Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from
taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup'
is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.
The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to
the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to
the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.
The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional
and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives,
mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.
The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that
the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential
political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and
legitimacy.
The Coup as 'Process'
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in
Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife'
for these 'regime changes'.
Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted
through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies
in Congress and the Judiciary.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part
of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American
coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking
office in January.
While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within
a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure – accusing President-Elect Trump
of
being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his
Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party
prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.
The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green
Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass
media.
In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green
Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George
Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money
financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media.
The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American
Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.
Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia,
the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like
Jill Stein.
The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question
Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention:
The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties,
and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they
all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative
warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and
social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation
of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival
'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia
and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry'
Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.
ORDER IT NOW
The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called
on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election
– essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused
to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.
President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy
and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and
place of our choosing".
Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the
jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian
Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo –
and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.
Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance
Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress.
He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three
retired generals to key Defense and Security positions – indicating a power struggle between the
highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been
key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them
with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.
Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported
the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his
cabinet who had their own allied business associations.
One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL,
George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This
was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as
Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced
with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect
named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security
and intelligence positions.
The Coup: Can it succeed?
In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation'
on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the
very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already
oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort
will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well
and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with
Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque
policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election
and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with
his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among
the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires
his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic
agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed
to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger
of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.
If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack
support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies,
but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').
He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among
the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to
the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire',
not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.
A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power.
But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the
whole system?
If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists
eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a
failure.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the
top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance
of the Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids?
Replies:
@Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). ,
@animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred
of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces
in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and
it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being
questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?
Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic
than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country
Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises
by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and
the Trump campaign was a failure.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the
term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since
before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans
are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the
books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with
this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to
assent by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was
the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?]
of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still–that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this I think we are all in very great danger today–now– AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That
could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is
real and substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]–a felony under existing laws.
–Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future–or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–FOR TRUMP–
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of
"man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could
be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and
substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws.
--Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!
It needs to be published as a feature story.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
• Replies:
@El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all
the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some
balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump–not Obama–that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump–out of fear and necessity–run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?–Or
will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say.
Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?–Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and
qualifications, though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to
confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set
about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive
amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that
Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not
until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game. , @map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.
How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors. ,
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office.
Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile... The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights'
at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS
directly.
The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although
Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now
be tied by all the traitors that run the US.
You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped
the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying
slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.
(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing
the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.
You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country
or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality:
are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?
This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter
is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want
to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest
policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo
loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
• Replies:
@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to
file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are
not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups
The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic.
In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for
a coup.
If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will
just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be
from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white
interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up
to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.
Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)
It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media.
While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law
which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press
For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth"
in George Orwell's book 1984.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president. An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred
of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity -- If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8
million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and
NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American
voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term;
this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before
Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed
up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books,
but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is
that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent
by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it
was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications,
though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") – Caligula
@Karl
the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before
Dr Stein's recount circuses.
They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.
Nothing else they try will fly.
Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer"
to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s)
are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
@Max Havelaar
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to
revenge Aleppo loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites"
in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the
US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does
not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is
the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell – who has never been in combat and
never demonstrated any intellectual vigor – is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated
opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do? ,
@Max Havelaar
A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.
I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as
to when the Coup D'etat is going to – or has already taken place .
The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2
million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert
Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.
Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.
Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There
are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass
Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for
the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.
I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below,
for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal 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 abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy
destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically
elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments
have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the
Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy,
left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.
In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class,
by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence
wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long
decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well
as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without
a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the
nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has
been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings
cannot stay even with the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures,
and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700
military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the
nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military
and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the
Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous
administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens
of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act
and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions
of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population;
the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is
bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government,
with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for
imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts
owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts,
will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.
As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct
to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their
own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of
the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead
and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government
which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means
a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people.
We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians
of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic! Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
@annamaria
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do?
• Replies:
@Bill Jones
The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.
My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and
pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two
palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious
explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?
The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation
certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess
who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?
As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.
Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:
My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year
contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered
that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years
I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.
At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.
If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably
split the same way.
The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined
these agencies in the first place to serve their country – not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects,
and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.
Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress
to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can
set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require
massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced
that Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action.
Not until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game.
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel
has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words
in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and
Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.
Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to
undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds
of hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt"
you seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff ..like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
@Tomster
What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have
sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous
brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@Art
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to
Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power
two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia
– hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Peace --- Art
"If we get past the inauguration ."
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) – doing his best to screw things up
before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at
war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act – providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on
Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It
is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if
Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis
to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
• Replies:
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb ,
@RobinG
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash."
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the
Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably
did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but
Joe Webb
• Replies:
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
@Realist
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented
any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers.
Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the
zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last
month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their
supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on." Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies – the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes: "... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
Hi RobinG,
This is much ado about nothing – in a NYT's article today – they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 – they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart – not the DNC – it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really – how pissed off can they be?
Peace - Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced
the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek
inside the Democrat machine.
Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This
shall not stand!
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
Hi Art,
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see
https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .
@annamaria
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and
war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ...
the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted
last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut
their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their
land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not
change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a
comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on
board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose
a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
• Replies:
@Tomster
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them.
,
@joe webb
good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim
Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs.
Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything
for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there
were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty
will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like
Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as
Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their
jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other
race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the
Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:
Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker
https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ ,
@alexander
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow
today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the
American people over the last sixteen years...
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to
shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge
his bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back.....four times...
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?
"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist
policies. "
The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has
for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."
A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist.
A black mark on both countries' report cards.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by?
The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash."
Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians,
while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup
in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG - Agree 100% – some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at
the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of
hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you
seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff.....like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes
to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains
are?). Who knows? – but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined
with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people
over the last sixteen years
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut
Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his
bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back ..four times
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of
affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns
anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere
that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under
discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way
humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like
Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just
as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for
their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any
other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain. Joe Webb
Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking
heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian
hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.
January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.
Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically
important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.
I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions
to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.
"... I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc, etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies on them is a necessity. ..."
"... I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to do with the SIGINT Enabling Project. ..."
I was paranoid about the Roomba and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have
any connectivity, nor does it record anything.
Personal assistant connected to both the 'net and Large Corp? No. Way.
I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their
location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc,
etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The
populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies
on them is a necessity.
Don't think learning that Echo is doing the same thing would deter
most people from using it. 'Convenience' and all
Fortunately, I can barely hear the person I'm talking to through my
smartphone, so I am not optimistic that it can actually hear me from
someplace else in the house, especially compared to someone's Echo I
have experience with. But point taken.
The microphoneS (often there is an extra mic to cancel ambient
noise) in a phone are exquisitely sensitive. The losses you're
hearing are those from crushing that comparatively high-fidelity
signal into a few thousand bits per second for transmission to/from
the base station.
I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty
in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to
do with the SIGINT Enabling Project.
(Not that
I'm
foily )
Wonder if Mr. B gave Mr. T and all the other attendees an Echo at Mr.
T's tech summit. ATT and all the other big telcom players all said,
scout's honor, they don't listen in on their customer's phone calls, so
no worries because Fortune 500 companies are such ethical people. That
may even be technically true because the 3 letter agencies and their
minions (human or otherwise) are doing the actual listening. So if you
are too lazy to go to Amazon.com to delete your idle chit chat, I can
sell you a cloth to wipe it with (maybe I'll even list it on Amazon's
marketplace).
"... I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc, etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies on them is a necessity. ..."
"... I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to do with the SIGINT Enabling Project. ..."
I was paranoid about the Roomba and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have
any connectivity, nor does it record anything.
Personal assistant connected to both the 'net and Large Corp? No. Way.
I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their
location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc,
etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The
populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies
on them is a necessity.
Don't think learning that Echo is doing the same thing would deter
most people from using it. 'Convenience' and all
Fortunately, I can barely hear the person I'm talking to through my
smartphone, so I am not optimistic that it can actually hear me from
someplace else in the house, especially compared to someone's Echo I
have experience with. But point taken.
The microphoneS (often there is an extra mic to cancel ambient
noise) in a phone are exquisitely sensitive. The losses you're
hearing are those from crushing that comparatively high-fidelity
signal into a few thousand bits per second for transmission to/from
the base station.
I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty
in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to
do with the SIGINT Enabling Project.
(Not that
I'm
foily )
Wonder if Mr. B gave Mr. T and all the other attendees an Echo at Mr.
T's tech summit. ATT and all the other big telcom players all said,
scout's honor, they don't listen in on their customer's phone calls, so
no worries because Fortune 500 companies are such ethical people. That
may even be technically true because the 3 letter agencies and their
minions (human or otherwise) are doing the actual listening. So if you
are too lazy to go to Amazon.com to delete your idle chit chat, I can
sell you a cloth to wipe it with (maybe I'll even list it on Amazon's
marketplace).
Developing nations continued to be the largest buyers of arms in 2015, with Qatar
signing deals for more than $17 billion in weapons last year, followed by Egypt,
which agreed to buy almost $12 billion in arms, and Saudi Arabia, with over $8
billion in weapons purchases.
Although global tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of diminishing,
the total size of the global arms trade dropped to around $80 billion in 2015 from
the 2014 total of $89 billion, the study found. Developing nations bought $65 billion
in weapons in 2015, substantially lower than the previous year's total of $79
billion.
The United States and France increased their overseas weapons sales in 2015, as
purchases of American weapons grew by around $4 billion and France's deals increased
by well over $9 billion.
The report, "
Conventional Arms
Transfers to Developing Nations, 2008-2015
," was prepared by the nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, and delivered
to legislators last week. The annual review is considered the most comprehensive
assessment of global arms sales available in an unclassified form. The report adjusts
for inflation, so the sales totals are comparable year to year.
(techcrunch.com)
157
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @05:00AM
from
the
no-place-to-hide
dept.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
interviewed
Edward Snowden via Periscope
about the wide world of technology. The NSA
whistleblower "
discussed
the data that many online companies continue to collect about their users
,
creating a 'quantified world' -- and more opportunities for government
surveillance," reports TechCrunch. Snowden said, "If you are being tracked,
this is something you should agree to, this is something you should understand,
this is something you should be aware of and can change at any time."
TechCrunch reports:
Snowden acknowledged that there's a distinction between
collecting the content of your communication (i.e., what you said during a
phone call) and the metadata (information like who you called and how long it
lasted). For some, surveillance that just collects metadata might seem less
alarming, but in Snowden's view, "That metadata is in many cases much more
dangerous and much more intrusive, because it can be understood at scale." He
added that we currently face unprecedented perils because of all the data
that's now available -- in the past, there was no way for the government to get
a list of all the magazines you'd read, or every book you'd checked out from
the library. "[In the past,] your beliefs, your future, your hopes, your dreams
belonged to you," Snowden said. "Increasingly, these things belong to
companies, and these companies can share them however they want, without a lot
of oversight." He wasn't arguing that companies shouldn't collect user data at
all, but rather that "the people who need to be in control of that are the
users." "This is the central problem of the future, is how do we return control
of our identities to the people themselves?" Snowden said.
(cyberscoop.com)
412
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 11, 2016 @11:34AM
from the
blaming-Oliver-Stone
dept.
schwit1
quotes CyberScoop:
Low
morale at the National Security Agency is causing some of the agency's most
talented people
to leave in favor of private sector jobs
, former NSA Director Keith
Alexander told a room full of journalism students, professors and cybersecurity
executives Tuesday. The retired general and other insiders say a combination of
economic and social factors including negative press coverage -- have played a
part... "I am honestly surprised that some of these people in cyber companies
make up to seven figures. That's five times what the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff makes. Right? And these are people that are 32 years old. Do
the math. [The NSA] has great competition," he said.
The rate at which these cyber-tacticians are exiting public service has
increased over the last several years and has gotten considerably worse over
the last 12 months, multiple former NSA officials and D.C. area-based
cybersecurity employers have told CyberScoop in recent weeks... In large part,
Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes
people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government
regardless of their independent actions.
"What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry
government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are
doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added. "They are doing exactly
what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
(pcworld.com)
83
Posted by msmash
on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @11:00AM
from the
business-as-usual
dept.
Security experts consider the aging FTP and Telnet protocols unsafe, and HP has
decided to clamp down on access to networked printers through the remote-access
tools
. From a report on PCWorld:
Some of HP's new business printers
will, by default, be closed to remote access via protocols like FTP and Telnet.
However, customers can activate remote printing access through those protocols
if needed. "HP has started the process of closing older, less-maintained
interfaces including ports, protocols and cipher suites" identified by the U.S.
National Institute of Standards and Technology as less than secure, the company
said in a statement. In addition, HP also announced firmware updates to
existing business printers with improved password and encryption settings, so
hackers can't easily break into the devices.
(bleepingcomputer.com)
207
Posted by
BeauHD
on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @08:25PM
from the
hidden-in-plain-sight
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer:
For the past two
months, a new exploit kit has been
serving malicious code hidden in the pixels of banner ads via a malvertising
campaign
that has been active on several high profile websites.
Discovered by security researchers from ESET
, this new exploit kit is named
Stegano, from the word
steganography
, which is a technique of hiding content inside other files.
In this particular scenario, malvertising campaign operators hid malicious code
inside PNG images used for banner ads. The crooks took a PNG image and altered
the transparency value of several pixels. They then packed the modified image
as an ad, for which they bought ad displays on several high-profile websites.
Since a large number of advertising networks allow advertisers to deliver
JavaScript code with their ads, the crooks also included JS code that would
parse the image, extract the pixel transparency values, and using a
mathematical formula, convert those values into a character. Since images have
millions of pixels, crooks had all the space they needed to pack malicious code
inside a PNG photo. When extracted, this malicious code would redirect the user
to an intermediary ULR, called gate, where the host server would filter users.
This server would only accept connections from Internet Explorer users. The
reason is that the gate would exploit the CVE-2016-0162 vulnerability that
allowed the crooks to determine if the connection came from a real user or a
reverse analysis system employed by security researchers. Additionally, this IE
exploit also allowed the gate server to detect the presence of antivirus
software. In this case, the server would drop the connection just to avoid
exposing its infrastructure and trigger a warning that would alert both the
user and the security firm. If the gate server deemed the target valuable, then
it would redirect the user to the final stage, which was the exploit kit
itself, hosted on another URL. The Stegano exploit kit would use three Adobe
Flash vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-8651, CVE-2016-1019 or CVE-2016-4117) to attack
the user's PC, and forcibly download and launch into execution various strains
of malware.
(pcworld.com)
55
Posted by msmash
on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @12:20PM
from
the
security-woes
dept.
Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and
infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest
version. Researchers from SEC Consult have
found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony
security cameras
, mainly used by companies and government agencies given
their high price, PCWorld reports. From the article:
One set of hard-coded
credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send
requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult
researchers said in an advisory Tuesday. The second hard-coded password is for
the root account that could be used to take full control of the camera over
Telnet. The researchers established that the password is static based on its
cryptographic hash and, while they haven't actually cracked it, they believe
it's only a matter of time until someone does. Sony released a patch to the
affected camera models last week.
(zdnet.com)
30
Posted by msmash
on Thursday December 08, 2016 @11:45AM
from the
security-woes-and-fixes
dept.
Yahoo says it has fixed a severe security vulnerability in its email service
that
allowed an attacker to read a victim's email inbox
. From a report on ZDNet:
The cross-site scripting (XSS) attack only required a victim to view an email
in Yahoo Mail. The internet giant paid out $10,000 to security researcher Jouko
Pynnonen for privately disclosing the flaw through the HackerOne bug bounty, In
a write-up, Pynnonen said that the flaw was similar to last year's Yahoo Mail
bug, which similarly let an attacker compromise a user's account. Yahoo filters
HTML messages to ensure that malicious code won't make it through into the
user's browser, but the researcher found that the filters didn't catch all of
the malicious data attributes.
(onthewire.io)
25
Posted by
BeauHD
on Friday December 09, 2016 @05:00AM
from the
out-of-the-woodwork
dept.
Trailrunner7
quotes a report
from On the Wire:
Malware gangs, like sad wedding bands bands, love to play
the hits. And one of the hits they keep running back over and over is the Zeus
banking Trojan, which has been in use for many years in a number of different
forms. Researchers have
unearthed a new piece of malware called Floki Bot that is based on the
venerable Zeus source code
and is being used to infect point-of-sale
systems, among other targets. Flashpoint
conducted the analysis
of Floki Bot with Cisco's Talos research team, and
the two organizations said that the author behind the bot maintains a presence
on a number of different underground forums, some of which are in Russian or
other non-native languages for him. Kremez said that attackers sometimes will
participate in foreign language forums as a way to expand their knowledge.
Along with its PoS infection capability, Floki Bot also has a feature that
allows it to use the Tor network to communicate.
"During our analysis of
Floki Bot, Talos identified modifications that had been made to the dropper
mechanism present in the leaked Zeus source code in an attempt to make Floki
Bot more difficult to detect. Talos also observed the introduction of new code
that allows Floki Bot to make use of the Tor network. However, this
functionality does not appear to be active for the time being," Cisco's Talos
team
said in its analysis
.
A patch was pushed to the mainline Linux kernel December 2, four days after it
was privately disclosed. Pettersson has developed a proof-of-concept exploit
specifically for Ubuntu distributions, but told Threatpost his attack could be
ported to other distros with some changes. The vulnerability is a race
condition that was discovered in the
af_packet
implementation in the
Linux kernel, and Pettersson said that a local attacker could exploit the bug
to gain kernel code execution from unprivileged processes. He said the bug
cannot be exploited remotely.
"Basically it's a bait-and-switch," the researcher told Threatpost. "The bug
allows you to trick the kernel into thinking it is working with one kind of
object, while you actually switched it to another kind of object before it
could react."
(securityledger.com)
147
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 11, 2016 @01:34PM
from the
nixing-the-network
dept.
"By convincing a user to visit a specially crafted web site, a remote attacker
may execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on affected routers," warns
a new vulnerability notice
from Carnegie Mellon University's CERT. Slashdot reader
chicksdaddy
quotes Security
Ledger's story about certain models of Netgear's routers:
Firmware version
1.0.7.2_1.1.93 (and possibly earlier) for the R7000 and version 1.0.1.6_1.0.4
(and possibly earlier) for the R6400 are
known to contain the arbitrary command injection vulnerability
. CERT cited
"community reports" that indicate the R8000, firmware version 1.0.3.4_1.1.2, is
also vulnerable... The flaw was found in new firmware that runs the Netgear
R7000 and R6400 routers. Other models and firmware versions may also be
affected, including the R8000 router, CMU CERT warned.
With no work around to the flaw, CERT recommended that Netgear customers
disable their wifi router until a software patch from the company that
addressed the hole was available... A search of the public internet using the
Shodan search engine finds around 8,000 R6450 and R7000 devices that can be
reached directly from the Internet and that would be vulnerable to takeover
attacks. The vast majority of those are located in the United States.
Proof-of-concept exploit code was released by a Twitter user who, according to
the article, said "he informed Netgear of the flaw more than four months ago,
but did not hear back from the company since then."
(bleepingcomputer.com)
137
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @07:45PM
from
the
connected-devices
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer:
Malicious ads are
serving exploit code to infect routers
, instead of browsers, in order to
insert ads in every site users are visiting. Unlike previous malvertising
campaigns that targeted users of old Flash or Internet Explorer versions, this
campaign focused on Chrome users, on both desktop and mobile devices. The
malicious ads included in this malvertising campaign contain exploit code for
166 router models, which allow attackers to take over the device and insert ads
on websites that didn't feature ads, or replace original ads with the
attackers' own. Researchers
haven't yet managed to determine an exact list of affected router models
,
but some of the brands targeted by the attackers include Linksys, Netgear,
D-Link, Comtrend, Pirelli, and Zyxel. Because the attack is carried out via the
user's browser, using strong router passwords or disabling the administration
interface is not enough. The only way users can stay safe is if they update
their router's firmware to the most recent versions, which most likely includes
protection against the vulnerabilities used by this campaign.
The
"campaign" is called DNSChanger EK and works when attackers buy ads on
legitimate websites and insert malicious JavaScript in these ads, "which use a
WebRTC request to a Mozilla STUN server to determine the user's local IP
address," according to BleepingComputer. "Based on this local IP address, the
malicious code can determine if the user is on a local network managed by a
small home router, and continue the attack. If this check fails, the attackers
just show a random legitimate ad and move on. For the victims the crooks deem
valuable, the attack chain continues. These users receive a tainted ad which
redirects them to the DNSChanger EK home, where the actual exploitation begins.
The next step is for the attackers to send an image file to the user's browser,
which contains an AES (encryption algorithm) key embedded inside the photo
using the technique of steganography. The malicious ad uses this AES key to
decrypt further traffic it receives from the DNSChanger exploit kit. Crooks
encrypt their operations to avoid the prying eyes of security researchers."
(vice.com)
33
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @08:25PM
from
the
buy-one-get-one
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard:
The Shadow Brokers --
a hacker or group of hackers that stole computer exploits from the National
Security Agency -- has been quiet for some time. After their auction and
crowd-funded approach for selling the exploits met a lukewarm reception, the
group seemingly stopped posting new messages in October. But a newly uncovered
website, which includes a file apparently signed with The Shadow Brokers'
cryptographic key, suggests the group is
trying to sell hacking tools directly to buyers one by one
, and a cache of
files appears to include more information on specific exploits. On Wednesday,
someone calling themselves Boceffus Cleetus
published a Medium post
called "Are the Shadow Brokers selling NSA tools on
ZeroNet?" Cleetus, who has
an American flag with
swastikas
as their profile picture, also tweeted the post from a Twitter
account created this month. The site includes a long list of supposed items for
sale, with names like ENVOYTOMATO, EGGBASKET, and YELLOWSPIRIT. Each is sorted
into a type, such as "implant," "trojan," and "exploit," and comes with a price
tag between 1 and 100 bitcoins ($780 -- $78,000). Customers can purchase the
whole lot for 1000 bitcoins ($780,000). The site also lets visitors download a
selection of screenshots and files related to each item. Along with those is a
file signed with a PGP key with an identical fingerprint to that linked to the
original Shadow Brokers dump of exploits from August. This newly uncovered file
was apparently signed on 1 September; a different date to any of The Shadow
Brokers'
previously signed messages
.
(netgear.com)
26
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday December 17, 2016 @10:34AM
from the
but-they-might-not-work
dept.
The Department of Homeland Security's CERT issued a warning last week that
users
should "strongly
consider"
not using some models of NetGear routers, and the list expanded
this week to include 11 different models. Netgear's now updated their web page,
announcing eight "beta" fixes, along with three more "production" fixes.
chicksdaddy
writes:
The
company said the new [beta] firmware has not been fully tested and "
might
not work for all users
." The company offered it as a "temporary solution"
to address the security hole. "Netgear is working on a production firmware
version that fixes this command injection vulnerability and will release it as
quickly as possible," the company said in a post to its online knowledgebase
early Tuesday.
The move follows publication of a warning from experts at Carnegie Mellon on
December 9 detailing a serious "arbitrary command injection" vulnerability in
the latest version of firmware used by a number of Netgear wireless routers.
The security hole could allow a remote attacker to take control of the router
by convincing a user to visit a malicious web site... The vulnerability was
discovered by an individual...who says
he contacted Netgear about the flaw four months ago
, and went public with
information on it after the company failed to address the issue on its own.
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday December 17, 2016 @05:34PM
from the
jeopardized-in-June
dept.
mask.of.sanity
writes:
A
researcher has reported
10 vulnerabilities in McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise for Linux
that when
chained together result in root remote code execution. McAfee took six months
to fix the bugs issuing a patch December 9th.
Citing the
security note
,
CSO adds that "one of the issues
affects Virus Scan Enterprise for Windows version 8.7i through at least 8.8
."
The vulnerability was reported by Andrew Fasano at MIT's federally-funded
security lab, who said he targeted McAfee's client because "it runs as root, it
claims to make your machine more secure, it's not particularly popular, and it
looks like it hasn't been updated in a long time."
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday December 17, 2016 @06:34PM
from the
catch-me-if-you-can
dept.
"Following a failed takedown attempt, changes made to the Mirai malware variant
responsible for building one of today's biggest botnets of IoT devices will
make it incredibly harder for authorities and security firms to shut it down,"
reports Bleeping Computer. An anonymous reader writes:
Level3 and others"
have been very close to taking down one of the biggest Mirai botnets around,
the same one that attempted to
knock the Internet offline in Liberia
, and also hijacked 900,000 routers
from
German ISP Deutsche Telekom
.The botnet narrowly escaped due to the fact
that its maintainer, a hacker known as BestBuy, had implemented a
domain-generation algorithm to generate random domain names where he hosted his
servers.
Currently, to avoid further takedown attempts from similar security firms,
BestBuy has
started moving the botnet's command and control servers to Tor
. "It's all
good now. We don't need to pay thousands to ISPs and hosting. All we need is
one strong server," the hacker said. "Try to shut down .onion 'domains' over
Tor," he boasted, knowing that nobody can.
(neowin.net)
35
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @02:34PM
from the
profile-views
dept.
Less than four weeks after Microsoft formally
acquired LinkedIn for $26 billion
, there's been a database breach. An
anonymous reader writes:
LinkedIn is sending emails to 9.5 million users of
Lynda.com, its online learning subsidiary,
warning the users of a database breach by "an unauthorized third party"
.
The affected database included contact information for at least some of the
users. An email to customers says "while we have no evidence that your specific
account was accessed or that any data has been made publicly available, we
wanted to notify you as a precautionary measure." Ironically, the breach comes
less than a month after Russia
blocked access to LinkedIn over privacy concerns
.
LinkedIn has also reset the passwords for 55,000 Lynda.com accounts (though
apparently many of its users don't have accounts with passwords).
(bleepingcomputer.com)
211
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @04:44PM
from the
denial-of-liberty-counterattack
dept.
This week the FBI arrested a 26-year-old southern California man for launching
a DDoS attack against online chat service Chatango at the end of 2014 and in
early 2015 -- part of a new crackdown on the customers of "DDoS-for-hire"
services. An anonymous reader writes:
Sean Krishanmakoto Sharma, a computer
science graduate student at USC, is now
facing up to 10 years in prison
and/or a fine of up to $250,000.
Court documents
describe a service called Xtreme Stresser as "basically a
Linux botnet DDoS tool," and allege that Sharma rented it for an attack on
Chatango, an online chat service. "Sharma is now free on a $100,000 bail,"
reports Bleeping Computer, adding "As part of his bail release agreement,
Sharma is banned from accessing certain sites such as HackForums and tools such
as VPNs..."
"Sharma's arrest is part of
a bigger operation against DDoS-for-Hire services, called Operation Tarpit
,"
the article points out. "Coordinated by Europol, Operation Tarpit took place
between December 5 and December 9, and concluded with the arrest of 34 users of
DDoS-for-hire services across the globe, in countries such as Australia,
Belgium, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States." It grew out
of an earlier investigation into a U.K.-based DDoS-for-hire service which had
400 customers who ultimately launched 603,499 DDoS attacks on 224,548 targets.
Most of the other suspects arrested were under the age of 20.
(reuters.com)
101
Posted by
BeauHD
on Thursday December 22, 2016 @06:25PM
from the
come-out-come-out-wherever-you-are
dept.
schwit1
quotes a report from
Reuters:
A hacking group linked to the Russian government and high-profile
cyber attacks against Democrats during the U.S. presidential election likely
used a
malware implant on Android devices to track and target Ukrainian artillery
units
from late 2014 through 2016, according to a
new report
released Thursday. The malware was able to retrieve
communications and some locational data from infected devices, intelligence
that would have likely been used to strike against the artillery in support of
pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, the report from cyber
security firm CrowdStrike found. The hacking group, known commonly as Fancy
Bear or APT 28, is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to work primarily on
behalf of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency. The implant leveraged
a legitimate Android application developed by a Ukrainian artillery officer to
process targeting data more quickly, CrowdStrike said. Its deployment "extends
Russian cyber capabilities to the front lines of the battlefield," the report
said, and "could have facilitated anticipatory awareness of Ukrainian artillery
force troop movement, thus providing Russian forces with useful strategic
planning information."
(techcrunch.com)
122
Posted by
BeauHD
on Thursday November 24, 2016 @08:00AM
from the
proof-of-concept
dept.
As if we don't already have enough devices that can listen in on our
conversations, security researchers at Israel's Ben Gurion University have
created malware that will turn your headphones into microphones
that can
slyly record your conversations. TechCrunch reports:
The proof-of-concept,
called "
Speake(a)r
," first
turned headphones connected to a PC into microphones and then tested the
quality of sound recorded by a microphone vs. headphones on a target PC. In
short, the headphones were nearly as good as an unpowered microphone at picking
up audio in a room. It essentially "retasks" the RealTek audio codec chip
output found in many desktop computers into an input channel. This means you
can plug your headphones into a seemingly output-only jack and hackers can
still listen in. This isn't a driver fix, either. The embedded chip does not
allow users to properly prevent this hack which means your earbuds or nice cans
could start picking up conversations instantly. In fact, even if you disable
your microphone, a computer with a RealTek chip could still be hacked and
exploited without your knowledge. The sound quality, as shown by this chart, is
pretty much the same for a dedicated microphone and headphones.
The
researchers have
published a video
on YouTube demonstrating how this malware works.
(reuters.com)
57
Posted by msmash
on Thursday November 24, 2016 @10:04AM
from the
security-woes
dept.
Hackers gained access to sensitive information, including Social Security
numbers,
for
134,386 current and former U.S. sailors, the U.S. Navy has said
. According
to Reuters:
It said a laptop used by a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services
employee working on a U.S. Navy contract was hacked. Hewlett Packard informed
the Navy of the breach on Oct. 27 and the affected sailors will be notified in
the coming weeks, the Navy said. "The Navy takes this incident extremely
seriously - this is a matter of trust for our sailors," Chief of Naval
Personnel Vice Admiral Robert Burke said in a statement.
(arstechnica.com)
30
Posted by
BeauHD
on Tuesday November 29, 2016 @09:05PM
from the
thank-God-for-backups
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
The attacker who
infected servers and desktop computers
at the San Francisco Metropolitan
Transit Agency (SFMTA) with ransomware on November 25 apparently
gained access to the agency's network by way of a known vulnerability in an
Oracle WebLogic server
. That vulnerability is similar to the one used to
hack a Maryland hospital network's systems in April and infect multiple
hospitals with crypto-ransomware. And evidence suggests that SFMTA wasn't
specifically targeted by the attackers; the agency just came up as a target of
opportunity through a vulnerability scan. In an e-mail to Ars, SFMTA
spokesperson Paul Rose said that on November 25, "we became aware of a
potential security issue with our computer systems, including e-mail." The
ransomware "encrypted some systems mainly affecting computer workstations," he
said, "as well as access to various systems. However, the SFMTA network was not
breached from the outside, nor did hackers gain entry through our firewalls.
Muni operations and safety were not affected. Our customer payment systems were
not hacked. Also, despite media reports, no data was accessed from any of our
servers." That description of the ransomware attack is not consistent with some
of the evidence of previous ransomware attacks by those behind the SFMTA
incident -- which Rose said primarily affected about 900 desktop computers
throughout the agency. Based on communications uncovered from the ransomware
operator behind the Muni attack published by
security reporter Brian Krebs
, an SFMTA Web-facing server was likely
compromised by what is referred to as a "deserialization" attack after it was
identified by a vulnerability scan. A security researcher told Krebs that he
had been able to gain access to the mailbox used in the malware attack on the
Russian e-mail and search provider Yandex by guessing its owner's security
question, and he provided details from the mailbox and another linked mailbox
on Yandex. Based on details found in e-mails for the accounts, the attacker ran
a server loaded with open source vulnerability scanning tools to identify and
compromise servers to use in spreading the ransomware,
known as HDDCryptor and Mamba
, within multiple organizations' networks.
(reuters.com)
88
Posted by msmash
on Friday December 02, 2016 @12:20PM
from the
hmmm
dept.
Russia said on Friday it had uncovered a plot by foreign spy agencies to sow
chaos in Russia's banking system via a
coordinated wave of cyber attacks and fake social media reports about banks
going bust
. From a report on Reuters:
Russia's domestic intelligence
agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), said that the servers to be used in
the alleged cyber attack were located in the Netherlands and registered to a
Ukrainian web hosting company called BlazingFast. The attack, which was to
target major national and provincial banks in several Russian cities, was meant
to start on Dec. 5, the FSB said in a statement. "It was planned that the cyber
attack would be accompanied by a mass send-out of SMS messages and publications
in social media of a provocative nature regarding a crisis in the Russian
banking system, bankruptcies and license withdrawals," it said. "The FSB is
carrying out the necessary measures to neutralize threats to Russia's economic
and information security."
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 04, 2016 @02:39PM
from the
BOFH
dept.
After being let go over a series of "personal issues" with his employer, things
got worse for 26-year-old network administrator Dariusz J. Prugar, who will now
have to spend two years in prison for hacking the ISP where he'd worked. An
anonymous reader writes:
Prugar had
used his old credentials to log into the ISP's network and "take back" some of
the scripts
and software he wrote... "Seeking to hide his tracks, Prugar
used an automated script that deleted various logs," reports Bleeping Computer.
"As a side effect of removing some of these files, the ISP's systems crashed,
affecting over 500 businesses and over 5,000 residential customers."
When the former ISP couldn't fix the issue, they asked Prugar to help. "During
negotiations, instead of requesting money as payment, Prugar insisted that he'd
be paid using the rights to the software and scripts he wrote while at the
company, software which was now malfunctioning, a week after he left." This
tipped off the company, who detected foul play, contacted the FBI and rebuilt
its entire network.
Six years later, Prugar was found guilty after a
one-week jury trial, and was ordered by the judge to
pay $26,000 in restitution to the ISP
(which went out of business in
October of 2015).
Prugar's two-year prison sentence begins December 27.
(independent.co.uk)
110
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 04, 2016 @07:39AM
from the
one-Mississippi-two-Mississippi
dept.
schwit1
quotes The Independent:
Criminals can work out the card number, expiration date, and security code for
a Visa debit or credit card
in as little as six seconds using guesswork
, researchers have found...
Fraudsters use a so-called Distributed Guessing Attack to get around security
features put in place to stop online fraud, and this may have been the method
used in
the recent Tesco Bank hack
...
According to a study published in the academic journal IEEE Security & Privacy,
fraudsters could use computers to systematically
fire different
variations of security data at hundreds of websites simultaneously
. Within
seconds, by a process of elimination, the criminals could verify the correct
card number, expiration date and the three-digit security number on the back of
the card.
One of the researchers explained this attack combines two weaknesses into one
powerful attack. "Firstly, current online payment systems do not detect
multiple invalid payment requests from different websites... Secondly,
different websites ask for different variations in the card data fields to
validate an online purchase. This means it's quite easy to build up the
information and piece it together like a jigsaw puzzle."
(muckrock.com)
52
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @09:34PM
from the
actually-it's-108-years
dept.
"Over a century of fear and filing cabinets" at the FBI has been exposed
through six years of Freedom of Information Act requests. And now MuckRock
founder (and long-time Slashdot reader)
v3rgEz
writes:
MuckRock recently published its 100th look into
historical FBI files, and to celebrate they've also
compiled a timeline of the FBI's history
. It traces the rise and fall of J.
Edgar Hoover as well as some of the Bureau's more questionable investigations
into famous figures
ranging from Steve Jobs
to
Hannah Arendt
. Read the timeline, or browse through all of MuckRock's FBI
FOIA work.
The FBI interviewed 29 people about Steve Jobs (after he was appointed to the
President's Export Council in 1991), with several citing his "past drug use,"
and several individuals also saying Jobs would "distort reality."
It is impossible to overstate the stakes involved in the latest controversy over Russia. They
involve trillions of dollars in warfare largess to the tens of thousands of bureaucratic warfare-state
parasites who are sucking the lifeblood out of the American people.
Ever since the advent of the U.S. national-security state after World War II, America has needed
official enemies, especially ones that induce fear, terror, and panic within the American citizenry.
When people are fearful, terrified, and panicked, they are much more willing, even eager, to have
government officials do whatever is necessary to keep them safe and secure. It is during such times
that liberty is at greatest risk because of the propensity of government to assume emergency powers
and the proclivity of the citizenry to let them have them.
That's what the Cold War was all about. The official enemies were communism and the Soviet Union,
which was an alliance of nations that had Russia at its center. U.S. officials convinced Americans
that there was a worldwide communist conspiracy to take over the world, with its principal base in
Moscow.
A correlative threat was Red China, whose communist hordes were supposedly threatening to flood
the United States.
There were also the communist outposts, which were considered spearheads pointed at America. North
Korea. North Vietnam. Cuba, which, Americans were told, was a communist dagger pointed out America's
neck from only 90 miles away.
And then there was communism the philosophy, along with the communists who promoted it. It was
clear, U.S. officials gravely maintained, that communism was spreading all across the world, including
inside the U.S. Army, the State Department, and Hollywood, and that communists were everyone, including
leftist organizations and even sometimes under people's beds.
Needless to say, all this fear, terror, and panic induced people to support the ever-growing budgets,
influence, and power of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, which had become the national-security
branch of the federal government - and the most powerful branch at that. Few cared that their hard-earned
monies were being taken from them by the IRS in ever-increasing amounts. All that mattered was being
kept safe from the communists.
Hardly anyone questioned or challenged this warfare-state racket. President Eisenhower alluded
to it in his Farewell Address in 1961, when he pointed out that this new-fangled governmental structure,
which he called "the military industrial complex," now posed a grave threat to the freedoms and democratic
processes of the American people.
One of those who did challenge this official-enemy syndrome was President John F. Kennedy. At
war with his national-security establishment in 1963, Kennedy threw the gauntlet down at his famous
Peace Speech at American University in June of that year. There was no reason, Kennedy said, that
the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) and the rest of the communist world couldn't live in peace co-existence
and even friendship, even if the nations were guided by different ideologies and philosophies. Kennedy
announced that it was time to end the Cold War against Russia and the rest of the communist world.
What Kennedy was proposing was anathema to the national-security state and its ever-growing army
of voracious contractors and subcontractors who were feeding at the public trough. How dare he remove
the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) as America's official enemy? How could the Pentagon, the CIA, and
the NSA justify their ever-growing budgets and their ever-growing emergency powers? Indeed, how could
they justify the very existence of their Cold War totalitarian-type apparatus known as a "national
security state" without a giant official enemy to strike fear, terror, and panic with the American
people?
Once Kennedy was removed from the scene, everything returned to "normal." The Cold War continued.
The Vietnam War against the commies in Asia to prevent more dominoes from falling got ramped up.
The Soviet Union, Red China, and the worldwide communist conspiracy continued to be America's big
official enemies. The military and intelligence budgets continued to rise. The number of warfare
state parasites continued soaring.
Seemingly, there was never going to be an end to the process. Until one day, the unexpected suddenly
happened. The Berlin Wall came crashing down, East and West Germany were reunited, and the Soviet
Union was dismantled, all of which struck unmitigated fear within the bowels of the American deep
state.
Oh sure, there was still Cuba, Red China, North Korea, and Vietnam but those communist nations,
for some reason, just didn't strike fear, terror, and panic within Americans as Russia did.
U.S. officials needed a new official enemy. Enter Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, who had
served as a partner and ally of the U.S. government during the 1980s when he was waging war against
Iran, which, by that time, had become converted from official friend to official enemy of the U.S.
Empire. Throughout the 1990s, Saddam was made into the new official enemy. Like the Soviets and the
communists, Saddam was coming to get us and unleash mushroom clouds all over America. The American
people bought it and, not surprisingly, budgets for the national-security establishment continued
their upward soar.
Then came the 9/11 attacks in retaliation for what the Pentagon and the CIA were doing in the
Middle East, followed by with the retaliatory invasions Afghanistan and Iraq. Suddenly the new official
enemies were "terrorism" and then later Islam. Like the communists of yesteryear, the terrorists
and the Muslims were coming to get us, take over the federal government, run the IRS and HUD, and
force everyone to study the Koran. The American people bought it and, not surprisingly, budgets for
the national-security establishment continued their upward soar.
The problem is that Americans, including U.S. soldiers and their families, are now growing weary
of the forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. But U.S. national-security state officials
know that if they bring the troops home, the official enemies of terrorism and Islam disappear at
the same time.
That's why they have decided to return to their old, tried and true official enemy - Russia and,
implicitly, communism. It's why the U.S. broke its promise to Russia to dismantle NATO. It's why
the U.S. supported regime change in the coup in Ukraine. It's why the U.S. wants Ukraine into NATO
- to enable the U.S. to install missiles on Russia's border. It's why the national-security state
is "pivoting" toward Asia - to provoke crises with Red China. It's why they are accusing Russia of
interfering with the U.S. presidential election and campaigning for Donald Trump. The aim of it all
is to bring back the old Cold War official enemies of Russia, China, and communism, in order to keep
Americans afraid, terrified, and panicked, which then means the continuation of ever-growing budgets
to all those warfare state parasites who are sucking the lifeblood out of the American people.
With his fight against the CIA over Russian hacking and his desire to establish normal relations
with Russia, Donald Trump is clearly not buying into this old, tried-and-true Russia-as-official
enemy narrative. In the process, he is posing a grave threat to the national-security establishment
and its ever-growing budgets, influence, and power.
"... But "bastard neoliberalism" that Trump represents in his internal economic policy probably is not a solution for the nations problems. It is too early to say what will be the level of his deviation from election promises, but judging for his appointments it probably will be considerable -- up to a complete reverse on certain promises. ..."
"... So I view his election as the next logical step (after the first two by Bush II and Obama) toward military dictatorship. Previous forms of "Inverted totalitarism" -- a neoliberal version of Bolshevism (or, more correctly, Trotskyism -- many neocons were actually former Trotskyites ) seems to stop working. Neoliberal ideology was discredited in 2008. All three: Bolshevism, Trotskyism and neoliberalism might also be viewed as just different flavors of Corporatism. ..."
"... After 2008 crisis, neoliberalism in the USA continues to exist in zombie state: as a non-dead dead, so it will be inevitably replaced by something else. Much like Bolshevism after 1945. How soon it will happen and what will be the actual trigger (the next oil crisis which turns into another round of Great Recession?) and what will be the successor is anybody guess. Bolshevism in the USSR lasted till 1991 or 46 years. The victory on neoliberalism in the Cold War was in 1991 so if we add 50 years then 2041 might be the date. ..."
I think the shift from New Deal Capitalism to neoliberalism proved to be fatal for the form
of democracy that used to exist in the USA (never perfect, and never for the plebs).
Neoliberalism as a strange combination of socialism for the rich and feudalism for the poor
is anathema for democracy even for the narrow strata of the US society who used to have a say
in the political process. Like Bolshevism was dictatorship of nomenklatura under the slogan of
"Proletarians of all countries, unite!", neoliberalism is more like dictatorship of financial
oligarchy under the slogan "The financial elite of all countries, unite!")
In this sense Trump is just the logical end of the process that started in 1980 with Reagan,
or even earlier with Carter.
And at the same time [he is] the symptom of the crisis of the system, as large swats of population
this time voted against status quo and that created the revolutionary situation when the elite
was unable to govern in the old fashion. That's why, I think, Hillary lost and Trump won.
But "bastard neoliberalism" that Trump represents in his internal economic policy probably
is not a solution for the nations problems. It is too early to say what will be the level of his
deviation from election promises, but judging for his appointments it probably will be considerable
-- up to a complete reverse on certain promises.
So I view his election as the next logical step (after the first two by Bush II and Obama)
toward military dictatorship. Previous forms of "Inverted totalitarism" -- a neoliberal version
of Bolshevism (or, more correctly, Trotskyism -- many neocons were actually former Trotskyites
) seems to stop working. Neoliberal ideology was discredited in 2008. All three: Bolshevism, Trotskyism
and neoliberalism might also be viewed as just different flavors of Corporatism.
After 2008 crisis, neoliberalism in the USA continues to exist in zombie state: as a non-dead
dead, so it will be inevitably replaced by something else. Much like Bolshevism after 1945. How
soon it will happen and what will be the actual trigger (the next oil crisis which turns into
another round of Great Recession?) and what will be the successor is anybody guess. Bolshevism
in the USSR lasted till 1991 or 46 years. The victory on neoliberalism in the Cold War was in
1991 so if we add 50 years then 2041 might be the date.
And the slide toward military dictatorship does not necessary need to take a form of junta,
which takes power via coup d'état. The control of the government by three letter agencies ("national
security state") seems to be sufficient, can be accomplished by stealth, and might well be viewed
as a form of military dictatorship too. So it can be a gradual slide: phase I, II, III, etc.
The problem here as with Brezhnev socialism in the USSR is the growing level of degeneration
of elite and the growth of influence of deep state, which includes at its core three letter agencies.
As Michail Gorbachev famously said about neoliberal revolution in the USSR "the process already
started in full force". He just did not understand at this point that he already completely lost
control over neoliberal "Perestroika" of the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika
In a way, the US Presidents are now more and more ceremonial figures that help to maintain
the illusion of the legitimacy of the system. Obama is probably the current pinnacle of this process
(which is reflected in one of his nicknames -- "teleprompter" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/obama-photo-caption-contest-teleprompter_n_1821154.html)
.
You probably could elect a dog instead of Trump and the US foreign policy will stay exactly
the same. This hissy fits about Russians that deep state gave Trump before December 19, might
be viewed as a warning as for any potential changes in foreign policy.
As we saw with foreign policy none of recent presidents really fully control it. They still
are important players, but the question is whether they are still dominant players. My impression
is that it is already by-and-large defined and implemented by the deep state. Sometimes dragging
the President forcefully into the desirable course of actions.
"... Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer, journalist and media analyst. She has lived and traveled extensively in the US, Germany, Russia and Hungary. Her byline has appeared at RT, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, The BRICS Post, New Eastern Outlook, Global Independent Analytics and many others. She also works on copywriting and editing projects. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or at her website www.danielleryan.net. ..."
According to the anonymous sources inside the anonymous US intelligence agency,
Putin's objectives were multifaceted, but the whole thing began as a "vendetta"
against Hillary Clinton because she said some mean things about him a few
times. Putin is also an "immature 12 year-old child," a former US official with
links to the defense industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed
(with high confidence).
The high level, anonymous and completely trustworthy sources also told a major
US news agency that Putin himself had piloted a specially-designed Russian spy
plane across the Atlantic to personally direct the still-ongoing hacking
operations from the air.
via GIPHY
Satellite images seen by a separate anonymous NASA whistleblower are believed
to show Putin in the cockpit of the spy plane alongside his co-pilot Boris, a
lifelike robotic bear which has been under secret development in the depths of
Siberia and has been programmed to attack Putin's enemies on command using a
variety of lethal methods.
The NASA whistleblower did not provide journalists with photographic evidence,
but the editors had a chat about it in their morning meeting and concluded that
it's probably still true.
In fact, the American news agency could not verify any of the claims from the
officials who commented for the story, but given that their sources used the
term "high confidence" they took this to mean the evidence must be "nearly
incontrovertible" and relayed the information to the public with this
implication. An understandable decision, since, as we all know, only 100
percent factual information is ever released by anonymous intelligence
officials.
Okay, let's rewind.
Obviously that bit about the bear and the plane was
fake news. And maybe a few other bits, too. But it all demonstrates a point.
I've provided you with about the same amount of evidence as NBC has in its
story this week
claiming Putin personally rigged
the US election:
I made some allegations, I cited anonymous sources and then I conveyed it to
you readers as "nearly incontrovertible" and suggested no further digging or
investigation, or even a bit of healthy skepticism, was necessary.
Journalism is dying
There was a time when journalists needed more than 'maybes' and 'probablys'
before deciding what their sources told them was "incontrovertible" and
delivering half-baked conspiracy theories to the public. That time has
apparently long gone.
Imagine for a moment that RT published a story about, oh, let's say Barack
Obama personally hacking into Putin's computer. Now imagine the only evidence
RT provided was "anonymous FSB officials" and told its readers the story was
therefore practically indisputable because these anonymous sources were
"confident" in the legitimacy of their secret evidence. Imagine the laughs that
would get from sneering Western journalists. Well, that's pretty much exactly
what NBC did. And they're not alone. The
Washington Post
has been at
it too,
reporting on a "secret" CIA assessment that Russia worked to get Donald
Trump elected, quoting anonymous "top officials" and like NBC, providing no
evidence.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but for something to be presented to the
public as indisputable fact, there must be evidence made available to back it
up. Neither the CIA or the FBI have provided any such evidence to the public.
Perhaps the saddest thing though is having to acknowledge that all our debates
over fake news and real news really don't matter because the very people we are
told to trust are the people who will most adeptly use the public's concerns
over fake news to manipulate them. The CIA, for example, is hardly known for
its long history of telling the truth. Its employees are literally trained in
the art of deception and disinformation. They are hardly averse to creating a
bit of fake news or making up 'evidence' where needed. Anything they say or do
can be forgiven once someone utters the words "national security".
NBC's story claimed Putin not only wanted to embarrass Clinton with the DNC
leaks, but to highlight corruption in the American political system; the emails
showing, for example, how the DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign to ensure
Clinton, not Bernie Sanders, would be the Democratic nominee.
Now, what better way to encourage people to ignore the corruption in
the system than to focus their attention on the idea that Putin is the one who
told them about it? Are people really reading these stories and convincing
themselves that the CIA is the most credible source of public information on
what the Russians are doing?
Clinton's long-shot
We've been hearing about Russian hacking for months, long before the election
results in November, so why the sudden confidence in all this new and secret
evidence? Why the new assertions that Putin himself directed the hacking? Look
at your calendar. The Electoral College votes on Monday and it may be Clinton's
last hope. It's a long shot, but in true Clinton character, she won't go down
without a fight to the last gasp. Her best hope is to convince the Electoral
College that Trump's win was influenced by a foreign power, is therefore
illegitimate and that national security will be at stake if he takes office.
Amazingly, in the midst of all this, while Clinton's camp is still trying to
get her elected through back-door tactics, Obama has pretty much called the
election results
legitimate .
Members of the Electoral College are expected to vote the way their states
voted, but they are not required to. If Clinton can get enough members to flip
their votes, Trump is deprived of the 270 votes he needs to become president.
That's what this is really all about - and the media is serving as Clinton's
willing accomplice.
Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer, journalist and media analyst.
She has lived and traveled extensively in the US, Germany, Russia and Hungary.
Her byline has appeared at RT, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, The BRICS Post,
New Eastern Outlook, Global Independent Analytics and many others. She also
works on copywriting and editing projects. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or
at her website www.danielleryan.net.
"... this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p", which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified. ..."
"... [Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never really expressed it before. ..."
"... Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content can just be handed over to the fuzz. ..."
"... It's a good thing for Obama that torturing logic and evasive droning are not criminal acts. ..."
"... "Relations with Russia have declined over the past several years" I reflexively did a Google search. Yep, Victoria Nuland is still employed. ..."
"... With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press? ..."
"... I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire. ..."
"... The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then nothing happened. ..."
this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election
by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p",
which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified.
[Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the
comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come
across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never
really expressed it before.
Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They
intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content
can just be handed over to the fuzz.
I don't think I've looked at my yahoo account in 8-10 years and I didn't use their email; just
had an address. I don't remember my user name or password. I did get an email from them (to my
not-yahoo address) advising of the breach.
I was amazed as I watched a local am news show in Pittsburgh recommend adding your cell phone
number in addition to changing your password. Yeah, that's a great idea, maybe my ss# would provide
even more security.
I use yahoo email. Why should I move? As I understood the breach it was primarily a breach
of the personal information used to establish the account. I've already changed my password -
did it a couple of days after the breach was reported. I had a security clearance with DoD which
requires disclosure of a lot more personal information than yahoo had. The DoD data has been breached
twice from two separate servers.
As far as reading my emails - they may prove useful for phishing but that's about all. I'm
not sure what might be needed for phishing beyond a name and email address - easily obtained from
many sources I have no control over.
So - what am I vulnerable to by remaining at yahoo that I'm not already exposed to on a more
secure server?
Yeah, it isn't like Mr. 'We go high' is going to admit our relationship has declined because
we have underhandedly tried to isolate and knee cap them for pretty much his entire administration.
Are you referring to Obama's press conference? If so, I am glad he didn't make a big deal out
of the Russian hacking allegations - as in it didn't sound like he planned a retaliation for the
fictional event and its fictional consequences. He rose slightly in stature in my eyes - he's
almost as tall as a short flea.
With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting
the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom
mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have
the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press?
Why is a lameduck
messing with the Chinese in the South China sea? What is the point of all the "fake" news hogwash?
Is it related to Obama's expression of concern about the safety of the Internet? I can't shake
the feeling that something is going on below the surface of these murky waters.
I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference
and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so
they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire.
He did
respond at one point to a reporter that the hacks from Russia were to the DNC and Podesta but
funny how he didn't say HRC emails. Be it as it may, I think what was behind it was HRC really
trying to impress all her contributors that Russia really did do her in, see Obama said so, since
she must be in hot water over all the money she has collected from foreign governments for pay
to play and her donors.
The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then
how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind
the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get
into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is
the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then
nothing happened.
Unfortunately the nightly news is focusing on Obama says Russia hacked the DNC and had it in
for Clinton!!! He warned them to stay out of the vote! There will be consequences! Russia demands
the evidence and then a story about the evidence. (This one might have a few smarter people going
"huh, that's it?!?!")
I do like the some private some public on that consequences and retaliation thing. You either
have to laugh or throw up about the faux I've got this and the real self-righteousness. Especially
since it is supposedly to remind people we can do it to you. Is there anyone left outside of America
who doesn't think they already do do it to anyone Uncle Sam doesn't want in office and even some
they do? Mind you I'm not sure how many harried people watching the news are actually going to
laugh at that one because they don't know how how much we meddle.
Given that the Donald Trump victory already made Yahoo less attractive for
Verizon, the latest billion-account-hack at Yahoo could let Verizon dump their
buy-out and still collect a
$145 million break-up fee .
Yahoo's stock plunged
over 6 percent after the company
admitted its customer data had been hacked again, with at least 1 billion
accounts exposed in 2014. The horribly bad news for Yahoo followed an equally bad
news report in September that
500 million e-mail account were hacked in 2013. Yahoo unfortunately now has
the distinction of suffering both of the history's largest client hacks.
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Verizon's top lawyer told reporters after the first Yahoo hack that the
disclosure constituted a "
potential material adverse event
" that would
allow for the mobile powerhouse to pull out of the $4.83 billion deal they
announced on July 25, 2016.
Less than 24 hours after Yahoo
disclosed the
even larger hack of client accounts by a "state-sponsored actor," Bloomberg
reported
that Verizon is "
exploring a price cut or possible exit
" from its
proposed Yahoo acquisition.
Breitbart
reported that Google and other Silicon Valley companies were huge corporate
winners when Chairman Tom Wheeler and the other two Democrat political appointees
on the FCC voted on a party-line vote in mid-February 2015 for a new regulatory
structure called '
Net
Neutrality .
' Although Wheeler claimed, "
These enforceable,
bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of
lawful content and services
," they were a huge economic disaster for
Verizon's high-speed broadband business model.
Verizon responded last year by paying
$4.4 billion to buy AOL in order to pick up popular news sites, large
advertising business, and more than 2 million Internet dial-up subscribers. Buying
Yahoo was expected to give the former telephone company to achieve "scale" by
controlling a second web content pioneer.
After President and CEO Marissa Mayer began organizing an auction in March,
Yahoo stock doubled from $26 a share to $51 by September. But she announced on
Wednesday the new hack, Yahoo's stock has been plunging to $38.40 in after-market
trading.
The buyer normally has to pay a break-up fee if an acquisition fails. But Yahoo
chose to run its own
auction that "
communicated with a total of 51 parties to evaluate their
interest in a potential transaction
." Then between February and April 2016, a
"short list" of "
32 parties signed confidentiality agreements with Yahoo
,"
including 10 strategic parties and 22 financial sponsors.
Yahoo's
13D proxy statement filed with the SEC was mostly boilerplate disclosure, but
it seemed that something must have been a potential problem at Yahoo for the
company to offer a $145 million termination fee to Verizon if the deal did not
close.
Yahoo on Wednesday issued a statement saying personal information from more
than a billion user accounts was stolen in 2014. The news followed the company's
announcement in September that hackers had stolen personal data from at least half
a billion accounts in 2013. Yahoo said it believes the two thefts were by
different parties.
Yahoo admitted that both hacks were so extensive that they included users'
names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, scrambled passwords and
security questions and answers. But Yahoo stated, "
Payment card data and bank
account information are not stored in the system the company believes was affected
."
Yahoo said they have invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers in
user accounts. They are in the process of notifying potentially affected users and
is requiring them to change their passwords.
Yahoo was already facing nearly two dozen class-action lawsuits over the first
breach and the company's failure to report it on a timely basis. A federal 3 judge
panel last week consolidated 5 of the suits into a mass tort in the San Jose U.S.
District Court.
Undoubtedly, there will be a huge number of user lawsuits filed against Yahoo
in the next few weeks.
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them
against foreign terrorists – ha hahahahahaha!
The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian
cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election,
three American officials said on Monday.
While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis
of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive
evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials,
who declined to be named .
An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue.
"ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can't prove intent," said
one of the three U.S. officials. "Of course they can't, absent agents in on the decision-making in
Moscow."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that
can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA's analysis – a deductive assessment of the available
intelligence – for the same reason, the three officials said
But all of them, without exception, accept that the Democrats' server was hacked by Russia, and
that it was Russia who leaked the information through Wikileaks, and that Russia also hacked the
Republicans but declined to release incriminating or influential material it had in its possession.
There is, to my knowledge, no evidence of this, either.
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them
against foreign terrorists – ha hahahahahaha!
Yahoo has discovered a 3-year-old security breach that enabled a hacker to compromise more than 1
billion user accounts, breaking the company's own humiliating record for the biggest security breach
in history.
The digital heist disclosed Wednesday occurred in August 2013, more than a year before a separate
hack that Yahoo announced nearly three months ago . That breach affected at least 500 million users,
which had been the most far-reaching hack until the latest revelation.
Yahoo has more than a billion monthly active users, although some have multiple accounts and others
have none at all. An unknown number of accounts were affected by both hacks.
In both attacks, the stolen information included names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates
and security questions and answers. The company says it believes bank-account information and payment-card
data were not affected.
The Nuremberg Court Trials rulings only apply to 'them' not 'US'
Sundus Saleh, an Iraqi woman, claims that former President George W. Bush and other government
officials committed the crime of aggression when they launched the Iraq War, an international
war crime that was banned at the Nuremberg Trials.
Saleh filed her lawsuit in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court. The court ruled in December
2014 that the defendants in the lawsuit - George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza
Rice, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz - were immune from civil proceedings based on the Westfall
Act, a federal law which immunizes government officials from lawsuits for conduct taken within
the lawful scope of their authority. Saleh appealed the decision in June 2015.
The Ninth Circuit has not indicated when it will issue an order with respect to Saleh's appeal.
Nuremberg trial also prosecuted Judges unt Doctors.
"... the world's largest private surveillance operation ..."
"... Ha! I wish I'd thought of that line! I just laughed out loud on the train and my fellow commuter drones are shuffling and wondering to themselves if I'm on day release from an institution. ..."
"... Of course, the joke's on us, because that's exactly what they (Google) are with all the right friends in high places to boot ..."
"... Something that has been occurring lately with Chrome makes me think that Google is truly watching. A lot of sites (RT et al) are having the https// crossed out in red implying that the connection is no longer secure. ..."
" the head of the world's largest private surveillance operation , billionaire
Eric Schmidt "
Ha! I wish I'd thought of that line! I just laughed out loud on the train and my fellow
commuter drones are shuffling and wondering to themselves if I'm on day release from an institution.
Of course, the joke's on us, because that's exactly what they (Google)
are with all the right friends in high places to boot .
Something that has been occurring lately with Chrome makes me think that Google is truly
watching. A lot of sites (RT et al) are having the https// crossed out in red implying that the
connection is no longer secure.
Probably TOR but I would caution
this is far from foolproof and may even incur The Panopticon's more intrusive surveillance attention.
I value my privacy as much as anyone but I don't use TOR or similar simply because if they
are not a guaranteed solution, what's the point? And besides, why should I have to? It's just
another tax on my time and resources.
The opendemocracy link you gave shows up as having issues in firefox also. It looks like they
have some insecure images on the page, which is probably what chrome is complaining about.
General Mattis reportedly spoke of his concerns during discussions over attacking Iran and thus
fell afoul of the Washington establishment, so President Obama hastened his retirement.
Foreign Policy 's
Thomas Ricks reported :
Why the hurry? Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way-not
because he went all "mad dog," which is his public image, and the view at the White House,
but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order
consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable.
Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What
do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for
U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, "And then what?"
Washington did have a "strategy" when it attacked Iraq, the neoconservative one. This
was to intimidate the Muslim world with massive bombing,
"Shock and Awe" we called
it, so all Muslims would be afraid of us and then do what we ordered. Then we planted giant, billion-dollar
American air bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. These would, they thought, give us hegemony over Central
Asia, intimidate Russia and Iran, while Iraq would turn into a friendly, modern democracy dependent
upon Washington. Other Muslim nations would then follow with democratic regimes which would co-operate
and obey Washington's plans.
With the neocons discredited, no other strategy has replaced theirs except to "win" and come
home. This is not unusual in our history. In past wars American "strategy" has usually been to
return to the status quo ante, the prewar situation. Washington violates nearly all of Sun Tzu's
dictums for success. Endless wars for little purpose and with no end strategy are thus likely
to continue. They are, however, profitable or beneficial for many Washington interests.
Ben @ 10, it's not the USA that's addicted to war. Rather it is the US
govt AS CAPTURED BY THE OLIGARCHS. Nor is it truly an addiction, but a
means to the end of a global oligarchy. It isn't enough to see the evil
of US aggression. One must also understand why the international
institutions which have usurped nationhood around the world are evil:
Fed/IMF system, World Bank, WTO and the entire UN system to which they
belong. US hegemony has never been intended as the endgame. Oligarchical
global govt is-- initially as a decentralized administration which they
are already trying to sell you as "multipolarity".
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.
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.
"... I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been for centuries. ..."
Well, if you looked at it and decided against it why am I wasting my time? "unlike the U.S.
military which is used to destroys foreign cities without much thought of the aftermath" Always
with the nasty, sneering, condescending attitude toward us. I remind you that it was the BRITISH
army that destroyed your grandparents house, not the US Army. pl"
and the usa has learned and followed the British in so many of it's imperialist ways carrying
the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough of British or
American
bullshit..
@ james who wrote " and the usa has learned and followed the british in so many of it's imperialist
ways caring the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough
of british or american bullshit."
I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own
private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British
people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been
for centuries.
The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government
by Thomas N. Bisson Princeton University Press, 677 pp., $39.50
One of the major institutions of pre-industrial society, and one that makes it hard for people
in the modern Western world fully to grasp the past, is lordship. Lordship means a personal bond,
reciprocal but not equal, tying inferiors to superiors, bringing the latter a power over the former
that modern democratic and egalitarian ideologies would abhor. We are not accustomed to address
others as "Master" or "Mistress," "My Lord" or "My Lady."
Of course modern Western societies are not communities of equals. Vast differences in wealth
and access to education exist. But the world of lordship embraced and endorsed those differences.
Hierarchy was a valued ideal, and some people considered themselves better born than others-remember
those nineteenth-century novels with characters "of good family." The aristocrats ("aristocracy"
means "rule by the best") did not court their inferiors. They ruled them, and, if they were just
and well disposed, they protected them and furthered their interests. This is what "good lordship"
meant. Not all lords, of course, were good. Submission to cruel, arbitrary, or unhinged masters
could mean misery or death. Much of the savagery of the French Revolution is to be explained by
the fact that thousands of peasants had suffered just such a submission.
Thomas Bisson's new book concerns itself with lordship, that all-pervasive institution, in
a formative period of European history, the twelfth century (or rather the "long twelfth century,"
starting well before 1100 and continuing after 1200). It is an age that evokes for many the majesty
of the great cathedrals, like Chartres and Canterbury, the rise of a new kind of intellectual
inquiry, embodied in the questing spirit of Abelard or the emergence of the first universities,
and the flourishing of the love lyrics of the troubadours and the tales of Arthurian romance.
There is even the (now well established but initially paradoxical) notion of "the Twelfth-Century
Renaissance." This book, however, presents a different, and much darker, twelfth century.
Bisson, professor of medieval history emeritus at Harvard, is one of the leading historians
of the Middle Ages. His early work concentrated on Catalonia, a region with particularly rich
archival sources from this period; he has continually expanded both his geographical range and
the breadth of the historical questions he asks. In the 1990s he was a participant in a lively
debate on the so-called "Feudal Revolution," the theory that a transformation in the patterns
of power and authority took place in Europe in the decades around the year 1000. In those years
it was argued that older, official, and public structures of justice and administration were replaced
by new, more violent, and more localized forms, based on strongmen and their fortresses.
In his new book many of the elements of that "Feudal Revolution" recur, now extended to a later
period. Bisson's summary of developments in Catalonia in the years 1020 to 1060 presents such
a picture very clearly: there was "a terrifying collapse of public justice and the imposition
of a new order of coercive lordship over an intimidated peasantry." Moving on into the twelfth
century, the model is still recognizable: there is an "old passing world" ruled by a few nobles,
and a "burgeoning new world" of "vicious men," castle-lords and knights prepared to use violence
against the despised peasantry. This book is indeed an extended discussion of the issues arising
from that earlier debate. Bisson acknowledges that it is "not a systematic treatise, still less
a textbook," and those unfamiliar with the period may soon be lost. The book is an interpretation,
an individual assessment of European history of that period, one that takes a stand on a dozen
debated issues, often in implicit dialogue with other scholars. The main topics are lordship,
violence, and the state.
Lordship was a building block of most societies until relatively recently -- serfdom was abolished
in Russia only in 1861. Such societies were distinguished by extreme inequalities, made visible
by costume and gestures, like bowing and doffing of hats, and often supported by belief in hereditary
superiority and inferiority of blood. Collective groupings existed, but were not powerful, and
conflict and ambition were channeled more by vertical than horizontal solidarities: retainers,
servants, and other followers and dependants sought patronage from the great, not action alongside
their peers. At the highest level, lesser aristocrats became followers of great aristocrats, who
themselves would be competing for the ruler's favor. Costume dramas set in Tudor England, like
Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, convey some of the flavor of such a world.
It was the prevalence of lordship that complicates any discussion of the medieval state. Bisson
repeatedly uses the far from standard formulations "lord-king," "lord-ruler," and even "lord-archbishop"
to convey the point that every ruler of this time was also a lord, a master of men, a patriarch
of some kind, possessing his position as inheritance or property, rather than (or as well as)
holding it as an office-indeed, he writes, "there is no sign that European people in the twelfth
century thought of lordship and office as contrasting categories."
Kings were lords, but also more than lords. Like the great barons, their power was patrimonial:
that is, inherited, dynastic, based on ideas of property we might call "private." A king's kingdom
was his in the same way that a baron's landed estates were his. Transmission of power was through
father-to-son inheritance, not by election. Hence marriages, births, and deaths were the great
punctuating points of medieval politics, not caucuses and ballots. Yet a king was also more than
just the greatest of the barons. Both the Church and a long secular tradition saw him as having
special duties as a ruler, duties that might be called "public."
This dualism of lordship and the state meant that medieval rulership had two distinct faces,
which were close to being opposites: on the one hand, the grand promises made at coronation by
kings and emperors, to ensure justice and the protection of the weak and the Church; on the other
hand, the reality of being a warlord trained in mounted warfare, a leader of proud, hard men,
used to wielding lethal edged weapons, and the center of a court full of envy, ambition, and suspicion.
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was a militarized world: it was "an age of castles,"
when "those astride horses and bearing weapons routinely injured or intimidated people" -- although,
of course, they were still doing it in the thirteenth century, fourteenth century, fifteenth century,
and beyond. The Cossacks were still doing it in the twentieth century. This raises a problem.
In the absence of even a hint of dependable statistics, it is virtually impossible to weigh up
the relative violence of different periods and places of the past. We know all the difficulties
involved in dealing with modern crime figures; for the past we rarely have figures of any kind,
but must rely on stories told by chroniclers (often ecclesiastical) and interested parties (usually
plaintiffs). Historians read the laments, the individual accounts of plunder, murder, and rape,
and try to assess whether this was the way life was then, or whether it simply reflects a very
bad moment in that world. And while there can be little doubt that levels of violence were higher
in the medieval period than in modern Western peacetime societies, we, who live in the aftermath
of the worst genocidal atrocities in recorded history, should not make that claim with any complacency.
It is not difficult to gather stories of local violence and oppression from the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. But if we put these twelfth-century tales alongside those of the sixth-century
historian-bishop Gregory of Tours, whose History of the Franks reveals a world of monstrous cruelty,
we might wonder if things had really gotten much worse in the intervening six hundred years. On
one occasion, Gregory writes, a noble discovered that two of his serfs had married without his
consent: he supposedly said how delighted he was that they had at least not married serfs from
another lordship; he promised that he would not separate them, and then kept his word by having
them buried alive together. And was the twelfth century any more full of violence than, say, late
medieval France, a happy hunting ground for mercenaries and freebooters during the Hundred Years'
War?
The rulers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were trained in, and glorified, war, and expected
to live off it, as well as off the tribute of a subjugated peasantry. If such rulers formed "the
state" of their day, what are the implications? The state engages in violence; it takes away our
property. How then does it differ from a criminal enterprise? This was a question that went back
at least as far as Saint Augustine in the fourth century:
What are robber gangs, except little kingdoms? If their wickedness prospers, so that they set
up fixed abodes, occupy cities and subjugate whole populations, they then can take the name of
kingdom with impunity.
Augustine's ponderings stem from the worrying doubt that states and kingdoms, indeed all lawfully
constituted governments, are just the most successful of the robber gangs. This idea, that the
state and the criminal gang are but larger and smaller versions of the same thing, was one recurrent
strand in medieval thinking. In the words of Gregory VII, the reformist pope of the eleventh century:
Who does not know that kings and dukes had their origin in men who disregarded God and, with
blind desire and intolerable presumption, strove to dominate their equals, that is, other men,
through pride, plunder, perfidy, homicides, and every kind of crime, under the inspiration of
the lord of this world, the devil?
Westerns (like Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) often explore the thin line between
the gunslinger and the sheriff, or the poignancy of the bandit turned law officer; and the thinness
of that line is clear in the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century the kings of France, wishing
to concentrate their forces against the English, called upon their barons to curtail their own
feuds and vendettas: "We forbid anyone to wage war (guerre) during our war (guerre)." What the
king does and what the feuding nobles do is the same kind of thing-"war." Nowadays, we make a
sharper distinction. For instance, in the modern world, someone who takes our property away is
either a criminal or a tax collector. If the latter, then it is the state taking our property
away, and most people, of most political outlooks, distinguish the lawmakers from the lawbreakers.
Traditionally the state took away people's property in order to finance war. In Charles Tilly's
phrase, "the state made war and war made the state." The war-making, tax-raising state is indeed
the standard, familiar political unit of modern world history. If we go back in time, do we reach
a period when such an entity did not exist?
Bisson is not a scholar who throws the term "state" around freely. Indeed, the conceptual vocabulary
of his book is worth a mention. On the one hand, Bisson is happy to use the traditional but deeply
contested terms "feudal" and "feudalism," both of which even have entries in his glossary at the
end of the book. He can write of "a massive feudalizing of England by the Normans." Some historians
would do away with these concepts altogether. Even if some kinds of estates were called "fiefs"
(feoda), they argue, why should that fact lead us to a characterization of a whole society? Perhaps
a touch of self-questioning is visible in Bisson's embrace of the terminology: "'Feudal monarchy':
is this the right concept?" he asks.
In contrast to his acceptance of this traditional terminology, Bisson has a marked tendency to
use large conceptual terms with a peculiar, even personal, connotation. "Political" is an example.
The bishops of this period, he says, "vied with one another for visible precedence," yet such
struggles "were not political disputes; they were concerned with status, not process." A footnote
refers us to an infamous incident when the archbishop of York, noticing that the archbishop of
Canterbury had a seat higher than his, kicked it over and refused to be seated until he had a
seat as high. Now, one might reasonably class this as a nursery tantrum, but why should not a
public dispute over precedence count as "political"?
This wariness about the term "political" (usually in scare quotes in the book) is based on the
idea that lordship "was personal, affective, and unpolitical in nature." Might it not be clearer
to say that the politics of that time was not the same as the politics of ours? It may be that
we have here an example of a recurrent dilemma, either to say that the power relations of long
ago are not politics at all, or to say that they are, but that we must differentiate between medieval
and modern politics. Similarly, we may say that the superior authorities of that time cannot be
called states at all; or we can argue that they were, but that we must distinguish medieval and
modern states.
One of the most important examples of Bisson's idiosyncratic use of general terms is his treatment
of the word "government." He is reluctant even to apply the term to Norman England. "Royal lordship"
was not the same thing as "government." Sometimes government is completely absent. Late-twelfth-century
Europe was "an ungoverned society," although there were also "proto-governments" at this time;
by the mid-thirteenth century "something like government hovered." This unwillingness to see the
rulers of the central Middle Ages as constituting "governments" is to be explained partly because,
in Bisson's view, the people of that time lacked any understanding of the state as distinct from
lordship, but also because there are certain criteria for government, as distinct from lordship,
that the rulers did not meet. He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social
purpose.
"Accountability" is an important term in Bisson's historical vocabulary. Sometimes it means
quite literally the rendering of financial accounts, like the Catalan fiscal records which Bisson
himself has edited. He emphasizes the birth, in the twelfth century, of "a newly searching and
flexible accountability," as simple surveys of resources and fixed revenues, which can be found
from early in the Middle Ages, were supplemented by balance sheets of incoming and outgoing assets.
The English Pipe Rolls, annual audits of income and expenditures of the royal sheriffs, are a
classic example. The English Dialogue of the Exchequer of 1178, or thereabouts, reveals a department
of government that is professional, with its own technical expertise, and (in the Dialogue) its
own handbook or manual. Slightly later, in 1202, there appears what has been called "the first
budget of the French monarchy."
But Bisson also uses the word in a broader sense: accountability means official responsibility,
answerability. He associates it with the idea of office. Record-keeping is in fact one test of
official status. And true government is "the exercise of power for social purpose," "social purpose"
perhaps to be glossed here as "the common good." It is the emergence of "official conduct aimed
at social purpose," linked, interestingly, with the rise of public taxation, that, for Bisson,
signals the shift of the balance from lordship to government in the thirteenth century.
However, the chronology of state formation in the Middle Ages is a disputed issue. Some historians
talk as if there were a stateless period at some point in the central Middle Ages. Others hold
the view that, to take one notable example, the kingdom of England of the year 1000 was not only
a state but a strong, centralized, and pervasive state. If taxation and a standardized coinage
are, in Bisson's words, parts of "a new model of associative power" around the year 1200, then
the uniform land tax and centralized currency of eleventh-century England show that that model
already existed in some places two hundred years earlier.
What cannot be disputed is that over the course of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries,
the state became increasingly bureaucratic. The documents produced by the English government in
the eleventh century could be placed on one large table (even given that monumental oddity, Domesday
Book, the extensive survey of land ownership made in 1086 under William the Conqueror). The documents
produced by the English government in the thirteenth century fill whole rooms and could never
be read in one person's lifetime. Written records supplemented or replaced older oral forms of
information gathering, testimony, or command (Michael Clanchy's 1979 masterpiece, From Memory
to Written Record, analyzes this development for precociously bureaucratic England in the Norman
and Plantagenet period). But more bureaucratic government does not necessarily mean less violent,
or even less arbitrary, government.
Historians like bureaucracy, because it feeds their hunger for written sources, the raw material
with which they work; but the bond between historians and government is deeper than that. The
historical profession grew up in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in close symbiosis
with government. Not only was the heart of historical study usually the archives produced by past
governments, but many of the students and teachers in those generations, the first to study history
as a discipline, entered government service. Charles Homer Haskins, the founding father of American
medieval scholarship, was an adviser to Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
He was also the teacher of Joseph Strayer, himself the teacher of Bisson. Such academic genealogies
can be overplayed, but there is no doubt that all three great medievalists, Haskins, Strayer,
and Bisson, demonstrate a deep-rooted concern with the techniques and records of administration,
with the procedures of the bureaucrats and officials. Strayer was as familiar with the modern
as with the medieval version, since he worked for the CIA One of his most vigorous pieces of
work is entitled On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (1970; one might notice the emphasis
on both the "origins" and the "modern"; we live in the modern state; its origins go back a long
way, but the state of those days was not the state of ours). The book contains Strayer's cogent
definition of feudalism as "public powers in private hands," with that confident assurance that
these adjectives, "public" and "private," convey a simple and evident distinction that will arouse
no intellectual discomfort in readers. By contrast, Bisson's book is generated in part by his
wrestling with such concepts and their implications.
Bisson's book is called The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. "Crisis" means a vitally important
or decisive stage in the progress of anything. But in that sense, any century of human history
is a crisis. One might even say that this is simply the condition of human life-we are always
in an Age of Crisis (although the situation might not always be as alarming as today's). Bisson
acknowledges that "'crisis' was not a common word in the verbiage of the day," and the one instance
he cites of the contemporary use of the word (in its Latin form discrimen) refers to a succession
crisis in Poland in 1180. He wishes to see the various distinct political crises he discusses
(such as the Saxon revolt of 1075, the communal insurrection in Laon in 1111, the "anarchy" of
King Stephen's reign) as part of "the same wider crisis of multiplied knights and castles."
However, a case can be made that the levels of violence and disorder in this period were largely
dictated by the patterns of high politics rather than by a deep-seated structural malaise. Disputed
successions, or the accession of a child-king, could indeed upset the world of knights and castles,
unleashing the strongmen and their castle-based predatory attacks. Yet a regime of knights and
castles could also form the basis for fairly stable feudal monarchies, such as one sees in France
and England for most of the thirteenth century. If this is so, there were, of course, crises in
the twelfth century, but no Crisis.
The violence and greed of European knights of this period were directed beyond the local victims.
Bisson's "long twelfth century" was not only an age of predatory lords in their castles bullying
their peasantry but also an age of expansionary, one could say colonialist, violence. Christian
armies, led by these predatory lords, crossed into Muslim lands, capturing Toledo in 1085, Jerusalem
in 1099, and landing in North Africa in 1148; they destroyed the last remnants of West Slav paganism
in the Baltic in 1168; they even turned their formidable fighting strength against their estranged
Christian cousins in the Greek East, and sacked Constantinople in 1204. The energies generated
in the conflicts between mounted men in the West, and the expertise they acquired in subjugating
and fleecing the local peasantry, could be exported. The story of European violence is far from
unique, but it was in the central Middle Ages that it took a form that shaped the subsequent history
of the world.
A traditional view of the development of European society in the central Middle Ages, a view
to be found in textbooks past and present, is that the empire of Charlemagne (747–814) and his
successors had important elements of public authority, in the form of officials with delegated
powers and courts open to all free men, but that this regime was replaced, around the year 1000,
with a heavily militarized and violent world of strongmen in castles, lording it over peasants.
Over the course of time this world was, in its turn, transformed by the persistent efforts of
the kings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries into a network of more centralized and bureaucratic
states, which led ultimately to modern systems of government. Like every model at this level of
generality, as long as people who know something about the subject have created it, there must
be some truth in this picture, however little it can be the whole truth. But we might have questions.
Was the "old public order" of Charlemagne and his successors so public and so ordered? Was the
subsequent regime so close to anarchy?
Bisson adds to this traditional account by thinking deeply about the benefits and disadvantages
of government. He is very aware of the inhumanity of the past he studies. He refers, with allusion
to the words of the twelfth-century cleric John of Salisbury, to "hunter-lords." John was talking
about the way that aristocrats were obsessed with the chase, but we might apply his phrase in
a wider sense. Since some theorists believe that human society is imprinted with its origins in
hunting packs and the mentality of the pack, the predatory lordship of the central Middle Ages
could be conceived of as just such a hunting pack-but its prey being fellow human beings, rather
than beasts.
Confronting this world of hunter and hunted, Bisson is inspired by attractively humane impulses.
In an earlier book, Tormented Voices, a microhistorical analysis of complaints raised by Catalan
peasants in the twelfth century, he stated explicitly that he was attempting "an essay in compassionate
history." Likewise in this book. And he looks for public, accountable, official remedies for suffering
and oppression. He seems sympathetic to the idea that "power is rightly oriented towards the social
needs of people." "If ever government was the solution, not the problem," he writes, "it was so
for European peoples in the twelfth century." Is the modern world so happy in its governments?
Whether we should endure the violence of the state, as a defense against the yet more fearful
violence of our neighbors, and whether there comes a point where the violence of the state must
be resisted are great recurrent questions of moral and political life. The questions raised by
Bisson's book remain open.
@4 psychohistorian.. and i agree with you in that too.. it has to do with the packaging and a
tendency in people to identify with the packaging - in this example 'made in the usa' as some
sort of rationale for that social sickness many suffer from called 'patriotism'.. it seems to
be especially prevalent in the worst nations, the usa at this point in time being the focal point
for much of this marketing...
@ okie farmer who added a loooong comment that contained the following about the definition of
government:
"
He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social purpose.
"
The narrative provided did not get into a discussion of "social purpose" but I think that it
is an important concept. The example I would posit is the original humanistic motto of the US,
E Pluribus Unum which was instantiated by government creations of the time like the pony express....true
socialism, if you need an ism to cling to. Social Security INSURANCE is another example of an
instantiation of social purpose.
The original US motto was replaced by In God We Trust in the mid 1950's which, IMO, destroyed
the social purpose concept of government and instead tells you to trust the leaders and religious
institutions.....reversion to kings and feudalism.
You get the government you demand. What sort of world do you want to pass to the children?
"... Rather than join the struggle of imperial rivalries, the United States could use its emerging power to suppress those rivalries altogether. ..."
"... "a power unlike any other. It had emerged, quite suddenly, as a novel kind of 'super-state,' exercising a veto over the financial and security concerns of the other major states of the world." ..."
"... Peter Heather, the great British historian of Late Antiquity, explains human catastrophes with a saying of his father's, a mining engineer: "If man accumulates enough combustible material, God will provide the spark." So it happened in 1929. The Deluge that had inundated the rest of the developed world roared back upon the United States. ..."
"... "The originality of National Socialism was that, rather than meekly accepting a place for Germany within a global economic order dominated by the affluent English-speaking countries, Hitler sought to mobilize the pent-up frustrations of his population to mount an epic challenge to this order." ..."
"... He could not accept subordination to the United States because, according to his lurid paranoia, "this would result in enslavement to the world Jewish conspiracy, and ultimately race death." ..."
"... By 1944, foreigners constituted 20 percent of the German workforce and 33 percent of armaments workers (less than 9 percent of the population of today's liberal and multicultural Germany is foreign-born). ..."
"... The Hitlerian vision of a united German-led Eurasia equaling the Anglo-American bloc proved a crazed and genocidal fantasy. ..."
The United States might claim a broader democracy than those that prevailed in Europe. On the
other hand, European states mobilized their populations with an efficiency that dazzled some Americans
(notably Theodore Roosevelt) and appalled others (notably Wilson). The magazine founded by pro-war
intellectuals in 1914, The New Republic, took its title precisely because its editors regarded
the existing American republic as anything but the hope of tomorrow.
Yet as World War I entered its third year-and the first year of Tooze's story-the balance of power
was visibly tilting from Europe to America. The belligerents could no longer sustain the costs of
offensive war. Cut off from world trade, Germany hunkered into a defensive siege, concentrating its
attacks on weak enemies like Romania. The Western allies, and especially Britain, outfitted their
forces by placing larger and larger war orders with the United States. In 1916, Britain bought more
than a quarter of the engines for its new air fleet, more than half of its shell casings, more than
two-thirds of its grain, and nearly all of its oil from foreign suppliers, with the United States
heading the list. Britain and France paid for these purchases by floating larger and larger bond
issues to American buyers-denominated in dollars, not pounds or francs. "By the end of 1916, American
investors had wagered two billion dollars on an Entente victory," computes Tooze (relative to America's
estimated GDP of $50 billion in 1916, the equivalent of $560 billion in today's money).
That staggering quantity of Allied purchases called forth something like a war mobilization in
the United States. American factories switched from civilian to military production; American farmers
planted food and fiber to feed and clothe the combatants of Europe. But unlike in 1940-41, the decision
to commit so much to one side's victory in a European war was not a political decision by the U.S.
government. Quite the contrary: President Wilson wished to stay out of the war entirely. He famously
preferred a "peace without victory." The trouble was that by 1916, the U.S. commitment to Britain
and France had grown-to borrow a phrase from the future-too big to fail.
Tooze's portrait of Woodrow Wilson is one of the most arresting novelties of his book. His Wilson
is no dreamy idealist. The president's animating idea was an American exceptionalism of a now-familiar
but then-startling kind. His Republican opponents-men like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge,
and Elihu Root-wished to see America take its place among the powers of the earth. They wanted a
navy, an army, a central bank, and all the other instrumentalities of power possessed by Britain,
France, and Germany. These political rivals are commonly derided as "isolationists" because they
mistrusted the Wilson's League of Nations project. That's a big mistake. They doubted the League
because they feared it would encroach on American sovereignty. It was Wilson who wished to
remain aloof from the Entente, who feared that too close an association with Britain and France would
limit American options. This aloofness enraged Theodore Roosevelt, who complained that the Wilson-led
United States was "sitting idle, uttering cheap platitudes, and picking up [European] trade, whilst
they had poured out their blood like water in support of ideals in which, with all their hearts and
souls, they believe."
Wilson was guided by a different vision: Rather than join the struggle of imperial rivalries,
the United States could use its emerging power to suppress those rivalries altogether. Wilson
was the first American statesman to perceive that the United States had grown, in Tooze's words,
into "a power unlike any other. It had emerged, quite suddenly, as a novel kind of 'super-state,'
exercising a veto over the financial and security concerns of the other major states of the world."
Wilson hoped to deploy this emerging super-power to enforce an enduring peace. His own mistakes
and those of his successors doomed the project, setting in motion the disastrous events that would
lead to the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and a second and even more awful world war.
What went wrong? "When all is said and done," Tooze writes, "the answer must be sought in the failure
of the United States to cooperate with the efforts of the French, British, Germans and the Japanese
[leaders of the early 1920s] to stabilize a viable world economy and to establish new institutions
of collective security. Given the violence they had already experienced and the risk of even greater
future devastation, France, Germany, Japan, and Britain could all see this. But what was no less
obvious was that only the US could anchor such a new order." And that was what Americans of the 1920s
and 1930s declined to do-because doing so implied too much change at home for them: "At the hub of
the rapidly evolving, American-centered world system there was a polity wedded to a conservative
vision of its own future."
Widen the view, however, and the "forgotten depression" takes on a broader meaning as one of the
most ominous milestones on the world's way to the Second World War. After World War II, Europe recovered
largely as a result of American aid; the nation that had suffered least from the war contributed
most to reconstruction. But after World War I, the money flowed the other way.
Take the case of France, which suffered more in material terms than any World War I belligerent except
Belgium. Northeastern France, the country's most industrialized region in 1914, had been ravaged
by war and German occupation. Millions of men in their prime were dead or crippled. On top of everything,
the country was deeply in debt, owing billions to the United States and billions more to Britain.
France had been a lender during the conflict too, but most of its credits had been extended to Russia,
which repudiated all its foreign debts after the Revolution of 1917. The French solution was to exact
reparations from Germany.
Britain was willing to relax its demands on France. But it owed the United States even more than
France did. Unless it collected from France-and from Italy and all the other smaller combatants as
well-it could not hope to pay its American debts.
Americans, meanwhile, were preoccupied with the problem of German recovery. How could Germany achieve
political stability if it had to pay so much to France and Belgium? The Americans pressed the French
to relent when it came to Germany, but insisted that their own claims be paid in full by both France
and Britain.
Germany, for its part, could only pay if it could export, and especially to the world's biggest and
richest consumer market, the United States. The depression of 1920 killed those export hopes. Most
immediately, the economic crisis sliced American consumer demand precisely when Europe needed it
most. True, World War I was not nearly as positive an experience for working Americans as World War
II would be; between 1914 and 1918, for example, wages lagged behind prices. Still, millions of Americans
had bought billions of dollars of small-denomination Liberty bonds. They had accumulated savings
that could have been spent on imported products. Instead, many used their savings for food, rent,
and mortgage interest during the hard times of 1920-21.
But the gravest harm done by the depression to postwar recovery lasted long past 1921. To appreciate
that, you have to understand the reasons why U.S. monetary authorities plunged the country into depression
in 1920.
Grant rightly points out that wars are usually followed by economic downturns. Such a downturn occurred
in late 1918-early 1919. "Within four weeks of the Armistice, the [U.S.] War Department had canceled
$2.5 billion of its then outstanding $6 billion in contracts; for perspective, $2.5 billion represented
3.3 percent of the 1918 gross national product," he observes. Even this understates the shock, because
it counts only Army contracts, not Navy ones. The postwar recession checked wartime inflation, and
by March 1919, the U.S. economy was growing again.
As the economy revived, workers scrambled for wage increases to offset the price inflation they'd
experienced during the war. Monetary authorities, worried that inflation would revive and accelerate,
made the fateful decision to slam the credit brakes, hard. Unlike the 1918 recession, that of 1920
was deliberately engineered. There was nothing invisible about it. Nor did the depression "cure itself."
U.S. officials cut interest rates and relaxed credit, and the economy predictably recovered-just
as it did after the similarly inflation-crushing recessions of 1974-75 and 1981-82.
But 1920-21 was an inflation-stopper with a difference. In post-World War II America, anti-inflationists
have been content to stop prices from rising. In 1920-21, monetary authorities actually sought to
drive prices back to their pre-war levels. They did not wholly succeed, but they succeeded well enough.
One price especially concerned them: In 1913, a dollar bought a little less than one-twentieth of
an ounce of gold; by 1922, it comfortably did so again.
... ... ...
The American depression of 1920 made that decision all the more difficult. The war had vaulted
the United States to a new status as the world's leading creditor, the world's largest owner of gold,
and, by extension, the effective custodian of the international gold standard. When the U.S. opted
for massive deflation, it thrust upon every country that wished to return to the gold standard (and
what respectable country would not?) an agonizing dilemma. Return to gold at 1913 values, and you
would have to match U.S. deflation with an even steeper deflation of your own, accepting increased
unemployment along the way. Alternatively, you could re-peg your currency to gold at a diminished
rate. But that amounted to an admission that your money had permanently lost value-and that your
own people, who had trusted their government with loans in local money, would receive a weaker return
on their bonds than American creditors who had lent in dollars.
Britain chose the former course; pretty much everybody else chose the latter.
The consequences of these choices fill much of the second half of The Deluge. For Europeans, they
were uniformly grim, and worse. But one important effect ultimately rebounded on Americans. America's
determination to restore a dollar "as good as gold" not only imposed terrible hardship on war-ravaged
Europe, it also threatened to flood American markets with low-cost European imports. The flip side
of the Lost Generation enjoying cheap European travel with their strong dollars was German steelmakers
and shipyards underpricing their American competitors with weak marks.
Such a situation also prevailed after World War II, when the U.S. acquiesced in the undervaluation
of the Deutsche mark and yen to aid German and Japanese recovery. But American leaders of the 1920s
weren't willing to accept this outcome. In 1921 and 1923, they raised tariffs, terminating a brief
experiment with freer trade undertaken after the election of 1912. The world owed the United States
billions of dollars, but the world was going to have to find another way of earning that money than
selling goods to the United States.
That way was found: more debt, especially more German debt. The 1923 hyper-inflation that wiped
out Germany's savers also tidied up the country's balance sheet. Post-inflation Germany looked like
a very creditworthy borrower. Between 1924 and 1930, world financial flows could be simplified into
a daisy chain of debt. Germans borrowed from Americans, and used the proceeds to pay reparations
to the Belgians and French. The French and Belgians, in turn, repaid war debts to the British and
Americans. The British then used their French and Italian debt payments to repay the United States,
who set the whole crazy contraption in motion again. Everybody could see the system was crazy. Only
the United States could fix it. It never did.
Peter Heather, the great British historian of Late Antiquity, explains human catastrophes
with a saying of his father's, a mining engineer: "If man accumulates enough combustible material,
God will provide the spark." So it happened in 1929. The Deluge that had inundated the rest of the
developed world roared back upon the United States.
... ... ...
"The United States has the Earth, and Germany wants it." Thus might Hitler's war aims have been
summed up by a latter-day Woodrow Wilson. From the start, the United States was Hitler's ultimate
target. "In seeking to explain the urgency of Hitler's aggression, historians have underestimated
his acute awareness of the threat posed to Germany, along with the rest of the European powers, by
the emergence of the United States as the dominant global superpower," Tooze writes.
"The originality of National Socialism was that, rather than meekly accepting a place for
Germany within a global economic order dominated by the affluent English-speaking countries, Hitler
sought to mobilize the pent-up frustrations of his population to mount an epic challenge to this
order." Of course, Hitler was not engaged in rational calculation. He could not accept subordination
to the United States because, according to his lurid paranoia, "this would result in enslavement
to the world Jewish conspiracy, and ultimately race death." He dreamed of conquering Poland,
Ukraine, and Russia as a means of gaining the resources to match those of the United States.
The vast landscape in between Berlin and Moscow would become Germany's equivalent of the American
west, filled with German homesteaders living comfortably on land and labor appropriated from conquered
peoples-a nightmare parody of the American experience with which to challenge American power.
Could this vision have ever been realized? Tooze argues in The Wages of Destruction that Germany
had already missed its chance. "In 1870, at the time of German national unification, the population
of the United States and Germany was roughly equal and the total output of America, despite its enormous
abundance of land and resources, was only one-third larger than that of Germany," he writes. "Just
before the outbreak of World War I the American economy had expanded to roughly twice the size of
that of Imperial Germany. By 1943, before the aerial bombardment had hit top gear, total American
output was almost four times that of the Third Reich."
Germany was a weaker and poorer country in 1939 than it had been in 1914. Compared with Britain,
let alone the United States, it lacked the basic elements of modernity: There were just 486,000 automobiles
in Germany in 1932, and one-quarter of all Germans still worked as farmers as of 1925. Yet this backward
land, with an income per capita comparable to contemporary "South Africa, Iran and Tunisia," wagered
on a second world war even more audacious than the first.
The reckless desperation of Hitler's war provides context for the horrific crimes of his regime.
Hitler's empire could not feed itself, so his invasion plan for the Soviet Union contemplated the
death by starvation of 20 to 30 million Soviet urban dwellers after the invaders stole all foodstuffs
for their own use. Germany lacked workers, so it plundered the labor of its conquered peoples.
By 1944, foreigners constituted 20 percent of the German workforce and 33 percent of armaments
workers (less than 9 percent of the population of today's liberal and multicultural Germany is foreign-born).
On paper, the Nazi empire of 1942 represented a substantial economic bloc. But pillage and slavery
are not workable bases for an industrial economy. Under German rule, the output of conquered Europe
collapsed. The Hitlerian vision of a united German-led Eurasia equaling the Anglo-American bloc
proved a crazed and genocidal fantasy.
"... A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and intimate, and it will have broader implications. ..."
"... Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too ..."
"... An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance that allows free government to function successfully. ..."
"... "When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows what will come out?" ..."
"... Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people. ..."
"... What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security, and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees. ..."
"... Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious of what NSA can do." ..."
...Among the pertinent definitions of privacy from the Oxford English Dictionary: "freedom from
disturbance or intrusion," "intended only for the use of a particular person or persons," belonging
to "the property of a particular person." Also: "confidential, not to be disclosed to others." Among
others, the OED quotes the playwright Arthur Miller, describing the McCarthy era: "Conscience was
no longer a private matter but one of state administration."
Privacy is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things-the innards of your head
and heart, the workings of your mind-and the boundary between those things and the world outside.
A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and
intimate, and it will have broader implications. That is the view of Nat Hentoff, the great
journalist and civil libertarian. He is 88 now and on fire on the issue of privacy. "The media has
awakened," he told me. "Congress has awakened, to some extent." Both are beginning to realize "that
there are particular constitutional liberty rights that [Americans] have that distinguish them from
all other people, and one of them is privacy."
Mr. Hentoff sees excessive government surveillance as violative of the Fourth Amendment, which
protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires that warrants be issued only "upon probable cause
. . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
But Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too. About a
year ago he went up to Harvard to speak to a class. He asked, he recalled: "How many of you realize
the connection between what's happening with the Fourth Amendment with the First Amendment?" He told
the students that if citizens don't have basic privacies-firm protections against the search and
seizure of your private communications, for instance-they will be left feeling "threatened." This
will make citizens increasingly concerned "about what they say, and they do, and they think." It
will have the effect of constricting freedom of expression. Americans will become careful about what
they say that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, and then too careful about what they say that
can be understood. The inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.
All of a sudden, the room became quiet. "These were bright kids, interested, concerned, but they
hadn't made an obvious connection about who we are as a people." We are "free citizens in a self-governing
republic."
Mr. Hentoff once asked Justice William Brennan "a schoolboy's question": What is the most important
amendment to the Constitution? "Brennan said the First Amendment, because all the other ones come
from that. If you don't have free speech you have to be afraid, you lack a vital part of what it
is to be a human being who is free to be who you want to be." Your own growth as a person will in
time be constricted, because we come to know ourselves by our thoughts.
He wonders if Americans know who they are compared to what the Constitution says they are.
Mr. Hentoff's second point: An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance
that allows free government to function successfully. Broad and intrusive surveillance will,
definitively, put government in charge. But a republic only works, Mr. Hentoff notes, if public officials
know that they-and the government itself-answer to the citizens. It doesn't work, and is distorted,
if the citizens must answer to the government. And that will happen more and more if the government
knows-and you know-that the government has something, or some things, on you. "The bad thing is you
no longer have the one thing we're supposed to have as Americans living in a self-governing republic,"
Mr. Hentoff said. "The people we elect are not your bosses, they are responsible to us." They must
answer to us. But if they increasingly control our privacy, "suddenly they're in charge if they know
what you're thinking."
This is a shift in the democratic dynamic. "If we don't have free speech then what can we do if
the people who govern us have no respect for us, may indeed make life difficult for us, and in fact
belittle us?"
If massive surveillance continues and grows, could it change the national character? "Yes, because
it will change free speech."
What of those who say, "I have nothing to fear, I don't do anything wrong"? Mr. Hentoff suggests
that's a false sense of security.
"When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows
what will come out?"
Or can be made to come out through misunderstanding the data, or finagling, or mischief of one
sort or another.
"People say, 'Well I've done nothing wrong so why should I worry?' But that's too easy a way
to get out of what is in our history-constant attempts to try to change who we are as Americans."
Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare
of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals
or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people.
What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps
us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks
are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security,
and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees.
"There has to be somebody supervising them who knows what's right. . . . Terrorism is not going
to go away. But we need someone in charge of the whole apparatus who has read the Constitution."
Advances in technology constantly up the ability of what government can do. Its technological
expertise will only become deeper and broader.
"They think they're getting to how you think. The technology is such that with the masses of
databases, then privacy will get even weaker."
Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious
of what NSA can do."
"... Far from being seen as the guardian of a free and open online medium, the US has been painted as an oppressor, cynically using its privileged position to spy on foreign nationals. The result, warn analysts, could well be an acceleration of a process that has been under way for some time as other countries ringfence their networks to protect their citizens' data and limit the flow of information. ..."
"... At the most obvious level, the secret data-collection efforts being conducted by the US National Security Agency threaten to give would-be censors of the internet in authoritarian countries rhetorical cover as they put their own stamp on their local networks. ..."
"... But the distrust of the US that the disclosures are generating in the democratic world, including in Europe , are also likely to have an impact. From the operation of a nation's telecoms infrastructure to the regulation of the emerging cloud computing industry, changes in the architecture of networks as countries seek more control look set to cause a sea change in the broader internet. ..."
Revelations about
US
surveillance of the global internet – and the part played by some of the biggest American internet
companies in facilitating it – have stirred angst around the world.
Far from being seen as the guardian of a free and open online medium, the US has been painted as
an oppressor, cynically using its privileged position to spy on foreign nationals. The result, warn
analysts, could well be an acceleration of a process that has been under way for some time as other
countries ringfence their networks to protect their citizens' data and limit the flow of information.
"It is difficult to imagine the internet not becoming more compartmentalised and Balkanised," says
Rebecca MacKinnon, an expert on online censorship. "Ten years from now, we will look back on the
free and open internet" with nostalgia, she adds.
At the most obvious level, the secret data-collection efforts being conducted by the US National
Security Agency threaten to give would-be censors of the
internet in authoritarian countries rhetorical cover as they put their own stamp on their local
networks.
But the distrust of the US that the disclosures are generating in the democratic world,
including
in Europe, are also likely to have an impact. From the operation of a nation's telecoms infrastructure
to the regulation of the emerging cloud computing industry, changes in the architecture of networks
as countries seek more control look set to cause a sea change in the broader internet.
"... As Mr. Buffet so keenly said it, There is a war going on, and we are winning. ..."
"... Just type `TPP editorial' into news.google.com and watch a toxic sludge of straw men, misdirection, and historical revisionism flow across your screen. And the `objective' straight news reporting is no better. ..."
"... "Why is it afraid of us?" Because we the people are perceived to be the enemy of America the Corporation. Whistleblowers have already stated that the NSA info is used to blackmail politicians and military leaders, provide corporate espionage to the highest payers and more devious machinations than the mind can grasp from behind a single computer. 9/11 was a coup – I say that because looking around the results tell me that. ..."
"... The fourth estate (the media) has been purchased outright by the second estate (the nobility). I guess you could call this an 'estate sale'. All power to the markets! ..."
Free Trade," the banner of Globalization, has not only wrecked the world's economy, it has left Western
Democracy in shambles. Europe edges ever closer to deflation. The Fed dare not increase interest
rates, now poised at barely above zero. As China's stock market threatened collapse, China poured
billions to prop it up. It's export machine is collapsing. Not once, but twice, it recently manipulated
its currency to makes its goods cheaper on the world market. What is happening?
The following two
graphs tell most of the story. First, an overview of Free Trade.
Capital fled from developed countries to undeveloped countries with slave-cheap labor, countries
with no environmental standards, countries with no support for collective bargaining. Corporations,
like Apple, set up shop in China and other undeveloped countries. Some, like China, manipulated its
currency to make exported goods to the West even cheaper. Some, like China, gave preferential tax
treatment to Western firm over indigenous firms. Economists cheered as corporate efficiency unsurprisingly
rose. U.S. citizens became mere consumers.
Thanks to Bill Clinton and the Financial Modernization Act, banks, now unconstrained, could peddle
rigged financial services, offer insurance on its own investment products–in short, banks were free
to play with everyone's money–and simply too big to fail. Credit was easy and breezy. If nasty Arabs
bombed the Trade Center, why the solution was simple: Go to the shopping mall–and buy. That remarkable
piece of advice is just what freedom has been all about.
Next: China's export machine sputters.
China's problem is that there are not enough orders to keep the export machine going. There comes
a time when industrialized nations simply run out of cash–I mean the little people run out of cash.
CEOs and those just below them–along with slick Wall Street gauchos–made bundles on Free Trade, corporate
capital that could set up shop in any impoverished nation in the world.. No worries about labor–dirt
cheap–or environmental regulations–just bring your gas masks. At some point the Western consumer
well was bound to run dry. Credit was exhausted; the little guy could not buy anymore. Free trade
was on its last legs.
So what did China do then? As its markets crashed, it tried to revive its export model, a model
based on foreign firms exporting cheap goods to the West. China lowered its exchange rates, not once
but twice. Then China tried to rescue the markets with cash infusion of billions. Still its market
continued to crash. Manufacturing plants had closed–thousands of them. Free Trade and Globalization
had run its course.
And what has the Fed been doing? Why quantitative easy–increase the money supply and lower short
term interest rates. Like China's latest currency manipulation, both were merely stop-gap measures.
No one, least of all Obama and his corporate advisors, was ready to address corporate outsourcing
that has cost millions of jobs. Prime the pump a little, but never address the real problem.
The WTO sets the groundwork for trade among its member states. That groundwork is deeply flawed.
Trade between impoverished third world countries and sophisticated first world economies is not merely
a matter of regulating "dumping"-not allowing one country to flood the market with cheap goods-nor
is it a matter of insuring that the each country does not favor its indigenous firms over foreign
firms. Comparable labor and environmental standards are necessary. Does anyone think that a first
world worker can compete with virtual slave labor? Does anyone think that a first world nation with
excellent environmental regulations can compete with a third world nation that refuses to protect
its environment?
Only lately has Apple even mentioned that it might clean up its mess in China. The Apple miracle
has been on the backs of the Chinese poor and abysmal environmental wreckage that is China.
The WTO allows three forms of inequities-all of which encourage outsourcing: labor arbitrage,
tax arbitrage, and environmental arbitrage. For a fuller explanation of these inequities and the
"race to the bottom," see
here.
Of course now we have the mother of all Free Trade deals –the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)–
carefully wrapped in a black box so that none of us can see what finally is in store for us. Nothing
is ever "Free"–even trade. I suspect that China is becoming a bit too noxious and poisonous. It simply
has to deal with its massive environmental problems. Time to move the game to less despoiled and
maybe more impoverished countries. Meanwhile, newscasters are always careful to tout TPP.
Fast Tracking is a con man's game. Do it so fast that the marks never have a chance to watch their
wallets. In hiding negotiations from prying, public eyes, Obama, has given the con men a bigger edge:
A screen to hide the corporations making deals. Their interest is in profits, not in public good.
Consider the media. Our only defense is a strong independent media. At one time,
newsrooms were not required to be profitable. Reporting the news was considered a community service.
Corporate ownership provided the necessary funding for its newsrooms–and did not interfere.
But the 70′s and 80′s corporate ownership required its newsrooms to be profitable. Slowly but
surely, newsrooms focused on personality, entertainment, and wedge issues–always careful not to rock
the corporate boat, always careful not to tread on governmental policy. Whoever thought that one
major news service–Fox–would become a breeding ground for one particular party.
But consider CNN: It organizes endless GOP debates; then spends hours dissecting them. Create
the news; then sell it–and be sure to spin it in the direction you want.
Are matters of substance ever discussed? When has a serious foreign policy debate ever been allowed
occurred–without editorial interference from the media itself. When has trade and outsourcing been
seriously discussed–other than by peripheral news media?
Meanwhile, news media becomes more and more centralized. Murdoch now owns National Geographic!
Now, thanks to Bush and Obama, we have the chilling effect of the NSA. Just whom does the NSA
serve when it collects all of our digital information? Is it being used to ferret out the plans of
those exercising their right of dissent? Is it being used to increase the profits of favored corporations?
Why does it need all of your and my personal information–from bank accounts, to credit cards, to
travel plans, to friends with whom we chat .Why is it afraid of us?
jefemt, October 23, 2015 at 9:43 am
As Mr. Buffet so keenly said it, There is a war going on, and we are winning.
If 'they' are failing, I'd hate to see success!
Isn't it the un-collective WE who are failing?
failing to organize,
failing to come up with plausible, 90 degrees off present Lemming-to-Brink path alternative plans
and policies,
failing to agree on any of many plausible alternatives that might work
Divided- for now- hopefully not conquered ..
I gotta scoot and get back to Dancing with the Master Chefs
allan, October 23, 2015 at 10:03 am
Just type `TPP editorial' into news.google.com and watch a toxic sludge of straw men, misdirection,
and historical revisionism flow across your screen. And the `objective' straight news reporting
is no better.
Vatch, October 23, 2015 at 10:36 am
Don't just watch the toxic sludge; respond to it with a letter to the editor (LTE) of the offending
publication! For some of those toxic editorials, and contact information for LTEs, see:
A few of the editorials may now be obscured by paywalls or registration requirements, but most
should still be visible. Let them know that we see through their nonsense!
TedWa, October 23, 2015 at 10:38 am
"Why is it afraid of us?" Because we the people are perceived to be the enemy of America
the Corporation. Whistleblowers have already stated that the NSA info is used to blackmail politicians
and military leaders, provide corporate espionage to the highest payers and more devious machinations
than the mind can grasp from behind a single computer. 9/11 was a coup – I say that because looking
around the results tell me that.
TG, October 23, 2015 at 3:27 pm
The fourth estate (the media) has been purchased outright by the second estate (the nobility).
I guess you could call this an 'estate sale'. All power to the markets!
Pelham, October 23, 2015 at 8:32 pm
Even when newsrooms were more independent they probably would not, in general, have reported
on free trade with any degree of skepticism. The recent disappearance of the old firewall between
the news and corporate sides has made things worse, but at least since the "professionalization"
of newsrooms that began to really take hold in the '60s, journalists have tended to identify far
more with their sources in power than with their readers.
There have, of course, been notable exceptions. But even these sometimes serve more to obscure
the real day-to-day nature of journalism's fealty to the corporate world than to bring about any
significant change.
"... At the end of the day Trump isn't a real national-chauvinist, the compromise term I'll settle for here instead of you-know-what. He's a backbench member of the neoliberal ruling class, and a participant in the ongoing game in which two neoliberal electoral blocs make vague rhetorical overtures toward leftism and national-chauvinism while taking turns implementing different aspects of a thoroughly neoliberal governing agenda. ..."
"... the greater danger this US election season was Democrats' decision to validate and legitimize the so-called "moderate Republicans" who for decades have been laying the groundwork for Trump and all the future Trumps to come. ..."
"... In that vein, MisterMr touches on the crucial point that fascism or national-chauvinism is a tool purposefully utilized by the liberal center to divert economic discontent that might otherwise find a home on the left. ..."
"... Politics is about priorities. You don't need a policy statement "dropping" someone to drop them. All you have to do is make them one of your lowest priorities. ..."
Patrick 12.01.16 at 6:34 pm
88
"Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the political
right has been increasingly dominated by tribalism. "
And the political left has been increasingly dominated by neoliberalism.
faustusnotes, to blur the divide between the neoliberal center and the socialist left is to fall
totally and completely into the trap. At the end of the day Trump isn't a real national-chauvinist,
the compromise term I'll settle for here instead of you-know-what. He's a backbench member of
the neoliberal ruling class, and a participant in the ongoing game in which two neoliberal electoral
blocs make vague rhetorical overtures toward leftism and national-chauvinism while taking turns
implementing different aspects of a thoroughly neoliberal governing agenda.
The fact that all these "never Trump" Republicans are now clamoring for roles in what's predictably
shaping up as a neoliberal administration with a national-chauvinist veneer should validate what
the left has been saying all along: that Trump as a politician is not in any meaningful sense
unprecedented, his rhetoric proceeds logically or even inevitably from the long (and bipartisan)
tradition of national-chauvinist ideology in US electoral politics, and if anything the greater
danger this US election season was Democrats' decision to validate and legitimize the so-called
"moderate Republicans" who for decades have been laying the groundwork for Trump and all the future
Trumps to come.
... ... ...
In that vein, MisterMr touches on the crucial point that fascism or national-chauvinism
is a tool purposefully utilized by the liberal center to divert economic discontent that might
otherwise find a home on the left.
"WLGR, where is the democratic policy statement that they are "dropping" the interests
of blue collar workers?"
This isn't a clear way of analyzing the problem. Politics is about priorities. You don't
need a policy statement "dropping" someone to drop them. All you have to do is make them one of
your lowest priorities.
"... By Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. His most recent book is ..."
"... So, yes, Trump's critique of American generalship possesses merit, but whether he knows it or not, the question truly demanding his attention as the incoming commander-in-chief isn't: Who should I hire (or fire) to fight my wars? Instead, far more urgent is: Does further war promise to solve any of my problems? ..."
"... As a candidate, Trump vowed to "defeat radical Islamic terrorism," destroy ISIS, "decimate al-Qaeda," and "starve funding for Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah." Those promises imply a significant escalation of what Americans used to call the Global War on Terrorism. ..."
"... In that regard, his promise to "quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS" offers a hint of what is to come. ..."
"... To a very considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the establishment, because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled Americans could count on to drain that swamp. ..."
"... Were Trump really intent on draining that swamp - if he genuinely seeks to "Make America Great Again" - then he would extricate the United States from war. His liquidation of Trump University, which was to higher education what Freedom's Sentinel and Inherent Resolve are to modern warfare, provides a potentially instructive precedent for how to proceed. ..."
"... Celebrity Apprentice ..."
"... Which brings us, finally, to that third question: To the extent that deficiencies at the top of the military hierarchy do affect the outcome of wars, what can be done to fix the problem? ..."
"... The most expeditious approach: purge all currently serving three- and four-star officers; then, make a precondition for promotion to those ranks confinement in a reeducation camp run by Iraq and Afghanistan war amputees, with a curriculum designed by Veterans for Peace . Graduation should require each student to submit an essay reflecting on these words of wisdom from U.S. Grant himself: "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword." ..."
"... this is the double failure of Washington. You might give them some credit if they were competent imperialists. But they are the worst of all worlds. They are reckless imperialists who can't even achieve their own stated aims with a modicum of competence. Real imperialists of the past would be rolling around laughing at this lot. ..."
"... They're not imperialists, they're corporatists. Graft is the object, and given that construction companies like Halliburton and mercs like Xe don't bankroll Ds, and since bombing campaigns are easy to keep up/out of the news, the money has now shifted to drones. ..."
"... I think they are imperialists in the sense that, as William Appleman Williams and others have argued, their primary orienting goal is to extend and sustain the US dominance of a world market. ..."
"... If you read what US foreign policy and military planners were saying in after WW2, that's an inescapable conclusion. Your focus on the corporation takes as a given what those planners have felt they need to strategically and militarily secure. Bacevich consistently avoids this issue and so ends up promoting a naive and implicitly hopeful view of US motives and the flexibility with which they can be pursued. ..."
"... It's really quite something to go back and read Dean Acheson testifying to a congressional committee that, unlike the Soviet Union, the US requires steady expansion of the world market to survive. He sounds like Rosa Luxemburg. ..."
"... The US is a nation of racketeers, which are perfecting the corruption of services into means of converting tax revenue into private profits. Some of these services are in fact essential, all have been – at least until recently – unassailable regardless of merit. Examples are housing, education, health care, private transportation and of course "national security". The rackets trace back to the exceptional US economic circumstances of WW2, and the leading racket was well established at the end of the Eisenhower presidency (his CYA address notwithstanding). ..."
"... For the "self-licking ice-cream cone" of military/security/intelligence/public safety expenditures to continue to grow exponentially, it is not only unnecessary for the tax-purchased services and goods to be functional, let alone deliver results – it is positively counterproductive. The question is not whether any captured government institution is dysfunctional, the question is merely whether and how the profitability it delivers to the "accounting control frauds" in charge of the incumbents can be increased. ..."
"... Success in any enterprise requires the definition of a goal. I believe that the goal of U.S. military action in MENA is two-fold: display fealty to Israel and the kings of the Arabian Peninsula; and to grow the corporate coffers of the MIC here at home. Defined in that way, the U.S. military has "hit it outta da park." Winning? Winning was a pipe dream of the likes of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. Cheney knew better and took GWB along for a ride. ..."
"... I am highly suspicious that publicly stated goals of the wars were the actual targets. My take is that the actual goal has always been to keep those places in chaos; on US terms and under its control. with a safe US military base to punch those second-rate nations if necessary; By that measure, I believe both the Iraq and Afghan invasions were a success but they cannot pat each other's backs publicly. ..."
"... I think that may have been his point, albeit delivered obliquely, as in his statement that "some wars should not be fought"; his quote from Grant, "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword", as well as elsewhere in the piece. ..."
"... Drain the swamp indeed, extricate the military from our national misadventures and retire the top brass more intent on career advancement that the true needs of the nation. Problems solved and we can move on as a nation. Will the world fall apart, if true men and women of honor step forward, I highly doubt it. ..."
"... Pretty radical stuff actually, but something that resonates with many people, people without a voice. Change will come from within the military, and it is refreshing to hear words of sanity form those inside the military system-Tulsi Gabbard for one. ..."
"... There isn't too much of an incentive to win if you're a careerist either which many of them are since the military is a giant welfare program/bureaucracy largely based on licking boots to advance. It might be nice to add another accolade to that fat stack of attendance ribbons on their chests but that's all it is. Also, even if you were super serious about winning the war look at what happened to Shinseki when he clashed with the civilian leadership over the numbers of troops needed to pacify Iraq post-war. He was marginalized and finally canned altogether. ..."
"... James P. Levy , Ph.D. FRHistS, a man who never hid behind a goddamned nom de plume ..."
"... Bacevich has made the point (as have others) that when the draft was eliminated voters no longer had skin in the game and became ambivalent which is why the founding fathers set up the system with the citizen soldier as a cornerstone principle. ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich, as usual, writes a great article. But Grant and Sherman benefited from having a war with a clear goal: destroy the Confederate army and its government. I hesitate to call anything happening with the US in the Middle East or North Africa or SE Asia a "war" of that nature. There are no clear objectives. There are no criteria for an end of the conflict. ..."
"... Instead, this looks a whole lot more like the North's occupation of the South during Reconstruction. We all know how that ended: the North had to pull itself out after an economic depression, more or less leading to a reign of terror through Jim Crow. ..."
"... You make a good, concise case for what the real objectives are for these unending expensive wars. Of course, this level of clarity re these goals are seldom stated to the populace at large. Rather we're mostly fed bullshit about terrrrists and being kept "safe" and other noodleheaded claptrap. ..."
"... Yes, as I said above, the neocons objective have been an abject failure. They display incompetence at all levels. And yet nobody pays the price. And the fact that the neocons don't try to fire the generals who failed (as numerous political leaders in the past have done) is a reflection of both their incompetence and the fact that the wars have become the ultimate in self licking ice creams. ..."
"... Ordinary people make the mistake of believing that the current crop of leaders have their interests in mind at all. They do not. If Clintons Public/Private mumbo jumbo didn't clear you of that thinking I don't know what will. ..."
"... The proper way to think about these things is the neocon plan is succeeding wonderfully but they are truly too short sighted- i.e. stupid in the long term- to understand the consequences. They understand short term profit completely and how to dispense physical power but little else. Consequences and payback are externalized in their world ..."
"... 30 years in lockup for Chelsea Manning is a warning for those, I suspect, who want to say "enough is enough." I also believe that your ability to move up the hierarchy to make those decisions to keep fighting is determined by your willingness to continue to see through the neoliberal project. ..."
"... I disagree to the extent that the ideological neocons had a very clearly stated and unambiguous strategic purpose – re-engineering the world as America's corporate playground, with any possible competitor (i.e. Russia and China) firmly penned in. This meant replacing all the mid-size States which were still refusing to be part of the Washington Consensus. ..."
"... Its no secret or mystery about what they were seeking. In this, they have failed – Afghanistan remains in chaos, Iraq is more Iran controlled than US controlled, Iran still refuses to come to heel, and Russia and China are making increasing inroads to Central Asia, eastern Europe, Africa and South America. The neocon project is slowly unravelling, with Trump hopefully about to put it out of its misery. ..."
"... There are now more people in Washington who's job depends on finding more wars to fight than there are people employed to stop wars. This is the neocons fault, but its not the neocons project – they are just useful idiots for the profiteers. ..."
"... I don't make a distinction between the neocons and the profiteers. The worst possible outcome from this neocon disaster would be for the profiteers, the rentiers, to be able to reconstitute their hold over society- or to hold onto it for that matter. What will it take, complete destruction of the biosphere for people to understand that cooperation is the only means of survival? ..."
"... Part of the problem with the U.S military is that the Army sees enemy #2 as the Air Force and Navy. Gotta get those dollars. Another problem is that the U.S fails at the oft quote dictum of Sun Tzu, know yourself and know your enemy. ..."
"... In America's defense they are great at logistics side of war. ..."
"... Generals and admirals are all adept politicians and bureaucrats. they have to be to get to that level in the structure. War-fighters, no so much, with few exceptions, https://fabiusmaximus.com/2008/01/14/millennium-challenge/ . ..."
"... It's long seemed to me one of the many failings of the species is that some of us produce wise counsel that actually looks to the horizon and beyond, like the fundamental questions articulated by Sun Tzu about whether to commit the peasants who pay for it to a prolonged foreign war with long supply lines that will bankrupt the nation - http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html . And then the idiot few that gain, psychically or monetarily, from conflict, blow that kind of fundamental test of wisdom off and "go to war" or more accurately "send other people to hack and blast each other while the senders get rich." ..."
"... So is it just the inevitable case that Empires rise up, loot, murder, grow the usual huge corrupt capitals and the militaries to support the looting and keep the mopes in line, and finally succumb to some kind of wasting disease where all the corruption and interest-seeking honeycombs and finally collapses the structure? Is there no other way for humans to organize, because so many of us have the drive to dominate and to grab all the pleasure and stuff we can get away with? ..."
"... I've grown up hearing commentaries that echo this one as relating to our foreign policy adventures since WWII, and if you take a results oriented approach, they're probably true. But having gone to school for foreign policy work and talking to people who were involved with the foreign policy apparatus (doing the leg work, not the people at the top who basically have no idea what they're doing), I've become more and more convinced that it's simply incompetence. ..."
"... I think that the people dictating policy are basically a bunch of Tom Friedmans, who are utterly convinced that their empirically wrong views about how policy is executed are correct. Look at Iraq in the aftermath. Not only did they get not understand that the Sunnis and Shia might not have the best of intentions towards each other, but US companies aren't even getting all the plum oil contracts. Now surely a country that guarantees the security of the Iraqi elite could ensure that it's own companies got the best deals? ..."
"... First and foremost the US is the greatest spender in weapons, and why does anyone spend in weapons if there is not plan to use them? The first objective is to use the weapons and avoid piling a dusting mountain of missiles, bombs, or any other kind of armament. Many wars are mainly the testing battlefields for new weaponry. ..."
"... Spreading fear might not be the best strategy but is has clearly been one of the main objectives in some cases, particularly Iraq. ..."
"... The best case of a president looking for an excuse to use the weapons and spread fear was G.W. Bush and Iraq v2.0. The fact that Bush excuses were clumsily manufactured and exposed without shame in the UN is a feature. It means: when we decide that we will attack you nothing will stop us. No democratic control and no international rules can stop us. ..."
"... The Bush Administration arrogantly assumed that all peoples are enough alike that they can be rescued the same way as Western Europeans were - after the Nazis were driven off. This premis was an epic error for the ages. The entire Washington establishment - to include the Pentagon - and the MSM went along with this premis. In many ways they STILL buy into it. ..."
"... You never read MSM articles questioning whether Iraqis or Afghans can buy into republican democracy. The assumption is that the whole world is waiting with baited breath to achieve this Western political-cultural ideal. ..."
"... The correct solution, in 2009, was to NOT expand Afghan operations. I spent many an hour arguing the folly of said expansion. It was inevitable that after any expansion there would be a massive draw down - which would destablize the Kabul government. ..."
"... Pull out of Syria entirely. Stop funding al Nusrah - which is an acknowledged branch of al Qaeda. Egypt has entered the conflict on the side of Assad, Iran and Russia, most recently. The "White Hats" are a fraud. ..."
"... US is caught in a typical occupation trap, where they want a subservient regime that is under their control. Subservient regimes are subservient because they lack a large power base and are dependent on their foreign backers. A subservient regime with a power base does not stay subservient for long, they quickly develop an independent streak at which point you have to overthrow them and install a different, weaker regime. ..."
"... Stabilizing a subservient regime with a weak power base requires US presence and boots on the ground. A subservient regime with a strong power base that can support itself quickly stops being subservient and has to be replaced. A "victory", where US troops would not be necessary for the regime support, means loss of control over the regime. ..."
"... So US is stuck in a loop. Political considerations force them to build up a regime to a point of independence, only to have to tear it down when it looks like it might go against American interests. US military takes the blame because they have to fight the latest insurgent group CIA built up to effect regime change. ..."
"... I would never gainsay that many technocratic, careerist general officers might be looking for ways to enhance their glory and bid up their asking price for CNN slots and board positions at Lockheed Martin. But the swamp you seek to drain has an apex predator; wealthy and powerful civilians. I seem to recall some generals, Eric Shinseki and Jay Garner come to mind, who tried to bring a little truth to power and avoid the biggest mistakes of the Iraq war. ..."
"... Eisenhower's prophecy has metastasized so deeply into the body politic, only a profound change in the views of the citizenry could possibly make a difference. Short of economic or military upheaval, it's hard to see how do we do this when our best paying jobs are strategically sprinkled across the country, making every procurement and every base sacrosanct to even the most liberal, libertarian or even peace-nick politicians? So, isn't the swamp much larger that the military officer corps? Drain this one part, and it would fill back in rather quickly if that was the main thrust of our attack on this nightmare. ..."
"... I suspect Trump is headed to the White House partly because a significant number of people concluded that social upheaval will be hastened by his administration, and that the consequences, whatever they may be, will be worth bearing so that we can rebuild on the ashes of the neoliberal/neoconservative era. ..."
"... Trump played the rubes about safety with his vitriolic Anti-Muslim rhetoric. Although Trump claimed not to want to continue the wars, I seriously doubt he'll do one damn thing to make improvements in this regard. ..."
"... Only Mussolini and Goering had a leg up on MacArthur regarding bling. ..."
"... Unfolding the Future of the Long War, a 2008 RAND Corporation report, was sponsored by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command's Army Capability Integration Centre. It set out US government policy options for prosecuting what it described as "the long war" against "adversaries" in "the Muslim world," who are "bent on forming a unified Islamic world to supplant Western dominance". ..."
"... Well, the US military's performance in WW1 and WW2, often against weak opposition, was less than stunning. They won their battles with massively superior firepower, for the most part. ..."
"... But the real problem does, indeed, lie in Washington; Accepting that the US strategy in Iraq, for example, was indeed to create a pliable, pro-western democratic state, it's not clear that there was actually much the military could do when it started to unravel because of the inherent stupidity of the idea. ..."
"... Nor should we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something like 370,000 combatants and noncombatants have been killed in the various theaters of operations where U.S. forces have been active. Although modest by twentieth century standards, this post-9/11 harvest of death is hardly trivial. ..."
"... A dozen terrorism scholars gave a wide range of answers when asked to estimate how many members there are, how the numbers have changed during al Qaeda's lifespan and how many countries the group operates in. Analysts put the core membership at anywhere from 200 to 1,000 ..."
"... Instead it was scaled up into stupid endless Perpetual War without achievable objectives. In retrospect divide $5T by 200-1,000 and consider how little it may have cost if 9/11 had been treated as a criminal act by non-state actors, instead of sticking our foot into the role of destabilizing other sovereign countries, killing /antagonizing the citizens and generally fking up their countries?? ..."
"... I think the US is falling into the old imperialist trap of thinking of these places as countries with capital cities and leaders recognized as such by the population. The British had that issue in the 1770s when they captured the capital(s) of the new US but the revolution didn't stop. External superpower (French) support was able to keep the resistance functioning and the British eventually gave up. Both of those superpowers kept duking it out on other battlefields for another 30 years. ..."
"... The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the imposition of the Spanish Empire; total destruction of native culture and replacement with Roman forms. The places the Spanish controlled are still broken, so don't look for success in this endeavor anytime soon ..."
"... The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the imposition of the Spanish Empire ..."
"... Say what you want about the British Empire, but they did leave behind functioning legal and political systems in most of the countries they controlled. In India's case, they also left them a common language since there are so many languages there. Many of the countries remained in the Commonwealth after independence which is something that none of the other colonial powers achieved. ..."
"... I think the key was the British focused on empire as an extension of commerce, not ideology (they already knew they were superior, so they didn't have to prove it, which allows for pragmatism). In the end, when it was clear that they couldn't hold on, they backed out more gracefully than many other empires. ..."
"... The military-industrial complex has perfected the art of putting parts of the design, manufacturing, testing, and deployment of these programs into just about Congressional District so that everybody wants their constituents to have a shot at one part of the trough. ..."
"... This is how empires fall. Asymmetrical economic and military warfare against entrenched bureaucracies and corruption. ..."
"... Sounds like the lament of an aging mafia don that's forgotten what he's talking about is illegal. "Why can't our generals pull off a good old-fashioned smash and grab like they used to? They must be incompetent!" ..."
"... So I don't think an old-fashioned smash & grab has been the goal for a long time. For decades (ever since WWII?) we've been trying to regime change our way to the goal of every Hollywood mad scientist and super-villian: everlasting world dominance. ..."
"... So while China and Russia aim for Eurasian integration, we're all about it's disintegration. We're also determined to keep the EU from ever threatening our dominance. South America is slipping the yoke, but we haven't given up. ..."
"... Here in the "Homeland" (genuflects), on the "home front," in the domestic "battle space," it's important to realize that when the Pentagon says "full-spectrum dominance," that means us, comrades. Wall-to-wall surveillance? Check. POTUS power to execute or disappear dissidents? Check. Torture enshrined in secret laws and the public mind? Check. ..."
"... Obama never renounced FSD. AFAIK it's still the strategy. Why doesn't the esteemed colonel frame his analysis in terms of our official defense posture? Are we any closer to FSD, or not? ..."
"... I'll be impressed when the colonel starts calling our wars crimes against humanity and for their immediate cessation and full reparations. "Moar better generals" will not succeed at accomplishing a basically insane strategy. Until then, I'll file Bacevich under "modified limited hangout." ..."
"... Agreed. I was surprised, too. Of course, it's the working class children in the flyover states who join the military and go to war, and come back maimed or with PTSD to a rotten job market. So that may have been politically astute on Trump's part and, if so, good for him. ..."
"... Let's be brutally frank. The US both wants an empire, but also wants to pretend it is encouraging democracy everywhere. Objectives where the result is deceitful and duplicitous behavior. Ask the Indians about the methods, or the beneficiaries of the "Monroe Doctrine." The British wanted an empire. A simple objective. If you are not England, you are a colony, and we, the English, make the rules. At the heart of American activities is a kernel of deceit. Self determination for people, but only if you do what we say. The kernel of deceit poisons every walk of life connected to Washington. Every single one. ..."
"... The US is called the empire of chaos. It could also be called the empire of Deceit. Do as we say, but we are not taking any responsibility for you if you do what we say. Don't do what we say, and we will fund your opposition until they stuff a dagger up you ass. ..."
"... Think about Democrats using identity politics to claim religious fervor and war used to show being strong on defense. With both political parties using corruption to align power and control at home and abroad. Choosing your enemies carefully, for you will become them. ..."
"... The US military was the first part of the government to be turned into a business, the first neo-liberal institution created in America. The real problem is that the US military is run by managers and not soldiers. The Germans used to make fun of the British Army in WWI by calling it an army of lions led by donkeys. The US military is an army of lions led by managers. ..."
"... If Andrew is looking for a denouement to the Military Industrial complex then one need look no further than the British empire – specifically what made it shrink and shrivel very rapidly. WWI and WWII. The decimation of the economy and the inability to keep spending money to maintain empire is what reversed the entire machine. It will be the same with the US as well. ..."
President-elect Donald Trump's message for the nation's senior military leadership is ambiguously
unambiguous. Here is he on 60 Minutes just days after winning the election.
Trump: "We have some great generals. We have great generals."
Lesley Stahl: "You said you knew more than the generals about ISIS."
Trump: "Well, I'll be honest with you, I probably do because look at the job they've done. OK,
look at the job they've done. They haven't done the job."
In reality, Trump, the former reality show host, knows next to nothing about ISIS, one of many
gaps in his education that his impending encounter with actual reality is likely to fill. Yet
when it comes to America's generals, our president-to-be is onto something. No doubt our three-
and four-star officers qualify as "great" in the sense that they mean well, work hard, and are altogether
fine men and women. That they have not "done the job," however, is indisputable - at least if their
job is to bring America's wars to a timely and successful conclusion.
Trump's unhappy verdict - that the senior U.S. military leadership doesn't know how to win - applies
in spades to the two principal conflicts of the post-9/11 era: the Afghanistan War, now in its 16th
year, and the Iraq War, launched in 2003 and (after a brief hiatus) once more grinding on.
Yet the verdict applies equally to lesser theaters of conflict, largely overlooked by the American
public, that in recent years have engaged the attention of U.S. forces, a list that would include
conflicts in Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
Granted, our generals have demonstrated an impressive aptitude for moving pieces around on a dauntingly
complex military chessboard. Brigades, battle groups, and squadrons shuttle in and out of various
war zones, responding to the needs of the moment. The sheer immensity of the enterprise across
the Greater Middle East and northern Africa - the
sorties flown ,
munitions expended , the seamless deployment and redeployment of thousands of troops over thousands
of miles, the vast stockpiles of material positioned, expended, and continuously resupplied - represents
a staggering achievement. Measured by these or similar quantifiable outputs, America's military has
excelled. No other military establishment in history could have come close to duplicating the
logistical feats being performed year in, year out by the armed forces of the United States.
Nor should we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something like
370,000 combatants and noncombatants
have been killed in the various theaters of operations where U.S. forces have been active. Although
modest by twentieth century standards, this post-9/11 harvest of death is hardly trivial.
Yet in evaluating military operations, it's a mistake to confuse how much with how
well . Only rarely do the outcomes of armed conflicts turn on comparative statistics.
Ultimately, the one measure of success that really matters involves achieving war's political purposes.
By that standard, victory requires not simply the defeat of the enemy, but accomplishing the nation's
stated war aims, and not just in part or temporarily but definitively. Anything less constitutes
failure, not to mention utter waste for taxpayers, and for those called upon to fight, it constitutes
cause for mourning.
By that standard, having been "at war" for virtually the entire twenty-first century, the United
States military is still looking for its first win. And however strong the disinclination to
concede that Donald Trump could be right about anything, his verdict on American generalship qualifies
as apt.
A Never-Ending Parade of Commanders for Wars That Never End
That verdict brings to mind three questions. First, with Trump a rare exception, why have the
recurring shortcomings of America's military leadership largely escaped notice? Second, to
what degree does faulty generalship suffice to explain why actual victory has proven so elusive?
Third, to the extent that deficiencies at the top of the military hierarchy bear directly on the
outcome of our wars, how might the generals improve their game?
As to the first question, the explanation is quite simple: During protracted wars, traditional
standards for measuring generalship lose their salience. Without pertinent standards, there
can be no accountability. Absent accountability, failings and weaknesses escape notice.
Eventually, what you've become accustomed to seems tolerable. Twenty-first century Americans inured
to wars that never end have long since forgotten that bringing such conflicts to a prompt and successful
conclusion once defined the very essence of what generals were expected to do.
Senior military officers were presumed to possess unique expertise in designing campaigns and
directing engagements. Not found among mere civilians or even among soldiers of lesser rank,
this expertise provided the rationale for conferring status and authority on generals.
In earlier eras, the very structure of wars provided a relatively straightforward mechanism for
testing such claims to expertise. Events on the battlefield rendered harsh judgments, creating
or destroying reputations with brutal efficiency.
Back then, standards employed in evaluating generalship were clear-cut and uncompromising.
Those who won battles earned fame, glory, and the gratitude of their countrymen. Those who
lost battles got fired or were put out to pasture.
During the Civil War, for example, Abraham Lincoln did not need an advanced degree in strategic
studies to conclude that Union generals like John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, and Joseph Hooker didn't
have what it took to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia. Humiliating defeats sustained by
the Army of the Potomac at the Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville made that obvious
enough. Similarly, the victories Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman gained at Shiloh,
at Vicksburg, and in the Chattanooga campaign strongly suggested that here was the team to which
the president could entrust the task of bringing the Confederacy to its knees.
Today,
public drunkenness ,
petty corruption , or
sexual shenanigans with a subordinate might land generals in hot water. But as long as
they avoid egregious misbehavior, senior officers charged with prosecuting America's wars are largely
spared judgments of any sort. Trying hard is enough to get a passing grade.
With the country's political leaders and public conditioned to conflicts seemingly destined to
drag on for years, if not decades, no one expects the current general-in-chief in Iraq or Afghanistan
to bring things to a successful conclusion. His job is merely to manage the situation until
he passes it along to a successor, while duly adding to his collection of personal decorations and
perhaps advancing his career.
Today, for example, Army General John Nicholson commands U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.
He's only the latest in a long line of senior officers to preside over that war, beginning with General
Tommy Franks in 2001 and continuing with Generals Mikolashek, Barno, Eikenberry, McNeill, McKiernan,
McChrystal, Petraeus, Allen, Dunford, and Campbell. The title carried by these officers changed
over time. So, too, did the specifics of their "mission" as Operation Enduring Freedom evolved
into Operation Freedom's Sentinel. Yet even as expectations slipped lower and lower, none of
the commanders rotating through Kabul delivered. Not a single one has, in our president-elect's
concise formulation, "done the job." Indeed, it's increasingly difficult to know what that
job is, apart from preventing the Taliban from quite literally toppling the government.
In Iraq, meanwhile, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend currently serves as the - count 'em
- ninth American to command U.S. and coalition forces in that country since the George W. Bush administration
ordered the invasion of 2003. The first in that line, (once again) General Tommy Franks, overthrew
the Saddam Hussein regime and thereby broke Iraq. The next five, Generals Sanchez, Casey, Petraeus,
Odierno, and Austin, labored for eight years to put it back together again.
At the end of 2011, President Obama declared that they had done just that and terminated the U.S.
military occupation. The Islamic State soon exposed Obama's claim as specious when its militants
put a U.S.-trained Iraqi army to flight and annexed
large swathes of that country's territory. Following in the footsteps of his immediate
predecessors Generals James Terry and Sean MacFarland, General Townsend now shoulders the task of
trying to restore Iraq's status as a more or less genuinely sovereign state. He directs what
the Pentagon calls Operation Inherent Resolve, dating from June 2014, the follow-on to Operation
New Dawn (September 2010-December 2011), which was itself the successor to Operation Iraqi Freedom
(March 2003-August 2010).
When and how Inherent Resolve will conclude is difficult to forecast. This much we can,
however, say with some confidence: with the end nowhere in sight, General Townsend won't be its last
commander. Other generals are waiting in the wings with their own careers to polish.
As in Kabul, the parade of U.S. military commanders through Baghdad will continue.
For some readers, this listing of mostly forgotten names and dates may have a soporific effect.
Yet it should also drive home Trump's point. The United States may today have the world's most
powerful and capable military - so at least we are constantly told. Yet the record shows that
it does not have a corps of senior officers who know how to translate capability into successful
outcomes.
Draining Which Swamp?
That brings us to the second question: Even if commander-in-chief Trump were somehow able
to identify modern day equivalents of Grant and Sherman to implement his war plans, secret or otherwise,
would they deliver victory?
On that score, we would do well to entertain doubts. Although senior officers charged with
running recent American wars have not exactly covered themselves in glory, it doesn't follow that
their shortcomings offer the sole or even a principal explanation for why those wars have yielded
such disappointing results. The truth is that some wars aren't winnable and shouldn't be fought.
So, yes, Trump's critique of American generalship possesses merit, but whether he knows it or
not, the question truly demanding his attention as the incoming commander-in-chief isn't: Who should
I hire (or fire) to fight my wars? Instead, far more urgent is: Does further war promise to
solve any of my problems?
One mark of a successful business executive is knowing when to cut your losses. It's also the
mark of a successful statesman. Trump claims to be the former. Whether his putative business
savvy will translate into the world of statecraft remains to be seen. Early signs are not promising.
As a candidate, Trump
vowed to "defeat radical Islamic terrorism," destroy ISIS, "decimate al-Qaeda," and "starve funding
for Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah." Those promises imply a significant escalation of what Americans
used to call the Global War on Terrorism.
Toward that end, the incoming administration may well revive some aspects of the George W. Bush
playbook, including repopulating the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and "if it's
so important to the American people," reinstituting torture. The Trump administration will
at least consider re-imposing sanctions on countries like Iran. It may aggressively exploit
the offensive potential of cyber-weapons, betting that America's cyber-defenses will hold.
Yet President Trump is also likely to double down on the use of conventional military force.
In that regard,
his promise to "quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS" offers a hint of what is to
come. His appointment of the uber-hawkish Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his national security
adviser and his rumored selection of retired Marine Corps General James ("Mad Dog") Mattis as defense
secretary suggest that he means what he says. In sum, a Trump administration seems unlikely
to reexamine the conviction that the problems roiling the Greater Middle East will someday, somehow
yield to a U.S.-imposed military solution. Indeed, in the face of massive evidence to the contrary,
that conviction will deepen, with genuinely ironic implications for the Trump presidency.
In the immediate wake of 9/11, George W. Bush concocted a fantasy of American soldiers liberating
oppressed Afghans and Iraqis and thereby "
draining the swamp " that served to incubate anti-Western terrorism. The results achieved
proved beyond disappointing, while the costs exacted in terms of lives and dollars squandered were
painful indeed. Incrementally, with the passage of time, many Americans concluded that perhaps
the swamp most in need of attention was not on the far side of the planet but much closer at hand
- right in the imperial city nestled alongside the Potomac River.
To a very considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the establishment,
because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled Americans could count on to drain that
swamp.
Yet here's what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created that swamp in the
first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides a rationale for
federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government bigger and more
intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes tens of billions
of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the swamp, nothing works
better than war.
Were Trump really intent on draining that swamp - if he genuinely seeks to "Make America Great
Again" - then he would extricate the United States from war. His
liquidation of Trump University, which was to higher education what Freedom's Sentinel and Inherent
Resolve are to modern warfare, provides a potentially instructive precedent for how to proceed.
But don't hold your breath on that one. All signs indicate that, in one fashion or another,
our combative next president will perpetuate the wars he's inheriting. Trump may fancy that,
as a veteran of Celebrity Apprentice (but not of military service), he possesses a special
knack for spotting the next Grant or Sherman. But acting on that impulse will merely replenish
the swamp in the Greater Middle East along with the one in Washington. And soon enough, those
who elected him with expectations of seeing the much-despised establishment dismantled will realize
that they've been had.
Which brings us, finally, to that third question: To the extent that deficiencies at the top of
the military hierarchy do affect the outcome of wars, what can be done to fix the problem?
The most expeditious approach: purge all currently serving three- and four-star officers; then,
make a precondition for promotion to those ranks confinement in a reeducation camp run by Iraq and
Afghanistan war amputees, with a curriculum designed by
Veterans for Peace . Graduation
should require each student to submit an essay reflecting on these words of wisdom from U.S. Grant
himself: "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent
the drawing of the sword."
True, such an approach may seem a bit draconian. But this is no time for half-measures - as even
Donald Trump may eventually recognize.
As much s I have appreciated Bacevich's views over the past decade, my reaction to this is
that he's asking the wrong questions. Just what would a "victory" in these imperial interventions
look like? Does he really think our military is protecting our nation? I don't.
I believe his point is narrower. Victory in Afghanistan and Iraq would (in the eyes of the
establishment) have involved the pacification of those countries with pro-capitalist and pro-western
nominally democratic governments in charge (i.e. puppets). That is what the explicit and implicit
aim of those invasions was to be. The military was charged with achieving those ends, and they
failed (as they've failed elsewhere). And yet, even by the criteria set by the establishment,
there has been zero accountability.
And this is the double failure of Washington. You might give them some credit if they were
competent imperialists. But they are the worst of all worlds. They are reckless imperialists who
can't even achieve their own stated aims with a modicum of competence. Real imperialists of the
past would be rolling around laughing at this lot.
Thank you. Well said. You are right to make the distinction between competent, incompetent
and real imperialists. My parents came to the UK from a colony in the mid-1960s and talk about
the colonial officials they came across. It was the same with my grandparents. I have come across
the aspiring neo-cons on the make (and on the take) in the City, marking time until they can be
parachuted into a safe seat.
Few, if any, speak a foreign language and / or spent much time abroad.
They give the impression of playing chess from Tory Central Office or some "think tank", but with
other countries and lives of people they know nothing, much less care, about. As we watched Obama
being crowned in 2009, one (an aspiring Tory MP and former central office staffer) forecasted
that Obama would go down as the worst president in history and added that Bush would go down as
one of the greats. I made my excuses and went home.
They're not imperialists, they're corporatists. Graft is the object, and given that construction
companies like Halliburton and mercs like Xe don't bankroll Ds, and since bombing campaigns are
easy to keep up/out of the news, the money has now shifted to drones.
As such, they're not failing, except insofar as they are losing access to markets. And that isn't
really the case either, since the iraqi don't form a market that matters; whereas the notional
'rebuilding effort' - which did provide opportunities for looting - is/was pretty much over anyway,
once it became impossible to deny it "failed".
I think they are imperialists in the sense that, as William Appleman Williams and others have
argued, their primary orienting goal is to extend and sustain the US dominance of a world market.
If you read what US foreign policy and military planners were saying in after WW2, that's an inescapable
conclusion. Your focus on the corporation takes as a given what those planners have felt they
need to strategically and militarily secure. Bacevich consistently avoids this issue and so ends
up promoting a naive and implicitly hopeful view of US motives and the flexibility with which
they can be pursued.
It's really quite something to go back and read Dean Acheson testifying to a congressional
committee that, unlike the Soviet Union, the US requires steady expansion of the world market
to survive. He sounds like Rosa Luxemburg.
The US is a nation of racketeers, which are perfecting the corruption of services into means
of converting tax revenue into private profits. Some of these services are in fact essential,
all have been – at least until recently – unassailable regardless of merit. Examples are housing,
education, health care, private transportation and of course "national security". The rackets
trace back to the exceptional US economic circumstances of WW2, and the leading racket was well
established at the end of the Eisenhower presidency (his CYA address notwithstanding).
For the "self-licking ice-cream cone" of military/security/intelligence/public safety expenditures
to continue to grow exponentially, it is not only unnecessary for the tax-purchased services and
goods to be functional, let alone deliver results – it is positively counterproductive. The question
is not whether any captured government institution is dysfunctional, the question is merely whether
and how the profitability it delivers to the "accounting control frauds" in charge of the incumbents
can be increased.
There are many aspects of this particular proud strain of dysfunction capitalism – US weapon
exports, "foreign aid" to Israel or Saudi Arabia, support for proxy forces, actual direct expenditure
of armaments, and of course force modernization and extension are some of the many flavors. The
fuel cost alone for moving men and materiel "fuels" entire industries. It would not at all be
surprising to find that those 700 bases maintained – and expanded – are completely useless – if
not even significant liabilities – while at the same time improving the bottom line of many suppliers.
PMC's and the growing industry supporting ever-increasing logistical "needs" are another vector
of the disease. Terrorism, of course, and the market for global and domestic surveillance and
"public safety", is both a consequence and a pretext. The perfect racket produces its own justification
while profit shares increase and "product" cost decrease.
It is the privilege of the continental US that, wedged between two oceans, a colony of the
crown and a failed state, that it is largely insulated from the blowback of the various theaters
of war profiteering (this is, after all, the major advantage the national security racket has
over the competing domestic leeches). It stand to reason that the weaker the coupling to the fallout
from profitable dysfunction, the longer trends that cannot continue will.
Iraq 2003 might well have been the last time that any of the major industries involved had
any earnest intention to profit from the theater itself. Libya, Syria, Yemen etc. are in the main
write-offs, pretexts that open profit channels but not part of it. It is usually ignored that
the main issue China and Russia have with the US and its minion states is the abrogation of the
concept of sovereign nation stages, going all the way back to Clinton's interventions in the Balkans.
By accident or design, US foreign policy is one of scorched earth, preferring failed states to
nations capable of resistance. This, too, is a consequence of that "splendid insulation".
Thank you, b., for saying clearly what so many of us perceive dimly through the fog of propaganda,
and struggle to name.
Next question: is there a prayer of catalyzing a healthier political economy, or do we ordinary
people just live until we die, as best we can manage? Maybe "judiciously studying the actions"
and talking learnedly about them among our percipient selves, until even that illusion of action
is finally blocked?
"In the end, he found he could not help himself: He loved Big Brother."
The truth is that some wars aren't winnable and shouldn't be fought.
Success in any enterprise requires the definition of a goal. I believe that the goal of U.S.
military action in MENA is two-fold: display fealty to Israel and the kings of the Arabian Peninsula;
and to grow the corporate coffers of the MIC here at home. Defined in that way, the U.S. military
has "hit it outta da park." Winning? Winning was a pipe dream of the likes of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
Cheney knew better and took GWB along for a ride.
Let us pray that President Trump's small mind and loose tongue substantially degrades the willingness
of the U.S.'s partners to continue to play along. May he make America un-great again. Amen.
In the US today, we have raised a whole generation of kids where "winning matters not." To
that extent we, and our generals – whether imperialistic or corporatistic, are all "special snowflakes"
that deserve "participation trophy's" so we don't cry and act out over not winning. I say give
all our general's another star for starting and participating in wars that can't be won to begin
with. Where participation and not winning is the objective. Three cheers: hip, hip, hooray!
I am highly suspicious that publicly stated goals of the wars were the actual targets. My take
is that the actual goal has always been to keep those places in chaos; on US terms and under its
control. with a safe US military base to punch those second-rate nations if necessary; By that
measure, I believe both the Iraq and Afghan invasions were a success but they cannot pat each
other's backs publicly.
However, they must now admit that they did not think the case of Iraq through, and the case
of Syria is a complete failure, raising the stature of Russia to a super power again, while slowly
but surely losing influence on Iraq and Egypt. But, that, arguably, could not have been realistically
expected of the generals of the time to predict.
I think that may have been his point, albeit delivered obliquely, as in his statement that
"some wars should not be fought"; his quote from Grant, "There never was a time when, in my opinion,
some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword", as well as elsewhere in the
piece.
Grant's rise from drunk who couldn't get a job in 1861 and W Scott's efforts to recruit Bobby
Lee, a guy who was out of the army for years by that point, are indications the general class
was never particularly competent.
I think you need to re-read the post again. He is asking the right questions and provides a
history lesson besides. The beginning paragraphs could be interpreted as the standard, we need
victory fare, but all is designed to lead to his final prescription for action- all the while
being very diplomatic and appreciative to those who serve in the military.
Drain the swamp indeed, extricate the military from our national misadventures and retire the
top brass more intent on career advancement that the true needs of the nation. Problems solved
and we can move on as a nation. Will the world fall apart, if true men and women of honor step
forward, I highly doubt it.
Pretty radical stuff actually, but something that resonates with many people, people without
a voice. Change will come from within the military, and it is refreshing to hear words of sanity
form those inside the military system-Tulsi Gabbard for one.
Could Trump shake up the gridlock, we shall see. Like a toxic mine tailing pit, once the retaining
walls are breached, the effluence tends to spill out very quickly.
Silly question: Does the fault lie in our generals or in our commander in chief? Which leads
to another silly question: Who does our commander in chief answer to?
The generals seem to be only as effective as the policy they are prescribed to carry out. They
ultimately answer to the President. So if they're ordered to carry out an impossible task they
will obviously fail and they will kick the can down the road to save their own reputations.
There
isn't too much of an incentive to win if you're a careerist either which many of them are since
the military is a giant welfare program/bureaucracy largely based on licking boots to advance.
It might be nice to add another accolade to that fat stack of attendance ribbons on their chests
but that's all it is. Also, even if you were super serious about winning the war look at what
happened to Shinseki when he clashed with the civilian leadership over the numbers of troops needed
to pacify Iraq post-war. He was marginalized and finally canned altogether.
Yes, the good doctor should resolutely shoulder the burden of "opposition party spokesman"
and return to the fray. If we all took every slight and injury offered online to heart, there
would be nary a rational word communicated, and, we would have much recourse to the suppressed
Rogers Profanisaurus.
Besides, Upstate New York must be cold now, and the Professor spending a lot of time being housebound.
I stood in James' corner once or twice as he started lashing out, as I thought he was just
having a few bad days. It went on and I simply ran out of patience with him when he wrote his
farewell screed and signed off with:
James P. Levy , Ph.D. FRHistS, a man who never hid behind a goddamned nom de plume
It will be interesting to hear from readers if they have colleagues who are former service
men and women. There has been an influx in the City since the crisis, but they were always there
in fewer numbers. Some thrive in admin / COO roles, but many are frustrated and last no more than
a couple of years. Dad retired from the Royal Air Force in March 1991 after 25 years. He found
it difficult to settle in civilian life (employed as a doctor at St Mary's hospital in west London)
and left at the end of 1991 for a development project in southern Africa (a year or so of being
a middle class welfare junkie masquerading as a Foreign Office adviser) and twenty years working
for Persian Gulf despots around MENA.
I'm a Vietnam vet and I did respond but it has been ignored as usual. The point of my post
was that the generals do what they are ordered to do by the commander in chief and the problem
lies with whoever that is at any given time. From that flows the logical point that we elect the
commander in chief and don't really pay much attention to what he orders. The fault lies with
the electorate. Bacevich has made the point (as have others) that when the draft was eliminated
voters no longer had skin in the game and became ambivalent which is why the founding fathers
set up the system with the citizen soldier as a cornerstone principle. The president at any given
time just does what he wants and the only possible means of accountability is through the voting
booth. Our wars last stopped when the populace had skin in the game and made it extremely clear
to Nixon that we wanted an end. We have met the enemy and he is us.
The fault lies partly with the electorate, but also with Congress. For more than a decade,
Charlie Rangel has been introducing bills to reinstate the draft. Crickets from Congress.
I'm a former member of the Selective Service Board, and yes, they still exist. A draft in order
to be effective, cannot offer deferments (a la Dick Cheney) and still be fair. Only until those
who order the wars have family members (including women) subject to a draft, will we cease our
idiotic imperialist impulses.
While all you say is true, 40 years of corporate evolution in the political sphere has changed
the equation. As the last election cycle has shown, any attempt to alter current relationships
will need political activism intended to change the system not just gaining office to make slight
course corrections. We as a people are too far off course for that. The Vietnam era was a turning
point and business interests mobilized to never let that fiasco- people power- take root again.
They have been very successful in their mission, but now they have to deal with the problem of
an unwanted and underused population. The unemployable if you will.
Re-instituting the draft is no longer necessary and would be counterproductive to the corporate
mission. As long as our current standing army can be paid off, why bother with a draft, it is
no longer necessary. You avoid the military coup problem also. Our military continues to be bought
off and as long as the economic incentives supporting an excessively large military remain unchallenged,
the draft is unnecessary. Unnecessary from the maintenance of corporate power that is. Corporate
power must be minimized first, then talk of a draft will make more sense. What values are learned
in the military today? USA has ben turned into a corporate brand.
Being poor, unemployable, or one illness away form such a fate is the new skin in the game.
While national service is a force that must be worked into our social responsibilities, its true
meaning for strengthening and protecting the people has been subverted into a tool for corruption.
Voices within the military that call for a return to the ideal of a citizen soldier instead of
a mercenary warrior is what I think Bacevich has in mind.
Andrew Bacevich, as usual, writes a great article. But Grant and Sherman benefited from having a war with a clear goal: destroy the Confederate
army and its government. I hesitate to call anything happening with the US in the Middle East or North Africa or SE
Asia a "war" of that nature. There are no clear objectives. There are no criteria for an end of
the conflict.
Instead, this looks a whole lot more like the North's occupation of the South during Reconstruction.
We all know how that ended: the North had to pull itself out after an economic depression, more
or less leading to a reign of terror through Jim Crow.
The United States is trying to do Reconstruction in a whole lot of spheres and is failing at
that because it's generally an impossible enterprise.
I would disagree that there were no clear objectives. The objective was to turn Iraq and Afghanistan
and Libya, etc., in to countries like Egypt or Jordan or Indonesia – weakened pro-western (or
at least western-dependent) puppets with a sheen of democratic respectability, where US corporations
could roam free. I don't think there is any need to read anything else into the objectives – that
is the 'ideal' for the neocons, and that was their objective, both stated and unstated.
You make a good, concise case for what the real objectives are for these unending expensive
wars. Of course, this level of clarity re these goals are seldom stated to the populace at large.
Rather we're mostly fed bullshit about terrrrists and being kept "safe" and other noodleheaded
claptrap.
Given your definition, however, with which I agree, the Generals have still FAILED. And again,
where's the accountability? There is none.
Trump plans to give himself and all the other Oligarchs, and the corporations giant tax cuts.
There will be some in the middle class who experience a tax increase. Yet we're supposed to bloat
the MIC budget by some huge amount for what purpose?? So Trump can build hotels, golf courses
and casinos in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq? Not being all that snarky.
Yes, as I said above, the neocons objective have been an abject failure. They display incompetence
at all levels. And yet nobody pays the price. And the fact that the neocons don't try to fire
the generals who failed (as numerous political leaders in the past have done) is a reflection
of both their incompetence and the fact that the wars have become the ultimate in self licking
ice creams.
While a plan might not be 100% successful, I don't see how you characterize the neocon program
an abject failure. It is chugging along just fine. If waste and chaos are states of being that
directly benefit your program, they are probably 90% successful.
If war is a racket, then the good times roll on and talking about failed generals being replaced,
or accountability will be served by getting hold of better generals, those sentiments must make
them chuckle when they are discussing their private positions. Win/Win for the neocons.
Ordinary people make the mistake of believing that the current crop of leaders have their interests
in mind at all. They do not. If Clintons Public/Private mumbo jumbo didn't clear you of that thinking
I don't know what will.
The proper way to think about these things is the neocon plan is succeeding wonderfully but
they are truly too short sighted- i.e. stupid in the long term- to understand the consequences.
They understand short term profit completely and how to dispense physical power but little else.
Consequences and payback are externalized in their world. If you live in the moment, who cares
about the future. As the illuminist Karl Rove once stated, "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."
Well, people don't stay passive actors forever. Just as nature cannot absorb carelessness forever.
A day of reckoning will come- it alway does. Failure is in the mind of the beholder. It depends
on perspective. As the neocons double, tripple, quadruple down on their policies, they will be
able to ride the flaming mess into the ground. Think Clinton.
It is up to us- the sane- to realize the success of the neoliberal program and want out- or
off- or whatever phrase makes sense. In our wars of misadventure, it will be those in the military
that finally say enough is enough. If someone pulls that off, it would be viewed as the most courageous
act in decades.
In our wars of misadventure, it will be those in the military that finally say enough is
enough. If someone pulls that off, it would be viewed as the most courageous act in decades.
30 years in lockup for Chelsea Manning is a warning for those, I suspect, who want to say "enough
is enough." I also believe that your ability to move up the hierarchy to make those decisions
to keep fighting is determined by your willingness to continue to see through the neoliberal project.
I disagree to the extent that the ideological neocons had a very clearly stated and unambiguous
strategic purpose – re-engineering the world as America's corporate playground, with any possible
competitor (i.e. Russia and China) firmly penned in. This meant replacing all the mid-size States
which were still refusing to be part of the Washington Consensus.
Its no secret or mystery about
what they were seeking. In this, they have failed – Afghanistan remains in chaos, Iraq is more
Iran controlled than US controlled, Iran still refuses to come to heel, and Russia and China are
making increasing inroads to Central Asia, eastern Europe, Africa and South America. The neocon
project is slowly unravelling, with Trump hopefully about to put it out of its misery.
The issue of war profiteering is something that I see as something entirely different. What
the neocons failed to anticipate was that their Clash of Civilisations would result in a hugely
powerful military-industrial process which has become self replicating. There are now more people
in Washington who's job depends on finding more wars to fight than there are people employed to
stop wars. This is the neocons fault, but its not the neocons project – they are just useful idiots
for the profiteers.
I don't make a distinction between the neocons and the profiteers. The worst possible outcome
from this neocon disaster would be for the profiteers, the rentiers, to be able to reconstitute
their hold over society- or to hold onto it for that matter. What will it take, complete destruction
of the biosphere for people to understand that cooperation is the only means of survival?
While I agree with what you are saying, if desiring a peaceful world is on your agenda, then
every effort must be made to not allow the rentiers to take the position of, well now, we overstepped
somewhat, will do better next time.
Making neat divisions is the reason humanity is in the predicament we find ourselves in the
first place. We have dissected the whole into so many parts, it is no longer recognizable.
Modernity has been a dissecting force- a unifying force is needed.
I agree with so much of the analysis here. But why do people insist still (especially given
his recent appointments) that Trump has any interest at all in putting "it" out of our misery?
Color me skeptical.
Hey Kim, as RUKidding says, I wouldn't argue that those are clear objectives, because the generals
that are being talked about above aren't being told up front that they are working toward that
goal.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're exactly right about those being the objectives.
Those are the ultimate political goals and the ends of the wars - but generals are never given
them as objectives in this form. Concisely, the objectives of any general are threefold:
1) destroy the enemy forces;
2) break their will to fight;
3) control the territory under dispute.
They learned that at the military academy - after all, these were the fundamental principles
articulated by Carl von Clausewitz almost 200 years ago. Well, in those purely military terms, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria are
total failures.
Enemy forces destroyed? They seem inexhaustible.
Territory controlled? Those countries have basically been "no-go" areas ever since war started.
Breaking the enemy's will to fight? Mmmwaaahahahahaha.
Trump is correct on this point: job not done. At all.
Glad you brought up Carl von Clausewitz. I remember the Newsweek article when Gen. Tommy Franks
said there were 9 centers of gravity in Iraq. The article took this as some type of wisdom. It
was clear that Franks hadn't even read the Cliff notes version of On War as there is only one
center of gravity according to Carl von C in which you focus your effort on.
Probably one reason when Franks was put on the Outback Steakhouse board of directors it did
so poorly and was pulled out of Canada. He was a great strategist after all /sarc.
Part of the problem with the U.S military is that the Army sees enemy #2 as the Air Force and
Navy. Gotta get those dollars. Another problem is that the U.S fails at the oft quote dictum of Sun Tzu, know yourself and
know your enemy.
The U.S seems to create the enemy they would like to fight rather than the one
that's actually there and as a nation has no sense of self anymore. They don't understand their
limitations or even their strengths it seems. It seems the Pentagon and the Gov. thinks throwing
money equals effectiveness. I'd argue that the unlimited money is the problem. Actual innovation
often stems from being limited in some way. Mother is the necessity of invention and all that.
Look the German assault teams that were born out of desperation in the final days of WWI. This
concept helped tremendously in WW2 and it wasn't unlimited money that created them.
In America's defense they are great at logistics side of war.
To further this thread as to why the generals have failed:
If the point of these wars is to install a pro-Western style (aka USA business friendly) society
and government, a point to which I agree is the reason for the US's fighting, then how, in God's
name!, are you going to do that when the point of a military is to destroy things and kill people?
(words taken from the cover of DoD's documents). The US military is not to build things and help
people! The generals are asked to do what their own training prevents them and those they direct
from doing.
Anyone remember this 2010 bit of PowerPoint-ia? "'When we understand that slide, we'll have
won the war:' US generals given baffling PowerPoint presentation to try to explain Afghanistan
mess,"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1269463/Afghanistan-PowerPoint-slide-Generals-left-baffled-PowerPoint-slide.html
(And note the Brass Balls of the contractor, PA Knowledge Group Ltd, claiming a COPYRIGHT
over this obvious work-for-hire.) This kind of stuff is the daily grist of the strategic/tactical
mill that grinds out body counts, serial deployments in search of missions, and the endless floods
of corrupt cash, destabilizing weapons and internal and external subterfuges, along with a lot
of wry humor and a large helping of despair for the Troops and the mope civilians who "stand too
close to Unlawful Enema Combatants ™".
It's long seemed to me one of the many failings of the species is that some of us produce wise
counsel that actually looks to the horizon and beyond, like the fundamental questions articulated
by Sun Tzu about whether to commit the peasants who pay for it to a prolonged foreign war with
long supply lines that will bankrupt the nation -
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
. And then the idiot few that gain, psychically or monetarily, from conflict, blow that kind
of fundamental test of wisdom off and "go to war" or more accurately "send other people to hack
and blast each other while the senders get rich."
There's a fundamental problem that to me gets too little attention: What the Empire is doing
is an entirely Barmicide game.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/barmecide
Our rulers here in the Empire are pretty good at the procurement, deployment and logistical
mechanics of Milo Minderbinder's complex Enterprise, the "war as a racket" thing, the extracting
of public wealth to build shiny or stealthy or smart "systems." But as Bacevitch notes, they get
to completely escape from the consequences of Only-tool-in-the-box monomania, of applying the
big hammer of "War" to the subtle tasks of creating and maintaining a survivable space for the
species. Which patently is not the "goal" in any event. And never answered, as pointed out, is
the daring question of "what is the goal/are the goals, and what actions or refraining from actions
are likely to get there?"
The talk about "asymmetric warfare" is mostly whining about little wogs who dare to adopt the
wisdoms of other ambitious and thoughtful humans, like the Afghans and, yes, even ISIS, on how
to defeat (within the terms of the game they are playing and understand that the Empire does NOT
understand the terrain or the rules or moves) invaders and colonialists and even corporatists.
Though the latter are often victorious in the after-conflict processes, if you can't clobber your
enemy, corrupt him! works too.) There are wheels within wheels, of course, and "we mopes" in the
Imperial homeland are too busy eking out a survival locally to even try to contemplate let alone
understand the complexities of even the Middle East, let alone the Great Game being played out
again with Russia and China and the aggressive and Teutonic bosses of the Eurozone All while
the "defence" establishment figures out ever more exotic ways to kill humans, via code (genetic
and cyber) and "smart weapons" like autonomous killing robots "on land, in air, at sea "
So is it just the inevitable case that Empires rise up, loot, murder, grow the usual huge corrupt
capitals and the militaries to support the looting and keep the mopes in line, and finally succumb
to some kind of wasting disease where all the corruption and interest-seeking honeycombs and finally
collapses the structure? Is there no other way for humans to organize, because so many of us have
the drive to dominate and to grab all the pleasure and stuff we can get away with?
I've grown up hearing commentaries that echo this one as relating to our foreign policy adventures
since WWII, and if you take a results oriented approach, they're probably true. But having gone
to school for foreign policy work and talking to people who were involved with the foreign policy
apparatus (doing the leg work, not the people at the top who basically have no idea what they're
doing), I've become more and more convinced that it's simply incompetence.
I think that the people dictating policy are basically a bunch of Tom Friedmans, who are utterly
convinced that their empirically wrong views about how policy is executed are correct. Look at
Iraq in the aftermath. Not only did they get not understand that the Sunnis and Shia might not
have the best of intentions towards each other, but US companies aren't even getting all the plum
oil contracts. Now surely a country that guarantees the security of the Iraqi elite could ensure
that it's own companies got the best deals?
I think the most probable explanation is that they believed their own propaganda. They believed
that the Iraqis wanted to be a liberal democracy with a free market, and that US firms would obviously
be the most competitive in a bid for the oil contracts. People like Kerry believe in the ideas
of human rights and war crimes, condemning the Russians for bombing Aleppo even though we do the
exact same thing with a ever so slightly less flimsy justification.
Yes, again, good points, esp in re to the fact that US companies aren't even getting the plum
oil contracts. We were told by feckless Cheney via W that there would be that magical mythical
Iraqi "Oil Dividend" that would not only pay for the War on Iraq – essentially giving us back
the money we spent on it (conveniently ignoring the collateral damage of many US combatant deaths,
and many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizen deaths, but who cares about that piddling, trifling
detail) – as well as getting more besides.
Eh? And then what? Well that Dick, Cheney, got very very rich offa US taxpayer dollars, and
no doubt some other Oligarchs did as well. But we never ever got paid back for our "investment"
in "freeing" the Iraqi's from their oppressor, Saddam.
And that salient detail was flushed down the memory hole, and duly noted, that at least the
Oligarchs did learn ONE lesson from that bullshit, which is to never ever again even go so far
as to make a promise that the hapless proles in the USA will ever see one thin dime from these
foreign misadventures.
I can't talk from personal experience but I've read plenty of foreign policy publications of
the type taken seriously by academics and politicians, and I'd agree with you. Some are laughably
stupid, they don't know the first thing about the countries they are talking about. It wasn't
just Bush jnr in 2002 who didn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, I strongly suspect
that many 'experts' consulted had only the faintest knowledge of what they were dealing with.
There are a scary number of second and third rate intellects roaming around sharing their 'knowledge'.
I think the standard textbook for this should be Graham Greenes
'The Quiet American'
. I've always been amazed at the prescience of that book (he pretty much predicted the arc
of the Vietnam War in 1959), but I always think of the main character, Pyle, when I see yet another
Middle Eastern mess. Pyle is a generally well meaning young man with far too much power, who is
convinced by some academic that he has the key to sorting out the whole Vietnam mess. Needless
to say, lots of innocents die because of his half baked ideas. The establishment is full of Pyles,
although many I think are not quite so well meaning.
I would like to agree with you, but I don't. First and foremost the US is the greatest spender
in weapons, and why does anyone spend in weapons if there is not plan to use them? The first objective
is to use the weapons and avoid piling a dusting mountain of missiles, bombs, or any other kind
of armament. Many wars are mainly the testing battlefields for new weaponry. For that reason,
having endless localized wars can be quite useful. Besides using it, the second objective is spread
fear. I have it, I have the will to use it, and I am well trained. Spreading fear might not be
the best strategy but is has clearly been one of the main objectives in some cases, particularly
Iraq.
The best case of a president looking for an excuse to use the weapons and spread fear was G.W.
Bush and Iraq v2.0. The fact that Bush excuses were clumsily manufactured and exposed without
shame in the UN is a feature. It means: when we decide that we will attack you nothing will stop
us. No democratic control and no international rules can stop us.
'why does anyone spend in weapons if there is not plan to use them?'
And yet the U.S.'s recent, most stupendously expensive weapons systems are unusable.
Literally , they cannot be used for most practical purposes in combat.
The F-35, for instance, has trouble flying and would be bested by air fighters of the previous
generation in combat. The Littoral Combat Ship's aluminum superstructure would burn down to the
waterline if ever one were hit by a missile (among other problems). And there are other projects
that are almost equally ridiculous.
The point is, of course, that with their cost overruns and sheer unusability, these projects
continue precisely because they're stupendously profitable. The American economic system is utterly
dependent on such military Keynesianism, which is a principle means of redistribution from rich
U.S. states to small ones. And consequently we live in a world reminiscent of the world of useless
wepfash designers - weapons fashions designers - envisaged by Philip K. Dick's The Zap Gun.
One takeaway may be that the U.S. can either have the largest level of military Keynesianism
in history or win its wars. It apparently cannot do both.
Remember when Trump threatened to fire a bunch of generals? That really upset a lot of people
in Washington. Replacing a flag officer is a very complicated affair – they have a whole rotation
system set up, to move them from one job to another. That's certainly reflected in the combat
commands as well. They all need to check that box, in order to burnish their credentials. It seems
to be just achieving that rank is the real accomplishment. Measuring their performance afterward
is irrelevant – in that way, it's very similar to how CEOs are treated in the corporate world.
It would be nice if Trump fired a bunch of generals, just because we have too many of them already.
I don't see that happening, though.
Generals get removed. Mattis was retired a year early because he didn't get along with Obama. Whatever "get along'
means. Flynn left early. Remember McChrystal?
Rotation may have benefits of exposure to new areas and skill development opportunities. It
may also hide failures, and demonstrate the military equivalent of the "dance of the lemons" that
shuffles incompetent, corrupt or lazy principals around to different schools. There is more of
a meritocracy in the military, with less overt politicization, although the politics takes different
forms. I write that sadly as one from a family that supports the military and has many veterans.
American discussions about military are sidetracked easily by any number of stakeholders. Politicians
posture for patriotism (alliteration intended to elicit Porky Pig), while collecting campaign
cash. They are only the most visible of those that would shout down or hijack any objective discussion
of mission failures or weapons systems debacles such as the F-35. Their less visible neo-con enablers,
dual loyalty pundits and effective taskmasters all have their snouts in the trough and their rear
ends displayed to the citizens. If there is no other change in DC than to unmask those Acela bandits,
then many will applaud.
War is failure. Do not engage. And for dawgs sake do not arm, train, fund al Q types. I think
the last point in re Trumps way of doing things will be most telling. That would be victory.
Precisely. The US is situated in the safest neighborhood on the planet - oceans on two sides;
Canada and Mexico on the other two. All of the other dozens of nations in the western hemisphere get along just fine without a
global network of military bases and a 350-ship navy.
What the f*** is our problem? As history demonstrates, a value-subtracting global empire is
an infallible recipe for economic decline.
To try to look at the bright side, here's the thing about military people who are "uber hawkish",
or actually managed to get a nickname like "Mad Dog" . they like decisive, "clean" (funny word
to use for blowing people and the landscape to smithereens, but that's what people label it as)
engagements where bad guys are taken out and good guys rejoice.
If they are, and I'm sure they are, smart enough to see that this is exactly not what
the Middle East messes are, they may well tell Trump "let's just get our stuff and go home".
What we have been trying to do in the ME is not, and has never been (going back to before us,
the Russians in Afghanistan) anything where a military makes any sense at all. It's police+political
work at best, and despite what we've been turning the police departments into at home, police
work is very, very different from military work. Hopefully the warrior types see this, whereas
the Hillary Clintons of the world simply won't.
The US can win any standup fight. We quickly smashed the Taliban's military, and Saddam didn't
last long at all. It's the long, grinding guerrilla war that comes after that we inevitably lose.
And even there we will win 99% of the engagements (if all else fails, drop a giant bomb on them)
and yet sooner or later we'll run home with our tail between our legs.
Washington is addicted to gold-plated occupations. Whereas the only route to success is minimalist, an economy of force strategy. That also entails economy of injuries. Occupying forces ought to spend most of their time like Firemen - in their bunks back at the
barracks. That's how success was achieved in the 19th Century. ( British Empire, American nation,
French Empire. )
Such a scheme is still working wonders in South Korea. Not a whole lot of casualties that way.
Nation building is crazy all across the ummah. They won't suffer it. You would NOT believe
the amount of infrastructure blown up by our Iraqi allies - as a financial hustle.
It took forever for the American Army to figure out that the reason the power system kept crashing
was that the fellow building it up was corrupt and cashing in hugely by re-doing the same work
five times over. He would pull security off the power grid at point X so that his cousins could
dynamite the towers. Yes, he fled when the jig was up.
With his departure, the system started to work. This fiasco was an extreme embarrassement to
the US Army and the Iraqi officials. The perp had his whole clan involved. (!) Yes, this story
is suppressed. Guess why ?
1. The Generals have won. They are Generals.
2. The Military does not win wars, it prolongs the stalemate until the enemy's economy collapses.
3. With no public definition of win (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria), what is win?
4. The MIC is very lucrative. There are man, many winners there.
The Bush Administration arrogantly assumed that all peoples are enough alike that they can
be rescued the same way as Western Europeans were - after the Nazis were driven off. This premis was an epic error for the ages. The entire Washington establishment - to include the Pentagon - and the MSM went along with
this premis. In many ways they STILL buy into it.
You never read MSM articles questioning whether Iraqis or Afghans can buy into republican democracy.
The assumption is that the whole world is waiting with baited breath to achieve this Western political-cultural
ideal.
But Islam proscribes democracy, and these lands are emotionally Islamic in the extreme. When
queried, virtually every man demands Shariah law, under Islam.
Changing Afghan culture is what doomed the Soviet 'project.' So the Pentagon was not ever going
to touch cultural issues. This has proved very controvesial as Afghans practice pederasty on a
grand scale. Likewise, the NATO nations were not going to 'touch' the opium trade.
They were also wholly dependent upon Pakistan for logistics. Ultimately, a second rail route
was established at horrific expense across Russia. But no military specific goods could travel
by that route.
So the entire campaign was both necessary - to punish al Qaeda and the Taliban - and unwinnable
in a WWII sense. There never was a thought about expanding the scope of the conflict up to WWII
purportions, of course.
The problem is not that of Pentagon leadership.
The folly starts at the strategic level - straight out of the White House.
It was a mistake for Bush to be so optomistic, grandiose.
It was a mistake for Obama to run away from Iraq. A corps sized garrison force would've permitted
him enough influence to stop Maliki from sabotaging his own army - with crony appointments. (
The Shia simply did not have enough senior talent. So he over promoted his buddies and his tribe.
This set the stage for ghost soldiers and a collapse in morale across entire divisions. )
The correct solution, in 2011, was to endure - like we have in South Korea.
The correct solution, in 2009, was to NOT expand Afghan operations. I spent many an hour arguing
the folly of said expansion. It was inevitable that after any expansion there would be a massive
draw down - which would destablize the Kabul government.
The correct solution for both was a steady-state, economy of operations mode - with the US
Army largely standing idle in their barracks - letting the locals run all day to day operations.
You end up with the best of all worlds, low American casualties, low interference with the
locals, yet a psychological back-bone for young governments – – who are financial cripples.
At this time, the best route is to cut off Pakistan from all Western aid, and to entirely stop
Pakistani immigration to the West. Islamabad is as much an enemy of the West as Riyadh or Tehran.
This would also help calm Pakistan down, as it's the cultural embarrassment vis a vis the West
that's driving Pakistanis crazy. Let them interact with their blood cousins, the Hindus of India.
That'll be plenty enough modernity for Islamabad and Riyadh.
Pull out of Syria entirely. Stop funding al Nusrah - which is an acknowledged branch of al
Qaeda. Egypt has entered the conflict on the side of Assad, Iran and Russia, most recently. The "White
Hats" are a fraud.
Comparing "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan with Civil War or such conflicts confuses the issue
and shifts the responsibility from the policy makers to the military. Iraq and Afghanistan are
not wars, they are occupations and as such are unwinnable.
US is caught in a typical occupation trap, where they want a subservient regime that is under
their control. Subservient regimes are subservient because they lack a large power base and are
dependent on their foreign backers. A subservient regime with a power base does not stay subservient
for long, they quickly develop an independent streak at which point you have to overthrow them
and install a different, weaker regime.
US imposed regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan are classic examples of this. Al-Maliki in Iraq
was a marginal figure before becoming prime minister, similar to Karzai in Afghanistan. The new
leaders, Ashraf Ghani as the new Afghan president and Haider Al-Abadi as the Iraqi prime minister
are both ex-pats that only returned to the country after US occupation. Both Al-Maliki and Karzai
have been in power long enough that they were starting to develop a power base and show signs
of breaking away from the US, so they had to be replaced.
Stabilizing a subservient regime with a weak power base requires US presence and boots on the
ground. A subservient regime with a strong power base that can support itself quickly stops being
subservient and has to be replaced. A "victory", where US troops would not be necessary for the
regime support, means loss of control over the regime.
So US is stuck in a loop. Political considerations force them to build up a regime to a point
of independence, only to have to tear it down when it looks like it might go against American
interests. US military takes the blame because they have to fight the latest insurgent group CIA
built up to effect regime change.
I would never gainsay that many technocratic, careerist general officers might be looking for
ways to enhance their glory and bid up their asking price for CNN slots and board positions at
Lockheed Martin. But the swamp you seek to drain has an apex predator; wealthy and powerful civilians.
I seem to recall some generals, Eric Shinseki and Jay Garner come to mind, who tried to bring
a little truth to power and avoid the biggest mistakes of the Iraq war.
Ideologues in the administration had other plans. The first being the original sin of the war
itself, supported by a vast industry of defense, finance and media interests who knew opportunity
when they saw it. As for now, what the hell is the mission that the military is supposed to win?
I get the sense we will have our next big, proper war on account of using the military to solve
problems that no military could, like say a GWOT.
Eisenhower's prophecy has metastasized so deeply into the body politic, only a profound change
in the views of the citizenry could possibly make a difference. Short of economic or military
upheaval, it's hard to see how do we do this when our best paying jobs are strategically sprinkled
across the country, making every procurement and every base sacrosanct to even the most liberal,
libertarian or even peace-nick politicians? So, isn't the swamp much larger that the military
officer corps? Drain this one part, and it would fill back in rather quickly if that was the main
thrust of our attack on this nightmare.
I suspect Trump is headed to the White House partly because a significant number of people
concluded that social upheaval will be hastened by his administration, and that the consequences,
whatever they may be, will be worth bearing so that we can rebuild on the ashes of the neoliberal/neoconservative
era.
I sympathize, but with three college aged daughters, I was willing to work for, wait for, another
shot at a Bernie Sanders shaped attack on the system rather than throwing a Trump grenade. Trump
will only disrupt the system by accident, and absolutely unpredictably. His family's interests
are superbly served by the status quo, give or take a tax break or another busted union. It's
madness not to see his run for presidency as a vanity project run amok. If his cabinet and congress
play him right, it's pedal to the metal for the most reactionary, avaricious, vindictive and bellicose
impulses in this country.
Someone might get hurt, and with bugger all to show for it.
Isn't victory the one thing we seek to avoid ? If there were victory anywhere, it would mean "the end", and everyone knows arm sales cannot,
should not, must not, end. After all, it is the only industrial endeavor we are still good at.
Yes, well there's that as well. And that's not an insignificant issue. So again, the witless
proles are fed endless propaganda about terrrrrists and being "safe" in order to keep on keeping
on. Trump played the rubes about safety with his vitriolic Anti-Muslim rhetoric. Although Trump
claimed not to want to continue the wars, I seriously doubt he'll do one damn thing to make improvements
in this regard.
Have readers seen / thought of the amount of decorations modern US generals and admirals wear
in comparison to their WW2 equivalents? I know Uncle Sam has been in permanent war for a long
time, but does beating up Grenada and Panama count? The other lot to wear a lot of bling are the
welfare junkies occupying Buck House.
Compared to Ike and Bradley, but Beedle wrote a book where he claimed credit for single-handedly
winning the war. West Point is ultimately a self selective group which poses a set of problems.
What kind of kid wants to be a soldier for 30 to 40 years at age 16 when they need to start the
application process? No one accidentally winds up at West Point or the other academies anymore.
What kind of kid in 1810 thought he could carry on for Washington at age 16? I bet he's arrogant
and loves pomp and pageantry.
I'm convinced we need to draft the officer corp from college bound seniors.
Unfolding the Future of the Long War, a 2008 RAND Corporation report, was sponsored by the
US Army Training and Doctrine Command's Army Capability Integration Centre. It set out US government
policy options for prosecuting what it described as "the long war" against "adversaries" in
"the Muslim world," who are "bent on forming a unified Islamic world to supplant Western dominance".
Interesting. Rand was enlisted to write up a report almost a decade later on a decision that
was made in 2000 when Little George decided to run for office. Making it appear to have just evolved
into this situation today, no doubt. Remember Rumsfeld's name for the ME war in 2002 was "Odyssey
Dawn". When he first tried to call it a "Crusade" he horrified everyone and had to find something
more genteel. But Odyssey Dawn clearly says it all – it will be a very long war and it will carry
us around the world and we will stagger in confusion but in the end we will find our way. Not
the kind of war you can win by "bombing the shit out of em," as Donald might do. The victory we
will get from Odyssey Dawn will be the benefits of attrition and engagement. But the devastation
we cause will never be worth it.
Bacevich: "Yet here's what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created
that swamp in the first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides
a rationale for federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government
bigger and more intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes
tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the
swamp, nothing works better than war."
Appreciated Bacevich's three questions, particularly the second. Far past time to come clean
on the real strategy in MENA. The mission and "the job" of military leaders has NOT been to bring
America's wars to a timely and successful conclusion. Instead, there is a strategy to balkanize
that region, keep it in chaos, keep the American people in perpetual wars and "support our troops"
mode, threaten Europeans with a flood of immigrants, assure profits for the MIC and access for
oil majors, and simply keep the military and other agencies occupied. "Winning a war" (and subsequent
occupation) in terms of "bringing conflicts to a prompt and successful conclusion" doesn't appear
to be high on the priority list of those who set the nation's geopolitical and military strategy.
Project for a New American Century indeed.
In terms of "draining the swamp" that war has created, as Bacevich points out, the names mentioned
as prospective appointees as national security adviser and defense secretary are not cause for
optimism that the incoming administration will implement policies that will lead to resolution
rather than perpetuating this mess.
Well, the US military's performance in WW1 and WW2, often against weak opposition, was less
than stunning. They won their battles with massively superior firepower, for the most part.
But
many of the same criticisms that Bacevich makes could be, and indeed were, made of the Vietnam
War, which is an odd omission from his article. If anything, the level of generalship then was
probably worse than it is today.
But the real problem does, indeed, lie in Washington; Accepting that the US strategy in Iraq,
for example, was indeed to create a pliable, pro-western democratic state, it's not clear that
there was actually much the military could do when it started to unravel because of the inherent
stupidity of the idea. At what the military call the "operational" level of war, there seems to
have been a complete thought vacuum in Washington. I can imagine successive generals asking the
political leadership "yes, but what exactly do you want me to do " and never getting
a coherent answer.
Nor should we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something like
370,000 combatants and noncombatants have been killed in the various theaters of operations where
U.S. forces have been active. Although modest by twentieth century standards, this post-9/11 harvest
of death is hardly trivial.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903285704576560593124523206 A dozen terrorism scholars gave a wide range of answers when asked to estimate how many members
there are, how the numbers have changed during al Qaeda's lifespan and how many countries the
group operates in. Analysts put the core membership at anywhere from 200 to 1,000
My recollection is toward the low end ( towards 200ppl) at the time of GWB addle-minded decision
to pull the relatively modest special forces resources out of Tora Bora in Afghanistan that had
the AlQ Principles in the crosshairs. Instead GWB pursued a bizarre and unrelated non-sequitur
mission of tipping over SH in Iraq– allegedly because Saddam had threatened his Dad?
What was a reasonable response with explicit objectives to remedy a criminal act (as well at
the time with fairly unanimous sympathies of other Countries) could have been accomplished with
a modest Military footprint before getting the fk out of Afghanistan.
Instead it was scaled up into stupid endless Perpetual War without achievable objectives.
In retrospect divide $5T by 200-1,000 and consider how little it may have cost if 9/11 had
been treated as a criminal act by non-state actors, instead of sticking our foot into the role
of destabilizing other sovereign countries, killing /antagonizing the citizens and generally fking
up their countries??
I think the US is falling into the old imperialist trap of thinking of these places as countries
with capital cities and leaders recognized as such by the population. The British had that issue
in the 1770s when they captured the capital(s) of the new US but the revolution didn't stop. External
superpower (French) support was able to keep the resistance functioning and the British eventually
gave up. Both of those superpowers kept duking it out on other battlefields for another 30 years.
Yugoslavia was a temporary post-WW II construct based on a personality cult of Tito. When he
died, the real Yugoslavia turned out to be a bunch of tribes that really, really hated each other
and it all went to pieces.
North America is unusual with a huge moat around it other than a little isthmus at the south
end. Even so, there are millions of illegal immigrants that come over that isthmus or cross over
the southern moat (Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean) over the years. Only three countries (Mexico, US,
Canada) are in play and those borders have been stable for over a century. This was after the
US fought a massive civil war to keep that basic structure instead of having another country.
Even so, Quebec has come close to secession, Texas and California mumble about it periodically,
and Mexico effectively has a civil war with drug cartels. However, this is VERY stable compared
to nearly anywhere else in the world, so it leads us to false equivalencies about how other parts
of the world should work.
Putting in corrupt leaders with no popular support doesn't work as we have recently proved
again in Afghanistan and Iraq after having proved it previously in Vietnam and Cuba (pre-Castro).
The Afghanistan outcome may have worked better if the concept of Afghanistan disappeared and NATO
had worked with each region to come up with rational boundaries based on historical tribal alliances.
T.E. Lawrence had drawn a map like that for Iraq c.1918 but it did not fit the colonial power
requirements.. Turkey vs. the Kurds and Iran linking with the Shiites ensured that natural map
wasn't going to happen in 2003 either.
So, it is not clear what victory means in these areas. I think in many cases our concept of
victory is very different than what the locals think is acceptable. It appears that Assad, Russia,
and Iran may be "victorious" in Syria because it is clear they are willing to wipe out the village
to save it. They may find that there is nobody left there to rule though, so they will repopulate
those areas with allies, thereby probably sowing the seeds for another future war.
The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the imposition
of the Spanish Empire; total destruction of native culture and replacement with Roman forms. The
places the Spanish controlled are still broken, so don't look for success in this endeavor anytime
soon
The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the
imposition of the Spanish Empire
At least the Spanish had a quantifiable, albeit indefensible objective (resource extraction) that
drove their predatory behavior. Our quizzical form of imperialism is a net resource drag with
fuzzy morphing objectives
Say what you want about the British Empire, but they did leave behind functioning legal and
political systems in most of the countries they controlled. In India's case, they also left them
a common language since there are so many languages there. Many of the countries remained in the
Commonwealth after independence which is something that none of the other colonial powers achieved.
I think the key was the British focused on empire as an extension of commerce, not ideology
(they already knew they were superior, so they didn't have to prove it, which allows for pragmatism).
In the end, when it was clear that they couldn't hold on, they backed out more gracefully than
many other empires.
If there's one thing we can hope for in a Trump presidency, it's going to be Trump looking
at the disaster of biblical proportions that continues to unfold in the arena of government contracting.
It doesn't matter which sector his gaze falls upon, he's going to find an appalling failure in
contract negotiation: the F-35, the Zumwalt, the LCS, the KC-46, the B-21 (really, just the idea
of cost-plus contracts in general), the SLS, the FCC's Universal Service Fund, the EPA's Superfund,
the Department of Education's "Race to the Top" and "No Child Left Behind" mandates, the ACA,
the dollar value on whatever classified contract the telecommunications industry has to spy on
the American people, the private contractors presently employed by the military to perform its
duties - the list is endless.
The military-industrial complex has perfected the art of putting parts of the design, manufacturing,
testing, and deployment of these programs into just about Congressional District so that everybody
wants their constituents to have a shot at one part of the trough.
This is how empires fall. Asymmetrical economic and military warfare against entrenched bureaucracies
and corruption.
potus wants to make money giving speeches after office and also needs $$$$$$$$$$$ for his lieberry.
The merchants of death will hire him for those speeches and send money for lieberry.
The generals of today help the merchants of death make money so when the retire they can go to
work for the merchants of death.
The idea is to never win so there is always an enemy so the merchants of death can continue to
profit.
The easy way to control a country is to have chaos all the time. This makes easier to steal resources
and keep citizens from pulling their own levers of justice. We only have to look at Amerika but
other countries around the globe have the same going on. austerity for all.
The .01% would like to thank you for staying at each others throats.
I matriculated at one of the U.S. Military Service Academies. I had my share of classes on
"War Footing," "War Strategies" and "War, War, War – The Scarlet O'Hara Doctrine." (That last
one was mine and mine alone.)
And then I took the typical post-grad Naval War College assortment of "think-tanked" war symposiums.
All for naught, I must say.
Then came my time in the field. Most of my peers were good soldiers, junior officers and even
a few were leaders. But no one I knew had the stomach for the orders passed down – they were seen
just as watered-down "march-in-place" bullshit until the next wave of senior leadership flew in.
We junior officers were in the field just as much as our men – I'd say half (or more) of my
squadrons were comprised of men and women on their second, third, fourth – or more – tours of
duty. I'm so glad they didn't hear the bullshit we had to listen to. In fact, to this day, my
greatest gift to my men and women was the translation and humanizing effect of taking bullshit
orders and making them palatable for them.
No, we haven't won a war since WWII for many reasons; but, in my humble estimation, the two
biggest culprits are politics and logistics. For one, our politicians don't know what it's like
to wage war, what it's like for the combatants or the civilians seemingly always caught in the
middle. Or what the hell we're going to do in the off-chance that we win one of these puppies.
No, the Generals have not forgotten how to win wars – in fact, there are no generals
alive now who ever had the good fortune to win one. So the Generals don't know how to
win wars.
Oh, by the way – this was during Vietnam. Nothing has changed.
Glad to read a comment from someone with first hand experience. Generals know how to win conventional
wars, where success is measured based on % enemy destroyed or seizing an objective. One could
argue Norman Schwarzkopf won the 1st Gulf War, only difference is that U.S. Generals weren't left
to perform humanitarian functions after. As the author eludes to - but still doesn't stray from
attacking the competence of senior military leaders– without an objective can success be determined?
If one's mission as a Colonel is to lead a Brigade security operation on a Forward Operating Base
for a year, can he/she be successful based on the author's arbitrary standards of success? I would
argue with minimal casualties and no breaches over the year, the mission would be a success, but
these everyday successes are neglected. Accordingly, if a Component Combatant Commander leads
coalition operations in Iraq for two years with 0.05% coalition casualties and no FOBs being breached,
shouldn't that be a success?
It's too bad that General's success can't be measured like their CEO equivalents based on an
quarterly earnings, instead they have to answer to often ill-informed civilian leadership being
judged by vacant metrics and arbitrary standards by those like Bakevich. At least the military's
top executives (Generals) make about 4x their median worker's salary. These men and women could
take far better jobs in the MIC or the Corporate Realm, many I'm sure stay for noble reasons to
lead their servicemembers.
Sounds like the lament of an aging mafia don that's forgotten what he's talking about is illegal.
"Why can't our generals pull off a good old-fashioned smash and grab like they used to? They must
be incompetent!"
That's so last millennium. We've moved on, don. Smash & grabs are penny ante. Now the game
is Full-Spectrum Dominance.
So I don't think an old-fashioned smash & grab has been the goal for a long time. For decades
(ever since WWII?) we've been trying to regime change our way to the goal of every Hollywood mad
scientist and super-villian: everlasting world dominance.
What have they actually accomplished? Hard to say, from my vantage point. "Insufficient data,"
as the old Star Trek computer said.
I know that one of the main goals is to prevent there from ever being any threat to our dominance.
So while China and Russia aim for Eurasian integration, we're all about it's disintegration. We're
also determined to keep the EU from ever threatening our dominance. South America is slipping
the yoke, but we haven't given up.
At the very least, our generals are doing a smashing job of spreading chaos. And then there's
weaponized economics.
Here in the "Homeland" (genuflects), on the "home front," in the domestic "battle space," it's
important to realize that when the Pentagon says "full-spectrum dominance," that means us, comrades.
Wall-to-wall surveillance? Check. POTUS power to execute or disappear dissidents? Check. Torture
enshrined in secret laws and the public mind? Check.
On what level are the relevant decisions being made: public discourse, or top security? We're
not privy to the councils where super secret intelligence is discussed and the big decisions are
made. We're out here, on the receiving end of weapons-grade PSYOPS.
So what are we talking about, here? I don't think analyses based in kayfabe will ever arrive
at real insight. Analyzing events in terms of the cover stories meant to dupe us is much ado about
nothing.
The above article was published in 2000. Obama never renounced FSD. AFAIK it's still the strategy.
Why doesn't the esteemed colonel frame his analysis in terms of our official defense posture?
Are we any closer to FSD, or not?
But I must say, nice job of framing the debate. /s
As far as any hope for change under the new don, I don't see any. He'd have to publicly renounce
FSD, wind down the empire of bases, and find something to do with all those now in its employ,
all while "pivoting" to climate change and rejuvenating the economy, to actually respond to our
actual conditions. The Don is many things, but a martyr for peace and Mother Earth ain't one.
I'll be impressed when the colonel starts calling our wars crimes against humanity and for
their immediate cessation and full reparations. "Moar better generals" will not succeed at accomplishing
a basically insane strategy. Until then, I'll file Bacevich under "modified limited hangout."
"But can he do anything about it?" - Don't go to war without a damn good reason seems like
it might be a pretty good start. Despite his typically being all over the map on this – e.g. tough-on-terrorism-and-ISIS
– I found myself repeatedly surprised during the primary season at Trump being the only major-party
candidate – even including Bernie – to consistently talk good sense on Libya, Syria, Ukraine and
Russia.
Agreed. I was surprised, too. Of course, it's the working class children in the flyover states
who join the military and go to war, and come back maimed or with PTSD to a rotten job market.
So that may have been politically astute on Trump's part and, if so, good for him.
Andrew Bacevich is correct if one wears blinders and looks strictly at DoD Generals. The reality
is that there is a Western Imperium that is intent only on short term profits and has degenerated
into looting its own people and destroying sovereign nations. The Vietnam War showed that colonial
wars could not be fought with a conscript army. The volunteer US Army is too small to put a platoon
of soldiers in every village and town square in Afghanistan let alone Iraq. The endless wars were
unwinnable from the get go. The globalist empire is supremely efficient in looting taxpayers,
trashing Deplorables and spreading regime change campaigns across the world. The forever wars
are being fought by proxy forces with Western military support without a single thought for their
deadly consequences to make money.
Let's be brutally frank. The US both wants an empire, but also wants to pretend it is encouraging democracy everywhere.
Objectives where the result is deceitful and duplicitous behavior. Ask the Indians about the
methods, or the beneficiaries of the "Monroe Doctrine." The British wanted an empire. A simple objective. If you are not England, you are a colony,
and we, the English, make the rules. At the heart of American activities is a kernel of deceit. Self determination for people, but
only if you do what we say. The kernel of deceit poisons every walk of life connected to Washington.
Every single one.
The US is called the empire of chaos. It could also be called the empire of Deceit. Do as we
say, but we are not taking any responsibility for you if you do what we say. Don't do what we
say, and we will fund your opposition until they stuff a dagger up you ass.
I don't understand why we're in the Middle East at all. The US seems taken by the 4000 year
old, 5th grade concept of controlling the "Fertile Crescent." Why don't we just buy the oil we
want at prevailing prices.
Winning for the Boykin-ites is when the Middle East becomes Christian! lol As Smedley said.
"It's a racket."
Whatever, then there's Israel's push to steal Palestinian gas and pipe it thru Syria and Turkey
to markets in the Europe.
Think about Democrats using identity politics to claim religious fervor and war used to show
being strong on defense. With both political parties using corruption to align power and control
at home and abroad. Choosing your enemies carefully, for you will become them.
Let's just pull out of the Middle East and do everything we can to de-escalate these wars:
especially to keep the other great powers out too, unless called back in as a true UN peacekeeping
force after the locals have found a way to cool things down.
The US military was the first part of the government to be turned into a business, the first
neo-liberal institution created in America. The real problem is that the US military is run by
managers and not soldiers. The Germans used to make fun of the British Army in WWI by calling
it an army of lions led by donkeys. The US military is an army of lions led by managers.
If Andrew is looking for a denouement to the Military Industrial complex then one need look
no further than the British empire – specifically what made it shrink and shrivel very rapidly.
WWI and WWII. The decimation of the economy and the inability to keep spending money to maintain
empire is what reversed the entire machine. It will be the same with the US as well.
As long as
the dollar is high and Wall Street keeps it that way, there will be no pressure to do anything
different. When people start going hungry and jobless and start getting the bejesus bombed out
of them as happened during the blitz then they begin to understand what war truly means. In America
there has been no war for too long and the people here know nothing about war's sufferings and
privations. There was a little window via the draft during 'Nam' but that's about it. Nothing
will happen until a majority of the populace start hurting real bad.
"... I think tribalism is a bad term to describe this phenomenon. In reality what we see should be properly called "far right nationalism". And in several countries this is a specific flavor of far right nationalism which is called neofascism ..."
"... Brexit is just a symptom of growing resistance to neoliberalism, and the loss of power of neoliberal propaganda. Much like "Prague Spring" was in the past. ..."
"... the sustainability of modern far right nationalism depends mainly on continuation of austerity policies and uncontrolled neoliberal globalization with its outsourcing of local manufacturing, services and replacing well paying jobs with McJobs. Which cannot be stopped without betraying of fundamental tenets of neoliberalism as an ideology and economic theory. ..."
"... Thanks to "neoliberalism achievements" far right nationalism already achieved the status of mass movement with own political party(ies) in most EU countries. Trump_vs_deep_state in the USA is pretty modest demonstration of the same trend in comparison with EuroMaydan (Yanukovich government was a typical corrupt neoliberal government). And first attempts might fail (as they failed in Ukraine) ..."
Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the
political right has been increasingly dominated by tribalism
The sustainability of tribalism as a political force will depend, in large measure, on
the perceived success or failure of Brexit.
I see it differently. I think tribalism is a bad term to describe this phenomenon. In reality
what we see should be properly called "far right nationalism". And in several countries this is
a specific flavor of far right nationalism which is called neofascism , if we understand
neofascism as
neofascism = fascism
– physical violence as the main tool of controlling opposition
– attempts to replace parliamentary democracy with the authoritarian rule
+ some degree of acceptance of "unearned income" and financial oligarchy
+ weaker demands for social protection of middle class and Drang nach Osten
Brexit is just a symptom of growing resistance to neoliberalism, and the loss of power
of neoliberal propaganda. Much like "Prague Spring" was in the past.
And the sustainability of modern far right nationalism depends mainly on continuation of
austerity policies and uncontrolled neoliberal globalization with its outsourcing of local manufacturing,
services and replacing well paying jobs with McJobs. Which cannot be stopped without betraying
of fundamental tenets of neoliberalism as an ideology and economic theory.
Thanks to "neoliberalism achievements" far right nationalism already achieved the status
of mass movement with own political party(ies) in most EU countries. Trump_vs_deep_state in the USA is pretty
modest demonstration of the same trend in comparison with EuroMaydan (Yanukovich government was
a typical corrupt neoliberal government). And first attempts might fail (as they failed in Ukraine)
In other words neoliberalism is digging its own grave, but not the way Marx assumed.
"... Moreover, the use of labels such as "populist right" are not really helping. Populism is not an ideology. The widespread use of the term by the majority of commentators distracts from the true nature of far-right parties. ..."
"... Are we then really sure that these movements moderated their agenda? In fact, they promote a narrow concept of community, that excludes all the "different" and foreigners. ..."
"... "Our European cultures, our values and our freedom are under attack. They are threatened by the crushing and dictatorial powers of the European Union. They are threatened by mass immigration, by open borders and by a single European currency," ..."
"... The Austrian Freedom Party , on a similar line, "supports the interests of all German native speakers from the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy" and the "right of self-determination" of the German-speaking Italian bordering region of South Tyrol. ..."
"... On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Front, promotes a principle of "national priority" for French citizens in many areas, from welfare to jobs in the public sector. ..."
Around a decade ago, Columbia University historian Robert Paxton rightly pointed out how "a fascism
of the future - an emergency response to some still unimagined crisis - need not resemble classical
fascism perfectly in its outward signs and symbols ... the enemy would not necessarily be Jews.
An authentically popular fascism in America would be pious, anti-black, and, since September 11,
2001, anti-Islamic as well; in Western Europe it would be secular and, these days, more likely anti-Islamic
than anti-Semitic; and in Russia and Eastern Europe it would be religious, anti-Semitic, Slavophile,
and anti- Western.
New fascisms would probably prefer the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and time."
Does any of this sound familiar across the Atlantic?
Moreover, the use of labels such as "populist right" are not really helping. Populism is not
an ideology. The widespread use of the term by the majority of commentators distracts from the true
nature of far-right parties.
Are we then really sure that these movements moderated their agenda? In fact, they promote
a narrow concept of community, that excludes all the "different" and foreigners.
There is also a sense of decline and threat that was widely exploited by interwar fascism, and
by these extreme-right parties, which - after 1945 - resisted immigration on the grounds of defending
the so-called "European civilization".
The future of Europe?
The future of European societies could, however, follow these specific lines: "Our European
cultures, our values and our freedom are under attack. They are threatened by the crushing and dictatorial
powers of the European Union. They are threatened by mass immigration, by open borders and by a single
European currency," as Marcel de Graaff, co-president of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group
in the European Parliament, declared.
Another fellow party, the Belgian
Vlaams Belang , calls for an opposition to multiculturalism. It "defends the interests of the
Dutch-speaking people wherever this is necessary", and would "dissolve Belgium and establish an independent
Flemish state. This state ... will include Brussels", the current capital of the EU institutions.
The Austrian
Freedom Party , on a similar line, "supports the interests of all German native speakers from
the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy" and the "right of self-determination" of the German-speaking
Italian bordering region of South Tyrol.
On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Front, promotes a principle
of "national priority" for French citizens in many areas, from welfare to jobs in the public sector.
She also wants to renegotiate the European treaties and establish a "
pan-European Union " including Russia.
At the end of these inward-looking changes, there will be no free movement of Europeans across
Europe, and this will be replaced with a reconsolidation of the sovereignty of nation states.
Resentments among regional powers might rise again, while privileges will be based on ethnic origins
- and their alleged purity. In sum, this is how Europe will probably look if one follows the "moderate"
far-right policies. The dream of building the United States of Europe will become an obsolete memory
of the past. And the old continent will be surely less similar to the post-national one which guaranteed
peace and - relative - prosperity after the disaster of World War II.
Andrea Mammone is a historian of modern Europe at Royal Holloway, University of London.
He is the author of "Transnational Neofascism in France and Italy". He is currently writing a book
on the recent nationalist turn in Europe.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect
Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Exception of course are refugees (which one could say we have some moral responsibility to
rescue since our 15 year war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria (since we are
bombing quite a bit in Syria), and many other places has more than done or bit fan disorder and
violence from which the refugees flee rather than die, ditto the children fleeing Mexico and Central
America where our war on (some people) who use drugs has created both right wing Governments and
drug gangs and associated violence.)
I think it is bad form when left wing sites repeat right-wing memes (falsehoods and half-truths),
particularly when the new right-wing authoritarian kleptocrats who are taking over the Government
are talking about rounding up, placing in concentration camps, and deporting millions of people,
citizens and non-citizens alike..
rickstersherpa, November 30, 2016 11:46 am
Just out curiosity, since Mr. Kimel used the example of Iran, there was a huge Iranian immigration
to the U.S. In sense they both support (since many of the these people were high skill immigrants)
and rebut his point (since they came from a culture he marks as particularly "foreign" to U.S.
culture.
http://xpatnation.com/a-look-at-the-history-of-iranian-immigrants-in-the-u-s/ It has actually
been an amazingly successful immigration, with many now millionaires (a mark of "success" that
I find rather reflects the worse part of America, the presumption by Americans, Rich, Middle,
or poor, that if you are not rich, you are nothing, a loser; but still it appears to be a marker
that Mr. Kimel is using.
Beverly Mann, November 30, 2016 3:47 pm
To add to Rickstersherpa's comments, I'll also point out that among the Muslim immigrants who've
committed acts of terrorism in this country, none to my knowledge was on welfare nor were their
parents on welfare, None.
This post is just the latest in what is now many-months-long series of white supremacist/ white
nationalist posts by Kimel, whose original bailiwick at this blog was standard left-of-center
economics but obviously is something close to the opposite now. He left the blog for two or three
years, and came back earlier this year unrecognizable and with a vengeance. Literally.
I was a blogger here for six-and-a-half years until earlier this month, and was among regulars
who comment in the Comments threads who repeatedly expressed dismay. Kimel's last few posts, lik
this one, are published directly under his name. Before that Dan Crawford and run75441 were posting
them for him and crediting him with the posts.
In my comments int those threads, I've suggested as you did here that this blogger belongs
at Breitbart, or more accurately, you say that this blog is providing the same type of voice as
Breitbart.
But at least Breitbart hasn't been known as left-of-center blog. Allowing these posts on a
blog that has misleads readers into thinking, if only for a moment, that maybe this guy's saying
something that you're missing, or not saying something that you think he's saying. It's really
jarring.
The Rage November 30, 2016 3:49 pm
Sorry, but leftists were the originators of anti-immigration. They blasted classical
liberals and their "open borders" to buy talent on the market rather than "building within"
and using the state to develop talent.
"right wing" Christians are some of the worst people in terms of helping the underground
railroad for immigrants in the US.
The Rage November 30, 2016 3:54 pm
Beverly, Breitbart loves illegal immigration and wants it to stay, indeed quite illegal.
You represent the problem of modern politics. Anyone you don't agree with, you start
making dialectical points rather than going under the hood to find out the point.
Jack November 30, 2016 4:24 pm
Kimel,
Your points leave out any consideration of the cultural variabilities of this host country.
Given that the USofA is a country made up of immigrants from a wide variety of places across
the globe I would think that there is some benefit to varying the sources of immigration
in the present given the past. Some of the cultural distinctions that you suggest as different
from our own are not homogeneous within our own culture. For example, I wouldn't choose
to live in some parts of the US because of the degree of antisemitism that I might find
even though I am what one might call an agnostic Jew. There are many Americans that don't
make that distinction.
Face it Mike, there is probably a place for just about anyone from any place that would
be suitable for their emigration within the US. We don't all have to share the same values
with the new comer. We don't share values amongst ourselves as it is. We've got large numbers
of immigrants and their off spring from the Far East, South East Asia, Africa, South America
and the middle East. We even have many Europeans. Keep in mind that that last category is
made up of people who have spent the past two thousand years trying as hard as possible
to kill one another. So who is to say what immigrant group is best for the US? We've been
moving backwards for the past several decades. Maybe we need some new blood to get thinks
going forward again.
Beverly Mann November 30, 2016 4:27 pm
Apparently you aren't able to distinguish between racist proclamations and fears unrelated
to racism and ethnicity bias masquerading as "cultural" differences, on the one hand, and immigrants
willing to work for lower wages irrespective of their race and ethnicity, on the other hand,
The Rage. Even when the writer is extremely open, clear, and repetitive about his claims.
Rickstersherpa and I are able to make that distinction, and have done so.
Beverly Mann November 30, 2016 4:34 pm
CORRECTED COMMENT: Apparently, The Rage, you aren't able to distinguish between racist proclamations
masquerading as "cultural" differences, on the one hand, and fears unrelated to racism and
ethnicity bias, that immigrants willing to work for lower wages will put downward pressure
on wages in this country, irrespective of the race and ethnicity or the immigrant willing to
work for the low wages. Even when the writer is extremely open, clear, and repetitive about
his claims.
Rickstersherpa and I are able to make that distinction, and have done so.
(Definitely a cut-and-paste issue there with that first comment, which I accidentally clicked
"Post Comment" for before it was ready for posting.)
Jack, November 30, 2016 4:45 pm
I will accept one category of immigrant for exclusion. No identifiable criminals allowed.
We haven't always done so well on that trait. So let's do a better job of excluding those seeking
admission who can be shown to be actively involved with any form of criminal behavior. That
goes for Euros, Russians, Chinese, South Americans, etc. That also includes very wealthy criminals
whose wealth is the result of their positions of authority in their home country.
"The fact that there is homegrown dysfunction isn't a good argument for importing more dysfunction."
What manner of dysfunction beyond criminality did you have in mind?
" it makes sense to be selective, both for our sake and the sake of those who are unlikely
to function well and would become alienated and unable to fend for themselves in the US." Please
define "unlikely to function well" more precisely. Remember that the goal of our immigration
quotas is to allow a reasonable balance of people from varying countries to achieve admission.
"To be blunt, some people have attitudes that allow them to function well in the West. Typically
they are dissidents in non Western countries." That statement is generally problematic. What
measure of attitude do we use here? Is it the rabble rousers that you want to give preference
to? Then why only from non Western countries?
"... Fascism is authoritarian political ideology that promotes nationalism and glorifies the state.
It is a totalitarian in orientation, meaning that those benefiting from the system work to exclude any
challenges to state hegemony. Generally state leaders prefer a single-party state, but nascent fascism
can exist in a two-party state, as in the United States with one party attempting to dominate politically
in order to bring to the fore the essentialist views of its leaders. ..."
"... They want a solidified nation that fights degeneration and decadence as defined by them. They
seek a rebirth of and a return to traditional values. In the modern context it is politically incorrect
to openly espouse an ideal of racial purity, so neo-fascists stress the need for cultural unity based
on ancestry and past values as idealized in their exclusionist ideology. ..."
"... In fascism a strong leader is sought to exemplify and promote this singular collective identity.
This leader and his cohort are committed to maintain national strength and are willing to wage war and
create systems of national security, such as the Patriot Act, to keep the nation unified and powerful.
Opposition to the state and its idealized values is defined as heretical. Militarism is defined as being
essential to maintaining the nation's power and the military industrial complex becomes sacrosanct in
the pursuit of national defense. ..."
"... Neo-fascist rhetoric is being propagated during a time when global capitalism is creating a
gaping chasm between the super rich and the masses of humanity, ecological degradation and widespread
violence. ..."
Fascism is authoritarian political ideology that promotes nationalism and glorifies the state.
It is a totalitarian in orientation, meaning that those benefiting from the system work to exclude
any challenges to state hegemony. Generally state leaders prefer a single-party state, but nascent
fascism can exist in a two-party state, as in the United States with one party attempting to dominate
politically in order to bring to the fore the essentialist views of its leaders.
Today this
force is the Republican Party, now infiltrated by Tea Party radicals. Those views stress past values,
nationalist spirit and strong cultural unity. Neo-fascists tend to exclude ideas and changes that
they see as threatening their cherished value system.
They want a solidified nation that fights degeneration and decadence as defined by them. They
seek a rebirth of and a return to traditional values. In the modern context it is politically incorrect
to openly espouse an ideal of racial purity, so neo-fascists stress the need for cultural unity based
on ancestry and past values as idealized in their exclusionist ideology.
Nonetheless, in the United States this idealized viewpoint has overtones of racism and tends to
focus around Christianity as the source of needed values. For instance, one slogan of the Tea Party
is "Regular Folks United – The Bully Pulpit for Regular Folks." Irregulars need not apply.
In fascism a strong leader is sought to exemplify and promote this singular collective identity.
This leader and his cohort are committed to maintain national strength and are willing to wage war
and create systems of national security, such as the Patriot Act, to keep the nation unified and
powerful. Opposition to the state and its idealized values is defined as heretical. Militarism is
defined as being essential to maintaining the nation's power and the military industrial complex
becomes sacrosanct in the pursuit of national defense.
In present-day America such neo-fascist ideas are combatively percolating in national politics
and are exemplified in the rhetoric of such radical figures as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Ron Paul,
Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann.
Neo-fascist rhetoric is being propagated during a time when global capitalism is creating
a gaping chasm between the super rich and the masses of humanity, ecological degradation and widespread
violence. Furthermore, global capitalism is advancing at a time when, according to Oxfam, by
2050, the global population is forecast to rise by one-third to more than 9 billion, while demand
for food will rise even higher – by 70 percent – as more prosperous economies demand more calories
and crop production continues to fall relative to population.
The British charity projects that prices of staple foods could more than double in the next 20
years, pushing millions of people deeper into poverty. The effects of a combination of population
growth and the growing numbers of unemployed and impoverished people in the world is creating international
crises, most recently in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen; but the emergency is global and
we face a crisis of humanity. The world is a powder keg and the fuse is burning.
Fascists use this time of great upheavals and uncertainties as their raison d'etre to return
to an imagined world where such problems did not exist. Uneducated people are prone to heed their
simplistic slogans and ideas.
"... The term conspiracy theorist was developed by the CIA in the mid-1960s to ridicule those who believed there was a wide government role in the assassination of President Kennedy. It has been used ever since to describe legitimate researchers into Iran-Contra, 9/11, and other deep state crimes. ..."
Mohsen Abdelmoumen : According to you, when we see the numerous demonstrations anti-Trump
in the United States after the election of Donald Trump at the presidency, are we witnessing a colored
revolution?
Wayne Madsen: It is classic Soros-funded color revolution. Soros is financing MoveOn.org, Black
Lives Matter, Demos, and other of his groups to turn out protesters and is even running ads in papers
looking for paid drivers and protest coordinators.
In your very relevant books devoted to George Soros: "Soros: Quantum of Chaos", you reveal the
true face of this figure who is the spearhead of several destabilization operations in the world.
From where does all the power come that this criminal holds and why is he untouchable?
Soros is very wealthy and actually a frontman for an even more powerful and wealthy person, Evelyn
de Rothschild, along with his family. They are all the true puppet masters of the world.
Soros remains a major element in the anti-Trump device. Can Trump resist him?
Trump is actually now being surrounded by people who will serve in his administration who will
be loyal to the Soros-Rothschild puppet masters and certainly not to Trump.
Can we say that the occult world is more powerful than legal institutions?
Secret societies with their crazy rituals have been the bane of human existence since the time
of the Sanhedrin and Pharisees in Palestine and the Dionysian cults of the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean
region.
In your book " ISIS is US - The Shocking Truth Behind the Army of Terror", you detail
the relations between the USA and ISIS/Daesh. What is the triggering element that has put you on
this trail?
Trump's national security adviser retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn revealed that the US was supporting
ISIS and then he was forced to resign. My own sources in the Middle East confirmed this long before
Flynn made his public statement and was fired as Defense Intelligence Agency chief by Obama.
You mention Western Sahara and the involvement of the Clintons in a deal with the Kingdom of Morocco
while this case is under the authority of UN. Aren't the Clintons outlaws such Bonnie and Clyde by
supporting Morocco against the Sahrawi people and the UN's resolutions?
The Clintons received at least $12 million from the Moroccan government in return for buying their
loyalty to Morocco's agenda, which includes permanently annexing Western Sahara as the "Southern
Province." Morocco and Israel share the same policy on annexing illegally-occupied territories.
According to your diverse very interesting analysis, can we assert that the World Government or
the false prophets of the New World Order are the real decision-makers of this world?
I mentioned a few already, Soros/Rothschild. Others are the Bilderbergs, Bohemian Club, and the
Council on Foreign Relations and their counterparts.
You know very well some American intelligence agencies like the NSA. Do these intelligence agencies
serve the US' interests or, rather, the oligarchy's interests?
The CIA has always served the interests of Wall Street. NSA now serves the interests of the global
security network it leads.
You were an officer in the US Navy. Was the whistleblower you are today born after your military
career or before?
Before. I was an FBI-Navy whistleblower in 1982 and helped to uncover a major pedophile ring in
the US Navy that reached into the Reagan-Bush White House and was ultimately exposed in The Washington
Times in 1988-89. My whistleblowing cost me my Navy career, however, and a subsequent series of fairly
bad jobs.
In the recent US election, we saw the mass media bankruptcy despite their manipulations and their
fake polls. Didn't one of the pillars of world oligarchy collapse under our eyes? Don't we witness
a historic moment announcing the end of the New World Order and its purely capitalist product, globalization?
99 percent of major newspapers endorsed Clinton. Many alternative news sources supported Trump.
We are seeing a massive shift away from newspapers and corporate TV and websites to the alternative
media, of which WayneMadsenReport.com has been prominent since its founding in 2005.
Snowden has denounced the Prism program and you have denounced Echelon, both of which serve the
interests of the world's oligarchic caste. What is known is not only the immersed part of the iceberg?
What is still relatively unknown is the close cooperation between NSA and private companies like
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and major telecommunications companies. It is much greater than
even Snowden's documents describe.
The quantity and especially the quality of your reports reveal to us a world unknown by millions
of human beings. How all these truths have been hidden?
The major media cooperates with the government in covering up news events.
I advise everyone to read the Wayne Madsen Report as well as your books and follow your various
interventions in the alternative media. How do you explain that we, who are resisting to what I call
the fascist oligarchic caste, are called conspiracy theorists? Is this concept the only
weapon of the fascist imperialists to reduce to silence all those who resist them and to reinforce
the ranks of those whose who have been brainwashed?
The term conspiracy theorist was developed by the CIA in the mid-1960s to ridicule those who believed
there was a wide government role in the assassination of President Kennedy. It has been used ever
since to describe legitimate researchers into Iran-Contra, 9/11, and other deep state crimes.
Your book " The Star and The Sword " is one of the few to talk about intimate and opaque
links between the Zionist entity of Israel and Saudi Arabia. You claim that they organize false flag
attacks, including the 9/11. What is the origin and nature of this Israeli-Saudi strategic alliance?
Do you think that the JASTA law will succeed or will it be countered by the Zionist allies of Saudi
Arabia? Do the fact that the USA and the Westerners turn a blind eye on the criminal war led by the
Saudis to Yemen isn't due to the weight of the lobby Zionist?
The Zionist-Wahhabi/Saudi alliance goes back to Ibn Saud who wrote the British and Zionist leaders
that he did not oppose a Jewish homeland in Palestine so long as it did not lay claim to Saudi territory
on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba. The relationship has always been close, except for the
time of King Faisal, who was conveniently shot in the face and killed by a relative.
Do you undergo pressure or threats in relation to the remarkable work you do? If so, how do you
live it?
I was forced to move my domicile from Washington because the outgoing Obama administration put
pressure on some media organizations I did work for. These included RT (contributor agreement canceled)
and Al Jazeera America (which is now defunct).
The FBI entered my apartment in Washington at least twice and I've had three visits by them at
my new home in Florida. I was informed of 3 personal threats in Washington. I ignore all these pressures and continue to exercise the freedom of the press. Are you optimistic or do you think that the Satanist project of the oligarchy still has a nuisance
capacity that can plunge the world into chaos?
As with cockroaches, which detest light, the shadow figures of covert power cannot stand what
is known as the disinfectant of sunshine. Light has always fought against darkness and will continue
to do so.
Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen
Wayne Madsen is an American journalist, television news commentator, online editor of Wayne
Madsen Report.com , investigative journalist and author specializing intelligence and international
affairs.Starting in 1997, after his military service as a U.S. Navy lieutenant assigned to Anti-Submarine
Warfare duties and to the National Security Agency as a COMSEC analyst, he applied his military intelligence
training to investigative journalism.He has since written for many daily, weekly, and monthly publications
including The Progressive , The Village Voice , Counterpunch , Philadelphia
Inquirer , Houston Chronicle , Allentown Morning Call , Juneau Empire ,
Cleveland Plain Dealer , Real Clear Politics , Danbury Newstimes , Newsday
and many others.Throughout his journalistic career, he has been a television commentator on many
programs, including 60 Minutes , Russia Today , Press TV , and many others.He
has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared
on ABC , NBC , CBS , PBS , CNN , BBC , Al Jazeera , and MS-NBC .
He has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, and a terrorism investigation judicial inquiry of the French government. Wayne
Madsen has some thirty-five years experience in security issues. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed
one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National
Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer
Sciences Corporation. Wayne Madsen was a Senior Fellow for the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC), a privacy public advocacy organization. Mr. Madsen is a member of the National Press Club.
Wayne Madsen is the author of The Handbook of Personal Data Protection (London: Macmillan,
1992), an acclaimed reference book on international data protection law; Genocide and Covert Operations
in Africa 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999); co-author of America's Nightmare: The Presidency
of George Bush II ( Dandelion, 2003); Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy,
Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden ; author of Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black
Ops & Brass Plates ; Overthrow a Fascist Regime on $15 a Day ; The star and the sword
; The Manufacturing of a President: the CIA's Insertion of Barack H. Obama, Jr. into the White
House ; L'Affaire Petraeus ; and National Security Agency Surveillance: Reflections
and Revelations ; Soros: Quantum of Chaos (2015); Unmasking ISIS: The Shocking Truth
(2016).
National security state gone rogue is fascism. Frankly, I don't see evidence of huge abuse
of US liberties. But I do see our foreign policy distorted by a counter-terror obsession
Notable quotes:
"... the government's interpretation of that law ..."
"... "One reports a crime; and one commits a crime." ..."
"... but does not include differences of opinion concerning public policy matters ..."
Two weeks ago, the Guardian began publishing a series of eye-opening revelations about the National
Security Agency and its surveillance
efforts both in the United States
and overseas. These stories raised long-moribund and often-ignored questions about the pervasiveness
of government surveillance and the extent to which privacy rights are being violated by this secret
and seemingly unaccountable security apparatus.
However, over the past two weeks, we've begun to get a clearer understanding of the story and
the implications of what has been published – informed in part by a new-found (if forced upon them)
transparency from the intelligence community. So here's one columnist's effort to sort the wheat
from the chaff and offer a few answers to the big questions that have been raised.
These revelations are a big deal, right?
To fully answer this question, it's important to clarify the revelations that have sparked such
controversy. The Guardian (along with the Washington Post) has broken a number of stories, each of
which tells us very different things about what is happening inside the US government around matters
of surveillance and cyber operations. Some are relatively mundane, others more controversial.
The story that has shaped press coverage and received the most attention was the first one – namely,
the publication of a judicial order from the
Fisa court to Verizon that
indicated the US is "hoovering" up millions of phone records (so-called "metadata") into a giant
NSA database. When it broke, the
story was quickly portrayed as a frightening tale of government overreach and violation of privacy
rights. After all, such metadata – though it contains no actual content – can be used rather easily
as a stepping-stone to more intrusive forms of surveillance.
But what is the true extent of the story here: is this picture of government Big Brotherism correct
or is this massive government surveillance actually quite benign?
First of all, such a collection of data is not, in and of itself, illegal. The
Obama administration
was clearly acting within the constraints of federal law and received judicial approval for this
broad request for data. That doesn't necessarily mean that the law is good or that the
government's interpretation of that law is not too broad, but unlike the Bush "warrantless wiretapping"
stories of several years ago, the US government is here acting within the law.
The real question that should concern us is one raised by the
TV writer David Simon in a widely cited blogpost looking at the issues raised by the Guardian's
reporting, namely:
"Is government accessing the data for the legitimate public safety needs of the society, or
are they accessing it in ways that abuse individual liberties and violate personal privacy – and
in a manner that is unsupervised."
We know, for example, that the NSA is required to abide by laws that prevent the international
targeting of American citizens (you can
read more about that
here). So, while metadata about phone calls made can be used to discover information about the
individuals making the calls, there are "minimization" rules, procedures and laws that guide the
use of such data and prevent possible abuse and misuse of protected data.
Sure, the potential for abuse exists – but so, too, does the potential for the lawful use of metadata
in a way that protects the privacy of individual Americans – and also assists the US government in
pursuit of potential terrorist suspects. Of course, without information on the specific procedures
used by the NSA to minimize the collection of protected data, it is impossible to know that no laws
are being broken or no abuse is occurring.
In that sense, we have to take the government's word for it. And that is especially problematic
when you consider the Fisa court decisions authorizing this snooping are secret and the congressional
intelligence committees tasked with conducting oversight tend to be toothless.
But assumptions of bad faith and violations of privacy by the US government are just that assumptions.
When President Obama says that the NSA is not violating privacy rights because it would be against
the law, we can't simply disregard such statements as self-serving. Moreover, when one considers
the privacy violations that Americans willingly submit to at airports, what personal data they give
to the government in their tax returns, and what is regularly posted voluntarily on Facebook, sent
via email and searched for online, highly-regulated data-mining by the NSA seems relatively tame.
One of the key questions that have emerged over this story is the motivation of the leaker in
question, Edward Snowden. In
his initial public interview, with Glenn Greenwald on 9 June, Snowden explained his actions,
in part, thus:
"I'm willing to sacrifice because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy
privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance
machine they're secretly building."
Now, while one can argue that Snowden's actions do not involve personal sacrifice, whether they
are heroic is a much higher bar to cross. First of all, it's far from clear that the US government
is destroying privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world.
Snowden may sincere about being "valiant for truth", but he wouldn't be the first person to believe
himself such and yet be wrong.
Second, one can make the case that there is a public interest in knowing that the US is collecting
reams of phone records, but where is the public interest – and indeed, to Snowden's own justification,
the violation of privacy – in leaking a presidential directive on cyber operations or leaking that
the US is spying on the Russian president?
The latter is both not a crime it's actually what the NSA was established to do! In his
recent online chat hosted by the Guardian, Snowden suggested that the US should not be spying
on any country with whom it's not formally at war. That is, at best, a dubious assertion, and one
that is at odds with years of spycraft.
On the presidential directive on cyber operations, the damning evidence that Snowden revealed
was that President Obama has asked his advisers to create a list of potential targets for cyber operations
– but such planning efforts are rather routine contingency operations. For example, if the
US military drew up war
plans in case conflict ever occurred between the US and North Korea – and that included offensive
operations – would that be considered untoward or perhaps illegitimate military planning?
This does not mean, however, that Snowden is a traitor. Leaking classified data is a serious offense,
but treason is something else altogether.
The problem for Snowden is that he has now also
leaked classified information about ongoing US intelligence-gathering efforts to foreign governments,
including China and Russia. That may be crossing a line, which means that the jury is still out on
what label we should use to describe Snowden.
Shouldn't Snowden be protected as a whistleblower?
This question of leakers v whistleblowers has frequently been conflated in the public reporting
about the NSA leak (and many others). But this is a crucial error. As Tara Lee, a lawyer at the law
firm DLA Piper, with expertise in defense industry and national security litigation said to me there
is an important distinction between leakers and whistleblowers, "One reports a crime; and one
commits a crime."
Traditionally (and often technically), whistleblowing refers to specific actions that are taken
to bring to attention illegal behavior, fraud, waste, abuse etc. Moreover, the US government provides
federal employees and contractors with the protection to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. In the case
of Snowden, he could have gone to the inspector general at the Department of Justice or relevant
congressional committees.
From all accounts, it appears that he did not go down this path. Of course, since the material
he was releasing was approved by the Fisa court and had the sign-off of the intelligence committee,
he had good reason to believe that he would have not received the most receptive hearing for his
complaints.
Nevertheless, that does not give him carte blanche to leak to the press – and certainly doesn't
give him carte blanche to leak information on activities that he personally finds objectionable but
are clearly legal. Indeed, according to the
Intelligence Community
Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), whistleblowers can make complaints over matter of what
the law calls "urgent concern", which includes "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of
law or executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operations of an
intelligence activity involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinion
concerning public policy matters [my italics]."
In other words, simply believing that a law or government action is wrong does not give one the
right to leak information; and in the eyes of the law, it is not considered whistleblowing. Even
if one accepts the view that the leaked Verizon order fell within the bounds of being in the "public
interest", it's a harder case to make for the presidential directive on cyber operations or the eavesdropping
on foreign leaders.
The same problem is evident in the incorrect description of
Bradley Manning as
a whistleblower. When you leak hundreds of thousands of documents – not all of which you reviewed
and most of which contain the mundane and not illegal diplomatic behavior of the US government –
you're leaking. Both Manning and now Snowden have taken it upon themselves to decide what
should be in the public domain; quite simply, they don't have the right to do that. If every government
employee decided actions that offended their sense of morality should be leaked, the government would
never be able to keep any secrets at all and, frankly, would be unable to operate effectively.
So, like Manning, Snowden is almost certainly not a whistleblower, but rather a leaker. And that
would mean that he, like Manning, is liable to prosecution for leaking classified material.
Are Democrats hypocrites
over the NSA's activities?
A couple of days ago, my Guardian colleague, Glenn Greenwald made the following assertion:
"The most vehement defenders of NSA surveillance
have been, by far, Democratic (especially Obama-loyal) pundits. One of the most significant
aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of
the Bush "war on terror" and national security state into their biggest proponents."
This is regular line of argument from Glenn, but it's one that, for a variety of reasons, I believe
is not fair. (I don't say this because I'm an Obama partisan – though I may be called one for writing
this.)
First, the lion's share of criticism of these recent revelations has come, overwhelmingly, from
Democrats and, indeed, from many of the same people, including Greenwald, who were up in arms when
the so-called warrantless wiretapping program was revealed in 2006. The reality is that outside a
minority of activists, it's not clear that many Americans – Democrats orRepublicans –
get all that excited about these types of stories. (Not that this is necessarily a good thing.)
Second, opposition to the Bush program was two-fold: first, it was illegal and was conducted with
no judicial or congressional oversight; second, Bush's surveillance policies did not occur in a vacuum
– they were part of a pattern of law-breaking, disastrous policy decisions and Manichean rhetoric
over the "war on terror". So, if you opposed the manner in which Bush waged war on the "axis of evil",
it's not surprising that you would oppose its specific elements. In the same way, if you now support
how President Obama conducts counter-terrorism efforts, it's not surprising that you'd be more inclined
to view specific anti-terror policies as more benign.
Critics will, of course, argue – and rightly so – that we are a country of laws first. In which
case it shouldn't matter who is the president, but rather what the laws are that govern his or her
conduct. Back in the world of political reality, though, that's not how most Americans think of their
government. Their perceptions are defined in large measure by how the current president conducts
himself, so there is nothing at all surprising about Republicans having greater confidence in a Republican
president and Democrats having greater confidence in a Democratic one, when asked about specific
government programs.
Beyond that, simply having greater confidence in President Obama than President Bush to wield
the awesome powers granted the commander-in-chief to conduct foreign policy is not partisanship.
It's common sense.
George Bush was, undoubtedly,
one of the two or three worst foreign policy presidents in American history (and arguably, our worst
president, period). He and Dick Cheney habitually broke the law, including but not limited to the
abuse of NSA surveillance. President Obama is far from perfect: he made the terrible decision to
surge in Afghanistan, and
he's fought two wars of dubious legality in Libya and Pakistan, but he's very far from the sheer
awfulness of the Bush/Cheney years.
Unless you believe the US should have no NSA, and conduct no intelligence-gathering in the fight
against terrorism, you have to choose a president to manage that agency. And there is nothing hypocritical
or partisan about believing that one president is better than another to handle those responsibilities.
Has NSA surveillance prevented terrorist attacks, as claimed?
In congressional testimony this week, officials from the Department of Justice and the
NSA argued that surveillance efforts stopped "potential terrorist events over 50 times since
9/11". Having spent far too many years listening to public officials describe terrifying terror plots
that fell apart under greater scrutiny, this assertion sets off for me a set of red flags (even though
it may be true).
I have no doubt that NSA surveillance has contributed to national security investigations, but
whether it's as extensive or as vital as the claims of government officials is more doubtful. To
be honest, I'm not sure it matters. Part of the reason the US government conducts NSA surveillance
in the first place is not necessarily to stop every potential attack (though that would be nice),
but to deter potential terrorists from acting in the first place.
Critics of the program like to argue that "of course, terrorists know their phones are being tapped
and emails are being read", but that's kind of the point. If they know this, it forces them to choose
more inefficient means of communicating, and perhaps to put aside potential attacks for fear of being
uncovered.
We also know that not every terrorist has the skills of a Jason Bourne. In fact, many appear to
be not terribly bright, which means that even if they know about the NSA's enormous dragnet, it doesn't
mean they won't occasionally screw up and get caught.
Yet, this gets to a larger issue that is raised by the NSA revelations.
When is enough counter-terrorism enough?
Over the past 12 years, the US has developed what can best be described as a dysfunctional relationship
with terrorism. We've become obsessed with it and with a zero-tolerance approach to stopping it.
While the former is obviously an important goal, it has led the US to take steps that not only undermine
our values (such as torture), but also make us weaker (the invasion of
Iraq, the surge in Afghanistan,
etc).
To be sure, this is not true of every anti-terror program of the past dozen years. For example,
the US does a better job of sharing intelligence among government agencies, and of screening those
who are entering the country. And military efforts in the early days of the "war on terror" clearly
did enormous damage to al-Qaida's capabilities.
In general, though, when one considers the relatively low risk of terrorist attacks – and the
formidable defenses of the United States – the US response to terrorism has been one of hysterical
over-reaction. Indeed, the balance we so often hear about when it comes to protecting privacy while
also ensuring security is only one part of the equation. The other is how do we balance the need
to stop terrorists (who certainly aspire to attack the United States) and the need to prevent anti-terrorism
from driving our foreign policy to a disproportionate degree. While the NSA revelations might not
be proof that we've gone too far in one direction, there's not doubt that, for much of the past 12
years, terrorism has distorted and marred our foreign policy.
Last month, President Obama gave a seminal speech at the National Defense University, in which
he essentially declared the "war on terror" over. With troops coming home from Afghanistan, and drone
strikes on the decline, that certainly seems to be the case. But as the national freakout over the
Boston Marathon bombing – and the extraordinary over-reaction of a city-wide lockdown for one wounded
terrorist on the loose – remind us, we still have a ways to go.
Moreover, since no politician wants to find him- or herself in a situation after a terrorist attack
when the criticism "why didn't you do more?" can be aired, that political imperative of zero tolerance
will drive our counterterrorism policies. At some point, that needs to end.
In fact, nine years ago, our current secretary of state, John Kerry, made this exact point; it's
worth reviewing his words:
"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives,
but they're a nuisance I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end
illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on
the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that
you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''
What the NSA revelations should spark is not just a debate on surveillance, but on the way we
think about terrorism and the steps that we should be willing to take both to stop it and ensure
that it does not control us. We're not there yet.
Re: How many Billions / Trillions are spent on these services?
The wonderful thing about living in a "Keynesian" perpetually increasing debt paradise is you
NEVER have to say you can't afford anything. (Well, unless you want to say it, but if you do it's
just political bullshit).
So, to answer your question... A "Keynesian" never asks how much, just how much do you want.
"When one considers the privacy violations that Americans willingly submit to at airports,
what personal data they give to the government in their tax returns, and what is regularly posted
voluntarily on Facebook, sent via email and searched for online, highly-regulated data-mining
by the NSA seems relatively tame."
Dear Sir: Please post your email addresses, bank accounts, and passwords. We'd like to look
at everything.
"When one considers the privacy violations that Americans willingly submit to at airports,
what personal data they give to the government in their tax returns, and what is regularly
posted voluntarily on Facebook, sent via email and searched for online [...]"
Wow! I don't really care about my personal email. I do care about all political activists,
journalists, lawyers etc. That a journalist would support Stasi style surveillance state is astonishing.
I wish I had the time to go through this article and demolish it sentence by sentence as it
so richly deserves, but at the moment I don't. Instead, might I suggest to the author that he
go to the guardian archive, read every single story about this in chronological order and then
read every damn link posted in the comment threads on the three most recent stories.
Most especially the links in the comment threads. If after that, he cannot see why we "civil
libertarian freaks" are not just outraged, but frightened, he frankly lacks both historical knowledge
and any ability to analyze the facts that are staring him in the face. I can't believe I am going
to have to say this again but here goes: YOU do not get to give away my contitutional rights,
Mr. Cohen.
I don't give a shit how much you trust Obama compared to dubya. The Bill of Rights states in
clear, unambiguous language what the Federal government may NOT do do its citizens no matter WHO
is president.
Michael Cohen Frankly, I don't see evidence of huge abuse of US liberties.
Well of course you wont see them.
But the abuses are very probably already happening on a one to one basis in the same shadows in
which the intelligence was first gathered.
This unadmitted ignorance was previously displayed for those with eyes to see it in the Libya debacle,
perhaps not coincidentally Clinton's pet war. Cast by the Obama White House as a surgical display
of "smart power" that would defend human rights and foster democracy in the Muslim world, the 2011
Libyan intervention did precisely the opposite. There is
credible evidence that the U.S.-led NATO campaign prolonged and exacerbated the humanitarian
crisis, and far from creating a flourishing democracy, the ouster of strongman Muammar Qaddafi led
to a power vacuum into which ISIS and other rival unsavories surged.
The 2011 intervention and the follow-up escalation in which we are presently entangled were both
fundamentally informed by "the underlying belief that military force will produce stability and that
the U.S. can reasonably predict the result of such a campaign," as Christopher Preble has argued
in a must-read Libya analysis
at Politico . Both have proven resoundingly wrong.
Before Libya, Washington espoused the same false certainty in advance of intervention and nation-building
Iraq and Afghanistan. The rhetoric around the former was particularly telling: we would find nuclear
weapons and "be greeted as liberators,"
said Vice President
Dick Cheney. The whole thing would take five months or less,
said Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. It would be a
"cakewalk." As months dragged into years of nation-building stagnation, the ignored truth became
increasingly evident: the United States cannot reshape entire countries without obscene risk and
investment, and even when those costly commitments are made, success cannot be predicted with certainty.
Nearly 14 years later, with Iraq demonstrably more violent and less stable than it was before
U.S. intervention, wisdom demands we reject Washington's recycled snake oil.
Recent polls (let alone the anti-elite backlash Trump's
win represents ) suggest Americans are ready to do precisely that. But a lack of public enthusiasm
has never stopped Washington from hawking its fraudulent wares-this time in the form of yet-again
unfounded certainty that escalating American intervention in Syria is a sure-fire solution to that
beleaguered nation's woes.
We must not let ourselves be fooled. Rather, we "should understand that we don't need to overthrow
distant governments and roll the dice on what comes after in order to keep America safe," as Preble,
reflecting on Libya,
contends . "On the contrary, our track record over the last quarter-century shows that such interventions
often have the opposite effect."
And as for the political establishment, let Trump's triumph be a constant reminder of the necessity
of expecting the unexpected and proceeding with due (indeed, much overdue) prudence and restraint
abroad. If Washington so grossly misunderstood the direction of its own heartland-without the muddling,
as in foreign policy, of massive geographic and cultural differences-how naïve it is to believe that
our government can successfully play armed puppet-master over an entire region of the world?
Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities. She is a weekend editor at The Week
and a columnist at Rare , and her writing has also appeared at Time , Politico
, Relevant , The Hill , and other outlets.
That "Navy ship that broke down in the Panama Canal" - it cost $4.4 *billion* dollars. And
there is a second one just finishing construction with a third coming in at the basement bargain
price of $3.7B:
The Zumwalt cost more than $4.4bn and was commissioned in October in Maryland. It also suffered
a leak in its propulsion system before it was commissioned. The leak required the ship to remain
at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia longer than expected for repairs.
The ship is part of the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works in more than
25 years.
The second Zumwalt-class destroyer, which also cost more than $4.4bn, was christened in
a June ceremony during which US Rep Bruce Poliquin called it an "extraordinary machine
of peace and security". The third ship is expected to cost a bit less than $3.7bn.
Well, I understand that these are magnificent "machines of peace and security" but it seems
rather a shame that some of that money couldn't be spent on delivering, say, clean water to residents
of Flint and elsewhere.
US Dems and Republicans both:
Money for ENDLESS WAR - no problem!
Money for housing, health, education, environment - how the hell can we find money for that?
River
Given that the ammo is one million a shell, $3.7 billion is a bargain of sorts.
It isn't a shame that money couldn't be used elsewhere. It's a God Damn outrage.
PlutoniumKun
Well, not quite a million, but $800,000 a shell according to Stars and Stripes magazine. And each
ship is supposed to carry 600 of them. The Zumwelt is basically a very expensive mobile artillery
ship, with no clear military purpose. The Navy have pretty much confirmed this by cancelling the
system (there were originally to be 38 of them). The worst thing is that despite it having no clear
purpose and costing vast sums of money, nobody seems willing to call anyone to account for having
blown billions on an entirely worthless defence system.
"... Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism? Is
it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts. ..."
"... The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of
the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way
to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3) ..."
"... What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy
of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of
state. (5) ..."
"... At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
..."
"... Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard to
the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the United
States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they fail
to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied key
functions in his administration. ..."
"... Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and one
of the architects of the wars in the Middle East. ..."
"... it is more realistic to suppose that as long as the United States has interests in the countries of the South and
the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate to intervene. ..."
"... In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. ..."
"... (Translated from the French by Luciana Bohne) ..."
If the discourse of humanitarianism seduced the North, it has not been so in the South, even less in the Near and Middle
East, which no longer believe in it. The patent humanitarian disasters in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have disillusioned
them.
It is in this sense that Trump's victory is felt as a release, a hope for change, and a rupture from the policy of Clinton,
Bush, and Obama. This policy, in the name of edifying nations ("nation building"), has destroyed some of the oldest nations
and civilizations on earth; in the name of delivering well-being, it has delivered misery; in the name of liberal values,
it has galvanized religious zeal; in the name of democracy and human rights, it has installed autocracies and Sharia law.
Who is to blame?
Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism?
Is it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts.
Can the United States not learn from history, or does it just doom itself to repeat it? Does it not pose itself the
question of how al-Qaeda and Daesh originated? How did they organize themselves? Who trained them? What is their mobilizing
discourse? (1) Why is the US their target? None of this seems to matter to the US: all it cares about is
projecting its own idealism. (2)
The death of thousands of people in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, has it contributed to the well being of these
peoples? Or does the United States perhaps respond to this question in the manner of Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's
Secretary of State, who regretted the death of five-hundred-thousand Iraqi children, deprived of medications by the American
embargo, to conclude with the infamous sentence, "[But] it was worth it "?
Was it worth it that people came to perceive humanitarian intervention as the new crusades? Was it worth it that they
now perceive democracy as a pagan, pre-Islamic model, abjured by their belief? Was it worth it that they now perceive modernity
as deviating believers from the "true" path? Was it worth that they now perceive human rights as human standards as contrary
to the divine will? Was it worth it that people now perceive secularism as atheism whose defenders are punishable by beheading?
Have universal values become a problem rather than a solution? What then to think of making war in their name? Has humanitarian
intervention become punishment rather than help?
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions
of the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are
a way to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign
policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary
of state. (5)
The end of interventionism?
But are Clinton's defeat and Trump's accession to power sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism?
Donald Trump is a nationalist, whose rise has been the result of a coalition of anti-interventionists within the Republican
Party. They professe a foreign policy that Trump has summarized in these words: "We will use military force only in cases
of vital necessity to the national security of the United States. We will put an end to attempts of imposing democracy
and overthrowing regimes abroad, as well as involving ourselves in situations in which we have no right to intervene."
(6)
But drawing conclusions about the foreign policy of the United States from unofficial statements seems simplistic.
At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
One can't predict his policy with regard to the Near and Middle East, since he has not yet even formed his cabinet.
Moreover, presidents in office can change their tune in the course of their tenure. The case of George W. Bush provides
an excellent example.
Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard
to the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the
United States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they
fail to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied
key functions in his administration. (8)
Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and
one of the architects of the wars in the Middle East.
These indices show that nothing seems to have been gained by the South, still less by the Near and Middle East. There
appears to be no guarantee that the situation will improve.
The non-interventionism promised by Trump may not necessarily equate to a policy of isolationism. A non-interventionist
policy does not automatically mean that the United States will stop protecting their interests abroad, strategic or otherwise.
Rather, it could mean that the United States will not intervene abroad except to defend their own interests,
unilaterally -- and perhaps even more aggressively. Such a potential is implied in Trump's promise to increase
the budget for the army and the military-industrial complex. Thus, it is more realistic to suppose that as long as
the United States has interests in the countries of the South and the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate
to intervene.
In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. The political reality is too complex to be reduced to statements
by a presidential candidate campaigning for election, by an elected president, or even by a president in the course of
performing his office.
No one knows what the future will bring.
Marwen Bouassida is a researcher in international law at North African-European relations, University of Carthage,
Tunisia. He regularly contributes to the online magazine Kapitalis.
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump]
plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly
with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence
in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony,
he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is
going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow
through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So
far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House
chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until
toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee.
If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so
tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus
does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out
at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which
is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the
globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon
is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World
Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the
role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and
especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he
is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into
hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is
a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And
John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist,
and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment
of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in
a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post
in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential
administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon.
And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure).
If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration,
I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot
drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly
what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on
repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't
even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But
for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy
and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we
do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever
on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic
ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian,
pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound
asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he
ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully
that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political
hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly,
if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump]
plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly
with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence
in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony,
he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is
going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow
through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So
far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House
chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until
toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee.
If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so
tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus
does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out
at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which
is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the
globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon
is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World
Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the
role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and
especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he
is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into
hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is
a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And
John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist,
and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment
of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in
a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post
in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential
administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon.
And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure).
If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration,
I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot
drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly
what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on
repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't
even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But
for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy
and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we
do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever
on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic
ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian,
pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound
asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he
ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully
that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political
hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly,
if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"Russian security firm says iPhone secretly logs all your phone calls"
By Mike Wehner...Nov 17, 2016...10:36 AM
"A Russian security firm is casting doubt on just how big of an ally Apple is when it comes to
consumer privacy. In a new report, the company alleges that Apple's iCloud retains the entire call
history of every iPhone for as long as four months, making it an easy target for law enforcement
and surveillance.
The firm, Elcomsoft, discovered that as long as a user has iCloud enabled, their call history
is synced and stored. The log includes phone numbers, dates and durations of the calls, and even
missed calls, but the log doesn't stop there; FaceTime call logs, as well as calls from apps that
utilize the "Call History" feature, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, are also stored.
There is also apparently no way to actually disable the feature without disabling iCloud entirely,
as there is no toggle for call syncing.
"We offer call history syncing as a convenience to our customers so that they can return calls
from any of their devices," an Apple spokesperson told The Intercept via email."Device data is encrypted
with a user's passcode, and access to iCloud data including backups requires the user's Apple ID
and password. Apple recommends all customers select strong passwords and use two-factor authentication."
But security from unauthorized eyes isn't what users should be worrying about, according to former
FBI agent and computer forensics expert Robert Osgood. "Absolutely this is an advantage [for law
enforcement]," Osgood told The Intercept. ""Four months is a long time [to retain call logs]. It's
generally 30 or 60 days for telecom providers, because they don't want to keep more [records] than
they absolutely have to."
If the name Elcomsoft sounds familiar, it's because the company's phone-cracking software was
used by many of the hackers involved in 2014's massive celebrity nudes leak. Elcomsoft's "Phone Breaker"
software claims the ability to crack iCloud backups, as well as backup files from Microsoft OneDrive
and BlackBerry."
Michael Flynn, expected to advise Donald Trump on counterproductive killing operations misleading
labeled "national security," is generally depicted as a lawless
torturer and assassin. But, whether for partisan reasons or otherwise, he's a lawless torturer
and assassin who has blurted out some truths he shouldn't be allowed to forget.
"Lt. Gen. Flynn, who since leaving the DIA has become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration,
charges that the White House relies heavily on drone strikes for reasons of expediency, rather
than effectiveness. 'We've tended to say, drop another bomb via a drone and put out a headline
that "we killed Abu Bag of Doughnuts" and it makes us all feel good for 24 hours,' Flynn said.
'And you know what? It doesn't matter. It just made them a martyr, it just created a new reason
to fight us even harder.'"
"When you drop a bomb from a drone you are going to cause more damage than you are going to
cause good. The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict."
Will Flynn then advise Trump to cease dropping bombs from drones? Or will he go ahead and advise
drone murders, knowing full well that this is counterproductive from the point of view of anyone
other than war profiteers?
From the same report:
"Asked . . . if drone strikes tend to create more terrorists than they kill, Flynn . . . replied:
'I don't disagree with that,' adding: 'I think as an overarching strategy, it is a failed strategy.'"
So Trump's almost inevitable string of drone murders will be conducted under the guidance of a
man who knows they produce terrorism rather than reducing it, that they endanger the United States
rather than protecting it. In that assessment, he agrees with the vast majority of Americans who
believe that the wars of the past
15 years have made the United States less safe, which is the view of numerous other
experts as well.
Flynn, too, expanded his comments from drones to the wars as a whole:
"What we have is this continued investment in conflict. The more weapons we give, the more
bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done but I am looking for
the other solutions."
Flynn also, like Trump, accurately cites the criminal 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as critical to
the creation of ISIS:
"Commenting on the rise of ISIL in Iraq, Flynn acknowledged the role played by the US invasion
and occupation of Iraq. 'We definitely put fuel on a fire,' he told Hasan. 'Absolutely there
is no doubt, history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003. Going
into Iraq, definitely it was a strategic mistake."
So there will be no advice to make similar strategic mistakes that are highly profitable to the
weapons industry?
Flynn, despite perhaps being a leading advocate of lawless imprisonment and torture, also admits
to the counterproductive nature of those crimes:
"The former lieutenant general denied any involvement in the litany of abuses carried out by
JSOC interrogators at Camp Nama in Iraq, as revealed by the
New York Times and
Human Rights Watch, but admitted the US prison system in Iraq in the post-war period 'absolutely'
helped radicalise Iraqis who later joined Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its successor organisation,
ISIL."
Recently the International Criminal Court teased the world with the news that it might possible
consider indicting US and other war criminals for their actions in Afghanistan. One might expect
all-out resistance to such a proposal from Trump and his gang of hyper-nationalist war mongers, except
that . . .
"Flynn also called for greater accountability for US soldiers involved in abuses against Iraqi
detainees: 'You know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable
History is not going to look kind on those actions and we will be held, we should be held, accountable
for many, many years to come.'"
Let's not let Flynn forget any of these words. On Syria he has blurted out some similar facts
to those Trump has also articulated:
"Publicly commenting for the first time on a previously-classified August 2012
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo,
which had predicted 'the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality
in Eastern Syria ( ) this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want' and confirmed
that 'the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving
the insurgency in Syria,' the former DIA chief told Head to Head that 'the [Obama] Administration'
didn't 'listen' to these warnings issued by his agency's analysts. 'I don't know if they turned
a blind eye,' he said. 'I think it was a decision, I think it was a willful decision.'"
Let that sink in. Flynn is taking credit for having predicted that backing fighters in Syria could
lead to something like ISIS. And he's suggesting that Obama received this information and chose to
ignore it.
Now, here's a question: What impact will "bombing the hell" out of people have? What good will
"killing their families" do? Spreading nukes around? "Stealing their oil"? Making lists of and banning
Muslims? Is it Flynn's turn to willfully ignore key facts and common sense in order to "advise" against
his better judgment a new president who prefers to be advised to do what he was going to do anyway?
Or can Flynn be convinced to apply lessons learned at huge human cost to similar situations going
forward even with a president of a different party, race, and IQ?
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those
already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead
to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment
I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden
with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to
chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared
intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job.
He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back
from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against
Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states
and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts
to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up
the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run
by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible.
Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet.The
neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly President
was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result
in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants
a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and
buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a
placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran,
and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all
the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign
pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military),
the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim
that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't
attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only
check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a
brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow
the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump
protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color
revolution'.
Trump position is somewhat misrepresented. In his speeches he also points out to dominance of financial
oligarchy and predatory behaviour of corporation outsourcing jobs to countries with cheaper labour.
Notable quotes:
"... A cult of "action for action's sake ..."
"... Now, let's look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak,
that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become "great again." "We don't have victories anymore,"
he said in his
announcement
speech . "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They
kill us. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."
..."
One of the most-read takes on fascism comes from Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco
in an essay for the New York Review of Bookstitled "
Ur-Fascism ."
Eco emphasizes the extent to which fascism is ad hoc and opportunistic. It's "philosophically out
of joint," he writes, with features that "cannot be organized into a system" since "many of them
contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanacticism."
With that said, it is true that there are fascist movements, and it's also true that when you strip
their cultural clothing-the German paganism in Nazism, for example-there are common properties. Not
every fascist movement shows all of them, but-Eco writes-"it is enough that one of them be present
to allow fascism to coagulate around it." Eco identifies 14, but for this column, I want to focus
on seven. They are: A cult of "action for action's sake ," where "thinking is a form of
emasculation"; an intolerance of "analytical criticism," where disagreement is condemned; a profound
"fear of difference," where leaders appeal against "intruders"; appeals to individual and social
frustration and specifically a "frustrated middle class" suffering from "feelings of political humiliation
and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups"; a nationalist identity set against internal
and external enemies (an "obsession with a plot"); a feeling of humiliation by the "ostentatious
wealth and force of their enemies"; a "popular elitism" where "every citizen belongs to the best
people of the world" and underscored by contempt for the weak; and a celebration of aggressive (and
often violent) masculinity.
... ... ...
Now, let's look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak,
that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become "great again." "We don't have victories anymore,"
he said in his
announcement
speech . "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They
kill us. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."
He continued:
"The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems," and "Our enemies are getting
stronger and stronger by the way, and we as a country are getting weaker." This includes unauthorized
immigrants, and now refugees, whom he attacks as a menace to ordinary Americans. The former, according
to Trump, take jobs and threaten American safety-"They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime.
They're rapists."-while the latter are a "Trojan horse." But Trump promises action. He will cut new
deals and make foreign competitors subordinate. He will deport immigrants and build a wall on the
border, financed by Mexico. He will bring "
spectacular " economic growth. And Trump isn't an ideologue; he's an opportunist who borrows
freely from both parties.
... ... ...
Alone and disconnected, this rhetoric isn't necessarily fascist... In the Europe of the 1920s and
'30s, fascist parties organized armed gangs to intimidate political opponents. Despite assaults at
Trump events, that still seems unlikely....
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." ..."
