In
footage published on Monday, the conservative media watchdog shared around eight minutes of
an interview with a man identified as Ritesh Lakhkar, said to be a technical program manager at
Google's Cloud service, who accused the company of putting its thumb on the digital scales for
the Democrats.
"The wind is blowing toward Democrats, because GOP equals Trump and Trump equals GOP.
Everybody hates it, even though GOP may have good traits, no one wants to acknowledge them
right now," Lakhkar said when asked whether Google favors either political party.
Project Veritas @Project_Veritas BREAKING:
@Google Program Manager Confirms Election Interference In Favor of
@JoeBiden Google search "skewed by owners and drivers of the algorithm" "Plain and simple
trying to play god"
While Lakhar – whose LinkedIn page states he's worked at Google since
May 2018 – did not specify exactly how the company gives an edge to certain political
viewpoints, he suggested the platform is selling favorable coverage to the highest bidder.
"It's skewed by the owners or the drivers of the algorithm. Like, if I say 'Hey Google,
here's another two billion dollars, feed this data set of whenever Joe Biden is searched,
you'll get these results,'" he went on, blasting Big Tech firms for "playing god and
taking away freedom of speech on both sides."
Lakhkar complained of a suffocating, overly-political atmosphere at Google, where he said
"your opinion matters more than your work," recalling a dramatic response to Donald
Trump's 2016 election win at the company. Several media reports have documented employees'
appalled reactions to the victory, including
internal company footage of a meeting soon after the election, where co-founder Sergey Brin
is heard comparing Trump's win to the rise of fascism in Europe.
"When Trump won the first time, people were crying in the corridors of Google. There were
protests, there were marches. There were like, I guess, group therapy sessions for employees
organized by HR," he said.
I guess that's one of the reasons I feel suffocated [at Google]. Because on one side
you have this unprofessional attitude, and on the other side you have this ultra-leftist
attitude. Your entire existence is questioned.
PetarGolubovicRomanov 19 hours ago Nothing unexpected there - it always seemed a
dodgy thing to me Google is 'the greatest' place to work. It must be to 'keep the lights on'
with all their servers, but it is a company with what, two products - search and maps - and
both have not changed almost at since they were created over a decade ago. Reply 5 2 Head like
a rock PetarGolubovicRomanov 18 hours ago but it is run by the CIA so what do you expect?
Mickey Mic 16 hours ago For the life on me; I just can't understand, why so many have faith in
a system that has enormous disdain for them. Do the people really need the news to make the
announcement ? Sadly, that is the case, because most can't think for themselves anymore, they
rely on the narrative that everything is on a honest base system still !? The fact checkers
don't check the facts, there is no such thing as a private large corporation with out ties to
the intelligence apparatus. Big Company's are used by the shadow Gov. to gain the kind of
wealth they need to stage their secrete plans of the NWO. People like Bill Gates, Fauci,
only spoken in generalities, because they where only groomed to make the wealth for the
advancements of the puppet masters agenda's. How many conspiracies must come true for one to
think that the word "conspiracy" is only used to make others think, the next person must be
crazy to think the way he does ? What the world needs is more common sense, and less dependence
on the glow boxes in front of them. True wisdom, is only for the few that don't think the world
is what they was conditioned to believe in. Ethnocentric pride creates a comfort zone; which is
hard to break, it gets internalized though generations just like how holidays are created.
Sadly, most wouldn't remember by next week; because the their brain is constantly getting
flooded by squeals of events. And to top it all we have fake news to underline the long term
memory bank system. Salman M Salman 14 hours ago Big tech companies represent the pillars of
globalism which by definition supports only their people. The world after the elections will
see their take over or demise.
Head like a rock TheLeftyHater 18 hours ago but those are both CIA creations, is that 'lefty'?
Guns Blazing 14 hours ago Very old news, but worthy of repeating. Just watch that exchange in
Congress between Senator Cruz and Dr. Robert Epstein. Google swaying millions of votes in favor
of Democrats. Also top Clinton campaign donor in 2016 was Alphabet, the parent company of
Google.
"It went on to target broadcasters, a ski resort, Olympic officials and sponsors of the
games in 2018. The GRU deployed data-deletion malware against the Winter Games IT systems and
targeted devices across the Republic of Korea using VPNFilter."
The Russian hackers' alleged attempt to cover their tracks included using certain
snippets of code and techniques to try to confuse investigators into think they were from
China and North Korea.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of GCHQ, believe Russia's aim was to
sabotage the running of the games, the Foreign Office said .
####
So as usual, nothing but the Foreign Orifice's word and they wouldn't make stuff up,
especially on order when the government is under heavy domestic pressure? No. Never.
I wonder if Tokyo has been asked for comment or given 'evidence?' Again, absence of
information gives it away.
Other outlets are putting out this FO press release with little comment, as usual.
"The Russian hackers' alleged attempt to cover their tracks included using certain
snippets of code and techniques to try to confuse investigators into think they were from
China and North Korea."
Just by the most marvelous coincidence, other bogus source codes in the Marble Framework
tickle trunk are those of China, North Korea and Iran.
Well, well – hello, Chrystia Freeland, I'd like you to meet Andrzej Duda, President
of Poland. What, your Grampy was a Nazi collaborator, too?? You're kidding me – why,
we're like brother and sister!!
"Polish President Andrzej Duda pursues a Russophobic policy and actively supports
Ukrainian nationalists, because one of his ancestors was a Nazi collaborator who served the
Nazi invaders and took part in the massacres on the territory of Belarus.
Ukrainian publicist Miroslava Berdnik, previously persecuted by the SBU, reported this
in her Telegram channel, the correspondent of PolitNavigator reports."
The CIA's domestic propaganda campaign has been massively successful over the past four
years. There are tens of millions who literally believe that Trump is a Russian agent. They
believe that everyone should wear masks on their faces, forever, and they believe there are
Nazis everywhere. They believe there were no riots this summer, that thousands of blacks are
murdered every year by police, and that Christians are trying to establish a theocracy in the
US. They believe that little children should be able to have their genitals surgically
removed. They believe that the 2016 election was stolen, but that the one coming up cannot
be, even if ballots without postmarks show up on trucks ten days after November 3rd.
These are just a few of their insane beliefs that have been put into their heads through
social media and television.
Trump never had any power to stop this. Both the Democrats and Republicans are completely
in thrall to the intelligence and police agencies. It's all an act. There's no democracy left
in this country and there is no chance of reforming this system, ever. It has to collapse or
be seized and turned mercilessly against those who are perpetrating this horror show.
Dragonlord , 59 minutes ago
FBI and CIA betraying the country is no longer surprising, what surprising is how fast
tech giants jump onto the scum train even though some only exist less than 20 years. This
reveal why quickly the globalists can turn anyone into scumbags.
Finally, depths of Biden corruption proves our hypothesis that the so called ruling class
like Nancy, Obama, Clinton, etc, are not at the top echelon, there is a group or class of
people higher than them. They are probably the overlord class of the globalists.
philmannwright , 56 minutes ago
The FBI has always been a tool. Recall J Edgar.
Big Tech has enabled all of this. NSA/Data collection - Big brother goodbye freedom. seems
like a natural progression.
Gold Pedant , 1 hour ago
Hahaha, William Colby is the third man in the newspaper clipping above, but he isn't even
mentioned. Well after he retired from the CIA, he was assassinated to send a message. Look up
"WHO MURDERED THE CIA CHIEF?" It's a good quick read.
"Colby was fired on Nov. 2, 1975, as head of the CIA after being accused of talking too
much. He was said to have been too candid in testimony to congressional investigators; he had
long ago aroused the ire of the agency's old guard for trying to channel more effort into the
gathering, evaluation and analysis of information and less into covert operation."
And Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, Weissman, Sally Yates, Bruce And Nellie Ord, James Baker,
Comey, Rosenstein, the entire brench of the FISA Court, and about 500 Senators and
Congressmen out of 535. It's a start.
Eastern Whale , 1 hour ago
"National Security" in the US is the get out of free card for politicians and the rich
with clout. paedophile, corruption, murder you name it.
PigmanExecutioner , 23 minutes ago
Anytime I hear "Russia" or "Democracy" these days, I have to ponder for the fate of
mankind. Imagine being that infantile in one's worldview and devoid of the ability to
critically analyze information? "National Security" is a made up term to excuse criminal
actions that somehow leaked out through unauthorized channels.
philmannwright , 1 hour ago
So, we have all been educated on how when the Democrats accuse, they are most likely
projecting upon their target their own behavior. Over and over again we see the blatant and
obvious hypocrisy in almost everything we hear from the likes of Hillary, Pelosi, Schumer,
Shiff, Obama, and on and on.
It stands to reason then, that what is going on now is no different and involves all of
them, including the left wing media - they are actually and in reality agents of the
Kremlin/China/the communist world order, aligned in agenda, and working toward tipping the
largest Domino, and I believe they have the U.S. teetering on the ropes.
It seems like it's either 1) the left is a national security risk or 2) Trumpers, welcome
to reeducation camp.
kudocast , 46 minutes ago
Yes we agree that JFK and MLK were assassinated by a group including the CIA, NSA, FBI,
Mafia, Nixon, LBJ, Bush and more.
But to suggest that Trump is in a similar situation as JFK and MLK, and on their moral,
intellectual, and visionary level is ludicrous.
Trump's a criminal, looting, lying, incompetent idiot. Why would the CIA, NSA, FBI, and
others waste their time trying to destroy Trump? Fat Orange Man accomplishes that all by
himself, no assistance required.
PigmanExecutioner , 31 minutes ago
Imagine thinking that the US was any different than the Soviet Union all these decades?
They just hid the tyranny better due to all the material distractions.
KGB, CIA.............All the same demons.
Automatic Choke , 23 minutes ago
my aha moment came when i started subscribing to John Williams "Shadow Govt Statistics" to
track the markets.....way back nearly 20 years ago. it quickly became clear that our trusted
government financial agencies were no more trustworthy than the old soviet "5 year plans"
that we all (in the US) used to laugh at. a mirror is a painful thing.
turkey george palmer , 54 minutes ago
empire looks pretty shaky. suppose a lot will go wrong. at least we have bill and melinda
talking about basic human rights are a threat to the population and only those who are
billionaires can decide what goes in your body. ok sure.
they say there will be a trade your debt for ubi. give up personal property. live where
and how by state dictate. unplanned breeding a crime. isolation camps for non compliance.
wonder where all the property will end up. I know there's only one type of person they all
say are the bad ones just one color. mein
A grand jury in Pennsylvania indicted the six men for "conspiracy, computer hacking,
wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false registration of a domain name," the DOJ
announced on Monday, describing them as officers in Unit 74455 of the Russian Main
Intelligence Directorate, or GRU.
The indictment identifies them as Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich
Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich
Ochichenko and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin.
According to the charges, they used malware like KillDisk, Industroyer, NotPetya and
Olympic Destroyer to attack everything from networks in Ukraine and Georgia to the Olympics
held in PyeongChang two years ago – in which Russian athletes were not allowed to
participate under their national flag, due to doping allegations made by a disgruntled
doctor.
The six are also accused of undermining "efforts to hold Russia accountable for its use
of a weapons-grade nerve agent, Novichok, on foreign soil" – referring to the March
2018 claims by the British government that Russia "highly likely" used the toxin
against a former spy and his daughter, an accusation Moscow repeatedly denied.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers has
claimed that "No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously or
irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical
advantages and to satisfy fits of spite."
Monday's indictment is hardly a surprise, considering that NATO and US officials have
blamed the 2017 NotPetya outbreak on Moscow for years, even though the malware struck
numerous Russian companies – from the central bank to the oil giant Rosneft and
metal-maker Evraz – as well.
The October 2019 Georgia attack was "in line with Russian tactics,"declared
CrowdStrike, the same security company that was tasked with dealing with the 2016
"hack" of the Democratic National Committee. CrowdStrike's president had secretly
admitted to Congress that they had no actual evidence of the hack itself.
The indictment also accuses the "GRU officers" of trying to breach the Organisation
for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The international body faced a scandal after
whistleblowers revealed that a report blaming chemical attacks in Syria on the country's
government omitted details that did not fall in line with the narrative pushed by the US and
the UK.
In announcing the indictment, the DOJ thanked the authorities in Ukraine, Georgia, New
Zealand, South Korea, and UK "intelligence services" – as well as Google,
Facebook and Twitter – for "significant cooperation and assistance" with the
investigation.
The same "GRU unit" and Kovalev specifically were previously indicted by Special
Counsel Robert Mueller for alleged "meddling" in 2016 US elections. As with Mueller's
indictments, Monday's charges have largely symbolic value; the accused are not likely to ever
see the inside of a US courtroom. The only indictment that was actually contested in court
– against the so-called IRA troll farm – was dropped by the DOJ in
March, due to lack of evidence.
Russia's military intelligence has not gone by the name of GRU since 2010.
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"Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it
treason."
– Sir John Harrington.
As Shakespeare would state in his play Hamlet , " Something is rotten in the state of
Denmark ," like a fish that rots from head to tail, so do corrupt government systems rot from
top to bottom.
This is a reference to the ruling system of Denmark and not just the foul murder that King
Claudius has committed against his brother, Hamlet's father. This is showcased in the play by
reference to the economy of Denmark being in a state of shambles and that the Danish people are
ready to revolt since they are on the verge of starving. King Claudius has only been king for a
couple of months, and thus this state of affairs, though he inflames, did not originate with
him.
Thus, during our time of great upheaval we should ask ourselves; what constitutes the
persisting "ruling system," of the United States, and where do the injustices in its state of
affairs truly originate from?
The tragedy of Hamlet does not just lie in the action (or lack of action) of one man, but
rather, it is contained in the choices and actions of all its main characters. Each character
fails to see the longer term consequences of their own actions, which leads not only to their
ruin but towards the ultimate collapse of Denmark. The characters are so caught up in their
antagonism against one another that they fail to foresee that their very own destruction is
intertwined with the other.
This is a reflection of a failing system.
A system that, though it believes itself to be fighting tooth and nail for its very
survival, is only digging a deeper grave. A system that is incapable of generating any real
solutions to the problems it faces.
The only way out of this is to address that very fact. The most important issue that will
decide the fate of the country is what sort of changes are going to occur in the political and
intelligence apparatus, such that a continuation of this tyrannical treason is finally stopped
in its tracks and unable to sow further discord and chaos.
When the Matter of "Truth"
Becomes a Threat to "National Security"
When the matter of truth is depicted as a possible threat to those that govern a country,
you no longer have a democratic state. True, not everything can be disclosed to the public in
real time, but we are sitting on a mountain of classified intelligence material that goes back
more than 60 years.
How much time needs to elapse before the American people have the right to know the truth
behind what their government agencies have been doing within their own country and abroad in
the name of the "free" world?
From this recognition, the whole matter of declassifying material around the Russigate
scandal in real time , and not highly redacted 50 years from now, is essential to addressing
this festering putrefaction that has been bubbling over since the
heinous assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22nd, 1963 and to which we are still
waiting for full disclosure of classified papers 57 years later.
If the American people really want to finally see who is standing behind that curtain in Oz,
now is the time .
These intelligence bureaus need to be reviewed for what kind of method and standard they are
upholding in collecting their "intelligence," that has supposedly justified the Mueller
investigation and the never-ending Flynn investigation which have provided zero conclusive
evidence to back up their allegations and which have massively infringed on the elected
government's ability to make the changes that they had committed to the American people.
Just like the Iraq and Libya war that was based off of cooked British intelligence (refer
here
and here ),
Russiagate appears to have also had its impetus from our friends over at MI6 as well. It is no
surprise that Sir Richard Dearlove, who was then MI6 chief (1999-2004) and who
oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from
Niger to build a nuclear weapon, is the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the
Christopher Steele dossier as something "credible" to American intelligence.
In other words, the same man who is largely responsible for encouraging the illegal invasion
of Iraq, which set off the never-ending wars on "terror," that was justified with cooked
British intelligence is also responsible for encouraging the Russian spook witch-hunt that has
been occurring within the U.S. for the last four years over more cooked British intelligence,
and the FBI and CIA are knowingly complicit in this.
Neither the American people, nor the world as a whole, can afford to suffer any more of the
so-called "mistaken" intelligence bumblings. It is time that these intelligence bureaus are
held accountable for at best criminal negligence, at worst, treason against their own
country.
When Great Figures of Hope Are Targeted as Threats to "National Security"
The Family Jewels
report , which was an investigation conducted by the CIA to investigate itself , was
spurred by the Watergate Scandal and the CIA's unconstitutional role in the whole affair. This
investigation by the CIA reviewed its own conduct from the 1950s to mid-1970s.
The Family Jewels report was only partially declassified in June 25, 2007 (30
years later). Along with the release of the redacted report included a six-page summary with
the following introduction:
" The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of
illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots , and human experimentation
led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s. " [emphasis added]
Despite this acknowledged violation of its charter for 25 years, which is pretty much since
its inception, the details of this information were kept classified for 30 years from not just
the public but major governmental bodies and it was left to the agency itself to judge how best
to "reform" its ways.
On Dec. 22, 1974, The
New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh exposing illegal operations conducted
by the CIA, dubbed the "family jewels". This included, covert action programs involving
assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments,
which were reported for the first time . In addition, the article discussed efforts by
intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of U.S. citizens.
Largely as a reaction to Hersh's findings, the creation of the Church Committee was approved
on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.
The Church Committee also published an interim
report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated
alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, Rafael
Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of
Chile and Fidel Castro of Cuba. President Ford attempted to withhold the report from the
public, but failed and reluctantly issued Executive
Order 11905 after pressure from the public and the Church Committee.
Executive Order 11905 is a United States Presidential Executive Order signed on February 18,
1976, by a very reluctant President Ford in an attempt to reform the United States Intelligence
Community, improve oversight on foreign intelligence activities, and ban political
assassination.
The attempt is now regarded as a failure and was largely undone by President Reagan who
issued Executive
Order 12333 , which extended the powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence agencies
and directed leaders of the U.S. federal agencies to co-operate fully with the CIA, which was
the original arrangement that CIA have full authority over clandestine operations (for more
information on this refer to my papers
here and
here ).
In addition, the Church Committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only
the one on Chile was released, titled " Covert Action in
Chile: 1963–1973 ". The rest were kept secret at the CIA's request.
Among the most shocking revelation of the Church Committee was the discovery of Operation
SHAMROCK , in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the
NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into
the NSA Watch List. It was found out during the committee investigations that Senator Frank
Church, who was overseeing the committee, was among the prominent
names under surveillance on this NSA Watch List.
In 1975, the Church Committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this
operation, against the objections of President Ford's administration (refer here and
here for more information).
The Church Committee's reports constitute the most extensive review of intelligence
activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over
50,000 pages were declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records
Collection Act of 1992.
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22nd, 1963. Two days before his
assassination a hate-Kennedy handbill (see picture) was circulated in Dallas accusing the
president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.
On March 1st, 1967 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged Clay Shaw
with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of David Ferrie and others.
After a little over a one month long trial, Shaw was found not guilty on March 1st, 1969.
David Ferrie, a controller of Lee Harvey Oswald, was going to be a key witness and would
have provided the "smoking gun" evidence linking himself to Clay Shaw, was likely murdered on
Feb. 22nd, 1967, less than a week after news of Garrison's investigation broke in the
media.
According to Garrison's team findings, there was reason to believe that the CIA was involved
in the orchestrations of President Kennedy's assassination but access to classified material
(which was nearly everything concerning the case) was necessary to continue such an
investigation.
Though Garrison's team lacked direct evidence, they were able to collect an immense amount
of circumstantial evidence, which should have given the justification for access to classified
material for further investigation. Instead the case was thrown out of court prematurely and is
now treated as if it were a circus. [Refer to Garrison's book for further details and Oliver
Stone's excellently researched movie JFK ]
To date, it is the only trial to be brought forward concerning the assassination of
President Kennedy.
The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created in 1994 by the Congress enacted
President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which mandated that all
assassination-related material be housed in a single collection within the National Archives
and Records Administration. In July 1998, a staff report
released by the ARRB emphasized shortcomings in the original autopsy.
The
ARRB wrote , "One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been
the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that
has surrounded the records that do exist." [emphasis added]
" Asked about the lunchroom episode [where he was overheard stating his notes of the
autopsy went missing] in a May 1996 deposition, Finck said he did not remember it. He was
also vague about how many notes he took during the autopsy but confirmed that "after the
autopsy I also wrote notes" and that he turned over whatever notes he had to the chief
autopsy physician, James J. Humes.
It has long been known that Humes destroyed some original autopsy papers in a fireplace at
his home on Nov. 24, 1963. He told the Warren Commission that what he burned was an original
draft of his autopsy report. Under persistent questioning at a February 1996 deposition by
the Review Board, Humes said he destroyed the draft and his "original notes."
Shown official autopsy photographs of Kennedy from the National Archives, [Saundra K.]
Spencer [who worked in "the White House lab"] said they were not the ones she helped process
and were printed on different paper. She said "there was no blood or opening cavities" and
the wounds were much smaller in the pictures [than what she had] worked on
John T. Stringer, who said he was the only one to take photos during the autopsy itself,
said some of those were missing as well. He said that pictures he took of Kennedy's brain at
a "supplementary autopsy" were different from the official set that was shown to him. "
[emphasis added]
This not only shows that evidence tampering did indeed occur, as even the Warren Commission
acknowledges, but this puts into question the reliability of the entire assassination record of
John F. Kennedy and to what degree evidence tampering and forgery have occurred in these
records.
We would also do well to remember the numerous crimes that the FBI and CIA have been guilty
of committing upon the American people such as during the period of McCarthyism. That the FBI's
COINTELPRO has been implicated in covert operations against members of the civil rights
movement, including Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s. That FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
made no secret of his hostility towards Dr. King and his ludicrous belief that King was
influenced by communists, despite having no evidence to that effect.
King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 and the civil rights movement took a major
blow.
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In November 1975, as the Church Committee was completing its investigation, the Department
of Justice formed a Task Force to examine the FBI's program of harassment directed at Dr. King,
including the FBI's security investigations of him, his assassination and the FBI conducted
criminal investigation that followed. One aspect of the Task force study was to determine
"whether any action taken in relation to Dr. King by the FBI before the assassination had, or
might have had, an effect, direct or indirect, on that event."
In its report
, the Task Force criticized the FBI not for the opening, but for the protracted continuation
of, its security investigation of Dr. King:
" We think the security investigation which included both physical and technical
surveillance, should have been terminated in 1963. That it was intensified and augmented by a
COINTELPRO type campaign against Dr. King was unwarranted; the COINTELPRO type campaign,
moreover, was ultra vires and very probably felonious. "
In 1999, King Family
v. Jowers civil suit in Memphis, Tennessee occurred, the full transcript of the trial can
be found here
. The jury found that Lloyd Jowers and unnamed others, including those in high ranking
positions within government agencies, participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King.
During the four week trial, it was pointed out that the rifle allegedly used to assassinate
King did not have a scope that was sighted, which meant you could not have hit the broad side
of a barn with that rifle, thus it could not have been the murder weapon .
This was only remarked on over 30 years after King was murdered and showed the level of
incompetence, or more likely, evidence tampering that was committed from previous
investigations conducted by the FBI.
The case of JFK and MLK are among the highest profile assassination cases in American
history, and it has been shown in both cases that evidence tampering has indeed occurred,
despite being in the center of the public eye. What are we then to expect as the standard of
investigation for all the other cases of malfeasance? What expectation can we have that justice
is ever upheld?
With a history of such blatant misconduct, it is clear that the present demand to declassify
the Russiagate papers now, and not 50 years later, needs to occur if we are to address the
level of criminality that is going on behind the scenes and which will determine the fate of
the country.
The American People Deserve to Know
Today we see the continuation of the over seven decades' long ruse, the targeting of
individuals as Russian agents without any basis, in order to remove them from the political
arena. The present effort to declassify the Russiagate papers and exonerate Michael Flynn, so
that he may freely speak of the intelligence he knows, is not a threat to national security, it
is a threat to those who have committed treason against their country .
On Oct. 6th, 2020, President Trump ordered the declassification of the Russia Probe
documents along with the classified documents on the findings concerning the Hillary Clinton
emails. The release of these documents threatens to expose the entrapment of the Trump campaign
by the Clinton campaign with help of the U.S. intelligence agencies.
The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released some of these documents
recently, including former CIA Director John Brennan's handwritten notes for a meeting with former
President Obama, the notes revealing that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to "vilify Donald
Trump by stirring up scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."
Trey Gowdy, who was Chair of the House Oversight Committee from June 13th, 2017 – Jan.
3rd, 2019, has stated in
an interview on Oct. 7th, 2020 that he has never seen these documents. Devin Nunes, who was
Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from Jan. 3rd, 2015 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has also
said in a recent interview that he has never seen these documents.
And yet, both the FBI and CIA were aware and had access to these documents and sat on them
for four years, withholding their release from several government-led investigations that were
looking into the Russiagate scandal and who were requesting relevant material that was in the
possession of both intelligence bureaus. Do these intelligence bureaus sound like they are
working for the "national security" of the American people?
The truth must finally be brought to light, or the country will rot from its head to
tail.
Problem here is when you suggest that killing a president is justified you eliminate any
possibility of democracy / republic whatever you name it. You are installing being ruled at
the wrong end of a barrel.
Miffed Microbiologist , 27 minutes ago
I have to agree with you. My mother was an investigative reporter who worked for Pierre
Salinger. She told me some pretty interesting things that were going on in the White House
during Camelot which the press shielded from the public. However to be fair, I honestly think
this was nothing unusual. Truth and politics rarely go together.
Miffed
Duke6 , 13 minutes ago
LOL. Compared to the globalist animals running the country after his death , the above is
poor at attempt at deflection.
If JFK flopped it was because he was taken out. He was also too promiscuous for his own
good. He really pissed some people off, which is the reason behind the gruesome public
assassination.
USGrant , 3 minutes ago
"Some people" was the MIC. His reluctance to fight a war in Vietnam and the firing of
Allen Dulles in the spring of 1962 set the stage. Johnson OKed it and the first full day as
president had a meeting with the military chiefs to ramp up the war. The red seal ones and
fives issued directly by the Treasury with no debt backing may have gotten the old money in
Europe involved as well.
I agree. I roll my eyes every time. It goes to show how deeply embedded the false
narrative of NSDAP is. Many otherwise bright writers use this same example. Use the
Bolshevism of the USSR instead.
Invest time in viewing 'The Greatest Story NEVER Told' or 'EUROPA: The Last Battle.'
They're both long, but comprehensive.
Bolshevism may not a good comparison to the common perception of Nazism as Hitler won over
the loyalty of much of the German citizenry where Bolshevism was terror handed down to the
population by the tyrannical minority at the top.
And that's by design. False flags like Scripal Novichok saga are just a smoke screen over UK
problems, the ciursi of neoliberalism in the country, delegitimization of neoliberal elites and
its subservience to the USA global neoliberal empire, which wants to devour Russia like it
plundered the USSR in the past.
But why outgoing MI6 chief decided to tell us the truth? This is not in the traditions of the
agency.
After years of focusing on combating terrorism, US Special Forces are preparing to turn
their attention to the possibility of future conflict with adversaries Russia and China. The
outgoing head of MI6, the UK's clandestine intelligence service, says that the perceived threat
posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's
domestic problems. Meanwhile, his replacement insists that the threat posed by Russia and China
is real and is growing in complexity. Rick Sanchez explains. Then former US diplomat Jim Jatras
and "Going Underground" host Afshin Rattansi share their insights.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting for a for a final day of deliberations before the
confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's controversial pick for the US
Supreme Court. RT America's Faran Fronczak reports. RT America's Trinity Chavez reports on the
skyrocketing poverty across the US as coronavirus relief funds dry up and the White House
stalls on additional stimulus. RT America's John Huddy reports on the backlash against Facebook
and Twitter for their suppression of an incendiary new report about Democratic nominee Joe
Biden's son Hunter Biden and his foreign entanglements.
Fight it all you want, but there's nothing you can do. "The emails are Russian" is going to
be the official dominant narrative in mainstream political discourse, and there's nothing you
can do to stop it. Resistance is futile.
Like the Russian hacking narrative, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, the Russian
bounties in Afghanistan narrative, and any other evidence-free framing of events that
simultaneously advances pre-planned cold war agendas, is politically convenient for the
Democratic party and generates clicks and ratings, the narrative that the New York Post
publication of Hunter Biden's emails is a Russian operation is going to be hammered and
hammered and hammered until it becomes the mainstream consensus. This will happen regardless of
facts and evidence, up to and including rock solid evidence that Hunter Biden's emails were not
published as a result of a Russian operation.
This is happening. It's following the same formula all the other fact-free Russia hysteria
narratives have followed. The same media tour by pundits and political operatives saying with
no evidence but very assertive voices that Russia is most certainly behind this occurrence and
we should all be very upset about it.
"To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work," Russiagate founder
and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is heard assuring CNN's audience .
"Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading
what is very likely Russian propaganda," begins and eight-part thread by Democratic Senator
Chris Murphy, who claims the emails are "Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda."
"It's not really surprising at all, this was always the play, but still kind of
head-spinning to watch all the players from 2016 run exactly the same hack-leak-smear op in
2020. Even with everyone knowing exactly what's happening this time," tweets MSNBC's Chris
Hayes.
"How are you all circling the wagons instead of being embarrassed for peddling Russian ops
18 days before the election. It's not enough that you all haven't learned from your atrocious
handling of 2016 -- you are doubling down," Democratic Party think tanker Neera Tanden
tweeted in admonishment of
journalists who dare to report on or ask questions about the emails.
Virtually the entirety of the Democratic Party-aligned political/media class has streamlined
this narrative of Russian influence into the American consciousness with very little inertia,
despite the fact that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden has disputed the authenticity of the emails
and despite a complete absence of evidence for Russian involvement in their publication.
This is surely the first time, at least in recent memory, that we have ever seen such a
broad consensus within the mass media that it is the civic duty of news reporters to try and
influence the outcome of a presidential general election by withholding negative news coverage
for one candidate. There was a lot of fascinated hatred for Trump in 2016, but people still
reported on Hillary Clinton's various scandals and didn't attack one another for doing so. In
2020 that has changed, and mainstream news reporters have now largely coalesced along the
doctrine that they must avoid any reporting which might be detrimental to the Biden
campaign.
"Dem Party hacks (and many of their media allies) genuinely believe it's immoral to report
on or even discuss stories that reflect poorly on Biden. In reality, it's the responsibility of
journalists to ignore their vapid whining and ask about newsworthy stories, even about Biden,"
tweeted The Intercept 's Glenn
Greenwald recently.
"You don't even have to think the Hunter Biden materials constitute some kind of
earth-shattering story to be absolutely repulsed at the authoritarian propaganda offensive
being waged to discredit them -- primarily by journalists who behave like compliant little
trained robots ," tweeted journalist Michael
Tracey.
Last month The Spectator 's Stephen L Miller described how the consensus
formed among the mainstream press since Clinton's 2016 loss that it is their moral duty to
be uncritical of Trump's opponent.
"For almost four years now, journalists have shamed their colleagues and themselves over
what I will call the 'but her emails' dilemma," Miller writes. "Those who reported dutifully on
the ill-timed federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server and spillage of
classified information have been cast out and shunted away from the journalist cool kids'
table. Focusing so much on what was, at the time, a considerable scandal, has been written off
by many in the media as a blunder. They believe their friends and colleagues helped put Trump
in the White House by focusing on a nothing-burger of a Clinton scandal when they should have
been highlighting Trump's foibles. It's an error no journalist wants to repeat."
So "the emails are Russian" narrative serves the interests of political convenience,
partisan media ratings, and the national security state's pre-planned agenda to continue
escalating against Russia as part of its
slow motion third world war against nations which refuse to bow to US dictates, and you've
got essentially no critical mainstream news coverage putting the brakes on any of it. This
means this narrative is going to become mainstream orthodoxy and treated as an established
fact, despite the fact that there is no actual, tangible evidence for it.
Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the mainstream
press would crucify any journalist who so much as tweeted about it. Very
little journalism is going into vetting and challenging him, and a great deal of the energy
that would normally be doing so is going into ensuring that he slides right into the White
House.
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If the mainstream news really existed to tell you the truth about what's going on, everyone
would know about every questionable decision that Joe Biden has ever made, Russiagate would
never have happened, we'd all be acutely aware of the fact that powerful forces are pushing us
into increasingly aggressive confrontations with two nuclear-armed nations, and Trump would be
grilled about
Yemen in every press conference.
But the mainstream news does not exist to tell you the truth about the world. The mainstream
news exists to advance the interests of its wealthy owners and the status quo upon which they
have built their kingdoms. That's why it's
so very, very important that we find ways to break away from it and share information with
each other that isn't tainted by corrupt and powerful interests.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see
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I've written) in any way they like free of charge.
Esper's speech demonstrates a confluence of policies, ideas, and funds that permeate
through the system, and are by no means unique to a single service, think tank, or
contractor.
First, Esper consistently situated his future expansion plans in a need to adapt to "an
era of great power competition." CNAS is one of the think tanks leading the charge in
highlighting the threat from Beijing.
They also received at least $8,946,000 from 2014-2019 from the U.S. government and
defense contractors, including over $7 million from defense contractors like Northrop
Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and Boeing who would stand
to make billions if the 500-ship fleet were enacted.
It's all about the money. Foreign and domestic policy is always all about the money,
either directly or indirectly. Of course, the ultimate goal is power - or more precisely, the
ultimate goal is relief of the fear of death, which drives every single human's every action,
and only power can do that, and in this world only money can give you power (or so the
chimpanzees believe.)
I'll join the chorus calling New York Times columnist Bret Stephens "brave" for last week's
takedown of his
newspaper's "1619 Project." But I'd also like to ask him: What took you so long?
The 100-page collection of 18 articles that infamously claimed America's "true founding"
date is not 1776, but 1619 – the year enslaved Africans were first brought to these
shores – has received withering criticism since it was published
in August 2019 .
Ten months ago some of the nation's leading historians – including Pulitzer
Prize winners Gordon Wood and James McPherson –
wrote the Times to challenge a wide array of its claims, which the newspaper and its
partner, The Pulitzer Center, were disseminating free of charge
in the nation's classrooms . The historians were especially troubled by its assertion that
the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery and the project's near total erasure of
the contributions of whites to dismantling slavery and working for freedom. Their letter
described these failings as "a displacement of historical understanding by ideology."
Their criticisms were
echoed and extended by others including
Leslie M. Harris, an African American professor of history at Northwestern University, who said
she "vigorously disputed" some central claims of the project when she helped fact-check it
before publication. "Despite my advice," she
wrote in Politico seven months ago , "the Times published the incorrect statement about the
American Revolution anyway."
Stephens' sharply written broadside breaks no new ground. What it does provide is a skillful
synthesis and endorsement of these voluminous critiques in the Times – by a Timesman.
That is significant. But his decision to write the essay so long after the project's mistruths
have been laid bare – and months after it was honored with a George Polk Award and a
Pulitzer Prize – suggests more rot at the Gray Lady and in American journalism.
As Stephens (pictured) himself suggests, the precipitating event was Phillip W. Magness'
Sept. 19 article in
Quillette , which revealed that the Times has "taken to quietly altering the published text
of the project itself after one of its claims came under intense criticism." Most significant,
the paper had scrubbed the claim that 1619 was "our true founding" from the online text without
acknowledgment.
This is not mere editing, but stealthy expurgation intended to cover up the paper's
journalistic malpractice.
This sketchy conduct, presumably approved by New York Times Magazine Editor Jake Silverstein
and others, warrants far more than a column. It demands a published response from the paper's
executive editor, Dean Baquet, that acknowledges the misdeed and states whether Baquet knew of
and/or approved the secret changes. Baquet must also detail the paper's response and explain
why the Times still stands by the project, given the need for such major corrections.
In this context, a column by someone with no authority at the Times beyond his opinion seems
part of a strategy to acknowledge a problem without fixing it. For all his bravery in writing
this piece, Stephens is the perfect foil for the Times, one that creates an escape hatch for
1619 acolytes.
It is relevant that Stephens – a conservative who came to the Times after a Pulitzer
Prize-winning stint at the Wall Street Journal – is the columnist whom so many liberal
Times subscribers love to hate. One of the few scribes at the paper who does not incessantly
preach to its woke choir, he has generated strong pushback from colleagues and readers for his
opinions on
climate change and the
Middle East . This may explain why the
New York Times Guild initially felt comfortable sending a now deleted Tweet criticizing the
editors for running Stephens' 1619 piece, which, it said, "reeks."
Stephens' standing makes it easier for many Times readers to dismiss or ignore his
devastating critique. Imagine the impact a similar piece might have had if it been written by
David Brooks or Nicholas Kristof.
Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger appears to be unconcerned by the allegations. The man who
forced editorial page editor James Bennet to resign because he ran a
controversial op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton , issued a brief statement
Sunday that ignored the journalistic and factual issues raised by Stephens and others, and
instead insisted that the 1619 Project was "a journalistic triumph" whose publication is "the
proudest accomplishment of my tenure as publisher."
[ Baquet echoed Sulzberger's
comments in a note to his staff on Oct. 13, when this column was posted. Without directly
addressing the ethical and factual issues raised, he asserted that "the project fell fully
within our standards as a news organization" and that it "fill(s) me with pride."]
The deeper issue raised by Stephens' column is that the 1619 Project is just one example of
the degree to which the Times and other mainstream news outlets have displaced traditional
journalistic practice with ideology. Informed by the tenets of social justice and
critical race theory that have long dominated the humanities departments at leading
universities, journalists have abandoned a commitment to the elusive ideal of objectivity for a
naked embrace of results-oriented activism masquerading as reportage. In this regard,
journalism is a symptom, rather than cause, of the deep-seated cultural relativism that
pervades American culture.
The essence of the 1619 Project is the idea that America is a permanently racist nation
whose founding ideals were lies. This is the capital T truth it seeks to advance. It dismisses
facts that undermine that narrative, distorting the historical record because they are seen as
roadblocks in the arc that bends toward justice. This approach relies on one of the most
dangerous engines of dishonesty in human history: the notion that the means justify the
ends.
That the Pulitzer board would bestow its prize for commentary to the lead writer of the 1619
Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, despite damning scholarly critiques, suggests how deeply this
activist approach has infected journalism.
This impulse now drives much of the coverage in the Times, the Washington Post, the New
Yorker, NPR, and other prestigious news organizations. The clearest example is reporting on
Donald Trump, whom the left sees as an existential threat. This is the capital T truth they
advance through stories that insistently eschew nuance to portray the president as a
monster.
From climate change to identity politics, examples of their tendentious coverage are legion.
But none is more thoroughgoing and dishonest than the years-long coverage claiming Trump
colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
My RealClearInvestigations colleagues are among those
who followed the leads and dug up the facts mainstream outlets refused to and, so, got the
story right. Tom Kuntz, a former Times editor who leads RCI,
detailed how the Times and the Post relied on untrustworthy anonymous sources, unfair
innuendo and cherry-picked facts to advance this narrative in a series of stories that won both
papers a Pulitzer Prize in 2018.
This effort to distort the truth continues unbowed and unabated. Last week,
New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins wrote that Christopher Steele's dossier – opposition
research paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign that claimed the Russians had been
cultivating Trump as an asset for decades – "has been neither proved nor
disproved."
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In fact, much of it has been debunked and the key parts of it that haven't been probably
never will because you can't prove a negative – one can't ever prove that there is no
videotape showing Trump paid Russian prostitutes to pee on a Moscow hotel bed the Obamas had
slept in.
Shane Harris of the Washington Post encapsulated the ongoing dishonesty in an article last
week acknowledging, after a fashion, damning new intelligence tying the Clinton campaign to
Russiagate. In a single paragraph he both denied overwhelming evidence that the Clinton
campaign helped generate that now debunked scandal while also insisting that the conspiracy
theory was legitimate. Harris wrote:
"Trump allies have seized on the intelligence as evidence that Clinton was in some way
involved in ginning up an investigation of Trump to tie his campaign to Russia. The president
has consistently denied the charge as a 'hoax,' even though multiple investigations have
documented numerous instances in which his campaign sought Russian assistance in damaging
Clinton."
There is hardly any evidence that the Trump campaign "sought" such assistance. The most that
can be said is that it was receptive to offers of dirt on Clinton at the infamous
June 2016 Trump Tower meeting . Her campaign, by contrast, used people like Steele to
actively seek compromising material on Trump, which appears to have included Russian
disinformation.
Such reporting is so brazen that it suggests a far deeper problem than any one story.
Indeed, the deeply misleading Trump/Russia coverage and the 1619 Project are not deviations
from the norm. They are the new standard at prestigious outlets that are committed to pursuing
their notion of the capital T truth – inconvenient facts be damned.
American diplomat George Messersmith found himself in an awkward situation while attending a
luncheon in Kiel, Germany in August of 1933.
As lunch came to a close, the attendees erupted into song with arms outstretched in the Nazi
salute.
First they belted out Germany's national anthem, followed by the anthem of the
Stormtroopers– the paramilitary "Brownshirts" who violently enforced Germany's new social
rules.
Messersmith was the US Consul-General overseeing America's diplomatic ties with Germany, so
he politely stood at attention. But he did not salute or sing along.
Germans were required by law to render the Nazi salute, especially during the anthem; Hitler
had been awarded supreme executive authority only a few months before, and he made the
mandatory salute law of the land.
Foreigners, however, were explicitly exempt from saluting or singing the anthem.
But that didn't help Messersmith.
Even though he was legally excused from making the Nazi salute, angry Brownshirts menacingly
glared at him for not participating in their rituals.
Messersmith later wrote in his memoirs that he felt threatened, as if the Brownshirts were
ready to attack him.
"I felt really quite fortunate that the incident took place within doors. . . For if it
had been in a street gathering, or in an outdoor demonstration, no questions would have been
asked as to who I was, and that I would have been mishandled is almost unquestionable."
Messersmith was one of the few US officials who grasped just how dangerous the Nazis were in
1933. Others had to witness it first hand before they understood.
A similar event unfolded when a US radio host and his family found themselves amidst an
impromptu Nazi parade in Berlin.
And in order to avoid Hailing Hitler, they turned their backs to the parade and gazed into a
store window.
But several Brownshirts quickly surrounded the family and demanded to know why they did not
salute.
The family explained that they were from the US and didn't know the customs in Germany. But
the Brownshirts didn't care. The family was assaulted as police officers watched and did
nothing to stop the violence.
News of these sorts of incidents quickly made their way overseas, and foreigners read the
about Americans traveling in Germany being savagely beaten or threatened for not engaging in
Nazi rituals.
But more surprising is that many foreigners actually sided with the Nazis.
Even the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany defended the Nazis and their Brownshirt
enforcers.
She said that news reports of these assaults and beatings were "exaggerated by bitter,
close-minded people" who ignored the "thrilling rebirth" Hitler had ushered in for Germany.
Of course, we know in retrospect that these early warning signs were not at all an
exaggeration. They were a small preview for what would come next.
Today we are obviously in a different time dealing with totally different circumstances.
But it would be foolish to ignore the early warning signs and pretend as if what's happening
now is not a preview for what could come next.
This is perhaps best illustrated by a CNN reporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin back in August who
stood in front of burning cars and buildings, with a violent mob all around him, yet declared
the protests "fiery but mostly peaceful."
This willful ignorance of the undercurrent coursing its way through the Western world will
not save anyone from the destruction it brings.
For example, just this past Monday, "peaceful protesters" in Portland, Oregon celebrated
Columbus Day with an "Indigenous People's Day of Rage."
They weren't even pretending to be peaceful. They called it what it is: RAGE. That's
literally the name they gave to their own actions.
Hundreds of people dressed in all black, covered their faces, and armed themselves with
shields and nightsticks. They marched their way through the city, smashed windows, and forced
any witnesses to stop filming and delete photographs.
A man who filmed from his apartment's terrace had lasers shined in his eyes and was doused
in some sort of liquid.
The protesters tore down statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. They smashed the
windows of the Oregon Historical Society building, and unfurled a banner that said "stop
honoring racist colonizer murderers."
Police did not even attempt to intervene until the rioters had been on the streets for hours
and had already caused havoc and destruction.
(Ironically, much of the mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge that this group
'antifa'– the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists– even exists.)
It's obvious that a small, fringe, ideological minority has started to take control.
They have squashed civil discourse and free speech. Dissent is met with violence and
intimidation. And if you dare to speak out, you become a target.
That could mean being "cancelled" by the Twitter mob. Or being accosted in public and forced
to raise your fist. Several people have already been killed in protests across the nation.
This is far from the first time in history that a tiny fraction of the population has
resorted to violence and extremism to force their agenda on an entire nation.
But you don't have to watch helplessly as the born-again Brownshirts destroy everything you
have worked for.
The first step is to recognize that the radical movement will not simply go away on its own.
This has been growing for some time, and history tells us that it could become much
worse.
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Second, have a rock solid Plan B. This means deciding– in advance, when you're still
calm and rational– what steps to take in order to secure your family's safety, your
prosperity, and your freedom in a worst case scenario.
After all, you don't want to be thinking about your next move when some antifa thug
'peacefully' hurls a molotov cocktail through your window.
On another note We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the
next few years.
If The Federalist's
Sean Davis ' informants are even half right, director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Gina Haspel is making a big mistake - for herself, for the CIA , and, above all, for the country.
Davis wrote:
"Haspel is personally blocking the declassification and release of key Russiagate documents in the hopes that
President Donald Trump will lose his re-election bid, multiple senior U.S. officials told The
Federalist. The officials said Haspel, who served under former CIA Director John Brennan as
the spy agency's station chief in London in 2016 and 2017, is concerned that the
declassification and release of documents detailing what the CIA was doing during the 2016
election and the 2017 transition could embarrass the CIA and potentially even implicate
Haspel herself."
What Haspel seems to be missing here is that the CIA, and the FBI , of course, have already been embarrassed,
greatly, their reputations tarnished almost beyond recognition with tens of millions of U. S.
citizens by the Spygate/Russiagate scandal.
She and FBI director Christopher Wray , deluding themselves
that they are protecting vital institutions of our society, are apparently waiting with the
proverbial bated breath for a Biden administration so that all revelations and potential
indictments that might come via John Durham and William Barr are flushed down the equally
proverbial memory hole.
It won't work. The only way to resuscitate those reputations is for them, Haspel and Wray,
to be fully transparent, now , before the election .
Even if everything Durham and Barr are investigating is flushed away before reaching
fruition, even if the Biden-Harris administration instantly installs a new attorney general and
cleanses the DOJ and the intelligence agencies of all remnants of the dreaded Trump over night,
tens of millions of Americans already know.
They have already seen at least parts of the story and they won't forget. How could
they?
They know their new president Joe Biden and many allied with him have been implicated in a
treasonous plot of previously unheard of proportions to upend the prior administration.
These same people, these millions, now distrust the CIA and the FBI, and, to a great extent,
their government. They consider these pivotal institutions their enemies, working against their
interests and, more importantly, the interests of the country. And these people are some of the
most deeply patriotic of all Americans.
What a situation for our county! How can we then function as a democratic republic?
Did Ms. Haspel think about that? Did Mr. Wray consider that as he withholds or endlessly
redacts documents, allegedly to protect who exactly?
(Wray has taken his desire for a Biden victory to such lengths that he tried to downplay the
importance of Antifa.)
Haspel and Wray are doing the reverse of safeguarding their vital institutions. They are
increasing public distrust of them, a distrust so great that many of us see our society moving
inexorably in the direction of China, a high-tech tyranny of "social credit scores" and
obedience to a Big Brother Orwell could never have conceived.
What is the road back from that?
We should be heartened, however, by reports today as President Trump was exiting from Walter
Reed Hospital that the president was planning on declassifying and releasing many of these
documents himself within days. His chief of staff Mark Meadows was said to have a briefcase
stuffed with them.
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Perhaps, by the time you read this, you will know more.
If so, Haspel and Wray, to use another old proverb, will have missed the boat. Everyone will
know that their agencies need a thorough house cleaning and it will be done, as it should be,
without them.
And I will add, although the media will shout the contrary to the hills, though this is
October, revealing these documents is in no way an October Surprise. This is information We the
People (remember them?) were owed years ago.
When you have been deliberately deceived, that's no October Surprise. That's justice.
SilverRhino , 25 minutes ago
We are WELL beyond saving the FBI or the CIA.
Thucydides , 22 minutes ago
Full transparency will end up with all of them at Leavenworth KS.
Macho Latte , 11 minutes ago
CIA, and the FBI ,
of course, have already been embarrassed
Embarrassed? JFC! The author is the one who is delusional.
CIA, DOJ & FBI are corrupt DemonRat from top to bottom.
NoDebt , 9 minutes ago
The title to this article has to be one of the most darkly funny ones I've ever read on
ZH: "Only Full Transparency Will Save The CIA And FBI Now"
It's not just that they will never be transparent because obfuscation and opacity are
their stock-in-trade. It's that the idea that somehow becoming the opposite of what they
are (and were born to be) would "save" them.
That's like saying that auditing The Fed would "save" them. Or that fish should get out
of the water so they can breathe better. It's ridiculous in the extreme. It would kill
them. Which is why they don't do it. And never will.
ze_vodka , 26 minutes ago
Nope.
In 2010, I thought the FBI and CIA were OK.
Now I know full well that they serve only a single purpose... to harass, imprison, and
kill Americans who deviate from the preferred narrative.
Tenebrose , 24 minutes ago
"National Security" means the status quo in this our brave new America
And that is whatever we say it is, slave
Unknown User , 26 minutes ago
JFK tried to shut down the CIA, so they shot him.
namrider , 20 minutes ago
Deep State protecting themselves. C LIE A, FBLIE. Their purpose is NOT PUBLIC SAFETY, it
is deception. On behalf of their masters they have created an upsidedown world where it is
"legal" for them to lie, but not the public - this is bassackwards, they work for us, not
the other way around (except we know who they actually work for).
Both agencies should be 100% eliminated - same with the fake "Patriot Act" and all the
fake agencies it created.
When you pursue "safety" you wind up with neither safety nor FREEDOM.
2banana , 23 minutes ago
obama wesponized the FBI, CIA, DOJ, IRS and EPA to go after political enemies and those
who just had different viewpoints.
The left cheered. The fake legacy media cheered.
And now no one trusts any of them.
To include those on the left.
The Chicago Way.
spam filter , 8 minutes ago
Is a community organizer synonymous with organized crime boss? Obama will go down as the
most corrupt potus in history.
Yen Cross , 6 minutes ago
Devin Nunez, suggested during very compelling house testimony, that these agencies be
shuttered until they're cleansed.
Pretty good idea, based on all the horse **** we've been fed?
Nelbev , 12 minutes ago
The CIA has admittingly been engineering elections round the planet for years, it was
just under Brennan that they turned covert ways inward to US to get Hillary elected and
keep incumbent demoncrats in control. Brennan should be in prison. Haspel ran the London
CIA in 2016, thus helped or was congnizant of Halper, 5 eyes spying on Trump campaign
people like, coordination to get Papadopoulos to start Crossfire Hurricane. Haspel just
covering her ***. Not enough Kentucky bourbon to save her. Liked her deal in with
Mohammed bin Salman to cover up his assassination of Khashoggi in Tukey, what a charmer
.
spam filter , 18 minutes ago
What does government do when caught in the wrong? They arrogantly double down.
Government rarely admits wrongdoing. They're hinging their hopes on Biden winning, at all
costs. Look for the dirtiest tricks in political history, and i think we've already
witnessed germ warfare unleashed on the Potus by those elements who have the most to lose
in a Trump win.
Fuster-cluck , 5 minutes ago
100 years ago a spy was correctly considered despicable - at the level of child
molester or lower. Governments and militaries held their noses and used them even while
disgusted.
Somehow since the 50's onward spies became glorified (probably James Bond), and today
spying is pervasive, from the cameras in our houses, to Google, to the 3 letter
agencies.
Somehow we need to get the right attitude back. A spy is repugnant slime. They would
foul a cesspit, and no decent person would allow such filth in their house, much less at
their table.
There is no path to grace for the agencies, nor should we seek one. Eradicate every
last one of them and desecrate their memory.
PGR88 , 13 minutes ago
The idea that the CIA and FBI are in any danger from public opinion is preposterous.
They are in no danger because as perhaps the most important arms of the deep state, they
will have total protection from other arms of the deep-state; media, entertainment,
business, government bureaucracy, etc...
This is not just about Russiagate. It's also about Syria, including jihadists who
imposed Sharia law on portions of Syria they controlled with the aid of the CIA and false
flag chemical weapons attacks. Horrendous war crimes were inflicted, evidence for which
has been presented to the UN but kept out of the public eye.
The only possible road back from that is to blame it on someone else. Turkey's Erdogan
would be the best choice as he's made himself an enemy of everyone, including the Saudis.
Don't be surprised if Greece joins with Armenia and both get the backing of the US
against soon-to-be-ex-NATO-member Turkey.
An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When
you retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking
chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid
position?"
Rocky_Fjord 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 05:18 AM
"... AP is hardly the Ministry of Truth, dictating Newspeak under the penalty of torture. As it turns out, it doesn't have to be. A bit of updated style – and thought – guidance announced on Twitter from time to time will do. ..."
Used as the journalism Bible by most English-language media, the AP Stylebook has updated its guidance for employing the word 'riot,'
citing the need to avoid "stigmatizing" groups protesting "for racial justice."
While acknowledging the dictionary definition of riot as a "wild or violent disturbance of the peace," AP said the word
somehow "suggests uncontrolled chaos and pandemonium."
Worse yet, "Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize
broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice " the Stylebook account tweeted on
Wednesday.
The claim that something has been used in the past in a racist way has already led to banishing many English terms to the Orwellian
"memory hole." It certainly appears the AP is trying to do the same with "riot" now.
Instead of promoting precision, the Stylebook is urging reporters to use euphemisms such as "protest" or "demonstration."
It advises "revolt" and "uprising" if the violence is directed "against powerful groups or governing systems,"
in an alarming shift in focus from what is being done towards who is doing it to whom .
There is even a helpful suggestion to use "unrest" because it's "a vaguer, milder and less emotional term for a condition
of angry discontent and protest verging on revolt."
Translated to plain English, this means a lot more mentions of "unrest" and almost no references to "riot," in media
coverage going forward, regardless of how much actual rioting is happening.
Mainstream media across the US have already gone out of their way to avoid labeling what has unfolded since the death of George
Floyd in May as "riots." Though protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota turned violent within 48 hours, before spreading to other
cities across the US – and even internationally – the media continued calling them "peaceful" and "protests for racial
justice."
Yet in just the first two weeks of the riots, 20 people have been killed and the property damage has
exceeded $2 billion , according
to insurance estimates – the highest in US history.
AP is no stranger to changing the language to better comport to 'proper' political sensitivities. At the height of the riots in
June, the Stylebook decided to capitalize"Black" and "Indigenous" in a "racial, ethnic or cultural sense."
A month later, the expected decision
to leave "white" in lowercase was justified by saying that "White people in general have much less shared history and culture,
and don't have the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color."
Moreover, "Capitalizing the term 'white,' as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs,"
wrote AP's vice-president for standards John Daniszewski.
The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, as its full name goes, has effectively dictated the tone of English-language
outlets around the world since it first appeared in 1953. It is also required reference material in journalism schools.
So when it embraces vagueness over precision and worrying about "suggestions" and "subtly conveying" things over
plain meaning, that rings especially Orwellian – in both the '1984' sense of censoring speech and thought and regarding the corruption
of language the author lamented in his famous 1946
essay 'Politics and the English language.'
AP is hardly the Ministry of Truth, dictating Newspeak under the penalty of torture. As it turns out, it doesn't have to be.
A bit of updated style – and thought – guidance announced on Twitter from time to time will do.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent
those of RT.
Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from
2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic
I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which
brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing
with its new toys and made a big mistake." -- and I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact
that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies
of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing with its new toys and made a big mistake."
He was a real giant in comparison with intellectual scum like Fiona Hill, Michael McFaul and other neocons.
Notable quotes:
"... I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members, distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was. ..."
"... There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto. ..."
"... Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well, from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become inconvenient. ..."
"... After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014, he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world. ..."
"... It was something far colder, more sustained, something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind of people who win races by kneecapping the competition. ..."
"... I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap, he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting. ..."
"... It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers. ..."
"... In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the parrots and pundits were lined up against him. ..."
"... Always I was skeptical of prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy. ..."
"... Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or margaret kimberly. ..."
"... His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the sand. ..."
I first reached out to Stephen Cohen because I was losing my mind.
In the spring of 2014, a war broke out in my homeland of Ukraine. It was a horrific war in a
bitterly divided nation, which turned eastern Ukraine into a bombed-out wasteland. But that's
not how it was portrayed in America. Because millions of eastern Ukrainians were against the
US-backed government, their opinions were inconvenient for the West. Washington needed a clean
story about Ukraine fighting the Kremlin; as a result, US media avoided reporting about the
"wrong" half of the country. Twenty-plus million people were written out of the narrative, as
if they never existed.
I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that
ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were
pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America
who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members,
distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought
for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He
spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was.
And so I e-mailed him, asking for guidance as I began my own writing career. Of course,
there were many who clamored for Steve's time, but I had an advantage over others. Steve and I
were both night owls, real night owls, the kind who have afternoon tea at three am. It
was then, when the east coast was sleeping, that he became my mentor and friend.
There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in
geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals
impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to
navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had
facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto.
But one thing Steve taught me is to stick to my strengths, and truth be told, there are
others who can describe his life better than I. I'll stick to what I learned during our
conversations at three in the morning, which is that, above all else, Stephen F. Cohen was a
man of faith.
Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all
sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well,
from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the
narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and
America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become
inconvenient.
After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia
experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just
write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with
legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014,
he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world.
The DC apparatchiks couldn't discredit Steve's credentials or track record -- he'd predicted
events in Ukraine and elsewhere years before they occurred. They couldn't intimidate him --
he'd faced far worse threats, like the KGB. Instead, they set out to turn him into an
America-hating, Putin-loving pariah.
This went beyond an ad hominem campaign. It was something far colder, more sustained,
something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the
target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at
Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators
and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind
of people who win races by kneecapping the competition.
I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of
course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve
cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap,
he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting.
It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his
beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and
civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their
world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things
far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers.
Steve liked movies and would often end a lecture with a movie reference to drive home the
thesis. When I think of him, I think of the ending of The Shawshank Redemption , the
line about Andy Dufresne crawling through filth and coming out clean on the other side. Steve
didn't live in a movie; I can't claim he emerged unscathed. What he did was come through
without bitterness or cynicism. He refused to turn away from the ugliness, but he didn't allow
it to blind him to beauty. He walked with grace. And he lost neither his convictions nor his
faith.
Lev
Golinkin Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,
Amazon's Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program
selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d'Europa. Golinkin, a graduate of Boston
College, came to the US as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now
called Kharkiv) in 1990. His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and
immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time (online), among other venues;
he has been interviewed by MSNBC, NPR, ABC Radio, WSJ Live and HuffPost Live.
Pierre Guerlain says: October 1, 2020 at 12:42 pm
In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of
Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals
to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the
parrots and pundits were lined up against him. He was a Mensch. History will bear him
the historian out.
Valera Bochkarev says to Lance Haley: October 1, 2020 at 11:09 am
Hmm, who's the apologist here ?
If the Ukraine is SO sovereign how is it I did not see any outrage in your diatribe
against 'Toria, Pyatt and the rest orchestrating the Maidan putsch or the $5Billion US spent
on softening up the ukraine for the regime change ?
I believe in numbers, as in the number of military bases any given country has surrounding
the ones it wants to subvert, in the amount of money allocated to vilify and eventually bring
down the "unwanted" regimes and the quantity and 'quality' of sanctions imposed against those
regimes; and the sum of all of the above perpetrated against humanity in the past 75 or so
years.
Your vapid drivel, Mr Haley, evaporates almost without a trace once seen with those
parameters in mind.
Numbers don't lie.
Michael Batinski says: September 30, 2020 at 5:48 pm
Let me add from the perspective of an American historian who taught for forty years in a
midwestern university. From the start I depended on William Appleman Williams to keep
perspective and to counter prevailing interpretive trends.
Always I was skeptical of
prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by
colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism
and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy.
I will always be thankful.
Michael Batinski
Tim Ashby says: September 30, 2020 at 2:37 pm
The smothering agitprop in America trumps even Goebbels and co. with its beautifully
dressed overton window and first-amendment-free-press bullshit.
Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years
of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see
him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or
margaret kimberly.
Let's face it, we were lucky to win the editorial fight to even give him
space in the Nation.
His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing
voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both
of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the
sand.
Hannah Arendt books is junk, as elements of totalitarim are present inmst modern sociery,
espcally neoliberal. The USA after 9/11 is one example.
Notable quotes:
"... Some émigrés who grew up in Soviet-dominated societies are sounding the alarm about the West's dangerous drift into conditions like they once escaped. They feel it in their bones. Reading Arendt in the shadow of the extraordinary rise of identity-politics leftism and the broader crisis of liberal democracy is to confront a deeply unsettling truth: that these refugees from communism may be right. ..."
"... Regarding transgressive sexuality as a social good was not an innovation of the sexual revolution. Like the contemporary West, late imperial Russia was also awash in what historian James Billington called "a preoccupation with sex that is quite without parallel in earlier Russian culture." Among the social and intellectual elite, sexual adventurism, celebrations of perversion, and all manner of sensuality was common. And not just among the elites: the laboring masses, alone in the city, with no church to bind their consciences with guilt, or village gossips to shame them, found comfort in sex. ..."
"... Heda Margolius Kovály, a disillusioned Czech communist whose husband was executed after a 1952 show trial, reflects on the willingness of people to turn their backs on the truth for the sake of an ideological cause: It is not hard for a totalitarian regime to keep people ignorant. Once you relinquish your freedom for the sake of "understood necessity," for Party discipline, for conformity with the regime, for the greatness and glory of the Fatherland, or for any of the substitutes that are so convincingly offered, you cede your claim to the truth. Slowly, drop by drop, your life begins to ooze away just as surely as if you had slashed your wrists; you have voluntarily condemned yourself to helplessness. ..."
"... You can also surrender it by hating others more than you love truth. ..."
"... In 2019, Zach Goldberg, a political science PhD student at Georgia Tech, found that over a nine-year period, the rate of news stories using progressive jargon associated with left-wing critical theory and social justice concepts shot into the stratosphere. The mainstream media is framing the general public's understanding of news and events according to what was until very recently a radical ideology confined to left-wing intellectual elites. ..."
"... For a man desperate to believe, totalitarian ideology is more precious than life itself. "He may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if only his status as a member of the movement is not touched," Arendt wrote. Indeed, the files of the 1930s Stalinist show trials are full of false confessions by devout communists who were prepared to die rather than admit that communism was a lie. ..."
"... Similarly, under the guise of antiracism training, U.S. corporations, institutions, and even churches are frog-marching their employees through courses in which whites and other ideologically disfavored people are compelled to confess their "privilege." Some do, eagerly. ..."
"... "Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intellect and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty," wrote Arendt. ..."
"... President Donald Trump is a rule-breaker in many ways. He once said, "I value loyalty above everything else -- more than brains, more than drive, and more than energy." ..."
"... Trump's exaltation of personal loyalty over expertise is discreditable and corrupting. But how can liberals complain? Loyalty to the group or the tribe is at the core of leftist identity politics. This is at the root of "cancel culture," in which transgressors, however minor their infractions, find themselves cast into outer darkness. ..."
"... Beyond cancel culture, which is reactive, institutions are embedding within their systems ideological tests to weed out dissenters. At universities within the University of California system, for example, teachers who want to apply for tenure-track positions have to affirm their commitment to "equity, diversity, and inclusion" -- and to have demonstrated it, even if it has nothing to do with their field. ..."
"... De facto loyalty tests to diversity ideology are common in corporate America, and have now found their way into STEM faculties and publications, as well as into medical science. ..."
"... A Soviet-born U.S. physician told me -- after I agreed not to use his name -- that social justice ideology is forcing physicians like him to ignore their medical training and judgment when it comes to transgender health. He said it is not permissible within his institution to advise gender dysphoric patients against treatments they desire, even when a physician believes it is not in that particular patient's health interest. ..."
"... Like the imperial Russians, we Americans may well be living in a fog of self-deception about our own country's stability. It only takes a catalyst like war, economic depression, plague, or some other severe and prolonged crisis that brings the legitimacy of the liberal democratic order into question. ..."
"... If totalitarianism comes, it will almost certainly not be Stalinism 2.0, with gulags, secret police, and an all-powerful central state. That would not be necessary. The power of surveillance technology, woke capitalism, and fear of losing bourgeois comfort and status will probably be enough to compel conformity by most. ..."
"... At least at first, it will be a soft totalitarianism, more on the Brave New World model than the Nineteen Eighty-Four one -- but totalitarianism all the same. ..."
n 1951, six years after the end of World War II, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt
published The Origins of Totalitarianism , in an attempt to understand how such radical
ideologies of both left and right had seized the minds of so many in the 20th century. Arendt's
book used to be a staple in college history and political theory courses. With the end of the
Cold War 30 years behind us, who today talks about totalitarianism? Almost no one -- and if
they do, it's about Nazism, not communism.
Unsurprisingly, young Americans suffer from profound ignorance of what communism was, and
is. The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit educational and research
organization established by the U.S. Congress, carries out an annual survey of Americans to
determine their attitudes toward communism, socialism, and Marxism in general. In 2019, the
survey found that a startling number of Americans of the post-Cold War generations have
favorable views of left-wing radicalism, and only 57 percent of Millennials believe that the
Declaration of Independence offers a better guarantee of "freedom and equality" than The
Communist Manifesto .
Some émigrés who grew up in Soviet-dominated societies are sounding the alarm
about the West's dangerous drift into conditions like they once escaped. They feel it in their
bones. Reading Arendt in the shadow of the extraordinary rise of identity-politics leftism and
the broader crisis of liberal democracy is to confront a deeply unsettling truth: that these
refugees from communism may be right.
What does contemporary America have in common with pre-Nazi Germany and pre-Soviet Russia?
Arendt's analysis found a number of social, political, and cultural conditions that tilled the
ground for those nations to welcome poisonous ideas.
Loneliness and Social Atomization
Totalitarian movements, said Arendt, are "mass organizations of atomized, isolated
individuals." She continues:
What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world, is the fact
that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social
conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our
century.
The political theorist wrote those words in the 1950s, a period we look back on as a golden
age of community cohesion. Today, loneliness is widely recognized by scientists as a critical
social and even medical problem. In the year 2000, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam
published Bowling Alone , an acclaimed study documenting the steep decline of civil
society since midcentury and the resulting atomization of America.
Since Putnam's book, we have experienced the rise of social media networks offering a
facsimile of "connection." Yet we grow ever lonelier and more isolated. It is no coincidence
that Millennials and members of Generation Z register much higher rates of loneliness than
older Americans, as well as significantly greater support for socialism. It's as if they aspire
to a politics that can replace the community they wish they had.
Sooner or later, loneliness and isolation are bound to have political effects. The masses
supporting totalitarian movements, says Arendt, grew "out of the fragments of a highly atomized
society whose competitive structure and concomitant loneliness of the individual had been held
in check only through membership in a class."
A polity filled with alienated individuals who share little sense of community and purpose,
and who lack civic trust, are prime targets for totalitarian ideologies and leaders who promise
solidarity and meaning.
Losing Faith in Hierarchies and Institutions
Surveying the political scene in Germany during the 1920s, Arendt noted a "terrifying
negative solidarity" among people from diverse classes, united in their belief that all
political parties were populated by fools. Likewise, in late imperial Russia, Marxist radicals
finally gained traction with the middle class when the Tsarist government failed miserably to
deal with a catastrophic 1891-92 famine.
Are we today really so different? According to Gallup, Americans' confidence in their
institutions -- political, media, religious, legal, medical, corporate -- is at historic lows
across the board. Only the military, the police, and small businesses retain the strong
confidence of over 50 percent. Democratic norms are under strain in many industrialized
nations, with the support for mainstream parties of left and right in decline.
In Europe of the 1920s, says Arendt, the first indication of the coming totalitarianism was
the failure of established parties to attract younger members, and the willingness of the
passive masses to consider radical alternatives to discredited establishment parties.
A loss of faith in democratic politics is a sign of a deeper and broader instability. As
radical individualism has become more pervasive in our consumerist-driven culture, people have
ceased to look outside themselves to religion or other traditional sources of authoritative
meaning.
But this imposes a terrible psychological burden on the individual. Many of them may seek
deliverance as the alienated masses of pre-totalitarian Germany and Russia did: in the
certainties and solidarity offered by totalitarian movements.
The Desire to Transgress and Destroy
The post-World War I generation of writers and artists were marked by their embrace and
celebration of anti-cultural philosophies and acts as a way of demonstrating contempt for
established hierarchies, institutions, and ways of thinking. Arendt said of some writers who
glorified the will to power, "They read not Darwin but the Marquis de Sade."
Her point was that these authors did not avail themselves of respectable intellectual
theories to justify their transgressiveness. They immersed themselves in what is basest in
human nature and regarded doing so as acts of liberation. Arendt's judgment of the postwar
elites who recklessly thumbed their noses at respectability could easily apply to those of our
own day who shove aside liberal principles like fair play, race neutrality, free speech, and
free association as obstacles to equality. Arendt wrote:
The members of the elite did not object at all to paying a price, the destruction of
civilization, for the fun of seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced
their way into it.
One thinks of the university presidents and news media executives of our time who have
abandoned professional standards and old-fashioned liberal values to embrace "antiracism" and
other trendy left-wing causes. Some left-wing politicians and other progressive elites either
cheered for the George Floyd race riots, or, like New York mayor Bill De Blasio, stood idly by
as thuggish mobs looted and burned stores in the name of social justice.
Regarding transgressive sexuality as a social good was not an innovation of the sexual
revolution. Like the contemporary West, late imperial Russia was also awash in what historian
James Billington called "a preoccupation with sex that is quite without parallel in earlier
Russian culture." Among the social and intellectual elite, sexual adventurism, celebrations of
perversion, and all manner of sensuality was common. And not just among the elites: the
laboring masses, alone in the city, with no church to bind their consciences with guilt, or
village gossips to shame them, found comfort in sex.
The end of official censorship after the 1905 uprising opened the floodgates to erotic
literature, a prefiguration of our century's technology-driven pornographic revolution. "The
sensualism of the age was in a very intimate sense demonic," Billington writes, detailing how
the figure of Satan became a Romantic hero for artists and musicians. They admired the diabolic
willingness to stop at nothing to satisfy one's desires and to exercise one's will.
Propaganda and the Willingness to Believe Useful Lies
Heda Margolius Kovály, a disillusioned Czech communist whose husband was executed after a 1952 show trial,
reflects on the willingness of people to turn their backs on the truth for the sake of an ideological cause: It is not hard for a totalitarian regime to keep people ignorant. Once you relinquish your
freedom for the sake of "understood necessity," for Party discipline, for conformity with the
regime, for the greatness and glory of the Fatherland, or for any of the substitutes that are
so convincingly offered, you cede your claim to the truth. Slowly, drop by drop, your life
begins to ooze away just as surely as if you had slashed your wrists; you have voluntarily
condemned yourself to helplessness.
You can surrender your moral responsibility to be honest out of misplaced idealism. You can
also surrender it by hating others more than you love truth. In pre-totalitarian states, Arendt
writes, hating "respectable society" was so narcotic, that elites were willing to accept
"monstrous forgeries in historiography" for the sake of striking back at those who, in their
view, had "excluded the underprivileged and oppressed from the memory of mankind."
For example, many who didn't really accept Marx's revisionist take on history -- that it is
a manifestation of class struggle -- were willing to affirm it because it was a useful tool to
punish those they despised. Consider the lavish praise with which elites have welcomed The
New York Times 's "1619 Project," a vigorously revisionist attempt to make slavery the
central fact of the American founding.
Despite the project's core claim (that the patriots fought the American Revolution to
preserve slavery) having been thoroughly debunked, journalism's elite saw fit to award the
project's director a Pulitzer Prize for her contribution.
Along those lines, propaganda helps change the world by creating a false impression of the
way the world is. Writes Arendt, "The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda lies in its
ability to shut the masses off from the real world."
In 2019, Zach Goldberg, a political science PhD student at Georgia Tech, found that over a
nine-year period, the rate of news stories using progressive jargon associated with left-wing
critical theory and social justice concepts shot into the stratosphere. The mainstream media is
framing the general public's understanding of news and events according to what was until very
recently a radical ideology confined to left-wing intellectual elites.
A Mania for Ideology
Why are people so willing to believe demonstrable lies? The desperation alienated people
have for a story that helps them make sense of their lives and tells them what to do explains
it. For a man desperate to believe, totalitarian ideology is more precious than life
itself. "He may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if
only his status as a member of the movement is not touched," Arendt wrote. Indeed, the files of
the 1930s Stalinist show trials are full of false confessions by devout communists who were
prepared to die rather than admit that communism was a lie.
Similarly, under the guise of antiracism training, U.S. corporations, institutions, and even
churches are frog-marching their employees through courses in which whites and other
ideologically disfavored people are compelled to confess their "privilege." Some do,
eagerly.
One of contemporary progressivism's commonly used phrases -- the personal is political --
captures the totalitarian spirit, which seeks to infuse all aspects of life with political
consciousness. Indeed, the Left today pushes its ideology ever deeper into the private realm,
leaving fewer and fewer areas of daily life uncontested. This, warned Arendt, is a sign that a
society is ripening for totalitarianism, because that is what totalitarianism essentially is:
the politicization of everything.
Early in the Stalin era, N. V. Krylenko, a Soviet commissar (political officer), steamrolled
over chess players who wanted to keep politics out of the game.
"We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess," he said. "We must condemn
once and for all the formula 'chess for the sake of chess,' like the formula 'art for art's
sake.' We must organize shockbrigades of chess-players, and begin immediate realization of a
Five-Year Plan for chess."
A Society That Values Loyalty More Than Expertise
"Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their
sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intellect and creativity is still the
best guarantee of their loyalty," wrote Arendt.
All politicians prize loyalty, but few would regard it as the most important quality in
government, and even fewer would admit it. But President Donald Trump is a rule-breaker in many
ways. He once said, "I value loyalty above everything else -- more than brains, more than
drive, and more than energy."
Trump's exaltation of personal loyalty over expertise is discreditable and corrupting. But
how can liberals complain? Loyalty to the group or the tribe is at the core of leftist identity
politics. This is at the root of "cancel culture," in which transgressors, however minor their
infractions, find themselves cast into outer darkness.
Beyond cancel culture, which is reactive, institutions are embedding within their systems
ideological tests to weed out dissenters. At universities within the University of California
system, for example, teachers who want to apply for tenure-track positions have to affirm their
commitment to "equity, diversity, and inclusion" -- and to have demonstrated it, even if it has
nothing to do with their field.
De facto loyalty tests to diversity ideology are common in corporate America, and have now
found their way into STEM faculties and publications, as well as into medical science.
A Soviet-born U.S. physician told me -- after I agreed not to use his name -- that social
justice ideology is forcing physicians like him to ignore their medical training and judgment
when it comes to transgender health. He said it is not permissible within his institution to
advise gender dysphoric patients against treatments they desire, even when a physician believes
it is not in that particular patient's health interest.
Intellectuals Are the Revolutionary Class
In our populist era, politicians and talk-radio polemicists can rile up a crowd by
denouncing elites. Nevertheless, in most societies, intellectual and cultural elites determine
its long-term direction.
"[T]he key actor in history is not individual genius but rather the network and the new
institutions that are created out of those networks," writes sociologist James Davison Hunter.
Though a revolutionary idea might emerge from the masses, says Hunter, "it does not gain
traction until it is embraced and propagated by elites" working through their "well-developed
networks and powerful institutions."
This is why it is critically important to keep an eye on intellectual discourse. Arendt
warns that the twentieth-century totalitarian experience shows how a determined and skillful
minority can come to rule over an indifferent and disengaged majority. In our time, most people
regard the politically correct insanity of campus radicals as not worthy of attention. They
mock them as "snowflakes" and "social justice warriors."
This is a serious mistake. In radicalizing the broader class of elites, social justice
warriors (SJWs) are playing a similar historic role to the Bolsheviks in prerevolutionary
Russia. SJW ranks are full of middle-class, secular, educated young people wracked by guilt and
anxiety over their own privilege, alienated from their own traditions, and desperate to
identify with something, or someone, to give them a sense of wholeness and purpose.
For them, the ideology of social justice -- as defined not by church teaching but by
critical theorists in the academy -- functions as a pseudo-religion. Far from being confined to
campuses and dry intellectual journals, SJW ideals are transforming elite institutions and
networks of power and influence. They are marching through the institutions of bourgeois
society, conquering them, and using them to transform the world. For example, when the LGBT
cause was adopted by corporate America, its ultimate victory was assured.
Futuristic Fatalism
To be sure, none of this means that totalitarianism is inevitable. But they do signify that
the weaknesses in contemporary American society are consonant with a pre-totalitarian state.
Like the imperial Russians, we Americans may well be living in a fog of self-deception about
our own country's stability. It only takes a catalyst like war, economic depression, plague, or
some other severe and prolonged crisis that brings the legitimacy of the liberal democratic
order into question.
As Arendt warned more than half a century ago:
There is a great temptation to explain away the intrinsically incredible by means of
liberal rationalizations. In each one of us, there lurks such a liberal, wheedling us with
the voice of common sense. The road to totalitarian domination leads through many
intermediate stages for which we can find numerous analogues and precedents. . . . What
common sense and "normal people" refuse to believe is that everything is possible.
If totalitarianism comes, it will almost certainly not be Stalinism 2.0, with gulags, secret
police, and an all-powerful central state. That would not be necessary. The power of
surveillance technology, woke capitalism, and fear of losing bourgeois comfort and status will
probably be enough to compel conformity by most.
At least at first, it will be a soft
totalitarianism, more on the Brave New World model than the Nineteen Eighty-Four
one -- but totalitarianism all the same.
A Czech immigrant to the U.S. who works in academia told me that this "is not supposed to be
happening here" -- but it is.
"Any time I try to explain current events and their meaning to my friends or acquaintances,
I am met with blank stares or downright nonsense," he says. His own young adult children, born
in America and indoctrinated into identity-politics ideology by public schooling, think their
father is an alarmist kook. Can anyone blame a man like this for concluding that Americans are
going to have to learn about the evils of totalitarianism the hard way?
I grew up under a socialist authoritarian state and I recognized it in the US 20 years
ago. In the Patriot Act, to be more precise. It was the very same kind of law that I saw
enacted in the early 70s back home that turned the tide of the regime to full out repression.
You're noticing it just now because authoritarianism became bipartisan, though you have been
quite comfortable since your tribe started it.
The week after 9/11, I wrote President Bush asking him not to let something like the
Patriot Act happen. I never got a reply and wondered ever since if it went astray (it was via
email) or if anyone even read it.
<sigh> There are credible arguments to be made against the drug war, for sure, but
how exactly did the Bill of Rights get "dumped"? OK I'm willing to concede that the Fourth
Amendment got stretched beyond recognition to accommodate no-knock warrants and the like.
Which of the rest of the Bill of Rights got dumped by the drug war?
If only liberals actually understood and believed in the 9th and 10th amendments, OTOH, we
might be able to restore federal governance to something resembling sanity.
Both the 9th and 10th Amendments were finally destroyed due to the drug war. The 2nd is
collateral damage due to the increased use of home invasion raids by law enforcement see the
"firearm enhancements". It can easily be argued that the increased militarization of law
enforcement due to the drug war is a violation of the 3rd Amendment. The long sentences due
given to people for possessing or selling a plant are a violation of the 8th Amendment. The
right to a jury trial has been gutted via voir dire and the refusal of courts to recognize
the natural right of all citizens to nullify unjust laws.
I am a liberal in the sense Patrick Henry was a liberal. We should have stuck with the
Articles of Confederation.
It can't be easily argued that the drug war runs into the 3rd amendment, that is
ridiculous. Nor is the 8th amendment really a great argument, although I do get where you're
coming from.
It's obviously completely contemptuous of the idea of enumerated powers like you said
before though. Why would you not mention the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments, which had to be
gutted for it, or the ways it runs afoul of the 14th, or basically ignores the precedent set
by the 18th and 21st amendments.
I too see where you're coming from, though I think the 9th and 10th amendments were
already in tatters long before the drug war began. For that blame the now 100 year plus build
up of the administrative state (particularly under FDR and LBJ) and the Court's enabling of
it through imaginative readings of the Commerce Clause, delegation of powers, etc. Also blame
Congress's total dereliction of duty per the above.
Add on the scheme by which the Federal govt takes everyone's money, shuffles it around and
then hands it back to the states, but only under the condition that they do what the Federal
govt tells them to do. Thus no state actually gets to build/maintain roads, develop housing
programs, expand educational access or testing, and essentially anything else without
following a million federal edicts.
The very fact that a website like this exists, and we comment on it, suggests that.. No,
we are nit under Totalitarian oppression or even an authoritarian regime. Would Stalin or
even Brezhnev have tolerated a TAC critical of the ruling party? How about Hitler, Mussolini
or Franco?
Excellent point. There are, however, concepts such as "controlled opposition" and "soft
totalitarianism" as outlined recently in Rod Dreher's piece. The latter concerns me more.
As long as Americans believe that they are getting the carrot they will not notice the
slow encroachment of the stick, particulary if it's in the hands of large
mega-corporations.
You, sir, are correct. The totalitarianism rampaging toward us is going to be a
paradoxical mix of Sexual Revolution, Cultural Marxism, and Globalist Vampire Capitalism. It
will feature elements that seem to have been predicted in Zamyatin's We , Huxley's
Brave New World , and Orwell's 1984 . It also has been foretold in Robert Hugh
Benson's Lord of the World .
I'm sure you are well aware that Rod is not suggesting such a regime is here or coming. He
has described how censorship will work / is working in painfully repetitive detail (because
obviously people need to hear it over and over again).
Under soft totalitarianism, you will make the wrong response or refuse to affirm or refuse
to attend the required re-education workshop and your job and livelihood will be gone. Don't
pretend you don't understand Rod's argument.
Jonf is for the woke soft totalitarianism, a dangerous element in the church, we Orthodox
Christian's need to be on guard with Catechumens , and their motives for joining the Church,
as well as Cradle liberals who dominate institutions in jurisdictions like GOARCH
It had bipartisan support in Congress. Do you understand how the US legislative system
works? Presidents don't unilaterally introduce and approve legislation.
It wasn't introduced by Bush, but by a nobody Republican in Congress. The act has the paw
marks of Republicans through and through. Just 3 Republican congressmen voted against.
There's no point hiding behind the bipartisan curtain.
There is much yet to be answered for in the Patriot Act origins and how it came to be
passed before anyone voting on it had a chance to read it once much less review it with
propper staffing.
That Act was sitting on a shelf, like a time bomb, waiting for its chance. I suspect it
was part of the preparations for an apocalyptic, dystopian America after a nuclear war.
It was pulled off that shelf because it was what they had on the shelf, it was there so
they used it.
"Can anyone blame a man like this for concluding that Americans are going to have to learn
about the evils of totalitarianism the hard way?"
Americans have never learned anything the easy way. They don't learn the hard way
either.
"Among the social and intellectual elite, sexual adventurism, celebrations of perversion,
and all manner of sensuality was common."
Let no future commisar say that I didn't do my part for the revolution! I stand ready to
humbly serve the people in the creation of an appropriate ministry for perversion.
Those who will have less than five sexual partners a year and do not switch gender in over
two years will be chastised for the term of 10 years by legislation.
When you remove God from your life, the inner desire implanted by God to look for the true
meaning in life, & the desire to do good instead of evil remain strong. For most people,
the "obvious" path is to give meaning to one's life is to follow the feel-good "social
justice" road, a form of false humanism (for man & by man alone), ie, social justice
without God that tries to create a paradise on earth (same way that communism tried to create
a utopia without God).
Many young Americans no longer believe in God's relevance & His authority over their
lives. This normally starts with the loss of respect for the authority of parents who
represent God in the home (even Jesus was obedient to his mortal parents). The gradual
destruction of the "domestic church", the family, in American homes is one of the immediate
goals of radical agenda (eg, gender conflicts & confusion, gender id, gender choice,
abortion, contraception, women liberation, etc) that results in increasing number of divorce
& single-parent homes.
The only way to correct the path to a radical secular future is for people, esp the young,
to regain their faith in God. The question is how. Evangelization is one. One can evangelize
by words &or by acts. St Franscis of Assisi is often quoted to have said: When you
evangelize, sometimes you need to use words. I think Rod is doing both through his books.
If God isn't implanted in a child's mind at a young age, it most likely never will.
People, in there 20's, who never went to church are unlikely to ever become Christians. If
you don't believe Heaven and Hell exist, why do you need a Savior? Look at the number of
young families with young children at Church, and consider how many aren't there. That's the
future.
The idea of God doesn't need to be implanted in a child's mind. A child (and every person
for that matter) intuitively knows that there has to be a Creator, an afterlife, and Divine
Justice. As proof, I offer the fact that every civilization that has ever existed has had a
religion with the aforementioned elements. Atheism did not appear until Marxism, and even
then, in the Soviet Union / Russia, it did not succeed in eradicating faith and religion,
which are as innate as love and sex.
Unfortunately for you atheism long predates Marxism. Look to the early Greeks for the
first recorded instances of non-believers. Try
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... for a overview.
>"The only way to correct the path to a radical secular future is for people, esp the
young, to regain their faith in God."
Exactly the thinking powering Daesh. What is wrong with people being able to decide for
themselves what religion if any they want? Why is a secular state a radical idea? The US is a
secular state and it has served the US well.
So Revolution or Civil War?
I keep hearing about one or the other, but only on the Internet.
I am of the opinion that we Americans are far too comfortable and have no stomach for
privation.
We will continue to lurch along as always.
Does it really matter what "Americans" want? The very thesis of the article is that 'we'
will do the bidding of the influential elites, regardless of whether we a) approve of their
objectives, or b) are even aware of them. Like the article says, the vast majority of
Americans mistakenly think that, so long as they have their routine, their job, their kids,
their personal little patch of America complete with white picket fence, then, hey, how can
things go wrong? "We" won't, wouldn't, couldn't, allow such a revolution or civil war to
happen---why, there isn't even enough time to worry about it!
When a riotous mob of crazed BLM/ANTIFA soldiers comes marching up your peaceful street,
you will become part of the 'revolution', like it or not.
Totalitarian Romanov Russia united with secular pluralist France against Germany in the
lead-up to WWI. Similarly in WWII, totalitarian Marxist Russia united with the Western
democracies to defeat Nazi Germany. The pattern is common place in history. Alliances reveal
countries' motivations for war. And all are motivated by power.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
I'll ask again (serious question): for conservatives who think we live in "Weimar
America", isn't one of the major lessons for conservatives from Weimar Germany that when
you're faced with the distasteful option of allying yourselves with liberals and the
center-left, or allying yourselves with fascists and their street militias, it's important
not to make the decision that German Nationalists did in the early 1930s?
We were allied with one of the biggest mass murderers in history during World War 2.
Joseph Stalin. Facts are facts and the facts are fascism is a leftist ideology.
To be fair, you can 'love' someone's ruling style and still go to war with them. Politics
and warfare are about seizing power, not expressing admiration for the qualities of
rivals.
To clarify, I didn't mean "love" in a personal or an emotional sense. In the case of World
War II, democratic nations were opponents of fascist nations.
I don't know what histories you have been reading but Adolph Hitler had no use for FDR as
like many other European politicians of the day, they saw FDR as a relatively ignorant
man.
The Nazis were basically 1848 (leftist) revolutionaries, who supported egalitarianism for
German men and ethnonationalism (which was a very leftist idea when it was new). True
reactionaries, like the King of Prussia in 1848, definitely did not share those values.
Can someone explain to me what the point of these arguments are? I always see people
saying the Nazis were leftists, but even if I agreed with the claim what difference does it
make to massappeal's point?
Most commentators put the Nazis on the far right. They themselves considered Nazism to be
a "third way" between Capitalism and Communism. It's clear that the defining traits of Nazism
are totalitarianism, nationalism, social darwinism, and virulent anti-semitism. Like
communism and other forms of Facism, it is a revolutionary political movement. They also
supported massive government spending and social welfare programs for "aryans", in a kind of
state-dominated capitalism. It is also true that Ernst Rohm and the SA wanted a socialist
revolution to follow the Nazi's national revolution, but they were betrayed and Rohm was
executed for being too radical.
There's the truth. Facts are Facts. So what if they are leftist or rightist? I really
don't understand the value of this argument. Is this a way to link Democrats to Nazis? Seems
as ridiculous as trying to link Republicans to them.
The point is obfuscation of reality from the US right, which has increasingly become
enmeshed in world divorced from reality. Of course no respected historian places the Nazis as
a Left ideology. There is some argument as to whether fascism/Nazism was Right, or neither
left or right. But as an ideology, fascism and Nazism are illiberal, nationalist, and
concerned with "natural hierarchies" which are anathema to "left" thought.
Anyone stating otherwise is either exceedingly stupid or not arguing in good faith. Either
way, there is no point in engaging them or in giving them any platform to spout their
nonsense. Shut them down, block them, mock them, and move on.
And conservatives wonder why they've "unwelcome" in academia...If you want to be taken
seriously, you need to think seriously.
Penetrating insight. Of course, I am sure you are right. I want to give people a chance to
defend themselves though, because I would truly love to be proved wrong and shown something
of which I am ignorant.
I really appreciate the response. I read the synopsis and gather that the argument is
somewhat similar to one which I have heard before, which is that all modern political
movements are borne of the enlightenment, which is something I certainly agree with. There
are certainly underpinnings under every modern party that find their root in the
enlightenment.
The book you provided seems to be not quite that exact theory though, and of course I
haven't read the whole thing...yet. But I honestly will, and I really appreciate the
recommendation! Truth is truth, and it has no ideology. I will read it with an open mind.
The history of right and left, nationalist and internationalist, liberal and conservative
is very complex and confusing. And it is different in America than it is in Europe. America
started out mostly Protestant and Liberal (in the classical sense), so any right wing or
conservative movement in the US would have these foundations. In Europe, conservatives were
Catholic and Monarchist.
But Monarchy gets a bad rap in American public schools and universities, dominated as they
were by Protestant and Liberal thinking at their founding and by Progressive and Socialist
thinking now.
Here is a definition of the Right by EvKL (in the book):
"The true rightist is not a man who wants to go back to this or that institution for the
sake of a return; he wants first to find out what is eternally true, eternally valid, and
then either to restore or reinstall it, regardless of whether it seems obsolete, whether it
is ancient, contemporary, or even without precedent, brand new, "ultramodern." Old truths
can be rediscovered, entirely new ones found. The Man of the Right does not have a
time-bound, but a sovereign mind. In case he is a Christian he is, in the words of the
Apostle Peter, the steward of a Basileion Hierateuma, a Royal Priesthood"
And here the difference between Right and Left:
"The right stands for liberty, a free, unprejudiced form of thinking, a readiness to
preserve traditional values (provided they are true values), a balanced view of the nature
of man, seeing in him neither beast nor angel, insisting also on the uniqueness of human
beings who cannot be transformed into or treated as mere numbers or ciphers; but the left
is the advocate of the opposite principles. It is the enemy of diversity and the fanatical
promoter of identity. Uniformity is stressed in all leftist utopias, a paradise in which
everybody should be the "same," where envy is dead, where the "enemy" either no longer
exists, lives outside the gates, or is utterly humiliated. Leftism loathes differences,
deviation, stratifications. Any hierarchy it accepts is only "functional." The term "one"
is the keynote: There should be only one language, one race, one class, one ideology, one
religion, one type of school, one law for everybody, one flag, one coat of arms and one
centralized world state"
"The rightists are "federalists" (in the European sense), "states' righters" since they
believe in local rights and privileges, they stand for the principle of subsidiarity."
Beautiful quotes, my friend, I especially appreciate the latter one. I have not gotten far
in the book, only 60 pages or so but I already find it fascinating, and I have gotten to that
quote exactly, actually.
As a passing note, I will say that I doubt WilliamRD meant what you mean, though I could
be mistaken. And I think defining Nazism as a leftist philosophy requires a semantic
argument, which redefines "right" and "left" into something different than popular American
political discourse defines it. And in fact, under these definitions, the Republican Party is
at least partially leftist.
However, EvKL is clear that this is what he is doing, and you were clear yourself that we
need to break out of these definitions. I couldn't agree more with you on that. Thanks for
sending me the link, you've made me wiser.
You are a rare and beautiful soul! I can't believe you've already read that far into the
book. I will try and learn from your example, the next time someone sends me a link.
And yes, the Republican party has been infiltrated by Leftism. I'm going to give you a
book link on this too, but you don't have to read it right away! Just download it, and put it
away in your files for later. It's a true story that is important to know and it gets to the
heart of the American Conservative / Neoconservative divide.
Fair enough. To me it's analogous to listening to someone try and argue that 1+1=7. I'm
just not sure that someone attempting such a calculation has the rational faculties to
provide anything worth hearing, and I don't like lending legitimacy to every silly position
that a person can take. Life is short, and I prefer to hear from people who demonstrate that
they're playing with a full deck and arguing in good faith. The "Leftists are the Real
Racists" crowd is certainly neither of those.
Edit: And hilariously, there is an actual RW goofball on this article's comment section,
posting Nazi/Fascist sympathies (@Raskolnik) . So, the proof is in the TAC comments I
guess...
The genetic fallacy definition can be found many places. If you read it, you might sound a
little less dumb in public. And the AAIHS is not a racist journal. I know anything with
"African American" in it seems to set off a very fragile segment of aggrieved whites, but I'm
sure you could judge the article based on its content. I'd link to some others, but given
what you've said so far, it seems unlikely you have access to JSTOR or any other legitimate
academic resources. At this point all you're really accomplishing is offering more evidence
that Right Wingers are almost allergic to information that contradicts their indoctrination.
There's a reason your numbers are falling in legitimate academic institutions, and it isn't
due to the secret cabal of communists that seem to haunt your daydreams. It's that your
positions are asinine and you're incapable of arguing effectively and supporting your
positions with evidence.
I'm just applying the same rules to blacks as get applied to whites. Imagine what the ADL
or SPLC would say of an online journal called "White Perspectives" that teaches "white
history."
I have not committed the genetic fallacy. I not only attack the source of Leftism. I
attack it's present manifestation and the false Left / Right paradigm those in its service
have constructed in order to lead us ever leftward.
Leftism's founding principle is equality. Stated synonymously, and with much historical
affirmation, this means uniformity.
The modern Left supposedly prides itself on diversity but this diversity is only skin
deep. It still craves uniformity. It has just learned that it needs brown skin in positions
of power to supplant white nonconformance, it's main opponent. The Left cannot even tolerate
the opinions of those it disagrees with. This is why it labels everyone who disagrees with
it's radical social engineering program a deplorable or a racist or an outright Nazi.
An actual theocratic monarchist reactionary would consider Nazism to be leftist, and ideas
of 'racial superiority' or 'racial guilt' or whatever to be very modern ideas.
Please expurgate your naïve realism - it's all a matter of perspective. To someone
with current mores, the Nazis, a rehash of the ethno-nationalist 1848 Revolutions in Germany,
are unspeakably reactionary. To someone with pre-Enlightenment values, they're beyond far
left. Please read something written by someone who was a 'leftist' in his own day, and it
will almost always be unspeakably reactionary by the contemporary standards of even those
'white supremacists' that you so hate. Here's some anti-immigrant racist Benjamin Franklin
for you:
"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will
shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never
adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
24. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World
is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America
(exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French,
Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans
also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People
on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I
may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of
our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we
in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by
Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and
Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion
of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind. "
This block of text is nothing but another incoherent rambling from a markedly unserious
thinker. You've outed yourself repeatedly as an idiot or an ideologue. Either way, you're not
worth another breath of response.
Yes, if you simply throw out all logic and available evidence, Hitler and Mussolini were
on the political left. And if you simply redefine the entire color spectrum, the sky is green
and the sea is orange.
This is like History 101 people, get with the damn program.
Jack, if there is a nail and a head---you HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!
People do seem to try to put all of this in a left-right mindset which is more "tribal
identity" than reality.
Broadly speaking ...repeat....broadly speaking----Russia and Stalin were an economic
system-philosophy while Hitler carried on the German culture model of Martin Luther, which
was much more GERMAN NATIONALISM -with a well documented anti-Semitism on steroids.
One was economic systems and the other one was nationalism. To put either into a
leftist-rightist camp doesn't work with today's terminology.
The same way that it is not possible to call Trumpicans either conservative or liberal.
The economic policies put in by Trump are reckless and certainly not conservative.
The 'point' is to establish stigma by association. History is only useful in politics when
it can used against one's enemies, either by associating with something valued or associating
stigmatized history with one's enemies. It's also possible for history to be stigmatized due
to its use by political enemies.
The point is to score points for your tribe. I find the terms "left" and "right"
increasingly useless. If they ever had value, that value is largely lost. This is especially
true in the US, where left and right seem determined to degenerate into each's caricature of
the other.
The point is to break out of the Left / Right paradigm as it's been presented to us by
those who mean to rule us. Anybody who seriously opposes the Leftwing's steady march towards
Communism, is labeled a far-right winger, and is put in the company of Nazis. They then
become untouchable by normal people who have not devoted any time into historical or
ideological inquiry.
This game forces normal people into the middle, and in the middle they pose no meaningful
threat to the Leftward march of the establishment, because the middle cannot find the
leverage to arrest its progress. The middle's only hope is to slow it down somewhat.
Fascism has perhaps not been 'on the Left' because, historically it has always arisen to
fight communism, which is the farthest Left you can get (so anything opposed to it seems, by
comparison, Right), but it is fully a child of the radical Left nationalism born of the
French Jacobins. It's certainly not a grandchild of the European monarchies, though
conservatives have at times had to ally with it as the lesser of two evils when confronted by
communism.
In the end it was a catastrophic economic meltdown--in their case taking the form of
metastatic inflation--which sent Germany off the edge of the cliff and into the abyss. So it
will be with the US. Pray we don't have a recurrence of 2007. Or worse!
There was a thing called the Great Depression that started in America but spread to Europe
quickly in 1929. Hitler came to power when millions of German workers lost their jobs and had
no way of supporting themselves and their families.
Yep. And Hitler came to power because German Nationalists (the conservative party) formed
an alliance with him, rather than with the center-left and liberal parties.
Nationalism, German or otherwise, is not particularly conservative. The most intelligent
conservative since Burke was Prince Metternich, who regarded nationalism as his greatest
enemy, especially German nationalism.
Yes, the actual hyperinflation did indeed end around that time but by then the economic
die had already been cast. The cumulative effect upon the German middle and, especially, the
working class, farmers, "petite bourgeoisie" etc.,would devastate the country through the
remainder of the 20s and into the 30s (my father and his parents, who were working class
Social Democrats, had to get out by 1928 and were lucky to gain admittance into the US as the
doors were being closed on immigration at the time). As to 2007 I totally agree that
inflation was not a factor. I was evidently unclear but--that really wasn't my point. The
absence of inflation notwithstanding, we know that the economy went into the soup in 2007--so
much so that, to date, we have not fully recovered. My main point is to express the fear that
if it were to happen again for whatever reason, if you factor in the "Kulturkampf" within
which American society is currently embroiled we are going to have one HELL of a mess on our
hands.
And given that, isn't it all the more important to try to avoid the political mistakes
German conservatives made in the early 1930s when they chose to ally themselves with the
Nazis?
Yes, it is. As we see here, conservatives like Rod think they can control the extremists.
No snark this time, they really believe that.
They couldn't even control Trump.
I think the bigger concern is the alliance of the center left with two marxist movements
especially considering the right cannot ally with nazis as there are no comparable nazi
organizations available
One of the three co-founders of BLM stated in an 2015 interview that she, Patrice Collers,
and one other cofounder, Alizia Garza, are trained marxists. If the leadership claims they
are marxist, then what is the BLM movement?
Anarchists and Marxists simply have different methods of achieving the same goal. For an
example of anarchist goals, see the collectivist actions of the Catalonian anarchists during
the Spanish Civil War.
These are both anti-democratic and dangerous movements which the center left is happy to
work with.
It was the ruinous inflation of 1923 COMBINED with the high unemployment in 1932 that
encouraged millions of ordinary Germans to vote for the Nazis twice in 1932. Some wealthy
Republicans seem to forget this as they lobby for more tax cuts and foreign aid to Israel.
They also appear to forget that the period 1871-1914 was something of a "Golden Age" for
German Jews. Germany's defeat in WWI AND the harsh peace treaty imposed on it by the other
side were more than enough to offset the benefits of a new democratic constitution adopted in
Weimar in 1919.
It is hard to believe that two decades ago, the US budget actually turned positive for a
brief period of time, that the national debt was expected to be paid off in a decade or so
and that some economists were wondering how the Fed would conduct monetary policy if there
were no Treasury securities to buy and sell. They need not have worried. These days, the
national debt is out of control. Instead of worrying about the future, I can take consolation
in the fact that I have outlived (by more than a decade) all of my father's relatives who
were still living in Poland in 1939. For them, the end of the line was an extermination camp
called Belzec.
It wasn't just the 1929 Depression that caused so much hardship in Germany. In 1933 after
Adolph Hitler came to power and Germany was just beginning to crawl out of the shock of their
own depression, the international Jewish Community (Zionists) launched its economic war on
Germany, which native, German Jews pleaded with their western brethren to not do. Ignoring
the German Jews requests, the economic war against Germany persisted, causing massive
economic disruptions as the popularity of this endeavor was picked up around the world...
The first anti-Jewish measure put in place by Nazi Germany started on April 1, 1933 when
Aryan Germans were encouraged by the government to boycott Jewish businesses in Germany. The
boycott was the first of many anti-Jewish measures taken by the Nazis over the next 12 years.
This boycott was followed on April 7, 1933 with the forced retirement of most non-Aryan (i.e.
Jewish) civil servants in the country and a book burning of books by Jewish authors on May
10. There is a whole list of anti-Jewish measures taken by Nazi Germany in the museum catalog
"Jews in German under Prussian Rule". Used copies are available at Amazon.
The economic response by Jews living outside Germany was a failure. It was the Battle of
Stalingrad and the brutal Russian winter of 1942-43 that turned the tide of WWII in
Europe
Bit off topic but not long ago I read that of all the major industrial countries the one
that supposedly suffered the least from the effects of the Depression-- was England!
The conservatives (right-liberals) have done nothing but ally with the left-liberals
against the "fascists" (actual right wing) since 1945. Their entire raison d'etre is to lose
gracefully while preventing the actual right wing from ever coming anywhere near power.
I would call that "overfitting," expecting to find exact matches among the parties
involved. My lessons:
- people can be given scapegoats in lieu of hope. "Yes, we've gutted manufacturing and
flooded the country with low-skill illegal labour, but what's keeping you down is systemic
racism. There is a secret hatred for the colour of the skin inside all white people. They
can't even see it themselves, but it's there. Just look at all these stories from the Jim
Crow era and get angry about them again, and you'll find that if you don't for me you're not
really black."
- nothing's more dangerous than a well-meaning good person convinced they're better than
everyone else, led about by skilled propagandists with total control of news and
entertainment.
- projection and false flag operations are at the top of the propagandist's toolbox. If
you're "fighting racism," you can see race everywhere and treat it as the defining aspect of
every person you meet and the source of all their opinions. If you're "fighting fascism" you
can dress in black and run around starting fires, attacking Senators, and shooting people for
their political beliefs. If you convince everyone "white supremacist terror groups" are the
biggest threat to the country you can unleash rioters on every major city to fight one rather
well-behaved seventeen-year-old in one city. You can unleash a steady stream of hoaxes:
Russiagate, a short clip of the longer George Floyd video that obscures why he died, the
Covington Catholic Smirk of Supremacy, bleach and "This is MAGA country." It doesn't matter.
The bigger the better: people will always believe the big lie.
You should think about your own role in all this. What part of Weimar are you playing?
Thanks for your thoughtful response. To answer your question, I play a
small-to-the-point-of-insignificance role these days, trying to lower the political
temperature in this time of pandemic, and trying to make the case for small 'd' democracy as
the best (and highly imperfect) method for dealing with the challenges we face.
It's in that context that I find hope in the growing number of conservatives (most
recently, former Montana governor and RNC chair Marc Racicot) who are placing "country over
party" and stating their support for Biden, not because they agree with his policies but
despite their disagreement with them.
These folks are not putting "country over party". They are tied into the Uniparty ruled by
the oligarchs doing the bidding of their masters.
Putting "country over party" would require them calling for the arrest of all those who
were involved in the Russian collusion hoax, Spygate, and everything else, from Obama on
down.
Putting "country over party" would require them to put the well-being of the citizens
first and support an end to endless war and to support enforcing immigration law and fixing
trade.
No, these every alleged Republican or conservative supporting Biden is showing that they
are and have always been a fraud who doesn't believe what they preached and would rather
continue in the good graces of the rich and powerful that really rule the country.
Support for country over politics and personal gain. Going back to the "normalcy" of the
pre-Trump political order. Pick one. You don't get both.
Anyone who tells you how important it is for "the good of the nation" to go back to the
long list of careerist politicians, hacks, and establishment elite who have governed it
towards its ruination must first make the case that the "norms" of American political culture
were good and righteous or (even from a strictly amoral view) practically useful. They never
do, though.
It's always asserted as if it is a self-evident fact that we need to go back to the days
of Bushes, Clintons, and Bidens, but nobody can really explain why.
Leftists don't want us as allies, and the 'street militias' are almost entirely leftist.
Institutional elites in Germany supported National Socialism, while in the US today they
support leftists.
Thanks for your response. Sure, there are those on the left who want nothing to do with
centrists and conservatives. (Heck, some of them barely tolerate liberals.) But the
Democratic party chose its most moderate candidate as its standard-bearer in this election,
and Biden has made clear he welcomes the support of centrists and conservatives and
Republicans.
(As for militias, per the FBI (not known as a bastion of liberalism) right-wing militias
are by far the largest domestic terrorism threat.)
Like the Republican party in the Trump era, there is no longer such a thing as the
Democratic party in its traditional sense. As the GOP is an empty vessel now filled with
Trumpism, the Democratic party is an empty vessel being filled with progressivism (an ongoing
process). The traditional Democrats (like old-school moderate African-Americans) who put
Biden over the top in the primary are otherwise powerless in the party.
Biden has made it clear that he will not push back against the far Left in any way - in
his refusal to comment on packing SCOTUS, ending the Senate filibuster, ending the electoral
college (the lack of an answer to these being itself an answer), in his absorption of much of
Bernie's platform into his own, in his silence on urban riots and looting until campaign
people told him it was affecting polling (and his response since has been tepid at best).
He lied gleefully (Trumpily?) during the debate about the prog platform - his own campaign
website lists support for GND and an expanded "reimagining" of the suburbs among many other
progressive goals which Trump is too inarticulate and ignorant to frame sensible arguments
against.
The Democrats are planning to govern on the basis of vengeance and revolution. The mood of
the base could not be more clear.
Thanks for your response. Unlike the Republican party, the Democratic party still has a
party platform that extends beyond (far beyond, 90 pages beyond) fealty to its party leader.
As Biden won a majority of the delegates, the platform those delegates adopted reflects the
views of the factions that chose Biden more than it does any other faction in the party.
Biden has pointedly and repeatedly distanced himself from the policy wishes (e.g.,
Medicare for All, Green New Deal, defund the police) of the left-wing of the Democratic
party.
Vice President Biden knows there is no greater challenge facing our country and our world.
Today, he is outlining a bold plan – a Clean Energy Revolution – to address
this grave threat and lead the world in addressing the climate emergency.
Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate
challenges we face. It powerfully captures two basic truths, which are at the core of his
plan: (1) the United States urgently needs to embrace greater ambition on an epic scale to
meet the scope of this challenge, and (2) our environment and our economy are completely
and totally connected.
Biden will implement the Obama-Biden Administration's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
Rule requiring communities receiving certain federal funding to proactively examine housing
patterns and identify and address policies that have a discriminatory effect. The Trump
Administration suspended this rule in 2018.
Giving Americans a new choice, a public health insurance option like Medicare. If your
insurance company isn't doing right by you, you should have another, better choice. Whether
you're covered through your employer, buying your insurance on your own, or going without
coverage altogether, the Biden Plan will give you the choice to purchase a public health
insurance option like Medicare. As in Medicare, the Biden public option will reduce costs
for patients by negotiating lower prices from hospitals and other health care providers. It
also will better coordinate among all of a patient's doctors to improve the efficacy and
quality of their care, and cover primary care without any co-payments. And it will bring
relief to small businesses struggling to afford coverage for their employees.
I don't deserve your thanks, kind sir. You're vastly overestimating the social importance
of presidential elections, imo. And I don't believe the FBI. Every other institution in
American society is virtue signaling support for the woke left, so why not them? They know
who is going to run the country next year. Do you believe that the rioting and destruction
this summer was caused by right-wingers? I have heard that conspiracy theory before, and I
suppose it's the closest thing we'd ever get from leftists to an admission that the events
were negative.
I think that there is definitely a strong double standard when it comes to media reporting
and institutional acknowledgment of violence based on the demographics and politics of the
perpetrator. There was a huge mass shooting in the city I live in last year, but the shooter
(DeWayne Craddock) was black and had a stereotypically black given name. There was very
little reporting on it as compared with the Texas church shooter that occurred at about the
same time.
No, because we on the Left are always the greater evil.
Always.
The (few) bad tendencies of (some, very few) people on the Right can be contained and
governed by the other conservatives.
/SNARK
In Germany, the national socialists and communists were battling for totalitarian control.
Both of them were on the left. Dictatorship either way.
The real question today in the US is whether old fashioned liberals [belief in free
speech, political discourse without threats or actual violence, natural American patriotism,
etc] will disavow the violence and intimidation from the leftist totalitarianism that is the
democrat party today.
The rioting, the burning, the street violence, the death threats of lining people against the
wall, etc., etc., is pretty much all from the totalitarian left. I could give you hundreds of
examples, the most recent the former CEO of Twitter wanting to shoot political opponents.
This hate-filled rhetoric from the totalitarian left is an attempt to dehumanize people
they disagree with, to hate them. This is simply preparing for the stage that those the
totalitarian left disagrees with should be sent to gulags at a minimum, or killed.
This is all with the approval and help of the "mainstream' democrat party. Denying this
just makes you not credible.
p.s. Biden, at best, is a partial senile figurehead, whose function is to mask what the
totalitarian left really wants to do.
Oh what Jonah Goldberg has wraught with this "NAZI's we're leftists" horseshit. I guess
when you be been absolved of the notion that right wing thought had anything to do with the
rise of fascism in Europe, you can say any horrible thing you'd like about people of another
race, ethnicity, or religion ruining your pretty Lilly white country.
From Wikipedia:
"As the eldest son of Bertha Krupp,
Alfried was destined by family tradition to become the sole heir of the
Krupp concern. An amateur photographer and Olympic sailor, he was an
early supporter of Nazism among German industrialists, joining the SS in
1931, and never disavowing his allegiance to Hitler."
Thanks for your response. In case anyone else still isn't clear, and just for the record,
the Nazis were not "on the left".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
The national socialists were on the left. You may lie about it, I can't stop you.
But what is definitely clear is the national socialists were brutal evil totalitarianists
[new word?]. Just like the communist dictatorships in russia, china, cambodia, cuba, etc.
This is the leftists/wokesters blm antifa [the brownshirts of today] in the US, with the
tacit/explicit approval of democrat leadership.
They would not have been better off aligned with Stalin, which was the other side in their
domestic political extremes. It too was rioting in the streets.
The middle got too narrow to survive. That does not mean the other extreme was an
acceptable choice, much less a better choice.
No. For example, the Nazis and the Communists *combined* only accounted for 40% of the
parliamentary seats after the 1930 election. If the center-right, centrist, and center-left
parties had formed an alliance, they could have governed the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
I'm not really a conservative, but I share many concerns and values with conservatives. I
do agree that it's better to ally with liberals and the center-left than to join right-wing
authoritarians, and for that reason I have, however reluctantly, cast my mail-in vote for Joe
Biden.
That said, I think you misinterpret the choice that ultimately faced German nationalists
in 1932. By that time, the liberals and center-left had shrunk to powerlessness at the
national level, and the republic itself was dead in all but name. The choice as the German
nationalists saw it, and very likely as it actually was, was to join the communist KPD or the
fascist National Socialists, both of whom were determined to kill the republic. Even a
friggin' restoration of the Kaiser would have found more support at that point than the
continuation of a liberal center-left republic which had been thoroughly repudiated by all
the strongest players.
In retrospect, we know that even the KPD might have been less bad than the National
Socialists, because the KPD probably wouldn't have blundered into another world war
like the National Socialists did (Stalin, after all, avoided war with the USA and UK). But
that would have been hard for German nationalists to foresee in 1932. The obvious question
for them in making their choice was "Whose death list am I on?" If you were a business owner,
independent farmer, or churchman, your chance of survival seemed better under the National
Socialists; if you were nonwhite, or gay, or Jewish (always remember many German Jews were
fervently nationalist; some of the men murdered in the camps had won Iron Crosses in World
War I), you would have a better chance of survival under the KPD. If the businessmen, farmers
and churchmen could have foreseen that the National Socialists were going to throw away their
lives in another pointless war, they might have taken their chances with the communists
instead.
Switching now to modern America, it seems as hard to predict now as it was for the Germans
in 1932 which party will get us into a massive bloodbath overseas. Trump talks the
nonintervention talk sometimes, but he never withdraws troops, twice came within a micron of
getting us into a war with Iran, and consistently behaves bellicosely with foreign powers.
Biden's record in supporting the Iraq War and the Libya intervention show that a vote for
Democrats is no sure vote for peace either. In any case, dying in a conventional war is a
very remote risk for most Americans; our forces are too strong and technologically advanced.
Nazi Germany lost seven times more dead just invading Poland than America lost in the whole
Afghanistan war. The true nightmare scenario for America is nuclear war with Russia, and
there's no dispute about which party is more hostile to Russia.
My point is, if we've truly reached 1932 Weimar, it's already too late to ally with
liberals and the center-left. The far right and the far left were their only options, and
both led to disaster.
My fervent hope is that we're still closer to 1929 Weimar than 1932. The republic is sick,
perhaps dying, but not everyone has lost faith in it; below the level of the political and
media elites, confidence in the republic is still strong. The US military still supports the
republic to an extent the Reichswehr never did. Biden is no fire-breathing radical; he's an
establishment man to his bones. He has no idea how to cure the republic, and his policies
helped bring it to this low ebb, but at least he isn't out to murder it. That's why I was
willing to vote for him. But it's merely a stopgap measure. The far left is busily taking
over Biden's party, and far from resisting it, he sees it as a useful ally against the right.
The far right, of course, has long been doing the same to the Republican Party. We may not
have arrived yet at 1932's dreadful choice between cutthroats, but we are speeding down that
road, and it is crazy to imagine that a mere presidential vote for either of these two clowns
is going to change our course.
What will change our course? I have only the haziest idea, and I'm eagerly looking forward
to Rod's book for suggestions.
This is the best answer, but radicals will just look at your "whose death list am I in"
argument and say "yep the bourgeoisie should die, and so should anyone who supports
them".
Agreed that this is a thoughtful response. While I may even more reluctantly cast my
ballot for a despicable lunatic instead, I relate to much of the above.
In the 1928 German elections, 15 political parties won seats in the Reichstag
(parliament), with the Nazi party winning fewer than 3% of the seats. Germany's proportional
system of allocating seats meant that even small parties could end up with a small number
seats. Two years later, 15 parties again won seats in Reichstag elections. The Nazi party
made the biggest gain in seats at the expense of more centrist parties. In both national
elections held in 1932, 14 political parties won seats, with the Nazi party winning the most
seats. The popularity of the Nazi party grew as economic conditions in the country
worsened.
In 2020, the Covid-19 virus may have merely accelerated trends which were already in place
in the US.
That's a stupid false equivalency and a scarecrow argument in one, maybe even a no true
scotsman to go with that. You're aware that there were several conservatives opposing Hitler,
right? Opposition wasn't just carried out by the far-left, some of which were in the
SA/The Nazi party themselves . See: strasserism.
Rod, I agree with you about Arendt and her classic work, the best work in political
history/theory of the 20th Century imo. But there is a reason why no one quotes it today. You
mention only the last chapter of TOoT, but in Part II she goes into great detail about how
capitalism led to imperialism which used racism as a means to that end. The "mob" originates
with those displaced by The Great Transformation (Polyani's term) brought about by capitalism
and the rise of bourgeois society . . . it is this mob that later forms the basis for
totalitarian movements. Arendt's analysis covers a period of about 400 years, not simply the
aftermath of World War I which was a result of the crisis that had already begun, that is the
dissolution of the nation state . . .
But that would be uncomfortable to point out, as it is the rise of right wing economics
that was destroyed the middle class in this country, and lead us to this parlous state.
For a long time, the right has happily embraced the culture wars to hide the destruction
of the libertarian economic policies, that as always are looking for a way to crush labor
power.
An anaylsis of the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe and East Asia that leaves out the
World Wars is like an American history text that leaves out the Civil War. In every single
Eurasian country from Hungary east to North Korea where the Communists came to power WWI
and/or WWII was a key factor. No war, no Communist takeover. (And it regards to the Nazis in
Germany WWI is also a crucial factor on their coming power)
What would play the role of those wars in our future if some manner of totalitarian
government of the Left or Right junked the Constitution and seized power by force?
To be sure, none of this means that totalitarianism is inevitable. But they do signify that
the weaknesses in contemporary American society are consonant with a pre-totalitarian
state. Like the imperial Russians, we Americans may well be living in a fog of
self-deception about our own country's stability. It only takes a catalyst like war,
economic depression, plague, or some other severe and prolonged crisis that brings the
legitimacy of the liberal democratic order into question.
Again, why are you responding to an argument that Rod is not making? He didn't write The
Handmaid's Tale,
What were the catalysts for Cuba or Venezuela? Or the many socialist regimes in Africa,
the Middle East and Latin America during the postwar decades?
Revolutions against outside imposed dictatorships left over from a soft imperialism.
Platt Amendment, Banana Wars, School of the Americas and coups for days set up the
conditions for people to not trust there near neighbor oppose to its distant enemies during
the Cold War and the legacies from it created the social conditions for. We as a state
literally supported death squads in Central America. Leading to the weak states and strong
gangs in the region. The seeds of any empire bear bitter fruits. It is also where the police
state we now see was created and imported home.
As is so often the case, there are various partial truths in what you say but they don't
add up to the simplistic conclusion. BTW Venezuela was a relatively wealthy and successful
country when Chavez took over; the factors you list were long before and not involved. Rather
what happened was existing inequities and problems were utilized to enable a power grab. In
the same way that poor blacks and other minorities are being used to enable the current power
grab, divide and conquer as always - in the end, they will be just as removed from power as
they are now. Like all the woke white chicks, they are just considered useful idiots for the
progressives seeking power.
We as a state literally supported death squads in Central America. Leading to the weak
states and strong gangs in the region. The seeds of any empire bear bitter fruits.
Not that simple. The weak states and strong gangs came first. The weak states and corrupt
governments and deep inequities created the instabilities that motivated insurgencies. Lack
of a rule of law and the inability of the state to protect you forces people to turn to (and
form) gangs for protection. All of this played out against a backdrop of a global conflict
between two empires, two ideologies which further fueled all the conflicts.
There were death squads and all sorts of other abuses on all sides. There are no clean
hands in such a conflict. It was not possible to remain neutral unless you were Swiss.
All of the problems you cite concerning central america are an outgrowth of the
"governments" the US government/business imposed on those countries. The societies of central
and south america were and are highly stratified with "Europeans"--ancestry--occupying the
highest rung and receiving the lions share of the wealth. That's the reason Castro and Chavez
had such an easy time overthrowing the governments and why there is so much resistance to a
return of the previous conditions.
International relations and history are a lot more complicated than you think they are.
The endless desire for Americans to find quick and dirty feel-good good vs bad answers to
everything goes a long ways towards explaining the degrading of this society and its
governance.
I note again that Venezuela was in a rather different state than pre-Castro Cuba. But yes
having a large underclass that feels disconnected and deprived of what the rest of a society
has goes provide fertile fuel for revolution.
MS13 and Barrio 18 were born in the US from refugees fleeing our dirty wars in Central
America. Poor wealth distribution leads to it. So glad you realize wealth focus is bad. Also
oligarchs are bad. We supported those corrupted governments leading to the revolutions
leading to the net result. Ever hear of United Fruit and the banana men? Imperial Companies
support weak government because they can influence it.
Well the catalyst for Cuba was Batista staging a coup, seizing power, and destroying the
democratic process (with full US support) in 1952. Less than 10 years later, a popular
revolution overthrew him. That revolution has proven a much tougher nut to crack. It's almost
as if overthrowing democracy and giving into a strongman's appetite for power has
consequences down the road.
One could also say that trying to jump start / leap frog your way into equality and
"justice" also has consequences down the road. A lesson that humans absolutely refuse to
learn, thus condemning generation after generation into misery.
No one "gives into a strongman's appetite for power". People make choices based on
incentives and possible outcomes. Rod uses the Franco example often. People often have to
choose between two terrible outcomes - in which case they choose the one that has a better
chance of their own survival or the survival of what they care about.
I can't comment about east Asia because I don't now enough about it, but as the great
historian John Lukacs never tired of saying, the only country in Europe where the Bolsheviks
triumphed politically was Russia. The Spartacists and the Bela Kun horror fizzled out. After
the second war the Communists needed the Red Army to set up puppets. There was no
"revolution" in Poland, Czech, Hungary or anywhere because nobody wanted it. Yugoslavia may
be a partial exception, but look what happened to Yugoslavia.
Good point. I guess we could make the argument that the Red Army sweep over Eastern Europe
and absorption of all those countries into the Soviet empire required WW2 to occur, but that
seems like not the argument that Jon is making in response to Rod's thesis.
I was agreeing with him. But "what would play the role of those wars in our future" would
be...a war. Which Biden (or, the Pentagon) has up his sleeve ("America is Back"). Experto
crede. Do you not believe that the Kagan/Rubin/Boot crowd would shy from a shooting war with
Russia? Because I don't.
Thankfully empty-headed blabbers like Rubin and Boot are well removed from actual power
(and even, I would say, influence - in fact it is unclear to me why anyone publishes their
rantings). The people with influence in a Biden administration will be people like Harris,
Warner, AOC, etc. I don't think they're really aching for a war.
But the point is that you don't need a war - the catalyst can be another major event like
economic depression, a global pandemic, etc, etc.
Well, we're asking the who/whom question only one way, it seems to me. Everybody is
rightly convinced that on social and economic issues AOC and Princess Tiger Lily will have
the wheel in a Biden administration. But who's to say that in foreign policy Gersonism won't
prevail? All these never Trumpers are going to be looking for their rewards. Remember,
Hillary destroyed Libya as a resume enhancer. And the Army has gone left. One of the things
Trump mideast deal has done is set up a Sunni/Shia showdown. Why not follow through?
Fair enough. I suppose that's possible, and the young AOC type progs barely know where
anything on the globe is outside the US so they might be happy to let the old "experts" take
back over foreign policy. Not where their interests lie, for sure.
I disagree about the mideast deals, though - a Sunni vs Shia conflict has been baked into
the cake from the beginning (see: Iran Iraq war), and it was Obama's crazy Iran deal that
started everyone back on that path by strengthening Iran and trying to push it into place as
a regional hegemon. That was never going to go down with the Sunni countries.
The apparently not actually so naive Kushner was able to take advantage of new incentives
that Obama's machinations created. I see this as quite positive.
We'll agree to disagree about the mideast, which I really just brought up e.g. The one
they're really lusting for is a shooting war with Putin. Have you read Gerson on that
subject? What's the outcome of Mrs. Sikorsky's bellicosity but that? What else has all this
NATO expansion been for, anyway?
Haven't read Gerson in a while. I see your point, though I don't really think any of these
people are quite reckless enough to lust for a war with a nuclear power.
Partially correct. Czechoslovakia was an exception: Communists came to power as a result
of a free election in 1946. But it was something of an outlier, probably the most left-wing
country in Europe.
It was Bush 43's costly Middle East adventures at a time when he was cutting income taxes
that set the US economy on the terrible path it is on now. Our national debt is out of
control. Many young people will leave college with massive student loan debt, poor job
prospects and, in many areas, very expensive housing. We have paid and will continue to pay a
very high price for trying to be the world's policeman.
Obama, the wild eyed leftist spender, cut the 1.2 trillion dollar deficit that W ran up
with his tax cuts and catastrophic war down to 585 billion. By the end of '19, before any
Covid-19 spending took place, Trump had run it back up to 984 billion. Growth has been a
meager two tenths of one percent higher in the first three years of Trump's presidency than
it was during the last three years of Obama and it has come at a high cost.
"...which seeks to infuse all aspects of life with political Consciousness."
Which explains the absurd phenomenon of polically-correct stand-up comics. Guess what?
They're not funny. 'Whimsy' won't get you belly laughs. Trump still gets the belly laughs.
Even from me, and I hate his rotten stinking guts with the white hot fury of a thousand
suns.
A hundred years ago, Newtonian physics got nuked. Goodbye ordered universe, hello entropy
and chaos. And we've been mopping up the fallout ever since. Ironically, years before, The
Enlightenment had already started this dissolution process. So can you blame Picasso and
Joyce for just trying to see things as they really are(?)
Griel Marcus traces this process in his great book Lipstick Traces. From The Brethren of
the Free Spirit to the Cathars to St. Just to the Paris Commune to Duchamp and right up to
The Sex Pistols, we are either fallen, or trying to achieve the colliding energy of a mere
collection of atoms. The Lettrists even took a cue from Finnegans Wake and carved up the damn
language, for Chr--sakes. And they've been doing it ever since.
So can you blame the great Stockard Channing, in Six Degrees of Seperation, 1993, for
meditating on a Kandinsky and then coming to the same conclusion that many of us poor
benighted souls have in these absurd times: 'I am all random.'
Arendt's fine. But I'll go with Carville's "It's the economy stupid".
When a young man who isn't "college material" has no economic future, he's going to find a
way to make one. If it requires totalitarianism, so be it. Indeed, totalitarian ideologies
can only flourish in an environment when bored, penniless young men have the time to read up
on them.
Imagine all of those black guys rioting or white skinheads having to get up early in the
morning for 10 hours of hard-work at the factory or on someone's roof. A couple of beers
after work and your ready for bed, not revolution. Hence the great America of the '50's - the
'80's.
I have no idea what's coming, but we are trying to reduce our exposure by moving out of
the city, as far as we can reasonably go for now until retirement. We are frantically trying
to get our house on the market and hoping that thanks to the magic of "gentrification"
(hopefully prospective buyers won't notice the giant "F*** Gentrifiers" spray painted on a
nearby wall) we can trade our overvalued home into two properties - one in a distant town
past the outer suburbs and another somewhere overseas where we can run to when things get
really bad. That's the dream, at least. But the city we have already left and won't be going
back.
I'm sure the overseas locations will be absolutely overjoyed to have a couple of US
refugees, with no ties to the country or area, who don't speak the language or have any
cultural understanding or background, and expect to instantly be fully integrated into the
economic and social fabric, showing up.
Have you considered that you'll be akin to a Central American family moving into the outer
suburb neighborhood you desire to live in, albeit one with more resources and legal
status?
"Trump's exaltation of personal loyalty over expertise is discreditable and corrupting.
But how can liberals complain? Loyalty to the group or the tribe is at the core of leftist
identity politics."
Just when you thought the hypocrisy and the double-standard had reached the limits of what
is humanly possible, Biden takes it up a notch.
After spending the last few months tearing up cities and threatening to burn down the country
if they don't win in November, the Democrats now accuse Trump of putting the Proud Boys on
stand-by???
Even my dog is laughing at this.
[How do these kooky communists even get elected to dog-catcher???]
Just saying both sides are playing this game. One is just doing it with more guns and
state security support. The left has greater cultural focus cause those are the positions
that interest them. This is the creation of capitalism.
If Rod paid more attention to all the data and not just those that feed his hysteria, he'd
learn that there are all kinds of backlash within liberal and far left circles to the
excesses he rightly decries. In fact, I think there is more self-correction and
self-regulation going on within "the left" than on Rod's side of the spectrum
Do you have any examples of this self correction? I've been living in a far left
neighborhood in a permanent liberal Democratic city for decades, and I don't see it (well now
we fled so I can't speak for what happens next).
There are occasionally people who will whisper something in my ear or my wife's ear that
suggests they recognize some lunacy that's going on. But they would never admit that
publicly. And all evidence suggests there are still very few of such people.
The whole point of Rod's thesis is that the vast majority of people will go along with the
tide even if they don't believe it - they will live their lives by lies. Very few people have
the courage to take a stand in such circumstances, as history makes all too clear. The
progressive left, again as has been made clear over and over, now owns all the institutions
that matter in the US - with woke capitalism being the final crown. What Rod says is coming,
is coming.
Without the '65 "immigration reform" act none of this would be happening. This isn't the
result of personal loneliness, it's the inevitable result of becoming, in Eugene McCarthy's
phrase, a colony of the world. The radical turn to the left is a direct result of anti-white
bloc voting by immigrants. (Indeed you have to be willfully blind not to notice the high
percentage of spokesmen for the extreme left who are immigrants or the children of
immigrants.) This is a race war against white America, in which the cultural establishment
and the government they shape are the leading protagonists. Classic racist colonialism, with
the bizarre twist that perhaps a third of the white population supports the annihilation of
their own peoples and cultures. For the others it's simply a Scramble For America, a rush to
get money, territory, and power with the natives footing the bill.
Irrelevant. It's the immigrant vote that puts them over. The vast majority of immigration
is non-white. It's immigration that has California not electing a Republican to statewide
office in 15 years, and nothing else. Don't take my word for it, the left itself has been
telling Republicans for decades that the demographics are against them. It's an
acknowledgement of the reality of identity bloc voting and the reason they support open
borders. In any case, I mentioned you when I wrote about that mentally ill third of whites
that supports self-annihilation.
"""It is probably as true that violence breeds fanaticism as that fanaticism begets
violence. Fanatical orthodoxy is in all movements a late development. There is hardly an
example of a mass movement achieving vast proportions and a durable organization solely by
persuasion. It was a temporal sword that made Christianity a world religion. Conquest and
conversion were hand in hand. Reformation made headways only where it gained the backing of
the ruling prince or local government. The missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some
deep misgivings. Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than
to bestow upon the world something we already have. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his
own faith by converting others.
A true believer is eternally incomplete and eternally insecure.
Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. A full
blown mass movement is a ruthless affair, and its management is in the hands of ruthless
fanatics. A Luther who when first defying the established church, spoke feelingly of "the
poor, simple, common folk," proclaimed later when he allied with the German princelings, that
"God would prefer to suffer to government to exist no matter how evil, rather than allow the
rabble to riot, not matter how justified they are in doing so."
"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass
movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a
devil."
However, the freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and
self-realization, but the freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence.
They want freedom from the arduous responsibility of realizing their ineffectual selves and
shouldering the blame for the blemished product. They do not want freedom of conscience, but
faith -- blind, authoritarian faith. """"""
Biden of course is scarcely a totalitarian figure--Trump is more suited to that role. But
Biden would fit nicely as a von Hindenburg for the Loony Left.
How in the hell is Trump a totalitarian figure? I hear this calumny hurled at him time and
time again, but without any specifics. Tell me, what specific totalitarian actions has he
actually taken?
Support for violent white supremacist groups. Using the Dept. of Justice to target
political enemies. Adopting a Republican platform that consists solely of fealty to the party
leader.
Over the past 6 months or so, my husband has been listening to a lot of Jordan Peterson
and I have definitely noticed a shift in his thinking. A good one! I, myself, just finished
listening to his book, 12 Rules For Life and am now going through his Podcast episodes. It's
quite fascinating! Rogan has also received a lot of flak for having Peterson on his show
several times.
I went and listened to the episodes with Abigail Shrier and Douglas Murray (at your
suggestion) and now have their books (as well as your's) sitting in my audible library.
Most of what you say is true, save for the usefulness of the "experts", the credentialed
ones who have shown themselves to be absolute morons, incompetents and political hacks.
(Think, Fauci.)
Imagine if one hundred years ago you told the founding stock of this nation that every
American institution would be weaponized against their own history and heritage. Imagine if
you told them our universities, media, churches and immigration system were all being used to
demonize and demographically displace their own posterity. They must be rolling over in their
graves because that is exactly what is happening.
In 1920? Large numbers of them absolutely would have believed it. In fact, millions of
them *did* believe it. The country was being overrun by Italians, Poles, Greeks, Serbs,
Russians. A frightening number of them were Jews and Catholics. They smelled funny, spoke
weird languages, had bizarre beliefs and customs, cooked and ate strange foods. They were
lazy bums who were taking all our jobs. At a rally in Rhode Island, the Grand Imperial Wizard
proclaimed to thousands that the KKK stood for undying opposition to "Koons, Kikes, &
Katholics".
And it's come true! Look, for example, who's on the Supreme Court.
Not to mention that the Jews were over-running colleges. Keeping them out required changes
to admissions practices to make things other than pure academic ability deciding factors.
Hence the emphasis on "the whole person", where a good background, good family, athletic
ability, and being someone you'd want to associate with in your club began to over-ride
performance on the academic tests that had previously been used to determine admissions.
Just soft totalitarianism? That seems incredibly pollyann-ish - delusionally
optimistic.
If Biden wins, the USA, the EU and Red China will move swiftly to exterminate the remnants of
Christian Civilisation - and anybody associated with it.
Bishop Vigano seems to share this view. (
https://www.lifesitenews.co...
[Anyway, we ALREADY have "soft totalitarianism". Need proof? Just go down to your HR
department and tell them that you believe homosexual activity is immoral.]
As much as somebody may dislike Trump's personality, Biden is just not an option.
Biden = ethno-cultural extinction
As adults, we don't get to indulge our own childish sensitivities. We don't get to
participate in this political fantasy-land alt-universe - where monstrous evil is praised as
virtuous, and goodness is labelled as vice.
Just go down to your HR department and tell them that you believe homosexual activity
is immoral.
I imagine you'll get a reaction similar to that if you went down to HR and ranted about
how sex outside of marriage is immoral, or lectured how sodomy is a crime against nature and
its practitioners deserve to burn in Hell.
I used to have a Ukrainian woman on my staff. When my younger staff all started in 2016
expressing support for Sanders she freaked. Then she freaked over Trump.
We are screwed. My decision to vote for Biden is predicated upon the hope that a boring
gaff prone Biden presidency will allow a return to normalcy.
A vote for Biden is a vote for the radical totalitarian left. Packing the supreme court.
Ending the Senate Filibuster and open borders. The country as we know it will be over.
Certain end of the First and Second amendments. I don't find you credible at all
No one claims to be an isolationist, but foreign policy analysts keep imagining and fearing
a "resurgence" of isolationism around every corner. This fear was on display in a recent
Atlanticarticle
by Charles Kupchan, who tries to rehabilitate the label in order to oppose the substance of a
policy of nonintervention and non-entanglement. Kupchan allows that a policy of avoiding
entangling alliances and staying out of European wars was important for the growth and
prosperity of the United States, but then rehearses the same old and misleading story about the
terrible "isolationist" interwar years that we have heard countless times before. This
misrepresents the history of that period and compromises our ability to rethink our foreign
policy today.
Kupchan's article is not just an exercise in beating a dead horse, since he fears that the
same thing that happened between the world wars is happening again: "If the 19th century was
isolationism's finest hour, the interwar era was surely its darkest and most deluded. The
conditions that led to this misguided run for cover are making a comeback." Kupchan wants to
borrow a little from the people he calls "isolationists" so that the U.S. will remain
thoroughly ensnared in most of its global commitments.
At the same time that he warns that "U.S. statecraft has become divorced from popular will,"
he seems to want to keep it this way by rejecting what he calls the "isolationist temptation."
If "a majority of the country favors either America First or global disengagement," as he says,
the goal seems to be to ignore what the majority wants in favor of making a few tweaks to the
same old strategy of U.S. primacy. Those tweaks aren't going to lessen popular support for a
reduced U.S. role in the world, and they will likely make the public even more disillusioned
with the remaining costs and demands of U.S. "leadership."
The key thing to remember in all this is that the U.S. has never been isolationist in its
foreign relations. The thing that Kupchan calls America's "default setting" is not real.
Isolationism is the pejorative term that expansionists and interventionists have used over the
last century to ridicule and dismiss opposition to unnecessary wars. Isolationism as U.S.
policy in the 1920s and 1930s is a myth , and the myth is
deployed whenever there has been a serious challenge to the status quo in post-1945 U.S.
foreign policy. Bear Braumoeller summed it up very well in his article , "The
Myth of American Isolationism," this way: "the characterization of America as isolationist in
the interwar period is simply wrong." We can't learn from the past if we insist on distorting
it. As William Appleman Williams put it in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy , "It not
only deforms the history of the decade from 1919 to 1930, but it also twists the story of
American entry into World War II and warps the record of the cold war." Williams also remarked
in a note that the use of the term isolationist "has thus crippled American thought about
foreign policy for 50 years." Today we can say that it has done so for a century.
Our government eschewed permanent alliances for most of its history, and it refrained from
taking sides in the European Great Power conflicts of the nineteenth century, but it never
sought to cut itself from the world and could not have done that even if it had wished to do
so. The U.S. was a commercial republic from the start, and it cultivated economic and
diplomatic ties with as many states as possible. You can call the steady expansion of the U.S.
across North America and into the Pacific and Caribbean "isolationism," but that just shows how
misleading and inaccurate the label has always been.
Post-WWI America was a rising power and increasingly involved in the affairs of the world.
Its economic and diplomatic engagement with the world increased during these years. If it
wasn't involved in the way that later internationalists would have liked, that didn't make the
U.S. isolationist. Braumoeller makes this point explicitly: "America was not isolationist in
affairs relating to international security in Europe for the bulk of the period: in fact, it
was perhaps more internationalist than it had ever been." The U.S. was behaving as a great
power, but one that strove to maintain its neutrality. That was neither deluded nor disastrous,
and we need to stop pretending that it was if we are ever going to be able to make the needed
changes to our foreign policy today.
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Kupchan acknowledges that there has to be an "adjustment" after the last several decades of
overreach, but he casts this as a way of preventing more significant retrenchment: "The
paramount question is whether that adjustment takes the form of a judicious pullback or a more
dangerous retreat." No one objects to the desire for a responsible reduction in U.S.
commitments, but one person's "judicious pullback" will often be denounced as a "dangerous
retreat" by others. Just consider how many times we have been warned about a U.S. "retreat"
from the Middle East over the last 11 years. Even now, the U.S. is still taking part in
multiple wars across the region, and the "retreat" we have been told has happened several times
never seems to take place. Warning about the perils of an "isolationist comeback" hardly makes
it more likely that these withdrawals will ever happen.
He recommends that "judicious retrenchment should entail shedding U.S. entanglements in the
periphery, not in the strategic heartlands of Europe and Asia." Certainly, any reduction in
unnecessary U.S. commitments is welcome, but a thorough rethinking of U.S. foreign policy has
to include every region. Kupchan is right to criticize slapdash, incompetent withdrawals, but
one gets the impression that he thinks there shouldn't be any withdrawals except from the
Middle East. He cites "Russian and Chinese threats" as the main reasons not to pull back at all
in Europe or Asia, but this seems like an uncritical endorsement of the status quo.
It is in East Asia where the U.S. might be fighting a war against a major, nuclear-armed
power in the future, and it is also there where the U.S. has some of the wealthiest and most
capable allies. If the U.S. can't reduce its exposure to the risk of a major war where that
risk is the greatest and its allies are strongest, when will it ever be able to do that?
Reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia will make it easier to manage U.S.-Chinese
tensions, and it will give allies an additional incentive to assume more responsibility for
their own security.
The U.S. has far more security commitments than it can afford and far more than can possibly
be justified by our own security interests. That includes, but is not limited to, our
overcommitment to the Middle East. Our foreign entanglements have been allowed to grow and
spread to such an extent over the last seventy-five years that modest pruning won't be good
enough to put U.S. foreign policy on a sound footing that will have reliable public support.
There needs to be a much more comprehensive review of all U.S. commitments to determine which
ones are truly necessary for our security and which ones are not. Ruling out the bulk of those
commitments as untouchable in advance is a mistake.
There is
broad public support for constructive international engagement, but there is remarkably
little backing for preserving U.S. hegemony in its current form. In order to have a more
sustainable foreign policy, the U.S. needs to scale back its ambitions in most parts of the
world, and it needs to shift more of the security burdens for different regions to the
countries that have the most at stake. That should be done deliberately and carefully, but it
does need to happen if we are to realign our foreign policy with protecting the vital interests
of the United States. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics
Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The
American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in
history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
Richard Hofsteder is largely responsible for this falsehood, like he is for making
"populist" a by-word, as Thomas Frank points out in his new book.
I prefer the term "non-interventionist" or Washingtonian, myself. I continue to be stuck
by the amazing wisdom of Washington's Farewell Address (largely written by Hamilton). It
really should be our guide to this day.
Try a seance and tell this Augusto Cesar Sandino. Two American brothers who owned a gold
mine in his country had another brother at the State Department. That's how FP was
"successful."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
Europe would have been better off if the US had stayed out of WWI and let major
belligerents fight it out until they reached a cease fire on their own. The US entry into the
war, tipped the scales in favor of Britain and France and resulted in a very harsh peace
treaty being imposed on Germany in 1919. Four years later, Germany's currency collapsed,
wiping out the savings of millions of average Germans. The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 made
economic conditions for people in central Europe very bad and conrtibuted to the rising
popularity of the Nazi party in Germany.
The world is so much smaller today than it was when this country was formed and organized
by the Founding Fathers. (Mothers were not allowed)
The idea of international associations and cooperation is required with today's world.
When some country like China sneezes, the whole world needs a face mask!
The Age of Daniel Boone is dead. America must be fully engaged in world matters. That does
not mean going into every country with our military. America needs to continue to give some
leadership in world affairs. It would be suicidal to close the windows to the rest of the
world.
I agree. The world is interconnected, engagement is a necessity. The problem with the US
FP at this point is to see every issue as an opportunity to throw around our military weight
and call it "engagement". Being fully engaged in the world is a state department issue -
smart and educated diplomats working the lines of communication and cooperation with every
nation to build a reputation for US leadership, to foment peace, and to build prosperity.
Obviously, under Trump and Pompeo this is a waste of breath.
Worth noting, a friend of mine, ex-CIA, has made an absolute fortune off of our military
preoccupations. And even he said (perhaps exaggerating) that you could get rid of 90% of the
traditional military with little or no loss in actual national security. Most of it is, as he
said, corporate welfare and window dressing.
(Of course he then said you should spend what you've saved entirely on cyber-security)
Using the 'I' Word for War and Profit
Column by Tim Hartnett, posted on April 03, 2013
in War and Peace
Column by Tim Hartnett.
Exclusive to STR
For about a century now, Humpty-Dumpty has been the go-to man for fans of elaborate
American foreign adventures. Unwelcome inquiries are put down with a one word incantation
that blesses and immunizes government-funded schemes that are always cash cows for somebody.
"Isolationist" means exactly what its users mean it to mean--no more and no less. Every entry
on the first page of my online search for the word "isolationism" provided the same
definition: "The national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with
other countries." Nobody on the furthest fringes of the political spectrum who gets ink or
air time comes close calling for a plan fitting that description.
The word remains in healthy circulation despite the total absence of public figures
advocating anything of the kind. Its real linguistic purpose is to obstruct examination of
extra-territorial programs that don't work and often do considerable harm.
Most of us first learned of the dreaded I-beast in grade school study of WWI. Back in that
good old day, the authorities had sense enough to put these naysayers in prisons after
allowing hostile crowds to have at 'em for an hour or so. If the folks at The Weekly
Standard, the Heritage Foundation, AEI, Fox News et al get their way, hoosegow entrepreneurs
will be back in that market before too long. How could anyone oppose US entry into The Great
War, anyway? It's what catapulted us to the top of the economic heap. We are probably only
one good war away from reclaiming that title.
The first people to stoke lynch mobs with the "I" word claimed we were fighting a war "to
make the world safe for democracy." The Irish, Indians, Algerians, Pacific Islanders, Russian
peasants, Filipinos, the Congolese and millions of other Africans were not educated well
enough to accept this as readily as freedom-loving Americans did. Without guys like J.P.
Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, Charles Schwab and others who hired PR men to keep the country
thinking right thoughts, foreigners are often easily misled. Isolationists are as rare on
Wall Street as atheists are in foxholes.
To understand the perfidious way that isolationism works, try and visualize a typical
slice of American policy from say 1968. Some experts and officers in a room at the Pentagon
decide a spot on the map could use a good bombing, and the order is relayed via satellite to
South Vietnam. At five they leave work to fight rush hour traffic and get home in time for a
smoke with Walter Cronkite. Some Navy fliers get dispatched, and once the napalm is fixed to
the jets, they're airborne. Thirty-five minutes later, the right patch below them, it's bombs
away and a U-turn. An undernourished five year old girl foolishly lives nearby and an eight
ounce blob of gel burning at 1,800 degrees lands on her back. She is immediately screaming
and burns for six minutes until an adult manages to put the incinerating child out.
Meanwhile, the flyboys are on terra firma again with beers, joints, Steppenwolf on the
turntable and much lamenting of St. Louis' undeserved defeat at the hands of Detroit. The
little girl's screaming still pierces the tropical air. The engineers and the chemists who
designed the people-melting device are on the other side of the world asleep in their
suburban beds. And the tiny thing can't stop screaming. The next day at Harvard, William
Kristol is expounding on communism, the domino theory, social responsibility, moral courage
and careful reading. And the 32 lb. waif is still going through an endless agony that no man
of oxen strength should ever have to endure in a lifetime. Isolating on these kinds of
details misses the "big picture," I've been told. Only communists, terrorists and other
abominable -ists focus on this kind of inhumane minutiae.
Forty years later, John McCain was wittily singing the lyrics "bomb Iran" while doubtless
a child was on fire somewhere that US ordnance had exploded. The one certain outcome of such
events is a profit for weapons manufacturers. Isolationists are oddly skeptical of the many
benefits anti-isolationists find in all-purpose bombing campaigns. What's always clear is
that people who speak publicly about their love for humanitarian bombing expect to be paid
for it.
There are a lot of things that "isolationists" just don't know, and it must be for this
ignorance they are so despised by both mainstream media and Wall Street's favorite
politicians. They don't know why we have 50,000 soldiers in Germany or another 30,000 in
Japan. Why we paid to keep an incorrigible thug like Mubarak in business for 30 years. Why we
need missiles in Eastern Europe. Why we helped every bloodthirsty, misanthropic power monger
in Central America. Why we needed to help Turkey get Ocalan. Why South Ossetia's
nationalistic prerogatives are our business. Why foreign governments should be pressured by
our diplomats on Wall Street's behalf. Why our government takes some kind of stand in every
foreign war, election, national event or internal matter of almost any kind. How we can
indict one country for human rights violations while buddying up to worse offenders like
Saudi Arabia regularly. Why our foreign initiatives proceed based on fantastic ideologies in
contempt of facts. These are just a few of the quandaries that afflict the minds of people
who aren't buying the divine right of American altruist aristocracy to fine tune the rest of
the world. They aren't exactly keen on the hyper-interventionist tendencies that keep so many
beltway bandits in the chips, either.
What they also don't know is why the elite media, the experts and elected officials, if
they truly understand these things, can't be called upon to explain any of them to the rest
of us satisfactorily. On March 20, Dana Milbank called Rand Paul an "isolationist" in his
column without any explanation. In the future, he might want to right click on Microsoft Word
and choose the Look up option before deploying the term.
After American involvement in Vietnam ended, many proponents of the action claimed the
death toll there would have been even worse without our presence. Others go so far as to
maintain that fighting in such conflicts protects US citizens' privileges, like freedom of
speech, here at home. They expect us all to believe that "Isolationists," by any definition,
wouldn't get away with spouting their un-American propaganda in public places, or on
television if any were allowed there, but for a policy that napalms little girls.
While people smeared with the I-word persistently point out that they are merely against
policies that are misguided, immoral and often murderous, their detractors insist that what
they really oppose is America. In the "big picture" mindset of the interventionist, you can't
have one without the other.
Beat them over the head with a stick, that might do it.
As for the entanglements in east Asia, none of the countries under direct US vassalage
have major disputes with China and do not need US protection. And it is likely that without
the US Korea would be on a path to reunification. The US is trying to beat everyone in line
to show who's the boss... So it seems, this K guy, like all his ilk are presenting things in
a very Manichean way: either primacy or "isolationism". There is so much in between these
two...
"... Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where they said it. ..."
"Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders,
planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A
trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network."
"Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of
propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria's political and armed opposition.
Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western
government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding,
from what they said to where they said it.
The leaked files reveal how Western intelligence cutouts played the media like a fiddle,
carefully crafting English- and Arabic-language media coverage of the war on Syria to churn out
a constant stream of pro-opposition coverage.
US and European contractors trained and advised Syrian opposition leaders at all levels,
from young media activists to the heads of the parallel government-in-exile . These firms also
organized interviews for Syrian opposition leaders on mainstream outlets such as BBC and the
UK's Channel 4.
More than half of the stringers used by Al Jazeera in Syria were trained in a joint US-UK
government program called Basma, which produced hundreds of Syrian opposition media
activists.
Western government PR firms not only influenced the way the media covered Syria, but as the
leaked documents reveal, they produced their own propagandistic pseudo-news for broadcast on
major TV networks in the Middle East, including BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Orient
TV .
These UK-funded firms functioned as full-time PR flacks for the extremist-dominated Syrian
armed opposition. One contractor, called InCoStrat, said it was in constant contact with a
network of more than 1,600 international journalists and "influencers," and used them to push
pro-opposition talking points.
Another Western government contractor, ARK, crafted a strategy to "re-brand" Syria's
Salafi-jihadist armed opposition by "softening its image ." ARK boasted that it provided
opposition propaganda that "aired almost every day on" major Arabic-language TV networks."
"The Western contractor ARK was a central force in launching the White Helmets operation.
The leaked documents show ARK ran the Twitter and Facebook pages of Syria Civil Defense,
known more commonly as the White Helmets.
ARK also facilitated communications between the White Helmets and The Syria
Campaign , a PR firm run out of London and New York that helped popularize the White
Helmets in the United States.
It was apparently "following subsequent discussions with ARK and the teams" that The Syria
Campaign "selected civil defence to front its campaign to keep Syria in the news," the firm
wrote in a report for the UK Foreign Office." thegreyzone
--------------
Using really basic intelligence analytic tools; Occam's Razor, Walks like a duck,
Smileyesque back azimuth's, etc. it has been clear that the UK government has been deeply
involved in sponsoring and influencing the Syrian/ jihadi opposition in that miserable country.
The wide spread British Old Boys network of aspirants to the tradition of imperial manipulation
has been visible just below the surface if you had eyes to look and a brain to think.
A lot of the money for this folly came right out of USAID.
I object to the line in the article that they "played the media like a fiddle" - as it
implies the mainstream media is a victim as opposed to willing accomplice.
The American public very strongly told Obama they didn't want another invasion and war in
the middle east (red lines or not) so rather ineffective propaganda.
Moreover, I suspect that given the US public inattention to overseas events that do not
involve much US blood (in places they can not find on a map). Today's mess would be where
more or less the same if the entire IO had never happened - though maybe with less cynicism
of US/UK gov'ts and media.
OTH, it is curious how well the British Old Boys network (and US) aligns with Israeli
interests (and runs counter to US or British interests). Maybe grayzone will investigate that
(impressive) IO campaign. I think a small country in the middle east played US and UK elites
like a fiddle.
I've only given this article a cursory reading so far and it is clear that the Brits are
going balls to the wall on the PSYOPS/perception management front. This campaign flows
naturally from the strong material support for the Syrian "moderate rebels" provided by the
US, the Brits and probably others for years. We may still be blowing up IS jihadis, but we're
also supporting our own brand of jihadis around Al-Tanf, giving free hand to Erdogan's
jihadis along the Turkish-Syrian border and doing our best to stymie R+6 efforts to crush the
remaining jihadis and unite Syria.
The article focuses on the contractors role in PSYOP. I'm not sure if it mentions the
British government's role in this. The GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group
(JTRIG) probably manages most of those contractors. The British Army also has the 77th
Brigade. This brigade's slogan is: "behavioural change is our unique selling point". Gordon
MacMillan, a reserve officer with the 77th Brigade, is now Twitter's head of editorial
operations for the Middle East.
The 77th was formed in 2015 and subsumed the 15th Psychological Operations Group which was
headed by Steve Tathan, who went on to head the defence division of SCL, the now defunct
parent of Cambridge Analytica. I'm sure the 77th is capable of managing some of those
contractors, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of contractors were also
reservists in the 77th.
I bet we're not letting the Brits have all the fun. The CIA Special Activities Center
(formerly SAD) includes the Political Action Group for PSYOP, economic warfare and
cyberwarfare. That dovetails nicely with what CENTCOM is doing in Syria. I knew some of those
guys a while back. I remember scaring them with some of my own anarchist hacker rantings when
I was penetrating those hackers.
Our Army has fours PSYOP groups brigade-sized), two active and 2 reserve. I would think
they have advanced their methodology since I took the course at Bragg. For a few years, they
were called military information support operations (MISO) groups rather than PSYOP groups.
They have since reverted to their PSYOP name although their activities are referred to as
MISO. I don't know what the difference is.
There is no such small country as you describe in the Near East.
There is an self-disciplined proxy force masquerading as a state which is mostly funded by
the United States to further the religious policies of the WASP Culture Continent.
It is no accident that in this context, the names of US and UK occur often in the same
sentences; one declared a crusade to wrestle control of Plastine from Muslims, and the otber
one carried out that crusade and escalated it.
That is also the reason that US cannot end the war over Palestine or leave Islamdom
(Oil, Geostrategic considerations, arms sales, Realpolitik are just pseudo-rationications
to obscure the real war.)
"WASP Culture" is into golfing, not crusading. Erik Prince and the religious
fundamentalists, maybe, but they don't drive US policy.
Russia and/or Chinese dominion over Eurasia cannot be permitted. Their means to achieve
that would be less ethical, not that the US or UK have been prince among men and salts of the
earth, as noted in the article.
The US has tried in vain to win over hearts and minds. It has been a mostly noble effort
to bring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan into the 21st century, but it was always more of
a losing game. The problem lies too much in Islam and tribal rivalries.
Recruiting for military is much easier if there is no jobs.
Notable quotes:
"... They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers ..."
I wonder if any of the commentators here have considered that the [neoliberal] cabal now
in power in the US (not elsewhere) are not in power to "take power" except for a temporary
period. They don't want to run the federal government, they want to destroy it, except for
the police state and the military.
They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for
a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations
off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid,
medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and
so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done
with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that
they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global
corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and
bankers , and I think there's a high degree of cooperation for the agenda. The
revolution is the cabal run by Trump/Bannon who are more extreme and ideological than any
previous faction, who have no tolerance for compromise. They have an apocalyptic vision of
grinding it all down to a bare minimum police state.
The Washington Post , whose sole owner
is a CIA contractor , has published yet another anonymously sourced CIA press release
disguised as a news report which just so happens to facilitate longstanding CIA foreign
policy.
True to form ,
at no point does WaPo follow standard journalistic protocol and disclose its blatant financial
conflict of interest with the CIA when promoting an unproven CIA narrative which happens to
serve the consent-manufacturing agendas of the CIA for its new cold war with Russia.
And somehow in our crazy, propaganda-addled society, this is accepted as "news".
The CIA has had a hard-on for the collapse of the Russian Federation
for many years , and preventing the rise of another multipolar world at all cost has been
an open agenda of US imperialism since the fall of the Soviet Union. Indeed it is clear
that the escalations
we've been watching unfold against Russia were in fact
planned well in advance of 2016, and it is only by propaganda narratives like this one that
consent has been manufactured for a new cold war which imperils the life of every organism on
this planet.
There is no excuse for a prominent news outlet publishing a CIA press release disguised as
news in facilitation of these CIA agendas. It is still more inexcusable to merely publish
anonymous assertions about the contents of that CIA press release. It is especially inexcusable
to publish anonymous assertions about a CIA press release which merely says that something is
"probably" happening, meaning those making the claim don't even know.
None of this stopped The Washington Post from publishing this propaganda piece on behalf of
the CIA. None of it stopped this story from being widely shared by prominent voices on social
media and repeated by major news outlets like
CNN , The New
York Times , and
NBC . And none of it stopped all the usual liberal influencers from taking the claims and
exaggerating the certainty:
The CIA-to-pundit pipeline, wherein intelligence agencies "leak" information that is picked
up by news agencies and then wildly exaggerated by popular influencers, has always been an
important part of manufacturing establishment Russia hysteria. We saw it recently when the
now completely debunked claim that Russia paid bounties on US troops to Taliban-linked
fighters in Afghanistan first surfaced;
unverified anonymous intelligence claims were published by mass media news outlets, then by
the time it got to spinmeisters like Rachel
Maddow it was being treated not as an unconfirmed analysis but as an established fact:
If you've ever wondered how rank-and-file members of the public can be so certain of
completely unproven intelligence claims, the CIA-to-pundit pipeline is a big part of it. The
most influential voices who political partisans actually hear things from are often a few
clicks removed from the news report they're talking about, and by the time it gets to them it's
being waved around like a rock-solid truth when at the beginning it was just presented as a
tenuous speculation (the original aforementioned WaPo report appeared on the opinion page).
The CIA has a well-documented history of
infiltrating and manipulating the mass media for propaganda purposes, and to this day the
largest supplier of leaked information from the Central Intelligence Agency to the news media
is the CIA itself. They have a whole process for
leaking information to reporters they like (with an internal form that asks whether
the information is Accurate, Partially Accurate, or Inaccurate), as was
highlighted in a recent court case which found that the CIA can even leak documents to
select journalists while refusing to release them to others via Freedom of Information Act
requests.
The way mainstream media has become split along increasingly hostile ideological
lines means that all the manipulators need to do to advance a given narrative is set it up
to make one side look bad and then share it with a news outlet from the other side. The way
media is set up to masturbate people's confirmation bias instead of report objective facts will
then cause the narrative to go viral throughout that partisan faction, regardless of how true
or false it might be.
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The coming US election and its aftermath is looking like it will be even more insane and
hysterical than the last one, and the enmity and outrage it creates will give manipulators
every opportunity to slide favorable narratives into the slipstream of people's hot-headed
abandonment of their own critical faculties.
And indeed they are clearly prepared to do exactly that. An
ODNI press release last month which was uncritically passed along by the most prominent US
media outlets reported that China and Iran are trying to help Biden win the November election
while Russia is trying to help Trump. So no matter which way these things go the US
intelligence cartel will be able to surf its own consent-manufacturing foreign policy agendas
upon the tide of outrage which ensues.
The propaganda machine is only getting louder and more aggressive. We're being prepped for
something.
* * *
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'It's Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled'
- Mark Twain
palmereldritch , 49 seconds ago
And prior to Bezos/CIA ownership the paper was managed by heirs whose ownership stake
was originally acquired through a bankruptcy sale by a board member/trustee of The Federal
Reserve.
So maybe it was just a share transfer...
Freeman of the City , 1 minute ago
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"
"Life is hard, it's harder if your stupid" - John Wayne
Freeman of the City , 18 seconds ago
'It's Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled'
- Mark Twain
palmereldritch , 49 seconds ago
And prior to Bezos/CIA ownership the paper was managed by heirs whose ownership stake was
originally acquired through a bankruptcy sale by a board member/trustee of The Federal
Reserve.
So maybe it was just a share transfer...
Freeman of the City , 1 minute ago
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"
Antifa and BLM are just shows with stunts designed to distract people from the level they are
fleeced by MIC and financial oligarchy. As well as restore the legitimacy of Clinton wing of
neoliberal oligarchy which was badly shaken during 2016 election, when their candidate was send
packing.
Nicholas Kristof is member of "Clinton gang of neoliberals" and a part of this effort to
distract people. The number of people who pay attention to Nicholas Kristof bloviations is
astounding. Few understand that we do not know the facts and the real issue if the tight grip of
MIC and financial oligarchy on the society. What is interesting is that s in California, there
are 8.5 million residents born outside the country and about 150,000 homeless. "The melting pot
burned over. It is now a ... salad.
For example, if money spend on wars were used to manage thoseforests with difficult terrain
and perioc drauts, would the outcome be different?
Can those fires and destruction be viewed as God punishment for war the USA unleashed? As
Thomas Jefferson said "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
BTW, the number of commenters with Russian paranoia symptom is frightening. Of course NYT
attracts specific audience, but still. In this sense NYT columnists including Nickolas Kristof
are just warmongering bottom feeders of MIC crumps. It is pathetic how he tries to hide the lack
of money for forest management and mismanagement if this issue by Oregon Dem politician under the
broad banner of "climate change" Existence of climate change does not mean that fire should burn
uncontrollably.
MIC steals half trillion dollars and then financial oligarchy steals probably another half,
if not more. What is left is not enough for proper maintenance of land, water and environment in
general. Stupid situation, but this is neoliberalism my friend, where "greed is good". And people
chose this mousetrap themselves in 1970th by electing first Carter and then Reagan and then
Clinton , allowing financial oligarchy to dismantle New Deal Capitalism. Clinton presidency was
especially destructive, In a way he should be views as the top villain in this story, a real
criminal boss.
Below I selected only more or less sane comment (which constitute probably less 1% of the
total)
Notable quotes:
"... How about a judicious Forrest management? ..."
"... So much for our useless 750 Billion dollar military budget. ..."
"... Amazing how ,close minded people become when, for them, everything is political. ..."
Wouldn't the conspiracy theories and concerns about antifa be lessened if progresses were as
vitriolic about violence committed in the name of equity, diversity and inclusion as they are
about violence committed in support of MAGA? Would the right have anything to crow about if
the NYT was as critical of physical altercations caused by social justice warriors as they
are of white supremacists? Wouldn't we all have more trust in MSM if they investigated the
facts before accusing Nick Sandman of racism or claiming a garbage pull was a noose? One
sided reporting and editorials like these fan the flames rather than squelch them.
It's amazing. You can write a column in the NY Times full of conspiracy theories -- all fully
believed by the left -- and accuse the right of being prone to believing conspiracy theories.
From Russia - collusion to rubes in the red states --a majority of dems share a set of
beliefs that are as delusional as anything a small group on the right might believe. But,
that's Kristof and the Ny Times for you.
People seemed to have lost a sense of what is plausible. While few of us know the news first
hand, we have to both trust and evaluate what is reported. Nothing is absolute. Jurors are
asked to decide cases beyond a reasonable doubt. That is how I feel taking in the news. But
within that sliver of doubt, within the fact that nothing is absolute is where conspiracy
theories begin to fester. It is where some have found solace to confirm what they want to
choose to believe despite how much there might be to question that. Events like this create
an opportunism to demonize those you hate and in doing so the essence of what we should be
debating is lost. How to prevent these fires in the first place? We will probably continue to
debate it despite the evidence on climate change, whether there is a deep state trying to
discredit Trump, whether the seriousness of covid is a hoax. Yes there is no absolute
certainty but there is taking an educated guess as opposed to an emotional response. I'll go
with the educated guess. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, I
will say it is a duck and accept that sliver of possibility I might be wrong.
Why do people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories?" It's actually quite simple. Take
QAnon for example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with
any religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while
offering a path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential
elements of cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever
you believe will be "validated." "Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories,
merely assertions. A theory is subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where
truth has no inherent monetary value, don't expect it. Why the rapid spread? To paraphrase
Bill Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability =
Profit That is the business model of the internet, a medium where "news" is whatever will
produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and until the youngest generation developes a
means of communication that does not depend on megacorporations, nothing will change. In the
Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had no honest access to the traditional media,
created its own, the "alternative press." Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their
own way to communicate that is reliable. It is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition"
becomes an actual threat to the profits of Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of
their ilk, they will be cut off.
The antifa movement has grown since the 2016 United States presidential election. As of
August 2017, approximately 200 groups existed, of varying sizes and levels of activity.[73]
It is particularly present in the Pacific Northwest.[74] Wikipedia
In an age when the US Justice Department is anything but just, more closely resembling
something akin to "just us," I call to mind Thomas Jefferson, in a somewhat different
context: "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
We spend hundred of billions of dollars every year on the types of weapons that won WWII,
while the real threat to our Republic and yes, our civilization, is ,,, It's funny and
tragic, simultaneously.
Antifa has done a lot of things. They have chosen to step into the arena. Whether they did it
or not, this is accusation is a result of wading into the fight. If Antifa doesnt like to be
accused of things and cant handle it, then Antifa should step off. Or does Antifa only want
praise? Because that isnt going to happen. Many people dont like Antifa nor trust Antifa. And
rightfully so. Ask any career criminal how many times they've been wrongfully accused of
something. If an individual or group doesnt want to be accused of things, then dont get
involved from the start.
Except that about a dozen people have been arrested and charged with starting the forest
fires. Shouting "without evidence!" doesn't make it so. Facts matter.
@JQGALT There are always people who are setting fires whether accidentally or intentionally.
Do you have any proof that these arsonists were politically motivated I any way ?
Yet the Almeda fire in Oregon that destroyed more than 2,300 homes was, according to NYT
reporting, caused by human activity and is subject of a "criminal investigation." Perhaps it
would be wise to reserve total judgment until that investigation is completed.
Who needs rumors? The organization showed what it is made of when it created its free zone in
downtown Seattle and had the highest crime and murder rate per capita in its short life in
the country.
Rational people know that Antifa is not staring forest fires. However, burning and looting
and using fireworks as weapons in the recent riots make even the dumbest claims of Trump
supporters more believable.
Leftwing activists have literally been arrested for starting some of these fires. There is
video of arsonists being caught, yet the media ignores this, and actively denies it. Gee, why
could that be?
@LV Do you have any proof that these people were were left wing activist or just the kind of
people who are always starting fires ad they have in the past ?
The [neoliberal] left spends 24/7 preaching to their choir about Trump fascists dictatorship,
an illegal government installed by a foreign power, destroying the constitution while
preparing to seize power and ignore coming election results. There is a zero factual evidence
for it, such as a refusal to follow judicial injunctions for example, but their well educated
audiences are buying it whole day long. So what is so baffling that a rural audience after
watching night after night Portland burning by arson and accompanied by "peaceful protest"
graphics on TV would buy into arson speculations and rumors and ignore your disclaimers?
Facebook needs to be regulated since it has effectively organ-harvested the critical thinking
skills of a significant portion of the population. It'd be better if thinking people simply
deleted Facebook and let Facebook shrink and become the right-wing agit-prop tool that it
truly is. Mark Zuckerberg is happy to to destabilize society with his little toy invention.
You'd think with all that money, he could afford a conscience. What a wrecking ball Facebook
is.
"All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." Ya think?
@California Scientist Amen. We are more like an international terminal at this point. A bunch
of people gathered by happenstance, heading in different directions, and often with very
little in common.
@California Scientist: It is even worse than when Adlai Stevenson noted that there aren't
enough educated people to elect a liberal government in the US.
@LV - The point is that "urbanites" aren't able to boss anyone around. It's the low
population rural areas that have outsize political power thanks to the unfortunate design of
our government. Every state gets two senators, regardless of population, and that also
factors into the allocation of Electoral College votes, so that an EC vote from WY is worth 4
times as much as an EC vote from CA, for example. In 2016, Senate Democrats got 20 million
more votes than Senate Republicans, yet Republicans kept control. In 2018, Senate Democrats
got "only" 11.5 million more votes, and consequently lost seats. We're being governed by a
minority in may areas of the country, and nationally, yet the "rural rubes" or whatever you
want to call them, insist that they don't have nearly enough power.
Strange that anyone living in or just knowing the west would NOT know that arsonists could
not burn down huge chunks of forest if they where not so very dry.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
The ugly truth of Oregon's political past is asserting itself...we aren't in "Portlandia"
anymore Nick.
Ominous! There are two information ecosystems in this country and Americans increasingly live
in different realities. Much of the media is in the business of massaging the egos of their
readers by feeding them stories that confirm their biases and make them feel clever. There is
less and less fact based news and more and more propaganda. A lot of people aren't really
interested in facts. They just want to be told how right they are and how stupid and evil the
people who disagree with them are. Media corporations are providing the market with what it
desires, and what it desires is poisonous.
There is a reptilian brain need to believe this nonsense and to propagate it- because the
believers are so terrified of the facts of the truth (and the lack of knowing what might be
done to address those facts). The people who are true believers are pointless to discuss.
They are too frightened. They need to believe this stuff. It is hopeless to address them.
Dark times, indeed.
With the natural buildup of combustible matter, combined with houses everywhere now and
little land management, these fires will happen and will cause problems. Lots of things can
start them and they will.
You left out "a century of zero-tolerance policies toward wildland fires (creating
precariously dense underbrush), and resistance to traditional controlled burning at the
human/wilderness interface". It's not the whole story, but neither is climate change which,
due to global technological leveling, is evermore the responsibility of China and India than
Western civilization. Signed, a moderate progressive endlessly frustrated with breathless
liberalism
If only there were no arsonists. Here is a video of a woman who found a man on her property
with matches in his hand (and no cigarettes, which was his excuse for having matches in his
hand). She made a citizen's arrest. This happened in peaceful Oregon. Don't listen if you
can't handle harsh language by a woman who is trying to save her property. Arson is real, and
it is no joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJW_M4pBCnY
A man was arrested for arson in Southern Oregon. His fire damaged or destroyed numerous
homes.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-charged-arson-connection-almeda-fire-southern-oregon/story?id=72960208
Rumors of antifa notwithstanding, people in Oregon were looking for arsonists because there
are arsonists.
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
" All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." You betcha.
(Palin doesn't look half bad compared to the current batch.) It's a simple formula: social
media driven disinformation + extreme capitalism which leaves us with no real will to address
it + legitimate grievances like racism and financial insecurity = craziness on all sides,
fanned by a president whose personal agenda takes precedence over absolutely everything. All
societies are constantly dealing with potentially destabilizing threats. Their institutions,
media, leadership, and understanding of a common good are their immune system. Ours is
compromised, we are destabilized.
How about a judicious Forrest management? We live in a period of global warming
because of our planet axis precision, aggravated by the presence of an unprecedented
population explosion needing more water, more food, the production of which needs more arable
land, cutting trees, displacing wild animals, exhausting the aquifer. Cutting trees increases
the CO2 in the atmosphere. More people in India, more cattle emitting methane, more old
fashioned way of cooking food and producing more CO2 ... Permanent frost melting also sends
more methane in the atmosphere ... The climate is extremely complex to permit exact modeling,
but it is clear that if we want to stay healthy, it is vital to regularly clear our western
forests of dead wood in order to prevent today's disaster of millions of people, particularly
children with asthma and old people breathing the heavily polluted air. It is time to move to
solar, wind power, electric trucks, cars etc. The technology is here. Let's hope that Biden
will support clean air as means to better health. If all these years instead of using
abstract terms like global warming or climate change, we have been appealing to people to
keep the air clean in order to have better health, perhaps they would have stopped buying the
behemoths cars, producing so much pollution?
As Nicholas and many readers on this page already know, this commentary is more evidence of
how needlessly and recklessly polarized our country has become. When tribal instincts push
people to look for anything - fact, fiction or fantasy - on social media or "rage commentary"
that supports and validates their identities they will glom onto it faster than maggots on
dead flesh. It is a sad state of affairs when so many people of all political persuasions
will not take the time - even a few minutes - to question and investigate the latest "truth"
being promoted. The new culture of low information consumers seems to be spreading as fast as
a pandemic despite the heroic efforts of honest journalism. I wonder if low information
consumption was so endemic to the citizens of Ancient Rome and Greece - long before Twitter,
Facebook and Rage TV? People, please take a moment to "click" one step further to see if the
latest conspiracy story is true. Why help propagate lies? It will only come back to haunt
you, or your children.
Antifa or not, at least some of the big fires have been started by arsonists. Of this fact we
have video proof. By downplaying or even denying it, the media are just as bad as the
conspiracy theorists in promoting disinformation.
This reminds me of a time when people saw "Reds" behind anything that was going wrong in the
country. Nothing new, but just as pathetically paranoid. I wonder how many people, or their
parents, fit into both groups?
Here's another urban myth. Ok, more a lefty myth. That we can just keep adding people to this
country (urban, suburban, rural, big city, anywhere and everywhere) and it won't have any
effect. With the corollary that it's just a matter of "green new deal" or everybody getting a
Prius or the dummies in the sticks realizing climate change is real and then we can just go
on like this forever. We can't. Not only is our much hated lifestyle, which from what I can
see, nobody really wants to give up, killing us, but believing 330 million Americans that add
2-3 million more a year is not a problem at all. Our entire way of life: endless population
and economic growth is unsustainable. We don't need to wait until 2050 to see it. Just step
outside.
It is very difficult to teach people that "research," doesn't mean you go to some TV show or
website you like and root around for stuff that tells you what you want to hear. One prob
seems to be really simple: it takes actual work to do it right. Another is that research,
done well, has an ugly habit of forcing you to think at least a little about whether your own
ideas make any sense. And a third is that people really, really don't like it when their
political views start getting contradicted by reality. It seems to be easier to change
reality than to change views, even a little. Oh, and another prob? Too few Americans really
read anything worth reading. I'm all for funsies (and I've probably read more crummy science
fiction than all y'all put together) but one of the joys of walking around in Paris is seeing
that the kiosks and bookstores still sell a ton of stuff on philosophy, lit, economics, and
that everywhere, people actually read them. Books teach thought. Newsmax don't.
@Beer Can Boyd: As a native-born American, I think the US fell down when the Congress put
"under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1953, ostensibly to preclude anyone thinking
about Godless communism, and gave itself a stroke.
The melting pot burned over. It is now a word salad. But appears there is a method to the
madness. It is hard for the world to tell the madness from the method
@Carolyn then there are the lies and the demonization of China and Russia by both parties to
top it off. How can voters believe anything and decide before they vote?
Supporting this atmosphere of potential violence are some of my republican friends. They are
mostly educated and not stupid. Yet they continue to support a man whom I think holds the
responsibility for most of the violence if it comes. Now I want to get down to my point about
these supporters. I believe they have succumbed to a cult-like dynamic. I say this because no
rational person could possibly support Trump. Religious cults create this same addiction and
irrationality. When my friends disagree with me, they try to put our friendship hostage to no
further discussion of politics. They are unwilling to even be confronted with objections to
their support of Trump. I have decided that I can always make new friends. What I do not want
to do is take on the task of building a new country because I stayed silent.
@Harcourt "They are mostly educated and not stupid." In my opinion, educated persons who
behave as you describe never benefited from their education. Even worse, to me it seems like
persons who behave like that are of the opinion that what they learnt in school is only for
the purpose of writing the exams they needed to pass to get out of school. It was all just
noise to them.
You nailed it. There is no longer "a shared reality" in America. So we have wildly different
views of who Joe Biden and Donald Trump are. And how serious climate change is. And whether
it's important to wear a mask. And if left-wing anarchists set forest fires. Thank you,
Internet. Thank you, social media barons who refuse to ban Russian propaganda and manipulated
videos. Thank you FCC that does not rein in Fox News and their promotion of lies. Who will
step in and stop this madness?
@CA I agree with you completely except for the refusal to stop Russian interference. We
can't. We can't unless we stop US interference in the process. The problem is that US
interference, and rumor mongering, are the business model of these platforms which happen to
be some of our largest companies. Extreme capitalism is preventing us from addressing any and
all issues propagated by these companies. Russia is just a speck.
Antifa adherents and wildfires ? Seems pretty far-fetched. Even ridiculous. But setting fire
to occupied apartment buildings in Portland ? Oh yes, definitely. It happened, and more is on
the menu, as well as municipal and federal buildings. Don't believe it ? Read the news
releases for yourself, on the Portland Police Bureau's website.
An excellent discussion of the perils of social media. Although newspapers, TV, radio,
magazines have a historical principal of "generally" telling the truth, social media has
opened up the world to every single Tom, Dick and Harry who with to spread their message. I
believe that how we, as a nation, as a species, handle social media will define what happens
over the next decade.
The state of this country is absolutely terrifying. While the shift to ever more
conservative, insular, xenophobic, coroporate-controlled government has been going on for
years, with the faux election of trump democracy is what has become fake, while common sense,
empathy, and both fiscal and environmental responsibility have virtually disappeared. The US
has gone off the deep end...
Years ago I read a science fiction short story that is unsettling in its analogy to this
situation. I starts with aliens visiting the Earth and accidently leaving behind a device
that can allow metal to be manipulated by softening it, then hardening it. The device gets
copied and mass produced. When they returned a year later, they come back and cannot fathom
how their device could have resulted in anarchy. THAT is the internet. 5 Recommend Share
Let me ask you all a question. If your neighbor told you the fire in a nearby Oregon town was
started by antifa, how would you disprove it? Since you cannot provide evidence for a
negative statement, it's difficult. There is actually some evidence that antifa did start the
fire: a voice said it on the radio, and tv showed them lighting fireworks in Portland. This
isn't very good evidence, but it is evidence, and you can't produce any evidence that antifa
did not do it (because there can't be any.) So you are in the position of asking your
neighbor to look at the quality of the evidence. This is something very few outside the legal
and scientific world are capable of. But that is all you have. Ultimately, it really does go
back to belief. How many of us could independently prove that the earth turns around the sun?
Those of us who aren't astronomers choose to accept this belief based on what we've been
told, and that's how it is with antifa starting the fires.
Kristof is afraid that fires in the West represent the new normal. The evidence suggests that
this fear is well-founded. He is concerned about the government's paralysis. That is partly
due to Trump, who stands a good chance of being reelected on November 3. He is worried about
ordinary citizens seeking oversimplified answers and finding them in the conspiracy theories
presenting the fire as the work of antifa. I am more worried about the breakdown in
credibility of news sources like the NY Times, which finds itself in competition with Fox
News and a host of online sources. Indeed, you-tube and facebook will select news stories for
you, confirming whatever bias you bring to your reading of the news. There is no guarantee
that democracy will survive. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the realization
that not only the right, but the left, is subject to oversimplified presentations of global
warming. Global warming is a consequence of too much population growth. But as we argue over
freedoms for LGBTQ minorities liberals have neglected the importance of freedom of speech.
And voices which have warned about population growth have been simply ignored by the left. It
isn't enough to shift from Fords using gasoline to Teslas running on electricity. We also
need to control population growth. The population of earth will double again by 2072 if
current rates continue. Population growth threatens to overwhelm the attempts to move to
clean energy. 2 Recommend
The scientific consensus will also conclude that not allowing wildfires to burn compounds the
problem. While what I am about to type is not science, continued development in fire prone
areas amplifies and compounds every aspect of the problem. From my perspective the system has
evolved to socializing cost and privatizing cost in every way. I don't see it getting better,
until such time as individuals are held accountable this should be considered normal.
@secular socialist dem PG&E just paid billions in fines and PLEADED GUILTY in starting
last year's Paradise fire. They also have already admitted fault in several fires started by
their faulty, untended grid. "Individuals" don't need to be held accountable unless there are
rules in place for them to follow regarding wildfire. There already are. Most already do. Why
do folks act so proud about their 'anti-science' opinion? It's not like this conversation
isn't ongoing; nobody argues that development in fire prone areas' carries risks. So does
rebuilding in Oklahoma, Florida and Louisiana..... You're right (although confused) about
socializing RISK and privatizing PROFIT. See PG&E above.
Unsure how people lighting fires directly indicates climate change is corroborated. The
fellow who was arrested in Tacoma, WA: https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-activist-charged-for-fire-set-in-washington
Looking to past wildfires, like the one's in Montana & Idaho in 2008, 5.5 million acres
were burned and certain interest groups advocated for them to burn out because it's apart of
the natural cycle. Federal government shouldn't send assistance unless it's possibly to
communities in threat of burning, who are humans to say we ought to stop mother nature? It's
natural to let these fires burn, if you try to hinder it's course you are stopping the cycle.
Doug Terry Maryland, Washington DC metro
Sept. 20 Times Pick
Why do people believe wild stupid things more than actual facts? Partly it is because they
like the wild stupid thing more, it gives them some weird comfort. It is also because people
are busying with their lives and don't have time to gather enough information to counter the
wild rumor that flies around faster than the speed of sound. The most important aspect of
successful conspiracy theories is they impart to the person holding them the idea that they
are smarter than other people and have "cracked the code" that explains everything or a lot
of big things that people don't understand. Reading, thinking, considering and re-considering
can seem like hard work, particularly if it is foreign to one's experience and life training.
Why not just lock on to a cool idea that comes around, even if it is weird? .
This story highlights for me an equally growing problem, the "selective framing" by media
outlets on the left and right (NYT and Fox as just two examples). To read Mr Kristof's
version, you may believe that arsonists are wild figments of the unhinged radical right
imagination. To read the same story on Fox, Antifa arsonists are working their way up your
street.
"...the shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." And
yet reality still exist. Normally, if someone starts to exhibit the kind of behavior that
these "vigilantes" are - screaming about boogeymen, thinking people are out to get them,
engaging in aggressive behavior based on paranoid fantasies, creating self-reinforcing
delusions, becoming obsessed with baseless conspiracy theories - we would rightly diagnose
them as being mentally ill, and to the extent that they represent a danger to others, confine
them. I don't think we can afford to see this as just a time of extreme differences of
opinion. Facts, truth and reality are still actual, tangible things. And those who have
become so disassociated from them that they are stopping vehicles and hunting down their
fellow citizen need to be dealt with appropriately.
We have been witnessing the start of the Second Civil War in America. If we accept the
definition of a civil war as a conflict between factions of citizens for either secession or
control of the government--including organizations within the existing government--then we
are in the beginning stages of a Second Civil War. The question is what the level of violence
will be (not will there be violence, but how much violence). We are beginning to see
indications of that level. When naturally or accidentally caused wildfires are attributed to
one faction as a way to stoke the fires of civil violence, then physical violence between
factions is a heartbeat away simply because of the falsity and extremity of the accusations.
The era of peaceful protest has passed because of the intensity of feelings on both sides;
the anger produced when a government begins denying civil rights, e.g., Freedom of Speech and
the Right to Assemble, through legal actions where protest organizers could be charged with
sedition (see Barr's comments, 9/16/2020, NYT), which then suggests that all protests become
illegal, the fires of violence are stoked. With a heavily-armed populace on both sides,
gunfire is a hair-trigger pull away. If Trump and the Republican's intention was to remake
America in their image (I leave it to you to supply that image), they are succeeding. If
Putin's intention was to bring down America, he is succeeding. If Xi's intention was to
dominate the world, he is on that path. Vote 33 Recommend Share
... There's an old saying "Those who the gods would destroy they first make mad." I have come
to the conclusion that America has gone qute a long way down that road.
And yet, Mr. Kristoff, you never make mention of the real threat that groups like Antifa and
other radical left rioters pose to this country (forgetting about attacks on federal
buildings in Portland? Attempts to firebomb courthouses? Violence against law enforcement
officers?). No, instead it's always Trump, or Trump supporters who are your focus. I do not
know whether Antifa has been involved in any of these recent fires, but I do know that these
violent elements on the left pose a massive danger to our democracy. You are correct about
one thing, though: We should brace ourselves. It's just "what" we need to brace for that is
off mark in your article...
It's heartbreaking to watch these three West Coast states burned. For days, the sky was red
and the air was unbreathable. But the saddest part was the feeling of helplessness.
40 years ago, I hitchhiked around the Pacific Northwest during the summer after Mt. St.
Helens blew up. Mt. Rainier was ash-coated, as were the wild blueberries I often ate. Epic
and Biblical are words inadequate to describe that destruction near Mt. St. Helens, with
millions of huge, old trees blown down, piles of mud, and rivers diverted. Yet I and others
knew that eventually, that land would regrow, and it did.
I see a lot of egotism and self-love on both sides. The so-called progressives in our
community are breeding at baby boom levels, driving SUVs, and, before the pandemic, you'd see
a dozen school buses idling outside every school. Development is out of control as people
flee from the city, and people flee from here, or downsize, and breed and breed and breed.
Two years ago, we had a flash flood and our street was under water, and there was a lot of
damage all over town. Hurricane Irene in 2011 left many with over a foot of water in their
basements. And let's not even start on Sandy. My friend lives in Pensacola; their downtown
area is under three or four feet of water from Hurricane Sally. It's not just fire, it's
floods, and it's not just the GOP which is the problem...
I don't blame anyone for guarding their roads if they think arsonists are about. The
Tillamook Burn was larger and more devastating than these fires but are we to blame climate
change ? Environmentalists and Liberals who do not even live out West, who did not rely upon
Logging, placed their concerns about the Spotted Owl and Virgin Forests about the danger of
Forest Fires and the livelihood of Loggers and the Towns and Peoples who depended upon
Logging. Managed Logging of Forests is not an inherently evil act. Clearing the bush and dead
trees is not bad in and of itself. Let Logging companies responsibly manage sections of the
Forrests, let Towns clear fire breaks around their perimeters. Place large Water towers in
strategic points throughout the Forests, huge mounds of dirt/sand/gravel next to them so that
the Firefighters have what they need to fight the fires. Force developers to build houses 50
feet apart. Require fireproof roofs, require thinning of trees in housing developments.
Require volunteer Fire Departments in every neighborhood so that if they do nothing else,
they can cut a fire break, water down the grasses around their neighborhoods, chase and
extinguish embers, something/anything versus fleeing their homes without putting up a fight.
"... dry conditions exacerbated by climate change coupled with an unusual windstorm ..." May
I add that a couple of other things have also contributed to making the fires worse or making
them harder to manage? For a century or so, in California, Oregon and Washington we have not
been letting the normal, periodic fires burn. Consequently, a great deal of fuel has built up
on the forest floor. Second, folks have increasingly been building homes or even
neighborhoods in places which have historically seen such normal, periodic fires.
@Robert Yes. But now controlled burns are a bit problematic, given the droughts, the heat,
the massive fuel loads from all the dead trees. It's just so easy for the controlled burns to
get out of control.
Hi, I am from Clackamas County metro. Every time a FaceBook "Friend" (and I personally know
all of mine) posted a rumor, I tried to find the footage from any of our 4 local news
stations to depute their post but they just shared another one. One said she didn't trust KGW
8 the local NBC station and when I told her the same story was on KPTV 12, the local Fox
station. She said, "I'm just stressed"
@David Biesecker Remember that half the people are of below average intelligence. That may
answer the existence of the small percentage of conspiracy theorists. One problem is social
media provides free and outsized loudspeaker systems that enables them to find each other.
@M.i. Estner First, let me identify myself as a liberal Democrat who has a masters degree. I
find it more than disheartening when half of the country, or half of rural or not formally
educated folks are said to have low intelligent quotas, critical thinking skills or
analytical abilities. You better believe that when a highly trained Eastern Oregon
firefighter is assessing how to save peoples lives, homes and land, has to quickly act with
their many faceted skill set and are calling on abilities you or I would not be able to
fathom. Same with farmers of large pieces of complicated crops and land. Same with city
managers, librarians, and social workers for the elderly--all having low city budgets. What
about the veterinarians, doctors and nurses in rural areas? This is exactly the same as
calling Black or Hispanics people of lower intelligence. And, there are different types of
intelligence. I know a literary critic, a liberal Democrat, who doesn't have the critical
thinking skills to run her own home or raise her children. If you look, you can see these
same differences in any group. It has to do with the way people are raised, what they are
using their skill sets for, what information they are used to consuming, money, ideology,
etc...And it has to do with being devalued for growing your food, producing your meat,
chicken and eggs. I'm not excusing the violence, guns, racism and hatred. These divides have
been with us for ages. Please don't stoke the fires.
If we have a selfish federal government, then we will have selfish states and people.
Everyone is for himself or herself. No one will think about other people or public good. It
all started from the top
In 2017, 2018, and 2019 northern California's new phenomenon of forceful 40 to 60 miles per
hour winds - in Fall, no less - caused old and aging electrical equipment to malfunction. As
a consequence, too much of Santa Rosa burnt to the ground, and the entire town of Paradise
ceased to exist. This year during the heat of a hotter than usual summer following yet
another dry winter, we had dry lightning strikes from Sonoma County to Santa Clara County and
beyond.
Yes, the science is clear and you fail to mention it. The forest fires reach critical mass
and spread because of the surplus of dead or dying trees. They are there because the federal
government essentially no longer allows logging on its vast landholdings and also fails to
allow controlled burns to clean out the tinderbox. I won't bother attaching a link because
any Google search proves the point. Why focus on hysteria and rumermongering among the
Deplorables? Come on, Mr. Kristof, you were a Deplorable once (when you were a kid growing up
in the countryside) as was I. Please defend them sometimes, particularly when the actual
causes are so well documented.
@Stuck on a mountain Western States are working to clear the brush from forests where, due to
our previous incomplete understanding of forest ecology, fires were suppressed for a century.
However, the cost is astronomical and there are millions of acres left to clear. Spending
their entire forest management budgets fighting current wildfires doesn't help. We've been
doing controlled burns for decades but in many areas, they're now too dangerous. Dry forests
and a dense understory can quickly turn a "controlled burn" into a conflagration. Many
ranchers and timber companies who profit from our state and national forests seem unwilling
to pay to keep those forests healthy. People who live in or near forests mostly have incomes
too low to pay for forest management. The National Forest Service, Department of the Interior
and USDA have made some progress, but the problem is huge. Saying we can prevent forest fires
by allowing larger timber harvests is an oversimplification. No solution to this complex
issue will be simple, perfect or cheap.
Wacky conspiracy theories to explain seemingly bizarre and unusual occurrences have been
around since the dawn of human cognition. But in an electronic/social media age, these get
spread even faster than a wind-blown fire climbs a canyon hillside. Previously, they were
spread one set of ears at a time; now millions of eyes can read them every second. And that
is a major part of the problem.
As a grad student in sociology, having lived through the 60s and participated in the
counterculture, I was deeply intrigued by the social construction of reality - how we come to
share a taken-for-granted world. This is a long-standing concern within sociological social
psychology. We examined how language, interpersonal communications, media and social
structure shaped ones perception of one's self, what is real, what's important. At the time,
however, this was considered theoretical and academic. 40 years later, understanding how
Americans' realities have come to diverge is no longer armchair social science. It's urgent
and in our faces, as is the question of how can we heal this terrible fracturing of our
world?
@DeHypnotist Yes. When studying for the degree in and then teaching sociology in my early
years, I learned that, too. But, I have to admit, it's actually taken all the decades of life
since then, and now the obvious confirmation of it by this current 'reality' to actually
realize, deep down in my guts, that we 'make up' our so-called 'social reality' simply to
serve the most basic of biological requirements: the need to dominate in the deadly
completion with the other 'tribes' of our species just to survive. We are, after all, animals
like all the others, no matter how much we blab about how much 'smarter' we are.
@Alex B The primal driver, deep in the core of our brain, is usefully thought of as
"reptilian." Cold-blooded. Egoistic. Hedonistic. And, in extreme cases, narcissistic, and,
heaven forbid when all three are present...
I lived for a few years in Brazil when it was a dictatorship. The similarities between Brazil
and what is happening in the US is startling. The police were being used to quell peaceful
protesters and the justice system co-opted by authorities, fear mongering were present, just
as now in the US....
I didn't live in the US from 1977-1999, only visiting on short trips. That enabled me to see
changes in society that were slow and not seen by those residing here. And when I came back
permanently I could feel immediately a deep change....
Perhaps an apt metaphor for the "danger sign ahead" is the approach of a Category three
hurricane and it's increasing in intensity. One of the stark disconnects is between the
message in an article like this and the politicians and citizens who are little concerned
about tempering rhetoric and elevating the importance of eschewing misinformation. We are in
the Misinformation Age and the victims of a cyber war, evolving into a civil war.
@ML What is happening here? These are the beginnings of what happened in Germany in the 30s.
Over there the reason was the loss of WWI. Here, is the obvious decline of the American
lifestyle and we have not seen anything yet. The range of the economic decline is covered by
7 trillion dollars in phony money. I fervently hope and pray that is not too late to stop the
process. All men and women of goodwill have to rally to restore a sane, and one, country .
Stay safe! It is going to get worse before it gets better.
@FunkyIrishman Right on. Water is an enormous issue waiting to happen here -- and Wisconsin
is estimated to have between 10 and 20 percent of the world's fresh water (depending on how
it's calculated and whether that includes some of Lakes Michigan and Superior. A Dept. of
Climate, Weather and Water would be a logical cabinet department.
@FunkyIrishman And polluting the potable water continues sometimes by the most resolvable
modern approaches: sewers and water treatment plants. Reagan ended federal funding for sewers
leaving septic systems (and now ancient sewers) where sewers would lead to protected fresh
water. All the medicines, chemicals, and toxins seep unseen but very real into fresh and also
salt water. We are not a modern nation any more.
"... The blogger Caitlin Johnstone accurately states that these most of these mainstream corporate journalists are really *narrative managers* in that their primary role is to peddle the official narrative of the US corporate/political establishment for any given topic. ..."
"... I would add that the managing editors of these "journalists"/narrative managers would be more honestly described as "handlers," to use the parlance of spooks. ..."
"... Waste of time. They control the media. The Internet may have lots of influence, but it still does not set "consensus reality" - that remains with the MSM. The MSM issues one coordinated narrative. The Internet is all over the place. Without one coordinated narrative, you can't set "reality". ..."
"... In addition, those who issue the narrative and control the MSM have the power. People want to believe those in power, due to cognitive dissonance - otherwise they'd have to accept that everyone ruling their lives is a corrupt liar. The electorate may *say* they understand that their rulers are corrupt - but they can't act* on that realization without compromising their own internal belief systems. So again, waste of time to try ..."
snake , Sep 22 2020 0:59 utc | 22 can we not invent a method that can counter this tactic of using propaganda to control
the narrative?
1) Hack them. Release their planning documents, emails, phone calls, etc. showing how the scam was set up.
2) Waste of time. They control the media. The Internet may have lots of influence, but it still does not set "consensus reality"
- that remains with the MSM. The MSM issues one coordinated narrative. The Internet is all over the place. Without one coordinated
narrative, you can't set "reality".
3) In addition, those who issue the narrative and control the MSM have the power. People want to believe those in power, due to
cognitive dissonance - otherwise they'd have to accept that everyone ruling their lives is a corrupt liar. The electorate may *say*
they understand that their rulers are corrupt - but they can't act* on that realization without compromising their own internal belief
systems. So again, waste of time to try.
Well....as always, and especially if it involves anything even remotely relating to 'Russia', or Iran, or whatever adversarial
operational target of the day might be -- one can reliably count on our very own "Izvestia on the Hudson" to faithfully execute
their officially sanctioned nation security state propaganda mission by dutifully steno-graphing as much dis/mis-information as
their NSA/CIA/Pentagon handlers request (require) from them.
It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper's movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic
was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called
"the narrative." We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with
editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.
Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the
mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting
National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: "My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?"
The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper's daily Page One meeting:
"We set the agenda for the country in that room.
The blogger Caitlin Johnstone accurately states that these most of these mainstream corporate journalists are really *narrative
managers* in that their primary role is to peddle the official narrative of the US corporate/political establishment for any given
topic.
I would add that the managing editors of these "journalists"/narrative managers would be more honestly described as "handlers,"
to use the parlance of spooks.
In fact, it would be apt to described venerable institution of journalism itself as an intelligence operation.
@snake | Sep 22 2020 0:59 utc | 22 can we not invent a method that can counter this tactic of using propaganda to control the
narrative?
1) Hack them. Release their planning documents, emails, phone calls, etc. showing how the scam was set up.
2) Waste of time. They control the media. The Internet may have lots of influence, but it still does not set "consensus
reality" - that remains with the MSM. The MSM issues one coordinated narrative. The Internet is all over the place. Without one
coordinated narrative, you can't set "reality".
3) In addition, those who issue the narrative and control the MSM have the power. People want to believe those in power,
due to cognitive dissonance - otherwise they'd have to accept that everyone ruling their lives is a corrupt liar. The electorate
may *say* they understand that their rulers are corrupt - but they can't act* on that realization without compromising their own
internal belief systems. So again, waste of time to try.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
Oregon's racial demographics White alone, percent 86.7% Black or African American alone,
percent 2.2% Alabama's racial demographics White alone, percent 69.1% Black or African American
alone, percent26.8%
"... Yes, if was designed and supported as a tool of suppression of socialist movement. As an instrument of suppression of socialist ideas. Still it borrowed, at least on the program level, some elements of the programs of socialist parties. ..."
THX. Perhaps Nationalist Socialist was taken too literally there. In practice, Fascism was
actually devoutly anti-socialist.
Yes, if was designed and supported as a tool of suppression of socialist movement. As an
instrument of suppression of socialist ideas. Still it borrowed, at least on the program level,
some elements of the programs of socialist parties.
Hitler and Mussolini were important leaders, but their movements succeeded through gaining
the favor of the middle class masses and the ruling elites. They won that favor by their
basic program. Of course neither had a formal written platform (Nazism's "unalterable" 25
Points became a joke, while Mussolini boasted about the untheoretical nature of his movement
in its early years), but their basic intentions emerged clearly from their speeches and
even more so from the style and slogans of their movements.
They proposed to exalt national power by building a dictatorially integrated national
community on the model of methods and moods familiar from World War 1. They also benefited
from being in the right countries at the right time to advance a plausible alternative
political approach
But simultaneously it tried to attract some socialists into his ranks. BTW Mussolini was the
editor-in-chief of Avante, so he was the leading figure in Italian socialist movement before
his metamorphose into a fascist. From Wikipedia:
He had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini
participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly
denounced Italy's "imperialist war", an action that earned him a five-month jail term.[38]
After his release, he helped expel Ivanoe Bonomi and Leonida Bissolati from the Socialist
Party, as they were two "revisionists" who had supported the war.
He was rewarded the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his
leadership, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000.[39] John Gunther in 1940 called
him "one of the best journalists alive"; Mussolini was a working reporter while preparing for
the March on Rome, and wrote for the Hearst News Service until 1935.[26]
Mussolini was so familiar with Marxist literature that in his own writings he would not
only quote from well-known Marxist works but also from the relatively obscure works.[40]
During this period Mussolini considered himself a Marxist and he described Marx as "the
greatest of all theorists of socialism."[41]
While the world's attention is absorbed by tectonic shifts unfolding across America as "a
perfect storm of civil war, and military
coup threatens to undo both the elections and the very foundations of the republic itself ,
something very ominous has appeared "off of the radar" of most onlookers. This something is a
financial collapse of the trans-Atlantic banks that threatens to unleash chaos upon the world.
It is this collapse that underlies the desperate efforts being made by the neo-con drive for
total war with Russia, China and other members of the growing Mutlipolar Alliance today.
In recent articles, I have mentioned that the Bank of England-led "solution" to this
oncoming financial blowout of the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble is being pushed under the
cover of a "Great Global Reset" which is an ugly and desperate effort to use COVID-19 as a
cover for the imposition of
a new post-covid world order operating system. Since the new "rules" of this new system are
very similar to the 1923 Bank of England "solution" to Germany's economic chaos which
eventually required a fascist governance mechanism to impose it onto the masses, I wish to take
a deeper look at the causes and effects of Weimar Germany's completely un-necessary collapse
into hyperinflation and chaos during the period of 1919-1923.
In this essay, I will go further to examine how those same architects of hyperfinflation
came close to establishing a global bankers' dictatorship in 1933 and how that early attempt at
a New World Order was fortunately derailed through a bold fight which has been written out of
popular history books.
We will investigate in depth how a major war broke out within America led by anti-imperial
patriots in opposition to the forces of Wall Street and London's Deep State and we will examine
how this clash of paradigms came to a head in 1943-1945.
This historical study is not being conducted for entertainment, nor should this be seen as a
purely academic exercise, but is being created for the simple fact that the world is coming to
a total systemic meltdown and unless certain suppressed facts of 20 th century
history are brought to light, then those forces who have destroyed our collective memory of
what we once were will remain in the drivers seat as society is carried into a new age of
fascism and world war.
Versailles and the Destruction of Germany
Britain had been the leading hand behind the orchestration of WWI and the destruction of
the potential German-Russian-American-Ottoman alliance that had begun to take form by the late
19 th century as foolish Kaiser Wilhelm discovered (though sadly too late) when he
said: "the world will be engulfed in the most terrible of wars, the ultimate aim of which is
the ruin of Germany. England, France and Russia have conspired for our annihilation that is the
naked truth of the situation which was slowly but surely created by Edward VII".
Just as the British oligarchy managed the war, so too did they organize the reparations
conference in France which, among other things, imposed impossible debt repayments upon a
defeated Germany and created the League of Nations which was meant to become the instrument for
a "post-nation state world order". Lloyd George led the British delegation alongside his
assistant Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian), Leo Amery, Lord Robert Cecil and Lord John Maynard Keynes
who have a long term agenda to bring about a global dictatorship. All of these figures were
members of the newly emerging Round Table Movement, that had taken full control of Britain
by ousting Asquith in 1916 , and which is at the heart of today's "deep state".
After the 1918 Armistice dismantled Germany's army and navy, the once powerful nation was
now forced to pay the impossible sum of 132 billion gold marks to the victors and had to give
up territories representing 10% of its population (Alsace-Loraine, Ruhr, and North Silesia)
which made up 15% of its arable land, 12% of its livestock, 74% of its iron ore, 63% of its
zinc production, and 26% of its coal. Germany also had to give up 8000 locomotives, 225 000
railcars and all of its colonies. It was a field day of modern pillage.
Germany was left with very few options. Taxes were increased and imports were cut entirely
while exports were increased. This policy (reminiscent of the IMF austerity techniques in use
today) failed entirely as both fell 60%. Germany gave up half of its gold supply and still
barely a dent was made in the debt payments. By June 1920 the decision was made to begin a new
strategy: increase the printing press . Rather than the "miracle cure" which desperate
monetarists foolishly believed it would be, this solution resulted in an asymptotic devaluation
of the currency into hyperinflation. From June 1920 to October 1923 the money supply in
circulation skyrocketed from 68.1 gold marks to 496.6 quintillion gold marks. In June 1922, 300
marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42 trillion marks to get $1 US! Images are
still available of Germans pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street, just to buy a stick of
butter and bread (1Kg of Bread sold for $428 billion marks in 1923).
With the currency's loss of value, industrial output fell by 50%, unemployment rose to over
30% and food intake collapsed by over half of pre-war levels. German director Fritz Lang's 1922
film Dr. Mabuse (The Gambler) exposed the insanity of German population's collapse into
speculative insanity as those who had the means began betting against the German mark in order
to protect themselves thus only helping to collapse the mark from within. This is very
reminiscent of those Americans today short selling the US dollar rather than fighting for a
systemic solution.
The dark effects of Versailles were not unknown and Germany's Nazi-stained destiny was
anything but pre-determined. It is a provable fact often left out of history books that
patriotic forces from Russia, America and Germany attempted courageously to change the tragic
trajectory of hyperinflation and fascism which WOULD HAVE prevented the rise of Hitler and WWII
had their efforts not been sabotaged.
From America itself, a new Presidential team under the leadership of William Harding quickly
reversed the pro-League of Nations agenda of the rabidly anglophile President Woodrow Wilson. A
leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip who had led in the world's largest
trade agreement in history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920 had called Wilson
"an autocrat at the inspiration of the British government." Unlike Wilson, President
Harding both supported the US-Russia trade deal and undermined the League of Nations by
re-enforcing America's sovereignty, declaring bi-lateral treaties with Russia, Hungary and
Austria outside of the league's control in 1921. The newly-formed British Roundtable Movement
in America (set up as the Council on Foreign Relations ) were not pleased.
Just as Harding was maneuvering to recognize the Soviet Union and establish an entente with
Lenin, the great president ate some "bad oysters" and died on August 2, 1923. While no autopsy
was ever conducted, his death brought a decade of Anglophile Wall Street control into America
and ended all opposition to World Government from the Presidency. This period resulted in the
speculation-driven bubble of the roaring 20s whose crash on black Friday in 1929 nearly
unleashed a fascist hell in America.
The Russia-Germany Rapallo Treaty is De-Railed
After months of organizing, leading representatives of Russia and Germany agreed to an
alternative solution to the Versailles Treaty which would have given new life to Germany's
patriots and established a powerful Russia-German friendship in Europe that would have upset
other nefarious agendas.
Under the leadership of German Industrialist and Foreign Minster Walter Rathenau, and his
counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, the treaty was signed in Rapallo, Italy
on April 16, 1922 premised upon the forgiveness of all war debts and a renouncement of all
territorial claims from either side. The treaty said Russia and Germany would "co-operate in
a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries."
When Rathenau was assassinated by a terrorist cell called the Organization Consul on June
24, 1922 the success of the Rapallo Treaty lost its steam and the nation fell into a deeper
wave of chaos and money printing. The Organization Consul had taken the lead in the murder of
over 354 German political figures between 1919-1923, and when they were banned in 1922, the
group merely changed its name and morphed into other German paramilitary groups (such as the
Freikorps) becoming the military arm of the new National Socialist Party.
1923: City of London's Solution is imposed
When the hyperinflationary blowout of Germany resulted in total un-governability of the
state, a solution took the form of the Wall Street authored "Dawes Plan" which necessitated the
use of a London-trained golem by the name of Hjalmar Schacht. First introduced as Currency
Commissioner in November 1923 and soon President of the Reichsbank, Schacht's first act was to
visit Bank of England's governor Montagu Norman in London who provided Schacht a blueprint for
proceeding with Germany's restructuring. Schacht returned to "solve" the crisis with the very
same poison that caused it.
First announcing a new currency called the "rentenmark" set on a fixed value exchanging 1
trillion reichsmarks for 1 new rentenmark, Germans were robbed yet again. This new currency
would operate under "new rules" never before seen in Germany's history: Mass privatizations
resulted in Anglo-American conglomerates purchasing state enterprises. IG Farben, Thyssen,
Union Banking, Brown Brothers Harriman, Standard Oil, JP Morgan and Union Banking took control
Germany's finances, mining and industrial interests under the supervision of John Foster
Dulles, Montagu Norman, Averill Harriman and other deep state actors. This was famously exposed
in the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremburg by Stanley Kramer.
Schacht next cut credit to industries, raised taxes and imposed mass austerity on "useless
spending". 390 000 civil servants were fired, unions and collective bargaining was destroyed
and wages were slashed by 15%.
As one can imagine, this destruction of life after the hell of Versailles was intolerable
and civil unrest began to boil over in ways that even the powerful London-Wall Street bankers
(and their mercenaries) couldn't control. An enforcer was needed unhindered by the republic's
democratic institutions to force Schacht's economics onto the people. An up-and-coming rabble
rousing failed painter who had made waves in a Beerhall Putsch on November 8, 1923 was
perfect.
One Last Attempt to Save Germany
Though Hitler grew in power over the coming decade of Schachtian economics, one last
republican effort was made to prevent Germany from plunging into a fascist hell in the form of
the November 1932 election victory of
General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor of Germany . Schleicher had been a co-architect
of Rapallo alongside Rathenau a decade earlier and was a strong proponent of the Friedrich List
Society's program of public works and internal improvements promoted by industrialist Wilhelm
Lautenbach. The Nazi party's public support collapsed and it found itself bankrupt. Hitler had
fallen into depression and was even contemplating suicide when "a legal coup" was unleashed by
the Anglo-American elite resulting in Wall Street funds pouring into Nazi coffers.
By January 30, 1933 Hitler gained Chancellorship where he quickly took dictatorial powers
under the "state of emergency" caused by the burning of the Reichstag in March 1933. By 1934
the Night of the Long Knives saw General Schleicher and hundreds of other German patriots
assassinated and it was only a few years until the City of London-Wall Street Frankenstein
monster stormed across the world.
How the 1929 Crash was Manufactured
While everyone knows that the 1929 market crash unleashed four years of hell in America
which quickly spread across Europe under the great depression, not many people have realized
that this was not inevitable, but rather a controlled blowout.
The bubbles of the 1920s were unleashed with the early death of President William Harding in
1923 and grew under the careful guidance of JP Morgan's President Coolidge and financier Andrew
Mellon (Treasury Secretary) who de-regulated the banks, imposed austerity onto the country, and
cooked up a scheme for Broker loans allowing speculators to borrow 90% on their stock. Wall
Street was deregulated, investments into the real economy were halted during the 1920s and
insanity became the norm. In 1925 broker loans totalled $1.5 billion and grew to $2.6 billion
in 1926 and hit $5.7 billion by the end of 1927. By 1928, the stock market was overvalued
fourfold!
When the bubble was sufficiently inflated, a moment was decided upon to coordinate a mass
"calling in" of the broker loans. Predictably, no one could pay them resulting in a collapse of
the markets. Those "in the know" cleaned up with JP Morgan's "preferred clients", and other
financial behemoths selling before the crash and then buying up the physical assets of America
for pennies on the dollar. One notable person who made his fortune in this manner was Prescott
Bush of Brown Brothers Harriman, who went onto bailout a bankrupt Nazi party in 1932. These
financiers had a tight allegiance with the City of London and coordinated their operations
through the private central banking system of America's Federal Reserve and Bank of
International Settlements.
The Living Hell that was the Great Depression
Throughout the Great depression, the population was pushed to its limits making America
highly susceptible to fascism as unemployment skyrocketed to 25%, industrial capacity collapsed
by 70%, and agricultural prices collapsed far below the cost of production accelerating
foreclosures and suicide. Life savings were lost as 4000 banks failed.
This despair was replicated across Europe and Canada with eugenics-loving fascists gaining
popularity across the board. England saw the rise of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of
Fascists in 1932, English Canada had its own fascist solution with the Rhodes Scholar "Fabian
Society" League of Social Reconstruction (which later took over the Liberal Party) calling
for the "scientific management of society". Time magazine had featured Il Duce over 6 times by
1932 and people were being told by that corporate fascism was the economic solution to all of
America's economic woes.
In the midst of the crisis, the City of London removed itself from the gold standard in 1931
which was a crippling blow to the USA, as it resulted in a flight of gold from America causing
a deeper contraction of the money supply and thus inability to respond to the depression.
British goods simultaneously swamped the USA crushing what little production was left.
It was in this atmosphere that one of the least understood battles unfolded in 1933.
1932: A Bankers' Dictatorship is Attempted
In Germany, a surprise victory of Gen. Kurt Schleicher caused the defeat of the
London-directed Nazi party in December 1932 threatening to break Germany free of Central Bank
tyranny. A few weeks before Schleicher's victory, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in
America threatening to regulate the private banks and assert national sovereignty over
finance.
Seeing their plans for global fascism slipping away, the City of London announced that a new
global system controlled by Central Banks had to be created post haste. Their objective was to
use the economic crisis as an excuse to remove from nation states any power over monetary
policy, while enhancing the power of Independent Central Banks as enforcers of "balanced global
budgets". elaborate
In December 1932, an economic conference "to stabilize the world economy " was
organized by the League of Nations under the guidance of the Bank of International Settlements
(BIS) and Bank of England. The BIS was set up as "the Central Bank of Central Banks" in 1930 in
order to facilitate WWI debt repayments and was a vital instrument for funding Nazi Germany-
long after WWII began
. The London Economic Conference brought together 64 nations of the world under a controlled
environment chaired by the British Prime Minister and opened by the King himself.
"The conference considers it to be essential, in order to provide an international gold
standard with the necessary mechanism for satisfactory working, that independent Central Banks,
with requisite powers and freedom to carry out an appropriate currency and credit policy,
should be created in such developed countries as have not at present an adequate central
banking institution" and that "the conference wish to reaffirm the great utility of
close and continuous cooperation between Central Banks. The Bank of International Settlements
should play an increasingly important part not only by improving contact, but also as an
instrument for common action."
Echoing the Bank of England's modern fixation with "mathematical equilibrium", the
resolutions stated that the new global gold standard controlled by central banks was needed
"to maintain a fundamental equilibrium in the balance of payments" of countries. The
idea was to deprive nation states of their power to generate and direct credit for their own
development.
FDR Torpedoes the London Conference
Chancellor Schleicher's resistance to a bankers' dictatorship was resolved by a "soft
coup" ousting the patriotic leader in favor of Adolph Hitler (under the control of a Bank
of England toy named Hjalmar Schacht) in January 1933 with Schleicher assassinated the
following year. In America, an
assassination attempt on Roosevelt was thwarted on February 15, 1933 when a woman knocked
the gun out of the hand of an anarchist-freemason in Miami resulting in the death of Chicago's
Mayor Cermak.
Without FDR's dead body, the London conference met an insurmountable barrier, as FDR refused
to permit any American cooperation. Roosevelt recognized the necessity for a new international
system, but he also knew that it had to be organized by sovereign nation states subservient to
the general welfare of the people and not central banks dedicated to the welfare of the
oligarchy. Before any international changes could occur, nation states castrated from the
effects of the depression had to first recover economically in order to stay above the power of
the financiers.
By May 1933, the London Conference crumbled when FDR complained that the conference's
inability to address the real issues of the crisis is "a catastrophe amounting to a world
tragedy" and that fixation with short term stability were "old fetishes of so-called
international bankers". FDR continued "The United States seeks the kind of dollar which
a generation hence will have the same purchasing and debt paying power as the dollar value we
hope to attain in the near future. That objective means more to the good of other nations than
a fixed ratio for a month or two. Exchange rate fixing is not the true answer."
The British drafted an official statement saying "the American statement on stabilization
rendered it entirely useless to continue the conference."
FDR's War on Wall Street
The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4 th
saying: "The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our
civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the
restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary
profit".
FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the
Pecorra
Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities
of the top tier of Wall Street's power structure who manipulated the depression, buying
political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the
deep state when he said "this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very
springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United
States."
Pecorra's highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form
of 1)
Glass-Steagall bank separation , 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the
Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the
London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner
Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating
an "alternative" lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout
the 1930s.
One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment
of the gold standard. The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict
exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements
needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for
which no financial resources existed . It's manipulation by international financiers made
it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen
lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of
"controlled inflation" so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the
gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery
on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade.
FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934: "the old fallacious notion of the
bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and
independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader,
must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including
bankers."
The Real New Deal
Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start
a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75%
of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were
given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed-
All funded through the RFC. FDR's first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the
government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers
don't want you to learn about.
From 1933-1939, 45 000 infrastructure projects were built. The many "local" projects were
governed, like China's Belt and Road Initiative today, under a "grand design"
which FDR termed the "Four Quarters" featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee
Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the
St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These
projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area's literacy
rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the
bedrock for America's aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower. As
I had already reported on the Saker , FDR was not a Keynesian (although it cannot be argued
that hives of Rhodes Scholars and Fabians penetrating his administration certainly were).
Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal
Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do
with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool
Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in
1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers.
Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks
loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by
1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen
to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real
economy.
When, in 1937, FDR's Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the
economy "could stand on its own two feet", Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy
collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years' worth of gain,
while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost
and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out
from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking
were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown
Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!
Coup Attempt in America Thwarted
The bankers didn't limit themselves to financial sabotage during this time, but also
attempted a fascist
military coup which was exposed by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in his congressional testimony
of November 20, 1934. Butler had testified that the plan was begun in the Summer of 1933 and
organized by Wall Street financiers who tried to use him as a puppet dictator leading 500 000
American Legion members to storm the White House. As Butler spoke, those same financiers had
just set up an anti-New Deal organization called the American Liberty League which fought to
keep America out of the war in defense of an Anglo-Nazi fascist global government which they
wished to partner with.
The American Liberty league only changed tune when it became evident that Hitler had become
a disobedient Frankenstein monster who wasn't content in a subservient position to Britain's
idea of a New World Order. In response to the Liberty League's agenda, FDR said "some speak of
a New World Order, but it is not new and it is not order".
FDR's Anti-Colonial Post-War Vision
One of the greatest living testimonies to FDR's anti-colonial vision is contained in a
little known 1946 book authored by his son Elliot Roosevelt who, as his father's confidante and
aide, was privy to some of the most sensitive meetings his father participated in throughout
the war. Seeing the collapse of the post-war vision upon FDR's April 12, 1945 death and the
emergence of a pro-Churchill presidency under Harry Truman, who lost no time in dropping
nuclear bombs on a defeated Japan, ushering in a Soviet witch hunt at home and launching a Cold
War abroad, Elliot authored 'As He Saw It' (1946) in order to create a
living testimony to the potential that was lost upon his father's passing.
As Elliot said of his motive to write his book:
"The decision to write this book was taken more recently and impelled by urgent events.
Winston Churchill's speech at Fulton, Missouri, had a hand in this decision, the growing
stockpile of American atom bombs is a compelling factor; all the signs of growing disunity
among the leading nations of the world, all the broken promises, all the renascent power
politics of greedy and desperate imperialism were my spurs in this undertaking And I have seen
the promises violated, and the conditions summarily and cynically disregarded, and the
structure of peace disavowed I am writing this, then, to you who agree with me that the path he
charted has been most grievously -- and deliberately -- forsaken."
The Four Freedoms
Even before America had entered the war, the principles of international harmony which FDR
enunciated in his January
6, 1941 Four Freedoms speech to the U.S. Congress served as the guiding light through every
battle for the next 4.5 years. In this speech FDR said:
"In future days, which we seek to secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four
essential human freedoms.
"The first is the freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
"The second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in
the world.
"The third is the freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic
understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants
-- everywhere in the world.
"The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in
a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the
world.
"That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the
so-called new order of tyranny which dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
"To that new order, we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society
is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
"Since the beginning of American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a
perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself
to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The
world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly,
civilized society.
"This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of millions of free
men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy
of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or to
keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose."
Upon hearing these Freedoms outlined, American painter
Norman Rockwell was inspired to paint four masterpieces that were displayed across America
and conveyed the beauty of FDR's spirit to all citizens.
FDR's patriotic Vice President (and the man who SHOULD have been president in 1948) Henry
Wallace outlined FDR's vision in a passionate video address to the people in 1942 which should
also be watched by all world citizens today:
Elliot's account of the 1941-1945 clash of paradigms between his father and Churchill are
invaluable both for their ability to shed light into the true noble constitutional character of
America personified in the person of Roosevelt but also in demonstrating the beautiful
potential of a world that SHOULD HAVE BEEN had certain unnatural events not intervened to
derail the evolution of our species into an age of win-win cooperation, creative reason and
harmony.
In As He Saw It, Elliot documents a conversation he had with his father at the beginning of
America's entry into WWII, who made his anti-colonial intentions clear as day saying:
"I'm talking about another war, Elliott. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if
after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery!
"Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if
it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we
allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or
twenty years from now.
"One sentence, Elliott. Then I'm going to kick you out of here. I'm tired. This is the
sentence: When we've won the war, I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the
United States is not wheedled into the position of accepting any plan that will further
France's imperialistic ambitions, or that will aid or abet the British Empire in its imperial
ambitions."
This clash came to a head during a major confrontation between FDR and Churchill during the
January 24, 1943 Casablanca Conference in Morocco. At this event, Elliot documents how his
father first confronted Churchill's belief in the maintenance of the British Empire's
preferential trade agreements upon which it's looting system was founded:
"Of course," he [FDR] remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, "of course, after the war, one
of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of
trade."
He paused. The P.M.'s head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one
eyebrow.
"No artificial barriers," Father pursued. "As few favored economic agreements as possible.
Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition." His eye wandered innocently
around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. "The British Empire trade agreements" he began heavily,
"are -- "
Father broke in. "Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It's because of
them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still
as backward as they are."
Churchill's neck reddened and he crouched forward. "Mr. President, England does not propose
for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that has made
England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England's ministers."
"You see," said Father slowly, "it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be
some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
"I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the
development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can't be done,
obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now -- "
"Who's talking eighteenth-century methods?"
"Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of
a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration.
Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century
methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by
educating them, by bringing them sanitation -- by making sure that they get a return for the
raw wealth of their community."
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. Hopkins was grinning. Commander
Thompson, Churchill's aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to
look apoplectic.
"You mentioned India," he growled.
"Yes. I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time
not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy."
"What about the Philippines?"
"I'm glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they've
gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down
"
"There can be no tampering with the Empire's economic agreements."
"They're artificial "
"They're the foundation of our greatness."
"The peace," said Father firmly, "cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of
the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost
freedom of competitive trade. Will anyone suggest that Germany's attempt to dominate trade in
central Europe was not a major contributing factor to war?"
It was an argument that could have no resolution between these two men
The following day, Elliot describes how the conversation continued between the two men with
Churchill stating:
"Mr. President," he cried, "I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire.
Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite
of that" -- and his forefinger waved -- "in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only
hope. And" -- his voice sank dramatically -- "you know that we know it. You know that we know
that without America, the Empire won't stand."
Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to
precepts which the United States of America would lay down. And in saying what he did, he was
acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck, and British attempts to
dominate world trade would be a dead duck, and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R.
against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck. Or would have been, if Father had lived."
This story was delivered in full during an August 15 lecture by the author:
While FDR's struggle did change the course of history, his early death during the first
months of his fourth term resulted in a fascist perversion of his post-war vision.
Rather than see the IMF, World Bank or UN used as instruments for the internationalization
of the New Deal principles to promote long term, low interest loans for the industrial
development of former colonies, FDR's allies were ousted from power over his dead body, and
they were recaptured by the same forces who attempted to steer the world towards a Central
Banking Dictatorship in 1933.
The American Liberty League spawned into various "patriotic" anti-communist organizations
which took power with the FBI and McCarthyism under the fog of the Cold War. This is the
structure that Eisenhower warned about when he called out "the Military Industrial Complex" in
1960 and which John
Kennedy did battle with during his 900 days as president .
This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the November
elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is beginning
to be revived in America which may align with the 21 st Century international New
Deal emerging from China's Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian
alliance. French Finance Minister Bruno LeMaire and Marc Carney have stated their fear
that if the Green New Deal isn't imposed by the west , then the New Silk Road and yuan will
become the basis for the new world system.
The Bank of England-authored Green New Deal being pushed under the fog of COVID-19's
Great Green Global Reset which promise to impose draconian constraints on humanity's
carrying capacity in defense of saving nature from humanity have nothing to do with Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal and they have less to do with the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. These
are merely central bankers' wet dreams for depopulation and fascism "with a democratic face"
which their 1923 and 1933 efforts failed to achieve and can only be imposed if people remain
blind to their own recent history.
Taras 77
Yes, a very interesting article, which explains much, but not everything. The question which
need’s to be asked is who was FDR and how did he become President, ie. why was he
permitted to become President. It should be taken into account that he was a 33 degree
freemason, just like Truman. So, what really happened during the 1930’s ? The
impression is that the US elite during that period was not united, being heterogeneous.
In 1917 Wall Street bankers finance the Russian “revolution”, when Lenin is
brought to Russia from Switzerland, where he was living the high life, and when he was given
20 million dollars in gold to start an insurrection known as a “revolution”. The
intent was to create a communist central government which would control Russian industry, raw
materials and finances, and present them on a silver platter to Western bankers. The
additional intent was the break up of Russia. The federal system was introduced, and
artificial states like Ukraine were created within that system. These banker aspirations
collapsed in 1924 when their puppet Lenin dies from syphilis and when Stalin assumes control,
introducing industrialization.
The bankers then turn to Germany, when in 1925 an obscure character by the name of Adolf
Hitler pops up. Before he is bestowed with power in 1933, the bankers in 1931 open the Bank
of International Settlements in Basel, right next to the German border. It was this Bank
which financed Hitler, his economic and banking “miracles”, as well as his
upcoming war. As for Wall Street corporations, they of course invested in Germany, like Henry
Ford, who built truck factories which provided the German Army with transport. Without
Anglo-American involvement, there is no way that Hitler could have started World War Two. And
what was the intention of Anglo-American bankers ? The break up and plundering of Russia,
something that Stalin prevented, and something that in our age Putin also prevented.
And the US ? The bankers were obviously impressed what their puppet Adolf Hitler achieved,
introducing dictatorship and at the same time placating the masses. They wanted the same
thing in the US. This of course had to be prevented, as had the bankers succeeded with their
planned fascist coup d’etat, then the game would have been up, as it would become
obvious who was financing and controlling Hitler. I think that over this issue the US elite
became divided. The group which backed FDR prevailed, as they wanted a covert modus
operandi.
And FDR ? When did he join World War Two ? In December of 1941, when Stalin brought more
than a million troops from Manchuria to Moscow, and when it became apparent that Hitler would
be defeated, as he was. The Anglo-American elites feared that Russian troops would end up in
Paris, as they did in 1814, when Napoleon was defeated. This, of course, had to be prevented.
Also Hitler, the banker puppet, needed to be saved. His suicide in 1945 was more than
suspicious, with historians “forgetting” to mention that his bunker had four
escape tunnels (Hitler ostensibly commits suicide, while all of his staff manage to escape,
with historians failing to explain how they did this. Did they, perhaps, use the four escape
tunnels ?).
And what do we have today ? Unfortunately we have more of the same. What began in 1917
with the Russian revolution is still active. The Anglo-American bankers cannot forget their
aim of breaking up and plundering Russia. Unfortunately for them, their little plan is taking
too long. Their Praetorian Guard, NATO, is costing them billions. In 1971 Nixon takes the
dollar off the gold standard, opening the way for mass printing and financial collapse, as
mentioned in this article. On the other hand, Russia and it’s ally China have been
stockpiling gold for years, preparing to introduce gold backed rubles and yuans, which of
course needs to be prevented. The latest political machinations with Belarus and with Navalny
in Russia are repeat performances of 1917, the West hoping for new insurrecions, ie.
“revolutions”, where “democratic” leaders would be installed, little
Guaidos. I think the West will see a financial crash first.
“This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the
November elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is
beginning to be revived in America which may align with the 21st Century international New
Deal emerging from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian alliance.”
I was with you until that sentence. Trump is in no way the new Franklin Roosevelt. He was
put into office by a cabal of Zionists and banksters, the very same “money
changers” that Roosevelt railed about in the 1930s, the very same that Jesus threw out
of the Temple. They never forgave him for that, to this very day.
With the likes of Sheldon Adelson throwing “thirty pieces of silver” at him in
the last days of the 2016 election and pulling strings with the Kosher Nostra to get him
elected, Trump reciprocated by cancelling the Iran nuclear deal. That has set the stage for
the war that will be the end of the USA as we know it. With the COVID-19 plandemic bearing
down on us as well, Heaven only knows how this will all turn out.
Agree with you 100%; Trump is part and parcel of the so called deep state and his actions
have verified his status, like you the article is very good until the second last paragraph
referring to Trump.
In fact it’s a rather Slippery Conceptual Slope and there are a great
many…especially Commonwealth Lefties that just can’t seem to keep their
footing….and slide right (or left, as the case may be) off The Path….so
reliably …as programmed by the Masters of Ideological Left/Right Mind Control.
But there’s HOPE:
Today’s Anti-Mask anti-Lockdown demonstration in London’s Trafalgar
Square:
You’re right, Bro, it is more complicated than that. It’s more complicated
than we could even begin to understand. But, understand this: We have troops in the Middle
East because Israel wants them there, pure and simple. Even Trump understands that. We are
threatening Iran because Israel wants us to. The Likudniks and Zionists who Trump has
surrounded himself with are driving the USA into a war with Iran and Russia that no one but
them really want. It’s all part of their crazy “end times” ideology. The
“synagogue of Satan” is prepared to march us all right over a cliff. Americans of
faith need to get their heads out their asses and put a stop to this madness.
Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer?
The bad guys are godless bastards and don’t want to die in a firestorm I
wouldn’t think.
They are practicing divide and rule to the extent that we let them.
I’m thinking the “bad guys” aren’t even human anymore, maybe some
AI profit algorithm like what controls the hedge funds these days. They certainly have no use
for most humans, although they may keep a few of us around as pets.
absolutely agree. i’m not sure why ehert believes trump is anything but a tool but
he’s put this idea forth in several essays now. i also do not fully agree with cabal
signing on with the bri, yes, undoubtedly they will have to but china (russia as well) are
well acquainted with the cabal & will have no illusions about their ends. if or rather
when the cabal realizes it has no choice but to join it will be as a very controlled minor
player never to be trusted. neither china nor russia has suffered this long journey to
recovery to then hand its control over to the cabal yet again. i read last week
(middleeastmonitor i believe) that egypt is about to teach chinese in its schools. the world
is indeed changing.
Regarding Trump; the Saker has covered this issue well in a recent post. It is not a
matter of what we think of Trump. It is a matter of what the banking Cabal thinks of him.
They make it pretty obvious that they regard him as insufficiently under their own control.
They fear his loyalty to America. He is not as totally bought as the democrats. This for them
is a threat. The cabal wants a President that is totally under their control. For them Trump
does not cut it. So they cleverly provide as much ammunition in their controlled media as
they can find to reinforce the people’s dislike of him. Not a difficult task obviously.
Divide and rule works. Particularly in America where politics is reduced to a personality
contest.
It’s complicated? No, the truth is just obscured by all the theater. It’s
something like this …
For the first time in decades we have a potus that is not directly serving the ptb. This
is intolerable for the ptb, hence the deep state revolt against him.
Trump got into office because he promised the likudniks things that the ptb denied to them
because they conflicted with their interests
But on the issue of “the great replacement”, Trump is an obstacle to the
ptb.
nearly every name ,company,movement, politician mentioned in the article is connected by
freemasonry and “the money changers” . When individually looked at its readily
available to see. but when asked to step back and see a bigger world view. it becomes tin
foil time cognitive palsy for most.
trump ? just look at his photo ops with satans sidekick himself kissinger.
Thank you. Matthew Ehret, for your scholarly detail, and your persistence in trying to
present this story, in a world that has whitewashed it out of the culture. This long piece
was to my mind one of your best presentations yet. We should all be very grateful.
I had watched Wallace’s speech before, but this time, in the context you provided,
it became stunningly clear that the FDR school of thought regarded the socialist revolution
as a real thing around the world, and as a very American thing, ongoing for a century and a
half here, and not yet completed, as the revolution of the worker towards freedom from want
continued – and was intended to continue.
And this all should have continued, except that those who love money do not hesitate for
one second to kill anyone whom they deem it expedient to kill – perhaps this is the
truest lesson of all that the people must always hold in their thinking.
What a different world we could be living in today but for the greed of a few people who
all along have regarded the rest of humanity as nothing. No wonder they hate China, for
continuing that revolution that they killed in the United States – IF, in fact, it has
been killed.
Our revolution continues – the President’s man told us so. And they will kill
anyone they have to in order to defeat this revolution – our best general told us
so.
Thank you for the continual reminders, Matthew Ehret.
The hatred of China is recent, and currently over-dramatized by Trump, mostly for own
reasons. And the neocons still think there are means to “contain” China’s
economic growth (they will fail’), while Russia’s sabotage of an increasing
number of their evil plots around the world is hard to prevent.
Consequently, Russia remains the greater threat for the empire, as Putin has been
increasingly frustrating their second biggest tool for control after the $ – regime
change. Belarus, Venezuela, Syria, to which should be added Turkey, and other less known
spanners in the wheels.
And of course, Crimea, which the regime-changers refuse to get over…
Worse of all: the new weapons.
And to add insult to injury, the vaccine with the nose-thumb name, Sputnik V.
The cumulative effect of these steps is proving so irritating that Matthew Ehret’s
warning about a neocon-driven “total war with Russia, China…” should be
taken seriously.
Certainly Putin does, if this statement is anything to go by:
“And since Dec. 2019, the first strategic missile regiment with the Avangard system has
been on full combat alert.” (See here for context: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64058
)
Excellent historical link up of City of London + Wall st + JSOC/CIA/Deep state. At present
it seems to be the Left is Right and the Right is Left. Again like it was over 90+ years ago
the distraction of a DEM v GOP ensures we lose sight of the bigger picture.
the adverts are a bit annoying but it looks as though there is no other way to view this
film other than the link provided.
The info on how sovereign wealth (gold) was stolen is incredible. Just moved from one
vault to the other at either the BIS or the Bank of England!! And gold stolen from
Czechoslovakia, Austria, and POland was used by the Reich to make interest and dividend
payments to the Bank of England!
Really great film WW2 footage that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and interviews with
members of the Greatest Generation, many of them intelligent women who were on the scene.
A great companion film to The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire.
The takeaway: Don’t trust bankers! Especially not international bankers. The summary
at the end is: They like to have a quiet life, just keep making money regardless of who is in
power or who wins. They all fraternized throughout the war. Especially Chase. That is
Rockefeller, in case you forgot . . .
Thank you. Amazing text and great insights into original documents. I have learned a lot
from the text and the links. Many things mentioned in the text, I have heard before, by
reading Episodes on Oriental Review (it is on the list of news sources on the top of this
page), written by Nikolay Starikov. However, Starikov being a Russian, can hardly be used as
a reference in discussions with readers from US. Now I have another source to point to
– a fellow Canadian, eh :-)
History all very well, but I believe we have a situation in the world today unlike
anything mankind has experienced in the past. Thus, most unfortuneately there exists no
guidance, no lessons that could be learned from. In the course of the last century world
population has exponentially grown to a size that the planet cannot comfortably support.
Energy, nature, social, and economic systems are being stressed beyond their limits as
humankind is out to drown in its own guano. The problem is not in our ability to produce, but
in our inability to get rid of the excess, i.e. the byproducts. The West’s culture of
glutten provides no avail. Scientists know this, and have been warning for quite a long time,
but too few are listening. So yes, as Mr. Ehret points out we are in a slow motion world
order meltdown in many dimensions, but not because of political machinations (although the
political machinations certainly aid the quandary.) Rather, at the root, it is because of
technical-biological formations overwhelming the world’s natuaral orders, and these
formations also promise to overwhelm any world order that the planet’s oligarchies are
willing to accept . Our world leaders are totally lost. They do not know what to do as there
is no past history they can grasp on to even if they cared to do so. China’s belt and
road inititive is hardly a solution as it will only exasperate the basic problem of a world
seriously overpopulated wanting to live like one hundred million gluttonous Americans did
fifty years ago.
I only feel for the young people who will inherit this mess as the older generations have
become too decrepit to even acknowledge the situation.
In 1949 when Chairman Mao came to power, the population numbered about 1.0 billion, the
average life expectancy was 42 years, literacy was about 2%, opium addiction was about 25%.
Health care was non-existant except to a privileged few. Children had to look after their
elderly parents.
Today the population is 1.4 billion, average life expectancy is 78 years, literacy is
about 98% and opium addiction is almost irrelevant.
You will not read this from the priests at the Club of Rome. It is not in their
interest.
You should be celebrating one of the most extra-ordinary successes in history. Over 500
million people have been lifted from a life of abject poverty to a decent standard of living
with education, health care and a pension, in other words, a life worth living.
The world population will obviously have to rise as people live longer. This was one
reason for the one child policy that was persistently applied in China for decades. This does
create a burden on the care of elderly. Technology makes it less so.
China is converting its electricity plants from coal to gas and nuclear, greatly reducing
air and water pollution. China is not just a low wage country. It has learned over the last
decades to be the most efficient, high quality producer of goods and services.
Above all their belt and road initiative offers a great deal for its partners, a win-win
situation. No other developed nation offers so much hence the trade war.
”In June 1922, 300 marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42
trillion marks to get $1 US!”
Matthew Ehret doesn’t mention it, but what started the monstrous hyperinflation
instantly was the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops (January 1923)
as ”due compensation” for Germany defaulting on war reparation payments. Germany
found herself asset-stripped of her own industry and, without any colonies to rob blind,
resorted to print money with no backing. This is something which ominously haunts the
collective West ever since: What will happen if and when the Oppressor Nations — now
deindustrialised and with abysmal birth stats (except in immigrant communities) —
can’t coerce other countries and peoples into upholding any of this
’post-industrial’ nonsense anymore? Fascism is a consummate expression of
militant parasitism, with or without any racist depravities pertaining to it.
Matthew Ehret is dead right about the remedy: Kick out rapacious speculative finance and
join the BRI project which will eradicate poverty, hunger, and war by creating durable
infrastructure. The neocon filth doesn’t even qualify as fascists. They are anti-Life,
pure and simple.
I remember reading years ago a sentence from Keynes about the disaster that was
Versailles:
“Men will not always die quietly…In their distress they may overturn the
remnants of organization, and submerge civilization itself.”
and further:
“but who can say… in what direction men will seek at last to escape their
misfortunes.”
Unbelievable, how bankers gamble with the worlds population and then came what? The
nuclear deterrent, “MAD” lol and the cry for a one world government.
and now O look their all pointing their ICBM’s at us?
Right, Con-911 was the 21st century Reichstagsbrand. And it has been followed as the night
follows the day by Con-19, the 21st century version of Gleich-Gestaltung (Uniform Viewpoint)
with Lockdown, Mass Incarceration of suspects, and biological Reprogramming with forcible
injection of genetic material.
Please would you link, point to any reference for this:
“A leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip ….agreement in
history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920”
Washington Baker Vanderclip was seemingly president of the Elkhart Masonic Mutual Life
Association from Elkhart, Indiana ( https://tinyurl.com/y2vnjktc ).
I guess the guy in question is not Vanderclip but a business man named ‘Washington
Baker Vanderlip’.
Vanderlip was also known as ‘The Khan from Kamchatka’.
He was often confused by the Russians with the banker Frank Vanderlip from the First
National City Bank. Might well be the case they were under the impression dealing with the
banker when matter of fact they were talking to the business man.
W.B. Vanderlip acted as a kind of semi-official US ambassador before the US established
diplomatic relations with the back then Soviet Union in 1933.
You shall find numerous references by searching for ‘The Khan from Kamchatka’
in history books from the time of the Russian revolution.
Absolutely brilliant. To be read and reread. I will recommend it to my family and friends.
A must to understand the dangers and opportunities of the current situation. Thank You Mr
Ehret.
Is there any chance that someone put together in the same format of article, connection
between City and catholic Kuria in Vatikan. This would than cover everything.
Yeah sure, lots of details but also lots none factual details that have been randomly
connected to events at the author’s discretion without any references to back up the
claims, especially when it comes to National Socialistic Germany and Hitler. Usually, a topic
that has been willfully ignored academically as well as scientifically since its
destruction.
Hence, we always get to hear the same nonsense over and over
Reading this article one gets the impression it was exclusively foreign money that funded
the rise of Hitler.
Why is there no mention of prominent domestic funding?
For example:
Kurt von Schroeder a German banker from Cologne who participated in the financing of the Nazi
party and was a director of the Keppler Circle (together with Hjalmar Schacht ) which grouped
together German businessmen who were sympathetic to the Nazis.
August Thyssen the German industrialist bought the “Brown House” in Munich
which became the Nazi HQ. The imposing building basically functioned as “state within a
state” in the Weimar Republic.
Albert Voegler, the founder of Vereinigte Stahlwerk AG funded the Nazis and was one of the
main beneficiaries of re-armament.
Also, not sure how one can describe Kurt Von Schleicher, a Nazi who paved the way for
Hitler to become Chancellor, as a “patriot”?
It makes it hard for me to continue reading this. I’m sick to death of this total
refusal to take a tiny bit of trouble to examine what is meant by “Britain”. The
Island of Britain holds 3 people; the Cymraeg, the Gaelic and the AngloSaxon.
Since the AngloSaxon, more accurately designated from genetic studied as Franco-Germanic
hybrids – invaded the land before the turn of the millenia under the pretext of coming
to aid the Cymraeg who inhabited and owned the entire island up to the northern border with
Pictish and Gaelic tribes, and were under attack by the same Picts – but took and
relabeled stolen land “Angle-Land”, the Island has been dominated by the
AngloSaxons and a few aristocratic Normans, known after a few hundred years as
“English”.
To the Cymraeg they are still “Saxons”.
Every ruling power over the island since those days has been English. Few Gaels or Celts
have been in any position of power, since the concept of Aristocracy was absorbed by the
English by their Norman forbears and to this day is clung to like immovable glue. The
attitude of English aristocracy towards us has been one of utter contempt and loathing. Only
one Cymraeg was ever Prime Minister and that was the highly charismatic David Lloyd George,
for whom English was a second language. He fought and fought against all those moneyed powers
stop WWI, and when he failed because of the power of group action, did all he could to
prevent the worst excesses.
The people being talked of here are primarily the English Aristocracy and Landed
“Gentry” as they call themselves, which includes the Royal Family line [primarily
Germanic, brought in by that Aristocracy to make sure the Gaelic or Scottish in line for the
throne didn’t inherit it], and the City of London, a city and power unto itself.
It’s the entire unimaginably wealthy class, which is not subject to most of the Laws of
Britain, being a power unto itself; it is comprised of Jewish, English and other
power-brokers and oligarchs.
There are NO “oligarchs ” who are Celtic or Gaelic.
So – forget we exist if you want, but for Gods sake stop just grouping us with our
first and only real enemy, the English, under the title THEY invented —-
“Britain”.
Just watched a movie about the IRA from the mid 80’s. How is it that they were
lamenting about the ”British” and not the ”English” and that on the
walls of Belfast it read ”Beware Brits”?
The people of Northern Ireland are Protestant Christians, who split off from the Roman
Catholics of Eire in 1920.
This has been the major cause of the violence in Belfast ever since. The Catholics wish to
unite with Eire (Southern Ireland), but the Protestants want to remain part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland having representation in Westminster.
That is partly correct.But the Catholic population is around 45% of the country.And the
Protestant around 55%.When the British kept the 6 counties they went too far. Fermanagh,and
Tyrone,were very majority Catholic.And Derry and Armagh,were close to half Catholic.Of the
other two,Down was around a third Catholic in its South region. And the industrial Antrim
with Belfast,had large workingclass Catholic ghetto’s in Belfast. Had they cut the
borders by a lot they could have had a mostly Protestant area.But to do so would leave only a
tiny area to them.And they wanted a bigger region.
I don’t think that Ehret has to undertake a genetic study of the British Isles
before he can write up this analysis of the role of the British ruling
class/oligarchy/monarchy in fomenting both WW1 and WW2.
I too would like to see more documentation of US-Russian cooperation between the wars.
From my recent reading I think Ehret does miss an important point regarding WW1, which is
the role of the hawk faction in Austro-Hungary and its failed plan to do a surgical
“cakewalk” type of punishment of Serbia for the assassination in Sarejevo (Franz
Ferdinand had actually been a “dove” re Serbia). But the fact was that
militarists in both Germany and Russia wanted war and put tremendous pressure on both Wilhelm
II and Tsar Nicholas, his cousin, to go to war. Possibly also in Britain. Britain certainly
did fear the growing clout of quickly industrializing Germany and wanted to nip it in the
bud. And Churchill was salivating over gaining territory and control for Britain from the
Ottoman Empire
Especially as Germany was already building the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, which would have
provided access to the newly discovered oil fields of the Ottoman Empire (now Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.). Germany certainly had the brainpower in chemistry, physics,
engineering, etc. to complete the railroad as far as the Persian Gulf and to develop the oil
fields and develop and manage all of the refinery infrastructure and processes.
Then there was that little issue of a Jewish homeland. Unfortunately David Lloyd George,
for all of his good deeds at home, can be practically be described as a militant Christian
Zionist. The Palestine idea was always there in the background as Britain teed up for the
Great One. Arguably the Balfour Declaration would have gone nowhere without the active
support of George to create a Jewish enclave, and British imperial toehold, in the Middle
East. Please, we should not assume that the imperialists were unable to read maps.
But back to Britain and the postwar era, a very relevant complement to Ehret’s
analysis is this excellent documentary film, about the creation of offshore tax havens by the
City of London:
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
Pamela, we seem to be “on same page” quite a few times and what is remarkable,
that is exactly what riles me when they say “British”, when the obvious evil
doers are the English! Plain and simple, but most people fail to make that distinction. By
the way, I have promised Saker another essay on that very subject – the global evil
that eminated and continues to eminate from that particular “race”, group or
whatever one can call them. That oppressive, domineering, imperialistic mindset that believes
only in subjugation and enslavement of others and that is why there is such deep,
all-consuming hatred towards Russia and Russians, who are radically opposite to them in their
understanding of living in this world. I want to address that and expand on it. Give me a
month or so. : )
If you truly want to understand the causes of Hyperinflation I can suggest no better
source than Mike Moloney’s “GoldSilver.com” site. He presents plenty of
graphs and economic history to show exactly how it is caused, what trends it is a part of ,
and why it is now totally unavoidable.
Regarding this piece, I have nothing to say for anyone who says that David Lloyd George,
the first and best true Socialist P.M. the people of the British Isle ever had, and who
formed what was the best Welfare state before it was ruined, was part of a drive for Global
domination. He was in a position of power as P.M. and therefor was a part of many
Committee’s but to suggest this ardent socialist and fighter for the rights of man was
a side kick to Globalism is just beyond discussion.
This article is an excellent narrative concerning international politics. However,
contrary to accepted financial wisdom, the rise of Germany from 1933 onwards under Hitler was
not financed by international bankers. Quite the opposite in fact,
The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 had imposed draconian war reparations on Germany, because
they had just lost the 1914-18 world war and had to be punished by the international bankers.
It was they who caused the hyperinflation of the German Mark that occurred in 1922 in order
to pay off the war loans incurred by France and England by printing more and more money that
Germany had to borrow at interest. This caused the breakdown of the German economy with
massive unemployment and the social discontent that led to the eventual rise of Adolf Hitler
as Chancellor of Germany.
In 1933 Hitler canceled Germany’s debts and created debt free money as Treasury
certificates that were paid to the German workforce for work done and/or materials supplied.
This enabled the rejuvenation of the German economy building railroads, autobahns and the
manufacture of war materiel resulting in full employment and prosperity to the nation.
The international bankers were aghast at this transformation and that is why Britain
declared war on Germany in 1939, since the rise of German power would threaten to destroy the
British Empire.
Kaprocorn, Hitler’s rise was fuelled by credit. Read up on MEFOBILLS. It was a
deferred payment system. He did not “create debt free money”. Credit will give
you an economic high for a while…Hitler milked it for what it was worth and then just
before the debts became due, he waged Blitzkrieg and stole his neighbors’ gold
reserves.
Jamshyd, since Hitler was financed by bankers how was he “against the
bankers”?? And, yes the Nazis were racist baby eaters.
Btw, Hitler also supported the cause of Zionism. Haavara agreement promoted the settlement
of Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Until now, I have never heard of FDR’s Four Freedoms (freedom of speech; freedom of
worship; freedom from want; and freedom from fear (of war, e.g.)). My ignorance probably says
something about the overwhelming completeness of the Banksters’ Putsch that occurred
after FDR’s death.
Learning about the Four Freedoms reminds me of the soaring opening phrases of the United
Nations Charter:
We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind
….
This is completely consistent with the Four Freedoms. I see now that FDR must have been
one of the primary creators of the UN — an enormous achievement. The UN Charter, and
the Four Freedoms, should be celebrated throughout the USA. I wonder why they
aren’t?
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God
"... In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a
blow to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding. ..."
Stephen F Cohen, the renowned American scholar on Russia and leading authority on US-Russian
relations, has died of lung cancer at the
age of 81.
As one of the precious few western voices of sanity on the subject
of Russia while everyone else has been frantically flushing their brains down the toilet,
this is a real loss. I myself have cited Cohen's expert analysis many times in my own work, and
his perspective has played a formative role in my understanding of what's really going on with
the monolithic cross-partisan manufacturing of consent for increased western aggressions
against Moscow.
In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a blow
to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding.
I don't know how long Cohen had cancer. I don't know how long he was aware that he might not
have much time left on this earth. What I do know is he spent much of his energy in his final
years urgently trying to warn the world about the rapidly escalating danger of nuclear war,
which in our strange new reality he saw as in many ways completely unprecedented.
The last of the many books Cohen authored was 2019's
War
with Russia? , detailing his ideas on how the complex multi-front nature of the post-2016
cold
war escalations against Moscow combines with Russiagate and other factors to make it in
some ways more dangerous even than the most dangerous point of the previous cold war.
"You know it's easy to joke about this, except that we're at maybe the most dangerous moment
in US-Russian relations in my lifetime, and maybe ever," Cohen told The Young Turks in 2017. "And the reason is that we're
in a new cold war, by whatever name. We have three cold war fronts that are fraught with the
possibility of hot war, in the Baltic region where NATO is carrying out an unprecedented
military buildup on Russia's border, in Ukraine where there is a civil and proxy war between
Russia and the west, and of course in Syria, where Russian aircraft and American warplanes are
flying in the same territory. Anything could happen."
Cohen repeatedly points to the most likely cause of a future nuclear war: not one that is
planned but one which erupts in tense, complex situations where "anything could happen" in the
chaos and confusion as a result of misfire, miscommunication or technical malfunction, as
nearly
happened many times during the last cold war.
"I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the
Cuban missile crisis," Cohen told Democracy
Now in 2017. "And arguably, it's more dangerous, because it's more complex. Therefore, we
-- and then, meanwhile, we have in Washington these -- and, in my judgment, factless
accusations that Trump has somehow been compromised by the Kremlin. So, at this worst moment in
American-Russian relations, we have an American president who's being politically crippled by
the worst imaginable -- it's unprecedented. Let's stop and think. No American president has
ever been accused, essentially, of treason. This is what we're talking about here, or that his
associates have committed treason."
"Imagine, for example, John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis," Cohen added. "Imagine
if Kennedy had been accused of being a secret Soviet Kremlin agent. He would have been
crippled. And the only way he could have proved he wasn't was to have launched a war against
the Soviet Union. And at that time, the option was nuclear war."
"A recurring theme of my recently published book War with Russia? is that the new Cold War
is more dangerous, more fraught with hot war, than the one we survived," Cohen wrote
last year . "Histories of the 40-year US-Soviet Cold War tell us that both sides came to
understand their mutual responsibility for the conflict, a recognition that created political
space for the constant peace-keeping negotiations, including nuclear arms control agreements,
often known as détente. But as I also chronicle in the book, today's American Cold
Warriors blame only Russia, specifically 'Putin's Russia,' leaving no room or incentive for
rethinking any US policy toward post-Soviet Russia since 1991."
"Finally, there continues to be no effective, organized American opposition to the new Cold
War," Cohen added. "This too is a major theme of my book and another reason why this Cold War
is more dangerous than was its predecessor. In the 1970s and 1980s, advocates of détente
were well-organized, well-funded, and well-represented, from grassroots politics and
universities to think tanks, mainstream media, Congress, the State Department, and even the
White House. Today there is no such opposition anywhere."
"A major factor is, of course, 'Russiagate'," Cohen continued. "As evidenced in the sources
I cite above, much of the extreme American Cold War advocacy we witness today is a mindless
response to President Trump's pledge to find ways to 'cooperate with Russia' and to the
still-unproven allegations generated by it. Certainly, the Democratic Party is not an
opposition party in regard to the new Cold War."
"Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy
pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world," Cohen
wrote in another
essay last year. "No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan
support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in
Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US
Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement
Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before
midnight."
And now Stephen Cohen is dead, and that clock is inching ever closer to midnight. The
Russiagate psyop that he predicted would pressure Trump to advance dangerous cold war
escalations with no opposition from the supposed opposition party
has indeed done exactly that with nary a peep of criticism from either partisan faction of
the political/media class. Cohen has for years been correctly
predicting this chilling scenario which now threatens the life of every organism on earth,
even while his own life was nearing its end.
And now the complex cold war escalations he kept urgently warning us about have become even
more complex with the
addition of nuclear-armed China to the multiple fronts the US-centralized empire has been
plate-spinning its brinkmanship upon, and it is clear from the ramping
up of anti-China propaganda since last year that we are being prepped for those aggressions
to continue to increase.
We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We should demand
a walk-back of these insane imperialist aggressions which benefit nobody and call for
détente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition to this
world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late. Every life on this planet
may well depend on our doing so.
Stephen Cohen is dead, and we are marching toward the death of everything. God help us
all.
People are just now starting to realize that possible alternate path. But the Demoncrats
in the USA must first be put down, politically euthanized, along with their neocon
never-Trump Republican partners. And that cleaning up is on the way. Trump's second term will
be the advancement of the USA-Russia initiative that is so long overdue.
PerilouseTimes , 48 minutes ago
Putin won't let western billionaires rape Russia's enormous natural resources and on top
of that Putin is against child molesters, that is what this Russia bashing is all about.
awesomepic4u , 1 hour ago
Sad to hear this.
What a good man. It is a real shame that we dont have others to stand up to this crazy pr
that is going on right now. Making peace with the world at this point is important. We dont need or
want another war and i am sure that both Europe and Russia dont want it on their turf but it
seems we keep sticking our finger in their eye. If there is another war it will be the last
war. As Einstein said, after the 3rd World War we will be using sticks and stones to fight
it.
Clint Liquor , 44 minutes ago
Cohen truly was an island of reason in a sea of insanity. Ironic that those panicked over
climate change are unconcerned about the increasing threat of Nuclear War.
thunderchief , 41 minutes ago
One of the very few level headed people on Russia.
All thats left are anti Russia-phobic nut jobs.
Send in the clowns.
Stephen Cohen isn't around to call them what they are anymore.
Eastern Whale , 55 minutes ago
cooperate with Russia
Has the US ever cooperated with anyone?
fucking truth , 3 minutes ago
That is the crux. All or nothing.
Mustafa Kemal , 49 minutes ago
Ive read several of his books. They are essential, imo, if you want to understand modern
russian history.
Normal , 1 hour ago
The bankers created the new CCP cold war.
evoila , 19 minutes ago
Max Boot is an effing idiot. Tucker wiped him clean too. It was an insult to Stephen to
even put them on the same panel.
RIP Stephen.
Gary Sick is the equivalent to Stephen, except for Iran. He too is of an era of competence
which is and will be missed as their voices are drowned out by neocon warmongers
thebigunit , 17 minutes ago
I heard Stephen Cohen a number of time in John Bachelor's podcasts.
He seemed very lucid and made a lot of sense.
He made it very clear that he thought the Democrat's "Trump - Russia collusion schtick"
was a bunch of crap.
He didn't sound like a leftie, but I'm sure he never told me the stuff he discussed with
his wife who was editor of the left wing "The Nation" magazine.
Boogity , 9 minutes ago
Cohen was a traditional old school anti-war Liberal. They're essentially extinct now with
the exception of a few such as Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich who have both been
ostracized from the Democrat Party and the political system.
Allegations that a group or a political figure is neo-fascist are usually hotly contested,
especially when the term is used as a political epithet . The traits that provoke
such an epithet include usually includes ultranationalism, some kind of racial supremacy, extreme
authoritarianism, and xenophobia. Connection of the political movement or a politician to
intelligence service( in the USA to CIA) are more rarely used but Bush Senior was often called a
fascist.
From Fascism in North America -
Wikipedia "American intellectuals paid considerable attention to Mussolini, but few became
his supporters. He did have popular support in the Italian American community.[19][20]
In the so-called Business Plot in 1933, anti-war speaker Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy
businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization and use it in a coup
d'état to overthrow American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified to
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack-Dickstein Committee") on these
claims. Dickstein, however, was a paid Soviet spy, and historians have not identified any
business leaders as a plotter.[21]
During the 1930s Virgil Effinger led the paramilitary Black Legion, a violent offshoot of the
Ku Klux Klan that sought a revolution to establish fascism in the United States.[22] Although
responsible for a number of attacks, the Black Legion was very much a peripheral band of
militants. More important were the Silver Legion of America, founded in 1933 by William Dudley
Pelley, and the German American Bund, which emerged the same year from a number of older groups,
including the Friends of New Germany and the Free Society of Teutonia. Both of these groups
looked to Nazism for their inspiration.
While these groups enjoyed some support, they were largely peripheral. A more prominent
leader, Father Charles Coughlin, sparked concern among some on the left at the time. Coughlin,
who publicly endorsed fascism, was unable to become involved in active politics because of his
status as a priest.[23] Other fascists active in the US included the publisher Seward Collins,
the broadcaster Robert Henry Best, the inventor Joe McWilliams and the writer Ezra Pound.
I try to avoid these terms like "fascism," but it has become clear that Donald J. Trump
actively seeks to become an at least authoritarian leader of the US...
Bert Schlitz , September 20, 2020 3:49 pm
Fascism??? Nope. Zionism, yup. It's a form.
September 20, 2020 6:44 pm
We probably need to distinguish between fascism and neo-fascism. Those are two different
social models.
Fascism proper name is "national socialism." It is different from "national
neoliberalism" as advocated by Trump. In many ways, Classic Fascism strongly correlates
with the mental state of nation which is attacked by strong enemy, the enemy which has
supporters inside the country. It was also a revolt against financial oligarchy while
masking it with the particular national identity, due to historical for Europe
over-representation of Jews in financial industry. The distinct feature of fascism is its
strong aversion to the excessive financialization of economy and banking, which fascists
consider evil.
Often it is also connected with the attempt of modernization of the country "from
above."
The classic fascism involve charismatic leader, unhinged militarism, cult of the army,
unhinged nationalism and cult of personal scarifies in the name of the country, violence
against opponents and the rejection of parliamentary democracy.
National socialism model of the state was the first which emphasized the key role on
intelligence agencies in suppressing of the dissent and as a tool of infiltration into
opposition. Surveillance of the population became vital state function. It was fascism that
invented the role of intelligence agencies as the major part of oppressive apparatus of the
state. It re-invented "political police" on a new level in the form of Gestapo.
For the most part (and that's why many researchers do not consider Franco regime as a
proper fascist state) t also was defined by openly proclaimed goal of external expansion.
In this sense it is not unlike neoliberal states with the only difference in tools --
direct army occupation vs. indirect occupation via financial capital penetration and
subjugation of nation via debt and the control of its elite (debt slave mechanism)
Scapegoated ethnic minorities was typical only for selected national variants and first
of all for the German variant, (where it were Jews and Gypsies.)
BTW the formal program of NSDAP (not that they intended to implement it) was to the left
of the current Democratic Party Platform
.
The 25-point Program of the NSDAP
7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a
livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total
population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be
expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all
non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to
leave the Reich.
9.All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10.The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically.
The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but
must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
Consequently, we demand:
11.Abolition of unearned (work and labor) incomes. Breaking of debt
(interest)-slavery.
12.In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war
demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime
against the people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13.We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14.We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15.We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16.We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate
communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small
firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or
municipality.
17.We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free
expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and
prevention of all speculation in land.
18.We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to
the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to
be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
21.The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and
child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of
the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all
organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
Neo-fascism is something very different and less defined. It is unclear if Trump's
"national neoliberalism" can be classified as neo-fascism (which in a very simplified
meaning is fascism within the bounds of parliamentary democracy) . I am not an expert on
the topic. But clearly several things simply do not match. First of all is should strives,
at least on the level of program, to raise the standard of living of lower 80% of
population. This is not the case with Trump.
Terry , September 20, 2020 7:28 pm
...Mostly, I am concerned that SCOTUS will become a rubber stamp for the oligarchs...
I do not know whether it is fascism, neither whatever or just the " law of the jungle",
but it is bad.
Bert Schlitz , September 20, 2020 8:26 pm
Classical Fascism is just socialism, with violent tribalism. Soviet Russia went into this
as well by 1928, became known as social fascism as they starved nonrussian areas of the
Soviet to industrialize rapidly in roughly 10 years.
What's stupidly called neofascism now is just zionist/conservative authoritarianism.
Progressive authoritarianism is from Millsian liberalism, which many people do not get.
Fred C. Dobbs September 21, 2020 11:34 am
'Classical Fascism is just socialism, with violent tribalism.'
Fascism, as instituted by Benito Mussolini, is certainly NOT 'just socialism'. Wikipedia: Italian Fascism (Italian:
fascismo italiano), also known as Classical Fascism or simply Fascism, is the original fascist ideology as developed in Italy by
Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini. The ideology is associated with a series of two political parties led by Benito Mussolini
…
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) September 21, 2020 12:11 pm @Fred,
THX. Perhaps Nationalist Socialist was taken too literally there. In practice, Fascism was actually devoutly anti=socialist.
Also, congrats on your Boston Globe post given a thread.
That's naive take. Wary knows quite a bit about Antifa. Most probably the key people are
iether FBI agents or informants. The problem is that he find Antifa activities politically
useful. That's why he does not want to shut it down. This again put FBI in the role of kingmaker,
like under Comey.
Also don't forget that Brennan faction of CIA is still in power and that means the "deep
state" still is in control like was the case during Mueller investigation.
In May of 2017, President Trump did the right thing and fired FBI Director James Comey, the
individual at the center of the attempt to overturn the 2016 election results. Comey
orchestrated the spying efforts on President Trump and his campaign, which included the FBI
improperly applying for four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to
eavesdrop on campaign aide Carter Page. He also authorized a politically motivated
investigation into Lt. General Michael Flynn and encouraged the entrapment of Flynn by his FBI
agents in an infamous White House interview.
Clearly, Comey was a disastrous FBI Director; however, the President made a terrible choice
when he replaced him with Christopher Wray, a bureaucrat who has not reformed the agency in any
meaningful way. He also seems to be incapable of identifying the real threats that are facing
the country.
In testimony on Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray made a series of
remarkable claims. He stated that Antifa is not a group but is more of "an ideology or maybe a
movement." He also refused to identify Chinese efforts to interrupt the 2020 election and again
focused attention on activities from Russia.
With these remarks, Wray is doing the bidding of the Democrats and following their talking
points. Regarding Antifa violence, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY),
claimed it was a "myth."
Nadler has been in his congressional cocoon for too long. Antifa has been active for several
years, but since the death of George Floyd on May 25, it has intensified its activities around
the country. Millions of Americans have seen the frequent and disturbing video footage of
rioting and looting throughout the country. According to U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX),
"there have been more than 550 declared riots, many stoked by extremists, Antifa and the BLM
(Black Lives Matter) organization."
In his comments to Wray at the committee meeting, Crenshaw also noted the rioters have done
an extensive amount of damage. He stated that "between one and two billion dollars of insurance
claims will be paid out. That doesn't come close to measuring the actual and true damage to
people's lives, not even close."
Crenshaw is right as many of our urban areas, such as New York, Washington D.C.,
Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland among others have been devastated by a series of violent
protests. In the past few months, scores of monuments have been destroyed, and significant
damage has been done to businesses and public buildings. The group has also attacked innocent
civilians and targeted police officers. As Crenshaw asserted in this rebuttal to Wray, Antifa
matches the definition of a domestic terrorist organization.
This article is dedicated to the memory of an activist, inspiration, and recent friend:
Kevin Zeese. Its scope, sweep, and ambition are meant to match that of Kevin's outsized
influence. At that, it must inevitably fail – and its shortfalls are mine alone. That
said, the piece's attempt at a holistic critique of 19 years worth of war and cultural
militarization would, I hope, earn an approving nod from Kevin – if only at the
attempt. He will be missed by so many; I count myself lucky to have gotten to know him.
– Danny Sjursen
The rubble was still smoldering at Ground Zero when the U.S. House of Representatives
voted to
essentially transform itself into the Israeli
Knesset , or parliament. It was 19 years ago, 11:17pm Washington D.C. time on September
14, 2001 when the People's Chamber approved House Joint Resolution 64, the Authorization for
the Use of Military Force (AUMF) "against those responsible for the recent attacks."
Naturally, that was before the precise identities, and full scope, of "those responsible"
were yet known – so the resolution's rubber-stamp was obscenely open-ended by
necessity, but also by design.
The Senate had passed their own version by roll call vote about 12
hours earlier. The combined congressional tally was 518 to one. Only Representative Barbara
Lee of California
cast a dissenting vote , and even delivered a brief, prescient speech on the House floor.
It's almost hard to watch and listen all these years later as her voice cracks with emotion
amidst all that truth-telling
:
I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international
terrorism against the United States. This is a very complex and complicated matter
However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. Our country
is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, let's step back for a moment and think
through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of
control
Now I have agonized over this vote. But I came to grips with opposing this resolution
during the very painful, yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so
eloquently said, "As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore."
For her lone stance – itself courageous, even had she not since been
vindicated – Rep. Lee suffered
insults and death threats so intense that she needed around-the-clock bodyguards for a
time. It's hard to be right in a room full of the wrong – especially angry, scared, and
jingoistic ones. Yet the tragedy is America has become many of the things we purport to
deplore: the US now boasts a one-trick-pony foreign policy and a militarized society to
boot.
Endless imperial interventions and perennial policing at home and abroad,
counterproductive military adventurism, governance by permanent "emergency" fiat, and an ever
more martial-society? We've seen this movie before; in fact it's still playing – in
Israel. Without implying that Israel, as an entity, is somehow "evil," theirs was simply not
a path the US need or ought to have gone down.
"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"
In the nearly two decades since its passing, the AUMF has been cited at least
41 times in some 17 countries and on the high seas . The
specified nations-states included Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey,
Niger, Cameroon, and the broader African "Sahel Region" – which presumably also covers
the unnamed, but real, US troop presence in
Nigeria, Chad and Mali. That's a lot of unnecessary digressions – missions that
haven't, and couldn't, have been won. All of that aggression abroad predictably boomeranged
back home , in the
guise of freedoms constrained, privacy surveilled, plus cops and culture militarized.
Inevitably, just a few days ago, every publication, big and small, carried obligatory and
ubiquitous 9/11 commemoration pieces. Far fewer will even note the AUMF anniversary. Yet it
was the US government's response – not the attacks themselves – which most
altered American strategy and society. For in dutifully deciding on immediate military
retaliation, a "global war," even, on a tactic ("terror") and a concept ("evil") at that,
this republic fell prey to the Founders' great
obsession . Unable to agree on much else, they shared fears that the nascent American
experiment would suffer Rome's " ancestral curse " of ambition
– and its subsequent path to empire. Hence, Benjamin Franklin's supposed
retort to a crowd question upon exiting the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, on
just what they'd just framed: "A republic, if you can keep it!"
Yet perhaps a modern allegory is the more appropriate one: by signing on to an endless
cycle of tit-for-tat terror retaliation on 9/14, We the People's representatives chose the
Israeli path. Here was a state forged
by the sword that it's consequently lived by ever since,
and may well die by – though the cause of death, no doubt, would likely be
self-inflicted. The first statutory step towards Washington transforming into Tel Aviv was
that AUMF sanction 19 years ago tonight.
No doubt, some militarist fantasies came far closer on the heels of the September 11th
suicide strikes: According to notes taken by aides,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld waited a whole five hours after Flight 77 impacted his
Pentagon to instruct subordinates to gather the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to
hit [Saddam Hussein] at same time Not only [Osama Bin Laden]." As for the responsive strike
plans, "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and
not."
Nonetheless, it was Congress' dutiful AUMF-acquiescence that made America's
Israeli-metamorphosis official. The endgame that ain't even ended yet has been dreadful. It's
almost impossible to fathom, in retrospect, but remember that as of September 14, 2001,
7,052 American troops and,
very conservatively, at least 800,000 foreigners (335,000 of them
civilians) hadn't yet – and need not have – died in the ensuing AUMF-sanctioned
worldwide wars.
Now, US forces didn't directly kill all of them, but that's about 112 September
11ths-worth of dead civilians by the very lowest estimates – perishing in wars of
(American) choice. That's worth reckoning with; and needn't imply a dismissive attitude to
our 9/11 fallen. I, for one, certainly take that date rather seriously.
My 9/11s
There are more than a dozen t-shirts hanging in my closet right now that are each
emblazoned with the phrase "Annual Marty Egan 5K Memorial Run/Walk." This event is
held back in the old neighborhood, honoring a very close family friend – a New York
City fire captain killed
in the towers' collapse. As my Uncle Steve's best bud, he was in and out of my grandparents'
seemingly communal Midland Beach, Staten Island bungalow – before Hurricane Sandy
washed many of them away – throughout my childhood. When I was a teenager, just
before leaving for West Point, Marty would tease me for being "too skinny for a soldier" in
the local YMCA weight-room and broke-balls about my vague fear of heights as I shakily
climbed a ladder in Steve's backyard just weeks before I left for cadet basic training.
Always delivered with a smile, of course.
Marty was doing some in-service training on September 11th, and didn't have to head
towards the flames, but he hopped on a passing truck and rode to his death anyway. I doubt
anyone who knew him would've expected anything less. Mercifully, Marty's body was one of the
first – and at the time, only – recovered , just two days after Congress chose war in
his, and 2,976 others' name. He was found wearing borrowed gear from engine company he'd
jumped in with.
I was a freshman cadet at West Point when I heard all of this news – left feeling so
very distant from home, family, neighborhood, though I was just a 90 minute drive north.
Frankly, I couldn't wait to get in the fights that followed. It's no excuse, really: but I
was at that moment exactly 18 years and 41 days old. And indeed, I'd spend the next 18
training, prepping, and fighting the wars I then wanted – and, ( Apocalypse
Now-style )
"for my sins" – "they gave me."
Anyway, Marty's family – and more so his memory – along with the general 9/11
fallout back home, have swirled in and out of my life ever since. In the immediate term,
after the attacks my mother turned into a sort of wake&funeral-hopper, attending
literally dozens over that first year. As soon as Marty had a headstone in Moravian Cemetery
– where my Uncle Steve once dug graves – I draped a pair of my new dog tags over
it on a weekend trip home. It was probably a silly and indulgent gesture, but it felt
profound at the time. Then, soon enough, the local street signs started
changing to honor fallen first responders – including the intersection outside my
church, renamed "Martin J. Egan Jr. Corner." (Marty used to joke , after all, that he'd graduated
from UCLA – that is, the University, corner of Lincoln Avenue, in the
neighborhood.)
Five years later, while I was fighting a war in a country (Iraq) that had nothing to do
with the 9/11 attacks, Marty's mother Pat still worked at the post office from which my own
mom shipped me countless care packages. They'd chat; have a few nostalgic laughs; then Pat
would wish me well and pass on her regards. When some of my soldiers started getting killed,
I remember my mother telling me it was sometimes hard to look Pat in the eye on the post
office trips – perhaps she feared an impending kinship of lost sons. But it didn't go
that way.
So, suffice it to say, I don't take the 9/11 attacks, or the victims, lightly. That
doesn't mean the US responses, and their results, were felicitous or forgivable. They might
even dishonor the dead. I don't pretend to precisely know, or speak for, the Egan family's
feelings. Still, my own sense is that few among the lost or their loved ones left behind
would've imagined or desired their deaths be used to justify all of the madness, futility,
and liberties-suppression blowback that's ensued.
Nevertheless, my nineteen Septembers 11th have been experienced in oft-discomfiting ways,
and my assessment of the annual commemorations, rather quickly began to change. By the tenth
anniversary, a Reuters reporter spent a couple of days on the base I commanded in
Afghanistan. At the time the outpost sported a flag gifted by my uncle, which had previously
flown above a New York Fire Department house. I suppose headquarters sent the journalist my
way because I was the only combat officer from New York City – but the brass got more
than they'd bargained for. By then, amidst my second futile war "surge," and three more of
the lives and several more of the limbs of my soldiers lost on this deployment, I
wasn't feeling particularly sentimental. Besides, I'd already turned – ethically and
intellectually – against what seemed to me demonstrably hopeless and counterproductive
military exercises.
Much to the chagrin of my career-climbing lieutenant colonel, I
waxed a bit (un)poetic on the war I was then fighting – "against farm boys with
guns," I not-so-subtly styled it – and my hometown's late suffering that ostensibly
justified it. "When I see this place, I don't see the towers," I said, sitting inside my
sandbagged operations center near the Taliban's very birthplace in Kandahar province. Then
added: "My family sees it more than I do. They see it dead-on, direct. I'm a professional
soldier. It's not about writing the firehouse number on the bullet. I'm not one for
gimmicks." It was coarse and a bit petulant, sure, but what I meant – what I
felt – was that these wars, even this " good " Afghan
one (per President Obama), no longer, and may never have, had much to do with 9/11, Marty, or
all the other dead.
The global war on terrorism (GWOT, as it was once fashionable to say) was but a reflex for
a sick society pre-disposed to violence, symptomatic of a militarist system led by a
government absent other ideas or inclinations. Still, I flew that FDNY flag – even
skeptical soldiers can be a paradoxical lot.
Origin Myths: Big Lies and Long Cons
Although the final approved AUMF
declared that "such acts [as terrorism] continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat
to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," that wasn't then, and
isn't now, even true . The toppled towers, pummeled Pentagon, and flying suicide
machines of 9/11 were no doubt an absolute horror; and such visions understandably clouded
collective judgment. Still, more sober
statistics demonstrate, and sensible strategy demands, the prudence of perspective.
From 1995 to 2016, a total of 3,277 Americans have been killed in terrorist acts on US
soil. If we subtract the 9/11 anomaly, that's just 300 domestic deaths – or 14 per
year. Which raises the impolite question: why don't policymakers talk about terrorism the
same way they do shark attacks or lightning strikes? The latter, incidentally, kill an average of 49
Americans annually. Odd, then, that the US hasn't
expended $6.4 trillion, or more than 15,000 soldier and contractor lives ,
responding to bolts from the blue. Nor has it kicked off or catalyzed global wars that have
directly killed – by that conservative estimate – 335,000 civilians.
See, that's the thing: for Americans, like the Israelis, some
lives matter more than others. We can just about calculate the macabre life-value ratios
in each society. Take Israel's 2014 onslaught on the Gaza Strip. In its fifty-day onslaught
of Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)
killed 2,131 Palestinians – of whom 1,473 were identified as civilians, including
501 children. As for the wildly inaccurate and desperate Hamas rocket strikes that the IDF
"edge" ostensibly "protected" against: those killed a whopping four civilians. To review:
apparently one Israeli non-combatant is worth 368 Palestinian versions. Now, seeing as
everything – including death-dealing is "bigger in Texas" – consider the macro
American application. To wit, 3,277 US civilians versus 335,000 foreign innocents equals a
cool 102-to-1 quotient of the macabre.
Such formulas become banal realities when one believes the big lies undergirding the
entire enterprise. Here, Israel and America share origin myths that frame the long con of
forever wars. That is, that acts of terror with stateless origins are best responded to with
reflexive and aggressive military force. In my first ever published article
– timed for Independence Day 2014 – I argued that America's post-9/11 "original
sin" was framing its response as a war in the first place. As a result, I – then a
serving US Army captain – concluded, "In place of sound strategy, we've been handed our
own set of martyrs: more than 6,500 dead soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines." More than
500 American troopers have died since, along with who knows how many foreign civilians. It's
staggering how rare such discussions remain in mainstream discourse.
Within that mainstream, often the conjoined Israeli-American twins even share the same
cruelty cheerleaders. Take the man that author Belen Fernandez not inaccurately
dubs "Harvard Law School's resident psychopath:" Alan Dershowitz. During Israel's brutal
2006 assault on Lebanon, this armchair-murderer took to the pages of the Wall Street
Journal with a column titled " Arithmetic of Pain ."
Dershowitz argued for a collective "reassessment of the laws of war" in light of
increasingly blurred distinctions between combatants and civilians. Thus, offering official
"scholarly" sanction for the which-lives-matter calculus, he unveiled the concept of a
"continuum of 'civilianality." Consider some of his cold and callous language:
Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the pure innocents – babies,
hostages at the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists, provide
material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle are those who support the
terrorists politically, or spiritually.
Got that? Leaving aside Dershowitz's absurd assumption that there are loads of
Palestinians just itching to volunteer as "human shields," it's clear that when conflicts are
thus framed – all manner of cruelties become permissible.
In Israel, it begins with stated policies of internationally- prohibited
collective punishment. For example, during the 2006 Lebanon War that killed exponentially
more innocent Lebanese than Israelis, the IDF chief of staff's announced
intent was to deliver "a clear message to both greater Beirut and Lebanon that they've
swallowed a cancer [Hezbollah] and have to vomit it up, because if they don't their country
will pay a very high price." It ends with Tel Aviv's imposition of an abusive
calorie-calculus on Palestinians.
In 2008, Israeli authorities actually
drew up a document computing the minimum caloric intake necessary for Gaza's residents to
suffer (until they yield), but avoid outright starvation. Two years earlier, that wonderful
wordsmith Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained that
Israeli policy was designed "to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of
hunger."
Lest that sound beyond the pale for we Americans, recall that it was the first female
secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who ten years earlier said of 500,000 Iraqi
children's deaths under crippling U.S. sanctions: "we think, the price is worth it."
Furthermore, it's unclear how the Trump administration's current sanctions-
clampdown on Syrians unlucky enough to live in President Bashar al Assad-controlled
territory is altogether different from the "Palestinian diet."
After all, even one of the Middle East Institute's resident regime-change-enthusiasts,
Charles Lister, recently admitted
that America's criminally-euphemized "Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act" may induce a
"famine." In other words, according to two humanitarian experts
writing on the national security website War on the Rocks , "hurting the very
civilians it aims to protect while largely failing to affect the Syrian government
itself."
It is, and has long been, thus: Israeli prime ministers and American presidents, Bibi and
The Donald, Tel Aviv and Washington – are peas in a punishing pod.
Emergencies as Existences
In both Israel and America, frightened populations finagled by their uber-hawkish
governments acquiesce to militarized states of "emergencies" as a way of life. In seemingly
no time at all, the latest U.S. threshold got so low that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
matter-of-factly
declared one to override a congressional-freeze and permit the $8.1 billion sale of
munitions to Gulf Arab militaries. When some frustrated lawmakers asked the State
Department's inspector general to investigate, the resultant report
found that the agency failed to limit [Yemeni] civilian deaths from the sales –
most bombed by the Saudi's subsequent arsenal of largesse. (As for the inspector general
himself? He was "
bullied ," then fired, by Machiavelli Mike).
Per the standard, Israel is the more surface-overt partner. As the IDF-veteran author Haim
Bresheeth-Zabner writes in his new book , An Army Like
No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation , Israel is the "only country in
which Emergency Regulations have been in force for every minute of its existence."
Perhaps more worryingly, such emergency existences boomerang back to militarized
Minneapolis and Jerusalem streets alike. It's worth nothing that just five days after the
killing of George Floyd, an Israeli police officer
gunned down an unarmed, autistic, Palestinian man on his way to a school for the
disabled. Even the 19-year-old killer's 21-year-old commander (instructive, that)
admitted the cornered victim wasn't a threat. But here's the rub: when the scared and
confused Palestinian man ran from approaching police at 6 a.m. , initial officers
instinctually reported a potential "terrorist" on the loose.
Talk about global terror coming home to roost on local streets. And why not here in the
States? It wasn't but two months back that President Trump labeled peaceful
demonstrators in D.C., and nationwide protesters
tearing down Confederate statues, as "terrorists." That's more than a tad troubling,
since, as noted, almost anything is permissible against terrorists, thus tagged.
In other words, the Israeli-American, post-9/11 (or -9/14) militarized connections go
beyond the cosmetic and past sloganeering. Then again, the latter can be instructive. In the
wake of the latest Jerusalem police shooting, protesters in Israel's Occupied Territories
held up placards declaring solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM). One read:
"Palestinians support the black intifada." Yet the roots of shared systemic injustices run
far deeper.
Though it remains impolitic to say so here in the US,
both "BLM and the Palestinian rights movement are [by their own accounts] fighting
settler-colonial states and structures of domination and supremacy that value, respectively,
white and Jewish lives over black and Palestinian ones." They're hardly wrong.
All-but-official apartheid reigns in
Occupied Palestine, and a de-facto two-tier system
favoring Jewish citizens, prevails within Israel itself. Similarly, the US grapples with
chattel slavery's legacy, lingering effects institutional Jim Crow-apartheid, and its
persistent system of gross, if unofficial, socio-economic racial disparity.
Though there are hopeful rumblings in post-Floyd America, neither society has much
grappled with the immediacy and intransigency of their established and routine devaluation of
(internal and external) Arab and African lives. Instead, in another gross similarity,
Israelis and Americans prefer to laud any ruling elites who even pretend towards mildly
reformist rhetoric (rather than action) as brave peacemakers.
In fact, two have won the Nobel Peace Prize. In America, there was the untested Obama: he
the
king of drones and free-press-suppression – whose main qualification for the award
was not being named George W. Bush. In Israel, the prize went to late Prime Minister Shimon
Peres. According to Bresheeth-Zabner, Peres was the "mind behind the military-industrial
complex" in Israel, and also architect of the infamous
1996 massacre of 106 people sheltering at a United Nations compound in South Lebanon. In
such societies as ours and Israel's, and amidst interminable wars, too often politeness
passes for principle.
Military Mirrors
Predictably, social and cultural rot – and strategic delusions – first
manifest in a nation's military. Neither Israel's nor America's has a particularly impressive
record of late. The IDF won a few important wars in its first 25 years of existence, then
came back from a near catastrophic defeat to prevail in the 1973 Yom Kippur War; but since
then, it's at best muddled through near-permanent lower-intensity conflicts after invading
Southern Lebanon in 1978. In fact, its 22-year continuous counter-guerilla campaign there
– against Palestinian resistance groups and then Lebanese Hezbollah – slowly bled
the IDF dry in a quagmire often called " Israel's
Vietnam ." It was, in fact, proportionally more deadly
for its troops than America's Southeast Asian debacle – and ended (in 2000) with an
embarrassing unilateral withdrawal.
Additionally, Tel Aviv's perma-military-occupation of the Palestinian territories of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip hasn't just flagrantly violated
International law and several UN resolutions – but blown up in the IDF's face. Ever
since vast numbers of exasperated and largely abandoned (by Arab armies) Palestinians rose up
in the 1987 Intifada
– initially peaceful protests – and largely due to the IDF's counterproductively
vicious suppression, Israel has been trapped in endless imperial policing and
low-to-mid-level counterinsurgency.
None of its major named military operations in the West Bank and/or Gaza Strip –
Operations Defensive Shield (2002), Days of Penitence (2004), Summer Rains (2006), Cast Lead
(2008-09), Pillar of Defense (2012), Protective Edge (2014), among others – has
defeated or removed Hamas, nor have they halted the launch of inaccurate but persistent
Katyusha rockets.
In fact, the wildly disproportionate toll on Palestinian civilians in each and every
operation, and the intransigence of Israel's ironclad occupation has only earned Tel Aviv
increased international condemnation and fresh generations of resistors to combat. The IDF
counts minor tactical successes and suffers broader strategic failure. As even a fairly
sympathetic Rand report on the Gaza operations
noted, "Israel's grand strategy became 'mowing the grass' – accepting its inability to
permanently solve the problem and instead repeatedly targeting leadership of Palestinian
militant organizations to keep violence manageable."
The American experience has grown increasingly similar over the last three-quarters of a
century. Unless one counts modern trumped-up Banana
Wars like those in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989), or the lopsided 100-hour First
Persian Gulf ground campaign (1991), the US military, too, hasn't won a meaningful victory
since 1945. Korea (1950-53) was a grinding and costly draw; Vietnam (1965-72) a quixotic
quagmire; Lebanon (1982-84) an unnecessary and muddled
mess ; Somalia (1992-94) a mission-creeping fiasco;
Bosnia/Kosovo (1992-) an over-hyped and unsatisfying diversion. Yet matters deteriorated
considerably, and the Israeli-parallels grew considerably, after Congress chose
endless war on September 14, 2001.
America's longest ever war, in Afghanistan, started as a seeming slam dunk but has turned
out to be an intractable operational defeat. That lost cause has been a
dead war walking for over a decade. Operations Iraqi Freedom (2003-11) and Inherent
Resolve (2014-) may prove, respectively, America's most counterproductive and aimless
missions ever. Operation Odyssey Dawn, the 2011 air campaign in pursuit of Libyan regime
change, was a debacle – the entire region still grapples with its
detritus of jihadi profusion, refugee dispersion, and ongoing proxy war.
US support for the Saudi-led terror war on Yemen hasn't made an iota of strategic sense,
but has left America criminally
complicit in immense civilian-suffering. Despite the hype, the relatively young US Africa
Command (AFRICOM) was never really "about Africans," and its dozen years worth of far-flung
campaigns have only further militarized a long-suffering continent and
generated more terrorists. Like Israel's post-1973 operations, America's post-2001 combat
missions have simply been needless, hopeless, and counterproductive.
Consider a few other regrettable U.S.-Israeli military connections over these last two
decades:
Both have set their loudly proclaimed principles aside and made devil's bargains
with the venal Saudis (many of whom really do hate our values), as well as with
the cynical military coup-artists in Egypt.
Both have increasingly engaged in " wars of choice
" and grown reliant on the snake oil of "magical" air power to [not] win them. In fact,
during the 2006 war there, the IDF's first-ever air force officer to serve as chief of
staff declared
his intent to use such sky power to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years." How's
that for the head of a force that still styles
itself "the most moral army in the world." It's hard to see much moral difference
between that and America's ever-secretive drone program (perhaps 14,000 total strikes) and
the US government's constant and purposeful underreporting of the thousands of civilians
they've killed.
Both vaunted militaries broke their supposedly unbreakable backs in ill-advised
invasions built on false pretenses. The Israeli historian Martin van Creveld has famously
called
Israel's 1982 Lebanon War – and the quagmire that resulted – his country's
"greatest folly." The mainstream US national security analyst Tom Ricks – hardly a
dove himself – went a step further: the 2003 "American military adventure in Iraq"
was nothing short of a Fiasco
.
Both armies have seen their conventional war competence and ethical standards
measurably deteriorate amidst lengthy militarized-policing campaigns. As van Creveld said
of the IDF during the 1982 Lebanon invasion (after it enabled
the vicious massacre of Palestinian refugees by Christian militiamen: it was reduced from
the superb fighting force of a "small but brave people" into a "high-tech, but soft,
bloated, strife-ridden, responsibility-shy and dishonest army."
The wear and tear from the South Lebanon occupation and from decades of beating up on
downtrodden and trapped Palestinians damaged Israel's vaunted military. According to an
after-action review, these operations"weakened the IDF's operational capabilities." Thus,
when Israel's nose was more than a bit bloodied in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, IDF analysts
and retired officers were quick – and not exactly incorrect – to blame the
decaying effect of endless low-intensity warfare.
At the time, two general staff members, Major Generals Yishai Bar and Yiftach Ron-Tal,
"warned that as a result of the preoccupation with missions in the territories, the IDF had
lost its maneuverability and capability to fight in mountainous terrain." Van Creveld added
that: "Among the commanders, the great majority can barely remember when they trained for and
engaged in anything more dangerous than police-type operations."
Similar voices have sounded the
alarm about the post-9/11 American military. Perhaps the loudest has been my fellow West
Point History faculty alum, retired Colonel Gian Gentile. This former tank battalion
commander and Iraq War vet described "America's deadly embrace of counterinsurgency" as a
Wrong
Turn . Specifically, he's
argued that "counterinsurgency has perverted [the way of] American war," pushed the
"defense establishment into fanciful thinking," and thus "atrophying [its] core fighting
competencies."
Instructively, Gentile
cited "The Israeli Defense Forces' recent [2006] experience in Lebanon There were many
reasons for its failure, but one of them, is that its army had done almost nothing but
[counterinsurgency] in the Palestinian territories, and its ability to fight against a
strident enemy had atrophied." Maybe more salient was Gentile's other
rejoinder that, historically, "nation-building operations conducted at gunpoint don't
turn out well" and tend to be as (or more) bloody and brutal as other wars.
Finally, and related to Gentile's last point, both militaries fell prey to the
brutality and cruelty so common in prolonged counterinsurgency and counter-guerilla combat.
Consider the resurrected utility of that infamous adage of
absurdity mouthed by a US Army major in Vietnam: "it became necessary to destroy the
town to save it." He supposedly meant the February 1968 decision to bomb and shell the city
of Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, regardless of the risk to civilians therein.
Fast forward a decade, and B?n Tre's ghost was born again in the matter-of-fact admission
of the IDF's then chief of staff, General Mordecai Gur. Asked if, during its 1978 invasion of
South Lebanon, Israel had bombed civilians "without discrimination," he
fired back : "Since when has the population of South Lebanon been so sacred? They know
very well what the terrorists were doing. . . . I had four villages in South Lebanon
bombarded without discrimination." When pressed to confirm that he believed "the civilian
population should be punished," Gur's retort was "And how!" Should it surprise us then, that
33 years later the concept was
rebooted to flatten presumably (though this has been contested) booby-trapped villages in
my old stomping grounds of Kandahar, Afghanistan?
In sum, Israel and America are senseless strategy-simpatico. It's a demonstrably
disastrous two-way relationship. Our main exports have been guns – $142.3 billion
worth since 1949 (significantly more than any other recipient) – and twin umbrellas
of air defense and
bottomless diplomatic top-cover for Israel's abuses. As to the top-cover export, it's not for
nothing that after the U.S. House rubber-stamped – by a vote of 410-8 – a 2006
resolution (written by the Israel Lobby) justifying IDF attacks on Lebanese civilians, the
"maverick" Republican Patrick Buchanan labeled the legislative body as " our
Knesset ."
Naturally, Tel Aviv responds in kind by shipping America a how-to-guide for societal
militarization, a built-in foreign policy script to their benefit, and the unending ire of
most people in the Greater Middle East. It's a timeless and treasured trade – but it
benefits neither party in the long run.
"Armies With Countries"
It was once
said that Frederick the Great's 18th century Prussia, was "not a country with an army,
but an army with a country." Israel has long been thus. It's probably still truer of them
than us. The Israelis do, after all, have an immersive system of military conscription
– whereas Americans leave the
fighting, killing, and dying to a microscopic and
unrepresentative Praetorian Guard of professionals. Nevertheless, since 9/11 – or,
more accurately, 9/14/2001 – US politics, society, and culture have wildly militarized.
To say the least, the outcomes have been unsatisfying: American troops haven't "won" a
significant war 75 years. Now, the US has set appearances aside once and for all and "
jumped the shark "
towards the gimmick of full-throated imperialism.
There are, of course, real differences in scale and substance between America and Israel.
The latter is the size
of Massachusetts, with the population of New
York City. Its "Defense Force" requires most of its of-age population to wage its offensive
wars and perennial policing of illegally occupied Palestinians. Israeli society is more
plainly "
prussianized ." Yet in broader and bigger – if less blatant – ways, so is the
post-AUMF United States. America-the-exceptional leads the world in legalized
gunrunning and overseas military
basing . Rather than the globe's self-styled "
Arsenal of Democracy ," the US has become little more than the arsenal of arsenals. So,
given the sway of the behemoth military-industrial-complex and recent Israelification of its
political culture, perhaps it's more accurate to say America is a defense industry with a
country – and not the other way around.
As for 17 year-old me, I didn't think I'd signed up for the Israeli Defense Force on that
sunny West Point morning of July 2, 2001. And, for the first two months and 12 days of my
military career – maybe I hadn't. I sure did serve in its farcical facsimile, though:
fighting its wars for an ensuing 17 more years.
Yet everyone who entered the US military after September 14, 2001 signed up for just that.
Which is a true tragedy.
Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and contributing editor atAntiwar.comHis work has appeared in
the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Popular Resistance, and
Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units
in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the
author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. His forthcoming book,
Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War is now available forpre-order. Sjursen was recently selected as a 2019-20 Lannan FoundationCultural Freedom Fellow. Follow him on Twitter@SkepticalVet. Visit his
professionalwebsitefor contact info, to schedule speeches or media appearances, and access to his past
work.
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
...Amid all the pedantic squabbling over when it is and is not legal under US law for a
journalist to expose evidence of US war crimes, we must never lose sight of the fact that (A)
it should always be legal to expose war crimes, (B) it should always be illegal for governments
to hide evidence of their war crimes, (C) war crimes should always be punished, (D) people who
start criminal wars should always be punished, (E) governments should not be permitted to have
a level of secrecy that allows them to start criminal wars, and (F) power and secrecy should
always have an inverse relationship to one another.
The Assange case needs to be fought tooth and claw, but we must keep in mind that it is so
very, very many clicks back from where we need to be as a civilization. In an ideal situation,
governments should be too afraid of the public to keep secrets from them; instead, here we are
begging the most powerful government in the world to please not imprison a journalist because
he arguably did not break the rules that that government made for itself.
Do you see how far that point is from where we need to be?
It's important to remember this. It's important to remember that the amount of evil deeds
power structures will commit is directly proportional to the amount of information they are
permitted to hide from the public. We will not have a healthy world until power and secrecy
have an inverse relationship to each other: privacy for rank-and-file individuals, and
transparency for governments and their officials.
"But what about military secrets?" one might object. Yes, what about military
secrets? What about the fact that virtually all military violence perpetrated by the world's
largest power structures is initiated based on lies ? What about the utterly indisputable fact that the
more secrecy we allow the war machine, the more wars it deceives the public into allowing it to
initiate?
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't be trying to squint at
its own laws in such a way that permits the prosecution of a journalist for telling the
truth.
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't prosecute anyone for
telling the truth at all.
In a healthy world, governments would prosecute their own war crimes, instead of those who
expose them.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't commit war crimes at all.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't start wars at all.
In a healthy world, governments would see truth as something to be desired and actively
sought, not something to be repressed and punished.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't keep secrets from the public, and wouldn't have any
cause to want to.
In a healthy world, if governments existed at all, they would exist solely as tools for the
people to serve themselves, with full transparency and accountability to those people.
We are obviously a very, very far cry from the kind of healthy world we would all like to
one day find ourselves in. But we should always keep in mind what a healthy world will look
like, and hold it as our true north for the direction that we are pushing in.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Reality007 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:07 AM
Unfortunately, no criminals that have committed or covered up war crimes, decades ago to
present, will ever be indicted. They are all above the law while all innocents that revealed
the truths must pay highly. We can only pray and hope for the best for Julian Assange.
Fred Dozer Reality007 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:16 PM
I see nothing wrong with robbing banks in criminal controlled countries. These governments,
murder, cheat, lie, & steal.
T. Agee Kaye 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 11:10 AM
The right of a people to know what their government is doing, and the potential consequences
of those actions on the people, nation, and society, is inalienable. The exposure of war
crimes and any corruption is not illegal and cannot be made illegal. The trial of Assange is
not about the legality of Assange's actions. It is a display of the influence that criminal
interests have over the government and judiciary. It is an attempt to create legitimacy by
creating precedent. Murder has plenty of precedent. It will never be legitimate.
Jewel Gyn 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:21 AM
Agreed but having said that, we are not living in a perfect world. Bully with big fists exist
and the lesser countries just stood by frustrated and sucking their thumbs, silent lest they
be targeted for voicing out. And you can see clearly why US is walking away from any form of
organised voice eg UN.
Odinsson 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:51 AM
What we need in the case of Julian Assange is factual reporting. While the motivation to
prosecute Assange is most likely political, there would be no ability to prosecute him were
it not for his active support of PFC Manning's hacking of a DOD information system. It is not
unlawful to publish classified information which was provided to you, so long as you are not
involved in the criminal acts leading to the exfiltration of the data. Had Assange not aided
PFC Manning by looking up hash codes in spreadsheets of known password to hash code
translations then the grand jury would not have indicted him. FWIW, it is my opinion that the
statute of limitations expired long ago and this should be grounds for dismissal of all
charges against him.
jholf 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:04 PM
These world leaders, claim to be Christians, ... their God 'commands', "Thou shalt not kill."
Yet, for more than 6 decades, that is exactly what each of these Christian Commanders in
Chief, have done for no reason, other than to fill the pockets of the elite. A man is known
by his deeds, Assange gave us truth, while these world leaders gave us war and destructi
I always assumed that Trump was the candidate of MIC in 2016 elections, while Hillary was the
candidate of "Intelligence community." But it looks like US military is infected with desperados
like Mattis and Trump was unable fully please them despite all his efforts.
But it looks like US military is infected with desperados like Mattis and Trump was unable
fully please them despite all his efforts. Military desperados are not interested in how many
American they deprived of decent standard of living due to outside military expenses. All they
want is to dominate the word and maintain the "Full Spectrum Dominance" whatever it costs.
It is Trump's tortured relationship with the military that stands out the most, especially
as told through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis, a retired marine
general. It is clear that Bob Woodward spent hours speaking with Mattis -- the insights,
emotions and internal voice captured in the book show a level of intimacy that could only be
reached through in-depth interviews, and Woodward has a well-earned reputation for getting
people to speak to him.
The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump as a threat to the US' standing as the
defender of a rules-based order -- built on the back of decades-old alliances -- that had been
in place since the end of the Second World War.
It also makes it clear that Mattis and the military officers he oversaw placed defending
this order above implementing the will of the American people, as expressed through the free
and fair election that elevated Donald Trump to the position of commander-in-chief. In short,
Mattis and his coterie of generals knew best, and when the president dared issue an order or
instruction that conflicted with their vision of how the world should work, they would do their
best to undermine this order, all the while confirming to the president that it was being
followed.
This trend was on display in Woodward's telling of Trump's efforts to forge better relations
with North Korea. At every turn, Mattis and his military commanders sought to isolate the
president from the reality on the ground, briefing him only on what they thought he needed to
know, and keeping him in the dark about what was really going on.
In a telling passage, Woodward takes us into the mind of Jim Mattis as he contemplates the
horrors of a nuclear war with North Korea, and the responsibility he believed he shouldered
when it came to making the hard decision as to whether nuclear weapons should be used or not.
Constitutionally, the decision was the president's alone to make, something Mattis begrudgingly
acknowledges. But in Mattis' world, he, as secretary of defense, would be the one who
influenced that decision.
Mattis, along with the other general officers described by Woodward, is clearly gripped with
what can only be described as the 'Military Messiah Syndrome'.
What defines this 'syndrome' is perhaps best captured in the words of Emma Sky, the female
peace activist-turned adviser to General Ray Odierno, the one-time commander of US forces in
Iraq. In a frank give-and-take captured by Ms. Sky in her book 'The Unravelling', Odierno spoke
of the value he placed on the military's willingness to defend "freedom" anywhere in the world.
" There is, " he said, " no one who understands more the importance of liberty and
freedom in all its forms than those who travel the world to defend it ."
Ms. Sky responded in typically direct fashion: " One day, I will have you admit that the
[Iraq] war was a bad idea, that the administration was led by a radical neocon program, that
the US's standing in the world has gone down greatly, and that we are far less safe than we
were before 9/11. "
Odierno would have nothing of it. " It will never happen while I'm the commander of
soldiers in Iraq ."
" To lead soldiers in battle ," Ms. Sky noted, " a commander had to believe in the
cause. " Left unsaid was the obvious: even if the cause was morally and intellectually
unsound.
his, more than anything, is the most dangerous thing about the 'Military Messiah Syndrome'
as captured by Bob Woodward -- the fact that the military is trapped in an inherited reality
divorced from the present, driven by precepts which have nothing to with what is, but rather by
what the military commanders believe should be. The unyielding notion that the US military is a
force for good becomes little more than meaningless drivel when juxtaposed with the reality
that the mission being executed is inherently wrong.
The 'Military Messiah Syndrome' lends itself to dishonesty and, worse, to self-delusion. It
is one thing to lie; it is another altogether to believe the lie as truth.
No single
general had the courage to tell Trump allegations against Syria were a hoax
The cruise missile attack on Syria in early April 2017 stands out as a case in point. The
attack was ordered in response to allegations that Syria had dropped a bomb containing the
sarin nerve agent on a town -- Khan Shaykhun -- that was controlled by Al-Qaeda-affiliated
Islamic militants.
Trump was led to believe that the 59 cruise missiles launched against Shayrat Airbase --
where the Su-22 aircraft alleged to have dropped the bombs were based -- destroyed Syria's
capability to carry out a similar attack in the future. When shown post-strike imagery in which
the runways were clearly untouched, Trump was outraged, lashing out at Secretary of Defense
Mattis in a conference call. " I can't believe you didn't destroy the runway !",
Woodward reports the president shouting.
" Mr. President ," Mattis responds in the text, " they would rebuild the runway in
24 hours, and it would have little effect on their ability to deploy weapons. We destroyed the
capability to deploy weapons " for months, Mattis said.
" That was the mission the president had approved, " Woodward writes, clearly
channeling Mattis, " and they had succeeded ."
The problem with this passage is that it is a lie. There is no doubt that Bob Woodward has
the audio tape of Jim Mattis saying these things. But none of it is true. Mattis knew it when
he spoke to Woodward, and Woodward knew it when he wrote the book.
There was no confirmed use of chemical weapons by Syria at Khan Shaykhun. Indeed, the
forensic evidence available about the attack points to the incident being a false flag effort
-- a successful one, it turns out -- on the part of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists to
provoke a US military strike against Syria. No targets related to either the production,
storage or handling of chemical weapons were hit by the US cruise missiles, if for no other
reason than no such targets could exist if Syria did not possess and/or use a chemical weapon
against Khan Shaykhun.
Moreover, the US failed to produce a narrative of causality which provided some underlying
logic to the targets that were struck at Khan Shaykhun -- "Here is where the chemical weapons
were stored, here is where the chemical weapons were filled, here is where the chemical weapons
were loaded onto the aircraft." Instead, 59 cruise missiles struck empty aircraft hangars,
destroying derelict aircraft, and killing at least four Syrian soldiers and up to nine
civilians.
The next morning, the same Su-22 aircraft that were alleged to have bombed Khan Shaykhun
were once again taking off from Shayrat Air Base -- less than 24 hours after the US cruise
missiles struck that facility. President Trump had every reason to be outraged by the
results.
But the President should have been outraged by the processes behind the attack, where
military commanders, fully afflicted by 'Military Messiah Syndrome', offered up solutions that
solved nothing for problems that did not exist. Not a single general (or admiral) had the
courage to tell the president that the allegations against Syria were a hoax, and that a
military response was not only not needed, but would be singularly counterproductive.
But that's not how generals and admirals -- or colonels and lieutenant colonels -- are
wired. That kind of introspective honesty cannot happen while they are in command.
Bob Woodward knows this truth, but he chose not to give it a voice in his book, because to
do so would disrupt the pre-scripted narrative that he had constructed, around which he bent
and twisted the words of those he interviewed -- including the president and Jim Mattis. As
such, 'Rage' is, in effect, a lie built on a lie. It is one thing for politicians and those in
power to manipulate the truth to their advantage. It's something altogether different for
journalists to report something as true that they know to be a lie.
On the back cover of 'Rage', the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Robert Caro is quoted from
a speech he gave about Bob Woodward. " Bob Woodward ," Caro notes, " a great
reporter. What is a great reporter? Someone who never stops trying to get as close to the truth
as possible ."
After reading 'Rage', one cannot help but conclude the opposite -- that Bob Woodward has
written a volume which pointedly ignores the truth. Instead, he gives voice to a lie of his own
construct, predicated on the flawed accounts of sources inflicted with 'Military Messiah
Syndrome', whose words embrace a fantasy world populated by military members fulfilling
missions far removed from the common good of their fellow citizens -- and often at conflict
with the stated intent and instruction of the civilian leadership they ostensibly serve. In
doing so, Woodward is as complicit as the generals and former generals he quotes in misleading
the American public about issues of fundamental importance.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Scott Ritter
is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ' SCORPION
KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the
Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff
during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter
@RealScottRitter
Whichever construct you want to believe, the fact remains that US has continued to sow
instability around the world in the name of defending the liberty and freedom. Which brings
to the question how the world can continue to allow a superpower to dictate what's good or
bad for a sovereign country.
Johan le Roux Jewel Gyn 18 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 03:42 AM
The answer you seek is not in the US's proclaimed vision of 'democracy' ot 'rescuing
populations from the clutches of vile dictators.' They just say that to validate their
actions which in reality is using their military as a mercenary force to secure and steal the
resources of countries.
Joaquin Montano 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 04:57 PM
Bob Woodward was enshrined as a great, heroic like journalist by the Hollywood propaganda
machine, but reality is he is a US Security agent pretending to be a well informed/connected
journalist. And indeed, he is well informed/connected, since he was a Naval intelligence man,
part responsible of the demise of the Nixon administration when it fell out of grace with the
powerful elites, and the Washington Post being well connected with the CIA, the rest is
history. And as they say, once a CIA man, always a CIA man.
That is correct. Woodward is a Naval intelligence man. The elite in the US was not happy
about Nixon's foreign policy and his detante with the Soviet Union. Watergate was invented,
and Nixon had nothing to do with it. However, it brought him down, thank's to Woodward.
NoJustice Joaquin Montano 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:48 PM
But he also exposed Trump's lies about Covid-19.
lectrodectus 17 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:45 AM
Another first class article by ....Scott .. The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump
as a threat to the Us' standing as the defender of a " rules -based order -built on the back
of decades -old alliances-that had been in place since the end of the second World War". It
also makes it clear that " Mattis and the Military officials he oversaw placed defending this
order above the implementing the will of the American People " These old Military Dinosaurs
simply can't let go of the past, unfortunately for the American people / the World I can't
see anything ever changing, it will be business as usual ie, war after War after War.
Jonny247364 lectrodectus 5 minutes ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:53 PM
Just because donny signs a dictact it does not equate to the will of the americian people.
The americian people did not ask donny to murder Assad.
neeon9 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:56 PM
"a threat to the US’ standing as the defender of a rules-based order –" Who made
that a thing? who voted for the US to be the policeman of the planet? and who said their
"rules" are right? I sure didn't, nor did anyone I know, even my american friends don't know
whose idea it was!
fezzie035fezzm 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:29 PM
It's interesting to note that every president since J.F.K. has got America into a military
conflict, or has turned a minor conflict into a major one. Trump is the exception. Trump
inherited conflicts (Afghanistan, Syria etc) but has not started a new one, and he has spent
his three years ending or winding down the conflicts he had inherited.
NoJustice fezzie035fezzm 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:34 PM
Trump increased military deployment to the Middle East. He increased military spending. He
had a foreign general assassinated. He had missiles fired into Syria. He vetoed a bill that
would limit his authority to wage war. Trump is not an exception.
T. Agee Kaye 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:59 PM
Good op ed. 'Rage is built on a lie' applies to many things.
E_Kaos T. Agee Kaye 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:46 PM
True, the beginning of a new narrative and the continuation of an old narrative.
PYCb988 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 07:25 PM
Something's amiss here. Mattis was openly telling the press that there was no evidence
against Assad. Just Google: Mattis Newsweek Assad.
erniedouglas 12 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:14 AM
What was Watergate? Even bet says there were tapes of a private relationship between Nixon
and BB Rebozo.
allan Kaplan 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:03 PM
Continuation of a highly organized and tightly controlled disinformation campaign to do one
singularly the most significant and historically one of the most illegal act of American
betrayal... overthrow American elections at any and all costs to install one of the most
deranged, demoralized sold out brain dead Biden and his equally brown nosing Harris only to
unseat a legally and democratically elected US president according to our Constitution! Will
their evil acts against America work? I doubt it! But at a price that America has never
before seen. Let's sit back and watch this Rose Bowl parade of America's dirtiest of the
dirty politics!
E_Kaos allan Kaplan 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:49 PM
"brown nosing harris", how apropos with the play on words.
Bill Spence allan Kaplan 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:29 PM
Both parties and their politicians are totally corrupt. Why would anyone support one side
over the other? Is that because you believe the promises and lies?
custos125 17 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:35 AM
Is there any evidence that both Mattis and Woodward knew that the allegations of a Syrian use
of chemical weapons by plane were not true, a false flag? On the assumption of this use, the
capacity to fly such attack and deploy such weapons was destroyed for some time. I recommend
reading of Rage, it is quite interesting, even if some people will not like it and try to
keep people away from the book.
E_Kaos custos125 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:58 PM
My observations were: 1 - where were the bomb fragments 2 - why use rusted gas cylinders 3 -
how do you attach a rusted gas cylinder to a plane 4 - were the rusted gas cylinders tossed
out of a plane 5 - how did the rusted gas cylinders land so close to each other My conclusion
- False Flag Incident
neeon9 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:58 PM
The is only one threat to peace in the world, and it's the US/Israeli M.I.C.. War mongering
children, who actually believe, against all reason, that they are the most worthy and
entitled race on earth! they are not. The US has been responsible for more misery in the
world than any other state, which isn't surprising given how many Nazi's were resettled there
by the Jews. They are also the only Ppl on the planet who think a nuclear war is winnable!
How strange is that!
NoJustice 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:22 PM
So everything is a lie because Woodward didn't mention that there was no evidence found that
linked the Syrian government to the chemical attack?
Strongbo50 6 minutes ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:58 PM
The left is firing up the Russian Interference narrative again, how Russia is trying to take
the election. The real truth is in plain sight, The main stream media is trying to deliver
Biden a win, along with google yahoo msn facebook and twitter. I say, come on Russia, if you
can help stem that tide of lies please Mr Putin help. That's a joke but the media is real.
And Woodward in his old age wants one more trophy on his mantle.
CuttySark 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:41 PM
Trump has become the great white whale. Seems like there are Ahab's everywhere willing to
shoot their hearts upon the beast to bring it down whatever the cost. I think it was this
kind of rage and attitude that got Adolf off to a good start.
NoJustice CuttySark 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:44 PM
He's an easy target because he keeps screwing up.
Gryphon_ 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:59 PM
The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. Never in my life have I seen a
newspaper that lies as much as the post. Bob Woodward works for the post.
Who within the Deep state is supporting the riots? This is the question. Antifa would not
last a a couple of months, if all repressive power of the state fall on the head of its
brainwashed children of the middles class, who constitute the majority of it members. All members
probably are well known to FBI and the organization was infiltrated long ago.
America went through its own bout of Dionysian intoxication in the days following May 25,
when a Minneapolis cop by the name of Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of a 46-year-old Black
man by the name of George Floyd, causing his death. Corrupted by 66 years of bad education,
America's Black Lumpenproletariat erupted in an orgy of rioting that brought the rule
of law to an end in many of America's large cities. As of this writing, Antifa, a group which
Donald Trump has designated a domestic terrorist organization, is still in control of a
six-square block section of downtown Seattle, which they have designated the "Capitol Hill
Autonomous Zone." In Minneapolis, the town where the rioting started, their Pentheus, Mayor
Jacob Frey, was denounced by one of the Bacchant women who spoke in the name of Black Lives
Matter after he refused to defund the Minneapolis police department. Frey was not torn limb
from limb, but he was expelled from the crowd and had to take refuge with the police he was
ordered to defund.
The race riots of May and June 2020 were only the latest installment of what might be called
the regime of governance by crisis which began four years ago, when the Deep State decided to
do whatever was necessary to depose Donald Trump. That campaign began with Russiagate, followed
by the impeachment, followed by the hate speech campaign of 2019 which sought to ban "unwanted
content" from the Internet, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic. What united all of these crises
was oligarch unhappiness with the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States
and a desire to replace the institutions of representative government with ad hoc committees of
crisis managers masquerading as scientific experts and/or aggrieved minorities.
By now it should be obvious that the racial narrative writes itself whenever a Black man
dies at the hands of a white cop. Floyd's body was still warm when the mainstream media took up
the story which had already been written and declared him a saint, complete with halo and
wings. In reality, Floyd was a violent felon who died with traces of fentanyl and cocaine in
his system, but the BBC described him as someone who "was simply trying to live life as any
other American, in search of betterment in the face of both personal and societal challenges."
[1] He then
became "the latest totem of the ills that plague the country in 2020." After growing in wisdom,
age, and grace, Floyd's life suddenly "took a different turn, with a string of arrests for
theft and drug possession culminating in an armed robbery charge in 2007, for which he was
sentenced to five years in prison." Missing from the BBC account was any mention of Floyd's
incarceration, drug dealing, violence against pregnant women or his role as a porn star,
[2] but no one
needed to tell a graduate of America's public school system that he was witnessing the latest
installment of the ongoing saga of American racism in action.
... ... ...
Both sides of the racial conflict which George Floyd's death ignited were controlled by
Jews. The ADL has consistently played a double game by condemning the racial violence that
their training seminars have created. According to the Democratic Socialists of America, "The
police violence happening tonight in Minneapolis is straight out of the IDF playbook," adding,
"US cops train in Israel." [20] After
the death of George Floyd, the ADL, eager to avoid any association with the violence their
police seminars wrought among Blacks, tweeted: "As we continue to fight for justice for
#GeorgeFloyd, we also need to fight for justice for #BreonnaTaylor, who was murdered in her own
home by police. We need justice for everyone who has been a victim of racist policing &
violence." [21]
At the same time that the ADL was demanding justice for George Floyd, they made no mention
of the death of Iyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man who was gunned down after pleading for
his life while on the way to his special education class in occupied East Jerusalem. [22] The
Electronic Intifada, which did mention Hallaq's death, then singled out the Anti-Defamation
league as "a major player in the industry of bringing US police junkets to Israel for
'counterterrorism' and other kinds of joint training." [23]
Docile Negroes at traditionally Jewish organizations like the NAACP routinely get praised
for their work against racism, but as soon as Black Lives Matter began its Black solidarity
with Palestine campaign, the Israeli government and its lobbies in America attempted to disrupt
the Black Lives Matter movement in retaliation. In 2018 Al Jazeera's documentary The
Lobby -- USA revealed how The Israel Project "pulled strings behind the scenes to
get a Black Lives Matter fundraiser at a New York City nightclub canceled." [24]
So on the one hand we have American policemen being trained to treat their fellow citizens
in the same way that Israelis treat Palestinians, including the knee holds that will subdue and
sometimes kill them. This explains the white cop side of the equation. But on the other hand,
we have George Soros funding Black Lives Matter and the insurrections which follow incidents of
police brutality as the black side of the equation. Taken together both Jewish-funded groups
perpetuate the cycle of increasing violent racial conflict in America, while remaining all the
while invisible.
Black Lives Matter was a reincarnation of the Black-Jewish Alliance, which began with the
founding of the ADL after the lynching of Leo Frank and has continued to this day, with
time-outs taken for the World Wars of the 20th century. Shortly after World War II, Louis
Wirth, a Jewish sociologist from the University of Chicago began implementing his plan to
"integrate" housing in Chicago. When Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods understood that
"integration" was a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, riots ensued, beginning with the Airport
Park riots of 1947 and culminating in the arrival of Martin Luther King in Marquette Park
almost 20 years later. As one more indication that Black Lives Matter was the reincarnation of
the Black-Jewish Alliance, Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, was born in
1981 to a white Jewish father and a Black mother.
Black Lives Matter was funded by George Soros to promote race war in the United States, but
BLM also promoted sexual deviance, another cause dear to the heart of the world's most
prominent Hungarian Jewish philanthropist. In their recently published manifesto, BLM situates
its attempt to be "unapologetically Black in our positioning" within a matrix of sexual
deviance, including attempts "to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk," by
disrupting "the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" and putting in its place a
"queer-affirming network." [25]
If that jargon sounds familiar, it's because it stems from the university gender studies
programs which provide the matrix from which groups like BLM and Antifa get both their ideas
and their recruits. The ultimate cause of the uprising which took place in city after city in
the wake of George Floyd's death was bad education. Beginning in the late 1980s, literature
departments had been taken over by "tenured radicals" who have used critical theory, derived
from thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, and Gramsci, to undermine the validity of all structures
of authority. This essentially Nietzschean transvaluation of all values transferred moral
superiority to anyone who could claim oppression according to oligarchic endorsed categories
like race and gender, allowing the tenured radicals to take over one department after another
and, more importantly, allowing the proliferation of new departments, invariably ending in
"studies," as in gender studies, which drove the traditional liberal arts from academe turning
traditional universities into Maoist inspired re-education camps. The takeover of academe
reached its bitter culmination when Antifa led groups of disaffected, badly educated young
people, who were aware of nothing more significant than their grievances, into the streets in
what became an uncanny replication of the Chinese cultural revolution of 1966. One of the most
unlikely leaders of that revolution in China was an American Jew from Charleston, South
Carolina by the name of Sidney Rittenberg.
The academic pedigree of Rittenberg's successors became apparent when Antifa warlord Joseph
Alcoff got apprehended in Philadelphia in 2017 for assaulting a group of Hispanic Marines.
Alcoff's arrest shed light on one of the main figures in a society that remained literally
faceless because of their habit of wearing masks at the protests they disrupted by their
violence. Alcoff, who was known as the leader of Antifa in Washington, DC, was the child of
radical academics and had co-authored an academic paper with his mother Linda Alcoff in Volume
79 of Science and Society in the special issue on "Red and Black: Marxist Encounters
with Anarchism," entitled "Autonomism in Theory and Practice." [26] Radical
theory in the mind of Linda Alcoff led to violent praxis in the life of her son. As with Black
Lives Matter, the ADL has played a double game with Antifa, condemning its tactics while at the
same time defending it against accusations that it was morally equivalent to the "white
supremacists" it attacked in the streets of Charlottesville in 2017.
Continuity between the generations was made possible by the Jewish revolutionary spirit. The
fact that Alcoff was a Jew got suppressed in virtually every mainstream account of his
activity, [27] which
sanitized his communist connections by linking him to the Democratic Party through figures like
Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters. Alcoff was more forthright when he spoke in his own voice,
saying on one Youtube video, "I'm a Communist, motherf***er," before spitting into the camera.
[28]
Christians for truth portrayed Alcoff as "a self-styled modern-day Leon Trotsky" and attributed
the suppression of his ethnic identity to the fact that "Antifa's political manifestations are
funded by the billionaire Jew, George Soros." [29]
Andy Ngo, who was severely beaten by Antifa thugs in Portland in the wake of the 2016
presidential election, claims that "prominent media figures and politicians glamorize and even
promote Antifa as a movement for a just cause. CNN's Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon have defended
Antifa on-air. Chuck Todd invited Antifa ideologue Mark Bray onto Meet the Press to
explain why Antifa's political violence is "ethical." [30] Ngo goes
on to mention Joseph Alcoff as one of the most visible figures in what is otherwise a
clandestine organization, and claims that he had access to Democrat Representative Maxine
Waters in 2016. [31] He also
mentions Adam Rothstein, who is associated with the Rose City Antifa group which assaulted him
in 2016. Rothstein conducted a series of "secret lectures" at a Portland bookstore where local
recruits learned how to "heckle" opponents and make them "look ridiculous, make them feel
outnumbered," and convinced that the "Trump thing is gonna go by the wayside." [32]
Armed with political clout of this magnitude, Antifa can easily overwhelm local police
forces, which is what happened in Portland in 2016. The result is that "city government and
police lack the political will to protect citizens." What happened in Seattle in 2020 with the
creation of the "Capital Hill Autonomous Zone" was only the logical conclusion to what began in
Portland in 2016 and spread all over the Pacific Northwest, "where Antifa is especially
active." In its attempt to destabilize and destroy the nation state and its sovereign borders,
Antifa drew support from "mainstream progressive politicians, such as Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who normalize hatred of border enforcement and sovereignty as such." [33]
Antifa has continued to be successful in disrupting local government and thwarting police
attempts to bring them under control because it is a Jewish organization which can always count
on favorable press from the Jewish-controlled mainstream media, which renders the connection
invisible. The same cannot be said for the Jewish press, which cites Antifa's Jewishness with
thinly-disguised ethnic pride.
When Donald Trump referred to Antifa as a terrorist organization, the Israeli newspaper
Ha'aretz came to their defense, "Trump's Attacks on Antifa Are Attacks on Jews."
[34]
According to an article which appeared in the Forward , Antifa activism "is an
affirmation of Jewish identity, both religious and secular" [35] which
stretches all the way back to 1897 with the founding of Bundism, which "sought to organize the
working-class Jews of Russia, Poland, and Lithuania." [36] After
members of a specifically Jewish Antifa group defaced a plaque in New York City honoring the
president of Vichy France Philippe Petain, they left a note which defended the rationale behind
their act of vandalism:
With Monday's actions, Jewish antifascists and allied forces have served notice that fascist
apologism will not be tolerated in our city in 2019; that anti-Semitic ideology and violence
will be confronted with Jewish solidarity and strength; and that the Holocaust will be
remembered not only with sadness and grief but also with righteous anger and action: 'We will
never forget. We will never forgive.' [37]
In the final analysis, Antifa is a Jewish organization in the same way that Bolshevism and
Neoconservatism were Jewish political movements. Not every member of Antifa is a Jew, but Jews
invariably find their ways into leadership roles in places like Portland, Washington, DC, and
even in China, as was the case during the Cultural Revolution of 1966, because they have an
advantage over non-Jews in embodying the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit which is the hidden
grammar of all revolutionary movements.
Interesting article, not the least surprising the Usual Suspects are playing both sides.
Like WW2?
One picky point is the Yanez shooting, the victim did have a gun, he had a permit for it.
He didn't show his hands and died with his hand near the gun. This was the one his GF put out
on Facebook Live to it incited two police massacres right away, the one everybody knows about
in Dallas (where they killed the shooter with a robot bomb) an another in Louisiana.
I'm a witness the SF Bay Area as a model of the racial obsession/gender bending schemes.
What a mess the place is–the signature of the Left-wing establishment that runs the
place is how the education system fails to fulfill the simple market demands for labor in
their own locale, at the high end Silicon Valley runs on Indian/Pakistani B-1s and at the
other the booming (until now) construction business runs on mostly imported Hispanics.
They spend more per pupil than the rest of the world and the whole system runs on
immigration.
I couldn't finish this article after reading this garbage:
"Floyd was a violent felon who died with traces of fentanyl and cocaine in his system"
It was announced two weeks ago that he had a lethal dose. His toxicology report was
finally made public and shows that he had a lethal dose of the dangerous pain killer fentanyl
in his system. This caused his lungs to fill with fluid, which explains why he told arriving
cops "I Can't Breath" and did not cooperate as he was delusional and dying. The cops wrestled
him to the ground and cuffed him as he died from a fentanyl overdose. Floyd would have died
right there even if the cops had not shown up.
This is why coroners wait for toxicology results before declaring the cause of death, but
in this case he bowed to political pressure and announced his death was caused by the knee to
the neck. This news is so big that our corporate media, which has promoted the riots, refuses
to air the truth. Details can be read here.
https://spectator.org/minnesota-v-derek-chauvin-et-al-the-prosecutions-dirty-little-secret/
In fair and normal world, the accused cops would be immediately freed and rehired with a
bad mark for Chauvin using an improper neck hold. Let's see what happens, but I don't expect
justice.
Floyd said "i can't breathe" several times BEFORE he was put on the ground. The cops did
nothing wrong and were trying to help him. It's all another monstrous media lie like the
mueller report and jussie smollett and rayshard brooks and the covington kids and bubba
wallace and the KY gun range video.
The American Deep State can destroy anti-fa if it wanted. Hunting down all the leaders of
this terrorist organization is not that hard. But of course the American Deep State will not
do so because anti-fa is a branch of the deep state, just like how Hollywood and the media
are (& have been for a long time) arms of the American (Globalist) deep state.
This is one of Jones' many indispensable articles. The opening alone is required reading
of anyone slightly bothered by what is going on. Dionysius sparks sexual revolution, and it
leads to debauched riot and murder and then to either social collapse or else brutal
tyranny.
The American Left and the Neocons both demand tyranny, as brutal as possible. They serve
anti-Christ.
It is either Christ and Christendom or the chaos of anti-Christ.
If Jones would realize that the Novus Ordo Mass and Vatican II are at best impotent before
Dionysius and return to Tradition, he could serve much better.
It cannot be repeated too much: we live in the Anglo-Zionist Empire 2.0. The first phase
of Anglo-Zionist Empire was the British Empire. The Brit WASP Empire spread philoSemitism
across the globe: cultural Zionism that was the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism,
which was a Judaizing heresy that was the final and most defining part of Modern English, and
Anglophone Protestant, culture.
The reality is that we are in the eyes of the Anglo-Zionist Empire's elites what Irish
Catholic were to archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell and what Palestinians are to Israelis. They
wish us exterminated or made serfs forever, and the base reason predates Freud, Darwin, Marx
and the French Revolution. It is Judaizing heresy birthing monsters to war against historic
Christianity and peoples who have any legacy in the building and maintenance of Christendom
and therefore do not serve Zionism.
WASP culture serves Zionism and always will.
When Kevin McDonald realizes all of that and the necessary inferences, his work will
become worth the effort.
There's a sure way to curb the influence that certain (((individuals))) have on American
culture and politics; it's called the "wealth tax." It's a tax on the assets of the rich and
also on foundations set up to circumvent the inheritance tax. Both Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren proposed a wealth tax but it is not included in Biden's platform. Instead,
he's proposed raising the maximum income tax rate to 39.6%. There are lots of loopholes that
individuals can utilize to reduce their income tax obligations. It won't stop their meddling
in social and political affairs. Only a very stiff wealth tax (at least 10% per year) will
curb their meddling.
Crisis of neoliberal undermines the USA supremacy and the US elite hangs by the stras to the Full Specturm Domionanc edoctrine,
whih it now can't enforce and which is financially unsustainable for the USA.
Collapse of neoliberalism means the end of the USA supremacy and the whole political existence on the USA was banked on this
single card.
Notable quotes:
"... In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential," bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily. ..."
"... In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands, we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well. ..."
"... There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic opposition to communism. ..."
"... Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism. ..."
The international order is no longer bipolar, despite the elites' insistence otherwise.
Fortunately there is hope for change.
Despite its many failings and high human, social, and economic costs, American foreign
policy since the end of the Second World War has shown a remarkable degree of continuity and
inflexibility. This rather curious phenomenon is not limited to America alone. The North
Atlantic foreign policy establishment from Washington D.C. to London, which some have aptly
dubbed the "blob," has doggedly championed the grand strategic framework of "primacy" and armed
hegemony, often coated with more docile language such as "global leadership," "American
indispensability," and "strengthening the Western alliance."
In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian
Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In
fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when
it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential,"
bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily.
On the Left, and in the wake of
President Trump's election, the Democratic establishment began fixating its wrath on
Russia–adopting a confrontational stance toward Moscow and fueling fears of a renewed
Cold War. On the Right, the realigning GOP has increasingly, if at times inconsistently,
singled out China as the greatest threat to U.S. national security, a hostile attitude further
exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alarmingly, Joe Biden, the Democratic
presidential nominee, has recently joined the hawkish bandwagon toward China, even attempting
to outflank Trump on this issue and attacking the president's China policy as too weak and
accommodating of China's rise.
In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate
lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North
Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive
forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called
on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands,
we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict
between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for
realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well.
Indeed, the dominant tendency among many foreign policy observers is to overprivilege the
threat of rising superpowers and to insist on strong containment measures to limit the spheres
of influence of the so-called revisionist powers. Such an approach, coupled with the prospect
of ascendant powers actively resisting and confronting the United States as the ruling global
hegemon, has one eminent International Relations scholar warning of the Thucydides Trap.
There are others, however, who insist that the structural shifts undermining the liberal
international order mark the end of U.S. hegemony and its "unipolar moment." In realist terms,
what Secretary Esper really means to protect, they would argue, is a conception of
"rules-based" global order that was a structural by-product of the Second World War and the
ensuing Cold War and whose very rules and institutions were underwritten by U.S. hegemony. This
would be an exercise in folly -- not corresponding to the reality of systemic change and the
return of great power competition and civilizational contestation.
What's more, the sanctimony of this "liberal" hegemonic order and the logic of democratic
peace were both presumably vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian
system, a black swan event that for many had heralded the "end of history" and promised the
advent of the American century. A great deal of lives, capital, resources, and goodwill were
sacrificed by America and her allies toward that crusade for liberty and universality, which
was only the most recent iteration of a radically utopian element in American political thought
going back to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Alas, as it had eluded earlier generations of
idealists, that century never truly arrived, and neither did the empire of liberty and
prosperity that it loftily aimed to establish.
Today, the emerging reality of a multipolar world and alternate worldviews championed by the
different cultural blocs led by China and Russia appears to have finally burst the bubble of
American Triumphalism, proving that the ideas behind it are "not simply obsolete but absurd."
This failure should have been expected since the very project the idealists had espoused was
built on a pathological "savior complex" and a false truism that reflected the West's own
absolutist and distorted sense of ideological and moral superiority. Samuel Huntington might
have been right all along to cast doubt on the long-term salience of using ideology and
doctrinal universalism as the dividing principle for international relations. His call to
focus, instead, on civilizational distinction, the permanent power of culture on human action,
and the need to find common ground rings especially true today. Indeed, fostering a spirit of
coexistence and open dialogue among the world's great civilizational complexes is a fundamental
tenet of a cultural realism.
And yet, despite such permanent shifts in the global order away from universalist
dichotomies and global hegemony and toward culturalism and multi-polarity, there exists a
profound disjunction between the structural realities of the international system and the often
business-as-usual attitude of the North Atlantic foreign policy elites. How could one explain
the astonishing levels of rigidity and continuity on the part of the "blob" and the
military-industrial-congressional complex regularly pushing for more adventurism and
interventionism abroad? Why would the bipartisan primacist establishment, which their allies in
the mainstream media endeavor still to mask, justify such illiberal acts of aggression and
attempts at empire by weaponizing the moralistic language of human rights, individual liberty,
and democracy in a world increasingly awakened to arbitrary ideological framing?
There are, of course, systemic reasons behind the power and perpetuation of the blob and the
endurance of primacy. The vast economic incentives of war and its instruments, institutional
routinization and intransigence, stupefaction and groupthink of government bureaucracy, and the
significant influence of lobbying efforts by foreign governments and other vested interest
groups could each partly explain the remarkable continuity of the North Atlantic foreign policy
establishment. The endless stream of funding from the defense industry, neoliberal and
neoconservative foundations, as well as the government itself keeps the "blob" alive, while the
general penchant for bipartisanship around preserving the status quo allows it to thrive. What
is more, elite schools produce highly analytic yet narrowly focused and conventional minds that
are tamed to be agreeable so as to not undermine elite consensus. This conveyor belt feeds the
"blob," supplying it with the army of specialists, experts, and wonks it requires to function
as a mind melding hive, while in practice safeguarding employment for the career bureaucrats
for decades to come.
There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable
persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a
Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the
Soviet Union. The world might have changed fundamentally with the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989, the bipolar structure of the international system might have ended irreversibly, but the
personnel -- the Baby Boomer Generation elites conducting foreign policy in the North Atlantic
-- did not leave office or retire with the collapse of the USSR. They largely remain in power
to this day.
Every generation is forged through a formative crisis, its experiences seen through the
prism that all-encompassing ordeal. For the incumbent elites, that generational crisis was the
Cold War and the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation. The dualistic paradigm of the
international system during the U.S.-Soviet rivalry bred an entire generation to see the world
through a black-and-white binary. It should come as no surprise that this era elevated the
idealist strain of thought and the crusading, neo-Jacobin impulse of U.S. foreign policy
(personified by Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson) to new, ever-expanding heights. Idealism
prizes a nemesis and thus revels in a bipolar order.
Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment
that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of
the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the
past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of
the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the
system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of
exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic
opposition to communism.
Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize
and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological
superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism.
After all, a nemetic zeitgeist during which ideology reigned supreme and realism was routinely
discounted was tailor-made for dogmatic absolutism and moral universalism. In such a zero-sum
strategic environment, it was only natural to demand totality and frame the ongoing
geopolitical struggle in terms of an existential opposition over Good and Evil that would quite
literally split the world in two.
Today, that same kind of Manichean thinking continues to handicap paradigmatic change in
foreign policy. A false consciousness, it underpins and promotes belief in the double myths of
indispensability and absolute exceptionality, suggesting that the North Atlantic bloc holds a
certain monopoly on all that is good and true. It is not by chance that such pathological
renderings of "exceptionalism" and "leadership" have been wielded as convenient rationale and
intellectual placeholders for the ideology of empire across the North Atlantic. This sense of
ingrained moral self-righteousness, coupled with an attitude that celebrates activism,
utopianism, and interventionism in foreign policy, has created and reinforced a culture of
strategic overextension and imperial overreach.
It is this very culture -- personified and dominated by the Baby Boomers and the blob they
birthed -- that has made hawkishness ubiquitous, avoids any real reckoning as to the limits of
power, and habitually belittles calls for restraint and moderation as isolationism. In truth,
however, what has been the exceptional part in the delusion of absolute exceptionalism is Pax
Americana, liberal hegemony, and the hubris that animates them having gone uncontested and
unchecked for so long. That confrontation could begin in earnest by directly challenging the
Boomer blob itself -- and by propagating a counter-elite offering a starkly different
worldview.
Achieving such a genuine paradigm shift demands a generational sea-change, to retire the old
blob and make a better one in its place. It is about time for the old establishment to forgo
its reign, allowing a new younger cohort from among the Millennial and post-Millennial
generations to advance into leadership roles. The Millennials, especially, are now the largest
generation of eligible voters (overtaking the Baby Boomers) as well as the first generation not
habituated by the Cold War; in fact, many of them grew up during the "unipolar moment" of
American hegemony. Hence, their generational identity is not built around a dualistic alterity.
Free from obsessive fixation on ideological supremacy, most among them reject total global
dominance as both unattainable and undesirable.
Instead, their worldview is shaped by an entirely different set of experiences and
disappointments. Their generational crisis was brought on by a series of catastrophic
interventions and endless wars around the world -- chief among them the debacles in Afghanistan
and Iraq and the toppling of Libya's Gaddafi -- punctuated by repeated onslaughts of financial
recessions and domestic strife. The atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and general chaos
has bred discontent, turning many Millennials into pragmatic realists who are disenchanted with
the system, critical of the pontificating establishment, and naturally skeptical of lofty
ideals and utopian doctrines.
In short, this is not an absolutist and complacent generation of idealists, but one steeped
in realism and a certain perspectivism that has internalized the inherent relativity of both
power and truth. Most witnessed the dangers of overreach, hubris, and a moralized foreign
policy, so they are actively self-reflective, circumspect, and restrained. As a generation,
they appear to be less the moralist and the global activist and more prudent, level-headed, and
temperamentally conservative -- developing a keen appreciation for realpolitik, sovereignty,
and national interest. Their preference for a non-ideological approach in foreign policy
suggests that once in power, they will be less antagonistic and more tolerant of rival powers
and accepting of pluralism in the international system. That openness to civilizational
distinction and global cultural pluralism also implies that future Millennial statesmen will
subscribe to a more humble, less grandiose, and narrower definition of interest that focuses on
securing core objectives -- i.e., preserving national security and recognizing spheres of
influence.
Reforming and rehabilitating the U.S. foreign policy establishment will require more than
policy prescriptions and comprehensive reports: it needs generational change. To transform and
finally "rein in" North Atlantic foreign policy, our task today must be to facilitate and
expedite this shift. Once that occurs, the incoming Millennials should be better positioned to
discard the deep-seated and routinized ideology of empire, supplanting it with a greater
emphasis on partnership that is driven by mutual interests and a general commitment to sharing
the globe with the world's other great cultures.
This new approach calls for America to lead by the power of its example, exhibiting the
benefits of liberty and a constitutional republic at home, without forcibly imposing those
values abroad. Such an outlook means abandoning the coercive regime change agendas and the
corrosive projects of nation-building and democracy promotion. In this new multipolar world,
America would be an able, dynamic, and equal participant in ensuring sustainable peace
side-by-side the world's other great powers, acting as "a normal country in a normal time."
Reflecting the spirit of republican governance authentically is far more pertinent now and
salutary for the future of the North Atlantic peoples than is promulgating the utopian image of
a shining city on a hill.
Arta Moeini is research director at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a postdoc
fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Dr. Moeini's latest project advances a
theory of cultural realism as a cornerstone to a new understanding of foreign policy.
The Institute for Peace and Diplomacy will be co-sponsoring "The Future of Grand Strategy
in the Post-COVID World," with TAC, tonight at 6 p.m. ET. Register for free here
.
While I agree with the statement, I can, with a degree of certainty, say nothing was
intercepted, and this is all face saving. As this article elucidates, no such iron dome,
exists, or cannot be overcome.
All empire's bases remain exposed in the region. This is why the empire is high tailing it out
of SW Asia. Zarif said so, himself.
Dr Rubin, the founder and first director of the Israel Missile Defence Organization, which
developed the state's first national missile defence shield, wrote in the wake of the 14
September attack on Abqaiq, (the Saudi Armco oil facility) that it was: "A brilliant feat of
arms. It was precise, carefully-calibrated, devastating yet bloodless -- a model of a
surgical operation the incoming threats [were not] detected by the U.S. air control systems
deployed in the area, nor by U.S. satellites
This had nothing to do with flaws in the air and missile defence systems; but with the
fact that they were not designed to deal with ground-hugging threats. Simply put, the
Iranians outfoxed the defense systems".
Katyusha rockets are normally fired in salvos of dozens. Two of them being launched against
the American fortress in Baghdad is just gentle prodding.
Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever
was used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi
militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford
to try to shoot them down.
Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever was
used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi
militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford
to try to shoot them down.
...As I have written, Antifa is more of a movement than a specific organization. However, it
has long been the
"Keyser Söze" of the anti-free speech movement , a loosely aligned group that employs
measures to avoid easy detection or association.
Wray stated "And we have quite a number - and I've said this quite consistently since my
first time appearing before this committee - we have any number of properly predicated
investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those
individuals self-identify with Antifa. "
Wray was adamant: "Antifa is a real thing. It's not a fiction" and, while it is not a
conventional organization as opposed to a movement, they have arrested people who admit that
they are Antifa.
... ... ..
George Washington University student Jason Charter has been charged as the alleged
"ringleader" of efforts to take down statues across the capital. Charter has been an active
Antifa member on campus for years.
The State Department can designate foreign organizations as terrorist organizations, but there is no law governing domestic
organizations. At the moment, it is unclear what President Trump's tweet refers to in concrete legal steps. The Patriot Act
defines domestic terrorism, but there are no federal crimes tied to domestic terror.
Trump said in July of 2019 that he was considering declaring Antifa an "Organization of Terror."
Antifa is known for its black-bloc protest tactics, where protestors wear all black and cover up their face so that they can't be
identified by police or right-wing opponents.
Antifa's name comes from the pre-World War 2 German group Antifaschistische Aktion, which resisted the Nazi German state, and
birthed the design of Antifa's now infamous flag.
Noted black clergyman and left-wing activist Cornel West told Democracy Now that Antifa protected him and other clergy from the
worst of the white nationalist violence.
"We would have been crushed like cockroaches were it not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists," he told Democracy Now. "You
had police holding back and just allowing fellow citizens to go at each other."
Trump, in his response to the Charlottesville protest, said that he blamed Antifa and the "alt-left" for violence as well.
AG Barr: "To identify criminal organizers and instigators, and to coordinate federal resources with our state and local partners,
federal law enforcement is using our existing network of 56 regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). "
It is unclear what other avenues the federal government may use to pursue enforcement actions against Antifa, but the FBI Agents
Association has been lobbying for the creation of a domestic terrorism law.
"... The CIA was founded by the same fascists who tried to enlist Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR. During the post-war period, they smuggled their ideological brethren out of Germany with operation Paperclip. Their founding fathers included Prescott Bush, a Nazi, whose son and grandson went on to become US Presidents. ..."
The CIA was founded by the same fascists who tried to enlist Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR.
During the post-war period, they smuggled their ideological brethren out of Germany with
operation Paperclip. Their founding fathers included Prescott Bush, a Nazi, whose son and
grandson went on to become US Presidents.
They have never stopped hating Russia, nor have
they ever stopped lying to the American Public.
"... But CNN has and will continue to repeat the allegations as fact, so it's mission accomplished for the deep state. As another poster said on this board about manufacturing consent: "It is important to discuss the story, not its credibility, the more the discussion, the more the reaction and the more it reinforces the narrative." ..."
"... In the 1920s (or 30s), far-rightist Karl Popper coined the concept of systematic manipulation of "public opinion". This would become a hallmark of Western Civilization in the post-war. The public opinion theory states that the masses don't have an opinion for themselves or, if they have, it is sculpting/flexible. The dominant classes can, therefore, guide the masses like a shepherd, to its will. ..."
"... It is an insult to the noble profession, to call what the mainstream media in the west, especially in the USA do, journalism. In my opinion what they do is propaganda and stenography on behalf of those who are in power. I am not sure who coined the term but "presstitution" is not a bad attempt at describing their profession. ..."
"... While the western corporate media lie on a continuous basis - and that has the predictable effect - what is more insidious is not these acts of commissions ( meaning lies), but their acts of omission (meaning excluding or deemphasizing important contextual information) leading people to make the wrong conclusions. NPR in the US is an excellent example of such presstitution. ..."
"... Why are the US promoting conflict with China, with Russia? Why are they beating Europe, maybe with the intention to destroy it? Why is a new civil war in the US promoted? ..."
"... Normal (geopolitically interested) people would think: against China it is better to come together and unite, at least US & Europe, but eventually Russia included. For instance take the population of these three together: far less than China's. ..."
"... Journalism in the US is so superficial, it is a drop above the uppermost wavy comb. Not worth to pay attention to it. ..."
"... Other than few independent blog site such as this, every media outlet is in the service of its home government or foreign sponsors. Only born-suckers take the corporate media at face value. Modern journalism is nothing but an aggressive propaganda racket. ..."
"... Using lies (bearing false witness) to cause murder and theft are not exactly a new phenomenon. These 'groups of individuals', which are employing these fabricated deceptions, are doing nothing less than trying to commit murder and theft. ..."
"... Everything that was accomplished (albeit incompletely or moderately) through the New Deal and then the abortive Great Society absolutely spooked the oligarchy. Lifting much of the working class out of absolute wage slavery to the point where the next rung on Maslow's ladder was at least visible. And when it all culminated in the late 60's and early 70's with the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Surface Mining act, and various labor protection measures, the wealthy owner class decided the proles had gained too much power to influence "their" captive government. ..."
"... What differs, however, is the presentation. Trump is criticized (not praised) for being allegedly soft on Russia and Biden criticized for being allegedly soft on China. This clever trick ensures that just about everybody is onboard the bash-China-and-Russia train. ..."
"... In a violently polarized society, with red-blue antagonism reaching ridiculous heights, people tend to act exclusively in contradiction to the cult figure they hate so much. ..."
"... I've been saying for years here to watch the documentary - Century of the Self. If you want to learn about and understand America, its all here. Government, Corporations, Consumerism, Militarism, Deep State, Psychology, Individual selfishness and mental illness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s ..."
Every few days U.S. 'intelligence' and 'officials' produce fake claims about this or that
'hostile' country. U.S. media continue to reproduce those claims even if they bare any logic
and do not make any sense.
On June 27 the New York Times and the Washington Post published fake news
about
alleged Russian payments to the Taliban for killing U.S. troops.
[T]hat the story was obviously bullshit did not prevent Democrats in Congress, including
'Russiagate' swindler Adam Schiff, to bluster about it and to call for immediate briefings
and new
sanctions on Russia .
Just a day after it was published the main accusation, that Trump was briefed on the
'intelligence' died. The Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Advisor and
the CIA publicly rejected the claim. Then the rest of the story started to crumble. On June
2, just one week after it was launched, the story was
declared dead .
...
The NYT buried the above quoted dead corpse of the original story page A-19.
Despite that the Democrats
continued to use the fake story for attacks on Donald Trump.
Yesterday the commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East
drove a stake though the heart of the dead corpse of the original story:
Two months after top Pentagon officials vowed to get to the bottom of whether the Russian
government
bribed the Taliban to kill American service members , the commander of troops in the
region says a detailed review of all available intelligence has not been able to corroborate
the existence of such a program.
"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank
McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops
in Afghanistan.
But as one fake news zombie finally dies others get resurrected. Politico's
'intelligence' stenographer Natasha Bertrand produced
this nonsensical claim :
The Iranian government is weighing an assassination attempt against the American ambassador
to South Africa, U.S. intelligence reports say, according to a U.S. government official
familiar with the issue and another official who has seen the intelligence.
News of the plot comes as Iran continues to seek ways to retaliate for President Donald
Trump's decision to kill a powerful Iranian general earlier this year, the officials said. If
carried out, it could dramatically ratchet up already serious tensions between the U.S. and
Iran and create enormous pressure on Trump to strike back -- possibly in the middle of a
tense election season.
U.S. officials have been aware of a general threat against the ambassador, Lana Marks,
since the spring, the officials said. But the intelligence about the threat to the ambassador
has become more specific in recent weeks. The Iranian Embassy in Pretoria is involved in the
plot, the U.S. government official said.
Ambassador Lana Marks is known for selling overpriced handbags and for her donations to Trump's campaign.
To Iran she has zero political or symbolic value. There is no way Iran would ever think about
an attack on such a target. Accordingly the South African intelligence services
do not believe that there is such a threat:
South African Minister of State Security Ayanda Dlodlo said the matter was "receiving the
necessary attention" and that the State Security Agency (SSA) was "interacting with all
relevant partners both in the country and abroad, to ensure that no harm will be suffered by
the US Ambassador, including any other Diplomatic Officials inside the borders of our
country."
However, an informed intelligence source told Daily Maverick that although the
"matter has been taken seriously as we approach all such threats, specifically, there appears
to be, from our perspective, no discernible threat. Least of all from the source that it
purports to emanate from.
There was "no evidence or indicator", the source said, so the plot was "not likely to be
real". The "associations made are not sustainable on any level but all precautions will be
put in place".
The source suggested this was an instance of the "tail wagging the dog", of the Trump
administration wielding a "weapon of mass distraction" to divert attention from its failures
in the election campaign running up to President Donald Trump's re-election bid on November
3.
The spokesperson for the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs, Saeed Khatibzadeh, strongly
denied the allegation in the Politico report which he called "hackneyed and worn-out
anti-Iran propaganda".
In January the U.S. assassinated the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. Soleimani
led the external campaigns of the Iranian Quds Forces. He was the one who orchestrated the
campaign that defeated the Islamic State. His mythic-symbolic position for Iran and the
resistance in the Middle East is beyond that of any U.S. figure.
There is simply no one in the U.S. military or political hierarchy who could be seen as his
equal. Iran has therefore announced that it will take other ways to revenge the assassination
of Soleimani.
As an immediate response to the assassination of Soleimani Iran
had launched a precise missile attack against two U.S. bases in Iraq. It has also announced
that it will make sure that the U.S. military will have to leave the Middle East. That program
is in full swing now as U.S. bases in Iraq are again coming under
daily missile attacks :
More than eight months after a barrage of rockets killed an American contractor and wounded
four American service members in Kirkuk, Iraq, militia groups continue to target U.S.
military bases in that country, and the frequency of those attacks has increased.
"We have had more indirect fire attacks around and against our bases the first half of
this year than we did the first half of last year," Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of the
U.S. Central Command, said. "Those attacks have been higher."
...
McKenzie's comments came just hours after he announced the United States would be cutting its
footprint in Iraq by almost half by the end of September, with about
2,200 troops leaving the country .
Just hours agon two Katyusha rockets were fired against the U.S.
embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone. Two British/U.S.convoys also came under attack . U.S. air
defense took the missiles down but its anti-missile fire is only further disgruntling the Iraqi
population.
These attacks are still limited and designed to not cause any significant casualties. But
they will continue to increase over time until the last U.S. soldier is withdrawn from
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other Middle East countries. That, and only that, is the
punishment Iran promised as revenge for Soleimani's death.
The alleged Iranian thread against the U.S. ambassador to South Africa is just another fake
news propaganda story. It is useful only for lame blustering:
According to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination, or other attack,
against the United States in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Soleimani, which
was carried out for his planning a future attack, murdering U.S. Troops, and the death &
suffering...
...caused over so many years. Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will
be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!
The danger of such fake stories about Russia or Iran is that they might be used to justify a
response in the case of a false flag attack on the alleged targets.
Should something inconvenient happen to Ambassador Lana Marks the Trump administration could
use the fake story as an excuse to respond with a limited attack on Iran.
It is well known by now that U.S. President Donald Trump is lying about every time he opens
his mouth. Why do U.S. journalists presume that the agencies and anonymous officials who work
under him are more truthful in their utterings than the man himself is hard to understand. Why
do they swallow their bullshit?
Posted by b on September 15, 2020 at 11:50 UTC |
Permalink
US and European journalists are also lying constantly, that's why. Even when they make
embarrassing attempts at "being unbiased" or "factual". Do they understand it? Many might
not, but some do, perhaps fewer than anyone would think reasonable.
Btw a lot of these "journalists" in Europe in particular openly self-identify to "the
left" or even as socialists and communists or "greens". So much for ideology as some kind of
solution: entirely worthless and superficial.
But CNN has and will continue to repeat the allegations as fact, so it's mission
accomplished for the deep state. As another poster said on this board about manufacturing
consent:
"It is important to discuss the story, not its credibility, the more the discussion, the
more the reaction and the more it reinforces the narrative."
Just for laughs, I looked at the reviews of Gordon Chang's book, 'The Coming Economic
Collapse of China' to see if I could figure out the reasoning and one of the reviewers said
that China weakens because they lack a free press to hold their govt accountable. I had a
good laugh at that one.
In the 1920s (or 30s), far-rightist Karl Popper coined the concept of systematic manipulation of "public opinion".
This would become a hallmark of Western Civilization in the post-war. The public opinion theory states that the masses don't have an opinion for themselves or,
if they have, it is sculpting/flexible. The dominant classes can, therefore, guide the masses
like a shepherd, to its will.
Friedrich von Hayek - a colleague of Popper and father of British neoliberalism (the man
behind Thatcher) - then developed on the issue, by proposing the institutionalization of
public opinion. He proposed a system of three or four tiers of intellectuals which a
capitalist society should have. The first tier is the capitalist class itself, who would
govern the entire world anonymously, through secret meetings. These meetings would produce
secret reports, whose ideas would be spread to the second tier. The second tier is the
academia and the more prominent politicians and other political leaderships. The third tier
is the basic education teachers, who would indoctrinate the children. The fourth tier is the
MSM, whose job is to transform the ideas and opinions of the first tier into "common sense"
("public opinion").
Therefore, it's not a case where the Western journalists are being fooled. Their job was
never to inform the public. When they publish a lie about, say, Iran trying to kill an
American ambassador in South Africa, they are not telling a lie in their eyes: they are
telling an underlying truth through one thousand lies. The objective here is to convince
("teach") the American masses it is good for the USA if Iran was invaded and destroyed (which
is a truth). They are like the modern Christian God, who teach its subjects the Truth through
"mysterious ways".
It is an insult to the noble profession, to call what the mainstream media in the west,
especially in the USA do, journalism. In my opinion what they do is propaganda and
stenography on behalf of those who are in power. I am not sure who coined the term but
"presstitution" is not a bad attempt at describing their profession.
Unfortunately they have been amazingly successful in brainwashing people. One current
example, from numerous ones that could be cited, is the public's opinion on Julian Assange.
.
While the western corporate media lie on a continuous basis - and that has the predictable
effect - what is more insidious is not these acts of commissions ( meaning lies), but their
acts of omission (meaning excluding or deemphasizing important contextual information)
leading people to make the wrong conclusions. NPR in the US is an excellent example of such
presstitution.
What I am saying is nothing new to the bar flies here. But I am extremely distressed when
I see how poorly informed (propagandized, brainwashed) the vast majority of the people I know
are. Let's say a decade ago, ideological polarization was the main reason why it was so
difficult to have an open discussion on important issues the US. Today it has become even
more difficult because, thanks to the success of the presstitutes, people also have different
sets of "facts". And most alarmingly, after successfully creating a readership who believe in
alternative "facts", the mainstream presstitutes are moving on to creating a logic-free
narrative. Examples include Assad supposedly gassing his people when he was winning (even
though that was guaranteed to produce western intervention against him). A more recent
example is the Navalny affair. Sadly, very sadly, way too many people are affected.
Hi, thanks, and sorry, but: why does nobody look behind the curtain?
Why are the US promoting conflict with China, with Russia?
Why are they beating Europe, maybe with the intention to destroy it?
Why is a new civil war in the US promoted?
Are these random developments of history? Are laws of history behind that?
NO!! Surely not!
Normal (geopolitically interested) people would think: against China it is better to come
together and unite,
at least US & Europe, but eventually Russia included.
For instance take the population of these three together: far less than China's.
If something is going against the common sense, then there should be a reason behind.
This reason I recommend You, with due respect, to find - and to uncover the plan.
Journalism in the US is so superficial, it is a drop above the uppermost wavy comb.
Not worth to pay attention to it.
The actual demand is to understand and to show the forces playing deep underwater.
And to preview where these forces are determined to strike against.
A new report showing that US state-level voter databases were publicly available calls into
question the narrative that Russian intelligence "targeted" US state election-related
websites in 2016.
The problem with these sorts of accusations about "state-sponsored" hacking is they assume
that because a target has some connection to a state or some political activity that it means
the hackers are "nation-state". In reality, personal identification information (PII) is a
commodity on the black market, along with intellectual property - and *any* hacker will
target *any* such source of PII. So the mere fact that it is an election year, and that
voting organizations are loaded with PII, makes them an obvious target for any and every
hacker.
"Oregon's chief information security officer, Lisa Vasa, told the Washington Post in
September 2017 that her team blocks 'upwards of 14 million attempts to access our network
every day."'
This is the usual ridiculous claim from almost every organization. They treat every
Internet packet that hits their firewall as being an "attempt to access" the network (or
worse, a "breach" - which it is not.) Which is technically true, but would only be relevant
if they had *no* firewall - a setup which no organization runs these days. By definition,
99.99999% of those attempts are random mass scans of a block of IP addresses by either a
hacker or some malware on someone else's machine - or even a computer security researcher
attempting to find out how many sites are vulnerable.
"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank
McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops
in Afghanistan.
Barflies should write Gen Frank McKenzie inside the back cover of their diaries, and count
the days until we hear of/from him again. I've a feeling he's crossed a line and knows
precisely what he's doing and why. Imo, the Swamp has just been put on notice.
Posted by: vk | Sep 15 2020 12:54 utc | 4
In the 1920s (or 30s), far-rightist Karl Popper coined the concept of "public opinion".
vk, I can't find anything regarding this coinage. Could you please provide a link.
Wiki is specially devoid of it and it goes back to 16 century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion
The term public opinion was derived from the French opinion publique which was first used in
1588 by Michel de Montaigne in the second edition of his Essays
Thank you, b. In this world of illusion that mainstream press provides it is forgivable that
we cannot even convince members of our own families that are dear to us of the underlying
truths behind what these masters of deception continue to print. Surely they only do so
because livelihoods are threatened, and the public perceptions are reaching a critical point
where belief in what they write, read by the diminishing numbers of faithful few, reaches a
pinnacle of perception and spills chaotically down into a watershed of realization.
I remember when we were told what happens on the top floor of the New York Times. It
opened my eyes. And perhaps here also, b is providing a chink through which we may glimpse
what is happening in military circles in fields of operation where facts collide with
fiction:
"We have had more indirect fire attacks around and against our bases the first half of
this year than we did the first half of last year," Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander
of the U.S. Central Command, said. "Those attacks have been higher."
...
McKenzie's comments came just hours after he announced the United States would be
cutting its footprint in Iraq by almost half by the end of September, with about 2,200
troops leaving the country.
On Hayek's "tiering", google "IHS model" ("pyramid of social change") and his book "The
Intellectuals and Socialism".
On Popper's conception of "public opinion", see "The Open Society and Its Enemies" (1945).
Yes, the term itself is not Popper's invention - he never claimed to have done so. But he
gave it a "twist", and we can say nowadays every Western journalist's conception of "public
opinion" is essentially Popper's.
because on matters related to Iran, China and Russia, they are not independent, there is
no real difference between the two camps in US, Biden' foreign policy which is endorsed and
supported by NYT and WP is not that different than Trump's, if not more radical. There is no
free press in US, as matter of fact, as long as this United Oligarchy of America exist there
will be no free press.
As well, this fake news propaganda barrage continues in the context of determined censorship
of alternative media and social media - a campaign which has been largely promoted by the
liberal intelligentsia in the US, in the name of reducing "fake news."
Having to live within an ever-widening swamp of utter BS is wearying and mind-numbing - also
to the point, one may assume.
Yes, I agree, IMO/observation, the US Government, the political parties and their supportive
media are rapidly ideologically polarizing their constituencies to two hard entrenched
ideological camps (which as you say has become hard shelled impenetrable). Except on one
common ideological point, which almost all the population has been and is being brain washed
as young as first grade, this common used term, which shield you from needing to investigate
or form any other opinion is: US has always been, is and will be a "force for good" by its
constitution, no matter what she has done or will do. This sentence when fully believed and
carved in one' mind from childhood is very difficult to erase and crack. These two
ideologically opposing camps about 70% of the population will not want to hear any fact or
not, other than what they are told and believed all their life.
"Unlike utopian engineering, piecemeal social engineering must be "small scale," Popper
said, meaning that social reform should focus on changing one institution at a time. Also,
whereas utopian engineering aims for lofty and abstract goals (for example, perfect justice,
true equality, a higher kind of happiness), piecemeal social engineering seeks to address
concrete social problems (for example, poverty, violence, unemployment, environmental
degradation, income inequality). It does so through the creation of new social institutions
or the redesign of existing ones. These new or reconfigured institutions are then tested
through implementation and altered accordingly and continually in light of their effects.
Institutions thus may undergo gradual improvement overtime and social ills gradually reduced.
Popper compared piecemeal social engineering to physical engineering. Just as physical
engineers refine machines through a series of small adjustments to existing models, social
engineers gradually improve social institutions through "piecemeal tinkering." In this way,
"[t]he piecemeal method permits repeated experiments and continuous readjustments" (Open
Society Vol 1., 163).
Only such social experiments, Popper said, can yield reliable feedback for social
planners. In contrast, as discussed above, social reform that is wide ranging, highly complex
and involves multiple institutions will produce social experiments in which it is too
difficult to untangle causes..."
So Top-Down with a vengeance, but softly, softly, hunting for 'good results', for what and
how these are defined is left out entirely, and who exactly runs the process...? (Btw China
sorta follows this approach with 'social experiments' gathering data that is analysed etc. to
improve governance.)
Don't forget that the only time the Amerikastani Empire's warmongering imperialist media
called Trump "presidential" was when he launched missiles at Syria on false pretences in
support of al Qaeda.
The statement by praetor McKenzie probably won't do much to remove the "Russian bounties"
tale from the received Beltway belief structure, where it lodged immediately upon
publication, any more than earlier refutations, or its inherent implausibility, did. I see
the bounties regularly referred to by Dems and Dem-adjacent media as established fact.
In the same light, it's worthwhile to read the Politico article on the alleged Iranian
designs on the purse princess and try to spot other fictions included as supposedly factual
background, some qualified as being American assertions, but others presented as undisputed
fact, such as:
Trump's version of the almost-happened retaliation after Iran downed a U.S. drone
that the attack that killed a U.S. "contractor" in Iraq that started last winter's
U.S./Iran tit-for-tat was "by an Iranian-allied militia"
Soleimani was responsible for the death of numerous U.S. troops
Soleimani plotted to hire a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador in
Washington (remember that one? a blast from the past)
This new one about the plot to get the ambassador in Pretoria may be too trivial to get
sustained attention, but it will show up as background in some future Politico article or the
like, joining the rest in the Beltway's version of reality, which at this point is made
almost entirely of these falsehoods encrusting on each other, decade after decade, creating
the phony geopolitical mindscape these people live in.
Mere factual refutation – even from otherwise establishment-approved sources –
won't remove these barnacles. For instance, in February the NY Times itself published a
debunking of the initial account that it was an Iran-backed Shia militia, as opposed to
Salafist I.S.-affiliated forces, that killed that U.S. contractor last December. But the good
(if delayed) reporting is forgotten; the lie persists. The same fate awaits McKenzie's
dismissal of the Russian bounties nonsense.
The thoughtful reader would at this point stop and ponder. "Fake News About Iran, Russia,
China Is U.S. Journalism's Daily Bread". I agree with this statement. But not just U.S. Journalism. Minimally U.K. Journalism is
on-board, if not tutoring the Yanks in the art of Journalism. And then there is Europe
herself, she too has armies of Journalists and many Journals. They too mostly fake around in
general.
Now then, that leave Journalism in "Iran, Russia, China". It is fine trait to root for
underdogs but Journalism in these states is also subject to a highly controlled and managed
environment. It is disingenuous to ignore these facts.
Given this congregation of "fakers", worldwide, it is very reasonable to question the very
"fight" that these "fakers" keep telling us is on between the "adversaries".
Good to see so many being able to name the operation of the official narrative. It serves
also another purpose, witnessed by one of the most consequential actions of all, the wanton
abandonment of international law and accountability - the GWOT and the launching of same in
Afghanistan and Iraq. That other purpose is to create cover for those, elected in our name,
to avoid responsibility.
"Who knew?" asked the soulless Rumsfeld. And the refrain returned from the hollowed out
halls of the Greatest Democracy On Earth (tm) - "We were misled!", "Look it says so right
there in the official narrative, REMEMBER?" But the misleaders are never rounded up and never
face any consequences, cause truth be told all that voted for the AUMF belong in the pokey.
And the congressional class of '02-'03 would do the same thing all over again, 'cause the
narrative's got their back.
Despite the future grimness predicted by 1984 , the ability and effectiveness of Media
Structures to openly lie and thus herd the public to embrace the preferred Narrative hasn't
turned out quite the way Orwell thought it might. Former authoritarian blocs learned the hard
way that it's better to tell their citizens the truth and actively engage them in governance,
while the Anglo-Imperial powers have gone in the opposite direction, thus the question why?
IMO, the longstanding Narrative related to the mythical Dream has greatly eroded in the face
of Reality, while at the same time the Rentier Class and the Duopoly it controls needs
to try and obfuscate what it's doing. And thus we've seen the rise of BigLie Media to be used
for the purpose of Divide and Rule. There're numerous works detailing how and why; two of the
more important are Manufacturing of Consent and J is for Junk Economics . Part
of the overall process of dumbing-down populations is the deliberate destruction of the
educational process, particularly in the areas of philosophy and political-economy/history,
which are essentially connected as one when considering the History of Ideas or a sub-area
like the Philosophy of Science.
Such a dumbing-down of a nation's populous can be measured, the USSR and its Warsaw Bloc
being the most evident, but also The Inquisition and its affect on the advancement of science
within the regions it ruled, and the inward turning of China during the Ming Dynasty which
allowed for its subjugation by Western forces beginning in the 16th Century. Most recently,
this is evident in China's passing the Outlaw US Empire in terms of geoeconomics and thus
overall geopolitical power. An explanation for India's inability to match China's development
can be found in its refusal to do away with its semi-feudal caste system and not educate its
masses so they can become a similar collective dynamo as in China. At the beginning of his
brief tenure, JFK noted the Knowledge Gap that existed between a USSR that was nearing its
intellectual heights (although that wasn't known then) and the USA whose educational system
effectively excluded @60% of students from having the opportunity to advance. There would
never have been a Dot.Com economy without JFK's initiative to improve educational outcomes.
There seems to be a notion within the Outlaw US Empire's elite that an well educated populace
presents a danger to their rule and they can get by using AI and Robotics to further their
future plans. Here I'd refer such thinkers to the lessons provided by the failure of Asimov's
Galactic Empire in his Foundation series of books--particular their reliance on AI, robotics,
dumbing-down the populace to the point where no one recalls how atomics functioned. The sort
of balance sheet being constructed by the Fed cannot repair or replace crumbling
infrastructure or train the engineers needed to perform the work.
So, what continual BigLie Media lies tell us is the continued downward spiral of the
West's intellectual abilities will continue while an East that values the Truth and Discovery
moves on to eclipse it, mainly because the West has stopped trying, thinking it's found a
better way based on the continual amassing of Debt, which is seen as wealth on their balance
sheets. Ultimately, the West thinks the one person holding all the assets as the winner of
its Zero-sum Monopoly Game is a better outcome than having millions of people sharing the
winnings of a Win-Win system that promotes the wellbeing of all. I can tell you now which
philosophy will triumph, but you all ought to be capable of reasoning that outcome.
After a sound and an in-depth analysis, b sometimes confounds me with his credulity. Take
this sentence for example: "Why do U.S. journalist presume that the agencies and anonymous
officials who work under him are more truthful in their uttering than the man himself is hard
to understand. Why do swallow their bullshit?" Of course there is no daylight between the US,
and indeed the whole Western governments, and its Press. Other than few independent blog site
such as this, every media outlet is in the service of its home government or foreign
sponsors. Only born-suckers take the corporate media at face value. Modern journalism is
nothing but an aggressive propaganda racket.
You only have to look at who owns the media and who their close friends are,
to understand why the media says what it says or lies what it lies !
It's an industry promoting the elites self-interest, creating fictioous enemy countries to
feed the arms industry and create US domestic mass paranoia.
The Israeli lobby groups are at the wheel of the whole dam clown car.
Using lies (bearing false witness) to cause murder and theft are not exactly a new
phenomenon.
These 'groups of individuals', which are employing these fabricated deceptions, are doing
nothing less than trying to commit murder and theft.
Project Veritas @Project_Veritas BREAKING: @Google Program Manager Confirms Election Interference In Favor of @JoeBiden Google search "skewed by owners and drivers of the algorithm" "Plain and simple trying to play god"
FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich announces charges against 'six Russsian intelligence officers' at the Department of Justice, October 19, 2020. © Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS 14 Follow RT on
The US Justice Department has announced charges against six alleged officers of Russian military intelligence, accusing them of cyber attacks against Georgia, France, the UK, the OPCW, Ukraine and the 2018 Winter Olympics.
