direction or the other).
Incidentally, the idea that democracy is originally native to North-America is somewhat
classical (Voltaire championed it, but as usual with him, it is hard to vouch for his
seriousness). Since then it has resurfaced periodically for instance in William James Sidis
(disturbed) book The Tribes and the States or in the works of Bruce Johansen. Serious
discussions of this question lead, I believe, to the seemingly paradoxical observation that
English and Dutch settlers came to adopt the democratic principles of the Haudenosaunee
because they were themselves rather primitive (temporally speaking), and hence
democratic, in their anthropological values. Suc discussion would also lead to the far more
pessimistic conclusion that beyond their political models, native people in North-America
facilitated the establishment of a political democracy by providing a large neighboring group
to exclude out of humanity.
LFC@10 uses a reason for waiting as an excuse for a rhetorical question meant as a taunt. The
reason I might see it, if it's cheap enough, is because new facts and the (rare) new
perspective, if any, would seep into my thinking. The idea that my thinking doesn't change is
unfounded. It changes, it just doesn't change by conversion experience. The cogent arguments
of the wise on the internet are like Jesus on the road to Damascus, not quite able to be
described consistently, but still irrefutable.
But, try as I may, continual reworking of old ideas by new -- to me -- information
inevitably leads to the change. The process usually goes A Is that really true? B My old
ideas get a parenthesis added. C The parenthesis gets worked into the rest of the paragraph
so that I'm more consisten. D I've always believed that. The step where I abjectly plead for
forgiveness for being a moron is never there, any more than actually being consistent.
As an example, it's only in the last few years I've wakened up to the extraordinary
tendency to people to ignore either the progressive content of bourgeois revolutions, such as
in pretending that destroying a national secular state in Iraq or Syria and replacing it with
a cantonal confederation is a step backward. Or in surreptitiously pretending that democracy
has nothing to do with the democratic state needing fighters against other states. Like most
people on the internet, i do tend to get a little trendy, and repetitive. But apparently I'm
too socially backward to get the memo on the correct trendy, and repetitive.
For a less contentious example, as part of the process I've realized that ancient Sparta
was on the democratic spectrum, not least because of two kings which is definitely not twice
the monarchy. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is still true, despite authority. But a
true expert who actually cared could revise the elementary insight into a much more
sophisticated, much superior way that might not even seem controversial. It might even seem
just like the answer to the questions: Why did Sparta ever ally with Athens in the first
place? Why did both Athens and Sparta ally (at different times) with Persia?
I will admit to a general prejudice against every historical discovery that a particular
place etc. was the birth of virtue.
steven t johnson 10.24.19 at 3:20 pm (no link)
Re the Haudenosaunee as exemplars of democracy, this is as I recall long known to be true of
Benjamin Franklin, one of the disreputable founders, nearly as disgraced as Tom Paine.
(Indeed, the notion that the revolutionaries weren't the founders, but Philadelphia lawyers'
convention was, is remarkable, though unremarked on.) But, what did Franklin admire about the
Iroquois League? I think it was the power through unity of different "tribes." The league
essentially genocided the Hurons to control the fur trade; launched long distance military
expeditions to drive away many other peoples from large areas in the Ohio valley to free up
hunting grounds; when it was convenient, they sold their rights, lands, there to the US. (The
treaty of Fort Stanwix) was later repudiated, verbally at least, by other.
The classic model of course was the Roman Republic. By coincidence I was reading Livy's
first five books and the relationship between rights for the plebs and the need for them in
war, stands out. Macchiavelli's Discourses on Livy makes this even plainer. In the US much of
this was conveyed to the Americans via Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government as
refracted through Cato's Letters. (I hope to live long enough to read Discourses on Davila by
John Adams, solely because of the title.)
It would seem to me that the answer to the question "what is democracy" is best answered by
another question: who gets (and doesn't get) the franchise?
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"
This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do
they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is
seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description. Even a
quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.
As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter
registration form. The few times I have registered, I did not check a box for any party. It
is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.
It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party
candidates. But that is what happens in the US. The primary voting system is a huge
financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two
branches of the Business Party.
The electoral college is neither archaic nor unfair. We were and are a union of States. The
electoral college prevented the Executive office from being dominated by voters from heavily
populated urban centers at the expense of the rural population. It is more relevant today
than ever as the country is even more divided in disposition and ideology. If it were
abolished, most of America would be effectively disenfranchised in Presidential elections as
California, New York and a handful of other highly urbanized and ultra-liberal population
centers would always carry the day. There would be no need to vote anymore. Maybe that is the
idea......
That's to who political power belongs under late capitalism and neoliberalism: financial
oligarchy. He who pays the piper calls the tune: " Do you imagine those who foot those huge
bills are fools? Don't you know that they make sure of getting their money back, with interest,
compound upon compound? "
Notable quotes:
"... Here we all are, piddling around with why Nancy Pelosi won't release the hounds in the House of Representatives, and waiting for some poor bastard in intelligence to come forward with what he really knows, and with a vulgar talking yam still in office. Meanwhile, Bill Weld has cut right to the heel of the hunt. You think you can't scare this guy? Put the gallows in his eyes. I mean, wow." ..."
"... " The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign contributors" -- the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for "getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders, halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the legislature to elect senators? ..."
"Well, Bill Weld, former governor of the Commonwealth (God save it!), really shot the moon
to begin the week. Appearing on MSNBC, Weld made it plain. From the Washington Post:
"Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election,"
Weld said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"It couldn't be clearer, and that's not just undermining democratic institutions. That is
treason. It's treason, pure and simple, and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is
death. That's the only penalty...The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office,
and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a
plea deal.""
Well, all right, then.
Here we all are, piddling around with why Nancy Pelosi won't release the hounds in the
House of Representatives, and waiting for some poor bastard in intelligence to come forward
with what he really knows, and with a vulgar talking yam still in office. Meanwhile, Bill
Weld has cut right to the heel of the hunt. You think you can't scare this guy? Put the
gallows in his eyes. I mean, wow."
" The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign
contributors" -- the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for
"getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders,
halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns
come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the
legislature to elect senators?
Do you imagine those who foot those huge bills are fools? Don't you know that they make
sure of getting their money back, with interest, compound upon compound? Your candidates get
most of the money for their campaigns from the party committees; and the central party
committee is the national committee with which congressional and state and local committees
are affiliated. The bulk of the money for the "political trust" comes from "the interests."
"The interests" will give only to the "political trust."
Our part as citizens of the republic is plain enough. We must stand our ground. We must
fight the good fight. Heartsick and depressed as we may be at times because of the spread of
graft in high places and its frightfully contaminating influence, we must still hold up our
heads. We must never lose an opportunity to show that as private citizens we are opposed to
public plunderers."
Yes, under neoliberalism like under Bolshevism, your social position is not determined solely
by the capital you own. It is also determined by the position you hold in the industry or
government (and your earnings/wages are derivative of that).
So we see the reincarnation of the idea of Soviet Nomenklatura on a new level in a
different social system. The term can still serve its purpose, and IMHO is better than
"Homoploutia."
It is also interesting that older middle-class folk, who due to their private savings,
401K, Roth and ISA accounts, SS pension (say $6K-7K a month for a couple), and sometimes
government or industry pension are formally millionaires (with some multimillionaires) are
not generally viewed as belonging to the upper 10%. They are looked at as an aberration by
the most sociologists.
That's because they are now retired and no longer hold any meaningful for the upper 10%
level position in the industry or government. In other words, they do not belong to
Nomenklatura. Or more correctly no longer belong to Nomenklatura (for those who retired from
relatively high level positions)
And, correspondingly, often are treated as junk in the neoliberal society.
Homoploutia, a concept I introduce in "Capitalism, Alone". In today's liberal capitalism,
it is common that the same people are rich *both* in terms of capital they own and earnings
they receive. This was almost unheard of in classical capitalism where capitalists seldom
doubled as wage workers.
So here, using @lisdata, you have a nice illustration of advanced capitalist countries
where people in the top decile by capital and labor income increasing coincide (right end)
and Brazil and Mexico where they do not.
Note the ambivalence * of homoploutia: in some sense it is desirable (and risk-reducing)
that capitalists also work, or that high earners possess capital too. But in another way, it
makes inequality-reducing policies more difficult.
Yes, under neoliberalism like under Bolshevism, your social position is not determined solely
by the capital you own. It is also determined by the position you hold in the industry or
government (and your earnings/wages are derivative of that).
So we see the reincarnation of the idea of Soviet Nomenklatura on a new level in a
different social system. The term can still serve its purpose, and IMHO is better than
"Homoploutia."
It is also interesting that older middle-class folk, who due to their private savings,
401K, Roth and ISA accounts, SS pension (say $6K-7K a month for a couple), and sometimes
government or industry pension are formally millionaires (with some multimillionaires) are
not generally viewed as belonging to the upper 10%. They are looked at as an aberration by
the most sociologists.
That's because they are now retired and no longer hold any meaningful for the upper 10%
level position in the industry or government. In other words, they do not belong to
Nomenklatura. Or more correctly no longer belong to Nomenklatura (for those who retired from
high level positions)
And, correspondingly, often are treated as junk in the neoliberal society.
Those who control the public forum, as Spengler pointed out, obviously use their control to further their own interests and no
others. Why in the world would an American-hating MSM give Americans an equal voice?
Notable quotes:
"... These educated lemmings believe what they're spoon fed by CNN or Fox News. They cannot possibly accept that they're immune to facts and disproof of their cherished assumptions because they've been emotionally conditioned on a subconscious level, after which facts and reasoning are emotionally reacted to like they were personal attacks. ..."
"... A newly scripted financial crisis will complete transfer of much of America's corporate assets to the government when the $7 trillion in private retirement assets is appropriated in emergency legislation, immediately conceded by the Republicans amid the usual handwringing and crocodile tears. In exchange Americans will receive rapidly deflating gov bonds that will be accepted as the new store of wealth, which it will be for the elites who own American as surely as they do in Venezuela. ..."
Politics in America is a function of those who control the public forum via the msm. Those
who control the public forum, as Spengler pointed out, obviously use their control to further
their own interests and no others. Why in the world would an American-hating msm give
Americans an equal voice?
The msm aren't merely some unfortunate artifact of the First Amendment we have to live.
The msm control the formation of men's minds. As Jacques Ellul points out in his masterpiece
on propaganda, it's those among us who're most educated and most inclined to closely follow
the "news" who are most susceptible to brainwashing. These educated lemmings believe what
they're spoon fed by CNN or Fox News. They cannot possibly accept that they're immune to
facts and disproof of their cherished assumptions because they've been emotionally
conditioned on a subconscious level, after which facts and reasoning are emotionally reacted
to like they were personal attacks.
This explains why college educated white women are the Dems' winning edge, trading empty
moral posturing for condemning their own children and grandchildren to die hounded and
dispossessed in their own land. But there are never any consequences when they insist they
have the best of intentions. These women whose thoughts are authored by their own people's
enemies will probably put a Warren or one of the other Marxists over the top in 2020.
A newly
scripted financial crisis will complete transfer of much of America's corporate assets to the
government when the $7 trillion in private retirement assets is appropriated in emergency
legislation, immediately conceded by the Republicans amid the usual handwringing and
crocodile tears. In exchange Americans will receive rapidly deflating gov bonds that will be
accepted as the new store of wealth, which it will be for the elites who own American as
surely as they do in Venezuela.
The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true,
should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate
"policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical
orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.
When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated
with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.
All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control
and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves
in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political
realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.
The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how
might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?
Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that
their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt
to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out
of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency
protection initiatives. They might run up staggering
debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark
domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.
It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate
most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives."
In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.
While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most
debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill,
leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every
contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.
As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power
reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy
might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons
of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire
by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war
making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.
Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble
about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on
national conservatism with some
skepticism . The
retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation
of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to
be conservatism.
One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable
resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of
an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.
Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option
but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential
but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system
often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.
William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University
of America, and author of the new book
Democracy and Imperialism .
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy.
Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler,
Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.
Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of
a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that
he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral
means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position?
This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently
involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers
in the Exodus from Egypt.
The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other
than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous
non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the
country out.
The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just
how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every
foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and
world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts
rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.
The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the
author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched'
foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always
reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms.
Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts
to exert dominion over others"
I love this.
We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families,
we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these
countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.
This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...
"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world
does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."
I could never get this out of my head.
It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the
gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.
Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing
because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5
"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive.
Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.
The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall
inherit the Earth."
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember
is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did
not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent
NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint
of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever).
Get absolute power, get corrupted.
The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats
and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best
of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters.
Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.
The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide
(subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants
defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been
doing.
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.
This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot
ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed
Society is otherwise un-governable.
And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you
have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society"
[J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.
“ If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries
in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic
weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he
acts are well founded and justified by success;
still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks,
where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend
himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.
(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)
Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when
it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS,
2012 Pg. 80]
Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?
Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase
military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation
on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry.
They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then
they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.
Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”
The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage
Evil reprobates in positions of power Anything that’s good they devour Destroying countries and families too This is the satanic work they do
Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?
Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze
Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...
"... By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in Asia researching a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting clients and publications, as well as writes occasional travel pieces for The National . ..."
"... One more issue to address; Retailers have to dispose of unsold inventory at a loss. Doesn't fast-fashion mean faster accumulation of un-sellable stuff, so faster losses? What could go wrong? ..."
"... "One fact jumped out at me: the average fast fashion item is worn seven times, and is then either abandoned to the back of one's closet or discarded, according to a 2015 survey of women's buying habits conducted by the UK children's charity, Barnardo's. " ..."
By
Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in Asia researching
a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting
clients and publications, as well as writes occasional travel pieces for The
National .
Bloomberg recently reported in
Retailers Chasing Fast Fashion Stumble Under Heavy Buyout Debts that ""Euro fast fashion," featuring trendy clothing that can
move from catwalks to stores in mere weeks, has taken the U.S. by storm, and distressed specialty apparel retailers are among the
biggest casualties."
The fashion industry conceals many dirty little secrets. Its labour practices have long been notorious, with many low-cost
producers relying on sweatshop production and in some cases, child labor. These and other problems have only worsened with the
rise of fast fashion– cheap, shoddy clothes intended not for the long haul, but to be worn for a short while, and then discarded
in favour of the next new thing.
The reasons for fast fashion's out-performance in the US market are due in part to missteps by specialty retailers– especially
the high levels of debt they've assumed. But there's no doubt that also due to fast fashion appeals to certain consumers, especially
younger ones. According to Bloomberg:
Younger shoppers have gravitated to fast fashion brands not only because they're more affordable but also because they're able
to quickly capture the latest looks and make them available in a fraction of the time traditional merchants need. Cheaper prices
also mean customers of these brands, sometimes referred to as disposable fashion, have come to expect an ever-changing assortment.
And the fast fashion companies comply. A 2016 McKinsey article,
Style that's sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula , notes that each year, Zara introduces 24 new clothing collections, compared
to H&M's 12 to 16. When all European apparel companies are considered, the average number of clothing collections has more than doubled,
from two each year in 2000 to approximately five each year in 2011.
Fast Fashion: Cheap at Whose Expense?
But this appeal brings with it considerable costs, two of which I'll discuss in this post. One necessary condition for the low
cost of "fast fashion" production is the poor pay workers receive. Most often, it's people in developing countries who are paid low
wages, and subject to appalling working conditions. Yet paltry wages in this sector are not just a problem for developing countries.
A (UK) Channel 4's Dispatches program,
Undercover:
Britain's Cheap Clothes , broadcast earlier this month, revealed that UK fast fashion producers in Leicester were flouting minimum
wage laws.
Laborers in Britain responsible for making clothes for popular fast fashion retailers like River Island and New Look are being
paid less than half the required minimum wage. An investigation by Britain's Channel 4 television has revealed that Leicester-based
manufacturers, Fashion Square Ltd and United Creations Ltd, which supply garments and accessories to River Island, New Look, Boohoo,
and Missguided, among other retailers, paid their employees between 3 pounds ($3.74) and 3.5 pounds ($4.36) per hour. The hourly
rate for the national living wage in Britain is 7.20 pounds ($8.97) for workers 25 years and older.
Channel
4 caught one textile boss on a secret camera admitting that his company is competing directly with Bangladeshi and Chinese companies
to fill orders, and so must rein in its costs accordingly:
We don't get paid much for our clothes, and we need to compete with China and Bangladesh. They can get it cheap there. How
will they get it made cheaper here? If we pay everyone £10 or £6 then we will make a loss.
Burgeoning Environmental Costs
Another consequence of the rise of fast fashion is the considerable environmental costs it has imposed. Some of these occur at
the production stage. Cotton– which
McKinsey notes accounts for about 30 percent of all textile fiber consumption– typically requires copious amounts of water, pesticides,
and fertilizer to produce. Synthetics require extraction and refining of oil– raising another set of concerns, according to
Timeout for Fast Fashion , a 2016 Greenpeace report. That report also flags both the problematic use of hazardous chemicals in
production processes (including dying) and high energy use (which in the countries with the largest textile sectors, typically comes
from fossil fuels).
As I posted yesterday in
Waste
Not, Want Not: Right to Repair Laws on Agenda in Some States , one consequence of long sojourns spent outside the US is I've
realized how wasteful so many basic American systems are. Perhaps I'll express the point somewhat differently here - I mean, how
excessive so many basic American systems are, and that excess translates into unnecessary waste. Some obvious examples: the cars
(or more often pickup trucks and SUVs) are HUUUGE compared to those in Europe, not to mention India and Asia (where I often find
myself using three-wheeler auto rickshaws to get about-many of these powered by CNG or LPG). The food is over-packaged. I could go
on.
One fact jumped out at me: the average fast fashion item is worn seven times, and is then either abandoned to the back of one's
closet or discarded, according to a 2015 survey of women's buying habits conducted by the UK children's charity,
Barnardo's . In my earlier post, I quoted some statistics from a Newsweek cover story,
Fast Fashion is Creating an Environmental
Crisis , "In less than 20 years, the volume of clothing Americans toss each year has doubled from 7 million to 14 million tons,
or an astounding 80 pounds per person. "
I discuss some of these back-end environmental consequences at greater length in my earlier
post . Much of this
fashion waste ends up in landfills,
350,000 tonnes
each year in the UK alone. Although there have been some efforts made to encourage recycling, this is both difficult and expensive
to do at the fiber level (and the quality does not match that of virgin fiber, which is still preferred for quality production).
Instead, recycling is done at the garment level, with the end product often being rags or insulation. But there's a limit to how
many rags, or units of insulation, are necessary. What about sending garments to developing countries? Their leaders say: Enough!
Many fast fashion products are shoddy and not hard-wearing. The volume available has overwhelmed demand, and further, destroyed domestic
textile production, so much so that some East African states have called for a
ban on second-hand clothing to protect domestic producers.
The environmental problems are only expected to worsen as more residents of developing countries join the middle class. According
to
McKinsey :
While sales growth has been robust around the world, emerging economies have seen especially large rises in clothing sales,
as more people in them have joined the middle class. In five large developing countries-Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Russia-apparel
sales grew eight times faster than in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States [over the 2000-2014 period].
Even after this increase, the average developing-country resident purchases a fraction of the clothing that his or her developed-world
counterpart buys each year. Overall clothing sales could rise significantly if developing-country consumers choose to buy more
clothing as their purchasing power increases.
Technology Fairy Rides to the Rescue?
There are some new specialty products specifically designed to address the textile waste disposal issue, such as a new Adidas
shoe made of biodegradable artificial spider silk that will decompose in the sink once you're finished with it. As reported in a
recent Treehugger piece,
Adidas' new
shoes will dissolve in your sink :
Adidas has invented a running shoe that will decompose in the sink. Once you've worn it out (the company recommends two years
of use), you can immerse the shoes in water, add a digestion enzyme called proteinase, and let it work for 36 hours. It will cause
the protein-based yarn to break down, and you'll be able to drain the liquefied shoes down the sink – everything except the foam
sole, which will still require disposal.
Now as a recovering science geek– I was an MIT undergrad after all, and also the first kid on my block to have a chemistry set–
on first reading of this article, I found the concept of self-dissolving running shoes to be pretty cool. But after further thought,
I noticed that the article's a bit vague on how completely the shoes dissolve, and what, exactly, ends up going into your local sewer
system once the "dissolving" is completed. Bottom line is that it doesn't look to me that massive ramping up of such a product– or
its progeny– is going to offset the huge and growing environmental costs of fast fashion anytime soon.
So I return to my starting point: it's sad to see that fast fashion is flourishing in the US, and that in this as in so many other
areas, we're hurtling away from thinking about what a sustainable system for textile production, sales, and disposal would look like–
one that doesn't rely so heavily on cut-rate labor, nor impose such considerable front-end and back-end environmental costs.
PlutoniumKun ,
January 30, 2017 at 1:48 pm
I know you've quoted this figure before:
"In less than 20 years, the volume of clothing Americans toss each year has doubled from 7 million to 14 million tons, or
an astounding 80 pounds per person. "
One problem of course is the poverty paradox (I've heard it referred to as the poverty tax) – that buying long lasting quality
things saves money in the long run – but to buy quality means you have to have available cash to buy it in the first place. So
often, when short on money, the disposable fashion alternative is the only one affordable for many people.
For a few years now I've intended to invest in a really good pair of leather shoes – the type my father would have had, and
kept for many years, even decades, regularly getting them fixed and resoled in the shoe repairers. But each time I try to find
one I find they are very expensive, so I end up getting something that looks identical in the sales, costs about a quarter or
less than the high quality ones, but I know from experience will fall apart in 2 years and is unrepairable. In terms of mens clothes,
you can apply the same logic to a good jacket, good jeans, a good suit, etc. Quality last for years and pays for itself, but you
need to have the money first to buy it.
One more issue to address; Retailers have to dispose of unsold inventory at a loss. Doesn't fast-fashion mean faster accumulation of un-sellable stuff, so faster losses? What could go wrong?
"One fact jumped out at me: the average fast fashion item is worn seven times, and is then either abandoned to the back of
one's closet or discarded, according to a 2015 survey of women's buying habits conducted by the UK children's charity, Barnardo's.
"
That sounds more like short-term renting of clothing instead of ownership. So if I buy a cheap blouse, wear it seven times,
discard it and buy another cheap blouse, what is the cost per each wearing of a cheap blouse? I buy, say, a $28 dollar blouse,
wear it 7 times, costing $4 per wear. I buy, say, a $40 blouse, wear it 14 times, costing $2.85 per wear.
Fast fashion sounds
much more expensive, in the long run, than buying a better quality at higher initial price from which I would get more use. Or
maybe the problem isn't initial cost but the throw-away mentality.
For many, it is the notion of having far fewer items of clothing that one wears in more settings. In France, you have a far
smaller closet, but it's way nicer. Same for children's clothing.
Or maybe the problem isn't initial cost but the throw-away mentality.
More so, the "keeping up with the micro-season's fashion" mentality that the fashion industry is dependent upon. Whole industry
would fall apart if there wasn't a large number of people out there who think the difference between this winter's and last winter's
fashion is significant (I know he's popular to cite on here, so William Gibson's Zero History deals with this in length).
One of the issues I understood from the article is that the 'younger set' of customers, especially, would prefer to keep up
with the very latest ('fast') fashion, so after wearing the blouse 7 times it doesn't matter to them that the more expensive (on
the front end) blouse will last twice as long or more. It would be 'out of fashion' by then so they wouldn't wear it anymore,
anyway.
Plus, as pointed out, it's the initial cost they consider, wanting to spend as little as possible to 'stay in style', with
styles changing ever more quickly.
Vanity is playing a large part of the fast fashion.
.
As a now a 65 y/o woman I'm most comfortable in boot cut jeans & a top or shirt.
However, I still remember a different mindset of my youth.
Vanity seems to fade when gravity & stress have taken their toll, tho'.
I have a lot of very good vintage designer clothes in my closet. I got them at consignment stores for $2 to $20. What does
that make me, I wonder, these days? I have not shopped for new duds except for underwear and shoes and socks for about 20 years.
I am a bad person.
Portia, consider me another who is 'bad to the bone', as I shop thrift stores.
While I often see some cheap 'fast fashion' in them, I've also scored some great upper-end clothing for almost nothing.
A neighbor, for whom money is no problem, dropped her jaw when I showed her a beautiful designer sweater I'd bought–for 50 cents.
I'd even found a great pair of cords to match for another 50 cents, also of good quality.
Jeans can be the best find if you're lucky. Nicely broken in & not the $40-50 they now sell for.
Usually $4 or less & better quality.
As a gift, she'd surprised me with an inexpensive (Cosco) pair of suede/shearling snow boots. The side seam pulled out (not
sure it was ever secured in the first place) after I'd worn them just 4 brief times.
Now wearing plastic bags in my 'fast fashion' snow boots to stay dry.
Wow. Thanks for that link.
A clothing designer friend is completely into sustainable clothing, currently using bamboo for her line.
She recently discovered that there was too much pollution in the processing of it from her former supplier, however, so has
now found another that is not as harmful to the environment.
I'm passing this link along to her right now, so she can 'think outside the box' even a little more.
Thanks!
If you've ever seen the excellent Italian film Gomorrah
, based on an investigative journalists book, it depicts how many 'Made in Italy' products are made in sweatshops entirely
staffed with illegal Chinese immigrants. I suspect that tariffs would have the impact of creating an underground of dubious 'finishing'
factories in the US, putting buttons on clothes made elsewhere.
It's hard work to escape the US system. I rarely shop aisles and in the year without plastic, there were few goods to be had
that aren't in plastic (some glass and cardboard), I'd hit the bulk bins with fabric bags, but that is for dry goods. There is
typically only a small section of produce that is not in plastic.
It's difficult to find clothing, shoes etc made in the US. Could someone make their own? What's available for US raw goods?
The instruction to just buy basics is also a challenge. Basics are cheaply made. Thrift stores might be a better option for
durables.
My pet peeve is corporations that destroy goods (will literally slice clothing) rather than allow the poor to get their hands
on the clothing. We are a landfill society.
Adidas shoes dissolving in rainy climates? It may be a matter of time before their 'sink additive' goes native, to the detriment
of many runners. Those in the PNW wear rain slickers, 60/40, GoreTex or similar outerwear to squeeze in that run even the most
rainy days.
I know, catastrophizing, but somebody has to do it when there are too many Onion-like blurbs in the media.
Now as a recovering science geek– I was an MIT undergrad after all, and also the first kid on my block to have a chemistry
set– on first reading of this article, I found the concept of self-dissolving running shoes to be pretty cool. But after further
thought, I noticed that the article's a bit vague on how completely the shoes dissolve, and what, exactly, ends up going into
your local sewer system once the "dissolving" is completed.
Sounds like they're trying to appeal to the crowd that thinks Tesla cars are going to save the world. Greenish sounding stuff
to get the STEM lord money, most who will just dispose of them the same way as any other pair of shoes.
TheThinker
I've been reading a collection of essays by a Australian guy called Careys – on Democracy and propaganda, fully named, Taking the
Risk out of Democracy. He died unpublished but his papers were collated in a book after. Here some bits from my read that were
interesting.
In Jan 1994 David Hume reflecting on the consequences of the recent state terrorist projects that Washington had
organised and directed in its Central American domains, with the Church a prime target. They took special note of 'what weight'
the culture of terror has had in domestically the expectations of the majority vis-a-vis alternatives different for the powerful;
the destruction of hope, they recognised, is one of the greatest achievements of the free world doctrine of 'low intensity
conflict' what is called 'terror' when conducted by official enemies. Noam Chomsky 1994
Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbolism collective attitudes are
amenable to many modes of alteration . intimidation intimidation .economic coercion drill
But their arrangement and rearrangement occurs principally under the importers of significant symbolism and the technique of
using significant symbols for this purpose is propaganda. Lasswell, Bardson & Janowitz 1953
Successful use of propaganda as a means of social control requires a number of conditions: The will to use it, the skills to
produce the propaganda, the means to disseminate it; and the use of significant symbols with real power over emotional reactions
– ideally symbols of the sacred and satanic (Light vs DARK)
A society or culture which is disposed to view the world in Manichean terms will be more vulnerable to control by
propaganda. Conversely, a society where propaganda is extensively employed as a means of control, will tend to retain a Manichean
world view, a view dominated by symbols and visions of the sacred and satanic.
Manichean – an adherent of the dualistic systems (dual = 2) religious systems of Manes, a combination of Gnostic,
Buddiasm, Zoroastrianism and various other elements with a doctrine of a conflict between the Light and Dark, matter being
regarded as dark and light / good vs evil – love vs hate
The 'public mind' was recognised long ago by corporate leaders to be 'the only serious danger confronting' their enterprise &
major hazards facing industrialists along with the newly realised political power of the masses, which had to be beaten back.
Big Business in the US stated started the Americanise Movement ostensibly to Americanise worker, who was being perceived as
being under threat from subversive forces of the Industrial Workers of the world.
what started as a method of controlling the political opinion of immigrant workers quickly turned into a massive program for
the thinking of an entire population. One of the most startling examples of the escalation of the whole population in processes
of propaganda was how Americanisation Program ( a word which conjures up the 'thought police') came to be transformed into a
National Celebration Day for the 4th July, to many of us (Carey's words not mine) it comes as a shock to discover that American
Independence Day had it's beginning in a Business led program to control public opinion rather than as a direct expression of a
Nation celebrating its historical birth.
"... When Trump was first elected, I tried to calm down friends with advanced TDS, who expected Kristallnacht to be directed at their favorite brunch spots, by saying that "This is what empires in decline look like." ..."
"... In this sordid world, girls/women have absolutely no value ..."
"... Don't forget the young boys who get traded around like fudge recipes. Something quick on the Hollywood angle on bent dicks. It applies almost everywhere in America now: https://news.avclub.com/corey-feldman-made-a-documentary-about-sexual-abuse-he-1834310252 ..."
"... My reinterpretation of your comment would be; In this sordid world, people without power have absolutely no value. ..."
"... Epstein's World was tied in with Hollywood and Wall Street. Both are homoerotic paedophile havens. The world of the Vatican is tied in to Wall Street; it has it's own bank, the Instituto per le Opere de Religioni. ..."
"... As is true with the continued withholding of key documents in the JFK assassination, I believe that if the lousy reporting and official screwups in the Epstein case persist, it will be perfectly fine for the public to conclude and believe the absolute worst and act accordingly. ..."
"... Given the spotiness and inadequacy of reporting on the Epstein affair I wonder if an avenue for exploration might be that of a more direct involvement of media moguls and highly placed media staff in being serviced by Epstein i.e., the decision-makers regarding what gets covered and published are themselves subject to exposure, embarrassment, and other things that befall men caught in such matters. ..."
I can't add much to Yve's excellent post and the follow-up comments, except to say that the events of recent days and weeks
have made Pizzagate (as deranged as it was) into some kind of weird Jungian premonition which is to say, the s&#* is out of control.
When Trump was first elected, I tried to calm down friends with advanced TDS, who expected Kristallnacht to be directed
at their favorite brunch spots, by saying that "This is what empires in decline look like."
In regard to this sordid tale, I'm reminded of Robert Graves' (and the superb BBC TV version of) "I, Claudius."
My reinterpretation of your comment would be; In this sordid world, people without power have absolutely no value.
Otherwise, I'm with you all the way. Abuse is abuse. No other definition is logical.
Epstein's World was tied in with Hollywood and Wall Street. Both are homoerotic paedophile havens. The world of the Vatican
is tied in to Wall Street; it has it's own bank, the Instituto per le Opere de Religioni.
Who knows? Perhaps there will be some Prelates unearthed from the Lolita Express passenger log.
As is true with the continued withholding of key documents in the JFK assassination, I believe that if the lousy reporting
and official screwups in the Epstein case persist, it will be perfectly fine for the public to conclude and believe the absolute
worst and act accordingly.
Given the spotiness and inadequacy of reporting on the Epstein affair I wonder if an avenue for exploration might be that
of a more direct involvement of media moguls and highly placed media staff in being serviced by Epstein i.e., the decision-makers
regarding what gets covered and published are themselves subject to exposure, embarrassment, and other things that befall men
caught in such matters.
Who covers the press and roots out its secret malefactions? Rogue reporters? And who publishes them? Indeed!
To Michels organizations are the only means for the creation of a collective will and they
work under the Iron Law of Oligarchy. He explicitly points out the indispensability of
oligarchy from the organizations by saying that "It is organization which gives birth to the
domination of the elected over electors, of the mandatanes over the mandators, of the delegates
over delegators, who says organization, says oligarchy" (Michels 1966, p.365).
Oligarchical tendencies in organizations is not related to ideology or ends of the
organizations. Of course, it is evident that any organization which is set up for autocratic
aims , it is oligarchic by nature. To Michels, regardless of any ideological concerns, all
types of organizations have oligarchic tendencies. It was his major question in political
parties that "how can oligarchic tendencies be explained in socialist and democratic parties,
which they declared war against it?"( Michels 1966, pp. 50-51).
When he examines this question throughout in his book: Political Parties, he sees
organization itself particularly bureaucracy, nature of human being and the phenomenon of
leadership as major factors for oligarchical tendencies in organizations. According to Michels'
assessments, the crowd is always subject to suggestion and the masses have an apathy for
guidance of their need. In contrast the leaders have a natural greed of power ( Michels 1966,
pp. 64, 205). To Michels, leadership itself is not compatible with the most essential
postulates of democracy, but leadership is a necessary phenomenon in every form of society. He
says "At the outset, leaders arise spontaneously, their functions are ACCESSORY and GRATUITOUS.
Soon however, they become professional leaders, and in this second stage of development they
are stable and irremovable"(
Michels 1966, p. 364).
Leaders also have personal qualities that make them successful as a ruling class. These
qualities are , the force of will, knowledge, strength of conviction, self sufficiency,
goodness of heart and disinterestedness ( Michels 1966, p. 100 ). Furthermore there is a
reciprocal relationship between leadership functions and the organizational structure. Majority
of leaders abuse organizational opportunities for their personal aims by using their personal
qualities and by creating means, organizational process or principles like party
discipline.
As for as organization itself is considered as a source of oligarchy, Michels says that it
is generally because of "PSYCHOLOGY OF ORGANIZATION ITSELF, that is to say, upon the tactical
and technical necessities which result from the consolidation of every disciplined political
aggregate."( Michels 1966, p. 365). Further as a particular type of organization bureaucracy
and its features require an oligarchic structure.
At the societal level, although development in the democracy, oligarchy still exists. First
of all he says by looking at the state as an organization, which needs a bureaucracy that is
the source of enemy of individual freedom, the state represents a single gigantic oligarchy. An
attempt to destroy this gigantic* oligarchy in fact brings a number of smaller oligarchies in
society but does not eliminate it ( Michels 1966, p. 188,191,202). Secondly he agrees with Jean
Jack Rousseau on the idea that "it is always against the natural order of things that the
majority rule and the minority ruled." (Michels 1965, p. 106). Along with this idea
professional leadership is seen by Michels as an incompatible phenomenon with
democracy, because , although the leaders at once are not more than executive agents off
collective will, as soon as they gain the technical specialization, they emancipate themselves
form the masses and start to use their power against the majority. ( Michels 1966, p.70). In
addition to this, representative political system is not compatible with the ideal democracy,
because to Michels, "a mass which delegates its sovereignty, that is to say transfer its
sovereignty to the hands of the few individuals, abdicates its sovereign function ( Michels
1966, p. 73).
The third factor is related to level of socio-economic development of societies and
experience of democracy in history. To him in this time ideal democracy is impossible due to
socio-economic conditions, that further more he says that," The democracy has an inherent
preference for the authoritarian solution of the important questions" (Michels 1966, p. 51,
342).
As a logical result of his iron law of oligarchy, he admits there are elites in society but
not elite circulation in terms of replacing one another. He does not redefine the concept of
elite, he took Pareto's theory of circulation of elites and modified it. To Michels, there is a
battle between the old and new elites, leaders.
The end of this war is not an absolute replacement of the old elites by the new elites, but
a reunion of elites, a perennial amalgamation. Complete replacement of elites is rare in
history. The old elites attract, absorb and assimilate the new ones, and it is a continuous
process (Michels 1966, p. 182, 343; Michels 1949, p. 63). Because for Michels, first " old
aristocracy does not disappear, does not become proletarian or impoverished ( at least in
absolute sense ), does not make way for new group of rulers , but that always remains at the
head of nations, which it led over the course of centuries...[and second]...the old aristocracy
be it very old rejuvenated, does not exercise the rule alone but is forced to shave it with
some kind of new ruler" (Michels 1965, p. 75-76).
Aristocracy for Michels is not homogenous stratum, and consists of nobility and ruling
class. Nobility represents a small but strong part of aristocracy. In this sense it seems that
nobility represents real oligarchical power in the society. To Michels nobility holds itself at
the helm and does not even dream of disappearing from the stage of history. Though not
coinciding with aristocracy,
To Michels nobility holds itself at the helm and does not even dream of disappearing from
the stage of history. Though not coinciding with aristocracy, and not constituting more than a
part of it, nobility generally takes hold of it and makes itself its master. It pervades,
conquers, and molds, the high middle class according to its own moral and social essence" (
Michels 1949,p. 77, 80 ). In contrast to nobility aristocracy is heterogeneous and a place
where lower classes' members can easily rise and members of aristocracy can be subject to
downward social mobility. For his time, he describes elements of aristocracy (1) aristocrats by
birth (2) aristocracy of government clerks, (3) aristocracy of money (4) aristocracy of
knowledge . All this groups also represent ruling class (Michels 1965, p. 76 ).
Michels does not get in too much special analysis of the relationships between aristocracy,
ruling class and majority. I think he doesn't see that there are much differences in oligarchy
in organization and oligarchy in society at large.
To me these two must be separated because (1) for individuals society in a sense an
unavoidable place to be in contrast to organizations, particularly voluntary organization , (2)
while society represent a more natural entity, organizations are more artificial entities and
(3) organizations are set to realize certain targets in a certain period of time, in contrast
society's targets are relatively unstable, and subject to reconstruction by people. To think of
these questions, does not necessarily reject the existence of oligarchical tendencies in
societies. In fact as Michels pointed out democracy has a legacy to solve important questions
of society, by using oligarchic methods. Furthermore he also points out that at any social
organization there is an intermixture of oligarchic and democratic tendencies. He says that"...
In modem party life, aristocracy gladly present itself in democratic guise, while the substance
of democracy is permeated with aristocratic elements. On the one side we have aristocracy is a
democratic form, and on the other hand democracy with an aristocratic context" (Michels 1966,
p.50).
... ... ...
In terms of replacement of old elites by new ones, there is a distinction between Pareto and
Michels. Michels does not admit replacement of elites, but admits, amalgamation of new and old
elites. In fact historically we can see both of them happened. In short term amalgamation of
old and new elites, and in long terms replacement of old elites by new ones. This time period
depends on changes in society at large. For example, consider socialist revolutions and
aftermath of independent movement in developing countries where these two movements took place,
old elites were wiped out. This type of changes are rarely in history. In short term,
amalgamation of elites takes place and new elites gradually increases its proportion in the
elite strata and ruling class. For example as a result of
industrialization in burope, Hughes observes that at the beginning ...upper class oligarchy
shared power with the old aristocracy-but with each year that passed the balance seemed to
incline more heavily in favor of the former" (Hughes 1965, pp.149-150). It can be concluded
that new elites are bom as a result of socio- economic , political, and historical changes in
society, and then these new elites via upward mobility, and that in the end the new elites take
place the highest position in the society. In this process the adaptation ability of old elites
determine their fates.
On democracy, Pareto always separate ideal democracy and democracy applied, and prefers to
talk about the subjects of democracy rather than democracy itself. Michels is clearly in favor
of democracy, Mosca was previously against democracy but after the experience of Fascism in
Italy, he changed his mind.
How elitist theories affected democracy ? Two answers have given for this question. On the
negative side, it has been said that these anti-democratic theories helped European ruling
classes by restoring their self confidence and by increasing their consciousness about their
privileges; therefore, elite theories become a vehicle for ruling classes (Hughes 1965 (b), p.
149), On the positive side, it has said that elitist theories have helped to enhance democratic
theories, Michels himself believed that research on oligarchies necessary for development of
democracy by saying that "...a serene and frank examination of oligarchical dangers of
democracy will enable us to minimize these dangers,...(Michels 1966, p.370).
It can be said that elitist theories extended and increased awareness of masses and
scientist against governments and ruling classes. As a result, many researches have been
conducted on application of democracy in organizations.
Researches have shown that oligarchical tendencies are dominant in organizations and can not
be eliminated totally. Further more, attempts to reduce oligarchic contrgl in organizations
with very few exception have failed. In general, in voluntary organizations, the functional
requirements of democracy con not be met most of the time (Lipset, Trow, and Coleman 1956,
p.4,6,452).
Is democracy still compatible with elite theories? That has been the question that lead to
redefine, reconceptualize the democracy. Here we must pay attention that Pareto, Mosca, and
Michels worked J.J. Rousseau's definition of democracy: government by the people, but not
government for the people (Burnham 1943, pp.156-7).
New democratic theories like political pluralism, theory of the mass society are compatible
with elitist theories. Schumpeter was one of the earliest thinker that he redefined democracy
considering elitists 1 arguments. To him democracy defined as "...institutional
arrangement for arriving the power to decide by means of competitive struggle for the people's
vote" (Bottomore 1964, p.10).
In contrast to compatibility of elitist theories with democracy, it can not be compatible
with Marxism. Michels pointed out that M [t]he law of circulation of elites destroy
the thesis of the possibility of a society without social levels...[and]... destroy equally the
supposition of a ruling class that remains closed and inaccessible" (Michels 1965, p. 106). In
terms of preference of political systems he clearly says that "the defects inherent in
democracy are obvious. It is none the less true that as a form of social life we must choose
democracy as the least of evils" (Michels 1966, p.370).
VI- CONCLUSIONS
Elitist theorists not only introduced elites but also contributed on better understanding of
social and political life of societies. The key concept is "power" and who has the power she/he
is the leader of society. Heredity, wealth, intellect, organizations are the means to get
power.
This article contains content that some may find distressing.
Jeffrey Epstein "was" apparently a serial molester of children. He had manipulation down to an art form, as many molesters do.
He seemed to be an expert at figuring out a girl's weak point, whether it was poverty, a deceased family member, or feeling alienated
from her peers.
This is a common ploy. Many molesters seek out children or teens who have lost a parent and use this as a way to build a friendship.
Then, because children don't think like adults, they are manipulated, coerced, or threatened into sexual activity.
The story below could be told a hundred thousand times with only tiny changes. The names and the faces would be different. The
settings might not be a mansion in Manhattan or in Palm Beach but rather a quiet part of a church, a school, or some kind of activity
for teens. The setting could be in the house next door to you, where someone with evil intent befriends a vulnerable young person
with the stated goal of helping them, but an end result that couldn't be further from reality.
How 14-year-old Jennifer Araoz met Jeffrey Epstein
Jennifer Araoz was 14 years old when she first met her future rapist, Jeffrey Epstein. She wrote about how she was manipulated,
first by his recruiter, then by Epstein himself. There are many powerful lessons that we as parents can learn from her story.
During my freshman year, one of Epstein's recruiters, a stranger, approached me on the sidewalk outside my high school. Epstein
never operated alone. He had a ring of enablers and surrounded himself with influential people. I was attending a performing arts
school on the Upper East Side, studying musical theater. I wanted to be an actress and a singer. (
source )
Another
report based on court documents says that the recruiter befriended Jennifer, took her out to eat after school a few times, and
learned more about her, such as the fact that Jennifer's father had died from an AIDs-related illness and her family could barely
scrape by financially.
The recruiter told me about a wealthy man she knew named Jeffrey Epstein. Meeting him would be beneficial, and he could introduce
me to the right people for my career, she said. When I confided that I had recently lost my father and that my family was living
on food stamps, she told me he was very caring and wanted to help us financially. (
source )
The recruiter finally got Jennifer to go with her to meet Epstein. Court documents say that they all three met together for the
first month or so.
The visits during the first month felt benign, at least at the time. On my second visit, Epstein also gave me a digital camera
as a gift. The visits were about one to two hours long and we would spend the time talking. After each visit, he or his secretary
would hand me $300 in cash, supposedly to help my family. (
source )
Epstein claimed he was 'a big AIDS activist' which you can imagine would mean a lot to a 14-year-old whose father died of the
disease.
Soon the visits would take a dark turn.
By the second month of Jennifer's visits to the mansion, the recruiter no longer attended the visits., the manipulation began
in earnest.
But within about a month, he started asking me for massages and instructed me to take my top off. He said he would need to
see my body if he was going to help me break into modeling. I felt uncomfortable and intimidated, but I did as he said. The assault
escalated when, during these massages, he would flip over and sexually gratify himself and touch me inappropriately. For a little
over a year, I went to Epstein's home once or twice a week.
After that day, I never went back. I also quit the performing arts school -- the one I had auditioned for and had wanted so
badly to attend. It was too close to his house, the scene of so many crimes. I was too scared I would see him or his recruiter.
So I transferred to another school in Queens close to my home. Since I was no longer able to pursue my dream of performing arts
I eventually lost interest and dropped out. (
source )
Sure, we can say that she knew things weren't right when he asked her to take her top off. By this point, she was 15 years old.
Old enough to know right from wrong. But if she was getting $300 twice a week and helping her family with it, it's pretty easy to
see how she would want to continue helping her family despite her discomfort. Epstein knew exactly what he was doing.
Epstein's wealth, power, and connections would have made going against him seem like an insurmountable feat for a vulnerable 15-year-old
girl who had recently lost her father. Who would have believed her word against that of this presumed philanthropist?
A few days ago, Jennifer, now 32, filed a massive lawsuit against Epstein's estate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and 3 members of Epstein's
household staff. The complaint alleges that Maxwell and the staff "conspired with each other to make possible and otherwise facilitate
the sexual abuse and rape of Plaintiff."
Some of Epstein's victims recruited new girls for him.
Epstein's indictment explains how he manipulated some of the girls he sexually abused to bring other girls to him.
Prosecutors say he lured underage girls, some as young as 14, to his residences, promising them a cash payment in exchange
for giving him a massage. Instead, he would sexually abuse them -- groping them, making them touch him while he masturbated, and
using sex toys on the minors. Then, he would allegedly ask them to recruit other girls. (
source )
A detailed report in the Miami Herald referred to it as a "sexual pyramid scheme." One of Epstein's accusers, Courtney Wild, reiterates
the theme of the story told by Jennifer Boaz.
"Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way, girls who were basically homeless. He went after girls who he thought no one
would listen to and he was right,'' said Courtney Wild, who was 14 when she met Epstein. (
source )
Courtney's time spent with Epstein nearly destroyed her.
Before she met Epstein, Courtney Wild was captain of the cheerleading squad, first trumpet in the band and an A-student at
Lake Worth Middle School.
After she met Epstein, she was a stripper, a drug addict and an inmate at Gadsden Correctional Institution in Florida's Panhandle.
Wild still had braces on her teeth when she was introduced to him in 2002 at the age of 14.
She was fair, petite and slender, blonde and blue-eyed. (
source )
She began to recruit other girls for him in Palm Beach.
Wild said Epstein preferred girls who were white, appeared prepubescent and those who were easy to manipulate into going further
each time
"By the time I was 16, I had probably brought him 70 to 80 girls who were all 14 and 15 years old. He was involved in my life
for years," said Wild, who was released from prison in October after serving three years on drug charges.
The girls -- mostly 13 to 16 -- were lured to his pink waterfront mansion by Wild and other girls, who went to malls, house
parties and other places where girls congregated, and told recruits that they could earn $200 to $300 to give a man -- Epstein
-- a massage, according to an unredacted copy of the Palm Beach police investigation obtained by the Herald. (
source )
Epstein had it down to an art form.
Palm Beach police detective Joseph Recarey explains how Epstein insinuated himself into the girls' lives.
"The common interview with a girl went like this: 'I was brought there by so and so. I didn't feel comfortable with what happened,
but I got paid well, so I was told if I didn't feel comfortable, I could bring someone else and still get paid,' '' Recarey said.
During the massage sessions, Recarey said Epstein would molest the girls, paying them premiums for engaging in oral sex and
intercourse, and offering them a further bounty to find him more girls
Epstein could be a generous benefactor, Recarey said, buying his favored girls gifts. He might rent a car for a young girl
to make it more convenient for her to stop by and cater to him. Once, he sent a bucket of roses to the local high school after
one of his girls starred in a stage production. The floral-delivery instructions and a report card for one of the girls were discovered
in a search of his mansion and trash. Police also obtained receipts for the rental cars and gifts, Recarey said.
Epstein counseled the girls about their schooling, and told them he would help them get into college, modeling school, fashion
design or acting. At least two of Epstein's victims told police that they were in love with him, according to the police report.
( source )
You may look at these stories and scorn the victims. After all, they kept going back, didn't they? They liked the money, didn't
they?
But they were children. Many of them were isolated, vulnerable, and without support systems. Many of them felt ashamed but didn't
know how to extricate themselves. They were confused and scared, and Epstein was a pro at taking advantage of these emotions and
doubts.
The girls are not to blame here. The adults are.
Epstein is not the only predator out there.
While this article focuses on how Epstein was able to lure so many victims,
as Dagny Taggert recently wrote , there are
many more people in power out there preying on children. Clergy, priests, teachers, neighbors, musicians, and random people on the
internet are out there preying on and trafficking children.
Dagny wrote:
According to
The National
Center for Victims of Crime , the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) is difficult to determine because it is often not
reported. Experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities.
Statistics below represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Children's Bureau report Child Maltreatment 2010 found that
9.2% of victimized children were sexually
assaulted (page 24).
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual
abuse incident;
During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.
According to Darkness to Light , a non-profit committed to empowering adults
to prevent child sexual abuse, only about one-third of child sexual abuse incidents are identified, and even
fewer are reported .
When my children's father passed away, it wasn't too long afterward that I left my corporate job. I volunteered when the company
began layoffs and took a small payment and my retirement fund to start a new life writing freelance. It wasn't long after that when
I started this website.
I wanted to be home when they got back from school every day. I didn't want them to seem like prey to those looking for children
with weak support systems. My own daughters could so easily have had a story like the one Jennifer has told.
I know that what I did is not possible for every family that suffers a loss. I was pretty fortunate to be able to find work from
home that paid enough to allow me to be there.
What you, as a parent, must understand are the things that make your child seem vulnerable.
Loneliness
Social isolation and few, if any, friends
Lack of a support system from parents and caregivers
Spending too much time on their own
Alienation from parents
Some signs that your child could be getting abused or groomed.
Sudden secretiveness regarding their phone or computer (a lot of grooming happens online
Spending a great deal of time alone with another adult
Signs of increased anger or fear
Lack of participation in things that used to bring them happiness
Withdrawal from family and friends
Obviously, these lists are not comprehensive, nor are they sure signs of abuse. What teenager doesn't seem angry and withdrawn
from time to time? But it's vital, no matter how hard they push you away, to stay involved, particularly after a traumatic event.
Teach your kids that some secrets should not be kept.
Predators manipulate children in all sorts of ways. One of the biggest ways is warning them to keep their "relationship" a secret
or else.
Or else what?
They'll hurt Mom or Dad
They'll hurt the child's pet
They'll hurt the child's siblings
They'll cause extreme financial problems for the family
Predators often put a burden on a child where they feel as though they must stay silent to protect the people they love.
Kids need to know that if anyone threatens them if they tell a secret, then they absolutely must tell that secret. Mom and Dad
will be safe and will protect them. People who ask children to keep their presence in their lives a secret are never to be trusted.
And finally, make sure your children know that whatever they tell you, you will believe them and you know it's not their fault.
"... The reason the ruler's have decreed 'anybody but Bernie' is that Sanders' (and to a lesser perceived degree, Warren's) campaign proposals challenge the austerity regime that has been relentlessly erected since the 1970s precisely to set American workers and the whole capitalist world on a Race to the Bottom, in which each year brings lower living standards and more insecurity to the population at large. ..."
"... The obscene increases in wealth inequality are the desired result and true essence of austerity. ..."
"... "the top one-tenth of one percent (.1%) of the population -- households making $2.757 million a year -- now number almost 200,000 families, a cohort big enough to create and inhabit a large and coherent social world of its own. ..."
Sanders (D)(1): "Why the Rich Want to Bury Bernie, the Not-Really-Socialist" [Glen Ford,
Black Agenda
Report (CI)]. Really excellent.
Here's "why":
"The reason the ruler's have decreed 'anybody
but Bernie' is that Sanders' (and to a lesser perceived degree, Warren's) campaign proposals
challenge the austerity regime that has been relentlessly erected since the 1970s precisely to
set American workers and the whole capitalist world on a Race to the Bottom, in which each year
brings lower living standards and more insecurity to the population at large.
The obscene
increases in wealth inequality are the desired result and true essence of austerity."
There's
much more, but this on local oligarchies is important: "the top one-tenth of one percent (.1%)
of the population -- households making $2.757 million a year -- now number almost 200,000
families, a cohort big enough to create and inhabit a large and coherent social world of its
own.
From their rich enclaves in every state of the country, this formidable "base" of truly
wealthy folks effectively dictate the politics of their regions for the benefit of themselves
and the oligarchs at the top of the pyramid. "
Isn't it interesting that the Democrats are only about a third of the country now, but
because they and the other rotten party have rigged our political system so no other parties
can emerge, that they essentially will determine who will go up against Trump? The Democratic
voters are just as lost as the politicians they vote for. Turnout is often low for primaries
within that party, in a party that only a third of the country identifies with, and there is
little chance that anyone will get a majority of voters. So, it is entirely possible that the
person chosen to go against Trump will have support of, what, 4-5% of the US electorate? And
if they are stupid enough to choose Biden, and they are, the general election will be Biden
vs Trump. The USSR at least ended in interesting ways. We're just going to vote in two
corrupt, out of touch and mentally declining frauds to throw hot garbage at each other, and
what is the left supposed to do? There will never be a better argument for a third party if
those two are the options given to us by the duds in the two major parties. I can't even
contemplate who Biden would choose as his VP, and possibly lock us into a decade of hell, and
then the environmental crisis hits.
It is not an issue in regards to difficulty, generally, it is the options people are given
and how often it is that the options people are given are net negatives regardless as to who
wins, and people realizing that what the general public wants is not reflected in policy.
Bernie is an exceptuon, and look at all the nonsense thrown at him, and all the undemocratic
means those in power use to maintain their power. I am not saying that justifies inactivity,
but it does help to explain it. But, lets say Biden or someone similar is chosen by Democrats
in the primaries. What percentage of the electorate, given all I mentioned, will have chosen
him?
If the US electorate allows 4-5% to decide, then they deserve who they get. It’s not
difficult to vote in a primary.
Depends where you live. If you live in most states and you want to vote in a Democratic
Party presidential primary, you have to be registered as a Democrat. Here in AZ I can vote for
every office except president by being a No Party Preference voter registrant. If I want to
vote against Joe Biden, I have to change my voter registration to “D”. Not gonna
happen.
“Here in California, owned and operated by the Democratic Party, voting for someone
other than the approved candidate could quickly get your vote “lost” or
“disqualified” and that is not mentioning the rigging of convention
delegates.”
This ultimately why Bernie is up against it. I think he has a real shot to win and am not
very concerned about the polls, he is doing well despite all that is aligned against him.
Palast showed what that rotten party did in 2016 in the primaries (it is entirely possible that
Bernie won the state or at least came even closer to winning), and you could include tons
since. My favorite was how they used superdelegates at the state level in California to get
Bauman to lead the state party, and he had to resign in shame. He was previously a pharma
lobbyist that was paid to lobby the state against bargaining down the price of drugs. Then
there is stuff like this:
As the DNC has argued in court though, they don’t have to run a fair primary and can
pick whoever those at the top of the party want, right? It would be amazing if someone within
the DNC and the state party here (I live in Southern California) would leak what they are
doing. Not expecting it, but it would be great.
True. However, if one is voting™ for
a non-corporatist candidate, getting
that vote counted has been problematic,
and I expect it to be more so in 2020:
But that doesn't bother Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and their mob. They think quarter by quarter.
Immediate gratification is the name of their game. They know that "in the long run we are
all dead". And they don't care what happens then.
Your viewpoint is the same as that of Jonathon Cook. He says "Russiagate" was a faction
fight between two groups of the Power Elites.
One wanted to keep 'putting the lipstick on the pig' which is predatory Capitalism, and
the other wants to let it all hang out and rape the planet NOW.
Just as there was a clueless "liberal" cheering group for Mueller, the Looters have a
fan club among the "right". Both sets of the applauding groups are just puppets. And of
course neither has recognized their true role in the unfolding dramas.
"... Bill Gates is incredibly rich because the government will arrest anyone who mass produces copies of Microsoft software without his permission. If anyone could freely reproduce Windows and other software, without even sending a thank you note, Bill Gates would still be working for a living. ..."
"... The same applies to prescription drugs, medical equipment, and other tech sectors where some people are getting very rich. In all of these cases, these items would be cheap without patent, copyrights, or related monopolies, and no one would be getting hugely rich. ..."
"... Specifically, patents and copyrights give their holders monopolies on technology or creative work for their duration. If we are concerned that money is going from ordinary workers to people who hold patents and copyrights, then one policy we may want to consider is shortening and weakening these monopolies. But policy has gone sharply in the opposite direction over the last four decades, as a wide variety of measures have been put into law that make these protections longer and stronger. Thus, the redistribution from people who work to people who own the technology should not be surprising -- that was the purpose of the policy. ..."
Yet Another New York Times Column Gets the Story on Automation and Inequality Completely
Wrong
By Dean Baker
I am a big fan of expanding the welfare state but I am also a big fan of reality-based
analysis. For this reason, it's hard not to be upset over yet another column * telling us
that the robots are taking all the jobs and that this will lead to massive inequality.
The first part is more than a little annoying just because it is so completely and
unambiguously at odds with reality. Productivity growth, which is the measure of the rate at
which robots and other technologies are taking jobs, has been extremely slow in recent years.
It has averaged just 1.3 percent annually since 2005. That compares to an annual rate of 3.0
percent from 1995 to 2005 and in the long Golden Age from 1947 to 1973.
In addition, all the official projections from places like the Congressional Budget Office
and Social Security Administration assume that productivity growth will remain slow. That
could prove wrong, but the people projecting a massive pick up of productivity growth are
certainly against the tide here.
But the other part of the story is even more annoying. No, technology does not generate
inequality. Our policy on technology generates inequality. We have rules (patent and
copyright monopolies) that allow people to own technology.
Bill Gates is incredibly rich because the government will arrest anyone who mass produces
copies of Microsoft software without his permission. If anyone could freely reproduce Windows
and other software, without even sending a thank you note, Bill Gates would still be working
for a living.
The same applies to prescription drugs, medical equipment, and other tech sectors where
some people are getting very rich. In all of these cases, these items would be cheap without
patent, copyrights, or related monopolies, and no one would be getting hugely rich.
At this point, there are undoubtedly people jumping up and down yelling "without patent
and copyright monopolies people would have no incentive to innovate." This yelling is very
helpful in making the point. If we have structured these incentives in ways that lead to
great inequality and not very much innovation (as measured by productivity growth) then we
should probably be looking to alter our structure of incentives. (Yes this is the topic of
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the
Rich Richer - it's free. * )
In any case, this is the point. The inequality that results from technology is the result
of our policies on technology, not the technology itself. Maybe one day the New York Times
will allow a columnist to state this obvious truth in its opinion section.
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the
Rich Richer
By Dean Baker
The Old Technology and Inequality Scam: The Story of Patents and Copyrights
One of the amazing lines often repeated by people in policy debates is that, as a result
of technology, we are seeing income redistributed from people who work for a living to the
people who own the technology. While the redistribution part of the story may be mostly true,
the problem is that the technology does not determine who "owns" the technology. The people
who write the laws determine who owns the technology.
Specifically, patents and copyrights give their holders monopolies on technology or
creative work for their duration. If we are concerned that money is going from ordinary
workers to people who hold patents and copyrights, then one policy we may want to consider is
shortening and weakening these monopolies. But policy has gone sharply in the opposite
direction over the last four decades, as a wide variety of measures have been put into law
that make these protections longer and stronger. Thus, the redistribution from people who
work to people who own the technology should not be surprising -- that was the purpose of the
policy.
If stronger rules on patents and copyrights produced economic dividends in the form of
more innovation and more creative output, then this upward redistribution might be justified.
But the evidence doesn't indicate there has been any noticeable growth dividend associated
with this upward redistribution. In fact, stronger patent protection seems to be associated
with slower growth.
Before directly considering the case, it is worth thinking for a minute about what the
world might look like if we had alternative mechanisms to patents and copyrights, so that the
items now subject to these monopolies could be sold in a free market just like paper cups and
shovels.
The biggest impact would be in prescription drugs. The breakthrough drugs for cancer,
hepatitis C, and other diseases, which now sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually, would instead sell for a few hundred dollars. No one would have to struggle to get
their insurer to pay for drugs or scrape together the money from friends and family. Almost
every drug would be well within an affordable price range for a middle-class family, and
covering the cost for poorer families could be easily managed by governments and aid
agencies.
The same would be the case with various medical tests and treatments. Doctors would not
have to struggle with a decision about whether to prescribe an expensive scan, which might be
the best way to detect a cancerous growth or other health issue, or to rely on cheaper but
less reliable technology. In the absence of patent protection even the most cutting edge
scans would be reasonably priced.
Health care is not the only area that would be transformed by a free market in technology
and creative work. Imagine that all the textbooks needed by college students could be
downloaded at no cost over the web and printed out for the price of the paper. Suppose that a
vast amount of new books, recorded music, and movies was freely available on the web.
People or companies who create and innovate deserve to be compensated, but there is little
reason to believe that the current system of patent and copyright monopolies is the best way
to support their work. It's not surprising that the people who benefit from the current
system are reluctant to have the efficiency of patents and copyrights become a topic for
public debate, but those who are serious about inequality have no choice. These forms of
property claims have been important drivers of inequality in the last four decades.
The explicit assumption behind the steps over the last four decades to increase the
strength and duration of patent and copyright protection is that the higher prices resulting
from increased protection will be more than offset by an increased incentive for innovation
and creative work. Patent and copyright protection should be understood as being like very
large tariffs. These protections can often the raise the price of protected items by several
multiples of the free market price, making them comparable to tariffs of several hundred or
even several thousand percent. The resulting economic distortions are comparable to what they
would be if we imposed tariffs of this magnitude.
The justification for granting these monopoly protections is that the increased innovation
and creative work that is produced as a result of these incentives exceeds the economic costs
from patent and copyright monopolies. However, there is remarkably little evidence to support
this assumption. While the cost of patent and copyright protection in higher prices is
apparent, even if not well-measured, there is little evidence of a substantial payoff in the
form of a more rapid pace of innovation or more and better creative work....
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes
itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia
evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers
of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification
for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or
political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual
profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with
the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the
general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
Democracy was the next step, but it only works in small polities.
And for very short periods of time.
Anyway, yours is a key concept that most 'Merkins are completely ignorant of, yet some of
the anti-federalists were aware of it. Here, Brutus questions whether "democracy" is sensible
in a nation of three million !
Now, in a large extended country, it is impossible to have a representation, possessing
the sentiments, and of integrity, to declare the minds of the people, without having it so
numerous and unwieldly, as to be subject in great measure to the inconveniency of a
democratic government.
The territory of the United States is of vast extent; it now contains near three
millions of souls, and is capable of containing much more than ten times that number. Is it
practicable for a country, so large and so numerous as they will soon become, to elect a
representation, that will speak their sentiments, without their becoming so numerous as to
be incapable of transacting public business?
It certainly is not.
Brutus, (Robert Yates), To the Citizens of the State of New-York, October 18, 1787
Not all prayers are answered. The two party system intervened in the US political process to
elect its representation and leadership a long time ago. The two party system is not
constitutional, but it is not unconstitutional either. It just is. The two party system takes
all the air out of the political room. The two party system institutionalizes the capture of
the political process by special interests, dichotomized into two differently armed powers of
equal importance. The first is the moneyed interests of corporate wealth and power which
provide media access and control. The second is the social interests of large voting blocks
that are not in certain conflict with corporate money. To get elected politicians must then
pander for cheap votes and the money to buy them with. How could Russians possibly compete
with that?
Remember that the Bill of Rights was just an afterthought to the US Constitution that was
deemed necessary to obtain ratification without further insurrection by the people. The US
Constitution itself had not blatantly encompassed the creation of the two party system, but
such division of special interests was evident from the participants division of economic
interests. First and foremost, the US Constitution was about the preservation of property
rights despite the division between what was considered valuable property in the North and
what was considered valuable property in the South. A stable, yet plutocratic, republic was
necessary for the preservation of all property rights. The US was founded as an ownership
state, "for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People," ( John Wycliffe
in 1384 subsequently quote by Abe Lincoln) just not for and by all the people.
Why do I have the larger view here? Well, the Constitution is fairly simple when the two
other branches do their job. The other two branches cannot do their job. Obama couldn't do
his job without losing four elections. The current Congress cannot do its job, for a variety
of reasons. We are in that period when legislation is not working, the money is tied up in
interest payments, and the new generation refuses to pay for all the rolled over losses from
past Congressional failures. We are sort of stuck with an inoperable Constitution.
A two party system is just one step from a one party system. Tight oligopoly instead of
monopoly.
The wealthy have to spread their largesse around a little bit more, but not as much as
they would if they had to buy 4-5 parties. Plus, in a two party system, there are always
stooges in waiting, eager to serve, in case the incumbent stooges go too far off the
rails.
On the final night of this past week's National Conservatism Conference, Senator Josh
Hawley -- a graduate of Stanford and Yale and a former instructor at an English private
school -- warned the attendees gathered in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown
Washington, D.C., about the threat of élite cosmopolitanism. "The politics of those
left and right have been informed by a political consensus that reflects the interests not
of the American middle but of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities," he
intoned. "This class lives in the United States, but they identify as citizens of the
world. They run businesses or oversee universities here, but their primary loyalty is to
the global community, and they subscribe to a set of values held by similar élites
in other places." He went on to name those values: "The importance of global
integration and the danger of national loyalties; the priority of social change over
tradition, career over community and achievement and merit and progress. Call it the
cosmopolitan consensus."
"Let us be candid," she concluded. "Europe and the first world, to which the United States
belongs, remain mostly white for now, and the third world, although mixed, contains a lot
of nonwhite people. Embracing cultural-distance nationalism means, in effect, taking the
position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites. Well,
that is the result, anyway. So, even if our immigration philosophy is grounded firmly in
cultural concerns, it doesn't rely on race at all. And, no matter how many times we repeat
the mantra that correlation is not causation, these racial dimensions are enough to spook
conservatives."
"... The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women, they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. They arc in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. ..."
Posted by Political Issues in Sep 07, 2011, under Issues
Who really holds power in the
United States' Do "we the people" genuinely run the country through elected representatives? Or
is there small elite of Americans that governs behind the scenes? It is difficult to determine
the location of power in a society as complex as the Unite States In exploring this critical
question, social scientists have developed two basic views of our nation's power structure the
elite and pluralism models.
Elite Model
Karl Marx essentially believed that nineteenth century representative democracy was a
shape.
He argued that industrial societies were dominated by relatively small numbers of people who
owned factories and controlled natural resources.
In Marx's view, government officials and military leaders were essentially servants of the
capitalist class and followed their wishes therefore, any key decisions made by politicians
inevitably reflected the interests of the dominant bourgeoisie Like others who hold an elite
model of power relations, Marx thus believed that society is ruled by a small group of
individuals who share a common set of political and economic interests.
The Power Elite . In his pioneering work. The Power Elite , sociologist C. Wright
Mills described the existence of a small ruling elite of military, industrial, and governmental
leaders who controlled the fate of the United States. Power rested in the hands of a few, both
inside and outside of government -- the power elite . In Mill's words:
The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary
environments of ordinary men and women, they are in positions to make decisions having major
consequences. They arc in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern
society.
In Mills's model, the power structure of the United States can be illustrated by the use of
a pyramid. At the top are the corporate rich, leaders of the executive branch of government,
and heads of the military (whom Kills called the "warlords"). Below this triumvirate are local
opinion leaders, members of the legislative branch of government, and leaders of
special-interest groups. Mills contended that such individuals and groups would basically
follow the wishes of the dominant power elite. At the bottom of society are the unorganized,
exploited masses.
This power elite model is, in many respects, similar to the work of Karl Marx. The most
striking difference is that Mills felt that the economically powerful coordinate their
maneuvers with the military and political establishments in order to serve their mutual
interests. Yet, reminiscent of Marx. Mills argued that the corporate rich were perhaps the most
powerful element of the power elite (first among "equals"). And, of course, there is a further
dramatic parallel between the work of these conflict theorists The powerless masses at the
bottom of Mills's power elite model certainly bring to mind Marx's portrait of the oppressed
workers of the world, who have "nothing to lose but their chains".
Mills failed to provide detailed case studies which would substantiate the interrelationship
among members of the power elite. Instead, he suggested that such foreign policy decisions as
America's entry into the Korean war reflected a determination by business and military leaders
that each could benefit from such armed conflict. In Mills s view, such a sharing of
perspectives was facilitated by the frequent interchange of commanding roles among the elite.
For example, a banker might become the leader of a federal regulatory commission overseeing
financial institutions, and a retired general might move to an executive position with a major
defense contracting firm.
A fundamental element in Mills's thesis is that the power elite not only has relatively few
members but also operates as a self-conscious, cohesive unit. Although not necessarily
diabolical or ruthless, the elite comprises similar types of people who regularly interact with
one another and have essentially the same political and economic interests. Mills's power elite
is not a conspiracy but rather a community of interest and sentiment among a small number of
influential Americans.
Admittedly, Mills failed to clarify when the elite acts and when it tolerates protests.
Nevertheless, his challenging theories forced scholars to look more critically at the
"democratic" political system of the United States.
The Ruling Class
Sociologist G. William Domhoff agreed with Mills that American society is
run by a powerful elite. But, rather than fully accepting Mills's power elite model, Domhoff
argued that the United States is controlled by a social upper class "that is a ruling class by
virtue of its dominant role in the economy and government". This socially cohesive ruling class
owns 20 to 25 percent of all privately held wealth and 45 to 50 percent of all privately held
common stock.
Unlike Mills, Domhoff was quite specific about who belongs to this social upper class.
Membership comes through being pan of a family recognized in The Social Register --
the directory of the social elite in many American cities. Attendance at prestigious private
schools and membership in exclusive social clubs are further indications that a person comes
from America's social upper class. Domhoff estimates that about 0.5 percent of the American
population (or 1 of every 200 people) belongs to this social and political elite.
Of course, this would mean that the ruling class has more than 1 million members and could
hardly achieve the cohesiveness that Mills attributed to the power elite. However, Domhoff adds
that the social upper class as a whole does not rule the nation. Instead, members of this class
who have assumed leadership roles within the corporate community or the nation's
policy-planning network join with high-level employees of profit-making and nonprofit
institutions controlled by the social upper class to exercise power.
In Domhoff's view, the ruling class should not be seen in a conspiratorial way, as "sinister
men lurking behind the throne." On the contrary they tend to hold public positions of
authority. Almost all important appointive government posts -- including those of diplomats and
cabinet members -- are filled by members of the social upper class. Domhoff contends that
members of this class dominate powerful corporations, foundations, universities, and the
executive branch of government. They control presidential nominations and the political party
process through campaign contributions. In addition, the ruling class exerts a significant
(though not absolute) influence within Congress and units of state and local government.
Perhaps the major difference between the elite models of Mills and Domhoff is that Mills
insisted on the relative autonomy of the political elite and attached great significance to the
independent power of the military. By contrast, Domhoff suggests that high-level government and
military leaders serve the interests of the social upper class. Both theorists, in line with a
Marxian approach, assume that the rich are interested only in what benefits them financially.
Furthermore, as advocates of elite models of power. Mills and Domhoff argue that the masses of
American people have no real influence on the decisions of the powerful.
One criticism of the elite model is that its advocates sometimes suggest that elites are
always victorious. With this in mind, sociologist J. Alien Whitt (1982) examined the efforts of
California's business elites to support urban mass transit. He found that lobbying by these
elites was successful in San Francisco but failed in Los Angeles. Whitt points out that
opponents of policies backed by elites can mobilize to thwart their implementation.
Domhoff admits that the ruling class does not exercise total control over American society.
However, he counters that this elite is able to set political terms under which other groups
and classes must operate. Consequently, although the ruling class may lose on a particular
issue, it will not allow serious challenges to laws which guarantee its economic privileges and
political domination.
Pluralist Model
Several social scientists have questioned the elite models of power relations proposed by
Marx, Mills, Domhoff, and other conflict theorists. Quite simply, the critics insist that power
in the United States is more widely shared than the elite model indicates. In their view, a
pluralist model more accurately describes the American political system. According to the
pluralist model , "many conflicting groups within the community have access to
government officials and compete with one another in an effort to influence policy
decisions".
Veto Groups . David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd suggested that the American political
system could best be understood through examination of the power of veto groups. The term
veto groups refers to interest groups that have the capacity to prevent the exercise of
power by others. Functionally, they serve to increase political participation by preventing the
concentration of political power. Examples cited by Riesman include farm groups, labor unions,
professional associations, and racial and ethnic groups. Whereas Mills pointed to the dangers
of rule by an undemocratic power elite, Riesman insisted that veto groups could effectively
paralyze the nation's political processes by blocking anyone from exercising needed
leadership functions. In Riesman's words, "The only leaders of national scope left in the
United States are those who can placate the veto groups".
Dahl's Study of Pluralism . Community studies of power have also supported the pluralist
model. One of the most famous -- an investigation of decision making in New Haven, Connecticut
-- was reported by Robert Dahl in his book, Who Governs? (1961). Dahl found that while
the number of people involved in any important decision was rather small, community power was
nonetheless diffuse. Few political actors exercised decision-making power on all issues.
Therefore, one individual or group might be influential in a battle over urban renewal but at
the same time might have little impact over educational policy. Several other studies of local
politics, in such communities as Chicago and Oberlin, Ohio, further document that monolithic
power structures do not operate on the level of local government.
Just as the elite model has been challenged on political and methodological grounds, the
pluralist model has been subjected to serious questioning. Domhoff (1978) reexamined Dahl's
study of decision making in New Haven and argued that Dahl and other pluralists had failed to
trace how local elites prominent in decision making were part of a larger national ruling
class. In addition, studies of community power, such as Dahl's work in New Haven, can examine
decision making only on issues which become pan of the political agenda. This focus fails to
address the possible power of elites to keep certain matters entirely out of the realm of
government debate. Conflict theorists contend that these elites will not allow any outcome of
the political process which threatens their dominance. Indeed, they may even be strong enough
to block discussion of such measures by policymakers.
"... Powerful elites enabled the financier accused of trafficking underage girls ..."
"... Over the last couple of months, Ward told me, she's started going through transcripts of the interviews about Epstein she did more than 16 years ago. "What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it," she said of his penchant for adolescents. While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to Harvard, those she spoke to, she said, "all mentioned the girls, as an aside." ..."
"... Both sides are likely right. The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. ..."
"... In the deal he never admitted having actual sex with any of the girls, and he insists he thought they were over 18, so basically all he has ever got a deal on was acts well short of sex with 16-18 years olds who were paid. ..."
"... Some of them named in the old indictment are now saying they were 2 years younger and had sex with all these VIPs. Doubt it. Still, Epstein's previous admissions mean nobody will believe him if a girl says she was 14 not 18, and he is a tempting target tor civil suits which testifying in a criminal case are a basis for. ..."
"... Cernovich and Dershowitz filed their suit on 19 JAN 2017, 10 days after Trump's inauguration. Obama's DoJ screwed up and the judge ruled in their favor 2.5 years later. Then Epstein's immediately arrested. ..."
"... This RT article reminds us the Republicans tried to use Bill's links with Epstein during the 2016 election, while providing other details. ..."
"... Perhaps Trump is the target? Time will tell. ..."
"... If Epstein was Mossad, then what is arch-zio Dershowitz doing in the trap? ..."
"... Mobster jeffrey epstein's wealth didn't come from being a "financier" ( he is a dull wit w/o market knowledge), it came from his fellow co-mobster , steven hoffenberger , swindling over $650 million from gullible goys in Towers Financial. ..."
"... Possible Mossad connection via Ghislaine Maxwell. https://www.unz.com/isteve/jeffrey-epstein-and-foreign-intelligence/ ..."
Originally from THE NEW YORK TIMES • JULY 9, 2019 • 17
COMMENTS
Powerful elites enabled the financier accused of trafficking underage
girls
In 2003, the journalist Vicky Ward profiled Jeffrey Epstein
, the financier indicted Monday on charges of sexually abusing and trafficking underage
girls, for Vanity Fair. Her piece painted him as an enigmatic Jay Gatsby type, a boy from a
middle-class family in Brooklyn who had scaled the rungs of the plutocracy, though no one
could quite figure out how he made his money. It detailed dubious business dealings and
mentioned that Epstein often had lots of beautiful young women around. But it left out Ward's
most important finding.
Twelve years later,
in The Daily Beast , Ward wrote about how, in the course of her reporting, two sisters
allegedly preyed upon by Epstein, as well as their mother, had spoken to her on the record.
But shortly before the story went to press, Ward wrote, the Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter
cut that section, saying, of Epstein, "He's sensitive about the young women." (
In a statement on Monday , Carter said Ward's reporting hadn't been solid enough.)
Over the last couple of months, Ward told me, she's started going through transcripts of
the interviews about Epstein she did more than 16 years ago. "What is so amazing to me is how
his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it," she said of his
penchant for adolescents. While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to
Harvard, those she spoke to, she said, "all mentioned the girls, as an aside."
On Saturday evening, more than a decade after receiving a sweetheart plea deal in an
earlier sex crime case, Epstein was arrested after getting off a private flight from Paris.
He has been accused of exploiting and abusing "dozens" of minor girls, some as young as 14,
and conspiring with others to traffic them. Epstein's arrest was the rare event that
gratified right and left alike, both because it seemed that justice might finally be done,
and because each side has reason to believe that if Epstein goes down, he could bring some of
its enemies with him.
Both sides are likely right. The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual
victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one.
It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very
rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. If it were fiction,
it would be both too sordid and too on-the-nose to be believable, like a season of "True
Detective" penned by a doctrinaire Marxist.
The funny thing about the Trump quote in the original NYMag article on Epstein is that
it's probably the most honest description of the guy, with a none-too-subtle nod to the man's
predilections.
"The Ultimate Symbol"? I beg leave to doubt it! I suspect that the plutocratic rot is very
wide and very deep and "Kiddy fiddling" which is what Jeffrey Epstein seems to be accused of,
is only a small (and not the worst) part of it. If he "sings" I think there is no telling how
far it will go, but probably he won't and this whole evil mess will slink back into the
shadows and silence, with the active help of the media.
Come to think about it, probably even if he does sing, that too will be supressed.
Ward wrote about how, in the course of her reporting, two sisters allegedly preyed upon
by Epstein, as well as their mother, had spoken to her on the record.
They said they were all over 18 in other words. He certainly had young women about but
Michael Wolff said they ones he say on his plane were visibly late teens or twenty.
No way in hell would someone be trusted with billionaire's money who had ovbiously under
age girls around him and was heading for a plea deal in which he might be under so much
pressure he would reveal his clients' financial crimes . And it is hardly in keeping
with the Gatsby image so important to him. I think he had the young but legal girls for show,
no one saw the obvious children but him. He kept the criminal conduct away from visitors,
especially ones he posed as a philanthropist to. Someone in his position could not afford to
get a reputation for having criminal culpability in anything. He was tax scam artist, and
secret sex offender.
On Saturday evening, more than a decade after receiving a sweetheart plea deal in an
earlier sex crime case, Epstein was arrested after getting off a private flight from Paris.
He has been accused of exploiting and abusing "dozens" of minor girls, some as young as 14,
and conspiring with others to traffic them.
People with his money rarely plead guilty. He admitted guilt to get the deal. The new
charges he is arrested on say he was the only customer or client , so "trafficking" is
quite deceptive.
In the deal he never admitted having actual sex with any of the girls, and
he insists he thought they were over 18, so basically all he has ever got a deal on was acts
well short of sex with 16-18 years olds who were paid.
Some of them named in the old indictment are now saying they were 2 years younger and had
sex with all these VIPs. Doubt it. Still, Epstein's previous admissions mean nobody will
believe him if a girl says she was 14 not 18, and he is a tempting target tor civil suits
which testifying in a criminal case are a basis for. I don't see him as being all that
powerful because money makes you a continuing target of people wanting financial restitution
from people down on their luck and no longer able to make money from their looks.
Getting a
sweet plea deal for those things was just storing up trouble for the future for someone as
rich as him.
Cernovich and Dershowitz filed their suit on 19 JAN 2017, 10 days after Trump's
inauguration. Obama's DoJ screwed up and the judge ruled in their favor 2.5 years later. Then
Epstein's immediately arrested.
This RT article
reminds us the Republicans tried to use Bill's links with Epstein during the 2016
election, while providing other details. Maybe the stories used in the Steele Dossier on
Trump aren't from Russia at all but were collected through Epstein's operation?
Epstein, being richer, gets to act out Weiner's fantasy for approximately the same price as
the fantasy. If Epstein was Mossad, then what is arch-zio Dershowitz doing in the
trap?
"Jeffrey Epstein shipped a shredder from the U.S. Virgin Islands to his Palm Beach home in
July 2008, shortly after reaching a non-prosecution agreement with then-U.S. Attorney Alex
Acosta, maritime records show. Then, in March of this year, shortly after a Florida federal
judge invalidated that agreement, Epstein shipped a tile and carpet extractor from the Virgin
Islands to his Manhattan townhouse, the records show."
Mobster jeffrey epstein's wealth didn't come from being a "financier" ( he is a dull
wit w/o market knowledge), it came from his fellow co-mobster , steven hoffenberger ,
swindling over $650 million from gullible goys in Towers Financial.
I believe nearly all of these ((( "financiers" and "hedge fund managers" ))) are just
money laundering for the massive Israhell mob. Most are operated from offshore banks, without
auditing, I.e. soros' quantum fund.
"... US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next six months. ..."
"... Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too. Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran. ..."
"... CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. ..."
"... I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds. ..."
"... Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the Lolita Express to refresh his tan. ..."
"... The power structure runs on pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke when they opened it. ..."
"... Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ..."
"... Have another look at Tony Podesta's art collection. http://ibankcoin.com/zeropointnow/2016/11/26/sick-lets-revisit-the-podesta-penchant-for-pedophilic-cannibalistic-and-satanic-art/#sthash.6jj0GpQo.dpbs ..."
"... I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even a hardened Podesta supporter cringe. ..."
"... Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein. ..."
"... By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence, then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that the Director has the goods on you. ..."
"... If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it. ..."
I think I figured this scam out. US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a
hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts
with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors
back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next
six months.
smacker , 1 hour ago
Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too.
Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran.
cayman , 46 minutes ago
CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. It's why elections haven't mattered in decades. It's why congress
can have a 9% approval rating and yet nothing changes. CIA has so many offshore sources of revenue now, it is sovereign now.
RoyalDraco , 17 minutes ago
I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry
tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds.
Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the
Lolita Express to refresh his tan.
5 years at Club Fed and a list of names no one ever heard of. The power structure runs on
pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is
Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke
when they opened it.
HideTheWeenie , 1 hour ago
Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ... Takes bunga bunga parties to the next level - and on the road - in the air - island hopping
Coulter is right ... Nobody in financial circles ever bumped into Epstein. Nobody, nobody knows the guy outside of the teenage
***** connection.
I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even
a hardened Podesta supporter cringe.
I need some mind bleach after reading that.
RayUSA , 1 hour ago
Obviously, the more powerful people that are involved, the less chance this has of going anywhere.
Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein.
There would be no reason for that unless it was going to be used in the future for black mail.
By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence,
then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that
the Director has the goods on you.
herbivore , 2 hours ago
If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would
it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it.
"... In an inspiring op-ed on the 4th of July, the now-former Republican Congressman Justin Amash took to destroying the idea of identity politics, notably the two-party system, which he says is destroying the country. ..."
"... Amash declared that he is no longer going to identify with a party and declared himself an independent. ..."
July 4, 2019 Brave Congressman Blasts 2-Party System as 'Existential Threat to America' then
Quits His Party
In an inspiring op-ed on the 4th of July, the now-former Republican Congressman Justin Amash
took to destroying the idea of identity politics, notably the two-party system, which he says
is destroying the country.
Amash declared that he is no longer going to identify with a party
and declared himself an independent.
"... The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests. ..."
"... Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown. ..."
"... Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something of an argument that began: ..."
"... He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out. Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf. They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share. Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. ..."
"... Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. ..."
"... There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were, they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack ..."
"... Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But he's not done with the disinformation exercise: ..."
"... The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification ..."
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based
on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation,
recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the
area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.
This is only the latest in a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran
and its surrogates against American and allied interests, and they should be understood in
the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US
government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible
investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike
Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media
ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo
and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and
international skepticism attests.
Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute
appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire
amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the
Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned
Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown.
First, what actually happened, as best we can tell five days later? In the early morning of
June 13, two unrelated tankers were heading south out of the Strait of Hormuz, sailing in open
water in the Gulf of Oman, roughly 20 miles off the south coast of Iran. The tankers were most
likely outside Iran's territorial waters, but within Iran's contiguous zone as defined by the
UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea . At different times, some 30 miles apart, the two tankers were attacked
by weapons unknown, launched by parties unknown, for reasons unknown. The first reported
distress call was 6:12 a.m. local time. No one has yet claimed responsibility for either
attack. The crew of each tanker abandoned ship soon after the explosions and were rescued by
ships in the area, including Iranian naval vessels, who took the Front Altair crew to an
Iranian port.
Even this much was not certain in the early afternoon of June 13 when Mike Pompeo came to
the lectern at the State Department to deliver his verdict:
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.
Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who
made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something
of an argument that began:
This assessment is based on intelligence .
He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence
assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out.
Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf.
They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share.
Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had
a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that
Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first
claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US
doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had
operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. After intelligence, Pompeo continued:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used .
Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used
torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to
the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any
actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. He went on:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation
The "level of expertise needed" to carry out these attacks on a pair of sitting duck tankers
does not appear to be that great. Yes, the Iranian military probably has the expertise, as do
the militaries of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, or others with a stake
in provoking a crisis in the region. And those who lack the expertise still have the money with
which to hire expert surrogates. The number of credible suspects, known and unknown, with an
interest in doing harm to Iran is easily in double figures. Leading any serious list should be
the US. That's perfectly logical, so Pompeo tried to divert attention from the obvious:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping .
There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were,
they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six
examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack. The one example was the May 12, 2019,
attack on four ships at anchor in the deep water port of Fujairah. Even the multinational
investigation organized by the UAE could not determine who did it. The UAE reported to the UN
Security Council that the perpetrator was likely some unnamed "state actor." The logical
suspects and their surrogates are the same as those for the most recent attack.
Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old
threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by
the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an
unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But
he's not done with the disinformation exercise:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no
proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high
degree of sophistication.
The whole proxy group thing is redundant, covered by "the level of expertise needed"
mentioned earlier. Pompeo doesn't name any proxy group here, he doesn't explain how he could
know there's no proxy group that could carry out such an attack, and he just throws word
garbage at the wall and hopes something sticks that will make you believe – no evidence
necessary – that Iran is evil beyond redemption:
Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace
and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable campaign of
escalating tension by Iran.
The attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been provoked by the US and its
allies. The US has long been a clear threat to international peace and security, except when
the US was actually trashing peace and security, as it did in Iraq, as it seems to want to do
in Iran. There is, indeed, "an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension," but it's a
campaign by the US. The current phase began when the Trump administration pulled out of the
multinational nuclear deal with Iran. The US wages economic warfare on Iran even though Iran
continues to abide by the Trump-trashed treaty. All the other signatories and inspectors
confirm that Iran has abided by the agreement. But Iran is approaching a point of violation,
which it has been warning about for some time. The other signatories allow the US to bully them
into enforcing US sanctions at their own cost against a country in compliance with its
promises. China, Russia, France, GB, Germany, and the EU are all craven in the face of US
threats. That's what the US wants from Iran.
Lately, Trump and Pompeo and their ilk have been whining about not wanting war and claiming
they want to negotiate, while doing nothing to make negotiation more possible. Iran has
observed US actions and has rejected negotiating with an imperial power with a decades-long
record of bad faith. Lacking any serious act of good faith by the US, does Iran have any other
rational choice? Pompeo makes absolutely clear just how irrational, how dishonest, how
implacable and untrustworthy the US is when he accuses Iran of:
40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
This is Big Lie country. Forty years ago, the Iranians committed their original sin –
they overthrew one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, imposed on them by the US. Then
they took Americans hostage, and the US has been playing the victim ever since, out of all
proportion to reality or justice. But the Pompeos of this world still milk it for all it's
worth. What about "unprovoked aggression," who does that? The US list is long and criminal,
including its support of Saddam Hussein's war of aggression against Iran. Iran's list of
"unprovoked aggressions" is pretty much zero, unless you go back to the Persian Empire. No
wonder Pompeo took no question on his statement. The Big Lie is supposed to be enough.
The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification. Democrats should have
objected forcefully and continuously long since. Democrats in the House should have put peace
with Iran on the table as soon as they came into the majority. They should do it now.
Democratic presidential candidates should join Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren in
forthrightly opposing war with Iran. Leading a huge public outcry may not keep the president
from lying us into war with Iran any more than it kept the president from lying us into war
with Iraq. But an absence of outcry will just make it easier for this rogue nation to commit a
whole new set of war crimes.
Intellectually, the case for normal relations with Iran is easy. There is literally no good
reason to maintain hostility, not even the possibility, remote as it is, of an Iranian nuclear
weapon (especially now that Trump is helping the Saudis go nuclear). But politically, the case
for normal relations with Iran is hard, especially because forty years of propaganda demonizing
Iran has deep roots. To make a sane case on Iran takes real courage: one has to speak truth to
a nation that believes its lies to itself.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism,
and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from
Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an
Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This article was first
published in Reader Supported
News . Read
other articles by William .
Western News Agencies Mistranslate Iran's President Speech - It Is Not The First Time
Such 'Error' HappensJOHN CHUCKMAN , Jun 26, 2019 2:10:12
PM |
23
Yesterday the news agencies Associated Press and Reuters mistranslated a
speech by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. They made it sound as if Rouhani insulted U.S.
President Donald Trump as 'mentally retarded'. Rouhani never said that.
Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesday that Israel must be
"wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press
agency reported.
...
Referring to comments by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution,
Ahmadinejad said, "As the imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."
Ever since he spoke at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran last October, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad of Iran has been known for one statement above all. As translated by news
agencies at the time, it was that Israel "should be wiped off the map." Iran's nuclear
program and sponsorship of militant Muslim groups are rarely mentioned without reference to
the infamous map remark.
Here, for example, is R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political
affairs, recently: "Given the radical nature of Iran under Ahmadinejad and its stated wish
to wipe Israel off the map of the world, it is entirely unconvincing that we could or
should live with a nuclear Iran."
"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom
exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of
Michigan and critic of American policy who has argued that the Iranian president was
misquoted. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying
Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for
over a century," he said in an e-mail exchange, "I smell the whiff of war propaganda."
Jonathan Steele, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in London, recently
laid out the case this way: "The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by
Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that 'this regime occupying
Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,' just as the Shah's regime in Iran had
vanished. He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation
of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The 'page of time' phrase suggests he did not
expect it to happen soon."
Despite the above
and other explanations the false "wipe Israel off the map" translation never died. Years
later it still reappeared in Guardian pieces which required it to issuemultiple
corrections and clarifications.
Now, as the Trump administration is pushing for war on Iran, a similar mistranslation
miraculously happened. It were again 'western' news agencies who lightened the fire:
A lot of Western media is reporting that Iranian President Rouhani called Trump
"mentally retarded." This is inaccurate.
Regarding Trump, he just said "no wise person would take such an action [the new sanctions
imposed]."
Absolutely incorrect. There is a word for "retarded" in Persian & Rouhani didn't use
it. Prior to him saying "mental disability" he even prefaced his comment by saying "mental
weakness." Those who speak Persian can listen & judge for themselves. Here is a video
clip of Rouhani's comment: link
Iran leadership doesn't understand the words "nice" or "compassion," they never have.
Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most
powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two
years alone..
....The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their
leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not
forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded
many more...
.... Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement , put out today, only shows that they
do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great
and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John
Kerry & Obama!
Reuters , which also peddled the mistranslation, gleefully
connected the dots :
This follows in the footsteps of a rich history of mistranslating and obfuscating which is
rarely, if ever, corrected by our Guardians of Truth. I will not hold my breath for AP to
pull its tweet out issue any sort of correction. The war machine is revving up, truth be
damned.
To add a few obfuscations to the list of mistranslations: the Palestinian intifada. Sounds
scary, no? Violence against the benevolent Israelis. Because what does intifada actually
mean? Uprising, which by its nature suggests oppression, something which just 'can't' be
happening in Palestine, hence the need for intifada.
Or take jihad, 'a pillor' of Islam. Again, very scary, as jihad 'means' suicide bombs and
killing infidels. What the Guardians of Truth never mention is that jihad in Islam is a very,
very broad term that includes such things as helping the poor or less fortunate, educating
oneself, quiet reflection, and prayer. Jihad as meaning 'holy war' was a sense meaning
derived much later than the founding of the religion, as a reaction to very real threats to
believers of the time, the Crusades and Mongol invasions. That this specific sense meaning
was essentially confined to history afterward, only to be revived by Wahhabists and takfiris,
and one not believed in by the vast majority of Muslims, is never explained. 'Cause all them
crazy Muslims believe in jihad!
In all cases where the boogeyman of the day needs concocting, rest assured the
'mainstream' press, with AP in the lead, will be there to build a gleaming edifice mistruths,
omissions, and lies.
In approximately 17 months, the american public can make strides to fix this mess.
I guess that is a long time for the iranians, but still maybe best option.
Just in case there is any doubt in American minds here is the Israeli Ambassador to the UN.
He thinks the sanctions are working well. Iran is panicking.
They mistranslate Trump all the time, or they spin what he says. It is amazing to watch.
For instance, at the Helsinki meeting, where he met with Putin and they discussed multiple
topics, but the press ignored any topic but demanding that Trump denounce Putin and "admit"
that Putin helped him steal the election, and that he was therefore not the legitimate
president.
Obviously, Trump was not going to say that, so he said that he was the legitimate
president, and the mockingbird media spun that into "the president is a traitor to America
because he said that 17 national intelligence agencies are lying".
.....The ministers lie, the professors lie, the television lies,
the priests lie .
These lies mean that the country wants to die.
Lie after lie starts out into the prairie grass,
like enormous caravans of Conestoga wagons .
And a long desire for death flows out, guiding the
enormous caravans from beneath,
stringing together the vague and foolish words.
It is a desire to eat death,
to gobble it down,
to rush on it like a cobra with mouth open
It's a desire to take death inside,
to feel it burning inside, pushing out velvety hairs,
like a clothes brush in the intestines --
This is the thrill that leads the President on to lie....
Robert Bly, The Teeth Mother Naked at Last, originally published by City Lights books
1970
Maybe the translation is inacurate but the message had the expected reaction from Trump:
Tweet furor.
It is good that Trump realizes that he does not have the monopole of insulting leaders.
The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war. How could it give a lesson to
Iran who won a 8 years war against Iraq despite the support that the USA, the Gulf countries
and Western countries gave to Iraq.
Loud noise and indecisive actions: The disaster of the USA foreign policy
I remember watching CNN translate Khamenei's "Nuclear Power" to "Nuclear Weapons" right on
live TV in 2013. This is not new.
/div> Virgile "The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war".
The US won a war against Grenada [population 95,000] I would go so far as to say they whupped
ass. True there were only 64 Cuban soldiers there [security guards] All members of the US armed
forces were involved and 5,000 medals were given out. Ra Ra USA.
Posted by: Harry Law , Jun 26, 2019 5:29:37 PM |
50
Virgile "The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war". The US won a war
against Grenada [population 95,000] I would go so far as to say they whupped ass. True there
were only 64 Cuban soldiers there [security guards] All members of the US armed forces were
involved and 5,000 medals were given out. Ra Ra USA.
Posted by: Harry Law | Jun 26, 2019 5:29:37 PM |
50
b-
I am a Persian speaker and is true that president Rouhani never said Trump is retarded, we
now have way passed the point that insults can matte. Nevertheless it was better if President
Rouhani would have called Trump and the rest of the ruling US regime like what the whole
world has now come to understand, a true and unique collection of retards on a shining hill.
Reminds me of when Nikita Khruschev attempted to explain in 1956 his view that that
capitalism would destroy itself from within by quoting Marx: "What the bourgeoisie therefore
produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers." This was notoriously
mistranslated into English as "We will bury you", as if the Soviets were out to kill all
westerners themselves. Of course this mistranslated was quoted time and time again in western
media, fueling Cold War paranoia for years to come.
blue @ 19 The news media are wedded to the state which is wedded to the banking system which
are all subsidiaries of global capitalism. They don't need to correct themselves. They may
have the occasional family feud, but they're all on the same team. They will admit to
"mistakes" being made, but only long after it makes no difference.
We have a FREE PRESS in America-Pravda on the Potomac, Izvestia on the Hudson.
Have a look sometime at the Venn Diagrams that portray the overlapping/interlocking
memberships of the regulatory/financial/corporate leadership class.
But more than that, whatever the idea of a free press once meant, with the rise of digital
corporate networking "platforms", not subject to any accountability, the barriers to entry of
any competing narratives to the mainstream discourse are nearly insurmountable. Except maybe
through subversion?
What is missing is a true public 'Marketplace of Ideas'
The deliberate mis-translations of non-english speaking "adversaries" of the US is common in
the msm. Putin is frequently and deliberately mis-translated to make him appear dictatorial
and aggressive.
I listened to Rohani's speech. He said that if JCPOA is bad, it is bad for all parties; and
if it is good, it is good for all parties. They cannot expect for JCPOA to be bad for them
and good for us. They withdrew from the JCPOA and expect us to stay with the agreement. This
is what he meant when he said: White house has been affected by mental inability and mental
disability.
ADKC
Iran is at war. US and gang are trying to destroy Iran as a nation. The biggest asset in
times of war is deception. Used by both the attacker and the attacked.
Khamenei
has Tweeted a series of tweets, and his scribe has posted what he tweeted along with
other words
at his website in English so there's no mistranslation. Here's one of the series of 6:
"The graceful Iranian nation has been accused & insulted by world's most vicious
regime, the U.S., which is a source of wars, conflicts & plunder. Iranian nation won't
give up over such insults. Iranians have been wronged by oppressive sanctions but not
weakened & remain powerful."
They were made 14+ hours ago, yet I'm the first to post notice of them here?!
The USA government excels at propaganda. It always has. Doesn't matter if it babies and
incubators, mistranslated leaders of targeted countries, or supposed mass graves. BTW... what
ever happened to all those mass graves in Iraq? HRW was going to dig them all up and document
them. Hundreds of thousands. Most Americans I talk to still believe in this. Was it true?
Saddam himself had claimed it wasn't true. That it was Kurdish propaganda to gain sympathy.
He claimed the Anfal campaign was only to push the Kurds off the border so he could control
arms smuggling and that casualties were minimal. Looking into the search. They are graves
with a few hundred here and there but where are the rest of the bodies? If you google Iraq
mass graves there are more articles about ISIS mass graves than the Anfal campaign. There
were people killed in the South during the Shia uprising after the first gulf war than there
was for the Anfal campaign. Was that a lie too? Nearly every American believes it still.
PM admits graves claim 'untrue'
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that
'400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses
have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence,
quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet
on Iraq's mass graves.
In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US
government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've
already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'
Anyone who can undestand Farsi ( Persian language) can litsen Rouhani's speech. He did not
name "Trump", he said " White House".
I have been watching CNN news channel who said that Rouhani made a personal attack on Trump!
That was not true.
There was no personal attack on Rouhani's speech.
Importantly, the context of the speech and conclusion is diffent from western media reports
and western translations.
I would like give few links of some Iranian news agencies, reporting Rouhani's speech for
International use, as reference here:
1) FrasNews Agency
Rouhani said:
"These days, we see the White House in confusion and we are witnessing undue and
ridiculous words and adoption of a scandalous policy,"
..."The US sanctions are crime against humanity. The US recent measures indicate their
ultimate failure. The new US measures are the result of their frustration and confusion over
Iran. The White House has mental disability,"
Le président iranien, affirmant que les États-Unis, malgré de
nombreuses tentatives de pression exercées par divers leviers sur l'Iran, ont
échoué dans leurs objectifs, a poursuivi : "Une étrange frustration et
une grande confusion règnent au sein du Corps dirigeant de la Maison Blanche. Ils se
sentent déçus car ils n'ont obtenu aucun résultat, ils s'attendaient
à voir l'Iran brisé dans l'espace de quelques mois, mais ils ont fini par
constater que les Iraniens agissent de plus en plus fermement, de manière plus
créative que jamais ".
The president also decried the new US sanctions against Iran, saying the White House has
been thrown into confusion as its officials are making "inappropriate and ridiculous"
comments and adopting the policy of disgrace.
Wow that's amazing! Probably the best known Khrushchev 'quote', presented as evidence of
his boorish nature, is an intentional mistranslation. And the Marx quote is not exactly
obscure, it's from Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto for eff sake! At least it makes a
change from the 'lets just make things up' cottage industry of Lenin & Stalin
'quotes'.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its
shoes."
Mark Twain (or some other student of wisdom)
... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotations.html
Apr 26, 2017 - Mark Twain is one of many who gets credit for famous quotations he never wrote
or said. ... credited with saying "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth
is still putting on its shoes" ... Proverbial wisdom, in which a quotation is elevated to the
status of a proverb because its source is unknown;.
Circe , Jun 27, 2019 10:19:52 AM |
136Noirette , Jun 27, 2019 10:50:17 AM |
137
Mistranslations are a classical cheap n easy way to sway opinion.
Interesting that the examples b quotes, and most of those promoted currently by the
US-uk-eu, afaik, understand, are intended to project into the voice of Iranians, Russians,
Syrians, utterances, declarations, to be labelled insults, slander, threats, impropriety,
even rage, coming from these parties, as
there is nothing much else to display!
(Spanish is too comprehensible > does not apply to Mexico, Cuba, S. America.)
Often cultural matters play a role, but are ignored. Ahmadinejad was endlessly vilified
and mocked by the W-MSM for saying what was translated as there are no homosexuals in
Iran (no idea what the original formulation was) - which 'obviously' can't be 'true.'
Besides homosexuality being unacceptable in conservative rule-books, Iran is, or was (to
2010) above (or with) Thailand the no. 1. practitioner / destination for sex change
operations. Iran had super educated docs, great hospitals, etc.
Ahmadinejad was relying on a kind of fundamentalist principle where the 'soul' or the
'essential quality' of a person is what is tantamount, what counts above all. The physical
manifestation, here the human body, can be transformed to be in harmony with the deep-felt or
'innately' ascribed orientation or 'spirit.' So, no homosexuals in Iran, or only a few who
are in 'transition.' (Not denying real suffering of gays in Iran, other story.)
The W, in first place the US, is doing precisely the same with its 'gender change'
promotion, as applied to children and young teens. Here too, 'feelings' and 'identity'
override 'nature' : the physical can be overturned, overcome, fixed.
Such cultural issues play a role in mis-translations, deliberate or not. It may appear
that I wandered far off topic, I just picked a topical comprehensible ex. Sharia law is more
complex..
"... "the administrator uses social science the way the drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination." Scholars' disinclination to be used in this way helps explain more of the distance. ..."
The evidence suggests that foreign policymakers do not seek insight from scholars, but
rather support for what they already want to do.
As Desch quotes a World War II U.S. Navy anthropologist, "the administrator uses social
science the way the drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination." Scholars'
disinclination to be used in this way helps explain more of the distance.
Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her work with her colleague
John Tooby on the use of outrage to mobilize people: "The campaign was more about outrage than
about policies," she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage, truth
ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into
their own core group identities. The actual substance stops being of any relevance.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs,
has found that
when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it
becomes almost impossible to correct lies.
... ... ...
As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain
put it, “The great master fallacy of the
human mind is believing too much.” False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies
constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible.
"... Of course, being cover-ups by the government may make them appear acceptable, at least to a naive public. Many of them are rationalized as necessary for the sake of national "security." And, of course, everyone wants to be "secure," accepting the notion that "people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." ..."
In a May, 22, 2019 appearance in the White House Rose Garden, President Donald Trump
declared that "I don't
do cover-ups ." Various news outlets immediately started to enumerate a long list of
bona
fide cover-ups associated with the president.
... ... ...
Unfortunately, Trump's behavior is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cover-ups.
One can surmise that just by virtue of being the head of the U.S. government, the president --
any president -- must be directly or indirectly associated with hundreds of such evasions. That
is because, it can be argued without much paranoia, that every major division of the government
is hiding something -- particularly when it comes to foreign activities.
Of course, being cover-ups by the government may make them appear acceptable, at least to a
naive public. Many of them are rationalized as necessary for the sake of national "security."
And, of course, everyone wants to be "secure," accepting the notion that "people sleep peaceably in their beds at night
only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
The fact that much of this violence is done to other innocent people trying to get a
peaceful night's rest is "classified" information. So woe be it to the truth tellers who defy
these rationalizations and sound off. For they shall be cast out of our democratic heaven into
one of the pits of hell that pass for a U.S. prison -- or, if they are fleet-footed, chased
into exile.
"... But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. ..."
"... Those who have followed Trump's career say his lying isn't just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. ..."
"... Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream ..."
"... In politics, false information has a special power. If false information comports with preexisting beliefs -- something that is often true in partisan arguments -- attempts to refute it can actually backfire , planting it even more firmly in a person's mind. ..."
"... Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs, has found that when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it becomes almost impossible to correct lies. ..."
Maria Konnikova is a contributing writer at the New Yorker and author, most recently, of The Confidence Game: Why
We Fall for It Every Time .
All presidents lie. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act
in the modern presidency. Ronald Reagan said he wasn't aware of the Iran-Contra deal; there's evidence he was. Bill Clinton said
he did not have sex with that woman; he did, or close enough. Lying in politics transcends political party and era. It is, in some
ways, an inherent part of the profession of politicking.
But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no
precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping
70 percent of Trump's statements that PolitiFact
checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true. (Compare that to the
politician Trump dubbed "crooked," Hillary Clinton: Just
26 percent of her statements were deemed false.)
Those who have followed Trump's career say his lying isn't just a tactic, but an ingrained habit. New York tabloid writers
who covered Trump as a mogul on the rise in the 1980s and '90s
found him categorically different from the other self-promoting celebrities in just how often, and pointlessly, he would lie
to them. In his own autobiography, Trump used the phrase
"truthful hyperbole,"
a term coined by his ghostwriter referring to the flagrant truth-stretching that Trump employed, over and over, to help close
sales. Trump apparently loved the wording, and went on to adopt it as his own.
On January 20, Trump's truthful hyperboles will no longer be relegated to the world of dealmaking or campaigning. Donald Trump
will become the chief executive of the most powerful nation in the world, the man charged with representing that nation globally
-- and, most importantly, telling the story of America back to Americans. He has the megaphone of the White House press office, his
popular Twitter account and a loyal new right-wing media army that will not just parrot his version of the truth but actively argue
against attempts to knock it down with verifiable facts. Unless Trump dramatically transforms himself, Americans are going to start
living in a new reality, one in which their leader is a manifestly unreliable source.
What does this mean for the country -- and for the Americans on the receiving end of Trump's constantly twisting version of reality?
It's both a cultural question and a psychological one. For decades, researchers have been wrestling with the nature of falsehood:
How does it arise? How does it affect our brains? Can we choose to combat it? The answers aren't encouraging for those who worry
about the national impact of a reign of untruth over the next four, or eight, years. Lies are exhausting to fight, pernicious in
their effects and, perhaps worst of all, almost impossible to correct if their content resonates strongly enough with people's sense
of themselves, which Trump's clearly do.
***
What happens when a lie hits your brain? The now-standard model was first
proposed by Harvard
University psychologist Daniel Gilbert more than 20 years ago. Gilbert argues that people see the world in two steps. First, even
just briefly, we hold the lie as true: We must accept something in order to understand it. For instance, if someone were to tell
us --
hypothetically, of course -- that there had been serious voter fraud in Virginia during the presidential election, we must for
a fraction of a second accept that fraud did, in fact, take place. Only then do we take the second step, either completing the mental
certification process (yes, fraud!) or rejecting it (what? no way). Unfortunately, while the first step is a natural part of thinking
-- it happens automatically and effortlessly -- the second step can be easily disrupted. It takes work: We must actively choose to
accept or reject each statement we hear. In certain circumstances, that verification simply fails to take place.
As Gilbert writes, human minds, "when faced with shortages of time, energy, or conclusive evidence, may fail to unaccept the ideas
that they involuntarily accept during comprehension."
When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop
trying to sift through everything.
Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream...
... ... ...
In politics, false information has a special power. If false information comports with preexisting beliefs -- something that
is often true in partisan arguments -- attempts to refute it can actually
backfire
, planting it
even more firmly
in a person's mind. Trump won over Republican voters, as well as alienated Democrats, by declaring himself opposed to "Washington,"
"the establishment" and "political correctness," and by stoking fears about the Islamic State, immigrants and crime. Leda Cosmides
at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her
work with her colleague John Tooby on the use of
outrage to mobilize people:
"The campaign was more about outrage than about policies," she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage,
truth ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into their own core group identities.
The actual substance stops being of any relevance.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs,
has found that when false information is specifically
political in nature, part of our political identity, it becomes almost impossible to correct lies. When people read an article
beginning with George W. Bush's assertion that Iraq may pass weapons to terrorist networks, which later contained the fact that Iraq
didn't actually possess any WMDs at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the initial misperception persisted among Republicans
-- and, indeed, was frequently strengthened.
In the face of a seeming assault on their identity, they didn't change their minds to conform with the truth: Instead, amazingly,
they doubled down on the exact views that were explained to be wrong.
It's easy enough to correct minor false facts if they aren't crucial to your sense of self. Alas, nothing political fits into
that bucket.
With regard to Trump specifically, Nyhan points out that claims related to ethno-nationalism -- Trump's declaration early in the
campaign that Mexico was sending "rapists" across the border, for instance -- get at the very core of who we are as humans, which
"may make people less willing or able to evaluate the statement empirically." If you already believe immigrants put your job at risk,
who's to say the chastity of your daughters isn't in danger, too? Or as Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker puts it, once
Trump makes that emotional connection, "He could say what he wants, and they'll follow him."
It also explains the rise of think tanks, which are more pliant than academics but provide
similar marketing support. As Benjamin Friedman and I wrote in a 2015 article on the subject,
think tanks undertake research with an operational mindset: that is, "the approach of a
passenger riding shotgun who studies the map to find the ideal route, adjusts the engine if
need be, and always accepts the destination without protest."
As former senator Olympia Snowe once put it, "you can find a think tank to buttress any view
or position, and then you give it the aura of legitimacy and credibility by referring to their
report." Or consider the view of Rory Stewart, now a member of parliament in the UK, but once
an expert on Afghanistan who was consulted on the Afghan surge but opposed it:
It's like they're coming in and saying to you, "I'm going to drive my car off a cliff.
Should I or should I not wear a seatbelt?" And you say, "I don't think you should drive your
car off the cliff." And they say, "No, no, that bit's already been decided -- the question is
whether to wear a seatbelt." And you say, "Well, you might as well wear a seatbelt." And then
they say, "We've consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart, and he says "
Or look at how policymakers themselves define relevance. Stephen Krasner, an academic who
became a policymaker, lamented the uselessness of much academic security studies literature
because "[e]ven the most convincing empirical findings may be of no practical use because they
do not include factors that policy makers can manipulate."
The explicit claim here is that for scholarship to be of any practical use, it must include
factors that policymakers can manipulate. This reflects a strong bias toward action, even in
relatively restrained presidencies.
To take two recent examples, the Obama administration blew past voluminous academic
literature suggesting the Libya intervention was likely to disappoint. President Barack Obama
himself asked the CIA to analyze success in arming insurgencies before making a decision over
what to do in Syria. The CIA replied with a study showing that arming and financing
insurgencies rarely works. Shortly thereafter, Obama launched a billion-dollar effort to arm
and finance insurgents in Syria.
♦♦♦
As Desch tracks the influence of scholars on foreign policy across the 20th century, a
pattern becomes clear: where scholars agree with policy, they are relevant. Where they do not,
they are not.
In several of the cases Desch identifies where scholars disagreed with policy, they were
right and the policymakers were tragically, awfully wrong. In the instances where scholars
differed with policy at high levels, Desch blames their "unrealistic expectations" for causing
"wartime social scientists to overlook the more modest, but real, contribution they actually
made" to policy. But why would we want scholars to trim their sails in this way? And why should
social scientists want to be junior partners in doomed enterprises?
Social scientists have produced reams of qualitative and historically focused research with
direct relevance to policy. They publish blog posts, tweets, excerpts, op-eds, and video
encapsulations of their work. The only thing left for them to do is to convey their findings
via interpretive dance, and a plan for doing that is probably in the works already. In the
meantime, it should be simultaneously heartening and discouraging for policy-inclined scholars
to realize that It's Not Us, It's Them.
In a country as powerful and secure as the United States, elites can make policy built on
shaky foundations. Eventually, the whole thing may collapse. Scholars should focus on pointing
out these fundamental flaws -- and thinking about how they might help rebuild.
Justin Logan is director of programs and a research associate at the Center for the Study
of Statesmanship at Catholic University.
[Karl Rove] said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,'
which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued.
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities,
which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you,
all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.
Experts, shmexperts! Who needs realism when you're creating your own reality.
Another question occurs to me: Who are the executives or politicians trying to impress
when they bring in captive consultants or scholars? Ordinary people (customers or voters)
don't care. Customers just want a good product, and voters just want sane policies.
Competing leaders know the game and don't bother to listen.
In so much of the world's leadership today it is not science that is being ignored and
corrupted so much as rational thought and a personal insight mature enough to find
indisputable the need for the opinion of others.
But, to this post's point, I once had a statistician with a doctorate in his profession
casually state their numbers predicted Stalin would fail. In response, my thought was when in
the history of the known galaxy did putting a soulless person in charge ever not fail?
Compassion alone would predict that outcome.
The absolute most corrupting influence in current foreign policy discussion is the growth of
the mis-named growth of "think" tanks. One can discern immediately the message when
determining author and organization.
Moar war, russia, iran, et al are threats, moar military spending, support israel at all
costs, etc, etc.
These 'think' tanks are extremely well funded by oligarchs and foreign money so the bottom
line is directed towards pre-selected objectives. Even the state dept is getting into the act
to atk pro-Iran activists.
While the academics might be deemed irrelevant when views differ, the government in-house
analysts might even loose their jobs if their positions differ from those of the decision
makers. I know I lost mine, and it wasn't even in foreign policy or national security
It's the mentality of forever war that considers diversity subversive.
The purpose of Think Tanks and foreign policy experts (misnamed) is to rally the troops
against our enemies list, not to improve our interaction with the rest of the world but to
defeat them. To them, it is always WW2. Yemen must die because we can connect them to Iran;
they are Dresden.
BTW I know the author was talking about actual experts. They have all been purged and
dismissed as Arabist or enemy sympathizers. Track records don't matter, to them we are at war
and will always be so.
President Barack Obama himself asked the CIA to analyze success in arming insurgencies
before making a decision over what to do in Syria. The CIA replied with a study showing that
arming and financing insurgencies rarely works. Shortly thereafter, Obama launched a
billion-dollar effort to arm and finance insurgents in Syria.
*Silently screams in frustration*
And this is why I ended up ultimately disappointed with Obama. The man was utterly
incapable of standing up to what passes for conventional wisdom inside the Beltway. "Hope and
change," my butt. The hoped for change never did arrive in the end.
Say what you will about Trump, he surely doesn't give a flying fart about wisdom,
conventional or otherwise. Instead of driving the car off a cliff, he just sets it on fire
from the get go to save on gas.
I liked the article.
A good reminder that if people did not heed the divine warning in Paradise,
but chose the disastrous advice of the serpent, then what can we expect
from modern politicians? Wrong, dangerous behavior seems to be inherent
in the human mentality, otherwise who would smelt metals, descend into mines,
discover America, study radiation?
Cult of the Irrelevant reminds me of the 80 and 20 statistical, empirical principle,
where out of 100 things, articles, words, recommendations, 20% are useful,
80% are useless. However for 20 useful percent to form, you need a statistical
pressure of 80 useless.
"Practice is the criterion of truth." Having eaten the forbidden apple, people were driven
out of paradise, but instead they learned to distinguish between good and evil.
Without this property, it would be impossible to recognize "the effective
treatments"significantly exaggerated by dishonest pharmacologists..
If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and
appropriateness to his life.
-- Michel de Montaigne, Complete Book of Essays , Book 11, Essay 12, Page 543
For your consideration, the modern idiot in a habitat of prime viral fecundity; after
centuries of western civilization spreading toxic oppressive imperialism through contrived
financial schemes and brutish warfare the dream of global neoliberalism has come to full fruition
where all personal responsibility for actions of selfish business interests has been discretely
removed from the profiteers and accountability placed upon all powerful implacable nation states.
As a result what has been set into motion is the perfect bewildering breeding ground for the
whims of the idiot mind to thrive. Complexity is artificially created in financial systems,
legalese, and bureaucratic nomenclature to obfuscate the deceptions and allow the idiots in
charge to more deftly carry out their scams on the general public..
What is before us now are the death throes of capitalism, which is oddly enough also
capitalism at its apogee with a precipitous descent ahead due to its profound unsustainability. A
common analogy of our times is referencing going off a cliff of some kind to describe the present
trajectory of this idiot society, e.g. an unstoppable train with no brakes going over a cliff, or
Wile E. Coyote having already gone over the cliff and simply hasn't bothered to look down yet to
notice he's run out of terra-firma. Whatever variation of the analogy chosen, the point is that
we know the cliff is there, but the collective state of our idiocy doesn't seem to care too much.
It has other idiot priorities it deems more necessary to care about, so it plows ahead despite
knowing it has run out of track.
This state of being has of course been intentionally manufactured by the idiots in charge. The
direct derivation of widespread capitalist ideology creates faux democracies run by political
stooges who are sycophantic to corporate power amounting to an orchestrated production of
bureaucratic theater where everyone affected by the reach of this system catches the virus of
idiocy and finds themselves at various stages of recovery. Each person inculcated into the cult
of the idiot via institutional systems is ensnared by the traps set by boardroom bandits who
conspire to break the will of the people by attempting to normalize that which isn't normal, and
comport the natural better intentions of the masses to enrich the loosely formed global
capitalist state.
Their scheme is simplistic yet highly effective; engineer a society based on a need for money
issued from a central source and then see to it that money is always in scarce supply for all but
an elite class. The effect on the common person is a state of perpetual fear and desperation
which allows for the masses to be easily controlled, always servile to the money. The idiotic
mind is then molded by saturating the senses in a simulacrum overlay of reality which obscures
our real values, uses our love against us, and reforms us into the idiot that the idiots in
charge wish us to be so we may be easily exploited once the will is broken, hence the average
human animal won't put up much resistance when they are asked to do the cruel and often
ecologically ruinous labor for an elite class. After the institutional indoctrination the hope
for a better world becomes a futile prospect with the specter of our own conscious/cognitive
deficiencies looming large over our collective actions. And certainly any would-be paradise or
substantially better world for all, which theoretically could come into being, will never emerge
so long as the agenda of the idiot prevails over higher wisdom.
A melancholic realization of our predicament is to understand we are trapped in a death spiral
under idiotic reign where some horrific form of collapse is nearly inevitable due to our own
inability to change the compulsory-destructive- unsustainable-status quo. We are damned to
this present state because the idiots learned long ago that all it takes to control a herd of
humans to create a self reinforcing system of subservience. This system is instantiated by
fostering dependency in a hierarchical social system where a cadre of idiots seize control and
installs safeguards to protect their system making it intractable with feedback loops of rewards
and punishments, and each time the people begin to wise up to the plots of the idiots in charge
they are slapped back into depraved imbecility unless they want to endure more of the whip which
power will see to it is all that lies before them if they attempt to stray too much from the
desired course of the idiots in charge.
The idiot is inherently an idiot because they are motivated by idiotic whims. At the core of
the idiot are misplaced values leading to misplaced priorities that lead them to take up
activities and belief systems which are antithetical to their own contentment, and typically not
only are these types of activities a path to nowhere for them but also have added externalities
which make their actions corrosive to all life as well. Inevitably their facile search for
greater pleasure, status, and legacy damns not only them to their own personal hell, but has the
potential to damn all others impacted by their decisions chasing after shallow endeavors.
The idiot mind argues their positions with a barrage of overlapping nested logical fallacies
couched in reductionism and baked down to simplistic one liners which buries the truth so far
down it takes an hour to fully unpack a single sentence. "Everything is a cycle", "Communism has
killed 100 million people", "Capitalism has led to the greatest increase in quality of life",
"Guns don't kill people, people do" – twisted distractive arguments ignoring a compendium
of logical antecedents all purposed to defend capitalist propaganda people have either
conveniently or unwittingly absorbed and requires time and a calm dialectical conversation to
break apart the conflated lies. However the conditioned idiot mind isn't really interested in
hearing the counterarguments to these claims. They only want a simple reassurance that their
previously held positions are correct because admitting one is wrong is painful and requires a
degree of humility, a virtue which the idiot has in short supply. And if one attempts to fully
explain the full breadth of the argument the more hardened idiots will proclaim that if one
cannot manufacture the counterargument in an equally terse and trite statement it must be wrong.
The idiot mind will ultimately dismiss the opposing arguments with laconic stupidity and they'll
quickly come to rest on the premise that we can "agree to disagree", or they'll claim on any
point in which they might potentially be wrong is simply that the truth may be in the middle
somewhere, or they'll suddenly become spurious epistemological philosophers and question what can
truly ever be known?
To be glib and facile is a common feature of the idiot and entails not thinking about
arguments in proper scope or with valid supporting warrants, or to casually perhaps conveniently
misattribute the root of a problem which in fact may be be a product of a deeper problem(s). The
idiot sees before them only what they desire, and their desire so often blinds them. The idiot is
jealous, competitive and desires material stuff and power while sometimes not even questioning
why they want what they believe they want. Like why do idiots care so much about immigrants? If
they had their border wall built and actually were able to keep out 100% of illegal immigration
their lives would not appreciable improve in any manner, there would be no sudden spike in their
pay or offering of jobs. There's a long line of issues people think they care about that if
corrected would not make much of a difference, and some of them being symptoms of deeper
problems.
A rich entitled idiot will spend countless hours trying to think of ways to make more money
and for what? More sexual partners? A new boat? Bigger house? A private jet? What exactly is
gained and why is that worthwhile? And a war-mongering bureaucrat like Trump's national security
advisor John Bolton, does anyone think he actually cares so much about the security of the US
that he feels it necessary to try to attack Iran and Venezuela, and what would be accomplished
when they are toppled? Even if he admitted the true reason he wants to attack these countries,
for economic neoliberal expansion and to plunder their resources, what is gained even then? What
is the end game there? Why do any of these folk who already are much wealthier than the common
person and also nearing the end of their lives feel it so absolutely necessary to impose their
will violently on others? The results will only end like every military conflict does, with
throngs of innocent people dead and the world no more peaceful or better off than it was when
they started the conflict.
And what exactly is gained if an already wealthy US gains more wealth? What happens? Who is
happier? Who is better off? Almost nobody. Why they do what they do is an insanity and spreads
discord throughout the world, as Hans Koning stated in his book Columbus: His Enterprise
regarding the Spanish empire's plundering of the Americas:
For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people
richer. It gave their kings an edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more
mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was
left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a
ruined peasant class.
This is the typical result of imperialism. Always has been. Thus the elites imposing their
selfish will on others doesn't do anything of value and never has. This realization doesn't stop
the present idiots in charge from doing their nefarious deeds or cause a hint self introspection,
the idiot mind is a busied mind supremely confident they are correct. And once they have a head
of steam in a direction they will most always barrel on forward out of nothing more than foolish
pride reassuring themselves that whatever minor gains they may receive from any heinous act they
take up is worth it, while often taking the shortest, most brutish path, to acquire more of what
they desire but don't need in any conceivable way. They don't bother to think of the
ramifications or the pain they cause; they just do because they feel they have the power to do
so, consequences be damned.
And the facile machinations of the modern idiot in western countries doesn't seem to want to
stop doing even the most frivolous of activities in order to stop the bleeding of mother Gaia.
Any capitalist desire is of utmost importance to be maintained to the idiots in charge. They feel
like it's their right in their ostensibly free market to use their money to engage in whatever
spectacle or peculiarity they wish no matter the consequence and won't budge or go without one
less triviality, not one less light buzzing over Times Square. Not a single casino can be
sacrificed. It would be a tragedy if there was one less assault rifle rolling off an assembly
line. An impossibility to go with one less cruise ship, or one less all you can eat buffet, not
one less computer server warehouse storing useless surveillance information, not one less gaming
console, or Hollywood car crash scene, or all night convenience store or fast food restaurant Not
a thing they will do to impede what their idiot facile minds believe is freedom. To the idiot
it's somehow all a worthwhile endeavor despite if it means inducing abrupt climate change or
killing off the majority of the flora and fauna on the planet. The idiots simply won't stop being
idiots until some force greater than them makes them.
And to diminish the rapid onset of climate change the idiot mind speaks of the money needed to
do so. As if human will was solely reliant on convincing the idiots in charge to create more
currency for the most pressing issue humans have perhaps ever faced. The idiot ignores history of
Native Americans who primarily used a gift economy for likely thousands of years in comparative
peace and were more advanced than most modern idiots give them credit, certainly leaps and bounds
more advanced socially. But in modernity and throughout the history of western civilization money
has been a tool of power and created through loans and enslaving people into debt in the billions
of dollars everyday for the most absurd reasons. But debate in the public sphere continually
revolves around the idea of how can we afford to maintain our highly destructive system in the
face of anthropogenic Armageddon. They insist it's an impossibility that a bunch of corrupt
bankers can't create the money as they do all the time and an equally impossible idea that
perhaps we free ourselves entirely from these shackles and abandon the concept of money
altogether to do what is necessary through the bonds of trust and lessen the damage to our
environment so we have a habitat to live in while also freeing ourselves from cycle of imperial
idiocy created through the use of currency. Truly the reasons for which we are destroying this
planet are idiotic, and the things that are stopping the people from fully revolting against the
idiots in charge are also idiotic considering what is on the line.
Our cultural heritage in western civilization is rooted in idiocy, driven by elite idiots in
charge with an agenda to make the inability to discern the difference between a higher truth and
an outright lie a widespread epidemic so they can convince the masses to do the stupid things the
idiots in charge desire. Through tyranny and manipulation the idiot powers that be have
manufactured a world which has planted seeds of doubt in otherwise unassailable truths. And
perhaps this is why so many people in the west have sought out wisdom within eastern philosophy
and shamanistic societies. They seek to find truth that is shunned by the modern western mind,
and to understand truth one must disengage from this toxic culture so they can remember once
again what the truth looks like.
The idiocy is compounded by an ironic competitive pride in their intellectual abilities where
one idiot proclaims to be smarter and more qualified than another based on idiotic criteria. Like
the spurious intelligence in being able to out maneuver another capitalist through underhanded
means, or exhibiting the callousness to exploit employees more than their competitors. Or the
supposed craftiness in brown-nosing up to one's superiors in a place of work and appearing more
subservient than coworkers as to be awarded a promotion. These are not acts of intelligence but
acts of one who is making an obsequious race to the bottom and proclaiming themselves champions
for their willingness to sink to lower levels of deception to achieve their so called success.
However there is no success when the entire ecology of our world is recklessly destroyed so their
ideas of success can be had. There is no success when needless wars and mass human suffering are
imposed so their ill conceived goals can be achieved. The idiot's idea of success is in actuality
grand treachery.
Examples of the idiot's falsely contrived ideas of success are everywhere. The unemployment
rate is seemingly quite low at 3.6%, but what does this mean when so many are excluded out of the
equation once they haven't had any employment for a long enough amount of time, and further, what
is considered employment in many cases doesn't provide the ability to afford a roof over your
head. And who cares if the unemployment number is low when the end product of these jobs also
makes species extinction and climate change worse. What good are these jobs when they create so
much human misery that lives have little value to all those who are stuck in the labor. And who
cares if a metric like the GDP goes up if it is achieved through barbarous imperialism, or
grossly overcharging for medical care/housing/education, or by creating slave like conditions for
people thousands of miles away so corporations can glean more profits? This is again is not
success, it is but the apex of disdainful human treachery.
The idiot is constantly seeking validation externally from others and never generates their
own validation through self acceptance. Thus they are ravenous attention seekers, and will
inevitably sniff out all things that garner attention for them so they create awards shows,
diplomas with haughty ceremonies, important sounding titles of all sorts to manufacture the
facade of their worth. If an action is harmful to others in their trek for external validation
it's not of any great importance to the idiot, the worthiness of action is again determined by if
it's beneficial to them and exclusionary society comprised of other idiots so it compliments
their high sense of themselves which their ego assures them is valid.
The idiot believes all things are impossible except what currently exists. They are
exceptional at meeting the criteria for the definition for insanity. They do the same thing over
and over and expect different results. The idiot does not understand history even when they read
it since cultural and self reinforced myopia has rotted away the plasticity of thought in their
minds so what they take away from the reading of history is only what is convenient to their
present system of thought. The idiot believes in social systems like representative democracies,
centralized government in nation states, courts, and prisons that cannot cure the simplest of
society's ailments over thousands of years of use, but to the idiot just one more election is
going to make all the difference. One more go around the installed idiotic system with idiotic
desires at the root is going to change course and suddenly become wise. They believe by just
replacing the current idiots in charge they will be able to cause the change that is so
desperately needed, but like a hiker refusing to admit they are lost and continuing down the
trail out of hubris they are only further compounding the problem by insisting they aren't lost.
And our society is most certainly lost, and it's a long way back to the trail that leads to
redemption and a place we actually want to be, which we get further away from each day we stay on
our present course.
And after all our idiotic overcomplicated plots and schemes, they are but to mask simple
truths the idiot facade tries so desperately to avoid; the inner torments of being afraid of not
being good enough, not measuring up to our peers, not meeting arbitrary expectations we either
accept from others or set for ourselves, or quite simply feeling like we are not worthy of love.
So we play these pointless high stakes games which have a rewards as meaningless and worthless as
a plastic trophy just to prove our worth. The idiot is a temporal state of being, although many
are finer long term examples of displaying the behaviors of the idiot; however none of us are the
perfect idiot. To avoid the affectations of being in an idiotic state it takes conscious effort
to live our lives moment to moment with authenticity, to be in a state of awareness of our
actions, to always be willing to suffer for something worthwhile and to be consistently well
reasoned examiners of what constitutes something worthwhile.
Trump essentially rejected the idea of neoliberal globalization in which local elites share
power with the US elite. This period probably lasted from 1991 to 2008.
Trump started the fight for ultimate supremacy ("national neoliberalism") rejecting based on
multinational treaties neoliberal globalization. He wants to deal with nations on 1:1 basis
utilizing the supremacy of the USA in size and power to the fullest extent possible. This does
not work well.
But both Europe, Japan and China recovered enough from WWII to put some resistance. Dictate
of Trump to EU and China so far does not work as expected: neither state folded. Also Russia is a
militarily very powerful country which allied with iether EU or China makes the military USA
hegemony the thing of the past.
After the classical world of power politics gasped its last (1945), the United States found
itself in an unprecedented world historical situation: it could mold, coerce, cajole, and most
importantly penetrate an exhausted world economically, militarily, politically, and culturally.
This it did with unexampled speed and skill relying in part on its aura of victory over
Fascism. It built both visible and, most importantly, invisible bonds to its long term
interests which both quickly and over time also became the core interests of its new client
states and their local/"national" elites.
The second phase of American Hegemonic Expansion occurred throughout what was known then as
the "second" and "third" worlds; the communist and non-aligned states. Through a careful policy
of coercion and corruption (the use of criminal organizations often went hand in hand with the
use of security forces) the United States was able to convince and ultimately co-opt much of
the world's remaining elites in their lucrative and superficially attractive skein of
capitalist production and consumption and cosmetic democracy. It was and is the world's most
effective formula for world domination to have ever been devised. It is the very life-blood of
Pax Americana.
Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the regions of the world that are not under firm
American Hegemony such as some parts of the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa are the
locations of the most violent conflicts. In part, these regions are still operating under the
old Hobbesian conditions of anarchy and war. They either "suffer" from not being of sufficient
interest to Superpower or are locally too costly to integrate into the world system at
present. This, of course, could change at any moment when and if transnational elites hit upon
novel ways of making these "war-torn" countries of benefit to themselves. The historical record
says they, ultimately, surely will.
Thus, unlike the nineteenth century, the world system is far more stable under a tightly
knit regime of interdependent elites dedicated to the pursuit of their own personal
interests which are well served by their collective organization by Superpower or
Empire. Ancient anarchy has been therefore drained from the international system, and as
Negri and Hardt have pointed out in their books on Empire all conflict within the system
is more of a local civil war rather than an ultimate challenge to the whole
system.
It should not be totally surprising that the current international system represents the
ever increasing homogenization of the interests of a group of people since the world is both
materially and culturally expressed in the power of a Hegemon. American hegemony reproduced
itself through the expert use and production of Baconian power and knowledge (and some
geographic and historical luck). It is a totality that came of age when the old elites
(remnants of the feudal ages) were militarily eliminated and new elites (primarily communist
and nationalist and oftentimes both) were unable to be successfully born. In a world of mass
surveillance, hegemonic power, elite interdependence, sophisticated consumption, and democratic
ideology; what contradictions, if any, could liberate humankind from the sweet bondage of ever
growing economic prosperity and, at least for the Great Powers, international peace through the
solidification of the directory of the Great Global Class of the Twenty-First
Century?
Dan Corjescu teaches Political Philosophy and Globalization at Zeppelin University in
Friedrichshafen, Germany. Read other articles by Dan .
Those meetings look like a global neoliberal party congress.
Notable quotes:
"... After decades of neoliberalism, we are at the mercy of a cluster of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using monopoly power to boost profits ..."
"... Bilderberg gathering, a transatlantic annual meeting convened since 1954, fuels speculation for various reasons, not least of all because of its absence of detail and off-the-record agendas. ..."
"... Other accounts are suitably dull, suggesting that little in the way of importance actually happens. That man of media, Marshall McLuhan, was appalled after attending a meeting in 1969 by those "uniformly nineteenth century minds pretending to the twentieth." He was struck by an asphyxiating atmosphere of "banality and irrelevance". ..."
"... The briefings that come out are scripted to say little, though the Bilderberg gathering does come across as a forum to trial ideas (read anything significantly friendly to big business and finance) that may find their way into domestic circulation. ..."
"... "Those at the top have learned how to suck the money out of the rest in ways that the rest are hardly aware of. That is their true innovation. Policy shapes the market, but politics has been hijacked by a financial elite that has feathered its own nest ." ..."
"... A nice distillation of Bilderbergism, indeed. ..."
"... An overview of the group, published in August 1956 by Dr. Jósef H. Retinger, Polish co-founder and secretary of the gathering, furnishes us with a simple rationale: selling the US brand to sceptical Europeans and nullifying "anxiety". Meetings "unofficial and private" would be convened involving "influential and reliable people who carried the respect of those working in the field of national and international affairs". ..."
"... Frank discussion was limited for fear of indiscretions that might be seen as rubbing against the national interest. ..."
"... Retinger's appraisals of sovereignty, to that end, are important in understanding the modern European Union, which continues to nurse those paradoxical tensions between actual representativeness and financial oligarchy. ..."
"... "The Treaty of Rome [of 1957], which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings." ..."
"After decades of neoliberalism, we are at the mercy of a cluster of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using
monopoly power to boost profits."
The emergence of think tanks was as much a symptom of liberal progress as it was a nervous reaction in opposition to it.
In
1938, the American Enterprise Association was founded by businessmen concerned that free enterprise would suffer at the hands of
those too caught up with notions of equality and egalitarianism. In 1943, it dug into the political establishment in
Washington, renamed as the American Enterprise Institute which has boasted moments of some influence in the corridors of the
presidential administrations.
Gatherings of the elite, self-promoted as chat shops of the privileged and monstrously well-heeled, have often garnered
attention. That the rich and powerful chat together privately should not be a problem, provided the glitterati keep their
harmful ideas down to small circulation. But
the
Bilderberg gathering, a transatlantic annual meeting convened since 1954, fuels speculation for various reasons, not least of
all because of its absence of detail and off-the-record agendas.
C. Gordon Tether, writing for the
Financial
Times
in May 1975, would muse that,
"If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspiracy of some sort, it is conducted in such a way as to give a remarkably good
imitation of one."
Each year, there are hushed murmurings and ponderings about the guest list. Politicians, captains of industry, and the filthy
rich tend to fill out the numbers. In 2018, the
Telegraph
claimed
that
delegates
would chew over such matters as "Russia, 'post-truth' and the leadership in the US, with AI and quantum computing also on the
schedule."
This time, the Swiss town of Montreux is hosting a gathering which has, among its invitees, US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Bilderberg Summit begins at the driveway – this year in Switzerland, at the hotel "Montreux Palace".
Often, the more entertaining assumptions about what happens at the Bilderberg Conference have come from outsiders keen to
fantasise. The absence of a media pack, a situation often colluded with by media outlets themselves, coupled with a general
holding of attendees to secrecy, have spawned a few gems.
A
gathering of lizard descendants hatching plans for world domination is an old favourite.
Other accounts are suitably dull, suggesting that little in the way of importance actually happens. That man of media, Marshall
McLuhan, was appalled after attending a meeting in 1969
by
those
"uniformly nineteenth century minds pretending to the twentieth."
He
was struck by an asphyxiating atmosphere of "banality and irrelevance".
The briefings that come out are scripted to say little, though the Bilderberg gathering does come across as a forum to trial
ideas (read anything significantly friendly to big business and finance) that may find their way into domestic circulation.
Former Alberta Premier Alison Redford did just that at the 2012 meeting at Chantilly, Virginia. In
reporting
on her results
after a trip costing $19,000, the Canadian politician proved short on detail.
"The Premier's participation advanced the Alberta government's more aggressive effort to engage world decision makers in
Alberta's strategic interests, and to talk about Alberta's place in the world. The mission sets the stage for further
relationship-building with existing partners and potential partners with common interests in investment, innovation and
public policy."
One is on more solid ground in being suspicious of such figures given their distinct anti-democratic credentials. Such
gatherings tend to be hostile to the demos, preferring to lecture and guide it rather than heed it. Bilderberg affirmed that
inexorable move against popular will in favour of the closed club and controlling cartel.
"There
are powerful corporate groups, above government, manipulating things,"
asserts
the
much maligned Alex Jones, whose tendency to conspiracy should not detract from a statement of the obvious. These are gatherings
designed to keep the broader populace at arms-length, and more.
The ideas and policies discussed are bound to be self-serving ones friendly to the interests of finance and indifferent to the
welfare of the commonwealth.
A Bilderberg report, describing the
Bürgenstock
Conference
in 1960, saw the gatherings as ones "where arguments not always used in public debate can be put forth." As
Joseph Stiglitz
summarises
from
The
Price of Inequality
,
"Those at the top have learned how to suck the money out of the rest in ways that the rest are hardly aware of. That is
their true innovation.
Policy
shapes the market, but politics has been hijacked by a financial elite that has feathered its own nest
."
A nice distillation of Bilderbergism, indeed.
Gauging the influence of the Bilderberg Group in an empirical sense is not a simple matter, though WikiLeaks
has
suggested
that
"its
influence on postwar history arguable eclipses that of the G8 conference."
An overview of the group, published in
August 1956 by Dr. Jósef H. Retinger, Polish co-founder and secretary of the gathering,
furnishes
us
with a simple rationale: selling the US brand to sceptical Europeans and nullifying "anxiety". Meetings "unofficial and
private" would be convened involving "influential and reliable people who carried the respect of those working in the field of
national and international affairs".
Retinger also
laid
down
the rationale for keeping meetings opaque and secret. Official international meetings, he reasoned, were troubled by
those retinues of "experts and civil servants". Frank discussion was limited for fear of indiscretions that might be seen as
rubbing against the national interest. The core details of subjects would be avoided. And thirdly, if those attending "are not
able to reach agreement on a certain point they shelve it in order to avoid giving the impression of disunity."
Retinger was already floating ideas about Europe in May 1946 when, as secretary general of the Independent League for European
Co-operation (ILEC), he pondered the virtues of federalism oiled by an elite cadre
before
an audience
at Chatham House. He feared the loss of "big powers" on the continent, whose "inhabitants after all, represent
the most valuable human element in the world." (Never mind those of the dusky persuasion, long held in European bondage.) Soon
after, he was wooed by US Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and invited to the United States, where his ideas found "unanimous
approval among financiers, businessmen and politicians."
The list of approvers reads like a modern Bilderberg selection, an oligarchic who's who
, among them the banker Russell
Leffingwell, senior partner in J. P. Morgan's, Nelson and David Rockefeller, chair of General Motors Alfred Sloan, New York
investment banker Kuhn Loeb and Charles Hook, President of the American Rolling Mills Company. (Unsurprisingly, Retinger would
establish the Bilberberg Group with the likes of Paul Rijkens, President of the multinational giant Unilever, the unglamorous
face of European capitalism.)
Retinger's appraisals of sovereignty, to that end, are important in understanding the modern European Union, which continues to
nurse those paradoxical tensions between actual representativeness and financial oligarchy.
Never mind the reptilian
issues: the EU, to a modest extent, is Bilderbergian, its vision made machinery, enabling a world to be made safe for
multinationals while keeping popular sovereignty in check. Former US ambassador to West Germany, George McGhee, put it this
way:
"The
Treaty of Rome [of 1957], which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at Bilderberg meetings."
OPSW proved to be a gang of a despicable, completely bought by the USA bottomfeeders. Looks like they are now a part
of "Intergity Initiative"
At this point credibility of the USA and UK experts on the topic is not zero, it is negative: they systematically generate
false flags.
Truth be told after Skripals affair the level of credibility of the UK government and expects is far below zero in any case.
This is just a gang of despicable warmongers.
Notable quotes:
"... If SST readers are confused by OPCW's constantly shifting explanations for why the Final Report on the Douma incident excluded the Engineering Assessment, they're not the only ones. ..."
"... Unfortunately for whoever thought up this defence, it is explicitly contradicted by both the Interim Report (published last July) and the Final Report, which state that the objective of the engineering studies was to evaluate how the cylinders arrived in position. ..."
Comments on official response to the release of the Engineering
Assessment of the Douma cylinders Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason, Piers
Robinson
This post comments on the response to our
release of the Executive Summary of the Engineering Assessment of the Douma cylinders on 13
May 2018. All emphases in quoted passages are added by us. After OPCW had confirmed the
document to be genuine, the story was covered extensively by Russian media.
An informed commentary by Professor
Hiroyuki Aoyama in Tokyo has been published on Yahoo News's Japanese site. The only coverage in
western corporate media has been by Peter Hitchens in the
Mail on Sunday , Robert Fisk in the
Independent and Tucker Carlson on
Fox .
Other journalists who have been in
touch with us have told us that their stories were spiked by editors. As expected, the story
has reached much larger numbers through websites and videos that have disseminated it.
2
OPCW's response to the release of the document
2.1 Official response
In an email dated 11 May and shown to us, Deepti Choubey, the head of OPCW Public Affairs,
wrote:
Thank you for reaching out to us. It is exclusively through the Fact-Finding Mission, set
up in 2014, that the OPCW establishes facts surrounding allegations of use of toxic chemicals
for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic. On 1 March 2019, the OPCW has issued its
final and only valid official report, signed by the Director-General, regarding the incident
that took place in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic, on 7 April 2018. The document you shared with
us is not part of any of the material produced by the FFM. The individual mentioned in the
document has never been a member of the FFM .
The OPCW establishes facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals for
hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic through the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which
was set up in 2014. The OPCW Technical Secretariat reaffirms that the FFM complies with
established methodologies and practices to ensure the integrity of its findings. The FFM
takes into account all available, relevant, and reliable information and analysis within the
scope of its mandate to determine its findings. Per standard practice, the FFM draws
expertise from different divisions across the Technical Secretariat as needed. All
information was taken into account, deliberated, and weighed when formulating the final
report regarding the incident in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic, on 7 April 2018. On 1 March
2019, the OPCW issued its final report on this incident, signed by the Director-General.
Per OPCW rules and regulations, and in order to ensure the privacy, safety, and security
of personnel, the OPCW does not provide information about individual staff members of the
Technical Secretariat. Pursuant to its established policies and practices, the OPCW Technical
Secretariat is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the
document in question. At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and
the OPCW is unable to accommodate requests for interviews.
This was taken as confirmation that the document was genuine.
2.2 Unofficial
briefings
Following OPCW's confirmation on 16 May that the document we had released was genuine, two
individuals in the UK whose communications have supported UK government policy on Syria
favoring regime change – Professor Scott Lucas of Birmingham University, and the former
Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker – began reporting that they had inside information on
how the Engineering Assessment had been excluded from the Final Report.
Henderson was writing what was, in effect, a dissenting assessment from that of most of
the OPCW's team and consultant experts. His findings were considered but were a minority
opinion as final report was written.
He followed this with a remarkably indiscreet
tweet asserting that "I know
how OPCW review process was conducted and what place Henderson's assessment had in it." When
challenged to explain his
connection to OPCW, Lucas did not answer. Hitchens
reported on 24 May that OPCW
Public Affairs had refused to comment on whether Lucas was receiving authorised briefings from
OPCW.
2.2.2 Whitaker
Whitaker was at first more circumspect about his sources,
reporting on 16 May that:
One story circulating in the chemical weapons community (though not confirmed) is that
Henderson had wanted to join the FFM and got rebuffed but was then given permission to do
some investigating on the sidelines of the FFM.
Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat extended Whitaker's version
with:
This reporting by @Brian_Whit on the leaked Douma report that the conspiracy theorists and
chemical weapon denialists are so excited about is consistent with what I'm hearing . Looks
like they all got played by a disgruntled OPCW employee.
In an
article
posted on 24 May, Whitaker was more explicit in reporting the spin of "an informed source" on
the Engineering Assessment.
an informed source has now shed some light on it. The key point here is the FFM's terms of
reference. Its basic role was to establish facts about the alleged attack, and it was not
allowed to apportion blame -- that is the job of the OPCW's newly-created Investigation and
Identification Team (IIT). Although the FFM determined that the cylinders were probably
dropped from the air, the published report (in line with its mandate) omitted any mention of
the obvious implication that they had been dropped by regime aircraft. According to the
informed source, when Henderson's assessment was reviewed there were concerns that it came
too close to attributing responsibility, and thus fell outside the scope of the FFM's
mandate. Whether or not that was the right decision, there was no doubt that Henderson's
assessment did fall within the mandate of the new Investigation and Identification Team. For
that reason, according to the source, he was advised to pass it to the IIT instead -- and he
did so.
Unless this account was entirely fabricated, it could only have come from someone with close
knowledge of how the Final Report had been prepared. A subsequent
tweet from Whitaker on 25 May,
presumably channelling the same source, confirmed that "Henderson and others" had been in
Douma:
Henderson and others did go to Douma to provide temporary support to the FFM, but they
were not official members of the FFM.
2.3 What the channelling of off-the-record briefings tells us
It is likely that (at least on this occasion) Lucas and Whitaker are telling the truth, and
that they have been briefed by someone with close knowledge of how the FFM Final Report was
prepared. If these briefings had not been authorised, OPCW Public Affairs could easily have
responded to Hitchens's question with a standard statement reiterating that "there is no
further public information on this matter" and that this extended to off-the-record briefings.
We would expect OPCW press officers to be reluctant to issue further statements that could
subsequently be shown to be false.
Like cellular biologists who perturb a complex system and measure its outputs, we can infer
from these observations the existence of a pathway. This pathway connects the production of
OPCW reports on alleged chemical attacks in Syria with a network of communicators in the UK who
in different ways have promoted the cause of regime change in Syria since 2012. It is evident
that Lucas and Whitaker are output nodes of this pathway. From August 2012, Whitaker as the
Guardian's Middle East editor
promoted Higgins from obscure beginnings as a blogger to become a widely-cited source on
the Syrian conflict. Whitaker was the first journalist to devote an
article to
attacking the Working Group, in February 2018 when its only collective output had been a brief
blog post.
It is of course possible that OPCW management for some procedural reason was unable to
provide further information on the record, and sought to disseminate an accurate version of
events via off-the-record briefings. But the choice of such highly partisan commentators as
Lucas and Whitaker as channels inevitably calls into question the good faith of whoever
provided these briefings, and undermines any remaining pretence to impartiality on the part of
OPCW management.
2.4 Discrepancies between versions of OPCW's response
An established method in investigative journalism is to compare official versions and to
infer from discrepancies what they are trying to hide. On 11 May OPCW Public Affairs stated
that "The document you shared with us is not part of any of the material produced by the FFM.
The individual mentioned in the document has never been a member of the FFM". After we pointed
out that these two statements were provably false – the external collaboration on the
engineering assessment of the Douma cylinders must have been authorised by OPCW, and Henderson
could hardly have been in Damascus on a tourist visa – they were not repeated on the
record. By 16 May OPCW Public Affairs had formulated a new policy: "Per OPCW rules and
regulations the OPCW does not provide information about individual staff members of the
Technical Secretariat." A more subtle version of Henderson's role was then channelled through
Lucas and Whitaker: "minority opinion", "on the sidelines" and elaborated by Higgins as
"disgruntled OPCW employee"'. Between 16 May and 25 May the story channelled through Whitaker
changed from "Henderson had wanted to join the FFM and got rebuffed but was then given
permission to do some investigating on the sidelines of the FFM." to admitting that "Henderson
and others" were in Douma "to provide temporary support to the FFM".
On 24 May Whitaker's informed source admits that "Henderson's assessment was reviewed" for
the Final Report, no longer attempting to maintain that the Engineering Assessment was not part
of the FFM's process. If we strip away the flannel from this latest story, it appears to be
accurate. The "informed source" tells us that the Engineering Assessment was excluded from the
Final Report not because its technical analysis had been rebutted, but because the conclusion
that the cylinders had been placed in position rather than dropped from the air would
necessarily have attributed responsibility for the incident to the opposition .
The argument that the mandate of the FFM prevented it from endorsing the Engineering
Assessment's conclusion is easily refuted as a matter of logic. Announcing the release of the
Final Report, OPCW
stated that "The FFM's mandate is to determine whether chemical weapons or toxic chemicals
as weapons have been used in Syria." In Douma this could be reduced to deciding between two
alternatives: (1) the gas cylinders were dropped from the air, implying that they were used as
chemical weapons; (2) the cylinders were placed in position, implying that the incident was
staged and that no chemical attack had occurred. Although to conclude that alternative (2) was
correct would implicate the opposition, this would not be attribution of blame for a chemical
attack but rather a determination that chemical weapons had not been used.
Clearly a verdict that the alleged chemical attack had been staged would have been
unacceptable to the French government, which had joined in the US-led missile attack on 14
April 2018. We can surmise that the Chief of Cabinet of OPCW, Sébastien Braha, who
(according to his Linkedin profile ) is still in post as
a French diplomat, would have been in a difficult position if he had allowed the FFM to release
a report that reached this conclusion. He would be in an even more difficult position if he
were to allow the newly-established
Investigation and
Identification Team (IIT), which also reports to him, to overturn the conclusions of the
Final Report and report that the alleged chemical attack was staged. Even if Braha's failure to
update his online profile with the date of leaving his diplomatic post is an oversight, this
would still be a conflict of interest based on the OECD definition of what "a reasonable
person, knowing the relevant facts, would conclude". As we have noted, OPCW appears to have no
arrangements for managing conflicts of interest. Until the governance and working practices of
OPCW are radically reformed, it is hard to see how neutral observers can have confidence in the
impartiality of the FFM or the IIT.
3 Government responses to an alleged chlorine attack on
19 May3.1 Reports of the alleged attack
Possible allusions to the release of the Engineering Assessment on 13 May can be
discerned in government responses to a report of an alleged chlorine attack in Idlib on 19
May. The earliest report , mentioning three missiles or
shells loaded with chlorine was from an Arabic-language website named ebaa.news at
11.01 am Syrian time. The location was given as Kubina Hill in Kabbana village, on the border
with Lattakia. At 12.46 am Syrian time Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (HdBG)
tweeted
Appears to be a chlorine attack from Regime artillery shells in Jose Al Shugour village -
4 casualties being evacuated for treatment
"Jose Al Shugour village" is presumably the town of Jisr Al-Shughour. Rami Abdulrahman's
Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights reported on 22 May that four fighters were treated in hospital after they
"suffocated in the intense and violent shelling by the regime forces, within caves and
trenches" but did not endorse the claims of a chlorine attack, noting that the source of this
story was "the Media platform of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham". The story was
elaborated in
a Fox News report on 23 May that quoted a "Dr Ahmad" from Idlib, who reported that he had
treated the casualties. Fox News also quoted Nidal Shikhani of the Chemical Violations Documentation
Centre Syria (CVDCS).
A possible match for the identity of "Dr Ahmad" is Dr Ahmad al-Dbis,
quoted by Reuters on 4 May 2019 as Safety and Security Manager for the Union of Medical
Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), describing airstrikes on Idlib and northern Hama. Since
2016 both HdBG
and the
CBRN Task Force that he set up in 2013 have been affiliated to UOSSM. A
report from 2014 quotes a "Dr Ahmad" described as a medic trained by HdBG for the CBRN Task
Force. CVDCS is an
NGO that has worked closely with the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission since 2015 to provide
purported eyewitnesses for interview in Syria, originally established in 2012 as the
Office of Documentation of the Chemical File in Syria , and later registered in Brussels as
a non-profit company named Same Justice. This company never complied with the legal requirement
to file accounts, and went into
liquidation on 27 February 2019.
The ebaa.news site appears to be closely linked to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),
frequently quoting HTS spokesmen and sometimes reporting exclusive stories obtained from HTS.
On 31 May 2018 HTS was
designated
by the US Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated
Global Terrorist. The Coordinator for Counterterrorism noted that this designation "serves
notice that the United States is not fooled by this al-Qa'ida affiliate's attempt to rebrand
itself." In conclusion, the provenance of this story of a chemical attack on 19 May is dubious,
and the extent to which the sources are independent of one another is not clear.
British experts are this morning investigating a suspected chlorine attack by al-Assad in
Idlib. If it is proved, will she lead the international response against the return of this
indiscriminate evil?
As expected, the Prime Minister gave a bellicose answer, but made no reference to OPCW.
We of course acted in Syria, with France and the United States, when we saw chemical
weapons being used there. We are in close contact with the United States and are monitoring
the situation closely, and if any use of chemical weapons is confirmed, we will respond
appropriately.
Woodcock's "British experts" appear to have included HdBG, who had suggested in a
tweet the day
before that Woodcock should ask the Prime Minister about Idlib, though not about a chemical
attack. In a subsequent tweet Woodcock stated that his
experts were "on the ground in Syria".
3.3 French response
The daily press from the French foreign ministry on 22 May responded to a question on the
alleged chemical attack on 19 May with:
We have noted with concern these allegations which must be investigated. We have full
confidence in the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons .
3.4 US response
A press
statement from State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on 21 May dealt with the
alleged chemical attack two days earlier:
Unfortunately, we continue to see signs that the Assad regime may be renewing its use of
chemical weapons, including an alleged chlorine attack in northwest Syria on the morning of
May 19, 2019. We are still gathering information on this incident, but we repeat our warning
that if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, the United States and our allies will respond
quickly and appropriately.
She mentioned a " continuing disinformation campaign " to "create the false narrative that
others are to blame for chemical weapons attacks that the Assad regime itself is conducting".
The following day Mr James Jeffrey, the State Department's special representative to Syria,
testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "So far we cannot confirm [the reports of
chemical weapons use] but we're watching it". The New York Times
reported
this to be a "carefully worded recalibration" of the announcement by Morgan Ortagus the day
before, and that American military officials had "expressed surprise over the State
Department's strong statement". 4 Comparison of the Engineering Assessment with the
published Final Report
A comparison of the Engineering Assessment and the Final Report have been reported in
outline form by McIntyre . As Larson has
noted
, there are indications in the
Final
Report that whoever drafted it had access to an earlier version of the Engineering
Assessment (the released version dated 27 February 2019 is marked Rev 1) and was attempting to
rebut it without overtly mentioning it. For instance the Engineering Assessment lists five
points supporting the opinion of experts that the crater at location 2 had been created by a
the explosion of a mortar round or artillery rocket rather than an impact from a falling
object. These points included:
"an (unusually elevated, but possible) fragmentation pattern on upper walls"
"(whilst it was observed that a fire had been created in the corner of the room) black
scorching on the crater underside and ceiling."
The Final Report states falsely that a fragmentation pattern, visible in open-source images,
was absent:
The FFM analysed the damage on the rooftop terrace and below the crater in order to
determine if it had been created by an explosive device. However, this hypothesis is unlikely
given the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristic of an explosion that
may have created the crater and the damage surrounding it.
This is followed by a paragraph that notes the blackening of the ceiling and attributes it
to the fire set in the room. The Final Report's allusion to the possibility of an explosive
device, with mention of fragmentation pattern and the setting of a fire in the room appears to
be an attempt to explain away the argument made in the Engineering Assessment.
We note that several of the key findings of the Engineering Assessment are based only on
examination of the cylinders. For instance the Engineering Assessment reports that the cylinder
at Location 2 bears no markings that would be consistent with the frame with fins (lying on the
balcony) ever having been attached to it, let alone the markings that would be expected if the
frame had been stripped off by impact. The Final Report records that the Syrian government
insisted on retaining custody of the cylinders for criminal investigation purposes.
Accordingly:
On 4 June, FFM team members tagged and sealed the cylinders from Locations 2 and 4, and
documented the procedure.
A useful way to take forward the investigation of the Douma incident would now be for the
Syrian government to invite an international team of neutral experts to examine the cylinders,
to assess whether the observations support the findings of the Engineering Assessment or the
conclusions of the published FFM Final Report, and to publish their findings in a form that
allows peer review and reproducibility of results from data. The next step would be a criminal
investigation of this incident, focusing on where, how and by whom were the 35 victims seen in
images at Location 2 killed.
If SST readers are confused by OPCW's constantly shifting explanations for why the Final
Report on the Douma incident excluded the Engineering Assessment, they're not the only
ones.
Yesterday OPCW released its official response (dated 21 May) to Russian criticisms (dated
26 April) of the Final Report of the Fact-Finding Mission on the Douma incident. In this
response OPCW made, officially and on the record, the same argument as that made by
Whitaker's "informed source: that to assess how the cylinders arrived in their positions was
outside the mandate of the FFM.
Unfortunately for whoever thought up this defence, it is explicitly contradicted by both
the Interim Report (published last July) and the Final Report, which state that the objective
of the engineering studies was to evaluate how the cylinders arrived in position.
Peter Hitchens is on the case, and has listed these contradictions and requested an
explanation from OPCW.
That means implicit acknowledgement from Bilderberg group that neoliberalism is under threat... Essentially trade war
with China is destroying neoliberalism as we speak because "national neoliberalism" -- neoliberalism without globalization is
just a flavor of neofascism, not a new social system.
Stacey Abrams, Eric Schmidt, Mike Pompeo, and Mattel Renzi, among others, will be
attending the top-secret Bilderberh meetings from today through the weekend.
Topics to be discussed include the weaponisation of social media, the future of
capitalism, Brexit, China, and threats to the neoliberal world order.
Held since 1954, Bilderberg has acted as a meeting point for high-level establishment
politicians and corporate elites to promote the interests of Atlanticism and global
corporations.
Many attendees of Bilderberg have gone on to play major roles in their countries'
politics, including Angela Merkel and Barack Obama.
The presence of Abrams at the event is another sign that she may act as a
vice-presidential candidate for Joe Biden, who himself has attended corporate-linked summits
including Davos and the Munich Security Conference this year and who has seen his narratives
bolstered by think tanks such as More in Common and the Trilateral Commission.
Abrams is herself a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has pursued a
neoliberal agenda while in office.
"... The #resistence seems to fulfill people who have never accepted any religions whole-heartedly; there is something in the human psyche which demands an intuitive evidence-free, faith-based acceptance of beliefs which go beyond facts and evidence. This is a powerful dream world where their illusions are more powerful than reality. ..."
"... Their comments have moved away from ad hominem "You are a Putin stooge!" arguments to appeals to Authority fallacies: "All our Intelligence Agencies Know that Assange worked with Russians to embarrass Hillary and cost her the Election". Religiosity is largely Authority-driven, and avoids the angst of critical thinking and putting facts together that (thanks to our Intelligence Agencies!) don't fit together. ..."
"People take this repetition as a substitute for proof due to a glitch in human psychology
known as the illusory truth effect, a phenomenon which causes our brains to tend to interpret
things we've heard before as known truths." I think it is a deeper phenomenon than repetition
of lies (which have been legal since 2014 with the 'modernization' of Smith-Mundt, our
anti-propaganda law).
The #resistence seems to fulfill people who have never accepted any religions
whole-heartedly; there is something in the human psyche which demands an intuitive
evidence-free, faith-based acceptance of beliefs which go beyond facts and evidence. This is
a powerful dream world where their illusions are more powerful than reality.
There is an inability to accept the fact that people in DC and NYC and Boston and San
Francisco and other Financial/ MIC-driven areas were doing well relative to the bulk of
Americans and life was wonderful until the 2016 Election. For these people "America Has Never
Stopped Being Great!" (Similar to the "I've got mine, Jack! " attitude of Great Britain, as
their labor unions lost unity with rest of the working class.)
Their comments have moved away from ad hominem "You are a Putin stooge!" arguments to appeals
to Authority fallacies: "All our Intelligence Agencies Know that Assange worked with Russians
to embarrass Hillary and cost her the Election". Religiosity is largely Authority-driven, and
avoids the angst of critical thinking and putting facts together that (thanks to our
Intelligence Agencies!) don't fit together.
"... Working in tech and consulting to a wide range of educated people in finance and pharma, I have to agree. Getting an advanced degree does not indicate anything more than persistence. ..."
In this universe of paradox, inequity, ironies,
and fake-outs one strange actuality stands above the rest these days: that
the much-reviled
President Trump was on the right side of RussiaGate, and the enormous mob of America's Thinking
Class was on the wrong side
-- and by such a shocking margin of error that they remain in a
horrified fugue of outrage and reprisal, apparently unaware that consequences await.
Granted, there's a lot to not like about Mr. Trump: his life of maximum privilege in a bubble of
grifticious wealth; his shady career in the sub-swamp of New York real estate; his rough, garbled,
and childlike manner of speech; his disdain of political decorum, his lumbering bellicosity, his
apparently near-total lack of education, and, of course, the mystifying hair-doo. His unbelievable
luck in winning the 2016 election can only be explained by the intervention of some malign cosmic
force -- a role assigned to the Russians.
At least that's how Mr. Trump's antagonists
engineered
The Narrative
that they have now quadrupled down on.
To make matters worse, this odious President happens to be on the right side of several other
political quarrels of the day, at least in terms of principle, however awkwardly he presents it.
The Resistance, which is to say the same Thinking Class groomed in the Ivy League and
apprenticed in official leadership, has dug in on the idiotic policy position of a de facto open
border with Mexico, and embellished that foolish idea with such accessory stupidities as sanctuary
cities and free college tuition for non-citizens.
Their arguments justifying these
positions are wholly sentimental --
they're stuffing little children in cages
! -- masking a
deep undercurrent of dishonesty and cynical opportunism -- not to mention putting themselves at odds
with the rule-of-law itself.
During the 2016 election campaign, Mr. Trump often averred to forging better relations with
Russia.
The previous administration had meddled grotesquely in Ukrainian politics, among
other things, and scuttled the chance to make common cause with Russia in areas of shared
self-interest, for instance, in opposing worldwide Islamic terrorism.
This was apparently
too much for the US War Lobby, who needed a Russian boogeyman to keep the gravy train of weaponry
and profitable interventionist operations chugging along, even if it meant arming Islamic State
warriors who were blowing up US troops. Being falsely persecuted from before day one of his term
for "collusion with Russia," Mr. Trump apparently found it necessary to go along with antagonizing
Russia via sanctions and bluster, as if to demonstrate he never was "Putin's Puppet."
Meanwhile, by some strange process of psychological alchemy, the Thinking Class assigned
Islamic radicals to their roster of sacred victims of oppression
-- so that now it's
verboten to mention them in news reports whenever some new slaughter of innocents is carried out
around the world, or to complain about their hostility to Western Civ as a general proposition. Two
decades after the obscene 9/11 attacks, the new Democratic Party controlled congress has apparently
decided that it's better to make common cause with Islamic Radicalism than with a Russia that is,
in actuality, no longer the Soviet Union but rather just another European nation trying to make it
through the endgame of the industrial age, like everybody else.
The Thinking Class behind the bad faith Resistance is about to be beaten within an inch
of its place in history with an ugly-stick of reality as The Narrative finally comes to be fairly
adjudicated.
The Mueller Report was much more than just disappointing; it was a comically
inept performance insofar as it managed to overlook the only incidence of collusion that actually
took place: namely, the disinfo operation sponsored by the Hillary Clinton campaign in concert with
the highest officials of the FBI, the Department of Justice, State Department personnel, the
various Intel agencies, and the Obama White house for the purpose of interfering in the 2016
election.
It will turn out that the Mueller Investigation was just an extension of that
felonious op, and Mr. Mueller himself may well be subject to prosecution for destroying evidence
and, yes, obstruction of justice.
John F. Kennedy once observed that "life is unfair."
It is unfair, perhaps,
that a TV Reality Show huckster, clown, and rank outsider beat a highly credentialed veteran of the
political establishment and that he flaunts his lack of decorum in the Oval Office.
But it
happens that he was on the side of the truth in the RussiaGate farrago and that happens to place
him in a position of advantage going forward.
Tags
Politics
and the enormous mob of America's Thinking Class was on the
wrong side
America's Thinking Class
are NOT a bunch of narcissistic
blowhards screaming in front of TV News cameras wearing makeup,
espousing and pontificating their mental illness from compromised
perspectives of the world.
America's Thinking Class
are
actually
- thinking
- living in the REAL world outside of
DC, disseminating the available information, connecting the dots
with logic, reason, incredulity, critical thinking, and a great
deal of skepticism viewed through a jaundiced eye. This thinking
class is coming to somewhat obvious yet VERY DIFFERENT conclusions
from the print and news media propagandists and are on the
right side
of the facts and truth.
"Thinking class" implies that they think - as in there are
analytical processes that go in inside their skulls. I'm not
certain Generation ReTweet exhibit enough individual consciousness
to pass a Turing Test.
Said highly-credentialed veteran of the political establishment
(like I care) chortled after Gaddafi had been dispatched by our
unconstitutional and illegal attack on Libya. "We came. We saw.
He died." If that doesn't strike you as a serious deficiency in
the decorum department I'll pass on what decorum you think it is
that Trump lacks in the Oval Office. God SAVE us from the fools
and grifters that the Establishment (spit) excretes who have all
kinds of credentials and are masters of the graceful stilleto.
That smooth pansy of a president we just saw the end of never
spent a Saturday tinkering with his ride while listening to some
tunes and sucking down a brewski. And we paid a high price for
that twink's efforts to fundamentally change America. Our
so-called political elite are as useless as **** on a 200-lb.
lesbian.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I figured it
out. They're not the "thinking" class as in cognitive function,
but of opinion: "I
think
this is the way things are
supposed to be." So it's not the "thinking class," but "the
opinionated class, those who spout **** in the conspicuous
absence of supporting factual evidence, or even in conspicuous
contradiction to same." ;-)
Your so-called "thinking class" does nothing of the kind. In fact
they do everything they can to inhibit and prevent any "thinking".
TDS does not have to be fatal, but will be if sufferers do not
seek and accept treatment. (they are also fun to watch, especially
when it gets to the stage where they are frothing at the mouth.)
Working in tech and consulting to a wide range of educated
people in finance and pharma, I have to agree. Getting an
advanced degree does not indicate anything more than
persistence. Most people are sleep walking idiots no
matter how 'smart' they are perceived in society.
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call
the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a
brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he
would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the
corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he
wanted to during the campaign.
Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion
with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of
paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which
the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe
or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him
to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by
all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the
zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.
The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine
with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have
been there anyway.
No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The
Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they
have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful
way
The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a
threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.
The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The
rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was
really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion
on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was
hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people."
All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were
the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present.
A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated
the 98% poor, to stay rich.
When there were insurrections federal troops restored order.
Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It
is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from
it.
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America
and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and
Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.
Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and
unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident
Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story
after another would achieve the desired result "
But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out
neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions
fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.
I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's
not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of
brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and
facts don't matter!
Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about
intimidating them.
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then
devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no,
the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in
the less-mainstream fake news media.
So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too
stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The
US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the
WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or
cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.
By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose
of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and
most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which
means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite
Mohammedans.
So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of
hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an
attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.
The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the
Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless
lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was,
and that means as bad as Hell itself.
Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable
approach for a book.
Here's the problem.
Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The
custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of
photoshopping.
OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had
made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist
wouldn't be paid.
Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the
60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major
role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally
flawed. I would say more so.
All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The
triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind
and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..
America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution
and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the
greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side
of American history is taught.
"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate
this level of panic."
You continue to claim what you cannot prove.
But then you are a Jews First Zionist.
Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of
"Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a
straight face
Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually
coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and
permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.
Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks
from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.
The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys
Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were
the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.
After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with
the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924,
despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.
Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil
fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they
should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad
today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else
wanted.
'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" --
Michael Kenney
Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the
catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1)
by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by
NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.
It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans.
OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do
Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a
half.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration.
I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration.
While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The
second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by
Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling.
Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American
public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.
The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst
has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton
gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.
This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.
The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the
Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of
these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.
[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held
views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist
line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign
policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also
long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of
state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not
appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on
Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with
Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete
withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.
Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it
would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling
Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third
major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who
has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel
Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016,
donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in
Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]
Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It
means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources
and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital
the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US
debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will
steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in
Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple
Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington
must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate
their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain
its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to
success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.
American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency,
and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state –
particularly the Chinese.
First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists
defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army
conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic
ambitions.
The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.
Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news
gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who
dictates what they can and can't say.
They are given the political line and they broadcast it.
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with
the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for
the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is
that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by
factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people. That can only lead to trouble.
At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the
media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet
Bolshevik model.
On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the
Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's
Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt,
compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most
people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of
mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into
something much worse.
The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are
maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with
neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources
in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last
events show – with acceleration.
It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for
those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free"
population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the
free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start
one.
All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.
The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not
improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.
Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the
deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy"
narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they
were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and
CIA-trained.
Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign
nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's
that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six
month actions – they go on and on.)
Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the
grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these
politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave
office.)
Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are
we attacking with drones? Where is congress?
Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it
goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them
more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!
9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various
peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.
We are being exceptionally arrogant.
Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.
"... These are the forms of White traditional British oriented American traitors, not racial or ethnic groups with historic envy, hatreds of our people. ..."
2) Trucklers – (LBJ) lower class White Americans who gain wealth and power by championing
non White, minority causes just because it's a path to power, pleasing the elites who would otherwise
dismiss them as hicks.
3) Pussyfooters (Bush Sr. Country Club Conservatives) White Americans who prefer their
own safe life, don't hate their own people but rarely defend them – they don't like trouble, they're
pussies. Alt Right has given them a new word "Cuckservatives".
4) Old Believers (Ron Paul, Pat Robertson) Sincere old guys who wish things could go back
to the way things used to be when some systems supposedly worked for us when we were 90% White European
American, before the Great Society, New Deal, feminism, etc
5) Proditors – (John Brown, Jane Fonda, SDS)
These are the forms of White traditional British oriented American traitors, not racial or ethnic
groups with historic envy, hatreds of our people.
Do you have links to other Wilmot Robertson sites?
I really can't emphasize #2 strongly enough. The term "fog of war" is an apt one.
People in a war generally don't know much at all about what's going on, at the time. They're lucky
if they ever do. But in every single orthodox eye-witness account I've ever read, the storytellers
know exactly what was going on, and why . Even when they shouldn't. They set off
my skeptic alarms left and right.
Read some of the accounts critically, and see for yourself. They're mostly "everybody knows,"
"it is known," type stuff. Not credible at all. These are the bricks the orthodox narrative is
made of.
Posted on
April 12, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. Karl Marx and
Friedrich Englels, who documented the abuses of the early Industrial Revolution, are well
remembered today, not just as activists but also as journalists. Oddly, Thorstein Veblen, who
identified many of the pathologies of the rich of the Gilded Age, is vastly less well known.
Was it because the robber barons of his age had amassed so much wealth and power that they were
better able to create a veneer of legitimacy than Victorian era factory owners?
This post picks up some Veblen themes that are particularly germane today, such as the
notion that businessmen often operate as rentiers and predators.
Distracted daily by the bloviating POTUS? Here, then, is a small suggestion. Focus your mind
for a moment on one simple (yet deeply complex) truth: we are living in a Veblen Moment.
That's Thorstein Veblen, the greatest American thinker you probably never heard of (or
forgot). His working life -- from 1890 to 1923 -- coincided with America's first Gilded Age, so
named by Mark Twain, whose novel of that
title lampooned the greedy corruption of the country's most illustrious gentlemen. Veblen had a
similarly dark, sardonic sense of humor.
Now, in America's second (bigger and better) Gilded Age, in a world of staggering
inequality , believe me, it helps to read him again.
In his student days at Johns Hopkins, Yale, and finally Cornell, already a master of many
languages, he studied anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and political economy (the old
fashioned term for what's now called economics). That was back when economists were concerned
with the real-life conditions of human beings, and wouldn't have settled for data from an
illusory "free market."
Veblen got his initial job, teaching political economy at a salary of $520 a year, in 1890
when the University of Chicago first opened its doors. Back in the days before SATs and
admissions
scandals , that school was founded and funded by John D. Rockefeller, the classic robber
baron of Standard Oil. (Think of him as the Mark Zuckerberg of his day.) Even half a century
before the free-market economist Milton Friedman captured Chicago's economics department with
dogma that serves the ruling class, Rockefeller called the university "the best investment" he
ever made. Still, from the beginning, Thorstein Veblen was there, prepared to focus his mind on
Rockefeller and his cronies, the cream of the upper class and the most ruthless profiteers
behind that Gilded Age.
He was already asking questions that deserve to be raised again in the 1% world of 2019. How
had such a conspicuous lordly class developed in America? What purpose did it serve? What did
the members of the leisure class actually do with their time and money? And why did so many of
the ruthlessly over-worked, under-paid lower classes tolerate such a peculiar, lopsided social
arrangement in which they were so clearly the losers?
Veblen addressed those questions in his first and still best-known book, The Theory of the
Leisure Class , published in 1899. The influential literary critic and novelist William
Dean Howells, the "dean of American letters," perfectly captured the effect of Veblen's
gleeful, poker-faced scientific style in an awestruck review. "In the passionless calm with
which the author pursues his investigation," Howells wrote, "there is apparently no animus for
or against a leisure class. It is his affair simply to find out how and why and what it is. If
the result is to leave the reader with a feeling which the author never shows, that seems to be
solely the effect of the facts."
The book made a big splash. It left smug, witless readers of the leisure class amused. But
readers already in revolt, in what came to be known as the Progressive Era, came away with
contempt for the filthy rich (a feeling that today, with a smug, witless plutocrat in the White House,
should be a lot more common than it is).
What Veblen Saw
The now commonplace phrase "leisure class" was Veblen's invention and he was careful to
define it: "The term 'leisure,' as here used, does not connote indolence or quiescence. What it
connotes is non-productive consumption of time. Time is consumed non-productively (1) from a
sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to
afford a life of idleness."
Veblen observed a world in which that leisure class, looking down its collective nose at the
laboring masses, was all around him, but he saw evidence of something else as well. His
anthropological studies revealed earlier cooperative, peaceable cultures that had supported no
such idle class at all. In them, men and women had labored together, motivated by an
instinctive pride in workmanship, a natural desire to emulate the best workers, and a deep
parental concern -- a parental bent he called it -- for the welfare of future
generations. As the child of Norwegian immigrants, Veblen himself had grown up on a Minnesota
farm in the midst of a close-knit Norwegian-speaking community. He knew what just such a
cooperative culture was like and what was possible, even in a gilded (and deeply impoverished)
world.
But anthropology also recorded all too many class-ridden societies that saved upper-class
men for the "honourable employments": governance, warfare, priestly office, or sports. Veblen
noted that such arrangements elicited aggressive, dominant behavior that, over time, caused
societies to change for the worse. Indeed, those aggressive upper-class men soon discovered the
special pleasure that lay in taking whatever they wanted by "seizure," as Veblen termed it.
Such an aggressive way of living and acting, in turn, became the definition of manly "prowess,"
admired even by the working class subjected by it. By contrast, actual work -- the laborious
production of the goods needed by society -- was devalued. As Veblen put it, "The obtaining [of
goods] by other methods than seizure comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate."
It seems that more than a century ago, the dominant men of the previous Gilded Age were, like
our president, already spinning their own publicity.
A scientific Darwinian, Veblen saw that such changes developed gradually from alterations in
the material circumstances of life. New technology, he understood, sped up industrialization,
which in turn attracted those men of the leisure class, always on the lookout for the next
thing of value to seize and make their own. When "industrial methods have been developed to
such a degree of efficiency as to leave a margin worth fighting for," Veblen wrote, the
watchful men struck like birds of prey.
Such constant "predation," he suggested, soon became the "habitual, conventional resource"
of the parasitical class. In this way, a more peaceable, communal existence had evolved into
the grim, combative industrial age in which he found himself: an age shadowed by predators
seeking only profits and power, and putting down any workers who tried to stand up for
themselves. To Veblen this change was not merely "mechanical." It was a spiritual
transformation.
The Conspicuous Class
Classical economists from Adam Smith on typically depicted economic man as a rational
creature, acting circumspectly in his own self-interest. In Veblen's work, however, the only
men -- and they were all men then -- acting that way were those robber barons, admired for
their "prowess" by the very working-class guys they preyed upon. (Think of President Trump and
his besotted MAGA-hatted followers.) Veblen's lowly workers still seemed to be impelled by the
"instinct for emulation." They didn't want to overthrow the leisure class. They wanted to climb
up into it.
For their part, the leisured gents asserted their superiority by making a public show of
their leisure or, as Veblen put it, their "conspicuous abstention from labour." To play golf,
for example, as The Donald has
spent much of his presidency doing, became at once "the conventional mark of superior
pecuniary achievement" and "the conventional index of reputability." After all, he wrote, "the
pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and
patent waste of time." In Donald Trump's version of the same, he displayed his penchant for
"conspicuous consumption" by making himself the owner of a global chain of golf courses where he
performs his "conspicuous leisure" by
cheating up a storm and carrying what Veblen called a "conspicuous abstention from labour"
to particularly enviable heights.
Veblen devoted 14 chapters of The Theory of the Leisure Class to analyzing every
aspect of the life of the plutocrat living in a gilded world and the woman who accompanied him
on his conspicuous outings, elaborately packaged in constricting clothing, crippling high
heels, and "excessively long hair," to indicate just how unfit she was for work and how much
she was "still the man's chattel." Such women, he wrote, were "servants to whom, in the
differentiation of economic functions, has been delegated the office of putting in evidence
their master's ability to pay." (Think POTUS again and whomever he once displayed
with a certain possessive pride only to pay hush
money to thereafter.)
And all of that's only from chapter seven, "Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary
Culture." Today, each of those now-century-old chapters remains a still-applicable little
masterpiece of observation, insight, and audacity, though it was probably the 14th and last
chapter that got him fired from Rockefeller's university: "The Higher Learning as an Expression
of the Pecuniary Culture." How timely is that?
The (Re)tardiness of Conservatives
As both an evolutionary and an institutional economist (two fields he originated), Veblen
contended that our habits of thought and our institutions must necessarily "change with
changing circumstances." Unfortunately, they often seem anchored in place instead, bound by the
social and psychological inertia of conservatism. But why should that be so?
Veblen had a simple answer. The leisure class is so sheltered from inevitable changes going
on in the rest of society that it will adapt its views, if at all, "tardily." Comfortably
clueless (or calculating), the wealthy leisure class drags its heels (or digs them in) to
retard economic and social forces that make for change. Hence the name "conservatives." That
(re)tardiness -- that time lag imposed by conservative complacency -- stalls and stifles the
lives of everyone else and the timely economic development of the nation. (Think of our
neglected infrastructure, education, housing, health care, public transport -- you know the
lengthening list today.)
Accepting and adjusting to social or economic change, unfortunately, requires prolonged
"mental effort," from which the leisured conservative mind quite automatically recoils. But so,
too, Veblen said, do the minds of the "abjectly poor, and all those persons whose energies are
entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance." The lower classes were -- and this
seems a familiar reality in the age of Trump -- as conservative as the upper class simply
because the poor "cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow," while
"the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented
with the situation as it stands." It was, of course, a situation from which they, unlike the
poor, made a bundle in an age (both Veblen's and ours) in which money flows only uphill to the
1%.
Veblen gave this analytic screw one more turn. Called a "savage" economist, in his
meticulous and deceptively neutral prose, he described in the passage that follows a truly
savage and deliberate process:
"It follows that the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes
conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance and so
reducing their consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make
them incapable of the effort required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought.
The accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the
lower end of the scale."
And privation always stands as an obstacle to innovation and change. In this way, the
industrial, technological, and social progress of the whole society is retarded or perhaps even
thrown into reverse. Such are the self-perpetuating effects of the unequal distribution of
wealth. And reader take note: the leisure class brings about these results on
purpose.
The Demolition of Democracy
But how, at the turn of the nineteenth century, had America's great experiment in democracy
come to this? In his 1904 book The Theory of Business
Enterprise , Veblen zoomed in for a close up of America's most influential man: "the
Business Man." To classical economists, this enterprising fellow was a generator of economic
progress. To Veblen, he was "the Predator" personified: the man who invests in industry, any
industry, simply to extract profits from it. Veblen saw that such predators created nothing,
produced nothing, and did nothing of economic significance but seize profits.
Of course, Veblen, who could build a house with his own hands, imagined a working world free
of such predators. He envisioned an innovative industrial world in which the labor of producing
goods would be performed by machines tended by technicians and engineers. In the advanced
factories of his mind's eye, there was no role, no place at all, for the predatory Business
Man. Yet Veblen also knew that the natural-born predator of Gilded Age America was already
creating a kind of scaffolding of financial transactions above and beyond the factory floor --
a lattice of loans, credits, capitalizations, and the like -- so that he could then take
advantage of the "disruptions" of production caused by such encumbrances to seize yet more
profits. In a pinch, the predator was, as Veblen saw it, always ready to go further, to throw a
wrench into the works, to move into the role of outright "Saboteur."
Here Veblen's image of the predatory characters who dominated his Gilded Age runs up against
the far glossier, more gilded image of the entrepreneurial executive hailed by most economists
and business boosters of his time and ours. Yet in book after book, he continued to strip the
gilded cloaks from America's tycoons, leaving them naked on the factory floor, with one hand
jamming the machinery of American life and the other in the till.
Today, in our Second Even-Glitzier Gilded Age, with a Veblen Moment come round again, his
conclusions seem self-evident. In fact, his predators pale beside a single image that he
himself might have found incredible, the image of three
hallowed multi-billionaires of our own Veblen Moment who hold more wealth than the bottom
160 million Americans.
The Rise of the Predatory State
Why, then, when Veblen saw America's plutocratic bent so clearly, is he now neglected?
Better to ask, who among America's moguls wouldn't want to suppress such a clear-eyed genius?
Economist James K. Galbraith suggests that Veblen was eclipsed by the Cold War, which offered
only two alternatives, communism or capitalism -- with America's largely unfettered capitalist
system presenting itself as a "conservative" norm and not what it actually was and remains: the
extreme and cruel antithesis of communism.
When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, it left only one alternative: the triumphant fantasy
of the "free market." What survived, in other words, was only the post-Veblen economics of John
D. Rockefeller's university: the "free market" doctrines of Milton Friedman, founder of the
brand of economics popular among conservatives and businessmen and known as the Chicago
School.
Ever since, America has once again been gripped by the heavy hands of the predators and of
the legislators they
buy . Veblen's leisure class is now eclipsed by those even richer than rich, the top 1% of
the 1%, a celestial crew even more remote from the productive labor of working men and women
than were those nineteenth-century robber barons. For decades now, from the ascendancy of
President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to Bill Clinton's New Democrats in the 1990s to the
militarized world of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the self-proclaimed billionaire con man
now in the Oval Office, the plutocrats have continued to shower
their dark money on the legislative process. Their only frustration: that the left-over reforms
of Veblen's own "Progressive Era" and those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal
still somehow stand (though for how long no one knows).
As Galbraith pointed out in his 2008 book The Predator
State , the frustrated predators of the twenty-first century sneakily changed tactics:
they aimed to capture the government themselves, to become the state. And so they have. In the
Trump era, they have created a government in which current regulators are
former lobbyists for the very predators they are supposed to restrain. Similarly, the
members of Trump's cabinet are now the saboteurs:
shrinking the State Department,
starving public schools,
feeding big Pharma with Medicare funds,
handing over national parks and public lands to "developers," and denying science and
climate change altogether, just to start down a long list. Meanwhile, our Predator President,
when not
golfing , leaps about the deconstruction site, waving his hands and hurling abuse, a baron
of distraction, commanding attention while the backroom boys (and girls) demolish the
institutions of law and democracy.
Later in life, Veblen, the evolutionary who believed that no one could foresee the future,
nonetheless felt sure that the American capitalist system, as it was, could not last. He
thought it would eventually fall apart. He went on teaching at Stanford, the University of
Missouri, and then the New School for Social Research, and writing a raft of brilliant articles
and eight more books. Among them, The Vested
Interestsand the Common Man (1920) may be the best summation of his once
astonishing and now essential views. He died at the age of 72 in August 1929. Two months later,
the financial scaffolding collapsed and the whole predatory system came crashing down.
To the end, Veblen had hoped that one day the Predators would be driven from the marketplace
and the workers would find their way to socialism. Yet a century ago, it seemed to him more
likely that the Predators and Saboteurs, collaborating as they did even then with politicians
and government lackeys, would increasingly amass more profits, more power, more adulation from
the men of the working class, until one day, when those very plutocrats actually captured the
government and owned the state, a Gilded Business Man would arise to become a kind of primitive
Warlord and Dictator. He would then preside over a new and more powerful regime and the triumph
in America of a system we would eventually recognize and call by its modern name: fascism.
Thankyou for bringing up one of my all time favourite authors. Why is he neglected?
Because he saw and wrote too clearly and he mocked the use of mathematical models, and the
silly assumptions underlying them – oh so unscientifically unsound.
I think Veblen may be neglected because his observations do not comport well with what
many others observe. For instance, in the quoted or paraphrased material in the article, he
asserts that the upper classes are idly conservative. But if we have observed the development
of cooperative agrarian societies into, first, instances of industrial capitalism, and later
imperial-liberal or finance-capitalist warfare-welfare states, it is the capitalists who were
the radical progressives, who shook things up, who 'moved fast and broke things', and the
agrarian cooperators who were the conservatives or reactionaries. And Uncle Karl agrees with
me, at least as of the Communist Manifesto : 'The bourgeoisie cannot exist without
constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of
production, and with them the whole relations of society .. All that is solid melts into air
.' and so on.
Would that the rich were idle! But they are not. They labor ceaselessly to destroy
the Earth, to turn it into nothing more than numbers written on a tablet. It is a mistake to
underestimate and deride such people, even if their personalities are socially deficient.
I think you need to look at the crucial distinction Veblen made between industry and
business, which I find has much more analytical and prescriptive power than Marx.
I was thinking of the combination of business and industry, industry being the work of
changing the material world to produce desired things, experiences, and circumstances, and
business being the political organization of that work, which has evolved in various ways
into contemporary capitalism. The large-scale practice of modern industry apparently requires
a lot of political organization. In my observation and personal experience, business, so
defined, is also hard work, since one is not dealing with inanimate things, but with human
beings, who are often as unpredictable, crafty, greedy and treacherous as oneself. Hence not
many actually want to or are able to do it. This poses an obvious problem for those who want
to establish a more cooperative and egalitarian social order above the local or familial
level, much less a sustainable economy. The rich are anything but idle, and they always want
more.
The book is also available for free at project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833
The leisure class hasn't been able to expand copyright to infinity yet.
They are trying. Project Gutenberg is presently blocking all German IP addresses after a
publisher asserted copyright on 18 works from 1903–1920. I must content myself with
reading H.L. Mencken's iconoclastic essay, "Professor Veblen".
Ah, yes! H.L. Mencken, social darwinist and proto-nazi, as was Veblen's first professor at
Yale, William Graham Sumner, Phi Beta Kappa and Bonesman, who brought the teachings of
Herbert Spencer to Yale and America as the new Science of "Sociology". Of course we no longer
call such sociology "social darwinism" or "nazism". "Meritocracy" is a more polite term.
Veblen would still call it "predatory".
Wow! I am reading this while sitting in the cafeteria of UPMC Presbyterian Hospital (where
my husband's cousin, the farmer of whom I have written here before, hovers between life and
death.) Pittsburgh, home of the planet's largest gothic phallus, the gargoyled tower at
Carnegie Mellon U. Even the First Baptist Church is a mini-Notre Dame.
Walking the mile up to the hospital this morning, along the row of gracious mansions, now
a designated Historic District, built from the blood and sweat of the Polish and Czech and
Italian coal miners and steel workers, I wondered if their tenements had been declared an
Historic District.
DJG, I wrote a think you post to you, with additional comments but it either got lost or
delayed or my fat fingers consigned it to Oblivion. Typing on my phone is dangerous.
Upmc, the future of predatory healthcare. My great grandfather raised his family of eight
Italians in one of those row houses in Oakland. Now it's probably rented out by a slumlord to
college kids racking up debt.
Yes. Pittsburgh was once the real 'metropolis of tomorrow', and the Cathedral of Learning
was the ultimate proof both of the city's arrival in the future and of just how conservative
that future was going to look. One of the key American buildings of its time, it's a tenth
'malic mould' embodying not only the so-called 'skyward trend of thought' by which the
predatory businessmen of the 1920s imagined themselves transported to 'impossible heights'
but also -- inside -- a showcase of international culture that foreshadowed today's
globalization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Learning
Oops, you are correct, Trent! I don't know why I associated it with C-M. And it really is
almost more beaux arts than gothic. But it is still an example of 'mine is much much bigger
than yours.'
No worries, I'm a throwback that takes a bit of pride in the area my family has resided
the past few hundred years. If you get bored you should read about the Mellon's. Very big
players in the gilded age.
So, not a designated 'Historic District,' I will bet. My grandparents raised their kids in
brick mill housing, still standing. But not 'Historic.'. Just haunted by the ghosts of the
still-born babies and tubercular adolescents.
My condolences upon your presence in the Pittsburgh of capitalism and scalping. If you
wish to see the contradictory nature of "historicism", Pittsburgh is THE place to follow.
Case in point: In the close-by tiny mill town of Millvale (aptly named, no?) sits the St.
Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, where once a Croatian artist named Maxo Vanka was allowed
to paint beautiful murals upon its walls and ceilings, all of which commemorated and
encapsulated the horrific struggles of mine and mill workers of the region. They are akin to,
and in some ways exceed, the murals of Diego Rivera – passionately and class-reverently
done.
The contradiction? Besides the religious basis for this socialist art, the current
foundation trying to preserve and defend these paintings is begging for corporate donations
and having $1000+ benefits (wine, cheese, hubris) so some retouching and repainting can occur
under an umbrella of the threat to the art and the church posed by those selfsame
corporations who would love to topple the structure and put up office space. Oh, to be able
to say "Sic semper tyrannus "
Fear not – the church still stands, and the professional class are scurrying about,
waxing poetic and oozing dollars, so it will be there for you for at least as long as the
fund-raisers do their work.
I would go soon, though, just to see how years of neglect can harm mural art, because the
difference between the undone and finished restoration is something to note.
P.S.- easier to drive there if you have wheels. Public transport suffers by scarcity and
slowness.
Sotte voce: When I lived in Pittsburgh, the planet's largest gothic phallus was called the
Catheter of Learning. (It's real name is the Cathedral of Learning.)
If the human condition is viewed as an endless spiritual crisis seeking out resolution,
then everyones collective efforts begin to make more sense. Spiritual connections must be
made in order to survive and this choice sets into motion a chain of events that approximate
the future. Everyone must choose what life they want to live. They must choose what spirit
they will follow. A passive choice supports the status quo/conservatives, while an active
choice drives change in society.
How the current spiritual crisis is handled will determine our collective future. It is no
coincidence that true, honest spirituality has also been corrupted by the predator class.
Spiritual subversion is the essence of TINA. Education and spiritual growth are the
foundations upon which a free and productive society rest- without that, as the author notes,
society evolves into fascism. Fascism becomes the spirituality of the predator class. Fascism
is freedom disguised.
If this is true, then it becomes imperative for all freedom loving people to do everything
in their power to subvert such exploitation and purposeful suffering. The spirit must be
without freedom for all there is, in reality, freedom for none. Society must be based on
reducing suffering, not creating or perpetuating it.
At root, that is what civil disobedience is all about. Civil disobedience takes on many
forms, including actively building parallel social structures to negate the damaging social
conditions brought about by a predator class. The saboteurs are themselves subject to
sabotage. This inevitable dynamic explains why foreigners and domestic dissenters are treated
as enemies and terrorists by the ruling elite. Foreign and domestic enemies must be
eliminated. When this dynamic becomes an issue, it proves all by itself that the ruling elite
no longer hold their citizens to any regard, regardless of the propaganda they employ to
prove otherwise. The society becomes more polarized and violent.
The follow up to this essay is to explore the people and communities that took Veblen
insights to heart and acted accordingly. That would provide examples upon which to build and
restore.
Society must be based on reducing suffering, not creating or perpetuating it.
and yet, in the present arrangement of things, most of us can't even get around in the
place where we live without someone, somewhere, drilling oil, and transporting it, and
refining it, and transporting it some more using this computer required someone, somewhere to
mine metal ore, and refine and process and transport it
The great tragedy of our situation is that we often choose to do things we know to be
harmful in order to protect and provide for those we love. "I'd give up my car, but I need it
for my job. I'd quit the job, but I've got kids to think about and plus, what happens if my
kid gets hurt and needs to get to the hospital fast? So I can't give up the car, even though
I know it's contributing to larger scale problems that will effect everyone negatively, and
already effect some people extremely negatively."
The biggest threat to progress in the forwards direction is those that like progress in
the reverse direction.
The Magna Carta was the first step in moving forwards from when wealth and power were
concentrated with one person, the Absolute Monarch.
Progress is always a battle between those below and those at the top, who want to keep
wealth and power as concentrated as it is now, or to move backwards to when it was more
concentrated.
Royalty spent centuries trying to regain the power they lost with the Magna Carta and get
back to where they were before.
It is a constant battle and many nations slide back to the beginning with dictators, where
wealth and power are concentrated with one person, and where that wealth and power is
inherited.
To progress from the Magna Carta to universal suffrage took 700 years. Within another 50
years those at the top looked to move backwards to when they had more wealth and power.
They sought to regain the economic freedom they used to have and roll back the welfare
state.
They set the wheels in motion.
In 1947, Albert Hunold, a senior Credit Suisse official looked for a group of right wing
thinkers to form the Mont Pelerin Society and neoliberalism started to take shape.
"Why Nations Fail" is a good book on this subject.
"In the passionless calm with which the author pursues his investigation," Howells wrote,
"there is apparently no animus for or against a leisure class. It is his affair simply to
find out how and why and what it is. If the result is to leave the reader with a feeling
which the author never shows, that seems to be solely the effect of the facts."
If only this author had such a deft hand as Veblen. Aspiration.
The University of Chicago forgot what they used to know.
Henry Simons was at the University of Chicago as he was a firm believer in free markets,
but he had learned the lessons of the 1920s and 1930s.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher
1929.
Irving Fisher was a neoclassical economist that believed in free markets and he knew this
was a stable equilibrium.
He became a laughing stock and worked out where he had gone wrong.
What goes wrong with free markets?
Henry Simons and Irving Fisher supported the Chicago Plan to take away the bankers ability
to create money, so that free market valuations could have some meaning.
The real world and free market, neoclassical economics would then tie up.
Real science is evolutionary and new knowledge builds on past knowledge in a way that is
self-correcting and improves over time. The old knowledge remains and anything that is wrong
gets changed.
Thorstein Veblen recognised economics wasn't like that and this is why they keep
forgetting stuff.
We had a new, scientific economics for globalisation.
This explains why Milton Friedman is better known than Thorstein Veblen
I would not necessarily call something scientific even if it builds on previous knowledge.
The key is the real effort at studying and understanding a subject.
"Economics," especially its propagandistic version Neoliberalism, is not at all scientific
or even an attempt to study something. It is an effort to make opaque, not an attempt to
clarify.
Political economy, like philosophy, metaphysics, psychology and sociology are themselves
not "hard"science, but they were created, built upon, and maintain as usually honest attempts
at understanding; Neoliberal Economics is as to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in
Political Economy as Social Darwinism is to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
is in evolutionary biology.
There is an underappreciated consumer-credit-boom-and-bust aspect to the Great Crash /
Great Depression era – people often point out the contradictions in blaming margin
lending for eveything, IMO it is the consumer-credit aspect that helps fill in the rest.
Briefly, the 1920s saw the first great boom in consumer credit, as wage-suppressed workers
saw the fabulous boom in wealth of the rentier and stock-speculator class and were misled to
go into hock by the overall optimism thus engendered. The boom in installment-plan buying was
the 1920s analog of the the late great mortgage-finance bubble. Here is a link, much more out
there for those willig to look for it:
Why, then, when Veblen saw America's plutocratic bent so clearly, is he now neglected?
Better to ask, who among America's moguls wouldn't want to suppress such a clear-eyed
genius? Economist James K. Galbraith suggests that Veblen was eclipsed by the Cold War,
which offered only two alternatives, communism or capitalism -- with America's largely
unfettered capitalist system presenting itself as a "conservative" norm and not what it
actually was and remains: the extreme and cruel antithesis of communism.
I have a feeling that the rejection was going on earlier. I am reminded that Sinclair
Lewis's career started with his first important novel in 1914–fifteen years after
Theory of the Leisure Class, yet still before the shattering effects of World War I. Yet
Sinclair Lewis has also been in decline, and his stories are the novelist's way of dealing
with Veblen's ideas–especially the novel Dodsworth.
I have a feeling that something deeper in the culture pushes aside the observations that
Americans are avaricious, conformist, and not particularly happy. It is so much chirpier to
repeat Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And it may be that the fear of falling in
U.S. culture–dropping economically with the possible implication of turning black
racially–means that the unproductivity of the upper classes is what Americans are
fixated on and aspire to.
Very good to mention Sinclair Lewis here.
Highly recommended literary counterpart to Veblen, though Veblen was no slouch
as a stylist, among his many strengths.
Not only Dodsworth, but I would say all of Lewis' oeuvre exposes the predation,
corruption
and injustice of various good ole 'murkan institutions: Elmer Gantry (venal ministers),
Arrowsmith (careerism in medicine), Main Street (oppressive 'normality'), Gideon Parrish (the
'uplift' racket), Ann Vickers (womens prisons), The Job (women in the workplace) etc etc.
Lewis is hilarious and a truly prescient progressive.
Highly recommended!
Sinclair Lewis probably faded because the self satisfied American world he described took
a nose dive in the great depression and satire became both superfluous and universal (any
1930s Hollywood depiction of the rich–i.e. A Night at the Opera).
In any case thanks for the good article above. It does lay on the Trump hate a little
thick given that our Veblen moment has been going on at least since Reagan.
Not really. Trump is the current and shameless torchbearer, even though he hypocritically
purports to be the saviour of the "deplorables" callously abandoned by Hilary & Co.
Absolutely, start with ooindoze; years ago a Finn Linus Torwald
wrote a FREE replacement for Unix, cutting ATT off at the Internet; all he got for his
trouble was the runaway monopoly of ooindoze. Now ooindoze is worth billions (ten plus at
last count) .
The difference is BS and propaganda and the sleaziest possible merchandizing, YAHOO
MOUNTAIN DEW!!
The irony of linking to a Veblen book on Amazon is well, it's a thing ironic anyway it's
still early, you get what I'm saying. Here's a free version, as Thorstein would have wanted
it:
Thanks, Diptherio, but, and I don't know why so many people forget about this, you could
just go to your nearest public library. They'd be delighted to find it for you
Thanks for the tip. In 1919, Mencken worked through all of Veblen's published works.
Following his recommendation, I found copies of the two Mencken thought most essential: "What
I found myself aware of, coming to the end, was that practically the whole system of Prof.
Veblen was in his first book and his last [as of 1919] – that is, in "The Theory of the
Leisure Class" and "The Higher Learning in America". I pass on the news to literary
archeologists. Read these two, and you won't have to read the others. And if even two daunt
you, then read the first. Once through it, though you will have have missed many a pearl and
many a pain, you will have an excellent grasp of the gifted metaphysician's ideas."
[Prejudices, First Series (1919), pp. 59-83]
My very modest knowledge of Veblen is through secondary sources, one of which is Mencken,
who I never thought was a Veblen adulator. It is probably now a duty to read some of the
primary sources.
Back in the day I bought one of those little Penguin Classics of Theory out of the
university bookstore for a buck. The fact that it was still in print was sufficient testimony
that curiosity continued to exist about the long dead discipline of Political Economics. I
read a portion of it, but never came close to finishing it. That always bothered me. What
happened to the little Penguin over the years I cannot say.
Anyway, a couple of years ago I had the public library exhume a copy for me out of their
warehouse. Immediately upon reading it I recalled with great disappointment why I never
finish the Penguin the prose style was both turgid and tortured. So, I guess you could say
that I have always been pleased to read about Veblen and depressed with the actual
reading.
My recommendation would be that a good translator translate Theory of the Leisure
Class into say French or Italian and then another translator translate it back into
English. Doubtless much of the drole and tongue planted firmly in cheek would be lost in the
translation, but perhaps a much more readable book would ensue.
Once one understands how censored publications were in that day ( plus ça
change . . .) and one discovers the sarcasm veiled behind all that "turgid prose", The
Theory of the Leisure Class becomes a joy to read.
My thanks as well for this post, which (ahem, everyone) deserves a wider audience. Sadly,
my own college edjumacation glided over Veblen. This was in the early 70's, when Friedman and
Co. Economists, Inc. were taking over economics. Suddenly, he's relevant again!
Now, we just need a Teddy Roosevelt progressive to initiate some reforms and a Franklin
Roosevelt to make the right kind of enemies.
The Theory of the Leisure Class was my introduction to economics, reading it right after
the Kennedy assassination, thus turning me from a right-wing parrot into a critical and still
learning skeptic of all cheerleading about "our" government, "our" city on the hill. My
father, a union founder and organizer as well as a solid drinker, would often go off on me
about my "nazi" ideas before this turn, then wondered at the abrupt wheel. Ahhhh, once an
outlier, always
The sad part is I (we?) are more "outliers" than ever before, thanks to the freedom
exercised by many of our co-citizens to conform and obey to any media/government/corporate
message with knee-jerk speed. Expected of the professional caste and their sponsors within
the banking and corporate elite, it is sad to see its reach into levels of the working class,
where it displays its total dysfunction.
In her quick gloss of our Predator-Enablers in Chief, from Reagan to Trump,
Teflon Obama gets a pass he does not deserve:
"For decades now, from the ascendancy of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to Bill
Clinton's New Democrats in the 1990s to the militarized world of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney to the self-proclaimed billionaire con man now in the Oval Office, the plutocrats have
continued to shower their dark money on the legislative process. Their only frustration: that
the left-over reforms of Veblen's own "Progressive Era" and those of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt's New Deal still somehow stand (though for how long no one knows) ..
Similarly, the members of Trump's cabinet are now the saboteurs: shrinking the State
Department, starving public schools, feeding big Pharma with Medicare funds, handing over
national parks and public lands to "developers," and denying science and climate change
altogether, just to start down a long list. Meanwhile, our Predator President, when not
golfing, leaps about the deconstruction site, waving his hands and hurling abuse, a baron of
distraction, commanding attention while the backroom boys (and girls) demolish the
institutions of law and democracy."
I think Obama's legacy is dismantling more lefty organizing venues and directing energy
towards wasteful infighting as people who conned themselves into liking him hold onto bizarre
beliefs to justify Obama's third and fourth Shrub terms such as how Obama "inherited"
problems despite choosing to run for President. Ben Bernanke, Bob Gates, Larry Summers and
Tim Geithner (or insert whatever monster you wish) were just the associates of the previous
administrations at various levels. Though Obama may not have been from the "leisure class"
but the higher level staff, he approached the Presidency as a luxury pursuit. Yes, Michelle
opted for lesser known designers, but the people who mattered cut their teeth in the previous
four administrations. Outsiders were not brought in. Liz Warren jumps out as an exception,
and even now her Presidential run, she is almost completely separate from Obama despite her
time in the administration creating her star.
Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his
predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity.[3] As a Coolidge
biographer wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret
their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is
the most convincing proof of his strength".[4]
Scholars have ranked Coolidge in the lower half of those presidents that they have
assessed. He is praised by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire economics, while
supporters of an active central government generally view him less favorably, though most
praise his stalwart support of racial equality.[5] This is from the wiki on Calvin
Coolidge. Does it sound like someone?
Except for Silent Cal stories and being an advocate of "white collies" (puppies that were
often drowned because it was believed they were blind), he was a continuation of more of the
same and has largely disappeared from the discourse outside of memorizing the Presidents. He
was President until March 1929, and Hoover gets a lot of flak. The economic crisis came from
somewhere.
Trump is particularly predatory and being current merits mention as the old leisure class
not merely taking control of the government but turning it into their leisure pursuit. Obama
much like his "soaring rhetoric" is almost entirely forgettable.
Thank you for mentioning this. The omission of Obama from that list jumped out at me as
well. When I think of a "Banker's President" Obama is the first to come to mind.
Thank you for an introduction to Ann Jones. She is a beautiful writer and her subject is
wonderful. No argument there. I enjoyed her jabs at Trump too. But in his behalf I'd just
like to say it was refreshing to see him crash the gates for the sole reason that he shook up
our very complacent Congress and they almost seem awake now. Trump is not an ideologue. He's
a self promoter. So we can't expect him to have a vision. That's the big problem with him.
He's got no compass. It isn't that he impulsively and inanely talks about things like
"beautiful wonderful new health care" and other crap – it's that he doesn't have a clue
about how to achieve anything. Except cooking books and money shuffling. And Jones' example
of his cheating at golf – urban legend already – is his character in a nutshell.
But that said, I blame malicious obstructionists like Pelosi and the very dreadful Mitch for
preventing the progress we are dying for. Congress is MIA. Why do we even bother to elect
it?
So, was Einstein a member of the "leisure class"?
At Princeton, he would take his little sailboat out on the lake when there was so little
wind
that no other boats were out there with him.
He would get his boat just barely moving slowly steadily calmly.
And that is where he thought his deepest thoughts.
Personally, my deepest thoughts come in a leisurely hot bath.
A most enjoyable essay and it brings me full circle with what I have been researching this
past week. The Counsel on Foreign Relations and what their many spinoff non profit
organizations claim to do, and their membership list. Membership is by invitation only and
there is enough history now to see who has been running the country since its inception in
1919. I could write a book on all of the corruption of each member on a global scale. Just
pull up any 3 or 4 of the current members (no need to research all of the U.S. presidents,
and yes they are all members, because we already know what they have done) and you will see
how corrupt they all are. The members at the top are all white, male, .01%'s with
international power. It seems really obvious to me that we lost the last of our rights on
9/11 and that we are now living in a communist country actually being run fairly quietly for
now by the Chinese government. We have been taught to hate and kill anyone considered to be
communist (Russia is in MSM all of the time) but where is the hatred for China in the media?
Why has China been permitted to but up so much real estate here? I could to on and on but the
bottom line is that I think that the international leaders of the world are all communists
and that is why we have no democracy left. Before you disagree and call me crazy please do
your research! That is all I ask.
Thank you Excellent, comments included!! My copy of Thorstein Veblens Theory of the
Leisure Class was lost somewhere along the way. I dutifully, as a fellow Norwegian, read it
50 years ago, working in New York, trying to like and acclimatize to an American way of life.
This I saw first hand at the top, as part of staff of one of the richest, most famous banking
families, then from the opposite level, clerk at Bell Telephone System in lower Manhattan.
I've downloaded a free copy of Veblen, thanks, and shall reread it, as Norway seems to be on
a trajectory not unlike the US, seemingly seeking the seat left open after UK's Tony Blair as
US poodle one. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg the successor, I think – most
regretfully.
"It is also a matter of common notoriety and byword that in offenses which result in a
large accession of property to the offender he does not ordinarily incur the extreme penalty
or the extreme obloquy with which his offenses would be visited on the ground of the naive
moral code alone. The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a
better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law and some good
repute accrues to him from his increased wealth and from his spending the irregularly
acquired possessions in a seemly manner. A well-bred expenditure of his booty especially
appeals with great effect to persons of a cultivated sense of the proprieties, and goes far
to mitigate the sense of moral turpitude with which his dereliction is viewed by them. It may
be noted also -- and it is more immediately to the point -- that we are all inclined to
condone an offense against property in the case of a man whose motive is the worthy one of
providing the means of a "decent" manner of life for his wife and children. If it is added
that the wife has been "nurtured in the lap of luxury," that is accepted as an additional
extenuating circumstance. "
"... When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. ..."
When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are
controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule,
near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.
"... Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history. It's not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street mafia. ..."
"... The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be eliminated by the syndicate of the united billionaires under Trump administration. ..."
"... Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet an honest businessman. This is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate, excoriated the billionaires who sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico ..."
"... Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs, he has never made a product in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury ..."
"... The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general election he was out of money and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert, who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically investment banking sharks, that's all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions, he hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention. ..."
"... Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular income taxes. They have a special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'. ..."
"... They were two candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall Street sharks, they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win, they get a tax-break called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word about that loophole? It passed away. ..."
Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US president in history. It's
not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street
mafia.
Recently, Trump announced another big alliance with the vulture billionaire, Paul Singer, who, initially, was supposedly against
him. It looks like the Trump big show continues.
The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be eliminated by the syndicate of the
united billionaires under Trump administration.
As Greg Palast told to Thom Hartmann:
Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet an honest businessman. This
is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate,
excoriated the billionaires who sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico.
Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the
vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs,
he has never made a product in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury.
He is against what Obama created, which is a system under Dodd–Frank, called 'living wills', where if a bank starts going bankrupt,
they don't call the US treasury for bail-out. These banks go out of business and they are broken up so we don't have to pay for the
bail-out. Singer wants to restore the system of bailouts because that's where he makes his money.
The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general election he was out of money
and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert, who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically
investment banking sharks, that's all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions,
he hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention.
Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular income taxes. They have a
special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'.
They were two candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one
was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall
Street sharks, they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win, they get a tax-break
called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word about that loophole? It passed away.
His political activities include funding the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and he has written against raising taxes
for the 1% and aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act. Singer is active in Republican Party politics and collectively, Singer and others affiliated
with Elliott Management are "the top source of contributions" to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
A number of sources have branded him a "vulture capitalist", largely on account of his role at EMC, which has been called a vulture
fund. Elliott was termed by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going
after countries for unpaid debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near
default-such as Argentina, ]- through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc. Singer's
business model of purchasing distressed debt from companies and sovereign states and pursuing full payment through the courts has
led to criticism, while Singer and EMC defend their model as "a fight against charlatans who refuse to play by the market's rules."
In 1996, Elliott bought defaulted Peruvian debt for $11.4 million. Elliott won a $58 million judgment when the ruling was overturned
in 2000, and Peru had to repay the sum in full under the pari passu rule. When former president of Peru Alberto Fujimori was attempting
to flee the country due to facing legal proceedings over human rights abuses and corruption, Singer ordered the confiscation of his
jet and offered to let him leave the country in exchange for the $58 million payment from the treasury, an offer which Fujimori accepted.
A subsequent 2002 investigation by the Government of Peru into the incident and subsequent congressional report, uncovered instances
of corruption since Elliott was not legally authorized to purchase the Peruvian debt from Swiss Bank Corporation without the prior
approval of the Peruvian government, and thus the purchase had occurred in breach of contract. At the same time, Elliott's representative,
Jaime Pinto, had been formerly employed by the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance and had contact with senior officials. According
to the Wall Street Journal, the Peruvian government paid Elliott $56 million to settle the case.
After Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2002, the Elliott-owned company NML Capital Limited refused to accept the Argentine offer
to pay less than 30 cents per dollar of debt. With a face value of $630 million, the bonds were reportedly bought by NML for $48
million, with Elliott assessing the bonds as worth $2.3 billion with accrued interest. Elliott sued Argentina for the debt's value,
and the lower UK courts found that Argentina had state immunity. Elliott successfully appealed the case to the UK Supreme Court,
which ruled that Elliott had the right to attempt to seize Argentine property in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, before 2011,
US courts ruled against allowing creditors to seize Argentine state assets in the United States. On October 2, 2012 Singer arranged
for a Ghanaian Court order to detain the Argentine naval training vessel ARA Libertad in a Ghanaian port, with the vessel to be used
as collateral in an effort to force Argentina to pay the debt. Refusing to pay, Argentina shortly thereafter regained control of
the ship after its seizure was deemed illegal by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Alleging the incident lost Tema
Harbour $7.6 million in lost revenue and unpaid docking fees, Ghana in 2012 was reportedly considering legal action against NML for
the amount.
His firm... is so influential that fear of its tactics helped shape the current 2012 Greek debt restructuring." Elliott was termed
by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid
debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near default-such as Argentina,
Peru-through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc. In 2004, then first deputy managing
director of the International Monetary Fund Anne Osborn Krueger denounced the strategy, alleging that it has "undermined the entire
structure of sovereign finance."
we wrote that " Trump's rhetoric is concentrated around a racist delirium. He avoids to take direct position
on social matters, issues about inequality, etc. Of course he does, he is a billionaire! Trump will follow the pro-establishment
agenda of protecting Wall Street and big businesses. And here is the fundamental difference with Bernie Sanders. Bernie says no more
war and he means it. He says more taxes for the super-rich and he means it. Free healthcare and education for all the Americans,
and he means it. In case that Bernie manage to beat Hillary, the establishment will definitely turn to Trump who will be supported
by all means until the US presidency. "
Yet, we would never expect that Trump would verify us, that fast.
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from
an article at the excellent Medialens
And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...
I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely
the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources)
on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.
As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:
"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."
Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished
journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.
And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct
Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.
In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret
state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed
forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.
As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of
the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood
at the end of their career".
Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent
is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.
A brief history
Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a
cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest
Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.
Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf
of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.
The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the
Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided
by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists
and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.
According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism
served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour
of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.
And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret
service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.
In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives'
Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.
And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.
David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media
and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody
in every office in Fleet Street"
Leaker King
And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing
companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".
Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear
he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".
Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet
Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely
involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.
Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according
to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.
David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security
scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.
Maxwell and Mossad
According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the
1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.
In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6
were equally as strong.
Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that
he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks
were fascinating.
For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse
during the Cold War."
The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster
Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked
to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted
to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms
of first-hand knowledge."
And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph
and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to
handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.
Lawson strongly denied the allegations.
Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan
McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security
services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not
being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)
Growing power of secret state
Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.
But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official
Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into
the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.
Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.
According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by
the Rockingham cell within the MoD.
A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant
attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.
Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.
Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein
has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of
the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early
in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies
about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group,
the Iraqi National Congress.
Sexed up – and missed out
During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the
ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government
(in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.
The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that
drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition?
But those facts will be forever secret.
Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was
ignored by the inquiry.
Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of
WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US
President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress
and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.
Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the
propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published
stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker
than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures,
especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."
Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence
services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.
~
Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John
Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International
Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.
RT CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle and The Duran's Alex Christoforou take a quick look at the college admissions scam revolving around
William Rick Singer, who was running a for-profit college-counseling program, where according to federal prosecutors, has a goal
focused on helping "the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school."
Arrest warrants for Hollywood stars, Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, were delivered on Tuesday following their alleged involvement
in a college-entrance-exam cheating scandal.
According to CNN,
the women were two of around 50 people who were the subject of
federal indictment
following an extensive FBI investigation named "Operation Varsity Blues."
Loughlin's husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was also implicated, and was arrested early on Tuesday morning.
TMZ reported
that Huffman was arrested by seven armed FBI agents. Her husband, William H. Macy, has not been charged in connection to the case.
Loughlin, Giannulli, and Huffman are all facing charges of felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
Huffman is accused of spending $15,000 on an organization that allegedly helped her daughter cheat on her SATs. Loughlin and Giannulli
are accused of paying $500,000 to get their daughters into University of Southern California as recruits for the crew team for which
neither of Loughlin's daughters rowed crew.
All three were recorded by the FBI on phone calls discussing their plans to alter or lie about their children's college applications.
Is there anything left in this country that has not been deeply tainted by corruption?
By now you have probably heard that dozens of people have been arrested for participating in a multi-million dollar college admissions
scam. Enormous amounts of money were paid out in order to ensure that children from very wealthy families were able to get into top
schools such as Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Texas and the University of Southern California.
And as The Economic Collapse blog's Michael Snyder writes, we should certainly be disgusted by these revelations, but
we shouldn't be surprised. Such corruption happens every single day on every single level of society in America. At this point our
nation is so far gone that it is shocking when you run into someone that actually still has some integrity.
The "mastermind" behind this college admissions scam was a con man named William Rick Singer. He had been successfully getting
the kids of wealthy people into top colleges for years using "side doors", and he probably thought that he would never get caught.
But he did.
There were four basic methods that Singer used to get children from wealthy families into elite schools. The first two methods
involved bribes
Bribing college entrance exam administrators to allow a third party to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams, in some
cases by posing as actual students,' is the first.
Bribing university athletic coaches and administrators to designate applicants as purported athletic recruits – regardless
of their athletic abilities, and in some cases, even though they did not play the sport,' is the second.
Because many of these kids didn't even play the sports they were being "recruited" for, in some cases Photoshop was used to paste
their faces on to the
bodies of real athletes
In order to get non-athletic kids admitted to college as athletes, Singer often had to create fake profiles for them. Sometimes
this involved fabricating resumes that listed them having played on elite club teams, but to finish the illusion Singer and his
team would also use Photoshop to combine photos of the kids with actual athletes in the sport.
A number of college coaches became exceedingly wealthy from taking bribes to "recruit" kids that would never play once they got
to school, but now a lot of those same coaches are probably going to prison.
'Having a third party take classes in place of the actual students, with the understanding that the grades earned in those
classes would be submitted as part of the students' application,' is the third.
The fourth was 'submitting falsified applications for admission to universities that, among other things, included the fraudulently
obtained exam scores and class grades, and often listed fake awards and athletic activities.'
Of course the main thing that the media is focusing on is the fact that some celebrities are among those being charged in this
case, and that includes
Lori Loughlin from "Full House"
It was important to "Full House" star Lori Loughlin that her kids have "the college experience" that she missed out on, she
said back in 2016.
Loughlin, along with "Desperate Housewives" actress Felicity Huffman, is among those
charged in a scheme in which parents allegedly bribed college coaches and insiders at testing centers to help get their children
into some of the most elite schools in the country, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Despite how cynical I have become lately, I never would have guessed that Lori Loughlin was capable of such corruption.
After all, she seems like such a nice lady on television.
But apparently she was extremely determined to make sure that her daughters had "the college experience", and so Loughlin and
her husband shelled out
half a million dollars in bribes
Loughlin and Giannulli 'agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits
to the USC crew team – despite the fact that they did not participate in crew – thereby facilitating their admission to USC,'
according to the documents.
As bad as this scandal is, can we really say that it is much worse than what is going on around the rest of the country every
single day?
Of course not.
We are a very sick nation, and we are getting sicker by the day.
William Rick Singer had a good con going, and he should have stopped
while he was ahead
"This book is full of secrets," he said in Chapter 1 before dispensing advice on personal branding, test-taking and college
essays.
But Singer had even bigger secrets, and those would cost up to $1.2 million.
But like most con men, Singer just had to keep pushing the envelope, and in the end it is going to cost him everything.
The ironic thing is that our colleges and universities are pulling an even bigger con. They have convinced all of us that a college
education is the key to a bright future, but meanwhile the quality of the "education" that they are providing has deteriorated dramatically.
I spent eight years in school getting three degrees, and so I know what I am talking about. For much more on all this, please see
my recent article entitled
"50 Actual College Course Titles That Prove That America's Universities Are Training Our College Students To Be Socialists" .
I know that it is not fashionable to talk about "morality" and "values" these days, but the truth is that history has shown us
that any nation that is deeply corrupt is not likely to survive for very long.
Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through
a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Today, we are neither moral or religious.
What we are is deeply corrupt, and America will not survive if we keep going down this path.
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The
moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making
the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't
be reported on Fox.
We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American
People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't
believe it any more.
There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are
two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson
Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who
was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry
Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.
General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC.
MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market.
Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being
CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli
Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women
and Children.
Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is
connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option
discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to
a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior
put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".
Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals
want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction"
was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that
the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.
The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our
various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that
they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.
Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man
flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again,
cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These
are the ones that I pity most.
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been
eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of
whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and
will never nationalize the oil.
So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come
back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact
that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark
forces.
IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm
The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can
only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments
they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground
war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.
In media universe there
is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.
I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.
Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm
The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but
relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the
pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby,
a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer
have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department
to your favorite media outlet.
Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to
kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it
turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it
was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".
But all that research from
MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written
still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and
distorts and misrepresents the news every day.
Bezos : I've witnessed this incredible thing happen on the internet over the last two decades. I started Amazon in my garage 24
years ago -- drove packages to the post office myself. Today we have 600,000-plus people, millions and millions of customers, a very
large company.
How did that happen in such a short period of time? It happened because we didn't have to do any of the heavy lifting. All of
the heavy-lifting infrastructure was already in place for it. There was already a telecommunication network, which became the backbone
of the internet. There was already a payment system -- it was called the credit card. There was already a transportation network
called the US Postal Service, and Royal Mail, and Deutsche Post, all over the world, that could deliver our packages. We didn't have
to build any of that heavy infrastructure.
An even more stark example is Facebook. Here's a guy who literally, in his dorm room, started a company -- Mark Zuckerberg started
a company in his dorm room, which is now worth half a trillion dollars -- less than two decades ago.
Jeff Bezos strikes me as an incredibly pompous hustler who is so much into himself that he has begun to believe that he is
GOD. Before trying to hustle others into traveling to Mars, or any other space destination, he should show us that it is feasible
by PERSONALLY going first, surviving 18 months of space travel (9 months each way to Mars) including a landing on and take off
from Mars.
Jeff reveals how he made his fortune using public infrastructure (read govt spending) and tax breaks. Now he's aiming for Pentagon
riches.
In addition to Amazon's much-panned withdrawal from a "second headquarters" deal in New York City -- which had the New York
Post comparing Bezos to ex-Yankees pitcher Sonny Gray for his inability to "take the kind of pressure New York can dish out" --
the Pez-headed tech giant's dreams of Pentagon riches are suddenly being thwarted.
The blow involves a surprise delay in the award of the so-called JEDI contract, a $10 billion (or more) prize for Pentagon
cloud management that once seemed gift-wrapped for Amazon.
Hmm, the internet already existed. In fact the WWW existed. He must know that -- so he's lying to minimize the amount of infrastructure
he inherited. By 1994, everything was already there.
I am growing so very tired of the Cult of Bezos. That line about his garage is like an incantation to put his acolytes and
sycophants into zombie mode. That argument that there can be no space Zuckerbergs sounds like subliminal messaging 'divert more
public resources to ME! Only I can lead you to the stars!' He has zero intention of building his own space infrastructure. He
wants us to build it for Him, our demigod, Bezos!
Human society is way to complex for alpha males to succeed unconditionally... Quite a different set of traits is often needed.
Notable quotes:
"... Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. ..."
"... Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference. ..."
"... I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea right ..."
"... Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status. ..."
"... "They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different." ..."
"... "He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him." ..."
Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of
entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. The rich
shouldn't be different in this way, but they are. In some other societies, such entitlement and deference would accrue to
senior party members, senior clergymen, or hereditary nobility (who might not have much money at all).
"Go with the winner." That is how it works for the alpha male (a chimp, an ape, or a gorilla) for most followers anyway. Some will challenge. If victorious, followers will line up (more go-with-the-winner). If defeated, an outcast.
Without a doubt Hemingway had a rather catty attitude toward his literary rival, but in this instance I think the debunking
is merited. It's quite possible that rich people act the way we would act if we were rich, and that Fitzgerald's tiresome obsession
with rich people didn't cut very deep. Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's
the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference.
In my opinion, the fact that if they had less money would change the way they think, does not change the fact that, while they
have more money, they think differently, and different rules apply to them.
Addendum: The fact that an Alpha Chimp would act differently if someone else was the Alpha Chimp does not change the fact that
an Alpha Chimp has fundamentally different behavior than the rest of the group.
"Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's. According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and
Fitzgerald went:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me. Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between Hemingway and Mary Colum, which went as follows:
Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
Colum: I think you'll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money."
Just want to point out that that quote of Hemingways wasn't about Fitzgerald and wasn't even by Hemingway. Anyway I was more
attacking the "rich have more money" thing than I was trying to defend Fitzgerald, but I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea
right
Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald
thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status.
"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations
and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are
better than we are. They are different."
Hemingway suggested that Fitzgerald had once been especially enamored of the rich, seeing them as a "special glamorous race"
but ultimately became disillusioned.
"He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing
that wrecked him."
"... Buying beautiful clothes at full retail price was not a part of my childhood and it is not a part of my life now. It felt more illicit and more pleasurable than buying drugs. It was like buying drugs and doing the drugs, simultaneously."" ..."
"... "Erie Locomotive Plant Workers Strike against Two-Tier" [ Labor Notes ]. "UE proposed keeping the terms of the existing collective bargaining agreement in place while negotiating a new contract, but Wabtec rejected that proposal. Instead it said it would impose a two-tier pay system that would pay new hires and recalled employees up to 38 percent less in wages, institute mandatory overtime, reorganize job classifications, and hire temporary workers for up to 20 percent of the plant's jobs. ..."
"... Workers voted on Saturday to authorize the strike." • Good. Two-tier is awful, wherever found (including Social Security). ..."
"[S]hopping with T was different. When she walked into a store, the employees greeted her by name and began to
pull items from the racks for her to try on. Riding her coattails, I was treated with the same consideration, which is how I
wound up owning a beautiful cashmere 3.1 Philip Lim sweater that I had no use for and rarely wore, and which was eventually
eaten by moths in my closet.
Buying beautiful clothes at full retail price was not a part of my childhood and it is not a part of my life now. It
felt more illicit and more pleasurable than buying drugs. It was like buying drugs and doing the drugs, simultaneously.""
"Erie Locomotive Plant Workers Strike against Two-Tier" [
Labor
Notes ]. "UE proposed keeping the terms of the existing collective bargaining agreement in
place while negotiating a new contract, but Wabtec rejected that proposal. Instead it said it
would impose a two-tier pay system that would pay new hires and recalled employees up to 38
percent less in wages, institute mandatory overtime, reorganize job classifications, and hire
temporary workers for up to 20 percent of the plant's jobs.
Workers voted on Saturday to
authorize the strike." • Good. Two-tier is awful, wherever found (including Social
Security).
Many of you might react to the FT's
story
about the
"squeezed 1%" by getting out the world's smallest violin. I think this is a mistake. It reminds
us that the damage done by inequality extends beyond the general
social
and
economic
harm. It hurts even those who are a long way up the income ladder.
First, some statistical context. Someone at the bottom of the top
percentile of incomes is on about £120,000 a year. The top 0.1%, however, gets over £500,000. A
very well-paid head-teacher, professor or NHS consultant might just get into the top 1%, but the
top 0.1% comprises bankers, very successful entrepreneurs or bosses of big firms. As the IFS's
Paul Johnson
says
,
"someone 'only' at the top 1% is much more like the average person than they are like someone at
top 0.1%."
This gulf between the 1% and 0.1% hurts the 1% in three ways.
One is simply that they are aware of it. For the poor, the rich
are out of sight, out of mind: in fact, they grossly
under
-estimate just how much
the rich make. The 1%, however, see it more clearly. We compare ourselves to people like us. And
the 1% benchmark themselves against the 0.1%. They are often university contemporaries, so one
might resent why the no-mark who was no smarter than him is earning five times as much. Or they
might compare social utilities. A doctor covered in blood will wonder why he is paid so much
less for saving somebody's life than a banker is paid for – well, what? And of course the 1%
sees the 0.1% close up. Just as no man is a hero to his valet, so nobody in the 0.1% is a hero
to his underling. Middle-managers have a lively awareness of the short-comings of senior
managers, as professors do of the foibles of vice-chancellors.
All this naturally breeds resentment.
Experiments (pdf)
by Philip Grossman and Mana Komai have confirmed this. They split subjects
into rich and poor groups and gave everybody the option of destroying another's wealth. They
found that predations by the poor upon the rich were only a minority of attacks. Instead they
found that the rich attacked other rich. This is
consistent
with
reference
group
theory: we compare ourselves to those like us:
We find strong evidence of within class envy: the rich
targeting the rich and the poor targeting the poor. Within the rich community, the target of
envy is usually a wealthier subject whose wealth is close to that of the attacker; the
attacker may possibly be trying to improve his/her relative ranking.
A second effect of the gap between the 0.1% and 1% is the subject
of the FT's article. The very rich price the reasonably rich out of houses and schools: top
private school fees have soared in recent years because they market themselves to the global
rich. As Rick
wrote
:
The painful fact for many people is that their jobs no longer
pay enough for them to enjoy what they had been brought up to think of as a middle-class
lifestyle. They can't afford to live in the sort of house in the sort of street where they
grew up. They can't afford to send their children to the schools they went to. And those nice
leafy hospitals their parents used to go to, forget it. The super-rich can still afford these
things, though, so the prices keep going up, well beyond the reach of the old middle-classes.
The difference between the 1% and the 0.1% doesn't, however, lie
merely in what they can afford. There is perhaps an even bigger difference. A man (it's usually
a man) on £500,000 can reasonably look forward to quitting work or downshifting unless he has
arranged his affairs especially badly. Somebody on a low six-figure salary, however, cannot.
Instead, they often face years of stress – exacerbated by managerialism's
deprofessionalization
of erstwhile professional jobs and to the fact that their inability to
afford homes in central London condemns them to long and stressful
commutes
.
You will of course object here that this is also true for
millions of workers far outside the 1%. You'd be bang right. And that's the point. Class is not
merely another yet another identity. It is an objective fact about your relationship to the
means of production – about whether this puts you in a
position (pdf)
of
subordination or domination. In many cases – not all but many – even those on six-figure
salaries are in subordinate and stressful positions. They are objectively working class, however
posh they might fancy themselves to be.
Which is why we need class politics. Whereas identity politics
risks
splitting
us into mutually hostile ghettos, proper class politics has the potential to
unite
us – well
most of us. One of the great marvels of capitalism is that we are so incapable of seeing this.
"They split subjects into rich and
poor groups and gave everybody the option of destroying another's wealth. They found that
predations by the poor upon the rich were only a minority of attacks. Instead they found that
the rich attacked other rich. This is consistent with reference group theory:"
Heh. One
presumes reference group theory has not been updated for the last 40-odd years.
Great post. Why we showcase any
known instance of less than genteel behaviour (thought or deed) among a rank and file while also
screeching about a middle class running the shop...you know, divide and rule.
Are we sure (upper) middle class
living has got more expensive? I'm sceptical about holidays (cited in that post you link to) and
probably housing (I just don't see how the rich, even inc foreigners, could have bought so
many). I suspect a lot of this is people being s bit lower down the distribution that their
parents..
Another terrific post. But I'm
left with two questions:
1. Is the tension you cite between 1% and 0.1% not the same as
between the 0.1% and the 0.01%?
2. Could you expand on why having the 1% identified as working class would help?
The class distinction serves to divide, and is recasting the boundary at the 0.1% level an
effort to unite a greater proportion of the population (really very nearly everyone) different
from saying that the idea of class politics is not useful after all? Or is it to just form a
tougher coalition against the top 0.1%?
No sympathy at all. Most of the
bottom nine-tenths of the top 1% are doing bullshit jobs -- bean-counting, guard labor,
gatekeeping -- for the top tenth that wouldn't exist in a rational, egalitarian society. And the
managerial stratum, as a whole, is an enormous suck on production workers' wages, whether or not
its total income actually equals that of rentiers; simply returning managerial/supervisory
salaries to the same share of total labor compensation they received in the '70s would alone
raise production workers' pay by a quarter or more. The plantation overseers may not be as rich
as the planters, but they're still parasites.
Conversations I've overheard in
the last couple of years:
"We're both barristers and we can't even afford a flat in Tooting".
"I went to Heathfield and my husband went to Eton. But no chance we can afford private schools
for our children".
"Rich foreigners have bought up the houses in Kensington we should have been living in."
My friend, an accountant, says there has always been social churn. But this seems different
to me. And at some point the foremen for the billionaire class, I hope, will say sod this for a
game of checkers.
The 0.1% hurt the rest of us
mainly because they're able to get governments to enact their policy preferences, not because
their individual spending decisions heavily skew markets and strain public services. Ultimately
there just aren't enough of them to make that much difference, except in highly localised areas;
and anyway, they probably use "the commons" (public transport, state schools, the NHS) far less
than the median citizen does.
For instance, the 0.1% may cause property bubbles in certain
specific locations (Malibu, Manhattan, San Jose, Chelsea etc). But their individual property
purchases aren't the main driver of the broader property/housing crisis. We're currently adding
around a million people to the UK population every three years. That's 20 times more people than
the entire 0.1%. It's got to have more of an effect on the elevated demand for homes, the
elevated congestion on London's commuter trains and tubes, and the elevated demand for school
places and NHS treatments; even if some of these new Britons come to work in construction,
transport, education or health.
Or we are deep into a structural
demographic pattern where an expanded and entitled 'Elite' are in serious competition for the
lifestyles they are 'entitled' to.
This situation in history has created some of the most
severe political crisis in the history of the west from civil war to bloody revolution, and
there is no good reason to suspect that the continuing competition between the established and
seeking elites, will ferment even further political and civil strife.
Brexit, an example of a punch up between these elite factions, is already causing severe
political strife as the state attempts to reconcile and buy of these competing factions, by
hollowing out the classes below to pay for the exercise.
The attempt by the French government to make the non-elite classes pay for the downside of
elite supporting policies is not going well, and were is not for the endlessly phlegmatic
English constitution and the appeal to ingrained xenophobia, that the non elite classes would be
already violently engaged on the streets.
The only way - history says - to escape the effect of this structural position, aside from
civil war or revolution to winnow the elite class, the predominate cause of this situation, is
through lethal pandemic. Unlikely with modern medicine.
We are at the active beginning of this process, the main crisis is yet to unfold.
Absolutely.
Structural Demographics in lockstep with serious crisis. We're in the middle, or at the serious
start? The question is going to have to be, will the Elites roll over and allow taxation and
redistribution to winnow the wealth, or refuse to budge and see violent breakdown?
Given that it's hard to defuse the crisis through the traditional weapon of inter-state war,
because of nuclear weapons, that some form of new highly redistributive social contract will be
the only way to avoid serious social dislocation.
However, the unfailing position of the elites to see themselves as the answer and not the
problem, mitigates against a non-violent accord?
Given that historically the only way to defuse these crisis is to reduce the overpopulation
issue in fairly short order, I can't see any easy way out.
But perhaps climate collapse and the affect on food supply and production might do that
anyway?
"... "That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image." ..."
"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely
nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."
Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire,
it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.
The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running
amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.
"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely
nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."
Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire,
it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.
The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running
amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.
We begin our investigation with a historical account of the rise of neoliberal hegemony.
Hegemony is a concept developed by Italian Marx- ist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci was keen to
account for the definitive role that culture played in legitimizing and sustaining capitalism
and its exploitation of the working classes. In our own context of extreme economic inequality,
Gramsci's question is still pressing: How and why do ordinary working folks come to accept a
system where wealth is produced by their collective labors and energies but appropriated
individually by only a few at the top?
The theory of hegemony suggests that the answer to this question is not simply a matter of
direct exploitation and control by the capitalist class. Rather, hegemony posits that power is
maintained through ongoing, ever-shifting cultural processes of winning the consent of the
governed, that is, ordinary people like you and me.
In other words, if we want to really understand why and how phenomena like inequality and
exploitation exist, we have to attend to the particular, contingent, and often contradictory
ways in which culture gets mobilized to forward the interests and power of the ruling classes.
According to Gramsci, there was not one ruling class, but rather a historical blос.
"A moving equilibrium" of class interests and values.
Hegemony names a cultural struggle for moral, social, economic, and political leadership; in
this struggle, a field -- or assemblage -- of practices, discourses, values, and beliefs come
to be dominant. While this field is powerful and firmly entrenched, it is also open to
contestation.
In other words, hegemonic power is always on the move; it has to keep winning our consent
to survive, and sometimes it fails to do so. Through the lens of hegemony, we can think about
the rise of neoliberalism as an ongoing political project -- and class struggle -- to shift
society's political equilibrium and create a new' dominant field.
The book adhere to "classic" line of critique of neoliberalism as a new "secular religion" ( the author thinking is along the lines
of Gramsci idea of "cultural hegemony"; Gramsci did not use the term 'secular religion" at all, but this close enough concept) that
deified the market. It stress the role of the state in enforcing the neoliberalism.
The book adhere to "classic" line of critique of neoliberalism as a new "secular religion" ( the author thinking is along the
lines of Gramsci idea of "cultural hegemony"; Gramsci did not use the term 'secular religion" at all, but this is close enough
concept) that deified the market. It stresses the role of the state in enforcing the neoliberal ideology much like was the case
with Bolsheviks in the USSR:
Gramsci's question is still pressing: How and why do ordinary working folks come to accept a system where wealth is produced
by their collective labors and energies but appropriated individually by only a few at the top? The theory of hegemony suggests
that the answer to this question is not simply a matter of direct exploitation and control by the capitalist class. Rather,
hegemony posits that power is maintained through ongoing, ever-shifting cultural processes of winning the consent of the governed,
that is, ordinary people like you and me.
According to Gramsci, there was not one ruling class, but rather a historical bloc, "a moving equilibrium" of class interests
and values. Hegemony names a cultural struggle for moral, social, economic, and political leadership; in this struggle, a field
-- or assemblage -- of practices, discourses, values, and beliefs come to be dominant. While this field is powerful and firmly
entrenched, it is also open to contestation. In other words, hegemonic power is always on the move; it has to keep winning
our consent to survive, and sometimes it fails to do so.
Through the lens of hegemony, we can think about the rise of neoliberalism as an ongoing political project -- and class struggle
-- to shift society's political equilibrium and create a new dominant field. Specifically, we are going to trace the shift
from liberal to neoliberal hegemony. This shift is represented in the two images below.
Previous versions of liberal hegemony imagined society to be divided into distinct public and private spheres. The public
sphere was the purview of the state, and its role was to ensure the formal rights and freedoms of citizens through the rule
of law. The private sphere included the economy and the domestic sphere of home and family.
For the most part, liberal hegemony was animated by a commitment to limited government, as the goal was to allow for as
much freedom in trade, associations, and civil society as possible, while preserving social order and individual rights. Politics
took shape largely around the line between public and private; more precisely, it was a struggle over where and how to draw
the line. In other words, within the field of liberal hegemony, politics was a question of how to define the uses and limits
of the state and its public function in a capitalist society. Of course, political parties often disagreed passionately about
where and how to draw that line. As we'll see below, many advocated for laissez-faire capitalism, while others argued for a
greater public role in ensuring the health, happiness, and rights of citizens. What's crucial though is that everyone agreed
that there was a line to be drawn, and that there was a public function for the state.
As Figure 1.1 shows, neoliberal hegemony works to erase this line between public and private and to create an entire society
-- in fact, an entire world -- based on private, market competition. In this way, neoliberalism represents a radical reinvention
of liberalism and thus of the horizons of hegemonic struggle. Crucially, within neoliberalism, the state's function does not
go away; rather, it is deconstructed and reconstructed toward the new' end of expanding private markets.
This view correlates well with the analysis of Professor Wendy Brown book "Undoing the Demos" and her paper "Neoliberalism
and the End of Liberal Democracy" (pdf is freely available)
In this sense neoliberalism are just "Trotskyism for the rich" with the same utopian dream of global neoliberal revolution,
but much more sinister motives. And is as ruthless in achieving its goals, if necessary bring neoliberal "regime change" on the
tips of bayonets, or via 'cultural revolutions".
If we follow the line of thinking put forward by Professor Philip Mirowski's in his book "Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to
Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown," we can say that neoliberals essentially "reverse-engineered" Bolsheviks
methods of acquiring and maintaining political power, replacing "dictatorship of proletariat" with the "dictatorship of financial
oligarchy".
I would say more: The "professional revolutionary" cadre that were the core of Bolshevik's Party were replaced with well paid,
talented intellectual prostitutes at specially created neoliberal think tanks. And later "infiltrated" in economic departments
(kind of stealth coup d'état in academia financed by usual financial players).
Which eventually created a critical mass of ideas which were able to depose New Deal Capitalism ideology, putting forward the
set of remedies that restore the power the financial oligarchy enjoyed in 1920th. Technological changes such as invention of computers
and telecommunication revolution also helped greatly.
At the same time unlike Bolsheviks, neoliberals are carefully hiding their agenda. Funny, neoliberalism is the only known to
me major ideology which the US MSM are prohibited to mention by name ;-)
The role of state under neoliberalism is very close to the role of state under Bolsheviks' "dictatorship of proletariats".
It no way this still a liberal democracy -- this is what Sheldon Wolin called "inverted totalitarism". Less brutal then Bolsheviks'
regime, but still far from real democracy. Under neoliberalism the state is a powerful agent needed to enforce markets on unsuspecting
population in all spheres of life, whether they want it or not (supported by 12" guns of neoliberal MSM battleships):
As Figure 1.1 shows, neoliberal hegemony works to erase this line between public and private and to create an entire society
-- in fact, an entire world -- based on private, market competition. In this way, neoliberalism represents a radical reinvention
of liberalism and thus of the horizons of hegemonic struggle. Crucially, within neoliberalism, the state's function does not
go away; rather, it is deconstructed and reconstructed toward the new' end of expanding private markets. Consequently, contemporary
politics take shape around questions of how best to promote competition. For the most part, politics on both the left and right
have been subsumed by neoliberal hegemony. For example, while neoliberalism made its debut in Western politics with the right-wing
administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, leaders associated with the left have worked to further neoliberal
hegemony in stunning ways. As we will explore in more depth below and in die coming chapters, both U.S. presidents Bill Clinton
and Barack Obama have governed to create a privatized, market society. In other words, there is both a left and a right hegemonic
horizon of neoliberalism. Thus, moving beyond neoliberalism will ultimately require a whole new field of politics.
One of the most interesting part of the book is the brief analysis of the recent elections (with very precise characterization
of Hillary Clinton defeat as the defeat of the "neoliberal status quo"). The author claims that Trump supporters were mainly representatives
of the strata of the US society which were sick-and-tied of neoliberalism (note the percentage of Spanish speaking electorate
who voted for Trump), but they were taken for a ride, as instead of rejection of globalism and free movement of labor, Trump actually
represented more right wing, more bastardized version of "hard neoliberalism".
In the period which followed the elections Trump_vs_deep_state emerged as a kind of "neoliberalism in one country" -- much
like Stalin's "socialism in one country". It and did not care one bit about those who voted for him during election . As in classic
"The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go."
So in a way Trump represents the mirror image of Obama who in the same way betrayed his votes (twice) acting from "soft neoliberalism"
position, while Trump is acting from "hard neoliberalism" position.
On the other hand, we saw' the rise of the Tea Party, a right-wing response to the crisis. While the Tea Party was critical
of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was perfectly
embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-,
it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism.
Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering.
Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. There were just too many fissures and fault lines in
the glossy, cosmopolitan world of left neoliberalism and marketized equality. Indeed, while Clinton ran on status-quo stories
of good governance and neoliberal feminism, confident that demographics and diversity would be enough to win the election,
Trump effectively tapped into the unfolding conjunctural crisis by exacerbating the cracks in the system of marketized equality,
channeling political anger into his celebrity brand that had been built on saying "f*** you" to the culture of left neoliberalism
(corporate diversity, political correctness, etc.) In fact, much like Clinton's challenger in the Democratic primary, Benie
Sanders, Trump was a crisis candidate.
... ... ...
In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as
Rottenberg argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism
that has many concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism.
We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and
left neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here.
As I suggested in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled
politics of both right and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized
equality. After all, as political philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive,
left neoliberalism.
While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking
with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected
the chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."'
The ability of those in power to manipulate
the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an
inverted totalitarianism
which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered
by the interests of the common man.
In neoliberal MSM there is positive feedback loop for "Trump is a Russian agent" stories. So the meme feeds on itself.
Notable quotes:
"... And yet the trending, most high-profile stories about Trump today all involve painting him as a Putin puppet who is working to destroy America by taking a weak stance against an alarming geopolitical threat. This has had the effect of manufacturing demand for even more dangerous escalations against a nuclear superpower that just so happens to be a longtime target of U.S. intelligence agencies. ..."
"... the mass media is not in the business of reporting facts, it's in the business of selling narratives. Even if those narratives are so shrill and stress-inducing that they imperil the health of their audience. ..."
"... Trump is clearly not a Russian asset, he's a facilitator of America's permanent unelected government just like his predecessors, and indeed as far as actual policies and administration behavior goes he's not that much different from Barack Obama and George W Bush. Hell, for all his demagogic anti-immigrant speech Trump hasn't even caught up to Obama's peak ICE deportation years ..."
"... Used to be that the U.S. mass media only killed people indirectly, by facilitating establishment war agendas in repeating government agency propaganda as objective fact and promulgating narratives that manufacture support for a status quo which won't even give Americans health insurance or safe drinking water ..."
"... Now they're skipping the middle man and killing them directly by psychologically brutalizing them so aggressively that it ruins their health, all to ensure that Democrats support war and adore the U.S. intelligence community . ..."
"... The social engineers responsible for controlling the populace of the greatest military power on the planet are watching France closely, and understand deeply what is at stake should they fail to control the narrative and herd ordinary Americans into supporting U.S. government institutions. ..."
"... The ability of those in power to manipulate the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an inverted totalitarianism which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered by the interests of the common man. ..."
The always excellent Moon of Alabama blog has just
published a sarcasm-laden piece documenting the many, many aggressive maneuvers that this administration has made against the
interests of Russia, from pushing for more NATO funding to undermining Russia's natural gas interests to bombing Syria to sanctioning
Russian oligarchs to dangerous military posturing.
<picture deleted>
And yet the trending, most high-profile stories about Trump today all involve painting him as a Putin puppet who is working
to destroy America by taking a weak stance against an alarming geopolitical threat. This has had the effect of manufacturing demand
for even more dangerous escalations against a nuclear superpower that just so happens to be a longtime target of U.S. intelligence
agencies.
If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, there would be a lot less "Putin's puppet" talk and a lot more "Hey,
maybe we should avoid senseless escalations which could end all life on earth" talk among news media consumers. But there isn't,
because the mass media is not in the business of reporting facts, it's in the business of selling narratives. Even if those narratives
are so shrill and stress-inducing that they imperil the health of their audience.
Like His Predecessors
Trump is clearly not a Russian asset, he's a facilitator of America's permanent unelected government just like his predecessors,
and indeed as far as actual policies and administration behavior goes he's
not that much different
from Barack Obama and George W Bush. Hell, for all his demagogic anti-immigrant speech Trump
hasn't even caught up to Obama's peak ICE deportation years.
If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, people would be no more worried about this administration than they
were about the previous ones, because when it comes to his administration's actual behavior, he's just as reliable an upholder of
the establishment-friendly status quo as his predecessors.
Used to be that the U.S. mass media only killed people indirectly, by facilitating establishment war agendas in repeating
government agency propaganda as objective fact and promulgating narratives that manufacture support for a status quo which won't
even give Americans health insurance or safe drinking water.
They do this for a reason, of course. The Yellow Vests protests in France have continued unabated for their
ninth consecutive week , a decentralized populist uprising resulting from ordinary French citizens losing trust in their institutions
and the official narratives which uphold them.
The social engineers responsible for controlling the populace of the greatest military power on the planet are watching France
closely, and understand deeply what is at stake should they fail to control the narrative and herd ordinary Americans into supporting
U.S. government institutions. Right now they've got Republicans cheering on the White House and Democrats cheering on the U.S.
intelligence community, but that could all change should something happen which causes them to lose control over the thoughts that
Americans think about their rulers.
Propaganda is the single most-overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of human society. The ability of those in power to manipulate
the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an
inverted totalitarianism
which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered
by the interests of the common man.
The only thing that will lead to real change is the people losing trust in corrupt institutions and
rising like lions against them. That gets increasingly likely as those
institutions lose control of the narrative, and with trust in the mass media at an all-time low, populist uprisings restoring power
to the people in France, and media corporations
acting increasingly weird and insecure , that looks more and more likely by the day.
anarchyst says:
February 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT • 300 Words
The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction, period
they want their "New World Order"
Very true.
The intent of this article is to blame [neo]Liberals. I would hardly call Europe's
[neoliberal] elite liberals. A liberal would defend freedom of expression and thought. A
liberal would defend the right of an individual or group to express viewpoints that are
unpopular.
Western Europe is hardly liberal. It is ... repressive when it comes to dissent, mildly
totalitarian. Political leaders who advocate for the rights of indigenous Europeans in Europe
are persecuted and imprisoned. Political parties are banned or bankrupted.
"... This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is about saving democracy. ..."
"... The concentration of wealth parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it is economic climate change with consequences equally as dire as global warming on all lifeforms. The challenge will be no less difficult, replete with a powerful lobby of deniers and greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position. Their battle cry is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians at the gate and the demise of civilization rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger but voracious greed. ..."
"... Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social dysfunction and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery in servitude to our one percent masters. ..."
This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This
isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is about saving democracy.
The concentration of wealth parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere: it is economic climate change with consequences equally as dire as global warming
on all lifeforms. The challenge will be no less difficult, replete with a powerful lobby of
deniers and greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position.
Their battle cry is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians
at the gate and the demise of civilization rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger
but voracious greed.
Everywhere climate change deniers are being drowned out by a rational majority who now see
the signs of global warming in every weather report and understand what this means for their
children if we continue to emulate ostriches.
Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social
dysfunction and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all
of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery in servitude to our one percent
masters.
Elizabeth Warren is no nerd. She's our Joan of Arc. And it's up to us to make sure she
isn't burned alive by the dark lords as she rallies us to win back our country and our
future.
"The net worth of the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans is almost equal to that of the
bottom 90 percent combined." This describes a truly radical concentration of wealth that
should raise red flags for anyone who genuinely cares about the future of this country. How
long can such a situation last...or grow even worse...without resulting in social upheaval on
a massive scale, such as happened in France in the late 1700's or Russia in the early 1900s?
And exactly what do those 0.1 percent want so much wealth for anyway? While some people of
great wealth do try to use it to make the world a better place, far too manty of them seem
not to know what to do with it, except to let it pile up to gloat over or use it to influence
politicians to create policies that will give them even more. Proposals for higher taxes on
the very wealthy are derided as too radical. But the economic chasm that exists in this
country between the very wealthiest and everyone else represents a radical challenge that
must be addressed.
All you smarties ignored us when your Globalism took away all our jobs. Prez Clinton aimed
for middle with his love of approval. Our situation became worse so in desperation we
believed the Huckster Trump and called him our "NEW DEAL" Trump has failed us and there is a
chance for Dem government in two years. A cautious, donor friendly, middle of the road
Democratic administration just like the last one will send us on the hunt again for a leader
to save us from peonage.
@Charlie As enticing as is your suggestion, let's not lower ourselves that far down to
Tweety's "standards of behavior". Pinocchio redeemed himself in the end; Tweety never will,
and many hope he ends up sharing a cell with Bernie Madoff.
Thank you for this review of reactions from the experts -- and for the list of experts who
focus on this topic. And thank you for sharing your views. The challenge with Warren's
proposal isn't devising a good policy. The challenge will be explaining it to voters who
don't understand economics or Piketty's book. It's a voter-education problem more than an
economics problem. I wish Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez well in their efforts
to explain their proposals. It seems a tall order, but it's just the kind of medicine we
need.
Thanks to Trump we, as a nation, got to see that even Federal workers can barely get by.
This was quite a revelation for many. There has long been a stigma in this country about
sharing the truly dismal state of one's economic affairs. It's why we've made so little
progress along the lines discussed here. It's also the reason once-middle class people place
themselves in a debt spiral, to compete with others who, unbeknownst to them, are doing
likewise. There will be much more discussion now of just how unequal and insecure this
society is. The powers that be have tried to muffle the conversation for long enough. And
kudos to Wilbur Ross for opening his fat mouth and provoking everyone's ire!
@dajoebabe Another sign that ours is "a system that is the only one in the world where
such vast sums can be accumulated with so little being required in return" is the way foreign
capital is swamping our property markets because people from un-free countries are trying to
buy access to the rule of law. There aren't that many places in the world for the rich to
flee where public infrastructure and the rights of citizenship are quite as robust as here in
the US.
@Ana Luisa Amen!! Very well said. I hope you're correct in projecting that the U.S. "will
finally become an entirely civilized country too." I fear that the 'Kochtopus' will strangle
the initiatives proposed by Warren and other progressives before they can be enacted. But I
won't roll over and give up. Dr. Krugman's columns and the comments from others such as
yourself inspire me to continue to push back against the Repubs and support candidates such
as Sen. Warren. Bravo Zulu to you and all the other NYT readers who speak up to state that
the United States can strive to be the shining example of equality and fairness that does
truly function to promote governance that works for the common good of ALL U.S.
citizens.
Dr. Krugman uses the argument of "marginal utility value" as the crux of one of his
statements. Marginal utility, briefly described, is the value one might put on he first
milkshake he's had in years. Probably very high. But what about the 10th milkshake in the
same day? ("Yuck" would do nicely.) So it is with "the second $50 million", as Dr. Krugman
argues. Quite right. After a given point - depending on the individual - wealth ceases to
play an important part in one's life. Would a billionaire miss a million?... one thousandth
of his net worth? Hardly. But when arguing such a point, beware the Slippery Slope argument
(a classic fallacy). "Yeah, maybe just a million today; but tomorrow? Maybe TEN
million!!
"Taxing the superrich is an idea whose time has come -- again." Let's hope Democrats have
their ducks in a row with this legislation when they regain the presidency and full control
of Congress in 2020. And if we want to get even more radical with the "swollen" wealthy, we
could rescind their recent trillion-dollar tax cut. Perhaps that will start acclimating them
to what needs to be our new normal. We should consider cuts to our bloated defense budget as
well. We can use all of this money to shore up Social Security and Medicare, in addition to
Medicaid, and to promote more affordable public education, infrastructure to fight climate
change, and universal health care. This additional revenue is not just something we should
see as a windfall for society. In the end, it may prove to be what saves what's left of our
society.
@Mike Rowe The only people that this would effect are the people who can't afford lawyers
and accountants. I have been audited twice. Both times it turned out the government owed me
money, but the money I was owed, was eaten up because I had to pay and accountant to defend
me. Trump still has not put forward his tax documents, do you really think that adding a few
more IRS agents would change that.
@Orthoducks Let's be honest: every society that has taken away the wealth of individuals
and handed it to the government to allocate has been ruled by tyrants and has reduced their
citizenry to penury at the point of a gun. Wealthy people reinvest their money in economic
ventures that grow their wealth, which generates greater productivity while creating jobs and
wealth for the society. If there is too much concentration of wealth (there is), let's tax it
back down, but don't ever suggest that we should just take all the money from individuals
because we can. That's the route Lenin and Mao went down; I thought we had learned that
lesson.
Whether you agree with Warren's proposal or not it's a good thing that this issue is being
put out in the public domain because we've now reached the stage where income and wealth
inequality is eroding the effectiveness of the open and dynamic capitalist economy that we
all need. Some of the more perceptive of the super rich like Warren Buffett and Michael
Bloomberg have recognized this and the dangers it threatens. It was a problem recognized in
the 30's by J. M. Keynes speaking in America when he said "If the new problem of inequality
is not solved the existing order of society will become so discredited that wild, foolish and
destructive changes will become inevitable." It's worth remembering that Maduro and Chavez
before him were the products of the vast inequalities in Venezuelan society. And there are
plenty of other examples of a similar dynamic at work.
The people who don't like a wealth tax are a) very wealthy, or b) corrupt politicians, or
c) pundits who like to sound like they know everything. Yes, tax the wealthy. Even Willie
Sutton could tell you that if you want money (tax revenue) go where it is. The time is right.
They can choose: higher taxes or the guillotine.
@Shiv Taxes were at this rate in the 50's and inequality was nowhere as bad as it is now.
Undertaxing Bezos and his ilk (and the way our tax system is now set up, generally), directs
money to the CEOs and other muckety mucks, not to their employees. Republicans seem to think
that there's a "natural" (as in, arising out of nature) situation where money goes to the
person who has "earned" it. That's simply not true. The economy is a construct, created by
law and custom. And right now, the law makes sure that Bezos gets a whole lot more than he
should be getting, while his hapless employees (the folks who do the actual work) get way
less than they should.
I have admired Warren since she entered the political spectator sport. She has a lot of
guts for a woman. I gathered from your essay that only 75,000 or so Americans hold as much
wealth as the lower 90 percent of the entire population of 320,000,000 Americans. Decades
have passed since Eisenhower rightly paid down the debt of the great war. In that time,
fairly dispersed wealth trickled up to a few who employed "Trickle Down" propaganda and
political manipulation, all too often agreed to, to reduce their tax burden thereby heaping
all responsibilities of maintaining the nation on everyone but the rich. "Trickle Down
Economics" was always a lie we all saw through. Party politics, bought and paid for, happily
accepted wealthy dollars in exchange for legislation outlined by the wealthys' lobbyists. The
reality has always been "Trickle Up" and "Trickle Out" economics as American wealth is
grossly concentrated at the top. I like the taxation plan as presented. It still leaves the
filthy rich, well, filthy rich. It started as our money they now have amassed. Decades of
lies and corruption justify any new taxes on the wealthy who need to be convinced their
absent patriotism should be reestablished by law. If the wealthy are going to "Crowd Source"
America, let's make them "Crowd Pleasers". It's a great way to keep the peace. We do want
peace, don't we?
@DJS Ummm, wealthy people, no matter how well meaning or even well-acting (and there are
many who are neither), do not (or should not) be in charge of infrastructure, public health,
national defense, public education and so on. As far as "helping needy people, who never see
it," I wonder what you are thinking. I assure you that the recipients of food stamps,
unemployment, social security, medicare and medicaid benefits certainly "see" it. As do the
rest of us when we have clean air and water (currently under attack by Republicans), safe air
flight (ditto), and well-maintained roads (also ditto).
@Registered Repub (Reply to your reply to FunkyIrishman) Could you please explain how
American workers can be simultaneously 30-40% more productive than Scandinavian workers, and
all American "socialists" (which for you seems to be a synonym with Democrats, and as a
consequence refers to the majority of the American people) "lazy" ... ? And of course America
hasn't a 40% higher productivity rate than Scandinavian countries. In 2015, the US ranked
merely fifth on the OECD's productivity list - after Luxemburg, Ireland, Norway and Belgium.
A US workers adds $68 per hour to the GDP, a Danish worker half a dollar less, and a Swedish
worker $9 dollars less. And maybe Americans "own more cars and live in bigger houses", but
Norwegians are FAR happier, as all studies show. Producing tons of money as a country's
highest ideal is clearly not the best way to have a happy, healthy and well-educated
population and economy that works for all citizens. And funny enough, in the US it's
precisely the party that loves to call itself "the party of values" that indeed
systematically sees money as its main value ... http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries
/
@Paul Rogers Agree except for abolishing propaganda, which offends the First Amendment.
Better to help others recognize political manipulation and reject irrational or emotional
appeals. Thanks for your reply.
It doesn't matter whether large majorities of Americans or economists or tax experts
support a wealth tax or higher marginal rates. The only poll that matters limits itself to
535 people, the members of the House and Senate. And the net worth of those 535 people is on
average 5 times larger than that of the rest of America. Fourteen have net worths larger than
the $50 million of the proposal. Will they vote to tax themselves more? Though the number may
be small, in a contentious matter and a highly partisan and divided body, every vote
matters.
Let's start simple: close the carried interest loophole. For all the talk of Obama being
about the working class, he didn't get this done. Hedge fund guys had his administration and
Dems lobbied up to prevent closing this. So it's not just the Republicans supporting the
oligarchy. Democrats are guilty too.
Us Americans need to stop seeing ourselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, that's
the problem. I don't care how we do it, either by raising rates, closing loopholes, or both,
but the 1%, the 0.1%, and the 0.01% need to take home less money. They don't "work harder"
than the rest of us, that's complete garbage. Maybe we pass a tiered law stipulating an
allowed pay ratio between the CEO and lowest level employee, based on either company size as
the number of people, or revenue, or some other formula. Or maybe we say you get a lower tax
rate if you meet that ratio, and higher taxes if you don't. I'm glad people are moving the
overton window though.
@Taz Obama was also a moderate Republican. This time, we need a liberal. Who was the last
president to be nearly universally popular? (Except with the mega-rich) FDR. And remember
what he said about his wealthy enemies? "I welcome their hatred!"
Existing US infrastructure is so degraded, the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers)
estimates it will cost $2 trillion just to bring it back up to code. President Trump cut
taxes on the 1%, which will cost about that much in increased debt over ten years. Candidate
Trump floated the idea that this imminent infrastructure cost should be born by the 'little
people' via toll booths, as they schlep themselves to work and back each day just trying to
make their rent money. Americans need to realize something about our government: it costs
money, and that money is not in question. Someone is going to pay that bill: 'nothing is
certain but death and taxes'. As the infrastructure debate illustrates, we can either make
the wealthy pay that cost, or they will make us pay it. But somebody is going to pay it, of
that you can be sure. (Just a suggestion: that $2 trillion is just for delayed maintenance on
existing infrastructure. But that infrastructure was originally constructed, i.e. out of
nothing, back at a time when the maximum marginal income tax was over 90%).
Benjamin Franklin founded the first communally funded public hospital and library, and
Jefferson the the first communally funded public school. Both also touted the benefits of
capitalism, including Franklin in his autobiography, stressing self discipline and creativity
in business; and Jefferson famously said, paraphrasing here, that he 'admired industry and
abhorred slavery' while they touted science and technologies' advances and natural law.
Therefore, they believed in and instantiated a mixed economics plan for the future of the
nation, with both capitalist and socialist dimensions. This was over the objections and boos
of men of lesser ideals, at the time. But the founders became Founders, and the other men of
lesser ideals did not. Therefore, it is the ideals of the founders that should live on in our
country, not other ideals. We can all take a simple pride in the American Exceptionalism that
led Ben Franklin to maneuver against powerful loyalist-capitalists in the 1750's in
Pennsylvania colony, and found the first hospital in Philadelphia above their private
disbelief that it would ever work; the hospital would unquestioningly take in any and all
from off of the streets who needed assistance. The combined ideal vision of America's
founding fathers broke the mold of two-tiered monarchy capitalism, and established mixed
capitalism on the new plateau of democracy. There's no need to apologize, if we aim to
fulfill this vision in a now more pluralist America.
Simply: the USA has perhaps the largest set of overpaid, underperforming rich people the
world has ever seen. Yes, there are always rich people ... but ... at some point they realize
the only significant remaining goal is to make humankind ... well, more human. Teddy R and
Franklin R "got it", even Dwight. But certainly not Saint Ronald. Without implementation of
the Warren or other plans, we will let the rich destroy the fundamentals of society which
allowed them to become rich. Rich includes: law and order, free speech, little corruption
among police, ... children who will grow up and support the rich in their
dotage.
To me the current trend in concentration of income at the top looks like inflation. In
places like San Francisco you have to earn 7 digit incomes to be able to afford housing. In
response housing gets more expensive, and Google will have to increase your salary to make
your ends meet. So now houses will get more expensive... Of course, if you are a school
teacher, or a baker or a cashier at the supermarket, your goose is cooked. If a hedge fund
manager can afford to pay $200+ million for a penthouse where you used to live, you are going
to be homeless
The real justice of such a plan is that money could be made to move throughout the system
stimulating the economy and shared prosperity. What should be obvious to all and hopefully
will before the next election cycle is that the Dems are imaginatively searching for
solutions and coming up with great ideas.
@Baldwin - How about property tax? Tax on your same home over an over again, with the home
itself paid for with money that was already taxed. T'would be no worse than
that.
We have no hesitation in shaming those who get a dopamine rush from alcohol or from drugs
or from sex or (occasionally) from an obscene accumulation of power. But as the saying goes,
you can never be too rich or too thin. Well, that's a cultural meme not a Platonic truth, one
probably dating back to at least Freud (if not Augustine) who preferred we "sublimate" our
sexual lust for money/power lust because the latter is, at least theoretically, more
"productive" for society. Except when it isn't. And when dopamine (a/k/a/ greed) driven
plutocrats use their wealth to corrupt the system so that they can continue to accumulate
more wealth and power, it isn't. Neuter them.
It's time we ask ourselves this: What happens if we do nothing versus if we do something?
If we do nothing, we continue with a small group of family dynasties that owns everything,
whose primary commitment is only to amassing more wealth. We have a precedent for this in the
robber barons of the late 1800's. The outcome? They drove the U.S. economy off the cliff in
the 1920's. (Yes, simplified, but not much.) What happens if we do what Warren proposes -- or
something similar? More tax money to solve problems, and we need the money. We just gave
these people around $1.5 trillion in tax breaks, and the data clearly show they will not
trickle down on us. And we're not remotely addressing climate change or crumbling
infrastructure -- situations that will strain our social and economic capacity for perhaps a
century. But just as important, it would cap the capacity of 75,000 people to make all the de
facto decisions for our society. Democracy would be reinvigorated. Throw in the destruction
of Citizens United, and it would usher in a new era in America. Of course, it is guaranteed
that the ultra-rich, their super-rich pals, and the politicians they buy through Citizens
United will fight this tooth and nail. For them it would be: to the barricades! Just like
corporations, their loyalty is to themselves and their wealth, not to their
country.
Wealth Redistribution is only one of the four legs of the stool of an inclusive society.
Prof Krugman, AOC and Democrats would do well to expand the narrative to address right wing
concerns: 1. Effective government spending on public services that improve welfare and
national wealth and risk taking and knowledge generation (eg NASA) that the private sector
just wont do - root out inefficiencies in the system, ensure incentives for productivity are
maximized and keep operations lean and accountable to society. 2. Campaign finance reform:
mandate air time for election coverage as a public good and give parties public funds and
budget ceilings to ensure a level playing field. Also ensure redistricting makes all races
competitive scross party lines as the preeminent rule. Eliminate the electoral college and
moderately shift senate power to more populous states. 3. Equalise access to educational
opportunities by removing the link between geography and housing and education quality and
massively supporting early education programmes across the board. Improve educational
outcomes to ensure the majority of society is capable of critical thinking. 4. Redistribute
wealth and limit the power of elites to tilt the system in their favour: both in government
policy and in how the judicial system operates (no more a la carte legal representation
quality based on ability to pay).
@Michael Who says it will be changed? You? Progressive taxation is not seizing assets.
Without it a modern state cannot function. And the AMT came into existence because of the
efforts of people like Donald Trump to evade taxation.
Income inequality along with climate change are the two BIG issues that need to be
addressed. The rollback in the progressive income tax that began with Ronald Reagan needs to
be reversed. The proposals by Sen. Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Steven Rattner in
today's Times need to be debated and carefully evaluated. But, there are related issues that
are relevant to this debate concerning how to cope with automation and artificial
intelligence that will dramatic effect the labor market for those still struggling for decent
paying jobs. Democrats must not lose sight of their base--blue-collar, lower- and
middle-class voters still struggling with wage stagnation and the loss of manufacturing jobs.
That's where Hillary Clinton lost the last election, and while Democrats may feel good about
taxing the rich, they must not forget the 99 plus percent who are still in need of
help.
I feel this is exactly what this country needs. The rich have become richer and seem to
demand more and more. Time to stop this incredible greed and put some of those dollars back
to work in the country. Hopefully all of the Dems will agree with this.
Excellent article and kudos to Elizabeth Warren. On top of her and AOC's proposals I would
add a 100% inheritance tax on estates over $1M. This isn't my idea but that of my favorite
law school professor: the taxee doesn't care because s/he's dead; any money passed on to
children is a complete windfall to them. Let's end the aristocracy.
The time has got to be ripe for these kinds of proposals. The primary source of
unhappiness in the working class throughout the western world is the feeling of being left
behind and not having their problems addressed. In the US we need to fix our crumbling
infrastructure, provide a livable minimum wage and universal health care. These goals can
easily be achieve by addressing the outrageous accumulation of wealth by the top 1%.
Implement Warren's plan, AOC's 70% tax, tax capital gains the same as income, and add a 1%
fee on all stock trades. The money the rich are hoarding needs to be invested in the
betterment of society. That would truly make America great again.
@Alice...Inflation has been low and stable for 20 years and quantitative easing has had no
effect on it, despite the forecasts of most right-wing economists. If you knew anything about
macroeconomics you would be aware that in the past some governments have had serious
struggles with the control of inflation.
It's a sad, very sad day, when in order to have a very brief but concrete idea about what
Warren just proposed, you have to read an op-ed, not a NYT article, as that article just
skips the very content of her speech and instead focuses on what most MSM constantly focus
on: a politician as an individual wanting a career in DC, and whether this or that will
advance or hurt that career (supposedly based not on policy but "likability"). MSM, I really
hope that this time you will do your job! That Trump and the lying GOP won the 2016 elections
is as much due to Fox News constant barrage of fake news as to MSM's tendency to
systematically silence the most relevant facts (most of the time not in order to distort the
truth, as Trump falsely claims, but simply because of their "small" concept of political
journalism, which often seems closer to a sports match report than to a way to build a truly
informed and engaged democratic civil society, even though that's precisely the crucial job
of the fourth branch of government, in a democracy).
@Linda Helping the poor seems to be your prescription for salvation. But what hope is
there for those who don't help the poor when they actually made and continue to make people
poor?
It's the T word that hangs people up. On any given day, the paper wealth of billionaires
can gain or lose one or two percent based on the fluctuations of the stock market. They
happily play the numbers to stabilize -- and hopefully improve -- their portfolios, but they
manage to take the lumps without having to alter their lavish lifestyles. They're fixated on
control, which they believe is stolen from them by big government. But in the long run, they
really don't feel the pain on a personal level. Let 'em be taxed.
Bully for Elizabeth Warren! Take the time to read or skim the engaging books she has
written about the economic plight of the American family---available on Amazon, and in your
local library.
If her bid for the nomination fails the winning candidate should commit to her being their
Treasury secretary. She knows how to reform and tame finance.
@Ana Luisa Hillary totally ignored the blue-collar voters in the Midwest "blue wall"
states and did not advocate for stronger unions. In fact, she never agreed with the
progressive proposal for a $15/hr. minimum wage. She was a centrist, establishment, Wall
Street candidate who picked a center-right running mate rather than uniting the party by
picking a progressive like Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. The election NEVER should have been
close, but Clinton was out-of-touch with the working class and most Sanders progressives--and
it cost her.
@carlyle 145 This has nothing to do with globalism, and everything with the fact that for
too long, many people didn't vote, allowing the GOP to fire up their base with fake news and
as such force Democrats in DC to move more and more to the right, each time they had to
compromise with the GOP because "we the people" didn't give them the votes to control DC. And
in a democracy, ALL real, radical, lasting, democratic progress is step by step progress. So
as long as progressives don't see that Democrats' are their natural allies and simply wait
until someone comes along who claims to be able to single-handedly change everything
overnight, it's the lying GOP and their Big Money corruption that will continue to destroy
the country. Conclusion: stop "hunting for a leader to save us", in a democracy only "we the
people" can save us. So instead of standing at the sidelines yelling "not enough!" to those
fighting in the mud each time they managed to get us one step closer to the finish line,
start focusing on that finish line too, then roll up your sleeves and come standing in the
mud too, and then the next step forward will be taken much faster
"... Nonetheless we've had a vote and decided that we will indeed go ahead and make these changes. Sorry about your luck. What? You don't agree! Don't you believe in democracy? You hypocrite you! ..."
We appreciate that you have built a successful career and/or business under the prevailing
laws, and that changing these laws would cause the destruction and/or appropriation of much
of your wealth (while costing us little).
Nonetheless we've had a vote and decided that we
will indeed go ahead and make these changes. Sorry about your luck. What? You don't agree! Don't you believe in democracy? You hypocrite you!
"... The point of this practice is to propagate lies into the public consciousness. It's a method that can be used to distract and disseminate and divide. The accuracy of the statement is immaterial. ..."
"... The point is, once it has been said it cannot be unsaid. There are countless examples: "Assange was working for Russia", "Trump ordered Cohen to lie to Congress", "Russia hacked the US election", "Donald Trump worked for the KGB", "Assad gassed his own people", "Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite". The list goes on and on and on. None these have been proven. All were asserted without evidence, fiercely defended as facts, and then discretely qualified. ..."
"... The lie was told, the audience laughed, the reality was created. "Labour are behind in the polls, anybody who says otherwise is a laughingstock" . The lie goes around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on. That's why fake news is so important to them, and so dangerous us. ..."
Trump has been a disappointment to his base and is yet to implement half the policies he discussed on the campaign trail, but
he's not fully and totally being controlled by the warhawking Deep State yet, either. His policy of peace with North Korea and decisions
to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan show that there is a tug-of-war ongoing inside the administration. It's probably no coincidence
that this latest of many "bombshells" comes so quickly
on the heels of Trump's announcement of the Syria withdrawal. Careful "leaks", planted stories and social media witch-hunts remind
Trump how precarious his position is, whilst simultaneously distracting the public – both pro-Trump and anti-Trump – from real issues.
The case-specific "why?" doesn't matter so much as the general aim of this type of manipulation. The important question
is: Why does the media tell lies if they know they will be revealed as such? Clearly, the lies serve a purpose, regardless of their
retraction or qualification. Telling a lie loudly and then taking it back quietly is an old propaganda trick – it allows the paper
to maintain a facade of "accountability".
The point of this practice is to propagate lies into the public consciousness. It's a method that can be used to distract
and disseminate and divide. The accuracy of the statement is immaterial.
The point is, once it has been said it cannot be unsaid. There are countless examples: "Assange was working for Russia", "Trump
ordered Cohen to lie to Congress", "Russia hacked the US election", "Donald Trump worked for the KGB", "Assad gassed his own people",
"Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite". The list goes on and on and on. None these have been proven. All were asserted without evidence,
fiercely defended as facts, and then discretely qualified.
That is the purpose of "fake news", to forge the Empire's
"created
reality" , and force us all to live in it. These are world-shaping, policy-informing, news-dominating narratives and are nothing
but feathers in the wind .
A perfect exemplar of this occurred just two days ago on the BBC's flagship Political debate show Question Time :
me title= The (notionally impartial) host not only sided with right-wing author Isabel Oakeshott in criticising
Labour's polling, but then joined in mocking the Labour MP Diane Abbott for attempting to correct the record. Both Oakeshott and
Fiona Bruce, the host, were
factually incorrect – as shown a hundred times over since. But that doesn't matter.
The lie was told, the audience laughed, the reality was created. "Labour are behind in the polls, anybody who says otherwise
is a laughingstock" . The lie goes around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on. That's why fake news is so important
to them, and so dangerous us.
Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He used to write for fun, but now
he's forced to out of a near-permanent sense of outrage.
"... In addition, Trump is a pretend President. He doesn't control his own government. Hell, a single judge anywhere in the hinterlands evidently has the power to veto pretty much whatever the Trumpster does. It's clear that the real power resides in the hands of the Ruling Class, most of whom are unelected and unaccountable. Judges. Bureaucrats. Regulators. The Deep State. They now run the show. ..."
Great article and right on target. In fact, we don't have a real democracy anymore. We have a
Potemkin Village democracy. Our national legislature is paralyzed and impotent. And honestly,
that's the way its membership likes it. Pretend to govern. Hold tight to the seats of
privilege and status.
In addition, Trump is a pretend President. He doesn't control his own government. Hell, a
single judge anywhere in the hinterlands evidently has the power to veto pretty much whatever
the Trumpster does. It's clear that the real power resides in the hands of the Ruling Class,
most of whom are unelected and unaccountable. Judges. Bureaucrats. Regulators. The Deep
State. They now run the show.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media plays the role of Orwell's Squealer the Pig from Animal
Farm. Propagandists. Purveyors of fake news and fake truth. This is not going to end well.
The only question is how and when the ending comes.
"... is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs. ..."
So what is really happening -- in the U.K. and the U.S.?
The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact, it is better thought of as a
blind sociological event. There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being
groomed to have the same opinions or at least saying they do.
Link Bookmark What has happened in the UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is
the
success of the long
march through the institutions . That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite (
politicians ,
mediafolk , teachers etc) who are overwhelmingly Politically Correct internationalists. And
it's those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.
How did it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s Rudi Dutschke,
echoing the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , put forward
the idea whereby societies could be subverted
from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain
positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be enough of such people to change the
policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones. That point was reached in
the UK at least 50 years ago and the Politically Correct stranglehold on our society is now
complete.
The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit and even
overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures, denigrate their own
societies, traduce the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the
pernicious Totalitarian creed of Cultural Marxism which has "anti-racism" (in reality
anti-white racism) at its heart. The last brick in the Politically Correct building is the
increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who refuses to toe the line -- increasingly
including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.
That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a
revolt against that mentality.
Most MPs overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result by promising
it in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of the
legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for its implementation.
But by doing so, MPs forfeited their right to do anything other honour the result of the
referendum. That applies just as much to Remainer MPs as Leaver MPs.
Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed Remainers with power and influence (including
many MPs and peers in the House of Lords) has shattered utterly the idea that the UK is a fully
functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered
an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite -- an elite in
the UK whose general political ideas are largely held in common and go against the interests
and wishes of most of the electorate.
None of this should be a surprise. The sad truth: the central political question in all
Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive
tendencies of the elite?
Robert Henderson [ Email him ]is a retired civil servant living in
London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness.
He runs the Living In A
Madhouse and England Calling
blogs.
A great man once wrote that the "big lie" had a force of credulity among the broad masses, as
the latter were wont to engage in lying about minor quotidian matters of little or no
significance while the big lies were engaged in by the mainstream press, dominated by the
usual tribal suspects.
It was the case with blaming General Ludendorff for Germany's defeat, and it is the same
case today, 100 years after the fact.
The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state
spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become
more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance relies upon the lever of public
credulity and kosher Newspeak.
What the unconditional and incorrigible Trumpetistas do not realize is that those of us- a
very large plurality of of Trump supporters- voted for him because he was not Hillary Clinton
and had pledged to keep us out of foreign wars. We will neither support, nor abet, foreign
wars for the sake of Israel, whether they are started by Trump or anyone else. Intervention
in Syria against the Assad regime is a no go. Trump cannot hope to compare himself to Assad,
since the latter has formed a real and effective alliance against the Christian hating head
choppers with Russia and Iran. Trump is totally clueless with respect to geopolitics. He is a
rank amateur.
It makes complete sense if one simply looks at the British Establishment's prior behavior of
intentionally starting world wars at the order of the Society of the Elect. It's all in the
CFR's archives. Their guilt in starting WW1 is emphatically admitted and documented in
roughly the first 200 pages of the following book. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf
"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.
Good article.
The Skipnal affair has been an utter disgrace from day one. May & Boris are a shame on
the UK fully reminesent of that utter dog, Blair.
The fact that the msm still babbles on about Russia & Skipnal is indicative of their
monumental contempt for the public & factual balanced reporting .well what's new, I guess
?
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
These ridiculous, suicidal gas attacks by Assad seem to coincide not only with battleground
victories against the head-choppers, but co-incidentally with Israel's murderous attacks on
unarmed Palestinians "throwing stones".
What nobody seems to have picked up is the emphasis – and red lines – on Gas;
gas, gas attacks. Why is gas so much worse than being dismembered, disembowelled, and
mutilated by high explosives? Certainly I would favour unconsciousness and death by gas
before being smashed to pieces by depleted uranium.
These relentlessly repeated claims are an exercise with the dual purpose of providing a
subliminal message about the greatest tragedy in human history, repeated ad nauseam. The
massive 'gassing' of European Jews some 65 years ago. Lest we forget.
Compared with the Litvinenko umbrella attack with its tip having been dipped in an Amazonian
Indians' style curare variant of Polonium the intelligence level of the MI6 & CIA seems
to have hit the ground with the twofold miracle of the dead being raised. Now the miracles
are posing a big problem for the demonizers of Russia & President Putin: how to spirit
these two living & talking people away, who have returned from the dead, where they were
supposed to be so safe and well for all truth-loving investigators. This whole story seems to
unfold like a Jesus Christ Superstar sequel with James Bond appetizers having been added. At
present the roles have been reversed: the Russians being the champions of free will and the
Western intelligence services being the Joker.
Until some kind of sanity returns to this planet and war mongering gangsters like the Bush
and Clinton Mobs, Blair, Obama and a host of Pentagon generals, along with their boot-licking
MSM are indicted, tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes, found guilty and
sentences carried out, there will be no peace on Earth, just an endless series of False
Flags, hysterical reactions by the ones who were behind the False Flags and more wars.
It does look rather like those Syrian chemical weapon attacks that happen whenever the rebels
are about to be defeated.
I am pretty sure that it was not ordered within the British government and that most of
the British government don't know where it came from, but are willing to believe it was
Russia.
While the CIA does have plenty of form on assassinations, the risk if they were found to
be assassinating in Britain seems quite high due to the close CIA links with the UK
intelligence sector. But CIA agents could have paid someone else to do it.
Mossad is the one group that can act freely in the UK, has a record of assassinating
scientists, engineers etc here, and unlike CIA, can take the risk of being caught. So it's a
possibility – OTOH Israel has shown a lot less anti-Russian hatred than the US Deep
State has.
Normally I'd assume it was indeed Russia – I thought there was plenty of evidence
the Polonium poisoning was Russia – and it still seems possible, but US or Mossad must
be at least equally likely in this case. It's just possible it could have been British
initiated but I doubt it.
I do think it's most likely the person who actually poisoned them was not an employee of
any agency.
Theresa May as more evil than Bill Clinton? That will sound odd to some, but I think it is
true. Hillary is the pure evil half of the Clinton marriage. Bill is simply charming and
filled with a desire to amass enough power to have a group adore him as he finds new panties
to explore.
May is English, and she has the very long line of Brit Empire secret service evil at her
disposal. And her move is a bold one. What it means is that she is signaling that at least if
she is PM, the UK could replace the US as Fearless Leader of the actual New World Order,
which is the WASP Empire with Israel and worldwide Jewry as Junior Partner #1 and Saudi
Arabia elevated to Junior Partner #2 in an insane attempt to make Israel secure forever.
The English have never been happy that the lowly Americans leaped them as A-#1 of the WASP
Empire, and being English they have no permanent alliances, no permanent allies, not even kin
(perhaps especially kin – which type and degree of ruthlessness impresses all
Semites).
This alliance was sealed by none other than the very epitome of WASP culture: Mr.
Archetypal WASP himself, Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-Saxon alliance with Jews precisely to
wage wars against non-WASP white Christians was the logical (and inevitable if WASP culture
were to acquire large scale political power) .
By the Victorian era, virtually all Elite Brit WASPs were knowing philoSemites. The new
twist was that a growing number of them were becoming obsessed with Arabs and/or Islam.
decades before the Balfour Declaration, the Brit WASP Elites were wrangling among themselves
over how best to use the largest and wealthiest Empire in world history to express its
philoSemtism.
The solution recently agreed upon was to elevate the Saudis. The assumption is that as the
Saudis control the actual land of Mohammed, if they are elevated to suzerainty over not
merely all Arabs but the entire Islamic Middle East, then the entire Islamic world can be
controlled, including to allow Israel to exist in 'peace.'
And that means all that oil is under the indirect, but very firm, control of the WASP
Empire, or as The Saker calls it: the Anglo-Zionist Empire.
Of course, the Saudi royal family is the most amorally vicious power party in the Middle
East. They would slaughter half the Sunni Arabs in order to become unrivaled suzerain over
the entire Islamic world. Such monstrousness makes the House of Saud exactly the type partner
that those who control the WASP Empire want as partners.
The Russians are in the way of that beautiful plan of world domination. Russians have
common sense and, much worse, they express it, even publicly. Russians know that Sunni Islam
is a much worse threat to the world than is Shiite Islam. The Russians know that the Iranians
are much more honorable and moral than are the Saudis. The Russians know that as bad as the
Turks are, they are more honorable and trustworthy than the Saudis.
And the Russians also know that the Anglo-Zionist Empire would be tickled pink to make all
non-WASP Elite whites – all in the world – a permanent serf class, treated the
way Cromwell treated the Irish, the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians.
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that
did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both
as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.
The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The
Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur
attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet,
it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give
unanimous bipartisan assent.
@Giuseppe
Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did
it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively
controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up
journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are
going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by
Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
@DESERT
FOX Agreed to all you said, but I would include the assassination of JFK and his brother,
and likely Martin Luther King Jr.
And each time they took out a great American, they used that assassination to push a
destructive narrative: With the killing of MLK they pinned the killing on a white southern
man, thus pushing their white hate narrative.
With 9/11 is was all about stoking hate of Muslims
These creatures lie as easily as breath, and they have all the money in the world to push
their lies.
@jacques
sheete The intent of my post was to show that the MSM here is conformist and doesn't like
to stray far from what the USG is claiming and what other journalists are writing. Rather
than explore the topics you raise, as worthy of exploration as they might be, I thought I'd
offer what newspapers around the USA were saying about Saddam's WMD after Powell's UNSC
speech; seems a bit more germane.
The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable.
The Wall Street Journal
Piling fact upon fact, photo upon photo Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
methodically demonstrated why Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remains dangerous to his own
people, Iraq's neighbors
The Los Angeles Times
On Wednesday, America's most reluctant warrior, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
presented succinct and damning evidence of Saddam's enormous threat to world peace.
Arizona Republic
Saddam Hussein's illicit arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, as well as the
equally illicit means that he possesses to deliver them, poses a tangible and urgent danger
to U.S. and world security. Millions of innocent lives are at risk.
Dallas Morning News
At some point, the world chooses to believe President George W. Bush and Secretary Powell
or the international community chooses to side with Saddam Hussein and those who broadcast
his lies to the world. Powell has painstakingly presented a strong case against Iraq.
Greenville News/South Carolina
Iraq is busted. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the case clearly. No one
hearing Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council could doubt Iraq's
actions and intentions.
Jacksonville Times-Union/Florida
The threat is real and at our door. Sept. 11, 2001, stripped away the belief that the
United States can peacefully coexist with evil. Prove it, they said. Powell has.
Charleston Daily Mail/West Virginia
We are a country always loath to fight unless provoked. The reluctance of Americans to
initiate a war needlessly does the nation credit. But this is not a needless war, nor is it
unprovoked. Powell laid out the need, and explained the provocation, in step-by-step fashion
that cannot be refuted without resorting to fantasy.
Chicago Sun-Times
The Dispatch repeatedly has called on the Bush administration to make a compelling case
that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction and hiding these
efforts from U.N. inspectors. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell made that case
before the Security Council.
Columbus Dispatch
Powell has methodically proved Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. mandates. With each
passing day, Iraq's own choices move it closer to a war that full compliance would
prevent.
Indianapolis Star
Secretary of State Colin Powell's 90-minute presentation to the U.N. Security Council,
buttressed with surveillance photographs and recorded phone conversations, should remove all
doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has developed and hides weapons of mass destruction, in
violation of U.N. resolutions.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council presented not just one 'smoking gun' but a
battery of them, more than sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt about the threat the
Iraqi dictator poses.
Denver Post
The United States has made a compelling case that Iraq has failed to rid itself of weapons
of mass destruction. This failure violates the U.N. Security Council resolution of late last
year which ordered Iraq to disarm. As a consequence and it is a grave one, the Security
Council must act now to disarm Iraq by force.
Salt Lake City Tribune
Powell has connected enough dots to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda and show that this alliance is a
threat to all of Europe as well as the United States.
Manchester Union Leader
In fact, the speech provided proof that Saddam continues to refuse to obey U.N.
resolutions. Any amount of time he has now to comply fully and openly with U.N. demands
should be measured in days or a few weeks – and no longer.
"... The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States
has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist
its domination. ..."
"... The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with
continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism.
The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making
it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic. ..."
"... By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized
of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that
they have learned to control". ..."
"... Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because
of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.
..."
According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks,
as summarized at Wikipedia,the United
States has two main totalizing dynamics:
The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United
States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any
state to resist its domination.
The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization",
with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component
of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people
feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism provides the ground work for my suspicions regarding faux populists Obama and Trump:
By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized
of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections
that they have learned to control".
Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state
because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate
subsidies.
Some highlights from this thread (no names, no pack drill):
Populism is a kickback and correction to the forty years of political correctness where
the white masses of Europe and America were forbidden by the liberal establishment to be
their real selves
People are fed up with the elite consensus because of the failures of the elites.
Perhaps the reason that "populism" is thriving is that the liberal elites who ruled us
in the entire post war period became complacent out of touch with those they were meant to
represent.
there are millions of others whose voices have been ignored or silenced by the
mainstream news
We are disenfranchised by what the elites are saying because the elites control the
narrative in a way that makes sure the power will always reside with them.
The MSM has always been biased-
Why is democracy booming the article asks.
Well because the lies and bullshit of the liberal elite are there for all to see.
Take a look at what the MSM refuses to report, or what it deliberately distorts,
You can see the problem. It's like they are all reading from the same limited script which
has been handed to them. Given the freedom to express our opinions, we are regurgitating what
someone else has told us to say.
Maybe we should not be too pessimistic. The levels of opportunity for expression that the
internet and social media have given us might currently have exceeded our ability to think
critically about whatever bullshit we are being fed, but future generations may be better.
After all, it's only a small step from doubting whatever mainstream thought tells you, to
starting to wonder who is telling you to doubt those things and why and then to actually go
back and think for yourself about the issues.
So Corbyn and Trump are the same because they both have shirts. Well, color me
convinced!
Like so many of these articles -- including the long but uninformative 'long read' on the
same topic -- there is no mention of the failures of the elites.
Clinton sold us a false bill of goods. The Washington Consensus on economics would make
the country richer and, after some 'pain', would benefit the working class. Sure you wouldn't
be making cars but after some retraining you would work in tech.
This was a broken promise -- de industrialization has devastated the upper midwest. The
goods are made in China and the money goes to Bezos. People are rightly upset.
The Washington Consensus on war sold us a false bill of goods. Instead of peace through
strength we have seen a century of endless conflict. We have been caught in state of constant
killing since 2001 and we are no safer for it. Indeed the conflicts have created new enemies
and the only solution on offer is a hair of the dog solution.
People are fed up with the elite consensus because of the failures of the elites. Nowhere
are the repeated failures of the elites, the decades of broken promises mentioned in the
articles. Instead, those of us who prefer Sanders to Clinton, Corbyn to Blair are mesmerized
by emotional appeals and seduced by simplistic appeals to complex problems. And they wonder
why we don't accept their analyses . . .
TL;DR -- clickbait didn't get us here. The broken promises of the Washington consensus
did.
"... This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. ..."
"... They are CIA assets who do what they're told. ..."
"... There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true. ..."
"... Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness. ..."
"... I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness. ..."
"... If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants. ..."
"... The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil. ..."
"... Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down. ..."
"... "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics." ..."
"... I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment. ..."
"... "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man ..."
Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how
false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online
can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.
Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit
of blame to people in general. Not holding my breath.
I fully agree with this sentiment. The only reason the evil bastards who control our
society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to
lunch on the most important issues of our time. If the sheeple were to take responsibility to
inform themselves of what is happening today they would be able to see the lies they are
being constantly exposed to as just that -- lies. And then, they could put down the beer and
turn off the damn sports channel and get angry at what has happened to their country.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for ignorant people to remain
ignorant.
This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European
elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or
corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation"
associations.
There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per
cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt.
They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask
if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea
from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true.
This is the perfect environment for the virus of groupthink to spread.
And since our leaders, both on the left and the right, may be ahead of the curve on drug
usage the neocons and the politically correct may use antidepressants at greater levels than
10 per cent.
Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety
(because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness.
I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to
violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the
"basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically
induced madness.
If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the
water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to
antidepressants.
@Gordon
Pratt I think you are mistaken trying to rationalize the behavior of the political class
and their puppet masters. I believe the real driver are not antidepressants, but an obscene
greed, which is so blinding that it made MIC profiteers forget that to enjoy the fruits of
their thievery they have to be alive.
The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness
is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked
numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees,
become orphans and all other manner of evil.
Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous
groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all
this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being
stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march
everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for
being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down.
"I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in
pursuit of politics."
I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely
that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a
genius comment.
TDS is a convenient shorthand for this form of disconnect from reality. That said it is
absolutely fascinating to see and puzzle over this geopolitical tectonic event. The old
narrative is crumbling, with the result that people like Lauri are fighting desperately to
preserve their "sanity", dependent as it is on their tribal submission to the old order and
its old narrative (its timeworn lies).
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
Max Planck
By which he means that people persist in believing in those "truths" (their belief system)
they have held for a lifetime. Only when they die out will a new, revised belief system
replaced the old. The same in geopolitics as in science.
American dementia is not new. It is current but after the false flags of almost all of our
(US) wars going back as far as the Barbary Pirates, Americans have thrived on being the good
guys in an evil world. We are SO GOOD, and the world thinks we are perfect and want to be
part of US so much, that any other thought is treasonous.
The fact that getting along with Russia is necessary to NOT create armageddon, is
irrelevant to the typical citizen because no matter how wrong, we are blessed and perfect in
the eyes of the gawd we pretend to believe in.
"There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the
political analogue of Gresham's Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of
circulation. There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist.
What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to
characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom
the law binds but does not protect...
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.
"... Yes, its far better than the "first past the post" systems of the UK and the US where the number of votes split between two almost identical candidates can lead to a far different candidate winning with only a little over a third of the total vote. ..."
Proportional representation is definitely the way to go. I am sick to death of the
born-to-rule mentality of the major parties, and how they change the rules to benefit
themselves and to exclude others.
Minority government? There is no such thing - there is only 'government', and it is
supposed to involve all members of parliament in the decision-making process. 'Majority'
governments are an anathema to good governance. Every time I hear the likes of Tony Abbott
claim they have a mandate to implement ALL their policies, even though they only receive
around 35% of the primary vote, I want to throw something at the TV.
Bugger them! Make them work for a living - and make them consider ALL views, not just the
ones from their own party.
Preferences are an extremely good feature of our voting system
Yes, its far better than the "first past the post" systems of the UK and the US where the
number of votes split between two almost identical candidates can lead to a far different
candidate winning with only a little over a third of the total vote.
Preferential voting also makes it more possible for the major party duopoly being
overturned, allowing people to vote for a good independent without taking the risk of helping
a despised major party candidate from winning by default.
"The problem with representative democracy is that it represents the special interest groups
far more than it represents the citizenry." You are spot on.
What a logical and stirring argument you put forward Richard Denniss, and a large majority of
the electorate would have to agree.
However there is also a large number of people in the electorate that cannot appear to rise
from their nightly slumber without wearing their Blue, Red, Green or Orange tinted glasses
before facing the new day.
And because of this, and preferential voting, sneaking in the background is a plethora of the
wild mindless sub creatures called politicians who demand their rights to sit in the big
white building on Canberra;s Capital Hill, just waiting to spoil not only the electorate's
party but also known to prostitute the country's governance to their own advantage.
Richard, we desperately need a follow up stirring article on how to overcome this black
menace to our country, for the sake of our country.
If you think the public has an appetite for more bureaucrats, more rules and regulations to
micromanage people's lives and even more political wheeling and dealing in Canberra, you
should get out more.
That the coalition government is on the slide is of no long term consequence. We'll get a
Labor government next year and in a few years another coalition government and so on.
What is of long term significance is the loss of public trust in pretty much all of the
institutions - including goverment and the various government agencies that would be more
powerful under your scenario.
The problem with representative democracy is that it represents the special interest
groups far more than it represents the citizenry. Perhaps the solution lies in more direct
democracy.
The same sex marriage plebiscite demonstrated that we commoners can deliberate on a
sensitive issue, and in doing so behave far better than our elected representatives in
Parliament. And can make a sensible and progressive decision that our elected representatives
could not - both coalition and Labor MPs had opposed same sex marriage when it was raised in
th e Parliament.
The internet provides a platform for direct decision making by the citizenry. Perhaps we
should try that instead of what you are suggesting.
It's been clear for years that proportional representation has progressively meant death to
effective government, and that it forces major parties policy development further to the
political fringes to appeal to the fruit loops on the periphery of their respective
demographics. Time for a return to simple preferential voting (a-la-house of Reps) in the
senate, and an overhaul of what's considered a valid ballot - if you want to only rank 1, 2,
3 or all candidates it should be entirely your choice.
Hung parliaments, with diametrically opposed clumps of "independents" jointly holding the
balance of power can only ever deliver legislative stasis and constant political turmoil (as
we have experienced since 2010 and Europe and the US have suffered for the last decade).
Oh for the good old days when one or the other of the major parties held a working
majority in both houses, and policy was targeted at the 'sensible centre" of the Australian
electorate. At worst, they only had to deal with a couple of sensible Democrats, and the odd
lunatic fringe-ist like Harradine.
"... I find the Australian electoral system very mediocre. All those people who vote but really don't get represented. All those votes that just get mopped up by the major parties. I really can't understand why Australians have put up with such a poor system for so long. ..."
Having spent many years in a New Zealand under a First Past the Post system
and then Mixed Member Proportional, I am an enthusiastic supporter of proportional systems.
I
find the Australian electoral system very mediocre. All those people who vote but really
don't get represented. All those votes that just get mopped up by the major parties. I really
can't understand why Australians have put up with such a poor system for so long.
Hettie7-> melbournesam 31 Oct 2018 00:45
Proportional representation makes the most sense. Each party gets the same percentage of seats in the parliament as it
received votes in the election. That really is fair.
"... The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects, was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution ..."
"... Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services. ..."
"... To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction." ..."
"The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects,
was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great
Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response
to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were
inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution that had occurred less than two decades before.
American capitalism could afford to make such concessions because of its economic
dominance. The past forty years have been characterized by the continued decline of American
capitalism on a world stage relative to its major rivals. The ruling class has responded to
this crisis with a social counterrevolution to claw back all gains won by workers. This has
been carried out under both Democratic and Republican administrations and with the assistance
of the trade unions.
Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have
pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate
bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services.
To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a
green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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 £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.
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 £168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and £250,000 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
"... 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.
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.
"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.
"... At the time the eligible voters were males of European descent (MOED), and while not highly educated they were relatively free of propaganda and IQ's were higher than today. After giving women the right to vote and with other minorities voting the MOED became a minority voter. ..."
"... So today with propaganda and education being what it is, not to mention campaign financing laws especially post Citizen United, and MSM under control of 6 companies, the entire voting class is miseducated and easily influenced to vote for candidates chosen by the elites ..."
"... The founders who incited the revolution against British rule were the American Elites (also British citizens) who wanted more. The elites today got everything they want. They have no need for revolution. The common folk are divided, misinformed, unorganized, leaderless and males are emasculated. Incapable of taking control peacefully or otherwise. ..."
"... This was the high-tariff-era and the budget surplus was an issue all through the balance of the 19th Century. So what were the politics about? 1. Stirring stump (Trump) speeches were all about "waving the bloody shirt" ..."
"... In my view of the fundamental dynamic - namely that of history being one unbroken story of the rich exploiting the poor - representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be madness. ..."
The constitution was a creation of the elite at the time, the property class. Its mission was to prevent the common folk from
having control. Democracy=mob rule= Bad.
The common folk only had the ability to elect representatives in the house, who in turn would elect Senators. Electors voted
for President and they were appointed by a means chosen by the state legislature , which only in modern times has come to mean
by the popular vote of the common folk. Starting from 1913 it was decided to let the common folk vote for Senator and give the
commonfolk the illusion of Democracy confident they could be controlled with propaganda and taxes (also adopted in 1913 with the
Fed)
At the time the eligible voters were males of European descent (MOED), and while not highly educated they were relatively
free of propaganda and IQ's were higher than today. After giving women the right to vote and with other minorities voting the
MOED became a minority voter.
Bernays science of propaganda took off during WWI, Since MOED's made up the most educated class (relative to minorities and
women) up to the 70's this was a big deal for almost 60 years , although not today when miseducation is equal among the different
races, sexes and ethnicities.
So today with propaganda and education being what it is, not to mention campaign financing laws especially post Citizen
United, and MSM under control of 6 companies, the entire voting class is miseducated and easily influenced to vote for candidates
chosen by the elites
So how do the common folk get control over the federal government? That is a pipe dream and will never happen. The founders
who incited the revolution against British rule were the American Elites (also British citizens) who wanted more. The elites today
got everything they want. They have no need for revolution. The common folk are divided, misinformed, unorganized, leaderless
and males are emasculated. Incapable of taking control peacefully or otherwise.
Pft has a point. If there was ever a time for the people to take the republic into its hands, it may have been
just after the Civil War when the Dems were discredited and the Repubs had a total control of Congress.
This was the high-tariff-era and the budget surplus was an issue all through the balance of the 19th Century.
So what were the politics about? 1. Stirring stump (Trump) speeches were all about "waving the bloody shirt"
All manner of political office-seekers devoted themselves to getting on the government gravy train, somehow.
The selling of political offices was notorious and the newspaper editors of the time were ashamed of this.
Then there was the Whiskey Ring. The New York Customs House was a major source of corruption lucre.
Then there was vote selling in blocks of as many as 10,000 and the cost of paying those who could do this.
Then there were the kickbacks from the awards of railroad concessions which included large parcels of land.
If there ever was a Golden Age of the United States it must have been when Franklin Roosevelt was President.
karlof1 @ 34 asked:"My question for several years now: What are us Commonfolk going to do to regain control of the federal government?"
The only thing us "common folk" can do is work within our personal sphere of influence, and engage who you can, when you can,
and support with any $ you can spare, to support the sites and any local radio stations that broadcast independent thought. (
if you can find any). Pacifica radio, KPFK in LA is a good example. KPFA in the bay area.
Other than another economic crash, I don't believe anything can rouse the pathetic bovine public. Bread and circuses work...
The division of representative power and stake in the political process back at the birth of the US Constitution was as you
say it was. But this wasn't because any existing power had been taken away from anyone. It was simply the state of play back then.
Since that time, we common people have developed a more egalitarian sense of how the representation should be apportioned.
We include former slaves, all ethnic groups and both genders. We exclude animals thus far, although we do have some - very modest
- protections in place.
I think it has been the rise of the socialist impulse among workers that has expanded this egalitarian view, with trade unions
and anti-imperialist revolutions and national struggles. But I'm not a scholar or a historian so I can't add details to my impression.
My point is that since the Framers met, there has been a progressive elevation of our requirements of representative government.
I think some of this also came from the Constitution itself, with its embedded Bill of Rights.
I can't say if this expansion has continued to this day or not. History may show there was a pinnacle that we have now passed,
and entered a decline. I don't know - it's hard to say how we score the Internet in this balance. It's always hard to score the
present age along its timeline. And the future is never here yet, in the present, and can only ever be guessed.
In my view, the dream of popular control of representative government remains entirely possible. I call it an aspiration rather
than a pipe dream, and one worth taking up and handing on through the generations. Current global society may survive in relatively
unbroken line for millennia to come. There's simply no percentage in calling failure at this time.
It may be that better government comes to the United States from the example of the world nations, over the decades and centuries
to come. Maybe the demonstration effect will work on us even when we cannot work on ourselves. We are not the only society of
poor people who want a fair life.
In my view of the fundamental dynamic - namely that of history being one unbroken story of the rich exploiting the poor - representative
government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the
predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be
madness.
"representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect
it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up
now would be madness."
Here, here! I fully agree with you.
In my opinion, representative government was stronger in the U.S. from the 1930's to the 1970's and Europe after WW2. And as
a result the western world achieved unprecedented prosperity. Since 1980, the U.S. government has been captured by trans-national
elites, who, since the 1990's have also captured much of the political power in the EU.
Both Europe and the U.S. are now effectively dictatorships, run by a trans-national elite. The crumbling of both is the result
of this dictatorship.
Prosperity, and peace, will only return when the dictators are removed and representative government is returned.
"Both Europe and the U.S. are now effectively dictatorships, run by a trans-national elite. The crumbling of both is the result
of this dictatorship."
Exactly!! I feel like the Swedish knight Antonius Block in the movie the 7th Seal. There does not seem any way out of this
evil game by the death dealing rulers.
Love it. But you fad3d at the end. It was Gingrich, not Rodham, who was behind Contract on America, and GHWBush's Fed Bank
group wrote the legislation that would have been Bush's second term 'kinder, gentler' Gramm-Leach-Bliley bayonet up the azs of
the American Dream, as passed by a majority of Congress, and by that point Tripp and Lewinski had already pull-dated Wild Bill.
God, can you imagine being married to that hag Rodham? The purple people-eating lizards of Georgetown and Alexandria. Uurk.
I'm reading a great FDR book, 'Roosevelt and Hopkins', a signed 1st Ed copy by Robert Sherwood, and the only book extant from
my late father's excellent political and war library, after his trophy wife dumped the rest of his library off at Goodwill, lol.
They could have paid for her next booblift, ha, ha, ha.
Anyway, FDR, in my mind, only passed the populist laws that he did because he needed cannon fodder in good fighting shape for
Rothschild's Wars ("3/4ths of WW2 conscripts were medically unfit for duty," the book reports), and because Rothschild's and Queens
Bank of London needed the whole sh*taco bailed out afterward, by creating SS wage-withholding 'Trust Fund' (sic) the Fed then
tapped into, and creating Lend-Lease which let Rothschilds float credit-debt to even a higher level and across the globe. Has
it all been paid off by Germany and Japan yet?
Even Lincoln, jeez, Civil War was never about slavery, it was about finance and taxation and the illegitimate Federal supremacy
over the Republic of States, not unlike the EU today. Lincoln only freed the slaves to use them as cannon fodder and as a fifth
column.
All of these politicians were purple people-eating lizards, except maybe the Kennedy's, and they got ground and pounded like
Conor McGregor, meh?
"representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect
it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give
up now would be madness."
Compare to: Sentiments of the Nation:
12º That as the good Law is superior to every man, those dictated by our Congress must be such, that they force constancy and
patriotism, moderate opulence and indigence; and in such a way increase the wages of the poor, improve their habits, moving away
from ignorance, rapine and theft.
13º That the general laws include everyone, without exception of privileged bodies; and that these are only in the use of the
ministry..
14º That in order to dictate a Law, the Meeting of Sages is made, in the possible number, so that it may proceed with more
success and exonerate of some charges that may result.
15. That slavery be banished forever, and the distinction of castes, leaving all the same, and only distinguish one American
from another by vice and virtue.
16º That our Ports be open to friendly foreign nations, but that they do not enter the nation, no matter how friendly they
may be, and there will only be Ports designated for that purpose, prohibiting disembarkation in all others, indicating ten percent.
17º That each one be kept his property, and respect in his House as in a sacred asylum, pointing out penalties to the offenders.
18º That the new legislation does not admit torture.
19º That the Constitutional Law establishes the celebration of December 12th in all Peoples, dedicated to the Patroness of
our Liberty, Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe, entrusting to all Peoples the monthly devotion.
20º That the foreign troops, or of another Kingdom, do not step on our soil, and if it were in aid, they will not without the
Supreme Junta approval.
21º That expeditions are not made outside the limits of the Kingdom, especially overseas, that they are not of this kind yet
rather to spread the faith to our brothers and sisters of the land inside.
22º That the infinity of tributes, breasts and impositions that overwhelm us be removed, and each individual be pointed out
a five percent of seeds and other effects or other equally light weight, that does not oppress so much, as the alcabala, the Tobacconist,
the Tribute and others; because with this slight contribution, and the good administration of the confiscated goods of the enemy,
will be able to take the weight of the War, and pay the fees of employees.
Temple of the Virgen of the Ascencion
Chilpancingo, September 14, 1813.
José Mª Morelos.
23º That also be solemnized on September 16, every year, as the Anniversary day on which the Voice of Independence was raised,
and our Holy Freedom began, because on that day it was in which the lips of the Nation were deployed to claim their rights with
Sword in hand to be heard: always remembering the merit of the great Hero Mr. Don Miguel Hidalgo and his companion Don Ignacio
Allende.
Answers on November 21, 1813. And therefore, these are abolished, always being subject to the opinion of S. [u] A. [alteza]
S. [very eminent]
"... 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.
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?
Peter T: contrariwise, if it is that as you say "There's
surely a reasoned case to be made that hierarchies are essential to complex societies" and
"someone has to be at the top and therefore someone else at the bottom", is it legitimate to
suspect that a fair proportion (not all, of course) of those advocating progressive change
believe that after the defeat of the evil conservative forces, there will still be an essential
hierarchy, only they will be on top?
"is it legitimate to suspect that a fair proportion (not all, of course) of those advocating
progressive change believe that after the defeat of the evil conservative forces, there will
still be an essential hierarchy, only they will be on top?"
Usually yes, but they will be benevolent so we don't have to worry about them. That is why
there are a lot of naïve progressive rule proposals that make me want to scream "what if
someone less pure than the purest person you ever met gets a hold of it"? Though I usually
just say "what if Ralph Nader were in charge ?", but that is admittedly trolling. For the
most current example see the EU copyright rules. The same people who complain about
conservative twitter mobs think that telling facebook, twitter, and google to automatically
screen out copyright violations and somehow automatically allow fair use of copyright is
going to work out well.
I suck at guessing at malignant uses of technology and I can already see the Russian
copyright upload experts getting prominent left wing voices tied up in interminable
litigation over political speeches. Or some troll reporting the entire internet as
copyrighted in one paragraph increments. Or the speech censorship discussions. Dissolving
free speech norms is 1000% more likely to be used against left wing voices than right wing
ones if they get mainstreamed.
In our present moment, the "protection of aristocracy against the agency of the
subordinate classes" has transmuted to "protection of the free market as a way for any
subordinate person to ascend by personal effort into the modern open aristocracy."
That is a very deep observation. Thank you!
Protection of inequality as a "natural human condition" is the key to understanding both
conservatism and neoliberalism. The corresponding myth of social mobility based on person's
abilities under neoliberalism (as Napoleon Bonaparte observed "Ability is of little account
without opportunity" and the opportunity is lacking under neoliberal stagnation -- the
current state of neoliberalism ) is just icing on the cake.
As soon as you accept Hayek sophistry that the term "freedom" means "the freedom from
coercion" you are both a neoliberal and a conservative. And if you belong to Democratic
Party, you are a Vichy democrat ;-)
"is it legitimate to suspect that a fair proportion (not all, of course) of those
advocating progressive change believe that after the defeat of the evil conservative forces,
there will still be an essential hierarchy, only they will be on top?"
In a way yes ;-)
Neoliberalism/conservatism means that the state enforces the existing hierarchy and
supports existing aristocracy ("socialism for rich"). If you deny the existence of a flavor
of the Soviet nomenklatura (aristocracy in which position in social hierarchy mainly depends
on their role in the top management of government or corporations, not so much personal
fortune) in the USA, you deny the reality.
So the question is not about hierarchy per se, but about the acceptable level of
"corporate socialism" and inequality in the society.
The progressive change means the creation of the system of government which serves as a
countervailing force to the private capital owners, curbing their excesses. I would say that
financial oligarchy generally should be treated as a district flavor of organized crime.
The key issue is how to allow a decent level of protection of the bottom 90% of the
population from excesses of unfettered capitalism and "market forces" and at the same time
not to slide into excessive bureaucracy and regulation ("state capitalism" model).
For a short period after WWII the alliance of a part of state apparatus, upper-level
management, and trade unions against owners of capital did exist in the USA (New Deal
Capitalism). In an imperfect form with multiple betrayals and quick deterioration, but still
existed for some time due to the danger from the USSR
Around 80th the threat from USSR dissipate, and the upper-level management betrayed their
former allies and switched sides which signified the victory of neoliberalism and dismantling
of the New Deal Capitalism.
After the USSR collapse (when Soviet nomenklatura switched to neoliberalism) the financial
oligarchy staged coup d'état in the USA (aka "Quiet Coup") and came to the top.
We need depose this semi-criminal gang. Of course, the end of "cheap oil" will probably
help.
Some, but a "fair proportion"? Probably not. Advocacy of progressive causes usually
involves punching up – an inherently more dangerous occupation than punching down.
People forget that the older nomenklatura won their positions in World War II, when being a
commissar meant leading from the front, being shot out of hand by the Germans, rallying the
partisans in mountain villages to another desperate defence and similar. Survivor bias
– we don't see the dead.
In more genteel times, the outspoken progressive will often face social ostracism, lack of
promotion, attacks in the conservative press
Human motives are complex – no doubt there were confederates who genuinely believed
the fight was for states rights, and no doubt there are libertarians who genuinely believe
that the poor will have it much better in a free market utopia. I doubt the proportion,
either counting individuals or in the swirl inside minds, is very large, but there's always
some.
Now we're making progress Thomas. The Berkowitz definition is sleazy, and sets up anyone not
conservative as an amoral lump in need of guidance, or worse still as dangerous to society.
Perhaps that's why Hayek (a supposedly type b conservative) had his opponents thrown out of
helicopters. Or was that Friedman?
The appeal of conservatism and it's electoral success is easily explained. Because their
real ideology is just treachery, theft and rape they need to hide these ideas from normal
people, who already in general support the moral ideas fundamental to civilized society
regardless of their politics. So they hide their true agenda through appeals to racism, or by
cloaking themselves in the type b definition (isn't this robins point?!) In doing this they
benefit from the work of yeomen like you, who insist that conservatism is a real moral
project rather than banditry. In most countries they also only win when the left is divided,
and only when their elite friends are pouring money into corrupt media. If they didn't have
these advantages, these lies, and help from people like you they would never succeed.
I focus on Trump et Al because they are the leaders of your sect,the people who sell your
ideas (manafort was a campaign manager ffs), and the people who turn the ideology into
action. Didn't you learn in primary school to judge people by their actions, not their words?
And why would I ignore these particular conservatives because they're "vulgar clowns"? You're
all dangerous, vulgar clowns.
"... "Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties -- chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps ..."
"... And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and predatory. ..."
Thomas Frank's new collection of essays: Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a
Sinking Society (Metropolitan Books 2018) and Listen, Liberal; or,Whatever
Happened to the Party of the People? (ibid. 2016)
To hang out with Thomas Frank for a couple of hours is to be reminded that, going back to
1607, say, or to 1620, for a period of about three hundred and fifty years, the most archetypal
of American characters was, arguably, the hard-working, earnest, self-controlled, dependable
white Protestant guy, last presented without irony a generation or two -- or three -- ago in
the television personas of men like Ward Cleaver and Mister Rogers.
Thomas Frank, who grew up in Kansas and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, who
at age 53 has the vibe of a happy eager college nerd, not only glows with authentic Midwestern
Nice (and sometimes his face turns red when he laughs, which is often), he actually lives in
suburbia, just outside of D.C., in Bethesda, where, he told me, he takes pleasure in mowing the
lawn and doing some auto repair and fixing dinner for his wife and two children. (Until I met
him, I had always assumed it was impossible for a serious intellectual to live in suburbia and
stay sane, but Thomas Frank has proven me quite wrong on this.)
Frank is sincerely worried about the possibility of offending friends and acquaintances by
the topics he chooses to write about. He told me that he was a B oy Scout back in Kansas, but
didn't make Eagle. He told me that he was perhaps a little too harsh on Hillary Clinton in his
brilliantly perspicacious "Liberal Gilt [ sic ]" chapter at the end of Listen,
Liberal . His piercing insight into and fascination with the moral rot and the hypocrisy
that lies in the American soul brings, well, Nathaniel Hawthorne to mind, yet he refuses to say
anything (and I tried so hard to bait him!) mean about anyone, no matter how culpable he or she
is in the ongoing dissolving and crumbling and sinking -- all his
metaphors -- of our society. And with such metaphors Frank describes the "one essential story"
he is telling in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "This is what a society looks like when the
glue that holds it together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when
they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses
through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on
their power to accumulate" ( Thomas Frank in NYC on book tour https://youtu.be/DBNthCKtc1Y ).
And I believe that Frank's self-restraint, his refusal to indulge in bitter satire even as
he parses our every national lie, makes him unique as social critic. "You will notice," he
writes in the introduction to Rendezvous with Oblivion, "that I describe [these
disasters] with a certain amount of levity. I do that because that's the only way to confront
the issues of our time without sinking into debilitating gloom" (p. 8). And so rather than
succumbing to an existential nausea, Frank descends into the abyss with a dependable flashlight
and a ca. 1956 sitcom-dad chuckle.
"Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans
Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion
: "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the
fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties --
chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the
tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things
like derivative securities and smartphone apps " (p. 178).
And it is his analysis of this "Creative Class" -- he usually refers to it as the "Liberal
Class" and sometimes as the "Meritocratic Class" in Listen, Liberal (while Barbara
Ehrenreich uses the term " Professional Managerial Class ,"and Matthew Stewart recently
published an article entitled "The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy" in the
Atlantic ) -- that makes it clear that Frank's work is a continuation of the profound
sociological critique that goes back to Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class
(1899) and, more recently, to Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites (1994).
Unlike Veblen and Lasch, however, Frank is able to deliver the harshest news without any
hauteur or irascibility, but rather with a deftness and tranquillity of mind, for he is both in
and of the Creative Class; he abides among those afflicted by the epidemic which he diagnoses:
"Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory health care
providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to accommodate its
new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not of the sons of
toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge economy's winners: the
Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall Street titans who gave so
much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class' that truly gets the power of
education. They are a 'creative class' that naturally rebels against fakeness and conformity.
They are an ' innovation class ' that just can't stop coming up with awesome new stuff" (
Listen, Liberal , pp. 27-29).
And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this
Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its
techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic
and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and
predatory.
The class that now runs the so-called Party of the People is impoverishing the people; the
genius value-creators at Amazon and Google and Uber are Robber Barons, although, one must
grant, hipper, cooler, and oh so much more innovative than their historical predecessors. "In
reality," Frank writes in Listen, Liberal ,
.there is little new about this stuff except the software, the convenience, and the
spying. Each of the innovations I have mentioned merely updates or digitizes some business
strategy that Americans learned long ago to be wary of. Amazon updates the practices of
Wal-Mart, for example, while Google has dusted off corporate behavior from the days of the
Robber Barons. What Uber does has been compared to the every-man-for-himself hiring
procedures of the pre-union shipping docks . Together, as Robert Reich has written, all these
developments are 'the logical culmination of a process that began thirty years ago when
corporations began turning over full-time jobs to temporary workers, independent contractors,
free-lancers, and consultants.' This is atavism, not innovation . And if we keep going in
this direction, it will one day reduce all of us to day laborers, standing around like the
guys outside the local hardware store, hoping for work. (p. 215).
And who gets this message? The YouTube patriot/comedian Jimmy Dore, Chicago-born,
ex-Catholic, son of a cop, does for one. "If you read this b ook, " Dore said while
interviewing Frank back in January of 2017, "it'll make y ou a radical" (Frank Interview Part 4
https://youtu.be/JONbGkQaq8Q ).
But to what extent, on the other hand, is Frank being actively excluded from our elite media
outlets? He's certainly not on TV or radio or in print as much as he used to be. So is he a
prophet without honor in his own country? Frank, of course, is too self-restrained to speculate
about the motives of these Creative Class decision-makers and influencers. "But it is ironic
and worth mentioning," he told me, "that most of my writing for the last few years has been in
a British publication, The Guardian and (in translation) in Le Monde Diplomatique
. The way to put it, I think, is to describe me as an ex-pundit."
Frank was, nevertheless, happy to tell me in vivid detail about how his most fundamental
observation about America, viz. that the Party of the People has become hostile to the
people , was for years effectively discredited in the Creative Class media -- among the
bien-pensants , that is -- and about what he learned from their denialism.
JS: Going all the way back to your 2004 book What's the Matter with Kansas? -- I
just looked at Larry Bartels's attack on it, "What's the Matter with What's the Matter with
Kansas?" -- and I saw that his first objection to your book was, Well, Thomas Frank says the
working class is alienated from the Democrats, but I have the math to show that that's false.
How out of touch does that sound now?
TCF: [laughs merrily] I know.
JS: I remember at the time that was considered a serious objection to your
thesis.
TCF: Yeah. Well, he was a professor at Princeton. And he had numbers. So it looked
real. And I actually wrote a response to
that in which I pointed out that there were other statistical ways of looking at it, and he
had chosen the one that makes his point.
JS: Well, what did Mark Twain say?
TCF: Mark Twain?
JS: There are lies, damned lies --
TCF: [laughs merrily] -- and statistics! Yeah. Well, anyhow, Bartels's take became
the common sense of the highly educated -- there needs to be a term for these people by the
way, in France they're called the bien-pensants -- the "right-thinking," the people who
read The Atlantic, The New York Times op-ed page, The Washington Post op-ed page,
and who all agree with each other on everything -- there's this tight little circle of
unanimity. And they all agreed that Bartels was right about that, and that was a costly
mistake. For example, Paul Krugman, a guy whom I admire in a lot of ways, he referenced this
four or five times.
He agreed with it . No, the Democrats are not losing the white working class outside the
South -- they were not going over to the Republicans. The suggestion was that there is
nothing to worry about. Yes. And there were people saying this right up to the 2016
election. But it was a mistake.
JS: I remember being perplexed at the time. I had thought you had written this brilliant
book, and you weren't being taken seriously -- because somebody at Princeton had run some
software -- as if that had proven you wrong.
TCF: Yeah, that's correct . That was a very widespread take on it. And Bartels was
incorrect, and I am right, and [laughs merrily] that's that.
JS: So do you think Russiagate is a way of saying, Oh no no no no, Hillary didn't really
lose?
TCF: Well, she did win the popular vote -- but there's a whole set of pathologies out
there right now that all stem from Hillary Denialism. And I don't want to say that Russiagate
is one of them, because we don't know the answer to that yet.
JS: Um, ok.
TCF: Well, there are all kinds of questionable reactions to 2016 out there, and what
they all have in common is the faith that Democrats did nothing wrong. For example, this same
circle of the bien-pensants have decided that the only acceptable explanation for
Trump's victory is the racism of his supporters. Racism can be the only explanation for the
behavior of Trump voters. But that just seems odd to me because, while it's true of course that
there's lots of racism in this country, and while Trump is clearly a bigot and clearly won the
bigot vote, racism is just one of several factors that went into what happened in 2016. Those
who focus on this as the only possible answer are implying that all Trump voters are
irredeemable, lost forever.
And it comes back to the same point that was made by all those people who denied what was
happening with the white working class, which is: The Democratic Party needs to do nothing
differently . All the post-election arguments come back to this same point. So a couple
years ago they were saying about the white working class -- we don't have to worry about them
-- they're not leaving the Democratic Party, they're totally loyal, especially in the northern
states, or whatever the hell it was. And now they say, well, Those people are racists, and
therefore they're lost to us forever. What is the common theme of these two arguments? It's
always that there's nothing the Democratic Party needs to do differently. First, you haven't
lost them; now you have lost them and they're irretrievable: Either way -- you see what I'm
getting at? -- you don't have to do anything differently to win them.
JS: Yes, I do.
TCF: The argument in What's the Matter with Kansas? was that this is a
long-term process, the movement of the white working class away from the Democratic Party. This
has been going on for a long time. It begins in the '60s, and the response of the Democrats by
and large has been to mock those people, deride those people, and to move away from organized
labor, to move away from class issues -- working class issues -- and so their response has been
to make this situation worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it
gets worse! And there's really no excuse for them not seeing it. But they say, believe,
rationalize, you know, come up with anything that gets then off the hook for this, that allows
them to ignore this change. Anything. They will say or believe whatever it takes.
JS: Yes.
TCF: By the way, these are the smartest people! These are tenured professors at Ivy
League institutions, these are people with Nobel Prizes, people with foundation grants, people
with, you know, chairs at prestigious universities, people who work at our most prestigious
media outlets -- that's who's wrong about all this stuff.
JS: [quoting the title of David Halberstam's 1972 book, an excerpt from which Frank uses
as an epigraph for Listen, Liberal ] The best and the brightest!
TCF: [laughing merrily] Exactly. Isn't it fascinating?
JS: But this gets to the irony of the thing. [locates highlighted passage in book] I'm
going to ask you one of the questions you ask in Rendezvous with Oblivion: "Why are
worshippers of competence so often incompetent?" (p. 165). That's a huge question.
TCF: That's one of the big mysteries. Look. Take a step back. I had met Barack Obama.
He was a professor at the University of Chicago, and I'd been a student there. And he was super
smart. Anyhow, I met him and was really impressed by him. All the liberals in Hyde Park --
that's the neighborhood we lived in -- loved him, and I was one of them, and I loved him too.
And I was so happy when he got elected.
Anyhow, I knew one thing he would do for sure, and that is he would end the reign of
cronyism and incompetence that marked the Bush administration and before them the Reagan
administration. These were administrations that actively promoted incompetent people. And I
knew Obama wouldn't do that, and I knew Obama would bring in the smartest people, and he'd get
the best economists. Remember, when he got elected we were in the pit of the crisis -- we were
at this terrible moment -- and here comes exactly the right man to solve the problem. He did
exactly what I just described: He brought in [pause] Larry Summers, the former president of
Harvard, considered the greatest economist of his generation -- and, you know, go down the
list: He had Nobel Prize winners, he had people who'd won genius grants, he had The Best and
the Brightest . And they didn't really deal with the problem. They let the Wall Street
perpetrators off the hook -- in a catastrophic way, I would argue. They come up with a health
care system that was half-baked. Anyhow, the question becomes -- after watching the great
disappointments of the Obama years -- the question becomes: Why did government-by-expert
fail?
JS: So how did this happen? Why?
TCF: The answer is understanding experts not as individual geniuses but as members
of a class . This is the great missing link in all of our talk about expertise. Experts
aren't just experts: They are members of a class. And they act like a class. They have loyalty
to one another; they have a disdain for others, people who aren't like them, who they perceive
as being lower than them, and there's this whole hierarchy of status that they are at the
pinnacle of.
And once you understand this, then everything falls into place! So why did they let the Wall
Street bankers off the hook? Because these people were them. These people are their peers. Why
did they refuse to do what obviously needed to be done with the health care system? Because
they didn't want to do that to their friends in Big Pharma. Why didn't Obama get tough with
Google and Facebook? They obviously have this kind of scary monopoly power that we haven't seen
in a long time. Instead, he brought them into the White House, he identified with them. Again,
it's the same thing. Once you understand this, you say: Wait a minute -- so the Democratic
Party is a vehicle of this particular social class! It all makes sense. And all of a sudden all
of these screw-ups make sense. And, you know, all of their rhetoric makes sense. And the way
they treat working class people makes sense. And they way they treat so many other demographic
groups makes sense -- all of the old-time elements of the Democratic Party: unions, minorities,
et cetera. They all get to ride in back. It's the professionals -- you know, the professional
class -- that sits up front and has its hands on the steering wheel.
* * *
It is, given Frank's persona, not surprising that he is able to conclude Listen,
Liberal with a certain hopefulness, and so let me end by quoting some of his final
words:
What I saw in Kansas eleven years ago is now everywhere . It is time to face the obvious:
that the direction the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a
failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health . The Democrats posture as the
'party of the people' even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and
glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege
in a way that Americans find stomach-turning . The Democrats have no interest in reforming
themselves in a more egalitarian way . What we can do is strip away the Democrats' precious
sense of their own moral probity -- to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge
that righteousness is always on their side . Once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal
virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. (pp. 256-257).
"... 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.
"... Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites and social engineering. ..."
Here is my take on the priorities of the deep state and its public face – the
MSM:
stopping the deplorable rebellion
cutting off the head of the rebellion – perceived as Trump
reinstating the Cold War in an effort to derail Rusisa's recovery and international
leadership role
bitch slapping China
The rest involves turning unsustainable debt into establishment of a feudal world
comprised of elites living on Mount Olympus, legions of vassals and a vast sea of cerebrally
castrated peasants to serve as a reservoir for any imaginable exploitation.
Upon further reflection, Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the
deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding
the deep state elites and social engineering.
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.
"... 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?
"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. ..."
"... The War on Terror ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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.
In a conversation with the Financial Times last week, Henry Kissinger made a highly
significant remark about President Donald Trump's attempt to improve the United States'
relations with Russia. The conversation took place in the backdrop of the Helsinki summit on
July 16. Kissinger said: "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from
time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn't
necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could
just be an accident."
Kissinger did not elaborate, but the drift of his thought is consistent with opinions he has
voiced in the past – the US' steady loss of influence on global arena, rise of China and
resurgence
of Russia necessitating a new global balance .
As far back as 1972 in a discussion with Richard Nixon on his upcoming trip to China,
signifying the historic opening to Beijing, Kissinger could visualize such a rebalancing
becoming necessary in future. He expressed the view that compared with the Soviets (Russians),
the Chinese were "just as dangerous. In fact, they're more dangerous over a historical period."
Kissinger added, "in 20 years your (Nixon's) successor, if he's as wise as you, will wind up
leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese."
Kissinger argued that the United States, which sought to profit from the enmity between
Moscow and Beijing in the Cold War era, would therefore need "to play this balance-of-power
game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to
discipline the Russians." But in the future, it would be the other way around.
Of course, Kissinger is not the pioneer of US-Russia-China 'triangular diplomacy'. It is no
secret that in the 1950s, the US did all it could to drive a wedge between Mao Zedong and
Nikita Khrushchev. The accent was on isolating "communist China". Khrushchev's passion for
'peaceful co-existence' following his summit with Dwight Eisenhower in 1959 at Camp David
became a defining moment in Sino-Soviet schism.
But even as Sino-Soviet schism deepened (culminating in the bloody conflict in Ussuri River
in 1969), Nixon reversed the policy of Eisenhower and opened the line to Beijing, prioritizing
the US' global competition with the Soviet Union. The de-classified Cold-War archival materials
show that Washington seriously pondered over the possibility of a wider Sino-Soviet war. One
particular memorandum of the US State Department recounts an incredible moment in Cold War
history – a KGB officer querying about American reaction to a hypothetical Soviet attack
on Chinese nuclear weapons facilities.
Then there is a memo written for Kissinger's attention by then influential China watcher
Allen S. Whiting warning of the danger of a Soviet attack on China. Clearly, 1969 was a pivotal
year when the US calculus was reset based on estimation that Sino-Soviet tensions provided a
basis for Sino-American rapprochement. It led to the dramatic overture by Nixon and Kissinger
to open secret communications with China through Pakistan and Romania.
Will Putin fall for Trump's bait? Well, it depends. To my mind, there is no question Putin
will see a great opening here for Russia. But it will depend on what's on offer from the US.
Putin's fulsome praise for Trump on North Korean issue and the latter's warm response was a
meaningful exchange at Helsinki, has been a good beginning to underscore Moscow's keenness to
play a broader role in the Asia-Pacific.
Beijing must be watching the 'thaw' at Helsinki with some unease. The Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesperson welcomed the Helsinki summit. But the mainstream assessment by Chinese
analysts is that nothing much is going to happen since the contradictions in the US-Russia
relations are fundamental and Russophobia is all too pervasive within the US establishment.
The government-owned China Daily carried an editorial – Has the meeting
in Helsinki reset US-Russia relations? – where it estimates that at best, "
Helsinki summit represents a good beginning for better relations between the US and Russia."
Notably, however, the editorial is pessimistic about any real US-Russia breakthrough, including
on Syria, the topic that Putin singled out as a test case of the efficacy of Russian-American
cooperation.
On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party tabloid Global Times featured an editorial
giving a stunning analysis of what has prompted Trump to pay such attention ("respect") to
Russia -- China
can learn from Trump's respect for Russia . It concludes that the only conceivable
reason could be that although Russia is not an economic power, it has retained influence on the
global stage due to military power:
Trump has repeatedly stressed that Russia and the US are the two biggest nuclear powers
in the world, with their combined nuclear arsenal accounting for 90 percent of world's total,
and thus the US must live in peace with Russia. On US-Russia relations, Trump is
clearheaded.
On the contrary, if the US is piling pressure on China today, it is because China, although
an economic giant, is still a weak military power. Therefore:
China's nuclear weapons have to not only secure a second strike but also play the role
of cornerstone in forming a strong deterrence so that outside powers dare not intimidate
China militarily Part of the US' strategic arrogance may come from its absolute nuclear
advantage China must speed up its process of developing strategic nuclear power Not only
should we possess a strong nuclear arsenal, but we must also let the outside world know
that China is determined to defend its core national interests with nuclear power.
Indeed, if the crunch time comes, China will be on its own within the Kissingerian triangle.
And China needs to prepare for such an eventuality. On the other hand, China's surge to create
a vast nuclear arsenal could make a mockery of the grand notions in Moscow and Washington that
they are the only adults in the room in keeping the global strategic balance.
"To my mind, there is no question Putin will see a great opening here for Russia."
So, what exactly can Trump offer Russia? Letting them "win" in Syria, when the Syrian
people, lead by Assad and aided by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, have already won?
Perhaps, it is the return of bankrupt and banderised Ukraine? Now that would be a
prize!
Perhaps, Trump could offer the withdrawal of NATO forces from Russia's borders and a
place in the "international community"? That worked out well in the 90s, didn't it?
Maybe, relief from sanctions could be the clincher? That would rescue the "tattered"
Russian economy, wouldn't it?
The Nixon to China gambit by Trump ignores the stark reality that Trump is in office but
not in power. The entire media and the "intelligence community" has been angling to
impeach him since his election, and they may well succeed after the mid-terms.
Why would Putin and loyal Russians take any offer to dump China seriously?
Besides, Putin and loyal Russians have seen through the true reasons behind what can only
be called anti Russian RACIST hysteria.
Its not ideological or cultural. It is an ancient urge: Russia must submit to the
US/EU/NATO Borg Collective, or be destroyed. Could anyone have missed the rant in the US
media, incited by the "intelligence community", which just happened to be "thrown under
the bus", by Trump, just because he met Putin?
Trump is also going to be the victim of the same urge.
He cannot be controlled, so he must be destroyed.
Simples!
The Yanks will start their endless electioneering soon, four years is nothing, the
dolts start the game going for new president years berfore the election date. Sure they
hate any nation that stands-up to them they actually beleive they have a god-given righ
to rule the world as they spread their sick ways around the globe calling them freedom?
choice?, playing one nation against the other is an old game, lets hope Russia never
crosses China, as together they can keep the war-monger, nation-destroyer two faced snake
USA in check.
"Why would Putin and loyal Russians take any offer to dump China seriously?"
There is not even room for that question. Russia is STRATEGIC partner of China and
they never contemplate under no circumstances to have that differently.... Whoever thinks
Russia might take some offer in consideration to turn against China is DEAD WRONG.
"... 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 .
"... 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 .
"... 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.
The iron law became a central theme in the study of organized labour , political parties , and pluralist
democracy in the postwar era. Although much of this scholarship basically confirmed Michels's
arguments, a number of prominent works began to identify important anomalies and limitations to the
iron law framework. Seymour Lipset , Martin Trow,
and James
Coleman 's analysis of the International
Typographical Union (ITU), for example, showed that sustained union democracy was possible
given printers' relative equality of income and status, mastery of communication skills, and
generalized political competence, which underpinned the ITU's unusual history of enduring
two-party competition (Independents and Progressives), which mirrored the American two-party system . In the
party literature, Samuel Eldersveld argued that the power of organizational elites in Detroit
was not nearly as concentrated as the iron law would suggest. He found party power relatively
dispersed among different sectors and levels, in a "stratarchy" of shifting coalitions among
component groups representing different social strata.
"... 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 "
Probably not so much to short-circuit democratic process that was short-circuited long before
them, but clearly they acted as the guardians of the neoliberal state.
Which confirm the iron law of oligarchy in the most direct way: not only the elite gradually
escapes all the democratic control, they use their power as oranized minority to defend the
status quo, not stopping at the most dirty dirty methods.
Russia-gate is becoming FBI-gate, thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages
between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous
girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Ten illustrative texts from their exchange appear at the end
of this article.)
Despite his former job as chief of the FBI's counterintelligence section, Strzok had the
naive notion that texting on FBI phones could not be traced. Strzok must have slept through
"Surity 101." Or perhaps he was busy texting during that class. Girlfriend Page cannot be happy
at being misled by his assurance that using office phones would be a secure way to conduct
their affair(s).
It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding
texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they
thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us. However, for
the never-Trump plotters in the FBI, the official release of just a fraction (375) of almost
10,000 messages does incalculably more damage than that.
We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were
trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context
the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to
rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community,
shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State.
... ... ...
Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has
been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of
breathless searching for "evidence" of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the
White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama
administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time
gumshoes used to call "means, motive and opportunity."
"... Both cases, the inclusive and the extractive, tend to reinforce themselves through time by a process known as institutional drift. This is an historical tendency for institutions to maintain, strengthen, and reproduce themselves over time similar to the biological processes involved in genetic drift. ..."
"... Importantly the authors also take the time to mention Robert Michel's seminal idea concerning the iron law of oligarchy ..."
"... Neo-Paternalism ..."
"... The Origins of Political Order. ..."
"... In short, much like the earlier Michel, Fukuyama sees present day democracies drifting towards ever more nepotistic patterns of behavior where elites seize power and reward and distribute the fruits of that power to their close associates within their networks of influence. ..."
"... In effect, both men, see, as did Marx before them, the "constitutional democracies" as a sham as a kind of theater behind which the levers of power are exercised authoritatively with little regard to the true interests of the masses below them. ..."
"... In such an environment of centralized elite control, "media openness" can do little to rout out the opaque workings of carefully, surreptitiously orchestrated power. ..."
What are the necessary elements for the success of a modern nation state?
According to one justifiably popular and well-written book, Why Nations
Fail , it all has to do with inclusive political and economic institutions which
foster technological change which in turn leads to increasing prosperity for the many.
Two key aspects upholding such institutions are a strong centralized state and the rule of
law. Without these two, a nation cannot hope to advance socially, politically, or
economically. The negative of this rosy picture are nations which maintain and promote extractive
political and economic institutions which serve the interests of a narrow elite.
Both cases, the inclusive and the extractive, tend to reinforce themselves through time by a
process known as institutional drift. This is an historical tendency for institutions
to maintain, strengthen, and reproduce themselves over time similar to the biological processes
involved in genetic drift.
Importantly the authors also take the time to mention Robert Michel's seminal idea
concerning the iron law of oligarchy which explains the historically documented
tendency that large, complex organizations of any kind (democratic, socialist, conservative)
fall under the sway of a small elite exercising absolute if cosmetically hidden power.
Our authors optimistically suggest that this law is not destiny and can be
sufficiently controlled by ever expanding democratic institutions in civil society.
Opposed to this buoyant idea of increasing mass prosperity and political participation is
Francis Fukuyama's discussion of Neo-Paternalism in his thought provoking magnum opus
The Origins of Political Order.
In short, much like the earlier Michel, Fukuyama sees present day democracies drifting
towards ever more nepotistic patterns of behavior where elites seize power and reward and
distribute the fruits of that power to their close associates within their networks of
influence.
In effect, both men, see, as did Marx before them, the "constitutional democracies" as a
sham as a kind of theater behind which the levers of power are exercised authoritatively with
little regard to the true interests of the masses below them.
In such an environment of centralized elite control, "media openness" can do little to rout
out the opaque workings of carefully, surreptitiously orchestrated power.
Thus, a superficial reading of history might lead us to believe that we live in an
increasingly "inclusive" society reflecting a rising tide of technological progress and
economic prosperity. However, a closer look, might reveal a modicum of beneficence bestowed
upon the many; while the Machiavellian few have managed behind a facade of democracy and
nationalism to achieve unheard of sums of wealth, power, and influence once only dreamed of by
despots, dictators, and demagogues of the past.
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]
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.
The other great con is convincing the public that voting for anyone but the two major parties
is "wasting your vote". This political duopoly means only those interests are ever
represented and that has also led to Australia's systematic decline. Yes it's true that the
majors hold majority in parliament but we've already seen that voting below the line can
work- Labour had to take notes from the Greens last time they held power. Despite how
hopeless it all seems we do still have the power to affect change as long as we- all of us-
stop swallowing the lies.
The current two party system is like a coin. On one side we have the head of Malcolm Turnbull
and on the other Bill Shorten. When it comes to the toss up the corporations and wealthy get
to call heads.
I believe we are prisoners of so-called "democracy"
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 13, 2017
The Prisoners of "Democracy"
Screwing the masses was the forte of the political establishment. It did not really matter which political party was in power,
or what name it went under, they all had one ruling instinct, tax, tax, and more taxes. These rapacious politicians had an endless
appetite for taxes, and also an appetite for giving themselves huge raises, pension plans, expenses, and all kinds of entitlements.
In fact one of them famously said, "He was entitled to his entitlements." Public office was a path to more, and more largesse
all paid for by the compulsory taxes of the masses that were the prisoners of "democracy."
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-prisoners-of-democracy.html
"... Just because a country is democratic doesn't mean it is self-governing, as America is quickly discovering. ..."
"... John Adams warned that democracy "soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." ..."
"... James Madison was equally concerned with the pernicious consequences of large-scale democracy, arguing that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." ..."
"... Even George Washington had his doubts about whether democracy was consistent with wise government. Democracies are slow to correct their errors, and those who try to guide the public down a wise course frequently become the object of popular hatred ..."
"... What we've got now is the tyranny of the ..."
"... minority . It is not "the people" who govern the nation. Instead, the state is run by permanent civil servants, largely unaccountable to any popular control, and professional politicians who are usually hand-picked by party insiders (Hillary over Bernie, anyone?). This has made it such that the actual 2016 election was more akin to ratifying a foregone conclusion than a substantive choice over the direction of future policy. ..."
"... If you're a student of politics, you've probably heard of the iron law of oligarchy . The phrase was coined by Robert Michels, an early 20th-century social scientist, in his landmark study of political parties. The iron law of oligarchy is simple: minorities rule majorities, because the former are organized and the latter are not. This is true even within democratic institutions. As power was concentrated in the federal government, the complexity of the tasks confronting civil servants and legislators greatly increased. This required a durable, hierarchical set of institutions for coordinating the behavior of political insiders. Durability enabled political insiders to coordinate their plans across time, which was particularly useful in avoiding the pesky constraints posed by regular elections. Hierarchy enabled political insiders to coordinate plans across space, making a permanently larger government both more feasible and more attractive for elites. The result, in retrospect, was predictable: a massive executive branch bureaucracy that's now largely autonomous, and a permissive Congress that's more than happy to serve as an institutionalized rubber stamp. ..."
"... One of the cruel ironies of the political status quo is that democracy is unquestioningly associated with self-governance, yet in practice, the more democratic a polity grows, the less self-governing it remains. ..."
Just because a country is democratic doesn't mean it is self-governing, as America is
quickly discovering.
Something has gone wrong with America's political institutions. While the United States is,
on the whole, competently governed, there are massive problems lurking just beneath the
surface. This became obvious during the 2016 presidential election. Each party's nominee was
odious to a large segment of the public; the only difference seemed to be whether it was an
odious insurgent or an odious careerist. Almost two years on, things show little signs of
improving.
What's to blame? One promising, though unpopular, answer is: democracy itself. When
individuals act collectively in large groups and are not held responsible for the consequences
of their behavior, decisions are unlikely to be reasonable or prudent. This design flaw in
popular government was recognized by several Founding Fathers. John Adams warned that
democracy "soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not
commit suicide."
James Madison was equally concerned with the pernicious consequences of large-scale
democracy, arguing that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in
general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
Even George Washington had his doubts about whether democracy was consistent with wise
government. Democracies are slow to correct their errors, and those who try to guide the public
down a wise course frequently become the object of popular hatred : "It is one of the
evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled,
must often feel before they can act right; but then evil of this nature seldom fail to work
their own cure," Washington wrote. "It is to be lamented, nevertheless, that the remedies are
so slow, and that those, who may wish to apply them seasonably are not attended to before they
suffer in person, in interest and in reputation."
Given these opinions, it is unsurprising that the U.S. Constitution contains so many other
mechanisms for ensuring responsible government. Separation of powers and checks and balances
are necessary to protect the people from themselves. To the extent our political institutions
are deteriorating, the Founders' first instinct would be to look for constitutional changes,
whether formal or informal, that have expanded the scope of democracy and entrusted to the
electorate greater power than they can safely wield, and reverse them.
This theory is simple, elegant, and appealing. But it's missing a crucial detail.
American government is largely insulated from the tyranny of the majority. But at least
since the New Deal, we've gone too far in the opposite direction. What we've got now is the
tyranny of theminority . It is not "the people" who govern the nation.
Instead, the state is run by permanent civil servants, largely unaccountable to any popular
control, and professional politicians who are usually hand-picked by party insiders (Hillary
over Bernie, anyone?). This has made it such that the actual 2016 election was more akin to
ratifying a foregone conclusion than a substantive choice over the direction of future
policy.
But now we confront a puzzle: the rise of the permanent government did coincide with
increased democratization. The administrative-managerial state, and its enablers in Congress,
followed from creative reinterpretations of the Constitution that allowed voters to make
decisions that the Ninth and Tenth amendments -- far and away the most ignored portion of the
Bill of Rights -- should have forestalled. As it turns out, not only are both of these
observations correct, they are causally related . Increasing the scope of popular
government results in the loss of popular control.
If you're a student of politics, you've probably heard of the iron law of
oligarchy . The phrase was coined by Robert Michels, an early 20th-century social
scientist, in his landmark study of political parties. The iron law of oligarchy is simple:
minorities rule majorities, because the former are organized and the latter are not. This is
true even within democratic institutions. As power was concentrated in the federal government,
the complexity of the tasks confronting civil servants and legislators greatly increased. This
required a durable, hierarchical set of institutions for coordinating the behavior of political
insiders. Durability enabled political insiders to coordinate their plans across time, which
was particularly useful in avoiding the pesky constraints posed by regular elections. Hierarchy
enabled political insiders to coordinate plans across space, making a permanently larger
government both more feasible and more attractive for elites. The result, in retrospect, was
predictable: a massive executive branch bureaucracy that's now largely autonomous, and a
permissive Congress that's more than happy to serve as an institutionalized rubber
stamp.
The larger the electorate, and the more questions the electorate is asked to decide, the
more important it is for the people who actually govern to take advantage of economies of scale
in government. If the federal government were kept small and simple, there would be little need
for a behemoth public sector. Developing durable and hierarchical procedures for organizing
political projects would be unfeasible for citizen-statesmen. But those same procedures become
essential for technocratic experts and career politicians.
One of the cruel ironies of the political status quo is that democracy is
unquestioningly associated with self-governance, yet in practice, the more democratic a polity
grows, the less self-governing it remains. This is why an upsurge of populism won't cure
what ails the body politic. It will either provoke the permanent and unaccountable government
into tightening its grip, or those who actually hold the power will fan the flames of popular
discontent, channeling that energy towards their continued growth and entrenchment. We have
enough knowledge to make the diagnosis, but not to prescribe the treatment. Perhaps there is
some comfort in knowing what political health looks like. G.K. Chesterton said it best in his
insight about the relationship between democracy and self-governance:
The democratic contention is that government is not something analogous to playing the
church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping
the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at
all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own
love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if
he does them badly . In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important
things must be left to ordinary men themselves
The first step towards renewed self-governance must be to reject the false dichotomy between
populism and oligarchy. A sober assessment shows that they are one in the same.
Alexander William Salter is an assistant professor in the Rawls College of Business at
Texas Tech University. He is also the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTU's Free
Market Institute. See more at his website: www.awsalter.com .
This was going fine until the author decided to blame civil servants for our nation's
problems. How about an electoral system that denies majority rule? A Congress that routinely
votes against things the vast majority want? A system that vastly overpriveleges corporations
and hands them billions while inequality grows to the point where the UN warns that our
country resembles a third world kleptocracy? Nope, sez this guy. It's just because there are
too many bureaucrats.
He avoids the 17th amendment which was one of the barriers to the mob, and the 19th that
removed the power of individual states to set the terms of suffrage.
Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Katy Stanton could simply have moved to Wyoming.
It might be useful to only have property taxpayers vote.
And the problem is the left. When voters rejected Gay Marriage (57% in California!) or benefits
for illegals, unelected and unaccountable judges reversed the popular will.
I find your use of the word populism interesting. Inasmuch the word is generally used when the
decisions of the populace is different from that which the technocrats or oligarchs would have
made for them. The author being part of the technocratic elite thinks that he and his ilk know
best. This entire article is just a lot of arguments in support of this false and self serving
idea.
Making the federal government "small" will not solve the problems the author describes or
really alludes to. The power vacum left by a receding federal government will just be occupied
by an unaccountable corporate sector. The recent dismantling of Toys R Us by a spawn of Bain
Capital is the most recent manifestation of the twisted and pathological thought process that
calls itself "free market capitalism." A small federal government did not end child labor,
fight the Depression, win WW II or pioneer space exploration. Conservatives love the mythology
of a government "beast" that must be decapitated so that "Liberty" may reign. There are far
more dangerous forces at work in American society that inhibit liberty and tax our personal
treasuries than the federal government.
1) The US is not and never has been a ' democracy ' It is a Democratic Republic ' which is not
the same as a ' democracy ' ( one person -- one vote period ) of which there is only one in the
entire world . Switzerland
2) A large part of what has brought us to this point is the worn out well past its sell by
Electoral College which not only no longer serves its intended purpose .
3) But the major reason why we're here to put it bluntly is the ' Collective Stupidity of
America ' we've volitionally become : addled by celebrity , addicted to entertainment and
consumed by conspiracy theory rather than researching the facts
It's time to end the pretension that we live in a democracy. It maybe useful to claim so
when the US is trying to open markets or control resources in 3rd world countries. It's at that
time that we're 'spreading democracy'. Instead it's like spreading manure.
The managerial state arose to quell the threat of class warfare. Ironically those who sought to
organize the proletariat under a vision of class-based empowerment clamored for the same. The
response over time was fighting fire with fire as the cliche goes becoming what the opposition
has sought but only in a modified form.
If we were able to devise a way for distributive justice apart from building a bloated
bureaucracy then perhaps this emergence of oligarchy could have been averted. What
alternative(s) exist for an equitable distribution of wealth and income to ameliorate poverty?
Openly competitive (so-called) markets? And the charity of faith-based communities? I think
not.
Democracy, like all systems requires maintenace. Bernard Shaw said that the flaw of pragmatism
is that any system that is not completely idiotic will work PROVIDED THAT SOMEONE PUT EFFORT IN
MAKING IT WORK.
We have come to think that Democracy is in automatic pilot, and does not require effort of
our part See how many do not bother to vote or to inform themselves.
Democracy is a fine, shiny package with two caveats in it "Batteries not included" And "Some
assembly required" FAilure to heed those leads to disaster.
I see where you are coming from, but I must disagree. We don't have a democracy in any real
way, so how can it have failed?
Despite massive propaganda of commission and omission, the majority of the American people
don't want to waste trillions of dollars on endless pointless oversees wars. The public be
damned: Trump was quickly beaten into submission and we are back to the status quo. The public
doesn't want to give trillions of dollars to Wall Street while starving Main Street of capital.
The public doesn't want an abusively high rate of immigration whose sole purpose is to flood
the market for labor, driving wages down and profits up. And so on.
Oswald Spengler was right. " in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the
preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it
the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the
franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune."
"If the federal government were kept small and simple, there would be little need for a
behemoth public sector. Developing durable and hierarchical procedures for organizing political
projects would be unfeasible for citizen-statesmen. But those same procedures become essential
for technocratic experts and career politicians."
True, but this implies retarding government power as is will lead to an ultimate solution.
It will not. The sober truth is that a massive centralized national government has been
inevitable since the onset of the second world war or even beforehand with American
intervention in the colonoal Phillippines and the Great War. Becoming an empire requires
extensive power grabbing and becoming and maintaining a position as a world power requires
constant flexing of that power. Maintaining such a large population, military, and foreign
corps requires the massive public-works projects you speak of in order to keep the population
content and foreign powers in check. Failure to do so leads to chaos and tragic disaster that
would lead to such a nation a collapse in all existing institutions due to overcumbersome
responsibilities. These cannot be left to the provinces/states due to the massive amounts of
resources required to maintain such imperial ambitions along with the cold reality of state
infighting and possible seperatist leanings.
If one wishes to end the power of the federal government as is, the goal is not to merely
seek reform. The goal is to dismantle the empire; destroy the military might, isolate certain
diplomatic relations, reduce rates of overseas trade and reduce the economy as a whole, and
then finally disband and/or drastically reduce public security institutions such as the FBI,
CIA, and their affiliates. As you well know, elites and the greater public alike consider these
anathema.
However, if you wish to rush to this goal, keep in mind that dismantling the American empire
will not necessarily lead to the end of oppression and world peace even in the short term. A
power vacuum will open that the other world powers such as the Russian Federation and the PRC
will rush to fill up. As long as the world remains so interconnected and imperialist ambitions
are maintained by old and new world powers, even the smallest and most directly democratic
states will not be able to become self-governing for long.
Well, when, statistically speaking, half of the population has an IQ of less than 100 (probably
more than half now that USA has been invaded by the Third World) then a great number of people
are uninformed and easily manipulated voters. That is one of the great fallacies of democracy.
In an era when the word "democracy" is regarded as one of our deities to worship, this article
is a breath of fresh air. Notice how we accuse the Russians of trying to undermine our hallowed
"democracy." We really don't know what we mean when we use the term democracy, but it is a
shibboleth that has a good, comforting sound. And this idea that we could extend our
"democracy" by increasing the number of voters shows that we don't understand much at all.
Brilliant insights.
I believe we are prisoners of so-called "democracy"
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 13, 2017
The Prisoners of "Democracy"
Screwing the masses was the forte of the political establishment. It did not really matter
which political party was in power, or what name it went under, they all had one ruling
instinct, tax, tax, and more taxes. These rapacious politicians had an endless appetite for
taxes, and also an appetite for giving themselves huge raises, pension plans, expenses, and all
kinds of entitlements. In fact one of them famously said, "He was entitled to his
entitlements." Public office was a path to more, and more largesse all paid for by the
compulsory taxes of the masses that were the prisoners of "democracy."
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-prisoners-of-democracy.html
"... 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.
"... 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.
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 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!
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
"... 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.
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
"... 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.
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.
"... 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.
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.
"... 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."
The Iron Law of Oligarchy and the Iron Law of Institutions.
All institutions are corruptible and all institutions eventually will be corrupted, because institutions = power and power
is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats.
Some corollaries of this are:
The people who want power the most are the most inclined to abuse that power.
The principal function of any institution is to keep sociopaths out of power as much as possible for as long as possible.
There are no political or economic systems that work everywhere or at all times. Rather, a system works in a given time
and place, to the extent that they further the above principles.
"... In fact not only do most Americans shy away from finding out about the truth in a country that has pushed division of labour to the maximum, they are trigger happy to be totally controlled by corporate media in a repetition of 'Iraq's weapons of mass destruction' to 'Russia and Putin the source of all evil'. ..."
"And this is why economic policy cannot not be decided by popular opinion. A typical Russian is ignorant about economics and
government finance. A typical Russian doesn't want responsibility for these decisions anyway. He would rather let someone else
(some authority figure) make these choices for him. This is why real democracy cannot work in Russia."
If you had not specified the word 'Russian', I could have guessed you were talking about the USA.
In fact not only do most Americans shy away from finding out about the truth in a country that has pushed division of labour
to the maximum, they are trigger happy to be totally controlled by corporate media in a repetition of 'Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction' to 'Russia and Putin the source of all evil'.
Beyond some truly enlightened Americans whose opinions I am honored and glad to read on this site, the majority of the
American public still go about their struggle for survival trusting the American politicians and American military are doing the
right thing.
"... "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.
So here is my personal conclusion: democracies are political systems in which the real
ruling elites hide behind an utterly fake appearance of people power.
"what we see is that western democracies are run by gangs of oligarchs and bureaucrats who
have almost nothing in common with the people they are supposed to represent."
"... 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.
BWilliamson May '17
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)!
"... 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.
"... ' Anti-populism' is the simple ruling class formula for covering-up their real agenda, which is pro-militarist, pro-imperialist (globalization), pro-'rebels' (i.e. mercenary terrorists working for regime change), pro crisis makers and pro-financial swindlers. ..."
"... The economic origins of ' anti-populism' are rooted in the deep and repeated crises of capitalism and the need to deflect and discredit mass discontent and demoralize the popular classes in struggle. By demonizing ' populism', the elites seek to undermine the rising tide of anger over the elite-imposed wage cuts, the rise of low-paid temporary jobs and the massive increase in the reserve army of cheap immigrant labor to compete with displaced native workers. ..."
"... Demonization of independent popular movements ignores the fundamental programmatic differences and class politics of genuine populist struggles compared with the contemporary right-wing capitalist political scarecrows and clowns. ..."
"... The anti-populist ideologues label President Trump a 'populist' when his policies and proposals are the exact opposite. Trump champions the repeal of all pro-labor and work safety regulation, as well as the slashing of public health insurance programs while reducing corporate taxes for the ultra-elite. ..."
"... The media's ' anti-populists' ideologues denounce pro-business rightwing racists as ' populists' . In Italy, Finland, Holland, Austria, Germany and France anti-working class parties are called ' populist' for attacking immigrants instead of bankers and militarists. ..."
"... In other words, the key to understanding contemporary ' anti-populism' is to see its role in preempting and undermining the emergence of authentic populist movements while convincing middle class voters to continue to vote for crisis-prone, austerity-imposing neo-liberal regimes. ' Anti-populism' has become the opium (or OxyContin) of frightened middle class voters. ..."
Throughout the US and European corporate and state media, right and left, we are told that ' populism' has become
the overarching threat to democracy, freedom and . . . free markets. The media's ' anti-populism' campaign has been
used and abused by ruling elites and their academic and intellectual camp followers as the principal weapon to distract,
discredit and destroy the rising tide of mass discontent with ruling class-imposed austerity programs, the accelerating
concentration of wealth and the deepening inequalities.
We will begin by examining the conceptual manipulation of ' populism' and its multiple usages. Then we will turn
to the historic economic origins of populism and anti-populism. Finally, we will critically analyze the contemporary movements
and parties dubbed ' populist' by the ideologues of ' anti-populism' .
Conceptual Manipulation
In order to understand the current ideological manipulation accompanying ' anti-populism ' it is necessary to
examine the historical roots of populism as a popular movement.
Populism emerged during the 19 th and 20 th century as an ideology, movement and government in
opposition to autocracy, feudalism, capitalism, imperialism and socialism. In the United States, populist leaders led agrarian
struggles backed by millions of small farmers in opposition to bankers, railroad magnates and land speculators. Opposing
monopolistic practices of the 'robber barons', the populist movement supported broad-based commercial agriculture, access
to low interest farm credit and reduced transport costs.
In 19 th century Russia, the populists opposed the Tsar, the moneylenders and the burgeoning commercial
elites.
In early 20 th century India and China, populism took the form of nationalist agrarian movements seeking
to overthrow the imperial powers and their comprador collaborators.
In Latin America, from the 1930s onward, especially with the crises of export regimes, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia
and Peru, embraced a variety of populist, anti-imperialist governments. In Brazil, President Getulio Vargas's term (1951-1954)
was notable for the establishment of a national industrial program promoting the interests of urban industrial workers
despite banning independent working class trade unions and Marxist parties. In Argentina, President Juan Peron's first
terms (1946-1954) promoted large-scale working class organization, advanced social welfare programs and embraced nationalist
capitalist development.
In Bolivia, a worker-peasant revolution brought to power a nationalist party, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
(MNR), which nationalized the tin mines, expropriated the latifundios and promoted national development during its rule
from 1952-1964.
In Peru, under President Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975), the government expropriated the coastal sugar plantations
and US oil fields and copper mines while promoting worker and agricultural cooperatives.
In all cases, the populist governments in Latin America were based on a coalition of nationalist capitalists, urban
workers and the rural poor. In some notable cases, nationalist military officers brought populist governments to power.
What they had in common was their opposition to foreign capital and its local supporters and exporters ('compradores'),
bankers and their elite military collaborators. Populists promoted 'third way' politics by opposing imperialism on the
right, and socialism and communism on the left. The populists supported the redistribution of wealth but not the expropriation
of property. They sought to reconcile national capitalists and urban workers. They opposed class struggle but supported
state intervention in the economy and import-substitution as a development strategy.
Imperialist powers were the leading anti-populists of that period. They defended property privileges and condemned nationalism
as 'authoritarian' and undemocratic. They demonized the mass support for populism as 'a threat to Western Christian civilization'.
Not infrequently, the anti-populists ideologues would label the national-populists as 'fascists' . . . even as they won
numerous elections at different times and in a variety of countries.
The historical experience of populism, in theory and practice, has nothing to do with what today's ' anti-populists'
in the media are calling ' populism' . In reality, current anti-populism is still a continuation of anti-communism
, a political weapon to disarm working class and popular movements. It advances the class interest of the ruling class.
Both 'anti's' have been orchestrated by ruling class ideologues seeking to blur the real nature of their 'pro-capitalist'
privileged agenda and practice. Presenting your program as 'pro-capitalist', pro-inequalities, pro-tax evasion and pro-state
subsidies for the elite is more difficult to defend at the ballot box than to claim to be ' anti-populist' .
' Anti-populism' is the simple ruling class formula for covering-up their real agenda, which is pro-militarist,
pro-imperialist (globalization), pro-'rebels' (i.e. mercenary terrorists working for regime change), pro crisis makers
and pro-financial swindlers.
The economic origins of ' anti-populism' are rooted in the deep and repeated crises of capitalism and the
need to deflect and discredit mass discontent and demoralize the popular classes in struggle. By demonizing ' populism',
the elites seek to undermine the rising tide of anger over the elite-imposed wage cuts, the rise of low-paid temporary
jobs and the massive increase in the reserve army of cheap immigrant labor to compete with displaced native workers.
Historic 'anti-populism' has its roots in the inability of capitalism to secure popular consent via elections. It reflects
their anger and frustration at their failure to grow the economy, to conquer and exploit independent countries and to finance
growing fiscal deficits.
The Amalgamation of Historical Populism with the Contemporary Fabricated Populism
What the current anti-populists ideologues label ' populism' has little to do with the historical movements.
Unlike all of the past populist governments, which sought to nationalize strategic industries, none of the current movements
and parties, denounced as 'populist' by the media, are anti-imperialists. In fact, the current ' populists' attack
the lowest classes and defend the imperialist-allied capitalist elites. The so-called current ' populists' support
imperialist wars and bank swindlers, unlike the historical populists who were anti-war and anti-bankers.
Ruling class ideologues simplistically conflate a motley collection of rightwing capitalist parties and organizations
with the pro-welfare state, pro-worker and pro-farmer parties of the past in order to discredit and undermine the burgeoning
popular multi-class movements and regimes.
Demonization of independent popular movements ignores the fundamental programmatic differences and class politics
of genuine populist struggles compared with the contemporary right-wing capitalist political scarecrows and clowns.
One has only to compare the currently demonized ' populist' Donald Trump with the truly populist US President
Franklin Roosevelt, who promoted social welfare, unionization, labor rights, increased taxes on the rich, income redistribution,
and genuine health and workplace safety legislation within a multi-class coalition to see how absurd the current media
campaign has become.
The anti-populist ideologues label President Trump a 'populist' when his policies and proposals are the exact
opposite. Trump champions the repeal of all pro-labor and work safety regulation, as well as the slashing of public health
insurance programs while reducing corporate taxes for the ultra-elite.
The media's ' anti-populists' ideologues denounce pro-business rightwing racists as ' populists' . In Italy, Finland,
Holland, Austria, Germany and France anti-working class parties are called ' populist' for attacking immigrants instead
of bankers and militarists.
In other words, the key to understanding contemporary ' anti-populism' is to see its role in preempting and undermining
the emergence of authentic populist movements while convincing middle class voters to continue to vote for crisis-prone,
austerity-imposing neo-liberal regimes. ' Anti-populism' has become the opium (or OxyContin) of frightened middle class
voters.
The anti-populism of the ruling class serves to confuse the 'right' with the 'left'; to sidelight the latter and promote
the former; to amalgamate rightwing 'rallies' with working class strikes; and to conflate rightwing demagogues with popular
mass leaders.
Unfortunately, too many leftist academics and pundits are loudly chanting in the 'anti-populist' chorus. They have failed
to see themselves among the shock troops of the right. The left ideologues join the ruling class in condemning the corporate
populists in the name of 'anti-fascism'. Leftwing writers, claiming to 'combat the far-right enemies of the people'
, overlook the fact that they are 'fellow-travelling' with an anti-populist ruling class, which has imposed savage cuts
in living standards, spread imperial wars of aggression resulting in millions of desperate refugees- not immigrants
–and concentrated immense wealth.
The bankruptcy of today's ' anti-populist' left will leave them sitting in their coffee shops, scratching at
fleas, as the mass popular movements take to the streets!
"... What we know, first and foremost, is that it hardly matters what Trump says because what he says is as likely as not to have
no relationship to the truth, no relationship to what he said last year during the campaign or even what he said last week. ..."
One of the best summary observations in this regard is from Washington Post columnist
Steven Pearlstein , who writes on business and financial matters but whose conclusions could apply as well to Trump's handling
of a wide range of foreign and domestic matters: " What we know, first and foremost, is that it hardly matters what Trump
says because what he says is as likely as not to have no relationship to the truth, no relationship to what he said last year
during the campaign or even what he said last week. What he says bears no relationship to any consistent political or policy
ideology or world-view. What he says is also likely to bear no relationship to what his top advisers or appointees have said or
believe, making them unreliable interlocutors even if they agreed among themselves, which they don't. This lack of clear policy
is compounded by the fact that the president, despite his boasts to the contrary, knows very little about the topics at hand and
isn't particularly interested in learning. In other words, he's still making it up as he goes along."
Many elements of dismay can follow from the fact of having this kind of president. We are apt to get a better idea of which
specific things are most worthy of dismay as the rest of this presidency unfolds. I suggest, however, that a prime, overarching
reason to worry is Trump's utter disregard for the truth. Not just a disregard, actually, but a determination to crush the truth
and to instill falsehood in the minds of as many people as possible. The Post 's fact checker,
Glenn Kessler , summarizes the situation by noting that "the pace and volume of the president's misstatements" are so great
that he and other fact checkers "cannot possibly keep up."
Kessler also observes how Trump's handling of falsehoods is qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from the
garden variety of lying in which many politicians indulge: "Many will drop a false claim after it has been deemed false. But Trump
just repeats the claim over and over." It is a technique reminiscent of the Big Lie that totalitarian regimes have used, in which
the repetition and brazenness of a lie help lead to its acceptance.
The problem is fundamental, and relates to a broad spectrum of policy issues both foreign and domestic, because truth-factual
reality -- is a necessary foundation to consider and evaluate and debate policy on any subject. Crushing the truth means not just
our having to endure any one misdirected policy; it means losing the ability even to address policy intelligently. To the extent
that falsehood is successfully instilled in the minds of enough people, the political system loses what would otherwise be its
ability to provide a check on policy that is bad policy because it is inconsistent with factual reality.
"... Russiagate and corporate media scapegoating Putin's trolls are information operations to keep the little people misinformed. The Ukraine Putsch and the MH-17 shoot down were handled poorly by Russia. They've come back in Syria. Russian intelligence wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't surveilling the West. ..."
"... What got western oligarchs upset is the disclosure of the truth; the system is rigged. Obama voters in mid-America voted for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton's loss triggered a witch hunt rather than addressing the root causes of her defeat. A group of oligarchs want the upstart NY casino boss gone. The only question is what will be the collateral damage from the mob war. ..."
"... As former CIA Director William Casey allegedly once said: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." His error here was saying Americans were the target and not the global population as well, but at least as far as America goes I think its pretty much a thumbs up. Mission Accomplished. ..."
"... Media and social media tycoons - all could be taken down very fast if they did not toe the CIA line, though for most, it seems their work with CIA is voluntary and enthusiastic. ..."
"... I guess you don't get that rich by having ethics or scruples. ..."
Russiagate and corporate media scapegoating Putin's trolls are information operations to
keep the little people misinformed. The Ukraine Putsch and the MH-17 shoot down were handled
poorly by Russia. They've come back in Syria. Russian intelligence wouldn't be doing their
job if they weren't surveilling the West.
Victoria Nuland's EU rant was released. Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump over Hillary
Clinton.
What got western oligarchs upset is the disclosure of the truth; the system is rigged.
Obama voters in mid-America voted for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton's loss triggered a witch
hunt rather than addressing the root causes of her defeat. A group of oligarchs want the
upstart NY casino boss gone. The only question is what will be the collateral damage from the
mob war.
NemesisCalling , Dec 26, 2017 4:39:00 PM |
36karlof1 , Dec 26, 2017 4:42:57 PM |
37
Name of Me | Dec 26, 2017 12:13:28 PM | 2
The US Government was controlling media well before the CIA's creation. Please take a
little time to learn about George Seldes whose 1929 book You Can't
Print That!: The Truth Behind the News, 1918–1928 is vastly informative with
original copies easy to find under $15, or even online through this link . Indeed,
numerous works of his are digitized. I.F. Stone followed in Seldes's footsteps, and the
website with his collected writings is here . Perhaps one of the least known
episodes of US Government media manipulation was related to the atomic bomb crimes, an event
nearly 100% airbrushed from history books, and of course the ongoing attempt to cover up one
of the biggest crimes of all time.
My mention of media manipulation by the US Government wouldn't be complete without
including the 100% blackout that was to apply to the discussions in Philadelphia that led to
the 1787 Constitution -- the document that elevated the "natural aristocracy" into the
catbird seat ensuring their control of the federal government until it's overthrown via
revolution.
Fortunately, Madison and others kept copious notes that were eventually published long
after the fate of Commoners was sealed, so we know that Aristocracy viewed its contemporary
deplorables no differently than how HRC and today's 1% view them/us.
Americans and much of the rest of the world are the target of an immense psyop . Propaganda
techniques going back to Bernay and WWI have been expanded on and perfected. Infiltration and
control is lot limited to the print media and TV news stations but also , hollywood movies/TV
shows , academia (history, economics, etc) , book publishing, blogs and social media. The
last few bastions of truth will be eliminated with the end of net neutrality.
As former CIA Director William Casey allegedly once said: "We'll know our
disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
His error here was saying Americans were the target and not the global population as well,
but at least as far as America goes I think its pretty much a thumbs up. Mission
Accomplished.
"We do not know what the billionaires get for their service. The CIA surely has many ways to
let them gain information on their competition or to influence business regulations in
foreign countries. One hand will wash the other."
Something I have often thought about. Media and social media tycoons - all could be
taken down very fast if they did not toe the CIA line, though for most, it seems their work
with CIA is voluntary and enthusiastic.
I guess you don't get that rich by having ethics or scruples.
"... The promotion of the alleged Russian election hacking in certain media may have grown from the successful attempts of U.S. intelligence services to limit the publication of the NSA files obtained by Edward Snowden. ..."
"... In May 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Hongkong and handed internal documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) to four journalists, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and separately to Barton Gellman who worked for the Washington Post . ..."
"... In July 2013 the Guardian was forced by the British government to destroy its copy of the Snowden archive. ..."
"... In August 2013 Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for some $250 million. In 2012 Bezos, the founder, largest share holder and CEO of Amazon, had already a cooperation with the CIA. Together they invested in a Canadian quantum computing company. In March 2013 Amazon signed a $600 million deal to provide computing services for the CIA. ..."
"... The motivation for the Bezos and Omidyar to do this is not clear. Bezos is estimated to own a shameful $90 billion. The Washington Post buy is chump-change for him. Omidyar has a net worth of some $9.3 billion. But the use of billionaires to mask what are in fact intelligence operations is not new. The Ford Foundation has for decades been a CIA front , George Soros' Open Society foundation is one of the premier "regime change" operations, well versed in instigating "color revolutions" ..."
"... It would have been reasonable if the cooperation between those billionaires and the intelligence agencies had stopped after the NSA leaks were secured. But it seems that strong cooperation of the Bezos and Omidyar outlets with the CIA and others continue. ..."
"... The Washington Post , which has a much bigger reach, is the prime outlet for "Russia-gate", the false claims by parts of the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton campaign, that Russia attempted to influence U.S. elections or even "colluded" with Trump. ..."
"... The revelation that the sole Russiagate "evidence" was the so-called Steele Dossier - i.e. opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign - which was used by the intelligence community to not only begin the public assertions of Trump's perfidy but to then initiate FISA approved surveillance on the Trump campaign, that is truly astonishing. Instructive then that the NY Times, Washington Post, etc have yet to acknowledge these facts to their readers, and instead have effectively doubled down on the story, insisting that the Russiagate allegations are established fact and constitute "objective reality." That suggests this fake news story will continue indefinitely. ..."
"... What we see here is these bastions of establishment thinking in the USA promoting "objective reality" as partisan - i.e. there is a Clinton reality versus a Trump reality, or a Russian reality versus a "Western" reality, facts and documentation be damned. This divorce from objectivity is a symptom of the overall decline of American institutions, an indicate a future hard, rather than soft, landing near the end of the road. ..."
The promotion of the alleged Russian election hacking in certain media may have grown from the successful attempts of U.S. intelligence
services to limit the publication of the NSA files obtained by Edward Snowden.
In May 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Hongkong and handed internal documents
from the National Security Agency (NSA) to four journalists,
Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and separately to Barton Gellman who worked for the
Washington Post . Some of those documents were published by Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian , others by Barton
Gellman in the Washington Post . Several other international news site published additional material though the mass of
NSA papers that Snowden allegedly acquired never saw public daylight.
In July 2013 the Guardian was
forced by the British government to destroy its copy of the Snowden archive.
In August 2013 Jeff Bezos
bought the Washington Post for some $250 million. In 2012 Bezos, the founder, largest share holder and CEO of Amazon,
had already a cooperation with the CIA. Together they
invested
in a Canadian quantum computing company. In March 2013 Amazon
signed a $600 million
deal to provide computing services for the CIA.
In October 2013 Pierre Omidyar, the owner of Ebay, founded
First Look Media and hired Glenn Greenwald and Laura
Poitras. The total planned investment was said to be $250 million. It took up to February 2014 until the new organization launched
its first site, the Intercept . Only a few NSA stories appeared on it. The Intercept is a rather mediocre site.
Its management is
said to be chaotic . It publishes few stories of interests and one might ask if it ever was meant to be a serious outlet. Omidyar
has worked,
together with the U.S. government, to force regime change onto Ukraine. He had
strong ties with the Obama administration.
Snowden had copies of some
20,000 to 58,000 NSA files . Only 1,182 have been
published . Bezos and Omidyar obviously helped the NSA to keep more than 95% of the Snowden archive away from the public. The
Snowden papers were practically privatized into trusted hands of Silicon Valley billionaires with ties to the various secret services
and the Obama administration.
The motivation for the Bezos and Omidyar to do this is not clear. Bezos is
estimated to own a shameful
$90 billion. The Washington Post buy is chump-change for him. Omidyar has a net worth of some $9.3 billion. But the use
of billionaires to mask what are in fact intelligence operations is not new. The Ford Foundation has for decades been
a CIA front , George Soros' Open Society foundation is
one of the premier "regime change" operations, well versed in instigating "color revolutions".
It would have been reasonable if the cooperation between those billionaires and the intelligence agencies had stopped after the
NSA leaks were secured. But it seems that strong cooperation of the Bezos and Omidyar outlets with the CIA and others continue.
The Interceptburned
a intelligence leaker, Realty Winner, who had trusted its journalists to keep her protected. It
smeared the President of Syria as neo-nazi based on an (intentional?) mistranslation of one of his speeches. It additionally
hired a Syrian supporter of the CIA's "regime change by Jihadis" in Syria. Despite its
pretense of "fearless, adversarial journalism" it hardly deviates from
U.S. policies.
The Washington Post , which has a much bigger reach, is the prime outlet for "Russia-gate", the false claims by parts
of the U.S. intelligence community and the Clinton campaign, that Russia attempted to influence U.S. elections or even "colluded"
with Trump.
Just today it provides two stories and one op-ed that lack any factual evidence for the anti-Russian claims made in them.
In
Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options the writers insinuate that some anonymous writer who
published a few pieces on Counterpunch and elsewhere was part of a Russian operation. They provide zero evidence to back that claim
up. Whatever that writer
wrote (see
list at end) was run of the mill stuff that had little to do with the U.S. election. The piece then dives into various cyber-operations
against Russia that the Obama and Trump administration have discussed.
A
second story in the paper today is based on "a classified GRU report obtained by The Washington Post." It claims that the Russian
military intelligence service GRU started a social media operation one day after the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was illegally
removed from his office in a U.S. regime change
operation . What the story lists as alleged GRU puppet postings reads like normal internet talk of people opposed to the fascist
regime change in Kiev. The Washington Post leaves completely unexplained who handed it an alleged GRU report from 2014,
who classified it and how, if at all, it verified its veracity. To me the piece and the assertions therein have a strong odor of
bovine excrement.
An op-ed in the very same Washington Post has a similar smell. It is written by the intelligence flunkies Michael Morell
and Mike Rogers. Morell had hoped to become CIA boss under a President Hillary Clinton. The op-ed (which includes a serious misunderstanding
of "deterrence") asserts that
Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States :
Russia's information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here . But to get a sense of the
breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation
experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy.
The author link to this page which claims to list Twitter
hashtags that are currently used by Russian influence agents. Apparently the top issue Russia's influence agents currently promote
is "#merrychristmas".
When the authors claim Russian operations are "more numerous than can be listed here" they practically admit that they have not
even one plausible operation they could cite. Its simply obfuscation to justify their call for more political and military measures
against Russia. This again to distract from the real reasons Clinton lost the election and to introduce a new Cold War for the benefit
of weapon producers and U.S. influence in Europe.
If what you allege is true about Greenwald and the Intercept, then why hasn't Snowden spoken out about it yet? Surely he would
have said something about the Intercept and Greenwald keeping important stories buried by now. Yet, as far as I can tell, he has
a good relationship with Greenwald. I find it hard to believe hat a man who literally gave up everything he had in life to leak
important docs would remain silent for so long about a publishing cover up. I don't really like the Intercept and I think your
analysis of its content is accurate, but I do find it hard to believe that the NSA docs were "bought" back by the CIA.
If what you allege is true about Greenwald and the Intercept, then why hasn't Snowden spoken out about it yet?
_____________________________________________________
My understanding is that early on, Snowden placed his trove of documents in the exclusive care of Glenn Greenwald and his associates.
Although Snowden has since become a public figure in his own right, and his opinions on state-security events and issues are solicited,
as far as I know Snowden has no direct responsibility for managing the material he downloaded.
I haven't followed Snowden closely enough to know how familiar he may be with the contents of the reported "20,000 to 58,000
NSA files" turned over to GG/Omidyar. Snowden presumably took pains to acquire items of interest in his cache as he accumulated
classified material, but even if he has extraordinary powers of recall he may not remember precisely what remains unreleased.
FWIW, I was troubled from the first by one of the mainstays of GG's defense, or rationale, when it became clear that he was
the principal, and perhaps sole, executive "curator" of the Snowden material. In order to reassure and placate nervous "patriots"--
and GG calls himself a "patriot"-- he repeatedly emphasized that great care was being taken to vet the leaked information before
releasing it.
GG's role as whistleblower Snowden's enabler and facilitator was generally hailed uncritically by progressive-liberals and
civil-liberties advocates, to a point where public statements that should've raised skeptical doubts and questions were generally
passively accepted by complacent admirers.
Specifically, my crap detectors signaled "red alert" early on, when Greenwald (still affiliated with "The Guardian", IIRC)
took great pains to announce that his team was working closely with the US/UK governments to vet and screen Snowden's material
before releasing any of it; GG repeatedly asserted that he was reviewing the material with the relevant state-security agencies
to ensure that none of the released material would compromise or jeopardize government operatives and/or national security.
WTF? Bad enough that Greenwald was requiring the world to exclusively trust his judgment in deciding what should be released
and what shouldn't. He was also making it clear that he wasn't exactly committed to disclosing "the worst" of the material "though
the heavens fall".
In effect, as GG was telling the world that he could be trusted to manage the leaked information responsibly, he was also telling
the world that it simply had to trust his judgment in this crucial role.
To me, there was clearly a subliminal message for both Western authorities and the public: don't worry, we're conscientious,
patriotic leak-masters. We're not going to irresponsibly disclose anything too radical, or politically/socially destabilizing.
GG and the Omidyar Group have set themselves up as an independent "brand" in the new field of whistleblower/hacker impresario
and leak-broker.
Like only buying NFL-approved merchandise, or fox-approved eggs, the public is being encouraged to only buy (into) Intercept-approved
Snowden Leaks™. It's a going concern, which lends itself much more to the "modified limited hangout" approach than freely tossing
all the biggest eggs out of the basket.
GG found an opportunity to augment his rising career as a self-made investigative journalist and civil-liberties advocate.
Now he's sitting pretty, the celebrity point man for a lucrative modified limited hangout enterprise. What is wrong with this
picture?
@16 I just see no evidence of that aside from fitting the narrative of people who are convinced of a cover up in leaked docs.
Moreover, there is no way Russia would continue to offer Snowden asylum if he was gov agent. I'm sure Russian intelligence did
a very thorough background check on him.
@17 that's simply not true. He regularly tweets, gives online talks and publishes on his own. He has not used either Poitras
or Greenwald as a means of communication for years. And he has never dropped a single hint of being disappointed or frustrated
with how documents and info was published.
It just seems so implausible given the total lack of any sign of Snowden's dissatisfaction.
The revelation that the sole Russiagate "evidence" was the so-called Steele Dossier - i.e. opposition research funded by the
Clinton campaign - which was used by the intelligence community to not only begin the public assertions of Trump's perfidy but
to then initiate FISA approved surveillance on the Trump campaign, that is truly astonishing. Instructive then that the NY Times,
Washington Post, etc have yet to acknowledge these facts to their readers, and instead have effectively doubled down on the story,
insisting that the Russiagate allegations are established fact and constitute "objective reality." That suggests this fake news
story will continue indefinitely.
What we see here is these bastions of establishment thinking in the USA promoting "objective reality" as partisan - i.e.
there is a Clinton reality versus a Trump reality, or a Russian reality versus a "Western" reality, facts and documentation be
damned. This divorce from objectivity is a symptom of the overall decline of American institutions, an indicate a future hard,
rather than soft, landing near the end of the road.
G @ 1 and 18: My understanding is that Edward Snowden has been advised (warned?) by the Russian government or his lawyer in Moscow
not to reveal any more than he has said so far. The asylum Moscow has offered him may be dependent on his keeping discreet. That
may include not saying much about The Intercept, in case his communications are followed by the NSA or any other of the various
US intel agencies which could lead to their tracking his physical movements in Russia and enable any US-connected agent or agency
(including one based in Russia) to trace him, arrest him or kill him, and cover up and frame the seizure or murder in such a way
as to place suspicion or blame on the Russian government or on local criminal elements in Russia.
I believe that Snowden does have a job in Russia and possibly this job does not permit him the time to say any more than what
he currently tweets or says online.
There is nothing in MoA's article to suggest that Glenn Greenwald is deliberately burying stories in The Intercept. B has said
that its management is chaotic which could suggest among other things that Greenwald himself is dissatisfied with its current
operation.
@21 I'm not disputing that moneyed interests might have been leaned on by the CIA to stop publishing sensitive info. What I'm
disputing is the idea that people like Greenwald have deliberately with-held information that is in the public interest. I doubt
that, regardless of the strength of the Intercept as a publication.
@25 What interest would the Russian gov have in helping protect NSA? I assume Russia loves the idea of the US Intel agencies
being embarrassed. Snowden speaks his mind about plenty of domestic and international events in US. I have never seen him act
like he's being censored.
G @ 25: Moscow would have no interest in helping protect the NSA or any other US intel agency. The Russians would have advised
Snowden not to say more than he has said so far, not because they are interested in helping the NSA but because they can only
protect him as long as he is discreet and does not try to say or publish any more that would jeopardise his safety or give Washington
an excuse to pressure Moscow to extradite him back to the US. That would include placing more sanctions on Russia until Snowden
is given up.
There is the possibility also that Snowden trusts (or trusted) Greenwald to know what to do with the NSA documents. Perhaps
that trust was naively placed - we do not know.
b, a big exposition of facts, rich in links to more facts.
This is important material for all to understand.
Snowden is "the squirrel over there!" A distraction turned into a hope.
Compared to Assange, who is being slow-martyred in captivity, Snowden is a boy playing with gadgets.
Why did not Snowden make certain a copy of his theft went to Wikileaks? That would have been insurance.
Since he did not, it all could be just a distraction.
What is known about the Snowden affair is we received proof of what we knew. Not much else. For those who didn't know, they
received news.
And ever since, the shape of things from the Deep State/Shadow Government/IC has been lies and warmongering against American freedoms
and world cooperation among nations.
Fascism is corporate + the police state. The US government is a pure fascist tyranny that also protects the Empire and Global
Hegemony.
We connect the dots and it's always the same picture. It was this way in the 60s,70s,80s,90s, 00s, and this forlorn decade.
Fascism more bold each decade. Billionaires and millionaires have always been in the mix.
"... I accept your point that the Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same coin, but it's important to understand that Putin is deeply conservative and very risk averse. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton may be a threat to Russia but she knows the "rules" and is very predictable, while Trump doesn't know the rules and appears to act on a whim ..."
"... However, given the problems that Hillary Clinton had to overcome to get elected, backing her against Trump would be risky. So the highly risk averse Putin would logically stay out of the election entirely and all the claims of Russia hacking the election are fake news. ..."
"... As for the alleged media campaign, my response is "so what!". Western media, including state-owned media, interferes around the world all the time so complaining about Russian state-owned media doing the same is pure hypocrisy and should be ignored. ..."
On your surmise that Putin prefers Trump to Hillary and would thus have incentive to
influence the election, I beg to differ. Putin is one smart statesman; he knows very well
it makes no difference which candidates gets elected in US elections.
I accept your point that the Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same
coin, but it's important to understand that Putin is deeply conservative and very risk
averse.
Hillary Clinton may be a threat to Russia but she knows the "rules" and is very
predictable, while Trump doesn't know the rules and appears to act on a whim , so if
Putin were to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election, logic would suggest that he
would do so on Hillary Clinton's side. However, given the problems that Hillary Clinton
had to overcome to get elected, backing her against Trump would be risky. So the highly risk
averse Putin would logically stay out of the election entirely and all the claims of Russia
hacking the election are fake news.
As for the alleged media campaign, my response is "so what!". Western media, including
state-owned media, interferes around the world all the time so complaining about Russian
state-owned media doing the same is pure hypocrisy and should be ignored.
Nice illustration of ideologically based ostrakism as practiced in Academia: "Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could
be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People
- powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don't criticize
other insiders."
Notable quotes:
"... A more probable school of thought is that this game was created as a con and a cover for the status quo capitalist establishment to indulge themselves in their hard money and liquidity fetishes, consequences be damned. ..."
"... The arguments over internal and external consistency of models is just a convenient misdirection from what policy makers are willing to risk and whose interests they are willing to risk policy decisions for ..."
"... Mathematical masturbations are just a smoke screen used to conceal a simple fact that those "economists" are simply banking oligarchy stooges. Hired for the specific purpose to provide a theoretical foundation for revanschism of financial oligarchy after New Deal run into problems. Revanschism that occurred in a form of installing neoliberal ideology in the USA in exactly the same role which Marxism was installed in the USSR. With "iron hand in velvet gloves" type of repressive apparatus to enforce it on each and every university student and thus to ensure the continues, recurrent brainwashing much like with Marxism on the USSR universities. ..."
"... To ensure continuation of power of "nomenklatura" in the first case and banking oligarchy in the second. Connections with reality be damned. Money does not smell. ..."
"... Economic departments fifth column of neoliberal stooges is paid very good money for their service of promoting and sustaining this edifice of neoliberal propaganda. Just look at Greg Mankiw and Rubin's boys. ..."
"... "Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People - powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don't criticize other insiders." ..."
At the risk of oversimplifying might it not be as simple as stronger leanings towards IS-LM and kind are indicative of a bias
towards full employment and stronger leanings towards DSGE, microfoundations, and kind are indicative of a bias towards low inflation?
IN general I consider over-simplification a fault, if and only if, it is a rigidly adhered to final position. This is to say
that over-simplification is always a good starting point and never a good ending point. If in the end your problem was simple
to begin with, then the simplified answer would not be OVER-simplified anyway. It is just as bad to over-complicate a simple problem
as it is to over-simplify a complex problem. It is easier to build complexity on top of a simple foundation than it is to extract
simplicity from a complex foundation.
A lot of the Chicago School initiative into microfoundations and DSGE may have been motivated by a desire to bind Keynes in
a NAIRU straight-jacket. Even though economic policy making is largely done just one step at a time then that is still one step
too much if it might violate rentier interests.
Darryl FKA Ron -> Barry...
There are two possible (but unlikely) schools of (generously attributed to as) thought for which internal consistency might
take precedence over external consistency. One such school wants to consider what would be best in a perfect world full of perfect
people and then just assume that is best for the real world just to let the chips fall where they may according to the faults
and imperfections of the real world. The second such school is the one whose eyes just glaze over mesmerized by how over their
heads they are and remain affraid to ask any question lest they appear stupid.
A more probable school of thought is that this game was created as a con and a cover for the status quo capitalist establishment
to indulge themselves in their hard money and liquidity fetishes, consequences be damned.
Richard H. Serlin
Consistency sounds so good, Oh, of course we want consistency, who wouldn't?! But consistent in what way? What exactly do you
mean? Consistent with reality, or consistent with people all being superhumans? Which concept is usually more useful, or more
useful for the task at hand?
Essentially, they want models that are consistent with only certain things, and often because this
makes their preferred ideology look far better. They want models, typically, that are consistent with everyone in the world having
perfect expertise in every subject there is, from finance to medicine to engineering, perfect public information, and perfect
self-discipline, and usually on top, frictionless and perfectly complete markets, often perfectly competitive too.
But a big thing to note is that perfectly consistent people means a level of perfection in expertise, public information, self-discipline,
and "rationality", that's extremely at odds with how people actually are. And as a result, this can make the model extremely misleading
if it's interpreted very literally (as so often it is, especially by freshwater economists), or taken as The Truth, as Paul Krugman
puts it.
You get things like the equity premium "puzzle", which involves why people don't invest more in stocks when the risk-adjusted
return appears to usually be so abnormally good, and this "puzzle" can only be answered with "consistency", that people are all
perfectly expert in finance, with perfect information, so they must have some mysterious hidden good reason. It can't be at all
that it's because 65% of people answered incorrectly when asked how many reindeer would remain if Santa had to lay off 25% of
his eight reindeer ( http://richardhserlin.blogspot.com/2013/12/surveys-showing-massive-ignorance-and.html ).
Yes, these perfect optimizer consistency models can give useful insights, and help to see what is best, what we can do better,
and they can, in some cases, be good as approximations. But to say they should be used only, and interpreted literally, is, well,
inconsistent with optimal, rational behavior -- of the economist using them.
Richard H. Serlin -> Richard H. Serlin...
Of course, unless the economist using them is doing so to mislead people into supporting his libertarian/plutocratic ideology.
dilbert dogbert
As an old broken down mech engineer, I wonder why all the pissing and moaning about micro foundations vs aggregation. In strength
of materials equations that aggregate properties work quite well within the boundaries of the questions to be answered. We all
know that at the level of crystals, materials have much complexity. Even within crystals there is deeper complexities down to
the molecular levels. However, the addition of quantum mechanics adds no usable information about what materials to build a bridge
with.
But, when working at the scale of the most advanced computer chips quantum mechanics is required. WTF! I guess in economics
there is no quantum mechanics theories or even reliable aggregation theories.
Poor economists, doomed to argue, forever, over how many micro foundations can dance on the head of a pin.
RGC -> dilbert dogbert...
Endless discussions about how quantum effects aggregate to produce a material suitable for bridge building crowd out discussions
about where and when to build bridges. And if plutocrats fund the endless discussions, we get the prominent economists we have
today.
Darryl FKA Ron -> dilbert dogbert...
"...I guess in economics there is no quantum mechanics theories or even reliable aggregation theories..."
[I guess it depends upon what your acceptable confidence interval on reliability is. Most important difference that controls
all the domain differences between physical science and economics is that underlying physical sciences there is a deterministic
methodology for which probable error is merely a function of the inaccuracy in input metrics WHEREAS economics models are incomplete
probabilistic estimating models with no ability to provide a complete system model in a full range of circumstances.
YOu can design and build a bridge to your load and span requirements with alternative models for various designs with confidence
and highly effective accuracy repeatedly. No ecomomic theory, model, or combination of models and theories was ever intended to
be used as the blueprint for building an economy from the foundation up.
With all the formal trappings of economics the only effective usage is to decide what should be done in a given set of predetermined
circumstance to reach some modest desired effect. Even that modest goal is exposed to all kinds of risks inherent in assumptions,
incomplete information, externalities, and so on that can produce errors of uncertain potential bounds.
Nonetheless, well done economics can greatly reduce the risks encountered in the random walk of economics policy making. So
much so is this true, that the bigger questions in macro-economics policy making is what one is willing to risk and for whom.
The arguments over internal and external consistency of models is just a convenient misdirection from what policy makers
are willing to risk and whose interests they are willing to risk policy decisions for.]
Darryl FKA Ron -> Peter K....
unless you have a model which maps the real world fairly closely like quantum mechanics.
[You set a bar too high. Macro models at best will tell you what to do to move the economy in the direction that you seek to
go. They do not even ocme close to the notion of a theory of everything that you have in physics, even the theory of every little
thing that is provided by quantum mechanics. Physics is an empty metaphor for economics. Step one is to forgo physics envy in
pursuit of understanding suitable applications and domain constraints for economics models.
THe point is to reach a decision and to understand cause and effect directions. All precision is in the past and present. The
future is both imprecise and all that there is that is available to change.
For the most part an ounce of common sense and some simple narrative models are all that are essential for making those policy
decisions in and of themselves. HOWEVER, nation states are not ruled by economist philosopher kings and in the process of concensus
decision making by (little r)republican governments then human language is a very imprecise vehicle for communicating logic and
reason with respect to the management of complex systems. OTOH, mathematics has given us a universal language for communicating
logic and reason that is understood the same by everyone that really understands that language at all. Hence mathematical models
were born for the economists to write down their own thinking in clear precise terms and check their own work first and then share
it with others so equipped to understand the language of mathematics. Krugman has said as much many times and so has any and every
economist worth their salt.]
likbez -> Syaloch...
I agree with Pgl and PeterK. Certain commenters like Darryl seem convinced that the Chicago School (if not all of econ) is driven
by sinister, class-based motives to come up justifications for favoring the power elite over the masses. But based on what I've
read, it seems pretty obvious that the microfoundation guys just got caught up in their fancy math and their desire to produce
more elegant, internally consistent models and lost sight of the fact that their models didn't track reality.
That's completely wrong line of thinking, IMHO.
Mathematical masturbations are just a smoke screen used to conceal a simple fact that those "economists" are simply banking
oligarchy stooges. Hired for the specific purpose to provide a theoretical foundation for revanschism of financial oligarchy after
New Deal run into problems. Revanschism that occurred in a form of installing neoliberal ideology in the USA in exactly the same
role which Marxism was installed in the USSR.
With "iron hand in velvet gloves" type of repressive apparatus to enforce it on each and every university student and thus to
ensure the continues, recurrent brainwashing much like with Marxism on the USSR universities.
To ensure continuation of power of "nomenklatura" in the first case and banking oligarchy in the second. Connections with reality
be damned. Money does not smell.
Economic departments fifth column of neoliberal stooges is paid very good money for their service of promoting and sustaining
this edifice of neoliberal propaganda. Just look at Greg Mankiw and Rubin's boys.
But the key problem with neoliberalism is that the cure is worse then disease. And here mathematical masturbations are very
handy as a smoke screen to hide this simple fact.
likbez -> likbez...
Here is how Rubin's neoliberal boy Larry explained the situation to Elizabeth Warren:
"Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could
be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People
- powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don't criticize
other insiders."
"... Since Twitter is an enabler (part of the muscle) of the Deep State, the purges are no surprise. ..."
"... ... My point is merely to note, that the current vulgar, naked, gutless censorship by Twitter & other MSM establishment DOGS is ultimately aimed at ALL anti-consensus, anti-elite views, whether left or right. Internet search engines now consistently suppress search results for such sites as the World Socialist Website. ..."
"... What really terrifies the elites is the possibility of a revival of the actual Left (as distinct from the Fake Left). They're terrified that people might notice that the elites are waging a vicious class war against the non-elite classes. So anyone with genuine leftwing views can expect to be purged. ..."
"... The elites aren't really worried by the alt-right, a tiny and politically entirely insignificant group. In fact they love the alt-right. The alt-right serves the Emmanuel Goldstein role admirably. Their real targets will be traitors on the Left. And that means anyone who is genuinely leftist. ..."
"... An interesting aspect of the recent censorship is that you might think good capitalism requires serving every customer and hiring on merit, and that those who discriminate are only shooting themselves in the foot. I used to make this argument myself, but it's apparently faulty. The threat of angering powerful customers outweighs the benefit of tolerating weak and despised customers. ..."
... My point is merely to note, that the current vulgar, naked, gutless censorship by Twitter
& other MSM establishment DOGS is ultimately aimed at ALL anti-consensus, anti-elite
views, whether left or right. Internet search engines now consistently suppress search
results for such sites as the World Socialist Website.
You may wish to argue whether they are
a bit more/bit less active against one side or the other. Fine, but don't forget: elites are
less & less fearful of being caught censoring or suppressing freedom of expression. The
attack on net neutrality is a major thrust in this campaign. This knife cuts BOTH ways: know
your real enemy.
But apparently not a single Unz.com columnist. There's two ways to look at it. Unz.com columnists are too powerful and well-known to be censored. Or nobody important
knows who they are.
My point is merely to note, that the current vulgar, naked, gutless censorship by
Twitter & other MSM establishment DOGS is ultimately aimed at ALL anti-consensus,
anti-elite views, whether left or right.
What really terrifies the elites is the possibility of a revival of the actual Left (as
distinct from the Fake Left). They're terrified that people might notice that the elites are
waging a vicious class war against the non-elite classes. So anyone with genuine leftwing views can expect to be purged.
The elites aren't really worried by the alt-right, a tiny and politically entirely
insignificant group. In fact they love the alt-right. The alt-right serves the Emmanuel
Goldstein role admirably. Their real targets will be traitors on the Left. And that means
anyone who is genuinely leftist.
An interesting aspect of the recent censorship is that you might think good capitalism
requires serving every customer and hiring on merit, and that those who discriminate are only
shooting themselves in the foot. I used to make this argument myself, but it's apparently
faulty. The threat of angering powerful customers outweighs the benefit of tolerating weak
and despised customers.
Now that censorship has been established as a normal business option
we can expect venues who do not censor to be targets of suspicion. So it may be that we are
going to need the government to step in and require information channels not to discriminate,
just as UPS doesn't care whether a package was sent by a racist or fascist, at least not in
peacetime.
"... The problem, however, is that there is no contradiction or supposed loss of democracy because the United States simply never was one. This is a difficult reality for many people to confront, and they are likely more inclined to immediately dismiss such a claim as preposterous rather than take the time to scrutinize the material historical record in order to see for themselves. Such a dismissive reaction is due in large part to what is perhaps the most successful public relations campaign in modern history. ..."
"... Second, when the elite colonial ruling class decided to sever ties from their homeland and establish an independent state for themselves, they did not found it as a democracy. On the contrary, they were fervently and explicitly opposed to democracy, like the vast majority of European Enlightenment thinkers. They understood it to be a dangerous and chaotic form of uneducated mob rule. For the so-called "founding fathers," the masses were not only incapable of ruling, but they were considered a threat to the hierarchical social structures purportedly necessary for good governance. In the words of John Adams, to take but one telling example, if the majority were given real power, they would redistribute wealth and dissolve the "subordination" so necessary for politics. ..."
"... When the eminent members of the landowning class met in 1787 to draw up a constitution, they regularly insisted in their debates on the need to establish a republic that kept at bay vile democracy, which was judged worse than "the filth of the common sewers" by the pro-Federalist editor William Cobbett. The new constitution provided for popular elections only in the House of Representatives, but in most states the right to vote was based on being a property owner, and women, the indigenous and slaves -- meaning the overwhelming majority of the population -- were simply excluded from the franchise. Senators were elected by state legislators, the President by electors chosen by the state legislators, and the Supreme Court was appointed by the President. ..."
"... It is in this context that Patrick Henry flatly proclaimed the most lucid of judgments: "it is not a democracy." George Mason further clarified the situation by describing the newly independent country as "a despotic aristocracy." ..."
"... When the American republic slowly came to be relabeled as a "democracy," there were no significant institutional modifications to justify the change in name. In other words, and this is the third point, the use of the term "democracy" to refer to an oligarchic republic simply meant that a different word was being used to describe the same basic phenomenon. ..."
"... Slowly but surely, the term "democracy" came to be used as a public relations term to re-brand a plutocratic oligarchy as an electoral regime that serves the interest of the people or demos . Meanwhile, the American holocaust continued unabated, along with chattel slavery, colonial expansion and top-down class warfare. ..."
"... In spite of certain minor changes over time, the U.S. republic has doggedly preserved its oligarchic structure, and this is readily apparent in the two major selling points of its contemporary "democratic" publicity campaign. The Establishment and its propagandists regularly insist that a structural aristocracy is a "democracy" because the latter is defined by the guarantee of certain fundamental rights (legal definition) and the holding of regular elections (procedural definition). This is, of course, a purely formal, abstract and largely negative understanding of democracy, which says nothing whatsoever about people having real, sustained power over the governing of their lives. ..."
"... To take but a final example of the myriad ways in which the U.S. is not, and has never been, a democracy, it is worth highlighting its consistent assault on movements of people power. Since WWII, it has endeavored to overthrow some 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected. ..."
"... It has also, according the meticulous calculations by William Blum in America's Deadliest Export: Democracy , grossly interfered in the elections of at least 30 countries, attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders, dropped bombs on more than 30 countries, and attempted to suppress populist movements in 20 countries. ..."
One of the most steadfast beliefs regarding the United States is that it is a democracy.
Whenever this conviction waivers slightly, it is almost always to point out detrimental
exceptions to core American values or foundational principles. For instance, aspiring critics
frequently bemoan a "loss of democracy" due to the election of clownish autocrats, draconian
measures on the part of the state, the revelation of extraordinary malfeasance or corruption,
deadly foreign interventions, or other such activities that are considered undemocratic
exceptions . The same is true for those whose critical framework consists in always juxtaposing
the actions of the U.S. government to its founding principles, highlighting the contradiction
between the two and clearly placing hope in its potential resolution.
The problem, however, is that there is no contradiction or supposed loss of democracy
because the United States simply never was one. This is a difficult reality for many people to
confront, and they are likely more inclined to immediately dismiss such a claim as preposterous
rather than take the time to scrutinize the material historical record in order to see for
themselves. Such a dismissive reaction is due in large part to what is perhaps the most
successful public relations campaign in modern history.
What will be seen, however, if this record is soberly and methodically inspected, is that a
country founded on elite, colonial rule based on the power of wealth -- a plutocratic colonial
oligarchy, in short -- has succeeded not only in buying the label of "democracy" to market
itself to the masses, but in having its citizenry, and many others, so socially and
psychologically invested in its nationalist origin myth that they refuse to hear lucid and
well-documented arguments to the contrary.
To begin to peel the scales from our eyes, let us outline in the restricted space of this
article, five patent reasons why the United States has never been a democracy (a more sustained
and developed argument is available in my book, Counter-History of the Present
).
To begin with, British colonial expansion into the Americas did not occur in the name of the
freedom and equality of the general population, or the conferral of power to the people. Those
who settled on the shores of the "new world," with few exceptions, did not respect the fact
that it was a very old world indeed, and that a vast indigenous population had been living
there for centuries. As soon as Columbus set foot, Europeans began robbing, enslaving and
killing the native inhabitants. The trans-Atlantic slave trade commenced almost immediately
thereafter, adding a countless number of Africans to the ongoing genocidal assault against the
indigenous population. Moreover, it is estimated that over half of the colonists who came to
North America from Europe during the colonial period were poor indentured servants, and women
were generally trapped in roles of domestic servitude. Rather than the land of the free and
equal, then, European colonial expansion to the Americas imposed a land of the colonizer and
the colonized, the master and the slave, the rich and the poor, the free and the un-free. The
former constituted, moreover, an infinitesimally small minority of the population, whereas the
overwhelming majority, meaning "the people," was subjected to death, slavery, servitude, and
unremitting socio-economic oppression.
Second, when the elite colonial ruling class decided to sever ties from their homeland and
establish an independent state for themselves, they did not found it as a democracy. On the
contrary, they were fervently and explicitly opposed to democracy, like the vast majority of
European Enlightenment thinkers. They understood it to be a dangerous and chaotic form of
uneducated mob rule. For the so-called "founding fathers," the masses were not only incapable
of ruling, but they were considered a threat to the hierarchical social structures purportedly
necessary for good governance. In the words of John Adams, to take but one telling example, if
the majority were given real power, they would redistribute wealth and dissolve the
"subordination" so necessary for politics.
When the eminent members of the landowning class met
in 1787 to draw up a constitution, they regularly insisted in their debates on the need to
establish a republic that kept at bay vile democracy, which was judged worse than "the filth of
the common sewers" by the pro-Federalist editor William Cobbett. The new constitution provided
for popular elections only in the House of Representatives, but in most states the right to
vote was based on being a property owner, and women, the indigenous and slaves -- meaning the
overwhelming majority of the population -- were simply excluded from the franchise. Senators
were elected by state legislators, the President by electors chosen by the state legislators,
and the Supreme Court was appointed by the President.
It is in this context that Patrick Henry
flatly proclaimed the most lucid of judgments: "it is not a democracy." George Mason further
clarified the situation by describing the newly independent country as "a despotic
aristocracy."
When the American republic slowly came to be relabeled as a "democracy," there were no
significant institutional modifications to justify the change in name. In other words, and this
is the third point, the use of the term "democracy" to refer to an oligarchic republic simply
meant that a different word was being used to describe the same basic phenomenon. This began
around the time of "Indian killer" Andrew Jackson's presidential campaign in the 1830s.
Presenting himself as a 'democrat,' he put forth an image of himself as an average man of the
people who was going to put a halt to the long reign of patricians from Virginia and
Massachusetts. Slowly but surely, the term "democracy" came to be used as a public relations
term to re-brand a plutocratic oligarchy as an electoral regime that serves the interest of the
people or demos . Meanwhile, the American holocaust continued unabated, along with chattel
slavery, colonial expansion and top-down class warfare.
In spite of certain minor changes over time, the U.S. republic has doggedly preserved its
oligarchic structure, and this is readily apparent in the two major selling points of its
contemporary "democratic" publicity campaign. The Establishment and its propagandists regularly
insist that a structural aristocracy is a "democracy" because the latter is defined by the
guarantee of certain fundamental rights (legal definition) and the holding of regular elections
(procedural definition). This is, of course, a purely formal, abstract and largely negative
understanding of democracy, which says nothing whatsoever about people having real, sustained
power over the governing of their lives.
However, even this hollow definition dissimulates the
extent to which, to begin with, the supposed equality before the law in the United States
presupposes an inequality before the law by excluding major sectors of the population: those
judged not to have the right to rights, and those considered to have lost their right to rights
(Native Americans, African-Americans and women for most of the country's history, and still
today in certain aspects, as well as immigrants, "criminals," minors, the "clinically insane,"
political dissidents, and so forth). Regarding elections, they are run in the United States as
long, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns in which the candidates and issues are
pre-selected by the corporate and party elite. The general population, the majority of whom do
not have the right to vote or decide not to exercise it, are given the "choice" -- overseen by
an undemocratic electoral college and embedded in a non-proportional representation scheme --
regarding which member of the aristocratic elite they would like to have rule over and oppress
them for the next four years. "Multivariate analysis indicates," according to
an important recent study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, "that economic elites and
organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S.
government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no
independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite
Domination [ ], but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy."
To take but a final example of the myriad ways in which the U.S. is not, and has never been,
a democracy, it is worth highlighting its consistent assault on movements of people power.
Since WWII, it has endeavored to overthrow some 50 foreign governments, most of which were
democratically elected.
It has also, according the meticulous calculations by William Blum in
America's
Deadliest Export: Democracy , grossly interfered in the elections of at least 30 countries,
attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders, dropped bombs on more than 30 countries,
and attempted to suppress populist movements in 20 countries. The record on the home front is
just as brutal. To take but one significant parallel example, there is ample evidence that the
FBI has been invested in a covert war against democracy. Beginning at least in the 1960s, and
likely continuing up to the present, the Bureau "extended its earlier clandestine operations
against the Communist party, committing its resources to undermining the Puerto Rico
independence movement, the Socialist Workers party, the civil rights movement, Black
nationalist movements, the Ku Klux Klan, segments of the peace movement, the student movement,
and the 'New Left' in general" ( Cointelpro: The FBI's Secret War on
Political Freedom , p. 22-23).
Consider, for instance, Judi Bari's summary of its assault
on the Socialist Workers Party: "From 1943-63, the federal civil rights case Socialist Workers
Party v. Attorney General documents decades of illegal FBI break-ins and 10 million pages of
surveillance records. The FBI paid an estimated 1,600 informants $1,680,592 and used 20,000
days of wiretaps to undermine legitimate political organizing."
In five month is is clear how wrong Pat Buchanan was. I expected from him a much better analysis with less prejudies. But he is absolutely
right about leaks. Actually now it is clear that one of the requests from Trump team to Russian ambassador was about help Israel in UN, so this not a
Russiagate. There is also suspection that Strzok was the person who had thrown Flynn under the bus and propagated
Steele dossier within FBI. May be acting as Brennan agent inside FBI.
Notable quotes:
"... Just days into Trump's presidency, a rifle-shot intel community leak of a December meeting between Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and Russia's ambassador forced the firing of Flynn. ..."
"... Is it not monumental hypocrisy to denounce Russia's hacking of the computers of Democratic political leaders and institutions, while splashing the contents of the theft all over Page 1 ..."
"... Not only do our Beltway media traffic in stolen secrets and stolen goods, but the knowledge that they will publish secrets and protect those who leak them is an incentive for bureaucratic disloyalty and criminality. ..."
"... Our mainstream media are like the fellow who avoids the risk of stealing cars, but wants to fence them once stolen and repainted. ..."
"... Do the American people not have a "right to know" who are the leakers within the government who are daily spilling secrets to destroy their president? Are the identities of the saboteurs not a legitimate subject of investigation? Ought they not be exposed and rooted out? ..."
"... Where is the special prosecutor to investigate the collusion between bureaucrats and members of the press who traffic in the stolen secrets of the republic? ..."
"... Bottom line: Trump is facing a stacked deck. ..."
"... People inside the executive branch are daily providing fresh meat to feed the scandal. Anti-Trump media are transfixed by it. It is the Watergate of their generation. They can smell the blood in the water. The Pulitzers are calling. And they love it, for they loathe Donald Trump both for who he is and what he stands for. ..."
"... Sure, the media today are more deranged than ever. Media are also more cynical and in the control of globalists. But they got nothing on Russia. They have the cry of Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, but unless they can provide solid evidence, this is nothing. ..."
"... Pat Buchanan does his best – but apparently he just can't bring himself to doubt the integrity of America's "intelligence" services – even after their epic failure &/or deception when it came to Iraq's non-existent WMD's. "Confidential emails of the DNC and John Podesta were hacked, i.e., stolen by Russian intelligence and given to WikiLeaks." What reason do we have to believe this, other than the worthless word of these perpetually lying creeps? ..."
"... No it's not. The Republic died a long time ago: The Empire is in that rough middle period where the Praetorians choose the leader who suits them most, but occasionally have an unsuitable one slip past them. This ends with the barbarians moving in to assume all the trappings of being a Roman but lead the empire to a final crushing defeat at the hands of worse barbarians. ..."
"... There's still no need, unless Buchanan knows something a lot more significant than what he covers here, to give any credence whatsoever to the "Russia influencing the US election" black propaganda campaign. It should still be laughed at, rather than given the slightest credibility, whilst, as Buchanan does indeed do repeatedly, turning the issue upon the true criminals – those in US government circles leaking US security information to try to influence US politics. ..."
"... If there was any attempt by Russia to "influence" the US election it was trivial, and should be put into context whenever it is mentioned. That context includes the longstanding and ongoing efforts by the US to interfere massively in other countries' (including Russia's) elections and governments, and the routine acceptance of foreign interference in US politics by Israel in particular. ..."
"... If Trump and his backers really wanted to put a halt to this laughable nonsense about foreign influence, he should start a high profile investigation of the nefarious "influencing" of US politics by foreign "agents of influence" in general, specifically including Israel and staffed by men who are not sympathetic to that country. ..."
For a year, the big question of Russiagate has boiled down to this: Did Donald Trump's
campaign collude with the Russians in hacking the DNC? And until last week, the answer was
"no."
As ex-CIA director Mike Morell said in March, "On the question of the Trump campaign
conspiring with the Russians there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all. There's no little
campfire, there's no little candle, there's no spark."
Well, last week, it appeared there had been a fire in Trump Tower. On June 9, 2016, Donald
Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort met with Russians -- in anticipation of promised
dirt on Hillary Clinton's campaign. While not a crime, this was a blunder. For Donald Jr. had
long insisted there had been no collusion with the Russians. Caught in flagrante, he went full
Pinocchio for four days.
And as the details of that June 9 meeting spilled out, Trump defenders were left with egg on
their faces, while anti-Trump media were able to keep the spotlight laser-focused on where they
want it -- Russiagate.
This reality underscores a truth of our time. In the 19th century, power meant control of
the means of production; today, power lies in control of the means of communication.
Who controls the media spotlight controls what people talk about and think about. And
mainstream media are determined to keep that spotlight on Trump-Russia, and as far away as
possible from their agenda -- breaking the Trump presidency and bringing him down.
Almost daily, there are leaks from the investigative and security arms of the U.S.
government designed to damage this president.
Just days into Trump's presidency, a rifle-shot intel community leak of a December meeting
between Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and Russia's ambassador forced the
firing of Flynn.
An Oval Office meeting with the Russian foreign minister in which Trump disclosed that
Israeli intelligence had ferreted out evidence that ISIS was developing computer bombs to
explode on airliners was leaked. This alerted ISIS, damaged the president, and imperiled
Israeli intelligence sources and methods.
Some of the leaks from national security and investigative agencies are felonies, not only
violations of the leaker's solemn oath to protect secrets, but of federal law.
Yet the press is happy to collude with these leakers and to pay them in the coin they seek.
First, by publishing the secrets the leakers want revealed. Second, by protecting them from
exposure to arrest and prosecution for the crimes they are committing.
The mutual agendas of the deep-state leakers and the mainstream media mesh perfectly.
Consider the original Russiagate offense.
Confidential emails of the DNC and John Podesta were hacked, i.e., stolen by Russian
intelligence and given to WikiLeaks. And who was the third and indispensable party in this
"Tinker to Evers to Chance" double-play combination?
The media itself. While deploring Russian hacking as an "act of war" against "our
democracy," the media published the fruits of the hacking. It was the media that revealed what
Podesta wrote and how the DNC tilted the tables against Bernie Sanders.
If the media believed Russian hacking was a crime against our democracy, why did they
publish the fruits of that crime?
Is it not monumental hypocrisy to denounce Russia's hacking of the computers of Democratic
political leaders and institutions, while splashing the contents of the theft all over Page
1?
Not only do our Beltway media traffic in stolen secrets and stolen goods, but the knowledge
that they will publish secrets and protect those who leak them is an incentive for bureaucratic
disloyalty and criminality.
Our mainstream media are like the fellow who avoids the risk of stealing cars, but wants to
fence them once stolen and repainted.
Some journalists know exactly who is leaking against Trump, but they are as protective of
their colleagues' "sources" as of their own. Thus, the public is left in the dark as to what
the real agenda is here, and who is sabotaging a president in whom they placed so much
hope.
And thus does democracy die in darkness.
Do the American people not have a "right to know" who are the leakers within the government
who are daily spilling secrets to destroy their president? Are the identities of the saboteurs
not a legitimate subject of investigation? Ought they not be exposed and rooted out?
Where is the special prosecutor to investigate the collusion between bureaucrats and members
of the press who traffic in the stolen secrets of the republic?
Bottom line: Trump is facing a stacked deck.
People inside the executive branch are daily providing fresh meat to feed the scandal.
Anti-Trump media are transfixed by it. It is the Watergate of their generation. They can smell
the blood in the water. The Pulitzers are calling. And they love it, for they loathe Donald
Trump both for who he is and what he stands for.
It is hard to see when this ends, or how it ends well for the country.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That
Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
Pat, you are again presenting yourself to be a disinformation asset and are truly undermining
your credibility here. The DNC and Podesta emails were leaked not hacked. Please write this
out in full a hundred times on the blackboard or whiteboard of your choice. Maybe then it
will sink in.
There is nothing there.
Let the media cry Russia Russia Russia forever. Trump can do other things. People will lose interest in this. This is different from Watergate because there really was a burglary and a coverup. There's nothing remotely like this here.
1. If Russians really did it, they did it on their own. Trump team had nothing to do with
it.
2. If Russians didn't do it, this is just the media wasting its resources and energy on
nothing.
Let the media keep digging and digging and digging where they is no gold. Let them be
distracted by Trump does something real. Because Buchanan lived through Watergate, I think he's over-thinking this. It's like
dejavu to him. Sure, the media today are more deranged than ever. Media are also more cynical and in the
control of globalists. But they got nothing on Russia. They have the cry of Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, but
unless they can provide solid evidence, this is nothing.
Pat Buchanan does his best – but apparently he just can't bring himself to doubt the
integrity of America's "intelligence" services – even after their epic failure &/or
deception when it came to Iraq's non-existent WMD's. "Confidential emails of the DNC and John Podesta were hacked, i.e., stolen by Russian
intelligence and given to WikiLeaks." What reason do we have to believe this, other than the worthless word of these perpetually
lying creeps?
It is hard to see when this ends, or how it ends well for the country.
No it's not. The Republic died a long time ago: The Empire is in that rough middle period
where the Praetorians choose the leader who suits them most, but occasionally have an
unsuitable one slip past them. This ends with the barbarians moving in to assume all the
trappings of being a Roman but lead the empire to a final crushing defeat at the hands of
worse barbarians.
Buchanan still being too reasonable towards the enemies of US democracy (the Democrats and
their neocon Republican allies trying to undermine and overthrow the elected US President),
imo.
There's still no need, unless Buchanan knows something a lot more significant than what he
covers here, to give any credence whatsoever to the "Russia influencing the US election"
black propaganda campaign. It should still be laughed at, rather than given the slightest
credibility, whilst, as Buchanan does indeed do repeatedly, turning the issue upon the true
criminals – those in US government circles leaking US security information to try to
influence US politics.
Did Donald Trump's campaign collude with the Russians in hacking the DNC?
Clearly not, as far as anybody knows based upon information in the public domain. There's
no evidence Russia's government hacked anything anyway. A meeting by campaign representatives
with Russians claiming to have dirt on Trump's rival is not evidence of collusion in
hacking.
Confidential emails of the DNC and John Podesta were hacked, i.e., stolen by Russian
intelligence and given to WikiLeaks.
Again, Buchanan seems to be needlessly conceding ground to known liars and deluded
zealots.
If there was any attempt by Russia to "influence" the US election it was trivial, and
should be put into context whenever it is mentioned. That context includes the longstanding
and ongoing efforts by the US to interfere massively in other countries' (including Russia's)
elections and governments, and the routine acceptance of foreign interference in US politics
by Israel in particular.
If Trump and his backers really wanted to put a halt to this laughable nonsense about
foreign influence, he should start a high profile investigation of the nefarious
"influencing" of US politics by foreign "agents of influence" in general, specifically
including Israel and staffed by men who are not sympathetic to that country.
That would quickly result in the shutting down of mainstream media complaints about
foreign influence.
Yipes -- What is the matter with Buchanan? Is he taking weird prescription drugs for
Alzheimers ?
He seems to be a bit of an apologist for KNOWN liars and he doesn't seem to understand that
the MSM is absolutely the mouthpiece for these agencies, populated with agents like Cooper
and Mika etc etc etc
It is hard to see when this ends, or how it ends well for the country.
It already didn't end well and it pains me to say this. What it may become only is worse.
At this stage I don's see any "better" scenarios. The truth has been revealed.
"... BuzzFeed , of course, is the sensationalist outlet that irresponsibly published the Steele dossier in full, even though the accusations – not just about Donald Trump but also many other individuals – weren't verified. Then on Nov. 14, BuzzFeed reporter Jason Leopold wrote one of the most ludicrous of a long line of fantastic Russia-gate stories, reporting that the Russian foreign ministry had sent money to Russian consulates in the U.S. "to finance the election campaign of 2016." The scoop generated some screaming headlines before it became clear that the money was to pay for Russian citizens in the U.S. to vote in the 2016 Duma election. ..."
"... A lesson of the 2016 campaign was that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with three decades of neoliberal policies that have fabulously enriched the top tier of Americans and debased a huge majority of everyone else. The population has likewise grown tired of the elite's senseless wars to expand their own interests, which they to conflate with the entire country's interests. ..."
"... Careerist journalists readily acquiesce in this suppression of news to maintain their jobs, their status and their lifestyles. Meanwhile, a growing body of poorly paid freelancers compete for the few remaining decent-paying gigs for which they must report from the viewpoint of the mainstream news organizations and their wealthy owners. ..."
"... Their solution has been to brand the content of the Russian television network, RT, as "propaganda" since it presents facts and viewpoints that most Americans have been kept from hearing. ..."
"... Now, these American transgressions are projected exclusively onto Moscow. There's also a measure of self-reverence in this for "successful" people, like some journalists, with a stake in an establishment that underpins the elite, demonstrating how wonderfully democratic they are compared to those ogres in Russia. ..."
"... The Jan. 6 intelligence assessment on alleged Russian election meddling is a good example of this. A third of its content is an attack on RT for "undermining American democracy" by reporting on Occupy Wall Street, the protest over the Dakota pipeline and, of all things, holding a "third party candidate debates," at a time when 71% of American millennials say they want a third party. ..."
"... According to the Jan. 6 assessment, RT's offenses include reporting that "the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a 'sham.'" RT also "highlights criticism of alleged US shortcomings in democracy and civil liberties." In other words, reporting newsworthy events and giving third-party candidates a voice undermines democracy. ..."
"... The assessment also says all this amounts to "a Kremlin-directed campaign to undermine faith in the US Government and fuel political protest," but those protests by are against privileges of the wealthy and the well-connected, a status quo that the intelligence agencies were in essence created to protect. ..."
"... There are also deeper reasons why Russia is being targeted. The Russia-gate story fits neatly into a geopolitical strategy that long predates the 2016 election. Since Wall Street and the U.S. government lost the dominant position in Russia that existed under the pliable President Boris Yeltsin, the strategy has been to put pressure on getting rid of Putin to restore a U.S. friendly leader in Moscow. There is substance to Russia's concerns about American designs for "regime change" in the Kremlin. ..."
"... But the "deranking" isn't only aimed at Russian sites; Google algorithms also are taking aim at independent news sites that don't follow the mainstream herd – and thus are accused of spreading Russian or other "propaganda" if they question the dominant Western narratives on, say, the Ukraine crisis or the war in Syria. A number of alternative websites have begun reporting a sharp fall-off of traffic directed to their sites from Google's search engines. ..."
"... the European Union is spending €3.8 million to counter Russian "propaganda." It is targeting Eurosceptic politicians who repeat what they hear on Russian media. ..."
"... Less prominent figures are targeted too. John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who blew the whistle on torture and was jailed for it, was kicked off a panel in Europe on Nov. 10 by a Bernie Sanders supporter who refused to appear with Kiriakou because he co-hosts a show on Radio Sputnik . ..."
"... At the end of November, Reporters Without Borders, an organization supposedly devoted to press freedom, tried to kick journalist Vanessa Beeley off a panel in Geneva to prevent her from presenting evidence that the White Helmets, a group that sells itself as a rescue organization inside rebel-controlled territory in Syria, has ties to Al Qaeda. The Swiss Press Club, which hosted the event, resisted the pressure and let Beeley speak. ..."
"... Much of this spreading mania and intensifying censorship traces back to Russia-gate. Yet, it remains remarkable that the corporate media has failed so far to prove any significant Russian interference in the U.S. election at all. Nor have the intelligence agencies, Congressional investigations and special prosecutor Robert Mueller. His criminal charges so far have been for financial crimes and lying to federal authorities on topics unrelated to any "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russians to "hack" Democratic emails ..."
"... As journalist Yasha Levine tweeted: "So the country that influenced US policy through Michael Flynn is Israel, not Russia. But Flynn did try to influence Russia, not the other way around. Ha-ha. This is the smoking gun? What a farce." ..."
"... There's also the question of how significant the release of those emails was anyway. They did provide evidence that the DNC tilted the primary campaign in favor of Clinton over Sanders; they exposed the contents of Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street, which she was trying to hide from the voters; and they revealed some pay-to-play features of the Clinton Foundation and its foreign donations. But – even if the Russians were involved in providing that information to the American people – those issues were not considered decisive in the campaign. ..."
"... As for vaguer concerns about some Russian group "probably" buying $100,000 in ads, mostly after Americans had voted, as a factor in swaying a $6 billion election, it is too silly to contemplate. ..."
"... RT and Sputnik 's reach in the U.S. is minuscule compared to Fox News , which slammed Clinton throughout the campaign, or for that matter, MSNBC, CNN and other mainstream news outlets, which often expressed open disdain for Republican Donald Trump but also gave extensive coverage to issues such as the security concerns about Clinton's private email server. ..."
"... Without convincing evidence, I remain a Russia-gate skeptic. I am not defending Russia. Russia can defend itself. However, amid the growing censorship and the dangerous new McCarthyism, I am trying to defend America -- from itself. ..."
"... Lauria's article is an excellent review of the hydra-headed MSM perversion of political journalism in this era of the PATRIOT Act, with special focus on 2016-2017. With one small exception that still is worth noting. Namely the inclusion of "North Koreans" along with Palestinians, Russians and Iranians as those whose viewpoints are never represented in the Western media. ..."
"... Without factual support James calls Putin an organized criminal. US NGO staff who have actually dealt with Putin characterize him as a strict legalist. In fact, Putin's incorruptibility is what drives CIA up the wall. Ask any upper-echelon spook. Putin's cupidity deficit short-circuits CIA's go-to subversion method, massive bribes. Putin has an uneasy relationship with the kleptocrats CIA installed while their puppet Yeltsin staggered around blind drunk. But Putin has materially curbed kleptocratic corruption and subversion. Russians appreciate that. ..."
"... It seems to be the same in Germany. The German journalist Udo Ulfkotte, he died maybe a year ago, he worked long for the prestigious newspaper FAZ, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote a book about bought journalism. His explanation for the disappearence of discussion sites with newspapers is that the journalists discovered that the reactions got far more attention than the articles. Very annoying, of course. With us here, Follow The Money, and The Post Online behave as childish as German newspapers. ..."
"... And if that same central bank would give out loans -- that never get repaid -- to the same ethnic gangsters that would then would use those loans to buy up over 90% of the host nations MSM outlets to forever ensure that a steady drip, drip, drip of propaganda went into the host nation's residents, ever so slowly turning them into mindless sheep always bleating for more wars to help the ethnic gangsters steal their way to an Eretz state? ..."
"... Reminds me of a contemporary Russian joke: "Everything communists told us about socialism turned out to be a lie. However, everything they told us about capitalism is perfectly true". ..."
Under increasing pressure from a population angry about endless wars and the transfer of wealth to the one percent, American
plutocrats are defending themselves by suppressing critical news in the corporate media they own. But as that news emerges on
RT and dissident websites, they've resorted to the brazen move of censorship, which is rapidly spreading in the U.S. and Europe.
I know because I was a victim of it.
At the end of October, I wrote an
article for Consortium
News about the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign paying for unvetted opposition research that became
the basis for much of the disputed story about Russia allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
The piece showed that the Democrats' two paid-for sources that have engendered belief in Russia-gate are at best shaky. First
was former British spy Christopher Steele's
largely unverified
dossier of second- and third-hand opposition research portraying Donald Trump as something of a Russian Manchurian candidate.
And the second was CrowdStrike, an anti-Putin private company, examining the DNC's computer server to dubiously claim discovery
of a Russian "hack." CrowdStrike, it was later discovered, had used
faulty software
it was later forced to
rewrite
. The company was hired after the DNC refused to allow the FBI to look at the server.
My piece also described the dangerous consequences of partisan Democratic faith in Russia-gate: a sharp increase in geopolitical
tensions between nuclear-armed Russia and the U.S., and a New McCarthyism that is spreading fear -- especially in academia, journalism
and civil rights organizations -- about questioning the enforced orthodoxy of Russia's alleged guilt.
After the article appeared at Consortium News , I tried to penetrate the mainstream by then publishing a version of the
article on the HuffPost, which was
rebranded from the Huffington Post in April this year by new management. As a contributor to the site since February 2006,
I am trusted by HuffPost editors to post my stories directly online. However, within 24 hours of publication on Nov. 4, HuffPost
editors retracted
the article without any explanation.
Like the word "fascism," "censorship" is an over-used and mis-used accusation, and I usually avoid using it. But without any explanation,
I could only conclude that the decision to retract was political, not editorial.
I am non-partisan as I oppose both major parties for failing to represent millions of Americans' interests. I follow facts where
they lead. In this case, the facts led to an understanding that the Jan. 6 FBI/NSA/CIA intelligence
"assessment" on alleged Russian election interference,
prepared by what then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called "hand-picked" analysts, was based substantially on unvetted
opposition research and speculation, not serious intelligence work.
The assessment even made the point that the analysts were not asserting that the alleged Russian interference was a fact. The
report contained this disclaimer: "Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments
are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents."
Under deadline pressure on Jan. 6, Scott Shane of The New York Times instinctively wrote what many readers of the report
must have been thinking: "What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to
back up the agencies' claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. Instead, the message from the agencies essentially
amounts to 'trust us.'"
Yet, after the Jan. 6 report was published, leading Democrats asserted falsely that the "assessment" represented the consensus
judgment of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies – not just the views of "hand-picked" analysts from three – and much of the U.S. mainstream
media began treating the allegations of Russian "hacking" as fact, not as an uncertain conclusion denied by both the Russian government
and WikiLeaks, which insists that it did not get the two batches of Democratic emails from the Russian government.
Yet, because of the oft-repeated "17 intelligence agencies" canard and the mainstream media's over-hyped reporting, the public
impression has built up that the accusations against Russia are indisputable. If you ask a Russia-gate believer today what their
faith is based on, they will invariably point to the Jan. 6 assessment and mock anyone who still expresses any doubt.
For instance, an unnamed former CIA officer
toldThe Intercept
last month, "You've got all these intelligence agencies saying the Russians did the hack. To deny that is like coming out with the
theory that the Japanese didn't bomb Pearl Harbor."
That the supposedly dissident Intercept would use this quote is instructive about how unbalanced the media's reporting
on Russia-gate has been. We have film of Japanese planes attacking Pearl Harbor and American ships burning – and we have eyewitness
accounts of thousands of U.S. soldiers and sailors. Yet, on Russia-gate, we have only the opinions of "hand-picked" intelligence
officials who themselves admit their opinions aren't fact. No serious editor would allow a self-interested and unnamed source to
equate Russia-gate and Pearl Harbor in print.
In this atmosphere, it was easy for HuffPost editors to hear complaints from readers and blithely ban my story. But before
it was pulled, 125 people had shared it. Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, then took up my cause, being the first to write about
the HuffPost censorship on his
blog. McGovern included a link to a .pdf file that I captured of the
censored
HuffPost story. It has since been republished on numerous
otherwebsites.
Journalist Max Blumenthal tweeted about
it. British filmmaker and writer Tariq Ali
posted it on
his Facebook page. Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams
interviewed
me at length about the censorship on their TV program. ZeroHedge wrote a widely shared
piece and someone actually took the time, 27 minutes and 13 seconds to be exact, to read the entire article on YouTube. I began
a petition to HuffPost
's Polgreen to either explain the retraction or restore the article. It has gained more than 2,000 signatures so far. If a serious
fact-check analysis was made of my article, it must exist and can and should be produced.
Despite this support from independent media, a senior official at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, I learned, declined to take
up my cause because he believes in the Russia-gate story. I also learned that a senior officer at the American Civil Liberties Union
rejected my case because he too believes in Russia-gate. Both of these serious organizations were set up precisely to defend individuals
in such situations on principle, not preference.
In terms of their responsibilities for defending journalism and protecting civil liberties, their personal opinions about whether
Russia-gate is real or not are irrelevant. The point is whether a journalist has the right to publish an article skeptical of it.
I worry that amid the irrational fear spreading about Russia that concerns about careers and funding are behind these decisions.
One online publication decidedly took the HuffPost's side. Steven Perlberg, a media reporter for BuzzFeed, asked
the HuffPost why they retracted my article. While ignoring me, the editors issued a statement to BuzzFeed saying that
"Mr. Lauria's self-published" piece was "later flagged by readers, and after deciding that the post contained multiple factually
inaccurate or misleading claims, our editors removed the post per our contributor terms of use." Those terms include retraction for
"any reason," including, apparently, censorship.
Perlberg posted the HuffPost statement
on Twitter. I asked him if he inquired of the editors what those "multiple" errors and "misleading claims" were. I asked him to contact
me to get my side of the story. Perlberg totally ignored me. He wrote nothing about the matter. He apparently believed the HuffPost
and that was that. In this way, he acquiesced with the censorship.
BuzzFeed , of course, is the sensationalist outlet that irresponsibly published the Steele dossier in full, even though
the accusations – not just about Donald Trump but also many other individuals – weren't verified. Then on Nov. 14, BuzzFeed
reporter Jason Leopold wrote one of the most
ludicrous of a long line of fantastic Russia-gate stories, reporting that the Russian foreign ministry had sent money to Russian
consulates in the U.S. "to finance the election campaign of 2016." The scoop generated some screaming headlines before it became
clear that the money was to pay for Russian citizens in the U.S. to vote in the 2016 Duma election.
That Russia-gate has reached this point, based on faith and not fact, was further illustrated by a Facebook exchange I had with
Gary Sick, an academic who served on the Ford and Carter national security staffs. When I pressed Sick for evidence of Russian interference,
he eventually replied: "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck " When I told him that was a very low-bar for such serious
accusations, he angrily cut off debate.
When belief in a story becomes faith-based or is driven by intense self-interest, honest skeptics are pushed aside and trampled.
True-believers disdain facts that force them to think about what they believe. They won't waste time making a painstaking examination
of the facts or engage in a detailed debate even on something as important and dangerous as a new Cold War with Russia.
This is the most likely explanation for the HuffPost 's censorship: a visceral reaction to having their Russia-gate faith
challenged.
But the HuffPos t's action is hardly isolated. It is part of a rapidly growing landscape of censorship of news critical
of American corporate and political leaders who are trying to defend themselves from an increasingly angry population. It's a story
as old as civilization: a wealthy and powerful elite fending off popular unrest by trying to contain knowledge of how the elite gain
at the others' expense, at home and abroad.
A lesson of the 2016 campaign was that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with three decades of neoliberal policies that
have fabulously enriched the top tier of Americans and debased a huge majority of everyone else. The population has likewise grown
tired of the elite's senseless wars to expand their own interests, which they to conflate with the entire country's interests.
America's bipartisan rulers are threatened by popular discontent from both left and right. They were alarmed by the Bernie Sanders
insurgency and by Donald Trump's victory, even if Trump is now betraying the discontented masses who voted for him by advancing tax
and health insurance plans designed to further crush them and benefit the rich.
Trump's false campaign promises will only make the rulers' problem of controlling a restless population more difficult. Americans
are subjected to economic inequality greater than in the first Gilded Age. They are also subjected today to more war than in the
first Gilded Age, which led to the launch of American overseas empire. Today American rulers are engaged in multiple conflicts following
decades of post-World War II invasions and coups to expand their global interests.
People with wealth and power always seem to be nervous about losing both. So plutocrats use the concentrated media they own to
suppress news critical of their wars and domestic repression. For example, almost nothing was reported about militarized police forces
until the story broke out into the open in the Ferguson protests and now the story has been buried again.
Careerist journalists readily acquiesce in this suppression of news to maintain their jobs, their status and their lifestyles.
Meanwhile, a growing body of poorly paid freelancers compete for the few remaining decent-paying gigs for which they must report
from the viewpoint of the mainstream news organizations and their wealthy owners.
To operate in this media structure, most journalists know to excise out the historical context of America's wars of domination.
They know to uncritically accept American officials' bromides about spreading democracy, while hiding the real war aims.
Examples abound: America's
role in the Ukraine coup was denied or downplayed; a British parliamentary report exposing American lies that led to the destruction
of Libya was suppressed
; and most infamously, the media promoted the WMD hoax and the fable of "bringing democracy" to Iraq, leading to the illegal invasion
and devastation of that country. A recent example from November is a 60 Minutesreport on the Saudi
destruction of Yemen, conspicuously failing to mention America's crucial role in the carnage.
I've pitched numerous news stories critical of U.S. foreign policy to a major American newspaper that were rejected or changed
in the editorial process. One example is the declassified Defense Intelligence Agency
document of August 2012 that accurately predicted the rise of the Islamic State two years later.
The document, which I confirmed with a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. and its Turkish, European and Gulf Arab allies, were
supporting the establishment of a Salafist principality in eastern Syria to put pressure on the Syrian government, but the document
warned that this Salafist base could turn into an "Islamic State."
But such a story would undermine the U.S. government's "war on terrorism" narrative by revealing that the U.S.-backed strategy
actually was risking the expansion of jihadist-held territory in Syria. The story was twice rejected by my editors and to my knowledge
has never appeared in corporate media.
Another story rejected in June 2012, just a year into the Syrian war, was about Russia's motives in Syria being guided by a desire
to defeat the growing jihadist threat there. Corporate media wanted to keep the myth of Russia's "imperial" aims in Syria alive.
I had to publish the article
outside the U.S., in a South African daily newspaper.
In September 2015 at the U.N. General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin
confirmed my story about
Russia's motives in Syria to stop jihadists from taking over. Putin invited the U.S. to join this effort as Moscow was about to launch
its military intervention at the invitation of the Syrian government. The Obama administration, still insisting on "regime change"
in Syria, refused. And the U.S. corporate media continued promoting the myth that Russia intervened to recapture its "imperial glory."
It was much easier to promote the "imperial" narrative than report Putin's clear
explanation to French TV channel TF1, which was not picked
up by American media.
"Remember what Libya or Iraq looked like before these countries and their organizations were destroyed as states by our Western
partners' forces?" Putin said. "These states showed no signs of terrorism. They were not a threat for Paris, for the Cote d'Azur,
for Belgium, for Russia, or for the United States. Now, they are the source of terrorist threats. Our goal is to prevent the same
from happening in Syria."
But don't take Putin's word for it. Then Secretary of State John Kerry knew why Russia intervened. In a
leaked audio conversation with Syrian opposition figures
in September 2016, Kerry said: "The reason Russia came in is because ISIL was getting stronger, Daesh was threatening the possibility
of going to Damascus, and that's why Russia came in because they didn't want a Daesh government and they supported Assad."
Kerry admitted that rather than seriously fight the Islamic State in Syria, the U.S. was ready to use its growing strength to
pressure Assad to resign, just as the DIA document that I was unable to report said it would. "We know that this was growing, we
were watching, we saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably
manage that Assad might then negotiate, but instead of negotiating he got Putin to support him." Kerry's comment suggests that the
U.S. was willing to risk the Islamic State and its jihadist allies gaining power in order to force out Assad.
Where are independent-minded Western journalists to turn if their stories critical of the U.S. government and corporations are
suppressed? The imperative is to get these stories out – and Russian media has provided an opening. But this has presented a new
problem for the plutocracy. The suppression of critical news in their corporate-owned media is no longer working if it's seeping
out in Russian media and through dissident Western news sites.
Their solution has been to brand the content of the Russian television network, RT, as "propaganda" since it presents facts and
viewpoints that most Americans have been kept from hearing.
As a Russian-government-financed English-language news channel, RT also gives a Russian perspective on the news, the way CNN and
The New York Times give an American perspective and the BBC a British one. American mainstream journalists, from my experience,
arrogantly deny suppressing news and believe they present a universal perspective, rather than a narrow American view of the world.
The viewpoints of Iranians, Palestinians, Russians, North Koreans and others are never fully reported in the Western media although
the supposed mission of journalism is to help citizens understand a frighteningly complex world from multiple points of view. It's
impossible to do so without those voices included. Routinely or systematically shutting them out also dehumanizes people in those
countries, making it easier to gain popular support to go to war against them.
Russia is scapegoated by charging that RT or Sputnik are sowing divisions in the U.S. by focusing on issues like homelessness,
racism, or out-of-control militarized police forces, as if these divisive issues didn't already exist. The U.S. mainstream media
also seems to forget that the U.S. government has engaged in at least 70 years of interference in other countries' elections, foreign
invasions, coups, planting stories in foreign media and cyber-warfare, which Russian media crucially points out.
Now, these American transgressions are projected exclusively onto Moscow. There's also a measure of self-reverence in this for
"successful" people, like some journalists, with a stake in an establishment that underpins the elite, demonstrating how wonderfully
democratic they are compared to those ogres in Russia.
The overriding point about the "Russian propaganda" complaint is that when America's democratic institutions, including the press
and the electoral process, are crumbling under the weight of corruption that the American elites have created or maintained, someone
else needs to be blamed.
The Jan. 6 intelligence assessment on alleged Russian election meddling is a good example of this. A third of its content is an
attack on RT for "undermining American democracy" by reporting on Occupy Wall Street, the protest over the Dakota pipeline and, of
all things, holding a "third party candidate debates," at a time when 71% of American millennials
say they
want a third party.
According to the Jan. 6 assessment, RT's offenses include reporting that "the US two-party system does not represent the views
of at least one-third of the population and is a 'sham.'" RT also "highlights criticism of alleged US shortcomings in democracy and
civil liberties." In other words, reporting newsworthy events and giving third-party candidates a voice undermines democracy.
The assessment also says all this amounts to "a Kremlin-directed campaign to undermine faith in the US Government and fuel political
protest," but those protests by are against privileges of the wealthy and the well-connected, a status quo that the intelligence
agencies were in essence created to protect.
There are also deeper reasons why Russia is being targeted. The Russia-gate story fits neatly into a geopolitical strategy that
long predates the 2016 election. Since Wall Street and the U.S. government lost the dominant position in Russia that existed under
the pliable President Boris Yeltsin, the strategy has been to put pressure on getting rid of Putin to restore a U.S. friendly leader
in Moscow. There is substance
to Russia's concerns about American designs for "regime change" in the Kremlin.
Moscow sees an aggressive America expanding NATO and putting 30,000 NATO troops on its borders; trying to overthrow a secular
ally in Syria with terrorists who threaten Russia itself; backing a coup in Ukraine as a possible prelude to moves against Russia;
and using American NGOs to foment unrest inside Russia before they were forced to register as foreign agents.
The Constitution prohibits government from prior-restraint, or censorship, though such tactics were imposed, largely unchallenged,
during the two world wars. American newspapers voluntarily agreed to censor themselves in the Second World War before the government
dictated it.
In the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur said he didn't "desire to reestablish wartime censorship" and instead asked the press
for self-censorship. He largely got it until the papers began reporting American battlefield losses. On July 25, 1950, "the army
ordered that reporters were not allowed to publish 'unwarranted' criticism of command decisions, and that the army would be 'the
sole judge and jury' on what 'unwarranted' criticism entailed," according to a Yale University
study on military censorship.
After excellent on-the-ground reporting from Vietnam brought the war home to America, the military reacted by instituting, initially
in the first Gulf War, serious control of the press by "embedding" reporters from private media companies. They accepted the arrangement,
much as World War II newspapers censored themselves.
It is important to realize that the First Amendment does not apply to private companies, including the media. It is not illegal
for them to practice censorship. I never made a First Amendment argument against the HuffPost , for instance. However, under
pressure from Washington, even in peacetime, media companies can do the government's dirty work to censor or limit free speech for
the government.
In the past few weeks, we've seen an acceleration of attempts by corporations to inhibit Russian media in the U.S. Both Google
and Facebook, which dominate the Web with more than 50 percent of ad revenue, were at first resistant to government pressure to censor
"Russian propaganda." But they are coming around.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent company,
said on Nov. 18 that Google would "derank" articles from RT and Sputnik in the Google searches, making the stories harder for
readers to find. The billionaire Schmidt claimed Russian information can be "repetitive, exploitative, false, [or] likely to have
been weaponized," he said. That is how factual news critical of U.S. corporate and political leadership is seen by them: as a weapon
threatening their rule.
"My own view is that these patterns can be detected, and that they can be taken down or deprioritized," Schmidt said. Though Google would essentially be hiding news produced by RT and Sputnik , Schmidt is sensitive to the charge of censorship,
even though there's nothing legally to stop him. "We don't want to ban the sites. That's not how we operate," Schmidt said cynically. "I am strongly not in favor of censorship.
I am very strongly in favor of ranking. It's what we do."
But the "deranking" isn't only aimed at Russian sites; Google algorithms also are taking aim at independent news sites that don't
follow the mainstream herd – and thus are accused of spreading Russian or other "propaganda" if they question the dominant Western
narratives on, say, the Ukraine crisis or the war in Syria. A number of alternative websites have begun reporting a sharp fall-off
of traffic directed to their sites from Google's search engines.
Responding to a deadline from Congress to act, Facebook on Nov. 22 announced that it would inform users if they have been "targeted"
by Russian "propaganda." Facebook's help center will tell users if they liked or shared ads allegedly from the St. Petersburg-based
Internet Research Agency, which supposedly bought $100,000 in ads over a two-year period, with more than half these ads coming after
the 2016 U.S. election and many not related to politics.
The $100,000 sum over two years compares to Facebook's $27 billion in annual revenue. Plus, Facebook only says it "believes" or
it's "likely" that the ads came from that firm, whose links to the Kremlin also have yet to be proved.
Facebook described the move as "part of our ongoing effort to protect our platforms and the people who use them from bad actors
who try to undermine our democracy." Congress wants more from Facebook, so it will not be surprising if users will eventually be
alerted to Russian media reports as "propaganda" in the future.
While the government can't openly shut down a news site, the Federal Communications Commission's
upcoming vote on whether to deregulate
the Internet by ending net neutrality will free private Internet companies in the U.S. to further marginalize Russian and dissident
websites by slowing them down and thus discouraging readers from viewing them.
Likewise, as the U.S. government doesn't want to be openly seen shutting down RT operations, it is working around the edges to
accomplish that.
After the Department of Justice forced, under threat of arrest, RT to register its employees as foreign agents under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act , State Department spokeswoman Heather Nuaert said that "FARA does not police the content of information
disseminated, does not limit the publication of information or advocacy materials, and does not restrict an organization's ability
to operate." She'd earlier said that registering would not "impact or affect the ability of them to report news and information.
We just have them register. It's as simple as that."
The day after Nuaert spoke the Congressional press office
stripped RT correspondents of their
Capitol Hill press passes, citing the FARA registration. "The rules of the Galleries state clearly that news credentials may not
be issued to any applicant employed 'by any foreign government or representative thereof.' Upon its registration as a foreign agent
under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), RT Network became ineligible to hold news credentials," read the letter to RT.
But Russia-gate faithful ignore these aggressive moves and issue calls for even harsher action. After forcing RT to register,
Keir Giles, a Chatham House senior consulting fellow, acted as though it never happened. He said in a Council on Foreign Relations
Cyber Brief on Nov. 27: "Although the Trump administration seems unlikely to pursue action against Russian information operations,
there are steps the U.S. Congress and other governments should consider."
I commented on this development on RT America. It would
also have been good to have the State Department's Nuaert answer for this discrepancy about the claim that forced FARA registrations
would not affect news gathering when it already has. My criticism of RT is that they should be interviewing U.S. decision-makers
to hold them accountable, rather than mostly guests outside the power structure. The decision-makers could be called out on air if
they refuse to appear.
Western rulers' wariness about popular unrest can be seen in the extraordinary and scurrilous attack on the Canadian website
globalresearch.ca . It began with a chilling study by the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization into the relatively obscure website, followed by a vicious
hit piece
on Nov. 18 by the Globe and Mail, Canada's largest newspaper. The headline was: "How a Canadian website is being used to amplify
the Kremlin's view of the world."
"What once appeared to be a relatively harmless online refuge for conspiracy theorists is now seen by NATO's information warfare
specialists as a link in a concerted effort to undermine the credibility of mainstream Western media – as well as the North American
and European public's trust in government and public institutions," the Globe and Mail reported.
"Global Research is viewed by NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence – or
StratCom – as playing a
key accelerant role in helping popularize articles with little basis in fact that also happen to fit the narratives being pushed
by the Kremlin, in particular, and the Assad regime." The website never knew it had such powers. I've not agreed with everything I've read on the site. But it is a useful clearinghouse for alternative media. Numerous Consortium News articles are republished there, including a handful of mine. But the site's typical sharing and
reposting on the Internet is seen by NATO as a plot to undermine the Free World.
"It uses that reach to push not only its own opinion pieces, but 'news' reports from little-known websites that regularly carry
dubious or false information," the he Globe and Mail reported. " At times, the site's regular variety of international-affairs
stories is replaced with a flurry of items that bolster dubious reportage with a series of opinion pieces, promoted on social media
and retweeted and shared by active bots."
The newspaper continued, "'That way, they increase the Google ranking of the story and create the illusion of multi-source verification,'
said Donara Barojan, who does digital forensic research for [StratCom]. But she said she did not yet have proof that Global Research
is connected to any government."
This sort of smear is nothing more than a blatant attack on free speech by the most powerful military alliance in the world, based
on the unfounded conviction that Russia is a fundamental force for evil and that anyone who has contacts with Russia or shares even
a part of its multilateral world view is suspect.
Such tactics are spreading to Europe. La Repubblica newspaper in Italy wrote a similar hit piece against
L'Antidiplomatico, a dissident website. And the European Union is spending
€3.8 million to counter Russian "propaganda." It is targeting Eurosceptic politicians who repeat what they hear on Russian media.
High-profile individuals in the U.S. are also now in the crosshairs of the neo-McCarthyite witch hunt. On Nov. 25 The Washington
Post ran a nasty hit piece on Washington Capitals' hockey player Alex Ovechkin, one of the most revered sports figures in the
Washington area, simply because he, like
86 percent of other Russians , supports his president.
"Alex Ovechkin is one of Putin's biggest fans. The question is, why?" ran the headline. The story insidiously implied that Ovechkin
was a dupe of his own president, being used to set up a media campaign to support Putin, who is under fierce and relentless attack
in the United States where Ovechkin plays professional ice hockey.
"He has given an unwavering endorsement to a man who U.S. intelligence agencies say sanctioned Russian meddling in last year's
presidential election," write the Post reporters, once again showing their gullibility to U.S. intelligence agencies that have provided
no proof for their assertions (and even admit that they are not asserting their opinion as fact).
Less prominent figures are targeted too. John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent who blew the whistle on torture and was jailed for
it, was
kicked
off a panel in Europe on Nov. 10 by a Bernie Sanders supporter who refused to appear with Kiriakou because he co-hosts a show
on Radio Sputnik .
At the end of November, Reporters Without Borders, an organization supposedly devoted to press freedom, tried to kick journalist
Vanessa Beeley off a panel in Geneva to
prevent her from presenting evidence that the White Helmets, a group that sells itself as a rescue organization inside rebel-controlled
territory in Syria, has ties to Al Qaeda. The Swiss Press Club, which hosted the event, resisted the pressure and let Beeley speak.
But as a consequence the club director said its funding was slashed from the Swiss government.
Much of this spreading mania and intensifying censorship traces back to Russia-gate. Yet, it remains remarkable that the corporate
media has failed so far to prove any significant Russian interference in the U.S. election at all. Nor have the intelligence agencies,
Congressional investigations and special prosecutor Robert Mueller. His criminal charges so far have been for financial crimes and
lying to federal authorities on topics unrelated to any "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russians to "hack" Democratic
emails.
There will likely be more indictments from Mueller, even perhaps a complaint about Trump committing obstruction of justice because
he said on TV that he fired Comey, in part, because of the "Russia thing." But Trump's clumsy reaction to the "scandal," which he
calls "fake news" and a "witch hunt," still is not proof that Putin and the Russians interfered in the U.S. election to achieve the
unlikely outcome of Trump's victory.
The Russia-gate faithful assured us to wait for the indictment of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, briefly Trump's national security
adviser. But again there was nothing about pre-election "collusion," only charges that Flynn had lied to the FBI about conversations
with the Russian ambassador regarding policy matters during the presidential transition, i.e., after the election.
One of Flynn's conversations was about trying unsuccessfully to comply with an Israeli request to get Russia to block a United
Nations resolution censuring Israel's settlements on Palestinian land.
As journalist Yasha Levine tweeted: "So the country that influenced US policy through Michael Flynn is Israel, not Russia.
But Flynn did try to influence Russia, not the other way around. Ha-ha. This is the smoking gun? What a farce."
The media is becoming a victim of its own mania. In its zeal to push this story reporters are making a
huge number of amateurish mistakes on stories that are later corrected. Brian Ross of ABC News was
suspended for erroneously reporting that Trump had told Flynn to contact the Russians before the election, and not after.
There remain a number of key hurdles to prove the Russia-gate story. First, convincing evidence is needed that the Russian government
indeed did "hack" the Democratic emails, both those of the DNC and Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta – and gave them to WikiLeaks.
Then it must be linked somehow to the Trump campaign. If it were a Russian hack it would have been an intelligence operation on a
need-to-know basis, and no one in the Trump team needed to know. It's not clear how any campaign member could have even helped with
an overseas hack or could have been an intermediary to WikiLeaks.
There's also the question of how significant the release of those emails was anyway. They did provide evidence that the DNC
tilted the primary campaign in favor of Clinton over Sanders; they exposed the contents of Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street,
which she was trying to hide from the voters; and they revealed some pay-to-play features of the Clinton Foundation and its foreign
donations. But – even if the Russians were involved in providing that information to the American people – those issues were not
considered decisive in the campaign.
Clinton principally pinned her loss on FBI Director James Comey for closing and then reopening the investigation into her
improper use of a private email server while Secretary of State. She also spread the blame to
Russia (repeating
the canard about "seventeen [U.S. intelligence] agencies, all in agreement"), Bernie Sanders, the inept DNC and other factors.
As for vaguer concerns about some Russian group "probably" buying $100,000 in ads, mostly after Americans had voted, as a factor
in swaying a $6 billion election, it is too silly to contemplate.
That RT and Sputnik ran pieces critical of Hillary
Clinton was their right, and they were hardly alone. RT and Sputnik 's reach in the U.S. is minuscule compared to
Fox News , which slammed Clinton throughout the campaign, or for that matter, MSNBC, CNN and other mainstream news outlets,
which often expressed open disdain for Republican Donald Trump but also gave extensive coverage to issues such as the security concerns
about Clinton's private email server.
Another vague Russia-gate suspicion stemming largely from Steele's opposition research is that somehow Russia bribed or blackmailed
Trump because of past business with Russians. But there are evidentiary and logical problems with these theories, since
some lucrative deals fell
through (and presumably wouldn't have if Trump was being paid off).
Some have questioned how Trump could have supported detente with Russia without being beholden to Moscow in some way. But Jeffrey
Sommers, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, wrote a
convincing essay explaining adviser Steve Bannon's influence
on Trump's thinking about Russia and the need for cooperation between the two powers to solve international problems.
Without convincing evidence, I remain a Russia-gate skeptic. I am not defending Russia. Russia can defend itself. However, amid
the growing censorship and the dangerous new McCarthyism, I am trying to defend America -- from itself.
An earlier version of this story appeared onConsortium News.
Joe Lauria is a veteran foreign-affairs journalist. He has written for the Boston Globe, the Sunday Times of London and
the Wall Street Journal among other newspapers. He is the author of How I Lost By Hillary Clinton published by OR
Books in June 2017. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at
@unjoe .
But Huffington stepped down as editor in August 2016 and has nothing to do with the site now. It is run by Lydia Polgreen,
a former New York Times reporter and editor, who evidently has very different ideas. In April, she completely redesigned the
site and renamed it HuffPost.
" It's a story as old as civilization: a wealthy and powerful elite fending off popular unrest by trying to contain knowledge
of how the elite gain at the others' expense, at home and abroad. "
This is exactly what Howard Zinn writes. Alas it is the same at this side of the Atlantic. The British newspaper Guardian was
independent, Soros bought it. Dutch official 'news' is just government propaganda.
But also most Dutch dicussion sites are severely biased, criticism of Israel is next to impossible. And of course the words
'populist' and 'extreme right' are propaganda words, used for those who oppose mainstream politics: EU, euro, globalisation, unlimited
immigration, etc.
Despite all these measures and censorship, including self censorship, dissident political parties grow stronger and stronger.
One could see this in the French presidential elections, one sees it in Germany where AfD now is in parliament, the Reichstag,
one sees it in Austria, where the nationalist party got about half the votes, one sees it in countries as Poland and Hungary,
that want to keep their cultures. And of course there is Brexit 'we want our country back'.
In the Netherlands the in October 2016 founded party FvD, Forum for Democracy, got two seats in the last elections, but polls
show that if now elections were held, it would have some fourteen seats in our parliament of 150. The present ruling coalition,
led by Rutte, has very narrow margins, both in parliament and what here is called Eerste Kamer.
Parliament maybe can be seen as House, Eerste Kamer as Senate. There is a good chance that at the next Eerste Kamer elections
FvD will be able to end the reign of Rutte, who is, in my opinion, just Chairman of the Advance Rutte Foundation, and of course
a stiff supporter of Merkel and Brussels. Now that the end of Merkel is at the horizon, I'm curious how Rutte will manoevre.
"The viewpoints of Iranians, Palestinians, Russians, North Koreans and others are never fully reported in the Western media
although the supposed mission of journalism is to help citizens understand a frighteningly complex world from multiple points
of view" -- Joe Lauria
Lauria's article is an excellent review of the hydra-headed MSM perversion of political journalism in this era of the PATRIOT
Act, with special focus on 2016-2017. With one small exception that still is worth noting. Namely the inclusion of "North Koreans"
along with Palestinians, Russians and Iranians as those whose viewpoints are never represented in the Western media.
It"s true, of course, that the viewpoints of North Koreans go unreported in MSM, but that's hardly the "whole truth and nothing
but the truth." The problems confronting any journalist who might endeavor to report on public opinion in North Korea are incomparably
more difficult than the problems confronting attempts to report on public opinion in Iran, in Russia or in Palestine. These three
"theaters" -- so to speak –each with its own challenges, no doubt, should never be conflated with the severe realities of censorship
and even forceful thought policing in North Korea.
Despite this support from independent media, a senior official at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, I learned, declined
to take up my cause because he believes in the Russia-gate story. I also learned that a senior officer at the American Civil
Liberties Union rejected my case because he too believes in Russia-gate. Both of these serious organizations were set up precisely
to defend individuals in such situations on principle, not preference.
I'm not even sure that they believe in Russia-gate. This could easily be cowardice or corruption. The globalists have poured
untold millions into "fixing" the Internet wrongthink so it's only natural that we're seeing results. I'm seeing "grassroots"
shilling everywhere, for instance.
This is not going to work for them. You can't force consent of the governed. The more you squeeze, the more sand slips through
your fingers.
It is worse than censorship. History, via web searches, are being deleted. Now, you have no hint what is missing. Example, in
1999 I read an article in a weekly tech newspaper – maybe Information Week – about university researchers who discovered that
64 bit encrypted phones were only using the first 56 bits and the last 8 were zeros. They suspected that the US government was
responsible. Cannot find any reference to that online.
Joe Lauria may very well be a "victim", but certainly not one that I would parade around as some USDA table grade poster child
victim of really egregious reprisals. He's a veteran in the establishment MSM milieu and certainly knew what kind of a shit bird
operation it is that he chose to attempt to publish his piece in.
Oh, lest I forget to mention, he didn't lose his livelihood, get ejected from his gym, have his country club membership revoked,
get banned from AirB&B ad nauseum.
It is an interesting article. I am curious about the '17 intellience agencies' thing, CIA, FBI, NSA, army and navy
intel units, well that is making five or so. The latter two would likely having no connection with checking the 'Russia was hacking
the election', likewise, air force sigint (which they obviously need and have). So, a list from a poster who is expert on the
topic, what are the seventeen agencies which were agreeing on vicious Vlad having 'hacked' poor Hillary's campaign?
Is anybody knowing? This is a very real, good, and serious question, from me, and have not seeing it before. Can anybody producing
a list of the seventeen agencies? Parodic replies welcome, but it would be of interest to many if somebody could making a list
of the seventeen lurching about in Hillary's addled mind.
We're witnessing a huge closing of the American Liberal secular mind. There used to be secular liberal hard copy magazines like
the Atlantic Magazine that published intelligent well written articles and commentary about foreign affairs, immigration, Islam
from a principled secular, Liberal perspective – especially in the early 1990s. That's pretty much gone now as The Atlantic is
mostly just a blog that puts out the party line. There are still, thankfully a few exceptions like
Your article seemed otherwise good, but lacked any humor early on to keep me reading. After all, it is 6000 words! I have a job,
family, obligations, other readings, and only so much thinking energy in a day. I think You might try shortening such articles
to maybe 2000 – 3000 words? Like I said though, You did present some good ideas.
Mark James' modified limited hangout shows us the true purpose of his ICCPR-illegal statist war propaganda. James candidly jettisons
Hillary, acknowledging the obvious, that she was the more repulsive choice in this duel of the titans. But James is still hanging
on to the crucial residual message of the CIA line: Putin tripleplus bad.
Without factual support James calls Putin an organized criminal. US NGO staff who have actually dealt with Putin characterize
him as a strict legalist. In fact, Putin's incorruptibility is what drives CIA up the wall. Ask any upper-echelon spook. Putin's
cupidity deficit short-circuits CIA's go-to subversion method, massive bribes. Putin has an uneasy relationship with the kleptocrats
CIA installed while their puppet Yeltsin staggered around blind drunk. But Putin has materially curbed kleptocratic corruption
and subversion. Russians appreciate that.
James fantasizes that Putin is going to get ousted and murdered. However Putin has public approval that US politicians couldn't
dream of. This is because Russia's government meets world human rights standards that the US fails to meet. The Russian government
complies with the Paris Principles, world standard for institutionalized human rights protection under expert international review.
The USA does not. The USA is simply not is Russia's league with respect to universally-acknowledged rights.
James can easily verify this by comparing the US human-rights deficiencies to corresponding Russian reviews, point-by-point,
based on each article of the core human rights conventions.
Comprehensive international human rights review shows that the USA is not in Russia's league. Look at the maps if you can't
be bothered to read the particulars – they put the US in an underdeveloped backwater with headchopping Arab princelings and a
couple African presidents-for-life. CIA's INGSOC fixation on Putin is intended to divert your attention from the objectively superior
human-rights performance of the Russian government as a whole, and the USA's failure and disgrace in public in Geneva, front of
the whole world.
How did this happen? Turns out, dismantling the USSR did Russia a world of good. Now we see it's time to take the USA apart
and do the same for America. That's the origin of the panic you can smell on the CIA regime.
There is censorship on blogs.
> I have been banned from The Atlantic blog for correcting a noted anti-Iran blogger.
> I have been banned from the National Interest blog for highlighting Pentagon's acquisition problems.
> I have been banned by Facebook for declaring that females don't belong in the infantry. I "violated community standards" with
my opinion which was based somewhat on my time in the infantry, which my PC critic probably lacked.
In hindsight I wish I would have made a list of sites where I was banned, some of them several times. In the USA Washpost and
Christian Science Monitor, both sites were abolished, I suppose because censorship and banning became too expensive.
In UK War Without End was was one of the very few sites where was no censorship, UK laws forced the owner to close down. The
site was near impossible to hack, the owner had a hand built interface in Linux between incoming messages and the site itself.
At present there is not one more or less serious Dutch site where I can write.
On top of that, most Dutch sites no longer exist, especially those operated by newspapers.
It seems to be the same in Germany. The German journalist Udo Ulfkotte, he died maybe a year ago, he worked long for the
prestigious newspaper FAZ, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote a book about bought journalism. His explanation for the disappearence
of discussion sites with newspapers is that the journalists discovered that the reactions got far more attention than the articles.
Very annoying, of course. With us here, Follow The Money, and The Post Online behave as childish as German newspapers.
Your post is exactly what I wanted to write. Saved me the effort. I figured out the MSM was nothing but lies around 1966. I
have no sympathy for any MSM journalist.
Wouldn't it be scary if a nation's central bank was controlled and run by a group pretending to be loyal to their host nation,
but was actually in league with a nation that was trying to gobble up huge chunks of ME land, doing this by controlling the host
nation's media outlets, and forever posting psyop stories and actual lies to support the land thefts?
And if that same central bank would give out loans -- that never get repaid -- to the same ethnic gangsters that would
then would use those loans to buy up over 90% of the host nations MSM outlets to forever ensure that a steady drip, drip, drip
of propaganda went into the host nation's residents, ever so slowly turning them into mindless sheep always bleating for more
wars to help the ethnic gangsters steal their way to an Eretz state?
Yes, it would be scary to live in a tyrant state like that.
Reminds me of a contemporary Russian joke: "Everything communists told us about socialism turned out to be a lie. However,
everything they told us about capitalism is perfectly true".
Looks like Browder was connected to MI6. That means that intellignece agances participated in economic rape of Russia That's explains a lot, including his change of citizenship from US to UK. He wanted better
protection.
Notable quotes:
"... The Russian lawyer, Natalie Veselnitskaya, who met with Trump Jr. and other advisers to Donald Trump Sr.'s campaign, represented a company that had run afoul of a U.S. investigation into money-laundering allegedly connected to the Magnitsky case and his death in a Russian prison in 2009. His death sparked a campaign spearheaded by Browder, who used his wealth and clout to lobby the U.S. Congress in 2012 to enact the Magnitsky Act to punish alleged human rights abusers in Russia. The law became what might be called the first shot in the New Cold War. ..."
"... Despite Russian denials – and the "dog ate my homework" quality of Browder's self-serving narrative – the dramatic tale became a cause celebre in the West. The story eventually attracted the attention of Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a known critic of President Vladimir Putin. Nekrasov decided to produce a docu-drama that would present Browder's narrative to a wider public. Nekrasov even said he hoped that he might recruit Browder as the narrator of the tale. ..."
"... Nekrasov discovered that a woman working in Browder's company was the actual whistleblower and that Magnitsky – rather than a crusading lawyer – was an accountant who was implicated in the scheme. ..."
"... Ultimately, Nekrasov completes his extraordinary film – entitled "The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes" – and it was set for a premiere at the European Parliament in Brussels in April 2016. However, at the last moment – faced with Browder's legal threats – the parliamentarians pulled the plug. Nekrasov encountered similar resistance in the United States, a situation that, in part, brought Natalie Veselnitskaya into this controversy. ..."
"... That was when she turned to promoter Rob Goldstone to set up a meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. To secure the sit-down on June 9, 2016, Goldstone dangled the prospect that Veselnitskaya had some derogatory financial information from the Russian government about Russians supporting the Democratic National Committee. Trump Jr. jumped at the possibility and brought senior Trump campaign advisers, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, along. ..."
"... By all accounts, Veselnitskaya had little or nothing to offer about the DNC and turned the conversation instead to the Magnitsky Act and Putin's retaliatory measure to the sanctions, canceling a program in which American parents adopted Russian children. One source told me that Veselnitskaya also wanted to enhance her stature in Russia with the boast that she had taken a meeting at Trump Tower with Trump's son. ..."
"... But another goal of Veselnitskaya's U.S. trip was to participate in an effort to give Americans a chance to see Nekrasov's blacklisted documentary. She traveled to Washington in the days after her Trump Tower meeting and attended a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, according to The Washington Post. ..."
"... There were hopes to show the documentary to members of Congress but the offer was rebuffed. Instead a room was rented at the Newseum near Capitol Hill. Browder's lawyers. who had successfully intimidated the European Parliament, also tried to strong arm the Newseum, but its officials responded that they were only renting out a room and that they had allowed other controversial presentations in the past. ..."
"... Their stand wasn't exactly a profile in courage. "We're not going to allow them not to show the film," said Scott Williams, the chief operating officer of the Newseum. "We often have people renting for events that other people would love not to have happen." ..."
"... So, Nekrasov's documentary got a one-time showing with Veselnitskaya reportedly in attendance and with a follow-up discussion moderated by journalist Seymour Hersh. However, except for that audience, the public of the United States and Europe has been essentially shielded from the documentary's discoveries, all the better for the Magnitsky myth to retain its power as a seminal propaganda moment of the New Cold War. ..."
"... Over the past year, we have seen a growing hysteria about "Russian propaganda" and "fake news" with The New York Times and other major news outlets eagerly awaiting algorithms that can be unleashed on the Internet to eradicate information that groups like Google's First Draft Coalition deem "false." ..."
"... First Draft consists of the Times, the Post, other mainstream outlets, and establishment-approved online news sites, such as Bellingcat with links to the pro-NATO think tank, Atlantic Council. First Draft's job will be to serve as a kind of Ministry of Truth and thus shield the public from information that is deemed propaganda or untrue. ..."
"... From searches that I did on Wednesday, Nekrasov's film was not available on Amazon although a pro-Magnitsky documentary was. I did find a streaming service that appeared to have the film available. ..."
"... Why are so many people–corporate executives, governments, journalists, politicians–afraid of William Browder? Why isn't Andrei Nekrasov's film available via digital versatile disk, for sale on line? Mr. Parry, why can't you find it? Oh, wait: You did! Heaven forbid we, your readers, should screen it. Since you, too, are helping keep that film a big fat secret at least give us a few clues as to where we can find it. Throw us a bone! Thank you. ..."
"... Hysterical agit-prop troll insists that world trembles in fear of "genuine American hero" William Browder. John McCain in 2012 was too busy trembling to notice that Browder had given up his US citizenship in 1998 in order to better profit from the Russian financial crisis. ..."
"... Abe – and to escape U.S. taxes. ..."
"... Excellent report and analysis. Thanks for timely reminder regarding the Magitsky story and the fascinating background regarding Andrei Nekrasov's film, in particular its metamorphosis and subsequent aggressive suppression. Both of those factors render the film a particular credibility and wish on my part to view it. ..."
"... I am beginning to feel more and more like the citizens of the old USSR, who, were to my recollection and understanding back in the 50's and 60's:. Longing to read and hear facts suppressed by the communist state, dependent upon the Voice of America and underground news sources within the Soviet Union for the truth. RU, Consortium news, et. al. seem somewhat a parallel, and 1984 not so distant. ..."
"... Last night, After watching Max Boot self destruct on Tucker Carlson, i was inspired to watch episode 2 of The Putin Interviews. I felt enlightened. If only the Establishment Media could turn from promoting its agenda of shaping and suppressing the news into accurately reporting it. ..."
"... Media corruption is not so new. Yellow journalism around the turn of the 19th century, took us into a progression of wars. The War to End All Wars didn't. Blame the munitions makers and the Military Industrial Complex if you will, but a corrupt medial, at the very least enabled a progression of wars over the last 120 or so years. ..."
"... Nekrasov, though he's a Putin critic, is a genuine hero in this instance. He ulitimately put his preconceptions aside and took the story where it truly led him. Nekrasov deserves boatloads of praise for his handling of Browder and his final documentary film product. ..."
"... "[Veselnitskaya] traveled to Washington in the days after her Trump Tower meeting and attended a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, according to The Washington Post." The other day I saw photos of her sitting right behind Amb. McFaul in some past hearing. How did she get a seat on the front row? ..."
"... "The approach taken by Brennan's task force in assessing Russia and its president seems eerily reminiscent of the analytical blinders that hampered the U.S. intelligence community when it came to assessing the objectives and intent of Saddam Hussein and his inner leadership regarding weapons of mass destruction. The Russia NIA notes, 'Many of the key judgments rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior.' There is no better indication of a tendency toward 'group think' than that statement. ..."
"... "The acknowledged deficit on the part of the U.S. intelligence community of fact-driven insight into the specifics of Russian presidential decision-making, and the nature of Vladimir Putin as an individual in general, likewise seems problematic. The U.S. intelligence community was hard wired into pre-conceived notions about how and what Saddam Hussein would think and decide, and as such remained blind to the fact that he would order the totality of his weapons of mass destruction to be destroyed in the summer of 1991, or that he could be telling the truth when later declaring that Iraq was free of WMD. ..."
"... Magnitsky Act in Canada has been based on made-up `facts` as Globe & Mail reporting proves. Not news, but deepens my concern about Canada following the Cold War without examination. ..."
"... Bill Browder's grandfather was Earl Browder, leader of the CPUSA from the the late 30s to late 40s. His father was also a communist. Bill jr parlayed those connections with the Soviet apparatchiks to gain a foothold in looting Russia of its state assets during the 1990s. No he was not a communist but neither were the leaders of the Soviet Union at the time of its dissolution (in name yes, but in fact not). ..."
"... I've also heard that it was the Jewish commissars who, when the USSR fell apart, rushed off to grab everything they could (with the help of outside Jewish money) and became the Russian oligarchs we hear about today. This is probably what Britton is getting at: "His father has a communist past." You go from running the government to owning it. Anti-Putin because Putin put a stop to them. ..."
"... backwardsevolution: I worked with a Soviet emigre engineer – Jewish – on the same project in an Engineering design and construction company during early 1990's. He immigrated with his family around 1991. In Soviet Union, there being no private financial institutions or lawyers so to speak , many Jews went into science and engineering. A very interesting person, we were close work place friends. His elder brother had stayed behind back in Russia. His brother was in Moscow and involved in this plunder going on there. He used to tell me all these hair raising first hand stories about what was going on in Russia during that time. All the plunder flowed into the Western Countries. ..."
"... I have read all the comments up to yours you have told it like it was in Russia in those years. Browder was the king of the crooks looting Russia. ..."
"... I remember reading Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine," but I just could not get through the chapter on the USSR falling apart. I started reading it, but I didn't want to finish it (and I didn't) because it just made me angry. The West was too unfair! Russia was asking for help, but instead the West just looted. I'd say that Russia was very lucky to have someone like Putin clean it up. ..."
"... The Canadian Minister Chrysta Freeland met with William Brawder in Davos a few months ago " -- Birds of a feather flock together. Mrs. Chrystal Freeland has a very interesting background for which she is very proud of: her granddad was a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator denounced by Jewish investigators: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/27/a-nazi-skeleton-in-the-family-closet/ ..."
Exclusive: A documentary debunking the Magnitsky myth, which was an opening salvo in the New Cold War, was largely blocked from
viewing in the West but has now become a factor in Russia-gate, reports Robert Parry.
Near the center of the current furor over Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 is a documentary that
almost no one in the West has been allowed to see, a film that flips the script on the story of the late Sergei Magnitsky and his
employer, hedge-fund operator William Browder.
The Russian lawyer, Natalie Veselnitskaya, who met with Trump Jr. and other advisers to Donald Trump Sr.'s campaign, represented
a company that had run afoul of a U.S. investigation into money-laundering allegedly connected to the Magnitsky case and his death
in a Russian prison in 2009. His death sparked a campaign spearheaded by Browder, who used his wealth and clout to lobby the U.S.
Congress in 2012 to enact the Magnitsky Act to punish alleged human rights abusers in Russia. The law became what might be called
the first shot in the New Cold War.
According to Browder's narrative, companies ostensibly under his control had been hijacked by corrupt Russian officials in furtherance
of a $230 million tax-fraud scheme; he then dispatched his "lawyer" Magnitsky to investigate and – after supposedly uncovering evidence
of the fraud – Magnitsky blew the whistle only to be arrested by the same corrupt officials who then had him locked up in prison
where he died of heart failure from physical abuse.
Despite Russian denials – and the "dog ate my homework" quality of Browder's self-serving narrative – the dramatic tale became
a cause celebre in the West. The story eventually attracted the attention of Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a known critic of
President Vladimir Putin. Nekrasov decided to produce a docu-drama that would present Browder's narrative to a wider public. Nekrasov
even said he hoped that he might recruit Browder as the narrator of the tale.
However, the project took an unexpected
turn when Nekrasov's research kept turning up contradictions to Browder's storyline, which began to look more and more like a
corporate cover story. Nekrasov discovered that a woman working in Browder's company was the actual whistleblower and that Magnitsky
– rather than a crusading lawyer – was an accountant who was implicated in the scheme.
So, the planned docudrama suddenly was transformed into a documentary with a dramatic reversal as Nekrasov struggles with what
he knows will be a dangerous decision to confront Browder with what appear to be deceptions. In the film, you see Browder go from
a friendly collaborator into an angry adversary who tries to bully Nekrasov into backing down.
Blocked Premiere
Ultimately, Nekrasov completes his extraordinary film – entitled "The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes" – and it was set for
a premiere at the European Parliament in Brussels in April 2016. However, at the last moment – faced with Browder's legal threats
– the parliamentarians pulled the plug. Nekrasov encountered similar resistance in the United States, a situation that, in part,
brought Natalie Veselnitskaya into this controversy.
Film director Andrei Nekrasov, who produced "The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes."
As a lawyer defending Prevezon, a real-estate company registered in Cyprus, on a money-laundering charge, she
was dealing with U.S. prosecutors in New York City and, in that role, became an advocate for lifting the U.S. sanctions, The
Washington Post reported.
That was when she turned to promoter Rob Goldstone to set up a meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. To secure the
sit-down on June 9, 2016, Goldstone dangled the prospect that Veselnitskaya had some derogatory financial information from the Russian
government about Russians supporting the Democratic National Committee. Trump Jr. jumped at the possibility and brought senior Trump
campaign advisers, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, along.
By all accounts, Veselnitskaya had little or nothing to offer about the DNC and turned the conversation instead to the Magnitsky
Act and Putin's retaliatory measure to the sanctions, canceling a program in which American parents adopted Russian children. One
source told me that Veselnitskaya also wanted to enhance her stature in Russia with the boast that she had taken a meeting at Trump
Tower with Trump's son.
But another goal of Veselnitskaya's U.S. trip was to participate in an effort to give Americans a chance to see Nekrasov's
blacklisted documentary. She traveled to Washington in the days after her Trump Tower meeting and attended a House Foreign Affairs
Committee hearing, according to The Washington Post.
There were hopes to show the documentary to members of Congress but the offer was rebuffed. Instead a room was rented at the
Newseum near Capitol Hill. Browder's lawyers. who had successfully intimidated the European Parliament, also tried to strong arm
the Newseum, but its officials responded that they were only renting out a room and that they had allowed other controversial presentations
in the past.
Their stand wasn't exactly a profile in courage. "We're not going to allow them not to show the film," said Scott Williams,
the chief operating officer of the Newseum. "We often have people renting for events that other people would love not to have happen."
In an article about the controversy in June 2016, The New York Times
added that "A screening at the Newseum is especially controversial because it could attract lawmakers or their aides." Heaven
forbid!
One-Time Showing
So, Nekrasov's documentary got a one-time showing with Veselnitskaya reportedly in attendance and with a follow-up discussion
moderated by journalist Seymour Hersh. However, except for that audience, the public of the United States and Europe has been essentially
shielded from the documentary's discoveries, all the better for the Magnitsky myth to retain its power as a seminal propaganda moment
of the New Cold War.
Financier William Browder (right) with Magnitsky's widow and son, along with European parliamentarians.
After the Newseum presentation,
a Washington Post editorial branded Nekrasov's documentary Russian "agit-prop" and sought to discredit Nekrasov without addressing
his many documented examples of Browder's misrepresenting both big and small facts in the case. Instead, the Post accused Nekrasov
of using "facts highly selectively" and insinuated that he was merely a pawn in the Kremlin's "campaign to discredit Mr. Browder
and the Magnitsky Act."
The Post also misrepresented the structure of the film by noting that it mixed fictional scenes with real-life interviews and
action, a point that was technically true but willfully misleading because the fictional scenes were from Nekrasov's original idea
for a docu-drama that he shows as part of explaining his evolution from a believer in Browder's self-exculpatory story to a skeptic.
But the Post's deception is something that almost no American would realize because almost no one got to see the film.
The Post concluded smugly: "The film won't grab a wide audience, but it offers yet another example of the Kremlin's increasingly
sophisticated efforts to spread its illiberal values and mind-set abroad. In the European Parliament and on French and German television
networks, showings were put off recently after questions were raised about the accuracy of the film, including by Magnitsky's family.
"We don't worry that Mr. Nekrasov's film was screened here, in an open society. But it is important that such slick spin be fully
exposed for its twisted story and sly deceptions."
The Post's gleeful editorial had the feel of something you
might read in a totalitarian
society where the public only hears about dissent when the Official Organs of the State denounce some almost unknown person for
saying something that almost no one heard.
New Paradigm
The Post's satisfaction that Nekrasov's documentary would not draw a large audience represents what is becoming a new paradigm
in U.S. mainstream journalism, the idea that it is the media's duty to protect the American people from seeing divergent narratives
on sensitive geopolitical issues.
Over the past year, we have seen a growing hysteria about
"Russian propaganda" and "fake
news" with The New York Times and other major news outlets
eagerly awaiting algorithms
that can be unleashed on the Internet to eradicate information that groups like Google's First Draft Coalition deem "false."
First Draft consists of the Times, the Post, other mainstream outlets, and establishment-approved online news sites, such
as Bellingcat with links to the pro-NATO think tank, Atlantic Council. First Draft's job will be to serve as a kind of Ministry of
Truth and thus shield the public from information that is deemed propaganda or untrue.
In the meantime, there is the ad hoc approach that was applied to Nekrasov's documentary. Having missed the Newseum showing, I
was only able to view the film because I was given a special password to an online version.
From searches that I did on Wednesday, Nekrasov's film was not available on Amazon although a pro-Magnitsky documentary was.
I did find a streaming service that appeared to have the film available.
But the Post's editors were right in their expectation that "The film won't grab a wide audience." Instead, it has become a good
example of how political and legal pressure can effectively black out what we used to call "the other side of the story." The film
now, however, has unexpectedly become a factor in the larger drama of Russia-gate and the drive to remove Donald Trump Sr. from the
White House.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in
print here or as an e-book
(from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Why are so many people–corporate executives, governments, journalists, politicians–afraid of William Browder? Why isn't
Andrei Nekrasov's film available via digital versatile disk, for sale on line? Mr. Parry, why can't you find it? Oh, wait: You
did! Heaven forbid we, your readers, should screen it. Since you, too, are helping keep that film a big fat secret at least give
us a few clues as to where we can find it. Throw us a bone! Thank you.
Rob Roy , July 13, 2017 at 2:45 pm
Parry isn't keeping the film viewing a secret. He was given a private password and perhaps can get permission to let the readers
here have it. It isn't up to Parry himself but rather to the person(s) who have the rights to the password. I've come across this
problem before.
ToivoS , July 13, 2017 at 4:01 pm
Parry wrote: I did find a streaming service that appeared to have the film available.
Any link?? I am willing to buy it.
Lisa , July 13, 2017 at 6:28 pm
This may not be of much help, as the film is dubbed in Russian. If you want to look for the Russian versions on the internet,
search for: "????? ?????? ????????? "????? ???????????. ?? ????????"
Hysterical agit-prop troll insists that world trembles in fear of "genuine American hero" William Browder. John McCain
in 2012 was too busy trembling to notice that Browder had given up his US citizenship in 1998 in order to better profit from the
Russian financial crisis.
backwardsevolution , July 13, 2017 at 5:51 pm
Abe – and to escape U.S. taxes.
incontinent reader , July 13, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Well stated.
Vincent Castigliola , July 13, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Mr. Parry,
Excellent report and analysis. Thanks for timely reminder regarding the Magitsky story and the fascinating background regarding
Andrei Nekrasov's film, in particular its metamorphosis and subsequent aggressive suppression. Both of those factors render the
film a particular credibility and wish on my part to view it.
Is there any chance you can share information regarding a means of accessing the forbidden film?
I am beginning to feel more and more like the citizens of the old USSR, who, were to my recollection and understanding
back in the 50's and 60's:. Longing to read and hear facts suppressed by the communist state, dependent upon the Voice of America
and underground news sources within the Soviet Union for the truth. RU, Consortium news, et. al. seem somewhat a parallel, and
1984 not so distant.
Last night, After watching Max Boot self destruct on Tucker Carlson, i was inspired to watch episode 2 of The Putin Interviews.
I felt enlightened. If only the Establishment Media could turn from promoting its agenda of shaping and suppressing the news into
accurately reporting it.
Media corruption is not so new. Yellow journalism around the turn of the 19th century, took us into a progression of wars.
The War to End All Wars didn't. Blame the munitions makers and the Military Industrial Complex if you will, but a corrupt medial,
at the very least enabled a progression of wars over the last 120 or so years.
Demonizing other countries is bad enough, but wilfully ignoring the potential for a nuclear war to end not only war, but life
as we know it, is appalling.
"After watching Max Boot self destruct on Tucker Carlson "
Am I the only one who thinks that Max Boot should have been institutionalized for some time already? He is not well.
Vincent Castigliola , July 13, 2017 at 9:41 pm
Anna,
Perhaps Max can share a suite with John McCain. Sadly, the illness is widespread and sometimes seems to be in the majority. Neo
con/lib both are adamant in finding enemies and imposing punishment.
Finding splinters, ignoring beams. Changing regimes everywhere. Making the world safe for Democracy. Unless a man they don't
like get elected
Max Boot parents are Russain Jews who seemingly instilled in him a rabid hatred for everything Russian. The same is with Aperovitch,
the CrowdStrike fraudster. The first Soviet (Bolshevik) government was 85% Jewish. Considering what happened to Russia under Bolsheviks,
it seems that Russians are supremely tolerant people.
Anna, Anti-Semitism will get you NOWHERE, and you should be ashamed of yourself for injecting such HATRED into the rational
discussion here.
Cal , July 14, 2017 at 8:03 pm
Dear orwell
re Anna
Its not anti Semitic if its true .and its true he is a Russian Jew and its very obvious he hates Russia–as does the whole Jewish
Zionist crowd in the US.
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 1:02 am
orwell, I wonder why the truth always turns out to be so anti-semitic!?
Taras77 , July 13, 2017 at 11:17 pm
I hope you caught the preceding tucker interview with Ralph Peters, who says he is a retired us army LTC. He came off as completely
deranged and hysterical. The two interviews back to back struck me as neo con desperation and panic. My respect for Tucker
just went up for taking on these two wackos.
Zachary Smith , July 13, 2017 at 2:51 pm
The fact that the film is being suppressed by everybody is significant to me. I don't know a thing about the "facts" of the
Magnitsky case, and a quick look at the results of a Google search suggests this film isn't going to be available to me unless
I shell out some unknown amount of money.
If the producers want the film to be seen, perhaps they ought to release it for download to any interested parties for a nominal
sum. This will mean they won't make any profit, but on the other hand they will be able to spit in the eyes of the censors.
Dan Mason , July 13, 2017 at 6:42 pm
I went searching the net for access to this film and found that I was blocked at every turn. I did find a few links which all
seemed to go to the same destination which claimed to provide access once I registered with their site. I decided to avoid that
route. I don't really have that much interest in the Magnitsky affair, but I do wonder why we are being denied access to information.
Who has this kind of influence, and why are they so fearful. I'm really afraid that we already live in a largely hidden Orwellian
world. Now where did I put that tin foil hat?
The Orwellian World is NOT HIDDEN, it is clearly visible.
Drew Hunkins , July 13, 2017 at 2:53 pm
Nekrasov, though he's a Putin critic, is a genuine hero in this instance. He ulitimately put his preconceptions aside and
took the story where it truly led him. Nekrasov deserves boatloads of praise for his handling of Browder and his final documentary
film product.
backwardsevolution , July 13, 2017 at 3:30 pm
Drew – good comment. It's very hard to "turn", isn't it? I wonder if many people appreciate what it takes to do this. Easier
to justify, turn a blind eye, but to actually stop, question, think, and then follow where the story leads you takes courage and
strength.
Especially when your bucking an aggressive billionaire.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 1:49 am
BannanaBoat – that too!
Zim , July 13, 2017 at 3:11 pm
This is interesting:
"In December 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hillary Clinton opposed the Magnitsky Act while serving as secretary
of state. Her opposition coincided with Bill Clinton giving a speech in Moscow for Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank!
for which he was paid $500,000.
"Mr. Clinton also received a substantial payout in 2010 from Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank whose executives
were at risk of being hurt by possible U.S. sanctions tied to a complex and controversial case of alleged corruption in Russia.
Members of Congress wrote to Mrs. Clinton in 2010 seeking to deny visas to people who had been implicated by Russian accountant
Sergei Magnitsky, who was jailed and died in prison after he uncovered evidence of a large tax-refund fraud. William Browder,
a foreign investor in Russia who had hired Mr. Magnitsky, alleged that the accountant had turned up evidence that Renaissance
officials, among others, participated in the fraud."
The State Department opposed the sanctions bill at the time, as did the Russian government. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov pushed Hillary Clinton to oppose the legislation during a meeting in St. Petersburg in June 2012, citing that U.S.-Russia
relations would suffer as a result."
"[Veselnitskaya] traveled to Washington in the days after her Trump Tower meeting and attended a House Foreign Affairs
Committee hearing, according to The Washington Post." The other day I saw photos of her sitting right behind Amb. McFaul in some
past hearing. How did she get a seat on the front row?
Now I remember that Post editorial. I was one of only 20 commenters before they shut down comments. It was some heavy pearl
clutching.
afterthought couldn't the film be shown on RT America?
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 1:11 am
Would that not enable Bowder's employees online to claim that this documentary is Russian state propaganda, which it obviously
is not because it would have been made available for free everywhere already just like RT. I believe that Nekrasov does not like
RT and RT probably still does not like Nekrasov. The point of RT has never been the truth then the alternative point of view,
as they advertised: Audi alteram partem.
Abe , July 13, 2017 at 3:41 pm
"The approach taken by Brennan's task force in assessing Russia and its president seems eerily reminiscent of the analytical
blinders that hampered the U.S. intelligence community when it came to assessing the objectives and intent of Saddam Hussein
and his inner leadership regarding weapons of mass destruction. The Russia NIA notes, 'Many of the key judgments rely on a
body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior.' There is no better
indication of a tendency toward 'group think' than that statement.
Moreover, when one reflects on the fact much of this 'body of reporting' was shoehorned after the fact into an analytical
premise predicated on a single source of foreign-provided intelligence, that statement suddenly loses much of its impact.
"The acknowledged deficit on the part of the U.S. intelligence community of fact-driven insight into the specifics of
Russian presidential decision-making, and the nature of Vladimir Putin as an individual in general, likewise seems problematic.
The U.S. intelligence community was hard wired into pre-conceived notions about how and what Saddam Hussein would think and
decide, and as such remained blind to the fact that he would order the totality of his weapons of mass destruction to be destroyed
in the summer of 1991, or that he could be telling the truth when later declaring that Iraq was free of WMD.
'President Putin has repeatedly and vociferously denied any Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Those
who cite the findings of the Russia NIA as indisputable proof to the contrary, however, dismiss this denial out of hand. And yet
nowhere in the Russia NIA is there any evidence that those who prepared it conducted anything remotely resembling the kind of
'analysis of alternatives' mandated by the ODNI when it comes to analytic standards used to prepare intelligence community assessments
and estimates. Nor is there any evidence that the CIA's vaunted 'Red Cell' was approached to provide counterintuitive assessments
of premises such as 'What if President Putin is telling the truth?'
'Throughout its history, the NIC has dealt with sources of information that far exceeded any sensitivity that might attach
to Brennan's foreign intelligence source. The NIC had two experts that it could have turned to oversee a project like the Russia
NIA!the NIO for Cyber Issues, and the Mission Manager of the Russian and Eurasia Mission Center; logic dictates that both should
have been called upon, given the subject matter overlap between cyber intrusion and Russian intent.
'The excuse that Brennan's source was simply too sensitive to be shared with these individuals, and the analysts assigned to
them, is ludicrous!both the NIO for cyber issues and the CIA's mission manager for Russia and Eurasia are cleared to receive the
most highly classified intelligence and, moreover, are specifically mandated to oversee projects such as an investigation into
Russian meddling in the American electoral process.
'President Trump has come under repeated criticism for his perceived slighting of the U.S. intelligence community in repeatedly
citing the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction intelligence failure when downplaying intelligence reports, including the Russia
NIA, about Russian interference in the 2016 election. Adding insult to injury, the president's most recent comments were made
on foreign soil (Poland), on the eve of his first meeting with President Putin, at the G-20 Conference in Hamburg, Germany, where
the issue of Russian meddling was the first topic on the agenda.
"The politics of the wisdom of the timing and location of such observations aside, the specific content of the president's
statements appear factually sound."
Thanks Abe once again, for providing us with news which will never be printed or aired in our MSM. Brennan may ignore the NIC,
as Congress and the Executive Branch constantly avoid paying attention to the GAO. Why even have these agencies, if our leaders
aren't going to listen them?
Virginia , July 13, 2017 at 6:16 pm
Abe, I'm always amazed at how much you know. Thank you for sharing. If you have your comments in article form or on a site
where they can be shared, I'd really like to know about it. I've tried, but I garble the many points you make when trying to explain
historical events you've told us about.
Skip Scott , July 14, 2017 at 9:08 am
Thanks Abe. You are a real asset to us here at CN.
John V. Walsh , July 13, 2017 at 3:54 pm
Very good article! The entire Magnitsky saga has become so convoluted and mired in controversy and propaganda that it is very
hard to understand. I remember vaguely the controversy surrounding the showing of the film at the Newseum. it is especially impressive
that Nekrasov changed his opinion as fcts unfolded.
I will now try to get the docudrama and watch it.
If anyone has suggestions on how to do this, please let me know via a response. here.
Thanks.
A 'Magnitsky Act' in Canada was approved by the (appointed) Senate several months ago and is now undergoing fine tuning in
the House of Commons prior to a third and final vote of approval. The proposed law has the unanimous support of the parties in
Parliament.
A column in today's Globe and Mail daily by the newspaper's 'chief political writer' tiptoes around the Magnitsky story, never
once daring to admit that a contrary narrative exists to that of Bill Browder.
Magnitsky Act in Canada has been based on made-up `facts` as Globe & Mail reporting proves. Not news, but deepens my concern
about Canada following the Cold War without examination.
backwardsevolution , July 13, 2017 at 5:56 pm
Roger Annis – just little lemmings following the leader. Disgusting. I hope you posted a comment at the Globe and Mail, Roger,
with a link to this article.
Britton , July 13, 2017 at 4:05 pm
Browder is a Communist Jew, his father has a Communist past according to his background so I know I can't trust anything he
says. Hes just one of many shady interests undermining Putin I've seen over the years. His book Red Notice is just as shady. Good
reporting Consortium News. Fox News promotes Browder like crazy every chance they get especially Fox Business channel.
Joe Average , July 13, 2017 at 5:06 pm
"Browder is a Communist " Hedge Fund managers are hardly Communist – that's an oxymoron.
ToivoS , July 13, 2017 at 6:02 pm
Bill Browder's grandfather was Earl Browder, leader of the CPUSA from the the late 30s to late 40s. His father was also
a communist. Bill jr parlayed those connections with the Soviet apparatchiks to gain a foothold in looting Russia of its state
assets during the 1990s. No he was not a communist but neither were the leaders of the Soviet Union at the time of its dissolution
(in name yes, but in fact not).
Joe Average , July 13, 2017 at 6:34 pm
ToivoS,
thank you for this background information.
My main intention had been to straighten out the blurring of calling a hedge fund manager communist. Nowadays everything gets
blurred by people misrepresenting political concepts. Either the people have been dumbed-down by misinformation or misrepresenting
is done in order to keep neo-liberalism the dominant economical model. On many occasions I had read comments of people seemingly
believing that Nationalsocialism had been some variant of socialism. Even the ideas of Bernie Sanders had been misrepresented
as socialist instead of social democratic ones.
backwardsevolution , July 13, 2017 at 6:21 pm
Joe Average – Dave P. mentioned Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book entitled "Two Hundred Years Together" the other day. I've been
reading a long synopsis of this book. What Britton says appears to be quite true. I don't know about Browder, but from what I've
read the Jews were instrumental in the communist party, in the deaths of so many Russians. It wasn't just the Jews, but they played
a big part. It's no wonder Solzhenitsyn's book has been "lost in translation", at least into English, for so many years.
I've also heard that it was the Jewish commissars who, when the USSR fell apart, rushed off to grab everything they could
(with the help of outside Jewish money) and became the Russian oligarchs we hear about today. This is probably what Britton is
getting at: "His father has a communist past." You go from running the government to owning it. Anti-Putin because Putin put a
stop to them.
Dave P. , July 13, 2017 at 7:37 pm
backwardsevolution: I worked with a Soviet emigre engineer – Jewish – on the same project in an Engineering design and
construction company during early 1990's. He immigrated with his family around 1991. In Soviet Union, there being no private financial
institutions or lawyers so to speak , many Jews went into science and engineering. A very interesting person, we were close work
place friends. His elder brother had stayed behind back in Russia. His brother was in Moscow and involved in this plunder going
on there. He used to tell me all these hair raising first hand stories about what was going on in Russia during that time. All
the plunder flowed into the Western Countries.
In recent history, no country went through this kind of plunder on a scale Russia went through during ten or fifteen years
starting in 1992. Russia was a very badly ravaged country when Putin took over. Means of production, finance, all came to halt,
and society itself had completely broken down. It appears that the West has all the intentions to do it again.
I have read all the comments up to yours you have told it like it was in Russia in those years. Browder was the king of
the crooks looting Russia. Then he got to John McCain with all his lies and bullshit and was responsible for the sanctions
on Russia. All the comments aboutBrowders grandfather andCommunist party are all true but hardly important. Except that it probably
was how Browder was able to get his fingers on the pie in Russia. And he sure did get his fingers in the pie BIG TIME.
I am a Canadian and am aware of Maginsky Act in Canada. Our Minister Chrystal Freeland met with William Brawder in Davos a
few months ago both of these two you could say are not fans of Putin, I certainly don't know what they spoke about but other than
lies from Browder there is no reason she should have been talking with him. I have made comments on other forums regarding these
two meeting. Read Browders book and hopefully see the documentary that this article is about. When I read his book I knew instantly
that he was a crook a charloten and a liar. Just the kind of folk John McCain and a lot of other folks in US politics love. You
all have a nice Peacefull day
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 12:38 am
Joe Average – "I guess that this book puts blame for Communism entirely on the Jewish people and that this gave even further
rise to antisemitism in the Germany of the 1930's."
No, it doesn't put the blame entirely on the Jews; it just spells out that they did play a large part. As one Jewish scholar
said, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was too much of an academic, too intelligent to ever put the blame entirely on one group. But something
like 40 – 60 million died – shot, taken out on boats with rocks around their necks and thrown overboard, starved, gassed in rail
cars, poisoned, worked to death, froze, you name it. Every other human slaughter pales in comparison. Good old man, so civilized
(sarc)!
But someone(s) has been instrumental in keeping this book from being translated into English (or so I've read many places online).
Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" and his other books have been translated, but not this one. (Although I just found one site
that has almost all of the chapters translated, but not all). Several people ordered the book off Amazon, only to find out that
it was in the Russian language. LOL
Solzhenitsyn does say at one point in the book: "Communist rebellions in Germany post-WWI was a big reason for the revival
of anti-Semitism (as there was no serious anti-Semitism in the imperial [Kaiser] Germany of 1870 – 1918)."
Lots of Jewish people made it into the upper levels of the Soviet government, academia, etc. (and lots of them were murdered
too). I might skip reading these types of books until I get older. Too bleak. Hard enough reading about the day-to-day stuff here
without going back in time for more fun!
I remember reading Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine," but I just could not get through the chapter on the USSR falling apart.
I started reading it, but I didn't want to finish it (and I didn't) because it just made me angry. The West was too unfair! Russia
was asking for help, but instead the West just looted. I'd say that Russia was very lucky to have someone like Putin clean it
up.
Keep smiling, Joe.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 12:58 am
Dave P. – I told you, you are a wealth of information, a walking encyclopedia. Interesting about your co-worker. Sounds like
it was a free-for-all in Russia. Yes, I totally agree that Putin has done and is doing all he can to bring his country back up.
Very difficult job he is doing, and I hope he is successful at keeping the West out as much as he can, at least until Russia is
strong and sure enough to invite them in on their own terms.
Now go and tell your wife what I said about you being a "walking encyclopedia". She'll probably have a good laugh. (Not that
you're not, but you know what she'll say: "Okay, smartie, now go and do the dishes.")
Chucky LeRoi , July 14, 2017 at 9:56 am
Just some small scale, local color kind of stuff, but living in the USA, west coast specifically, it was quite noticeable in
the mid to late '90's how many Russians with money were suddenly appearing. No apparent skills or 'jobs', but seemingly able to
pay for stuff. Expensive stuff.
A neighbor invited us to her 'place in the mountains', which turned out to be where a lumber company had almost terra-formed
an area and was selling off the results. Her advice: When you go to the lake (i.e., the low area now gathering runoff, paddle
boats rentals, concession stand) you will see a lot of men with huge stomachs and tiny Speedos. They will be very rude, pushy,
confrontational. Ignore them, DO NOT comment on their rudeness or try to deal with their manners. They are Russians, and the amount
of trouble it will stir up – and probable repercussions – are simply not worth it.
Back in town, the anecdotes start piling up quickly. I am talking crowbars through windows (for a perceived insult). A beating
where the victim – who was probably trying something shady – was so pulped the emergency room staff couldn't tell if the implement
used was a 2X4 or a baseball bat. When found he had with $3k in his pocket: robbery was not the motive. More traffic accidents
involving guys with very nice cars and serious attitude problems. I could go on. More and more often somewhere in the relating
of these incidents the phrase " this Russian guy " would come up. It was the increased use of this phrase that was so noticeable.
And now the disclaimer.
Before anybody goes off, I am not anti-Russian, Russo-phobic, what have you. I studied the Russian language in high school
and college (admittedly decades ago). My tax guy is Russian. I love him. My day to day interactions have led me to this pop psychology
observation: the extreme conditions that produced that people and culture produced extremes. When they are of the good, loving
, caring, cultured, helpful sort, you could ask for no better friends. The generosity can be embarrassing. When they are of the
materialistic, evil, self-centered don't f**k with me I am THE BADDEST ASS ON THE PLANET sort, the level of mania and self-importance
is impossible to deal with, just get as far away as possible. It's worked for me.
Joe Average , July 13, 2017 at 8:10 pm
backwardsevolution,
thanks for the info. I'll add the book to the list of books onto my to-read list. As far as I know a Kibbutz could be described
as a Communist microcosm. The whole idea of Communism itself is based on Marx (a Jew by birth). A while ago I had started reading
"Mein Kampf". I've got to finish the book, in order to see if my assumption is correct. I guess that this book puts blame for
Communism entirely on the Jewish people and that this gave even further rise to antisemitism in the Germany of the 1930's.
The most known Russian Oligarchs that I've heard of are mainly of Jewish origin, but as far as I know they had been too young
to be commissars at the time of the demise of the USSR. At least one aspect I've read of many times is that a lot of them built
their fortunes with the help of quite shady business dealings.
With regard to President Putin I've read that he made a deal with the oligarchs: they should pay their taxes, keep/invest their
money in Russia and keep out of politics. In return he wouldn't dig too deep into their past. Right at the moment everybody in
the West is against President Putin, because he stopped the looting of his country and its citizens and that's something our Western
oligarchs and financial institutions don't like.
On a side note: Several years ago I had started to read several volumes about German history. Back then I didn't notice an
important aspect that should attract my attention a few years later when reading about the rise of John D. Rockefeller. Charlemagne
(Charles the Great) took over power from the Merovingians. Prior to becoming King of the Franks he had been Hausmeier (Mayor of
the Palace) for the Merovingians. Mayor of the Palace was the title of the manager of the household, which seems to be similar
to a procurator and/or accountant (bookkeeper). The similarity of the beginnings of both careers struck me. John D. Rockefeller
started as a bookkeeper. If you look at Bill Gates you'll realize that he was smart enough to buy an operating system for a few
dollars, improved it and sold it to IBM on a large scale. The widely celebrated Steve Jobs was basically the marketing guy, whilst
the real brain behind (the product) Apple had been Steve Wozniak.
Another side note: If we're going down the path of neo-liberalism it will lead us straight back to feudalism – at least if
the economy doesn't blow up (PCR, Michael Hudson, Mike Whitney, Mike Maloney, Jim Rogers, Richard D. Wolff, and many more economists
make excellent points that our present Western economy can't go on forever and is kept alive artificially).
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 12:50 am
Joe Average – somehow my reply to you ended up above your post. What? How did that happen? You can find it there. Thanks for
the interesting info about John D. Rockefeller, Gates, Jobs and Wozniak. Some are good managers, others good at sales, while others
are the creative inventors.
Yes, Joe, I totally agree that we are headed back to feudalism. I don't think we'll have much choice as the oil is running
out. We'll probably be okay, but our children? I worry about them. They'll notice a big change in their lifetimes. The discovery
and capture of oil pulled forward a large population. As we scale back, we could be in trouble, food-wise. Or at least it looks
that way.
Thanks, Joe.
Miranda Keefe , July 14, 2017 at 5:48 am
Charlemagne did not take over from the Merovingians. The Mayor of the Palace was not an accountant.
During the 7th Century the Mayor of the Place more and more became the actual ruler of the Franks. The office had existed for
over a century and was basically the "prime minister" to the king. By the time Pepin of Herstal, a scion of a powerful Frankish
family, took the position in 680, the king was ceremonial leader doing ritual and the Mayor ruled- like the relationship of the
Emperor and the Shogun in Japan. In 687 Pepin's Austrasia conquered Neustria and Burgundy and he added "Duke of the Franks" to
his titles. The office became hereditary.
When Pepin died in 714 there was some unrest as nobles from various parts of the joint kingdoms attempted to get different
ones of his heirs in the office until his son Charles Martel took the reins in 718. This is the famous Charles Martel who defeated
the Moors at Tours in 732. But that was not his only accomplishment as he basically extended the Frankish kingdom to include Saxony.
Charles not only ruled but when the king died he picked which possible heir would become king. Finally near the end of his reign
he didn't even bother replacing the king and the throne was empty.
When Charles Martel died in 741 he followed Frankish custom and divided his kingdom among his sons. By 747 his younger son,
Pepin the Short, had consolidated his rule and with the support of the Pope, deposed the last Merovingian King and became the
first Carolingian King in 751- the dynasty taking its name from Charles Martel. Thus Pepin reunited the two aspects of the Frankish
ruler, combining the rule of the Mayor with the ceremonial reign of the King into the new Kingship.
Pepin expanded the kingdom beyond the Frankish lands even more and his son, Charlemagne, continued that. Charlemagne was 8
when his father took the title of King. Charlemagne never was the Mayor of the Palace, but grew up as the prince. He became King
of the Franks in 768 ruling with his brother, sole King in 781, and then started becoming King of other countries until he united
it all in 800 as the restored Western Roman Emperor.
When he died in 814 the Empire was divided into three Kingdoms and they never reunited again. The western one evolved into
France. The eastern one evolved in the Holy Roman Empire and eventually Germany. The middle one never solidified but became the
Low Countries, Switzerland, and the Italian states.
The Canadian Minister Chrysta Freeland met with William Brawder in Davos a few months ago " -- Birds of a feather flock
together. Mrs. Chrystal Freeland has a very interesting background for which she is very proud of: her granddad was a Ukrainian
Nazi collaborator denounced by Jewish investigators:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/27/a-nazi-skeleton-in-the-family-closet/
Since the inti-Russian tenor of the Canadian Minister Chrysta Freeland is in accord with the US ziocons anti-Russian policies
(never mind all this fuss about WWII Jewish mass graves in Ukraine), "Chrysta" is totally approved by the US government.
Joe Average , July 14, 2017 at 11:32 pm
I'll reply to myself in order to send a response to backwardsevolution and Miranda Keefe.
For a change I'll be so bold to ignore gentleman style and reply in the order of the posts – instead of Ladies first.
backwardsevolution,
in my first paragraph I failed to make a clear distinction. I started with the remark that I'm adding the book "Two Hundred
Years Together" to my to-read list and then mentioned that I'm right now reading "Mein Kampf". All remarks after mentioning the
latter book are directed at this one – and not the one of Solzhenitsyn.
Miranda Keefe,
I'm aware that accountant isn't an exact characterization of the concept of a Mayor of the Palace. As a precaution I had added
the phrase "seems to be similar". You're correct with the statement that Charlemagne was descendant Karl Martel. At first I intended
to write that Karolinger (Carolings) took over from Merowinger (Merovingians), because those details are irrelevant to the point
that I wanted to make. It would've been an information overload. My main point was the power of accountants and related fields
such as sales and marketing. Neither John D. Rockefeller, Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs actually created their products from scratch.
Many of those who are listed as billionaires haven't been creators / inventors themselves. Completely decoupled from actual
production is banking. Warren Buffet is started as an investment salesman, later stock broker and investor. Oversimplified you
could describe this activity as accounting or sales. It's the same with George Soros and Carl Icahn. Without proper supervision
money managers (or accountants) had and still do screw those who had hired them. One of those victims is former billionaire heiress
Madeleine Schickedanz ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Schickedanz
). Generalized you could also say that BlackRock is your money manager accountant. If you've got some investment (that dates
back before 2008), which promises you a higher interest rate after a term of lets say 20 years, the company with which you have
the contract with may have invested your money with BlackRock. The financial crisis of 2008 has shown that finance (accountants
/ money managers) are taking over. Aren't investment bankers the ones who get paid large bonuses in case of success and don't
face hardly any consequences in case of failure? Well, whatever turn future might take, one thing is for sure: whenever SHTF even
the most colorful printed pieces of paper will not taste very well.
Cal , July 13, 2017 at 10:13 pm
History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks on
History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks . EVER SINCE THE Emperor Constantine established the legal
position of the church in the
Many Bolsheviks fled to Germany , taking with them some loot that enabled them to get established in Germany. Lots of invaluable
art work also.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 1:54 am
Cal – read about "History's Greatest Heist" on Amazon. Sounds interesting. Was one of the main reasons for the Czar's overthrow
to steal and then flee? It's got to have been on some minds. A lot of people got killed, and they would have had wedding rings,
gold, etc. That doesn't even include the wealth that could be stolen from the Czar. Was the theft just one of those things that
happened through opportunism, or was it one of the main reasons for the overthrow in the first place, get some dough and run with
it?
Cal , July 14, 2017 at 2:22 pm
@ backwards
" Was the theft just one of those things that happened through opportunism, or was it one of the main reasons for the overthrow"'
imo some of both. I am sure when they were selling off Russian valuables to finance their revolution a lot of them set aside
some loot for themselves.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Cal – thank you. Good books like this get us closer and closer to the truth. Thank goodness for these people.
Brad Owen , July 14, 2017 at 11:45 am
An autocratic oligarch would probably be a better description. He probably believes like other Synarchist financiers that they
should rightfully rule the World, and see democratic processes as heresy against "The Natural Order for human society", or some
such belief.
Brad Owen , July 14, 2017 at 12:13 pm
Looking up "A short definition of Synarchism (a Post-Napoleonic social phenomenon) by Lyndon LaRouche" would give much insight
into what's going on. People from the intelligence community made sure a copy of a 1940 army intelligence dossier labelled something
like "Synarchism:NAZI/Communist" got into Lyndon's hands. It speaks of the the Synarchist method of attacking a targeted society
from both extreme (Right-Left) ends of the political spectrum. I guess this is dialectics? I suppose the existence of the one
extreme legitimizes the harsh, anti-democratic/anti-human measures taken to exterminate it by the other extreme, actually destroying
the targeted society in the process. America, USSR, and (Sun Yat Sen's old Republic of) China were the targeted societies in the
pre-WWII/WWII yearsfor their "sins" of championing We The People against Oligarchy. FDR knew the Synarchist threat and sided with
Russia and China against Germany and Japan. He knew that, after dealing with the battlefield NAZIs, the "Boardroom" NAZIs would
have to be dealt with Post-War. That all changed with his death.The Synarchists are still at it today, hence all the rabid Russo-phobia,
the Pacific Pivot, and the drive towards war. This is all being foiled with Trump's friendly, cooperative approach towards Russia
and China.
mike k , July 13, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Big Brother at work – always protecting us from upsetting information. How nice of him to insure our comfort. No need for us
to bother with all of this confusing stuff, he can do all that for us. The mainstream media will tell us all we need to know ..
(Virginia – please notice my use of irony.)
Joe Tedesky , July 13, 2017 at 4:21 pm
Do you remember mike K when porn was censored, and there were two sides to every issue as compromise was always on the table?
Now porn is accessible on cable TV, and there is only one side to every issue, and that's I'm right about everything and your
not, what compromise with you?
Don't get me wrong, I don't really care how we deal with porn, but I am very concerned to why censorship is showing up whereas
we can't see certain things, for certain reasons we know nothing about. Also, I find it unnerving that we as a society continue
to stay so undivided. Sure, we can't all see the same things the same way, but maybe it's me, and I'm getting older by the minute,
but where is our cooperation to at least try and work with each other?
Always like reading your comments mike K Joe
Joe Average , July 13, 2017 at 5:09 pm
Joe,
when it comes to the choice of watching porn and bodies torn apart (real war pictures), I prefer the first one, although we
in the West should be confronted with the horrible pictures of what we're assisting/doing.
Joe Tedesky , July 13, 2017 at 5:27 pm
This is where the Two Joe's are alike.
mike k , July 13, 2017 at 6:07 pm
I do remember those days Joe. I am 86 now, so a lot has changed since 1931. With the 'greed is good' philosophy in vogue now,
those who seek compromise are seen as suckers for the more single minded to take advantage of. Respect for rules of decency is
just about gone, especially at the top of the wealth pyramid.
Distraction from critical thinking, excellent observation ( please forget the NeoCon Demos they are responsible for half of
the nightmare USA society has become.
ranney , July 13, 2017 at 4:37 pm
Wow Robert, what a fascinating article! And how complicated things become "when first we practice to deceive".
Abe thank you for the link to Ritter's article; that's a really good one too!
John , July 13, 2017 at 4:40 pm
If we get into a shooting war with Russia and the human race somehow survives it Robert Parry' s name will one day appear in
the history books as the person who most thoroughly documented the events leading up to that war. He will be considered to be
a top historian as well as a top journalist.
Abe , July 13, 2017 at 7:01 pm
"Browder, who abjured his American citizenship in 1998 to become a British subject, reveals more about his own selective advocacy
of democratic principles than about the film itself. He might recall that in his former homeland freedom of the press remains
a cherished value."
Abe – "never driven by the money". No, he would never be that type of guy (sarc)!
"It's hard to know what Browder will do next. He rules out any government ambitions, instead saying he can achieve more by
lobbying it.
This summer, he says he met "big Hollywood players" in a bid to turn his book into a major film.
"The most important next step in the campaign is to adapt the book into a Hollywood feature film," he says. "I have been approached
by many film-makers and spent part of the summer in LA meeting with screenwriters, producers and directors to figure out what
the best constellation of players will be on this.
"There are a lot of people looking at it. It's still difficult to say who we will end up choosing. There are many interesting
options, but I'm not going to name any names."
What the ..? I can see it now, George Clooney in the lead role, Mr. White Helmets himself, with his twins in tow.
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 1:56 am
Is it not impressive how money buys out reality in the modern world? This is why one can safely assume that whatever is told
in the MSM is completely opposite to the truth. Would MSM have to push it if it were the truth? You may call this Kiza's Law if
you like (modestly): " The truth is always opposite to what MSM say! " The 0.1% of situations where this is not the case
is the margin of error.
Abe , July 13, 2017 at 7:39 pm
"no figure in this saga has a more tangled family relationship with the Kremlin than the London-based hedge fund manager Bill
Browder [ ]
"there's a reticence in his Jewish narrative. One of his first jobs in London is with the investment operation of the publishing
billionaire Robert Maxwell. As it happens, Maxwell was originally a Czech Jewish Holocaust survivor who fled and became a decorated
British soldier, then helped in 1948 to set up the secret arms supply line to newly independent Israel from communist Czechoslovakia.
He was also rumored to be a longtime Mossad agent. But you learn none of that from Browder's memoir.
"The silence is particularly striking because when Browder launches his own fund, he hires a former Israeli Mossad agent, Ariel,
to set up his security operation, manned mainly by Israelis. Over time, Browder and Ariel become close. How did that connection
come about? Was it through Maxwell? Wherever it started, the origin would add to the story. Why not tell it?
"When Browder sets up his own fund, Hermitage Capital Management -- named for the famed czarist-era St. Petersburg art museum,
though that's not explained either -- his first investor is Beny Steinmetz, the Israeli diamond billionaire. Browder tells how
Steinmetz introduced him to the Lebanese-Brazilian Jewish banking billionaire Edmond Safra, who invests and becomes not just a
partner but also a mentor and friend.
"Safra is also internationally renowned as the dean of Sephardi Jewish philanthropy; the main backer of Israel's Shas party,
the Sephardi Torah Guardians, and of New York's Holocaust memorial museum, and a megadonor to Yeshiva University, Hebrew University,
the Weizmann Institute and much more. Browder must have known all that. Considering the closeness of the two, it's surprising
that none of it gets mentioned.
"It's possible that Browder's reticence about his Jewish connections is simply another instance of the inarticulateness that
seizes so many American Jews when they try to address their Jewishness."
Abe – what a web. Money makes money, doesn't it? It's often what club you belong to and who you know. I remember a millionaire
in my area long ago who went bankrupt. The wealthy simply chipped in, gave him some start-up money, and he was off to the races
again. Simple as that. And I would think that the Jews are an even tighter group who invest with each other, are privy to inside
information, get laws changed in favor of each other, pay people off when one gets in trouble. Browder seems a shifty sort. As
the article says, he leaves a lot out.
Abe , July 14, 2017 at 11:37 pm
In 1988, Stanton Wheeler (Yale University – Law School), David L. Weisburd (Hebrew University of Jerusalem; George Mason University
– The Department of Criminology, Law & Society; Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Faculty of Law). Elin Waring (Yale University
– Law School), and Nancy Bode (Government of the State of Minnesota) published a major study on white collar crime in America.
Part of a larger program of research on white-collar crime supported by a grant from the United States Department of Justice's
National Institute of Justice, the study included "the more special forms associated with the abuse of political power [ ] or
abuse of financial power". The study was also published as a Hebrew University of Jerusalem Legal Research Paper
The research team noted that Jews were over-represented relative to their share of the U.S. population:
"With respect to religion, there is one clear finding. Although many in both white collar and common crime categories do not
claim a particular religious faith [ ] It would be a fair summary of our. data to say that, demographically speaking, white collar
offenders are predominantly middle-aged white males with an over-representation of Jews."
In 1991, David L. Weisburd published his study of Crimes of the Middle Classes: White-Collar Offenders in the Federal Courts,
Weisburd found that although Jews comprised only around 2% of the United States population, they contributed at least 9% of lower
category white-collar crimes (bank embezzlement, tax fraud and bank fraud), at least 15% of moderate category white-collar crimes
(mail fraud, false claims, and bribery), and at least 33% of high category white-collar crimes (antitrust and securities fraud).
Weisburg showed greater frequency of Jewish offenders at the top of the hierarchy of white collar crime. In Weisbug's sample of
financial crime in America, Jews were responsible for 23.9%.
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 2:26 am
What I find most interesting is how Putin handles the Jews.
It is obvious that he is the one who saved the country of Russia from the looting of the 90s by the Russian-American Jewish
mafia. This is the most direct explanation for his demonisation in the West, his feat will never be forgiven, not even in history
books (a demon forever). Even to this day, for example in Syria, Putin's main confrontation is not against US then against the
Zionist Jews, whose principal tool is US. Yet, there is not a single anti-Semitic sentence that Putin ever uttered. Also, Putin
let the Jewish oligarchs who plundered Russia keep their money if they accepted the authority of the Russian state, kept employing
Russians and paying Russian taxes. But he openly confronted those who refused (Berezovsky, Khodorovsky etc). Furthermore, Putin
lets Israel bomb Syria under his protection to abandon. Finally, Putin is known in Russia as a great supporter of Jews and Israel,
almost a good friend of Nutty Yahoo.
Therefore, it appears to me that the Putin's principal strategy is to appeal to the honest Jewish majority to restrain the
criminal Jewish minority (including the criminally insane), to divide them instead of confronting them all as a group, which is
what the anti-Semitic Europeans have traditionally been doing. His judo-technique is in using Jewish power to restrain the Jews.
I still do not know if his strategy will succeed in the long run, but it certainly is an interesting new approach (unless I do
not know history enough) to an ancient problem. It is almost funny how so many US people think that the problem with the nefarious
Jewish money power started with US, if they are even aware of it.
Cal , July 16, 2017 at 5:41 am
" His judo-technique is in using Jewish power to restrain the Jews. "
The Jews have no power without their uber Jew money men, most of whom are ardent Zionist.
And because they get some benefits from the lobbying heft of the Zionist control of congress they arent going to go against them.
In this 2015 tirade, Browder declared "Someone has to punch Putin in the nose" and urged "supplying arms to the Ukrainians
and putting troops, NATO troops, in all of the surrounding countries".
The choice of Mozgovaya as interviewer was significant to promote Browder with the Russian Jewish community abroad.
Born in the Soviet Union in 1979, Mozgovaya immigrated to Israel with her family in 1990. She became a correspondent for the
Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth in 2000. Although working most of the time in Hebrew, her reports in Russian appeared in various
publications in Russia.
Mozgovaya covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, including interviews with President Victor Yushenko and his partner-rival
Yulia Timoshenko, as well as the Russian Mafia and Russian oligarchs. During the presidency of Vladimir Putin, Mozgovaya gave
one of the last interviews with the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. She interviewed Garry Kasparov, Edward Limonov, Boris
Berezovsky, Chechen exiles such as Ahmed Zakaev, and the widow of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
In 2008, Mozgovaya left Yedioth Ahronoth to become the Washington Bureau Chief for Haaretz newspaper in Washington, D.C.. She
was a frequent lecturer on Israel and Middle Eastern affairs at U.S. think-tanks. In 2013, Mozgovaya started working at the Voice
of America.
HIDE BEHIND , July 13, 2017 at 7:43 pm
Gramps was decended from an old Irish New England Yankee lineage and in my youth he always dragged me along when the town meetings
were held, so my ideas of American DEmocracy stem from that background, one of open participation.
The local newspapers had more social chit chat than political news of international or for that mstter State or Federal shenanigansbut
everu member in that far flung settled communit read them from front to back; ss a child I got to read the funny and sports pages
until Gramps got finidhed reading the "News Section, always the news first yhen the lesser BS when time allowed,this habit instilled
in me the sence of
priority.
Aftrr I had read his dection of paper he would talk with me,even being a yonker, in a serious but opinionated manner, of the Editorial
section which had local commentary letterd to the editor as large as somtimes too pages.
I wonder today at which section of papersf at all, is read by american public, and at how manyadults discuss importsn news worthy
tppics with their children.
At advent of TV we still had trustworthy journalist to finally be seen after years of but reading their columns or listening on
radios,almost tottaly all males but men of honesty and character, and worthy of trust.
They wrre a part of all social stratas, had lived real lives and yes most eere well educated but not the elitist thinking jrrks
who are no more than parrots repeating whatevrr a teleprompter or bias of their employers say to write.
Wrll back to Gramps and hid home spun wisdom: He alwsys ,and shoeed by example at those old and somrtimes boistrous town Halls,
that first you askef a question, thought about the answer, and then questioned the answer.
This made the one being question responsible for the words he spoke.
So those who have doubts by a presumed independent journalist, damn right they should question his motives, which in reality begin
to answer our unspoken questions we can no longer ask those boobs for bombs and political sychophants and their paymasters of
popular media outlets.
As one who likes effeciency in prodution one monitors data to spot trends and sny aberations bring questions so yes I note this
journalist deviation from the norms as well.
I can only question the why, by looking at data from surrounding trends in order to later be able to question his answers.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 2:07 am
Hide Behind – sounds like you had a smart grandpa, and someone who cared enough about you to talk things over with you (even
though he was opinionated). I try to talk things over with my kids, sometimes too much. They're known on occasion to say, "Okay,
enough. We're full." I wait a few days, and then fill them up some more! Ha.
Joe Tedesky , July 13, 2017 at 10:53 pm
Here's a thought; will letting go of Trump Jr's infraction cancel out a guilty verdict of Hillary Clinton's transgressions?
I keep hearing Hillary references while people defend Donald Trump Jr over his meeting with Russian Natalia Veselnitskaya.
My thinking started over how I keep hearing pundits speak to Trump Jr's 'intent'. Didn't Comey find Hillary impossible to prosecute
due to her lack of 'intent'? Actually I always thought that to be prosecuted under espionage charges, the law didn't need to prove
intent, but then again we are talking about Hillary here.
The more I keep hearing Trump defenders make mention of Hillary's deliberate mistakes, and the more I keep hearing Democrates
point to Donald Jr's opportunistic failures, the more similarity I see between the two rivals, and the more I see an agreed upon
truce ending up in a tie. Remember we live in a one party system with two wings.
Am I going down the wrong road here, or could forgiving Trump Jr allow Hillary to get a free get out of jail card?
F. G. Sanford , July 14, 2017 at 12:42 am
I've been saying all along, our government is just a big can of worms, and neither side can expose the other without opening
it. But insiders on both sides are flashing their can openers like it's a game of chicken. My guess is, everybody is gonna get
a free pass. I read somewhere that Preet Bharara had the goods on a whole bunch of bankers, but he sat on it clear up to the election.
Then, he got fired. So much for draining the swamp. If they prosecute Hillary, it looks like a grudge match. If they prosecute
Junior, it looks like revenge. If they prosecute Lynch, it looks like racism. When you deal with a government this corrupt, everybody
looks innocent by comparison. I'm still betting nobody goes to jail, as long as the "deep state" thinks they have Trump under
control.
Joe Tedesky , July 14, 2017 at 1:29 am
It's like we are sitting on the top of a hill looking down at a bunch of little armies attacking each other, or something.
I'm really screwy, I have contemplated to if Petraues dropped a dime on himself for having a extra martial affair, just to
get out of the Benghazi mess. Just thought I'd tell you that for full disclosure.
When it comes to Hillary, does anyone remember how in the beginning of her email investigation she pointed to Colin Powell
setting precedent to use a private computer? That little snitch Hillary is always the one when caught to start pointing the finger
.she would never have lasted in the Mafia, but she's smart enough to know what works best in Washington DC.
I'm just starting to see the magic; get the goods on Trump Jr then make a deal with the new FBI director.
Okay go ahead and laugh, but before you do pass the popcorn, and let's see how this all plays out.
Believe half of what you hear, and nothing of what you see.
Joe
Lisa , July 14, 2017 at 4:22 am
"Believe half of what you hear, and nothing of what you see."
Joe, where does this quote originate? Or is it a paraphrase?
I once had an American lecturer (political science) at the university, and he stressed the idea that we should not believe anything
we read or hear and only half of what we see. This was l-o-o-ng ago, in the 60's.
Joe Tedesky , July 14, 2017 at 10:59 am
The first time I ever heard that line, 'believe nothing of what you see', was a friend of mine said it after we watched Roberto
Clemente throw a third base runner out going towards home plate, as Robert threw the ball without a bounce to the catcher who
was standing up, from the deep right field corner of the field .oh those were the days.
Gregory Herr , July 14, 2017 at 9:12 pm
JT,
Clemente had an unbelievable arm! The consummate baseball player I have family in western PA, an uncle your age in fact who remembers
Clemente well. Roberto also happened to be a great human being.
Joe Tedesky , July 14, 2017 at 9:56 pm
I got loss at Forbes Field. I was seven years old, it was 1957. I got separated from my older cousin, we got in for 50 cents
to sit in the left field bleachers. Like I said I loss my older cousin so I walked, and walked, and just about the time I wanted
my mum the most I saw daylight. I followed the daylight out of the big garage door, and I was standing within a foot of this long
white foul line. All of a sudden this Black guy started yelling at me in somekind of broken English to, 'get off the field, get
out of here'. Then I felt a field ushers hand grab my shoulder, and as I turned I saw my cousin standing on the fan side of the
right field side of the field. The usher picked me up and threw me over to my cousin, with a warning for him to keep his eye on
me. That Black baseball player was a young rookie who was recently just drafted from the then Brooklyn Dodgers .#21 Roberto Clemente.
Gregory Herr , July 14, 2017 at 10:12 pm
You were a charmed boy and now you are a charmed man. Great story life is a Field of Dreams sometimes.
Zachary Smith , July 15, 2017 at 9:00 pm
Believe half of what you hear, and nothing of what you see.
My introduction to this had the wording the other way around:
"Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see."
This was because the workplace was saturated with rumors, and unfortunately there was a practice of management and union representatives
"play-acting" for their audience. So what you "saw" was as likely as not a little theatrical production with no real meaning whatever.
The two fellows shouting at each other might well be laughing about it over a cup of coffee an hour later.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 2:01 am
Sanford – "But insiders on both sides are flashing their can openers " That's funny writing.
Gregory Herr , July 14, 2017 at 10:20 pm
yessir, love it
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 2:41 am
Absolutely, one of the best political metaphors ever (unfortunately works in English language only).
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 6:19 pm
BTW, they are flashing at each other not only can openers then also jail cells and grassy knolls these days. But the can openers
would still be most scary.
Abe , July 14, 2017 at 2:13 am
Israeli banks have helped launder money for Russian oligarchs, while large-scale fraudulent industries, like binary options,
have been allowed to flourish here.
A May 2009 diplomatic cable by the US ambassador to Israel warned that "many Russian oligarchs of Jewish origin and Jewish
members of organized crime groups have received Israeli citizenship, or at least maintain residences in the country."
The United States estimated at the time that Russian crime groups had "laundered as much as $10 billion through Israeli holdings."
In 2009, then Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara charged 17 managers and employees of the Conference on Jewish Material
Claims for defrauding Germany 42.5 million dollars by creating thousands of false benefit applications for people who had not
suffered in the Holocaust.
The scam operated by creating phony applications with false birth dates and invented histories of persecution to process compensation
claims. In some cases the recipients were born after World War II and at least one person was not even Jewish.
Among those charged was Semyon Domnitser, a former director of the conference. Many of the applicants were recruited from Brooklyn's
Russian community. All those charged hail from Brooklyn.
When a phony applicant got a check, the scammers were given a cut, Bharara said. The fraud which has been going on for 16 years
was related to the 400 million dollars which Germany pays out each year to Holocaust survivors.
Later, in November 2015, Bharara's office charged three Israeli men in a 23-count indictment that alleged that they ran a extensive
computer hacking and fraud scheme that targeted JPMorgan Chase, The Wall Street Journal, and ten other companies.
According to prosecutors, the Israeli's operation generated "hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profit" and exposed
the personal information of more than 100 million people.
Despite his service as a useful idiot propagating the Magnitsky Myth, Bharara discovered that for Russian Jewish oligarchs,
criminals and scam artists, the motto is "Nikogda ne zabyt'!" Perhaps more recognizable by the German phrase: "Niemals vergessen!"
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 3:00 am
Abe – wow, what a story. I guess it's lucrative to "never forget"! Bandits.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)
NCJRS Abstract
The document referenced below is part of the NCJRS Library collection. To conduct further searches of the collection, visit the
NCJRS Abstracts Database. See the Obtain Documents page for direction on how to access resources online, via mail, through interlibrary
loans, or in a local library.
NCJ Number: NCJ 006180
Title: CRIMINALITY AMONG JEWS – AN OVERVIEW
United States of America
Journal: ISSUES IN CRIMINOLOGY Volume:6 Issue:2 Dated:(SUMMER 1971) Pages:1-39
Date Published: 1971
Page Count: 15
.
Abstract: THE CONCLUSION OF MOST STUDIES IS THAT JEWS HAVE A LOW CRIME RATE. IT IS LOWER THAN THAT OF NON-JEWS TAKEN AS A WHOLE,
LOWER THAN THAT OF OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS,
HOWEVER, THE JEWISH CRIME RATE TENDS TO BE HIGHER THAN THAT OF NONJEWS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS FOR WHITE-COLLAR OFFENSES,
THAT IS, COMMERCIAL OR COMMERCIALLY RELATED CRIMES, SUCH AS FRAUD, FRAUDULENT BANKRUPTCY, AND EMBEZZLEMENT.
Index Term(s): Behavioral and Social Sciences ; Adult offenders ; Minorities ; Behavioral science research ; Offender classification
Country: United States of America
Language: English
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 4:21 pm
Cal – that does not surprise me at all. Of course they would be where the money is, and once you have money, you get nothing
but the best defense. "I've got time and money on my side. Go ahead and take me to court. I'll string this thing along and it'll
cost you a fortune. So let's deal. I'm good with a fine."
A rap on the knuckles, a fine, and no court case, no discovery of the truth that the people can see. Of course they'd be there.
That IS the only place to be if you want to be a true criminal.
Skip Scott , July 15, 2017 at 1:57 pm
Thanks again Abe, you are a wealth of information. I think you have to allow for anyone to make a mistake, and Bharara has
done a lot of good.
Longtime Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz and his team have directed their grievance at Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior
White House adviser.
Citing a person familiar with Trump's legal team, The Times said Kasowitz has bristled at Kushner's "whispering in the president's
ear" about stories on the Russia investigation without telling Kasowitz and his team.
The Times' source said the attorneys, who were hired as private counsel to Trump in light of the Russia investigation, view Kushner
"as an obstacle and a freelancer" motivated to protect himself over over Trump. The lawyers reportedly told colleagues the work
environment among Trump's inner circle was untenable, The Times said, suggesting Kasowitz could resign
Second
Who thinks Jared works for Trump? I don't.
Jared works for his father Charles Kushner, the former jail bird who hired prostitutes to blackmail his brother in law into not
testifying against him. Jared spent every weekend his father was in prison visiting him.,,they are inseparable.
Third
So what is Jared doing in his WH position to help his father and his failing RE empire?
Trying to get loans from China, Russia, Qatar,Qatar
And why Is Robert Mueller Probing Jared Kushner's Finances?
Because of this no doubt:..seeking a loan for the Kushners from a Russian bank.
The White House and the bank have offered differing accounts of the Kushner-Gorkov sit-down. While the White House said Kushner
met Gorkov and other foreign representatives as a transition official to "help advance the president's foreign policy goals."
Vnesheconombank, also known as VEB, said it was part of talks with business leaders about the bank's development strategy.
It said Kushner was representing Kushner companies, his family real estate empire.
Jared Kushner 'tried and failed to get a $500m loan from Qatar before http://www.independent.co.uk › News › World › Americas › US politics
2 days ago –
Jared Kushner tried and failed to secure a $500m loan from one of Qatar's richest businessmen, before pushing his father-in-law
to toe a hard line with the country, it has been alleged. This intersection between Mr Kushner's real estate dealings and his
father-in-law's
The Kushners are about to lose their shirts..unless one of those foreign country's banks gives them the money.
At Kushners' Flagship Building, Mounting Debt and a Foundered Deal https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/nyregion/kushner-companies-666-fifth-avenue.html
The Fifth Avenue skyscraper was supposed to be the Kushner Companies' flagship in the heart of Manhattan -- a record-setting $1.8
billion souvenir proclaiming that the New Jersey developers Charles Kushner and his son Jared were playing in the big leagues.
And while it has been a visible symbol of their status, it has also it has also been a financial headache almost from the start.
On Wednesday, the Kushners announced that talks had broken off with a Chinese financial conglomerate for a deal worth billions
to redevelop the 41-story tower, at 666 Fifth Avenue, into a flashy 80-story ultraluxury skyscraper comprising a chic retail mall,
a hotel and high-priced condominiums"
Get these cockroaches out of the WH please.,,,Jared and his sister are running around the world trying to get money in exchange
for giving them something from the Trump WH.
The NYC skyline displays 666 in really really really HUGE !!!! numbers. Perhaps the USA government as Cheney announced has
gone to the very very very DARK side.
Cal , July 14, 2017 at 2:16 pm
Yea 666 probably isn't a coincidence .lol
Chris Kinder , July 14, 2017 at 12:15 am
What I think most comments overlook here is the following: the US is the primary imperialist aggressor in the world today,
and Russia, though it is an imperialist competitor, is much weaker and is generally losing ground. Early on, the US promised that
NATO would not be extended into Eastern Europe, but now look at what's happened: not only does the US have NATO allies and and
missiles in Eastern Europe, but it also engineered a coup against a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine, and is now trying to drive
Russia out of Eastern Ukraine, as in Crimea and the Donbass and other areas of Eastern Ukraine, which are basically Russian going
back more than a century. Putin is pretty mild compered to the US' aggressive stance. That's number one.
Number two is that the current anti-Russian hysteria in the US is all about maintaining the same war-mongering stance against
Russia that existed in the cold war, and also about washing clean the Democratic Party leadership's crimes in the last election.
Did the Russians hack the election? Maybe they tried, but the point is that what was exposed–the emails etc–were true information!
They show that the DNC worked to deprive Bernie Sanders of the nomination, and hide crimes of the Clintons'! These exposures,
not any Russian connection to the exposures, are what really lost Hillary the election.
So, what is going on here? The Democrats are trying to hide their many transgressions behind an anti-Russian scare, why? Because
it is working, and because it fits in with US imperialist anti-Russian aims which span the entire post-war period, and continue
today. And because it might help get Trump impeached. I would not mind that result one bit, but the Democrats are no alternative:
that has been shown to be true over and over again.
This is all part of the US attempt to be the dominant imperialist power in the world–something which it has pursued since the
end of the last world war, and something which both Democrats and Republicans–ie, the US ruling class behind them–are committed
to. Revolutionaries say: the main enemy is at home, and that is what I say now. That is no endorsement of Russian imperialism,
but a rejection of all imperialism and the capitalist exploitative system that gives rise to it.
Thanks for your attention -- Chris Kinder
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 1:58 am
Chris – good post. Thanks.
mike k , July 14, 2017 at 11:35 am
Chris, I think most commenters here are aware of everything you summarized above, but we just don't put all that in each individual
post.
Paranam Kid , July 14, 2017 at 6:40 am
It is ironic that Browder on his website describes himself as running a battle against corporate corruption in Russia, and
there is a quote by Walter Isaacson: "Bill Browder is an amazing moral crusader".
http://www.billbrowder.com/bio
HIDE BEHIND , July 14, 2017 at 10:02 am
One cannot talk of Russian monry laundering in US without exposing the Jewish Israeli and many AIPAC connections.
I studied not so much the Jewish Orthodoxy but mainly the evolution of noth their outlook upon G.. but also how those who do not
believe in a G.. and still keep their cultural cohesiveness
The largest money laundering group in US is
both Jewish and Israeli, and while helping those of their cultural similarities, their ecpertise goes. Very deep in Eastern U.S.
politics and especially strong in all commercial real estate, funding, setting up bribes to permitting officials,contractors and
owners of construvtion firms.
Financials some quite large are within this Jew/Israel connections, as all they who offshore need those proper connections to
do so. take bribes need the funding cleaned and
flow out through very large tax free Jewish Charity Orgd, the largest ones are those of Orthodox.
GOV Christie years ago headed the largest sting operation to try and uproot what at that time he believed was just statewide tax
fraud and laundering operations, many odd cash flows into political party hacks running for evrry gov position electefd or appointed.
Catchng a member of one of the most influential Orthofox familys mrmbers, that member rolled on many many indivifuals of his own
culture.
It was only when Vhristies investigative team began turning up far larger cases of laundering and political donations thst msinly
centered in NY Stste and City, fid he then find out howuch power this grouping had.
Soon darn near every AIPAC aided elected politico from city state and rspecially Congress was warning him to end investigation.
Which he did.
His reward was for his fat ass to be funded for a run towards US Presidency, without any visibly open opposition by that cultural
grouping.
No it is not odd for Jewery to charge goyim usury or to aid in political schemes that advance their groups aims.
One thing to remenber by the Bible thumpers who delay any talks of Israel ; Christian Zionist, is that to be of their culture
one does not have to believe in G.
There are a few excellent books written about early days Jewish immigrant Pre Irish andblre Sicilian mafias.
The Jewish one remainst to this day but are as well orgNized as the untold history of what is known as "The Southern mafia.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 1:55 pm
Hide Behind – fascinating! I guess if we ever knew half of what goes on behind the scenes, we'd be shocked. We only ever know
things like this exist when people like you enlighten us, or when there's a blockbuster movie about it. Thanks.
Deborah Andrew , July 14, 2017 at 10:03 am
With great respect and appreciation for your writing about the current unsubstantiated conversations/writing about 'Russia-gate'
I would ask if 'the other side of a story' is really what we want or, is it that we want all the facts. Analysis and opinions,
that include the facts, may differ. However, it is the readers who will evaluate the varied analysis and opinions when they include
all the facts known. I raise this question, as it seems to me that we have a binary approach to our thinking and decision making.
Something is either good or bad, this or that. Sides are taken. Labels are added (such as conservative and progressive). Would
we not be wiser and would our decision making not be wiser if it were based on a set of principles? My own preference: the precautionary
principle and the principle of do no harm. I am suggesting that we abandon the phrase and notion of the 'other side of the story'
and replace it with: based on the facts now known, or, based on all the facts revealed to date or, until more facts are revealed
it appears
I would ask if 'the other side of a story' is really what we want or, is it that we want all the facts.
Replying to a question with another question isn't really good form, but given my knowledge level of this case I can see no
alternative.
How do you propose to determine the "facts" when virtually none of the characters involved in the affair appear trustworthy?
Also, there is a lot of evidence (displayed by Mr. Parry) that another set of "characters" we call the Mainstream Media are
extremely biased and one-sided with their coverage of the story.
Again – Where am I going to find those "facts" you speak of?
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 2:52 am
Spot on.
backwardsevolution , July 14, 2017 at 2:02 pm
Deborah Andrew – good comment, but the problem is that we never seem to get "the other side of the story" from the MSM. You
are right in pointing out that "the other side of the story" probably isn't ALL there is (as nothing is completely black and white),
but at least it's something. The only way we can ever get to the truth is to put the facts together and question them, but how
are you going to do that when the facts are kept away from us?
It can be very frustrating, can't it, Deborah? Cheers.
Cal , July 14, 2017 at 8:52 pm
Nice comment.
None of us can know the exact truth of anything we ourselves haven't seen or been involved in. The best we can do is try to
find trusted sources, be objective, analytical and compare different stories and known the backgrounds and possible agendas of
the people involved in a issue or story.
We can use some clues to help us cull thru what we hear and read.
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
Note: The first rule and last five (or six, depending on situation) rules are generally not directly within the ability of
the traditional disinfo artist to apply. These rules are generally used more directly by those at the leadership, key players,
or planning level of the criminal conspiracy or conspiracy to cover up.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public
figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the
topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the 'How dare you!' gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors
and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially
well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such 'arguable rumors'. If you can
associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a 'wild rumor' from a 'bunch of kids on the Internet' which
can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself
look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the
opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy
them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real
issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary 'attack the messenger' ploy, though
other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as 'kooks', 'right-wing', 'liberal',
'left-wing', 'terrorists', 'conspiracy buffs', 'radicals', 'militia', 'racists', 'religious fanatics', 'sexual deviates', and
so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before
an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments
where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism, reasoning -- simply make an accusation
or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent's viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could be taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal
agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough 'jargon'
and 'minutia' to illustrate you are 'one who knows', and simply say it isn't so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely
why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have
any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for
maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man -- usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility,
someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with – a kind of investment for the future should
the matter not be so easily contained.) Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt
with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can
usually then be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues
-- so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the 'high road' and 'confess'
with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made -- but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it
all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, 'just isn't so.' Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later,
and even publicly 'call for an end to the nonsense' because you have already 'done the right thing.' Done properly, this can garner
sympathy and respect for 'coming clean' and 'owning up' to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players
and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to lose
interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards or with an apparent deductive logic which
forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which
works best with issues qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions
in place.
16. Vanish evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won't have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion
with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well
with companions who can 'argue' with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more
key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can't do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them
into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat
less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses
the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how 'sensitive they are to criticism.'
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what
material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for
the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed
or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically
deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made
by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations
-- as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies
for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and
effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to
be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful
evidence and that the evidence is sealed and unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict is achieved, the
matter can be considered officially closed. Usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be
used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to
forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you
must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted
media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution
so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction
of theircharacter by release of blackmail information, or merely by destroying them financially, emotionally, or severely damaging
their health.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to
avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen. .
Note: There are other ways to attack truth, but these listed are the most common, and others are likely derivatives of these.
In the end, you can usually spot the professional disinfo players by one or more of seven (now 8) distinct traits:
Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
by H. Michael Sweeney
copyright (c) 1997, 2000 All rights reserved
(Revised April 2000 – formerly SEVEN Traits)
1) Avoidance. They never actually discuss issues head-on or provide constructive input, generally avoiding citation of references
or credentials. Rather, they merely imply this, that, and the other. Virtually everything about their presentation implies their
authority and expert knowledge in the matter without any further justification for credibility.
2) Selectivity. They tend to pick and choose opponents carefully, either applying the hit-and-run approach against mere commentators
supportive of opponents, or focusing heavier attacks on key opponents who are known to directly address issues. .
3) Coincidental. They tend to surface suddenly and somewhat coincidentally with a new controversial topic with no clear prior
record of participation in general discussions in the particular public arena involved. They likewise tend to vanish once the
topic is no longer of general concern. They were likely directed or elected to be there for a reason, and vanish with the reason.
4) Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally
in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved.
Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute
opponent presentation strength.
5) Anti-conspiratorial. They almost always have disdain for 'conspiracy theorists' and, usually, for those who in any way believe
JFK was not killed by LHO. Ask yourself why, if they hold such disdain for conspiracy theorists, do they focus on defending a
single topic discussed in a NG focusing on conspiracies? One might think they would either be trying to make fools of everyone
on every topic, or simply ignore the group they hold in such disdain.Or, one might more rightly conclude they have an ulterior
motive for their actions in going out of their way to focus as they do.
6) Artificial Emotions. An odd kind of 'artificial' emotionalism and an unusually thick skin -- an ability to persevere and
persist even in the face of overwhelming criticism and unacceptance. You might have outright rage and indignation one moment,
ho-hum the next, and more anger later -- an emotional yo-yo. With respect to being thick-skinned, no amount of criticism will
deter them from doing their job, and they will generally continue their old disinfo patterns without any adjustments to criticisms
of how obvious it is that they play that game -- where a more rational individual who truly cares what others think might seek
to improve their communications style, substance, and so forth, or simply give up.
7) Inconsistent. There is also a tendency to make mistakes which betray their true self/motives. This may stem from not really
knowing their topic, or it may be somewhat 'freudian', so to speak, in that perhaps they really root for the side of truth deep
within.
8) BONUS TRAIT: Time Constant. Wth respect to News Groups, is the response time factor. There are three ways this can be seen
to work, especially when the government or other empowered player is involved in a cover up operation:
1) ANY NG posting by a targeted proponent for truth can result in an IMMEDIATE response. The government and other empowered players
can afford to pay people to sit there and watch for an opportunity to do some damage. SINCE DISINFO IN A NG ONLY WORKS IF THE
READER SEES IT – FAST RESPONSE IS CALLED FOR, or the visitor may be swayed towards truth.
2) When dealing in more direct ways with a disinformationalist, such as email, DELAY IS CALLED FOR – there will usually be a minimum
of a 48-72 hour delay. This allows a sit-down team discussion on response strategy for best effect, and even enough time to 'get
permission' or instruction from a formal chain of command.
3) In the NG example 1) above, it will often ALSO be seen that bigger guns are drawn and fired after the same 48-72 hours delay
– the team approach in play. This is especially true when the targeted truth seeker or their comments are considered more important
with respect to potential to reveal truth. Thus, a serious truth sayer will be attacked twice for the same sin.
Michael Kenny , July 14, 2017 at 11:22 am
I don't really see Mr Parry's point. The banning of Nekrasov's film isn't proof of the accuracy of its contents and even less
does it prove that anything that runs counter to Nekrasov's argument is false. Nor does proving that a mainstream meida story
is false prove that an internet story saying the opposite is true. "A calls B a liar. B proves that A is a liar. That proves that
B is truthful." Not very logical! What seems to be established is that the lawyer in question represents a Russian-owned company,
a money-laundering prosecution against which was settled last May on the basis of what the company called a "surprise" offer from
prosecutors that was "too good to refuse". This "Russian government attorney" (dixit Goldstone) had information concerning illegal
campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee. Trump Jr jumped at it and it makes no difference whether he was tricked
or even whether he actually got anything, his intent was clear. In addition DNC "dirt" did indeed appear on the internet via Wikileaks,
just as "dirt" appeared in the French election. MacronLeaks proves Russiagate and "Juniorgate" confirms MacronLeaks. The question
now is did Trump, as president, intervene to bring about this "too good to refuse" offer? That question cannot just be written
off with the "no evidence" argument.
Skip Scott , July 14, 2017 at 1:40 pm
God, you are persistent if nothing else. Keep repeating the same lie until it is taken as true, just like the MSM. You say
that Russia-gate, Macron leaks, etc can't be written off with the "no evidence" argument (how is that logical?), and then you
trash a film you haven't even seen because it doesn't fit your narrative. Maybe some evidence is provided in the film, did you
consider that possibility? That fact that Nekrasov started out to make a pro Broder film, and then switched sides, leads me to
believe he found some disturbing evidence. And if you look into Nekrasov you will find that he is no fan of Putin, so one has
to wonder what his motive is if he is lying.
I am wondering if you ever look back at previous posts, because you never reply to a rebuttal. If you did, you would see that
you are almost universally seen by the commenters here as a troll. If you are being paid, I suppose it might not matter much to
you. However, your employer should look for someone with more intelligent arguments. He is wasting his money on you.
Abe , July 14, 2017 at 9:27 pm
Propaganda trolls attempt to trash the information space by dismissing, distracting, diverting, denying, deceiving and distorting
the facts.
The trolls aim at confusing rather than convincing the audience.
The tag team troll performance of "Michael Kenny" and "David" is accompanied by loud declarations that they have "logic" on
their side and "evidence" somewhere. Then they shriek that they're being "censored".
Propaganda trolls target the comments section of independent investigative journalism sites like Consortium News, typically
showing up when articles discuss the West's "regime change" wars and deception operations.
Pro-Israel Hasbara propaganda trolls also strive to discredit websites, articles, and videos critical of Israel and Zionism.
Hasbara smear tactics have intensified due to increasing Israeli threats of military aggression, Israeli collusion with the United
States in "regime change" projects from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, and Israeli links to international organized crime
and terrorism in Syria.
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 3:04 am
Gee Abe, you are a magician (and I thought that you only quote excellent articles). Short and sharp.
Abe , July 15, 2017 at 4:15 pm
When they have a hard time selling that they're being "censored" (after more than a dozen comments), trolls complain that they're
being "dismissed" and "invalidated" by "hostile voices".
exiled off mainstreet , July 14, 2017 at 1:54 pm
Aaron Kesel, in Activistpost documents the links between Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, the company engaged by the Clintons
to prepare the defamatory Christopher Steele Dossier against Trump later used by Comey to help gin up the Russian influence conspiracy
theory. In the article, it is true the GPS connection may have involved her lobbying efforts to overturn the Magnitsky law, not
the dossier, but it is also interesting that she is on record as anti-Trump and having associations with Clinton democrats. Though
it may have been part of the beginnings of a conspiracy, the conspiracy may have developed later and the meeting became something
they related back to to bolster this fraudulent dangerous initiative.
mike k , July 14, 2017 at 2:01 pm
I think as you say Skip that most on this blog have seen through Michael Kenny's stuff. Nobody's buying it. He's harmless.
If he's here on his own dime, if we don't feed him, he will get bored and go away. If he's being payed, he may persist, but so
what. Sometimes I check the MSM just to see what the propaganda line is. Kenny is like that; his shallow arguments tell me what
we must counter to wake people up.
Skip Scott , July 14, 2017 at 5:51 pm
Yeah mike k, I know you're right. I don't know why I let the guy get under my skin. Perhaps it's because he never responds
to a rebuttal.
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 3:14 am
Then you would have to waste more time rebutting the (equally empty) rebuttal.
The second thing is that many trolls suffer from DID, that is the Dissociative Identity Disorder, aka sock puppetry. There
is a bit of similarity in argument between David and Michael and HAWKINS, only one of them rebuts quite often.
Another excellent article! I wrote a very detailed
blog post
in which I methodically take apart the latest "revelation" about Donald Trump Jr.'s emails. I talk a lot about the Magnitsky
Act, which is very relevant to this whole story.
Joe Tedesky , July 14, 2017 at 4:43 pm
I always like reading your articles Philippe, you have a real talent. Maybe read what I wrote above, but I'm sensing this Trump
Jr affair will help Hillary more than anything, to give her a reprieve from any further FBI investigations. I mean somehow, I'm
sure by Hillary's standards and desires, that this whole crazy investigation thing has to end. So, would it not seem reasonable
to believe that by allowing Donald Jr to be taken off the hook, that Hillary likewise will enjoy the taste of forgiveness?
Tell me if you think this Donald Trump Jr scandal could lead to this Joe
PS if so this could be a good next article to write there I go telling the band what to play, but seriously if this Russian
conclusion episode goes on much longer, could you not see a grand bargain and a deal being made?
Thanks for the compliment, I'm glad you like the blog. I wasn't under the impression that Clinton was under any particular
danger from the Justice Department, but even if she was, she doesn't have the power to stop this Trump/Russia collusion nonsense
because it's pushed by a lot of people that have nothing to do with her except for the fact that they would have preferred her
to win.
Abe , July 14, 2017 at 6:48 pm
Excellent summary and analysis, Philippe. Key observation:
"as even the New York Times admits, there is no evidence that Natalia Veselnitskaya, the lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr., Jared
Kushner and Paul Manafort for 20-30 minutes on 9 June 2016, provided any such information during that meeting. Donald Trump Jr.
said that, although he asked her about it, she didn't give them anything on Clinton, but talked to him about the Magnitsky Act
and Russia's decision to block adoption by American couples in retaliation. Of course, if we just had his word, we'd have no particularly
good reason to believe him. But the fact remains that no documents of the sort described in Goldstone's ridiculous email ever
surfaced during the campaign, which makes what he is saying about how the meeting went down pretty convincing, at least on this
specific point. It should be noted that Donald Trump Jr. has offered to testify under oath about anything related to this meeting.
Moreover, he also said during the interview he gave to Sean Hannity that there was no follow-up to this meeting, which is unlikely
to be a lie since he must know that, given the hysteria about this meeting, it would come out. He may not be the brightest guy
in the world, but surely he or at least the people who advised him before that interview are not that stupid."
Your own necpluribus article was one of the best I've seen summarising the whole controversy, and your exhaustive responses
to the pro-deep state critics was edifying. I am now convinced that your view of Veselnitskaya's role in the affair and the nature
her connections to the dossier drafting company GPS being based on their unrelated work on the magnitsky law is accurate.
"Bill Browder, born into a notable Jewish family in Chicago, is the grandson of Earl Browder, the former leader of the Communist
Party USA,[2] and the son of Eva (Tislowitz) and Felix Browder, a mathematician. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and attended
the University of Chicago where he studied economics. He received an MBA from Stanford Business School[3] in 1989 where his classmates
included Gary Kremen and Rich Kelley. In 1998, Browder gave up his US citizenship and became a British citizen.[4] Prior to setting
up Hermitage, Browder worked in the Eastern European practice of the Boston Consulting Group[5] in London and managed the Russian
proprietary investments desk at Salomon Brothers.[6]"
Rake , July 15, 2017 at 9:13 am
Successfully keeping a salient argument from being heard is scary, given the social media and alternative media players who
are all ripe to uncover a bombshell. Sy Hersh needs to convince Nekrasov to get his documentary to WkiLeaks.
"Sy Hersh needs to convince Nekrasov to get his documentary to WkiLeaks."
Agree.
P. Clark , July 15, 2017 at 12:01 pm
When Trump suggested that a Mexican-American judge might be biased because of this ethnicity the media said this was racist.
Yet these same outlets like the New York Times are now routinely questioning Russian-American loyalty because of their ethnicity.
As usual a ridiculous double standard. Basically the assumption is all Russians are bad. We didn't even have this during the cold
war.
Cal , July 15, 2017 at 8:10 pm
Yes indeed P. Clark .that kind or hypocrisy makes my head explode!
MichaelAngeloRaphaelo , July 15, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Enough's Enough
STOP DNC/DEMs
#CryBabyFakeNewsBS
Support Duly ELECTED
@POTUS @realDonaldTrump
#BoycottFakeNewsSponsors
#DrainTheSwamp
#MAGA
Wow, I just learned via this article that in US Nekrasov is labeled as "pro-Kremlin" by WaPo. That's just too funny. He's in
a relationship with a Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala, who is very well known for her anti-Russia mentality. Nekrasov is defenetly anti-Kremlin
if something. He was supposed to make an anti-Kremlin documentary, but the facts turned out to be different than he thought, but
still finished his documentary.
The lengths to which the Neo Conservative War Cabal will go to destroy freedom of speech and access to alternative news sources
underscores that the United States is becoming an Orwellian agitation-propaganda police state equally dedicated to igniting World
War III for Netanyahu, the Central Banks, our Wahhabic Petrodollar Partners, and a pipeline consortium or two. The Old American
Republic is dead.
Roy G Biv , July 15, 2017 at 4:38 pm
Interesting to note that each and everyone of David's comments were bleached from this page. Looks like he was right about
the censorship. Sad.
Duly noted Abe. But you should adhere to the first part of the statement that you somehow forgot to include:
From Editor Robert Parry: At Consortiumnews, we welcome substantive comments about our articles, but comments should avoid
abusive language toward other commenters or our writers, racial or religious slurs (including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia),
and allegations that are unsupported by facts.
Kiza , July 15, 2017 at 6:06 pm
My favorite was David's claim that he contributed to this zine whilst it was publishing articles not to his liking (/sarc).
I kindly reminded him that people pay much more money to have publishing the way they like it – for example how much Bezos paid
for Washington Post, or Omidyar to establish The Intercept.
Except for such funny component, David's comments were totally substance free and useless. Nothing lost with bleaching.
Roy G Biv , July 16, 2017 at 5:44 am
You're practicing disinformation. He actually said he contributed early on and had problems with the recent course of the CN
trajectory. Censorship is cowardly.
Abe , July 16, 2017 at 1:53 pm
Consortium News welcomes substantive comments.
"David" was presenting allegations unsupported by facts and disrupting on-topic discussion.
Violations of CN comment policy are taken down by the moderator. Period. It has nothing to do with "censorship".
Stop practicing disinformation and spin, "Roy G Biv".
David , July 16, 2017 at 3:57 pm
I stopped contributing after the unintellectual dismissal of scientific 911 truthers. And it's easy for you to paint over my
comments as they have been scrubbed. There was plenty of useful substance, it just ran against the tide. Sorry you didn't appreciate
it the contrary viewpoint or have the curiosity to read the backstory.
Abe , July 16, 2017 at 5:02 pm
The cowardly claim of "censorship".
The typical troll whine is that their "contrary viewpoint" was "dismissed" merely because it "ran against the tide".
No. Your allegations were unsupported by facts. They still are.
Martyrdom is just another troll tactic.
dub , July 15, 2017 at 9:44 pm
torrent for the film?
Roy G Biv , July 16, 2017 at 5:56 am
Here is the pdf of the legal brief about the Magnitsky film submitted by Senator Grassly to Homeland Security Chief. Interesting
read and casts doubt on the claims made in the film, refutes several claims actually. Skip past Chuck Grassly's first two page
intro to get to the meat of it. If you are serious about a debate on the merits of the case, this is essential reading.
Yes, very interesting read. By all means, examine the brief.
But forget the spin from "Roy G Biv" because the brief actually refutes nothing about Andrei Nekrasov's film.
It simply notes that the Russian government was understandably concerned about "unscrupulous swindler" and "sleazy crook" William
Browder.
After your finished reading the brief, try to remember any time when Congress dared to examine a lobbying campaign undertaken
on behalf of Israeli (which is to say, predominantly Russian Jewish) interests, the circumstances surrounding a pro-Israel lobbying
effort and the potential FARA violations involved. or the background of a Jewish "Russian immigrant".
Note on page 3 of the cover letter the CC to The Honorable Dianne Feinstein, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on the
Judiciary. Feinstein was born Dianne Emiel Goldman in San Francisco, to Betty (née Rosenburg), a former model, and Leon Goldman,
a surgeon. Feinstein's paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland. Her maternal grandparents, the Rosenburg family,
were from Saint Petersburg, Russia. While they were of German-Jewish ancestry, they practiced the Russian Orthodox faith as was
required for Jews residing in Saint Petersburg.
In 1980, Feinstein married Richard C. Blum, an investment banker. In 2003, Feinstein was ranked the fifth-wealthiest senator,
with an estimated net worth of US$26 million. By 2005 her net worth had increased to between US$43 million and US$99 million.
Like the rest of Congress, Feinstein knows the "right way" to vote.
David , July 16, 2017 at 1:50 pm
So you're saying because a Jew Senator was CC'd it invalidates the information? Read the first page again. The Chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee is obligated to CC these submissions to the ranking member of the Committee, Jew heritage or not.
Misinformation and disinformation from you Abe, or generously, maybe lazy reading. The italicized unscrupulous swindler and sleazy
crook comments were quoting the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the Washington screening of Nekrasov's film and demonstrating
Russia's intentions to discredit Browder. You are practiced at the art of deception. Hopefully readers will simply look for themselves.
Abe , July 16, 2017 at 2:11 pm
Ah, comrade "David". We see you're back muttering about "disinformation" using your "own name".
My statements about Senator Feinstein are entirely supported by facts. You really should look into that.
Also, please note that quotation marks are not italics.
And please note that the Russian Foreign Minister is legally authorized to present the view of the Russian government.
Browder is pretty effective at discrediting himself. He simply has to open his mouth.
I encourage readers to look for themselves, and not simply take the word of one Browder's sockpuppets.
David , July 16, 2017 at 2:55 pm
It won't last papushka. Every post and pended moderated post was scrubbed yesterday, to the cheers of you and your mean spirited
friends. But truth is truth and should be defended. So to the point, I reread the Judiciary Committee linked document, and the
items you specified are in italics, because the report is quoting Lavrov's comments to a Moscow news paper and "another paper"
as evidence of Russia's efforts to undermine the credibility and standing of Browder. This is hardly obscure. It's plain as day
if you just read it.
David , July 16, 2017 at 2:59 pm
Also Abe, before I get deleted again, I don't question any of you geneological description of Feinstein. I merely pointed out
that she is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and it is normal for the Chairman of the Committee (Republican)
to CC the ranking member. Unless of course it is Devin Nunes, then fairness and tradition goes out the window.
Abe , July 16, 2017 at 4:01 pm
It's plain as day, "David" or whatever other name you're trolling under, that you're here to loudly "defend" the "credibility"
and "standing" of William Browder.
Sorry, but you're going to have to "defend" Browder with something other than your usual innuendo, blather about 9-11, and
slurs against RP.
Otherwise it will be recognized for what it is, repeated violation of CN comment policy, and taken down by the moderator again.
Good luck to any troll who wants to "defend" Browder's record.
But you're gonna have to earn your pay with something other than your signature unsupported allegations, 9-11 diversions, and
the "non-Jewish Russian haters gonna hate" propaganda shtick.
David , July 16, 2017 at 5:07 pm
I wish you would stop with the name calling. I am not a troll. I have been trying to make simple rational points. You respond
by calling me names and wholly ignoring and/or misrepresenting and obfuscating easily verifiable facts. I suspect you are the
moderator of this page, and if so am surprised by your consistent negative references to Jews. I'm not Jewish but you're really
over the top. Of course you have many friends here so you get little push back, but I really hope you are not Bob or Sam.
Anonymous , July 16, 2017 at 10:26 am
We can see that it was what can be considered to be a Complex situation, where it was said that someone had Dirt on Hillary
Clinton, but there was No collusion and there was No attempted collusion, but there was Patriotism and Concern for Others during
a Perplexing situation.
This is because of what is Known as Arkancide, and which is associated with some People who say they have Dirt on the Clintons.
The Obvious and Humane thing to do was to arrange to meet the Russian Lawyer, who it was Alleged to have Dirt on Hillary Clinton,
regardless of any possible Alleged Electoral advantage against Hillary Clinton, and until further information, there may have
been some National Security Concerns, because it was Known that Hillary Clinton committed Espionage with Top Secret Information
on her Unauthorized, Clandestine, Secret Email Server, and the Obvious cover up by the Department of Justice and the FBI, and
so it was with this background that this Complex situation had to be dealt with.
This is because there is Greater Protection for a Person who has Dirt or Alleged Dirt on the Clintons, if that Information
is share with other People.
This is because it is a Complete Waste of time to go to the Authorities, because they will Not do anything against Clinton
Crimes, and a former Haitian Government Official was found dead only days before he was to give Testimony regarding the Clinton
Foundation.
We saw this with Seth Rich, where the Police Videos has been withheld, and we have seen the Obstruction in investigating that
Crime.
The message to Leakers is that Seth Rich was taken to hospital and Treated and was on his way to Fully Recovering, but he died
in hospital, and those who were thinking of Leaking Understood the message from that.
There was Also concern for Rob Goldstone, who Alleged that the Russian Lawyer had Dirt on the Clintons.
We Know that is is said Goldstone that he did Not want to hear what was said at the meeting.
This is because Goldstone wanted associates of Candidate Donald Trump to Know that he did Not know what was said at that meeting.
We now Know that the meeting was a set up to Improperly obtain a FISA Warrant, which was Requested in June of 2016, and that
is same the month and the year as the meeting that the Russian Lawyer attended.
There was what was an Unusual granting of a Special Visa so that the Russian Lawyer could attend that set up, which was Improperly
Used to Request a FISA Warrant in order to Improperly Spy on an Opposition Political Candidate in order to Improperly gain an
Electoral advantage in an Undemocratic manner, because if anything wrong was intended by Associates of Candidate Donald Trump,
then there were enough People in that meeting who were the Equivalent of Establishment Democrats and Establishment Republicans,
because we Know that after that meeting, that the husband of the former Florida chair of the Trump campaign obtained a front row
seat to a June 2016 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing for the Russian Lawyer.
There are Americans who consider that the 2 Major Political Party Tyranny has Betrayed the Constitution and the Principles
of Democracy, because they oppose President Donald Trump's Election Integrity Commission, because they think that the Establishment
Republicans and the Establishment Democrats are the Bribed and Corrupted Puppets of the Shadow Regime.
We Know from Senator Sanders, that if Americans want a Political Revolution, then they will need their own Political Party.
There are Americans who think that a Group of Democratic Party Voters and Republican Party Voters who have No association with
the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, and that they may be named The Guardians of American Democracy.
These Guardians of American Democracy would be a numerous Group of People, and they would ask Republican Voters to Vote for
the Democratic Party Representative instead of the Republican who is in Congress and who is seeking Reelection, in exchange for
Democratic Party Voters to Vote for the Republican Party Candidate instead of the Democrat who is in Congress and who is seeking
Reelection, and the same can be done for the Senate, because the American People have to Decide if it is they the Shadow Regime,
or if it is We the People, and the Establishment Republicans and the Establishment Democrats are the Bribed and Corrupt Puppets
of the Shadow Regime, and there would be equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats replaced in this manner, and so it will Not
affect their numbers in the Congress or the Senate.
There could be People who think that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was Unacceptability Biased and Unacceptability Corrupt during
the Democratic Party Primaries, and that if she wants a Democratic Party Candidate to be Elected in her Congressional District,
then she Should announce that she will Not be contesting the next Election, and there could be People who think that Speaker Paul
Ryan was Unacceptability Disloyal by insufficiently endorse the Republican Presidential nominee, and with other matters, and that
if he wants a Republican Party Candidate to be Elected in his Congressional District, then he Should announce that he will Not
be contesting the next Election, and then the Guardians of American Democracy can look at other Dinos and Rinos, including those
in the Senate, because the Constitution says the words: We the People.
There are Many Americans who have Noticed that Criminal Elites escape Justice, and Corruption is the norm in American Politics.
There are those who Supported Senator Sanders who Realize that Senator Sanders would have been Impeached had he become President,
and they Know that they Need President Donald Trump to prepare the Political Landscape so that someone like Senator Sanders could
be President, without a Coup attempt that is being attempted on President Donald Trump, and while these People may not Vote for
the Republicans, they can Refuse to Vote for the Democratic Party, until the conditions are there for a Constitutional Republic
and a Constitutional Democracy, and they want the Illegal Mueller Team to recuse themselves from this pile of Vile and Putrid
McCarthyist Lies Invented by their Shadow Regime Puppet Masters,
There are Many Americans who want Voter Identification and Paper Ballots for Elections, and they have seen how several States
are Opposed to President Donald Trump's Commission on Election Integrity, because they want to Rig their Elections, and this is
Why there are Many Americans who want America to be a Constitutional Republic and a Constitutional Democracy.
MillyBloom54 , July 16, 2017 at 12:31 pm
I just read this article in the Washington Monthly, and wish to read informed comments about this issue. There are suggestions
that organized crime from Russian was heavily involved. This is a complicated mess of money, greed, etc.
Yes, very interesting read. By all means, examine the article, which concludes:
"So, let's please stay focused on why this matters.
"And why was Preet Bharara fired again?"
Israeli banks have helped launder money for Russian oligarchs, while large-scale fraudulent industries have been allowed to
flourish in Israel.
A May 2009 diplomatic cable by the US ambassador to Israel warned that "many Russian oligarchs of Jewish origin and Jewish
members of organized crime groups have received Israeli citizenship, or at least maintain residences in the country."
The United States estimated at the time that Russian crime groups had "laundered as much as $10 billion through Israeli holdings."
In 2009, then Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara charged 17 managers and employees of the Conference on Jewish Material
Claims for defrauding Germany 42.5 million dollars by creating thousands of false benefit applications for people who had not
suffered in the Holocaust.
The scam operated by creating phony applications with false birth dates and invented histories of persecution to process compensation
claims. In some cases the recipients were born after World War II and at least one person was not even Jewish.
Among those charged was Semyon Domnitser, a former director of the conference. Many of the applicants were recruited from Brooklyn's
Russian community. All those charged hail from Brooklyn.
When a phony applicant got a check, the scammers were given a cut, Bharara said. The fraud which has been going on for 16 years
was related to the 400 million dollars which Germany pays out each year to Holocaust survivors.
Later, in November 2015, Bharara's office charged three Israeli men in a 23-count indictment that alleged that they ran a extensive
computer hacking and fraud scheme that targeted JPMorgan Chase, The Wall Street Journal, and ten other companies.
According to prosecutors, the Israeli's operation generated "hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profit" and exposed
the personal information of more than 100 million people.
Why was Bharara fired?
Any real investigation of Russia-Gate will draw international attention towards Russian Jewish corruption in the FIRE (Finance,
Insurance, and Real Estate) sectors, and lead back to Israel.
Ain't gonna happen.
David , July 16, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Remember Milly that essentially one of the first things Trump did when he came into office was fire Preet, and just days before
the long awaited trial. Then, Jeff Sessions settled the case for 6 million without any testimony on a 230 million dollar case,
days after. Spectacular and brazen, and structured to hide the identities of which properties were bought by which investors.
Hmmmm.
David , July 16, 2017 at 3:33 pm
By the way Milly, great summary article you have linked and one that everyone who is championing the Nekrasov film should read.
Abe , July 16, 2017 at 4:37 pm
The "great" article was not written by a journalist. It's an opinion piece written by Martin Longman, a blogger and Democratic
Party political consultant.
From 2012 to 2013, Longman worked for Democracy for America (DFA) a political action committee, headquartered in South Burlington,
Vermont, founded by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
Since March 2014, political animal Longman has managed the The Washington Monthly website and online magazine.
Although it claims to be "an independent voice", the Washington Monthly is funded by the Ford Foundation, JP Morgan Chase Foundation,
and well-heeled corporate entities http://washingtonmonthly.com/about/
Longman's credentials as a "progressive" alarmist are well established. Since 2005, he has been the publisher of Booman Tribune.
Longman admits that BooMan is related to the 'bogey man' (aka, bogy man, boogeyman), an evil imaginary character who harms children.
Vladimir Putin is the latest bogey man of the Democratic Party and its equally pro-Israel "opposition".
Neither party wants the conversation to involve Jewish Russian organized crime, because that leads to Israel and the pro-Israel
AIPAC lobby that funds both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Guardian in Russia coverage acts as MI6 outlet. Magnitsky probably was MI6 operation, anyway.
Notable quotes:
"... The Observer fabricated a direct quote from the Russian president for their propaganda purposes without any regard to basic journalistic standards. They wanted to blame Putin personally for the suspicions of some Russian investigators, so they just invented an imaginary statement from him so they could conveniently do so. ..."
"... What is really going on here is the classic trope of demonisation propaganda in which the demonised leader is conflated with all officials of their government and with the targeted country itself, so as to simplify and personalise the narrative of the subsequent Two Minutes Hate to be unleashed against them. ..."
"... In the same article, the documents from Russian investigators naming Browder as a suspect in certain crimes are first "seen as" a frame-up (by the sympathetic chorus of completely anonymous observers yellow journalism can always call on when an unsupported claim needs a spurious bolstering) and then outright labelled as such (see quote above) as if this alleged frame-up is a proven fact. Which it isn't. ..."
"... No evidence is required down there in the Guardian/Observer journalistic gutter before unsupported claims against Russian officials can be treated as unquestionable pseudo-facts, just as opponents of Putin can commit no crime for the outlet's hate-befuddled hacks. ..."
The decline of the falsely self-described "quality" media outlet The Guardian/Observer into a deranged fake news site pushing
anti-Russian hate propaganda continues apace. Take a look at
this gem :
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has accused prominent British businessman Bill Browder of being a "serial killer" –
the latest extraordinary attempt by the Kremlin to frame one of its most high-profile public enemies.
But Putin has not been reported anywhere else as making any recent statement about Browder whatever, and the Observer article
makes no further mention of Putin's supposed utterance or the circumstances in which it was supposedly made.
As the rest of the article makes clear, the suspicions against Browder were actually voiced by Russian police investigators and
not by Putin at all.
The Observer fabricated a direct quote from the Russian president for their propaganda purposes without any regard to basic
journalistic standards. They wanted to blame Putin personally for the suspicions of some Russian investigators, so they just invented
an imaginary statement from him so they could conveniently do so.
What is really going on here is the classic trope of demonisation propaganda in which the demonised leader is conflated with
all officials of their government and with the targeted country itself, so as to simplify and personalise the narrative of the subsequent
Two Minutes Hate to be unleashed against them.
When, as in this case, the required substitution of the demonised leader for their country can't be wrung out of the facts even
through the most vigorous twisting, a disreputable fake news site like The Guardian/Observer is free to simply make up new, alternative
facts that better fit their disinformative agenda. Because facts aren't at all sacred when the official propaganda line demands lies.
In the same article, the documents from Russian investigators naming Browder as a suspect in certain crimes are first "seen as"
a frame-up (by the sympathetic chorus of completely anonymous observers yellow journalism can always call on when an unsupported
claim needs a spurious bolstering) and then outright labelled as such (see quote above) as if this alleged frame-up is a proven fact.
Which it isn't.
No evidence is required down there in the Guardian/Observer journalistic gutter before unsupported claims against Russian officials
can be treated as unquestionable pseudo-facts, just as opponents of Putin can commit no crime for the outlet's hate-befuddled hacks.
The above falsifications were brought to the attention of the Observer's so-called Readers Editor – the official at the Guardian/Observer
responsible for "independently" defending the outlet's misdeeds against outraged readers – who did nothing. By now the article has
rolled off the site's front page, rendering any possible future correction nugatory in any case.
Later in the same article Magnitsky is described as having been Browder's "tax lawyer" a standard trope of the Western propaganda
narrative about the case. Magnitsky
was actually an accountant .
A trifecta of fakery in one article! That makes crystal clear what the Guardian meant in
this article , published at precisely the same moment as the disinformation cited above, when it said:
"We know what you are doing," Theresa May said of Russia. It's not enough to know. We need to do something about it.
By "doing something about it" they mean they're going to tell one hostile lie about Russia after another.
From the 'liberal' Guardian/Observer wing of the rightwing bourgeois press, spot the differences with the article in the Mail
on Sunday by Nick Robinson?
This thing seems to have been cobbled together by a guy called Nick Robinson. The same BBC Nick Robinson that hosts the Today
Programme? I dunno, one feels really rather depressed at how low our media has sunk.
I think huge swathes of the media, in the eyes of many people, have never really recovered from the ghastly debacle that was
their dreadful coverage of the reasons for the illegal attack on Iraq.
The journalists want us to forget and move on, but many, many, people still remember. Nothing happened afterwards. There
was no tribunal to examine the media's role in that massive international crime against humanity and things actually got worse
post Iraq, which the attack on Libya and Syria illustrates.
Exactly: in my opinion there should be life sentences banning scribblers who printed lies and bloodthirsty kill, kill, kill
articles from ever working again in the media.
Better still, make them go fight right now in Yemen. Amazing how quickly truth will spread if journalists know they have
a good chance of dying if they print lies and falsehoods ..
At a time when the ruling elite, across virtually the entire western world, is losing it; it being, political legitimacy and
the breakdown of any semblance of a social contract between the ruled and the rulers the Guardian lurches even further to the
political right . amazing, though not really surprising. The Guardian's role appears to be to 'coral' radical and leftist ideas
and opinions and 'groom' the educated middle class into accepting their own subjugation.
The Guardian's writers get so much, so wrong, so often it's staggering and nobody gets the boot, except for the people who
allude to the incompetence at the heart of the Guardian. They fail dismally on Trump, Brexit and Corbyn and yet carry on as if
everything is fine and dandy. Nothing to complain about here, mover along now.
I suppose it's because they are actually media aristocrats living in a world of privilege, and they, as members of the ruling
elite, look after one another regardless of how poorly they actually perform. This is typical of an elite that's on the ropes
and doomed. They choose to retreat from grubby reality into a parallel world where their own dogmas aren't challenged and they
begin to believe their propaganda is real and not an artificial contruct. This is incredibly dangerous for a ruling elite because
society becomes brittle and weaker by the day as the ruling dogmas become hollow and ritualized, but without traction in reality
and real purpose.
The Guardian is a bit like the Tory government, lost and without any real ideas or ideals. The slow strangulation of the CIF
symbolizes the crisis of confidence at the Guardian. A strong and confident ruling class welcomes criticism and is ready to brush
it all off with a smile and a shrug. When they start running scared and pretending there is no dissent or opposition, well, this
is a sign of decadence and profound weakness. They are losing the battle of ideas and the battle of solutions to our problems.
All that really stands between them and a social revolution is a thin veneer of 'authority' and status, and that's really not
enough anymore.
All our problems are pathetically and conviniently blamed on the Russians and their Demon King and his vast army of evil Trolls.
It's like a political version of the Lord of the Rings.
Don't expect the Guardian to cover the biggest military build-up (NATO) on Russia's borders since Hitler's 1941 invasion.
John Pilger has described the "respectable" liberal press (Guardian, NYT etc) as the most effective component of the propaganda
system, precisely BECAUSE it is respectable and trusted. As to why the Guardian is so insistent in demonising Russia, I would
propose that is integrates them further with a Brexit-ridden Tory government. Its Blairite columnists prefer May over Corbyn any
day.
The Guardian is trying to rescue citizens from 'dreadful dangers that we cannot see, or do not understand' – in other words they
play a central role in 'the power of nightmares'
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LlA8KutU2to
So Russians cannot do business in America but Americans must be protected to do business in Russia?
If you look at Ukraine and how US corporations are benefitting from the US-funded coup, you ask what the US did in Russia
in the 1990s and the effect it had on US business and ordinary Russian people. Were the two consistent with a common US template
of economic imperialism?
In particular, you ask what Bill Browder was doing, his links to US spying organisations etc etc. You ask if he supported
the rape of Russian State assets, turned a blind eye to the millions of Russians dying in the 1990s courtesy of catastrophic economic
conditions. If he was killing people to stay alive, he would not have been the only one. More important is whether him making
$100m+ in Russia needed conditions where tens of millions of Russians were starving .and whether he saw that as acceptable collateral
damage ..he made a proactive choice, after all, to go live in Moscow. It is not like he was born there and had no chance to leave
..
I do not know the trurh about Bill Browder, but one thing I do know: very powerful Americans are capable of organising mass
genocide to become rich, so there is no possible basis for painting all American businessmen as philanthropists and all Russians
as murdering savages ..
It's perfectly possible, in fact the norm historically, for people to believe passionately in the existence of invisible threats
to their well-being, which, when examined calmly from another era, resemble a form of mass-hysteria or collective madness. For
example; the religious faith/dogma that Satan, demons and witches were all around us. An invisible, parallel, world, by the side
of our own that really existed and we were 'at war with.' Satan was our adversary, the great trickster and disseminator of 'fake
news' opposed to the 'good news' provided by the Gospels.
What's remarkable, disturbing and frightening is how closely our media resemble a religious cult or the Catholic Church in
the Middle Ages. The journalists have taken on a role that's close to that of a priesthood. They function as a 'filtering' layer
between us and the world around us. They are, supposedly, uniquely qualified to understand the difference between truth and lies,
or what's right and wrong, real news and propaganda. The Guardian actually likes this role. They our the guardians of the truth
in a chaotic world.
This reminds one of the role of the clergy. Their role was to stand between ordinary people and the 'complexities' of the
Bible and separate the Truths it contained from wild and 'fake' interpretations, which could easily become dangerous and undermine
the social order and fundamental power relationships.
The big challenge to the role of the Church happened when the printing press allowed the ordinary people to access the information
themselves and worst still when the texts were translated into the common language and not just Latin. Suddenly people could access
the texts, read and begin to interpret and understand for themselves. It's hard to imagine that people were actually burned alive
in England for smuggling the Bible in English translation a few centuries ago. That's how dangerous the State regarded such a
'crime.'
One can compare the translation of the Bible and the challenge to the authority of the Church and the clergy as 'guardians
of the truth' to what's happeing today with the rise of the Internet and something like Wikileaks, where texts and infromation
are made available uncensored and raw and the role of the traditional 'media church' and the journalist priesthood is challenged.
We're seeing a kind of media counter-reformation. That's why the Guardian turned on Assange so disgracefully and what Wikileaks
represented.
A brilliant historical comparison. They're now on the legal offensive in censoring the internet of course, because in truth
the filter system is wholly vulnerable. Alternative media has been operating freely, yet the majority have continued to rely on
MSM as if it's their only source of (dis)information, utilizing our vast internet age to the pettiness of social media and prank
videos. Marx was right: capitalist society alienates people from their own humanity. We're now aliens, deprived of our original
being and floating in a vacuum of Darwinist competition and barbarism. And we wonder why climate change is happening?
Apparently we are "living in disorientating times" according to Viner, she goes on to say that "championing the public interest
is at the heart of the Guardian's mission".
Really? How is it possible for her to say that when many of the controversial articles which appear in the Guardian are not
open for comment any more. They have adopted now a view that THEIR "opinion" should not be challenged, how is that in the public
interest?
In the Observer on Sunday a piece also appeared smearing RT entitled: "MPs defend fees of up to £1,000 an hour to appear
on 'Kremlin propaganda' channel." However they allowed comments which make interesting reading. Many commenter's saw through their
ruse and although the most vociferous critics of the Graun have been banished, but even the mild mannered ones which remain appear
not the buy into the idea that RT is any different than other media outlets. With many expressing support for the news and op-ed
outlet for giving voice to those who the MSM ignore – including former Guardian writers from time to time.
Why Viner's words are so poisonous is that the Graun under her stewardship has become a agitprop outlet offering no balance.
In the below linked cringe worthy article there is no mention of RT being under attack in the US and having to register itself
and staff as foreign agents. NO DEFENCE OF ATTACKS ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS by the US state is mentioned.
Surely this issue is at the heart of championing public interest?
For the political/media/business elites (I suppose you could call them 'the Establishment') in the US and UK, the main problem
with RT seems to be that a lot of people are watching it. I wonder how long it will be before access is cut. RT is launching a
French-language channel next month. We are already being warned by the French MSM about how RT makes up fake news to further Putin's
evil propaganda aims (unlike said MSM, we are told). Basically, elites just don't trust the people (this is certainly a constant
in French political life).
It's not just that they don't allow comments on many of their articles, but even on the articles where CiF is enabled, they ban
any accounts that disagree with their narrative. The end result is that Guardianistas get the false impression everyone shares
their view and that they are in the majority. The Guardian moderators are like Scientology leaders who banish any outsiders
for fear of influencing their cult members.
Everyone knows that Russia-gate is a feat of mass hypnosis, mesmerized from DNC financed lies. The Trump collusion myth is
baseless and becoming dangerously hysterical: but conversely, the Clinton collusion scandal is not so easy to allay. Whilst
it may turn out to be the greatest story never told: it looks substantive enough to me. HRC colluded with Russian oligarchy
to the tune of $145m of "donations" into her slush fund. In return, Rosatom gained control of Uranium One.
A curious adjunct to this corruption: HRC opposed the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Given her subsequent rabid Russophobia: you'd
have thought that if the Russians (as it has been spun) arrested a brave whistleblowing tax lawyer and murdered him in prison
– she would have been quite vocal in her condemnation. No, she wanted to make Russia
great again. It's amazing how $145m can focus ones
attention away from ones natural instinct.
[Browder and Magnitsky were as corrupt as each other: the story that the Russians took over Browder's hedge fund and implicated
them both in a $230m tax fraud and corruption scandal is as fantastical as the "Golden Shower" dossier. However, it seems to me
Magnitsky's death was preventable (he died from complications of pancreatitis, for which it seems he was initially refused treatment
) ]
So if we turn the clock back to 2010-2013, it sure looks to me as though we have a Russian collusion scandal: only it's not
one the Guardian will ever want to tell. Will it come out when the FBI 's "secret" informant (William D Cambell) testifies to
Congress sometime this week? Not in the Guardian, because their precious Hillary Clinton is the real scandal here.
This "tactic" – a bold or outrageous claim made in the headline or in the first few sentences of a piece that is proven false
in the very same article – is becoming depressingly common in the legacy media.
In other words, the so-called respectable media knowingly prints outright lies for propaganda and clickbait purposes.
I dropped a line to a friend yesterday saying "only in a parallel universe would a businessman/shady dealer/tax evader such as
Browder be described as an "anti-corruption campaigner."" Those not familiar with the history of Browder's grandfather, after
whom a whole new "deviation" in leftist thinking was named, should look it up.
Some months ago you saw tweets saying Russophobia had hit ridiculous levels. They hadn't seen anything yet. It's scary how easily
people can be brainwashed.
The US are the masters of molesting other nations. It's not even a secret what they've been up to. Look at their budgets or
the size of the intelligence buildings. Most journalists know full well of their programs, including those on social media, which
they even reported on a few years back. The Guardian run stories by the CIA created and US state funded RFE/RL & then tell
us with a straight face that RT is state propaganda which is destroying our democracy.
The madness spreads: today The Canary has/had an article 'proving' that the 'Russians' were responsible for Brexit, Trump, etc
etc.
Then there is the neo-liberal 'President' of the EU charging that the extreme right wing and Russophobic warmongers in the
Polish government are in fact, like the President of the USA, in Putin's pocket..
This outbreak is reaching the dimensions of the sort of mass hysteria that gave us St Vitus' dance. Oh and the 'sonic' terrorism
practised against US diplomats in Havana, in which crickets working for the evil one (who he?) appear to have been responsible
for a breach in diplomatic relations. It couldn't have happened to a nicer empire.
This is a simply a brilliant article. Probably the best written on the subject so far. Kudos to Max Blumenthal
Thinks tanks are really ideological tanks -- formidable weapon in propaganda wars that crush everything on its way. And taken
together far right think tanks financed by defense sector or intelligence agencies are really a shadow far right political party with
its own neocon agenda. Actually subverting the will of American people (who elected Trump) for more peaceful relations (aka detente)
with Russia in favor of interest of weapon manufactures and the army of "national security parasites".
At a time when the ruling elite, across virtually the entire western world, is losing it; it being, political legitimacy and
the breakdown of any semblance of a social contract between the ruled and the rulers those think tanks decides to create a fake
narrative and blame Russians. Is not this a classic variant of projection ?
The slow strangulation of the US MSM means the crisis of confidence. A strong and confident ruling class welcomes criticism and
is ready to brush it all off with a smile and a shrug. When they start running scared and pretending there is no dissent or
opposition, well, this is a sign of of degradation of the ruling elite. They are losing the battle of ideas and the battle of
solutions to social problems. All that really stands between them and a social revolution is a thin veneer of 'authority' and
status, as well as intelligence agencies spying on everybody.
Now all those well paid ( and sometimes even talented) war propagandist intend to substitute the real crisis of neoliberalism in
the USA demonstrated during the recent Presidential Elections for the artificial problem of Russian meddling. And they are succeeding
in this unfair and evil substitution. The also manage to "poison the well" -- relation between two nations were now at the
level probably lower then during Cold War (when many Russians were sympathetic to the USA). I think 70% of Democratic voters now
are convinced the Russia was meddling in the USA election and about 30% of Republican voters also think so. For the creators of
'artificial reality" such numbers signify big success. A very big success to be exact.
Notable quotes:
"... In perhaps the most chilling moment of the hearings, and the most overlooked, Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer who had branded himself an expert on Russian meddling, appeared before a nearly empty Senate chamber. Watts conjured up a stark landscape of American carnage, with shadowy Russian operatives stage managing the chaos ..."
"... The spectacle perfectly illustrated the madness of Russiagate, with liberal lawmakers springboarding off the fear of Russian meddling to demand that Americans be forbidden from consuming the wrong kinds of media ..."
"... A former U.S. Army officer who spent years in obscurity at a defense industry funded think tank called the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Watts has become a go-to source for cable news producers and print journalists on the subject of Russian bots, always available with a comment that reinforces the sense that America is under sustained cyborg attack. This September, his employers at FPRI hailed him as "the leading expert on developments related to Russian-backed efforts to not only influence the 2016 presidential election, but also to inflame racial and cultural divisions within the U.S. and across Europe." ..."
"... Watts boasts an impressive-looking bio that is replete with fancy sounding fellowships at national security-oriented outfits, including George Washington University's Center Cyber and Homeland Security. His bio also indicates that he served on an FBI Joint Terror Task Force. ..."
"... Though Watts is best known for his punditry on Russian interference, it's fair to say he is as much an expert on Russian affairs as Harvey Weinstein is a trusted voice on feminism. Indeed, Watts appears to speak no Russian, has no record of reporting or scholarship from inside Russia, and has produced little to no work of any discernible academic value on Russian affairs. ..."
"... Whether or not he has the substance to support his claims of expertise, Watts has proven a talented salesman, catering to popular fears about Russian interference while he plies credulous lawmakers with ease. ..."
"... In the widely publicized testimony, Watts explained to the panel of senators that he first noticed the pernicious presence of Russian social media bots after he co-authored an article in 2014 in Foreign Affairs titled, " The Good and The Bad of Ahrar al Sham ." The article urged the US to arm a group of Syrian Salafi insurgents known for its human rights abuses , sectarianism and off-and-on alliances with Al Qaeda. Watts and his co-authors insisted that Ahrar al-Sham was the best proxy force for wreaking havoc on the Syrian government weakening its allies in Iran and Russia. Right below the headline, Watts and his co-authors celebrated Ahrar al-Sham as "an Al Qaeda linked group worth befriending." ..."
"... Watts rehashed the same argument at FPRI a year later, urging the U.S. government to harness jihadist terror as a weapon against Russia. "The U.S. at a minimum, through covert or semi-covert platforms, should take advantage and amplify these free alternative [jihadist] narratives to provide Russia some payback for recent years' aggression," he wrote. In another paper, Watts asked , "Why shouldn't the U.S. redirect some of the jihadi hatred towards those with the dirtiest hands in the Syrian conflict: Russia and Iran?" Watts did not specify whether the theater of covert warfare should be limited to the Syrian battlefield, or if he sought to encourage jihadists to carry out terrorist acts inside Russia and Iran. ..."
"... Next, Watts introduced his signature theme, claiming that Russia manipulated civil rights protests to exploit divisions in American society. Declaring that "pro-Russian" outlets were spreading "chaos in Black Lives Matter protests" by deploying active measures, Watts did not bother to say what those measures were. ..."
"... Watts then moved to the main course of his testimony, focusing on how Trump employed Russian "active measures" to attack his opponents. Watts told the Senate panel that the Russian-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik had produced a false report on the U.S. airbase in Incirlik, Turkey being "overrun by terrorists." He presented the Russian stories as the anchor for a massive influence operation that featured swarms of Russian bots across social media. And he claimed that then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort invoked the incident to deflect from negative media coverage, suggesting that Trump was coordinating strategy with the Kremlin. In reality, it was Watts who was spreading the fake news. ..."
"... Watts has pushed his bogus narrative of RT and Sputnik's Incirlik coverage in numerous outlets, including Politico . Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen echoed Watts' false account on the Senate floor while arguing for legislation to force RT out of the U.S. market on political grounds. And Jim Rutenberg, the New York Times' media correspondent, reproduced Watts' distorted account in a major feature on RT and Sputnik's "new theory of war." Almost no one, not one major media organization or public figure, has bothered to fact check these false claims, and few have questioned the agenda behind them. ..."
"... The episode began during a Trump rally at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump read out an email purportedly from longtime Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal (the father of this writer), hoping to embarrass Clinton over Benghazi. The text of the email turned out to be part of a column written by the pro-Clinton Newsweek columnist Kurt Eichenwald, not an email by Blumenthal. ..."
"... The source of Trump's falsehood appeared to have been a report by Bill Moran, then a reporter for Sputnik, the news service funded by the Russian government. Having confused Eichenwald's writing for a Blumenthal email, Moran scrubbed his erroneous article within 20 minutes. Somehow, Moran's retracted article had found its way onto the Trump campaign's radar, a not atypical event for a campaign that had relied on material from far-out sites like Infowars to undercut its opponents. ..."
"... In his column at Newsweek, Eichenwald framed Moran's honest mistake as the leading edge of a secret Russian influence operation. With help from pro-Clinton elements, Eichenwald's column went viral, earning him slots on CNN and MSNBC, where he howled about the nefarious Russian-Trump-Wikileaks plot he believed he had just exposed. (Glenn Greenwald was perhaps the only reporter with a national platform to highlight Eichenwald's falsifications .) Moran was fired as a result of the fallout, and would have to spend the next several months fighting to correct the record. ..."
"... When Moran appealed to Eichenwald for a public clarification, Eichenwald staunchly refused. Instead, he offered Moran a job at the New Republic in exchange for his silence and warned him, "If you go public, you'll regret it." (Eichenwald had no role at the New Republic or any clear ability to influence the magazine's hiring decisions.) Moran refused to cooperate, prompting Eichenwald to publish a follow-up piece painting himself as the victim of a Russian "active measures" campaign, and to cast Moran once again as a foreign agent. ..."
"... Representing himself in court, Moran elicited a settlement from Newsweek that forced the magazine to scrub all of Eichenwald's articles about him -- a tacit admission that they were false from top to bottom. This meant that the most consequential claim Watts made before the Senate was also a whopping lie. ..."
"... The day after Watts' deception-laden appearance, he was nevertheless transformed from an obscure national security into a cable news star, with invites from Morning Joe, Rachel Maddow, Meet the Press, and the liberal comedian Samantha Bee, among many others. His testimony received coverage from the gamut of major news outlets, and even earned him a fawning profile from CNN. From out of the blue, Watts had become the star witness of Russiagate, and one of corporate media's favorite pundits. ..."
"... Dr. Strangelove ..."
"... It was not until this summer, however, that the influence operation Watts helped establish reached critical capacity. He had approached one of Washington's most respected think tanks, the German Marshall Fund, and secured support for an initiative called the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The new initiative became responsible for a daily blacklist of subversive, "pro-Russian" media outlets, targeting them with the backing of a who's who of national security honchos, from Bill Kristol to former CIA director and ex-Hillary Clinton surrogate Michael Morrell, along with favorable promotion from some of the country's most respected news organizations. ..."
Nearly a year after the presidential election, the scandal over accusations of Russian political interference in the 2016 election
has gone beyond Donald Trump and reached into the nebulous world of online media. On November 1, Congress held hearings on "Extremist
Content and Russian Disinformation Online." The proceedings saw executives from Facebook, Twitter and Youtube subjected to tongue-lashings
from lawmakers like Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who howled about Russian online trolls "spread[ing] stories about abuse of black
Americans by law enforcement."
In perhaps the most chilling moment of the hearings, and the most overlooked, Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer who
had branded himself an expert on Russian meddling,
appeared before a nearly empty Senate chamber.
Watts conjured up a stark landscape of American carnage, with shadowy Russian operatives stage managing the chaos.
"Civil wars don't start with gunshots, they start with words," he proclaimed. "America's war with itself has already begun. We
all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations
and easily transform us into the Divided States of America."
Next, Watts suggested a government-imposed campaign of media censorship: "Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing
on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced: silence the guns and the barrage will
end."
The censorious overtone of Watts' testimony was unmistakable. He demanded that government news inquisitors drive dissident media
off the internet and warned that Americans would spear one another with bayonets if they failed to act. And not one member of Congress
rose to object. In fact, many echoed his call for media suppression in the House and Senate hearings, with Democrats like Sen. Dianne
Feinstein and
Rep. Jackie Speier agreeing the most vehemently. The spectacle perfectly illustrated the madness of Russiagate, with liberal
lawmakers springboarding off the fear of Russian meddling to demand that Americans be forbidden from consuming the wrong kinds of
media -- including content that amplified the message of progressive causes like Black Lives Matter.
Details of exactly what transpired vis a vis Russia and the U.S. in social media in 2016 are still emerging. This year, the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a declassified version of the intelligence community's report on "Assessing
Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections," written by CIA, FBI and NSA, with its central conclusion that Russian
efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine
the U.S.-led liberal democratic order."
To be sure, there is ample evidence that Russian-linked trolls have attempted to exploit wedge issues on social media platforms.
But the impact of these schemes on real-world events appears to have been exaggerated. According to
Facebook's data
, 56 percent of Russian-linked ads appeared after the 2016 presidential election, and another 25 percent "were never shown to
anyone." The ads were said to have "reached" over 100 million people, but that assumes that Facebook users did not scroll through
or otherwise ignore them, as they do with most ads. Content emanating from "Russia-linked" sources on YouTube, meanwhile, managed
to rack up hit totals in the hundreds , not
exactly a viral smash.
Facebook posts traced to the infamous Internet Research Agency troll factory in Russia amounted to only 0.0004 percent of total
content that appeared on the social network. (Some of these posts
targeted "animal
lovers with memes of adorable puppies," while another hawked an LGBT-themed "
Buff Bernie coloring book for Berniacs.") According
to its " deliberately
broad" review , Twitter found that only 0.74 percent of its election-related tweets were "Russian-linked." Google, for its part,
documented a grand total of $4,700 of "Russian-linked
ad spending" during the 2016 election cycle. While some have argued that the Russian-linked ads were micro-targeted, and could have
shifted key electoral voting blocs, these ads appeared in a media climate awash in a multi-billion dollar deluge of political ad
spending from both established parties and dark money super PACs.
However, a blitz of feverish corporate media coverage and tension-filled congressional hearings has convinced a whopping
82 percent of Democrats
that "Russian-backed" social media content played a central role in swinging the 2016 election. Russian meddling has even earned
comparisons by lawmakers to Pearl Harbor, to "acts of war," and by Hillary Clinton to the
attacks of 9/11
. And in an inadvertent way, these overblown comparisons were apt.
As during the aftermath of 9/11, the fallout from Russiagate has spawned a multimillion-dollar industry of pundits and self-styled
experts eager to exploit the frenetic atmosphere for publicity and profits. Many of these figures have emerged out of the swamp that
flowed from the war on terror and are gravitating toward the growing Russia fearmongering industrial complex in search of new opportunities.
Few of these characters have become as prominent as Clint Watts.
So who is Watts, and how did he emerge seemingly from nowhere to become the star congressional witness on Russian meddling?
Dubious Expertise, Impressive Salesmanship
A former U.S. Army officer who spent years in obscurity at a defense industry funded think tank called the Foreign Policy
Research Institute (FPRI), Watts has become a go-to source for cable news producers and print journalists on the subject of Russian
bots, always available with a comment that reinforces the sense that America is under sustained cyborg attack. This September, his
employers at FPRI
hailed him as "the leading expert on developments related to Russian-backed efforts to not only influence the 2016 presidential
election, but also to inflame racial and cultural divisions within the U.S. and across Europe."
Watts boasts an impressive-looking bio that is replete with fancy sounding fellowships at national security-oriented outfits,
including George Washington University's Center Cyber and Homeland Security. His bio also indicates that he served on an FBI Joint
Terror Task Force.
Though Watts is best known for his punditry on Russian interference, it's fair to say he is as much an expert on Russian affairs
as Harvey Weinstein is a trusted voice on feminism. Indeed, Watts appears to speak no Russian, has no record of reporting or scholarship
from inside Russia, and has produced little to no work of any discernible academic value on Russian affairs.
Whether or not he has the substance to support his claims of expertise, Watts has proven a talented salesman, catering to
popular fears about Russian interference while he plies credulous lawmakers with ease.
Before Congress, a String of Deceptions
Back on March 30, as the narrative of Russian meddling gathered momentum, Watts made his first appearance before the Senate Select
Intelligence Committee.
Seated at the front of a hearing room packed with reporters, Watts introduced Congress to concepts of Russian meddling that were
novel at the time, but which have become part of Beltway newspeak. His testimony turned out to be a signal moment in Russiagate,
helping transition the narrative of the scandal from Russia-Trump collusion to the wider issue of online influence.
In the widely publicized testimony, Watts explained to the panel of senators that he first noticed the pernicious presence
of Russian social media bots after he co-authored an article in 2014 in Foreign Affairs titled, "
The Good and The Bad
of Ahrar al Sham ." The article urged the US to arm a group of Syrian Salafi insurgents known for its
human rights abuses , sectarianism and
off-and-on alliances
with Al Qaeda. Watts and his co-authors insisted that Ahrar al-Sham was the best proxy force for wreaking havoc on the Syrian
government weakening its allies in Iran and Russia. Right below the headline, Watts and his co-authors celebrated Ahrar al-Sham as
"an Al Qaeda linked group worth befriending."
Watts rehashed the same argument at FPRI a year later,
urging the
U.S. government to harness jihadist terror as a weapon against Russia. "The U.S. at a minimum, through covert or semi-covert platforms,
should take advantage and amplify these free alternative [jihadist] narratives to provide Russia some payback for recent years' aggression,"
he wrote. In another paper, Watts
asked
, "Why shouldn't the U.S. redirect some of the jihadi hatred towards those with the dirtiest hands in the Syrian conflict: Russia
and Iran?" Watts did not specify whether the theater of covert warfare should be limited to the Syrian battlefield, or if he sought
to encourage jihadists to carry out terrorist acts inside Russia and Iran.
The premise of these op-eds should have raised serious concerns about Watts and his colleagues, and even questions about their
sanity. They had marketed themselves as national security experts, yet they were lobbying the US to "befriend" the allies of Al Qaeda,
the group that brought down the Twin Towers. (Ahrar al-Sham was founded by Abu Khalid al-Suri, a Madrid bombing suspect who was
named by Spanish
investigators as Osama bin-Laden's courier.) Anyone cynical enough to put such ideas into public circulation should have expected
a backlash. But when the inevitable wave of criticism came, Watts dismissed it all as a Russian bot attack.
Addressing the Senate panel, Watts said that those who took to social media to mock and criticize his Foreign Affairs article
were, in fact, Russian bots. He provided no evidence to support the claim, and
a look at his single tweet promoting the
article shows that he was criticized only once (by @Navsteva, a Twitter user known for defending the Syrian government against regime
change proponents, not an automated bot). Nevertheless, Watts painted the incident as proof that Russia had revived a Cold War information
warfare strategy of "Active Measures," which was supposedly aimed at "crumbl[ing] democracies from the inside out [by] creating political
divisions."
Next, Watts introduced his signature theme, claiming that Russia manipulated civil rights protests to exploit divisions in
American society. Declaring that "pro-Russian" outlets were spreading "chaos in Black Lives Matter protests" by deploying active
measures, Watts did not bother to say what those measures were. In fact, the only piece of proof he offered (in a Daily Beast
transcript of his testimony) was a
single link
to an RT article that factually documented
a squabble between Black Lives Matter protesters and white supremacists -- an incident that had been widely covered by other outlets,
from the
Houston
Chronicle to the
Washington Post . Watts did not explain how this one report by RT sowed any chaos, or whether it had any effect at all on actual
events.
Watts then moved to the main course of his testimony, focusing on how Trump employed Russian "active measures" to attack his
opponents. Watts told the Senate panel that the Russian-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik had produced a false report on the U.S.
airbase in Incirlik, Turkey being "overrun by terrorists." He presented the Russian stories as the anchor for a massive influence
operation that featured swarms of Russian bots across social media. And he claimed that then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
invoked the incident to deflect from negative media coverage, suggesting that Trump was coordinating strategy with the Kremlin. In
reality, it was Watts who was spreading the fake news.
In the articles
cited
by Watts during his testimony, neither
RT nor
Sputnik made
any reference to "terrorists" taking over Incirlik Airbase. Rather, these outlets compiled tweets by Turkish activists and sourced
their coverage to a report by Hurriyet, one of Turkey's largest mainstream papers. In fact, the incident was reported by virtually
every major Turkish news organization (
here ,
here ,
here and
here ). What's more,
the events appeared to have taken place approximately as RT and Sputnik reported it, with protesters readying to protect the airbase
from a coup while Turkish police sealed the base's entrances and exits. A look at RT's coverage shows the network even downplayed
the severity of the event,
citing a tweet by a U.S.-based national security analysis group stating, "We are not finding any evidence of a coup or takeover."
This stands entirely at odds with Watts' claim that RT exaggerated the incident to spark chaos.
Watts has pushed his bogus narrative of RT and Sputnik's Incirlik coverage in numerous outlets, including
Politico . Democratic
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
echoed Watts'
false account on the Senate floor while arguing for legislation to force RT out of the U.S. market on political grounds. And Jim
Rutenberg, the New York Times' media correspondent,
reproduced
Watts' distorted account in a major feature on RT and Sputnik's "new theory of war." Almost no one, not one major media organization
or public figure, has bothered to fact check these false claims, and few have questioned the agenda behind them.
Questions emailed to Watts via his employers at FPRI received no reply.
Another Watts Deception, This Time Discredited in Court
During his Senate testimony, Watts introduced a second, and even more distorted claim of Trump employing Russian "active measures"
to attack his political foes. The details of the story are complex and difficult for a passive audience to absorb, which is probably
why Watts has been able to get away with pushing it for so long.
Watts' testimony was the culmination of a mainstream media deception that forced an aspiring reporter out of his job, drove him
to contemplate suicide, and ultimately prompted him to take matters into his own hands by suing his antagonists.
The episode began during a Trump rally at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump read out an email purportedly
from longtime Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal (the father of this writer), hoping to embarrass Clinton over Benghazi.
The text of the email turned out to be part of a column written by the pro-Clinton Newsweek columnist Kurt Eichenwald, not an email
by Blumenthal.
The source of Trump's falsehood appeared to have been a report by Bill Moran, then a reporter for Sputnik, the news service
funded by the Russian government. Having confused Eichenwald's writing for a Blumenthal email, Moran
scrubbed
his erroneous article within 20 minutes. Somehow, Moran's retracted article had found its way onto the Trump campaign's radar,
a not atypical event for a campaign that had relied on material from far-out sites like Infowars to undercut its opponents.
In his column at Newsweek, Eichenwald framed Moran's honest mistake as the leading edge of a secret Russian influence operation.
With help from pro-Clinton elements, Eichenwald's column went viral, earning him slots on CNN and MSNBC, where he howled about the
nefarious Russian-Trump-Wikileaks plot he believed he had just exposed. (Glenn Greenwald was perhaps the only reporter with a national
platform to
highlight Eichenwald's falsifications .) Moran was fired as a result of the fallout, and would have to spend the next several
months fighting to correct the record.
When Moran appealed to Eichenwald for a public clarification, Eichenwald staunchly refused. Instead, he
offered
Moran a job at the New Republic in exchange for his silence and warned him, "If you go public, you'll regret it." (Eichenwald
had no role at the New Republic or any clear ability to influence the magazine's hiring decisions.) Moran refused to cooperate, prompting
Eichenwald to publish a follow-up piece painting himself as the victim of a Russian "active measures" campaign, and to cast Moran
once again as a foreign agent.
When Watts revived Eichenwald's bogus version of events in his Senate testimony, Moran began to spiral into the depths of depression.
He even entertained thoughts of suicide. But he ultimately decided to fight, filing a lawsuit against Newsweek's parent company for
defamation and libel.
Representing himself in court, Moran elicited a settlement from Newsweek that forced the magazine to scrub all of Eichenwald's
articles about him -- a tacit admission that they were false from top to bottom. This meant that the most consequential claim Watts
made before the Senate was also a whopping lie.
The day after Watts' deception-laden appearance, he was nevertheless transformed from an obscure national security into a
cable news star, with
invites
from Morning Joe, Rachel Maddow, Meet the Press, and the liberal comedian Samantha Bee, among many others. His testimony received
coverage from the gamut of major news outlets, and even earned him a fawning profile from CNN. From out of the blue, Watts had become
the star witness of Russiagate, and one of corporate media's favorite pundits.
FPRI, a Pro-War Think Tank Founded by White Supremacist Eugenicists
Before he emerged in the spotlight of Russiagate, Watts languished at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, earning little name
recognition outside the insular world of national security pundits. Based in Philadelphia, the FPRI has been
described by journalist Mark Ames as "one of the looniest (and spookiest) extreme-right think tanks since the early Cold War
days, promoting 'winnable' nuclear war, maximum confrontation with Russia, and attacking anti-colonialism as dangerously unworkable."
Daniel Pipes, the arch-Islamophobe pundit and former FPRI fellow, offered a
similar characterization
of the think tank, albeit from an alternately opposed angle. "Put most baldly, we have always advocated an activist U.S. foreign
policy," Pipes said in a 1991 address to FPRI. He added that the think tank's staff "is not shy about the use of force; were we members
of Congress in January 1991, all of us would not only have voted with President Bush and Operation Desert Storm, we would have led
the charge."
FPRI was co-founded by Robert Strausz-Hupé, a far-right Austrian emigre, with help from conservative corporations and covert funding
from the CIA From the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, Strausz-Hupé gathered a "Philadelphia School" of Cold War hardliners
to develop a strategy for protracted war against the Soviet Union. His brain trust included FPRI co-founder Stefan Possony, an Austrian
fascist who was a board member of the World Anti-Communist League, the international fascist organization
described by journalists
Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson as a network of "those responsible for death squads, apartheid, torture, and the extermination
of European Jewry." True to his fascist roots, Possony co-authored a racialist tract, "
The Geography of Intellect
," that argued that blacks were biologically inferior and that the people of the global South were "genetically unpromising."
Strausz-Hupé seized on Possony's racialist theories to inveigh against anti-colonial movements led by "populations incapable of rational
thought."
While clamoring for a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union -- and acknowledging that their preferred strategy would cause
mass casualties in American cities -- Strausz-Hupé and his band of hawks developed a monomaniacal obsession with Russian propaganda.
By the time of the Cuban missile crisis, they were stricken with paranoia, arguing on the pages of the New York Times that filmmaker
Stanley Kubrick was a Soviet useful idiot whose film, Dr. Strangelove , advanced "the principal Communist objectives to
drive a wedge between the American people and their military leaders."
Ultimately, Strausz-Hupé's fanaticism cost him an ambassadorship, as Sen. William Fulbright scuttled his appointment to serve
in Morocco on the grounds that his "hard line, no compromise" approach to communism could shatter the delicate balance of diplomacy.
Today, he is remembered fondly
on FPRI's website as "an intellectual and intellectual impresario, administrator, statesman, and visionary." His militaristic
legacy continues thanks to the prolific presence -- and bellicose politics -- of Watts.
The Paranoid Style
This year, FPRI dedicated its annual gala to honoring Watts' success in mainstreaming the narrative of Russian online meddling.
Since I first transcribed a Soundcloud recording of Watts' keynote address, the file has been
mysteriously scrubbed
from the internet. It is unclear what prompted the removal, however, it is easy to understand why Watts would not want his comments
examined by a critical listener. His speech offered a window into a paranoid mindset with a tendency for overblown, unverifiable
claims about Russian influence.
While much of the speech was a rehash of Watts' Senate testimony, he spent an unusual amount of time describing the threat he
believed Russian intelligence agents posed to his own security. "If you speak up too much, you'll get knocked down," Watts said,
claiming that think tank fellows who had been too vocal about Russian meddling had seen their laptops "burned up by malware."
"If someone rises up in prominence, they will suddenly be -- whoof! -- swiped down out of nowhere by some crazy disclosure from
their email," Watts added, referring to unspecified Russian retaliatory measures. As usual, he didn't produce concrete evidence or
offer any examples.
"Anybody remember the reporters that were outed after the election? Or maybe they tossed up a question to the Clinton campaign
and they were gone the next day?" he asked his audience. "That's how it goes."
It was unclear which reporters Watts was referring to, or what incident he could have possibly been alluding to. He offered no
details, only innuendo about the state of siege Kremlin actors had supposedly imposed on him and his freedom-fighting colleagues.
He even predicted he'd be "hacked and cyber attacked when this recording comes out."
According to Watts, Russian "active measures" had singlehandedly augmented Republican opinion in support of the Kremlin. "It is
the greatest success in influence operations in the history of the world," Watts confidently proclaimed. He contrasted Russia's success
with his own failures as an American agent of influence working for the U.S. military, a saga in his career that remains largely
unexamined.
Domestic Agent of Influence
"I worked in influence operations in counter-terrorism for 15 years," Watts boasted to his audience at FPRI. "We didn't break
one or two percent [increase in the approval rating of US foreign policy] in fifteen years and we spent billions a year in tax dollars
doing it. I was paid off of those programs. We had almost no success throughout the Middle East."
By Watts' own admission, he had been part of a secret propaganda campaign aimed at manipulating the opinions of Middle Easterners
in favor of the hostile American military operating in their midst. And he failed massively, wasting "billions a year in tax dollars."
Given his penchant for deception, this may have been yet another tall tale aimed at burnishing his image as an internet era James
Bond. But if the story was even partially true, Watts had inadvertently exposed a severe scandal that, in a fairer world, might have
triggered congressional hearings.
Whatever took place, it appears that Watts and his Cold Warrior colleagues are now waging another expensive influence operation,
this time directed against the American public. By deploying deceptions, half-truths and hyperbole with the full consent of Congress
and in collaboration with the mainstream press, they have managed to convince a majority of Americans that Russia is "trying to knock
us down and take us over," as Watts remarked at the FPRI's gala.
In just a matter of months, public consent for an unprecedented array of hostile measures against Russia, from sanctions and
consular raids to arbitrary
crackdowns on Russian-backed news organizations, has been assiduously manufactured.
It was not until this summer, however, that the influence operation Watts helped establish reached critical capacity. He had
approached one of Washington's most respected think tanks, the German Marshall Fund, and secured support for an initiative called
the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The new initiative became responsible for a daily blacklist of subversive, "pro-Russian" media
outlets, targeting them with the backing of a who's who of national security honchos, from Bill Kristol to former CIA director and
ex-Hillary Clinton surrogate Michael Morrell, along with favorable promotion from some of the country's most respected news organizations.
In the next installment of this investigation, we will see how a collection of cranks, counter-terror retreads and online vigilantes
overseen by the German Marshall Fund have waged a search-and-destroy mission against dissident media under the guise of combating
Russian "active measures," and how the mainstream press has enabled their censorious agenda.
"... Today when we consider the major countries of the world we see that in many cases the official leaders are also the leaders in actuality: Vladimir Putin calls the shots in Russia, Xi Jinping and his top Politburo colleagues do the same in China, and so forth. However, in America and in some other Western countries, this seems to be less and less the case, with top national figures merely being attractive front-men selected for their popular appeal and their political malleability, a development that may eventually have dire consequences for the nations they lead. As an extreme example, a drunken Boris Yeltsin freely allowed the looting of Russia's entire national wealth by the handful of oligarchs who pulled his strings, and the result was the total impoverishment of the Russian people and a demographic collapse almost unprecedented in modern peacetime history. ..."
"... An obvious problem with installing puppet rulers is the risk that they will attempt to cut their strings, much like Putin soon outmaneuvered and exiled his oligarch patron Boris Berezovsky. ..."
"... One means of minimizing such risk is to select puppets who are so deeply compromised that they can never break free, knowing that the political self-destruct charges buried deep within their pasts could easily be triggered if they sought independence. I have sometimes joked with my friends that perhaps the best career move for an ambitious young politician would be to secretly commit some monstrous crime and then make sure that the hard evidence of his guilt ended up in the hands of certain powerful people, thereby assuring his rapid political rise. ..."
"... The gist is that elite need a kill switch on their front men (and women). ..."
"... McCain's father connected with the infamous Board of Inquiry which cleared Israel in that state's attack on USS LIBERTY during Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights. ..."
"... Another stunning article in which the author makes reference to his recent acquisition of what he considers to be a reliably authentic audio file of POW McCain's broadcasts from captivity. Dynamite stuff. ..."
"... Also remarkable; fantastic. It's hard to believe, and a testament to the boldness of Washington dog-and-pony shows, because this must have been well-known in insider circles in Washington – anything so damning which was not ruthlessly and professionally suppressed and simply never allowed to become part of a national discussion would surely have been stumbled upon before now. Land of the Cover-Up. ..."
An interesting article on John McCain. I disagree with the contention that McCain hid knowledge that many American POWs were left
behind (undoubtedly some voluntarily choose to remain behind but not hundreds ). However, the article touched on some ideas that
rang true:
Today when we consider the major countries of the world we see that in many cases the official leaders are also the leaders
in actuality: Vladimir Putin calls the shots in Russia, Xi Jinping and his top Politburo colleagues do the same in China, and
so forth. However, in America and in some other Western countries, this seems to be less and less the case, with top national
figures merely being attractive front-men selected for their popular appeal and their political malleability, a development that
may eventually have dire consequences for the nations they lead. As an extreme example, a drunken Boris Yeltsin freely allowed
the looting of Russia's entire national wealth by the handful of oligarchs who pulled his strings, and the result was the total
impoverishment of the Russian people and a demographic collapse almost unprecedented in modern peacetime history.
An obvious problem with installing puppet rulers is the risk that they will attempt to cut their strings, much like Putin
soon outmaneuvered and exiled his oligarch patron Boris Berezovsky.
One means of minimizing such risk is to select puppets who
are so deeply compromised that they can never break free, knowing that the political self-destruct charges buried deep within
their pasts could easily be triggered if they sought independence. I have sometimes joked with my friends that perhaps the best
career move for an ambitious young politician would be to secretly commit some monstrous crime and then make sure that the hard
evidence of his guilt ended up in the hands of certain powerful people, thereby assuring his rapid political rise.
The gist is that elite need a kill switch on their front men (and women).
Seems to be a series of pieces dealing with Vietnam POWs: the following linked item was interesting and provided a plausible explanation:
that the US failed to pay up agreed on reparations
Remarkable and shocking. Wheels within wheels – this is the first time I have ever seen McCain's father connected with the infamous
Board of Inquiry which cleared Israel in that state's attack on USS LIBERTY during Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights.
Another stunning article in which the author makes reference to his recent acquisition of what he considers to be a reliably authentic
audio file of POW McCain's broadcasts from captivity. Dynamite stuff. The conclusion regarding aspiring untenured historians is
quite downbeat:
Also remarkable; fantastic. It's hard to believe, and a testament to the boldness of Washington dog-and-pony shows, because this
must have been well-known in insider circles in Washington – anything so damning which was not ruthlessly and professionally suppressed
and simply never allowed to become part of a national discussion would surely have been stumbled upon before now. Land of the
Cover-Up.
Russiagate witch hunt is destroying CIA franchise in Facebook and Twitter, which were used
by many Russians and Eastern Europeans in general.
One telling sign of the national security state is "demonizing enemies of the state" including
using neo-McCarthyism methods, typically for Russiagate.
In the beginning, "Russiagate" was about alleged actions by Russian secret services. Evidence
for these allegations has never emerged, and it seems that the Russiagate conspiracy theorists largely
gave up on this part (they still sometimes write about it as if it was an established fact, but since
the only thing in support of it they can adduce is the canard about the 17 intelligence services, it
probably is not that interesting any more).
Now, they have dropped the mask, and the object of their hatred are openly all Russian people,
as the new Undermensch. If these people and US MSM recognized the reality that they are now
a particularly rabid part of the xenophobic far right in the United States
Notable quotes:
"... Buried in the story's "jump" is the acknowledgement that Milner's "companies sold those holdings several years ago." But such is the anti-Russia madness gripping the Establishment of Washington and New York that any contact with any Russian constitutes a scandal worthy of front-page coverage. On Monday, The Washington Post published a page-one article entitled, "9 in Trump's orbit had contacts with Russians." ..."
"... The anti-Russian madness has reached such extremes that even when you say something that's obviously true – but that RT, the Russian television network, also reported – you are attacked for spreading "Russian propaganda." ..."
"... We saw that when former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile disclosed in her new book that she considered the possibility of replacing Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket after Clinton's public fainting spell and worries about her health. ..."
"... In other words, the go-to excuse for everything these days is to blame the Russians and smear anyone who says anything – no matter how true – if it also was reported on RT. ..."
"... The CIA has an entire bureaucracy dedicated to propaganda and disinformation, with some of those efforts farmed out to newer entities such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) or paid for by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). NATO has a special command in Latvia that undertakes "strategic communications." ..."
"... Israel is another skilled player in this field, tapping into its supporters around the world to harass people who criticize the Zionist project. Indeed, since the 1980s, Israel has pioneered many of the tactics of computer spying and sabotage that were adopted and expanded by America's National Security Agency, explaining why the Obama administration teamed up with Israel in a scheme to plant malicious code into Iranian centrifuges to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. ..."
"... And, if you're really concerned about foreign interference in U.S. elections and policies, there's the remarkable influence of Israel and its perceived ability to effect the defeat of almost any politician who deviates from what the Israeli government wants, going back at least to the 1980s when Sen. Chuck Percy and Rep. Paul Findley were among the political casualties after pursuing contacts with the Palestinians. ..."
"... The answer seems to be the widespread hatred for President Trump combined with vested interests in favor of whipping up the New Cold War. That is a goal valued by both the Military-Industrial Complex, which sees trillions of dollars in strategic weapons systems in the future, and the neoconservatives, who view Russia as a threat to their "regime change" agendas for Syria and Iran. ..."
"... After all, if Russia and its independent-minded President Putin can be beaten back and beaten down, then a big obstacle to the neocon/Israeli goal of expanding the Mideast wars will be removed. ..."
"... Right now, the neocons are openly lusting for a "regime change" in Moscow despite the obvious risks that such turmoil in a nuclear-armed country might create, including the possibility that Putin would be succeeded not by some compliant Western client like the late Boris Yeltsin but by an extreme nationalist who might consider launching a nuclear strike to protect the honor of Mother Russia. ..."
"... The likely outcome from the anti-Russian show trials on Capitol Hill is that technology giants will bow to the bipartisan demand for new algorithms and other methods for stigmatizing, marginalizing and eliminating information that challenges the mainstream storylines in the cause of fighting "Russian propaganda." ..."
"... America's Stolen Narrative, ..."
"... witch hunt by congressional Democrats, working with the intelligence agencies and leading media outlets, to legitimize censorship and attack free speech on the Internet. ..."
"... The aim of this campaign is to claim that social conflict within the United States arises not from the scale of social inequality in America, greater than in any other country in the developed world, but rather from the actions of "outside agitators" working in the service of the Kremlin. ..."
"... The McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1950s sought to suppress left-wing thought and label all forms of dissent as illegitimate and treasonous. Those who led them worked to purge left-wing opinion from Hollywood, the trade unions and the universities. ..."
"... Likewise, the new McCarthyism is aimed at creating a political climate in which left-wing organizations and figures are demonized as agents of the Kremlin who are essentially engaged in treasonous activity deserving of criminal prosecution. ..."
"... Danny there was a time not to long ago, I would have said of how we are 'moving towards' to us becoming a police state, well instead replace that prediction of 'moving towards' to the stark reality to be described as 'that now we are', and there you will have it that we have finally arrived to becoming a full blown 'police state'. ..."
"... Thanks to Mr. Parry for this very fair and complete review of the latest attempts to generate a fake foreign enemy. The tyrant over a democracy must generate fake foreign enemies to pose falsely as a protector, so as to demand domestic power and accuse his opponents of disloyalty, as Aristotle and Plato warned thousands of years ago. ..."
"... The insanity of the entire "Russian hacking" narrative has been revealed over and over, including this past weekend when +/-100 Clinton loyalists published a screed on Medium saying Donna Brazile had been taken in by Russian propaganda. ..."
"... I have come to expect just about anything when it comes to Russia-Gate, but I was taken aback by the Hillary bots' accusation that videos of Hillary stumbling and others showing her apparently having a fit of some kind and also needing to be helped up the steps to someone's house -- which were taken by Americans and shown by Americans and seen by millions of shocked Americans -- were driven by Russia-Gate. ..."
"... Now, since the extremist xenophobic idea that contact with *any* Russians is a scandal has taken hold in the United States, people are probably not too eager to mention these contacts in these atmosphere of extreme xenophobic anti-Russian hatred in today's United States. Furthermore, people who have contact with large numbers of people probably really have difficulties remembering and listing these all. ..."
"... Their contacts are with Russian business and maybe the Russian mob, not the Russian state. There is really not question that Trump and his cronies are crooks, but they are crooks in the US and in all the other countries where they do business, not just Russia. I'm sure Mueller will be able to tie Trump directly to some of the sleeze. But there is no evidence that the Russian government is involved in any of it. "Russia-gate" implies Russian government involvement, not just random Russians. There is no evidence of that and moreover the logic is against. ..."
"... Mr. Cash . I think George Papadopoulis, Trump's young Aide, was an inside mole for neocon pro-Israel interests. Those interests needed to knock the unreliable President Trump out of the way to get the "system" back where it belonged – in their pocket. Papadopoulis, on his own, was rummaging around making Trump/Russian connections that finally ended with the the William (Richard?) Browder (well-known Washington DC neocon)/Natalia Veselnitskaya/Donald Trump, Jr. fiasco. The Trumps knew nothing of those negotiations, and young Trump left when he realized Natalia was only interested in Americans being allowed to adopt Russian children again and had no dirt on Hillary. ..."
"... It was never my impression that Cold War liberals opposed McCarthy or the anti-Communist witch hunt. Where they didn't gleefully join in, they watched quietly from the sidelines while the American left was eviscerated, jailed, driven from public life. Then the liberals stepped in when it was clear things were going a little too far and just as the steam had run out of McCarthy's slander machine. ..."
"... At that point figures like Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy found the path clear for their brand of political stagecraft. They were imperialists to a man, something they proved abundantly when given the chance. Liberals supplanted the left in U.S. life- in the unions, the teaching profession, publishing and every other field where criticism of the Cold War and the enduring prevalence of worker solidarity across international lines threatened the new order. ..."
"... The book concludes that by equating dissent with disloyalty, promoting guilt by association, and personally commanding loyalty programs, ""Truman and his advisors employed all the political and programmatic techniques that in later years were to become associated with the broad phenomenon of McCarthyism."" ..."
"... Formed by Google in June 2015 with Eliot Higgins of the Atlantic Council's Bellingcat as a founding member, the "First Draft" coalition includes all the usual mainstream media "partners" in "regime change" war propaganda: the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, the UK Guardian and Telegraph, BBC News, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab and Kiev-based Stopfake. ..."
"... In the beginning, "Russiagate" was about alleged actions by Russian secret services. Evidence for these allegations has never emerged, and it seems that the Russiagate conspiracy theorists largely gave up on this part (they still sometimes write about it as if it was an established fact, but since the only thing in support of it they can adduce is the canard about the 17 intelligence services, it probably is not that interesting any more) ..."
"... Now, they have dropped the mask, and the object of their hatred are openly all Russian people, anyone who is "Russian linked" by ever having logged in to social networks from Russia or using Cyrillic letters. If these people and their media at least recognized the reality that they are now a particularly rabid part of the xenophobic far right in the United States ..."
"... The interview of Roger Waters on RT is one of the best I have seen in a long while. I wish some other artists get the courage to raise their voices. The link to the Roger Waters interview is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7jcvfbLoIA This Roger Waters interview is worth watching. ..."
"... It would seem that everyone on the US telivision , newspaper and internet news has mastered the art of hand over mouth , gasp and looking horrified every time Russia is mentioned. It looks to me that the US is in the middle of another of it´s mid life crises. Panic reigns supreme every where. If it was not so sad it would be funny. i was born in the 1940s and remember the McCarthy witch hunts and the daily shower of people jumping out of windows as a result of it. ..."
"... In The Fifties (1993), American journalist and historian David Halberstam addressed the noxious effect of McCarthyism: "McCarthy's carnival like four year spree of accusation charges, and threats touched something deep in the American body politic, something that lasted long after his own recklessness, carelessness and boozing ended his career in shame." (page 53) ..."
"... Halberstam specifically discussed how readily the so-called "free" press acquiesced to McCarthy's masquerading: "The real scandal in all this was the behavior of the members of the Washington press corps, who, more often than not, knew better. They were delighted to be a part of his traveling road show, chronicling each charge and then moving on to the next town, instead of bothering to stay behind and follow up. They had little interest in reporting how careless McCarthy was or how little it all meant to him." (page 55) ..."
"... Why have they not investigated James Comey? Why has the MSM instead created a Russian Boogeyman? Why was he invited to testify about the Russian connection but never cross examined about his own influence? Why is the clearest reason for election meddling by James Comey not even spoken of by the MSM? This is because the MSM does not want to cover events as they happened but wants to recreate a alternate reality suitable to themselves which serves their interests and convinces us that the MSM has no part at all in downplaying the involvement of themselves in the election but wants to create a foreign enemy to blame. ..."
Special Report: Many American liberals who once denounced McCarthyism as evil are now learning
to love the ugly tactic when it can be used to advance the Russia-gate "scandal" and silence dissent,
reports Robert Parry.
The New York Times has finally detected some modern-day McCarthyism, but not in the anti-Russia
hysteria that the newspaper has fueled for several years amid the smearing of American skeptics as
"useful idiots" and the like. No, the Times editors
are accusing a Long Island Republican of McCarthyism for linking his Democratic rival to "New
York City special interest groups." As the Times laments, "It's the old guilt by association."
Yet, the Times sees no McCarthyism in the frenzy of Russia-bashing and guilt by association for
any American who can be linked even indirectly to any Russian who might have some ill-defined links
to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, in the same edition that expressed editorial outrage over that Long Island political
ad's McCarthyism, the Times ran two front-page articles under the headline: "A Complex Paper Trail:
Blurring Kremlin's Ties to Key U.S. Businesses."
Buried in the story's "jump" is the acknowledgement that Milner's "companies sold those holdings
several years ago." But such is the anti-Russia madness gripping the Establishment of Washington
and New York that any contact with any Russian constitutes a scandal worthy of front-page coverage.
On Monday, The Washington Post published
a page-one article entitled, "9 in Trump's orbit had contacts with Russians."
The anti-Russian madness has reached such extremes that even when you say something that's obviously
true – but that RT, the Russian television network, also reported – you are attacked for spreading
"Russian propaganda."
We saw that when former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile disclosed in her
new book that she considered the possibility of replacing Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket
after Clinton's public fainting spell and worries about her health.
Though there was a video of Clinton's collapse on Sept. 11, 2016, followed by her departure from
the campaign trail to fight pneumonia – not to mention her earlier scare with blood clots – the
response from a group of 100 Clinton supporters was to question Brazile's patriotism: "It is
particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian-fueled propaganda,
spread by both the Russians and our opponents about our candidate's health."
In other words, the go-to excuse for everything these days is to blame the Russians and smear
anyone who says anything – no matter how true – if it also was reported on RT.
Pressing the Tech Companies
Just as Sen. Joe McCarthy liked to haul suspected "communists" and "fellow-travelers" before his
committee in the 1950s, the New McCarthyism has its own witch-hunt hearings, such as last week's
Senate grilling of executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google for supposedly allowing Russians
to have input into the Internet's social networks. Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google hauled
before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism on Oct. 31, 2017.Trying to appease Congress and fend off threats of government regulation, the rich tech companies
displayed their eagerness to eradicate any Russian taint.
Twitter's general counsel Sean J. Edgett
told the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism that Twitter adopted an "expansive
approach to defining what qualifies as a Russian-linked account."
Edgett said the criteria included "whether the account was created in Russia, whether the user
registered the account with a Russian phone carrier or a Russian email address, whether the user's
display name contains Cyrillic characters, whether the user frequently Tweets in Russian, and whether
the user has logged in from any Russian IP address, even a single time. We considered an account
to be Russian-linked if it had even one of the relevant criteria."
The trouble with Twitter's methodology was that none of those criteria would connect an account
to the Russian government, let alone Russian intelligence or some Kremlin-controlled "troll farm."
But the criteria could capture individual Russians with no link to the Kremlin as well as people
who weren't Russian at all, including, say, American or European visitors to Russia who logged onto
Twitter through a Moscow hotel.
Also left unsaid is that Russians are not the only national group that uses the Cyrillic alphabet.
It is considered a standard script for writing in Belarus, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbo-Croatia and
Ukraine. So, for instance, a Ukrainian using the Cyrillic alphabet could end up falling into the
category of "Russian-linked" even if he or she hated Putin.
Twitter's attorney also said the company conducted a separate analysis from information provided
by unidentified "third party sources" who pointed toward accounts supposedly controlled by the St.
Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), totaling 2,752 accounts. The IRA is typically described
in the U.S. press as a "troll farm" which employs tech-savvy employees who combat news and opinions
that are hostile to Russia and the Russian government. But exactly how those specific accounts were
traced back to this organization was not made clear.
And, to put that number in some perspective, Twitter claims 330 million active monthly users,
which makes the 2,752 accounts less than 0.001 percent of the total.
The Trouble with 'Trolling'
While the Russia-gate investigation has sought to portray the IRA effort as exotic and somehow
unique to Russia, the strategy is followed by any number of governments, political movements and
corporations – sometimes using enthusiastic volunteers but often employing professionals skilled
at challenging critical information or at least muddying the waters.
Those of us who operate on the Internet are familiar with harassment from "trolls" who may use
access to "comment" sections to inject propaganda and disinformation to sow confusion, to cause disruption,
or to discredit the site by promoting ugly opinions and nutty conspiracy theories.
As annoying as this "trolling" is, it's just a modern version of more traditional strategies used
by powerful entities for generations – hiring public-relations specialists, lobbyists, lawyers and
supposedly impartial "activists" to burnish images, fend off negative news and intimidate nosy investigators.
In this competition, modern Russia is both a late-comer and a piker.
The U.S. government fields legions of publicists, propagandists, paid journalists,
psy-ops specialists , contractors and non-governmental organizations to promote Washington's
positions and undermine rivals through information warfare.
The CIA has an entire bureaucracy dedicated to propaganda and disinformation, with some of
those
efforts farmed out to newer entities such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) or paid
for by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). NATO has a special command in Latvia
that undertakes
"strategic communications."
Israel is another skilled player in this field, tapping into its supporters around the world
to harass people who criticize the Zionist project. Indeed, since the 1980s, Israel has pioneered
many of the tactics of computer spying and sabotage that were adopted and expanded by America's National
Security Agency, explaining why the Obama administration teamed up with Israel in a scheme to plant
malicious code into Iranian centrifuges to sabotage Iran's nuclear program.
It's also ironic that the U.S. government touted social media as a great benefit in advancing
so-called "color revolutions" aimed at "regime change" in troublesome countries. For instance, when
the "green revolution" was underway in Iran in 2009 after the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
the Obama administration asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance so the street protesters
could continue using the platform to organize against Ahmadinejad and to distribute their side of
the story to the outside world.
During the so-called Arab Spring in 2011, Facebook, Twitter and Skype won praise as a means of
organizing mass demonstrations to destabilize governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. Back then,
the U.S. government denounced any attempts to throttle these social media platforms and the free
flow of information that they permitted as proof of dictatorship.
Social media also was a favorite of the U.S. government in Ukraine in 2013-14 when the Maidan
protests exploited these platforms to help destabilize and ultimately overthrow the elected government
of Ukraine, the key event that launched the New Cold War with Russia.
Swinging the Social Media Club
The truth is that, in those instances, the U.S. governments and its agencies were eagerly exploiting
the platforms to advance Washington's geopolitical agenda by disseminating American propaganda and
deploying U.S.-funded non-governmental organizations, which
taught
activists how to use social media to advance "regime change" scenarios.
A White Helmets volunteer pointing to the aftermath of a military attack.
While these uprisings were sold to Western audiences as genuine outpourings of public anger –
and there surely was some of that – the protests also benefited from U.S. funding and expertise.
In particular, NED and USAID provided money, equipment and training for anti-government operatives
challenging regimes in U.S. disfavor.
One of the most successful of these propaganda operations occurred in Syria where anti-government
rebels operating in areas controlled by Al Qaeda and its fellow Islamic militants used social media
to get their messaging to Western mainstream journalists who couldn't enter those sectors without
fear of beheading.
Since the rebels' goal of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad meshed with the objectives of
the U.S. government and its allies in Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Western journalists
uncritically accepted the words and images provided by Al Qaeda's collaborators.
The success of this propaganda was so extraordinary that the White Helmets, a "civil defense"
group that worked in Al Qaeda territory, became the go-to source for dramatic video and even was
awarded the short-documentary
Oscar for an info-mercial produced for Netflix – despite evidence that the White Helmets were
staging some of the scenes for propaganda purposes.
Indeed, one argument for believing that Putin and the Kremlin might have "meddled" in last year's
U.S. election is that they could have felt it was time to give the United States a taste of its own
medicine.
After all, the United States intervened in the 1996 Russian election to ensure the continued rule
of the corrupt and pliable Boris Yeltsin. And there were the U.S.-backed street protests in Moscow
against the 2011 and 2012 elections in which Putin strengthened his political mandate. Those
protests earned the "color" designation the "snow revolution."
However, whatever Russia may or may not have done before last year's U.S. election, the Russia-gate
investigations have always sought to exaggerate the impact of that alleged "meddling" and molded
the narrative to whatever weak evidence was available.
The original storyline was that Putin authorized the "hacking" of Democratic emails as part of
a "disinformation" operation to undermine Hillary Clinton's candidacy and to help elect Donald Trump
– although
no hard evidence has been presented to establish that Putin gave such an order or that Russia
"hacked" the emails. WikiLeaks has repeatedly denied getting the emails from Russia, which also denies
any meddling.
Further, the emails were not "disinformation"; they were both real and, in many cases, newsworthy.
The DNC emails provided evidence that the DNC unethically tilted the playing field in favor of Clinton
and against Sen. Bernie Sanders, a point that Brazile also discovered in reviewing staffing and financing
relationships that Clinton had with the DNC under the prior chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The purloined emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta revealed the contents of Clinton's
paid speeches to Wall Street (information that she was trying to hide from voters) and pay-to-play
features of the Clinton Foundation.
A Manchurian Candidate?
Still, the original narrative was that Putin wanted his Manchurian Candidate (Trump) in the White
House and took the extraordinary risk of infuriating the odds-on favorite (Clinton) by releasing
the emails even though they appeared unlikely to prevent Clinton's victory. So, there was always
that logical gap in the Russia-gate theory.
Since then, however, the U.S. mainstream narrative has shifted, in part, because the evidence
of Russian election "meddling" was so shaky. Under intense congressional pressure to find something,
Facebook reported
$100,000 in allegedly "Russian-linked" ads purchased in 2015-17, but noted that only 44 percent
were bought before the election. So, not only was the "Russian-linked" pebble tiny – compared to
Facebook's annual revenue of $27 billion – but more than half of the pebble was tossed into this
very large lake after Clinton had already lost.
So, the storyline was transformed into some vague Russian scheme to exacerbate social tensions
in the United States by taking different sides of hot-button issues, such as police brutality against
blacks. The New York Times reported that one of these "Russian-linked" pages
featured photos of cute puppies , which the Times speculated must have had some evil purpose
although it was hard to fathom. (Oh, those devious Russians!).
The estimate of how many Americans may have seen one of these "Russian-linked" ads also keeps
growing, now up to as many as 126 million or about one-third of the U.S. population. Of course, the
way the Internet works – with any item possibly going viral – you might as well say the ads could
have reached billions of people.
Whenever I write an article or send out a Tweet, I too could be reaching 126 million or even billions
of people, but the reality is that I'd be lucky if the number were in the thousands. But amid the
Russia-gate frenzy, no exaggeration is too outlandish or too extreme.
Another odd element of Russia-gate is that the intensity of this investigation is disproportionate
to the lack of interest shown toward far better documented cases of actual foreign-government interference
in American elections and policymaking.
For instance, the major U.S. media long ignored the extremely well-documented case of Richard
Nixon colluding with South Vietnamese officials to sabotage President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam
War peace talks to gain an advantage for Nixon in the 1968 election. That important chapter of history
only gained
The
New York Times' seal of approval earlier this year after the Times had dismissed the earlier
volumes of evidence as "rumors."
In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan's team – especially his campaign director William Casey in
collaboration with Israel and Iran – appeared to have gone behind President Jimmy Carter's back
to undercut Carter's negotiations to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran and essentially
doom Carter's reelection hopes.
There were a couple of dozen witnesses to that scheme who spoke with me and other investigative
journalists – as well as documentary evidence showing that President Reagan did authorize secret
arms shipments to Iran via Israel shortly after the hostages were freed during Reagan's inauguration
on Jan. 20, 1981.
However, since Vice President (later President) George H.W. Bush, who was implicated in the scheme,
was well-liked on both sides of the aisle and because Reagan had become a Republican icon, the October
Surprise case of 1980 was pooh-poohed by the major media and dismissed by a congressional investigation
in the early 1990s. Despite the extraordinary number of witnesses and supporting documents, Wikipedia
listed the scandal as a "conspiracy theory."
Israeli Influence
And, if you're really concerned about foreign interference in U.S. elections and policies,
there's the remarkable influence of Israel and its perceived ability to effect the defeat of almost
any politician who deviates from what the Israeli government wants, going back at least to the 1980s
when
Sen.
Chuck Percy and Rep. Paul Findley were among the political casualties after pursuing contacts
with the Palestinians.
If anyone doubts how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to pull the strings
of U.S. politicians, just watch one of his record-tying three addresses to joint sessions of Congress
and count how often
Republicans and Democrats jump to their feet in enthusiastic applause. (The only other foreign
leader to get the joint-session honor three times was Great Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill.)
So, what makes Russia-gate different from the other cases? Did Putin conspire with Trump to extend
a bloody war as Nixon did with the South Vietnamese leaders? Did Putin lengthen the captivity of
U.S. hostages to give Trump a political edge? Did Putin manipulate U.S. policy in the Middle East
to entice President George W. Bush to invade Iraq and set the region ablaze, as Israel's Netanyahu
did? Is Putin even now pushing for wider Mideast wars, as Netanyahu is?
Indeed, one point that's never addressed in any serious way is why is the U.S. so angry with Russia
while these other cases, in which U.S. interests were clearly damaged and American democracy compromised,
were treated largely as non-stories.
Why is Russia-gate a big deal while the other cases weren't? Why are opposite rules in play now
– with Democrats, many Republicans and the major news media flogging fragile "links," needling what
little evidence there is, and assuming the worst rather than insisting that only perfect evidence
and perfect witnesses be accepted as in the earlier cases?
The answer seems to be the widespread hatred for President Trump combined with vested interests
in favor of whipping up the New Cold War. That is a goal valued by both the Military-Industrial Complex,
which sees trillions of dollars in strategic weapons systems in the future, and the neoconservatives,
who view Russia as a threat to their "regime change" agendas for Syria and Iran.
After all, if Russia and its independent-minded President Putin can be beaten back and beaten
down, then a big obstacle to the neocon/Israeli goal of expanding the Mideast wars will be removed.
Right now, the neocons are openly lusting for a
"regime change" in Moscow despite the obvious risks that such turmoil in a nuclear-armed country
might create, including the possibility that Putin would be succeeded not by some compliant Western
client like the late Boris Yeltsin but by an extreme nationalist who might consider launching a nuclear
strike to protect the honor of Mother Russia.
The Democrats, the liberals and even many progressives justify their collusion with the neocons
by the need to remove Trump by any means necessary and "stop fascism." But their contempt for Trump
and their exaggeration of the "Hitler" threat that this incompetent buffoon supposedly poses have
blinded them to
the extraordinary risks attendant to their course of action and how they are playing into the
hands of the war-hungry neocons.
A Smokescreen for Repression
There also seems to be little or no concern that the Establishment is using Russia-gate as a smokescreen
for
clamping down on independent media sites on the Internet. Traditional supporters of civil liberties
have looked the other way as the rights of people associated with the Trump campaign have been trampled
and journalists who simply question the State Department's narratives on, say, Syria and Ukraine
are denounced as "Moscow stooges" and "useful idiots."
The likely outcome from the anti-Russian show trials on Capitol Hill is that technology giants
will bow to the bipartisan demand for new algorithms and other methods for stigmatizing, marginalizing
and eliminating information that challenges the mainstream storylines in the cause of fighting "Russian
propaganda."
The warning from powerful senators was crystal clear. "I don't think you get it," Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-California,
warned social media executives last week. "You bear this responsibility. You created these platforms,
and now they are being misused. And you have to be the ones who do something about it. Or we will."
As this authoritarian if not totalitarian future looms and as the dangers of nuclear annihilation
from an intentional or unintentional nuclear war with Russia grow, many people who should know better
are caught up in the Russia-gate frenzy.
I used to think that liberals and progressives opposed McCarthyism because they regarded it as
a grave threat to freedom of thought and to genuine democracy, but now it appears that they have
learned to love McCarthyism except, of course, when it rears its ugly head in some Long Island political
ad criticizing New York City.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative,
either in
print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Joe Tedesky , November 6, 2017 at 3:12 pm
I watched the C-Span 'Russian/2016 Election Investigation Hearings' in horror, as each congressperson
grilled the Hi-Tech executives in a way to suggest that our First Amendment Rights are now on
life support, and our Congress is ready to pull the plug at any moment. I thought, of how this
wasn't the America I was brought up to believe in. So as I have reached the age in life where
nothing should surprise me, I realize now how fragile our Rights are, in this warring nation that
calls itself America.
When it comes to Israel I have two names, Jonathan Pollard & the USS Liberty, and with that,
that is enough said.
Danny Weil , November 6, 2017 at 6:33 pm
This week's congressional hearings on "extremist content" on the Internet mark a new stage
in the McCarthyite witch hunt by congressional Democrats, working with the intelligence agencies
and leading media outlets, to legitimize censorship and attack free speech on the Internet.
One after another, congressmen and senators goaded representatives of Google, Twitter and Facebook
to admit that their platforms were used to sow "social divisions" and "extremist" political opinions.
The aim of this campaign is to claim that social conflict within the United States arises
not from the scale of social inequality in America, greater than in any other country in the developed
world, but rather from the actions of "outside agitators" working in the service of the Kremlin.
The hearings revolved around claims that Russia sought to "weaponize" the Internet by harnessing
social anger within the United States. "Russia," said Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, promoted
"discord in the US by inflaming passions on a range of divisive issues." It sought to "mobilize
real Americans to sign online petitions and join rallies and protests."
The McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1950s sought to suppress left-wing thought and label
all forms of dissent as illegitimate and treasonous. Those who led them worked to purge left-wing
opinion from Hollywood, the trade unions and the universities.
Likewise, the new McCarthyism is aimed at creating a political climate in which left-wing
organizations and figures are demonized as agents of the Kremlin who are essentially engaged in
treasonous activity deserving of criminal prosecution.
Watching this Orwellian tragedy play out in our American society, where our Congress is insisting
that disclaimers and restrictions be placed upon suspicious adbuys and editorial essays, is counterintuitive
to what we Americans were brought up to belief. Why, all my life teachers, and adults, would warn
us students of reading the news to not to believe everything we read as pure fact, but to research
a subject before coming to a conclusion toward your accepting an opinion to wit. And with these
warnings of avoiding us being suckered into a wrong belief, we were told that this was the price
we were required to pay for having a free press society. This freedom of speech was, and has always
been the bedrock of our hopes and wishes for our belief in the American Dream.
Danny there was a time not to long ago, I would have said of how we are 'moving towards'
to us becoming a police state, well instead replace that prediction of 'moving towards' to the
stark reality to be described as 'that now we are', and there you will have it that we have finally
arrived to becoming a full blown 'police state'. Little by little, and especially since 911
one by one our civil liberties were taken away. Here again our freedom of speech is being destroyed,
and with this America is now where Germany had been in the mid-thirties. America's own guilty
conscience is rapidly doing some physiological projections onto their imaginary villain Russia.
All I keep hearing is my dear sweet mother lecturing me on how one lie always leads to another
lie until the truth will finally jump up and bite you in the ass, and think to myself of how wise
my mother had been with her young girl Southside philosophy. May you Rest In Peace Mum.
Martin , November 7, 2017 at 3:21 pm
Yankees chicks are coming home to roost. So many peoples rights and lives had to be extinguished
for Americans to have the illusion of pursuing their happiness, well, what goes around comes around.
Gregory Herr , November 7, 2017 at 8:39 pm
Gee wiz Adam Schiff you make it sound as if signing petitions and rallying to causes and civil
protests are unamerican or something. And Russians on the internet are harnessing social anger!
Pathetic. These jerks who would have us believe they are interested in "saving" democracy or stopping
fascism have sure got it backward.
Geoffrey de Galles , November 8, 2017 at 12:33 pm
Joe, Allow me please, respectfully, to add Mordecai Vanunu -- Israel's own Daniel Ellsberg
-- to your two names.
Erik G , November 6, 2017 at 3:55 pm
Thanks to Mr. Parry for this very fair and complete review of the latest attempts to generate
a fake foreign enemy. The tyrant over a democracy must generate fake foreign enemies to pose falsely
as a protector, so as to demand domestic power and accuse his opponents of disloyalty, as Aristotle
and Plato warned thousands of years ago.
It is especially significant that the zionists are the sole beneficiaries of this scam as well
as the primary sponsors of the DNC, hoping to attack Russia and Iran to support Israeli land thefts
in the Mideast. It is well established that zionists control US mass media, which never examine
the central issue of our times, the corruption of democracy by the zionist/MIC/WallSt influence
upon the US government and mass media. Russia-gate is in fact a coverup for Israel-gate.
Why did we ever believe that the democrat party was a defender of free speech? These bought
and paid for tools of the economic elites are only interested in serving their masters with slavish
devotion. Selfishness and immorality are their stock in trade; betraying the public their real
intention.
Cratylus , November 6, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Great essay.
But one disagreement. I may agree with Trump on very, very few things, among them getting rid
of the horrible TPP, one cornerstone of Hillary's pivot; meeting with Putin in Hamburg; the Lavrov-Tillerson
arranged cease-fire in SE Syria; the termination of the CIA's support for anti-Assad jihadis in
Syria; a second meeting with Putin at the ASEAN conference this week; and in general the idea
of "getting along with Russia" (a biggie) which Russia-gate is slowing to a crawl as designed
by the neocons.
But Trump as an "incompetent buffoon" is a stretch albeit de rigueur on the pages of the NYT,
the programs of NPR and in all "respectable" precincts. Trump won the presidency for god's sake
– something that eluded the 17 other GOP primary candidates, some of them considered very"smart"
and Bernie and Jill, and in the past, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul – and the supposedly "very smart"
Hillary for which we should be eternally grateful. "Incompetent" hardly seems accurate. The respectable
commentariat has continually underestimated Trump. We should heed Putin who marveled at Trump's
seemingly impossible victory.
Bill Cash , November 6, 2017 at 4:13 pm
How do you explain all the connections between Trump acolytes and Russia and their lying about
it. I think they've all lied about their contacts. Why would they do that?I lived through the
real McCarthyism and, so far, this isn't close to what happened then.
Bill , November 6, 2017 at 4:40 pm
Probably because they are corruptly involved. Thing is, the higher priority is to avoid another
decades-long cold war risking nuclear war. Do you remember how many close calls we had in the
last one?
I'm more suspicious of Trump than most here, but even I think we need some priorities. Far
more extensive corruption of a similar variety keeps occurring and no one cares, as Mr. Parry
points out here yet again.
As for McCarthyism, whatever the current severity, the result is unfolding as a new campaign
against dissenting voices on the internet. That's supremely not-okay with me.
Gregory Herr , November 7, 2017 at 8:46 pm
Right. Just because we don't yet have another fulll-fledged HUAC happening doesn't mean severe
perils aren't attached to this new McCarthyism. Censorship of dissent is supremely not-okay with
me as well.
That class of people lie as a matter of course; it's standard procedure. If you exacerbate
it by adding on the anti-Russia hysteria that was spewed out by the Democrats before the ink was
dry on the ballots, what possible reason would they have for being truthful?
The insanity of the entire "Russian hacking" narrative has been revealed over and over,
including this past weekend when +/-100 Clinton loyalists published a screed on Medium saying
Donna Brazile had been taken in by Russian propaganda.
Litchfield , November 6, 2017 at 7:10 pm
I have come to expect just about anything when it comes to Russia-Gate, but I was taken
aback by the Hillary bots' accusation that videos of Hillary stumbling and others showing her
apparently having a fit of some kind and also needing to be helped up the steps to someone's house
-- which were taken by Americans and shown by Americans and seen by millions of shocked Americans
-- were driven by Russia-Gate.
Obviously, Brazile, like millions of voters, saw these films and made appropriate inferences:
that Hillary's basic health and stamina were a question mark. Of course, Hillary also offered
Americans nothing in her campaign rhetoric. She came across as the mother-in-law from hell.
Was it also a Russia-Gate initiative when Hillary hid from her supporters on election night
and let Podesta face the screaming sobbing supporters? Too much spiked vodka or something? Our
political stage in the USA is a madhouse.
Adrian Engler , November 6, 2017 at 6:20 pm
These people probably have "connections" with a relatively large number of people, and only
very small fraction of the people they have contact with are probably Russians. Now, since
the extremist xenophobic idea that contact with *any* Russians is a scandal has taken hold in
the United States, people are probably not too eager to mention these contacts in these atmosphere
of extreme xenophobic anti-Russian hatred in today's United States. Furthermore, people who have
contact with large numbers of people probably really have difficulties remembering and listing
these all.
Today's political atmosphere in the United States probably has a lot in common with the Soviet
Union. There, people got in trouble if they had contacts with people from Western, capitalist
countries – and if they were asked and did not mention these contacts in order to avoid problems,
they could get in trouble even more.
I think it is absolutely clear that no one who takes part in this hateful anti-Russian campaign
can pretend to be liberal or progressive. The kind of society these xenophobes who detest pluralism
and accuse everyone who has opinions outside the mainstream of being a foreign agent is absolutely
abhorrent, in my view.
Leslie F , November 6, 2017 at 6:40 pm
Their contacts are with Russian business and maybe the Russian mob, not the Russian state.
There is really not question that Trump and his cronies are crooks, but they are crooks in the
US and in all the other countries where they do business, not just Russia. I'm sure Mueller will
be able to tie Trump directly to some of the sleeze. But there is no evidence that the Russian
government is involved in any of it. "Russia-gate" implies Russian government involvement, not
just random Russians. There is no evidence of that and moreover the logic is against.
occupy on , November 7, 2017 at 12:47 am
Mr. Cash . I think George Papadopoulis, Trump's young Aide, was an inside mole for neocon
pro-Israel interests. Those interests needed to knock the unreliable President Trump out of the
way to get the "system" back where it belonged – in their pocket. Papadopoulis, on his own, was
rummaging around making Trump/Russian connections that finally ended with the the William (Richard?)
Browder (well-known Washington DC neocon)/Natalia Veselnitskaya/Donald Trump, Jr. fiasco. The
Trumps knew nothing of those negotiations, and young Trump left when he realized Natalia was only
interested in Americans being allowed to adopt Russian children again and had no dirt on Hillary.
In the meantime, Trump Jr. was connected with an evil Russian (Natalia), William Browder was
able to link the neocon-hated Trump Sr with neocon-hated, evil Russians (who currently have a
warrant out for Browder's arrest on a 15 [or 50?] million dollar tax evasion charge), and neocons
have a good chance of claiming victory out of chaos (as is their style and was their intent for
the Middle East [not Washington DC!] in the neocon Project For a New American Century – 1998).
Clinton may have lost power in Washington DC, but Clinton-supporting neocons may not have – thanks
to George Papadopoulis. We shall see. Something tells me the best is yet to come out of the Mueller
Investigations.
Roy G Biv , November 7, 2017 at 2:03 pm
You are seeing it clearly Bill. This site was once a go-to-source for investigative journalism.
Now it is a place for opinion screeds, mostly with head buried in the sand about the blatant Russian
manipulation of the 2016 election. The dominant gang of posters here squash any dissent and dissenting
comments usually get deleted within a day. I don't understand why and how it came to be so, but
the hysterical labeling of Comey/Mueller investigations as McCarthyism by Parry has ruined his
sterling reputation for me.
Stygg , November 7, 2017 at 2:24 pm
If this "Russian manipulation" was as blatant as everyone keeps telling me, how come it's all
based on ridiculous BS instead of evidence? Where's the beef?
anon , November 7, 2017 at 3:22 pm
Unable to substantiate anything you say nor argue against anything said here, you disgrace
yourself. Do you think anyone is fooled by your repeated lie that you are a disaffected former
supporter of this site? And you made the "Stygg" reply above.
Tom Hall , November 6, 2017 at 4:46 pm
It was never my impression that Cold War liberals opposed McCarthy or the anti-Communist
witch hunt. Where they didn't gleefully join in, they watched quietly from the sidelines while
the American left was eviscerated, jailed, driven from public life. Then the liberals stepped
in when it was clear things were going a little too far and just as the steam had run out of McCarthy's
slander machine.
At that point figures like Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy found the
path clear for their brand of political stagecraft. They were imperialists to a man, something
they proved abundantly when given the chance. Liberals supplanted the left in U.S. life- in the
unions, the teaching profession, publishing and every other field where criticism of the Cold
War and the enduring prevalence of worker solidarity across international lines threatened the
new order.
So it's no surprise that liberalism is the rallying point for a new wave of repression. The
dangerous buffoon currently occupying the White House stands as a perfect foil to the phony indignation
of the liberal leadership- Schumer, Pelosi et al.. The jerk was made to order, and they mean to
dump him as their ideological forebears unloaded old Tail Gunner Joe. In fact, Trump is so odious,
the Democrats, their media colleagues and major elements of the national security state believe
that bringing down the bozo can be made to look like a triumph of democracy. Of course, by then
dissent will have been stamped out far more efficiently than Trump and his half-assed cohorts
could have achieved. And it will be done in the name of restoring sanity, honoring the constitution,
and protecting everyone from the Russians. I was born in the fifties, and it looks like I'm going
to die in the fifties.
Danny Weil , November 6, 2017 at 6:37 pm
Truman started it. And he used it very well.
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE AND ORIGINS OF ""McCARTHYISM
By Richard M. Freeland
This book argues that Truman used anti-Communist scare tactics to force Congress to implement
his plans for multilateral free trade and specifically to pass the Marshall Plan. This is a sound
emphasis, but other elements of postwar anti-Communist campaigns are neglected, especially anti-labor
legislation; and Freeland attributes to Truman a ""go-soft"" attitude toward the Soviets, which
is certainly not proven by the fact that he restrained the ultras Forrestal, Kennan, and Byrnes
-- indeed, some of Freeland's own citations confirm Truman's violent anti-Soviet spirit.
The book concludes that by equating dissent with disloyalty, promoting guilt by association,
and personally commanding loyalty programs, ""Truman and his advisors employed all the political
and programmatic techniques that in later years were to become associated with the broad phenomenon
of McCarthyism."" Freeland's revisionism is confined and conservative: he deems the Soviets
most responsible for the Cold War and implies that ""subversion"" was in fact a menace.
You are one of the very few critical journalists today willing to print objective measures
of the truth, while the MSM spins out of control under the guise of "protecting America" (and
their vital sources), while at the same time actually undermining the very principles of a working
democracy they sanctimoniously pretend to defend. It makes me nostalgic for the McCarthy era,
when we could safely satirize the Army-McCarthy Hearings (unless you were a witness!). I offer
the following as a retrospective of a lost era.:
Top-Ten Criteria for being a Putin Stooge, and a Chance at Winning A One Way Lottery Ticket:to
the Gala Gitmo Hotel:
:
(1) Reading Consortium News, Truth Dig, The Real News Network, RT and Al Jeziera
(2) Drinking Starbucks and vodka at the Russian Tea Room with Russian tourists (with an embedded
FSS agent) in NYC.
(3) Meeting suspicious tour guides in Red Square who accept dollars for their historical jokes.
(4) Claiming to catch a cell phone photo of the Putin limousine passing through the Kremlin Tower
gate.
(4) Starting a joint venture with a Russian trading partner who sells grain to feed Putin's stable
of stallions. .
(5) Catching the flu while being sneezed upon in Niagara Falls by a Russian violinist.
(6) Finding the hidden jewels in the Twelfth Chair were nothing but cut glass.
(7) Reading War and Peace on the Brighton Beach ferry.
(8) Playing the iPod version of Rachmaninoff's "Vespers" through ear buds while attending mass
in Dallas, TX..
(9) Water skiing on the Potomac flying a pennant saying "Wasn't Boris Good Enough?"
(10) Having audibly chuckled even once at items (1) – (9). Thanks Bob, Please don't let up!
Lisa , November 6, 2017 at 7:47 pm
Howard,
I chuckled loudly more than once – but luckily, no one heard me! No witnesses! So you are acquainted
with the masterpiece "12 chairs"? Very suspicious.
David G , November 6, 2017 at 8:42 pm
I've heard that's Mel Brooks favorite among his own movies.
David G , November 6, 2017 at 8:48 pm
I always find it exasperating when I have to remind the waiter at the diner to bring Russian
dressing along with the reuben sandwich, but these days I wonder if my loyalty is being tested.
Dave P. , November 6, 2017 at 10:27 pm
David G –
They will change the name of dressing very soon. Remember 2003 when French refused to endorse
the invasion of Iraq. I think they unofficially changed the name of "French Fries" to "Freedom
Fries".
It is just the start. The whole History is being rewritten – in compliance with Zionist Ideology.
Those evil Russkies will be shown as they are!
Clearly, since I've published one book by a Russian, one by a now-deceased US ex-pat living
in Russia, and have our catalog made available in Russia via our international distributor, I
am a traitor to the US. If you add in my staunch resistance to the whole Russiagate narrative
AND the fact I post links to stories in RT America, I'm doomed.
I wish I could think I'm being wholly sarcastic.
Danny Weil , November 6, 2017 at 6:38 pm
You are not alone. Many of us live outside the open air prison and feel the same way
Abe , November 6, 2017 at 5:29 pm
Robert Parry has described "the New McCarthyism" having "its own witch-hunt hearings". In fact
"last week's Senate grilling of executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google" was merely an exercise
in political theatre because all three entities already belong to the "First Draft" coalition:
Formed by Google in June 2015 with Eliot Higgins of the Atlantic Council's Bellingcat as
a founding member, the "First Draft" coalition includes all the usual mainstream media "partners"
in "regime change" war propaganda: the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, the UK Guardian and
Telegraph, BBC News, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab and Kiev-based Stopfake.
In a remarkable post-truth declaration, the "First Draft" coalition insists that members will
"work together to tackle common issues, including ways to streamline the verification process".
In the "post-truth" regime of US and NATO hybrid warfare, the deliberate distortion of truth
and facts is called "verification".
The Washington Post / PropOrNot imbroglio, and "First Draft" coalition "partner" organizations'
zeal to "verify" US intelligence-backed fake news claims about Russian hacking of the US presidential
election, reveal the "post-truth" mission of this new Google-backed hybrid war propaganda alliance.
Hysterical demonization of Russia escalated dramatically after Russia thwarted the Israeli-Saudi-US
plan to dismember the Syrian state.
With the rollback of ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorist proxy forces in Syria, and the failure of
Kurdish separatist efforts in Iraq, Israel plans to launch military attacks against southern Lebanon
and Syria.
South Front has presented a cogent and fairly detailed analysis of Israel's upcoming war in
southern Lebanon.
Conspicuously absent from the South Front analysis is any discussion of the Israeli planned
assault on Syria, or possible responses to the conflict from the United States or Russia.
Israeli propaganda preparations for attack are already in high gear. Unfortunately, sober heads
are in perilously short supply in Israel and the U.S., so the prognosis can hardly be optimistic.
"Scenarios for the Third Lebanon War
Over time, IDF's military effectiveness had declined. [ ] In the Second Lebanon War of 2006
due to the overwhelming numerical superiority in men and equipment the IDF managed to occupy key
strong points but failed to inflict a decisive defeat on Hezbollah. The frequency of attacks in
Israeli territory was not reduced; the units of the IDF became bogged down in the fighting in
the settlements and suffered significant losses. There now exists considerable political pressure
to reassert IDF's lost military dominance and, despite the complexity and unpredictability of
the situation we may assume the future conflict will feature only two sides, IDF and Hezbollah.
Based on the bellicose statements of the leadership of the Jewish state, the fighting will be
initiated by Israel.
"The operation will begin with a massive evacuation of residents from the settlements in the
north and centre of Israel. Since Hezbollah has agents within the IDF, it will not be possible
to keep secret the concentration of troops on the border and a mass evacuation of civilians. Hezbollah
units will will be ordered to occupy a prepared defensive position and simultaneously open fire
on places were IDF units are concentrated. The civilian population of southern Lebanon will most
likely be evacuated. IDF will launch massive bombing causing great damage to the social infrastructure
and some damage to Hezbollah's military infrastructure, but without destroying the carefully protected
and camouflaged rocket launchers and launch sites.
"Hezbollah control and communications systems have elements of redundancy. Consequently, regardless
of the use of specialized precision-guided munitions, the command posts and electronic warfare
systems will not be paralysed, maintaining communications including through the use of fibre-optic
communications means. IDF discovered that the movement has such equipment during the 2006 war.
Smaller units will operate independently, working with open communication channels, using the
pre-defined call signs and codes.
"Israeli troops will then cross the border of Lebanon, despite the presence of the UN peacekeeping
mission in southern Lebanon, beginning a ground operation with the involvement of a greater number
of units than in the 2006 war. The IDF troops will occupy commanding heights and begin to prepare
for assaults on settlements and actions in the tunnels. The Israelis do not score a quick victory
as they suffer heavy losses in built-up areas. The need to secure occupied territory with patrols
and checkpoints will cause further losses.
"The fact that Israel itself started the war and caused damage to the civilian infrastructure,
allows the leadership of the movement to use its missile arsenal on Israeli cities. While Israel's
missile defence systems can successfully intercept the launched missiles, there are not enough
of them to blunt the bombardment. The civilian evacuation paralyzes life in the country. As soon
IDF's Iron Dome and other medium-range systems are spent on short-range Hezbollah rockets, the
bombardment of Israel with long-range missiles may commence. Hezbollah's Iranian solid-fuel rockets
do not require much time to prepare for launch and may target the entire territory of Israel,
causing further losses.
"It is difficult to assess the duration of actions of this war. One thing that seems certain
is that Israel shouldn't count on its rapid conclusion, similar to last September's exercises.
Hezbollah units are stronger and more capable than during the 2006 war, despite the fact that
they are fighting in Syria and suffered losses there.
"Conclusions
"The combination of large-scale exercises and bellicose rhetoric is intended to muster Israeli
public support for the aggression against Hezbollah by convincing the public the victory would
be swift and bloodless. Instead of restraint based on a sober assessment of relative capabilities,
Israeli leaders appear to be in a state of blood lust. In contrast, the Hezbollah has thus far
demonstrated restraint and diplomacy.
"Underestimating the adversary is always the first step towards a defeat. Such mistakes are
paid for with soldiers' blood and commanders' careers. The latest IDF exercises suggest Israeli
leaders underestimate the opponent and, more importantly, consider them to be quite dumb. In reality,
Hezbollah units will not cross the border. There is no need to provoke the already too nervous
neighbor and to suffer losses solely to plant a flag and photograph it for their leader. For Hezbollah,
it is easier and safer when the Israeli soldiers come to them. According to the IDF soldiers who
served in Gaza and southern Lebanon, it is easier to operate on the plains of Gaza than the mountainous
terrain of southern Lebanon. This is a problem for armoured vehicles fighting for control of heights,
tunnels, and settlements, where they are exposed to anti-armor weapons.
"While the Israeli establishment is in a state of patriotic frenzy, it would be a good time
for them to turn to the wisdom of their ancestors. After all, as the old Jewish proverb says:
'War is a big swamp, easy to go into but hard to get out'."
Yes, the latest "big fish" outed yesterday as an agent of the Kremlin was the U.S. Secretary
of Commerce (Wilbur Ross) who was discovered to hold stock in a shipping company that does business
with a Russian petrochemical company (Sibur) whose owners include Vladimir Putin's son-in-law
(Kirill Shamalov). Obviously the orders flow directly from Putin to Shamalov to Sibur to the shipping
company to Ross to Trump, all to the detriment of American citizens.
From RT (another tainted source!): "US Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. has a stake in
a shipping firm that receives millions of dollars a year in revenue from a company whose key owners
include Russian President Vladimir Putin's son-in-law and a Russian tycoon sanctioned by the U.S.
Treasury Department as a member of Putin's inner circle," says the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the main publisher of the Paradise Papers. After the report
was published, some US lawmakers accused Ross of misleading Congress during his confirmation hearings."
Don't go mistaking the "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for "Consortium
News." These guys are dedicated witch hunters, searching for anyone with six degrees of separation
to Vladimir Putin and his grand plan to thwart the United States and effect regime change within
its borders.
In a clear attempt to weasel out of his traitorous transgression, Ross stated "In a separate
interview with CNBC, that Sibur [which is NOT the company he owned stock in] was not subject to
US sanctions." 'A company not under sanction is just like any other company, period. It was a
normal commercial relationship and one that I had nothing to do with the creation of, and do not
know the shareholders who were apparently sanctioned at some later point in time,' he said." Since
when can we start allowing excuses like that? Not knowing that someone holds stock in a company
that does business with a company in which you own stock may at some later point in time become
sanctioned by the all-wise and all-good American federal government?
I can't wait till they make the first Ben Stiller comedy based on this fiasco twenty years
from now. It will be hilarious slap-stick, maybe titled "Can You Believe these Mother Fockers?"
President Chelea Clinton of our great and noble idiocracy will throw out the first witch on opening
day of the movie.
Danny Weil , November 6, 2017 at 6:27 pm
Let's be honest. Most Americans think McCarthy is a retail store. No education. And they think
Russia is the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Trump is in Japan to start war with N. Korea to hide the
blemishes or the canker on his ass. America is rapidly collapsing.
Adrian Engler , November 6, 2017 at 6:34 pm
In the beginning, "Russiagate" was about alleged actions by Russian secret services. Evidence
for these allegations has never emerged, and it seems that the Russiagate conspiracy theorists
largely gave up on this part (they still sometimes write about it as if it was an established
fact, but since the only thing in support of it they can adduce is the canard about the 17 intelligence
services, it probably is not that interesting any more).
Now, they have dropped the mask, and the object of their hatred are openly all Russian
people, anyone who is "Russian linked" by ever having logged in to social networks from Russia
or using Cyrillic letters. If these people and their media at least recognized the reality that
they are now a particularly rabid part of the xenophobic far right in the United States
But when people daily spew hate against anything and anyone "Russia linked" and still don't
recognize that they have gone over to the far right and even claim they are liberal or progressive,
this is completely absurd.
McCarthyism, as terrible as it was, at least originally was motivated by hatred against a certain
political ideology that also had its bad sides. But today's Russiagate peddlers clearly are motivated
by hatred against a certain ethnicity, a certain country, and a certain language. I don't think
there is any way to avoid the conclusion that with their hatred against anyone who is "Russia
linked", they have become right-wing extremists.
Litchfield , November 6, 2017 at 6:46 pm
"Israel is another skilled player in this field, tapping into its supporters around the world
to harass people who criticize the Zionist project."
Yes, very well organized.
In fact virtually every synagogue is a center for organizing people to harass others who are exercising
their First Amendment rights to diseminate information about Israel's occupation of Palestine.
The link below is to a protest and really, personal attack, against a Unitarian minister in Marblehead,
Mass., for daring to screen the film ""The Occupation of the American Mind, Israel's Public Relations
War in the United States." In other words, for daring to provide an dissenting opinion and, simply,
to tell the truth. Ironic is that the protesters' comment actually reinforce the basic message
of the film.
No other views on Israel will be allowed to enter the public for a good airing and discussion
and debate. The truth about the illegal Israeli occupation will be shouted down, and those who
try to provide information to the public on this subject will be vilified as "anti-semites." Kudos
to this minister for screening the film.
The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel's Public Relations War in the United States (2016)
examines pro-Israel Hasbara propaganda efforts within the U.S.
This important documentary, narrated by Roger waters, exposes how the Israeli government, the
U.S. government, and the pro-Israel Lobby join forces to shape American media coverage in Israel's
favor.
Documentary producer Sut Jhally is professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts,
and a leading scholar on advertising, public relations, and political propaganda. He is also the
founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation, a documentary film company that
looks at issues related to U.S. media and public attitudes.
Jhally is the producer and director of dozens of documentaries about U.S. politics and media
culture, including Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli–Palestinian
Conflict.
The Occupation of the American Mind provides a sweeping analysis of Israel's decades-long battle
for the hearts, minds, and tax dollars of the American people – a battle that has only intensified
over the past few years in the face of widening international condemnation of Israel's increasingly
right-wing policies.
Dave P. , November 7, 2017 at 2:45 am
Abe –
The interview of Roger Waters on RT is one of the best I have seen in a long while. I wish
some other artists get the courage to raise their voices. The link to the Roger Waters interview
is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7jcvfbLoIA
This Roger Waters interview is worth watching.
It would seem that everyone on the US telivision , newspaper and internet news has mastered
the art of hand over mouth , gasp and looking horrified every time Russia is mentioned. It looks
to me that the US is in the middle of another of it´s mid life crises. Panic reigns supreme every
where. If it was not so sad it would be funny. i was born in the 1940s and remember the McCarthy
witch hunts and the daily shower of people jumping out of windows as a result of it.
As a Canadian I could not get over, even though I was just a teenager back then, just how a
people in a supposedly advanced country could be so collectively paniced. I think back then it
was just a scam to get rid of unions and any kind of collective action against the owners of the
country, and this time around I think it is just a continuation of that scam, to frighten people
into subservience to the police state. I heard a women on TV today commenting on the Texas masscre,
she said " The devil never sleeps", well in the USA the 1/10 of 1% never sleeps when it comes
to more control, more pwoer and more wealth, in fact I think they are after the very last shekle
still left in the pockets of the bottom 99.9 % of the population. Those evil Russians are just
a ploy in the scam.
Litchfield , November 6, 2017 at 6:58 pm
"The Democrats, the liberals and even many progressives justify their collusion with the neocons
by the need to remove Trump by any means necessary and "stop fascism." But their contempt for
Trump and their exaggeration of the "Hitler" threat that this incompetent buffoon supposedly poses
have blinded them to the extraordinary risks attendant to their course of action and how they
are playing into the hands of the war-hungry neocons."
And they are driving more and more actual and potential Dem Party members away in droves, further
weakening the party and depriving it of its most intelligent members. Any non-senile person knows
that this is all BS and these people are not only turning their backs on the Dem Party but I think
many of them are being driven to the right by their disgust with this circus and the exposure
of the party's critical weaknesses and derangement.
Paolo , November 6, 2017 at 6:59 pm
You correctly write that "the United States intervened in the 1996 Russian election to ensure
the continued rule of the corrupt and pliable Boris Yeltsin". The irony is that a few years later
Yeltsin chose Putin as his successor, and presumably the 'mericans gave him a hand to win his
first term.
How extremely sad it is to see the USA going totally nuts.
Abe , November 6, 2017 at 9:00 pm
In The Fifties (1993), American journalist and historian David Halberstam addressed
the noxious effect of McCarthyism: "McCarthy's carnival like four year spree of accusation charges,
and threats touched something deep in the American body politic, something that lasted long after
his own recklessness, carelessness and boozing ended his career in shame." (page 53)
Halberstam specifically discussed how readily the so-called "free" press acquiesced to
McCarthy's masquerading: "The real scandal in all this was the behavior of the members of the
Washington press corps, who, more often than not, knew better. They were delighted to be a part
of his traveling road show, chronicling each charge and then moving on to the next town, instead
of bothering to stay behind and follow up. They had little interest in reporting how careless
McCarthy was or how little it all meant to him." (page 55)
Abe , November 6, 2017 at 9:15 pm
On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow and a news team at CBS produced a half-hour See It Now special
titled "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy".
Murrow interspersed his own comments and clarifications into a damaging series of film clips
from McCarthy's speeches. He ended the broadcast with a warning:
"As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves–as
indeed we are–the defenders of freedom, what's left of it, but we cannot defend freedom abroad
by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and
dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies, and whose fault
is that? Not really his. He didn't create the situation of fear; he merely exploited it, and rather
successfully. Cassius was right: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.'"
CBS reported that of the 12,000 phone calls received within 24 hours of the broadcast, positive
responses to the program outnumbered negative 15 to 1. McCarthy's favorable rating in the Gallup
Poll dropped and was never to rise again.
Gary , November 6, 2017 at 11:34 pm
Sad to see so many hypocrites here espousing freedom from McCarthyism while they continue to
vote for capitalist candidates year in year out. Think about the fact that in 2010 when Citizens
United managed to get the Supreme Court to certify corporations as people the fear among many
was that this would open US company subsidiaries to be infiltrated by foreign money. I guess it
is happening in spades with collusion between Russian money & Trump's organization along with
Facebook, Twitter & many others. How Mr. Parry can maintain that this parallels the 1950s anti-communist
crusade is quite ingenuous. When libertarians, the likes of Bannon, Mercer, Trump et al, with
their "destruction of the administrative state" credo are compared to the US communists of the
50s we know progressives have become about as disoriented as can be.
geeyp , November 7, 2017 at 3:30 am
I guess these "Paradise Papers" were released just yesterday, i.e., Sunday the 5th. Somehow
I didn't get to it.
john wilson , November 7, 2017 at 6:01 am
So it looks like Hillary will be crossing Putin off her Xmas card list this year! I sometimes
wonder if all we posters on here and other similar sites are on a list somewhere and when the
day of reckoning comes, the list will be produced and we will have to account for our treasonous
behaviour? Of course, one man's treason is another man's truth. I suppose in the end it boils
down to the power thing. If you have a perceived enemy you can claim the need for an army. If
you have an army you have power and with that power you can dispose of anyone who disagrees with
you simply by calling them the enemy.
Lisa , November 7, 2017 at 9:38 am
John, your post made me wonder whether I would be on a list of traitors. I've written three
posts, starting yesterday, and tried to explain something about the background of Yuri Milner,
mentioned in the article. After "your comment has been posted, thank you" nothing has appeared
on this thread.
Well, once more: Milner is known to me as a well-educated physicist from Moscow State University,
and the co-founder and financier of The Breakthrough Prize, handing out yearly awards to promising
scientists, with a much larger sum than the humble Nobel Prize. The awarding ceremony is held
in December in Silicon Valley.
john wilson , November 7, 2017 at 12:34 pm
Hi Lisa, I have just looked up Milner on Wiki and he appears to be into everything including
investment in internet companies. He is the co-founder of the "break through prize" that you mention
and seems to have backed face book and twitter in their start up. I don't see why you posts haven't
appeared as anyone can look Milner up on Wiki and elsewhere in great detail. You don't say where
you have tried to post, but I would have thought on this site you would have no trouble whatever.
If you have watched the last episode of 'cross talk' on RT you will see that anyone who as ever
mentioned Russia in a public place is regarded as some kind of traitor. I guess you and me are
due for rendition anytime now!! LOL
Lisa , November 7, 2017 at 1:49 pm
Hi John,
Naturally I had been trying to post on this site. First I tried three times in the comment space
below all other posts, and they never went through. Only when I posted a reply to someone else's
comment, my reply appeared. Maybe some technical problem on the site.
My motive was to show that Milner is doing worthwhile things with his millions, even if he
is an "evil Russian oligarch". The mentioned prize has its own website: breakthroughprize.org.
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) is a board member.
The prize is certainly a "Putin conspiracy", as it has links to Russia. (sarc)
Zachary Smith , November 7, 2017 at 8:05 pm
Maybe some technical problem on the site.
Possibly that's the case. Disappearing-forever posts happen to me from time to time. For at
least a while afterwards I cut/paste what I'm about to attempt to "post" to a WORD file before
hitting the "post comment" button.
In any event, avoid links whenever possible. By cut/pasting the exact title of the piece you're
using as a reference, others can quickly locate it themselves without a link.
K , November 7, 2017 at 9:44 am
I'm a lifelong Democrat. I was a Bernie supporter. But logic dictates my thinking. The Russia
nonsense is cover for Hillary's loss and a convenient hammer with which to attack Trump. Not biting.
Bill Maher is fixated on this. The Rob Reiner crowd is an embarrassment. The whole thing is embarrassing.
The media is inept. Very bizarre times.
Excellent article which should shed light on the misunderstandings manifested to manipulate
and censor Americans. Personally, it's ludicrous to imply that Russia was the primary reason I
could not vote for Hillary. My interest in Twitter peaked when Sidney Blumenthal's name popped
up selling arms in Libya. He was on The Clinton Foundation's Payroll for $120K, while the Obama
Administration specifically told HRC Sidney Blumenthal was not to work for the State Department.
Further research showed Chris Stevens had no knowledge of Sidney Blumenthal selling arms in
Libya. Hillary NEVER even gave Chris Stevens, a candidate with an outstanding background for diplomatic
relations in the Middle East, her email. Chris Stevens possessed a Law Degree in International
Trade, and had previously worked for Senator Lugar (R). Senator Lugar had warned HRC not to co-mingle
State Department business with The Clinton Foundation.
To add salt to the wound Hillary choose to put a third rate security firm in Libya, changing
firms a couple of short weeks before the bombing. I think she anticipated the bombing, remarking
"What difference does it make? " at the congressional hearings.
If you remember Guccifer (that hacker) he said he'd hacked both Hillary and Sidney Blumenthal.
He also said he found Sidney Blumenthal's account more interesting.
That's just one reason why I started surfing the internet. Sidney Blumenthal was a name that
hung in the cobwebs of my memory, and I wanted to know what this scum-job of a journalist was
doing!
Then there was Clinton Cash, BoysonTheTracks, Clinton Chronicles, the outrageous audacity of
the Democrats Superdelegates voting before a single primary ballot had been cast, MSM bias to
Hillary, Kathy Shelton's video "I thought you should know." and maybe around September 2016, wondering
what dirty things Hillary had done with Russia since 1993?
So I guess it's true. In the end after witnessing what has transpired since the election I
would not vote for Hillary because she'd rather risk WWIII, than have the TRUTH come out why she
lost.
After living in Europe much of the last three years we've recently returned to the U.S. I must
say that life here feels very much like I'm living within a strange Absurdist theatre play of
some sort (not that Europe is vastly better). Truth, meaning, rationality, mean absolutely nothing
at this juncture here in the United States. Reality has been turned on its head. The only difference
between our political parties runs along identity politics lines: "do you prefer your drone strikes,
illegal invasions, regime change black-ops, economic warfare and massive government spying 'with'
or 'without' gender specific bathrooms?" MSM refer to this situation as "democracy" while of course
any thinking person knows we are actually living within a totalitarian nightmare. Theatre of the
Absurd as a way of life. I must admit it feels pretty creepy being home again.
I wish it wasn't asking too much, but I suspect it is. If the NYT was reporting it, I'd feel
better about our chances. But the Deep State controls the narrative, and thus controls Pompeo,
Trump's order notwithstanding. I hope I'm wrong.
Dave P. , November 7, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Yes Joe. It is rather painful to watch as you said this Orwellian Tragedy playing out in the
Country which has just about become a police state. For those of us who grew up admiring the Western
Civilization starting with the Greeks and Romans, and then for its institutions enshrining Individual
Rights; and its scientific, literary, and cultural achievements, it is as if it still happening
in some dream, though it has been coming for some time now – more than two decades now at least.
The System was not perfect but I think that it was good as it could get. The system had been in
decline for four decades or so now.
From Robert Parry's article:
"The warning from powerful senators was crystal clear. "I don't think you get it," Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-California, warned social media executives last week. "You bear this responsibility.
You created these platforms, and now they are being misused. And you have to be the ones who do
something about it. Or we will."
Diane Feinstein's multi-billionaire husband was implicated in those Loan and Savings scandals
of Reagan and G.H.W. Bush Era and in many other financial scandals later on but Law did not touch
him. He has a dual residency in Israel. These are very corrupt people.
Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Perle, Nulad-Kagan clan, Kristol, Gaffney . . . the list goes
on; add Netanyahu to it. In the Hollywood Harvey Weinstein, Rob Reiner. and the rest . . . In
Finance and wall Street characters like Sandy Weiss and the gang. The Media and TV is directly
or indirectly owned and controlled by "The Chosen People". So, where would you put the blame for
all what is going on in this country, and all this chaos, death, and destruction going on in ME
and many countries in Africa.
Any body who points out their role in it or utters a word of criticism of Israel is immediately
called an anti-semite. Just to tell my own connections, my wife youngest sister is married to
person who is Jewish (non-practicing). In all the relatives we have, they are closest to us for
more than thirty five years now. They are those transgender common restroom liberals, but we have
many common views and interests. In life, I have never differentiated people based on their ethnic
or racial backgrounds; you look at the principles they stand for.
As I see it, this era of Russia-Gate and witch hunt is hundred times worse than McCarthy era.
It seems irreversible. There is no one in the political establishment or elsewhere in Media or
academia left for regeneration of the "Body Politic". In fact, what we are witnessing here is
much worse than it was in the Soviet Union. It is complete degeneration of political leadership
in this country. It extends to Media and other institutions as well. People in Soviet Union did
not believe the lies they were told by the government there. And there arose writers like Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn in Soviet Union. What is left here now except are these few websites?
Maedhros , November 7, 2017 at 4:27 pm
If there is evidence, you should be able to provide some so that readers can analyze and discuss
it. Exactly what evidence has been provided that the Russian government manipulated the 2016 election?
CitizenOne , November 7, 2017 at 10:42 pm
Robert Parry You Nailed It!!!
I need to do a little research to see how far back you used the term "New McCarthyism" to describe
the next cold war with Russia. It was about the same time the first allegations of a Trump-Russia
conspiracy was floated by the MSM. I do not pretend to know how much airtime they spent covering
their coverup for all that the MSM did to profit from SuperPacs. They have webed a weave that
conspires to conceive to the tunes of billions of dollars spent to reprieve their intent to deceive
us and distract us away from their investment in Donald Trump which was the real influence in
the public spaces to gain mega profits from extorting the SuperPacs into spending their dollars
to defeat the trumped up candidate they created and boosted. One has to look no further than the
Main Stream Press (MSM) to find the guilty party with motive and opportunity to cash in on a candidacy
which if not for the money motive would not pass any test of journalistic integrity but would
make money for the Media.
The Russian Boogeyman was created shortly after the election and is an obvious attempt to shield
and defend the actions of the MSM which was the real fake news covered in the nightly news leading
up to the election which sought to get money rather than present the facts.
This is an example of how much power and influence the MSM has on us all to be able to upend
a National election and turn around and blame some foreign Devil for the results of an election.
The Russians had little to do with Trumps election. The MSM had everything to do with it. They
cast blame on the Russians and in so doing create a new Cold War which suits the power establishment
and suitably diverts all of our attention away from their machinations to influence the last presidential
election.
Win Win. More Nuclear Weapons and more money for the MIC and more money for all of the corporations
who would profit from a new Cold War.
Profit in times of deceit make more money from those who cheat.
CitizenOne , November 7, 2017 at 11:25 pm
Things not talked about:
1. James Comey and his very real influence on the election has never entered the media space
for an instant. It has gone down the collective memory hole. That silence has been deafening because
he was the person who against DOJ advice reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the
Servergate investigation after it had been closed by the FBI just days before the election.
The silence of the media on the influence on the election by the reopening of James Comey's
Servergate investigation and how the mass media press coverage implicating Hillary Clinton (again)
in supposed crimes (which never resulted in an indictment) influenced the National Election in
ways that have never been examined by the MSM is a nail in the coffin of media impartiality.
Why have they not investigated James Comey? Why has the MSM instead created a Russian Boogeyman?
Why was he invited to testify about the Russian connection but never cross examined about his
own influence? Why is the clearest reason for election meddling by James Comey not even spoken
of by the MSM? This is because the MSM does not want to cover events as they happened but wants
to recreate a alternate reality suitable to themselves which serves their interests and convinces
us that the MSM has no part at all in downplaying the involvement of themselves in the election
but wants to create a foreign enemy to blame.
It serves many interests. The MSM lies to all of us for the benefit of the MIC. It serves to
support White House which will deliver maximum investments in the Defense Industry. It does this
by creating a foreign enemy which they create for us to fear and be afraid of.
It is obvious to everyone with a clear eyed history of how the last election went down and
how the MSM and the government later played upon our fears to grab more cash have cashed in under
the present administration.
It is up to us to elect leaders who will reject this manipulation by the media and who will
not be cowed by the establishment. We have the power enshrined in our Constitution to elect leaders
who will pave the path forward to a better future.
Those future leaders will have to do battle with a media infrastructure that serves the power
structure and conspires to deceive us all.
Clear critical thinking must accompany free speech, however, and irrationality seems to have
beset Americans, too stuck in the mud of identity politics. Can they get out? I have hopes that
a push is coming from the new multipolar world Xi and Putin are advocating, as well as others
(but not the George Soros NWO variety). The big bully American government, actually ruled by oligarchy,
has not been serving its regular folks well, so things are falling apart. Seems like the sex scandals,
political scandals especially of the Democrat brand, money scandals are unraveling to expose underlying
societal sickness in the Disunited States of America.
It is interesting that this purge shakeup in Saudi Arabia is happening in 2017, one hundred
years since the shakeup in Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution. So shake-ups are happening everywhere.
I think a pattern is emerging of major changes in world events. Just yesterday I read that because
"Russia-gate" isn't working well, senators are looking to start a "China-gate", for evidence of
Trump collusion with Chinese oligarchs. Ludicrous. As Seer once said, "The Empire in panic mode".
Patricia, thanks for the info on Sid Blumenthal, HRC and the selling of arms from Libya to
ME jihadists, which seems to exonerate Chris Stevens from those dirty deeds and lays blame squarely
at Blumenthal's and Clinton's doorstep; changes my thinking. And thanks to Robert Parry for continuing
to push back at the participation of MSM and government players in the Orwellian masquerade being
pulled on the sheeple.
Truther , November 8, 2017 at 12:54 pm
Just the facts for those of you who have minds still open. suggest you bookmark it quickly
as the moderator will delete it within the hour.
Cyril Wecht - Wikipedia
Cyril Harrison Wecht (born March 20, 1931) is an American
forensic pathologist.
He has been a consultant in numerous high-profile cases, but is perhaps best known for his criticism
of the Warren Commission's
findings concerning the
assassination
of John F. Kennedy. See books: Into EVIDENCE: Truth, Lies and Unresolved Mysteries in the Murder
of JFK; November 22, 1963: A Reference Guide to the JFK Assassination
Notable quotes:
"... "about 500 people gathered at Duquesne University for a JFK symposium sponsored by the university's Institute of Forensic Science and Law, which is named for Wecht. Appearances by Stone and a doctor who tended to Kennedy brought national attention. People sneered when they mentioned Specter's name or the single-bullet theory. ..."
"... (Specter has been useful to the deep state in other ways: he protected Zalman Shapiro, former head of NUMEC, from prosecution for his part in smuggling uranium to Israel. http://israellobby.org/numec/ ..."
deHaven Smith is not that impressive on several counts.
one example: book opens:
"Although most Americans today reject the official (lone gunman) account of the Kennedy
assassination, they also have doubts about conspiracy theories and those who believe them.
This means the CIA program was successful, for its aim was not to sell the Warren Commission,
but to sow uncertainty about the commission's critics. Today, people are not only uncertain,
they have given up ever learning the truth. "
At least one high-profile person and an entire community that supports him does not have doubts,
has not given up. Cyril Wecht blasted holes in Arlen Specter's "one bullet" theory in 1965. He's
still at it. In 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination,
"about 500 people gathered at Duquesne University for a JFK symposium sponsored by the
university's Institute of Forensic Science and Law, which is named for Wecht. Appearances by
Stone and a doctor who tended to Kennedy brought national attention. People sneered when they
mentioned Specter's name or the single-bullet theory.
Across the state, the Single Bullet exhibit opened on Oct. 21. It's the first exhibition
in Philadelphia University's Arlen Specter Center for Public Policy. Willens, the former Kennedy
aide, delivered a speech. The center's coordinator, Karen Albert, said he was looking forward
to defending his conclusion on the 50th anniversary. "
http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/5017529-74/wecht-commission-specter
Smith did not even mention Wecht or Specter and the single-bullet theory in his book. The omission
is important insofar as its inclusion would have demonstrated that for many years the populace
has been aware of the dishonesty of the US government and some have been raising their voices
against and continue to do so.
That knowledge should give encouragement to activists such as those who demand accountability
for Israel's attack on the USS Liberty and the deliberate killing of 34 US sailors and other personnel.
(Specter has been useful to the deep state in other ways: he protected Zalman Shapiro,
former head of NUMEC, from prosecution for his part in smuggling uranium to Israel.
http://israellobby.org/numec/
These tactics do not just suppress information. They enforce conformity at much
deeper level.
Notable quotes:
"... I am using the Orwellian verb "unperson" playfully, but I'm also trying to be precise. What's happening isn't censorship, technically, at least not in the majority of cases. While there are examples of classic censorship (e.g., in the UK, France, and Germany), apart from so-called "terrorist content," most governments aren't formally banning expressions of anti-corporatist dissent. This isn't Czechoslovakia, after all. This is global capitalism, where the repression of dissent is a little more subtle. The point of Google unpersoning CounterPunch (and probably many other publications) and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists like Hedges is not to prevent them from publishing their work or otherwise render them invisible to readers. The goal is to delegitmize them, and thus decrease traffic to their websites and articles, and ultimately drive them out of business, if possible. ..."
"... Another objective of this non-censorship censorship is discouraging writers like myself from contributing to publications like CounterPunch, Truthdig, Alternet, Global Research, and any other publications the corporatocracy deems "illegitimate." Google unpersoning a writer like Hedges is a message to other non-ball-playing writers. The message is, "this could happen to you." This message is meant for other journalists, primarily, but it's also aimed at writers like myself who are making a living (to whatever degree) writing and selling what we think of as "literature." ..."
"... These tactics do not just suppress information. They enforce conformity at much deeper level. ..."
"... Chomsky explains how this system operates in What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream . It isn't a question of censorship the system operates on rewards and punishments, financial and emotional coercion, and subtler forms of intimidation. Making examples of non-cooperators is a particularly effective tactic. Ask any one of the countless women whose careers have been destroyed by Harvey Weinstein, or anyone who's been to graduate school, or worked at a major corporation. ..."
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
On November 30, 2016, presumably right at the stroke of midnight, Google Inc. unpersoned
CounterPunch. They didn't send out a press release or anything. They just quietly removed it
from the Google News aggregator. Not very many people noticed. This happened just as the "fake
news" hysteria was being unleashed by the corporate media, right around the time The Washington
Post ran
this neo-McCarthyite smear piece vicariously accusing CounterPunch, and a number of other
publications, of being "peddlers of Russian propaganda." As I'm sure you'll recall, that
astounding piece of "journalism" (which The Post was promptly forced to disavow with an absurd
disclaimer but has refused to retract) was based on the claims of an anonymous website
apparently staffed by a couple of teenagers and a formerly rabidly anti-Communist, now rabidly
anti-Putin think tank. Little did most people know at the time that these were just the opening
salvos in what has turned out to be an all-out crackdown on any and all forms of vocal
opposition to the global corporate ruling classes and their attempts to quash the ongoing
nationalist backlash against their neoliberal agenda.
Almost a year later, things are much clearer. If you haven't been following this story
closely, and you care at all about freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and that kind of
stuff, you may want to take an hour or two and catch up a bit on what's been happening. I
offered a few examples of some of the measures governments and corporations have been taking to
stifle expressions of dissent in my latest
piece in CounterPunch , and there are many more detailed articles online, like this one by Andre
Damon from July, and this follow-up he published last
week (which reports that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Chris Hedges has also
been unpersoned). Or, if you're the type of soul who only believes what corporations tell you,
and who automatically dismisses anything published by a Trotskyist website, here's
one from last December in The Guardian, and an
op-ed in The New York Times , both of which at least report what Google, Twitter, and
Facebook are up to. Or you could read this
piece by Robert Parry , who also has "legitimate" (i.e., corporate) credentials, and who
hasn't been unpersoned just yet, although I'm sure they'll get around to him eventually.
I am using the Orwellian verb "unperson" playfully, but I'm also trying to be precise.
What's happening isn't censorship, technically, at least not in the majority of cases. While
there are examples of classic censorship (e.g., in the UK, France, and Germany), apart from
so-called "terrorist content," most governments aren't formally banning expressions of
anti-corporatist dissent. This isn't Czechoslovakia, after all. This is global capitalism,
where the repression of dissent is a little more subtle. The point of Google unpersoning
CounterPunch (and probably many other publications) and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists like
Hedges is not to prevent them from publishing their work or otherwise render them invisible to
readers. The goal is to delegitmize them, and thus decrease traffic to their websites and
articles, and ultimately drive them out of business, if possible.
Another objective of this non-censorship censorship is discouraging writers like myself
from contributing to publications like CounterPunch, Truthdig, Alternet, Global Research, and
any other publications the corporatocracy deems "illegitimate." Google unpersoning a writer
like Hedges is a message to other non-ball-playing writers. The message is, "this could happen
to you." This message is meant for other journalists, primarily, but it's also aimed at writers
like myself who are making a living (to whatever degree) writing and selling what we think of
as "literature."
Yes, as you've probably guessed by now, in addition to writing political satire, I am, as
rogue journalist Caitlin Johnstone so aptly put it once, an "elitist wanker." I've spent the
majority of my adult life writing stage plays and working in the theater, and it doesn't get
any more elitist than that. My plays are published by "establishment" publishers, have won a
few awards, and have been produced internationally. I recently published my "debut novel"
(which is what you call it if you're an elitist wanker) and am currently trying to promote and
sell it. I mention this, not to blow my little horn, but to the set the stage to try to
illustrate how these post-Orwellian intimidation tactics (i.e., unpersoning people from the
Internet) work. These tactics do not just suppress information. They enforce conformity at much
deeper level.
The depressing fact of the matter is, in our brave new Internet-dominated world,
corporations like Google, Twitter, and Facebook (not to mention Amazon), are, for elitist
wankers like me, in the immortal words of Colonel Kurz, "either friends or they are truly
enemies to be feared." If you are in the elitist wanker business, regardless of whether you're
Jonathan Franzen, Garth Risk Hallberg, Margaret Atwood, or some "mid-list" or "emerging"
author, there is no getting around these corporations. So it's kind of foolish, professionally
speaking, to write a bunch of essays that will piss them off, and then publish these essays in
CounterPunch. Literary agents advise against this. Other elitist literary wankers, once they
discover what you've been doing, will avoid you like the bubonic plague. Although it's
perfectly fine to write books and movies about fictional evil corporations, writing about how
real corporations are using their power to mold societies into self-policing virtual prisons of
politically-correct, authoritarian consumers is well, it's something that is just not done in
professional elitist wanker circles.
Normally, all this goes without saying, as these days most elitist wankers are trained how
to write, and read, and think, in MFA conformity factories, where they screen out any unstable
weirdos with unhealthy interests in political matters. This is to avoid embarrassing episodes
like Harold
Pinter's Nobel Prize lecture (which, if you haven't read it, you probably should), and is
why so much of contemporary literature is so well-behaved and instantly forgettable. This
institutionalized screening system is also why the majority of journalists employed by
mainstream media outlets understand, without having to be told, what they are, and are not,
allowed to report. Chomsky explains how this system operates in What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream . It isn't a
question of censorship the system operates on rewards and punishments, financial and emotional
coercion, and subtler forms of intimidation. Making examples of non-cooperators is a
particularly effective tactic. Ask any one of the countless women whose careers have been
destroyed by Harvey Weinstein, or anyone who's been to graduate school, or worked at a major
corporation.
Or let me provide you with a personal example.
A couple weeks ago, I googled myself (which we elitist wankers are wont to do), and noticed
that two of my published books had disappeared from the "Knowledge Panel" that appears in the
upper right of the search results. I also noticed that the people "People Also Search For" in
the panel had changed. For years, consistently, the people you saw there had been a variety of
other elitist literary wankers and leftist types. Suddenly, they were all rather right-wing
types, people like Ilana Mercer and John Derbyshire, and other VDARE writers. So that was a
little disconcerting.
I set out to contact the Google Search specialists to inquire about this mysterious
development, and was directed to a series of unhelpful web pages directing me to other
unhelpful pages with little boxes where you can write and submit a complaint to Google, which
they will completely ignore. Being an elitist literary wanker, I also wrote to Google Books,
and exchanged a number of cordial emails with an entity (let's call her Ms. O'Brien) who
explained that, for "a variety of reasons," the "visibility" of my books (which had been
consistently visible for many years) was subject to change from day to day, and that,
regrettably, she couldn't assist me further, and that sending her additional cordial emails was
probably a pointless waste of time. Ms. O'Brien was also pleased to report that my books had
been restored to "visibility," which, of course, when I checked, they hadn't.
"Whatever," I told myself, "this is silly. It's probably just some IT thing, maybe Google
Books updating its records, or something." However, I was still perplexed by the "People Also
Search For" switcheroo, because it's kind of misleading to link my writing to that of a bunch
of serious right-wingers. Imagine, if you were a dystopian sci-fi fan, and you googled me to
check out my book and see what else I had written, and so on, and my Google "Knowledge Panel"
popped up and displayed all these far-right VDARE folks. Unless you're a far-right VDARE type
yourself, that might be a little bit of a turn-off.
At that point, I wondered if I was getting paranoid. Because Google Search runs on
algorithms, right? And my political satire and commentary is published, not only in
CounterPunch, but also in The Unz Review, where these far-right-wing types are also published.
Moreover, my pieces are often reposted by what appear to be "Russia-linked" websites, and
everyone knows that the Russians are all a bunch of white supremacists, right? On top of which,
it's not like I'm Stephen King here. I am hardly famous enough to warrant the attention of any
post-Orwellian corporate conspiracy to stigmatize anti-establishment dissent by manipulating
how authors are displayed on Google (i.e., subtly linking them to white supremacists,
anti-Semites, and others of that ilk).
So, okay, I reasoned, what probably happened was over the course of twenty-four hours, for
no logical reason whatsoever, all the folks who had been googling me (along with other leftist
and literary figures) suddenly stopped googling me, all at once, while, more or less at the
exact same time, hundreds of right-wingers started googling me (along with those white
supremacist types they had, theoretically, already been googling). That kind of makes sense
when you think about it, right? I mean, Google couldn't be doing this intentionally. It must
have been some sort of algorithm that detected this sudden, seismic shift in the demographic of
people googling me.
Or, I don't know, does that possibly sound like a desperate attempt to rationalize the
malicious behavior of an unaccountable, more or less god-like, global corporation that wields
the power of life and death over my book sales and profile on the Internet (a more or less
god-like global corporation that could do a lot of additional damage to my sales and reputation
with complete impunity once the piece you're reading is published)? Or am I simply getting
paranoid, and, in fact, I've developed a secret white supremacist fan base without my
knowledge? Only Google knows for sure.
Such are the conundrums elitist literary wankers have to face these days that is, those of
us wankers who haven't learned to keep our fucking mouths shut yet. Probably the safest course
of action, regardless of whether I'm being paranoid or Google does have me on some kind of
list, is to lay off the anti-corporatist essays, and definitely stop contributing to
CounterPunch, not to mention The Unz Review, and probably also give up the whole dystopian
satire novel thing, and ensure that my second novel conforms to the "normal" elitist wanker
rules (which every literary wanker knows, but which, technically, do not exist). Who knows, if
I play my cards right, maybe I can even sell the rights to Miramax, or okay, some other
corporation.
Once that happens, I assume that Google will want to restore me to normal personhood, and
return my books to visibility, and I will ride off into the Hollywood sunset with the Clintons,
Clooneys, and Pichais, and maybe even Barack Obama himself, if he isn't off jet skiing with
Richard Branson, or having dinner with Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, who just happen to live right
down the street, or hawking the TPP on television. By that time, CounterPunch and all those
other "illegitimate" publications will have been forced onto the dark web anyway, so I won't be
giving up all that much. I know, that sounds pretty cold and cynical, but my liberal friends
will understand I just hope all my new white supremacist fans will find it in their hearts to
forgive me.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in
Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing
(USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Thank you for mustering the courage and then taking the time to spell out these outrages in a
straightforward, unemotional way. I've appreciated the humor that centers your other essays,
but there's not a damned thing funny about this.
But why are things as they are? With billions aplenty, our rulers must be driven by their
libido dominandi. We're left to wonder only whether they get off more on ostracizing the
Hopkinses, on buying the politicians, or on herding the sheep from bathrooms to statues to
flags.
"... What Whyte ran across was the sub-culture of the workplace as followed by those who set themselves upon a "career path" within a specific organization. The stereotypical examples are those, to quote Whyte , "who have left home spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life. [They adopt an ethic that] rationalizes the organization's demand for fealty and gives those who offer it wholeheartedly a sense of dedication." ..."
"... Today, some private-sector organizations have moved away from the most extreme demands of such conformity, but some other career lines have not, two examples being the military and career party politics. ..."
"... The Power Elite ..."
"... The Organization Man. ..."
"... hose who make their careers within these entities, especially the military and the government, are ideologically conditioned to identify their well-being with the specific goals of their chosen organizations. That means they must bind themselves not only to the goals, but also to the ethics of their workplace. ..."
"... Those who balk are eventually punished and cast out of the organizations. Those who guide these organizations, and essentially decide how rules and ethics will be interpreted and applied, are Mills's "power elite." ..."
"... It may come as a surprise to the reader that party politics as practiced by many of the Western democracies is quite similar. The "power elites" who reside at the top of the so-called greasy pole, holding positions as the head of ruling and contesting parties, are likely to demand the same sort of obedience to orders as any military officer. ..."
"... Rafe explained it this way ..."
"... Leaders of political parties can control their organizations in dictatorial fashion. They have power to reward or punish their party's cohorts in a fashion that can make or break careers. For instance, they control the dispersal of party funds from monies for elections right down to one's office budget; they determine whether a candidate will have to face a primary challenge; they make all committee assignments; they can promote and demote within the party ranks. ..."
"... As Rafe Mair observed, the possibilities for both reward and punishment are almost endless. In this way elected officials become bound to the diktats of their party's leaders. They cannot normally vote their conscience or reliably represent their constituency unless doing so coincides with the desires of their party's leadership. ..."
"... Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest ..."
"... America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood ..."
"... This is an excellent summary of the basis in mentality of what is factually a 21st century version of a fascist regime. Even though two political parties and the shell forms of republican government may exist, the reality is that the parties are factions and the way things operate is via conformity and loyalty to an authoritarian power structure. ..."
Many working-class Americans voted for Donald Trump believing he would address their needs,
not those of rich Republicans. But all pols, it seems, end up conforming to their political
group's priorities, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
By Lawrence Davidson
In 1956, William H. Whyte published a book entitled The Organization Man about
America's societal changes in the post-World War II economy. Basing his findings on a large
number of interviews with CEOs of major American corporations, Whyte concluded that, within the
context of modern organizational structure, American "rugged individualism" had given way to a
"collectivist ethic." Economic success and individual recognition were now pursued within an
institutional structure – that is, by "serving the organization."
Whyte's book was widely read and praised, yet his thesis was not as novel as it seemed.
"Rugged individualism," to the extent that it existed, was (and is) the exception for human
behavior and not the rule. We have evolved to be group-oriented animals and not lone wolves.
This means that the vast majority of us (and certainly not just Americans) live our lives
according to established cultural conventions. These operate on many levels – not just
national patriotism or the customs of family life.
What Whyte ran across was the sub-culture of the workplace as followed by those who set
themselves upon a "career path" within a specific organization. The stereotypical examples are
those,
to quote Whyte , "who have left home spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of
organization life. [They adopt an ethic that] rationalizes the organization's demand for fealty
and gives those who offer it wholeheartedly a sense of dedication."
Today, some private-sector organizations have moved away from the most extreme demands
of such conformity, but some other career lines have not, two examples being the military and
career party politics.
For insight in this we can turn to the sociologist C. Wright Mills , whose famous book
The Power
Elite was published the same year as Whyte's The Organization Man. Mills's
work narrows the world's ruling bureaucracies to government, military and top economic
corporations. T hose who make their careers within these entities, especially the military
and the government, are ideologically conditioned to identify their well-being with the
specific goals of their chosen organizations. That means they must bind themselves not only to
the goals, but also to the ethics of their workplace.
Those who balk are eventually punished and cast out of the organizations. Those who
guide these organizations, and essentially decide how rules and ethics will be interpreted and
applied, are Mills's "power elite."
How this works out in the military is pretty obvious. There is a long tradition of
dedication to duty. At the core of this dedication is a rigid following of orders given by
superiors. This tradition is upheld even if it is suspected that one's superior is
incompetent.
It may come as a surprise to the reader that party politics as practiced by many of the
Western democracies is quite similar. The "power elites" who reside at the top of the so-called
greasy pole, holding positions as the head of ruling and contesting parties, are likely to
demand the same sort of obedience to orders as any military officer.
The Organization Man or Woman in Politics
Running for and holding office in countries like the United States and Canada often requires
one to "take the vows of organization life." Does this support democracy or erode it? Here is
one prescient answer: the way we have structured our party politics has given us "an appalling
political system which is a step-by-step denial of democracy and a solid foundation for a
'soft' dictatorship."
One of the elegant rooms at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. (Photo from
maralagoclub.com)
Those are the words of the late Rafe Mair , a Canadian politician, broadcaster,
author and a good friend of this writer. Rafe spent years in Canadian politics, particularly in
his home province of British Columbia, and his experience led him to the conclusion expressed
above. How does this translate into practice?
Rafe
explained it this way : "In a parliamentary [or other form of representative]
democracy the voter transfers his rights to his member of parliament [congressperson, senator
or state legislator] to exercise on his behalf – the trouble is, by running for his
political party the [elected person, in turn, is led to] assign your [the voter's] rights to
the [party] leader for his exclusive use!"
There is no law that makes the elected official do this. However, the inducements to do so
are very powerful.
Leaders of political parties can control their organizations in dictatorial fashion.
They have power to reward or punish their party's cohorts in a fashion that can make or break
careers. For instance, they control the dispersal of party funds from monies for elections
right down to one's office budget; they determine whether a candidate will have to face a
primary challenge; they make all committee assignments; they can promote and demote within the
party ranks.
As Rafe Mair observed, the possibilities for both reward and punishment are almost
endless. In this way elected officials become bound to the diktats of their party's leaders.
They cannot normally vote their conscience or reliably represent their constituency unless
doing so coincides with the desires of their party's leadership.
I believe we are prisoners of a corrupted "democracy."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
July 13, 2017
The Prisoners of "Democracy"
Screwing the masses was the forte of the political establishment. It did not really matter
which political party was in power, or what name it went under, they all had one ruling
instinct, tax, tax, and more taxes. These rapacious politicians had an endless appetite for
taxes, and also an appetite for giving themselves huge raises, pension plans, expenses, and
all kinds of entitlements. In fact one of them famously said, "He was entitled to his
entitlements." Public office was a path to more, and more largesse all paid for by the
compulsory taxes of the masses that were the prisoners of "democracy."
[more info on this at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/07/the-prisoners-of-democracy.html
Sam F , October 30, 2017 at 11:42 am
Yes, our ertswhile democracy has been completely corrupted. Thanks to Lawrence Davidson,
William Whyte, C. Wright Mills, and Rafe Mair for this consideration of the systemic
corruption of political parties. The diseases of conformity within party organizations are a
nearly inherent problem of democracy.
The improper influence which determines the policies conformed to by parties is the
central problem, and stems largely from influence of the economic Power Elite, directing the
policies to which the Organization Man must be obedient to be chosen. This distortion can be
eliminated by Amendments to the Constitution to restrict funding of mass media and elections
to limited individual contributions.
Our problem is that we cannot make such reforms because those tools of democracy are
already controlled by oligarchy, which never yields power but to superior force. Talk of
justice and peace is not in their language of might makes right, and has no effect
whatsoever. They yielded to the 1964 Civil Rights Act only because their fear of riots in the
streets led them to pretend that MLK et al had been persuasive.
The foreign wars may be stopped by the defeat, isolation, and embargo of the US by foreign
powers. But within the US, the full price of democracy must again be paid the People of the
US. The oligarchy must be defeated by superior force: only those who deny enforcement to
oligarchy and terrify the rich will bring them to yield any power. That is likely to await
more severe recessions and inequities caused by the selfish and irresponsible rich.
mike k , October 30, 2017 at 3:42 pm
You are exactly right Sam F. Unfortunately time is quickly running out for our corrupt
"civilization." The time to cultivate and practice wisdom has passed. The sad truth is that
our goose is cooked; there will be no cavalry showing up to save us. We are now "eating our
karma" and will reap our just deserts. Not because I or anyone say so, but because implacable
laws of nature will now play out. Dominant intellectual species occupy a precarious position
in planetary evolution, and we are on the verge of a great fall – and all the King's
horses and all the King's men will not be able to put our extincting species together again
..
Sam F , October 30, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Your reply touches a responsive chord, in that humanity seems to have made so little
permanent progress in its million years or so, mostly in its last few hundred years, an
insignificant fraction of planetary history. But the history and literature of temporary
progress lost is significant as the repository of ideas for future democracies, at those rare
moments when they are designed.
Our diseased society is but one tree in the forest of democracies. The US is or will be
like the apparently healthy tree that took down my power lines last night, a pretty red oak
with brilliant autumn leaves, but sideways now and blocking the road. But like the leaves on
that tree, we can see the problem and still hope to be as happy as this year's leaves on
healthier trees.
As in what I like to call the universal mind of humanity, individuals may have foresight
and thoughts beyond their apparent functions, which survive in that greater mind of their
thoughts recorded or just passed along, and in that way their learning is not in vain.
Drew Hunkins , October 30, 2017 at 10:34 am
Trump did nix out the TPP and did desire a rapprochement of sorts with Moscow. He also
regularly asserted that he wanted to re-build American manufacturing in the heartland and
wanted to rein in Washington's footprint across the globe. Of course Trump ultimately
capitulated to the militarist Russophobes. One can only put so much stock in campaign
pronouncements, but he did come off as less bellicose than Killary, that was clear to any
fair minded observer.
Trump's also been a nightmare as it comes to workers' rights in general, consumer and
environmental protections and fair taxation as it relates to regressive vs progressive rates.
He was also an Islamophobe when it comes to Iran and fell right in line with Adelson and the
other ZIonist psychopaths.
The most welcoming aspect of Trump was his desire to make peace with Russia, this has been
completely sabotaged by the deep state militarists. This is the reason the Corkers, Flakes
and much of the establishment mass media browbeat and attack him relentlessly. Most of them
ignore what he actually should be admonished for opting for nuclear brinkmanship instead.
exiled off mainstreet , October 30, 2017 at 11:25 am
This is the best description I have seen about Trump's role.
Bob Van Noy , October 30, 2017 at 10:37 am
Thank you CN and Lawrence Davidson for what I think is a accurate explanation of the
failure of our Democracy. I especially like the reference to C. Wright Mills who is a heroic
character for me. I think Mr. Mill's book on the Power Elite was prescient, as was his
thinking in general. He published a little known book "Listen, Yankee" (1960) that was very
insightful about the then current Cuban Revolution. It seems in retrospect that there was
plenty of warning at the time for America to wake up to the goals of Big Government and Big
Business but it was either successfully repressed or ignored by those who might have made a
difference, like Labor. At any rate, C. Wright Mills died too early, because he seemed
uniquely suited to make a difference. His writing remains current, I'll add a link.
I am a big CW Mills fan too. We have had many warnings – now we are going to
experience the fate of those who ignore wisdom.
tina , October 30, 2017 at 10:31 pm
Hey, college UWM 1984- 1987 Mass Comm, I did not graduate , but we studied Mills, Lewis
Mumford, and my favorite, Marshall McLuhan. Also, first time I was introduced to Todd Gitlin
and IF Stone. While I did not pursue a life in journalism, I so appreciate all those who did
the hard work. I still have all my college required reading books from these people, it is
like a set of encyclopedias, only better. And better than the internet. Keep up the work CN ,
I am not that talented, but what you do is important.
First, let me commend Lawrence Davidson for his selection of two of the most insightful
writers of the sixties to use as a springboard for his perceptive essay. A third(John Kenneth
Galbraith) would complete a trilogy of the brilliant academic social analysis of that time.
Galbraith's masterpiece(The Affluent Society) examined the influence of the heavy emphasis
corporate advertising had on American culture and concluded that the economic/social
structure was disproportionately skewed toward GDP(gross domestic product) at the expense of
educational investment. This was in direct contrast with the popular novels and essays of Ayn
Rand, the goddess of greed whose spurious philosophy had come to epitomize the mindset that
continues to plague the globe with the neoliberal ideals that have been reinvented under many
names over time; i.e. laissez faire, trickle down,the Laffer curve, free market economics and
monetarism.
Zachary Smith , October 30, 2017 at 12:17 pm
Usually such claims are themselves no more than campaign hot air. However, in their
ignorance, voters may well respond to such hot air, and the result can be a jump from the
proverbial frying pan into the fire. U.S. voters seem to have taken just such a leap when
they elected Donald Trump president.
Nowhere in this essay are either of the terms "Hillary" or "Clinton" mentioned. U.S.
voters had the choice of a known evil on the "D" side of the ballot, or another person well
understood to be a shallow, self-centered, rich *****. They were going to end up with an
unqualified person either way the voting went. Quite possibly the nod went to Trump because
1) his promises were surely more believable than those of Clinton and 2) Trump wasn't yet the
known destroyer of entire nations.
Describing the predicament of the voters as "ignorance" just isn't fair when looking at
the overall picture.
mike k , October 30, 2017 at 3:50 pm
Yes. Voters were put in a no win situation. That's why I did not participate in the "show"
election.
Realist , October 31, 2017 at 4:33 am
What were Obama's reasons for failing to take a stand, once elected, on all the promises
he made during his campaigns? He mostly gave away the store to the other side, and insulted
his supporters while doing so. Talk about progressives not getting a "win" even after
carrying the elections. Two terms earlier, the media called the contest one of two
"moderates" between Bush and Gore. If that was "moderation" practiced by Dubya, I need a new
dictionary. Most recent elections have been pointless, especially when the Supreme Court
doesn't allow a complete recount of the votes. In a field of 13(!) primary candidates last
year, the GOP could not provide one quality individual. The Dems cheated to make sure the
worst possible of theirs would get the nomination. I see nothing but mental and moral midgets
again on the horizon for 2020. I don't expect Trump to seek re-election. He will have had a
bellyful should he even survive.
I believe what has happened to all of us is: "The Imposition of a New World Order." This
plan has been helped by puppet politicians. Therefore the question must be asked: "Is There
An Open Conspiracy to Control the World'?
[More info on this at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/12/is-there-open-conspiracy-to-control.html
john wilson , October 30, 2017 at 1:00 pm
Stephen: why do you ask the question to which you already know the answer? Yes, we're all
screwed and have been for years. The bankers already control the world and the military make
sure its stays that way.
Very true john wilson. Questions beget answers and information.
cheers Stephen J.
mike k , October 30, 2017 at 3:52 pm
It's like the Purloined Letter by Poe – the truth of our enslavement is so obvious,
that only the deeply brainwashed can fail to see it.
Zachary Smith , October 30, 2017 at 12:48 pm
The parts of The Organization Man I found most interesting were the chapters about
"Testing The Organization Man". The companies were deliberately selecting for people
we currently label Corporate Psychopaths. Whyte suggested memorizing some "attitudes" before
taking one of the tests. Among them:
I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little bit more
I like things pretty much the way they are
I never worry much about anything
I don't care for books or music much
I love my wife and children
I don't let them get in the way of company work
You can substitute any number of things that you won't allow to get in the way of
company work .
Ecology. Laws. Regulations. Integrity. Religion.
"Screw planet Earth. Exxon comes first!" Or "screw Jesus and the horse he rode in on. We
need to cut taxes and balance the budget. People are poor because they're too lazy to get a
job."
mike k , October 30, 2017 at 3:53 pm
Good points. Brainwashing in action revealed.
john wilson , October 30, 2017 at 12:55 pm
Democracy is another word for consensual slavery. In a communist system or a dictatorship
etc you are told you are a slave because you have no voice or choice. In a democracy you do
have a choice and its between one salve master and another. If you vote Democrat you are just
as much a slave to the system as you are if you vote Republican. The possibility of a third
choice which might just free you from your chains, is a fantasy and only there as window
dressing to give democracy some credibility. The term for this dilemma is called being
TOTALLY SCREWED!!
mike k , October 30, 2017 at 3:55 pm
Amen John. You got it right brother.
exiled off mainstreet , October 31, 2017 at 11:01 am
This is an excellent summary of the basis in mentality of what is factually a 21st century
version of a fascist regime. Even though two political parties and the shell forms of
republican government may exist, the reality is that the parties are factions and the way
things operate is via conformity and loyalty to an authoritarian power structure.
"... Another year has passed with no one from a Wall Street bank going to jail for the criminal behavior everyone knows helped cause the financial crisis. Fines against Wall Street banks are reaching $100 billion, but all will be paid by stockholders. Bank CEOs and managers pay no fines and face no prison. ..."
"... There has been no reform -- zilch, nada -- of the credit-rating agencies. They are right back rating securities from issuers who pay them for their ratings. ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq ..."
"... the betrayal of the Sunnis by the Baghdad government the Americans left behind has been crucial to recruiting by the self-proclaimed caliphate. Many of those who had helped crush Al Qaeda in Iraq eight years ago have concluded that no one except ISIS will protect them from Suleimani's fighters and flunkies. ..."
"... To counter Iran in Iraq and prevent the alienation that created ISIS would have required a better ambassador than Hill and a more attentive State Department than the one run by Hillary Clinton. It would have required, perhaps, a thousand Emma Skys. But there was only one of those. And it would have meant many more years of enormous involvement on the ground, but the American people had no taste for that. ..."
Another year has passed with no one from a Wall Street bank going to jail for the
criminal behavior everyone knows helped cause the financial crisis. Fines against Wall Street
banks are reaching $100 billion, but all will be paid by stockholders. Bank CEOs and managers
pay no fines and face no prison.
There has been no reform -- zilch, nada -- of the credit-rating agencies. They are right
back rating securities from issuers who pay them for their ratings.
If you still can't trust the credit-rating on a bond, and if Wall Street's bigs still stand
immune from the law even after the 2008 crash they had played a huge role to cause, then in
what way can the US Government itself be called a 'democracy'?
Kaufman tries to get the American public interested in overcoming the US Government's
profound top-level corruption, but few US politicians join with him on that, because only few
American voters understand that a corrupt government (especially one that's corrupt at the very
top) cannot even possibly be a democratic government.
However, America's aristocracy are even more corrupt than Wall Street itself is, and they
control Wall Street, behind the scenes. And their 'news'media are under strict control to
portray America as being still a democratic country that somehow lives up to its
anti-aristocratic and anti-imperialistic Founders' intentions and Constitution. Maybe all that
remains of those Founders' intentions today is that Britain's aristocracy no longer rules
America -- but America's aristocracy now does, instead. And, this isn't much, if any, of an
improvement.
Although the US aristocracy -- America's billionaires and centi-millionaires -- are the
principals, and Wall Street are only their financial representatives (rather t than the
aristocracy itself), Wall Street was blamed by liberals for the 2008 economic crash; and, of
course, Wall Street
did do lots of dirty work deceiving outside investors and many home buyers and others in order
to extract from the public (including those much smaller investors) the hundreds of
billions of dollars that the US aristocracy and its big-finance agents drew in pay and bonuses
and other ways, from these economic extractions. But the aristocrats themselves emerged
unscathed, even in their reputations, and were mainly financially enriched by the scams, which
had been set-up by Wall Street in order to enrich the investment-insiders (the aristocrats
themselves) at the expense of investment-outsiders, and of the public-at-large. Conservatives
blamed the Government for the crash (as if the Government didn't represent only the aristocracy , but instead
represented the American public). However, liberals blamed Wall Street (the financial agents of
America's aristocracy). And, nobody blamed the aristocracy itself.
America's entire political system, the liberal and the conservative politicians and press,
thus hid, from the public, the role that the principals, the aristocrats themselves, had
played, demanding these crimes from and by their agents. In other words: the top people who had
caused the 2008 crash, didn't only -- and all of them did -- avoid prison entirely, but the
worst that some of them suffered, was only that the financial firms that some of them had
headed, became hit by wrist-slap fines, and that
some of their lower-level employees who had actually executed or carried out the scams are
being prosecuted and might someday be fined or even sent to prison . But neither the
aristocrats nor their financial agents who run Wall Street were punished, either by the law,
nor by their personal reputations. They still are treated in their 'news'media as sages and
'philanthropists', instead of as the nation's most-successful organized gangsters.
US President Barack Obama himself protected the top Wall Street people, but, because he was
a liberal -- i.e., a conservative who is hypocritical enough to damn conservatism in public;
or, in other words, a conservative who misrepresents what he is -- he publicly condemned, in
vague terms, "the
abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis" , even
while he had his Administration prosecute
none of them , and even while he assured Wall Street's top people privately "I'm protecting
you." Obama had told the Wall Street bigs, near the start of his regime, on 27 March 2009, in
private, inside the White House:
"My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. I'm not out there to go
after you. I'm protecting you. I'm going to shield you." And that's what he did. To him,
the public were just "pitchforks," like the KKK bigots who had chased Blacks with pitchforks
and lynched them during the early 20th Century were. The heads of Wall Street firms that were
being bailed-out by US taxpayers were persecuted victims of the public, in that US President's
eyes. To them, the public are merely a mob.
And, on 20 September 2016, Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America's Future, headlined
"Banks
Used Low Wages, Job Insecurity To Force Employees To Commit Fraud" ; so, there was no way
that the employees could keep their jobs except to do the crimes that they were being virtually
forced by their bosses to do. The criminality was actually at the very top -- even above where
Obama had promised "I'm protecting you," which was directed instead only to the Wall Street
bigs, and not to the billionaires they served. And even those people mainly weren't
billionaires at all; they were mainly just top financial agents for the billionaires, grasping
to join the aristocracy. Obama, like they, represented the billionaires, though as a
politician; and, so, he talked publicly against some of these agents, basically against
Republican ones, in order to keep the votes of Democrats -- he just kept suckering the
liberals, the Democratic Party of the US aristocracy's voters.
The aristocracy's 'news'media present the storyline that the billionaires and
centi-millionaires were merely among the many victims of the scams that had produced the 2008
crash; but there is a problem with that storyline: the Government bailed-out those giant
investors, because those were overwhelmingly the investors in "Strategically Important
Financial Institutions" -- not in medium and small-sized ones, not in merely community
banks, but in the giant banks and insurers.
These mega-investors were the controlling interests in America's international corporations.
They consequently controlled US Government politics and political fundraising.
The entire system, both private and public, was thus controlled by the aristocracy; and, so,
even now a decade after the crash, the responsible aristocrats remain at the very top, both
financially and in terms of prestige, and the statutes-of-limitations on possible prosecutions
of decisions they had made which had actually produced the crash, have expired, so that these
individuals can't be prosecuted, not even if an honest person were elected to the White House
and were to become supported by an honest Congress. "Equal Justice Under Law" -- this certainly
isn't that, nor anything close to it. In fact, America has the world's highest percentage of
its population in prison of any country, but aristocrats never end up there unless the
aristocrat is a drug-kingpin, and even those are rarely prosecuted, even though their
underlings are. And, how can such a nation as this, be called a "democracy"? But it's not only a dictatorship ; it is
an imperial one: Obama himself said many times, such as
on 28 May 2014 , "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation," which
means that every other nation was "dispensable" to him; and, any foreign aristocracy
-- and any democracy (if such any longer exists) -- will therefore be either a vassal-nation,
or else "the enemy," and thus be destroyed, at the sole discretion of America's (and its
allied) aristocracies.
For example, to George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein was "the enemy" and Iraq was "dispensable"
(to use Obama's term); and, to Obama, Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad, and Viktor
Yanukovych, were "enemies," and those nations also were "dispensable." During earlier eras,
Mohammed Mosaddegh, and Jacobo Arbenz, and Salvador Allende, were "enemies," whose governments
were, in their own times, "dispensable," and so the US aristocracy replaced them by
US-Government-selected tyrants. (Assad, however, was able to stay in power, not only because he
had the support of the majority of Syrians, but because Russia decided to protect Syria's
national sovereignty -- to make its firm stand, there, not allow that ally, too, to fall by
means of an American invasion, as Ukraine had fallen by means of an American coup in 2014.)
Trump seems to think that Iran and North Korea are especially "dispensable" (again, using
Obama's term).
Trump came to power promising opposition against the US aristocracy; but, instead, he's on
the attack against Obama's least-bad policies, while trying to out-do Obama's worst policies
(such as by his cancelling the Iran deal, and by his trying to destroy Obamacare and the Paris
Climate Agreement). If Obama turned out to be a Democratic George W. Bush, then perhaps Trump
will turn out to be a Republican Barack Obama, and this will be the 'bipartisanship' that US
voters say they want. But the polls don't show that America's electorate
actually want the type of 'bipartisanship' that the US aristocracy are delivering, via
the nonstop neoconservatism of Bush, and then of Obama, and then (perhaps too) of Trump. The
aristocracy are neoconservative (or "imperialistic," to employ the Continental term for it);
and, though the public don't even know what that means, bipartisan neoconservatism always bring
on yet more invasions and wars, which lower the welfare of the public, even while the welfare
of the aristocrats goes up from it. The public just don't know this.
A good example, recently, of how the US aristocracy deceive the US public, to accept such a
barbaric Government (a neoconservative regime) is the uniform neoconservatism of both the
Democratic and the Republican Parties, and of their respective 'news'media, this uniform
neoconservatism that's being reflected by the almost simultaneous publication in the
Establishment's own
Foreign Affairs (from the Council on Foreign Relations), and from the British
Guardian
that's now controlled by George Soros and US and-affiliated international corporations, and
also from the US military-industrial complex's bipartisan neoconservative propaganda-organ
The Atlantic , and also from the
neoconservative Vox online
'news'-site . In all of these 'news'media, almost on the very same day, are being published
articles by, and interviews of, Ms. Emma Sky, a thoroughly undistinguished and
undistinguishable neoconservative "intellectual" (CFR, Yale, Harvard, Oxford, Officer of the
British Empire, etc.), who, with no demonstrated outstanding abilities, but only with the
hypocrisy and callousness that aristocrats tend to seek out in those whom they select to
execute their dirty-work, graduated from an elite college and then (without needing to obtain
any higher academic or other degree, and with no record of personal achievement at anything)
went virtually straight into advising governments and serving as the US
invading and occupying General David Petraeus 's (the US torture-meister
's) right-hand political advisor in Iraq, with the title of "Governorate Co-ordinator of Kirkuk for the
Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003-2004" , and, then, ultimately, as "advisor to the
Commanding General of US Forces in Iraq from 2007-2010," before bec oming widely published in
the US empire's various 'news'media, with not only these hypocritical articles from her that
were linked-to at those four publications, but also books, all of them being standard discreet
neoconservative fare, 'compassionately' gung-ho on the US empire, and especially rabid against
Iran, because Iranians in 1953 had voted for Mohammed Mosaddegh as Prime Minister, who promptly
passed a land-reform act, and nationalized the UK aristocracy's Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,
after which the US CIA engineered a coup overthrowing him, grabbing Iran's oil, and
establishing in Iran the Pahlevi Shah's brutal dictatorship with torture-chambers, which
dictatorship Ms. Sky evidently wants restored in some form to Iran, perhaps as punishment to
the Iranian people, for having stood up against the American invaders and occupiers, in 1953.
Such people are PR agents, not really journalists or historians -- of anything. But,
apparently, readers find their misrepresentations to be tolerable; so, at least her propaganda
isn't amateurish. If only readers would just ask themselves the type of question that the
victims of these invasions might likely ask, then the true character of such writers would
become horrendously and immediately clear: "What right do you have to be invading and occupying
our land?"
No one can understand the reality on the basis of the West's honored 'historians' and
'journalists', because they're propagandists for the imperial system, which used to be British
but now is American. The neoconservative New York Times Sunday Book Review section
published, on 12 July 2015, a review from the neoconservative Christopher Dickey, the Foreign
Editor of the neoconservative The Daily Beast 'news'-site, of the neoconservative Emma Sky's
book The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq . He presented Iran
as being America's enemy-in-chief, and presented especially "Qassim Suleimani, the head of
Iran's Quds Force, the section of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for covert and overt
operations in Lebanon, Syria and, above all, Iraq" as being America's enemy; and he wrote that:
the betrayal of the Sunnis by the Baghdad government the Americans left behind has been
crucial to recruiting by the self-proclaimed caliphate. Many of those who had helped crush
Al Qaeda in Iraq eight years ago have concluded that no one except ISIS will protect them from
Suleimani's fighters and flunkies.
To counter Iran in Iraq and prevent the alienation that created ISIS would have required
a better ambassador than Hill and a more attentive State Department than the one run by Hillary
Clinton. It would have required, perhaps, a thousand Emma Skys. But there was only one of
those. And it would have meant many more years of enormous involvement on the ground, but the
American people had no taste for that.
"... "[T]he majority of students had no idea that algorithms were filtering the news content they saw on Facebook and Google. When asked if Facebook shows every news item, posted by organizations or people, in a users' newsfeed, only 24 percent of those surveyed were aware that Facebook prioritizes certain posts and hides others. Similarly, only a quarter of respondents said Google search results would be different for two different people entering the same search terms at the same time" ..."
"Platforms are not strategies, and they won't save news" [Mary Hamilton, Medium
]. "Seriously. If someone else's algorithm change could kill your traffic and/or your business
model, then you're already dead."
"Building trust online by partnering with the International Fact Checking Network" [
Google ]. Google (and Facebook) have more money than God. How come they have to outsource
this stuff? Nevertheless: "Today we're announcing a new partnership with the International Fact-Checking Network
(IFCN) at The Poynter Institute. As a nonpartisan organization, IFCN is committed to promoting
excellence in fact checking and building a community of fact checkers around the world. IFCN
has developed a widely accepted Code of Principles for fact check organizations. Signatories
range from the Associated Press to the Washington Post, PolitiFact and Factcheck.org, to
Correctiv (Germany), Aos Fatos (Brazil), and Africa Check."
"[T]he majority of students had no idea that algorithms were filtering the news content they
saw on Facebook and Google. When asked if Facebook shows every news item, posted by
organizations or people, in a users' newsfeed, only 24 percent of those surveyed were aware
that Facebook prioritizes certain posts and hides others. Similarly, only a quarter of
respondents said Google search results would be different for two different people entering the
same search terms at the same time" [
The Atlantic ].
"... Google is algorithmically burying leftist news and opinion sources such as Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News, and Truthout, among others. ..."
"... my political essays are often reposted by right-wing and, yes, even pro-Russia blogs. I get mail from former Sanders supporters, Trump supporters, anarchists, socialists, former 1960s radicals, anti-Semites, and other human beings, some of whom I passionately agree with, others of whom I passionately disagree with. As far as I can tell from the emails, none of these readers voted for Clinton, or Macron, or supported the TPP, or the debt-enslavement and looting of Greece, or the ongoing restructuring of the Greater Middle East (and all the lovely knock-on effects that has brought us), or believe that Trump is a Russian operative, or that Obama is Martin Luther Jesus-on-a-stick. ..."
"... What they share, despite their opposing views, is a general awareness that the locus of power in our post-Cold War age is primarily corporate, or global capitalist, and neoliberal in nature. They also recognize that they are being subjected to a massive propaganda campaign designed to lump them all together (again, despite their opposing views) into an intentionally vague and undefinable category comprising anyone and everyone, everywhere, opposing the hegemony of global capitalism, and its non-ideological ideology (the nature of which I'll get into in a moment). ..."
"... Although the term has been around since the Fifth Century BC, the concept of "extremism" as we know it today developed in the late Twentieth Century and has come into vogue in the last three decades. During the Cold War, the preferred exonymics were "subversive," "radical," or just plain old "communist," all of which terms referred to an actual ideological adversary. ..."
"... Which is why, despite the "Russiagate" hysteria the media have been barraging us with, the West is not going to war with Russia. Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed countries, whose economies are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies. The economies of every developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature of the global hegemony I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global capitalist hegemony. Systemic, supranational hegemony (which I like to prefer "the Corporatocracy," as it sounds more poetic and less post-structural). ..."
"... Global capitalism, since the end of the Cold War (i.e, immediately after the end of the Cold War), has been conducting a global clean-up operation, eliminating actual and potential insurgencies, mostly in the Middle East, but also in its Western markets. Having won the last ideological war, like any other victorious force, it has been "clear-and-holding" the conquered territory, which in this case happens to be the whole planet. Just for fun, get out a map, and look at the history of invasions, bombings, and other "interventions" conducted by the West and its assorted client states since 1990. Also, once you're done with that, consider how, over the last fifteen years, most Western societies have been militarized, their citizens placed under constant surveillance, and an overall atmosphere of "emergency" fostered, and paranoia about "the threat of extremism" propagated by the corporate media. ..."
"... Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know, violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its ruthless interests. The world will become increasingly "normal." The scourge of "extremism" and "terrorism" will persist, as will the general atmosphere of "emergency." There will be no more Trumps, Brexit referendums, revolts against the banks, and so on. Identity politics will continue to flourish, providing a forum for leftist activist types (and others with an unhealthy interest in politics), who otherwise might become a nuisance, but any and all forms of actual dissent from global capitalist ideology will be systematically marginalized and pathologized. ..."
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
"... That is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting proles. They've painted themselves into a corner with non-white identity politics combined with mass immigration. The logical conclusion of where they're going is pogroms and none of the kleptocracy seem bold enough to try and stop this from happening. ..."
"... Germany is the last EU member state where an anti EU party entered parliament. In the last French elections four out of every ten voters voted on anti EU parties. In Austria the anti EU parties now have a majority. So if I were leading a big corporation, thriving by globalism, what also the EU is, I would be worried. ..."
"... This is a great article. The author's identification of "normality" & "extremism" as Capitalism's go-to concepts for social control is spot on accurate. That these terms can mean anything or nothing & are infinitely flexible is central to their power. ..."
Back in October of 2016, I wrote
a somewhat divisive essay in which I suggested that political dissent is being systematically
pathologized. In fact, this process has been ongoing for decades, but it has been significantly accelerated
since the Brexit referendum and the Rise of Trump (or, rather, the Fall of Hillary Clinton, as it
was Americans' lack of enthusiasm for eight more years of corporatocracy with a sugar coating of
identity politics, and not their enthusiasm for Trump, that mostly put the clown in office.)
In the twelve months since I wrote that piece, we have been subjected to a concerted campaign
of corporate media propaganda for which there is no historical precedent. Virtually every major organ
of the Western media apparatus (the most powerful propaganda machine in the annals of powerful propaganda
machines) has been relentlessly churning out variations on a new official ideological narrative designed
to generate and enforce conformity. The gist of this propaganda campaign is that "Western democracy"
is under attack by a confederacy of Russians and white supremacists, as well as "the terrorists"
and other "extremists" it's been under attack by for the last sixteen years.
I've been writing about this campaign for a year now, so I'm not going to rehash all the details.
Suffice to say we've gone from
Russian operatives hacking the American elections to "Russia-linked" persons "apparently" setting
up "illegitimate" Facebook accounts, "likely operated out of Russia," and publishing ads that are
"indistinguishable from legitimate political speech" on the Internet. This is what the corporate
media is presenting as evidence of
"an unprecedented foreign invasion of American democracy," a handful of political ads on Facebook.
In addition to the Russian hacker propaganda, since August, we have also been treated to relentless
white supremacist hysteria and daily reminders from the corporate media that
"white nationalism is destroying the West." The negligible American neo-Nazi subculture has been
blown up into a biblical Behemoth inexorably slouching its way towards the White House to officially
launch the Trumpian Reich.
At the same time, government and corporate entities have been aggressively restricting (and in
many cases eliminating) fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of the
press, the right of assembly, the right to privacy, and the right to due process under the law. The
justification for this curtailment of rights (which started in earnest in 2001, following the September
11 attacks) is protecting the public from the threat of "terrorism," which apparently shows no signs
of abating. As of now, the United States has been in
a State of Emergency for over sixteen years. The UK is in
a virtual State of Emergency . France is now in the process of enshrining
its permanent State of Emergency into law. Draconian counter-terrorism measures have been
implemented throughout the EU . Not just
the notorious American police but
police
throughout the West have been militarized . Every other day we learn of some
new emergency security measure designed to keep us safe from "the terrorists," the "lone wolf
shooters," and other "extremists."
Conveniently, since the Brexit referendum and unexpected election of Trump (which is when the
capitalist ruling classes first recognized that they had a widespread nationalist backlash on their
hands), the definition of "terrorism" (or, more broadly, "extremism") has been expanded to include
not just Al Qaeda, or ISIS, or whoever we're calling "the terrorists" these days, but anyone else
the ruling classes decide they need to label "extremists." The FBI has designated Black Lives Matter
"Black Identity Extremists." The FBI and the DHS have designated Antifa
"domestic terrorists."
Whatever your opinion of these organizations and "extremist" persons is beside the point. I'm
not a big fan of neo-Nazis, personally, but neither am I a fan of Antifa. I don't have much use for
conspiracy theories, or a lot of the nonsense one finds on the Internet, but I consume a fair amount
of alternative media, and I publish in CounterPunch, The Unz Review, ColdType, and other non-corporate
journals.
I consider myself a leftist, basically, but my political essays are often reposted by right-wing
and, yes, even pro-Russia blogs. I get mail from former Sanders supporters, Trump supporters, anarchists,
socialists, former 1960s radicals, anti-Semites, and other human beings, some of whom I passionately
agree with, others of whom I passionately disagree with. As far as I can tell from the emails, none
of these readers voted for Clinton, or Macron, or supported the TPP, or the debt-enslavement and
looting of Greece, or the ongoing restructuring of the Greater Middle East (and all the lovely knock-on
effects that has brought us), or believe that Trump is a Russian operative, or that Obama is Martin
Luther Jesus-on-a-stick.
What they share, despite their opposing views, is a general awareness that the locus of power
in our post-Cold War age is primarily corporate, or global capitalist, and neoliberal in nature.
They also recognize that they are being subjected to a massive propaganda campaign designed to lump
them all together (again, despite their opposing views) into an intentionally vague and undefinable
category comprising anyone and everyone, everywhere, opposing the hegemony of global capitalism,
and its non-ideological ideology (the nature of which I'll get into in a moment).
As I wrote in that essay a year ago, "a line is being drawn in the ideological sand." This line
cuts across both Left and Right, dividing what the capitalist ruling classes designate "normal" from
what they label "extremist." The traditional ideological paradigm, Left versus Right, is disappearing
(except as a kind of minstrel show), and is being replaced, or overwritten, by a pathological
paradigm based upon the concept of "extremism."
* * *
Although the term has been around since the Fifth Century BC, the concept of "extremism" as
we know it today developed in the late Twentieth Century and has come into vogue in the last three
decades. During the Cold War, the preferred exonymics were "subversive," "radical," or just plain
old "communist," all of which terms referred to an actual ideological adversary.
In the early 1990s, as the U.S.S.R. disintegrated, and globalized Western capitalism became the
unrivaled global-hegemonic ideological system that it is today, a new concept was needed to represent
the official enemy and its ideology. The concept of "extremism" does that perfectly, as it connotes,
not an external enemy with a definable ideological goal, but rather, a deviation from the norm. The
nature of the deviation (e.g., right-wing, left-wing, faith-based, and so on) is secondary, almost
incidental. The deviation itself is the point. The "terrorist," the "extremist," the "white supremacist,"
the "religious fanatic," the "violent anarchist" these figures are not rational actors whose ideas
we need to intellectually engage with in order to debate or debunk. They are pathological deviations,
mutant cells within the body of "normality," which we need to identify and eliminate, not for ideological
reasons, but purely in order to maintain "security."
A truly global-hegemonic system like contemporary global capitalism (the first of this kind in
human history), technically, has no ideology. "Normality" is its ideology an ideology which erases
itself and substitutes the concept of what's "normal," or, in other words, "just the way it is."
The specific characteristics of "normality," although not quite arbitrary, are ever-changing. In
the West, for example, thirty years ago, smoking was normal. Now, it's abnormal. Being gay was abnormal.
Now, it's normal. Being transgender is becoming normal, although we're still in the early stages
of the process. Racism has become abnormal. Body hair is currently abnormal. Walking down the street
in a semi-fugue state robotically thumbing the screen of a smartphone that you just finished thumbing
a minute ago is "normal." Capitalism has no qualms with these constant revisions to what is considered
normal, because none of them are threats to capitalism. On the contrary, as far as values are concerned,
the more flexible and commodifiable the better.
See, despite what intersectionalists will tell you, capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny,
homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these
values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we
have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't
much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture
or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every
object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will
bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value.
Yes, we all want there to be other values, and we pretend there are, but there aren't, not really.
Although we're free to enjoy parochial subcultures based on alternative values (i.e., religious bodies,
the arts, and so on), these subcultures operate within capitalist society, and ultimately conform
to its rules. In the arts, for example, works are either commercial products, like any other commodity,
or they are subsidized by what could be called "the simulated aristocracy," the ivy league-educated
leisure classes (and lower class artists aspiring thereto) who need to pretend that they still have
"culture" in order to feel superior to the masses. In the latter case, this feeling of superiority
is the upscale product being sold. In the former, it is entertainment, distraction from the depressing
realities of living, not in a society at all, but in a marketplace with no real human values. (In
the absence of any real cultural values, there is no qualitative difference between Gerhard
Richter and Adam Sandler, for example. They're both successful capitalist artists. They're just selling
their products in different markets.)
The fact that it has no human values is the evil genius of global capitalist society. Unlike the
despotic societies it replaced, it has no allegiance to any cultural identities, or traditions, or
anything other than money. It can accommodate any form of government, as long as it plays ball with
global capitalism. Thus, the window dressing of "normality" is markedly different from country to
country, but the essence of "normality" remains the same. Even in countries with state religions
(like Iran) or state ideologies (like China), the governments play by the rules of global capitalism
like everyone else. If they don't, they can expect to receive a visit from global capitalism's Regime
Change Department (i.e., the US military and its assorted partners).
Which is why, despite the "Russiagate" hysteria the media have been barraging us with, the
West is not going to war with Russia. Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed
countries, whose economies are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies.
The economies of every developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature
of the global hegemony I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global
capitalist hegemony. Systemic, supranational hegemony (which I like to prefer "the Corporatocracy,"
as it sounds more poetic and less post-structural).
We haven't really got our minds around it yet, because we're still in the early stages of it,
but we have entered an epoch in which historical events are primarily being driven, and societies
reshaped, not by sovereign nation states acting in their national interests but by supranational
corporations acting in their corporate interests. Paramount among these corporate interests is the
maintenance and expansion of global capitalism, and the elimination of any impediments thereto. Forget
about the United States (i.e., the actual nation state) for a moment, and look at what's been happening
since the early 1990s. The US military's "disastrous misadventures" in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan,
Syria, and the former Yugoslavia, among other exotic places (which have obviously had nothing to
do with the welfare or security of any actual Americans), begin to make a lot more sense.
Global capitalism, since the end of the Cold War (i.e, immediately after the end of the Cold
War), has been conducting a global clean-up operation, eliminating actual and potential insurgencies,
mostly in the Middle East, but also in its Western markets. Having won the last ideological war,
like any other victorious force, it has been
"clear-and-holding" the
conquered territory, which in this case happens to be the whole planet. Just for fun, get out a map,
and look at the history of invasions, bombings, and other "interventions" conducted by the West and
its assorted client states since 1990. Also, once you're done with that, consider how, over the last
fifteen years, most Western societies have been militarized, their citizens placed under constant
surveillance, and an overall atmosphere of "emergency" fostered, and paranoia about "the threat of
extremism" propagated by the corporate media.
I'm not suggesting there's a bunch of capitalists sitting around in a room somewhere in their
shiny black top hats planning all of this. I'm talking about systemic development, which is a little
more complex than that, and much more difficult to intelligently discuss because we're used to perceiving
historico-political events in the context of competing nation states, rather than competing ideological
systems or non-competing ideological systems, for capitalism has no competition . What it
has, instead, is a variety of insurgencies, the faith-based Islamic fundamentalist insurgency and
the neo-nationalist insurgency chief among them. There will certainly be others throughout the near
future as global capitalism consolidates control and restructures societies according to its values.
None of these insurgencies will be successful.
Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know,
violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its ruthless
interests. The world will become increasingly "normal." The scourge of "extremism" and "terrorism"
will persist, as will the general atmosphere of "emergency." There will be no more Trumps, Brexit
referendums, revolts against the banks, and so on. Identity politics will continue to flourish, providing
a forum for leftist activist types (and others with an unhealthy interest in politics), who otherwise
might become a nuisance, but any and all forms of actual dissent from global capitalist ideology
will be systematically marginalized and pathologized.
This won't happen right away, of course. Things are liable to get ugly first (as if they weren't
ugly enough already), but probably not in the way we're expecting, or being trained to expect by
the corporate media. Look, I'll give you a dollar if it turns out I'm wrong, and the Russians, terrorists,
white supremacists, and other "extremists" do bring down "democracy" and launch their Islamic, white
supremacist, Russo-Nazi Reich, or whatever, but from where I sit it looks pretty clear tomorrow belongs
to the Corporatocracy.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin.
His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut
novel,
ZONE
23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at
cjhopkins.com or
consentfactory.org .
Brilliant Article. But this has been going on for nearly a century or more. New York Jewish bankers
fund the Bolshevik revolution which gets rid of the Romanov dynasty and many of the revolutionaries
are not even Russian. What many people do not know is that many Western companies invested money
in Bolshevik Russia as the Bolsheviks were speeding up the modernising of the country. What many
do not know is that Feminism, destruction of families and traditional societies, homoerotic art
etc . was forced on the new Soviet population in a shock therapy sort of way. The same process
has been implemented in the West by the elites using a much slower 'boiling the frog' method using
Cultural Marxism. The aim of the Soviet Union was to spread Communism around the World and hence
bring about the One World Government as wished by the globalists. Their national anthem was the
'Internationale'. The globalists were funding revolutionary movements throughout Europe and other
parts of the world. One such attempt went extremely wrong and that was in Germany where instead
of the Communists coming in power, the National Socialists come in power which was the most dangerous
challenge faced by the Zio/globalists/elite gang. The Globalists force a war using false flag
events like Pearl Harbour etc and crushed the powers which challenged their rule i.e. Germany,
Japan and Italy. That is why Capitalist USA funded Communist Soviet Union using the land lease
program, which on the surface never makes any sense.
However in Soviet Russia, a power struggle leads to Stalin destroying the old Communist order
of Lenin Trotsky. Trotsky and his supporters leave the Soviet Union. Many of the present Neo Cons
are ex Trotskyites and hence the crazy hatred for Russia even today in American politics. These
Neocons do not have any principles, they will use any ideology such as Communism, Islam, twisted
Western Conservatism anything to attain their global goals.
Now with Stalin coming to power, things actually improved and the war with Hitler's Third Reich
gave Stalin the chance to purge many old school globalist commies and then the Soviet Union went
towards a more nationalist road. Jews slowly started losing their hold on power with Russians
and eventually other Soviets gaining more powerful positions. These folks found the ugly modern
art culture of the early Soviet period revolting and started a new movement where the messages
of Socialism can be delivered with more healthy beautiful art and culture. This process was called
'Social Realism'. So strangely what happened was that the Capitalist Christian West was becoming
more and more less traditional with time (Cultural Marxism/Fabien Socialism via media, education,
Hollywood) while the Eastern block was slowly moving in an opposite direction. The CIA (which
is basically the intelligence agency arm of Wall Street Bankers) was working to stop this 'Social
Realism' movement.
These same globalists also funded Mao and pulled the rug under Chiang Kai Shek who they were
supporting earlier. Yes, Mao was funded by the Rockerfeller/ Rothschild Cabal. Now, even if the
Globalists were not happy with Stalin gaining power in the Soviet Union (they preferred the internationalist
Trotskyites), they still found that they could work out with the Soviet Union. That is why during
the 2nd World war, the USA supports the USSR with money and material, Stalin gets a facelift as
'friendly Uncle Joe' for the Western audience. Many Cossack families who had escaped the Soviet
Union to the West were sent to their deaths after the War to the Soviet Union. Why? Mr. Eden of
Britain who could not stand Hitler wanted a New World Order where they could work with the more
murderous Soviet Union.
Now we have the cold war. What is not known is that behind the scenes at a higher level, the
Americans and the Soviets cooperated with each other exchanging technology, basically the cold
war was quite fake. But the Cold war gave the American government (basically the Globalists) to
take American Tax payers hard earned money to fund many projects such as Star Wars programme etc
All this was not needed, as a gentleman named Keenan had shown in his book that all the Americans
needed to do was to make sure Japan, Germany and Britain did not fall to the Soviets, that's it.
Thus trillions of American tax payer money would be saved. But obviously the Military Industrial
Complex did not like that idea. Both the Soviet and the American governments got the excuse spend
their people's hard money on weapons research as well as exchanging some of that technology in
the back ground. It is during this period that the precursor to the Internet was already developed.
Many of the technology we use today was already invented much earlier by government agencies but
released to the people later.
Then we have the Vietnam war. Now you must realise that the Globalist government of America
uses wars not only to change enemy societies but also the domestic society in the West. So during
the Vietnam War, the US government using the alphabet agencies such as the CIA kick start the
fake opposition hippie movements. The CIA not only drugged the Vietnamese population using drugs
from the Golden Triangle but later released them on the home population in the USA and the West.
This was all part of the Cultural Marxist plan to change or social engineer American/ Western
society. Many institutes like the Travestock Institute were part of this process. For example
one of the main hochos of the Cultural Marxism, a Mr. Aderno was closely related to the Beatles
movement.
Several experiments was done on mind control such as MK Ultra, monarch programming, Edward
Bernay's works etc Their aim was to destroy traditional Western society and the long term goal
is a New World Order. Blacks for example were used as weapons against Whites at the same time
the black social order was destroyed further via the media etc
Now, Nixon going to China was to start a long term (long planned) process to bring about Corporate
Communism. Yes that is going to be economic system in the coming New World Order. China is the
test tube, where the Worst of Communism and the Worst of Crony Capitalism be brought together
as an experiment. As the Soviet Union was going in a direction, the globalist was not happy about
(it was becoming more nationalist), they worked to bring the Soviet Union down and thus the Soviet
experiment ended only to be continued in China.
NATO today is the core military arm of the globalists, a precursor to a One World Military
Force. That explains why after the Warsaw pact was dismantled, NATO was not or why NATO would
interfere in the Middle East which is far away from the Atlantic Ocean.
The coming Cashless society will finally lead to a moneyless or distribution society, in other
words Communism, that is the long term plan.
My point is, many of the geo political events as well as social movements of the last century
(feminism for example) were all planned for a long time and are not accidents. The coming technologies
like the internet of things, 5G technology, Cashless society, biometric identification everywhere
etc are all designed to help bring about the final aim of the globalists. The final aim is a one
world government with Corporate ruled Communism where we, the worker bees will be living in our
shitty inner city like ghetto homes eating GM plastic foods and listening to crappy music. That
is the future they have planned for us. A inner city ghetto like place under Communism ruled by
greedy evil corporates.
"Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know,
violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its
ruthless interests."
That is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical
of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting
proles. They've painted themselves into a corner with non-white identity politics combined with
mass immigration. The logical conclusion of where they're going is pogroms and none of the kleptocracy
seem bold enough to try and stop this from happening.
That is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical
of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting
proles.
There must be some evidence for your assertions about the long term plans and aims of globalists
and others if there is truth in them. The sort of people you are referring to would often have
kept private diaries and certainly written many hundreds or thousands of letters. Can you give
any references to such evidence of say 80 to 130 years ago?
.. puzzling that the writer feels the need to virtue-signal by saying he "doesn't have much
time for conspiracy theories" while condemning an absolutely massive conspiracy to present establishment
lies as truth.
That is one of the most depressing demonstrations of the success of the ruling creeps that
I have yet come across.
Germany is the last EU member state where an anti EU party entered parliament. In the last
French elections four out of every ten voters voted on anti EU parties. In Austria the anti EU
parties now have a majority. So if I were leading a big corporation, thriving by globalism, what
also the EU is, I would be worried.
"See, despite what intersectionalists will tell you, capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny,
homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these
values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which
we have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which
isn't much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of
human culture or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything,
everyone, every object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what
the market will bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value."
This is a great article. The author's identification of "normality" & "extremism" as Capitalism's
go-to concepts for social control is spot on accurate. That these terms can mean anything or nothing
& are infinitely flexible is central to their power.
Mr Hopkins is also correct when he points out that Capitalism has essentially NO values (exchange
value is a value, but also a mechanism). Again, Capitalism stands for nothing: any form of government
is acceptable as long as it bows to neoliberal markets.
However, the author probably goes to far:
"Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed countries, whose economies
are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies. The economies of every
developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature of the global hegemony
I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global capitalist hegemony.
Systemic, supranational hegemony".
Capitalism has no values: however the Masters of the capitalist system most certainly do: Capitalism
is a means, the most thorough, profound means yet invented, for the attainment of that value which
has NO exchange value: POWER.
Capitalism is a supranational hegemony – yet the Elites which control it, who will act as one
when presented with any external threats to Capitalism itself, are not unified internally. Indeed,
they will engage in cut throat competition, whether considered as individuals or nations or as
particular industries.
US Imperialism is not imaginary, it is not a mere appearance or mirage of Capitalism, supranational
or not. US Imperialism in essence empowers certain sets of Capitalists over other sets. No, they
may not purposely endanger the System as a whole, however, that still leaves plenty of space for
aggressive competition, up to & including war.
Imperialism is the political corollary to the ultimate economic goal of the individual Capitalist:
Monopoly.
Psychologically daring (being no minstrel to corporatocracy nor irrelevant activism and other
"religions" that endorse the current world global system as the overhead), rationally correct,
relevant, core definition of the larger geo-world and deeper "ideological" grounding( in the case
of capitalism the quite shallow brute forcing of greed as an incentive, as sterile a society as
possible), and adhering to longer timelines of reality of planet earth. Perfectly captures the
"essence" of the dynamics of our times.
The few come to the authors' through-sites by many venue-ways, that's where some of the corporocratic
world, by sheer statistics wind up also. Why do they not get the overhand into molding the shallow
into anything better in the long haul. No world leader, no intellectual within power circles,
even within confined quarters, speaks to the absurdity of the ongoing slugging and maltering of
global human?
The elites of now are too dumb to consider the planet exo-human as a limited resource. Immigration,
migration, is the de facto path to "normalization" in the terms of the author. Reducing the world
population is not "in" the capitalist ideology. A major weakness, or if one prefers the stake
that pinches the concept of capitalism: more instead of quality principles.
The game changers, the possible game changers: eugenics and how they play out as to the elites
( understanding the genome and manipulating it), artificial intelligence ( defining it first,
not the "Elon Musk" definition), and as a far outlier exo-planetary arguments.
Confront the above with the "unexpected", the not-human engineered possible events (astroids
and the like, secondary effects of human induced toxicity, others), and the chances to get to
the author's "dollar" and what it by then might mean is indeed tiny.
As to the content, one of the utmost relevant articles, it is "art" to condense such broad
a world view into a few words, it requires a deep understanding foremost, left to wonder what
can be grasped by most reading above. Some-one try the numbers?, "big data" anyone, they might
turn out in favor of what the author undoubtedly absorbed as the nucleus of twenty-first thinking,
strategy and engineering.
This kind of thinking and "Harvard" conventionality, what a distance.
Great article, spot on. Indeed we are all at the mercy now of a relatively small clique of ruthless
criminals who are served by armies of desensitized, stupid mercenaries: MBAs, politicians, thugs,
college professors, "whorenalists", etc. I am afraid that the best answer to the current and future
dystopia is what the Germans call "innere Emigration," to psychologically detach oneself
from the contemporary world.
Thus, the only way out of this hellhole is through reading and thinking, which every self-respecting
individual should engage in. Shun most contemporary "literature" and instead turn to the classics
of European culture: there you will find all you need.
For an earlier and ever so pertinent analysis of the contemporary desert, I can heartily recommend
Umberto Galimberti's I vizi capitali e i nuovi vizi (Milan, 2003).
And yes, another verbally strong expression of the in your face truth, though for so few to
grasp. The author again has a deep understanding, if one prefers, it points to the venueway of
coming to terms, the empirical pathway as to the understanding.
"Plasticky" society is my preferred term for designating the aberrance that most (within the
elites), the rest who cares (as an historical truth), do not seem to identify as proper cluelessness
in the light of longer timelines. The current global ideology, religion of capitalism-democracy
is the equivalent of opportunistic naval staring of the elites. They are not aware that suffocation
will irreversibly affect oneself. Not enough air is the equivalent of no air in the end.
The negligible American neo-Nazi subculture has been blown up into a biblical Behemoth inexorably
slouching its way towards the White House to officially launch the Trumpian Reich.
While the above is true, I hope most folks understand that the basic concept of controlling
people through fear is nothing new. The much vaunted constitution was crammed down our collective
throats by the rich scoundrels of the time in the words of more than one anti-federalist through
the conjuring of quite a set of threats, all bogus.
I address my most fervent prayer to prevent our adopting a system destructive to liberty
We are told there are dangers, but those dangers are ideal; they cannot be demonstrated.
- Patrick Henry, Foreign Wars, Civil Wars, and Indian Wars -- Three Bugbears, June 5, 7,
and 9, 1788
Bottom line: Concentrated wealth and power suck.The USA was ruled by a plutoligarchy from its
inception, and the material benefits we still enjoy have occurred not because of it but
despite it.
For today's goofy "right wing" big business "conservatives" who think the US won WW2, I got news
for you. Monopoly capitalism, complete with increasing centralization of the economy and political
forces were given boosts by both world wars.
It was precisely in reaction to their impending defeat at the hands of the competitive storms
of the market tha t business turned, increasingly after the 1900′s, to the federal government
for aid and protection. In short, the intervention by the federal government was designed,
not to curb big business monopoly for the sake of the public weal, but to create monopolies
that big business (as well as trade associations smaller business) had not been able
to establish amidst the competitive gales of the free market. Both Left and Right have been
persistently misled by the notion that intervention by the government is ipso facto leftish
and anti-business. Hence the mythology of the New-Fair Deal-as-Red that is endemic on the Right.
Both the big businessmen, led by the Morgan interests, and Professor Kolko almost uniquely
in the academic world, have realized that monopoly privilege can only be created by the
State and not as a result of free market operations.
-Murray N. Rothbard, Rothbard Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty, [Originally appeared
in Left and Right, Spring 1965, pp. 4-22.]
It was all about connecting the dots really. Connecting the dots of too many books I have gobe
through and videos I have seen. Too many to list here.
You can get a lot of info from the book 'Tragedy and Hope' by Carroll Quigley though he avoids
mantioning Jews and calls it the Anglo American establishment, Anthony Sutton however I completely
disagree about funding of the Third Reich but he does talk a lot about the secret relationship
between the USA and the USSR, Revilo Oliver etc.. etc Well you could read the Protocols. Now if
you think that the protocols was a forgery, you gotta see this, especially the last part.
Also check this out
Also check out what this Wall Street guy realised in his career.
Also this 911 firefighter, what he found out after some research
Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system. It only
has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't much of a value, at least not in terms
of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture or reverence for the natural
world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every object and sentient
being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will bear no more,
no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value.
This looks like the "financialization" of society with Citizens morphing into Consumers.
And it's worth saying that Citizenship and Consumership are completely different concepts:
Citizenship – Dictionary.com
1. – the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.
2. – the character of an individual viewed as a member of society;behavior in terms of the
duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen:
an award for good citizenship.
The Consumer – Dictionary.com
1. a person or thing that consumes.
2. Economics. a person or organization that uses a commodity or service.
A good citizen can then define themselves in a rather non-selfish, non-financial way as for
example, someone who respects others, contributes to local decisions (politically active), gains
respect through work and ethical standards etc.
A good consumer on the other hand, seems to be more a self-idea, essentially someone who buys
and consumes a lot (financial idea), has little political interest – and probably defines themselves
(and others) by how they spend money and what they own.
It's clear that US, and global capitalism, prefers active consumers over active citizens, and
maybe it explains why the US has such a worthless and dysfunctional political process.
Some folks are completely unable to connect the dots even when spoon fed the evidence. You'll
note that some, in risible displays of quasi-intellectual arrogance, make virtually impossible
demands for proof, none of which they'll ever accept. Rather, they flock to self aggrandizing
mythology like flies to fresh sewage which the plutoligarchy produces nearly infinitely.
Your observations appear pretty accurate and self justifying I'd say.
Look up the film director Aaron Russo (recently deceased), discussing how David Rockefeller
tried to bring him over to the dark side. Rockefeller discussed for example the women's movement,
its engineering. Also, there's Aldous Huxley's speech The Ultimate Revolution, on how drugs are
the final solution to rabble troubles–we will think we're happy even in the most appalling societal
conditions.
I can only say Beware of Zinn, best friend of Chomsky, endlessly tauted by shysters like Amy
Goodman and Counterpunch. Like all liberal gatekeepers, he wouldn't touch 911. I saw him speak
not long before he died, and when questioned on this he said, 'That was a long time ago, let's
talk about now.'
This from a professed historian, and it was only 7 years after 911. He seemed to have the same
old Jewish agenda, make Europeans look really bad at all times. He was always on message, like
the shyster Chomsky. Sincerely probing for the truth was not part of his agenda; his truths were
highly selective, and such a colossal event as 911 concerned him not at all, with the ensuing
wars, Patriot Acts, bullshit war on Terror, etc etc
" capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic
values (though it has no problem working with these values when they serve its broader strategic
purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system."
This is a typical Left Lie. Capitalism in its present internationalist phase absolutely requires
Anti-Racism to lubricate sales uh, internationally and domestically. We are all Equal.
Then, the ticking-off of the rest of the bad isms, and labeling them 'despotic' is another
Leftwing and poetic attack on more or less all of us white folks, who have largely invented Capitalism,
from a racialist point of view.
"Poetic" because it is an emotional appeal, not a rational argument. The other 'despotisms'
are not despotic, unless you claim, like I do that racial personalities are more, or less despotic,
with Whites being the least despotic. The Left totalitarian thinks emotional despotism's source
is political or statist. It are not. However, Capitalism has been far less despotic than communism,
etc.
Emotional Despotism is part of who Homo Sapiens is, and this emotional despotism is not racially
equal. Whites are the least despotic, and have organized law and rules to contain such despotism.
Systems arise naturally from the Human Condition, like it or not. The attempt here is to sully
the Capitalist system, and that is all it is. This article itself is despotic propaganda.
Arguably, human nature is despotic, and White civilization has attempted to limit our despotic
nature.
This is another story.
As for elevating capitalism into a 'social system' .this is somewhat true. However, that is
not totally bad, as capitalism delivers the goods, which is the first thing, after getting out
of bed.
The second thing, is having a conformable social environment, and that is where racial accord
enters.
People want familiar and trustworthy people around them and that is just the way human nature
is genetic similarity, etc.
Beyond that, the various Leftie complaints-without-end, are also just the way it is. And yes
they can be addressed and ameliorated to some degree, but human nature is not a System to be manipulated,
even thought the current crop of scientistic lefties talk a good storyline about epigenetics and
other Hopes, false of course, like communist planning which makes its first priority, Social Change
which is always despotic. Society takes care of itself, especially racial society.
As Senator Vail said about the 1924 Immigration Act which held the line against Immigration,
"if there is going to be any changing being done, we will do it and nobody else." That 'we' was
a White we.
Capitalism must be national. International capital is tyranny.
US oil companies make about five cents off a single gallon of gasoline, on the other hand US
Big Government taxes on a single gallon are around seventy-one cents for US states & rising, the
tax is now $1.00 per gallon for CA.
IOW, greedy US governments make fourteen to twenty times what oil companies make, and it is
the oil companies who make & deliver the vital product to the marketplace.
And that is just in the US. Have a look at Europe's taxes. My, my.
Some agendas require the "state sponsored" part to be hidden.
That is part of the reason why the constitutional convention was held in secret as well.
The cunning connivers who ram government down our throats don't like their designs exposed,
and it's an old trick which nearly always works.
Here's Aristophanes on the subject. His play is worth a read. Short and great satire on the
politicians of the day.
SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the
allies at will that you reckon; y ou wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist,
that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for
his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort
himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the blessings
you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with hatred and rage,
he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only too well; it is
for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.
The first loyalty of jews is supposed to be to jews.
Norman Finkelstein is called a traitor by jews, the Dutch jew Hamburger is called a traitor
by Dutch jews, he's the chairman of 'Een ander joodse geluid', best translated by 'another jewish
opinion', the organisation criticises Israel.
Jewish involvement in Sept 11 seems probable, the 'dancing Israelis', the assertion that most
jews working in the Twin Towers at the time were either sick or took a day off, the fact that
the Towers were jewish property, ready for a costly demolition, much abestos in the buildings,
thus the 'terrorist' act brought a great profit.
Can one expect a jew to expose things like this ?
On his book, I did not find inconsistencies with literature I already knew.
The merit of the book is listing many events that affected common people in the USA, and destroying
the myth that 'in the USA who is poor has only himself to blame'.
This nonsense becomes clear even from the diaries of Harold L Ickes, or from Jonathan Raban
Bad Land, 1997.
As for Zinn's criticism of the adored USA constitution, I read that Charles A Beard already
in 1919 resigned because he also criticised this constitution.
Indeed, in our countries about half the national income goes to the governments by taxes, this
is the reason a country like Denmark is the best country to live in.
The neoliberal "the new class" to which Clintons belong like nomenklatura in the USSR are above the law.
Notable quotes:
"... After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. ..."
"... Oh goody, Trey Gowdy doing another investigation. Isn't he 0 for many on his investigations. 0 as in zero, nada, nill, squat, zippo. He is another political empty suit with a bad haircut. ..."
"... Well said. The Clinton network leads to the real money in this game. Any real investigation would expose many of the primary players. It would also expose the network for what it is, that being a mechanism to scam both the American people and the people of the world. ..."
"... Perhaps a real investigation will now only be done from outside the system (as the U.S. political system seems utterly incapable of investigating or policing itself). ..."
"... You're probably right, but there's a chance this whole thing could go sidewise on Hillary in a hurry, Weinstein-style. ..."
"... We already know Honest Hill'rey's other IT guy (Bryan Pagliano) ignored subpoenas from congress...twice. ..."
"... Another classic case of "the Boy that cried wolf" for the Trumpettes to believe justice is coming to the Clintons. The House Judiciary and Oversight committees, will turn up nothing, apart from some procedural mistakes. A complete waste of time and tax payer money. Only the Goldfish will be happy over another charade. Killary is immune from normal laws. ..."
"... Potemkin Justice. Not a damn thing will come of it unless they find that one of Hillary's aides parked in a handicapped spot. ..."
"... The TV showed me Trump saying, "She's been through enough" and "They're good people" when referring to Hillary and Bill Clinton. ..."
"... Stopped reading at "they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status." ..."
Hillary's former IT consultant Paul Combetta who admitted to deleting Hillary's emails despite the existence of a Congressional
subpoena, it seems as though James Comey has just had his very own "oh shit" moment.
After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and
Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year's investigation
into Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Among other things, Goodlatte and Gowdy said that the FBI must answer for why it chose to provide public updates in the Clinton
investigation but not in the Trump investigation and why the FBI decided to " appropriate full decision making in respect to charging
or not charging Secretary Clinton," a power typically left to the DOJ.
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or the
left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic
and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness. The law is the most equalizing
force in this country. No entity or individual is exempt from oversight.
"Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered. These
include, but are not limited to:
FBI's decision to publicly announce the investigation into Secretary Clinton's handling of classified information but not
to publicly announce the investigation into campaign associates of then-candidate Donald Trump;
FBI's decision to notify Congress by formal letter of the status of the investigation both in October and November of 2016;
FBI's decision to appropriate full decision making in respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton to the FBI rather
than the DOJ;
FBI's timeline in respect to charging decisions.
'The Committees will review these decisions and others to better understand the reasoning behind how certain conclusions were
drawn. Congress has a constitutional duty to preserve the integrity of our justice system by ensuring transparency and accountability
of actions taken."
Of course, this comes just one day after
Comey revealed his secret Twitter account which led the internet to wildly speculate that he may be running for a political office...which,
these days, being under investigation by multiple Congressional committees might just mean he has a good shot.
Finally, we leave you with one artist's depiction of how the Comey 'investigation' of Hillary's email scandal played out...
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or
the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our
republic..."
Oh goody, Trey Gowdy doing another investigation. Isn't he 0 for many on his investigations. 0 as in zero, nada, nill,
squat, zippo. He is another political empty suit with a bad haircut.
It's nice publicity to hear that the Congress is "investigating". It's NOT nice to know that the DOJ is doing nothing. Probably
50 top level people at the FBI need to be fired as well as another 50 at DOJ to get the ball rolling toward a Grand Jury. Until
then, it's all eyewash and BULLSHIT!
Well said. The Clinton network leads to the real money in this game. Any real investigation would expose many of the primary
players. It would also expose the network for what it is, that being a mechanism to scam both the American people and the people
of the world.
Perhaps a real investigation will now only be done from outside the system (as the U.S. political system seems utterly
incapable of investigating or policing itself). Though in time all information will surface, as good players leak the info
of the bad players into the open. Which of course is why the corrupt players go after the leakers, as it is one key way they can
be taken down. Also remember that they need the good players in any organization to be used as cover (as those not in the know
can be used to work on legit projects). Once the good players catch on to the ruse and corruption it is, beyond a certain tipping
point, all over, as the leaked information goes from drop to flood. There will simply be no way to deny it.
You're probably right, but there's a chance this whole thing could go sidewise on Hillary in a hurry, Weinstein-style.
If the criminal stench surrounding her gets strong enough, the rats will begin to jump ship. People will stop taking orders
and doing her dirty work. She's wounded right now, if there was ever a time to finish her, it would be now. Where the fuck is
the big-talking Jeff Sessions? I think they got to him--he even LOOKS scared shitless.
It's just not possible to have any respect for these politician people.
We already know Honest Hill'rey's other IT guy (Bryan Pagliano) ignored subpoenas from congress...twice. Remember
Chaffetz "subpoenas are not suggestions"? Yeah, well they are. Chaffetz turned around and sent a letter about this to "attorney
general" jeff sessions and he's done exactly shit about about it. (Look it up, that's a true story)
Then we've got president maverick outsider simply ignoring Julian Assange and Wikileaks while he squeals daily about fake news.
Wikileaks has exposed more fraud than Congress ever has.
Sessions is the Attorney General. Give the man some credit. He recused himself from the Russia/Trump collusion, and this decision
may very well save the republic.
If Sessions was actively involved, half the nation would never accept the findings, no matter the outcome. With Sessions voluntarily
sidelined, the truth will eventually expose the criminal conspirators; all the way to the top.
Wikileaks and Assange have documented proof of criminal behavior from Obama, Lynch, Holder, Hillary, W. Bush, and more. This
will be the biggest scandal to hit the world stage. Ever.
lol Another classic case of "the Boy that cried wolf" for the Trumpettes to believe justice is coming to the Clintons.
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees, will turn up nothing, apart from some procedural mistakes. A complete waste of time
and tax payer money. Only the Goldfish will be happy over another charade. Killary is immune from normal laws.
Congress can't do shit without DOJ and FBI, which are both compromised and corrupt to the core.
That should have been Sessions' first order of business.
He can still get it rolling by firing Rosenstein and replacing him with someone that will do the job.They can strike down the
Comey immunity deals and arrest people for violating Congressional subpeona.
They can also assemble a Grand Jury to indict Rosenstein and Mueller for the Russian collusion conspiracy to commit Espionage
and Sabotage of our National Security resources. Half of Mueller's staff will then be indicted, along with Clinton, Obama, Lynch,
Holder, and Comey.
Replacement of Rosenstein is the crucial first step.
Transcript of Neoliberalism as creative destruction David Harvey: Neoliberalism as
Creative Destruction
David Harvey argues that neo-liberalism is an ideological tool and economic formula used by the
upper class to re-dominate lower class. Neo-liberalism is not a successful economic stimulant,
but a destructive one. It had destroyed pre-existing organization and institution on a global
scale. This is done through the usage of privatization, financialization, crisis management and
state redistribution. Moreover, neo-liberalism took great effort and time to be implemented
globally. It is detrimental to all aspect of life (i.e. social relation, social security,
welfare, attachment to land, and way of thought).
Role of the State
State had active participation in advancing the neoliberal doctrine. From David Harvey's
perspective, the nation-state is an instrument of the upper class. It was used to extend the
interest of the upper class. The state have effective became the will of the transnational
corporation. This is both a domestic(new york) and transnational effort. (Reagan and Thatcher's
Chillean model).
His first argument is that neo-liberalism is "naturalized" by classical liberal values such
as liberty and freedom. i.e. The values of freedom is under threat if government intervenes.
Also opened up niche market (promotion of consumerism)
Example : Iraq
Failure of the Previous capitalistic Economy
Neo-liberalism occured as an answer to the failing capitalistic system. Capitalism is a
system that survives on perpetuated growth. When growth stoped under social democracy,
Capitalism began to crumble. David Harvey used statistic of wealth distribution to illustrate
his point.
Pre-war, The top one percent shared 1 percent of the national income, after, they share
8 percent. After 1990 15%
Neoliberalism as Class Redomination
His is third argument is that neo-liberalism had fail to achieve what it claims to do.
(Redistribution rather than generative) Instead, it is merely a scheme of destruction to
restore class power. (Global Gdp steadily declining) This is done through privatization,
financialization, crisis, and state policy. Media obscure facts and encourages social
Darwinism. (Mexico as a success story)
Summary
Legitimization of the Neoliberal Doctrine
Discussion questions
1 Given the roles and the impact of the nation-state and TNCs, do you believe that TNCs will
one day completely replace nation-states?
2 Examples of globalization and transnationalism can be seen in the increasing number of
languages spoken around the world. Has acquiring language (or languages) become rationalized
into the culture of capitalism? What are the potential benefits or problems with a selective
processes of language acquisition?
3。Do you think Nation state have the ability to resist the globalization effect
brought by the neo-liberalism regime? If so, how?
Structural Marxism
Perspective that posits the institutions of the state must function in such a way as to
ensure ongoing viability of capitalism more generally. Another way that Marxists put this is
that the institutions of the state must function so as to reproduce capitalist society as a
whole. Neoliberal state reproduced the capitalistic society with academics.
(the chicago boys)
How did neoliberlism gain support?
In cooperation of Christian right, A insecure white middle class and the republican take
over of congress in the 90's lead to a political base that supported their policies against
their interest. Neoliberalism is extremely well adapted to utilizing crisis to threaten the
public, forcing the public to make deal with the devil.
Chilean Model
In 1970, the democratic elected Marxist leader Allande was overthrown by military coup. The
new leader Augusto Pinochet is a Neoliberalist which famously said 'to make Chile not a nation
of proletarians, but a nation of proprietors' Lower wage, privatizing public property, decrease
in welfare and social spending
"... Neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. ..."
"... Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution), then they must be created, by state action if necessary. ..."
"... State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interests will inevitably distort and bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit. ..."
"... State after state, from the new ones that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union to old-style social democracies and welfare states such as New Zealand and Sweden, have embraced, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes in response to coercive pressures, some version of neoliberal theory and adjusted at least some of their policies and practices accordingly. Post apartheid South Africa quickly adopted the neoliberal frame and even contemporary China appears to be headed in that direction. Furthermore, advocates of the neoliberal mindset now occupy positions of considerable influence in education (universities and many "think tanks"), in the media, in corporate board rooms and financial institutions, in key state institutions (treasury departments, central banks), and also in those international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulate global finance and commerce. Neoliberalism has, in short, become hegemonic as a mode of discourse and has pervasive effects on ways of thought and political-economic practices to the point where it has become incorporated into the commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world. ..."
"... Neoliberalization has in effect swept across the world like a vast tidal wave of institutional reform and discursive adjustment. While plenty of evidence shows its uneven geographical development, no place can claim total immunity (with the exception of a few states such as North Korea). Furthermore, the rules of engagement now established through the WTO (governing international trade) and by the IMF (governing international finance) instantiate neoliberalism as a global set of rules. All states that sign on to the WTO and the IMF (and who can afford not to?) agree to abide (albeit with a "grace period" to permit smooth adjustment) by these rules or face severe penalties. ..."
"... For any system of thought to become dominant, it requires the articulation of fundamental concepts that become so deeply embedded in commonsense understandings that they are taken for granted and beyond question. For this to occur, not any old concepts will do. A conceptual apparatus has to be constructed that appeals almost naturally to our intuitions and instincts, to our values and our desires, as well as to the possibilities that seem to inhere in the social world we inhabit. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of individual liberty and freedom as sacrosanct -- as the central values of civilization. And in so doing they chose wisely and well, for these are indeed compelling and greatly appealing concepts. Such values were threatened, they argued, not only by fascism, dictatorships, and communism, but also by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgments for those of individuals set free to choose. They then concluded that without "the diffused power and initiative associated with (private property and the competitive market) it is difficult to imagine a society in which freedom may be effectively preserved." 1 ..."
"... The U.S. answer was spelled out on September 19, 2003, when Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, promulgated four orders that included "the full privatization of public enterprises, full ownership rights by foreign firms of Iraqi U.S. businesses, full repatriation of foreign profits . . . the opening of Iraq's banks to foreign control, national treatment for foreign companies and . . . the elimination of nearly all trade barriers." 4 The orders were to apply to all areas of the economy, including public services, the media, manufacturing, services, transportation, finance, and construction. Only oil was exempt. A regressive tax system favored by conservatives called a flat tax was also instituted. The right to strike was outlawed and unions banned in key sectors. An Iraqi member of the Coalition Provisional Authority protested the forced imposition of "free market fundamentalism," describing it as "a flawed logic that ignores history." 5 Yet the interim Iraqi government appointed at the end of June 2004 was accorded no power to change or write new laws -- it could only confirm the decrees already promulgated. ..."
"... The redistributive tactics of neoliberalism are wide-ranging, sophisticated, frequently masked by ideological gambits, but devastating for the dignity and social well-being of vulnerable populations and territories. The wave of creative destruction neoliberalization has visited across the globe is unparalleled in the history of capitalism. Understandably, it has spawned resistance and a search for viable alternatives. ..."
Neoliberalism has become a hegemonic discourse with pervasive effects on ways of thought and
political-economic practices to the point where it is now part of the commonsense way we
interpret, live in, and understand the world. How did neoliberalism achieve such an exalted
status, and what does it stand for? In this article, the author contends that neoliberalism is
above all a project to restore class dominance to sectors that saw their fortunes threatened by
the ascent of social democratic endeavors in the aftermath of the Second World War. Although
neoliberalism has had limited effectiveness as an engine for economic growth, it has succeeded
in channeling wealth from subordinate classes to dominant ones and from poorer to richer
countries. This process has entailed the dismantling of institutions and narratives that
promoted more egalitarian distributive measures in the preceding era.
Neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being
can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional
framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets,
and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework
appropriate to such practices. The state has to be concerned, for example, with the quality and
integrity of money. It must also set up military, defense, police, and juridical functions
required to secure private property rights and to support freely functioning markets.
Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as education, health care, social security,
or environmental pollution), then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But
beyond these tasks the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created)
must be kept to a bare minimum because the state cannot possibly possess enough information to
second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interests will inevitably distort and
bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit.
For a variety of reasons, the actual practices of neoliberalism frequently diverge from this
template. Nevertheless, there has everywhere been an emphatic turn, ostensibly led by the
Thatcher/Reagan revolutions in Britain and the United States, in political-economic practices
and thinking since the 1970s. State after state, from the new ones that emerged from the
collapse of the Soviet Union to old-style social democracies and welfare states such as New
Zealand and Sweden, have embraced, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes in response to coercive
pressures, some version of neoliberal theory and adjusted at least some of their policies and
practices accordingly. Post apartheid South Africa quickly adopted the neoliberal frame and
even contemporary China appears to be headed in that direction. Furthermore, advocates of the
neoliberal mindset now occupy positions of considerable influence in education (universities
and many "think tanks"), in the media, in corporate board rooms and financial institutions, in
key state institutions (treasury departments, central banks), and also in those international
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulate global finance and commerce. Neoliberalism has,
in short, become hegemonic as a mode of discourse and has pervasive effects on ways of thought
and political-economic practices to the point where it has become incorporated into the
commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world.
Neoliberalization has in effect swept across the world like a vast tidal wave of
institutional reform and discursive adjustment. While plenty of evidence shows its uneven
geographical development, no place can claim total immunity (with the exception of a few states
such as North Korea). Furthermore, the rules of engagement now established through the WTO
(governing international trade) and by the IMF (governing international finance) instantiate
neoliberalism as a global set of rules. All states that sign on to the WTO and the IMF (and who
can afford not to?) agree to abide (albeit with a "grace period" to permit smooth adjustment)
by these rules or face severe penalties.
The creation of this neoliberal system has entailed much destruction, not only of prior
institutional frameworks and powers (such as the supposed prior state sovereignty over
political-economic affairs) but also of divisions of labor, social relations, welfare
provisions, technological mixes, ways of life, attachments to the land, habits of the heart,
ways of thought, and the like. Some assessment of the positives and negatives of this
neoliberal revolution is called for. In what follows, therefore, I will sketch in some
preliminary arguments as to how to both understand and evaluate this transformation in the way
global capitalism is working. This requires that we come to terms with the underlying forces,
interests, and agents that have propelled the neoliberal revolution forward with such
relentless intensity. To turn the neoliberal rhetoric against itself, we may reasonably ask, In
whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance and in what ways have
those interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed, everyone,
everywhere?
In whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance, and in what
ways have those interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed,
everyone, everywhere?
For any system of thought to become dominant, it requires the articulation of fundamental
concepts that become so deeply embedded in commonsense understandings that they are taken for
granted and beyond question. For this to occur, not any old concepts will do. A conceptual
apparatus has to be constructed that appeals almost naturally to our intuitions and instincts,
to our values and our desires, as well as to the possibilities that seem to inhere in the
social world we inhabit. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of
individual liberty and freedom as sacrosanct -- as the central values of civilization. And in
so doing they chose wisely and well, for these are indeed compelling and greatly appealing
concepts. Such values were threatened, they argued, not only by fascism, dictatorships, and
communism, but also by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgments
for those of individuals set free to choose. They then concluded that without "the diffused
power and initiative associated with (private property and the competitive market) it is
difficult to imagine a society in which freedom may be effectively preserved." 1
Setting aside the question of whether the final part of the argument necessarily follows
from the first, there can be no doubt that the concepts of individual liberty and freedom are
powerful in their own right, even beyond those terrains where the liberal tradition has had a
strong historical presence. Such ideals empowered the dissident movements in Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union before the end of the cold war as well as the students in Tiananmen Square.
The student movement that swept the world in 1968 -- from Paris and Chicago to Bangkok and
Mexico City -- was in part animated by the quest for greater freedoms of speech and individual
choice. These ideals have proven again and again to be a mighty historical force for
change.
It is not surprising, therefore, that appeals to freedom and liberty surround the United
States rhetorically at every turn and populate all manner of contemporary political manifestos.
This has been particularly true of the United States in recent years. On the first anniversary
of the attacks now known as 9/11, President Bush wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times
that extracted ideas from a U.S. National Defense Strategy document issued shortly thereafter.
"A peaceful world of growing freedom," he wrote, even as his cabinet geared up to go to war
with Iraq, "serves American long-term interests, reflects enduring American ideals and unites
Americas allies." "Humanity," he concluded, "holds in its hands the opportunity to offer
freedom s triumph over all its age-old foes," and "the United States welcomes its
responsibilities to lead in this great mission." Even more emphatically, he later proclaimed
that "freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world" and "as the greatest
power on earth [the United States has] an obligation to help the spread of freedom."
2
So when all of the other reasons for engaging in a preemptive war against Iraq were proven
fallacious or at least wanting, the Bush administration increasingly appealed to the idea that
the freedom conferred upon Iraq was in and of itself an adequate justification for the war. But
what sort of freedom was envisaged here, since, as the cultural critic Matthew Arnold long ago
thoughtfully observed, "Freedom is a very good horse to ride, but to ride somewhere."
3 To what destination, then, were the Iraqi people expected to ride the horse of
freedom so selflessly conferred to them by force of arms?
The U.S. answer was spelled out on September 19, 2003, when Paul Bremer, head of the
Coalition Provisional Authority, promulgated four orders that included "the full privatization
of public enterprises, full ownership rights by foreign firms of Iraqi U.S. businesses, full
repatriation of foreign profits . . . the opening of Iraq's banks to foreign control, national
treatment for foreign companies and . . . the elimination of nearly all trade barriers." 4 The orders were to apply to all areas of the economy, including public services,
the media, manufacturing, services, transportation, finance, and construction. Only oil was
exempt. A regressive tax system favored by conservatives called a flat tax was also instituted.
The right to strike was outlawed and unions banned in key sectors. An Iraqi member of the
Coalition Provisional Authority protested the forced imposition of "free market
fundamentalism," describing it as "a flawed logic that ignores history." 5 Yet the
interim Iraqi government appointed at the end of June 2004 was accorded no power to change or
write new laws -- it could only confirm the decrees already promulgated.
What the United States evidently sought to impose upon Iraq was a full-fledged neoliberal
state apparatus whose fundamental mission was and is to facilitate conditions for profitable
capital accumulation for all comers, Iraqis and foreigners alike. The Iraqis were, in short,
expected to ride their horse of freedom straight into the corral of neoliberalism. According to
neoliberal theory, Bremers decrees are both necessary and sufficient for the creation of wealth
and therefore for the improved well-being of the Iraqi people. They are the proper foundation
for an adequate rule of law, individual liberty, and democratic governance. The insurrection
that followed can in part be interpreted as Iraqi resistance to being driven into the embrace
of free market fundamentalism against their own will
It is useful to recall, however, that the first great experiment with neoliberal state
formation was Chile after Augusto Pinochet s coup almost thirty years to the day before Bremers
decrees were issued, on the "little September 11th" of 1973. The coup, against the
democratically elected and leftist social democratic government of Salvador Allende, was
strongly backed by the CIA and supported by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It
violently repressed all left-of-center social movements and political organizations and
dismantled all forms of popular organization, such as community health centers in poorer
neighborhoods. The labor market was "freed" from regulatory or institutional restraints --
trade union power, for example. But by 1973, the policies of import substitution that had
formerly dominated in Latin American attempts at economic regeneration, and that had succeeded
to some degree in Brazil after the military coup of 1964, had fallen into disrepute. With the
world economy in the midst of a serious recession, something new was plainly called for. A
group of U.S. economists known as "the Chicago boys," because of their attachment to the
neoliberal theories of Milton Friedman, then teaching at the University of Chicago, were
summoned to help reconstruct the Chilean economy. They did so along free-market lines,
privatizing public assets, opening up natural resources to private exploitation, and
facilitating foreign direct investment and free trade. The right of foreign companies to
repatriate profits from their Chilean operations was guaranteed. Export-led growth was favored
over import substitution. The subsequent revival of the Chilean economy in terms of growth,
capital accumulation, and high rates of return on foreign investments provided evidence upon
which the subsequent turn to more open neoliberal policies in both Britain (under Thatcher) and
the United States (under Reagan) could be modeled. Not for the first time, a brutal experiment
in creative destruction carried out in the periphery became a model for the formulation of
policies in the center. 6
The fact that two such obviously similar restructurings of the state apparatus occurred at
such different times in quite different parts of the world under the coercive influence of the
United States might be taken as indicative that the grim reach of U.S. imperial power might lie
behind the rapid proliferation of neoliberal state forms throughout the world from the
mid-1970s onward. But U.S. power and recklessness do not constitute the whole story. It was not
the United States, after all, that forced Margaret Thatcher to take the neoliberal path in
1979. And during the early 1980s, Thatcher was a far more consistent advocate of neoliberalism
than Reagan ever proved to be. Nor was it the United States that forced China in 1978 to follow
the path that has over time brought it closer and closer to the embrace of neoliberalism. It
would be hard to attribute the moves toward neoliberalism in India and Sweden in 1992 to the
imperial reach of the United States. The uneven geographical development of neoliberalism on
the world stage has been a very complex process entailing multiple determinations and not a
little chaos and confusion. So why, then, did the neoliberal turn occur, and what were the
forces compelling it onward to the point where it has now become a hegemonic system within
global capitalism?
Toward the end of the 1960s, global capitalism was falling into disarray. A significant
recession occurred in early 1973 -- the first since the great slump of the 1930s. The oil
embargo and oil price hike that followed later that year in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war
exacerbated critical problems. The embedded capitalism of the postwar period, with its heavy
emphasis on an uneasy compact between capital and labor brokered by an interventionist state
that paid great attention to the social (i.e., welfare programs) and individual wage, was no
longer working. The Bretton Woods accord set up to regulate international trade and finance was
finally abandoned in favor of floating exchange rates in 1973. That system had delivered high
rates of growth in the advanced capitalist countries and generated some spillover benefits --
most obviously to Japan but also unevenly across South America and to some other countries of
South East Asia -- during the "golden age" of capitalism in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the
next decade, however, the preexisting arrangements were exhausted and a new alternative was
urgently needed to restart the process of capital accumulation. 7 How and why
neoliberalism emerged victorious as an answer to that quandary is a complex story. In
retrospect, it may seem as if neoliberalism had been inevitable, but at the time no one really
knew or understood with any certainty what kind of response would work and how.
The world stumbled toward neoliberalism through a series of gyrations and chaotic motions
that eventually converged on the so-called 'Washington Consensus" in the 1990s. The uneven
geographical development of neoliberalism, and its partial and lopsided application from one
country to another, testifies to its tentative character and the complex ways in which
political forces, historical traditions, and existing institutional arrangements all shaped why
and how the process actually occurred on the ground.
There is, however, one element within this transition that deserves concerted attention. The
crisis of capital accumulation of the 1970s affected everyone through the combination of rising
unemployment and accelerating inflation. Discontent was widespread, and the conjoining of labor
and urban social movements throughout much of the advanced capitalist world augured a socialist
alternative to the social compromise between capital and labor that had grounded capital
accumulation so successfully in the postwar period. Communist and socialist parties were
gaining ground across much of Europe, and even in the United States popular forces were
agitating for widespread reforms and state interventions in everything ranging from
environmental protection to occupational safety and health and consumer protection from
corporate malfeasance. There was. in this, a clear political threat to ruling classes
everywhere, both in advanced capitalist countries, like Italy and France, and in many
developing countries, like Mexico and Argentina.
Beyond political changes, the economic threat to the position of ruling classes was now
becoming palpable. One condition of the postwar settlement in almost all countries was to
restrain the economic power of the upper classes and for labor to be accorded a much larger
share of the economic pie. In the United States, for example, the share of the national income
taken by the top 1 percent of earners fell from a prewar high of 16 percent to less than 8
percent by the end of the Second World War and stayed close to that level for nearly three
decades. While growth was strong such restraints seemed not to matter, but when growth
collapsed in the 1970s, even as real interest rates went negative and dividends and profits
shrunk, ruling classes felt threatened. They had to move decisively if they were to protect
their power from political and economic annihilation.
The coup d'état in Chile and the military takeover in Argentina, both fomented and
led internally by ruling elites with U.S. support, provided one kind of solution. But the
Chilean experiment with neoliberalism demonstrated that the benefits of revived capital
accumulation were highly skewed. The country and its ruling elites along with foreign investors
did well enough while the people in general fared poorly. This has been such a persistent
effect of neoliberal policies over time as to be regarded a structural component of the whole
project. Dumenil and Levy have gone so far as to argue that neoliberalism was from the very
beginning an endeavor to restore class power to the richest strata in the population. They
showed how from the mid-1980s onwards, the share of the top 1 percent of income earners in the
United States soared rapidly to reach 15 percent by the end of the century. Other data show
that the top 0.1 percent of income earners increased their share of the national income from 2
percent in 1978 to more than 6 percent by 1999. Yet another measure shows that the ratio of the
median compensation of workers to the salaries of chief executive officers increased from just
over thirty to one in 1970 to more than four hundred to one by 2000. Almost certainly, with the
Bush administrations tax cuts now taking effect, the concentration of income and of wealth in
the upper echelons of society is continuing apace. 8
And the United States is not alone in this: the top 1 percent of income earners in Britain
doubled their share of the national income from 6.5 percent to 13 percent over the past twenty
years. When we look further afield, we see extraordinary concentrations of wealth and power
within a small oligarchy after the application of neoliberal shock therapy in Russia and a
staggering surge in income inequalities and wealth in China as it adopts neoliberal practices.
While there are exceptions to this trend -- several East and Southeast Asian countries have
contained income inequalities within modest bounds, as have France and the Scandinavian
countries -- the evidence suggests that the neoliberal turn is in some way and to some degree
associated with attempts to restore or reconstruct upper-class power.
We can, therefore, examine the history of neoliberalism either as a utopian project
providing a theoretical template for the reorganization of international capitalism or as a
political scheme aimed at reestablishing the conditions for capital accumulation and the
restoration of class power. In what follows, I shall argue that the last of these objectives
has dominated. Neoliberalism has not proven effective at revitalizing global capital
accumulation, but it has succeeded in restoring class power. As a consequence, the theoretical
utopianism of the neoliberal argument has worked more as a system of justification and
legitimization. The principles of neoliberalism are quickly abandoned whenever they conflict
with this class project.
Neoliberalism has not proven effective at revitalizing global capital accumulation, but it
has succeeded in restoring class power.
If there were movements to restore class power within global capitalism, then how were they
enacted and by whom? The answer to that question in countries such as Chile and Argentina was
simple: a swift, brutal, and self-assured military coup backed by the upper classes and the
subsequent fierce repression of all solidarities created within the labor and urban social
movements that had so threatened their power. Elsewhere, as in Britain and Mexico in 1976, it
took the gentle prodding of a not yet fiercely neoliberal International Monetary Fund to push
countries toward practices -- although by no means policy commitment -- to cut back on social
expenditures and welfare programs to reestablish fiscal probity. In Britain, of course,
Margaret Thatcher later took up the neoliberal cudgel with a vengeance in 1979 and wielded it
to great effect, even though she never fully overcame opposition within her own party and could
never effectively challenge such centerpieces of the welfare state as the National Health
Service. Interestingly, it was only in 2004 that the Labour Government dared to introduce a fee
structure into higher education. The process of neoliberalization has been halting,
geographically uneven, and heavily influenced by class structures and other social forces
moving for or against its central propositions within particular state formations and even
within particular sectors, for example, health or education. 9
It is informative to look more closely at how the process unfolded in the United States,
since this case was pivotal as an influence on other and more recent transformations. Various
threads of power intertwined to create a transition that culminated in the mid-1990s with the
takeover of Congress by the Republican Party. That feat represented in fact a neoliberal
"Contract with America" as a program for domestic action. Before that dramatic denouement,
however, many steps were taken, each building upon and reinforcing the other.
To begin with, by 1970 or so, there was a growing sense among the U.S. upper classes that
the anti-business and anti-imperialist climate that had emerged toward the end of the 1960s had
gone too far. In a celebrated memo, Lewis Powell (about to be elevated to the Supreme Court by
Richard Nixon) urged the American Chamber of Commerce in 1971 to mount a collective campaign to
demonstrate that what was good for business was good for America. Shortly thereafter, a shadowy
but influential Business Round Table was formed that still exists and plays a significant
strategic role in Republican Party politics. Corporate political action committees, legalized
under the post-Watergate campaign finance laws of 1974, proliferated like wildfire. With their
activities protected under the First Amendment as a form of free speech in a 1976 Supreme Court
decision, the systematic capture of the Republican Party as a class instrument of collective
(rather than particular or individual) corporate and financial power began. But the Republican
Party needed a popular base, and that proved more problematic to achieve. The incorporation of
leaders of the Christian right, depicted as a moral majority, together with the Business Round
Table provided the solution to that problem. A large segment of a disaffected, insecure, and
largely white working class was persuaded to vote consistently against its own material
interests on cultural (anti-liberal, anti-Black, antifeminist and antigay), nationalist and
religious grounds. By the mid-1990s, the Republican Party had lost almost all of its liberal
elements and become a homogeneous right-wing machine connecting the financial resources of
large corporate capital with a populist base, the Moral Majority, that was particularly strong
in the U.S. South. 10
The second element in the U.S. transition concerned fiscal discipline. The recession of 1973
to 1975 diminished tax revenues at all levels at a time of rising demand for social
expenditures. Deficits emerged everywhere as a key problem. Something had to be done about the
fiscal crisis of the state; the restoration of monetary discipline was essential. That
conviction empowered financial institutions that controlled the lines of credit to government.
In 1975, they refused to roll over New York's debt and forced that city to the edge of
bankruptcy. A powerful cabal of bankers joined together with the state to tighten control over
the city. This meant curbing the aspirations of municipal unions, layoffs in public employment,
wage freezes, cutbacks in social provision (education, public health, and transport services),
and the imposition of user fees (tuition was introduced in the CUNY university system for the
first time). The bailout entailed the construction of new institutions that had first rights to
city tax revenues in order to pay off bond holders: whatever was left went into the city budget
for essential services. The final indignity was a requirement that municipal unions invest
their pension funds in city bonds. This ensured that unions moderate their demands to avoid the
danger of losing their pension funds through city bankruptcy.
Such actions amounted to a coup d'état by financial institutions against the
democratically elected government of New York City, and they were every bit as effective as the
military overtaking that had earlier occurred in Chile. Much of the city's social
infrastructure was destroyed, and the physical foundations (e.g., the transit system)
deteriorated markedly for lack of investment or even maintenance. The management of New York's
fiscal crisis paved the way for neoliberal practices both domestically under Ronald Reagan and
internationally through the International Monetary Fund throughout the 1980s. It established a
principle that, in the event of a conflict between the integrity of financial institutions and
bondholders on one hand and the well-being of the citizens on the other, the former would be
given preference. It hammered home the view that the role of government was to create a good
business climate rather than look to the needs and well-being of the population at large.
Fiscal redistributions to benefit the upper classes resulted in the midst of a general fiscal
crisis.
Whether all the agents involved in producing this compromise in New York understood it at
the time as a tactic for the restoration of upper-class power is an open question. The need to
maintain fiscal discipline is a matter of deep concern in its own right and does not have to
lead to the restitution of class dominance. It is unlikely, therefore, that Felix Rohatyn, the
key merchant banker who brokered the deal between the city, the state, and the financial
institutions, had the reinstatement of class power in mind. But this objective probably was
very much in the thoughts of the investment bankers. It was almost certainly the aim of
then-Secretary of the Treasury William Simon who, having watched the progress of events in
Chile with approval, refused to give aid to New York and openly stated that he wanted that city
to suffer so badly that no other city in the nation would ever dare take on similar social
obligations again. 11
The third element in the U.S. transition entailed an ideological assault upon the media and
upon educational institutions. Independent "think tanks" financed by wealthy individuals and
corporate donors proliferated -- the Heritage Foundation in the lead -- to prepare an
ideological onslaught aimed at persuading the public of the commonsense character of neoliberal
propositions. A flood of policy papers and proposals and a veritable army of well-paid hired
lieutenants trained to promote neoliberal ideas coupled with the corporate acquisition of media
channels effectively transformed the discursive climate in the United States by the mid-1980s.
The project to "get government off the backs of the people" and to shrink government to the
point where it could be "drowned in a bathtub" was loudly proclaimed. With respect to this, the
promoters of the new gospel found a ready audience in that wing of the 1968 movement whose goal
was greater individual liberty and freedom from state power and the manipulations of monopoly
capital. The libertarian argument for neoliberalism proved a powerful force for change. To the
degree that capitalism reorganized to both open a space for individual entrepreneurship and
switch its efforts to satisfy innumerable niche markets, particularly those defined by sexual
liberation, that were spawned out of an increasingly individualized consumerism, so it could
match words with deeds.
This carrot of individualized entrepreneurship and consumerism was backed by the big stick
wielded by the state and financial institutions against that other wing of the 1968 movement
whose members had sought social justice through collective negotiation and social solidarities.
Reagan's destruction of the air traffic controllers (PATCO) in 1980 and Margaret Thatchers
defeat of the British miners in 1984 were crucial moments in the global turn toward
neoliberalism. The assault upon institutions, such as trade unions and welfare rights
organizations, that sought to protect and further working-class interests was as broad as it
was deep. The savage cutbacks in social expenditures and the welfare state, and the passing of
all responsibility for their well-being to individuals and their families proceeded apace. But
these practices did not and could not stop at national borders. After 1980, the United States,
now firmly committed to neoliberalization and clearly backed by Britain, sought, through a mix
of leadership, persuasion -- the economics departments of U.S. research universities played a
major role in training many of the economists from around the world in neoliberal principles --
and coercion to export neoliberalization far and wide. The purge of Keynesian economists and
their replacement by neoliberal monetarists in the International Monetary Fund in 1982
transformed the U.S.-dominated IMF into a prime agent of neoliberalization through its
structural adjustment programs visited upon any state (and there were many in the 1980s and
1990s) that required its help with debt repayments. The Washington Consensus that was forged in
the 1990s and the negotiating rules set up under the World Trade Organization in 1998 confirmed
the global turn toward neoliberal practices. 12
The new international compact also depended upon the reanimation and reconfiguration of the
U.S. imperial tradition. That tradition had been forged in Central America in the 1920s, as a
form of domination without colonies. Independent republics could be kept under the thumb of the
United States and effectively act, in the best of cases, as proxies for U.S. interests through
the support of strongmen -- like Somoza in Nicaragua, the Shah in Iran, and Pinochet in Chile
-- and a coterie of followers backed by military assistance and financial aid. Covert aid was
available to promote the rise to power of such leaders, but by the 1970s it became clear that
something else was needed: the opening of markets, of new spaces for investment, and clear
fields where financial powers could operate securely. This entailed a much closer integration
of the global economy with a well-defined financial architecture. The creation of new
institutional practices, such as those set out by the IMF and the WTO, provided convenient
vehicles through which financial and market power could be exercised. The model required
collaboration among the top capitalist powers and the Group of Seven (G7), bringing Europe and
Japan into alignment with the United States to shape the global financial and trading system in
ways that effectively forced all other nations to submit. "Rogue nations," defined as those
that failed to conform to these global rules, could then be dealt with by sanctions or coercive
and even military force if necessary. In this way, U.S. neoliberal imperialist strategies were
articulated through a global network of power relations, one effect of which was to permit the
U.S. upper classes to exact financial tribute and command rents from the rest of the world as a
means to augment their already hegemonic control. 13
In what ways has neoliberalization resolved the problems of flagging capital accumulation?
Its actual record in stimulating economic growth is dismal. Aggregate growth rates stood at 3.5
percent or so in the 1960s and even during the troubled 1970s fell to only 2.4 percent. The
subsequent global growth rates of 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent for the 1980s and 1990s, and a
rate that barely touches 1 percent since 2000, indicate that neoliberalism has broadly failed
to
In what ways has neoliberalization resolved the problems of flagging capital accumulation?
Its actual record in stimulating economic growth is dismal. Aggregate growth rates stood at 3.5
percent or so in the 1960s and even during the troubled 1970s fell to only 2.4 percent. The
subsequent global growth rates of 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent for the 1980s and 1990s, and a
rate that barely touches 1 percent since 2000, indicate that neoliberalism has broadly failed
to stimulate worldwide growth. 14 Even if we exclude from this calculation the
catastrophic effects of the collapse of the Russian and some Central European economies in the
wake of the neoliberal shock therapy treatment of the 1990s, global economic performance from
the standpoint of restoring the conditions of general capital accumulation has been weak.
Despite their rhetoric about curing sick economies, neither Britain nor the United States
achieved high economic performance in the 1980s. That decade belonged to Japan, the East Asian
"Tigers," and West Germany as powerhouses of the global economy. Such countries were very
successful, but their radically different institutional arrangements make it difficult to pin
their achievements on neoliberalism. The West German Bundesbank had taken a strong monetarist
line (consistent with neoliberalism) for more than two decades, a fact suggesting that there is
no necessary connection between monetarism per se and the quest to restore class power. In West
Germany, the unions remained strong and wage levels stayed relatively high alongside the
construction of a progressive welfare state. One of the effects of this combination was to
stimulate a high rate of technological innovation that kept West Germany well ahead in the
field of international competition. Export-led production moved the country forward as a global
leader.
In Japan, independent unions were weak or nonexistent, but state investment in technological
and organizational change and the tight relationship between corporations and financial
institutions (an arrangement that also proved felicitous in West Germany) generated an
astonishing export-led growth performance, very much at the expense of other capitalist
economies such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Such growth as there was in the
1980s (and the aggregate rate of growth in the world was lower even than that of the troubled
1970s) did not depend, therefore, on neoliberalization. Many European states therefore resisted
neoliberal reforms and increasingly found ways to preserve much of their social democratic
heritage while moving, in some cases fairly successfully, toward the West German model. In
Asia, the Japanese model implanted under authoritarian systems of governance in South Korea,
Taiwan, and Singapore also proved viable and consistent with reasonable equality of
distribution. It was only in the 1990s that neoliberalization began to pay off for both the
United States and Britain. This happened in the midst of a long-drawn-out period of deflation
in Japan and relative stagnation in a newly unified Germany. Up for debate is whether the
Japanese recession occurred as a simple result of competitive pressures or whether it was
engineered by financial agents in the United States to humble the Japanese economy.
So why, then, in the face of this patchy if not dismal record, have so many been persuaded
that neoliberalization is a successful solution? Over and beyond the persistent stream of
propaganda emanating from the neoliberal think tanks and suffusing the media, two material
reasons stand out. First, neoliberalization has been accompanied by increasing volatility
within global capitalism. That success was to materialize somewhere obscured the reality that
neoliberalism was generally failing. Periodic episodes of growth interspersed with phases of
creative destruction, usually registered as severe financial crises. Argentina was opened up to
foreign capital and privatization in the 1990s and for several years was the darling of Wall
Street, only to collapse into disaster as international capital withdrew at the end of the
decade. Financial collapse and social devastation was quickly followed by a long political
crisis. Financial turmoil proliferated all over the developing world, and in some instances,
such as Brazil and Mexico, repeated waves of structural adjustment and austerity led to
economic paralysis.
On the other hand, neoliberalism has been a huge success from the standpoint of the upper
classes. It has either restored class position to ruling elites, as in the United States and
Britain, or created conditions for capitalist class formation, as in China, India, Russia, and
elsewhere. Even countries that have suffered extensively from neoliberalization have seen the
massive reordering of class structures internally. The wave of privatization that came to
Mexico with the Salinas de Gortari administration in 1992 spawned unprecedented concentrations
of wealth in the hands of a few people (Carlos Slim, tor example, who took over the state
telephone system and became an instant billionaire).
With the media dominated by upper-class interests, the myth could be propagated that certain
sectors failed because they were not competitive enough, thereby setting the stage for even
more neoliberal reforms. Increased social inequality was necessary to encourage entrepreneurial
risk and innovation, and these, in turn, conferred competitive advantage and stimulated growth.
If conditions among the lower classes deteriorated, it was because they failed for personal and
cultural reasons to enhance their own human capital through education, the acquisition of a
protestant work ethic, and submission to work discipline and flexibility. In short, problems
arose because of the lack of competitive strength or because of personal, cultural, and
political failings. In a Spencerian world, the argument went, only the fittest should and do
survive. Systemic problems were masked under a blizzard of ideological pronouncements and a
plethora of localized crises.
If the main effect of neoliberalism has been redistributive rather than generative, then
ways had to be found to transfer assets and channel wealth and income either from the mass of
the population toward the upper classes or from vulnerable to richer countries. I have
elsewhere provided an account of these processes under the rubric of accumulation by
dispossession. 15 By this, I mean the continuation and proliferation of accretion
practices that Marx had designated as "primitive" or "original" during the rise of capitalism.
These include
(1) the commodification and privatization of land and me forceful expulsion or peasant
populations {as in Mexico and India in recent times);
(2) conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into
exclusively private property rights;
(3) suppression of rights to the commons;
(4) commodification of labor power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of
production and consumption;
(5) colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including
natural resources); (6) monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land;
(7) the slave trade (which continues, particularly in the sex industry); and
(8) usury, the national debt, and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as
radical means of primitive accumulation.
The state, with its monopoly of violence and definitions of legality, plays a crucial role
in backing and promoting these processes. To this list of mechanisms, we may now add a raft of
additional techniques, such as the extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property
rights and the diminution or erasure of various forms of communal property rights -- such as
state pensions, paid vacations, access to education, and health care -- won through a
generation or more of social democratic struggles. The proposal to privatize all state pension
rights (pioneered in Chile under Augusto Pinochet s dictatorship) is, for example, one of the
cherished objectives of neoliberals in the United States.
In the cases of China and Russia, it might be reasonable to refer to recent events in
"primitive" and "original" terms, but the practices that restored class power to capitalist
elites in the United States and elsewhere are best described as an ongoing process of
accumulation by dispossession that grew rapidly under neoliberalism. In what follows, I isolate
four main elements.
1. Privatization
The corporatization, commodification, and privatization of hitherto public assets have been
signal features of the neoliberal project. Its primary aim has been to open up new fields for
capital accumulation in domains formerly regarded off-limits to the calculus of profitability.
Public utilities of all lands (water, telecommunications, transportation), social welfare
provision (public housing, education, health care, pensions), public institutions (such as
universities, research laboratories, prisons), and even warfare (as illustrated by the "army"
of private contractors operating alongside the armed forces in Iraq) have all been privatized
to some degree throughout the capitalist world.
Intellectual property rights established through the so-called TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement within the WTO defines genetic materials, seed
plasmas, and all manner of other products as private property. Rents for use can then be
extracted from populations whose practices had played a crucial role in the development of such
genetic materials. Bio-piracy is rampant, and the pillaging of the worlds stockpile of genetic
resources is well under way to the benefit of a few large pharmaceutical companies. The
escalating depletion of the global environmental commons (land, air, water) and proliferating
habitat degradations that preclude anything but capital-intensive modes of agricultural
production have likewise resulted from the wholesale commodification of nature in all its
forms. The commodification (through tourism) of cultural forms, histories, and intellectual
creativity entails wholesale dispossessions (the music industry is notorious for the
appropriation and exploitation of grassroots culture and creativity). As in the past, the power
of the state is frequently used to force such processes through even against popular will. The
rolling back of regulatory frameworks designed to protect labor and the environment from
degradation has entailed the loss of rights. The reversion of common property rights won
through years of hard class struggle (the right to a state pension, to welfare, to national
health care) into the private domain has been one of the most egregious of all policies of
dispossession pursued in the name of neoliberal orthodoxy.
All of these processes amount to the transfer of assets from the public and popular realms
to the private and class-privileged domains. Privatization, Arundhati Roy argued with respect
to the Indian case, entails "the transfer of productive public assets from the state to private
companies. Productive assets include natural resources: earth, forest, water, air. These are
the assets that the state holds in trust for the people it represents. ... To snatch these away
and sell them as stock to private companies is a process of barbaric dispossession on a scale
that has no parallel in history." 16
2. Financialization
The strong financial wave that set in after 1980 has been marked by its speculative and
predatory style. The total daily turnover of financial transactions in international markets
that stood at $2.3 billion in 1983 had risen to $130 billion by 2001. This $40 trillion annual
turnover in 2001 compares to the estimated $800 billion that would be required to support
international trade and productive investment flows. 17 Deregulation allowed the
financial system to become one of the main centers of redistributive activity through
speculation, predation, fraud, and thievery. Stock promotions; Ponzi schemes; structured asset
destruction through inflation; asset stripping through mergers and acquisitions; and the
promotion of debt incumbency that reduced whole populations, even in the advanced capitalist
countries, to debt peonage -- to say nothing of corporate fraud and dispossession of assets,
such as the raiding of pension hinds and their decimation by stock and corporate collapses
through credit and stock manipulations -- are all features of the capitalist financial
system.
The emphasis on stock values, which arose after bringing together the interests of owners
and managers of capital through the remuneration of the latter in stock options, led, as we now
know, to manipulations in the market that created immense wealth for a few at the expense of
the many. The spectacular collapse of Enron was emblematic of a general process that deprived
many of their livelihoods and pension rights. Beyond this, we also must look at the speculative
raiding carried out by hedge funds and other major instruments of finance capital that formed
the real cutting edge of accumulation by dispossession on the global stage, even as they
supposedly conferred the positive benefit to the capitalist class of spreading risks.
3. The management and manipulation of crises
Beyond the speculative and often fraudulent froth that characterizes much of neoliberal
financial manipulation, there lies a deeper process that entails the springing of the debt trap
as a primary means of accumulation by dispossession. Crisis creation, management, and
manipulation on the world stage has evolved into the fine art of deliberative redistribution of
wealth from poor countries to the rich. By suddenly raising interest rates in 1979, Paul
Volcker, then chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, raised the proportion of foreign earnings
that borrowing countries had to put to debt-interest payments. Forced into bankruptcy,
countries like Mexico had to agree to structural adjustment. While proclaiming its role as a
noble leader organizing bailouts to keep global capital accumulation stable and on track, the
United States could also open the way to pillage the Mexican economy through deployment of its
superior financial power under conditions of local crisis. This was what the U.S. Treasury/Wall
Street/IMF complex became expert at doing everywhere. Volker s successor, Alan Greenspan,
resorted to similar tactics several times in the 1990s. Debt crises in individual countries,
uncommon in the 1960s, became frequent during the 1980s and 1990s. Hardly any developing
country remained untouched and in some cases, as in Latin America, such crises were frequent
enough to be considered endemic. These
debt crises were orchestrated, managed, and controlled both to rationalize the system and to
redistribute assets during the 1980s and 1990s. Wade and Veneroso captured the essence of this
trend when they wrote of the Asian crisis -- provoked initially by the operation of U.S.-based
hedge funds -- of 1997 and 1998:
Financial crises have always caused transfers of ownership and power to those who keep
their own assets intact and who are in a position to create credit, and the Asian crisis is
no exception . . . there is no doubt that Western and Japanese corporations are the big
winners. . . . The combination of massive devaluations pushed financial liberalization, and
IMF-facilitated recovery may even precipitate the biggest peacetime transfer of assets from
domestic to foreign owners in the past fifty years anywhere in the world, dwarfing the
transfers from domestic to U.S. owners in Latin America in the 1980s or in Mexico after 1994.
One recalls the statement attributed to Andrew Mellon: "In a depression assets return to
their rightful owners." 18
The analogy to the deliberate creation of unemployment to produce a pool of low-wage surplus
labor convenient for further accumulation is precise. Valuable assets are thrown out of use and
lose their value. They lie fallow and dormant until capitalists possessed of liquidity choose
to seize upon them and breathe new life into them. The danger, however, is that crises can spin
out of control and become generalized, or that revolts will arise against the system that
creates them. One of the prime functions of state interventions and of international
institutions is to orchestrate crises and devaluations in ways that permit accumulation by
dispossession to occur without sparking a general collapse or popular revolt. The structural
adjustment program administered by the Wall Street/Treasury/ IMF complex takes care of the
first function. It is the job of the comprador neoliberal state apparatus (backed by military
assistance from the imperial powers) to ensure that insurrections do not occur in whichever
country has been raided. Yet signs of popular revolt have emerged, first with the Zapatista
uprising in Mexico in 1994 and later in the generalized discontent that informed
anti-globalization movements such as the one that culminated in Seattle in 1999.
4. State redistributions
The state, once transformed into a neoliberal set of institutions, becomes a prime agent of
redistributive policies, reversing the flow from upper to lower classes that had been
implemented during the preceding social democratic era. It does this in the first instance
through privatization schemes and cutbacks in government expenditures meant to support the
social wage. Even when privatization appears as beneficial to the lower classes, the long-term
effects can be negative. At first blush, for example, Thatchers program for the privatization
of social housing in Britain appeared as a gift to the lower classes whose members could now
convert from rental to ownership at a relatively low cost, gain control over a valuable asset,
and augment their wealth. But once the transfer was accomplished, housing speculation took over
particularly in prime central locations, eventually bribing or forcing low-income populations
out to the periphery in cities like London and turning erstwhile working-class housing estates
into centers of intense gentrification. The loss of affordable housing in central areas
produced homelessness for many and extraordinarily long commutes for those who did have
low-paying service jobs. The privatization of the ejidos (indigenous common property rights in
land under the Mexican constitution) in Mexico, which became a central component of the
neoliberal program set up during the 1990s, has had analogous effects on the Mexican peasantry,
forcing many rural dwellers into the cities in search of employment. The Chinese state has
taken a whole series of draconian measures through which assets have been conferred upon a
small elite to the detriment of the masses.
The neoliberal state also seeks redistributions through a variety of other means such as
revisions in the tax code to benefit returns on investment rather than incomes and wages,
promotion of regressive elements in the tax code (such as sales taxes), displacement of state
expenditures and free access to all by user fees (e.g., on higher education), and the provision
of a vast array of subsidies and tax breaks to corporations. The welfare programs that now
exist in the United States at federal, state, and local levels amount to a vast redirection of
public moneys for corporate benefit (directly as in the case of subsidies to agribusiness and
indirectly as in the case of the military-industrial sector), in much the same way that the
mortgage interest rate tax deduction operates in the United States as a massive subsidy to
upper-income home owners and the construction of industry. Heightened surveillance and policing
and, in the case of the United States, the incarceration of recalcitrant elements in the
population indicate a more sinister role of intense social control. In developing countries,
where opposition to neoliberalism and accumulation by dispossession can be stronger, the role
of the neoliberal state quickly assumes that of active repression even to the point of low
level warfare against oppositional movements (many of which can now conveniently be designated
as terrorist to garner U.S. military assistance and support) such as the Zapatistas in Mexico
or landless peasants in Brazil.
In effect, reported Roy, "India's rural economy, which supports seven hundred million
people, is being garroted. Farmers who produce too much are in distress, farmers who produce
too little are in distress, and landless agricultural laborers are out of work as big estates
and farms lay off their workers. They're all flocking to the cities in search of employment."
19 In China, the estimate is that at least half a billion people will have to be
absorbed by urbanization over the next ten years if rural mayhem and revolt is to be avoided.
What those migrants will do in the cities remains unclear, though the vast physical
infrastructural plans now in the works will go some way to absorbing the labor surpluses
released by primitive accumulation.
The redistributive tactics of neoliberalism are wide-ranging, sophisticated, frequently
masked by ideological gambits, but devastating for the dignity and social well-being of
vulnerable populations and territories. The wave of creative destruction neoliberalization has
visited across the globe is unparalleled in the history of capitalism. Understandably, it has
spawned resistance and a search for viable alternatives.
Based on Peter Schweizer's bestselling book CLINTON CASH with Director commentary by Trump's chief
of staff Steven Bannon.
Hillary Clinton went from being "dead broke" after leaving the White House to amassing a net worth
of over $150M, with over $2B in donations to their foundation. Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of
How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton Rich.
New York Times bestselling book by Peter Schweizer, in which he investigates donations made to the
Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and their
personal enrichment since leaving the White House in 2001. Mr. Schweizer shows foreign governments
and organizations that donated to the Clinton Foundation, and to the Clinton Crime Family themselves
in speaking fees, received favors in exchange from the State Department, headed by then-Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton.
Stopping the Clintons is not about being a good conservative or a good progressive. It's about
being a decent human being." Andrew Breitbart
Deplorable_Left Account Suspended by Saudi Arabia backed Twitter - Follow @SheriffJoeHero or @fuck_kaepernick
on Twitter
Hillary named her book "What Happened" when it should have been named "My Lies About Clinton Cash".
All her wealth came about for the Clintons when she stoled it from the people. Hard working people
trying to make ends meet each and every day. Our taxes that we pay. She was around people who
she could hit up for millions of $$$. She felt as though she was a Global Elitist, hit the Entertainment
industry for all the cash she asks for to increase the funds for her Clinton Foundation. She hated
America and was deeply involved with countries as Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and so much more. She
was so good at what she did and running for President she had it down to a science with all her
negative Rhetoric about us the conservatives, Republicans.
With information out there he is the BIG question. In 2008 Obama called Hillary out of touch and
a liar. In 2016 he called Clinton the most qualified man or women to EVER run for the presidency
of the US. WTF!!! We all know that they didn't have a good working relationship. Between 2008-2016
how many screw ups did she have? To many!
On January 23, 2013 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to a Senate Committee investigating
the death of Four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. These murders occurred on September 11, 2012,
while she was Secretary of State (WHAT DID SHE DO TO GET THAT JOB)Clinton replies -"What's the
difference?" Emails regarding this and the murder, yes murder of Gadaffi were deleted off her
PRIVATE system.
Steve Jason Chaffetz said on Judge Jeanine last night that Jeff Sessions said he is not Prosecuting
her for anything. Holder, Obama, Lynch, Comey and McCabe are not being Prosecuted either. Who
got to Sessions or is he a part of the Swamp?
THE OPENING TO THIS DOCUMENTARY IS BRILLIANT. I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS, SINCE LAST SUMMER (2016).
But, I love the way they start off with the mythology of the "Greatness" and "Noble acts" of the
Clintons. And once you're lured in.....the numbers don't match.
P.S.: BARACK OBAMA DID THE SAME THING.
He slipped $700 MILLION to Islamic countries, and hundreds of millions to others....while Black
and working-class/poor white communities suffered. Furthermore, the amounts his State Dept. claimed
didn't match recent audits.
"... Thus, you have the current hysteria over Russia's supposed "aggression" in Ukraine when the crisis was actually provoked by the West, including by U.S. neocons who helped create today's humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine that they now cynically blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... But these were largely ad hoc efforts. A more comprehensive "public diplomacy" operation took shape beginning in 1982 when Raymond, a 30-year veteran of CIA clandestine services, was transferred to the NSC. ..."
"... A slight, soft-spoken New Yorker who reminded some of a character from a John le Carré spy novel, Raymond was an intelligence officer who "easily fades into the woodwork," according to one acquaintance. But Raymond would become the sparkplug for this high-powered propaganda network, according to a draft chapter of the Iran-Contra report. ..."
"... But things were about to change. In a Jan. 13, 1983, memo, NSC Advisor Clark foresaw the need for non-governmental money to advance this cause. "We will develop a scenario for obtaining private funding," Clark wrote. (Just five days later, President Reagan personally welcomed media magnate Rupert Murdoch into the Oval Office for a private meeting, according to records on file at the Reagan library.) ..."
"... As administration officials reached out to wealthy supporters, lines against domestic propaganda soon were crossed as the operation took aim not only at foreign audiences but at U.S. public opinion, the press and congressional Democrats who opposed funding the Nicaraguan Contras. ..."
"... At the time, the Contras were earning a gruesome reputation as human rights violators and terrorists. To change this negative perception of the Contras as well as of the U.S.-backed regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, the Reagan administration created a full-blown, clandestine propaganda network. ..."
"... Rupert Murdoch's media empire is bigger than ever, but his neocon messaging barely stands out as distinctive, given how the neocons also have gained control of the editorial and foreign-reporting sections of the Washington Post, the New York Times and virtually every other major news outlet. For instance, the demonizing of Russian President Putin is now so total that no honest person could look at those articles and see anything approaching objective or evenhanded journalism. Yet, no one loses a job over this lack of professionalism. ..."
"... Reagan actually has two sides as he was portrayed on SNL, the nice grandfatherly side, and the mafia boss warmonger side. He managed to use the media to display his nice side. ..."
"... Studies estimate that between 100K and 150K Nam vets have committed suicide since the war. There are many reasons why but I suspect a goodly number did so when they couldn't handle the knowledge of how they had been used. I'm careful about who in my "peers" I enlighten. ..."
"... It's painful to watch any western MSM. It's all through our sports and entertainment programming to the point of madness. The wreckage caused by our "leaders" across the earth's face, in our name, IS evil. ..."
"... Studies estimate that between 100K and 150K Nam vets have committed suicide since the war. There are many reasons why but I suspect a goodly number did so when they couldn't handle the knowledge of how they had been used. I'm careful about who in my "peers" I enlighten. ..."
Special Report: In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pioneered "perception management" to
get the American people to "kick the Vietnam Syndrome" and accept more U.S. interventionism,
but that propaganda structure continues to this day getting the public to buy into endless war,
writes Robert Parry.
To understand how the American people find themselves trapped in today's Orwellian dystopia
of endless warfare against an ever-shifting collection of "evil" enemies, you have to think
back to the Vietnam War and the shock to the ruling elite caused by an unprecedented popular
uprising against that war.
While on the surface Official Washington pretended that the mass protests didn't change
policy, a panicky reality existed behind the scenes, a recognition that a major investment in
domestic propaganda would be needed to ensure that future imperial adventures would have the
public's eager support or at least its confused acquiescence.
President Ronald Reagan meeting with media magnate Rupert Murdoch in the Oval Office on Jan.
18, 1983, with Charles Wick, director of the U.S. Information Agency, in the background. (Photo
credit: Reagan presidential library)
This commitment to what the insiders called "perception management" began in earnest with
the Reagan administration in the 1980s but it would come to be the accepted practice of all
subsequent administrations, including the present one of President Barack Obama.
In that sense, propaganda in pursuit of foreign policy goals would trump the democratic
ideal of an informed electorate. The point would be not to honestly inform the American people
about events around the world but to manage their perceptions by ramping up fear in some cases
and defusing outrage in others depending on the U.S. government's needs.
Thus, you have the current
hysteria over Russia's supposed "aggression" in Ukraine when the crisis was actually
provoked by the West, including by U.S. neocons who helped create today's humanitarian crisis
in eastern Ukraine that they now cynically blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Yet, many of these same U.S. foreign policy operatives outraged over Russia's limited
intervention to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine are demanding
that President Obama launch an air war against the Syrian military as a "humanitarian"
intervention there.
In other words, if the Russians act to shield ethnic Russians on their border who are being
bombarded by a coup regime in Kiev that was installed with U.S. support, the Russians are the
villains blamed for the thousands of civilian deaths, even though the vast majority of the
casualties have been inflicted by
the Kiev regime from indiscriminate bombing and from dispatching neo-Nazi militias to do
the street fighting.
In Ukraine, the exigent circumstances don't matter, including the violent overthrow of the
constitutionally elected president last February. It's all about white hats for the current
Kiev regime and black hats for the ethnic Russians and especially for Putin.
But an entirely different set of standards has applied to Syria where a U.S.-backed
rebellion, which included violent Sunni jihadists from the start, wore the white hats and the
relatively secular Syrian government, which has responded with excessive violence of its own,
wears the black hats. But a problem to that neat dichotomy arose when one of the major Sunni
rebel forces, the Islamic State, started seizing Iraqi territory and beheading Westerners.
Faced with those grisly scenes, President Obama authorized bombing the Islamic State forces
in both Iraq and Syria, but neocons and other U.S. hardliners have been hectoring Obama to go
after their preferred target, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, despite the risk that
destroying the Syrian military could open the gates of Damascus to the Islamic State or
al-Qaeda's Nusra Front.
Lost on the Dark Side
You might think that the American public would begin to rebel against these messy entangling
alliances with the 1984 -like demonizing of one new "enemy" after another. Not only
have these endless wars drained trillions of dollars from the U.S. taxpayers, they have led to
the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops and to the tarnishing of America's image from the
attendant evils of war, including a lengthy detour into the "dark side" of torture,
assassinations and "collateral" killings of children and other innocents.
But that is where the history of "perception management" comes in, the need to keep the
American people compliant and confused. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration was determined
to "kick the Vietnam Syndrome," the revulsion that many Americans felt for warfare after all
those years in the blood-soaked jungles of Vietnam and all the lies that clumsily justified the
war.
So, the challenge for the U.S. government became: how to present the actions of "enemies"
always in the darkest light while bathing the behavior of the U.S. "side" in a rosy glow. You
also had to stage this propaganda theater in an ostensibly "free country" with a supposedly
"independent press."
From documents declassified or leaked over the past several decades, including an
unpublished draft chapter of the congressional Iran-Contra investigation, we now know a
great deal about how this remarkable project was undertaken and who the key players were.
Perhaps not surprisingly much of the initiative came from the Central Intelligence Agency,
which housed the expertise for manipulating target populations through propaganda and
disinformation. The only difference this time would be that the American people would be the
target population.
For this project, Ronald Reagan's CIA Director William J. Casey sent his top propaganda
specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to the National Security Council staff to manage the inter-agency
task forces that would brainstorm and coordinate this "public diplomacy" strategy.
Many of the old intelligence operatives, including Casey and Raymond, are now dead, but
other influential Washington figures who were deeply involved by these strategies remain, such
as neocon stalwart Robert Kagan, whose first major job in Washington was as chief of Reagan's
State Department Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America.
Now a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a columnist at the Washington Post, Kagan
remains an expert in presenting foreign policy initiatives within the "good guy/bad guy" frames
that he learned in the 1980s. He is also the husband of Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the overthrow of Ukraine's elected President
Viktor Yanukovych last February amid a very effective U.S. propaganda strategy.
During the Reagan years, Kagan worked closely on propaganda schemes with Elliott Abrams,
then the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America. After getting convicted and then
pardoned in the Iran-Contra scandal, Abrams reemerged on President George W. Bush's National
Security Council handling Middle East issues, including the Iraq War, and later "global
democracy strategy." Abrams is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
These and other neocons were among the most diligent students learning the art of
"perception management" from the likes of Raymond and Casey, but those propaganda skills have
spread much more widely as "public diplomacy" and "information warfare" have now become an
integral part of every U.S. foreign policy initiative.
A Propaganda Bureaucracy
Declassified documents now reveal how extensive Reagan's propaganda project became with
inter-agency task forces assigned to develop "themes" that would push American "hot buttons."
Scores of documents came out during the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 and hundreds more are now
available at the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California.
What the documents reveal is that at the start of the Reagan administration, CIA Director
Casey faced a daunting challenge in trying to rally public opinion behind aggressive U.S.
interventions, especially in Central America. Bitter memories of the Vietnam War were still
fresh and many Americans were horrified at the brutality of right-wing regimes in Guatemala and
El Salvador, where Salvadoran soldiers raped and murdered four American churchwomen in December
1980.
The new leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua also was not viewed with much alarm.
After all, Nicaragua was an impoverished country of only about three million people who had
just cast off the brutal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.
So, Reagan's initial strategy of bolstering the Salvadoran and Guatemalan armies required
defusing the negative publicity about them and somehow rallying the American people into
supporting a covert CIA intervention inside Nicaragua via a counterrevolutionary force known as
the Contras led by Somoza's ex-National Guard officers.
Reagan's task was made tougher by the fact that the Cold War's anti-communist arguments had
so recently been discredited in Vietnam. As deputy assistant secretary to the Air Force, J.
Michael Kelly, put it, "the most critical special operations mission we have is to persuade the
American people that the communists are out to get us."
At the same time, the White House worked to weed out American reporters who uncovered facts
that undercut the desired public images. As part of that effort, the administration attacked
New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner for disclosing the Salvadoran regime's massacre of
about 800 men, women and children in the village of El Mozote in northeast El Salvador in
December 1981. Accuracy in Media and conservative news organizations, such as The Wall Street
Journal's editorial page, joined in pummeling Bonner, who was soon ousted from his job.
But these were largely ad hoc efforts. A more comprehensive "public diplomacy" operation
took shape beginning in 1982 when Raymond, a 30-year veteran of CIA clandestine services, was
transferred to the NSC.
A slight, soft-spoken New Yorker who reminded some of a character from a John le
Carré spy novel, Raymond was an intelligence officer who "easily fades into the
woodwork," according to one acquaintance. But Raymond would become the sparkplug for this
high-powered propaganda network, according to a draft chapter of the Iran-Contra report.
Though the draft chapter didn't use Raymond's name in its opening pages, apparently because
some of the information came from classified depositions, Raymond's name was used later in the
chapter and the earlier citations matched Raymond's known role. According to the draft report,
the CIA officer who was recruited for the NSC job had served as Director of the Covert Action
Staff at the CIA from 1978 to 1982 and was a "specialist in propaganda and disinformation."
"The CIA official [Raymond] discussed the transfer with [CIA Director] Casey and NSC Advisor
William Clark that he be assigned to the NSC as [Donald] Gregg's successor [as coordinator of
intelligence operations in June 1982] and received approval for his involvement in setting up
the public diplomacy program along with his intelligence responsibilities," the chapter
said.
"In the early part of 1983, documents obtained by the Select [Iran-Contra] Committees
indicate that the Director of the Intelligence Staff of the NSC [Raymond] successfully
recommended the establishment of an inter-governmental network to promote and manage a public
diplomacy plan designed to create support for Reagan Administration policies at home and
abroad."
During his Iran-Contra deposition, Raymond explained the need for this propaganda structure,
saying: "We were not configured effectively to deal with the war of ideas."
One reason for this shortcoming was that federal law forbade taxpayers' money from being
spent on domestic propaganda or grassroots lobbying to pressure congressional representatives.
Of course, every president and his team had vast resources to make their case in public, but by
tradition and law, they were restricted to speeches, testimony and one-on-one persuasion of
lawmakers.
But things were about to change. In a Jan. 13, 1983, memo, NSC Advisor Clark foresaw the
need for non-governmental money to advance this cause. "We will develop a scenario for
obtaining private funding," Clark wrote. (Just five days later, President Reagan personally
welcomed media magnate Rupert Murdoch into the Oval Office for a private meeting, according to
records on file at the Reagan library.)
As administration officials reached out to wealthy supporters, lines against domestic
propaganda soon were crossed as the operation took aim not only at foreign audiences but at
U.S. public opinion, the press and congressional Democrats who opposed funding the Nicaraguan
Contras.
At the time, the Contras were earning a gruesome reputation as human rights violators and
terrorists. To change this negative perception of the Contras as well as of the U.S.-backed
regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, the Reagan administration created a full-blown,
clandestine propaganda network.
In January 1983, President Reagan took the first formal step to create this unprecedented
peacetime propaganda bureaucracy by signing National Security Decision Directive 77, entitled
"Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security." Reagan deemed it "necessary to
strengthen the organization, planning and coordination of the various aspects of public
diplomacy of the United States Government."
Reagan ordered the creation of a special planning group within the National Security Council
to direct these "public diplomacy" campaigns. The planning group would be headed by the CIA's
Walter Raymond Jr. and one of its principal arms would be a new Office of Public Diplomacy for
Latin America, housed at the State Department but under the control of the NSC.
CIA Taint
Worried about the legal prohibition barring the CIA from engaging in domestic propaganda,
Raymond formally resigned from the CIA in April 1983, so, he said, "there would be no question
whatsoever of any contamination of this." But Raymond continued to act toward the U.S. public
much like a CIA officer would in directing a propaganda operation in a hostile foreign
country.
Raymond fretted, too, about the legality of Casey's ongoing involvement. Raymond confided in
one memo that it was important "to get [Casey] out of the loop," but Casey never backed off and
Raymond continued to send progress reports to his old boss well into 1986. It was "the kind of
thing which [Casey] had a broad catholic interest in," Raymond shrugged during his Iran-Contra
deposition. He then offered the excuse that Casey undertook this apparently illegal
interference in domestic politics "not so much in his CIA hat, but in his adviser to the
president hat."
As a result of Reagan's decision directive, "an elaborate system of inter-agency committees
was eventually formed and charged with the task of working closely with private groups and
individuals involved in fundraising, lobbying campaigns and propagandistic activities aimed at
influencing public opinion and governmental action," the draft Iran-Contra chapter said. "This
effort resulted in the creation of the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the
Caribbean in the Department of State (S/LPD), headed by Otto Reich," a right-wing Cuban exile
from Miami.
Though Secretary of State George Shultz wanted the office under his control, President
Reagan insisted that Reich "report directly to the NSC," where Raymond oversaw the operations
as a special assistant to the President and the NSC's director of international communications,
the chapter said.
"Reich relied heavily on Raymond to secure personnel transfers from other government
agencies to beef up the limited resources made available to S/LPD by the Department of State,"
the chapter said. "Personnel made available to the new office included intelligence specialists
from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army. On one occasion, five intelligence experts from the
Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were assigned to work
with Reich's fast-growing operation."
A "public diplomacy strategy paper," dated May 5, 1983, summed up the administration's
problem. "As far as our Central American policy is concerned, the press perceives that: the USG
[U.S. government] is placing too much emphasis on a military solution, as well as being allied
with inept, right-wing governments and groups. The focus on Nicaragua [is] on the alleged
U.S.-backed 'covert' war against the Sandinistas. Moreover, the opposition is widely perceived
as being led by former Somozistas."
The administration's difficulty with most of these press perceptions was that they were
correct. But the strategy paper recommended ways to influence various groups of Americans to
"correct" the impressions anyway, removing what another planning document called "perceptional
obstacles."
"Themes will obviously have to be tailored to the target audience," the strategy paper
said.
Casey's Hand
As the Reagan administration struggled to manage public perceptions, CIA Director Casey kept
his personal hand in the effort. On one muggy day in August 1983, Casey convened a meeting of
Reagan administration officials and five leading ad executives at the Old Executive Office
Building next to the White House to come up with ideas for selling Reagan's Central American
policies to the American people.
Earlier that day, a national security aide had warmed the P.R. men to their task with dire
predictions that leftist governments would send waves of refugees into the United States and
cynically flood America with drugs. The P.R. executives jotted down some thoughts over lunch
and then pitched their ideas to the CIA director in the afternoon as he sat hunched behind a
desk taking notes.
"Casey was kind of spearheading a recommendation" for better public relations for Reagan's
Central America policies, recalled William I. Greener Jr., one of the ad men. Two top proposals
arising from the meeting were for a high-powered communications operation inside the White
House and private money for an outreach program to build support for U.S. intervention.
The results from the discussions were summed up in an Aug. 9, 1983, memo written by Raymond
who described Casey's participation in the meeting to brainstorm how "to sell a 'new product'
Central America by generating interest across-the-spectrum."
In the memo to then-U.S. Information Agency director Charles Wick, Raymond also noted that
"via Murdock [sic] may be able to draw down added funds" to support pro-Reagan initiatives.
Raymond's reference to Rupert Murdoch possibly drawing down "added funds" suggests that the
right-wing media mogul had been recruited to be part of the covert propaganda operation. During
this period, Wick arranged at least two face-to-face meetings between Murdoch and Reagan.
In line with the clandestine nature of the operation, Raymond also suggested routing the
"funding via Freedom House or some other structure that has credibility in the political
center." (Freedom House would later emerge as a principal beneficiary of funding from the
National Endowment for Democracy, which was also created under the umbrella of Raymond's
operation.)
As the Reagan administration pushed the envelope on domestic propaganda, Raymond continued
to worry about Casey's involvement. In an Aug. 29, 1983, memo, Raymond recounted a call from
Casey pushing his P.R. ideas. Alarmed at a CIA director participating so brazenly in domestic
propaganda, Raymond wrote that "I philosophized a bit with Bill Casey (in an effort to get him
out of the loop)" but with little success.
Meanwhile, Reich's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America (S/LPD) proved extremely
effective in selecting "hot buttons" that would anger Americans about the Sandinistas. He also
browbeat news correspondents who produced stories that conflicted with the administration's
"themes." Reich's basic M.O. was to dispatch his propaganda teams to lobby news executives to
remove or punish out-of-step reporters with a disturbing degree of success. Reich once bragged
that his office "did not give the critics of the policy any quarter in the debate."
Another part of the office's job was to plant "white propaganda" in the news media through
op-eds secretly financed by the government. In one memo, Jonathan Miller, a senior public
diplomacy official, informed White House aide Patrick Buchanan about success placing an
anti-Sandinista piece in The Wall Street Journal's friendly pages. "Officially, this office had
no role in its preparation," Miller wrote.
Other times, the administration put out "black propaganda," outright falsehoods. In 1983,
one such theme was designed to anger American Jews by portraying the Sandinistas as
anti-Semitic because much of Nicaragua's small Jewish community fled after the revolution in
1979.
However, the U.S. embassy in Managua investigated the charges and "found no verifiable
ground on which to accuse the GRN [the Sandinista government] of anti-Semitism," according to a
July 28, 1983, cable. But the administration kept the cable secret and pushed the "hot button"
anyway.
Black Hats/White Hats
Repeatedly, Raymond lectured his subordinates on the chief goal of the operation: "in the
specific case of Nica[ragua], concentrate on gluing black hats on the Sandinistas and white
hats on UNO [the Contras' United Nicaraguan Opposition]." So Reagan's speechwriters dutifully
penned descriptions of Sandinista-ruled Nicaragua as a "totalitarian dungeon" and the Contras
as the "moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers."
As one NSC official told me, the campaign was modeled after CIA covert operations abroad
where a political goal is more important than the truth. "They were trying to manipulate [U.S.]
public opinion using the tools of Walt Raymond's trade craft which he learned from his career
in the CIA covert operation shop," the official admitted.
Another administration official gave a similar description to The Miami Herald's Alfonso
Chardy. "If you look at it as a whole, the Office of Public Diplomacy was carrying out a huge
psychological operation, the kind the military conduct to influence the population in denied or
enemy territory," that official explained. [For more details, see Parry's Lost
History .]
Another important figure in the pro-Contra propaganda was NSC staffer Oliver North, who
spent a great deal of his time on the Nicaraguan public diplomacy operation even though he is
better known for arranging secret arms shipments to the Contras and to Iran's radical Islamic
government, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal.
The draft Iran-Contra chapter depicted a Byzantine network of contract and private
operatives who handled details of the domestic propaganda while concealing the hand of the
White House and the CIA "Richard R. Miller, former head of public affairs at AID, and Francis
D. Gomez, former public affairs specialist at the State Department and USIA, were hired by
S/LPD through sole-source, no-bid contracts to carry out a variety of activities on behalf of
the Reagan administration policies in Central America," the chapter said.
"Supported by the State Department and White House, Miller and Gomez became the outside
managers of [North operative] Spitz Channel's fundraising and lobbying activities. They also
served as the managers of Central American political figures, defectors, Nicaraguan opposition
leaders and Sandinista atrocity victims who were made available to the press, the Congress and
private groups, to tell the story of the Contra cause."
Miller and Gomez facilitated transfers of money to Swiss and offshore banks at North's
direction, as they "became the key link between the State Department and the Reagan White House
with the private groups and individuals engaged in a myriad of endeavors aimed at influencing
the Congress, the media and public opinion," the chapter said.
The Iran-Contra draft chapter also cited a March 10, 1985, memo from North describing his
assistance to CIA Director Casey in timing disclosures of pro-Contra news "aimed at securing
Congressional approval for renewed support to the Nicaraguan Resistance Forces."
The chapter added: "Casey's involvement in the public diplomacy effort apparently continued
throughout the period under investigation by the Committees," including a 1985 role in
pressuring Congress to renew Contra aid and a 1986 hand in further shielding the Office of
Public Diplomacy for Latin America from the oversight of Secretary Shultz.
A Raymond-authored memo to Casey in August 1986 described the shift of the S/LPD office
where Robert Kagan had replaced Reich to the control of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs,
which was headed by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who had tapped Kagan for the
public diplomacy job.
Even after the Iran-Contra scandal unraveled in 1986-87 and Casey died of brain cancer on
May 6, 1987, the Republicans fought to keep secret the remarkable story of the public diplomacy
apparatus. As part of a deal to get three moderate Republican senators to join Democrats in
signing the Iran-Contra majority report, Democratic leaders agreed to drop the draft chapter
detailing the CIA's domestic propaganda role (although a few references were included in the
executive summary). But other Republicans, including Rep. Dick Cheney, still issued a minority
report defending broad presidential powers in foreign affairs.
Thus, the American people were spared the chapter's troubling conclusion: that a secret
propaganda apparatus had existed, run by "one of the CIA's most senior specialists, sent to the
NSC by Bill Casey, to create and coordinate an inter-agency public-diplomacy mechanism [which]
did what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might do. [It] attempted to manipulate the
media, the Congress and public opinion to support the Reagan administration's policies."
Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome
The ultimate success of Reagan's propaganda strategy was affirmed during the tenure of his
successor, George H.W. Bush, when Bush ordered a 100-hour ground war on Feb. 23, 1991, to oust
Iraqi troops from Kuwait, which had been invaded the previous August.
Though Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had long been signaling a readiness to withdraw and
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had negotiated a withdrawal arrangement that even had the
blessings of top U.S. commanders in the field President Bush insisted on pressing ahead with
the ground attack.
Bush's chief reason was that he and his Defense Secretary Dick Cheney saw the assault
against Iraq's already decimated forces as an easy victory, one that would demonstrate
America's new military capacity for high-tech warfare and would cap the process begun a decade
earlier to erase the Vietnam Syndrome from the minds of average Americans.
Those strategic aspects of Bush's grand plan for a "new world order" began to emerge after
the U.S.-led coalition started pummeling Iraq with air strikes in mid-January 1991. The
bombings inflicted severe damage on Iraq's military and civilian infrastructure and slaughtered
a large number of non-combatants, including the incineration of some 400 women and children in
a Baghdad bomb shelter on Feb. 13. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's " Recalling the Slaughter of Innocents
."]
The air war's damage was so severe that some world leaders looked for a way to end the
carnage and arrange Iraq's departure from Kuwait. Even senior U.S. military field commanders,
such as Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, looked favorably on proposals for sparing lives.
But Bush was fixated on a ground war. Though secret from the American people at that time,
Bush had long determined that a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait would not be allowed.
Indeed, Bush was privately fearful that the Iraqis might capitulate before the United States
could attack.
At the time, conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak were among the few
outsiders who described Bush's obsession with exorcising the Vietnam Syndrome. On Feb. 25,
1991, they wrote that the Gorbachev initiative brokering Iraq's surrender of Kuwait "stirred
fears" among Bush's advisers that the Vietnam Syndrome might survive the Gulf War.
"There was considerable relief, therefore, when the President made clear he was having
nothing to do with the deal that would enable Saddam Hussein to bring his troops out of Kuwait
with flags flying," Evans and Novak wrote. "Fear of a peace deal at the Bush White House had
less to do with oil, Israel or Iraqi expansionism than with the bitter legacy of a lost war.
'This is the chance to get rid of the Vietnam Syndrome,' one senior aide told us."
In the 1999 book, Shadow , author Bob Woodward confirmed that Bush was adamant
about fighting a war, even as the White House pretended it would be satisfied with an
unconditional Iraqi withdrawal. "We have to have a war," Bush told his inner circle of
Secretary of State James Baker, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and Gen. Colin
Powell, according to Woodward.
"Scowcroft was aware that this understanding could never be stated publicly or be permitted
to leak out. An American president who declared the necessity of war would probably be thrown
out of office. Americans were peacemakers, not warmongers," Woodward wrote.
The Ground War
However, the "fear of a peace deal" resurfaced in the wake of the U.S.-led bombing campaign.
Soviet diplomats met with Iraqi leaders who let it be known that they were prepared to withdraw
their troops from Kuwait unconditionally.
Learning of Gorbachev's proposed settlement, Schwarzkopf also saw little reason for U.S.
soldiers to die if the Iraqis were prepared to withdraw and leave their heavy weapons behind.
There was also the prospect of chemical warfare that the Iraqis might use against advancing
American troops. Schwarzkopf saw the possibility of heavy U.S. casualties.
But Gorbachev's plan was running into trouble with President Bush and his political
subordinates who wanted a ground war to crown the U.S. victory. Schwarzkopf reached out to Gen.
Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to make the case for peace with the
President.
On Feb. 21, 1991, the two generals hammered out a cease-fire proposal for presentation to
the NSC. The peace deal would give Iraqi forces one week to march out of Kuwait while leaving
their armor and heavy equipment behind. Schwarzkopf thought he had Powell's commitment to pitch
the plan at the White House.
But Powell found himself caught in the middle. He wanted to please Bush while still
representing the concerns of the field commanders. When Powell arrived at the White House late
on the evening of Feb. 21, he found Bush angry about the Soviet peace initiative. Still,
according to Woodward's Shadow , Powell reiterated that he and Schwarzkopf "would
rather see the Iraqis walk out than be driven out."
In My American Journey , Powell expressed sympathy for Bush's predicament. "The
President's problem was how to say no to Gorbachev without appearing to throw away a chance for
peace," Powell wrote. "I could hear the President's growing distress in his voice. 'I don't
want to take this deal,' he said. 'But I don't want to stiff Gorbachev, not after he's come
this far with us. We've got to find a way out'."
Powell sought Bush's attention. "I raised a finger," Powell wrote. "The President turned to
me. 'Got something, Colin?'," Bush asked. But Powell did not outline Schwarzkopf's one-week
cease-fire plan. Instead, Powell offered a different idea intended to make the ground offensive
inevitable.
"We don't stiff Gorbachev," Powell explained. "Let's put a deadline on Gorby's proposal. We
say, great idea, as long as they're completely on their way out by, say, noon Saturday," Feb.
23, less than two days away.
Powell understood that the two-day deadline would not give the Iraqis enough time to act,
especially with their command-and-control systems severely damaged by the air war. The plan was
a public-relations strategy to guarantee that the White House got its ground war. "If, as I
suspect, they don't move, then the flogging begins," Powell told a gratified president.
The next day, at 10:30 a.m., a Friday, Bush announced his ultimatum. There would be a
Saturday noon deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal, as Powell had recommended. Schwarzkopf and his
field commanders in Saudi Arabia watched Bush on television and immediately grasped its
meaning.
"We all knew by then which it would be," Schwarzkopf wrote. "We were marching toward a
Sunday morning attack."
When the Iraqis predictably missed the deadline, American and allied forces launched the
ground offensive at 0400 on Feb. 24, Persian Gulf time.
Though Iraqi forces were soon in full retreat, the allies pursued and slaughtered tens of
thousands of Iraqi soldiers in the 100-hour war. U.S. casualties were light, 147 killed in
combat and another 236 killed in accidents or from other causes. "Small losses as military
statistics go," wrote Powell, "but a tragedy for each family."
On Feb. 28, the day the war ended, Bush celebrated the victory. "By God, we've kicked the
Vietnam Syndrome once and for all," the President exulted, speaking to a group at the White
House. [For more details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy &
Privilege .]
So as not to put a damper on the post-war happy feelings, the U.S. news media decided not to
show many of the grisliest photos, such as charred Iraqi soldiers ghoulishly still seated in
their burned-out trucks where they had been incinerated while trying to flee. By that point,
U.S. journalists knew it wasn't smart for their careers to present a reality that didn't make
the war look good.
Enduring Legacy
Though Reagan's creation of a domestic propaganda bureaucracy began more than three decades
ago and Bush's vanquishing of the Vietnam Syndrome was more than two decades ago the legacy of
those actions continue to reverberate today in how the perceptions of the American people are
now routinely managed. That was true during last decade's Iraq War and this decade's conflicts
in Libya, Syria and Ukraine as well as the economic sanctions against Iran and Russia.
Gershman and his NED played important behind-the-scenes roles in instigating the Ukraine
crisis by financing activists, journalists and other operatives who supported the coup against
elected President Yanukovych. The NED-backed Freedom House also beat the propaganda drums. [See
Consortiumnews.com's " A Shadow Foreign
Policy. "]
Two other Reagan-era veterans, Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan, have both provided important
intellectual support for continuing U.S. interventionism around the world. Earlier this year,
Kagan's article for The New Republic, entitled " Superpowers
Don't Get to Retire ," touched such a raw nerve with President Obama that he hosted Kagan
at a White House lunch and crafted the presidential commencement speech at West Point to
deflect some of Kagan's criticism of Obama's hesitancy to use military force.
A New York Times article about Kagan's influence over Obama
reported that Kagan's wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, apparently had a
hand in crafting the attack on her ostensible boss, President Obama.
According to the Times article, the husband-and-wife team share both a common world view and
professional ambitions, Nuland editing Kagan's articles and Kagan "not permitted to use any
official information he overhears or picks up around the house" a suggestion that Kagan's
thinking at least may be informed by foreign policy secrets passed on by his wife.
Though Nuland wouldn't comment specifically on Kagan's attack on President Obama, she
indicated that she holds similar views. "But suffice to say," Nuland said, "that nothing goes
out of the house that I don't think is worthy of his talents. Let's put it that way."
Misguided Media
In the three decades since Reagan's propaganda machine was launched, the American press
corps also has fallen more and more into line with an aggressive U.S. government's foreign
policy strategies. Those of us in the mainstream media who resisted the propaganda pressures
mostly saw our careers suffer while those who played along moved steadily up the ranks into
positions of more money and more status.
Even after the Iraq War debacle when nearly the entire mainstream media went with the
pro-invasion flow, there was almost no accountability for that historic journalistic failure.
Indeed, the neocon influence at major newspapers, such as the Washington Post and the New York
Times, only has solidified since.
Today's coverage of the Syrian civil war or the Ukraine crisis is so firmly in line with the
State Department's propaganda "themes" that it would put smiles on the faces of William Casey
and Walter Raymond if they were around today to see how seamlessly the "perception management"
now works. There's no need any more to send out "public diplomacy" teams to bully editors and
news executives. Everyone is already onboard.
Rupert Murdoch's media empire is bigger than ever, but his neocon messaging barely stands
out as distinctive, given how the neocons also have gained control of the editorial and
foreign-reporting sections of the Washington Post, the New York Times and virtually every other
major news outlet. For instance, the demonizing of Russian President Putin is now so total that
no honest person could look at those articles and see anything approaching objective or
evenhanded journalism. Yet, no one loses a job over this lack of professionalism.
The Reagan administration's dreams of harnessing private foundations and non-governmental
organizations have also come true. The Orwellian circle has been completed with many American
"anti-war" groups advocating for "humanitarian" wars in Syria and other countries targeted by
U.S. propaganda. [See Consortiumnews.com's " Selling 'Peace
Groups' on US-Led Wars. "]
Much as Reagan's "public diplomacy" apparatus once sent around "defectors" to lambaste
Nicaragua's Sandinistas by citing hyped-up human rights violations now the work is done by NGOs
with barely perceptible threads back to the U.S. government. Just as Freedom House had
"credibility" in the 1980s because of its earlier reputation as a human rights group, now other
groups carrying the "human rights" tag, such as Human Rights Watch, are in the forefront of
urging U.S. military interventions based on murky or propagandistic claims. [See
Consortiumnews.com's " The Collapsing
Syria-Sarin Case. "]
At this advanced stage of America's quiet surrender to "perception management," it is even
hard to envision how one could retrace the many steps that would lead back to the concept of a
democratic Republic based on an informed electorate. Many on the American Right remain
entranced by the old propaganda theme about the "liberal media" and still embrace Reagan as
their beloved icon. Meanwhile, many liberals can't break away from their own wistful trust in
the New York Times and their empty hope that the media really is "liberal."
To confront the hard truth is not easy. Indeed, in this case, it can cause despair because
there are so few voices to trust and they are easily drowned out by floods of disinformation
that can come from any angle right, left or center. Yet, for the American democratic Republic
to reset its goal toward an informed electorate, there is no option other than to build
institutions that are determinedly committed to the truth.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in print here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ). You also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its
connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's
Stolen Narrative . For details on this offer, click here .
LIANE CASTEN , December 28, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Terrific analysis. Am working on my own book on Vietnam (under contract.) Would love to
use this piece liberally–of course with serious attribution. Do I have your
permission?. Liane
W. R. Knight , December 28, 2014 at 1:51 pm
Bear in mind that during WWII, Reagan was nothing more than an itinerant movie actor who
played war heros but never participated in the war itself. The movies he played in weren't
much more than unabashed propaganda.
It is obscene that we allow the most vociferous warmongers to avoid any personal risk in
the wars they promote; and it is depressing to see the public persuaded by the propaganda to
sacrifice their money and children for the benefit of the warmongers.
Man on the street , December 29, 2014 at 2:49 pm
Reagan actually has two sides as he was portrayed on SNL, the nice grandfatherly side, and
the mafia boss warmonger side. He managed to use the media to display his nice side.
Carroll Price , December 31, 2014 at 11:49 am
It takes both. All really successful presidents have a nice grandfatherly side and a mafia
boss side that's displayed to the public as the need arises. Why? Because the American people
admire the mafia war monger trait as much, if not more, than the grandfatherly trait. FDR and
Reagan were both successful presidents because they had great skill in displaying whichever
side fitted occasion, while Jimmy Carter, who was not blessed with a mafia/war monger side
was a complete failure.
Joe Tedesky , December 28, 2014 at 2:07 pm
When ever this subject comes up, of how the right wing in American politics controls the
narrative, I think of the 'Powell Memo'. In 1971 Lewis Powell wrote a secretive memo
descripting how the conservatives must take hold of the American media. Powell would become a
Supreme Court justice. If you Google his 'Powell Memo' you will read how Justice Powell laid
out a very specific plan on how to do this. Powell wrote this before becoming a sitting
Supreme Court Justice. His instructions were so good that many believe this document he
wrote, was his stairway to heaven.
I cannot help but reflect on how the Warren Report was a great way for the Dark State to
see how well they could pull the wool over America's eyes. Even though many did not buy the
official one gunman claim, what else was there to counter this official report. So, it's
business as usual, and for the average US citizen there isn't much else left to do.
I value this site. Although, there are way to many Americans not getting the news this
site has to offer. Instead our society strolls along catching the sound bites, and listening
to agenda driven pundits to become the most ill informed populace in human history.
Everythings Jake , December 28, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Another stellar moment of "integrity" in Colin Powell's long and ignominious career.
JWalters , December 28, 2014 at 5:43 pm
" given how the neocons also have gained control of the editorial and foreign-reporting
sections of the Washington Post, the New York Times and virtually every other major news
outlet."
And how do the neocons, working from niches out of the limelight, have the power to do all
this? In a political system dominated by money, from where comes their money? Who coordinates
their game plan? Who has an interest in promoting needless wars? http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
Mark , December 29, 2014 at 8:35 am
A tour de force outstanding work; essential reading, imo. It draws together in detail the
mind-management of aggressive imperial adventures from Vietnam, through Central America and
Iraq up to Ukraine and Syria today. Thank you Robert Parry.
Perhaps, as a further signal of the 'same ole same ole', you might even have thrown in
somewhere the epithet 'jihadi contras' to describe extremist militias used (recruited,
funded, trained, armed and directed) by the US (and allies) in the Syrian nightmare (and
Libyan); where the secular and tolerant Assad government is – painfully for perception
managers – still supported by the vast majority of Syrians, however topsy-turvy the
mainextreme narrative is.
Thomas Seifert , December 29, 2014 at 9:12 am
A question from Germany: We observe a very similar process over here – the
mainstream media closest following (and inciting!) the official NATO-propaganda in the case
of Ukraine. This happens even stubbornly against the bitter protests from greater parts of
their own readers.
But: HOW does this happen? What are precisely the mechanisms to unite the media and the
journalists behind a special doctrine? On other themes there is still a pluralism of opinions
– but in the case of "national interests"/foreign policy there is a kind of frightening
standardization. Why this difference?
And why this against an obvious resistance from large
parts of their readers and from experts (e.g. the last three German chancellors –
Schmidt, Kohl and Schroeder – have admonished the NATO for better considering the
Russian security interests). I don't want to believe in simple conspiracy theories
onno , December 29, 2014 at 9:23 am
Another great article by Consortiumnews proving the manipulation of people by the Western
Media. It's amazing and scary to realize that people's minds are influenced by government
propaganda. It reminds me of the German occupation during WW II and the lies broadcasted by
US financed Radio Free Europe during the Cold War and apparently still happening in
Azerbaijan.
This is psychological warfare at its best and used at the hands of the White House and
Washington's Congress. What a shame for a so-called democratic nation, when are the American
people waking up?
John , December 29, 2014 at 12:57 pm
Excellent piece indeed. The collusion of mass media and officials installed by the same
economic powers completes the totalitarian mechanism which has displaced democracy.
Suggest clarifying use of the name Raymond, at first apparently Raymond Bonner also called
Bonner, then a (different?) Raymond with the CIA referred to only by surname(?) as Raymond,
then a Walter Raymond jr.
Studies estimate that between
100K and 150K Nam vets have committed suicide since the war. There are many reasons why but I
suspect a goodly number did so when they couldn't handle the knowledge of how they had been
used. I'm careful about who in my "peers" I enlighten.
Paul , December 29, 2014 at 3:39 pm
The positive side of democracy in America is exemplified precisely by journalism such as
this. How sad that it is almost completely overshadowed by the cynical imperial 'democracy'
that Parry's essay describes.
Your description of how the first Iraq War was pursued despite easily available options to
avoid the carnage are hair-raising and infuriating. Almost as infuriating as the internal
propaganda efforts of the U.S. government. I hope this essay is widely read.
To me, the positive side of democracy in America is exemplified precisely by journalism
such as this. How sad that it is almost completely overshadowed by the cynical imperial
'democracy' that Parry's essay describes.
Barbc , December 29, 2014 at 7:32 pm
This past year I have learned from a number of Vietnam veterans that Reagan is not as well
liked as has had been implied.
A most of the dislike is how he did not follow throw with bringing home the POWs left behind
in Vietnam.
Steve Pahs , December 29, 2014 at 10:47 pm
Mr. Parry,
I follow your writing and have passed it along at times to the misinformed in my life. I
appreciate such as your MH17 work early on when Putin and Russia were immediately blamed.
I am a Nam grunt vet from 66′-67′ who is the not so proud recipient of the Purple
Heart. My physical wounds affect me to this day as I approach the age of 68. My mental wounds
are not from my combat experience so much as they are from the eventual feeling of being used
and betrayed. Adversity does not build character, it reveals it. I'm good with mine. The
mental wounds evolved over time as I educated myself about how such an awful thing as that
war could happen and engulf me in it at 19.
Three months in a military hospital makes one
think about what had just transpired. It was the start of a journey that will continue till
my last breath. I've crossed that threshold where most of my family and friends are looking
through a keyhole offered up by our "leaders" while I am in the room dealing with the evil.
Even those who understand what I present will sometimes tell me that "you are right, but it's
too late in my life to accept it". That was said by a former Marine pilot.
It's painful to watch any western MSM. It's all through our sports and entertainment
programming to the point of madness. The wreckage caused by our "leaders" across the earth's
face, in our name, IS evil. I stopped taking the local paper a couple of years ago after they
no longer would print my letters and columns. Twenty years ago it all made me quite angry.
It's sadness I feel now for those who refuse to "see". Many vets don't know the source of
their anger and the VA gladly numbs them with drugs. Not I.
Studies estimate that between
100K and 150K Nam vets have committed suicide since the war. There are many reasons why but I
suspect a goodly number did so when they couldn't handle the knowledge of how they had been
used. I'm careful about who in my "peers" I enlighten.
Mark Twain (SLC) said some profound things. One of my favorites is "It is easier to fool
people than to convince them that they have been fooled". Always follow the money.
Thanks for what you do. It does make a difference.
Steve Pahs
MarkinPNW , December 30, 2014 at 1:43 am
This "Perception Management" is nothing knew. The argument has been made persuasively that
the attack on Pearl Harbor actually resulted from a deliberate and successful campaign by FDR
to change or "manage" the mass opinions or "Perceptions" of the US electorate from strongly
pro-peace and anti-war (what could be called a "Great War syndrome" from the stupid and
useless devastation of WW1) to all out pro-war for US involvement in WW2, by provoking the
Japanese and refusing all peace negotiations with the Japanese who desperately were trying to
avoid war.
In reference to "Orwellian Dystopia", Orwell's novels "Animal Farm" and "1984" were based
in large part on Orwell's experience in the Spanish Civil War and WW2, respectively.
Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg , December 30, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Until the U.S. gets its butt seriously whipped again, as in Vietnam, the ever escalating
strategy of tension against all countries who exhibit less than total and unconditional
obedience to Washington will continue. Victoria Nuland is nothing more than a modern version
of Cecil Rhodes; the ever probing tentacle of a voracious empire. In fact, It's really the
same one.
hp , December 30, 2014 at 3:52 pm
The ripened fruit of the pervert Freud's pervert nephew Edward Bernays.
(how the usurping usurers roll)
Jacob , December 31, 2014 at 11:51 pm
"In the 1980s, the Reagan administration pioneered 'perception management' to get the
American people to 'kick the Vietnam Syndrome' and accept more U.S. interventionism, . .
."
The management of public perception within the U.S. regarding its imperialistic/colonial
ambitions goes back much further than the 1980s. The Committee on Public Information, also
known as "the Creel Commission," was the likely model Reagan wanted to imitate. The purpose
of the CPI was to convince the American public, which was mostly anti-war, to support
America's entry into the European war, also known as WWI. The CPI was in official operation
from 1917 to 1919 during the Woodrow Wilson administration. But the paradigm for the use of
mass propaganda to alter public perceptions is the Congregatio de propaganda fide (The Office
for the Propagation of the Faith), a 1622 Vatican invention to undermine the spread of
Protestantism by managing public perceptions on religious and spiritual matters.
Those who have economic power also have political power. Is this sop difficult to understand.
Notable quotes:
"... The system, in other words, can't really be "rigged" to work for the rich and powerful unless the people are at least willing to accept a government of the rich and powerful. If the general public opposes rule-by-economic-elites, how is it, then, that the wealthy control so much of government? ..."
"... To prevent this occurrence, ancient Greek elites developed institutions and practices to keep themselves united. Among other things, they passed sumptuary laws, preventing extravagant displays of their wealth that might spark jealously, and they used the secret ballot and consensus building practices to ensure that decisions didn't lead to greater conflict within their cadre. ..."
"... While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power, the people must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors. Oligarchs in ancient Greece thus used a combination of coercion and co-optation to keep democracy at bay. They gave rewards to informants and found pliable citizens to take positions in the government. ..."
"... These collaborators legitimized the regime and gave oligarchs beachheads into the people. In addition, oligarchs controlled public spaces and livelihoods to prevent the people from organizing. They would expel people from town squares: a diffuse population in the countryside would be unable to protest and overthrow government as effectively as a concentrated group in the city. ..."
"... They also tried to keep ordinary people dependent on individual oligarchs for their economic survival, similar to how mob bosses in the movies have paternalistic relationships in their neighborhoods. Reading Simonton's account, it is hard not to think about how the fragmentation of our media platforms is a modern instantiation of dividing the public sphere, or how employees and workers are sometimes chilled from speaking out. ..."
"... Oligarchs would fund the creation of a new building or the beautification of a public space. The result: the people would appreciate elite spending on those projects and the upper class would get their names memorialized for all time. After all, who could be against oligarchs who show such generosity? ..."
"... To understand that, we can turn to an instant classic from a few years ago, Jeffrey Winters' Oligarchy. Winters argues that the key to oligarchy is that a set of elites have enough material resources to spend on securing their status and interests. He calls this "wealth defense," and divides it into two categories. "Property defense" involves protecting existing property – in the old days, this meant building castles and walls, today it involves the rule of law. "Income defense" is about protecting earnings; these days, that means advocating for low taxes. ..."
"... The challenge in seeing how oligarchy works, Winters says, is that we don't normally think about the realms of politics and economics as fused together. At its core, oligarchy involves concentrating economic power and using it for political purposes. Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because democrats focus so much on guaranteeing political equality that they overlook the indirect threat that emerges from economic inequality. ..."
"... Winters argues that there are four kinds of oligarchies, each of which pursues wealth defense through different institutions. These oligarchies are categorized based on whether the oligarchs rule is personal or collective, and whether the oligarchs use coercion. ..."
"... Simonton offers another solution. He argues that democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of "oligarchic breakdown." Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse, as are any other kind of institution. As the oligarchs' solidarity and practices start to break down, there is an opportunity for democracy to bring government back to the people. ..."
"... Even with compulsory voting Australia still funnels votes to those we don't want to elect in the form of transferable 1st pass the post single member electorates. True democracy would grant proportional representation, and allow citizen initiated binding referenda. ..."
"... By these measures you could say America has been an oligarchy from its very conception. Look at the robber-barons of the 19th c. There are occasional "raisings of the veil" such as new deal or great society when the general public gets a fair go. The industrial boom of ww2 is what gave the working class a shot at living a decent life - and of course offshoring industry is precisely closing that door again. ..."
"... Tens of millions of Americans waited patiently for a Dem candidate to talk about our stacked decks, D.C. swamps, and broken systems -- instead, they gave us a Hillary coronation and expected us to embrace the pantsuit. ..."
"... After university econ training, and a long business career, I now consider education a terrible thing. Knowing what I know now about how our systems really work, when I observe our Congressional leaders looking into the camera with point-blank lies day in and day out, I feel they deserve execution; literally, I am feeling like heads should roll. ..."
"... In America, oligarchs win when Dems are center right (in practice, not rhetoric) and are sold out to the oligarchs. Case in point, HC. There is no counterbalance to those who are even further to the right. Oligarchs win without a legit 3rd party. ..."
"... Obama and the Dems lost 1,000 elected positions before Trump came along. It's because he sold out to the big banks. ..."
"... Small D Democrats. Not big D Democrats. The Clintons are clearly in the oligarch class, much like Trump. It is rather hilarious to hear Trump supporters talk about how he cares for the poor. ..."
"... Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse, as are any other kind of institution. As the oligarchs' solidarity and practices start to break down, there is an opportunity for democracy to bring government back to the people. In that moment, the people might unite for long enough that their protests lead to power. With all the upheaval in today's politics, it's hard not to think that this moment is one in which the future of the political system might be more up for grabs than it has been in generations. ..."
"... It never ceases to amaze me how Americans delude themselves into thinking that they live in a democracy. ..."
"... They don't come by it naturally. Their delusion is pushed along by very well oiled propaganda machines, probably mostly financed by the taxpayers themselves. ..."
"... Can't recommend Requiem For The American Dream highly enough, absolutely required viewing for anyone wishing to understand the mockery of democracy under which we live. ..."
A few years ago, as I was doing research for a book on how economic inequality threatens democracy,
a colleague of mine asked if America was really at risk of becoming an oligarchy. Our political system,
he said, is a democracy. If the people don't want to be run by wealthy elites, we can just vote them
out.
The system, in other words, can't really be "rigged" to work for the rich and powerful unless
the people are at least willing to accept a government of the rich and powerful. If the general public
opposes rule-by-economic-elites, how is it, then, that the wealthy control so much of government?
The question was a good one, and while I had my own explanations, I didn't have a systematic answer.
Luckily, two recent books do. Oligarchy works, in a word, because of institutions.
In his fascinating and insightful book Classical Greek Oligarchy, Matthew Simonton takes us back
to the ancient world, where the term oligarchy was coined. One of the primary threats to oligarchy
was that the oligarchs would become divided, and that one from their number would defect, take leadership
of the people, and overthrow the oligarchy.
To prevent this occurrence, ancient Greek elites developed institutions and practices to keep
themselves united. Among other things, they passed sumptuary laws, preventing extravagant displays
of their wealth that might spark jealously, and they used the secret ballot and consensus building
practices to ensure that decisions didn't lead to greater conflict within their cadre.
Appropriately for a scholar of the classics, Simonton focuses on these specific ancient practices
in detail. But his key insight is that elites in power need solidarity if they are to stay in power.
Unity might come from personal relationships, trust, voting practices, or – as is more likely in
today's meritocratic era – homogeneity in culture and values from running in the same limited circles.
The ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power
While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power, the people
must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors. Oligarchs in ancient Greece thus
used a combination of coercion and co-optation to keep democracy at bay. They gave rewards to informants
and found pliable citizens to take positions in the government.
These collaborators legitimized the regime and gave oligarchs beachheads into the people.
In addition, oligarchs controlled public spaces and livelihoods to prevent the people from organizing.
They would expel people from town squares: a diffuse population in the countryside would be unable
to protest and overthrow government as effectively as a concentrated group in the city.
They also tried to keep ordinary people dependent on individual oligarchs for their economic
survival, similar to how mob bosses in the movies have paternalistic relationships in their neighborhoods.
Reading Simonton's account, it is hard not to think about how the fragmentation of our media platforms
is a modern instantiation of dividing the public sphere, or how employees and workers are sometimes
chilled from speaking out.
The most interesting discussion is how ancient oligarchs used information to preserve their regime.
They combined secrecy in governance with selective messaging to targeted audiences, not unlike our
modern spinmasters and communications consultants. They projected power through rituals and processions.
At the same time, they sought to destroy monuments that were symbols of democratic success. Instead
of public works projects, dedicated in the name of the people, they relied on what we can think of
as philanthropy to sustain their power. Oligarchs would fund the creation of a new building or
the beautification of a public space. The result: the people would appreciate elite spending on those
projects and the upper class would get their names memorialized for all time. After all, who could
be against oligarchs who show such generosity?
An assistant professor of history at Arizona State University, Simonton draws heavily on insights
from social science and applies them well to dissect ancient practices. But while he recognizes that
ancient oligarchies were always drawn from the wealthy, a limitation of his work is that he focuses
primarily on how oligarchs perpetuated their political power, not their economic power.
To understand that, we can turn to an instant classic from a few years ago, Jeffrey Winters'
Oligarchy. Winters argues that the key to oligarchy is that a set of elites have enough material
resources to spend on securing their status and interests. He calls this "wealth defense," and divides
it into two categories. "Property defense" involves protecting existing property – in the old days,
this meant building castles and walls, today it involves the rule of law. "Income defense" is about
protecting earnings; these days, that means advocating for low taxes.
The challenge in seeing how oligarchy works, Winters says, is that we don't normally think
about the realms of politics and economics as fused together. At its core, oligarchy involves concentrating
economic power and using it for political purposes. Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because
democrats focus so much on guaranteeing political equality that they overlook the indirect threat
that emerges from economic inequality.
Winters argues that there are four kinds of oligarchies, each of which pursues wealth defense
through different institutions. These oligarchies are categorized based on whether the oligarchs
rule is personal or collective, and whether the oligarchs use coercion.
Warring oligarchies, like warlords, are personal and armed. Ruling oligarchies like the mafia
are collective and armed. In the category of unarmed oligarchies, sultanistic oligarchies (like Suharto's
Indonesia) are governed through personal connections. In civil oligarchies, governance is collective
and enforced through laws, rather than by arms.
Democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of 'oligarchic breakdown.'
With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil oligarchy. To
use the language of recent political campaigns, our oligarchs try to rig the system to defend their
wealth. They focus on lowering taxes and on reducing regulations that protect workers and citizens
from corporate wrongdoing.
They build a legal system that is skewed to work in their favor, so that their illegal behavior
rarely gets punished. And they sustain all of this through a campaign finance and lobbying system
that gives them undue influence over policy. In a civil oligarchy, these actions are sustained not
at the barrel of the gun or by the word of one man, but through the rule of law.
If oligarchy works because its leaders institutionalize their power through law, media, and political
rituals, what is to be done? How can democracy ever gain the upper hand? Winters notes that political
power depends on economic power. This suggests that one solution is creating a more economically
equal society.
The problem, of course, is that if the oligarchs are in charge, it isn't clear why they would
pass policies that would reduce their wealth and make society more equal. As long as they can keep
the people divided, they have little to fear from the occasional pitchfork or protest.
Indeed, some commentators have suggested that the economic equality of the late 20 th
century was exceptional because two World Wars and a Great Depression largely wiped out the holdings
of the extremely wealthy. On this story, there isn't much we can do without a major global catastrophe.
Simonton offers another solution. He argues that democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece
because of "oligarchic breakdown." Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse, as are
any other kind of institution. As the oligarchs' solidarity and practices start to break down, there
is an opportunity for democracy to bring government back to the people.
In that moment, the people might unite for long enough that their protests lead to power. With
all the upheaval in today's politics, it's hard not to think that this moment is one in which the
future of the political system might be more up for grabs than it has been in generations.
The question is whether democracy will emerge from oligarchic breakdown – or whether the oligarchs
will just strengthen their grasp on the levers of government.
Ganesh Sitaraman is the author of The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
I think the USA is a
republic and
not a democracy. I also think the distinction isn't a subtle one. Many think we'd be better off
as a democracy. I don't. In a democracy, the majority rules. That means when you are in the minority,
you don't have a say. The electoral college prevents the larger states from squeezing out the
smaller states. However some don't think that is necessarily a problem. Urban life is very different
from rural life and we can't make all of the rules based on urban life.
Whilst the suggestion of "creating a more economically equal society" is obviously desirable,
it's not exactly a practical recommendation against the context of the rest of the article.
Herein lies the key: "...they sustain all of this through a campaign finance and lobbying system
that gives them undue influence over policy."
Possible solution? No vote; no donation.
Curtail corporate funding of political parties, Super PACs, Unions, etc. and have election
campaigns financed from public funds ONLY. If you can't vote as an individual person/citizen,
you can't contribute.
This would remove a big barrier to reform - lobbyists and political patronage - and ensure
that elected leaders are unshackled, with the freedom to govern based on evidence-based policy
and long-term planning rather than just rewarding the corporate elite who put them there.
Even with compulsory voting Australia still funnels votes to those we don't want to elect
in the form of transferable 1st pass the post single member electorates. True democracy would
grant proportional representation, and allow citizen initiated binding referenda.
White nationalism wasn't necessary when you were 90% of the population - it has only emerged with
the mass immigration era, when socially engineered policies threaten to make you a minority in
your own nation-state. (yes, I am aware that the indigenous population was here first and was
disposessed - but America the nation state was clearly built predominantly on European settlement)
There used to be an effective form of identity politics - based on working class common interest
- that brought a high standard of living to most people (even the oppressed Black minority). It
is the splitting of that identity that has allowed the neoliberals to sideline class as a divider
of common interest.
regarding (1): not sure it is feasible and I don't think we should do it if it is. The market
is a weird animal imho. Both the hedgers and the speculators can drive a market share price up
or down and contrary to popular opinion, I don't believe the speculators are to blame when a company
does well. A lot of people got financially devastated because they had holdings in Enron. I wouldn't
want to punish those investors even further because they invested in a bad company.
regarding (2): I agree. The concept of globalism is a good concept. However the way it is being
implemented isn't.
regarding (3): Again I agree. Most of the regular posters who agree with the media nonsense
don't post on articles like this one because a paid troll sticks out like a sore thumb on articles
like this.
By these measures you could say America has been an oligarchy from its very conception. Look
at the robber-barons of the 19th c. There are occasional "raisings of the veil" such as new deal
or great society when the general public gets a fair go. The industrial boom of ww2 is what gave
the working class a shot at living a decent life - and of course offshoring industry is precisely
closing that door again.
I am not an expert on Greek history but wouldn't the example of Alcibiades suggest that when an
oligarchy falls-- due to war and plague in the case of Athens -- dangerous demagogues who break
away from the same oligarchy ride the "democratic" wave and cause even more misery like the idiotic
invasion of Sicily? Weren't the democratic people-- the landless poor of Athens-- more inclined
to war at that point than the oligarchs? In some sense aren't we seeing what happens when a member
of the oligarchy breaks away in present day U.S-- Trump rode a populist wave that was very democratic
and people powered-- and where has that got us? Sometimes true democracy can be a messy and frightening
affair.
I offer no defense of oligarchies, but the older I get, the more I wonder whether democracy
of the people, by the people, is really for ALL the people.
Take Brexit, Trump, or for a more remote example, the Fascist inspired Hindu right wingers
in India. All of them are in many ways a truer representation of the voice of the people, but
that voice is so ugly, so exclusionary, so narrow, that one might be forgiven to want the sedate
stability of an oligarchy back.
I'm afraid I have to agree. When thinking on these issues, I have a recurring mental image, it's
the crowd scene at Brian's window, in the greatest cinematic example of satire, Life of Brian.
Brian -"You are all individuals. You are all different! "
The crowd -"YES! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS! WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT! "
......ahhh, reclining in the facetious lounge; unfortunately, this amusement left us with a candidate
ignoring the masses of the American population opening the door for Trump.
Tens of millions of Americans waited patiently for a Dem candidate to talk about our stacked
decks, D.C. swamps, and broken systems -- instead, they gave us a Hillary coronation and expected
us to embrace the pantsuit.
Meanwhile, tens of millions then voted for Trump, knowing point-blank he was lying; they happily
voluntarily deceive themselves (current/active); how sad is this reality ?
As someone already said, instead of treating poor people unequally well, why not treat rich people
the same as everyone else- don't let them hide their money from the taxman, don't give the rich
unfair breaks and handouts
Do you think that is going to inspire Americans to get out and vote?
When the choice for the most powerful office in the world comes down to a choice between Donald
J Trump and Hillary R Clinton (who were friends before the election started), I tend to think
that our problem is not due to voter apathy, but rather voter apathy is due to our problem.
Those who still participate, still think this is all about the left vs the right because they
think they still have a choice. They do. they get to choose between neoliberalism and fascism.
After university econ training, and a long business career, I now consider education a terrible
thing. Knowing what I know now about how our systems really work, when I observe our Congressional
leaders looking into the camera with point-blank lies day in and day out, I feel they deserve
execution; literally, I am feeling like heads should roll.
Our systems have been hijacked,
and the interests of the masses of our populations are being completely ignored--what should be
the penalty for selling out, via acute sophisticated engineering, the population of an entire
nation ?
I dont think its a belief in 2 parties but a belief in a type of fixed yin and yang that drives
this
Opposites like Good v Evil , the Unknown Others (like Foreigners) v the known (your Family
/Friends ) etc . We see things as Either/Or because it is the simplest way of making sense of
our world. But the world is far more complex and nuanced than this and there are degrees of rightness
and wrongness and we as you say take on board the whole rigid structure of one side or the other
-- it plays right into the oligarchs hands
Your instant dismissal of zaarth's point of view is the essential problem of modern democracy
- casual demeaning and disregarding attitude from the ruling elites towards an informed citizen
expressing concerns of inequality and systemic concentration of political power to the oligarchs.
Typical.
There maybe no political will to address these issues, but there sure as hell is plenty of
social will! As for your last sentence "- So redistributionist policies have no future. ", well,
considering that we've had 40years of global wealth being redistributed to the 1%, it's about
time it was spread around a bit more equitably, don't you think?
In America, oligarchs win when Dems are center right (in practice, not rhetoric) and are sold
out to the oligarchs. Case in point, HC. There is no counterbalance to those who are even further
to the right. Oligarchs win without a legit 3rd party.
A article. A case in point - Iceland, where the elite owns the fishing fleet and controls the
financial industry, whereas the majority of the population barely scrape by. People are furious
but how do you overturn centuries of oligarch 'rule and law'?
Disagree. "Why" is always a question. If you don't know and understand "why," the original intent
of a law, you can't interpret and apply it properly. As a result, it gets perverted to the point
that it does no longer make sense. We have plenty of examples in the US.
Without why you can't adapt to the changing environment either.
Do you know how small the odds are to get a large group of people to rally (or vote) around a
cause? This is why grassroots have a low success rate. The founding fathers certainly knew how
small the odds are and gave the people a bone they naively believed to be useful and powerful;
the right to vote. It is one of the biggest cons played on the people and has managed to keep
the natives quiet and complacent, while the elite and powerful do their bidding.
To get back to the argument about the oligarchs buying collaborators, everybody who keeps their
mouth shut to keep their job falls into that category. So that's the majority in work.
That's why i want to go after the politicians and bypass their evil, selfish, stupid pawns they
are encouraging right now.
Start demanding some laws for them to follow that has some teeth when they lie to us.
They want to sanction Russia who was just repeating what republican/tea party had been saying.
"A loophole in American tax law permits companies with just 20 percent foreign ownership to reincorporate
abroad, which means that if a big U.S. firm acquires a smaller company located in a tax haven,
it can then "invert" – that is, become a subsidiary of its foreign-based affiliate – and kiss
a huge share of its IRS obligations goodbye.........Over the next decade, corporate inversions
could cost the U.S. Treasury nearly $20 billion" Rolling Stone
*******
They made this legal, folks, and it's just the tip of the iceburg. Meanwhile, not a peep (cricket,
cricket, cricket.....)
Corporate lobbyists have so much more wealth than the incomes of individual politicians, that
is their political salary, that they are all bought not so much with brown envelopes but with
jobs like Osborne's, a day's work a month for Blackrock for which he is paid £650k a year. It's
so obviously not a payment for what will be done as for what has been done.
Thought provoking and excellent comments that should be read before opining. As for my opinion,
it seems that communism was left out when it might just be the answer to a conundrum that seems
unresolvable. Uniformity of wealth within reason (the rule of seven times) can be achieved and
sustained. But that requires education which again, can be achieved and sustained. That is, if
we don't blow ourselves to smithereens before we achieve such a heightened state which after all
should be a...normal?!
Obama and the Dems lost 1,000 elected positions before Trump came along. It's because he sold
out to the big banks. We don't need two Wall St. parties. Until the Dems learn to respect
their voters and do things like support single payer, this is all we get.
The primary institution that drives oligarchy in the US is the "two party system". It is not enshrined
in the Constitution. It is purely the working of the political class. The people need to quit
believing that there can only be two parties.
The spin and brainwash are now far, far more powerful than the 1960's.
How else do you explain tens of millions of formerly hardworking middle class, now on the outside
looking in (with their adult children), continuing to wave the flag, with a large smile on their
faces, all the way to the poorhouse day in and day out--and not even a peep?
Honestly though, it becomes more undemocratic when people rag on it sy as you have done above.
Do you think that is going to inspire Americans to get out and vote? What you don't understand,
or maybe you do too well, is that the biggest threat to democracy in the US is apathy. When you
present it as such a situation that there is no reprieve, then why should they vote?
As the article points out the oligarchs use selected messaging, which includes anti-left propaganda
and misinformation. So the result is that any political movement that is left of centre (and the
centre has shifted quite a lot to the right in the last few decades) is made to seem like hard-core
socialism or even communism.
When you look at the policies from Bernie Sanders in the USA and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and
see how they've been attacked by the right-wing media, but when you put them into the perspective
of the policies of the 60' and 70's they aren't even particularly left-wing. Most would have been
described as centrist policies.
The oligarchs have succeeded in moving the goal posts to the right and made centrist policies
seem dangerously left-wing.
Modern oligarchs owe their political and economic power to a variety of structures and systems,
such as:
(1) The limited-liability, shareholder-controlled corporation, designed to maximize profits for
the shareholders while protecting them from the consequences of their actions (why can't one sue
the shareholders of ExxonMobil for the actions of the company that they control?)
(2) The global neoliberal 'free-trade' unlimited-capital-flow system, which allows oligarchs
to pit nation-states and workers against one another in a race to the bottom for the lowest wages
and pollution and safety standards - a system promoted by both Democratic and Republican parties
in the United States, which has boosted profits for oligarchs and destroyed the middle class.
(3) The monopolistic tightly-controlled corporate media system, which promotes the interests
of the oligarchs who own and control it, setting the narrative played out across television, radio,
print media and much of the Internet to the overall population in a remarkably coordinated fashion
- such that most 'media' serves to distract or deceive the public, rather than to inform.
There are no doubt others - such as tax codes that allow the rich to accumulate vast wealth,
while stripping wealth from poor people and the middle class - but those are among the most important
factors.
Small D Democrats. Not big D Democrats. The Clintons are clearly in the oligarch class, much
like Trump. It is rather hilarious to hear Trump supporters talk about how he cares for the poor.
Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse, as are any other kind of institution.
As the oligarchs' solidarity and practices start to break down, there is an opportunity for democracy
to bring government back to the people.
In that moment, the people might unite for long enough that their protests lead to power. With
all the upheaval in today's politics, it's hard not to think that this moment is one in which
the future of the political system might be more up for grabs than it has been in generations.
It always takes a revolution/ protest from the people to throw out the political corruption
and then the rich just start again.
Until we get some laws that they have to follow and serious jail time when they do not, we will
not have decent people to choose from. The reason we have such crappy choices is this is the only
job in the world where you can lie and cheat to your boss (us) and face no serious consequences.
It's difficult to see how Ancient Greece fits into either of those narratives if Aristotle's conclusions
from his contemporary, careful, empirical (yes, really) investigations of the whole range of political
variants present in Ancient Greece entered into their analyses. For a start, even in political
units as small as a city-state, he rates democracy as a degenerate form of government (albeit
the best of all three degenerate forms) that naturally tends towards oligarchy (another degenerate
form), though – give or take some refinement of concepts involved – a proper mix of both results
in the best form of "rule by the many", namely "polity", in an over-all ranking of forms of government
by good or "correctness" that is topped by monarchy and tailed by tyranny.
Getting in to all this while not falling victim to the modern trigger word syndrome requires
significantly greater subtlety of thought than seems to be deployed by either of the authors under
consideration, though how much of their analyses has slipped by the author of this piece is unknowable
on the basis of the evidence here available. Have any of the trio even considered a Ancient Ryanair
trip to Ancient Greece for a third millennium looksee?
The oligarchs best work is done through divide and conquer and should they ultimately be truly
threatened then they will prevail through an order out of chaos of their own creation. Most issues
you mention like the widening gap between the rich and poor, climate change.. yada yada are engineered
to fracture society to make us all easier to control. Oh and they love to stamp their handy work
so keep an "eye" out for them !
" Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because democrats focus so much on guaranteeing political
equality that they overlook the indirect threat that emerges from economic inequality
. "
Hog wash! They know where the money is and they want it transferred into their pockets. And
if some of that money trickles down to the less fortunate, they surely will take credit for it.
The Clintons didn't become multi-millionaires by concentrating on inequality.
I suspect the article's Author, when he said "democrats" (notice lower case) was not referring
to the political party the Democrats (upper case). He meant any who advocate for an increase in
democracy. This presumably overlaps with the Democratic Party, but by no means is congruent to
it.
They are the ones that always have a smile on their faces and constantly give to charities from
the monies they exploited from the ignorant masses. Then in retaliation, the masses put them on
pedestals. It's a very simply routine. Wash, rinse and repeat.
Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because democrats focus so much on guaranteeing political
equality that they overlook the indirect threat that emerges from economic inequality.
The Dem voters do not overlook that. To be fair the Dem politicians do look at economic policy.
Affordable health care using the rich taxes, environment, clean drinking water and making CO responsible.
Just look at what trump tea/party are dismantling. Dems are also for increasing min wage. They
should do better, but they are not as worthless as republicans. The republicans work for the rich
not us.
I find it strange that you never called out the republicans actions, just the Dems. The republicans
are the ones putting in the policies/laws that are cementing the riches power and making our lives
worse.
A very deep and timely article given that oligarchies threaten the very survival of our world.
Think the widening gap between the rich and poor, climate change, environmental degradation, war
and the mass movements of people fleeing all of the above.
Even with democracy and compulsory ballots in Australia voters still believe their best interests
lie with the representatives of the oligarchs, the banks, financial services and transnational
corporations.
Demonstrably not the case when one looks at successful periods of progressive policies such Butkers
Education act. The idea that the fruits of life are distributed according to talent & effort is
a grim joke that can be dismissed out of hand.
Social privilege repeats itself & counteracting that is a moral duty. As is exposing the myths
that justify it.
You haven't got a clue. have you. I've spent years recruiting people into unions in small unorganised
workplaces, where employers do their best to victimise anyone who tries to form a union. Many
people are either afraid of joining a union - or they have no idea what unions do, except for
the rubbish printed about in the anti-union papers (viz. most of them). I'm happy to say that,
in the end, we succeed in enabling workers to get together in many workplaces to defend and improve
their lot at work. I live in a traditional working class area, near many unionised and non-unionised
workplaces. Whate about you? How many ordinary workers have you ever discussed these matters with?
How many trades unionists?
Read the "Iron Heel" by Jack London" for a description of an extreme oligarchy set in the USA
of the early twentieth century. The book is a narrative by the wife and partner of the main male
character Ernest Everhard (interesting name I know). Some of Everhard's descriptions of what London
saw as consolidation of the American oligarchs are succinct and chilling. If you haven't read
it then it really demonstrates in a fictional sense how long the concept of modern oligarchies
have been around: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1164
"It never ceases to amaze me how Americans delude themselves into thinking that they live
in a democracy."
They don't come by it naturally. Their delusion is pushed along by very well oiled propaganda
machines, probably mostly financed by the taxpayers themselves.
Our political system, he said, is a democracy. If the people don't want to be run by
wealthy elites, we can just vote them out.
It never ceases to amaze me how Americans delude themselves into thinking that they live in a
democracy. The US executive, arguable the most powerful collection of people in the world, is
substantially un-elected. Only the President stands for election and he's not elected by the people
but by an undemocratic electoral college; Hilary Clinton received the most votes and lost the
election.
The rest of the Executive aren't elected, they're appointed and you can't "just vote them out".
Then there's Congress where electorates are so gerrymandered that in the vast majority of cases
the results are foregone conclusions; national elections are decided in a few "swinging" seats.
Congress is also corrupted by the dependence of the system on massive donations, by lobbyists,
and vested interests.
Of the world's democracies, the Unites States must be one of the least democratic.
And the Oscar goes to America, land of the free and milk and honey; created, propagandized and
brought to you by the Hollywood tv and film industry for the last 100 years.
I recently read an essay where the American political system is likened to a rodeo. The bull is
the voting public being ridden by the oligarchs. If the oligarch falls off the bull the bull is
distracted by the rodeo clown (the president) until he can get back on the bull.
Who are our oligarchs and who do they finance, lobby, influence and control in Canberra?
The law. The fucking law is mainly for the very wealthy or influential, not for grafters like
me.
Still, all in all, in Oz we have a labor party that gave us decent wages, Medicare and super.I
think our oligarchs are greedy bastards but not as severe as the American, Russian or Arab oligarchs.
The French knew how to deal with theirs in the 18th century and a couple of ours could do with
that treatment.
As Socrates was forever doing...if we do not define our terms, we quickly end up in the weeds.
Britain is King in Parliament (badly corrupted under Victoria!) and America is a Plutocratic Republic!...No
Democracy intended...or delivered...but much mythologized none the less!
The American people cannot vote out the oligarchs because they make the rules of the game and
the electorate must comply. The author seems to suppose there is a democracy operating on this
planet when the nearest we have approached that ideal is the supposedly representative democracies
of numerous countries.
One of the features that reinforce the oligarchy in power in USA is the agenda of the nine
Supreme Court judges who approved 'Citizens United' and assured the oligarchs that the man with
the money would call the shots.
Another important point that does not surface in this article is the 600BC institution, jointly
with democracy, of theatre. That allowed playwrights to present the naive electorate with plays
enacting the hard choices that citizens would have to make now they were responsible for their
own government. There is a group of greats scholars on the BBC's 2014 series "Guilty Pleasures"
who discuss and approve this point.
On balance over thousands of years some rich bastards made some good decisions? How scientific
of you. Not so much a logical argument as a watery fart.
Please Guardian, don't close this comments section too soon.
This topic truly goes to the heart of why so much of humanity's failings of governance and stewardship
of the Earth is so malevolent.
The quality of the responses highlight that many readers recognize that this is THE issue that
underlies so many of our existing problems.
" Ancient Greek elites developed institutions and practices to keep themselves united.
"
Nothing couldn't be more relevant then the Guardian running Hillary Clinton articles. Saw at
least 3 on the front page right now. Let's keep the elite neoliberals in power.
There are democracies and "democracies". India has a ruling class that rules for its class, so
not really that democratic. India isn't USA, USA isn't Australia, Australian isn't Germany, Germany
isn't the Netherlands. That's roughly the scale.
One of the interesting conceits of American culture is the way that the mega rich envision themselves
as simply middle class...one sees it all the time.
The short answer is that the politically aware Oligarchs know very well who they are....and the
wannabes know who they are as well!
My favourite is still one of the Koch brothers saying that he had no problem with Oligarchy...so
long as he got the government that he paid for! Beautiful!!
More than oligarchs I see alliances built on niche interests, or interests that are particular
to a group of people. these special interests are wedge issues for that group, kind of like taking
a knee and how that affects the NFL and ripples through the whole culture. Too many niche interests
are being pushed forward, and that's why there's no consensus or very little. That's why there
is gridlock and stasis. we shouldn't be pursuing niche interest anymore. we need larger consensus
agreements, things we can agree on in society as a whole, and we got to keep talking until we
find that agreement. that's how I see it
A hundred years ago, as the West industrialized, oligarchs wielded power via the employment relationship.
Beginning a generation ago with the transfer of manufacturing to China, the instrument of power
shifted to media. Murdoch was one of the first to exploit this. And now we have Trump.
Agree totally. Redistribution of wealth to keep a few from controlling everything is what we need.
And this does have a future as moving to the left is the way for the US to go. The right has shown
for at least the past 40 years to offer nothing.
My guess is that oligarchs don't even think they are oligarchs. They probably think they are actually
part of a meritocracy, having conflated the rigged political system with what they believe to
be their superior abilities
The comments in this thread mostly seem to be by whinging old style Labour supporters, who can
no longer hide the contempt that they have for ordinary people - your "apathetic proles".
Oh rubbish. People choose whether to join a union. It takes closed shop contracts to enforce union
membership, and the fact that unions seldom form in right to work states prove that when given
a choice most workers don't want to join a union.
Nonsense. The American government was elected by the voters. Local and state government to draw
the voting districts for US house races were elected by the voters. US Senate governor and presidential
races cannot be gerrymandered. And Hillary Clinton WAY outspent Donald Trump.
Progressives need to stop whining and complaining about the Koch brothers and start putting
together a slate of candidates and ideas that ordinary Americans want to vote for.
Looted and raised off the back of slaves but in the process laying the foundation of western civilisation.
My point isn't that it's fair or right or good. My point is that the concentration of power
and wealth in a small group of individuals often leads to incredible development that betters
all of humanity down the line.
Who cares what you support? There is no political will for such a thing and the general direction
of democratically elected governments is toward the right not the left. So redistributionist policies
have no future.
Money IS speech. Surely if the founding fathers intended to protect any particular kind of speech,
it must have been political speech. So if I want to use my money to promote a particular policy
or political candidate then any attempt by the government to prevent that is obviously and clearly
a violation of my right to political speech.
One of the best articles I've read here. It's about time an article like this finally gets a hearing.
I mostly read these kind of arguments and perspectives from the comments section. So well done.
Well, given what I said above, one might expect me to agree, but I wouldn't: New Labour nevertheless
did an enormous amound of good: A fairer britain, enormously improved public services, the business
sector properly regulated. taxation improved.
The problem was Blair. The background was Labour, which kept on beavering away with Labour
principles: "society first" in a word.
New Labour achieved a huge amount. A shame abour Blair. If John Smith hadn't dropped dead,
it might be different. With emphasis on "might" - at least Smith, although also restructuring
Labour towards the centre, wasn't so bent on reneging Labour core values.
Luckily the Labour party reneged little: Labour endures :)
Very interesting. While it currently appears impossible to win back democracy there might be some
hope. I sense that things might change soon. The debacle of the current electricity market in
Australia and lack of action to mitigate climate change can be seen in the light of the Oligarchy's
fear of losing their wealth base, which could end up in a rise of democracy.'
In Athens, enslavement for debt had been a fundamental law from the time of Draco in the 39th
Olympiad in the 7th Century BC. However, in the sixth century BC, the lawgiver Solon ordained
a radical new constitution: by cancelling all debts both public and private, he "liberated the
people once and for all" thus paving the way for all citizens to be admitted into the Assembly:
Aristotle, "The Athenian Constitution", Parts 6 and 43 (although the Athenian form of direct democracy
was a limited concept by modern standards - to become a citizen one had to be an adult male, born
of citizen parents).
Most people in the U.S. conflate democracy with capitalism; there's no comprehension of separateness
of political and economic "systems". The prevailing idea is that "America is a nation of business"
and in the 19th Century the Supreme Court declared corporations to be individual persons and most
recently confirmed that "money is speech". So, the people who have the ability to vote out the
oligarchy don't even know what one is, or why it's bad for them. Thus a lying, cheating, greedy
"Billionaire" is seen by the middle and lower classes, or as I'm sure Trump refers to them behind
closed doors, "my marks", as their savior. I personally wonder, as the Trump Administration works
tirelessly to grind its base into the dirt, just how much longer this level of stupidity will
persist.
The process of branding and advertising, a century old, places unmerited trust in non-human entities,
corporations and institutions. Humans are slick and untrustworthy. We assume that Police Departments
are always kind. If harm occurs, is it a rotten cop or rotten citizen? Pick one. Ask a disloyal
NFL player. They hate the troops, peace, freedom and justice, right?
The modern oligarchy is to hide behind labels and brands. God so loved the world that he founded
a privately-held nonprofit with tax advantages ...whatnow? Exxon owns your axxons, folks.
People always die, the default position of humanity is grinding poverty.
What we should be looking at is why come civilisations escaped that. A modern Britain is less
likely to die of poverty today than at any other time in history.
The concentration of wealth in small groups of individuals often provides the impetus for development.
To much concentration of wealth means you end up with exploitation of the plebs the flip side
leaves you with economic stagnation.
The key as in most things is getting the balance right.
Do a bit of reading. I would suggest Nancy MacLean's "Democracy in Chains" for a start. It has
a direct line to the big-money influence of the Koch family over the U.S. government. There are
many others, of course.
ehmm well... thats something that must start within the family and the community, if family fails
theres the community if community fails thats window open to attack. Even so I have been knew
fellows and sisters that even in the must adverse circumstances manage to make themselves educated
and with a good criteria vice versa with fellows from a good environment turn to be as... so is
a matter of choose as well. The problem with that is that this are the times of internet instant
gratification which create the perfect scenario to create a bunch of idiotics egocentric lunatics
with not will nor performance at all just slaves to machines. So ehmmm we need some kind of a
bomb which disables some of the technology, not all, just for a while and try to get some to nromal
"Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratía literally "rule of the people"), in modern usage, is
a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives
from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. Democracy is sometimes referred
to as "rule of the majority".
Having this definition in mind I do find rather bizarre that everyone
insists on calling such a system a "democracy" when it is a fact that women and slaves where not
allowed to vote.
Nowadays is getting somehow worse, because manipulation and agnotology have upset everything.
The systems control perfectly everything and this charade are done by a power in the shadow, and
although most people ignore it, this Power is theocratic.
The fact that repeating a lie constantly does not make it an axiom ...
1984 is my `favourite` book, the subtext is that there is in fact no hope from the proles, as
Winston Smith comes to see. They are apathetic & any who might rouse them, are liquidated. They
have the power to overthrow the party, but are mostly just ignored by it, & so just get on with
their lives. The lesson is that power, without the will to use it, is meaningless: still true
as it happens.
Francis Galton was a founder of the science of statistics and a bit of a snob.
Galton was a keen observer. In 1906, visiting a livestock fair, he stumbled upon an intriguing
contest. An ox was on display, and the villagers were invited to guess the animal's weight after
it was slaughtered and dressed. Nearly 800 participated, and Galton was able to study their individual
entries after the event.
Galton stated that "the middlemost estimate expresses the vox populi, every other estimate
being condemned as too low or too high by a majority of the voters",[45] and reported this value
(the median, in terminology he himself had introduced, but chose not to use on this occasion)
as 1,207 pounds. To his surprise, this was within 0.8% of the weight measured by the judges. Soon
afterwards, in response to an enquiry, he reported[46] the mean of the guesses as 1,197 pounds,
but did not comment on its improved accuracy. Recent archival research[47] has found some slips
in transmitting Galton's calculations to the original article in Nature: the median was actually
1,208 pounds, and the dressed weight of the ox 1,197 pounds, so the mean estimate had zero error.
James Surowiecki[48] uses this weight-judging competition as his opening example: had he known
the true result, his conclusion on the wisdom of the crowd would no doubt have been more strongly
expressed.
He thought the judges local yokels and was expecting to laugh instead he found that irrespective
of perceived intelligence the mean of the wisdom of the crowd ( the 800 entering the competition
for a prize) was surprisingly accurate.
US media hasn't been "leftist" ever. In the 1930s and a few other periods it's had significant
minorities that were liberal or leftish, but otherwise, it's mostly right-of-center imperial support
mechanism media; now and increasingly, it's extreme right wing (Fox, Murdoch (WSJ, National Geographic,
etc.) Clear Channel and Sinclair dominating TV and radio with more than 1000 stations. Reporters
are sometimes left-leaning but that has little or nothing to do with what's published. Hollywood
tends to be liberal on social issues but rarely moves off the imperial support wagon except for
occasional dips into history to communicate with platitudes. Any media that considers Obama and
Clinton anything but right of center corporate duopolists is way over on the right wing; that
includes everything 95% of people ever hear or see--all networks, cable, every daily newspaper...
The Guardian a little bit, Pacifica radio's 5 stations, Mother Jones and sort of The Nation, Common
Dreams and a few other sites, blogs etc.--that's the left in the US. Pitiful, especially considering
that a large majority of people in the US favor very liberal positions on almost all issues except
war, death penalty and imprisonment.
For me, things really took a decisive turn for the worst when Wilson was president. Before that,
the defacto government wasn't codified. According to this wikipedia article the was a "growing
concern" about the so called money trust.
In civil oligarchies, governance is collective and enforced through laws, rather than by
arms.
Democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of 'oligarchic breakdown.'
With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil oligarchy.
I don't know much about economics, but from what I think I know, one can speed up or slow down
the economy by increasing or decreasing the money supply respectively; and prior to Wilson's term,
the government had that power. However after Wilson's term that power moved into the private sector
because laws were passed. I see that as a huge problem and from what I can gather, so did Lindbergh:
I think the citizenry is being screwed by the oligarchy on both the left and the right, which
tend to merge into the same thing. Both are about power and control and have very little to do
with democracy or individual liberties. Neither the capitalists nor the socialists care much about
you. You are a means to an end. Both the right and the left seek to control speech and thought
through the media and through institutions. Both the right and left want a disempowered, compliant
population.
There's lots to think about there. Thanks for a good article, more on democracy please ! It strikes
me we're in a situation where we need to relearn what it is, exactly.
What struck me most was the oligarchy eroding symbols of democracy, and taking over the legal
system of government, and I'd add, taking over the management of government through privatisation
of government services: The civil service increasingly outsourced to the private sector, that
is, the oligarchy.
This is what "the small state" political project, currently centre stage in the UK and the
USA, is leading towards: governments run by the private sector.
And the response is always "it's cheaper and more efficient! And democracy is the representative
- who cares if government departments are shut down and their services delivered by the private
sector? It means less tax !"
And we end up with Network Rail, and the other scandals of privatised services in the UK, and
to Labour's undying shame, much of this was ushered in by New Labour.
I think you need to read the article. Trump fits every definition of an Oligarch, his actions
are exactly how Oligarchs survive, true he may not be the only one in the US.
Jessthecrip seems to have been supporting punishment of some kind for people whose actions demonstrably
cause actual, serious harm to real people. You seem to consider the actions which create such
actual harm (including many deaths) to be a 'political opinion'. I think that's where the difference
in attitude lies.
You Think, the people were well and truly lied to by rather rich and unscrupulous people who hope
to benefit from the chaos as this article makes clear this is the way that Oligarchy works by
manipulating and dividing the demos.
The problem is and always has been, life is not black or white, but gray. One man's fact
is another man's differing opinion.
True. However, a women has the right to abort a fetus. That is a fact. Now we can have an opinion
that she has the right to kill her own fetus, but that wouldn't be a fact because technically
we can't ascertain that the fetus is alive because it doesn't necessarily "stay" alive if we remove
it from the mother (at least not in the first trimester). Therefore legalized abortion isn't legalized
murder. However it is unconstitutional to take everybody's guns away. It really takes verbal gymnastics
to try to make the constitution say anything different, so the proponents for gun control swear
up and down that they aren't trying to take everybody's guns away. However when you ask what their
objective is, they say they want to stop people from killing each other with guns. Without that
measuring rod (the constitution), they don't take that tone. Instead they argue that people don't
need guns. The same can be said for speech. Hate speech imho does more damage than the right to
bear arms, but the 1st amendment gives those fools the right to behave the way the did in Charlottesville.
Those who tried to silence them walked on the 1st amendment, again in the name of the greater
good. As a black man, I'm not about to side with people who think we need to keep those statues
up. I know exactly what those statues represent. However again the constitution is there protecting
their right to voice an opinion to say what I vehemently oppose. I can disagree with them but
I don't have the constitutional right to silence them. When people want to force others not to
speak on college campuses, that isn't constitutional. It is authoritarian. Authoritarianism in
the name of the greater good. some don't have a problem with that kind of authoritarianism, but
when it comes from the orange one, that's authoritarianism that nobody needs because it's really
hard to find his "greater good". His sense of greater good generally seems to benefit some, while
marginalizing others. Personally I think his impeachment is now months overdue, but, as you say,
that is just my opinion. I think firing Comey was an authoritarian move. I think when a head of
state can neutralize his detractors, in theory we can't get rid of him for anything, because he
can simply fire any perceived threat to his power. The fact that he is still in power is an outrage
to me. But then again, I think it was an outrage that HRC was even running for president. They
dumped Gary Hart, because he was having an extramarital affair, but for some reason, HRC was able
to walk through "airport security" with all of her baggage. But, "no election rigging" from state
side. It was all done by the Russian oligarchs according to our wonderful media. However this
is a democracy because we had a choice between, "Lock her up" and "I cannot tell the truth"
This is why I support wealth redistribution through progressive taxation. It's not so much about
achieving "income equality" as it is about preventing power being concentrated in the hands of
a few. Extreme wealth is a public danger. Many would trample on our rights for their own profit,
convenience, or pleasure, and most politicians are all too eager to let the super wealthy buy
their place as public masters.
Yet you were complaining about regions wanting to separate before. The EU doesn't fund Spain's
regional parties by the way, as much as you'd like them to.
I accept that so much of what I see demands action. The world needs more helping hands and kindness.
You can believe in what ever you like, but actions make all the difference. Donate something
like canned food, or volunteer someplace and you can make a real difference in someones life (
more than any book or bible ever did ).
Not true, the standards are high enough, it is the fact that kids from disfunctional families
and poverty cannot reach them. So the teachers just pass them on to the next grade anyway.
You end up with poorly educated adults who 'know' education is useless according to their experience
raising children who continue the cycle.
The curriculum is demanding enough. They just don't demand anything relevant to people's lives.
As long as everything stays irrelevant they can continue rewarding the people who play by the
system's rules and punish those who find that stupid and frustrating.
Reich has a soul full of light and empathy. Once people are allowed to attain their basic needs,
the rest is mostly fluff. Nature provides every resource needed to sustain a wholesome existence...not
a cash register one to be found in the fields of plenty. Ancient greed has never been faced full-on
by humanity. The required efforts to shelter, feed and clothe ourselves are too often run over
roughshod due to the number one vice: Profits first and foremost, with the essentials for survival
marked for the highest bid; callously termed 'what the market will bear'.
Democracy? Not in many decades. We are under the total rule of organized business; which applies
to most developed nations. The virtues of sharing and goodwill would be one remedy to the basic
economic inequalities.
However, in our current bailout experiment (and, not a few economists are status quo baloney
feeders) the inertia is in a free wheeling philosophical advantage to the gods of the highest
profit. You'll never see any sympathy cards slated for modern economists. A simple evident reality
is that
our basic needs for survival are the same. Damned if we can manage to seriously address that fact
first and create systems which have a clear vision for the betterment and uplift of all.
It will not be long before the loud financial bubble pop sounds off again - it will be called
the inevitable market correction or due to aggressive over reach. Oligarchy will feign much needed
financial aid required. We deserve much better. I predict eventually a r e v o l t from those
who suffer the insanity of deprivation in a world of plenty. Certainly in the US our votes are
mean less and less with the likes of Citizens United. Corporations may be legal entities but they
are N O T citizens. All that exists, exists for all.
Yes much more rational to treat everyone "equally" like providing huge subsidies to, e.g. big
oil, big ag, and big pharma so they too can appear to be performing equally.
Unworldly middle-class theorists create revolutions but almost invariably cannot control them.
They tear up the rule-sheets, failing to understand that that loosens or destroys the restraints
on psychopaths of whatever background, who then proceed to hack their way to the top.
Thus Lenin facilitated Stalin; Sun Yat-sen ultimately resulted in Mao; Desmoulins and the Girondistes
were devoured by the Jacobins and their Reign of Terror.
"He argues that democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of "oligarchic breakdown."
Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse, as are any other kind of institution.
" unfortunately, democracy did not defeat oligarchy in ancient greece, except briefly in athens
and its dependencies. and the usa is no kind of democracy. voting for who will be your master
is not democracy, it is elective aristocracy. and that is the political arm of the economic oligarchy
called 'capitalism.'
Who, exactly, doesn't think of "the realms of politics and economics as fused together"?
It's been the basic assumption of UK politics from 1997 until 2015 (at least) that there is
only one "common sense" economic model that works, and that is an extreme market-oriented form
of neo-liberalism.
Most of the electorate in this country still buy into neo-liberalism's deceitful platitudes
as if the argument was over 40 years ago and democracy consists of choosing a few people to manage
it every five years.
Oligarchs in the US have, for 40 years, taken the power from the people. They have accomplished
it by destroying the labor unions and any hint of a labor movement. They have taken control of
the media by buying it ( 80 or so owners of MSM to 5 or 6 owners now), they control the narrative.
They control what we talk about. They control the politicians by "dark money". Outside money floods
strategic states to influence elections down to school board levels. Money is donated to universities
with conditions to control who is hired to run certain schools within the university ( the economics
school at FSU, for example). Economic policies and tax codes have funneled growth income to the
top 140 families in the US. Now we are witnessing the cumulative efforts of these oligarchs bear
fruit. Unions are meaningless, growth income flows to the wealth class, we talk about God, guns
and gays in every election cycle, efforts to do away with all social programs and rig the tax
codes so the middle class pays more and the wealthy pay less. I would say the Oligarchs are in
control and have won. They control the courts and all branches of government....what is left?
Can democracy survive now that they control the ballot box and the elections? And they certainly
can control enough minds to win an election...we witness that in 2016.
You suggest a determinism which is false. Brexit is a classic example where the political will
of the masses acts contrary to the immediate interests of domestic capital.
Someone else seems to have understood this some time ago. ..
"'If there is hope,' wrote Winston, 'it lies in the proles.' If there was hope, it MUST lie
in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population
of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown
from within'"
it does show when the government is exceeding it's authority
Except that when you look at how much power the constitution has given to the state in the
past three decades the answer to the question of whenever or not US is an oligarchy is should
be rather obvious....
Can't recommend Requiem For The American Dream highly enough, absolutely required viewing
for anyone wishing to understand the mockery of democracy under which we live.
Trouble is liberals on the one hand bang on about proletariat solidarity, yet on the other,
peddle identity politics and turn a blind eye at increasingly fragmented communities.
"The Jews, will not, replace us!" I'm so glad the "president" rebuked this blatant display
of identity politics in Charlottesville.
That is a semantic argument over whether or not his votes can be taken to represent his views.
It is still calling for punishment of political opponents because they disagree with the political
opinions of the poster.
Look, I'm not fan of the left way of things but to claim they are entirely to blame is willfully
ignorant of conservative and right wing failings. I can hardly expect either to see my point and
accept that they're the problem, the best I can do is pause now and then I know that I am the
problem as much as any and try to mind myself. If we all just took responsibility for ourselves
left and right and anything in between would matter far less.
Hi wes, hope you are doing well. Yes, the people DO have the power, but they either don't know
how or choose not to use it. Similar to Dorothy and her ruby slippers in the Wizard of Oz; she
had the power all along, but didn't know it.
There is also the tendency of treating laws like dogma and the constitution like the bible.
I wouldn't call the constitution a bible, but it does show when the government is exceeding
it's authority. In times when some are actually concerned about whether or not the USA is a oligarchy,
we need some way to separate fact from opinion.
Spot on article. Lots of loopy comments. Personally I find the positions the Guardian takes to
be those that further the interests of our ruling elite.
Where are the discussions about Trust Law which is nothing more than a huge tax avoiding scheme
for the wealthy.
How about the control of the legal costs the high street solicitor can claim
when he wins for the average person against the badly behaved housing associations and landlords,
the insurers and employers. It has forced good solicitors out of these types of litigation. The
result is occurrences like Grenfell Tower. The Guradian always goes on about Legal Aid. Solicitors
don't need poverty rate legal aid. They need the corrupt, the greedy and incompetent to pay the
same rates per hour for the small man's lawyers when they lose as they pay for their own lawyers.
This funds all the work those small high street solicitors do in investigating cases that go nowhere,
and enables them to provide free advice.
Or take the continuous false fears propaganda of those who wish to ignore the Leave vote. The
majority voted for an end to cheap migrant labour driving down wages and living standards for
the working population, for an end to an economy dominated by financial services and house price
inflation.
Racially polarized voting does not constitute a "people." It echoes a much earlier time, when
there was a slave society on American land.
Roughly 1 in 4 active duty enlisted men and women in the US Army are black, compared with about
13.5% of the total population, hence 80%+ higher than their representation in the general population.
I think the people really do have the power. I think as long as we have the bill of rights,
the power is still ours to retain or relinquish. Just because the scotus doesn't strike down unconstitutional
laws like the patriot act, brady bill (gone at the moment but likely to come back), I don't think
it means that we have no power. It is just that well informed people such as yourself have a difficult
time informing those less informed because the media is engaged in a very effective endeavor to
keep them misinformed. As you correctly pointed out in another post, people will believe anything.
It is only those who really care enough to actually stop and think are what you are saying, only
those will be informed despite the efforts of the media to keep them in the dark. If you can get
enough people behind you, I think you could really change this. Me? I don't think the masses care
enough. I think they are good people. It is just that they can't think ahead enough to see the
crisis as it presents itself today. They don't feel the sense of urgency and as long as the media
continues this game of deception, they will be more worried about the local football team they
any existential threat until the media makes it out to be an existential threat.
Which brings to mind another question: who lobbies for the homeless veterans? The oligarchs
depend on the armed forces for their vast wealth and position, then discard them.
Conveniently forgotten in all this is the fact that most of history's most horrendous dictators
and political psychopaths came from the poor. Most, if not all, revolution political movements
come from the upper middle class...people who have enough money to be comfortable and afford luxuries,
but not enough that they are afraid of changing things to their financial and, possibly, social
detriment. The only people who really want to defend and protect the status quo are the wealthy,
for obvious reasons, and the poor, who do not want to change the system--which is all they know
and perhaps all they understand--but only change their position in it. I meet a lot of people
who are wealthy and well-educated--these
attributes are not necessarily reflective of each other--and a great many people who are poor.
Trust me, you definitely do not want the latter group running things. "Street smarts" are great...on
the street.
Enlightening! The judiciary is the bastion of oligarchy and the media, for the most part, confuses
and divides public opinion to ensure all remains under control -- of the oligarchs.
The taxation curve is a very low order matter. The primary question is the difficulty of the first
level, of getting a job where you feel you are making a valuable contribution, either because
of the remuneration or because of the job satisfaction. We don't need the numbers in the masters
accounts to achieve this, we can make our own numbers and give them to people who are willing
to make a worthwhile contribution. Even if the masters slander them as "unworthy". Even if they
are not really our sort of people.
The main use of taxation is to prevent masters from hiring their own private armies or worse
still the national army.
Excuse me? Who, exactly, doesn't think of "the realms of politics and economics as fused together"?
Anybody under the age of about 16, from what I can see. What a dumb statement. Interesting
subject here, though.
Aristotle went further. Those with money Pay to participate and the money is used to pay those
that are too poor and otherwise would not participate. Now the question is how much needs to be
paid? The Duke of Westminster and the like should probably cough up a good whack so that the homeless
and families at the food bank can be paid to participate.
The United States of America is an oligarchy as shown in 2008 when the banks through their control
of the Federal Reserve and numerous politicians stole billions from the public purse. Then, Obama's
consistent failure to deal with the criminal acts of JP Morgan and other banks shows who is in
running that country. C
Which of course is why the political mainstream has imploded and Trump was elected. If you
know that the criminals in charge vote for the man they detest most even if he is an utterly preposterous
showboating unprincipled liar.
And Trump being the worst type of oligarch may create 'oligarchic breakdown' and bring the
whole corrupt shitheap called US democracy crashing down.
Brexit has split the oligarch's poodles in the U.K. Ie. Blairites & Osborne v Gove / Johnson
/ Tory head bangers and may consign the Conservative party to oblivion. This may lead to a genuinely
left wing government that represents the many and not the few.
One of the questions is why? The other is that even if it is in the constitution, does it mean
it can never be changed? If the reality on the ground and social threats have changed over the
last 200 years, so should the laws that protect us from those threats.
Maybe, but remember that currently even a university education in economics leaves people thinking
that taxes and borrowings "fund" government spending and that banks " lend on" deposits according
to the "money multiplier".
Donald Trump is the oligarchy. His disruption at the feeding trough comes from his greed:
instead of understanding that oligarchs maintain stability by sharing, he remains primarily concerned
with distributing privileges to his closest circle.
Trump is not a radical anti-oligarch. He's just a simpleton oligarch who doesn't understand
the rules.
In response to the well-researched truth of this politically significant article, the propaganda
reversal machine is in full force by the comments of upended sanity-and- unreality reverence toward
the existentially ridiculous, dangerous and deceptive kleptocratic regime of 45; see, e.g., the
comment of whatever or whoever is called in print "Light_and_Liberty."
Maybe I'm just noting the comnent activity of bots. Anybody who is a real person and would
want to know the truth about 45's vile regime needs only to read every political article of the
Guardian UK US edition today.
Democracy was not the norm the city states of ancient Hellas, but just one among a number of political
systems. Whilst Athens had democracy in that all male citizens could vote and take part in the
governing of the city (from the introduction of the system by Cleisthenes in 507 BC, and lasting
for around 200 years), Sparta, for example, never had any form of democracy but two hereditary
kings supported by a council of elders and the ephors. This system served the Spartans well because
they were constantly on a war footing and their kings led their armies (hence the need for two
kings, in case one was killed in battle, as happened with Leonidas).
Some city states had τύραννοι , or "tyrants", though it did not have its modern connotations of
oppression and cruelty. It merely meant an absolute ruler, good or bad.
In ancient Athens, a citizen who chose not to vote was called an ιδιώτης, which gives us our modern
word "idiot".
The ancient Greeks were innovators in politics (also. of course, a Greek word) - as in almost
every other sphere of life - and would not have attached the modern value terms to them that we
do today. They were the greatest experimenters in history and the debt we owe to them in the modern
world is incalculable.
"the word that is no where mentioned in the Constitution is one big hoax and the perpetuation
of the same," 'One nation under God' was not mentioned either.. but nothing is static and things
tend to evolve or devolve..
There has been lot of chit chat about a 'Democratic Republic' in the 30+ yrs Ive resided in the
USA... Seems to me that a more accurate description would be "Empire" given the big enforcement
stick in over 5,000+ locations across the Globe added to the huge production of military weaponry
that is sold to various despots every year. An Empire which, like all those before it, cannot
sustain indefinitely.
You know the masters are happy reading this sort of divisive posting. So the jocks hate the nerds,
get over it. The jocks are the one's suffering the main burden of unemployment.
You got it totally backwards: can oligarchy survive in the face of democracy unchained.
The election of Donald Trump was a middle finger to the establishment ruling class (aka oligarchy)
and the results are self evident. We have a Federal Bureau of Investigation investigating a phony
dossier and calling it Russian Collusion. We have a special counsel looking for anything to indict
him with vis-a-vis that phony dossier so as to remove him from office. We have the Republican
party -- the president's own party -- intentionally doing nothing to forward the agenda of the
people. We have embedded federal employees who are undermining the president's agenda. We have
the media and Hollywood in full propaganda mode. We have Democrats aiding and abetting rioters
and protesters and call it 'The Resistance'.
So, yes, it is interesting to see what happens when Democracy takes on Oligarchy and Oligarchy
cannot accept the people's effrontery in voting for their own interests.
The taxation shenanigans only work as long as long as the economy is a zero sum or worse game.
That is when austerity and targeted spending on "job creation" in the private sector means that
money creation only happens for the wealthy. The first step in not taxing the stagnant wealth
pools, but rather getting the fresh water of government spending heading onto the dried plains
of the working class.
Remember the masters feel far more threatened that we do, they have never experienced an honest,
respectful human relationship in there lives and have no sense of self reliance what so ever.
Threatening taxation as a first step to reform, is certain to get maximum response even from the
"liberal" majority of the masters.
Good article in the causes - thanks for your work - but whilst the suggestion of "creating a more
economically equal society" is obviously desirable, it's not exactly a practical recommendation
against the context of the rest of the article.
Herein lies the key: "...they sustain all of this through a campaign finance and lobbying system
that gives them undue influence over policy."
So we need to specifically advocate for curtailing corporate funding of political parties,
Super PACs, etc. and have election (& referendum) campaigns financed from public funds and heavily
regulated private citizen donations. If you can't vote, you can't contribute. This would remove
a massive barrier to widespread reform in the shape of lobbyists and political patronage whilst
ensuring that elected leaders are unshackled, with the freedom to govern based on evidence-based
policy and long-term planning rather than just rewarding the corporate elite who put them there.
The book brackets a discussion of Sparta, which was an atypical oligarchy (although it regularly
supported more conventional oligarchies militarily). The focus of the book is not on the Athenian
oligarchies of the later fifth century, but on oligarchic rule as practiced in the wider Greek
world (e.g. Corinth, the Boeotian koinon, Thasos, Chios, Ephesus). These regimes did not follow
Sparta's austerity model, but neither did the Athenian oligarchies of 411 and 404. Kolkhis above
is correct on Sparta that while there was a mirage of austerity around Sparta, over the course
of the fifth and fourth centuries it gradually developed into a more conventional oligarchy of
extreme wealth stratification. One need only turn to the reforms of Agis and Cleomenes in the
third century to see how unequal it had become. Stephen Hodkinson has done excellent work on wealth
inequality within Sparta.
"Unity might come from personal relationships, trust, voting practices, or – as is more likely
in today's meritocratic era – homogeneity in culture and values from running in the same limited
circles." All of these features of elite unity are under girded by shared economic interests vis-a-vis
the masses.
Not true, the standards are high enough, it is the fact that kids from disfunctional families
and poverty cannot reach them. So the teachers just pass them on to the next grade anyway. You
end up with poorly educated adults who 'know' education is useless according to their experience
raising children who continue the cycle.
Since ownership conventionally involves the direct enactment of control and choice upon things
(at least according to the ethicist Daniel Sperling), might it not be an idea to examine the conventions
upon which property law is built in the West, since property law often is held as a model for
all other types?
Sperling suggests that ownership is not absolute but instead is inferred out of a confluence
of 'interests' that surround an object - I'd like to think that a cultural shift towards the recognition
of the interests , rather than the ownerships , that guide policy-making could indeed
challenge an oligarchy that views law-making essentially as the defence of property.
Even with a ban on money - or as you say a literally iron currency, still land accumulated
into ever fewer hands. This particular link is short enough to quote in full.
Spartan women, like men, could own land privately. Ordinary coined money was deliberately
banned to try to discourage the accumulation of material goods, but the ownership of land remained
extremely important in Spartan society. More and more land came into the hands of women in later
Spartan history because the male population declined through losses in war, especially during
the Classical Age. Moreover, Spartan women with property enjoyed special status as a result of
the Spartan law forbidding the division of the portion of land originally allotted to a family.
This law meant that, in a family with more than one son, all the land went to the eldest son.
Fathers with multiple sons therefore needed to seek out brides for their younger sons who had
inherited land and property from their fathers because they had no brother surviving. Otherwise,
younger sons, inheriting no land from their own family, might fall into dire poverty.
You have neglected to point out how oligarchs manage to convince ordinary people that their best
interests coincide. In the recent NZ election, the National party, representing farmers and businesspeople,
used the prospect of a tax giveaway to convince people they would be better off under National.
It worked because of the number of people who look no further than their own immediate interests
when voting. Who's to blame for that?
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because we work for them and buy their stuff. Then
someone remembers the other uses for pitchforks and torches....
The current delay is because
nobody lives on the land except corporate farmers, so the masses no longer have territory to defend
except in Faecesbook.
"while he recognizes that ancient oligarchies were always drawn from the wealthy, a limitation
of his work is that he focuses primarily on how oligarchs perpetuated their political power, not
their economic power."
I'm intrigued about how this might apply to Sparta which had legal limitations on wealth, an
iron currency and a tightly knit ruling class which eschewed wealth in pursuit of solidarity and
military discipline.
This article, which shows no interest in the historical specifics, fair enough seems to be
thinking of the oligarchic counter-currents within Athenian democracy eg the coup of 411, Plato's
Republic etc - both of which incidentally were influenced by admiration for Sparta's austere Lycurgan
constitution which banned wealth. After all, if you have democracy you give stupid people a vote
and this lead if you do not have checks and balances against cynical populists to terrible decisions
like the Sicilian Expedition, the executions in the wake of Arginusae ... contributory factors
in the unnecessary defeat of 404.
"As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth." -- Aristotle, Politics
"With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil oligarchy.
To use the language of recent political campaigns, our oligarchs try to rig the system to defend
their wealth. They focus on lowering taxes and on reducing regulations that protect workers
and citizens from corporate wrongdoing."
Although the neoliberal turn since the coming of the Reagan exacerbated the trend towards an
oligarchic concentration of political/economic power, the seeds were planted from the very beginning.
The Electoral College and the Three-Fifths Compromise in the US Constitution are both examples
of democratic procedures designed to ensure the preservation of concentration of political power
in the hands of economic oligarchs, and to act as barriers to the dispersal and democratization
of political power. We have already seen the effect of this constitutional design twice in the
new century in the disparity between the outcome of the Electoral College and the popular vote
in 2000 and 2016.
"Simonton offers another solution. He argues that democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient
Greece because of 'oligarchic breakdown.' Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse,
as are any other kind of institution. As the oligarchs' solidarity and practices start to break
down, there is an opportunity for democracy to bring government back to the people."
The dangers of the ever-increasing extreme inequality can also be viewed from the perspective
of its impact on the stability of the social formation. A decrease in stability manifests itself
through an increase in the brittleness of the socioeconomic system and a decrease in its ability
to respond to unforeseen shocks in a versatile manner. Although fortunately the adverse impact
of extreme inequality is at present only affecting the majority of the population in the US, the
effects will also be felt by the oligarchs in the long run, unless they manage to build an earth
orbiting Elysium before the
arrival of the long run. The dangers of extreme inequality and the instability it can cause are
explored by various scholars including
Acemoglu and
Turchin . The latter
models social instability as a time-dependent variable, and tracks its evolution over time. In
the language of mathematics, this is known as a dynamical system approach. The particular variable
the evolution of which he tracks is what he calls the political stress indicator, which combines
the effects of three other variables (mass mobilization, elite mobilization, and state fiscal
distress) and their nonlinear interaction through time. The dynamical behavior of each of these
factors measures the stability of the overall socioeconomic system, and acts as a warning signal
when regions of criticality and instability are breached. The formation of oligarchic interests
maps into a subset of the variable "elite mobilization" in Turchin's model. According to his analysis
we are at present on the cusp of a critical socioeconomic instability. The increasing instability
of the neoliberal order implies the shifting of the ground beneath it. The previous givenness
of the passive citizenry is becoming less so, and critical junctures might approach fast and unforeseeably.
According to Bill Bonner, author of Bill Bonner's Daily Reckoning, the Deep State of unelected
insiders, government cronies, generals and their industrial allies, assorted lobbyists and back
scratchers are the force that runs the government. Elections are theater. And the current performance
is a tragic-comedy
The US is NOT a democracy. It is a Republic. Let's start from a correct premise. The opening of
this article is political dross. Am I wasting my time if I read further? Come on, Guardian.
When your colleague says the US is a democracy, you should tell him that is not correct. Point
out to him that the person who finishes second in the vote count of our citizens wins the presidency
and that 12% of our population controls 50% of the votes in the Senate. Gerrymandering allows
a minority of votes to control the House. There is nothing democratic about the Federal Government,
you need to get down to the state level to find democracy.
Time to get creative. We have become so predictable, the wealthy can keep way ahead of us.
Fanning the flames of our asinine CULTURE WARS on effing FACEBOOK, was all the Russians needed
to do to drive our presidential in their direction. The little boys who run global-tech-empires
were no match for the Russians. Even now, when Trump is running the planet via TWITTER, our little
tech-boys can't figure out how they lost control of their own creations.
Asymmetric power might be the key. Right now, the wealthy own a piece of every country and
everyone on earth. We have been reduced to the size of an ant and we need to start thinking, and
acting like ants. Instead of feeding our money to the wealthy, we need to starve them out.
Create disruption. Stop doing anything you normally do.
For example, order take-out anywhere you please, but refuse to go inside restaurant chains
of any kind - diners, fast-food joints or upscale joints anywhere. Enter locally owned businesses
only.
Stop putting your money in banks, stocks, bonds and other capitalist owned systems. Remove
cold, hard cash from the system by putting your money in a safe deposit box at your local bank.
Force the wealthy out of the closet, to try and pass laws allowing them to open your safe deposit
bank.
Stop giving your old clothes and stuff to Goodwill, the Salvation Army or thrift shops. Stop
sorting your trash - plastic, glass, metal and put all of it in your trash. Create a mess so big,
so fast and so pervasive it becomes a crisis - for the wealthy trash hauler kings and their politicians.
Stay off facebook for one month. The next month, back on facebook, and out of Twitter.
Sign up for an email account anywhere but google and then use it for all of your on-line shopping
only.
Stop being so predictable by using the same corporate chain grocery store, gas station or clothes
store. Take your business to new places, try new things, get out more, mix it up, mix and match,
but stop being predictable.
Confuse and baffle. Sign on to new news sources. If you're a liberal, sign onto Brietbart.
If you're a conservative, sign onto Center for Progress. Use your new email to sign up for alerts
from a dozen different sources, including foreign ones.
Do not buy anything, but go on-line and shop for shit you hate. Shop until you see ads for
everything you hate, from music, to books, clothes and household stuff popping up on your computer
screen like crazy.
Lie like crazy. Go on comment boards and pretend you are an entirely different person. Pretend
you are a Russian, Canadian, or German, a conservative, a liberal, a Trump hater, a Trump lover.
Your task is to confuse by lying. If you are 65, post pictures of your new baby. If you are 20,
post pictures of you in nursing home bed. Get creative. Have fun. Lie like crazy.
Republic is the policies system where leaders are obliged to leave after their maximum allowed
term in office or if they lose the election (as opposed to the monarchy). the question who
really select the rulers remain open, and in most cases people are not gven the right to do so --
the elite preselect candidates for which common people can vote in general elections.
Democracy is more then that -- it is unrealistic, utopian dream of direct rule of people,
without intermediation of the elite. As such it is mostly a propaganda trick. Still be
can strive for more fair representation by the elite. The key question here are the mechanisms of
the filtration and the rotation of the elite as well as providing a channel for people from
lower strata to enter the elite. Right now universities are still serving as a path to
upward mobility but this channel is more and more blocked.
For example the US Senate is an example of almost life appointment to political position.
Putting the limit on the time one can a senator might improve the situation, but it
created the problem of short-termism. But taking into account to what extent senators are
controlled by MIC and various other powerful lobbies it might not matter much. "It has been studied, and the fact is that members of the American Senate spend about
two-thirds of their time raising money."
The class who holds economic power always also hold political power.
Notable quotes:
"... Democracy is a compromise, but it is one that virtually no one argues against. At least leaders are obliged to leave periodically. Churchill had it right when called democracy the worst form of government except for all the others. ..."
"... So, no thanks, I prefer representative democracy where I leave governance to a representative who I can vote for or against. I don't want to ever be involved in politics and hence I don't want decision left to groups of "community activists" of which i suspect you'd be quite happy to be part of. ..."
"... Trump is no Caesar but a Cataline. Just a sad sideshow in the slow implosion of Pax Americana. ..."
"... I'm sorry, but this is just not possible, at least not without something close to a revolution. In every Western country we like to call a democracy, the truth is that they have only an elaborate stage set of democracy. I prefer the term "plutocrat" to "oligarch," but whatever word you choose to use, the facts of society are the same. ..."
"... Power, no matter how it is granted, is power. And money is power, serious power. We can see this in a thousand aspects of our societies from the long-term success of someone like Harvey Weinstein in business to the many powerful lobbies which determine the direction of national policy. ..."
"... In the United States, the last national election was between a multi-billionaire and the best financed candidate in history, a woman who burnt through somewhere between $1.2 billion and $1.8 billion to lose. ..."
"... It has been studied, and the fact is that members of the American Senate spend about two-thirds of their time raising money. The American House of Representatives actually has call rooms were Representatives spend time every week raising money. And when I say "raising money" I don't mean the contributions which come from the likes of you or me. I mean big money from big sources of money, the only ones who really count. ..."
"... Something is out of balance in Washington. Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures -- more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It's a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s. ..."
"... Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business. ..."
"... Above analysis needs to be translated into common everyday analogies. Such as Governments are gangs selling crack and guns and form co-ops with other gangs to stop killing each other. Leaders are psychopaths who kill anyone who calls them a bitch. ..."
"... Revolutions usually occur because of economic difficulties. As long as life is relatively stable/acceptable, most people will not challenge the status quo. Their voting (if they vote at all) is reflexive/rote. ..."
"... People will only rise up if you take away the minimum level of life for too many people. Many people are happy with the minimum. The left are deluded in they think they can gather together a lot of political protests for a life above the minimum. Many people are happy if they are simply getting by. You only have a problem when too many people are not getting by. ..."
"... I don't like an oligarchy but I'm just not sure where this pushback will come from. Many people are destined to be the bottom of whatever system is in place. ..."
"... We're delivered the illusion of democracy but look how quickly trump has been owned and is now going OTT in doing the bidding of the elites. ..."
"... People that are poor and oppressed CAN'T complain. That is the whole point of living in a dictatorship. ..."
"... Last November, a decent sized percentage of the American electorate appears to have voted for a 'politician' who they perceived to be the outsider. Presumably, their view was that there was little to differentiate between traditional republicans and democrats. ..."
"... Thank you for a wonderful article. Does the assumption "Oligarchy bad- Democracy good" really stand up to scrutiny in all cases? Democracy has had its failures, and some benign dictators have done very well for their people. ..."
"... Words and Technologies lead to abuse by rouge states like USA NSA and UK GCHQ spying on all citizens, Bannon type nonsense like racism is populism, white supremacy is judeo-christan values and racist Corporations like Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica pushing racist platforms like Trump and Brexit. Same Hypocrites are outraged when Russia and Iran infiltrate them back. Drone tech preceded 911 and preceded Bush war in Iraq and Afghanistan, (but were used on the sly). Now illegal wars are conducted using drones illegally claiming there is no law for drone wars. Spy Agencies and Internet censors have Sundays off. ..."
"... Understanding the connection between wealth and power shouldn't be all that difficult. Really. More wealth = more political power, always has. Waiting for the oligarchy to rot from within isn't what i would call a viable plan. Not when there is a far better and far more sure way to get the job done. Start with capping wealth accumulation. No one has a right to unlimited wealth accumulation. Allowing it leads to oligarchies and the death of democracies, as this article points out. ..."
"... When George Bush Junior followed his father into the White House and became the President he demonstrated that political power remains in the hands of a few and the system is rigged. It doesn't require academics to write comparisons to Greek culture to tell us the dice is always loaded. ..."
"... The USA is clearly a warlord power in how it behaves around the world, and anyone that sees the power of the militarised police, from Kent state to Black Lives, should recognise aspects of the Mafia type power. ..."
"... The point is not that the laws are used by Oligarchs, but that the constitution and system of laws one has brings forth olicharchs. Europe has laws, but the countries there are largely social democracies rather than imperialist presidencies. ..."
"... One of the finest reviews written in decades about a topic of supreme importance. Police and military officials are the brute arms and legs of the oligarchic elites. The coming attack on North Korea and Iran is the elite capturing new markets for their banking industry and manufacturing. Goldman Sachs and the investment banks are chomping at the bit for entre into southwest and east Asia. ..."
"... The article assumes that oligarchy is inherently bad. Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Victorian England where all democratically sanctioned oligarchies. They where also the most successful cultures of their day. Perhaps a democratically sanctioned oligarchy is the most successful system of governance in large populations. ..."
"... Having been poor, I can't see the poor doing a better job of running the world. These articles never propose any workable solution to what we have now. Maybe the middle class could run things. Let's have a middle class revolution. That's more workable than 'power to the poor' which would end terribly. ..."
"... Their most effective power play is the perpetual game of economical musical chairs. The chairs are your living wage. Each round the masters take out their profit, removing one (or more) of the chairs from the next round. Now you have the choice of a death match with your neighbors for the remaining chairs or currying favour with the masters for the removed chair. ..."
"... Don't forget the role of the corporations and their associated 'think tanks'. In reality the USA is a corporatocracy as nicely pointed out by Bruce E. Levine in The Blog of the HUFFPOST in 2011. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-e-levine/the-myth-of-us-democracy-corporatocracy_b_836573.html ..."
"... "...in today's meritocratic era." This description is a myth put about by the oligarchs to justify their economic and political power. ..."
"... The UK had a brief glimpse of Democracy, sometime between the mid 1940's and the late 1970's. ..."
"... If you are thinking of the old Warsaw Pact countries, that was certainly an oligarchy based on party membership. ..."
"... Perhaps all political systems will tend towards oligarchy over time, as the people with the wherewithal learn how to make the system work for them and theirs. Anarchy cannot be the solution, but what is ...? ..."
"... So an oligarchy hiding behind a sham democracy is the best we can hope for? ..."
"... In a system where we economic power buys political power democracy will remain a myth or at best an illusion and as the author rightly points out a catastrophic event at the level of the depression or world war is needed to begin anew. I for one am not hoping for either ..."
"... So when the people take control and their populist leaders take charge and all their lots become better, don't they become the very oligarchs they despise? ..."
"... With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil oligarchy. To use the language of recent political campaigns, our oligarchs try to rig the system to defend their wealth. They focus on lowering taxes and on reducing regulations that protect workers and citizens from corporate wrongdoing. ..."
"... Industrialization will prevent any meaningful revolution so without serious changes in who is winning elections for a sustained time oligarchy in the US is here to stay. Mechanized war means control of assets rather than numerical superiority is the key to conflict and despite the millions of rifles and assault weapons out there they wont do much against drone bombers and drone tanks. ..."
"... I was heartened by the idea that the oligarchy must necessarily rot from within as a result of its own cronyism. Much like the insider-dealing, back-stabbing, and incompetence of the present clique. ..."
"... 'The question is whether democracy will emerge from oligarchic breakdown – or whether the oligarchs will just strengthen their grasp on the levers of government.' - judging by evidence from time immemorial my money is definitely on the oligarchs. ..."
"... The combination of political and economic power is discussed in Plato's Republic. Either book 4 or 5. Whilst not a replacement for modern treatment, it is vital reading if you want to avoid the limitations of single perspectives. ..."
"... To understand the significance of psyops and infowar against the public, you should also look at Tacitus' book on Corrupt Eloquence. Again, not a replacement but a way of seeing the broader picture. ..."
"... The article starts with an assumption that is wrong. It seems to suggest that America can't become an oligarchy without the will of the people. That ignores the fact that America's electoral system attracts oligarchs or at least people who are happy to be puppets of oligarch to the top job. ..."
"... Surveillance, drones, a purchased media, a mercenary govt, an internet with too much democracy and thus too many hairsplitting doctrinal differences, and increasingly effective killing devices, means the international corporate oligarchs have been in control for some time and will be for awhile more ..."
Yes, but the fundamental issue has always been, how do you chose the oligarch and how do you
get rid of one who is clearly badly failing or abusing power?
Democracy is a compromise, but it is one that virtually no one argues against. At least
leaders are obliged to leave periodically. Churchill had it right when called democracy the worst form of government except for all
the others.
Oligarchy clearly serves some developing countries well, always assuming the oligarchs are
people dedicated to doing their best for the country as a whole. And they do do that
sometimes.
Yet, we have supported nonsense like killing a Gadaffi, who gave his people good
government and peace, and pitching Libya into chaos.
All in the dishonest name of democracy from our dishonest "democratic" politicians.
Look at Israel, always slapping itself on the back as the Mideast's "only democracy,"
while it consorts happily with kings and tyrants in its neighborhood and continues to hold
millions of people in occupation against their will.
Representative democracy. Not democracy by the crowd. Not eternal referenda. Not local "community" groups holding a lot of power. This is simply the tyranny of small
groups of ideological left and ring wing extremists who will sit for 4 hours on a wet Tuesday
evening in some hall somewhere to get their way, knowing that most normal people have better
things to do with their lives.
It is the way of socialist workers and the like at University with their endless union
meetings and motions, hoping to sneak through some crap the "represents" the student body of
thousands on the basis of less than 100 votes. When challenged as to legitimacy the response
is always "no one is prevented from getting involved".
That I suspect is your type of democracy, as it certainly is Corbyn's.
So, no thanks, I prefer representative democracy where I leave governance to a
representative who I can vote for or against. I don't want to ever be involved in politics
and hence I don't want decision left to groups of "community activists" of which i suspect
you'd be quite happy to be part of.
Marxism 101.
Trouble is liberals on the one hand bang on about proletariat solidarity, yet on the
other, peddle identity politics and turn a blind eye at increasingly fragmented
communities. And when the modern oligarchs come out and play they scratch their heads and blame "the
stupid".
Your comment is the equivalent of the reply one normally gets from lefties btl if you say you
don't want to be paying more tax i.e. "go to Somalia".
The nuance that there may be something between high tax and low tax is lost on them.
In your case, the idea that having what Beveridge proposed originally as a "safety net" of
state provision rather than a lifestyle choice of full coverage of everything is lost on you,
hence you suggest the choice is a binary everything or nothing.
Yours is the ignorance of the socialist and yes, a lack of personal freedom in your
thinking that I'd reject every time.
The first rule of oligarchic fight club:
You do not talk about oligarchic fight club!
Or apparently Republics?
From the little golden book of how to overthrow oligarchs by overthrown oligarchs
(*Minion Free Edition)
India has democracy, but it is suppressing Kashmiris who want to be independent. In the last
decade more than 30000 people have been killed by Indian army. Why? Because they want
freedom.
Sparta used slave labor for its agricultural needs, freeing its people to train and form the
backbone of its militaristic society.
I agree that the best system for managing human affairs remains an open question. Locke
and Hobbes are not done debating, and Churchill's attribution that democracy is the worst
system of governance aside from everything else we've tried bears consideration as well. (If
you want to discard democracy, it only seems fair that you present a viable, well thought-out
replacement.)
"How the oligarchy wins..." "... two recent books can teach us about defending democracy from oligarchs'
I'm sorry, but this is just not possible, at least not without something close to a
revolution. In every Western country we like to call a democracy, the truth is that they have only an
elaborate stage set of democracy. I prefer the term "plutocrat" to "oligarch," but whatever word you choose to use, the
facts of society are the same.
Power, no matter how it is granted, is power. And money is power, serious power. We can see this in a thousand aspects of our societies from the long-term success of
someone like Harvey Weinstein in business to the many powerful lobbies which determine the
direction of national policy.
In the United States, the last national election was between a multi-billionaire and the
best financed candidate in history, a woman who burnt through somewhere between $1.2 billion
and $1.8 billion to lose.
It has been studied, and the fact is that members of the American Senate spend about
two-thirds of their time raising money. The American House of Representatives actually has call rooms were Representatives spend
time every week raising money. And when I say "raising money" I don't mean the contributions which come from the likes of
you or me. I mean big money from big sources of money, the only ones who really count.
Look at a phenomenon like Macron in France. He came from nowhere and seems to have very
limited talents, yet the plutocratic interests who backed him managed to grab the French
Presidency. Former French President Sarkozy, a man who proved mostly ineffective, took huge sums from
General Gaddafi to the richest woman in France, a woman rumored to not have been even fully
competent at the time.
Not only are the contributors of big money - both individuals and lobby groups - at the
center of Western politics, but our very institutions are constructed to accommodate
leadership which does not reflect the views of a majority. This is done in many structural
ways from district gerrymandering to the nature of the "first past the post" ballots we
use.
Look at Britain's most utterly incompetent modern politician, David Cameron, the man who
single-handedly created the entire Brexit mess plus engaged in a terrible lot of dishonest
and brutal behavior in the Middle East. He was never popular and ruled with something over
35% of the vote. Britain's institutions accommodated that.
In Canada, Stephen Harper, the man most Canadians likely regard as the shabbiest ever to
rule the country, managed to do terrible things with about 39% of the vote.
And everywhere, people don't vote for war, interests do, rich interests.
Economist Ha Joon Chang wrote about the meteoric economic rise of South Korea. He talked
about how governmental policy chose areas to heavily subsidize (like educating engineers) to
stimulate growth. They were successful but Chang also talks about the "losers" left
behind.
If we only look at economics and if we assume economic growth is always a positive with no
downside (slums, environmental degradation, authoritarian oppression, rulers passing laws to
protect their privilege, etc.), than your premise looks sound.
I think being dire is an important key. Maybe it is dire in Britain for many people now. It
isn't here, in Australia, just yet although people are going backwards.
The other issue is a lack of political literacy. You have to convince people they need a
revolution. Many people are poor because understanding things like politics and society is
not their strong point.
You may have a large group of people who are prime to vote for socialism but you'd have to
explain to them why and convince them not just take it as a given they will. You may have an
overwhelming amount of people who would benefit from socialism and you could win the
revolution then they'd do something dumb like vote for Trump or Pauline Hanson. It is not a
given that having victorious numbers of struggling people means socialism will be voted
for.
Something is out of balance in Washington.
Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures -- more
than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million).
It's a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the
combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s.
Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing
them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and
public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of
the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent
business.
Above analysis needs to be translated into common everyday analogies. Such as Governments are gangs selling crack and guns and form co-ops with other gangs to
stop killing each other. Leaders are psychopaths who kill anyone who calls them a bitch.
You say that, but wind the clock back 80 years and they were saying the same things about
tanks and airplanes. Modern day, 'urbanised feudalism' with the petrol engine instead of
horses. Otherwise known as Fascism. Didn't quite work out did it...
I don't think Jeremy Corbyn should be punished for having different political opinions to me,
nor do I want Jacob Rees-Mogg punished because his opinions differ from mine, whereas you
were calling for the latter to be punished for his political views.
For most people the options for dealing with those of a different political opinion are
not either 1) imprisonment or 2) confiscation of property/forced labour. Those are extremist
positions.
I find truth in your words. I used to understand the fear of "mob rule", which democracy
seemed vulnerable to. Governing is complicated and, ideally, is broad-minded as laws and
policies affect a diverse spectrum of people and situations. The average person, in my
experience, is not inclined to spend the time necessary to understand good laws/policy in a
complex society. The one safety check on mob rule is that most people don't become
politically active until their situation is relatively dire.
Revolutions usually occur
because of economic difficulties. As long as life is relatively stable/acceptable, most
people will not challenge the status quo. Their voting (if they vote at all) is
reflexive/rote.
Most of the time, democracies are fundamentally guided by people who have a deeper interest
in governance. As long as the engaged populace takes reasonable account of society as a
whole, there will be no upheavals. When the scales tip too far we get an "acting out" that is
unrestrained and chaotic and understandable.
This is simplistic and not meant to be absolute. Just an observation.
People will only rise up if you take away the minimum level of life for too many people. Many
people are happy with the minimum. The left are deluded in they think they can gather
together a lot of political protests for a life above the minimum. Many people are happy if
they are simply getting by. You only have a problem when too many people are not getting by.
In Australia plenty of people choose to live off the minimum wage. Many choose not to work
full time. The state picks up after them with health care and income top ups. They are highly
unlikely to make an effort to overthrow the oligarchy or the plutocracy. Why bother when you
can work 30 hours a week at an easy job and get along just fine in life.
I don't like an oligarchy but I'm just not sure where this pushback will come from. Many
people are destined to be the bottom of whatever system is in place.
In the UK we have circa 1200 quangos controlling our lives, and look how the tories have
recently abused select committee appointments. In the USA they have organisations such as the
council on foreign relations which wields huge power across all areas of policy, combined
with the intricacies of all the mechanisms it prevents democracy from taking shape. We're
delivered the illusion of democracy but look how quickly trump has been owned and is now
going OTT in doing the bidding of the elites.
By "Greece" I suspect this article means "Athens". Sparta had a different system and was not
subjected to these issues. In fact, that system was superior in many ways, but apparently all
has to be judged according to the rule that democracy would be the best.
Or one from the elite arises and takes power and skips democracy and devolves the US straight
to tyranny, as also forewarned by the classics. Its a good job Trump never got in last
year...oh fuck
People that are poor and oppressed CAN'T complain. That is the whole point of living in a
dictatorship.
Should you be interested in the truth of what is happening in that empire, just navigate
different news sites.
What about the GOP and the Democratic parties as competing oligopolies? Last November, a
decent sized percentage of the American electorate appears to have voted for a 'politician'
who they perceived to be the outsider. Presumably, their view was that there was little to
differentiate between traditional republicans and democrats.
Once you use the concept of class you out yourself as the oligarch's willing executioner.
There's no proof that democracy can't adapt and survive, yet a catastrophist will insist it's
so.
They aspire to be like the top? No, they don't. No revolution is coming because plenty
on the bottom are fine if they are just getting along in life. Aspiring to be like the top
would involve too much hard work for many.
If you push the bottom too far you just end up with a correction at the next election,
that's it.
And yet the Bourbons do not still rule France, neither the Romanovs nor the Bolsheviks
rule Russia, and the once-mighty Habsburgs are a distant memory.
Of course, the reason our democracies are not supposed to go the same way is that the
populace can change things themselves through elections rather than having to rise up and
overthrow the whole system. But what happens when the electoral system fails? What happens
if, no matter how the electorate votes, the political class thumbs its nose at them and
carries on as usual?
To take the most obvious example of democratic failure - the US - where will the American
electorate go after Trump? Can we seriously expect the same people who voted for him, and
undoubtedly did not get what they wanted, to flock to support some business-as-usual Democrat
or oily Republican?
Winters declares that America is already a civil oligarchy. To use the language of
recent political campaigns, our oligarchs try to rig the system to defend their wealth.
They focus on lowering taxes and on reducing regulations that protect workers and citizens
from corporate wrongdoing.
If there's ever been a country not ruled by oligarchy I'd like to see it.
The United States vacillates between a sly oligarchy of the Left who use the dole as its
virtue signaling to garner votes, and the Right whose use of government for self
aggrandizement is more obvious.
Indeed, any notion that the genetic impulse to self aggrandizement will change is
spurious.
As such, the only and imperfect defense, is to limit government power thus reducing the
oligarchs' potential for self dealing and, more importantly, requiring frequent
elections which although in the long run don't eliminate the problem, tend to engender
compromise and periodic shifts in power from one faction to another.
I think today's China is a good example of what a modern oligarchy looks like- a Party
structure that provides privilege through membership, but no clearly definable ideology other
than consolidating power and projecting it. It is ironic that a supposedly socialist country
devotes so much energy into preventing labour from organising into unions and has such
massive inequality.
Russia on the other hand is a sham democracy where the structure of democracy is in place,
but thoroughly eviscerated so that it exists only to confer legitimacy on the oligarchy (with
Putin and his inner circle at the core). If Putin was to die suddenly (or become
incapacitated) there may be a real world example of oligarchical collapse as rival factions
try to occupy the vacant centre of power. It could very well create a space in which genuine
grassroots democracy could grow, but equally it could tear the country apart.
Neither country has a history of democracy, and the rule of law isn't anywhere near as
strong as in liberal western democracies, and is easily subverted. Russia particularly has a
culture of political coups, as the country relies on unequal power distribution to function,
making separatist movements a very real threat.
They are complaining, but you can't hear them, because they are oppressed and colonized and
disenfranchised. In the country, in inner Mongolia, in Turkestan, and in Tibet, and when they
want to claim their rights and their family gets persecuted for a few generations. And if
anyone talks about it, the Communist party threatens to not trade with you.
Precisely. In a world where a handful of people could control a whole army, who's to stop
that handful from assuming total control over the rest of us?
I'm not even sure there's much that can be done to stop it, since the nations that refuse
to embrace new military technology tend to get defeated by other nations that have no such
qualms.
Thank you for a wonderful article.
Does the assumption "Oligarchy bad- Democracy good" really stand up to scrutiny in all cases?
Democracy has had its failures, and some benign dictators have done very well for their
people.
I sincerely wish you to have the same freedom to 'live freely and succeed or fail due to
their own personal talents' as my grandparents had in the 20s and 30s.
That is, the freedom to be unemployed without help for years (but with the freedom to grow
what food they could in the back yard of a slum in an industrial city). The freedom to see
some of their children die because there was no treatment if you were diabetic and poor. The
freedom to send your 13 year old son to work with a broken foot (stamped on by one of the
cart-horses he tended) because he was the only earner. The freedom to work hungry for two
days until payday because bills had been paid (rent, coal) and there was no money... I could
go on and on. I really hope you get to enjoy all this freedom. And please do emjoy it without
a murmur of complaint because being helped by all your neighbours that make up 'the state'
isn't freedom, is it?
Both Greece and Rome went through quire a few multiple systems in multiple situations. It
does not make sense to say they are singular political types at all.
Considering that in another thread you called on forced labour and confiscation of private
property for those you disagreed with politically, your version of 'proper democracy' would
have been called 'τυραννία' by the Ancient Greeks.
No, working with poor people convinced me socialism is no better. I'm not inclined to work
hard and have to support people who choose to work part time and collect benefits part time
as a lifestyle choice.
Successful for whom? All of those were extremely unequal societies. The spoils of the Roman
and British Empires mostly went to enrich the oligarchs while the vast majority of the
population laboured in poverty.
The majority was only able to prosper once the power of the oligarchs was broken, either
from above (the early Roman emperors tore the old senatorial class to pieces) or from below
(gradual democratic and labour reforms in Britain conceded for fear of a potential
revolution).
That would work fine before the age of automation now where humans are taken out of the job
scope entirely. Then it becomes a lot harder to justify on a philosophical, ethical and moral
level the logic of giving money to people for doing nothing (because there's nothing left for
them to do).
You're talking about a fundamental change in the mentality that we reap what we sow, that
our efforts directly correspond to the rewards and resources we gain at the end of it. I
don't think that's possible. Neither is it desirable.
two World Wars and a Great Depression largely wiped out the holdings of the extremely
wealthy
There was also a couple of generations trained under arms and seasoned under
fire. There was a mixing of classes unlike any other and enough people who would not
put up with a return to the status quo.
A world war is entirely necessary. To assume that peace is inherently good for humanity as a
whole in terms of population numbers, technological advancements, or political stability is
ridiculous in my honest opinion. Peace represents stagnation. It relies too much on
ever-convoluted webs of interdependence (like that Concert of Europe before WWI, once
declared as peace for its time).
The American revolutionaries had it right when they said that the tree of liberty
regularly requires the blood of tyrants and patriots to continue flourishing.
Words and Technologies lead to abuse by rouge states
like USA NSA and UK GCHQ spying on all citizens,
Bannon type nonsense like racism is populism, white supremacy is judeo-christan values
and racist Corporations like Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica pushing racist platforms like
Trump and Brexit.
Same Hypocrites are outraged when Russia and Iran infiltrate them back.
Drone tech preceded 911 and preceded Bush war in Iraq and Afghanistan, (but were used on the
sly).
Now illegal wars are conducted using drones illegally claiming there is no law for drone
wars.
Spy Agencies and Internet censors have Sundays off.
Interesting idea. So the core of a nation's military power decides what politics makes it up
(dependent on who's got the most access to the power to kill). In that case the automation of
war for drones and robots cannot be anything but bad news: they are the new cavalry,
affordable only by the very rich and powerful and so awesome in destructive power at almost
no human cost if they are destroyed that they would make the perfect enforcers for a strict
feudal order.
Understanding the connection between wealth and power shouldn't be all that difficult.
Really. More wealth = more political power, always has. Waiting for the oligarchy to rot from within isn't what i would call a viable plan. Not when there is a far better and far more sure way to get the job done. Start with capping wealth accumulation. No one has a right to unlimited wealth accumulation. Allowing it leads to oligarchies and
the death of democracies, as this article points out.
Set the cap at a reasonably high figure to reward hard work, innovation, etc. Somewhere
around $5B should work. Why $5 billion? Because of the ~2K billionaires in the world, most,
like 80-85% or so, have less than that amount, and it becomes a break point within the
oligarchy, dividing their unity. Think of the egos involved: many of those with $1-5B would
relish seeing the 200+ hyper rich brought within striking distance of equality on their
level.
Second, agree with the politicians that taxpayers know best how to spend their money.
Change the budget process so that the politicians pass the budget, but the people decide
whether or not to fund it. Establish dedicated tax payment centers so when tax time rolls
around, the proposed budget is available for the citizenry to examine.
Then allow the taxpayer to fund those parts they agree are necessary and make sense, by
establishing discrete step amounts scaled to the size of the tax bill, e.g., say your tax
bill came to 1582 whatevers, dollars, pounds, etc. At that size your increment might be 25 or
50, let's say 50 for argument's sake.
That means our taxpayer could fund up to 31 different parts of the budget. To ensure that
the money gets spread around, we can limit the number of allocations to any given part to 3
or 4, and close a choice when its budget request is met. Anything left over that doesn't meet
the minimum step level would go into the general fund for the politicians to allocate, either
topping off programs that didn't quite get their budget requests filled or funding something
that didn't get sufficient funds from the public to be viable.
Now here's were you can get voluntary revenue enhancement: allow the taxpayer to top off
the leftover amount for the privilege of allocating it themselves rather than surrendering it
to politicians' control. That amount wouldn't be applied against future taxes, it is
payment-for-privilege. In our example the taxpayer could add 18 to the leftover 32, a choice
many would make.
Third, bring voting into the modern era: use those handy tax payment centers both to vote
in local, state, and national elections (while changing the voting period from a day to a
week) and to provide feedback to politicians. Whenever anything controversial comes up, like
healthcare or bailouts or war, allow the citizenry to override their representative's choice
of vote if a majority of voters choose to vote the other way on that particular matter.
Fourth, establish mental standards for running for political office. Test would-be
candidates to determine whether or not they are sociopaths. I'd prefer to not allow such
people to hold political offices or appointments, but would accept just identifying them so
voters know what they will get.
Taken together, those steps would ensure that democracy is strong and safe from co-option
by oligarchs, both directly and indirectly by providing a genuine incentive to pay attention
to issues.
Indeed you're right. And to be fair, why should he? The world's spent long enough whining on
about great powers like the US trying to foist their ideas of a better world by their own
rules and standards on everyone else (democracy spreading anyone?), so if we are to truly put
words to action then an isolationist US allowing for other powers to fill the vacuum and
return the world to multipolarity cannot be seen as anything other than a good thing.
That doesn't sound very much like China here which is used as an example of a dictatorship
(more de-facto than de-jure since the Chinese president and premier only has the absolute
writ of God for ten years).
Apart from those in Hong Kong, there really isn't much of anyone in China's domestic
population complaining about being oppressed, unfree, colonised, or unable to become who they
can be.
It really some downs to how you define the term 'Liberal'. Socially Liberal? Economically
Liberal? The latter being a modern euphemism for being about as reactionary as it gets.
But that is breaking down as middle class benefits (pensions etc.) begin to disappear. There
is a growing awareness , I think, that inequality is becoming extreme between the very rich
and everyone else. Good article, anyway.
I'd rather describe it as socialism giving everybody endless free stuff, hence we get more
and more reliant on the state and those who wish to live freely and succeed or fail due to
their own personal talents see the idea of personal responsibility denuded everywhere.
Socialists seem to think "freedom" is achieved by having the state always there in
everything to back you up, to a lot of the rest of us that is most definitely not freedom at
all.
When George Bush Junior followed his father into the White House and became the President he
demonstrated that political power remains in the hands of a few and the system is rigged. It
doesn't require academics to write comparisons to Greek culture to tell us the dice is always
loaded.
That would depend on the quality and sophistication of the constitution. Social multi-party
representative democracies with a house of review don't decay like executive presidencies do.
"In civil oligarchies, governance is collective and enforced through laws, rather than
by arms. Democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of 'oligarchic breakdown.'
With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil
oligarchy."
Two things.
1. The USA is clearly a warlord power in how it behaves around the world, and anyone that
sees the power of the militarised police, from Kent state to Black Lives, should recognise
aspects of the Mafia type power.
2. The point is not that the laws are used by Oligarchs, but that the constitution and
system of laws one has brings forth olicharchs. Europe has laws, but the countries there are
largely social democracies rather than imperialist presidencies.
Also, I don't think anyone interested in politics does not understand that material
economical structure is the basis, and ideology is just the result or sales pitch.
Unfortunately, your view is one that is becoming more prevalent, on the left and right.
All about ensuring that the correct thinking people are not held back by the plebs. Ti that effect they accuse them of false consciousness by one half and being anti-business
by the other.
One of the finest reviews written in decades about a topic of supreme importance.
Police and military officials are the brute arms and legs of the oligarchic elites. The
coming attack on North Korea and Iran is the elite capturing new markets for their banking
industry and manufacturing.
Goldman Sachs and the investment banks are chomping at the bit for entre into southwest and
east Asia.
Articles and reviews like this one is WHY I HAVE READ THE GUARDIAN FOR DECADES.
The government need not favour the down trodden, it need only offer a job at a living wage to
anyone willing to contribute to their community. This would make us all equal enough.
The article assumes that oligarchy is inherently bad.
Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Victorian England where all democratically sanctioned
oligarchies. They where also the most successful cultures of their day. Perhaps a democratically sanctioned oligarchy is the most successful system of governance
in large populations.
They aspire to be like the top? No, they don't. No revolution is coming because plenty on the
bottom are fine if they are just getting along in life. Aspiring to be like the top would
involve too much hard work for many.
If you push the bottom too far you just end up with a correction at the next election,
that's it.
Having been poor, I can't see the poor doing a better job of running the world. These
articles never propose any workable solution to what we have now. Maybe the middle class
could run things. Let's have a middle class revolution. That's more workable than 'power to
the poor' which would end terribly.
Their most effective power play is the perpetual game of economical musical chairs.
The chairs are your living wage. Each round the masters take out their profit, removing one (or more) of the chairs from
the next round. Now you have the choice of a death match with your neighbors for the
remaining chairs or currying favour with the masters for the removed chair.
The masters need only cut out some unpopular group and tell some convenient story about
how they brought it on themselves in order to get your support.
The only way for democracy to thrive is for the community to supply a new a chair for
every one taken by the masters, as was done in the post war period up till the mid seventies.
Since then it has been economic musical chairs with austerity, budget constraints and
irreducible unemployment as far as they eye can see.
And yet, the American voters brought in Trump the oligarch, and tasked him with destroying
the institutions that perpetuate oligarchy.
Democracy will be destroyed through utter stupidity of the lower classes. They can easily
be egged to see an enemy in their fellow citizens and turn to oligarchs for protection.
Specifically, in the US, the white majority wants Trump to prevent a transition into whites
becoming the largest minority, instead of the majority. These are their expectations and they
are prepared to tolerate any outrage as long as they think he is working towards that
goal.
The UK had a brief glimpse of Democracy, sometime between the mid 1940's and the late 1970's.
I should also add that Aristotle included a third factor. The size and nature of ones armed
forces:-
If the core was cavalry, then it would be a feudal monarchy (Macedon, Persia)
If it was elite heavy infantry, then it would be an oligarchy (Sparta, Rome)
If it was through either mass light infantry or naval based, then it would be a Democracy
(Athens)
Now consider the UK after 1945, you have a this huge 'citizen's army' that has been out in
field (one way or another) for over half a decade. Add onto that the huge losses of wealth
and (more importantly) the alliances that were forced upon us. There could be nothing but an
effective mass popular Democracy in this country. And for the first time in its history.
But alas, the Oligarchs bided their time and when the first sign of crisis came along, the
struck. The 1970's for fucks sake, which were nothing compared to the cataclysms between
1914-1914, that same said Oligarchs created. Yet you would not think it the way those people
bang on about it. Thus now, we have the 2010's, a decade that we will be warning our children
about.
With the subheading 'What happens when you forget the lessons of history'.
If you are thinking of the old Warsaw Pact countries, that was certainly an oligarchy based
on party membership.
However, how far are we from that in a system which guarantees that only one of two
parties will end up in power? A glance across the pond shows how that is simply another form
of oligarchy generating a hereditary establishment. That was HC's biggest problem.
Perhaps all political systems will tend towards oligarchy over time, as the people with
the wherewithal learn how to make the system work for them and theirs. Anarchy cannot be the
solution, but what is ...?
Who cares about whether democracy or dictatorship is better. As long as the people get richer
and safer and happier with their lot in life, that's all that matters. Humans don't nearly
live long enough to care more than just staying alive and bettering our own lot in life.
In a system where we economic power buys political power democracy will remain a myth or at
best an illusion and as the author rightly points out a catastrophic event at the level of
the depression or world war is needed to begin anew. I for one am not hoping for either
There is also an economic minimum the population needs to be at. Dividing the classes only
goes so far.
There's an argument on the oligarch needing the masses to finance their wealth, especially
through utilities and monopolies (privately run NHS by token choice of companies), but it
almost like the oligarchs don't need the masses anymore and can defend their wealth via stock
exchange and governmental debts.
I would say that the biggest reason for the success of the oligarchs is making security,
defined and framed by them, more important for the mass than freedom.
So when the people take control and their populist leaders take charge and all their lots
become better, don't they become the very oligarchs they despise?
What seems to be missing is recognizing the fact that very often in human society those on
the bottom aspire to be like the top, even if they disagree with their personalities they
don't disagree with their idea of prosperity and power. So it's going to be endlessly
cyclical. The people take power and become oligarchs in their own right. Then someone has to
take over on the bottom and then it all starts again.
With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil
oligarchy. To use the language of recent political campaigns, our oligarchs try to rig the
system to defend their wealth. They focus on lowering taxes and on reducing regulations
that protect workers and citizens from corporate wrongdoing.
Aristotle would have argued that countries are oligarchies when they have oligarchical
constitutions.
Democracy works much better when all have economic prosperity. It should also look after the
minorities by giving them equal rights and opportunities. I see democracy in India and look
up to how it has remained a free country. But there are more than 300 million people in India
who are so poor that they cannot afford much in life, most of them live on roads. China on
the other hand is a dictatorship, but has reduced poverty of more than 400 million people in
the last few decades. Which path should others follow?
America under Trump is making the country isolationist. As Economist wrote so well: "The world
does not want an isolationist United States or a dictatorship in China. Alas, it may get
both."
Industrialization will prevent any meaningful revolution so without serious changes in who is
winning elections for a sustained time oligarchy in the US is here to stay. Mechanized war
means control of assets rather than numerical superiority is the key to conflict and despite
the millions of rifles and assault weapons out there they wont do much against drone bombers
and drone tanks.
I was heartened by the idea that the oligarchy must necessarily rot from within as a result
of its own cronyism.
Much like the insider-dealing, back-stabbing, and incompetence of the present clique.
Not all measures aimed at improving equality involve giving extra privileges to currently
disadvantaged groups - one can remove privileges/other advantages from groups which are doing
more than OK, like curtailing legal tax-dodges which are only of use/available to the very
wealthy. One can also remove barriers which (deliberately or not) impact people unequally,
such as voter-suppression tricks.
This set of images is a very simplistic but helpful way of explaining the difference
between different ways to deal with inequality:
If you think that's "contemporary bourgeois liberal strategy" then the oligarchs are winning.
They've told you the woes of the world are all the fault of the liberal middle classes, and
you've believed them.
'The question is whether democracy will emerge from oligarchic breakdown – or whether
the oligarchs will just strengthen their grasp on the levers of government.' - judging by
evidence from time immemorial my money is definitely on the oligarchs.
The combination of political and economic power is discussed in Plato's Republic. Either book
4 or 5. Whilst not a replacement for modern treatment, it is vital reading if you want to
avoid the limitations of single perspectives.
To understand the significance of psyops and infowar against the public, you should also
look at Tacitus' book on Corrupt Eloquence. Again, not a replacement but a way of seeing the
broader picture.
Remember, we wouldn't be in this mess if we had a clear picture, but we have a different
perspective to these past writers. Philosophers and elephants. You've got to combine the
visions and weight them correctly.
The article starts with an assumption that is wrong. It seems to suggest that America can't
become an oligarchy without the will of the people.
That ignores the fact that America's electoral system attracts oligarchs or at least
people who are happy to be puppets of oligarch to the top job.
If Trump hadn't been elected Hillary Clinton would now be President. More intelligent
certainly and less likely to destroy the country but still backed by countless very wealthy
people who would have been expecting payback for their support.
So rather than ask how America can avoid becoming an oligarchy I'd be asking if there was
ever a time when it wasn't an oligarchy.
While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power, the people
must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors. Oligarchs in ancient Greece
thus used a combination of coercion and co-optation to keep democracy at bay. They gave
rewards to informants and found pliable citizens to take positions in the government.
These collaborators legitimized the regime and gave oligarchs beachheads into the
people. In addition, oligarchs controlled public spaces and livelihoods to prevent the people
from organizing.
This is the clearest explanation of contemporary bourgeois liberal strategy I've ever
seen.
The question is whether democracy will emerge from oligarchic breakdown – or
whether the oligarchs will just strengthen their grasp on the levers of government.
Surveillance, drones, a purchased media, a mercenary govt, an internet with too
much democracy and thus too many hairsplitting doctrinal differences, and increasingly
effective killing devices, means the international corporate oligarchs have been in control
for some time and will be for awhile more
democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of "oligarchic breakdown."
Yes, but I'm not sure I see why that is to do with institutional decay - except
if that means that the arrangements for bribing, threatening and manipulating the populace
break down, in which case it just pushes the query back to why that should happen.
Which brings us to consent and to capacity. If the state has the capacity to ensure that
citizens do OK then it will gain their consent. If not, not.
So far so simple for the ancient Greeks. Not so simple for us, now, because one of the
institutional structures controlled by the oligarchy is the one that manufactures and
maintains consent.
That's why, if we have arrived at oligarchy, we will not escape as simply as the city
states of ancient Greece - and perhaps cannot escape it at all.
So those of us who want proper democracy need to try and sew in the ruling class, just as
they have long encouraged disunity amongst us plebs, is that it? Perhaps one advantage (of
few that I can see) of brexit is it's exposing significant disunity in the Tory party.
Nothing new then. Who said " I don't care who makes the decisions as long as I write the
Agenda and the Minutes. Information control is key. We live in a Alice in Wonderland world of
spin.
one solution is creating a more economically equal society
If one were to look at this equality problem rationally and logically, then any
government policy aimed at making people equal would actually amount to government treating
people very unequally.
Sort of like because people are unequal they should be treated unequally in order to make
them equal. So in this sense the very idea of social justice is either irrational or else
meaningless.
Differences in vocation, gifts, interests, locations and aspirations contribute to making
people unequal. Socialism is a provenly unworkable myth.
"... Indeed; smart, intelligent, "clever" folks in no way confers any degree of civility on their "vested" interests. Manipulation and control are suitably useful tools for their purposes. ..."
"... The media is not a major player in running the country, contrary to what much of the right has been brainwashed to believe. It's a tool of the elite. A hammer is also a very useful tool but it doesn't do much to determine what the carpenter builds. ..."
"... We convinced ourselves that our form of oligarchy was somehow "better" than other forms, when in fact, the end game was always the same..concentrating the power in as few hands as possible. Denial was the name of the game here in the US. ..."
"... They learned their lessons well after the 60's, the last time the people really raised up against the machine, so they have given us all the; junk food at a low cost, all the TV and mindless sexually charged entertainment, all the "debt wealth", a simple minded, unread, semi-literate, beer swilling fool could ever ask for. And we all gladly gobble it up and follow the crowd, for who wants to be on the outside looking in... ..."
"... There is always a ruling elite because power is the wellspring of all human actions. There is also a certain moral consciousness that many people argue is innate in human nature, and that consciousness is fairness. The fairness instinct survives where ordinary human sympathy may fail. Based upon this basic morality of fairness those of us who are willing to take risks in the interest of fairness need to prune and tend the ruling elites as soon as possible. We proles need to act together. ..."
"... Waiting for the oligarchy to rot from within isn't what i would call a viable plan. Not when there is a far better and far more sure way to get the job done. Start with capping wealth accumulation. ..."
"... With all the upheaval in today's politics, it's hard not to think that this moment is one in which the future of the political system might be more up for grabs than it has been in generations. ..."
"... Dominance of oligarchic political power, through neoliberalism, over the last four decades has effectively put such policies out of bounds. ..."
"... The last one I recall was an article by Kenan Malik on identity politics . For what exists in this country, the UK, I have previously used the term "oligarchy by profession" ... meaning a pool of the usually upper half of the middle class, or a group in whom that group is disproportionally represented, who not only likely have a select education but who go on to become part of certain professions - accountants, lawyers, journalists, bankers, doctors etc. ... and of course, politicians tend to be drawn from these. ..."
"... Apparently we're so distracted that we're also all genuinely shocked that Hollywood is rife with pedophilia and extreme sexual harassment as though it's some revelation that we didn't know already, but that's another conversation. ..."
"... If we're all so distracted then it's not difficult for our political 'representatives' -- I use that word very tentatively because they barely ever do -- to subject themselves to the oligarchs for a few scraps more than we have ourselves. ..."
"... Limiting govt still leaves economic power and the tendency towards monopoly untouched. ..."
"... Culture is the key, much more than any genetic impulse, which is practically meaningless and so explains nothing. ..."
"... As wealth defense is so important to oligarchs, there is a constant pressure to cheat and break the law. One solution therefore is to apply the law but also to construct legislation with specific principles in mind. If the point of tax legislation is to contribute your share towards the general good then those who avoid and evade tax would be guilty of a technical breach but also a breach of the principle. ..."
"... However our laws are skewed to allowing the wealthy to defend their wealth and so a party of the people is always needed. Always. ..."
Nothing new here, C Wright Mills, the US state as a plutocracy , government by the few , said
it all fifty years ago , especially the economic oligarchs
I would again point to Plato. Those whose affluence exceeds the critical threshold stagnate.
They have no need to work, no need to hold anything as valuable, they contribute nothing and
take everything.
What is the point in being so rich? There's nothing you can gain from it, other than bank
account pinball.
The purpose of being rich is to enable you. It is the only purpose. Once you are fully
enabled, money has no value.
Those who are poor can't afford the tools to work well, the education/training needed,
anything by which they could better themselves and be upwardly mobile.
There are some who are poor by choice. Voluntary hermits are common enough. They're not
included in here because they're self-sufficient and have the tools they need so fall out of
scope.
The middle band, where prone work the best, function the best, are mentally and physically
the best, is very very big. Nothing stops you cramming society into there because they've
plenty of room to stretch out.
But people always want to improve. No big. Make tax follow a curve, so that you always
improve but the game gets harder not easier. Would you play a computer game where level 100
was easier than level 1? No, you'd find it boring. As long as it's a single curve, nobody
gets penalized.
You now get to play forever, level billion is better than level million is better than
level thousand, but it's asymptotic so infinite improvement never breaks outside the
bounds.
"Asymptotic" is a word that meets your objection AND my rebuttal. You do not have to have
either a constant, infinity or hard ceilings. Leave straight lines to geometers and enter the
world of inflection points.
Elites exist the world over -- East, West, North and South. Question is how do we create a
world where power is shared -- Plato and his Guardians perhaps or are we doomed to be ruled by
elites until the end of time?
Indeed; smart, intelligent, "clever" folks in no way confers any degree of civility on their
"vested" interests. Manipulation and control are suitably useful tools for their purposes.
Yet most of the media is resolutely "liberal" or leftist How do you explain that?
The media is not a major player in running the country, contrary to what much of the right
has been brainwashed to believe. It's a tool of the elite. A hammer is also a very useful
tool but it doesn't do much to determine what the carpenter builds.
Rapid is still quite right...
We convinced ourselves that our form of oligarchy was somehow "better" than other forms, when
in fact, the end game was always the same..concentrating the power in as few hands as
possible. Denial was the name of the game here in the US.
jessthecrip's comment was clearly not calling for JRM to be imprisoned or in any way punished
for his views , but for his votes . Specifically his votes in the House of
commons to support benefit cuts for disability claimants. Admittedly that a pretty extreme
position from my point of view, but nonetheless you are misrepresentating what was said,
whether deliberately or because you genuinely have not understood only you can know
More people should simply look up from time to time and quit living in fantasy books.
The whole and real truth is not written in a book its all around you if you are willing to
except what you see.
Form a government in same way we select juries. No entrenchment of the same old guard, no
lobbyists,no elite, no vested interests.Just people like you,and you.People like your
children.People like your parents.People like your neighbors
Not really driven by the oligarch, more looted. And there's normally 1 greedy bugger, Sulla
or Pompey, who has to have it all and upsets the apple cart, and then you get Augustus.
The US and it being a democracy, the word that is no where mentioned in the Constitution is
one big hoax and the perpetuation of the same, where the missed people in this country are
further conned by the elite and the rich. Then on top of it all we f or sure not practice
what we preach. To that end our political system with two senators from each of 50 states m
irrespective to the population is lot to be desired in terms of any real democratic process,
let alone equality in representation. To add insult to injury, the US House of
Representatives where Congressional Districts are gerrymandered just about every two years,
is even worst. Just as the US Congress in which over 90% of the people have no confidence.
Yet most of the media is resolutely "liberal" or leftist How do you explain that?
Liberal MSM has been emasculated. It doesn't know it's dead. It doesn't move any needles.
It just brays on in ineffective anti-Trump outrage and one identity politics issue after
another.
The House of Lords in the U.K. and the Senate in the US were originally there to prevent poor
people - always the majority - from voting to take away wealth and lands from the rich.
Basically, if such a vote was cast, the HoL and Senate - filled with the elites of society -
had the power to block it.
This is a fascinating dissection of how the "leftist/liberal" media was completely disrupted
by Trump. It is a long read and quite difficult (so not likely to appeal to most of the
knee-jerk commentators) but, whatever your politics it is well worth a look https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/what-facebook-did/542502
/
The human (and probably animal) world is made up of oligarchies that deal with each other.
History has shown that only lone soldiers can upset established orders: Alexander, Napoleon,
Lenin, Castro and Bin Laden come to mind.
I agree with the article's premise. We have allowed the oligarchs to consolidate power.
Why? Because Americans revere wealth and power. We have bought into the capitalist model
hook, line, and sinker. We willingly elect candidates and sign on to policies that allow
oligarchs to consolidate their power, increase their wealth and income inequality, pomote
greed and selfishness, and undermine democracy - the power of the people.
We have been busy electing agents of oligarchy to Congress since 1980. Buying ino the
"small government" con, the "taxes are theft" con, "the business is overregulated" con, the
"corporations are the job creators" con and its twin the "government never created jobs" con,
the anti-union con, etc, etc, etc.
Our political system would be a lot more representative of the people if the people would
get off their butts and start participating in it. Our electoral ststem is open to anyone who
wants to participate.
But who and how many participate any more?
When the people create a vacuum with their apathy and cynicism, the oligarchs fill it with
their greed.
Oligarchs will always be attracted to power, no matter what system is in place. What's
needed to minimize their ability to entrench themselves is vigilance in defending our
institutions against corruption.
And vigilance is something that the American people seem to have less and less of every
day.
Maximise aggregate happiness as John Nash suggested. Cooperation beats competition in
almost every sphere. Uniting the 99% will happen after the 1% have brought civilisation to a
standstill and a billion people starve.
Denial is a powerful mental mechanism, that and also people tend to associate oligarchy with
brutal, straight forwards autocratic rule.
US has a very sophisticated socio-political system that has isolated the elite and the common
man through many filters rather than one solid brick wall - so people dont see it. This
paired with large enough populations who are cretinous enough to actually vote for somebody
like Trump or give a second term to the likes of G.W Bush makes fooling extremely easy.
There is also the tendency of treating laws like dogma and the constitution like the bible. A
stark example of it is how they boast about freedom of speech. Everybody is keen to point out
that one can publicly criticize politicians without fear of prosecution but nobody seems to
notice how useless that speech is and how effectively the political elite shelters itself
from negative opinion and is able to proceed against the public will. I find it quite
fascinating.
ALL oligarchies are bad...they just function from a different starting point.
In the US, we have an oligarchy based on wealth,who then uses their money to buy the
political animals.
In Communist countries, you had a political oligarchy, who used their political powers to
corner the wealth.
And in religious oligarchies you have a few selected "high priests" using religious
fervor/special communication lines with whatever deity, to capture both wealth and politics.
None of these are preferable over the other as they all concentrate power into the hands
of the few (1-2%), against the interests of the many.
The fact is Western Democracy (democratic capitalism) is not and was never a true democracy.
Historians from at least 300 years from now, when studying our historical time, will state
our system was capitalism, whose political system was plutocracy -- the rule of the
capitalist class from behind the curtains, through puppet governors.
Sure, the same historians will, through archaeological evidence, state, correctly, that we
called and considered ourselves to live in a democracy. But they will also find evidence that
this claim was always contested by contemporaries. Emperor Augustus restored the
façade of the Republic and called himself princeps instead of king, and, officially,
Rome was still a Republic until the time of Marcus Aurelius to Diocletian (maybe the first
emperor to openly consider himself a monarch) -- it doesn't fool today's historians, and it
seems it didn't fool the Roman people also.
Oligarchy in USA is secure. For a generation, it has leveraged rightwing media to get
unquestioning support from white America based on aggrieved truculence toward the liberal,
the brown, and the black. And that was pre-Trump.
Now Trump rampages against the very symbol of the grievance: Obama.
It's midnight in the world's leading third world country
Anyone who's been accusing united states of being an oligarchy so far was branded as a
conspiracy nut. So does this article rehabilitates them and confirms their assertions?
In ancient Greece: "While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in
power, the people must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors." Today the
oligarchs aren't always united, because they see each other as rivals. But they have nothing
against dividing and weakening the people in order to prevent them from rising up to "their
oppressors."
Mass indoctrination is the answer. Oligarchs around the world seek to build up a media empire
to brainwash a gullible public and sow discord in the society. The most notorious members of
a civil oligarchy in the West are Silvio Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch. Like oligarchs in
ancient Greece, their modern counterparts need democratic support to legitimise their goals.
And they support candidates in elections who will do their bidding once in office.
Oligarchy and plutocracy will continue to rule America, because the worship of money is a
popular faith. As long as an individual is well off, he/she sees little incentive to help
improve social equality. A revolution will only be possible if a critical mass is behind it.
Sounds about right - a least some, a very small minority, realise they're being suckered -
the overwhelming majority die pig ignorant, whether they believe they've made it or live in a
trailer park.
it's very rare that an article in the Guardian doesn't have an obvious agenda. Simple click
bait stuff. This article is different, and worthwhile reading. Excellent.
I am only surprised that anyone would still be in the dark about whether or not the US is an
oligarchy. It's been obvious now for at least the past three-four decades.
Yep---for where very few have very much and most have nothing, you have a pressure-cooker.
The property-police must indeed grow in number and brutality.
And the other half of it is what Ben Franklin warned about, "the corruption of the people."
The gangsters really sense and know how to play people against themselves---arousing
appetites, appealing to short-term pleasure, to short-term feel-good thinking and acts, and
to greed and lust for seemingly easy power. When you realize you're had, it's too late: "In
every transaction, there's a sucker. If you're wondering who that is, it's you."
Yep sure. The 'big white kid' pritecting the brown kid does tend to be working class or
middle class Jewish, and indeed, more likely to be socialist than liberal (in my
experience).
I wouldn't limit credit for this kind of thing to any particular ethnicity. But I will say
that most major successful reform 'crusades' of modern Western history were inspired by
Christian ideals, and often led by Christian clergy, including the anti-slavery Abolition
movement in 19th-century America, the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and '60s, and the
anti-Communist revolutions in 1980's Eastern Central Europe. Even in the anti-Apartheid
movement, the churches played a leading role, personified, of course, by Bishop Tutu.
Correct, because that would be too easy . . . for 'Muricans, because Other people might
benefit, and because it is too, too logical a solution for the Turd World USA.
In the Oxford English Dictionary you find that "profit" and "advantage" are close cousins
etymologically. Makes sense, since "profit" (the word for value you did not put into an
exchange) creates "advantage"---and then you use advantages to give even less and take even
more profit. Round and round she goes, and there's no bottom. "Advantage" of course is also
inherently relative to somebody else's "DIS-advantage": hence our planet full of
"disadvantaged" working people.
No, I think the Democrats are the ones most successful at diverting the people from their own
power in favor of the banks. The Republicans are far less successful by their own control,
instead benefitting only from luck such as Wasserman-Schultz denying Elizabeth Warren from
her rightful place in the Oval Office. Sanders was the consolation candidate for Warren
voters. Warren would have beaten Trump 50-nil.
Correct. Two equal evils from the same nest-egg, a political party with two right-wings. At
the least, the public know why the First Nazi of Great America has an aura of flies.
a colleague of mine asked if America was really at risk of becoming an oligarchy. Our
political system, he said, is a democracy. If the people don't want to be run by wealthy
elites, we can just vote them out.
Thanks for the cracking joke. That was hilariously funny.
full and transparent disclosure of all finical and gift transactions between elected official
and anyone not in govt.. this include "payments" to family, friends their charities.. etc..
if you cant see the lie no one fight to have the laws and rules changed... additionally
lobbyist must no longer be allowed to have the type of closed door access to our leaders..
all these conversations must be moderated or flat out banned and a new form of communication
is developed.... put it this way I have never been able to get a meeting with my leading
politician yet big business can at almost any time.. I'm glad this issues is being more
openly discussed.. we need more of the same
Karl Marx, in The Communist Manifesto , indentified this in his concept, "False
Consciousness", and Orwell, taking Stalinism to exemplify it, points to the same in Animal
Farm , though I bet they weren't the first, and hope they won't be the last.
Machiavelli was right, when you need political favors to get to the top, then you will always
owe the favor-givers when you get there. Machiavelli also said this:
Sortition works!
When the most powerful person has literally zero interest in the outcome, they will defer
to moral utilitarianism every time. Ask Canada's John Ralton Saul "The Unconcious
Civilization" and Australia's Ricky Muir from the Motoring Enthusiasts Party [seriously] who
scuppered Aussie right-wingers from bringing US-style education-loans to rent-seek our
economy to death.
The problem is that today's so-called "populists" have been so propagandized into despising
the liberalism that could fight the oligarchs, and buying into the very policies and
philosophies that allow the oligarchs to consolidate their power (endless tax cuts,
undermined government, deregulation, big money in politics, destruction of unions, etc, etc.)
that they play right into their hands.
They've mistaken a demagogue for a man of the people and continue to cheer on the
dismantling of the checks on oligarchy that our system provides.
This country is in a world of hurt and those who should be exercizing their democratic
power to diminish the power of the oligarchs are busy dismantling it, thanks to decades of
right wing media propaganda.
All I see is more oligarchy, more autoctacy, and less power to the people. We just keep
sticking it to ourselves.
When anyone could instantly become president, then everyone has to be
educated as much as possible. Right? Hey classical policy scholars, sortition worked in
Ancient Greece too! As well as everywhere else ever since. Ever heard of court juries?
Divide and rule - the oldest trick in the book, and incredibly easy, as long as people are
kept ignorant by propaganda (currently known as The Media) and education.
Hillary Clinton lost because the working class (correctly) perceived her to be a supporter of
oligarchy in the USA. Her ties to Wall Street, corporate power, and the upper class were too
obvious.
Yes, Trump fooled many voters into believing that he was populist, but their perception of
Clinton was still accurate.
If the Democratic party leaders had chosen Sanders as their candidate, they would have won
the election. But the "Democratic" party leaders (ironically) feared what he offered: real
democracy.
"The Bad Hayek emerged when he aimed to convert a wider public. Then, as often happens, he
tended to overreach, and to suggest more than he had legitimately argued. The Road to Serfdom
was a popular success but was not a good book. Leaving aside the irrelevant extremes, or even
including them, it would be perverse to read the history, as of 1944 or as of now, as
suggesting that the standard regulatory interventions in the economy have any inherent
tendency to snowball into "serfdom." The correlations often run the other way. Sixty-five
years later, Hayek's implicit prediction is a failure, rather like Marx's forecast of the
coming "immiserization of the working class.""
This of course is a simplified version and can't really touch on everything, however he
glaringly leaves out the deliberate human suffering results from the oligarchy protecting its
wealth and aggressively taking over ever more markets. Yes, of course, what today is called
"alignment of interests" among the oligarchy is necessary but that alone is not enough they
mus also be ruthless beyond that of others. Nothing stands in the way of profits nothing
stands in the way of ever greater control. The oligarchy has decided that nature itself is
just another obstacle profit making - there is no room for empathy in the world of the
oligarchy poverty suffering from curable disease mutilation from bombs are acceptable
external consequences to their obsessive accumulation of wealth.
The real reason the oligarchy wins is because they are willing to be ruthless in the
extreme and society rewards ruthlessness and ridicules the empathetic.
This may be true, they often seem so blinded by their raw greed that their powers of reason
become dysfunctional. I don't think, however, that the stupid things they do to slake their
greed means that they are stupid. When the chips are down, they are capable of bringing their
considerable powers of reason to bear.
However stupid or smart they might be, we surely must realize that they have been at least
smart enough to gain total ownership and control of all our mass media. They use this tool,
the most powerful tool of social control that has ever existed, with consummate skill in
pursuit of their agenda(s).
If you look at the overall content of our mass media, you can see an impressive level of
'mind' at work, 'behind the curtain'. This 'mind' is constantly manipulating our
consciousness, using very highly sophisticated, highly skilled techniques.Their understanding
of human psychology, and their ability to manipulate us using our most basic appetites and
desires, is characterized by true genius, even ig that genius is diabolical in its
designs.
'They' choose what movies get made. Which TV shows are produced. Which songs get airplay.
Which social and political issues are sensationalized and which are buried.
Most of the citizens of our ostensible 'democracy' have been 'trained', just as any
animals are trained to any behavior, to be 'consumers' rather than 'citizens'. We are well
trained by an omnipresent mass media that assaults us constantly. In any direction that we
turn our gaze, or our attention, 'they' are there, to direct our thoughts as they think
serves their purposes.
I sure wouldn't sell these people's intelligence short. They may often do stupid things to
serve their greed, but they did not acquire the power that they have through any lack of
intelligence.
what everyone seems to forget is that whilst ancient Greece was the cradle of democracy it
was not only a slave state (whose slaves had no rights to vote) but that only an elite
minority were eligible to vote themselves - power very much rested with the vested interests
of the few.
I agree that societies are a reflection of the 'will' of the people these days, even if
that will is ill informed, reactionary or, as seems to be the case, largely uninterested in
voting. You get the governments you deserve and people in the West have become lazy,
permanently distracted, often ignorant and usually in the grip of one addiction or another,
thus allowing 'democracy' to be subverted. The media have had their role in this by allowing
themselves to be manipulated and owned by vested interests, rarely reporting the truth and
doing as they are told by various govt offices and departments. Uninformed people make poor
decisions.
What the Black Lives Matter movement is telling us is that the Oligarch's enforce their rules
of 'law' precisely at the barrels of guns, and by the words of one man after one man, each
with a uniform on and a camera off.
Further, you stated above that you were "...responding to a poster who called for
imprisonment for those concerned", when in fact the quote shows they were complaining about
people calling for imprisonment, not calling for it.
That shows you are twisting what was said, it is incredibly disingenuous of you.
It's the divisions of the left that allow Tory and Republican minority rule to prevail. In
the US the divide is quite bitter between Hillary and Bernie wings of the Dems- at the moment
I don't really see where reconciliation can emerge. And of course in Great Britain you
actually have two major parties competing rather self-destructively for the available votes
on the left. (As well as the mighty Greens...). Divided and conquered, indeed. And such a
bloody cliche!
Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because democrats focus so much on guaranteeing
political equality that they overlook the indirect threat that emerges from economic
inequality
And yet Marx doesn't rate a single mention in the entire article...
No, even though you've quoted me you have misunderstood what was perfectly plain. I stated
'like everyone else who voted to cut even more from disabled people's benefits'. Perhaps the
OP was proposing prison for JRM for expressing a viewpoint, but that was not and is not where
I'm coming from.
At its core, oligarchy involves concentrating economic power and using it for political
purposes.
Here is the exact reason why the Democratic Party is lost now. The Clintons,
Wasserman-Schultz, and their new Goldman Sachs alumni hero in New Jersey, and now Kamala
Harris seeking the same money from the same bankers.
It's sort of worked against the right though. Take a look at the last election. Yes, the
Tories got most votes, but they've pretty much lost all ethnic minorities, including asian
professionals, hindus and sikhs. Why is this, especially when Labour moved to left and are
now more socialist than left liberal?
Purely because the right has been subsumed by angry grievance mentality, or aggreived
entitlement. The internet is awash by people who hate assertive blacks and asians, Dianne
Abbott received half of all abuse of female MPs. And so.. the Labour pick up votes that
Tories had gained under Cameron. If you are a prosperous hindu dentist or stockbroker, sure
you might have shrugged off your parents labour voting tendencies and might be Tory. But
also, you might be seeing this sort of stuff, the bile on the internet, the resentment
expressed behind internet anonymity. And you might be thinking that deep down underneath that
expensive suit of yours, you are your father and mother, a tentative, slightly frightened,
cheaply dressed immigrant who has arrived as an outsider and are visibly aware that half the
population likes you, but the other half doesn't.
And so you vote Labour.
Divisiveness actually divides the core group you are aiming to win. If you do white
chauvinism, well, you end up unite everyone who is not white. Black, brown, yellow, all
huddle together scared, back under the labour fold. And you end up dividing the whites into
the patriotic and the 'self hating libtard'.
"Just read the language of many in here...apparent JRM should be banished and locked away.
You don't need to look to far to find odeous beliefs."
Your reply to that:
"Not locked away. Prison is expensive for the taxpayer. Assets sequestered for the good of
the commons and put to work cleaning - streets, hospitals, care homes - on workfare. Like
everyone else who voted to cut even more from disabled people's benefits, causing what the UN
has described as a 'catastrophe' for disabled people in this country"
My reply to you:
"You are advocating confiscation of private property and forced physical labour for people
who hold different political views to you. Is Stalin a hero of yours?"
Yours is a call to punish people for holding different political views to you.
Yours is an extremist position and, like all extremists, you think it is justified.
e.g. Park Chung-hee sent thousands of homeless people to camps where they were used as
slave labour, many were were tortured and executed.
Like I said, benignish. He took a third world basket case (which is what South Korea was up
until his seizure of power) and set it on the way to becoming a first world economy.
One of the most interesting mini-discourses I've read anywhere. I would only add that the
'mob' currently in charge of the polity of the House is actually a minority that has gamed
the system.
They also tried to keep ordinary people dependent on individual oligarchs for their
economic survival, similar to how mob bosses in the movies have paternalistic relationships
in their neighborhoods
"Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because democrats focus so much on guaranteeing
political equality that they overlook the indirect threat that emerges from economic
inequality."
No democrat with two working brain cells to rub together could honestly suppose that great
concentrations of wealth, which necessarily confer political power on the wealthy class, can
fail to undermine democracy. A capitalist democracy is an oxymoron and a delusion.
They admire the rich, and the lifestyles of the rich, although it is out of their reach.
They do not admire the wise, and the experienced.
They don't know who are their state and federal representatives.
They don't know the reason for the Civil War.
They don't know much about our history, our constitution, or anything about civics.
They don't know much about world history.
They don't read much, and are suspicious of education, and the properly educated.
They are easy marks for lies, and negative influence, because they never question.
They refuse to address, or even admit, their own irrational prejudices.
They don't vote, but they do plenty of complaining, and like to blame others for the problems
of our nation.
I do not think that benign or even benign(ish) suits the majority of the above e.g. Park
Chung-hee sent thousands of homeless people to camps where they were used as slave labour,
many were were tortured and executed.
Not sure how Carl Mannerheim gets to be on your list? He was appointed Military chief
during the Finnish civil war and he was elected President of Finland
At the same time, they sought to destroy monuments that were symbols of democratic
success. Instead of public works projects, dedicated in the name of the people, they relied
on what we can think of as philanthropy to sustain their power.
That was more because there was no income tax regime - something difficult to impose when
there was no centralized collection from a single consistent professional government. So if
the Athenian navy wanted a ship, it got a rich chap to pay for it. Rather than out of general
taxation.
Athens got rich on levies it imposed on its allies by way of protection money, which
eventually collapsed in acrimony, but that's a different story.
Owen Jones ? ......a man of high minded principle and unblemished
virtue . Don't think he would object to a spot of terror........in defence
of his liberal principles , of course..
I guess we are seeing some of oligarchy break down. Many oligarchs support many socialist
policies to avoid tension between classes. For eg: many rich support universal basic income
and some even support single payer healthcare.
You make a good point but in my wide but less than comprehensive knowledge of rapid
development often occurrs in periods of oligarchy.
All those mills that drove the industrial revolution, created by oligarchy.
All those armies and aqueducts that drove the Roman Empire, created by oligarchy.
All those libraries and universities that drove Greek learning, funded by the
oligarchy.
The great library of Alexandria, oligarchy.
OK, I'll concede that. Which makes for an interesting perspective on things overall,
actually. One can see the advantage of an oligarchy - wealth and power is concentrated in few
enough hands to achieve great things, but not so few that, like in a monarchy or
dictatorship, the leader must spend most time and effort on keeping their power. Whereas a
more equal democracy lacks the capacity to make bold steps or drive through unpopular new
ideas. But this also means the oligarchs have the power to grind down those underneath them,
and therefore in order to enjoy the fruits of that development, the oligarchy needs to be
destroyed.
In other words, oligarchies deliver growth, democracies deliver prosperity. I would
certainly not like to live under an oligarchy (assuming I'm not an oligarch) but it would be
beneficial for a country to have had one in the past.
I have come to the conclusion that the oligarchy which rules the world are complete imbeciles
who haven't a clue that the whole Neoliberal system they built in the 1970's is collapsing
and they are clueless on how to handle it. Just because they are wealthy and greedy doesn't
mean they are intelligent.
In order to prevent the protests from going out over the airwaves Fox (sports) in all their
'logic' started excluding broadcast of the Anthem. Early on I said I would not watch any of
these sporting events with, as you say, these jingoistic displays going out and Fox has
obliged me but I wont say thanks.
Britain isn't different. Oligarchy is built into our system of governance, e.g. royals and
house of lords. We even have special oligarch schools where children are sent to be educated
for leadership
"An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy." - Thomas Jefferson
We have Americans who don't know when the Civil War was fought, or even who won, but
insist we must stand for the national anthem before a ballgame.
So much for 'the Land of the Free'.
And in the older grades, they prescribe (hand out) adderall, CSN stimulants, like chiclets to
help student study (cram) and with comprehensive test taking.
This is the rub.....and the mob does not value education while the rulers value propaganda.
Notice the close association between Autocratic and Oligarchic systems and religion,
historical mythology and hyper-patriotism!
Or that's the evil of it. Economic inequality rises until people die. Like homeless on the
streets, starving food banks, grenfell tower, waiting on hospital beds instead of famine and
pitchfork wars.
The idea is to progress and solve problems before they escalate to pitchfork wars. Praising
grotesque inequality is not part of the solution, it's the cause of the problems.
What emerges from Plutocracy is Oligarchy...what emerges from Oligarchy is Autocracy.
Autocracy is one form or another is the natural state of human society....all the others are
ephemeral systems...or systems that disguise the actual Oligarchy or Autocracy!
The biggest contributor to America's plutocracy is our abysmally uninformed electorate.
HL Mencken knew this nearly a century ago when he said:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the
inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will
reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Just exactly when was it that "democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece"?
What proportion of the population in Ancient Athens, for example, were actually
citizens...and what proportion of those actually held the franchise?...I believe that you
would find the numbers surprising!
Also ...when these (and other) writers speaks of Ancient Greece.....it is usually Athens that
they are mythologizing....most the Ancient Greek world had little by way of representative
government...let alone "Democracy"!
No I wasn't. I already responded to you regarding this. To remind you, I said
when people in positions of power take £28 billion (at least) off one of the most
powerless and already impoverished groups in our country (disabled people), resulting in
hundreds of suicides, enormous suffering, worsened isolation, serious lack of care support,
and thousands dying soon after being found 'fit to work' (a situation the UN has described
as a 'catastrophe') then I think it perfectly reasonable to favour some punishment for
those politicians who inflicted such suffering on their fellow citizens
I was not suggesting punishment for 'thought crime' or for expressing views, but
for actions seriously damaging to our citizens.
I have worked in several of the American rich's schools where they charge $30k per kid,
families have 3-5 kids there, plus they donate another $30k per kid per year. These schools
shame their $50k/year teachers into donating hundreds and thousands per year to their own
schools in order to prompt further donations from parents, who expect the poor teachers to
prove their fidelity to these rich kids by giving their own money to them. I have seen these
schools' principals fire teachers who teach "how to change things". I have seen them promote
teachers who teach absolutely nothing, because then the rich kids enjoy insulting and
demeaning those teachers' weaknesses. I have heard rich $chool principals tell Harvard
psychology lecturers that grade inflation is a marketplace necessity. I have seen rich
principals tell school inspectors that the curriculum presented for verification is supplied
by a currently-employed teacher (who was awfully bad at teaching) when in fact it was written
and prepared by a teacher who had just been fired "for methodology problems"...
American rich schools are the sickest schools on earth, even sicker than British boarders,
even sicker than other countries' orphanages.
Yes, but we now have the consummate...emphasis on "con"...bullshit artist in the White House
whose first order of business has been to discredit the media whenever it exposes him for
what he truly is. Trump has thousands of people believing that any media story about him
which is negative is "fake."
I consider populism an important part of the process as it creates a balance for
oligarchy.
I would consider that the greedy big picture thinking of oligarchy drives growth while the
greedy small picture thinking of the plebs (of which I am one) tries to get that growth more
equally distributed.
It is perhaps unlikely that a radical Athenian democrat from ancient Greece would recognise
any current form of government as genuinely democratic.
The cleverest way to maintain a long term oligarchy in these enlightened times might be to
have an elective one, only dressed up as something like say a 'parliamentary democracy'.
Luckily no-one has come up with this idea yet.
Exactly that is going on now - we have 'workers' and 'benefit scroungers', British against
'immigrants' who exactly are not immigrants as having legal rights to live in the UK (EU
citizens), 'deserving' poor and 'undeserving' poor.
Divide and rule.
Without knowing the past, it is impossible to understand the true meaning of the present and
the goals of the future.
It's so annoying that is has been so easy to manipulate with our society - Tories and UKIP
say 'hate!' and people do as if they are trained animals - hate people on benefits, EU
citizens, immigrants, asylum seekers, a conflict between Brexiters/Remainers...
Benign(ish) dictators of the 20th Century:-
Tito (Yugoslavia)
Carl Mannerheim (Finland)
Kemal Ataturk (Turkey)
Fidel Castro (Cuba)
Nasser (Egypt)
Park Chung-hee (South Korea)
Like I said, benign(ish). Each one the subject for a debate within themselves.
There is always winners and losers but the worst loser in modern British society had a better
standard of living than a winner of a century ago.
The key to human development is driving sustainable progress not worrying about who losses
out today.
Of course there must be balance because morally we must consider who loses our today. The
question is how much do we hamstring the children of tomorrow to help the losers of
today.
The super rich conservative oligarchy, currently running the UK, get away with it because
enough of the British people vote against their own economic interest.
Parents, for example, effectively vote for the food to be taken from their children's
mouths, converted to cash and given in tax cuts to the super rich conservative elite so they
can send their children to £30k a year private schools.
Political economy and political science should be compulsory in primary and secondary
school so that the ripping-off of the British people is made obvious through education and
ended through democratic revolution.
.. it's scary though.. automation will eliminate the economic support line for many, while
companies like Google have eyes and ears in every household.
Definition of democracy: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible
members of a state, typically through elected representatives." You are presenting an
anti-Democratic party talking point, not an enlightened understanding of subtle political
differences. Of course, the intention was a democracy in the USA, as compromised as it was
and is. What we are not, and never have been, is an absolute direct democracy -- a form of
governance appropriate only to small communities.
Considering that "the people" are not that much more enlightened than they were in ancient
Greece, yes it is the will of the people that allowed the US to become an oligarchy.
Considering the voting turnout around 56%, that means that 44% decided that they didn't
care whether or not their leader would be a good or a bad one.
That's more than 1 in 3 people who couldn't care less about the outcome of the
elections.
Excerpt from the above link: the spread of pseudo-public space in London – large squares, parks and thoroughfares
that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and their
private backers
And I'm also reminded of Attlee's great words about the attitudes of oligarchs in
general:
Excerpt from the above link: Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay
his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim. - Attlee
I know that it's just geography but it appears that the 'left coast (west coast) teams
(players))' are taking a leadership role in this struggle. Unlike other professional sports
systems, the NFL players are at a disadvantage in terms of career length and working
conditions (eg, head injuries). I believe they're going to need some outside help (in
whatever form) to be successful which doesn't give me hope. There are a bunch of chicken
s____ outfits and power players out there at present that, as an example, allowed
(contributed) the Executive Branch takeover by a Russian backed interloper.
You make a good point but in my wide but less than comprehensive knowledge of rapid
development often occurrs in periods of oligarchy.
All those mills that drove the industrial revolution, created by oligarchy.
All those armies and aqueducts that drove the Roman Empire, created by oligarchy.
All those libraries and universities that drove Greek learning, funded by the
oligarchy.
The great library of Alexandria, oligarchy.
I recognise that it takes a plebeian revolt now and again to get the wealth shared out
fairly but the engine that drives the wealth so it can be shared often seem to be
oligarchy.
how is it, then, that the wealthy control so much of government? ...consequence of a lap dog
media who lick the ass rather than expose and speak the truth to power elites.
The captured author/minions have obviously not had full access to the reading room
*And the secret writings of
Part of a small cache of loose leaf scrolls smuggled out of Alexandria before the fire
Last entrusted to a small elite 13th century band of chainsaw wielding warrior...
Comedy writing nuns
Is about education, oligarchy wins to ignorant people. In order to have a healthy democracy
the people must be informed and educated other wise oligarchies groups will inundate
everything with cheap adds, will manipulate and will win control, methinks
And all brought down when the elites forgot that they were only the top of a pyramid and that
they ultimately relied on those below. We at the foot of the monolith can see that the
oligarchs serve only themselves so no longer buy into their project. We see that it is one
big club and we - unlike our political masters - ain't in it. So empires fall.
The author demonstrates his ignorance of the American system of government. He uses the word
"democracy" no less than 8 times, yet American is not a democracy and never has been a
democracy. You will find no form of the word "democracy" in any of the founding documents.
The Founding Fathers knew very well the dangers of democracies, and so they created the
American government as a constitutional republic. Not once does the author mention that; I
doubt he even knows what it means, let alone the difference.
If you're complaining because prices are (inevitably) regressive on the "poor" (however
defined), what do you say to the obvious retort that this is indeed the main difference
between being "poor", being comfortable, being affluent and being rich?
What is the point of working and earning if it isn't aimed at making oneself less "poor"
or more affluent?
Or as Mayer Amschel Rothschild correctly summed up the situation in 1790 - "Let me issue
and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws"
What this article fails to draw our attention to , and they never do, is that private
banks CREATE 97% of our entire money supply (look up "fractional reserve banking"). Whilst
that remains the case the "oligarchy" will always have firm control over the rest of us.
There was a time when the deadliest military weapon was the longbow. It could only be handled
by men who had been trained up since infancy.
It enabled the English to rout a numerically superior French force at Agincourt, 1415.
The notion that the early 15th century was a period of democratic government is an
interesting reading of history.
imo
In the US today, the oligarchy cannot win without an assist from a significant segment -- not
necessarily a majority -- of the overall population.
9/11 taught us that many people are willing to give up freedoms for the myth of security.
The Trump presidency is teaching us that many people are willing to give up their voice --
democracy -- for the myth of returning to a perceived better way of life (group superiority
over racial, gender, religious, etc equality) from some bygone era.
imo
We are currently experiencing a destabalisation of our nation and fellow Western Nations by
the dominant Western Nation to try to halt the failure of this vastly endebted bigger
brother......how do we stop this?
On this NFL Sunday it is not hard to imagine the secret meetings that owners and/or their
representatives had to coalesce against Kaepernick's 'taking a knee' to stop this form of
protest in its tracks as a oligarchical institution. On Tuesday, when Dallas Cowboys owner,
Jerry Jones declared that any player taking a knee would not play today, the circle of the
objective to chill dissent was complete.
Democracy was always like this. What is that famous quote, by Earl Grey or Sandwich or
someone, in Parliament, about allowing peasants to have the vote? "I do this, not to weaken
our power, but to preserve it"
Democracy in the UK and the US has always been a forum for the oligarchy to resolve their
own disputes rather than rule for the people by the people. Brexit is an example, a
referendum held essentially because of the split in conservative party.
And conservatives are going to save us all from done minded feel good policies of the left,
is that it?
Since the 80's American politics had swing do far to the right liberals are capitalists
monied elites, but the right had an army of simple minded uneducated lemmings on thier side,
people that will be against thier own personal interests because of 12th century religious
horse spit or group think. Thier are more Right winners in State houses, leadership positions
then ever before, they control the Congress, the courts, the Presidency and yet dolts like
you still say the country is going in the wrong directions and listen to son misters tell you
its the fault of the left. Somewhere in your reptilian brain you know this makes no sense,
but you lack of depth, you inability to comprehend what you read or to shake free from the
group think or right wing ideology will never let you understand that the bet people you vote
in time after time are the very ones whom have sold your job to the Chinese, profited from
your child's illnesses, war, chaos in some far off land.
Keeping voting Republicans, it's working out so well for you tailer, Nascar types...
The article obfuscates a distinction laid out by Aristotle, in The Politics: aristocracy -
rule by the few, focused on the common good; and oligarchy - rule by the few (wealthy),
focused on their selfish good. He argues that aristocracy, rule by the best, inevitably turns
into oligarchy, rule by the wealthy. In Aristotle's three forms of government - rule by one,
by few, by many - the three legitimate forms (monarchy, aristocracy, polity) degenerate into
their evils twins (tyranny, oligarchy, democracy). For Aristotle, Democracy was not a
legitimate form of government, but a corrupted form: mob rule, we might call it. The US
Constitution deliberately set out to create a mixed form of government: monarchy (president);
aristocracy (Senate and Supreme Court); polity (House of Reps.). From the beginning,
Americans have focused on the potential for our "monarch" (president) to turn into a tyrant:
Trump is the poster child for a single executive ruling on his own, selfish behalf. We have
been less aware of the fact that the Senate has become a simple oligarchy, while the House
has degenerated into a bastion of deputies chosen by what Aristotle would have called
democracy, that is, a corrupted form of rule by the many. Aristotle's citizens - those who
rule and are ruled in turn - can constitute about 10% of the population; in today's US that
would mean 20+ million people actively and continuously involved in politics (i.e., not
simply showing up every four years to mark a ballot). Millions of Americans have long done
such things, and political life remains active at the local level in many areas. On the
national level, the Tea Party has shown how this level of enhanced involvement can transform
politics, and has further shown that a coherent, organized minority can demolish what we
think of as democratic norms. They are about to elect a Senator in Alabama who has twice been
removed as a judge on the state's Supreme Court (an elective body), for violations of
judicial norms. Here in the US, all three forms of our original government - monarchy,
aristocracy, polity - have degenerated into their evil twins. Yes, the wealthy 1% will always
game the system in their favor, but until we restore each of the parts of our forma mixta, we
can never reduce their advantages to a level consonant with a decent form of society. Under W
Bush, the oligarchs got the tax rates (above all on capital gains) reduced to their 1929
levels. That legislation had a time limit, and Obama chose not to continue it: indeed, he
raised capital gains rates a further 3.8% [making the rate 23.8% as against the 15% of Bush].
Now, the two greatest goals of the oligarchs are a return to the 15% rate and the abolition
of the estate tax, so all of the fantastically rich Baby Boomers (say, Sec'y of Commerce
Ross, net worth $2.5 billion) can leave their wealth unencumbered to their heirs, solidifying
the oligarchy's control. The Tea Party, through all the yahoos now in the House, can focus on
creationism, climate change denial, immigration, etc., while the oligarchs quietly change the
tax system to perpetuate their dominance. Over here, we are already in fiscal year 2018
(started on Oct 1), so tax changes would really go into effect in 2019, that is, after the
mid-term election. If Mnuchen and Co. get their changes to capital gains rates and other
technical loopholes aimed at the 0.1% [sic], and eliminate the estate tax, we'll know that
the oligarchs have eliminated any barriers to their collective dictatorship.
What's new is, like this article, we have the vocabulary to frame both the problem and the
solution. Oligarchy is no longer inevitable and whilst the means of control are greater, the
means for derogation are too and there are fewer oligarchs than plebs.
Its now easier to spot bad behaviour and harder to keep secrets. Oligarchs have to use
force more often to hold into power and that tips their hand.
This article has left me (an avowed pessimist) feeling rather more optimistic.
They learned their lessons well after the 60's, the last time the people really raised up
against the machine, so they have given us all the; junk food at a low cost, all the TV and
mindless sexually charged entertainment, all the "debt wealth", a simple minded, unread,
semi-literate, beer swilling fool could ever ask for. And we all gladly gobble it up and
follow the crowd, for who wants to be on the outside looking in...
There is always a ruling elite because power is the wellspring of all human actions. There is
also a certain moral consciousness that many people argue is innate in human nature, and that
consciousness is fairness. The fairness instinct survives where ordinary human sympathy may
fail. Based upon this basic morality of fairness those of us who are willing to take risks in
the interest of fairness need to prune and tend the ruling elites as soon as possible. We
proles need to act together.
Democracy is not enough and besides democracy we also need reason, facts,and fighting spirit.
Sparta was more than just militarism, and slavery was also practised in Athens, as well as in
Rome and quite much everywhere else in the ancient world.
Sparta did something that today's democracies have forgotten: it cared about protection of
its citizens. That's the most elementary reason why a State exists, not to provide health or
education.
Now, regarding a replacement, epistocracy has yet to be tried. And the same democracy, but
with census suffrage, or via election of electors, who in turn elect the ones who will hold
office, have worked quite well in many places, producing better politicians, less inclined to
populism (take the Venetian Republic, for example).
Waiting for the oligarchy to rot from within isn't what i would call a viable plan.
Not when there is a far better and far more sure way to get the job done.
Start with capping wealth accumulation.
One must have already broken, or at least sufficiently loosened, the oligarchic grip on
politics to institute such a policy.
Here in the UK, things are the darkest they have been in my lifetime, including the
Thatcher years, but we are in a moment of possibilities that can lead in opposite
directions.
The author is surely right when he says
With all the upheaval in today's politics, it's hard not to think that this moment is
one in which the future of the political system might be more up for grabs than it has been
in generations.
Dominance of oligarchic political power, through neoliberalism, over the last four decades
has effectively put such policies out of bounds.
We had a Labour government that won convincingly under Blair while declaring itself
relaxed about the accumulation of great wealth.
Greece had a long period of decline at the hands of democracy.
Plato wrote his Republic as a protest, and to put forward an alternative.
Eventually the romans took control.
There are indeed parallels with today but given the external challenges I for one believe
that western society will be overtaken by q new set of rules.
Very good, interesting article. You know, every now & then this paper, for all it's
faults, serves up an article that is quite enlightened/ing.
The last one I recall was an article by
Kenan Malik on identity politics . For what exists in this country, the UK, I have previously used the term "oligarchy by
profession" ... meaning a pool of the usually upper half of the middle class, or a group in whom that
group is disproportionally represented, who not only likely have a select education but who
go on to become part of certain professions - accountants, lawyers, journalists, bankers,
doctors etc. ... and of course, politicians tend to be drawn from these.
And revolving door arrangements is one of the ways this pool retains a certain cohesion,
or as in the article "homogeneity in culture and values".
As for division, how many times have I read, "oh, we are so divided .. blah, blah", as
though some journalists have an almost unconscious need to promote it.
Bit too late, really. Not to mention it's super easy to take what they want while we're all
so distracted by arguing about who is the most racist misogynist, defending ourselves from
the accusations or applauding comic book movies. Apparently we're so distracted that we're
also all genuinely shocked that Hollywood is rife with pedophilia and extreme sexual
harassment as though it's some revelation that we didn't know already, but that's another
conversation.
If we're all so distracted then it's not difficult for our political 'representatives' -- I
use that word very tentatively because they barely ever do -- to subject themselves to the
oligarchs for a few scraps more than we have ourselves.
Maybe if we didn't bicker like kids we'd beat them.
Either you've not read the article attentively enough or your bias is irremediable. Limiting govt still leaves economic power and the tendency towards monopoly untouched. The
genetic impulse you mention is a spurious concept in itself. If there were such a genetic
impulse we would not have seen such a change as the major advances of women in the last half
century. Culture is the key, much more than any genetic impulse, which is practically
meaningless and so explains nothing.
As wealth defense is so important to oligarchs, there is a constant pressure to cheat and
break the law. One solution therefore is to apply the law but also to construct legislation
with specific principles in mind. If the point of tax legislation is to contribute your share
towards the general good then those who avoid and evade tax would be guilty of a technical
breach but also a breach of the principle.
However our laws are skewed to allowing the wealthy to defend their wealth and so a party of
the people is always needed. Always.
Lastly private schooling needs to be looked at. I mean FFS Eton has charitable status!
Chris Hedges, who is doubtless a courageous journalist and an intelligent commentator, suggests
that if we are to discuss the anti-Russia campaign realistically, as baseless in fact, and as
contrived for an effect and to further/protect some particular interests, we can hardly avoid the
question: Who or what interest is served by the anti-Russia campaign?
An interesting observation "The Democratic Party doesn't actually function as a political
party. It's about perpetual mass mobilization and a hyperventilating public relations arm, all paid
for by corporate donors. The base of the party has no real say in the leadership or the policies of
the party, as Bernie Sanders and his followers found out."
The other relevant observation is that there is no American left. It was destroyed as a
political movement. The USA is a right wing country.
Notable quotes:
"... This obsession with Russia is a tactic used by the ruling elite, and in particular the Democratic Party, to avoid facing a very unpleasant reality: that their unpopularity is the outcome of their policies of deindustrialization and the assault against working men and women and poor people of color. ..."
"... It is the result of the slashing of basic government services, including, of course, welfare, that Clinton gutted; deregulation, a decaying infrastructure, including public schools, and the de facto tax boycott by corporations. It is the result of the transformation of the country into an oligarchy. The nativist revolt on the right, and the aborted insurgency within the Democratic Party, makes sense when you see what they have done to the country. ..."
"... The Democratic Party, in particular, is driving this whole Russia witch-hunt. It cannot face its complicity in the destruction of our civil liberties -- and remember, Barack Obama's assault on civil liberties was worse than those carried out by George W. Bush -- and the destruction of our economy and our democratic institutions. ..."
"... Politicians like the Clintons, Pelosi and Schumer are creations of Wall Street. That is why they are so virulent about pushing back against the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. ..."
"... The Democratic Party doesn't actually function as a political party. It's about perpetual mass mobilization and a hyperventilating public relations arm, all paid for by corporate donors. The base of the party has no real say in the leadership or the policies of the party, as Bernie Sanders and his followers found out. They are props in the sterile political theater. ..."
"... These party elites, consumed by greed, myopia and a deep cynicism, have a death grip on the political process. They're not going to let it go, even if it all implodes. ..."
"... The whole exercise was farcical. The White House would leak some bogus story to Judy Miller or Michael Gordon, and then go on the talk shows to say, 'as the Times reported .' It gave these lies the veneer of independence and reputable journalism. This was a massive institutional failing, and one the paper has never faced. ..."
"... The media's anti-Russia narrative has been embraced by large portions of what presents itself as the "left." ..."
"... Well, don't get me started on the American left. First of all, there is no American left -- not a left that has any kind of seriousness, that understands political or revolutionary theories, that's steeped in economic study, that understands how systems of power work, especially corporate and imperial power. The left is caught up in the same kind of cults of personality that plague the rest of society. It focuses on Trump, as if Trump is the central problem. Trump is a product, a symptom of a failed system and dysfunctional democracy, not the disease. ..."
"... For good measure, they purged the liberal class -- look at what they did to Henry Wallace -- so that Cold War "liberals" equated capitalism with democracy, and imperialism with freedom and liberty. I lived in Switzerland and France. There are still residues of a militant left in Europe, which gives Europeans something to build upon. But here we almost have to begin from scratch. ..."
"... The corporate elites we have to overthrow already hold power. And unless we build a broad, popular resistance movement, which takes a lot of patient organizing among working men and women, we are going to be steadily ground down. ..."
"... The corporate state has made it very hard to make a living if you hold fast to this radical critique. You will never get tenure. You probably won't get academic appointments. You won't win prizes. You won't get grants. ..."
"... The elite schools, and I have taught as a visiting professor at a few of them, such as Princeton and Columbia, replicate the structure and goals of corporations. If you want to even get through a doctoral committee, much less a tenure committee, you must play it really, really safe. You must not challenge the corporate-friendly stance that permeates the institution and is imposed through corporate donations and the dictates of wealthy alumni. Half of the members of most of these trustee boards should be in prison! ..."
"... Speculation in the 17th century in Britain was a crime. Speculators were hanged. And today they run the economy and the country. They have used the capturing of wealth to destroy the intellectual, cultural and artistic life in the country and snuff out our democracy. There is a word for these people: traitors. ..."
But the whole idea that the Russians swung the election to Trump is absurd. It's really premised
on the unproven claim that Russia gave the Podesta emails to WikiLeaks, and the release of these
emails turned tens, or hundreds of thousands, of Clinton supporters towards Trump. This doesn't make
any sense. Either that, or, according to the director of national intelligence, RT America, where
I have a show, got everyone to vote for the Green Party.
This obsession with Russia is a tactic used by the ruling elite, and in particular the Democratic
Party, to avoid facing a very unpleasant reality: that their unpopularity is the outcome of their
policies of deindustrialization and the assault against working men and women and poor people of
color. It is the result of disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA that abolished good-paying union
jobs and shipped them to places like Mexico, where workers without benefits are paid $3.00 an hour.
It is the result of the explosion of a system of mass incarceration, begun by Bill Clinton with the
1994 omnibus crime bill, and the tripling and quadrupling of prison sentences. It is the result of
the slashing of basic government services, including, of course, welfare, that Clinton gutted; deregulation,
a decaying infrastructure, including public schools, and the de facto tax boycott by corporations.
It is the result of the transformation of the country into an oligarchy. The nativist revolt on the
right, and the aborted insurgency within the Democratic Party, makes sense when you see what they
have done to the country.
Police forces have been turned into quasi-military entities that terrorize marginal communities,
where people have been stripped of all of their rights and can be shot with impunity; in fact over
three are killed a day. The state shoots and locks up poor people of color as a form of social control.
They are quite willing to employ the same form of social control on any other segment of the population
that becomes restive.
The Democratic Party, in particular, is driving this whole Russia witch-hunt. It cannot face
its complicity in the destruction of our civil liberties -- and remember, Barack Obama's assault
on civil liberties was worse than those carried out by George W. Bush -- and the destruction of our
economy and our democratic institutions.
Politicians like the Clintons, Pelosi and Schumer are creations of Wall Street. That is why
they are so virulent about pushing back against the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. Without
Wall Street money, they would not hold political power. The Democratic Party doesn't actually function
as a political party. It's about perpetual mass mobilization and a hyperventilating public relations
arm, all paid for by corporate donors. The base of the party has no real say in the leadership or
the policies of the party, as Bernie Sanders and his followers found out. They are props in the sterile
political theater.
These party elites, consumed by greed, myopia and a deep cynicism, have a death grip on the political
process. They're not going to let it go, even if it all implodes.
... ... ...
DN: Let's come back to this question of the Russian hacking news story. You raised the ability
to generate a story, which has absolutely no factual foundation, nothing but assertions by various
intelligence agencies, presented as an assessment that is beyond question. What is your evaluation
of this?
CH: The commercial broadcast networks, and that includes CNN and MSNBC, are not in the business
of journalism. They hardly do any. Their celebrity correspondents are courtiers to the elite. They
speculate about and amplify court gossip, which is all the accusations about Russia, and they repeat
what they are told to repeat. They sacrifice journalism and truth for ratings and profit. These cable
news shows are one of many revenue streams in a corporate structure. They compete against other revenue
streams. The head of CNN, Jeff Zucker, who helped create the fictional persona of Donald Trump on
"Celebrity Apprentice," has turned politics on CNN into a 24-hour reality show. All nuance, ambiguity,
meaning and depth, along with verifiable fact, are sacrificed for salacious entertainment. Lying,
racism, bigotry and conspiracy theories are given platforms and considered newsworthy, often espoused
by people whose sole quality is that they are unhinged. It is news as burlesque.
I was on the investigative team at the New York Times during the lead-up to the Iraq
War. I was based in Paris and covered Al Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East. Lewis Scooter Libby,
Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and maybe somebody in an intelligence agency, would confirm whatever story
the administration was attempting to pitch. Journalistic rules at the Times say you can't
go with a one-source story. But if you have three or four supposedly independent sources confirming
the same narrative, then you can go with it, which is how they did it. The paper did not break any
rules taught at Columbia journalism school, but everything they wrote was a lie.
The whole exercise was farcical. The White House would leak some bogus story to Judy Miller or
Michael Gordon, and then go on the talk shows to say, 'as the Times reported .' It gave these lies
the veneer of independence and reputable journalism. This was a massive institutional failing, and
one the paper has never faced.
DN: The CIA pitches the story, and then the Times gets the verification from those who
pitch it to them.
CH: It's not always pitched. And not much of this came from the CIA The CIA wasn't buying the
"weapons of mass destruction" hysteria.
DN: It goes the other way too?
CH: Sure. Because if you're trying to have access to a senior official, you'll constantly be putting
in requests, and those officials will decide when they want to see you. And when they want to see
you, it's usually because they have something to sell you.
DN: The media's anti-Russia narrative has been embraced by large portions of what presents itself
as the "left."
CH: Well, don't get me started on the American left. First of all, there is no American left --
not a left that has any kind of seriousness, that understands political or revolutionary theories,
that's steeped in economic study, that understands how systems of power work, especially corporate
and imperial power. The left is caught up in the same kind of cults of personality that plague the
rest of society. It focuses on Trump, as if Trump is the central problem. Trump is a product, a symptom
of a failed system and dysfunctional democracy, not the disease.
If you attempt to debate most of those on the supposedly left, they reduce discussion to this
cartoonish vision of politics.
The serious left in this country was decimated. It started with the suppression of radical movements
under Woodrow Wilson, then the "Red Scares" in the 1920s, when they virtually destroyed our labor
movement and our radical press, and then all of the purges in the 1950s. For good measure, they purged
the liberal class -- look at what they did to Henry Wallace -- so that Cold War "liberals" equated
capitalism with democracy, and imperialism with freedom and liberty. I lived in Switzerland and France.
There are still residues of a militant left in Europe, which gives Europeans something to build upon.
But here we almost have to begin from scratch.
I've battled continuously with Antifa and the Black Bloc. I think they're kind of poster children
for what I would consider phenomenal political immaturity. Resistance is not a form of personal catharsis.
We are not fighting the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The corporate elites we have to overthrow already
hold power. And unless we build a broad, popular resistance movement, which takes a lot of patient
organizing among working men and women, we are going to be steadily ground down.
So Trump's not the problem. But just that sentence alone is going to kill most discussions with
people who consider themselves part of the left.
The corporate state has made it very hard to make a living if you hold fast to this radical critique.
You will never get tenure. You probably won't get academic appointments. You won't win prizes. You
won't get grants. The New York Times , if they review your book, will turn it over to a
dutiful mandarin like George Packer to trash it -- as he did with my last book. The elite schools,
and I have taught as a visiting professor at a few of them, such as Princeton and Columbia, replicate
the structure and goals of corporations. If you want to even get through a doctoral committee, much
less a tenure committee, you must play it really, really safe. You must not challenge the corporate-friendly
stance that permeates the institution and is imposed through corporate donations and the dictates
of wealthy alumni. Half of the members of most of these trustee boards should be in prison!
Speculation in the 17th century in Britain was a crime. Speculators were hanged. And today they
run the economy and the country. They have used the capturing of wealth to destroy the intellectual,
cultural and artistic life in the country and snuff out our democracy. There is a word for these
people: traitors.
"... None of this qualifies as your typical run-of-the-mill lunacy (scented candles cause cancer), over-the-top tripe (the recent solar eclipse marks the beginning of the apocalypse), or unbelievable baloney (that man-made pyramids have been discovered in Antarctica). Rather, the paranoid style is rooted in pernicious, but believable, political fears: that the nation is under threat from people or movements plotting to do it harm and is teetering, teetering, teetering on the edge of an abyss. The problem is not that this is patently false (The Germans! The Japanese! The Russians!), but that it's often exaggerated -- and, sometimes, purposely so. Then too, as Hofstadter implied, preying on these fears for political gain not only isn't new, it's tried, tested, and often successful. Scaring the dickens out of voters is as American as the 4th of July. ..."
"... The claims now are not only as breathless as anything the CIA said about East Germany in the 1980s, they're as suspect: Mexico is "on the verge of collapse" -- a claim made by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly -- that Russia is providing arms to the Taliban (retold by the recently retired commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr., and, just the other day by James Mattis), that the U.S. military will be "outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries in the future" (noted by national security adviser H.R. McMaster prior to his service at the White House) and that, as Donald Trump himself said during his address to the United Nations, large parts of the world " are in conflict and some, in fact, are going to hell ." ..."
"... The problem with the claims is that those who are asked to dismiss them are required to defend the opposite -- that Mexico is economically healthy (it isn't, but it's hardly on the verge of collapse), that Russian weapons haven't shown up in Afghanistan (they have, though not simply in the hands of the Taliban), that Russia and China aren't developing new and more sophisticated weapons (they are, but so what?), or that it's ridiculous not to believe that "major portions of the world are in conflict" (that's always been true). The other problem with disproving the claims is that doing so contains a whiff of weakness, or naiveté: that the skeptic favors open borders, supports Afghan terrorism, doesn't support a strong military, or is hopelessly misinformed. In fact, however, each of these claims have been made before -- and refuted by expert testimony. ..."
"... The same holds true for each of the other claims. Following Gen. Nicholson's statement that Russia was providing arms to the Taliban, his claim was given short shrift by both the Defense Intelligence Agency and by Jens Stoltenberg, the General Secretary of NATO. Stoltenberg acknowledged that he'd seen the reports, adding that the only thing they lacked was proof. ..."
"... That Russia is an antagonist is now widely accepted, and it is trivially true that Moscow's nuclear arsenal (with or without the help of China) could lay waste to the U.S. But outgunning us? Russia spends a fraction of what the U.S. spends on its military establishment (some 14 percent of what we spend, in fact) and so must pick and choose what weapons it will develop. ..."
"... So, yes, we're in deep, deep trouble -- just as we were when witches danced in Ipswich, when Samuel Morse claimed we were being subverted by papists, when Joe McCarthy saw a communist under every State Department memo -- and when the Russians were producing missiles like sausages. ..."
Back in 1835, Samuel F.B. Morse (who went on to invent the telegraph and the Morse Code), wrote
a book about a plot to overthrow the American republic. The conspiracy, Morse wrote, was well-funded,
highly secretive, and hatched in Vienna by members of the The St. Leopold Foundation, which had dispatched
cells of Jesuit missionaries to the U.S. to forcibly convert the nation to Roman Catholicism. This
was no small intrigue: The plot's leaders, as Morse meticulously catalogued, were Austrian diplomat
Klemens von Metternich, Ferdinand V of Hungary, and (of course) Pope Gregory XVI. "It is high time
that we awakened to the apprehension of danger,"
Morse wrote .
What is shocking about this nonsense is not that Morse actually believed it, but that millions
of other Americans did too. Morse's book seeded the rise of the nativist
"Know-Nothing" party , whose goal was to curb immigration, root out Catholicism, and return America
to its protestant ideals. In essence, they were the America-firsters of the nineteenth century. The
Know-Nothings swept into office in Chicago, were strong in Massachusetts and, in 1856, nominated
a national ticket (Millard Fillmore and Andrew Donelson), for the presidency; they tallied nearly
900,000 votes, one-quarter of those cast. "I know nothing but my country, my whole country and nothing
but my country," they chanted.
Historians have since excavated the Morse plot with relish, if only as a way to better understand
a nation that, from time to time, enjoys being scared witless.
Before the Know-Nothings there were the Anti-Masons, a political movement that warned of a takeover
by secretive apron-wearing do-gooders who met for god-knows-why. And before that Americans were warned
about witches named Dorothy, Rebecca, Martha, and Rachel, dancing in New England's forests. Some
120 years after Morse, in 1964, historian Richard Hofstadter dubbed this "the paranoid style in American
politics" -- a paradigm-shifting essay that catalogued a raft of intrigues peopled by witches, Illuminati,
Masons, Jesuits, Mormons, Jewish bankers, Bilderbergers and, in Hofstadter's time, communist dupes
doing Moscow's bidding. America's enemies might be unseen, but they were everywhere.
"In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship," Hofstadter
wrote, "is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it
managed to survive at all."
None of this qualifies as your typical run-of-the-mill lunacy (scented candles cause cancer),
over-the-top tripe (the recent solar eclipse marks the beginning of the apocalypse), or unbelievable
baloney (that man-made pyramids have been discovered in Antarctica). Rather, the paranoid style is
rooted in pernicious, but believable, political fears: that the nation is under threat from people
or movements plotting to do it harm and is teetering, teetering, teetering on the edge of an abyss.
The problem is not that this is patently false (The Germans! The Japanese! The Russians!), but that
it's often exaggerated -- and, sometimes, purposely so. Then too, as Hofstadter implied, preying
on these fears for political gain not only isn't new, it's tried, tested, and often successful. Scaring
the dickens out of voters is as American as the 4th of July.
The historical "for instance" in this is well-documented: during the 1960 presidential campaign,
John Kennedy insisted that the Soviet Union had outstripped the U.S. in ballistic missile production.
There was a growing and dangerous "missile gap" Kennedy claimed, placing the nation in great peril.
Dwight Eisenhower, he said, had been derelict in not acknowledging the threat. An independent study
commission issued a report that confirmed the fear and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it credence:
We are "turning out missiles like sausages," he claimed. As it turns out, Kennedy was right: there
was a missile gap, but not in a way that he thought -- we had plenty, while they had none (a later
CIA report speculated that, actually, they might have had three, maybe). Years later, Kennedy's claim
looked downright foolish: the problem for the Russians wasn't that they couldn't make missiles (they
eventually did, and plenty of them), but that they couldn't make sausages -- which cost them their
empire. The same kinds of claims were retailed by U.S. intelligence services about Russia's allies:
a 1987 CIA fact book said that East Germany's GDP per capita was higher than West Germany's,
a claim so ludicrous that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan dismissed it to a panel of CIA officers
with a legendary quip: "I know a Berlin taxi driver who could have told you that wasn't true."
The claims now are not only as breathless as anything the CIA said about East Germany in the
1980s, they're as suspect: Mexico is "on the verge of collapse" -- a claim made by White House Chief
of Staff John Kelly -- that Russia is providing arms to the Taliban (retold by the recently retired
commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr., and, just the other day by
James Mattis), that the U.S. military will be "outranged and outgunned by many potential adversaries
in the future" (noted by national security adviser H.R. McMaster prior to his service at the White
House) and that, as Donald Trump himself said during his address to the United Nations, large parts
of the world "
are in conflict and some, in fact, are going to hell ."
The problem with the claims is that those who are asked to dismiss them are required to defend
the opposite -- that Mexico is economically healthy (it isn't, but it's hardly on the verge of collapse),
that Russian weapons haven't shown up in Afghanistan (they have, though not simply in the hands of
the Taliban), that Russia and China aren't developing new and more sophisticated weapons (they are,
but so what?), or that it's ridiculous not to believe that "major portions of the world are in conflict"
(that's always been true). The other problem with disproving the claims is that doing so contains
a whiff of weakness, or naiveté: that the skeptic favors open borders, supports Afghan terrorism,
doesn't support a strong military, or is hopelessly misinformed. In fact, however, each of these
claims have been made before -- and refuted by expert testimony.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey said that Mexico was in a state of collapse back in 2009, a claim contradicted
by then-Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair. More recently, and before the recent earthquake
shook Mexico City, the collapsing Mexican government offered to help provide aid to Texans victimized
by Hurricane Harvey. It's a wonder they would think of us as the walls were coming down around them.
Then too, if Mexico is really on the verge of collapse, shouldn't the administration be doing something
about it -- perhaps we should appeal to the international community to provide the Mexican government
with low interest loans, or maybe we should deploy a U.S. aircraft carrier group to the Gulf of Mexico.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, the claim is Morse-like: designed to frighten us, perhaps, into building
a wall as a barrier to keep immigrants who are not pouring over the border from pouring over the
border.
The same holds true for each of the other claims. Following Gen. Nicholson's statement that
Russia was providing arms to the Taliban, his claim was given short shrift by both the Defense Intelligence
Agency and by Jens Stoltenberg, the General Secretary of NATO. Stoltenberg acknowledged that he'd
seen the reports, adding that the only thing they lacked was proof. But Stoltenberg went further,
inviting Russia to be a part of the Afghanistan peace process -- a strange request to a nation
that a top U.S. general claims is helping the enemy. Even so, the claim was repeated just this last
week by Defense Secretary James Mattis, who added Iran to the growing list of Taliban allies. Of
course, Nicholson and Mattis might be absolutely right, but they're saying so doesn't make it so.
Then too (we shuffle our feet, look at our shoes, mumble to ourselves), the Taliban's best friend
in Afghanistan isn't Russia or Iran, it's Pakistan -- our friend.
That Russia is an antagonist is now widely accepted, and it is trivially true that Moscow's
nuclear arsenal (with or without the help of China) could lay waste to the U.S. But outgunning us?
Russia spends a fraction of what the U.S. spends on its military establishment (some 14 percent of
what we spend, in fact) and so must pick and choose what weapons it will develop. The result
is that the Russian Federation continues technological advances in some weapons systems, but lacks
significant technological depth elsewhere. During its 2015 May Day military parade, Russia showed
off its new state-of-the-art T-14 main battle tank, complete with a new-fangled APS (active protection
system) designed to defeat anti-armor weapons. Onlookers ogled the tank, oohing and ahhing at its
shiny exterior, its impressive armament. But then, just as it was about to exit Red Square it broke
down -- and had to be towed. Is Russia a threat? Sure, it's a threat. But Russia has many of the
same problems now that it had at the end of the Cold War. It ranks 53rd in per capita GDP --
just behind Panama.
The world has problems, big problems but it is not going to hell. Here's what going to hell looks
like. In the autumn of 1941, Europe was under the domination of a genocidal regime that had extended
its murderous policies through all of Europe and whose armies were headed towards Moscow. In Asia,
large swathes of China and all of Southeast Asia were occupied by Japanese militarists. The two,
with Italy, had formed an axis and controlled significant portions of the globe. Their enemies were
teetering on the edge of defeat. The world was going to hell, alright, but the U.S. had yet to get
into the war.
But that's not the worst of it. During the early morning hours of September 26, 1983, Lt. Col.
Stanislav Petrov was notified by his computer system that the U.S. had launched five intercontinental
ballistic missiles at Russia. Petrov sat there for a moment, when he should have been on the telephone
to his superiors. After several moments he concluded that the warning just didn't make sense. Why
would the U.S. launch only five missiles at Russia, when everyone in the Soviet military supposed
they would launch a barrage. "The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds," he later
told the BBC, "staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word 'launch' on it." Petrov ignored
the warning --
and may well have prevented a nuclear holocaust.
So, yes, we're in deep, deep trouble -- just as we were when witches danced in Ipswich, when
Samuel Morse claimed we were being subverted by papists, when Joe McCarthy saw a communist under
every State Department memo -- and when the Russians were producing missiles like sausages.
Now, as then, we have two choices: we can either embrace our fears and shake in our boots, or
we can tell the sky-is-falling crowd what Samuel F.B. Morse's friends told him all the way back in
1835.
Get a grip.
Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst and the author of The Most Dangerous Man in America:
The Making of Douglas MacArthur. His next book, The Pentagon's Wars, will be released in October.
He tweets @markperrydc
"... TAC is an odd place, I post comments and for some reason every single comment I post on the U.S. state Dept. never gets published while every other comment I write does and I cannot fathom why. ..."
"... Many comment sections of political and "news" sites are tightly curated. They offer the illusion of open discussion but in fact limit the scope of what discussion points are allowed. ..."
"... From a PR/opinion cultivation perspective the goal is to keep those points or positions from appearing before other commenters and readers, thus validating their existence. Or such points or positions are allowed through on a very irregular or rare basis, which leaves the impression that they are extreme. ..."
"... Opinion cultivation is a mass comms topic. You can look up the "spiral of silence," which was theorized in the 1970s as self-censorship by people who hold minority opinions, or think they do. ..."
"... What we have today is the systematic creation of "spiral of silence" by the media that tout themselves as giving voice to opinions/positions/facts. They silence views at odds with the ones they want to sell, with the intention that their viewers/readers will self-censor. ..."
I'm sorry to
hear that you were removed from TAC. I do not believe that you should tailor you writings to
make them pro-Israeli / Jewish if that does not represent your views. If I find an article
unappealing I just skip it, I don't want to see it censored and I don't assume bad intentions
on people just because they pursue a theory I don't agree with. To judge if someone is
out-of-bounds perhaps we should apply the 'Iran test', replace Israel/Jewish with Iran/Iranian
and see if people would still take offense (being a bit facetious, nothing would be
out-of-bounds).
TAC is an odd place, I post comments and for some reason every single comment I post on the
U.S. state Dept. never gets published while every other comment I write does and I cannot
fathom why.
The pattern goes like this.
Larison writes how Tillerson is gutting the U.S. State Dept. budget and this is wrecking
U.S. diplomacy.
I post a comment asking why that's a bad thing because 60%+ of the budget goes for 'soft
power', funding NGO's to influence and/or meddle in other countries. Lindsey Graham even said,
'that's our soft power'.
This is like Groundhog Day, I've tried posting several versions of this comment thinking
that I inadvertently said something inflammatory. I've stopped commenting on any article having
to do with this topic.
Maybe I'm wrong, I'm fallible but I don't see how my comment is out of bounds, I'm
baffled.
TAC is an odd place, I post comments and for some reason every single comment I post on
the U.S. state Dept. never gets published while every other comment I write does and I cannot
fathom why.
Many comment sections of political and "news" sites are tightly curated. They offer the illusion of open discussion but in fact limit the scope of what discussion
points are allowed.
From a PR/opinion cultivation perspective the goal is to keep those points or positions from
appearing before other commenters and readers, thus validating their existence. Or such points or positions are allowed through on a very irregular or rare basis, which
leaves the impression that they are extreme.
Opinion cultivation is a mass comms topic. You can look up the "spiral of silence,"
which was theorized in the 1970s as self-censorship by people who hold minority opinions, or
think they do.
What we have today is the systematic creation of "spiral of silence" by the media that tout
themselves as giving voice to opinions/positions/facts. They silence views at odds with the
ones they want to sell, with the intention that their viewers/readers will self-censor.
This is related to the 1970s to 1980s field of "cultivation theory" out of the Annenberg
School (Penn). In that case, Jewish scholars at a majority Jewish department commenting on
disproportionately Jewish-run media networks/outlets and Jewish-created programming concluded
that rank-and-file white Americans were stupid for thinking the world was mean and dangerous
based on what they saw on television.
(The findings/research claim held that more hours of TV viewing led to people thinking crime
rates were higher than they actually were. I don't call whether the converse was true, i.e., no
TV viewing led to underestimate of crime rates, or what.)
There was some truth in the cultivation theory framing–George Gerbner left communist Hungary, IIRC–but the whole thing struck me overall as an effort to
ridicule white men and women for a) trusting the media and b) perceiving that their culture was
going shall we say down the tubes. The real data were the actual crime rates and why the MSM
didn't report those, nor on the demographics of them.
In any case, the researchers were suffering from confirmation bias at least as strongly as
their human subjects were, IMO.
"... Lawrence G. Proulx is a retired copy editor who worked for more than 30 years at the Washington Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune and International New York Times. ..."
What infractions must a speaker or writer or editor or publisher avoid in order to stay
within the law in France? Here are the basics, as discussed in the manual "Droits des
journalistes et liberté d'expression" by Bernard Dapogny and Marion Dapogny:
False news, "made in bad faith, that disturbs the public order or is capable of disturbing
it." Use of a false document in reporting. Attempt to harm the discipline or morale of the
armed forces or to hinder a war effort. Defamation. Insult. [The distinction between this and
the preceding is that defamation must assert something specific, whereas insult can be merely
an offensive word.] Attempt to harm a person's honor or reputation. Defamation of or insult
to the judiciary, the military services, various other public bodies including "junior high
schools, high schools, universities, the Legion of Honor" as well as "local administrations,
the police, hospitals, penitentiaries." Defamation of or insult to persons acting in a
position of public authority, including "representatives and senators, ministers and
Secretaries of State" as well as "police personnel, magistrates, teachers." Defamation or
insult based on race, religion or belonging to an ethnic group or a nation. Defamation or
insult based on sex, sexual orientation or handicap. Defamation of or insult to deceased
persons, where the offense touches on the honor of the heirs or close survivors. Provocation
to the commission of a crime which leads to the crime. Provocation to the commission of a
crime which doesn't lead to the crime. Indirect provocation (apology), that is, stating that
certain crimes were justified, including "war crimes, crimes against humanity or crimes in
collaboration with the enemy." Provocation to hate, violence or discrimination, which could
be based on a person's "origin, sex, family situation, state of pregnancy, physical
appearance, family name, state of health, handicap, genetic characteristics, morals, sexual
orientation, age, opinions, politics, labor union activity, belonging or not belonging, real
or supposed to a particular ethnic group, nation, race or religion." Provocation to or
apology for terrorism. Contesting "the existence of one or several crimes against humanity as
defined by Article 6 of the charter of the International Military Tribunal [the Nuremberg
Tribunal] annexed to the London Agreement of August 6, 1945, and which were committed by the
members of an organization declared criminal in application of Article 9 of the said charter,
by a person recognized as guilty of such crimes by a French jurisdiction or by an
international one." Enacted in July 1990 and called the Gayssot Law. Offending the president
of the Republic. [This law was repealed in 2013.]
Many of these laws are seldom invoked; others are used frequently. To put flesh on the
matter, I offer you a list of cases from 2013 that I put together in 2014 for an article that
never found a publisher. (Sorry, but the work of assembling it was too tedious for me to
undertake it again, and I think the general impression given by more recent cases would not be
different.) Although details of the offensive language are frequently omitted in the news
reports from which this list is compiled, a quick look will give a sense of how routine the
cases are.
One thing should be mentioned first. An anti-racism law passed in July 1972, commonly called
the Pleven Law, strengthened the restrictions on speech and granted to private associations
dedicated to fighting racism the right to participate in the prosecution of criminal cases and
to claim damages as well. Amendments to the law empowered additional categories of
associations, for example, associations working "to defend the moral interests and the honor of
veterans and victims of war and of those who died for France" or "to defend the memory of
slaves and the honor of their descendants." Such associations are frequently the first to blow
the whistle on remarks they consider violative, and because they have the standing to file
complaints even when no particular person is targeted by the contested remarks, their legal
recognition is an important factor in the number of cases brought before the courts
today.
Marie-Josée Roig, the mayor of Avignon, files a complaint for public insults
contained in a book purporting to be fiction ("Le Monarque, son fils, son fief") by
Marie-Célie Guillaume in which a character who resembles Nicolas Sarkozy, the former
president, demands a quick sexual "present" from a woman who resembles Roig.
Daniel Boyer, the mayor of Châteaubernard, files a complaint for public insults after
a wave of graffiti attacking him and various acts of vandalism.
Frédéric Haziza, a Jewish journalist, files a complaint for public insult and
public insult committed against a person because of his religion, after being attacked on the
website of Alain Soral, a self-described anti-Zionist activist. Haziza had refused to invite
Soral onto his show to discuss Soral's book "Comprendre l'empire" because of Soral's "clearly
antisemitic" views.
March
A judge, Jean-Michel Gentil, files a complaint for contempt and insult against Henri Guaino,
a deputy in Parliament, for having said that the judge "dishonored the [state] institutions and
justice" after Sarkozy was interrogated on suspicion of abusing the weakness of a rich aged
widow.
Bloc Identitaire, a nationalist group, announces its intention to file a complaint for
public insult against Yann Galut, a deputy from the Cher department, for having called the
members of the bloc "casseurs" (protesters who destroy property) in a Twitter message.
April
Rama Yade, a former secretary of state for human rights and for sports, is found guilty of
defamation and insult for eight of twenty-eight contested statements posted on her blog about a
political opponent, Manuel Aeschlimann, after she was challenged over her domicile status in
the Hauts-de-Seine department.
May
Yvan Benedetti and Alexandre Gabriac, right-wing activists, file a complaint against
Jean-François Carenco, the prefect of Lyon, and Albert Doutre, director of public
security, for "hateful" public insults (such as "imbecilities" and "thugs") made during the
containment of a nationalist youth protest in front of the Socialist Party local
headquarters.
June
The city of Angers files suit against a shopkeeper for public insult in the form of signs he
put up to protest a proposed tax on businesses that serve clients on the sidewalk, which
followed among other things a police check of whether he was serving alcohol without the proper
license.
Pierre Dubois, the mayor of Roubaix, and the Human Rights League file a complaint against an
unnamed man who, during the course of a heated discussion at a public meeting, suggested that
the Roma (Gypsies) be sent to Auschwitz.
July
Sylvie Goy-Chavent, a senator of the Ain department who prepared a report on the security of
meat production in France, files a complaint against a website, Internet JSSNews.com, which
describes itself as a webzine of Israeli opinion, for calling her such things as "bitch" and
"little shit" and writing, among other things, "Goy, she wears her name well."
September
The Union of Jewish Students of France says it will file a complaint against the weekly
magazine Valeurs Actuelles for provocation of racial or religious discrimination, hatred or
violence. The group describes the cover of the magazine's Sept. 26 issue, which shows a white
bust of a woman representing France wearing a black Islamic veil and bearing the title
"Naturalized: The Invasion They're Hiding," as "racist" and "hateful." The magazine says in
return that it will file a complaint against the group for calumnious denunciation, defamation
and attack on freedom of expression.
The Foundation for the Memorial of the Black Slave Trade, along with the Federation of
African Associations, the National Union of Overseas France, and other organizations and
individual citizens file a complaint against Jean-Sebastien Vialatte, a deputy in Parliament,
for public insult, defamation and incitement of racial hatred and racial discrimination, for
his remarks after vandalism occurred during a celebration of the Paris Saint-Germain soccer
team. He had sent a Twitter message in which he said sardonically that "the people who
vandalize are surely descendants of slaves, they have excuses[.] #Taubira [the justice
minister] will give them some compensation!"
October
The League for the Judicial Defense of Muslims files a complaint against the weekly
newspaper Charlie Hebdo for its July 10 cover which had a cartoon captioned in large letters
with "The Koran, it's shit; it doesn't stop bullets"; against the magazine Valeurs Actuelles
for its Sept. 26 cover; against the website Riposte Laïque for various articles; and
against Manuel Valls, the secretary of the interior, for provocation of discrimination and
hate, for saying, "Within ten years we will show, we are in the process of showing, there is a
will, that Islam is compatible [sic] with the Republic."
Bruno Gilles, a senator in the Union for a Popular Movement, files a complaint against a
socialist, Patrick Mennucci, for "defamation and public insults." "He called me a racist and
xenophobe," the senator said.
France-El Djazaïr, a Franco-Algerian friendship association, announces that it will
file a complaint against a police officer in the city of Alès for "insults and
incitement to xenophobic and Islamophobic hatred"; the officer had put on his Facebook profile
page a photo-montage representing the Algerian flag over which was written "I hate Algeria,"
attached to an image of a man wiping his bottom with the flag.
Bachir Bouhmadou, adjunct general secretary of Citizen Resistance, and Ali Saab, president
of the Association of Muslims of the Territory of Belfort, file a complaint against Christine
Tasin, a militant with the group Republican Resistance, for videotaped comments opposing ritual
Islamic butchery and criticizing Islam.
Abdellah Zekri, the president of the National Observatory Against Islamophobia, says he will
file a complaint after his house was defaced with swastikas and graffiti saying "Islam Out" and
"Heit [sic] Hitler."
The National Front says it will file a complaint against Christiane Taubira, the justice
minister, for public insult for having described the party's way of thinking as "deadly and
murderous" and summarizing it thus: "It's the blacks in the branches of the trees, the Arabs in
the sea, the homosexuals in the Seine, the Jews in the oven and so forth."
November
A 65-year-old man is found guilty of insulting Claudine Ledoux, the mayor of
Charleville-Mézières, on his website, l'Union-l'Ardennais, in a manner described
by a regional newspaper as "menacing, racist and sexist," in relation to her being made a
knight in the Legion of Honor; he is ordered to pay a fine of one thousand euros and damages
for mental distress of the same amount to Ledoux.
The association SOS Racisme says it will file a complaint for incitation to racial hatred
against Minute, a 16-page rightist weekly, for its cover with a photo of Justice Minister
Christiane Taubira, who is a native of French Guiana, and for the title "Clever Like a Monkey,
Taubira Finds the Banana Again," which combines two common French expressions; to have the
banana (or the peach) means to be full of energy.
A player files a complaint for racial insult after a rough soccer game (three red cards)
between the second-stringers of the Sablé and Lude clubs. A player explained: "This
attacker called me a dirty white. I called him a dirty black."
The Movement Against Racism and for the Amity of Peoples files a complaint for provocation
of racial hatred against Manuel Valls, minister of the interior, for comments about the Gypsies
including, "The Gypsies should stay in Romania or return there." The case will be dismissed in
December 2013.
Bob Dylan is put under formal investigation for insult and provocation of racial hatred
after the Representative Council of the Croatian Community and Institutions of France files a
complaint against both him and the magazine Rolling Stone, the French version of which
republished an interview in which he said, "If you've got a slave master or the Klan in your
blood, blacks can sense that. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense
Croatian blood." The case will be dismissed in April 2014.
December
The comedian Nicolas Bedos testifies after being accused of complicity in making a public
racial insult in an article in the magazine Marianne as well as on its website; among the
phrases he used were "Negro bugger," "island indolence" and "lazy natives."
Gérard Huet, the mayor of Loudéac, is sued by the Human Rights League for
comments about Gypsies he made at a meeting to discuss expenditures to renovate the area where
the Gypsies were living. "They've stolen all our plumbing," he says, and he later objects to
the comment of another member of the city council with, "You're defending thieves?" He sues the
league in return for harassment.
The comedian Dieudonné files a defamation complaint after Alain Jakubowicz, the
president of the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism, describes the
"quenelle," a gesture used by the comedian and his fans, as "corresponding to an inverted Nazi
salute signifying the sodomizing of the victims of the Holocaust." Dieudonné also says
he will sue Le Monde, Le Figaro, BFMTV, France 2 and Manuel Valls, the interior minister.
The imam Hicham El Barkani files a complaint for insult after a protest described as
islamophobic against the opening of a mosque in Papeete.
Some cases have greater import than those listed above, as when historians are attacked for
their work.
The Columbia University historian Bernard Lewis gave an interview to Le Monde on November
16, 1993, in which he discussed the killings of Armenians by Turks during the First World War.
In the course of it he said, "If one speaks of genocide, that implies that there was a
deliberate policy, a decision, to systematically annihilate the Armenian nation. That is quite
doubtful. Turkish documents prove a will of deportation, not of extermination." On January 1,
1994, in response to strong objections to his remarks, he published a further explanation of
his position, again in Le Monde, ending with a repetition of his main point, that "no serious
proof exists of a decision and a plan by the Ottoman government aiming at exterminating the
Armenian nation." He was sued by the Forum of Armenian Associations of France and the
International League Against Racism and Antisemitism on the claim that he had "gravely hurt the
memory and respect of the survivors and of their families." The civil court of Paris ruled that
Lewis had "failed to meet his duty of objectivity and prudence in expressing himself without
nuance on so sensitive a subject" and ordered him to pay a franc each to the two associations
as well as the cost of publishing the decision. Lewis was also the defendant in other civil
cases and one criminal one on the same subject, all of which were dismissed.
In 2001, the French Parliament "publicly recognized the Armenian genocide of 1915," and in
2012 the Parliament passed a law instituting a punishment of imprisonment for one year and a
fine of 45,000 euros of anyone who "contests or minimizes in an outrageous fashion" genocides
recognized as such by French law, but the Constitutional Council ruled the latter law
unconstitutional a month later. Both of the main candidates for president that year, Nicolas
Sarkozy and François Hollande, soon announced that they would seek a new law to
criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide, and in January 2017 a law took effect providing
for a year of prison and a fine of 45,000 euros for those who denied, belittled or "banalized
in an outrageous way" recognized genocides, crimes against humanity, and enslavement or
exploitation of an enslaved person.
In 2001 Parliament also passed a law recognizing "that the trans-Atlantic trade in Negroes
as well as the trade in the Indian Ocean on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the slavery
perpetrated starting in the 15th Century, in the Americas and the Caribbean, in the Indian
Ocean and in Europe against the Africans, Amerindians, Madagascans and Indians constitute a
crime against humanity." Four years later this law was invoked against Olivier
Pétré-Grenouilleau, a professor at the University of Southern Brittany. In the
course of an interview given on June 12, 2005, in relation to his book "Les traites
négrières" (The Negro Slave Trades), which had won many awards including the
Senate History Book Prize, Pétré-Grenouilleau rejected a comparison of the slave
trades to the Jewish Holocaust: "The slave trades are not genocides. The slave trade didn't
have the goal of exterminating a people. The slave was a good that had a market value that one
wanted to make work as much as possible." An association representing people of the Caribbean,
French Guiana and Réunion filed a complaint against him for denying a crime against
humanity and demanded that he be "suspended from his university functions for revisionism." In
the vehement debate that ensued, Pétré-Grenouilleau was strongly supported by
many prominent historians, and in February 2006, acknowledging this opposition, the association
withdrew its complaint.
Shortly before the Pétré-Grenouilleau affair erupted, another "memorial" law
had been passed, in January 2005, aimed generally at recognizing the suffering of those French
citizens who had been repatriated from North Africa at the end of the Algerian War. This law
had itself evoked controversy, by requiring that "school programs recognize in particular the
positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in North Africa." A year later the law
was emended and the "positive role" removed.
I know of only three writers who have recently been given sentences that were "fermes," as
the French say, that is, that were not suspended as soon as pronounced. Vincent Reynouard is a
Frenchman born in 1969 and trained as a chemical engineer who has argued that the Nazis had no
plan to exterminate the Jews and that gas chambers were not used to kill people. Among the many
videos he has placed on the Internet, there is one in which he expresses his admiration for
Hitler; he says, "I think that Hitler was a man too good for the 20th Century, too honest, too
straightforward." A month after being arrested in Belgium, Reynouard was extradited to France
in August 2010 and served seven and a half months in prison for contesting a crime against
humanity. He has continued to produce writings and Internet videos, and in February 2015 he was
convicted of contestation of crimes against humanity and sentenced to two years in prison. In
November 2016 he was given a five-months sentence for publishing two videos in which he stated
that he would offer 5,000 euros to "anyone who can show me, in free, candid and courteous
debate, that the homicidal Hitlerian gas chambers are not a myth of history." To avoid a return
to prison, he is said to be living in England.
Hervé Ryssen, according to Wikipedia, has been sentenced several times for his
writings about Jews on counts, among others, of racial insult, racial defamation, defamation
against a group of persons because of their belonging to a certain race, and incitation to
racial hatred; and Boris Le Lay, who is living in Japan, has been sentenced in absentia many
times, most recently in July this year to serve 32 months in prison and to pay 31,500 euros to
the groups representing the supposed victims, for his writings judged to constitute incitement
to discrimination and to racial hatred and violence, and to contain public racial insults.
Among the recent charges against Le Lay was one of making death threats against activists of
the Human Rights League; I have not been able to determine if he was convicted of this; if he
was, he appears in that instance to be an exception to the other cases discussed in this
article, which involve no violence or threat thereof.
Although many speech cases involve politicians, two in particular deserve mention because
they arguably played a role in the presidential election of 2007.
The first round of the previous election, in 2002, had stunned the country as Jean-Marie Le
Pen, the leader of the National Front, edged out Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate, for a
place in the second round. Le Pen's share of the first-round vote was only 16.9 percent, but
Jospin was handicapped by an abundance of rivals on the left who split the vote. Before the
second round, a broad denunciatory publicity campaign to block Le Pen took place, and his
opponent, Jacques Chirac, the incumbent, refused to debate him. Chirac was re-elected with 82
percent of the vote.
Before the next election, in 2007, both Le Pen and the party's second-ranking member, Bruno
Gollnisch, would be defendants in high-profile cases over things they said.
On January 7, 2005, the rightist weekly Rivarol published an interview in which Le Pen said:
"In France, at least, the German occupation wasn't particularly inhumane, even if there were
slip-ups, inevitable in a country of 550,000 square kilometers." He also related a story about
a German lieutenant, "crazy with pain" after an attack on a train in which many young soldiers
died, who he said would have shot up a village had the Gestapo not intervened. Various groups
filed complaints, and in March an investigation was formally opened. In February 2008 he was
found guilty of complicity in the contestation of crimes against humanity and complicity in
apology for war crimes. In January 2009 the appeals court in Paris confirmed the verdict on the
first count but threw out the war-crimes verdict. In April 2011 the Court of Cassation
overturned the crimes-against-humanity verdict, and remanded the matter to the appeals court,
which again found him guilty in February 2012, a judgment confirmed by the Court of Cassation
in June 2013. Le Pen was sentenced to three months in prison (suspended) and assessed a fine of
10,000 euros, and the editor of Rivarol and the interviewer were fined 5,000 euros and 2,000
euros respectively. Three of the complainant groups were awarded damages of 5,000 euros each,
and Rivarol was ordered to pay for the publication of the decision in Le Figaro.
In the other case, Gollnisch, a professor of Japanese language and culture at the University
of Lyon who at the time was director general of the National Front (before the ascension of
Marine Le Pen), was charged with contestation of crimes against humanity for responses to a
journalist's questions at a press conference in October 2004. No electronic recording was made,
but he was quoted as saying: "There is no serious historian who accepts completely the
conclusions of the Nuremberg Tribunal; I think that the discussion should remain free
concerning the drama of the concentration camps. The number of deaths, the manner in which the
people died -- historians have the right to discuss. I don't deny that there were homicidal gas
chambers, but the discussion should remain free." In 2006, before the verdict was rendered, he
was suspended from his university post for five years.
During the trial Gollnisch was questioned intensively for hours one day in November 2006
over his true beliefs on the matter, and the attorney examining him, Alain Jakubowicz,
representing the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism, said he would withdraw
from the case if Gollnisch would only admit "that the organized extermination of the Jews of
Europe by the Nazi regime during the Second World War constitute an incontestable crime against
humanity perpetrated notably by the use of gas chambers." According to Le Monde, Gollnisch
appeared surprised and hesitated before giving an answer that might alienate the "hard fringe
of his movement." Gollnisch replied, "Completely." Asked to repeat his answer, he said: "My
answer is affirmative." He was convicted in January 2007, three months before the first round
of the presidential election, and sentenced to serve three months in prison (suspended) and pay
a fine of 5,000 euros. An appeals court in February 2008 confirmed the conviction and added
fines totaling 39,000 euros to be paid to nine associations devoted to fighting racism or
representing people deported from France during World War Two. But in June 2009 the Court of
Cassation, judging that his contradictory remarks as presented to the court did not constitute
contestation, overturned the verdict without possibility of retrial.
However these cases might be viewed in relation to freedom of speech, they also merit
attention from a purely political point of view. In the 2002 election, Jean-Marie Le Pen scored
an upset in the first round; in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidency by, in the view of
many commentators, "borrowing the discourse" and luring the voters of Le Pen's party. In
between, both Le Pen and his righthand man were put on trial, to the accompaniment of much
public commentary, on charges that suggested their approbation of Nazi atrocities. Under such
circumstances, borrowing and luring may be much easier than would otherwise be the
case.
In September 2013 the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism sought an
injunction from a court in Bobigny to order the excision of passages from five books
republished by Kontre Kulture, a publishing enterprise whose publication director is Alain
Soral. David-Olivier Kaminski, an attorney for the league, described Soral as someone known as
a "vector of hate" and characterized the re-editions as a "provocation, with the purpose of
arousing tensions." The league also asked for 20,000 euros in damages for each of the five
books.
In November the court ordered the withdrawal from sale of one of the books, "L'Anthologie
des propos contre les juifs, le judaïsme et le sionisme" by Paul-Eric Blanrue, which had
originally been published by another publisher in 2007, and the removal of certain passages
from the four others, all of which were reprints of books published long ago: "La France juive"
by Edouard Drumont, "Le salut par les juifs" by Léon Bloy, "Le juif international" by
Henry Ford, et "La controverse de Sion" by Douglas Reed. The court judged that the works
constituted "insult toward a group of persons because of their belonging to a specific
religion," "negation of crimes against humanity," and "provocation of racial hatred." Kontre
Kulture and Soral were also ordered to pay 8,000 euros each to the league as well as a part of
its legal expenses. In December 2014 a court overturned the previous ruling on the "Anthologie"
and it was again allowed to be sold.
The media reaction focused principally on the book by Léon Bloy. Bloy's
great-grandchild, Alexis Galpérine, reminded readers in Le Figaro that Bloy was a
"philosemite" and that "Le salut par les juifs" had been recommended as a "book against
antisemitism" by Franz Kafka. Pierre Glaudes, a professor at the Sorbonne, wrote in the weekly
magazine Le Nouvel Observateur: "This decision of justice arouses astonishment and disquiet by
attacking a literary work that is 122 years old and has been republished several times without
having attracted lightning strikes by justice. This condemnation sets a dangerous precedent.
Why not censor 'The Merchant of Venice' by Shakespeare, 'Gobseck' by Balzac or 'Money' by Zola
for their antisemitic statements?"
The case of the comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala merits notice particularly for the
legal manner in which the performance of his show "The Wall" in Nantes was forbidden in January
2014.
Dieudonné, the son of a Cameroonian man and a French woman, performed for several
years early in his career with a Jewish partner, and their sketches often made fun of racism.
Eventually he came to hold Jews responsible in large part for the slave trade, he expressed
resentment at the attention given to the Holocaust in comparison with that given to the
slavery, and he came to regard Jews not as fellow victims of prejudice but instead as important
members of a power structure in which people of the Third World and of Third World origin are
kept down. His new acts were sharply criticized, and he responded with provocations such as
including Robert Faurisson, notorious as a denier of the Holocaust and gas chambers, in his
acts. Dieudonné was found guilty of racial insult or defamation on numerous occasions,
for example, for saying that a television host financed the Israeli Army, "which doesn't
hesitate to kill Palestinian children"; for characterizing Holocaust remembrance as "memorial
pornography"; for stating that the directors of a pro-Israeli website were trying to paint him
as an antisemite and "son of Hitler"; for describing the International League Against Racism
and Antisemitism as one of the "mafia-like associations that organize censorship, that deny all
concepts of racism except that concerning the Jews. In fact, they are nothing but Israeli
agents."
Largely excluded from television and other standard venues, he has nonetheless maintained an
enthusiastic and politically and racially mixed following through his stage shows and videos.
In January 2014 his stage show "The Wall" was challenged by the government as a threat to
public order and to the dignity of the human person. Its performance in Nantes was banned by
the prefecture of the Loire-Atlantic region, which judged that it contained antisemitic remarks
that would incite racial hatred and constitute an apology for discriminations, persecutions and
exterminations perpetrated in the course of the Second World War. The ban was lifted on the day
of the show by the region's administrative tribunal, which held that the show "could not be
regarded as having as its essential purpose an affront at human dignity," but the tribunal's
ruling was overturned and the ban reinstated later the same day by a judge of the Council of
State, the highest court in the administrative-law system, after an urgent request by Interior
Minister Manuel Valls.
French people in general seem content with the way free speech questions are handled. If in
private they will occasionally murmur that "one can't say anything anymore," in public there is
very little disagreement over the necessity of punishing infractions involving remarks
characterized as racist or antisemitic or "negationist." Prominent cases, such as the many
brought against Jean-Marie Le Pen, are approved, explicitly or implicitly, by the vast majority
of commentators in the press and on the radio and television. Even publications that push the
limits of public tolerance in other ways -- for example, with crude or even violently obscene
and sacrilegious writings and cartoons -- do not defend the targets of anti-racism or
anti-contestation laws on general free-speech grounds; quite the contrary.
There is no high-profile organization or figure that publicly espouses the famous words that
Voltaire apparently never really said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it." Over all the attitude is closer to that attributed to the
revolutionary Saint-Just, "No liberty for the enemies of liberty." The slogan of the
International League Against Racism and Antisemitism, one of the organizations most active in
denouncing speech offenders, is "Racism is not an opinion but a criminal offense." Even a group
such as Reporters Without Borders, which works to further the freedom of the press throughout
the world, generally makes no objection to the laws discussed above, although it did oppose the
one criminalizing the denial of legally recognized genocides. In an interview, Antoine
Héry, in charge of the group's activities in the European Union and the Balkans,
explained to me: "I think that the problem in France is that there really are racist statements
-- many. This climate exists; it isn't a phantasm. There is, from this point of view, a
necessity to regulate a little the domain of speech, because there are abuses. I don't think
that in the United States one finds this sort of mass behavior -- because it is massive, it
isn't just one guy in his corner doing his thing."
There have been dissident voices on the subject of the criminalization of so-called
negationism and other "memorial laws." One of the most prominent is a group called
Liberté pour l'Histoire, which was formed in 2005 in response to what seemed about to
become a wave of such laws. In a public appeal signed by nineteen historians in December of
that year and later by hundreds more, it stated that "in a free state, it is not the business
of the parliament nor of the judicial authority to define historical truth" and called for "the
abrogation of these legislative measures unworthy of a democratic regime." But even this
unambiguous stand is not so solid as it might appear. In 2010, at the International Congress of
Historical Sciences in Amsterdam, the group's president, Pierre Nora, spoke of the Gayssot Law
and stated: "It is now twenty years since the law was voted, and even if we continue to regret
it intellectually speaking, the association Liberté pour l'Histoire does not campaign
for its suppression and does not wish to challenge it for the simple reason that this legal and
official challenge would only be seen in the public eye as authorizing and even encouraging the
denial of the Jewish genocide." There could hardly be a better illustration of the French
ambivalence on the matter than this.
This ambivalence derives from an evident fact: the characteristics of the system that make
it vicious from a free-speech perspective -- the vagueness and elasticity of the definitions of
the crimes, the politically selective application of the laws, the tendency of the trials to
become examinations of the defendants' thoughts and beliefs rather than merely of their public
statements -- are virtues for a system of political repression, and in France there is a
general consensus that the "extreme right" needs to be kept down and that expressions of
"racism" and "antisemitism" deserve to be squelched. While there are pockets of dissidence --
such as the websites Polémia and Boulevard Voltaire, the independent rightist station
Radio Courtoisie and the Internet television channel TV Libertés -- the assumption
remains widespread that anyone arguing that freedom should extend to such speech must have evil
motives.
The legal procedures through which speech is restricted do sometimes come under criticism.
For instance, the ban on Dieudonné's show "The Wall" was widely criticized because it
imposed a prior restraint, seen as equivalent to censorship in a way that punishing the
performer afterward would not be. Jack Lang, who was minister of culture in the Mitterrand
administration, said that the Council of State had opened a Pandora's box of potential abuses;
he objected as well to basing the decision on a vague principle of "human dignity" and pointed
out that the risk to public order was not credible. Michel Tubiana, a former president of the
Human Rights League, which also objected to the ban, told me in an interview that
Dieudonné should have been allowed to do his show and then he could have been prosecuted
in the normal way. On the league's website, one reads: "Clearly it is necessary to let nothing
pass, to systematically bring prosecutions against the delinquent, to denounce systematically
his crimes."
For the future, there is pressure to increase the surveillance, particularly of the
Internet. At its annual dinners, which are grand affairs similar to those of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee in the United States, the Representative Council of Jewish
Institutions of France presses the attending government officials hard for ever more stringent
restrictions, especially on Internet communications. In March 2016, for example, its president,
Roger Cukierman, urged that the state of emergency "should also apply to the Internet," and
this year its new president, Francis Kalifat, called for "zero tolerance" for bloggers "of
hateful content."
In the meantime, France, like the other countries of the European Union, is a party to the
Council Framework Decision "on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia
by means of criminal law," adopted unanimously by the ministers in the Council of the European
Union in November 2008. In a report in January 2014 on the implementation of this decision, the
European Commission stated: "Member States must ensure that the following intentional conduct
is punishable when directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by
reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin:
publicly inciting to violence or hatred, including by public dissemination or distribution of
tracts, pictures or other material; publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising
crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in Articles 6, 7 and 8
of the Statute of the International Criminal Court; or the crimes defined in Article 6 of the
Charter of the International Military Tribunal appended to the London Agreement of 8 August
1945, when the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to incite violence or hatred against
such a group or one or more of its members."
And France does its part, by continuing to reinforce its laws. On August 5 of this year it
made illegal any "nonpublic" insult or defamation (as, for example, made during a meeting in a
company's offices) "made toward a person or group of persons because of their origin or
belonging or not belonging, real or supposed, to an ethnic group, a nation, a putative race or
a particular religion; [or] because of their sex, their sexual orientation or gender identity,
or their handicap."
The law provides for fines of 1,500 euros initially and 3,000 euros for recidivists. It also
gives a judge the option of augmenting the punishment with a compulsory course in
citizenship.
Lawrence G. Proulx is a retired copy editor who worked for more than 30 years at the
Washington Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune and International New York
Times.
"[Neo]Liberalism" is a religion. It defines orthodoxy and heresy and punishes the latter.
It asserts the right to punish those who traduce its icons and who violate its taboos.
From all this long history of curtailment and punishment of free speech of various sorts,
it seems like the French never really had their hearts in it, whether they had their
constitution of the 5th Republic with its weasel-out words "but shall be responsible for such
abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law." or even if they had had the same supposed
"law of the land" as the US Constitution with its Amendment I.
Our Constitution was upheld pretty well for about 3/4 of the total time since it was
written, but it takes the kind of people who care about basic principles. That would pretty
much mean mostly descendants of the Founders with only such influx of newcomers that could be
assimilated into the culture that values basic principles over political expediency. It goes
without saying that women shouldn't have been allowed to vote here, but I said it just in
case. In France, I think there weren't so many people that ever got the real idea of free
speech and the quote that Voltaire didn't say.
Worse yet for France is the codifying of certain areas of knowledge, normally subject to
debate, as "Government-Approved Non-arguable Truth" , which is what the legal
maneuvers you write about amount to. Of course, the elites, along with the cucks of the land
arrange these Truths to be based on any opposition to foreign immigrant invasion, defending
of one's race, but opposition to the Government will always be number 1, as that locks it all
in. It's a nice Catch-22 there – "YOUR government's speech policy clearly specifies
what you can and can't talk about. The speech policy happens to be one of the things you
can't talk about."
The Ministry of Truth is probably not even necessary anymore, as it seems like the
unprincipled French have let the bulk of it be put in place already – maybe the
Ministry of Truth is all part of "The Cloud". Instead of the answer to, or way out of, this
1984 society lying "with the proles", I'd say it's more up to the hackers now.
Definitional hypertrophy
"This ambivalence derives from an evident fact: the characteristics of the system that make
it vicious from a free-speech perspective -- the vagueness and elasticity of the definitions
of the crimes"
In an earlier piece Mr. Proulx wrote about 'defintional hypertrophy' which seems to
characterize our Zeitgeist. A great great phrase which sums up the elasticized properties of
the big three sins of our times, racism, sexism and homophobia.
Racism used to mean Birmingham Regulations regarding public facilities and separate but equal
schools, now due to definitional hypertrophy it means 'noticing any racial characteristics'
especially if you are white. Sexism used to mean, say banning women from non nurturing
occupations and now it means saying "You look good!" to a woman in a absent minded fit of
masculinity. Homophobia used to mean 'Hey keep it in the closet pal i don't want to think
about what you do" and now homophobia means you must clap loudly and quickly at all
homosexual activities or Homo Tinkerbell will die.
Over time these definitions have expanded as the Majority's freedoms have contracted.
Free speech is an illusion, it seems. Most people want to shut their enemies up, and often
succeed in doing so. Some countries are just more upfront about it.
Is there not class distinction which helps fo understand what these laws are about. Any
intelligènt edicated person ought to be verbally adroit enough to convey his meaning
in an indirect way so as to avoid the thrust of the law. Thus, e.g.
I think we should discuss how we can combat the very commonly stated view that X and the
alarming number of people who can see nothing wrong with it. It is not a matter so much as
truth or falsehood but we need to ensure that children are indoctrinated from an early age so
they will never even ask the disturbing queston "is this true?". By the time they have grown
up to participate in the political life of the nation the whole question will have been
swallowed by a memory hole and become a non issue. Much safer for the tranquillity of society
than continued cantankerous debates erupting over the truth or falsity of something
permanently consigned to be false.
Long but worth it. As author Proulx says, you can skip over sections in the middle and
jump to his conclusion. This is one of the most thoroughly researched, best organized and
most clearly written articles I've ever read on Unz.com. The internet needs more copy editors
writing like this.
The article is really helpful in understanding the current situation in France.
The European context is mentioned at the end. It would be interesting to read a comparison
of France and other European countries.
In the land of "Liberte, Fraternite, et Egalite" there is from all appearances very little
"liberte" and that little international clique of "freres" enjoys a lot more "egalite" than
the rest.
I think the situation in Spain has shown just how little the EU pretenses of 'democracy'
mean. Indeed, we all know the famous quote about what 'democracy' really means.
Regrettably though I think things will need to get much worse before they get better. I
think the 'normal' people will need Muslims to make up at least 50% of the overall population
before they realize just what a horrific future they are heading to..
One of the first things I came across when trying to pinpoint when the Islamic threat was
first being 'ginned up' in the US was this essay written in 1992. It is so accurate it could
have been written yesterday. I think anyone could guess at which foreign country had the
individuals and journalist and congressional clout in the US to create the idea of a 'Green
Peril'.
The "Green Peril": Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat
By Leon T. Hadar
August 27, 1992
excerpts..
The Making of a "Peril"
The Islamic threat argument is becoming increasingly popular with some segments of the
American foreign policy establishment. They are encouraged by foreign governments who, for
reasons of self-interest, want to see Washington embroiled in the coming West vs. Islam
confrontation. The result is the construction of the new peril, a process that does not
reflect any grand conspiracy but that nevertheless has its own logic, rules and
timetables.
Indeed, like the Red Menace of the Cold War era, the Green Peril is perceived as a cancer
spreading around the globe, undermining the legitimacy of Western values and political
systems. The cosmic importance of the confrontation would make it necessary for Washington to
adopt a long term diplomatic and military strategy; to forge new and solid alliances; to
prepare the American people for a never ending struggle that will test their resolve; and to
develop new containment policies, new doctrines, and a new foreign policy elite with its
"wise men" and "experts."
The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious "sources" and unnamed officials who
leak information, float trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources
reflect debates and discussions taking place within government. Their information is then
augmented by colorful intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial terrorists
and military advisers. Journalists then search for the named and other villains. The media
end up finding corroboration from foreign sources who form an informal coalition with the
sources in the U.S. government and help the press uncover further information substantiating
the threat coming from the new bad guys.
In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add momentum to the official spin. Their
publication is followed by congressional hearings, policy conferences, and public press
briefings. A governmental policy debate ensues, producing studies, working papers, and
eventually doctrines and policies that become part of the media's spin. The new villain is
now ready to be integrated into the popular culture to help to mobilize public support for a
new crusade. In the case of the Green Peril, that process has been under way for several
months.
The Israeli government and its supporters in Washington are trying to play the Islamic
card. The specter of Central Asian republics and Iran equipped with nuclear weapons helps
Israel to reduce any potential international pressure on it to place its own nuclear
capabilities and strategy on the negotiating table. More important, perhaps, the Green Peril
could revive, in the long run, Israel's role as America's strategic asset, which was eroded
as a result of the end of the Cold War
The operational message is that the United States "must refocus its policy on the basic
problems facing the Islamic world rather than only the Arab-Israeli conflict."[23]
Jerusalem's attempts to turn that conflict into a Jewish-Moslem confrontation and to place
America on its side to help contain radical Moslem forces in the region may become a
self-fulfilling prophecy. The result is likely to be strengthened anti-American feelings in
the Middle East and anti-American terrorist acts, which, in turn, will invite a new round of
American military intervention."
How marginalization of opposition works: Once the extreme positions on an issue (left of
right) are rendered taboo and excluded, the next position in (which the lobbyists could not
easily succeed in banning as "extreme" initially) becomes the new "extreme". As a bonus its
advocates can be accused of being closet supporters of the banned position and as such
ostracized.
I've been banned from the Antiwar comment section more than once for explicitly mentioning
Jewish influence on foreign policy without masking it with terms like "Zionists,"
"Neocons," "Likudniks," or the "War Party."
As much as the older crowd on our political spectrum hate to admit it, Daily Stormer and
Pol have actually opened up a space for a rational discussion of Jewish influence on
politics. When you have anonymous accounts literally calling for all Jews to be gassed, a
couple pundits talking soberly about Jewish influence seem fairly moderate by
comparison.
And the readers of DS and Pol are definitely the younger generation who will make up the
majority of the Right in the future. I envision a day in the near future when the mention
of Israel elicits boos at the Republican National Convention.
As much as the older crowd on our political spectrum hate to admit it, Daily Stormer and
Pol have actually opened up a space for a rational discussion of Jewish influence on
politics. When you have anonymous accounts literally calling for all Jews to be gassed, a
couple pundits talking soberly about Jewish influence seem fairly moderate by
comparison.
This is of course exactly how banning opinions distorts debate and why identity lobbyists
love to impose such taboos on discourse.
Once the extreme positions on an issue are rendered taboo and excluded, the next position
in (which the lobbyists could not easily succeed in banning as "extreme" initially) becomes
the apparent "extreme" and as a bonus its advocates can be accused of being closet supporters
of the banned extreme. They then have to spend all their time and energy defending themselves
against being harassed and trying to word their arguments carefully so they can't be accused
of falling foul of the taboo (or as with some of the accusations against Giraldi's piece here
– of not trying hard enough to avoid the supposed appearance of falling foul of
it).
That's how proposals to limit mass immigration are labelled "race hatred" and banned in
many forums, and how reasonable raising of an important issue such as in Giraldi's piece gets
one smeared as an "antisemite" (or potentially prosecuted in the UK) and excluded from
mainstream publications.
As much as the older crowd on our political spectrum hate to admit it, Daily Stormer and
Pol have actually opened up a space for a rational discussion of Jewish influence on
politics. When you have anonymous accounts literally calling for all Jews to be gassed, a
couple pundits talking soberly about Jewish influence seem fairly moderate by
comparison.
This is of course exactly how banning opinions distorts debate and why identity
lobbyists love to impose such taboos on discourse.
Once the extreme positions on an issue are rendered taboo and excluded, the next position
in (which the lobbyists could not easily succeed in banning as "extreme" initially) becomes
the apparent "extreme" and as a bonus its advocates can be accused of being closet supporters
of the banned extreme. They then have to spend all their time and energy defending themselves
against being harassed and trying to word their arguments carefully so they can't be accused
of falling foul of the taboo (or as with some of the accusations against Giraldi's piece here
- of not trying hard enough to avoid the supposed appearance of falling foul of it).
That's how proposals to limit mass immigration are labelled "race hatred" and banned in
many forums, and how reasonable raising of an important issue such as in Giraldi's piece gets
one smeared as an "antisemite" (or potentially prosecuted in the UK) and excluded from
mainstream publications.
Once the extreme positions on an issue are rendered taboo and excluded, the next
position in (which the lobbyists could not easily succeed in banning as "extreme"
initially) becomes the apparent "extreme" and as a bonus its advocates can be accused of
being closet supporters of the banned extreme.
I'm glad your insightful comment was recognized as such
Reminds me of how Marine Le Pen's father was marginalized as an 'anti-Semite' (for simply
telling the obvious truth), and once he was effectively maligned, (they) set their sights on
the moderate daughter, as being "far right", which simply means not as far left as (they)
are.
today they call the AfD "far right", in order to marginalize their extremely reasonable
and moderate positions – as advocating an invasion of Poland
and of course, were Mr. G to sob his contrition and re-write the article, (not likely ; ),
they'd simply set their sights on the next target, having moved the goal posts and tilted the
playing field always more and more in their favor.
"... I've always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened both politically and economically towards the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They desperately wanted to launch a political project that would curb the power of labor. ..."
"... In many respects the project was a counterrevolutionary project. It would nip in the bud what, at that time, were revolutionary movements in much of the developing world ..."
"... So in that situation there was, in effect, a global threat to the power of the corporate capitalist class and therefore the question was, What to do?. The ruling class wasn't omniscient but they recognized that there were a number of fronts on which they had to struggle: the ideological front, the political front, and above all they had to struggle to curb the power of labor by whatever means possible. Out of this there emerged a political project which I would call neoliberalism. ..."
"... The ideological front amounted to following the advice of a guy named Lewis Powell . He wrote a memo saying that things had gone too far, that capital needed a collective project. The memo helped mobilize the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. ..."
"... Ideas were also important to the ideological front. The judgment at that time was that universities were impossible to organize because the student movement was too strong and the faculty too liberal-minded, so they set up all of these think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Ohlin Foundation. These think tanks brought in the ideas of Freidrich Hayek and Milton Friedman and supply-side economics. ..."
"... This process took a long time. I think now we've reached a point where you don't need something like the Heritage Foundation anymore. Universities have pretty much been taken over by the neoliberal projects surrounding them. ..."
"... With respect to labor, the challenge was to make domestic labor competitive with global labor. One way was to open up immigration. In the 1960s, for example, Germans were importing Turkish labor, the French Maghrebian labor, the British colonial labor. But this created a great deal of dissatisfaction and unrest. ..."
"... Instead they chose the other way -- to take capital to where the low-wage labor forces were. But for globalization to work you had to reduce tariffs and empower finance capital, because finance capital is the most mobile form of capital. So finance capital and things like floating currencies became critical to curbing labor. ..."
"... At the same time, ideological projects to privatize and deregulate created unemployment. So, unemployment at home and offshoring taking the jobs abroad, and a third component: technological change , deindustrialization through automation and robotization. That was the strategy to squash labor. ..."
"... It was an ideological assault but also an economic assault. To me this is what neoliberalism was about: it was that political project ..."
"... I think they just intuitively said, We gotta crush labor, how do we do it? And they found that there was a legitimizing theory out there, which would support that. ..."
I've always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate
capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened both politically and economically towards
the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They desperately wanted to launch a political project that
would curb the power of labor.
In many respects the project was a counterrevolutionary project. It would nip in the bud
what, at that time, were revolutionary movements in much of the developing world -- Mozambique,
Angola, China etc. -- but also a rising tide of communist
influences in countries like Italy and France and, to a lesser degree, the threat of a
revival of that in Spain.
Even in the United States, trade unions had produced a Democratic Congress that was quite
radical in its intent. In the early 1970s they, along with other social movements, forced a
slew of reforms and reformist initiatives which were anti-corporate: the
Environmental Protection Agency , the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,
consumer protections, and a whole set of things around empowering labor even more than it had
been empowered before.
So in that situation there was, in effect, a global threat to the power of the corporate
capitalist class and therefore the question was, What to do?. The ruling class wasn't omniscient
but they recognized that there were a number of fronts on which they had to struggle: the
ideological front, the political front, and above all they had to struggle to curb the power of
labor by whatever means possible. Out of this there emerged a political project which I would
call neoliberalism.
BSR Can you talk a
bit about the ideological and political fronts and the attacks on labor? DH The ideological front amounted to following the advice of a guy
named Lewis
Powell . He wrote a memo saying that things had gone too far, that capital needed a
collective project. The memo helped mobilize the Chamber of Commerce and the Business
Roundtable.
Ideas were also important to the ideological front. The judgment at that time was that
universities were impossible to organize because the student movement was too strong and the
faculty too liberal-minded, so they set up all of these think tanks like the Manhattan
Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Ohlin Foundation. These think tanks brought in the
ideas of Freidrich Hayek and Milton Friedman and supply-side economics.
The idea was to have these think tanks do serious research and some of them did -- for
instance, the National Bureau of Economic
Research was a privately funded institution that did extremely good and thorough research.
This research would then be published independently and it would influence the press and bit by
bit it would surround and infiltrate the universities.
This process took a long time. I think now we've reached a point where you don't need
something like the Heritage Foundation anymore. Universities have pretty much been taken over
by the neoliberal projects surrounding them.
With respect to labor, the challenge was to make domestic labor competitive with global
labor. One way was to open up immigration. In the 1960s, for example, Germans were importing
Turkish labor, the French Maghrebian labor, the British colonial labor. But this created a
great deal of dissatisfaction and unrest.
Instead they chose the other way -- to take capital to where the low-wage labor forces
were. But for globalization to work you had to reduce tariffs and
empower finance capital, because finance capital is the most mobile form of capital. So
finance capital and things like floating currencies became critical to curbing labor.
At the same time, ideological projects to privatize and deregulate created unemployment.
So, unemployment at home and offshoring taking the jobs abroad, and a third component:
technological change ,
deindustrialization through automation and robotization. That was the strategy to squash
labor.
It was an ideological assault but also an economic assault. To me this is what neoliberalism
was about: it was that political project, and I think the bourgeoisie or the corporate
capitalist class put it into motion bit by bit.
I don't think they started out by reading Hayek or anything, I think they just intuitively
said, We gotta crush labor, how do we do it? And they found that there was a legitimizing
theory out there, which would support that.
"Only a child – or its intellectual equivalent, i.e., a low information
infotainment consumer – could believe in the official version of 9/11."
That is clearly false, as plenty of people who are smart - smarter than you actually -
do in fact believe just that.
Or maybe a lot of smart people pretend to believe the
official 9/11 story because that's where their interest lies. MSM journalists know for sure
that articles that deviate from the official line on 9/11 are career ending moves .
In simple terms, MSM owners have decided that 9/11 is a taboo subject (same as USS
Liberty) and they decide what gets published.
"... In late July 2010, longtime Canadian journalist Eric Margolis was told his column would be dropped, and just a few weeks later he published a double-length piece expressing strong doubts about 9/11, the first time he'd articulated that position: ..."
"... In 2007, the parent company of The Chicago Tribune announced it had accepted a leveraged-buyout takeover bid by investor Sam Zell, who planned a massive wave cost-cutting layoffs, which eventually wrecked the company. In late 2007, the Chicago Tribune suddenly ran a very long piece regarding the Liberty Attack, about the only time I've ever seen it discussed in the MSM. ..."
Or maybe a lot of smart people pretend to believe the official 9/11 story because that's
where their interest lies. MSM journalists know for sure that articles that deviate from
the official line on 9/11 are career ending moves .
In simple terms, MSM owners have decided that 9/11 is a taboo subject (same as USS
Liberty) and they decide what gets published.
Well, I haven't read through all of this enormously long discussion-thread, but I happened
to notice this particular comment. Not having been an MSM journalist myself, I can't say
whether or not it's true, but a couple of interesting, possibly coincidental, examples come
to mind
In late July 2010, longtime Canadian journalist Eric Margolis was told his column would be
dropped, and just a few weeks later he published a double-length piece expressing strong
doubts about 9/11, the first time he'd articulated that position:
In 2007, the parent company of The Chicago Tribune announced it had accepted a
leveraged-buyout takeover bid by investor Sam Zell, who planned a massive wave cost-cutting
layoffs, which eventually wrecked the company. In late 2007, the Chicago Tribune suddenly ran
a very long piece regarding the Liberty Attack, about the only time I've ever seen it
discussed in the MSM.
"... The history of the 20th and 21st centuries is largely what it is because of political conspiracies,
wherein the state does one thing or another using covert methods and then sells the opposite story to
the gullible public. It is basically a form of military deception by other means. ..."
"... There is no doubt that the public (the real enemy of the state) sure are gullible. ..."
"... a conspiracy, as Mr Unz indicates, is just a perjorative term used by the state to divert attention
from what are otherwise normal covert operations. The real issue is that these events have had massive,
gigantic global consequences but operate completely below the radar of the intellectual classes. ..."
"... This is an old clip showing admittance of the CIA that they use the mainstream media to manipulate
the thoughts and ideas of American citizens in the USA. This has not changed obviously and is good to
know happened in the past due to our reality today. http://youtu.be/5ED63A_hcd0 ..."
"... 9/23/1975 Tom Charles Huston Church Committee Testimony in full: https://www.c-span.org/video/?408953-1/tom-charles-huston-testimony-church-committee
..."
"... Secrecy is important to the extent that people would be in a position to thwart the conspiracy
should they come to know about it. To minimize the need for secrecy, the conspirators might try to foster
a general, childlike ignorance about public affairs, so that the public would not recognize a conspiracy
even if it were being discussed openly. ..."
"... In this regard, the capture of major media (pace Mr. Unz) would be key to achieving this aim.
Marginalization is another strategy, so that those few who become aware of a conspiracy do not have
enough social capital to muster any significant action against it. ..."
"... "The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious "sources" and unnamed officials who
leak information, float trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources reflect debates
and discussions taking place within government. Their information is then augmented by colorful intelligence
reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial terrorists and military advisers. Journalists then search
for the named and other villains. The media end up finding corroboration from foreign sources who form
an informal coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and help the press uncover further information
substantiating the threat coming from the new bad guys. ..."
"... following the collapse of Soviets, they have been looking for an enemy that they were finding
raising its heads in Algeria, Iran, Sudan, and even in Malayasia back in 1992. ..."
"... Conspiracy theory -- is absolutely commonplace but rendered a bogus term . It is common and
practiced by the government all the time. It is used by people who have agenda and find resistance to
agenda . The moment they use false narrative, weird scenario, create unknown fear and offer solution
abusing the authorities, abusing the institutional but previous records and inserting propaganda preaching
journalist ( CIA had more than 400 in 1975 per Bernstein) , they are engaging in conspiracy. ..."
Conspiracy is simply a plan or agreement by more than one person to do something evil and then
the pursuit of that plan. Secrecy may be needed for the success of a conspiracy, but it is not
essential to the definition. Were it essential to the definition, you could never prove the existence
of a conspiracy. Either secrecy would be maintained and there would be little or no evidence or
secrecy would not be maintained and the plan would become known and by definition not be a conspiracy.
The history of the 20th and 21st centuries is largely what it is because of political conspiracies,
wherein the state does one thing or another using covert methods and then sells the opposite story
to the gullible public. It is basically a form of military deception by other means.
There is no doubt that the public (the real enemy of the state) sure are gullible.
I think Mr Unz is trying to work out in his own mind why it is that the sell job always works
and is so successful.
Consider the following false flag events:
REICHSTAG FIRE: carried out by Nazi party and blamed on communists. Allowed Hitler to rise
to power.
PEARL HARBOUR: The grandaddy of them all. A setup by Roosevelt to allow the US to enter
WW2.
ASSASSINATION OF JFK: Stopped JFK's intention to withdraw from Vietnam and allowed massive
expansion of the war.
GULF WAR 1991: A setup by Bush I to allow US assets to be moved into the Middle East.
9/11, 7/7 False flag events to enable Iraq war, GWOT and set the stage for perpetual war.
These events are all clearly 'conspiracies', but a conspiracy, as Mr Unz indicates, is
just a perjorative term used by the state to divert attention from what are otherwise normal covert
operations. The real issue is that these events have had massive, gigantic global consequences
but operate completely below the radar of the intellectual classes.
(1975) CIA Admits Using News To Manipulate the USA
This is an old clip showing admittance of the CIA that they use the mainstream media to
manipulate the thoughts and ideas of American citizens in the USA. This has not changed obviously
and is good to know happened in the past due to our reality today.
http://youtu.be/5ED63A_hcd0
Secrecy is important to the extent that people would be in a position to thwart the conspiracy
should they come to know about it. To minimize the need for secrecy, the conspirators might try
to foster a general, childlike ignorance about public affairs, so that the public would not recognize
a conspiracy even if it were being discussed openly.
In this regard, the capture of major media (pace Mr. Unz) would be key to achieving this
aim. Marginalization is another strategy, so that those few who become aware of a conspiracy do
not have enough social capital to muster any significant action against it. Believing that
a conspiracy needs secrecy is the perhaps optimistic belief that neither dumbing down the general
public nor marginalizing the watchdogs is sufficient: there's still a significant chance that
public exposure could derail the conspirators.
after my asking you what the strongest evidence available for the official story
As I've already shown, you asked me "what records?" The ticket is among the records that support
the official story. It is sad that you keep lying about this. We both agree--and have from the
beginning--that the ticket is necessary, but not sufficient. You keep pretending otherwise for
some reason. Your behavior is downright weird.
"The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious "sources" and unnamed officials
who leak information, float trial balloons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources reflect
debates and discussions taking place within government. Their information is then augmented by
colorful intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorial terrorists and military advisers.
Journalists then search for the named and other villains. The media end up finding corroboration
from foreign sources who form an informal coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and
help the press uncover further information substantiating the threat coming from the new bad guys.
A series of leaks, signals, and trial balloons is already beginning to shape U.S. agenda and
policy. Congress is about to conduct several hearings on the global threat of Islamic fundamentalism.(14)
The Bush administration has been trying to devise policies and establish new alliances to counter
Iranian influence: building up Islamic but secular and pro-Western Turkey as a countervailing
force in Central Asia, expanding U.S. commitments to Saudi Arabia, warning Sudan that it faces
grave consequences as a result of its policies, and even shoring up a socialist military dictatorship
in Algeria.
Printing a ticket and getting a Passport ,if all that you have, then you are in the right league
. Join those in NYT, WaPo, Hoover Institue and speak to George Will, Jim Hoagland, because
following the collapse of Soviets, they have been looking for an enemy that they were finding
raising its heads in Algeria, Iran, Sudan, and even in Malayasia back in 1992.
Conspiracy theory -- is absolutely commonplace but rendered a bogus term . It is common
and practiced by the government all the time. It is used by people who have agenda and find resistance
to agenda . The moment they use false narrative, weird scenario, create unknown fear and offer
solution abusing the authorities, abusing the institutional but previous records and inserting
propaganda preaching journalist ( CIA had more than 400 in 1975 per Bernstein) , they are engaging
in conspiracy. It follows a script. So it has a theory to follow . It is a conspiracy theory.
The biggest hoax ever perpetrated is the gradual evolution of the alleged threat from Islam
. Its a multilayered multi focal interconnected open production of a vast conspiracy – achieved
without any shred of evidence or even plausible reason for the existence of any such threat .
This is a quote from an article published in 1992 and quotes 90 sources .
" In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add momentum to the official spin. Their
publication is followed by congressional hearings, policy conferences, and public press briefings.
A governmental policy debate ensues, producing studies, working papers, and eventually doctrines
and policies that become part of the media's spin. The new villain is now ready to be integrated
into the popular culture to help to mobilize public support for a new crusade. In the case of
the Green Peril, that process has been under way for several months.(13)
THE GREEN PERIL
Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat
Leon T Hadar ,a former bureau chief for Jerusalem Post.
"WaPo, NYT, WSJ, Washington Times, ABC news and Economist all gathered the Islamic experts
out of the same offices that used to house the Soviet experts, painted them green removed the
red markings and asked them to follow the direction . ( Well I made this up But that's exactly
what happened .)
"... So, a conspiracy theory is a theory without media backing. There's no better recent example of this than when the DNC emails were released by wikileaks during their convention. The story put forth was that Russian hackers were responsible, and were trying to throw the election to their buddy Trump. The evidence for this? Zero. And yet it became a plausible explanation in the media, overnight. ..."
"... People need to remember than by definition, the ratio of what you don't know to what you do know is infinity to one. Be more open minded. "They shall find it difficult, they who have taken authority as truth rather than truth for authority". ..."
Here is a link to Carl Bernstein's definitive 1977 Rolling Stone article "CIA and the Media"
in which he addresses - and confirms - your worst fears. You are very right, and no less a figure
than Bernstein has said so for nearly four decades . . .
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
No coincidence that all the CIA agents involved in the JFK assassination are known to be experts
in 'black ops' and news media specialists. Jim Angleton, Cord Meyer, David Atlee Phillips and
E. Howard Hunt, who confessed his involvement, all made their names in black propaganda or news
management.
@Lot Given how easy it is to create a conspiracy theory, most of them will be crazy.
Another problem with elite conspiracies is that elites usually do not have to act in secret
because they already are in control. For Kennedy, a centrist cold warrior, his views already reflected
those of elites, maybe even more so than Johnson.
The other problem is that actual criminal conspiracies by elites quite often are discovered,
such as Watergate and Iran Contra. Given how easy it is to create a conspiracy theory, most
of them will be crazy.
A statement that appears straight out of the CIA's playbook.
Another problem with elite conspiracies is that elites usually do not have to act in
secret because they already are in control.
Such control does not imply they have nothing to hide, particularly when exposure of the deed
would have damaging repercussions for them.
For Kennedy, a centrist cold warrior, his views already reflected those of elites, maybe
even more so than Johnson.
It didn't reflect that of Israel's elites. After JFK's assassination, American foreign policy
vis a vis Israel was completely reversed under Johnson, who hung the crew of the USS Liberty out
to dry.
The other problem is that actual criminal conspiracies by elites quite often are discovered,
such as Watergate and Iran Contra.
@Chief SeattleSo, a conspiracy theory is a theory without media backing. There's no better
recent example of this than when the DNC emails were released by wikileaks during their convention.
The story put forth was that Russian hackers were responsible, and were trying to throw the election
to their buddy Trump. The evidence for this? Zero. And yet it became a plausible explanation in
the media, overnight.
Maybe it's true, maybe not, but if the roles had been reversed, the media would be telling
its proponents to take off their tin foil hats. Note also that the allegations immediately become
"fact" because they were reported by someone else. As Business Insider reported, "Amid
mounting evidence of Russia's involvement in the hack of the Democratic National Committee ,"
without any specificity whatsoever as to what that "mounting evidence" was (most likely multiple
reports in other media) never mind that the article goes on to quote James Clapper, " we are not
quite ready yet to make a call on attribution." WTF! Here, read it yourself:
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-dnc-hack-black-propaganda-2016-7
Totally mindless. So not only is Russia hacking, but we know it's intention is to influence
US elections!!! And now their hacking voter DBs and will likely hack our vote tabulating machines.
You can't make this s ** t up.
...In the corporate world, it often seems that upper management spends a bulk of their time
conspiring against one another or entering into secret talks to sell the company to a rival, unbeknownst
to the employees or shareholders.
@Alfred1860 I find it quite amusing how, in an article supporting of the existence of conspiracy
theories, so many comments consist of hurling insults at people making skeptical comments about
what are obviously very sacred cows.
People need to remember than by definition, the ratio of what you don't know to what you
do know is infinity to one. Be more open minded. "They shall find it difficult, they who have
taken authority as truth rather than truth for authority".
In Dispatch 1035-960 mailed to station chiefs on April 1, 1967, the CIA laid out a series of
"talking points" in its memo addressing the "conspiracy theorists" who were questioning the Warren
Commission's findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They include the following:
Claim that it "would be impossible to conceal" such a large-scale conspiracy.
Claim that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition.
Claim that "no significant new evidence has emerged"
Accuse theorists of falling in love with their theories.
Claimed conspiracy theorists are wedded to their theories before the evidence was in.
Accuse theorists of being politically motivated.
Accuse theorists of being financially motivated.
I have found numerous examples of these exact points being made in televised news segments,
newspapers, magazines and even some academic articles and scholarly books.
Additionally, some of the most influential and frequently-cited authors who are the most critical
of "conspiracy theorists", both academic and lay people, have very direct ties to government,
foundations and other institutions of authority.
While we can't know if the CIA was primarily responsible for the creation of the pejorative,
but what we do know from the Church Committee hearings, was that the Agency did have paid operatives
working inside major media organizations as late as the 1970s. In fact, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper
has acknowledged ties to the CIA
With recent lifting of restrictions on the government's use of domestic propaganda with the
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization
Act, I think reasonable people would expect this type of pejorative construction to resume if
in fact, it ever ceased.
Literally every article I've ever read about conservatives and/or the conservative movement
within the pages of the New Yorker – and I've read going back decades, unfortunately – has judiciously
referenced 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics'.
I mean, EVERY SINGLE article regarding Republicans, conservatives and/or opposition to leftism
has the Hofstadter quote somewhere – it must be a staple on the J-School syllabi.
It seems Prof. Hofstadter was something of an adherent to the Frankfurt School nonsense – Marxism-meets-dime-store-Freud
being every New Yorker writer's stock in trade, of course
@biz Actually, there is no symmetry in conspiracy theories as you imply.
The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a secret
network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network of supposed
conspirators rather than modifying the explanation.
"... Even for most educated Americans, theorists such as Beard, Popper, and Strauss are probably no more than vague names mentioned in textbooks, and that was certainly true in my own case. But while the influence of Beard seems to have largely disappeared in elite circles, the same is hardly true of his rivals. Popper probably ranks as one of the founders of modern liberal thought, with an individual as politically influential as left-liberal financier George Soros claiming to be his intellectual disciple . Meanwhile, the neo-conservative thinkers who have totally dominated the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement for the last couple of decades often proudly trace their ideas back to Strauss. ..."
"... The best strategy is to foster implausible conspiracy theories to create a cloud of disinformation. This technique was used very effectively after 9/11, such that it's very hard to discuss a coverup without being labeled a truther. ..."
"... It should also be noted that Irving Kristol was sponsored by -- on the payroll of – the CIA while still in Britain. Kristol has acknowledged that CIA support got his movement off the ground. ..."
"... Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in. ..."
A year or two ago, I saw the much-touted science fiction film Interstellar , and
although the plot wasn't any good, one early scene was quite amusing. For various reasons, the
American government of the future claimed that our Moon Landings of the late 1960s had been
faked, a trick aimed at winning the Cold War by bankrupting Russia into fruitless space efforts
of its own. This inversion of historical reality was accepted as true by nearly everyone, and
those few people who claimed that Neil Armstrong had indeed set foot on the Moon were
universally ridiculed as "crazy conspiracy theorists." This seems a realistic portrayal of
human nature to me.
Obviously, a large fraction of everything described by our government leaders or presented
in the pages of our most respectable newspapers!from the 9/11 attacks to the most insignificant
local case of petty urban corruption!could objectively be categorized as a "conspiracy theory"
but such words are never applied. Instead, use of that highly loaded phrase is reserved for
those theories, whether plausible or fanciful, that do not possess the endorsement stamp of
establishmentarian approval.
Put another way, there are good "conspiracy theories" and bad "conspiracy theories," with
the former being the ones promoted by pundits on mainstream television shows and hence never
described as such. I've sometimes joked with people that if ownership and control of our
television stations and other major media outlets suddenly changed, the new information regime
would require only a few weeks of concerted effort to totally invert all of our most famous
"conspiracy theories" in the minds of the gullible American public. The notion that nineteen
Arabs armed with box-cutters hijacked several jetliners, easily evaded our NORAD air defenses,
and reduced several landmark buildings to rubble would soon be universally ridiculed as the
most preposterous "conspiracy theory" ever to have gone straight from the comic books into the
minds of the mentally ill, easily surpassing the absurd "lone gunman" theory of the JFK
assassination.
Even without such changes in media control, huge shifts in American public beliefs have
frequently occurred in the recent past, merely on the basis of implied association. In the
initial weeks and months following the 2001 attacks, every American media organ was enlisted to
denounce and vilify Osama Bin Laden, the purported Islamicist master-mind, as our greatest
national enemy, with his bearded visage endlessly appearing on television and in print, soon
becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the world. But as the Bush Administration and
its key media allies prepared a war against Iraq, the images of the Burning Towers were instead
regularly juxtaposed with mustachioed photos of dictator Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden's
arch-enemy. As a consequence, by the time we attacked Iraq in 2003, polls revealed that some
70% of the American
public believed that Saddam was personally involved in the destruction of our World Trade
Center. By that date I don't doubt that many millions of patriotic but low-information
Americans would have angrily denounced and vilified as a "crazy conspiracy theorist" anyone
with the temerity to suggest that Saddam had not been behind 9/11, despite almost no
one in authority having ever explicitly made such a fallacious claim.
one
of our most prominent scholars and public intellectuals had been historian Charles Beard , whose
influential writings had heavily focused on the harmful role of various elite conspiracies in
shaping American policy for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, with his
examples ranging from the earliest history of the United States down to the nation's entry into
WWI. Obviously, researchers never claimed that all major historical events had hidden causes,
but it was widely accepted that some of them did, and attempting to investigate those
possibilities was deemed a perfectly acceptable academic enterprise.
However, Beard was a strong opponent of American entry into the Second World War, and he was
marginalized in the years that followed, even prior to his death in 1948. Many younger public
intellectuals of a similar bent also suffered the same fate, or were even purged from
respectability and denied any access to the mainstream media. At the same time, the totally
contrary perspectives of two European political philosophers, Karl Popper and Leo Strauss , gradually gained ascendancy in
American intellectual circles, and their ideas became dominant in public life.
Popper, the more widely influential, presented broad, largely theoretical objections to the
very possibility of important conspiracies ever existing, suggesting that these would be
implausibly difficult to implement given the fallibility of human agents; what might appear a
conspiracy actually amounted to individual actors pursuing their narrow aims. Even more
importantly, he regarded "conspiratorial beliefs" as an extremely dangerous social malady, a
major contributing factor to the rise of Nazism and other deadly totalitarian ideologies. His
own background as an individual of Jewish ancestry who had fled Austria in 1937 surely
contributed to the depth of his feelings on these philosophical matters.
Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh
in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite
conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against anarchy
or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them hidden from
the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy theories" was not
that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore their spread was
potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a matter of self-defense,
elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the unauthorized investigation of
suspected conspiracies.
Even for most educated Americans, theorists such as Beard, Popper, and Strauss are
probably no more than vague names mentioned in textbooks, and that was certainly true in my own
case. But while the influence of Beard seems to have largely disappeared in elite circles, the
same is hardly true of his rivals. Popper probably ranks as one of the founders of modern
liberal thought, with an individual as politically influential as left-liberal financier
George Soros
claiming to be his intellectual disciple . Meanwhile, the neo-conservative
thinkers who have totally dominated the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement for
the last couple of decades often proudly trace their ideas back to Strauss.
So, through a mixture of Popperian and Straussian thinking, the traditional American
tendency to regard elite conspiracies as a real but harmful aspect of our society was gradually
stigmatized as either paranoid or politically dangerous, laying the conditions for its
exclusion from respectable discourse.
Conspiracy is simply a plan or agreement by more than one person to do something evil and
then the pursuit of that plan. Secrecy may be needed for the success of a conspiracy, but it
is not essential to the definition. Were it essential to the definition, you could never
prove the existence of a conspiracy. Either secrecy would be maintained and there would be
little or no evidence or secrecy would not be maintained and the plan would become known and
by definition not be a conspiracy.
I think it's worth pointing out what I've never seen explained about that quote, a quote
with as much currency in the conspiracy theory fever swamps as any single quote has ever had.
The point of the disinformation campaign was not to manipulate the public but to manipulate
the soviets. Because our CIA analysts spent so much time unriddling the soviet media, we
figured their CIA analysts were doing the same thing with ours.
Note: This paper was published in Political Psychology 15: 733-744, 1994. This is the
original typescript sent to the journal, it does not include any editorial changes that may
have been made. The journal itself is not available online, to my knowledge.
Belief in Conspiracy Theories
Ted Goertzel1
Running Head: Belief in Conspiracy Theories.
KEY WORDS: conspiracy theories, anomia, trust
Table Three
Means Scores of Racial/Ethnic Groups on Attitude Scales
White[W] Hispanic[H] Black[B]
Scale
Belief in Conspiracies 2.5[W] 2.8[H] 3.3[B]
Anomia 3.4[W] 3.8[H] 4.1[B]
Trust 3.7[W] 3.3[H] 3.1[B]
Note: All scales varied from 1 to 5, with 3 as a neutral score.
One of the most interesting discussions of the paper:
It is puzzling that conspiratorial thinking has been overlooked in the extensive
research on authoritarianism which has dominated quantitative work in political psychology
since the 1950s. One possible explanation is that much of this work focuses on right-wing
authoritarianism (Altmeyer, 1988), while conspiratorial thinking is characteristic of
alienated thinkers on both the right and the left (Citrin, et al., 1975; Graumann, 1987;
Berlet, 1992). Even more surprisingly, however, conspiratorial thinking has not been a
focus of the efforts to measure "left-wing authoritarianism" (Stone, 1980; Eysenck, 1981;
LeVasseur & Gold, 1993) or of research with the "dogmatism" concept (Rokeach, 1960)
which was intended to overcome the ideological bias in authoritarianism measures.
On a more fundamental level, the difficulty with existing research traditions may be their
focus on the content of beliefs rather than the res[p]ondent's cognitive processes or
emotional makeup. As I have argued elsewhere (Goertzel, 1987), most studies of
authoritarianism simply ask people what they believe and then assume that these beliefs
must be based on underlying psychological processes which go unmeasured. Since these
scales ask mostly about beliefs held by those on the right, it is not surprising that they
find authoritarianism to be a right-wing phenomenon. Research with projective tests
(Rothman and Lichter, 1982) and biographical materials (Goertzel, 1992), on the other hand,
has confirmed that many aspects of authoritarian thinking can be found on both the left and
the right.
Given how easy it is to create a conspiracy theory, most of them will be crazy.
Another problem with elite conspiracies is that elites usually do not have to act in
secret because they already are in control. For Kennedy, a centrist cold warrior, his views
already reflected those of elites, maybe even more so than Johnson.
The other problem is that actual criminal conspiracies by elites quite often are
discovered, such as Watergate and Iran Contra.
So, a conspiracy theory is a theory without media backing. There's no better recent
example of this than when the DNC emails were released by wikileaks during their convention.
The story put forth was that Russian hackers were responsible, and were trying to throw the
election to their buddy Trump. The evidence for this? Zero. And yet it became a plausible
explanation in the media, overnight.
Maybe it's true, maybe not, but if the roles had been reversed, the media would be telling
its proponents to take off their tin foil hats.
The British and Americans have been the victims of conspiracies (False Flag operations)
for years.
For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government
of Palestine) in which Zionist activists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with
explosives against the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44.
Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu, attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed
British and American cinemas, libraries and educational centers in Egypt to destabilize the
country and keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or June 8, 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following
over nine hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government
concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all
lives lost on the Egyptians and draw the US into the war.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the most recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that
seems to carry a lot of kudos with old Israeli ex-terrorist Likudniks. Israeli agents were
sent to film the historic day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations
including photos of themselves with a background of the burning towers where thousands of
Americans were being incinerated.
Iraq was destroyed as a result of 9/11 but unfortunately for the conspirators, the
momentum wasn't sufficient for a general war including Iran. Also the general war would have
included the nuclear angle and justified the activation of a neo-con led Emergency Regime
(dictatorship) in the US enforced with the newly printed Patriot Act and Homeland Security
troops – or maybe that's just another Conspiracy Theory?
Simplifying one "contradiction": Our elites have never been primarily anti-Russian or pro-Russian. Since 1946 our elites have been purely GLOBALIST, and their secondary feelings toward
Russia strictly follow from this primary goal.
At first Russia was an obstacle to globalism, blocking much of the UN's efforts. Our
elites were anti-Russian. After 1962 or so, Russia became the main driver of the UN, so our
elites were pro-Russian. Since 1989, Russia has been the guiding star for ANTI-globalist
forces, so our elites are FEROCIOUSLY anti-Russian.
Mr. Unz's direct confrontation with this topic leads me to feel a sense of sentimentality
or coming full circle as my "red-pilled" experience literally started with his The Myth of
American Meritocracy a little over 2 years ago (I finally looked into the "white
privilege" I was "highly exposed" to in college).
Long story short, I was a lazy liberal beforehand, now a highly motivated conservative;
nothing helps one get their ish together better than understanding the trajectory at which
our society is heading. The Myth of American Meritocracy singularly led me to have a
more open mind in understanding how non-congruent the mainstream narrative can be with man's
shared universal reality, and having spent way too much time in school learning research
methodology, I finally applied it via whim thereafter to criminal statistics (but we know
where this story ends), then WW2, the mainstream narrative of which I grew up worshiping
For someone who, when I was naive, hung on to every word one heard or read in the
countless amount of hours I've spent in American history classes, for me to learn the hard
way of Operation Keelhaul, the Haavara Agreement, the disease epidemic, the migrant crisis
(before hand), the hand THE banksters probably played (in playing both sides), and so
on, it becomes all too clear how amazingly systematically corrupt our academic system has
become. Not once did I ever hear one smidgen about those extremely large plot points; they're
so consistently implicitly left out of the script its terrifying.
Alternating to my freshman year of high school now, when I was still naive, I
complained to our just hired 22 year old (conveniently) Jewish teacher (fresh out of the Ivy
League but back to sacrifice where he had graduated high school, he had always reminded us)
over having to read about the Little Rock 9 and Ann Frank for literally (in my case) the 4th
time (each). Point is, even when I was entirely clueless, and had no defensive instinct at
all, it still didn't feel healthy to read over and over again; I was emotionally exhausted
already. I accepted their stories at face value, faced the guilt, and just wanted to move on,
yet according to my teacher I "lacked empathy" (so if only we were taught about how the Irish
were treated in the 17th we'd be fine). It really is this kind of dwelling on the past that
has been institutionalized, and its borderline brain-washing, regardless of the said
tragedy's validity.
There is one such particular event of WW2 that, once naive, I've personally cried over
more than any other historical event easily (perhaps even more than anything subjectively
experienced), much in thanks to programmed televising So what's so weird about all of this,
is its like a meta-intellectual betrayal, but with all the emotional connotations of a woman
who wronged you in all the worse ways (and she's inevitably waiting in seemingly every dark
corner of history you delve into, thus the "endless rabbit hole" you fall through). And its
this implicit brand of deceit that is patently feminine which can be inductively read from
the MSM to "read the tea leaves"
I could go on and on but really I initially just wanted to thank you Mr. Unz, your
publication, and your current and past writing staff. I don't even want to imagine a world
where I had never stumbled upon your work!
Perhaps the media tried too hard, were too eager to be complicit, and now they've
completely lost the plot. The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly
hostile media, suggests that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now
completely rejects entire media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And
they're panicking. Not knowing what to do, they double and triple down on the same fail that
got them into this mess. Truly interesting times.
I've often used the argument myself that conspiracies inevitably have short shelf lives in
the US because it was so difficult for Americans to keep secrets. The article makes a useful
point in suggesting that secret plots, even after being revealed, may nevertheless remain
widely ignored. Ideology, group-think, pack journalism etc. are powerful forces, often
subconsciously at work, preventing alternative theories from developing legs.
Though long an admirer of Karl Popper, I hadn't strongly associated him with attacks on
conspiracy theories per se. As an American "outsider" living abroad most of my adult life,
I've all too often encountered those who assumed my background alone explained an argument of
mine that they didn't like. Popper had hit the nail on the head when he wrote about
"a widespread and dangerous fashion of our time of not taking arguments seriously,
and at their face value, at least tentatively, but of seeing in them nothing but a way in
which deeper irrational motives and tendencies express themselves." It was "the
attitude of looking at once for the unconscious motives and determinants in the social
habitat of the thinker, instead of first examining the validity of the argument
itself."
The powerful nazi and communist ideologies of his day assumed that one's " blood "
or " class " precluded "correct" thinking. Those politically incorrect challengers to
their own totalitarian weltanschauung were (to put it mildly) persecuted as conspirators. No
doubt, as Ron Unz notes, Popper's personal experience "contributed the depth of his
feelings" ! I would say skepticism – about conspiracy claims.
But the author of the " Open Society " had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the
thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so
many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments
seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities
as well as venal collective interests.
One conspiracy theory is that some of the wilder, more incredible notions of what may have
taken place are deliberately circulated so as to muddy the waters and discredit those who
question the party line. For example, outlandish claims by some that no planes were crashed
on 9-11 but were really just holograms are seized upon by supposed debunkers as being
representative of all skeptics, overshadowing the more reasonable types who question the
narrative. This seems to be quite deliberate.
The mainstream American press is the freest in the world, we've been told endlessly, and at
some point I realized that I was reading these accolades to itself in the very same press.
Not the most objective source one comes to realize. Now on the internet it seems there are
those who appear to fan out everywhere to influence the discussion, spread their slogans and
shout down opposing ideas. Paid trolls and others?
Conspiracies exist. Consider the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication which certainly involved many
actors and yet the general public was kept in the dark about the real facts. The results need
not be rehashed yet again. There's a streak of denial in most people. They don't want to
contemplate the idea that FDR may have deliberately allowed American servicemen to die at
Pearl Harbor in order to get the war he wanted. Stepping back from it all to get a long
distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American
political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in.
One can only hope. This time he mentioned 9/11! so that base is covered; no need to say
more about that than that; besides I doubt even he could add to what has already been
published and posted on this site re that Big Lie. I would like to see how he weighs all the
evidence on RFK's assassination, what he would be willing to call what looks like nothing as
much as what MK-Ultra was about.
@Miro23 The British and Americans have been the victims of conspiracies (False Flag
operations) for years.
For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government
of Palestine) in which Zionist activists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with
explosives against the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44.
Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu, attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed
British and American cinemas, libraries and educational centers in Egypt to destabilize the
country and keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or June 8, 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following
over nine hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government
concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all
lives lost on the Egyptians and draw the US into the war.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the most recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that
seems to carry a lot of kudos with old Israeli ex-terrorist Likudniks. Israeli agents were
sent to film the historic day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations
including photos of themselves with a background of the burning towers where thousands of
Americans were being incinerated.
Iraq was destroyed as a result of 9/11 but unfortunately for the conspirators, the
momentum wasn't sufficient for a general war including Iran. Also the general war would have
included the nuclear angle and justified the activation of a neo-con led Emergency Regime
(dictatorship) in the US enforced with the newly printed Patriot Act and Homeland Security
troops - or maybe that's just another Conspiracy Theory? I accept that your explanation of
the attack on USS Liberty is relatively plausible but another which runs it close is that
Israel had to ensure that there was no proof left of the true order of events which were not
in accordance with the Israeli official version. So I ask what are your sources?
Likewise, if you are saying that suicidal hijackers flew planes into buildings on 9/11 but
that it was organised by Mossad or other Israelis your story needs a lot of filling out and
evidence to be credible. Or are you merely saying the Israelis knew what was going to
happen and let it go ahead because it could be turned to their advantage?
@anonymous One conspiracy theory is that some of the wilder, more incredible notions of
what may have taken place are deliberately circulated so as to muddy the waters and discredit
those who question the party line. For example, outlandish claims by some that no planes were
crashed on 9-11 but were really just holograms are seized upon by supposed debunkers as being
representative of all skeptics, overshadowing the more reasonable types who question the
narrative. This seems to be quite deliberate.
The mainstream American press is the freest in the world, we've been told endlessly, and at
some point I realized that I was reading these accolades to itself in the very same press.
Not the most objective source one comes to realize. Now on the internet it seems there are
those who appear to fan out everywhere to influence the discussion, spread their slogans and
shout down opposing ideas. Paid trolls and others?
Conspiracies exist. Consider the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication which certainly involved many
actors and yet the general public was kept in the dark about the real facts. The results need
not be rehashed yet again. There's a streak of denial in most people. They don't want to
contemplate the idea that FDR may have deliberately allowed American servicemen to die at
Pearl Harbor in order to get the war he wanted. Stepping back from it all to get a long
distance view one can see the patterns of deceit and manipulation all throughout American
political life. It's not just incidental but rather is built in.
Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit
and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but
rather is built in.
Is this built-in deceit and manipulation unique to American life, or ! beyond the usual
understandings about human nature ! is the systematic or institutionalized "deceit and
manipulation" present in all cultures? in western cultures? in some but not all cultures? If
the lattermost, in which cultures is "deceit and manipulation" less systematic and
institutionalized?
Was "deceit and manipulation" institutionalized into American life from the beginning ! by
the Founders, or did USA deviate from its intended path at some point? If so, at what point?
How did it happen?
Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit
and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but
rather is built in.
Is this built-in deceit and manipulation unique to American life, or -- beyond
the usual understandings about human nature -- is the systematic or institutionalized "deceit
and manipulation" present in all cultures? in western cultures? in some but not all cultures?
If the lattermost, in which cultures is "deceit and manipulation" less systematic and
institutionalized?
Was "deceit and manipulation" institutionalized into American life from the beginning --
by the Founders, or did USA deviate from its intended path at some point? If so, at what
point? How did it happen?
Is there the possibility of redemption? It would be worth considering the different
contributions to truth telling and also honest scepticism of the Puritan and other Protestant
culture, and of the Enlightenment for a start. Some subjects were difficult – like
whether there is a God for all Christians and of course the one that must have addled many
brains: slavery.
Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss
actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version of
Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous about
Strauss.
The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall–and I
have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?–is on
Thoughts on Machiavelli . Strauss does so, first and foremost, because conspiracy is a
major theme of Machiavelli's and the subject of the two longest chapters of his two most
important books ( Prince 19 and Discourses III 6). Strauss further develops the
idea that modern philosophy begins as a conspiracy between Machiavelli and (some of) his
readers. Strauss simply never said anything like this:
Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally
harsh in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind,
elite conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense
against anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping
them hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy
theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore
their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a
matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the
unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies.
As for his relationship with neoconservatism, you also overstate that considerably. Yes,
there are many neoconservative Straussians. But there are also Straussian paleos, tradcons,
liberatarians, liberals, and moderates. There are many who are apolitical and interested only
in abstract philosophy. There are Straussian religious conservatives, agnostics and atheists.
Christians, Jews and Muslim. Catholic, Protestants and Mormons. The neocons just get all the
attention–owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible 2003 article by
James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account of neocon
Straussians controlling the Bush administration, which everyone today believes without having
read, or even being aware of (have/are you?).
If "neocon" has any meaning, it means, first, a former intellectual liberal who has
drifted right. Second, a domestic policy scholar who focuses on data-driven social science.
And third, a foreign policy hawk.
None of these really apply to Strauss, who spent his who career studying political
philosophy, with an intense focus on the Greeks. He voted Dem in every election in which he
could vote, until his last, 1972, when he voted for Nixon out of Cold War concerns. You might
say that makes him a "hawk" but he never wrote any essays saying so. He simply told a few
people privately that McGovern was too naïve about the Soviets. You might also say that
is evidence that he "drifted right" but he didn't think so. He apparently considered himself
a Cold War liberal until his death. As for data-driven social science, he famously attacked
it in of the very few of his writings that ever got any attention in mainstream political
science ("An Epilogue").
You may well be right about the CIA's role in popularizing the phrase "conspiracy theory."
But Leo Strauss had nothing to do with it. Or, if he did, he hid his role exceptionally well,
because there is no evidence of such in his writings.
@Gene Tuttle I've often used the argument myself that conspiracies inevitably have short
shelf lives in the US because it was so difficult for Americans to keep secrets. The article
makes a useful point in suggesting that secret plots, even after being revealed, may
nevertheless remain widely ignored. Ideology, group-think, pack journalism etc. are powerful
forces, often subconsciously at work, preventing alternative theories from developing
legs.
Though long an admirer of Karl Popper, I hadn't strongly associated him with attacks on
conspiracy theories per se. As an American "outsider" living abroad most of my adult life,
I've all too often encountered those who assumed my background alone explained an argument of
mine that they didn't like. Popper had hit the nail on the head when he wrote about
"a widespread and dangerous fashion of our time...of not taking arguments seriously, and
at their face value, at least tentatively, but of seeing in them nothing but a way in which
deeper irrational motives and tendencies express themselves." It was "the attitude
of looking at once for the unconscious motives and determinants in the social habitat of
the thinker, instead of first examining the validity of the argument itself."
The powerful nazi and communist ideologies of his day assumed that one's "
blood " or " class " precluded "correct" thinking. Those politically incorrect
challengers to their own totalitarian weltanschauung were (to put it mildly) persecuted as
conspirators. No doubt, as Ron Unz notes, Popper's personal experience "contributed the
depth of his feelings" -- I would say skepticism – about conspiracy claims.
But the author of the " Open Society " had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the
thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so
many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments
seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities
as well as venal collective interests. "But the author of the "Open Society" had an open mind
and I suspect he'd find the thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered
and largely ignored because so many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and
"not taking arguments seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions,
professional insecurities as well as venal collective interests."
Possibly as in the JFK case? I actually watched Lee Harvey Oswald get drilled by the man
who was later identified as Jack Ruby (real surname "Rubenstein") live on television. The
minute it happened and even at age 16 at the time I smelled a rat. Who was ultimately behind
it all is something which I can't answer and care not to speculate upon, but to this day I
remain suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Oswald's death and Ruby's subsequent
dissembling.
It's good to see that Mr. Beard is getting some well deserved good press. It's also good
to have people put on alert about Leo Strauss; his name should be a household word, and that
of derision. I first learned of the fool at LewRockwell.com, and I feel it's worth investigating him as
a source of the goofy neocon outlook that the world's been suffering under for decades. "Strauss, who opposed the idea of individual rights, maintained that neither the ancient
world nor the Christian envisioned strict, absolute limits on state power. Straussian neoconservatism is not conservatism as it has ever been understood in America
or anywhere else "
Here is a link to Carl Bernstein's definitive 1977 Rolling Stone article "CIA and the
Media" in which he addresses – and confirms – your worst fears. You are very
right, and no less a figure than Bernstein has said so for nearly four decades . . .
Popper and Strauss. Neoliberal thought unites with neoconservative thought. Explicitly
different rationales, but the same goals and the same method of achieving those goals. Sounds
like target marketing of the two biggest target markets of American exceptionalism –
dumb and dumber. Apparently critical thinkers are a minority that they believe can be easily
marginalized.
@JL Perhaps the media tried too hard, were too eager to be complicit, and now they've
completely lost the plot. The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly
hostile media, suggests that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now
completely rejects entire media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And
they're panicking. Not knowing what to do, they double and triple down on the same fail that
got them into this mess. Truly interesting times.
Thanks, Mr. Unz, for your "small webzine".
The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly hostile media, suggests
that a large part of the American public, consciously or not, now completely rejects entire
media narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And they're panicking.
Are they? Or, have they simply fired the first few rounds of easily-dispatched,
easily-targeted artillery? I do note that this is the most massive full-court press in
support of the oligarchy that I have ever seen. But, I sense that political wars have moved
from the court of public opinion and perception, into the courtyards of the moneyed elite.
Inasmuch as no rich person has ever believed that he or she has enough money and power, the
national political conflict is now composed solely of issues that affect the wealth and power
of the 0.1%, which is itself segmented into areas of economic focus and varying forms of
wealth acquisition. For example, if air transport systems threaten the wealth and power of
ocean-based shipping, that competition between oligarchs will morph into
politically-expressed contexts.
There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human
values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo.
Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit
and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but
rather is built in.
Is this built-in deceit and manipulation unique to American life, or -- beyond
the usual understandings about human nature -- is the systematic or institutionalized "deceit
and manipulation" present in all cultures? in western cultures? in some but not all cultures?
If the lattermost, in which cultures is "deceit and manipulation" less systematic and
institutionalized?
Was "deceit and manipulation" institutionalized into American life from the beginning --
by the Founders, or did USA deviate from its intended path at some point? If so, at what
point? How did it happen?
Is there the possibility of redemption?
Is there the possibility of redemption?
Of what is "redemption" constituted? Considering that fewer than 20% of American residents
during the Revolution were actually involved in the revolt, with an estimated 40% preferring
to retain the colony under monarchy, and considering that the ethical and political awareness
of the Average American and the Average Illegal Resident Alien have gone downhill from there,
can it honestly be said that there's enough true flavor of human rights and equal
access/opportunity to redeem?
The definition of a conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that traces them to a
secret network, and when presented with contradictory evidence, simply enlarges the network
of supposed conspirators rather than modifying the explanation.
LOL x 2. I think you're saying that the above is YOUR definition of "conspiracy
theory", not to be confused with any real and accurate definition of "conspiracy theory". No
what I have put is the generally accepted definition used in journalistic and sociological
works about conspiracy theory culture, e.g.
this book .
The great flaw in the Western system of "democratic" government is that hardly anyone
knows the meaning of the word "epistemology", let alone have any grasp of the underlying
challenge of knowing what they know, or rather knowing how little they know beyond what they
know from direct personal experience. This is a challenge made vastly more difficult in the
modern age when almost everything we know is derived not from personal experience, or from
other people of whose character and intellectual competence we have some personal knowledge,
but from the arrangement of ink on paper or of pixels on a video screen. To this problem,
there is probably no solution, although either a sharp restriction of the franchise to those
of some maturity and education, or a division of the franchise according to what each
particular individual could be expected to know something about, would be a step in the right
direction.
As it is, we will, inevitably, continue to be the target of high powered manipulation by
corporate owned media and other powerful interests.
Professor Lance Haven de Smith, whose book you mention is an expert on SCADS, or state
crimes against democracy. An article by him on this topic is available here .
There is some interesting academic material about SCADs here .
In spook circles, leaving [false] clues is referred to as inoculation. Refer to the work of Bill
McGuire in the late 50s and early 60s. For example, we here in Langley and Ft. Meade have
left intact on the internet the early picture of the 20′ entry hole left by the
"757″ in the facade of the pentagon before the explosion and complete collapse of the
exterior wall ..inviting the conspiratorial question " where are the wings, the mangled
cadavers, the tail?". This is all just too easy
Highly reccomend Chris Buckley's book.
"Little Green Men" The plot is that the entire UFO thing was set up after WW3 by the DOJ to
keep the money flowing. Like all Buckley's books, it's a great read. I stopped believing in anything written in newspapers around 1966 because they were so pro
black criminal and anti police
@biz No what I have put is the generally accepted definition used in journalistic and
sociological works about conspiracy theory culture, e.g.
this book .
No what I have put is the generally accepted definition used in journalistic and
sociological works about conspiracy theory culture, e.g. this book.
Journalism? Sociological works? You choose to quote even bigger liars as defining
"conspiracy theory"?
"A conspiracy theory is a belief that a secret conspiracy has actually been decisive in
producing a political event or evil outcome which the theorists strongly disapprove of. The
conspiracy theory typically identifies the conspirators, provides evidence that supposedly
links them together with an evil plan to harm the body politic, and may also point to a
supposed cover up by authorities or media who should have stopped the conspiracy. The duty of
the theorist is to pick from a myriad of facts and assumptions and reassemble them to form a
picture of the conspiracy, as in a jigsaw puzzle. A theorist may publicly identify specific
conspirators, and if they deny the allegations that is evidence they have been sworn to
secrecy and are probably guilty."
@Decius Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything
Strauss actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate
version of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and
libelous about Strauss.
The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall--and I have
read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?--is on Thoughts on
Machiavelli . Strauss does so, first and foremost, because conspiracy is a major theme of
Machiavelli's and the subject of the two longest chapters of his two most important books (
Prince 19 and Discourses III 6). Strauss further develops the idea that modern
philosophy begins as a conspiracy between Machiavelli and (some of) his readers. Strauss
simply never said anything like this:
Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh
in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite
conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against
anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them
hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy
theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore
their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a
matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the
unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies.
As for his relationship with neoconservatism, you also overstate that
considerably. Yes, there are many neoconservative Straussians. But there are also Straussian
paleos, tradcons, liberatarians, liberals, and moderates. There are many who are apolitical
and interested only in abstract philosophy. There are Straussian religious conservatives,
agnostics and atheists. Christians, Jews and Muslim. Catholic, Protestants and Mormons. The
neocons just get all the attention--owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible
2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account
of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration, which everyone today believes
without having read, or even being aware of (have/are you?).
If "neocon" has any meaning, it means, first, a former intellectual liberal who has
drifted right. Second, a domestic policy scholar who focuses on data-driven social science.
And third, a foreign policy hawk.
None of these really apply to Strauss, who spent his who career studying political
philosophy, with an intense focus on the Greeks. He voted Dem in every election in which he
could vote, until his last, 1972, when he voted for Nixon out of Cold War concerns. You might
say that makes him a "hawk" but he never wrote any essays saying so. He simply told a few
people privately that McGovern was too naïve about the Soviets. You might also say that
is evidence that he "drifted right" but he didn't think so. He apparently considered himself
a Cold War liberal until his death. As for data-driven social science, he famously attacked
it in of the very few of his writings that ever got any attention in mainstream political
science ("An Epilogue").
You may well be right about the CIA's role in popularizing the phrase "conspiracy theory."
But Leo Strauss had nothing to do with it. Or, if he did, he hid his role exceptionally well,
because there is no evidence of such in his writings. C Bradley Thompson was educated/trained
as a Straussian neoconservative, then got mugged by reality and started to re-assess
his own philosophical orientation.
One of the most interesting points Thompson makes in this discussion of his book,
Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, occurs in the Q&A segment when he
demonstrates that Strauss was, indeed, an acolyte of Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt
The best strategy is to foster implausible conspiracy theories to create a cloud of
disinformation. This technique was used very effectively after 9/11, such that it's very hard
to discuss a coverup without being labeled a truther.
@SolontoCroesus C Bradley Thompson was educated/trained as a Straussian neoconservative,
then got mugged by reality and started to re-assess his own philosophical
orientation.
One of the most interesting points Thompson makes in this discussion of his book,
Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, occurs in the Q&A segment when he
demonstrates that Strauss was, indeed, an acolyte of Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oh6DmjQaho @ 12 min, Thompson asserts that "Leo Strauss
was the most important influence on Irving Kristol's intellectual development. My book
reveals for the first time the importance of Kristol's 1952 review of Strauss's
Persecution and the Art of Writing . For me this is the Rosetta Stone . . .for
understanding the deepest layer of neoconservative political philosophy."
It should also be noted that Irving Kristol was sponsored by -- on the payroll of – the
CIA while still in Britain. Kristol has acknowledged that CIA support got his movement off
the ground.
@SolontoCroesus C Bradley Thompson was educated/trained as a Straussian neoconservative,
then got mugged by reality and started to re-assess his own philosophical
orientation.
One of the most interesting points Thompson makes in this discussion of his book,
Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, occurs in the Q&A segment when he
demonstrates that Strauss was, indeed, an acolyte of Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oh6DmjQaho No. Strauss and Schmitt were friendly in the
1930s but Strauss was critical of Schmitt's work even then and said so. Schmitt himself said
that Strauss had "seen right through" his arguments. Strauss was no acolyte of Schmitt's, he
was a greater and deeper thinker and Schmitt -- something Schmitt himself
acknowledged.
@SolontoCroesus @ 12 min, Thompson asserts that "Leo Strauss was the most important
influence on Irving Kristol's intellectual development. My book reveals for the first time
the importance of Kristol's 1952 review of Strauss's
Persecution and the Art of Writing . For me this is the Rosetta Stone . . .for
understanding the deepest layer of neoconservative political philosophy."
---
It should also be noted that Irving Kristol was sponsored by -- on the payroll of - the CIA
while still in Britain. Kristol has acknowledged that CIA support got his movement off the
ground. So what? That's one guy. How do we even know Kristol interpreted Strauss correctly?
Kristol's concerns–data-driven social science–were not Strauss's. And so on and
on.
But all that is a re-frame anyway. The charge from Unz is that Strauss is responsible,
partly, for the way Americans think about conspiracy today because Strauss advocated for
elite conspiracy. That's false and Unz can't back it up.
@Decius No. Strauss and Schmitt were friendly in the 1930s but Strauss was critical of
Schmitt's work even then and said so. Schmitt himself said that Strauss had "seen right
through" his arguments. Strauss was no acolyte of Schmitt's, he was a greater and deeper
thinker and Schmitt--something Schmitt himself acknowledged. This is complete nonsense.
Schmitt is a powerful and original thinker, Strauss a weak and derivative one whose real
sweet spot was academic politics.
@5371 This is complete nonsense. Schmitt is a powerful and original thinker, Strauss a
weak and derivative one whose real sweet spot was academic politics. Schmitt disagreed with
you.
@5371 This is complete nonsense. Schmitt is a powerful and original thinker, Strauss a
weak and derivative one whose real sweet spot was academic politics. At any rate it's sort of
absurd to watch you people chase your tails. All that you "know" or think you know is that
Strauss is bad. But Schmitt is good. But Strauss is derivative of Schmitt. Doesn't that make
Strauss good, or Schmitt bad?
Schmitt is famous for arguing in favor of the essential particularity of
politics -- i.e., against alleged neocon universalism. So if Strauss is derivative of
Schmitt, how can he be a neocon universalist?
Strauss in fact agrees with Schmitt on the essential particularity of politics and says
so, but finds a deeper source, with deeper arguments, in Plato. Schmitt admitted that his own
attempt to fortify his particularism was build on the quick-sandy foundation of modern
rationalism, which Strauss taught him to see through.
@anonymous Pearl Harbor (covered in "Day of Deceit") is good starting point. I strongly
encourage Mr. Unz to read Robert Stinnet's book next before moving on.
FDR never intended that 2,400 Americans would die there. He just thought that if Japan
"struck first", he could justify our entry into WWII to the public. What's really fascinating
(and almost wholly unknown) is the sequence of events and headlines from December 8 to
December 11, 1941, the date Hitler declared war on the USA.
While Pearl Harbor meant war with Japan, it did not necessarily guarantee war with Nazi
Germany. For 72 hours, no one could be sure that Germany would declare war on us. Did FDR
manipulate events post-Pearl Harbor to ensure it did happen? "FDR never intended that 2,400
Americans would die there."
Did he think our forces at Pearl, lacking needed intelligence, would limit the losses to a
lesser number?
@Decius So what? That's one guy. How do we even know Kristol interpreted Strauss
correctly? Kristol's concerns -- data-driven social science -- were not Strauss's. And so on and
on.
But all that is a re-frame anyway. The charge from Unz is that Strauss is responsible,
partly, for the way Americans think about conspiracy today because Strauss advocated for
elite conspiracy. That's false and Unz can't back it up.
The charge from Unz is that Strauss is responsible, partly, for the way Americans think
about conspiracy today because Strauss advocated for elite conspiracy. That's false and
Unz can't back it up.
Can't back it up or has not done so, so far?
The day is young . . . the moon has not yet appeared in the eastern sky.
Some conspiracies are eventually acknowledged. For recent examples, our government finally
admitted that our CIA overthrew the government of Iran in the 1950s. The sinking of the
Lusitania because it carried tons of munitions and weapons during WW I has been mostly
accepted since 1982, after the sunken ship was discovered and searched by divers. For
example, Encyclopedia Britannica:
"The Lusitania was carrying a cargo of rifle ammunition and shells (together about 173
tons), and the Germans, who had circulated warnings that the ship would be sunk, felt
themselves fully justified in attacking a vessel that was furthering the war aims of their
enemy. The German government also felt that, in view of the vulnerability of U-boats while on
the surface and the British announcement of intentions to arm merchant ships, prior warning
of potential targets was impractical."
If we truly had aggressive news competition in the USA, this story would remain in the
headlines, but of course its implications are not acceptable. However, stories about Russian
hackers persist with no hard evidence.
The rise of Trump, in the face of a completely and uniformly hostile media, suggests that a
large part of the American public, consciously or not, now completely rejects entire media
narratives and assumes the exact opposite to be true. And they're panicking.
Are they? Or, have they simply fired the first few rounds of easily-dispatched,
easily-targeted artillery? I do note that this is the most massive full-court press in
support of the oligarchy that I have ever seen. But, I sense that political wars have moved
from the court of public opinion and perception, into the courtyards of the moneyed elite.
Inasmuch as no rich person has ever believed that he or she has enough money and power, the
national political conflict is now composed solely of issues that affect the wealth and power
of the 0.1%, which is itself segmented into areas of economic focus and varying forms of
wealth acquisition. For example, if air transport systems threaten the wealth and power of
ocean-based shipping, that competition between oligarchs will morph into
politically-expressed contexts.
There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human
values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo. I suppose my
comment came off somewhat like unbridled, naive optimism. Your points are unquestionably
valid, however, and I am disinclined to argue. Of course Trump represents the interests of
certain groups of elites and is not merely the essence of a popular movement. I'll be honest,
though, I'm having a tough time determining who these groups are, exactly.
Just like with Brexit, these events don't happen without powerful manipulation from
somewhere within the 0.1%. Still, it's tough for me to imagine what a Trump presidency will
even look like. Who will be in his cabinet, from what backgrounds will they come?
There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human
values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo.
Certainly not. What are fundamentally important questions for us are merely means to an
end for them.
Beard was an interesting guy, but's let's not forget that his central thesis regarding the
founding of this country doesn't hold up to historical scrutiny:
Meanwhile, I think it helps to think about conspiracies philosophically ! rigorous thought
can help clear up sloppy thinking (which is found in many such theories):
With respect to conspiracies, there are two equally absurd extreme views which distract
from reality: one is the childish rejection of all conspiracy theories and the other the
childish belief that every appreciable newsworthy event with a political, economic or social
impact is the result of a nefarious conspiracy. The truth, of course, is to be found in the
middle....
The charge from Unz is that Strauss is responsible, partly, for the way Americans think
about conspiracy today because Strauss advocated for elite conspiracy. That's false and
Unz can't back it up.
Can't back it up or has not done so, so far? The day is young . . . the moon has not yet appeared in the eastern sky. I know Strauss's
books. I am guessing that Unz does not because if he did, he would not attribute to Strauss
what he did. At any rate, even if Unz does know the books, I fail to see what passages he
could cite to support the paragraph that I highlighted. As noted, the claim sounds vaguely derivative of Drury, who hates Strauss (and gets
everything wrong) but even she doesn't quite say what Unz says.
@Decius Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything
Strauss actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate
version of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and
libelous about Strauss.
The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall--and I have
read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?--is on Thoughts on
Machiavelli . Strauss does so, first and foremost, because conspiracy is a major theme of
Machiavelli's and the subject of the two longest chapters of his two most important books (
Prince 19 and Discourses III 6). Strauss further develops the idea that modern
philosophy begins as a conspiracy between Machiavelli and (some of) his readers. Strauss
simply never said anything like this:
Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh
in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite
conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against
anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them
hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy
theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore
their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a
matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the
unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies.
As for his relationship with neoconservatism, you also overstate that
considerably. Yes, there are many neoconservative Straussians. But there are also Straussian
paleos, tradcons, liberatarians, liberals, and moderates. There are many who are apolitical
and interested only in abstract philosophy. There are Straussian religious conservatives,
agnostics and atheists. Christians, Jews and Muslim. Catholic, Protestants and Mormons. The
neocons just get all the attention--owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible
2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account
of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration, which everyone today believes
without having read, or even being aware of (have/are you?).
If "neocon" has any meaning, it means, first, a former intellectual liberal who has
drifted right. Second, a domestic policy scholar who focuses on data-driven social science.
And third, a foreign policy hawk.
None of these really apply to Strauss, who spent his who career studying political
philosophy, with an intense focus on the Greeks. He voted Dem in every election in which he
could vote, until his last, 1972, when he voted for Nixon out of Cold War concerns. You might
say that makes him a "hawk" but he never wrote any essays saying so. He simply told a few
people privately that McGovern was too naïve about the Soviets. You might also say that
is evidence that he "drifted right" but he didn't think so. He apparently considered himself
a Cold War liberal until his death. As for data-driven social science, he famously attacked
it in of the very few of his writings that ever got any attention in mainstream political
science ("An Epilogue").
You may well be right about the CIA's role in popularizing the phrase "conspiracy theory."
But Leo Strauss had nothing to do with it. Or, if he did, he hid his role exceptionally well,
because there is no evidence of such in his writings.
Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss
actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version
of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous
about Strauss. The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can
recall–and I have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?
.The neocons just get all the attention–owing again, in part to Drury and in part to
one terrible 2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly
became THE account of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration He apparently
considered himself a Cold War liberal until his death.
I'll candidly admit I haven't read a single one of Strauss's own books, nor even that very
influential James Atlas article you dislike so intensely. Instead, I was merely summarizing
the extensive arguments of Prof. deHaven-Smith, who, as a prominent political scientist, is
presumably quite familiar with Strauss, though I don't doubt that his views might differ
considerably from your own.
But on your second point, I do remember seeing a very amusing private letter of Strauss
that came to light about a decade or so ago. Written shortly after his arrival in America, it
was addressed to a fellow ultra-rightwing Jewish exile from Europe, and in it he praised
fascism and (I think) Nazism to the skies, arguing that their regrettable deviation into
"anti-Semitism" (which had precipitated his own personal exile from Germany) should in no way
be considered a refutation of all the other wonderful aspects of those political doctrines.
This leads me to wonder if Strauss was truly the "liberal" you suggest, or perhaps was
instead engaging in exactly the sort of "ideological crypsis" that seems such an important
part of his political philosophy
It's likely my faulty memory may have garbled important aspects of the letter I mention,
and given your expertise on Straussian issues, I'm sure you should be able to locate it and
easily correct me.
Stepping back from it all to get a long distance view one can see the patterns of deceit
and manipulation all throughout American political life. It's not just incidental but
rather is built in.
Is this built-in deceit and manipulation unique to American life, or -- beyond
the usual understandings about human nature -- is the systematic or institutionalized "deceit
and manipulation" present in all cultures? in western cultures? in some but not all cultures?
If the lattermost, in which cultures is "deceit and manipulation" less systematic and
institutionalized?
Was "deceit and manipulation" institutionalized into American life from the beginning --
by the Founders, or did USA deviate from its intended path at some point? If so, at what
point? How did it happen?
Is there the possibility of redemption? To my mind, the real point of deviation in the
history of the United States is the Spanish American War, and the transformation of America
from a tellurocratic to a thallasocratic power. America's traditional role had been that of a
vast, continental, land based power, eschewing intervention in the affairs of Europe and the
rest of the world outside the Western Hemisphere. (This is largely the reason that the
Russian Czar allied with the Union in the American Civil War).
Unfortunately, America's traditional tellurocratic role was abandonded – thanks to
the likes of Admiral ("Victory through Sea Power") Mahan, John Hay, and the loopy Teddy
Roosevelt, inter alia – and the nation went on to embrace the role of international
arbiter and busybody, and became insatiable in the pursuit of empire, with catastrophic
results for the world.
@5371 This is a good piece which deserved an acceptable level of mental hygiene in the
comment section. Unfortunately, two of the first nine comments are from morons spamming their
"no lunar landing" drivel. In all probability the "no nuclear weapons" clowns will also be
here imminently. Oh well, a delicious sweet dish will attract a fly as much as a gourmet. [Oh
well, a delicious sweet dish will attract a fly as much as a gourmet.]
LOL. I'll compile a mental list of both. Aren't the comments missing someone btw?
Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss
actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version
of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous
about Strauss. The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can
recall–and I have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do
you?....The neocons just get all the attention–owing again, in part to Drury and in
part to one terrible 2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but
quickly became THE account of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration...He
apparently considered himself a Cold War liberal until his death.
I'll candidly admit I haven't read a single one of Strauss's own books, nor even
that very influential James Atlas article you dislike so intensely. Instead, I was merely
summarizing the extensive arguments of Prof. deHaven-Smith, who, as a prominent political
scientist, is presumably quite familiar with Strauss, though I don't doubt that his views
might differ considerably from your own.
But on your second point, I do remember seeing a very amusing private letter of Strauss
that came to light about a decade or so ago. Written shortly after his arrival in America, it
was addressed to a fellow ultra-rightwing Jewish exile from Europe, and in it he praised
fascism and (I think) Nazism to the skies, arguing that their regrettable deviation into
"anti-Semitism" (which had precipitated his own personal exile from Germany) should in no way
be considered a refutation of all the other wonderful aspects of those political doctrines.
This leads me to wonder if Strauss was truly the "liberal" you suggest, or perhaps was
instead engaging in exactly the sort of "ideological crypsis" that seems such an important
part of his political philosophy...
It's likely my faulty memory may have garbled important aspects of the letter I mention,
and given your expertise on Straussian issues, I'm sure you should be able to locate it and
easily correct me. The letter you are referring to is a letter to Karl Lowith from 1933. The
most sustained–not to say serious–attempt to make it say that Strauss is coming
out as a fascist has been the work of William Altman. I don't think he even comes close to
making his case.
The letter can more charitably and reasonably read as a frank acknowledgement of the
failure of Weimar liberalism and of liberalism generally precisely to take into account
nationalist sentiment but instead to "universalize" all particulars without due attention to
differing conditions, circumstances, "matter," and so on. In other words, Strauss is
defending the "concept of the political" both from liberal universalism and from the
simple-minded identification of particularism (or nationalism) with fascism. Sound familiar?
All nationalist sentiment is fascism, Trump is a Nazi, and so on. An "argument" as old as
hills and which Strauss saw through immediately.
Once again, though, the tail is chased. How can Strauss be both a universalist neo-con and
a particularist-nationalist-fascist at the same time? The only common thread is: Strauss is
bad.
In my view, Strauss is good. More to the point, I find stronger intellectual support in
Strauss for my own nationalist leanings and pro-Trump_vs_deep_state than I find in any other
intellectual source of any depth. I am in the minority among Straussians in thinking so, but
I am not alone. Morevoer, I think in open debate, I have a stronger case for Straussian
particularism than others can make for Straussian universalism.
And, not incidentally, none of this points to any such views on conspiracy as you put into
Strauss's mouth.
If government doesn't believe in conspiracies, why have secret services in the first
place? Either they want to thwart conspiracies or they are creating their own or both.
Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything Strauss
actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate version
of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and libelous
about Strauss. The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can
recall–and I have read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do
you?....The neocons just get all the attention–owing again, in part to Drury and in
part to one terrible 2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but
quickly became THE account of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration...He
apparently considered himself a Cold War liberal until his death.
I'll candidly admit I haven't read a single one of Strauss's own books, nor even
that very influential James Atlas article you dislike so intensely. Instead, I was merely
summarizing the extensive arguments of Prof. deHaven-Smith, who, as a prominent political
scientist, is presumably quite familiar with Strauss, though I don't doubt that his views
might differ considerably from your own.
But on your second point, I do remember seeing a very amusing private letter of Strauss
that came to light about a decade or so ago. Written shortly after his arrival in America, it
was addressed to a fellow ultra-rightwing Jewish exile from Europe, and in it he praised
fascism and (I think) Nazism to the skies, arguing that their regrettable deviation into
"anti-Semitism" (which had precipitated his own personal exile from Germany) should in no way
be considered a refutation of all the other wonderful aspects of those political doctrines.
This leads me to wonder if Strauss was truly the "liberal" you suggest, or perhaps was
instead engaging in exactly the sort of "ideological crypsis" that seems such an important
part of his political philosophy...
It's likely my faulty memory may have garbled important aspects of the letter I mention,
and given your expertise on Straussian issues, I'm sure you should be able to locate it and
easily correct me. While I've read nothing by Prof. deHaven-Smith, from what you've written,
he and DiLorenzo would probably agree.
Here's a short but readable eval of Strauss' ideas, and DiLorenzo is one academician whom
I somewhat trust.:
@JL I suppose my comment came off somewhat like unbridled, naive optimism. Your points
are unquestionably valid, however, and I am disinclined to argue. Of course Trump represents
the interests of certain groups of elites and is not merely the essence of a popular
movement. I'll be honest, though, I'm having a tough time determining who these groups are,
exactly.
Just like with Brexit, these events don't happen without powerful manipulation from
somewhere within the 0.1%. Still, it's tough for me to imagine what a Trump presidency will
even look like. Who will be in his cabinet, from what backgrounds will they come?
There is absolutely no concern, anywhere within the dominion of the 0.1%, with human
values, human rights, or any of that sort of ethically-principled hoo-hoo.
Certainly not. What are fundamentally important questions for us are merely
means to an end for them.
Of course Trump represents the interests of certain groups of elites and is not merely
the essence of a popular movement. I'll be honest, though, I'm having a tough time
determining who these groups are, exactly.
Yes, and how many players, each with what orientation and degree of focus? The 0.1%
population contains 10,000 – 50,00o potential players, globally.
It is my opinion that the extremely-high degree of corruption, within the mighty engine of
resource consumption and bribery that is the US government, contributes greatly to the "big
picture" of ongoing conflict among the members of the oligarchy.
@Decius Your characterization of Strauss on conspiracy has almost no basis in anything
Strauss actually wrote. I would bet that you are presenting a dumbed -down and inaccurate
version of Shadia Drury's books on Strauss, which are themselves abysmally inaccurate and
libelous about Strauss.
The only place Strauss discusses conspiracy thematically that I can recall--and I have
read all his books several times, and still read them; have/do you?--is on Thoughts on
Machiavelli . Strauss does so, first and foremost, because conspiracy is a major theme of
Machiavelli's and the subject of the two longest chapters of his two most important books (
Prince 19 and Discourses III 6). Strauss further develops the idea that modern
philosophy begins as a conspiracy between Machiavelli and (some of) his readers. Strauss
simply never said anything like this:
Meanwhile, Strauss, a founding figure in modern neo-conservative thought, was equally harsh
in his attacks upon conspiracy analysis, but for polar-opposite reasons. In his mind, elite
conspiracies were absolutely necessary and beneficial, a crucial social defense against
anarchy or totalitarianism, but their effectiveness obviously depended upon keeping them
hidden from the prying eyes of the ignorant masses. His main problem with "conspiracy
theories" was not that they were always false, but they might often be true, and therefore
their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth functioning of society. So as a
matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress or otherwise undercut the
unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies.
As for his relationship with neoconservatism, you also overstate that
considerably. Yes, there are many neoconservative Straussians. But there are also Straussian
paleos, tradcons, liberatarians, liberals, and moderates. There are many who are apolitical
and interested only in abstract philosophy. There are Straussian religious conservatives,
agnostics and atheists. Christians, Jews and Muslim. Catholic, Protestants and Mormons. The
neocons just get all the attention--owing again, in part to Drury and in part to one terrible
2003 article by James Atlas, which no one these days has read, but quickly became THE account
of neocon Straussians controlling the Bush administration, which everyone today believes
without having read, or even being aware of (have/are you?).
If "neocon" has any meaning, it means, first, a former intellectual liberal who has
drifted right. Second, a domestic policy scholar who focuses on data-driven social science.
And third, a foreign policy hawk.
None of these really apply to Strauss, who spent his who career studying political
philosophy, with an intense focus on the Greeks. He voted Dem in every election in which he
could vote, until his last, 1972, when he voted for Nixon out of Cold War concerns. You might
say that makes him a "hawk" but he never wrote any essays saying so. He simply told a few
people privately that McGovern was too naïve about the Soviets. You might also say that
is evidence that he "drifted right" but he didn't think so. He apparently considered himself
a Cold War liberal until his death. As for data-driven social science, he famously attacked
it in of the very few of his writings that ever got any attention in mainstream political
science ("An Epilogue").
You may well be right about the CIA's role in popularizing the phrase "conspiracy theory."
But Leo Strauss had nothing to do with it. Or, if he did, he hid his role exceptionally well,
because there is no evidence of such in his writings. Actually I don't think Ron is so far
off. And I think, at best, you must be overeducated. Strauss held that authentic
philosophy is a conspiracy . From there, certain practical advice about how to carry out
the philosophy of the true philosopher follows. Such advice would about seem to be how Ron
said it was.
I have not read the essay by Atlas. But for the duration of the Bush Administration I did
read the Weekly Standard. I recall in particular one time when the editors recommended what
books to bring to the beach, and Bill Kristol said "anything by Leo Strauss." My impression
is that the Weekly Standard's brazen propaganda back then was the way certain editors
understood themselves to be acting like Strauss's true disciples.
And of course now Krystol is hocking a former spook to run against Trump in Utah.
@Decius The letter you are referring to is a letter to Karl Lowith from 1933. The most
sustained--not to say serious--attempt to make it say that Strauss is coming out as a fascist
has been the work of William Altman. I don't think he even comes close to making his
case.
The letter can more charitably and reasonably read as a frank acknowledgement of the
failure of Weimar liberalism and of liberalism generally precisely to take into account
nationalist sentiment but instead to "universalize" all particulars without due attention to
differing conditions, circumstances, "matter," and so on. In other words, Strauss is
defending the "concept of the political" both from liberal universalism and from the
simple-minded identification of particularism (or nationalism) with fascism. Sound familiar?
All nationalist sentiment is fascism, Trump is a Nazi, and so on. An "argument" as old as
hills and which Strauss saw through immediately.
Once again, though, the tail is chased. How can Strauss be both a universalist neo-con and
a particularist-nationalist-fascist at the same time? The only common thread is: Strauss is
bad.
In my view, Strauss is good. More to the point, I find stronger intellectual support in
Strauss for my own nationalist leanings and pro-Trump_vs_deep_state than I find in any other
intellectual source of any depth. I am in the minority among Straussians in thinking so, but
I am not alone. Morevoer, I think in open debate, I have a stronger case for Straussian
particularism than others can make for Straussian universalism.
And, not incidentally, none of this points to any such views on conspiracy as you put into
Strauss's mouth.
The letter you are referring to is a letter to Karl Lowith from 1933. The most
sustained–not to say serious–attempt to make it say that Strauss is coming out
as a fascist has been the work of William Altman.
Well, I decided I might as well google up the letter, and found this extended discussion
in Harpers by someone who clearly dislikes Strauss and the Neocons, with a link to a full
translation of Strauss's controversial missive.
Offhand, it does indeed seem like I misremembered some of the details. Strauss apparently
didn't seem to like the Nazis very much, but it certainly sounds like he had positive
feelings towards the Fascists. In any event, the following excerpt makes me wonder whether he
was actually a "liberal," or merely pretended to be since his income probably depended upon
liberal donors and institutions
And, what concerns this matter: the fact that the new right-wing Germany does not
tolerate us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from
the principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles,
is it possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable
appeal to the droits imprescriptibles de l'homme(5) to protest against the shabby
abomination There is no reason to crawl to the cross, neither to the cross of liberalism,
as long as somewhere in the world there is a glimmer of the spark of the Roman thought.
By reading Ron's American Pravda series of columns, I am learning things that
otherwise I would not have known. I am developing a clearer understanding of the real
truth . This is an important contribution to my understanding of of reality! And I trust this because of the quality and earnestness of the source. This is all very much appreciated.
The letter you are referring to is a letter to Karl Lowith from 1933. The most
sustained–not to say serious–attempt to make it say that Strauss is coming out
as a fascist has been the work of William Altman.
Well, I decided I might as well google up the letter, and found this extended
discussion in Harpers by someone who clearly dislikes Strauss and the Neocons, with a link to
a full translation of Strauss's controversial missive.
Offhand, it does indeed seem like I misremembered some of the details. Strauss apparently
didn't seem to like the Nazis very much, but it certainly sounds like he had positive
feelings towards the Fascists. In any event, the following excerpt makes me wonder whether he
was actually a "liberal," or merely pretended to be since his income probably depended upon
liberal donors and institutions...
And, what concerns this matter: the fact that the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate
us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from the
principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it
possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable appeal to
the droits imprescriptibles de l'homme(5) to protest against the shabby abomination...There
is no reason to crawl to the cross, neither to the cross of liberalism, as long as
somewhere in the world there is a glimmer of the spark of the Roman thought.
What is a liberal? That's not a troll question. Strauss was above all a Socratic
and Socratic philosophy begins with "what is" questions. One of Strauss's books is entitled
Liberalism Ancient and Modern .
Strauss was apparently a liberal in the US context in that he mostly voted for Dems. He
also wrote one acerbically critical letter to National Review.
However, a mid-20th-century American liberal may have been many things, but unpatriotic or
nationalistic they were not. When liberalism turned with McGovern, Strauss looked elsewhere,
and then died a year later, so we don't know how his political outlook would, or would not,
have changed longer term. But at least in the 40s-60s, he was quite OK with Cold War American
liberals. That's perfectly consistent with the nationalist sentiment expressed in the letter
to Lowith. Also, Strauss was appalled by the dissoluteness of Weimar–and would become
appalled by the dissoluteness of the late 1960s. But America prior was not yet dissolute. And
he was appalled by Weimar's weakness. But America pre-Vietnam was not weak. Again, perfectly
consistent with the letter.
Strauss supported the Cold War because he thought the USSR was a real threat in the near
term and because he feared, on a higher plane, the imposition of "the universal and
homogenous state." He was opposed to that, whereas those to his left were for it. So was he
conservative?
Strauss transcends all these distinctions. That's not to say that they are meaningless.
Indeed, he would be the first to say that they are meaningful. But, like Tocqueville, Strauss
aimed to see not differently but further than the parties.
@Pat Casey Actually I don't think Ron is so far off. And I think, at best, you must be
overeducated. Strauss held that authentic philosophy is a conspiracy . From there,
certain practical advice about how to carry out the philosophy of the true philosopher
follows. Such advice would about seem to be how Ron said it was.
I have not read the essay by Atlas. But for the duration of the Bush Administration I did
read the Weekly Standard. I recall in particular one time when the editors recommended what
books to bring to the beach, and Bill Kristol said "anything by Leo Strauss." My impression
is that the Weekly Standard's brazen propaganda back then was the way certain editors
understood themselves to be acting like Strauss's true disciples.
And of course now Krystol is hocking a former spook to run against Trump in Utah. The
reduction of Strauss and all his concerns to TWS is not serious. Yes, Bill K loves Strauss.
That really doesn't prove much about Strauss either way. I believe, though of course cannot
prove since Strauss can't speak, that Strauss would have opposed the Iraq War. He would have
seen it as imprudent and prudence is the supreme virtue of the statesman.
You are sort of right about philosophy being a conspiracy, but wrong in the second half.
MODERN philosophy attempts to take the conspiracy public, so to speak, to act in the real
world. Ancient philosophy did not, or did so in a very limited, mitigating way, always with
caution, moderation, prudence, and a lack of messianic hopes or intentions. Strauss argued
his whole life for the superiority of the ancients to the moderns on this point (and on other
points).
So as a means of damage control, the CIA distributed a secret memo to all its field
offices requesting that they enlist their media assets in efforts to ridicule and attack
such critics as irrational supporters of "conspiracy theories."
And what do you know, the term "conspiracy theories" was non-existent in books before
JFK's assassination but took off right after, according to Google's Ngram Viewer: https://is.gd/GYioQZ
@Decius The reduction of Strauss and all his concerns to TWS is not serious. Yes, Bill K
loves Strauss. That really doesn't prove much about Strauss either way. I believe, though of
course cannot prove since Strauss can't speak, that Strauss would have opposed the Iraq War.
He would have seen it as imprudent and prudence is the supreme virtue of the statesman.
You are sort of right about philosophy being a conspiracy, but wrong in the second half.
MODERN philosophy attempts to take the conspiracy public, so to speak, to act in the real
world. Ancient philosophy did not, or did so in a very limited, mitigating way, always with
caution, moderation, prudence, and a lack of messianic hopes or intentions. Strauss argued
his whole life for the superiority of the ancients to the moderns on this point (and on other
points). Unless you give some evidence that Strauss was a Reptilian or at least that he was a
skeptic about the Moon landing there is no need for further discussion on Strauss here.
@Kirt Conspiracy is simply a plan or agreement by more than one person to do something
evil and then the pursuit of that plan. Secrecy may be needed for the success of a
conspiracy, but it is not essential to the definition. Were it essential to the definition,
you could never prove the existence of a conspiracy. Either secrecy would be maintained and
there would be little or no evidence or secrecy would not be maintained and the plan would
become known and by definition not be a conspiracy. "Conspiracy is simply a plan or agreement
by more than one person to do something evil and then the pursuit of that plan." but probably
everything think that what he does is good, not evil
@Chief Seattle So, a conspiracy theory is a theory without media backing. There's no
better recent example of this than when the DNC emails were released by wikileaks during
their convention. The story put forth was that Russian hackers were responsible, and were
trying to throw the election to their buddy Trump. The evidence for this? Zero. And yet it
became a plausible explanation in the media, overnight.
Maybe it's true, maybe not, but if the roles had been reversed, the media would be telling
its proponents to take off their tin foil hats. ahhh, but 'Russkie!/squirrel!' worked, didn't
it ? ? ?
virtually NOTHING about the actual content of the emails
what was hysterical, was a followup not too long afterwards, where pelosi 'warned' that there
might be a whole raft of other emails which said bad stuff and stuff, and, um, they were
-like- probably, um, all, uh, fake and stuff
it really is a funny tragi-comedy, isn't it ? ? ?
then why am i crying inside
@Decius The reduction of Strauss and all his concerns to TWS is not serious. Yes, Bill K
loves Strauss. That really doesn't prove much about Strauss either way. I believe, though of
course cannot prove since Strauss can't speak, that Strauss would have opposed the Iraq War.
He would have seen it as imprudent and prudence is the supreme virtue of the statesman.
You are sort of right about philosophy being a conspiracy, but wrong in the second half.
MODERN philosophy attempts to take the conspiracy public, so to speak, to act in the real
world. Ancient philosophy did not, or did so in a very limited, mitigating way, always with
caution, moderation, prudence, and a lack of messianic hopes or intentions. Strauss argued
his whole life for the superiority of the ancients to the moderns on this point (and on other
points).
The reduction of Strauss and all his concerns to TWS is not serious.
That's not what I did. Don't do that. You seemed to be saying the neo-cons do not hail
from the school of Strauss as this Atlas fellow said they did. I was saying they do,
according to them.
It was pretty obvious back then that the weekly standard was acting as an organ of the
bush administration more than a member of the media. I remember there was even a tepid
discussion about how we as journalist should feel about these fellas with one foot in the
media and one foot in the politics. Does that have anything to do with the style Strauss
bespoke? My understanding is that Strauss addressed his philosophy not to Princes but certain
among the reading public. That turns out to first of all mean political journalists who will
sacrifice the integrity of their profession for the sake of a particular kind of proud story
about the USA polity and its villains. Yes I do think people like Bill Krystol and Michael
Ledeen saw themselves in terms as dramatic as that.
You are sort of right about philosophy being a conspiracy, but wrong in the second half.
MODERN philosophy attempts to take the conspiracy public, so to speak, to act in the real
world. Ancient philosophy did not, or did so in a very limited, mitigating way, always with
caution, moderation, prudence, and a lack of messianic hopes or intentions. Strauss argued
his whole life for the superiority of the ancients to the moderns on this point (and on
other points).
You mean I was right about Strauss having a conspiracy theory of philosophy. I
didn't say anything about the second half. I read Paul Gottfried and I agree Strauss was a
ridiculous scholar. Of course I believe you when you say in so many words that Strauss did
not like philosophies that license mass movements of true believers. Full stop right there.
Now we can count back from all them and make this an exercise in splitting hairs. What
audience to be precise did Strauss exactly have in mind? Actually I don't think he deserves
that much credit; I don't think he really knew who he was writing for.
The reduction of Strauss and all his concerns to TWS is not serious.
That's not what I did. Don't do that. You seemed to be saying the neo-cons do
not hail from the school of Strauss as this Atlas fellow said they did. I was saying they do,
according to them.
It was pretty obvious back then that the weekly standard was acting as an organ of the
bush administration more than a member of the media. I remember there was even a tepid
discussion about how we as journalist should feel about these fellas with one foot in the
media and one foot in the politics. Does that have anything to do with the style Strauss
bespoke? My understanding is that Strauss addressed his philosophy not to Princes but certain
among the reading public. That turns out to first of all mean political journalists who will
sacrifice the integrity of their profession for the sake of a particular kind of proud story
about the USA polity and its villains. Yes I do think people like Bill Krystol and Michael
Ledeen saw themselves in terms as dramatic as that.
You are sort of right about philosophy being a conspiracy, but wrong in the second half.
MODERN philosophy attempts to take the conspiracy public, so to speak, to act in the real
world. Ancient philosophy did not, or did so in a very limited, mitigating way, always with
caution, moderation, prudence, and a lack of messianic hopes or intentions. Strauss argued
his whole life for the superiority of the ancients to the moderns on this point (and on
other points).
You mean I was right about Strauss having a conspiracy theory of
philosophy. I didn't say anything about the second half. I read Paul Gottfried and I agree
Strauss was a ridiculous scholar. Of course I believe you when you say in so many words that
Strauss did not like philosophies that license mass movements of true believers. Full stop
right there. Now we can count back from all them and make this an exercise in splitting
hairs. What audience to be precise did Strauss exactly have in mind? Actually I don't think
he deserves that much credit; I don't think he really knew who he was writing for.
I don't think he really knew who he was writing for.
Love it.
My theory is that they basically wrote anything that came to mind so long as no one could
pin 'em down to specifics, allowed them to keep paying the bills , afforded them a chance to
sound "profound," and to be somebody.
Pretty much all of the type are frauds and only fools (especially the pompous
quasi-scientific, pseudo intellectual, ones) take 'em seriously. I agree that the ancients
were much more honest but even they were recognized as BSers of high degree by the likes of
Aristophanes and Lucian of Samosata to name only two. (I named them because they make
particularly entertaining reading.)
I think the 20th century should be known as the Age of Pathetic Charlatans and I'm glad
it's over. May it and the endless gaggle of cheap morons it spawned never return.
The reduction of Strauss and all his concerns to TWS is not serious.
That's not what I did. Don't do that. You seemed to be saying the neo-cons do
not hail from the school of Strauss as this Atlas fellow said they did. I was saying they do,
according to them.
It was pretty obvious back then that the weekly standard was acting as an organ of the
bush administration more than a member of the media. I remember there was even a tepid
discussion about how we as journalist should feel about these fellas with one foot in the
media and one foot in the politics. Does that have anything to do with the style Strauss
bespoke? My understanding is that Strauss addressed his philosophy not to Princes but certain
among the reading public. That turns out to first of all mean political journalists who will
sacrifice the integrity of their profession for the sake of a particular kind of proud story
about the USA polity and its villains. Yes I do think people like Bill Krystol and Michael
Ledeen saw themselves in terms as dramatic as that.
You are sort of right about philosophy being a conspiracy, but wrong in the second half.
MODERN philosophy attempts to take the conspiracy public, so to speak, to act in the real
world. Ancient philosophy did not, or did so in a very limited, mitigating way, always with
caution, moderation, prudence, and a lack of messianic hopes or intentions. Strauss argued
his whole life for the superiority of the ancients to the moderns on this point (and on
other points).
You mean I was right about Strauss having a conspiracy theory of
philosophy. I didn't say anything about the second half. I read Paul Gottfried and I agree
Strauss was a ridiculous scholar. Of course I believe you when you say in so many words that
Strauss did not like philosophies that license mass movements of true believers. Full stop
right there. Now we can count back from all them and make this an exercise in splitting
hairs. What audience to be precise did Strauss exactly have in mind? Actually I don't think
he deserves that much credit; I don't think he really knew who he was writing for. Kristol is
a Straussian because he got a PhD in PolPhil from Harvard under Mansfield, who is a
Straussian. There is no necessary connection between Strauss's thought any of the main tenets
of Neo-conservatism. I've said, and you've all ignored, that Strauss attacked data-driven
social science, which is the original hallmark of neo-conservatism. A later hallmark (which
emerged after Strauss's death) was foreign policy hawkism. Unless you want to say that
Strauss's opposition to the USSR makes him a neo-con, in which case every Cold War liberal
going back to Truman was a neo-con. At which point the term has no meaning.
Strauss addresses scholars and potential philosophers. He has almost nothing to say about
the transient issues of his age. Based on his comments on what other thinkers had to say
about war (Thucydides above all) I believe we can infer that Strauss was generally in favor
of preparedness and wariness but otherwise anti-war in the general sense. If we may analogize
the Iraq War to the Sicilian Expedition we may say that Strauss probably would have opposed
the former as imprudent, just as he tacitly endorses T's judgement that the latter was
imprudent.
Strauss openly characterizes Machiavelli's approach to philosophy as a conspiracy, using
that word, but does not say it about any other thinker. However, his teaching that philosophy
is an inherently elite and very small enterprise may be fairly characterized as a
"conspiracy." however, before modernity, the nature of the conspiracy was to protect the
conspirators and the philosophic life, not a reform campaign. that's what it becomes under
modernity, which Strauss opposes. One of Strauss's aims in writing was to revive the ancient
idea of philosophy, its proper scope, and its proper relationship to society, which he
believed modernity had corrupted.
It is unfortunate that Strauss became a bogey-man to so many who have no idea what he said
or why. It happened rather recently and based on some very thin scholarship. Most of the
thing people try to pin on him are things that I and my friends oppose too. We just know they
don't trace to Strauss. In fact, the opposite is often true.
@Miro23 The British and Americans have been the victims of conspiracies (False Flag
operations) for years.
For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government
of Palestine) in which Zionist activists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with
explosives against the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44.
Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu, attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed
British and American cinemas, libraries and educational centers in Egypt to destabilize the
country and keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or June 8, 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following
over nine hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government
concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all
lives lost on the Egyptians and draw the US into the war.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the most recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that
seems to carry a lot of kudos with old Israeli ex-terrorist Likudniks. Israeli agents were
sent to film the historic day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations
including photos of themselves with a background of the burning towers where thousands of
Americans were being incinerated.
Iraq was destroyed as a result of 9/11 but unfortunately for the conspirators, the
momentum wasn't sufficient for a general war including Iran. Also the general war would have
included the nuclear angle and justified the activation of a neo-con led Emergency Regime
(dictatorship) in the US enforced with the newly printed Patriot Act and Homeland Security
troops - or maybe that's just another Conspiracy Theory? So true!
But you forgot the two missiles shot from a NATO naval and HQ base in Spain towards Damascus,
shot down by the Russians (two weeks before the "agreement" on chemical weapons, remember?)
and then attributed to Israel's drills turned wrong
One resents (first), and eventually hates whom they have to lie to. In what regard would
our elites, in our electoral democracy, hold us voters in (by now)?
Kinda answers itself doesn't it?
Popper's point about conspiracy theories really makes no sense. This is the assumption
that a conspiracy is like a start-up, one that requires lots of transparency to work because
of the need to recruit members for the conspiracy. As soon as one member disagrees, the
conspiracy falls apart.
The problem is that a conspiracy is not like a start-up. The purpose of the start-up is
the start-up itself. The purpose of the conspiracy is not the conspiracy itself. Conspiracies
are simply vehicles by which like minded people actually find each other. The secrecy is
built-in because they are like-minded.
@Erik Sieven "Conspiracy is simply a plan or agreement by more than one person to do
something evil and then the pursuit of that plan." but probably everything think that what he
does is good, not evil "probably everything think that what he does is good, not evil"
Yeah, that's true. I think that it was Saint Thomas Aquinas who said that evil is always
done under an aspect of good. Hence no one will consider himself a conspirator other than
perhaps in a legal sense if he is aware that what he is doing is illegal. Apart from that the
charge of conspiracy will always come from opponents; e.g. Hilly's charge of "a vast
right-wing conspiracy".
Here is a link to Carl Bernstein's definitive 1977 Rolling Stone article "CIA and the
Media" in which he addresses - and confirms - your worst fears. You are very right, and no
less a figure than Bernstein has said so for nearly four decades . . .
Here is a link to Carl Bernstein's definitive 1977 Rolling Stone article "CIA and the
Media" in which he addresses – and confirms – your worst fears. You are very
right, and no less a figure than Bernstein has said so for nearly four decades
Thanks so much for the excellent reference to the Bernstein article, of which I hadn't
been aware. I found it fascinating, not least because of all the speculations floating around
over the last decade or two that Bernstein's famed collaborator, Bob Woodward, had had an
intelligence background, and perhaps Watergate represented a plot by elements of the CIA to
remove Nixon from the White House. As for the 25,000 word article itself, I'd suggest that
people read it. Since quite a lot of this comment-thread is already filled with debates about
the supposed liberalism of Leo Strauss and an alleged Moon Landing Hoax, I might as well
provide a few of the provocative extracts:
He was very eager, he loved to cooperate." On one occasion, according to several CIA
officials, Sulzberger was given a briefing paper by the Agency which ran almost verbatim
under the columnist's byline in the Times. "Cycame out and said, 'I'm thinking of doing a
piece, can you give me some background?'" a CIA officer said. "We gave it to Cy as a
background piece and Cy gave it to the printers and put his name on it." Sulzberger denies
that any incident occurred. "A lot of baloney," he said.
Stewart Alsop's relationship with the Agency was much more extensive than Sulzberger's.
One official who served at the highest levels in the CIA said flatly: "Stew Alsop was a CIA
agent." An equally senior official refused to define Alsop's relationship with the Agency
except to say it was a formal one. Other sources said that Alsop was particularly helpful
to the Agency in discussions with, officials of foreign governments!asking questions to
which the CIA was seeking answers, planting misinformation advantageous to American policy,
assessing opportunities for CIA recruitment of well‑placed foreigners.
The New York Times. The Agency's relationship with the Times was by far its most
valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. From 1950 to 1966, about ten CIA
employees were provided Times cover under arrangements approved by the newspaper's late
publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger. The cover arrangements were part of a general Times
policy!set by Sulzberger!to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible.
When Newsweek waspurchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham
was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover
purposes, according to CIA sources. "It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you
could get help from," said a former deputy director of the Agency. "Frank Wisner dealt with
him." Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in
1965, was the Agency's premier orchestrator of "black" operations, including many in which
journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his "mighty Wurlitzer," a wondrous
propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.) Phil Graham was
probably Wisner's closest friend. But Graharn, who committed suicide in 1963, apparently
knew little of the specifics of any cover arrangements with Newsweek, CIA sources said.
The Agency played an intriguing numbers game with the committee. Those who prepared the
material say it was physically impossible to produce all of the Agency's files on the use
of journalists. "We gave them a broad, representative picture," said one agency official.
"We never pretended it was a total description of the range of activities over 25 years, or
of the number of journalists who have done things for us." A relatively small number of the
summaries described the activities of foreign journalists!including those working as
stringers for American publications. Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject
say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side of the actual number who
maintained covert relationships and undertook clandestine tasks.
From the twenty‑five files he got back, according to Senate sources and CIA
officials, an unavoidable conclusion emerged: that to a degree never widely suspected, the
CIA in the 1950s, '60s and even early '70s had concentrated its relationships with
journalists in the most prominent sectors of the American press corps, including four or
five of the largest newspapers in the country, the broadcast networks and the two major
newsweekly magazines. Despite the omission of names and affiliations from the
twenty‑five detailed files each was between three and eleven inches thick), the
information was usually sufficient to tentatively identify either the newsman, his
affiliation or both!particularly because so many of them were prominent in the
profession.
@Darin If moon landings were fake, why hadn't USSR or China revealed it? This would
discredit USA before the whole world and won the Cold War in one stroke.
If USSR was also part of the plot, then whole Cold War was fake - and in this case there
would be no need for the small Apollo fake.
Sometimes, stupid conspiracy theories are just stupid conspiracy theories - or smart
fakes, designed to discredit conspirational thinking and distract them from the real
conspiracies. Take your pick.
" then whole Cold War was fake."
Wow, now here's a conspiracy theory to sink one's teeth into. That would make a great
Matrix/MI/Bourne sequel.
@Decius Kristol is a Straussian because he got a PhD in PolPhil from Harvard under
Mansfield, who is a Straussian. There is no necessary connection between Strauss's thought
any of the main tenets of Neo-conservatism. I've said, and you've all ignored, that Strauss
attacked data-driven social science, which is the original hallmark of neo-conservatism. A
later hallmark (which emerged after Strauss's death) was foreign policy hawkism. Unless you
want to say that Strauss's opposition to the USSR makes him a neo-con, in which case every
Cold War liberal going back to Truman was a neo-con. At which point the term has no
meaning.
Strauss addresses scholars and potential philosophers. He has almost nothing to say about
the transient issues of his age. Based on his comments on what other thinkers had to say
about war (Thucydides above all) I believe we can infer that Strauss was generally in favor
of preparedness and wariness but otherwise anti-war in the general sense. If we may analogize
the Iraq War to the Sicilian Expedition we may say that Strauss probably would have opposed
the former as imprudent, just as he tacitly endorses T's judgement that the latter was
imprudent.
Strauss openly characterizes Machiavelli's approach to philosophy as a conspiracy, using
that word, but does not say it about any other thinker. However, his teaching that philosophy
is an inherently elite and very small enterprise may be fairly characterized as a
"conspiracy." however, before modernity, the nature of the conspiracy was to protect the
conspirators and the philosophic life, not a reform campaign. that's what it becomes under
modernity, which Strauss opposes. One of Strauss's aims in writing was to revive the ancient
idea of philosophy, its proper scope, and its proper relationship to society, which he
believed modernity had corrupted.
It is unfortunate that Strauss became a bogey-man to so many who have no idea what he said
or why. It happened rather recently and based on some very thin scholarship. Most of the
thing people try to pin on him are things that I and my friends oppose too. We just know they
don't trace to Strauss. In fact, the opposite is often true. Thanks for that response, gave
me a better perspective of the man. I guess he did know who he was writing for. And I do
think the way to write for history is to write history by disregarding topical
preoccupations, except to damn them with faint praise. I have a master like that I always go
back to on the topic I care about most.
And actually the one work of Strauss's I have picked up, years ago, is his Machiavelli;
it's one of the thousands of books I've read! not though one of the few I finished. Brushing
up just now by way of wikipedia, it doesn't look like Strauss staked his claim strong enough,
if an original reading is what he was writing.
By the way, I know the Irishman John Toland was the first to publish on the
esoteric-exoteric distinction, and coined the term pantheist on a related occasion when he
named what new beast Spinoza had born. That was when an esoteric mode of writing was
really needed, and you will hear The Ethics called esoteric or cryptic, but I know the
work well, and it is no more esoteric than any work of genius that teaches you to read
closely right at the start.
Is The Prince an esoteric work? Did it entertain a conspiracy with special readers?
I suppose only if Machiavelli had individuals in mind who might wonder were they all the
while in mind when he was writing about how to dispose of them. The point is, there's nothing
profound about observing that, it's almost common sense if you take into account the first
thing about Machiavelli's circumstance.
I won't be glib and write Strauss's method off as typically paranoid; it's creative, but
bound to be too creative by half. I think it might lead readers to have more fun than's good
for learning.
@Decius Kristol is a Straussian because he got a PhD in PolPhil from Harvard under
Mansfield, who is a Straussian. There is no necessary connection between Strauss's thought
any of the main tenets of Neo-conservatism. I've said, and you've all ignored, that Strauss
attacked data-driven social science, which is the original hallmark of neo-conservatism. A
later hallmark (which emerged after Strauss's death) was foreign policy hawkism. Unless you
want to say that Strauss's opposition to the USSR makes him a neo-con, in which case every
Cold War liberal going back to Truman was a neo-con. At which point the term has no
meaning.
Strauss addresses scholars and potential philosophers. He has almost nothing to say about
the transient issues of his age. Based on his comments on what other thinkers had to say
about war (Thucydides above all) I believe we can infer that Strauss was generally in favor
of preparedness and wariness but otherwise anti-war in the general sense. If we may analogize
the Iraq War to the Sicilian Expedition we may say that Strauss probably would have opposed
the former as imprudent, just as he tacitly endorses T's judgement that the latter was
imprudent.
Strauss openly characterizes Machiavelli's approach to philosophy as a conspiracy, using
that word, but does not say it about any other thinker. However, his teaching that philosophy
is an inherently elite and very small enterprise may be fairly characterized as a
"conspiracy." however, before modernity, the nature of the conspiracy was to protect the
conspirators and the philosophic life, not a reform campaign. that's what it becomes under
modernity, which Strauss opposes. One of Strauss's aims in writing was to revive the ancient
idea of philosophy, its proper scope, and its proper relationship to society, which he
believed modernity had corrupted.
It is unfortunate that Strauss became a bogey-man to so many who have no idea what he said
or why. It happened rather recently and based on some very thin scholarship. Most of the
thing people try to pin on him are things that I and my friends oppose too. We just know they
don't trace to Strauss. In fact, the opposite is often true. Fascinating. A reminder that one
should five lives lived to 120 so one can lots of stories right .
@Gene Tuttle I've often used the argument myself that conspiracies inevitably have short
shelf lives in the US because it was so difficult for Americans to keep secrets. The article
makes a useful point in suggesting that secret plots, even after being revealed, may
nevertheless remain widely ignored. Ideology, group-think, pack journalism etc. are powerful
forces, often subconsciously at work, preventing alternative theories from developing
legs.
Though long an admirer of Karl Popper, I hadn't strongly associated him with attacks on
conspiracy theories per se. As an American "outsider" living abroad most of my adult life,
I've all too often encountered those who assumed my background alone explained an argument of
mine that they didn't like. Popper had hit the nail on the head when he wrote about
"a widespread and dangerous fashion of our time...of not taking arguments seriously, and
at their face value, at least tentatively, but of seeing in them nothing but a way in which
deeper irrational motives and tendencies express themselves." It was "the attitude
of looking at once for the unconscious motives and determinants in the social habitat of
the thinker, instead of first examining the validity of the argument itself."
The powerful nazi and communist ideologies of his day assumed that one's "
blood " or " class " precluded "correct" thinking. Those politically incorrect
challengers to their own totalitarian weltanschauung were (to put it mildly) persecuted as
conspirators. No doubt, as Ron Unz notes, Popper's personal experience "contributed the
depth of his feelings" -- I would say skepticism – about conspiracy claims.
But the author of the " Open Society " had an open mind and I suspect he'd find the
thesis reasonable that real conspiracies can both be uncovered and largely ignored because so
many simply opt to ignore them. In such cases, evidence and "not taking arguments
seriously" often reflects "intellectual groupieism," emotions, professional insecurities
as well as venal collective interests. Nice try.
The Manhattan Project was successfully kept secret despite its scope and the fact that it
consumed 17% of the electricity production of the entire US.
@Miro23 The British and Americans have been the victims of conspiracies (False Flag
operations) for years.
For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government
of Palestine) in which Zionist activists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with
explosives against the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44.
Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu, attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed
British and American cinemas, libraries and educational centers in Egypt to destabilize the
country and keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or June 8, 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following
over nine hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government
concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all
lives lost on the Egyptians and draw the US into the war.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the most recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that
seems to carry a lot of kudos with old Israeli ex-terrorist Likudniks. Israeli agents were
sent to film the historic day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations
including photos of themselves with a background of the burning towers where thousands of
Americans were being incinerated.
Iraq was destroyed as a result of 9/11 but unfortunately for the conspirators, the
momentum wasn't sufficient for a general war including Iran. Also the general war would have
included the nuclear angle and justified the activation of a neo-con led Emergency Regime
(dictatorship) in the US enforced with the newly printed Patriot Act and Homeland Security
troops - or maybe that's just another Conspiracy Theory? The Israelis learned their false
flag lesson from the Nazis, who used concentration camp inmates dressed as Polish soldiers as
part of a phony attack on the frontier radio station "Sender Gleiwitz" a day or so before
they invaded Poland.
In none of these cases the attacker actually killed thousands of his own soldiers, what
would be the point? I didn't notice Gleiwitz was mentioned in another posting before I
mentioned it. I tend go along with you and suspect incompetence rather than purpose was the
cause of the Pearl Harbor disaster, though the incompetence may have included failure to
adequately warn those on the ground at Pearl Harbor. Personally, I don't back the "truther"
version of the twin towers because that would have required a broader conspiracy than I think
could have succeeded. My guess is that the neighboring building was destroyed as part of the
cleanup effort. I do think, however, that the authorities knew something was up, didn't
believe it could ever succeed and used it as a sort of Reichstag Fire incident to brush aside
constitutional democracy in the US. I also suspect that the Mossad knew more than they let
on. My guess is that if Gore rather than Bush had been in power that history would have been
far different. I suspect that the anthrax thing was more likely started by the yankee regime
as a home-grown conspiracy.
@Pat Casey Thanks for that response, gave me a better perspective of the man. I guess he
did know who he was writing for. And I do think the way to write for history is to write
history by disregarding topical preoccupations, except to damn them with faint praise. I have
a master like that I always go back to on the topic I care about most.
And actually the one work of Strauss's I have picked up, years ago, is his Machiavelli;
it's one of the thousands of books I've read--- not though one of the few I finished.
Brushing up just now by way of wikipedia, it doesn't look like Strauss staked his claim
strong enough, if an original reading is what he was writing.
By the way, I know the Irishman John Toland was the first to publish on the
esoteric-exoteric distinction, and coined the term pantheist on a related occasion when he
named what new beast Spinoza had born. That was when an esoteric mode of writing was
really needed, and you will hear The Ethics called esoteric or cryptic, but I know the
work well, and it is no more esoteric than any work of genius that teaches you to read
closely right at the start.
Is The Prince an esoteric work? Did it entertain a conspiracy with special readers?
I suppose only if Machiavelli had individuals in mind who might wonder were they all the
while in mind when he was writing about how to dispose of them. The point is, there's nothing
profound about observing that, it's almost common sense if you take into account the first
thing about Machiavelli's circumstance.
I won't be glib and write Strauss's method off as typically paranoid; it's creative, but
bound to be too creative by half. I think it might lead readers to have more fun than's good
for learning. First, if you are at all interested in esotericism, I cannot recommend highly
enough Philosophy Between the Lines by Meltzer. The only thing critical I can say
about this book is that, if one is really an expert in one of the thinkers that Meltzer
treats, one will read the passages on that thinker that Meltzer cites and say "So what? I've
known that for years. He's shed no new light." Which is true. But irrelevant to what he's
trying to do. The book presents an unassailable case that philosophy has been esoteric since
Plato. Esotericism long predates Spinoza and has been discussed since ancient times. Strauss
simply revived a concept that had been forgotten. Toland (who I am not that familiar with)
wrote before esotericism as it were "lapsed." Strauss says that Goethe and Lessing were the
last to write this way. When Strauss revived knowledge of esotericism in the late 1930s with
the first Xenophon article, he was considered nuts.
Strauss's Machiavelli book is my favorite and I think his best. It is totally "original"
in the sense that he took a wildly new path from all previous scholarship. It has basically
defined the debate to this day. All subsequent scholarship either follows him, opposes him,
or tries to ignore him.
I would recommend in addition Strauss's book on Spinoza and especially the much later
preface that he wrote when he felt he finally understood Spinoza's esotericism.
Yes, the Prince (and the Discourses , and Art of War , and
Florentine Histories ) are esoteric. It's too complex to argue in a comment thread.
Suffice it to say for now that the outrageous "kill that dude" teachings serve and exoteric
purpose.
@exiled off mainstreet I didn't notice Gleiwitz was mentioned in another posting before I
mentioned it. I tend go along with you and suspect incompetence rather than purpose was the
cause of the Pearl Harbor disaster, though the incompetence may have included failure to
adequately warn those on the ground at Pearl Harbor. Personally, I don't back the "truther"
version of the twin towers because that would have required a broader conspiracy than I think
could have succeeded. My guess is that the neighboring building was destroyed as part of the
cleanup effort. I do think, however, that the authorities knew something was up, didn't
believe it could ever succeed and used it as a sort of Reichstag Fire incident to brush aside
constitutional democracy in the US. I also suspect that the Mossad knew more than they let
on. My guess is that if Gore rather than Bush had been in power that history would have been
far different. I suspect that the anthrax thing was more likely started by the yankee regime
as a home-grown conspiracy.
My guess is that if Gore rather than Bush had been in power that history would have been
far different.
Joe Lieberman was Gore's running mate.
Lieberman had the Patriot Act on a shelf waiting for an opportunity !
While holding the chair of the "Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs," Lieberman
introduced on October 11, 2001, Senate Bill 1534, to establish the US Department of
Homeland Security.
Anticipating the bill's certain passage, Lieberman gave himself automatic chairmanship
after he changed the name of his committee to, "The Senate Committee of Homeland Security
and Government Affairs."
Since then, Lieberman has
been the main force behind legislation such as:
-1- The USA Patriot Act
-2- Protect America Act
-3- National Emergency Centers Establishment Act
-4- The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation Act
-5- The Terrorist Expatriation Act, and the proposed
-6- Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act.
Thank you Mr. Unz, for this excellent- and circumspect and salient- article.
His main problem with "conspiracy theories" was not that they were always false, but
they might often be true, and therefore their spread was potentially disruptive to the
smooth functioning of society. So as a matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively
suppress or otherwise undercut the unauthorized investigation of suspected
conspiracies.
I'll just add that from what I've glimmered, (I'm definitely no expert on Leo Strauss),
Strauss' philosophy contained more than just a careful consideration of 'conspiracy theories'
and how they should be handled, but that what he advocated was a small group of highly
motivated elite zealots (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al) who would not just use power
to control the narrative vis-a-vis conspiracy theories, but more to the point, would be the
men who would conspire to alter the realities that required a mocking of "conspiracy
theories" in the first place.
From what I understand, one of his motivating themes was that his acolytes would come to
understand that they shouldn't be guided by trite, pedestrian notions of morality when being
the agents of change in the world. And that rather, they should use his teachings as a way to
see the world as exceptional men, who would boldly do things others might shrink from, out of
hackneyed notions of probity.
Perhaps the best quote I know of to describe Straussianism (as I understand it) was made
by a man who wasn't one of his actual students, but who certainly would have been well
acquainted and worked closely with others who were; Karl Rove, when speaking to an aid:
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality!judiciously,
as you will!we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and
that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do."
that quote for me, describes Straussianism to a T. And if so, certainty dovetails with
what happened during the reign of Bush-the lesser. Especially with something as audacious as
911.
That at least, is how I've seen it
As for the control of the media, I think most of your readers are certainly aware of that
particular conundrum and its consequences. It is literally impossible to be too cynical as
regards our media and government and CIA and other shenanigans, IMHO.
@Decius First, if you are at all interested in esotericism, I cannot recommend highly
enough Philosophy Between the Lines by Meltzer. The only thing critical I can say
about this book is that, if one is really an expert in one of the thinkers that Meltzer
treats, one will read the passages on that thinker that Meltzer cites and say "So what? I've
known that for years. He's shed no new light." Which is true. But irrelevant to what he's
trying to do. The book presents an unassailable case that philosophy has been esoteric since
Plato. Esotericism long predates Spinoza and has been discussed since ancient times. Strauss
simply revived a concept that had been forgotten. Toland (who I am not that familiar with)
wrote before esotericism as it were "lapsed." Strauss says that Goethe and Lessing were the
last to write this way. When Strauss revived knowledge of esotericism in the late 1930s with
the first Xenophon article, he was considered nuts.
Strauss's Machiavelli book is my favorite and I think his best. It is totally "original"
in the sense that he took a wildly new path from all previous scholarship. It has basically
defined the debate to this day. All subsequent scholarship either follows him, opposes him,
or tries to ignore him.
I would recommend in addition Strauss's book on Spinoza and especially the much later
preface that he wrote when he felt he finally understood Spinoza's esotericism.
Yes, the Prince (and the Discourses , and Art of War , and
Florentine Histories ) are esoteric. It's too complex to argue in a comment thread.
Suffice it to say for now that the outrageous "kill that dude" teachings serve and exoteric
purpose.
Strauss's Machiavelli book is my favorite and I think his best. It is totally "original"
in the sense that he took a wildly new path from all previous scholarship. It has basically
defined the debate to this day. All subsequent scholarship either follows him, opposes him,
or tries to ignore him.
Nonsense.
Maurizio Viroli has dedicated his life to scholarship on Machiavelli. He reads and
understands The Prince (and Machiavelli's other works and life) in the context in
which they were written, taking account of the finest details of Machiavelli's human,
psychological, and spiritual evolution in the course of career and writing. Viroli walks in
Niccolo's footsteps; like Machiavelli, he "puts on the garments" of 15th century Florence,
and Rome, and the French and Germanic cities where Machiavelli traveled to represent
Florence.
Strauss may satisfy those inclined to engage in exercise in Talmudic argument, but
Machiavelli was Italian, Florentine, and Roman; Dante was his constant companion; he was also
conversant in Old and New Testament literature and, less extensively, with the relatively
newly rediscovered Greek philosophers.
Strauss does not understand Machiavelli's thoughts on religion because he fails to
separate Niccolo's Christian, Danteian spirituality from his disgust with the corruption of
the Roman Catholic papacy and institutional church.
If you want intellectual showmanship and hair-splitting, Strauss on Machiavelli's your
man. If you want to understand the soul of Niccolo Machiavelli and the complexities of
political life in the Florence, Italy he lived in and loved, you can't do better than
Maurizio Viroli.
(Strauss twists Machiavelli's love of country into an evil act because it is not
universal. Yet, as one reviewer noted of Strauss, "I would make the case that the best
defense of Strauss lies in an understanding of Aristotle and Israel." https://www.amazon.com/German-Stranger-Strauss-National-Socialism/dp/0739147382
)
you are too quick to conflate 9/11 and the moon landings
Actually, it was Unz himself who stated a while back that if we admit that one
of them is possible, then all are possible, or something more or less to that effect.
In an case, the 9/11 controlled demolition / missile / flight 93 is in a hangar in
Cleveland stuff is just as implausible as faking the moon landings. Too many people and
organizations and countries needing to be in on it, etc. biz, you obviously missed it.
Bill Jones, above , debunked your argument even before you made it.
@Rurik Thank you Mr. Unz, for this excellent- and circumspect and salient- article.
His main problem with "conspiracy theories" was not that they were always false, but they
might often be true, and therefore their spread was potentially disruptive to the smooth
functioning of society. So as a matter of self-defense, elites needed to actively suppress
or otherwise undercut the unauthorized investigation of suspected conspiracies.
I'll just add that from what I've glimmered, (I'm definitely no expert on Leo
Strauss), Strauss' philosophy contained more than just a careful consideration of 'conspiracy
theories' and how they should be handled, but that what he advocated was a small group of
highly motivated elite zealots (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al) who would not just use
power to control the narrative vis-a-vis conspiracy theories, but more to the point, would be
the men who would conspire to alter the realities that required a mocking of
"conspiracy theories" in the first place.
From what I understand, one of his motivating themes was that his acolytes would come to
understand that they shouldn't be guided by trite, pedestrian notions of morality when being
the agents of change in the world. And that rather, they should use his teachings as a way to
see the world as exceptional men, who would boldly do things others might shrink from, out of
hackneyed notions of probity.
Perhaps the best quote I know of to describe Straussianism (as I understand it) was made
by a man who wasn't one of his actual students, but who certainly would have been well
acquainted and worked closely with others who were; Karl Rove, when speaking to an aid:
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality!judiciously,
as you will!we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and
that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do."
that quote for me, describes Straussianism to a T. And if so, certainty dovetails with
what happened during the reign of Bush-the lesser. Especially with something as audacious as
911.
That at least, is how I've seen it...
As for the control of the media, I think most of your readers are certainly aware of that
particular conundrum and its consequences. It is literally impossible to be too cynical as
regards our media and government and CIA and other shenanigans, IMHO.
Thanks again sir. Nice job. You roped the quote that ran across my mind! I swear these
things are in the air. How do you say, the ghost of Leo Strauss was moving men to do what you
can't pin on his memory? Well you said it and that settles it. Thank goodness.
after snowden, every conspiracy theory got a 99% boost in credibility. he confirmed the
big bad boogeymen watching and spying on us all. nothing else is impossible, nothing. every theory is now possible, everything.
@Pat Casey Nice job. You roped the quote that ran across my mind--- I swear these things
are in the air. How do you say, the ghost of Leo Strauss was moving men to do what you can't
pin on his memory? Well you said it and that settles it. Thank goodness. Wait, a quote from
Rove that doesn't even mention Strauss explains everything about Strauss? Are you
serious?
I gather you just need a boogeyman and Strauss is the one you've selected. Or, more
accurately, have allowed others to select for you.
Strauss's Machiavelli book is my favorite and I think his best. It is totally "original" in
the sense that he took a wildly new path from all previous scholarship. It has basically
defined the debate to this day. All subsequent scholarship either follows him, opposes him,
or tries to ignore him.
Nonsense.
Maurizio Viroli has dedicated his life to scholarship on Machiavelli. He reads and
understands The Prince (and Machiavelli's other works and life) in the context in
which they were written, taking account of the finest details of Machiavelli's human,
psychological, and spiritual evolution in the course of career and writing. Viroli walks in
Niccolo's footsteps; like Machiavelli, he "puts on the garments" of 15th century Florence,
and Rome, and the French and Germanic cities where Machiavelli traveled to represent
Florence.
Strauss may satisfy those inclined to engage in exercise in Talmudic argument, but
Machiavelli was Italian, Florentine, and Roman; Dante was his constant companion; he was also
conversant in Old and New Testament literature and, less extensively, with the relatively
newly rediscovered Greek philosophers.
Strauss does not understand Machiavelli's thoughts on religion because he fails to
separate Niccolo's Christian, Danteian spirituality from his disgust with the corruption of
the Roman Catholic papacy and institutional church. If you want intellectual showmanship and hair-splitting, Strauss on Machiavelli's your
man. If you want to understand the soul of Niccolo Machiavelli and the complexities of
political life in the Florence, Italy he lived in and loved, you can't do better than
Maurizio Viroli.
Machiavelli and Republicanism
http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/history-ideas-and-intellectual-history/machiavelli-and-republicanism?format=PB
Redeeming the Prince
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/681223
For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198293585.001.0001/acprof-9780198293583
(Strauss twists Machiavelli's love of country into an evil act because it is not
universal. Yet, as one reviewer noted of Strauss, "I would make the case that the best
defense of Strauss lies in an understanding of Aristotle and Israel."
https://www.amazon.com/German-Stranger-Strauss-National-Socialism/dp/0739147382 ) First, you
are wrong that Strauss thinks Machiavelli's patriotism is in itself evil. Strauss says the
exact opposite at several points. But he also says that recourse to patriotism does not in
itself excuse Machiavelli's recommendations to do evil. Strauss himself comes up with the
most persuasive justifications (which are higher than excuses) for Machiavelli's evil
sayings. But to understand Strauss's arguments, you would have to read the book and spend a
lot of time with it because it is hard.
Viroli is a scholar I respect for a lot of reasons, but not for philosophic depth. The
argument about "context" diminishes Machiavelli (and all great thinkers) by presupposing that
their thought is time-bound or that they could not think past the horizon of their time. The
greatest minds transcend their times and even create new times. There aren't very many such,
but Nick was one.
The CIA's Project Mockingbird had all the network news anchors using the words "conspiracy
theory" like the brainless parrots that they were. And Americans remain well brainwashed,
although it's actually hard to get anything significant done without a "conspiracy."
@Decius First, if you are at all interested in esotericism, I cannot recommend highly
enough Philosophy Between the Lines by Meltzer. The only thing critical I can say
about this book is that, if one is really an expert in one of the thinkers that Meltzer
treats, one will read the passages on that thinker that Meltzer cites and say "So what? I've
known that for years. He's shed no new light." Which is true. But irrelevant to what he's
trying to do. The book presents an unassailable case that philosophy has been esoteric since
Plato. Esotericism long predates Spinoza and has been discussed since ancient times. Strauss
simply revived a concept that had been forgotten. Toland (who I am not that familiar with)
wrote before esotericism as it were "lapsed." Strauss says that Goethe and Lessing were the
last to write this way. When Strauss revived knowledge of esotericism in the late 1930s with
the first Xenophon article, he was considered nuts.
Strauss's Machiavelli book is my favorite and I think his best. It is totally "original"
in the sense that he took a wildly new path from all previous scholarship. It has basically
defined the debate to this day. All subsequent scholarship either follows him, opposes him,
or tries to ignore him.
I would recommend in addition Strauss's book on Spinoza and especially the much later
preface that he wrote when he felt he finally understood Spinoza's esotericism.
Yes, the Prince (and the Discourses , and Art of War , and
Florentine Histories ) are esoteric. It's too complex to argue in a comment thread.
Suffice it to say for now that the outrageous "kill that dude" teachings serve and exoteric
purpose. Steve weighed in on this a while back and made the point that what we have, what has
been handed down to us, that probably is the esoteric stuff. I don't think he even
mentioned in the piece how interesting it is that what we have of Aristotle seem to be
lecture notes. I suspect that is just because: Aristotle taught Alexander!the teacher knew no
felt need to live on as a writer like Plato did. One thing we can say about those lecture
notes, we can pretty well imagine they were not written in his prime, hence we're still
learning how much good stuff is there; if you know your stuff, you know as late as the late
Richard Taylor that the philosopher was yet outdoing us moderns in a point he makes like an
afterthought but could not matter more. But so anyways, what we have is the distilled
Aristotle probably from his golden years; if we also had it in any other form, it might read
comparatively mercilessly for being too esoteric. As we know him it is impossible to imagine
Aristotle writing dialogues, debating other voices ; one need not name rivals when one
has none and he was the King's philosopher. What you can't say is no he was being
disorganized on purpose to be esoteric, right?
But take Plato. I assume if you could read ancient Greek as well as Plato could, you would
find many a double meaning at crucial turns but I really have no idea save the gut instinct
that the man was an inspired writer when he wrote which is to say a poet. And what a poet
does is let the muse speak and summon such nice lines as "The Beauty is not the Madness/
Though my errors and wrecks lie about me/and I am not a demigod, I cannot make it cohere."
The errors that lie about him strewn about him as it were, they lie about how good he
was when he was at his best. A tongue like a double-bladed sword says the Bible. I imagine
some of Ezra Pound's radio rants need a second listen with less tense nerves; they say the
Italians suspected he was transmitting code. Anyways. Imagine how much can be said for the
stories we tell ourselves .how many former selves does any one wind up with? you have to ask
your self.
Scholasticism, well you could almost say that's all about no secret handshake shit. Make
sure them key words get nailed down and no tricks or to the tower you got cause to go.
Spinoza, oh we know exactly where his mystery lies. Edwin Curley said:
"In responding to this objection, I think I had best begin by confessing candidly that
in spite of many years of study, I still do not feel that I understand this part of the
Ethics at all adequately. I feel the freedom to confess that, of course, because I also
believe that no one else understands it adequately either"
What objection? The one that says, nothing of the mind should remain eternal after the
body has been destroyed if there is only one substance! We could have gone to grad school on
this paper is what the man said, but first pay respects to what that meant to him personally,
cause he probably escaped with his life when he did, but he knew his disciples would keep his
mind alive. But seriously I should touch this up and send it somewhere:
It must be said that the elegance of this deduction is striking. God's idea of the human
body corresponds with the mind's idea of the human body. The crucial move that turns the
correspondence into a startling claim is that God's idea expresses the essence of the body,
while the mind's idea expresses the essence of the mind. Through the initial
correspondence, God's eternal essence expressed as an idea of the body adopts the essence
of the mind. Thus, when the body dies, something of the essence of the mind remains
eternal. With that, Spinoza culminates his masterpiece.
" Since what is conceived, with a certain eternal necessity, through God's essence
itself, is nevertheless something, this something that pertains to the essence of the mind
will necessarily be eternal." Besides being an Eternalist, Spinoza is also an Idealist. It
fits then that he should leave something of the mind remaining eternally, rather than what
a strict Eternalist would leave, that is, something of the mind and body. But recall that
Spinoza's something that pertains to the essence of the mind is the idea of the body
. In the final analysis, his system coheres.
That's terribly poignant too, because it shows he went back to his roots in the end: "The
soul will blame the body for its actions."
Anyways I've spent myself and who wants to talk about Nietzsche, really. That guy was an
antenna for a frequency that was broadcasting Noh drama directly into his soul while he wrote
his Zarathustra, and I don't believe he ever came back from that!he had all the inside jokes
he could tell to himself in perpetuity. But I gotta say, one time I ran into this guys blog
who had let Nietzsche drive him insane, and he had comprehensively worked out to an absolute
end the thesis his whole philosophy was to understand that a formal Matriarchy was what's
good and here's why that's the necessity. If that is true its too hysterical to ever argue
with no hint of mania. So I felt bad for the guy.
But what the other guy said rings truest to me. And I'd just add that Paul Gottfried's
observation that Strauss winds up treating a text a lot like the Deconstructions do does not
entirely fail Strauss for me. The fundamental truth to them is something every one of us
around can understand: these words we type, the ain't alive on quick lips, which is what gets
some of us into more trouble than others.
I definitely check out the book, but one must be cautious when resurrecting phantoms.
@Decius Wait, a quote from Rove that doesn't even mention Strauss explains everything
about Strauss? Are you serious?
I gather you just need a boogeyman and Strauss is the one you've selected. Or, more
accurately, have allowed others to select for you. Don't miss my longer reply, in the cue,
plus this one, but put the boogeyman business to bed and put your defenses down . I can't say
it any other way: I think the spirit of Leo Strauss may well have moved men to move mountains
and mountains otherwise called federal bureaucracies and divisions of armies. It might
explain not "everything" about Strauss but indeed whats essential about Strauss, which
is that you are right, I suspect he was special. Step back for a second and forget that those
Bush bastards were bastards and just estimate the nerve it takes to pull off 9/11 and then go
into Afghanistan and Iraq. We can all at least agree, that's somthin.
@Decius At any rate it's sort of absurd to watch you people chase your tails. All that
you "know" or think you know is that Strauss is bad. But Schmitt is good. But Strauss is
derivative of Schmitt. Doesn't that make Strauss good, or Schmitt bad?
Schmitt is famous for arguing in favor of the essential particularity of politics--i.e.,
against alleged neocon universalism. So if Strauss is derivative of Schmitt, how can he be a
neocon universalist?
Strauss in fact agrees with Schmitt on the essential particularity of politics and says
so, but finds a deeper source, with deeper arguments, in Plato. Schmitt admitted that his own
attempt to fortify his particularism was build on the quick-sandy foundation of modern
rationalism, which Strauss taught him to see through. When you can pin Strauss down to a
definite meaning, it is false, banal or both. He is usually too obfuscatory to be pinned
down. Schmitt is easy to understand and shows you true things you had not thought of
before.
My favourite historical conspiracy is the so-called "Gunpowder Plot," which is still,
despite all of the evidence that has been discovered in more modern times, represented in
history books, as being exclusively the work of disgruntled Catholic noblemen and their
Jesuit confessors. It was actually a government projection of the Cecil ministry, completely
riddled with moles who nurtured it along, right up until the point when it could be revealed
to the public for maximum political effect, and to the King, so that he would become more
terrorified, and, thus, more dependent upon the Cecils and their "constitutionalist" Puritan
proteges. The "evidence" has, indeed, always been in plain sight, and it has been dealt with
in numerous books, such as The Gunpowder Plot, Faith and Treason , by Antonia Fraser,
and another book, entitled "God's Secret Agents,' but, still, to this day, the myth of
conspiring priests is still propagated in atavistic anti-Catholic British history.
For example the government says that WTC7 completely collapsed in 7 seconds due to fire.
You don't need to be smart to see something is wrong here (hint: most of the structural
pillars were untouched by fire). I see the biggest problem about a conspiratorial explanation
for the WTC 7 collapse is motive. How does it make sense for those who wanted the big splash
that hitting buildings 1 and 2 would give? The other major difficulty is the video footage of
fires burning all day which had to have heated the steel and therefore potentially weakened
it to a critical point. Where's the mystery?
@Laurel The best strategy is to foster implausible conspiracy theories to create a cloud
of disinformation. This technique was used very effectively after 9/11, such that it's very
hard to discuss a coverup without being labeled a truther. Thank you for inserting the word
"truther" into the conversation. It has always fascinated me that someone searching for the
truth about a political issue is now automatically considered a conspiracy theorist.
@Rehmat There are more so-called "conspiracy theories" claimed by the US government, CIA,
and organized Jewry than the Jews may have been killed by the Nazis. The "conspiracy
theorists" like the "terrorists" are chosen by the Zionist-controlled mainstream media.
Like the September 11, 2001 attacks, the lie that Iran's president Ahmadinejad called,
WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP, is still kept alive by the Organized Jewry even though Israel's
Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor admitted that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never
said Iran wanted to "wipe Israel off the face of the map" in an interview with Al Jazeera in
April 2012.
American investigative writer and author, Robert Parry, claimed on September 19, 2009 that
Ahmadinejad never denied Holocaust. He just challenged Israel and the western powers to allow
an open debate to find the truth behind the Zionist Holy Cow, "Six Million Died".
In reality, the only country that has been 'wiped off the map' is the 5,000-year-old
Palestine by Europe's unwanted Jews.
Iran's current president Dr. Hassan Rouhani like Dr. Ahmadinejad, is also blamed for
denying the Zionist Holy Holocaust as parroted by Wiesel, which he never did, saying it's up
to historians to decide who's lying.
https://rehmat1.com/2013/09/28/holocaust-the-word-rouhani-never-uttered/ If the Zionists
can lie so much about Israeli history (e.g. The Arabs encouraged Palestinians to flee, that
the Arabs were about to attack Israel in 1967, land without a people for a people without a
land, etc.), one can only wonder about the official holocaust narrative of 6M dead, gas
chambers, etc.).
I've not read Elie Weisel's book Night, but I understand that no where does he mention gas
chambers in Auschwitz .
"... Indeed, American legislators have published a bill that could potentially block Russian broadcasters from being shown in the US. It could allow US content providers to break their contracts, leaving Russian channels without any legal recourse. ..."
"... "prohibit multichannel video programming distributors from being required to carry certain video content that is owned or controlled by the Government of the Russian Federation" ..."
"... Why the focus on Russia, in what's supposed to be an annual defense spending bill? ..."
"... As we mentioned, various foreign governments fund TV channels in America, but only Russia gets a mention in this bill. Is that a case of double-standards? Should the attention just solely be on Russia? ..."
"... Does it look like this measure has been deliberately buried in a huge defense bill to avoid scrutiny? Or do you expect debate on this? ..."
There are members of Congress who don't want anyone on TV saying America's foreign policy is a
disaster and it costs a fortune, Daniel McAdams, executive director, Ron Paul Institute, told
RT.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2018, which
passed the US Senate earlier this week, carries some added provisions that have little in
common with the military.
Indeed, American legislators have published a bill that could potentially block Russian
broadcasters from being shown in the US. It could allow US content providers to break their contracts,
leaving Russian channels without any legal recourse.
The plan is buried inside a tiny amendment of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The part about Russia is summarized in just a few lines, between details on funding of the US
military.
Amendment
No 1096 , which aims to "prohibit multichannel video programming distributors from being
required to carry certain video content that is owned or controlled by the Government of the Russian
Federation" .
RT: Why the focus on Russia, in what's supposed to be an annual defense spending bill?
Daniel McAdams: There is an obsession on Capitol Hill and within the mainstream media with
RT because RT is effective and RT is watched. But also, and this is very important because RT
carries perspectives that are not available in the mainstream media. Commentators on RT that I
know would say the same thing that they say on RT if they were invited by any of the mainstream
media, but they won't. The matter of fact is that John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the people who
were behind this amendment, the Atlantic Council and the others are trying to silence RT. They
are the totalitarians, they are the enemies of free speech; they're the enemies of the First Amendment;
they don't want anyone coming on television saying that America's foreign policy is a disaster;
it is broken; it is making us more vulnerable to attack, and it's costing a fortune. It cannot
stand competition in the area of ideas.
RT: As we mentioned, various foreign governments fund TV channels in America, but only
Russia gets a mention in this bill. Is that a case of double-standards? Should the attention just
solely be on Russia?
DM: The attention should be on none of these stations. It should be viewer beware. If you're
watching RT and you know that it is funded, or its funding comes from the Russian government,
you take that into consideration just as any intelligent person would do. When I watch France
24, when I watch the BBC, I know that that takes the perspectives of the British government into
consideration, because it is funded by that.
This is a free market of ideas; this is what this is all about. But the people on Capitol Hill
are again totalitarians – they don't want a free market in ideas. They want to control the debate.
They don't want Americans to wake up and see that the foreign policy that they are pushing is
resulting in a charred Earth and a disaster that is coming home to roost.
RT: Does it look like this measure has been deliberately buried in a huge defense bill
to avoid scrutiny? Or do you expect debate on this?
DM: This is how it's done, absolutely. I have read a million defense spending bills in my 15
years on the Hill. This is called planting a seed – you plant this kernel, and it starts to grow.
If someone objects, later on, you can say – this is already passed in the defense bill; you've
already voted on this; this is already part of the law; this is just suggesting, clarifying, or
going further. This is how they do things: you bury it in a huge bill like this; you plant a seed
and you watch it grow.
I don't know the exact language in the bill; I am sure Russia is not only the flavor of the
month, it is the flavor of the year. There is the 'Investigate Russia'
committee , where a bunch of Hollywood liberals got together with a bunch of neocons and are
finding reds under our beds. There is a hysteria going on in America. I still would like to believe
that the average American thinks it's absolutely nuts; I hope it stays that way. Hopefully, this
will blow over at some point, and not blow up .
Hollywood was once on the receiving end of McCarthyism in the 50s, and now it looks like they
want to dish out McCarthyism on everyone else.
"... The New York Times is prepping the American people for what could become World War III. The daily message is that you must learn to hate Russia and its President Vladimir Putin so much that, first, you should support vast new spending on America's Military-Industrial Complex and, second, you'll be ginned up for nuclear war if it comes to that. ..."
"... At this stage, the Times doesn't even try for a cosmetic appearance of objective journalism. Look at how the Times has twisted the history of the Ukraine crisis, treating it simply as a case of "Russian aggression" or a "Russian invasion." The Times routinely ignores what actually happened in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014 when the U.S. government aided and abetted a violent coup that overthrew Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych after he had been demonized in the Western media. ..."
"... The Times and much of the U.S. mainstream media refuses even to acknowledge that there is another side to the Ukraine story. Anyone who mentions this reality is deemed a "Kremlin stooge" in much the same way that people who questioned the mainstream certainty about Iraq's WMD in 2002-03 were called "Saddam apologists." ..."
"... Many liberals came to view the dubious claims of Russian "meddling" in the 2016 election as the golden ticket to remove Trump from the White House. So, amid that frenzy, all standards of proof were jettisoned to make Russia-gate the new Watergate. ..."
"... For one, even if the U.S. government were to succeed in destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia sufficiently to force out President Putin, the neocon dream of another malleable Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin is far less likely than the emergence of an extreme Russian nationalist who might be ready to push the nuclear button rather than accept further humiliation of Mother Russia. ..."
"... The truth is that the world has much less to fear from the calculating Vladimir Putin than from the guy who might follow a deposed Vladimir Putin amid economic desperation and political chaos in Russia. But the possibility of nuclear Armageddon doesn't seem to bother the neocon/liberal-interventionist New York Times. Nor apparently does the principle of fair and honest journalism. ..."
"... America's Stolen Narrative, ..."
"... The Trans-Atlantic Empire of banking cartels rest upon enmity with the only other Great Powers in the World: Russia and China, while keeping USA thoroughly within their orbit, relying on our Great Power as the engine that powers this Western Bankers' Empire (the steering room lies in City-of-London, who has LONG maneuvered, via their Wall Street assets, to bring us into Empire). Should peaceful, cooperative and productive relations break out between USA, Russia, and China, this would undermine everything the Western Empire has worked to build. ..."
"... THIS is why the phony Russiagate issue is flogged to get rid of Trump (who seeks cooperation with Russia and China), AND keeping Russia as "The Enemy", keeping the MIC, Intel community, various police-state ops, in high demand for "National Security" reasons (also positioned to foil any democratic uprisings, should they see past the progs daily curtain and see their plight). ..."
"... The funny thing about living through the 'fake news' era, is that now everyone thinks that their news source is the correct news source. Many believe that outside of the individual everyone else reads or listens too 'fake news'. It's like all of a sudden no one has credibility, yet everyone may have it, depending on what news source you subscribe to. I mean there's almost no way of knowing what the truth is, because everyone is claiming that they are getting their news from reputable news outlets, but some or many aren't, and who are the reputable news sources, if you don't mind my asking you this just for the record? ..."
"... To learn how to deal with this 'fake news', I would suggest you start studying the JFK assassination, or any other ill defined tragic event, and then you might learn how to decipher the 'fake news' matrix of confusion to learn what you so desire to learn. I chose this route, because when was the last time the Establishment brokered the truth in regard to a happening such as the JFK assassination? Upon learning of what a few well written books has to say, you will then need to rely on your own brain to at least give you enough satisfaction to allow you to believe that you pretty well got it right, and there go you. In other words, the truth is out there, hiding in plain sight, and if you are persistent enough you just might find it. Good luck. ..."
The NYT's Yellow Journalism on Russia September 15, 2017
Exclusive: The New York Times' descent into yellow journalism over Russia recalls the
sensationalism of Hearst and Pulitzer leading to the Spanish-American War, but the risks to
humanity are much greater now, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Reading The New York Times these days is like getting a daily dose of the "Two Minutes Hate"
as envisioned in George Orwell's 1984, except applied to America's new/old enemy
Russia. Even routine international behavior, such as Russia using fictitious names for
potential adversaries during a military drill, is transformed into something weird and
evil.
In the snide and alarmist style that the Times now always applies to Russia, reporter Andrew
Higgins wrote
– referring to a fictitious war-game "enemy" – "The country does not exist, so it
has neither an army nor any real citizens, though it has acquired a feisty following of
would-be patriots online. Starting on Thursday, however, the fictional state, Veishnoriya, a
distillation of the Kremlin's darkest fears about the West, becomes the target of the combined
military might of Russia and its ally Belarus."
This snarky front-page story in Thursday's print editions also played into the Times' larger
narrative about Russia as a disseminator of "fake news." You see the Russkies are even
inventing "fictional" enemies to bully. Hah-hah-hah -- The article was entitled, "Russia's War
Games With Fake Enemies Cause Real Alarm."
Of course, the U.S. and its allies also conduct war games against fictitious enemies, but
you wouldn't know that from reading the Times. For instance,
U.S. war games in 2015 substituted five made-up states – Ariana, Atropia, Donovia,
Gorgas and Limaria – for nations near the Caucasus mountains along the borders of Russia
and Iran.
In earlier war games, the U.S. used both fictitious names and colors in place of actual
countries. For instance, in 1981, the Reagan administration conducted "Ocean Venture" with that
war-game scenario focused on a group of islands called "Amber and the Amberdines," obvious
stand-ins for Grenada and the Grenadines, with "Orange" used to represent Cuba.
In those cases, the maneuvers by the powerful U.S. military were clearly intended to
intimidate far weaker countries. Yet, the U.S. mainstream media did not treat those war
rehearsals for what they were, implicit aggression, but rather mocked protests from the obvious
targets as paranoia since we all know the U.S. would never violate international law and invade
some weak country -- (As it turned out, Ocean Venture '81 was a dress rehearsal for the actual
U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983.)
Yet, as far as the Times and its many imitators in the major media are concerned, there's
one standard for "us" and another for Russia and other countries that "we" don't like.
Yellow Journalism
But the Times' behavior over the past several years suggests something even more sinister
than biased reporting. The "newspaper of record" has slid into yellow journalism, the practice
of two earlier New York newspapers – William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and
Joseph Pulitzer's New York World – that in the 1890s manipulated facts about the crisis
in Cuba to push the United States into war with Spain, a conflict that many historians say
marked the beginning of America's global empire.
Except in today's instance, The New York Times is prepping the American people for what
could become World War III. The daily message is that you must learn to hate Russia and its
President Vladimir Putin so much that, first, you should support vast new spending on America's
Military-Industrial Complex and, second, you'll be ginned up for nuclear war if it comes to
that.
At this stage, the Times doesn't even try for a cosmetic appearance of objective journalism.
Look at how the Times has twisted the history of the Ukraine crisis, treating it simply as a
case of "Russian aggression" or a "Russian invasion." The Times routinely ignores what actually
happened in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014 when the U.S. government aided and abetted a
violent coup that overthrew Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych after he had been
demonized in the Western media.
Even as neo-Nazi and ultranationalist protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at police,
Yanukovych signaled a willingness to compromise and ordered his police to avoid worsening
violence. But compromise wasn't good enough for U.S. neocons – such as Assistant
Secretary of State Victoria Nuland; Sen. John McCain; and National Endowment for Democracy
President Carl Gershman. They had invested too much in moving Ukraine away from Russia.
Nuland put the U.S. spending at $5 billion and was caught discussing with
U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who should be in the new government and how to "glue" or
"midwife this thing"; McCain appeared on stage urging on far-right militants; and Gershman
was
overseeing scores of NED projects inside Ukraine, which he had deemed the "biggest prize"
and an important step in achieving an even bigger regime change in Russia, or as he put it:
"Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian
imperialism that Putin represents. Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the
near abroad but within Russia itself."
The Putsch
So, on Feb. 20, 2014, instead of
seeking peace , a sniper firing from a building controlled by anti-Yanukovych forces killed
both police and protesters, touching off a day of carnage. Immediately, the Western media
blamed Yanukovych. Sen. John McCain appearing with Ukrainian rightists of the Svoboda party at a pre-coup rally
in Kiev.
Shaken by the violence, Yanukovych again tried to pacify matters by reaching a compromise
--
guaranteed by France, Germany and Poland -- to relinquish some of his powers and move up an
election so he could be voted out of office peacefully. He also pulled back the police.
At that juncture, the neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists spearheaded a violent putsch on Feb.
22, 2014, forcing Yanukovych and other officials to flee for their lives. Ignoring the
agreement guaranteed by the three European nations, Nuland and the U.S. State Department
quickly deemed the coup regime "legitimate."
However, ethnic Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, which represented Yanukovych's
electoral base, resisted the coup and turned to Russia for protection. Contrary to the Times'
narrative, there was no "Russian invasion" of Crimea because Russian troops were already there
as part of an agreement for its Sevastopol naval base. That's why you've never seen photos of
Russian troops crashing across Ukraine's borders in tanks or splashing ashore in Crimea with an
amphibious landing or descending by parachute. They were already inside Crimea.
The Crimean autonomous government also voted to undertake a referendum on whether to leave
the failed Ukrainian state and to rejoin Russia, which had governed Crimea since the Eighteenth
Century. In that referendum, Crimean citizens voted by some 96 percent to exit Ukraine and seek
reunion with Russia, a democratic and voluntary process that the Times always calls
"annexation."
The Times and much of the U.S. mainstream media refuses even to acknowledge that there
is another side to the Ukraine story. Anyone who mentions this reality is deemed a "Kremlin
stooge" in much the same way that people who questioned the mainstream certainty about Iraq's
WMD in 2002-03 were called "Saddam apologists."
But what is particularly remarkable about the endless Russia-bashing is that – because
it started under President Obama – it sucked in many American liberals and even some
progressives. That process grew even worse when the contempt for Russia merged with the Left's
revulsion over Donald Trump's election.
Many liberals came to view the dubious claims of Russian "meddling" in the 2016 election
as the golden ticket to remove Trump from the White House. So, amid that frenzy, all standards
of proof were jettisoned to make Russia-gate the new Watergate.
The Times, The Washington Post and pretty much the entire U.S. news media joined the
"resistance" to Trump's presidency and embraced the neocon "regime change" goal for Putin's
Russia. Very few people care about the enormous risks that this "strategy" entails.
For one, even if the U.S. government were to succeed in destabilizing nuclear-armed
Russia sufficiently to force out President Putin, the neocon dream of another malleable Boris
Yeltsin in the Kremlin is far less likely than the emergence of an extreme Russian nationalist
who might be ready to push the nuclear button rather than accept further humiliation of Mother
Russia.
The truth is that the world has much less to fear from the calculating Vladimir Putin
than from the guy who might follow a deposed Vladimir Putin amid economic desperation and
political chaos in Russia. But the possibility of nuclear Armageddon doesn't seem to bother the
neocon/liberal-interventionist New York Times. Nor apparently does the principle of fair and
honest journalism.
The Times and rest of the mainstream media are just having too much fun hating Russia and
Putin to worry about the possible extermination of life on planet Earth.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in print here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
jo6pac , September 15, 2017 at 4:51 pm
Amerikas way of bring the big D to your nation. Death
Bingo -- In a surely related story, the mainstream press is equally relentless in AVOIDING
telling Americans the facts about Israel, and especially about its control over the American
press. "Israel lobby is never a story (for media that is in bed with the lobby)" http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/israel-lobby-never/
Virtually everything average Americans have been told about Israel has been, amazingly, an
absolute lie. Israel was NOT victimized by powerful Arab armies. Israel
overpowered and victimized a defenseless, civilian Arab population. Military analysts knew
the Arab armies were in poor shape and would be unable to resist the zionist army. Muslim
"citizens" of Israel do NOT have all the same rights as Jews. Israelis are
NOT under threat from the indigineous Palestinians, but Palestinians are under
constant threats of theft and death from the Israelis. Israel does NOT share
America's most fundamental values, which rest on the principle of equal human rights for
all.
How has this gigantic package of outright lies has been foisted upon the American public
for so long? And how long can it continue? It turns out they did not foresee the internet,
and the facts are leaking out everywhere. So it appears they're desperately coercing facebook
and google to rig their rankings, trying to hide the facts. But one day soon there will be a
'snap' in the collective mind, and everybody will know that everybody knows.
JWalters
I can tell you are angry. I too was angry when I figured it out.
Long before I figured it out, I was a soldier. Our unit was prepared for an exercise and we
were all sleeping at the regiment compound, the buses would arrive at zero-dark thirty. I was
reading a book about the ME(this was shortly after 9-11). A friend, came up and asked what I
was reading. I told him I was reading about the Balfour paper and how that had a significant
effect on the ME. He began explaining to me how the zionist movement had used the idea that
no one lived on that land, to force the people from that land, out of that land.
I quickly responded that Israel had defended that land against 5 Arab armies and managed to
hold on to that land. I informed him he was mistaken.
He agreed to disagree, and walked away.
This happened way back in 2002 if only I could pick his mind now. How did he know about this,
way back before the internet was in any shape to wake people up?
There is hope still that guys who are young as i was, will say "Fuck You I defend this line
and no further."
Without their compliance, there can be no wars.
CommonTater your story parallels mine -- I was in the military, went to Vietnam to 'defend
our nation against communism', felt horror at the Zionist stories of how Palestinians
rocketed them, was told by senior officer about what Zionism is really about and I, like you,
disbelieved him. That was in 1974 -- -- Now, with all the troubles in the world I won't read the
MSP but look towards the alternative news sources. They make more sense. But as I try to
educate others on what I have learned I am as disappointed as my senior officer must have
been back them. Articles such as this one reproduced by ICH are gems: I save and print them
in a compendium detailing ongoing war crimes.
Thanks Mr. Parry,
You are a voice in the hurricane of hatred and lies propagated by the richest people on the
planet.
Eventually some moron who believes this new York Times garbage will actually unleash the bomb
and we will all be smoke.
That has always been the result of such successful propaganda. And it is very successful. It
has almost occluded any truth for the vast majority of westerners .
Michael Fish
Agreed. I wish this clear and comprehensive article could be stapled on every American
voter's door (wanted to say forehead but violence is bad). Many would toss it in the trash.
Many would not agree even with full comprehension because of their own horrid beliefs. But
maybe a few would read it and have an epiphany. It's very hard work to find an avenue to
change the minds of millions of people who've been inculcated by nationalist propaganda since
birth. Since 4 years old seeing the wonderful National Anthem and jets fly over the stadium
of their favorite sports team. Since required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in
school.
I refused to stand for or recite the Pledge when I was seven or eight years old. I was
sent to detention. My awesome mom though intervened and afterwards I could remain seated
while most or all other kids stood up to do the ritual. I refuse to stand up and place
hand-on-heart and remove cap during any sporting contests when the Anthem is played. I've
been threatened with physical violence by many strangers around me.
Thanks Mr. Parry, your voice is appreciated, your articles and logic are top-notch. Very
valuable stuff, available for the curious, the skeptical. Well, until Google monopolizes
search algorithms and calls this a Russian fake news site, perhaps or Congress the same
My hat is off to you sir, I have not been to any sporting events since I woke up, but I
imagine it would be very difficult to remain seated and hatted during the opening affirmation
of nationalism. My waking up coincides with a drastic drop in sports viewing. I used to be an
NFL fan, rooted for the Niners (started watching NFL in the late eighties), the last full
season I followed was the 2013-14 season.
It was the Ukraine coup that woke me up. It started when watching videos on youtube of guys
stomping on riot cops, using a fire hose on them like a reverse water cannon. Then I realized
these guys were the peaceful protesters being talked about on t.v. It was like a thread
hanging in front of me, I began pulling and pulling until the veil in front of my eyes came
apart. It was during this time I discovered consortiumnews.com.
Mr Common Tater–just appreciating reading that someone else "woke up". That is the
way it has felt to me. For me it was Oct 2002 and Bush's speech that was clearly heading us
to war in Iraq. The "election" (appointment) of Bush in 2000 though was the first alarm clock
that I started to hear. Most recent wake up is connected to Mr Parry's relentless (I hope)
and necessary debunking of the myth of Russian nastiness and corresponding myth of US
rectitude. Been watching The Untold History of the United States and have been dealing with
the real bedrock truth that my government invented and invents enemies as a tactic in a
game–ie. it's a bunch of boys thinking foreign relationship building is first and
foremost a game. It has been hard to wash away all this greasy insidious smut from my
life.
It sucks to wake up, in a way. Once one gets past the denial, Tom Clancy novel type movies
lose some of it's fun, although still entertaining. One secretly knows the audience in the
cinema is just eating it all up and loving it. The American hero yells "yippie kayay mother
f -- -r" as he defeats the post-Soviet Russian villain in Russia blowing up buildings, and
destroying s–t as he saves the world for democracy. The Russian authorities amount to
some guy in Soviet peaked hat, and long coat, begging for a bribe.
Oliver Stone's series is really good, it turns history on his head and shakes all the pennies
out his pockets. Another good reporter is John Pilger, he has a long list of docs he has done
over several decades.
I have been watching that same series, about 3 episodes in. The most mind blowing part to
think about is how the establishment consipired to block the nomination of the progressive
Henry Wallace as a repeat VP for Roosevelt, leading instead to Harry Truman's nomination as
VP, and then you know the rest of the story.
Funny how history repeated itself with the nomination of Clinton instead of Sanders. Btw,
after Sanders mistakenly jumped on the Russia bashing bandwagon he was one of the few who
voted against the recent sanctions being imposed against Russia, Iran, and North Korea. So
yeah, I'd feel alot better with a Sanders president at this point.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:21 pm
Apart from the obvious Exceptionalist and Zionazi imperative to destroy Russia and China
in order that God's Kingdom of 'Full Spectrum Dominance' be established across His world by
his various 'Chosen People', the USA always needs an enemy. Now, more than ever, as the
country crumbles into disrepair and unprecedented inequality, poverty and elite arrogance,
the proles must be led to blame their plight on some Evil foreign daemon.
Only this time its
no Saddam or Gaddaffi or Assad that can be easily bombed back to that Stone Age that all the
non-Chosen must inhabit. This time the bullying thugs will get a, thermo-nuclear, bloody nose
if they do not back off. Regretably, their egos refuse to withdraw, even in the interest of
self-survival.
Paranam Kid , September 16, 2017 at 6:13 am
" It has almost occluded any truth for the vast majority of westerners."
You are so right about that, I notice it every day on other forums on which I discuss current
affairs with others: the US views are the accepted ones, and I get a lot of stick for stating
different views. It is actually frightening to see how few people can think for
themselves.
mike k , September 15, 2017 at 5:47 pm
The American people are being systematically lied to, and they don't have a clue that it
is happening. There is no awake and intelligent public to prevent what is unfolding. The
worst kind of criminals are in charge of our government, media, and military. The sleeping
masses are making their way down the dark mountain to the hellish outcome that awaits
them.
"These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur
of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it
seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and
kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future I should do foolishly. The beauty
of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain."
Robinson Jeffers
HopeLB , September 15, 2017 at 10:36 pm
Great, Dark and Accurate poem -- Thank You -- Think I'll send it to Rachel Maddow, Wapo and
the NYTimes.Might do them some good. Wouldn't that be lovely.
Patrick Lucius , September 16, 2017 at 12:42 am
Which poem is that? Not Shine, perishing Republic, is it?
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas -- GAS -- Quick, boys -- -- An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
******************************
And this, from Bob Dylan's "Jokerman" .
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?
******************************
I love life and am by nature a cockeyed optimist, but I find myself intermittently gloomy,
my optimism overwhelmed by cynicism, when I see the abundance of moronic belligerence so
passionately snarled out in the comments sections across the internet. Clearly, humans are
cursed with an addiction to violence For my part, I am old and will die soon and have no
children, plus I live in a quiet backwater far away from the nuclear blast zone. Humanity
seems on course for a major "culling". Insane and sad.
I'd like to see more investigative reporting on the NYT's and other major media outlets'
links to the CIA and other Deep State info-war bureaus. What the Times is doing now is
reminiscent of the Michael Gordon-Judith Miller propaganda in the run up to the invasion of
Iraq. Operation Mockingbird, uncovered during the mid-70s Church Hearings, is an ongoing
effort, it would seem. Revealing hard links to CIA information ops would be a great service
to humanity.
SteveK9 , September 15, 2017 at 7:22 pm
After 'Michael Gordon-Judith Miller' I stopped reading the Times.
Beard681 , September 18, 2017 at 11:52 am
I am amazed at how many conspiracy types there are who want to see some sort of oligarch,
capitalist, zionist or deep state cabal behind it all. (That is a REALLY optimistic view of
the human propensity for violent conflict.) It is just a bunch of corporate shills pushing
for war (hopefully cold) because war sells newspapers.
Robert Parry has gotten this exactly right -- I'm a regular NYTimes subscriber /-have been
for years -- and I have NEVER read anything about Russia that has not been written by
professional Russia-haters like Higgins. Frankly, I don't get it. What accounts for this
weird and dangerous bias?
mike k , September 15, 2017 at 6:03 pm
Have you looked into who owns the NYT?
Paranam Kid , September 16, 2017 at 6:32 am
Why do you keep reading the NYT? Not only the Russia stories are heavily biased, but all
their stories are. Most op-ed's about Israel/Palestine are written by zealous
pro-Israel/pro-Zionists, against very few pro-Palestine people.
Brad Owen , September 16, 2017 at 8:07 am
The Trans-Atlantic Empire of banking cartels rest upon enmity with the only other Great
Powers in the World: Russia and China, while keeping USA thoroughly within their orbit,
relying on our Great Power as the engine that powers this Western Bankers' Empire (the
steering room lies in City-of-London, who has LONG maneuvered, via their Wall Street assets,
to bring us into Empire). Should peaceful, cooperative and productive relations break out
between USA, Russia, and China, this would undermine everything the Western Empire has worked
to build.
THIS is why the phony Russiagate issue is flogged to get rid of Trump (who seeks
cooperation with Russia and China), AND keeping Russia as "The Enemy", keeping the MIC, Intel
community, various police-state ops, in high demand for "National Security" reasons (also
positioned to foil any democratic uprisings, should they see past the progs daily curtain and
see their plight).
Brad Owen , September 16, 2017 at 8:08 am
Progs=propaganda stupid iPad.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:30 pm
Here in Aust-failure I read the papers for many years until they became TOO repulsive,
particularly the Murdoch hate and fear-mongering rags. I also, and still do, masochistically
listen to the Government ABC and SBS. In all those years I really cannot recall any articles
or programs that reported on Russia or China in a positive manner, save when Yeltsin, a true
hero to all our fakestream media, was in charge. That sort of uniformity of opinion, over
generations, is almost admirable. And the necessity to ALWAYS follow the Imperial US ('Our
great and powerful friend') line leads to some deficiencies in the quality of the personnel
employed, as I one again reflected upon the other day when one hackette referred to (The
Evil, of course)Kim Jong-un as 'President Un', several times.
Jeff Davis , September 18, 2017 at 12:31 pm
"What accounts for this weird and dangerous bias?"
Several points:
The Russian -- formerly Commie -- -- boogieman is a profit center for the military, their
industrial suppliers, and the political class. That's the major factor. But also, the Zionist
project requires a bulked up US military "tasked" with "full spectrum" military dominance
--
the Wolfowitz Doctrine, the American jackboot on the world's throat forever -- to insure the
eternal protection of Israel. Largely unseen in this Israeli/Zionist factor is the
thousand-year-old blood feud between the Jews and Russians. They are ancient enemies since
the founding of Czarist Russia. No amount of time or modernity can diminish the passion of
that animus. (I suspect that the Zionist aim to "destroy" Russia will eventually backfire and
lead instead to the destruction of Israel, but really, we shouldn't talk about that.)
mike k , September 15, 2017 at 6:26 pm
The richest man in the world has the controlling interest in the NYT. Draw your own
conclusions.
Mexico, ground zero for the world fascist movement in the 20s and 30s (going by name
Synarchy Internationale still does) throuout Ibero-America, centered in PAN. The
Spanish-speaking World had to contend with Franco, and Salazar being in power so long in the
respective "Mother Countries" of the Iberian Peninsula. This was the main trail for the
ratlines to travel.
I saw a dead coyote on the side of the road the other day. I know you know what that means
to me, Mike. Omens are a lost art in these modern times, and I have no expertise in these
matters, but it struck my attention hard. It was on the right side of the road: trouble for
Trump coming from The Right? They are more potent than the ineffective Left, so this might be
the way Trump is pulled down.
Sfomarco , September 16, 2017 at 3:37 pm
Carlos Slim (f/k/a Salim)
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:31 pm
Yes, but who bankrolls Slim?
Stiv , September 15, 2017 at 6:51 pm
I wouldn't even need to read this to know what's going to be said. After the last article
from Parry, which was very good and interesting .plowing new ground for him he's back to
rehashing the same old shit. Not that it's necessarily wrong, only been said about a hundred
times. Yawn
D.H. Fabian , September 16, 2017 at 2:46 am
After months of so many people pointing out how and why the "Russia stole the election"
claim is false, it came roaring back (in liberal media) in recent days. It demands a
response.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:26 am
No one is required to read anything on CN.
Virginia , September 16, 2017 at 1:58 pm
RP brought lots of new things into play in his article and showed how they mesh together
and support one another "against Trump." I almost skipped it because so familiar with the
topic, but RP brought new light to the subject, in my humble opinion.
I do not need to read or watch established "news" media to know what's going to be said.
After the last b.s. story from the usual talking heads which was low brow and insulting to
the intelligence of the audience, they are back at it again same ol'shit by the same talking
heads. It is most definitely wrong, and it needs to be countered as much as possible not
yawning.
Gregory Herr , September 16, 2017 at 8:18 pm
That's what struck me just how absurdly insulting will the Times get?
And I think the point that trying to destabilize the Russian Federation may very well
bring about a more militant hardline Russia is important to stress.
anon , September 17, 2017 at 9:02 am
"Stiv" is a troll who makes this junk comment every time. Better to ignore him.
Colin , September 18, 2017 at 11:54 am
Were you planning to contribute anything useful to the discussion?
SteveK9 , September 15, 2017 at 7:19 pm
I always wonder what motivation the accusers believe you have when they call you a 'Putin
stooge'. Why would you be one? Are you getting paid? Of course not, so this is just a
judgment on your part. They could call you a fool, but accuse you of 'carrying water for the
Kremlin' as I heard that execrable creature, Adam Schiff say to Tucker Carlson? That just
makes no sense. Of course, none of it is rational.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:38 pm
They're insane. A crumbling Empire which was supposed to rule the world forever, 'Under
God' through Full Spectrum Dominance, but which, in fact, is disintegrating under its own
moral, intellectual and spiritual rottenness, is bound to produce hate-crazed zealots looking
for foreign scape-goats. Add the rage of the Clintonbots whose propaganda had told then for
months that the She-Devil would crush the carnival-huckster, and her vicious post-defeat
campaign to drive for war with Russia (what a truly Evil creature she is)and you get this
hysteria. Interestingly, 'hysteria' is the word used to describe Bibi Nutty-yahoo, the USA's
de facto 'capo di tutti capi', in Sochi recently when Putin refused to follow orders.
David Grace , September 15, 2017 at 7:30 pm
I have another theory I'd like to get reviewed. These are corporate wars, and not aimed at the stability of nations. It is claimed that in 1991, at the fall of the Soviet Union, the oligarchs were created by
the massive purchasing of the assets of the collapsing nation. The CIA was said to have put
together a 'bond issue' worth some $480 Billion, and it was used to buy farms, factories,
mineral rights and other formerly common holdings of the USSR. This 'bond issue' was never
repaid to the US taxpayers, and the deeds are in the hands of various oligarchs. Not all of
the oligarchs are tied to the CIA, as there were other wells of purchasers of the country,
but the ties to Trump are actually ties to dirty CIA or other organized crime entities.
The NY Times may be trying to capture certain assets for certain clients, and their
editorial policy reflects this.
David Grace . what have we here, a thinking man? I like your premise, and I haven't even
watched the link you supplied. That being said, I'll sign off and investigate that link.
D.H. Fabian , September 16, 2017 at 2:39 am
Conspiracy theories upon conspiracy theories, ensuring that the public will never be able
to root out the facts. People still argue about the Kennedy assassination 54 years later.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:39 pm
There is no rational 'argument' about what really happened to JFK.
Zhu Bajie , September 17, 2017 at 7:12 pm
Most conspiracy theories are fantasy fiction. If you have real evidence, based on
verifiable facts, then it's not a theory any more. But most of the conspiracy theories
popular in the USA just serve popular vanity. We never have to accept our mistakes, our
crimes against humanity, etc. It's always THEIR fault.
We Americans over all are like small children, always making excuses.
mark , September 16, 2017 at 5:23 pm
Some of the material on the Black Eagle Trust are suspect. It gives figures for stolen
Japanese war loot, for example, that are simply ludicrous. Figures of so many thousand tons
of gold, for example, when the references should probably be to OUNCES of gold.
One sniper in Ukraine overthrew the democratic government. Previously one sniper in Dallas
overthrew another democratic government. Are there any other examples?
Is our infatuation with democracy just a propaganda thing – to fool citizens into
supposing they have value beyond their labour?
AshenLight , September 15, 2017 at 10:13 pm
> Is our infatuation with democracy just a propaganda thing – to fool citizens
into supposing they have value beyond their labour?
It's about control -- those who know they are slaves will resist and fight, but those who
mistakenly believe they are free will not (and if you give them even just a little comfort,
they'll tenaciously defend their own enslavement). It turns out this "inverted
totalitarianism" thing works a lot better than the old-fashioned kind.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:19 am
Indeed. Gurdjieff told the tale of a farmer whose sheep were always wandering off due to
his being unable to afford fences to keep them in. Then he had an idea, and called them all
together. He told some of them they were eagles, and others lions etc. They were now so proud
of their new identities that it never occurred to them anymore to escape from their master's
small domain.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:23 am
MLK is another example, as is Robert Kennedy.
Anna , September 16, 2017 at 12:53 pm
The American patriots are coming out: "CIA Agent Whistleblower Risks All To Expose The
Shadow Government" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHbrOg092G
That would be the end of the Lobby, mega oilmen and the FedReserve criminals
mark , September 16, 2017 at 5:30 pm
Yes, snipers on rooftops in Deraa, southern Syria, in 2011. These mysterious figures fired
into crowds, deliberately targeting women and young children to inflame the crowd. At the
same time the same snipers killed 7 police officers. Unarmed police had been sent in to deal
with unrest without bloodshed. These police officers were armed only with batons.
This is a standard page from the CIA playbook. The mysterious snipers in Maidan Square in
2014 are believed to have been Yugoslavian mercenaries hired by the CIA
We all have some kind of a bias but fortunately most of us here know the difference
between bias and propaganda. Bias based on facts and our own values is often constructive but
the N.Y. Times(like most msm) has descended into disseminating insidious propaganda.
Unfortunately the search for truth requires a bit more research and time than most people are
willing to invest. Thankfully, Robert Parry continues his quest but the dragons are not easy
to slay. My own quest for truth once led to a philosophical essay. The cartoon at the
bottom(SH Chambers) sums it up. https://crivellistreetchronicle.blogspot.com/2016/07/truth-elusive-concept.html
Mike, thanks so much, I'll look forward to reading it(so far, I don't see it
Moderation?)
Virginia , September 16, 2017 at 2:20 pm
If we have a bias towards honesty, that helps. It keeps one's mind more open and provides
a willingness to entertain various points of view. It's not naivete, however, but thoughtful
consideration coupled with awareness and that protects one from being easily manipulated. But
then, oppositely, there's a human tendency to want to be popular which inclines one towards
groupthink. But why that so entrenches itself, making people impervious to truth, is a
conundrum -- Maybe if the "why" can be answered, the "how" will become apparent -- how to reach
individuals with the truth as so oft told, though hard on the ears, at CN.
Jacob Leyva , September 15, 2017 at 10:12 pm
So what do you think of the Russia-Facebook dealings? When will we get an article on
that?
The Russian /Iranian vs the Ashkenazi has been going on for many, many years ..The USA is
to a large extent controlled by the Ashkenazi / Zionist agenda which literally owns most of
the MSM outlets .Agendas must be announced through propaganda to sway the sleeping public
toward conformity .The only baffling question that remains is why do Americans allow Zionist
to control such a large part of their great republic ?
Art , September 16, 2017 at 1:43 am
Robert, you come from intelligence. Why don't you look at Russia-gate from all possible
angles?
I suggest the following. Putin is an American spy. Russia-gate is created to make him a
winner, a hero.
And the specious confrontation is a good cover for Putin.
This is in a nutshell.
I can obviously say mu-uch more.
D.H. Fabian , September 16, 2017 at 2:33 am
Throughout 2017, we've seen a surge of efforts by both parties -- via the media that serve
them -- to build support for a final nuclear war. The focus jumps from rattling war sabers at
China (via Korea, at the moment) to rattling them at Russia, two nuclear-armed world powers.
This has been working to bring Russia and China together, resolving their years of conflict
in view of a potential world threat -- the US. Whatever their delusions, and regardless of
their ideology, our political leaders are setting the stage for the deaths of millions of us,
and the utter destruction of the US.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 6:59 am
Our political leaders have betrayed us.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:42 pm
Thermo-nuclear war would cause human extinction, not just billions of casualties.
Jim Glover , September 16, 2017 at 3:15 am
It is the same now with North Korea and China. So what would happen if those nations were
destabilized by Sanctions or worse Russia, China Iran and more would support Kim. How to make
peace?
Dennis Rodman has the guts to suggest call and talk with Kim or "Try it you might like it
better than total mutual destruction". Think Love and Peace it can't hurt like all the war,
hate and fear the media keeps pushing for advertising profits. War and Fear is the biggest
racket on the planet. What can I do? Fighting a losing battle but it is fun tryin' to
win.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 6:57 am
We may be losing now, but who knows? It ain't over till it's over. Hang in there.
Great article- again . I used to live in the US, I used to live in Alaska, I used to live
in Crimea, Ukraine but now I live in Crimea, Russia and Smolensk, Ru. I watched this all go
down but it took awhile to see the entire picture. I seldom get any more emails from the
states – even my brother doesn't get it. They think I'm now a " commie" , I guess. I
see it as the last big gasp of hot, dangerous air from an Empire -- Exposed. Unfortunately,
its not over yet and maybe we/you will have more bad times ahead. Crimea this summer is doing
well with much work going on – from the badly needed new infrastructure to the new
bridge, the people are much better off than in Ukraine. They made the right choice in
returning to Mother Russia even though it was a no-brainer for them. The world is lucky to
have free writers like, Parry, Roberts, Vltchek, Pepe', the Saker and the intelligent
commenters are as important as the writers in spreading the Pravda. Spacibo Mr. Parry
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 6:54 am
Thanks for sharing with us GMC. And good luck to you.
ranney , September 16, 2017 at 4:22 am
YES -- -- -- -- -- Yes to all that you wrote Robert -- Thank you again for writing clearly and saying
what obviously needs to be said, but no one else will. We've been down this road before -i.e.
the media pulling us into wars of Empire – first the Spanish- American one, then a
bunch of others working up to Viet Nam, and then Iraq. Each one gets worse and now we're
reaching for a nuclear one. Keep writing; your voice gives some of us hope that just maybe
others will join in and stop the media from their constant "messages of hate" and the urging
of the public to a suicidal conflagration.
Joe Tedesky , September 16, 2017 at 8:55 am
The funny thing about living through the 'fake news' era, is that now everyone thinks that
their news source is the correct news source. Many believe that outside of the individual
everyone else reads or listens too 'fake news'. It's like all of a sudden no one has
credibility, yet everyone may have it, depending on what news source you subscribe to. I mean
there's almost no way of knowing what the truth is, because everyone is claiming that they
are getting their news from reputable news outlets, but some or many aren't, and who are the
reputable news sources, if you don't mind my asking you this just for the record?
Come to think of it, the 'fake news' theme is brilliant considering that now we have no
bench mark for what the truth is, and by not having that bench mark for the truth we all go
our separate ways believing what we believe, because certainly my news source is the only
truthful one, and your news source is beyond questionable of how the news should be
reported.
People read headlines, but hardly do they ever read the article. Many hear news sound
bites, but never do they do the research required, in order to verify the stories accuracy.
Hear say works even more to rain in the clouds of mass deception. Then there are those who
sort of buy whatever it is the established news outlets are selling based on their belief
that it doesn't much matter anyway, because 'the establishment' lies to us all the time as a
rule, so what's the big deal to keep up on the news, because it's all obviously one big lie
isn't it? So not only do we have irresponsible news journalist, we also have a very large
number of a monopolized unqualified news gatherers who must accept what the various news
agencies report, regardless of what the truth may be. It's better the Establishment keep it
this way, because then the Establishment has better control over the 'mob grabbing the
pitchforks and sickles' and crying out justice for somebody's head. It's kind of like job
security for the Establishment, but in their case it's more like a 'keeping your elitist
head' security, if you know what I mean.
To learn how to deal with this 'fake news', I would suggest you start studying the JFK
assassination, or any other ill defined tragic event, and then you might learn how to
decipher the 'fake news' matrix of confusion to learn what you so desire to learn. I chose
this route, because when was the last time the Establishment brokered the truth in regard to
a happening such as the JFK assassination? Upon learning of what a few well written books has
to say, you will then need to rely on your own brain to at least give you enough satisfaction
to allow you to believe that you pretty well got it right, and there go you. In other words,
the truth is out there, hiding in plain sight, and if you are persistent enough you just
might find it. Good luck.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 11:29 am
The truth has never been that easy to find Joe. Actually all the beyond obvious propaganda
on the MSM might wake some people up to do the searching necessary to get closer to what is
really happening in their world. Maybe the liars have finally overplayed their hand? Or are
we the people really that dumb? (I am scared to hear the answer to that one -- )
Joe Tedesky , September 16, 2017 at 12:04 pm
I could be a wise guy, and say to you 'or so you say' in reply to your kind comment, but
then that would make me a troll.
All I'm saying mike is that in this era of 'fake news' we are all running about on
different levels, and never shall the two of us meet. That is unless you and I get our news
from the same source, but what are the odds of all of us getting the same news? It's
impossible, and I'm not quite that sure that that would be what we want either. Still without
an objective, and honest large media to set the correct narrative we end up in this place,
where you might find yourself doing a spread sheet study to come to some conclusion of what
is true, and what isn't.
Case in point, read about Russia-Gate here on consortiumnews, and then go listen to Rachel
Maddow report on the same thing. Two different sets of stories. Just try and reconcile what
you read on sites like this one concerning Ukraine, then go watch MSNBC or CNN. Never a
match. So you mike read consortiumnews, and your in laws read the NYT and watch CNN, and
there you go, a controversy arises between you and the in laws and with that life goes on,
but where is the correct news to be found to settle the score?
Once upon a time the established news agencies such as CNN, and the NYT, were the hallmark
of the news, and sites such as this one were the ones on the edge, now I'm convinced this
conviction has reversed itself.
Thanks mike for the reply. Joe
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 9:07 am
Wouldn't it be hilarious mike, if the dumbed down people attacked the Bastille under false
pretense? Especially if the lie had been concocted by the blinded by their own hubris sitting
powers to be. Talk about poetic justice, and well placed irony. Priceless --
Virginia , September 16, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Joe, Apparently people take the easy way out. And that's just it -- "the way out."
Extinction -- Maybe they haven't learned there's something worth learning about and living for.
I'm gonna concentrate on that. Open eyes that they might see
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 8:08 am
You are right Virginia, it is probably 'a way out', and God bless them for it. My late
Mother was like that, but I'll tell you why. When my Mother was growing up in a family of
eleven children, her father would rent out their street level basement to the voting polls. A
block away my uncle who was quite older than my Mother owned a corner saloon. Now on Election
Day my Mother said how the men in suits would pull up in their big expensive cars, and they
would descend upon my uncles corner bar. Soon after one by one drunks would come out of the
tavern wearing Republican buttons then they would go into grandpap's basement voting booth,
and vote. Not long after my Mom said, the same drunks would come pouring out of my uncles
tavern and this time they were wearing Democratic buttons, and they would go vote once or as
many times as it would take to thank the big guys in the suits for the free drinks. My Mom
said this went on all day. She said a lot dead people voted whether they knew it or not, and
that's the truth. She would follow up by saying, 'yeah a lot of politicians won on the drunk
vote'.
So Virginia some can't take the decept and lying, and with that they give up. I myself
don't feel this way, but then there are the times I can't help but think of how my dear sweet
Mother probably did have it right for the sake of living your life in the most upright and
honest way. Sadly, there is no virtue in politics, or so it seems.
Oh yeah, that uncle who owned the corner saloon, he did go into politics holding nominee
appointed positions, until he got wise and got a honest job, as he would jokingly say.
For the record my Mother did vote, but she was the lady standing in line who looked
reluctant and pissed off to be there, but never the less my Mum was a voter. Oh, the
candidate my Mother loved the most was JFK. John F Kennedy's was the only presidential
picture my Mother ever hung in our humble home.
My message here, was only meant to give some cover, and an explanation for those who shy
away from politics, and not an excuse to stay uninvolved. For even my non political Mum did
at least in the end break down, and do the right thing. We should all at least try, and keep
up on the events of our time, and vote with the best intentions we can muster up.
Okay, I'm sorry for the length of my reply, but you are always worth taking time for me to
give a reasonable answer to. I also hope I'm entertaining with these stories I seem to tell
from time to time. Take care Virginia. Joe
Tannenhouser , September 17, 2017 at 7:28 pm
Humans are approximately 90% water, give or take depending on evaporation (Age). Water
always takes the path of least resistance. Oh I wish and hope for the day when most realize
they are much more than 'just' water:)
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:47 pm
The fakestream media lies incessantly, and has for generations. Chomsky and Herman's
'Manufacturing Consent' outlines the propaganda role of the 'mass media', and is twenty-five
years old, in which period things have gotten MUCH worse (just look at the fate of the UK
'Guardian' for an example). Yet the fakestream presstitutes STILL have the unmitigated gall
to call others 'fake' and demand that we believe their unbelievable narratives. That's real
chutzpah.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 8:26 am
You know Mulga you are correct, many generations have listened to many, many, lies upon
their way to the voting booths. It goes without saying, how the aristocrats when they find it
necessary, as they often do find it necessary, they lie to their flock for a whole host of
reasons. Why we could pick anytime in history, and find out where lies have paved the way to
a leaders greater conquest, or a leaders said greater conquest if not met with defeat, but
never the less the public was used to propel some leaders wishes onward and upward whether
for the good or the bad.
But here we are Mulga, you and the rest of us here, straddling on the fence over what
might be right to what possibly could be wrong. Without a responsible press you and us Mulga
need to learn from each other. Like when comment posters leave links, that's always been
something good for me to follow through on.
We live in a unique time, but a time not that unique, as much as it is our time. Our
great, great, grandparents were straddling the same fence, and I'm guessing they too relied
on each other to navigate there way through the twisting maze of politics, and basically what
they all wanted, was a little peace on earth. So Mulga I also guess that you and we the
people are just carrying on a tradition that us common folk have been assigned too
continue.
Like reading your comments Mulga, good to see you here. Joe
Zhu Bajie , September 17, 2017 at 7:44 pm
Fake news has always been common. Critical thinking has never been popular because Occam's
Razor might slice your favorite story to shreds. Personally, I give full credence to few
things in life, but suspect many more, to some degree. I trust my own experiences more than
what I read in the media and try to reject conventional wisdom as much as possible.
Herman , September 16, 2017 at 9:39 am
Observing Putin's behavior, you have to be impressed with his continue willingness to
extend the olive branch and to seek a reasonable settlement of differences. His language
always leaves open the possibility of détente with the understanding that Russia is
not going to lay down to be run over. On the contrary, the language of Obama and Trump, and
their representatives is consistently take it or leave and engaging in school yard insults of
Russia, Putin, Lavrov and others. We have consistently played the bully in the school yard
encouraging others to join in the bullying. We talk about the corrosive discourse at home,
but observe the discourse in foreign affairs. Trump and his associates are guilty, but slick
talking Obama and his subordinates was often worse. .As has so often been said, we have only
two arrows in our foreign affairs quiver, war and sanctions. We lack the imagination and will
to actually engage in civil discussions with those on our enemies' list.
Parry is of course correct in his opinion of the New York Times but it doesn't stop there,
only that the New York Times undeservedly is the "newspaper of record." His citing of Orwell
is on the mark. Just turn your TV on for the news and see for yourself.
Dave P. , September 16, 2017 at 8:27 pm
Very well said, Herman. Very true.
Patricia Victour , September 16, 2017 at 9:54 am
I don't subscribe to the NYT for this reason, and it is galling to me that our local rag,
"The Santa Fe New Mexican," while featuring excellent local coverage for the most part, gets
all it's "national" news from the likes of the NYT, WaPo, and AP. These stories, much of it
"fake news" in my opinion, are offered as gospel by the "New Mexican", with no journalistic
effort to print opposing views. People I know seem so proud of themselves that they subscribe
to "The Times," and I don't even dare try to point out to them that they are being duped and
propagandized into believing the most outrageous (and dangerous) crap.
To add another dimension, these sources are so jealous of their position as the ultimate
word on what Americans are to believe, and also so worried about their waning influence, that
now RT and Sputnik, both Russia-sponsored news outlets, may be forced to register as "foreign
agents" in the U.S. I am not familiar with Sputnik, but I have been watching RT on TV for
several years and find it to be an excellent source of national and foreign news. Stories I
see first on RT are usually confirmed soon after by other reliable sources, such as this
excellent site – Consortiumnews. At no point did I feel I was being coerced by Russia
during the 2016 election – I needed no confirmation that both Trump and Clinton were
probably the worst candidates ever to run for President.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 9:31 am
You know what I find interesting is how a reporter such as Robert Parry will pinpoint his
details to a critique of say the NYT, but when or if a NYTer is to write a likewise article
of the Alternative Internet Press the NYTer will just simply critique their internet rival as
a 'conspiracy theorist' or as now as in 2017 they refer to them as 'fake news artist'. I mean
no rebuttal back referencing certain details such as what Parry mentioned, but just
rhetorical words written over tabloid written headlines finalized under the heading of 'fake
news'. This must be being taught in journalism school these days, because it's popular in the
MSM.
Just like you have never heard or read from the MSM a detailed answered rebuttal to the
pointed questions of say the '911 Truthers' or a 'JFK Assassination Researcher' a valid bona
fide answer. No, but you do hear the masters and mistresses of the corporate media world call
writers such as Parry, Roberts, and St Clair, 'fake newscasters', 'Putin Puppets', and or a
whole host of other nasty names, as they feel fit to write, but never a honest too goodness
rebuttal. Then they talk about Trump not sounding or acting presidential hmm the nerve of
these wordsmiths.
BTW, I don't care much for Trump, and I even care less for our MSM. Just wanted to get
that straight.
Nice comment Patricia. Joe
hatedbyu , September 16, 2017 at 10:57 am
let's not forget about the nytimes grossly negligent reporting on syria and libya. judith
miller? russian doping scandal. lying about the holdomor . man i could do this all day ..
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 10:12 am
You mean the on air hours of punditry explaining away their professions mistakes, or the
honest rebuttal? It's at those particular times and occurrences of ignored self reflection
our honorable (not) MSM falls back on Orwell's 1984. Like it never happened. The dog didn't
eat no home work, because there never was a dog, nor was there any homework .stupid us. Life
goes on uninterrupted and non commercial time can be filled with an update on Bill Cosby's
past alleged sexual predator attacks, and this is our professional news casting doing its
best to entertain us, not inform us god forbid, but entertain us the ignorant masses of their
workless society.
One day hatedbyu the ignorant masses may just show the corporate infotainment duchess and
dudes that they 'the people' ain't so ignorant, and things must change. Well at least that's
the dream, but it's still a work in progress, and then there's the historical seesaw.
I think it's the power of empire to expand, just like a balloon, until it reaches it's
bursting point. But just what that bursting point is, is without a doubt the most disputable
of arguments to be made. I am coming to the belief we are, as always, continually getting to
that point, and we may of course be very close to igniting that spark in the not so far off
future. I would prefer the spark to be completely financial, and dealt with accordingly, but
I'm a dreamer purest and a conspiracy theorist, so that means when the crap starts going
down, I'll be the old man on the hill lighting up a big fat doobie cue soundtrack 'Fool On
the Hill'.
Sorry just had to get carried away, but it's Sunday morning hatedbyu and I'm home alone
and nobody's trying to break in .. Good comment hatedbyu. Joe
A Compilation Not seen in Corporate Media: See Link Below:
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
US Wars and Hostile Actions: A List
By David Swanson
Stephen J. Thank you for introducing me to David Swanson. Great link.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 11:29 am
Im with you on that Bob, Stephen J providing the Swanson link should be a must read, to
keep things fair and balanced. I also do wonder if Swanson's message isn't getting out there,
and we all don't already know it? I'm a glass half full kind of guy, but what do we really
know about each other, other than what the corporate media instills on us? I wish cable news
would air a program made up of Swanson, Pilger, and Parry, for that at least could put some
well needed balance finality back, if it ever was there in the first place, back into the
public narrative .but there go I.
Good to see you Bob. Joe
Hank , September 16, 2017 at 11:32 am
The deep state sticks with what works: controlling the media keeps the masses ignorant and
malleable. "Remember the Maine"
Germans are bayoneting Belgium babies and "remember the Lusitania" , some evidence shows
higher ups knew the Japanese fleet was 400 miles from Hawaii, recall "Tonkin Gulf" episode,
Iran Contra , invasion of Granada, Panama, and of course 911 and war on terror, patriot act,
weapons of mass destruction, and Russia hacking the election. The masses "believe" these to
be true and react and respond accordingly.
"
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that
matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who
determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is
a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice
or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.
All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."
–Goering at the Nuremberg Trials
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 12:53 pm
Thanks Hank. Same ole same ole, eh? When will we ever learn?
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 11:32 am
"Trump might well go down in history of the President who screwed-up a historical
opportunity to really change our entire planet for the better and who, instead, by his abject
lack of courage and honor, his total lack of political and diplomatic education and by his
groveling subservience to the "swamp" he had promised to drain ended up being as pathetically
clueless as Obama was." (The Saker)
My sentiments exactly.
Voytenko , September 16, 2017 at 11:49 am
What a glaring lie this article is, its' author being either "useful idiot" played by
Kremlin, or maybe not so much of an idiot. What are you talking about here in comments, those
who applaud this article, this bunch of lies? You live in Ukraine, you know anything about
that so-called "putch"? How dare you to insult the whole nation – Ukrainian nation?
Shame on you, people. You don't know (author of the article including) anything about Russia,
Ukraine and that bloody Putin, but you have problems with the US and its' politics. US are
your business, Ukraine definitely not. Find some other examples of NYT and USA malfeasance,
some you know something about. Stop insulting other nations.
anon , September 17, 2017 at 9:53 am
You are not from Ukraine, and you care not for Ukraine, or you would seek unity not
dominance of East over West Ukraine. Tell us about your life in Ukraine, and show us the
evidence of "that bloody Putin."
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 1:31 pm
Yellow journalism now employs "open source and social media investigation" scams foisted
by Eliot Higgins and the Bellingcat disinformation site.
Bellingcat is allied with the New York Times and the Washington Post, the two principal
mainstream media organs for "regime change" propaganda, via the First Draft Coalition
"partner network".
In a triumph of Orwellian Newspeak, this Google-sponsored "post-Truth" Propaganda 3.0
coalition declares that member organizations will "work together to tackle common issues,
including ways to streamline the verification process".
The New York Times routinely hacks up Bellingcat "reports" and pretends they're
"verification"
Malachy Browne, "Senior Story Producer" at the New York Times, cited Bellingcat to
embellish the media "story" about the Khan Shaykhun chemical incident in Idlib Syria.
Before joining the Times, Browne was an editor at "social news and marketing agency"
Storyful and at Reported. ly, the "social reporting" arm of Pierre Omidyar's First Look
Media.
Browne generously "supplemented" his "reporting" on the Khan Shaykun incident with "videos
gathered by the journalist Eliot Higgins and the social media news agency Storyful".
Browne encouraged Times readers to participate in the Bellingcat-style "verification"
charade: "Find a computer, get on Google Earth and match what you see in the video to the
streets and buildings"
Browne of Storyful and Higgins of Bellingcat are founding members of the Google-funded
"First Draft" coalition.
Browne demonstrates how the NYT and other "First Draft" coalition media outlets use video
to "strengthen" their "storytelling".
In 2016, the NYT video department hired Browne and Andrew Glazer. a senior producer on the
team that launched VICE News, to help "enhance" the "reporting" at the Times.
Browne represents the Times' effort to package its dubious "reporting" using the Storyful
marketing strategy of "building trust, loyalty, and revenue with insight and emotionally
driven content" wedded with Bellingcat style "digital forensics" scams.
In other words, we should expect the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, UK Guardian,
and all the other "First Draft" coalition media "partners" to barrage us more Bellingcat /
Atlantic Council-style Facebook and YouTube video mashups, crazy fun with Google Earth, and
Twitter campaigns.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 1:47 pm
Thanks Abe. Sounds like these guys all read 1984, and decided it was just the thing for
2017 Amerika.
Obviously Browne is proud of the "investigation" even though merely shared a "story" fed
to him by Higgins' Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council .
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 1:58 pm
Higgins and Bellingcat receives direct funding from the Open Society Foundations (OSF)
founded by business magnate George Soros, and from Google's Digital News Initiatives
(DNI).
Google's 2017 DNI Fund Annual Report describes Higgins as "a world–leading expert in
news verification".
In their zeal to propagate the story of Higgins as a courageous former "unemployed man"
now busy independently "Codifying social conflict data", Google neglects to mention Higgins'
role as a "research fellow" for the NATO-funded Atlantic Council "regime change" think
tank.
Despite their claims of "independent journalism", Eliot Higgins and the team of
disinformation operatives at Bellingcat depend on the Atlantic Council to promote their
"online investigations".
The Atlantic Council donors list includes:
– US government and military entities: US State Department, US Air Force, US Army,
US Marines.
– The NATO military alliance
– Large corporations and major military contractors: Chevron, Google, Lockheed
Martin, Raytheon, BP, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Northrup Grumman, SAIC, ConocoPhillips,
and Dow Chemical
– Foreign governments: United Arab Emirates (UAE; which gives the think tank at
least $1 million), Kingdom of Bahrain, City of London, Ministry of Defense of Finland,
Embassy of Latvia, Estonian Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Defense of Georgia
– Other think tanks and think tankers: Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), Nicolas Veron of Bruegel (formerly at PIIE), Anne-Marie Slaughter (head of
New America Foundation), Michele Flournoy (head of Center for a New American Security),
Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution.
Higgins is a Research Associate of the Department of War Studies at King's College, and
was principal co-author of the Atlantic Council "reports" on Ukraine and Syria.
Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the Atlantic Council, a
co-author with Higgins of the report, effusively praised Higgins' effort to bolster
anti-Russian propaganda:
Wilson stated, "We make this case using only open source, all unclassified material. And
none of it provided by government sources. And it's thanks to works, the work that's been
pioneered by human rights defenders and our partner Eliot Higgins, uh, we've been able to use
social media forensics and geolocation to back this up." (see Atlantic Council video
presentation minutes 35:10-36:30)
However, the Atlantic Council claim that "none" of Higgins' material was provided by
government sources is an obvious lie.
Higgins' primary "pieces of evidence" are a video depicting a Buk missile launcher and a
set of geolocation coordinates that were supplied by the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine)
and the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior via the Facebook page of senior-level Ukrainian
government official Arsen Avakov, the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Higgins and the Atlantic Council are working in support of the Pentagon and Western
intelligence's "hybrid war" against Russia.
The laudatory bio of Higgins on the Kings College website specifically acknowledges his
service to the Atlantic Council:
"an award winning investigative journalist and publishes the work of an international
alliance of fellow investigators using freely available online information. He has helped
inaugurate open-source and social media investigations by trawling through vast amounts of
data uploaded constantly on to the web and social media sites. His inquiries have revealed
extraordinary findings, including linking the Buk used to down flight MH17 to Russia,
uncovering details about the August 21st 2013 Sarin attacks in Damascus, and evidencing the
involvement of the Russian military in the Ukrainian conflict. Recently he has worked with
the Atlantic Council on the report "Hiding in Plain Sight", which used open source
information to detail Russia's military involvement in the crisis in Ukraine."
While it honors Higgins' enthusiastic "trawling", King's College curiously neglects to
mention that Higgins' "findings" on the Syian sarin attacks were thoroughly debunked.
King's College also curiously neglects to mention the fact that Higgins, now listed as a
Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's "Future Europe Initiative", was principal co-author
of the April 2016 Atlantic Council "report" on Syria.
The report's other key author was John E. Herbst, United States Ambassador to Ukraine from
September 2003 to May 2006 (the period that became known as the Orange Revolution) and
Director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
Other report authors include Frederic C. Hof, who served as Special Adviser on Syrian
political transition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012. Hof was previously the
Special Coordinator for Regional Affairs in the US Department of State's Office of the
Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, where he advised Special Envoy George Mitchel. Hof had
been a Resident Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle
East since November 2012, and assumed the position as Director in May 2016.
There is no daylight between the "online investigations" of Higgins and Bellingcat and the
"regime change" efforts of the NATO-backed Atlantic Council.
Thanks to the Atlantic Council, Soros, and Google, it's a pretty well-funded gig for fake
"citizen investigative journalist" Higgins.
Dave P. , September 17, 2017 at 12:26 am
Abe – Thanks for all the invaluable information you have been providing.
jaycee , September 16, 2017 at 1:52 pm
The meme of an aggressive assertive Russia, based on what happened in Crimea, is a
deliberate lie expressed with the utmost contempt towards principled diplomacy. The average
consumer of mainstream news is also being shamelessly and contemptuously manipulated.
First, the people of Crimea did not want to be part of Ukraine after the USSR dissolved,
and had previously expressed their opinion through referenda. The events of 2014 were part of
an obvious pattern of previously expressed opinion.
Second, around the time of the so-called Orange Revolution, NATO analysts forecast what
would probably happen should Ukraine embrace European "security architecture" (i.e. NATO),
and concluded that Russia would take steps to protect their naval facilities in Crimea. Yet,
in 2014, NATO officials would disingenuously express their utmost shock and surprise at the
event.
Third, Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power in Ukraine in 2005 through the NED-financed
Orange Revolution, consistently described his intention to join Ukraine with European
institutions, including its "security architecture" (NATO), although acknowledging that the
Ukrainian citizenry would have to be manipulated into accepting such a controversial and
adversarial position. He would downplay presumed Russian reaction to potential removal from
Crimea despite the obviousness and predictability of a serious crisis (see Sept 23, 2008
"Conversation with Viktor Yushchenko" Council On Foreign Relations). Yushchenko polled at
5.45% when he lost the Presidency in 2010, running on a platform of European integration.
Fourth, Russian officials at the highest level told their American counterparts in 2009
that any attempt to integrate Ukraine into NATO, and a corresponding threat to the Crimean
naval facilities, would result in moves similar to what would later happen in 2014. Yet the
United States, after instigating and legitimizing the Ukraine coup, would react to the
Crimean referendum as an aggressive act which represented an unexpected security crisis
requiring a reluctant but firm response of militarizing the entire region, and portraying the
Russian state to the public as a dangerous and aggressive rogue power.
The deliberate omission of relevant contextual background by politicians, military
officials, and the mainstream media demonstrates that none of these institutions can be
trusted, and it is they who represent the greatest threat to international security. Putin
has been relentlessly demonized, but it can be argued that his swift and essentially
bloodless moves in Crimea in 2014 avoided what could have been a major international crisis
on the level of the Berlin blockade in 1961. It appears, in hindsight, that such a crisis is
exactly what the NATO alliance desired all along.
Sam F , September 17, 2017 at 9:58 am
Well said.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 12:02 pm
Nicely put jaycee. What you wrote took me back to a time of some eight months before
Maiden Square, when my niece decided to live in Kiev. A bit of a ways away from Pittsburgh,
so I started researching Ukraine. I also discovered RT & Moonofalabama, and sites like
that.
What you wrote jaycee, in my humble opinion should be said in our MSM news. If for no
other reason but to give an alternative fair and balance to say the likes of Rachel Maddow,
or Joy Ann Reed. The way the MSM picks and chooses, and skims across important events in
Ukraine, like Odessa, are criminal if ever the Press is to be judged for crimes of war. To
the crys of a destroyed empire's vanquished population would then your small essay be heard
jaycee, and yet that's the world we live in, but at least you said it.
Thanks jaycee (that's the first time I wrote your name and the j didn't go capital what
does that mean? Who cares.)
Joe
rosemerry , September 16, 2017 at 2:04 pm
Of course the NYT liars would not bother to watch Oliver Stone's interviews with Pres.
Putin, but during them he explained at length about his cooperation during the years after
Ukraine elected a pro-Western president, managing to carry out mutual agreements and
policies, but after the new pro- Russian president was elected, the USA did not accept him
and overthrew him, which preceded the antics of Nuland et al in 2014 and the rest which
followed.
MaDarby , September 16, 2017 at 2:05 pm
It appears to me that the elites decided long ago that the best solution to overpopulation
is just to let climate change take care of three or four billion people while the Saud family
and the Cargill family live on in their sheltered paradises with every convenience AI can
provide.
It is clear these mega-rich families DO NOT CARE about society, about mass human extension
or even about nature itself. They are the pinnacle of human evolution. Psycho-pathological
loss of empathy might have been a bad evolutionary experiment.
This is derangement on a human specie scale, no leader no one in power has been willing to
do anything but exploit every opportunity to make money and increase global domination, the
great powers knew this day was coming when they made their decisions to hide it 50 years ago.
The consequences are acceptable to the decision makers.
A mass extension of organic life is taking place before our eyes, nothing can stop it,
THEY DO NOT CARE.
They sure as hell don't care if millions don't believe the Russia crap they just move
ahead as the Imperial power, might makes right. In the end it is a religious project, the
biblical slaughter of the innocents to appease a vengeful god and rid the world of evil.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 12:19 pm
What you bring up MaDarby takes me towards the direction of wondering what all those other
Departments, other than State & Defense, of the Presidential Cabinet are up too? If our
news were done and somehow properly organized, in such away as to educate us peons, then
whatever the time allowed would be to broadcast and print out what each Federal Agency is up
to. Now I know a citizen can seek out this information, but why can't there be a suitable
mass media representation to reach us clunkheads like me, not you?
What should be exposed is the corporate ownership of the very agencies that were put in
place to protect the 'Commons' has been corrupted to the point of no return. This dilemma
will take a huge public referendum short of a mob revolution to change this atmosphere of
complacency. The public will get blamed, but the real blame should be put on the massive
leadership programs which were bolted down on to their citizens masses knowledge of said
events, and there in lies the total crime of deception.
MaDarby your concern for nature is where a smart person should put their number one
priority concern, no arguing there, but just a lifting word of approval of how you put it.
Joe
Donald Patterson , September 16, 2017 at 2:45 pm
Consortium has been a clear voice on the lunacy of the Russia-Gate scandal. But to paint
Yanukovych former President of the Ukraine as an injured party considering his history in
government with what appears to be large scale corruption is part of the story as well. A
treason trial started in May. More info needed on what looks like a complicated story. This
would be a good piece of investigative journalism as well.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 9:03 pm
Can you imagine what a huge can of worms would be revealed if there was a thorough
investigation on every congressperson and public official in Washington DC? It would make
Yanukovych look like a saint. And in addition, let's investigate the 10,000 richest people in
the US, including all their offshore fortunes gained by illegal means. Wouldn't it make sense
to do that? Isn't there enough evidence of probable criminal activity to open these
investigations? Where is our ethical sense when it comes to our own dirty laundry? I guess
it's easier to speculate about other's crimes than look into our own, eh?
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 12:40 pm
The focus I get isn't so much focused on Yanukovych, even Putin wasn't all that crazy
about his style of leadership, but my focus on a viable democratically created government
doesn't necessarily start with an armed public coup. Yes, leading up to the violence,
peaceful protesters took to the streets, but as we both know this is always the case until
the baton twirling thugs come to finally ramp up the protest to a marathon of violent clashes
and whatever else gets heads busted, until we have a full fledged revolution on our hands
pass out the cookies. I mean by by-passing the voting polls, even to somehow ad hoc a
temporary government in some manner of government overthrow were done peacefully, well then
maybe I could get on board with this new Ukrainian government, but even the NYT finds it
impossible to cover up everything.
And what about the people of Donbass? Shouldn't they have a say in this new government
realignment? Ukraine has, and has always had a East meets West kind of problem. That area has
been ruled over for centuries by each other, and one another, to a point of who's who and
what's what is hard to figure out. Donbass, should in my regard be separate from the Now Kiev
government. (Be kind with your critique of me for I am just an average American telling you
what I see from here)
It's like everything else, where we should let the people of the region sit down with each
other and work it out, we instead blame it on Putin, or whoever else Putin appears to be, and
there you have it MIC spending up the ying-yang, for the lack of a better portrayal, but
still a portrayal of what ills our modern geopolitical society.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 2:49 pm
"The best thing which could happen to this country and its people would be the collapse of
this Empire. The support, even tacit and passive, of this Empire by people like yourself only
delays this outcome and allows this abomination to to bring even more misery and pain upon
millions of innocent people, including millions of your fellow Americans. This Empire now
also threatens my country, Russia, with war and possibly nuclear war and that, in turn, means
that this Empire threatens the survival of the human species. Whether the US Empire is the
most evil one in history is debatable, but the fact that it is by far the most dangerous one
is not. Is that not a good enough reason for you to say "enough is enough"? What would it
take for you to switch sides and join the rest of mankind in what is a struggle for the
survival of our species? Or will it take a nuclear winter to open your eyes to the true
nature of the Empire you apparently are still supporting against all evidence?" (the
Saker)
Please go to the entire article on today's Saker Blog.
Voytenko , September 16, 2017 at 3:48 pm
Sick edition consortiumnews, sick readers. Elites, Deep State, Evil Empire USA Dove Putin
with olive branch Guys, why don't you watch, say for a week, Russian TV, if you have somebody
around who can translate from Russian. If you want to hear real nazi racist alt-whatever
crap, Russian TV is the place. But you'll enjoy it, most probably. Thankfully, you guys, are
obviously, minority, with all your pseudo intellectual delusions, discussions and ideas.
"Useful idiots" – that's what Lenin said about the likes of you.
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 7:00 pm
There is no reason to assume that the trollish rants of "Voytenko" are from some outraged
flag-waving "patriot" in Kiev. There are plenty of other "useful idiots" ready, willing and
able to make mischief.
For example, about a million Jews emigrated to Israel ("made Aliyah") from the post-Soviet
states during the 1990s. Some 266,300 were Ukrainian Jews. A large number of Ukrainian Jews
also emigrated to the United States during this period. For example, out of an estimated 400
thousand Russian-speaking Jews in Metro New York, the largest number (thirty-six percent)
hail from Ukraine. Needless to say, many among them are not so well disposed toward the
nations of Russia or Ukraine, and quite capable of all manner of mischief.
A particularly "useful idiot" making mischief the days is Sergey Brin of Google. Brin's
parents were graduates of Moscow State University who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1979
when their son was five years old.
Google, the company that runs the most visited website in the world, the company that owns
YouTube, is very snugly in bed with the US military-industrial-surveillance complex.
In fact, Google was seed funded by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). The company now enjoys lavish "partnerships" with military
contractors like SAIC, Northrop Grumman and Blackbird.
Google's mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful".
In a 2004 letter prior to their initial public offering, Google founders Larry Page and
Sergey Brin explained their "Don't be evil" culture required objectivity and an absence of
bias: "We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and
research, not only to the information people pay for you to see."
The corporate giant appears to have replaced the original motto altogether. A carefully
reworded version appears in the Google Code of Conduct: "You can make money without doing
evil".
This new gospel allows Google and its "partners" to make money promoting propaganda and
engaging in surveillance, and somehow manage to not "be evil". That's "post-truth" logic for
you.
Indeed, a very cozy cross-promotion is happening between Google and Bellingcat.
In November 2014, Google Ideas and Google For Media, partnered the George Soros-funded
Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to host an "Investigathon" in New
York City. Google Ideas promoted Higgins' "War and Pieces: Social Media Investigations" song
and dance via their YouTube page.
Higgins constantly insists that Bellingcat "findings" are "reaffirmed" by accessing
imagery in Google Earth.
Google Earth, originally called EarthViewer 3D, was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded company acquired by Google in 2004. Google Earth uses
satellite images provided by the company Digital Globe, a supplier of the US Department of
Defense (DoD) with deep connections to both the military and intelligence communities.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is both a combat support agency under
the United States Department of Defense, and an intelligence agency of the United States
Intelligence Community. Robert T. Cardillo, director of the NGA, lavishly praised Digital
Globe as "a true mission partner in every sense of the word". Examination of the Board of
Directors of Digital Globe reveals intimate connections to DoD and CIA
Google has quite the history of malicious behavior. In what became known as the "Wi-Spy"
scandal, it was revealed that Google had been collecting hundreds of gigabytes of payload
data, including personal and sensitive information. First names, email addresses, physical
addresses, and a conversation between two married individuals planning an extra-marital
affair were all cited by the FCC. In a 2012 settlement, the Federal Trade Commission
announced that Google will pay $22.5 million for overriding privacy settings in Apple's
Safari browser. Though it was the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission had ever
imposed for violating one of its orders, the penalty as little more than symbolic for a
company that had $2.8 billion in earnings the previous quarter.
Google is a joint venture partner with the CIA In 2009, Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel
invested "under $10 million each" into Recorded Future shortly after the company was founded.
The company developed technology that strips information from web pages, blogs, and Twitter
accounts.
In addition to funding Bellingcat and joint ventures with the CIA, Brin's Google is
heavily invested in Crowdstrike, an American cybersecurity technology firm based in Irvine,
California.
Crowdstrike is the main "source" of the "Russians hacked the DNC" story.
Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, is a Senior
Fellow at the Atlantic Council "regime change" think tank.
Alperovitz said that Crowdstrike has "high confidence" it was "Russian hackers".
"But we don't have hard evidence," Alperovitch admitted in a June 16, 2016 Washington Post
interview.
Allegations of Russian perfidy are routinely issued by private companies with lucrative US
Department of Defense (DoD) contracts. The companies claiming to protect the nation against
"threats" have the ability to manufacture "threats".
The US and UK possess elite cyber capabilities for both cyberspace espionage and offensive
operations.
Both the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the British Government Communications
Headquarters (GCHQ) are intelligence agencies with a long history of supporting military
operations. US military cyber operations are the responsibility of US Cyber Command, whose
commander is also the head of the NSA.
US offensive cyber operations have emphasized political coercion and opinion shaping,
shifting public perception in NATO countries as well as globally in ways favorable to the US,
and to create a sense of unease and distrust among perceived adversaries such as Russia and
China.
The Snowden revelations made it clear that US offensive cyber capabilities can and have
been directed both domestically and internationally. The notion that US and NATO cyber
operations are purely defensive is a myth.
Recent US domestic cyber operations have been used for coercive effect, creating
uncertainty and concern within the American government and population.
The perception that a foreign attacker may have infiltrated US networks, is monitoring
communications, and perhaps considering even more damaging actions, can have a disorienting
effect.
In the world of US "hybrid warfare" against Russia, offensive cyber operations work in
tandem with NATO propaganda efforts, perhaps best exemplified by the "online investigation"
antics of the Atlantic Council's Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcat disinformation site.
I live in Russia and see those shows that you speak of. The Nazi rants are from the
Ukraine folks invited on the show – you want to see Ukraine shows like the ones in RU.
– well, you won't see any Russians invited to talk -- -- NONE --
Gregory Herr , September 17, 2017 at 10:33 am
Your posts are so blatantly contrived it's almost funny. Do you write for sitcoms as
well?
mrtmbrnmn , September 16, 2017 at 4:48 pm
Is this a great country, or wot???
Stupid starts at the very top and there is no bottom to it .
The Washington Post has its own ironically self-describing slogan. Perhaps that of the NYT
these days should be, in the same vein, "The Sleep of Reason begets monsters". And who will
soon then be able to whistle in the darkness full of these things?
mike k , September 17, 2017 at 8:03 am
When looking for monsters, the WaPo should start by looking at themselves.
The chaos in Ukraine was engineered by Victoria Nuland at Hillary's request. Good that she
is not president. The Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same people, same DNA, same
religion Orthodoxy., Slavic, languages very close to each other, Cyrillic alphabet and a long
common history .
Russian_angel , September 17, 2017 at 9:43 pm
Thank you for the truth about Russia, it hurts the Russians to read about themselves in
the American newspapers a lie.
Florin , September 18, 2017 at 2:15 am
Gershman, Nuland, Pyland, Feltman . essentially ths four biggest US (quasi) diplomats,
like Volodymyr Groysman, Petro Poroshenko and perhaps 'our guy' Yats – are Jewish.
Add to this the role of Israeli 'ex' military, some hundreds, which means Mossad, and of
Jewish oligarchs in Ukraine – and consider that Jews are less than 1% of the
population.
The point is if we were free to speak plainly, the Ukraine coup looks to be one in which
American and Ukrainian Jews acted in concert to benefit Jewish power. There is more to be said on this, but this glimpse will suffice because, of course, one is
not free to speak plainly even where plain speaking is, on the face of it, encouraged.
Jamie , September 18, 2017 at 12:03 pm
Where was fake Antifa when Obama armed Nazi's in the Ukraine?
By ignoring the fascism of one political party, Antifa is actually pro-fascist. This fits
in well with their Hitler-like disdain for freedom of press, speech and assembly. And their
absolute love of violence, we also saw in the 1930s among Nazi groups
There are probably two factors here: The first is the real anger of Arab population against aggression by the USA and European states
(mainly GB and Frnace). That what produces radicalized Muslims who can commit terrorist attacks.
The second factor is the desire of intelligence agencies to exploit those attacks for thier own purposes. For example,
it is quite possible, that they are standing idle to the most stupid of them and disrupt others, more dangerous.
Notable quotes:
"... How many Muslims are needed to drive one suicide car? Five, of course. What's the best, most lethal vehicle for the purpose?
The compact Audi A3, naturally. ..."
"... From 9/11, Charlie Hebdo, Paris' Bataclan Concert Hall, Berlin's Christmas Market to Barcelona, etc., Muslim mass murderers
seem expert at leaving behind their identity papers. ..."
"... Classic examples of this type of "lost and found id" were Oswald's lost wallet and James Earl Ray's dropped bundle of documents
(ML King) ..."
"... Arab folks are brimming with anger that is now being met by the anger of the natives. ..."
"... I think the author misses the role of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, who appear to be the main financiers of the work performed
by the above American Israel Empire. ..."
"... Perhaps the term Petrodollar Empire would be more accurate? As a bonus, it also complies better to the rules of political correctness.
..."
"... I am always deeply skeptical of these false flag claims. We bomb and kill arabs daily, yet create magnificent conspiracy theories
to explain how it is someone else blowing crap up in vengeance. ..."
"... Why would Israel need to frame Muslim bombers when so many are so willing to do the job themselves and avenge their dead? Israel
certainly pulls our strings to conduct the bombardment and they control American politics – why would they need to fabricate murders
of random faceless Spaniards? How does that keep American taxpayers footing the bill for Zionism? ..."
"... It's really pretty simple isn't it? Before we decided to throw in with England and help genocide the Palestinians we had few
problems with arabs. Now we've expanded our mission to include Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc and our blowback is serious. The arabs
are doing what I'd do if a foreign power bombed my family. I could not care less what happens to Israelis or arabs. We need to either
nuke the entire Arab world or leave it the hell alone – none of them are worth a single American life. ..."
How many Muslims are needed to drive one suicide car? Five, of course. What's the best, most lethal vehicle for the purpose?
The compact Audi A3, naturally. What's the best time to stage such an attack? 1:15AM, grasshopper, when there are almost nobody
on the Paseo Maritimo. Finally, what should you wear for such a momentous and self-defining occasion? Fake suicide vests, stupid,
because they serve no purpose besides giving cops an excuse to perforate you immediately.
... .. ...
Astonishingly moronic, the five Muslims in Cambrils made all the worst choices possible, but the rest of their "terrorist cell"
weren't any smarter, it is said.
Eight hours earlier, a van had killed 14 people and injured 130+ more in Barcelona, and the purported driver of that van, 22-year-old
Younes Aboyaaqoub, had rented the vehicle with his own credit card. Very stupid. He also left his IDs in a second van, meant as a
get-away car.
From 9/11, Charlie Hebdo, Paris' Bataclan Concert Hall, Berlin's Christmas Market to Barcelona, etc., Muslim mass murderers
seem expert at leaving behind their identity papers. Otherwise, the official narrative can't be broadcast immediately. Wait
a week or a month for a proper investigation, and the public won't have any idea what you're talking about, fixated as they are on
a Kardashian pumped up buttocks or Messi goal.
List of Passport / ID documents found at terrorism attack scenes – at least 8, including those Linh Dinh mentions above
(1) – 11 Sep 2001 passport found in NYC towers rubble tho aeroplane had 'turned to vapour'
(2) – 7 Jul 2005 London bomboings – ID of '4th bomber' allegedly 'found by UK police'
(3) – 7 Jan 2015 Charlie Hebdo, passport in car in front of Paris Jewish deli where Mossad meets
(4) – 13 Nov 2015 Bataclan Paris passport flew from body 'after killer exploded his suicide vest'
(5) – 14 Jul 2016 Nice France lorry attack 'passport found'
(6) – 19 Dec 2016 Berlin Christmas market lorry attack 'ID found', after 24 hours of searching lorry cab
(7) – 22 May 2017 Manchester UK 'suicide bomber leaves ID' at scene amidst another 'terror on 22nd'
(8) – 17 Aug 2017 Barcelona deadly terror attack by white van, 'Spanish passport found in van'
Also related & of interest
'Mossad did the Barcelona attack' – Israel heavily involved with Barcelona police – from Aangirfan on her site
@Brabantian List of Passport / ID documents
found at terrorism attack scenes - at least 8, including those Linh Dinh mentions above
(1) - 11 Sep 2001 passport found in NYC towers rubble tho aeroplane had 'turned to vapour'
(2) - 7 Jul 2005 London bomboings - ID of '4th bomber' allegedly 'found by UK police'
(3) - 7 Jan 2015 Charlie Hebdo, passport in car in front of Paris Jewish deli where Mossad meets
(4) - 13 Nov 2015 Bataclan Paris passport flew from body 'after killer exploded his suicide vest'
(5) - 14 Jul 2016 Nice France lorry attack 'passport found'
(6) - 19 Dec 2016 Berlin Christmas market lorry attack 'ID found', after 24 hours of searching lorry cab
(7) - 22 May 2017 Manchester UK 'suicide bomber leaves ID' at scene amidst another 'terror on 22nd'
(8) - 17 Aug 2017 Barcelona deadly terror attack by white van, 'Spanish passport found in van'
Also related & of interest
'Mossad did the Barcelona attack' - Israel heavily involved with Barcelona police - from Aangirfan on her site
http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/mossad-did-barcelona-attack.html
http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/barcelona-false-flag-part-3.html
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Lost_and_Found_ID
Classic examples of this type of "lost and found id" were Oswald's lost wallet and James Earl Ray's dropped bundle of documents
(ML King)
Dinh, you are a fool. The Spanish police until the last two decades were always a bit trigger happy. And then you forget the
Guardia Civil. They were the people in charge of keeping Franco's Spain quiet, and it was quiet like the grave. The really funny
part is the Arab folks are brimming with anger that is now being met by the anger of the natives. Read the Blood of Spain,
and see the complicated relationship between Franco's Moros and how they ravaged parts of Spain during the Civil War. The really
ironic part is these "radicalized" kids are simply fodder for the papers back home, and an excuse to begin the round ups and mass
deportations.
Fascism is now returning to Europe because of the liberal insanity of open borders and mass immigration.
Nice read, indeed. Regarding the main idea of the article, that the:
" .. American Israel Empire is working nonstop to deform the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and, frankly, the rest of the
world."
I think the author misses the role of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, who appear to be the main financiers of the work
performed by the above American Israel Empire.
Perhaps the term Petrodollar Empire would be more accurate? As a bonus, it also complies better to the rules of political
correctness.
Which seems more likely prima facie , Muslim terrorism or that the whole thing was faked? The whole premise of this
article seems to be that it's simply ludicrous that a Muslim would ever do something like ram a car into a crowd of people.
It's like in the great movie by Kurosawa, Yojimbo, one guy playing both sides one against the other. Except Sanjuro was a good
guy trying to kill a bunch of thugs and bring peace to the town, while our globo-masters prefer to see innocent people being murdered
and the world in chaos.
Linh, the Orlando video seems obviously fake. For those who look for those things, there are plenty of give-aways. But what's
your point with the Barcelona video? I don't speak Spanish or Catalan, as the case may be, but he seems to be fairly dispassionate
and therefore not bullshitting. I do hope there was a point you were making. There is enough in what you say, so that your linguistic
showing off is a pointless irritation. I would like to make my point with a pointless Hindi quip, but my phone doesn't support
the script.
What Merkel has done in Germany is incredible. She took in a million, a million and a half refugees, and there has been no
major problem. It has been a great success, a miracle."
Yeah....good luck with that! By the time this all sorts out historically Merkel will rate lower than ol Schickelgruber.
Mutti.....Europes greatest "Crazy Cat Lady"!
"and there has been no major problem"
Except for a few stabbings, shootings and bombings as well as general malaise and waste of taxpayer's money, but what is that
compared to the glory of diversity?
Well, I guess Germany had too few kebab shops
"By the time this all sorts out historically Merkel will rate lower than ol Schickelgruber."
The problem of politics and especially democracy is that politicians act for short term gains, but their decisions affect everybody
else in the long term. By the time the Scheiße hits the fan Merkel and her friends will be happily retired in Switzerland or Monaco.
You'd have to be blind and stupid not have noticed this convenient habit of Muslim terrorists. I wonder why the IRA/ Baader
Meinhof/Brigata Rossi or the westher,men didn't have the same habit?
You'd have to be blind and stupid not have noticed this convenient habit of pseudo moslem terrorists. I wonder why the IRA/
Baader Meinhof/Brigata Rossi or the Weathermen didn't have the same habit?
I fixed that for you, mate. The frequency of this seemingly ritual habit is amazing I agree. It is certainly one for the Coincidence
Theorists out there.
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
I am here reminded of Jerry Seinfeld's wise observation that "Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason."
I would advise Ron Unz to take this saying to heart and to spike the execrable Linh Dinh from these pages, and his butt-buddy
Revusky, too.
I am here reminded of Jerry Seinfeld's wise observation that "Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason."
Seinfeld would have been wiser if he had said that it's always less travelled for a reason. That reason is invariably
along the lines of it being less convenient, more arduous, and more challenging. It often takes you to uncomfortable places, and
you have to leave your beloved baggage behind.
Most people naturally choose to walk the broad level path that's been thoughtfully laid out for them. It doesn't go anywhere at
all, except maybe in a giant circle, so that it doesn't matter where they start or where they stop, but they get to keep and even
accumulate baggage along the way and that's what travelling is all about, isn't it?
@utu Looks like Linh Dinh was turned
by Revusky. Everything must be a hoax. This is their starting position: It is a hoax until proven otherwise.
And Revusky comes up with his cheap schtick about the "emotional register." As if he ever seen true reactions of real people
who lost relatives? All his life like all the hoax mongering youtube yahoos he was exposed to movies with the overacted emotional
displays by actors and this formed the baseline for the youtube yahoos and Revusky. So when he sees more measure reactions of
real people he thinks it must be bad acting. Yes, if you haven't noticed, the real life is full of bad acting, you fool.
More interesting would be to read about how is the bromance evolving? Actually real life is usually quite authentic which is
the 'real' part and since several big "terror"events have had some inexplicable aspects to them suggesting the involvement of
trickery it would be wise to suspect that of other events too. If you've been mugged while walking in the street a couple of times
it would be completely rational and indeed prudent if you crossed the street to avoid a stranger, or clutched a hidden weapon
as a stranger approached. This is natural and the survival instinct at work.
As to the emotional register, most people have not studied acting yet they can spot poor acting on TV or in a movie very quickly
because they have experienced human behaviour their entire lives. When the behaviour or physical action doesn't match the dialogue
or situation it appears very odd to us. Some people are more observant than others, this is why professional actors like to study
the traits and quirks of people.
Linh Dinh has written some really excellent articles as many commenters have approved and stated as much but if you don't like
them why bother reading or commenting? Jonathan Revusky too has written some very worthwhile articles in my opinion but he doesn't
seem to take criticism well and has made a few enemies here but again, if you don't like them why not spend your time reading
the work of other people?
i agree that the passports left behind all the time are a little bit weird. when some shit goes down, among friends, we jokingly
ask if they found the passports yet? but it could also be that they want to leave them behind, as a martyr signature or something
maybe. like now they recruited irma for their cause..saying god is on their side.
but then again..i am susceptible to consider weird shit. like the boston bombings for example. I saw a very strange video of a
simulation of a bombing attack which looked very real, like tv footage, but maybe that's the point of a good simulation.
we live in weird times. information flow is corrupted and not to be trusted. stanislaw lem wrote about it 40years ago and I always
think about it reading news.
The American Israel Empire, the Anglo Zionist Conspiracy, the Jew Bolshevik plot
How do the Jews have time for all that and make so much money, run their dentistry, legal, media, entertainment empires and
lust after blond shiksa cheerleaders as well?
Maybe it's from those gefilte fish they eat, or from the chopped liver they do even better than this sample produced by Linh Dinh.
Millions of us have been aware of the "Empire" for years now Linh. We just don't have access to the media expression as you
do. We tend to be quiet about it until we sense a person or group is open to this Truth. Most people think inside the box because
it's safe, comforting, and lacks unpleasant reactions. We who want the Truth value your articles, because we really do believe
that "The Truth will set you free."
Francisco, a typical teacher of philosophy and never a real philosopher. Most of this "refugees" are permanent immigrants,
that's why this "refugee crisis" is just a way to accelerate the capitulation of Europe. Real refugees came back to their countries
when they have opportunity. In the end the most effective way to stop middle east conflicts must be done via exposition of real
(((criminals))), the direct responsible for all this shit. Only the truth can solve any problem and (((problem))).
Teacher of history's philosophy, what most of this "philosophers" are. Real philosophers learn/or invent and teach real or
valid philosophical methods of thinking/analytical-critical thinking and of course subsequent action/application.
The author is claiming it's all fake because the participants were inept and stupid. They possibly were being monitored and
followed all along. That doesn't make it a staged fake event. "Kosher Nostra"? What's that supposed to mean? Jews are scapegoated
for what Muslims do and have been doing for close to fourteen hundred years? It took the Spanish hundreds of years of struggle
to free themselves from Muslim overlordship and now they're just supposed to wash their brains of any historical memory? Those
third worlders written about so lovingly add nothing to Spain besides just some food joints. The author doesn't live there anyway
so why is he telling them how to live?"Drugged and inflamed" is not necessarily true of all of America. The author is probably
an alcoholic and needs to stop hanging around craphole taverns with all those dysfunctional boozers.
Conspiracy theories like those expressed in this article and in many of the comments are for those either lacking the good
sense to appreciate that the world is complex or the intellectual patience to sort through that complexity.
In the absence of these qualities, conspiracy nuts come up with unified theories that "explain everything" (e.g., the Jews
control the world).
Actually moving out of the basement of their mom's house, or even losing their virginity, might help, but most of these sweaty
little pamphleteers are lost causes whose lives rarely extend beyond a circle of like-minded friends and the insular concerns
expressed in their over-heated and under-read blogs.
@DFH Which seems more likely prima
facie , Muslim terrorism or that the whole thing was faked?
The whole premise of this article seems to be that it's simply ludicrous that a Muslim would ever do something like ram
a car into a crowd of people.
Which seems more likely prima facie, Muslim terrorism or that the whole thing was faked?
The whole premise of this article seems to be that it's simply ludicrous that a Muslim would ever do something like ram a car
into a crowd of people.
I am always deeply skeptical of these false flag claims. We bomb and kill arabs daily, yet create magnificent conspiracy
theories to explain how it is someone else blowing crap up in vengeance.
Why would Israel need to frame Muslim bombers when so many are so willing to do the job themselves and avenge their dead?
Israel certainly pulls our strings to conduct the bombardment and they control American politics – why would they need to fabricate
murders of random faceless Spaniards? How does that keep American taxpayers footing the bill for Zionism?
It's really pretty simple isn't it? Before we decided to throw in with England and help genocide the Palestinians we had
few problems with arabs. Now we've expanded our mission to include Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, etc and our blowback is serious.
The arabs are doing what I'd do if a foreign power bombed my family. I could not care less what happens to Israelis or arabs.
We need to either nuke the entire Arab world or leave it the hell alone – none of them are worth a single American life.
How stupid must you be to not see that the American Israel Empire has rigged every aspect of your reality?
...The pattern of human nature that they use is called the Stockholm syndrome.
It has been documented that a group of people can be turned against themselves when they are captured and terrorized, and in
the process, they are propagandized to believe that the terrorizers themselves are the true victims. The terrorists tell the those
they captured, that they are doing this because they themselves are the real victims.
The syndrome is that the captured group begin to sympathize with their terrorists. They take to heart that the terrorists are
indeed victims, and that they should be supported. .
@ChuckOrloski "... none of them are worth
an American life."
Stan d Mute,
The dangerous thing about your rather common conclusion (above) is the stinky fact that, for the sake of creating Greater Israel,
Neoconservatives are in your "Amen Corner" and also would green light the "nuking" of Iran.
Thank you.
Neoconservatives are in your "Amen Corner" and also would green light the "nuking" of Iran.
Don't paint me with your misrepresentation. I wrote " nuke the entire Arab world " Your Iran reply is a strawman.
Few neocons would endorse my suggestion to either obliterate the Middle East (drill for oil through the glass) or abandon their
first loyalty of Zionism and all resulting meddling and murdering in the region.
Cry me a river. No sympathy from me. This article is completely one sided. What kind of investigative reporting is this when
the author didn't even interview the police and review the evidence, but simply hurl out accusations through hearsay from the
average guys on the street.
"... In all those discussions, be it Obamacare, neoclassical economics, neoliberalism, globalization, automation, or supposed Russian interference in elections the key question is how to effectively resist truth-killing efforts of various agencies not interested in revealing the truth on the particular subject. ..."
"... Now those disinformation efforts can be easily amplified via Internet, which serves as a kind of echo-chamber. For example, just a half-dozen of like-minded people can drive Internet discussion in the necessary direction and spam or smear opponents. Essentially such informal cliques are quite capable to dominate discussion in popular blogs. ..."
"... The problem is fundamental, and relates to a broad spectrum of policy issues both foreign and domestic, because truth - factual reality - is a necessary foundation to consider and evaluate and debate policy on any subject. ..."
"... Crushing the truth means not just our having to endure any one misdirected policy; it means losing the ability even to address policy intelligently. ..."
In all those discussions, be it Obamacare, neoclassical economics, neoliberalism, globalization,
automation, or supposed Russian interference in elections the key question is how to effectively
resist truth-killing efforts of various agencies not interested in revealing the truth on the
particular subject.
Now those disinformation efforts can be easily amplified via Internet, which serves as
a kind of echo-chamber. For example, just a half-dozen of like-minded people can drive Internet
discussion in the necessary direction and spam or smear opponents. Essentially such informal cliques
are quite capable to dominate discussion in popular blogs.
Paul R. Pillar in his May 2 essay in National interest provided an interesting overview of
this problem. While his analyses is related to Trump climate change policies some points have
wider applicability:
The problem is fundamental, and relates to a broad spectrum of policy issues both foreign
and domestic, because truth - factual reality - is a necessary foundation to consider and evaluate
and debate policy on any subject.
Crushing the truth means not just our having to endure any one misdirected policy; it
means losing the ability even to address policy intelligently.
To the extent that falsehood is successfully instilled in the minds of enough people, the
political system loses what would otherwise be its ability to provide a check on policy that
is bad policy because it is inconsistent with factual reality.
"... The narratives are, after all not intended to reveal any truths, but to get their subjects
to do something the elites want them to do, and in the course their doing it, to cement the elites'
power. Subjects, being what they are, have fallen for lies since the Pharoahs told whoppers to get their
peasants to invest in pyramids, or the Archdruids got their's to die hauling and arranging 20T rocks
on a dreary plain. ..."
"... As long as a subject can internalize the narrative and live his life as if it was true, that's
good enough for him. He simply doesn't need, or even want more truth than that. He never has, and he
never will. Elites have known this since the dawn of the Neolithic, maybe earlier. That's what made
them elites. Nothing else. ..."
"... Much more interesting is what happens when narratives break down ..."
This is their starting position: It is a hoax until proven otherwise.
If it's turned out to be a hoax the last 20x it happened, why would you insist on starting at
the opposite end? Seems inefficient, no?
What is perhaps even more inefficient on the part of Dinh and Revusky is to go interminably
'round and 'round this spot. Ok, we know that the narratives elites feed their subjects are invariably
false. They have to be, or they wouldn't work. Twas ever thus.
The narratives are, after all not intended to reveal any truths, but to get their subjects
to do something the elites want them to do, and in the course their doing it, to cement the elites'
power. Subjects, being what they are, have fallen for lies since the Pharoahs told whoppers to
get their peasants to invest in pyramids, or the Archdruids got their's to die hauling and arranging
20T rocks on a dreary plain.
As long as a subject can internalize the narrative and live his life as if it was
true, that's good enough for him. He simply doesn't need, or even want more truth than that. He
never has, and he never will. Elites have known this since the dawn of the Neolithic, maybe earlier.
That's what made them elites. Nothing else.
Much more interesting is what happens when narratives break down, which is why Dinh's
vignettes from the fraying seams of the American Narrative are more fascinating than these half-baked,
pseudo-forensic analyses of "terror events". Maybe he thinks too many people still believe these
bugaboos and should be brought around to enlightenment. That's as may be, but one wonders whether
he understands that if enough people "come around", the forces unleashed are far more disruptive
than when they accept, if not believe, the lies.
As long as a subject can internalize the narrative and live his life as if it was true,
that's good enough for him. He simply doesn't need, or even want more truth than that. He never
has, and he never will. Elites have known this since the dawn of the Neolithic, maybe earlier.
That's what made them elites. Nothing else.
In other words, society has always been divided into two classes: those who write the script,
and those who live it; the programmers and the users.
What's gone wrong? Are too many people finding the root shell?
"..... American Israel Empire is working nonstop to deform the Middle East, North
Africa, Europe and, frankly, the rest of the world."
I think the author misses the role of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, who appear to be
the main financiers of the work performed by the above American Israel Empire.
Perhaps the term Petrodollar Empire would be more accurate?
As a bonus, it also complies better to the rules of political correctness. Hey
Simpleguest,
Do you happen to notice Israel's boundless capability for diplomatic duplicity and
efforts to instill cognitive dissonance even among its most loyal US government
servants?
Israel and Saudi Arabia have forged a military agreement against "terrorism" except of
course the Wahabbi-brand which benefits both rogue nations. In addition, as you know, the
Saud family royals & Zionists are commited to extinction of the Islamic Republic of
Iran.
Presently, I am for one in awe how Zionists are trying to throw Saudi Arabia "under the
bus" for doing 9/11.
Their practice of "Deception" has no moral code whatsoever. It's "phooey" to
international rules of nation-to-nation conduct and reprimands.
Naturally, Israel will risk further "deformation" of the Middle East by pointing at
Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11 and providing subsequent cover for their role in the mass
murder & immoral Wars of (!) Terror.
Given international & Corporate Media backing, "Deception" is high art, it has no
boundaries, and noble journalist voices are squelched. We are fucked.
Fear is "a powerful thing" and such zeitgeist pervades America to an extent that people
fear independent thought for concern that they will be deterred from upward employment
mobility. In short, we suffer the enforcement of an institutional hindance to Free
Speech.
Call it what it is – TERRORISM.
"Terror"
1. Intense, overpowering fear.
2. One that instills intense fear.
3. The ability to instill intense fear.
4. Violence committed or threatened by a group, especially against civilians , in
the pursuit of political goals.
"... My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and interests. ..."
"... This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution. ..."
"... They also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this. ..."
"... the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game." ..."
"... So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out. ..."
"... Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it. ..."
"... A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony, like Chris. ..."
"... I assume he meant certain professors [of economics]. Actually on @4, there's a good chapter on the topic in a Thomas Franks latest. ..."
Obviously Mr. Deerin is, on its face, utilizing a very disputable definition
of "liberal."
However, I think a stronger case could be made for something like Mr.
Deerin's argument, although it doesn't necessarily get to the same conclusion.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers,
teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For
much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations,
and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and
protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere
around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and
interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed
the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really
didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since
it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while
transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar
community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals,
anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc.
all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards
the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class
are confused and bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They
also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province
of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this.
Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity
– and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside
that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology
of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly
but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism",
I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among
the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class
still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for
channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled
out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency
against the New Class – but I think he tapped into something like one and
is riding it for all he can, while not really having the slightest idea
what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments
are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class,
and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the
horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers
and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers
of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm
probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony,
like Chris.
"... My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and interests. ..."
"... This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution. ..."
"... They also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this. ..."
"... the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game." ..."
"... So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out. ..."
"... Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it. ..."
"... A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony, like Chris. ..."
"... I assume he meant certain professors [of economics]. Actually on @4, there's a good chapter on the topic in a Thomas Franks latest. ..."
Obviously Mr. Deerin is, on its face, utilizing a very disputable definition
of "liberal."
However, I think a stronger case could be made for something like Mr.
Deerin's argument, although it doesn't necessarily get to the same conclusion.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers,
teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For
much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations,
and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and
protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere
around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and
interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed
the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really
didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since
it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while
transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar
community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals,
anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc.
all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards
the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class
are confused and bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They
also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province
of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this.
Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity
– and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside
that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology
of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly
but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism",
I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among
the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class
still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for
channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled
out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency
against the New Class – but I think he tapped into something like one and
is riding it for all he can, while not really having the slightest idea
what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments
are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class,
and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the
horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers
and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers
of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm
probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony,
like Chris.
This is a weak and way too long article. That demonstrated inability to think in scientific terms such neoliberalism,
neocolonialism and end of cheap oil. Intead it quckly deteriorated into muchy propaganda. But it touches on legacy of Troskyst
Burnham, who was one of God fathers of neoliberalism.
Zelikov is the guy who whitewashed 9/11. This neocon does not use the term neoliberalism even once but he writes like
a real neoliberal Trotskyite.
Notable quotes:
"... The Managerial State ..."
"... Orwell was profoundly disturbed by Burnham's vision of the emerging "managerial state." All too convincing. Yet
he also noticed how, when Burnham described the new superstates and their demigod rulers, Burnham exhibited "a sort of fascinated
admiration." ..."
"... Burnham had predicted Nazi victory. Later, Burnham had predicted the Soviet conquest of all Eurasia. By 1947 Burnham
was calling for the U.S. to launch a preventive nuclear war against the Soviet Union to head off the coming disaster. ..."
"... Orwell saw a pattern. Such views seemed symptoms of "a major mental disease, and its roots," he argued, which, "lie
partly in cowardice and partly in the worship of power, which is not fully separable from cowardice." ..."
"... Orwell had another critique. He deplored the fact that, "The tendency of writers like Burnham, whose key concept
is 'realism,' is to overrate the part played in human affairs by sheer force." Orwell went on. "I do not say that he is wrong
all the time. But somehow his picture of the world is always slightly distorted." ..."
"... "the fact that certain rules of conduct have to be observed if human society is to hold together at all." ..."
"... Nineteen Eighty-Four. ..."
"... By that time, Burnham had become a consultant to the CIA, advising its new office for covert action. That was the
capacity in which Burnham met the young William F. Buckley. Burnham mentored Buckley. It was with Buckley that Burnham became
one of the original editors of the National Review ..."
"... Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism ..."
"... What about our current president? Last month he urged his listeners to be ready to fight to the death for the "values"
of the West. He named two: "individual freedom and sovereignty. ..."
"... Certainly our history counsels modesty. Americans and the American government have a very mixed and confusing record
in the way we have, in practice, related values in foreign governance to what our ..."
"... "A stable world order needs a careful balance between power and legitimacy. Legitimacy is upheld when states, no
matter how powerful, observe norms of state behavior." India, Saran said, had the "civilizational attributes." ..."
My first prophet was a man named James Burnham. In 1941 Burnham was 35 years old. From a wealthy family -- railroad
money -- he was a star student at Princeton, then on to Balliol College, Oxford. Burnham was an avowed Communist. He joined
with Trotsky during the 1930s.
By 1941, Burnham had moved on, as he published his first great book of prophecy, called The Managerial State
. The book made him a celebrity. It was widely discussed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Burnham's vision of the future is one where the old ideologies, like socialism, have been left behind. The rulers are
really beyond all that. They are the managerial elite, the technocrats, the scientists, and the bureaucrats who manage
the all-powerful enterprises and agencies.
You know this vision. You have seen it so often at the movies. It is the vision in all those science fiction dystopias.
You know, with the gilded masterminds ruling all from their swank towers and conference rooms.
It's a quite contemporary vision. For instance, it is not far at all from the way I think the rulers of China imagine
themselves and their future.
In this and other writings, Burnham held up Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany as the pure exemplars of these
emerging managerial states. They were showing the way to the future. By comparison, FDR's New Deal was a primitive version.
And he thought it would lose.
Burnham's views were not so unusual among the leading thinkers of the 1940s, like Joseph Schumpeter or Karl Polanyi.
All were pessimistic about the future of free societies, including Friedrich Hayek, who really believed that once-free
countries were on the "road to serfdom." But Burnham took the logic further.
Just after the second world war ended, my other prophet decided to answer Burnham. You know him as George Orwell.
Eric Blair, who used George Orwell as his pen name, was about Burnham's age. Their backgrounds were very different.
Orwell was English. Poor. Orwell's lungs were pretty rotten and he would not live long. Orwell was a democratic socialist
who came to loathe Soviet communism. He had volunteered to fight in Spain, was shot through the throat. Didn't stop his
writing.
Orwell was profoundly disturbed by Burnham's vision of the emerging "managerial state." All too convincing. Yet
he also noticed how, when Burnham described the new superstates and their demigod rulers, Burnham exhibited "a sort of
fascinated admiration."
Orwell
wrote : For Burnham, "Communism may be wicked, but at any rate it is big: it is a terrible, all-devouring
monster which one fights against but which one cannot help admiring." To Orwell, Burnham's mystical picture of "terrifying,
irresistible power" amounted to "an act of homage, and even of self-abasement." irresistible power" amounted to "an act
of homage, and even of self-abasement."
Burnham had predicted Nazi victory. Later, Burnham had predicted the Soviet conquest of all Eurasia. By 1947 Burnham
was calling for the U.S. to launch a preventive nuclear war against the Soviet Union to head off the coming disaster.
Orwell saw a pattern. Such views seemed symptoms of "a major mental disease, and its roots," he argued, which, "lie
partly in cowardice and partly in the worship of power, which is not fully separable from cowardice."
Orwell thought that "power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that
present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible."
Orwell had another critique. He deplored the fact that, "The tendency of writers like Burnham, whose key concept
is 'realism,' is to overrate the part played in human affairs by sheer force." Orwell went on. "I do not say that he is
wrong all the time. But somehow his picture of the world is always slightly distorted."
Finally, Orwell thought Burnham overestimated the resilience of the managerial state model and underestimated the qualities
of open and civilized societies. Burnham's vision
did not allow enough play for "the fact that certain rules of conduct have to be observed if human society is to
hold together at all."
Having written these critical essays, Orwell then tried to make his case against Burnham in another way. This anti-Burnham
argument became a novel -- the novel called Nineteen Eighty-Four.
That book came out in 1949. Orwell died the next year.
By that time, Burnham had become a consultant to the CIA, advising its new office for covert action. That was the
capacity in which Burnham met the young William F. Buckley. Burnham mentored Buckley. It was with Buckley that Burnham
became one of the original editors of the National Review and a major conservative commentator. In 1983, President
Reagan awarded Burnham the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Not that Burnham's core vision had changed. In 1964, he published another book of prophecy. This was entitled Suicide
of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism . The Soviet Union and its allies had the will to power.
Liberalism and its defenders did not. "The primary issue before Western civilization today, and before its member nations,
is survival." (Sound familiar?)
And it was liberalism, Burnham argued, with its self-criticism and lack of commitment, that would pull our civilization
down from within. Suicide.
So was Burnham wrong? Was Orwell right? This is a first-class historical question. Burnham's ideal of the "managerial
state" is so alive today.
State the questions another way: Do open societies really work better than closed ones? Is a more open and civilized
world really safer and better for Americans? If we think yes, then what is the best way to prove that point?
My answer comes in three parts. The first is about how to express our core values. American leaders tend to describe
their global aims as the promotion of the right values. Notice that these are values in how other countries are governed.
President Obama's
call for an "international order of laws and institutions," had the objective of winning a clash of domestic
governance models around the world. This clash he called: "authoritarianism versus liberalism."
Yet look at how many values
he felt "liberalism" had to include. For Obama the "road of true democracy," included a commitment to "liberty, equality,
justice, and fairness" and curbing the "excesses of capitalism."
What about our current president?
Last month
he urged his listeners to be ready to fight to the death for the "values" of the West. He named two: "individual freedom
and sovereignty. "
A week later, two of his chief aides, Gary Cohn and H.R. McMaster,
doubled
down on the theme that America was promoting, with its friends, the values that "drive progress throughout the world."
They too had a laundry list. They omitted "sovereignty." But then, narrowing the list only to the "most important," they
listed: "[T]he dignity of every person equality of women innovation freedom of speech and of religion and free and fair
markets."
By contrast, the anti-liberal core values seem simple. The anti-liberals are for authority and against
anarchy and disorder. And they are for community and against the subversive, disruptive outsider.
There are of course many ways to define a "community" -- including tribal, religious, political, or professional. It
is a source of identity, of common norms of behavior, of shared ways of life.
Devotees of freedom and liberalism do not dwell as much on "community." Except to urge that everybody be included,
and treated fairly.
But beliefs about "community" have always been vital to human societies. In many ways, the last 200 years have been
battles about how local communities try to adapt or fight back against growing global pressures -- especially economic
and cultural, but often political and even military.
So much of the divide between anti-liberals or liberals is cultural. Little has to do with "policy" preferences. Mass
politics are defined around magnetic poles of cultural attraction. If Americans engage this culture war on a global scale,
I plead for modesty and simplicity. As few words as possible, as fundamental as possible.
Certainly our history counsels modesty. Americans and the American government have a very mixed and confusing record
in the way we have, in practice, related values in foreign governance to what our government does.
Also, until the late 19th century, "democracy" was never at the core of liberal thinking. Liberal thinkers were very
interested in the design of republics. But classical liberal thinkers, including many of the American founders, always
had a troubled relationship with democracy. There were always two issues.
First, liberals were devoted, above all, to liberty of thought and reason. Pace Tom Paine, the people were
often regarded as intolerant, ill-informed, and superstitious -- unreliable judges of scientific truth, historical facts,
moral duty, and legal disputes. The other problem is that democracy used to be considered a synonym for mob rule. Elections
can be a supreme check on tyranny. But sometimes the people have exalted their dictators and have not cared overmuch about
the rule of law. It therefore still puzzles me: Why is there so much debate about which people are "ready for democracy"?
Few of the old theorists thought any people were ready for such a thing.
It was thought, though, that any civilized people might be persuaded to reject tyranny. Any civilized community might
prefer a suitably designed and confining constitution, limiting powers and working at a reliable rule of law.
By the way, that "rule of law" was a value that Mr. Cohn and General McMaster left off of their "most important" list
-- yet is anything more essential to our way of life?
Aside from the relation with democracy, the other great ideal that any liberal order finds necessary, yet troubling,
is the one about community: nationalism.
Consider the case of Poland. For 250 years, Poland has been a great symbol to the rest of Europe. For much of Polish
and European history, nationalism was an ally of liberalism. Versus Czarist tyranny, versus aristocratic oligarchs.
But sometimes not. Today, Poland's governing Law and Justice party is all about being anti-Russian, anti-Communist,
and pro-Catholic. They are all about "authority" and "community." At the expense of ? Poland's president has just had to
intervene
when the rule of law itself seemed to be at stake.
We Americans and our friends should define what we stand for. Define it in a way that builds a really big tent. In 1989,
working for the elder President Bush, I was able to get the phrase, "commonwealth of free nations," into a couple of the
president's speeches. It didn't stick. Nearly 20 years later, in 2008, the late Harvard historian Ernest May and I came
up with a better formulation. We thought that through human history the most adaptable and successful societies had turned
out to be the ones that were "open and civilized."
Rather than the word, "liberal," the word "open" seems more useful. It is the essence of liberty. Indian prime minister
Narendra Modi uses it in his speeches; Karl Popper
puts it at the core of his philosophy; Anne-Marie
Slaughter makes it a touchstone
in her latest book. That's a big tent right there.
Also the ideal of being "civilized." Not such an old-fashioned ideal. It gestures to the yearning for community. Not
only a rule of law, also community norms, the norms that reassure society and regulate rulers -- whether in a constitution
or in holy scripture.
Chinese leaders extol the value of being civilized -- naturally, they commingle it with Sinification. Muslims take pride
in a heritage that embraces norms of appropriate conduct by rulers. And, of course, in an open society, community norms
can be contested and do evolve.
The retired Indian statesman, Shyam Saran,
recently lectured on,
"Is a China-centric world inevitable?" To Saran, "A stable world order needs a careful balance between power and
legitimacy. Legitimacy is upheld when states, no matter how powerful, observe norms of state behavior." India, Saran
said, had the "civilizational attributes."
... ... ...
Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia, and is a former
executive director of the 9/11 Commission.
spending nearly
$13.7 billion. Just two years ago, it seemed that Seoul and Beijing were embarking on a honeymoon
phase when President Park Geun-hye attended a military parade in Tiananmen Square commemorating the
end of World War II!the only U.S. ally to do so.
Then THAAD happened.
In July 2016, Seoul and Washington announced their decision to deploy the anti-missile system.
China opposed the deployment, saying it undermined China's security and would destabilize the region
because its radars could be used by the United States to track China's missile activities.
China wanted to "teach South Korea a lesson" for the effrontery of the THAAD deployment. Shortly
after the announcement, Beijing
banned the airing
of Korean TV shows, films, and K-pop acts in China. After it was revealed that Lotte Group!a South
Korean conglomerate operating 112 stores in mainland China!once owned the land THAAD would be based
on, Chinese state media called for a nationwide boycott of the company. By March 2017, nearly half
of Lotte's stores on the mainland
were shutdown , due to vague "safety violations." That same month, Beijing banned its travel
agencies from selling trips to Korea, resulting in a 66 percent
decrease in Chinese
visitors from last year. Shortly after President Moon Jae-in was elected to the Blue House in May
2017, he announced the suspension of further THAAD deployments until further review.
Many South Koreans told me they expected blowback from the decision to deploy THAAD, but the swiftness
and intensity of Beijing's retaliation caught them off guard. Beijing's response to THAAD, they said,
"opened our [South Korean] eyes to China's true colors ." Simply put, they believed Beijing
could not be relied on to consider South Korea's interests if China's interests were on the line.
This disillusionment is fanning mistrust and has damaged China's image in South Korea. A March 2017
Asan Institute poll found that,
for the first time ever , Koreans had a more favorable view of Japan than of China. This was
a shocking finding; Japan has consistently been South Koreans' least favorite country after North
Korea.
In spite of growing mistrust, South Koreans recognize the crucial role Beijing plays in reining
in Pyongyang. Many interlocutors said they believed, in spite of THAAD, that Chinese officials wanted
to maintain good relations with South Korea!albeit on China's terms.
"... the reason why the US always support foreign minorities to subvert states and use domestic minorities to suppress the majority US population is because minorities are very easy to manipulate and because minorities present no threat to the real rulers of the AngloZionist Empire ..."
"... To distill it to an aphorism, "A million guys with one buck, are no match for one guy with a million bucks." ..."
"... Another point: The poorer people are, the more vulnerable they are to identity politics. ..."
"... What do all races, genders, nationalities and creeds have in common? An overwhelming majority of them are working class. That's why I am white and Nationalist but not a White Nationalist. The working class wants work and wages. The ruling class gives us war and welfare. Solidarity is the only effective defense against concentrated wealth. Absent solidarity the working class is a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Witness the American prole. Simultaneously under the lash and at each others throats. ..."
"... Some minorities are more equal than others. The Deep State, for example. ..."
"... It's impossible to have a functional political system when the political parties themselves are allowed to decide what issues voters get to vote on, and can racially divide the electorate by providing policy packages which play to voter weaknesses. This results in absurd results like blacks in the US voting for mass unskilled immigration via the Democrats, and poor American whites voting for increased defense spending and financial liberalisation via the Republicans. ..."
My thesis is very simple: the reason why the US always support
foreign minorities to subvert states and use domestic minorities to suppress
the majority US population is because minorities are very easy to manipulate
and because minorities present no threat to the real rulers of the
AngloZionist Empire. That's all there is to it.
I think that minorities often, but not always, act and perceive things in
a way very different from the way majority groups do. Here is what I have observed:
Let's first look at minorities inside the US:
They are typically far more aware of their minority identity/status
than the majority. That is to say that if the majority is of skin color
A and the minority of skin color B, the minority will be much more acutely aware
of its skin color. They are typically much more driven and active
then the majority. This is probably due to their more acute perception of being
a minority. They are only concerned with single-issue politics , that single-issue being, of course, their minority status. Since minorities
are often unhappy with their minority-status, they are also often resentful
of the majority . Since minorities are mostly preoccupied by their minority-status
linked issue, they rarely pay attention to the 'bigger picture' and that, in
turn, means that the political agenda of the minorities typically does
not threaten the powers that be . Minorities often have a deep-seated
inferiority complex towards the putatively more successful majority.
Minorities often seek to identify other minorities with which
they can ally themselves against the majority.
To this list of characteristics, I would add one which is unique to foreign
minorities, minorities outside the US: since they have no/very little prospects
of prevailing against the majority, these minorities are very willing
to ally themselves with the AngloZionist Empire and that, in turn, often
makes them depended on the AngloZionist Empire, often even for their physical
survival.
The above are, of course, very general characterizations. Not all minorities
display all of these characteristics and many display only a few of them. But
regardless of the degree to which any single minority fits this list of characteristics,
what is obvious is that minorities are extremely easy to manipulate and that
they present no credible (full-spectrum) threat to the Empire.
The US Democratic Party is the perfect example of a party which heavily relies
on minority manipulation to maximize its power. While the Republican Party is
by and large the party of the White, Anglo, Christian and wealthy voters, the
Democrats try to cater to Blacks, women, Leftists, homosexuals, immigrants,
retirees, and all others who feel like they are not getting their fair share
of the proverbial pie. Needless to say, in reality there is only one party in
the US, you can call the the Uniparty, the Republicracts or the Demolicans,
but in reality both wings of the Big Money party stand for exactly the same
things. What I am looking at here is not at some supposed real differences,
but the way the parties present themselves. It is the combined action of these
two fundamentally identical parties which guarantees the status quo in US politics
which I like to sum up as "more of the same, only worse".
I would like to mention an important corollary of my thesis that minorities
are typically more driven than the majority. If we accept that minorities are
typically much more driven than most of the population, then we also immediately
can see why their influence over society is often out of proportion with the
numerical demographical "weight". This has nothing to do with these minorities
being more intelligent or more creative and everything to do with them willing
to being spend much more time and efforts towards their objectives than most
people.
So we have easy to manipulate, small groups, whose agenda does not threaten
the 1% (really, much less!), who like to gang up with other similar minorities
against the majority. Getting scared yet? It gets worse.
Western 'democracies' are mostly democracies only in name. In most of them
instead of "one man one vote" we see "one dollar one vote" meaning that big
money decides, not "the people". Those in real power have immense financial
resources which they cynically use to boost the already totally disproportional
power of the various minorities. Now this is really scary:
Easy to manipulate, small groups, highly driven, whose agenda does not threaten
the ruling plutocracy, who like to gang up with other similar minorities against
the majority and whose influence is vastly increased by immense sums of money
invested in them by the plutocracy. How is that for a threat to real people
power, to the ideals of democracy?!
The frightening truth is that the combination of minorities and big money
can easily hijack a supposedly 'democratic' country and subjugate the majority
of its population to the "rule of the few over the many".
Once we look this reality in the face we should also become aware of a very
rarely mentioned fact: while we are taught that democracies should uphold the
right of the minorities, the opposite is true: real democracies should
strive to protect majorities against the abuse of power from minorities!
I know, I have just committed a long list of grievous thoughtcrimes!
At those who might be angry at me, I will reply with a single sentence: please
name me a western country where the views of the majority of its people are
truly represented in the policies of their governments? And if you fail to come
up with a good example, then I need to ask you if the majority is clearly not
in power, then who is?
I submit that the plutocratic elites which govern the West have played a
very simple trick on us all: they managed to focus our attention on the many
cases in history when minorities were oppressed by majorities but completely
obfuscated the numerous cases whereminorities oppressed majorities.
Speaking of oppression: minorities are far more likely to benefit and, therefore,
use violence than the majority simply because their worldview often centers
on deeply-held resentments. To put it differently, minorities are much more
prone to settling scores for past wrongs (whether real or imagined) than a majority
which typically does not even think in minority versus majority categories
.
Not that majorities are always benign or kind towards minorities, not at
all, humans being pretty much the same everywhere, but by the fact that they
are less driven, less resentful and, I would argue, even less aware of their
"majority status" they are less likely to act on such categories.
Foreign minorities play a crucial role in US foreign policy. Since time immemorial
rulers have been acutely aware of the " divide et impera " rule, there
is nothing new here. But the US has become the uncontested leader in the art
of using national minorities to create strife and overthrow a disobedient regime.
The AngloZionist war against the Serbian nation is the perfect example of how
this is done: the US supported any minority against the Serbs, even groups that
the US classified as terrorists, as long as this was against the Serbs. And,
besides being Orthodox Slavs and traditional allies of Russia, what was the
real 'crime' of the Serbs? Being the majority of course! The Serbs had no need
of the AngloZionists to prevail against the various ethnic (Croats) and religious
(Muslims) minorities they lived with. That made the Serbs useless to the Empire.
But now that the US has created a fiction of an independent Kosovo, the Kosovo
Albanians put up a
statue of Bill Clinton in Prishtina and, more relevantly, allowed the Empire
to build the
Camp
Bondsteel mega-base in the middle of their nasty little statelet, right
on the land of the Serbian population that was ethnically cleansed during the
Kosovo war. US democracy building at its best indeed
The same goes for Russia (and, the Soviet Union) where the US went as far
as to support the right of self-determination for
non-existing
"captive nations" such as "Idel-Ural" and "Cossakia" . I would even argue
that the Empire has created several nation ex nihilo (What in the world
is a "Belarussian"?!).
I am fully aware that in the typical TV watching westerner any discussion
of minorities focusing on their negative potential immediately elicits visions
of hammers and sickles, smoking crematoria chimneys, chain gangs, lynchmobs,
etc. This is basic and primitive conditioning. Carefully engineered events such
as the recent riots in Charlottesville only further reinforce this type of mass
conditioning. This is very deliberate and, I would add, very effective. As a
result, any criticism, even just perceived criticism, of a minority immediately
triggers outraged protests and frantic virtue-signaling (not me! look how good
I am!!).
Of course, carefully using minorities is just one of the tactics used by
the ruling plutocracy. Another of their favorite tricks is to created conflicts
out of nothing or ridiculously bloat the visibility of an altogether minor topic
(example: homo-marriages). The main rule remains the same though: create tensions,
conflicts, chaos, subvert the current order (whatever that specific order might
be), basically have the serfs fight each other while we rule .
In Switzerland an often used expression to describe "the people" is "the
sovereign". This is a very accurate description of the status of the people
in a real democracy: they are "sovereign" in the sense that nobody rules over
them. In that sense, the issue in the United States is one of sovereignty: as
of today, the real sovereign of the US are the corporations, the deep state,
the Neocons, the plutocracy, the financiers, the Israel Lobby – you name it,
anybody BUT the people.
In that system of oppression, minorities play a crucial role, even if they
are totally unaware of this and even if, at the end of the day, they don't benefit
from it. Their perception or their lack of achievements in no way diminishes
the role that they play in the western pseudo-democracies.
How do with deal with this threat?
I think that the solution lies with the minorities themselves: they need
to be educated about the techniques which are used to manipulate them, and they
need to be convinced that their minority status does not, in reality, oppose
them to the majority and that both the majority and the minorities have a common
interest in together standing against those who seek to rule over them all.
Striving to remain faithful to my "Putin fanboy" reputation, I will say that
I believe that Russia under Putin is doing exactly the right thing by giving
the numerous Russian minorities a stake in the future of the Russian state and
by convincing the minorities that their interests and the interest of the majority
of the people are fundamentally the same: being a minority does not have to
mean being in opposition to the majority. It is a truism that minorities need
to be fully integrated into the fabric of society and yet this is rarely practiced
in the real world. This is certainly not what I observe today in Europe or the
US.
The French author Alain Soral has proposed what I think is a brilliant motto
to deal with this situation in France. He has called his movement "Equality
and Reconciliation" and as of right now, this is the only political movement
in France which does not want to favor one group at the expense of the other.
Everybody else either wants to oppress the "français de souche" (the native,
mostly White and Roman-Catholic majority) on behalf of the "français de branche"
(immigrants, naturalized citizens, minorities), or oppress the "français de
branche" on behalf of the "français de souche". Needless to say, the only ones
who benefit from this clash is the ruling Zionist elite (best represented by
the infamous
CRIF , which makes the US AIPAC look comparatively honorable and weak).
As for Soral, he is vilified by the official French media with no less hate
than Trump is vilified in the US by the US Ziomedia.
Still, equality and reconciliation are the two things which the majorities
absolutely must offer the minorities if they want to prevent the latter to fall
prey to the manipulation techniques used by those forces who want to turn everybody
into obedient and clueless serfs. Those majorities who delude themselves and
believe that they can simply solve the "minority problem" by expelling or otherwise
making these minorities disappear are only kidding themselves. To 'simply' solve
the "minority problem' by cracking down on these minorities inevitably
"While we all typically [have] several co-existing identities inside
us (say, German, retired, college-educated, female, Buddhist, vegetarian,
exile, resident of Brazil, etc. as opposed to just "White"), in manipulated
minorities one such identity (skin color, religion, etc.) becomes over-bloated
and trumps all the others." -- The Saker
That's a great critique of "identity politics" and one reason why identity
politics is self-limiting, maybe even self-destructive (as well as destructive
of democracy).
Another point: The poorer people are, the more vulnerable they are to identity politics.
It's like an Indian movie I once saw that was constructed as a family
history. When the family experienced many setbacks, one after another, until
they were all disheartened, the patriarch of the family spoke up, saying,
"Remember, we are Bengali!" That was the turning point in the film: after
that things began to improve for the family so that the film could have
a happy Bolliwood ending.
That was like saying, "Remember, we have a proud history!"
There was also a Yiddish joke that someone told me, like this: There
was a young Jewish man in some place like Minsk, somewhere in Eastern Europe,
and he saw an advertisement by none other than a great member of the Rothschild
banking family. The ad said "Wanted: young Jewish man for difficult and
physically challenging assignment." So the hero (or anti-hero?) of this
story set out immediately for Paris. Unfortunately, our hero experienced
many tragedies, even losing an arm and a leg. But he was determined and
he persevered, with the help of a crutch. Finally, he had to camp out in
front of the gate of the Rothschild mansion outside of Paris.
Eventually,
the great Rothschild had his carriage stop and spoke to the man, saying,
"You know, I've seen you standing here day after day what is it that you
want?"
Our hero brought out the advertisement that he had carried with him
through all his misadventures. The great Rothschild read the advertisement
and exclaimed, "What's the matter with you? Did you not read that the job
was physically challenging?" To which our hero responded, "Yes, but, Mr.
Rothschild, the ad says "young Jewish man."
Being myself a gentile, I did not at first get the joke, but eventually
I got a chuckle out of it.
What do all races, genders, nationalities and creeds have in common?
An overwhelming majority of them are working class. That's why I am white
and Nationalist but not a White Nationalist. The working class wants work
and wages. The ruling class gives us war and welfare. Solidarity is the
only effective defense against concentrated wealth. Absent solidarity the
working class is a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Witness the
American prole. Simultaneously under the lash and at each others throats.
I also lived for 5 years in Washington, DC, which was something like
70% Black and, at the time, openly and often rudely hostile to Whites
(I never thought of myself as a color before, but I sure felt like one
during those 5 years). And now I am a "legal alien" living in the US.
Anyway, while I am "White" (what a nonsensical category!)
Nonsensical? Really? Both the DC blacks and their DC (((paymasters)))
hate your "category" but you're still confused and want to hold hands and
educate them ? Do you have children?
The French author Alain Soral has proposed what I think is a brilliant
motto to deal with this situation in France. He has called his movement
"Equality and Reconciliation" and as of right now, this is the only
political movement in France which does not want to favor one group
at the expense of the other.
Demographically speaking, the native French group ( white category
FYI) is already doomed to lose their homeland unless they reverse the invasion
and punish the plotters. Reconciling with their invaders would be assisted
suicide, surely. Almost as bad as the forced miscegenation idea proposed
by Nicolas "Jew Midget" Sarkozy a few years back.
You need to wake up and check for any vitamin/mineral deficiencies you
might have, Saker. Our ancestors butchered countless invaders to
give us the land we're standing on – they didn't reconcile it away.
One single question shows how profoundly silly The Saker's his "solution"
is:
Why would it be easier to convince resentful, envious minorities to just
get along with the majority than to convince the elites to act better, according
to the noblesse oblige principle?
Elites will always misuse their power. Minorities/majorities will always
quarrel and resent each other.
Give us (back) ethnically homogeneous states instead. No panacea, but
the besf we can hope for.
The ruling elites of US (both democrats and republicans) can be divided
into 2 categories:
1. The ones who think that they are better because of their race.
2. The ones who think that they are better because they were able to overcome
the feeling of being better because of their race. In other words – the
morally superior ubermensch instead of racially superior ubermensch.
In reality, category 2 doesn't exist (at least not among the ruling elites)
– they are all liars. They haven't been able to overcome any feeling of
superiority, they just added another one – the one of moral superiority.
Actually, the ruling elites for the most part are still category 1, only
pretending to be category 2. Not only do they feel they are superior to
other races, they feel they are superior to their own race – the poorer
members of it.
The ruling elites are manipulating the population of US into declaring
that they belong in either one of these 2 camps. Result: Charlottesville
riots.
This post would sound eminently reasonable if the white identitarians
had any kind of state blessing, but they are a de facto criminal element
being suppressed. Not for the sake of democracy, but for the sake of the
elite who are Jewish, not Zionist, and not very Anglo.
White nationalism would have zero credibility if actual white leadership
were transparently in control over the state. The wellspring of their support
comes from the fact that what whites do exist in the power structure are
absolutely and transparently subservient to other interests.
One of the problems is that the US was (and still is) a republic-with
a small r. The republican form of government assumes that the voters are
too stupid or ignorant to pass laws, so they have to hire professional political
types to write their governing laws for them. The politicos are easy targets
for the powers that be to manipulate, evidently.
The problem is – as always – with the numbers. The large influx of migrants
is changing the demographics and that changes the goals and behaviour of
each group. The minority groups can see the promised land in the future
when they will take over. The majority knows that they cannot stop it by
"equality and reconciliation" (whatever that would mean in practise, maybe
endless workshops to whine about each other?).
The numbers game has gone too far and there is no easy way to restore
stability. E.g. the labor markets in the West cannot be fixed without drastic
restrictions on supply of new labor from the Third World. The article has
some valuable insights, but the lame 'solution' it suggests is useless.
Another issue not addressed is that many minorities are a majority in
their regions leading to a geographic instability by putting borders in
question. That separation actually makes sense in many cases.
What we have had for some time are the elites behaving badly, they have
stopped being responsible and thoughtful. The best solution I can see would
be for the elites to sober up and start taking their role seriously again.
Short of that, we will have chaos, and not the fun type of chaos. Those
are the wages of the baby boomer idiocy.
Manipulated majorities are an even greater danger.
At the last French elections the political elite did anything possible to
prevent Front National getting legal political power.
With fifteen % of the votes, of those who bothered to vote, some 44%, Macron
got an absolute majority in French parliament, some 360 seats.
FN six or so.
Yet, alas, anyone knows he won the elections, but not the streets.
As his popularity goes down, Sun King habits, the strikes announced for
11 and 12 September will show who really is in power in France.
If you want to lesson the influence of minorities in western democracies,
then its essential to provide a more a la carte form of democracy that is
less open to elite manipulation. Options include getting rid of political
parties and voting directly for heads of government departments, or allowing
voters to vote on which party gets to run each of the key government departments.
It's impossible to have a functional political system when the political
parties themselves are allowed to decide what issues voters get to vote
on, and can racially divide the electorate by providing policy packages
which play to voter weaknesses. This results in absurd results like blacks
in the US voting for mass unskilled immigration via the Democrats, and poor
American whites voting for increased defense spending and financial liberalisation
via the Republicans.
There is no way around this problem without radically changing the political
system.
Easier said than done. Most minorities would support anti-majority politics
even IF they knew they were being manipulated. You severely underestimate
the human attraction to tribalism.
A more plausible plan would be to turn minorities against so-called 'AngloZionist'
values, which is already partially complete, since minorities are rarely
Anglos and therefore don't subscribe to their values as much. Have a look
at any SJW gathering. Always disproportionately white, even in very diverse
cities. It's much easier to convince even longtime resident minorities like
blacks that things like transgenderism is bullshit, than it is to convince
emotionally committed whites.
This would result in a country that allows multiple competing tribalisms,
but none of which would be very useful as pawns by the elites. Not as good
as homogeneity, but better than the current situation.
"Everybody gang up against the WEIRDs" is a nice thought and I would
love to see it, but it's just not very likely.
There is only effective way defuse the explosive potential of minorities:
Educate minorities and explain to them that they are being manipulated
Educate those joining anti-minority movements that they are also being
manipulated
Offer the minorities a future based on equality and reconciliation
Put the spotlight on those who fan the flames of conflict and try to
turn minorities and majorities against each other
Surprisingly weak and naive.
A simple question:
What's wrong with Serb approach in Kosovo before Western intervention?
Spare me "virtue signalling" .. if you can.
I think it would've worked if West hadn't stepped up with overwhelming
FORCE.
It worked in "Operation Storm". Serbs as victims but that's precisely the
point.
Perfect example how it CAN work.
So .following the same logic ..if IF .West used the same approach why
it wouldn't work?
Say .French government does exactly the same as Croats did with Serbs in
Croatia or Serbs with Albanians/whatever in Kosovo.
There is only effective way defuse the explosive potential of minorities:
Educate minorities and explain to them that they are being manipulated
Educate those joining anti-minority movements that they are also being
manipulated
While those ideas have merit, I predict they'll be impossible to implement.
Education is an active process and one cannot "be" educated in the passive
sense. People, like other creatures, can be schooled and trained, but that's
not the same as acquiring an education.
There are several reasons why the majority will never acquire any meaningful
education. Most people simply do not possess the requisite curiosity to
begin any sort of educational process and would rather make decisions based
on immediate emotions. A true education requires active questioning of the
standing myths and myths are evidently too comfortable for most to discard
or even doubt. Most folks appear too lazy and or too timid to face the hard
truths and would rather follow the dictates of some slick Peruna peddler.
A shocking percentage of people apparently love the feeling of "superiority"
of "knowing" something even if their belief is utter, easily discardable,
hogwash and actively reject any challenges to it. For example, the mindless
charge of "conspiracy theorist" is used to dismiss, without thinking, anything
but the spoon fed drivel they see on teevee.
I could go on, but this is already too long and is mostly preaching to
the choir.
Which is a key reason that things are not likely to improve for at least
a few more millennia. Accepting wages is a form of slavery, and most folks
simply cannot see beyond that trap. The system has evolved so that people
readily accept the idea of wages as a necessity (along with the extortion
and theft known as taxes). There's a huge difference between making (earning)
a living and holding a job for wages, but I doubt I'll ever be able to convince
anyone of that.
Tolstoy wrote about the concept of wage slavery over a century ago and
it makes good reading to this day.
"But in reality the abolition of serfdom and of [chattel] slavery was
only the abolition of an obsolete form of slavery that had become unnecessary,
and the substitution for it of a firmer form of slavery and one that holds
a greater number of people in bondage."
The ruling class gives us war and welfare. Solidarity is the only
effective defense against concentrated wealth. Absent solidarity the
working class is a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Witness
the American prole. Simultaneously under the lash and at each others
throats.
All true, except the part about solidarity, which would definitely be
a huge step in the right direction for us proles and peasants, but is probably
as unobtainable as true education of the masses.
As I see it, the best an individual can do is to toss a monkey wrench
into the system whenever we can get away with it, but that requires an understanding
of who are enemies are and that seems nearly impossible to achieve. Thus
it's effective only in theory. In practice, it's probably as ephemeral as
a gas emission in a tornado.
Short of that, we will have chaos, and not the fun type of chaos.
Chaos is on the march.
It appears the minority has magically organized itself and planned
a 10-day march from Charlottesville to DC, there to demand the impeachment/removal
of Donald Trump, and to carry on a non-violent occupation (irony
alert).
Manipulated majorities are an even greater danger.
An even bigger threat is the manipulat ing minorities aka certain
(most?) elements of the money bag crowd.
This problem has been recognized for millennia and was discussed in detail
by many early Americans who nevertheless argued in favor of a constitution
and a centralized bureaucracy that favored the rich.
Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.
-Diogenes of Sinope, quoted by Stobaeus, iv. 31c. 88
But if you will take note of the mode of proceedings of men, you
will see that all those who come to great riches and great power have
obtained them either by fraud or by force; and afterwards, to hide the
ugliness of acquisition, they make it decent by applying the false title
of earnings to things they have usurped by deceit or by violence.
- Niccolo Machiavelli , HISTORY OF FLORENCE AND OF THE AFFAIRS OF
ITALY, Book 3 chap 3Para 8
" wealth is no proof of moral character; nor poverty of the want
of it. On the contrary, wealth is often the presumptive evidence of
dishonesty; and poverty the negative evidence of innocence."
THOMAS PAINE, DISSERTATION ON FIRST-PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT, 1795
AfroAmericans who are descended from slaves should take into account
the fact that their ancestors were protected because they had value. As
a result they now number some 42 million and produced the last President.
Comparison with the indigenous natives who after centuries of genocide number
about 2 million and are mostly on reservations should give pause.
Nonwhites within the borders of the US are not innocent bystanders They
are enthusiastically voting The Historic Native Born White American Majority
into a violently persecuted racial minority within the borders of America..
If you have a greater identification with Muslim "Americans" and Hindu
"Americans" than European American Natives then just go back to Russia..and
take the Hindus and Muslims with you.
It wasn't very nice of you not to let my comment go through yesterday
in response to commenter Eric .on The Vineyard of the Saker
You are waging demographic warfare against my Racial Tribe .
@WorkingClass The Chinese in California are Chinese Race Nationalist
The Hindus in California are Hindu Race Nationalists You are a Civic Nationalist
Cuck.
Using minorities as an excuse to oppress majorities is a classic colonial
technique. The British set themselves up as the "protectors" of the Muslims
in India, the Turks in Cyprus and the Protestants in Ireland, for example.
Putin justifies his actions in Ukraine by claiming that he is "protecting"
the ethnic Russian minority from the dastardly ethnic Ukrainian majority.
Ditto for the various cyber-attacks on Estonia. One assumes that the same
treatment would be meted out to the Belarusians if they dared to assert
their national sovereignty. The US captive nations legislation the author
refers to includes Belarus (designated "White Ruthenia"), Ukraine and the
three Baltic republics. I am unaware of any alliance ever having existed,
or existing today, between Serbia and Russia. Like "Eurasia", that "alliance"
seems to have been invented by US neocons when they were trying to use Putin
as an "asset".
Is it ok with you that the Chinese and Hindus in California voted The
Historic Native Born White American Majority in California into a racial
minority?
"Manipulated minorities represent a major danger to democratic states."
Well, yes. But the manipulation of minorities to change legal frameworks
or disassemble governments has been ongoing since the French Revolution.
'They' first foster a sense of oppression, more or less justified, then
move to grant the new rights. Monarchies suffered the strategy. Europe should
know the drill, witness the received oral tradition "Czechoslovaquia is
another spelling for Rothschild."
Breaking up the US along racial lines is exactly what 'they' want. They
want the fighting "whites" to come out, give the reason for changes in law.
The Trump impeachment is deliberate provocation.
There has never been a 'white nation', it is a silly, ahistorical idea.
Nations are built around culture. Fight for the culture. Use the damn high
IQ.
@Issac "White nationalism would have zero credibility if actual white
leadership were transparently in control over the state."
Nope, but thanks for playing. White nationalism would have zero credibility
if the leadership actually promoted American–WASP–interests. There is no
escaping the Posterity clause, period. There is no magic dirt, no civic
nationalism, no immersion in American culture, that can replace descendants
of the English colonists that understand the importance of the Rights of
Englishmen. The US was never intended to be the world's largest rest stop
for every poor downtrodden person on Earth. Minorities now all undocumented
immigrants since 1965 (Hart-Cellar).
Homogeneous nation's are born from Heterogeneous nation's. We are witnesses
to the birth pains. The length of the labor depends on how long the majority
will tolerate the minorities. Reconciliation isn't just impossible–its not
even on the table, unless you reverse time. They. Have. To. Go. Back.
@Anon Well..you are wrong about that..America since it's inception has
always been a White Nation If you don't believe me..just ask Professor Noel
Ignatieve-the Father of White Studies. Where I differ from Professor Noel
Ignatieve:I think it's GREAT that America has historically been a White
Nation as did Socialist Labor Leader Samuel Gompers.
As far as your last two sentences go:Bring back the 1888 Chinese Legal
Immigrant Exclusion Act!!!!
Saker
The highly racialized Nonwhite Democratic Party Voting Bloc is the Voting
Bloc for War on Christian Russia not Trump's Whitey Racist Voting Bloc..
@Intelligent Dasein Damned right. If anything, he is the descendant
of African slave traders . But his skin is sort of black and he's
got a funky name, so he can pass as one of the "oppressed" minorities.
@jacques sheete 1 Timothy 5:18 ESV /
For the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the
grain," and, "The laborer deserves his wages."
Wages are as old as dirt. I can understand why you find them objectionable.
But with what will you replace them?
There's a huge difference between making (earning) a living and holding
a job for wages, but I doubt I'll ever be able to convince anyone of
that.
Try me.
I was a union man back in the day when private sector unions were active
and had support in Washington. We had a contractual relationship with employers
that was qualitatively different from serfdom or chattel slavery and a huge
improvement over the wage slavery that prevailed before the American labor
movement.
As ideologies go the Anarchists have the best of it. But even they are
Utopians. Capitalism sux. There will never be a free market utopia. But
neither will there be a workers paradise. Human beings are limited in what
they can accomplish by human nature. That's the law. I'm only interested
in what works in the real world, however imperfectly.
Nature does not know political frontiers. She first puts the living
beings on this globe and watches the free game of energies. He who is
strongest in courage and industry receives, as her favorite child, the
right to be the master of existence.
If a people limits itself to domestic colonization, at a time when
other races cling to greater and greater surfaces of the earth's soil,
it will be forced to exercise self-restriction even while other nations
will continue to increase.
For some day this case will occur, and it will arrive the earlier
the smaller the living space is that a people has at its disposal. As,
unfortunately only too frequently, the best nations, or, better still,
the really unique cultured races, the pillars of all human progress,
in their pacifistic blindness decide to renounce the acquisition of
new soil in order to content themselves with 'domestic* colonization,
while
inferior nations know full well how to secure enormous areas on this
earth for themselves, this would lead to the following result:
The culturally superior, but less ruthless, races would have to limit,
in consequence of their limited soil, their increase even at a time
when the culturally inferior, but more brutal and more natural, people,
in consequence of their greater living areas, would be able to increase
themselves without limit.
In other words: the world will, therefore, some day come into the
hands of a mankind that is
inferior in culture but superior in energy and activity.
For then there will be only two possibilities in the no matter how
distant future: either the world will be ruled according to the ideas
of our modern democracy, and then the stress of every decision falls
on the races which are stronger in numbers, or the world will be dominated
according to the law of the natural order of energy, and then the people
of brute strength will be victorious, and again, therefore, not the
nations of self-restriction.
But one may well believe that this world will still be subject to
the fiercest fights for the existence of mankind.
In the end, only the urge for self-preservation will eternally succeed.
Under its pressure so-called 'humanity,' as the expression of a mixture
of stupidity, cowardice, and an imaginary superior intelligence, will
melt like snow under the March sun. Mankind has grown strong in eternal
struggles and it will only perish through eternal peace.
Hint: today in an appearance on an internationally broadcast program,
a minion from Foundation for Defense of Democracy (FDD) dismissed as "conspiracy
theory" the suggestion that the USA/(Trump admin) is involved in Afghanistan
"because Afghanistan has vast lithium resources, which US needs for new
technologies" [see this 2010 report,
Read More
Minorities are nothing but trouble, even though political correctness
demands that we not see that or dare to say so. History offers not a single
– NOT ONE SINGLE – example of harmony and mutual love between the minorities
and the majority in any community/country/nation. Prove me wrong, cite one
significant exception.
Don't cite Italian-Americans and Polish-Americans in the American melting
pot. They came with full intent to be melted, they came white, Christian,
and western in outlook and culture. They came pre-cooked for the melting
pot. Can't say the same for the Muslims streaming in today. Nor for the
Hindus and the Orientals coming in today. Leaving aside the Muslims (not
even worth discussing in any talk of assimilation), the Hindus and Orientals
today stand aside and apart, both groups highly conscious of their groups'
share in the American pie. The Hispanics will make Spanish the lingua Franca
– already largely done in California. So what exactly can the melting of
Spanish and English languages produce? Spanglish? No, it will be one or
the other, depending on which group acquires demographic majority and sufficient
political clout. Who will melt whom?
Is it ok with you that the Chinese and Hindus in California voted
The Historic Native Born White American Majority in California into
a racial minority?
Please elaborate on what you mean. I definitely do not see myself as
a racial minority in California.
Manipulated Minorities Represent a Major Danger for Democratic States
The solution is an easy one – we must abandon the Jew Matrix of identity
politics and return to the Christian Matrix of neighborliness.
Jew thought is about biological identity, and all the fear and hate associated
with it – the Christian philosophical mindset is an intellectual entreaty
to "love your neighbor as you love yourself." Hmm – one favors gonad driven
actions – the other using our brains to overcome our biology, and make peace
and abundance.
The differences are stark and profound – we can see what the Jew way
has brought us – Jew tribalism is killing America and the West.
If we want a just kind world we cannot abandon philosophical Christianity.
Philosophical Christianity is not about "the virgin birth" and "the ascension
into heaven" – it is about a practical way to peaceably live with each other
and build an abundance for all.
@Cloak And Dagger Non-Hispanic white is now down to 37.7% of the California
population as of 2016 according to the U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts ..probably
less if you include all the uncounted illegals.
"I would even argue that the Empire has created several nation ex nihilo
(What in the world is a "Belarussian"?!)."
Hey, us Anglo-Zionists didn't create Belarus. That was an indigenous
or possibly German puppet state created (sort of) in early 1918. It was
then conquered by the Bolsheviks and reborn as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist
Republic, a constituent republic of the USSR till it fell apart, at which
point it became (sort of) independent.
The Anglo-Zionists had nothing to do with any of this, with probable
exception of the collapse of the USSR.
@Intelligent Dasein Actually, if we go back a dozen or two generations,
it's probable most people on the planet are descended from both slaveowners
and slaves. Especially if you're a little loose with the definition of slave.
@Bragadocious If we had ever made a serious consistent effort to kill
all the Indians, they'd be gone. But there seem to be quite a few of them
still around. About 5M, in fact, considerably more than lived in the boundaries
of the USA in 1491.
Argentina had similar Indian problems during the same time period (late
19th century) we were fighting our final Indian wars. But they had a different
approach: extermination.
Quite successful at it, too. Very few Indians left in Argentina. And
they didn't import any other minorities, which means Argentina is now upwards
of 90% "white." Much more so than USA, in fact.
If we accept that minorities are typically much more driven than
most of the population, then we also immediately can see why their influence
over society is often out of proportion with the numerical demographical
"weight". This has nothing to do with these minorities being more intelligent
or more creative and everything to do with them willing to being
spend much more time and efforts towards their objectives than most
people.
It's true that there is greater activism, but the key ingredient is probably
ethnic patronage.
A.H. gave an (approving) explanation of how it works:
"In the old Austria, nothing could be done without patronage. That's
partly explained by the fact that nine million Germans were in fact rulers,
in virtue of an unwritten law, of fifty million non-Germans. This German
ruling class took strict care that places should always be found for Germans.
For them this was the only method of maintaining themselves in this
privileged situation. The Balts of German origin behaved in the same way
towards the Slav population."
Hitler's Table Talk. Conversation Nº 109, 15th-16th January 1942
American Jewry has been following the same policy since the early 1900′s,
pushing for Jewish candidates in key placings, who if successful, are expected
to return the favour. On a "level playing field" this has a ratchet effect
whereby corporate management and key media, finance and government positions
can be gradually taken over with Anglos squeezed out in a rather unobvious
way ("He wasn't the right candidate for reasons A,B,C X,Y,Z").
Educate the minorities! I have bwen hearing that for over 50 years. I
believe that was a substantial rationale for Federal Aid to education. How
has it worked? What does the US Census data show for the indicator median
education level persons over 25 years of age in 1960 demonstrate when compared
to 2010? Compare for both white and black. Wow! we all are much smarter.
Okay, as Rodney King so aptly stated it "why can' t everbody just get along?"
@Wally okay wally, i'm only going to say this once, so please pay attention.
the gas chambers were but one method by which jews were killed. starvation,
disease, forced labor, firing squads, killed legions. what if it was only
4 million jews who perished in the camps? or 3? does that make it better.
one last thing: elie wiesel is not the wonderful man he is purported to
be.
Wages are as old as dirt. I can understand why you find them objectionable.
But with what will you replace them?
Dear Sir, as I've often stated, I like what you have to say and agree
with 99% of it. I also respect the fact that your reply to me was obviously
respectful and sincere.
My usual answer to your question is to replace them with nothing. For
example if I had a case of the gleet, I'd rather not replace it; I'd rather
do without. Instead of wages and a time clock, I advocate finding other
(hopefully respectable) sources of income.
I realize that in this environment, it's nearly impossible to do without
wages, but that shows how much our system sux, hence my objection to them
and the system. I pretty much became disgusted with the concept after working
at a few jobs that were really akin to slavery or some other unsavory paid
profession, so I worked to make a living without punching time clock. That's
not to say that I did not receive money for my services, but I managed to
do without a direct boss during my earning days. Several other rather cantankerous
members of my family manged to do the same, and some still do. I'm not saying
that to brag, but to point out that it can be done.
I do admit that it now seems nearly impossible to do that sort of thing,
but a close neighbor, in his thirty's, manages to do that and does quite
well. He does have the advantage of both a good work ethic and access to
a family business though.
The bottom line for me is that it's too bad that we have to submit to
bosses for the most part to earn a living. From that we seem to learn to
submit to other forms of "authority" with little or no questioning, and
it seems to be a downhill slide from there. Also, the more power the bosses
get, they more they control, and the less chance there is for people to
become independent. that's no way to live.
Since you consider "working for wages" as not "making a living,"
That is a false statement. It is both illogical and unreasonable based
on what I actually said.
Working for wages in one of several ways of earning a living. It just
happens to be, in my way of thinking, one of the least desirable for many
reasons.
I'm curious what you would consider to constitute "making a living."
Educate the minorities! I have bwen hearing that for over 50 years.
I believe that was a substantial rationale for Federal Aid to education.
Most folks are entirely ineducable and seem to like it that way. Of course,
it's a fine sounding pretext for mass brainwashing and it's attendant bureaucracy
and source of profits.
How has it worked?
It's probably worked just as intended but not at all as advertised!
See John Taylor Gatto and Upton Sinclair's "The Goslings" and the Goosestep"
which basically describe schooling in America as a tool for corporations.
what if it was only 4 million jews who perished in the camps? or
3? does that make it better?
Well, in several countries you can go to jail, and many have, for saying
it was less than 6, so go figure. Norman Finkelstein was destroyed by the
"Holocaust Industry" for showing in the simplest terms that if you add up
the numbers of supposed "victims" and "survivors", the official figures
are patently absurd. The more you dig, the more absurd it gets.
The Saker: You are not a "minority." You are a Caucasian, the European
branch, ethnically Russian. You are Christian, specifically Orthodox. You
are one of the interesting groups that make up the Caucasian peoples. You
have nothing in common with blacks/Asians.
The Democratic party is the party of nonwhites, non-Christians, sexual
degenerates. Manipulation has nothing to do with this. Minorities know they
are inferiors. What they are doing is because they realize they can never
accomplish what Caucasians/Europeans/ Christians/neopagans have accomplished.
This means it is time for separation/deportation/repatriation.
This is coming. An RCC priest "confessed" to having been in the KKK when
he was a teenager. The US Conference of Bishops has established an ad hoc
committee to address racism. This is the final nail in the coffin of the
RCC. Homosexuals have taken over the priesthood. Priests do not preach about
hell, sin, repentance. Now that this KKK priest has been exposed, from now
on sermons will only cover "racism," the worst sin.
Caucasian Christans/pagans have to deal with the reality that world history
can be summed up in two words: IQ, which is tied to race. The past 2000
years of Western civilization united under the RCC are gone. There has to
be a new paradigm shift to deal with the future and what needs to be done.
@anonymous I hope they act like they have at every event they have been
a part of and the president acts accordingly. Trump needs to hire people
to record the whole thing and put it all up on a new website thats created
just to host the event. Dozens of live feeds from dozens of angles. All
put up on this new website just so there will be no confusion. Once the
left riots, because they will riot, National guard needs to be called and
these domestic terrorists need to be put down. He then needs to put out
an executive order to shut down all propaganda news agencies that are spinning
this, and if people want to see what happened, view the live feeds from
dozens of angles on the newly created website. And if people bitch about
how its wrong to have this up, fuck them. Its time to take off the kiddy
gloves.
@Tim Howells It was more like around 300,000 in all of the German camps
since their inception back in the mid-1930′s, according to the International
Red Cross. And that refers to all camp inmates of all ethnic backgrounds.
It is entirely possible that many Jews may have been killed on the Eastern
Front or in the Soviet Union, but that can hardly be blamed solely upon
the Germans, who were not known to be savagely cruel or vengeful- even though
the anti-partisan actions may have led to some excesses.
In any case, there is zero evidence for "millions of Jews" killed by
the Germans. There are no mass graves commensurate with such figures, nor
is there any documentary evidence of a deliberate plan of "extermination."
@jacques sheete I understand you quite well I think. I have worked on
commission. I have been self employed. For a time I was a soldier. I have
worked for wages for mom and pop business and for large corporations and
held both union and non union jobs. I did a few years working for a not
for profit homeless shelter. I am a Jack of all trades and (unfortunately)
master of none.
On union jobs (IBEW and Teamsters) I had the great benefit of having
a contract with my employer that spelled out the duties and privileges of
both the worker and the company. This meant that both labor and management
worked from the same set of rules. The path to promotion was defined as
was the possible cause for termination. Personalities had nothing to do
with anything. The boss and I followed the same rules. It was nothing like
being subject to the whims and prejudices of one man.
" For example if I had a case of the gleet, I'd rather not replace it;
I'd rather do without."
Having a "job" can be worse than the gleet.
Unfortunately a mans gotta eat.
@Ivy The white trash (as of 2016, down to 37.7% of California's population)
has simply been replaced by brown trash in California. The only question
remaining is which ethnic elite will run the state ..the jooies or the chinkies
or the hindus. Or will the ethnics simply rule via a de facto coalition?
Whitey's demise in CA is an accomplished fact ..with AZ and TX soon to follow
and eventually OR, WA, ID, and CO. The efforts of James K. Polk are soon
to be fully reversed. And yes, Ivy, you will have employment ..every Chinese
has been promised a white house boy and white concubine by 2050.
the same tolerant technology has been applied five thousand years ago
in the Sumerian civilization
what was a non semitic composed society. Few hundred years prior to the
destruction of that culture
semitic tribes were allowed to settle in, first in smaller numbers , then
in the name of tolerance larger migrating groups were allowed , and enjoyed
benefits of education, comfortable, cultured living. The original majority
of the population were builders and workers , the migrants for the most
part were users, who's interest were to find an easy way to become the more.
The complete opposite of mentality. In time the semitic migrants were able
to build up a fifth column , moved in to powerful positions such as religion
and astrology , and from then on destruction has begun. The original populous
were pushed out, part of them were forcefully crossbred , the rest of them
flee and
build new countries in Europa . The migrants of that time gained written
culture , tailored clothing ,
the benefit of toilet so not to go to the bushes to relieve themselves .
This time around there is no place left to flee.
@WorkingClass I, too, think I understand from whence you come.
I agree with the concept of labor unions but recognize that they too
can be turned against the interests of the workers, and unfortunately, have
been.
I do applaud you for your success working within the system and I have
no doubt that you did it as a sincere, able and good man. I also respect
your views and thank you for sharing them.
As for bosses, I loathe them so much that I myself never hired employees
because I didn't want to be a boss any more than I wanted to answer to one.
I almost get physically sick when I see that the window of opportunity for
youngsters to follow a independent lifestyle is next to nil and getting
tougher all the time.
I do still counsel my younger relatives to acquire as much experience
as they can so that they are in a position to have some control over their
own lives. I'm also actively involved in fortifying my grandkids with both
defiance and the attitudes and skills to back it up.
Is that attitude Utopian? No doubt to some degree it is, but so is the
attitude of submission, i.e., the wish for everything to be taken care of
so long as one submits.
There is much contention as to whether even a single jew was killed
in a gas chamber.
Not only is there much contention, but there is no credible evidence
that it really happened. Besides, the numbers are farcical.
Where do they get 6 million?
"Allowing for a maximum of 100,000 who succeeded in emigrating from
Europe, this would bring the total number of Jews under the direct rule
of Nazi Germany to about 3,200,000."
Distribution of the Jewish Population of Europe 1933-. 1940," prepared
by Mr. Moses Moskowitz
AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK 1941-1942, page 662
"I submit that the real truth is totally different. My thesis is very
simple: the reason why the US always support foreign minorities to subvert
states and use domestic minorities to suppress the majority US population
is because minorities are very easy to manipulate and because minorities
present no threat to the real rulers of the AngloZionist Empire. That's
all there is to it."
That is pretty much it, save for the origins. WASP culture's Germanic
basis began by hating the native British Isles. That set the pattern:WASPs
most hate those from whom they steal or otherwise wrong gravely. The Reformation
provided the perfect theological and philosophical justifications for that
pattern to become something much greater.
The Anglo-Saxon Puritans were Judaizing heretics. You cannot over-emphasize
that point. WASAP culture from the moment it was crystalized, truly formed,
was one that saw the world through Jewish-influenced, Jewish-fawning, eyes.
Naturally and inevitably, once the true WASPs gained total control of the
government, with the Puritan Revolution, their fearless leader, Oliver Cromwell,
allied with Jews. He took Jewish money to wage war, to exterminate cultures
and make at least virtual serfs of whole populations.
White Christian populations.
WASP culture began with an alliance with Jews, allowing Jews back into
England, with special rights and privileges that the vast majority of British
Isles native Christians did not have, that allowed the WASPs to continue
waging war to exterminate white Christian cultures.
When WASPs encountered non-whites, they began to grasp the value of using
them – non-whites and non-Christians – as tools and weapons with which to
batter the white Christians they wished to destroy.
That is the reason the 'Anglo-Zionist Empire' uses minorities as it does.
You cannot separate the Jewish Problem from the WASP Problem. You cannot
solve the Jewish Problem without solving the 'WASP Problem.
"... In China when the Mao mythology was threatened the Red Guard raised holy hell and lives were ruined. Apparently our Red Guard is now beginning to stir. ..."
"The country's bourgeois culture] laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get
married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education
you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your
employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded,
and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance
substance abuse and crime.
You might think that's pretty bland stuff."
You might think that's bland, but in essence that was the American Myth for most of the 20th
century. In the middle nineteen fifties the myth began to unravel when the boomers reached sufficient
numbers to be targeted for separation from the mainstream mythology. They constituted a potential
very lucrative major market. Enter bubble-gum pop: an entry vehicle for what would follow. Bye
bye "Your Hit Parade". Hello Sex, drugs and Rock and Roll.
Forward flash to 2017 and that pretty bland stuff still looks like pretty bland stuff. So if
Myth America was too bland to be true, how do we set about replacing it with something more realistic.
In China when the Mao mythology was threatened the Red Guard raised holy hell and lives
were ruined. Apparently our Red Guard is now beginning to stir.
May I suggest an acronym – rather than the Obama-Holder-Lynch Effect, change the order to the
Holder-Obama-Lynch Effect. HOLE just seems much more appropriate.
"... This peace-keeping aspect of affirmative action understood, perhaps we ought to view those smart Asians unfairly rejected from Ivy League schools as sacrificial lambs. ..."
The argument is that admitting academically unqualified blacks to elite schools is, at core, a
policy to protect the racial peace and, as such, has nothing to do with racial justice, the putative
benefits of diversity or any other standard justification. It is this peace- keeping function that
explains why the entire establishment, from mega corporations to the military, endorses
constitutionally
iffy racial discrimination and why questioning diversity's benefits is the most grievous of all
PC sins. Stated in cost-benefit terms, denying a few hundred (even a few thousand) high-SAT scoring
Asians an Ivy League diploma and instead forcing them attend Penn State is a cheap price to pay for
social peace.
This argument rests on an indisputable reality that nearly all societies contain distinct ethnic
or religious groups who must be managed for the sake of collective peace. They typically lack the
ability to economically compete, may embrace values that contravene the dominant ethos, or otherwise
just refuse to assimilate. What makes management imperative is the possibility of violence either
at an individual level, for example, randomly stabbing total strangers, or on a larger scale, riots
and insurrections. Thus, in the grand scheme of modern America's potentially explosive race relations,
academically accomplished Asians, most of whom are politically quiescent, are expendable, collateral
damage in the battle to sustain a shaky status quo.
Examples of such to-be-managed groups abound. Recall our own tribulations with
violent Indian tribes
well into the 19 th century or what several European nations currently face with Muslims
or today's civil war in Burma
with the Karen People. Then there's Turkey's enduring conflict with the Kurds and long before the
threat of Islamic terrorism, there were Basque separatists (the
ETA ), and the
Irish Republican Army
. In the past 45 years, there have been more than 16,000 terror attacks in Western Europe according
to the
Global Terrorism Database . At a lower levels add the persistently criminal Gypsies who for 500
years have resisted all efforts to assimilate them. This listing is, of course, only a tiny sampling
of distinct indigestible violence-prone groups.
The repertoire of remedies, successful and failed, is also extensive. Our native-American problem
has, sad to say, been largely solved by the use of apartheid-like reservations and incapacitating
a once war-like people with drugs and alcohol. Elsewhere generous self-rule has done the trick, for
example, the Basques in Spain. A particularly effective traditional solution is to promote passivity
by encouraging religious acceptance of one's lowly state.
Now to the question at hand: what is to be done regarding American blacks, a group notable for
its penchant for violence whose economic advancement over the last half-century has largely stalled
despite tens of billions and countless government uplift programs.
To appreciate the value of affirmative action recall the urban riots of the 1960s. They have almost
been forgotten but their sheer number during that decade would shock those grown accustomed to today's
relative tranquility. A sampling
of cities with major riots includes Rochester, NY, New York City, Philadelphia, PA, Los Angeles,
CA, Cleveland, OH, Newark, NJ, Detroit, MI, Chicago, IL, Washington, DC and several smaller cities.
The damage from these riots! "uprisings" or "rebellions" according to some!was immense. For example,
the Detroit riot of 1967
lasted five days and quelling it required the intervention of the Michigan Army National Guard and
both the 82 nd and 101 st Airborne divisions. When it finally ended, the death
toll was 43, some 7200 were arrested and more than 2000 buildings destroyed. Alas, much of this devastation
remains visible today and should be a reminder of what could happen absent a policy of cooling out
black anger.
To correctly understand how racial preferences at elite colleges serves as a cost-effective solution
to potential domestic violence, recall the quip by comedian
Henny Youngman when asked
"How's your wife?" He responded with, "Compared to what?" This logic reflects a hard truth: when
confronting a sizable, potentially disruptive population unable or unwilling to assimilate, a perfect
solution is beyond reach. Choices are only among the lesser of evils and, to repeat, under current
conditions, race-driven affirmative action is conceivably the best of the worst. A hard-headed realist
would draw a parallel with how big city merchants survive by paying off the police, building and
food inspectors, and the Mafia. Racial preferences are just one more item on the cost-of-doing business
list–the Danegeld .
In effect, racial preferences in elite higher education (and beneficiaries includes students,
professors and the diversity-managing administrators) separates the
top 10% measured in cognitive ability from their more violent down market racial compatriots.
While this manufactured caste-like arrangement hardly guarantees racial peace (as the black-on-white
crime rate, demonstrates) but it pretty much dampens the possibility of more collective, well-organized
related upheavals, the types of disturbances that truly terrify the white establishment. Better to
have the handsomely paid Cornel West pontificating
about white racism at Princeton where he is a full professor than fulminating at some Ghetto street
corner. This status driven divide just reflects human nature. Why would a black Yalie on Wall Street
socialize with the bro's left behind in the Hood? This is the strategy of preventing a large-scale,
organized rebellion by decapitating its potential leadership. Violence is now just Chicago
or Baltimore-style gang-banger intra-racial mayhem or various lone-wolf criminal attacks on whites.
Co-optation is a staple in the political management repertoire. The Soviet Union adsorbed what
they called the "leading edge" into the Party (anyone exceptionally accomplished, from chess grandmasters
or world-class athletes) to widen the divide the dominant elite, i.e., the Party, and hoi polloi.
Election systems can be organized to guarantee a modicum of power to a handful of potential disruptors
and with this position comes ample material benefits (think Maxine Waters). Monarchies have similarly
managed potential strife by bestowing honors and titles on commoners. It is no accident that many
radicals are routinely accused of "selling out" by their former colleagues in arms. In most instances
the accusation is true, and this is by design.
To appreciate the advantages of the racial preferences in higher education consider Henny's "compared
to what"? part of his quip. Certainly what successfully worked for quelling potential Native American
violence, e.g., forced assimilation in "Indian Schools" or confinement in pathology-breeding reservations,
is now totally beyond the pale though, to be sure, some inner-cities dominated by public housing
are increasingly coming to resemble pathology-inducing Indian reservations. Even less feasible is
some legally mandated homeland of the types advocated by Black Muslims.
I haven't done the math but I would guess that the entire educational racial spoils system is
far more cost effective than creating a
garrison state or a DDR-like police state where thousands of black trouble-makers were quickly
incarcerated. Perhaps affirmative action in general should be viewed as akin to a nuisance tax, probably
less than 5% of our GDP.
To be sure, affirmative action at elite universities is only one of today's nostrums to quell
potential large scale race-related violence. Other tactics include guaranteeing blacks elected offices,
even if this requires turning a blind eye toward election fraud, and quickly surrendering to blacks
who demand
awards and honors on the basis of skin color. Perhaps a generous welfare system could be added
to this keep-the-peace list. Nevertheless, when all added up, the costs would be far lowers than
dealing with widespread 1960s style urban violence.
This peace-keeping aspect of affirmative action understood, perhaps we ought to view those
smart Asians unfairly rejected from Ivy League schools as sacrificial lambs. Now, given all
the billions that have been saved, maybe a totally free ride at lesser schools would be a small price
to pay for their dissatisfaction (and they would also be academic stars at such schools). Of course
this "Asian only" compensatory scholarship might be illegal under the color blind requirements of
1964 Civil Right Act, but fear not, devious admission officers will figure out a way around the law.
1) Asians will grow in power, and either force more fairness towards themselves, or return
to Asia.
2) WN idiots happy about Asians returning to Asia fail to see that Asians will return only when
they control enough of America to manage large parts of it from afar (like the tech industry).
3) 2-3 million top caliber white male Western Expats might just move to Asia, since they may like
Asian women more, and want to be free of SJW idiocy. This is all it takes to fill the alleged
gap Asia has in creativity, marketing, and sales expertise. Asia effectively decapitates the white
West by taking in their best young men and giving them a great life in Asia.
4) America becomes like Brazil with all economic value colonized by Asians and the white expats
in Asia with mixed-race children. White trashionalists left behind are swiftly exterminated by
blacks, and white women mix with the blacks. America becomes a Brazil minus the fun culture, good
weather, and attractive women.
@Carlton Meyer At first, I was surprised that they listened to him.
After a while, I realized that many negros are stupid enough to think that Hispanics and Asians
would like to be in some anti-white alliance with blacks as a senior partner. In reality, they
have an even lower opinion of blacks than whites do. US blacks have zero knowledge of the world
outside America, so this reality just doesn't register with them.
John Derbyshire has made similar arguments–racial preferences are the price for social peace.
But, as Steve Sailer has pointed out, we're running out of white and Asian children to buffer
black dysfunction and Asians are going to get less and less willing to be "sacrificial lambs"
for a black underclass that they did nothing to create and that they despise.
There are other ways to control the black underclass. You can force the talented ones to remain
in their community and provide what leadership they can. Black violence can be met with instant
retributive counter-violence. (Prior to the 1960s most race riots were white on black.) Whites
can enforce white norms on the black community, who will sort-of conform to them as best they
are able.
Finally, Rudyard Kipling had a commentary on Danegeld. It applies to paying off dysfunctional
domestic minorities just as much to invading enemies.
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
Could care less about your smart Asians The smart Asians are enthusiastivally voting Whitey
into a racial minority on Nov 3 2020 They don't belong on Native Born White American Living and
Breeding Space
Hell with those 'smart Asians'. They are among the biggest Proglob a-holes.
Asians have servile genes that seek approval from the power. They are status-freaks.
They make perfect collaborators with the Glob.
Under communism, they made the most conformist commies.
Under Japanese militarism, they made the most mindless military goons who did Nanking.
Under Khmer Rouge, they were biggest looney killers.
Under PC, they make such goody good PC dogs.
If the prevailing culture of US was patriotic and conservatives, Asians would try to conform
to that, and that wouldn't be so bad.
But since the prevailing culture is PC, these yellow dogs are among the biggest homomaniacal
PC tards.
Hell with them. Yellow dogs voted for Obama and Hillary in high numbers. They despise, hate,
and feel contempt for white masses and working class. They are servitors of the empire as Darrell
Hamamoto said. He's one of the few good guys.
Just look at that Francis Fukuyama, that slavish dog of Soros. He's so disgusting. And then,
you got that brown Asian tard Fareed Zakaria. What a vile lowlife. And that fat Jeer Heet who
ran from dirty browns shi ** ing all over the place outdoors to live with white people but bitches
about 'white supremacy'. Well, the fact that he ran from his own kind to live with whites must
mean his own choice prefers white folks. His immigration choice was 'white supremacism'. After
all, he could have moved to black Africa. Why didn't he?
PS. The best way of Affirmative Action is to limit it only to American Indians and Blacks of
slave ancestry. That's it.
Also, institutions should OPENLY ADMIT that they do indeed discriminate to better represent
the broader population. Fair or not, honesty is a virtue. What is most galling about AA is the
lies that says 'we are colorblind and meritocratic but ' No more buts. Yes, there is discrimination
but to represent larger population. Okay, just be honest.
Please stop trying to confuse Orientals with Indians and other subcontinentals. They are
quite distinct.
In their original countries they are, but in America they are almost identical in all ways
except appearance and diet.
Plus, since SE Asia has always had influence from both, there is a smooth continuum in the
US across all of these groups by the time the 2nd generation rolls around.
They don't belong on Native Born White American Living and Breeding Space
Three things wrong with this sentence.
1) I don't think you know that Native Americans (i.e. Siberians) were here first.
2) I will bet anything that all 128 of your GGGGG-GPs are not English settlers who were here in
1776. You are probably some 2nd gen Polack or something who still worries that WASPs look down
on you.
3) There is very high variance among whites, and white trashionalists are SOOOO far below the
quality threshold of any moderately successful white that they can't claim to speak for all whites.
White Trashionalists represent the waste matter that nature wants to purge (which is the process
that enables exceptional whites to emerge on the other end of the scale). That is why white women
are absolutely doing what nature wants, which is to cut off the White Trashionalists from reproduction.
If you care about the white race, you should be glad that white women want nothing to do with
you and allow you to complete you wastebasket role.
Obama was one of the beneficiaries of AA along with his wife and their kids. Did that prevent
Baltimore and Chicago and etc from blowing up?
In a way, AA and Civil Rights made black communities more volatile. When blacks were more stringently
segregated, even smart and sensible blacks lived among blacks and played some kind of 'role model'.
They ran businesses and kept in close contact with black folks.
It's like white communities in small towns used to be much better when the George Baileys stayed
in them or returned to them and ran things.
But as more and more George Bailies left for the big cities, small towns had fewer top notch
role models and leaders and enterprisers. Also, the filth of pop culture and youth degeneracy
via TV corrupted the dummies. And then, when globalism took away the industries, there were just
people on opioids. At least old timers grew up with family and church. The new generation grew
up on Idiocracy.
Anyway, AA will just taken more black talent from black community and mix them with whites,
Asians, and etc. Will some of these blacks use their power and privilege to incite black mobs
to violence? Some do go radical. But most will just get their goodies and forget the underclass
except in some symbolic way. It's like Obama didn't do crap as 'community organizer'. He just
stuck close to rich Jews in Hyde Park, and as president, he was serving globo-wars, Wall Street,
and homos.
When he finally threw a bone at the blacks in his second term, it lit cities on fire.
Did the black underclass change for the better because they saw Obama as president? No. If
anything, it just made them bolder as flashmobs. The way blacks saw it, a bunch of fa ** ogty
wussy white people voted for a black guy created by a black man sexually conquering a white woman.
They felt contempt for cucky whites, especially as rap culture and sports feature blacks as master
race lording over whites. To most underclass blacks, the only culture they know is sports and
rap and junk they see on TV. And they are told blacks are magical, sacred, badass, and cool. And
whites are either 'evil' if they have any pride or cucky-wucky wussy if they are PC.
The Murrayian Coming-Apart of whites took place already with blacks before. And more AA that
takes in smarter blacks will NOT make things better for black underclass. And MORE blacks in elite
colleges will just lead to MORE anger issues, esp as they cannot keep up with other students.
Even so, I can understand the logic of trying to win over black cream of crop. Maybe if they
are treated nice and feel 'included', they won't become rabble-rousers like Al Sharpton and act
more like Obama. Obama's race-baiting with Ferguson was bad but could have been worse with someone
like Sharpton.
The Power can try to control a people in two ways. Crush everyone OR give carrots to comprador
elites so that sticks can be used on masses. Clinton did this. He brought over black elites, and
they worked with him to lock up record number of Negroes to make cities safer. As Clinton was
surrounded by Negroes and was called 'first black president' by Toni Morrison, many blacks didn't
realize that he was really working to lock up lots of black thugs and restore order.
Smart overlords play divide-and-conquer by offering carrots to collaborator elites and using
sticks on masses.
British Imperialists did that. Gandhi would likely have collaborated with Brits if not for the
fact that he was called a 'wog' in South Africa and kicked off a train. Suddenly, he found himself
as ONE with the poor and powerless 'wogs' in the station. He was made equal with his own kind.
Consider Jews in the 30s and even during WWII. Many Western European Jews became rich and privileged
and felt special and put on airs. Many felt closer to gentile elites and felt contempt and disdain
for many 'dirty' and 'low' Eastern European Jews. If Hitler had been cleverer and offered carrots
to rich Jews, there's a good chance that many of them would have collaborated and worked with
the Power to suppress or control lower Jews, esp. of Eastern European background.
But Hitler didn't class-discriminate among Jews. He went after ALL of them. Richest Jew, poorest
Jew, it didn't matter. So, even many rich Jews were left destitute if not dead after WWII. And
this wakened them up. They once had so much, but they found themselves with NOTHING. And as they
made their way to Palestine with poor Eastern European Jewish survivors, they felt a strong sense
of ethnic identity. Oppression and Tragedy were the great equalizer. Having lost everything, they
found what it really means to be Jewish. WWII and Holocaust had a great traumatic equalizing effect
on Jews, something they never forgot since the war, which is why very rich Jews try to do much
for even poor Jews in Israel and which is why secular Jews feel a bond with funny-dressed Jewish
of religious sects.
For this reason, it would be great for white identity if the New Power were to attack ALL whites
and dispossess all of them. Suppose globalism went after not only Deplorables but Clintons, Bushes,
Kaineses, Kerrys, Kennedys, and etc. Suppose all of them were dispossessed and humiliated and
called 'honkers'. Then, like Gandhi at the train station, they would regain their white identity
and identify with white hoi polloi who've lost so much to globalism. They would become leaders
of white folks.
But as long as carrots are offered to the white elites, they go with Glob and dump on whites.
They join with the GLOB to use sticks on white folks like in Charlottesville where sticks were
literally used against patriots who were also demeaned as 'neo-nazis' when most of them weren't.
So, I'm wishing Ivy Leagues will have total NO WHITEY POLICY. It is when the whites elites
feel rejected and humiliated by the Glob that they will return to the masses.
Consider current Vietnam. Because Glob offers them bribes and goodies, these Viet-cuck elites
are selling their nation to the Glob and even allowing homo 'pride' parades.
White Genocide that attacks ALL whites will have a unifying effect on white elites and white
masses. It is when gentiles targeted ALL Jews that all Jews, rich and poor, felt as one.
But the Glob is sneaky. Instead of going for White Genocide that targets top, middle, and bottom,
it goes for White Democide while forgoing white aristocide. So, white elites or neo-aristocrats
are rewarded with lots of goodies IF they go along like the Romneys, Clintons, Kaines, Bidens,
and all those quisling weasels.
" Now to the question at hand: what is to be done regarding American blacks, a group notable
for its penchant for violence whose economic advancement over the last half-century has largely
stalled despite tens of billions and countless government uplift programs. "
I read an article, making a learned impression, that on average USA blacks have a lower IQ.
I do suppose that IQ has a cultural component, nevertheless, those in western cultures with a
lower IQ can be expected to have less economic success.
A black woman who did seem to understand all this was quoted in the article as that 'blacks should
be compensated for this lower IQ'.
One can discuss this morally endless, but even if the principle was accepted, how is it executed,
and where is the end ?
For example, people with less than average length are also less successful, are we going to compensate
them too ?
"economic advancement over the last half-century has largely stalled despite tens of billions
and countless government uplift programs"
It only stalled when the Great Society and the uplift programs started. According to The Bell
Curve there was basically an instant collapse when LBJ started to wreaking his havoc. Go back
to pre-1964 norms and no late-60s riots.
We have sacrificed smart white students for three generations to keep the hebraic component
around 30% at our highest-ranked colleges and universities, and no one (except the jewish Ron
Unz himself) made so much as a peep. And as he copiously documented, whites have suffered far
more discrimination than asians have. The difference is, whites are more brainwashed into accepting
it.
@War for Blair Mountain "They don't belong on Native Born White American Living and Breeding
Space "
Your statement would be perfectly correct if it read, "White people of European origin don't
belong on Native American Living and Breeding Space "
Yet there they are, in immense, pullulating numbers. And now they have the gall to complain
that other people – some of whom resemble the few surviving Native Americans far more closely
than Whites do – are coming to "their" continent.
Honestly, what is the world coming to when you spend centuries and millions of bullets, bottles
of whisky and plague-ridden blankets getting rid of tens of millions of people so you can steal
their land – and then more people like you come along and want to settle peaceably alongside you?
That's downright un-American.
Maybe you'd be more comfortable if the Asian immigrants behaved more like the European settlers
– with fire, sword, malnutrition and pestilence.
@Diversity Heretic The Kipling quote is stirring and thought-provoking (like most Kipling
quotes). But it is not entirely correct.
Consider the kings of France in the 10th century, who were confronted by the apparently insoluble
problem of periodic attacks by bands of vicious, warlike, and apparently irresistible Vikings.
One king had the bright idea of buying the Northmen off by granting them a very large piece of
land in the West of France – right where the invading ships used to start up the Seine towards
Paris.
The Northmen settled there, became known as Normans, and held Normandy for the rest of the
Middle Ages – in the process absolutely preventing any further attacks eastward towards Paris.
The dukes of Normandy held it as a fief from the king, and thus did homage to him as his feudal
subordinates.
They did conquer England, Sicily, and a few other places subsequently – but the key fact is
that they left the tiny, feeble kingdom of France alone.
Ratioal cost benefit arguments could be applied much more widely to the benefit of America
and other First World countries. If otherwise illegal drugs were legalised, whether to be prescribed
by doctors or not, it would save enormous amounts of money on law enforcement and, subject to
what I proffer next, incarceration.
What is the downside? The advocates of Prohibition weren't wrong about the connection of alcohol
and lower productivity. That was then. If, say, 10 per cent of the population were now disqualified
from the workforce what would it matter. The potential STEM wizards amongst them (not many) would
mostly be nurtured so that it was only the underclass which life in a daze. And a law which made
it an offence, effectively one for which the penalty was to be locked up or otherwise deprived
of freedom to be a nuisance, to render oneself unfit to perform the expected duties of citizenship
would have collateral benefits in locking up the right underclass males.
@Bro Methylene "Orientals," east Asians, or just Asians in American parlance are indeed quite
different from south Asians, called "Asians" in the UK,. These are quite different groups.
But the groups of east and south Asians include widely differing peoples. A Korean doesn't
have much in common with a Malay, nor a Pathan with a Tamil. Probably not much more than either
has in common with the other group or with white Americans.
That they "all look alike" to use does not really mean the do, it just means we aren't used
to them.
Was recently watching an interesting Chinese movie and had enormous difficulty keeping the
characters straight, because they did indeed all look alike to me. I wonder if Chinese people
in China have similar trouble watching old American movies.
@Carlton Meyer yeah and hispanics are natural conservatives. dont be a cuck once that slant
is here long enough he will tumble to the game and get on the anti white bandwagon. and sure asians
will eventually out jew the jews just what we need another overlord, only this one a huge percentage
or world pop. .
You know weisberg youre not fooling anyone here peddle that cuck crap elsewhere affirmative
action leads to nothing but more affirmative action at this point everyone but white males gets
it, and you my jew friend know this so selling it to sucker cucks as the cost of doing business
is just more jew shenanigans. There is a much better solution to the problem peoples deport them
back where they belong israel africa asia central america.
This is all about nothing now. The only thing White people have to learn anymore is controlled
breathing, good position, taking up trigger slack, letting the round go at exactly the right moment
– one round, one hit.
When your child tosses a tantrum and tears up his bedroom, and you tell him his mean-spirited,
selfish cousins caused it and then you reward him with a trip to Disneyland and extra allowance:
then you guarantee more and worse tantrums.
That is what America and America's Liberals, the Elites, have done with blacks and violence.
A very interesting post. Really a unique perspective – who cares if it's not fair, if it is
necessary to keep the peace?
I do however disagree with one of your points. " whose economic advancement over the last half-century
has largely stalled despite tens of billions and countless government uplift programs."
I think you have missed the main event. Over the last half-century the elites of this nation
have waged ruthless economic warfare AGAINST poor blacks in this country, to an extent that far
dwarfs the benefits of affirmative action (for a typically small number of already privileged
blacks).
Up through the 1960′s, blacks were starting to do not so bad. Yes they were in a lot of menial
jobs, but many of these were unionized and the pay was pretty good. I mean, if nobody else wants
to sweep your floors, and the only guy willing to do it i s black, well, he can ask for a decent
deal.
Then our elites fired black workers en masse, replacing them with Mexican immigrants and outsourcing
to low-wage countries. Blacks have had their legs cut off with a chainsaw, and the benefits of
affirmative action (which nowadays mostly go to Mexicans etc.!) little more than a bandaid.
And before we are too hard on blacks, let me note that whites are also being swept up in the
poverty of neoliberal globalization, and they too are starting to show social pathology.
Because in terms of keeping the social peace, there is one fundamental truth more important
than all others: there must be some measure of broadly shared prosperity. Without it, even ethnically
homogeneous and smart and hard working people like the Japanese or Chinese will tear themselves
apart.
Note that there is not a word in this article about what this does to the white working class
and how it can be given something in return for allowing Elites to bribe blacks with trillions
and trillions of dollars in goodies. Nor is there is there any indication that this process eventually
will explode, with too many blacks demanding so much it cannot be paid.
Was this written tongue in cheek?
Affirmative action will never end. The bribes will never end. The US made a mistake in the 1960s.
We should have contained the riots then let the people in those areas sleep in the burned out
rubble. Instead through poverty programs we rewarded bad black behavior.
By filling the Ivy League with blacks we create a new class of Cornell West's for white people
to listen to. We enhance the "ethos" of these people.
Eventually, certainly in no more than 40 years, we will run out of sacrifices. What then when
whites constitute only 40% of the American population? Look at South Africa today.
We have black college graduates with IQs in the 80s! They want to be listened to. After all, they're
college graduates.
I do not believe you have found "a cost-effective solution to potential domestic violence".
You mix in this "top 10%" and they get greater acceptance by whites who are turned left in college.
"The argument is that admitting academically unqualified blacks to elite schools is, at core,
a policy to protect the racial peace "
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: –
"We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: –
"Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: –
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
whose economic advancement over the last half-century has largely stalled despite tens of
billions and countless government uplift programs.
The reality of this is become a huge stumbling block. In fact this group has actually been
mostly regressing into violence and stupidity, going their own separate way as exemplified by
their anti-social music which celebrates values repugnant to the majority. Look at the absurd
level of shootings in cities like Chicago. That's not changing anytime soon. They're by far overrepresented
in Special Ed, juvenile delinquency, prisons and all other indicators of dysfunction. Their talented
tenth isn't very impressive as compared to whites or Asians. Their entire middle class is mostly
an artificial creation of affirmative action. The point is that they can only be promoted so far
based on their capability. The cost of the subsidy gets greater every year and at some point it'll
become too heavy a burden and then it'll be crunch time. After the insanity of the Cultural Revolution
the Chinese had to come to their senses. It's time to curtail our own version of it.
It really is terrible and unfair that an Asian needs to score so much higher than you white
oppressors to get into the Ivy league
A Princeton study found that students who identify as Asian need to score 140 points higher
on the SAT than whites to have the same chance of admission to private colleges, a difference
some have called "the Asian tax."
I think this is brilliant satire.
It is actually an argument that is logically sound. Doesn't mean that it's good or sensible or
even workable over the long run.
It's just logically sound. It holds together if one accepts the not-crazy parts its made out of.
I don't believe it's meant to be taken literally, because both the beneficiaries and those who
get screwed will grow in their resentment and the system would melt down.
New fields with the word "studies' in them would get added and everyone would know – deep down
– why that is so, and Asians would continue to dominate the hard sciences, math and engineering.
Still, as satire, it's so close to the bone that it works beautifully.
@Tom Welsh "Yet there they are, in immense, pullulating numbers. And now they have the gall
to complain that other people – some of whom resemble the few surviving Native Americans far more
closely than Whites do – are coming to "their" continent."
Agree. The country should be returned to pre-1700 conditions and given over to anyone who wants
it.
@Anonymouse I guess one man's riot is another man's peaceful night. There was a bit of rioting
in Brooklyn that night, businesses burned and looted, and a handful of businesses were looted
in Harlem. There was a very heavy police presence with Mayor Lindsey that night and blacks were
still very segregated in 1968, so I'd guess it was more that show of force that prevented the
kind of riots we'd seen earlier and in other cities at that time. Still, there was looting and
burning, so New York's blacks don't get off the hook. As a personal note. my older brother and
his friends were attacked by a roving band of blacks that night in Queens, but managed to chase
them out of our neighborhood.
The costs of BRA may be lower than the costs of 1960s urban riots, though an accurate accounting
would be difficult as many costs are not easily tabulated.
Consider, for instance, the costs of excluding higher performing whites and Asians from elite
universities. Does this result in permanently lower salaries from them as a result of greater
difficulty in joining an elite career track?
What costs do affirmative action impose upon corporations, especially those with offices in
metropolitan areas with a lot of blacks? FedEx is famously centralized in Memphis. What's the
cost to me as a shipper in having to deal with sluggish black customer service personnel?
The blacks are 15% of the population, so I doubt "garrison state" costs would be terribly high.
I am certain that segregation was cheaper than BRA is. The costs of segregation were overlooking
some black talent (negligible) and duplication of certain facilities (I suspect this cost is lower
than the cost of white flight).
How did America ever manage to survive when there hardly any Chinese Hindus..Sihks .Koreans
in OUR America?
Answer:Very well thank you!!!! ..America 1969=90 percent Native Born White American .places
two Alpha Native Born White American Males on the Moon 10 more after this Who the F would be opposed
to this?
Answer:Chinese "Americans" Korean "Americans" Hindu "Americans" .Sihk "Americans" .Pakistani
"Americans"
There would still be racial peace if affirmative action was abolished. They'll bitch for a
while, but they'll get used it and the dust will settle.
Side note: Affirmation action also disproportionately helps white women into college, and they're
the largest group fueling radical leftist identity politics/feminism on campus. In other words,
affirmative action is a large contributor to SJWism, the media-academia complex, and the resulting
current political climate.
@jilles dykstra The statement "blacks should be compensated for this lower IQ" is no different
than the descendents of the so-called jewish "holocaust ™" being compensated in perpetuity by
the German government. Now, there are calls by the jewish "holocaust ™" lobby to extend the financial
compensation to children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these so-called "holocaust
™ survivors, stating the fake concept of "holocaust ™" transference" just another "holocaust ™"
scam
Same thing.
More Monsanto, DuPont cancers and degraded foods.
New diseases from medical, biological, genetic research
More spying and censorship and stealing by Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, high IQ thieves.
All jobs overseas, domestic unemployment, endless wars, by the best and brightest.
Toxic pollution, mental pollution that dwarfs the back yard pollution of tires and old refrigs
by "low IQ deplorables (white and black and brown".
Degraded, degrading entertainment and fake news to match fake histories by Phds.
Tech devices that are "wonderful" but life is actually better more meaningful without.
[Blacks] "whose economic advancement over the last half-century has largely stalled despite
tens of billions and countless government uplift programs." No, Professor, it is Trillions
spend over the last 50 years and millions before that. Countless Whites and other non-Negroid
people have had to step aside in education, military, government, private industry, to let the
lesser person advance and leap frog the accepted virtue-merit path to advancement. AND IT STILL
IS NOT ENOUGN FOR BLECKS.
The obvious solution is to separate into uni-racial/ethnic states. For Whites, this would include
a separate autocephalous, independent state of Caucasians, Asians, and Hindu. This is the Proto-IndoEuropean
Family, related by genes and languages.
1) Asians will grow in power, and either force more fairness towards themselves, or return
to Asia.
2) WN idiots happy about Asians returning to Asia fail to see that Asians will return only when
they control enough of America to manage large parts of it from afar (like the tech industry).
3) 2-3 million top caliber white male Western Expats might just move to Asia, since they may like
Asian women more, and want to be free of SJW idiocy. This is all it takes to fill the alleged
gap Asia has in creativity, marketing, and sales expertise. Asia effectively decapitates the white
West by taking in their best young men and giving them a great life in Asia.
4) America becomes like Brazil...with all economic value colonized by Asians and the white expats
in Asia with mixed-race children. White trashionalists left behind are swiftly exterminated by
blacks, and white women mix with the blacks. America becomes a Brazil minus the fun culture, good
weather, and attractive women. Could agree 1 and 2.
2-3 millions Top caliber White males moving to Asia?
haha, Top caliber White males (American) will stay in America, screw the rest WN, devour all
the resources available, not only in America, but from the rest of the world.
This is a real White so-called Top caliber White males enjoying in Philippines.
I'm guessing the author would be screaming at the top of his lungs if it was Jewish students
being told to go to some state university–instead of Harvard–since we have to make room for blacks.
BTW, your comment "..Recall our own tribulations with violent Indian tribes" needs clarification.
Maybe the tribes got violent because of the 400 treaties Uncle Sam made with the various tribes,
he honored NONE
@jim jones A great part of that is because, well, let's say that the place where those actresses
have got their work done is the same.
Whites have much greater natural variations in hair and eye color, but skin color among East
Asian individuals is more naturally variable (especially when the effect of tanning is considered),
and their facial features and somatotypes are also more diverse in my opinion. For example, East
Asian populations contain some individuals who have what the Japanese call futae mabuta
"double eyelids" and some individuals who have what they call hitoe mabuta "single eyelids,"
whereas White populations contain only individuals who have "double eyelids." Whether such increased
physical variability is positive or negative probably depends on one's viewpoint; in the case
of that eyelid polymorphism, the variant that is found in Asians but not in Whites is generally
considered neutral or even positive when it occurs in male individuals, but negative when it occurs
in female individuals, so plastic surgeons must be overflowing with gratitude for the single eyelid
gene.
@Thorfinnsson The separate school facilities meant a major saving in the costs of school police
and security guards, resource teachers, counselors buses and bus drivers, and layers and layers
of administrators trying to administer the mess.
Separate schools were a lot cheaper in that the black teachers kept the lid on the violence
with physical punishment and the White teachers and students had a civilized environment.
The old sunshine laws kept blacks out of White neighborhoods after dark which greatly reduced
black on White crime. In the north, informal neighborhood watches kept black on White crime to
a minimum until block by block the blacks conquered the cities.
George Wallace said segregation now, segregation forever. I say sterilization now, problem
solved in 80 years.
Asians??? I went to college with the White WASP American young men who were recruited and went
to work in Mountain View and Cupertino and the rest of Santa Clara county and invented Silicon
Valley.
Not one was Asian or even Jewish. And they invented it and their sons couldn't even get into
Stanford because their sons are White American men.
I think the worst thing about affirmative action is that government jobs are about the only
well paid secure jobs that still stick to the 40 hour work week. Government is the largest employer
in the country. And those jobs are "no Whites need apply".
BTW I read the Protocols years before the Internet. I had to make an appointment to go into
a locked section of a research library. I had to show ID. It was brought to me and I had to sit
where I could be seen to read it. I had to sign an agreement that I would not copy anything from
the protocols.
And there it was, the fourth protocol.
"We shall see to it brothers, that we shall see to it that they appoint only the incompetent and
unfit to their government positions. And thus we shall conquer them from within"
@Thomm Only 4) is remotely possible. And Brazilian women are not that attractive, they are
nice looking on postcards, but quite dumpy and weird-looking in person. But that is a matter of
personal taste.
The reason 1,2,3 are nonsensical is that geography and resources matter. Asia simply doesn't
have them, it is not anywhere as attractive to live in as North America or Europe and never will
be. It goes beyond geographic resources, everything from architecture, infrastructure, culture
is simply worse in Asia and it would take hundreds of years to change that.
So why the constant 'go to Asia' or 'Asia is the future'? It might be a temporary escape for
many desperate, self-hating, white Westerners, a place to safely worship as they give up on it
all. Or it could be the endless family links with the Asian women. But that misreads that most
of the Asian families are way to clear-headed to exchange what the are trying to escape for the
nihilistic dreams of their white partners. They are the least likely to go to Asia, they know
it instinctively, they know what they have been trying to escape.
It is possible that the West is on its last legs, and many places are probably gone for good.
But Asia is not going to step up and replace it. It is actually much worse that that – we are
heading for a dramatic downturn and a loss of comfort and civilization. Thank you Baby Boomers
– you are the true end-of-liners of history.
Bright and talented white kids from non-elite families stuck between the Scylla and Charybdis
of Cram-Schooled Study-Asians with no seeming limit to their tolerance for tedium and 90 IQ entitled
blacks is 2017 in a nutshell.
Said in all seriousness: I genuinely feel sorry for blacks but not because of slavery & Jim
Crow. Those were great evils but every group has gone through that. No, I feel sorry for them
because their average IQ of 85–yes, it is–combined with their crass thug culture, which emphasizes
& rewards all the wrong things, is going to keep them mired in dysfunction for decades to come.
Men like Thomas Sowell & Walter Williams have all the information that blacks need to turn themselves
around but they won't listen, I guess because the message is take responsibility for yourselves
and your families and refuse to accept charity in all its different forms to include AA.
some legally mandated homeland of the types advocated by Black Muslims.
Why not pay people to leave? A law change would convert the money supply from bank money to
sovereign money.
AMI's HR2990 would convert the money supply overnight, and nobody would be the wiser.
At that point, new public money could be channeled into funding people to leave. Blacks that
don't like it in the U.S. would be given X amount of dollars to settle in an African country of
their choice. This public money can be formed as debt free, and could also be directed such that
it can only buy American goods. In other words, it can be forced to channel, to then stimulate
the American economy.
In this way, the future works, to then get rid of disruptive future elements.
It always boils down to the money system. There is plenty of economic surplus to then fund
the removal of indigestible elements.
People automatically assume that the money supply must be private bank credit, as that is the
way it always has been. NO IT HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY.
@helena If Whites leave America and go back to their origin, no one, I repeat, NO ONE would
complain about that. They'd be singing "God Riddance" song all along.
No one wants to migrate to Ukraine, a white country.
No one wants to migrate to Hungary, a white country.
No one wants to migrate to Austria, a white country.
Everyone wants to migrate to the place where there's an over-bloated sense of job availability.
In this case, America offers an ample amount of opportunity.
Let's wait and see how universities in CA populated with merit-based Asian Americans overrule
all universities in the US anytime soon.
Name any state in the US that produces more than two universities (in the Top 50 list) in the
world.
Are you utterly oblivious to the fact that well over 95% of the blacks getting AAed into universities
are then being trained/indoctrinated into being future disruptive activists? Activists with credentials,
more money and connections. Entirely counterproductive and much of it on the taxpayers' dime.
If there is a solution, AA isn't it.
@Rdm Can I count you in on the Calexit movement–followed by the purge of whites? Freed from
the burden of those miserable European-origin Americans, the Asian-Negro-Mestizo marvel will be
a shining light to the rest of the world!
I waited to make this comment until the serious thinkers had been here. Did anyone notice the
dame in the picture is giving us the finger? I did a little experiment to see if my hand could
assume that position inadvertently and it couldn't. It aptly illustrates the article, either way.
Name any state in the US that produces more than two universities (in the Top 50 list) in
the world.
No state can compete against CA. You wonder why?
If you took the land mass of CA and imposed it on the U.S. East Coast between Boston and South
Carolina, I don't think it'd be a problem to surpass California in any Top 50 University competition.
Here's a simpler and more effective solution-KILL ALL NIGGERS NOW. See, not so difficult, was
it? Consider it a Phoenix Program for the American Problem. Actually, here's another idea-KILL
ALL LIBERALS NOW. That way, good conservative people of different races, sexes, etc., can be saved
from the otherwise necessary carnage. Remember, gun control is being able to hit your target.
The affirmative action game may well serve the interests of the cognitive elite whites, but
it has been a disaster for the rest of white America. I have a better solution.
Give the feral negroes what they have been asking for. Pull all law enforcement out of negro
hellholes like Detroit and South Chicago and let nature take its course.
Send all Asians and other foreigners who not already citizens back to their homelands. End
all immigration except very special cases like the whites being slaughtered in South Africa or
the spouse of a white American male citizen.
@Rdm I am not referring to guys like in the picture.
I am referring to the very topmost career stars, moving to Asia for the expat life. Some of
that is happening, and it could accelerate. Only 2-3 million are needed.
@Kyle McKenna " And as he copiously documented, whites have suffered far more discrimination
than asians have. The difference is, whites are more brainwashed into accepting it. "
And that's the function of the fraudulent, impossible '6M Jews, 5M others, gas chambers'.
"The historical mission of our world revolution is to rearrange a new culture of humanity
to replace the previous social system. This conversion and re-organization of global society
requires two essential steps: firstly, the destruction of the old established order, secondly,
design and imposition of the new order. The first stage requires elimination of all frontier
borders, nationhood and culture, public policy ethical barriers and social definitions, only
then can the destroyed old system elements be replaced by the imposed system elements of our
new order.
The first task of our world revolution is Destruction. All social strata and social formations
created by traditional society must be annihilated, individual men and women must be uprooted
from their ancestral environment, torn out of their native milieus, no tradition of any type
shall be permitted to remain as sacrosanct, traditional social norms must only be viewed as
a disease to be eradicated, the ruling dictum of the new order is; nothing is good so everything
must be criticized and abolished, everything that was, must be gone."
from: 'The Spirit Of Militarism', by Nahum Goldmann Goldmann was the founder & president of the World Jewish Congress
@Rdm Almost all white people would rather migrate to Austria, Hungary, and the Ukraine than
the following citadels of civilization:
Angola
Botswana
Burundi
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Djibouti
Ethiopia
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Gabon
Ghana
Kenya
Niger
Nigeria
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
- Without US taxpayers money CA would be a 3rd world country completely filled with unemployable
& dumb illegal immigrants.
- Think about this brief list made possible by the US taxpayers / federal government, money
CA would not get and then tens of thousands of CA people would lose their jobs (= lost CA tax
revenues):
aerospace contracts, defense contracts, fed gov, software contracts, fed gov airplane orders,
bases, ports, money for illegal aliens costs, federal monies for universities, 'affirmative action
monies, section 8 housing money, monies for highways, monies for 'mass transportation', monies
to fight crime, monies from the EPA for streams & lakes, monies from the Nat. Park Service, monies
for healthcare, monies for freeloading welfare recipients, and all this is just the tip of the
iceberg
- Not to mention the counties in CA which will not want to be part of the laughable 'Peoples
Republic of California'.
- And imagine the 'Peoples Republic of California Army', hilarious.
CA wouldn't last a week without other peoples money.
It's particularly unfortunate that Asians, who can hardly be blamed for the plight of America's
Blacks, are the ones from whom the "affirmative action" #groidgeld is extracted.
@Diversity Heretic My impression and overall experience from interacting with White Americans
is good in general. I have a very distinct view on both White Americans and Europeans. I'd come
back later.
I don't recommend purging of Whites in America. Neither do I prohibit immigration of all people.
But I do wish "legal" immigration from all parts of the world to this land. But I also understand
why people are fed up with White America.
There is a clear distinction between Europeans and White Americans. White Americans born and
bred here are usually an admixture of many European origins. They usually hide their Eastern European
origin and fervently claim German, French, English whenever possible -- basically those countries
that used to be colonial masters in the past.
White Americans are generally daring, optimistic and very open-minded. Usually when you bump
into any White Americans born and bred here, you can sense their genuine hospitality.
Europeans, usually fresh White immigrants in this land, tend to carry over their old mentality
with a bit of self-righteous attitude to patronize and condescend Americans on the ground that
this is a young country.
My former boss was Swiss origin, born in England, and migrated to America. If there's an opportunity
cost, he'd regale his English origin. If there's a Swiss opportunity, he'd talk about his ancestry.
He'd bash loud, crazy Americans while extoling his European majesty. He became a naturalized American
last year for tax purposes so that his American wife can inherit if he kicks the bucket.
Bottom line is, every immigrant to the US, in my honest opinion, is very innocent and genuinely
hard working. They have a clear idea of how they like to achieve their dreams here and would like
to work hard. It seems after staying here for a while, they all change their true selves to fit
into the existing societal structure, i.e., Chris Hemsworth, an Australian purposely trained to
speak American English in Red Dawn, can yell "This is our home" while 4th generation Asian Americans
will be forced to speak broken English. This is how dreams are shaped in America.
Coming back to purge of Whites, I only wish those self-righteous obese, bald, bottom of the
barrel, living on the alms Whites, proclaiming their White skin, will go back to their origin
and do something about a coming flood of Muslim in their ancestral country if they're so worried
about their heritage.
@Thomm No, he just wants the street-defecating hangers-on like you to go back and show how
awesome you claim you are in your own country by making a success of it rather than milking all
of the entitlements and affirmative action and other programs of literal racial advantage given
to you by virtue of setting foot in someone else's country.
- Without US taxpayers money CA would be a 3rd world country completely filled with unemployable
& dumb illegal immigrants.
- Think about this brief list made possible by the US taxpayers / federal government, money
CA would not get and then tens of thousands of CA people would lose their jobs (= lost CA tax
revenues):
aerospace contracts, defense contracts, fed gov, software contracts, fed gov airplane orders,
bases, ports, money for illegal aliens costs, federal monies for universities, 'affirmative action
monies, section 8 housing money, monies for highways, monies for 'mass transportation', monies
to fight crime, monies from the EPA for streams & lakes, monies from the Nat. Park Service, monies
for healthcare, monies for freeloading welfare recipients, and all this is just the tip of the
iceberg
- Not to mention the counties in CA which will not want to be part of the laughable 'Peoples
Republic of California'.
- And imagine the 'Peoples Republic of California Army', hilarious.
CA wouldn't last a week without other peoples money.
Calexit? Please, pretty please. So you're talking about Calexit in AA action?
Let us play along.
If CA is existing solely due to Fed Alms, I can agree it's the tip of the iceberg. But we're
talking about Universities, their performance and how AA is affecting well qualified students.
Following on your arguments,
UC Berkeley receives $373 Millions (Federal Sponsorship) in 2016.
Harvard University, on the other hand, receives $656 millions (Federal sponsorship) in 2012.
I'm talking about how Universities climb up in World ranking, based upon their innovations,
productivity, research output, etc etc etc. Which to me, is reflective of what kind of students
are admitted into the programs. That's my point.
If you want to talk about Calexit, you'd better go and refresh your reading comprehension ability.
The thing that is forgotten is that white Americans DO NOT need the Africans in any way whatsoever.
There is NOTHING in Detroit that we want – we abandoned it deliberately and have no interest in
ever returning.
On the other hand, what do the Africans need from us?
Food. We own and operate all food production.
Medicine. Ditto.
Clean water. Look at Flint.
Sanitation services. Look at anywhere in Africa.
Order.
To put a stop to African behavior from Africans is an idiot's dream. They will never stop being
what they are. They simply cannot. So if we cannot expel them, we must control them. When they
act up, we cut off their food, medicine, water, and sewer services. Build fences around Detroit
and Flint. Siege. After a month or two of the Ethiopian Diet, the Africans in Detroit will be
much more compliant.
@Thomm You just want intra-white socialism so you can mooch off of productive whites. Thomm=the
girly boy blatherings of a White Libertarian Cuck
The benefit to the Historic Native Born White American Working Class of being voted into a
White Racial Minority in California by Chinese "Americans" Korean "Americans" .Hindu "Americans"
Sihk "Americans" and Iranian "Americans"?
Answer:0 . Bring back the Chinese Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act!!!
Two Great pro-White Socialist Labor Leaders:Denis Kearney and Samuel Gompers go read Denis
Kearney's Rebel Rousing speeches google Samuel Gompers' Congressional Testimony in favor of the
passage of The Chinese Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act
As some have pointed out, the trouble with appeasement is, it never ends. Those who are used
to the handouts will always want more. There's the saying parents tend to strengthen the strong
and weaken the weak, that's what paternalistic policies like affirmative action and welfare do
to a society. It creates a cycle of dependency.
Those who think multiculturalism coupled with identity politics is a good idea need to take
a good look at Malaysia, arguably the most multicultural country outside the US. The country is
in Southeast Asia, with roughly 30m people, roughly 60% ethnic Malay(100% muslim), 23% Chinese(mostly
buddhist or christian), brought in by the British in the 1800s to work the rubber plantations
and tin mines, and 7% Indian(mostly Hindu), brought in by the British to work the plantations
and civil service.
In 1957 the Brits left and left the power in the hands of the ethnic Malays. The Chinese soon
became the most successful and prosperous group and dominated commerce and the professional ranks.
In 1969 a major race riot broke out, the largely rural and poor Malays decided to "take back what's
theirs", burnt, looted and slaughtered many ethnic Chinese. After the riot the government decided
the only way to prevent more riots is to raise the standard of living for the Malays. And they
began a massive wealth transfer program through affirmative action that heavily favors ethnic
Malays. First, all civil service jobs were given to only ethnic Malays, including the police and
military. Then AA was instituted in all local universities where Malays with Cs and Ds in math
and science were given preference over Chinese with all A's to all the engineering, medicine and
law majors. Today no one in their right mind, not even the rich Malays, want to be treated by
a Malay doctor. I know people who were maimed by one of these affirmative actioned Malay "neurosurgeons"
who botched a simple routine procedure, and there was no recourse, no one is allowed to sue.
Thanks to their pandering to the Malay majority and outright voting fraud, the ruling party
UMNO has never lost an election and is today the longest serving ruling party in modern history.
Any dissent was stifled through the sedition act where dissidents are thrown in jail, roughed
up, tossed down 14th story buildings before they even go to trial. All media is strictly controlled
and censored by the government, who also controls the military, and 100% of the country's oil
production, with a large portion of the profit of Petronas going to the coffers of the corrupt
Malay government elites, whatever's left is given to hoi polloi Malays in the form of fluff job
positions created in civil service, poorly run quasi-government Malay owned companies like Petronas,
full scholarships to study abroad for only ethnic Malays, tax free importation of luxury cars
for ethnic Malays, and when the government decided to "privatize" any government function like
the postal service or telcom, they gave it in the form of a monopoly to a Malay owned company.
All government contracts e.g. for infrastructure are only given to Malay owned companies, even
as they have zero expertise for the job. The clever Chinese quickly figured out they could just
use a Malay partner in name only to get all government contracts.
As opposed to the US where affirmative action favors the minority, in Malaysia AA favors the
majority. You know it can't last. The minority can only prop up the majority for so long. Growth
today is largely propped up by oil income, and the oil reserve is dwindling. Even Mahathir the
former prime minister who started the most blatant racial discrimination policy against the Chinese
started chastising the Malays of late, saying they've become too lazy and dependent on government
largess.
Yet despite the heavy discrimination, the Chinese continued to thrive thanks to their industriousness
and ingenuity, while many rural Malays not connected with the governing elite remain poor -- classic
case of strengthening the strong and weakening the weak. According to Forbes, of the top 10 richest
men in Malaysia today, 9 are ethnic Chinese, only 1 is an ethnic Malay who was given everything
he had. Green with envy, the ethnic Malays demanded more to keep the government in power. So a
new law was made – all Chinese owned businesses have to give 30% ownership to an ethnic Malay,
just like that.
Needless to say all this racial discrimination resulted in a massive brain drain for the country.
many middle class Indians joined the Chinese and emigrated en masse to Australia, NZ, US, Canada,
Europe, Singapore, HK, Taiwan, Japan. The ones left are often destitute and poor, heavily discriminated
against due to their darker skin, and became criminals. Al Jazeera recently reported that the
7% ethnic Indians in Malaysia commit 70% of the crime.
To see how much this has cost Malaysia -- Singapore split off from Malaysia 2 years after their
joint independence from Britain and was left in destitute as they have no natural resources. But
Lee Kuan Yew with the help of many Malaysian Chinese who emigrated to Singapore turned it into
one of the richest countries in the world in one generation with a nominal per capita GDP of $53k,
while Malaysia is firmly stuck at $9.4k, despite being endowed with natural resources from oil
to tin and beautiful beaches. The combination of heavy emigration among the Chinese and high birthrate
among the muslim Malays encouraged by racialist Mahathir, the Chinese went from 40% of the population
in 1957 to 23% today. The Indians went from 11% to 7%.
I fear that I'm seeing the same kind of problem in the US. It's supremely stupid for the whites
to want to give up their majority status through open borders. Most Asians like me who immigrated
here decades ago did it to get away from the corrupt, dishonest, dog-eat-dog, misogynistic culture
of Asia. But when so many are now here, it defeats the purpose. The larger the immigrant group,
the longer it takes to assimilate them. Multiculturalism is a failed concept, especially when
coupled with identity politics. Affirmative Action does not work, it only creates a toxic cycle
of dependency. The US is playing with fire. We need a 20 year moratorium on immigration and assimilate
all those already here. Otherwise, I fear the US will turn into another basketcase like Malaysia.
@Tom Welsh There were only about one million Indians living in what is the United States in
1500. There are now 3 million living in much better conditions than in 1500.
I would be willing to accept non White immigration if the non White immigrants and our government
would end affirmative action for non Whites.
Asians are discriminated against in college admissions. But in the job market they have affirmative
action aristocratic status over Whites.
@Diversity Heretic John Derbyshire has made similar arguments--racial preferences are the
price for social peace. But, as Steve Sailer has pointed out, we're running out of white and Asian
children to buffer black dysfunction and Asians are going to get less and less willing to be "sacrificial
lambs" for a black underclass that they did nothing to create and that they despise.
There are other ways to control the black underclass. You can force the talented ones to remain
in their community and provide what leadership they can. Black violence can be met with instant
retributive counter-violence. (Prior to the 1960s most race riots were white on black.) Whites
can enforce white norms on the black community, who will sort-of conform to them as best they
are able.
Finally, Rudyard Kipling had a commentary on Danegeld. It applies to paying off dysfunctional
domestic minorities just as much to invading enemies.
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
admitting academically unqualified blacks to elite schools is, at core, a policy to protect
the racial peace and, as such, has nothing to do with racial justice,
The Black are protesting relentlessly and loudly verbally and thru assertive actions about
the racial discrimination they have been facing. I have never seen those academically unqualified
blacks admitted to the elite schools have stood up using themselves as shiny examples to refute
the discrimination allegations the Black made against the White.
While the policy to protect the racial peace by admitting academically unqualified blacks to
elite schools failed miserably, the restricting the smart and qualified Asians to elite schools
is blatantly racial injustice practice exercised in broad day light with a straight face lie.
The strategy is to cause resentment between the minorities so that the White can admitting their
academically unqualified ones to elite schools without arousing scrutiny.
Because KKK were Southern Democrats, Democratic Party is forever the KKK party. Never mind
Democrats represented a broad swatch of people.
And Dinesh finds some parallels between Old Democrats and Nazi ideology, therefore Democrats are
responsible for Nazism. I mean
Doesn't he know that parties change? Democratic Party once used to be working class party.
Aint no more.
GOP used to be Party of Lincoln. It is southern party now, and most loyal GOP-ers are Southerns
with respect for Confederacy. GOP now wants Southern Neo-Confed votes but don't want Confed memorials.
LOL.
Things change.
Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond came over to the GOP for a reason.
Dinesh seems to be stuck in 'caste' mentality. Because Dems once had KKK on its side, Democratic
Party is forever cast or 'casted' as KKK. And now, 'Democrats are real Nazis'.
Actually, the real supremacism in America at the moment seems to be AIPAC-related.
Anyway, there were leftist elements in National Socialism, but its was more right than left.
Why? Because in the hierarchy of ideological priorities, the most important core value was
the 'Aryan' Tribe. Socialized medicine was NOT the highest value among Nazis. Core conviction
was the ideology of racial identity and unity. Thus, it was more right than left.
Just because National Socialism had some leftist elements doesn't make it a 'leftist' ideology.
Same is true of Soviet Communism. Stalin brought back high culture and classical music. He
favored traditionalist aesthetics to experimental or avant-garde ones. And Soviets promoted some
degree of Russian nationalism. And even though communists eradicated certain aspects of the past,
they also restored respect for classic literature and culture. So, does that mean USSR was 'conservative'
or 'rightist'? No, it had some rightist elements but its core ideology was about class egalitarianism,
therefore, it was essentially leftist.
@Joe Wong All the Whites and Asians who are admitted to the top 25 schools are superbly qualified.
There are so many applicants every White and Asian is superbly qualified.
The entire point of affirmative action is that Asians and Whites are discriminated against
in favor of blacks and Hispanics. Harvard proudly proclaims that is now majority non White.
Don't worry, the Jews decided long ago that you Asian drones would have medicine and tech,
Hispanics construction, food, trucking,and cleaning and Hispanics and blacks would share government
work and public education.
Whites will gradually disappear and the 110 year old Jewish black coalition will control the
Asians and Hispanics through black crime and periodic riots.
@Wally So you are a tough guy, and never give in anything to anyone in your life? It seems
the Jews have similar view as yours, the Jews insist that if they give in an inch to those Holocaust
deniers, they will keep demanding more & more, at the beginning the Holocaust deniers will demand
for the evidence, then they will demand the Jews are at fault, then they will demand the Nazi
to be resurrected, then they will demand they can carry out Holocaust against anyone they don't
like, Pretty soon they will demand they to be treated like the pigs in the Orwellian's Animal
Farm.
@Priss Factor Hell with those 'smart Asians'. They are among the biggest Proglob a-holes.
Asians have servile genes that seek approval from the power. They are status-freaks.
They make perfect collaborators with the Glob.
Under communism, they made the most conformist commies.
Under Japanese militarism, they made the most mindless military goons who did Nanking.
Under Khmer Rouge, they were biggest looney killers.
Under PC, they make such goody good PC dogs.
If the prevailing culture of US was patriotic and conservatives, Asians would try to conform
to that, and that wouldn't be so bad.
But since the prevailing culture is PC, these yellow dogs are among the biggest homomaniacal
PC tards.
Hell with them. Yellow dogs voted for Obama and Hillary in high numbers. They despise, hate,
and feel contempt for white masses and working class. They are servitors of the empire as Darrell
Hamamoto said. He's one of the few good guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bs_BbIBCoY
Just look at that Francis Fukuyama, that slavish dog of Soros. He's so disgusting. And then,
you got that brown Asian tard Fareed Zakaria. What a vile lowlife. And that fat Jeer Heet who
ran from dirty browns shi**ing all over the place outdoors to live with white people but bitches
about 'white supremacy'. Well, the fact that he ran from his own kind to live with whites must
mean his own choice prefers white folks. His immigration choice was 'white supremacism'. After
all, he could have moved to black Africa. Why didn't he?
PS. The best way of Affirmative Action is to limit it only to American Indians and Blacks of
slave ancestry. That's it.
Also, institutions should OPENLY ADMIT that they do indeed discriminate to better represent
the broader population. Fair or not, honesty is a virtue. What is most galling about AA is the
lies that says 'we are colorblind and meritocratic but...' No more buts. Yes, there is discrimination
but to represent larger population. Okay, just be honest. Asia is a big continent and Asians of
different ethnicity have very different voting patterns due to their culture and history. Japanese-Americans
tend to be the most liberal ethnic group of all Asian groups because of their experience with
internment during WWII. Somehow they conveniently forgot that it was a Democrat president who
put them in internment, and are now putting the blames squarely on the right for what happened.
These Japanese-Americans are drinking the kool-aid big time, but in the 90s I remember a Japanese
prime minister got in big trouble for saying America's biggest problem is we have too many blacks
and hispanics dragging us down.
Filipinos, Hmongs and other Southeast Asians tend to be poor and rely on government largess
to a certain extent, and also benefit from affirmative action at least in the state of CA, they
also tend to be liberal.
In this election cycle Indian-Americans have become the most vocal anti-Trumpers. From Indian
politicians from WA state like Kshama Sawant, Pramila Jayapal to Indian entertainers like Aziz
Ansari, Hasan Minaj, Kumail Nanjani, to Silicon Valley techies like Calexit mastermind VC Shervin
Pishevar, Google CEO Sundra Pichai, all are socialist libtards. In my local election, several
Indians are running for city council. All are first generation, all Democrats and champions of
liberal policies. It's as if they have amnesia(or just lower IQ), not remembering that socialism
was why they had to leave the shithole India to begin with. A Korean American is running as a
Republican.
There are Chinese idiots like Ted Lieu and other asians who've gone to elite schools therefore
drinking the kool-aid and insisted AA is good for Asian Americans, but most Koreans, Vietnamese
and Chinese tend to be more conservative and lean Republican. During the Trump campaign Breitbart
printed a story about a group of Chinese Americans voicing their support for Trump despite his
anti-China rhetoric because they had no intention of seeing the US turned into another socialist
shithole like China.
Per the NYT a major reason Asians vote Republican is because of AA. Asians revere education,
esp. the Chinese and Koreans, and they see holistic admission is largely bullshit set up by Jews
to protect their legacy status while throwing a few bones to under qualified blacks and hispanics.
Unfortunately it didn't seem to dampen their desire to immigrate here. Given that there are 4
billion Asians and thanks to open borders, if it weren't for AA all our top 100 schools will be
100% Asian in no time. I suggest we first curtail Asian immigration, limit their number to no
more than 10,000 a year, then we can discuss dismantling AA.
California sends far more to Washington than it sends back. Also, there is no correlation between
percentage of federal land and dependence on federal funding. If there were, Delaware would be
the least dependent state in the US.
California sends far more to Washington than it sends back. Also, there is no correlation between
percentage of federal land and dependence on federal funding. If there were, Maine would be among
the least dependent states in the US.
@Astuteobservor II The Indian tribe in tech is known to favor Indians in hiring. I've read
from other Indian posters elsewhere that Indian managers like to hire Indian underlings because
they are easier to bully.
Indian outsourcing firms like Infosys, TCS, Wipro are like 90% Indian, mostly imported directly
from India, with token whites as admin or account manager.
@Carlton Meyer That's pretty funny. The guy's got balls. Probably son of some corrupt Chinese
government official used to being treated like an emperor back home, ain't taking no shit from
black folks.
I suppose this is what happens when universities clamor to accept foreign students because
they are full pay. His tuition dollar is directly subsidizing these affirmative action hacks,
who are now preventing him from studying. He has fully paid for his right to tell them to STFU.
@Beckow Romans did not think Europe was a nice place to live, full of bloodthirsty barbarians,
uneducated, smelly, dirty, foul mouth and rogue manner, even nowadays a lot of them cannot use
full set of tableware to finish their meal, a single fork will do, it is a litte more civilized
than those use fingers only.
After a millennium of dark age of superstition, religious cult suppression, utter poverty medieval
serf Europe, it followed by centuries of racial cleanses, complete destruction of war, stealing
and hypocrisy on industrial scale, this time not only restricted to Europe the plague flooded
the whole planet.
Even nowadays the same plague from Europe and its offshoots in the North America is threatening
to exterminate the human beings with a big bang for their blinding racial obligatory. The rest
of the world only can hope this plague would stay put in North America and Europe, so the rest
world can live in peace and prosperity.
Asians receive federal entitlements the same as the other protected class groups of diversity.
Diversity ideology lectures us that Asians are oppressed by Occidentals.
1. Preferential US immigration, citizenship, and asylum policies for Asian people
2. Federal 8a set-aside government contracts for Asian owned businesses
3. Affirmative Action for Asians especially toward obtaining government jobs
4. Government anti-discrimination laws for Asians
4. Government hate speech crime prosecutions in defense of Asians
5. Sanctuary cities for illegal Asians, and other protected class groups of diversity
6. Asian espionage directed at the US is common, and many times goes unprosecuted
7. American trade policy allows mass importation of cheap Asian products built with slave labor
8. Whaling allowance for some Asian ethnic groups
9. Most H1-B visas awarded to Asians
The benefit to the Historic Native Born White American Working Class of being voted into a
White Racial Minority in California by Chinese "Americans"...Korean "Americans"....Hindu "Americans"...Sihk
"Americans"...and Iranian "Americans"?
Answer:0.... Bring back the Chinese Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act!!!
Two Great pro-White Socialist Labor Leaders:Denis Kearney and Samuel Gompers...go read Denis Kearney's
Rebel Rousing speeches...google Samuel Gompers' Congressional Testimony in favor of the passage
of The Chinese Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act... It is MUCH better to be a libertarian than to
be a Nationalist-Leftist. You have effectively admitted that you want intra-white socialism since
you can't hack it yourself.
Socialists = untalented losers.
Plus, I guarantee that your ancestors were not in America since 1776. You are just some 2nd-gen
Polack or something.
@Priss Factor Here is one 'smart Asian' who is not a Self-Righteous Addict of Proglobalism,
but what a clown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNrytSEyUoY
Dineshisms are always funny as hell.
Because KKK were Southern Democrats, Democratic Party is forever the KKK party. Never mind
Democrats represented a broad swatch of people.
And Dinesh finds some parallels between Old Democrats and Nazi ideology, therefore Democrats are
responsible for Nazism. I mean...
Doesn't he know that parties change? Democratic Party once used to be working class party.
Aint no more.
GOP used to be Party of Lincoln. It is southern party now, and most loyal GOP-ers are Southerns
with respect for Confederacy. GOP now wants Southern Neo-Confed votes but don't want Confed memorials.
LOL.
Things change.
Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond came over to the GOP for a reason.
Dinesh seems to be stuck in 'caste' mentality. Because Dems once had KKK on its side, Democratic
Party is forever cast or 'casted' as KKK. And now, 'Democrats are real Nazis'.
Actually, the real supremacism in America at the moment seems to be AIPAC-related.
Anyway, there were leftist elements in National Socialism, but its was more right than left.
Why? Because in the hierarchy of ideological priorities, the most important core value was
the 'Aryan' Tribe. Socialized medicine was NOT the highest value among Nazis. Core conviction
was the ideology of racial identity and unity. Thus, it was more right than left.
Just because National Socialism had some leftist elements doesn't make it a 'leftist' ideology.
Same is true of Soviet Communism. Stalin brought back high culture and classical music. He
favored traditionalist aesthetics to experimental or avant-garde ones. And Soviets promoted some
degree of Russian nationalism. And even though communists eradicated certain aspects of the past,
they also restored respect for classic literature and culture. So, does that mean USSR was 'conservative'
or 'rightist'? No, it had some rightist elements but its core ideology was about class egalitarianism,
therefore, it was essentially leftist. "Stalin brought back high culture and classical music.
He favored traditionalist aesthetics to experimental or avant-garde ones."
Priss, you haven't the first clue what you're talking about, here. Stalin didn't favor "traditionalist
aesthetics" – he favored vulgar pop-crap.
@Joe Franklin Asians receive federal entitlements the same as the other protected class groups
of diversity.
Diversity ideology lectures us that Asians are oppressed by Occidentals.
1. Preferential US immigration, citizenship, and asylum policies for Asian people
2. Federal 8a set-aside government contracts for Asian owned businesses
3. Affirmative Action for Asians especially toward obtaining government jobs
4. Government anti-discrimination laws for Asians
4. Government hate speech crime prosecutions in defense of Asians
5. Sanctuary cities for illegal Asians, and other protected class groups of diversity
6. Asian espionage directed at the US is common, and many times goes unprosecuted
7. American trade policy allows mass importation of cheap Asian products built with slave labor
8. Whaling allowance for some Asian ethnic groups
9. Most H1-B visas awarded to Asians That is completely false. You just memorized that from some
bogus site.
Section 8a is used more by white women than by Asians, and Asians get excluded from it due
to high income. It should be done away with altogether, of course.
Asians face discrimination in University admissions, as the main article describes.
H1-Bs are awarded to Asians because white countries don't produce enough people who qualify.
Plus, Asian SAT scores are consistently higher than whites. That proves that Asian success
was not due to AA.
@Thomm Green isn't a color that suits you. You're a subcontinental hanger-on who's only able
to garner any success in any western country due to an anarcho-tyranny in enforcement against
ethnonepotism as well as lavish handouts in the form of all sorts of party favors.
There are very few non-white groups that could do any well on a level playing field with equal
enforcement against nepotism, and yours isn't one of them. Your country? Sad!
Whites will gradually disappear and the 110 year old Jewish black coalition will control
the Asians and Hispanics through black crime and periodic riots.
I don't think this is correct
Since California already has (very roughly) the future demographics you're considering, I think
it serves as a good test-case.
The Hispanic and Asian populations have been growing rapidly, and they tend to hold an increasing
share of the political power, together with the large white population, though until very recently
most of the top offices were still held by (elderly) whites. Whites would have much more political
power, except that roughly half of them are still Republicans, and the Republican Party has almost
none.
In most of the urban areas, there's relatively little black crime these days since so many
of the blacks have been driven away or sent off to prison. I'd also say that major black riots
in CA are almost unthinkable since many of the local police forces are heavily Hispanic: they
don't particularly like blacks, and might easily shoot the black rioters dead while being backed
up by the politicians, and many of the blacks probably recognize this. Admittedly, CA always had
a relatively small black population, but that didn't prevent enormous black crime and black riots
in the past due to the different demographics.
Meanwhile, Jewish-activists still possess enormous influence over CA politics, but they exert
that influence through money and media, just like they do everywhere else in the country.
@F the media that is actually true about indians. I have first hand account of a 100+ tech
dept getting taken over by indians in just 3 years :/ but that is not a "quota" that is just indians
abusing their power once in position of power.
@VinteuilPriss, you haven't the first clue what you're talking about, here. Stalin didn't
favor "traditionalist aesthetics" – he favored vulgar pop-crap.
Right.. Ballet, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and classic literature. That's some pop crap.
Soviet Culture was about commie Lena Dunhams.
Now, most of Soviet culture was what might be called kitsch or middlebrow stuff, but it was
not 'pop crap' as known in the West.
@Saxon Green isn't a color that suits you. You're a subcontinental hanger-on who's only able
to garner any success in any western country due to an anarcho-tyranny in enforcement against
ethnonepotism as well as lavish handouts in the form of all sorts of party favors.
There are very few non-white groups that could do any well on a level playing field with equal
enforcement against nepotism, and yours isn't one of them. Your country? Sad! Whatever helps you
sleep at night..
Yesterday I was called a Jew. Today, it is Indian. In reality, I am a white American guy.
You white trashionalists can't get your stories straight, can you? Well, WNs are known for
having negro IQs.
Asians don't get affirmative action. They outscore whites in the SAT.
@Thomm That is completely false. You just memorized that from some bogus site.
Section 8a is used more by white women than by Asians, and Asians get excluded from it due
to high income. It should be done away with altogether, of course.
Asians face discrimination in University admissions, as the main article describes.
H1-Bs are awarded to Asians because white countries don't produce enough people who qualify.
Plus, Asian SAT scores are consistently higher than whites. That proves that Asian success
was not due to AA. You have reading comprehension problems to have confused Federal 8A government
contacts with Section 8 housing.
8A contracts are federal contracts granted to "socially and economically disadvantaged individual(s)."
The business must be majority-owned (51 percent or more) and controlled/managed by socially
and economically disadvantaged individual(s).
The individual(s) controlling and managing the firm on a full-time basis must meet the SBA
requirement for disadvantage, by proving both social disadvantage and economic disadvantage.
Definition of Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Individuals
Socially disadvantaged individuals are those who have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice
or cultural bias because of their identities as members of groups without regard to their individual
qualities. The social disadvantage must stem from circumstances beyond their control.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the following individuals are presumed to be socially
disadvantaged:
• Black Americans;
• Hispanic Americans (persons with origins from Latin America, South America, Portugal and
Spain);
• Native Americans (American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians);
• Asian Pacific Americans (persons with origins from Japan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea,
Samoa, Guam, U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands [Republic of Palau], Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands, Laos, Cambodia [Kampuchea], Taiwan, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Singapore, Brunei, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Macao, Hong
Kong, Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu, or Nauru);
• Subcontinent Asian Americans (persons with origins from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Bhutan, the Maldives Islands or Nepal);
• And members of other groups designated from time to time by the SBA.
@Joe Wong Romans lived in Europe, get an atlas, Rome is in Europe. I will skip over your silly
summaries of European history, we all can do it to any civilization all day. Pointless. Try China.
Oh, I forgot, nobody knows much Chinese up and downs because it was mostly inconsequential.
If you call others 'racist' all the time, they might just not take your seriously. Or simply
say, fine, if liking one's culture is now 'racism', if it is a white culture, then count me in.
The rest of the world is tripping over itself to move – literally to physically move – to Europe
and North America. Why do you think that is?
I'd also say that major black riots in CA are almost unthinkable since many of the local
police forces are heavily Hispanic: they don't particularly like blacks, and might easily shoot
the black rioters dead
Oh, would you stop being a make-believe pundit, Ron? That is some commentary you copped from
an OJ-era LA Times expose. You've had one conversation with a police officer in your life, and
that was over an illegal left term outside the Loma Linda Starbucksand culminated in disturbing
the peace when exited your Bentley yelling "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!" at the top of your lungs
for 4 minutes.
Whenever you've had a nudity-mandatory, eyes-wide-shut, type globalist-soiree at your palatial
mansion, the only people you invited were politicians, lawyers, Ivy-league economists, Silicon
Valley tech nerds and hookers.
@Joe Franklin We've been over this. 8a is not given to anyone with over $250,000 in assets,
as your own link indicates. This means most Asians can't use it anyway (not that they need to).
The whole program should be done away with, of course.
What is funny is that you can't accept that Asians have higher SAT scores than whites, which
pretty much proves that they can (and do) outperform without AA. You WN idiots can't come to terms
with that.
But Section 8a should be removed just so that WN wiggers don't have anything to hide behind,
since Asians don't need it to excel.
@Thomm These untalented Socialists you refer to would include the vast majority of America
1969 90 percent Native Born White America .a White Nation that placed two Alpha Native Born White
American Males on the Moon .ten more after that. Seems that Socialism worked just fine.
If you prefer an Asian Majority you can always pack your bags and pick the Asian Nation of
your choice.
@Ron Unz hmm i don't know that will be the case nationally. Southern cities like Atlanta will
not have hispanic or white govt. Same with nyc, no need for blacks in harlem or bronx to leave
if government aid continues to pay for rent controlled affordable housing. Same case can be made
for most large northern cities like chicago, detroit, boston, philadelphia, DC, etc.
So with future aa population of 14%, that's 60 million blacks in america in 2060 timeframe,
although that will have an increasing amount of immigration from africa, which tends to be more
educated (at least 1st and 2nd generation).
Asians will be about 8%, so that's a poweful community of 40 million. I see tech and wall street
with increasing amount of asian representations.
What i would be interested in seeing if there will any maverick asian billionaires that could
disrupt the narrative.
This article may tend to take your mind off the real racial injustice at Harvard. In an article
"Affirmative Action Battle Has a New Focus: Asian-Americans" in the NY Times, August 3, 2017 ANEMONA
HARTOCOLLIS and STEPHANIE SAUL wrote ""The Harvard lawsuit likens attitudes toward Asian-Americans
to attitudes toward Jews at Harvard, beginning around 1920, when Jews were a high-achieving minority.
In 1918, Jews reached 20 percent of the Harvard freshman class, and the university soon proposed
a quota to lower the number of Jewish students."" In my humble opinion this is a misleading statement
which implies that the admission of Jews remained below 20% in the years after 1918. In fact Hillel
reports that in recent years the admission of jews to Harvard has been around 25% of the class.
This means that almost half of the class are white and half of this white group are Jews. That
seems like an amazing over-representation of Jews who are only 2% of our population. So, at least
as many Jews as Asians are admitted to Harvard. No wonder the Asians are upset. I note that this
article does not point out this Jewish bias in admissions at Harvard and neither did the Asians.
Is this another manifestation of political correctness? Or is it an egregious example of racism?
This problem is the real elephant in the room. This is the Jewish racism that dare not speak its
name. Until lately.
@Truth Truth, you is so wise and true. You's right. Them Russian dummies didn't have no vibrant
black folks to make fun music that could make them wiggle their butts all their night long. So,
they grew stale and bored and drank too much vodka, caught fish with penis, and wrestled with
bears and didn't have the all the cool stuff like the US has.
All the world needs to be colonized by superior Negroes cuz folks will just die of boredom.
At least if you get killed by Negroes, it's exciting-like.
hmm i don't know that will be the case nationally. Southern cities like Atlanta will not
have hispanic or white govt. Same with nyc, no need for blacks in harlem or bronx to leave
if government aid continues to pay for rent controlled affordable housing. Same case can be
made for most large northern cities like chicago, detroit, boston, philadelphia, DC, etc.
Well, my California analogy was self-admittedly very rough and approximate given the considerable
differences in demographics. But I strongly suspect that such considerations provide a hidden
key to some contentious national policies of the last couple of decades, and I've actually written
extensively on the subject:
@Anon I imagine it was far different before the defense wind-downs of the mid 90s. Along with
the many cut-backs a lot of defense was moved out of California by the contractors as punishment
for California's liberal Congressmen. Companies that merged with California based operation usually
consolidated outside California such as when Raytheon swallowed up Hughes Aircraft Companies defense
operations and moved R&D to Massachusetts.
@Liberty Mike I know several white people who would rather live in Botswana than the Ukraine.
They have the advantage of having visited . The rest of your list seems pretty sound with the
possible exception of Swaziland.
P.S. If you deleted Austria and Hungary and replaced them by Albania and Kosovo you might make
your point even stronger.
@Thomm You're non-white and really dumb to boot; you don't understand the ecology of a society.
Even the white proles are better than your people's proles because they don't make functional
civilizations impossible. If it were possible for a tiny minority to drag the lowers upwards you
would be able to haul your lower castes upwards and make your own country work, then the Brahmins
would have done it. They can't because the average abilities, intelligence and disposition of
the masses is too low of quality in those countries to the point where tourists need to be given
explicit warnings about rape and other problems which you will never need when visiting, say,
some English village of completely average English people. The "white trash" you decry is probably
only slightly below your midwit level of intelligence.
Asians do get affirmative action in employment and promotions in the workplace by the way,
just not in education.
@Thomm I seem to remember you telling everybody that Asians DON'T get affirmative action JUST
GOOGLE IT without ever offering proof. Of course it never occurred to you that there could never
be any documented proof of something like that. There isn't even official documented proof that
white males don't get affirmative action. When people claimed and linked to articles indicating
Asians are considered disadvantaged by the government, you claimed those people didn't know what
they were talking about JUST GOOGLE IT.
I think you made it quite obvious who the idiot is.
It's time to force our "Golden Dozen" (Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Amherst and Williams) to admit
100% black until the average black income($43k) equals that of average white income($71k).
@Thomm The worst hate crimes I have personally witnessed were perpetrated by black men. I
have also seen more casual racism against Asians from blacks than from whites. This might be different
in other parts of the country or world.
Outside of the U.S., East Asians are the least likely to want to engage in some kind of anti-white
alliance since all of the West's most embarrassing military defeats have come from East Asians.
We have always relied on guns and not white guilt for racial equality.
@Ronnie In case you haven't noticed, Jews run this country. They dominate the media, academia,
Wall Street, Hollywood, Capitol Hill via the DNC and lobbying firms, Silicon Valley. Per the NYT
80% of Jews are self-proclaimed liberals. They are obsessed with dismantling the WASP World Order
that in their mind has oppressed them for the last 2000 years. The Ivy League is the pipeline
to these 6 sectors that collectively control the country, whoever controls Harvard controls the
country. Jews not only make up majority of the elite college faculty (esp. in the social sciences)
but are disproportionately benefiting from legacy admission and development cases(admission of
the dim witted sons and daughters of the rich and famous like Malia Obama, Jared Kushner, all
of Al Gore's kids).
Asians are the next up. Practically all Asians who've gone to the Ivy League or Stanford have
voiced their support for affirmative action, many are left wing nuts like the Jews. CA house representative
Ted Liu is one such kool-aid drinking Asian libtard, along with the HI judge Derrick Watson and
Baltimore judge Theodore Chuang, both of whom blocked Trump's temp. suspension of Muslim refugees,
both went to Harvard Law. As an Asian I would be more than happy if the Ivy League simply make
themselves off limits to all Asians and turn their schools 100% black. We don't need more Asians
to get indoctrinated in their dumb liberal ideology and go down in history as the group next to
the Jews and the blacks who destroyed America.
@Saxon You're non-white and really dumb to boot; you don't understand the ecology of a society.
Even the white proles are better than your people's proles because they don't make functional
civilizations impossible. If it were possible for a tiny minority to drag the lowers upwards you
would be able to haul your lower castes upwards and make your own country work, then the Brahmins
would have done it. They can't because the average abilities, intelligence and disposition of
the masses is too low of quality in those countries to the point where tourists need to be given
explicit warnings about rape and other problems which you will never need when visiting, say,
some English village of completely average English people. The "white trash" you decry is probably
only slightly below your midwit level of intelligence.
Asians do get affirmative action in employment and promotions in the workplace by the way,
just not in education.
Asians do get affirmative action in employment and promotions in the workplace by the way,
just not in education.
No they don't, as this very article explains. Could you BE more of a retard?
Plus, the fact that Asians get higher SAT scores than whites proves that they don't need it.
There is a left-wing conspiracy to hide Asian success.
Now, regarding an underachieving WN faggot like you :
Remember that white variance is very high. Excellent whites (like me) exist only because genetic
waste master has to be removed from the other end of the process. You and other WNs represent
that genetic waste matter, and that is why white women are doing a heroic duty of cutting you
off (at least the minority of WNs that are straight. Most are gay, as Jack Donovan has explained).
Nature wants the waste matter you comprise of to be expelled.
If you cared about the white race, you would be extremely glad that white women are cutting
you off, as that is necessary to get rid of the pollution that you represent.
Heh heh heh heh . it is so much fun to put a WN faggot in its place.
@MarkinLA No, I talked about 8a even two weeks ago. Good god, you WN really do have negro
IQs.
8a benefits Asians the least, and THE WHOLE THING SHOULD BE ABOLISHED ANYWAY. There should
be no AA, ever.
8a harms Asians as it taints their otherwise pristine claim to having succeeded without AA.
They don't need 8a, most don't qualify for it as they exceed the $250,000 cutoff, and it lets
WN faggots claim that 'all of Asian success is due to AA', which is demonstrably false.
Read this slowly, 10 times, so that even a wigger like you can get it.
Don't let these WN faggots get away with claiming all of Asian success is merely due to affirmative
action. In reality, Asians don't get affirmative action (other than wrongly being included in
the Section 8a code form the 1980s, which ultimately was used by barely 2% of the Asian community).
Remember that among us whites, variance is extremely high. The prettiest woman alongside pretty
of ugly fat feminists (who the WN losers still worship). The smartest men, and then these loserish
WNs with low IQs and no social skills. White variance is very high.
That is why WNs are so frustrated. They can't get other whites to give them the time of day,
and white women are super-committed to shutting out WN loser males from respectable society.
Don't let them claim that Asian success is solely due to affirmative action. Remember, respectable
whites hate these WN faggots.
@Thomm You're not white, though. You're a rentseeker hanging onto someone else's country and
the fact that you write barely literate garbage posts with no substance to them tells all about
your intellect and your "high achievement." You're not high quality. You're mediocre at best and
probably not even that since your writing is so bad.
Do you even do statistics, though? Whites make up about 70% of the national merit scholars
in the US yet aren't in the Ivies at that rate. Harvard for example is maybe only 25% white. Asians
are over-represented compared to their merit and jews way over-represented over any merit. Now
how does that happen without nepotism? The whole system of any racial favoritism should be scrapped
but of course that wouldn't benefit people like you, Thomm.
Whites aren't more innovative and ambitious than Chinese people. You only have to look at the
chinless Unite the Right idiots in Charlottesville to dispel any idea that whites are the superior
race. The
This Thomm character is obviously of East Asian origin. His tedious, repetitive blather about
Asians, white women, and "white nationalist faggots" is a telltale sign. One of his type characteristically
sounds like he would be so much less distressed if those white males were not white nationalist
faggots.
@Tom Welsh An interesting historical argument My reply Land isn't money Arguably the Normans
came back in the form of the Plantagenets to contest the French throne in the 100 Years War. But
by that time France wasn't nearly so feeble
Giving Negroes land in the form of a North American homeland appeals to me (provided whites
get one too) although I know the geography is agonizing Blacks tend not to like this suggestion–they
realize how depedent they are on whites That wasn't true of the Normans–quite self-reliant fellows!
@Thomm I'm not sure what it was that I said that made you think I think all Asian success
is due to AA. In fact I think the opposite is true, that Asians succeed in spite of AA, which
is set up solely to hinder Asians from joining the club, and as far as I'm concern, it's a club
of sell-out globalist libtards that I wouldn't want more Asians to join.
I've worked in tech long enough to know that in tech, no one gives a fudge where you went to
school. I am surrounded by deca-millionaires who went to state schools, many aren't even flagship,
some didn't even study STEM. Some didn't even go to college or graduate. The only people I know
who still care about the Ivy League are 1st generation often FOB China/India trash, and a small
number of Jewish kids looking to benefit from legacy admission, most are gay and/or serious libtards.
You can tell that Jewish achievement has fallen off a cliff as Ron Unz asserted by looking
at a certain popular college website. The longest running thread that's been up there for nearly
a decade with over a thousand pages and over 18,000 posts is called "Colleges for the Jewish "B"
student". The site is crawling with uber liberal Jewish mothers and monitored by a gang of Ivy
graduated SJWs who strictly enforce their "safe space", posters who post anything at all that
might offend anyone (affirmative action is always a sensitive topic) are either thrown in "jail"
i.e. ban from posting for a month, or kicked off altogether. The SJW forum monitors even directly
edit user comments as they see fit, first amendment rights be damned. This is the future of all
online forums if the left have their way, the kind of censorship that Piers Morgan advocates.
Asians are over-represented compared to their merit
False. The main article here alone proves otherwise, plus dozens of other research articles.
You just can't stand that Asian success is due to merit. But you have bigger problems, since
as a WN, you can't even compete with blacks.
What bugs you the most is that successful white people like me never give WN faggots the time
of day. Most tune you idiots out, but I like to remind you that you are waste matter that is being
expunged through the natural evolutionary process.
Yes, more so if they are leftists (including Nationalist-Leftists like WNs are). But the fact
that WNs are disproportionately gay (as Jack Donovan points out) also explains why they tend to
look grotesque, and it supports the scientific rationale that they are wastebaskets designed to
expedite the removal of genetic waste matter.
White variance in talent/looks/intelligence is high. WN loser males and fat, ugly feminists
represent the bottom. In the old days, these two would be married to each other since even the
lowest tiers were paired up. Today, thankfully, both are being weeded out.
@Pachyderm Pachyderma Not just that, but some of these 'white nationalists' are just recent
immigrants from Poland and Ukraine. They are desperate to take credit for Western Civilization
that they did nothing to create. Deep down, they know that during the Cold War, they were not
considered 'white' in America.
400 years? i.e. when most of what is now the lower-48 was controlled by a Spanish-speaking
government? Yeah Many of these WNs have been here only 30-70 years. That is one category (the
domestic WN wiggers are the other)
@Thomm It's too late, everybody knows what I wrote is true and that you are some pathetic
millennial libertarian pajama boy. The sad fact is that you can't even man up and admit that you
wrote that BS about "Asians don't get affirmative action just google it". See that would have
at least have been a sign of maturity, admitting you were wrong.
There is no point reading anything, even once, from a pathetic pajama boy like you.
@MarkinLA I openly said that I am proud to be libertarian. Remember, talented people can hack
in on their own, so they are libertarians.
Untalented losers (like you) want socialism so that you can mooch off of others.
Plus, Asians don't get affirmative action outside of one obscure place (Section 8a) which they
often don't qualify for ($250K asset cutoff), don't need, and was never used by more than 2% of
the Asian-American community. The fact that Asian SAT scores are higher than whites explains
why Asians outperform without AA.
Plus, this very article says that Asians are being held back. A WN faggot like you cannot grasp
that even though you are commenting in the comments of this article. Could you be any dumber?
I realize you are not smart enough to grasp these basic concepts, but that is why we all know
that white trashionalists have negro IQs.
Now begone; you are getting in the way of your betters.
Remember that White variance in brains/looks/talent/character is extremely high. Hence,
whites occupy both extremities of human quality.
Hence, the hierarchy of economic productivity is :
Talented whites (including Jews)
Asians (East and South)
Hispanics
Blacks
Untalented whites (aka these WN wastebaskets, and fat femtwats).
That is why :
1) WNs are never given a platform by respectable whites.
2) Bernie Sanders supporters are lily-white, despite his far-left views.
3) WN is a left-wing ideology, as their economic views are left-wing.
4) WNs are unable to even get any white women, as white women have no reason to pollute themselves
with this waste matter. Mid-tier white women thus prefer nonwhite men over these WNs, which makes
sense based on the hierarchy above.
5) WNs have the IQ of Negros, the poor social skills of an Asian spazoid, etc. They truly combine
the worst of all worlds.
6) This is why white unity is impossible; there is no reason for respectable whites to have anything
to do with white trashionalists.
7) Genetically, the very fact that superb whites even exists necessitates the production of individuals
to act as wastebaskets for removal of genetic waste. WNs are these wastebaskets.
8) The 80s movie 'Twins' was in effect a way to make these wastebaskets feel good, as eventually,
the Arnold Schwarzenegger character bonded with the Danny DeVito character. But these two twins
effectively represent the sharp bimodal distribution of white quality. Successful whites are personified
by the Schwarzenegger character, while WNs by the DeVito character. In reality, these two would
never be on friendly terms, as nature produces waste for a reason.
This pretty much all there is to what White Trashionalists really are.
Elite colleges are a prime example of left wing hypocrisy. The same people who are constantly
calling for an equal society are at the same time perpetuating the most unequal society by clamoring
to send their kids to a few elite schools that will ensure their entry to or retain their ranks
among the elites. Equality for everyone else, elitism for me and my kids. David Brook's nausea
inducing self-hating pablum "How we are ruining America" is a prime example of this hypocrisy.
Another good example of left wing hypocrisy is on "school integration". The same people who
condemn "bad schools" for the urban poor and call for more integration are always the first to
move into the whitest possible neighborhoods as soon as they have kids. They aren't willing to
sacrifice their own kids, they just want other people to sacrifice their children by sending them
to bad schools.
If the left didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.
When I first saw the title of this article, I, being an Asian, was a tad insulted. It smelled
like Dr. Weissberg was attempting to create (or at least escalate) racial strife between Asians
and blacks. I then read through the article and evaluated the bad and the good.
First the bad: Dr. Weissberg's assertion that Asians are being hurt by the Affirmative Action
promotion of blacks is a bit exaggerated. This is because most Asians go into rigorous difficult
programs such as engineering, science, and medicine. Most black affirmative action babies go into
soft programs such as Black Studies (and whatever else the humanities have degenerated into).
Now the good: I think this is the most true portion of the essay.
Better to have the handsomely paid Cornel West pontificating about white racism at Princeton
where he is a full professor than fulminating at some Ghetto street corner. This status driven
divide just reflects human nature. Why would a black Yalie on Wall Street socialize with the bro's
left behind in the Hood? This is the strategy of preventing a large-scale, organized rebellion
by decapitating its potential leadership.
I have once wrote that whites stopped sneering at MLK when Malcolm X and the Black Panthers
began taking center stage. They sure became more accommodating of "moderate" blacks. With all
of the terrorist attacks going on and with blacks converting to Islam, I don't think we're going
to get rid of affirmative action any time soon.
@Vinteuil Stalin alternated between favoritism and intimidation. The truth is he did have
an eye and ear for culture unlike Mao who was a total philistine.
If Stalin really hated artists, he would have killed all of them.
He appreciated them but kept a close eye.
He loved the first IVAN THE TERRIBLE by Eisenstein, but he sensed that the second one was a
criticism of him, and Eisenstein came under great stress.
OK, well, Stalin loved the movies, and may have had an eye for effective cinema. But when it
came to music he was, precisely, a total philistine. On this point, I again recommend Shostakovich's
disputed *Testimony,* a work unique in its combination of hilarity and horror, both of which come
to a head in his account of the competition to write a new national anthem to replace the internationale
– pp. 256-64. A must read.
@DB Cooper For the same reason North Korea is poorer than South Korea, despite being the same
people.
For the same reason the GDR was so much poorer than the FRG, despite the same people.
You probably never even thought about that.
A bad political system takes decades to recover from. Remember that the British also strip-mined
India for 200 years..
Come on, these are novice questions
If you think the success of Asian-Americans in general (and Indian-Americans in particular)
does not jive with your beliefs, then the burden of explaining what that is, is on you.
Indians happen to be the highest-income group in the US. Also very high are Filipinos and Taiwanese.
Racial preferences were ended at California public institutions -- including the elite public
universities Berkley and UCLA -- by ballot initiative. No black violence ensued. There is little
reason to think the black response would be different if the 8 Ivy League universities ended their
policies of racial preferences. Blacks would adjust their expectations. Fear of black rioting
and the desire to jumpstart the creation of a large and peaceful black middle class may have been
important motives for the initial development of racial preference policies in the late 1960s;
they are not major reasons for their retention and continued support from white administrators
today. Other reasons and motives are operative (including what I call R-word dread).
PS: Cornel West has moved from Princeton to Harvard Divinity School.
"Nevertheless, when all added up, the costs would be far lowers than dealing with widespread
1960s style urban violence."
Except back in the '60′s; the White, Euro-derived people were unwilling to fight back. They
felt guilty and half-blamed themselves. Not. Any. More! The costs -- social, mental, emotional,
physical; pick your metric! -- have now exceeded the patience of WAY more Americans than the media
is letting on.
Did you not see 20- and 30-THOUSAND, mostly White Euro-derived, Americans rallying to candidate -- and now President -- Trump's side? (No, the media carefully clipped the videos to hide those
numbers, but there they (we!) were! We're done! We're fed up! "FEEDING" these destructive vermin
to keep them from destroying our houses and families (and nation and country!) is no longer acceptable!
You "don't let Gremlins eat after midnight"? Well, we did -- and now we're in a war against them.
You think this capitulating in education is preventing 'widespread 1960s-style urban violence?
Have you not watched the news? We pretty much already are: ask NYC how many "sliced with a knife"
attacks they have there! In JUST Jan. and Feb., there were well more than 500! (Seriously vicious
attacks with knives and razor blades -- media mentioned it once for a few days, and then shut up.)
Look at the fair in Indianapolis; count up rape statistics; investigate the "knock-out game" ("polar
bear hunting" -- guess who's the polar bear?!). (Oh yeah, and: Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago; look
at ANY black-filled ruin of a city ) If (when!) we finally have to (CHOOSE to) deal with this
low-grade war -- WHO is better armed, better prepared, SMARTER, and fed up?
"This peace-keeping aspect of affirmative action understood, perhaps we ought to view those
smart Asians unfairly rejected from Ivy League schools as sacrificial lambs."
Wait, wait -- these are White schools, built by White Americans FOR White Americans! "Oh, the
poor Asians are not getting their 'fair share' cause the blacks are getting way more than their
'fair share'?! The Asians' 'fair share' is GO HOME!! The Asians don't have a 'fair share' in White
AMERICAN universities; we LET them come here and study -- and that is a KINDNESS: they don't have
a 'fair share' of OUR country! How about: stop giving preferences to every damned race and nationality
other than the one that BUILT this country and these universities!
@War for Blair Mountain Call them what they are: "paperwork Americans"! Having the paperwork
does NOT make them Americans, and nothing ever will!
Imagine a virgin land with no inhabitants: if you took all the Chinese "Americans" or all the
Pakistani "Americans" or Black "Americans" or Mexican "Americans" (funny, why did you leave those
last two out?! Way more of them than the others ) and moved them there, would they -- COULD they
ever -- create another America? No, they would create another China, or another Pakistan -- or their
own version of the hellholes their forebears (or they themselves) came from. ONLY White, ONLY
Euro-derived Americans could recreate an America.
And this goes, also, to answer the grumbling "Native" Americans who were also NOT native, yes?
Siberia, Bering land bridge, ever heard of those? Do you not even know your own pre-history?!
What "America" was here when it was a sparse population of warring tribes of variously related
Indian groups? What did your forebears make of this continent?
Nothing. There would be no "America" where everyone wants to come and benefit by taking; because
ONLY the White settlers (not immigrants: SETTLERS!) were able to create America! And as all you
non-Americans (AND paperwork "Americans") continue to swamp and change America for your own benefit -- you will be losing the very thing you came here to take (unfair!) advantage of!
At that point, new public money could be channeled into funding people to leave. Blacks
that don't like it in the U.S. would be given X amount of dollars to settle in an African country
of their choice.
Chip 'em and ship 'em! Microchip where they CAN'T 'dig it out' to prevent them from ever ever
ever returning! And ship 'em out! I'd pay a LOT to have this done!
Give the feral negroes what they have been asking for. Pull all law enforcement out of negro
hellholes like Detroit and South Chicago and let nature take its course.
They (we!) tried that years ago. The BLACK COPS SUED because they were working in the shittiest
places with the shittiest, most violent people -- and "the White cops had it easy."
NOT EVEN the blacks want to be with the blacks -- hence them chasing down every last White person,
to inflict their Dis-Verse-City on us!
The larger the immigrant group, the longer it takes to assimilate them.
Alas, typical "paperwork American" lack of understanding! I wrote this to a (White) American
who wants to keep importing everyone ("save the children!") -- and, she insisted, they "could"
assimilate. However, here's what 'assimilate" means:
Suppose you and your family decided to move to, say, Cambodia. You go there intending to "get
your part of the Cambodian dream," you go there to become Cambodian citizens, to assimilate and
join them, not to invade and change them. You want to adopt their ways, to *assimilate.* Yes?
This is how you describe legal immigrants to OUR country (The United States.)
How long would it take for you and your children to be (or even just feel) "assimilated"? How
long would it take for you to see your descendants as "assimilated" -- AS Cambodians? Years? Decades?
Generations? Would you be trying to fit in -- and "become" Cambodians; or would you be trying to
not forget your heritage? ("Heritage"?! Like, Cinco de Mayo, which they don't even celebrate IN
Mexico? Or Kwanza -- a CIA-invented completely fake holiday!)
More important: since it's their country -- how long until THEY see you as "Cambodians" and
not foreigners. I know a man and family who have lived in Italy for over 20 years. To the Italians
in the village where they live, they are still "stranieri": strangers. After this long, to the
local Italians, they're not just "the Americans who moved here" -- they're " our Americans" -- but they are still seen as 100% not Italian, not local: not "assimilated"!
Would you and your children and grandchildren learn to speak, read, and write Cambodian -- and
stop trying to use English for anything much in your new homeland? Would you join their clubs -- would you join their NATIONAL RELIGION!? Does "becoming Cambodian" -- does "assimilating" -- not
actually include (trying to) become Cambodian (and, thus, ceasing to be American)? (If
that were even possible; and it's not.) "Assimilation" is a stupid hope, not a possible reality.
That is where my friend balked. She said: she and her family are very Christian, and no way
at all ever would they drop Christianity and pick up Cambodian Buddhism. So -- how can they EVER
"assimilate" when they (quite rightly) REFUSE to assimilate?!
Please stop buying into the lies the destroyers of OUR nation keep selling. There is no such
thing as "assimilation"; only economic parasitism, jihadi invasion, and benefiting from the systems
set up by OUR forebears for THEIR posterity!
In my origin state of Tamil Nadu, the effective anti-brahmin quota is 100% ( de-jure is just
69% )
Sundar Pichai or Indira Nooyi or Vish Anand ( former Chess champ ) or Ramanujam ( late math
whiz ), cant get a Tamil Nadu State Gov , Math school teacher job
Also, the US gets a biased selection of Indians in terms of caste, class and education
Of Tamil Speakers in USA, about 50% are Tamil Brahmins, vs just 2% in India
The bottom 40% in terms of IQ, such as Muslims, Untouchables and Forest Tribals, are no more
than 10% in the US Indian diaspora
For comparison, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis ( muslim ), perform much much lower
For comparison, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis ( muslim ), perform much much lower
This is interesting, as it puts paid to the obsession that WN idiots have with 'whiteness'.
Pakistan is obviously much more Caucasoid than India and certainly Sri Lanka.
Afghanistan is whiter still. Many in Afghanistan would pass for bona-fide white in the US.
Yet Sri Lanka is richer than India, which is richer than Pakistan, which is richer than Afghanistan.
Either Islam is a negative factor that nullifies everything else including genetics, or something
else is going on.
What there is no doubt of is that Asia has been the largest economic region of the world by
far except for the brief 200-year deviation (1820-2020), as per that map I posted.
@Thomm Weissberg asks, "Why would a black Yalie on Wall Street socialize with the bro's left
behind in the Hood?"
Why focus on the LEFT buttock? His point would be as relevant were he to ask, "Why would a
black Yalie on Wall Street socialize with the bro's RIGHT behind in the Hood?" Either way, I smell
kinkyness deep within Weissberg's question.
"Divide and Rule" said the Romans. Incorporate the potential leaders of those you intend to
rule into your hereditary upper class, and the vast majority will stay inert at the least. And
many will actively support you. See this post by a black woman:
Black Americans: The Organized Left's Expendable Shock Troops .
People like Cornel West are not only NOT rabble-rousing in the 'hood, they're telling blacks
to support the people who actively keep them poor. "Affirmative Action" is designed to sabotage
its alleged goals. Almost all who 'benefit' from it end up among people whose performance is clearly
superior to their own, thus fostering feelings of inferiority, subtly communicating that it doesn't
matter what the 'beneficiary' of AA does, they'll always fail. This is no accident.
Without AA, there might still be separation, (consider "ultra-orthodox" Jews), but the separate
groups would have to be treated with some respect. Really, viewed amorally, it's a marvelous system
for oppressing whites and minorities.
@Thomm Islam is a negative factor, and the higher IQ castes did not convert to Islam
I have data from California National Merit list, IQ-140 bar
Among Indian Punjabis ;
Jat Sikh peasants = 3 winners ( 75% of Punjabis in USA )
Khatri merchants = 18 winners ( 25% of Punjabis in USA )
Both are extremely caucasoid, both appear heavily among Indian bollywood stars ; genetically
very similar, just the evolutionary effect of caste selection for merchant niche vs peasant niche
@Russ NieliRacial preferences were ended at California public institutions -- including
the elite public universities Berkley and UCLA -- by ballot initiative.
But the admissions people immediately started using other dodges like "holistic" admissions
policies where they try and figure out if your are a minority from other inferences such as your
essay where you indicate "how you have overcome". They also wanted to get rid of the SAT or institute
a top X% at each school policy.
@rec1man I don't know . a lot of the richest Indians in the US are Gujratis who own motels
and gas stations. Patels and such..
They were not of some 'high caste' in India; far from it.
Plus, a Tamil who is of 'high caste' is not Caucasoid in the least. Caste does not seem to
correlate to economic talent, since business people are the #3 caste out of 4. The richest people
in India today are not 'Brahmins'..
Islam is a negative factor, and the higher IQ castes did not convert to Islam
I disagree. Pakistan is 99% Islam, so all castes converted to Islam and/or many of the lighter-skined
Pakistanis are Persians and Turks who migrated there..
Afghanistan's religion prior to Islam was Buddhism, not Hinduism
@Thomm I don't know.... a lot of the richest Indians in the US are Gujratis who own motels
and gas stations. Patels and such..
They were not of some 'high caste' in India; far from it.
Plus, a Tamil who is of 'high caste' is not Caucasoid in the least. Caste does not seem to
correlate to economic talent, since business people are the #3 caste out of 4. The richest people
in India today are not 'Brahmins'..
Islam is a negative factor, and the higher IQ castes did not convert to Islam
I disagree. Pakistan is 99% Islam, so all castes converted to Islam and/or many of the lighter-skined
Pakistanis are Persians and Turks who migrated there..
Afghanistan's religion prior to Islam was Buddhism, not Hinduism... Afghanistan was 33% Hindu,
66% buddhist before islam, but in actual practise lots of overlap between Hinduism and Buddhism,
and many families had mixed Indic religions
Pakistan was 22% non-muslim in 1947, these 22% were higher caste Hindus and Sikhs – all got
driven out in 1947 ; Pakistan is low IQ islamic sludge residue of Punjabi society
I am Tamil speaking, 80% of Tamil brahmins ( 2% ) can be visually distinguished from the 98%
Tamil Dravidians ;
Thomm you take up too much oxygen in the room insisting on the importance your opinions, the
whole conversation is much more interesting when i skip past your stupid WN focused city boy sheltered
viewpoint. Big words and that retarded hehehe thing you do would get you wrastled to the ground
and your face rubbed in the dirt
@Thomm Why would 'idiot WNs' be happy about the fact that blacks successfully chased asians
out of the country, though? That would be a sign that they are gaining a scary degree of power,
would it not? Moreover how are white males who want to escape SJW idiocy going to like a country
that still actively enforces all sorts of thought control policies of its own? You wannabe libertardian
analysts always say silly things like this and it just sounds dumber every time.
Why would 'idiot WNs' be happy about the fact that blacks successfully chased asians out
of the country, though? That would be a sign that they are gaining a scary degree of power,
would it not?
It would be, but WN retards don't think that far.
You wannabe libertardian analysts always say silly things like this and it just sounds dumber
every time.
This is what WNs want, not want I want. It is easy to predict WN opinions.
Plus, being a libertarian is much more desirable than being a WN socialist. Talented people
thrive in a libertarian society. WN losers just want to mooch off of successful whites.
"Better to have the handsomely paid Cornel West pontificating about white racism at Princeton
where he is a full professor than fulminating at some Ghetto street corner."
Really? All that does is give the man a bigger sanctioned soap box. In the ghetto he might
affect a couple of hundred people. Siting in academia he gets a lever than can affect tens of
thousands. Not a good trade.
Truth is often stranger than fictions. The real reason for discriminating against Asian Ams
is not to help make the other minority happy. It is to benefit the whites. The Ivy League schools
are using the diversity to give the white applicants an advantage of 140 pst in SAT points. Please
see below:
In Table 3.5 on p 92 of Princeton Prof. Espenshade's famous book, "No Longer Separate, Not
Yet Equal", the following shocking fact was revealed:
Table 3.5 (emphasis added)
Race Admission Preferences at Public & Private Institutions
Measured in ACT & SAT Points, Fall 1997
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-
Public Institutions Private Institutions
ACT-Point Equivalents SAT-Point Equivalents
Item (out of 36) (out of 1600)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-
Race
(White) -- –
Black 3.8 310
Hispanics 0.3 130
Asian -3.4 -140
Why are 140 SAT pts. taken away from AsAm applicants? To give the white applicants an advantage
of 140 SAT pts. over the historically disadvantaged AsAms by using the nobility of diversity as
a cover? This is the reverse of affirmative action. This is a gross abuse of affirmation action.
This is outrageous discrimination. If
the purpose is to give the blacks an advantages, why not add more SAT points to blacks and hispanics?
@Avalanche That's an interesting point you brought up, whether anyone can ever really be "assimilated".
Even after hundreds of years, blacks and Jews in this country remain very distinct groups. I think
for blacks the reason is skin color and culture, while for Jews it is the religion. Both groups
have had low out marriage rate until maybe the last couple of decades.
Assimilation is most successful when there's a high intermarriage rate, but intermarriage rate
and immigration rate tend to go in opposite directions. The higher the immigration rate, the lower
the intermarriage rate.
Hispanics and Asians have been in this country since the 1800s yet you rarely ever meet a hispanic
or Asian person who's been here for more than 3 or 4 generations. Why is that? I think it's because
many of these earlier groups, due to their small number at the time relative to the population,
had intermarried, blended in and disappeared. I would say these earlier immigrants have fully
assimilated. The ones who are unassimilated are the new arrivals, those who arrived in large numbers
since 2000.
But for some peculiar reason blacks who are mixed with whites often continue to identify as
blacks. We see this in Obama, Halle Barry, Vanessa Williams and many other black/white mixes.
Black identity is so strong even Indian-black mixed race people call themselves black, like Kamala
Harris.
My theory is that most white-hispanic and white-asian marriages are white males with hispanic/asian
females. In most cases the white males who married hispanic/asian women are conservatives who
prefer women in cultures that are perceived to be more traditional compared to white females who
are often selfish and want a divorce at the first sign of personal unhappiness. Many of them then
raise their children in full white traditions including as Christians and encourage them to identify
themselves as whites.
OTOH, many white-black mix marriages are white female with black male, in many instances these
women marry black men because they are liberal nuts who want to raise black children. Jewish women
for instance marry black men at a high rate. Many of these women then raise their children as
black or biracial children and encourage their children to identify themselves as black.
Education used to be the biggest tool for assimilation, but these days thanks to libtards running
amok, our schools are where racial identity is amplified rather than de-emphasized. Now all minority
groups are encouraged to take pride in their own cultural identity and eschew mainstream (white)
culture. Lured by affirmative action, more and more mixed race hispanic kids are beginning to
identify themselves as latino. Thankfully mixed race Asian kids are running in the opposite direction
and now mostly identify themselves as white so they are not disadvantaged by AA.
I think assimilation can occur when you have low immigration rate coupled with high intermarriage
rate and a smart education system that discourages racial and individual identity and focuses
on a single national identity. The biggest reason assimilation is failing now is a combination
of high immigration rate, and a failed education system that promotes identity politics and victimhood
narrative. The internet and easy air travels back to the homeland also make it much harder to
assimilate newcomers. For these reasons I'm in favor of a moratorium on immigration for the next
20 years. All those not yet citizens should be encouraged to return to their home countries. No
more green cards, work visas or even student visas should be issued.
@S. B. Woo That's the argument of mindless Asian SJWs who've been fed the libtard kool-aid.
Just look at the numbers you yourself provided. Whites who were turned down still vastly outperformed
blacks and hispanics who were given admission, to the tune of 340 points and 130 points respectively.
Libtards who came up with AA want everyone to turn against whites, and mindless Asian SJWs like
you are parroting them without thinking things through.
OTOH, many white-black mix marriages are white female with black male, in many instances
these women marry black men because they are liberal nuts who want to raise black children.
Jewish women for instance marry black men at a high rate. Many of these women then raise their
children as black or biracial children and encourage their children to identify themselves
as black.
@Incontrovertible That's the argument of mindless Asian SJWs who've been fed the libtard kool-aid.
Just look at the numbers you yourself provided. Whites who were turned down still vastly outperformed
blacks and hispanics who were given admission, to the tune of 340 points and 130 points respectively.
Libtards who came up with AA want everyone to turn against whites, and mindless Asian SJWs like
you are parroting them without thinking things through.
So much for "smart Asians". But they still needed a lower score for admittance than Asians
Simone Weil definitely does not understands dialectics.
Notable quotes:
"... "Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is good, what is just, what is true. As a result – except for a very small number of fortuitous coincidences – nothing is decided, nothing is executed, but measures that run contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth." ..."
I have used Simone Weil's "
On
the Abolition of All Political Parties
" in a philosophy class. Her argument, as I'll try
to summarize: the impetus to grow and gain size and influence is essential to
any
political party, and sustaining this inertia overrides the thinking and living of the
individual in favor of the coherence of the party itself as a mass; thus, we must eliminate
the political party.
My students found this "contradictory" or "stupid." People, they tell me, will
naturally
form groups, and because of this the group will operate just like she's
claiming parties do, so she's not really saying how to get rid of this. I point out that
she's very deliberate to talk about fluids versus crystals, between how things form
associations that are
fluid
, and thus on some issues folks connect on on others they
disconnect
without the pressure to sustain these changes as a stable identity
!she
points to literary
circles
as groups that ebb and flow with members and associations
that do not conform to the logic of the political party. These are distinct from associations
that are
crystal
, where aggregation and homogeneity and stable arrangement are more
important for the whole to remain itself. So, I take it my students, despite getting up in
one class, walking around campus, and sitting down in another class, believe that there is
little to no difference in one collection over another so long as the reason for the
collection is
what defines the collection
. (How they take their intuition as
expressed in my class and think through intersectionality as expressed in another class is
something I was trying, through conversations with them, to work out, because I find it helps
me when I find my own intuitions about all of this so very different from theirs.) But I
think the implicit part of their reasoning was that all of this dealt with force, the force
they feel inside as
pressure
to conform on the outside with others, who are at this
point for them undeniably
also
undergoing these inward pressures to regulate their
outward expression.
But then I point out that music, or sports, or lovemaking, or dance, or a lot of other
ordinary things we do enjoyably with others, show us how to form and move through groups
because we share a similar drive or interest in something outside of both of us, and they
seem to get that idea. I find myself coming back to this website just to read the comments,
because I find it a refreshing change of pace, a host of interesting exchanges, and a good
opportunity to face the perennial challenge of sitting within conflict, finding reasonable
the disagreeing voice, and owning what makes myself uncomfortable with strangers.
If enough people share the desire to talk about things from conflicting perspectives, the
conversations continue, but as people move in and out, the conversation itself changes and
evolves. To shut down the conversation is to lock it in place, to keep it rigid and total. To
walk away from the conversation in good spirits, is to hope that it will continue, in some
spirit, some form, resembling how it was going before. To walk away from the conversation in
bad spirits, is to hope it will change into something that either once was !in which case it
can't
naturally and so only through artifice! or should be !in which case, being based
on the limitations of our own perspective, won't be open for the wonderful possibility of
something entirely new and inconceivable happening in a conversation.
I sometimes wish politics were just conversations. I found Hannah Arendt to be one of the
few thinkers who set the terms in such a way that I was liberated. Leftist thinking taught me
a lot about fashion, I didn't realize until later. Paleoconservative thinking taught me a lot
about how much either gets suppressed or gathers dust in the libraries, and yet still
smolders underneath the haunted foundations of our civilization. I come back to Zhuangzi over
and over again. I come back to these rambling conversations under heaven, over earth, within
the noosphere.
But eventually the conversation does end, and you have to hammer a nail to keep the walls
up. Winter is coming. Wood needs cutting. Grains need grounding. Papers need grading.
Charles R@7 - Well said, Charles R. I loved this quote from Weil's book in one of the
reviews of
On the Abolition of All Political Parties
:
"Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures
that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is
good, what is just, what is true. As a result – except for a very small number of
fortuitous coincidences – nothing is decided, nothing is executed, but measures that run
contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth."
Not sure I'm sold on eliminating them - this is another call to kill some of the existing
victims in a futile effort to eliminate an infectious disease that permeates public affairs.
It will irritate power- and control-seeking psychopaths temporarily. Political parties are
just a convenient 'easy' button for them.
US society's problem is a child-like belief in some kind of magical innate integrity of
organizations that feed us public affairs 'information' despite those organizations being
obvious targets for exploitation. Part of psychopath's successful control and exploitation of
the public is to obscure the fact that they are being controlled and exploited.
It's lonely here in tin-foil hat land, but I'm starting to see more visitors. I think our
'Taco Tuesday' promotion is starting to pay dividends!
@ PavewayIV with his Taco Tuesday Tin Foil Hat promotion in response to Charles R@7
comment about political parties
I am reminded of the movie "Being There" with Peter Sellers as Chauncy Gardner. Chauncy
Gardner has spent enough of his life inside so that when forced out on the street he carries
a TV remote control and tries to change the channel when the situation starts to get
dicey......Unfortunately, I see most Americans responding like Chauncy Gardner and keep
banging on their TV remotes hoping the reality they see changes.
Does Waco Wednesday follow Taco Tuesday? or are you staying with a food meme?
"... The American Dream meme is not as American as apple pie, it's a relatively recent invention and a vacuous one at that. It functions to keep Americans from taking action upon confronting the distortions Erebus spelled out in #34 (great comment, btw). ..."
1) The US "deep state" is not affected by changes in the White House
In this case, I'd have to disagree. When I examine the bizarre events of the
2000 election in hindsight, it seems likely that
someone
was absolutely determined
to get Bush into the White House at all costs, probably so that Cheney and Rumsfeld could
appoint all the neocons to neutralize the Pentagon and the CIA, leaving the country ripe
for attack.
Of course, the stakes are sky-high: if 9/11 was an inside job, then the US government is
not only absolutely illegitimate, it is in fact an occupation government controlled by
either foreign elements, or traitors or both.
Yes, that is, indeed, a very painful realization: the American Dream is just that –
a dream.
It's like George Carlin said: "The reason they call it the American Dream is
because you have to be asleep to believe it."
In spite of it all, the 9/11 Truth movement has had a huge victory: it has basically
forced the US government to admit that explosives were used to bring down WTC7!
The owner of the WTC, Larry Silverstein, admitted that he deliberately brought
down building 7 through controlled demolition, even though the exact justification he
offered is implausible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jPzAakHPpk&feature=youtu.be
Yes, that is, indeed, a very painful realization: the American Dream is just that
– a dream.
small point in your overall pic, Saker, but annoying as hell:
The American Dream meme is not as American as apple pie, it's a relatively recent
invention and a vacuous one at that. It functions to keep Americans from taking action upon
confronting the distortions Erebus spelled out in #34 (great comment, btw).
Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, Franklin did not "pledge their lives, their
fortune, their sacred honor" for
the American Dream.
@Erebus
I've long been an admirer of Thomas Kuhn's.
Indeed, humans live a narrative that continuously tells them who they are, the world they
live in, and their and everybody/everything else's place in it.
I've often thought that the "truther" versions of 9/11 don't get traction not because they
don''t make physical sense, but precisely because they do. I've watched competent
professionals, confronted with mathematical proof (that they sometimes worked out for
themselves), look from side to side in obvious discomfort and then reject it wholesale using
some semi-religious psycho-babble argument like "Nobody could be that evil"....
Why?
Well, a part of the answer is that to acknowledge the facts is to also face an life
changing decision. That is, whether one is OK with the fact that one's "betters" just
murdered 3000 of your compatriots with absolute impunity, or not.
If not, a moral imperative stares one in the face. One has to go Che Guevara and fight
this evil with every fibre of his being, at the cost of one's career, home, (probably) family
and any hopes & dreams one may have had for a comfortable, long life.
The shame of shirking the moral imperative, that one is OK with one's "betters" murdering
how ever many they like of ones compatriots, is to admit to cowardice and henceforth to live
an unprincipled, grovelling existence at the whim of those "betters".
Nobody will thank the truther for putting them in that position. And, the smarter they are
the worse they react. So, their internal narratives build defences in an earnest desperation,
scorning the truth they themselves worked out and casting all other plain facts out the
window. No obfuscatory, prevaricating, question-begging, word-mincing tactic will go untried
as the lifelong narrative desperately tries to save itself.
That's humans for ya, and the "betters" know it well. That's how they got to be betters.
Your comment, gold box and all, is exactly the kind of oblivious, preachy, self-righteous
bullshit that proves what the Truthers are really all about!vanity and anarchy. Truther's
beliefs are a method of self-aggrandizement that allows them to feel superior to the rest of
the world; that is to say, to the great unwashed masses whom they accuse of believing "the
official version," regardless of what such people actually believe or whether they even exist
(for the facts do not matter; it's all about the melodrama with you, anyway), and whom you
libel as cowards, ignorant, government shills, "sheeple," and other choice terms from your
little catalog of epithets.
This act of deprecation is your real objective. It provides the little power-fixes, little
dopamine rushes, that allow you to feel oh-so dominant and in-the-know. "Look how much better
I am than all these ignorant sheeple," you say to yourself. It also provides you with every
excuse you need to ignore your civic responsibilities and mock society's institutions
whenever doing so would be convenient for you. After all, society is unjust and all those
institutions are just serving the deep state and shilling for the "official version." You,
sir, have found a civic loophole. You get to enjoy the benefits of living in the commonwealth
while denigrating and flouting it at the same time. You're just a Jacobin, a Bolshevik,
another liberal revolutionary cloaked in a different ideology.
But let's look at your specific claim the majority of people simply cannot accept "what
really happened" on 9/11 because that would entail the psychologically impossible task of
acknowledging that!gasp!!their own government murdered 3,000 people in a false flag incident
that set the backdrop for the roll-out of the War on Terror.
What kind of a mouth-breathing idiot do you have to be to make such a claim? It simply
doesn't make any sense. Even a cursory glance at history reveals that governments have been
slaughtering people on a large scale, for all kinds of reasons, since the very beginning of
time, and yet that fact seems to have been acknowledged without any attendant epidemic of
cognitive dissonance. Why should it be any more difficult to believe that our government
would kill 3000 Americans in our own time if it suited its purposes? Given the fact that the
US deep state is one of the most corrupt, feckless, and downright byzantine organizations to
ever exist, I have no trouble at all believing such a thing, except for the minor fact that
it did not happen. I certainly am not impeded by any unrealistic, juvenile hangups regarding
the sanctity of the federal government.
But I suspect that you are. I suspect that you think , somewhere deep inside, that
whatever powers
ought
to be governing the affairs of men!be it the Constitution "as
written," or some sort of Randian libertarian fantasy!really are pure and perfect as the
driven snow, and therefore it required an act of unsurpassed dastardliness to obscure them:
enter 9/11 "Truth." I suspect that you think yourself to be quite above reproach, and that
your adherence to 9/11 "Truth" gives you a sense of permanent absolution from all past and
future guilt. And I further suspect that the nefarious plots and subterfuges you project upon
The Powers That Be are precisely the sort of acts you yourself would commit if you held their
high station. Your feigned moral indignation at them is really just a histrionic facade, as
moral indignation always is. You don't hate them. You don't even really fear them. You
covet
them. Your only outrage arises from the fact that someone else got to do them
and you did not. Therefore belief in "Truth" is an existential necessity of yours. It is the
sacrament by which you hypostatically unite yourself with everything you desire. All thought
is but the mirror image of the thinker.
But in reality it is all a lie. 9/11 was not a false flag. It really was a terrorist
attack, the fact that the government responded with a hamfisted acceleration of the security
state, and by bombing the Middle East into a quagmire, notwithstanding.
"... The American Dream meme is not as American as apple pie, it's a relatively recent invention and a vacuous one at that. It functions to keep Americans from taking action upon confronting the distortions Erebus spelled out in #34 (great comment, btw). ..."
1) The US "deep state" is not affected by changes in the White House
In this case, I'd have to disagree. When I examine the bizarre events of the
2000 election in hindsight, it seems likely that someone was absolutely determined
to get Bush into the White House at all costs, probably so that Cheney and Rumsfeld could
appoint all the neocons to neutralize the Pentagon and the CIA, leaving the country ripe
for attack.
Of course, the stakes are sky-high: if 9/11 was an inside job, then the US government is
not only absolutely illegitimate, it is in fact an occupation government controlled by
either foreign elements, or traitors or both.
Yes, that is, indeed, a very painful realization: the American Dream is just that –
a dream.
It's like George Carlin said: "The reason they call it the American Dream is
because you have to be asleep to believe it."
In spite of it all, the 9/11 Truth movement has had a huge victory: it has basically
forced the US government to admit that explosives were used to bring down WTC7!
The owner of the WTC, Larry Silverstein, admitted that he deliberately brought
down building 7 through controlled demolition, even though the exact justification he
offered is implausible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jPzAakHPpk&feature=youtu.be
Yes, that is, indeed, a very painful realization: the American Dream is just that
– a dream.
small point in your overall pic, Saker, but annoying as hell:
The American Dream meme is not as American as apple pie, it's a relatively recent
invention and a vacuous one at that. It functions to keep Americans from taking action upon
confronting the distortions Erebus spelled out in #34 (great comment, btw).
Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, Franklin did not "pledge their lives, their
fortune, their sacred honor" for the American Dream.
@Erebus I've long been an admirer of Thomas Kuhn's.
Indeed, humans live a narrative that continuously tells them who they are, the world they
live in, and their and everybody/everything else's place in it.
I've often thought that the "truther" versions of 9/11 don't get traction not because they
don''t make physical sense, but precisely because they do. I've watched competent
professionals, confronted with mathematical proof (that they sometimes worked out for
themselves), look from side to side in obvious discomfort and then reject it wholesale using
some semi-religious psycho-babble argument like "Nobody could be that evil"....
Why?
Well, a part of the answer is that to acknowledge the facts is to also face an life
changing decision. That is, whether one is OK with the fact that one's "betters" just
murdered 3000 of your compatriots with absolute impunity, or not.
If not, a moral imperative stares one in the face. One has to go Che Guevara and fight
this evil with every fibre of his being, at the cost of one's career, home, (probably) family
and any hopes & dreams one may have had for a comfortable, long life.
The shame of shirking the moral imperative, that one is OK with one's "betters" murdering
how ever many they like of ones compatriots, is to admit to cowardice and henceforth to live
an unprincipled, grovelling existence at the whim of those "betters".
Nobody will thank the truther for putting them in that position. And, the smarter they are
the worse they react. So, their internal narratives build defences in an earnest desperation,
scorning the truth they themselves worked out and casting all other plain facts out the
window. No obfuscatory, prevaricating, question-begging, word-mincing tactic will go untried
as the lifelong narrative desperately tries to save itself.
That's humans for ya, and the "betters" know it well. That's how they got to be betters.
Your comment, gold box and all, is exactly the kind of oblivious, preachy, self-righteous
bullshit that proves what the Truthers are really all about!vanity and anarchy. Truther's
beliefs are a method of self-aggrandizement that allows them to feel superior to the rest of
the world; that is to say, to the great unwashed masses whom they accuse of believing "the
official version," regardless of what such people actually believe or whether they even exist
(for the facts do not matter; it's all about the melodrama with you, anyway), and whom you
libel as cowards, ignorant, government shills, "sheeple," and other choice terms from your
little catalog of epithets.
This act of deprecation is your real objective. It provides the little power-fixes, little
dopamine rushes, that allow you to feel oh-so dominant and in-the-know. "Look how much better
I am than all these ignorant sheeple," you say to yourself. It also provides you with every
excuse you need to ignore your civic responsibilities and mock society's institutions
whenever doing so would be convenient for you. After all, society is unjust and all those
institutions are just serving the deep state and shilling for the "official version." You,
sir, have found a civic loophole. You get to enjoy the benefits of living in the commonwealth
while denigrating and flouting it at the same time. You're just a Jacobin, a Bolshevik,
another liberal revolutionary cloaked in a different ideology.
But let's look at your specific claim the majority of people simply cannot accept "what
really happened" on 9/11 because that would entail the psychologically impossible task of
acknowledging that!gasp!!their own government murdered 3,000 people in a false flag incident
that set the backdrop for the roll-out of the War on Terror.
What kind of a mouth-breathing idiot do you have to be to make such a claim? It simply
doesn't make any sense. Even a cursory glance at history reveals that governments have been
slaughtering people on a large scale, for all kinds of reasons, since the very beginning of
time, and yet that fact seems to have been acknowledged without any attendant epidemic of
cognitive dissonance. Why should it be any more difficult to believe that our government
would kill 3000 Americans in our own time if it suited its purposes? Given the fact that the
US deep state is one of the most corrupt, feckless, and downright byzantine organizations to
ever exist, I have no trouble at all believing such a thing, except for the minor fact that
it did not happen. I certainly am not impeded by any unrealistic, juvenile hangups regarding
the sanctity of the federal government.
But I suspect that you are. I suspect that you think , somewhere deep inside, that
whatever powers ought to be governing the affairs of men!be it the Constitution "as
written," or some sort of Randian libertarian fantasy!really are pure and perfect as the
driven snow, and therefore it required an act of unsurpassed dastardliness to obscure them:
enter 9/11 "Truth." I suspect that you think yourself to be quite above reproach, and that
your adherence to 9/11 "Truth" gives you a sense of permanent absolution from all past and
future guilt. And I further suspect that the nefarious plots and subterfuges you project upon
The Powers That Be are precisely the sort of acts you yourself would commit if you held their
high station. Your feigned moral indignation at them is really just a histrionic facade, as
moral indignation always is. You don't hate them. You don't even really fear them. You
covet them. Your only outrage arises from the fact that someone else got to do them
and you did not. Therefore belief in "Truth" is an existential necessity of yours. It is the
sacrament by which you hypostatically unite yourself with everything you desire. All thought
is but the mirror image of the thinker.
But in reality it is all a lie. 9/11 was not a false flag. It really was a terrorist
attack, the fact that the government responded with a hamfisted acceleration of the security
state, and by bombing the Middle East into a quagmire, notwithstanding.
The memo at the heart of the latest blowup at the National Security Council paints a dark
picture of media, academics, the "deep state," and other enemies allegedly working to subvert
U.S. President Donald Trump, according to a copy of the document obtained by Foreign Policy.
The seven-page document, which eventually landed on the president's desk, precipitated a
crisis that led to the departure of several high-level NSC officials tied to former National
Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The author of the memo, Rich Higgins, who was in the
strategic planning office at the NSC, was among those recently pushed out.
The full memo, dated May 2017, is titled "POTUS & Political Warfare." It provides a
sweeping, if at times conspiratorial, view of what it describes as a multi-pronged attack on
the Trump White House.
Trump is being attacked, the memo says, because he represents "an existential threat to
cultural Marxist memes that dominate the prevailing cultural narrative." Those threatened by
Trump include "'deep state' actors, globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment
Republicans."
The memo is part of a broader political struggle inside the White House between current
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and alt-right operatives with a nationalist worldview
who believe the Army general and his crew are subverting the president's agenda.
Though not called out by name, McMaster was among those described in the document as
working against Trump, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the memo and the
events. Higgins, the author, is widely regarded as a Flynn loyalist who dislikes McMaster and
his team.
BACKGROUND. The Trump administration is suffering under withering information campaigns
designed to first undermine, then delegitimize and ultimately remove the President. Possibly
confusing these attacks with an elevated interplay of otherwise normal D.C. partisan
infighting and adversarial media relations, the White House response to these campaigns
reflects a political advocacy mindset that it is intensely reactive, severely under-inclusive
and dangerously inadequate to the threat. If action is not taken to re-scope and respond to
these hostile campaigns very soon, the administration risks implosion and subsequent early
departure from the White House.
This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that
is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the
news cycle. It must be recognized on its own terms so that immediate action can be taken. At
its core, these campaigns run on multiple lines of effort, serve as the non-violent line of
effort of a wider movement, and execute political warfare agendas that reflect cultural
Marxist outcomes. The campaigns operate through narratives. Because the hard left is aligned
with Islamist organizations at local (ANTIFA working with Muslim Brotherhood doing business
as MSA and CAIR), national (ACLU and BLM working with CAIR and MPAC) and international levels
(OIC working with OSCE and the UN), recognition must given to the fact that they seamlessly
interoperate at the narrative level as well. In candidate Trump, the opposition saw a threat
to the "politically correct" enforcement narratives they've meticulously laid in over the
past few decades. In President Trump, they see a latent threat to continue that effort to
ruinous effect and their retaliatory response reflects this fear.
INTRODUCTION. Responding to relentless personal assaults on his character, candidate Trump
identified the players and the strategy:
• 'The establishment and their media enablers will control over this nation through
means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a
racist, a xenophobe, and morally deformed." - President Trump, Oct 2016
Culturally conditioned to limit responses to such attacks as yet another round in the
on-going drone from diversity and multicultural malcontents, these broadsides are discounted
as political correctness run amuck. However, political correctness is a weapon against reason
and critical thinking. This weapon functions as the enforcement mechanism of diversity
narratives that seek to implement cultural Marxism. Candidate Trump's rhetoric in the
campaign not only cut through the Marxist narrative, he did so in ways that were viscerally
comprehensible to a voting bloc that then made candidate Trump the president; making that
bloc self-aware in the process. President Trump is either the candidate he ran as, or he is
nothing.
Recognizing in candidate Trump an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes that
dominate the prevailing cultural narrative, those that benefit recognize the threat he poses
and seek his destruction. For this cabal. Trump must be destroyed. Far from politics as
usual, this is a political warfare effort that seeks the destruction of a sitting president.
Since Trump took office, the situation has intensified to crisis level proportions. For those
engaged in the effort, especially those from within the "deep state" or permanent government
apparatus, this raises clear Title 18 (legal) concerns.
DISCUSSION.
The Opposition. While opposition to President Trump manifests itself through political
warfare memes centered on cultural Marxist narratives, this hardly means that opposition is
limited to Marxists as conventionally understood. Having become the dominant cultural meme,
some benefit from it while others are captured by it; including "deep state" actors,
globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans. Through the campaign,
candidate Trump tapped into a deep vein of concern among many citizens that America is at
risk and is slipping away. Globalists and Islamists recognize that for their visions to
succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be
destroyed. Atomization of society must also occur at the individual level; with attacks
directed against all levels of group and personal identity. Hence the sexism, racism and
xenophobia memes. As a Judeo-Christian culture, forced inclusion of post-modern notions of
tolerance is designed to induce nihilistic contradictions that reduce all thought, all faith,
all loyalties to meaninglessness. Group rights based on sex or ethnicity are a direct assault
on the very idea of individual human rights and natural law around which the Constitution was
framed. "Transgender acceptance" memes attack at the most basic level by denying a person the
right to declare the biological fact of one's sex. When a population has 2 + 2 = 5 imposed on
it, there are many that benefit:
Mainstream Media
- The principle mechanism for implementing narratives.
The Academy
- Academia has served as a principle counter-state node for some
time and remains a key conduit for creating future adherents to cultural Marxist narratives
and their derivative worldview.
The Deep State - The successful outcome of cultural Marxism is a bureaucratic state
beholden to no one, certainly not the American people. With no rule of law considerations
outside those that further deep state power, the deep state truly becomes, as Hegel
advocated, god bestriding the earth.
Global Corporatists & Bankers
- Exploitation of populations, unfettered by
national protections and notions of personal morality and piety.
Democratic Leadership
- The democratic leadership has been a counter-state
enabler that executes, sustains, and protects cultural Marxist programs of action and
facilitates the relentless expansion of the deep state.
Republican Leadership
- More afraid of being accused of being called a racist,
sexist, homophobe or Islamophobe than of failing to enforce their oaths to "support and
defend the Constitution," the Republican Establishment accepts and enforces cultural
Marxist memes within its own sphere of operations. In doing so, knowingly or not, it
becomes an agent of that. These "conservatives" become increasingly indistinguishable from
their democratic counter- parts save that they misrepresent themselves to their
constituents. Lacking the discernment to recognize their situation, they will work with
globalists, corporatists, and the international financial interests and will likewise
service the deep state. These establishment Republicans are the hard left's designated
defeat mechanism in the destruction of the old regime as well as the American ideal.
1
(
For more information on how influence operations of the former
Soviet Union targeted leading conservative groups and individuals in order to bring them
into line with cultural Marxist narratives. See Link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzZhqeLRIMo
) Because candidate Trump publicly exposed them for their duplicitous activities, they are
at risk as long as Trump can turn on them and are, therefore, bitter foes. Candidate
Trump's success remains an ongoing existential threat to establishment Republicans.
Islamists
- Islamists ally with cultural Marxist because, as far back as the
1980s, they properly assessed that the hard left has a strong chance of reducing Western
civilization to its benefit. Having co-opted post-modern narratives as critical points,
Islamists deploy these narrative to strategically blind and then control US decision
makers. This is by design and purposeful. "By their own hands!" has been the declared
strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood since 1991. This strategy seeks to divide American
society against itself with the forced imposition of Islamist objectives on one half of
American society by the other half. Once a society has been effectively atomized, the
population will have lost its faith in the old order, detest those who reduced it, and
divide along the lines of narrative adherence. This is the intended outcome of hostile
information cum political warfare campaigns and today we see their effects on American
society.
Complicating the current situation, many close to the president have pushed him off his
message when he was candidate Trump thus alienating him from his base thereby isolating him
in the process. When President Trump is not candidate Trump, he becomes dangerously exposed.
While the base that elected candidate Trump identified with his vision, they are only Trump's
insofar as he holds to
the vision that made him president.
Political Warfare Attacks - A Primer.
As used here, "political warfare" does not
concern activities associated with the American political process but rather
exclusively
refers to political warfare as understood by the Maoist Insurgency
model.
2
Political warfare is one of the five components of a Maoist insurgency.
Maoist methodologies employ synchronized violent and non-violent actions that focus on
mobilization of individuals and groups to action. This approach envisions the direct use of
non-violent operational arts and tactics as elements of combat power. In Maoist insurgencies,
the formation of a counter-state is essential to seizing state power. Functioning as a
hostile competing state acting within an existing state, it has an alternate infrastructure.
Political warfare operates as one of the activities of the "counter-state" and is primarily
focused on the resourcing and mobilization of the counter state or the exhaustion and
demobilization of the targeted political movement. Political warfare methods can be
implemented at strategic, operational, or tactical levels of operation.
Political warfare is warfare. Strategic information campaigns designed to delegitimize
through disinformation arise out of non-violent lines of effort in political warfare regimes.
They principally operate through narratives. Because the left is aligned with Islamist
organizations at local, national and international levels, recognition should be given to the
fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive
narratives.
Complicating the current situation, many close to the president have pushed him off his
message when he was candidate Trump thus alienating him from his base thereby isolating him
in the process. When President Trump is not candidate Trump, he becomes dangerously exposed.
While the base that elected candidate Trump identified with his vision, they are only Trump's
insofar as he holds to
the vision that made him president.
Political Warfare Attacks - A Primer. As used here, "political warfare" does not concern
activities associated with the American political process but rather exclusively refers to
political warfare as understood by the Maoist Insurgency model.
2
Political
warfare is one of the five components of a Maoist insurgency. Maoist methodologies employ
synchronized violent and non-violent actions that focus on mobilization of individuals and
groups to action. This approach envisions the direct use of non-violent operational arts and
tactics as elements of combat power. In Maoist insurgencies, the formation of a counter-state
is essential to seizing state power. Functioning as a hostile competing state acting within
an existing state, it has an alternate infrastructure. Political warfare operates as one of
the activities of the "counter-state" and is primarily focused on the resourcing and
mobilization of the counter state or the exhaustion and demobilization of the targeted
political movement. Political warfare methods can be implemented at strategic, operational,
or tactical levels of operation.
Political warfare is warfare. Strategic information campaigns designed to delegitimize
through disinformation arise out of non-violent lines of effort in political warfare regimes.
They principally operate through narratives. Because the left is aligned with Islamist
organizations at local, national and international levels, recognition should be given to the
fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive
narratives.
2
This discussion relies on Thomas A. Marks' treatment of the Maoist model as
discussed in Maoist People's War in Post-Vietnam Asia (Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus Press,
2007), 1 - 14. Hereafter "Thomas A. Marks, Maoist People's War."
As used in this discussion, cultural Marxism relates to programs and activities that arise
out of Gramsci Marxism, Fabian Socialism and most directly from the Frankfurt School. The
Frankfurt strategy deconstructs societies through attacks on culture by imposing a dialectic
that forces unresolvable contradictions under the rubric of critical theory. The result is
induced nihilism, a belief in everything that is actually the belief in nothing.
That post-modern (diversity/multiculturalism) narratives seeks to implement cultural
Marxist objectives can be demonstrated by reference to founding Frankfurt School theorist
Herbert Marcuse's repurposing of the term tolerance. In a 1965 paper, Marcuse defined
tolerance as intolerance; said it can be implemented through undemocratic means to stop
chauvinism (xenophobia), racism, discrimination; and should be extended to the left while
denied to the right:
• "The realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward
prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies,
attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed."
• "Surely, no government can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a
democracy such a right is vested in the people (i.e in the majority of the people). This
means that the ways should not be blocked on which a subversive majority could develop, and
if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require
apparently undemocratic means They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and
assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism,
discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of pubic
services, social security, medical care, etc." (8-9)
• "Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the
Right and toleration of movements from the Left. As to the scope of this tolerance and
intolerance:... it would extend to the stage of action as well as of discussion and
propaganda, of deed as well as of word.
-
(12)
It is through such post-modern constructs that interoperable narratives are established
among various left-wing groups as well as between them and Islamist groups at all levels. For
example, from the 2001 Conference of Foreign Ministers at Bamako, Mali, the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) declared its commitment to fight racism and xenophobia and then
declared Islamophobia a "contemporary form of racism":
• In this context, the world Conference urges all states... take all necessary
measures to comoat hatred, discrimination, intolerance and acts of violence. Intimidation
and coercion motivated by racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
particularly against Islam
• Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance which display
an increasing trend, in their most subtle and contemporary forms, constitute a violation of
human rights. 3 Contemporary forms of racism are based on discrimination and disparagement
on a cultural, rather than biological basis. In this content, the increasing trend of
Islamophobia, as a distinct form of xenophobia in non-Muslim societies is very
alarming.
That the OIC made these claims as part of its planned inputs to the United Nation's "Third
World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination. Xenophobia and Related Intolerance"
further demonstrates the coordinated and interoperable nature of these narratives at
international levels in international forums.
As cultural Marxist narratives intensify, they are to be further operationalized in the
form of hate speech narratives. Hate speech narratives are non-random, coordinated, and fully
interoperable escalations of cultural Marxist memes. Key international players include the
European Union, the UN, and the OSCE, the OIC and the International Muslim Brotherhood. Hate
speech memes are structured, coordinated, and implemented through these same international
forums. They involve close coordination with media and social media and include the
Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) narratives. David Shipler's book Freedom of Speech
provides a road map for how hate speech narratives are to be structured, deployed and
enforced.
Battlespace.
These attack narratives are pervasive, full spectrum and
institutionalized at all levels. They operate in social media, television, the 24-hour news
cycle in all media, and are entrenched at the upper levels of the bureaucracies and within
the foreign policy establishment. They inform the entertainment industry from late night
monologues, to situation comedies, to television series memes, to movie themes. The effort
required to direct this capacity at President Trump is little more than a programming
decision to do so. The cultural Marxist narrative is fully deployed, pervasive, full spectrum
and ongoing. Regarding the president, attacks have become a relentless 24/7 effort.
While there is certainly a Marxist agenda and even Islamist motivations that must be
seriously addressed in their own right, these motivations alone seem inadequate to explain
the scope and magnitude of the effort directed against the president. The economic drivers
behind the Marxist and Islamist ideologues are enormously influential and seek to leverage
these ideological movements for their own self interests. While beyond the actual scope of
this document, the benefactors of these political movements include; Urban Real Estate who
depend greatly on immigrant tenants, International Banking who seeks to maintain US debtor
status so as to control the application of American power, and elements of the business
sector that depend upon immigrant labor or government infrastructure. The overall objective
of these economic forces is the forced urbanization of the populace, thereby necessitating a
larger, more powerful government. In summary, this is a form of population control by certain
business cartels in league with cultural Marxists/corporatists/lslamists who will leverage
Islamic terrorism threats to justify the creation of a police state.
Adversary Campaign Plan. Political Warfare has been described as "propaganda in
battledress."
3
The effort directed at President Trump is executed along one
overt, as well as two covert, lines of effort:
The overt line of effort is PUBLICITY. Publicity is the straightforward projection of a
case that builds a picture in the audience's mind designed to garner support. It is facts
without context and information the adversary wants the audience to possess that creates an
impression and sets conditions. It seeks to establish good will and receptiveness to
additional inputs.
There are two covert lines of effort: PROPOGANDA and INFILTRATION/SUBVERSION.
о Propaganda is the deliberate direction, even manipulation, of information to
secure a
definite outcome. It is an attempt to direct the thinking of the recipient, without his
conscious collaboration, into predetermined channels that are established in the Publicity
line of effort. It is the unwitting conditioning of the recipient by devious methods with an
ulterior motive that seeks to move them incrementally over time into greater belief and
acceptance of message transmitted in the Publicity line of effort.
о Infiltration and subversion operate internal to the targeted organization in order
to
inform, target, coordinate, and amplify the effects of the publicity and propaganda.
Both operate to gather intelligence, obstruct legitimate courses of action, provide inside
information, and leak sensitive information that undermines the leadership and suppresses the
morale of friendly elements.
3
"Political Warfare Executive - The Meaning, Techniques and Methods of
Political Warfare," His 8ritannic Majesty's Government, London, 1942, 5.
о Infiltration of political and social groups within a target state is done for
the purpose of extending counter- state influence and control. The endgame is concealed and
may involve illicit activities.
о Subversion undermines or detaches the loyalties of significant political and
social groups within the target state and transfers political and/or ideological loyalties
to the counter-state. As the counter-state forms, a counter-elite of influential individual
and key leaders within the target state will later facilitate the legitimacy and permanency
of the new regime.
Political warfare employs both publicity and propaganda. It recognizes no intrinsic virtue
in the news but rather envisions it as a mechanism to exploit and build up support. From a
political warfare perspective, control of the news cycle is the most potent means of
attracting and building up a favorable audience.
As it relates to the news cycle, publicity and propaganda can be merged to form a
"pseudo-publicity" that is presented as news in furtherance of sustaining pseudo-realities
maintained by cultural Marxist memes. Pseudo-publicity treatment of President Trump dominates
the news cycle. The current campaign against President Trump operates in the following
manner:
The Meta Narrative. Meta narratives seeks to delegitimize President Trump, his
administration, and the vision of America he projected as a candidate. With cultural Marxist
memes serving as the backdrop, President Trump is to be relentlessly characterized as unfit
through the use of supporting narratives acting to move unwitting populations to belief in
the meta narrative. Hence:
• "President Trump is illegitimate"
• "President Trump is corrupt"
• "President Trump is dishonest"
Note that the twitter accounts and mainstream media personalities pushing this narrative
have seen their audience numbers rise greatly in the past 6 months. This is a direct result
of the supporting and backdrop narratives channeling individuals to this meta-narrative.
Supporting Narratives.
Meta-narratives are supported by an ongoing series
supporting-narratives that can be swapped out as circumstances warrant. It is important to
recognize that these stories do not have to be true, valid or accurate to serve their
purpose. Overtime, deserved or not, the cumulative effect of these supporting narratives will
result in a Trump fatigue. From a political warfare perspective. President Trump's inability
to meet this challenge will cast him as a weak failed leader. The current list of supporting
narratives include:
"Russia hacked the election" - illegitimate
"Obstruction of Justice" -corrupt
"Hiding Collusion" -dishonest
"Putin Puppet" - treasonous
Backdrop Narratives.
The backdrop to the meta and supporting narratives are
cultural Marxist memes designed to sustain a general sense of loathing of President Trump and
the America that elected him. Hence:
• "[meta] President Trump is illegitimate, [supporting] he was elected because of
Russian hacking, [backdrop] and besides, he a racist, sexist xenophobe."
Adversaries utilize these interlocking narratives as a defensive political and information
warfare screen that silences critics and smears supporters of President Trump. When people in
the media question the behavior, actions and decisions of the Trump Administration's
opponents, they are immediately said to be "working for the Russians" or "supporting Russian
propaganda." Individual Americans who support the President are deemed "deplorable" and
"racist."
End State. Attacks on President Trump are not just about destroying him, but also about
destroying the vision of America that lead to his election. Those individuals and groups
seeking the destruction of President Trump actually seek to suffocate the vision of America
that made him president. Hence, the end state is not just a delegitimized, destabilized,
immobilized and possibly destroyed presidency; but also a demoralized movement composed of a
large enough bloc to elect a president that subsequently become self-aware of Its own
disenfranchisement.
CONCLUSION.
The recent turn of events give rise to the observation that the defense of President Trump
is the defense of America. In the same way President Lincoln was surrounded by political
opposition both inside and outside of his wire, in both overt and covert forms, so too is
President Trump. Had Lincoln failed, so too would have the Republic. The administration has
been maneuvered into a constant back- pedal by relentless political warfare attacks
structured to force him to assume a reactive posture that assures inadequate responses. The
president can either drive or be driven by events; it's time for him to drive them.
The problem is that that appointing a Special Prosecutor was a special
operation directed against Trump. So Session behavior was the behavior of
enabler of this special operation. Whether he did so because he was afraid of of
being tarred and feathered with Russian connections himself, or he simply
behayed Trump is unknown. But reclusing himself in such a critical for Trump
Presidency matter is probably betrayal in any case.
Notable quotes:
"... The only reason I can think of for Trump to want Sessions removed from the Attorney Generalship is so Trump can get another Attorney General who can be said to be unconnected to Russian-whatever, and can therefore DE-recuse himself back into the Russia investigation. ..."
"... For someone with nothing to hide, Trump sure behaves like someone with something to hide. ..."
"... Hopefully some thread of this Trump bussiness will be wound around some thread of the Democrats's bussiness, giving Mueller a plausibly defensible reason to pull some Democratic affairs into this Trump investigation. ..."
"... I don't agree with any of the comment. Mueller's investigation serves the purpose of politically handicapping Trump and it looks like a classic perjury trap, they are trying to get him or his circle for obstruction of justice. Something remarkably easy to do as Martha Stewart or Frank Quattrone could attest. Trump's background will have already been gone through thoroughly, he is clean. ..."
"... This is the truth popping up through the cracks. It is impossible to drive Donald Trump from office without investigating the corruption and the information operation that supports the American Empire; in particular, the Clintons and Obama who are getting a free ride. ..."
"... "The truth will be what it is forever, without any input from anyone, whereas a lie becomes increasingly high maintenance in the face of simple questioning. It is endlessly difficult to maintain the back story, and then the back story's story, and so on, until the effort required to avoid self-contradiction simply becomes too much and the simple truth just comes out again, like a plant through cracked tarmac. That is why the propaganda campaign needs to be so vast and long term. It is a gargantuan feat that we only see the tip of." ..."
The only reason I can think of for Trump to want Sessions removed from the
Attorney Generalship is so Trump can get another Attorney General who can be
said to be unconnected to Russian-whatever, and can therefore DE-recuse himself
back into the Russia investigation.
Trump would then want his new Attorney General to fire Mueller and fire whomever
Mueller reports to. I can't think of any other reason why Trump would want Sessions
removed.
For someone with nothing to hide, Trump sure behaves like someone with
something to hide. The problem here is that Trump has such a trashy personality
and such all-around trashy behavior that pure spite and irritation for no good
reason at all is just as good a motive for Trump to want Sessions gone.
Sessions won't want to go. He has a legal-ideological mission at Justice.
He won't resign. He will tough it out in place as long as he can.
Hopefully some thread of this Trump bussiness will be wound around some thread
of the Democrats's bussiness, giving Mueller a plausibly defensible reason to
pull some Democratic affairs into this Trump investigation.
That could be, but we will never know as long as Sessions remains AG.
Because Sessions will remain focused on the DoJ mission, and not get involved
in a spat-fight with Trump.
Also, if indeed Trump did ask Sessions to fire Mueller and Sessions declined
to do so; perhaps Sessions has given Trump reason to understand that firing
Sessions would play right into the "Obstruction of Justice" narrative which
the Remove Trump forces are engineering.
And perhaps Sessions will have given Trump reason to understand further
that even having given Sessions the reQUEST to fire Mueller could in itself
further the "Obstruction of Justice" narrative. But in the event of imparting
that further level of understanding unto the Trumpster, Sessions will then
have followed up by reassuring Trump that as long as Trump does not fire
Sessions, no one need ever know that Trump asked Sessions to fire Mueller.
In the event of all these dominoes having fallen "just so" in a private
discussion between these two men, Sessions will have reassured Trump that
"no one need ever know about the request" . . . for as long as Sessions
remains AG without being fired.
This is all pure speculation following on from your speculative question.
We of the Great Uncleared will never know what has or hasn't been said behind
the locked doors of steel and oak.
I agree with the first part of your comment, but IMO the reason he wants
Muller (or any Special investigator) removed is that he don't want his past
business dealing and tax returns to be investigated, IMO they are scared
of old days business deals, write off etc. and i think that's what Demos
and Borg wants to pull out in a legal public way, and not the Russian connection.
IMO the real sewer lies in past business and tax deals.
I don't agree with any of the comment. Mueller's investigation
serves the purpose of politically handicapping Trump and it looks like
a classic perjury trap, they are trying to get him or his circle for
obstruction of justice. Something remarkably easy to do as Martha Stewart
or Frank Quattrone could attest. Trump's background will have already
been gone through thoroughly, he is clean.
Sessions offered his resignation a while back after he recused himself,
Trump refused. Spicer went quickly and quietly, so would Sessions if he
wanted him gone.
This is the truth popping up through the cracks. It is impossible
to drive Donald Trump from office without investigating the corruption and
the information operation that supports the American Empire; in particular,
the Clintons and Obama who are getting a free ride.
It is shocking how inept the Trump family and the Russians are. To survive
they will have to cultivate the truth and speak directly to the people.
It is said that cassette tapes brought down the Soviet Union. Today we have
the internet. Yesterday I read Tim Hayward's "It's Time to Raise the Level
of Public Debate about Syria". Appendix 1 states the obvious:
"The truth will be what it is forever, without any input from anyone,
whereas a lie becomes increasingly high maintenance in the face of simple
questioning. It is endlessly difficult to maintain the back story, and then
the back story's story, and so on, until the effort required to avoid self-contradiction
simply becomes too much and the simple truth just comes out again, like
a plant through cracked tarmac. That is why the propaganda campaign needs
to be so vast and long term. It is a gargantuan feat that we only see the
tip of."
"... The truth about this "17 intel agencies" claim matters, not so much because of what it says about the intelligence community's
conclusion on Russian meddling, but because of what it says about the establishment media's conclusion on Russian meddling. ..."
"... The fact is many of these narratives bear all the same hallmarks as the "17 intelligence agencies" mess. ..."
"... Based on the word of one anonymous source, The Washington Post reported that Russia had hacked the U.S. electrical grid. That
was quickly proven false when the electric company, which the reporter had not bothered to contact before publishing, said in a statement
the grid definitely was not hacked , and the "Russian hacker" may have been no hacker at all, but an employee who mistakenly visited
an infected site on a work computer. ..."
"... The media is bent on supporting already foregone conclusions about Trump and Russian meddling, no matter what they have to
scoop up or parrot or claim (or ignore) to do so. ..."
"... for the media, it's also just a "basic fact" that Trump likely colluded with Russia, and that he should be impeached, and that
his White House is on the verge of literally disappearing into a sinkhole. ..."
When Hillary Clinton claimed "17 intelligence agencies" agree on Russian meddling in the third presidential debate, a host of media
outlets including The New York Times rated the claim as 100 percent true. Nine months later, those same outlets say the stat is obviously
false, and there's been a "simple" explanation as to why all along.
A closer look at how the claim survived and thrived over those nine months reveals a startling lack of skepticism in the press
when it comes to the Russia narrative. The truth is the great majority of the 17 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community
had nothing to do with the investigation and made no judgments about the matter.
"The reason the views of only those four intelligence agencies, not all 17, were included in the assessment is simple: They were
the ones tracking and analyzing the Russian campaign," The New York Times now
reports
. "The rest were doing other work."
Strange admission for the paper, since its star political reporter recently
reiterated the false claim as she was in the middle of writing an article characterizing President Trump as stubbornly foolish.
"The latest presidential tweets were proof to dismayed members of Mr. Trump's party that he still refuses to acknowledge a basic
fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help him
get elected," Maggie Haberman wrote. Her story was later corrected to reflect the -- basic fact -- that only three agencies working
under the Director of National Intelligence contributed to the intelligence community's conclusion.
A few days later, the Associated Press
echoed that correction in a "clarification" bulletin acknowledging there's no truth to the claim the wire service had repeatedly
blasted out for publication to news outlets all over the world.
The bizarrely timed corrections put the media in a bit of a truth pickle, especially after Trump drew attention to the corrections
at a high-profile press conference in Poland. "They had to apologize, and they had to correct," he noted.
The New York Times, CNN and others quickly spun up articles and tweets aimed at steering the conversation away from this uncomfortable
truth about their proliferation of an outright false claim, and back to the more comfortable "isn't Trump an idiot?" narrative.
"17 intel agencies or four? Either way, Russia conclusion still valid," Politifact
wrote in a Thursday headline . "Trump still doesn't seem to believe his intelligence agencies,"
CNN blared .
The New York Times
took
it a step further , dismissing the truth of the claim as a "technicality" and then accusing Trump of spreading a "misleading"
narrative by correcting the record. Their headline on a story about Trump calling them out for pushing a bogus claim: "Trump Misleads
on Russian Meddling: Why 17 Intelligence Agencies Don't Need to Agree."
But that uncomfortable truth remains. The "17 intelligence agencies" embellishment is frighteningly easy to catch. A cursory glance
of the DNI website would show the truth. More importantly, the sheer length of time the falsehood stood in public record at the highest
echelons of media betrays an astounding lack of scrutiny on other points in the Russia narrative, which are often sourced to political
operatives and anonymous "officials."
Let's look at how this happened, and what it says about the media's overall credibility in the Russia collusion narrative, from
the top.
The claim can be traced straight back to candidate Clinton in the third presidential debate, remarking on Russian meddling a few
weeks after the DNI released a statement on the investigation. The press didn't demonstrate any interest in the number of agencies
that signed off on the Oct. 7 statement, until Clinton unleashed the "17" number in the debate (other than a CNN report
incorrectly claiming there are
19 intelligence agencies).
She was clearly trying to add some umpf to the DNI assessment and pour cold water on Trump's skepticism about Russia's attempt
to influence the election. She even repeated the number twice, firmly planting it in the record.
"I think that this is such an unprecedented situation," Clinton said. "We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere
in our election. We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks,
these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply
disturbing."
Trump took the bait.
"She has no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else," he replied, setting off a back and forth that would be reiterated
over and over in the press as evidence
he was in denial about Russian meddling. "I am quoting 17, 17 -- do you doubt?" Clinton said, and Trump responded definitively: "Our
country has no idea. Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it."
With that, Hillary's claim was up and off.
Journalists highlighted the talking point on Twitter as they covered the debate. And
the fact checks came rolling in.
The New York Times
,
Politico ,
ABC News ,
Politifact and PBS
all rated the claim as totally true the night of the debate. Before the night ended The New York Times was using Clinton's number
with authority in its reporting, saying
in a debate wrap up that Trump had "refused" to acknowledge "the unanimous conclusion of America's 17 intelligence agencies."
The following day the number popped up in reports from Politico and Defense One, quickly divorced from its context as a debate
talking point and transformed into an indisputable fact attached to Trump-Russia stories.
"The Office of the Director of National Intelligence collects and coordinates for the President the information and analysis from
the 17 agencies that make up U.S. national intelligence collection," a line
in the Defense One report on "Trump's Denial" stated.
Politico hadn't previously used the 17 figure in reporting on Russian meddling, but now
framed it as common
knowledge that Clinton had to "explain" to Trump: "As Clinton tried to explain that the Russian role is the finding of 17 military
and civilian intelligence agencies, Trump cut her off: 'I doubt it.'"
The fact checks continued to roll in. USA Today wrote a
particularly aggressive check on the claim headlined "Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking."
The article confidently asserted, "Clinton is correct."
All of these "fact checks" and reports were wrong, of course, as has since been made ultra clear. As The New York Times now concedes,
the truth about her claim was obviously false from the start. Any reporter capable of operating Google could have looked up a list
of the intelligence agencies in question, and ruled out almost half in just minutes.
The Department of Energy, Treasury and Drug Enforcement agencies can be dismissed out of hand. The military service intelligence
organizations can't legally operate on U.S. soil. Add the Coast Guard and we're tentatively at eight remaining intel agencies under
DNI. The Defense Intelligence Agency is also unlikely. Geospatial intelligence? Definitely not. National recon office? Not unless
a political influence campaign has something to do with a missile launch or natural disaster.
That leaves us with State Department intelligence, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA and NSA. Five tops, narrowed down
at the speed of common sense and Google.
Sure, the October DNI report was presented as the conclusion of the intelligence community, which does consist of 16 separate
agencies headed up by the DNI. At first glance, her claim might seem perfectly reasonable to someone unfamiliar with the makeup of
the intelligence community. But it's journalistic malpractice to do a fact-check level review of her claim that each agency separately
reviewed and judged the campaign, without so much as hinting at the obvious likelihood that most of them weren't involved.
Nevertheless, the claim persisted.
"All 17 U.S. Intelligence agencies believe the Russians are behind that leak," ABC host George Stephanopoulos told Trump
in
an October interview . "Why don't you believe it?"
"[Trump] has consistently denied any link between the hackers and the Kremlin, despite 17 intelligence agencies' claims to the
contrary," the Daily Beast
reported
that same day .
NBC News dropped Hillary's number nugget
in
a December report on the Obama White House asking the intelligence community for a dossier on the hacking assessment. The resulting
report would be shared with the public, White House counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco said at the time.
"Monaco used careful language, calling it a 'full review of what happened during the 2016 election process,'" NBC reported. "But
since the U.S. government has already said that all 17 intelligence agencies agree Russia was behind the hacks, Monaco's meaning
was clear."
Reuters, too, touted the number
in a December report that characterizes the DNI as a "17-agency strong" operation.
The declassified DNI report that followed in January
provided new details on the assessment that dumped ice-cold water on the "17 intelligence agencies agree" claim. The conclusion
was drawn only from the NSA, CIA and FBI, the report said. (The New York Times
conceded this in a break down of the report, although the claim would later make its way back into the paper's pages.)
A few months later former national intelligence director James Clapper reiterated the truth in a high-profile congressional hearing
about Russian interference, opting to correct the record without any partisan prompting.
"As you know, the I.C. was a coordinated product from three agencies; CIA, NSA, and the FBI -- not all 17 components of the intelligence
community," he said in his opening remarks. "Those three under the aegis of my former office."
And when Democrat Sen. Al Franken reiterated the false claim later in the hearing, Clapper once again made a point of correcting
the record.
"The intelligence communities have concluded -- all 17 of them -- that Russia interfered with this election," Franken said. "And
we all know how that's right."
Clapper interjected: "Senator, as I pointed out in my statement, Senator Franken, it was, there were only three agencies directly
involved in this assessment, plus my office."
"But all 17 signed on to that?" Franken pressed.
"Well, we didn't go through that, that process," Clapper replied, again shooting down the claim as utterly false. "This was a
special situation because of the time limits we decided to restrict it to those three."
So not only was the assessment only made by three of the 16 agencies working under the DNI, but also Clapper indicated here that
none of the other agencies even signed off on the report before it was released. Yes, none of them dissented. But why would they,
since they didn't have independent evidence to suggest otherwise?
At this point in the life of Hillary's debate talking point, there's just no credible way to rate the claim as true. The DNI report
made the truth explicit, and Clapper had now reiterated that truth in a very public setting.
Yet just a few weeks later Clinton unabashedly reiterated the "17 agencies agree" claim
in an interview
with the tech outlet recode, and as if on cue the media once more began spreading it around.
"Read the declassified report by the intelligence community that came out in early January," Clinton said. "17 agencies, all in
agreement – which I know from my experience as a senator and secretary of state is hard to get – they concluded with 'high confidence'
that the Russians ran an extensive information war against my campaign to influence voters in the election."
A little while later the bogus claim
showed up in an AP report , after The Daily Caller News Foundation
fact checked Clinton's claim in the interview and found it false. And then
twice
more in June before the "clarification" memo was published. Stephanopolous was back at it as well
in a June
11 interview with Republican Sen. Mike Lee. And then that Haberman report in The New York Times on the 25th echoing the claim,
which was rather strangely corrected four days later.
After all this, CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta
actually accused Trump on Thursday of pushing "fake news" by saying the conclusion only came from "three or four" agencies. "Where
does that number come from?" Acosta asked.
The timing of the AP and NYT corrections are a bit of a mystery, but for whatever reason the press is now collectively saying
Trump is correct in his push back on the "17 agencies" claim. And that's got the narrative a bit tangled. After initially
doubling down on the "true" rating of Clinton's debate claim, Politifact is now bizarrely also rating the claim
mostly false in a separate fact check.
So we're left with that uncomfortable truth. The establishment press uncritically "vetted" and embraced a Clinton campaign talking
point designed to make Trump look foolish, divorced it of its political context and reiterated it word-of-God style for more than
six months -- all the time either ignoring or missing entirely easily obtainable information proving it false -- and then suddenly
reversed course on the claim weeks after it was unambiguously and authoritatively debunked.
We live in a world where r/the_donald -- a Reddit thread teeming with Trump supporters --
proved
more shrewd than The New York Times and the Associated Press when vetting an important claim about the Russia
investigation.
The truth about this "17 intel agencies" claim matters, not so much because of what it says about the intelligence community's
conclusion on Russian meddling, but because of what it says about the establishment media's conclusion on Russian meddling.
Haberman and her ilk seem intent on casting Trump as a loner bordering on a nervous breakdown, maniacally watching the
news at all hours, hollering at staff and generally acting like a buffoon. And there's the almost daily implication that Trump personally
coordinated a hacking campaign with Russia, an implication grounded in no hard evidence despite a lengthy investigation.
The fact is many of these narratives bear all the same hallmarks as the "17 intelligence agencies" mess.
Sources often appear to be politically motivated, like Clinton. They show up in bizarre numbers, like "dozens" or "more than 30."
Anecdotes seem almost questionable at face value. An astonishing number of hastily reported or vaguely sourced "scoops" turn out
to be totally wrong when the subject of the story corrects the record.
In a report casting
the White House as fraught and bordering on collapse, Haberman wrote that Trump likes to stew over cable news in a bathrobe.
The White House refuted the anecdote
in no uncertain terms
the following day.
Based on the word of one anonymous source, The Washington Post reported that Russia had hacked the U.S. electrical grid. That
was quickly proven false when the electric company, which the reporter had not bothered to contact before publishing, said in a statement
the grid
definitely was not hacked , and the "Russian hacker" may have been no hacker at all, but an employee who mistakenly visited an
infected site on a work computer.
CNN reported that Former FBI Director James Comey
would
refute Trump's claim the director told him three separate times he was not personally under investigation. Comey did no such
thing. In fact he
corroborated Trump's account .
Just weeks after retracting a story
on a wealthy Trump associate and Russia, CNN insisted for days Trump would not ask Putin about Russian meddling during their
first meeting. Of course, the report depended on an anonymous source. Of course,
it was wrong
. One of the first things Trump did when he sat down with Putin was "press" him on the subject multiple times, according to Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson, who was in the room.
We could go on, but the point remains. The media is bent on supporting already foregone conclusions about Trump and Russian
meddling, no matter what they have to scoop up or parrot or claim (or ignore) to do so. Sure, it's a "basic fact" Russia meddled
in the election. But for the media, it's also just a "basic fact" that Trump likely colluded with Russia, and that he should
be impeached, and that his White House is on the verge of literally disappearing into a sinkhole.
The facts they use to support these conclusions might as well be irrelevant.
There are many US Libertarians, Progressives, and others that are dismayed at the
exceptional!
go-along-to-get-along and corporate-controlled media, all led by
neolibcons that want MOAR!
Americans are (mostly) either fed-up, checked out, suffering from Stockholm syndrome,
or some combination of the these. What they need a kick-in-the-ass. And that is likely
to come from what has been termed "the reset": a point at which the can can no longer be
kicked.
Well said...!
I know there are many highly intelligent Americans, who are already today
suffering and paying a price. And I agree that (widespread) anti-American
sentiment is as stupid and reactionary as any other form of nationalism.
It's just another 'divide and rule' ideology to keep ordinary people at each
others' throats, rather than see them united against their common enemy, the
global so-called 'elite'/ oligarchs.
Playing groups of people against one another is the oldest domination trick
in the world, but it seems to work every single time...sad! ;-)
"... i think it's because the rump 'came in through the bathroom window' ... defying 'both parties'. the uniparty is trying to reassert control, somehow. what would happen if people noticed that the uniparty was not only not needed, was in fact the engine of malfeasance and misrule, what if people decided to 'do it themselves' ... platform, primaries, elections ... the whole nine yards? ..."
i think it's because the rump 'came in through the bathroom window' ... defying 'both parties'.
the uniparty is trying to reassert control, somehow. what would happen if people noticed that
the uniparty was not only not needed, was in fact the engine of malfeasance and misrule, what
if people decided to 'do it themselves' ... platform, primaries, elections ... the whole nine
yards?
so 'the Russians are coming!' anything to reassert a narrative it can control.
"... So it doesn't matter who wins the presidential election, and inhabits the White House, because the national security bureaucracy is forever, and their power is – almost – unchallengeable. And so, given this, Putin's answer to Stone's somewhat tongue-in-cheek question, "Why did you hack the election?", is anti-climactic. The answer is: why would they bother? Putin dismisses the question as "a very silly statement," and then goes on to wonder why Western journalists find the prospect of getting along with Russia so problematic. ..."
"... "And I think that Obama's outgoing team has created a minefield for the incoming president and for his team. They have created an environment which makes it difficult for the new president to make good on the promises he gave to the people." ..."
"... it's not about one single truck – there are thousands of trucks going through that route. It looks as if it were a living pipeline." ..."
"... Putin reveals how US aid reaches jihadists: "According to the data we received, employees of the United States in Azerbaijan contacted militants from the Caucasus." In a letter from the CIA to their Russian counterparts, the Americans reiterated their alleged right to funnel aid to their clients, and the missive "even named the employee of the US Special Services who worked in the US embassy in Baku." ..."
"... it reveals the Russian leader's instinctual pro-Americanism, despite his objections to the policies of our government. ..."
"... Early on, Stone asks "What is the US [foreign] policy? What is its strategy in the world as a whole?" To which Putin replies: "Certainly, I am going to reply to this question very candidly, in great detail – but only once I retire." In speaking about Washington's unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty, Stone remarks: ..."
"... "You know, the American Indians made treaties with the US government and they were the first to experience the treachery of the US government. You're not the first." ..."
"... To which Putin replies: "We wouldn't like to be the last." And he laughs. ..."
"... Stone has been pilloried in the US media, by all usual suspects, but what's very telling is that none of his critics delve into the content of the interviews: they simply accuse Stone of being a " useful idiot ," a phrase from the lexicon of the cold war that's being revived by the liberals who used to be labeled as such. ..."
"... And yet when you get down in the weeds, as I have tried to do in this series, one begins to realize the enormity of the hoax that's been perpetrated on the American people. Putin is routinely described in our media as the principal enemy of the United States: our military brass has been pushing this line, for budgetary reasons, and the Clinton wing of the Democratic party has been pushing it for political reasons. And yet the lasting impression left by "The Putin Interviews" is of a man who greatly admires the United States, and sees the vast potential of détente between Moscow and Washington, a potential he would like very much to bring to realization. ..."
by Justin Raimondo Posted
on June
30, 2017 June 29, 2017 As the "Russia-gate" farce continues to dominate the American "news" media,
and President Trump's foreign policy veers off in a direction many of his supporters find baffling,
one wonders: what the heck happened? I thought Trump was supposed to be "Putin's puppet," as Hillary
Clinton and her journalistic camarilla would have it.
The Russian president, in his extended interview with filmmaker Oliver Stone, has an explanation:
"Stone: Donald Trump won. This is your fourth president, am I right? Clinton, Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama,
and now your fourth one. "Putin: Yes, that's true. "Stone: What changes? "Putin:
Well, almost nothing."
Stone is surprised by this answer, and Putin elaborates:
"Well, life makes some changes for you. But on the whole, everywhere, especially in the
United States, the bureaucracy is very strong. And bureaucracy is the one that rules the world."
This is a reiteration of something the Russian president said earlier in the context of Stone's
questions about the US election. Stone asks what he thinks of the various candidates: Trump's name
doesn't come up, but Stone does ask about Bernie Sanders. Putin replies:
"It's not up to us to say. It's not whether we are going to like it or not. All I can say
is as follows the force of the United States bureaucracy is very great. It's immense. And there
are many facts not visible about the candidates until they become president. And the moment one
gets to the real work, he or she feels the burden."
So it doesn't matter who wins the presidential election, and inhabits the White House, because
the national security bureaucracy is forever, and their power is – almost – unchallengeable. And
so, given this, Putin's answer to Stone's somewhat tongue-in-cheek question, "Why did you hack the
election?", is anti-climactic. The answer is: why would they bother? Putin dismisses the question
as "a very silly statement," and then goes on to wonder why Western journalists find the prospect
of getting along with Russia so problematic.
Trump and his campaign, says Putin, "understood where their voters were located" – a reference,
I believe, to the surprising results in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Clinton's supporters
"should have drawn conclusions from what they did, from how they did their jobs, they shouldn't have
tried to shift the blame on to something outside." This is what the more
perceptive progressives are
saying – but then again I suppose that they, too, are "Putin's puppets."
This section of the interviews occurred in February, and so it's interesting how Putin predicted
what would happen to the Trump presidency and the conduct of his foreign policy:
"And I think that Obama's outgoing team has created a minefield for the incoming president
and for his team. They have created an environment which makes it difficult for the new president
to make good on the promises he gave to the people."
To say the least. There is much more in this series of interviews, including some real news that
has been ignored by the "mainstream" media, including:
Joint US-Russian efforts to eliminate ISIS in Syria were on the agenda even before Trump took the
White House, "But at the last moment," says Putin, "I think due to some political reasons, our American
partners abandoned this project." (This is yet another vindication of my theory of "
libertarian realism ," by the way.) Putin tells Stone that
the Ukraine snipers who shot
at both the government forces and the anti-government crowds in Kiev – an event that signaled the
end of the Yanukovych regime – were trained and financed in the West: "[W]e have information available
to us that armed groups were trained in the Western parts of Ukraine itself, in Poland, and in a
number of other places." Putin has evidence of
Turkish support for ISIS : "During the G20 summit, when the journalists left the room, I took
out photos and from my place where I was sitting I showed those photos [of ISIS oil being transported
to Turkey] to everyone. I showed it to my counterparts. I showed them the route I mentioned earlier.
And we have shown these photos to our American counterparts . Everyone knew about everything. So
trying to open a door which is already open is simply senseless. It's something that is absolutely
evident. So it's not about one single truck – there are thousands of trucks going through that
route. It looks as if it were a living pipeline." At one point, Putin takes out his cell phone
and shows Stone a video of a Russian attack on ISIS forces, remarking "By the way, they were coming
from the Turkish side of the border." Putin reveals how US aid reaches jihadists: "According
to the data we received, employees of the United States in Azerbaijan contacted militants from the
Caucasus." In a letter from the CIA to their Russian counterparts, the Americans reiterated their
alleged right to funnel aid to their clients, and the missive "even named the employee of the US
Special Services who worked in the US embassy in Baku."
And then there's one specific instance in which the news is anticipated: Stone brings up the Snowden
revelation that the Americans have planted malware in Japanese infrastructure capable of shutting
that country down, and he speculates that Washington has surely targeted Russia in the same way.
Which brings to mind a recent Washington Post story reporting that
this is indeed the case .
There's a lot more in these interviews than I have space to write about: my favorites are the
instances in which Stone's leftism comes up against Putin's paleoconservatism. At several points
the issue of "anti-Americanism" comes up, and the debate between the two is illuminating in that
it reveals the Russian leader's instinctual pro-Americanism, despite his objections to the policies
of our government. I had to laugh when Putin asked Stone: "Are you a communist?" Stone denies
it: "I'm a capitalist!"
There is also a lot of humor here: Stone insists on showing Putin a scene from "Dr. Strangelove,"
the part where the mad scientist rides a nuke, laughing maniacally. The sardonic expression on Putin's
face speaks volumes. Early on, Stone asks "What is the US [foreign] policy? What is its strategy
in the world as a whole?" To which Putin replies: "Certainly, I am going to reply to this question
very candidly, in great detail – but only once I retire." In speaking about Washington's unilateral
abrogation of the ABM Treaty, Stone remarks:
"You know, the American Indians made treaties with the US government and they were the
first to experience the treachery of the US government. You're not the first."
To which Putin replies: "We wouldn't like to be the last." And he laughs.
Putin's sense of humor is a bit dark, and things get darker still as he predicts what the consequences
for Stone will be when "The Putin Interviews" is released:
"You've never been beaten before in your life?," says Putin. "Oh yes, many times," says Stone.
I think Putin was talking about being physically beaten, but, anyway, the Russian leader goes on
to say: "Then it's not going to be anything new, because you're going to suffer for what you're about
to do." "No, I know," says Stone, "but it's worth it. It's worth it to try to bring some more peace
and consciousness to the world."
Stone has been pilloried in the US media, by all usual suspects, but what's very telling is
that none of his critics delve into the content of the interviews: they simply accuse Stone of being
a "
useful idiot ," a phrase from the lexicon of the cold war that's being revived by the liberals
who used to be labeled as such.
And yet when you get down in the weeds, as I have tried to do in this series, one begins to
realize the enormity of the hoax that's been perpetrated on the American people. Putin is routinely
described in our media as the principal enemy of the United States: our military brass has been pushing
this line, for budgetary reasons, and the Clinton wing of the Democratic party has been pushing it
for political reasons. And yet the lasting impression left by "The Putin Interviews" is of a man
who greatly admires the United States, and sees the vast potential of détente between Moscow and
Washington, a potential he would like very much to bring to realization.
What we have witnessed in the past few months, however, is that this potential benefit to both
countries is being denied by some very powerful forces. The entire "Deep State" apparatus, which
Putin is very much aware of, is implacably opposed to peaceful cooperation, and will do anything
to stop it. But why?
There are many factors, including money – the military-industrial complex is dependent on hostility
between the US and Russia, as are our parasitic "allies' in Europe – as well as cultural issues.
Russia is essentially a conservative society, and our "progressive" elites hate it for that reason.
Which brings us to the real reason for the Russophobia that infects the American political class,
and that is Putin's commitment to the concept of national sovereignty.
Nationalism in all its forms is bitterly opposed by our elites, and this is what sets them against
not only Putin but also against President Trump. Their allegiance isn't to the United States as a
separate entity, but to the "Free World," whatever that may be. And their foreign allies are even
more explicit about their radical internationalism, bitterly clinging to transnational institutions
such as the European Union even as populist movements upend them.
This is the central issue confronting the parties and politicians of all countries, the conflict
that separates the elites from the peoples they would like to rule: it is globalism versus national
sovereignty. And this is not just a foreign policy question. It is a line of demarcation that puts
the parties of all countries on one side of the barricades or the other.
In his famous essay, " The End of History
," neoconservative theorist Francis Fukuyama outlined the globalist project, which he saw as
the inevitable outcome of human experience: a "universal homogenous State" that would extend its
power across every civilized country and beyond. But of course nothing is inevitable, at least in
that sense and on that scale, a fact the elites who hold this vision recognize all too well. So they
are working day and night to make it a reality, moving their armies and their agents into this country
and that country, encircling their enemies, and waiting for the moment to strike. And Putin, the
ideologue of national sovereignty, is rightly perceived as their implacable enemy, the chief obstacle
to the globalist project.
That's why they hate him. It has nothing to do with the annexation of Crimea, or the alleged "authoritarianism"
of a country that now has a multi-party system a few short decades after coming out of real totalitarianism.
Even if Russia were a Jeffersonian republic, and Putin the second coming of Gandhi, still they would
demonize him and his country for this very reason.
As to who will win this struggle between globalism and national particularism, I would not venture
a guess. What I will do, however, is to remind my readers that if ever this worldwide "homogenous
State" comes into being, there will be nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no way to escape its power.
Editorial note : This is the third and last part of a three-part series on Oliver
Stone's "The Putin Interviews." The first part is
here , and the second part is
here . You can get the book version – which contains some material not included in the film –
here .
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going
here . But please note that my tweets
are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out
loud.
Those of us who are highly critical of Israel's ability to manipulate U.S. foreign policy frequently note how sites that permit
comments on our articles are almost immediately inundated with hostile postings that are remarkably similar in both tone and substance.
Given that it is unlikely that large numbers of visitors to the sites read the offending piece more-or-less simultaneously, react
similarly to its content, and then go on to express their disgust in very similar language, many of us have come to the conclusion
that the Israeli government or some of the groups dedicated to advancing Israeli interests turn loose supporters who are dedicated
to combating and refuting anything and everything that casts Israel in a negative light.
The fact is that Israel is extremely active in an enterprise that falls in the gray area between covert operations and overt governmental
activity. Many governments seek to respond to negative commentary in the media, but they normally do it openly with an ambassador
or press officer countering criticism by sending in a letter, writing an op-ed, or appearing on a talk show. Such activity is generally
described as public diplomacy when it is done openly by a recognized government official and the information itself is both plausible
and verifiable, at least within reasonable limits. Israel does indeed do that, but it also engages in other activities that are not
so transparent and which are aimed at spreading false information.
When an intelligence organization seeks to influence opinion by creating and deliberately circulating "false news," it is referred
to as a "disinformation operation."
But Israel has refined the art of something that expands upon that, what might be referred to more accurately as "perception management"
or "influence operations" in which it only very rarely shows its hand overtly, in many cases paying students as part-time bloggers
or exploiting diaspora Jews as volunteers to get its message out. The practice is so systemic, involving recruitment, training, Foreign
Ministry-prepared information sheets, and internet alerts to potential targets, that it is frequently described by its Hebrew name,
hasbara, which means literally "public explanation." It is essentially an internet-focused "information war" that parallels and supports
the military action whenever Israel enters into conflict with any of its neighbors or seeks to influence public opinion in the United
States and Europe.
... ... ...
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has sent a letter out to a number of pro-Israel organizations emphasizing the "importance of the
internet as the new battleground for Israel's image." Haaretz reported in 2013 how Prime Minister Netanyahu's office collaborated
with the National Union of Israeli Students to establish "covert units" at the seven national universities to be structured in a
"semi-military" fashion and organized in situation rooms. Students are paid as much as $2,000 monthly to work the online targets.
The serious collaboration between government and volunteers actually began with Operation Cast Lead in early 2009, an incursion
into Gaza that killed more than 1,800 Palestinians, when the Foreign Ministry pulled together a group of mostly young computer savvy
soldiers supplemented by students both overseas and within Israel to post a number of government-crafted responses to international
criticism.
Many of the initial volunteers worked through a website giyus.org (an acronym for Give Israel Your United Support). The website
included a desktop tool called Megaphone that provided daily updates on articles appearing on the internet that had to be challenged
or attacked. There were once believed to be 50,000 activists receiving the now-inactive Megaphone's alerts.
There have also been reports about a pro-Israel American group called Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
(CAMERA) preparing to enter its own version of developments in the Middle East on the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia. E-mails
from CAMERA reveal that the group sought volunteers in 2008 to edit material on Wikipedia "to help us keep Israel-related entries
from becoming tainted by anti-Israel editors," while also recommending that articles on the Middle East be avoided initially by supporters
so as not to arouse suspicions about their motives. Volunteers were also advised to use false names that did not hint at any Israeli
or Jewish connection and to avoid any references to being organized by CAMERA. Fifty volunteers reportedly were actively engaged
in the program when it was exposed in the media and the program was put on hold.
CAMERA is an Internal Revenue Service-approved 501(c)(3) organization, which means that contributions to it are tax exempt. Such
exemptions are granted to organizations that are either charitable or educational in nature and they normally preclude any involvement
in partisan political activity. As CAMERA would not appear to qualify as a charity, it is to be presumed that its application for
special tax status stressed that it is educational. Whether its involvement in "un-tainting" Wikipedia truly falls within that definition
might well be debated, particularly as it appears to have been carried out in semi-clandestine fashion. CAMERA might well also be
considered to be a good candidate for registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), as its activity is uniquely
focused on promoting the perceived interests of a foreign government.
The use of Israel's universities as propaganda mills by the government also raises other significant issues. The growing BDS movement
has included some Israeli universities as targets because of their alleged involvement with the government in the occupation of the
West Bank. That the universities are also involved in possible government-sponsored information operations might be an additional
convincing argument that BDS supporters might use to justify blacklisting at least some Israeli academic institutions.
Every government is engaged in selling a product, which is its own self-justifying view of what it does and how it does it. But
the largely clandestine Israeli effort to influence American opinion is unique in that it comes from a country which receives more
than $3 billion annually from the U.S. taxpayer. We Americans are therefore paying to be propagandized by people working for a foreign
government who often pretend to be our fellow citizens but are not. What is occurring is essentially an intelligence operation directed
against the United States, something that the CIA would have run back in the 1970s and 1980s.
That Israel can continue to reap huge amounts of aid and political cover from Washington while it is actively working to make
sure that Americans are poorly informed about the Middle East reveals more than anything the corruption of our political class and
media, both of which appear to be ready to sell out for thirty shekels to anyone with the cash in hand. Time to drain the swamp,
indeed.
This is documented long-term foreign influence which has reached treason levels in the past, for instance at the time the USS
Liberty was sunk in June, 1967. This can be contrasted with the phony Russia accusations levelled by many of the same people whose
first loyalty is to the Israeli state rather than to the yankee imperium employing them. I don't see this ending well.
Not to mention that every US taxpayers "loan" that 'Israel' receives has never been paid back. The Israeli Occupied Congress
curiously "forgives" all these huge debts. As if it wasn't assumed at the beginning.
Israel's global news penetration (via hasbara) and other disinformation strategies are routine. Diabolical, but routine.
The Zionist state's various tricks and manipulations are legendary and ruthless. They function as a backdoor attack on intellectual
liberty as well as open political discourse. They are anti-democratic.
Thus, even 'freedom of expression' in America is under constant Israeli pressure and surveillance. No stone goes unturned.
This is why Holocaust 'education' is ubiquitous and, when possible, mandatory. If the stories fail, inject guilt. It's an unscrupulous
strategy that is working.
Meanwhile, Zionist myths rain down endlessly via American TV and throughout American mass media. Deep Zionist victimology has
penetrated even US public schools. Hasbara is strategic. It is unrelenting. Ironically, it represents the tribal interest of a
foreign power. Do Americans live under soft occupation? It increasingly looks that way.
This explains why Jewish suffering, Jewish innocence, and Jewish victimology are now compulsory subjects in American life–from
schools to children's TV, to higher education and adult cinema. 'Dominare the message'.
On the other hand, Israel's commitment to segregation between Jews and gentiles is quietly steadfast. "Unshakable'. This head-scratching
phenomena has been obscured by the Fake News meme involving America's 'Judeo-Christian' heritage. Yet it is an absolute ruse.
No such heritage exists. These are Zionist-lead political movements and Zionist headlines. They tread on the thin, manufactured
ice. Theydo not exist organically.
Christ's teachings were in fact a break from Judaism. Christ said as much. Christianity is an Open Admissions theology that
stresses universal ethics that are non-racial. On the other hand, Israel is tribal, racial and exclusionary. This wouldn't be
so repulsive if not for Israel's vociferous (and insincere) support for 'equality' and its pious contempt for 'white nationalism'.
Jewish racism is commanded by God. And Israel's ethical basis is polluted by nepotism, 'chosenness' and racial favoritism under
God. It is a collection of myths and yarns that drip with tribal supremacism.
It's worth remembering also that Jews in Israel have a distinct word for their version of 'Apartheid'. It is 'Hafrada', which
means 'separation' in Hebrew. Ever heard of it? Of course not! Hasbara operatives and their cousins in US news media make sure
of that.
Sadly, we Americans live under soft occupation.
Significantly, few non-Jews have ever heard of 'hafrada'. But everyone has heard of 'Apartheid'.
Gee. How come?
We can thank the legions of young Israeli activists (and their elders) for this deliberate omission and assorted side shows.
Control speech. Control thought.
Make no mistake about it: Israel is a racial supremacist state. Segregation is a core Zionist value. Jewish exceptionalism
is their paramount goal. America is a useful, but temporary, ally. This is the nature of the 'special relationship.'
Zionists never foresaw that having an own state would demonstrate what jews are capable of.
In 1948, thanks to the persecutions of the jews during WWII, Israel had a lot of sympathy in the world.
Nowadays, with no solution anywhere in sight for the Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in 1948, in Germany a Secretary
for, against, Antisemitism seems necessary.
Germany debates if criticism of Israel, antizionism, is he same as antisemitism.
Norman Finkelstein and Ilian Pappe recently were not allowed to speak in Germany.
Indeed Israel is great in propaganda, but the effects are less and less.
Israel has but one 'friend', the USA, and how sincere this friendship is is more and more debatable.
Mobilising jews to write on fora, in many languages, any time there have been Israeli atrocities, may have the opposite effect.
Anyone familiar with these fora notices how these propagandists pop up, and disappear after some time.
What they are paid even is known, four or five dollars per message.
It looks like 'you can fool all people some time, some people all the time, but not all the people all the time', still is true.
"What is occurring is essentially an intelligence operation directed against the United States, something that the CIA would
have run back in the 1970s and 1980s"
Hi Phil
Jesse Ventura would have us believe the CIA is as busy as it ever had been, when it comes to running operations against the
American people. I agree with Jesse.
Meanwhile, here's a collection of links I'd assembled some time back, includes American military psyops (esp Air Force) along
the lines of hasbara (who're also included)
The CIA and NSA are essentially the jewish elite secret police. They align exactly with Mossad. Hence 9-11. Read the Devil's Chessboard by Stephen Talbot. We've previoulsy lived under a gentile plutocracy since the assasination of
JFK.
But something happened since as Zion rose to prominence. The coup against Nixon by the Deep State is a part of the puzzle.
Allen Welsh Dulles groomed Nixon. So his loyalists would never have removed him. My hunch is that Nixon's fall to the Washington
Post, consummate deep state pillar, is the key to understanding the later 20th century and our current 'occupation'. Its a pity
nobody could ask David Rockefeller in candour how his group had lost control or merged with the new Zionists.
sites that permit comments on our articles are almost immediately inundated with hostile postings that are remarkably similar
in both tone and substance.
Speaking of substance, they typically lack any of it. They usually resort to smarmy personal attacks as well as scatological
foolishness and crass bragging. Some resort to juvenile pseudo-intellectual banter that's obviously intended to intimidate or
humiliate, while another favorite tactic seems to be off topic trash that's also supposed to impress the rest of us somehow.
Nevertheless, I encourage the trolls to keep it up and leave them to figure out why.
But the largely clandestine Israeli effort to influence American opinion is unique in that it comes from a country which
receives more than $3 billion annually from the U.S. taxpayer. We Americans are therefore paying to be propagandized by people
working for a foreign government who often pretend to be our fellow citizens but are not.
Also interesting is how they manage to do this without widespread condemnation and/or suspicion. It's like people know about
it, but the Israelis create an environment where people don't quite care. Contrast that to the wumao, China's paid commenters,
who arouse widespread suspicion and constant accusations of shilling.
So Israel must have gone one step further. They manage their image with propagandists, but they also manage the image of the
propagandist as well.
The articles show American taxpayers' money in action.
Again, what was the aftermath of 9/11 about – fighting against Al Qaeda? If yes, then why should not Israel be designated as
a terrorist state supporting Al Qaeda, the US sworn enemy? It seems that Al Qaeda is "good guys" nowadays because they help to
farther the Eretz Israel project
The Israel-occupied US government is proverbially dancing on the graves of 9/11 victims: "How America Armed Terrorists in Syria"
CAMERA is as old as the hills. I remember when I subscribed to the Atlantic back in the 80s this mangy outfit would
run little 2×3 inch print ads. I always wondered what the fuss was about; I mean, who could be against accurate reporting in the
ME? Then it became clear. And they most certainly should be subjected to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as should many others,
including NY-based Irish Central (a propaganda sheet for the Paddy open borders crowd).
By this time, pretty much everyone does this. Israel might be the biggest or most extensive, but anyone engaged in politics
or related activities does pretty much the same thing.
Any major political party now does this. For example, I was relatively sure the Democrats did this only a couple of weeks back.
AG Sessions was due to testify in a major hearing. It seemed to me that the Democrats both recruited a Senator to hammer a particular
theme, which was to put Sessions in a spot where he had to refuse to answer questions for perfectly legal reasons, and a small
army of internet activists, paid trolls, or bots was mobilized to push memes on the internet on this topic.
By this time, I regard a political party that does not do this as being incompetent.
Corporations also do this. They call it 'brand protection' or 'guerrilla marketing'. Anyone with a little bit of money can
find firms that offer this as a service. What it costs to buy this service would seem expensive to ordinary citizens, but given
the amount of money in play, the cost of a few hundred thousand to a 'consultant' firm is chicken feed. You don't even need to
recruit humans to do it. After all, a fake name and a fake email address can easily be connected to a computer generated fake
message.
A website I go to for news often has headlines like "Twitter explodes to .". I pretty much ignore these as its predictable
and obvious that this can be pre-arranged and manipulated.
The interesting issue I saw raised not too long ago let to the possibility that AI's might manipulate this in the future. At
some point, we'd have to question if there is even a human entity behind this, or is it just an AI that managing our perception
towards itself or other AIs.
There's an old saying that all politics is local. We might actually have to go back to talking to each other face to face.
Good article, but fails to mention that the hasbara would not work without Jewish control of "our" media/entertainment (NYT,
WaPo, Google, Facebook, Hollywood, TV, etc.) industry, not to mention the financial sector and disproportionate representation
of Jews in Congress. Sorry, but those are facts.
@HAL 9000 Israel
is the only country that has control of our congress, our media and the control of the dumb masses to keep driving the US to ruin.
The "everyone does this" line is not much of a response.
Hasbara trolls and websites which publish them are an important measure of true public opinion for the zionists. The Lobby
has its own internal opinion polls which are never shared, certainly not in the crap served up to us by Zogby, Reuters and Pew,
etc. etc. etc.
I suspect that this database is far more comprehensive than commonly known, probably going as far as linking an "anti_Semite"
rating to individual commenters.
@Wally The mooch
fest never ends, unless there's a growing under-current to cut the tentacles. And with cooperative efforts like Technion/Cornell
partnering, they are anchoring themselves to the US indefinitely – so if they fail, they'll pull the US down with them.
They brought Zionist terror to the Middle East, but the victim shtick, via hollywood, has caused the complacent TV-watchers
to be lulled into a false narrative, and who never challenge what a corrupt collective of occupiers, and land swindlers they are.
A review of 'Being in Time: A Post-Political Manifesto' – by Gilad Atzmon
"WaPo has a 8,300 word weekend opus on how Obama failed to react to CIA director Brennan's claims that Putin himself ordered to
hack the U.S. election.
Note:
Reading that piece it becomes clear (but is never said) that the sole source for that August 2016 Brennan claim of "Russian hacking"
is the absurd Steele dossier some ex-MI6 dude created for too much money as opposition research against Trump . The only
other "evidence" for "Russian hacking" is the Crowdstrike report on the DNC "hack". Crowdstrike has a Ukrainian nationalist agenda,
was hired by the DNC , had to retract other "Russian hacking" claims and no one else was allowed to take a look at the
DNC servers. Said differently: The whole "Russian hacking" claims are solely based on "evidence" of two fake reports."
The Crowdstrike' report was concocted under command of Dmitri Alperovitch, a rabid Russophobe of Jewish ethnicity, who is also
an "expert" at Atlantic Council, where he joins other "experts" like Eliot Higgins. Higgins was nicely dressed recently by the
honorable C0l. Pat Lang who wrote about Higgins: " an uneducated, inexperienced guy with an opinion The fact that this gentlemen
is treated as a credible source is further proof of the insanity that has taken over the public debate. He knows nothing other
than what he has read. He has not been through live agent training at Fort McClellan (I have). He has no scientific background
in the subject matter and no experience (other than playing video games) with actual chemical weapons (Ted Postol, who has written
extensively on the subject, does have actual scientific and military expertise on the topic). Higgins knows nothing of the military
doctrine for employing such weapons. He knows nothing of the process and procedures required for a military unit to safely handle,
load, activate and deploy such weapons."
To illustrate the power of the Lobby, it is educational to know that Higgins is also a "Visiting Research Associate at the
Centre for Science and Security Studies (CSSS), Department of War Studies, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS,"
- kidding you not. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/visiting/higgins.aspx
Looks like after Hersh story was published trump decided to double down.
Notable quotes:
"... The lunatic US ambassador to the UN jumped in to make it clear that it does not matter who commits whatever crime in Syria, Takfiris, the U.S. or Israel, it will be the Syrian, Russian and Iranian governments who will held guilty of it: ..."
"... Trump has to make a deal (or war) with Russia and the announced fake "chemical attack" will be the pressure point against Putin. The neoconservatives in his administration want to break up Syria and Trump is tasked to get the Russian agreement for that (... or else.) ..."
"... Don't you think that if the Americans really intended to make a false flag, they would never issue this warning? For me, looks like the White House, knowing of the possibility of a Pentagon faction to provoke a false flag, issued this warning as an alert to Russians and Syrians and as a vaccin, to avoid this operation. ..."
"... Right after Khan Sheikhoun preparations were being made in the media for another false flag. Several embarrassingly weak "think" pieces were published in the NYT attempting to rationalize why Syria would use chemical weapons when it weakened the country's defenses. ..."
"... i'd look to the CIA for false flags, not the pentagon. the pentagon sees itself on the receiving end of the cia's 'fun and games'. ..."
"... It is Trump, and his direct handlers, who have the bit in their teeth now. no one else - state, nor defense, nor the 'analysis' false-front at the CIA - wants to go near this. Trump wants to watch himself evolve as something bigger-than-life on TV, and whatever happens in what we quaintly call 'the real world' has no place in his 'thinking'. ..."
"... What is in maddog's peace pipe? i guess he didn't get the memo on the upcoming retaliation for the - so far, virtual - new 'sarin attack' - which is known to be aimed at babies? not entirely clear which comes first, the attack or the 'retaliation' for it. The russians are not interested in 'deconflicting' with a lying/out-of-the-loop bunch such as the american general command. And those same generals are pushing the turks into russia's lap ... i guess when you have a crack outfit - outfit on crack? - like the saudis for allies you don't need anyone else. The kurds have sold ALL their bona fides down the euphrates with their us/saudi no-matter-what alliance. ..."
"... Ah, that old chestnut again...typical Zionist Hollywood formula...the good cop, bad cop routine. Trump is actually perfect for this shit, his background in shithouse primetime T.V. makes for the perfect dummy agent. ..."
"... I guess this is why Sy Hersh's most recent effort didn't get published in the US or UK...it just didn't suit the upcoming singular MSM narrative. ..."
"... Trump is even more of a idiot than I previously thought. Now he plays patsy for the neo con's hegemonic Empire agenda in taking the blame for the Syrian air base strike on information the intelligence community now claims they had that was inconclusive that Assad did it. ..."
"... If the neo cons narrative on their story of the Assad forces having used gas AGAIN hadn't fallen apart so quickly, even after their MSM backed the story to the hilt, they wouldn't be back tracking with this new line of bovine by product that Trump ordered the strike against the spy agencies best advice. ..."
"... The neo cons are getting desperate, like a scene from Hitler's last days in the bunker when the illusion is dissolved that any further military ability is all but crushed. ..."
"... After Seymour Hersh ridiculed the White House for having 'punished' Bashar al Assad, for a crime he has not committed, it was necessary for the White House to show how 'intelligent' they are in preventing 'another' attacks. Fake face saving! ..."
"... This wreaks of propaganda that is designed to counter the Sy Hersh story and leaks that just came out regarding trump ignoring Intel and attacking Syria anyway. The White House changed the narrative from did trump Le to watch out for a cutout chemo attack and its statement about future chemical strikes claims there was a first strike - it seeks to make a fallacy assumed as true. ..."
"... I go along with comments 14 and 15 and see it actually as a response intended to defend against the inference from the Hersh piece that Trump revealed himself to be a moron for succumbing despite the evidence to media propaganda. I think that the problem is that Trump is less than fully in control of elements of his government, possibly even Spicer, as evidenced by the failure to inform the state dept, military and others of the statement, which may not have been fully vetted. I wouldn't be surprised if Spicer's time as press secretary is limited. ..."
"... The fact that the Hersh piece was published in one of Germany's ueber-establishment organs, Die Welt, is significant. It means that Germany is no longer on board, and I don't see Macron, though he is an empty suit, doing a 180 like some fear, since he takes many of his orders from Merkel. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Russia conspiracy stories in the US seem to be in the early stages of blowing up, with a CNN official being exposed as admitting it was all propaganda, and Loretta Lynch, the ex-Justice Minister, appearing to be becoming a target based on her defence of the Harpy from criminal liability for the email server during the 2016 campaign. ..."
"... It's got to be a bitch for all the former Trumpsters around here who have seen their main man morph from a swamp-draining non-interventionist into a world class warmonger with a cabinet full of world class swamp creatures. ..."
"... Things certainly didn't work out as planned. Assad is in the cross hairs as is Iran and Hezbollah. It's maybe time to hope that Mueller gets enough dirt, and fast, to dethrone this dangerous president even if it leaves some egg on the face of certain Russian officials and businessmen. ..."
"... thanks b.. no proof needed with the west... lies and insinuation of responsibility is all that is needed... ..."
The White House claims that the Syrian government is preparing "chemical weapon attacks". This
is clearly not the case. Syria is winning the war against the country. Any such attack would clearly
be to its disadvantage. The White House announcement must thereby be understood as preparation for
another U.S. attack on Syria in "retaliation" for an upcoming staged "chemical weapon attack" which
will be blamed on the Syrian government.
In August 2013 Syria invited inspectors of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
to investigate chemical weapons attacks on the Syrian army. As soon as the inspectors arrived in
Damascus a "chemical attack" was staged in Ghouta near Damascus. Lots of Jihadist video coverage
of killed children was published and the "western" media blamed the incident on the Syrian government.
It never explained why targeting a militarily irrelevant area with chemical weapons at the same time
as inspectors arrived would have been a rational decision for a Syrian government that was just regaining
control and international standing.
The "attack" was clearly staged by
the opposition of the Syrian government and its foreign supporters. The Obama administration had
planned to use it to launch U.S. attacks on the Syrian government but refrained from this when Russia
arranged to remove Syria's strategic chemical weapons, aimed at Israel, instead.
In early 2017 the new U.S. president Trump made positive comments about the Syrian government.
Assad can stay, he said. The Syrian military and its allies had gained the upper hand and were victorious
on all fronts.
Two days later another "chemical attack" was staged in the al-Qaeda held town of Khan Sheikhun.
Lots of Jihadi video coverage of killed children, likely prepared in advance, was spilled onto the
"western" public. U.S. intelligence
knew that no chemical attack by the Syrian government had taken place. But the Trump administration
used the incident to launch a volley of cruise missiles against a Syrian military airport. The neoconservatives
were delighted. They finally had Trump where they wanted him. The media coverage changed from damming
Trump for his alleged "Russian connections" to lauding his decisiveness in response to the faked
attack.
Late May the new French president Macron ostensibly changed his position towards the Syrian government.
The hostile position of France (and other EU countries) against the Syrian president Assad that had
been eminent throughout the last six years
changed on a dime :
Macron said that on Syria: "My profound conviction is that we need a political and diplomatic
roadmap. We won't solve the question only with military force. That is a collective error we have
made. The real change I've made on this question, is that I haven't said the deposing of Bashar
al-Assad is a prerequisite for everything. Because no one has introduced me to his legitimate
successor!
But Macron also added:
"I have red lines on chemical weapons and humanitarian corridors. I said it very clearly to Vladimir
Putin. I will be uncompromising on that. So the use of chemical weapons will be met with a response,
and even if France acts alone."
This immediately set off my warning lights:
Moon of Alabama @MoonofA -
4:28 PM - 29 May
2017
You like fakes? Tune in to Macron announcing the next False Flag chemical weapon attack in Syria.
Like all "red lines" this one Macron set was an invitation to the Takfiris to launch more fake
incidents. Others had a
similar reaction
to Macron's (fake) turnaround.
The end of the war on Syria is
in sight . One can start to tabulate the
winners and losers . The U.S. military
conceded that it had lost the race to occupy south-east Syria. All these turns in favor of Syria
show that the war is practically won unless some of the outside sponsors of the Takfiri "rebels"
again escalate.
Such an escalation is now happening. The White House
claims to have
information that the Syrian government is preparing
a chemical weapon
attack to kill "innocent children":
In an ominous statement issued with no supporting evidence or further explanation , Press Secretary
Sean Spicer said the U.S. had "identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons
attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including
innocent children."
He said the activities were similar to preparations taken before an April 2017 attack that
killed dozens of men, women and children, and warned that if "Mr. Assad conducts another mass
murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price."
Several State Department officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements said
they were caught completely off guard by the warning, which didn't appear to be discussed in advance
with other national security agencies. Typically, the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S.
intelligence agencies would all be consulted before the White House issued a declaration sure
to ricochet across foreign capitals.
The White House claim is of course nonsense and not supported by any evidence or logic at all.
No one
but the White House, not the State Department nor the Defense Department, seems to be informed
about this (though that could be a ruse):
Five US defense officials said they did not know where the potential chemical attack would come
from and were unaware the White House was planning a statement.
The lunatic US ambassador to the UN jumped in to make it clear that it does not matter who
commits whatever crime in Syria, Takfiris, the U.S. or Israel, it will be the Syrian, Russian and
Iranian governments who will held guilty of it:
Nikki Haley @nikkihaley -
2:36 AM - 27
Jun 2017
Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia &
Iran who support him killing his own people.
A U.S. bomb attack on an Islamic State used building in Mayadin, Syria, just
killed 57 prisoners of the Islamic State. Will Nikki Halley hold the Syrian government responsible
for this?
Trump has call with France's Macron first thing this morning, before intel brief. Then meeting
w Nat. Sec. adviser McMaster
Intense U.S. military reconnaissance
takes place
along the Syrian coast. The UK Defense Minister just
announced that his government is "in full agreement" with any U.S. "retaliation" for a chemical
attack in Syria. U.S. Secretary of Defense Mattis announced that the U.S. will
continue to arm its
Kurdish proxies in Syria even after ISIS is defeated.
During the last three days Al-Qaeda attacks on Syrian army position near the Israeli occupied
Golan heights were
supported by Israeli air attacks .
This all is clearly a coordinated operation by the "western" supporters of the Takfiris in Syria.
Their aim is to prevent the victory of Syria and its allies. The U.S. wants to split up the country.
The announced fake "chemical attack" and the "retaliation" it is supposed to justify will likely
happen in the south-west of Syria around Deraa where all recent attempts by Israel and the U.S. supported
Takfiris to dislodge the Syrian government forces have failed. The provocation, now prepared and
announced by Macron and the White House and supported by the UK, is probably planned to happen
shortly before or during the upcoming G-20 meeting in Hamburg:
President Trump and members of his administration are requesting a full bilateral meeting with
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Germany next month.
...
While some administration officials have pressed for a quick "pull-aside" meeting at the Group
of 20 summit or lower officials talking privately instead of the heads of state, Trump wants an
event that includes the media and time for work sessions, according to one government official.
Trump has to make a deal (or war) with Russia and the announced fake "chemical attack" will
be the pressure point against Putin. The
neoconservatives in his administration want to
break up
Syria and Trump is tasked to get the Russian agreement for that (... or else.)
Syria insists
that its has no chemical weapons nor any intention to use any indiscriminate weapon. Russia
warns of any further military aggression and calls such U.S. threats
unacceptable .
Posted by b on June 27, 2017 at 07:49 AM |
Permalink
Don't you think that if the Americans really intended to make a false flag, they would never
issue this warning? For me, looks like the White House, knowing of the possibility of a Pentagon
faction to provoke a false flag, issued this warning as an alert to Russians and Syrians and as
a vaccin, to avoid this operation.
Intresting b,- on the France connection, perhaps France are the ones feeding the false info to
bomb Syria, the sleazy Macron needs a war to get some support? Anyway, check EU, Western nations,
Media these days and see the ugly propaganda being played out, once again the west plan, threat
with illegal wars and their media is right there to help them.
Russia is quite uninterested in defending Syria it seems, I think at least they could have
shipped Syria S300 and put them right in Damascus by know.
Because, after Syria, Russia like Iran and North Korea will also sooner or later be bombed.
Be sure about that. These are sick lunatics ruling the American military.
Remember who rule America these days, its not Trump:
Bannon: Trump's strategy is 'let the warfighters fight the war'
The US Regime is obviously in panic mode. The SAA is rapidly advancing on three fronts:
1. Raqqa - The SAA is quickly moving around the hapless Kurds and moving to the area south
of Raqqa. Ensuring IS is unable to execute their agreement with the US Regime to evacuate towards
Deir ez-Zur.
2. Deir ez-Zur - Huge numbers of SAA are quickly approaching the defenders in Deir ez-Zur.
Once Deir ez-Zur is secure, the SAA will move north to link up with the SAA forces in al Hasakah.
3. al Bukamal - The SAA and Iraq PMU are working as a unified force on both sides of the border
and are preparing to surround the border city.
What this means is:
The US Regime partion dreams are dead. There is no viable Kurdish 'state' other than a
bunch of clowns pretending to be a new 'government' in Raqqa.
The Iraq PMU are increasingly working side by side with the SAA. Any attack by the US Regime
puts their bases in Iraq open to attack.
The absurd threats from Saudi Arabia towards Qatar now have the various terror groups still
alive in Syria attacking each other.
Syria is close to a decisive military victory against the foreign terrorists. Once the
SAA secures the bulk of the Eurphrates only Idlib and Daraa remain as security problems.
Every day the SAA advances and IS or terrorist pockets are cleared, more and more troops
are freed up and being moved to the major fronts in either Daraa or the Eurphrates.
Turkey and Russia are in complete agreement on preventing any sort of Kurdish state in
the north of Syria. Any attempts by the US Regime to establish some sort of giant military
base backed by Kurds is going to have to fight Turkey, the SAA, Russia, and quite possibly
Iraq.
The success of the de-escalation zone means that the US Regime is greatly hamstrung in
coming up with further faked chemical attacks. The only real options now are Idlib and Daraa.
IS is being wiped out in the eastern Syrian desert by the SAA and in the western desert of
Iraq by the PMU. Those giant grey IS areas on battle maps are evaporating and at the same time
the entire pretext for the US Regime to be attacking Syria.
Right after Khan Sheikhoun preparations were being made in the media for another false flag.
Several embarrassingly weak "think" pieces were published in the NYT attempting to rationalize
why Syria would use chemical weapons when it weakened the country's defenses.
Now almost three months later the White House is actually staging a roll out of the false flag.
Incredible. Legacy media can't raise a ruckus because their complicit in previous false flags.
Russia on the other hand can't back down this time. To do so would be to invite perpetual rape
and plunder by the U.S. and its various clients. Russia needs to make a very clear statement right
now -- paratroopers dropped around Deraa -- to prevent the false flag from going forward.
The US military generals got caught with their pants down. They are losing the war -- everything
but the wastelands. For the military/intel, losing is FAILURE. They basically get fired. So they
will pull any stunt to not "fail". Of course, the Russians are going to make them fail despite
all their "valiant" efforts. Trump better wake up and smell the coffee, or he will wake up to
a brilliant flash.
@2 a, 'Russia is quite uninterested in defending Syria it seems, I think at least they could
have shipped Syria S300 and put them right in Damascus by know'
i think so too, every time. but I've been wrong everytime so far. it's finally occurred to
me that there's more going on than what i know about, and that the Russians are dealing with a
fuller deck than i am. And that they've spent their lifetimes at this kind of high pressure stuff
and have a far better understanding of it all than i do. but don't take my word for it ... look
at the results they've gotten.
It is Trump, and his direct handlers, who have the bit in their teeth now. no one else
- state, nor defense, nor the 'analysis' false-front at the CIA - wants to go near this. Trump
wants to watch himself evolve as something bigger-than-life on TV, and whatever happens in what
we quaintly call 'the real world' has no place in his 'thinking'.
Massivly won? Sleazy Macron won an election where huge part of France didnt even vote not only
in the prez. election but in the parliamentary election.
Or please tell us why this sleazy Macron threat Syria with war all of a sudden? For what reason?
This guy is globalist 101% this is what people like himself do to get support.
This guy for crying out loud just warned some weeks ago that France will respond to a chemical
attack! What more proof do you need?
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that America will continue to provide weapons
to Syrian Kurdish fighters after the battle to oust Islamic State militants from Raqqa, Syria,
is over.
Mattis said the de-confliction talks continue and are happening at several military levels,
to insure that aircraft and ground forces are safe.
What is in maddog's peace pipe? i guess he didn't get the memo on the upcoming retaliation
for the - so far, virtual - new 'sarin attack' - which is known to be aimed at babies? not entirely
clear which comes first, the attack or the 'retaliation' for it. The russians are not interested
in 'deconflicting' with a lying/out-of-the-loop bunch such as the american general command. And
those same generals are pushing the turks into russia's lap ... i guess when you have a crack
outfit - outfit on crack? - like the saudis for allies you don't need anyone else. The kurds have
sold ALL their bona fides down the euphrates with their us/saudi no-matter-what alliance.
it's hard to believe the us wehrmacht is in such obvious disarray. if the Russians wait it
out, the Americans will defeat themselves in Syria. Looks like in short order, too.
Ah, that old chestnut again...typical Zionist Hollywood formula...the good cop, bad cop routine.
Trump is actually perfect for this shit, his background in shithouse primetime T.V. makes for
the perfect dummy agent.
Trump does not need a chemical weapons attack to actually take place in Syria. He may be planning
to preempt such an incident. This way there will be no phony White Helmets video footage to dissect.
Listen to what the British Defense Minister has to say:
British Defense Minister Michael Fallon said London would support U.S. action to prevent a
chemical weapons attack but that it had not seen the intelligence on which Washington based
Monday's statement.
Moon is precisely right. The implied assumption of WH/intel Junta is that Ivan is coward and will
not stand. The implied action is that WH/intel intends attack RuF/Sy?Ir/+ forces. Assumes
Iran etc will not stand. Is this an incorrect assumption set? Failure of WH strategy is thus proximate.
Trump is even more of a idiot than I previously thought. Now he plays patsy for the neo con's
hegemonic Empire agenda in taking the blame for the Syrian air base strike on information the
intelligence community now claims they had that was inconclusive that Assad did it.
Hersh is again the go to mouth piece on this one for the neo cons. If the neo cons narrative
on their story of the Assad forces having used gas AGAIN hadn't fallen apart so quickly, even
after their MSM backed the story to the hilt, they wouldn't be back tracking with this new line
of bovine by product that Trump ordered the strike against the spy agencies best advice.
This whole show is a cock and bull offering. The neo cons are getting desperate, like a
scene from Hitler's last days in the bunker when the illusion is dissolved that any further military
ability is all but crushed.
So desperate they US neo con brain trust is willing to go to the poison gas well again and
again with their 'tell the big lie often' meme....after all it is only the Syrian civilian population
and innocent beautiful babies that will have to die this time around again. I'll give the Israelis
some credit for at least having the better excuse for their aggression against the Syrian nation
and people.
After Seymour Hersh ridiculed the White House for having 'punished' Bashar al Assad, for a
crime he has not committed, it was necessary for the White House to show how 'intelligent' they
are in preventing 'another' attacks. Fake face saving!
Mattis is clearly working secretly with the White House on a plan to counter the steady progress
of the SAA. He seems strangely unprepared for recent developments on the ground. There is still
a good possibility he will try something foolhardy like sending his militia at al Tanf north thru
SAA lines to join the fight at Deir Ezzor.
The SAA probably won't take Raqqa, but will focus on Deir Ezzor which is only 75 miles away.
Expect the chemical attack to be in the vicinity of deir ezzor.
The recent series of failures of the US in Syria, together with a shift of Turkey on the side
of Bashar al Assad's army and France's u-turn on Bashar Assad necessitated a big noise: The threat
of a 'new' chemical attack that would united the "friends of Syria" again.
Another infantile drama from desperate Pentagon to show the US relevance in the region! France
will not buy it and Russia will make sure that false flag wont happen again.
yeah, but they have to pose in their photo-ops themselves. no one else wants to be seen in
pictures with them in the imagined future. the rump loves it ... 'larger than life'.
well, if they shut up now and wait a bit, they can announce that they were successful in preventing
the dastardly attack on the babies by 'assad' ...
on the other hand, they may well have to figure out what to do after al-cia-duh 'surprises'
them with some dead babies ... they'll be shocked! never imagined that might happen! wasn't in
their copy of the script ... it's all a sit-com to them ...
Looks like Assad is taking a "tour" of Russia's airbase...
https://twitter.com/AliHa_97/status/879685253878734849
Looks like the time frame has been moved up dramatically since b's report... AP also
running stories about the US military seeing indications of a chemical weapon being prepared.
I've got a quibble with the intro to this post. It should say...
The White House claims that the Syrian government is preparing " another chemical
weapon attack".
"another" is the presumptuous, Hollywood-ish weasel word intended to pre-emptively legitimise
the false and unproven Yankee allegations that the Syrian Govt has conducted ANY chemical attacks.
In fact, one could go farther and point out the measures taken by the Christian Colonial Clowns
to AVOID producing evidence to support their past claims.
G20 G20 G20. If Putin wants to avoid WW3 he must get the leaders of countries like China, Germany,
Turkey, Italy, Indonesia, Korea, who else? to stand up behind him and condemn this rush to war.
The time has come for Merkel to make a decision - and it happens to be at her home G20 Summit.
Does Mutti have the cojones???
This wreaks of propaganda that is designed to counter the Sy Hersh story and leaks that
just came out regarding trump ignoring Intel and attacking Syria anyway. The White House changed
the narrative from did trump Le to watch out for a cutout chemo attack and its statement about
future chemical strikes claims there was a first strike - it seeks to make a fallacy assumed as
true.
It's the same tactc he is using regarding Russian interference. He is redirected there as well
to Obama. "Why didn't Obama do anything about the leaks."
That said you can't put anything beyond the empire. SAA, Russia and friends need to be ready.
exiled off mainstreet | Jun 27, 2017 10:33:18 AM |
25
I go along with comments 14 and 15 and see it actually as a response intended to defend against
the inference from the Hersh piece that Trump revealed himself to be a moron for succumbing despite
the evidence to media propaganda. I think that the problem is that Trump is less than fully in
control of elements of his government, possibly even Spicer, as evidenced by the failure to inform
the state dept, military and others of the statement, which may not have been fully vetted. I
wouldn't be surprised if Spicer's time as press secretary is limited.
The fact that the Hersh piece was published in one of Germany's ueber-establishment organs,
Die Welt, is significant. It means that Germany is no longer on board, and I don't see Macron,
though he is an empty suit, doing a 180 like some fear, since he takes many of his orders from
Merkel.
It is seriously disconcerting that the neocons still seem to be able to rule the roost. If
any "chemical" attack occurs within a few days or longer away, it will be extremely suspect.
Meanwhile, the Russia conspiracy stories in the US seem to be in the early stages of blowing
up, with a CNN official being exposed as admitting it was all propaganda, and Loretta Lynch, the
ex-Justice Minister, appearing to be becoming a target based on her defence of the Harpy from
criminal liability for the email server during the 2016 campaign.
In light of these facts, I think the whole thing more likely shows weakness and disarray, not
a serious conspiratorial threat of armageddon, though it could end up blowing up in that direction.
Hmmm. If the preemptive strike against an alleged chemical attack preparation takes out Assad?
Just serendipity, icing on the cake? Any chance that the message is that these uSA has intelligence
on Assad's movements?
I suppose now that CNN has fired three journalists that Special Council Mueller will give notice
to his investigators to pack it in and go home. Yep, nothing to see here folks. Sorry for wasting
your time. Fat fucking chance. This cat's on a mission and won't be deterred.
It's got to be a bitch for all the former Trumpsters around here who have seen their main
man morph from a swamp-draining non-interventionist into a world class warmonger with a cabinet
full of world class swamp creatures.
Things certainly didn't work out as planned. Assad is in the cross hairs as is Iran and
Hezbollah. It's maybe time to hope that Mueller gets enough dirt, and fast, to dethrone this dangerous
president even if it leaves some egg on the face of certain Russian officials and businessmen.
The U.S. regime has recently seen chemical weapons activity at the Shay'rat Airbase in the
Homs Governorate, the Pentagon claimed, as reported by Matt Lee of the Associated Press.
this seems pretty whack. the syrians will say hey, come have a look? the us will go and say ...
oops, our mistake? what's going on here? i guess it's the pentagon giving the rump a way to climb
down? he can say he 'forced' an inspection? or something?
Since we know that Trump gets his info from his favorite cable TV programs and a select few websites
and doesn't use the vast resources of the U.S. Intel community, has anyone found the original
source for the new Assad allegation? It would be interesting to see what The Donald is reading
nowadays.
thanks b.. no proof needed with the west... lies and insinuation of responsibility is all
that is needed...
ditto many comments here..
@ 22 Hoarsewhisperer.. yeah - 'another' when they haven't verified any previously... more lies
and insinuation of responsibility absent any facts... who needs facts when you want to destroy
another country?
@29 quote "If people in the West don't want WW3 they're going to have to do something about
the people who bribe, and own, their politicians." but hoarsewhisperer - that is what all these
lies and deception are meant to do - keep the people in the west completely ignorant of the facts
and reality.. dontcha know that lying to your people in the msm regularly keeps the sheeple quiet
and passive? us freaks here at moa are in a real minority..
@34 chuba - they just make this shit up man... the first source i saw was from yesterday spicer
idiot..
Konrad Lorenz
and
Desmond Morris
, or anthropologists such as
Lionel Tiger
. They linked studies of animal behaviour to the idea of Darwinian
evolutionary principles to tell readers just how very like the beasts we were in
our sex lives, our workplaces and our recreational behaviours. We were advised to
look at chimps and other primates and derive understanding of ourselves from their
apparently culture-free activities and traits. Underneath all our fancy culture
and language, we were simply naked apes enacting primitive territorial
imperatives.
The reading public lapped it up as both a neat, satisfying
narrative, and as an excuse for all manner of not-so-civilised behaviours for
which we no longer had to take personal and moral blame. We go to war – well, so
do baboons; it's in our genes, we can try to overcome it, but in the end as in the
beginning we're all just animals. By 1976 we didn't even have to blame the animal
in ourselves: Richard Dawkins gave us the selfish gene, whose sole reason for
existence was to reproduce itself. And we, that is the body and brain of you and
me, were nothing but vehicles for these genes which compelled us to optimise their
chances of replicating. Talk to the gene, the conscience isn't listening.
Much of this was based on algebraic theories of altruism developed by
WD Hamilton
, who shifted the mechanism of evolution from making groups fitter
to survive to a new insistence on individual inclusive fitness. This was via kin
selection, which drills down deeper than the inter-relatedness of individual
organisms, to the separate alleles (of which genes are made) in every organism:
these preferentially promote only those vehicles which contain alleles most
closely related to themselves. Genes were responsible, somehow, for you fighting
the whirlwind to save your sister, but probably not your less related cousin, and
certainly not the stranger from down the road.
Some people were not crazy about this view of the human race. Genes doing
algebra didn't suit a more macrocosmic idea of a fallible but responsible
humanity.
Robert Trivers
was the man who produced the unifying theory of kin selection
and altruism. Now, decades on, he has arrived at a big, new universal theory, also
essentially based on the arithmetic of gene selection. Deceit is useful where
telling the (unpleasant) truth would hamper your progress. Progress towards what?
Trivers would say your fitness, which is defined as raising the chances of
replicating your genes into the next generation.
Your genes, apparently, would agree with him; but they would, wouldn't they?
That is if they were capable of agreeing. I want to hang on to the fact that the
building blocks of ourselves do not want or intend anything. Chemicals aren't
conscious, although by amazing chance they can combine to make a conscious
organism.
Once self-conscious humans begin to do science, and with the benefit of
language, start to describe the nature of the chemicals that make them what they
are, but having to use regular language if they want a large audience (maths is a
much better language, but fewer people can read it), they cannot help but slide
into the notion of intention. Dawkins's selfish gene gained an absurd life of its
own because most people don't speak arithmetic.
The biological mechanism by which we conceal inconvenient truths from ourselves
and others is shown, says Trivers, in functional MRI scans of blood flow
associated with neural activity in the brain: "It is estimated that fully ten
seconds before consciousness of intent, the neural signals begin that will later
give rise to the consciousness and then the behaviour itself." Freud, who always
believed that neurology would discover a physical basis for the unconscious, would
be delighted, though according to Trivers, psychoanalysis is nothing more than a
money-grabbing hoax. Yet there remains a void between brain chemicals doing what
they do and the emergence of the sense we all have of possessing a mind.
Trivers's theories of deceit and self-deceit are based on multiple gleanings
from experimental psychology. A trial with rats shows this, another with students
suggests that. The actual experiments are referenced, rather minimally, in
page-related endnotes, but Trivers's writing is full of halting phraseology as he
slips from findings in the lab or questionnaire to the generality of human social
behaviour.
He suggests from relatedness theory that fathers should show a "slight genetic
bias towards their daughters", but "no one knows if this is true". General
assertions about human behaviour are peppered with such phrases as "One is tempted
to imagine ", "in mice at least ", "work still in its infancy ", "first
speculations ", "Whether any of my speculations are true I have no idea ". And,
really, if he doesn't, I certainly don't.
Once he has laid out his evidence, our biologically determined deceit behaviour
is ready to account for just about everything Trivers doesn't like about the
world, such as the false justifications for the invasion of Iraq, the
self-deceiving use, by the US and UK, of 9/11 to declare war on oil-rich countries
and on to torture, religion and stock-market trading. It so happens that Trivers
and I dislike much the same things but, though I daresay knowledge is generally
better than lack of it, I'm not convinced of the benefits of offering us the
excuse of having been manipulated by our genes for our repeatedly scurrilous
behaviour.
While the first part of the book explains the theory, and the second part
discusses how deceit was responsible for all the political and social injustices
both he and I perceive in the world, there is a third element woven through both.
An actual individual life, that of Trivers himself, emerges, like a gene in the
organism, offered perhaps as a consciously self-deprecating example of what
evolutionary pressure to deceive can do to a person. Somehow, though, it comes
across as back-handed boasting.
The man whom Trivers calls "I" is a compulsive thief who can't go into a room
without coming away with a trophy. He talks of his "'inadvertent' touching of
women", which occurs exclusively with his left (unconscious) hand. Apropos chimps
turning their backs to hide an erection from a dominant male, he explains that he
finds it very hard "in the presence of a woman with whom I am close, to receive a
phone call from another woman with whom I may have, or only wish to have, a
relationship, without turning my back to pursue the conversation".
He understands the male/female gender split by recollecting "trying to poison
the minds of my three daughters against their mother". He nearly killed his
girlfriend and nephew by driving the nephew's "cool car" too fast on a precipitous
road, when he noticed her interest in the younger man. And after pages and pages
on biological selection, evolutionary pressure and the dangerous deception that is
religion, it not only turns out that he prays regularly, but he gives a short
lecture on the proper way to say the "Lord's Prayer" (emphasise "thy"). I wasn't
surprised to discover that he is on prescription antidepressants, as well as using
ganja and cocaine.
There will be Iron Johns who read this book and cheer, and although he explains
that each sex (abhorring the word "gender", which he calls a euphemism) contains
both male and female genes, my male genes are just too wimpy to find any charm in
Trivers's display of self-disclosure – machismo and pet peeves – dressed up as an
important new evolutionary understanding of humanity.
Jenny Diski's
What I Don't Know About Animals
is published by Virago.
Oh dear- could you then...disentangle your own behaviour from
your 'human nature".
In general- Yes. Human behaviour changes rapidly and depends on
culture and individual choices. Human nature changes very very slowly,
in 'evolutionary time'. Too slowly for it to be observed.
On the level of the individual -- No. I can't disentangle my personal
choices from my inherited tendencies. To what extent does my behaviour
(or my character)reflect my genes or upbringing, to what extent is it
my own free will? Nature, Nurture, or Nietzsche?, as Stephen Fry would
say. I can't say- except that I believe that we all have free will and
are therefore in most cases responsible for our actions.
As for 'my' human nature, that is a meaningless phrase. Human
nature I would define as the (evolved) psychological traits humans
have
in common
.
In his article Pinker gives (I think) quite a convincing
explanation of how human behaviour can be changing for the better,
while human nature (perforce) remains the same.
Oh dear- could you then-with the help of Pinker's
pseudo-scientific, deterministic, eurocentric tosh and/or Dawkins
overly simplistic, to the point of idiocy take on genes and evolution-
disentangle your own behaviour from your 'human nature.' I am really
curious.
@Sam J. "...In the end, it is the American people who decide whether Israel is to be or not
to be a vital American ally and friend..."
To make informed decisions you have to have information. The American people don't have that.
So they really haven't made a decision at all. They've been tricked into doing things that are
covered up in lies. The American people are responsible even if they are being manipulated by
the MSM.
Too many Americans are woefully ignorant about the world, particularly about the extent that
Jewish interests have manipulated so many aspects of our government and our culture. If you even
bring this issue up you are immediately branded a hater and your arguments dismissed.
In short, many Americans are happy to drink the kool aid.
It is a much deeper problem than simply our American Pravda.
Many of us have chosen to be blind, refusing to even consider the possibility that we are being
manipulated, and in the process fail as responsible citizens.
One can choose to be red pilled today. This is ultimately the choice to go through life with
an open mind and to have a high regard for reality, however uncomfortable that reality may be.
@Sam J. "...The source of Jewish power in the US is their brokerage of voter bias and federal
entitlements between the federal government and the public..."
There may be a little bit of that but it's not the main reason. The main reasons are:
1. They own practically all media in the US.
2. They own the FED providing almost limitless cash to their preferred people.
3. They're blackmailing huge numbers of our Representatives with little Boys and little Girls.
4. They'll kill you if they don't get their way.
So if you run against them in the primary you will have extremely well funded opponents and the
press will savage you. If that doesn't work they will try to redistrict you out of a job. If that
doesn't work they will frame or kill you like they did to Ohio Congressman James Traficant. "1.
They own practically all media in the US.
2. They own the FED providing almost limitless cash to their preferred people.
3. They're blackmailing huge numbers of our Representatives with little Boys and little Girls.
4. They'll kill you if they don't get their way."
And this has been leading the States – and Israel along with the States – to the demise. The
US governing institutions have lost their ability to respond to reality and instead they respond
to personal desires only. Hence the approaching danger of a hot war.
Don't look for the exchange with Colbert on YouTube. CBS deleted it from its broadcast and
website, demonstrating once again that the "I" word cannot be disparaged on national television.
If so, you'll need to issue a retraction of your statement and all the other insinuations you
derived from it. If it is not the video, I issue my apologies in advance.
......he was assassinated, which was a lucky break for Israel, particularly as Kennedy was
replaced by the passionate Zionist Lyndon Baines Johnson.
With this slander which others commented on earlier, it does deserve repeating emphatically,
you've submerged yourself in conspiracies for reasons which appear to be occult Jew hatred
impossible to contain just under the surface. It beggars belief that statement was written
tongue in cheek; excessive cheek, tongue impossible to pry unstuck. An attempt at humour? Poor
taste, really.
The Israelis know what is going on all the time.
Pure nonsense at some level. At another level, it is well-known we know more about our allies
than their respective governments do and vice versa.
......but it also included an astonishingly large number of Democrats who describe themselves
as progressive, including Corey Booker and Kamila Harris,
So they are progressives, what of it? You fail to understand most Americans view Iranians as
a nation of people which took hostage American diplomats. These congressmen are doing no more
than what their constituents want.
The readership of UR, a collection of a few excellent thinkers, overwhelmed by a larger
group of lunatics, do not reflect the sentiment of the vast majority. They could not care what
you or I think of Iranians. They remember Nov 1979.
And there's still more. Bill HR 672 Combating European Anti-Semitism Act of 2017 was passed
unanimously by the House of Representatives on June 14th.
Antisemitism is a serious matter and it is well for it to bear scrutiny in some cases where
through their actions overzealous elements[some in the judiciary] trivialise its intent. But
you seem to favour an environment where mere vigilance through a bill deserves defeat. Unanimously.
President Donald Trump traveled to the Middle East claiming to be desirous of starting serious
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but it was all a sham. Benjamin Netanyahu
took him aside and came out with the usual Israeli bullshit about the Palestinians "inciting"
violence and hatred of Jews and Trump bought into it
It's comical to behold the "select" group which voted for Trump now complain on these pages
of the UR about what the man said he was going to do from the very beginning on the Israel-Palestine
issue. It is not a sham. Trump never believed the "bullshit" coming from the U.N. [a body which
has over 40 Muslim and Arab members] on the contrary, attacking the solitary Jewish nation
state. He required no "taking aside" by Bibi. One needn't travel to the West Bank to find Jew
hatred; a few months' worth of reading your columns being quite sufficient.
I might note in passing that there has been no Senate resolution commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the bravery exhibited by the officers and crew of the USS Liberty as they
were being slaughtered by the Israelis at the same time as Jerusalem was being "liberated"
Such a Senate resolution requires convincing senators of its necessity. No one is stopping
anyone.
I understand you feel Jerusalem is better in the hands of Palestinians and Arabs. We disagree.
A gem of an article all things considered.
"You fail to understand most Americans view Iranians as a nation of people which took hostage
American diplomats."
"... The wealthy and powerful forces which control both of those influential centers in the formation of public opinion were desperate to regain control of the narrative, which has been slipping away from them at an increasing velocity since the advent of social media, and since the parallel growth of a broad spectrum of information networks with absolutely no interest in currying favor with the mighty, or in defending the status quo. ..."
"... As soon as the term "Fake News" appeared, Barack Obama pounced on it, and in a joint appearance in 2016 with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, used his worldwide microphone and bully pulpit – if only he had done so occasionally to sound the alarm about the approaching environmental crisis, or to express outrage about racism or police brutality, or to challenge war profiteers! – to announce his deep concern that "Fake News" was making it "difficult to govern" (for more on this and the struggle against corporate/government presstitute propaganda, see my article "Hope Is Our Enemy: Fighting Boiling Frog Syndrome"). ..."
"... This clumsy and panicky maneuver has deservedly met with far less success than Obama's incredibly successful propaganda sally against Russia and Vladimir Putin, which has captivated the paranoid fantasies of many millions of Americans and Europeans who desperately want to believe that NATO countries are virtuous and innocent, and are threatened by ruthless and aggressive foreigners who are responsible for the spreading chaos in the West. ..."
"... As one of his final acts in office, President Chameleon slapped new sanctions on Russia and deported Russian diplomats: after eight years, his transformation from Nobel Laureate and supposed apostle of peace to McCarthyite New Cold Warrior was complete, and vast numbers of angry Hillaroids were quickly on board the Blame Russia Express, full of self-righteous anger and the conviction that someone had stolen the election and that the usual suspects were obviously the guilty party. ..."
"... Things haven't gone so well for the "Fake News" campaign, however. Too many people could and can see disturbing patterns that ring true, if they spend enough time looking at truthful, objective analysis of the world around us, and there is quite a lot of it available via the internet. ..."
"... More people are spending more and more time on the internet and social media, where presstitute media lose the natural advantages they once had in a world dominated by government-regulated, corporate-financed TV, radio, and print news. ..."
"... It turns out that many of the best-informed writers see the world utterly differently than do the corporate and government shills who determine the "news" content in mainstream media. ..."
"... Social Democrats ..."
"... Christian Democrats ..."
"... The US military is by far the greatest polluter on Earth. ..."
"... I consider that an Orwellian assault on language. "Extremism" is what I oppose. Extreme wealth. Extreme greed. Extreme militarism. Extreme suicidal and ecocidal environmental destruction. Extreme governmental authority. Extreme stupidity. ..."
We have had a certain amount of success in exposing the amorphous and mendacious term "Fake News"
for what it is: a tool in a major campaign of propaganda against dissenting independent journalism
and political writing, a campaign perpetrated by governments and corporate media. The wealthy
and powerful forces which control both of those influential centers in the formation of public opinion
were desperate to regain control of the narrative, which has been slipping away from them at an increasing
velocity since the advent of social media, and since the parallel growth of a broad spectrum of information
networks with absolutely no interest in currying favor with the mighty, or in defending the status
quo.
As soon as the term "Fake News" appeared, Barack Obama pounced on it, and in a joint
appearance in 2016 with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, used his worldwide microphone
and bully pulpit – if only he had done so occasionally to sound the alarm about the approaching environmental
crisis, or to express outrage about racism or police brutality, or to challenge war profiteers! –
to announce his deep concern that "Fake News" was making it "difficult to govern" (for more on this
and the struggle against corporate/government presstitute propaganda, see my article "Hope Is Our
Enemy: Fighting Boiling Frog Syndrome").
This clumsy and panicky maneuver has deservedly met with far less success than Obama's incredibly
successful propaganda sally against Russia and Vladimir Putin, which has captivated the paranoid
fantasies of many millions of Americans and Europeans who desperately want to believe that NATO countries
are virtuous and innocent, and are threatened by ruthless and aggressive foreigners who are responsible
for the spreading chaos in the West.
As one of his final acts in office, President Chameleon slapped new sanctions on Russia and
deported Russian diplomats: after eight years, his transformation from Nobel Laureate and supposed
apostle of peace to McCarthyite New Cold Warrior was complete, and vast numbers of angry Hillaroids
were quickly on board the Blame Russia Express, full of self-righteous anger and the conviction that
someone had stolen the election and that the usual suspects were obviously the guilty party.
Things haven't gone so well for the "Fake News" campaign, however. Too many people could and
can see disturbing patterns that ring true, if they spend enough time looking at truthful, objective
analysis of the world around us, and there is quite a lot of it available via the internet.
More people are spending more and more time on the internet and social media, where presstitute
media lose the natural advantages they once had in a world dominated by government-regulated, corporate-financed
TV, radio, and print news.
It turns out that many of the best-informed writers see the world utterly
differently than do the corporate and government shills who determine the "news" content in mainstream
media.
Which brings us to one of the latest victims in the assault on language by the 1% and their pawns
in the presstitute media: the word "extremism".
Here in the European Union where I live, this word is currently heard so often in the traditional
media – along with another victimized word being brutalized almost non-stop, "populist" – that even
poorly-educated persons who aren't sure exactly what is meant can understand that they must mean
something very, very bad.
If any such confused persons should take the time to pay closer attention and attempt to ascertain
what it is that makes these "extremists" and "populists" so deplorable and dangerous, they may soon
notice that at least one of these words, "extremist", has a pretty nebulous field of application.
According to major sources of conventional wisdom in the EU, terrorists are "extremists". But "extremism",
more generally, is also applied casually to nearly any political parties and interest groups to the
Left and the Right of the large (if shrinking in some countries like France) parties called "people's
parties" (Volksparteien) here in Germany: the no-longer-socialist Social Democrats who are
allegedly center-left, the pseudo-Christian Christian Democrats who portray themselves as
center-right, and even the thoroughly compromised and faded-to-brown Green Party , which
has gone to great lengths and engaged in stupendous contortions of deliberate conformism to achieve
its modern status as a pillar of the established order, a long journey from its radical roots in
the 1980s.
As you may have deduced from my snarky tone, I find myself firmly ensconced among the so-called
"extremists" of the Left.
What, one may legitimately ask, are the views which have led to this branding as a dangerous individual?
Do I advocate keeping a stock of Molotov Cocktails handy for quick use when the shit starts to fly?
I do not.
Do I engage in plots to overthrow the "legitimate" government and spread chaos throughout the
EU? Do I support terrorism? I do not. While I have grave reservations about the ostensible "legitimacy"
of a number of the governments named, and have major issues with the extent to which they are in
thrall to American imperial foreign/military policy and the destructive austerity policies of the
IMF and World Bank and Big Finance, you will find no blueprints for violent revolution at my house.
I pay taxes and comply with bureaucratic governmental requirements. And as far as terrorism goes,
I would even argue that it is NATO countries' complicity in American imperial designs and hegemony
which is the source of most terrorism and is thus, in reality, "extreme" (see my recent article "Russia
Didn't Do It").
Am I armed? I am not. I have never owned a gun. My only weapon is the keyboard at which I now
write.
Do I support dangerous political organizations? I support the German party "Die Linke" (The Left),
which is the largest opposition party in Germany's Parliament, the Bundestag, and a full participant
in the national electoral process, having won around 14% of the vote in the last election. AHHH
now we're getting somewhere. "Die Linke" is accused quite regularly in the corporate and government
media of being "extreme".
And why? What positions does the party hold which are considered dangerous?
Okay I guess I'll have to come clean. Here are the radical, dangerous, "extremist" positions
I support when I advocate more influence for this political party:
An end to weapons exports from Germany, especially into crisis regions, but more broadly, in principle.
The disbanding of NATO, which was formed as an allegedly defensive alliance against the "Warsaw
Pact" or communist military bloc led by the Soviet Union – which no longer exists. An end to German
participation in overseas military intervention (such as the current activity in Afghanistan).
A more extensive social system which builds more low-cost housing and offers greater protection
for the rights of workers and less affluent citizens – rights which were scaled back by the program
"Agenda 2010" to make the German economy more "competitive".
Active measures by government to stop the widening of the gap between rich and poor which, although
not yet as profound in Germany as in the USA, is heading in the same direction.
Higher taxes on the wealthy.
A much more independent position on the world stage for Germany and the EU, with an end to EU
servility to the USA.
Fundamental reform of the EU, with less power for Big Finance in its deliberations and economic
policies, which have created great hardship in Greece, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.
In addition, there is my allegedly "extreme" position on the environment, which is not so much
a priority for "Die Linke" but is the most important issue of all for me personally. I am convinced
that only a radical transformation of the world economy can save this planet, including most life
on Earth. I believe this can only come about through an end to industrial capitalism: a ban on most
fossil fuels, an end to the production of most plastics, an end to most beef production and strict
organic regulation of all meat production, and worldwide mandatory measures to clean up the poisonous
residue of the current system which is killing the planet. This will necessarily involve huge cuts
in most military structures and war-making as well. The US military is by far the greatest polluter
on Earth.
For these views, and my concomitant rejection of the large political parties in the EU and the
USA which have done almost nothing to save the planet that was not outweighed by massive destruction
– parties which thus, in the name of "realism", have sold our future to the rich and may have doomed
all life on this planet, as scientific opinion is near unanimous that time is short – for these views
I am labeled an "extremist".
I consider that an Orwellian assault on language. "Extremism" is what I oppose. Extreme wealth.
Extreme greed. Extreme militarism. Extreme suicidal and ecocidal environmental destruction. Extreme
governmental authority. Extreme stupidity.
The author mixed Trump with Clinton political machine and his characterization are applicable first
of all to Clinton political machine, and only secondarily to Trump,
Notable quotes:
"... As important as the Trump-Comey affair is, it runs the risk of both exacerbating the transformation of politics into theater ..."
"... You belong by affirming. To win, you don't need reasons anymore, only power." ..."
"... This is especially important at a time when the United States is no longer a functioning democracy and is in the presence of what Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis refer to in their book Liquid Evil as "the emergence of modern barbarity." ..."
"... Note: This is an expanded version of a piece that originally appeared on Ragazine . ..."
...Trump cannot be trusted because he not only infects political discourse with a language
of hate, bigotry and lies, but also because he has allowed an ideology built on the use of disinformation
to take over the White House. Under the Trump administration, the truth is distorted for ideological,
political and commercial reasons. Lying has become an industry and tool of power. All administrations
and governments lie, but under Trump lying has become normalized. It is a calling card for corruption
and lawlessness, one that provides the foundation for authoritarianism.
Trump is a salesman and a bully. He constantly assumes the macho swagger of a used car salesman
from a TV commercial while at the same time, as Rebecca Solnit observes, he bullies facts and truths
as well as friends and acquaintances. He is obsessed with power and prides himself on the language
of command, loyalty and humiliation. He appears fixated on the fear that the United States could
still act on the memory, if not the ghosts, of a real democracy.
... ... ...
A democracy cannot exist without informed citizens and public spheres and educational apparatuses
that uphold standards of truth, honesty, evidence, facts and justice. Under Trump, disinformation
masquerading as news -- often via his Twitter account -- has become a weapon for legitimating ignorance
and civic illiteracy. Not only has Trump lied repeatedly, he has also attacked the critical media,
claimed journalists are enemies of the American people and argued that the media is the opposition
party. There is more at stake here than the threat of censorship or the normalization of lying; there
is also an attack on long-valued sources of information and the public spheres that produce them.
Trump's government has become a powerful disimagination machine in which the distinction between
fact and fiction, reality and fantasy are erased.
... ... ...
Berkowitz's piece is worth citing at length.
He writes :
The reason fact-checking is ineffective today -- at least in convincing those who are members
of movements -- is that the mobilized members of a movement are confounded by a world resistant
to their wishes and prefer the promise of a consistent alternate world to reality. When Donald
Trump says he's going to build a wall to protect our borders, he is not making a factual statement
that an actual wall will actually protect our borders; he is signaling a politically incorrect
willingness to put America first. When he says that there was massive voter fraud or boasts about
the size of his inauguration crowd, he is not speaking about actual facts, but is insisting that
his election was legitimate. 'What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts,
but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.' Leaders of these mass
totalitarian movements do not need to believe in the truth of their lies and ideological clichés.
The point of their fabrications is not to establish facts, but to create a coherent fictional
reality. What a movement demands of its leaders is the articulation of a consistent narrative
combined with the ability to abolish the capacity for distinguishing between truth and falsehood,
between reality and fiction.
As important as the Trump-Comey affair is, it runs the risk of both exacerbating the transformation
of politics into theater and reinforcing what
Todd Gitlin refers to as Trump's support for an "apocalyptic nationalism, the point of which
is to belong, not to believe. You belong by affirming. To win, you don't need reasons anymore, only
power." Trump values loyalty over integrity. He lies, in part, to test the loyalty of those who both
follow him and align themselves with his power. The Trump-Comey affair must be understood within
a broader attack on the fundamentals of education, critical modes of agency and democracy itself.
This is especially important at a time when the United States is no longer a functioning democracy
and is in the presence of what Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis refer to in their book Liquid
Evil as "the emergence of modern barbarity." Trump's discourse of lies, misrepresentations and fakery
makes it all the more urgent for us to acknowledge that education is at the center of politics because
it is crucial in the struggle over consciousness, values, identity and agency. Ignorance in the service
of education targets the darkness and reinforces and thrives on civic illiteracy. Trump's disinformation
machine is about more than lying. It is about using all of the tools and resources for education
to create a dystopia in which authoritarianism exercises the raw power of ignorance and control.
Artists, educators, young people, journalists and others need to make the virtue of truth-telling
visible again. We need to connect democracy with a notion of truth-telling and consciousness that
is on the side of economic and political justice, and democracy itself. If we are all going to fight
for and with the most marginalized people, there must be a broader understanding of their needs.
We need to create narratives and platforms in which those who have been deemed disposable can identify
themselves and the conditions through which power and oppression bear down on their lives.
This is not an easy task, but nothing less than justice, democracy and the planet itself are at
risk.
Note: This is an expanded version of a piece that originally appeared on
Ragazine .
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission of the author.
Henry A. Giroux
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest
in the English and Cultural Studies Department and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical
Pedagogy. His most recent books are America's Addiction to Terrorism (Monthly Review Press,
2016) and America at War with Itself (City Lights, 2017). He is also a contributing editor
to a number of journals, including Tikkun, the Journal of Wild Culture and Ragazine. Giroux is also
a member of Truthout's Board of Directors. His website is
www.henryagiroux.com .
"... The United States has been using lies to go to war since 1846, when Americans who believed in manifest destiny sought to expand to the Pacific Ocean at the expense of Mexico, acquiring by force of arms California and what were to become the southwestern states. In 1898 the U.S. picked up the pieces of a dying Spanish Empire in a war that was driven by American imperialists and the yellow dog reporting of the Hearst Newspaper chain. And then came World War 1, World War 2, and Korea, all avoidable and all enabled by deliberate lying coming out of Washington. ..."
"... More recently, we have seen Vietnam with its Gulf of Tonkin fabrication, Granada and Panama with palpably ridiculous pretexts for war, Iraq with its nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Afghanistan with its lies about bin Laden, Libya and its false claims about Gaddafi, and most recently Syria and Iran with allegations of an Iranian threat to the United States and lies about Syrian use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons. And if one adds in the warnings to Russia over Ukraine, a conflict generated by Washington when it brought about regime change in Kiev, you have a tissue of lies that span the globe and bring with them never-ending conflict to advance the American imperium. ..."
"... So lies go with the American Way of War, but the latest twist and turns in the Middle East are bizarre even by Washington's admittedly low standards of rectitude. ..."
"... The Saudis also have considerable blood on their hands by way of their genocidal assault on neighboring Yemen. In addition, the Saudi Royal House has served as the principal propagator of Wahhabism, the virulently fundamentalist version of Islam that provides a form of religious legitimacy to terror while also motivating many young Muslims to join radical groups. ..."
"... The falling out of two Gulf Arab regimes might be a matter of relatively little importance but for the unnecessary intervention of President Donald Trump in the quarrel. ..."
"... Trump's tweets might well be regarded as simply maladroit, driven by ignorance, but they could also provide a glimpse of a broader agenda. While in the Middle East, Trump was bombarded with anti-Iranian propaganda coming from both Israel and the Saudis. An escalation of hostilities with the intention of starting an actual war involving the United States to take down Iran is not unimaginable, particularly as the Israelis, who have already endorsed the Saudi moves, have been arguing that option and lying about the threat posed by Tehran for a number of years. ..."
Terrorism supporters in Washington and Riyadh close ranks against Qatar
The United States has been using lies to go to war since 1846, when Americans who believed
in manifest destiny sought to expand to the Pacific Ocean at the expense of Mexico, acquiring by
force of arms California and what were to become the southwestern states. In 1898 the U.S. picked
up the pieces of a dying Spanish Empire in a war that was driven by American imperialists and the
yellow dog reporting of the Hearst Newspaper chain. And then came World War 1, World War 2, and Korea,
all avoidable and all enabled by deliberate lying coming out of Washington.
More recently, we have seen Vietnam with its Gulf of Tonkin fabrication, Granada and Panama
with palpably ridiculous pretexts for war, Iraq with its nonexistent weapons of mass destruction,
Afghanistan with its lies about bin Laden, Libya and its false claims about Gaddafi, and most recently
Syria and Iran with allegations of an Iranian threat to the United States and lies about Syrian use
of barrel bombs and chemical weapons. And if one adds in the warnings to Russia over Ukraine, a conflict
generated by Washington when it brought about regime change in Kiev, you have a tissue of lies that
span the globe and bring with them never-ending conflict to advance the American imperium.
So lies go with the American Way of War, but the latest twist and turns in the Middle East
are bizarre even by Washington's admittedly low standards of rectitude. On the 5th of June,
Saudi Arabia led a gaggle of Arab and Muslim nations that included the United Arab Emirates, Egypt
and Bahrain to cut off all diplomatic, commercial and transport links with Qatar, effectively blockading
it. Qatar is currently isolated from its neighbors, subject to sanctions, and there have even been
Saudi threats of going to war against its tiny neighbor. Salman al-Ansari, the president of the Saudi
American Public Relation Affairs Committee, even tweeted: "To the emir of Qatar, regarding your alignment
with the extremist government of Iran and your abuse of the Custodian of the two sacred mosques,
I would like to remind you that Mohammed Morsi [of Egypt] did exactly the same and was then toppled
and imprisoned."
It is the second time the Saudis have moved against Qatar. Two years ago, there was a break in
diplomatic relations, but they were eventually restored. This time, the principal allegation being
directed against Qatar by Riyadh is that it supports terrorism. The terrorist groups that it allegedly
embraces are Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's affiliation. Hezbollah and Hamas
are close to Iran which is perhaps the real reason for their being singled out as many would call
them resistance movements or even legitimate political parties rather than terrorists. And the Iran
connection is critical as Qatar has been under fire for allegedly saying nice things about trying
to respect and get along with Tehran, undoubtedly somewhat motivated by its joint exploitation with
Iran of a vast gas field in the Persian Gulf.
Qatar's ownership of al-Jazeera also has been a sore point with the Saudis and other
Gulf states as its reporting has often been critical of developments in the region, criticisms that
have often rankled the Saudi monarchy and the Egyptians. It has been accused of spreading propaganda
for "militant groups." One of the Saudi demands to permit Qatar to again become a "normal" Arab Gulf
state would be to close down the network.
The terrorism claims by the Saudis are, of course, hypocritical. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are
well known as sponsors of Salafist terrorism, including the funding and arming of groups like ISIS
and the various al-Qaeda franchises, to include al-Nusra. Much of the money admittedly comes from
private individuals and is often channeled through Islamic charities, but both Qatar and Saudi Arabia
have been extremely lax in their enforcement of anti-terror and money laundering regulations. In
a 2009 State Department memo signed off on by Hillary Clinton it was
stated
that "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist
groups worldwide." Qatar, meanwhile,
has been
described as a "permissive environment for terrorist financing."
The Saudis also have considerable blood on their hands by way of their genocidal assault on
neighboring Yemen. In addition, the Saudi Royal House has served as the principal propagator of Wahhabism,
the virulently fundamentalist version of Islam that provides a form of religious legitimacy to terror
while also motivating many young Muslims to join radical groups.
The falling out of two Gulf Arab regimes might be a matter of relatively little importance
but for the unnecessary intervention of President Donald Trump in the quarrel. He has taken
credit for the burgeoning conflict, implying that his recent visit to the region set the stage for
the ostracizing of Qatar. His twitter on the affair, posted on June 6 th , read ""So good
to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would
take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will
be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" And he again came down on Qatar on June
9 th during a press conference.
Trump's tweets might well be regarded as simply maladroit, driven by ignorance, but they could
also provide a glimpse of a broader agenda. While in the Middle East, Trump was bombarded with anti-Iranian
propaganda coming from both Israel and the Saudis. An escalation of hostilities with the intention
of starting an actual war involving the United States to take down Iran is not unimaginable, particularly
as the Israelis,
who have already endorsed the Saudi moves, have been arguing that option and lying about the
threat posed by Tehran for a number of years.
The societies try to be "secret," but their lies and crimes are
Emperor's New Clothes obvious for anyone caring to apply a high school level of education
to look:
The US is a
literal rogue state empire led by neocolonial looting liars. The history is uncontested and
taught to anyone taking comprehensive courses. If anyone has any refutations of this professional
academic factual claim for any of this
easy-to-read and documented content , please provide it. Rogue state empire is the
most accurate term to describe the US for the following reasons:
People around the world view the
US as the greatest threat to peace ; voted three times more dangerous than any other country.
The data confirm this conclusion:
The total deaths caused by rogue state empire for resource control (natural and human)
in the last 20 years is ~400 million , more than all total wars and violence in all recorded
Earth history .
orwell also did not actually say 'we should love those rough men in the night who slaughter for
us so we can sleep in 68 degree air conditioning bc the Saudi remain in power........'
And GC Scott's Patton's speech was a compilation.......
My copy of Barlett's does not list this Orwell quote and Fred's link pretty well dispells it from
being definitively an Orwell quote, although not absolutely.
It is possible that he did SAY IT to some group or other in England, rather than write it in
one of his books, essays, or articles and that is how it survives today with his attribution.
Such attribution is not unheard of for older English authors. Apparently they drank a lot in
pubs and clubs.
Keep in mind that even today the English don't 100% agree that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's
plays or poems, at least not without help from another.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"
"In a time/state of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" is a statement
often attributed to author George Orwell (1903-1950). The saying doesn't appear in his novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1948), his essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946), or any other of Orwell's
writings. The saying has been cited in print since at least 1984 (when it was attributed to George
Orwell).
A similar saying was used by author and presidential candidate Ron Paul in 2008-"Truth is treason
in the empire of lies."
"Organizations and oligarchies are self-reinforcing psychopath magnets."
PavewayIV's Magic Box of Death:
Put a few oligarchs in a box and set on floor. Soon, hundreds of 'little people' will be attracted
inside. Close box and shake vigorously. Torrents of dead 'little people' will pour out, but never
any oligarchs. Repeat as often as desired. It's magic!
You can't fix the media because its very raison d'etre is to subvert,
mislead and corrupt, to put the viewer and the nation inside a mental
labyrinth.
You see, in the US and the Western World, the Media is owned by
a cartel of Jewish people with a common agenda – they only talk about the
same events, with the same perspective. They change gears and news cycles in
unison, they command the discourse window.
Of course, Fox News is the opposite of CNN to the masses of disinformed,
but this is just a cordial accord between Owners to not eat each other's
audiences. Mainly a market strategy to not create cannibalization.
If the Media was supposed to be serious, "but currently is not and in
need of saving", instead of the truth of it never being anything close to
that, just a propaganda machine, then, in all those decades, and specially
now in the age of the internet, they should have been speaking about the
system of Debt Currency that ruins all nations, or how today in America we
have the biggest monopolies in the history of mankind, or how Immigration
from countries with non-European populations destroys social trust,
neighborhoods, cities, lower wages, overbudens public services, reintroduces
extinct diseases and many many more.
But they don't talk about any of that, and never will.
Forget about the media altogether, let it die and rot.
Empire of Lies is a 2008
thriller novel
written by Andrew
Klavan. The book takes its title from a quote by George Orwell often used by
Ron Paul, "Truth is treason in
an empire of lies." Masha Gessen is a part of US propaganda empire, and now trying to defend it
by all means. Demonstrating the level of sophisticaion I never suspected of her. I like the
term "aspirational hypocrisy", because now the USA neocon foreign policy and neocon's wars can be defined
as the "Wars of aspirational hypocrisy". But this is all I like in the article. It is useful as as sample
of sophisticated propaganda. That's it.
In any case this article is nice example of "deception as an art form" and this neoliberal Masha
proved to be a real artist in this art.
Notable quotes:
"... Everybody lies. But American politics has long rested on a shared understanding of what it is acceptable to lie about, how and to whom. ..."
"... One of the many norms that Donald J. Trump has assaulted since taking office is this tradition of aspirational hypocrisy, of striving, at least rhetorically, to act in accordance with moral values - to be better. ..."
"... Fascists the world over have gained popularity by calling forth the idea that the world is rotten to the core. In "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt described how fascism invites people to "throw off the mask of hypocrisy" and adopt the worldview that there is no right and wrong, only winners and losers. ..."
"... Hypocrisy can be aspirational: Political actors claim that they are motivated by ideals perhaps to a greater extent than they really are; shedding the mask of hypocrisy asserts that greed, vengeance and gratuitous cruelty aren't wrong, but are legitimate motivations for political behavior. ..."
"... In the last decade and a half, post-Communist autocrats like Vladimir V. Putin and Viktor Orban have adopted this cynical posture. They seem convinced that the entire world is driven solely by greed and hunger for power, and only the Western democracies continue to insist, hypocritically, that their politics are based on values and principles. ..."
"... when he was asked about his admiration for Mr. Putin, whom the host Bill O'Reilly called "a killer." "You got a lot of killers," responded Mr. Trump. "What, you think our country's so innocent?" ..."
"... To an American ear, Mr. Trump's statement was jarring - not because Americans believe their country to be "innocent" but because they have always relied on a sort of aspirational hypocrisy ..."
"... No American politician in living memory has advanced the idea that the entire world, including the United States, was rotten to the core. ... ..."
"... How do you like the NKVD libruls afraid of Trump bringing fascism who were running a gestapo (the FBI wiring tapping other country's Ministers) on US citizens of the opposing party? ..."
Everybody lies. But American politics has long rested on a shared understanding of what it
is acceptable to lie about, how and to whom.
One of the many norms that Donald J. Trump has assaulted since taking office is this tradition
of aspirational hypocrisy, of striving, at least rhetorically, to act in accordance with moral values
- to be better. This tradition has set the standard of behavior for government officials and
has shaped Americans' understanding of what their government and their country represent. Over the
last four weeks, Mr. Trump has lashed out against any criticism of his behavior, because, as he never
tires of pointing out, "We won."
In requesting the resignation of his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, however, Mr.
Trump made his first public concession to political expectations. Hypocrisy has scored a minor victory
in America. This is a good thing.
The word "hypocrisy" was thrown around a lot during the 2016 presidential campaign. Both Mr. Trump
and Bernie Sanders accused their respective parties and the country's elites of hypocrisy. As the
election neared, some journalists tried to turn the accusation around on Mr. Trump, taking him to
task, for example, for his stand on immigration. If Mr. Trump favored such a hard line on immigration,
the logic went, should he not then favor the deportation of his own wife, Melania, who was alleged
to have worked while in the United States on a visitor's visa?
The charge of hypocrisy didn't stick, not so much because it placed its proponents, unwittingly,
in the distasteful position of advocating the deportation of someone for a long-ago and common transgression,
but because Mr. Trump wasn't just breaking the rules of political conduct: He was destroying them.
He was openly claiming that he abused the system to benefit himself. If he didn't pay his taxes and
got away with it, this made him a good businessman. If he could force himself on women, that made
him more of a man. He acted as though this primitive logic were obvious and shared by all.
Fascists the world over have gained popularity by calling forth the idea that the world is
rotten to the core. In "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt described how fascism invites
people to "throw off the mask of hypocrisy" and adopt the worldview that there is no right and wrong,
only winners and losers.
Hypocrisy can be aspirational: Political actors claim that they are motivated by ideals perhaps
to a greater extent than they really are; shedding the mask of hypocrisy asserts that greed, vengeance
and gratuitous cruelty aren't wrong, but are legitimate motivations for political behavior.
In the last decade and a half, post-Communist autocrats like Vladimir V. Putin and Viktor
Orban have adopted this cynical posture. They seem convinced that the entire world is driven solely
by greed and hunger for power, and only the Western democracies continue to insist, hypocritically,
that their politics are based on values and principles.
This stance has breathed new life into the old Soviet propaganda tool of "whataboutism,"
the trick of turning any argument against the opponent. When accused of falsifying elections, Russians
retort that American elections are not unproblematic; when faced with accusations of corruption,
they claim that the entire world is corrupt.
This month, Mr. Trump employed the technique of whataboutism when he was asked about his admiration
for Mr. Putin, whom the host Bill O'Reilly called "a killer." "You got a lot of killers," responded
Mr. Trump. "What, you think our country's so innocent?"
To an American ear, Mr. Trump's statement was jarring - not because Americans believe their
country to be "innocent" but because they have always relied on a sort of aspirational hypocrisy
to understand the country. No American politician in living memory has advanced the idea
that the entire world, including the United States, was rotten to the core. ...
The faux librul side is all Joe McCarthy phony red scaring and surveillance of the opposition
activists sort of like what Army Intell did to hippies protesting the liberals' debacle in Southeast
Asia.
Deep state surveillance and trashing the Bill of Rights is a legacy of the past 8 years.
Flynn could have said something "inappropriate" by a Clintonista definition of "inappropriate",
and he "could" be prosecuted under a law designed to muzzle US citizens, that has never been tried
bc a Bill of rights argument would win!
How do you like the NKVD libruls afraid of Trump bringing fascism who were running a gestapo
(the FBI wiring tapping other country's Ministers) on US citizens of the opposing party?
If the fascists are coming they would keep Obama's FBI!
forces behind policy decisions within the government.
"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites
and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based
interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence" (Gilens
and Page, 2014, p.3).
This study illustrates the influence that trans-national corporations along with international financiers can have on a population
if they are given the conditions to flourish. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) epitomises the economic-corporate governance
that exists in most countries of the world today, with democratic political systems often corrupted by lobbying groups and special
interests. A self titled "independent, nonpartisan membership organisation, think tank and publisher", the CFR is a private organisation
which holds the real power in American politics. It has a membership which is made up from the top echelons of the political, academic,
media, corporate, and banking fields.
Hilary Clinton revealed the nature of her (along with the US State Department's) relationship with the CFR when she addressed
the council at their newly opened outpost in Washington D.C in 2009:
"I have been often to the mother ship in New York City, but it's good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street
from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won't have as far to go to be told what we
should be doing and how we should think about the future."
A look at the
corporate membership of the council reveals the level of power vested in such a small amount of hands, with approximately 200
of the most influential corporate players on the planet members of the council, including: Exxon Mobil Corporation, Goldman Sachs
Group Inc, BP plc, Barclays, Google Inc, Lockheed Martin, Deutsche Bank AG, Shell Oil Company and Soros Fund Management.
The CFR is part of a shadowy network of private organisations that stretches across the globe to influence policy of most nation
states. Professor Carroll Quigley was an insider at the CFR and knew "of the operations of this network because" he "studied it for
twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records" (Quigley, 1966, p. 950).
He wrote two books about the activities of the network, the first titled Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time published
in 1966, and the second was The Anglo-American Establishment published in 1981.
Neo-Gramscianism analyzes how the particular constellation of social forces, the
state and the dominant ideational configuration define and sustain world orders. In
this sense, the Neo-Gramscian approach breaks the decades-old stalemate between the
realist
schools of thought, and the
liberal
theories by historicizing the very theoretical foundations of the two streams as part
of a particular world order, and finding the interlocking relationship between
agency and structure
. Furthermore,
Karl
Polanyi
,
Karl
Marx
,
Max
Weber
,
Niccolò Machiavelli
,
Max
Horkheimer
,
Theodor Adorno
and
Michel Foucault
are cited as major sources within the
Critical theory
of International Relations.
[1]
York
University
professor emeritus,
Robert W.
Cox
's article "Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International
Relations Theory", in
Millennium
10 (1981) 2, and "Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations:
An Essay in Method", published in
Millennium
12 (1983) 2. In his 1981 article,
Cox demands a critical study of IR, as opposed to the usual "problem-solving"
theories, which do not interrogate the origin, nature and development of historical
structures, but accept for example that states and the (supposedly) "anarchic"
relationships between them as
Kantian
Dinge an sich
.
However, Cox disavows the label Neo-Gramscian despite the
fact that in a follow-up article, he showed how Gramsci's thought can be used to
analyze power structures within the GPE. Particularly Gramsci's concept of
hegemony
,
vastly different from the
realists'
conception of hegemony, appears fruitful. Gramsci's state theory, his
conception of "
historic blocs
" – dominant configurations of material
capabilities, ideologies and institutions as determining frames for individual and
collective action
– and of élites acting as "organic intellectuals" forging
historic blocs
, is also deemed useful.
The Neo-Gramscian approach has also been developed along somewhat different lines
by Cox's colleague,
Stephen Gill
, distinguished research professor of
political science
at
York
University
in
Toronto
. Gill contributed to showing how the elite
Trilateral Commission
acted as an "organic intellectual", forging the (currently
hegemonic) ideology of
neoliberalism
and the so-called "
Washington
Consensus
" and later in relation to the globalization of power and resistance in
his book "Power and Resistance in the New World Order" (Palgrave 2003). Gill also
partnered with fellow Canadian academic A. Claire Cutler to release a Neo-Gramscian
inspired volume entitled "New Constitutionalism and World Order" (Cambridge 2014).
The book brings together a selection of critical theorists and Neo-Gramscians to
analyze the disciplinary power of legal and constitutional innovations in the global
political economy. Co-editor A. Claire Cutler has been a pioneer scholar detailing a
Neo-Gramscian theory of
international law
.
[2]
Outside of North America, the so-called "Amsterdam School" around
Kees Van Der Pijl
and
Henk Overbeek
(at
VU University Amsterdam
) and individual researchers in
Germany
, notably
in
Düsseldorf
,
Kassel
and
Marburg
as well
as at the
Centre
for Global Political Economy
at the
University of Sussex
in the UK, and other parts of the world, have adopted the
neo-Gramscian critical method.
In the mainstream approaches to international or global political economy the
ontological
centrality of the state is not in question. In contrast, Neo-Gramscianism, using an
approach which Henk Overbeek, Professor of International Relations at the
VU University
, calls transnational
historical materialism
, "identifies state formation and interstate politics as
moments of the transnational dynamics of capital accumulation and class formation".
[3]
Neo-Gramscianism perceives state sovereignty as subjugated to a global economic
system marked by the emergence of a transnational financial system and a
corresponding transnational system of production. The major players in these systems,
multinational corporations and international financial institutions such as the
World Bank
and
IMF
,
have evolved into a "transnational historic bloc" that exercises global
hegemony
(in
contrast to the realist view of hegemony as the "predominant power of a state or a
group of states").
[4]
The historic bloc acquires its authority through the tacit consent of the governed
population gained through coercive techniques of intellectual and cultural
persuasion, largely absent violence. It links itself to other social groups that have
been involved in political struggles
[5]
to expand its influence and seeks to solidify its power through the standardization
and liberalization of national economies, creating a single regulatory regime (e.g.
World Trade Organization
).
There are powerful forces opposing the progress of this historic bloc who may form
counterhegemonies to challenge it as part of an open-ended class struggle. These
might include
neo-mercantilists
who depend on the protection of tariffs and state subsidies, or
alliances of
lesser developed countries
, or feminist and environmentalist movements in the
industrialized west.
[6]
If
a counterhegemony grows large enough it is able to subsume and replace the
historic bloc
it was born in. Neo-Gramscians use the Machiavellian terms
war
of position
and
war of movement
to explain how this is possible. In a war
of position a counterhegemonic movement attempts, through persuasion or propaganda,
to increase the number of people who share its view on the hegemonic order; in a war
of movement the counterhegemonic tendencies which have grown large enough overthrow,
violently or democratically, the current hegemony and establish themselves as a new
historic bloc.
[7]
[8]
"... TIME magazine has just published a cover story on the Russian takeover of America: Inside Russia's Social Media War on America . The cover image shows the White House turned into the Kremlin. I will list some of the key points below with quotes from the article: ..."
TIME magazine has just published a cover story on the Russian takeover of America: Inside
Russia's Social Media War on America . The cover image
shows the White House turned into the Kremlin. I will list some of the key points below with
quotes from the article:
1) Social media has become a danger to democracy.
The vast openness and anonymity of social media has cleared a dangerous new route for antidemocratic
forces. "Using these technologies, it is possible to undermine democratic government."
2) Democratic society must isolate itself from public opinion.
Russia may finally have gained the ability it long sought but never fully achieved in the Cold
War: to alter the course of events in the U.S. by manipulating public opinion.
3) Russia spies on you.
The Russians "target you and see what you like, what you click on, and see if you're sympathetic
or not sympathetic."
4) America is losing the cyberwar.
As Russia expands its cyberpropaganda efforts, the U.S. and its allies are only just beginning
to figure out how to fight back.
5) Russia has clever algorithms that America lacks.
American researchers have found they can use mathematical formulas to segment huge populations
into thousands of subgroups... Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence
them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as
bots, in hopes of altering their behavior.
6) Russia has huge troll farms.
Putin dispatched his newly installed head of military intelligence, Igor Sergun, to begin repurposing
cyberweapons previously used for psychological operations in war zones for use in electioneering.
Russian intelligence agencies funded "troll farms," botnet spamming operations and fake news
outlets as part of an expanding focus on psychological operations in cyberspace.
7) You must trust mainstream media.
Eager to appear more powerful than they are, the Russians would consider it a success if you
questioned the truth of your news sources, knowing that Moscow might be lurking in your Facebook
or Twitter feed.
8) Russia invaded Ukraine in April 2014 .
Putin was aiming his new weapons at the U.S. Following Moscow's April 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
9) Hillary Clinton did not murder Seth Rich.
That story went viral in late August, then took on a life of its own after Clinton fainted
from pneumonia and dehydration at a Sept. 11 event in New York City. Elsewhere people invented
stories saying Pope Francis had endorsed Trump and Clinton had murdered a DNC staffer.
10) The evidence:
Russia plays in every social media space. The intelligence officials have found that Moscow's
agents bought ads on Facebook to target specific populations with propaganda. "They buy the
ads, where it says sponsored by–they do that just as much as anybody else does," says the senior
intelligence official. (A Facebook official says the company has no evidence of that occurring.)
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, has
said he is looking into why, for example, four of the top five Google search results the day
the U.S. released a report on the 2016 operation were links to Russia's TV propaganda arm,
RT. (Google says it saw no meddling in this case.) Researchers at the University of
Southern California, meanwhile, found that nearly 20% of political tweets in 2016 between Sept.
16 and Oct. 21 were generated by bots of unknown origin; investigators are trying to figure
out how many were Russian.
Ailes was the Christopher Columbus of hate. When the former daytime TV executive and
political strategist looked across the American continent, he saw money laying around in
giant piles. He knew all that was needed to pick it up was a) the total abandonment of
any sense of decency or civic duty in the news business, and b) the factory-like
production of news stories that spoke to Americans' worst fantasies about each other.
Like many con artists, he
reflexively targeted the elderly
– "I created a TV network for people from 55 to
dead," he
told Joan Walsh
– where he saw billions could be made mining terrifying storylines
about the collapse of the simpler America such viewers remembered, correctly or (more
often) incorrectly, from their childhoods.
...Ailes launched Fox
in 1996 with a confused, often amateurish slate of dumb programs
cranked out by cut-rate and often very young staffers. The channel was initially most famous for
its overt shallowness ("More News in Less Time" was one of its early slogans) and its Monty
Python-style bloopers. But the main formula was always the political scare story, and Fox
quickly learned to mix traditional sensationalist tropes like tabloid crime reporting with
demonization of liberal villains like the Clintons.
...
Ailes
grew out of the entertainment world
– his first experience was in daytime variety TV
via
The Mike Douglas Show –
but he later advised a series of Republican
campaigns, from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush to Trump.
So when he created Fox,
he merged his expertise from those two worlds, mixing entertainment and political
stagecraft.
The effect was to politicize the media, a characteristic of banana republics
everywhere. When Ailes decided to cordon off Republican audiences and craft news
programming targeted specifically to them, he began the process of atomizing the entire
media landscape into political fiefdoms – Fox for the right, MSNBC for the left, etc.
...Ailes trained Americans to shop for the news as a commodity. Not just on the right but
across the political spectrum now, Americans have learned to view the news as a consumer product.
Moreover, Ailes built a financial empire waving images of the Clintons and the Obamas in
front of scared conservatives. It's no surprise that a range of media companies are now
raking in fortunes
waving images of Donald Trump in front of terrified Democrats.
It's not that Trump
isn't or shouldn't be frightening. But it's conspicuous that our media landscape is now
a perfect Ailes-ian dystopia, cleaved into camps of captive audiences geeked up on
terror and disgust. The more scared and hate-filled we are, the more advertising dollars
come pouring in, on both sides.
Here is part of an insightful comment by William Meyer in
which he made an important point about "great realignment" of
the "New Class" (aka "the USA nomenklatura") with capital
owners which happened in 70th.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals,
lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled
the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth
century this class was in some tension with corporations, and
used their skills at influencing government policy to help
develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the
working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of
corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I
think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education,
background and interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former
rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to
the right, since they really didn't particularly need the
working class politically anymore. And since it is the
hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money
while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle
class and blue collar community has been the natural
recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway),
neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc.,
etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the
Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this
evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not
included in this class are confused and bewildered and of
course rather angry about it. They also sense that organized
politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the
New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any
of this. Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions
during the GFC made them dimly realize that the New Class has
very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to
pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is
"fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as
the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal,
financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to
non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is
"liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has
bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as
having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still
controls almost all the levers of power. It has many
strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under
Trump we'll see those rolled out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an
insurgency against the New Class – but I think he tapped into
something like one and is riding it for all he can, while not
really having the slightest idea what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how
governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide
or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the
corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just
yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
"... Growing inequality partly reflects a racial wealth gap. Middle-class white Americans are more likely to live in neighborhoods with rising home values (and thus, family equity) while their middle-class black counterparts are more likely to rent, or live in neighborhoods with stagnant values. ..."
Growing inequality partly reflects a racial wealth gap. Middle-class white Americans are more
likely to live in neighborhoods with rising home values (and thus, family equity) while their middle-class
black counterparts are more likely to rent, or live in neighborhoods with stagnant values.
Hostile, sometimes fatal confrontations between police and African American youth might be rarer
if the poorest young people were not concentrated in neighborhoods lacking well-resourced schools,
good jobs and transportation to better opportunities. In integrated neighborhoods with substantial
middle class populations, police perform as public servants, not as an occupying force.
We've done little to desegregate neighborhoods, believing their racial homogeneity is "de facto",
tied to private prejudice, personal choices, realtor discrimination or income differences that make
middle-class suburbs unaffordable to most African Americans. Under our constitutional system, if
neighborhoods are segregated by private activity, we can do little about it.
Only if neighborhoods are segregated "de jure", by explicit government policy, is remedial action
permitted. Indeed, the constitution requires remedies for de jure segregation.
In truth, de facto segregation is largely a myth. As my new book, The Color of Law, recounts,
racially explicit government policy in the mid-twentieth century separated the races in every metropolitan
area, with effects that endure today.
The New Deal created our first civilian public housing, intended to provide lodging mostly for
lower-middle class white families during the Depression. The Roosevelt administration built a few
projects for black families as well, but almost always segregated. At the time, many urban neighborhoods
were integrated because workers of both races lived in walking distance of downtown factories. The
Public Works Administration (PWA) demolished many such integrated neighborhoods – deemed slums –
to build segregated housing instead, creating segregation where it had never before existed.
In his autobiography, The Big Sea, the poet and novelist Langston Hughes described going to high
school in an integrated Cleveland neighborhood where his best friend was Polish and he dated a Jewish
girl. The PWA cleared the area to build one project for whites and another for African Americans.
Previously integrated neighborhoods in Cambridge, Atlanta, St Louis, San Francisco and elsewhere
also gave way to segregated public housing, structuring patterns that persisted for generations.
During the second world war, white and black Americans flocked to jobs in defense plants, sometimes
in communities that had no tradition of segregated living. Yet the government built separate projects
for black and white citizens, determining future residential boundaries. Richmond, California, was
the nation's largest shipbuilding center. It had few African Americans before the war; by its end,
some 15,000 were housed in a federal ghetto along the railroad tracks.
By the mid-1950s, projects for white Americans had many unoccupied units while those for African
Americans had long waiting lists. The contrast became so conspicuous that all public housing was
opened to African Americans. As industry relocated to suburbs, jobs disappeared and public housing
residents became poorer. A program that originally addressed a middle-class housing shortage became
a way to warehouse the poor.
Why did white housing projects develop vacancies while black ones had long waiting lists? It largely
resulted from a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) program that guaranteed loans to builders of
suburban subdivisions, on the explicit condition that black families be excluded and that house deeds
prohibit resale to them. In the late 1940s, William Levitt could never independently have amassed
capital to construct 17,000 houses in what became Levittown, east of New York City. He could do so
only because the FHA relieved banks of risk in making development loans, provided homes were for
whites only.
Urban public housing, originally for middle-class white Americans and later for lower-income African
Americans, combined with FHA subsidized suburbanization of whites, created a "white noose" around
urban black families that persists to this day.
In 1968, the Fair Housing Act permitted African Americans to access previously white neighborhoods.
But it prohibited only future discrimination, without undoing the previous 35 years of government-imposed
segregation. In suburbs like Levittown that sprouted nationwide in the 1940s and 50s, houses sold
for about $100,000 (in today's currency), twice the national median income.
FHA-amortized mortgages were affordable for working-class families of either race, although only
whites were allowed. Today, these houses sell for $400,000, seven times national median income, unaffordable
to working-class families. Meanwhile, whites who suburbanized with federal protection gained $300,000
in equity to use for children's college tuition, care for aging parents, or medical emergencies.
Black families remaining as renters gained no such security.
Our belief in "de facto" segregation is paralyzing. If our racial separation stems from millions
of individual decisions, it is hard to imagine the millions of different choices that could undo
it. But if we remember that residential segregation results primarily from forceful and unconstitutional
government policy, we can begin to consider equally forceful public action to reverse it. Learning
this history is the first step we can take.
This idea of two segregated societies within one nation is pretty convincing.
Notable quotes:
"... A book released last March by MIT economist Peter Temin argues that the U.S. is increasingly becoming what economists call a dual economy; that is, where there are two economies in effect, and one of the populations lives in an economy that is prosperous and secure, and the other part of the population lives in an economy that resembles those of some third world countries. ..."
"... The middle class is shrinking in the United States and this is an effect of both the advance of technology and American policies ..."
"... In the United States, our policies have divided us into two groups. Above the median income - above the middle class - is what I call the FTE sector, Finance, Technology and Electronics sector - of people who are doing well, and whose incomes are rising as our national product is growing. The middle class and below are losing shares of income, and their incomes are shrinking as the Pew studies, both of them, show. ..."
"... The model shows that the FTE sector makes policy for itself, and really does not consider how well the low wage sector is doing. In fact, it wants to keep wages and earnings low in the low wage sector, to provide cheap labour for the industrial employment. ..."
"... As already described , the middle-class, which has not collapsed yet in France, still has the characteristics that fit to the neoliberal regime. However, it is obvious that this tank of voters has shrunk significantly, and the establishment is struggling to keep them inside the desirable 'status quo' with tricks like the supposedly 'fresh', apolitical image of Emmanuel Macron, the threat of Le Pen's 'evil' figure that comes from the Far-Right, or, the illusion that they have the right to participate equally to almost every economic activity. ..."
"... The media promotes examples of young businessmen who have succeed to survive economically through start-up companies, yet, they avoid to tell that it is totally unrealistic to expect from most of the Greek youth to become innovative entrepreneurs. So, this illusion is promoted by the media because technology is automating production and factories need less and less workers, even in the public sector, which, moreover, is violently forced towards privatization. ..."
"... In the middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the domination of the top. Corporate executives, big journalists, scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic that academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big corporations. Funding is directed increasingly to practical applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example, the higher automation of production and therefore, the profit increase through the restriction of jobs. ..."
The Pew Research Center, released a new study on the size of the middle class in the U.S.
and in ten European countries. The study found that the middle class shrank significantly in the
U.S. in the last two decades from 1991 to 2010. While it also shrank in several other Western European
countries, it shrank far more in the U.S. than anywhere else. Meanwhile, another study also released
last week, and published in the journal Science, shows that class mobility in the U.S. declined dramatically
in the 1980s, relative to the generation before that.
A book released last March by MIT economist Peter Temin argues that the U.S. is increasingly
becoming what economists call a dual economy; that is, where there are two economies in effect, and
one of the populations lives in an economy that is prosperous and secure, and the other part of the
population lives in an economy that resembles those of some third world countries.
MIT Economist Peter Temin spoke to Gregory Wilpert and the
The Real News network.
As Temin states, among other things:
The middle class is shrinking in the United States and this is an effect of both the advance
of technology and American policies . That is shown dramatically in the new study, because the
United States is compared with many European countries. In some of them, the middle class is expanding
in the last two decades, and in others it's decreasing. And while technology crosses national borders,
national policies affect things within the country.
In the United States, our policies have divided us into two groups. Above the median income
- above the middle class - is what I call the FTE sector, Finance, Technology and Electronics sector
- of people who are doing well, and whose incomes are rising as our national product is growing.
The middle class and below are losing shares of income, and their incomes are shrinking as the Pew
studies, both of them, show.
The model shows that the FTE sector makes policy for itself, and really does not consider
how well the low wage sector is doing. In fact, it wants to keep wages and earnings low in the low
wage sector, to provide cheap labour for the industrial employment.
This model is similar to that pursued in eurozone through the Greek experiment. Yet, the establishment's
decision centers still need the consent of the citizens to proceed. They got it in France with the
election of their man to do the job, Emmanuel Macron.
As already
described , the middle-class, which has not collapsed yet in France, still has
the characteristics that fit to the neoliberal regime. However, it is obvious that this tank of voters
has shrunk significantly, and the establishment is struggling to keep them inside the desirable 'status
quo' with tricks like the supposedly 'fresh', apolitical image of Emmanuel Macron, the threat of
Le Pen's 'evil' figure that comes from the Far-Right, or, the illusion that they have the right to
participate equally to almost every economic activity.
For example, even in Greece, where the middle class suffered an unprecedented reduction because
of Troika's (ECB, IMF, European Commission) policies, the last seven years, the propaganda of the
establishment attempts to make young people believe that they can equally participate in innovative
economic projects. The media promotes examples of young businessmen who have succeed to survive
economically through start-up companies, yet, they avoid to tell that it is totally unrealistic to
expect from most of the Greek youth to become innovative entrepreneurs. So, this illusion is promoted
by the media because technology is automating production and factories need less and less workers,
even in the public sector, which, moreover, is violently forced towards privatization.
As mentioned in
previous article , the target of the middle class extinction in the West is to
restrict the level of wages in developing economies and prevent current model to be expanded in those
countries. The global economic elite is aiming now to create a more simple model which will be consisted
basically of three main levels.
The 1% holding the biggest part of the global wealth, will lie, as always, at the top of the pyramid.
In the current phase, frequent and successive economic crises, not only assist on the destruction
of social state and uncontrolled massive privatizations, but also, on the elimination of the big
competitors.
In the middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the domination of
the top. Corporate executives, big journalists, scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic
that academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big corporations. Funding is directed
increasingly to practical applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example, the
higher automation of production and therefore, the profit increase through the restriction of jobs.
The base of the pyramid will be consisted by the majority of workers in global level, with restricted
wages, zero labor rights, and nearly zero opportunities for activities other than consumption.
This type of dual economy with the rapid extinction of middle class may bring dangerous instability
because of the vast vacuum created between the elites and the masses. That's why the experiment is
implemented in Greece, so that the new conditions to be tested. The last seven years, almost every
practice was tested: psychological warfare, uninterrupted propaganda, financial coups, permanent
threat for a sudden death of the economy, suppression measures, in order to keep the masses subservient,
accepting the new conditions.
The establishment exploits the fact that the younger generations have no collective memories of
big struggles. Their rights were taken for granted and now they accept that these must be taken away
for the sake of the investors who will come to create jobs. These generations were built and raised
according to the standards of the neoliberal regime 'Matrix'.
Yet, it is still not certain that people will accept this Dystopia so easily. The first signs
can be seen already as recently,
French workers seized factory and threatened to blow it up in protest over possible closure
. Macron may discover soon that it will be very difficult to find the right balance in
order to finish the job for the elites. And then, neither Brussels nor Berlin will be able to prevent
the oncoming chaos in Europe and the West.
But their elections have one critical thing in common: They both came out of NOWHERE to become
president, with characteristics that previously would have throttled their chances before they delivered
their first speech in Iowa.
There's no need to recount everything from Trump's florid life and campaign that sensible people
were sure disqualified him. But we've forgotten how the sensible people at first saw Obama in much
the same way, and for reasons that went far beyond him being African American. He'd been a senator
for just two years when he started running and would have to beat the entire party establishment.
His father was Muslim. He wasn't just not named Henry Smith, his middle name was Hussein.
He'd even used cocaine, and openly admitted it.
Yet both Obama and Trump vaulted over everyone and everything into the White House. Tens of millions
of Americans were willing to place their lives in the hands of political anomalies whose central
pitch was that they would deliver profound change. The rise of Bernie Sanders, who's proven that
you can become the most popular politician in the country without owning a comb, demonstrates the
same thing.
What does this mean?
I'd say it means that something has gone incredibly wrong with this country's political
system, that large numbers of us are desperate, and are willing to hand over power to absolutely
anyone. That's brings us to the peculiar reality that it's not just Obama and Trump's elections that
had something significant in common, it's likely their presidencies.
Obama
said American healthcare was in crisis and that "plans that tinker and halfway measures now belong
to yesterday." Obama was also
outraged
by pharmaceutical companies gouging Medicare.
According to Trump , "People all across the country are devastated" by the healthcare system,
but
if we put him in charge , "Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken
care of now." Trump was also
infuriated
by Big Pharma and just like Obama vowed to crush them.
Yet Obama delivered a halfway measure that tinkered with the problem, and never went after drug
manufacturers. Trump is now poised to give America literally the same thing.
Obama called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake" in 2008. In 2016 Trump said NAFTA had caused
"devastation" and was "the worst trade deal maybe ever signed." But Obama didn't renegotiate NAFTA.
Trump
just announced he's not going to pull out of it, and it seems clear the odds of any real renegotiation
are slim.
Obama
attacked
Wall Street, and
so did Trump. Both then stocked their administrations with bankers.
And Obama and Trump both ran against the Iraq War, and both of their constituencies understood
them to mean they would rethink our entire policy toward the Middle East. Both Obama and Trump then
faithfully continued the Afghanistan War, bombed Syria, and helped Saudi Arabia starve Yemen.
... ... ...
"Now that we have vanquished the Dhimmicrats and cuckservatives," Steve Bannon proclaimed, "we
shall -" and then tripped on his shoelaces and fell down 97 flights of stairs.
"... The true irony of today's late-stage efforts by Washington to monopolize
"truth" and attack alternate narratives isn't just in its blatant contempt for genuine
free speech. ..."
"... the entire "Freedom Manifesto" employed by the United States and Britain
since World War II was never free at all, but a concoction of the CIA's Psychological
Strategy Board 's (PSB) comprehensive psychological warfare program waged on friend
and foe alike. ..."
"... The CIA would come to view the entire program, beginning with the 1950
Berlin conference, to be a landmark in the Cold War, not just for solidifying the
CIA's control over the non-Communist left and the West's "free" intellectuals, but
for enabling the CIA to secretly disenfranchise Europeans and Americans from their
own political culture in such a way they would never really know it. ..."
"... The modern state is an engine of propaganda, alternately manufacturing
crises and claiming to be the only instrument that can effectively deal with them.
..."
"... PSB D-33/2 foretells of a "long-term intellectual movement, to: break down
world-wide doctrinaire thought patterns" while "creating confusion, doubt and loss
of confidence" in order to "weaken objectively the intellectual appeal of neutralism
and to predispose its adherents towards the spirit of the West." The goal was to
"predispose local elites to the philosophy held by the planners," while employing
local elites "would help to disguise the American origin of the effort so that it
appears to be a native development." ..."
"... Burnham's Machiavellian elitism lurks in every shadow of the document.
As recounted in Frances Stoner Saunder's "The Cultural Cold War," "Marshall also
took issue with the PSB's reliance on 'non-rational social theories' which emphasized
the role of an elite 'in the manner reminiscent of Pareto, Sorel, Mussolini and
so on.' ..."
"... With "The Machiavellians," Burnham had composed the manual that forged
the old Trotskyist left together with a right-wing Anglo/American elite. ..."
"... The political offspring of that volatile union would be called neoconservatism,
whose overt mission would be to roll back Russian/Soviet influence everywhere. Its
covert mission would be to reassert a British cultural dominance over the emerging
Anglo/American Empire and maintain it through propaganda. ..."
"... Rarely spoken of in the context of CIA-funded secret operations, the IRD
served as a covert anti-Communist propaganda unit from 1946 until 1977. According
to Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, authors of " Britain's Secret Propaganda War ,"
"the vast IRD enterprise had one sole aim: To spread its ceaseless propaganda output
(i.e. a mixture of outright lies and distorted facts) among top-ranking journalists
who worked for major agencies and magazines, including Reuters and the BBC, as well
as every other available channel. It worked abroad to discredit communist parties
in Western Europe which might gain a share of power by entirely democratic means,
and at home to discredit the British Left." ..."
"... The mandate of his Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC) set up in
1970 was to expose the supposed KGB campaign of worldwide subversion and put out
stories smearing anyone who questioned it as a dupe, a traitor or Communist spy.
Crozier regarded "The Machiavellians" as a major formative influence in his own
intellectual development, and wrote in 1976 "indeed it was this book above all others
that first taught me how [emphasis Crozier] to think about politics." ..."
"... Crozier was more than just a strategic thinker. Crozier was a high-level
covert political agent who put Burnham's talent for obfuscation and his Fourth International
experience to use to undermine détente and set the stage for rolling back the Soviet
Union. ..."
"... Crozier's cooperation with numerous "able and diligent Congressional staffers"
as well as "the remarkable General Vernon ('Dick') Walters, recently retired as
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence," cemented the rise of the neoconservatives.
When Carter caved in to the Team B and his neoconservative National Security Adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski's plot to lure the Soviets into their own Vietnam in Afghanistan,
it fulfilled Burnham's mission and delivered the world to the Machiavellians without
anyone being the wiser. ..."
"... As George Orwell wrote in his "Second Thoughts on James Burnham": "What
Burnham is mainly concerned to show [in The Machiavellians] is that a democratic
society has never existed and, so far as we can see, never will exist. Society is
of its nature oligarchical, and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force
and fraud. Power can sometimes be won and maintained without violence, but never
without fraud." ..."
Editor's note: This article is the last in a four-part series on Truthdig
called "Universal Empire" -- an examination of the current stage of the neocon
takeover of American policy that began after World War ll. Read
Part 1 ,
Part 2 and
Part 3 .
The recent
assertion by the Trump White House that Damascus and Moscow released "false
narratives" to mislead the world about the April 4 sarin gas attack in Khan
Shaykhun, Syria, is a dangerous next step in the "fake news" propaganda war
launched in the final days of the Obama administration. It is a step whose deep
roots in Communist Trotsky's Fourth International must be understood before
deciding whether American democracy can be reclaimed.
Muddying the waters of accountability in a way not seen since Sen. Joe McCarthy
at the height of the Red Scare in the 1950s, the "
Countering Disinformation
and Propaganda Act " signed into law without fanfare by Obama in December
2016 officially authorized a government censorship bureaucracy comparable only
to George Orwell's fictional Ministry of Truth in his novel "1984." Referred
to as " the Global Engagement
Center ," the official purpose of this new bureaucracy is to "recognize,
understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation
efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests." The
real purpose of
this Orwellian nightmare is to cook the books on anything that challenges
Washington's neoconservative pro-war narrative and to intimidate, harass or
jail anyone who tries. As has already been demonstrated by President Trump's
firing of Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian government airbase, it is a recipe for
a world war, and like it or not, that war has already begun.
This latest attack on Russia's supposed false narrative takes us right back
to 1953 and the beginnings of the cultural war between East and West. Its roots
are tied to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, to James Burnham's pivot from
Trotsky's Fourth International to right-wing conservatism and to the rise of
the neoconservative Machiavellians as a political force. As Burnham's "
The Struggle for the World " stressed, the Third World War had already begun
with the 1944 Communist-led Greek sailors' revolt.
In Burnham's Manichean thinking, the West was under siege. George Kennan's
Cold War policy of containment was no different than Neville Chamberlain's policy
of appeasement. Détente with the Soviet Union amounted to surrender. Peace was
only a disguise for war, and that war would be fought with politics, subversion,
terrorism and psychological warfare. Soviet influence had to be rolled back
wherever possible. That meant subverting the Soviet Union and its proxies and,
when necessary, subverting Western democracies as well.
The true irony of today's late-stage efforts by Washington to monopolize
"truth" and attack alternate narratives isn't just in its blatant contempt for
genuine free speech. The real irony is that the entire "Freedom Manifesto"
employed by the United States and Britain since World War II was never free
at all, but a concoction of the CIA's
Psychological Strategy Board 's (PSB) comprehensive psychological warfare
program waged on friend and foe alike.
The CIA would come to view the entire program, beginning with the 1950
Berlin conference, to be a landmark in the Cold War, not just for solidifying
the CIA's control over the non-Communist left and the West's "free" intellectuals,
but for enabling the CIA to secretly disenfranchise Europeans and Americans
from their own political culture in such a way they would never really know
it.
"The modern state is an engine of propaganda, alternately manufacturing
crises and claiming to be the only instrument that can effectively deal
with them. This propaganda, in order to be successful, demands the
cooperation of writers, teachers, and artists not as paid propagandists
or state-censored time-servers but as 'free' intellectuals capable of policing
their own jurisdictions and of enforcing acceptable standards of responsibility
within the various intellectual professions."
Key to turning these "free" intellectuals against their own interests was
the CIA's doctrinal program for Western cultural transformation contained in
the document
PSB D-33/2 . PSB D-33/2 foretells of a "long-term intellectual movement,
to: break down world-wide doctrinaire thought patterns" while "creating confusion,
doubt and loss of confidence" in order to "weaken objectively the intellectual
appeal of neutralism and to predispose its adherents towards the spirit of the
West." The goal was to "predispose local elites to the philosophy held by the
planners," while employing local elites "would help to disguise the American
origin of the effort so that it appears to be a native development."
While declaring itself as an antidote to Communist totalitarianism, one internal
critic of the program, PSB officer Charles Burton Marshall, viewed PSB D-33/2
itself as frighteningly totalitarian, interposing "a wide doctrinal system"
that "accepts uniformity as a substitute for diversity," embracing "all fields
of human thought -- all fields of intellectual interests, from anthropology
and artistic creations to sociology and scientific methodology." He concluded:
"That is just about as totalitarian as one can get."
Burnham's Machiavellian elitism lurks in every shadow of the document.
As recounted in Frances Stoner Saunder's "The Cultural Cold War," "Marshall
also took issue with the PSB's reliance on 'non-rational social theories' which
emphasized the role of an elite 'in the manner reminiscent of Pareto, Sorel,
Mussolini and so on.' Weren't these the models used by James Burnham in
his book the Machiavellians? Perhaps there was a copy usefully to hand when
PSB D-33/2 was being drafted. More likely, James Burnham himself was usefully
to hand."
Burnham was more than just at hand when it came to secretly implanting a
fascist philosophy of extreme elitism into America's Cold War orthodoxy.
With "The Machiavellians," Burnham had composed the manual that forged the old
Trotskyist left together with a right-wing Anglo/American elite.
The political offspring of that volatile union would be called neoconservatism,
whose overt mission would be to roll back Russian/Soviet influence everywhere.
Its covert mission would be to reassert a British cultural dominance over the
emerging Anglo/American Empire and maintain it through propaganda.
Hard at work on that task since 1946 was the secret Information Research
Department of the British and Commonwealth Foreign Office known as the IRD.
Rarely spoken of in the context of CIA-funded secret operations, the
IRD served as a covert anti-Communist propaganda unit from 1946 until 1977.
According to Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, authors of "
Britain's Secret Propaganda War ," "the vast IRD enterprise had one sole
aim: To spread its ceaseless propaganda output (i.e. a mixture of outright lies
and distorted facts) among top-ranking journalists who worked for major agencies
and magazines, including Reuters and the BBC, as well as every other available
channel. It worked abroad to discredit communist parties in Western Europe which
might gain a share of power by entirely democratic means, and at home to discredit
the British Left."
IRD was to become a self-fulfilling disinformation machine for the far-right
wing of the international intelligence elite, at once offering fabricated and
distorted information to "independent" news outlets and then using the laundered
story as "proof" of the false story's validity. One such front enterprise established
with CIA money was Forum World Features, operated at one time by Burnham acolyte
Brian Rossiter
Crozier . Described by Burnham's biographer Daniel Kelly as a "British political
analyst," in reality, the legendary Brian Crozier functioned for over 50 years
as one of Britain's top
propagandists and secret agents .
If anyone today is shocked by the biased, one-sided, xenophobic rush to judgment
alleging Russian influence over the 2016 presidential election, they need look
no further than to Brian Crozier's closet for the blueprints. As we were told
outright by an American military officer during the first war in Afghanistan
in 1982, the U.S. didn't need "proof the Soviets used poison gas" and they don't
need proof against Russia now. Crozier might best be described as a daydream
believer, a dangerous imperialist who
acts out his dreams with open eyes. From the beginning of the Cold War until
his death in 2012, Crozier and his protégé
Robert Moss propagandized on behalf of military dictators Francisco Franco
and Augusto Pinochet, organized private intelligence organizations to destabilize
governments in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa and worked to
delegitimize politicians in Europe and Britain viewed as insufficiently anti-Communist.
The mandate of his Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC) set up in
1970 was to expose the supposed KGB campaign of worldwide subversion and put
out stories smearing anyone who questioned it as a dupe, a traitor or Communist
spy. Crozier regarded "The Machiavellians" as a major formative influence in
his own intellectual development, and wrote in 1976 "indeed it was this book
above all others that first taught me how [emphasis Crozier] to think
about politics." The key to Crozier's thinking was Burnham's distinction
between the "formal" meaning of political speech and the "real," a concept which
was, of course, grasped only by elites. In a 1976 article, Crozier marveled
at how Burnham's understanding of politics had spanned 600 years and how the
use of "the formal" to conceal "the real" was no different today than when used
by Dante Alighieri's "presumably enlightened Medieval mind." "The point is as
valid now as it was in ancient times and in the Florentine Middle Ages, or in
1943. Overwhelmingly, political writers and speakers still use Dante's method.
Depending on the degree of obfuscation required (either by circumstances or
the person's character), the divorce between formal and real meaning is more
of less absolute."
But Crozier was more than just a strategic thinker. Crozier was a high-level
covert political agent who put Burnham's talent for obfuscation and his
Fourth International experience to use to undermine détente and set the stage
for rolling back the Soviet Union.
In a secret meeting at a City of London bank in February 1977, he even patented
a private-sector operational intelligence organization known at the Sixth International
(6I) to pick up where Burnham left off: politicizing and privatizing many of
the dirty tricks the CIA and other intelligence services could no longer be
caught doing. As he explained in his memoir "Free Agent," the name 6I was chosen
"because the Fourth International split. The Fourth International was the Trotskyist
one, and when it split, this meant that, on paper, there were five Internationals.
In the numbers game, we would constitute the Sixth International, or '6I.' "
Crozier's cooperation with numerous "able and diligent Congressional staffers"
as well as "the remarkable General Vernon ('Dick') Walters, recently retired
as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence," cemented the rise of the neoconservatives.
When Carter caved in to the Team B and his neoconservative National Security
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski's plot to lure the Soviets into their own Vietnam
in Afghanistan, it fulfilled Burnham's mission and delivered the world to the
Machiavellians without anyone being the wiser.
As George Orwell wrote
in his "Second Thoughts on James Burnham": "What Burnham is mainly concerned
to show [in The Machiavellians] is that a democratic society has never existed
and, so far as we can see, never will exist. Society is of its nature oligarchical,
and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force and fraud. Power can
sometimes be won and maintained without violence, but never without fraud."
Today, Burnham's use of Dante's political treatise "De Monarchia" to explain
his medieval understanding of politics might best be swapped for Dante's "Divine
Comedy," a paranoid comedy of errors in which the door to Hell swings open to
one and all, including the elites regardless of their status. Or as they say
in Hell, " Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate ." Abandon hope all
ye who enter here.
This poart 4 of the series. For previous parts see
The ruling class is seriously rattled over its loss of control over the national political narrative-a
consequence of capitalism's terminal decay and U.S. imperialism's slipping grip on global hegemony.
When the Lords of Capital get rattled, their servants in the political class are tasked with rearranging
the picture and reframing the national conversation. In other words, Papa Imperialism needs a new
set of lies, or renewed respect for the old ones. Former president Barack Obama, the cool operator
who put the U.S. back on the multiple wars track after a forced lull in the wake of George Bush's
defeat in Iraq, has eagerly accepted his new assignment as Esteemed Guardian of Official Lies.
At this stage of his career, Obama must dedicate much of his time to the maintenance of Official
Lies, since they are central to his own "legacy." With the frenzied assistance of his first secretary
of state, Hillary Clinton, Obama launched a massive military offensive-a rush job to put the New
American Century back on schedule. Pivoting to all corners of the planet, and with the general aim
of isolating and intimidating Russia and China, the salient feature of Obama's offensive was the
naked deployment of Islamic jihadists as foot soldiers of U.S. imperialism in Libya and Syria. It
is a strategy that is morally and politically indefensible-unspeakable!-the truth of which would
shatter the prevailing order in the imperial heartland, itself.
Thus, from 2011 to when he left the White House for a Tahiti yachting vacation with music mogul
David Geffen and assorted movie and media celebrities, Obama orchestrated what the late Saddam Hussein
would have called "The Mother of All Lies": that the U.S. was not locked in an alliance with al-Qaida
and its terrorist offshoots in Syria, a relationship begun almost 40 years earlier in Afghanistan.
Advertisement Square, Site wide He had all the help he needed from a compliant corporate media, whose
loyalty to U.S. foreign policy can always be counted on in times of war. Since the U.S. is constantly
in a (self-proclaimed) state of war, corporate media collaboration is guaranteed. Outside the U.S.
and European corporate media bubble, the whole world was aware that al-Qaida and the U.S. were comrades
in arms. (According to a 2015 poll, 82 percent of Syrians and 85 percent of Iraqis believe the
U.S. created ISIS .) When Vladimir Putin told a session of the United Nations General Assembly
that satellites showed lines of ISIS tankers stretching from captured Syrian oil fields "to the horizon,"
bound for U.S.-allied Turkey, yet untouched by American bombers, the Obama administration had no
retort. Russian jets
destroyed 1,000 of the tankers , forcing the Americans to mount their own, smaller raids. But,
the moment soon passed into the corporate media's amnesia hole-another fact that must be shed in
order to avoid unspeakable conclusions.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump's flirtation with the idea of ending U.S. "regime change"
policy in Syria-and, thereby, scuttling the alliance with Islamic jihadists-struck panic in the ruling
class and in the imperial political structures that are called the Deep State, which includes the
corporate media. When Trump won the general election, the imperial political class went into meltdown,
blaming "The Russians"-first, for warlord Hillary Clinton's loss, and soon later for everything under
the sun. The latest lie is that Moscow is sending weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the country
where the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan spent billions of dollars to create the international jihadist
network. Which shows that imperialists have no sense of irony, or shame. (See BAR: "
The U.S., Not
Russia, Arms Jihadists Worldwide .")
After the election, lame duck President Obama was so consumed by the need to expunge all narratives
that ran counter to "The Russians Did It," he twice yammered about "
fake news " at a press conference in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama was upset,
he said, "Because in an age where there's so much active misinformation and its packaged very well
and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television. If everything
seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect."
Although now an ex-president, it is still Obama's job to protect the ruling class, and the Empire,
and his role in maintaining the Empire: his legacy. To do that, one must control the narrative-the
subject uppermost in his mind when he used Chicago area students as props, this week, for
his first public speech since leaving the
White House.
"It used to be that everybody kind of had the same information," said Obama, at the University
of Chicago affair. "We had different opinions about it, but there was a common base line of facts.
The internet has in some ways accelerated this sense of people having entirely separate conversations,
and this generation is getting its information through its phones. That you really don't have to
confront people who have different opinions or have a different experience or a different outlook."
Obama continued:
"If you're liberal, you're on MSNBC, or conservative, you're on Fox News. You're reading The Wall
Street Journal or you're reading The New York Times, or whatever your choices are. Or, maybe you're
just looking at cat videos [laughter].
"So, one question I have for all of you is, How do you guys get your information about the news
and what's happening out there, and are there ways in which you think we could do a better job of
creating a common conversation now that you've got 600 cable stations and you've got all these different
news opinions-and, if there are two sets of opinions, then they're just yelling at each other, so
you don't get a sense that there's an actual conversation going on. And the internet is worse. It's
become more polarized."
Obama's core concern is that there should be a "common base line of facts," which he claims used
to exist "20 or 30 years ago." The internet, unregulated and cheaply accessed, is the villain, and
the main source of "fake news" (from publications like BAR and the 12 other leftwing sites smeared
by the Washington Post, back in November, not long after Obama complained to Merkel about "fake news").
However, Obama tries to dress up his anti-internet "fake news" whine with a phony pitch for diversity
of opinions. Is he suggesting that MSNBC viewers also watch Fox News, and that New York Times readers
also peruse the Wall Street Journal? Is he saying that most people read a variety of daily newspapers
"back in the day"? It is true that, generations ago, there were far more newspapers available to
read, reflecting a somewhat wider ideological range of views. But most people read the ones that
were closest to their own politics, just as now. Obama is playing his usual game of diversion. Non-corporate
news is his target: "...the internet is worse. It's become more and more polarized."
The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and Fox News all share the "common base line of
facts" that Obama cherishes. By this, he means a common narrative, with American "exceptionalism"
and intrinsic goodness at the center, capitalism and democracy as synonymous, and unity in opposition
to the "common" enemy: Soviet Russians; then terrorists; now non-Soviet Russians, again.
Ayanna Watkins, a senior at Chicago's Kenwood Academy High School, clearly understood Obama's
emphasis, and eagerly agreed with his thrust. "When it comes to getting information about what's
going on in the world, it's way faster on social media than it is on newscasts," she said.
"But, on the other hand, it can be a downfall because, what if you're passing the wrong information,
or the information isn't presented the way it should be? So, that causes a clash in our generation,
and I think it should go back to the old school. I mean, phones, social media should be eliminated,"
Ms. Watkins blurted out, provoking laughter from the audience and causing the 18-year-old to "rephrase
myself."
What she really meant, she said, was that politicians should "go out to the community" so that
"the community will feel more welcome."
If she was trying to agree with Obama, Ms. Watkins had it right the first time: political counter-narratives
on the internet have to go, so that Americans can share a "common base line" of information. All
of it lies.
Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].
"... As Mr. Hudson explained in the piece, the operatives of what Gore Vidal called the Property Party, (which has two right wings,) co-opted each successive movement. Lower middle class and working class people had the Koch brothers funded Tea Party pushed on them. The DNC sponsored "identity groups" quickly sucked all originality out of the various specious "identities" so represented. On the war front, the Pentagon imposed "embedment" upon journalists. In each case, the viewpoints of the "average" person so involved were restricted to vistas guaranteed to promote the "sponsored" agenda. Thus, the present assault upon "alternative" media makes sense from a status quo perspective. It is all about control of the dialogue. ..."
"... Perez only got 235 votes; Sanders' candidate Ellison got 200. The Democratic Party establishment did not "ignore" Sanders by running Perez. They were semi-desperately trying to block him (and his cohort) from advancing on a low rung on the ladder to power. ..."
"... Wikileaks made it plain what the Democrats do to mavericks who win races without a party bit in their mouths. The corruption is institutional, it is their operatives' identity. ..."
"... The "masses of people who have dropped out of the workforce" are old, overweight, have multiple physical deficits and are hooked on at least 2 types of prescription dope. They will not be manning your nostalgia-draped barricades. Not ever. ..."
"... I agree with Hudson's critique of FIRE and the problem of debt in our society. But it is not easy to explain to the general public - which would not recognize the acronym. ..."
"... "Also, while I agree Dems are dominated by Blue Dogs who want to use Wall Street money to run Repub lite candidates in purple states, and that their appeal to identity politics is manipulative and a way to deflect from economic issues," ..."
"... " it does not logically follow that voters do not often think of themselves and their goals in terms of racism or religion or guns. Their are cultural "us v them" identities that have a powerful effect on politics." ..."
"... "We can beat them if we find common sense solutions to our problems and articulate those ideas to our neighbors. We need energy and hard work, but it is not clear that a third party is needed." ..."
"... I also agree that there is no solution, certainly not an evolutionary solution via EITHER of the two parties. ..."
"... The big changes in the USA occurred during the Great Depression as financial reform was introduced, the idea of government infrastructure could provide employment and what I believe is little mentioned, an increased awareness on the part of many that their success was not achieved solely by their own efforts. ..."
"... Many of the USA's post war corporate executives should have remembered that their families struggled during the thirties, and this may have made them more connected with their employees and communities. ..."
"... People are not sheep. We've been psyop'd senseless. "Public relations" began around the turn of the 20th century. It was ramped up by orders of magnitude after WWII. ..."
"... Gore Vidal quotes JFK as saying to him, we've entered an era in which "it is the *appearance of things that matters" ..."
"... Psychology and other social sciences have been weaponized and turned against us. With a facile understanding of the human mind (as if it were nothing but a mere mechanism), immense effort has gone into controlling the inputs in order to control the outputs (behavior). ..."
"... Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S. government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that – over the past three decades – have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent at home. ..."
"... Today, "public opinion" is a Frankenstein's monster. Most of my fellow Americans believe in a world that never existed and doesn't exist right now. We can't even agree on what happened to JFK, or MLK, or what happened on 9/11/01. ..."
"... Contra UF, it's not that people are incapable of rational thought; rather, the information we have is hopelessly corrupted. People are acting rationally, but the numerators and denominators have been faked. On purpose. Or did the Russians really do it? ..."
"... It's far more simpler. Charter schools are about following the money. Public schools have seemingly huge revenue streams. Why can't GE get a cut is the thought process? For profit Healthcare was forbidden until 1973 (thanks to Teddy), why not public schools? ..."
"... The HMO Act of 1973 (thanks Teddy and Tricky Dick; bipartisanship at its finest) made it easier to start and run HMOs which faced regulatory hurdles mostly due to financing. Non profits had an easier time of it hence Hospitals named "St X" or "X General." Since the hospital were non profits and employers made deals with the hospitals, health insurance was effectively non-profit. There were gaps, mostly in rural areas. Other changes from the HMO Act of 1973 encouraged profit seeking from denial of coverage to pushing unnecessary procedures or prescriptions. ..."
"... The US Left has been controlled opposition since 1950. There was never a chance it could provide a reasonable and effective alternative. FBI/CIA moles make sure they never will. The Democrats have never been true Left FDR didn't really betray his class, he saved them from their own stupidity. ..."
"... "As Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere quipped in the 1960s, when he was accused by the US of running a one-party state, 'The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them'." ..."
"... The identity politics of today lack in solidarity, too. What with Hillary Clinton running the most ageist campaign in memory, Obama breaking the record on deportations, Bill Clinton blowing racist dogwhistles as hard he can and also helping to shepherd a police state that puts Thailand to shame, and the whole of the Democratic Party stoking Russophobia and neoconservative. ..."
"... The diagnosis is mostly correct. But omits the role class bigotry and affluenza with attendant celebrity culture and pursuit of prestige plays. Thus the prognosis and protocol go astray. ..."
"... The wealthy and the politicians don't care about you/us. They care about maintaining any fiction that allows them to keep acquiring. Trump is not the problem; Mercer"s values are The Problem. Trump is the PERFECT reality TV/celebrity fantasy creature to keep the twisted Mercer chariot's wheels turning. ..."
"... Bernie was NOT The Answer. Putting on a mask of concern does not take away the sorrows of empire. As long as the blatant US militarism and imperialism continues we cannot unite the working class. Everything it needs to flourish continues - mass incarceration, join the military or stay in the ghetto, graft and corruption of military/industrial/media complex, no respect for other cultures being swarmed, consumerism. ..."
"... The jobs plan: more prison guards, border agents, munitions makers, soldiers, cops, various bodyguards for the rich and the other useful mandarins to the affluenza-stricken is set in stone. ..."
"... Michael Hudson makes great points but I am still wrestling with his (and others) push back against so-called identity politics as it pertains to this perception of it splintering or at least limiting the Democratic party. The Dems are most certainly a party committed to the ideals of neoliberalism and corporatism. They did not lose this election based on "Russian hacking/emails" and other trite nonsense. ..."
"... The Obama part of maintaining the looting of society status quo. ..."
"... The point about Trump being the US Yeltsin is one very much worth considering, if only because Russia, after much degradation and also suffering, has managed to begin to overcome those shameful and depressing times. May we do so also. ..."
"... Excellent piece. Americans have forgotten that the things they took for granted (40 hour week, humane working conditions, employer provided benefits etc.) were gained by the blood, sweat and tears of their forebears. ..."
"... The Clintons, the Obamas, the Blairs, possibly the Macrons, the Ruttes, even the Merkels of this world are wolves in sheep's clothing. They have come to represent, for increasing numbers, little better than managed decline in apparently safe hands, conducted in plain sight, in the ever narrower interests of the few. ..."
"... Regarding the subject line of the article. I'd say that the Democratic Party has been the "paid loyal opposition" for quite a while. . . meaning they are paid to loose. Given the party's ties to Wall Street and Big Pharma it's pretty clear they mostly work for the same folks that own "mainstream" Republicans so their apparent fecklessness and inability to mount ANY sort of effective opposition, even when they are in the majority, shouldn't be any surprise. ..."
As long as the people of America had a reasonable expectation of gaining a better life, or,
the next best thing, that their children would gain that better life, the Social Contract remained
strong. Aspiration was both a spur to striving within the existing system, and a palliative for
most discontents encountered. Where the status quo did not offer any real hope, the Civil Rights
for minorities being an example, more "robust" methods were necessary, and were employed. What
else is civil disobedience but counter violence against the State? Naturally, the State ramps
up it's 'violence' in an attempt to quash the disaffected masses.
In this struggle, optics and expectations are crucial. As Gil Scott-Heron famously invoked;
"The revolution will not be televised." Paradoxically, by ensuring the wide dissemination of images
of the nascent "Revolution," activists ensured that whatever came out of the Days of Rage would
not be a true revolution. The newsreels of colored people bravely enduring police oppression in
the American South guaranteed that that particular issue would not be dumped down Orwell's "Memory
Hole." Television footage of young American men fighting and dying in Vietnam spurred the families
of those who could even potentially be drafted to go overseas to die for their country to take
to the streets and vote against the war and the warmongers. Gay rights is generally considered
to have begun to take form and substance after the "Stonewall Riots" in New York in 1969. See:
https://www.socialistalternative.org/stonewall-riots-1969/
By "going postal," the New York gays declared loud and proud that the old way of doing business
was no longer acceptable to them.
As Mr. Hudson explained in the piece, the operatives of what Gore Vidal called the Property
Party, (which has two right wings,) co-opted each successive movement. Lower middle class and
working class people had the Koch brothers funded Tea Party pushed on them. The DNC sponsored
"identity groups" quickly sucked all originality out of the various specious "identities" so represented.
On the war front, the Pentagon imposed "embedment" upon journalists. In each case, the viewpoints
of the "average" person so involved were restricted to vistas guaranteed to promote the "sponsored"
agenda. Thus, the present assault upon "alternative" media makes sense from a status quo perspective.
It is all about control of the dialogue.
The main strength of the old style identity politics is it's ability to focus the energies
of participants toward a particular goal. To that end, the concept of the "United Front" is useful.
You watch my back, I'll show up at your demonstration is the operative concept. Thus, the development
and widespread dissemination of images of a uniting "struggle" are needed. All of this is actually
self evident. What is needed are "leaders" ready to stand up and shout it out over the rooftops.
When Paul Revere made his famous ride, he was actually stopped by British troops before he
could reach either Concord or Lexington, Massachusetts. A companion, a Dr. Prescott made the actual
warnings to the American rebels. Revere and Prescott were members of an extensive Patriot organization.
A Doctor and an Artisan, two usually distinct social classes at the time were collaborating towards
a common goal. A "United Front" made the American Revolution. See:
http://www.biography.com/news/paul-reveres-ride-facts
Today's struggle can proceed no differently.
A Doctor and an Artisan, two usually distinct social classes at the time were collaborating
towards a common goal
"We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." A bit
of wisdom from the mind of Ben Franklin in the early days of the revolution.
Let us remember, when a college student asked Rep. Nancy Pelosi whether the party might move
toward a more socialistic economic system, she answered, "
We're capitalists. That's
just the way it is. ", and went on to support a return to noblesse oblige, completely failing
to grasp the contradiction between modern neoliberal theology (maximizing shareholder return/profits)
and such niceties as paying a living wage. We the left have a problem we need to attack head-on
– our semantics have been demonized. Socialism is widely disparaged as subordinating individual
will to the state – as tyranny – and the MSM often portrays economic downturns in social democracies
(Venezuela, Argentina) as caused by foolish socialist policies, not broadscale economic issues
(oil glut), or financial stupidity of prior governments (Argentina). I applaud Senator Sanders
for continuing to use the moniker "social democrat" as he has done much to legitimize the word.
We need more. Ich bin ein social democrat.
Oh yes, and I remember wondering when I first read about that "interaction," just what did
Pelosi really mean by Capitalist? As someone else here remarked, she might have been confusing
capitalist with corporatist in her mind.
seeking to impose a doctrine in all circumstances without regard to practical considerations:
1. 'Nancy Pelosi asked whether the party might move toward a more socialistic economic system,
she answered, "We're capitalists. That's just the way it is."
ambrit: Excellent comment. What I would add, though, is that all three of the movements that
you cite had equality as a main goal: Black people wanted equality in civil rights and civil liberties.
The antiwar movement drew strength from the draft, which affected people of all classes (men most
directly) and led to various unequal uses of deferments that are causes of political problems
to this very day. Gay folk also wanted civil rights and civil liberties (although marriage equality
may not be the proper culmination–identity politics gone divergent).
A while back, I read Norberto Bobbio's influential little book, Right and Left. He states that
the main motivators of leftist politics are liberty, equality, and fraternité (let's call it solidarity).
And he points out that leftists usually place equality first. So to animate a new movement, we
have to get back to issues of political and economic equality. The metaphor of The One Percent
is a hint. That hint has to be expanded.
Good point. The American Revolt had it's "Committees of Correspondence." They operated outside
of the MSM of the day. The Civil Rights movement early on had the black churches as sanctuaries
and disseminators of the message. The anti-war movement had both the Underground press and, unwittingly,
later, the MSM of the day proclaiming the problem. In general, each information spreading system
used was not a part of the "Official Version" apparatus.
The point about equality is important. The unmentioned basis of Capitalism is competition.
Competition implies inequality as the outcome. This is not true aspiration, but aspiration's evil
twin, ambition. So, the Left's real uphill slog is going to be to frame the debate about social
policy in an anti-competitive form.
Bashing the .01% is always good fun, but, as many have remarked, and the recent failed Democrat
Party campaigns have demonstrated, a positive goal is needed to really motivate and engage those
of us "on the ground." As earlier remarked, a "Single Payer" healthcare campaign, framed as an
"equality" measure would do the trick. There are doubtless many other issues that would lend themselves
to a similar treatment. Meld these issues into a "Progressive United Front" campaign and we will
begin to see some movement.
In essence, as the earlier socialist and communist thinkers proclaimed, the ownership of the
means of production are a good place to start. Given the unequal distribution of such ownership
however, the next best thing would be the control of the distribution of the fruits of production;
especially germaine with the rise of automation.
I also see the dream ahead of him, beckoning, beguiling, beatifying despite the false realities
around him.
Something to believe in will generally trump something to be fearful of, in the hearts of men.
IMO there's not a practical electoral solution, in the sense of electing a bunch of candidates
at multiple levels of government to unwind or replace all the laws, regulations/lack of regulations,
court decisions, and algorithms that misgovern our lives and misappropriate our wealth.
Building on your comment ambrit@5:29 and Ulysses@8:38:
A – No more than 3 universal issues (Medicare for All; publicly funded tuition for post-secondary
education, training, and apprenticeships; end the wars, for example). Medicare for All is part
of the discussion now and should have a prominent place.
B – Activism continues, as it must and will, in other areas: issues of survival (police violence,
incarceration, homelessness and hunger; minimum wage ); support for activism across issues (Food
not Bombs, ACLU and NLG, Light Brigades, local jail and bail support ); and forward-looking activism
(local sustainable food and energy solutions, workplace and community coops ).
C – Electoral politics that functions as the political arm of the movement for "A" and locally
appropriate subsets of "B" issues. In practical term, this may need to be an insurgency in the
Dem ranks, or more organized Greens, plus coordination with other "third" parties that have a
presence and ballot access in some places.
Then we work on ambrit's:
"You watch my back, I'll show up at your demonstration"
Adding: "We recruit candidates who understand your issues and have policy proposals to address
them, you show up to vote".
I can't find much on the Light Brigades. Who are they?
And my issues at the universal level would be health care for all (with minimal fees and premiums),
free education for all, an end to the endless wars, and, if I may have a fourth, expansion of
Social Security with some big raises to recipients to give people a base income that they can
retire on (or safely go into disability retirement). The money is there for all of these, but
the political will consists of the likes of Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi.
Yes: You watch my back, and I'll watch your back. But "back" is defined broadly–we are all
in this together.
Good Comment. What bothers me is there is a lot of conversation about all our issues and proposed
solutions, but I see no actions taking place. There are no leaders on the national level, other
than Senator Sanders. We need a Socialist Huey Long with a big horn and perhaps a little action
like, Act Up" to get things moving. There is going to be a revolt sooner or later. It will get
to a point where ordinary people, especially our young, who will not take it anymore.
Love Hudson, but no one is right about everything.
He accepts as an article of faith that it would be easier to start a new party than win primaries
in Dem party. Not clear at all.
Also, while I agree Dems are dominated by Blue Dogs who want to use Wall Street money to run
Repub lite candidates in purple states, and that their appeal to identity politics is manipulative
and a way to deflect from economic issues, it does not logically follow that voters do not often
think of themselves and their goals in terms of racism or religion or guns. Their are cultural
"us v them" identities that have a powerful effect on politics.
I agree with Hudson's critique of FIRE and the problem of debt in our society. But it is not
easy to explain to the general public - which would not recognize the acronym. And what exactly
is the Hudson platform to address debt or FIRE now? I understand the argument (as I understand
it) that 2009 was an opportunity to use bankruptcy of Wall Street to break up economic olarchy
and write down debt for homeowners. I agree. I am angry and frustrated by the lost opportunity.
I also understand the sly reference to having to wait for the next crisis to get another chance.
Why do we have to wait? This is Hudson's concession that there is no general understanding of
the debt problem or support for Willy-Nilly support for dismantling Wall Street or existing debt
relationships.
I am convinced by Hudson that rising housing prices are a scam for loading debt on people and
raising the burden of a rentier class. But most people who own houses are excited when you tell
them housing prices are going up. What exactly should be our political message.
Some districts have strong evangelical communities and find abortion to be the top issue year
in andvyear out. Some evangelicals stuck with Trump in the hope of a Supreme Court that will outlaw
abortion. How to Dems or a new Hudson party win in those districts?
Politics is a fluid business. Forget coalition building (extremely tough), even finding a message
for one voter (who may be of 2 or 3. Or 4 minds about the world, and change views daily, is tough.
In my view, a Progressive majority must be put together piece by piece, place by place, from
the ground up. Bernie articulated a place to start. The Schumer crowd own the Dems now, but it
is a fragile hold. We can beat them if we find common sense solutions to our problems and articulate
those ideas to our neighbors. We need energy and hard work, but it is not clear that a third party
is needed.
Because we have a political system–from the Fed to the Congress to the media–that is designed
to keep current arrangements in place. Public complacency has allowed this to happen and now only
another systemic breakdown is likely to force change on an entrenched elite and confused electorate.
One might hope that the Democratic party would be the necessary force for reform but it's surely
clear by now that its leadership intends to go down with the ship. Time for the rest of us to
pile into the lifeboats (a third party). And even if one believes there is hope for the Dems,
it's unlikely they will change without some serious threat to their power and that would be a
viable third party. For much of the country's history there were lots of third parties and splinter
movements which is what one would expect from such a diverse population. The duopoly is a very
artificial arrangement.
Sanders should never have taken this third party threat off the table and it is why the Dem
leadership doesn't take him seriously. It's also a reason for some of the rest of us to question
his seriousness. "Don't want to be the Nader" isn't the sort of call to arms that has one putting
up the Che posters.
Did Bernie have a big impact? The mainstream media mostly ignore him and the Dems go out of
their way to ignore him by running Perez. And didn't the Bernie endorsed primary challengers in
the last cycle do poorly?
You will only get the elites' attention by threatening their power, not their message. Obviously
establishing a viable third party is extremely difficult which is why I agree with Hudson that
it will take the next crisis to change things. Incrementalism has been shown not to work.
Perez only got 235 votes; Sanders' candidate Ellison got 200. The Democratic Party establishment
did not "ignore" Sanders by running Perez. They were semi-desperately trying to block him (and
his cohort) from advancing on a low rung on the ladder to power.
Primary challenges across the nation, in every city council and state assembly race. Again
and again. Then on to the governorships and federal offices. This is the swiftest, least expensive
and least damaging way to power for Sanders partisan. We could take over the party in under ten
years if this tactic were widely deployed.
Wikileaks made it plain what the Democrats do to mavericks who win races without a party bit
in their mouths. The corruption is institutional, it is their operatives' identity. A successful
third party will be very difficult to achieve, but is perhaps possible. A useful Democratic party
is not possible until every careerist is unemployed–ie until their employers run out of money.
That can't come about, as long as there are empowered Democrats and Republicans.
Primary challenges across the nation, in every city council and state assembly race. Again
and again. Then on to the governorships and federal offices. This is the swiftest, least expensive
and least damaging way to power for Sanders partisan. We could take over the party in under
ten years if this tactic were widely deployed.
I agree with this statement.
And it's happening: various groups (Our Revolution, Brand New Congress, Justice Democrats,
and probably others) are planning primary challengers in just that way. And it's already happened
at the
local and district level in California. It's a different political environment than even just
a few years ago and it will be even still more different when some (or, let's hope, many)
of these candidates start winning.
The real problem is corporatism. The power to make decisions on public policy has been transferred
from democratic government to corporations, run by oligarchs. Both political parties in the US
are committed to this political arrangement. The thin veneer of democracy is used to check public
dissatisfaction. In short order, even this facade will be deemed unnecessary and discarded. This
consolidation of power was enabled by masking class consciousness. Worker aspirations mirror their
corporate masters. Life consists of maximizing personal wealth in the form of money and possessions.
Mass media provides the conduit to achieve this conditioning.
Trying to rebuild the Democratic party form within is a waste of energy and time that most
citizens don't have. If anything, the existing political establishment has perfected the techniques
and tools needed to make dissent impotent. This is largely accomplished by perpetuating the myth
that change can occur by working within the existing system, and then undermining effective policy
that would focus on worker interests. The chumps get scraps.
In the end, oligarchy is the cost that must be paid for our modern life of convenience and
endless entertainment. Moving forward must be about rejection. Rejection of the current social
and cultural order. A new party, a true workers party, is needed to restore equilibrium to the
existing power imbalance. The mass of people who have dropped out of the workforce and electoral
system are waiting for leadership to offer a better vision for the future. This vision is not
forthcoming because the human imagination must turn outside the existing failed norms and seek
new horizons removed from capitalist ideology. Political power follows or grows naturally from
a social order, not the other way around. Imposed social orders are always unstable and need violence
to maintain. A way of life determines the political possibilities. This is why those wanting change
must always work outside the existing system, both mentally and physically.
Just as crony capitalist ideology turned the notion of individual freedom on its head to justify
the greatest inequality known to human societies, the remedy centers on the rejection of exploitive
violence. It is based on preservation, regeneration, and a spiritual awareness that one must give
back to the world and not only take from it. To my mind, coalitions built on these principles
stretch across all social groups. Spending time, money, and energy building these networks and
infrastructure will be productive and longer lasting. Strikes, boycotts, and dropping out of the
existing system sends a much more powerful message to the oligarchs. They will respond with violence,
but then their true nature is open for all to see, making it easier for others to reject their
ideology.
Capitalism was born of Feudalism. Individual rights superseding the rights of Kings. Nothing
lasts forever. A post- capitalist world must be first envisioned and then articulated. Capitalism
maintained the inequality and hierarchical use of violence of the previous system. This relationship
forms most of the underlying root causes of intractable problems faced today. Egalitarianism provides
a way and an alternative. Socialist ideas can be suppressed but never eradicated. Human social
evolution points in this direction. Slavery will never return. The human spirt will not allow
it.
What a cavalier and condescending dismissal. With an arrogant wave of the hand, history goes
*poof*. And though you "agree" (how generous of you!) )with some of the symptoms Hudson identifies,
you categorically deny what he identifies as the root systemic cause of those ills. Instead, a
little modest, cautious, sensible, "piece by piece", "place by place" reform around the edges,
and everything will work out just fine in its own time, because abortion.
You are an exemplary and model Democrat, and Exhibit A why left politics will never emerge
from within the Democrat Party.
although it may be an uphill climb now, striking and unionizing still sounds infinitely less
pie in the sky and far more brass tacks and addressing some of the actual problems, than creating
a 3rd party in the U.S.. If that is one's solution they have no right to criticize anyone on their
proposals not being practical. At least striking has some history of actually working.
It is the participation in our own destruction that I am trying to express and get my head
around. Engagement by all means, but somehow the rules need to be changed.
The amount of time, energy, and resources needed to engage in effective politics today is prohibitive
to most citizens. What Hudson is saying is that the two party system in America is broken and
the only way forward is to start anew. I would tend to agree. In my lifetime, the Democratic party
has been reforming for close to 40 years now. That is a long time to be ineffectual concerning
worker's interests. The long dissent of the American workforce is reaching critical mass and some
radical thinking and action is needed.
The left needs to develop some productive alternatives, which again Hudson points out. An egalitarian
alternative needs to be articulated. Candidates running for office as socialists, espousing actual
socialist ideals. Win or loose, speaking in public about socialist ideals can only help. Government
sponsorship of small business and cooperatives over monopolistic corporations. Actually running
and building sustainable communities. As was stated in comments, Sanders raised upwards of 240
million dollars during the last campaign. What is there to show for all that effort and resource
depletion?
An actual show of distain for the elite ruling class for their crass barbarism and masked cruelty
is a start. Followed by actually building something of lasting value.
The "masses of people who have dropped out of the workforce" are old, overweight, have multiple
physical deficits and are hooked on at least 2 types of prescription dope. They will not be manning
your nostalgia-draped barricades. Not ever.
alrighty, everyone who can't get a job is overweight and a drug addict and unhealthy etc..
Get real. Old sometimes has something to do with it, just because companies do age discriminate
in hiring.
I agree with Hudson's critique of FIRE and the problem of debt in our society. But it is
not easy to explain to the general public - which would not recognize the acronym.
People are not a miniscule fraction as stupid as you think they are, and I will posit that this
is one of, if not the main problem with democrat loyalists such as yourself.
first you say this
"Also, while I agree Dems are dominated by Blue Dogs who want to use Wall Street money to
run Repub lite candidates in purple states, and that their appeal to identity politics is manipulative
and a way to deflect from economic issues,"
shorter, I realize democrats don't represent you, and that's too bad but you have no other option
and PH doesn't want you to have another option.
followed by
" it does not logically follow that voters do not often think of themselves and their goals
in terms of racism or religion or guns. Their are cultural "us v them" identities that have a
powerful effect on politics."
Is this unmoored jab at rural identity not a double negative that can be rephrased "it logically
follows that voters think of themselves in terms of racism or religion or guns"? and isn't that
just another way of saying people are stupid and you are not because you can hide your class and
race bias behind a double negative, and people being stupider than you will never know it because
clever, but clever ain't working anymore, and isn't likely to start working any time soon.
You
close with a call for incrementalism yeah that's worked really great for all of us in the hoi
polloi, and you don't fail to mention abortion, the only democrat platform, and schumer et al's
"fragile grip" is in reality an "iron law of institutions" grip and they and you are not going
to let go.
"We can beat them if we find common sense solutions to our problems and articulate those ideas
to our neighbors. We need energy and hard work, but it is not clear that a third party is needed."
so who is this "we" kemo sabe? I am in the veal pen. Come into the veal pen with me. We will be
in the veal pen thanks but no thanks. I've had plenty of common sense discussions with my neighbors,
and it's depressing as we all know none of those sensible policies will be enacted by the useless
to the common citizen and enabler to the criminals on wall street democrat party, rotten to it's
core.
Федеральное агентство по управлению государственным имуществом (Росимущество) was what created
Oligarchs under Yeltsin. It was headed by Chubais who helped make Khordorovsky and the rest of
the Oligarchs incredibly rich. He then headed the 1996 Re-Election Campaign for Unpopular Yeltsin
and bought victory and sold off State assets for nugatory worth.
Khordorovsky was to deliver Yukos to Exxon and let US interests control Russia's natural resources.
Berezhovsky needed a "roof" – he had Chechens protecting his outside interests but once Yeltsin's
liver gave out the KGB Siloviki would put The Family on trial so he found Putin as a Lieut-Col.
with a background in St Petersburg where Chubais had been active for Sobchak also. Putin was the
"roof" to keep the KGB from executing the looters for treason.
Like a new Tsar with Boyars, Putin had to find which were his "Oligarchs" and Berezhovsky turned
his assets over to Abramovich who is Putin's man. Chubais now sits on CFR and JP Morgan Board
for his good works.
Trump won on the slogan Make America Great. I live in upstate NY which is strong republican.
These people thought the slogan meant great for them. That coupled with a bitter hate of Clinton
made it easy for Trump to get their vote. A sad thing is that these voters are very uninformed
and depend on what they know from corporate media especially FOX news. None of them know what
Neoliberal means and that the root of their problems lie with neoliberal policies.
When I tell
them that Obama and Cuomo aren't really democrats but moderate republicans they think I'm out
of my mind. I tend to look at thing objectively based on verifiable facts.Most of these voters
look at issues in an emotional way. They will say Obamacare is bad and need to be repealed. When
you ask them how it's bad the best they can come up with is it forces you to buy insurance and
you can't keep your own doctor. I guess what I'm saying is that the average voter is too lazy
to get informed and relies on the political propaganda fed to them.
At 75 years old I don't see
that the immediate future will change much. The only hope I see is in the young of our country.
Unless someone or a movement can educate them about the evils that are destroying their future,
democracy is dead. Because of how the economy is structured the economic future for most of the
population is grim. They will not be able to afford to retire and will live in poverty. Perhaps
this will wake them up. Unfortunately it will be too late for them.
At best we can work at the margin on the handful of people that are capable of rational thought.
Which is why nothing ever changes, appeals to emotion are always more potent than appeals to reason.
There is no solution.
I also agree that there is no solution, certainly not an evolutionary solution via EITHER of
the two parties.
The big changes in the USA occurred during the Great Depression as financial reform was introduced,
the idea of government infrastructure could provide employment and what I believe is little mentioned,
an increased awareness on the part of many that their success was not achieved solely by their
own efforts.
Many of the USA's post war corporate executives should have remembered that their families
struggled during the thirties, and this may have made them more connected with their employees
and communities.
Now we have a government of the internally connected top 10%, with the bottom 90% detached
and watching from outside.
And CEO's and the executive class have loyalty only to their company's stock price.
The recent rehabilitation of serial screw-up George W. Bush and attempted elevation of serial
screw-up Hillary Clinton is direct evidence that the political class does not care how much harm
they do to the "deplorable" voters they appeal to every 2/4/6 years.
With the money sloshing around DC and the media control of content, how does one replace the
leadership of both parties with more progressive people in any reasonable time frame?
Per Mark Blyth, Global Trump_vs_deep_state is the current response, but what will this morph into after
Global Trump_vs_deep_state hangover manifests?.
I think although it may seem that only a small percent of the population is capable of rational
thought I think this is actually not the case and its more productive (and optomistic) to think
of this issue in terms of a behaviour rather than a fixed capability, like how some ancient Greek
philosophers thought about moral behaviour or how some modern phychologists think about psychopathy.
Almost everyone is capable of rational thought (or moral or psychopathitic behaviour) but its
how often or more precisly in what situations an individual decides to engage in or deploy rational
thought.
Capable of rational thought really doesn't do much good for all the things one has no exposure
to. Ok in this case they may have little real understanding of say leftists ideas. And I really
think they don't. That may not be the case for the political junkies here for political ideas,
but we all have our areas of things (not politics) we may have a similar stupidity about.
Sorry, but I think that's way too disrespectful of other people and not realistic. All, save
those with extreme mental disabilities, are capable of some degree of rational thought. That doesn't
mean they can be quickly or easily convinced, but they will be more amenable to persuasion if
you approach them as equals and open your mind to their reality in order to find the right terms
with which to present your ideas. Bernie has shown himself to be very good at that, as are all
good teachers. Those who insist on framing everything in their own terms without adapting their
communication to another's experience will always get blank stares.
Dehumanizing ("people are sheep") and dismissing our neighbors as incapable of rational (good?)
thinking will get us nowhere. Like I've said, the propaganda is working when we're dividing and
conquering ourselves. That horrid little word often seen in this context, "sheeple," is just another
word for "deplorables."
People are not sheep. We've been psyop'd senseless. "Public relations" began around the turn
of the 20th century. It was ramped up by orders of magnitude after WWII.
Gore Vidal quotes JFK
as saying to him, we've entered an era in which "it is the *appearance of things that matters"
(emphasis original in the TRNN video,
The National Security State with Gore Vidal ). Psychology and other social sciences have been
weaponized and turned against us. With a facile understanding of the human mind (as if it were
nothing but a mere mechanism), immense effort has gone into controlling the inputs in order to
control the outputs (behavior).
Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S.
government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that – over the
past three decades – have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries
and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent
at home.
Today, "public opinion" is a Frankenstein's monster. Most of my fellow Americans believe in
a world that never existed and doesn't exist right now. We can't even agree on what happened to
JFK, or MLK, or what happened on 9/11/01.
Contra UF, it's not that people are incapable of rational thought; rather, the information
we have is hopelessly corrupted. People are acting rationally, but the numerators and denominators
have been faked. On purpose. Or did the Russians really do it?
Once again, TPTB thought they had found a magic method of machining people into permanent compliance.
But they neglected the fact that relying on psyops drives people crazy. You just can't keep rejecting
real reality and substituting a manufactured Narrative (looking at you, NYT) forever.
ISTM we're acting without sufficient contact with reality. The effort to control the population,
the better to exploit us, has driven many of us mad. Neglecting the century or so of effort that's
gone into manufacturing consent leads to blaming the victims.
Propagandists and PSYOPeratives have put out the people's eyes, and you berate them for their
blindness?
While I would absolutely agree with everything you've just said and believe the facts you've
cited are the main reason for the bleak outlook for our species, how the myriad of lies fed to
the population is received is a more complex process than just plain deception. People are incredibly
complex and operate on a number of levels simultaneously. For instance the notion that universal
health care or a strong union would be personally beneficial, or that the banking system is corrupt
and that all the wars since 1945 have been unnecessary must be known to anyone with functioning
eyes and ears on a relatively conscious level, but the majority have chosen to effectively overlook
this reality I believe for reasons that ultimately feed in to human predispositions for conformity.
It's ironic that our evolutionary highly successful nature of collectivism is now working against
us as a species and leading to a destructive subservience that is almost sadomasochistic. If the
population were to be unequivocally presented with reality I doubt many would tolerate the state
we have now but conversely this would mean that the elite in our society had sanctioned truthfulness,
so we would not really be going against the wishes of the powerful. Basically the fact that the
powerful in our society have presented us with lies means lies are what they want us to believe,
so dutifully most will oblige, however obviously at odds with reality those lies are.
Why such an overwhelming percent of the population do not vote in their own economic interest
is because political affiliations seem to be a complex expression of self-identity, something
which includes attitudes, social prejudices and 'beliefs' that are dependent on complex emotional
interactions between internal and external events, and can include for instance a desire for status
within your tribe, family loyalty, even sadistic impulses. I;m probably wrong about most of this
but part of me cant help feeling some of the victims share a little of the blame
>> For instance the notion that universal health care or a strong union would be personally
beneficial, or that the banking system is corrupt and that all the wars since 1945 have been unnecessary
must be known to anyone with functioning eyes and ears on a relatively conscious level, but the
majority have chosen to effectively overlook this reality I believe for reasons that ultimately
feed in to human predispositions for conformity.
You're projecting your knowledge and views, and then blaming people who don't see things your
way. A majority supports single payer, yes, but the rest is wishful thinking.
If you read Zinn's A People's History of the US, you'll see that even WWII was a manufactured
war. I'm willing to bet a majority still thinks we were attacked out of the blue on Pearl Harbor
Day, despite FDR's plan to provoke Japan. Or that incinerating Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended the
war and saved tens of thousands of US lives. There was an almost perfectly complete news blackout
on the aftermath specifically so that opposition to the bombings couldn't form. There are endless
examples like this.
We're not told what we need to know to govern ourselves. What we are told amounts to propaganda,
sometimes explicitly so.
Yes, a lot of people have drunk the koolaid, some with gusto. Who's pouring it? You can blame
the victims all you like. I blame the people who've deliberately set out to deceive us.
What our deluded brothers and sisters need is our compassion. It's hard to have compassion
for someone trying to run you over for exercising your rights (been there, done that), but no
one ever said it would be easy.
The only hope I see is in the young of our country.
I think Trump, the Repubs and most of the Dems see that too. That's why they've promoted DeVos,
Arnie Duncan, and all the other advocates of "charter schools," strangled public education, and
attacked teachers.
The problem with this approach is that all this does is kill off liberal cosmopolitanism, not
Marxism. Marxism doesn't need a widespread secondarily-educated population to spread. And it definitely
does not need liberal cosmopolitanism as a stepping stone; quite the opposite, really. Just in
the US, when the wobblies and Black Panthers started turning red, how many of their rank and file
went to college or even finished high school?
Considering that the elites are using liberal cosmopolitanism to strangle Marxism (class-only
Marxists want to throw women and nonwhites under the bus to get their single-payer and you, the
woke liberal identitarian, must support capitalism to protect the marginalized), this strategy
is not only pointless but it's also self-defeating.
It's far more simpler. Charter schools are about following the money. Public schools have seemingly
huge revenue streams. Why can't GE get a cut is the thought process? For profit Healthcare was
forbidden until 1973 (thanks to Teddy), why not public schools?
The HMO Act of 1973 (thanks Teddy and Tricky Dick; bipartisanship at its finest) made it easier
to start and run HMOs which faced regulatory hurdles mostly due to financing. Non profits had
an easier time of it hence Hospitals named "St X" or "X General." Since the
hospital were non
profits and employers made deals with the hospitals, health insurance was effectively non-profit.
There were gaps, mostly in rural areas. Other changes from the HMO Act of 1973 encouraged profit seeking
from denial of coverage to pushing unnecessary procedures or prescriptions.
There is a noticeable correlation between this act and the explosion of Healthcare costs.
The Miller Center had a series on Nixon expressing doubts to the Kaiser about HMOs. The arguments
played out just like charter schools today.
I recall hearing the tape of a conversation among Nixon and his aides regarding HMOs. The audio,
like most of the Johnson & Nixon tapes, was poor, but what did come through was Nixon's support
for Kaiser's business model, summed up by Erlichman as, "the less care they give them, the more
money they make."
The US Left has been controlled opposition since 1950. There was never a chance it could provide
a reasonable and effective alternative. FBI/CIA moles make sure they never will. The Democrats
have never been true Left FDR didn't really betray his class, he saved them from their own stupidity.
"As Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere quipped in the 1960s, when he was accused by the US
of running a one-party state, 'The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American
extravagance, they have two of them'."
I seem to recall that the identity politics of yore were lacking in solidarity. The antiwar protestors, some of whom were hippies, were beaten up by working class union members.
Remember the hard hat riots? And the African American leadership of the Civil Rights era? Well, they were from the black
churches, and they thought that the hippies were uncouth.
The identity politics of today lack in solidarity, too. What with Hillary Clinton running the
most ageist campaign in memory, Obama breaking the record on deportations, Bill Clinton blowing
racist dogwhistles as hard he can and also helping to shepherd a police state that puts Thailand
to shame, and the whole of the Democratic Party stoking Russophobia and neoconservative.
A cynic might say that liberal identity politics (as opposed to post-Frankfurt/Focault Marxist
identity politics) was intentionally designed to do these things both in the 60-70s and now.
I don't see how antiwar protestors qualify as identity politics, since the group is defined
by a policy concern, not by some quasi-biological tag. Same with working class union members;
policy and economic interests, not tags.
I'd say the same about the African American leadership of the Civil Rights era, even though
they did generally share the tag of being "black". They focused on a policy goal and welcomed
those who didn't share the tag to participate in the struggle.
Identity politics are not the same thing as left-wing or progressive or liberal (or whatever
you want to call it) politics. In very real sense, Identity politics are a form of anti-politics
since they don't address interests, policy or allow any form of accommodation or reconciliation
of different points of view.
Identity politics is about tags. Non-identity politics is about interests and policies.
But the focus is on the policy issues. The campaign for gay marriage was about getting gay
marriage, not about being gay. And anyone who supported gay marriage was a part of that campaign
- gay, straight, black, white, male, female; all the tags. It may have started with those who
were gay, but it wasn't exclusive to the tag.
By contrast, Hillary's campaign was just about the tags. Not doing anything for those with
the tags, or changing any policies, no matter how they affected various tags, or even addressing
any issues that are important to one or more of the tags, just acknowledging the tags and verbally
supporting pride in them. That's why even a bunch of people possessing the tags didn't support
her: there was nothing there for them, or, indeed, anyone else outside the financial and imperial
elite.
Abernathy and King were from black churches. The rest of the leadership came from the street
or universities. King's lament about the "white moderate" was code for the "black church." Ministers
were glorified house slaves and liked the big houses. Jim Crow worked for black ministers. If
better of blacks moved to white neighborhoods and more importantly white churches, who would put
money in the collection plate?
With the exception of Jackson when he showed up (he was young), those young black men who were
always around King were Communists and atheists. They didn't broadcast it for obvious reasons,
but a guy like Malcolm X was skeptical of King for real reasons.
Jackson was important because he forced the black churches to get with the program. If there
was a minister successor to King, the congregants might ask questions about their own ministers.
The black church hated hippies, but the real civil rights leadership didn't.
The diagnosis is mostly correct. But omits the role class bigotry and affluenza with attendant
celebrity culture and pursuit of prestige plays. Thus the prognosis and protocol go astray.
The wealthy and the politicians don't care about you/us. They care about maintaining any fiction
that allows them to keep acquiring. Trump is not the problem; Mercer"s values are The Problem.
Trump is the PERFECT reality TV/celebrity fantasy creature to keep the twisted Mercer chariot's
wheels turning.
Bernie was NOT The Answer. Putting on a mask of concern does not take away the sorrows of empire.
As long as the blatant US militarism and imperialism continues we cannot unite the working class.
Everything it needs to flourish continues - mass incarceration, join the military or stay in the
ghetto, graft and corruption of military/industrial/media complex, no respect for other cultures
being swarmed, consumerism.
Bernie picked up Occupy"s talking points (good plagarist!) but left the hurdle of recognizing
plutocracy the same as Occupy did. Plutocracy is democratic as well it just usnt!
What is there to show for 200 million in donations to overcome the Third Way? A new minuet
with the crushing DemocRATic "party".
The war has come home. First step is to admit it. Consistency in VALUES is the left"s primary
directive. There needs to be funerals for both parties not more illusion.
The tax break "fight" will be hilarious. Another example of how our rulers cannot solve a single
problem .
The jobs plan: more prison guards, border agents, munitions makers, soldiers, cops, various
bodyguards for the rich and the other useful mandarins to the affluenza-stricken is set in stone.
You cannot heal a chronic disease without seeing the entirety of its degenerative properties.
We're fighting a nasty virus.
Bernie did not plagiarize Occupy. He had been saying the same things in Vermont for 25 years,
but saying them in ways that lots of very various people connected with.
20 years ago, Bernie lawn signs used to be run over by irate people who knew he was a no-good
dirty Socialist. But because he has consistently framed issues in terms of ordinary people's lives
and because he has always been absolutely honest and forthright, most of those people who flattened
the signs now like and respect him and vote for him. They also pay attention to issues that only
no-good dirty Socialists do in most other states.
"a revived protection of labor's right to unionize"
Do this and everything else will follow - don't do this and nothing will ever follow.
"It seems that only a new party can achieve these aims."
Don't depend on right or left parties. Depend on yourselves: rebuild American union density
(6% unions in private economy analogous to 20/10 BP - starves every other healthy process). Both
parties will come begging to your door.
Here's how to "do this":
[snip]
80 years ago Congress forgot to put criminal enforcement in the NLRA(a). Had union busting been
a felony all along we would be like Germany today. Maybe at some point our progressives might
note that collective bargaining is the T-Rex in the room - or the missing T-Rex .
The money is there for $20 jobs. 49 years - and half the per capita income ago - the fed min
wage was $11. Since then the bottom 45% went from 20% overall income share to 10% - while the
top 1% went from 10% to 20%.
How to get it - how to get collective bargaining set up? States can make union busting a felony
without worrying about so-called federal preemption:
+ a state law sanctioning wholesalers, for instance, using market power to block small retail
establishments from combining their bargaining power could be the same one that makes union busting
a felony - overlap like min wage laws - especially since on crim penalties the fed has left nothing
to overlap since 1935;
+ First Amendment right to collectively bargain cannot be forced by the fed down (the current)
impassable road. Double ditto for FedEx employees who have to hurdle the whole-nation-at-once
certification election barrier;
+ for contrast, examples of state infringement on federal preemption might be a state finding
of union busting leading to a mandate for an election under the fed setup - or any state certification
setup for labor already covered by NLRA(a) or RLA(a). (Okay for excluded farm workers.)
[snip]
Michael Hudson makes great points but I am still wrestling with his (and others) push back
against so-called identity politics as it pertains to this perception of it splintering or at
least limiting the Democratic party. The Dems are most certainly a party committed to the ideals
of neoliberalism and corporatism. They did not lose this election based on "Russian hacking/emails"
and other trite nonsense.
Nor did they lose it by appealing to so-called identity politics or
tribalism. If the Left is going to move forward effectively it can't pretend we are merely having
class and by extension economic arguments. Race is the thru line and has consistently been since
the countries inception. Many things cited i.e. the New Deal, pro-Union policy, etc are standard
bearers on the Left but have also been rife with racist treatment of potential Black and Latino
allies. Why would that be ignored if we are only having conversations of class? Class does not
explain redlining which has economic and social implications.
These are complex issues, but they are not as class focused (solely) as many on the Left would
like to believe. Our failure to speak honestly and openly about it and critique capitalism and
its most malevolent (and seductive form neoliberalism) as being tied to the practice and idea
of white supremacy is why we ultimately will find it more and more challenging to wage a successful
countermovement against it.
Wow. Ok, so since racial bias was written into past economic policy that was intended to address
class issues, addressing class based inequality should just be abandoned?
How about just demanding policy that addresses class based inequality simply be written without
the racial bias? Why is this so difficult to get into the minds of liberals? This is not that
hard.
The refusal to recognize is a nice idea. I've often thought of late that Democrats, or at least
the Left, should refuse to recognize Trump's horrible cabinet appointments, even if the delegitimizing
effect is minimal. Just referring to these people at citizen or whatever rather than secretary
would be some small repudiation, at least.
There's a very long and comprehensive
musing on politics and public dialog at slatestarcodex. My takeaway: if your dialog is weaponized,
if you consider your mission to be "How do I force these people to admit that I'm right?" then
you'll keep seeing the same results we see now.
Been saying #TrumpIsObamaLegacy since early morning in November. Yves was WAAAAY ahead of the curve back in late 08 calling that out.
The Obama part of maintaining the looting of society status quo.
The point about Trump being the US Yeltsin is one very much worth considering, if only because
Russia, after much degradation and also suffering, has managed to begin to overcome those shameful
and depressing times. May we do so also.
Great summary, forwarding to friends.
As commented above, progressive candidates that Bernie backed did not do well. Neolib always willing
to boost funding for any candidate of any party if primary challenged by a progressive. Takeover
of state party machinery e.g. Ca did have some success, but pretty slow.
Third party seems both the only way and imo more doable than many think unlike in the past,
electorate is now desperate for real change. Third party impossible until probable. IMO we are
now at just such a point.
But neolib will fight tooth and nail to keep a progressive party off the ballot....
progressive candidates that Bernie backed did not do well.
I'm not so sure about that. Here's the list of candidates backed by Our Revolution (not precisely
the same as Sanders, but close). I didn't bother to do an exact count, but it appears that the
winners exceed the losers by about 6 to 5.
The Republicans control a majority of the state legislatures, governorships, and both houses
of Congress. Compared to the establishment Democratic Party as a whole, the Sanders people in
Our Revolution are doing pretty well. A new party isn't required; we just need some new people
in charge of the Democratic Party. Heck, a lot of the same people could remain in charge, so long
as they change their attitudes and stop obeying Wall Street and the billionaires.
Excellent piece. Americans have forgotten that the things they took for granted (40 hour week,
humane working conditions, employer provided benefits etc.) were gained by the blood, sweat and
tears of their forebears.
Today, as the attack on what's left
of employee protections and benefits is ramped up, people are alienated from one another and encouraged
to channel their despair and anger into blaming scapegoats or invest their energy stoking paranoid
delusions about the illuminati and Russian agents. If that gets boring there's always alcohol
and heroin to take the edge off.
The left has a momentous job – it has to convince people to give a shit and think of their
fate as intertwined with others in a similar position. After decades of neoliberal economics empathy
and giving a shit are associated with weakness and losers in many people's minds. Nobody wants
to give a shit about anyone outside their preferred identity group or groups but everyone wants,
demands , others give a shit about them.
It's almost comical how self-defeating and illogical people can be.
My belief is that Trump (and his kin) is likely the 'apotheosis' of neoliberalism or, as is
far less likely, he (or they) might pleasantly surprise us.
Like Brexit in the UK, I for one, hopefully not mistakenly, mark this anti establishment ascendency
as the beginning of the end of neoliberal economics rather than a further ringing endorsement
ie I fully accept things may have to get worse before they get better.
People mostly vote to maintain a status quo they believe serves or may serve their interests
in the future or, increasingly in the case of ever plausible (to the trusting and naïve) neoliberalism,
out of misplaced hope, desperation, exasperation or understandable fear of the unknown.
The Clintons, the Obamas, the Blairs, possibly the Macrons, the Ruttes, even the Merkels of
this world are wolves in sheep's clothing. They have come to represent, for increasing numbers,
little better than managed decline in apparently safe hands, conducted in plain sight, in the
ever narrower interests of the few.
Unfortunately events are conspiring to demand the once virtuous, now vicious, circle be broken
by fair means or foul.
It seems that only a new party can achieve these aims. At the time these essays are going
to press, Sanders has committed himself to working within the Democratic Party. But that stance
is based on his assumption that somehow he can recruit enough activists to take over the party
from Its Donor Class.
I suspect he will fail. In any case, it is easier to begin afresh than to try to re-design
a party (or any institution) dominated by resistance to change, and whose idea of economic
growth is a pastiche of tax cuts and deregulation. Both U.S. parties are committed to this
neoliberal program – and seek to blame foreign enemies for the fact that its effect is to continue
squeezing living standards and bloating the financial sector.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Its encouraging to know that minds like Hudson's are
thinking in these terms.
Regarding the subject line of the article. I'd say that the Democratic Party has been the "paid
loyal opposition" for quite a while. . . meaning they are paid to loose. Given the party's ties
to Wall Street and Big Pharma it's pretty clear they mostly work for the same folks that own "mainstream"
Republicans so their apparent fecklessness and inability to mount ANY sort of effective opposition,
even when they are in the majority, shouldn't be any surprise.
The question might more appropriately
be can EITHER party survive Trump? Frankly, one can only HOPE that the current version of the
Democratic Party DOES go the way of the Whig Party. I can only hope that the Republicans stay
as gridlocked as they currently are by the stupid faction of their party.
"... The palter was to skip the fact that it had broken down twice in the last year, instead saying, "This car drives very smoothly and is very responsive. Just last week it started up with no problems when the temperature was 5 degrees Fahrenheit." The outright lie would have been: "This car has never had problems." Researchers learned that car sellers perceived paltering as more ethical than lying, and thus used it more. ..."
"... Paltering allows people who consider themselves honest to deceive others while getting the same results that lying would. In a third experiment, participants in a pretend real estate negotiation performed just as well when they paltered as they did when they lied. Their successes didn't come without costs, however. When the deception was discovered, negotiation partners deemed palterers as untrustworthy as liars. ..."
"... One occasional advantage of paltering over lying is plausible deniability: You can blame any misunderstanding on the listener. ..."
"... So how can you avoid falling victim? "If you ask a specific question, that specific question should be answered, not a variant of it," Rogers says, even though insistence on clarification "often makes you look like a jerk." ..."
"... Paltering relies on our tendency to trust others and not cause a scene. ..."
Although paltering occurs in all realms of life, researchers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government
focused on its use in negotiation. In one of eight studies to be published in the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, study participants pretended to sell a used car on eBay. They answered the
buyer's question "Has this car ever had problems?" with a response selected from a list supplied
by the researchers.
The palter was to skip the fact that it had broken down twice in the last year, instead saying,
"This car drives very smoothly and is very responsive. Just last week it started up with no problems
when the temperature was 5 degrees Fahrenheit." The outright lie would have been: "This car has never
had problems." Researchers learned that car sellers perceived paltering as more ethical than lying,
and thus used it more.
In another study, half of surveyed executives said they paltered in more than "a few" of their
negotiations, versus a fifth who said they actively lied more than a few times. Consistent with this
discrepancy, executives viewed the behavior as more honest than lying.
Paltering allows people who consider themselves honest to deceive others while getting the
same results that lying would. In a third experiment, participants in a pretend real estate negotiation
performed just as well when they paltered as they did when they lied. Their successes didn't come
without costs, however. When the deception was discovered, negotiation partners deemed palterers
as untrustworthy as liars.
Another study found that victims saw palterers as less ethical than palterers saw themselves.
We have a "broken mental model" of paltering, the researchers have concluded, seeing this behavior
as honest when others do not.
One occasional advantage of paltering over lying is plausible deniability: You can blame any
misunderstanding on the listener. Without knowing the speaker's intentions, it's difficult to
diagnose paltering with certainty says Todd Rogers, a behavioral scientist at the Kennedy School
and the paper's lead author. Few examples are as clear as Bill Clinton's response when asked if he'd
had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky: "There is not a sexual relationship - that is accurate."
(Note the slick use of present tense.)
So how can you avoid falling victim? "If you ask a specific question, that specific question
should be answered, not a variant of it," Rogers says, even though insistence on clarification "often
makes you look like a jerk."
Paltering relies on our tendency to trust others and not cause a scene. "It's pretty
amazing how much you can get away with because of people's truth bias," says David Clementson, a
researcher at Ohio State University's School of Communication, who was not involved in the study.
"Paltering totally takes advantage of that, diabolically and deceptively."
Artful Paltering: The Risks and Rewards
of Using Truthful Statements to Mislead Others
Rogers, Todd; Zeckhauser, Richard; et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Vol 112(3), Mar 2017, https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspi0000081.pdf
"... Economist James K. Galbraith disputes these claims of the benefit of comparative advantage. He states that "free trade has attained the status of a god" and that ". . . none of the world's most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." He argues that ". . . comparative advantage is based upon the concept of constant returns: the idea that you can double or triple the output of any good simply by doubling or tripling the inputs. But this is not generally the case. For manufactured products, increasing returns, learning, and technical change are the rule, not the exception; the cost of production falls with experience. With increasing returns, the lowest cost will be incurred by the country that starts earliest and moves fastest on any particular line. Potential competitors have to protect their own industries if they wish them to survive long enough to achieve competitive scale."[42] ..."
"... Galbraith, as always, is very succinct and readable. I well remember sitting in an economics lecture in the 1980's when the Professor mentioned Galbraith and described him as with distain someone 'who's ideas were more popular with the public than with economists'. The snigger of agreement that ran around the students in the hall made me realise just how ingrained the ideology of economics was as I'm pretty sure I was the only one of the students who'd actually read any Galbraith. ..."
"... I'd also recommend Ha-Joon Chang as someone who is very readable on the topic of the many weaknesses of conventional ideas on comparative advantage. ..."
"... "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." ..."
"... I've noticed many experts are especially bad at verbosity. Maybe they think somehow that quantity of words is a form of potency. Maybe that's it. Also individuals with a grievance who write posts about their grievance. I know when I have a grievance it's hard to shut up. I'm just being honest. I'll keep rambling and rambling, repeating myelf and fulminating. Thankfully I know better than to write like that. ..."
"... Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer. Trickle down economics doesn't work because wealth doesn't trickle down. It trickles up, which is why the rich are the rich in the first place ..."
"... Thing 23: Good economic policy does not require good economists. Most of the really important economic issues, the ones that decide whether nations sink or swim, are within the intellectual reach of intelligent non-economists. Academic Economics with a capital "E" has remarkably little to say about the things that really matter. Concerned citizens need to stop being intimidated by the experts here. ..."
"... Although Ha Joon Chang is an excellent economist, I would also strongly recommend Michael Hudson, Michael Perelman, Steve Keen and E. Ray Canterbery - they are really great, along with Samir Amin of Senegal. ..."
"... A major issue is that those incapable politicians do rely upon experts, but they have consistently selected experts not on their track record (such as how good economists were at predicting the evolution of the economy, or how good political scientists were at predicting the evolution of communist or Arab societies), but on whether pronouncements of experts corresponded to their ideological preconceptions and justified their intended policies. ..."
"... A bit like rejecting physicians' diagnoses when they do not suit you and preferring the cure of a quack. ..."
"... This is not restricted to economists, it pervasive in science in general. I can't remember how many times I got a paper for peer review where I couldn't figure out what the person was trying to say because they layered the jargon ten levels deep. ..."
"... I think it is as simple as: if you create something that justifies the behaviors of the rich and powerful, you have something to sell and willing buyers. If you create something that delegitimizes the behaviors of the rich and powerful, you not only have no willing patrons but you have made powerful enemies. ..."
"... It is the law of supply and demand for pretentious bullshit. ..."
"... Leave workers exposed to starvation long enough and they'll work for next- to-nothing. The solution to James O'Connor's Fiscal Crisis of the State is to clean house in a big way, a very big way. Put everyone out on the street and start all over again. (Everyone but the 1% of course.) ..."
"... It's Andrew Mellon's advice for getting out of the Depression: "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people." ..."
"... The Reserve Army of Labor saves the Capitalist Day, once again. (Except for the little problem that the 1% won't accept their own liquidation, so Goldman Sachs and the rest must be exempted from the purging–which means that the purging can't work.) ..."
"... Not too long before he died, Paul Samuelson said: "Maybe I was wrong on the subject of jobs offshoring." (I.e., maybe offshoring all the jobs and dismantling the US economy wasn't so intelligent after all!) ..."
"... C. Wright Mills called them "crackpot realists." ..."
"... It's all a part and parcel of the meritocracy. If you don't have a degree in Econ, your opinion doesn't matter about why your job moved to China. If you don't have a degree in Urban Planning, you don't get to comment on how the city wants to tear down the park and put up condos. ..."
"... Their advice helped lead to this 2008 Financial Crisis. The promise of neoliberalism was faster growth. It did not happen. Quite the opposite. It gave the rich intellectual cover to loot society. That"s what this was always about. ..."
"... Then there's the matter of the Iraq War. Another example. Many foreign policy "experts", particularly affiliated with the neoconservative assured the American people that invading Iraq would be easy to do and lead to lots of long term benefits. Others insisted, despite evidence to the contrary, that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction. Now look at where we are. No WMDs, long and cost war, with no long-term solutions. Many of said "experts" later endorsed Clinton. ..."
"... We do not need pro-Establishment experts who sell themselves out to enrich themselves. We need experts who act in the public interest. ..."
First, to explain our basic concepts and most important insights in plain English. Famously,
Paul Samuelson, the founder of modern macroeconomics, was asked whether economics told us anything
that was true but not obvious. It took him a couple of years, but eventually he gave an excellent
and topical example – simply the theory of comparative advantage.
Similarly, I often say that the most useful thing I did in my 6 years as Chief Economist at
DWP was to explain the lump of labour fallacy – that there isn't a fixed number of jobs in the
economy, and increased immigration or more women working adds to both labour demand and labour
supply – to six successive Secretaries of State. So that's the first.
Second is to call bullshit.
O.K. I call bullshit. What Portes explained "to six successive Secretaries of State" was
a figment of the imagination of a late 18th century Lancashire magistrate, a self-styled "
friend
to the poor " who couldn't understand why poor people got so upset about having their wages cut
or losing their jobs - to the extent they would go around throwing rocks through windows, breaking
machines and burning down factories - when it was obvious to him that it was all for the best
and in the long run we would all be better off or else dead.
I call bullshit because what Portes explained to six successive Secretaries of State was
simply the return of the repressed - the obverse of "Say's Law" (which was neither Say's nor a Law)
that "supply creates its own demand," which John Maynard Keynes demolished in The General Theory
of Employment, Interest and Money and that John Kenneth Galbraith subsequently declared "
sank without trace " in the wake of Keynes's demolition of it.
I call bullshit because when Paul Samuelson resurrected the defunct fallacy claim that
Portes explained to six successive Secretaries of State, he did so on the condition that governments
pursued the sorts of "Keynesian" job-creating policies that the discredited principle of "supply
creates its own demand" insisted were both unnecessary and counter-productive.
But the lump of labor argument implies that there is only so much useful remunerative work
to be done in any economic system, and that is indeed a fallacy . If proper and sound
monetary, fiscal, and pricing policies are being vigorously promulgated , we need not resign
ourselves to mass unemployment. And although technological unemployment is not to be shrugged
off lightly, its optimal solution lies in offsetting policies that create adequate job
opportunities and new skills.
[Incidentally, as Robert Schiller has noted, the promised prevention of mass unemployment by vigorous
policy intervention did not imply the preservation of wage levels. Schiller cited the following passage
from the Samuelson textbook, " a decrease in the demand for a particular kind of labor because of
technological shifts in an industry can he adapted to - lower relative wages and migration of labor
and capital will eventually provide new jobs for the displaced workers."]
I call bullshit because what Portes explained to six successive Secretaries of State was
not even Paul Samuelson's policy-animated zombie lump-of-labour fallacy but a supply-side, anti-inflationary
retrofit cobbled together by Richard Layard and associates and touted by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder
as the Third Way " new supply-side
agenda for the left. " Central to that agenda were tax cuts to promote economic growth and
"active labour market policies" to foster non-inflationary expansion of employment by making conditions
more "flexible" and lower-waged:
Part-time work and low-paid work are better than no work because they ease the transition from
unemployment to jobs.
Encourage employers to offer 'entry' jobs to the labour market by lowering the burden of tax
and social security contributions on low-paid jobs.
Adjustment will be the easier, the more labour and product markets are working properly. Barriers
to employment in relatively low productivity sectors need to be lowered if employees displaced
by the productivity gains that are an inherent feature of structural change are to find jobs elsewhere.
The labour market needs a low-wage sector in order to make low-skill jobs available.
I call bullshit because in defending the outcomes of supply-side labour policies, Portes soft-pedaled
the stated low-wage objectives of the Third Way agenda. In a
London Review of Books review, Portes admitted that "it may drive down wages for the low-skilled,
but the effect is small compared to that of other factors (technological change, the national minimum
wage and so on)." In the Third Way supply-side agenda, however, a low-wage sector was promoted as
a desirable feature - making more low-skill jobs available - not a trivial bug to be brushed aside.
In other words, in "driving down wages for the low skilled" the policy was achieving exactly what
it was intended to but Portes was "too discreet" to admit that was the stated objectives of the policy.
Economist James K. Galbraith disputes these claims of the benefit of comparative advantage.
He states that "free trade has attained the status of a god" and that ". . . none of the world's
most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached
their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." He argues that ". . . comparative
advantage is based upon the concept of constant returns: the idea that you can double or triple
the output of any good simply by doubling or tripling the inputs. But this is not generally
the case. For manufactured products, increasing returns, learning, and technical change are
the rule, not the exception; the cost of production falls with experience. With increasing
returns, the lowest cost will be incurred by the country that starts earliest and moves fastest
on any particular line. Potential competitors have to protect their own industries if they
wish them to survive long enough to achieve competitive scale."[42]
Galbraith also contends that "For most other commodities, where land or ecology places limits
on the expansion of capacity, the opposite condition – diminishing returns – is the rule. In
this situation, there can be no guarantee that an advantage of relative cost will persist once
specialization and the resultant expansion of production take place. A classic and tragic example,
studied by Erik Reinert, is transitional Mongolia, a vast grassland with a tiny population
and no industry that could compete on world markets. To the World Bank, Mongolia seemed a classic
case of comparative advantage in animal husbandry, which in Mongolia consisted of vast herds
of cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Opening of industrial markets collapsed domestic industry,
while privatization of the herds prompted the herders to increase their size. This led, within
just a few years in the early 1990s, to overgrazing and permanent desertification of the subarctic
steppe and, with a slightly colder than normal winter, a massive famine in the herds."
Galbraith, as always, is very succinct and readable. I well remember sitting in an economics
lecture in the 1980's when the Professor mentioned Galbraith and described him as with distain
someone 'who's ideas were more popular with the public than with economists'. The snigger of agreement
that ran around the students in the hall made me realise just how ingrained the ideology of economics
was as I'm pretty sure I was the only one of the students who'd actually read any Galbraith.
I'd also recommend Ha-Joon Chang
as someone who is very readable on the topic of the many weaknesses of conventional ideas on comparative
advantage.
James K Galbraith is the son of the famous New Deal economist John K Galbraith.
John K G:
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy;
that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
"In the case of economics there are no important propositions that cannot be stated in plain
language."
"I was an editor of Fortune under Henry Luce, the founder of Time, Inc., who was one of the
most ruthless editors that I have ever known, that anyone has ever known. Henry could look over
a sheet of copy and say, "This can go, and this can go, and this can go," and you would be left
with eight to ten lines which said everything that you had said in twenty lines before.
And I can still, to this day, not write a page without the feeling that Henry Luce is looking
over my shoulder and saying, "That can go." That illuminate one "problem" in our age of internet,
unlimited space to be verbose and no editors that de-obscure the writers "thoughts".
I wonder if this phenomenon – the desirability succinct communication -- was a holdover of
earlier times, when accurate communication made the difference between life and death. Settling
and developing a continent would place a high value on such purposeful human exchanges.
Today, we are awash in branding and marketing intended to maintain the current order. The language
is used to obfuscate, not clarify experience or goals.
An expert in any field that has the ability to communicate in a general , popular mode, is
of great value to society. Truth and understanding is its main function. Knowledge, or insight
that cannot be shared is more often than not just an excuse to hide methods of control and exploitation.
If citizens can't get the generalities right, the specifics will be impossible to comprehend.
Almost everything can go. I remember seeing a video of the photographer William Klein saying
a master photographer is remembered for just a handfull of images. Maybe 10 or 15, tops. Out of
probably at least 100,000 serious photos.
Of course what goes is necessary fertilizer for what doesn't go. You can't avoid it. Hahahah.
But you have to let it go anyway. Or your editor has to be williing to cut.
I've noticed lots and lots of posts here could be a lot better if the post author had said
the same thing in half as many words. Most wouldn't lose any persuasion, if they had any to begin
with. And they'd gain reader attention for the pruning.
I've noticed many experts are especially bad at verbosity. Maybe they think somehow that
quantity of words is a form of potency. Maybe that's it. Also individuals with a grievance who
write posts about their grievance. I know when I have a grievance it's hard to shut up. I'm just
being honest. I'll keep rambling and rambling, repeating myelf and fulminating. Thankfully I know
better than to write like that.
Having saidd all that, Say was rite. If the supply of labor increases, that createes its
own demand for jobs! How is that not completely obvious.
Huffington Post review has a synopsis of the Ha-Joon Change book.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/a-review-of-ha-joon-chang_b_840417.html
My favorite: Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer. Trickle down economics
doesn't work because wealth doesn't trickle down. It trickles up, which is why the rich are the
rich in the first place
Thanks for the tip PK & thank you fd for the link to the review. I'm going to check this fellow
out; sounds like he has some interesting things to say. One of the "things" that may apply to
the above article:
Thing 23: Good economic policy does not require good economists. Most of the really important
economic issues, the ones that decide whether nations sink or swim, are within the intellectual
reach of intelligent non-economists. Academic Economics with a capital "E" has remarkably little
to say about the things that really matter. Concerned citizens need to stop being intimidated
by the experts here.
Although Ha Joon Chang is an excellent economist, I would also strongly recommend Michael
Hudson, Michael Perelman, Steve Keen and E. Ray Canterbery - they are really great, along with
Samir Amin of Senegal.
A word of warning from the UK. Denigrate experts too much and you end up like us with government
by people who really are inexpert. That is not an improvement.
Ha! I think an anti brexiter just rolled the white eye.
Strange that the awful things that the experts told us all would happen haven't and don't look
like happening since the people called bullshit on the EU mess. Britain with or without those
blokes in dresses up north will do just fine as they steer themselves out of the EU quagmire.
I'll take the people anytime anonymous – they have more common sense than the experts. Didn't
you read the article?
I remember back in the 1980s, when so-called "experts" were prattling about such nonsense as
. . .
"Computers don't make mistakes, humans make mistakes !"
Which was surely untrue as anyone with any real IT expertise back then would have explained
that 97% or more of hardware crashes generate software problems (for obvious reasons).
A major issue is that those incapable politicians do rely upon experts, but they have consistently
selected experts not on their track record (such as how good economists were at predicting the
evolution of the economy, or how good political scientists were at predicting the evolution of
communist or Arab societies), but on whether pronouncements of experts corresponded to their ideological
preconceptions and justified their intended policies.
A bit like rejecting physicians' diagnoses when they do not suit you and preferring the
cure of a quack.
This is not restricted to economists, it pervasive in science in general. I can't remember
how many times I got a paper for peer review where I couldn't figure out what the person was trying
to say because they layered the jargon ten levels deep. This is in chemistry, so things are
typically straightforward, no need for convoluted explanations and massaging of the data.
But people still do it because that's the culture that they've been educated in, a scientific
paper has to be high-brow, using obscure words and complicated sentences.
I think it is as simple as: if you create something that justifies the behaviors of the
rich and powerful, you have something to sell and willing buyers. If you create something that
delegitimizes the behaviors of the rich and powerful, you not only have no willing patrons but
you have made powerful enemies.
It is the law of supply and demand for pretentious bullshit.
So in the end, we wind up with Say's Law anyway, since creating a "low wages" sector is exactly
how Say's Law functions–supply creates its own demand because declining wages means investment
spending can increase, which keeps aggregate demand where it needs to be for full employment.
This is the solution, we are told, to Keynes "sticky prices." Jim Grant makes this very argument
in his book about the "short-lived" crisis of the early 1920s. Leave workers exposed to starvation
long enough and they'll work for next- to-nothing. The solution to James O'Connor's Fiscal Crisis
of the State is to clean house in a big way, a very big way. Put everyone out on the street and
start all over again. (Everyone but the 1% of course.)
It's Andrew Mellon's advice for getting out of the Depression: "liquidate labor, liquidate
stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate it will purge the rottenness out of the system.
High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral
life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
The Reserve Army of Labor saves the Capitalist Day, once again. (Except for the little
problem that the 1% won't accept their own liquidation, so Goldman Sachs and the rest must be
exempted from the purging–which means that the purging can't work.)
Not too long before he died, Paul Samuelson said: "Maybe I was wrong on the subject of
jobs offshoring." (I.e., maybe offshoring all the jobs and dismantling the US economy wasn't so
intelligent after all!)
Just finished a book called, The Death of Expertise , by a professor of national security
(oh give me a frigging break!!!!), Tom Nichols.
Biggest pile of crapola I have ever read! The author was also yearning for the days when "experts"
were blindly followed!
It's all a part and parcel of the meritocracy. If you don't have a degree in Econ, your
opinion doesn't matter about why your job moved to China. If you don't have a degree in Urban
Planning, you don't get to comment on how the city wants to tear down the park and put up condos.
The answer is that said "experts" have failed the general public miserably.
Their advice helped lead to this 2008 Financial Crisis. The promise of neoliberalism was
faster growth. It did not happen. Quite the opposite. It gave the rich intellectual cover to loot
society. That"s what this was always about.
Now people wonder, why they don't trust "experts"?
Then there's the matter of the Iraq War. Another example. Many foreign policy "experts",
particularly affiliated with the neoconservative assured the American people that invading Iraq
would be easy to do and lead to lots of long term benefits. Others insisted, despite evidence
to the contrary, that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction. Now look at where we
are. No WMDs, long and cost war, with no long-term solutions. Many of said "experts" later endorsed
Clinton.
We do not need pro-Establishment experts who sell themselves out to enrich themselves.
We need experts who act in the public interest.
So what should egalitarian activists do in terms of future elections if and when the issues,
circumstances, and candidates seem right? First, they should form Egalitarian Democratic Clubs.
That gives them an organizational base as well as a distinctive new social identity within
the structural pathway to government that is labeled "the Democratic Party." Forming such clubs
makes it possible for activists to maintain their sense of separatism and purity while at the
same time allowing them to compete within the Democratic Party. There are numerous precedents
for such clubs within the party, including liberal and reform clubs in the past, and the conservative
Democratic Leadership Council at the present time.
This strategy of forging a separate social identity is also followed by members of the right
wing within the Republican Party. By joining organizations like the Moral Majority and Christian
Coalition, they can define themselves as Christians who have to work out of necessity within
the debased confines of the Republican Party. That is, they think of themselves as Christians
first and Republicans second, and that is what egalitarians should do: identify themselves
primarily as egalitarians and only secondarily as Democrats.
After forming Egalitarian Democrat Clubs, egalitarian activists should find people to run
in selected Democratic primaries from precinct to president. They should not simply support
eager candidates who come to them with the hope of turning them into campaign workers. They
have to create candidates of their own who already are committed to the egalitarian movement
and to its alternative economic vision of planning through the market. The candidates have
to be responsible to the clubs, or else the candidates naturally will look out for their own
self interest and careers.
Yes it is. Your excerpt zeroes in on the mechanism of How.
"clubs within the party" : Turchin writing on the Price Equation makes something clear. If
the within-group co-operators can be successful and reproduce, and then sequester non-co-operators
into a separate group, the chances of co-operator success increase. Put 'em on a committee.
That mechanism is what makes Zuck's presidential bid dangerous. As groups use Fcbk to organize,
a malevolent administrator can introduce
FBU
's that disrupt social cohesion within the group. An advanced form of voter suppression.
Clubs within the Party was how the Communist Party of the USSR operated. They were called factions.
They were unable to challenge the ruling elite and if they became too strong they were simply
purged from the Party.
Nothing new here. Cooptation of those who deviate left or right from the party platform and
party oligarchy can be effectively used within "game of clubs" framework due to the iron law of
oligarchy. Those who can't be coopted can be purged or excommunicated.
For all practical purposes two party system behaves as an improved version of one party system.
Iron law of oligarchy essentially guarantees the upper hand for the leadership within the interparty
struggle for power. And provides for the leadership the opportunity to pursue their own agenda,
different from the wishes of rank and file members. Like was the case with Bill Clinton selling
Democratic Party to Wall Street and turning it into yet another neoliberal party - soft neoliberals,
like sometime Clinton's "third way" neoliberalism is called.
Only parliamentary system when parties are allocated seats due to votes they got with some
"passing" threshold can provide the opportunity of the third party to emerge as the major political
force outside a single election cycle or two.
It is important to understand that the "first after the post" system virtually guarantees the
elimination of any contenders to both major parties. Unless there is a revolutionary situation
when the ruling elite is so discredited that can't rule "as usual". Then winners are usually incorporated
into the party framework and partially emasculated somewhat later, when they face the challenges
of governing the system which is totally against them. Like now the situation developed in case
of Trump.
You can say anything about British elite but this was pretty ingenious political invention.
In other words, the main task to two party system in to prevent any possibility for the challengers
of status quo to obtain political power via elections. Reforms should be approved by party oligarchy
to be viable. And there are powerful internal mechanisms like DNC which help to block advances
of anybody who want to challenge the status quo.
Also the emerging leaders can be simply bought. This is another way how the iron law of oligarchy
operates.
From a rhetorical point of view, however, lesser evilism involves more than just the logical
principle behind it. The reason is plain: except in a trivial sense, better choices are less bad
only when the alternatives are bad or, more precisely, regarded as bad. Less bad choices are less
evil only when the alternatives are or are thought to be bad indeed.
This is all that the "evil" in "lesser evilism" implies. Strictly speaking, evil is a religious,
not a political, notion. But lesser evilism in politics is a secular phenomenon, and the force
of the word is rhetorical only. Its religious origins and connotations are useful for giving the
word a resonance that "bad" and even "very bad" lack; not for making any theological or otherwise
portentous point.
Although the logic behind lesser evilism is impeccable, the principle seldom applies directly
in real world circumstances. In political contexts especially, there are too many complicating
factors, and there is too much indeterminacy.
This is why lesser evilism in politics – especially, electoral politics - can be, and often
is, a bad idea.
Myopia is a chronic problem in electoral contests because voters tend to focus on candidates'
personalities or on what they believe they are likely to do if elected, neglecting other pertinent
considerations.
Suppose, for instance, that Obama truly was less disposed than McCain in 2008 or Romney in
2012 to expand the wars he inherited from George Bush and Dick Cheney or to extend the range and
intensity of the Bush-Cheney "Global War on Terror."
Of course, war making is not the only thing Presidents do, but even if we focus only on that,
we can still wonder whether voters favoring peace who voted for Obama served their cause well.
Unofficially, but most assuredly, America has a duopoly party system – in consequence of deeply
entrenched practices and traditions, and thanks to laws that make ballot access difficult for
candidates who are neither Democrats nor Republicans.
Therefore, in Presidential elections and most others as well, Americans face straightforward
X versus Y choices. Independent or third party candidates have no chance of winning. They seldom
even have a chance of affecting the outcomes in more than negligible ways.
Some of the problems this raises have nothing to do with the comparative merits and shortcomings
of the candidates themselves; they are problems with lesser evil voting itself.
This is because elections in the present affect elections in the future; among other things,
they can and often do initiate or continue trends.
As a general rule, but especially when the choices voters face remain above the threshold beneath
which talk of lesser evil voting becomes rhetorically appropriate, choosing the better candidate
is no guarantee that the choices will be better still the next time around or the time after that.
But once the lesser evil threshold is crossed, it does seem that the choices keep getting worse.
There is no inherent reason why this must be so, but there is ample anecdotal evidence that bears
out the suggestion that, in our time and place, lesser evil voting encourages a downward spiral,
"a race to the bottom."
To be sure, America's deteriorating political culture cannot be blamed entirely, or even mainly,
on the pervasiveness of this practice. The corruptions of money undoubtedly play a larger role.
Still, lesser evil voting does seem to feed upon itself – hastening a downward trend.
The consequences are especially damaging in a duopoly party system like ours, where choosing
the lesser evil means choosing a Democrat or (in very rare instances) a Republican, further diminishing
the already meager prospects of breaking free from the duopoly's stranglehold.
"... This bizarre feature of Trump's executive order shows how deep Official Washington's dysfunction goes. Trump has picked a major constitutional battle over a travel ban that targets the wrong countries. ..."
"... But there's a reason for this dysfunction: No one in Official Washington can speak the truth about terrorism without suffering severe political damage or getting blacklisted by the mainstream media. Since the truth puts Israel and especially Saudi Arabia in an uncomfortable position, the truth cannot be spoken. ..."
"... There was some hope that President Trump – for all his irascibility and unpredictability – might break from the absurd "Iran is the principal source of terrorism" mantra. But so far he has not. Nor has Trump moved to throw open the files on the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts so Americans can assess how the Obama administration sought to manipulate them into supporting these "regime change" adventures. ..."
"... But Trump has resisted intense pressure to again entrust U.S. foreign policy to the neoconservatives, a number of whom lost their jobs when President Obama left office, perhaps most significantly Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who helped orchestrate the violent overthrow of Ukraine's elected president and is an architect of the New Cold War with Russia. ..."
"... Other neocons who angled for jobs in the new administration, including John Bolton and James Woolsey, have failed to land them. Currently, there is pressure to ensconce Elliott Abrams, a top neocon dating back to the Reagan administration, in the key post of Deputy Secretary of State but that idea, too, has met resistance. ..."
"... The neocon threat to Trump's stated intent of restoring some geopolitical realism to U.S. foreign policy is that the neocons operate almost as an ideological cabal linked often in a subterranean fashion – or as I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's neocon chief of staff, once wrote in a cryptic letter to neocon journalist Judith Miller that aspen trees "turn in clusters, because their roots connect them." ..."
"... What is less clear is whether Trump, Tillerson and his fledgling State Department team have the intellectual heft to understand why U.S. foreign policy has drifted into the chaos and conflicts that now surround it – and whether they have the skill to navigate a route toward a safe harbor. ..."
"... My first concern, however, is the USA predilection for 'regime change" wars - and for that I blame the neocons. ..."
If you wanted to bring sanity to a U.S. foreign policy that has spun crazily out of control,
there would be some immediate steps that you – or, say, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – could
take, starting with a renewed commitment to tell the truth to the American people.
Instead of the endless "perception management" or "strategic communication" or "psychological
operations" or whatever the new code words are, you could open up the files regarding key turning-point
moments and share the facts with the citizens – the "We the People" – who are supposed to be America's
true sovereigns.
For instance, you could release what the U.S. government actually knows about the Aug. 21,
2013 sarin gas attack in Syria; what the files show about the origins of the Feb. 22, 2014 coup
in Ukraine; what U.S. intelligence analysts have compiled about the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. And those are just three examples of cases where
U.S. government propagandists have sold a dubious bill of goods to the American and world publics
in the "information warfare" campaign against the Syrian and Russian governments.
If you wanted to base U.S. foreign policy on the firm foundation of reality, you also could
let the American people in on who is actually the principal sponsor of the terrorism that they're
concerned about: Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban – all Sunni-led outfits, none of which are
backed by Shiite-ruled Iran. Yet, all we hear from Official Washington's political and media insiders
is that Iran is the chief sponsor of terrorism.
Of course, that is what Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel want you to believe because
it serves their regional and sectarian interests, but it isn't true. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
states are the ones arming and financing Al Qaeda and Islamic State with Israel occasionally bombing
Al Qaeda's military enemies inside Syria and providing medical support for Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate
operating near the Golan Heights.
The reason for this unsavory network of alliances is that Israel, like Saudi Arabia and the
Sunni-led Gulf states, sees Iran and the so-called "Shiite crescent" – from Tehran through Damascus
to Beirut – as their principal problem. And because of the oil sheiks' financial wealth and Israel's
political clout, they control how pretty much everyone in Official Washington's establishment
views the Middle East.
But the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are not in line with the interests
of the American people – nor the average European – who are not concerned about militant Shiites
as much as militant Sunnis. After all, the worst terror attacks on Europe and the U.S. have come
from Sunni extremists belonging to or inspired by Al Qaeda and Islamic State.
This gap between the reality of Sunni-extremist terrorism and the fantasy of Official Washington's
"group think" fingering Shiite-ruled Iran explains the cognitive dissonance over President Trump's
travel ban on people from seven mostly Muslim countries. Beyond the offensive anti-Muslim prejudice,
there is the fact that he ignored the countries that produced the terrorists who have attacked
the U.S., including the 9/11 hijackers.
This bizarre feature of Trump's executive order shows how deep Official Washington's dysfunction
goes. Trump has picked a major constitutional battle over a travel ban that targets the wrong
countries.
But there's a reason for this dysfunction: No one in Official Washington can speak the truth
about terrorism without suffering severe political damage or getting blacklisted by the mainstream
media. Since the truth puts Israel and especially Saudi Arabia in an uncomfortable position, the
truth cannot be spoken.
There was some hope that President Trump – for all his irascibility and unpredictability –
might break from the absurd "Iran is the principal source of terrorism" mantra. But so far he
has not. Nor has Trump moved to throw open the files on the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts so Americans
can assess how the Obama administration sought to manipulate them into supporting these "regime
change" adventures.
But Trump has resisted intense pressure to again entrust U.S. foreign policy to the neoconservatives,
a number of whom lost their jobs when President Obama left office, perhaps most significantly
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who helped orchestrate the
violent overthrow of Ukraine's elected president and is an architect of the New Cold War with
Russia.
Other neocons who angled for jobs in the new administration, including John Bolton and James
Woolsey, have failed to land them. Currently, there is pressure to ensconce Elliott Abrams, a
top neocon dating back to the Reagan administration, in the key post of Deputy Secretary of State
but that idea, too, has met resistance.
The neocon threat to Trump's stated intent of restoring some geopolitical realism to U.S. foreign
policy is that the neocons operate almost as an ideological cabal linked often in a subterranean
fashion – or as I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's neocon chief of staff, once wrote
in a cryptic letter to neocon journalist Judith Miller that aspen trees "turn in clusters, because
their roots connect them."
In other words, if one neocon is given a key job, other neocons can be expected to follow.
Then, any Trump deviation from neocon orthodoxy would be undermined in the classic Washington
tradition of strategic leaking to powerful media and congressional allies.
So far, the Trump inner circle has shown the administrative savvy to avoid bringing in ideologues
who would dedicate their efforts to thwarting any significant change in U.S. geopolitical directions.
What is less clear is whether Trump, Tillerson and his fledgling State Department team have
the intellectual heft to understand why U.S. foreign policy has drifted into the chaos and conflicts
that now surround it – and whether they have the skill to navigate a route toward a safe harbor.
Very good analysis.
The first and obvious question about the ban is "why isn't Saudi Arabia included"? As the article
shows, this question unravels this (Trump's) current version of dysfunctional foreign policy based
on misleading the public.
On Friday 10th February 2017 NBC circulated a report the Russian government in order to improve
relations with the Trump administration was preparing to hand Edward Snowden over to the US.
Snowden should not be worried, since the report is groundless and is clearly a provocation. To
see why it is only necessary to look at
the NBC report itself , which makes it clear who is behind it...
U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden
as a "gift" to President Donald Trump - who has called the NSA leaker a "spy" and a "traitor" who
deserves to be executed.
That's according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence
reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to
"curry favor" with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence
about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration.
(bold italics added)
It turns out that the story does not originate in Russia. It originates with our old friends the
'anonymous officials' of the US intelligence community.
One of these officials claims that the story is based on "intelligence" of "Russian conversations"
that the US intelligence community has 'gathered since the inauguration". We have no way of knowing
at what level these "conversations" took place, assuming they took place at all, but it is inconceivable
that the US intelligence community is genuinely informed of discussions within the top level of the
Russian leadership – where such a question would be discussed – or if it is that it would publicise
the fact by blurting the fact out to NBC.
The reality is that there is no possibility of the Russians handing Snowden over to the US in
order to please Donald Trump . Not only would doing so almost certainly breach Russian law – as Snowden's
lawyer, who has
denied the whole story , has pointed out – but it contradicts what I personally heard Russian
President Putin say at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2014 when the subject of
Snowden was brought up, which is that Russia never hands over people like Snowden once they have
gained asylum in Russia. That is indeed Russian practice extending far back into the Soviet period,
and I can think of no exceptions to it.
As it happens Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has denied the story in a
Facebook post which links it to the ongoing struggle between the Trump administration and the
US intelligence community (about which see more below). Here is how RT
translates
her post
Today, US intelligence agencies have stepped up their work, updating two stale stories, 'Russia
can gift Snowden to Trump' and 'confirmation found on the details of the scandalous
dossier
on Trump allegedly collected by an ex-employee of British intelligence.' But it may seem so only
to those who do not understand the essence of the game. None of these statements have been made by
representatives of the special services, but is information coming from NBC and CNN, citing unnamed
sources. The difference is obvious, but only to experts. Yet it is useful for scandalizing the public
and maintaining a degree of [public outrage] .
It is evident that the pressure on the new administration on the part of political opponents within
the United States continues, bargaining is going on. And that's why the US foreign policy doctrine
has not yet been formed
It is just possible that US intelligence overheard some gossip in Moscow about the Kremlin handing
Snowden over to Donald Trump in order to curry favour with him. The various reports the US intelligence
community released during the Clinton leaks hacking scandal show that the US intelligence community
is not actually very well informed about what goes on in Moscow or how the Russian government works.
In light of that it would not be entirely surprising if someone overheard some gossip about Snowden
in Moscow which the US intelligence community is over-interpreting.
Far more likely however is that – as Maria Zakharova says – this is a deliberate provocation,
spread by someone within the US intelligence community who either wants to signal to Moscow what
Moscow 'needs to do' if it wants better relations with the US, or (more probably) as a signal to
Donald Trump of the minimum the US intelligence community expects of him if he wants the US intelligence
community's support in seeking better relations with Russia.
This story is interesting not because of what it says about what the Russians are going to do
to Snowden – which in reality is nothing. Rather it is interesting because it shows the degree to
which Snowden continues to be an object of obsession for the US intelligence community.
The reason for that is that the US intelligence community knows that Snowden is not a Russian
spy.
As Snowden has pointed out, if he really were a Russian spy no-one in Washington would be talking
about the Russians handing him over. The Russians do not hand their spies over any more than the
US does, and if Snowden really were a Russian spy no-one in Washington would talking about the Russians
handing him over.
However if Snowden had been a Russian spy his actions would in that case have been simply a Russian
intelligence operation of which the US intelligence community was the victim, of which there have
been many since the Second World War. Espionage is what the US and Russia routinely do to each other,
and there would be nothing remarkable about Snowden in that case.
It is the fact that Snowden is on the contrary a deeply patriotic American who acted from patriotic
motives that has the US intelligence community enraged and alarmed. From their point of view having
a patriotic American publicly expose their practices Jason Bourne style is a far greater threat than
have a Russian spy penetrate their systems, since because of the far greater publicity it is far
more likely to damage them politically.
This explains the extraordinary feud the US intelligence community has waged against Snowden,
which in part explains why it has become so hostile to Russia, the country which has become his protector.
Mr.Sono -> knukles •Feb 12, 2017 5:41 PM
Putin is a man of his words and not a little bitch like Obama. I was suprised that fake news was
all over zerohedge regarding this topic, but at the end zerohedge confirmed the fake news.
Giant Meteor -> FreeShitter •Feb 12, 2017 5:35 PM
One of the smartest plays the deep state could make is allowing him back, make small fuss, and
issue a pardon. It would go far in deflating, diffusing the situation, de minimis so to speak.
But, I suppose it is more about absolute control, control of the narrative, full spectrum dominance,
cautionary tales etc. Pride goeth before the fall (destruction) I believe. Eventually this laundry
is going to get sorted and cleaned, one way or the other.
boattrash •Feb 12, 2017 5:13 PM
" as Maria Zakharova says – this is a deliberate provocation, spread by someone within the US
intelligence community who either wants to signal to Moscow what Moscow 'needs to do' if it wants
better relations with the US, or (more probably) as a signal to Donald Trump of the minimum the
US intelligence community expects of him if he wants the US intelligence community's support in
seeking better relations with Russia."
A full pardon from Trump would improve his standing with the American people, IMHO, on both
the left and the right.
HumanMan -> boattrash •Feb 12, 2017 5:29 PM
This was my thought when the story broke. Putin can no longer claim to be a protector of human
rights if he hands over Snowden...Unless Trump is going to pardon him. As you pointed you, that
would be great (politically) for Trump too. Done this way would be a win win for the two and another
win for We The People. On top of that, Putin doesn't want to babysit Snowden. I'm sure the Russians
would be happy to have a politically expediant way to get the American spy out of their country.
HRClinton •Feb 12, 2017 5:16 PM
The Deep State rules, no matter what DJT thinks.
The roots go deep in my fomer DOS and in the CIA Even in the DOD and Senate. Bill and I know
this better than anyone.
FAKE NEWS:
On Friday 10th February 2017 NBC circulated a report the Russian government in order to improve
relations with the Trump administration was preparing to hand Edward Snowden over to the US.
How many gringos were fooled???--- not many
shovelhead •Feb 12, 2017 5:37 PM
Pissgate II...
Brought to you from your friends at the CIA
Mr. Crisp •Feb 12, 2017 5:50 PM
Snowden showed the world that the NSA wasn't just tracking terrorists, they were tracking pretty much
everyone, everywhere. He deserves a full pardon.
Nick Cohen makes a good
point
: it is not congenital liars that should worry us, but
congenital believers – those who fall for the lies of
charlatans. We know that many do so: almost half of voters
believed
the lie that leaving the EU would allow us to spend
an extra £350m a week on the NHS.
This poses the question: why do
people fall for lies? Here, we can learn from behavioural
economics and
research (pdf)
into criminal fraud. I reckon there are
several factors that liars exploit in politics.
One is wishful thinking. People
want to believe there's a simple solution to NHS underfunding
(leave the EU!) or to low wages (cut immigration!) just as they
want to believe they can get rich quick or make money by taking
no risk: Ponzi schemers like Bernie Madoff play upon that last
one. The wish is often the father to the belief.
Relatedly, perhaps, there are
lottery-type preferences. People like long-odds bets and pay too
much for them: this is why they back
longshots (pdf)
too
much
and pay over the odds for speculative
shares
. To such people, the fact that an offer seems too
good to be true is therefore, paradoxically, tempting. A study
of fraud by the OFT
found
:
Some people viewed responding
to a scam as taking a long-odds gamble: they recognised that
there was something wrong with the offer, but the size of the
possible prize or reward (relative to the initial outlay)
induced them to give it a try on the off-chance that it might
be genuine.
There's a particular type that is
especially likely to take a long-odds bet: the desperate. Lonely
people are vulnerable to the
romance
scam; gamblers who have lost take big bets to get even; losing
teams try "hail Mary" tactics. In like fashion, people who feel
like they have lost out in the era of globalization were
tempted
to vote for Trump and Brexit.
There's another mechanism here:
people are likely to turn to con-men if the alternatives have
failed. Werner Troesken
shows (pdf)
how snake-oil
sellers
exploited this. They invested a lot in advertising
and in product differentiation and so when other products failed
they could claim that theirs would work when the others hadn't.
I suspect that fund managers use a similar trick: the failure of
many to beat the market leads investors simply to trust others
rather than tracker funds. The fact that previous policies had
failed working people thus encouraged them to try something
different – be it Brexit or Trump.
Yet another trick here is the
affinity
fraud. We tend to trust people like ourselves, or who at least
who look like ourselves. Farage's endless posturing as a "man of
the people" – fag and pint in hand, not caring about "political
correctness" – laid the basis for people to trust him, just as
Bernie
Madoff
joined all the right clubs to
encourage
wealthy (often Jewish) folk to trust him. By contrast, the
claims from the Treasury and various think-tanks that Brexit
would make us poorer came from metropolitan elites who were so
different from poorer working class people that they weren't
trusted. And in fact the very talk of "liberal elites" carried
the subtext: "don't trust them: they're not like you".
All of these tendencies have been
reinforced by another – the fact that, as David Leiser and Zeev
Kril have
shown
, people are bad at making
connections
in economics. The idea that Brexit would hurt us
rested upon tricky connections: between the terms of Brexit and
trade rules; from trade rules to actual trade; and from trade to
productivity. By contrast, the idea that leaving the EU would
save us money was simple and easy to believe.
Now, I don't say all this merely
to be a Remoaner; complaining about liars is like a fish
complaining that the water is wet. Instead, I want to point out
that it is not sufficient to blame the BBC for not calling out
Brexiters' lies. Yes, the BBC
disgraced
itself during the plebiscite campaign. But we must
also understand how voters fall for such mendacity. As Akerlof
and Shiller write:
Voters are phishable in two
major ways. First, they are not fully informed; they are
information phools. Second, voters are also psychological
phools; for example, because they respond to appeals such as
lawnmower ads [a candidate seen mowing his own lawn is
regarded as a man of the people] (
Phishing
for Phools
, p 75)
All this raises a challenge for
liberals. Many used to believe the truth would win out over lies
in the marketplace for ideas. This is no longer true, if it ever
were. Instead, the questions now are: what can we do about this?
And what should we do? The two questions might well have
different answers. But we can make a start by understanding how
lies are sometimes believed.
Keith |
February 07, 2017 at 04:47 PM
The marketplace of ideas assumes that the consumers are able and
willing to inform themselves and be rational rather than
emotional. Clearly this is not true of a lot of voters when
confronted by a manipulative press and Tories like Jim with
their right wing agenda slyly hidden for the time being.
Equally as in other areas such as health care shopping around is
impossible to do as the consumers lack expert knowledge.
Allowing the profit motive to apply to many areas is sure to be
a disaster for human welfare as the profit incentive stops the
experts using their knowledge for good. Finance is a classic
example of the uninformed being repeatedly duped into unsound
investments decade after decade. Benjamin Graham describes how
in his first job selling Bonds to grannies he came to realise
that he was being asked to steal the life savings of pensioners
via commissions designed to get a sale of junk paper. Which is
why he moved elsewhere to a more ethical line of work. But I am
sure leaving the biggest most integrated market in the world
where lots of foreigners have helpfully learned our language
will surely increase our prosperity....Nigel says so.
There will always be gullible people (/ people constrained by
high opportunity cost of information search, as I prefer to
think of them)
And there will always be liars looking to take
advantage of them. Like 99% of politicians ever.
It's very Marxist to wonder how we might change this basic
fact of humanity, when the real solution is clear. Don't set up
powerful central institutions that rely on coercion: it attracts
liars, rewards them, and makes new liars out of honest people.
Oh, we Leavers are being lectured again by our Remainer betters
on our stupidity.
If the statements of the amount we pay to
the EU were lies, how come we owe them €50 billion?
how come no-one ever asks why we have to implement the four
freedoms when Germany gets a free pass on the Free market in
Services?
the government announced house building plans today, and
no-one asks whether a cause of high house prices and a housing
shortage is too much immigration?
It's not the lies, it's the questions never asked that stand
out.
I don't read Jim as a Tory. I read
him as someone who was a Labour supporter but now just stares in
amazement at a group of people who have become EU Federalist
fanatics spouting delusional slogans who can never answer a
straight question and refuse to acknowledge the obvious problems
of democratic accountability.
How on earth did that happen? How did apparently intelligent
people completely lose their critical faculties and join a
quasi-religious cult that chants empty slogans and denounces
anyone who questions them?
Chris missed out the fact that people tend to give others the
benefit of the doubt. I.e. if X tells a monster lie, peoples'
immediate reaction is: "X is is a bastard". But then on second
thoughts they feel ashamed at accusing someone else of being a
bastard, and assume it's they themselves that must be wrong.
There is a bit of a danger here of another comment thread being
derailed with Brexit mud-slinging. Chris's post isn't really
about the pros and cons of Brexit, it just offers a vivid
example of the phenomenon under discussion.
The point Chris makes in the last paragraph is more general
and profound. If any and all data/information/evidence/argument
is interpreted in partisan fashion and subject to massive
confirmation bias so that debates increasingly polarise - or if
different sides in debates proffer their own favoured but
incompatible versions of the truth - then meaningful dialogue,
deliberation and compromise become near impossible. All we get
is intolerance, mistrust and greater partisanship. Clearly these
are not entirely new issues, but it seems undeniable that there
has been a qualitative shift in 'quality' of public debate.
We appear to be witnessing the US political system at great
risk of imploding, as enlightenment values are abandoned and key
tenets of liberal democratic practice are wilfully rejected.
This is the route to chaos.
The questions Chris poses are, to my mind at least, the right
ones. The very nature of the problem means that the old/favoured
remedies are unlikely to be effective. But what can replace
them? Is a violent conflagration the only way of shocking the
system out of hyper-partisanship and the rejection of the
foundational belief that we live in a shared reality (i.e. for
people to 'come to their senses')? Or can we back out of this
particular cul-de-sac peacefully? You've got to hope so. But, if
so, how?
Our upper echelon, i.e. our long-standing middle of the road
Labour MPs and commentators, have long been successful in
fighting off calls for left leaning policy/talk of how things
work (because who knows where this will end) under a guise of
fighting off racism/ a closed shop mentality; the routes of
least resistance 50s – 00s which should alert us to the ability
of the English working class to embrace immigration and avoid
base philosophies. But it seems not. Seems to me our shared
interest beyond race creed colour and gender continues to be
deliberately and systematically no-platformed. What I fail to
understand, given the rise of UKIP, is why this is not glaringly
obvious; because if you're one of the majority who live life as
best you might with as much consideration and tolerance as you
can muster where does credence go when an ordinary workers
tendency to sound 'populist' is marked up to racism no matter
known history...
"Serious thinkers set to work, and produced a long shelf of
books answering this question. Their answers tended to rely on
similar themes. First, Democrats lose because they are too
intelligent. Their arguments are too complicated for American
voters. Second, Democrats lose because they are too tolerant.
They refuse to cater to racism and hatred. Finally, Democrats
lose because they are not good at the dark art of politics.
Republicans, though they are knuckle-dragging simpletons when it
comes to policy, are devilishly clever when it comes to
electioneering. They have brilliant political consultants like
Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, who frame issues so fiendishly, they
can fool the American people into voting against their own best
interests."
And immigration is about economics. This is Sweden an
immigration superpower.
"Swedish police last year issued a report where it detailed
incidents from more than 55 areas which it branded as "no-go
zones" as it detailed brutal attacks on police, sexual assaults,
children carrying weapons and general turmoil sweeping across
the country."
"A ban was supported by 71 per cent of people in Poland, 65
per cent in Austria, 53 per cent in Germany and 51 per cent in
Italy.
In the UK, 47 per cent supported a ban.
In no country did more than 32 per cent disagree with a ban."
"It thereby explains a paradox: why, at a
time when we are better off than ever before in history, all too
many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation."
Chris, a bit off the point, but if everyone followed your advice
and put money in tracker funds and active funds disappeared,
what would happen to the stock market ? Instinct tells me it
would become extremely volatile, but instinct is a bad guide...
It is not an extreme story, I don't speak Swedish
or have any contact with Sweden. I only read the main stream
media which includes the Daily Express.
As you would expect most of the media does not report on
Sweden, unless it has a British angle.
e.g. Birmingham Boy killed by a hand grenade.
(I don't know how you can spin Hand Grenade)
The report originates with the Swedish Police the situation
in Malmo is serious and individual police officers like Peter
Springare's Facebook post.
"After a wave of violence in Sweden's third city, police boss
Stefan Sintéus has appealed to residents in Malmö: "Help us.
Help us to tackle the problems. Cooperate with us.""
This isn't the first time facists have made
inflammatory comments about muslims. Nick Griffin did this and
was prosecuted for inciting racial hatred in 2006. The summary
of what he said is some way down this article.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with banning "fake
news". You have to be really open, transparent and clear and be
absolutely sure you are right, otherwise you end up making
heroes of facists and stoking the notion that its all a plot to
hide the truth from the people. And that is a really bad
outcome.
MPs wrestling with their consciences, loud debates, arguments
about the truth ... this is the sound of a properly functioning
parliamentary democracy and long may that noise continue.
Nick Cohen does make some good points but he himself has a
complicated relationship with the truth in some areas. When he
isn't talking about congenital liars and congenital believers,
he continues to get into a rage about people who opposed the
invasion of Iraq. As far as I can see, the invasion of Iraq has
been the disaster that some of us feared (because regime change
involves putting in place a new regime change, which is very
difficult and for which the USA and UK do not have the skills).
And, as far as I can see, some of the assumptions made by Nick
Cohen in 2002 and 2003 in supporting the invasion (such as the
ability of the Iraqi National Congress to create a new regime)
were very dubious and their weakness of these assumptions is why
the invasion was a failure and has had created an array of other
problems.
In his campaign to avoid a post-truth future, Nick Cohen
claims that people like him "are on their own" and he explicitly
rejects working with the kind of people who opposed the invasion
of Iraq. That's a pity, really, because many people appear to
have started their opposition to the invasion because the
information provided and the logic used appeared to be dodgy.
The period from August 2002 to March 2003 prefigured the
Trump/Brexit era for post-truth information and arguments. Nick
Cohen would be on stronger ground if he admitted that the
invasion of Iraq has not necessarily worked to anyone's
advantage.
I guess that what is going on in Nick Cohen's mind (and I can
only guess) is that he has built up a negative image of the type
of person who opposed the invasion of Iraq and he has difficulty
getting past that image and come to terms with what those people
were saying and what has actually happened in Iraq. Thus in
between writing articles about the need for truth, Nick Cohen
writes expressions of outrage about opponents of the invasion of
Iraq as if they had been found to be wrong.
It seems to be a very extreme example of seeing the messenger
and not the message, which is one of the issues with failing to
recognise lies.
OK, well I've worked most of my life with Swedes and Norwegians,
and have regularly visited Malmo three or four times a year
recently, although the last was a bit over a year ago.
So, yes, immigration is an issue, and the Sweden Democrats
(fascists) have been rising in the polls. Malmo itself has some
problems in the suburbs.
But there are no no-go areas. Armed violence has more
traditionally been associated with biker-gang turf-related drug
wars - otherwise with the far right (see Breivik in Norway) and
then, as your last link discusses, lone serial killers.
Reading anything the Sweden Democrats have to say is the
equivalent of believing Wilders in the Netherlands - they are
loons.
"... I agree with much of what James F writes but one thing that doesn't sit right with me about him commentary is his implication that if your complaint isn't about an immediate threat to life and limb then your complaint is frivolous. That's bullshit. Immediate threats to life and limb require immediate attention but once those threats are dealt with then what? ..."
+1 for Frank's piece. "Meh." to James F's. His crankiness,
while justifiable, doesn't go anywhere.
Also, to say "Obama was defeated in the Massachusetts
senatorial campaign [in 2009, the special election to replace
Kennedy]." is to fundamentally misunderstand that race.
Coakley was a decent AG but utterly inept at connecting
with voters. Brown couldn't win a battle of wits with a
golden retriever but he was perceived as a nice guy. (Whether
he actually is a nice guy is open to debate.)
Brown's victory wasn't a repudiation of Obama; it was a
repudiation of Coakley.
I agree with much of what James F writes but one thing
that doesn't sit right with me about him commentary is his
implication that if your complaint isn't about an immediate
threat to life and limb then your complaint is frivolous.
That's bullshit. Immediate threats to life and limb require
immediate attention but once those threats are dealt with
then what?
Trivializing problems that
"comfortable people" call attention to is just a variation of
"Be thankful you have anything at all." which, at the risk of
overusing the phrase, is bullshit. Comfort the afflicted and
afflict the comforted but be self-aware enough to realize
that whatever your position it is it may change.
PS James F writes:
"We [people in flyover country] provide commodities
like food and coal and oil and metals."
Providing coal and oil may be a near-term necessity but
it's not doing anyone - "comfortable people", "deplorables"
or otherwise - any long-term favors. That you have acute
concerns which you need to deal with is not an excuse to turn
a blind eye to your impact on the world. It may be a reason
but it is not an excuse.
On the Mass race,
i think the failure of Democrats to fight with all their guns
for the 60th Senate seat was a major failure. They were not
willing to send their big guns to say "we cannot afford a
40th Republican, no matter how nice he is".
From amazon review of his book
In the Jaws of the Dragon "Anyone who has read "The World is Flat" should also read "In The
Jaws Of The Dragon" to understand both sides of the issues involved in offshoring. Eamon Fingleton clearly
defines the differences between the economic systems in play in China and Japan and the United States
and how those differences have damaged the United States economy. The naive position taken by both the
Republicans and the Democrats that offshoring is good for America is shown to be wrong because of a
fundamental lack of knowledge about who we are dealing with. Every member of Congress and the executive
branch should read this book before ratifying any more trade agreements. The old saying of the marketplace
applies: Take advantage of me once, shame on you. Take advantage of me twice, shame on me."
Notable quotes:
"... Similar miscommunication probably helps explain the European media's unreflective scorn for Donald Trump. Most European commentators have little or no access to the story. They have allowed their views to be shaped largely by the American press. ..."
"... That's a big mistake. Contrary to their carefully burnished self-image of impartiality and reliability, American journalists are not averse to consciously peddling outright lies. This applies even in the case of the biggest issues of the day, as witness, for instance, the American press's almost unanimous validation of George Bush's transparently mendacious case for the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... Most of the more damning charges against Trump are either without foundation or at least are viciously unfair distortions. Take, for instance, suggestions in the run-up to the election that he is anti-Semitic. In some accounts it was even suggested he was a closet neo-Nazi. Yet for anyone remotely familiar with the Trump story, this always rang false. After all he had thrived for decades in New York's overwhelmingly Jewish real estate industry. Then there was the fact that his daughter Ivanka, to whom he is evidently devoted, had converted to Judaism. ..."
"... In appointing Jared Kushner his chief adviser, he has chosen an orthodox Jew (Kushner is Ivanka's husband). Then there is David Friedman, Trump's choice for ambassador to Israel. Friedman is an outspoken partisan of the Israeli right and he is among other things an apologist for the Netanyahu administration's highly controversial settlement of the West Bank. ..."
"... As is often the case with Trumpian controversies, the facts are a lot more complicated than the press makes out. ..."
"... So far, so normal for the 2016 election campaign. But it turned out that Kovaleski was no ordinary Trump-hating journalist. He suffers from arthrogryposis, a malady in which the joints are malformed. For Trump's critics, this was manna from heaven. Instead of merely accusing the New York real estate magnate of exaggerating a minor, if troubling, sideshow in U.S.-Arab relations, they could now arraign him on the vastly more damaging charge of mocking someone's disability. ..."
"... In any case in responding directly to the charge of mocking Kovaleski's disability, Trump offered a convincing denial. "I would never do that," he said. "Number one, I have a good heart; number two, I'm a smart person." ..."
"... other much discussed Trumpian controversies such as his disparaging remarks about Mexicans and Muslims. In the case of both Mexican and Muslims, an effort to cut back immigration is a central pillar of Trump's program and his remarks, though offensive, were clearly intended to garner votes from fed-up middle Americans. ..."
"... In reality, as the Catholics 4 Trump website has documented, the media have suppressed vital evidence in the Kovaleski affair. ..."
Battlefield communications in World War I sometimes left something to be desired. Hence a famous
British anecdote of a garbled word-of-mouth message. As transmitted, the message ran, "Send reinforcements,
we are going to advance." Superior officers at the other end, however, were puzzled to be told: "Send
three and four-pence [three shillings and four-pence], we are going to a dance!"
Similar miscommunication probably helps explain the European media's unreflective scorn for
Donald Trump. Most European commentators have little or no access to the story. They have allowed
their views to be shaped largely by the American press.
That's a big mistake. Contrary to their carefully burnished self-image of impartiality and
reliability, American journalists are not averse to consciously peddling outright lies. This applies
even in the case of the biggest issues of the day, as witness, for instance, the American press's
almost unanimous validation of George Bush's transparently mendacious case for the Iraq war in 2003.
Most of the more damning charges against Trump are either without foundation or at least are
viciously unfair distortions. Take, for instance, suggestions in the run-up to the election that
he is anti-Semitic. In some accounts it was even suggested he was a closet neo-Nazi. Yet for anyone
remotely familiar with the Trump story, this always rang false. After all he had thrived for decades
in New York's overwhelmingly Jewish real estate industry. Then there was the fact that his daughter
Ivanka, to whom he is evidently devoted, had converted to Judaism.
Now as Trump embarks on office, his true attitudes are becoming obvious – and they hardly lean
towards neo-Nazism.
In appointing Jared Kushner his chief adviser, he has chosen an orthodox Jew (Kushner is Ivanka's
husband). Then there is David Friedman, Trump's choice for ambassador to Israel. Friedman is an outspoken
partisan of the Israeli right and he is among other things an apologist for the Netanyahu administration's
highly controversial settlement of the West Bank. Trump even wants to move the American embassy
in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This position is a favourite of the most ardently pro-Israel
section of the American Jewish community but is otherwise disavowed as insensitive to Palestinians
by most American policy analysts.
Many other examples could be cited of how the press has distorted the truth. It is interesting
to revisit in particular the allegation that Trump mocked a disabled man's disability. It is an allegation
which has received particular prominence in the press in Europe. But is Trump really such a heartless
ogre? Hardly.
As is often the case with Trumpian controversies, the facts are a lot more complicated than
the press makes out. The disabled-man episode began when, in defending an erstwhile widely ridiculed
contention that Arabs in New Jersey had publicly celebrated the Twin Towers attacks, Trump unearthed
a 2001 newspaper account broadly backed him up. But the report's author, Serge Kovaleski, demurred.
Trump's talk of "thousands" of Arabs, he wrote, was an exaggeration.
Trump fired back. Flailing his arms wildly in an impersonation of an embarrassed, backtracking
reporter, he implied that Kovaleski had succumbed to political correctness.
So far, so normal for the 2016 election campaign. But it turned out that Kovaleski was no
ordinary Trump-hating journalist. He suffers from arthrogryposis, a malady in which the joints are
malformed. For Trump's critics, this was manna from heaven. Instead of merely accusing the New York
real estate magnate of exaggerating a minor, if troubling, sideshow in U.S.-Arab relations, they
could now arraign him on the vastly more damaging charge of mocking someone's disability.
Trump's plea that he hadn't known that Kovaleski was handicapped was undermined when it emerged
that in the 1980s the two had not only met but Kovaleski had even interviewed Trump in Trump Tower.
That is an experience I know something about. I, like Kovaleski, once interviewed Trump in Trump
Tower. The occasion was an article I wrote for Forbes magazine in 1982. If Trump saw my by-line today,
would he remember that occasion 35 years ago? Probably not. The truth is that Trump, who has been
a celebrity since his early twenties, has been interviewed by thousands of journalists over the years.
A journalist would have to be seriously conceited – or be driven by a hidden agenda – to assume that
a VIP as busy as Trump would remember an occasion half a lifetime ago.
In any case in responding directly to the charge of mocking Kovaleski's disability, Trump
offered a convincing denial. "I would never do that," he said. "Number one, I have a good heart;
number two, I'm a smart person." Setting aside point one (although to the press's chagrin, many
of Trump's acquaintances have testified that a streak of considerable private generosity underlies
his tough-guy exterior), it is hard to see how anyone can question point two. In effect Trump is
saying he had a strong self-interest in not offending the disabled lobby let alone their millions
of sympathisers.
After all it was not as if there were votes in dissing the disabled. This stands in marked contrast
to other much discussed Trumpian controversies such as his disparaging remarks about Mexicans
and Muslims. In the case of both Mexican and Muslims, an effort to cut back immigration is a central
pillar of Trump's program and his remarks, though offensive, were clearly intended to garner votes
from fed-up middle Americans.
In reality, as the Catholics 4 Trump website has documented, the media have suppressed vital
evidence in the Kovaleski affair.
For a start Trump's frenetic performance bore no resemblance to arthrogryposis. Far from frantically
flailing their arms, arthrogryposis victims are uncommonly motionlessness. This is because relevant
bones are fused together. As Catholics 4 Trump pointed out, the media should have been expected to
have been chomping at the bit to interview Kovaleski and thus clinch the point about how ruthlessly
Trump had ridiculed a disabled man's disability.
The website added: "If the media had a legitimate story, that is exactly what they would have
done and we all know it. But the media couldn't put Kovaleski in front of a camera or they'd have
no story."
Catholics 4 Trump added that, in the same speech in which Trump did his Kovaleski impression,
he offered an almost identical performance to illustrate the embarrassment of a U.S. general with
whom he had clashed. In particular Trump had the general wildly flailing his arms. It goes without
saying that this general does not suffer from arthogryposis or any other disability. The common thread
in each case was merely an embarrassed, backtracking person. To say the least, commentators in Europe
who have portrayed Trump as having mocked Kovaleski's disability stand accused of superficial, slanted
reporting.
All this is not to suggest that Trump does not come to the presidency unencumbered with baggage.
He is exceptionally crude – at least he is in his latter-day reality TV manifestation (the Trump
I remember from my interview in 1982 was a model of restraint by comparison and in particular never
used any expletives). Moreover the latter-day Trump habit of picking Twitter fights with those who
criticize him tends merely to confirm a widespread belief that he is petty and thin-skinned.
Many of his pronouncements moreover have been disturbing and his abrasive manner will clearly
prove on balance a liability in the White House. That said, the press has never worked harder or
more dishonestly to destroy a modern American leader.
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, therefore, as he sets out to make America great again.
The truth is that American decline has gone much further than almost anyone outside American industry
understands. Trump's task is a daunting one.
Eamonn
Fingleton is an expert on America's trade problems and is the author of In Praise of Hard Industries:
Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity (Houghton Mifflin,
Boston). A version of this article appeared in the Dublin Ireland Sunday Business Post.
America's fate looks dicey in the showdown with the Chinese juggernaut, warns this vigorous jeremiad.
Fingleton (In Praise of Hard Industries) argues that China's "East Asian" development model of aggressive
mercantilism and a state-directed economy "effortlessly outperforms" America's fecklessly individualistic
capitalism
Neoliberals seem very concerned not to have a label. I posit this is because the founders of the
malign ideology didn't want their victims be able to reliably identify them. The deliberately and misleadingly
promote the view of the economy as an isolated scientific subject, like the interior of a test tube,
and treat politics and policy as a sort of exterior force, that can be isolated from the world of the
chemist and pushed off-to-one side. Neoclassic economists consistently and deliberately blinds itself
to politics and the dynamics of power, despite the deep entanglement of politics with everything economic.
"I look at politics and the economy and see one thing, not two things, and I am astonished at the extent
to which economists focus on the part they like to play with intellectually, while deliberately looking
away from what is probably the more important part. "
Notable quotes:
"... when left-wing people say that economists are defenders and supporters of the current order of things, they have a point: ignoring power relationships and their impact on the world supports the continued existence of those relationships. ..."
"... Neoliberalism may have been in part so successful because it appeals to (and tries to explain many things in terms of) a narrative of competition (and assignment of reward and acknowedlgement) by merit. ..."
"... Most people, esp. when young (still largely sheltered) or (still) successful, probably have an exaggerated assessment of their own merit (absolute and relative) - often actively instilled and encouraged by an "enabling" environment. ..."
"... It promises a lake Wobegon of sorts where everybody (even though not all!) are above average, and it is finally recognized. ..."
What Wren-Lewis misses, I think, is that something I've noticed in my roughly a decade of reading
economic blogs on the Internet. Economists have blinkers on. They want to view the economy as an
isolated scientific subject, like the interior of a test tube, and treat politics and policy as a
sort of exterior force, that can be isolated from the world of the chemist and pushed off-to-one
side. It seems fairly clear to me that the two elements--politics and the economy--are obviously
continuously co-mingled, and have all sorts of feedback loops running between them.
The discipline really consistently and deliberately blinds itself to politics and the dynamics
of power, despite the deep entanglement of politics with everything economic. Wren-Lewis admits that
macroeconomists "missed" the impacts of very high financial sector leverage, but finds that now that
economists have noticed it, and suggested remedies, that the power of bank lobby prevents those remedies
from being enacted. But shouldn't the political power of the finance lobby been a part of economic
analysis of the world along with the dangers of the financial sector's use of extreme leverage? Does
he think the two phenomena are unrelated?
Shouldn't economics pay more attention to the ongoing attempts of various groups to orient government
policy in their favor, just like they pay attention to the trade deficit and GDP numbers?
I look at politics and the economy and see one thing, not two things, and I am astonished at the
extent to which economists focus on the part they like to play with intellectually, while deliberately
looking away from what is probably the more important part. Its like economists obsessively focus
on the part that can be studied via numbers (money) and don't' want to think about the part that
is harder to look quantify (political policy). And there is a political issue there, which Mr. Wren-Lewis,
keeps ignoring in his defense of "mainstream economics."
The neoclassical economics tendency of not looking at power relationships makes power imbalances
and their great influence on economics seem like "givens" or "natural endowments", which is clearly
an intellectual sin of omission.
Many people, even within the halls of mainstream economics, note economists are "uncomfortable"
with distributional issues.
Whether they like the implication or not, economists need to acknowledge that this discomfort
has a profoundly conservative intellectual bias, in the sense that it make the status quo arrangement
of society seem "natural" and "normal", when it is obviously humanly constructed and not in any sense
"natural." So when left-wing people say that economists are defenders and supporters of the current
order of things, they have a point: ignoring power relationships and their impact on the world supports
the continued existence of those relationships.
Mr. Wren-Lewis seems like a nice guy, but he needs to take that simple home truth in. I'm not
sure why he seems to struggle so with acknowledging it.
Oh you mean the success of being able to raise asset prices without the growth in wages, make
education costly and unaffordable without student loans, not chargeable under bankruptcy, spruce
up employment figures by not counting the people who have stopped look for jobs because they cannot
find one, make people debt serfs, make savers miserable by keeping interest rates at zero and
making them take risks that they may not want to take though it is picking pennies in front of
a steamroller, keeping wages stagnant for decades and thus impoverishing people.
The list of successes is endless and you should be glad we are NOT talking about them. Because
if we do, the clan called economists might well be torched.
Neoliberalism may have been in part so successful because it appeals to (and tries to explain
many things in terms of) a narrative of competition (and assignment of reward and acknowedlgement)
by merit.
Most people, esp. when young (still largely sheltered) or (still) successful, probably
have an exaggerated assessment of their own merit (absolute and relative) - often actively instilled
and encouraged by an "enabling" environment.
A large part is probably the idea that "markets" are "objective" or at least "impartial" in
bringing out and rewarding merit - also technology and "data driven" technocratic management,
which are attributed "objectivity". All in the explicitly stated or implied service of impartially
recognizing merit and its lack.
It promises a lake Wobegon of sorts where everybody (even though not all!) are above average,
and it is finally recognized.
"Neoliberalism may have been in part so successful because it appeals to (and tries to explain
many things in terms of) a narrative of competition (and assignment of reward and acknowedlgement)
by merit."
"... By Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including the Guardian, Salon, and the Progressive, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial. Originally published at emptywheel ..."
"... The Count of Monte-Cristo ..."
"... I believe it was Chomsky who said that the print media has content and filler, the content is the advertising and the filler is everything else. ..."
"... As advertising revenues have gone down, the print media may be looking for a new operating funds, maybe from wealthy owners (Bezos, Carlos Slim) paying for their views to be featured, maybe from US government hidden funding to "counter fake news" that is contrary to the story the elite wants told. ..."
"... If there is a feedback loop in the mainstream media, it is very slow and does not correct errors to result in lasting reform. ..."
"... The Times promoted the Iraq war and then had the Bill Keller retrospective "we got it wrong" years later. ..."
"... Then the Times moved onto promoting military action in Libya, the Ukraine and Syria. ..."
Yves here. Marcy points out how what is considered to be "news" has changed greatly over time,
and that the requirement that news be objective is recent and marketing-driven.
This essay covers a great deal of important ground. I'd like to add one topic, which is the role
of propaganda. Even though organizations have done all sorts of evangelizing, the use of the media
and social networks of the day for that purpose is relatively recent. Alex Carey in his book Taking
the Risk Out of Democracy dates it to the early 1900s. One early, successful campaign led by the
National Association of Manufacturers, already a leader in campaigning against organized labor, was
to counter the backlash against immigration, which was then seen as a threat to American values and
communities. One of their initiatives
was institutionalizing "Americanization Day," later rebranded as "Independence Day."
As we've discussed before, the first full-bore government-sponsored propaganda campaign took place
in World War I. The Creel Committee, an agency of the Federal government officially called the Committee
on Public Information used all the communication vehicles of its day, not just newspapers. An overview
from Wikipedia:
The committee used newsprint, posters, radio, telegraph, cable and movies to broadcast its
message. It recruited about 75,000 "Four Minute Men," volunteers who spoke about the war at social
events for an ideal length of four minutes, considering that the average human attention span
was judged at the time to be four minutes. They covered the draft, rationing, war bond drives,
victory gardens and why America was fighting. It was estimated that by the end of the war, they
had made more than 7.5 million speeches to 314 million people in 5,200 communities. They were
advised to keep their message positive, always use their own words and avoid "hymns of hate."
For ten days in May 1917, the Four Minute Men were expected to promote "Universal Service by Selective
Draft" in advance of national draft registration on June 5, 1917.
The CPI staged events designed for specific ethnic groups. For instance, Irish-American tenor
John McCormack sang at Mount Vernon before an audience representing Irish-American organizations.
The Committee also targeted the American worker and, endorsed by Samuel Gompers, filled factories
and offices with posters designed to promote the critical role of American labor in the success
of the war effort.
The CPI's activities were so thorough that historians later stated, using the example of a
typical midwestern American farm family, that
Every item of war news they saw-in the country weekly, in magazines, or in the city daily
picked up occasionally in the general store-was not merely officially approved information
but precisely the same kind that millions of their fellow citizens were getting at the same
moment. Every war story had been censored somewhere along the line- at the source, in transit,
or in the newspaper offices in accordance with 'voluntary' rules established by the CPI.
The Creel Committee was able to turn America from being firmly pacifist to being eager to fight
the evil Germans in a mere 18 months. In Serbia, a concerted propaganda campaign was able to turn
public polls radically in a mere six weeks.
In other words, the hysteria about fake news appears to be members of the officialdom realizing
that their traditional propaganda channels don't work because too many people get information on
the Internet, and they can no longer orchestrate a Mighty Wurlitzer of unified opinion. This may
seem obvious but surprisingly few people are willing to say that in simple terms. The reflex of government
opinion managers and their media allies is to shut down or delegitimate offending outlets. But there
are too many, not just in the US but overseas, for them to do that other than by severely curtailing
Internet publication. Are they prepared to go the route of the Chinese government in terms of restricting
foreign access and censoring domestic writers? That's the end game if they are serious about stopping
what TPTB deems to be "fake news".
By Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties.
She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including the Guardian, Salon,
and the Progressive, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy
of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial. Originally
published at emptywheel
I've been getting into multiple Twitter fights about the term "fake news" of late, a topic about
which I feel strongly but which I don't have time to reargue over and over. So here are the reasons
I find the term "fake news" to be counterproductive, even aside from the way Washington Post magnified
it with the PropOrNot campaign amidst a series of badly reported articles on Russia that failed WaPo's
own standards of "fake news."
Most people who use the term "fake news" seem to be fetishizing something they call "news." By
that, they usually mean the pursuit of "the truth" within an editor-and-reporter system of "professional"
news reporting. Even in 2017, they treat that term "news" as if it escapes all biases, with some
still endorsing the idea that "objectivity" is the best route to "truth," even in spite of the way
"objectivity" has increasingly imposed a kind of both-sides false equivalence that the right has
used to move the Overton window in recent years.
I've got news (heh) for you America. What we call "news" is one temporally and geographically
contingent genre of what gets packaged as "news." Much of the world doesn't produce the kind of news
we do, and for good parts of our own history, we didn't either. Objectivity was invented as a marketing
ploy. It is true that during a period of elite consensus, news that we treated as objective succeeded
in creating a unifying national narrative of what most white people believed to be true, and that
narrative was tremendously valuable to ensure the working of our democracy. But even there, "objectivity"
had a way of enforcing centrism. It excluded most women and people of color and often excluded working
class people. It excluded the "truth" of what the US did overseas. It thrived in a world of limited
broadcast news outlets. In that sense, the golden age of objective news depended on a great deal
of limits to the marketplace of ideas, largely chosen by the gatekeeping function of white male elitism.
And, probably starting at the moment Walter Cronkite figured out the Vietnam War was a big myth,
that elite narrative started developing cracks.
But several things have disrupted what we fetishize as news since them. Importantly, news outlets
started demanding major profits, which changed both the emphasis on reporting and the measure of
success. Cable news, starting especially with Fox but definitely extending to MSNBC, aspired to achieve
buzz, and even explicitly political outcomes, bringing US news much closer to what a lot of advanced
democracies have - politicized news.
And all that's before 2002, what I regard as a key year in this history. Not only was traditional
news struggling in the face of heightened profit expectations even as the Internet undercut the press'
traditional revenue model. But at a time of crisis in the financial model of the "news," the press
catastrophically blew the Iraq War, and did so at a time when people like me were able to write "news"
outside of the strictures of the reporter-and-editor arrangement.
I actually think, in an earlier era, the government would have been able to get away with its
Iraq War lies, because there wouldn't be outlets documenting the errors, and there wouldn't have
been ready alternatives to a model that proved susceptible to manipulation. There might eventually
have been a Cronkite moment in the Iraq War, too, but it would have been about the conduct of the
war, not also about the gaming of the "news" process to create the war. But because there was competition,
we saw the Iraq War as a journalistic failure when we didn't see earlier journalistic complicity
in American foreign policy as such.
Since then, of course, the underlying market has continued to change. Optimistically, new outlets
have arisen. Some of them - perhaps most notably HuffPo and BuzzFeed and Gawker before Peter Thiel
killed it - have catered to the financial opportunities of the Internet, paying for real journalism
in part with clickbait stories that draw traffic (which is just a different kind of subsidy than
the family-owned project that traditional newspapers often relied on, and these outlets also rely
on other subsidies). I'm pretty excited by some of the journalism BuzzFeed is doing right now, but
it's worth reflecting their very name nods to clickbait.
More importantly, the "center" of our national - indeed, global - discourse shifted from elite
reporter-and-editor newspapers to social media, and various companies - almost entirely American
- came to occupy dominant positions in that economy. That comes with the good and the bad. It permits
the formulation of broader networks; it permits crisis on the other side of the globe to become news
over here, in some but not all spaces, it permits women and people of color to engage on an equal
footing with people previously deemed the elite (though very urgent digital divide issues still leave
billions outside this discussion). It allows our spooks to access information that Russia needs to
hack to get with a few clicks of a button. It also means the former elite narrative has to compete
with other bubbles, most of which are not healthy and many of which are downright destructive. It
fosters abuse.
But the really important thing is that the elite reporter-and-editor oligopoly was replaced with
a marketplace driven by a perverse marriage of our human psychology and data manipulation (and often,
secret algorithms). Even assuming net neutrality, most existing discourse exists in that marketplace.
That reality has negative effects on everything, from financially strapped reporter-and-editor outlets
increasingly chasing clicks to Macedonian teenagers inventing stories to make money to attention
spans that no longer get trained for long reads and critical thinking.
The other thing to remember about this historical narrative is that there have always been stories
pretending to present the real world that were not in fact the real world. Always. Always always
always. Indeed, there are
academic arguments that
our concept of "fiction" actually arises out of a necessary legal classification for what gets published
in the newspaper. "Facts" were insults of the king you could go to prison for. "Fiction" was stories
about kings that weren't true and therefore wouldn't get you prison time (obviously, really authoritarian
regimes don't honor this distinction, which is an important lesson in their contingency). I have
been told that fact/fiction moment didn't happen in all countries, and it happened at different times
in different countries (roughly tied, in my opinion, to the moment when the government had to sustain
legitimacy via the press).
But even after that fact/fiction moment, you would always see factual stories intermingling with
stuff so sensational that we would never regard it as true. But such sensational not-true stories
definitely helped to sell newspapers. Most people don't know this because we generally learn a story
via which our fetishized objective news is the end result of a process of earlier news, but news
outlets - at least in the absence of heavy state censorship - have always been very heterogeneous.
As many of you know, a big part of my dissertation covered actual fiction in newspapers.
The Count of Monte-Cristo , for example, was published in France's then equivalent of the
WSJ. It wasn't the only story about an all powerful figure with ties to Napoleon Bonaparte that delivered
justice that appeared in newspapers of the day. Every newspaper offered competing versions, and those
sold newspapers at a moment of increasing industrialization of the press in France. But even at a
time when the "news" section of the newspaper presented largely curations of parliamentary debates,
everything else ran the gamut from "fiction," to sensational stuff (often reporting on technology
or colonies), to columns to advertisements pretending to be news.
After 1848 and 1851, the literary establishment put out alarmed calls to discipline the literary
sphere, which led to changes that made such narratives less accessible to the kind of people who
might overthrow a king. That was the "fictional narrative" panic of the time, one justified by events
of 1848.
Anyway, if you don't believe me that there has always been fake news, just go to a checkout line
and read the National Enquirer, which sometimes does cover people like Hillary Clinton or Angela
Merkel. "But people know that's fake news!" people say. Not all, and not all care. It turns out,
some people like to consume fictional narratives (I have actually yet to see analysis of how many
people don't realize or care that today's Internet fake news is not true). In fact, everyone likes
to consume fictional narratives - it's a fundamental part of what makes us human - but some of us
believe there are norms about whether fictional narratives should be allowed to influence how we
engage in politics.
Not that that has ever stopped people from letting religion - a largely fictional narrative -
dictate political decisions.
So to sum up this part of my argument: First, the history of journalism is about the history of
certain market conditions, conditions which always get at least influenced by the state, but which
in so-called capitalist countries also tend to produce bottle necks of power. In the 50s, it was
the elite. Now it's Silicon Valley. And that's true not just here! The bottle-neck of power for much
of the world is Silicon Valley. To understand what dictates the kinds of stories you get from a particular
media environment, you need to understand where the bottle-necks are. Today's bottle-neck has created
both what people like to call "fake news" and a whole bunch of other toxins.
But also, there has never been a time in media where not-true stories didn't comingle with true
stories, and at many times in history the lines between them were not clear to many consumers. Plus,
not-true stories, of a variety of types, can often have a more powerful influence than true ones
(think about how much our national security state likes series like 24). Humans are wired for narrative,
not for true or false narrative.
Which brings us to what some people are calling "fake news" - as if both "fake" and "news" aren't
just contingent terms across the span of media - and insisting it has never existed before. These
people suggest the advent of deliberately false narratives, produced both by partisans, entrepreneurs
gaming ad networks, as well as state actors trying to influence our politics, narratives that feed
on human proclivity for sensationalism (though stories from this year showed Trump supporters had
more of this than Hillary supporters) served via the Internet, are a new and unique threat, and possibly
the biggest threat in our media environment right now.
Let me make clear: I do think it's a threat, especially in an era where local trusted news is
largely defunct. I think it is especially concerning because powers of the far right are using it
to great effect. But I think pretending this is a unique moment in history - aside from the characteristics
of the marketplace - obscures the areas (aside from funding basic education and otherwise fostering
critical thinking) that can most effectively combat it. I especially encourage doing what we can
to disrupt the bottle-neck - one that happens to be in Silicon Valley - that plays on human nature.
Google, Facebook, and Germany have all taken initial steps which may limit the toxins that get spread
via a very American bottle-neck.
I'm actually more worried about the manipulation of which stories get fed
by big data. Trump claims to have used it to drive down turnout; and the first he worked with is
part of a larger information management company. The far right is probably achieving more with these
tailored messages than Vladimir Putin is with his paid trolls.
The thing is: the antidote to both of these problems are to fix the bottle-neck.
But I also think that the most damaging non-true news story of the year was Bret Baier's claim
that Hillary was going to be indicted, as even after it was retracted it magnified the damage of
Jim Comey's interventions. I always raise that in Twitter debates, and people tell me oh that's just
bad journalism not fake news. It was a deliberate manipulation of the news delivery system (presumably
by FBI Agents) in the same way the manipulation of Facebooks algorithms feeds so-called fake news.
But it had more impact because more people saw it and people may retain news delivered as news more.
It remains a cinch to manipulate the reporter-and-editor news process (particularly in an era driven
by clicks and sensationalism and scoops), and that is at least as major a threat to democracy as
non-elites consuming made up stories about the Pope.
I'll add that there are special categories of non-factual news that deserve notice. Much stock
reporting, especially in the age of financialization, is just made up hocus pocus designed to keep
the schlubs whom the elite profit off of in the market. And much reporting on our secret foreign
policy deliberately reports stuff the reporter knows not to be true. David Sanger's recent amnesia
of his own reporting on StuxNet is a hilarious example of this, as is all the Syria reporting that
pretends we haven't intervened there. Frankly, even aside from the more famous failures, a lot of
Russian coverage obscures reality, which discredits reports on what is a serious issue. I raise these
special categories because they are the kind of non-true news that elites endorse, and as such don't
raise the alarm that Macedonian teenagers making a buck do.
The latest panic about "fake news" - Trump's labeling of CNN and Buzzfeed as such for disseminating
the dossier that media outlets chose not to disseminate during the election - suffers from some of
the same characteristics, largely because parts of it remain shrouded in clandestine networks (and
because the provenance remains unclear). If American power relies (as it increasingly does) on secrets
and even outright lies, who's to blame the proles for inventing their own narratives, just like the
elite do?
Two final points.
First, underlying most of this argument is an argument about what happens when you subject the
telling of true stories to certain conditions of capitalism. There is often a tension in this process,
as capitalism may make "news" (and therefore full participation in democracy) available to more people,
but to popularize that news, businesses do things that taint the elite's idealized notion of what
true story telling in a democracy should be. Furthermore, at no moment in history I'm aware of has
there been a true "open" market for news. It is always limited by the scarcity of outlets and bandwidth,
by laws, by media ownership patterns, and by the historically contingent bottle-necks that dictate
what kind of news may be delivered most profitably. One reason I loathe the term "fake news" is because
its users think the answer lies in non-elite consumers or in producers and not in the marketplace
itself, a marketplace created in and largely still benefitting the US. If "fake news" is a problem,
then it's a condemnation of the marketplace of ideas largely created by the US and elites in the
US need to attend to that.
Finally, one reason there is such a panic about "fake news" is because the western ideology of
neoliberalism has failed. It has led to increased authoritarianism, decreased qualify of life in
developed countries (but not parts of Africa and other developing nations), and it has led to serial
destabilizing wars along with the refugee crises that further destabilize Europe. It has failed in
the same way that communism failed before it, but the elites backing it haven't figured this out
yet. I'll write more on this (Ian Walsh has been
doing good work here ). All details of the media environment aside, this has disrupted the value-laden
system in which "truth" exists, creating a great deal of panic and confusion among the elite that
expects itself to lead the way out of this morass. Part of what we're seeing in "fake news" panic
stems from that, as well as a continued disinterest in accountability for the underlying policies
- the Iraq War and the Wall Street crash and aftermath especially - enabled by failures in our elite
media environment. But our media environment is likely to be contested until such time as a viable
ideology forms to replace failed neoliberalism. Sadly, that ideology will be Trump_vs_deep_state unless the
elite starts making the world a better place for average folks. Instead, the elite is policing discourse-making
by claiming other things - the bad true and false narratives it, itself, doesn't propagate - as illegitimate.
"Fake news" is a problem. But it is a minor problem compared to our other discursive problems.
Episode 2 of the new gameshow "The Wall", which features up to ~$12 Million in possible prizes,
they cheat the very first question.
Confirm it for yourself. The 'couple' (the game is for 'couples) is a military family. The
hot-shot helo-pilot doesn't know who won the tortise and the hare.
He screams, the hare! And presses the button in plain sight.
Never-the-less he is rewarded a win. His wife later cannot tell the nicknames of the F-16 and
the F-18 apart for 100% sure.
Once upon a time, the search string "I have a secret fake" in Google would return lone string
of a book where a lone voice in the wilderness put in print that the whole show was 'managed.'
A sophisticated re-viewing shows it to have been 'faked' this is all back in the 50's. It's
coming back, but two years after my last research on this, the same search string only gave me
the above link to . what?
The tortise wins. Correction: The show's later episodes (just watched) reveal that answers
in transit can be changed. So this is no repeat of 'Card Sharks' (Time magazine complicity included.)
It's awkward when nobody quite knows what exactly the rules are and the prize is so high.
Let us remember Charles "The Genius Of All Time" Van Doren, and his skyrocket fame (what's
the end point of a skyrocket's trajectory, again?) in the Great Quiz Show Manipulation of the
'50s and early '60s, this story link from the NYT in 2008 kind of lifts some of the corners of
the curtain that the Bernaysian manipulators hide behind, "After 49 years, Charles Van Doren talks,"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/opinion/21iht-edbeam.1.14660467.html
"For evil to triumph, all that is required is for a few good people to remain silent," or some
such sh!t.
And there's this, on another YUUUGE cultural phenom, "The $64,000 Question," which was one
of those "quiz" game shows my parents and us kids sat mesmerized watching, with visions of "free
money" dancing in our peabrains, and which "program" (what a wonderful meme-name for what "media"
does to us mopes) pure deceit and buzz-building on a par with state Lotteries: "The American Experience:
The $64,000 Question,"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/peopleevents/pande06.html
(note that this was from PBS, in 1999, before the Reagan Rot had really gained a full head
of steam).
Once again, the popular interpretation and infusion and internalization of "information" displaying
and relating, "those who have eyes, let them see," the unhappy sicknesses of a pleasure-and-greed-driven
human infestation gets it all wrong, finds no wisdom leading out of the cave, turns possible insights
into just more grist for the Bernaysian mills to roll out
"Jerr-Y! Jerr-Y! Jerr-Y!" "And in the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo "
'In other words, the hysteria about fake news appears to be members of the officialdom realizing
that their traditional propaganda channels don't work because too many people get information
on the Internet, and they can no longer orchestrate a Mighty Wurlitzer of unified opinion.'
Bang on Yves. And I would add that if you run a propaganda machine, and are a little paranoid,
any 'unauthorised' story on the web looks like someone else's propaganda.
Its wrong to put all this down to internet news however. Adam Curtis' 'Bitter Lake' is a must-see
on this topic. Just like in 1980s Soviet Union where the stories of Russian greatness were so
obviously contradicted by the experience of ordinary Russians of a failing state, the fakery of
the war on terror propaganda has worn away our trust in the Mighty Wurlitzer. Curtis linked the
cultural collapse of the Soviet Union intrinsically to the failure of the war in Afghanistan and
the mirror it held up to the supposed values of Soviet Society, as trumpeted by their version
of the Mighty Wurlitzer. And maybe he's right.
1933 Germany, 1989 Sovient Union, 2016 USA. All three stemmed from failures of the Mighty Wurlitzer.
The big question is whether we will long for it back.
One for Curtis hardcore fans only (he really stretched his already tenuous hold on the conventions
of documentary making in this one) but his latest,
HyperNormalisation , takes the themes you refer to in your comment above and expands on them
to explain how we got to Fake News.
The last CEO of the company, a publicly traded company, where my dad worked before the sale
to GE told my dad that in the future companies can't go public if they don't want to work for
Wall Street wolves. This was around '95. Dad still goes to company reunions. Those weirdos liked
their jobs.
Of course, the longer trend is business formation related. The Internet and social media booms
are over, and those were the new IPOs of the last 20 years. The ends of growth are the real issues.
I don't think anybody is "fetishizing news," but whilst its true that there's a far greater
variety of information sources today, and many of them are not subject to the pressures of conventional
media, the implication that somehow the overall level of "truth" has gone up is not sustainable.
If anything it's probably gone down. Those of us of a certain age remember a time when there were
far more newspapers than today, when ownership was spread much more widely, and where newspapers
had a lot more staff and were under a lot less commercial pressure than is the case now. You could,
and did, allow for political bias, and it was possible, though not common, for blatant untruths
to be published. But that was more difficult than it is today, because the barriers to entry were
much higher, and the total media space was much smaller.
I also think its unfair to blame the problem solely on the effects of neoliberalism, damaging
as those have been. Journalists themselves have to bear some of the blame. In the 1990s, it became
fashionable to deride objectivity (mere "objectivity, a white, patriarchal western concept) as
an objective of journalism. Because total objectivity was impossible, it was said, you shouldn't
even try. And as a number of journalists at the time argued "you can't be objective between good
and evil." The same people who lied about WMD in Iraq in 2002 had already lied about Bosnia a
decade before, were to lie about Darfur a few years later and are busy lying about Syria, the
Ukraine and "free trade" today. In each case, the argument is the same: the service of a higher
moral principle. I've even heard it argued that Trump is such a terrible human being that journalists
have not only a right but an actual duty to print anything that might cause him harm. To the extent
that you abandon the demand that journalists should do their professional best to be as accurate
as possible, and you see "news" itself as a contested, contingent term, it's hard to rationally
criticise the actors in any of these episodes.
Interesting essay I am not mollified by reading that Google, Facebook and Germany are uniting
to defeat 'fake news' and then remembering the recent rumors (fake news?) that Mark Zuckerberg,
of Facebook, is considering running for President so what happens when the bottle-neck king also
runs the nation, or is even just thinking of it (Zuckerberg finding God recently comes to mind),
when most voters are getting their news from their Facebook news feeds ? Would something mildly
critical of Mark Zuckerberg survive 'fake' news review ?
Also, just because China has a walled garden doesn't save them from a torrent of local fake
news. In the US the current business model of the internet news is actually a greater danger to
democracy and that is the automated binning of consumers into narrow categories (right, left,
techie etc) from which they find it hard to stray, if they even think of it, and so it makes it
hard for a reader to see in his newsfeed countervailing news or analysis, people thus get polarized.
The effort to find different/opposing opinions is not painless and quite by design. This trap
has to be broken.
Quality education of the population and freer access to information are greater defenses of
democracy and freedom the any Facebook designed filter.
great essay. Makes me think there is some bedrock reality beneath all the noise that keeps
us rational enough to survive. All forms of life display good judgment; practicality. So do we.
So I'm not very concerned that we might be pants-less without an ideology to shroud all the embarrassing
craziness. I'm encouraged by that prospect.
Sheep get slaughtered I choose not to be a sheep. I had no choice in the 60s, when I had
three oligopoly networks to choose from. With the Internet, I am my own reporter. This is more
like how the printing press destroyed the Catholic Church. I make my own narrative, I don't let
anyone else do it for me. Facts are few and far between, but they are just signposts on my own
superhighway which I build myself. Are my beliefs factual? Are they for anyone? That was a rhetorical
question. People who think their beliefs are The Truth are maniacs.
This whole "fake news" business is all about suppressing dissent, as others have noted.
The media tried to coronate Clinton. With falling advertising revenues in some cases, and decreasing
trust in the mainstream media, they have begun to panic. They know that the people realize that
they are the Pravda of plutocracy.
At the same time, the alternative media has grown with the Internet. It has reached growing
members and allowed people to see the truth.
The reason why propaganda like "fake news" exists is to create a false narrative that can be
repeated that people can believe in. The other of course is to force people to comply or face
professional and financial consequences.
The thing is, I think that we've reached the limits of propaganda. Inequality has reached an
extent that the myth that America is a meritocracy has failed, while efforts to force the American
people to accept war have been faced with opposition.
What is unsurprising is that the media does signal what the insiders want/plan to do.
I was in a library that had some old bound Life Magazines and decided to see what the Life
covered just prior to the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
There was an article about a Midwest congressmen who was visiting his district, who knew his
constituents did not want to go to war, but seemed to see the US entry into war likely.
Even Hollywood got into the act, as the Sergeant York (American WWI hero) 1941 movie was released
on July 2, 1941, well before Pearl Harbor.
There seems to be little penalty for journalists getting it wrong, for example Tom Friedman,
Nicholas Kristof, and Michael Gordon of the Times still have jobs after their "let's promote the
Iraq War effort".
Judith Miller was the lone sacrificial lamb.
Some of them even re-write history, as sanctimonious Nicholas Kristof, while recently pimping
for the USA's involvement in Syria (on humanitarian grounds, of course), pushed a "trust me on
Syria" story by asserting his prior wisdom in his alleged strong opposition to the Iraq war.
Yet I archived an August 27, 2002 column in which he wrote:
"Iraq may well be different. President Bush has convinced me that there is no philosophical
reason we should not overthrow the Iraqi government, given that Iraqis themselves would be better
off, along with the rest of the world. But Mr. Bush has not overcome some practical concerns about
an invasion."
What about ethical concerns, Kristof?
I believe it was Chomsky who said that the print media has content and filler, the content
is the advertising and the filler is everything else.
As advertising revenues have gone down, the print media may be looking for a new operating
funds, maybe from wealthy owners (Bezos, Carlos Slim) paying for their views to be featured, maybe
from US government hidden funding to "counter fake news" that is contrary to the story the elite
wants told.
If there is a feedback loop in the mainstream media, it is very slow and does not correct errors
to result in lasting reform.
The Times promoted the Iraq war and then had the Bill Keller retrospective "we got it wrong"
years later.
Then the Times moved onto promoting military action in Libya, the Ukraine and Syria.
The Times recently had an "Obama regrets Libya" retrospective, what other "we got it wrong"
retrospectives will occur in the future?
In the third paragraph Marcy begins talking about objectivity and then shifts to denigrating
"objectivity" without a word about what the scare quotes mean to her. Now I understand that the
language used by an oppressive system can itself be oppressive. But if "objectivity" omitted women
and people of color, well, clearly that's bad, but what does that have to do with objectivity?
Maybe I'm just too old and out of touch to get the post modern project to dismantle objectivity
and replace it with self-centered wishful thinking. But without objectivity, we would never have
seen the civil rights movement or the rise of feminism in the sixties.
I was still very young during the civil rights movement so I won't talk about what I don't
really know first hand, but the rise of feminism took place in the prime of my passionate youth.
What many middle class women were experiencing in the '50s was a complete isolation in the suburbs
and a feeling (due largely to rampant blaming the victim) that all the problems of their lives
were their own personal problems. It was not until politically active women began to share their
experiences in consciousness raising groups that they discovered that they were not alone in their
experiences i.e. that many of their so-called personal problems were objectively imposed
upon the entire group of women by the oppressive society. That is, these were not personal problems
at all, they were socially constructed problems that effected all women to some degree. Without
objectivity there could be no oppression theory, consciousness raising groups are transformed
into support groups, oppression theory becomes psychology, and the oppression of women is dissolved
into nothing more than the personal problems of individual women. Don't throw out the baby with
the bath water.
Here is what Bloomberg peddled for news yesterday.
Donald Trump's advisers have told U.K. officials that the incoming president's first foreign
trip will be a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
, potentially in Reykjavik within
weeks of taking office, the Sunday Times reported.
Trump plans to begin working on a deal to limit nuclear weapons, the newspaper said, without providing
details. It cited an unidentified source for the summit plans, and added that
Moscow is ready
to agree to the meeting
, based on comments from officials at the Russian embassy in London.
The paper, citing an unidentified adviser to Trump, told the Times that the president-elect,
who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, will meet with Putin at a neutral venue "very soon."
In eyeing Iceland's capital, Trump's team may be hoping to recreate the optics of a Reagan-era nuclear
agreement. Former President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, then general secretary of the Soviet
Union's Communist Party, held a two-day summit in Reykjavik in October 1986 to work on what eventually
became a major nuclear disarmament treaty between the two superpowers in 1987.
Trump's transition team didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Did the media just make up this story out of thin air in an attempt to further deride Trump? I must
admit, only in a bizarre world, such as the one created by the left for the left, is holding meetings
with a military super power in the attempts to normalize relations and preserve peace considered a bad
thing. Alas, we are living in an era of war, where the military industrial complex works overtime to
control useful idiots to foment anger and sway public opinion towards (you guessed it) MOAR WAR.
This story was likely leaked by team Trump on purpose, in order to make the media look like jackass
fools. By leaking falsehoods to an ornery and invective media, Trump keeps them on their toes and makes
them second guess anything they hear coming out of his quarters, an effective disinformation strategy
used to fool an enemy during a time of war.
Strange feeling that pressure put on Trump to divest
association with Putin / Russia by U.S. intelligence community / MSM, is moar
than meets the eye fact sheet. Threats, veiled or otherwise appear to be
perceived deterrents by those in D.C. who would shun any illumination into
their illegal and corrupt activities, thus a Trump / Putin alliance could very
well expose many conspiritors.
Brilliant. This guy is good. All that will be left of the talking parrots and
pretend news media empires will be 18 year old interns translating his tweets and
asking John Lewis for comments to go with Obama's daily preaching to the flock.
The leftover time will be filled with protesters burning tires and viagra
commercials.
"Did the media just make up this story out of thin air in an attempt to
further deride Trump? I must admit, only in a bizarre world, such as the one
created by the left for the left, is holding meetings with a military super
power in the attempts to normalize relations and preserve peace considered a
bad thing. Alas, we are living in an era of war, where the military industrial
complex works overtime to control useful idiots to foment anger and sway public
opinion towards (you guessed it) MOAR WAR."
- Hope there are forensics on this work of fiction
Since 1989 the Political Elite and Corporate Elite don't care who the enemy is
as long as there is an Enemy.
- Except hands off Israel, and don't support
Palestine
- And Except for Saudi Arabia
- And Except for UK, Canada, Mexico, Aus, EU... but we don't mind fucking with
NATO Countries Politics using Operation Gladio type Strategy of Tension or
shipping in Millions of Refugees from M.E.
- And well there are 7-8 countries we want to collapse and maybe Venezuela and
Argentina and Brazil
Yup, this is foreign policy and your foreign policy tax dollars at work.
The MSM is not now, and has never been, "liberal" let alone,"left wing". It's
owned by 5 groups of right-wing billionaires (4 families, Murdochs, Luces, Disneys
and Redstones, and Comcast). When Georgie W was lying us into the Iraq war-crime
they supported the war push with a full-blown media "narrative" of its
inevidebility plus a 4-to1 ratio of rightwing liars (Bush, Rice, Cheney, etc) to
people telling the truth. Still, as my conservative friends noted, foreign
interventions and "nation-building" are anathema to the conservative cause. Thus,
rather than tar them with Bush's failures, I realized that W's administration was
simply a group of hypocrites, rich thugs, intent on serving their wealthy patrons.
May I suggest, after 8 years of the same hypocracy from the Obama administration,
the same dynamic holds. "Liberals", real "left wing people" (I include myself)
would never call for martial law (thanks, Rosy!), any more than they'd support
war-crime invasions (see "Libya", "Ukraine", "Syria") or right-wing coups (see
"Honduras"). Let's let up on the labels, folks. We're all up against a force that
has demonstrated NO IDEOLOGY above and beyond enriching their own tiny, wealthy
cabal. WE is all we got.
I'm not sure barfinmymouth has got it, but you do get it.
Corruption has
peaked and we have to start disassembly.
- Time to destroy powerful political aparati.
- Time to reform, Term Limits, money in politics, unlimited money in
politic, Lobbying, Foreign Lobbying, Foreign Agents in the USA, PACs, Think
Tanks, Foundations,... the Very Heart of English Corruption which it's
adherents run around supporting... Money is not free speech... Corruption of
Media and Oligopolies in General are not Freedom, Liberty or Free Speech
Reorganization in the USA is now required,... organizations have to be
down-sized
my favorite phrase was "left wing militarist war mongers."
the
snowflakes can't take much heat themselves, and go into teary rages at
the insults halloween costumes visit on various underclass ethnic groups,
but are only too ready to send a hail of explosive death on poor, brown
people defending their lands from the empire.
What a completely naive, completely pseudoscientific nonsense. The guy is completely clueless about
driving forces of rumors.: it is the distrust to the official channels that drives them
Notable quotes:
"... Think of headlines such as "Elvis is Alive". This is an old example of fake news. ..."
"... "Fake News" has no social consequences in cases #1 or case #4. Case #3 will feature no strategic
element. This is just Tiebout sorting in ideological space. For example, climate change deniers say
the world isn't warming and climate deniers go to this website and read this and the echo continues.
..."
"... What is it about the demanders that they don't recognize the "fake news" when they read it?
Are they dumb? Are they eager to see stories that confirm their prior worldview? What is the source
of this heterogeneity parameter related to their "susceptibility" to be infected? ..."
"... Most of the time what people believes is not truth. Fake news is pervasive. ..."
"... I choose to believe the fake news from WikiLeaks before I believe the fake news from Langley.
It is all fake. Through the Looking Glass! Who are the traitors? ..."
"... Though it's impossible for an average U.S. citizen to know precisely what the U.S. intelligence
community may have in its secret files, some former NSA officials who are familiar with the agency's
eavesdropping capabilities say Washington's lack of certainty suggests that the NSA does not possess
such evidence. ..."
"... For instance, that's the view of William Binney, who retired as NSA's technical director of
world military and geopolitical analysis and who created many of the collection systems still used by
NSA. ..."
"... Binney, in an article co-written with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, said, "With respect
to the alleged interference by Russia and WikiLeaks in the U.S. election, it is a major mystery why
U.S. intelligence feels it must rely on 'circumstantial evidence,' when it has NSA's vacuum cleaner
sucking up hard evidence galore. What we know of NSA's capabilities shows that the email disclosures
were from leaking, not hacking." ..."
"... However, Clapper's own credibility is suspect in a more relevant way. In 2013, he gave false
testimony to Congress regarding the extent of the NSA's collection of data on Americans. Clapper's deception
was revealed only when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the NSA program to the
press, causing Clapper to apologize for his "clearly erroneous" testimony. ..."
"... "Clapper's own credibility is suspect". Fool me once shame on you...fool me twice shame on
me. How long did the national security state really think it could get away with their BS? ..."
"... Well, they've owned every president since Reagan; they own all the think tanks; they own 90%
of congress; they own all the major media; they endow all the "elite" private universities - why shouldn't
they think they could get away with it? ..."
"... Kahn is completely clueless. The main driving force behind the spread of rumors (which now
are called "fake news") is the distrust of the official channels. Yes, it is a sign of sickness of the
social organism, but only in a sense that fish rots from the top. And actually the same forces that
facilitate spread of rumors push people to alternative news channels: official channels are viewed too
compromised. So nobody believe anything published in them, even if they publish truth. libezkova ->
libezkova... January 08, 2017 at 06:59 AM Tamotsu Shibutani viewed rumors as a process of collective
problem-solving in ambiguous situations. His old book "Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor"(1966)
had received some press in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and it should be studied now too. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672511487
It is a much deeper study than incoherent thoughts of Professor Kahn on the topic. You might be surprised
by the relevance of his work to current neoliberal MSM crusade against rumors. They feel that they lost
trust and now are losing relevance; and they are adamant to do something to reverse this process. But
they are barking to the wrong tree. ilsm -> libezkova... Truth is a rare commodity. The "press" in the
US has always been owned. In the 1830's it was owned by slave holders in one section and factory owners
in another. One opposed to tariffs and the central government growing strong from manufactures. The
other for tariffs and weakening the slave economy which funded the anti tariff regime. It is rarely
'news' it is indoctrination. ..."
"... The press in the usa was always "owned" but at one time it was far more socialized/regulated
than it was today: (1) Our government stopped trust-busting media conglomerates. (2) The fairness doctrine
was gutted and repealed. (3) Right wing political appointees were placed in leadership roles at the
CPB (PBS and NPR) and opened them to funding by large corporations. ..."
"... Obvious propaganda and distortion should be illegal in much the same way financial fraud is
(should be) illegal. ..."
"... "Normal people" in a neoliberal society, like "normal people" in the USSR are those who are
adapted to life in official "fake news" aquarium, created by neoliberal MSM. And resigned to this, because
they value the society they live in and can't image any alternative. Remember Matrix. ..."
"... Yurchak's Master-idea is that the Soviet system was an example of how a state can prepare its
own demise in an invisible way. It happened in Russia through unraveling of authoritative discourse
by Gorbachev's naive but well-meaning shillyshallying undermining the Soviet system and the master signifiers
with which the Soviet society was "quilted" and held together. ..."
"... This could a cautionary tale for America as well because the Soviet Union shared more features
with American modernity than the Americans themselves are willing to admit. ..."
"... The Soviet Union wasn't "evil" in late stages 1950-1980s. The most people were decent. The
Soviet system, despite its flaws, offered a set of collective values. There were many moral and ethical
aspects to Soviet socialism, and even though those values have been betrayed by the state, they were
still very important to people themselves in their lives. ..."
"... These values were: solidarity, community, altruism, education, creativity, friendship and safety.
Perhaps they were incommensurable with the "Western values" such as the rule of law and freedom, but
for Russians they were the most important. ..."
"... Yurchak demolishes the view that the only choices available to late Soviet citizens were either
blind support (though his accounts of those figures who chose this path are deeply chilling) or active
resistance, while at the same time showing how many of the purported values of Soviet socialism (equality,
education, friendship, community, etc) were in fact deeply held by many in the population. ..."
"... his basic thesis is that, for most Soviet people, the attitude toward the authorities was "They
pretend to make statements that corresponded to reality, and we pretend to believe them." ..."
"... People were expected to perform these rituals, but they developed "a complexly differentiating
relationship to the ideological meanings, norms, and values" of the Soviet state. "Depending on the
context, they might reject a certain meaning, norm or value, be apathetic about another, continue actively
subscribing to a third, creatively reinterpret a fourth, and so on." (28-29) ..."
"... The result was that, as the discourse of the late Soviet period ossified into completely formalist
incantations (a process that Yurchak demonstrates was increasingly routinized from the 1950s onwards),
Soviet citizens participated in these more for ritualistic reasons than because of fervent belief, which
in turn allowed citizens to fill their lives with other sources of identity and meaning. ..."
"... All of which is to say that the book consists of a dramatic refutation of the "totalitarianism"
thesis, demonstrating that despite the totalitarian ambitions of the regime, citizens were continually
able to carve out zones of autonomy and identification that transcended the ambitions of the Authoritative
discourse. ..."
"... "And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives
of a just peace." ..."
"... Then review Orwell. See who decides what is "justice"! The US became prosecutor, lawyer, jury
and executioner anywhere it pleased, to anybody who could not fight back. ..."
"... Yes exactly, from the ashes into the fire. As bad as the official channels sometimes can be,
the unofficial are much worse. The 30 years of Faux news and "think tanks" has done a lot more long-term
harm to society than most people realize. ..."
"... Just like trying to determine the lesser of two evils in political campaigns. Oh, I forgot!
Most politicians' official positions are just lies anyway...as we know from Obama's 2008 campaign and
his subsequent behavior. ..."
I see that
Paul Krugman is talking abou t the consequences of Fake News so I will enter this market and
supply some thoughts. I will define fake news as stories that are "juicy" but not true.
Think of headlines such as "Elvis is Alive". This is an old example of fake news.
... ... ...
There are four cases to consider.
Case #1: Both the supplier and demander know that the story is false. Think of the
National Enquirer stories stating that Elvis is on Mars.
Case #2: The supplier knows the story is false but the demander believes the story
is true.
Case #3: The supplier believes the story is true and the demander believes the story
is true.
Case #4: The supplier believes the story is true and the demander believes the story
is false.
"Fake News" has no social consequences in cases #1 or case #4. Case #3 will feature no strategic
element. This is just Tiebout sorting in ideological space. For example, climate change deniers say
the world isn't warming and climate deniers go to this website and read this and the echo continues.
I believe that Dr. K is mainly concerned with Case #2. What % of all suspect stories fall into
this category? Dr. K has a cynical model in mind in which sophisticated agents (think of Trump and
Putin) manipulate the gullible public with messages and then the Facebook and Internet accelerate
this information throughout the system as it infects billions and influences real events.
Case #2 raises some deep issues, I will state them as questions;
1. What is it about the demanders that they don't recognize the "fake news" when they read
it? Are they dumb? Are they eager to see stories that confirm their prior worldview? What is the
source of this heterogeneity parameter related to their "susceptibility" to be infected?
2. In public health, we quarantine those who may spread contagion. Is Dr. K. calling for a messaging
quarantine of the "susceptible people" or is he proposing ending free speech for those who spread
the contagion?
3. If there is objective reality, do those who are susceptible to "fake news" update their beliefs
as this reality changes over time?
4. In a world featuring heterogeneous news consumers, and profit maximizing news sellers what
are pareto improving government interventions? When I taught at the Fletcher School, one student
suggested that there should be a constitutional amendment requiring people to watch the PBS News
Hour each night.
5. In a world featuring heterogeneous news consumers, and Russian propagandist news suppliers,
what are pareto improving government interventions for the nations that Russia is targeting with
this news? So, the U.S is fighting a war on terror ---- will we now open up a "second front" as we
start a "war on foreign propaganda"?
6. Why has "fake news" become an issue now? What is it about 2016? Has Facebook made communication
"too cheap"? Has Russia recognized this opportunity and increased its supply of fake news? In the
old days, Pravda was filled with such news.
The guys who leak documents for a living pointing out the establish leaks them to sway opinion!
I choose to believe the fake news from WikiLeaks before I believe the fake news from Langley.
It is all fake. Through the Looking Glass! Who are the traitors?
US Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia 'Hack' , January 7, 2017
................ Though it's impossible for an average U.S. citizen to know precisely what the U.S. intelligence
community may have in its secret files, some former NSA officials who are familiar with the agency's
eavesdropping capabilities say Washington's lack of certainty suggests that the NSA does not possess
such evidence.
For instance, that's the view of William Binney, who retired as NSA's technical director
of world military and geopolitical analysis and who created many of the collection systems still
used by NSA.
Binney, in an article co-written with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, said, "With respect
to the alleged interference by Russia and WikiLeaks in the U.S. election, it is a major mystery
why U.S. intelligence feels it must rely on 'circumstantial evidence,' when it has NSA's vacuum
cleaner sucking up hard evidence galore. What we know of NSA's capabilities shows that the email
disclosures were from leaking, not hacking."
There is also the fact that both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and one of his associates,
former British Ambassador Craig Murray, have denied that the purloined emails came from the Russian
government. Going further, Murray has suggested that there were two separate sources, the DNC
material coming from a disgruntled Democrat and the Podesta emails coming from possibly a U.S.
intelligence source, since the Podesta Group represents Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments.
In response, Clapper and other U.S. government officials have sought to disparage Assange's
credibility, including Clapper's Senate testimony on Thursday gratuitously alluding to sexual
assault allegations against Assange in Sweden.
However, Clapper's own credibility is suspect in a more relevant way. In 2013, he gave
false testimony to Congress regarding the extent of the NSA's collection of data on Americans.
Clapper's deception was revealed only when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details
of the NSA program to the press, causing Clapper to apologize for his "clearly erroneous" testimony.
....................
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/07/us-report-still-lacks-proof-on-russia-hack/
JohnH -> RGC...
"Clapper's own credibility is suspect". Fool me once shame on you...fool me twice shame on
me. How long did the national security state really think it could get away with their BS?
Well, they've owned every president since Reagan; they own all the think tanks; they own
90% of congress; they own all the major media; they endow all the "elite" private universities
- why shouldn't they think they could get away with it?
Kahn is completely clueless. The main driving force behind the spread of rumors (which now are
called "fake news") is the distrust of the official channels.
Yes, it is a sign of sickness of the social organism, but only in a sense that fish rots from
the top.
And actually the same forces that facilitate spread of rumors push people to alternative news
channels: official channels are viewed too compromised. So nobody believe anything published in
them, even if they publish truth.
Tamotsu Shibutani viewed rumors as a process of collective problem-solving in ambiguous situations.
His old book "Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor"(1966) had received some press
in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and it should be studied now too.
It is a much deeper study than incoherent thoughts of Professor Kahn on the topic.
You might be surprised by the relevance of his work to current neoliberal MSM crusade against
rumors. They feel that they lost trust and now are losing relevance; and they are adamant to do
something to reverse this process. But they are barking to the wrong tree.
ilsm -> libezkova...
Truth is a rare commodity. The "press" in the US has always been owned. In the 1830's it was
owned by slave holders in one section and factory owners in another. One opposed to tariffs and
the central government growing strong from manufactures. The other for tariffs and weakening the
slave economy which funded the anti tariff regime. It is rarely 'news' it is indoctrination.
Peace and freedom are not valued in the US or many other places.
yuan -> ilsm.. .
The press in the usa was always "owned" but at one time it was far more socialized/regulated
than it was today: (1) Our government stopped trust-busting media conglomerates. (2) The fairness
doctrine was gutted and repealed. (3) Right wing political appointees were placed in leadership
roles at the CPB (PBS and NPR) and opened them to funding by large corporations.
Obvious propaganda and distortion should be illegal in much the same way financial fraud
is (should be) illegal.
Exactly. That's why those people who question MSM coverage, and who try to get the "second
opinion" on the current events from blogs, and other alternative channels are considered to be
traitors.
Neoliberal MSMs are major producer of fake news as in foreign coverage they are guided by State
Department talking points. What they are adamantly against is "somebody else" fake news. They
want full monopoly on coverage.
What they trying to tell us during this McCarthyism compaign is the following: "Unapproved,
rogue fake news of questionable origin are evil, only State Department approved fakes are OK".
This is another, slightly more interesting, variant of "political correctness" enforcement
in a given society.
"Normal people" in a neoliberal society, like "normal people" in the USSR are those who
are adapted to life in official "fake news" aquarium, created by neoliberal MSM. And resigned
to this, because they value the society they live in and can't image any alternative. Remember
Matrix.
There is a special term for the psychological condition of the large part of the USSR population
who adapted to live such an "artificial, fake reality" and even may protest if they are provided
with a more objective picture as this created a cognitive dissonance. It is Stockholm Syndrome.
The condition common among the members of "high demand" cults.
The same happened in the USA. This neoliberal ideological captivity with its own set of myths
and falsehood reminds me USSR Bolshevism ideology, which was an official, dominant ideology for
Soviet people. Indoctrination was obligatory.
The net results was the same as now in the USA -- the dead ideology burdens, like a nightmare,
the minds of the living.
As Marx noted: "history repeats itself, the first as tragedy, then as farce"
Alexei Yurchak's 2006 book "Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation"
called this condition of ideological Stockholm syndrome "hypernormalization"
He argues that during the last 20 or so years of the Soviet Union, everyone in the USSR knew
the system wasn't working, but as no one has real alternative and both politicians and citizens
were resigned to pretending that the can should be kicked down the road. A typical attitude of
Hillary supporters.
This "constant pretending" was accepted as normal behavior and the fake reality thus created
was accepted as necessary evil, nessesary for normal functining of the society. The whole society
reminded me large "high demand" cult from which members can't escape.
While Yurchak called this effect "hypernormalisation." in reality this probably should be called
"ideological Stockholm syndrome". Stockholm syndrome is a psychological condition that causes
hostages to develop sympathetic sentiments towards their captors, often sharing their opinions
and acquiring romantic feelings for them as a survival strategy during captivity.
Looking at events over the past few years, one would notice that the neoliberal society is
experiencing the same psychological condition.
Here are a couple of insightful reviews of the book
== quote ==
Igor Biryukov on November 1, 2012
A cautionary tale
In America there was once a popular but simplistic image of the Soviet Russia as the Evil
Empire destined to fall, precisely because it was unfree and therefore evil. Ronald Reagan
who advocated it also once said that the Russian people do not have a word for "freedom". Not
so fast -- says Alexei Yurchak.
He was born in the Soviet Union and became a cultural anthropologist in California. He employs
linguistic structural analysis in very interesting ways. For him, the Soviet Union was once
a stable, entrenched, conservative state and the majority of Russian people -- actually myself
included -- thought it would last forever. But the way people employ language and read ideologies
can change. That change can be undetectable at first, and then unstoppable.
Yurchak's Master-idea is that the Soviet system was an example of how a state can prepare
its own demise in an invisible way. It happened in Russia through unraveling of authoritative
discourse by Gorbachev's naive but well-meaning shillyshallying undermining the Soviet system
and the master signifiers with which the Soviet society was "quilted" and held together.
According to Yurchak "In its first three or four years, perestroika was not much
more than a deconstruction of Soviet authoritative discourse".
This could a cautionary tale for America as well because the Soviet Union shared more
features with American modernity than the Americans themselves are willing to admit.
The demise of the Soviet Union was not caused by anti-modernity or backwardness of Russian
people.
The Soviet experiment was a cousin of Western modernity and shared many features with the
Western democracies, in particular its roots in the Enlightenment project.
The Soviet Union wasn't "evil" in late stages 1950-1980s. The most people were decent.
The Soviet system, despite its flaws, offered a set of collective values. There were many moral
and ethical aspects to Soviet socialism, and even though those values have been betrayed by
the state, they were still very important to people themselves in their lives.
These values were: solidarity, community, altruism, education, creativity, friendship
and safety. Perhaps they were incommensurable with the "Western values" such as the rule of
law and freedom, but for Russians they were the most important.
For many "socialism" was a system of human values and everyday realities which wasn't necessarily
equivalent of the official interpretation provided by the state rhetoric.
Yurchak starts with a general paradox within the ideology of modernity: the split between
ideological enunciation, which reflects the theoretical ideals of the Enlightenment, and ideological
rule, which are the practical concerns of the modern state's political authority. In Soviet
Union the paradox was "solved" by means of dogmatic political closure and elevation of Master
signifier [Lenin, Stalin, Party] but it doesn't mean the Western democracies are immune to
totalitarian temptation to which the Soviet Union had succumbed.
The vast governmental bureaucracy and Quango-state are waiting in the shadows here as well,
may be ready to appropriate discourse.
It is hard to agree with everything in his book. But it is an interesting perspective.
... ... ...
Nils Gilmanon April 23, 2014
A brilliant account of the interior meaning of everyday life for ordinary soviet citizens
Just loved this -- a brilliant study of how everyday citizens (as opposed to active supporters
or dissidents) cope with living in a decadent dictatorship, through strategies of ignoring the
powerful, focusing on hyperlocal socialities, treating ritualized support for the regime as little
more than an annoying chore, and withdrawal into subcultures.
Yurchak demolishes the view that the only choices available to late Soviet citizens were
either blind support (though his accounts of those figures who chose this path are deeply chilling)
or active resistance, while at the same time showing how many of the purported values of Soviet
socialism (equality, education, friendship, community, etc) were in fact deeply held by many in
the population.
While his entire account is a tacit meditation on the manifold unpleasantnesses of living under
the Soviet system, Yurchak also makes clear that it was not all unpleasantness and that indeed
for some people (such as theoretical physicists) life under Soviet socialism was in some ways
freer than for their peers in the West. All of which makes the book function (sotto voce) as an
explanation for the nostalgia that many in Russia today feel for Soviet times - something inexplicable
to those who claim that Communism was simply and nothing but an evil.
The theoretical vehicle for Yurchak's investigation is the divergence between the performative
rather than the constative dimensions of the "authoritative discourse" of the late Soviet regime.
One might say that his basic thesis is that, for most Soviet people, the attitude toward the
authorities was "They pretend to make statements that corresponded to reality, and we pretend
to believe them."
Yurchak rightly observes that one can neither interpret the decision to vote in favor of an
official resolution or to display a pro-government slogan at a rally as being an unambiguous statement
of regime support, nor assume that these actions were directly coerced. People were expected
to perform these rituals, but they developed "a complexly differentiating relationship to the
ideological meanings, norms, and values" of the Soviet state. "Depending on the context, they
might reject a certain meaning, norm or value, be apathetic about another, continue actively subscribing
to a third, creatively reinterpret a fourth, and so on." (28-29)
The result was that, as the discourse of the late Soviet period ossified into completely
formalist incantations (a process that Yurchak demonstrates was increasingly routinized from the
1950s onwards), Soviet citizens participated in these more for ritualistic reasons than because
of fervent belief, which in turn allowed citizens to fill their lives with other sources of identity
and meaning.
Soviet citizens would go to cafes and talk about music and literature, join a rock band or
art collective, take silly jobs that required little effort and thus left room for them to pursue
their "interests." The very drabness of the standardizations of Soviet life therefore created
new sorts of (admittedly constrained) spaces within which people could define themselves and their
(inter)subjective meanings. All of which is to say that the book consists of a dramatic refutation
of the "totalitarianism" thesis, demonstrating that despite the totalitarian ambitions of the
regime, citizens were continually able to carve out zones of autonomy and identification that
transcended the ambitions of the Authoritative discourse.
"And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives
of a just peace."
Then review Orwell. See who decides what is "justice"! The US became prosecutor, lawyer,
jury and executioner anywhere it pleased, to anybody who could not fight back.
JohnH -> yuan... January 08, 2017 at 12:08 PM
yuan never had the pleasure of watching the mainstream media promote the official Kool-Aid
during the Vietnam War...until the lies finally became untenable.
DeDude -> libezkova... January 08, 2017 at 11:38 AM
"the same forces that facilitate spread of rumors push people to alternative news channels:
official channels are viewed too compromised"
Yes exactly, from the ashes into the fire. As bad as the official channels sometimes can
be, the unofficial are much worse. The 30 years of Faux news and "think tanks" has done a lot
more long-term harm to society than most people realize.
Being a knowledgeable person who spend half a lifetime studying a subject, seems to be worse
than being a regular ignorant guy confidently pulling stuff out of his ass. We are living in interesting
times.
JohnH -> DeDude...
"As bad as the official channels sometimes can be, the unofficial are much worse." Wow!
Trying to judge the more credible liar.
Just like trying to determine the lesser of two evils in political campaigns. Oh, I forgot!
Most politicians' official positions are just lies anyway...as we know from Obama's 2008 campaign
and his subsequent behavior.
"... IN JULY 1995, Tony Blair flew halfway round the world to cement his relationship with Rupert Murdoch at a News Corporation conference. Introducing him, the media tycoon joked: "If the British press is to be believed, today is all part of a Blair-Murdoch flirtation. If that flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like two porcupines - very carefully." ..."
Murdoch's courtship of Blair finally pays off
By Fran Abrams and Anthony Bevins
IN JULY 1995, Tony Blair flew halfway round the world to cement his relationship with Rupert
Murdoch at a News Corporation conference. Introducing him, the media tycoon joked: "If the British
press is to be believed, today is all part of a Blair-Murdoch flirtation. If that flirtation is
ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like two porcupines - very carefully."
For Mr Blair, the relationship bore fruit when he was elected with the key support of the Sun.
But Mr Murdoch had to wait until yesterday for full satisfaction when No 10 launched a passionate
attack on his critics after the Lords passed an anti-Murdoch amendment to the Competition Bill.
A year earlier, few Labour MPs would have believed such a scene was possible....
"... "Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue," said David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. "Now it includes bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And I think we're doing a disservice to lump all those things together." ..."
"... "What I think is so unsettling about the fake news cries now is that their audience has already sort of bought into this idea that journalism has no credibility or legitimacy," ..."
"... The market in these divided times is undeniably ripe. "We now live in this fragmented media world where you can block people you disagree with. You can only be exposed to stories that make you feel good about what you want to believe," Mr. Ziegler, the radio host, said. "Unfortunately, the truth is unpopular a lot. And a good fairy tale beats a harsh truth every time." ..."
.... As reporters were walking out of a Trump rally this month in Orlando, Fla., a man heckled them with shouts of "Fake news!"
Until now, that term had been widely understood to refer to fabricated news accounts that are meant to spread virally online.
But conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans and even Mr. Trump himself, incredulous about suggestions that fake
stories may have helped swing the election, have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to their
agenda.
In defining "fake news" so broadly and seeking to dilute its meaning, they are capitalizing on the declining credibility of all
purveyors of information, one product of the country's increasing political polarization. And conservatives, seeing an opening to
undermine the mainstream media, a longtime foe, are more than happy to dig the hole deeper.
"Over the years, we've effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything that they disagree with. And now
it's gone too far," said John Ziegler, a conservative radio host, who has been critical of what he sees as excessive partisanship
by pundits. "Because the gatekeepers have lost all credibility in the minds of consumers, I don't see how you reverse it."
Journalists who work to separate fact from fiction see a dangerous conflation of stories that turn out to be wrong because of
a legitimate misunderstanding with those whose clear intention is to deceive. A report, shared more than a million times on social
media, that the pope had endorsed Mr. Trump was undeniably false. But was it "fake news" to report on data models that showed Hillary
Clinton with overwhelming odds of winning the presidency? Are opinion articles fake if they cherry-pick facts to draw disputable
conclusions?
"Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue," said David Mikkelson,
the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. "Now it includes bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And
I think we're doing a disservice to lump all those things together."
The right's labeling of "fake news" evokes one of the most successful efforts by conservatives to reorient how Americans think
about news media objectivity: the move by Fox News to brand its conservative-slanted coverage as "fair and balanced." Traditionally,
mainstream media outlets had thought of their own approach in those terms, viewing their coverage as strictly down the middle. Republicans
often found that laughable. As with Fox's ubiquitous promotion of its slogan, conservatives' appropriation of the "fake news" label
is an effort to further erode the mainstream media's claim to be a reliable and accurate source.
"What I think is so unsettling about the fake news cries now is that their audience has already sort of bought into this idea
that journalism has no credibility or legitimacy," said Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, a liberal group that
polices the news media for bias. "Therefore, by applying that term to credible outlets, it becomes much more believable."
.... ... ...
Mr. Trump has used the term to deny news reports, as he did on Twitter recently after various outlets said he would stay on as
the executive producer of "The New Celebrity Apprentice" after taking office in January. "Ridiculous & untrue - FAKE NEWS!" he wrote.
(He will be credited as executive producer, a spokesman for the show's creator, Mark Burnett, has said. But it is unclear what work,
if any, he will do on the show.)
Many conservatives are pushing back at the outrage over fake news because they believe that liberals, unwilling to accept Mr.
Trump's victory, are attributing his triumph to nefarious external factors.
"The left refuses to admit that the fundamental problem isn't the Russians or Jim Comey or 'fake news' or the Electoral College,"
said Laura Ingraham, the author and radio host. "'Fake news' is just another fake excuse for their failed agenda."
Others see a larger effort to slander the basic journalistic function of fact-checking. Nonpartisan websites like Snopes and Factcheck.org
have found themselves maligned when they have disproved stories that had been flattering to conservatives.
When Snopes wrote about a State Farm insurance agent in Louisiana who had posted a sign outside his office that likened taxpayers
who voted for President Obama to chickens supporting Colonel Sanders, Mr. Mikkelson, the site's founder, was smeared as a partisan
Democrat who had never bothered to reach out to the agent for comment. Neither is true.
"They're trying to float anything they can find out there to discredit fact-checking," he said.
There are already efforts by highly partisan conservatives to claim that their fact-checking efforts are the same as those of
independent outlets like Snopes, which employ research teams to dig into seemingly dubious claims.
Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, has aired "fact-checking" segments on his program. Michelle Malkin, the conservative columnist,
has a web program, "Michelle Malkin Investigates," in which she conducts her own investigative reporting.
The market in these divided times is undeniably ripe. "We now live in this fragmented media world where you can block people
you disagree with. You can only be exposed to stories that make you feel good about what you want to believe," Mr. Ziegler, the radio
host, said. "Unfortunately, the truth is unpopular a lot. And a good fairy tale beats a harsh truth every time."
(Does this have something to do
with Jon Stewart's retirement &
Stephen Colbert 'going legit'?)
Wielding Claims of 'Fake News,' Conservatives
Take Aim at Mainstream Media http://nyti.ms/2iuFxRx
NYT - JEREMY W. PETERS - December 25, 2016
WASHINGTON - The CIA, the F.B.I. and the White House may all agree that Russia was behind
the hacking that interfered with the election. But that was of no import to the website Breitbart
News, which dismissed reports on the intelligence assessment as "left-wing fake news."
Rush Limbaugh has diagnosed a more fundamental problem. "The fake news is the everyday news"
in the mainstream media, he said on his radio show recently. "They just make it up."
Some supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump have also taken up the call. As reporters
were walking out of a Trump rally this month in Orlando, Fla., a man heckled them with shouts
of "Fake news!"
Until now, that term had been widely understood to refer to fabricated news accounts that are
meant to spread virally online. But conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans
and even Mr. Trump himself, incredulous about suggestions that fake stories may have helped swing
the election, have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to
their agenda.
In defining "fake news" so broadly and seeking to dilute its meaning, they are capitalizing
on the declining credibility of all purveyors of information, one product of the country's increasing
political polarization. And conservatives, seeing an opening to undermine the mainstream media,
a longtime foe, are more than happy to dig the hole deeper.
"Over the years, we've effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything
that they disagree with. And now it's gone too far," said John Ziegler, a conservative radio host,
who has been critical of what he sees as excessive partisanship by pundits. "Because the gatekeepers
have lost all credibility in the minds of consumers, I don't see how you reverse it."
Journalists who work to separate fact from fiction see a dangerous conflation of stories that
turn out to be wrong because of a legitimate misunderstanding with those whose clear intention
is to deceive. A report, shared more than a million times on social media, that the pope had endorsed
Mr. Trump was undeniably false. But was it "fake news" to report on data models that showed Hillary
Clinton with overwhelming odds of winning the presidency? Are opinion articles fake if they cherry-pick
facts to draw disputable conclusions?
"Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks
and revenue," said David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. "Now it includes
bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And I think we're doing a disservice
to lump all those things together."
The right's labeling of "fake news" evokes one of the most successful efforts by conservatives
to reorient how Americans think about news media objectivity: the move by Fox News to brand its
conservative-slanted coverage as "fair and balanced." Traditionally, mainstream media outlets
had thought of their own approach in those terms, viewing their coverage as strictly down the
middle. Republicans often found that laughable.
As with Fox's ubiquitous promotion of its slogan, conservatives' appropriation of the "fake
news" label is an effort to further erode the mainstream media's claim to be a reliable and accurate
source. ...
This is a very weak article from a prominent paleoconservative, but it is instructive what a mess he has in his head as for the
nature of Trump phenomenon. We should probably consider the tern "New Class" that neocons invented as synonym for "neoliberals". If
so, why the author is afraid to use the term? Does he really so poorly educated not to understand the nature of this neoliberal revolution
and its implications? Looks like he never read "Quite coup"
That probably reflects the crisis of pealeoconservatism itself.
Notable quotes:
"... What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. ..."
"... the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus. ..."
"... The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country? ..."
"... The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists. ..."
"... The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined. ..."
"... Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction. ..."
"... concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." ..."
"... It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on. ..."
"... I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom? ..."
"... Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation. ..."
"... Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class. ..."
"... Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles ..."
"... The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service. ..."
"... America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites. ..."
"... Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November. ..."
"... The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. ..."
"... Marx taught that you identify classes by their structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system of production. ..."
"... [New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the Globalized Economy and financial markets. ..."
"... "mobilize working-class voters against the establishment in both parties. " = workers of the world unite. ..."
"... Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide. ..."
"... Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times – nationalism vs. Globalism. ..."
"... The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right in a sense. ..."
"... The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters." ..."
"... The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties' elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA. ..."
"... . And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and used for their own liberal ends. ..."
"... Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class" are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector. ..."
"... The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization, industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization. ..."
"... The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America ..."
"... . Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure most of the public fully grasps or desires ..."
"... There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes. This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but the underlying conflict will always remain. ..."
"... State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those. ..."
"... People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's, per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards. ..."
"... People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions. ..."
"... I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation, but of justice being done period. ..."
"... A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers. ..."
"... It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya ..."
"... Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on. But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled. ..."
"... The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come up in the morning now," ..."
"... That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data point would look just the same. ..."
"... "On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests." This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities in which they lived. ..."
"... The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused. ..."
Since the Cold War ended, U.S. politics has seen a series of insurgent candidacies. Pat Buchanan prefigured Trump in the Republican
contests of 1992 and 1996. Ralph Nader challenged the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party from the outside in 2000. Ron Paul vexed
establishment Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012. And this year, Trump was not the only candidate to confound
his party's elite: Bernie Sanders harried Hillary Clinton right up to the Democratic convention.
What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All
have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. (The libertarian Paul favors unilateral free trade: by his lights, treaties
like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not free trade at all but international regulatory pacts.) And while no one would
mistake Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's views on immigration for Pat Buchanan's or Donald Trump's, Nader and Paul have registered their
own dissents from the approach to immigration that prevails in Washington.
Sanders has been more in line with his party's orthodoxy on that issue. But that didn't save him from being attacked by Clinton
backers for having an insufficiently nonwhite base of support. Once again, what might have appeared to be a class conflict-in this
case between a democratic socialist and an elite liberal with ties to high finance-could be explained away as really about race.
Race, like religion, is a real factor in how people vote. Its relevance to elite politics, however, is less clear. Something else
has to account for why the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration,
while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus.
The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all
faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is
this class, effectively the ruling class of the country?
Some critics on the right have identified it with the "managerial" class described by James Burnham in his 1941 book The Managerial
Revolution . But it bears a stronger resemblance to what what others have called "the New Class." In fact, the interests of this
New Class of college-educated "verbalists" are antithetical to those of the industrial managers that Burnham described. Understanding
the relationship between these two often conflated concepts provides insight into politics today, which can be seen as a clash between
managerial and New Class elites.
♦♦♦
The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier
stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed,
was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists.
Over the next century, however, history did not follow the script. By 1992, the Soviet Union was gone, Communist China had embarked
on market reforms, and Western Europe was turning away from democratic socialism. There was no need to predict the future; mankind
had achieved its destiny, a universal order of [neo]liberal democracy. Marx had it backwards: capitalism was the end of history.
But was the truth as simple as that? Long before the collapse of the USSR, many former communists -- some of whom remained socialists,
while others joined the right-thought not. The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run
by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined.
Among the first to advance this argument was James Burnham, a professor of philosophy at New York University who became a leading
Trotskyist thinker. As he broke with Trotsky and began moving toward the right, Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet
mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs
of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to
the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction.
Burnham called this the "managerial revolution." The managers of industry and technically trained government officials did not
own the means of production, like the capitalists of old. But they did control the means of production, thanks to their expertise
and administrative prowess.
The rise of this managerial class would have far-reaching consequences, he predicted. Burnham wrote in his 1943 book, The Machiavellians
: "that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as
to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy,
and continental or vast regional world political organization." Burnham pointed to Nazi Germany, imperial Japan-which became a "continental"
power by annexing Korea and Manchuria-and the Soviet Union as examples.
The defeat of the Axis powers did not halt the progress of the managerial revolution. Far from it: not only did the Soviets retain
their form of managerialism, but the West increasingly adopted a managerial corporatism of its own, marked by cooperation between
big business and big government: high-tech industrial crony capitalism, of the sort that characterizes the military-industrial complex
to this day. (Not for nothing was Burnham a great advocate of America's developing a supersonic transport of its own to compete with
the French-British Concorde.)
America's managerial class was personified by Robert S. McNamara, the former Ford Motor Company executive who was secretary of
defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In a 1966 story for National Review , "Why Do They Hate Robert Strange McNamara?"
Burnham answered the question in class terms: "McNamara is attacked by the Left because the Left has a blanket hatred of the system
of business enterprise; he is criticized by the Right because the Right harks back, in nostalgia if not in practice, to outmoded
forms of business enterprise."
McNamara the managerial technocrat was too business-oriented for a left that still dreamed of bringing the workers to power. But
the modern form of industrial organization he represented was not traditionally capitalist enough for conservatives who were at heart
19th-century classical liberals.
National Review readers responded to Burnham's paean to McNamara with a mixture of incomprehension and indignation. It
was a sign that even readers familiar with Burnham-he appeared in every issue of the magazine-did not always follow what he was saying.
The popular right wanted concepts that were helpful in labeling enemies, and Burnham was confusing matters by talking about changes
in the organization of government and industry that did not line up with anyone's value judgements.
More polemically useful was a different concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class."
"This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be vaguely described," Irving Kristol wrote in a 1975 essay for the Wall
Street Journal :
It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial
society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists
and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in
the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy,
and so on.
"Members of the new class do not 'control' the media," he continued, "they are the media-just as they are our educational
system, our public health and welfare system, and much else."
Burnham, writing in National Review in 1978, drew a sharp contrast between this concept and his own ideas:
I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous
actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after
all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers
of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going
to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom?
Burnham suffered a stroke later that year. Although he lived until 1987, his career as a writer was over. His last years coincided
with another great transformation of business and government. It began in the Carter administration, with moves to deregulate transportation
and telecommunications. This partial unwinding of the managerial revolution accelerated under Ronald Reagan. Regulatory and welfare-state
reforms, even privatization of formerly nationalized industries, also took off in the UK and Western Europe. All this did not, however,
amount to a restoration of the old capitalism or anything resembling laissez-faire.
The "[neo]liberal democracy" that triumphed at "the end of history"-to use Francis Fukuyama's words-was not the managerial capitalism
of the mid-20th century, either. It was instead the New Class's form of capitalism, one that could be embraced by Bill Clinton and
Tony Blair as readily as by any Republican or Thatcherite.
Irving Kristol had already noted in the 1970s that "this new class is not merely liberal but truly 'libertarian' in its approach
to all areas of life-except economics. It celebrates individual liberty of speech and expression and action to an unprecedented degree,
so that at times it seems almost anarchistic in its conception of the good life."
He was right about the New Class's "anything goes" mentality, but he was only partly correct about its attitude toward economics.
The young elite tended to scorn the bourgeois character of the old capitalism, and to them managerial figures like McNamara were
evil incarnate. But they had to get by-and they aspired to rule.
Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers
or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following
the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie
to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation.
Part of the tale can be told in a favorable light. New Left activists like Carl Oglesby fought the spiritual aridity and murderous
militarism of what they called "corporate liberalism"-Burnham's managerialism-while sincere young libertarians attacked the regulatory
state and seeded technological entrepreneurship. Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like
Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class.
Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment
to free-market principles. On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the
protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests. The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare
is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service.
The alliance between finance and the New Class accounts for the disposition of power in America today. The New Class has also
enlisted another invaluable ally: the managerial classes of East Asia. Trade with China-the modern managerial state par excellence-helps
keep American industry weak relative to finance and the service economy's verbalist-dominated sectors. America's class war, like
many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining
managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites.
The New Class plays a priestly role in its alliance with finance, absolving Wall Street for the sin of making money in exchange
for plenty of that money to keep the New Class in power. In command of foreign policy, the New Class gets to pursue humanitarian
ideological projects-to experiment on the world. It gets to evangelize by the sword. And with trade policy, it gets to suppress its
class rival, the managerial elite, at home. Through trade pacts and mass immigration the financial elite, meanwhile, gets to maximize
its returns without regard for borders or citizenship. The erosion of other nations' sovereignty that accompanies American hegemony
helps toward that end too-though our wars are more ideological than interest-driven.
♦♦♦
So we come to an historic moment. Instead of an election pitting another Bush against another Clinton, we have a race that poses
stark alternatives: a choice not only between candidates but between classes-not only between administrations but between regimes.
Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes,
"big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the
bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November.
The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite
its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. For the center-left establishment,
minority voters supply the electoral muscle. Religion and the culture war have served the same purpose for the establishment's center-right
faction. Trump showed that at least one of these sides could be beaten on its own turf-and it seems conceivable that if Bernie Sanders
had been black, he might have similarly beaten Clinton, without having to make concessions to New Class tastes.
The New Class establishment of both parties may be seriously misjudging what is happening here. Far from being the last gasp of
the demographically doomed-old, racially isolated white people, as Gallup's analysis says-Trump's insurgency may be the prototype
of an aggressive new politics, of either left or right, that could restore the managerial elite to power.
This is not something that conservatives-or libertarians who admire the old capitalism rather than New Class's simulacrum-might
welcome. But the only way that some entrenched policies may change is with a change of the class in power.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative .
Excellent analysis. What is important about the Trump phenomenon is not every individual issue, it's the potentially revolutionary
nature of the phenomenon. The opposition gets this. That's why they are hysterical about Trump. The conservative box checkers
do not.
"Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big
government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan
establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November."
My question is, if Trump is not himself of the managerial class, in fact, could be considered one of the original new class
members, how would he govern? What explains his conversion from the new class to the managerial class; is he merely taking advantage
of an opportunity or is there some other explanation?
I'm genuinely confused by the role you ascribe to the 'managerial class' here. Going back to Berle and Means ('The Modern Corporation
and Private Property') the managerial class emerged when management was split from ownership in mid C20th capitalism. Managers
focused on growth, not profits for shareholders. The Shareholder revolution of the 1980s destroyed the managerial class, and destroyed
their unwieldy corporations.
You seem to be identifying the managerial class with a kind of cultural opposition to the values of [neo]liberal capitalism. And
instead of identifying the 'new class' with the new owner-managers of shareholder-driven firms, you identify them by their superficial
cultural effects.
This raises a deeper problem in how you talk about class in this piece. Marx taught that you identify classes by their
structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system
of production. Does the 'new class' of journalists, academics, etc. actually own anything? If not, what is the point of ascribing
to them immense economic power?
I would agree that there is a new class of capitalists in America. But they are well known people like Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs,
Linda McMahon, the Waltons, Rick Scott the pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Mitt Romney, Mark Zuckerberg, and many many hedge fund
gazillionaires. These people represent the resurgence of a family-based, dynastic capitalism that is utterly different from the
managerial variety that prevailed in mid-century.
If there is a current competitor to international corporate capitalism, it is old-fashioned dynastic family capitalism. Not
Managerialism.
There is no "new class". That's simply a derogatory trope of the Right. The [neo]liberal elite– educated, cosmopolitan and possessed
of sufficient wealth to be influential in political affairs and claims to power grounded in moral stances– have a long pedigree
in both Western and non-Western lands. They were the Scribal Class in the ancient world, the Mandarins of China, and the Clergy
in the Middle Ages. This class for a time was eclipsed in the early modern period as first royal authority became dominant, followed
by the power of the Capitalist class (the latter has never really faded of course). But their reemergence in the late 20th century
is not a new or unique phenomenon.
In a year in which "trash Trump" and "trash Trump's supporters" are tricks-to-be-turned for more than 90% of mainstream journalists
and other media hacks, it's good to see Daniel McCarthy buck the "trash trend" and write a serious, honest analysis of the class
forces that are colliding during this election cycle.
Two thumbs way up for McCarthy, although his fine effort cannot save the reputation of those establishment whores who call
themselves journalists. Nothing can save them. They have earned the universality with which Americans hold them in contempt.
In 1976 when Gallup began asking about "the honesty and ethical standards" of various professions only 33% of Americans rated
journalists "very high or high."
By last December that "high or very high" rating for journalists had fallen to just 27%.
It is certain that by Election Day 2016 the American public's opinion of journalists will have fallen even further.
Most of your argument is confusing. The change I see is from a production economy to a finance economy. Wall Street rules, really.
Basically the stock market used to be a place where working folk invested their money for retirement, mostly through pensions
from unions and corporations. Now it's become a gambling casino, with the "house"-or the big banks-putting it's finger on the
roulette wheel. They changed the compensation package of CEO's, so they can rake in huge executive compensation–mostly through
stock options-to basically close down everything from manufacturing to customer service, and ship it off to contract manufacturers
and outside services in oligarchical countries like mainland China and India.
I don't know what exactly you mean about the "new class", basically its the finance industry against everyone else.
One thing you right-wingers always get wrong, is on Karl Marx he was really attacking the money-changers, the finance speculators,
the banks. Back in the day, so-called "capitalists" like Henry Ford or George Eastman or Thomas Edison always complained about
the access to financing through the big money finance capitalists.
Don't overlook the economic value of intellectual property rights (patents, in particular) in the economic equation.
A big chunk of the 21st century economy is generated due to the intellectual property developed and owned by the New Class
and its business enterprises.
The economic value of ideas and intellectual property rights is somewhat implied in McCarthy's explanation of the New Class,
but I didn't see an explicit mention (perhaps I overlooked it).
I think the consideration of intellectual property rights and the value generated by IP might help to clarify the economic
power of the New Class for those who feel the analysis isn't quite complete or on target.
I'm not saying that IP only provides value to the New Class. We can find examples of IP throughout the economy, at all levels.
It's just that the tech and financial sectors seem to focus more on (and benefit from) IP ownership, licensing, and the information
captured through use of digital technology.
"What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy."
But today we have this: Trump pledges big US military
expansion . Trump doesn't appear to have any coherent policy, he just says whatever seems to be useful at that particular
moment.
[New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative
think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous
Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the
Globalized Economy and financial markets.
Being white is not the defining characteristic of Trumpers because it if was then how come there are many white working class
voters for Hillary? The divide in the working class comes from being a member of a union or a member of the private non-unionized
working class.
Where the real class divide shows up is in those who are members of the Knowledge Class that made their living based on the
old Virtuous Economy where the elderly saved money in banks and the banks, in turn, lent that money out to young families to buy
houses, cars, and start businesses. The Virtuous Economy has been replaced by the Global Economy based on diverting money to the
stock market to fund global enterprises and prop up government pension funds.
The local bankers, realtors, private contractors, small savers and small business persons and others that depended on the Virtuous
Economy lost out to the global bankers, stock investors, pension fund managers, union contractors and intellectuals that propounded
rationales for the global economy as superior to the Virtuous Economy.
Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally
decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those
who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist
Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages
and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide.
Beginning in the 50's and 60's, baby boomers were warned in school and cultural media that "a college diploma would become what
a high school diploma is today." An extraordinary cohort of Americans took this advice seriously, creating the smartest and most
successful generation in history. But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who – knowing that college
educated people vote largely Democrat – launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what you see
now: millions of people unprepared for modern employment; meanwhile we have to import millions of college-educated Asians and
Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do.
Have to say, this seems like an attempt to put things into boxes that don't quite fit.
Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times –
nationalism vs. Globalism.
The core of it is that the government no longer serves the people. In the United States, that is kind of a bad thing, you know?
Like the EU in the UK, the people, who fought very hard for self-government, are seeing it undermined by the erosion of the nation
state in favor of international beaurocracy run by elites and the well connected.
Both this article and many comments on it show considerable confusion, and ideological opinion all over the map. What is happening
I think is that the world is changing –due to globalism, technology, and the sheer huge numbers of people on the planet. As a
result some of the rigid trenches of thought as well as class alignments are breaking down.
In America we no longer have capitalism, of either the 19th century industrial or 20th century managerial varieties. Money
and big money is still important of course, but it is increasingly both aligned with and in turn controlled by the government.
The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government
ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives
are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both
are right in a sense.
The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite
academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been
left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth
and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as
backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against
being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters."
The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties'
elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium
and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these
folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively
harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA.
I have one condition about which, Mr. Trump would lose my support - if he flinches on immigration, I will have to bow out.
I just don't buy the contentions about color here. He has made definitive moves to ensure that he intends to fight for US citizens
regardless of color. This nonsense about white racism, more bigotry in reality, doesn't pan out. The Republican party has been
comprised of mostly whites since forever and nearly all white sine the late 1960's. Anyone attempting to make hay out of what
has been the reality for than 40 years is really making the reverse pander. Of course most of those who have issues with blacks
and tend to be more expressive about it, are in the Republican party. But so what. Black Republicans would look at you askance,
should you attempt this FYI.
It's a so what. The reason you joining a party is not because the people in it like you, that is really beside the point. Both
Sec Rice and General Powell, are keenly aware of who's what it and that is the supposed educated elite. They are not members of
the party because it is composed of some pure untainted membership. But because they and many blacks align themselves with the
ideas of the party, or what the party used to believe, anyway.
It's the issues not their skin color that matters. And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes
on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to
Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and
used for their own liberal ends.
I remain convinced that if blacks wanted progress all they need do is swamp the Republican party as constituents and confront
whatever they thought was nonsense as constituents as they move on policy issues. Goodness democrats have embraced the lighter
tones despite having most black support. That is why the democrats are importing so many from other state run countries. They
could ignore blacks altogether. Sen Barbara Jordan and her deep voiced rebuke would do them all some good.
Let's face it - we are not going to remove the deeply rooted impact of skin color, once part of the legal frame of the country
for a quarter of the nations populous. What Republicans should stop doing is pretending, that everything concerning skin color
is the figment of black imagination. I am not budging an inch on the Daughters of the American Revolution, a perfect example of
the kind of peculiar treatment of the majority, even to those who fought for Independence and their descendants.
________________
I think that there are thousands and thousands of educated (degreed)people who now realize what a mess the educational and
social services system has become because of our immigration policy. The impact on social services here in Ca is no joke. In the
face of mounting deficits, the laxity of Ca has now come back to haunt them. The pressure to increase taxes weighed against the
loss of manual or hard labor to immigrants legal and otherwise is unmistakable here. There's debate about rsstroom etiquette in
the midst of serious financial issues - that's a joke. So this idea of dismissing people with degrees as being opposed to Mr.
Trump is deeply overplayed and misunderstood. If there is a class war, it's not because of Mr. Trump, those decks were stacked
in his favor long before the election cycle.
--------
"But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who–knowing that college educated people vote largely
Democrat–launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what . . . employment; meanwhile we have to
import millions of college-educated Asians and Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do."
Hmmmm,
Nope. Republicans are notorious for pushing education on everything and everybody. It's a signature of hard work, self reliance,
self motivation and responsibility. The shift that has been tragic is that conservatives and Republicans either by a shove or
by choice abandoned the fields by which we turn out most future generations - elementary, HS and college education. Especially
in HS, millions of students are fed a daily diet of liberal though unchecked by any opposing ideas. And that is become the staple
for college education - as it cannot be stated just how tragic this has become for the nation. There are lots of issues to moan
about concerning the Us, but there is far more to embrace or at the very least keep the moaning in its proper context. No, conservatives
and Republicans did engage in discouraging an education.
And there will always be a need for more people without degrees than with them. even people with degrees are now getting hit
even in the elite walls of WS finance. I think I posted an article by John Maulden about the growing tensions resulting fro the
shift in the way trading is conducting. I can build a computer from scratch, that's a technical skill, but the days of building
computers by hand went as fast it came. The accusation that the population should all be trained accountants, book keepers, managers,
data processors, programmers etc. Is nice, but hardly very realistic (despite my taking liberties with your exact phrasing). A
degree is not going to stop a company from selling and moving its production to China, Mexico or Vietnam - would that were true.
In fact, even high end degree positions are being outsourced, medicine, law, data processing, programming . . .
How about the changes in economy that have forced businesses to completely disappear. We will never know how many businesses
were lost in the 2007/2008 financial mess. Recovery doesn't exist until the country's growth is robust enough to put people back
to work full time in a manner that enables them to sustain themselves and family.
That income gap is real and its telling.
___________________
even if I bought the Karl Marx assessment. His solutions were anything but a limited assault on financial sector oligarchs
and wizards. And in practice it has been an unmitigated disaster with virtually not a single long term national benefit. It's
very nature has been destructive, not only to infrastructure, but literally the lifeblood of the people it was intended to rescue.
Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class"
are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector
and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector.
There are two middle classes in the US: the old Business Class and the New Knowledge Class. A manager would be in the Business
Class and a Bureaucrat in the New Class.
The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization,
industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial
revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization.
The New Class were those in the mostly government and nonprofit sectors that depended on knowledge for their livelihood without
it being coupled to any physical labor: teachers, intellectuals, social workers and psychiatrists, lawyers, media types, hedge
fund managers, real estate appraisers, financial advisors, architects, engineers, etc. The New Knowledge Class has only risen
since the New Deal created a permanent white collar, non-business class.
The Working Class are those who are employed for wages in manual work in an industry producing something tangible (houses,
cars, computers, etc.). The Working Class can also have managers, sometimes called supervisors. And the Working Class is comprised
mainly of two groups: unionized workers and private sector non-unionized workers. When we talk about the Working Class we typically
are referring to the latter.
The Trumpsters should not be distinguished as being a racial group or class (white) because there are many white people who
support Clinton. About 95% of Blacks vote Democratic in the US. Nowhere near that ratio of Whites are supporting Trump. So Trumps'
support should not be stereotyped as White.
The number one concern to Trumpsters is that they reflect the previous intergenerational economy where the elderly lent money
to the young to buy homes, cars and start small businesses. The Global bankers have shifted money into the stock market because
0.25% per year interest rates in a bank isn't making any money at all when money inflation runs at 1% to 2% (theft). This has
been replaced by a Global Economy that depends on financial bubbles and arbitraging of funds.
"The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated
by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right
in a sense."
Why other couching this. Ten years ago if some Hollywood exec had said, no same sex marriage, no production company in your
town, the town would have shrugged. Today before shrugging, the city clerk is checking the account balance. When the governors
of Michigan, and Arizona bent down in me culpa's on related issue, because business interests piped in, it was an indication that
the game had seriously changed. Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private
lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure
most of the public fully grasps or desires.
Same sex weddings in US military chapels - the concept still turns my stomach. Advocates control the megaphones, I don't think
they control the minds of the public, despite having convinced a good many people that those who have chosen this expression are
under some manner of assault – that demands a legal change - intelligent well educated, supposedly astute minded people actually
believe it. Even the Republican nominee believes it.
I love Barbara Streisand, but if the election means she moves to Canada, well, so be it. Take your "drag queens" impersonators
wit you. I enjoy Mr. and Mrs Pitt, I think have a social moral core but really? with millions of kids future at stake, endorsing
a terminal dynamic as if it will save society's ills - Hollywood doesn't even pretend to behave royally much less embody the sensitivities
of the same.
There is a lot to challenge about supporting Mr. Trump. He did support killing children in the womb and that is tragic. Unless
he has stood before his maker and made this right, he will have to answer for that. But no more than a trove of Republicans who
supported killing children in the womb and then came to their senses. I guess of there is one thing he and I agree on, it's not
drinking.
As for big budget military, it seems a waste, but if we are going to waste money, better it be for our own citizens. His Achilles
heel here is his intentions as to ISIS/ISIL. I think it's the big drain getting ready to suck him into the abyss of intervention
creep.
Missile defense just doesn't work. The tests are rigged and as Israel discovered, it's a hit and miss game with low probability
of success, but it makes for great propaganda.
I am supposed to be outraged by a football player stance on abusive government. While the democratic nominee is turning over
every deck chair she find, leaving hundreds of thousands of children homeless - let me guess, on the bright side, George Clooney
cheers the prospect of more democratic voters.
If Mr. Trumps only achievements are building a wall, over hauling immigration policy and expanding the size of the military.
He will be well on his way to getting ranked one of the US most successful presidents.
I never understood why an analysis needs to lard in every conceivable historical reference and simply assume its relevance, when
there are so many non constant facts and circumstances. There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it
falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes.
This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially
benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict
is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but
the underlying conflict will always remain.
State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there.
Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they
would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those.
The split on Trump is first by race (obviously), then be gender (also somewhat obviously), and then by education. Even among
self-declared conservatives it's the college educated who tend to oppose him. This is a lot broader than simply losing some "new"
Knowledge Class, unless all college educated people are put in that grouping. In fact he is on track to lose among college educated
whites, something no GOP candidate has suffered since the days of FDR and WWII.
People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's,
per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this
the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards.
People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not
impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions.
I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all
the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable.
Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American.
EliteComic beat me to the punch. I was disappointed that Ross Perot, who won over 20% of the popular vote twice, and was briefly
in the lead in early 1992, wasn't mentioned in this article.
Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli
interests above America's is un-American.
The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable
people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation
where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation,
but of justice being done period.
A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US
dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the
Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation
and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers
instead of a nation of producers.
Who really cares about the federal debt. REally? We can print dollars, exchange these worthless dollars with China for hard
goods, and then China lends the dollars back to us, to pay for our government. Get it?
It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt
dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya
Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market
utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on.
But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled.
And damn the utopianism of you "libertarians" you're worse then Marxists when it comes to ideology over reality.
"State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back
in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would
only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those."
Ah, not it's policy on some measure able effect. The seatbelt law was debate across the country. The data indicated that it
did in fact save lives. And it's impact was universal applicable to every man women or child that got into a vehicle.
That was not a private bedroom issue. Of course businesses have advocated policy. K street is not a K-street minus that reality.
But GM did not demand having relations in parked cars be legalized or else.
You are taking my apples and and calling them seatbelts - false comparison on multiple levels, all to get me to acknowledge
that businesses have influence. It what they have chosen to have influence on -
I do not think the issue of class is relevant here – whether it be new classes or old classes. There are essentially two classes
– those who win given whatever the current economic arrangements are or those who lose given those same arrangements. People who
think they are losing support Trump versus people who think they are winning support Clinton. The polls demonstrates this – Trump
supporters feel a great deal more anxiety about the future and are more inclined to think everything is falling apart whereas
Clinton supporters tend to see things as being okay and are optimistic about the future. The Vox work also shows this pervasive
sense that life will not be good for their children and grandchildren as a characteristic of Trump supporters.
The real shift I think is in the actual coalitions that are political parties. Both the GOP and the Dems have been coalitions
– political parties usually are. Primary areas of agreement with secondary areas of disagreement. Those coalitions no longer work.
The Dems can be seen as a coalition of the liberal knowledge types – who are winners in this economy and the worker types who
are often losers now in this economy. The GOP also is a coalition of globalist corporatist business types (winners) with workers
(losers) who they attracted in part because of culture wars and the Dixiecrats becoming GOPers. The needs of these two groups
in both parties no longer overlap. The crisis is more apparent in the GOP because well – Trump. If Sanders had won the nomination
for the Dems (and he got close) then their same crisis would be more apparent. The Dems can hold their creaky coalition together
because Trump went into the fevered swamps of the alt. right.
I think this is even more obvious in the UK where you have a Labor Party that allegedly represents the interests of working
people but includes the cosmopolitan knowledge types. The cosmopolitans are big on the usual identity politics, unlimited immigration
and staying in the EU. They benefit from the current economic arrangement. But the workers in the Labor party have been hammered
by the current economic arrangements and voted in droves to get out of the EU and limit immigration. It seems pretty obvious that
there is no longer a coalition to sustain the Labor Party. Same with Tories – some in the party love the EU,immigration, globalization
while others voted out of the EU, want immigration restricted and support localism. The crisis is about the inability of either
party to sustain its coalitions. Those in the Tory party who are leavers should be in a political party with the old Labor working
class while the Tory cosmopolitans should be in a party with the Labor cosmopolitans. The current coalitions not being in synch
is the political problem – not new classes etc.
Here in the US the southern Dixiecrats who went to the GOP and are losers in this economy might find a better coalition with
the black, Latino and white workers who are still in the Dem party. But as in the UK ideological culture wars have become more
prominent and hence the coalitions are no longer economically based. If people recognized that politics can only address the economic
issues and they aligned themselves accordingly – the membership of the parties would radically change.
The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia
and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come
up in the morning now,"
"Trump's voters were most strongly characterized by their "racial isolation": they live in places with little ethnic diversity.
"
During the primaries whites in more diverse areas voted Trump. The only real exception was West Virginia. Utah, Wyoming, Iowa?
All voted for Cruz and "muh values".
In white enclaves like Paul Ryans district, which is 91%, whites are able to signal against white identity without having to
face the consequences.
"All three major African, Hispanic, & Asian-American overwhelming support HRC in the election."
That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics
simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data
point would look just the same.
"On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would
benefit hard industry and managerial interests."
This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas
in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute
ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves
versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities
in which they lived.
The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large
institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused.
"... Each of these was based fundamentally upon the principle that language was the key to all power. That is, that language was not a tool that described reality but the power that created it, and s/he who controlled language controlled everything through the shaping of "discourse", as opposed to the objective existence of any truth at all ..."
"... When you globalise capital, you globalise labour. That meant jobs shifting from expensive markets to cheap. Before long the incomes of those swimming in the stream of global capital began to seriously outstrip the incomes of those trapped in old and withering Western labour markets. As a result, inflation in those markets also began to fall and so did interest rates. Thus asset prices took off as Western nation labour markets got hollowed out, and standard of living inequality widened much more quickly as a new landed aristocracy developed. ..."
"... With a Republican Party on its knees, Obama was positioned to restore the kind of New Deal rules that global capitalism enjoyed under Franklin D. Roosevelt. ..."
"... But instead he opted to patch up financialised capitalism. The banks were bailed out and the bonus culture returned. Yes, there were some new rules but they were weak. There was no seizing of the agenda. No imprisonments of the guilty. The US Department of Justice is still issuing $14bn fines to banks involved yet still today there is no justice. Think about that a minute. How can a crime be worthy of a $14bn fine but no prison time?!? ..."
"... Alas, for all of his efforts to restore Wall Street, Obama provided no reset for Main Street economics to restore the fortunes of the US lower classes. Sure Obama fought a hostile Capitol but, let's face it, he had other priorities. ..."
"... This comment is a perfect example of the author's (and Adolf Reed's) point: that the so-called "Left" is so bogged down in issues of language that it has completely lost sight of class politics. ..."
"... It's why Trump won. He was a Viking swinging an ax at nuanced hair-splitters. It was inelegant and ugly, but effective. We will find out if the hair-splitters win again in their inner circle with the Democratic Minority Leader vote. I suspect they missed the point of the election and will vote Pelosi back in, thereby missing the chance for significant gains in the mid-term elections. ..."
"... One of the great triumphs of Those Who Continue To Be Our Rulers has been the infiltration and cooptation of 'the left', hand in hand with the 'dumbing down' of the last 30+ years so few people really understand what is going on. ..."
"... That the Global Left appears to be intellectually weak regarding identity politics and "political correctness" vs. class politics, there is no doubt. But to skim over Global Corporate leverage of this attitude seems wrong to me. The right has also embraced identity politics in order to keep the 90% fully divided in order to justify it's continual economic rape of both human and physical ecology. ..."
"... Every "identity politics" charge starts here, with one group wanting a more equitable social order and the other group defending the existing power structure. Identity politics is adjusting the social order and rattling the power structure, which is why it is so effective. ..."
"... I think it can be effectively argued that Trump voters in PA, WI, OH, MI chose to rattle the power structure and you could think of that as identity politics as well. ..."
"... On the contrary, the (Neo-)Liberal establishment uses identity politics to co-opt and neutralise the left. It keeps them occupied without threatening the real power structure in the least. ..."
"... Hillary (Neoliberal establishment) has many supporters who think of themselves as 'left' or 'liberal'. The Democratic Party leadership is neither 'left' nor 'liberal'. It keeps the votes and the love of the 'liberals' by talking up harmless 'liberal' identity politics and soft peddling the Liberal power politics which they are really about. ..."
"... Just from historical perspective, the right wing had more money to forward its agenda and an OCD like affliction [biblical] to drive simple memes relentlessly via its increasing private ownership of education and media. Thereby creating an institutional network over time to gain dominate market share in crafting the social narrative. Bloodly hell anyone remember Bush Jr Christian crusade after politicizing religion to get elected and the ramifications – neocon – R2P thingy . ..."
"... Its not hard once neoliberalism became dominate in the 70s [wages and productivity diverged] the proceeds have gone to the top and everyone else got credit IOUs based mostly on asset inflation via the Casino or RE [home and IP]. ..."
"... Foucault in particular advanced a greatly expanded wariness regarding the use of power. It was not just that left politics could only lead to ossified Soviet Marxism or the dogmatic petty despotism of the left splinters. Institutions in general mapped out social practices and attendant identities to impose on the individual. His position tended to promote a distrust not only of "grand narratives" but of organizational bonds as such. As far as I can tell, the idea of people joining together to form an institution that would enhance their social power as well as allow them to become personally empowered/enhanced was something of a categorial impossibility. ..."
"... There is no global left. We have only global state capitalists and global social democrats – a pseudo left. The countries where Marxist class analysis was supposedly adopted were not industrial countries where "alienation" had brought the "proletariat" to an inevitable communal mentality. The largest of these countries killed millions in order to industrialize rapidly – pretending the goal was to get to that state. ..."
"... Bigotry. Identity centered thinking. Neither serves egalitarianism. But people cling to them. "I gotta look out for myself first." And so called left thinkers constantly pontificate about "benefits" and "privileges" that some class, sex, and race confer. Hmmm. The logic is that many of us struggling daily to keep our jobs and pay the bills must give up something in order to be fair, in order to build a better society. Given this thinking it is no surprise that so many have retreated into the illusion of safety offered by identity based thinking. ..."
"... "Simultaneously, capitalism did what it does best. It packaged and repackaged, branded and rebranded every emerging identity, cloaked in its own sub-cultural nomenclature, selling itself back to new emerging identities. Soon class was completely forgotten as the global Left dedicated itself instead to policing the commons as a kind of safe zone for a multitude of difference that capitalism turned into a cultural supermarket." ..."
"... But why does the Dem estab embrace the conservative neoliberal agenda? The Dem estab are smart people, can think on multiple levels, are not limited in scope, are not racist. So, why then does the Dem estab accept and promote the conservative GOP neoliberal economic agenda? ..."
"... Because the Dem estab isn't very smart. ..."
"... Conservative is: private property, capitalism, limited taxes and transfer payments plus national security and religion. ..."
"... Liberalism is not in opposition to any of that. Identity politics arose at the same time the Ds were purging the reds (socialists and communists) from their party. Liberalism/progressivism is an ameliorating position of conservatism (progressive support of labor unions to work within a private property/corporatist structure not to eliminate the system and replace it with public/employee ownership) Not too far, too fast, maybe toss out a few more crumbs. ..."
"... There is a foundation for identity politics on the liberal-left (see what I did there?) – it rests in the sense of moral superiority of just this liberal-left, which superiority is then patronisingly spread all over the social world – until it meets those who deny the moral superiority claim, whereupon it becomes murderous (in, of course, the name of humanity and humanitarianism). ..."
"... This is why the 1% continue to prevail over the 99%. If the 1% wasn't so incompetent this would continue forever. They know how to divide, conquer and rule the 99%, however they don't know how to run a society in a sustainable way. ..."
"... But I will say one thing for the Right over the Left: they have taken the initiative and are now the sole force for change. Granted, supporting a carnival barker for president is an act of desperation. Nevertheless he was the only option for change and the Right took it. Perhaps the Left offering little to nothing in the way of change reflects its lack of desperation. ..."
"... Excellent comment, EoinW! You just summed up years of content and commentary on this site. Obviously as the "Left" continues to defend the status quo as you describe it stops being "Left" in any meaningful way anymore. ..."
"... The Koch brothers are economically to the very right. They are socially to the left, perhaps even more socially liberal than many of your liberal friends. No joke. There's a point here, if I can figure out what it is. ..."
"... Trump isn't Right or Left. Trump is a can of gasoline and a match. His voters weren't voting for a Left or Right agenda. They were voting for a battering ram. That is why he got a pass on racist, misogynist, fascist statements that would have killed any other candidate. ..."
"... PC is a parody of the 20th Century reform movements. ..."
"... In the 70's the feminists worked against legal disabilities written into law. Since the Depression, the unions fought corporate management create a livable relationship between management and labor. Real struggles, real problems, real people. ..."
"... What's interesting is that in an article pushing class over identity. he never tried to set his class ethos in order to convince working class people or the bourgeoisie why they should listen to him. ..."
"... "This site, along with the MSM, has flown way off the handle since the election loss." ..."
"... "Our nation's problems can be remedied with one dramatic change" ..."
"... Bringing C level pay packages at major corporations in line with the real contributions of the recipients would be great. How would we do it? With laws or regulations or executive orders banning the federal government from doing business with any firm that failed to comply with some basic guidelines? ..."
"... It's an academic point right now in any event. The Trump administration – working together with the Ryan House – is not going to make legislation or sign executive orders to do anything remotely like this. Which is one of the many reasons why bashing Democrats has taken off here I suspect. This election was theirs to lose, and they did everything in their power to toss it. ..."
"... You do realize that the wealthy are both part of and connected to the legislative branch of every single country on this planet right? As long as that remains so (as it has since the dawn of humans) then good luck trying to cap any sort of hording behavior of the wealthy. ..."
"... The post-structural revolution transpired [in the U.S.] before and during the end of the Cold War just as the collapse of the Old Soviet Union denuded the global Left of its raison detre. ..."
"... Foucault was not entirely sympathetic to the Left, at least the unions, but he was trying to articulate a politics that was just as much about liberation from capitalism as classic Marxism. To that end, discourse analysis was the means to discovering those subtle articulations of power in human relations, not an end in itself as it was for, say, Barthes. ..."
"... Imagine inequality plotted on two axes. Inequality between genders, races and cultures is what liberals have been concentrating on. This is the x-axis and the focus of identity politics and the liberal left. ..."
"... On the y-axis we have inequality from top to bottom. 2014 – "85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world" 2016– "Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world's population" ..."
"... The neoliberal view L As long as everyone, from all genders, races and cultures, is visiting the same food bank this is equality. ..."
"... You can see why liberals love identity politics. ..."
"... labor is being co-opted by the right: the Republican Workers Party I think this rhymes with Fascist. But then, in a world soon to be literally scrambling for high ground and rebuilding housing for 50 million people the time honored "worker" might actually have a renaissance. ..."
"... But the simple act of writing checks cost me n-o-t-h-i-n-g in terms of time, energy, education, physical or mental exertion. ..."
"... A much more nuanced discussion of the primacy of identity politics on the Left in Britain and the US is http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/29/prospects-for-an-alt-left/ "Prospects for an Alt-Left," November 29, 2016, by Elliot Murphy, who teaches in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College, London. ..."
"... The electorate is angry (true liberals at the Dems, voters in select electoral states at "everything"). If democracy is messy, then that's what we've got; a mess. Unfortunately, it's coming at the absolutely wrong time (Climate Change, lethal policing, financial elite impunity). ..."
"... But certainly the fall of the USSR was the thing that forced capitalism's hand. At that point capitalism had no choice but to step up and prove that it could really bring a better life to the world. ..."
"... A Minsky event of biblical proportions soon followed (it only took about 10 years!) and now all is devastation and nobody has clue. But the 1990 effort could have been in earnest. Capitalists mean well but they are always in denial about the inequality they create which finally started a chain reaction in "identity politics" as reactions to the stress of economic competition bounced around in every society like a pinball machine. A tedious and insufferable game which seems to have culminated in Hillary the Relentless. I won't say capitalism is idiotic. But something is. ..."
"... Left and Right only really make sense in the context of the distribution of power and wealth, and only when there is a difference between them about that distribution. This was historically the case for more than 150 years after the French Revolution. By the mid-1960s, there was a sense that the Left was winning, and would continue to win. Progressive taxation, zero unemployment, little real poverty by today's standards, free education and healthcare . and many influential political figures (Tony Crosland for example) saw the major task of the future as deciding where the fruits of economic growth could be most justly applied. ..."
"... So until class-based politics and struggles over power and money re-start (if they ever do) I respectfully suggest that "Left" and "Right" be retired as terms that no longer have any meaning. ..."
"... powerlessness, of course, corrupts. There's always someone weaker than you, which is why identity politics is essentially a conservative, disciplining force, with a vested interest in the problems it has chosen to identify ..."
"... Identity politics is a disaster ongoing for the Democratic Party, for reasons they seem to have overlooked. First, the additional identity group is white. We already see this in the South, where 90% of the white population in many states votes Republican. ..."
"... When that spreads to the rest of the country, there will be a permanent Republican majority until the Republicans create a new major disaster. ..."
"... So soon we forget the Battle of Seattle. The Left has been opposed to globalization, deregulation, etc., all along. Partly he's talking about an academic pseudo-left, partly confusing the left with the Democrats and other "center-left," captured parties. ..."
"... I mean, Barack Obama was our first black president, but most blacks didn't do very well. George W. Bush was our first retard president, and most people with cognitive handicaps didn't do very well. ..."
"... But we can boil it all down to something even simpler and more primal: divide and conquer. ..."
Yves here. This piece gives a useful, real-world perspective on the issues discussed in
a seminal Adolph Reed article . Key section:
race politics is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics
of the left-wing of neoliberalism. It is the expression and active agency of a political order
and moral economy in which capitalist market forces are treated as unassailable nature. An integral
element of that moral economy is displacement of the critique of the invidious outcomes produced
by capitalist class power onto equally naturalized categories of ascriptive identity that sort
us into groups supposedly defined by what we essentially are rather than what we do. As I have
argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in which 1%
of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of
the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were
LGBT people. It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that expresses more unambiguously
the social position of people who consider themselves candidates for inclusion in, or at least
significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class.
This perspective may help explain why, the more aggressively and openly capitalist class power
destroys and marketizes every shred of social protection working people of all races, genders,
and sexual orientations have fought for and won over the last century, the louder and more insistent
are the demands from the identitarian left that we focus our attention on statistical disparities
and episodic outrages that "prove" that the crucial injustices in the society should be understood
in the language of ascriptive identity.
My take on this issue is that the neoliberal use of identity politics continue and extends the
cultural inculcation of individuals seeing themselves engaging with other in one-to-one transactions
(commerce, struggles over power and status) and has the effect of diverting their focus and energy
on seeing themselves as members of groups with common interests and operating that way, and in particular,
of seeing the role of money and property, which are social constructs, in power dynamics.
By David Llewellyn-Smith, founding publisher and former editor-in-chief of The Diplomat
magazine, now the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics website. Originally posted at
MacroBusiness
Let's begin this little tale with a personal anecdote. Back in 1990 I met and fell in love with
a bisexual, African American ballerina. She was studying Liberal Arts at US Ivy League Smith College
at the time (which Aussies may recall was being run by our Jill Kerr Conway back then). So I moved
in with my dancing beauty and we lived happily on her old man's purse for a year.
I was fortunate to arrive at Smith during a period of intellectual tumult. It was the early years
of the US political correctness revolution when the academy was writhing through a post-structuralist
shift. Traditional dialectical history was being supplanted by a new suite of studies based around
truth as "discourse". Driven by the French post-modern thinkers of the 70s and 80s, the US academy
was adopting and adapting the ideas Foucault, Derrida and Barthe to a variety of civil rights movements
that spawned gender and racial studies.
Each of these was based fundamentally upon the principle that language was the key to all
power. That is, that language was not a tool that described reality but the power that created it,
and s/he who controlled language controlled everything through the shaping of "discourse", as opposed
to the objective existence of any truth at all .
... ... ...
The post-structural revolution transpired before and during the end of the Cold War just as the
collapse of the Old Soviet Union denuded the global Left of its raison detre. But its social justice
impulse didn't die, it turned inwards from a notion of the historic inevitability of the decline
of capitalism and the rise of oppressed classes, towards the liberation of oppressed minorities within
capitalism, empowered by control over the language that defined who they were.
Simultaneously, capitalism did what it does best. It packaged and repackaged, branded and rebranded
every emerging identity, cloaked in its own sub-cultural nomenclature, selling itself back to new
emerging identities. Soon class was completely forgotten as the global Left dedicated itself instead
to policing the commons as a kind of safe zone for a multitude of difference that capitalism turned
into a cultural supermarket.
As the Left turned inwards, capitalism turned outwards and went truly, madly global, lifting previously
isolated nations into a single planet-wide market, pretty much all of it revolving around Americana
replete with its identity-branded products.
But, of course, this came at a cost. When you globalise capital, you globalise labour. That
meant jobs shifting from expensive markets to cheap. Before long the incomes of those swimming in
the stream of global capital began to seriously outstrip the incomes of those trapped in old and
withering Western labour markets. As a result, inflation in those markets also began to fall and
so did interest rates. Thus asset prices took off as Western nation labour markets got hollowed out,
and standard of living inequality widened much more quickly as a new landed aristocracy developed.
Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased.
Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some losers
in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence. Indeed, it went further. So
satisfied was it with human progress, and so satisfied with its own role in producing it, that it
turned the power of language that it held most dear back upon those that opposed the new order. Those
losers in Western labour markets that dared complain or fight back against the free movement of capital
and labour were labelled and marginalised as "racist", "xenophobic" and "sexist".
This great confluence of forces reached its apogee in the Global Financial Crisis when a ribaldly
treasonous Wall St destroyed the American financial system just as America's first ever African American
President, Barack Obama, was elected . One might have expected this convergence to result in a revival
of some class politics. Obama ran on a platform of "hope and change" very much cultured in the vein
of seventies art and inherited a global capitalism that had just openly ravaged its most celebrated
host nation.
But alas, it was just a bit of "retro". With a Republican Party on its knees, Obama was positioned
to restore the kind of New Deal rules that global capitalism enjoyed under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
A gobalisation like the one promised in the brochures, that benefited the majority via competition
and productivity gains, driven by trade and meritocracy, with counter-balanced private risk and public
equity.
But instead he opted to patch up financialised capitalism. The banks were bailed out and the
bonus culture returned. Yes, there were some new rules but they were weak. There was no seizing of
the agenda. No imprisonments of the guilty. The US Department of Justice is still issuing $14bn fines
to banks involved yet still today there is no justice. Think about that a minute. How can a crime
be worthy of a $14bn fine but no prison time?!?
Alas, for all of his efforts to restore Wall Street, Obama provided no reset for Main Street
economics to restore the fortunes of the US lower classes. Sure Obama fought a hostile Capitol but,
let's face it, he had other priorities. And so the US working and middle classes, as well as
those worldwide, were sold another pup. Now more than ever, if they said say so they were quickly
shut down as "racist", "xenophobic", or "sexist".
Thus it came to pass that the global Left somehow did a complete back-flip and positioned itself
directly behind the same unreconstructed global capitalism that was still sucking the life from the
lower classes that it always had. Only now it was doing so with explicit public backing and with
an abandon it had not enjoyed since the roaring twenties.
Which brings us back to today. And we wonder how it is that an abuse-spouting guy like Donald
Trump can succeed Barack Obama. Trump is a member of the very same "trickle down" capitalist class
that ripped the income from US households. But he is smart enough, smarter than the Left at least,
to know that the decades long rage of the middle and working classes is a formidable political force
and has tapped it spectacularly to rise to power.
And, he has done more. He has also recognised that the Left's obsession with post-structural identity
politics has totally paralysed it. It is so traumatised and pre-occupied by his mis-use of the language
of power – the "racist", "sexist" and "xenophobic" comments – that it is further wedging itself from
its natural constituents every day.
Don't get me wrong, I am very doubtful that Trump will succeed with his proposed policies but
he has at least mentioned the elephant in the room, making the American worker visible again.
Returning to that innocent Aussie boy and his wild romp at Smith College, I might ask what he
would have made of all of this. None of the above should be taken as a repudiation of the experience
of racism or sexism. Indeed, the one thing I took away from Smith College over my lifetime was an
understanding at just how scarred by slavery are the generations of African Americans that lived
it and today inherit its memory (as well as other persecuted). I felt terribly inadequate before
that pain then and I remain so today.
But, if the global Left is to have any meaning in the future of the world, and I would argue that
the global Right will destroy us all if it doesn't, then it must get beyond post-structural paralysis
and go back to the future of fighting not just for social justice issues but for equity based upon
class. Empowerment is not just about language, it's about capital, who's got it, who hasn't and what
role government plays between them.
This comment is a perfect example of the author's (and Adolf Reed's) point: that the so-called
"Left" is so bogged down in issues of language that it has completely lost sight of class politics.
Essentially, the comment vividly displays the exact methodology the author lambasts in the
piece - it hijacks the discussion about an economic issue, attempts to turn it into a mere distraction
about semantics, and in the end contributes absolutely nothing of substance to the "discourse".
It's why Trump won. He was a Viking swinging an ax at nuanced hair-splitters. It was inelegant
and ugly, but effective. We will find out if the hair-splitters win again in their inner circle with the Democratic
Minority Leader vote. I suspect they missed the point of the election and will vote Pelosi back
in, thereby missing the chance for significant gains in the mid-term elections.
One of the great triumphs of Those Who Continue To Be Our Rulers has been the infiltration
and cooptation of 'the left', hand in hand with the 'dumbing down' of the last 30+ years so few
people really understand what is going on.
Explained in more detail here if anyone interested in some truly 'out of the box' perspectives
– It's not 'the left' trying to take over the world and shut down free speech and all that other
bad stuff – it's 'the right'!! http://tinyurl.com/h4h2kay
.
Although I haven't yet read the article you posted, my "feeling" as I read this was that the
author inferred that the right was in the mix somehow, but it was primarily the fault of the left.
That the Global Left appears to be intellectually weak regarding identity politics and "political
correctness" vs. class politics, there is no doubt. But to skim over Global Corporate leverage
of this attitude seems wrong to me. The right has also embraced identity politics in order to
keep the 90% fully divided in order to justify it's continual economic rape of both human and
physical ecology.
Exactly. My guess is that this plays out somewhat like this:
Dems: This group _____ should be free to have _____ civil right.
Reps: NO. We are a society built on _____ tradition, no need to change that because it upends
our patriarchal, Christian, Caucasian power structure.
Every "identity politics" charge starts here, with one group wanting a more equitable social
order and the other group defending the existing power structure. Identity politics is adjusting
the social order and rattling the power structure, which is why it is so effective.
I think it can be effectively argued that Trump voters in PA, WI, OH, MI chose to rattle
the power structure and you could think of that as identity politics as well.
Identity politics is adjusting the social order and rattling the power structure, which
is why it is so effective.
On the contrary, the (Neo-)Liberal establishment uses identity politics to co-opt and neutralise
the left. It keeps them occupied without threatening the real power structure in the least.
When have they ever done any such thing? Vote for Hillary because she's a woman isn't even
any kind of politics it's more like marketing branding. It's the real thing. Taste great, less
filling. I'm loving it.
Hillary (Neoliberal establishment) has many supporters who think of themselves as 'left'
or 'liberal'. The Democratic Party leadership is neither 'left' nor 'liberal'. It keeps the votes
and the love of the 'liberals' by talking up harmless 'liberal' identity politics and soft peddling
the Liberal power politics which they are really about.
They exploit the happy historical accident of the coincidence of names. The Liberal ideology
was so called because it was slightly less right-wing than the Feudalism it displaced. In today's
terms however, it is not very liberal, and Neoliberalism is even less so.
If I was in charge of the DNC and wanted to commission a very cleverly written piece to exonerate
the DLC and the New Democrats from the 30 odd years of corruption and self-aggrandizement they
indulged in and laughed all the way to the Bank then I would definitely give this chap a call.
I mean, where do we start? No attempt at learning the history of neoliberalism, no attempt at
any serious research about how and why it fastened itself into the brains of people like Tony
Coelho and Al From, nothing, zilch. If someone who did not know the history of the DLC read this
piece, they would walk away thinking, 'wow, it was all happenstance, it all just happened, no
one deliberately set off this run away train'. Sometime in the 90s the 'Left' decided to just
pursue identity politics. Amazing. I would ask the Author to start with the Powell memo and then
make an investigation as to why the Democrats then and the DLC later decided to merely sit on
their hands when all the forces the Powell memo unleashed proceeded to wreak their havoc in every
established institution of the Left, principally the Universities which had always been the bastion
of the Progressives. That might be a good starting point.
Sigh . the left was marginalized and relentlessly hunted down by the right [grab bag of corporatists,
free marketers, neocons, evangelicals, and a whole cornucopia of wing nut ideologists (file under
creative class gig writers)].
Just from historical perspective, the right wing had more money to forward its agenda and
an OCD like affliction [biblical] to drive simple memes relentlessly via its increasing private
ownership of education and media. Thereby creating an institutional network over time to gain
dominate market share in crafting the social narrative. Bloodly hell anyone remember Bush Jr Christian
crusade after politicizing religion to get elected and the ramifications – neocon – R2P thingy .
Its not hard once neoliberalism became dominate in the 70s [wages and productivity diverged]
the proceeds have gone to the top and everyone else got credit IOUs based mostly on asset inflation
via the Casino or RE [home and IP].
Yes, it's interesting that the academic "left" (aka liberals), who so prize language to accurately,
and to the finest degree distinguish 'this' from 'that', have avoided addressing the difference
between 'left' and 'liberal' and are content to leave the two terms interchangable.
The reason for that is that when academic leftists attempted a more in depth critique, of one
sort or another, of the actually existing historical liberal welfare state, the liberals threw
the "New Deal-under-siege" attack at them and attempted to shut them down.
There is very little left perspective in public. All this whining about identity politics is
not left either. It is reactionary. I can think of plenty of old labor left academics who have
done a much better job of wrapping their minds around why sex, gender, and race matter with respect
to all matters economic than this incessant childish whine. The "let me make you feel more comfortable"
denialism of Uncle Tom Reed.
Right now, I would say that these reactionaries don't want to hear from the academic left any
more than New Deal liberals did. Not going to stop them from blaming them for all their problems
though.
Maybe people should shoulder their own failures for a change. As for the Trumpertantrums, I
am totally not having them.
Since the writer led off talking about an academic setting, it would be useful to flesh out
a bit more how trends in academic theoretical discussion in the 70s and 80s reflected and reinforced
what was going on politically. He refers to postructuralism, which was certainly involved, but
doesn't give enough emphasis to how deliberately poststructuralists - and here I'm lumping together
writers like Lyotard, Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari - were all reacting to the failure of
French Maoism and Trotskyism to, as far as they were concerned, provide a satisfactory alternative
to Soviet Marxism.
As groups espousing those position flailed about in the 70s, the drive to maintain
hope in revolutionary prospects in the midst of macroeconomic stabilization and union reconciliation
to capitalism frequently brought out the worst sectarian tendencies. While writers like Andre Gorz bid adieu to the proletariat as an agent of change and tried to tread water as social democratic
reformists, the poststructuralists disjoined the critique of power from class analysis.
Foucault in particular advanced a greatly expanded wariness regarding the use of power. It
was not just that left politics could only lead to ossified Soviet Marxism or the dogmatic petty
despotism of the left splinters. Institutions in general mapped out social practices and attendant
identities to impose on the individual. His position tended to promote a distrust not only of
"grand narratives" but of organizational bonds as such. As far as I can tell, the idea of people
joining together to form an institution that would enhance their social power as well as allow
them to become personally empowered/enhanced was something of a categorial impossibility.
When imported to US academia, traditionally much more disengaged from organized politics than
their European counterparts, these tendencies flourished. Aside from being socially cut off from
increasingly anodyne political organizations, poststructuralists in the US often had backgrounds
with little orientation to history or social science research addressing class relations. To them
the experience of a much more immediate and palpable form of oppression through the use of language
offered an immediate critical target. This dovetailed perfectly with the legalistic use of state
power to end discrimination against various groups, A European disillusionment with class politics
helped to fortify an American evasion or ignorance of it.
There is no global left. We have only global state capitalists and global social democrats
– a pseudo left. The countries where Marxist class analysis was supposedly adopted were not industrial
countries where "alienation" had brought the "proletariat" to an inevitable communal mentality.
The largest of these countries killed millions in order to industrialize rapidly – pretending
the goal was to get to that state.
The terms left and right may not be adequate for those of us who want an egalitarian society
but also see many of the obstacles to egalitarianism as human failings that are independent of
and not caused by ruling elites – although they frequently serve the interests of those elites.
Bigotry. Identity centered thinking. Neither serves egalitarianism. But people cling to
them. "I gotta look out for myself first." And so called left thinkers constantly pontificate
about "benefits" and "privileges" that some class, sex, and race confer. Hmmm. The logic is that
many of us struggling daily to keep our jobs and pay the bills must give up something in order
to be fair, in order to build a better society. Given this thinking it is no surprise that so
many have retreated into the illusion of safety offered by identity based thinking.
Hopefully those of us who yearn for an egalitarian movement can develop and articulate an alternate
view of reality.
"Simultaneously, capitalism did what it does best. It packaged and repackaged, branded and
rebranded every emerging identity, cloaked in its own sub-cultural nomenclature, selling itself
back to new emerging identities. Soon class was completely forgotten as the global Left dedicated
itself instead to policing the commons as a kind of safe zone for a multitude of difference
that capitalism turned into a cultural supermarket."
"Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased.
Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some
losers in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence. Indeed, it went
further. So satisfied was it with human progress, and so satisfied with its own role in producing
it, that it turned the power of language that it held most dear back upon those that opposed
the new order. Those losers in Western labour markets that dared complain or fight back against
the free movement of capital and labour were labelled and marginalised as "racist", "xenophobic"
and "sexist". "
That is not it at all. The real reason is the right wing played white identity politics starting
with the southern strategy, and those running into the waiting arms of Trump today, took the poisoned
bait. Enter Bill Clinton.
People need to start taking responsibility for their own actions, and stop blaming the academics
and the leftists and the wimmins and the N-ers.
But why does the Dem estab embrace the conservative neoliberal agenda? The Dem estab are
smart people, can think on multiple levels, are not limited in scope, are not racist. So, why
then does the Dem estab accept and promote the conservative GOP neoliberal economic agenda?
Because the Dem estab isn't very smart. I doubt more than half of them could define neoliberalism
much less describe how it has destroyed the country. They are mostly motivated by the identity
politics aspects.
Conservative is: private property, capitalism, limited taxes and transfer payments plus
national security and religion.
Liberalism is not in opposition to any of that. Identity politics arose at the same time
the Ds were purging the reds (socialists and communists) from their party. Liberalism/progressivism
is an ameliorating position of conservatism (progressive support of labor unions to work within
a private property/corporatist structure not to eliminate the system and replace it with public/employee
ownership) Not too far, too fast, maybe toss out a few more crumbs.
There is a foundation for identity politics on the liberal-left (see what I did there?)
– it rests in the sense of moral superiority of just this liberal-left, which superiority is then
patronisingly spread all over the social world – until it meets those who deny the moral superiority
claim, whereupon it becomes murderous (in, of course, the name of humanity and humanitarianism).
We live in a society where no one gets what they want. The Left sees the standard of living
fall and is powerless to stop it. The Right see the culture war lost 25 years ago and can't even
offer a public protest, let alone move things in a conservative direction. Instead we get the
agenda of the political Left to sell out at every opportunity. Plus we get the agenda of the political
Right of endless war and endless security state. Eventually the political Left and Right merge
and support the exact same things. Now when will the real Left and Right recognize their true
enemy and join forces against it? This is why the 1% continue to prevail over the 99%. If
the 1% wasn't so incompetent this would continue forever. They know how to divide, conquer and
rule the 99%, however they don't know how to run a society in a sustainable way.
But I will say one thing for the Right over the Left: they have taken the initiative and
are now the sole force for change. Granted, supporting a carnival barker for president is an act
of desperation. Nevertheless he was the only option for change and the Right took it. Perhaps
the Left offering little to nothing in the way of change reflects its lack of desperation.
After all, the Left won the culture war and continues to push its agenda to extremes(even though
such extremes will guarantee a back lash that will send people running back to their closets to
hide). The Left still has the MSM media on its side when it comes to cultural issues. Thus the
Left is satisfied with the status quo, with gorging themselves on the crumbs which fall from the
1% table. Consequently, you not only have a political Left that has sold out, you also have the
rest of the Left content to accept that sell out so long as they get their symbolic victories
over their ancient enemy – the Right.
Until the Left recognize its true enemy, the fight will only come from the Right. During that
process more people will filter from the Left to the Right as the latter will offer the only hope
for change.
I think left and right as political shorthand is too limited. Perhaps the NC commentariat could
define up and down versions of each of these political philosophies (ie. left and right) and start
to take control of the framing. Hence we would have up-left, down-left, up-right, and down-right.
I would suggest that up and down could relate to environmental viewpoints.
Just a thought that I haven't given much thought, but it would be funny (to me at least) to
be able to quantify one's political stance in terms of radians.
Excellent comment, EoinW! You just summed up years of content and commentary on this site.
Obviously as the "Left" continues to defend the status quo as you describe it stops being "Left"
in any meaningful way anymore.
This seems to assume that change is an intrinsic good, so that change produced by the right
will necessarily be improvement. Unfortunately, change for the worse is probably more likely than
change for the better under this regime. Equally unfortunately, we may have reached the point
where that is the only thing that will make people reconsider what constitutes a just society
and how to achieve it. In any case, this is where we are now.
The economic left sees its standard of living fall. The social right sees its
cultural verities fall.
The Koch brothers are economically to the very right. They are socially to the
left, perhaps even more socially liberal than many of your liberal friends. No joke. There's
a point here, if I can figure out what it is.
"He [Trump] was the only option for change and the Right took it."
You forget Bernie. The Left tried, and Bernie bowed out, not wanting to be another "Nader"
spoiler. Now, for 2020, the Left thinks it's the "their turn."
The problem is, the Left tends to blow it too (e.g. McGovern in 1972), in part because their
"language" also exudes power and tends to alienate other, more moderate, parts of the coalition
with arcane (and rather elitist) arguments from Derrida et. al.
Trump isn't Right or Left. Trump is a can of gasoline and a match. His voters weren't voting
for a Left or Right agenda. They were voting for a battering ram. That is why he got a pass on
racist, misogynist, fascist statements that would have killed any other candidate.
Trump is starting out with some rallies in the near-future. The Republicans in Congress think
they are going to play patty-cake on policy to push the Koch Brothers agenda. We are going to
see a populist who promised jobs duke it out publicly with small government austerity deficit
cutters. It will be interesting to see what happens when he calls out Republican Congressmen standing
in the way of his agenda by name.
PC is a parody of the 20th Century reform movements. I n the 60's the Black churches
and the labor unions fought Jim Crow laws and explicit institutional discrimination. In the 70's
the feminists worked against legal disabilities written into law. Since the Depression, the unions
fought corporate management create a livable relationship between management and labor. Real struggles,
real problems, real people.
[Tinfoil hat on)]
At the same time the reformist subset was losing themselves in style points, being 'nice',
and passive aggressive intimidation, the corporate community was promoting the anti-government
screech for the masses. That is, at the same time the people lost sight of government as their
counterweight to capital, the left elite was becoming the vile joke Limbaugh and the other talk
radio blowhards said they were. This may be coincidental timing, or their may be someone behind
the French connection and Hamilton Fish touring college campuses in the 80's promoting subjectivism.
It's true the question of 'how they feel' seems to loom large in discussions where social justice
used to be.
[Tinfoil hat off]
There are many words but no communication between the laboring masses and the specialist readers.
Fainting couch feminists have nothing to say to wives and mothers, the slippery redefinitions
out of non-white studies turn off people who work for a living, and the promotion of smaller and
more neurotic minorities are just more friction in a society growing steeper uphill.
"She was studying Liberal Arts at US Ivy League Smith College at the time (which Aussies may
recall was being run by our Jill Kerr Conway back then). So I moved in with my dancing beauty
and we lived happily on her old man's purse for a year."
I hate to be overly pedantic, but Smith College is one of the historically female colleges
known as the Seven Sisters: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe
College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College. While Barnard is connected to Columbia,
and Radcliffe to Harvard, none of the other Sisters has ever been considered any part of the Ancient
Eight (Ivy League) schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton,
and Yale.
I find it highly doubtful that someone, unaware of this elementary fact, actually lived off
a beautiful bisexual black ballerina's (wonderful alliteration!) "old man's purse," for a full
year in Northampton, MA. He may well have dated briefly someone like this, but it strains credulity
that– after a full year in this environment– he would never have learned of the distinction between
the Seven Sisters and the Ivy League.
The truth of the matter is not so important. The black ballerina riff had two functions. First
it helped push an ethos for the author of openness and acceptance of various races and sexual
orientations. This is a highly charged subject and so accusations of racism, etc, are never far
away for someone pushing class over identity.
Second it served as a nice hook to get dawgs like me to read through the whole thing; which
was a very good article. Kind of like the opening paragraph of a Penthouse Forum entry, I was
hoping that the author would eventually elaborate on what happened when she pirouetted over him
What's interesting is that in an article pushing class over identity. he never tried to set
his class ethos in order to convince working class people or the bourgeoisie why they should listen
to him.
I have never, ever known Brits to claim an "Oxbridge education" if they haven't attended either
Oxford or Cambridge. Similarly, over several decades of knowing quite well many alumnae from Wellesley,
Smith, etc. I have never once heard them speak of their colleges as "Ivy League."
I do get your point, however. Perhaps Mr. Llewellyn-Smith was deliberately writing for a non-U.S.
audience, and chose to use "Ivy League" as synonymous with "prestigious." I have seen graduates
of Stanford, for example, described as "Ivy Leaguers" in the foreign press.
I think the gradual process whereby the left, or more specifically, the middle class left,
have been consumed by an intellectually vacant went hand in hand with what I found the bizarre
abandonment of interest by the left in economics and in public intellectualism. The manner in
which the left simply surrendered the intellectual arguments over issues like taxes and privatisation
and trade still puzzles me. I suspect it was related to a cleavage between middle class left wingers
and working class activists. They simple stopped talking the same language, so there was nobody
to shout 'stop' when the right simply colonised the most important areas of public policy and
shut down all discussion.*
A related issue is I think a strong authoritarianist strain which runs through some identity
politics. Its common to have liberals discuss how intolerant the religious or right wingers are
of intellectual discussion, but even try to question some of of the shibboleths of gender/race
discussions and you can immediately find yourself labelled a misogynist/homophobe/racist. Just
see some of the things you can get banned from the Guardian CIF for saying.
This site, along with the MSM, has flown way off the handle since the election loss. Democrat-bashing
is the new pastime.
Our nation's problems can be remedied with one dramatic change:
Caps on executive gains in terms of multiples in both public and private companies of a big
enough size. For example, the CEO at most can make 50 times the average salary. Something to that
effect. And any net income gains at the end of the year that are going to be dispersed as dividends,
must proportionally reach the internal laborers as well. Presto, a robust economy.
All employees must share in gains. You don't like it? Tough. The owner will still be rich.
Historically, executives topped out at 20-30 times average salary. Now it's normal for the
number to reach 500-2,000. It's absurd. As if a CEO is manufacturing products, marketing, and
selling them all by himself/herself. As if Tim Cook assembles iPhones and iMacs by hand and sells
them. As if Leslie Moonves writes, directs, acts in, and markets each show.
Put the redistributive mechanism in the private sphere as well as in government. Then America
will be great again.
Bringing C level pay packages at major corporations in line with the real contributions of
the recipients would be great. How would we do it? With laws or regulations or executive orders
banning the federal government from doing business with any firm that failed to comply with some
basic guidelines?
It's an academic point right now in any event. The Trump administration – working together
with the Ryan House – is not going to make legislation or sign executive orders to do anything
remotely like this. Which is one of the many reasons why bashing Democrats has taken off here
I suspect. This election was theirs to lose, and they did everything in their power to toss it.
You do realize that the wealthy are both part of and connected to the legislative branch
of every single country on this planet right? As long as that remains so (as it has since the
dawn of humans) then good luck trying to cap any sort of hording behavior of the wealthy.
As someone who grew up in and participated in those discussions:
1) It was "women's studies" back then. "Gender studies" is actually a major improvement in
how the issues are examined.
2) We'd already long since lost by then, and we were looking to make our own lives better.
Creating a space where we could have good sex and a minimum of violence was better. Reagan's election,
and his re-election, destroyed the Left.
I feel like this piece could use the yellow waders as well. Instead of simply repeating myself
every time these things come up, I proffer an annotation of a important paragraph, to give a sense
of what bothers me here.
The post-structural revolution transpired [in the U.S.] before and during the end of the
Cold War just as the collapse of the Old Soviet Union denuded the global Left of its raison
detre. But its social justice impulse didn't die, [a certain, largely liberal tendency in the
North American academy] turned inwards from a notion of the historic inevitability of the decline
of capitalism and the rise of oppressed classes, towards the liberation of oppressed minorities
within capitalism[, which, if you paid close attention to what was being called for, implied
and sometimes even outright demanded clear restraints be placed upon the power of capital in
order to meet those goals], empowered by control over the [images, public statements, and widespread
ideologies–i.e. discourse {which is about more than just language}] that defined who they were.
The post-structural turn was just as much about Derrida at Johns Hopkins as it was about Foucault
trying to demonstrate the subtle and not-so-subtle effects of power in the explicit context of
the May '68 events in France. The economy ground to a halt, and at one point de Gaulle was so
afraid of a violent revolution that he briefly left the country, leaving the government helpless
to do much of anything, until de Gaulle returned shortly thereafter.
Foucault was not entirely sympathetic to the Left, at least the unions, but he was trying to
articulate a politics that was just as much about liberation from capitalism as classic Marxism.
To that end, discourse analysis was the means to discovering those subtle articulations of power
in human relations, not an end in itself as it was for, say, Barthes.
A claim is being made here regarding the "global left" that clearly comes from a parochial,
North American perspective. Indian academics, for one, never abandoned political economy for identity
politics, especially since in India identity politics, religion, regionalism, castes, etc. were
always a concern and remain so. It seems rather odd to me that the other major current in academia
from the '90s on, namely postcolonialism, is entirely left out of this story, especially when
critiques of militarism and political economy were at the heart of it.
The saddest point of the events of '68 is that looking back society has never been so equal
as at that point in time. That was more or less the time of peak working class living standard
relative to the wealthy classes. It is no accident, at least in my book, that these mostly bourgeois
student activists have a tard at the end of their name in French: soixante-huitards.
In the Sixites the "Left" had control of the economic levers or power - and by Left I mean
those interested in smaller differences between the classes. There is no doubt the Cold War helped
the working classes as the wealthy knew it was in their interest to make capitalism a showcase
of rough egalitarianism. But during the 60's the RIght held cultural sway. It was Berkeley pushing
Free Speech and Lenny Bruce trying to break boundaries while the right tried to keep the Overton
Window as tight and squeaky clean as possible.
But now the "Right" in the sense of those who want to increase the difference between rich
and poor hold economic power while the Left police culture and speech. The provocateurs come from
the right nowadays as they run roughshod over the PC police and try to smash open the racial,
gender. and sexual orientation speech restrictions put in place as the left now control the Overton
Window.
The Left and Liberal are two different things entirely.
In the UK we have three parties:
Labour – the left
Liberal – middle/ liberal
Conservative – the right
Mapping this across to the US:
Labour – X
Liberal – Democrat
Conservative – Republican
The US has been conned from the start and has never had a real party of the Left.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century US ideas changed and the view of those
at the top was that it would be dangerous for the masses to get any real power, a liberal Democratic
party would suffice to listen to the wants of the masses and interpret them in a sensible way
in accordance with the interests of the wealthy.
We don't want the masses to vote for a clean slate redistribution of land and wealth for heaven's
sake.
In the UK the Liberals were descendents of the Whigs, an elitist Left (like the US Democrats).
Once everyone got the vote, a real Left Labour party appeared and the Whigs/Liberals faded
into insignificance.
It is much easier to see today's trends when you see liberals as an elitist Left.
They have just got so elitist they have lost touch with the working class.
The working class used to be their pet project, now it is other minorities like LGBT and immigration.
Liberals need a pet project to feel self-righteous and good about themselves but they come
from the elite and don't want any real distribution of wealth and privilege as they and their
children benefit from it themselves.
Liberals are the more caring side of the elite, but they care mainly about themselves rather
than wanting a really fair society.
They call themselves progressive, but they like progressing very slowly and never want to reach
their destination where there is real equality.
The US needs its version of the UK Labour party – a real Left – people who like Bernie Sanders
way of thinking should start one up, Bernie might even join up.
In the UK our three parties all went neo-liberal, we had three liberal parties!
No one really likes liberals and they take to hiding in the other two parties, you need to
be careful.
Jeremy Corbyn is taking the Labour party back where it belongs slowly.
Imagine inequality plotted on two axes. Inequality between genders, races and cultures is what liberals have been concentrating on.
This is the x-axis and the focus of identity politics and the liberal left.
On the y-axis we have inequality from top to bottom. 2014 – "85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world"
2016– "Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world's population"
Doing the maths and assuming a straight line .
5.4 years until one person is as wealthy as poorest half of the world.
This is what the traditional left normally concentrate on, but as they have switched to identity
politics this inequality has gone through the roof. They were over-run by liberals.
Some more attention to the y-axis please.
The neoliberal view L
As long as everyone, from all genders, races and cultures, is visiting the same food bank this
is equality.
left – traditional left – y-axis inequality
liberal – elitist left – x -axis inequality (this doesn't affect my background of wealth and privilege)
labor is being co-opted by the right: the Republican Workers Party I think this rhymes with
Fascist. But then, in a world soon to be literally scrambling for high ground and rebuilding housing
for 50 million people the time honored "worker" might actually have a renaissance.
Identity politics does make democrats lose. The message needs to be economic. It can have the
caveat that various sub groups will be paid special attention to, but if identity is the only
thing talked about then get used to right wing governments.
Empowerment is not just about language, it's about capital, who's got it, who hasn't
and what role government plays between them.
Empowerment is very much about capital, but the Left has never had the cajones to
stare down and take apart the Right's view of 'capital' as some kind of magical elixir that mysteriously
produces 'wealth'.
I ponder my own experiences, which many here probably share:
First: slogging through college(s), showing up to do a defined list of tasks (a 'job', if you
will) to be remunerated with some kind of payment/salary. That was actual 'work' in order to get
my hands on very small amounts of 'capital' (i.e., 'money').
Second: a few times, I just read up on science or looked at the stock pages and did a little
research, and then wrote checks that purchased stock shares in companies that seemed to be exploring
some intriguing technologies. In my case, I got lucky a few times, and presto! That simple act
of writing a few checks made me look like a smarty. Also, paid a few bills. But the simple
act of writing checks cost me n-o-t-h-i-n-g in terms of time, energy, education, physical or mental
exertion.
Third: I have also had the experience of working (start ups) in situations where - literally!!!
- I made less in a day in salary than I'd have made if I'd simply taken a couple thousand dollars
and bought stock in the place I was working.
To summarize:
- I've had capital that I worked long and hard to obtain.
- I've had capital that took me a little research, about one minute to write a check, and brought
me a handsome amount of 'capital'. (Magic!)
- I've worked in situations in which I created MORE capital for others than I created for myself.
And the value of that capital expanded exponentially.
If the Left had a spine and some guts, it would offer a better analysis about what 'capital'
is, the myriad forms it can take, and why any of this matters.
Currently, the Left cannot explain to a whole lot of people why their hard work ended up in
other people's bank accounts. If they had to actually explain that process by which people's hard
work turned into fortunes for others, they'd have a few epiphanies about how wealth is actually
created, and whether some forms of wealth creation are more sustainable than other forms.
IMVHO, I never saw Hillary Clinton as able to address this elemental question of the nature
of wealth creation. The Left has not traditionally given a shrewd analysis of this core problem,
so the Right has been able to control this issue. Which is tragic, because the Right is trapped
in the hedge fund mentality, in the tight grip of realtors and mortgage brokers; they obsess on
assets, and asset classes, and resource extraction. When your mind is trapped by that kind of
thinking, you obsess on the tax code, and on how to use it to generate wealth for yourself. Enter
Trump.
One small correction: Smith is not an Ivy League school, it is one of the "Seven Sisters:
Ivy League:
Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Penn
Princeton
Yale
Seven Sisters:
Barnard
Bryn Mawr
Mount Holyoke
Radcliffe
Smith
Vassar
Wellesley
A much more nuanced discussion of the primacy of identity politics on the Left in Britain and
the US is
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/29/prospects-for-an-alt-left/
"Prospects for an Alt-Left," November 29, 2016, by Elliot Murphy, who teaches in the Division
of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College, London.
And let's not forget that identity politics arose in the first place because of genuine discrimination,
which still exists today. In forsaking identity politics in favor of one of class, we should not
forget the original reasons for the rise of the phenomena, however poorly employed by some of
its practitioners, and however mined by capitalism to give the semblance of tolerance and equality
while obscuring the reality of intolerance and inequality.
Trivially, I would think the last thing to do is adopt the "alt-" moniker, thereby cementing
the impression in the mind of the public that the two are in some sense similar.
The blogger Lord Keynes at Social Democracy for the 21st Century at blogspot suggests Realist
Left instead of alt-left. I think how people are using the term "identity politics" at the moment
isn't "actual anti-racism in policy and recruitment" but "pandering to various demographics to
get their loyalty and votes so that the party machine doesn't have to try and gain votes by doing
economic stuff that frightens donors, lobbyists and the media". Clinton improved the female vote
for Democratic president by 1 percentage point, and the black and Latino shares of the Republican
were unchanged from Romney in 2012. Thus, identity politics is not working when the economy needs
attention, even against the most offensive opponent.
So to repress class conflicts, the kleptocracy splintered them into opposition between racists
and POC, bigots and LGBTQ, patriarchal oppressors and women, etc., etc. The US state-authorized
parties used it for divide and rule. The left fell for it and neutered itself. Good. Fuck the
left.
Outside the Western bloc the left got supplanted with a more sensible opposition: between humans
and the overreaching state. That alternative view subsumes US-style identity politics in antidiscrimination
and cultural rights. It subsumes traditional class struggle in labor, migrant, and economic rights.
It reforms and improves discredited US constitutional rights, and integrates it all into the concepts
of peace and development. It's up and running with binding
law and authoritative
institutions
.
So good riddance to the old left and the new left.
Human rights have already replaced
them in the 80-plus per cent of the world represented by UNCTAD and the G-77. That's why the USA
fights tooth and nail to keep them out of your reach.
To All Commenters: thanks for the discussion. Many good, thoughtful ideas/perspectives.
Mine? Living in California (a minority white populace, broad economic engine, high living expenses
(and huge homeless population) and a leader in alternative energy: Trump is what happens when
you don't allow the "people" to vote for their preferred candidates (Bernie) and don't listen
to a select few voters in key electoral states (WI,MI,PA).
The electorate is angry (true liberals at the Dems, voters in select electoral states at "everything").
If democracy is messy, then that's what we've got; a mess. Unfortunately, it's coming at the absolutely
wrong time (Climate Change, lethal policing, financial elite impunity).
Hold this same election with different (multiple) candidates and the outcome is likely different.
In the end, we all need to work and demand a more fair and Just society. (Or California is likely
to secede.)
"Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased.
Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some
losers in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence."
I can only imagine the glee of the wealthy feminists at Smith while they witnessed the white,
lunch pailed, working class American male thrown out of work and into the gutter of irrelevance
and despair. The perfect comeuppance for a demographic believed to be the arch-nemesis of women
and minorities. Nothing seems quite so fashionable at the moment as hating white male Republicans
that live outside of proper-thinking coastal enclaves of prosperity. Unfortunately I fail to see
how this attitude helps the country. Seems like more divide and conquer from our overlords on
high.
just more whining from the Weekly Standard. While men may have been disproportionately displaced
in jobs that require physical strength, many women (nurses?) likely lost their homes during the
Great Financial Scam and its fallout.
The enemy is a rigged political, financial, and judicial system.
Identity Politics gestated for a while before the 90s. Beginning with a backlash against Affirmative
Action in the 70s, the Left began to turn Liberal. East Coast intellectuals who were anxious they
would be precluded from entering the best schools may have been the catalyst (article from Jacobin
I think).
But certainly the fall of the USSR was the thing that forced capitalism's hand. At that
point capitalism had no choice but to step up and prove that it could really bring a better life
to the world.
A Minsky event of biblical proportions soon followed (it only took about 10 years!)
and now all is devastation and nobody has clue. But the 1990 effort could have been in earnest.
Capitalists mean well but they are always in denial about the inequality they create which finally
started a chain reaction in "identity politics" as reactions to the stress of economic competition
bounced around in every society like a pinball machine. A tedious and insufferable game which
seems to have culminated in Hillary the Relentless. I won't say capitalism is idiotic. But something
is.
"Perhaps the NC commentariat could define up and down versions of each of these political
philosophies (ie. left and right) and start to take control of the framing."
Well, I'll have a first go, since I was around at the time.
Left and Right only really make sense in the context of the distribution of power and wealth,
and only when there is a difference between them about that distribution. This was historically
the case for more than 150 years after the French Revolution. By the mid-1960s, there was a sense
that the Left was winning, and would continue to win. Progressive taxation, zero unemployment,
little real poverty by today's standards, free education and healthcare . and many influential
political figures (Tony Crosland for example) saw the major task of the future as deciding where
the fruits of economic growth could be most justly applied.
Three things happened that made the Left completely unprepared for the counter-attack in the 1970s.
First, simple complacency. When Thatcher appeared, most people thought she'd escaped from a Monty
Python sketch. The idea that she might actually take power and use it was incredible.
Secondly, the endless factionalism and struggles for power within the Left, usually over arcane
points of ideology, mixed with vicious personal rivalries. The Left loves defeats, and picks over
them obsessively, looking for someone else to blame.
Third, the influence of 1968 and the turning away from the real world, towards LSD and the New
Age, and the search for dark and hidden truths and structures of power in the world. Fueled by
careless and superficial readings of bad translations of Foucault and Derrida, leftists discovered
an entire new intellectual continent into which they could extend their wars and feuds, which
was much more congenial, since it involved eviscerating each other, rather than seriously taking
on the forces of capitalism and the state.
And that's the very short version. We've been living with the consequences ever since. The
Left has been essentially powerless, and powerlessness, of course, corrupts. There's always someone
weaker than you, which is why identity politics is essentially a conservative, disciplining force,
with a vested interest in the problems it has chosen to identify continuing, or it would have
no reason to exist.
So until class-based politics and struggles over power and money re-start (if they ever do) I
respectfully suggest that "Left" and "Right" be retired as terms that no longer have any meaning.
" powerlessness, of course, corrupts. There's always someone weaker than you, which is
why identity politics is essentially a conservative, disciplining force, with a vested interest
in the problems it has chosen to identify "
Yes. As long as the doyens of identity politics don't have any real fear of being homeless
they can happily indulge in internecine warfare. It's a lot more fun than working to get $20/hour
for a bunch of snaggle-toothed guys who kind of don't like you.
I read: "Traditional dialectical history was being supplanted by a new suite of studies based
around truth as "discourse". Driven by the French post-modern thinkers of the 70s and 80s, the
US academy was adopting and adapting the ideas Foucault, Derrida and Barthe to a variety of civil
rights movements that spawned gender and racial studies."
Of course, I have been a college professor since the late 1970s. On the other hand, I am a
physicist. The notion that truth is discourse is, in my opinion, daft, and says much about the
nature of the modern liberal arts, at least as understood by many undergraduates. I have actually
heard of the folks referenced in the above, and to my knowledge their influence in science, engineering,
technology, and mathematics–the academic fields that are in this century actually central*–is
negligible.
*Yes, I am in favor of a small number of students becoming professional historians, dramatists,
and composers, but the number of these is limited.
Identity politics is a disaster ongoing for the Democratic Party, for reasons they seem to
have overlooked. First, the additional identity group is white. We already see this in the South,
where 90% of the white population in many states votes Republican.
When that spreads to the rest
of the country, there will be a permanent Republican majority until the Republicans create a new
major disaster.
Second, some Democratic commentators appear to have assumed that if your forebearers
spoke Spanish, you can not be white. This belief is properly grouped with the belief that if your
forebearers spoke Gaelic or Italian, you were from one of the colored races of Europe (a phrase
that has faded into antiquity, but some of my friends specialize in American history of the relevant
period), and were therefore not White.
Identity politics is a losing strategy, as will it appears
be noticed by the losers only after it is too late.
An extremely important point, but overblown in a way that may reflect the author's background
and is certainly rhetorical.
So soon we forget the Battle of Seattle. The Left has been opposed to globalization, deregulation,
etc., all along. Partly he's talking about an academic pseudo-left, partly confusing the left
with the Democrats and other "center-left," captured parties.
That doesn't invalidate his point. If you want to see it in full-blown, unadorned action, try
Democrat sites like Salon and Raw Story. A factor he doesn't do justice to is the extreme self-righteousness
that accompanies it, supported, I suppose, by the very real injustices perpetrated against minorities
– and women, not a minority.
The whole thing is essentially a category error, so it would be nice to see a followup that
doesn't perpetuate the error. But it's valuable for stating the problem, which can be hard to
present, especially in the face of gales of self-righteousness.
Well said. An excellent attack on 'identity politics.'
I mean, Barack Obama was our first black president, but most blacks didn't do very well.
George W. Bush was our first retard president, and most people with cognitive handicaps didn't
do very well.
But we can boil it all down to something even simpler and more primal: divide and conquer.
"... CNN is Paul's biggest alleged culprit, with nine entries, followed by the NY Times and MSNBC, with six each. The NY Times has recently come under fire from President-elect Donald Trump, who accuses them of being "totally wrong" on news regarding his transition team, while describing them as "failing." ..."
"... CNN's Wolf Blitzer is also amongst those named on the list. In an email from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) released by WikiLeaks, the DNC staff discusses sending questions to CNN for an interview with Donald Trump. ..."
"... So-called 'fake news' has been recently attacked by US President Barack Obama, who claimed that false news shared online may have played a role in Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election. ..."
"This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and
lied us into multiple bogus wars,"according to a report on his website, Ron Paul Liberty Report.
Paul claims the list is sourced and "holds a lot more water" than a list previously released by
Melissa Zimdars, who is described on Paul's website as "a leftist feminist professor."
"These are the news sources that told us 'if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,'"
he said. "They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in
a never-ending loop that 'The economy is in great shape!'"
Paul's list includes the full names of the "fake news" journalists as well as the publications
they write for, with what appears to be hyperlinks to where the allegations are sourced from.
In most cases, this is WikiLeaks, but none of the hyperlinks are working at present, leaving the
exact sources of the list unknown.
CNN is Paul's biggest alleged culprit, with nine entries, followed by the NY Times and MSNBC,
with six each. The NY Times has recently come under fire from President-elect Donald Trump, who
accuses them of being "totally wrong" on news regarding his transition team, while describing
them as "failing."
The publication hit back, however, saying their business has increased since his election,
with a surge in new subscriptions.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer is also amongst those named on the list. In an email from the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) released by WikiLeaks, the DNC staff discusses sending questions to CNN
for an interview with Donald Trump.
Also listed is NY Times journalist Maggie Haberman, whom leaked emails showed working closely
with Clinton's campaign to present the Democratic candidate in a favorable light.
So-called 'fake news' has been recently attacked by US President Barack Obama, who claimed
that false news shared online may have played a role in Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential
election.
Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg has now said that the social media site may begin entrusting
third parties with filtering the news.
Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the
government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success
of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, controlled press and a mere token opposition
party.
1. Dummy up . If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2. Wax indignant . This is also known as the "how dare you" gambit.
3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news
blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors."
4. Knock down straw men . Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better,
create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk
all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nut," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot" and,
of course, "rumor monger." You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people
you have thus maligned.
6. Impugn motives . Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not
really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to
make money.
7. Invoke authority . Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."
9. Come half-clean . This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hang-out
route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively
harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back
position quite different from the one originally taken.
10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
11. Reason backward , using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction,
troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: We have a completely free press. If they know of
evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma
City bombing they would have reported it. They haven't reported it, so there was no prior knowledge
by the BATF. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a
press that would report it.
12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely.
13. Change the subject . This technique includes creating and/or reporting a distraction.
At least with Trump I expect him to talk crap but
Obama talks crap as well when he should know better:
The values that we talked about -- the values of democracy, and free speech, and international
norms, and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny
and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity -- those things are not something
that we can set aside.
We've seen the make-shift "fake news" list created by a
leftist feminist professor. Well, another fake news list has been revealed
and this one holds a lot more water.
This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied
us into multiple bogus wars. These are the news sources that told us "if you like your doctor, you
can keep your doctor." They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They
tell us in a never-ending loop that "The economy is in great shape!"
"... With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people's dissatisfaction. ..."
"... the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have destroyed democracy and their international policies. ..."
"... If that's the case, it signifies that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely misunderstood everything, especially if the situation is the way it is ..."
"... Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge change. If we manage to understand that, we'll also get to face it." ..."
"... Until now, these anti-establishment movements have come face-to-face with their own limits: as soon as they come to power they seem to lose their capabilities and reason for being. Alexis Tsipras, in Greece, for example ..."
"... President Juncker suggested modifying the code of ethics and lengthening the period of abstinence from any private work for former Commission members to three years. Is that enough? ..."
"... I have serious doubts about a potential change in the code of ethics being made by a former minister of a tax haven. ..."
"... We've always maintained this idea of total autonomy in decision-making, but we united over the common idea of a different Europe, a mosaic of autonomies and sovereignties. ..."
"... If he wants to hold a referendum on the euro, he'll have our support. If he wants to leave the Fiscal Stability Treaty – the so-called Fiscal Compact – which was one of our battles, we'll be there ..."
"... Renzi's negotiating power will also depend on the outcome of the constitutional referendum in December. We'll see whether he sinks or swims. ..."
"... Neoliberal Trojan Horse Obama has quite a global legacy. ..."
"... Maybe it's time for the Europeans to stop sucking American cock. Note that we barely follow your elections. It's time to spread your wings and fly. ..."
"... "The Experts* Destroyed The World" - Beppe Grillo. Never a truer word spoken, Beppe! YOU DA MAN!!! And these "Experts" - these self-described "ELITE" - did so - and are STILL doing so WITH MALICIOUS INTENT - and lining their pockets every fking step of the way! ..."
"... As the Jason Statham character says in that great Guy Richie movie "Revolver": "If there's ONE thing I've learnt about "Experts", it's that they're expert in FUCK ALL!" ..."
"... Apart from asset-stripping the economy & robbing the populace blind that is - and giving their countries away to the invader so indigenous populations cant fight back... or PURPOSELY angling for WW3 to hide their criminality behind the ULTIMATE & FINAL smokescreen. ..."
"... It NATO collapses so will the Euro project. The project was always American from the start. In recent years it has become a mechanism by which the Poles (and other assorted Eastern Europeans) can extract war guarantees out of the USA, UK and France. It is a total mess and people like Grillo add to the confusion by their flawed analysis. ..."
Whatever the reason, we agree with the next point he makes, namely the overthrow of "experts" by
amateurs.
euronews: "Do you think appealing to people's emotions is enough to get elected?
Is that a political project?"
Beppe Grillo: "This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don't
have a political project, you're not capable, you're imbeciles, amateurs And yet, the
amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the professionals are
the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have
destroyed democracy and their international policies. If that's the case, it signifies
that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely misunderstood everything, especially
if the situation is the way it is. If the EU is what we have today, it means the European
dream has evaporated. Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge change. If we manage to understand
that, we'll also get to face it."
Bingo, or as Nassim Taleb put its, the "Intellectual-Yet-Idiot"
class. It is the elimination of these so-called "experts", most of whom have PhDs or other letters
next to their name to cover their insecurity, and who drown every possible medium with their endless,
hollow, and constantly wrong chatter, desperate to create a self-congratulatory echo
chamber in which their errors are diluted with the errors of their "expert" peers,
that will be the biggest challenge for the world as it seeks to break away from the legacy of a fake
"expert class" which has brought the entire world to its knees, and has unleashed the biggest political
tsunami in modern history.
One thing is certain: the "experts" won't go quietly as the "amateurs" try to retake what is rightfully
theirs.
... ... ...
Beppe Grillo, Leader of the Five Star Movement
"It's an extraordinary turning point. This corn cob – we can also call Trump that in a nice way –
doesn't have particularly outstanding qualities. He was such a target for the media, with such terrifying
accusations of sexism and racism, as well as being harassed by the establishment – such as the New
York Times – but, in the end, he won.
"That is a symbol of the tragedy and the apocalypse of traditional information. The television
and newspapers are always late and they relay old information. They no longer anticipate anything
and they're only just understanding that idiots, the disadvantaged, those who are marginalised –
and there are millions of them – use alternative media, such as the Internet, which passes under
the radar of television, a medium people no longer use.
"With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was
born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions
of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists
and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people's dissatisfaction. We'll
get into government and they'll ask themselves how we did it."
euronews
"There is a gap between giving populist speeches and governing a nation."
Beppe Grillo
"We want to govern, but we don't want to simply change the power by replacing it with our own. We
want a change within civilisation, a change of world vision.
"We're talking about dematerialised industry, an end to working for money, the start of working
for other payment, a universal citizens revenue. If our society is founded on work, what will happen
if work disappears? What will we do with millions of people in flux? We have to organise and manage
all that."
euronews
"Do you think appealing to people's emotions is enough to get elected? Is that a political project?"
Beppe Grillo
"This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don't have a political project, you're
not capable, you're imbeciles, amateurs
"And yet, the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the
professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all
the rest have destroyed democracy and their international policies.
"If that's the case, it signifies that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely
misunderstood everything, especially if the situation is the way it is. If the EU is what we
have today, it means the European dream has evaporated. Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge
change. If we manage to understand that, we'll also get to face it."
euronews
"Until now, these anti-establishment movements have come face-to-face with their own limits:
as soon as they come to power they seem to lose their capabilities and reason for being. Alexis Tsipras,
in Greece, for example "
Beppe Grillo
"Yes, I agree."
euronews
"Let's take the example of Podemos in Spain. They came within reach of power, then had to backtrack.
Why?"
Beppe Grillo
"Because there's an outdated way of thinking. Because they think power is managed by forming coalitions
or by making agreements with others.
"From our side, we want to give the tools to the citizens. We have an information system called
Rousseau, to which every Italian citizen can subscribe for free. There they can vote in regional
and local elections and check what their local MPs are proposing. Absolutely any citizen can even
suggest laws in their own name.
"This is something never before directly seen in democracy and neither Tsipras nor Podemos have
done it."
euronews
"You said that you're not interested in breaking up the European Union, but rather in profoundly
changing it. What can a small group of MEPs do to put into motion such great change?"
Beppe Grillo
"The little group of MEPs is making its voice heard, but there are complications In parliament,
there are lobby groups and commissions. Parliament decides, but at the same time doesn't decide.
"We do what we can, in line with our vision of a world based on a circular economy. We put forward
the idea of a circular economy as the energy of the future and the proposal has been adopted by the
European parliament."
euronews
"One hot topic at the Commission at the moment is the problem of the conflicts of interest concerning
certain politicians.
"President Juncker suggested modifying the code of ethics and lengthening the period of abstinence
from any private work for former Commission members to three years. Is that enough?"
Beppe Grillo
"I have serious doubts about a potential change in the code of ethics being made by a former
minister of a tax haven."
euronews
"You don't think the Commission is legitimate?"
Beppe Grillo
"Absolutely not. Particularly because it's a Commission that no one has actually elected. That's
what brought us closer to Nigel Farage: a democracy coming from the people."
euronews "You don't regret being allied with Farage?"
Beppe Grillo
"It was an alliance of convenience, made to give us enough support to enter parliament. We've
always maintained this idea of total autonomy in decision-making, but we united over the common idea
of a different Europe, a mosaic of autonomies and sovereignties.
"I'm not against Europe, but I am against the single currency. Conversely, I am for the idea of
a common currency. The words are important: 'common' and 'single' are two different concepts.
"In any case, the UK has demonstrated something that we in Italy couldn't even dream of: organising
a clear 'yes-no' referendum."
euronews
"That is 'clear' in terms of the result and not its consequences. In reality, the population is torn.
Many people's views have done u-turns."
Beppe Grillo
"Whatever happens, the responsibility returns entirely to the British. They made the decision."
euronews
"Doesn't it bother you that Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is playing the spoilsport in Europe?
Criticising European institutions was your battle horse and now he is flexing his muscles in Brussels."
Beppe Grillo
"Renzi has to do that. But he's just copying me and in doing so, strengthens the original."
euronews
"Whatever it may be, his position at the head of the government can get him results."
Beppe Grillo
"Very well. If he wants to hold a referendum on the euro, he'll have our support. If he wants
to leave the Fiscal Stability Treaty – the so-called Fiscal Compact – which was one of our battles,
we'll be there."
euronews
"In the quarrel over the flexibility of public accounts due to the earthquake and immigration, who
are you supporting?"
Beppe Grillo "On that, I share Renzi's position. I have nothing against projects and ideas. I have preconceptions
about him. For me, he is completely undeserving of confidence."
euronews
"Renzi's negotiating power will also depend on the outcome of the constitutional referendum in
December. We'll see whether he sinks or swims."
Beppe Grillo
"It's already lost for him."
euronews
"If he doesn't win, will you ask for early elections?"
Beppe Grillo
"Whatever happens, we want elections because the government as it stands is not legitimate and, as
a consequence, neither are we.
"From this point onwards, the government moves forward simply by approving laws based on how urgent
they are. And 90 percent of laws are approved using this method. So what good will it do to reform
the Senate to make the process quicker?"
euronews
"Can you see yourself at the head of the Italian government?"
Beppe Grillo
"No, no. I was never in the race. Never."
euronews
"So, Beppe Grillo is not even a candidate to become prime minister or to take on another official
role, if one day the Five Star Movement was to win the elections?"
Beppe Grillo
"The time is fast approaching."
euronews
"Really? A projection?"
Beppe Grillo
"People just need to go and vote. We're sure to win."
BabaLooey -> Nemontel •Nov 21, 2016 6:27 AM
euronews: "You don't think the Commission is legitimate?"
Beppe Grillo: "Absolutely not. Particularly because it's a Commission that no one has
actually elected. That's what brought us closer to Nigel Farage: a democracy coming from the people."
BOILED DOWN - THAT IS ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID.
Blackhawks •Nov 21, 2016 3:15 AM
Neoliberal Trojan Horse Obama has quite a global legacy. People all over the world
are voting for conmen and clowns instead of his endorsed candidates and chosen successor. Having
previously exposed the "intellectual-yet-idiot" class, Nassim Taleb unleashes his acerbic
tone in 3 painfully "real news" tweets on President Obama's legacy...
Obama:
Protected banksters (largest bonus pool in 2010)
"Helped" Libya
Served AlQaeda/SaudiBarbaria(Syria & Yemen) https://t.co/bcNMhDgmuo
Maybe it's time for the Europeans to stop sucking American cock. Note that we barely follow
your elections. It's time to spread your wings and fly.
Yen Cross -> LetThemEatRand •Nov 21, 2016 3:27 AM
Amen~ The" European Toadies" should also institute " term limits" so those Jean Paul & Draghi][JUNKERS[]-
technocratic A-Holes can be done away with!
NuYawkFrankie •Nov 21, 2016 5:07 AM
"The Experts* Destroyed The World" - Beppe Grillo. Never a truer word spoken, Beppe! YOU
DA MAN!!! And these "Experts" - these self-described "ELITE" - did so - and are STILL doing so
WITH MALICIOUS INTENT - and lining their pockets every fking step of the way!
As the Jason Statham character says in that great Guy Richie movie "Revolver": "If there's
ONE thing I've learnt about "Experts", it's that they're expert in FUCK ALL!"
Apart from asset-stripping the economy & robbing the populace blind that is - and giving
their countries away to the invader so indigenous populations cant fight back... or PURPOSELY
angling for WW3 to hide their criminality behind the ULTIMATE & FINAL smokescreen.
Yep -THAT is how F'KING sick they are. These, my friends, are your "Experts", your self-decribed
"Elite" - and Soros is at the head of the parade.
lakecity55 -> NuYawkFrankie •Nov 21, 2016 6:18 AM
You know the old saying, "an expert's a guy from more than 20 miles outside of town."
tuetenueggel •Nov 21, 2016 5:17 AM
Which experts do you mean Beppe ?
All I Kow is that those "experts" are too stupid to piss a hole in the snow.
Oettinger ( not even speaking his mother tongue halfways correct )
Jean clown Juncker ( always drunk too is a kind of well structured day )
Schulz capo (who was too stupid as mayor of a german village so they fucked him out)
Hollande ( lefts are always of lower IQ then right wing people )
Blair ( war criminal )
and thousands more not to be named her ( due to little space availlable )
caesium •Nov 21, 2016 6:35 AM
It NATO collapses so will the Euro project. The project was always American from the start.
In recent years it has become a mechanism by which the Poles (and other assorted Eastern Europeans)
can extract war guarantees out of the USA, UK and France. It is a total mess and people like Grillo
add to the confusion by their flawed analysis.
The bedrock of Italy was always the Catholic faith which the country has abandoned. "The Faith
is Europe and Europe is the Faith" said Hilaire Belloc. A reality that Grillo is unable to grasp.
"... For one thing, many vested interests don't want the Democratic party to change. Most of the money it raises ends up in the pockets of political consultants, pollsters, strategists, lawyers, advertising consultants and advertisers themselves, many of whom have become rich off the current arrangement. They naturally want to keep it. ..."
"... For another, the Democratic party apparatus is ingrown and entrenched. Like any old bureaucracy, it only knows how to do what it has done for years. Its state and quadrennial national conventions are opportunities for insiders to meet old friends and for aspiring politicians to make contacts among the rich and powerful. Insiders and the rich aren't going to happily relinquish their power and perquisites, and hand them to outsiders and the non-rich. ..."
"... I have been a Democrat for 50 years – I have even served in two Democratic administrations in Washington, including a stint in the cabinet and have run for the Democratic nomination for governor in one state – yet I have never voted for the chair or vice-chair of my state Democratic party. That means I, too, have had absolutely no say over who the chair of the Democratic National Committee will be. To tell you the truth, I haven't cared. And that's part of the problem. ..."
"... Finally, the party chairmanship has become a part-time sinecure for politicians on their way up or down, not a full-time position for a professional organizer. In 2011, Tim Kaine (who subsequently became Hillary Clinton's running mate in the 2016 election) left the chairmanship to run, successfully, for the Senate from Virginia. ..."
"... The chair then went to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who had co-chaired Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. This generated allegations in the 2016 race that the Democratic National Committee was siding with Clinton against Bernie Sanders – allegations substantiated by leaks of emails from the DNC. ..."
"... So what we now have is a Democratic party that has been repudiated at the polls, headed by a Democratic National Committee that has become irrelevant at best, run part-time by a series of insider politicians. It has no deep or broad-based grass-roots, no capacity for mobilizing vast numbers of people to take any action other than donate money, no visibility between elections, no ongoing activism. ..."
For one thing, many vested interests don't want the Democratic party to change. Most of the
money it raises ends up in the pockets of political consultants, pollsters, strategists, lawyers,
advertising consultants and advertisers themselves, many of whom have become rich off the current
arrangement. They naturally want to keep it.
For another, the Democratic party apparatus is ingrown and entrenched. Like any old bureaucracy,
it only knows how to do what it has done for years. Its state and quadrennial national conventions
are opportunities for insiders to meet old friends and for aspiring politicians to make contacts
among the rich and powerful. Insiders and the rich aren't going to happily relinquish their power
and perquisites, and hand them to outsiders and the non-rich.
Most Americans who call themselves Democrats never hear from the Democratic party except when
it asks for money, typically through mass mailings and recorded telephone calls in the months leading
up to an election. The vast majority of Democrats don't know the name of the chair of the Democratic
National Committee or of their state committee. Almost no registered
Democrats have any idea
how to go about electing their state Democratic chair or vice-chair, and, hence, almost none have
any influence over whom the next chair of the Democratic National Committee may be.
I have been a Democrat for 50 years – I have even served in two Democratic administrations
in Washington, including a stint in the cabinet and have run for the Democratic nomination for governor
in one state – yet I have never voted for the chair or vice-chair of my state Democratic party. That
means I, too, have had absolutely no say over who the chair of the Democratic National Committee
will be. To tell you the truth, I haven't cared. And that's part of the problem.
Nor, for that matter, has Barack Obama cared. He basically ignored the Democratic National Committee
during his presidency, starting his own organization called Organizing for America. It was originally
intended to marshal grass-roots support for the major initiatives he sought to achieve during his
presidency, but morphed into a fund-raising machine of its own.
Finally, the party chairmanship has become a part-time sinecure for politicians on their way
up or down, not a full-time position for a professional organizer. In 2011, Tim Kaine (who subsequently
became Hillary Clinton's running mate in the 2016 election) left the chairmanship to run, successfully,
for the Senate from Virginia.
The chair then went to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who had co-chaired
Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. This generated allegations in
the 2016 race that the Democratic National Committee was siding with Clinton against Bernie Sanders
– allegations substantiated by leaks of emails from the DNC.
So what we now have is a Democratic party that has been repudiated at the polls, headed by
a Democratic National Committee that has become irrelevant at best, run part-time by a series of
insider politicians. It has no deep or broad-based grass-roots, no capacity for mobilizing vast numbers
of people to take any action other than donate money, no visibility between elections, no ongoing
activism.
The Republican brass degenerated into a bunch to neocon racketeers who want to impoverish regular Americans. That's why Trump won.
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, in an October 1991 letter to Patrick J. Buchanan, Regnery claimed that Americans had been hornswoggled into supporting
the war by "the President and those who form public opinion." ..."
"... Everywhere he looked, the media-newspapers, network radio and television news, magazines, and journals-all seemed locked in
a [neo]liberal consensus. . . . If conservatives were going to claw their way back in from the outside, they were going to need to first
find a way to impair and offset liberals in the media. ..."
IN DECEMBER 1953, Henry Regnery convened a meeting in Room 2233 in New York City's Lincoln Building. Regnery, a former Democrat
and head of Regnery Publishing, had moved sharply to the Right after he became disillusioned with the New Deal. His guests included
William F. Buckley Jr.; Frank Hanighen, a cofounder of Human Events ; Raymond Moley, a former FDR adviser who wrote a book
called After Seven Years that denounced the New Deal; and John Chamberlain, a lapsed liberal and an editorial writer for the
Wall Street Journal . Regnery had not called these men together merely to discuss current events. He wanted to reshape them.
"The side we represent controls most of the wealth in this country," he said. "The ideas and traditions we believe in are those which
most Americans instinctively believe in also." So why was liberalism in the ascendant? Regnery explained that media bias was the
problem. Anywhere you looked, the Left controlled the commanding heights-television, newspapers and universities. It was imperative,
Regnery said, to establish a "counterintelligence unit" that could fight back.
In her superb Messengers of the Right , Nicole Hemmer examines the origins of conservative media. Hemmer, who is an assistant
professor at the University of Virginia, has performed extensive archival research to illuminate the furthest recesses of the Right,
complementing earlier works like Geoffrey Kabaservice's Rule and Ruin . She provides much new information and penetrating
observations about figures such as Clarence Manion, William Rusher and Henry Regnery. Above all, she shows that there has been a
remarkable consistency to the grievances and positions, which were often one and the same, of the conservative movement over the
decades.
According to Hemmer, the modern Right first took shape in the form of the America First Committee. A number of leading conservatives
saw little difference between Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Regnery recollected that "both Hitler and Roosevelt-each in
his own way -- were masters of the art of manipulating the masses."
Indeed, in an October 1991 letter to Patrick J. Buchanan, Regnery claimed that Americans had been hornswoggled into supporting
the war by "the President and those who form public opinion." Others such as the gifted orator Clarence Manion, a former FDR
acolyte, joined the America First Committee in 1941. After the war, Manion became the dean of the Notre Dame Law School and wrote
a book called The Key to Peace , which argued that limited government was the key to American greatness, not a quest to "take
off for the Mountains of the Moon in search of ways and means to pacify and unify mankind."
While serving in the Eisenhower administration, he also became a proponent of the Bricker Amendment, which would have subjected
treaties signed by the president to ratification by the states. Eisenhower demanded his resignation. An embittered Manion, Hemmer
writes, concluded that columnists such as James Reston, Marquis Childs, and Joseph and Stewart Alsop had effectively operated as
a united front to ruin him.
Everywhere he looked, the media-newspapers, network radio and television news, magazines, and journals-all seemed locked in
a [neo]liberal consensus. . . . If conservatives were going to claw their way back in from the outside, they were going to need to first
find a way to impair and offset liberals in the media.
In 1954, the Manion Forum of Opinion , which aired on several dozen radio stations, was born. It soon became a popular
venue that allowed Manion, who was cochair of a political party called For America, to inveigh against the depredations of liberalism
and preach the conservative gospel.
... ... ...
With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the conservative media seemed to have arrived. But as Hemmer notes, a New Right generation
of activists that included figures such Terry Dolan of the National Conservative Political Action Committee and Jerry Falwell of
the Moral Majority had arrived that did not have much in common with the older conservative generation. She points out that leaders
of the New Right backed Republican congressman Phil Crane, then former Texas governor John Connally, only supporting Reagan during
the general election. Buckley and his cohort, Hemmer writes, saw the New Right paladins as "Johnnies-come-lately to the movement,
demanding rigorous fealty to social issues that had only recently become the drivers of politics." Hemmer might have noted that,
although Reagan has since become a conservative icon, George F. Will and Norman Podhoretz, among others, lamented what they viewed
as Reagan's concessive posture towards Mikhail Gorbachev.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest.
It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all
need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism has been disastrous for the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial heartland, now little more than its wasteland ..."
"... The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate. ..."
"... two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair: offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. ..."
"... Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime. ..."
"... In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus, a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic) minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate, stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined. ..."
"... But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital (which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century capitalism. ..."
"... Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this. ..."
"... Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. ..."
"... Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too, along with a number of social drivers. ..."
"... The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico. ..."
"... I contend that in some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision appeared in sharp relief with Brexit. ..."
"... Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity, so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions that predate the emergence of identity politics. ..."
"... It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the plight of their cherished white working class. ..."
"... The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity. Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory present. ..."
"... Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'. ..."
"... Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness' threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation. Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like a minority vote. ..."
"... Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority, much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'? ..."
"... I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective. ..."
"... In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s." ..."
"... Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: "the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate." ..."
"... In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.' ..."
"... In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country, and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time, more and more power. ..."
"... To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their 2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced to pay. ..."
"... This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman white underclass (or so they see it). ..."
"... You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you), you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back. Nobody trusts the elite at all. ..."
"... You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem. ..."
"... One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016: the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people. This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party. ..."
"... Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery. ..."
"... None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it. ..."
"... . It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part. ..."
"... This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to the Ivy League, which is 90% of them. ..."
"... Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a "boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win? ..."
"... "The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians." ..."
"... "It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of rubble.' ..."
"... "One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats, one would be quite mistaken." ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response, governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to, and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time, is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon known as Goodhart's law. (..) ..."
"... " what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically, and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right to vote. ..."
"... "The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened. ..."
"... "The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism. It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun." ..."
"... They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue collar work. ..."
"... trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been "correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic party, have to accept. ..."
"... trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama was defending keeping what was already there. ..."
"... "Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html ..."
"... Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. "" ..."
The question is no longer her neoliberalism, but yours. Keep it or throw it away?
I wish this issue was being seriously discussed. Neoliberalism has been disastrous for
the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial
heartland, now little more than its wasteland (cf. "flyover zone" – a pejorative term which
inhabitants of the zone are not too stupid to understand perfectly, btw).
The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied
them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary
production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent
living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate.
As noted upthread, two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair:
offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. The jobs that have been lost will not return,
and indeed will be lost in ever greater numbers – just consider what will happen to the trucking
sector when self-driving trucks hit the roads sometime in the next 10-20 years (3.5 million truckers;
8.7 in allied jobs).
Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable
giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that
would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations
for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum
wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence
life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime.
In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus,
a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal
distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic)
minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate,
stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined.
I appreciate and espouse the goals of identity politics in all their multiplicity, and also
understand that the institutions of slavery and sexism predated modern capitalist economies.
But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital
(which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired
as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their
capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse
or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century
capitalism.
Also: Faustusnotes@100
For example Indiana took the ACA Medicaid expansion but did so with additional conditions that
make it worse than in neighboring states run by democratic governors.
And what states would those be? IL, IA, MI, OH, WI, KY, and TN have Republican governors. Were
you thinking pre-2014? pre-2012?
To conclude and return to my original point: what's to become of the Rust Belt in future? Did
the Democratic platform include a New New Deal for PA, OH, MI, WI, and IA (to name only the five
Rust Belt states Trump flipped)?
" Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic
and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive
governments to deal with this.
Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization
launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial
and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though,
was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the
Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. "
What should have been one comment came out as 4, so apologies on that front.
I spent the last week explaining the US election to my students in Japan in pretty much the
terms outlined by Lilla and PIketty, so I was delighted to discover these two articles.
Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too,
along with a number of social drivers. It was therefore very easy to call for a show of hands
to identify students studying here in Tokyo who are trying to decide whether or not to return
to areas such as Tohoku to build their lives; or remain in Kanto/Tokyo – the NY/Washington/LA
of Japan put crudely.
I asked students from regions close to Tohoku how they might feel if the Japanese prime minister
decided not to visit the region following Fukushima after the disaster, or preceding an election.
The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an
apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained
that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans
did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico.
I then asked the students, particularly those from outlying regions whether they believe Japan
needed a leader who would 'bring back Japanese jobs' from Viet Nam and China, etc. Many/most agreed
wholeheartedly. I then asked whether they believed Tokyo people treated those outside Kanto as
'inferiors.' Many do.
Piketty may be right regarding Trump's long-term effects on income inequality. He is wrong,
I suggest, to argue that Democrats failed to respond to Sanders' support. I contend that in
some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root
and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed
was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision
appeared in sharp relief with Brexit.
Also worth noting is that the rust belts problems are as old as Reagan – even the term dates
from the 80s, the issue is so uncool that there is a dire straits song about it. Some portion
of the decline of manufacturing there is due to manufacturers shifting to the south, where the
anti Union states have an advantage. Also there has been new investment – there were no Japanese
car companies in the us in the 1980s, so they are new job creators, yet insufficient to make up
the losses. Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity,
so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions
that predate the emergence of identity politics.
It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves
on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the
plight of their cherished white working class. Suddenly it's not the forces of capital and
the objective facts of history, but a bunch of whiny black trannies demanding safe spaces and
protesting police violence, that drove those towns to ruin.
And what solutions do they think the dems should have proposed? It can't be welfare, since
we got the ACA (watered down by representatives of the rust belt states). Is it, seriously, tariffs?
Short of going to an election promising w revolution, what should the dems have done? Give us
a clear answer so we can see what the alternative to identity politics is.
basil 11.19.16 at 5:11 am
Did this go through?
Thinking with WLGR @15, Yan @81, engels variously above,
The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people
and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of
the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great
injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation
of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic
vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan
C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity.
Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory
present.
I get that the tropes around race are easy, and super-available. Privilege confessing is very
in vogue as a prophylactic against charges of racism. But does it threaten the structures that
produce this abjection – either as embittered, immiserated 'white working class' or as threatened
minority group? It is always *those* 'white' people, the South, the Working Class, and never the
accusers some of whom are themselves happy to vote for a party that drowns out anti-war protesters
with chants of USA! USA!
Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces
ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'.
--
Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making
that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness'
threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans
are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation.
Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like
a minority vote.
Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder
if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of
the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority,
much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are
denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape
really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'?
I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants
in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but
this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective.
The 'racialisation' of class in Britain has been a consequence of the weakening of 'class'
as a political idea since the 1970s – it is a new construction, not an historic one.
.
This is not to deny the existence of working-class racism, or to suggest that racism is
somehow acceptable if rooted in perceived socio-economic grievances. But it is to suggest that
the concept of a 'white working class' needs problematizing, as does the claim that the British
working-class was strongly committed to a post-war vision of 'White Britain' analogous to the
politics which sustained the idea of a 'White Australia' until the 1960s.
Yes, old, settled neighbourhoods could be profoundly distrustful of outsiders – all outsiders,
including the researchers seeking to study them – but, when it came to race, they were internally
divided. We certainly hear working-class racist voices – often echoing stock racist complaints
about over-crowding, welfare dependency or exploitative landlords and small businessmen, but
we don't hear the deep pathological racial fears laid bare in the letters sent to Enoch Powell
after his so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 (Whipple, 2009).
But more importantly, we also hear strong anti-racist voices loudly and clearly. At Wallsend
on Tyneside, where the researchers were gathering their data just as Powell shot to notoriety,
we find workers expressing casual racism, but we also find eloquent expressions of an internationalist,
solidaristic perspective in which, crucially, black and white are seen as sharing the same
working-class interests.
Racism is denounced as a deliberate capitalist strategy to divide workers against themselves,
weakening their ability to challenge those with power over their lives (shipbuilding had long
been a very fractious industry and its workers had plenty of experience of the dangers of internal
sectarian battles).
To be able to mobilize across across racialised divisions, to have race wither away entirely
would, for me, be the beginning of a politics that allowed humanity to deal with the inescapable
violence of climate change and corporate power.
*To add to the bibliography – David R. Roediger, Elizabeth D. Esch – The Production of Difference
– Race and the Management of Labour, and Denise Ferreira da Silva – Toward a Global Idea of Race.
And I have just been pointed at Ian Haney-López, White By Law – The Legal Construction of Race.
FWIW 'merica's constitutional democracy is going to collapse.
Some day - not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change
forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies - there is going to be a collapse of the
legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we're lucky, it won't be violent.
If we're very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better,
more robust, political system. If we're less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen .
In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from
the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional
continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s."
Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly
important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the
Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When
they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the
basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote:
"the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly
legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate."
In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing
of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found,
a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a
period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative
and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.'
Given that the basic point is polarisation (i.e. that both the President and Congress have
equally strong arguments to be the the 'voice of the people') and that under the US appalling
constitutional set up, there is no way to decide between them, one can easily imagine the so to
speak 'hyperpolarisation' of a Trump Presidency as being the straw (or anvil) that breaks the
camel's back.
In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country,
and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral
result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious
democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time,
more and more power.
nastywoman @ 150
Just study the program of the 'Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland' or the Program of 'Die
Grünen' in Germany (take it through google translate) and you get all the answers you are looking
for.
No need to run it through google translate, it's available in English on their site. [Or one
could refer to the Green Party of the U.S. site/platform, which is very similar in scope and overall
philosophy. (www.gp.org).]
I looked at several of their topic areas (Agricultural, Global, Health, Rural) and yes, these
are general theses I would support. But they're hardly policy/project proposals for specific regions
or communities – the Greens espouse "think global, act local", so programs and projects must be
tailored to individual communities and regions.
To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the
Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their
2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced
to pay.
This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring
that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the
neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes
upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman
white underclass (or so they see it).
I expect at this point that Trump will be reelected comfortably. If not only the party itself,
but also most of its activists, refuse to actually change, it's more or less inevitable.
You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going
to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that
your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you),
you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't
stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or
not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back.
Nobody trusts the elite at all.
You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror
at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem.
One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016:
the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people.
This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party.
Folks, we have seen this before. Let's not descend in backbiting and recriminations, okay?
We've got some commenters charging that other commenters are "mansplaining," meanwhile we've got
other commenters claiming that it's economics and not racism/misogyny. It's all of the above.
Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists
also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has
happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising
to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the
existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able
to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery.
None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a
modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The
problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it.
Instead, what we're seeing is a whirlwind of finger-pointing from the Democratic leadership
that lost this election and probably let the entire New Deal get rolled back and wiped out. Putin
is to blame! Julian Assange is to blame! The biased media are to blame! Voter suppression is to
blame! Bernie Sanders is to blame! Jill Stein is to blame! Everyone and anyone except the current
out-of-touch influence-peddling elites who currently have run the Democratic party into the ground.
We need the feminists and the black lives matter groups and we also need the green party people
and the Bernie Sanders activists. But everyone has to understand that this is not an isolated
event. Trump did not just happen by accident. First there was Greece, then there was Brexit, then
there was Trump, next it'll be Renzi losing the referendum in Italy and a constitutional crisis
there, and after that, Marine Le Pen in France is going to win the first round of elections. (Probably
not the presidency, since all the other French parties will band together to stop her, but the
National Front is currently polling at 40% of all registered French voters.) And Marine LePen
is the real deal, a genuine full-on out-and-out fascist. Not a closet fascist like Steve Bannon,
LePen is the full monty with everything but a Hugo Boss suit and the death's heads on the cap.
Does anyone notice a pattern here?
This is an international movement. It is sweeping the world . It is the end of neoliberalism
and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp
out the authoritarian part.
Feminists, BLM, black bloc anarchiest anti-globalists, Sandernistas, and, yes, the former Hillary
supporters. Because it not just a coincidence that all these things are happening in all these
countries at the same time. The bottom 90% of the population in the developed world has been ripped
off by a managerial and financial and political class for the last 30 years and they have all
noticed that while the world GDP was skyrocketing and international trade agreements were getting
signed with zero input from the average citizen, a few people were getting very very rich but
nobody else was getting anything.
This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially
single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings
and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to
the Ivy League, which is 90% of them.
And the Democratic party is so helpless and so hopeless that it is letting the American Nazi
Party run to the left of them on health care, fer cripes sake! We are now in a situation
where the American Nazi Party is advocating single-payer nationalized health care, while the former
Democratic presidential nominee who just got defeated assured everyone that single-payer "will
never, ever happen."
C'mon! Is anyone surprised that Hillary lost? Let's cut the crap with the "Hillary
was a flawed candidate" arguments. The plain fact of the matter is that Hillary was running mainly
on getting rid of the problems she and her husband created 25 years ago. Hillary promised criminal
justice reform and Black Lives Matter-friendly policing policies - and guess who started the mass
incarceration trend and gave speeches calling black kids "superpredators" 20 years ago? Hillary
promised to fix the problems with the wretched mandate law forcing everyone to buy unaffordable
for-profit private insurance with no cost controls - and guess who originally ran for president
in 2008 on a policy of health care mandates with no cost controls? Yes, Hillary (ironically, Obama's
big surge in popularity as a candidate came when he ran against Hillary from the left, ridiculing
helath care mandates). Hillary promises to reform an out-of-control deregulated financial system
run amok - and guess who signed all those laws revoking Glass-Steagal and setting up the Securities
Trading Modernization Act? Yes, Bill Clinton, and Hillary was right there with him cheering the
whole process on.
So pardon me and lots of other folks for being less than impressed by Hillary's trustworthiness
and honesty. Run for president by promising to undo the damage you did to the country 25 years
ago is (let say) a suboptimal campaign strategy, and a distinctly suboptimal choice of presidential
candidate for a party in the same sense that the Hiroshima air defense was suboptimal in 1945.
Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a
"boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win?
Because we're back in the 1930s again, the economy has crashed hard and still hasn't recovered
(maybe because we still haven't convened a Pecora Commission and jailed a bunch of the thieves,
and we also haven't set up any alphabet government job programs like the CCC) so fascists and
racists and all kinds of other bottom-feeders are crawling out of the political woodwork to promise
to fix the problems that the Democratic party establishment won't.
Rule of thumb: any social or political or economic writer virulently hated by the current Democratic
party establishment is someone we should listen to closely right now.
Cornel West is at the top of the current Democratic establishment's hate list, and he has got
a great article in The Guardian that I think is spot-on:
"The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph
of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded
to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians."
Glenn Greenwald is another writer who has been showered with more hate by the Democratic establishment
recently than even Trump or Steve Bannon, so you know Greenwald is saying something important.
He has a great piece in The Intercept on the head-in-the-ground attitude of Democratic
elites toward their recent loss:
"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political
force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite
a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the
Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local
levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced
no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of
rubble.'
"One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked
political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce
a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats,
one would be quite mistaken."
Last but far from least, Scottish economist Mark Blyth has what looks to me like the single
best analysis of the entire global Trump_vs_deep_state tidal wave in Foreign Affairs magazine:
"At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass
unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response,
governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to,
and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time,
is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon
known as Goodhart's law. (..)
" what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary
regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this
world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at
all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically,
and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right
to vote.
"The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary
order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as
the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from
those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that
are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened.
"In short, to understand the election of Donald Trump we need to listen to the trumpets blowing
everywhere in the highly indebted developed countries and the people who vote for them.
"The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism.
It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing
above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun."
You don't live here, do you? I'm really asking a genuine question because the way you are framing
the question ("SPECIFICS!!!!!!) suggests you don't. (Just to show my background, born and raised
in Australia (In the electoral division of Kooyong, home of Menzies) but I've lived in the US
since 2000 in the midwest (MO, OH) and currently in the south (GA))
If this election has taught us anything it's no one cared about "specifics". It was a mood,
a feeling which brought trump over the top (and I'm not talking about the "average" trump voter
because that is meaningless. The average trunp voter was a republican voter in the south who the
Dems will never get so examining their motivations is immaterial to future strategy. I'm talking
about the voters in the Upper Midwest from places which voted for Obama twice then switched to
trump this year to give him his margin of victory).
trump voters have been pretty clear they don't actually care about the way trump does (or even
doesn't) do what he said he would do during the campaign. It was important to them he showed he
was "with" people like them. They way he did that was partially racialized (law and order, islamophobia)
but also a particular emphasis on blue collar work that focused on the work. Unfortunately these
voters, however much you tell them they should suck it up and accept their generations of familial
experience as relatively highly paid industrial workers (even if it is something only their fathers
and grandfathers experienced because the factories were closing when the voters came of age in
the 80s and 90s) is never coming back and they should be happy to retrain as something else, don't
want it. They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue
collar work.
trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs
and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been
"correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about
how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic
party, have to accept.
The idea they don't want "government help" is ridiculous. They love the government. They just
want the government to do things for them and not for other people (which unfortunately includes
blah people but also "the coasts", "sillicon valley", etc.). Obama won in 2008 and 2012 in part
due to the auto bailout.
trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like
the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama
was defending keeping what was already there.
"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the
automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable
labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses.
Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
So yes. Clinton needed vague promises. She needed something more than retraining and "jobs
of the future" and "restructuring". She needed to show she was committed to their way of life,
however those voters saw it, and would do something, anything, to keep it alive. trump did that
even though his plan won't work. And maybe he'll be punished for it. In 4 years. But in the interim
the gop will destroy so many things we need and rely on as well as entrench their power for generations
through the Supreme Court.
But really, it was hard for Clinton to be trusted to act like she cared about these peoples'
way of life because she (through her husband fairly or unfairly) was associated with some of the
larger actions and choices which helped usher in the decline.
Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned
out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump
economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's
economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. ""
What is the Democratic Party's former constituency of labor and progressive reformers to do?
Are they to stand by and let the party be captured in Hillary's wake by Robert Rubin's Goldman
Sachs-Citigroup gang that backed her and Obama?
The 2016 election sounded the death knell for the identity politics. Its aim was to persuade
voters not to think of their identity in economic terms, but to think of themselves as women or
as racial and ethnic groups first and foremost, not as having common economic interests. This
strategy to distract voters from economic policies has obviously failed...
This election showed that voters have a sense of when they're being lied to. After eight years of
Obama's demagogy, pretending to support the people but delivering his constituency to his
financial backers on Wall Street. 'Identity politics' has given way to the stronger force of
economic distress. Mobilizing identity politics behind a Wall Street program will no longer
work."
Does Finance care about bigotry?
Finance has a history of recognizing bigotry and promoting it if it makes loans more predictable.
Home values could drop if too many blacks moved to a neighborhood so finance created red-lining
to protect their investments while promoting bigotry.
Finance is all in favor of tearing down minority neighborhoods or funding polluters in those neighborhoods
to protect investments in gated communities and white sundown towns.
Finance is often part of the problem, not the solution.
All of what you say is true but I have some contrarian/devil's advocate thoughts.
Some finance people are smart and have an enlightened self-interest. Think of Robert Rubin,
George Soros or Warren Buffet. They often back Democrats. Think of Chuck Schumer. Think of Hillary
Clinton's speeches to the banks.
Finance often knocks down walls and will back whatever makes a profit. Often though as you
say it conforms to prejudice and past practices, like red-lining.
I think of the lines from the Communist Manifesto:
"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal,
idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his
"natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest,
than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour,
of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.
It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible
chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word,
for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless,
direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to
with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of
science, into its paid wage labourers."
But the cash nexus isn't enough spiritually or emotionally and when living standards stagnate
or decline, anxious people retreat into tribalism.
When I first glances at your question I immediately answered your query like you everyone here
did, 'no, finance does not care about bigotry except to the degree finance can profit from it.'
Then I realized there are too many assumptions contained in your question for me to respond
b/c I was thinking inside the box and not taking in all that impacts Finance and bigotry.
Your question assumes "Finance" is Private and for profit. But that is not true is it, since
there is Public, NGO, Charity, Socialistic, Communistic, et. al., Finance.
And, then there is the problem with the word "bigotry."
Your post makes clear to me that you are referring to American bigotry in housing, but that
means you ignore that "bigotry" exists largely from ones individual perspective, which we know
depends upon from where one sees it.
What I mean by that is Russia, China, Syria, Turkey, Iran, etc., all see and proclaim bigotry
in the USA but deny bigotry in their own countries.
If your point is simply that America Finance discriminates against people of color in Housing
or that such discrimination perpetuates bigotry then no one can disagree with you, imo, however,
your implication that that is done to perpetuate bigotry and racism is probably false since Finance
is amoral, looking to secure profit, and not out to discriminate against a particular group such
as people of color as long as they can profit.
"... "He spoke of the need to reform our trade deals so they aren't raw deals for the American people," she said. "He said he will not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents struggling with the high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense of millions of Americans that their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild our economy for working people." ..."
"... And economic populists really care about race gender etc, we just think that focusing on social justice as a priority over economic equality inevitably leads to Trump or someone like him. ..."
"... I don't know who Clinton might represent more than American feminists, and they, or at least the ones over thirty with power and wealth, certainly seemed to feel possessive and empowered by her campaign and possible election. ..."
"... And white American feminists could not even get 50% of white working class women nationwide, and I suspect the numbers are even worse in the Upper Midwest swing states. In comparison, African-Americans delivered as always, 90% of their vote, across all classes and educational levels. Latinos delivered somewhere around 60-70%. ..."
"... You seem to have just ignored what Val, small, Helen, faustusnotes have been saying and inserted a straw man into the conversation. No you don't have to be a Marxist to worry about social discrimination, but being sensitive to social discrimination does make you sensitive to injustice in general. Who exactly are these people you are talking about? ..."
"... Over the past decade, a small but growing movement has realized that the Rube Goldberg neoliberalism of Obamacare–and many other parts of modern Democratic policy–is not sustainable. I've come to that conclusion painfully and slowly. I've taught the law for six years, and each year I get better at explaining how its many parts work, and fit together." ..."
"... I offered in an earlier comment, that the left looks askance at identity politics because of the recuperation of these – gender emancipation, anti-racism and anti-colonial struggles – by capital and the state. engels, above has offered Nancy Fraser linked here. ..."
"... I have no argument with the notion that Clinton was an imperfect candidate. Almost all candidates are (even a top-notch one like Obama) ..."
The idea that people who are against capitalism (or neoliberalism, if you want) are also not
generally against patriarchy and racist colonialism ( as a system ) is obviously false.
On the contrary it's people who are 'into' identity politics who generally are not against
these things (again, as a system). People who are into identity politics are against racism and
sexism, sure, but seem to have little if any idea as to why these ideas came into being and what
social purposes they serve: they seem to think they are just arbitrary lifestyle choices, like
not liking people with red hair, or preferring The Beatles to the Rolling Stones or something.
And if this is true, all we have to do is 'persuade' people not to 'be racist' or 'be sexist'
and then the problem goes away. Hence dehistoricised (and, let's face it, depoliticised) 'political
correctness'. which seems to insist that as long as you don't, personally , call any African-American
the N word and don't use the C word when talking about women, all problems of racism and sexism
will be solved.
The inability to look at History, and social structures, and the history of social structures,
and the purpose of these structures as a pattern of domination, inevitably leads to Clintonism
(or, in the UK, Blairism), which, essentially, equals 'neoliberalism plus don't use the N word'.
I'm not going to argue directly with people because some people are obviously a bit angry about
this but the question is not whether or not sexism or homophobia are good things (they obviously
aren't): the question is whether or not fighting against these things are necessarily left-wing,
and the answer is: depends on how you do it. For example, in both cases we have seen right-wing
feminism ('spice girls feminism') and right wing gay rights (cf Peter Thiel, Milo Yiannopoulos)
which sees 'breaking the glass ceiling' for women and gays as being the key point of the struggle.
I know Americans got terribly excised about having the first American female President and that's
understandable for its symbolic value, but here in the UK we now have our second female Prime
Minister.
So what? Who gives a shit? What's changed (not least, what's changed for women?)?. Nothing.
Eventually you are going to get your first female President. You will probably even someday
get your first gay President. Both of them may be Republicans. Think about that.
What's wrong with -(from the NYT):
'Democrats, who lost the White House and made only nominal gains in the House and Senate, face
a profound decision after last week's stunning defeat: Make common cause where they can with Mr.
Trump to try to win back the white, working-class voters he took from them
– while always reminding the people that F face von Clownstick actually is a Fascistic Racist
Birther.
and at the same time (from E. Warren):
"He spoke of the need to reform our trade deals so they aren't raw deals for the American
people," she said. "He said he will not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need
to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents struggling with the
high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure
and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense of millions of Americans that
their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild our economy
for working people."
Straw man much, hidari? Just to pick a random example of someone who thinks these things are important,
Ursula le guin Sure she's never made any state,nets about systematic oppression, and economic
systems? The problem you have when you try to claim that these ideas "cameo to being" through
social and structural factors is that you're wrong.
Everyone knows rape is as old as sex, the idea it's a product of a distorted economic system
is a fiction produced by Beardy white dudes to shut the girls up until after the revolution.
Which is exactly what you "reformers" of liberalism, who think it has lost its way in the maze
of identity politics, want to do. Look at the response of people like rich puchalsky to BLM –
trying to pretend it's equivalent to the system of police violence directed against occupy, as
if violence against white people for protesting is the same as e murder of black people simply
for being in public.
It's facile, it's shallow and it's a desperate attempt to stop the Democratic Party being forced
to respond to issues outside the concerns of white rust belt men – it's no coincidence that this
uprising g of shallow complaints against identity politics from the hard left occurs at the same
time we see a rust belt reaction against the new left. And the reaction from the hard left will
be as destructive for the dems as the rust belt reaction is for the country.
nastywoman 11.17.16 at 8:04 am
– and what a 'feast' for historians this whole 'deal' must be?
– as there are all kind of fascinating thought experiment around this man who orders so loudly and
in fureign language a Pizza on you-tube.
And wasn't it time that our fellow Americans find out that Adolf Hitler not only ordered Pizza
or complained about his I-Phone – NO! – that he also is very upset that Trump also won the erection?
And there are endless possibilities for histerical conferences about who is the 'Cuter Fascist
– or what Neo Nazis in germany sometimes like to discuss: What if Hitler only would have done 'good'
fascistic things?
Wouldn't he be the role model for all of US?
Or – as there are so many other funny hypotheticals
1) And economic populists really care about race gender etc, we just think that focusing on social
justice as a priority over economic equality inevitably leads to Trump or someone like him.
2) I don't know who Clinton might represent more than American feminists, and they, or at least
the ones over thirty with power and wealth, certainly seemed to feel possessive and empowered
by her campaign and possible election.
And white American feminists could not even get 50% of white working class women nationwide,
and I suspect the numbers are even worse in the Upper Midwest swing states. In comparison, African-Americans
delivered as always, 90% of their vote, across all classes and educational levels. Latinos delivered
somewhere around 60-70%.
American feminism has catastrophically, an understatement, failed over the last couple
generations, and class had very much to do with it, upper middle class advanced degreed liberal
women largely followed Clinton's model, leaned in, and went for the bucks rather than reaching
ou to their non-college sisters in the Midwest. Kinda like Mao staying in Shanghai, or Lenin in
Zurich and expecting the Feminist Revolution to happen in the countryside while they profit.
Feminism, also playing to its base of upper middle class women, has also shifted its focus
from economic and labor force issues, to a range of social and sexuality issues that are of
less concern to most women. Personally, I feel betrayed. The male-female wage gap has not narrow
appreciably since the 1990s, glass ceilings are still in place and, for me most importantly,
horizontal sex segregation in the market for jobs that don't require a college degree, where
roughly 2/3 of American women compete, is unabated. I looked at the most recent BLS stats for
occupations by gender recently. Of the two aggregated categories of occupations that would
be characterized as 'blue collar' work, women represent a little over 2 and 3 percent respectively.
For specific occupations under those categories more than half (eyeballing) don't even include
a sufficient number of women to report.
Again, it isn't hard to see why. Upper middle class women can easily imagine themselves, or
their daughters, needing abortions. The possibility that that option would not be available is
a real fear. They do not worry that they or their daughters would be stuck for most of their adult
lives cashiering at Walmart, working in a call center, or doing any of the other boring, dead-end
pink-collar work which are the only options most women have. And they don't even think of blue-collar
work.
Which Marxists always have expected and why we strongly prefer that the UMC and bourgeois be
kept out of the Party. It's called opportunism and is connected to reformism, IOW, wanting to
keep the system, just replace the old bosses with your owm.
You backed the war-mongering plutocrat and handed the world to fascism. Can you show responsibility
and humility for even a week?
You seem to have just ignored what Val, small, Helen, faustusnotes have been saying and inserted
a straw man into the conversation. No you don't have to be a Marxist to worry about social discrimination,
but being sensitive to social discrimination does make you sensitive to injustice in general.
Who exactly are these people you are talking about?
reason 11.17.16 at 8:43 am
Of course Hidari might have had a point if he was making an argument
about campaign strategy and emphasis, but he seems to be saying more that that, or are I wrong?
Over the past decade, a small but growing movement has realized that the
Rube Goldberg neoliberalism of Obamacare–and many other parts of modern Democratic policy–is not
sustainable. I've come to that conclusion painfully and slowly. I've taught the law for six years,
and each year I get better at explaining how its many parts work, and fit together."
basil 11.17.16 at 9:09 am
I offered in an earlier comment, that the left looks askance at identity
politics because of the recuperation of these – gender emancipation, anti-racism and anti-colonial
struggles – by capital and the state.
engels, above has offered Nancy Fraser linked here.
CT's really weird on identity. Whose work are we thinking through? 'Gender'and 'Race' are political
constructions that are most explicitly economic in nature. There were no black people before racism
made certain bodies available for the inhumanity of enslavement, and thus the enrichment of the slaver
class. Commentators oughtn't, I don't think, write as if there are actually existing black and white
people. As Dorothy Roberts – Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race
in the 21st Century (and Paul Gilroy – Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color
Line, and Karen and Barbara Fields – Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, etc put
it, it is racism that creates and naturalises race. Of course liberalism's logics of governance,
the necessity of making bodies available for control and exploitation constantly reproduce and entrench
race (and gender).
I offered that racialised people, particularly those gendered as women/queer, the ones who have
been refused whiteness, are also super suspicious of these deployments of identity politics, especially
by non-subjugated persons who've a political project for which they are weaponising subordinated
identities. It really is abusive and exploitative.
We must listen better. As the racialised and gendered are pointing out, it is incredible that
it has taken the threat of Trump, and now their ascension for liberals to tune in to the violence
waged against racialised, gendered, queer lives and bodies by White Supremacy. History will remember
that #BLM (like the record deportations, the Clintons' actual-existing-but-to-liberals invisible
border wall, the Obamacare farce in the OP, de Blasio's undocumented persons list, Rahm in Chicago,
the employment of David Brock, Melania's nudes, the crushing poverty of racialised women, the exploitation
of those violated by Trump, the re-invasion and desecration of Native American territory) happened
under a liberal presidency. That liberal presidency responded to BLM with a Blue Lives Matter law.
This is evidence of liberalism's inherently violent attitude towards those it pretends to care about.
All this preceded Trump.
If you are for gender emancipation or anti-race/racism, be against these all the time, not just
to tar your temporary electoral foes. Be feminist when dancing Yemenis gendered as women – some of
the poorest, most vulnerable humans – are droned at weddings. Be feminist when Mexico's farmers gendered
as women are dying at NAFTA's hand. Be feminist when poor racialised queer teens are dying in the
streets as you celebrate the right of wealthy gays to marry. Be feminist and reject people who've
got multiple sexual violence accusations against them and those who help them cover these up and
shame the victims. Be feminist and anti-racist and reject people who glory in making war on poor
defenceless people. Be feminist and anti-racist and reject white nationalists gendered female who
call racialised groups 'super-predators' to court racists. Reject people who say of public welfare
improvements – it will never, ever happen, this is not Denmark. The people who need those services
the most are vulnerable humans, racialised and gendered as women. Never say that politicians who
put poor migrants in cages on isolated islands are nice people. They absolutely aren't. Some of this
is really easy.
These puerile rhetorical gestures reveal the people for whom 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday was simply
a glass ceiling left unbroken by a woman who launched a massive Yemeni bombing campaign. Perhaps
as a mechanic of coping, it has become incredibly sexy for a certain class of liberals to dodge
any responsibility for the lives they, too, have compromised. They aren't the same ones who have
to worry about who will be the first person to call them a terrorist faggot ..For the rest of
us, the victory of this fascist is a confirmation of the biases we have known all along, no matter
public liberal consciousness's inabilities to wrangle them into submission."
– and just a suggestion I have learned from touring the rust belt – waaay before it was as 'fashionable'
as it is right now.
While we in some hotel room in Scranton fought our Ideological fights -(we had a French Camera
Assistant who insisted that America one day will elect 'a Fascist like Hitler') –
the mechanic we had scheduled to interview about his Camaro SS for the next day – had exchanged
all the spark plucks of his car.
bob mcmanus above, I really think social justice and economic justice are bound together, and that Universal Healthcare,
for example, as a fundamental right is a basic feminist and anti-racist goal. Most particularly because
the vulnerability of these groups, their economic hardship, their very capacity to live, to survive
is at stake in a marketised health care system.
Racialised outcomes for ACA.
Similarly with marketised higher education and skills training. How cynical that HRC used HBCUs
to argue that racialised people would suffer from free public tertiary education!
Dorothy Roberts' work for example has interesting perspectives on how race is created in part
through the differentiated access to healthcare. They discuss how this plays out for both maternal
and child mortality, and for breast cancer survival. 'Oh, the evidence shows that racialised women
are more vulnerable to x condition'. Exactly, because a racist and marketised system denies them
necessary healthcare.
A funny thing about the new comment moderation regime is that you can get two people posting in
rapid succession saying pretty much opposite things like me then Hidari. It seems as if (although
again it's not very clear) Hidari is suggesting capitalism created sexism and racism? Or something
like that? I'm definitely on better ground there though: patriarchy and sexism predate capitalism.
In fairness though, I think I understand what Hidari and engels are getting at. I know lots
of young people, women and people of colour, who probably fit their description in a way. They
are young, smart, probably a bit naive, and at least some of them probably from privileged backgrounds.
They appear driven by desire to succeed in a hierarchical academic system that still tends to
be dominated by white men at the upper levels, and they don't seem to question the system much,
at least not openly.
But can I just mention, some of our hosts here are actually fairly high up in that system.
Why aren't they being attacked as liberals or proponents of "identity politics"? Why is it only
when women or people of colour try to succeed in that very same academic system that it becomes
so wrong?
Another Nick, yes I can comment on that. I think it's fascinating that the old beardy leftists
and berniebros are fixated on Lena Dunham. Who else is fixated on Lena Dunham? The right bloggers,
who are inflamed with rage at everything she does. Who else is fixated on identity politics? The
right bloggers, who present it as everything wrong with the modern left, PC gone mad, censorship
etc. You guys should get together and have a party – you're made for each other.
Also, the Democrats don't have a "celebrity campaign mascot." So what are you actually talking
about?
basil @ 64
basil what in any conceivable world makes you think that feminists on CT don't know about the
issues you're talking about? I work in a school of public health and my entire work consists of
trying to address those sorts of issues, plus ecological sustainability.
Seriously this has all gone beyond straw-wo/manning. Some people here are talking to others
who exist only in their minds or something. The world's gone mad.
engels 11.17.16 at 12:06 pm
Umm Val and FaustusNoted, which part of-
identity politics isn't the same thing as feminism, anti-racism, LGBT politics, etc. They're
all needed now more than ever.
-was unclear to you?
I DON'T want to live in a world in which 'patriarchy and racism' are okay, I want to live in a
world in which America has a real Left, which represents the working class (black, white, gay, straight,
female, male-like other countries do to a greater lesser degree), and which is the only thing that
has a shot at stopping its descent into outright fascism.
it often gets thrown around as a kind of all-encompassing epithet
Point taken-but there's really nothing I can do to stop other people misusing terms (until
the Dictatorship of the Prolerariat anyway :) )
Cranky Observer 11.17.16 at 12:27 pm
= = = faustnotes @ 4:14 am The reason these conservative Dems come from those states is
that those states don't support radical welfare provisions – they don't want other people getting
a free lunch, and value personal responsibility over welfarism. = = =
As long as you don't count enormous agricultural, highway, postal service, and military base subsidies
as any form of "welfare", sure. And that's not even counting the colossal expenditures on military
force and bribes in the Middle East to keep the diesel-fuel-to-corn unroofed chemical factory (i.e.
farming) industry running profitably. Apparently the Republicans who hate the US Postal Service with
a vengeance, for example, are unaware that in 40% of the land area of the United States FedEx, UPS,
etc turn over the 'last hundred mile' delivery to the USPS.
Ps I'm kind of surprised this thread has been allowed to go on so long but I'm going to bow out
now-feel free to continue trying to smear me behind my back
bob mcmanus 11.17.16 at 12:35 pm
Would a real leftist let her daughter marry a hedge-fund trader?
I suppose they are a step above serial killers and child molesters, but c'mon. Quotes from Wiki,
rearranged in chronological order.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Mezvinsky used a wide variety of 419 scams. According to a federal
prosecutor, Mezvinsky conned using "just about every different kind of African-based scam we've ever
seen."[11] The scams promise that the victim will receive large profits, but first a small down payment
is required. To raise the funds needed to front the money for the fraudulent investment schemes he
was being offered, Mezvinsky tapped his network of former political contacts, dropping the name of
the Clinton family to convince unwitting marks to give him money.[12]
In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony charges of bank
fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud
"In July 2010, Mezvinsky married Chelsea Clinton in an interfaith ceremony in Rhinebeck, New York.[12]
The senior Clintons and Mezvinskys were friends in the 1990s ; their children met on a Renaissance
Weekend retreat in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina."
Subsequent to his graduations, he worked for eight years as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs
before leaving to join a private equity firm, but later quit. In 2011, he co-founded a Manhattan-based
hedge fund firm, Eaglevale Partners, with two longtime partners, Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon.[1][8]
In May 2016, The New York Times reported that the Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity Fund is said to
have lost nearly 90 percent of its value, [which equated to a 90% loss to investors] and sources
say it will be shutting down.[9][10] Emails discovered as part of Wikileaks' release of the "Podesta
emails" seemed to indicate that Mezvinsky had used his ties to the Clinton family to obtain investors
for his hedge fund through Clinton Foundation events.
Marcotte, Sady Doyle, Valenti, the Clinton operatives knew this stuff.
Prioritizing women's liberation over economic populism, just a little bit, doesn't quite cover
it. Buying fully into the most rapacious aspects of predatory capitalism is more lie it.
If Clinton is your champion, and I am still seeing sads at Jezebel, you have zero credilibity
on economic issues. She's one of the worst crooks to ever run for President. And we will see how
Obama fares on his immediate switch from President to his ambition to be a venture capitalist for
Silicon Valley. I'll bet Obama gets very very lucky!
Val @49 &
"they (at some confused and probably not fully conscious level) do seem to assume that violence
and oppression of women and people of colour never used to happen when white men (including white
working class men) had 'good jobs' .. patriarchy and racism predate neoliberalism by centuries."
"patriarchy and sexism predate capitalism."
I think this framing is misleading, because you're historically comparing forms of oppression
with economic systems, rather than varieties of one or the other.
Wouldn't the more relevant comparison be something like: patriarchy and sexism are coeval with
classism and economic inequality?
What concretely are racism and sexism, after all, but ideologies dependent upon power inequalities,
and what are those but inequalities of social position (man, father) and wealth and ownership
that make possible that power difference? How could sexism or racism have existed without class
or inequality?
novakant 11.17.16 at 1:32 pm
I have no argument with the notion that Clinton was an imperfect candidate. Almost all
candidates are (even a top-notch one like Obama)
Strawman (I have heard a lot of times before):
nobody criticizes Clinton for being imperfect, people criticize her for being a terrible, terrible
candidate and the DNC establishment for supporting this terrible, terrible candidate: she lost
against TRUMP for goodness' sake.
bob mcmanus: "In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony
charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud "
Well, either I'm shocked to discover that Clinton was involved in her daughter's husband's
father's crimes some 20 years ago, or you've demonstrated that Clinton's daughter married a man
whose father was a crook. I'm guessing the latter, though I'm left wondering WTF that has to do
with Clinton's character.
engels 11.17.16 at 2:03 pm
One more:
"we cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of white men and a majority of white women,
across class lines, voted for a platform and a message of white supremacy, Islamophobia, misogyny,
xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-science, anti-Earth, militarism, torture, and policies
that blatantly maintain income inequality. The vast majority of people of color voted against
Trump, with black women registering the highest voting percentage for Clinton of any other demographic
(93 percent). It is an astounding number when we consider that her husband's administration oversaw
the virtual destruction of the social safety net by turning welfare into workfare, cutting food
stamps, preventing undocumented workers from receiving benefits, and denying former drug felons
and users access to public housing; a dramatic expansion of the border patrol, immigrant detention
centers, and the fence on Mexico's border; a crime bill that escalated the war on drugs and accelerated
mass incarceration; as well as NAFTA and legislation deregulating financial institutions.
"Still, had Trump received only a third of the votes he did and been defeated, we still would
have had ample reason to worry about our future.
"I am not suggesting that white racism alone explains Trump's victory. Nor am I dismissing
the white working class's very real economic grievances. It is not a matter of disaffection versus
racism or sexism versus fear. Rather, racism, class anxieties, and prevailing gender ideologies
operate together, inseparably, or as Kimberlé Crenshaw would say, intersectionally."
https://bostonreview.net/forum/after-trump/robin-d-g-kelley-trump-says-go-back-we-say-fight-back
Bob, a real feminist would not tell her daughter who to marry.
You claim to be an intersectional feminist but you say things like this, and you blamed feminists
for white dudes voting for trump. Are you a parody account?
Michael Sullivan 11.17.16 at 2:41 pm
Mclaren @ 25 "As for 63.7% home ownership stats in 2016, vast numbers of those "owned" homes
were snapped up by giant banks and other financial entities like hedge funds which then rented
those homes out. So the home ownership stats in 2016 are extremely deceptive."
There may be ways in which the home ownership statistic is deceptive or fuzzy, but it's hard
for me to imagine this being one of them.
The definition you seem to imply for home ownership (somebody somewhere owns the home) would
result in by definition 100% home ownership every year.
I'm pretty sure that the measure is designed to look at whether one of the people who live
in a home actually owns it. Ok, let's stuff the pretty sure, etc. and use our friend google. So
turns out that the rate in question is the percentage of households where one of the people in
the household owns the apartment/house. If some banker or landlord buys a foreclosure and then
rents the house out, that will be captured in the homeownership rate.
Where that rate may understate issues is that it doesn't consider how many people are in a
household. So if lots of people are moving into their parent's basements, or renting rooms to/from
unrelated people in their houses, those people won't be counted as renters or homeowners, since
the rate tracks households, not people. Where that will be captured is in something called the
headship rate, and represents the ratio of households to adults. That number dropped by about
1.5% between the housing bust and the recession, and appears to be recovering or at worst near
bottom (mixed data from two different surveys) as of 2013. So, yes, the drop in home ownership
rate is probably understated (hence the headline of my source article below) somewhat, but not
enormously as you imply, and the difference is NOT foreclosures - unless they are purchased by
another owner occupier, they DO show up in the home ownership rate. The difference is larger average
households: more adults living with other adults.
engels @70, "I DON'T want to live in a world in which 'patriarchy and racism' are okay, I want
to live in a world in which America has a real Left, which represents the working class (black,
white, gay, straight, female, male-like other countries do to a greater lesser degree), and which
is the only thing that has a shot at stopping its descent into outright fascism."
So many prominent people and such a large majority of voters have be so completely wrong, so
many times, on everything, for a year that I really am not confident about making any strong political
claims anymore. However, it has opened me to possibilities I wouldn't have previously considered.
One is this: I'm beginning to wonder (not believe, wonder), if a lot of working class and lower-to-middle
middle class Americans, including a lot of the ones who didn't vote or who switched from Obama
to Trump (not including those who were always on the right) would already be on board, or in the
long run be able of getting on board, with the picture Engels paints at 70.
That possibility seems outrageous because we assume this general group are motivated *primarily*
by resentment against women and people of color. But the more I read news stories that directly
interview them–not the rally goers, but the others–the more it seems that they will side with
*almost anyone* who they think is on their side, and *against anyone* who they think has contempt
or indifference for them. Put another way: they are driven by equal opportunity resentment to
whatever prejudices serve their resentment, rather than by a deeply engrained, fixed, rigid, kind
of prejudice. (I have in mind a number of recent articles, but one thing that struck me is interviews
with racially diverse factory workers, with Latinos and women, who voted for Trump.)
I also begin to wonder if there is as much, if not more, resistance to wide solidarity among
the left than among this group of voters who aren't really committed to either party. I begin
to think that many on the left are strongly, deeply, viscerally opposed to the middle range working
class, period, and not *just* to the racism and sexism that are all too often found there. I worry
the Democrats' class contempt, their conservative disgust for their social, educational, professional,
and economic inferiors is growing–partly based in reasonable disgust at the horrendous excesses
of the right, but partly class-based, pathological, and subterranean, independent of that reasonable
side.
I say this not to justify Trump voters or non-voters or to vilify Democrats, but actually with
a bit of optimism. For a very long time even many on the far left has looked at the old Marxist
model of wide solidarity among the proletariat with skepticism. But I'm wondering if that skepticism
is still justified. I wonder if what stands in the way of a truly diverse working class movement
is not the right but the left. If they're ready, and we've not been paying attention.
Are we really faced with a working class that rejects diversity? Are we really opposing to
them a professional class that truly accepts diversity? Isn't there a kind of popular solidarity
appearing, in awkward and sometimes ugly ways, that is destroying the presumptions of that opposition?
engels 11.17.16 at 3:32 pm Cornel West:
In short, the abysmal failure of the Democratic party to speak to the arrested mobility and
escalating poverty of working people unleashed a hate-filled populism and protectionism that threaten
to tear apart the fragile fiber of what is left of US democracy. And since the most explosive
fault lines in present-day America are first and foremost racial, then gender, homophobic, ethnic
and religious, we gird ourselves for a frightening future. What is to be done? First we must try
to tell the truth and a condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak. For 40 years, neoliberals
lived in a world of denial and indifference to the suffering of poor and working people and obsessed
with the spectacle of success. Second we must bear witness to justice. We must ground our truth-telling
in a willingness to suffer and sacrifice as we resist domination. Third we must remember courageous
exemplars like Martin Luther King Jr, who provide moral and spiritual inspiration as we build
multiracial alliances to combat poverty and xenophobia, Wall Street crimes and war crimes, global
warming and police abuse – and to protect precious rights and liberties .
Val: "It seems as if (although again it's not very clear) Hidari is suggesting capitalism created
sexism and racism? Or something like that? I'm definitely on better ground there though, patriarchy
and sexism predate capitalism."
If Hidari is coming from a more-or-less mainline contemporary Marxist position, this is a misunderstanding
of their argument, which is no more a claim that capitalism "created sexism and racism" than it
would be a claim that capitalism created class antagonism. What's instead being suggested is that
just as capitalism has systematized a specific form of class antagonism (wage laborer vs.
capitalist) as a perceived default whose hegemony and expansion shapes our perception of all other
potential antagonisms as anachronistic exceptions, so it has done the same with specific forms
of sexism and racism, the forms we might call "patriarchy" and "white supremacy". In fact the
argument is typically that antagonisms like white vs. POC and man vs. woman function as normalized
exceptions to the normalized general antagonism of wage laborer vs. capitalist, a space where
the process known since Marx as "primitive accumulation" can take place through the dispossession
of women and POC (up to and including the dispossession of their very bodies) in what might otherwise
be considered flagrant violation of liberal norms.
As theorists like
Rosa Luxemburg and
Silvia Federici
have elaborated, this process of accumulation is absolutely essential to the continued functioning
of capitalism - the implication being that as much as capitalism and its ideologists pretend to
oppose oppressions like racism and sexism, it can never actually destroy these oppressions without
destroying its own social basis in the process. Hence neoliberal "identity politics", in which
changing the composition of the ruling elite (now the politician shaking hands with Netanyahu
on the latest multibillion-dollar arms deal can be a black guy with a Muslim-sounding name! now
the CEO of a company that employs teenaged girls to stitch T-shirts for 12 hours a day can be
a woman!) is ideologically akin to wholesale liberation, functions not as a way to destroy racism
and sexism but as a compromise gambit to preserve them.
Another Nick 11.17.16 at 4:01 pm f
austusnotes, I asked if you could comment on the "identity politics" behind the Dem choice
of Lena Dunham for celebrity campaign mascot. ie. their strategy. What they were planning and
thinking? And how you think it played out for them?
Not a list of your favourite boogeymen.
"So what are you actually talking about?"
I was attempting to discuss the role of identity politics in the Clinton campaign. I asked
about Dunham because she was the most prominent of the celebrities employed by the Clinton campaign
to deploy identity politics. ie. she appeared most frequently in the media on their behalf.
Not seeing much discussion about actual policies there, economic or otherwise. It's really
just an entire interview based on identity politics. With bonus meta-commentary on identity politics.
Lena blames "white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look
past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves," for the election loss.
Why didn't the majority of white women vote for Hillary? Because they "hate themselves".
"... "Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate, was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis. "I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little levity." ..."
"Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the
Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who
would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate,
was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis.
"I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about
those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little
levity."
####
While I do have some quibbles with the piece (RuAF pilots are getting much more than 90 hours
a year flight time & equipment is overrated and unaffordable in any decent numbers), it is pretty
solid.
"... The "my way" or the highway rhetoric from Clinton supporters on the campaign was sickening. When Bush was called a warmonger for Iraq, that was fine. When Clinton was called a warmonger for Iraq and Libya, the Clintonites went on the offensive, often throwing around crap like "if she was a man, she wouldn't be a warmonger!" ..."
"... On racism: "what I can say, from personal experience, is that the racism of my youth was always one step removed. I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black people we had in town. We worked with them, played video games with them, waved to them when they passed. What I did hear was several million comments about how if you ever ventured into the city, winding up in the "wrong neighborhood" meant you'd get dragged from your car, raped, and burned alive. Looking back, I think the idea was that the local minorities were fine as long as they acted exactly like us." ..."
"... I'm telling you, the hopelessness eats you alive. And if you dare complain, some liberal elite will pull out their iPad and type up a rant about your racist white privilege. Already, someone has replied to this with a comment saying, "You should try living in a ghetto as a minority!" Exactly. To them, it seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used as a club to bat away white cries for help. Meanwhile, the rate of rural white suicides and overdoses skyrockets. Shit, at least politicians act like they care about the inner cities." ..."
"... And the rural folk are called a "basket of deplorables" and other names. If you want to fight racism, a battle that is Noble and Honorable, you have to understand the nuances between racism and hopelessness. The wizard-wannabe idiots are a tiny fringe. The "deplorables" are a huge part of rural America. If you alienate them, you're helping the idiots mentioned above. ..."
Erm, atheist groups are known to target smaller Christian groups with lawsuits. A baker was sued
for refusing to bake a cake for a Gay Wedding. She was perfectly willing to serve the couple,
just not at the wedding. In California we had a lawsuit over a cross in a park. Atheists threatened
a lawsuit over a seal. Look, I get that there are people with no life out there, but why are they
bringing the rest of us into their insanity, with constant lawsuits. There's actually a concept
known as "Freedom from Religion" – what the heck? Can you imagine someone arguing about "Freedom
from Speech" in America? But it's ok to do it to religious folk! And yes, that includes Muslims,
who had to fight to build a Mosque in New York. They should've just said it was a Scientology
Center
The "my way" or the highway rhetoric from Clinton supporters on the campaign was sickening.
When Bush was called a warmonger for Iraq, that was fine. When Clinton was called a warmonger
for Iraq and Libya, the Clintonites went on the offensive, often throwing around crap like "if
she was a man, she wouldn't be a warmonger!"
The problem with healthcare in the US deserves its own thread, but Obamacare did not fix it;
Obamacare made it worse, especially in the rural communities. The laws in schools are fundamentally
retarded. A kid was suspended for giving a friend Advil. Another kid suspended for bringing in
a paper gun. I could go on and on. A girl was expelled from college for trying to look gangsta
in a L'Oreal mask. How many examples do you need? Look at all of the new "child safety laws" which
force kids to leave in a bubble. And when they enter the Real World, they're fucked, so they pick
up the drugs. In cities it's crack, in farmvilles it's meth.
Hillary didn't win jack shit. She got a plurality of the popular vote. She didn't win it, since
winning implies getting the majority. How many Johnson votes would've gone to Trump if it was
based on popular vote, in a safe state? Of course the biggest issue is the attack on the way of
life, which is all too real. I encourage you to read this, in order to understand where they're
coming from:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
"Nothing that happens outside the city matters!" they say at their cocktail parties, blissfully
unaware of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind
of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and
avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd
barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and
doing an astounding $125 billion in damage. But who cares about those people, right? What's newsworthy
about a bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer? New Orleans is culturally
important. It matters. To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through
the window of the elites. "Are you assholes listening now?"
On racism: "what I can say, from personal experience, is that the racism of my youth was always
one step removed. I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black
people we had in town. We worked with them, played video games with them, waved to them when they
passed. What I did hear was several million comments about how if you ever ventured into the city,
winding up in the "wrong neighborhood" meant you'd get dragged from your car, raped, and burned
alive. Looking back, I think the idea was that the local minorities were fine as long as they
acted exactly like us."
"They're getting the shit kicked out of them. I know, I was there. Step outside of the city,
and the suicide rate among young people fucking doubles. The recession pounded rural communities,
but all the recovery went to the cities. The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has
utterly collapsed."
^ That, I'd say, is known as destroying their lives. Also this:
"In a city, you can plausibly aspire to start a band, or become an actor, or get a medical
degree. You can actually have dreams. In a small town, there may be no venues for performing arts
aside from country music bars and churches. There may only be two doctors in town - aspiring to
that job means waiting for one of them to retire or die. You open the classifieds and all of the
job listings will be for fast food or convenience stores. The "downtown" is just the corpses of
mom and pop stores left shattered in Walmart's blast crater, the "suburbs" are trailer parks.
There are parts of these towns that look post-apocalyptic.
I'm telling you, the hopelessness eats you alive. And if you dare complain, some liberal elite
will pull out their iPad and type up a rant about your racist white privilege. Already, someone
has replied to this with a comment saying, "You should try living in a ghetto as a minority!"
Exactly. To them, it seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used as a club to bat away
white cries for help. Meanwhile, the rate of rural white suicides and overdoses skyrockets. Shit,
at least politicians act like they care about the inner cities."
And the rural folk are called a "basket of deplorables" and other names. If you want to fight
racism, a battle that is Noble and Honorable, you have to understand the nuances between racism
and hopelessness. The wizard-wannabe idiots are a tiny fringe. The "deplorables" are a huge part
of rural America. If you alienate them, you're helping the idiots mentioned above.
"... "Class first" amongst men of the left has always signaled "ME first." What else could it mean? ..."
"... So "Black Lives Matter" actually means "Black Lives Matter First". Got it. So damn tired of identity politics. ..."
"... Meanwhile, in the usual way of such things, #BlackLivesMatter hashtag activism became fashionable, as the usual suspects were elevated to celebrity status by elites. Nothing, of course, was changed in policy, and so in a year or so, matters began to bubble on the ground again. ..."
"... I'm not tired of identity politics. I'm just tired of some identity-groups accusing other identity-groups of "identity-politics". I speak in particular of the Identity Left. ..."
"... Identity politics, any identity, is going to automatically split voters into camps and force people to 'pick' a side. ..."
"... The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, I and many other writers argued that the bourgeois feminism Clinton represents works against the interests of the vast majority of women. This has turned out to be even more true than we anticipated. That branding of feminism has delivered to us the most sexist and racist president in recent history: Donald Trump. ..."
"... Hillary spoke to the million-dollar feminists-of-privilege who identified with her multi-million dollar self and her efforts to break her own Tiffany Glass ceiling. And she worked to get many other women with nothing to gain to identify with Hillary's own breaking of Hillary's own Tiffany Glass ceiling. ..."
"... For me (at least) the essence of the "Left" is justice. When we speak of Class we are putting focus on issues of economic justice. Class is the material expression of economic (and therefore political) stratification. Class is the template for analysing the power dynamics at play in such stratification. ..."
"... in the absence of economic justice, it's very difficult to obtain ANY kind of justice - whether such justice be of race, gender, legal, religious or sexual orientation. ..."
"... I find it indicative that the 1% (now) simply don't care one way or another about race or gender etc, PROVIDED it benefits or, has no negative effects on their economic/political interests. ..."
"... "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ..."
"... In ship sinking incidents, where a lot of people are dumped in the water, many adopt the strategy of trying to use others as flotation devices, pushing them under while the "rich class" tootle off in the lifeboats. Sounds like a winner, all right. ..."
"... The rich class has enlisted the white indentured servants as their Praetorian Guard. The same play as after Bacon's Rebellion. ..."
"... Is what is actually occurring another Kristallnacht, or the irreducible susurrus of meanness and idiocy that is part of every collection of humans? It would be nice not to get suckered into elevating the painful minima over the importance of getting ordinary people to agree on a real common enemy, and organizing to claim and protect. ..."
"... If even one single banker had gone to jail for the mess (fed by Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II) that blew up in 2008, we would be having a different conversation. We are in a huge legitimacy crisis, in part because justice was never served on those who made tens of millions via fraud. ..."
"... The Malignant Overlords - the King or Queen, the Financial Masters of the Universe,, the tribal witch doctor- live by grazing on the wealth of the natural world and the productivity of their underlings. There are only a few thousand of them but they control finance and the Money system, propaganda organizations (in the USA called the Media) land and agriculture, "educational" institutions and entire armies of Homeland Insecurity police. ..."
"... Under them there are the sycophants– generals and officers, war profiteers and corporate CEO's, the intelligentsia, journalists, fake economists, and entertainment and sports heroes who grow fat feasting on the morsels left over after the .0001% have fed. And far below the Overlords are the millions of professional Bureaucrats whose job security requires unquestioning servitude. ..."
"... Race, gender identity, religion, etc. are the false dichotomies by which the oligarchs divide us. Saudi princes, African American millionaires, gay millionaires etc. are generally treated the same by the oligarchs as wasp millionaires. The true dichotomy is class, that is the dichotomy which dare not speak its name. ..."
"... For Trump it was so easy. He just says something that could be thought of as racist and then his supporters watch as the media morphs his words, removes context, or just ignores any possible non-racist motivations for his words. ..."
"... Just read the actual Mexican- rapists quote. Completely different then reported by the media. Fifteen years ago my native born Mexican friend said almost exactlly the same thing. ..."
"... whilst his GOP colleagues publicly recoiled in horror, there is no question that Trump was merely making explicit what Republicans had been doing for decades – since the days of Nixon in 1968. The dog whistle was merely replaced by a bull horn. ..."
"... Yes, class identity can be a bond that unites. However, in the US the sense of class identity remains underdeveloped. In fact, it is only with the Sanders campaign that large swaths of the American public have had practical and sustained exposure to the concept of class as a political force. For most of the electorate, the language of class is still rather alien, particularly since the "equality of opportunity" narrative even now is not completely overthrown. ..."
"... It seems inevitable that populist sentiment, which both Sanders and Trump have used to electoral advantage, will spill over into a variety of economic nationalism. ..."
"... Obama was a perfect identity candidate, i.e., not only capable of getting the dem nomination, but the presidency and than not jailing banksters NO MATTER WHAT THEY DID, OR WILL DO… ..."
"... One truism about immigration, to pick a topical item, is that uncontrolled immigration leads to overwhelming an area whether city, state or country. Regardless of how one feels about the other aspects of immigration, there are some real, unacknowledged limits to the viability of the various systems that must accommodate arrivals, particularly in the short term. Too much of a perceived ..."
"... There is an entrenched royal court, not unlike Versailles in some respects, where the sinecures, access to the White House tennis court (remember Jimmy Carter and his forest for the trees issues) or to paid "lunches in Georgetown" or similar trappings. Inflow of populist or other foreign ideas behind the veil of media and class secrecy represents a threat to overwhelm, downgrade (Sayeth Yogi Berra: It is so popular that nobody goes there anymore) or remove those perks, and to cause some financial, psychic or other pain to the hangers-on. ..."
"... Pretty soon, word filters out through WikiLeaks, or just on the front page of a newspaper in the case of the real and present corruption (What do you mean nobody went to jail for the frauds?). In those instances, the tendency of a populace to remain aloof with their bread and circuses and reality shows and such gets strained. ..."
"... Some people began noticing and the cognitive dissonance became to great to ignore no matter how many times the messages were delivered from on high. That led to many apparent outbursts of rational behavior ..."
if poor whites were being shot by cops at the rate urban blacks are, they would be screaming
too. blm is not a corporate front to divide us, any more than acorn was a scam to help election
fraud.
It's lazy analysis to suggest Race was a contributing factor. On the fringes, Trump supporters
may have racial overtones, but this election was all about class. I applaud sites like NC in continually
educating me. What you do is a valuable service.
"We won't need a majority of the dying "white working class" in our present and future feminine,
multiracial American working class. Just a minority."
Indeed, this site has featured links to articles elaborating the demographic composition of
today's "working class". And yet we still have people insisting that appeals to the working class,
and policies directed thereof, must "transcend" race and gender.
And, of course this "class first" orientation became a bone of contention between some loud
mouthed "men of the left" during the D-Party primary and "everyone else" and that's why the "Bernie
Bro" label stuck. It didn't help the Sanders campaign either.
"Class first" amongst men of the left has always signaled "ME first." What else could it
mean?
This is, actually, complicated. It's a reasonable position that black lives don't
matter because they keep getting whacked by cops and the cops are never held accountable. Nobody
else did anything, so people on the ground stood up, asserted themselves, and as part
of that created #BlackLivesMatter as an online gathering point; all entirely reasonable. #AllLivesMatter
was created, mostly as deflection/distraction, by people who either didn't like the movement,
or supported cops, and of course if all lives did matter to this crowd, they would have
done something about all the police killings in the first place.
Meanwhile, in the usual way of such things, #BlackLivesMatter hashtag activism became fashionable,
as the usual suspects were elevated to celebrity status by elites. Nothing, of course, was changed
in policy, and so in a year or so, matters began to bubble on the ground again.
Activist time (we might say) is often slower than electoral time. But sometimes it's faster;
see today's Water Cooler on the #AllOfUs people who occupied Schumer's office (and high time,
too). To me, that's a very hopefully sign. Hopefully, not a bundle of groups still siloed by identity
(and if that's to happen, I bet that will happen by working together. Nothing abstract).
I'm not tired of identity politics. I'm just tired of some identity-groups accusing other
identity-groups of "identity-politics". I speak in particular of the Identity Left.
"We won't need a majority of the dying "white working class" in our present and future
feminine, multiracial American working class. Just a minority."
That statement is as myopic a vision as the current political class is today. The statement
offends another minority, or even a possible majority. Identity politics, any identity, is
going to automatically split voters into camps and force people to 'pick' a side.
In False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, I and many other writers
argued that the bourgeois feminism Clinton represents works against the interests of the vast
majority of women. This has turned out to be even more true than we anticipated. That branding
of feminism has delivered to us the most sexist and racist president in recent history: Donald
Trump.
I wonder if there is an even simpler more colorful way to say that. Hillary spoke to the
million-dollar feminists-of-privilege who identified with her multi-million dollar self and her
efforts to break her own Tiffany Glass ceiling. And she worked to get many other women with nothing
to gain to identify with Hillary's own breaking of Hillary's own Tiffany Glass ceiling.
If the phrase "Tiffany Glass ceiling" seems good enough to re-use, feel free to re-use it one
and all.
For me (at least) the essence of the "Left" is justice. When we speak of Class we are putting
focus on issues of economic justice. Class is the material expression of economic (and therefore
political) stratification. Class is the template for analysing the power dynamics at play in such
stratification.
Class is the primary political issue because it not only affects everyone, but in the absence
of economic justice, it's very difficult to obtain ANY kind of justice - whether such justice
be of race, gender, legal, religious or sexual orientation.
I find it indicative that the 1% (now) simply don't care one way or another about race or gender
etc, PROVIDED it benefits or, has no negative effects on their economic/political interests.
"Just how large a spike in hate crime there has been remains uncertain, however. Several reports
have been proven false, and Potok cautioned that most incidents reported to the Southern Poverty
Law Center did not amount to hate crime.
All us ordinary people are insecure. Planet is becoming less habitable, war everywhere, ISDS
whether we want it or not, group sentiments driving mass behaviors with extra weapons from our
masters, soil depletion, water becoming a Nestle subsidiary, all that. But let us focus on maintaining
our favored position as more insecure than others, with a "Yes, but" response to what seems to
me the fundamental strategic scene:
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war,
and we're winning."
Those mostly white guys, but a lot of women too, the "rich classs," are ORGANIZED, they have
a pretty simple organizing principle ("Everything belong us") that leads to straightforward strategies
and tactics to control all the levers and fulcrums of power. The senators in Oregon are "on the
right side" of a couple of social issues, but they both are all in for "trade deals" and other
big pieces of the "rich class's" ground game. In ship sinking incidents, where a lot of people
are dumped in the water, many adopt the strategy of trying to use others as flotation devices,
pushing them under while the "rich class" tootle off in the lifeboats. Sounds like a winner, all
right.
The comparison with 9/11 is instructive. That is not minimizing hate crimes. Within days after
9/11, my Sikh neighbor was assaulted and called a "terrorist". He finally decided to stop wearing
a turban, cut his hair, and dress "American". My neighborhood was not ethnically tense, but it is ethnically diverse, and my neighbor had
never seen his assailant before.
Yes, the rich classes are organized…organized to fleece us with unending wars. But don't minimize
other people's experience of what constitutes a hate crime.
In 1875, the first step toward the assassination of a black, "scalawag", or "carpetbagger"
public official in the South was a friendly visit from prominent people asking him to resign,
the second was night riders with torches, the third was night riders who killed the public official.
Jury nullification (surprise, surprise) made sure that no one was punished at the time. In 1876,
the restoration of "home rule' in Southern states elected in a bargain Rutherford B. Hayes, who
ended Reconstruction and the South entered a period that cleansed "Negroes, carpetbaggers, and
scalawags" from their state governments and put the Confederate generals and former plantation
owners back in charge. That was then called The Restoration. Coincidence that that is the name
of David Horowitz's conference where Donna Brazile was hobnobbing with James O'Keefe?
The rich class has enlisted the white indentured servants as their Praetorian Guard. The
same play as after Bacon's Rebellion.
Not minimizing - my very peaches-and-cream Scots-English daughter is married to a gentleman
from Ghana whose skin tones are about as dark as possible.
the have three beautiful children, and are fortunate to live in an area that is a hotbed of
"tolerance." I have many anecdotes too.
Do anecdotes = reality in all its complexity? Do anecdotes = policy? Is what is
actually occurring another Kristallnacht, or the irreducible susurrus of meanness and idiocy
that is part of every collection of humans? It would be nice not to get suckered into
elevating the painful minima over the importance of getting ordinary people to agree on a real
common enemy, and organizing to claim and protect.
If even one single banker had gone to jail for the mess (fed by Bush I, Clinton, and Bush
II) that blew up in 2008, we would be having a different conversation. We are in a huge legitimacy
crisis, in part because justice was never served on those who made tens of millions via fraud.
When there's no justice, its as if the society's immune system is not functioning.
Expect more strange things to appear, almost all of them aimed at sucking the remaining resources
out of the system with the knowledge that they'll never face consequences for looting. The fact
that they're killing the host does not bother them.
Corruption is both cause & effect of gross wealth inequities. Of course to the 1% it's not
corruption so much as merely what is owed as of a right to the privileged. (Thus, the most fundamental
basis of liberal democracy turns malignant: that ALL, even rulers & law makers are EQUALLY bound
by the Law).
The Malignant Overlords - the King or Queen, the Financial Masters of the Universe,, the
tribal witch doctor- live by grazing on the wealth of the natural world and the productivity of
their underlings. There are only a few thousand of them but they control finance and the Money
system, propaganda organizations (in the USA called the Media) land and agriculture, "educational"
institutions and entire armies of Homeland Insecurity police.
Under them there are the sycophants– generals and officers, war profiteers and corporate
CEO's, the intelligentsia, journalists, fake economists, and entertainment and sports heroes who
grow fat feasting on the morsels left over after the .0001% have fed. And far below the Overlords
are the millions of professional Bureaucrats whose job security requires unquestioning servitude.
Once upon a time there was what was known as the Middle Class who taught school or built things
in factories, made mortgage payments on a home, and bought a new Ford every other year. But they
now are renters, moving from one insecure job in one state to an insecure one across the country.
How else are they to maintain their sense of self-worth except by identifying a tribe that is
under them? If the members of the inferior tribe look just like you they might actually be more
successful and not a proper object of scorn. But if they have a black or brown skin and speak
differently they are the perfect target to make you feel that your life is not a total failure.
It's either that or go home and kick the dog or beat the wife. Or join the Army where you can
go kill a few foreigners and will always know your place in the hierarchy.
Class "trumps" race, but racial prejudice has its roots far back in human social history as
a tribal species where the "other" was always a threat to the tribe's existence.
Anyone who thinks it is only class and not also race is wearing some very strange blinders
No one with any sense is saying that, Katharine, and constantly bringing it up as some kind
of necessary argument (which, you may recall, was done as a way of trying to persuade people of
color Sanders wasn't working for them in the face of his entire history) perpetuates the falsehood
dichotomy that it has to be one or the other.
I can understand the desire to reduce the problems to a single issue that can then be subjected
to our total focus, but that's what's been done for the last fifty years; it doesn't work. Life
is too complex and messy to be fixed using magic pills, and Trump's success because those who've
given up hope of a cure are still enormously vulnerable to snake oil.
Race, gender identity, religion, etc. are the false dichotomies by which the oligarchs divide
us. Saudi princes, African American millionaires, gay millionaires etc. are generally treated
the same by the oligarchs as wasp millionaires. The true dichotomy is class, that is the dichotomy
which dare not speak its name.
yes, racism still exist, but the Democrats want to make it the primary issue of every election
because it is costs them nothing. I've never liked the idea of race based reparations because
they seem like another form of racism.
However, if the neolibs really believe racial disparity
and gender issues are the primary problems, why don't they ever support reparations or a large
tax on rich white people to pay the victims of racism and sexism and all the other isms?
Perhaps
its because that would actually cost them something. I think what bothers most of the Trumpets
out here in rural America is not race but the elevation of race to the top of the political todo
list.
For Trump it was so easy. He just says something that could be thought of as racist and
then his supporters watch as the media morphs his words, removes context, or just ignores any
possible non-racist motivations for his words.
Just read the actual Mexican- rapists quote. Completely
different then reported by the media. Fifteen years ago my native born Mexican friend said almost exactlly the same thing. Its a trap the media walks right into. I think most poor people of whiteness
do see racism as a sin, just not the only or most awful sin. As for Trump being a racist, I think
he would have to be human first.
… whilst his GOP colleagues publicly recoiled in horror, there is no question that Trump
was merely making explicit what Republicans had been doing for decades – since the days of Nixon
in 1968. The dog whistle was merely replaced by a bull horn.
Spot-on statement. Was watching Fareed Zakaria (yeah, I know, but he makes legit points from
time to time) and was pleasantly surprised that he called Bret Stephens, who was strongly opposed
to Trump, out on this. To see Stephens squirm like a worm on a hook was priceless.
"…what divides people rather than what unites people…"
Yes, class identity can be a bond that unites. However, in the US the sense of class identity
remains underdeveloped. In fact, it is only with the Sanders campaign that large swaths of the
American public have had practical and sustained exposure to the concept of class as a political
force. For most of the electorate, the language of class is still rather alien, particularly since
the "equality of opportunity" narrative even now is not completely overthrown.
Sanders and others on an ascendant left in the Democratic Party - and outside the Party - will
continue to do the important work of building a sense of class consciousness. But more is needed,
if the left wants to transform education into political power. Of course, organizing and electing
candidates at the local and state level is enormously important both to leverage control of local
institutions and - even more important - train and create leaders who can effectively use the
tools of political power. But besides this practical requirement, the left also needs to address
- or co-opt, if you will - the language of economic populism, which sounds a lot like economic
nationalism.
It seems inevitable that populist sentiment, which both Sanders and Trump have used to
electoral advantage, will spill over into a variety of economic nationalism. Nationalist
sentiment is the single most powerful unifying principle available, certainly more so than the
concept of class, at least in America. I don't see that changing anytime soon, and I do see the
Alt-Right using nationalism as a lever to try to coax the white working class into their brand
of identity politics. But America's assimilationist, "melting pot" narrative continues to be attractive
to most people, even if it is under assault in some quarters. So I think moving from nationalism
to white identity politics will not so easy for the Alt-Right. On the other hand, picking up the
thread of economic nationalism can provide the left with a powerful tool for bringing together
women, minorities and all who are struggling in this economy. This becomes particularly important
if it is the case that technology already makes the ideal of full (or nearly full) employment
nothing more than a chimera, thus forcing the question of a guaranteed annual income. Establishing
that kind of permanent safety net will only be possible in a polity where there are firm bonds
between citizens and a marked sense of responsibility for the welfare of all.
And if the Democratic Party is honest, it will have to concede that even the popular incumbent
President has played a huge role in contributing to the overall sense of despair that drove people
to seek a radical outlet such as Trump. The Obama Administration rapidly broke with its Hope and
"Change you can believe in" the minute he appointed some of the architects of the 2008 crisis
as his main economic advisors, who in turn and gave us a Wall Street friendly bank bailout that
effectively restored the status quo ante (and refused to jail one single banker, even though many
were engaged in explicitly criminal activity).
====================================================================
For those who think its just Hillary, its not. There is no way there will ever be any acknowledgement
of Obama;s real failures – he will no more be viewed honestly by dems than he could be viewed
honestly by repubs. Obama was a perfect identity candidate, i.e., not only capable of getting
the dem nomination, but the presidency and than not jailing banksters NO MATTER WHAT THEY DID,
OR WILL DO…
I imagine Trump will be one term, and I imagine we return in short order to our nominally different
parties squabbling but in lock step with regard to their wall street masters…
Democrats seem to be the more visible or clumsy in their attempts to govern themselves and
the populace, let alone understand their world. By way of illustration, consider the following.
One truism about immigration, to pick a topical item, is that uncontrolled immigration leads to
overwhelming an area whether city, state or country. Regardless of how one feels about the other
aspects of immigration, there are some real, unacknowledged limits to the viability of the various
systems that must accommodate arrivals, particularly in the short term. Too much of a perceived
good thing may be hazardous to one's health. Too much free stuff exhausts the producers,
infrastructure and support networks.
To extend and torture that concept further, just because, consider the immigration of populist
ideas to Washington. There is an entrenched royal court, not unlike Versailles in some respects,
where the sinecures, access to the White House tennis court (remember Jimmy Carter and his forest
for the trees issues) or to paid "lunches in Georgetown" or similar trappings. Inflow of populist
or other foreign ideas behind the veil of media and class secrecy represents a threat to overwhelm,
downgrade (Sayeth Yogi Berra: It is so popular that nobody goes there anymore) or remove those
perks, and to cause some financial, psychic or other pain to the hangers-on.
Pretty soon, word filters out through WikiLeaks, or just on the front page of a newspaper in
the case of the real and present corruption (What do you mean nobody went to jail for the frauds?).
In those instances, the tendency of a populace to remain aloof with their bread and circuses and
reality shows and such gets strained.
Some people began noticing and the cognitive dissonance
became to great to ignore no matter how many times the messages were delivered from on high. That
led to many apparent outbursts of rational behavior (What, you sold my family and me out and reduced
our prospects, so why should we vote for a party that takes us for granted, at best), which would
be counter-intuitive by some in our media.
"... The funny thing is that they've so learned to love the smell of their own farts (or propaganda) that they internalized an image of enlightened progressivism for themselves. This Trump election was probably the first clue that their self image is faulty and not widely shared by others. They are not taking it well. ..."
NYTimes still blames race on Trump's winning over Obama supporters in Iowa:
Trump clearly sensed the fragility of the coalition that Obama put
together - that the president's support in heavily white areas was built not
on racial egalitarianism but on a feeling of self-interest. Many white
Americans were no longer feeling that belonging to this coalition benefited
them.
Racial egalitarianism wasn't the reason for white support for Obama in 2008
and 2012 in Iowa. It reflected racial egalitarianism, but that support had to
do with perceived economic self-interest, just as the switch to Trump in 2016
did.
And what on earth is wrong with self-interest as a reason for voting?
Right. These corporatists use identity politics as a stalking horse to
rob the public blind, and then they spew invectives about racism and
mysogony wherever the public stops buying the bullcrap.
The funny thing is that they've so learned to love the smell of their own
farts (or propaganda) that they internalized an image of enlightened
progressivism for themselves. This Trump election was probably the first
clue that their self image is faulty and not widely shared by others. They
are not taking it well.
"... Judging by the volume of complaints from Clinton sycophants insisting that people did not get behind Clinton or that it was purely her gender, they won't. Why would anyone get behind Clinton save the 1%? Her policies were pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and at odds with what the American people needed. Also, we should judge based on policy, not gender and Clinton comes way short of Sanders in that regard – in many regards, she is the antithesis of Sanders. ..."
"... "Establishment Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for this one. The only question is whether or not they are willing to take responsibility" I disagree. In my view, it is not a question at all. They have never taken responsibility for anything, and they never will. ..."
"... What would make Democrats focus on the working class? Nothing. They have lost and brought about destruction of the the Unions, which was the Democratic Base, and have become beholden to the money. The have noting in common with the working class, and no sympathy for their situation, either. ..."
"... What does Bill Clinton, who drive much of the policy in the '90s, and spent his early years running away form the rural poor in Arkansas (Law School, Rhodes Scholarship), have in common with working class people anywhere? ..."
"... Iron law of institutions applies. Position in the D apparatus is more important than political power – because with power come blame. ..."
"... I notice Obama worked hard to lose majorities in the house and Senate so he could point to the Republicans and say "it was their fault" except when he actually wanted something, and made it happen (such as TPP). ..."
"... Agreed with the first but not the second. It's typical liberal identity politics guilt tripping. That won't get you too far on the "white side" of Youngstown Ohio. ..."
"... Also suspect that the working-class, Rust-Belt Trump supporters will soon be thrown under the bus by their Standard Bearer, if the Transition Team appointments are any indicator: e.g. Privateers at SSA. ..."
"... My wife teaches primary grades in an inner city school. She has made it clear to me over the years that the challenges her children are facing are related to poverty, not race. She sees a big correlation between the financial status of a family and its family structure (one or more parents not present or on drugs) and the kids' success in school. Race is a minor factor. ..."
"... The problem with running on a class based platform in America is, well, it's America; and in good ol' America, we are taught that anyone can become a successful squillionare – ya know, hard work, nose-to-the-grindstone, blah, blah, blah. ..."
"... The rags to riches American success fable is so ingrained that ideas like taxing the rich a bit more fall flat because everyone thinks "that could be me someday. Just a few house flips, a clever new app, that ten-bagger (or winning lottery ticket) and I'm there" ("there" being part of the 1%). ..."
"... The idea that anyone can be successful (i.e. rich) is constantly promoted. ..."
"... I think this fantasy is beginning to fade a bit but the "wealth = success" idea is so deeply rooted in the American psyche I don't think it will ever fade completely away. ..."
"... If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy - which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog - you will come to an awful realization. It wasn't Beijing. It wasn't even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn't immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn't any of that. ..."
"... Nothing happened to them. There wasn't some awful disaster. There wasn't a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence - and the incomprehensible malice - of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain't what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down. ..."
"... The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump's speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. ..."
"... White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America ..."
"... Poor or Poorer whites have been demonised since the founding of the original Colonies, and were continuously pushed west to the frontiers by the ruling elites of New England and the South as a way of ridding themselves of "undesirables", who were then left to their own resources, and clung together for mutual assistance. ..."
"... White trash is a central, if disturbing, thread in our national narrative. The very existence of such people – both in their visibility and invisibility – is proof that American society obsesses over the mutable labels we give to the neighbors we wish not to notice. "They are not who we are". But they are who we are and have been a fundamental part of our history, whether we like it or not". ..."
"... "To be sure, Donald Trump did make a strong appeal to racists, homophobes, and misogynists " ..."
"... working class white women ..."
"... Obama is personally likeable ..."
"... History tells us the party establishment will move further right after election losses. And among the activist class there are identity purity battles going on. ..."
"... Watch as this happens yet again: "In most elections, U.S. politicians of both parties pretend to be concerned about their issues, then conveniently ignore them when they reach power and implement policies from the same Washington Consensus that has dominated the past 40 years." That is why we need a strong third party, a reformed election system with public support of campaigns and no private money, and free and fair media coverage. But it ain't gonna happen. ..."
"... Obviously, if the Democrats nominate yet another Clintonite Obamacrat all over again, I may have to vote for Trump all over again . . . to stop the next Clintonite before it kills again. ..."
Ultimately the Establishment Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for this one. The
only question is whether or not they are willing to take responsibility for what happened.
Judging by the volume of complaints from Clinton sycophants insisting that people did not
get behind Clinton or that it was purely her gender, they won't. Why would anyone get behind Clinton
save the 1%? Her policies were pro-war, pro-Wall Street, and at odds with what the American people
needed. Also, we should judge based on policy, not gender and Clinton comes way short of Sanders
in that regard – in many regards, she is the antithesis of Sanders.
Class trumps race, to make a pun. If the left doesn't take the Democratic Party back and clean
house, I expect that there is a high probability that 2020's election will look at lot like the
2004 elections.
I'd recommend someone like Sanders to run. Amongst the current crop, maybe Tulsi Gabbard or
Nina Turner seem like the best candidates.
"Establishment Democrats have nobody but themselves to blame for this one. The only question
is whether or not they are willing to take responsibility" I disagree. In my view, it is not a
question at all. They have never taken responsibility for anything, and they never will.
What would make Democrats focus on the working class? Nothing. They have lost and brought
about destruction of the the Unions, which was the Democratic Base, and have become beholden to
the money. The have noting in common with the working class, and no sympathy for their situation,
either.
What does Bill Clinton, who drive much of the policy in the '90s, and spent his early years
running away form the rural poor in Arkansas (Law School, Rhodes Scholarship), have in common
with working class people anywhere?
The same question applies to Hillary, to Trump and the remainder of our "representatives" in
Congress.
Without Unions, how are US Representatives from the working class elected?
What we are seeing is a shift in the US for the Republicans to become the populist party. They
already have the churches, and with Trump they can gain the working class – although I do not
underestimate the contempt help by our elected leaders for the Working Class and poor.
The have forgotten, if they ever believed: "There, but for the grace of God, go I".
Iron law of institutions applies. Position in the D apparatus is more important than political
power – because with power come blame.
I notice Obama worked hard to lose majorities in the house and Senate so he could point
to the Republicans and say "it was their fault" except when he actually wanted something, and
made it happen (such as TPP).
We know that class and economic insecurity drove many white people to vote for Trump. That's
understandable. And now we are seeing a rise in hate incidents inspired by his victory. So obviously
there is a race component in his support as well. So, if you, white person, didn't vote for Trump
out of white supremacy, would you consider making a statement that disavows the acts of extremist
whites? Do you vow to stand up and help if you see people being victimized? Do you vow not to
stay silent when you encounter Trump supporters who ARE obviously in thrall to the white supremacist
siren call?
Agreed with the first but not the second. It's typical liberal identity politics guilt
tripping. That won't get you too far on the "white side" of Youngstown Ohio.
And I wouldn't worry about it. When I worked at the at the USX Fairless works in Levittown
PA in 1988, I was befriended by one steelworker who was a clear raving white supremacist racist.
(Actually rather nonchalant about about it). However he was the only one I encountered who was
like this, and eventually I figured out that he befriended a "newbie" like me because he had no
friends among the other workers, including the whites. He was not popular at all.
I've always thought that Class, not Race, was the Third Rail of American Politics, and that
the US was fast-tracking to a more shiny, happy feudalism.
Also suspect that the working-class, Rust-Belt Trump supporters will soon be thrown under
the bus by their Standard Bearer, if the Transition Team appointments are any indicator: e.g.
Privateers at SSA.
My wife teaches primary grades in an inner city school. She has made it clear to me over
the years that the challenges her children are facing are related to poverty, not race. She sees
a big correlation between the financial status of a family and its family structure (one or more
parents not present or on drugs) and the kids' success in school. Race is a minor factor.
She also makes it clear to me that the Somali/Syrian/Iraqi etc. immigrant kids are going to
do very well even though they come in without a word of English because they are working their
butts off and they have the full support of their parents and community. These people left bad
places and came to their future and they are determined to grab it with both hands. 40% of her
class this year is ENL (English as a non-native language). Since it is an inner city school, they
don't have teacher's aides in the class, so it is just one teacher in a class of 26-28 kids, of
which a dozen struggle to understand English. Surprisingly, the class typically falls short of
the "standards" that the state sets for the standardized exams. Yet many of the immigrant kids
end up going to university after high school through sheer effort.
Bullying and extreme misbehavior (teachers are actually getting injured by violent elementary
kids) is largely done by kids born in the US. The immigrant kids tend to be fairly well-behaved.
On a side note, the CSA at our local farmer's market said they couldn't find people to pick
the last of their fall crops (it is in a rural community so a car is needed to get there). So
the food bank was going out this week to pick produce like squash, onions etc. and we were told
we could come out and pick what we wanted. Full employment?
The problem with running on a class based platform in America is, well, it's America; and
in good ol' America, we are taught that anyone can become a successful squillionare – ya know,
hard work, nose-to-the-grindstone, blah, blah, blah.
The rags to riches American success fable is so ingrained that ideas like taxing the rich
a bit more fall flat because everyone thinks "that could be me someday. Just a few house flips,
a clever new app, that ten-bagger (or winning lottery ticket) and I'm there" ("there" being part
of the 1%).
The idea that anyone can be successful (i.e. rich) is constantly promoted.
I think this fantasy is beginning to fade a bit but the "wealth = success" idea is so deeply
rooted in the American psyche I don't think it will ever fade completely away.
I'm recalling (too lazy to find the link) a poll a couple years ago that showed the number
of American's identifying as "working class" increased, and the number as "middle class" decreased.
It is both. And it is a deliberate mechanism of class division to preserve power. Bill Cecil-Fronsman,
Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina identifies nine classes
in the class structure of a state that mixed modern capitalist practice (plantations), agrarian
YOYO independence (the non-slaveowning subsistence farms), town economies, and subsistence (farm
labor). Those classes were typed racially and had certain economic, power, and social relations
associated with them. For both credit and wages, few escaped the plantation economy and being
subservient to the planter capitalists locally.
Moreover, ethnic identity was embedded in the law as a class marker. This system was developed
independently or exported through imitation in various ways to the states outside North Carolina
and the slave-owning states. The abolition of slavery meant free labor in multiple senses and
the capitalist use of ethnic minorities and immigrants as scabs integrated them into an ethnic-class
system, where it was broad ethnicity and not just skin-color that defined classes. Other ethnic
groups, except Latinos and Muslim adherents, now have earned their "whiteness".
One suspects that every settler colonial society develops this combined ethnic-class structure
in which the indigenous ("Indians" in colonial law) occupy one group of classes and imported laborers
or slaves or intermixtures ("Indian", "Cape Colored" in South Africa) occupy another group of
classes available for employment in production. Once employed, the relationship is exactly that
of the slaveowner to the slave no matter how nicely the harsh labor management techniques of 17th
century Barbados and Jamaica have been made kinder and gentler. But outside the workplace (and
often still inside) the broader class structure applies even contrary to the laws trying to restrict
the relationship to boss and worker.
Blacks are not singling themselves out to police; police are shooting unarmed black people
without punishment. The race of the cop does not matter, but the institution of impunity makes
it open season on a certain class of victims.
It is complicated because every legal and often managerial attempt has been made to reduce
the class structure of previous economies to the pure capitalism demanded by current politics.
So when in a post Joe McCarthy, post-Cold War propaganda society, someone wants to protest
the domination of capitalism, attacking who they perceive as de facto scabs to their higher incomes
(true or not) is the chosen mode of political attack. Not standing up for the political rights
of the victims of ethnically-marked violence and discrimination allows the future depression of
wages and salaries by their selective use as a threat in firms. And at the individual firm and
interpersonal level even this gets complicated because in spite of the pressure to just be businesslike,
people do still care for each other.
This is a perennial mistake. In the 1930s Southern Textile Strike, some organizing was of both
black and white workers; the unions outside the South rarely stood in solidarity with those efforts
because they were excluding ethnic minorities from their unions; indeed, some locals were organized
by ethnicity. That attitude also carried over to solidarity with white workers in the textile
mills. And those white workers who went out on a limb to organize a union never forgot that failure
in their labor struggle. It is the former textile areas of the South that are most into Trump's
politics and not so much the now minority-majority plantation areas.
It still is race in the inner ring suburbs of ethnically diverse cities like St. Louis that
hold the political lock on a lot of states. Because Ferguson to them seems like an invasion of
the lower class. Class politics, of cultural status, based on ethnicity. Still called by that
19h century scientific racism terminology that now has been debunked - race - Caucasoid, Mongoloid,
Negroid. Indigenous, at least in the Americas, got stuck under Mongoloid.
You go organize the black, Latino, and white working class to form unions and gain power, and
it will happen. It is why Smithfield Foods in North Carolina had to negotiate a contract. Race
can be transcended in action.
Pretending the ethnic discrimination and even segregation does not exist and have its own problems
is political suicide in the emerging demographics. Might not be a majority, but it is an important
segment of the vote. Which is why the GOP suppressed minority voters through a variety of legal
and shady electoral techniques. Why Trump wants to deport up to 12 million potential US citizens
and some millions of already birthright minor citizens. And why we are likely to see the National
Labor Review Board gutted of what little power it retains from 70 years of attack. Interesting
what the now celebrated white working class was not offered in this election, likely because they
would vote it down quicker because, you know, socialism.
Your comment reminded me of an episode in Seattle's history.
Link . The
unions realized they were getting beat in their strikes, by scabs, who were black. The trick was
for the unions to bring the blacks into the union. This was a breakthrough, and it worked in Seattle,
in 1934. There is a cool mural the union commissioned by,
Pablo O'Higgins , to
celebrate the accomplishment.
Speaking of class, and class contempt , one must recall the infamous screed published
by National Review columnist Kevin Williamson early this year, writing about marginalised white
people here is a choice excerpt:
If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my
own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and
alcohol addiction, the family anarchy - which is to say, the whelping of human children with
all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog - you will come to an awful realization. It wasn't
Beijing. It wasn't even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn't immigrants from
Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn't any of that.
Nothing happened to them. There wasn't some awful disaster. There wasn't a war or a famine
or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very
little to explain the dysfunction and negligence - and the incomprehensible malice - of poor
white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain't what it used to be. There is more to
life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the
factories down.
The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die.
Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap
theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory
towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your
goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American
underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used
heroin needles. Donald Trump's speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.
Now it's not too much of a stretch of the imagination to state that Williamson's animus can
be replicated amongst many of the moneyed elite currently pushing and shoving their way into a
position within the incoming Trump Administration. The Trump campaign has openly and cynically
courted and won the votes of white people similar to those mentioned in Williamson's article,
and who – doubtlessly – will be stiffed by policies vigourously opposed to their welfare that
will be enacted during the Trump years. The truly intriguing aspect of the Trump election is:
what will be the consequences of further degradation of the "lower orders' " quality of life by
such actions? Wholesale retreat from electoral politics? Further embitterment and anger NOT toward
those in Washington responsible for their lot but directed against ethnic and racial minorities
"stealing their jawbs" and "getting welfare while we scrounge for a living"? I sincerely doubt
whether the current or a reconstructed Democratic Party can at all rally this large chunk of white
America by posing as their "champions" the class divide in the US is as profound as the racial
chasm, and neither major party – because of internal contradictions – can offer a credible answer.
[In addition to the growing inequality and concomitant wage stagnation for the middle and working
classes, 9/11 and its aftermath has certainly has contributed to it as well, as, making PEOPLE
LONG FOR the the Golden Age of Managerial Capitalism of the post-WWII era,]
Oh yeah, I noticed a big ol' hankerin' for that from the electorate. What definition could
the author be using for Managerial Capitalism that could make it the opposite of inequality? The
fight for power between administration and shareholders does not lead to equality for workers.
[So this gave force to the idea that the government was nothing but a viper's nest full of
crony capitalist enablers,]
I don't think it's an 'idea' that the govt is crony capitalists and enablers. Ds need to get
away from emotive descriptions. Being under/unemployed, houseless, homeless, unable to pay for
rent, utilities, food . aren't feelings/ideas. When that type of language is used, it comes across
as hand waving. There needs to be a shift of talking to rather than talking about.
If crony capitalism is an idea, it's simply a matter for Ds to identify a group (workers),
create a hierarchy (elite!) and come up with a propaganda campaign (celebrities and musicians
spending time in flyover country-think hanging out in coffee shops in a flannel shirt) to get
votes. Promise to toss them a couple of crumbs with transfer payments (retraining!) or a couple
of regulations (mandatory 3 week severance!) and bring out the obligatory D fall back- it would
be better than the Rs would give them. On the other hand, if it's factual, the cronies need to
be stripped of power and kicked out or the nature of the capitalist structure needs to be changed.
It's laughable to imagine liberals or progressives would be open to changing the power and nature
of the corporate charter (it makes me smile to think of the gasps).
The author admits that politicians lie and continue the march to the right yet uses the ACA,
a march to the right, as a connection to Obama's (bombing, spying, shrinking middle class) likability.
[[But emphasizing class-based policies, rather than gender or race-based solutions, will achieve
more for the broad swathe of voters, who comprehensively rejected the "neo-liberal lite" identity
politics]
Oops. I got a little lost with the neo-liberal lite identity politics. Financialized identity
politics? Privatized identity politics?
I believe women and poc have lost ground (economic and rights) so I would like examples of
successful gender and race-based (liberal identity politics) solutions that would demonstrate
that identity politics targeting is going to work on the working class.
If workers have lost power, to balance that structure, you give workers more power (I predict
that will fail as unions fall under the generic definition of corporatist and the power does not
rest with the members but with the CEOs of the unions – an example is a union that block the members
from voting to endorse a candidate, go against the member preference and endorse the corporatist
candidate), or you remove power from the corporation. Libs/progs can't merely propose something
like vesting more power with shareholders to remove executives as an ameliorating maneuver which
fails to address the power imbalance.
[This is likely only to accelerate the disintegration of the political system and economic
system until the elephant in the room – class – is honestly and comprehensively addressed.]
For a thorough exposition of lower-class white America from the inception of the Republic to
today, a must-read is Nancy Isenberg's White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in
America . Poor or Poorer whites have been demonised since the founding of the original
Colonies, and were continuously pushed west to the frontiers by the ruling elites of New England
and the South as a way of ridding themselves of "undesirables", who were then left to their own
resources, and clung together for mutual assistance.
Thus became the economic and cultural subset of "crackers", "hillbillies", "rednecks", and
later, "Okies", a source of contempt and scorn by more economically and culturally endowed whites.
The anti-bellum white Southern aristocracy cynically used poor whites as cheap tenant farming,
all the while laying down race-based distinctions between them and black slaves – there is always
someone lower on the totem pole, and that distinction remains in place today. Post-Reconstruction,
the South maintained the cult of white superiority, all the while preserving the status of upper-class
whites, and, by race-based public policies, assured lower-class whites that such "superiority"
would be maintained by denying the black populations access to education, commerce, the vote,
etc. And today, "white trash", or "trailer trash", or poorer whites in general are ubiquitous
and as American as apple pie, in the North, the Midwest, and the West, not just the South. Let
me quote Isenberg's final paragraph of her book:
White trash is a central, if disturbing, thread in our national narrative. The very
existence of such people – both in their visibility and invisibility – is proof that American
society obsesses over the mutable labels we give to the neighbors we wish not to notice. "They
are not who we are". But they are who we are and have been a fundamental part of our history,
whether we like it or not".
Presenting a plan for the future, which has a chance to be supported by the electorate, must
start with scrupulous, unwavering honesty and a willingness to acknowledge inconvenient facts.
The missing topic from the 2016 campaigns was declining energy surpluses and their pervasive,
negative impact on the prosperity to which we feel entitled. Because of the energy cost of producing
oil, a barrel today represents a declining fraction of a barrel in terms of net energy. This is
the major factor in sluggish economic performance. Failing to make this case and, at the same
time, offering glib and vacuous promises of growth and economic revival, are just cynical exercises
in pandering.
Our only option is to mange the coming decline in a way that does not descend into chaos and
anarchy. This can only be done with a clear vision of causes and effects and the wisdom and courage
to accept facts. The alternative is yet more delusions and wishful thinking, whose shelf life
is getting shorter.
To be fair to the article, Marshall did in fact say:
"To be sure, Donald Trump did make a strong appeal to racists, homophobes, and misogynists
"
IMO the point Marshall is making that race was not the primary reason #DJT
won. And I concur.
This is borne out by the vote tallies which show that the number of R voters from 2012 to 2016
was pretty much on the level (final counts pending):
2016 R Vote: 60,925,616
2012 R Vote: 60,934,407
(Source:
US Election Atlas )
Stop and think about this for a minute. Every hard core racist had their guy this
time around; and yet, the R's could barely muster the same amount of votes as Mittens
in 2012. This is huge, and supports the case that other things contributed far more than just
race.
Class played in several ways:
Indifference/apathy/fatigue: Lambert posted some data from Carl Beijer on this yesterday in his
Clinton Myths piece yesterday.
Anger: #HRC could not convince many people who voted for Bernie that she was interested in his
outreach to the working class. More importantly, #HRC could not convince working class white
women that she had anything other than her gender and Trump's boorishness as a counterpoint
to offer.
Outsider v Insider: Working class people skeptical of political insiders rejected #HRC.
If black workers were losing ground and white workers were gaining, one could indeed claim
that racism is a problem. However, both black and white workers are losing ground – racism simply
cannot be the major issue here. It's not racism, it's class war.
The fixation on race, the corporate funding of screaming 'black lives matter' agitators, the
crude attempts to tie Donald Trump to the KKK (really? really?) are just divide and conquer, all
over again.
Whatever his other faults, Donald Trump has been vigorous in trying to reach out to working
class blacks, even though he knew he wouldn't get much of their vote and he knew that the media
mostly would not cover it. Last I heard, he was continuing to try and reach out, despite the black
'leadership' class demanding that he is a racist. Because as was so well pointed out here, the
one thing the super-rich fear is a united working class.
Divide and conquer. It's an old trick, but a powerful one.
Suggestion: if (and it's a big if) Trump really does enact policies that help working class
blacks, and the Republicans peel away a significant fraction of the black vote, that would set
the elites' hair on fire. Because it would mean that the black vote would be in play, and the
Neoliberal Democrats couldn't just take their votes for granted. And wouldn't that be a thing.
that was good for 2016. I will look to see if he has stats for other years. i certainly agree
that poor whites are more likely to be shot; executions of homeless people by police are one example.
the kind of system that was imposed on the people of ferguson has often been imposed on poor whites,
too. i do object to the characterization of black lives matter protestors as "screaming agitators";
that's all too reminiscent of the meme of "outside agitators" riling up the local peaceful black
people to stand up for their rights that was characteristically used to smear the civil rights
movement in the 60's.
I might not have much in common at all with certain minorities, but it's highly likely that
we share class status.
That's why the status quo allows identity politics and suppresses class politics.
Having been around for sometime, I often wonder what The Guardian is going on about in the
UK as it is supposed to be our left wing broadsheet.
It isn't a left I even recognised, what was it?
I do read it to try and find out what nonsense it is these people think.
Having been confused for many a year, I think I have just understood this identity based politics
as it is about to disappear.
I now think it was a cunning ploy to split the electorate in a different way, to leave the
UK working class with no political outlet.
Being more traditional left I often commented on our privately educated elite and private schools
but the Guardian readership were firmly in favour of them.
How is this left?
Thank god this is now failing, get back to the old left, the working class and those lower
down the scale.
It was clever while it lasted in enabling neoliberalism and a neglect of the working class,
but clever in a cunning, nasty and underhand way.
Thinking about it, so many of these recent elections have been nearly 50% / 50% splits, has
there been a careful analysis of who neoliberalism disadvantages and what minorities need to be
bought into the fold to make it work in a democracy.
Women are not a minority, but obviously that is a big chunk if you can get them under your
wing. The black vote is another big group when split away and so on.
Brexit nearly 50/50; Austria nearly 50/50; US election nearly 50/50.
So, 85% of Blacks vote Hillary against Sanders (left) and 92% vote Hillary against Trump (right),
but is no race. It's the class issue that sends them to the Clintons. Kindly explain how.
Funny think about likeability, likeable people can be real sh*ts. So I started looking into
hanging out with less likeable people. I found that they can be considerably more appreciative
of friendship and loyalty, maybe because they don't have such easy access to it.
Entertainment media has cautiously explored some aspect so fthis, but in politics, "nice" is
still disproportionately values, and not appreciated as a possible flag.
Watch out buddy. They are onto you. I have seen some comments on democratic party sites claiming
the use of class to explain Hillary's loss is racist. The democratic party is a goner. History
tells us the party establishment will move further right after election losses. And among the
activist class there are identity purity battles going on.
Watch as this happens yet again: "In most elections, U.S. politicians of both parties pretend
to be concerned about their issues, then conveniently ignore them when they reach power and implement
policies from the same Washington Consensus that has dominated the past 40 years." That is why
we need a strong third party, a reformed election system with public support of campaigns and
no private money, and free and fair media coverage. But it ain't gonna happen.
Well it certainly won't happen by itself. People are going to have to make it happen. Here
in Michigan we have a tiny new party called Working Class Party running 3 people here and there.
I voted for two of them. If the Democrats run somebody no worse than Trump next time, I will be
free to vote Working Class Party to see what happens.
Obviously, if the Democrats nominate yet another Clintonite Obamacrat all over again, I
may have to vote for Trump all over again . . . to stop the next Clintonite before it kills again.
"... when "capitalism" failed to remedy class inequity, in fact worked to cause it, propaganda took over and focused on all sorts of things that float around the edges of class like race, opportunity, civil rights, etc – but not a word about money. ..."
"... "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ..."
"... "The reason the elites don't like class politics is that the class division that forms against their class, once organized, is large enough to take them on." ..."
"... Class divides the 99% from the small elite who lead both political parties. That makes it an explosive threat. I'm speaking of actual economic class, not the media BS of pork rinds and NASCAR versus brie and art museums. ..."
"... I've always maintained that Class is the real third rail of American politics, and the US is fast tracking to a shiny, prettified version of feudalism. ..."
"... There are two elephants in the room, class and technology. Both are distorted by those in power in order to ensure their continued rule. It seems to me the technology adopted by a society determines its class structure. ..."
"... Add to that HRC's neocon foreign policy instincts ..."
"... This goes beyond corruption. It is one thing to be selling public infrastructure construction contracts to crony capitalist contributors (in the Clintons' case do we call them philanthropists?) – entirely another to be selling guns and bombs used by Middle Eastern despots to grind down (IOW blow up, murder) opposition to their corrupt regimes. ..."
"... In fact, most of Western Civilization (sic?) seems to be happy with the status quo of a 'post-industrial' America as the "exceptional nation" whose only two functions are consuming the world's wealth and employing military Keynesianism to maintain a global social order based on money created ex nihilo by US and international bankers and financiers. ..."
"... What we are witnessing is a political crisis because the system is geared against the citizen. ..."
"... And journalists/media are complicit. Where is the cutting investigative journalism? There is none – the headlines should be screaming it. Thanks God (or whoever) for blogs like these. ..."
"... Sooo, they spent a generation telling the white worker that he was a racist, sexist bigot, mocking his religion, making his kids read "Heather Has Two Mommies" in school, and blaming him for economic woes caused in New York and DC. ..."
"... Tryng lately to get my terminology straight, and I think the policies you itemized should be labeled neoliberal, not liberal/progressive. Neoliberalism seems to be the one that combines the worst features of the private sector with the worst features of the public sector, without the good points of either one. ..."
when "capitalism" failed to remedy class inequity, in fact worked to cause
it, propaganda took over and focused on all sorts of things that float around
the edges of class like race, opportunity, civil rights, etc – but not a
word about money.
That's why Hillary was so irrelevant and boring. If class
itself (money) becomes a topic of discussion, the free-market orgy will be
seen as a last ditch effort to keep the elite in a class by themselves by
"trading" stuff that can just as easily be made domestically, and just not
worth the effort anymore.
Identity politics divides just as well as class politics. It simply divides
into smaller (less powerful) groups. The reason the elites don't like class politics is that the class division that forms against their
class, once organized, is large enough to take them on.
"The reason the elites don't like class politics is that the class
division that forms against their class, once organized, is large enough
to take them on."
I believe there is another aspect to the shift we are seeing, and it
is demographics.
Specifically deplorable demographics.
It should be noted that the deplorable generation, gen x, are very much a mixed racial cohort.
They have not participated in politics much because they have been under attack since they were
children. They have been ignored up to now.
Deplorable means wretched, poor.
This non participation is what has begun to change, and will accelerate for the next 20 years
and beyond.
Demographically speaking, with analysis of the numbers right now are approximately…
GEN GI and Silent Gen – 22,265,021
Baby Boomers 50,854,027
Gen X 90,010,283
Millenials 62,649,947 18 Years to 34
25,630,521 (12-17 Years old)
Total 88,280,468
Artist Gen 48,820,896 and growing…
* Using the Fourth Turning Cultural Demographic Measurement vs. the politically convenient,
MSM supported, propaganda demographics. They would NEVER do such a thing right? Sure.
Class divides the 99% from the small elite who lead both political parties.
That makes it an explosive threat. I'm speaking of actual economic class, not the media BS of pork rinds and NASCAR versus brie and
art museums.
Hi Yves – great post!
I've always maintained that Class is the real third rail
of American politics, and the US is fast tracking to a shiny, prettified version
of feudalism.
I suspect that the working-class Trump voters in the Rust Belt will eventually disappointed in their
standard bearer, Transition Team staffing is any indication: e.g. Privateers back at SSA.
In the post-Reconstruction South poor whites and blacks alike were the victims
of political and legal institutions designed to create a divided and disenfranchised
work force for the benefit of landlords, capitalists and corporations. Poor whites
as well as poor blacks were ensnared in a system of sharecropping and debt peonage.
Poll taxes, literacy tests and other voter restrictions disenfranchised blacks
and almost all poor whites creating an electorate dominated by a white southern
gentry class.
Martin Luther King, Jr. clarified this at the end of his address at the conclusion of the Selma March
on March 25, 1965.
…You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in
the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied
with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro
slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.
Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. That is what was known
as the Populist Movement. The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the
former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not
only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting bloc that threatened to drive
the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated
society…. If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro
Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and
gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for
the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him
that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate
Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could
not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in
the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological
oblivion.
Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike resulted
in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they
segregated southern mores from the rich whites; they segregated southern churches from Christianity;
they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; and they segregated the Negro from everything.
That's what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great
society: a society of justice where none would prey upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty
where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the
dignity and worth of human personality.
There are two elephants in the room, class and technology. Both are distorted
by those in power in order to ensure their continued rule. It seems to me the technology
adopted by a society determines its class structure.
So much of todays discussion revolves around justifying the inappropriate use of
technology, it seems inevitable that only a major breakdown of essential technological
systems will afford the necessary space to address growing social problems.
E.F. Schumacher addressed all this in the 70's with his work on appropriate technologies. Revisiting
the ideas of human scale systems offers a way to actively and effectively deal with todays needs while
simultaneously trying to change larger perspectives and understanding of the citizenry. While Schumacher's
work was directed at developing countries, the impoverishment of the working class makes it relevant
in the US today.
Addressing our technology question honestly will lead to more productive changes in class structure
than taking on the class issue directly. Direct class confrontation is violent. Adopting human scale
technology is peaceful. In the end what stands for a good life will win out. I'm working for human scale.
Thought experiment: If you opposed Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin does that
make you a racist and a sexist?
Or, is it only when someone votes against a supposed liberal? And when Hillary
supported Cuomo over Teachout for NY Governor, none of her supporters labeled her
a Cuomobros.
Hillary received millions fewer votes than Obama because she was a seriously flawed candidate who
could not muster any excitement. The only reason she received 60 million is because she was running
against Trump. The play on identity politics was pure desperation.
"So this gave force to the idea that
the government was nothing but a viper's nest full
of crony capitalist enablers
, which in turn helped to unleash populism on the right (the
Left being marginalised or co-opted by their Wall Street/Silicon Valley donor class). And this
gave us Trump.
Add to that HRC's neocon foreign policy instincts
, which could have got
us in a war with Russia and maybe the American electorate wasn't so dumb after all."
I voted for Hillary, but it was not easy.
I agree that identity politics of the DNC variety have passed their pull date. Good riddance.
Here's another thought experiment: were voters who chose Obama over Hillary
in the 2008 primary sexists? Were Hillary's voters racists?
I don't think you give the Democratic establishment enough credit for obtuseness by characterizing
their identity politics play as "desperation". I have several sisters who were sucked in by Hillary's
"woman" card, and it made them less than receptive to hearing about her record of pay-for-play, proxy
warmongering, and baseless Russia-bashing.
And it turned people like me – who would choose a woman over a man, other things being equal –
into sexists for not backing Hillary (I voted for Stein).
Yes. If Hillary had been elected I felt like we would have been played by someone
who is corrupt and with no real interest in the working/middle class. We would
have slogged through another 4 years with someone who arrogantly had both a private
and public position and had no real interest in climate change (she was very pro
fracking), financial change (giving hour long $250,000 speeches to banks) or health
care (she laughed at the idea of single payer although that's what most people
want).
Sanders had opposite views on these 3 issues and would have been an advocate of real change which
is why he was so actively opposed by the establishment and very popular with the people as evidenced
by his huge rallies.
Trump was seen by many as the only real hope for some change. As mentioned previously we've already
seen 2 very beneficial outcomes of his being elected by things calming down with Syria and Russia and
with TPP apparently being dead in the water.
Another positive could be a change in the DOJ to go after white collar criminals of which we have
a lot.
Climate change is I think an important blind spot but he has shown the capacity to be flexible and
not as much of an ideologue as some. It's possible that as he sees some of his golf courses go under
water he could change his mind. It can be helpful if someone in power changes his mind on an important
issue as this can relate better to other doubters to come to the same conclusion.
Getting back to class I watched the 2003 movie Seabiscuit a few days ago. This film was set in the
depression period and had clips of FDR putting people back to work. It emphasized the dignity that this
restored to them. It's a tall order but I think that's what much of Trump's base is looking for.
Whilst I agree with the points made, there is a BIG miss for me.
Unless I missed it – where are the comments on corruption? This is not a partisan point of view,
but to make the issue entirely focussed on class misses the point that the game is rigged.
Holder, an Obama pick, unless I am mistaken, looked the other way when it came to investigating and
prosecuting miscreants on Wall Street. The next in line for that job was meeting Bill behind closed
so that Hillary could be kept safe. Outrageous.
The Democratic party's attempts to make this an issue about race is so obviously a crass attempt
at manipulation that only the hard of thinking could swallow it.
The vote for Trump was a vote against corrupt insiders. Maybe he will turn out to be the same.
To your point; dumbfounded that a country that proposes to be waging a "War on Drugs" pardons
home grown banking entities that laundered money for drug dealers.
If you or I attempted such foolishness – we'd be incarcerate in a heartbeat.
Monty Python (big fan), at it's most silly and sophomoric – could not write this stuff…
Yep – para 7. A bit of a passing reference to the embedded corruption
and payola for congress and the writing of laws by lobbyists.
And yes, war on drugs is pretty much a diversionary tactic to give the impression that the
rule of law is still in force. It is for you an me……. for the connected, corrupt, not so much!
This goes beyond corruption. It is one thing to be selling public infrastructure
construction contracts to crony capitalist contributors (in the Clintons' case
do we call them philanthropists?) – entirely another to be selling guns and
bombs used by Middle Eastern despots to grind down (IOW blow up, murder) opposition
to their corrupt regimes.
In fact, most of Western Civilization (sic?) seems
to be happy with the status quo of a 'post-industrial' America as the "exceptional
nation" whose only two functions are consuming the world's wealth and employing
military Keynesianism to maintain a global social order based on money created
ex nihilo by US and international bankers and financiers.
This conspiracy has emerged from the Podesta emails. It was Clinton conspiring with mainstream
media to elevate Trump and then tear him down. We have to now look at all the media who endorsed
Hillary as simply corrupt. Simultaneously, Hillary said that Bernie had to be ground down to the
pulp. Further leaked emails showed how the Democratic National Committee sabotaged Sanders' presidential
campaign. It was Hillary manipulating the entire media for her personal gain. She obviously did
not want a fair election because she was too corrupt.
What is very clear putting all the emails together, the rise of Donald Trump was orchestrated
by Hillary herself conspiring with mainstream media, and they they sought to burn him to the ground.
Their strategy backfired and now this is why she has not come out to to speak against the violence
she has manipulated and inspired.
It seems to be clear the Democratic Party needs to purge itself of the Clinton – Obama influence.
Is Sanders' suggestion for the DNC head a good start or do we need to look elsewhere?
What are are getting now are attempts by the Dems (and let me state here I am not fan of the
Repubs – the distinction is a false one) to point to anything other than the problem that is right
in front of them.
What we are witnessing is a political crisis because the system is geared against the citizen.
And journalists/media are complicit. Where is the cutting investigative journalism? There is
none – the headlines should be screaming it. Thanks God (or whoever) for blogs like these.
There has been a coup I believe. The cooperation and melding of corporate and political power,
and the interchange of power players between the two has left the ordinary person nowhere to go.
This is not a left vs right, Dem vs Repub argument. Those are distinctions are there to keep us
busy and to provide the illusion.
Chris Hedges likend politics to American Pro Wrestling – that is what we are watching!
The idea that a guy who ran casinos in New Jersey, and whose background was
too murky to get a casino license in Nevada, will be the one to clean up corruption
in DC is a level of gullibility beyond my comprehension.
a lot of people out there need 10 baggers. I sure do.
Why work? I mean really. It sucks but what's your choice? The free market solution is to kill yourself
- that's what slaves could have done. If you don't like slavery, then just kill yourself! Why complain?
You're your own boss of "You Incorporated" and you can choose who to work for! Even nobody.
the 10-bagger should be just for billionaires. Even a millionaire has a hard time because there's
only so much you can lose before you're not a millionaire. Then you might have to work!
If most jobs didn't suck work wouldn't be so bad. That's the main thing, make jobs that don't suck
so you don't drown yourself in tattoos and drugs. It's amazing how many people have tattoos. Drugs are
less "deplorable" haha. Some are good - like alcohol, Xanax, Tylenol, red wine, beer, caffeine, sugar,
donuts, cake, cookies, chocolate. Some are bad, like the shlt stringy haired meth freaks take. If they
had good jobs it might give them something better to do,
How do you get good jobs and not shlt jobs? That's not entirely self evident. In the meantime, the
10 bagger at least gets you some breathing room so you can think about it. Even if you think for free,
it's OK since you don't have to work. Working gets in the way of a lot of stuff that you'd rather be
doing. Like nothing,
The amazing thing is this: no matter how much we whinge, whine, bitch moan, complain, rant, rail,
fulminate, gripe, huarrange (that mght be speled wrong), incite, joculate, kriticize, lambaste, malign,
naysay, prevaricate, query, ridicule, syllogize, temporize, ululate (even Baudelaire did that I red
on the internet), yell and (what can "Z" be? I don't want to have to look something up I'm too lazy,
how about "zenophobiasize" hahahahahahahah,
The amazing thing is: million of fkkkers want to come here and - get this! - THEY WON'T COMPLAIN
ABOUT ANY OF THE SHT WE DO!
""By making him aware he has more in common with the black steel workers by
being a worker, than with the boss by being white."
Sooo, they spent a generation telling the white worker that he was a racist, sexist bigot, mocking
his religion, making his kids read "Heather Has Two Mommies" in school, and blaming him for economic
woes caused in New York and DC.
Actually, too many white workers are racist, sexist, and think everyone is
a rabid Christian just like them. I ought to know because I live in red rural
Pennsylvania. I'm not mocking you folks, but I am greatly pissed off that you
just don't mind your own damn business and stop trying to force your beliefs
on others. And I don't want to hear that liberals are forcing their beliefs
on others; we're just asking you follow our laws and our Constitution when it
comes to liberty and justice for all.
And for every school that might have copies of "Heather Has Two Mommies," I can give you a giant
list of schools that want to ban a ton of titles because some parent is offended. One example is
the classic "Brave New World" by Aldus Huxley. "Challenged in an Advanced Placement language composition
class at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, Del. (2014). Two school board members contend that while
the book has long been a staple in high school classrooms, students can now grasp the sexual and
drug-related references through a quick Internet search." Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom,
May 2014, p. 80.
Quick internet search, my ass. Too many conservatives won't even use the internet to find real
facts because that would counter the right-wing meme.
And for every school that might have copies of "Heather Has Two Mommies,"
I can give you a giant list of schools that want to ban a ton of titles
because some parent is offended.
And for every liberal/progressive politician, I can give a you basket of shitty policies, such
as charter schools, shipping jobs overseas, cutting social security, austerity, the grand bargain,
Obamacare, drones, etc.
Great. So the library has a copy of "Heather Has Two Mommies." Or not. Who cares? The United
Colors of Benetton worldview doesn't matter a fig when I'm trying to pay for rising health care,
rent, College education, retirement costs, etc.
Tryng lately to get my terminology straight, and I think the policies
you itemized should be labeled neoliberal, not liberal/progressive. Neoliberalism
seems to be the one that combines the worst features of the private sector
with the worst features of the public sector, without the good points
of either one.
It seems to me that you're referencing a certain historical model
of "liberal" that doesn't, nay, cannot exist anymore. A No-True-Scotsman
fallacy, as I see it.
We can only deal with what we have in play, not some pure historical
abstraction.
But for the sake of argument, let's say that a distinction can be made between neoliberal
and "real" liberalism. Both entities, however you want to differentiate/describe them, serve
as managers to capital. In other words, they just want to manage things, to fiddle with
the levers at the margin.
We need a transfer of power, not a new set of smart managers.
The right has spent a generation supporting rabidly bigoted media like Rush
Limbaugh and Fox News making sure the white working class blame all their ills
on immigrants, minorities, feminists and stirring up a Foaming Outrage of the
Week at what some sociology professor said at a tiny college somewhere.
Kiss up, kick down authoritarianism. It's never the fault of the people with all the money and
all the power who control their economic lives.
"... The affluent and rich voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for the Democratic candidate in 2012. Among those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, Clinton benefited from a 9-point Democratic swing. Voters with family incomes above $250,000 swung toward Clinton by 11 percentage points. The number of Democratic voters amongst the wealthiest voting block increased from 2.16 million in 2012 to 3.46 million in 2016-a jump of 60 percent. ..."
"... Clinton's electoral defeat is bound up with the nature of the Democratic Party, an alliance of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus with privileged sections of the upper-middle class based on the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation ..."
"... Over the course of the last forty years, the Democratic Party has abandoned all pretenses of social reform, a process escalated under Obama. Working with the Republican Party and the trade unions, it is responsible for enacting social policies that have impoverished vast sections of the working class, regardless of race or gender. ..."
The elections saw a massive shift in party support among the poorest and wealthiest voters. The share
of votes for the Republicans amongst the most impoverished section of workers, those with family
incomes under $30,000, increased by 10 percentage points from 2012. In several key Midwestern states,
the swing of the poorest voters toward Trump was even larger: Wisconsin (17-point swing), Iowa (20
points), Indiana (19 points) and Pennsylvania (18 points).
The swing to Republicans among the $30,000 to $50,000 family income range was 6 percentage points.
Those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 swung away from the Republicans compared to 2012
by 2 points.
The affluent and rich voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for the
Democratic candidate in 2012. Among those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, Clinton benefited
from a 9-point Democratic swing. Voters with family incomes above $250,000 swung toward Clinton by
11 percentage points. The number of Democratic voters amongst the wealthiest voting block increased
from 2.16 million in 2012 to 3.46 million in 2016-a jump of 60 percent.
Clinton was unable to make up for the vote decline among women (2.1 million), African Americans
(3.2 million), and youth (1.2 million), who came overwhelmingly from the poor and working class,
with the increase among the rich (1.3 million).
Clinton's electoral defeat is bound up with the nature of the Democratic Party, an alliance
of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus with privileged sections of the upper-middle
class based on the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation.
Over the course of the last forty years, the Democratic Party has abandoned all pretenses
of social reform, a process escalated under Obama. Working with the Republican Party and the trade
unions, it is responsible for enacting social policies that have impoverished vast sections of the
working class, regardless of race or gender.
"... Because the following talking points prevent a (vulgar) identity politics -dominated Democrat Party from owning its loss, debunking them is then important beyond winning your Twitter wars. I'm trying to spike the Blame Cannons! ..."
"... Remember, Trump won Wisconsin by a whisker. So for this talking point to be true, we have to believe that black voters stayed home because they were racist, costing Clinton Wisconsin. ..."
"... These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump. Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House, a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump . ..."
"... The Obama-Trump counties were critical in delivering electoral victories for Trump. Many of them fall in states that supported Obama in 2012, but Trump in 2016. In all, these flipped states accounted for 83 electoral votes. (Michigan and New Hampshire could add to this total, but their results were not finalized as of 4 p.m. Wednesday.) ..."
"... And so, for this talking point to be true, we have to believe that counties who voted for the black man in 2012 were racist because they didn't vote for the white women in 2016. Bringing me, I suppose, to sexism. ..."
"... These are resilient women, often working two or three jobs, for whom boorish men are an occasional occupational hazard, not an existential threat. They rolled their eyes over Trump's unmitigated coarseness, but still bought into his spiel that he'd be the greatest job producer who ever lived. Oh, and they wondered why his behaviour was any worse than Bill's. ..."
"... pink slips have hit entire neighbourhoods, and towns. The angry white working class men who voted in such strength for Trump do not live in an emotional vacuum. They are loved by white working class women – their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers, who participate in their remaindered pain. I t is everywhere in the interviews. "My dad lost his business", "My husband hasn't been the same since his job at the factory went away" . ..."
"... So, for this talking point to be true, you have to believe that sexism simultaneously increased the male vote for Trump, yet did not increase the female vote for Clinton. Shouldn't they move in opposite directions? ..."
"... First, even assuming that the author's happy but unconscious conflation of credentials with education is correct, it wasn't the "dunces" who lost two wars, butchered the health care system, caused the financial system to collapse through accounting control fraud, or invented the neoliberal ideology that was kept real wages flat for forty years and turned the industrial heartland into a wasteland. That is solely, solely down to - only some , to be fair - college-educated voters. It is totally and 100% not down to the "dunces"; they didn't have the political or financial power to achieve debacles on the grand scale. ..."
"... Second, the "dunces" were an important part of Obama's victories ..."
"... Not only has polling repeatedly underplayed the importance of white voters without college degrees, it's underplayed their importance to the Obama coalition: They were one-third of Obama votes in 2012. They filled the gap between upper-class whites and working-class nonwhites. Trump gained roughly 15 percentage points with them compared to Romney in 2012. ..."
"... "No, you are ignorant! You threw away the vote and put Trump in charge." Please, it will be important to know what derogatory camp you belong in when the blame game swings into full gear. *snark ..."
"... 'Stupid' was the word I got very tired of in my social net. Two variant targets: ..."
"... 1) Blacks for not voting their interests. The responses included 'we know who our enemies are' and 'don't tell me what to think.' ..."
"... Mostly it was vs rural, non-college educated. iirc, it was the Secretary of Agriculture, pleading for funds, who said the rural areas were where military recruits came from. A young fella I know, elite football player on elite non-urban HS team, said most of his teammates had enlisted. So they are the ones getting shot at, having relatives and friends come back missing pieces of body and self. ..."
"... My guy in the Reserves said the consensus was that if HRC got elected, they were going to war with Russia. Not enthused. Infantry IQ is supposedly average-80, but they know who Yossarian says the enemy is, e'en if they hant read the book. ..."
This post is not an explainer about why and how Clinton lost (and Trump won). I think we're going
to be sorting that out for awhile. Rather, it's a simple debunking of common talking points by Clinton
loyalists and Democrat Establishment operatives; the sort of talking point you might hear on Twitter,
entirely shorn of caveats and context. For each of the three talking points, I'll present an especially
egregious version of the myth, followed by a rebuttals.
How Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins in swing states
Of the more than 120 million votes cast in the 2016 election, 107,000 votes in three states
[Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania] effectively decided the election.
Of course, America's first-past-the-post system and the electoral college amplify small margins
into decisive results. And it was the job of the Clinton campaign to find those 107,000 votes and
win them;
the Clinton operation turned out to be weaker than anyone would have imagined when
it counted . However, because Trump has what might be called an institutional mandate - both
the executive and legislative branches and soon, perhaps, the judicial - the narrowness of his margin
means he doesn't have a popular mandate. Trump has captured the state, but by no means civil society;
therefore, the opposition that seeks to delegitimize him is in a stronger position than it may realize.
Hence the necessity for reflection; seeking truth from facts, as the saying goes. Because
the following talking points prevent a
(vulgar) identity politics -dominated Democrat Party from owning its loss, debunking them is
then important beyond winning your Twitter wars. I'm trying to spike the Blame Cannons!
Trump's win is a reminder of the incredible, unbeatable power of racism
The subtext here is usually that if you don't chime in with vehement agreement, you're a racist
yourself, and possibly a racist Trump supporter. There are two reasons this talking point is false.
First, voter caring levels dropped from 2012 to 2016, especially among black Democrats
.
Carl
Beijer :
From 2012 to 2016, both men and women went from caring about the outcome to not caring.
Among Democratic men and women, as well as Republican women, care levels dropped about 3-4
points; Republican men cared a little less too, but only by one point. Across the board, in
any case, the plurality of voters simply didn't care.
Beijer includes the following chart (based on Edison exit polling cross-referenced with total
population numbers from the US Census):
Beijer interprets:
White voters cared even less in 2016 then in 2012, when they also didn't care; most of that
apathy came from white Republicans compared to white Democrats, who dropped off a little less.
Voters of color, in contrast, continued to care – but their care levels dropped even more,
by 8 points (compared to the 6 point drop-off among white voters). Incredibly, that drop was
driven entirely by a 9 point drop among Democratic voters of color which left Democrats
with only slim majority 51% support; Republicans, meanwhile, actually gained support
among people of color.
Urban areas, where black and Hispanic voters are concentrated along with college-educated
voters, already leaned toward the Democrats, but Clinton did not get the turnout from these
groups that she needed. For instance, black voters did not show up in the same numbers they
did for Barack Obama, the first black president, in 2008 and 2012.
Remember, Trump won Wisconsin by a whisker. So for this talking point to be true, we have to
believe that black voters stayed home because they were racist, costing Clinton Wisconsin.
Second, counties that voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016 .
The Washington Post :
These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump. Of the nearly 700 counties that twice sent Obama to the White House,
a stunning one-third flipped to support Trump
.
The Obama-Trump counties were critical in delivering electoral victories for Trump. Many
of them fall in states that supported Obama in 2012, but Trump in 2016. In all, these flipped
states accounted for 83 electoral votes. (Michigan and New Hampshire could add to this total,
but their results were not finalized as of 4 p.m. Wednesday.)
Here's the chart:
And so, for this talking point to be true, we have to believe that counties who voted for the
black man in 2012 were racist because they didn't vote for the white women in 2016. Bringing me,
I suppose, to sexism.
Talking Point: Clinton was Defeated by Sexism
Here's an article showing the talking point from
Newsweek :
This often vitriolic campaign was a national referendum on women and power.
(The subtext here is usually that if you don't join the consensus cluster, you're a sexist
yourself, and possibly a sexist Trump supporter). And if you only look at the averages this claim
might seem true :
On Election Day, women responded accordingly, as Clinton beat Trump among women 54 percent
to 42 percent. They were voting not so much for her as against him and what he brought to the
surface during his campaign: quotidian misogyny.
There are two reasons this talking point is not true. First, averages conceal, and what
they conceal is class . As you read further into the article, you can see it fall apart:
In fact, Trump beat Clinton among white women 53 percent to 43 percent, with
white women without college degrees going for [Trump]
two to one .
So, taking lack of a college degree as a proxy for being working class, for Newsweek's claim
to be true, you have to believe that working class women don't get a vote in their referendum,
and for the talking point to be true, you have to believe that working class women are sexist.
Which leads me to ask: Who died and left the bourgeois feminists in Clinton's base in charge of
the definition of sexism, or feminism? Class traitor
Tina Brown is worth repeating:
Here's my own beef. Liberal feminists, young and old, need to question the role they played
in Hillary's demise. The two weeks of media hyperventilation over grab-her-by-the-pussygate,
when the airwaves were saturated with aghast liberal women equating Trump's gross comments
with sexual assault, had the opposite effect on multiple women voters in the Heartland.
These are resilient women, often working two or three jobs, for whom boorish men are an
occasional occupational hazard, not an existential threat. They rolled their eyes over Trump's
unmitigated coarseness, but still bought into his spiel that he'd be the greatest job producer
who ever lived. Oh, and they wondered why his behaviour was any worse than Bill's.
Missing this pragmatic response by so many women was another mistake of Robbie Mook's campaign
data nerds. They computed that America's women would all be as outraged as the ones they came
home to at night. But pink slips have hit entire neighbourhoods, and towns. The angry white
working class men who voted in such strength for Trump do not live in an emotional vacuum.
They are loved by white working class women – their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers,
who participate in their remaindered pain. I t is
everywhere in the interviews. "My dad lost his business", "My husband hasn't been the same
since his job at the factory went away" .
Second, Clinton in 2016 did no better than Obama in 2008 with women (although she did
better than Obama in 2012). From
the New York Times analysis of the exit polls, this chart...
So, for this talking point to be true, you have to believe that sexism simultaneously increased
the male vote for Trump, yet did not increase the female vote for Clinton. Shouldn't they move
in opposite directions?
Talking Point: Clinton was Defeated by Stupidity
Here's an example of this talking point from
Foreign Policy , the heart of The Blob. The headline:
Trump Won Because Voters Are Ignorant, Literally
And the lead:
OK, so that just happened. Donald Trump always enjoyed massive support from uneducated,
low-information white people. As Bloomberg Politics reported back in August, Hillary Clinton
was enjoying a giant 25 percentage-point lead among college-educated voters going into the
election. (Whether that trend held up remains to be seen.) In contrast, in the 2012 election,
college-educated voters just barely favored Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Last night we saw
something historic: the dance of the dunces. Never have educated voters so uniformly rejected
a candidate. But never before have the lesser-educated so uniformly supported a candidate.
The subtext here is usually that if you don't accept nod your head vigorously, you're stupid,
and possibly a stupid Trump supporter. There are two reasons this talking point is not true.
First, even assuming that the author's happy but unconscious conflation of credentials with
education is correct, it wasn't the "dunces" who lost two wars, butchered the health care
system, caused the financial system to collapse through accounting control fraud, or invented
the neoliberal ideology that was kept real wages flat for forty years and turned the industrial
heartland into a wasteland. That is solely, solely down to - only some , to be fair
- college-educated voters. It is totally and 100% not down to the "dunces"; they didn't have the
political or financial power to achieve debacles on the grand scale.
Second, the "dunces" were an important part of Obama's victories. From
The Week :
Not only has polling repeatedly underplayed the importance of white voters without college
degrees, it's underplayed their importance to the Obama coalition: They were one-third of Obama
votes in 2012. They filled the gap between upper-class whites and working-class nonwhites.
Trump gained roughly 15 percentage points with them compared to Romney in 2012.
So, to believe this talking point, you have to believe that voters who were smart when they
voted for Obama suddenly became stupid when it came time to vote for Clinton. You also have to
believe that credentialed policy makers have an unblemished record of success, and that only they
are worth paying attention to.
By just about every metric imaginable, Hillary Clinton led one of the worst presidential campaigns
in modern history. It was a profoundly reactionary campaign, built entirely on rolling back the
horizons of the politically possible, fracturing left solidarity, undermining longstanding left
priorities like universal healthcare, pandering to Wall Street oligarchs, fomenting nationalism
against Denmark and Russia, and rehabilitating some of history's greatest monsters – from Bush
I to Kissinger. It was a grossly unprincipled campaign that belligerently violated FEC Super PAC
coordination rules and conspired with party officials on everything from political attacks to
debate questions. It was an obscenely stupid campaign that all but ignored Wisconsin during the
general election, that pitched Clinton to Latino voters as their abuela, that centered an entire
high-profile speech over the national menace of a few thousand anime nazis on Twitter, and that
repeatedly deployed Lena Dunham as a media surrogate.
Which is rather like running a David Letterman ad in a Pennsylvania steel town. It must have seemed
like a good idea in Brooklyn. After all, they had so many celebrities to choose from.
* * *
All three talking points oversimplify. I'm not saying racism is not powerful; of course it is.
I'm not saying that sexism is not powerful; of course it is. But monocausal explanations in an election
this close - and in a country this vast - are foolish. And narratives that ignore economics and erase
class are worse than foolish; buying into them will cause us to make the same mistakes over and over
and over again.[1] The trick will be to integrate multiple causes, and that's down to the left; identity
politics liberals don't merely not want to do this; they actively oppose it. Ditto their opposite
numbers in America's neoliberal fun house mirror, the conservatives.
NOTES
[1] For some, that's not a bug. It's a feature.
NOTE
You will have noticed that I haven't covered economics (class), or election fraud at all. More
myths are coming.
Lambert Strether has been blogging, managing online communities, and doing system administration
24/7 since 2003, in Drupal and WordPress. Besides political economy and the political scene, he blogs
about rhetoric, software engineering, permaculture, history, literature, local politics, international
travel, food, and fixing stuff around the house. The nom de plume "Lambert Strether" comes from Henry
James's The Ambassadors: "Live all you can. It's a mistake not to." You can follow him on Twitter
at @lambertstrether. http://www.correntewire.com
"No, you are ignorant! You threw away the vote and put Trump in charge." Please, it will be
important to know what derogatory camp you belong in when the blame game swings into full gear.
*snark
'Stupid' was the word I got very tired of in my social net. Two variant targets:
1) Blacks
for not voting their interests. The responses included 'we know who our enemies are' and 'don't
tell me what to think.'
2) Mostly it was vs rural, non-college educated. iirc, it was the Secretary of Agriculture,
pleading for funds, who said the rural areas were where military recruits came from. A young fella
I know, elite football player on elite non-urban HS team, said most of his teammates had enlisted.
So they are the ones getting shot at, having relatives and friends come back missing pieces of
body and self.
My guy in the Reserves said the consensus was that if HRC got elected, they were going
to war with Russia. Not enthused. Infantry IQ is supposedly average-80, but they know who Yossarian
says the enemy is, e'en if they hant read the book.
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests,
is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have
too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.
Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications
clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications
Commission.
Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist whose clients include Devon Energy and Encana Oil and Gas, holds
the "energy independence" portfolio.
Michael Torrey, a lobbyist who runs a firm that has earned millions of dollars helping food
industry players such as the American Beverage Association and the dairy giant Dean Foods, is
helping set up the new team at the Department of Agriculture.
What? No steelworker? No auto-plant worker? Not even a family farmer? Might y'all have been
had ?
Who'd a thunk?
Bernie and Elizabeth to the rescue.
Now, please . Now .
But, hey, white blue collar folks: You get what you vote for. The problem for me is that I
get what you vote for. I said roughly 540 times here at AB in the last year: Trump isn't conquering
the Republican Party; he's the Republican Party's Trojan Horse. What was that y'all were saying about
wanting change so badly? Here it is.
Welcome to the concept of
industry regulatory capture
. Perfected to a science, and jaw-droppingly brazen.
LOL . Funny, but Bernie talked about this. Some of you listened. Then. Elizabeth Warren has talked
about it, a lot. Some of you listened. Back then. But she wasn't running for president. Hillary Clinton
was, instead. And
she couldn't talk about it because she had needed all those speaking fees , all the way up to
about a minute before she announced her candidacy.
Aaaaand, here come the judges. And of course the justices. Industry regulatory capture of the
judicial-branch variety.
I called this one right, in the title of
this post yesterday . I mean, why even wait until the body is buried? No reason at all.
So he thinks. But what if he's wrong?
Anyway can't wait for the political cartoons showing Trump on Ryan's lap, with Ryan's arm showing
reaching up under Trump's suit jacket.
It's effing asinine . Everyone's entitled to their little personal delusions, but why the
obsessiveness about this patent silliness? What is exactly is the emotional hold that Hillary Clinton
holds on these people? It's climate-change-denial-like.
Elizabeth Warren would have beaten Donald Trump in a landslide. So would have Bernie Sanders.
And brought in a Democratic-controlled Senate and House. Because both would have run a remarkably
campaign, under normal standards, not a special low bar.
An
organizational chart of Trump's transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists,
representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer,
Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is
positively
salivating over all the new opportunities they'll have to deliver goodies to their clients
in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?
The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is
considering
for his cabinet, and you won't find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little
guy. It's a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats - not much different
from who you'd find in any Republican administration.
And from reader EMichael in the Comments thread to this post about 35 minutes ago:
OH, it will be worse than that, much worse.
Bank regulation will go back to the "glory days" of the housing bubble, and Warren's CFPB will
be toast.
Buddy of mine works HR for a large bank. He has been flooded with resumes from current employees
of the CFPB the last couple of days.
Yup. HSBC ain't in that list for nothing. But, not to worry. Trump's kids will pick up lots of
real estate on the (real) cheap, after the crash. Their dad will give them all the tips, from experience.
And the breaking news this afternoon is that Pence–uh-ha;
this Mike Pence –has
replaced Christie as transition team head. Wanna bet that Comey told Trump today that Christie is
likely to be indicted in Bridgegate?
Next up, although down the road a few months: rumors that a grand jury has been convened to try
to learn how, exactly, Giuliani got all that info from inside the FBI two weeks ago. Once the FBI
inspector general completes his investigation. Or once New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman,
begins looking into violations of NY state criminal law.
"... my equation of Neoliberalism (or Post-Capitalism) = Wall Street + Identity Politics generated by the dematerialization of Capital. CDO's are nothing but words on paper or bytes in the stream; and identity politics has much less to do with the Body than the culture and language. Trumpists were interpellated as White by the Democrats and became ideological. Capital is Language. ..."
"... "Sanders and Trump inflamed their audiences with searing critiques of Capitalism's unfairness. Then what? Then Trump's response to what he has genuinely seen is, analytically speaking, word salad. Trump is sound and fury and garble. Yet - and this is key - the noise in his message increases the apparent value of what's clear about it. The ways he's right seem more powerful, somehow, in relief against the ways he's blabbing." ..."
"... But Trump's people don't use suffering as a metric of virtue. They want fairness of a sort, but mainly they seek freedom from shame. Civil rights and feminism aren't just about the law after all, they are about manners, and emotions too: those "interest groups" get right in there and reject what feels like people's spontaneous, ingrained responses. People get shamed, or lose their jobs, for example, when they're just having a little fun making fun. Anti-PC means "I feel unfree. ..."
"... The Trump Emotion Machine is delivering feeling ok, acting free. Being ok with one's internal noise, and saying it, and demanding that it matter. Internal Noise Matters. " my emp ..."
I thought someone above talked about Trump's rhetoric
1) Tom Ferguson at Real News Network post at Naked Capitalism says (and said in 2014) that
the Democratic coalition of Wall Street (Silicon Valley) + Identity Politics is imploding, because
it can't deliver populist goodies without losing part of it's core base.
Noted no for that, but for my equation of Neoliberalism (or Post-Capitalism) = Wall Street
+ Identity Politics generated by the dematerialization of Capital. CDO's are nothing but words
on paper or bytes in the stream; and identity politics has much less to do with the Body than
the culture and language. Trumpists were interpellated as White by the Democrats and became ideological.
Capital is Language.
2) Consider the above an intro to
Lauren
Berlant at the New Inquiry "Trump or Political Emotions" which I think is smart. Just a phrase
cloud that stood out for me. All following from Berlant, except parenthetical
It is a scene where structural antagonisms - genuinely conflicting interests - are described
in rhetoric that intensifies fantasy.
People would like to feel free. They would like the world to have a generous cushion for all
their aggression and inclination. They would like there to be a general plane of okayness governing
social relations
( Safe Space defined as the site where being nasty to those not inside is admired and approved.
We all have them, we all want them, we create our communities and identities for this purpose.)
"Sanders and Trump inflamed their audiences with searing critiques of Capitalism's unfairness.
Then what? Then Trump's response to what he has genuinely seen is, analytically speaking, word
salad. Trump is sound and fury and garble. Yet - and this is key - the noise in his message
increases the apparent value of what's clear about it. The ways he's right seem more powerful,
somehow, in relief against the ways he's blabbing."
(Wonderful, and a comprehension of New Media I rarely see. Cybernetics? Does noise increase
the value of signal? The grammatically correct tight argument crowd will not get this. A problem
I have with CT's new policy)
"You watch him calculating, yet not seeming to care about the consequences of what he says,
and you listen to his supporters enjoying the feel of his freedom. "
(If "civil speech" is socially approved signal, then noise = freedom and feeling. Every two
year old and teenage guitarist understands)
"But Trump's people don't use suffering as a metric of virtue. They want fairness of a
sort, but mainly they seek freedom from shame. Civil rights and feminism aren't just about the
law after all, they are about manners, and emotions too: those "interest groups" get right in
there and reject what feels like people's spontaneous, ingrained responses. People get shamed,
or lose their jobs, for example, when they're just having a little fun making fun. Anti-PC means
"I feel unfree."
The Trump Emotion Machine is delivering feeling ok, acting free. Being ok with one's internal
noise, and saying it, and demanding that it matter. Internal Noise Matters. " my emp
Noise again. Berlant worth reading, and thinking about.
What's bought [sic] us to this stage is a policy – whether it's been intentional
or unintentional or a mixture of both – of divide and rule, where society is broken down into
neat little boxes and were told how to behave towards the contents of each one rather than,
say, just behaving well towards all of them.
And this right here is why neoliberalism = identity politics and why both ought to be crushed
ruthlessly.
President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests,
is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have
too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.
Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications
clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications
Commission.
Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist whose clients include Devon Energy and Encana Oil and Gas, holds
the "energy independence" portfolio.
Michael Torrey, a lobbyist who runs a firm that has earned millions of dollars helping food
industry players such as the American Beverage Association and the dairy giant Dean Foods, is
helping set up the new team at the Department of Agriculture.
What? No steelworker? No auto-plant worker? Not even a family farmer? Might y'all have been
had ?
Who'd a thunk?
Bernie and Elizabeth to the rescue.
Now, please . Now .
But, hey, white blue collar folks: You get what you vote for. The problem for me is that I
get what you vote for. I said roughly 540 times here at AB in the last year: Trump isn't conquering
the Republican Party; he's the Republican Party's Trojan Horse. What was that y'all were saying about
wanting change so badly? Here it is.
Welcome to the concept of
industry regulatory capture
. Perfected to a science, and jaw-droppingly brazen.
LOL . Funny, but Bernie talked about this. Some of you listened. Then. Elizabeth Warren has talked
about it, a lot. Some of you listened. Back then. But she wasn't running for president. Hillary Clinton
was, instead. And
she couldn't talk about it because she had needed all those speaking fees , all the way up to
about a minute before she announced her candidacy.
Aaaaand, here come the judges. And of course the justices. Industry regulatory capture of the
judicial-branch variety.
I called this one right, in the title of
this post yesterday . I mean, why even wait until the body is buried? No reason at all.
So he thinks. But what if he's wrong?
Anyway … can't wait for the political cartoons showing Trump on Ryan's lap, with Ryan's arm showing
reaching up under Trump's suit jacket.
It's effing asinine . Everyone's entitled to their little personal delusions, but why the
obsessiveness about this patent silliness? What is exactly is the emotional hold that Hillary Clinton
holds on these people? It's climate-change-denial-like.
Elizabeth Warren would have beaten Donald Trump in a landslide. So would have Bernie Sanders.
And brought in a Democratic-controlled Senate and House. Because both would have run a remarkably
campaign, under normal standards, not a special low bar.
An
organizational chart of Trump's transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists,
representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer,
Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is
positively
salivating over all the new opportunities they'll have to deliver goodies to their clients
in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?
The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is
considering
for his cabinet, and you won't find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little
guy. It's a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats - not much different
from who you'd find in any Republican administration.
And from reader EMichael in the Comments thread to this post about 35 minutes ago:
OH, it will be worse than that, much worse.
Bank regulation will go back to the "glory days" of the housing bubble, and Warren's CFPB will
be toast.
Buddy of mine works HR for a large bank. He has been flooded with resumes from current employees
of the CFPB the last couple of days.
Yup. HSBC ain't in that list for nothing. But, not to worry. Trump's kids will pick up lots of
real estate on the (real) cheap, after the crash. Their dad will give them all the tips, from experience.
And the breaking news this afternoon is that Pence–uh-ha;
this Mike Pence –has
replaced Christie as transition team head. Wanna bet that Comey told Trump today that Christie is
likely to be indicted in Bridgegate?
Next up, although down the road a few months: rumors that a grand jury has been convened to try
to learn how, exactly, Giuliani got all that info from inside the FBI two weeks ago. Once the FBI
inspector general completes his investigation. Or once New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman,
begins looking into violations of NY state criminal law.
"... fundamentally antiracism and other identitarian programs are not only the left wing of neoliberalism
but active agencies in its imposition of a notion of the boundaries of the politically thinkable " ..."
"... Feminism…? gender discrimination….? racial equality ? …. racism ? Yes, OK, looks good, let's
see what works best for us…. ..."
"... There is still the issue that some professions are more prestigious or lucrative than others
and attract many individuals with a skill set that would better serve other functions. ..."
"... Valuing people for who they are and integrating them into the social order implies that they
have something to contribute and that they have a responsibility for making things better for others,
not just making themselves more comfortable in public. ..."
"... The idea that we have progressed past prior barbarisms … we have forgotten that "the past is
prologue" among other things. ..."
"... This label of progressivism is just so coy and unconvincing in the face of neoliberalism's
full spectrum dominance of all facets of society and culture. ..."
"... I know Reagan was no conservative and Thatcher lost all moorings as an enlightened Tory as
the "project" became all consuming to the detriment of all else. The Tory today isn't conservative –
far from it – a real ideolgical zealot for the promotion of "me, myself and (at most) my class" in most
cases. ..."
"... Is Progressivism just a balm for those who want to feel good about themselves but don't want
to do think about anything in particular? In fact, it is just a cover for I'm ok, screw you pal when
the chips are down? ..."
"These responses [show] how fundamentally antiracism and other identitarian programs
are not only the left wing of neoliberalism but active agencies in its imposition of a notion
of the boundaries of the politically thinkable "
Yes: there we have it.
Neoliberalism (unlike conservatism, often mistaken for each other) has NO social/cultural
values…or, perhaps, more precisely, it has ANY social/cultural values which directly/indirectly
advance the 0.1%'s Will to wealth & power. (Likely, "wealth" is redundant, as it's a manifestation
of power). Neoliberalism is powerful, like all great "evils" because it is completely protean.
( It makes the Nazi's look child-like & naive: after all, the Nazi's actually "believed"
in certain things… [ evil nonsense, but that's not the point at the moment].
Feminism…? gender discrimination….? racial equality ? …. racism ? Yes, OK, looks good,
let's see what works best for us….
I often wonder if liberalism goes hand in hand with the availability of energy and resources…
shrink these and witness a surge in all types of discrimination.
You will notice that genocides are closely tied to the availability and distribution of
resources… we humans seem to be masters at inventing all kinds of reasons to explain why we deserve
the loot and not others.
There is still the issue that some professions are more prestigious or lucrative than others
and attract many individuals with a skill set that would better serve other functions. And
we do this under the guise that we can do whatever we want if we try hard enough.
There is a difference between PC and truly valuing every individual in society no matter their
job or profession.
There is a difference between PC and truly valuing every individual in society no matter
their job or profession.
This.
Mere inclusiveness, while not in itself a bad thing–being aware of other people's circumstances
is simply polite–it doesn't really get you much further past where you already are and in large
part can be satisfied with better rhetoric (or better PR, if you insist on being cynical about
such things), all the while capitalism goes on its merry way, because no real pressure to change
has been applied. Valuing people for who they are and integrating them into the social order
implies that they have something to contribute and that they have a responsibility for making
things better for others, not just making themselves more comfortable in public.
What so often gets lost in these conversations about safe spaces and what have you is that
we should have a sense of shared responsibility, responding TO others' circumstances while also
being responsible FOR the conditions that oppress us all to greater and lesser degrees.
In other words, it's about checking your privilege AND seizing the means of production, because
without the second one, the first just ends up being mere window dressing.
EATF – I really like these. I'll be sad when they conclude!
The idea that we have progressed past prior barbarisms … we have forgotten that "the past
is prologue" among other things. Progressives think that if we completely forget the past,
then the memes that created the sins of the past will become unthinkable, that like interrupted
family violence, a chain will be broken and we can heal. Such people don't believe in the existence
of Evil.
As a socialist, what I miss is the conservative (small c) conversation in our daily affairs.
This label of progressivism is just so coy and unconvincing in the face of neoliberalism's
full spectrum dominance of all facets of society and culture. The conservative gave voice
and depth to our internal doubts about how the future was all brite and new – at least the few
conservatives I knew.
I wonder would a conservative voice (seemingly non-existent any more) have argued for a more
instructive change from industrialisation into what we've now become – might they have mitigated
the course and provided pointers to alternatives?
Maybe they did and I wasn't listening.
I know Reagan was no conservative and Thatcher lost all moorings as an enlightened Tory
as the "project" became all consuming to the detriment of all else. The Tory today isn't conservative
– far from it – a real ideolgical zealot for the promotion of "me, myself and (at most) my class"
in most cases.
Is Progressivism just a balm for those who want to feel good about themselves but don't
want to do think about anything in particular? In fact, it is just a cover for I'm ok, screw you
pal when the chips are down?
I never really liked Disney films as a kid and I certainly don't like them now – but each to
their own.
I'm glad you're making these points. The arc of the story mirrors a number of conversations
I've been having lately with people from poor, white, rural backgrounds. The insistence by good
liberals of making a show of their concern for, and outrage over, both major and minor affronts
to people of color, women, LGBTQI people, etc., while at the same time making jokes about toothless,
inbred trailer-trash, is starting to really piss some people off. These are not conservative people.
These are people to the left of Chomsky.
For some reason, you can slander and shame poor white folks all you want…oh yeah, it's because
they're deplorable racist, fundamentalist Christians who vote for evil Republicans and probably
don't even have a GED, much less a college degree…so f- 'em. The good liberals, on the other hand,
are highly-educated, fundamentalist secular humanists, who've been to college and vote for evil
Democrats…which makes them God's chosen people, apparently. The rest are blasphemers, barely even
human, and deserve whatever they get.
Until we make a real commitment to both listening to everyone's suffering and then to doing
practical things, now, to remedy that suffering, we'll be doomed to Dollary Clump elections and
divide-and-conquer tactics forever after. Let's not go down that road, how about? How's about
let's try treating each other with respect and compassion for once, just to see how it goes? Every
other way lies damnation, imho.
Sorry: I'm not buying this episode: For instance, maybe the reason for the stress on smartness
is plain old class warfare.
The U.S. slavishly follows English fashions, and one of the fashions in England (with which
we have that Special Relationship) is that the upper classes made sure that their kids got into
Eton, Cambridge, Oxford–the whole self-perpetuating educational system of the Pythonesque English
"smart" twit.
So the U S of A has imitated its betters in producing a lot of Tony Blairs. Exhibit A: Chelsea
Clinton.
This has little to do with smartness. It is all about class privilege. (Which has little
to do with postmodernism and its supposed piercing insights.)
The title- Neoliberalisms Boarder Guard" – and this quote:
"Looking now at the other two principles – postmodernism and suffering – Wendy Brown
foretold that, as foci, they would be unable to coexist. Since the time of her prediction,
the balance between the two has shifted dramatically, and it has become clear that Brown was
rooting for the losing side. "
combine to make me wonder. Does liberalism simply accommodate itself to the prevailing ruling
power structure, regardless of that structure's philosophy? Is liberalism today a philosophy or
a social emollient? Desirable social traits do not challenge the ruling neoliberal philosophy,
although they make create a nice space within neoliberalism.
Not buying this episode: "High profile instances of genocide and torture don't appear every
day, and commitment flags without regular stimulation. And so we have taken seriously at least
one idea from postmodernism, the fascination with slight conceptual nuances, and the faith or
fear that these nuances can produce enormously consequential effects."
Oh really?
This sentence is on the order of, Who speaks of the Armenians?
Guantanamo is high profile. Homan Square is high profile. Yemen is genocide. What are the Dakota
Pipeline protests about? Genocide. Your bourgeois eyeglasses just don't allow you to look. It
has nothing to do with micro-aggressions.
The success of [civil rights and anti-apartheid] movements did not end racism, but drove
it underground, allowing neoliberals to exploit racist and tribalist political support while
pursuing the interests of wealth and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white)
poor.
That coalition has now been replaced by one in which the tribalists and racists are dominant.
For the moment at least, [hard] neoliberals continue to support the parties they formerly controlled,
with the result that the balance of political forces between the right and the opposing coalition
of soft neoliberals and the left has not changed significantly.
There's an ambiguity in this narrative and in the three-party analysis.
Do we acknowledge that the soft neoliberals in control of the coalition that includes the inchoate
left also "exploit racist and tribalist political support while pursuing the interests of wealth
and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white) poor."? They do it with a different
style and maybe with some concession to economic melioration, as well as supporting anti-racist
and feminist policy to keep the inchoate left on board, but . . .
The new politics of the right has lost faith in the hard neoliberalism that formerly furnished
its policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich, war in the Middle East and so on, leaving the impure
resentment ungoverned and unfocused, as you say.
The soft neoliberals, it seems to me, are using anti-racism to discredit economic populism
and its motivations, using the new politics of the right as a foil.
The problem of how to oppose racism and tribalism effectively is now entangled with soft neoliberal
control of the remaining party coalition, which is to say with the credibility of the left party
as a vehicle for economic populism and the credibility of economic populism as an antidote for
racism or sexism. (cf js. @ 1,2)
The form of tribalism used to mobilize the left entails denying that an agenda of economic
populism is relevant to the problems of sexism and racism, because the deplorables must be deplored
to get out the vote. And, because the (soft) neoliberals in charge must keep economic populism
under control to deliver the goods to their donor base.
"... Grenville regards understanding the opposition to globalization by the Trump constituency as essential. If we are discussing America, we do not need to look to illegal immigration, or undocumented workers to find hostility to out-group immigrants along religious and ethnic lines. ..."
"... These tendencies are thrown into sharper relief when this hostility is directed towards successfully assimilated immigrants of a different color who threaten the current occupants of a space – witness the open racism and hostility displayed towards Japanese immigrants on the west coast 1900-1924, or so. A similar level of hostility is sometimes/often displayed towards Koreans. The out-grouping in Japan is tiered and extends to ethnicity and language of groups within the larger Japanese community, as it does in the UK, although not as commonly along religious lines as it does elsewhere. ..."
"... European workers have done much better in the new global economy.(The problems in Europe center around mass migration of people who resist assimilation and adoption of a Humanistic world view.) The answer is simple and horrifying. ..."
"... A large percentage of American workers consistently vote against their own interest which has allowed the republican party in service to a powerful elite billionaire class ..."
"... The combination of these reliable cadre of deplorables , controlled by faux news and hate radio , and the lack of political engagement by the low income Americans , has essentially turned power over to the billionaire class. ..."
I read an interesting piece in the Nikkei, hardly an left-leaning publication citing Arlie
Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right."
Doubtless some here would like to see more misery heaped upon those who do not look to the
Democratic party as saviors, but Hochschild is rarely regarded as a defender of the American right.
Few dispute that a significant subset of any given population is going to regard in-group/out-group
distinctions along the highly imprecise lines of 'race' and ethnicity, or religion. The question,
for some, is what percentage?
The Nikkei article by Stephen Grenville concludes: Over the longer term, the constituency for
globalization has to be rebuilt, the methodology for multilateral trade agreements has to be revived…"
Grenville regards understanding the opposition to globalization by the Trump constituency
as essential. If we are discussing America, we do not need to look to illegal immigration, or
undocumented workers to find hostility to out-group immigrants along religious and ethnic lines.
These tendencies are thrown into sharper relief when this hostility is directed towards
successfully assimilated immigrants of a different color who threaten the current occupants of
a space – witness the open racism and hostility displayed towards Japanese immigrants on the west
coast 1900-1924, or so. A similar level of hostility is sometimes/often displayed towards Koreans.
The out-grouping in Japan is tiered and extends to ethnicity and language of groups within
the larger Japanese community, as it does in the UK, although not as commonly along religious
lines as it does elsewhere.
Generally, I think John is right. The term 'racist' no longer carries any of the stigma
it once held in part because the term is deployed so cynically and freely as to render it practically
meaningless. HRC and Bill and their supporters (including me, at one time) are racists for as
long as its convenient and politically expedient to call them racists. Once that moment has passed,
the term 'racist' is withdrawn and replaced with something like Secretary of State, or some other
such title.
I've no clear 'solution' other than to support a more exact and thoughtful discussion of the
causes of fear and anxiety that compels people to bind together into in-groups and out-groups,
and to encourage the fearful to take a few risks now and again.
I've no clear 'solution' other than to support a more exact and thoughtful discussion of the causes
of fear and anxiety that compels people to bind together into in-groups and out-groups, and to
encourage the fearful to take a few risks now and again.
Here's my take on this. The question
to ask is why has this happened? European workers have done much better in the new global
economy.(The problems in Europe center around mass migration of people who resist assimilation
and adoption of a Humanistic world view.) The answer is simple and horrifying.
A large percentage of American workers consistently vote against their own interest which
has allowed the republican party in service to a powerful elite billionaire class form a
reliable cadre of highly visible and highly vocal deplorables which even though slightly less
than half the population of those who bother to vote have virtually shut down democratic safeguards
which could have mitigated what has happened due to globalization. The combination of these
reliable cadre of deplorables , controlled by faux news and hate radio , and the lack of political
engagement by the low income Americans , has essentially turned power over to the billionaire
class.
... ... ...
Alesis 10.30.16 at 12:13 pm
A strategy that doesn't work inside the tent is DOA outside it. As it stands many liberals (largely
white and this is an important distinction) share with the right a deep discomfort with acknowledging
the centrality of racism to American politics.
Race is the foundational organizing principle
of American life and it represents a considerable strain to keep it in focus. Donald Trump will
win the majority of white voters as the racial resentment coalition has since the 1930s. An effective
strategy for the long term is focused on breaking that near century long hold.
I'd suggest the direct approach. Call racism what it is and ask white voters directly what
good it has done for them lately. Did railing against Mexican rapists brings any jobs back?
Or the racism of the middle class. People are tribal and arguably it is baked into our DNA.
That doesn't excuse the mental laziness of trafficking in stereotypes but one could make a case
that racism is as much a matter of ignorance as of evil character.
Obama with his "bitter clingers" and HIllary with her "deplorables" are talking about people
about whom they probably know almost nothing.
One of the long ago arguments for school integration was that propinquity fosters mutual understanding.
This met with a lot of resistance. And for people like our Pres and would be Pres a broader view
of the electorate would be inconvenient.
Identity politics provides cover for, and diversion from, class rule and from the deeper structures
of class, race, gender, empire, and eco-cide that haunt American and global life today – structures
that place children of liberal white North Side Chicago professionals in posh 40 th -story
apartments overlooking scenic Lake Michigan while consigning children of felony-branded Black custodians
and fast food workers to cramped apartments in crime-ridden South Side neighborhoods where nearly
half the kids are growing up at less than half the federal government's notoriously inadequate poverty
level. Most of the Black kids in deeply impoverished and hyper-segregated neighborhoods like Woodlawn
and Englewood (South Side) or North Lawndale and Garfield Park (West Side) can forget not only about
going to a World Series game but even about watching one on television. Their parents don't have
cable and the Fox Sports 1 channel. There's few if any local restaurants and taverns with big-screen
televisions in safe walking distance from their homes. Major League Baseball ticket prices being
what they are, few of the South Side kids have even seen the White Sox – Chicago's South Side American
League team, whose ballpark lacks the affluent white and gentrified surroundings of Wrigley Field.
(Thanks in no small part to the urban social geography of race and class in Chicago, the White Sox
winning the World Series in 2005 – thei
... ... ...
There is, yes, I know, the problem of Democrats in the White House functioning to stifle social movements
and especially peace activism (the antiwar movement has still yet to recover from the Obama experience).
But there's more good news here about a Hillary presidency. Not all Democratic presidents are equally
good at shutting progressive activism down. As the likely Green Party presidential candidate Jill
Stein (for whom I took five minutes to early vote in a "contested state" three weeks ago) noted in
an interview with me last April (when the White Sox still held first place in their division), Hillary
Clinton will have considerably less capacity to deceive and bamboozle progressive and young workers
and citizens than Barack Obama enjoyed in 2007-08 . "Obama," Stein noted, was fairly new on the
scene. Hillary," by contrast, "has been a warmonger who never found a war she didn't love forever!"
Hillary's corporatist track record – ably documented in Doug Henwood's book
My
Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency (her imperial track record receives equally
impressive treatment in Diana Johnstone's volume
Queen of Chaos:
The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton ) – is also long and transparently bad. All that and
Mrs. Clinton's remarkable lacks of charisma and trustworthiness could be useful for left activism
and politics in coming years.
For what it's worth, the first and most urgent place to restore such activism and politics
is in the area where Barack Obama has been most deadening: foreign policy, also known (when conducted
by the U.S.) as imperialism. When it comes to prospects for World War III, it is by no means clear
that the saber-rattling, regime-changing, NATO-expanding, and Russia-baiting Hillary Clinton is the
"lesser evil" compared to the preposterous Trump. That's no small matter. During a friend's birthday
party the night the Cubs clinched the National League pennant, I asked fellow celebrants and inebriates
if they were prepared for the fundamental realignment of the space-time continuum that was coming
when the North Siders won the league championship. That was a joke, of course, but there's nothing
funny about the heightened chances of a real downward existential adjustment resulting from war between
nuclear superpowers when the "lying neoliberal warmonger" Hillary Clinton gets into office and insists
on recklessly imposing a so-called no-fly zone over Russia-allied Syria.
"... In two party politics, generally political parties are mediating institutions, which moderate the claims of the interest groups composing them. However, when it switches to immutable characteristics, political parties become the vehicles of extremism, as each party tries to the "outbid" the other party in claims for dominance for its members. Further, each victory by the rival party spurs fears and polarization by the losers. Generally, you see de-stablization and violence in its wake. Its a good way to destroy a democracy. ..."
Then comes the final punchline, "Lives That Matter." Obviously, the answer to the question
is "black." But Doug has "a lot to say about this." Which suggests that he doesn't think the answer
is that simple. Perhaps he thinks "all lives matter," or that "blue lives matter," the phrasing
used by those who defend the status quo of policing and criminal justice. Either way, this puts
him in direct conflict with the black people he's befriended. As viewers, we know that "Black
Lives Matter" is a movement against police violence, for the essential safety and security of
black Americans. It's a demand for fair and equal treatment as citizens, as opposed to a pervasive
assumption of criminality.
Thompson, Zamata, and Jones might see a lot to like in Doug, but if he can't sign on to the
fact that black Americans face unique challenges and dangers, then that's the end of the game.
Tucked into this six-minute sketch is a subtle and sophisticated analysis of American politics.
It's not that working blacks and working whites are unable to see the things they have in common;
it's that the material interests of the former-freedom from unfair scrutiny, unfair detention,
and unjust killings-are in direct tension with the identity politics of the latter (as represented
in the sketch by the Trump hat). And in fact, if Hanks' character is a Trump supporter, then all
the personal goodwill in the world doesn't change the fact that his political preferences are
a direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of his new friends, a fact they recognize.
What Bouie doesn't seem to get is that black identity politics and the preferences of those who
espouse them are a direct threat to the livelihoods and interests of many whites - and even, at times,
their lives (
hello, Brian Ogle! ).
Consider this insanity from Michigan State University, pointed out by a reader this morning. It's
the Facebook page of Which Side
Are You On? , radical student organization whose stated purpose is:
Michigan State University has chosen to remain silent on the issue of racial injustice and
police brutality. We demand that the administration release a statement in support of the Movement
for Black Lives; and, in doing so, affirms the value of the lives of its students, alumni, and
future Spartans of color while recognizing the alienation and oppression that they face on campus.
In the absence of open support, MSU is taking the side of the oppressor.
Got that? Either 100 percent agree with them, or you are a racist oppressor. It's fanatical, and
it's an example of bullying. But as we have seen over the past year, year and a half, Black Lives
Matter and related identity politics movements (Which Side Are You On? says it is not affiliated
with BLM) are by no means only about police brutality. If they were, this wouldn't be a hard call.
No decent person of any race supports police brutality. To use Bouie's terms, the material interests
of non-progressive white people are often in direct tension with the identity politics of many blacks
and their progressive non-black allies. This is true beyond racial identity politics. It's true of
LGBT identity politics also. But progressives can't see that, because to them, what they do is not
identity politics; it's just politics.
You cannot practice and extol identity politics for groups favored by progressives without
implicitly legitimizing identity politics for groups disfavored by progressives.
Some of my best friends are supporters of police brutality.
In all seriousness, if one's identity preference is for dominance by your group, then obviously,
a member of your group dominating the other group isn't going to bother you. Nor, on the other
side, will you be troubled if your group shoots perceived agents of the other side. But note,
the justification for racial primacy or racial supremacy is always rhetorically made by asserting
claims or the threat of racial primacy or racial supremacy by the Other. Further, racial tensions
are always caused by the behavior of the Other, and your groups actions are always "self defense".
Of course, your actions are always portrayed as "aggression" by the Other, and lead to ratcheting
up of anti-social behavior, but hey.
I sort of assume that is not how most whites feel, but the reality is whether it is or not,
if you turn the political question from legal equality for blacks to legal primacy or dominance,
then you will push whites into taking the adversary position.
In two party politics, generally political parties are mediating institutions, which moderate
the claims of the interest groups composing them. However, when it switches to immutable characteristics,
political parties become the vehicles of extremism, as each party tries to the "outbid" the other
party in claims for dominance for its members. Further, each victory by the rival party spurs
fears and polarization by the losers. Generally, you see de-stablization and violence in its wake.
Its a good way to destroy a democracy.
I love "Black Lives Matter" as a slogan, because it is ambiguous enough to be either a claim
for dominance or primacy. Obviously, whether a BLM will support the assertion "All Lives Matter"
is a litmus test for whether they are asserting racial supremacy or racial primacy. But plausible
deniability is baked in.
I don't mind identity politics, by which I assume you mean people appealing to voters to vote
for their pet interest because it will help people with a particular set of characteristics or
"identity". This is just people looking out for and lobbying the voting public on their interests,
which is what democracy is all about.
What I don't like is the stunning illogic and flawed reasoning behind some of the appeals,
such as the "you're either with BLM or against black people" arguments, the policing of miniscule
variations in speech (eg pronouns) as signs of haaaaaaaate, and the labeling of all white people
as "white supremacists" unless they self-flagellate and take personal blame for all the police
shootings. And, I think these people know that the reasoning is flawed. It's just that they also
know that if you repeat it long and loud enough and have enough leaders behind you willing to
fire or otherwise silence anyone who points out the flaws in your arguments, then you can convince
everyone that it all makes sense.
I think what is being lost is really the underlying logic of morality itself. Kids are being
taught that it doesn't matter what your intention is, it doesn't matter what your reasoning is,
it doesn't even matter whether an outcome is predictable from your action. What matters is how
the people in identity groups feel about your action. It's consequentialism run amok.
It's as if someone took Catholic reasoning on morality (grave matter, full knowledge, deliberate
consent, don't do wrong things in order to achieve good ends, principle of double effect), reversed
it, and then decided that this upside-down reasoning will be our new publicly mandated morality.
It's fascinating to watch but I feel a bit frightened for my children, because they will have
to deal with this new and deeply flawed public morality.
"Let me explain something to you. Are you sitting down? Because this is going to come as a shock.
Ready? We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of people fought
and died to end white supremacy. Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some
sort of chosen people because of the color of their skin is regress, and puts that progress towards
equal justice for all, regardless of their skin color, in jeopardy."
For the most part, probably a fair observation. And it only took a couple of hundred years
(or more, depending on where you chose to say "white identity politics" started and when (or if)
you chose to say it ended).
Low long have black identity politics had any influence?
How long does it take, and at what "price" to atone for the past? Haven't we been grappling
with that since Lincoln's second inaugural address?
Will black identity politics be around longer than that? And when will white identity politics
end? Not to mention all of the other identity politics in society. But, identity politics always
takes at least two sides. You can never have identity politics without "the other." Black identity
politics wouldn't last without white identity politics, and vice versa. So too for feminism identity
politics, religious identity politics…and…so…on… Each has its counterpart on the other side.
In a perfect world, identity politics would not exist, but in the real world, they have existed
for as long as politics.
Not that I don't see some hope. By and large, the younger generation gives me every hope that,
some day, we might get over this, but probably not until a few score more generational replacements
happen. But that too, might be a source of reassurance. A few score generations isn't really that
long a time, after all.
How in the blue blazes do you possibly do you go from folks having confidence in the police
to them ALSO NOT being bothered by police brutality? How are those two things linked in your mind?
Can you not possibly fathom that another human being could have confidence in an institution (or
a group) while ALSO condemning the bad actors in that institution (or group)? Or in your mind
do a few bad actors condemn an entire group?
Here is your "logic" re-written in another way. Does it help you see my point?
61% of non-white people have either "very little" or a "no" of confidence in the police. I'm not
saying all 61% of those people are OK with attacking or murdering the police, but they seem not
to be that bothered by it.
Now possibly I am the only who finds your thought process disturbing and wonders how many other
folks make the same leap of absurdity.
In reply the religious liberty comments, I think almost everyone who supports BLM would say that
it is about giving African Americans basic human rights in the United States. You might not agree
with that, but that's how things stand from their point of view. To many liberals, religious liberty
seems like special pleading, even though to you it seems like the advancement of a universal principal.
"Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing
another." Karl Marx
"All that is not race in this world is trash… All historical events… are only the expression
of the race's instinct of self-preservation." Adolf Hitler
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly
and applying the wrong remedies." Groucho Marx
I do not think that all politics is "identity" politics.
The Populists going after the gold standard, or the New Dealers attempting to deal with the
problems of labor and capital, where not primarily about identity politics.
Certainly, there was lots of identity politics on the state level, whether in the South, or
in states like NY, in the battle between upstate WASPs and ethnic political machines in NYC.
Today we are increasingly nationalizing identity politics. Moreover, we are mainstreaming a
slogan based on racial primacy /supremacy, e.g. "Black Lives Matter". You are seeing increasing
attacks on traditional American symbols and calls for their replacement with "diverse" symbols.
This is not just identity politics, it is ethnopolitics.
The reality is that the political symbol is in the heart of the people a promise that they'll
be treated preferentially. I think that is part of the racial tension post-Obama. We elected an
African-American, who appointed a lot of African-Americans, but on the street, he hasn't done
$#!+ to help Blacks.
Now, if I thought that whites would just lay down and not resist racial subjugation and discrimination,
I wouldn't be concerned. But I doubt whites are seriously going to go gracefully into that good
night as the bottom rung of a racial caste system.
"Virtue signaling" is very different from "virtue"–you can't tell a white nationalist from
a white liberal based on their housing or dating preferences.
If whites collectively grow to FEAR other groups politically, say due to demographic displacement
and claims by minorities for primacy/supremacy, they will change teams overnight. All this anti-racism
rhetoric presupposes white noblese oblige and security.
Any serious movement from equality to some claim of primacy or supremacy is likely to trigger
a counter-movement toward a claim of primacy or supremacy by the other group. Moreover, once you
polarize racially, the political process encourages extremism, not moderation.
One reason not to worship the U.S. Constitution is the limited understanding of factionalism
by Madison, who accounted for interest group factions (which can break up or wax and wane) but
failed to consider identity group factions based on immutable characteristics. It is these identity-based
factions which frequently destroy attempts to create liberal democracy the world over.
The reality is that representative democracy is only an effective system in ethnically homogeneous
societies with a strong ethic of individualism (rooted in Protestant ancestors). While Korea and
Japan get along politically, their political systems are "different" from a Western perspective,
mostly due to lower levels of individualism.
China is probably a better model for most countries than liberal democracy, because multiethnic
societies generally degenerate into authoritarianism anyway.
This is why, given multiculturalism and secularism, the likelihood of a serious institutional
transformation in America seems increasingly a certain bet.
Here's the brutal truth. We created Black Lives Matter.
We did it with 400 years of brutal policies, physical violence, economic apartheid and ill
conceived do gooder nonsense that could not even begin to counter the former impacts.
In the 1950's and 1960's you had one branch of the Federal Government - the Federal Housing
Authority– both building low income housing in the decaying neighborhoods that were the result
of FHA red-lining polices that were was causing the decay - total madness. The black community
has yet to recover from that by the way - trillions in lost equity in today's dollars.
We are incredibly lucky to JUST have Black Lives Matter. It's a miracle that the black community
hasn't amassed in force and burned large swaths of this country to the ground peppering us with
automatic weapons fire along the way for good measure.
It's a testament to their fortitude, generosity and patience as a people. That they have formed
this group is inevitable.
To lump BLM in with the white coddled SJW ignores their unique history and context. BLM has
no obligation whatsoever to be rational, or contrite, or forgiving, or magnanimous.
What has that ever gotten them in this country? Here's a hint, f%$k all. That's what it's gotten
them.
[NFR: Well, BLM can behave however it wants to, but don't be surprised if being irrational
and bullying gets you nowhere, except on campus run by noodle-spined administrators. - RD]
On the other hand, the notion of color-blind standards is a joke.
If you belong to a group that has an average IQ of 100 in economic competition with a group
that has an average IQ of 85, and you believe that hiring/firing be based on merit, you are promoting
a standard that benefits your group over the other guys.
Likewise, if you are from the second group, you are arguing for proportional representation
in the work force (and especially the elite), and you are promoting a standard that benefits your
group over the other guys.
If you look at Anglo-Saxons v. Blacks, Anglo-Saxons always want meritocracy.
However, if you look at elite admissions in the early 20th Century, when Anglo-Saxons were
competing against Jews, they implemented a quota system that benefited Anglo-Saxons. They also
generated a lot of Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories blaming their failures on Jewish nepotism,
rather than say Jews just being smarter.
The problem for America is someone will decide on a standard, and that decision will privilege
one group over another. Always.
The more groups, the more divisive and polarizing each decision becomes, until democracy stops
being capable of functioning, e.g. making decisions, even bad ones.
You can have "racial equality", but not "racial equality" in accordance with a definition that
all groups will ever agree upon. Further, many persons in all groups will secretly desire supremacy
no matter the rhetoric, so will work to undermine and limit nominal "equality" every political
chance they get.
" A lot of people fought and died to end white supremacy"
And what has it done? American social capital has been destroyed, our society is slowly turning
into an atomized hell, and our politics will increasingly resemble tribal warfare. The fiction
that we could make race irrelevant needs to die, group differences are real and ethnic tribalism
is hardwired into humans by our DNA. Our founders chose to limit citizenship to whites of good
character for a reason, just as Japan seeks to remain Japanese for a reason. Diversity + close
proximity = war
All politics is not identity politics. America has a rich tradition in positions of relative privilege
taking on the political cause of disenfranchised groups.
Given how many well off white people, including men, are Democrats, I really don't see why
progressives would even make that argument.
This article showed me how many people in the US live a completely different life than I do. Not
only did it change my understanding of race relations and prompt a great deal more study but it
made me more aware, generally, of how little I know of how the other 99.9% live.
Lots of hypocrites in this comment thread commenting that "identity politics is just politics,
period." Okay, white nationalism it is, then! Time to bring David Duke back out from whatever
rock he's been under and put him at the top of the ticket. Maybe Louis Farrakhan can run for something,
too. After all, why would anti-semitism ever go out of fashion, anyway! Isnt' that just identity
politics which is just regular politics, like marginal tax cuts and subsidies for electric cars?
-I don't think it's that difficult to understand the anger, stridency, and even vitriol coming
from SJW/BLM supporters. With BLM, it's a mostly righteous indignation over a long history of
abusive police tactics and laws, exploded by multiple recent captured instances of police abuse.
As for LGBTQ-issues, I think many advocates–especially those in the vanguard–view themselves
as participants in the Second Civil Rights Movement–that the laws and cultural attitudes they
are fighting against are analogous to Jim Crow and racism. There is some degree of truth to this.
The danger comes with the disturbingly common–or at least effective–practice of refusing to
grant their opponents *any* goodwill. Like racists, opponents of full legal and cultural inclusion–if
not acceptance–are deemed to be totally devoid of any redeeming features, and thus ought to be
opposed relentlessly and by any means necessary. The same goes for those who aren't indulgent
or repentant enough. We can partly thank the poisonous legacy of Marcuse's "tolerance" for this.
We can also thank old-fashioned lust for power–especially to take down "the elite" or to take
revenge–and the intoxicating feeling of being on the cutting edge of righteousness.
How do you deal with this? As KD suggested above, if one group sees itself as against others
and acts accordingly, then those others will fall into the "tribal struggle" mindset as well.
If extremist social justice advocates (SJAs) define themselves in opposition to other attitudes,
values, etc–and more importantly, if they refuse to engage in respectful dialogue and are not
willing to compromise–then those who endorse those attitudes, values, etc will inevitably see
themselves as being defined through opposition to SJAs. Thus the poison of identity politics–it
exacerbates, rather than seeks to contain Us vs Them antagonism.
The only ways I see out of it are direct, full-throated defenses of SJA's targets–such as last
year's "Coddling of the American Mind" and U Chicago's defense of free expression and respectful
challenging debate. Ignoring it–as many seem wont to do by dismissals of "oh, they're just stupid
college kids, they'll grow out of it"–isn't viable because though many will, some will pursue
positions of power and influence. Besides, the less challenged, the more the extreme views will
be seen as respectable if not correct.
-The debate over which groups are or are not practicing identity politics: In (academic) political
theory, "identity politics" narrowly refers to a style of politics based on the self-organization
of *oppressed* groups and pursuit of policy changes to their advantage. Identity comes to the
forefront of members of oppressed groups' consciousness because it is that defining characteristic
that puts them in an inferior position.
The way some have described it here suggests it's more like practicing politics in a way meant
to provide benefits for oneself–but that's just self-interest. A better broad view of identity
politics would focus on the deliberate and open advocacy of benefits for a particular group one
is a member of, when that group is defined by a specific and fundamental trait relevant to one's
sense of self. In other words, if the phrase "As a (adjective) (personal-characteristic noun),
I believe/support/oppose X" is central to your approach to politics, you're practicing identity
politics.
JWJ, you are missing the entire point of identity politics.
The morality inheres in the identity, not in the behavior.
If brutality occurs, it is not a behavior, it is an identity ("Police"). If you are confident
in "Police" you are thus confident in "brutality" because the behavior is not separable from the
identity. And for similar reasons, your confidence in brutes means that you, too are a brute (of
course this goes double if you are white, since all whites are brutes, for similar reasons).
Identity politics is the refusal to separate identity from acts. Whiteness *is* slaveowning,
blackness *is* victimhood, and so on, regardless of whether one has ever owned or been a slave;
these things are irrelevant; they inhere in the identity.
How long does it take, and at what "price" to atone for the past? Haven't we been grappling
with that since Lincoln's second inaugural address?
But here's the problem. It's not like the whites who are supporting Trump got fat, rich and
happy during their period of "white identity." Whatever privilege attaches to whiteness it hasn't
exactly trickled down (even in a Trumped-up fashion) to Trump voters. No doubt Mr. Bonner is either
upper middle class or high status (academic, journalist or government employee). But low status
whites see the world a bit differently. This is the real tragedy (or, if you're a fat cat, the
beauty) of the situation. The lower classes will always fight among themselves for scraps, the
high status (but often low pay) elites would scold the various parties for their various thoughtcrimes
and the fat cats will high five and do the truffle shuffle, bouncing their greased bellies against
each other. Thanks for doing your part.
"Now, you can try to make an argument that they are wrong, that they *are* getting equal treatment
from law enforcement and that this is all in their heads. You can try, but in all fairness, the
anecdotal and empirical evidence seem not to be on your side."
No, when correcting for crime rates, there is no racial discrepancy in police killings. In
fact, blacks are underrepresented and whites overrepresent, given the underlying proportion of
criminality in the communities.
"Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some sort of chosen people because
of the color of their skin is regress,
Who, exactly, is making this argument? Not BLM and not the mainstream liberal political establishment.
"
Uh, Hilary "whites must listen" Clinton. And lots more.
"However, if you look at elite admissions in the early 20th Century, when Anglo-Saxons were competing
against Jews, they implemented a quota system that benefited Anglo-Saxons. "
Why shouldn't the people who, you know, built the universities remain in charge of them? No
one asks Brandeis to become a WASP bastion.
"In the 1950's and 1960's you had one branch of the Federal Government - the Federal Housing Authority–
both building low income housing in the decaying neighborhoods that were the result of FHA red-lining
polices that were was causing the decay - total madness. The black community has yet to recover
from that by the way - trillions in lost equity in today's dollars"
LOL, someone's been drinking the TNC Kool-aid (purple, I imagine). It causes people to reverse
causality.
The neighborhoods were redlined because they were poor risk. They were poor risk because of
their demographic composition.
"It's a miracle that the black community hasn't amassed in force and burned large swaths of this
country to the ground peppering us with automatic weapons fire along the way for good measure."
There's not one word in the BLM guiding principles page about the police. Not one word. If you
go to their home pager and click on "what we believe" this is what you get.
If we would look into how much blacks have been killed by the police last year, the figure will
be about few hundred at maximum. If we would look into the same category for whites, the result
will be few thouthands, minimum. If we look into the statistics abut the main cause of death for
the same period, it will be black on black homicide for blacks and car accident for whites. Also,
blacks are about 13% of the American population or so, but make at least as much homicides as
whites do. And most homicides are comitted within offenders race group.
If anything, whites become targets of poluce brutality much more often. And yet, BLM are out
there preching, as if police is hunting them for no reason. That's everything you need to know
about BLM and their so called care about black lives.
That's the main problems with such groups. They don't really want to improve the lot of the
groups they are supposedly fighting for. They are just exaggerating the problem and imitating
fighting for something important, because they'll get money and recognition for it. Without real
risk to boot.
The BLM radical movement is built on a lie. Blacks are 12% of the population yet commit 53% of
murders and 70% of gun crime. In this era of cell phones, know the number of black people who
have dubious interactions with police, thanks to the scandalous behavior of the news media. We
can be sure police brutality is not an epidemic because the examples offered as evidence are,at
best , dubious. Each example given, eg Ferguson Missouri or Trayvon Martin, are at best arguably
due to the bad behavior by the black person. The real epidemic is black crime, black fatherlessness,
and too many people indulging this "I'm a victim" culture. Shame on you Mr. Dreher for delineation
this into a black and white cipher in this article. The entire country suffers from this epidemic
of black crime and the false narrative that black people are mistreated by society. This is just
another example of the madness on the political left the radical extreme hateful positions that
are exposed on that side it seems solely.
"What Bouie doesn't seem to get is that black identity politics and the preferences of those who
espouse them are a direct threat to the livelihoods and interests of many whites - and even, at
times, their lives (hello, Brian Ogle!)."
OK, livelihoods and interests I can understand even if there's the fact that if you're an average
white dude, an international student, a student with a soccer scholarship, an out of state student,
or a a legacy admission is just as likely to knock you out of your preferred school as a non-white
student is.
However, can you point me to the radio host, politician, TV commentator, or even popular Twitter
celebrity who says the people who killed Brian Ogle should go free?
Because on the other hand, there's plenty of politicians, TV commentators, writers, radio hosts,
etc. who think the police are doing a great job and that police brutality is just a liberal myth.
But in general, the whole paragraph is why for the most part, black Americans will never trust
white conservatives – you seem to imply that black Americans want carte blanche to kill white
people while in reality, black people just want to be treated as well as a confirmed mass murderer
was treated by police – to be fed some Burger King like Dylan Roof perhaps.
A moderate, peaceful, and democratic form of white identity politics that was widely representative
of the white population would be acceptable as far as I am concerned. The problem is that white
nationalists can't go two seconds without demonizing Jews, denying the holocaust, trying to justify
the Confederacy, attacking the basic assumptions of liberal democracy, and admiring various obscure
mid-20th century fascist/pseudo-fascist far right intellectuals. In that sense, white nationalists
are the equivalent of the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, as opposed to the NAACP
or BLM. That does not mean that BLM and the NAACP are not harmful to the interests of whites,
but they do not advocate a separate black ethnostate, antisemitism, or ethnic cleansing of whites.
Just watched the SNL skit. Best thing they have done all election season. It's important we understand
the motivations behind Trump's rise instead of pushing them under the surface where they fester.
I hate the term "identity politics." Identity politics are politics. Straight white people, even
liberals (hello Bernie bros), often try to exclude themselves from the definition by casting their
own thoughts as neutral while casting everyone with a marked "identity" as practicing identity
politics. People are always speaking from a point of view, and in politics they are usually advocating
to change things that negatively impact a group they are associated with.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?
I agree that certain groups, especially at the university level, take into a totalitarian direction,
but casting some activism as "identity politics" while excluding other forms of special pleading
makes no sense to me.
I agree that *all* identity politics are a moral poison, white, black, Christian, Muslim, or anything
else. It is a sad fact of human nature that we are tribal and care more for people like ourselves.
This reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan. If we are to follow the parable, then
we are to treat others of different religions and different countries exactly as if they our neighbors,
meaning as if they are in our tribe. This is quite the opposite of identity politics.
"freedom from unfair scrutiny, unfair detention, and unjust killings" for blacks…. are a
direct threat to the livelihoods and interests of many whites.
I've moved things around a bit but in essence this is correct.
If I've got this wrong Rod, kindly let me know how.
Huh.
I didn't realize that oppressing blacks was such a huge industry for white people.
It seems somehow relevant in the context of this discussion.
I'm amazed. Truly and utterly amazed. The demand of blacks to be treated like citizens deserving
the respect and protection of the law and agents of the law like everyone else is "a direct threat
to the livelihoods and interests of many whites."
I mean, I know that white supremacy is a thing in the U.S., but is it really that ingrained
and tenacious? Really?
form of white identity politics that was widely representative of the white population
That's an oxymoron. No form of "white identity" politics would be or could be "widely representative
of the white population."
A lot of the black rhetoric we're getting lately is belated recognition that "black people"
don't really have enduring common interests that bind them all, and the defensive necessity to
provide safety for each other in the face of vicious and pervasive persecution just isn't really
strong enough to maintain a tenuous identity or unity much longer. As Jesse B. Semple remarked
when his "white boss" asked "What does The Negro want now?" … there are fifty eleven different
kinds of Negroes in the USA. That's even more true of "whites," always has been, and the hue an
cry that a bit of affirmative action is tantamount to creating a massive common race interest
is just nonsense.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?
Because religion is a search for truth, and religious liberty affirms that there are lots of
different searches going on, which are neither binding upon nonbelievers, nor to be suppressed
by the skeptical or powerful?
It is nice to see America can laugh about things this year!
While we can be complain about SJWs and BLMs, doesn't the conservative movement need the same
exact lecture here? What was the speech that made Trump popular with Republicans? It was "Mexicans
are rapist" speech that originally made 35 – 40% of the party support him the summer of 2015.
(And Donald's speeches to African-Americans is not the way to win their votes either!)
I almost think the best thing for the Republican Party this year is for Trump to lose Texas
so the Party learns to better respect Hispanic-Americans. (Unlikely to happen though and Texas
is not turning blue long term.)
Jesse: "However, can you point me to the radio host, politician, TV commentator, or even popular
Twitter celebrity who says the people who killed Brian Ogle should go free?
Because on the other hand, there's plenty of politicians, TV commentators, writers, radio hosts,
etc. who think the police are doing a great job and that police brutality is just a liberal myth….
But in general, the whole paragraph is why for the most part, black Americans will never trust
white conservatives – you seem to imply that black Americans want carte blanche to kill white
people while in reality, black people just want to be treated as well as a confirmed mass murderer
was treated by police – to be fed some Burger King like Dylan Roof perhaps."
+1,000.
I'd add that there are commentators, politicians, writers, etc. who seem to think that police
brutality is justified because of crime rates, as though the Constitution, not to mention just
basic fairness and protection against needless violence, applies only to the law-abiding.
"That does not mean that BLM and the NAACP are not harmful to the interests of whites, but they
do not advocate a separate black ethnostate, "
If they did, they'd be working for the interests of whites.
[NFR: You longtime readers know that I reject M_Young's white identity politics. I want
to take this opportunity to remind you all that when you cheer on left-wing, racial and sexual
identity politics, you implicitly cheer on his. - RD]
There is a literature on the collective behavior of groups in cooperation/competition models.
Groups (even artificial ones created by randomly assigning college undergraduates) will compete
to maximize their relative power against other groups, even if it leads to collectively a lower
standard of living (in other words, they would rather be relatively richer in a poorer world than
than relatively poorer in a richer world).
In interest group politics, say labor v. capital, you have groups which, while fighting each
other for power, are permeable. People move from one group or the other, and even if they don't,
it is possible to move.
Identity groups are based on putatively immutable characteristics. In identity politics, identity
groups struggle against each other for dominance. Claims can be of three varieties: equality ("All
Lives Matter"), primacy ("Black Lives Matter"), and dominance ("Only Black Lives Matter").
When political parties are defined on identity grounds, elections become censuses rather than
"free" elections. You vote for the party that represents your group, because you are afraid of
dominance by the other group. Further, you justify claims for primacy or dominance based on fears
about the relative power of the other group.
Political systems that polarize on identity end up in a census election where the winning coalition
of groups dominates the other groups, and the group in the electoral minority has no possibility
of exercising power. Because elections are censuses, and you don't have the numbers. What typically
happens is that minorities turn to violence, and often racial unrest results in military rule.
It is pretty clear that multiculturalism is precipitating the resurgence of identity politics,
and if we believe the polls, that trend is about to accelerate. Further, ethnic polarization of
one political party always triggers ethnic polarization in other parties, even over elite objections,
as it becomes necessary to appeal to voters.
This is why some version the Alt-Right represents the future of Conservative politics, even
if the Conservative Establishment doesn't like the Alt-Right. It is structural, and you see the
same type of political dynamic in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, post-Independence India, as well as places
like the Ottoman Empire or Germany.
What is fueling the Alt-Right is the policies around immigration and non-assimilation/multiculturalism,
combined with demands for racial primacy and racial dominance by minorities (e.g. safe spaces
where others are forcibly excluded).
It could be halted today, but instead we are doubling down on the root causes of ethnic anxieties.
Further, I don't know what would be "Left-Wing" about pushing whites into a white ethnic voting
block intended to subordinate opponents, given their majority status for a few decades, and even
as a plurality, they would have the largest plurality.
Much as many people desire "racial equality", when one group argues for "primacy", politically,
you are never going to get "equality" unless a rival group claims primacy for itself. This is
basic bargaining theory. Hence, the inevitability of white with egalitarian preferences going
over toward white nationalism. Unfortunately, the most probable result will be greater polarization,
not compromise.
P.S. Yes, I understand "racial primacy" for certain racial groups means "racial equality",
just as "war is peace".
"I hate the term "identity politics." Identity politics are politics. Straight white people,
even liberals (hello Bernie bros), often try to exclude themselves from the definition by casting
their own thoughts as neutral while casting everyone with a marked "identity" as practicing identity
politics. People are always speaking from a point of view, and in politics they are usually advocating
to change things that negatively impact a group they are associated with.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?"
Exactly.
The phrase "identity politics" is meant to render illegitimate the concerns of the person who
is accused of practicing them. Thus, people don't have to grapple with the actual issue and see
whether or not there's a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed. Rod spends a lot of time
here complaining about the failings of Black Lives Matter, and very little acknowledging that
they have a very legitimate issue that they are pushing to solve.
Religious liberty is not strictly identity politics, because religious affiliations in American
society are voluntary. However, religious preferences are pretty inelastic, so you have approximate
features of identity politics.
However, LGBT ideology claims "sexual orientation" is an immutable characteristic. So LGBT
is identity politics.
In some Islamic societies, apostacy is punished by death, so Islam is pretty immutable. So
in a strict Muslim society seeking to crack down on alcohol sales, the crack down would be an
exercise in identity politics, even if alcohol vendors weren't an identity group.
How is the fight for "religious liberty" different from BLM? How is it not a form of identity
politics?
Religious liberty is a universal freedom and it applies to all, including atheists and agnostics.
(and, contrary to the narrative, being itself a civic right, it doesn't impinge on other "civil
rights")
Identity politics, on the other hand, is the fostering of tribalism. It's a degrading thing: it
considers humans as dogs that have to bite at each other to get a greater share of the kibble
bowl.
If you look at politics post-independence in Trinidad and Guyana, or Sri Lanka, you see the emergence
of ethnic identity politics converting Communist and Socialist parties, and their leaders, from
universalist political programs to ethnic-based programs, depending on what ethnic groups they
derived more political support from.
Although, I suppose some people think that because America is majority white, the same kind
of political trends won't play out here. I think human nature is human nature, and identity politics
is identity politics, and the result is never good for someone.
"No decent person of any race supports police brutality"
I've known FAR too many "decent" middle and upper-middle class burb-dwellers who are perfectly
comfortable with police brutality. They believe that citizens get the policing they deserve. Rodney
King? "If you saw the entire tape, not just the excerpt on the evening news, you'd understand
why the officers acted that way". Black Lives Matter? "All they have to do is follow the law and
not disrespect the police". Unarmed, non-threatening, law-abiding minority killed by police? "There
must be more to the story".
moral blindness? all politics is identity politics. the fact that white, Christian, property-owning,
heterosexual, males looked out for their interests for the first 200+ years of the plutocracy
was identity politics in spades. the push-back from BLM, NOW, the LGBT community, and even Trump
supporters are as well. I had a very good History professor in the 80's. he taught politics is
merely a group or individual looking out for its vested, economic interests. the Karl Marx vs.
Adam Smith stuff (ideology) is merely a demographic extension of this. what you call identity
politics is more about the relationship between wealth and power, than left or right.
It is certainly a peculiar advance that in a country founded on identity color politics those
who have benefited and manipulated color politics to their advantage in every way --
are finding logical flaws in the very system they have created for themselves.
On its face - should raise serious doubts about the veracity of the complaint.
"No decent person of any race supports police brutality." Explain what you mean by "decent" person.
This is a term similar to the term "elites" be bandied about in this election without anyone saying
who they include in that group. All I get in response to my inquiries are quotations from dictionaries.
So, please explain what is meant by "decent person."
[NFR: If you believe it's okay for the police to brutalize people because of their race,
or to brutalize anyone, you are not a decent person, in my view. - RD]
This bit is much better than everything else SNL has commented on the 2016 election. I still think
SNL caters way too much to African American chauvinism though.
How much traction would BLM have if it were not funded by George Soros?, or any other identity
group if they had not been funded by billionaires with an interest in destabilizing the American
polity??
BTW, although it is not necessarily identity politics, the political principle that groups maximize
their relative power over say the welfare of the totality also explains the problem of elites.
All elites want to maximize their relative power over other groups, and so it is really competition
(e.g. fear of revolution or being conquered) that keeps them "honest", otherwise they will grind
the common man down to subsidence if they have the chance.
All of American history includes the strong presence of white identity politics.
Stop pretending otherwise. What else explains racialized chattel slavery and Jim crow and redlining
and so forth?
[NFR: Let me explain something to you. Are you sitting down? Because this is going to come
as a shock. Ready? We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of
people fought and died to end white supremacy. Replacing it with a form of politics that treats
blacks as some sort of chosen people because of the color of their skin is regress, and puts that
progress towards equal justice for all, regardless of their skin color, in jeopardy. - RD]
…to be fed some Burger King like Dylan Roof perhaps.
You're either ignorant of the context of that situation, or you're deliberately taking it out
of context. Roof was arrested by a tiny police department and held until the FBI showed up. He
was arrested after 10pm and had not eaten for a while. The police department didn't even have
the facilities to prepare a meal. Instead of automatically being suspicious, maybe you should
consider that the police were making sure to not do something that could harm the prosecution
in such an important case.
But that's how it's done, huh? Exaggerate things to the extreme, and then wonder why white
people don't understand.
"Black Lives Matter and related identity politics movements (Which Side Are You On? says it is
not affiliated with BLM) are by no means only about police brutality."
Yep. It's also about Israeli "genocide" of Palestinians, if you haven't heard:
http://bit.ly/2eJeXDZ
I remember libertarians complaining in the aughts that it was almost impossible to partake
in antiwar demonstrations with the left because it was never about MERELY war. Environmental degradation,
environmental racism (yes, that's a thing), and all manner of other unrelated items were seen
as a mandatory part of what naive libertarians thought was the goal of simply extracting the US
military from the Middle East.
Ideology is a helluva thing. It's an all-encompassing worldview that looks bizarre to people
who aren't already steeped in one.
[NFR: Let me explain something to you. Are you sitting down? Because this is going to come as
a shock. Ready? We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of people
fought and died to end white supremacy. Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks
as some sort of chosen people because of the color of their skin is regress, and puts that progress
towards equal justice for all, regardless of their skin color, in jeopardy. - RD]
Let me explain something to you too! I'd ask you to sit down, but you're probably already in
your fainting couch!
We have, sort of, in some parts of the country, in some ways moved away from white identity
politics! Just because white identity politics doesn't look like lynching doesn't mean it doesn't
exist.
All politics is identity politics! Why wouldn't it be? We create visions of the good and we
view it through our prism of identity. The fact that in our nation the axis about race doesn't
change that it does exist.
And no one is asking for 'blacks' to be treated as some chosen people – at even the most exaggerated,
most 'blacks' are asking for some acknowledgement that racial damage was done and it's going to
take racially conscious solutions (and some people like reparations!).
But also, here's the reality – the damage to large groups of people in this country was explicitly
because of who they were. Why would the solutions necessarily be universal?
If we both could have had 5, but then I was allowed to unfairly steal 4 from you, it wouldn't
then be fair if my solution to the problem was to give both of us 5 again.
Quote: Taken all in all, though, I am proud to call myself a philosemite, and even at low
points like the Spectator affair still, at the very least, an anti-antisemite. I recall the numberless
kindnesses I have received at the hands of Jews, friendships I treasure and lessons I have learnt.
I cherish those recollections.
"We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics."
The word 'steadily' is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting here. It seems the distance from
full on Jim Crow to 'young bucks eating T bone steaks' is vanishingly small in historical time.
If we could quantify and graph the prevalence of white identity politics, would that graph be
pointing up or down?
The comment made above is entirely correct: identity politics is just ordinary politics. Anyone
who tells you differently is selling something.
"Thompson, Zamata, and Jones might see a lot to like in Doug, but if he can't sign on to the fact
that black Americans face unique challenges and dangers,"
There's the BS right there. Doug might well admit that and accept it and still think that BLM
is full of crap. That's my position. Bouie doesn't get to own the conversation like that and neither
does BLM.
Just like the NRA doesn't get to claim that anyone who fails to bow to its agenda and policies
hates safety.
Just because I disagree with the Sierra Clubs position on zero-cut goals on public land do
they get to say I hate the earth?
"So the desire to be treated fairly is framed as identity politics?"
So black people want to be killed more often by police?
There's at least one famous study famously made famous in the NYT, by a really great black
economist from Harvard, indicating that black people are killed LESS often in interactions with
cops.
Yep. That data is limited and incomplete. But so is the data you prefer.
"We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics. A lot of people fought and died
to end white supremacy… RD"
In fact, the idea of a biologically-based white supremacy never held the political or social
field to itself during the last two centuries in either Europe or America.
This was because it was contested by important currents of both Christian and liberal thought
on human equality. These ideas of Christian and liberal equality were powerful enough to sustain
the successful 60 year international campaign of the world's leading 19th century Empire. the
British, to abolish slavery and were as well a significant factor behind the U.S. civil war.
Any serious reading of the history of the late 19th and early 20th century reveals how ethnic
and "racial" conflicts were created and manipulated by unscrupulous politicians of that time and
how these "identities" contributed to the radical destabilization and destruction of domestic
and international peace.
The 20th century Nazis represented the apogee of "white" supremacy and their European and American
opponents in World War II repudiated with extreme force their odious race "science."
Contemporary identity politics seeks to reassert and re-legitimize a supposed biological basis
for political conflict. The historical evidence is clear that this is not a story that can in
any way end well.
Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some sort of chosen people..
Chosen people that are still more likely to be the victims of police brutality. I'm pretty
sure they'd rather pass on being chosen and get on with being treated like everyone else.
You act as if "identity politics" only happens on the left. Small-o "orthodox Christians" are
a tribe who practice "identity politics." All politics is local, Tip O'Neill taught us. A corollary
of that is "all politics are tribal."
I (and other liberals) get dismissed as being nonsensical for wanting to be respected on the
basis of our identity, but the minute a Christian baker has to do business equally with a gay
person, it's tyranny.
What is the Benedict Option, if not Christian identity politics put into maximum effect?
The thing that infuriates me (and people like me) is the assumption that we are the "other"
and the view expressed here is the "default." As I see it, it's our tribe against yours. Your
right to lead is no more evident than mine. We fight for the right to lead. Someone wins, and
someone loses.
I realize this a conservative blog, but try approaching the other side as moral equals, instead
of with an a priori assumption that the left is tribal, and the right has the voice of G-d Himself
as their trumpeter of all that is good and true.
In any given society, the dominant majority defines the norm – in every area of life and culture
– by using themselves as the yardstick. They are normal, everybody different (and their different
stuff) is abnormal.
This is all perfectly natural. It's why there's pretty much no such thing as "white music"
or "white food" in America – whatever was traditional to whites was just called music and food.
If it comes from white culture, it doesn't get a special name, and it doesn't get widely recognized
as something specific to white people. It's just the norm.
This is why white identity politics isn't usually called white identity politics, yet any politics
arising out of a nonwhite experience is defined as abnormal and gets a special name.
Seen from any perspective other than the traditionally dominant one, it's rather clear that
the driving force on the American right has long been white identity politics. The Republican
Party didn't get over 90% white by accident. Some people may have the privilege of calling their
own politics the norm and assigning a name to the rest, but it's all identity politics whether
they want to see it or not.
Then comes the final punchline, "Lives That Matter." Obviously, the answer to the question
is "black." But Doug has "a lot to say about this."
The beautiful thing about the skit is that it left all this hanging… it didn't try to write
the final outcome, but left a range of variables and a variety of possible outcomes to the viewer's
imagination.
The problem with over-analysis is that it erases this well done ending, by trying to pin down
exactly what the outcome is or was or would have been or should have been. Of course, each analysis
erases many possibilities, which is a form of vandalism.
In a small way, this reminds me of when I heard a woman state during Bible study that she likes
the New International Version because it makes everything clear. This cemented my late in life
preference for the King James Version, because by trying to make "everything clear," many nuances
and layers of meaning are erased. The KJV is sufficiently poetic, and sufficiently archaic, that
sometimes there may be five or ten or twenty layers of meaning there, and perhaps that is exactly
what God intended.
(Dain, the term "identity politics" was "coined" as much by Nigel Farage, who openly espouses
it, as it was by "the campus left.")
Environmental degradation, environmental racism (yes, that's a thing), and all manner of
other unrelated items were seen as a mandatory part…
This is a mislocation coined by the campus left… more precisely, by 1970s would-be Marxists,
who latched onto the fuzzy notion that Marxism explains everything and that culture is all a "superstructure"
resting on an economic "base." They then promulgated, spontaneously, not with much thought, that
whatever your pet issue is, Marxism will deliver the desired result. And the Maoist slogan "unite
the many to defeat the few" was best served by including everyone's favorite issue in one big
happy family of agendas. There was even a short-lived "Lavender and Red League." It doesn't work,
Marx and Mao may both be turning in their graves over such petty horse manure, Lenin would certainly
call it an infantile disorder, but nobody every accused the post-1970 would-be leftists of professionalism,
or profound strategic thinking, or even ability to articulate a coherent working class demand.
Joe the Plutocrat: "moral blindness? all politics is identity politics."
No, it can and should be a contest of universal principles and ideas. The Marxian idea that
such is just "false consciousness" is bunk and commits the genetic fallacy.
I want to take this opportunity to remind you all that when you cheer on left-wing, racial
and sexual identity politics, you implicitly cheer on his.
Yeppers. Because if "people of color" can have their "safe spaces," off limits to white people,
then white people are utterly and completely justified in seeking "white spaces," off limits to
people of color.
The assertion is that since people of color have historically been oppressed, they now have
additional rights to request accommodations that would never be granted to their historic oppressors.
Nope. Don't work that way. What's good for the goose is indeed good for the gander – no matter
how many "microagressions' the geese detect.
"We have been steadily moving away from white identity politics."
Right… because both political parties in America are just so diverse. Oh wait, one's the white
people party and one is everyone else. In short, the everyone else party isn't the divisive one…
[NFR: It is in the nature of progressive protest movements that they portray all things
as having gotten no better, because if things *have* improved, it's harder for them to hold on
to power and raise money. That's what's happening here. Anybody who doesn't think white supremacy
and the identity politics that supported it is vastly weaker today than it was in 1960 is either
a fool, or willfully blind. - RD]
The original sin of conservatism is not giving "the other" equal rights and privileges. Whether
it is blacks getting shot by police, the war on drugs (that disproportionately affects the poor),
jim crow like immigration laws, not letting gays marry, not giving equal funding to poor school
districts or any of the other many inequalities conservatives want to perpetuate.
Nobody is "the chosen people" just because they gain some kind of right or privilege white
middle class straight people already have.
Thanks for the clarification. I had just assumed that the Narrative - the cops being buddy
buddy with Roof and getting him some BK in the middle of the day on the way back to Charleston
- was correct. I should have known better.
As an interesting comparison, look at the treatment of one Trenton Trenton (I kid you not)
Lovell, killer of LA Sheriff Deputy Steve Owen. Shot himself, he was patched up by paramedics,
sent to the hospital where he was treated at taxpayer expense, and when fit enough for trial,
arraigned.
Good luck getting anyone on the left to recognize the fallacy of special pleading when it's
right in front of their eyes.
This special pleading, I do not think it means what you think it does. BLM is not asking to
that African Americans be treated in a different fashion than anyone else. Rather, their argument
is that they are disproportionately burdened by the manner in which police interact with them
and that they are asking that they be just be treated the same as the majority of the country.
A basic argument for fairness and equality, in other words.
Now, you can try to make an argument that they are wrong, that they *are* getting equal treatment
from law enforcement and that this is all in their heads. You can try, but in all fairness, the
anecdotal and empirical evidence seem not to be on your side.
Replacing it with a form of politics that treats blacks as some sort of chosen people because
of the color of their skin is regress,
Who, exactly, is making this argument? Not BLM and not the mainstream liberal political establishment.
I'm sorry, but I appear to have missed the mainstreaming of black nationalism.
That's explains vicious campaign by neoliberal MSM against Trump and swiping under the carpet all
criminal deeds of Clinton family. They feel the threat...
Notable quotes:
"... It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives: socialism and communism. ..."
"... That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness. That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. ..."
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by
race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously
the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge.
The North's abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War
had more to do a desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from
the competition of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.[…]
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to
screw Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core
of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten
her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In other words it's all part of a grand plan when the Clintonoids aren't busy debating the finer
points of her marketing and "mark"–a term normally applied to the graphic logo on a commercial product.
"... Hillary Clinton's nomination and the euphoria in the press (one NPR female reporter said she has seen women weeping over the possibility of Hillary becoming president) eclipses any discussion about the real issues facing the country. ..."
"... Notice how the term "women's issues" is used by the media and certain politicians to suggest that there is only one acceptable position for females on any given topic. To the left, women's issues appear to mean abortion rights, same-sex marriage, higher taxes, bigger government and electing more women who favor such things. ..."
"... As the husband of a successful woman with a master's degree and accomplished daughters and granddaughters, that's how we feel about Hillary Clinton. We're all for a female president, just not this one. ..."
Have you heard that Hillary Clinton is the "first woman" ever to be nominated for president by a
major political party? Of course you have. The media have repeated the line so often it is broken
news.
Hillary Clinton's nomination and the euphoria in the press (one NPR female reporter said
she has seen women weeping over the possibility of Hillary becoming president) eclipses any discussion
about the real issues facing the country.
To quote Clinton in another context, "what difference does it make" that she is a woman? A liberal
is a liberal, regardless of gender, race or ethnicity.
Must we go through an entire list of "firsts" before we get to someone who can solve our collective
problems, instead of making them worse? Many of those cheering this supposed progress in American
culture, which follows the historic election of the "first African-American president," are insincere,
if not disingenuous. Otherwise, they would have applauded the advancement of African-Americans like
Gen. Colin Powell, Justice Clarence Thomas, former one-term Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Sen. Tim Scott
(R-SC) and conservative women like Sarah Palin, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), former presidential
candidate Carly Fiorina, Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) and many others.
Immigrants who entered the country legally and became citizens are virtually ignored by the media.
They champion instead illegal immigrants and the liberals who support them.
The reason for this disparity in attitude and coverage is that conservative blacks, women and
Hispanics hold positions anathema to the left. Conservative African-Americans have been called all
kinds of derogatory names in an effort to get them to convert to liberal orthodoxy, and they're ostracized
if they don't convert. If conservative, a female is likely to be labeled a traitor to her gender,
or worse.
Notice how the term "women's issues" is used by the media and certain politicians to suggest
that there is only one acceptable position for females on any given topic. To the left, women's issues
appear to mean abortion rights, same-sex marriage, higher taxes, bigger government and electing more
women who favor such things.
When it comes to accomplished conservative female leaders, one of the greatest and smartest of
our time was the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's consequential U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations. As Jay Nordlinger wrote in his review of Peter Collier's book "Political Woman" for National
Review, "In a saner world, Jeane Kirkpatrick would have been lionized by feminists. She had risen
from the oil patch to the commanding heights of U.S. foreign policy. But her views were 'wrong.'"
Collier writes that Kirkpatrick, who was a Democrat most of her life, recalled feminist icon Gloria
Steinem once referring to her as "a female impersonator." Author Naomi Wolf called her "a woman without
a uterus" and claimed that she had been "unaffected by the experiences of the female body." Kirkpatrick
responded, "I have three kids, while she, when she made this comment had none."
The left gets away with these kinds of smears because they largely control the media and the message.
No Republican could escape shunning, or worse, if such language were employed against a female Democrat.
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, born in Philadelphia to Philippine citizens, has written
about some of the printable things she's been called -- "race traitor," "white man's puppet," "Tokyo
Rose," "Aunt Tomasina."
As the cliche goes, if liberals didn't have a double standard, they would have no standards at
all.
There's an old joke about a woman with five children who was asked if she had it to do over again
would she have five kids. "Yes," she replied, "just not these five."
As the husband of a successful woman with a master's degree and accomplished daughters and
granddaughters, that's how we feel about Hillary Clinton. We're all for a female president, just
not this one.
"... I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment, but universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving the U.S. racial situation. ..."
"... And it prevents the constant attacks on recipients of benefits as being unworthy, criminal, drug-taking, undeserving folk who should be drug-tested, monitored, controlled, suspected. ..."
"... Privileges like the selection of judges or the creation of special loopholes in the tax law, or other privileges only a political donation of the right amount might purchase. And it should be plain that some of the privileges described are not privileges at all but basic rights of human kind borne within any notion of the just. ..."
"... I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment, but universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving the U.S. racial situation. ..."
"... When the BLM (I think) asked Bernie about reparations, he said he didn't think it was a good idea, that free college etc would help everyone. ..."
PlutoniumKun is 100% on-target. Moreover, non-universal benefits have tremendous overhead cost
in terms of paperwork, qualifications, etc., while a universal benefit can be minimally bureaucratic.
I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment, but
universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving the
U.S. racial situation.
On the baby bonds, it's foolish to have a "$50 endowment for a child of Bill Gates". Instead
it would be better to just provide $50,000 to ALL babies including Bill Gates' child, and tax
Bill Gates more.
As the saying goes, "programs for the poor are poor programs." Bill Gates' child should be
allowed to use the same public libraries, go to the same (free) public universities, etc. etc.
I doubt Bill Gates' child will need to take up the guaranteed job, but if he needs or wants to
(perhaps because of a quarrel with his parent) he should be able to.
And it prevents the constant attacks on recipients of benefits as being unworthy, criminal,
drug-taking, undeserving folk who should be drug-tested, monitored, controlled, suspected.
Universality removes many of the privileges the rich enjoy - $50K for all babies including
Bill Gates child - and as privileges are dismantled in this way the remaining privileges of the
rich will stand all the more glaring for their unfairness - to all. Privileges like the selection
of judges or the creation of special loopholes in the tax law, or other privileges only a political
donation of the right amount might purchase. And it should be plain that some of the privileges
described are not privileges at all but basic rights of human kind borne within any notion of
the just.
I think race-specific programs are a dead end as they will create great resentment,
but universal programs and ESPECIALLY a job guarantee would be tremendously helpful in improving
the U.S. racial situation.
I've been thinking about this bit a lot. When the BLM (I think) asked Bernie about reparations,
he said he didn't think it was a good idea, that free college etc would help everyone.
I don't recall any elaboration on his part, but I wondered at the time, how would they be allocated?
Full black, one-half black, one quarter, quadroon, octoroon, mulatto, 'yaller'? That's wholly
back to Jim Crow, or worse. I refer, of course to the
artificial division
of Huttus and Tutsis which, you may recall,
did not work out so well
. Barack Obama, would he qualify? None of his ancestors were slaves.
I am looking forward to the book by Darity and Muller, but they would have to do a lot of persuading
to get me to get comfy with reparations.
The country that gives every expecting mother a new baby package is Finland. They started the
practice in the 1930's when their infant mortality rate was at ten percent. Now they have one
of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.
"... Clinton says publically she believes that. Meanwhile supposedly smart economists like Tyler Cowen say they don't. Boston Fed President Rosengren says there are too many jobs. We need more unemployed. I'm Fed Up with regional Fed Presidents like him. ..."
"... Class issues are now a tough nut to crack, partly I think because the Democrats and some liberals take demands for economic fairness and try to give us identity politics instead, ..."
"... The meritocratic class who Krugman speaks for and centrist politicians like Clinton will slow-walk class issues like how Tim Geithner slow-walked financial reform. It's part of their job description and milieu. ..."
"... It's funny when neo-liberals/libertarians hate an activity engaged in by workers in what is clearly the product of a free market -- exercising the right of free association and organizing to do collective bargaining -- while think it is perfectly OK -- indeed, so "natural" that any question wouldn't even occur to them -- for owners of capital to organize themselves under the special protections of the state-created corporation. ..."
"... It's understandable, though, that they would consider the corporation to be ordained by natural law: the Founding Fathers, after all, were dedicated to the proposition that all men and corporations are endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator. (Never mind that the creator of the corporations is the state.) ..."
I liked how Hillary said in the third debate that she was for raising the minimum wage because
people who work full time shouldn't live in poverty. And "Donald" is against it. That's why people
are voting for her.
That's an ethical or moral notion, combined with "morally neutral" economics. People who work
hard full time, play by the rules and pay their dues shouldn't live in poverty.
Clinton says publically she believes that. Meanwhile supposedly smart economists like Tyler
Cowen say they don't. Boston Fed President Rosengren says there are too many jobs. We need more
unemployed. I'm Fed Up with regional Fed Presidents like him.
Think about the debate between the centrists and progressives over Trump supporters. The centrists
argue Trump supporters (nor anyone else besides a few) aren't suffering from economic anxiety
- that it's racism all of the way down. Matt Yglesias. Dylan Matthews. Krugman. Meyerson. Etc.
The progressives admit there's racism, but there's a wider context. The Nazis were racists,
but there was also the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression. And Germany got better in
the decades after the war just as the American South is better than it once was. Steve Randy Waldman
and James Kwak discussed in blog post how the wider context should be taken into consideration.
On some "non-economic issues" there has been progress even though the recent decades haven't
been as booming as the post-WWII decades were with rising living standards for all.
A black President. Legalized gay marriage. Legalized pot. I wouldn't have thought these things
as likely to happen when I was a teenager because of the bigoted authoritarian nature of many
voters and elites. During the Progressive era and when the New Deal was enacted, racism and sexism
and bigotry and anti-science thinking was virulent. Yet economic progress was made on the class
front.
Class issues are now a tough nut to crack, partly I think because the Democrats and some
liberals take demands for economic fairness and try to give us identity politics instead,
not that the latter isn't worthwhile. Partly b/c of what Mike Konczal discussed in his recent
Medium piece.
If we can just apply the morality and politics of electing a black President and legalizing
gay marriage and pot, to class issues. The meritocratic class who Krugman speaks for and centrist
politicians like Clinton will slow-walk class issues like how Tim Geithner slow-walked financial
reform. It's part of their job description and milieu.
But Clinton did talk to it during the third debate when she said she'd raise the minimum wage
because people who work full time shouldn't live in poverty. That is a morale issue as the new
Pope has been talking about.
Hillary should have joked last night about what God's Catholic representative here on Earth
had to say about Trump.
urban legend said...
It's funny when neo-liberals/libertarians hate an activity engaged in by workers in what is
clearly the product of a free market -- exercising the right of free association and organizing
to do collective bargaining -- while think it is perfectly OK -- indeed, so "natural" that any
question wouldn't even occur to them -- for owners of capital to organize themselves under the
special protections of the state-created corporation.
It's understandable, though, that they would consider the corporation to be ordained by
natural law: the Founding Fathers, after all, were dedicated to the proposition that all men and
corporations are endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator. (Never mind that the
creator of the corporations is the state.)
"... As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word for
maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political fixing,
price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated version of Medieval
feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines of wealth and governs
the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and taxes--all
of which benefit the financiers and political grifters. ..."
"... The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the privileged
ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry ) and political
influence. ..."
"... If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
..."
Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed.
Every ruling Elite needs the consent of the governed: even autocracies, dictatorships and corporatocracies
ultimately rule with the consent, however grudging, of the governed.
The American ruling Elite has lost the consent of the governed. This reality is being masked by
the mainstream media, mouthpiece of the ruling class, which is ceaselessly promoting two false narratives:
The "great divide" in American politics is between left and right, Democrat/Republican
The ruling Elite has delivered "prosperity" not just to the privileged few but to the unprivileged
many they govern.
Both of these assertions are false. The Great Divide in America is between the ruling Elite and
the governed that the Elite has stripmined. The ruling Elite is privileged and protected, the governed
are unprivileged and unprotected. That's the divide that counts and the divide that is finally becoming
visible to the marginalized, unprivileged class of debt-serfs.
The "prosperity" of the 21st century has flowed solely to the ruling Elite and its army of technocrat
toadies, factotums, flunkies, apparatchiks and apologists. The Elite's army of technocrats and its
media apologists have engineered and promoted an endless spew of ginned-up phony statistics (the
super-low unemployment rate, etc.) to create the illusion of "growth" and "prosperity" that benefit
everyone rather than just the top 5%. The media is 100% committed to promoting these two false narratives
because the jig is up once the bottom 95% wake up to the reality that the ruling Elite has been stripmining
them for decades.
As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word
for maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political
fixing, price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated
version of Medieval feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines
of wealth and governs the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit
cards, mortgages and taxes--all of which benefit the financiers and political grifters.
The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the
privileged ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry
) and political influence.
The cold truth is the ruling Elite has shredded the social contract by skimming the income/wealth
of the unprivileged. The fake-"progressive" pandering apologists of the ruling Elite--Robert Reich,
Paul Krugman and the rest of the Keynesian Cargo Cultists--turn a blind eye to the suppression of
dissent and the looting the bottom 95% because they have cushy, protected positions as tenured faculty
(or equivalent). They cheerlead for more state-funded bread and circuses for the marginalized
rather than demand an end to exploitive privileges of the sort they themselves enjoy.
Consider just three of the unsustainably costly broken systems that enrich the privileged Elite
by stripmining the unprivileged:
healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare because sickness is profitable, prevention is unprofitable),
higher education
Imperial over-reach (the National Security State and its partner the privately owned Military-Industrial
Complex).
While the unprivileged and unprotected watch their healthcare premiums and co-pays soar year after
year, the CEOs of various sickcare cartels skim off tens of millions of dollars annually in pay and
stock options. The system works great if you get a $20 million paycheck. If you get a 30% increase
in monthly premiums for fewer actual healthcare services--the system is broken.
If you're skimming $250,000 as under-assistant dean to the provost for student services (or equivalent)
plus gold-plated benefits, higher education is working great. If you're a student burdened with tens
of thousands of dollars in student loan debt who is receiving a low-quality, essentially worthless
"education" from poorly paid graduate students ("adjuncts") and a handful of online courses that
you could get for free or for a low cost outside the university cartel--the system is broken.
If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
If you joined the Armed Forces to escape rural poverty and served at the point of the spear somewhere
in the Imperial Project--your perspective may well be considerably different.
Unfortunately for the ruling Elite and their army of engorged enablers and apologists, they have
already lost the consent of the governed.
They have bamboozled, conned and misled the bottom 95% for decades, but their phony facade of
political legitimacy and "the rising tide raises all boats" has cracked wide open, and the machinery
of oppression, looting and propaganda is now visible to everyone who isn't being paid to cover their
eyes. Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed. The disillusioned governed have not fully absorbed this
epochal shift of the tides yet, either. They are aware of their own disillusionment and their own
declining financial security, but they have yet to grasp that they have, beneath the surface of everyday
life, already withdrawn their consent from a self-serving, predatory, parasitic, greedy and ultimately
self-destructive ruling Elite.
"... At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in
the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt
establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight
of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect
threats to their personal safety. ..."
"... The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. ..."
"... People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. ..."
"... They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences
for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner,
whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they
forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently
culled. ..."
"... The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from
connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out
organized forms of activism. ..."
"... In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced.
Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are
instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate
entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent
ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their
own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state. ..."
"... Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads
to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything
resembling a solution, even despotism. ..."
"... Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding
liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level
of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly
distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that
their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them. ..."
"... When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines
that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant
exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police
no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.
..."
"... Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent
to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating
even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares
to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses. ..."
"... Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive
boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their
anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments
are able to kill two birds with one stone. ..."
"... Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery. Citizen
spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons of their communities.
..."
"... Tyrannies are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think
..."
"... Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality is
sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those labeled
as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is done discretely,
but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it. ..."
As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular
question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice
what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their
cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage
of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately,
such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day.
For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness
in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on
corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect
the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent
indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies,
and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless
herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment
and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have
to be pretty damnably oblivious.
The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition
a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger's
day is never quite done. In my recent article
'The
Essential Rules of Liberty' we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations
required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let's examine the frequently
wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…
People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually
confronted and defeated.
Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill
apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for
standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every
corner, whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal
that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have
been sufficiently culled.
In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another
religion, another political ideology, a "hidden" and ominous villain created out of thin air.
Autocrats assert that we "need them" in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters
bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken,
even those that dissolve our freedoms, are "for the greater good". Frightened people tend to shirk
their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective
is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality
almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked
for the sake of the group.
In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public
gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount
to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms.
The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting
with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized
forms of activism.
Through co-option, modern day tyrant's can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating
and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of
a nation on the verge of revolution. These "false paradigms" give us the illusion of proactive
organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us
from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into
meaningless battles over "left and right", or "Democrat versus Republican", for example. Only
movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of
their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to
the disasters wrought by tyranny.
In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are
enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required.
Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust
each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures
are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support.
People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore,
a potential risk to the state.
You'll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government
gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty,
and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly
hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine
upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake;
they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.
Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime
leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance
of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.
Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while
demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain
a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation
keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously
chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end
them.
This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived
notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny
right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on
every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naïve position.
Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed
nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation,
terrorism, etc.
When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed.
The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority
emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of
the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards
out to keep us subdued and docile.
As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and
small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.
At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers,
behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous
and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.
Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their
ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed,
and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person
or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the
minds of the masses.
All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders
of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already
disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media
in an attempt to make the public believe that "everyone else" must have the same exact views,
and those who express contrary positions must be "crazy", or "extremist". Events are even engineered
by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive
anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them
directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.
Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an
elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention,
and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the
truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.
Ultimately, the life of a totalitarian government is not prolonged by the government itself,
but by the very people it subjugates. Citizen spies are the glue of any police state, and our
propensity for sticking our noses into other peoples business is highly valued by Big Brother
bureaucracies around the globe.
There are a number of reasons why people participate in this repulsive activity. Some are addicted
to the feeling of being a part of the collective, and "service" to this collective, sadly, is
the only way they are able to give their pathetic lives meaning. Some are vindictive, cold, and
soulless, and actually get enjoyment from ruining others. And still, like elites, some long for
power, even petty power, and are willing to do anything to fulfill their vile need to dictate
the destinies of perfect strangers.
Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery.
Citizen spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons
of their communities. People who lean towards citizen spying are often outwardly and inwardly
unimpressive; physically and mentally inept. For the average moral and emotional weakling with
persistent feelings of inadequacy, the allure of finally being given fifteen minutes of fame and
a hero's status (even if that status is based on a lie) is simply too much to resist. They begin
to see "extremists" and "terrorists" everywhere. Soon, people afraid of open ears everywhere start
to watch what they say at the supermarket, in their own backyards, or even to family members.
Free speech is effectively neutralized.
In the end, it is not enough for a government fueled by the putrid sludge of iniquity to lord
over us. At some point, it must also influence us to forsake our most valued principles. Tyrannies
are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think. If they
can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely. Of course, the elements of
conscience are inborn, and not subject to environmental duress as long as a man is self aware.
However, conscience can be manipulated if a person has no sense of identity, and has never put
in the effort to explore his own strengths and failings. There are many people like this in America
today.
Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality
is sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those
labeled as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is
done discretely, but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it.
All tyrannical systems depend on the apathy and moral relativism of the inhabitants within
their borders. Without the cooperation of the public, these systems cannot function. The real
question is, how many of the above steps will be taken before we finally refuse to conform? At
what point will each man and woman decide to break free from the dark path blazed before us and
take measures to ensure their independence? Who will have the courage to develop their own communities,
their own alternative economies, their own organizations for mutual defense outside of establishment
constructs, and who will break under the pressure to bow like cowards? How many will hold the
line, and how many will flee?
For every American, for every human being across the planet who chooses to stand immovable
in the face of the very worst in mankind, we come that much closer to breathing life once again
into the very best in us all.
"... The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. ..."
"... General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known and valued commodity. ..."
"... Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy. ..."
"... The Cathedral has no central administrator, but represents a consensus acting as a coherent group that condemns other ideologies as evil. ..."
"... "you believe that morality has been essentially solved, and all that's left is to work out the details." ..."
"... Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. ..."
"... A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. ..."
"... No wonder so few people are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew, at least until I had had a couple of years away from the government to reflect upon it. ..."
"... It's probably not a coincidence that the American media elite live, work, and socialize in New York and Washington, ..."
"... It's a kind of corporatism. ..."
"... They pretend to be merrily neutral servants of the state, giving the best advice possible on national security or financial matters. But they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization. ..."
"... And they believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is boots on the ground everywhere, it's our right to meddle everywhere in the world. And the result of that is perpetual war. ..."
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities
we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert
Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others.
Not all the traffic involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the
government: In 2013, General David Petraeus
joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity
firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance.
General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however,
is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep
State do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure
as a non-resident senior fellow at the
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course,
the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.
Lofgren goes on to say that Silicon Valley is a node of the Deep State too, and that despite the
protestations of its chieftains against NSA spying, it's a vital part of the Deep State's apparatus.
More:
The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war
on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of
a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the
Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited
by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live
upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face."
The Cathedral - The self-organizing consensus of Progressives and Progressive ideology
represented by the universities, the media, and the civil service. A term
coined by blogger Mencius Moldbug. The Cathedral has no central administrator, but represents
a consensus acting as a coherent group that condemns other ideologies as evil. Community
writers have enumerated the
platform of Progressivism as women's suffrage, prohibition, abolition, federal income tax,
democratic election of senators, labor laws, desegregation, popularization of drugs, destruction
of traditional sexual norms, ethnic studies courses in colleges, decolonization, and gay marriage.
A defining feature of Progressivism is that "you believe that morality has been essentially
solved, and all that's left is to work out the details." Reactionaries see Republicans as
Progressives, just lagging 10-20 years behind Democrats in their adoption of Progressive norms.
You don't have to agree with the Neoreactionaries on what they condemn - women's suffrage? desegregation?
labor laws? really?? - to acknowledge that they're onto something about the sacred consensus that
all Right-Thinking People share. I would love to see a study comparing the press coverage from 9/11
leading up to the Iraq War with press coverage of the gay marriage issue from about 2006 till today.
Specifically, I'd be curious to know about how thoroughly the media covered the cases against the
policies that the Deep State and the Shallow State decided should prevail. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy
here, not at all. I'm only thinking back to how it seemed so obvious to me in 2002 that we should
go to war with Iraq, so perfectly clear that the only people who opposed it were fools or villains.
The same consensus has emerged around same-sex marriage. I know how overwhelmingly the news media
have believed this for some time, such that many American journalists simply cannot conceive that
anyone against same-sex marriage is anything other than a fool or a villain. Again, this isn't a
conspiracy; it's in the nature of the thing. Lofgren:
Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist
Irving L. Janis called
"groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers.
This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating
biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the
town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has
to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe
of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always
going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness
of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. Government
life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the
Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00 in
the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life
is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist.
After a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would
be quite remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness
like pebbles off steel plate: "You mean the
number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people
are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes:
Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness
of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all
that I knew, at least until I had had a couple of years away from the government to reflect upon
it.
When all you know is the people who surround you in your professional class bubble and your social
circles, you can think the whole world agrees with you, or should. It's probably not a coincidence
that the American media elite live, work, and socialize in New York and Washington, the two
cities that were attacked on 9/11, and whose elites - political, military, financial - were so genuinely
traumatized by the events.
Anyway, that's just a small part of it, about how the elite media manufacture consent. Here's
a final quote, one from
the Moyers interview with Lofgren:
BILL MOYERS: If, as you write, the ideology of the Deep State is not democrat or republican,
not left or right, what is it?
MIKE LOFGREN: It's an ideology. I just don't think we've named it. It's a kind of
corporatism. Now, the actors in this drama tend to steer clear of social issues. They
pretend to be merrily neutral servants of the state, giving the best advice possible on national
security or financial matters. But they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus
at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization.
And they believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is boots on the ground everywhere,
it's our right to meddle everywhere in the world. And the result of that is perpetual war.
This can't last. We'd better hope it can't last. And we'd better hope it unwinds peacefully.
I, for one, remain glad that so many of us Americans are armed. When the Deep State collapses
- and it will one day - it's not going to be a happy time.
Questions to the room: Is a Gorbachev for the Deep State conceivable? That is, could you foresee
a political leader emerging who could unwind the ideology and apparatus of the Deep State, and not
only survive, but succeed? Or is it impossible for the Deep State to allow such a figure to thrive?
Or is the Deep State, like the Soviet system Gorbachev failed to reform, too entrenched and too far
gone to reform itself? If so, what then?
"... The article on the difficulty of taking over the Democratic Party hits the nail on the head, but it misses the Michels-ian problem: organizations have a tendency (but not this is a tendency, not a rule or fate) towards increasing oligarchy over time, and organizational members are socialized to trust and obey party leadership. ..."
"... if you and a faction entered and created a "Destroy the Dems" faction you'd be ignored or hunted out of the party, especially if you pointedly attacked the Dems oligarchy and were openly hostile to their officials, platform and the president – though I would argue you'd need exactly a "Destroy the Dems" faction to succeed in smashing the party oligarchy and changing the culture. ..."
"... Lack of democracy is a persistent theme in studies of parties for the last century. ..."
The article on the difficulty of taking over the Democratic Party hits the nail on the head,
but it misses the Michels-ian problem: organizations have a tendency (but not this is a tendency,
not a rule or fate) towards increasing oligarchy over time, and organizational members are socialized
to trust and obey party leadership. Factional dissidents within the Dems have to contend not
only with the party oligarchy and its formidable resources, the decentralized and sprawling nature
of the organization, but with a membership that barely participates but, when it does, turns out
when and how the leadership wants.
The Militant Labour tendency example isn't perfect – entryism into a Parliamentary party is easier
than our party system – but it speaks volumes. To get a hearing from the party membership you can
only criticize so much of the organization itself; if you and a faction entered and created a
"Destroy the Dems" faction you'd be ignored or hunted out of the party, especially if you pointedly
attacked the Dems oligarchy and were openly hostile to their officials, platform and the president
– though I would argue you'd need exactly a "Destroy the Dems" faction to succeed in smashing the
party oligarchy and changing the culture.
Keep in mind I do say this as a Green and a person who did his PhD on inner-party democracy (or
lack thereof). Lack of democracy is a persistent theme in studies of parties for the last century.
It would make more sense to really unite the left around electoral reform in the long run and
push for proportional representation at the state/local level for legislatures and city councils.
While it would probably be preferable for democracy's sake to have one big district elected with
an open-list vote, in the US context we'd probably go the German route of mixed-member proportional
that combines geographical single-member districts with proportional voting.
"... The Elites have successfully revolted against the political and economic constraints on their wealth and power, and now the unprivileged, unprotected non-Elites are rebelling in the only way left open to them: voting for anyone who claims to be outside the privileged Elites that dominate our society and economy. ..."
The Elites have successfully revolted against the political and economic constraints on their
wealth and power.
Ours is an
Age of Fracture (the 2011 book by Daniel Rodgers) in which "earlier notions of history and society
that stressed solidity, collective institutions, and social circumstances gave way to a more individualized
human nature that emphasized choice, agency, performance, and desire."
A society that is fragmenting into cultural groups that are themselves fracturing into smaller
units of temporary and highly contingent solidarity is ideal for Elites bent on maintaining political
and financial control.
A society that has fragmented into a media-fed cultural war of hot-button identity-gender-religious
politics is a society that is incapable of resisting concentrations of power and wealth in the hands
of the few at the expense of the many.
If we set aside the authentic desire of individuals for equal rights and cultural liberation and
examine the political and financial ramifications of social fragmentation, we come face to face with
Christopher Lasch's insightful analysis on
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1996 book).
"The new elites, the professional classes in particular, regard the masses with mingled scorn
and apprehension.... Middle Americans, as they appear to the makers of educated opinion, are hopelessly
shabby, unfashionable, and provincial, ill informed about changes in taste or intellectual trends,
addicted to trashy novels of romance and adventure, and stupefied by prolonged exposure to television.
They are at once absurd and vaguely menacing."
Extreme concentrations of wealth and power are incompatible with democracy, as Elites buy political
influence and promote cultural narratives that distract the citizenry with emotionally charged issues.
A focus on individual liberation from all constraints precludes an awareness of common economic-political
interests beyond the narrow boundaries of fragmenting culturally defined identities.
In a society stripped of broad-based social contracts and narratives that focus on the structural
forces dismantling democracy and social mobility, the Elites have a free hand to consolidate their
own personal wealth and power and use those tools to further fragment any potential political resistance
to their dominance.
The Elites have successfully revolted against the political and economic constraints on their
wealth and power, and now the unprivileged, unprotected non-Elites are rebelling in the only way
left open to them: voting for anyone who claims to be outside the privileged Elites that dominate
our society and economy.
"... But if the alternative is to try and elect leaders from the centre who will do nothing to confront these great issues, and will instead cut spending, accept stagnation and wait for the next financial crisis, is it any wonder that many people would rather take their chance with someone different? ... ..."
"... Rather than celebrating the enthusiasm and interest of the many young people that have recently joined (even if they regard some of their aspirations as naive), and who will be vital in future election campaigns, this overtly anti-Corbyn group seem to regard them as a threat. ... ..."
We have not met, but I have talked to your former colleague Gordon a few times and I did some
academic work on his 5 tests for Euro entry. I saw a
report that you were mystified by the popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. I have
an
article today in The Independent that might help you understand your puzzle.
I know you find it strange that people that appear to you like those your predecessor Neil
Kinnock did battle with over the future of the Labour Party in the 1980s are now running the party.
It must also seem strange that in the US where socialism once seemed to be regarded as a perversion,
large numbers should be supporting a socialist candidate. You suggest some explanations, but you
do not mention the power of finance, inequality and the senselessness of austerity. You say that
these new leaders will not be electable. But if the alternative is to try and elect leaders
from the centre who will do nothing to confront these great issues, and will instead cut spending,
accept stagnation and wait for the next financial crisis, is it any wonder that many people would
rather take their chance with someone different? ...
There are many Labour MPs and left leaning journalists who seem to share your puzzlement, and
have decided that they have to fight again the battles of the 1980s by doing everything to undermine
their new Labour leadership. ...
Rather than celebrating the enthusiasm and interest of the many
young people that have recently joined (even if they regard some of their aspirations as naive),
and who will be vital in future election campaigns, this overtly anti-Corbyn group seem to regard
them as a threat. ...
Please tell them to stop. I fear they need someone they respect like you to point out the foolishness
of their actions.
Having mapped the global oligarchy (above, with the biggest ownership companies in red),
this New Scientist article was doing fine when:
Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make
it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading
through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit
over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity
to discourage this risk.
One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely
to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara.
(Emphasis mine)
Those aren't "the protesters' claims," they are the claims of some protesters. The only
"conspiracy" that really concerns the Occupation of Wall Street is very real criminal activity that nearly destroyed the global economy
- remember? Most liberals and progressives intuitively understand that the sort of structures mentioned in the first paragraph are
often mistaken for conspiracy (see Monday's post
on END THE FED, for example).
"Global anti-trust rules" are in fact a liberal/progressive idea, which is why conservatives and
right-wing authoritarians oppose such rules. They see any global response to any global challenge (peak oil, climate change, etc.)
as the work of - get this - a conspiracy. See how that works?
Shock Therapy on the
Altiplano, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson: In our last post we explained how the Bolivian Revolution of 1952 was an
example of what the German sociologist Robert Michels called the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Michels noted in his book Political Parties
society cannot exist without a …dominant… or… political class, and that the ruling class, while its elements are subject
to frequent partial renewal, nevertheless constitutes the only factor of sufficiently durable efficacy in the history of human
development. [T]he government, or, … the state, cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority. It is the aim
of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a "legal order" which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and
of the exploitation of the mass … Even when the discontent of the masses culminates in a successful attempt to deprive the
bourgeoisie of power, this is … effected only in appearance; always and necessarily there springs from the masses a new organized
minority which raises itself to the rank of a governing class…" (pp. 353-354).
...In our paper with Simon Johnson and Pablo Querubín "When
Does Policy Reform Work?", we analyzed exactly this process. We explained why policy reform, against the background of unchanged
political institutions, may create a seesaw effect, whereby the reform of one distortionary, extractive policy leads
to the rise of another. We then illustrated these ideas with central bank independence, adopted enthusiastically by many countries
with the encouragement of international organizations since the 1990s. Central bank independence, except in places such as Zimbabwe
where it doesn't mean anything at all, does take away some of the tools that politicians under extractive institutions can use
for clientelism or for personal enrichment. But if their incentives and constraints facing them and the political elites are unchanged,
they will often find other tools to achieve the same objectives - and these other tools may sometimes be even more distortionary.
So with more constraint on monetary policy after central bank independence, many countries with weak institutions start running
bigger budget deficits. ...
Tax cuts seem to be the major extractive tool presently. Despite pledges from Obama and others to stand up to this and undo some
of the extraction, it continues. When it comes to raising taxes on the wealthy or cutting benefits for the not so well off to balance
the budget, its pretty clear whose interests are likely to prevail.
After a roaring start, the Occupy movement hit a wall in the form of rough-handling and evictions by the police. Occupiers
could have given up on nonviolence - as a small faction will always try to get us to do - or just given up; but instead we have
gone back to the drawing board, while continuing to occupy select spaces, this time with advance training. This is exactly the
right response. As my former Berkeley colleague Todd Gitlin writes in The Nation, "To take on a warped state of affairs that has
been decades in the making will take decades," and for this purpose the encampment culture is "both necessary and inadequate."
It's time to step back, take stock of the situation we're in, and work out a roadmap of the way home.
If our movement is about raising the dignity and value of the human being, we cannot use the method of violence, which degrades.
The worship of wealth that has brought corporations into a position of dominance in the world today has also brought in its wake
two unexpected benefits.
First, it planted in the minds of many the idea that some kind of world unity was possible: "Globalization from above"
awakened the old dream of "globalization from below," the dream of world unity without world domination.
Secondly, by releasing many of the traditional constraints on greed (they were already pretty weak) it gave the one percent
enough rope to really squeeze the economic middle class, taking away from them the false comfort of "a chicken in every pot
and a car in every garage," and thereby reawakening, though in new forms, the class struggles of the 1930s. This has finally
exposed the inherent contradiction of an economy based on indefinitely increasing wants-instead of on human needs that the
planet has ample resources to fulfill.
***********************
A few months ago I commented that it would take OWS 3.0 to really start getting traction, so let's see how good that SWAG was.
By their measure we are not long into OWS 2.0 now. I like that they can say it will take decades to fix just like it took decades
to screw our economy up this bad. People that just focus on the mortgage crisis and think everything else was peachy are clueless.
The 2008 crisis was the oligarchy tripping up badly on their own banana peel and bananas it was. I thought it would be a clear
wake up call, but a lot of folks are still snoozing. We may need OWS 13.0 at this rate.
Darryl FKA Ron said in reply to JohnH...
"The sad part is that 99% of the 99% will vote in November for crooks who have the 0.1%'s interests in mind."
Not that I mind, but I just want to point out that statement is a tautology. I actually think tautologies that accentuate the
obvious truth, rather than vainly attempt to prove the untrue, are excellent. A firm grasp of the obvious is a good place from
which to start to understand. A word to the wise should be sufficient, which means to accomplish anything you must repeat yourself
a lot.
Well that falls to some certain criticism as well. Some people think that if you repeat a lie enough then it becomes believable.
This leads to much fallacious reasoning. Something does not become true or untrue by being repeated. Likewise something does not
become believable or unbelievable just because it is repeated. The biases and antipathies among groups run much deeper than that.
The chanting (i.e., repetition of memes) is mostly about celebrating their defiance of the opposing group' views and secondarily
ritualistic group bonding (e.g., greed is good - yeah that's in the Bible - The Gospel According to Gordon Gekko).
We are divided and our divisions are deep. Our fellow citizens are not just blinkered by oligarchs. Some of them are enraged.
Others are just dismissive. At any rate the masses are divided and speak different languages that their other cannot understand.
Each side knows truths that the other side denies (not to dismiss the truths that each side knows that are completely untrue).
If you really think about it, then while we are watching the crooked politicians put on their show maybe they are looking back
at us and thinking what a bunch of stooges we are to fall for this.
So, back to your point. For now, we only have crooks to vote for at least in most states and districts. We all get to vote
for the crook in chief, for whatever good that is.
Goldilocksisableachblonde said in reply to Darryl FKA Ron...
" For now, we only have crooks to vote for at least in most states and districts. We all get to
vote for the crook in chief, for whatever good that is. "
That's why I think that the only rational strategy for the upcoming election is anti-incumbent and 3rd-party if the choice
is available - on the national level for sure , and probably in most state-level elections as well.
At this point, the 99% have no chance to elect the right candidates, but we can send a powerful message to the new Congress.
When the pink slips are all around , even when you don't get one , you start to think about your job in a different way.
Min said in reply to Goldilocksisableachblonde...
Right! Throw the bums out!
Goldilocksisableachblonde said...
An example of the shameless hypocrisy that's a precondition for membership in The Oligarch Club :
"Christine Lagarde, scourge of tax evaders, pays no tax"
"Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on
Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged.
As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance
a year is not subject to any taxes.
The former French finance minister took over as managing director of the IMF last year when she succeeded her disgraced compatriot
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign after he faced charges – later dropped – of sexually attacking a New York hotel
maid.
Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States
government, and he pays taxes on it.
The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees – article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961,
which has been signed by 187 states, declares: "A diplomatic agent shall be exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real,
national, regional or municipal."
According to Lagarde's contract she is also entitled to a pay rise on 1 July every year during her five-year contract.
Base salaries range from $46,000 to $80,521. Senior salaries range between $95,394 and $123,033 but these are topped up with
adjustments for the cost of living in different countries. A UN worker based in Geneva, for example, will see their base salary
increased by 106%, in Bonn by 50.6%, Paris 62% and Peshawar 38.6%. Even in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, one of the poorest
areas of the world, a UN employee's salary will be increased by 53.2%.
Other benefits include rent subsidies, dependency allowances for spouses and children, education grants for school-age children
and travel and shipping expenses, as well as subsidised medical insurance.
For many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international
taxpayers' expense.
During the 1944 economic conference at Bretton Woods, where the IMF was created, American and British politicians disagreed
over salaries for the bureaucrats. British delegates, including the economist John Maynard Keynes, considered the American proposals
for salaries to be "monstrous", but lost the argument.
Officials from the various organisations have long maintained that the high salaries are a way of attracting talent from the
private sector. In fact, most senior employees are recruited from government posts."
Oupoot said...
The old adage: power is never given, but can only be taken. Why is the rest of the
US not taking power back from Washington? Many, if not most, Americans would agree that DC and the Beltway is a circus obsessed
with their own power. Why not take back some of that power away from DC, back to states?
Darryl FKA Ron said...
The oligarchs are not really the problem. Even if we get new oligarchs it will still be the same plutocrats that own them.
Winslow R. said...
When I read this passage I had to wonder who is funding this 'research',
"Central bank independence, except in places such as Zimbabwe where it doesn't mean anything at all, does take away some
of the tools that politicians under extractive institutions can use for clientelism or for personal enrichment. But if their
incentives and constraints facing them and the political elites are unchanged, they will often find other tools to achieve
the same objectives - and these other tools may sometimes be even more distortionary. So with more constraint on monetary policy
after central bank independence, many countries with weak institutions start running bigger budget deficits."
I find an independent central bank is just another extractive institution, just with a slightly
dlfferent constituency.
marcel said in reply to Winslow R....
Absolutely. In addition,
in re: "Tax cuts seem to be the major extractive tool presently."
the size of the finance industry bonuses immediately following the bail-outs of the TBTF institution
suggests that the extractive tools are many and varied, whatever happens to be available.
Eight to ten years ago, one of the major extractive tools was the funding streams for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
plutocrats and their purchased oligarchs are promethean in their abilities and opportunism.
Bryan Willman said...
(2nd try, pardon's if it posts twice.)
Perhaps the "iron law of oligarchy" arises out of human nature, at least in groups of any size?
And given its grip, why does anybody think that any monies gained by tax increases will actually
be spent on the afflicted? The elderly (who vote?) Sure. The middle class, who vote? Sure. The rich themselves,
who are claimed to own most of the process anyway? Sure. But the poor, who are by definition not very successful participants
in our social or ecnomic arrangements? Why should such people EVER think that they will get more?
Eric377 said in reply to Bryan Willman...
This is a pretty blinkered view of at least the last 60 years or so of US experience. The poor have quite definitely gotten
more. My mother grew up in an area of very intense rural poverty and her descriptions of even life there into the early 1950s
were very shocking.
It is totally fitting that in a prosperous country measures to identify poor from non-poor move to higher incomes as the years
go by. But we fool ourselves if we thereby think there has not been real progress, much of which can be directly attributed to
public resources.
RNH said...
This is a good argument for changing the way political parties are financed in this country. Reform of political institutions
is possible.
Bryan Willman said...
@RNH - I have often contemplated how to break the deadlock of the current parties. (Both parties have a set of alignments to
various groups that make them badly misaligned with a large part of the electorate.)
But I wonder if the dynamics of "red-team vs blue-team" wouldn't make a similar, just stupid in a different way, structure
appear in short order?
Put another way - what sort of reform could be constructed that keeps ossified stupidity from creeping back in over time?
John@PGISelfDirected said...
Oligarchy means the rule of the few, and those few are generally the people who are richer and more powerful than the others,
what you might call the aristocrats or the nobles.
These are not always men: just as monarchies have both kings and queens, women sometimes appear in councils of aristocrats,
and even when they are not members, they are often there telling their husbands or their sons what to do.
So oligarchies are generally bad for the poor, but they are pretty good for women, at least for rich women from powerful families.
cm said in reply to John@PGISelfDirected...
By and large, women have acceded to high office on democratic principles only recently, previously by and large the reason
there were queens or female rulers in smaller domains was that even autocrats had limited control over the gender of their offspring,
or for one reason or another their sons were not fit for the post and it had to be the daughter so it would stay in the family.
The problem for socialists is that socialism, too, tends to oligarchy (Michels was a member of the SPD and then the PSI; Lenin refers
to him as 'the garrulous Michels'). Even
those parties one might most expect to remain in tune with and accountable to the workers, even those organizations animated by ideals
of democratic participation, even those championing the cause of the proletariat ultimately take on a whole slew of oligarchical
characteristics. It's a sad but true fact of modern political life
Consider some of the specific criticisms of the socialist party: the party as an entity is not identifiable
with the totality of its members. It is created as a means to an end, but quickly becomes an end in itself, with interests of its
own, detached from the class it ostensibly represents. It can well be, then, that the interests of the party do not
coincide with those of the masses at all. A problem with the socialist party, then, is that a party is a program (here I think Michels
is mistaken, as will become clearer below; Michels describes multiple ways in which the party is more than a program; his larger
argument, then, undercuts this claim). The party is not a social or economic unity. The socialist party might have a program based
on the working class but its members can be from any class; class struggle reappears within the party. (The idea that class struggle
will appear in the party seems right to me.)
Michels notes as well that the socialist party (which he understands to be a parliamentary party) 'gives a life to certain strata
of the working class,' raising them up out of their proletarian position. In effect, the socialist party removes from the proletariat
some of its best members. This may be involuntary, but in happens insofar as these members come to hold office in the party. The
effect is that the 'involuntary task' of the socialist party is to deproletarianize the proletariat (which could perhaps even be
thought of as prefiguring the abolition of the proletariat as a class; in practice, though, it is a form of embourgeoisement).
According to Michels, 'who says organization, says oligarchy.' Or, more specifically, once there are paid officials, a distinction
between electors and elected, a division of labor, and the necessity of leadership, all which seem necessary components of an organized
party, union, association, or state, then we are deep in the midst of oligarchy.
Most broadly conceived, Michel's argument is that to be effective in a complex society,
a fighting party
no less than a mass parliamentary party has to be structured in terms of a division of labor. This structuring, this organization,
'induces serious changes in the organized mass' (26). Not everyone can do everything at the same time; different skills correlate
with different tasks and this specialization leads to hierarchies and bottlenecks. Another way to put his argument: democracy (or
self-steering) doesn't scale--and it really doesn't scale if we are talking about an organization that wants to grow. As an organization
gets bigger, either its bureaucracy expands or the distance between those who are active (leaders) and those who are just members
(rank and file) increases.
We can see his argument here as relying implicitly on the understand of the distribution of authority in complex networks; free
choice and preferential attachment produce hubs. It's not that greedy leaders try to seize power for themselves (although they might).
It's that any kind of complex structure ends up manifesting the 80/20 rule (this fits with Michels' affiliation with Pareto and Mosca).
So, if 20 percent of the people end up doing most of the work, this will structure the mass, resulting in a differentiation between
leaders and led (in this vein Michels observes that the most important resolutions taken in the socialist party result from a handful
of members, 36).
Michels writes that 'oligarchy depends upon ... the psychology of organization itself,' 241). More than simply an attribute of
psychological changes in leaders as they lead (a zeal for power or a sense of invincibility or entitlement), organization itself
results in tactical and technical necessities. There is a reflexivity here, itself that is inseparable from the becoming-organization.
For example, a party oriented toward socialist ends (whether via elections or the revolutionary overthrow of the state) will end
up treating itself as an end, shifting its efforts away from its goal and back onto itself as that which must be secured and maintained
(as I write this I am thinking about questions that have come up at some of my talks this last year--several people have asked me
about communist drive--since I always talk about communist desire; this turning back in on itself would be, I think, a way to start
thinking about communist drive; so, communist drive would refer to those tendencies in parties to wallow in proceduralism, small
details and issue, and lose sight of the horizon of struggle).
As he sums it up, Michel's iron law results from two tendencies:
1. the tendency of democracy towards criticism and control;
2. the effective counter-tendency to create ever more complex and differentiated parties, parties, that are increasingly based
upon the competence of the few.
The first tendency refers to the way political participation (democracy, action in the labor movement), enhances capacities. It
stimulates people's critical abilities. The labor movement, Michels says, "brings into existence (in opposition to the will of the
leaders) a certain number of free spirits who, moved by principle, by instinct, or by both, desire to revise the base upon which
authority is established. Urged on by conviction or by temperament, they are never weary of asking an eternal 'Why?' about every
human institution." The more the economic position of workers increases, the more educational opportunities that are available, the
greater their capacity to exercise control. Michels is saying that workers acquire the skills they need to question and to govern
themselves.
Yet as the organization grows, details elude the grasp of individuals. Officials, delegates, issue summary reports. They make
decisions on their own, carry out tasks at their own discretion: 'democratic control undergoes a progressive diminution, and is ultimately
reduced to an infinitesimal minimum.' By reasons of 'technical and practical necessity' the party becomes a bureaucracy.
And, the more it seeks to win elections, to grow, and to expand, the more it compromises itself, becoming a 'political organization'
rather than a party. Michels writes, "The term 'party' presupposes that among the individual components of the party there should
exist a harmonious direction of wills towards identical objective and practical aims' (224). He overstates his case here. Parties
are always collections of disagreement over a host of matters; rather than harmonious, they are often dissonant. Yet this dissonance
and disagreement can nonetheless inspire aims that are similar enough, close together enough, to constitute a collective will. Another
way to put this, a collective will can be split, internally divided, without shedding its collectivity.
The laudable tendencies of critique and control, then, are also present in an inverted form, as countertendencies. These may manifest
themselves bureaucratically, through various sorts of rules and checks, as in, for example, rules disaggregating authority, subjecting
officials to recall, establishing procedures for the exercise of power, etc. They also manifest themselves in mechanisms like the
referendum as well as in the political responses of anarchism, syndicalism, and the urging of various sorts of renunciation and sacrifice
onto leaders. For example, he praises French syndicalism for the acuity of its critique of the party, but finds it too limited:
French syndicalists have frequently insisted with a certain violence upon what they speak of as 'direct action' as the only
means of bringing the working class into effective operation as an autonomous mass not represented by third persons, and of excluding
a priori all representation 'which could only be betrayal, deviation, and bourgeois corruption.' But they arbitrarily
restrict their one-sided theory to the political party alone, as if it were not inevitable that like causes should produce like
effects when their action is displayed upon the field of the syndicalist movement.
His discussions of anarchism is similar in that he praises its critique of party structures for their oligarchical tendencies
but notes that anarchists aren't immune from oligarchy any more than anyone else is--as soon as activities begin, forms of leadership
and authoritarianism arise.
Sociologist Robert Michels spent much of his career studying the dynamics of power in organizations. His studies resulted in a
startling conclusion known as the iron law of oligarchy, claiming that all organizations, regardless of their original mission,
structure, or how democratic they aspire to be, inevitably evolve to serve the interests of a small elite. Since its publication
in 1911, many studies attempted to seek exceptions to the iron law. Very few were ever documented.
I was reminded of the iron law recently when a friend shared with me his experience of attempting to apply for an art grant. His
art, like mine, is based on the photography of natural subjects. To the learned eye, his work is indisputably distinctive in style
within what laypeople may generically refer to as "landscape photography." His application was rejected, in part, because his work
was perceived as "aesthetic" and "convenient," and with the suggestion that he should strive to get a sense of what's being done
in contemporary photography.
Though the term "contemporary" is not strictly defined, a general review of photographic art exhibited, taught and funded in recent
decades shows an overwhelming bias toward work exploring human subjects and interactions, as well as decidedly abstract art commensurate
with the "art for art's sake" dictum underscoring much of modern art. In particular, sorely missing from the institutional notion
of "contemporary" is art utilizing natural aesthetics in its narrative. If, as suggested by Mahatma Gandhi, action expresses priorities;
the actions of many art institutions, as manifested in the work they choose to exhibit, their teachings and the recipients of their
financial aid, seems to express a degree of prejudice.
It is important for anyone attempting to navigate the murky waters of the "art world" to have some foundation in art history.
What today we know as modern- or postmodern-art began with revolutionary trends in the arts, originally aimed at wresting art away
from the grip of religious and political institutions, and later in opposition to the social effects of the Industrial Revolution.
In all cases, artists rebelled to uphold art's freedom of expression, be it founded in social commentary, aesthetics, or subject
matter. Those in power always sought to use art to glorify themselves and to legitimize their power base (be it scripture, celebrity,
ideology or riches) as well as to squelch artists' ability to challenge and criticize the status quo. The result of such constraints
was benign art based primarily on aesthetics, and devoid of any meaningful narrative that did not comply with the powers that were.
It is understandable why, in the wake of these important revolutions, art founded solely in aesthetics and lacking in personal
expression fell out of favor. This, however, is not to say that aesthetics did not continue to play an important role in the success
and acceptance of art.
As expected, the iron law prevailed yet again. In the absence of political and religious authoritarianism, other interests soon
moved to fill the void. These included primarily business and academic interests who took it upon themselves to assert control over
what constitutes legitimate art. Among their goals was the desire to do away with anything that had been done before, including the
role and value of aesthetics in art. Some went so far in their zeal as to declare that art should exist unto itself, independent
of meaning and purpose – art for art's sake.
It's not hard to see, then, why anyone associated with the art elite has an implicit vested interest in promoting art that either
validates the current academic paradigm and/or maximizes financial profit for those in the art business. Neither is necessarily bad
in itself, but a balance must be maintained to insure that art remains what most of us intuitively consider it to be: a subjective,
personal, expressive pursuit, free from arbitrary constraints of fashion, dogma, politics or profit.
What I found most disturbing about the response my friend received was not the rejection per se, but the profound lack of foresight
expressed in prompting an artist to comply with the arbitrary sensibilities of "contemporary photography," rather than urging him
to pursue and evolve his own creative path. The application was dismissed merely by virtue of the art falling into the general bucket
of "landscape photography" and without regard to its innovative and personal narrative.
Which brings me to the reason for writing this essay: I believe that today's "art elite" has again come dangerously close to the
dreaded outcome of the iron law, placing too much power in the hands of a few. I believe that it's time for another (peaceful, intellectual
and creative) revolution.
What I offer below is something of a manifesto for those of us concerned with the future of art, and particularly our
art.
"...Robert Michels, a friend of Weber's, also was concerned about the
depersonalizing effect of bureaucracy. His views, formulated at the
beginning of this century, are still pertinent today.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
"Michels (1911) came to the conclusion that the formal organization of
bureaucracies inevitably leads to oligarchy, under which organizations
originally idealistic and democratic eventually come to be dominated by a
small, self-serving group of people who achieved positions of power and
responsibility. This can occur in large organizations because it becomes
physically impossible for everyone to get together every time a decision
has to be made. Consequently, a small group is given the responsibility of
making decisions. Michels believed that the people in this group would
become enthralled with their elite positions and more and more inclined to
make decisions that protect their power rather than represent the will of
the group they are supposed to serve. In effect Michels was saying that
bureaucracy and democracy do not mix. Despite any protestations and
promises that they would not become like all the rest, those placed in
positions of responsibility and power often come to believe that they too
are indispensable, and more knowledgeable than those they serve. As time
goes on, they become further removed from the rank and file...
"The Iron Law of Oligarchy suggests that organizations wishing to avoid
oligarchy should take a number of precautionary steps. They should make
sure that the rank and file remain active in the organization and that the
leaders not be granted absolute control of a centralized administration.
As long as there are open lines of communication and shared decision making
between the leaders and the rank and file, an oligarchy cannot easily
develop.
"Clearly, the problems of oligarchy, of the bureaucratic depersonalization
described by Weber, and of personal alienation all are interrelated. If
individuals are deprived of the power to make decisions that affect their
lives in many or even most of the areas that are important to them,
withdrawal into narrow ritualism (overconformity to rules) and apathy are
likely responses. Such withdrawals seemed to constitute a chronic
condition in some of the highly centralized socialist countries. However,
there are many signs of public apathy in the United States, too. For
example, in 1964 about 70 percent of those eligible to vote for president
did so. In each of the succeeding national elections this figure has
dropped, and in 1988 it was only 50 percent."
Michel's notion of the inevitable and ironic transformation of groups with egalitarian intent into groups with oligarchical practices
is examined through an analysis of thirty-four role playing partisan groups. Each group is a triad with an extended shared history
or a history of equality that comes with friendship.
Each group differentiated itself by selecting a representative to confront another student who played the role of a university
dean. In nineteen of the groups the constituents obtained a news report of the outcome of those negotiations independent of their
representative's report.
In the other fifteen groups the constituents had to depend on their representative's report. In those groups that relied solely
on their representative's report, oligarchical interrelations emerged. This contrasts with the news report groups who maintained
egalitarian relationships while developing a political standpoint toward each other, the opposition and the future.
We conclude that Michels' statement on organizational oligarchy is illuminated further by a consideration
of an emergent monopoly of knowledge.
[Excerpt] Resource mobilization, a dominant theoretical approach to the study of social movements for many decades, points to social
movement organizations (SMOs) as a focal point for efforts to understand the variations in both the impact and fate of social movements.
SMOs, like other types of political organizations, are expected to represent members' common preferences for some specified social
change, acting to bring about such change through influence on formal political decision-making, or on general behaviors of the members
of a polity, or on both. In this context, the classic analysis offered by Robert Michels ([1911] 1962) of typical evolutionary processes
in the governance of political organizations, and the impact of such processes on organizations' goals, is very relevant to scholars
of social movements. Early studies of social movements often drew heavily on Michels' work, documenting and fleshing out the nature
of the evolutionary processes he posited, and the transformational consequences for social movements. Concern with movement transformation
has been less dominant in contemporary work, despite a lack of evidence that such processes are any less operative in current movement
organizations. Below, the key processes involved in what Michels' referred to as the "iron law of oligarchy" are sketched, followed
by a brief discussion of some of the implications of this analysis for social movement researchers.
Central bank independence, except in places such as Zimbabwe where it doesn't mean anything at all, does take away some of the tools
that politicians under extractive institutions can use for clientelism or for personal enrichment. But if their incentives and constraints
facing them and the political elites are unchanged, they will often find other tools to achieve the same objectives - and these other
tools may sometimes be even more distortionary. So with more constraint on monetary policy after central bank independence, many countries
with weak institutions start running bigger budget deficits. ...
You can't keep a good oligarch down:
Shock Therapy on the
Altiplano, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson: In our last post we explained how the Bolivian Revolution of 1952 was an
example of what the German sociologist Robert Michels called the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Michels noted in his book Political Parties
society cannot exist without a …dominant… or… political class, and that the ruling class, while its elements are subject
to frequent partial renewal, nevertheless constitutes the only factor of sufficiently durable efficacy in the history of human
development. [T]he government, or, … the state, cannot be anything other than the organization of a minority. It is the aim
of this minority to impose upon the rest of society a "legal order" which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and
of the exploitation of the mass … Even when the discontent of the masses culminates in a successful attempt to deprive the
bourgeoisie of power, this is … effected only in appearance; always and necessarily there springs from the masses a new organized
minority which raises itself to the rank of a governing class…" (pp. 353-354).
...In our paper with Simon Johnson and Pablo Querubín "When
Does Policy Reform Work?", we analyzed exactly this process. We explained why policy reform, against the background of unchanged
political institutions, may create a seesaw effect, whereby the reform of one distortionary, extractive policy leads
to the rise of another. We then illustrated these ideas with central bank independence, adopted enthusiastically by many countries
with the encouragement of international organizations since the 1990s. Central bank independence, except in places such as Zimbabwe
where it doesn't mean anything at all, does take away some of the tools that politicians under extractive institutions can use
for clientelism or for personal enrichment. But if their incentives and constraints facing them and the political elites are unchanged,
they will often find other tools to achieve the same objectives - and these other tools may sometimes be even more distortionary.
So with more constraint on monetary policy after central bank independence, many countries with weak institutions start running
bigger budget deficits. ...
Tax cuts seem to be the major extractive tool presently. Despite pledges from Obama and others to stand up to this and undo some
of the extraction, it continues. When it comes to raising taxes on the wealthy or cutting benefits for the not so well off to balance
the budget, its pretty clear whose interests are likely to prevail.
"...Robert Michels, a friend of Weber's, also was concerned about the depersonalizing effect of bureaucracy. His views, formulated
at the beginning of this century, are still pertinent today.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
"Michels (1911) came to the conclusion that the formal organization of bureaucracies inevitably leads to oligarchy, under which
organizations originally idealistic and democratic eventually come to be dominated by a small, self-serving group of people who achieved
positions of power and responsibility. This can occur in large organizations because it becomes physically impossible for everyone
to get together every time a decision has to be made. Consequently, a small group is given the responsibility of making decisions.
Michels believed that the people in this group would become enthralled with their elite positions and more and more inclined to make
decisions that protect their power rather than represent the will of the group they are supposed to serve. In effect Michels was
saying that bureaucracy and democracy do not mix. Despite any protestations and promises that they would not become like all the
rest, those placed in positions of responsibility and power often come to believe that they too are indispensable, and more knowledgeable
than those they serve. As time goes on, they become further removed from the rank and file...
"The Iron Law of Oligarchy suggests that organizations wishing to avoid oligarchy should take a number of precautionary steps.
They should make sure that the rank and file remain active in the organization and that the leaders not be granted absolute control
of a centralized administration. As long as there are open lines of communication and shared decision making between the leaders
and the rank and file, an oligarchy cannot easily develop.
"Clearly, the problems of oligarchy, of the bureaucratic depersonalization described by Weber, and of personal alienation all
are interrelated. If individuals are deprived of the power to make decisions that affect their lives in many or even most of the
areas that are important to them, withdrawal into narrow ritualism (overconformity to rules) and apathy are likely responses. Such
withdrawals seemed to constitute a chronic condition in some of the highly centralized socialist countries. However, there are many
signs of public apathy in the United States, too. For example, in 1964 about 70 percent of those eligible to vote for president did
so. In each of the succeeding national elections this figure has dropped, and in 1988 it was only 50 percent."
Posts: 19 The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert Michels
in his 1911 book, Political Parties. It states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they may
be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop into oligarchies. The reasons for this are the technical indispensability
of leadership, the tendency of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests; the gratitude of the led towards
the leaders, and the general immobility and passivity of the masses. - from Wikipedia ------
Though bleak and pessimistic, possibly apathetic, it seems very likely.
------ also, check out this website (not mine, not affiliated) for interesting videos, whether agreeable or not, on current and
historically-relevant topics:
JRDunassigned View Public Profile Find More Posts by JRDunassigned
PhysOrg.com social sciences news on PhysOrg.com
>> Faithful females who choose good providers key to evolutionary shift to modern family, study finds >> The art of telling it
like it isn't >> Holidays inspire disadvantaged children to learn, says study
#2 AeroFunk
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Jul16-09, 08:23 AM
Posts: 40 While I don't know anything about Robert Michel or his theory, I would have to disagree with the premise that "the
tendency of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests." Why does he make the assumption that leaders
will not have conflicting interests? What is the mechanism by which they consolidate their conflicting interests?
Also the empirical evidence seems to contradict his theory, according to the shift index released just recently, the US economy
has become much more competitive over time, and not more oligarchical.
I think the best theory, and a slightly more modern theory, about group organization is Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective
Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
arildno
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Jul16-09, 10:24 AM
I would disagree that oligarchies should generally be characterized as having large-scale harmonious relationships WITHIN the
oligarchy class.
For example, the nobles in feudal Europe were perfectly capable of retaining their oligarchical position vs. both the monarchy
and the lower classes, but it was not at all a class characterized by internal harmony.
Quite the opposite!
Knights fought EACH OTHER incessantly, and a better view would be that precisely BECAUSE of this internal bloodletting, none
of the members of that class would be averse to utilize violence/displays of power in order to cement their oligarchical position.
Oligarchical intra-violence/competition can be said to hone their skills of power-wielding, giving them a leverage against
those classes not engaged in incessant in-fighting.
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug22-09, 10:47 PM
JRDunassigned: The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert
Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties.
This is actually wrong. It is not a theory because it was a description of the world he observed with the rise of the German
socialist party. It did not make any predictions, nor did it describe any mechanisms by which a prediction -- perhaps the one
that "all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably
develop into oligarchies."
What Michels observed in the socialist party in Germany has to be put in historical context. It was believed by many based
on Marx that a proletarian revolution by the masses would lead to communism after a series of back-and-forth upheavals between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat -- the utopian (or dystopian, depending on your political affiliation) view of a classless
society.
Michels argued against Marx because in his quasi-ethnographic description of the development of the proletarian movement in
Prussia he observed quite the opposite. The movement over time dissipated. The masses became apathetic and disinvolved, leaving
a core of leaders to run the organizations the movement had left behind. The leaders now set criteria for joining these organizations,
including certain technical and bureaucratic skills, which made it further unlikely that the typical worker could join. They set
training and career tracks for those fit to participate in the party. As the workers became more and more apathetic (or it became
harder and harder for them to participate in the affairs of the party), the leaders consolidated their power more and more. Michels,
however, never said that elite cleavages could not happen.
In fact, he was so disappointed by the fact that the leaders could not agree among themselves and that the majority of the
leaders of the socialist party supported WWI (after having pledged not to), and that movements seemed to dissolve into bureaucratic
organizations, that he became convinced that the only way out of this rut was to have a charismatic leader lead an organization.
His ill-placed bet that Mussolini represented that kind of leader who could bring social change led to Michels becoming disreputable
and persona non grata in the social sciences for many years.
Michels thinking greatly influenced Lenin, who became convinced that building a sophisticated cadre of communist leaders was
key to avoid the pitfalls Michels had seen. In other words, he believed that only leaders could bring about communism! Ironic
for sure, since they were fighting for a classless society.
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug22-09, 11:09 PM
While I don't know anything about Robert Michel or his theory, I would have to disagree with the premise that "the tendency
of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests."
You are right. Michels believed the process was inevitable based on his experience in the German socialist movement.
AeroFunk Why does he make the assumption that leaders will not have conflicting interests?
He never did. In fact, it was his source of dissatisfaction with the inability of leaders to act that led him to support "charismatic
leaders" as the means to break through bureaucratic impasse. Michels was very aware that the socialist leaders could not agree
among themselves. But they would agree if a charismatic leader could charm them into doing so.
What is the mechanism by which they consolidate their conflicting interests?
Michels did not have a theory so there were no hypotheses or mechanisms. More contemporary sociology tries to predict how likely
movements are to emerge, how likely they are to maintain themselves, and how likely they are to die. This is called political
process theory. The theory is highly rigorous, mechanistic, predictive, and dominant. Political scientists are now beginning to
use it as well to explain social movement behavior.
Another field in economics, sociology and psychology named organization theory and behavior deals with the internal workings
of organizations. The best macro-theories are probably sociological, while the best micro-theories are probably psychological.
Economist theories are a bit too simplistic because they rely on unrealistic assumptions to model human behavior and are too functionalist
(if something exists, it's because it makes organizations efficient; not a very testable proposition). There are so many different
perspectives in this field that it would take a long time to explain them. But you can look it up on Wikipedia.
Of course, there is widespread recognition in the social sciences today that Michels' explanation was overly simplistic.
Also the empirical evidence seems to contradict his theory, according to the shift index released just recently, the US
economy has become much more competitive over time, and not more oligarchical.
Michels was NOT talking about economic oligarchy at the macro-level. He was talking about organizational oligarchy. Be careful
not to confuse the two.
However, there is a debate in political science and sociology (and some economists, like the late Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph
Schumpeter) about the relationship between economic oligarchy and democracy. The idea is that when you have a large number of
competing interest groups, you are more likely to have a democratic system where the groups need to compromise to regulate the
economy. There is an assumption that these interest groups are organized and seek to monopolize the
economy, which led to Schumpeter's famous assertion that capitalism and socialism result in the same consequences -- a monopoly
of power, or something along those lines. The idea there is that capitalism is a system of survival of the fittest.
If everyone competes with everyone, and in the end, you end up with one large firm controlling economic activity, that is no different
than having the government control all economic activity. In either case, you have a monopoly of power and economy, which brings
innovation to a halt. Very interesting stuff.
People like W. Brian Arthur have extended this thinking with chaos theory to say that you want to operate at the edge of chaos
-- where the government's role is to stimulate variation and prevent monopolization.
I think the best theory, and a slightly more modern theory, about group organization is Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective
Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
I would disagree on "best" and "modern." It is not the "best" theory because it cannot account for social relations or psychological
motives for collective action. It is an economic theory that assumes people will only participate if they are induced (receiving
some form of payment) to do so. Otherwise, collective action does not happen. But this purportedly "economically rational" behavior
does not happen in most movements. People tend to join movements because their friends invite them, because they are dissatisfied
with the way things are, because they sense opportunities for upward mobility, etc. [As an aside, did you know most revolutions
happen because of rising aspirations? i.e., the poor cannot mobilize because they have to worry about getting enough to eat. The
rich don't mobilize because they are content with the system. It is only the middle class that organizes revolutions when their
standards of living begin to improve because, probably, they want to sit at the table with the rich.] Economists stretch their
theory to account for things like solidarity -- if I feel solidarity with you and participate for that reason, that is an inducement.
The problem is that, if everything is an inducement, what does the theory explain? You need to be able to predict, e.g., these
inducements will lead to participation; these won't; etc.
The theory is definitely not modern. Olson came up with it in the 1970's. Economists continue to work in the framework, but
political process theorists have definitely become the dominant scholars of social movements. Their detailed historical accounts
of movements have cast doubts on economic theories. The current debate lies on whether psychological or social factors are more
important in movement emergence, as well as what role do elites play in movement development (e.g., one prediction is that elites
who exercise too much force to crack down on a movement strengthen it by enabling the movement to get media coverage -- awareness
-- and widespread sympathy).
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy #6 Aug22-09, 11:11 PM
I would disagree that oligarchies should generally be characterized as having large-scale harmonious relationships WITHIN
the oligarchy class.
For example, the nobles in feudal Europe were perfectly capable of retaining their oligarchical position vs. both the monarchy
and the lower classes, but it was not at all a class characterized by internal harmony.
Quite the opposite!
Knights fought EACH OTHER incessantly, and a better view would be that precisely BECAUSE of this internal bloodletting, none
of the members of that class would be averse to utilize violence/displays of power in order to cement their oligarchical position.
Oligarchical intra-violence/competition can be said to hone their skills of power-wielding, giving
them a leverage against those classes not engaged in incessant in-fighting.
Yep, in fact, one prediction of social movement theorists (or political process scholars) is that elite cleavages (or disagreements
among elites) create opportunities for movements to mobilize and possibly succeed in replacing the status quo.
arildno
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug23-09, 03:51 PM
Yep, in fact, one prediction of social movement theorists (or political process scholars) is that elite cleavages (or disagreements
among elites) create opportunities for movements to mobilize and possibly succeed in replacing the status quo.
In that case, the theorists are flatly wrong in their predictions.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that bloody, internal and perennial squabbles within the nobility generate opportunities
for the peasants to take control.
In fact, we know they never did.
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug23-09, 04:03 PM
In that case, the theorists are flatly wrong in their predictions.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that bloody, internal and perennial squabbles within the nobility generate
opportunities for the peasants to take control.
In fact, we know they never did.
They say create opportunities to mobilize. This neither means that they will mobilize nor does it mean that they will win,
if they do so.
The next question is one of resource mobilization. Can the disenfranchised group mobilize resources against the divided elite?
Can they form the right coalitions needed to garner these resources?
The ability to mobilize resources requires pre-existing networks or organizations of people and things ready to be mobilized.
Here is where the peasants were often doomed to failure. They didn't have them.
This is why political process scholars have been successful at demonstrating that most revolutions
occur from the middle class.The poor, hungry masses generally never have the type
of organizational capabilities to mobilize.
arildno
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug23-09, 05:45 PM
"opportunities to mobilize"
This is a vague term bordering on meaninglessness: Why shouldn't a monolithic oligarchy be less of an "opportunity to mobilize"
than a non-monolithic one? After all, if the oligarchy is precisely defined, it is easier to identify who the "enemy" is.
Nor is there any reason why a squabbling elite should be perceived as less weak than a compact elite.
Perceived weakness, IMO, has a lot more to do with ineffective, hesitant execution of subjugation measures than with the temporary
utilization of violence directed laterally, rather than vertically, as in the subjugation measure proper.
In fact, by being awed, frightened by-standers of bloody clashes WITHIN the elite, the displayed willingness of elite members
to utilize violence may be a stronger deterrent for rebellion than if the elite is seen as a compact group governing through "hallowed
custom" and other non-violent subjugation techniques.
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug23-09, 07:17 PM
It seems that you are interested in learning more about the dominant approach to studying social movements, and more generally,
political mobilization. I recommend you check the classic text in the field. As with most scientific
fields, the wikipedia entries for political process theory and social movements are weak, so I would not go by
that, though this one gives you a good enough overview of some of the theories in the field.
changeseeker View Public Profile Find More Posts by changeseeker
arildno
Re: the iron law of oligarchy, Aug24-09, 04:59 AM
From what you have told me, it sounds like nonsense.
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug24-09, 09:17 AM
Your dismissiveness is surprising, particularly since you are asking about the subject, which one could interpret as your not
knowing a lot about it and being interested in learning more.
It's too bad that you judge this to be "nonsense" without even reading about the theory, its assumptions, its predictions,
its findings, and its specific applications.
All I was giving you was a taste of the theory, not the entire theory. That's what the other resources are for.
changeseeker
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug24-09, 09:35 AM
"opportunities to mobilize"
The idea is that there is an opportunity structure that can be characterized mathematically. Usually, opportunities for mobilization
don't exist unless certain economic, political, demographic, or social factors make them possible.
For example, a large migration of African Americans from the South to the North enabled them to acquire resources, build communities
and organizations, etc. that were later used to mobilize against the South. But it was 40 years or so before the opportunity window
for mobilization emerged, which was a split within the Democratic Party about race and the desire of the Democratic Party to secure
northern, urban African American votes.
This is a vague term bordering on meaninglessness
Depends on how you define the term "opportunity." If everything is an opportunity, then the term becomes meaningless. There
needs to be a clear test that distinguishes opportunities from non opportunities for the theory to hold.
Why shouldn't a monolithic oligarchy be less of an "opportunity to mobilize" than a non-monolithic one?
That's exactly the prediction. When a monolithic oligarchy breaks down into competing interest groups, a "mobilization opportunity"
is born -- for the research findings suggest that in such situations some of the elite will align themselves with previously powerless
groups in an attempt to vanquish their competitors. A lot of this evidence comes from empirical research about what happened in
the former communist block.
After all, if the oligarchy is precisely defined, it is easier to identify who the "enemy" is.
Michels proposed the iron law of oligarchy. Political process theorists do not need to define the term oligarchy unless they
use it to do research on political mobilization.
Nor is there any reason why a squabbling elite should be perceived as less weak than a compact elite.
All the empirical findings of political process theory seem to suggest so, so the burden as a scientist is on you to come up
with an explanation and specific empirical cases where this is NOT the case.
Perceived weakness, IMO, has a lot more to do with ineffective, hesitant execution of subjugation measures than with the
temporary utilization of violence directed laterally, rather than vertically, as in the subjugation measure proper.
There is some research on this. I don't know the whole literature on this particular subject. But I can say that regimes who
exercise an incommensurate amount of force against the challenge facing it become more unstable than those who do otherwise. There
is a large literature on this subject as well in social movement theory.
Originally Posted by arildno In fact, by being awed, frightened by-standers of bloody clashes WITHIN the elite, the displayed
willingness of elite members to utilize violence may be a stronger deterrent for rebellion than if the elite is seen as a compact
group governing through "hallowed custom" and other non-violent subjugation techniques.
Well, that's a good hypothesis. Maybe you should test it?
arildno
Re: the iron law of oligarchy Aug24-09, 01:16 PM
Perhaps you might read a few thoughts I've written down, tangentially related to the issue at hand: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=294415
mheslep
Re: the iron law of oligarchy, Sep16-09, 04:18 PM
In that case, the theorists are flatly wrong in their predictions.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that bloody, internal and perennial squabbles within the nobility generate
opportunities for the peasants to take control.
In fact, we know they never did.
Happens all the time, most notably the squabbles between world powers England and France allowed the N. American colonies to
'mobilize' and form the United States.
Michels, Robert. 1915. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Translated
into English by Eden Paul and
Cedar Paul. New York: The Free Press.
Beyond the iron law: Rethinking the place of organizations in social movement research ES Clemens, DC Minkoff - The Blackwell
companion to social …, 2004 - books.google.com
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