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Dec 20, 2017 | original.antiwar.com
The Goldwater-Nichols Act requires the president to submit a "National Security Strategy" report each year. Every president since Ronald Reagan has failed to comply with the law in one or more years of his administration, but on December 17 Donald Trump issued his report .
Unfortunately, Trump's offering is of a piece with his prior displays of economic illiteracy and foreign policy jingoism. It's a dog's breakfast of policy pronouncements that couldn't be more opposed to real "national security" if that had been the author's intention.
The document reiterates Trump's commitment to economic protectionism in the guise of "fair and reciprocal" trade, rattles sabers at Russia, China, and North Korea, and commits to extending decades of disastrous US military adventurism in the Middle East.
Trump's distant predecessors showed us what a real "National Security Strategy" would look like.
At the end of his two terms as president, George Washington warned in his farewell address that "[t]he great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible."
Thomas Jefferson echoed that sentiment in his first inaugural address, announcing a doctrine of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none."
While serving as US Secretary of State, future president John Quincy Adams observed that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
Those principles served the US well to the extent that they were followed – with a few exceptions, throughout the 19th century. But since the Spanish-American War of 1898, the US has increasingly styled itself an imperial power, attempting to dictate to the world at a cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives and millions more abroad, as well as trillions of dollars redirected from productive endeavors to paying the butcher's bill. The 20th century was a near-continuous orgy of bloodshed which, for the US, was entirely optional.
A real "National Security Strategy" comes down to two things: Free trade, and minding our own business.
Early in his presidential campaign, Trump hinted at the latter, but quickly reverted to business as usual. He's clearly never grasped the former at all. Unfortunate, as the two are also the elements of a great presidency, if such a thing is even possible.
Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism . He lives and works in north central Florida. This article is reprinted with permission from William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.
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Oct 16, 2017 | washingtonmonthly.com
There is a tendency on the left to overestimate the abilities of conservative campaign gurus and spinmeisters after a bitter defeat. In the aughts, Karl Rove was seen as the Svengali mastermind of Republican politics, a nefarious force smarter and more cunning than all the left's braintrust put together. It turned out not to be true. Karl Rove didn't have "the math" and never really did: Rove mostly got lucky by a combination of butterfly ballots in Florida, and happening to hold power during a terrorist attack that saw Democrats cowed into submission rather than holding the president and his team accountable for their failure to protect the country.
Steve Bannon is taking on a similar mystique for some. But Bannon is no more special than Rove...
... ... ...
Bannon is going to war " with the GOP establishment, even going so far as to countermand Trump's own endorsement in the Alabama Senate race and force the president to back a loser.But his statements show that it's all bluster and no real strategy. Democrats seem poised to take back Congress precisely because of Republican extremism, not because institutional Republicans are inadequately racist and nationalist.
And his prediction to the Values Voter Summit that Trump will win 400 electoral votes in 2020 is simply preposterous on its face. It's no better than even odds that Trump will even finish out his term, much less sweep to a Reaganesque landslide in three years. During the same speech, Bannon quipped a line destined to be fodder for the inevitable 2018 campaign commercials accusing Trump of actively blowing up the ACA exchanges and driving up premiums in a bid to kill the program.
Like Karl Rove before him, Steven Bannon is a paper tiger. Democrats need only muster courage, conviction and hard work to teach him the same lesson they taught Rove in 2006.
David Atkins is a writer, activist and research professional living in Santa Barbara. He is a contributor to the Washington Monthly's Political Animal and president of The Pollux Group, a qualitative research firm.
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Oct 15, 2017 | www.unz.com
... ... ...
Both men were outsiders, and neither a career politician. Raised Democratic, Reagan had been a Hollywood actor, union leader and voice of GE, before running for governor of California.
Trump is out of Queens, a builder-businessman in a Democratic city whose Republican credentials were suspect at best when he rode down that elevator at Trump Tower. Both took on the Republican establishment of their day, and humiliated it.
Among the signature issues of Trumpian populism is economic nationalism, a new trade policy designed to prosper Americans first.
Reagan preached free trade, but when Harley-Davidson was in danger of going under because of Japanese dumping of big bikes, he slammed a 50 percent tariff on Japanese motorcycles. Though a free trader by philosophy, Reagan was at heart an economic patriot.
He accepted an amnesty written by Congress for 3 million people in the country illegally, but Reagan also warned prophetically that a country that can't control its borders isn't really a country any more.
Reagan and Trump both embraced the Eisenhower doctrine of "peace through strength." And, like Ike, both built up the military.
Both also believed in cutting tax rates to stimulate the economy and balance the federal budget through rising revenues rather than cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in Reagan's day, Russia and China in Trump's time.
And both were regarded in this capital city with a cosmopolitan condescension bordering on contempt. "An amiable dunce" said a Great Society Democrat of Reagan.
The awesome victories Reagan rolled up, a 44-state landslide in 1980 and a 49-state landslide in 1984, induced some second thoughts among Beltway elites about whether they truly spoke for America. Trump's sweep of the primaries and startling triumph in the Electoral College caused the same consternation.
However, as the Great Depression, New Deal and World War II represented a continental divide in history between what came before and what came after, so, too, did the end of the Cold War and the Reagan era.
As Ingraham writes, Trump_vs_deep_state is rooted as much in the populist-nationalist campaigns of the 1990s, and post-Cold War issues as economic patriotism, border security, immigration control and "America First," as it is in the Reaganite issues of the 1980s.
Which bring us to the present, with our billionaire president, indeed, at the barricades.
The differences between Trump in his first year and Reagan in 1981 are stark. Reagan had won a landslide. The attempt on his life in April and the grace with which he conducted himself had earned him a place in the hearts of his countrymen. He not only showed spine in giving the air traffic controllers 48 hours to get back to work, and then discharging them when they defied him, he enacted the largest tax cut in U.S. history with the aid of boll weevil Democrats in the House.
Coming up on one year since his election, Trump is besieged by a hostile press and united Democratic Party. This city hates him. While his executive actions are impressive, his legislative accomplishments are not. His approval ratings have lingered in the mid-30s. He has lost half a dozen senior members of his original White House staff, clashed openly with his own Cabinet and is at war with GOP leaders on the Hill.
Greg Bacon , Website October 13, 2017 at 10:24 am GMT
And both are fans of the tinkle-down theory of economics, where the govt cuts taxes on the rich and increases them on the poor and middle class, since the rich will do a better job of spreading around the extra money they get to keep, thereby stoking the economy, supposedly. Or as 'Poppy' Bush called it, "voodoo economics."Randal , October 13, 2017 at 12:24 pm GMTIt's a failed regressive tax program that only creates more billionaires while the number of poor swells, due to an influx of the steadily declining middle-class.
The only parts of the economy it helps are the builders of luxury mansions, antique and pricey art dealers, and the makers of luxury autos and private jets.
@Mark JamesRandal , October 13, 2017 at 12:53 pm GMTwhen the US Government is trying to prevent alien forces from interfering in our electoral process
Bizarrely, comically ignorant of reality. Though the really bizarre thing is the degree to which the same obtusely ignorant world-view permeates the establishment media and the political establishment.
Two pieces here at Unz you ought to read, and fully take on board the implications of, if you want to even begin the process of grasping reality, rather than living in the manufactured fantasy you appear to inhabit at the moment:
John Jeremiah Smith , October 13, 2017 at 4:10 pm GMTBoth believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in Reagan's day, Russia and China in Trump's time.
There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in the grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism. Reagan's opposition to the Soviet Union was very much bound up in resistance to that ideology, even if that resistance was often as much a pretext as a real motive.
Today neither Russia nor China subscribes to any such universalist ideology. It is the US, today, that seeks to impose its liberal democratic political correctness ideologies and its manufactured taboos upon the world and which harasses and menaces any country that tries to live differently.
As for Trump supposedly being wrapped up in "America First", that's particularly comical this week as he demonstrates that his idea of "America First" is acting as Israel's bitch, and as he makes ever louder noises about undermining the Iran deal – a policy as clearly counterproductive to any interest plausibly attributable to the American nation (as opposed to the identity lobbies that run the US government politics and media) as it is self-evidently in the self-perceived interests of the Israel Lobby and the foreign country that lobby serves.
Here's the German government being unusually blunt yesterday about the stupidity of the Trump regime's seeming plans in this regard:
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Thursday said that any move by US President Donald Trump's administration to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal would drive a wedge between Europe and the US.
"It's imperative that Europe sticks together on this issue," Gabriel told Germany's RND newspaper group. "We also have to tell the Americans that their behavior on the Iran issue will drive us Europeans into a common position with Russia and China against the USA."
http://www.dw.com/en/germany-warns-donald-trump-against-decertifying-iran-deal/a-40933703
It's difficult to know whether the likes of Gabriel actually believe all the boilerplate nonsense they talk about a supposed Iranian nuclear program – the real reason the European nations want the deal to continue is that it stopped them having to pretend to believe all the outright lies the US told about Iran, and having to kowtow t0 costly and counterproductive sanctions against Iran that did immense general harm for the benefit only of Israel and Saudi Arabia and their US stooges.
The US pulling out of the deal would at least bring that issue of US dishonesty on Iran and past European appeasement of it to a head, I suppose.
Trump is an egotistical jackass, nothing else. A liar from the git-go, and a completely ineffective leader, ideologue and President. He's not going to last much longer. I will take note that he did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety. But, he has molted into a complete fuckup.YetAnotherAnon , October 13, 2017 at 4:40 pm GMTGoodbye, good riddance. Let's get ready to deal with the next wacko -- Pence. Assuming they won't kill Pence with the same bomb.
@Mark Jamesreiner Tor , October 13, 2017 at 4:48 pm GMT"As for Trump I think it's crystal clear his campaign involved the Russians in our election. "
It's crystal clear that some people will believe any crap that The Media Formerly Known As Hillary's broadcast.
@John Jeremiah Smithreiner Tor , October 13, 2017 at 5:07 pm GMTI will take note that he did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety.
Often I feel like it'd be better if Hillary did the same insane policies. It's always worse when our guy does something wrong, and better when the hated enemy does it.
Hillary was a danger that she would start WW3 in Syria, but I don't think we can be certain she'd have started it. Given how risk-averse women are in general, I think the only issue was whether the Russians could've made it clear that shooting at Russian soldiers would mean war with Russia. And I think even Hillary's advisers would've blinked.
On the other hand, I don't think Hillary would be nearly as insane on North Korea or Iran. As a bonus, she would be accelerating the demise of the US, by introducing ever more insane domestic policies, things like gay, transsexual and female quotas in US Special Forces. This would ultimately be a good thing, destroying or weakening US power which is currently only used to evil ends in the world.
@Randalreiner Tor , October 13, 2017 at 5:15 pm GMTUnfortunately I can see Orbán and the Poles torpedoing a common EU stance. I'm sure that will be the price for Netanyahu's meeting with the V4 leaders a few months ago.
I think one good thing would be if US conservatives stopped their Reagan worship. He was certainly not a bad person, but he allowed the amnesty to happen, couldn't stop the sanctions on Apartheid South Africa, didn't (or couldn't?) do anything against the MLK cult becoming a state religion, and started the free trade and tax cuts cults, he's also responsible for promoting the neocons to positions of power. So overall he was a mixed bag from a nationalist conservative viewpoint.Chris Mallory , October 13, 2017 at 5:19 pm GMT@Mark JamesRandal , October 13, 2017 at 5:33 pm GMTPrivate citizens are forbidden to ask for help from a foreign country, when the US Government is trying to prevent alien forces from interfering in our electoral process.
You forgot the Clintons, Bush, McCain, Romney, and Obama. China and Israel worked on behalf of all five of them, even though three of them lost
@reiner TorJohn Jeremiah Smith , October 13, 2017 at 6:13 pm GMTYes, that's quite possible, but a common EU stance is not really all that important. What really matters is how far the Germans, and to a lesser extent the less relevant but still big European nations such as France and Italy and the more subservient US tool, the UK, are prepared to continue to kowtow to US and Israeli dishonesty on Iran.
All the signs seem to be that repudiating the deal and trying to return to the days of the aggressive and counter-productive US-imposed sanctions will be a step too far for many of those players.
As a bonus, she would be accelerating the demise of the US, by introducing ever more insane domestic policies, things like gay, transsexual and female quotas in US Special Forces. This would ultimately be a good thing, destroying or weakening US power which is currently only used to evil ends in the world.
Actually I suspect that repudiating the JCPOA, whether openly or by de facto breach, will go immensely farther, and much faster, towards destroying practical US influence and therefore power globally than any of those domestic policies, at least in the short run.
You can see that Trump is at least dimly aware of that likelihood from the way he keeps bottling and postponing the decision, despite his clearly evident and desperate desire to please his pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian advisers and instincts.
@reiner Torreiner Tor , October 13, 2017 at 6:43 pm GMTOn the other hand, I don't think Hillary would be nearly as insane on North Korea or Iran.
An election of Hillary meant open borders. That is official, rapid and deliberate national suicide. All foreign policy issues pale before such a horror.
@John Jeremiah SmithThe Alarmist , October 13, 2017 at 6:55 pm GMT1) There's a chance foreign policy insanity starts a nuclear war, in which case all domestic policy issues will pale before such horror.
2) The US already has de facto open borders. Why does it matter if it becomes majority nonwhite in 30 or just 20 years?
3) For non-American whites, it's better the earlier the US sphere disintegrates. I bet you it's better for American whites as well. As long as this political/cultural center holds, the rot cannot be stopped.
I watched the movie Independence Day last night: Can we have that guy for President after Trump, or do we have to have an obligatory Democrat (Chelsea Clinton?) President for the next 8 years?German_reader , October 13, 2017 at 6:57 pm GMT@John Jeremiah SmithRadicalCenter , October 13, 2017 at 8:36 pm GMTAn election of Hillary meant open borders. That is official, rapid and deliberate national suicide. All foreign policy issues pale before such a horror.
That's understandable, but obviously the calculation must be somewhat different from a non-US perspective. Given how strongly many white Americans are in favor of pro-war policies and mindless Israel worship (how many US blacks or Hispanics care about Israel or confronting Iran?), I'm not even sure nationalists in Europe should really lament the Hispanicization of the US. It might at least have a positive effect in restricting US interventionism and eroding US power. The sooner the US is unable to continue with its self-appointed role as a global redeemer nation, the better.
@Mark Jamesnsa , October 13, 2017 at 9:10 pm GMTGlad you think it's "crystal clear." How about evidence?
History repeats first as tragedy (crushing the spoiled unionized mostly white air traffic controllers), then as farce (crushing the spoiled unionized mostly afro NFL jocks). Reagan was at least an American Firster. Trumpenstein is an obvious traitorous Izzie Firster, with little concern for the so-called deplorables except to convert them into deployables at the service of his jooie sponsors. Maybe Paddy should have titled his screed "Heir to Begin, not Reagan"?Aren Haich , October 13, 2017 at 9:12 pm GMTPat Buchanan points out that " it is far more likely that a major war would do for the Trump presidency and his place in history what it did for Presidents Wilson, Truman, LBJ and George W. Bush."John Gruskos , October 13, 2017 at 9:37 pm GMTAs for President Trump; Let us hope that war DOES NOT BECOME "The Last Refuge Of This Scoundrel"!
@reiner TorJohn Gruskos , October 13, 2017 at 9:43 pm GMTOrban has been critical of regime change wars.
@German_readerGerman_reader , October 13, 2017 at 10:39 pm GMTRubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
If only non-White votes were counted, Hillary Clinton would have been elected unanimously by the electoral college, and Hillary is more of a war-monger than Trump is.
The few reliable voices for foreign policy sanity in congress, such as Senator Rand Paul and Congressmen Walter Jones, John Duncan, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash, represent overwhelmingly White, Protestant, old-stock American districts.
@John GruskosJonathan Mason , October 13, 2017 at 11:42 pm GMTRubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
Maybe, but is there any data indicating many blacks in Washington DC actually voted in the Republican primaries? Why would they when most of them are a solid Democrat voting block? I'd guess Rubio got his votes from white elites in DC.
As for Puerto Rico, I didn't know they actually have primaries, seems odd given they don't vote in US presidential elections.Hillary is more of a war-monger than Trump is.
Hillary was horrible all around, and I agree she might well have been disastrous as president given her dangerous proposals for no-fly zones in Syria, and the potential of conflict with Russia this entailed. But I'm no longer sure Trump is really better regarding foreign policy. His behaviour on the North Korea issue is irresponsible imo, and his willingness to wreck the nuclear deal with Iran at the behest of neoconservatives and Zionist donors like Sheldon Adelson is a big fat minus in my view. Sorry, but I think you guys who hoped for something different have all been (neo-)conned.
Reagan said: My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.Carroll Price , October 14, 2017 at 1:51 am GMTTrump said: We will totally destroy North Korea if the United States is forced to defend itself or its allies.
Reagan was a joker, Trump is a wildcard.
The only similarities I see between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump is that both live (lived) in a sort of la-la land, totally out of touch with reality. The only difference between them is that Reagan had sensible people around him (like Pat Buchannan) who wrote good speeches and make good decisions which he took full credit for. Trump, on the other hand delivers abbreviated, one-sentence speeches via Twitter while surrounded by mental midgets with military minds.Carroll Price , October 14, 2017 at 2:08 am GMT@RandalCarroll Price , October 14, 2017 at 2:35 am GMTThere is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in the grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism
Not really Randal. The Cold War was an invented war like the War on Terror that replaced just in the nick of time, and for the same purpose, which is to justify unlimited defense budgets necessary to sustain a bloated MIC that would not otherwise exist.
@John GruskosRandal , October 14, 2017 at 7:48 am GMTRubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
but you're forgetting that Trump wasn't a war monger while on the campaign trail, far from it. Which is the only reason he won the election. In other words he fooled just enough people (like you and me) long enough to get elected. Same thing happened with peace candidate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Hussein Obama. It's clearly a rigged process.
@Carroll PriceKA , October 14, 2017 at 11:18 am GMTNot really Randal. The Cold War was an invented war like the War on Terror that replaced just in the nick of time, and for the same purpose, which is to justify unlimited defense budgets necessary to sustain a bloated MIC that would not otherwise exist.
Well, yes and no. In both cases. It really is more complicated than that.
Reagan didn't undo Arab Israel Camp David Peace Treaty He didn't keep the Israeli side and undo the Egyptian side of the American obligation . He kept both.KA , October 14, 2017 at 11:49 am GMTTrump is dangerous malevolent anti-American and anti- anything that hurts his ego or pocket . He has malcontent displaced sycophants as inner circle supporters who want a piece in the pie denied to them by the establishment .
Here is a quote from antiwar -"In other words, it's all about the war that Trump and his still-loyal lieutenant Steve Bannon, assisted by UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have declared on the "deep state."
Also, Trump and Bannon aren't really interested in draining the foreign policy swamp in DC. They simply want to install their own cronies who will ensure that war and globalization benefit them rather than Kissinger and his ilk. It's a shell game designed to fool Trump's base, but the rest of the world has kept its eye on the ball." http://original.antiwar.com/feffer/2017/10/13/trump-signaling-unprecedented-right-turn-foreign-policy/
This war between elites have been predicted by a CT professor in an article in 2016 , to get more serious and dangerous by 2020 . The fights among elites are not new but another pathway an empire takes additionally to the final fate of the destruction from within
@KApolskijoe , October 14, 2017 at 1:04 pm GMT"A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions."
Another visible sign of increasing intra-elite competition and political polarization is the fragmentation of political parties
cliodynamic research on past societies demonstrates that elite overproduction is by far the most important of the three main historical drivers of social instability and political violence (see Secular Cycles for this analysis).
But the other two factors in the model, popular immiseration (the stagnation and decline of living standards) and declining fiscal health of the state (resulting from falling state revenues and rising expenses) are also important contributors.
: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-social-instability-lies.html#jCp
@reiner Torpolskijoe , October 14, 2017 at 1:16 pm GMTIdeally Europe would be strong together, without US and more sane policies on morals and immigration.
Yes v4 is connected to CC, Neocon, Zios.
While Polands stance on immigration, and trying to hold on to old values is good, problem is depending on US too much, and being stuck between Russia and Germany which would isolate it from Europe in some ways. Obviously Poles are not uniform, views on US, Russia, Germany, Ukraine are all over the place. I wish Poland was just European (in politics) but the US-EU connection is still strong.
Commenting on US presidents. Presidents are puppets. All of them. Modern leaders in Western world are unlikable. Reagan at least had some balance, had some Catholic and Paleocon involvement. It wasnt all Neocons and Zios. Im quite sure Reagan (and his dad), people like Buchanan had connections to groups like Knights Malta or Knights Colombus. Cant prove it though. Kennedy was KC.German_reader , October 14, 2017 at 3:02 pm GMTToday Neocon/Zionist influence is even stronger. Trump policies on NK and Iran are nuts. At best a war is avoided.
On the other side you have Clintons, Obamas. They would destroy the US, and have similar policies because again they are puppets. Clinton would likely be involved in Syria, just like Obama was.
@polskijoeWhile Polands stance on immigration, and trying to hold on to old values is good, problem is depending on US too much
Yes, that's a problem, and I think Polish national conservatives are somewhat in denial about what the modern US stands for the "values" pushed by the US establishment today are incompatible with the Polish right's vision for Poland (e.g. conservative values in sexual morality – no homo-lobbyism and transgender nonsense -, strong public role of Catholicism, restrictive and selective immigration policies that keep out Muslims).
I can understand to some degree why the Polish right is so pro-US, given history and apprehensions about Germany and Russia, but they should at least be aware that alliance with the US could have a rather pernicious influence on Poland itself.
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Oct 01, 2017 | www.theguardian.com
Already Bannon is touring the country and meeting with candidates who will carry forward such an agenda. He told the Bloomberg agency: "The populist-nationalist movement proved in Alabama that a candidate with the right ideas and a grassroots organization can win big. Now, our focus is on recruiting candidates to take over the Republican party."
The election eve rally in Alabama was a reunion of sorts of those in Bannon's political orbit. Two potential candidates, Chris McDaniel of Mississippi and Mark Green of Tennessee, attended along with Paul Nehlen, a primary challenger last year to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, whose campaign was heavily promoted by Breitbart.
McDaniel described Moore's win as "incredibly inspiring" for his own challenge to Senator Roger Wicker in 2018. "We know Mitch McConnell was rejected tonight and Roger Wicker is just another part of Mitch McConnell's leadership apparatus," McDaniel told the Associated Press.
"We supported Donald Trump because he was an agent of change, and he's still an agent of change. In this instance, he must have been given bad advice to retain this particular swamp creature."
On Thursday, Bannon spent two hours with Tom Tancredo, who worked on Nehlan's behalf and is considering a run for Colorado governor next year. Tancredo, a former congressman, told the Guardian: "He was encouraged by what happened in Alabama and was certainly hoping he can replicate it.
"He's trying to establish an awareness of the fact the Republican party should be standing for the values he and others have tried to articulate over the years. It's a hugely difficult undertaking when you consider the power of the establishment and the swamp. He just kept reiterating: 'I need to try to save the country.'"
Asked about the prospect of a Republican civil war, Tancredo replied: "A good philosophic blood letting is not necessarily a bad thing."
... ... ...
Bardella said Bannon had helped villainise McConnell, making him a toxic symbol of the Republican establishment and an albatross around the necks of vulnerable Republicans such as Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada. A seat in Tennessee following Senator Bob Corker's announcement that he would not seek re-election in 2018 could also be a target.
"Every dollar that is spent on a candidate by Mitch McConnell and the Republican party is a dollar spent against them," Bardella added. "And that's because it plays right into the theme that they're bought and paid for by the establishment."
Among the "establishment" donors likely to oppose Bannon in a series of running battles are the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Bannon himself has admitted there is not "a deep bench" of viable candidates to represent his agenda.
But he can expect at least tacit backing from Trump, who was said to be furious about having backed the wrong horse in Alabama: the president even deleted three tweets that endorsed Strange. Bannon also has powerful benefactors in the shape of the billionaire hedge fund investor Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer. The New York Times reported that Bannon and Robert Mercer began working out a rough outline for a "shadow party" that would advance Trump's nationalist agenda during a five-hour meeting last month at the family's Long Island estate.
Bannon has also been consulting with Henry Kissinger and other foreign policy veterans, Bloomberg reported, and is preparing make the threat posed by China a central cause. "If we don't get our situation sorted with China, we'll be destroyed economically," he said.
Rick Tyler, a political analyst and former campaign spokesman for the Texas senator Ted Cruz, said: "Roy Moore has demonstrated that the establishment and all its money can be beaten. You can only spend so much money in Alabama before it becomes irritating: you can only stuff so much in people's mailboxes or run so many ads on TV.
"The floodgates are open. You'll see a lot of this, one after another, and Steve Bannon's going to be at the centre of it. He's one for one. It'll be a civil war; it has been for quite some time."
Republican memories are still raw from 2014, when the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, was beaten in a primary contest by Dave Brat, a little-known professor backed by the Tea Party. But Bannon could make the establishment versus Tea Party battle look like a mere skirmish.
Andrew Surabian, a political strategist who worked under Bannon at the White House, told USA Today: "Bannon is plotting a strategy to launch an all-out assault on the Republican establishment. I think it's fair to say that if you're tied to Mitch McConnell, any of his henchmen in the consulting class, or were a Never-Trumper during the campaign, you're not safe from a primary challenge."
Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino and Ben Jacobs
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Oct 01, 2017 | www.jacobinmag.com
Ideas spread in all sorts of directions. I've heard Christian right "intellectuals" haphazardly invoke Gramsci and counter-hegemony and I myself have spent more of my youth than I'm willing to admit reading back issues of National Review . It's probably less of a stretch that some Tea Partiers have favorably nodded toward the ideas on their movement that our friend Walter Benn Michaels expresses in his interview in the inaugural Jacobin .
Here's my summary of Michaels's argument on the Tea Party and immigration, which brings up the question, a question that shouldn't really be a question at all, about the left and open borders. (My thoughts on the over-hyped and over-exposed Tea Party can be found over at New Politics .)
Michaels identifies the Tea Party as a reaction against neoliberalism. He doesn't view the challenge as a serious one, but also stresses that the movement, "is not simply a reaction against neoliberalism from the old racist right." Michaels contests the American left's desire to summarily reduce the Tea Party to racists: "They're thrilled when some Nazis come out and say 'Yeah, we support the Tea Party' or some member of the Tea Party says something racist, which is frequently enough." Michaels finds the subversive content of their political program in an opposition to illegal immigration.
The Tea Party recognizes that "one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is the kind of one plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires." The rise of illegal immigration represents a new form of capitalism, as opposed to the old "meritorious" capitalism of the post-war period. When right-wing ideologues attack "communism," the argument goes, they are actually conceptualizing neoliberalism.
Michaels concedes that the Tea Party is a disproportionately upper middle class movement, but argues that even segments of the top twenty percentile of Americans by income have been hit hard in recent decades.
The top one percent have been the big winners of the neoliberal era, while the other 19 percent in that bracket anxiously see their position falter in comparison. Responding to those who place the roots of this angst in the growing diversification of the elite, Michaels says:
. . . people in the Tea Party movement have a problem that is realer than "White male status anxiety," that the economic shifts that are taking place, the more and more extreme inequality, the more and more going to the top, no doubt some people may be unhappy because of loss of status, but many millions more are going to be unhappy because of the loss of actual money. So my point isn't really to deny the phenomenon of status anxiety, it's just to point out the extraordinary eagerness of American liberals to identify racism as the problem, so that anti-racism (rather than anti-capitalism) can be the solution.
Michaels's conclusion is, in sum, that students of Friedrich Hayek and exalters of Ayn Rand are the most visible source of resistance to neoliberalism on the American scene. Such a view, I believe, is as contradictory as it appears...
Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin .
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Sep 27, 2017 | www.unz.com
[See: If Only The God-Emperor Knew: Using Trump_vs_deep_state Against The Trump Administration" by James Kirkpatrick]
He must have known what was coming. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a pillar of the cowardly GOP Establishment , announced he would not be running for re-election on Tuesday [ Republican Sen. Corker announces he won't seek re-election , by Richard Lardner and Erik Schelzig, Associated Press, September 26, 2017]. Corker's departure is widely being interpreted as a sign of the Establishment's inability to control the GOP base, as the election of President Trump, the rise of nationalism and the emergence of alternative media outlets (such as Breitbart and VDARE.com) make it harder for cuckservatives to Republican primary voters in line [ Sen. Bob Corker's retirement is notable for when it's happening , by Amber Phillips, Washington Post, September 26, 2017]
And now, we have the ultimate proof in Alabama. Judge Roy Moore, one of the most persistent targets of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is now the Republican nominee for the Senate. And he defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange despite Strange being endorsed by President Donald J. Trump himself.
Of course, Strange didn't just have Trump in his corner. He also had Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell using his PAC to run negative ads against Moore, ads which conservative websites called "defamatory" and which cost many millions of dollars [ McConnell's Super PAC accused of 'defaming ' Roy Moore , by Bob Unruh, WND, August 3, 2017] As a result, Judge Moore openly campaigned against his party's own Senate leader during the primary, claiming a victory for him would mean the end of McConnell's hapless leadership. [ McConnell's mortal enemy might soon be in his caucus , by Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim, Politico, September 18, 2017]
However, and significantly, Moore never campaigned against President Trump himself. Yet Trump certainly gave Moore ample cause. He openly campaigned for Luther Strange, speaking with the incumbent Senator at a major rally, with Strange sporting a red MAGA hat [ Alabama rally: Trump campaigns in last-ditch effort for Senate candidate Luther Strange , by Alex Pappas, Fox News, September 22, 2017]. Trump also said Moore would have a hard time beating the Democrats because they would pour in so much money. He even called Moore by the wrong first name [ President Trump admits he doesn't 'know that much' about Alabama Senate contender Roy Moore, gets his name wrong in interview , by Jason Silverstein, New York Daily News, September 25, 2017]
And yet, revealingly, Moore and his allies framed their insurgency against Trump's wishes as an act of loyalty.
During a debate with Strange, Moore suggested President Trump was being "redirected" by Mitch McConnell and others who "will not support his [Trump's] agenda" [ Alabama Senate debate erupts over whether McConnell is manipulating Trump , by Alex Isenstadt and Daniel Strauss, Politico, September 21, 2017]
UKIP's former leader Nigel Farage said "absolutely" that "the point is to help the president" by electing Roy Moore and suggested The Judge would help deliver on President Trump's agenda [ Brexit Hero Farage in Alabama: Judge Roy Moore 'Not Going To Be Sucked Into The Swamp' by Ian Mason, Breitbart, September 25, 2017]
Sarah Palin channeled Trump's rhetoric by saying Moore would take on "DC's swamp monsters" and "help Make America Great Again" [ Sarah Palin endorses Judge Roy Moore for US Senate , by Randy DeSoto, Western Journalism, August 24, 2017]
Some of President Trump's best-known advisors also backed Moore.
Ben Carson, one of President Trump's own Cabinet secretaries, essentially endorsed Moore, saying he was "delighted" he was running and that he "wished him well" [ Ben Carson Splits With Trump, Basically Endorses Roy Moore in Alabama , by Cameron Joseph, Talking Points Memo, September 22, 2017]. Sebastian Gorka endorsed Moore, hinted the president was pressured into backing Strange, and said it would be a "very great day" for Trump if Strange was defeated [ Gorka: Trump Was Pressured to Endorse 'Swamp Dweller' Strange , Fox News, September 23, 2017]. And of course, Breitbart's Steve Bannon endorsed Moore, but said "we did not come here to defy Donald Trump, we came here to praise and honor him" [ The Breitbart Universe Unites For Roy Moore , by Rosie Gray, The Atlantic, September 26, 2017]Even before Trump's inauguration, when there were troubling signs the new President was surrounding himself with the Republican Establishment, it was clear that the President's supporters would need to rise against Trump in his own name . The victory of Roy Moore is the best example so far of how this insurgency will play out.
And most importantly, it shows how the populist and nationalist movement is larger than Trump himself.
Trump's advisors seem to know this. In the Fox News interview referenced above, Dr. Gorka claimed "no one voted for Trump, we voted for his agenda." And during his speech in support of Moore, Bannon referenced Jeff Sessions, not Trump, as the "spiritual father of the populist and nationalist movement."
But does Trump himself know this? Already, the Main Stream Media is trying to present this as a devastating defeat for the president personally. The New York Times kvetched about Moore's social views and sneered that his victory "demonstrated in stark terms the limits of Mr. Trump's clout" [ Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama , by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, September 26, 2017]. Jason Le Miere at Newsweek suggested Trump had suffered his first major political defeat at the ballot box and hinted his political weakness could trigger his impeachment. [ How Alabama Senate Election Results Could Trigger Trump's Impeachment , September 26, 2017]
This wildly overstates the case. Trump had hedged his bets, suggesting at one point he made a "mistake" in endorsing Strange [ Trump supports Strange, but says it may be "mistake," Washington Post, September 25, 2017]. He also said he would "campaign like hell" for Moore if Moore won [ Roy Moore: 'I can't wait' for Trump to 'campaign like hell' for me , by Sean Langille, Washington Examiner, September 25, 2017].
It's hardly a devastating defeat for President Trump when his supposed enemies are fanatically loyal to him and his "allies" can't wait to stab him in the back.
But there is still a lesson for Trump. The Chamber of Commerce and Republican Establishment picked this fight to "shut down" Moore and show populists who was in charge. [ Chamber of Commerce: 'Shut Down' Roy Moore & 'Remind Bannon Who's In Charge' by Joel Pollak, Breitbart, September 24, 2017] They just got their answer. It's not them.
Trump should seize on the narrative of his supposed opponents. He is unquestionably being given objectively poor political counsel by his aides!not surprising how utterly incompetent the Republican Establishment is when it comes to political strategy. [ Steve Bannon: We Need A Review After This Alabama Race To See How Trump Came To Endorse Someone Like Luther Strange , by Allahpundit, Hot Air, September 26, 2017]
Tellingly, Trump in his messy intuitive way is already embarking on a movement to shore up his base by taking on the pro-Black Lives Matter and anti-American antics of the National Football League [ Trump's N.F.L. Critique a Calculated Attempt to Shore Up His Base , by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, September 25, 2017]. But such symbolic fights are meaningless unless they are coupled with real action on trade and immigration policy.
Today, those who defeated Trump in the Republican army are still proclaiming their loyalty to their Commander-in-Chief. But Donald Trump, memes aside, is not a sovereign or just a symbol. He is a man who created a political movement!and that movement expects results. The movement he created, and which put him in office, is desperate for him to lead on an America First agenda.
If Trump does not give it results, the movement will eventually find a new leader. Roy Moore is almost certainly not that leader on a national scale. But in Alabama tonight, Moore proved he is stronger than the president himself.
Trump has given the Establishment Republicans their chance and they have failed him. It's time for him to return to the people who have supported him from the very beginning.
James Kirkpatrick [ Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc.
Parsifal > , September 27, 2017 at 7:44 am GMT
Realist > , September 27, 2017 at 8:13 am GMTLook people, it's time to grasp some basic politics. The heart might have said Roy Moore but a leader can not think with his heart alone. Whatever happened in the GOP primary, Luther Strange was going to remain in the Senate until January. There are big, important votes coming up in Congress and Trump's margin of error in the Senate is virtually non-existent. What sense does it make to alienate, even slight, a sitting Senator that has always voted your way and has never trashed you in public?
Randal > , September 27, 2017 at 9:20 am GMTMoore's victory means nothing. If Moore is elected it will change nothing. The Deep State rules .they will eat Moore for lunch.
"Trump has given the Establishment Republicans their chance and they have failed him."
Trump has caved to the Establishment Republicans. He will never return.
Greg Bacon > , Website September 27, 2017 at 9:28 am GMTAll seems pretty much directly on target.
It's hardly a devastating defeat for President Trump when his supposed enemies are fanatically loyal to him and his "allies" can't wait to stab him in the back.
As a man who supposedly highly values personal loyalty, does Trump really not understand that the men who pushed him to support Strange are also the men who will be first in line to vote for impeachment the moment it looks as though the leftist establishment has found a pretext that will succeed?
WhiteWolf > , September 27, 2017 at 9:41 am GMTLike Bannon said, the Trump people voted for is gone. If he was ever around, or just being smart enough to know what to say to get votes.
President Kushner, er Trump will not be draining any Swamp anytime soon, not until he drags himself out of the Swamp and back onto sane, dry land.
The movement better start paying attention to the thoughtcrime laws being passed right now under the banner of "hatespeech". The first amendment isn't just a nice concept. People in other countries are jailed for speaking their mind in the way Americans take for granted.
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Sep 27, 2017 | nationalinterest.org
...Steve Bannon told me Wednesday afternoon that he and Moore, who defeated Sen. Luther Strange (whom President Trump had backed) for the Republican primary nomination in Alabama on Tuesday, see eye to eye on global affairs, as well, and that, yes, he is every bit the Bannonite on foreign policy.
Moore, the twice-ousted Alabama Chief Justice, is likely headed to the United States Senate. Bannon and the Trump movement have often been depicted as essentially non-interventionist. My recent reporting indicates a caveat to that, however. While Bannon and his cohort might differ with the blob on confronting Kim Jong Un in North Korea or Bashar al-Assad in Syria or Vladimir Putin in Russia, they are much more suspicious of the government of Iran. ...
... ... ...
The judges website, Roymoore.org, features such language. We should not be entangled in foreign wars merely at the whim and caprice of a President, Moore writes on his site. We must treat sovereign nations as we would want to be treated.
But there are notable divergences from the paleocons. Like Bannon, Moore is a hawk for Israel. We should pass the Taylor Force Act and move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. His writing that the U.S. should not rely on nuclear reduction treaties which leave us vulnerable to foreign powers and that it should reject agreements or policies that undermine Israel's security clearly alludes to the Iran deal. The pair would part company with Buchanan on that.
And like President Trump, Moore, a graduate of West Point, wants a bigger military. More funding should be available to develop a missile defense system and to provide our Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines, and Coast Guard with the most modern technology including weapon systems. Respect for our strength is the best defense. Walk softly and carry a big stick is and should be our guide.
... ... ...
It's too early to tell whether the nationalist hawks will be more or less interventionist overall than the internationalist, neocon hawks were, Daniel McCarthy, editor-at-large at the American Conservative , tells me. My guess is that while the nationalists will speak more provocatively, abort diplomatic agreements, and ramp up `political warfare, they'll engage in fewer large-scale, nation-building interventions. McCarthy adds that religion is important here, as well. Moore and Bannon are both on record as deeply religious. Neoconservative foreign policy is sold as a scheme for secular salvation, bringing the blessings of liberalism and democracy and human rights to a world that eagerly awaits them, says McCarthy. Moore's religious convictions might help to immunize him against a belief in worldly salvation through American arms and advisers...
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter: @CurtMills.
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get=
Republished from VDare.com
Throughout 2016, I would occasionally turn on the television to see how the punditocracy was responding to the mounting Trump tsunami . If you get most of your news online, watching cable news is frustrating. The commentary is so dumbed down and painfully reflective of speaker's biases, you can always basically guess what's coming next. With a few exceptions!above all Ann Coulter 's famous June 19, 2015 prediction of a Trump victory on Bill Maher !these pundits again and again told us that Trump would eventually go away, first after he made this or that gaffe, then after he "failed" in a debate, then after people actually started voting in the primaries.
Finally, after having been wrong at every point during the primaries, they just as confidently predicted that the Republican primary voter had foolishly done nothing more than assure that Hillary Clinton would be the next president.
The most interesting cases to me: the " Republican strategists ," brought on to CNN and MSNBC to give the audience the illusion that they were hearing both sides: Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Ana Navarro, Rick Wilson, Margaret Hoover, Todd Harris. Mike Murphy even convinced donors to hand him over $100 million to make Jeb Bush the next president! [ Jeb's 2016 departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , By Maeve Reston, February 22, 2016]
With campaigns and donors throwing money at these people, and the Main Stream Media touting them, it was easy to assume they must know what they were talking about. Significantly, each of these pundits was a national security hawk, center-right on economic issues, and just as horrified by " racism " and " sexism " as their Leftist counterparts . By a remarkable coincidence, the " strategic " advice that they gave to Republican candidates lined up perfectly with these positions. Their prominence was a mirage created by the fact that the MSM handed this token opposition the Megaphone because they did not challenge the core prejudices of the bipartisan Ruling Class.
And of course they were all humiliated in a spectacular fashion, November 8 being only the climax. Joshua Green begins his book Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by giving us a view inside the Trump campaign on election night, before tracing Steve Bannon's path up to that point. Reliving the journey is one of the joys of Green's work, which is mostly an intellectual biography of Steve Bannon, with a special focus on his relationship with Trump and the election.
Bannon joined the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016 without any previous experience in electoral politics. But like the candidate himself, the Breitbart editor showed that he understood the nature of American politics and the GOP base better than Establishment Republicans. The "strategists'" supposed "expertise," "strategic advice," and "analysis" was in reality built on a house of cards. (In fact, the Bannon-Trump view of the electorate is closer to the consensus among political scientists that, unlike more nationalist and populist policies, Republican Establishment positions have relatively little popular support. [ Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyon d | Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties, Voter Study Group, June 2017]).
One key example: Green recounts how after Obama's re-election, the GOP Establishment was eager to surrender on immigration, supporting the bipartisan Amnesty/ Immigration Surge Gang of Eight bill . GOP leaders had neutralized Fox News, leaving Breitbart.com, talk radio and guerilla websites like VDARE.com as the only resistance. But the bill died due to a grass-roots revolt, partly inspired by Breitbart's reporting on the flood of Central American "child" refugees t he Obama Regime was allowing across the southern border. GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his congressional seat in a shock upset in the primaries. And little over a year later, Donald Trump became a candidate for president with opposition to illegal immigration as his signature issue.
Bannon at Breitbart.com gave the Republican base what it wanted. Moral: in a democracy, you always have a chance at winning when public opinion (or at least intraparty opinion) is on your side.
Green traces Bannon's journey from his Irish-Catholic working-class roots and traditionalist upbringing, to his time in the Navy, at Harvard Business School and Goldman Sachs, and finally Breitbart.com and the pinnacle of American politics. The picture that emerges is of a man with principles and vigor, refusing to submit to the inertia that is part of the human condition, with enough confidence to realize that life is too short to not make major changes when staying on the current path is not going to allow him to accomplish his goals.
For example, Bannon originally wanted a career in defense policy, and took a job in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration. Yet he was off to Harvard Business School when he realized that the rigid bureaucracy that he was a part of would not let him move up to a high-level position until he was middle-aged. Decades later, after taking over his website upon the unexpected death of Andrew Breitbart in 2012, it would have been easy to go low-risk!sticking to Establishment scripts, making life comfortable for Republican elites, implicitly submitting to the taboos of the Left. Instead , he helped turn Breitbart News into a major voice of the populist tide that has been remaking center-right politics across the globe.
When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years."
From Green, we learn much about Bannon's intellectual influences. Surprisingly, although he was raised as a Roman Catholic and maintains that faith today, we find out that Bannon briefly practiced Zen Buddhism while in the Navy. There are other unusual influences that make appearances in the book, including Rightist philosopher Julius Evola and René Guénon, a French occultist who eventually became a Sufi Muslim. Although not exactly my cup of tea, such eccentric intellectual interests reflect a curious mind that refuses to restrict itself to fashionable influences.
It's incorrect to call Devil's Bargain a biography. There is practically no mention of Bannon's personal life!wives, children. I had to Google to find out that he has three daughters. His childhood is only discussed in the context of how it may have influenced his beliefs and political development.
Rather, we get information on Bannon's intellectual and career pursuits and his relationships with consequential figures such as mega-donor Robert Mercer, Andrew Breitbart and Donald Trump.
As Bannon exits the White House and returns to Breitbart, we must hope that Bannon and the movement he's helped to create accomplish enough in the future to inspire more complete biographies.
But the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules!for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final days.
Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [ Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017]
But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing.
In his memoir Nixon's White House Wars , Pat Buchanan writes about how, despite playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was mostly shut out of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our movement had exhibited real power in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and though we were
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was mostly shut out of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our movement had exhibited real power in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and though we were veterans of a victorious presidential campaign, few of us had served in the executive branch. We lacked titles, resumes, credentials Our pool of experienced public servants who could seamlessly move into top positions was miniscule compared to that of the liberal Democrats who had dominated the capital's politics since FDR arrived in 1933.
History repeated itself in 2016, when Donald Trump would win the presidency on a nationalist platform but find few qualified individuals who could reliably implement his agenda.
If nationalists want to ensure that their next generation of leaders is able to effectively implement the policies they run on, they are going to have to engage in the slow and tedious project of working their way up through powerful institutions.
Bannon may have been and remains an "outsider" to the political Establishment. But nonetheless, throughout his life he has leveraged elite institutions such as Harvard, Goldman Sachs, the Republican Party, and even Hollywood in order to become financially independent and free to pursue his political goals.
If enough of those on the Dissident Right forge a similar path, we can be sure that future nationalist political victories will be less hollow. Jeremy Cooper is a specialist in international politics and an observer of global trends. Follow him at @NeoNeoLiberal .
Clyde Wilson > , August 29, 2017 at 12:29 pm GMT
Jobless > , August 30, 2017 at 6:52 pm GMTIs there any evidence that Trump even tried to find the right people to fill the offices?
Clyde Wilson > , August 30, 2017 at 9:08 pm GMT@Clyde Wilson Is there any evidence that Trump even tried to find the right people to fill the offices? Having dabbled ever so slightly in this process in the spring, my impression is that there is a mechanism run largely by lawyers from the big DC law firms (presumably one for each party) who are the gatekeepers for applicants. The result of this system, which I have little doubt that the "Trump Team" did not try to take on (after all, they had only a couple of months to put together the beginnings of a team, and that left little or no time replacing The Swamp Machine ) is that the key positions throughout the administration are largely filled with lawyers from connected law firms. After all, who better to administer the government than lawyers!?!?
At any rate, my experience with the process was: on your marks, get set, nothing. 30 years experience in and around federal government, but not a lawyer. Don't call us, we don't want to talk to you. (I also made clear in my cover letter that the key motivator for my application -- and first ever political contributions -- was Trump and his agenda. In retrospect, this "admission" was probably a kiss of death. I was a Trumpite. Eeeewww!!! (I may well not have been qualified for anything, but I'm SURE I was disqualified by my support for Trump )
The triumph of the Swamp.
We have here perhaps the key to Trump's tragic failure. It was our last shot.
Sep 03, 2017 | www.unz.com
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Aug 30, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Today's struggle for 'America First' foreign policy on Capitol Hill.
Before the tragic events in Charlottesville on August 12th, President Donald Trump had received a deserved amount of scrutiny for his heated rhetoric pertaining to the North Korean nuclear issue. This recent swing in media coverage is regrettable, given that Trump's foreign policy statements and actions matter more, or should matter more, to Americans.More Americans (not to mention foreign civilians ) have been killed or wounded by American foreign policy interventionism since September 11, 2001, than by foreign-born terrorists white nationalists , and hate crimes combined. Sadly, underplaying the consequences of war overseas may be a good thing these days, since over-exposure has often yielded perverse incentives for interventionism, to which Trump has shown himself quite susceptible.
The need for new political incentives that reinforce President Trump's "America First" instincts has not been lost on his non-interventionist supporters. In an article for The American Conservative on June 26th, William Lind called for the creation of an "America First Caucus" to serve as a non-interventionist beachhead on Capitol Hill similar to how the "Military Reform Caucus" of the 1980s served as a congressional pressure point for effectiveness and efficiency in the defense budget. According to Lind, this caucus would provide support for the President when he took a non-interventionist course and criticize the President when he erred on the side of intervention. By adopting "America First" in its name, the caucus would insulate itself from neoconservative charges of being "weak" while simultaneously shielding itself ( in theory at least ) from criticism by the President.
So what would an America First Caucus on Capitol Hill look like? Unlike the "Military Reform Caucus" of the 1980s, which boasted a bipartisan membership of more than 130 at its height, Lind argues that an America First Caucus would need to be explicitly partisan (a "Republican anti-intervention caucus") and confined to non-interventionist conservatives on the grounds that a bipartisan caucus would be impractical in the current political climate. Although he did not identify specific congressmen, Lind presumably had Senator Rand Paul and Representatives Thomas Massie, Justin Amash, Walter Jones, and John "Jimmy" Duncan in mind as prime candidates for this caucus.
Which America First?
One immediate problem that the new America First Caucus would face would be how to define which brand of 'America First' anti-interventionism they would want to espouse. Would it mirror the philosophy of the namesake of the America First Committee (AFC) of 1940-1941? Or would it use the updated version used by the Trump Administration? Given that the current administration has adopted policies , and is considering additional policies that conflict with its own definition of 'America First,' it might be wiser for the new caucus to look to the original AFC for inspiration.
Founded on September 4,1940, the AFC was a bipartisan anti-interventionist movement opposed to American involvement in Europe during World War II which they saw as a continuation of the mindless bloodletting of World War I. In America First: The Battle Against Intervention 1940-1941 (1953), Wayne Cole identified four founding principles and four objectives of the AFC (listed below).
Principles:
The United States must build an impregnable defense for America. No foreign power, nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America. American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war. "Aid short of war" weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad.Objectives:
To bring together all Americans, regardless of possible differences on other matters, who see eye-to-eye on these principles. (This does not include Nazists, Fascists, Communists, or members of other groups that place the interest of any other nation above those of our own country.) To urge Americans to keep their heads amid rising hysteria in times of crisis. To provide sane national leadership for the majority of the American people who want to keep out of the European war. To register this opinion with the President and with the Congress.What is perhaps most striking about the principles and objectives of the AFC is the extent to which it, with a minimal amount of updating, can be borrowed by non-interventionists today. Below is a modified list of these principles and objectives that an America First Caucus could use as a guiding charter.
Principles:
The United States must maintain an impregnable defense for America. No foreign power, nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America without incurring an unacceptably high cost for such an attack on itself. American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the next undeclared war of choice. "Meddling short of war" weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad." The only way to neutralize the threat Al-Qaeda and Daesh (ISIL) pose to the United States is through smart and effective diplomacy. This diplomacy must contain the following features: A withdrawal of all U.S. military forces from Islamic countries over the next three years, prioritizing cooperation with all foreign governments in lawfully undermining these organizations, and aggressively promoting nuclear non-proliferation in accordance to international law (i.e. without resorting to the use of military force or implying the use of military force).Objectives:
To bring together all Americans, regardless of possible differences on other matters, who see eye-to-eye on these principles. To urge Americans to keep their heads amid rising hysteria in times of crisis. To provide sane national leadership for the majority of the American people who want to keep out of the next undeclared war of choice. To register this opinion with the President and with the rest of our colleagues in Congress.What can realistically be accomplished?
What could an America First Caucus realistically accomplish? At first glance, not much. Its small size (initially no more than five or so members expected), partisan make up (all Republicans), and declining membership (Rep. Jimmy Duncan will not seek re-election in 2018) would make it difficult for its voice to be heard amid the cacophony of voices on Capitol Hill.
That said there are reasons to be optimistic. It would contain a former presidential candidate and prominent conservative U.S. Senator who occupies a seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Sen. Rand Paul), two House members on the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security (Rep. Justin Amash and Rep. Jimmy Duncan), two House members with military service (Rep. Walter Jones and Rep. Jimmy Duncan), one House member on the Committee on Armed Services (Rep. Walter Jones), one House member that is not up for re-election and thus has nothing to lose (Rep. Jimmy Duncan), and one House member who is an all-around non-interventionist anchor (Rep. Thomas Massie).
Another reason for optimism is that it would be the only caucus of its kind on the Hill pushing this message. That message, that the lives of American service members are not cheap and that America should practice nation-building at home instead of intervening abroad, is popular. The voters who bore the human cost of American interventionism put Trump in the White House.
There are several courses of action the caucus could take that would stand a reasonable chance of succeeding. These actions could also create new political incentives in Washington that discourage interventionism.
The first would be to introduce or support existing legislation that would repeal both the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (AUMFs). Support for repealing the 2001 AUMF is growing within the 115th Congress and the 2002 AUMF has its share of bipartisan critics . Yet these congressional misgivings have not translated into an organized opposition. An America First Caucus would provide this while also lending a distinctly non-interventionist voice to those who simply wish to replace these AUMFs with new ones that are not necessary to protect the country (i.e. let Syria, Iran, Russia, and Turkey fight ISIL in Syria and let Iraq and Iran fight ISIL in Iraq).
The second would be to introduce a resolution in the House re-establishing the tradition of reading George Washington's Farewell Address in the House at the beginning of every new session of Congress. Unlike the Senate, which currently holds to this tradition, the House discarded this tradition in 1979. Although a symbolic move, it would nevertheless bring attention to the broader non-interventionist message by making the America First Caucus the public voice responsible for bringing back this otherwise uncontroversial and bipartisan tradition.
A third course of action would be to introduce legislation amending the National Security Act of 1947 and renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War. In his inaugural address Trump noted that the U.S. "defended other nation's borders while refusing to defend our own." By pushing for this name change, the America First Caucus would force a public conversation regarding whether our foreign and defense policy is really "defensive" in nature.
Lastly, the America First Caucus would provide a congressional forum where deviant foreign policy views such as non-interventionism and intelligent diplomacy can be heard, expressed, and debated. This would include providing a congressional audience to like-minded advocates, policy practitioners, and scholars.
Challenges
Carrying the non-interventionist banner and keeping Trump accountable would not be easy. Republicans railed against the Obama Administration's foreign policy for eight years on the grounds that it was not sufficiently belligerent in rhetoric or in action. Trump shares this sentiment and seems intent on conducting his foreign policy in a way that highlights the contrast in bellicosity between himself and Obama. Although this bellicosity has been largely confined to the diplomatic sphere, the president's announcement last week regarding Afghanistan, along with his ordered attacks on the Syrian government back in April, shows that he is willing to convert these sentiments into action.
Where this bellicosity could turn into a real shooting war would be with Iran. Trump seems intent on undermining the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama Administration. His hostility to the agreement, and to Iran in general, is shared by both parties, particularly his "never Trump" Republican detractors. Terminating the Iran deal would accomplish three things. First, it would immediately unite an otherwise fractured GOP in Congress behind the president. Second, it would immediately isolate the U.S. from the rest of the international community and expose American non-proliferation efforts as having been conducted in bad faith. Lastly, it would pave the way for a shooting war with Iran which a GOP-controlled Congress would support.
Compounding this problem further is that none of the individual members of an America First Caucus supported the Iran nuclear deal (albeit for different and less belligerent reasons). An America First Caucus might not be able to alter the political incentives for Trump regarding the Iran nuclear deal. Then again, it might not have to. If the caucus can highlight an issue where Trump can both secure a political "win" and pivot back to his domestic agenda!such as withdrawing U.S. military personnel from most of its overseas bases and using the savings to pass a Trump-endorsed transportation bill!it might be sufficient to redirect the president's attention away from Iran. This would give those who are more favorably disposed to the Iran nuclear deal in the administration Capitol Hill , and the Beltway time to convince the president that undoing the deal is more work than it is worth.
Given the lack of major legislative accomplishments, and the likelihood that tax and immigration reform proposals would meet the same fate as the recent healthcare bill, Trump is more likely to secure a political "win" in the realm that past presidents have retreated to when their domestic agendas are stymied by Congress: foreign policy. These perverse political incentives towards interventionism, particularly as they pertain to Iran, will be the most difficult challenge facing an America First Caucus.
With the departure of Steve Bannon from the White House and the administration opting to deploy more American forces to Afghanistan, the need for a new set of political incentives towards non-interventionism has never been greater. Trump was elected because the American electorate believed he, and not Hillary Clinton, would put the well-being of Americans first. It is time members of Congress stand up and hold him to that promise.
Jonathan Tkachuk is a former congressional staffer for a House Republican. He has a M.A. in Diplomacy (Counter-Terrorism) from Norwich University.
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Aug 26, 2017 | www.globalpolicyjournal.com
In its aftermath, commentators warned of a resurgence of economic nationalism, that is, protectionism. Some states did increase tariff levels but this has not led to a generalised increase in barriers to trade in the pursuit of national economies for interrelated reasons: (1) the integration and therefore interdependency of economies; (2) the complexity of the global economy, making it all but impossible to separate by nationality; (3) the greater extensity of world markets compared to the mid-20th century; (4) the redundancy of the various models of economic nationalism.
Policy Implications
- Economic nationalism should be understood as a set of practices to create, bolster and protect national economies in the context of world markets. The rise and institutionalisation of economic nationalism in the 20th century was a product of economic crisis, nationalist movements and enlarged states.
- There has been no 'return of economic nationalism' as in a generalised rise in protective barriers to trade since the financial crash of 2011. Unlike the 1930s, sovereign debt has not motivated states to withdraw from global markets.
- The integration, complexity and extensity of the world's economy mean that a reversal of trade as great as during the interwar period would entail an economic Armageddon. Whatever future ructions the world's economy experiences due, above all, to chronic levels of sovereign debt, policy makers should be mindful of this reality.
- Simultaneously, they should be aware that ongoing instability may entail greater economic nationalism. The key lesson from the period after the Second World War is relevant now at a more overtly global level: the importance of planning, regulation and respect for models of economic diversity to further global trade.
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Aug 26, 2017 | voxday.blogspot.com
TL;DR: The Alt Right is a Western ideology that believes in science, history, reality, and the right of a genetic nation to exist and govern itself in its own interests.
- The Alt Right is of the political right in both the American and the European sense of the term. Socialists are not Alt Right. Progressives are not Alt Right. Liberals are not Alt Right. Communists, Marxists, Marxians, cultural Marxists, and neocons are not Alt Right. National Socialists are not Alt Right.
- The Alt Right is an ALTERNATIVE to the mainstream conservative movement in the USA that is nominally encapsulated by Russel Kirk's 10 Conservative Principles , but in reality has devolved towards progressivism. It is also an alternative to libertarianism.
- The Alt Right is not a defensive attitude and rejects the concept of noble and principled defeat. It is a forward-thinking philosophy of offense, in every sense of that term. The Alt Right believes in victory through persistence and remaining in harmony with science, reality, cultural tradition, and the lessons of history.
- The Alt Right believes Western civilization is the pinnacle of human achievement and supports its three foundational pillars: Christianity, the European nations, and the Graeco-Roman legacy.
- The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration.
- The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals or globalist objectives.
- The Alt Right is anti-equalitarian. It rejects the idea of equality for the same reason it rejects the ideas of unicorns and leprechauns, noting that human equality does not exist in any observable scientific, legal, material, intellectual, sexual, or spiritual form.
- The Alt Right is scientodific. It presumptively accepts the current conclusions of the scientific method (scientody), while understanding a) these conclusions are liable to future revision, b) that scientistry is susceptible to corruption, and c) that the so-called scientific consensus is not based on scientody, but democracy, and is therefore intrinsically unscientific.
- The Alt Right believes identity > culture > politics.
- The Alt Right is opposed to the rule or domination of any native ethnic group by another, particularly in the sovereign homelands of the dominated peoples. The Alt Right is opposed to any non-native ethnic group obtaining excessive influence in any society through nepotism, tribalism, or any other means.
- The Alt Right understands that diversity + proximity = war.
- The Alt Right doesn't care what you think of it.
- The Alt Right rejects international free trade and the free movement of peoples that free trade requires. The benefits of intranational free trade is not evidence for the benefits of international free trade.
- The Alt Right believes we must secure the existence of white people and a future for white children.
- The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people, or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native culture it prefers.
- The Alt Right is a philosophy that values peace among the various nations of the world and opposes wars to impose the values of one nation upon another as well as efforts to exterminate individual nations through war, genocide, immigration, or genetic assimilation.
The patron saint of conservatives, Russell Kirk, wrote: "The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal."
This is no longer true, assuming it ever was. The great line of demarcation in modern politics is now a division between men and women who believe that they are ultimately defined by their momentary opinions and those who believe they are ultimately defined by their genetic heritage. The Alt Right understands that the former will always lose to the latter in the end, because the former is subject to change.
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Aug 26, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
In my experience with the alt-right, I encountered a surprisingly common narrative: Alt-right supporters did not, for the most part, come from overtly racist families. Alt-right media platforms have actually been pushing this meme aggressively in recent months. Far from defending the ideas and institutions they inherited, the alt-right!which is overwhelmingly a movement of white millennials!forcefully condemns their parents' generation. They do so because they do not believe their parents are racist enoughIn an inverse of the left-wing protest movements of the 1960s, the youthful alt-right bitterly lambast the "boomers" for their lack of explicit ethnocentrism, their rejection of patriarchy, and their failure to maintain America's old demographic characteristics and racial hierarchy. In the alt-right's vision, even older conservatives are useless "cucks" who focus on tax policies and forcefully deny that they are driven by racial animus.
... ... ...
To complicate matters further, many people in the alt-right were radicalized while in college. Not only that, but the efforts to inoculate the next generation of America's social and economic leaders against racism were, in some cases, a catalyst for racist radicalization. Although academic seminars that explain the reality of white privilege may reduce feelings of prejudice among most young whites exposed to them, they have the opposite effect on other young whites. At this point we do not know what percentage of white college students react in such a way, but the number is high enough to warrant additional study.A final problem with contemporary discussions about racism is that they often remain rooted in outdated stereotypes. Our popular culture tends to define the racist as a toothless illiterate Klansman in rural Appalachia, or a bitter, angry urban skinhead reacting to limited social prospects. Thus, when a white nationalist movement arises that exhibits neither of these characteristics, people are taken by surprise.
George Hawley (@georgehawleyUA) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama. His books include Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism , White Voters in 21st Century America , and Making Sense of the Alt-Right (forthcoming).
Nate J , says: August 24, 2017 at 10:35 pm
It boggles my mind that the left, who were so effective at dominating the culture wars basically from the late 60s, cannot see the type of counter-culture they are creating. Your point about alt-righters opposing their parents drives this home.DonChi , says: August 25, 2017 at 5:17 amPeople have been left to drift in a sea of postmodernism without an anchor for far too long now, and they are grasping onto whatever seems sturdy. The alt-right, for its many faults, provides something compelling and firm to grab.
The left's big failure when all the dust settles will be seen as its inability to provide a coherent view of human nature and a positive, constructive, unifying message. They are now the side against everything – against reason, against tradition, against truth, against shared institutions and heritage and nationalism It's no wonder people are looking to be for something these days. People are sick of being atomized into smaller and smaller units, fostered by the left's new and now permanent quest to find new victim groups.
I'm disappointed to read an article at The American Conservative that fails to address the reality behind these numbers. Liberal identity politics creates an inherently adversarial arena, wherein white people are depicted as the enemy. That young whites should respond by gravitating toward identity politics themselves in not surprising, and it's a bit offensive to attribute this trend to the eternal mysteries of inexplicable "racist" hate.Nicholas , says: August 25, 2017 at 7:44 amThe young can see through the fake dynamic being depicted in the mainstream media, and unless The American Conservative wants to completely lose relevance, a light should be shone on the elephant in the room. For young white kids, The Culture Wars often present an existential threat, as Colin Flaherty shows in Don't Make the Black Kids Angry–endorsed and heralded as a troubling and important work by Thomas Sowell.
From the 16 Points of the Alt-Right:KD , says: August 25, 2017 at 9:15 am
5. The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration.
6. The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals or globalist objectives.It is important to remember that nations are people, not geography. The current American Union, enforced by imperial conquest, is a Multi-National empire. It has been held together by force and more recently by common, though not equal, material prosperity.
With the imposition of Globalism's exotic perversions and eroding economic prospects the American Union is heading for the same fate as all Multi-National empires before it.
Nation(Identity) > Culture > Politics.
Mysteriously absent from the scholarly discussion seems to be the pioneer of sociology, Ludwig Gumplowicz. Incredibly so, as the same factors that led to the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire abound in contemporary America.Steve , says: August 25, 2017 at 9:25 amI have two teenage sons – we live in Canada – and they tell that, no matter what they say, who they hang out with, what music they listen to, no matter how many times they demonstrate they are not racist, they are repeatedly called racist. They are automatically guilty because they are white. They are beaten over the head with this message in school and in the press and are sick and tired of it.Todd Pierce , says: August 25, 2017 at 10:48 amWhat might also be considered is the cultural effect upon a generation which has now matured through what the government calls "perpetual war," with the concomitant constant celebration of "warriors," hyper-patriotism as demanded of all public events such as shown in the fanaticism of baseball players engaged in "National Anthem standouts," such as were popular a couple years ago in MLB, the constant references in political campaigns to the "enemy," to include Russia as well now, and the "stab in the back" legend created to accuse anyone opposed to more war and occupation of "treason." We've "radicalized" our own youth, with Trump coming along with his links to Israel's ultra militarist, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli "Right," and created a cultural condition much like this: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/04/conservative-revolutionaries-fascism/Doc Broom , says: August 25, 2017 at 10:49 amOdd, you write "How did the youngest white Americans respond to the most racially polarizing election in recent memory?" In reality it was less racially polarized than 2012, when 93 % of African Americans and 71% of Hispanics voted for Obama while in 2016 88% of Blacks and 65% of Hispanics voted from Hillary. So Trump won a higher percentage of African American votes and Hispanic votes than Mitt Romney. In 2008 Obama won 95% of Blacks and 67% of Hispanics, in 2004 the numbers were 88 and 53 for Kerry so the three elections between 2004 and and 2016 were all more polarizing than the 2016 race.Eric Mader , says: August 25, 2017 at 10:55 amYes, you make many important points, Mr. Hawley, but that you feel the need to join the chorus of those who see our president's reaction to Charlottesville as somehow inappropriate or even itself racist–that is sad. I don't see what else you may be implying in your opening paragraphs, since you move directly from the number of "likes" Obama's bromide received to this: "[Obama's reaction] also offered a stark contrast to that of President Trump."Todd Pierce , says: August 25, 2017 at 11:21 amIn spite of many liberals' frantic desire to read whatever they want into President Trump's words, he very clearly condemned the neo-Nazis and the evil of Heather Heyer's murderer. That he also condemned the violence coming from Antifa ranks does not lessen his condemnation of that coming from the alt right side. Rather, condemning the rising illiberalism on both sides of this growing conflict was both commendable and necessary.
Many Americans see these recent events in a context stretching back years. Myself, at fifty, having watched especially the steady empowerment of a demagogic left on our campuses, I'm not much surprised that a racist "white nationalist" movement should burst into flame at just this point. The kindling is right there in the anti-white, misandrous virulence of our SJW left.
Sane conservatives have strongly condemned the new alt-right racism. The problem is that we are not seeing anything similar from the left. Our left seems incapable of condemning, let alone even seeing , its own racist excesses. Which are everywhere in its discourse, especially in our humanities departments.
I would say that in the recent decades the American left has grown much more deeply invested in identity politics than the right has ever been during my lifetime. In my view, our left has grown more enamored of identity issues precisely because it has abandoned the bread and butter issues that really matter to most Americans.
I have many left-liberal friends and regularly read the left press. Surveying the reactions to Charlottesville and the rising conflict between alt-right extremists and a radicalized Antifa left, I see nowhere a step toward acknowledging the obvious: our rabid identity politics is by no means just a problem of the right.
Racial identity politics is a curse. Sadly, it seems we've been cursed by it well and and good. The poison's reaching down to the bone. Unless both smart moderates and people on the left start to recognize just how badly poisoned our left has been by this curse, no progress will be made. Identity politics needs to be condemned on both sides of this growing national street brawl, and it should start NOW.
But I'm afraid it's not going to happen. I see my friends on the left, and they're nowhere near acknowledging the problem. And I'm sad to see our president's attempt to call out both sides has gotten such negative reactions. I'm afraid this isn't going to end well.
Should read: "National Anthem standoffs," not "standouts."Siarlys Jenkins , says: August 25, 2017 at 11:29 amLiberal identity politics creates an inherently adversarial arena, wherein white people are depicted as the enemy. That young whites should respond by gravitating toward identity politics themselves in not surprisingCampNouidiote , says: August 25, 2017 at 11:34 amOne of many good reasons for rejecting "identity" politics generally.
A white friend attended a Cal State graduate program for counseling a couple of years ago; he left very bitter after all his classes told him that white men were the proximate cause of the world's misery. Then a mutual Latina friend from church invited him to coffee and told him that he was the white devil, the cause of her oppression. You can conclude how he felt.G. K. , says: August 25, 2017 at 11:39 amThe liberal universities' curricula has caused a storm of madness; they have unleashed their own form of oppressive thought on a significant portion on American society:white men. There is now an adverse reaction. Of course, even more opprobrium will be heaped upon on men who might question the illogicality of feminism and the left. How can all of this end well if the humanity of white men is denied in universities, public schools and universities?
The Alt Right simply believes that Western nations have a right to preserve their culture and heritage. Every normal man in these United States agreed with that premise prior to the Marxist takeover of our institutions in the 1960's. And you know it's true.Cornel Lencar , says: August 25, 2017 at 11:41 amMaybe at the bottom of it is not racism as in they are the wrong colour, but about cultural traits and patterns of behaviour that are stirring resentment. Plus maybe the inclusion towards more social benefits not available before (Obamacare?).Joe Beavers , says: August 25, 2017 at 11:50 amThe current rap music, as opposed to the initial one, that emphasized social injustice is such that one feels emptying his own stomach like sharks do.
The macho culture that black gangs, latin american gangs manifest is a bit antagonistic to white supremacists gangs and attitudes towards women. After all, vikings going raiding used to have shield maidens joining, and Celtic culture is full of women warriors. Northern European culture, harking back to pre-Christian times was more kinder to women than what women from southern Europe (Greece, Rome) experienced (total ownership by husbands, the veil, etc., all imported from the Middle East: but one must not judge too harshly, the book "Debt, the first 5000 years" could be an eye opener of the root causes of such attitudes).
Also, the lack of respect for human life expressed in these cultures is not that palatable, even for white supremacists (while one can point to Nazi Germany as an outlier – but there it was the state that promoted such attitudes, while in Japan the foreigner that is persecuted and ostracized could be the refugee from another village around Fukushima – see the Economist on that).
So I think there are many avenues to explore in identifying the rise in Alt right and white supremacists in the U.S. But colour is definitely not it.
Come now. There were the same types around me years ago at school, work, society. They just did not march around like Nazis in public, probably because the Greatest Generation would have kicked their butts.Jack V , says: August 25, 2017 at 12:17 pmNow, with the miracle of modern technology, a few hundred of them can get together and raise hell in one place. Plus they now get lots of encouraging internet press (and some discouraging).
A better article on this is:
http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/keillor-my-advice-be-genial-dont-take-lunacy-too-seriously/
This article says virtually nothing.KD , says: August 25, 2017 at 12:24 pm
The author fails to define his terms, beginning with Alt-Right.
And he seems to operate from a dislike of Trump underneath it all. This dislike is common among pundits, left and right, who consider themselves to be refined and cultured. So it was that the NYT's early condemnation of Trump led with complaints about his bearing and manners – "vulgar" was the word often used if memory serves.
This gets us nowhere. Many in the US are disturbed by the decline in their prospects with a decrease in share of wages in the national income ongoing since the 1970's – before Reagan who is blamed for it all. Add to that the 16 years of wars which have taken the lives of Trump supporters disproportionately and you have a real basis for grievances.
Racism seems to be a side show as does AntiFa.Richard McEvoy writes:Alex (the one that likes Ike) , says: August 25, 2017 at 12:36 pm"The accusation of being racist because you are white is a misunderstanding of structural racism."
I agree, but I notice that Jews have the same misunderstanding when you mention structural "Zionist Occupied Government" or "Jewish Privilege".
Perhaps because they are both conspiracy theories rooted in hatred and ignorance, which is where we descend when the concept of a statistical distribution or empirical data become "controversial", or "feelings" overtake "facts".
And progressives still refer to KKK when they seek an example of a white supremacist group. Amazing. They are too lazy even to learn that the Klan lost its relevance long ago, and the most powerful white supremacist organization of today consists of entirely different people, who are very far from being illiterate.haderondah , says: August 25, 2017 at 1:35 pm***
Todd Pierce,
Israel's ultra militarist, Benjamin Netanyahu
I won't deny that Bibi is a controversial figure, but calling him an ultra militarist is quite a bit of a stretch.
Elite sports. After reading this article and it's underlying thesis, it occurs to me that the way sports have evolved in this country is very likely to be the experience that millennial whites have had that fosters their "out group" belief systems. It is very common, using soccer as my frame of reference, for wealthy suburban families to spend a fortune getting their children all the best training and access to all the best clubs. Their children are usually the best players in their community of origin and usually the top players all the way through the preadolescent years only to find all of that money and prestige gone to waste once their kids get to around sixteen at which point their children are invariably replaced on the roster by a recent immigrant -- mainly from Africa or south of our border and usually at a cut rate compared to the one they are bleeding the suburban families with. I'm assuming this is becoming more common across all sports as they move toward a pay to play corporate model. In soccer, the white kids are, seriously, the paying customers who fill out the roster that supports the truly talented kids (from countries who know how to develop soccer talent.)sedric , says: August 25, 2017 at 8:20 pmThe thing is when blacks begin to feel power and a secure place in America then their true colors show-at least among many. Left unchecked they would become the biggest racists of all. You can see that now. So what it comes down to are white people going to give away their country? Until blacks become cooperative and productive things need to stay as they are. Sad maybe but that's just the way it has to be.vato_loco_frisco , says: August 25, 2017 at 8:18 pmThere have always been fringe, rightwing groups in the US. Nothing new there. But the so-called alt-right, comprised of Nazi wannabes and assorted peckerwoods, is truly the spawn of the looney left, whose obsession with race has created the toxic environment we find ourselves in.
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Aug 24, 2017 | www.breitbart.com
President Trump's former chief strategist and current Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon invited the editors of The Economist to his home for a candid discussion about the future of the populist economic nationalist movement and the civilizational challenges that will pit "the Judeo-Christian liberal West" against globalist "mercantilist" forces from China to Silicon Valley.Bannon openly acknowledged his animus for the "Party of Davos" editorial positions of The Economist , referring to them as "the enemy" of economic nationalism for their "radical" obsession with free trade at all costs.
He also affirmed his loyalty to Trump and his desire to help him. Breitbart "will never turn on [Trump]," Bannon said, "But we are never going to let him take a decision that hurts him."
Bannon acknowledged that in the White House he had "influence," but outside at Breitbart he has "power." He said he intends to use that power to "rally the base" and "have [Trump's] back. The harder he pushes, the more we will be there for him."
The discussion soon turned to what Bannon sees as the inevitable civilizational struggle between the Judeo-Christian classical liberalism of the West -- which affirms human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and self-governance -- versus the "mercantilist, Confucian system" of an ascendant China.
From The Economist :
Among the particular opponents he has in his sights, said Mr Bannon, seated in a dining-room decorated with Christian iconography and political mementos, are congressional Republicans ("Mitch McConnell, I'm going to light him up"), China ("Let's go screw up One Belt One Road") and "the elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street -- they're a bunch of globalists who have forgotten their fellow Americans." Despite his departure -- voluntarily, he insists, though his resignation is reported to have been demanded of him -- Mr Bannon says he will never attack his former boss. Yet Breitbart will caution Mr Trump to stick to the populist nationalist course Mr Bannon charted. "We will never turn on him. But we are never going to let him take a decision that hurts him." The website offered an early taste of this in its disparaging coverage of Mr Trump's "flip-flop" decision to send more American troops to Afghanistan, which was announced on August 21st and Mr Bannon strongly opposes (see article ).
As Mr Trump's campaign chief (his third in two months, the campaign having been roiled by scandals) Mr Bannon urged him to redouble that effort [to campaign on as a populist economic nationalist taking on the politically correct establishment]. "The American people understood his foibles and understood his character flaws and they didn't care," he says. "The country was thirsting for change and [Barack] Obama didn't give them enough. I said, we are going for a nationalist message, we are going to go barbarian, and we will win."
For Mr Bannon, who went from a working-class Virginian family to careers in Wall Street and Hollywood, those agreements epitomised the folly of globalisation, which he considers disastrous for American workers and avoidable. He hardened this critique after returning to America from a spell in Hong Kong; China, whose gaming of WTO rules Mr Bannon considers tantamount to an "economic war" against America, remains at the heart of it.
A zealous Catholic who believes in the inevitability of civilizational conflict, he considers China's growth to be an additional, overarching threat to America, which it must therefore dial back. "I want the world to look back in 100 years and say, their mercantilist, Confucian system lost. The Judeo-Christian liberal West won."
The president has, if not fixed intellectual differences with Mr Bannon, different predilections, including his slavish regard for the military and business elites now stocking his cabinet, whom his former adviser derides. ("What did the elites do?" asks Mr Bannon. "These are the guys who gave us happy talk on Iraq, who let China into the WTO and said it would sign up to the rules-based order.")
When some of Mr Bannon's early schemes failed -- including the shabbily planned travel ban, now snarled up in the courts -- Mr Trump turned increasingly to his more conventional advisers, including Mr Kushner and Mr McMaster.
On trade and security in particular, they have edged him towards the mainstream. Whereas Mr Bannon urged the president to withdraw from NAFTA and Afghanistan, for example, he has launched a modest-looking review of the former and will send more troops to the latter. Increasingly isolated, Mr Bannon's departure from the White House was predicted.
Read the rest here .
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www.defenddemocracy.press
'I'm not going to breathe the same air as that terrorist' Bannon boycotted Trump meet with 'terrorist' Abbas -- reportDays after his ouster from the White House, the extent of the animosity between divisive strategist Steve Bannon and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner is steadily emerging in US media reports, with an article in Vanity Fair detailing their disputes and asserting that Bannon is now planning his "revenge."
Bannon, a hero of the so-called "alt right" whose presence in the West Wing was controversial from the start, had become the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in a chaotic White House. During his six-month tenure as Trump's chief strategist, Bannon and Kushner reportedly clashed on numerous policy issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Hours after he was fired, Bannon returned to his previous job as editor of the ultra-conservative Breitbart News, where he declared war on Ivanka, Kushner and fellow "globalist" Gary Cohn.
The Vanity Fair article was headlined: "Steve Bannon readies his revenge: The war on Jared Kushner is about to go nuclear."
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"Jared and Ivanka helped push him out. They were concerned about how they were being viewed by the Jewish community," The Mail reported on Sunday.
Read more http://www.timesofisrael.com/bannon-boycotted-trumps-meeting-with-terrorist-abbas-report
SOURCE www.timesofisrael.com
- Trump Threatens Bannon With Ultimatum Over Kushner Rift:
- The fall of Steve Bannon is a win for the globalists. But
- The Temple Mount crisis ended Trump's Palestinian
- White House Shakeup? Rumors Swirl That Bannon / Priebus On
- Banish Bannon? Trump weighs his options as top aides feud
- Steve Bannon and his ideas
Commnets from Bannon boycotted Trump meet with 'terrorist' Abbas -- report The Times of Israel
Jossef Perl · Nahariyah, Hazafon, Israel Yes, this time it is Tamar Pileggi who gives us Time of Israel's typical Trump's blasting story quoting "Vanity Fair detailing their (i.e. Kushner vs. Bannon) disputes and asserting that Bannon is now planning his 'revenge."" If it comes from Vanity Fair that Bannon is planning a revenge (albeit without a single named source) it must be true right? But this is what the US fake news media has decended to, while the Israeli fake news media goes one step lower, just quoting the US fake media. Any 7 years old can see the that intent here continues to be to creat an impression that the Trump white is out of control and everything around Trum is falling apart. How can this kind of media continue to think the public believes a word from them? Tamar Pileggi, if all you do is quoting Vanity Fair, which is typical to the rest of the staff at TOI, why don't you all just include a link to the original articles in your TOI webpage? Who need all of you filling your paper by quoting other publications without any due diligence? How can you call yourselves journalists when all you do is cut and paste? Audrey Travis · Works at Music Teacher - Retired Perhaps, but 90% of the world knows nothing about the extreme violence of the ultra left Antifa and the fact the y brought and used weapons in Charlottesville. What Trump should have done was be explicit in the detailsof why he was condemning both side. His broadsided condemnation of both sides was the problem. Albert Reingewirtz · Works at Happily Retired He did not do any equivalence between two despicable gangs of mobsters. He talked about BOTH of their VIOLENCE. You listen too much to propaganda. The more they repeat the more people believe their lies. Steve Klein · Works at Self-Employed Albert Reingewirtz, do you believe there were "some very fine" people marching with the Nazis in Charlottesville? Like · Reply · 2 · Aug 21, 2017 5:17am Steve Klein · Works at Self-Employed 'Bannon: Mahmoud Abbas is a terrorist, I'd never meet with him'Ousted WH strategist Steve Bannon reportedly lobbied hard for Jerusalem embassy move, tougher line against PA - but was opposed by Kushner.
David Rosenberg, 21/08/17 11:23 (Israel National News)
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Aug 24, 2017 | www.breitbart.com
The "West Wing Democrats" in the White House are eager to sacrifice President Donald Trump's top campaign promise in exchange for Democratic approval of the tax cuts sought by wealthy donors and business interests, according to an article in Politico.In an August 23 article about Trump's push to get funding for an extended border wall, Politico described the lack of support for the wall among his business-affiliated aides:
Few staff members in the West Wing are as concerned about it [as the President], senior administration officials said.
Some in the White House have urged Trump not to focus as much on the wall, try to pass a clean debt-ceiling bill and move to tax reform. "You have barely anyone here saying, 'Wall, wall, we have to get the wall at all costs,'" one White House official said.
Two people who have spoken to Trump said he sees not building the wall as a personal embarrassment -- and that he has shown more interest in building the wall than in other issues, like the upcoming budget negotiations. "You don't want a government shutdown," the White House official said. "He is told that. He says, 'I want money for the wall.'"
The same emphasis on tax cuts for the elite before immigration reform for voters was also cited by Axios on August 20, in an article which claimed to explain why top staff chose to stay in the White House amid elite hatred of his populist, wage-boosting, pro-American priorities. Axios reported :
We talked to a half dozen senior administration officials, who range from dismayed but certain to stay, to disgusted and likely soon to leave. They all work closely with Trump and his senior team so, of course, wouldn't talk on the record. Instead, they agreed to let us distill their thinking/rationale:
"You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill": The most common response centers on the urgent importance of having smart, sane people around Trump to fight his worst impulses. If they weren't there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall.
"General Mattis needs us": Many talk about their reluctance to bolt on their friends and colleagues who are fighting the good fight to force better Trump behavior/decisions. They rightly point out that together, they have learned how to ignore Trump's rhetoric and, at times, collectively steer him to more conventional policy responses.
This situation leaves Trump dependent on a few aides -- such as immigration reformer Steve Miller -- and his supporters at his rallies to help fend off the insistent demands by his globalist aides for a back-room surrender of his presidential goals.
That surrender would help his aides win Democratic support for their goals -- but it would leave Trump with few friends heading into the 2018 midterm elections and the crucial 2020 reelection, says D.C. insiders. For example, the pro-American immigration reformers who backed Trump in the election fear his globalist aides will push Trump to accept and establish former President Barack Obama's DACA amnesty in exchange for minor concessions, such as a modest amount of funds to build a short distance of border wall.
"If [Trump's aides] are left to their own devices, they would exchange this for a few trinkets," so violating Trump's campaign promise before the 2018 and 2020 elections, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
The suggested deal was outlined in a Tuesday article by Anita Kumar, a reporter for the McClatchy news service. She uses the Democrats' term -- 'dreamers' – to describe the 800,000 DACA illegals as she wrote:
White House officials want Trump to strike an ambitious deal with Congress that offers Dreamers protection in exchange for legislation that pays for a border wall and more detention facilities, curbs legal immigration and implements E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to check immigration status, according to a half-dozen people familiar with situation, most involved with the negotiations.
The group includes former and current White House chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and John Kelly , the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump , and her husband, Jared Kushner , who both serve as presidential advisers, they said. Others who have not been as vocal publicly about their stance but are thought to agree include Vice President Mike Pence , who as a congressman worked on a failed immigration deal that called for citizenship, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, a Democrat who serves as director of the National Economic Council.
There is no evidence that Democrats will accept that ambitious deal before the 2018 election, and much evidence that Trump's aides will quickly give up wall funding and the popular RAISE Act to win Democratic support for tax cuts. So far, top Democrats have responded that they would not offer anything as they demand a permanent DACA amnesty.
However, Trump's determination to resist his aides is likely boosted by the cheering he gets at rallies when he promises to build the wall.
"We are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary," he told roughly 30,000 cheering supporters at an August 22 rally in Phoenix, Ariz. "The obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, believe me, [but] if we have to close down our government, we are building that wall We're going to have our wall. We're going to get our wall."
There you have it, @realDonaldTrump -- Your own 30k focus-group. LIKE: deportations, a wall, jobs; DON'T LIKE: Media, Afghan War & tax cuts.
-- Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) August 23, 2017
Trump later thanked the crowd.
Phoenix crowd last night was amazing – a packed house. I love the Great State of Arizona. Not a fan of Jeff Flake, weak on crime & border --
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2017
Read the Axios article here , and the Politico article here .
Under current immigration policy, the federal government accepts 1 million legal immigrants each year, even though 4 million young Americans enter the workforce to look for decent jobs. Each year, the government also hands out almost 3 million short-term work permits to foreign workers. These permits include roughly 330,000 one-year OPT permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges, roughly 200,000 three-year H-1B visas for foreign white-collar professionals, and 400,000 two-year permits to DACA illegals.
The current annual flood of foreign labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up r eal estate prices , widens wealth-gaps , reduces high-tech investment , increases state and local tax burdens , hurts kids' schools and college education , pushes Americans away from high-tech careers , and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families.
Many polls show that Americans are very generous, they do welcome individual immigrants, and they do want to like the idea of immigration. But the polls also show that most Americans are increasingly worried that large-scale legal immigration will change their country and disadvantage themselves and their children. Trump's "Buy American, Hire American" policies are also extremely popular , including among Democratic-leaning voters.
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Aug 23, 2017 | www.wsj.com
The country is better off with him out of the West Wing, but now Trump has to step up.
After departing his post as White House chief strategist last week, Steve Bannon told the Weekly Standard that "the Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." The clear suggestion is that Mr. Trump's chance at success had followed Mr. Bannon out the door.
Trying to recast his ouster as a personal choice, Mr. Bannon bragged "I can fight better on the outside." He promised "to crush the opposition," saying "I built a f! machine at Breitbart."
The former adviser also told a Bloomberg reporter he would be "going to war for Trump against his opponents!on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America."...
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Aug 21, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
His exit is a win for backers of a more traditional -- and interventionist -- U.S. foreign policy.
Stephen Bannon may have been a political adviser to President Donald Trump, but his firing Friday could have an impact on U.S. foreign policy from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. Bannon's exit clears an obstacle for backers of an active U.S. foreign policy in line with recent presidencies -- and is a resounding win for Bannon's internal rival, national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
Bannon was a regular participant in national security debates, often as an opponent of military action and a harsh critic of international bodies like the United Nations and the European Union.
He has also been a withering critic of diplomatic, military and intelligence professionals -- "globalists" he says have repeatedly shown bad judgment, particularly when it comes to U.S. military interventions abroad. That put him at loggerheads with Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as McMaster.
"If you look at the balance of power of isolationists versus internationalists in the White House now, it seems safe to say that the pendulum has swung towards the internationalists," said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Though Bannon has not described himself as an "isolationist," he has proudly adopted Trump's "America First" motto, which he says argues for spending less blood and treasure overseas for anything less than America's most vital interests.
He has also alarmed European leaders with his criticism of the E.U. and his expressed support for some European nationalist movements. Bannon actively backed Great Britain's 2016 "Brexit" from the E.U. and introduced Trump to its chief political advocate, the populist British politician Nigel Farage.
"Our European allies are happy about Bannon's departure," said Jorge Benitez, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council.
In the immediate term, foreign policy insiders agreed, Bannon's departure also could increase the chances of a U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan -- a plan championed by McMaster but strongly opposed by Bannon, who managed to draw out debate on the issue with direct appeals to Trump.
More generally, it will remove an internal brake on U.S. military action abroad. Bannon has argued greater U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria and was among the few White House officials to oppose President Donald Trump's early-April missile strike in Syria.
Bannon is not totally conflict averse: He calls for a far stronger U.S. posture against China and has warned that war with Beijing could be inevitable. But he pressed Trump to take economic, not military action against Beijing.
And on Wednesday, Bannon told the American Prospect magazine that there is "no military solution" to Trump's standoff with North Korea -- undermining the president's recent military threats against that country, and echoing China's view of the situation.
Beyond the policy realm, Bannon's exit is a clear victory for national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who at times seemed to be in zero-sum struggle with the Trump adviser for power and influence in the White House.
Foreign policy veterans were startled when, in early February, Trump designated Bannon as a member of the National Security Council's elite principals committee -- calling it unprecedented for a White House political adviser to have a reserved seat at the table for life-and-death debates.
McMaster stripped Bannon of his official NSC position in April, after succeeding the ousted Michael Flynn -- a Bannon ally -- as national security adviser. Bannon continued to attend NSC meetings and debates about foreign policy in the Oval Office. But Bannon resented McMaster for demoting him, and for purging several Flynn allies from the NSC.
Bannon and McMaster also sharply differed on how Trump should discuss terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda. Bannon favors using the phrase "radical Islamic extremism," but McMaster has largely prevented Trump from saying it in public on the grounds that it could alienate moderate Muslims who hear it as an attack on their religion.
McMaster's defenders have accused Bannon of spearheading a campaign of leaks meant to undermine the top national security aide.
"The campaign to get him out was clearly coming from Bannon or his allies," said Brian McKeon, a former NSC chief of staff and senior Pentagon policy official in the Obama administration. "The national security adviser's job is hard enough without having to always look over your shoulder to see who's trying to knife you.
"This will make McMaster's days a little easier," he added.
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
Get Your Free Daily Newsletter You can't buy your way onto these pagesLikely to share McMaster's satisfaction at Bannon's ouster is Tillerson, who chafed at Bannon's role in State Department personnel decisions. Speaking to the American Prospect this week, Bannon boasted that he was working to remove Tillerson's top official for China and East Asia.
"I'm getting Susan Thornton out at State," Bannon said in the interview.
In a pointed show of support the next morning, Tillerson shook Thornton's hand in front of television cameras.
And when Tillerson recommended in February that Trump nominate former Reagan and George W. Bush administration official Elliott Abrams to be his deputy, Bannon intervened to block the choice, according to Abrams.
"Bannon's departure probably means a return to normalcy, where the State and Defense Departments will have greater influence on foreign policy," Abrams said.
Bannon also told the Prospect that he was "changing out people" on the Pentagon's China desk. Mattis, too, has had personnel disputes with the White House.
"Anything that Tillerson and Mattis really push for will now have a better chance of winning out -- for better and for worse," Abrams added.
Abrams and others said that Bannon's exit makes it more likely that McMaster and Mattis will convince Trump to send more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the subject of a meeting among Trump and his national security team at Camp David today.
Some sources downplayed the significance of Bannon's departure, however -- noting that, on military and diplomatic issues, Bannon was more dissenter than policy maker.
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security aide to former President Barack Obama, said Bannon's main contributions was his backing for Trump's early executive orders restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries. Bannon was also a defender of his friend and ally Sebastian Gorka, a controversial White House adviser who often appears on television.
"On national security, it was hard to see Bannon's influence anywhere other than the Muslim ban and Gorka doing cable hits, so I don't think it changes that much," Rhodes said, adding: "It does suggest a greater likelihood of a troop increase in Afghanistan."
And several sources cautioned that while Bannon may not longer occupy the White House, his worldview is still frequently reflected in the words of the most powerful policymaker of all: President Trump.
European allies "will not be popping champagne corks because their main source of worry remains in the White House, Donald Trump," Benitez said. "Most Europeans blame Trump personally rather than Bannon or other subordinates for damaging transatlantic relations."
"The president gets the last vote," McKeon added. "And he has a different approach to foreign policy than all his predecessors."
Eliana Johnson contributed reporting
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As long as there is disagreement there is hope for compromise and moderation. If everyone in the Executive branch were in agreement, there would be no hope for moderation..DrS · 6 hours agoOur 'dear' leaders are NOT in control. North Korea ia a distraction as is Trump. Examine the military buildup by Nsto against Russia. Time for Germany, Russia and China to work together militarily for harmony/peace in our world.andrewboston · 4 hours agoGod help us when Bannon is the voice of reason ......Bill Malcolm · 4 hours ago330 million people and a bunch of nutbars in charge of the place, very few of whom have ever had a vote cast for them in any election, Trump being the exception. Some guy like Bannon sits around formulating a wanker worldview and somehow gains power for seven months. I don't suppose the EU gives a tinker's damn that he dislikes it, it's none of his business. Fulminating on it just exposes his acceptance of Imperial America, muttering threats because in his blinkered mind that's not the way the US would have organized Europe - I am unaware that anyone with a brain regards Bannon as an intellectual, merely a weirdo. Then you have all these generals running around thinking they're political geniuses or something, all unelected bozos with little exposure to real life. Giving and taking orders and salutes all around, living a regimented life - just the thing for running the civilian part of the USA.GivingUpOnTrump · 4 hours agoWhy is it that in the US you vote for dogcatchers, sheriffs and judges which no other country bothers with, yet all these high cabinet posts are filled from unelected dorks out there who somehow got noticed, picked by the president, nominated and agreed to by the Senate? The argument has been, well because they're specialists. So what - they're not responsible to the electorate in any direct manner. There's a fat chance that they are managerial competents if they are from the military, a big chance they have developed some warped theory about the world, and few of them are in the slightest bit interested in domestic politics as it relates to the average citizen. 50% of the budget goes to running the armed forces, by nature always measuring foreign "threats" as if diplomacy was a competition or something. The business types picked as cabinet secretaries are invariably from the big business side of the ledger and find foreigners annoying when they don't hand over their natural resources for next to nothing royalties, leading to the government bashing these foreigners over the head until they put someone in charge who sees the "light" and becomes a US ally.
It's a formula for bad government for the domestic population from beginning to end. So up ramps the patriotism to make the people keep the faith which many are happy to do, and then they crap all over the way other countries are organized, their food, customs and "only in America can a hobo be elected President" and there's no opportunity anywhere but in the USA memes. Mesmerized by their own propaganda into thinking the US is the best there is. Cough.
Tonight if Trump order more troops to Afghanistan, he'd put the last and hardest nail on his own coffin. I do not understand, how long Americans will let the Deep State win, making them sacrificial animals at the mercy of a perpetual power.
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Aug 21, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
Axios: that part of that war effort might include a brand new cable news network to the right of Fox News.Axios' Jonathan Swan hears Bannon has told friends he sees a massive opening to the right of Fox News , raising the possibility that he's going to start a network. Bannon's friends are speculating about whether it will be a standalone TV network, or online streaming only.
Before his death in May, Roger Ailes had sent word to Bannon that he wanted to start a channel together. Bannon loved the idea: He believes Fox is heading in a squishy, globalist direction as the Murdoch sons assume more power.
Now he has the means, motive and opportunity: His chief financial backer, Long Island hedge fund billionaire Bob Mercer, is ready to invest big in what's coming next, including a huge overseas expansion of Breitbart News. Of course, this new speculation comes after Bannon declared last Friday that he was " going to war" for Trump ...
" If there's any confusion out there, let me clear it up. I'm leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents... on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,
Meanwhile, with regard his internal adversaries , at the departments of State and Defense, who think the United States can enlist Beijing's aid on the North Korean standoff, and at Treasury and the National Economic Council who don't want to mess with the trading system, Bannon was ever harsher...
"Oh, they're wetting themselves," he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has big plans to marginalize their influence.
"That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying."
Finally, perhaps no one can summarize what Bannon has planned for the future than Bannon himself:
"The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over I feel jacked up Now I'm free. I've got my hands back on my weapons.
I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There's no doubt. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart. And now we're about to rev that machine up."
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Aug 20, 2017 | t-room.us
h | Aug 20, 2017 12:52:39 PM | 122
Francis @68 - Refreshing to read a comment by someone who obviously has made it her/his business to understand Trump and Team from the conservative perspective. Great comment and spot on IMHO.
For the record, Mr. Bannon gave notice on 8/7 to POTUS. As well, Mr. Bannon, when appointed to Trump's cabinet, stated for any who bothered to read/listen that he would accept under one condition, which was he'd be leaving the WH in eight months. Eight months brings us to 8/7. No one fired him. He is back at Breitbart as its Chairman.
Bannon's interview with the American Prospect last week was his shot across the proverbial bow aimed directly at the globalists who are determined to keep their march toward raping the world from all her resources aka the NWO/neocon/neolib mafia while fomenting more war(s).
Bannon with Mercer and et al backing (and I can make a pretty solid educated guess that there are others) have been developing a new media platform of some kind which will be launched in weeks not months (another educated guess). Sinclair broadcasting has been mentioned on other conservative platforms as getting ready to make a move of some kind as well.
As Breitbart's editor wrote on Friday following the Bannon announcement - "WAR" - is unequivocally that sites way of saying the Swamp in DC is going to be drained. Indeed, Trump and Team have already begun to roll out their 2018 election strategy.
Any who hold the belief that Trump is stupid, naive, or whatever derogatory statement conjured up is just plain wrong and shouldn't be taken seriously by any here who know better.
Trump is a businessman. Trump is not a politician. And he certainly wasn't elected to serve as America's grandpa-he ain't gonna hold your hand...ever.
If you are unaware of the current round of NAFTA negotiations, now in its fourth day, w/Canada and Mexico OR if you are unaware that on Friday the Trump administration formally launched a Section 301 Trade investigation into China's trading practices, then you are not paying attention to what the right hand is doing.
There is always much going on behind all of the noise the insufferable Left makes on a daily basis. Apparently, they don't want you to know about any of the plethora of Executive Orders signed, the roll back of regulations zero and czars put in place, the trade negotiations and so, so much more.
On the other hand, conservative sites are all over the blogosphere report daily what this administration is doing and how it is succeeding. Bannon remains a phone call away.
Oh, and btw, it was Kushner and his data operation who carried Trump over the finish line not Bannon and his policy positions.
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Aug 20, 2017 | www.msn.com
Mr. Bannon's disdain for General McMaster also accelerated his demise. The war veteran has never quite clicked with the president, but other West Wing staff members recoiled at a series of smears against General McMaster by internet allies of Mr. Bannon.
The strategist denied involvement, but he also did not speak out against them.
By the time Charlottesville erupted, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump had a powerful ally in Mr. Kelly, who shared their belief that Mr. Trump's first statement blaming "many sides" for the deadly violence needed to be amended.
Mr. Bannon vigorously objected. He told Mr. Kelly that if Mr. Trump delivered a second, more contrite statement it would do him no good, with either the public or the Washington press corps, which he denigrated as a "Pretorian guard" protecting the Democrats' consensus that Mr. Trump is a race-baiting demagogue. Mr. Trump could grovel, beg for forgiveness, even get down on his knees; it would never work, Mr. Bannon maintained.
"They're going to say two things: It's too late and it's not enough," Mr. Bannon told Mr. Kelly.
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Aug 20, 2017 | dailycaller.com
The first earlier in the day was " Report: Powerful GOP Donor Sheldon Adelson Supports Campaign to Oust McMaster ." This article detailed how major Republican donor Sheldon Adelson reportedly is supporting a campaign against McMaster that claims the national security adviser is anti-Israel.
Later in the day, the lead story on the site was " McMaster Of Disguise: Nat'l Security Adviser Endorsed Book That Advocates Quran-Kissing Apology Ceremonies ." This piece from frequent McMaster critic Aaron Klein said that McMaster endorsed a book that "calls on the U.S. military to respond to any 'desecrations' of the Quran by service members with an apology ceremony, and advocates kissing a new copy of the Quran before presenting the Islamic text to the local Muslim public."
The article went on to say that McMaster has "troubling views" on Islamic terrorism.
The site also published two articles Sunday critical of Ivanka. One of them is an aggregate of a Daily Mail report that claimed Ivanka helped push Bannon out of the White House. Shortly after the story was published, the article received an update that said a White House senior aide stated the Daily Mail report is "totally false."
Breitbart also wrote a piece that highlighted six times Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner's displeasure with President Trump had been leaked to the media.
Bannon said in interviews after his departure from the White House that he will use Breitbart to fight for the president's agenda.
"In many ways, I think I can be more effective fighting from the outside for the agenda President Trump ran on," Bannon told The New York Times . "And anyone who stands in our way, we will go to war with."
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Aug 18, 2017 | www.theguardian.com
jessthecrip , 18 Aug 2017 09:16
joey2000 -> jessthecrip , 18 Aug 2017 09:29Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country, regardless of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class.
So a billionaire like Trump, with Bannon's aid, does whatever he can to focus the disatisfaction of the population on people who have a different skin colour, rather than the vastly rich elites who have grabbed such a massive share of US wealth and power - and demand yet more
JerHig -> jessthecrip , 18 Aug 2017 09:36There's more to it than that. Its true that the white working class in America are the only group that the media feels it is acceptable to insult/denigrate. What was it Obama said - People in small towns clinging on to their religion & guns.
Must have gone down really well in those rustbelt towns where everyone is on oxycontin out of sheer despair. But hey, they're only rednecks so who cares right ?
MattSpanner -> Isomewhatagree , 18 Aug 2017 09:34Exactly, it's all about creating a group you can point to and say "at least you're not as bad off as them!"Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country, regardless of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class.
When your entire existence is predicated on 'at least I'm not the worst off' it becomes frightening when those who were previously 'worse off' start improving. But instead of improving themselves they try and bring the others down again.
asparagusnextleft -> MattSpanner , 18 Aug 2017 09:40That's what I don't get about the Nazis who turned up in Charlottsville: they chanted "Jews will not replace us" and also "we're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump". How can Nazis believe Trump is on their side when his daughter is married to a Jew? There are so many contradictions in this situation that I can't get my head around it.
Fwaffy -> BrokenLogic , 18 Aug 2017 09:34It's simple. They're fucking idiots.
MattSpanner -> Fwaffy , 18 Aug 2017 09:49It's remarkable isn't it, the man appears to be visibly decomposing. It's been suggested that the statue of Robert E Lee was his penultimate Horcrux.
therebythegrace -> MattSpanner , 18 Aug 2017 10:13He looks like an alchy.
Ravenblade -> Bjerkley , 18 Aug 2017 10:35Or Dorian Gray's picture. Maybe the more evil Trump gets, the worse Bannon looks?
tamborineman , 18 Aug 2017 09:27Someone has to lose out in a redistribution of anything, be it political power or wealth. I mention the white middle classes because they tend to the the keyboard warriors refusing to tackle the insecurities and concerns of the white working class, and simply resorting to calling them racist.
The white middle class has to walk the walk with respect of social justice. Due to the economics of it, multiculturalism has affected the working classes far more than the middle classes. As I say, I'm prepared for the consequences personally, but I wonder how many others would be.
Agree with your latter point and I'm sensitive to the fact that within class groups, minorities and women remain disadvantaged; I'm not saying we don't continue to look at that. But realistically, on an economic level, you're not going to get white working class men accepting that middle class minorities or women are disadvantaged compared to them, are you? The only reason this distinction doesn't seem to happen (class lines) is because most of the SJW contingent suddenly have to check an aspect of privilege they're unkeen to pay attention to.
Bjerkley -> tamborineman , 18 Aug 2017 09:31People may underestimate the populist element in Bannon's make up. As Scaramucci tells it, both he and Bannon had white middle class fathers who had played with a straight bat and had their retirement savings wiped out in 2008 and all that, while the fat cats were saved by Uncle Sam. Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there.
As to Bannon still in the job, I think LBJ's story about tents and which way the piss goes applies.
KeithNJ -> Bjerkley , 18 Aug 2017 09:54Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there.
As others have noted, given that both of them worked in finance/had some background in finance, it's odd that their fathers lost savings which could have been avoided (Bannon's father, for instance, only lost out because he sold his stock but it regained its value shortly afterwards, i.e. it was a bad financial decision). But as you say, its out there.
MattSpanner , 18 Aug 2017 09:28Indeed. If you held on through the crash you now have double the money you had in 2007.
There are some pretty basic retirement rules (60/40 equity to bonds or less, keep 2 years in cash) which if anyone followed would have resulted in no pain from the crash, just some anxiety.
If he got greedy, had 100% in equities and sold at the bottom of the market because he had not kept a cash cushion - well he cannot blame the Chinese for that.
Of course he was bitter before his son became a billionaire, but to still be bitter is more about character than the economy.
"In Bannon's view, we are in the midst of an existential war, and everything is a part of that conflict. Treaties must be torn up, enemies named, culture changed. Global conflagration, should it occur, would only prove the theory correct. For Bannon, the Fourth Turning has arrived. The Grey Champion, a messianic strongman figure, may have already emerged. The apocalypse is now.
"What we are witnessing," Bannon told The Washington Post last month, "is the birth of a new political order.""
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-apocalypse_us_5898f02ee4b040613138a951
...and along comes N.Korea and makes all Bannon's dreams come true.
richmanchester -> MattSpanner , 18 Aug 2017 09:34Dwaina Tembreull -> userforaday , 18 Aug 2017 09:54Though in Bannon's last interview he explicitly stated there was no military option available wrt North Korea.
An interesting interpretation of his behavior. I got the strong sense that Trump was hunkered down defensively and baring his teeth like a feral dog trapped in a corner.
jmad357 , 18 Aug 2017 17:53" and it has forged an indefatigable core of support that will stay with Trump through the next general election and beyond."
Except that atavistic and uneducated people can and will change their sense of allegiance on a dime or a whim and given the fact that Trump is not an ideologue but rather an unstable pathological narcissist and a bigot (versus espousing a coherent racist plan of action because he has a particular ideological agenda) there is no way to effectively predict what his actions will echo in that part of his base and therefore no way to predict what his base will do if Trump is untethered from Bannon. Trump is as likely to make a boneheaded deal with China that pleases Wall Street as he is to accidentally start a war. He is as likely to break his support as he is to cement it.
As Christopher Hitchens said:
"A feature, not just of the age of the end of ideology, but of the age immediately preceding the age of the end of ideology, is that of the dictator who has no ideology at all."
Trump is not Mussolini or Franco in that he is not a true believer though he is a bigot and clearly dictatorial. Trump is all expediency first and faith second even if he has consistently been a racist.
The second problematic issue is that if you assert that Axelrod and Rove "achieved" anything of lasting consequence then Axelrod could not have followed Rove and Bannon could not have followed Axelrod.
Unlike in France where the president serves far longer the reelection cycle here with its utterly corrupt need to raise massive amounts of cash which then forces candidates to constantly be in race mode (and effectively reduces the period of actual governance to around 18 months) has created a perpetually unstable and ineffective bureaucracy that has more in common with late Ottoman inefficiency than it does with a contemporary "modern" state.
With the exception of the military which at this point is a state unto itself the government is a paradox of being both omnipresent and nowhere and thus truly Kafkaesque...utterly opaque and completely visible at all times...
Further, there is this: "There's another reason why firing Bannon wouldn't be a huge loss: his work is largely done."
In fact, Trump has achieved nothing and done nothing of lasting change to the bureaucracy. In a sense it is analogous to the situation with North Korea where, despite Trump's pale Strangelove imitation it was noted in the media that the military had made no changes to its posture.
... ... ...
MasMaz , 18 Aug 2017 17:59The only time I have ever agreed with Bannon is that his analysis of the potential for N Korea to destroy S Korea with an artillery barrage. With about 12,000 artillery prices the North could launch somewhere around 50,000 shells per minute into Soul. Do the arithmetic for a 10 minute shelling. Any grandstanding by the US military is simply folly.
The left's focus on identity politics is the reason this Bannon chump is relevant at all. The switch in focus from class to race and gender has segmented the working class from the common struggle. A people divided. This is about the only strategic fact Bannon understands. But it is an important one.
Identity politics at its core is mostly untenable and while it might treat the symptoms of disease in the short run it will always collapse under the weight of its internal inconsistencies. The blind squirrel Bannon has found his nut. Continuing to assert that poor white men have it made is demonstrably false and offensive. And gives the alt-right plenty of tools to recruit.
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Aug 16, 2017 | prospect.org
You might think from recent press accounts that Steve Bannon is on the ropes and therefore behaving prudently. In the aftermath of events in Charlottesville, he is widely blamed for his boss's continuing indulgence of white supremacists. Allies of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster hold Bannon responsible for a campaign by Breitbart News, which Bannon once led, to vilify the security chief. Trump's defense of Bannon, at his Tuesday press conference, was tepid.But Bannon was in high spirits when he phoned me Tuesday afternoon to discuss the politics of taking a harder line with China, and minced no words describing his efforts to neutralize his rivals at the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury. "They're wetting themselves," he said, proceeding to detail how he would oust some of his opponents at State and Defense.
Needless to say, I was a little stunned to get an email from Bannon's assistant midday Tuesday, just as all hell was breaking loose once again about Charlottesville, saying that Bannon wished to meet with me.Needless to say, I was a little stunned to get an email from Bannon's assistant midday Tuesday, just as all hell was breaking loose once again about Charlottesville, saying that Bannon wished to meet with me. I'd just published a column on how China was profiting from the U.S.-North Korea nuclear brinkmanship, and it included some choice words about Bannon's boss.
"In Kim, Trump has met his match," I wrote. "The risk of two arrogant fools blundering into a nuclear exchange is more serious than at any time since October 1962." Maybe Bannon wanted to scream at me?
I told the assistant that I was on vacation, but I would be happy to speak by phone. Bannon promptly called.
Far from dressing me down for comparing Trump to Kim, he began, "It's a great honor to finally track you down. I've followed your writing for years and I think you and I are in the same boat when it comes to China. You absolutely nailed it."
"We're at economic war with China," he added. "It's in all their literature. They're not shy about saying what they're doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it's gonna be them if we go down this path. On Korea, they're just tapping us along. It's just a sideshow."
Bannon said he might consider a deal in which China got North Korea to freeze its nuclear buildup with verifiable inspections and the United States removed its troops from the peninsula, but such a deal seemed remote. Given that China is not likely to do much more on North Korea, and that the logic of mutually assured destruction was its own source of restraint, Bannon saw no reason not to proceed with tough trade sanctions against China.
Contrary to Trump's threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." Bannon went on to describe his battle inside the administration to take a harder line on China trade, and not to fall into a trap of wishful thinking in which complaints against China's trade practices now had to take a backseat to the hope that China, as honest broker, would help restrain Kim.
"To me," Bannon said, "the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover."
Bannon's plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. "We're going to run the tables on these guys. We've come to the conclusion that they're in an economic war and they're crushing us."
But what about his internal adversaries, at the departments of State and Defense, who think the United States can enlist Beijing's aid on the North Korean standoff, and at Treasury and the National Economic Council who don't want to mess with the trading system?
"Oh, they're wetting themselves," he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has big plans to marginalize their influence.
"I'm changing out people at East Asian Defense; I'm getting hawks in. I'm getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State."
But can Bannon really win that fight internally?
"That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying."
"We gotta do this. The president's default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don't get me wrong. It's like, every day."
Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration while building an outside coalition of trade hawks that includes left as well as right. Hence the phone call to me.
There are a couple of things that are startling about this premise. First, to the extent that most of the opponents of Bannon's China trade strategy are other Trump administration officials, it's not clear how reaching out to the left helps him. If anything, it gives his adversaries ammunition to characterize Bannon as unreliable or disloyal.
More puzzling is the fact that Bannon would phone a writer and editor of a progressive publication (the cover lines on whose first two issues after Trump's election were "Resisting Trump" and "Containing Trump") and assume that a possible convergence of views on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.
The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up. This is also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the press. He's probably the most media-savvy person in America.
I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of using Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump's base.
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
From his lips to Trump's ear.
"The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
I had never before spoken with Bannon. I came away from the conversation with a sense both of his savvy and his recklessness. The waters around him are rising, but he is going about his business of infighting, and attempting to cultivate improbable outside allies, to promote his China strategy. His enemies will do what they do.
Either the reports of the threats to Bannon's job are grossly exaggerated and leaked by his rivals, or he has decided not to change his routine and to go down fighting. Given Trump's impulsivity, neither Bannon nor Trump really has any idea from day to day whether Bannon is staying or going. He has survived earlier threats. So what the hell, damn the torpedoes.
The conversation ended with Bannon inviting me to the White House after Labor Day to continue the discussion of China and trade. We'll see if he's still there.
For ideas on how to counter the far-right agenda in the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville, click here .
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Aug 18, 2017 | www.nytimes.com
Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:19 AM
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-fire-steve-bannon-w498354
Fire Steve Bannon
The Trump administration's stubbly race warrior reminds us why he's so dangerous
By Matt Taibbi
21 hours agoThe list of nitwits in the Trump administration is long. Betsy DeVos, in charge of education issues, seems capable of losing at tic-tac-toe. Ben Carson thought the great pyramids of Egypt were grain warehouses. Rick Perry, merely in charge of the nation's nuclear arsenal, probably has post-it notes all over his office to remind him what things are: telephone, family photo, souvenir atomic-reactor paperweight, etc.
Lots of dunces, but chief strategist Steve Bannon, sadly, isn't one of them. The intellectual leader of the alt-right movement is no genius – nobody with his political views could be – but neither is he an idiot. He's one of the few people in that White House with even a primitive grasp of long-term strategy, which makes his impulsive-seeming decision to call The American Prospect this week curious.
In the interview, Bannon said there was "no military solution" to North Korea's posturing. He stressed his efforts to fight economic war with China, adding, in a Scaramuccian touch, that his intramural foes on that front were "wetting themselves."
When asked about the Charlottesville tragedy, Bannon called the neo-Nazi marchers "a collection of clowns." He also called them "losers" and a "fringe element."
This theoretically should be a dark time for Bannon, since Charlottesville reminded the whole world of his inexplicable and indefensible presence in the White House. The story has even the National Review howling for his dismissal.
But Prospect writer Robert Kuttner noted with surprise in his piece that Bannon seemed upbeat. He essentially told Kuttner he believed the Charlottesville mess and stories like it were a long-term political windfall for people like himself.
"The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," he said. "I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
...
Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:20 AMThe president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist.
Mr. Bannon had clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers and members of the president's family.
Trump Tells Aides He Has Decided to Remove Stephen Bannon https://nyti.ms/2vKGSNG
NYT - MAGGIE HABERMAN - August 18
President Trump has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled White House chief strategist who helped Mr. Trump win the 2016 election, according to two administration officials briefed on the discussion.
The president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Mr. Bannon. The two administration officials cautioned that Mr. Trump is known to be averse to confrontation within his inner circle, and could decide to keep on Mr. Bannon for some time.
As of Friday morning, the two men were still discussing Mr. Bannon's future, the officials said. A person close to Mr. Bannon insisted the parting of ways was his idea, and that he had submitted his resignation to the president on Aug. 7, to be announced at the start of this week, but the move was delayed after the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Bannon had clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers and members of the president's family.
But the loss of Mr. Bannon, the right-wing nationalist who helped propel some of Mr. Trump's campaign promises into policy reality, raises the potential for the president to face criticism from the conservative news media base that supported him over the past year.
Mr. Bannon's many critics bore down after the violence in Charlottesville. Outraged over Mr. Trump's insistence that "both sides" were to blame for the violence that erupted at a white nationalist rally, leaving one woman dead, human rights activists demanded that the president fire so-called nationalists working in the West Wing. That group of hard-right populists in the White House is led by Mr. Bannon.
On Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York, Mr. Trump refused to guarantee Mr. Bannon's job security but defended him as "not a racist" and "a friend."
"We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon," Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Bannon's dismissal followed an Aug. 16 interview he initiated with a writer with whom he had never spoken, with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it, Mr. Bannon mockingly played down the American military threat to North Korea as nonsensical: "Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." ...
Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:37 AM
Trump on North Korea https://nyti.ms/2vI6smj
NYT - MARK LANDLER - August 17WASHINGTON -- For all his fire-breathing nationalism -- the demands to ban Muslims, build a wall on the Mexican border and honor statues of Confederate heroes -- Stephen K. Bannon has played another improbable role in the Trump White House: resident dove.
From Afghanistan and North Korea to Syria and Venezuela, Mr. Bannon, the president's chief strategist, has argued against making military threats or deploying American troops into foreign conflicts.
His views, delivered in a characteristically bomb-throwing style, have antagonized people across the administration, leaving Mr. Bannon isolated and in danger of losing his job. But they are thoroughly in keeping with his nationalist credo, and they have occasionally resonated with the person who matters most: President Trump.
Mr. Bannon's dovish tendencies spilled into view this week in unguarded comments he made about North Korea to a liberal publication, The American Prospect. Days after Mr. Trump threatened to rain "fire and fury" on the North Korean government if it did not curb its belligerent behavior, Mr. Bannon said, "There's no military solution here; they got us." ...
Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:43 AMThe casualties are not worth the little chance of blunting Kim.
Beside look: with all that money and training and so forth....DDG 62, an Aegis destroyer could not stay safe in peaceful water!
US can't poke ISIS out of Raqqa in 3 years, what would happen with 2 million soldier tough as VC?
+outside of Lemay/MacArthur nukes. Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 02:12 PM
"When asked about the Charlottesville tragedy, Bannon called the neo-Nazi marchers "a collection of clowns." He also called them "losers" and a "fringe element.""
Maybe that was it? Why would he call the Prospect? Did he think he was calling the American Conservative and it was off the record? Did he know he was out?
Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:45 AMStephen K. Bannon's exit was described in a White House statement as a mutual decision between Mr. Bannon and Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Critics of Mr. Bannon, a right-wing nationalist, bore down after the violence in Charlottesville.
Stephen Bannon Out at the White House After
Turbulent Run https://nyti.ms/2vKGSNGStephen K. Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Trump win the 2016 election but clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers, is leaving his post, a White House spokeswoman announced Friday.
"White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day," the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. "We are grateful for his service and wish him the best." ... Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 11:31 AM
What kind of talk doesn't threaten the money and power of the 0.1%?
What kind of talk do we get and from whom? Reply Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:55 AM
"The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill."
by Jake Johnson, staff writer
....................
"The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill," Warren said. "We're not going back to the days of being lukewarm on choice. We're not going back to the days when universal healthcare was something Democrats talked about on the campaign trail but were too chicken to fight for after they got elected.""And," Warren concluded, "we're not going back to the days when a Democrat who wanted to run for a seat in Washington first had to grovel on Wall Street."
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Aug 18, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
Christopher H. , August 18, 2017 at 01:24 PM
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/whither-Trump_vs_deep_state/Whither Trump_vs_deep_state?
by Paul Krugman
AUGUST 18, 2017 1:48 PM
Everyone seems to be reporting that Steve Bannon is out. I have no insights about the palace intrigue; and anyone who thinks Trump will become "presidential" now is an idiot. In particular, I very much doubt that the influence of white supremacists and neo-Nazis will wane.
What Bannon's exit might mean, however, is the end of even the pretense that Trumpist economic policy is anything different from standard Republicanism -- and I think giving up the pretense matters, at least a bit.
The basics of the U.S. economic debate are really very simple. The federal government, as often noted, is an insurance company with an army: aside from defense, its spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (plus some ACA subsidies).
Conservatives always claim that they want to make government smaller. But that means cutting these programs -- and what we know now, after the repeal debacle, is that people like all these programs, even the means-tested programs like Medicaid. Obama paid a large temporary price for making Medicaid/ACA bigger, paid for with taxes on the wealthy, but now that it's in place, voters hate the idea of taking it away.
So what's a tax-cutter to do? His agenda is fundamentally unpopular; how can it be sold?
One long-standing answer is to muddy the waters, and make elections about white resentment. That's been the strategy since Nixon, and Trump turned the dial up to 11. And they've won a lot of elections -- but never had the political capital to reverse the welfare state.
Another strategy is to invoke voodoo: to claim that taxes can be cut without spending cuts, because miracles will happen. That has sometimes worked as a political strategy, but overall it seems to have lost its punch. Kansas is a cautionary tale; and under Obama federal taxes on the top 1 percent basically went back up to pre-Reagan levels.
So what did Trump seem to offer that was new? First, during the campaign he combined racist appeals with claims that he wouldn't cut the safety net. This sounded as if he was offering a kind of herrenvolk welfare state: all the benefits you expect, but only for your kind of people.
Second, he offered economic nationalism: we were going to beat up on the Chinese, the Mexicans, somebody, make the Europeans pay tribute for defense, and that would provide the money for so much winning, you'd get tired of winning. Economic nonsense, but some voters believed it.
Where are we now? The herrenvolk welfare state never materialized, in part because Trump is too lazy to understand policy at all, and outsourced health care to the usual suspects. So Trumpcare turned out to be the same old Republican thing: slash benefits for the vulnerable to cut taxes for the rich. And it was desperately unpopular.
Meanwhile, things have moved very slowly on the economic nationalism front -- partly because a bit of reality struck, as export industries realized what was at stake and retailers and others balked at the notion of new import taxes. But also, there were very few actual voices for that policy with Trump's ear -- mainly Bannon, as far as I can tell.
So if Bannon is out, what's left? It's just reverse Robin Hood with extra racism. On real policy, in other words, Trump is now bankrupt.
But he does have the racism thing. And my prediction is that with Bannon and economic nationalism gone, he will eventually double down on that part even more. If anything, Trump_vs_deep_state is going to get even uglier, and Trump even less presidential (if such a thing is possible) now that he has fewer people pushing for trade wars.
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Aug 18, 2017 | therealnews.com
Remember Lieutenant-General Herbert Raymond McMaster? He was appointed as President Trump's national security adviser back in February. He was then moved quickly to contain the influence of chief strategist Steve Bannon, who McMaster removed from the National Security Council. If you recall, he was appointed to contain other Trump loyalists such as Michael Flynn, as well.
Recently, a campaign accusing him of being anti-Israel has been waged with the support of billionaire Sheldon Adelson by a coalition of alt-right nationalists that includes Steve Bannon and extreme right-wing Zionists such as the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, as well as by Israeli journalist Caroline Glick from the Jerusalem Post. President Trump, in response to all of this, called McMaster "a good man, very pro-Israel," and Israeli officials have also come forward calling McMaster a friend of Israel.
On to talk about these connections and tensions is Shir Hever. Shir is a Real News correspondent in Heidelberg, Germany. Of course, he covers Israel and Palestine for us extensively. I thank you so much for joining us, Shir.
SHIR HEVER: Thanks for having me, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Shir, President Trump is now six months into his office as president. He initially has appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to take up the Israel file, but there are these allegations flying against General McMaster. Explain to us what's going on. Why are these individuals like Sheldon Adelson even concerned about how Trump is responding in terms of Israel and Israel policy?
SHIR HEVER: I think there's very little that General McMaster can actually do about Israel or against Israel. It really doesn't matter much. The only issue that has come up was the Iran nuclear deal, and I think this is going to be a decision taken directly by President Trump and not by McMaster. Also, what exactly is the Israel interest regarding the Iran nuclear deal? It is not so clear. Obviously, Prime Minister Netanyahu has a certain opinion, but other Israeli politicians have other opinions.
I think this is really a symbolic issue. There are people in the alt-right and also the extreme Zionism who are using this old worn-out accusation that somebody is anti-Israel in order to get their own people into the National Security Council, in order to exert influence on the Trump administration. This coalition between extreme right nationalists, white nationalists in the United States, and Jewish Zionists, which traditionally were on opposing sides, are now working together because of this very strange rise of this alt-right.SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Now, give us a greater sense of the connection or the tensions between these alt-right organizations and McMaster and Bannon. Map this for us.
SHIR HEVER: Yeah. I've been looking through these accusations that Caroline Glick, deputy editor of the Jerusalem Post, and Steve Bannon himself, and also Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America. What problem do they have with McMaster? They make very vague things about some statements that he made, but they couldn't put them in context. He said that Israel is an occupying power. Of course, Israel is an occupying power, but they couldn't place that statement. The only thing that their criticism boils down to is they say McMaster is a remnant of the Obama administration. He continues the Obama policies, and therefore he's not loyal to Trump.
I think this is the crux of the matter, because actually, for people like Caroline Glick and I think also for Sheldon Adelson, their relation to Trump borders on religious. They consider Trump to be some kind of messiah or savior that will allow Israel once and for all to annex the occupied territory, expand its borders, and then the land will be redeemed. They talk about this in religious terminology.
Here's the problem. Trump has been president for six months now, and Israel did not annex the territory. It did not expand its borders. In fact, it has gone from one crisis to the next, and the Israeli government is not able to cement its power over the Palestinians. Palestinian resistance is not tied down. They're looking for an explanation. The explanation is that something is not pure in the Trump administration, and they're pointing the finger at McMaster saying, "Because of people like him who are sabotaging Trump's own policies from the inside, then this is preventing the Trump administration from reaching its full potential."SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Obviously, Netanyahu and the Israeli government doesn't agree with this assessment. In fact, they have come out supporting McMaster as being a good supporter of Israel. How does this play out here?
SHIR HEVER: Absolutely. Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing real politics. He knows that there's nothing that President Trump can do that will actually make Israel suddenly conquer more territory. That's not the point. Netanyahu is trying to balance a very complicated system with pressure from different points, and he is a populist, and he's only in power because of his populism. Now, his administration is under threat because of corruption allegations, so this is a problem for him. When people expect that the Trump administration will free his hands to do whatever he wants, Netanyahu suddenly has a problem because he needs to come up with a new excuse. Why doesn't he annex all the occupied territory?
Of course, for him, it's not a good time to get into a fight with the Trump administration. He wants to create the impression that things are happening under the surface, that he is in the know, that his friends are involved in this, but I think the fact that Sheldon Adelson, the big financial supporter of Netanyahu, is now switching to support extreme right groups that have nothing to do with the interests of the Israeli current administration, but are actually trying to push the Israeli administration to move further to the extreme right and to annex territory, that puts Netanyahu in trouble. I think it also spells some clouds over the warm relationship between Netanyahu and Adelson.
SHARMINI PERIES: Coming back to this side of things here in the United States, in light of the events of Charlottesville, Shir, showing a direct link between the alt-right and hardcore racists and neo-Nazis, why would extreme right-wing Zionist Jewish organizations and individuals like Glick and Klein agree to cooperate with the alt-right in this way?SHIR HEVER: I think people on the left tend to forget that, just like the left considers itself to be a kind of universalist movement, and that leftists around the world should have solidarity with each other, the right also has a kind of solidarity, especially the extreme right. Extreme right movements in different countries consider the extreme right in other countries to be their allies. One of the things we saw in Charlottesville is that some of these neo-Nazi groups and white nationalist groups are big supporters of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, because they see him as the kind of strong leader they would like to see in the United States as well.
For people who see Donald Trump talking about America first, then they're saying, "Okay, that's exactly the kind of administration we want to see in Israel, somebody taking about Israel first." For Caroline Gluck or for a Morton Klein, they are willing to accept a very heavy load of racism and even anti-semitism against Jews from the Trump administration and from its supporters in exchange for being allowed to copy that same kind of racism and that same kind of right-wing policy towards their minorities. Just like the American administration has its minorities, Muslims, Mexicans which are being targeted, Israel also has its minorities, Palestinians and asylum-seekers, and they want those people to be targeted in the same harsh language and the same harsh policies, so that we can [inaudible] a great compromise.I have to say, the events in Charlottesville had a profound impact on Israeli public opinion. In fact, there are a lot of Israelis who are very concerned about this kind of coalition. They are saying, "No, there's not that much that we're willing to take in order to keep the relations with the Trump administration on good footing." Because of that, the president of Israel, President Rivlin, and also the education minister Naftali Bennett issued statements condemning white nationalists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. I think Naftali Bennett, who is the head of the Jewish Nationalist Party in Israel, and he's actually of the same political camp as Caroline Glick, as Morton Klein, when he makes that statement, that shows that even he thinks that they have gone too far.
SHARMINI PERIES: Interesting analysis, Shir. I thank you so much for joining us today. I guess the situation in Charlottesville is evolving, and it would be interesting to continue to keep an eye on what's developing here against what's happening in Israel as well. Thank you so much.SHIR HEVER: Thank you, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Thank you for joining us here on the Real News Network.
Confusing, at least to me, in any case I believe that the Zionists learned a lot from the Nazis and there is very little difference between the two groups. I would say that the main difference lies in the fact that the Zionists are sneakier and know how to play with popular opinion. That's why it doesn't surprise me that they are making a common cause with the white supremacists groups.
The only surprise here is that they are doing it openly now. They have become brave and have decided to take the backlash. Perhaps they are doing so because they know they have the support of Trump.
Divide and conquer. Soon we will be fighting on our own streets against each other. It will be the death of the US...
"For Caroline Gluck or for a Morton Klein, they are willing to accept a very heavy load of racism and even anti-semitism against Jews from the Trump administration and from its supporters in exchange for being allowed to copy that same kind of racism and that same kind of right-wing policy towards their minorities."
I have great respect for Shir Hever, he has great insight into Israel society and politics. However, his statement that Klein and Glick (and maybe Adelson) want to be "allowed" to copy Trump's supporter's racism and right-wing policies towards minorities in Israel is beyond hilarious. Minorities in Israel have been and continue to be subjected to racist and supremacist policies (much worse than anything Trump supporters can even imagine) by the Zionists since the theft of Palestinian's land in 1948. The Israelis are not just pursuing racist policies but as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe said, they are committing slow motion genocide against the Palestinians.
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Aug 18, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
Tay | Aug 18, 2017 6:56:05 AM | 82
The US has no problem generating wealth, and has no need to force conflict with China. The US's problem is that that wealth is funneled upwards. Wealth inequality is not a meme. "Shrinking middle class" is a euphemism for downward-mobility of the middle class, an historical incubator for Reaction. And that's what we have here, reactionaries from a middle class background who now are earning less than their parents at menial jobs, or who are unemployed, becoming goons; aping the klan, appropriating nazi icons, blaming the foreigner, the negro, the Jew, the Muslim, for their circumstances. A "trade war" will not help them one iota, it will make their lives worse, and Bannon will go out and say it's the fault of the foreigner and the immigrant, their numbers wool swell. More terror, depper culture wars. I suppose that's nationalism to some people.
Grieved | Aug 18, 2017 9:51:21 AM | 83
somebody | Aug 18, 2017 11:00:25 AM | 86@82 Tay
That's exactly nationalism, for sure. The work of that wealth creation by the way is done by the all the classes below the rentier class, from working to middle class. The funneling upwards thing is actually theft.
The middle class is shrinking and being pushed down closer to rage because the wealth-stealing mechanisms have become bigger and better, and saturated the entire national system, including its electoral politics. This real face of capitalism has driven out the iconic American Dream, which was the essence of upward mobility.
Nationalism is an ugly word, but it's easily reached for when there aren't any better words around. In Russia, they already went through what faces the US, and they figured it out.
Since we're looking for the grown-ups, let's turn to Vladimir Putin, always reliable for sanity when direction is lost.
Putin recalled the words of outstanding Soviet Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev that patriotism drastically differs from nationalism. "Nationalism is hatred of other peoples, while patriotism is love for your motherland," Putin cited his words.-- Putin reminds that "patriotism drastically differs from nationalism"
83Noirette | Aug 18, 2017 11:56:04 AM | 90
Upward mobility has fallen sharply"In our view, faster growth is necessary but not sufficient to restore higher intergenerational income mobility," they wrote. "Evidence suggests that, to increase income mobility, policymakers should focus on raising middle-class and lower-income household incomes."Interventions worth considering include universal preschool and greater access to public universities, increasing the minimum wage, and offering vouchers to help families with kids move from poor neighborhoods into areas with better schools and more resources, they said.
Is there any political party or group in the US that suggests this?
The Corporate "fascist" - with grains of salt - USA. The 'democracy' part is fiction, camouflaged via a fools theatre two-party system and ginormous social re-distribution, amongst others.. the Core (PTB) found itself through miscalculation and loss of power subject to a challenger who broke thru the \organised/ fake elections, to attempt some kind of re-adjustement - renewal - re-set - review...Advocating smoothed-out relations with Russia (for commercial perso reasons, Tillerson, etc. and a need to grade adversaries and accept some into the fold, like Russia, instead of Iran ), a more level playing field, multi-polar world, to actually become more dominant in trade (China etc.) and waste less treasure on supporting enemies, aka proxy stooges, to no purpose (e.g. Muslim brotherhood, Al Q kooks, ISIS) and possibly even Israel -- hmmm.
Heh, the profits of domination are to be organised, extracted and distributed, differently. One Mafia-type tribe taking over from another! Ivanka will be The Sweet First Woman Prezzie! Style, Heart, Love, Looks! Go!
The old guard will do much to get rid of the upstart and his backers (who they are exactly I'd quite like to know?) as all their positions and revenues are at risk, so they are activating all - anything to attack. The Trump crowd seems at the same time both vulnerable and determined and thus navigating à vue as the F say, by sight and without a plan An underground internal war which is stalemated, leading to instrumentalising the ppl and creating chaos, scandals, etc.
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Aug 17, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
The Democrats and the media love the Pentagon generals in the White House. They are the "grown ups":
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had words of praise for Donald Trump's new pick for national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster -- calling the respected military officer a "certified, card-carrying grown-up,"According to the main-stream narrative the "grown ups" are opposed by " ideologues " around Trump's senior advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon is even infectious, according to Jeet Heer, as he is Turning Trump Into an Ethno-Nationalist Ideologue . A recent short interview with Bannon dispels that narrative.
Who is really the sane person on, say, North Korea?
The "grown-up" General McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor, is not one of them. He claims North Korea is not deterrable from doing something insane.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But your predecessor Susan Rice wrote this week that the U.S. could tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea the same way we tolerated nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union far more during the Cold War. Is she right?MCMASTER: No, she's not right. And I think the reason she's not right is that the classical deterrence theory, how does that apply to a regime like the regime in North Korea? A regime that engages in unspeakable brutality against its own people? A regime that poses a continuous threat to the its neighbors in the region and now may pose a threat, direct threat, to the United States with weapons of mass destruction?
McMaster's was spewing nonsense. The same was said about the Soviet Union and China when they became nuclear weapons states. North Korea just became one . Conventional deterrence of both sides has worked with North Korea for decades. Nuclear deterrence with North Korea will work just as well as it did with the Soviet and Chinese communists. If North Korea were really not deterrable the U.S. should have nuked it yesterday to minimize the overall risk and damage. It is the McMaster position that is ideological and not rational or "grown up" at all.
Compare that to Steve Bannon's take on the issue:
"There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us."It was indeed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which "got" the United States and stopped the U.S. escalation game. It is wrong to think that North Korea "backed off" in the recent upheaval about a missile test targeted next to Guam. It was the U.S. that pulled back from threatening behavior.
Since the end of May the U.S. military trained extensively for decapitation and "preemptive" strikes on North Korea:
Two senior military officials -- and two senior retired officers -- told NBC News that key to the plan would be a B-1B heavy bomber attack originating from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.
...
Of the 11 B-1 practice runs since the end of May, four have also involved practice bombing at military ranges in South Korea and Australia.In response to the B-1B flights North Korea published plans to launch a missile salvo next to the U.S. island of Guam from where those planes started. The announcement included a hidden offer to stop the test if the U.S. would refrain from further B-1B flights. A deal was made during secret negotiations . Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea suspended its Guam test plans. McMaster lost and the sane people, including Steve Bannon, won.
But what about Bannon's "ethno-nationalist" ideology? Isn't he responsible for the right-wing nutters of Charlottesville conflict? Isn't he one of them?
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.""These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
Bannon sees China as an economic enemy and wants to escalate an economic conflict with it. He is said to be against the nuclear deal with Iran. The generals in Trump's cabinet are all anti-Iran hawks. As Bannon now turns out to be a realist on North Korea, I am not sure what real position on Iran is.
Domestically Bannon is pulling the Democrats into the very trap I had several times warned against:
"The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."This worked well during the presidential election and might continue to work for Trump. As long as the Democrats do not come up with, and fight for, sane economic polices they will continue to lose elections. The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that bathroom. They are interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They are unlikely to get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at least claim to have plans to achieve it.
Posted by b on August 16, 2017 at 11:51 PM | Permalink
Peter AU 1 | Aug 17, 2017 1:05:52 AM | 1
A couple of very interesting links from the last thread were the one to the Bannon article, and also the link to the Carter/NK article.ben | Aug 17, 2017 1:22:28 AM | 2Kim Jong Un, 3rd generation like his father and grandfather leader of NK. From what I have read this is a cultural thing t hat predates communism and the Japanese occupation prior. Many pictures of Kim show an overweight youngster amongst gaunt hungry looking generals. Gave the impression of a spoilt kid simply handed power. Not going to the May 9 parade in Russia when invited also gave the impression he was paranoid.
But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained from an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China), perhaps a leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US. Third generation at war with the US and his seen his father was fucked over when trying to make a deal with the US. NK's nuke and missile tech have come a long way in the few short years Kim Jong Un has been in power.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim Jong Un and Trump have a meet one day.
The link to the Carter article http://www.fox5atlanta.com/national-news/273096065-story
b said: "The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that bathroom. They are interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They are unlikely to get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at least claim to have plans to achieve it."V. Arnold | Aug 17, 2017 1:32:51 AM | 3With that statement b, you nailed it..
"There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us."psychohistorian | Aug 17, 2017 1:53:13 AM | 4Doesn't that at least show Bannon as the adult in the room?
I would say so.So lets start parsing this economic nationalism that Bannon is making happen with Trump.psychohistorian | Aug 17, 2017 2:19:03 AM | 5Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of protecting domestic consumption, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods and capital. It is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted good of Free trade. It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution, Mercantilism and planned economies.
Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers", Malaysia's imposition of currency controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs and devaluation in the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect domestic steel production.
Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one possible scenario.
At least now, IMO, the battle for a multi-polar (finance) world is out in the open.....let the side taking by nations begin. I hope Bannon is wrong about the timing of potential global power shifting and the US loses its empire status.
I thought that maybe Bannon was being a bit too forthright in his recent comments and perhaps he has just painted a big bullseye on his back for the racist clowns he has used to aim at. Check this out: Bannons colleagues disturbed by interview with left wing publicationCopeland | Aug 17, 2017 2:30:36 AM | 6Bannon thinks the bombast on display between the Kim and Trump has been "a sideshow". The real show, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the dramatic sparring between the two leaders. The Mother Of All Policies, according to Bannon, is an all-bets-on trade war with China, whose endgame admits to only one outcome,--that is to say-- that only one hegemon will remain standing at the end of this struggle.V. Arnold | Aug 17, 2017 2:39:11 AM | 7There can be only one King-of-the-Hill. But where is the Greek Chorus?--the prophetic warning that goes by the name of necessity?-- that tries to ward off hubris? "One must never subscribe to absurdities" (it was Camus who aptly said that).
psychohistorian | Aug 17, 2017 2:19:03 AM | 5Realist | Aug 17, 2017 3:18:01 AM | 8I had read this before; interesting to say the least.
Truth be told, I'd never heard of Bannon prior to Trumps election and still know little about him.
Politics aside Bannon seems a straight shooter; I certainly can't argue his statement re: what would happen if we attacked NK. His statement is echo'd by many long before today.
I do plan to start paying attention from this point forward.
Oh, and I did read that Trump is afraid of Bannon, but don't remember the reason stated.Here is Bannon's latest:somebody | Aug 17, 2017 4:49:34 AM | 12Bannon dismissed the far-right as irrelevant:
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
Bannon is no friend of White Nationalists.
No, whoever planned that "United Right" rally walked Trump into the trap.Clueless Joe | Aug 17, 2017 5:24:06 AM | 13As Trump was incapable to disassociate himself clearly from people who protest against the take down of a statue of General Lee. Trump now owns the race issue.
Steve Bannon is a fascist . That does not mean he is stupid.
The generals are clearly dangerous. They have the power to walk everybody to world war III. Trump has pledged to spend even more on the US military, the military already has the highest spending world wide. The generals don't want to admit that they cannot solve anythings by military power.
Trump going off script in that press conference into a stream of consciousness was bad. He reminded everybody of their rambling demented great-grandfather. He tried to get the discussion to economic issues, he did not succeed.
Veterans Today is a dubious source, but this here sounds genuine Washington behind the mirrors
In stepped more lies and garbage, this time more fake than the other, with chaos theory and psychological warfare organizations drowning in capabilities from the overfunded phony war on terror and too much time on their hands now lending their useless talents toward disinforming the general public.The result has been a divided US where "alternative facts" fabricated for a vulnerable demographic now competes with the "mainstream" now termed, and I believe rightly so, "fake news" to support different versions of a fictional narrative that resembles reality only in the most rarified and oblique manner.
...America has left itself open to dictatorship. It long since gave up its ability to govern itself, perhaps it was the central bank, the Federal Reserve in 1913 or more recent erosions of individual power such as the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2005. Whatever milestone one chooses, the remains of democratic institutions in the US are now difficult to find.
What we are left with is what increasingly seems to be factions, mistakenly defined as "right" or "far right" jockeying for control over America's military, and with that, control over the planet itself.
You see, whoever controls the American military controls the world, unless a power bloc appears that can challenge, well, challenge what? If the Pentagon controls America's military and the Pentagon is controlled by a cabal of religious extremists as many claim or corporate lackeys as most believe, then where does the world stand?
Then again, if Trump and his own Republican congress are at war over impeachment, and I assure you, little else is discussed in Washington, two sides of the same coin, servants of different masters, has all oversite of the newfound military power over American policy disappeared?
To this, we reluctantly say "yes."
Bannon can be perfectly mature, adult and realist on some points and be totally blinded by biases on others - him wanting total economic war against China is proof enough. So I don't rule out that he has a blind spot over Iran and wants to get rid of the regime. I mean, even Trump is realist and adult in a few issues, yet is an oblivious fool on others.somebody | Aug 17, 2017 6:16:13 AM | 14Kind of hard to find someone who's always adult and realist, actually. You can only hope to pick someone who's more realist than most people. Or build a positronic robot and vote for him.
There is something to that interview by Steve Bannon with a left wing website .fairleft | Aug 17, 2017 6:35:17 AM | 15More puzzling is the fact that Bannon would phone a writer and editor of a progressive publication (the cover lines on whose first two issues after Trump's election were "Resisting Trump" and "Containing Trump") and assume that a possible convergence of views on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up. This is also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the press. He's probably the most media-savvy person in America.
I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of using Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump's base.
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
Explanation a) He wants to explain the climbdown of his boss on North Korea.
Not really helpful to Trump.b) He wants to save his reputation as the association with the KKK and White Suprematists has become toxic.
Checking on what Breitbart is doing - splitting the Republican Party
A trade war with China would mean prices in the US would become very expensive. It is a fool's strategy.
In other news Iran is threatening to leave the nuclear agreement, and Latin America unites against the US threatening Venezuela with war.
The generals are completely useless.
I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel on those matters. If this is so, then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China and the rest of the world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in negotiations for more investment by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well, not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan in the 80s nd 90s.c | Aug 17, 2017 6:51:35 AM | 16psychohistorian ac | Aug 17, 2017 6:59:32 AM | 17psychohistorian at 4: 'as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US likely defaulting...'V. Arnold | Aug 17, 2017 7:43:30 AM | 18as a sovereign currency issuer of that size the usa can not run out of dollars
to default on their obligations would be a voluntary mistake the federal reserve will avoid
meanwhile the chinese are investing in africa and other countries securing their position in the worldc | Aug 17, 2017 6:59:32 AM | 17steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19
as a sovereign currency issuer of that size the usa can not run out of dollars
to default on their obligations would be a voluntary mistake the federal reserve will avoid
meanwhile the chinese are investing in africa and other countries securing their position in the worldVery good; and I agree with your POV; the usa can not run out of dollars.
And therein lies its power; a very dangerous situation that I do not think the world is equipped to deal with in toto...Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of the Electoral College, including Steve Bannon. It is the Republican Party, not Trump and his Trumpery who holds majorities in the House, the Senate and the nation's statehouses. Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 8:51:55 AM | 20It appears that as a purely nominal Republican, an owner in a hostile takeover, Trump has no qualms about trashing the system. Practically speaking, this is the very opposite of draining the swamp, which requires effective leadership.
Kim Jong Un, 3rd generation like his father and grandfather leader of NK. From what I have read this is a cultural thing that predates communism and the Japanese occupation prior.Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 8:59:31 AM | 21But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained from an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China), perhaps a leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Aug 17, 2017 1:05:52 AM | 1
OR, looked at another way:
Perhaps the gurning wunderkind Kim's ascent to the North Korean Throne was completely predictable and was predicted a long time ago, and plans were set in motion to ensure that he was co-opted as a kid, and now works with the US to help counter the rising Chinese power.
Perhaps the alleged face-off Trump, Kim and the western MSM treated the world to over the past while, was merely nothing but a pre-scripted choreographic display, a piece of theater agreed upon beforehand by all participants except China
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim Jong Un and Trump have a meet one day.
I wouldn't be surprised if Kim Jong Un and Trump actually play for the same side.
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of the Electoral College, iThegenius | Aug 17, 2017 9:08:56 AM | 22Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19
Actually as far as I can tell the real political swindlers are the ones who refuse to acknowledge that a US Presidential election is, (and has been for nearly whole time the US has been in existence, which is more than 200 years for those who have problems keeping track of such simple matters) decided NOT by the popular vote but by the results of the Electoral College voting.
Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
Again, just to repeat the actual reality regarding US Presidential elections: They are decided on the basis of Electoral Collage voting and NOT on the basis of the popular vote, as political swindlers would now like everyone to believe.
Economics PhDs are resisting the only thing that can actully cause higher inflation rate: trade warsomebody | Aug 17, 2017 9:45:00 AM | 2319somebody | Aug 17, 2017 9:58:52 AM | 24He is doubling down now defending General Lee statues as beautiful. He is doing the same strategy as he did in his duel with Hillary Clinton when everybody thought he was insane, playing to his core Republican base to make sure Republicans have to stay in line or face a primary challenge.
Breitbart is doing the same threatening "Republican traitors".
The problem with this strategy is that Trump won because Hillary Clinton was so unpopular, because their pollsters outsmarted Nate Silver and Co. and possibly because she was a woman.
But Republicans who have to pretend they are religious right wing nuts in the primaries, then have to appeal to independents to win the actual election.
So they cannot go against Trump but cannot defend him. They are paralysed.
That what it comes down to. That the main aim of the president of the United States is to paralyze the party he hijacked.
add to 23john | Aug 17, 2017 10:26:02 AM | 25Breitbart has gone full culture wars. It is comical, have a look.
Just Sayin' says:likklemore | Aug 17, 2017 10:32:06 AM | 26They are decided on the basis of Electoral Collage voting and NOT on the basis of the popular vote, as political swindlers would now like everyone to believe
indeed, though, speaking of political swindlers, there's mucho evidence that Trump may have won the popular vote as well.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19WJ | Aug 17, 2017 10:50:13 AM | 27Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of the Electoral College, including Steve Bannon. It is the Republican Party, not Trump and his Trumpery who holds majorities in the House, the Senate and the nation's statehouses. Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
Have you read the Constitution of the USA? The Electoral College elects the President by the rank and file voters electing the Electors to the College on November election day. That's how the system works.
Ask Al Gore; he won the popular vote.
Oh and btw, the Hillary won the popular 2016 vote meme. Take a look at Detroit, MI heavy Democrats' precints - more votes than voters - and the millions of illegal aliens' vote in California who voted after the invite of Obama.
Trump won the election. Period. End of story. Done. Finished. Get over it and get on with your life. He didn't compete to win the popular vote. He competed and campaigned to win the election. Advice to Democrats - nominate a candidate beside a senile old neocon woman who is corrupt to her ugly core, and then maybe you can beat a former reality show star.Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 10:56:25 AM | 29The problem with this strategy is that Trump won because Hillary Clinton was so unpopular, because their pollsters outsmarted Nate Silver and Co. and possibly because she was a woman.Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 11:01:18 AM | 30Posted by: somebody | Aug 17, 2017 9:45:00 AM | 23
Nope - first part of the sentence is correct but the rest of is just you, as usual, repeating crap you found on the Internet and then repeating it here pretending it is profound and that you actually understand what you are talking about, which you clearly don't as evidenced by the fact that you then go on to reference Nate Silver whose fame was never anything but media created hype with little or nothing to back it up.
Silver's feet of clay were evident long before the latest Prez election. It became obvious that his alleged electoral statistical prowess rested as much on luck as anything else. Lucky in prediction when it came to the 2008 election but by 2010 things started to go wrong but the media ignored his feet of clay and kept hyping him as a stats genius.
By the time 2016 rolled round Silver was exposed for the lucky fraud he is.
The real truth of Hillarys inability to win lies not in her being female as you and many others disingenuously (at best) try to claim, but simply lies in the fact that she is a thoroughly unpleasant person with a complete lack of charisma and a massive sense of entitlement.
Blacks and others, minorities generally and independents, who came out in droves for the Obama elections simply refused to go and vote for her.
The Republican vote however changed very little - pretty much the exact same demographic voted republican as voted for Romney.
Trump won partly because of Clintons massive hubris in refusing to campaign in several key states. Cambridge analytical were not required to give him the win, no matter what you read, without analysing it, elsewhere on the web and are now repeating here in an effort to pretend you know what you are talking about.
CA probably helped somewhat but it unlikely that they were central to the win. Clintons hubris and her complete lack of charisma, ensured low black/minority/independent for her in key states, especially those where she had refused to even bother to campaign, which was enough to seal the win for Trump
You simply repeating crap you heard on the net and pretending that if you say it in an authoritative fashion it will magically become true, just ends up making you look completely clueless, as usual. (or dishonest)
@ Everybody who bought into the MSM Steve Bannon promoted white supremacy and through Breitbart. Suggested you read his world view expressed in remarks at Human Dignity Institute, Vatican Conference 2014RUKidding | Aug 17, 2017 11:21:24 AM | 32Posted by: likklemore | Aug 17, 2017 10:51:54 AM | 28
Anyone with any intelligence would be wise to treat with great caution anything Bannon claims in public interviews about himself or his alleged political beliefs,
US politics is a great big clusterfeck - worse than ever, which is hard to believe. Bannon's big liar. He did heaps to create this very situation with the White Supremacists. Of course the Democrats are worse than useless. All they're doing is presenting themselves as "We're not Trump" and whining about Putin. All of them are clowns. Every last one. Including the so-called "Generals." Worthless.Pnyx | Aug 17, 2017 11:27:14 AM | 33"Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea suspended its Guam test plans."james | Aug 17, 2017 12:32:00 PM | 37
but: "Yesterday (...) two US B-1 strategic bombers, operating with Japanese fighter jets, conducted exercises to the southwest of the Korean Peninsula." says WSWS. ?@2 ben.. i agree!anoymous | Aug 17, 2017 12:51:38 PM | 39everything about the usa today is divisive... i can't imagine the usa being happy if this didn't continue until it's demise..the 2 party system hasn't worked out very well as i see it.. failed experiment basically.. oh well..
@19Morongobill | Aug 17, 2017 1:03:36 PM | 40If I remember correctly, wasn't it both the President Elect and the Republican Congressmen who won clear majorities in nearly 80 percent of congressional districts? Presuming an issue like the gerrymandering of districts wasn't significant, that's a far more legitimate victory than an extra million Democrats voting in California (determining the future of national policy). I'm not a fan of the Republicans, but denying the short term efficiency of 'populist rhetoric' isn't helping the left win any substantial electoral victories in the future.
Good Lord. Can't people read anymore? The election is all about the EC. Keep talking and running for the popular vote, and Trump will keep winning the Electoral College. You either want to win or you don't. I hope you keep preaching the popular vote personally.Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 1:06:52 PM | 41@ Just Sayin' 30Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 1:15:57 PM | 42I won't give you a pass. Your bias and lack of intelligence is on great display.
No pass for little ol me? Aw shucks, I'm heart broken.The fact that you think Bannon&Trump are going to do anything about Wall Street and the Banking System in general is quite amusing.
Perhaps you could list a few of Bannon&Trumps anti Wall Street achievements or initiatives since Trump took office?
It should by now be clear to anyone paying attention that while both Bannon & Trump certainly TALK a lot, they seem to actually do very little.
So, do please tell us: what have they actually done?
@2 ben.. i agree!anoymous | Aug 17, 2017 1:16:15 PM | 43everything about the usa today is divisive...
Posted by: james | Aug 17, 2017 12:32:00 PM | 37
As the CIA might say: "Mission Accomplished!!"
Keep the proles spilt in their little "identity groups", their micro-tribes, and continue building the Kleoptocracy/Prison/Military State while the dumbed down demos are busy hunting micro-aggressions/fighting gender & race wars etc etc
During the last 5 Prez Election cycles the population spilt on utterly retarded lines such as Gay-marriage, Gender-free toilets etc. All this while the US fought or financed numerous very expensive wars in the Middle East ukraine etc, resulting hundreds of thousands of lives lost.
@26ben | Aug 17, 2017 1:33:55 PM | 44The 2008 elections had one of the highest ever voter turnout rates for the Democrats and the 2016 elections had one of the lowest ever. The turnout rates (abysmal if ever compared to voter turnout rates in Germany and Japan) easily explain the initial victory and the eventual defeat, not 'Detroit fraud' or 'the millions of illegals' voting in your head. Racial gerrymandering against black voters in the Southern States is a far more real issue.
somwbody @ 12: Good link thanks..Interesting read about "The Forth Turning"ben | Aug 17, 2017 1:40:34 PM | 45psycho @ 5: good link also..
WJ @ 27 said:" Advice to Democrats - nominate a candidate beside a senile old neocon woman who is corrupt to her ugly core, and then maybe you can beat a former reality show star."
Yep, so-called "Russian hacking" wasn't the problem, HRC was the problem...
Just Sayin' @ 41 said:"It should by now be clear to anyone paying attention that while both Bannon & Trump certainly TALK a lot, they seem to actually do very little."anoymous | Aug 17, 2017 2:01:34 PM | 46Kinda' waitin' myself to see all those "accomplishments"....
@40Mina | Aug 17, 2017 2:32:30 PM | 47I'll assume this was directed to me.
I understand and respect your point, but I was responding to the initial comment's implicit argument on public opinion: "a common argument is the lower-middle-to-upper-middle-class social base of the Republicans is less receptive to the short term effects of Protectionist policy and this would reduce political morale, as well as grassroots and voting organization. However, the Democrats 'won the popular vote.' So, it's 'obvious' in saying the classless definition of 'the American people' oppose this Republican policy, and naturally, the social base of the Republican Party isn't especially relevant to consider when organizing voters and grassroots movements for a renewed Democratic Party."
To be fair, I think like the early Unionist and Communist circles, and presume public opinion translates to expressions of grassroots politics between conflicting classes (more so than it actually happens in American class society).
From Syria with loveSad Canuck | Aug 17, 2017 2:52:38 PM | 48If one proceeds on the assumption that politics in the United States closely follows themes, scripts and production values pioneered by WWF, then all becomes clear. It's simply pro-wrestling on a global scale with nuclear weapons and trillions of dollars in prize money.james | Aug 17, 2017 2:58:51 PM | 49@42 just sayin'.. yes to all you say - it is quite sad actually.. not sure of the way out at this point, short of complete rebellion in the streets which looks like a longs ways off at this point..Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 3:12:27 PM | 50not sure of the way out at this point, short of complete rebellion in the streets which looks like a longs ways off at this point..Thirdeye | Aug 17, 2017 3:24:12 PM | 52Posted by: james | Aug 17, 2017 2:58:51 PM | 49
Most of the younger generation seem to be much to busy, obsessing over non-existent things like "Micro-agressions" or "hetero-normative cis-gender oppression", to pay attention to, let alone acknowledge, the enormous global macro-aggressions their own country is engaged in on a world-wide scale.
Charles R | Aug 17, 2017 3:39:13 PM | 53But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at least claim to have plans to achieve it.Is there a "don't" missing from that sentence?I must disagree that DPRK nuclear missiles are a qualitatively similar threat to those possessed by the Soviet Union and China. DPRK's guiding Suche ideology is a literal cult that goes far beyond the cult-of-personality that held sway over the Soviet Union and China when Stalin and Mao ruled. And by the time the Soviets developed delivery capabilities Stalin was dead and his cult was done. By the time the Chinese developed delivery capabilities Mao was declining into figurehead status and Zhou Enlai, who as commander of the PLA realized how weak China really was militarily, had no illusions about what would happen in a military confrontation with the US. But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained with supernatural powers that allowed them to drive the Japanese off the peninsula then fight off an American "invasion." They truly don't mention the role of the Soviets and the Chinese in saving their bacon. In terms of face-saving, the Kims have set the bar pretty high for themselves by fostering their cult. Their legitimacy would be threatened if their statecraft as rational actors undermined their Suche cult.
DPRK have been rogue actors against ROK and Japan out of sheer spitefulness, fully exploiting the umbrella provided by the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Assistance with China. They have done extraterritorial kidnappings and murders not for perceived strategic reasons but merely to intimidate. DPRK has pointedly refused to enter talks for a formal peace between them and the ROK. Those kinds of motives do not bespeak of someone who can be trusted with nukes.
Posted by: RUKidding | Aug 17, 2017 12:23:40 PMstonebird | Aug 17, 2017 3:40:47 PM | 54Bannon is someone whom I hold quite responsible for contributing to the rise of White Supremacy in the USA, which I consider a clear and present danger. Bannon's dismissive hand waving yesterday is meant to dissemble. Guess some are willing to buy what he was selling yesterday. Not me.What are your reasons for believing this about Bannon? What counts as contributing, and how did you come to your decision?
It's not that I don't believe you. It's rather important to establish in what way his words (whether the ones you found or the recent ones in American Prospect ) are lies or misdirection, so that I, and anyone interested, can evaluate this for ourselves and come to similar or different conclusions.
I don't think Bannon wants a "trade" war with China but he is right that there is an economic war going on. The "silk roads" and the various new organisations that the Chinese-Russians have set up, (Major Banks, "Swift" equivalent, Glossnass satellites, card payment systems, industrial independence, and food self-sufficiency etc), plus the use of currencies other than the dollar - are all examples of a break-away from a US-EU domination.Tom in AZ | Aug 17, 2017 4:03:19 PM | 55However, they have not suddenly introduced everything at once to "bring the US house down". Why? One possible reason could be that they are expecting the US to collapse anyway. Another is that viable alternatives also take time to set up.
b has mentioned the "grown ups" v the Idealogues". The impact of the military on the economic war seems to be underestimated. How much longer can the US afford the more than trillion dollars per year of the "visible" arms? This does not include hidden costs ("Intelligence agencies and pork). Nor does it include costs borne by other countries. ie. Italy has about 80 US bases (the most in the EU) and about 77 nuclear warheads on its soil. Italy PAYS for those bases, and even that does not include infrastucture (roads, increased airport capacity, sewage, water mains, etc) which are paid for by the Italians themselves. Other countries will have similar systems. Some like Kuwait are "paying" back the amounts spent on arms for example.
The total cost is astronomical.A brief reminder the USSR collapsed because of massive overspending on arms and military projects - leaving the rest of the economy in the lurch. Presumably the Chinese and Russians are expecting the same thing to happen again.
(Aside - yes, you can print dollars as a sovereign state, but printing roubles didn't help the soviets either)
So McMasters and the others are in fact just spoilt brats who think that the good times are forever.
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One example of the new "bluff-calling" cheaper method of economic warfare (*NK is the another) were the recent NATO/US manoeuvres in Georgia (country) on the anniversary of the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. The number of troops and means involved would have been enough to carry out a "surprise" attack this time too. The Russians - sent in Putin, who declared that the Russians supported S.Ossetia and were ready to deal with any threat - exactly as they did "last" time. Cost? One plane trip.(*The NK threat by the US would have seen about 40'000 men from S. Korea and Japan sent against about 700'000 motivated local troops and massive artillery arrays. It was a non-starter, even with nukes)
thirdeye @52Thirdeye | Aug 17, 2017 4:04:22 PM | 56You are forgetting to mention the main sticking point to talks is our refusal to halt our annual̶d̶e̶f̶e̶n̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶l̶l̶s̶ invasion practice before they will come to the table. At least from what I read.
54@Madderhatter67 | Aug 17, 2017 4:09:49 PM | 57Even with China's international financial position growing more robust with SWIFT independence, AIDB, the New Silk Road and such, they still have an interest in the Dollar-based western financial system as long as they can make money off of it. They are not going to shoot themselves in the foot by deliberately causing it to collapse. They might even prop it up in a crisis, but I suspect they would drive a hard bargain.
Thirdeye says, "But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained with supernatural powers." What is American Exceptionalism?RUKidding | Aug 17, 2017 4:31:17 PM | 60
MCMASTER: Says classic deterrence strategy won't work with NK."Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking an action not yet started, or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires."
Classic deterrence strategy IS working for NK perfectly.
@53 Charles R: fair enough question.somebody | Aug 17, 2017 5:26:37 PM | 64What I base my analysis of Bannon is his leadership at Bretibart which may or may not be continuing right now. Just read Breitbart if you think Bannon isn't fully behind the White Supremacists rising up right now.
35Greg M | Aug 17, 2017 6:15:08 PM | 67
Steve Bannon is a fascist.exhibit A
Steve Bannon Allies with Catholic Theo-Fascism Against Pope Francisexhibit C
Generation Zero - Bannons Film using the theory of the fourth turningThe idea that people (a people) have to suffer a big war in order to cleanse themselves from moral depravity is fascism pure and simple as who should force people to do this but a dictator.
All one has to do to know what Bannon's position on Iran is to read Breitbart on any given day. Unless we are supposed to believe that Bannon's opinions are not reflected by the website he ran for four years. Bannon is for war against Islam in general, there is nothing "realist" about his foreign policy.Thirdeye | Aug 17, 2017 6:15:20 PM | 6855 Tom in AZGreg M | Aug 17, 2017 6:20:48 PM | 69That's a different issue from entering talks for a formal peace with with ROK. DPRK has been refusing that for years. Did you ever consider that DPRK's constant saber rattling against ROK was what lent impetus to US exercises in the region in the first place? The US knows that China would not tolerate a US invasion of DPRK. Why take the risk of invading across great defensive terrain when you can simply destroy?
57 Madhatter67
Thirdeye says, "But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained with supernatural powers." What is American Exceptionalism?
That's a dumb analogy and a pathetic attempt at deflection. Criticize American Exceptionalism all you want, but don't compare it to a supernaturalist cult. That's just stupid.
DPRK has a history of doing whatever they think they can get away with, exploiting their treaty with China. If their delusional Suche ideology leads them to miscalculate or paints them into a corner trying to prop it up, it could lead to war.
If there's any bright spot in the whole picture it's China's chilly stance towards DPRK after recent events. The excesses of DPRK's ruling cult have occurred largely because they figured China had their back. But China's regional interests have changed dramatically over the past 30 years. ROK is no longer a competitive threat to China and is economically more important to China than DPRK ever was. DPRK's military power is of much less benefit to China than it was in the past. It might even be considered a liability.
61 Stonebird
It wouldn't be cash, it would be be assets and/or the means of controlling them. Big Chinese money is already coming into the west coast of the US and Canada. Oh well, we fucked things up here; maybe the Chinese will do a better job.
@10, this article was written while Bannon was heading Breitbart, bragging about being "conceived in Israel." http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/11/17/breitbart-news-network-born-in-the-usa-conceived-in-israel/blues | Aug 17, 2017 6:27:33 PM | 70Bannon is against the nuclear deal, and is one of the top people in the administration arguing for Trump to move the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Bannon has been cited as promoting Sheldon Adelson's Israel policy in meetings with Trump. http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-abbas-lauder-hawkish-adelson-battling-to-influence-trump-on-mideast/ If anything Bannon/Breitbart push an even harder line on Israel than most politicians and media do.
First of all, I will now declare that I am 99% confused! So please let me review the 1% that comes through my little keyhole. What has been said?Greg M | Aug 17, 2017 6:30:54 PM | 71/~~~~~~~~~~
<< = Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 11:01:18 AM | 30Anyone with any intelligence would be wise to treat with great caution anything Bannon claims in public interviews about himself or his alleged political beliefs,
\~~~~~~~~~~Well sure! The guy's a political operative -- One does not get to be a political operative by being some kind of a Dudly Do-Right. Damn.
/~~~~~~~~~~
<< = les7 | Aug 17, 2017 12:27:02 PM | 35@12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an alliance of corporate and state powers... but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they [the corporate sector] are to a large degree Globalists - they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist.
\~~~~~~~~~~Well since we can't believe anything from Bannon... And aside from that I am sick of hearing Mussolini's definition of fascism -- After all, he was a psycho-villain -- so why believe it?!
UNTIL WE HAVE STRATEGIC HEDGE SIMPLE SCORE VOTING WE WILL BE SADDLED WITH THE TWO-PARTY "SYSTEM" (really only one party). Who cares if we really have no choice whatsoever. We are held hostage to the false alternatives of the vast legion of the election methods cognoscenti.
See my simple solution soon at Global Mutiny!
@31, "except for the Zion-flavored warmongering." I don't know about you but completely disqualifies him in my view.Greg M | Aug 17, 2017 6:34:43 PM | 72@35, please refer to post 69. If Bannon was not a Zionist, he would not have ran a site which brags of being conceived in Israel and which pushes a harder line on Israel than almost any other, and he would not be promoting Adelson's Israel policy within the administration.Curtis | Aug 17, 2017 7:03:10 PM | 73Bannon makes sense. That must be why many want him gone especially the neocons. As to North Korea, the US should have admitted "facts on the ground" long ago and worked to sign the official end of the war and work to get the two Koreas talking and working together.anoymous | Aug 17, 2017 7:41:46 PM | 74"That's a different issue from entering talks for a formal peace with with ROK. DPRK has been refusing that for years."I doubt any substantial transcripts from early talks will ever be released, so whoever had diplomats offering the 'fairest' compromises for terms of an early framework (resulting in a later settlement) cannot be known (regarding specifics).
If I remember correctly, there has been at least three Chinese-sponsored peace conferences (on Korea) since 2007, where the general position of the U.S. was: North Korea had to freeze total nuclear production, accept existing and additional (U.N.) verification missions, and dismantle all warheads PRIOR to the signing of any peace treaty. How is demanding unconditional surrender not intransigence? Are we going to just pretend the United States hadn't sponsored military coups in Venezuela and Honduras and hadn't invaded Iraq and Libya (in a similar time frame)?
During peace talks, any terms are argued, refused, and eventually compromised (usually over years and sometimes over decades). Why presume the United States and South Korea had the fairest offers and general settlements in a handful of conferences (especially when we have no transcripts)?
"Did you ever consider that DPRK's constant saber rattling against ROK was what lent impetus to US exercises in the region in the first place?"
You're presuming your case and not giving specific information on what you might know.
Personally, I don't know who 'started it' (I would guess Japan 'started it' by forcing through the Protectorate Treaty of 1905, or the United States 'started it' by forcing through the Amity and Commerce Treaty of 1858), but if North Korea isn't testing missiles near Guam and the United States isn't flying specific planes over South Korea, a compromise WAS made this last week, and more can be made to ensure peace.
Why do any Americans oppose this?
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Aug 08, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jackrabbit | Aug 6, 2017 1:46:45 PM | 33
The sanctions are a smart play for world domination by the cabal that controls the Empire. that the rest of the world suffers while this plays out is of no concern to them.Seamus Padraig | Aug 6, 2017 2:27:41 PM | 35Those wringing their hands over Trump's failure to confront Congress are foolish. His caving was entirely predictable because he is a faux-Populist like Obama before him. Isn't it clear by now that "America First" is as much as lie as "Change You Can Believe In"?
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Russia is more susceptible than China to being politically undermined by both overt and covert means.
As the economic cost of conflict with the US mounts, so too does the potential benefits of restoring ties. The potential for a HUGE economic boost by restoring ties with the West will play a big part in post-Putin politics.
If US can disrupt energy trade with China and new Silk-Road transport links (via proxies like ISIS) , the Russian economy will sink and pro-Western candidates will gain much support.
chet380 | Aug 6, 2017 2:49:08 PM | 39The new additional sanctions, like the Jackson-Vanik amendment and the Magnitsky act, were shaped by domestic U.S. policy issues.Yeah, sure. (((Domestic U.S. policy issues.)))
Seriously though, as a committed isolationist, I'm actually overjoyed that our congress is idiotic enough to start up a trade war with the EU. The notion that the Germans are going to import overpriced fracked gas all the way from the US is a total fantasy. No: these sanctions will accelerate the coming break-up of NATO ... an outcome I very much welcome. And even if the Germans were to cave and cancel Nordstream, the Russians would simply sell all that extra gas to Asia anyway. So this isn't going to have any real effect on them either.
Grieved --h | Aug 6, 2017 2:54:20 PM | 40If Trump and Tillerson are quietly able to have the Europeans to raise a constant hue and cry about the bill's negative impact on their ability to conduct international trade, an excellent groundwork would be laid for Trump to go to the US SC to attack the constitutionality of the bill.
Grieved @36 - I appreciate your most thoughtful comment. When I read Mercouris' article I immediately thought - Whoa, if this turns out to be the correct analysis, my God man the U.S. government is in way more trouble than I understood. Navigating a soft coup takes a great deal of skill to avoid, but if the globalists continue to escalate their warmongering demands from the White House and Trump/Team continue to form their own path, the people of the U.S. should be warned a hard coup isn't far behind...Antifa and others are being readied for just such an event.james | Aug 6, 2017 2:59:51 PM | 42Gives me a chill...
t@36 grieved.. if i could just paraphrase you in my own words... the usa system is fucked...Temporarily Sane | Aug 6, 2017 4:34:15 PM | 47b writes:frances | Aug 6, 2017 4:46:10 PM | 48That in itself is astonishing and frightening. Can no one in the U.S. see where this will lead to?When analyzing the United States' relations with the rest of the world it helps to keep in mind the deep state goal of world domination via "full spectrum dominance". It is a dangerous delusion of the highest order but it is one that is actively being put into practice. The actions taken against Russia, Iran, North Korea and other nations all lead to one thing: war.
my apologies, this is a bit long but...On Trump's perceived option of signing vs not signing; I think he knew that the Congress/DNC/MSM would have tarred and feathered him as a RUSSIAN PAWN (RP) till the cows come home if he didn't sign.heath | Aug 6, 2017 4:50:46 PM | 49However by signing the bill with notations stating its flaws and forwarding it the the SC for their review, he blocked this latest RP label attempt and attendant witch hunt.
And assuming the SC thinks as little of the two bills legislative incursions into the exec domain as I do, it can be tossed back to both houses of Congress (with a 2018 election cycle staring them in the face)with a statement from Trump saying something to the effect of "Merciful God, how can you represent your constituents when you clearly don't have a grasp of your own job description??
Now I have to fund Trump supporting candidates to run against every single one of you." Remember he has already raised 75 million and he raised 250 million plus 66 million of his own and beat a 1.3 billion DNC machine. I do not see him as a great candidate but I do see that every single current congressional seat is held by people who are bought and paid for by business/MIC interests opposed to mine. I believe this latest attack on him via these bills will give him the opportunity to "drain the swamp" some of it anyway, in the upcoming election cycle and I will contribute to his effort to wipe them out of office and I suspect others will as well. There will be no coup on my watch if I can help it by helping him.
rather than press China directly in the south China Sea, it seems DC keeps on pressing the North Koreans to do something rash and the Chinese having to invade to forestall the rash attack then being stuck in a long Guerrilla war against Korean resistance.karlof1 | Aug 6, 2017 5:03:32 PM | 51the US strategy seems to be to create a problem and force other nations to choose "the Axis of Evil" or "the Free World"
b--would you check the spam grabber and rescue my links-filled post from @4pm blog time? Thanks!!ben | Aug 6, 2017 5:04:51 PM | 52The following, is for all you folks that believe voting in the U$A can make a difference.karlof1 | Aug 6, 2017 5:06:39 PM | 53https://www.rt.com/usa/397907-defcon-first-voting-village/
Until we trash the e-voting systems, our voting means nothing..
Grieved @36--Anonymous | Aug 6, 2017 5:25:41 PM | 54If you haven't yet, you'll want to read my several posts related to yours a few threads ago beginning here, http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/07/countdown-to-war-on-venezuela.html#c6a00d8341c640e53ef01b8d29b37ca970c
LawrenceSmith @1fast freddy | Aug 6, 2017 5:26:57 PM | 55There are two faces to Europe - the ordinary elected representatives and business people see the futility and danger of the sanctions. The bought Eurocrat and high political placemen will repeat what they are paid to say as the waters rise above their lips.
Trump can go on TV anytime and appeal to the Public with some creative truth. Why not? Afraid of the PTB? or he's a fraud like Obama going along with the PTB?karlof1 | Aug 6, 2017 5:35:50 PM | 56Mostly from Trump we get boilerplate global terror war bullshit, immigrant and gay bashing - gruel for the knuckleheads.
There is no question that Pence would gladly run the bus over Trump and be a real warmonger for Zion. The "real" Republicans (and the "business-friendly New Democrats") would love President Pence. Everything (media) would quiet down.
Regarding the Mercouris article myself and others have linked to and discussed, one possibility he didn't really explore was Trump Pocket Vetoing the bill. Congress would then upon returning from its recess need to reenact the entire measure after getting lots of heat from constituents for their votes during recess. Indeed, I think the overwhelming Pro vote was due to many congresscritter's assumption that Trump would do just that.Jackrabbit | Aug 6, 2017 6:01:45 PM | 57For me, the important question is why the Deep State instigated this move; so, I posted links to 6 incisive articles also looking for an answer in one manner or other that all together pointing to a Deep State flailing its arms in the deep end of the Hubris Pool realizing its drowning in its own effluent yet unable to utter that truth as it never will--it will break the mirror before allowing it to utter the truth. The Law of Diminishing Returns is finally laying the lumber to the Deep State after 130 years of grossly naked imperialism. Luce would be spinning in his grave if he knew how his American Century was being destroyed for A Few Dollars More.
Perhaps, John Pilger's latest essay will provide an explanation, https://www.rt.com/op-edge/398789-us-russia-china-war/
h@37karlof1 | Aug 7, 2017 3:44:05 PM | 100My take on Trump is informed by facts such as:
>> The US political system is designed to prevent real populists from ever gaining office. Examples: Citizens United and the rules to qualify for inclusion in candidate debates.>> Obama was a faux populist and Sanders was a sheep-dog. Are we to believe that these populists were phonies but Trump is the real deal?
>> Only Sanders and Trump positioned themselves as populists. And even more importantly, Hillary didn't counter Trump by taking a more populist approach.
>> Hillary made it clear that she wanted to face Trump in the general election. The media dutifully covered Trump as a serious candidate. Supposedly, she felt that she had a better chance to defeat him. She then ran a terrible campaign (see: NYPost: Hillary ran the worst presidential campaign ever despite having every advantage.
>> Why would any oligarch oppose the establishment? Especially since Trump was so close to Hillary who was considered to be the likely next President. In fact, Trump served Hillary by becoming a leader of the 'Birthers'. Hillary was the first to question if Obama was foreign born.
>> Pence is a friend of McCain's. Why would any populist pick Pence as VP?
>> One of Trump's first announcements after he was elected was that he would not seek to prosecute Hillary. The strange, and short-lived, media frenzy regarding Hillary's health helped Trump to make this choice. It seems likely that this was coordinated.
>> Trump acts or doesn't act in ways that are inconsistent with 'America First' and/or fuel the scaremongering over Russia:
> The missile attack on Syria (despite tweeting warnings to Obama not to bomb Syria in 2013) and sword dancing with the Saudis (WTF?);> Not dismissing Comey early in his Administration - then alluding to 'tapes' after he did;
> Drip-drip of info regarding Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian; Publicly attacking Sessions; etc.
> Trump complains about 'Fake News' but has accepted that Russia interfered in the election;
For more:
How Things Work: Betrayal by Faux-Populist LeadersUse of the terms "Isolationist" and "Isolationism" within the context of US History differs little from the use of the terms "Conspiracy Theory," Conspiracy Theorist," and "Revisionist"--all are used in an attempt to degrade the credibility of an individual or organization. A priori, everyone aside from First Peoples is an Internationalist as commerce with other nations of the world isn't optional--it's mandatory, thus the phrase within the Declaration about telling the world why. Rather, Isolationist is used to tar someone against Imperialism, the best examples being the very heated debate during the 1930s over the various Neutrality Acts when the hoi polloi last had some vestige of control over the federal government. (Pacifist was also a derogatory term used then for similar reasons.) Did Trump say he would close US borders to one and all--people, goods, financial instruments? No, of course not; so, he cannot be labeled an Isolationist. Now, is he what's known as a Nativist promoting an America First Nativism? During his campaign, he did use rhetoric of that sort, but his actions in office don't provide confirmation. (The 1932 presidential election also gives an excellent example of how the terms Internationalist and Isolationist are used politically, with FDR steadfastly refusing to acknowledge his Internationalism thanks to the divisive League of Nations debate after WW1.)Essentially, to be an informed citizen of almost any nation, one needs the equivalent of a PhD in their national and world history, with minors in philosophy, anthropology and economics, which is why the citizenry seems so ill-informed--they are!--and easily led by the nose.
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Realist , April 26, 2017 at 8:27 am GMT \nApr 30, 2017 | www.unz.com
Introduction: US Empire building on a world-scale began during and shortly after WWII. Washington intervened directly in the Chinese civil war (providing arms to Chiang Kai Shek's army while the Red Army battled the Japanese), backed France's re-colonization war against the Viet Minh in Indo-China and installed Japanese imperial collaborator-puppet regimes in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
While empire building took place with starts and stops, advances and defeats, the strategic goal remained the same: to prevent the establishment of independent communist or secular-nationalist governments and to impose vassal regimes compliant to US interests.
Bloody wars and coups ('regime changes') were the weapons of choice. Defeated European colonial regimes were replaced and incorporated as subordinate US allies.
Where possible, Washington relied on armies of mercenaries trained, equipped and directed by US 'advisors' to advance imperial conquests. Where necessary, usually if the client regime and vassal troops were unable to defeat an armed people's army, the US armed forces intervened directly.
Imperial strategists sought to intervene and brutally conquer the target nation. When they failed to achieve their 'maximum' goal, they dug in with a policy of encirclement to cut the links between revolutionary centers with adjoining movements. Where countries successfully resisted armed conquests, empire builders imposed economic sanctions and blockades to erode the economic basis of popular governments.
Empires, as the Roman sages long recognized, are not built in a day, or weeks and months. Temporary agreements and accords are signed and conveniently broken because imperial designs remain paramount.
Empires would foment internal cleavages among adversaries and coups in neighboring countries. Above all, they construct a worldwide network of military outposts, clandestine operatives and regional alliances on the borders of independent governments to curtail emerging military powers.
Following successful wars, imperial centers dominate production and markets, resources and labor. However, over time challenges would inevitably emerge from dependent and independent regimes. Rivals and competitors gained markets and increased military competence. While some vassal states sacrificed political-military sovereignty for independent economic development, others moved toward political independence.
Early and Late Contradictions of Expanding Imperialism
The dynamics of imperial states and systems contain contradictions that constantly challenge and change the contours of empire.
The US devoted immense resources to retain its military supremacy among vassals, but experienced a sharp decline in its share of world markets, especially with the rapid rise of new economic producers.
Economic competition forced the imperial centers to realign the focus of their economies – 'rent' (finance and speculation) displaced profits from trade and production. Imperial industries relocated abroad in search of cheap labor. Finance, insurance, real estate, communications, military and security industries came to dominate the domestic economy. A vicious cycle was created: with the erosion of its productive base, the Empire further increased its reliance on the military, finance capital and the import of cheap consumer goods.
Just after World War II, Washington tested its military prowess through intervention . Because of the immense popular resistance and the proximity of the USSR, and later PRC, empire building in post-colonial Asia was contained or militarily defeated. US forces temporarily recognized a stalemate in Korea after killing millions. Its defeat in China led to the flight of the 'Nationalists' to the provincial island of Taiwan. The sustained popular resistance and material support from socialist superpowers led to its retreat from Indo-China. In response, it resorted to economic sanctions to strangle the revolutionary governments.
The Growth of the Unipolar Ideology
With the growing power of overseas economic competitors and its increasing reliance on direct military intervention, the US Empire took advantage of the internal disintegration of the USSR and China's embrace of 'state capitalism' in the early 1990's and 1980s..The US expanded throughout the Baltic region, Eastern and Central Europe and the Balkans – with the forced breakup of Yugoslavia. Imperial strategists envisioned 'a unipolar empire' – an imperial state without rivals. The Empire builders were free to invade, occupy and pillage independent states on any continent – even bombing a European capital, Belgrade, with total impunity. Multiple wars were launched against designated 'adversaries', who lacked strong global allies.
Countries in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were targeted for destruction. South America was under the control of neo-liberal regimes. The former USSR was pillaged and disarmed by imperial vassals. Russia was ruled by gangster-kleptocrats allied to US stooges. China was envisioned as nothing more than a slave workshop producing cheap mass consumer goods for Americans and generating high profits for US multinational corporations and retailers like Walmart.
Unlike the Roman Empire, the 1990's were not to be the prelude to an unchallenged US empire of long duration. Since the 'unipolarists' were pursuing multiple costly and destructive wars of conquest and they were unable to rely on the growth of satellites with emerging industrial economies for its profits. US global power eroded.
The Demise of Unipolarity: The 21st Century
Ten years into the 21st century, the imperial vision of an unchallenged unipolar empire was crumbling. China's 'primitive' accumulation led to advanced domestic accumulation for the Chinese people and state. China's power expanded overseas through investments, trade and acquisitions. China displaced the US as the leading trading partner in Asia and the largest importer of primary commodities from Latin America and Africa. China became the world's leading manufacturer and exporter of consumer goods to North America and the EU.
The first decade of the 21st century witnessed the overthrow or defeat of US vassal states throughout Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil) and the emergence of independent agro-mineral regimes poised to form regional trade pacts. This was a period of growing global demand for their natural resources and commodities- precisely when the US was de-industrializing and in the throes of costly disastrous wars in the Middle East.
In contrast to the growing independence of Latin America, the EU deepened its military participation in the brutal US-led overseas wars by expanding the 'mandate' of NATO. Brussels followed the unipolarist policy of systematically encircling Russia and weakening its independence via harsh sanctions. The EU's outward expansion (financed with increasing domestic austerity) heightened internal cleavages, leading to popular discontent .The UK voted in favor of a referendum to secede from the EU.
The domestic disasters of the US vassal regime in Russia, under Boris Yeltsin during the 1990″s, pushed the voters to elect a nationalist, Vladimir Putin. President Vladimir Putin's government embarked on a program to regain Russian sovereignty and its position as a global power, countering US internal intervention and pushing back against external encirclement by NATO.
Unipolarists continued to launch multiple wars of conquest in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, costing trillions of dollars and leading to the loss of global markets and competitiveness. As the armies of the Empire expanded globally, the domestic economy (the 'Republic') contracted .The US became mired in recession and growing poverty. Unipolar politics created a growing multi-polar global economy, while rigidly imposing military priorities.
The Empire Strikes Back: The Nuclear Option
The second decade of the 21st century ushered in the demise of unipolarity to the dismay of many 'experts' and the blind denial by its political architects. The rise of a multi-polar world economy intensified the desperate imperial drive to restore unipolarity by military means, led by militarists incapable of adjusting or assessing their own policies.
Under the regime of the 'first black' US President Obama, elected on promises to 'rein in' the military, imperial policymakers intensified their pursuit of seven, new and continuing wars. To the policymakers and the propagandists in the US-EU corporate media, these were successful imperial wars, accompanied by premature declarations of victories in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. This triumphal delusion of success led the new Administration to launch new wars in Ukraine, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
As the new wave of wars and coups ('regime change') to re-impose unipolarity failed, even greater militarist policies displaced economic strategies for global dominance. The unipolarists-militarists, who direct the permanent state apparatus, continued to sacrifice markets and investments with total immunity from the disastrous consequences of their failures on the domestic economy.
A Brief Revival of Unipolarity in Latin America
Coups and power grabs have overturned independent governments in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and threatened progressive governments in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador. However, the pro-imperial 'roll-back' in Latin America was neither politically nor economically sustainable and threatens to undermine any restoration of US unipolar dominance of the region.
The US has provided no economic aid or expanded access to markets to reward and support their newly acquired client regimes. Argentina's new vassal, Mauricio Macri, transferred billions of dollars to predatory Wall Street bankers and handed over access to military bases and lucrative resources without receiving any reciprocal inflows of investment capital. Indeed the servile policies of President Macri created greater unemployment and depressed living standards, leading to mass popular discontent. The unipolar empire's 'new boy' in its Buenos Aires fiefdom faces an early demise.
Likewise, widespread corruption, a deep economic depression and unprecedented double digit levels of unemployment in Brazil threaten the illicit vassal regime of Michel Temer with permanent crisis and rising class conflict.
Short-Lived Success in the Middle East
The revanchist unipolarist launch of a new wave of wars in the Middle East and North Africa seemed to succeed briefly with the devastating power of US-NATO aerial and naval bombardment .Then collapsed amidst grotesque destruction and chaos, flooding Europe with millions of refugees.
Powerful surges of resistance to the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan hastened the retreat toward a multi-polar world. Islamist insurgents drove the US into fortress garrisons and took control of the countryside and encircled cities in Afghanistan; Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Libya drove US backed regimes and mercenaries into flight.
Unipolarists and the Permanent State: Re-Group and Attack
Faced with its failures, unipolarists regrouped and implemented the most dangerous military strategy yet: the build-up of nuclear 'First-Strike' capability targeting China and Russia.
Orchestrated by US State Department political appointees, Ukraine's government was taken over by US vassals leading to the ongoing break-up of that country. Fearful of neo-fascists and Russophobes, the citizens of Crimea voted to rejoin Russia. Ethnic Russian majorities in Ukraine's Donbass region have been at war with Kiev with thousands killed and millions fleeing their homes to take refuge in Russia. The unipolarists in Washington financed and directed the Kiev coup led by kleptocrats, fascists and street mobs, immune as always from the consequences.
Meanwhile the US is increasing its number of combat troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to buttress its unreliable allies and mercenaries.
What is crucial to understanding the rise and demise of imperial power and the euphoric unipolar declarations of the 1990's (especially during the heyday of President Clinton's bloody reign), is that at no point have military and political advances been sustained by foundational economic building blocks.
The US defeated and subsequently occupied Iraq, but it also systematically destroyed Iraq's civil society and its economy, creating fertile ground for massive ethnic cleansing, waves of refugees and the subsequent Islamist uprising that over ran vast territories. Indeed, deliberate US policies in Iraq and elsewhere created the refugee crisis that is overwhelming Europe.
A similar situation is occurring during the first two decades of this century: Military victories have installed ineffective imperial-backed unpopular leaders. Unipolarists increasingly rely on the most retrograde tribal rabble, Islamist extremists, overseas clients and paid mercenaries. The deliberate US-led assault on the very people capable of leading modern multicultural nations like Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, is a caricature of the notorious Pol Pot assaults on Cambodia's educated classes. Of course, the US honed its special skills in 'killing the school teachers' when it trained and financed the mujahedin in Afghanistan in the 1980's.
The second weakness, which led to the collapse of the unipolar illusion, has been their inability to rethink their assumptions and re-orient and rebalance their strategic militarist paradigm from the incredible global mess they created
They steadfastly refused to work with and promote the educated economic elites in the conquered countries. To do so would have required maintaining an intact social-economic-security system in the countries they had systematically shredded. It would mean rejecting their paradigm of total war, unconditional surrender and naked, brutal military occupation in order to allow the development of viable economic allies, instead of imposing pliable but grotesquely corrupt vassal regimes.
The deeply entrenched, heavily financed and vast military-intelligence-police apparatus, numbering many millions, has formed a parallel imperial state ruling over the elected and civilian regime within the US.
The so-called 'deep state', in reality, is a ruling state run by unipolarists. It is not some 'faceless entity': It has a class, ideological and economic identity.
Despite the severe cost of losing a series of catastrophic wars and the multi-billion-dollar thefts by kleptocratic vassal regimes, the unipolarists have remained intact, even increasing their efforts to score a conquest or temporary military victory.
Let us say it, openly and clearly: The unipolarists are now engaged in blaming their terrible military and political failures on Russia and China. This is why they seek, directly and indirectly, to weaken Russia and China's 'allies abroad' and at home. Indeed their savage campaign to 'blame the Russians' for President Trump's election reflects their deep hostility to Russia and contempt for the working and lower middle class voters (the 'basket of deplorables') who voted for Trump. This elite's inability to examine its own failures and the political system's inability to remove these disastrous policymakers is a serious threat to the future of the world.
Unipolarists: Fabricating Pretexts for World War
While the unipolarist state suffered predictable military defeats and prolonged wars and reliance on unstable civilian regimes, the ideologues continue to deflect blame onto 'Russia and China as the source of all their military defeats'. The unipolarists' monomania has been transformed into a provocative large-scale offensive nuclear missile build-up in Europe and Asia, increasing the risk of a nuclear war by engaging in a deadly 'game of chicken'.
The veteran nuclear physicists in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an important description of the unipolarists' war plans. They revealed that the 'current and ongoing US nuclear program has implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal. These new technologies increase the overall US killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces threefold'. This is exactly what an objective observer would expect of a nuclear-armed US unipolar state planning to launch a war by disarming China and Russia with a 'surprise' first strike.
The unipolar state has targeted several countries as pretexts for launching a war. The US government installed provocative missile bases in the Baltic countries and Poland. These are regimes chosen for their eagerness to violate Russia's borders or airspace and insanely willing to invite the inevitable military response and chain reaction onto their own populations. Other sites for huge US military bases and NATO expansion include the Balkans, especially the former Yugoslav provinces of Kosovo and Montenegro. These are bankrupt ethno-fascist mafia states and potential tinderboxes for NATO-provoked conflicts leading to a US first strike. This explains why the most rabid US Senate militarists have been pushing for Kosovo and Montenegro's integration into NATO.
Syria is where the unipolarists are creating a pretext for nuclear war. The US state has been sending more 'Special Forces' into highly conflictive areas to support their mercenery allies. This means US troops will operate (illegally) face-to-face with the advancing Syrian army, who are backed by Russian military air support (legally). The US plans to seize ISIS-controlled Raqqa in Northern Syria as its own base of operation with the intention of denying the Syrian government its victory over the jihadi-terrorists. The likelihood of armed 'incidents' between the US and Russia in Syria is growing to the rapturous applause of US unipolarists.
The US has financed and promoted Kurdish fighters as they seize Syrian territory from the jihadi-terrorists, especially in territories along the Turkish border. This is leading to an inevitable conflict between Turkey and the US-backed Kurds.
Another likely site for expanded war is Ukraine. After seizing power in Kiev, the klepto-fascists launched a shooting war and economic blockade against the bilingual ethnic Russian-Ukrainians of the Donbass region. Attacks by the Kiev junta, countless massacres of civilians (including the burning of scores of unarmed Russian-speaking protesters in Odessa) and the sabotage of Russian humanitarian aid shipments could provoke retaliation from Russia and invite a US military intervention via the Black Sea against Crimea.
The mostly likely site for starting World War III is the Korean peninsula. The unipolarists and their allies in the state apparatus have systematically built-up the conditions to trigger a war with China using the pretext of the North Korean defensive weapons program.
The unipolarists' state apparatus has gathered its allies in Congress and the mass media to create public hysteria. Congress and the administration of President Trump have fabricated the North Korean missile program as a 'threat to the United States'. This has allowed the unipolarist state to implement an offensive military strategy to counter this phony 'threat'.
The elite have discarded all previous diplomatic negotiations and agreements with North Korea in order to prepare for war – ultimately directed at China. This is because China is the most dynamic and successful global economic challenger to US world domination. The US has 'suffered' peaceful, but humiliating, economic defeat at the hands of an emerging Asian power. China's economy has grown more than three times faster than the US for the last two decades. And China's infrastructure development bank has attracted scores of regional and European participants after a much promoted US trade agreement in Asia, developed by the Obama Administration, collapsed. Over the past decade, while salaries and wages have stagnated or regressed in the US and EU, they have tripled in China.
China's economic growth is set to surpass the US into the near and distant future if trends continue. This will inevitably lead to China replacing the US s as the world's most dynamic economic power . barring a nuclear attack by the US. It is no wonder China is embarked on a program to modernize its defensive missile systems and border and maritime security.
As the unipolarists prepare for the 'final decision' to attack China, they are systematically installing their most advanced nuclear missile strike capacity in South Korea under the preposterous pretext of countering the regime in Pyongyang. To exacerbate tensions, the US High Command has embarked on cyber-attacks against North Korea's missile program. It has been staging massive military exercises with Seoul, which provoked the North Korean military to 'test' four of its medium range ballistic missiles in the Sea of Japan. Washington has ignored the Chinese government's efforts to calm the situation and persuade the North Koreans to resist US provocations on its borders and even scale down their nuclear weapons program.
The US war propaganda machine claims that Pyongyang's nervous response to Washington's provocative military exercises (dubbed "Foal Eagle') on North Korea's border are both a 'threat' to South Korea and 'evidence of its leaders' insanity.' Ultimately, Washington intends to target China. It installed its (misnamed) Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) in South Korea .An offensive surveillance and attack system designed to target China's major cities and complement the US maritime encirclement of China and Russia. Using North Korea as a pretext, THAAD was installed in South Korea, with the capacity to reach the Chinese heartland in minutes. Its range covers over 3,000 kilometers of China's land mass. THAAD directed missiles are specifically designed to identify and destroy China's defensive missile capacity.
With the THADD installation in South Korea, Russia's Far East is now encircled by the US offensive missiles to complement the build-up in the West.
The unipolar strategists are joined by the increasingly militaristic Japanese government – a most alarming development for the Koreans and Chinese given the history of Japanese brutality in the region. The Japanese Defense Minister has proposed acquiring the capacity for a 'pre-emptive strike', an imperial replay of its invasion and enslavement of Korea and Manchuria. Japan 'points to' North Korea but really aims at China.
South Korea's deeply corrupt and blindly submissive regime immediately accepted the US/THADD system on their territory. Washington found the compliant South Korean 'deep state' willing to sacrifice its crucial economic links with Beijing: China is South Korea's biggest trading partner. In exchange for serving as a platform for future US aggression against China, South Korea has suffered losses in trade, investments and employment. Even if a new South Korea government were to reverse this policy, the US will not move its THAAD installation. China, for its part, has largely cut its economic and investment ties with some of South Korea's biggest conglomerates. Tourism, cultural and academic exchanges, commercial agreements and, most important, most of South Korean industrial exports face shut down.
In the midst of a major political scandal involving the Korean President (who faces impeachment and imprisonment), the US-Japanese military alliance has brutally sucked the hapless South Korean people into an offensive military build-up against China. In the process Seoul threatens its peaceful economic relations with China. The South Koreans are overwhelmingly 'pro-peace', but find themselves on the frontlines of a potential nuclear war.
China's response to Washington's threat is a massive buildup of its own defensive missile capacity. The Chinese now claim to have the capacity to rapidly demolish THAAD bases in South Korea if pushed by the US. China is retooling its factories to compensate for the loss of South Korean industrial imports.
Conclusion
The rise and fall of unipolar America has not displaced the permanent state apparatus as it continues to pursue its deluded strategies.
On the contrary, the unipolarists are accelerating their drive for global military conquest by targeting Russia and China, which they insist are the cause of their losing wars and global economic decline. They live on their delusions of a 'Golden Age' of the 1990's when George Bush, Sr. could devastate Iraq and Bill Clinton could bomb Yugoslavia's cities with impunity.
Gone are the days when the unipolarists could break up the USSR, finance violent breakaway former Soviet regimes in Asia and the Caucuses and run fraudulent elections for its drunken clients in Russia.
The disasters of US policies and its domestic economic decline has given way to rapid and profound changes in power relations over the last two decades, shattering any illusion of a unipolar 'American Century'.
Unipolarity remains the ideology of the permanent state security apparatus and its elites in Washington. They believe that the marriage of militarism abroad and financial control at home will allow them to regain their lost unipolar 'Garden of Eden'. China and Russia are the essential new protagonists of a multipolar world. The dynamics of necessity and their own economic growth has pushed them to successfully nurture alternative, independent states and markets.
This obvious, irreversible reality has driven the unipolarists to the mania of preparing for a global nuclear war! The pretexts are infinite and absurd; the targets are clear and global; the destructive offensive military means are available; but so are the formidable defensive and retaliatory capacities of China and Russia.
The unipolarist state's delusion of 'winning a global nuclear war' presents Americans with the critical challenge to resist or give in to an insanely dangerous empire in decline, which is willing to launch a globally destructive war.
The Alarmist , April 25, 2017 at 11:57 pm GMT \n
nsa , April 26, 2017 at 2:52 am GMT \n"This means US troops will operate (illegally) face-to-face with the advancing Syrian army, who are backed by Russian military air support (legally)."
You don't seem to understand the definitions of legal and illegal in the current context: Anything the US declares legal and subject to its jurisdiction anywhere in the world is legal, otherwise it is still subject to US interpretation on its legality or not. In other words, US troops always operate legally, international law notwithstanding, and US laws have effect everywhere and at all times. Read More
What's this "unipolarist" stuff ..some kind of trendy academic euphemism? A land war in Asia? Even the American public isn't that stupid.There is zero chance of an attack on Korea .for a couple of reasons:
1) nothing in it for the jooies who need to conserve their satrap's military for an attack on Iran,
2) if feasible, would have already happened, and lastly
3) the paper tiger would lose another one.
Think about it .goodbye Seoul, goodbye 30,000 US troops, goodbye all those lucrative samsung-kia-hyundai franchises, kiss off a couple carriers from torpedos, goodbye lots of attack aircraft ..and that's all before the Chinese enter the fray. Right now the biggest problem is how to let jooie butt boy Trumpstein and his ridiculous VFW geezer generals back down without losing face. Face is everything to westerners, you know . Read More
@nsa
Oh yes they are. Their stupidity is boundless.
Anonymous , April 26, 2017 at 8:43 am GMT \nI kind of agree with you, I kind of don't.
No doubt the Zionists want to focus on Syria and Iran because there is a direct benefit to them there, but don't forget their goal. Their goal is total control of the world, and China and Russia stand in their way.
Using N Korea to threaten China and Russia is probably high on their to do list too.
But I do agree with you. There is no way a N Korea war would be easy or fast for America. We would probably lose 30k soldiers and many ships at least. Wr would burn through a ton of money when we are flat broke. And I doubt we can be in a 2 front war right now anyway. So probably Middle East will take the priority.
So the most plausible explanation to me is that Trump re-read one of the chapters he wrote on negotiation and tried to convince China to go to war for us. But the Chinese aren't stupid and they didn't take the bait.
China talked tough to N Korea and suspended their coal exports to make it look like they would
play game, and America sent ships to threaten N Korea. But that was all Trump negotiation tactics.
And Trump would be stupid to go to war and have this define his presidency.
"providing arms to Chiang Kai Shek's army while the Red Army battled the Japanese"
Come off it! The Red Army assiduously avoided fighting the Japanese. Read More
Tulip , April 26, 2017 at 5:15 pm GMT \nChina is not happy with North Korea either. Speculation is that China is planning an invasion with a secret green light from Washington. Even if the US went in, it may be that if China were granted basing rights in the North, or if there was an agreement for a multinational peacekeeping force, with equal US/Chinese troops, there may be a way of providing assurance to China on the national security front while getting rid of a gangster regime that threatens the security of everyone. Robert Magill , April 26, 2017 at 5:30 pm GMT \n
China was envisioned as nothing more than a slave workshop producing cheap mass consumer goods for Americans and generating high profits for US multinational corporations and retailers like Walmart.
Walmart announced this week the planned opening of 40 new stores in China by 2020. This adds to the nearly 500 Walmart stores already operating. Very cleaver of them to sell cheap mass consumer goods made in China to Chinese customers and still generate profit. Where is the disconnect here?
The mostly likely site for starting World War III is the Korean peninsula. The unipolarists and their allies in the state apparatus have systematically built-up the conditions to trigger a war with China using the pretext of the North Korean defensive weapons program.
What happened in New York on 9/11 totally unhinged America for a generation. One small nuke landing anywhere in the US would totally do us in. Russia and China could probably survive a dozen each and soldier on.
http://robertmagill.wordpress.com Read More
neutral , April 26, 2017 at 8:52 pm GMT \nOne small nuke landing anywhere in the US would totally do us in.
What do you mean by this ? Are you talking about most Americans leaving their cities and thus
collapsing the entire economic system. Or are you saying that people will get so unhinged that
it will launch all its missiles (without knowing who is responsible) and thus have more nuclear
strikes hitting it ? Read More
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Washington intervened directly in the Chinese civil war providing arms to Chiang Kai Shek's army while the Red Army battled the Japanese
This is COMPLETELY ass-backwards and there is not enough facepalm for such a statement. The Red Army kept itself well ensconced and recruited desperate peasants while Chiang Kai Check fought against the Japanese with not a lot of support from the US, then got the cold shoulder from Churchill. After that, the Nationalist Chinese were such an utter wreck that Mao could easily clean the floor.
Any student of the Sino-Japanese war should have the basics right.
Start reading: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10182755/Chinas-war-With-Japan-1937-1945-the-struggle-for-survival-by-Rana-Mitter-review.html Read More
Realist , April 26, 2017 at 11:25 pm GMT \n@Robert Magill
The per cent of Americans killed on 9/11 was less than 0.000097. The per cent of Japanese killed in the 2011 Tsunami was 0.0144 with nary a whimper. The Japanese total was 148 times the US total!
The US would never survive a small nuclear attack
Astuteobservor II , April 28, 2017 at 12:19 am GMT \n@El Dato
Start reading: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10182755/Chinas-war-With-Japan-1937-1945-the-struggle-for-survival-by-Rana-Mitter-review.html
from what I have read. the first half of that statement is true, while the 2nd half is wrong. 45-49, ccp got the left overs of manchuria, while the kmt got hardware and training directly from the usa.
Monty Ahwazi , April 29, 2017 at 5:20 am GMT \nDidn't we fight China for many years in a place called Vietnam? How did that war work for us? Of course we are stupid and our conscious memory is hardly good for 4 years. Our distant memory is as good as every election cycle and the Vietnam war happened centuries ago on the US memory calendar! Read More The White Muslim Traditionalist , April 29, 2017 at 11:30 am GMT \n
@The Alarmist
"This means US troops will operate (illegally) face-to-face with the advancing Syrian army, who are backed by Russian military air support (legally)."You don't seem to understand the definitions of legal and illegal in the current context: Anything the US declares legal and subject to its jurisdiction anywhere in the world is legal, otherwise it is still subject to US interpretation on its legality or not. In other words, US troops always operate legally, international law notwithstanding, and US laws have effect everywhere and at all times. What an idiotic statement.
The United States doesn't decide what is right and what is wrong.
200 Words @Monty Ahwazi Didn't we fight China for many years in a place called Vietnam? How did that war work for us? Of course we are stupid and our conscious memory is hardly good for 4 years. Our distant memory is as good as every election cycle and the Vietnam war happened centuries ago on the US memory calendar! Didn't we fight China for many years in a place called Vietnam?
It was a mixed bag. Primarily Vietnam was more a Soviet ally than Chinese. You must remember that during the '60s the Chinese and Soviets were at odds, and Chinese-Vietnamese relations were not good, either. After the Americans retreated (Nixon-Kissinger's "Peace with Honor"), China and Vietnam fought some skirmishes over Vietnam's Cambodian intrigue.
Amazing, when you think about it, how Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean brothers and cousins can't get along. If they could, it would be very difficult for the Anglo-American-Jewish alliance in the region. Think about it. Chinese are as crafty as Jews, they are patient as hell (they think in long terms), they are every bit as tribal as Jews. Plus, unlike Jews, they have demonstrated an ability to create an indigenous (i.e., non parasitic) culture. Finally, Chinese don't feel any guilt over the Jew's Holocaust Six Million shekel religion, so they can't be whipped into a subservient paroxysm over it. Maybe that makes war with them inevitable. Read More
mp , April 29, 2017 at 11:54 am GMT \n@Robert Magill
Walmarts in China are not like the one's in America. I'm convinced the US stores are supported by welfare checks and food stamps. Without those, my guess is that the stores would have closed a long time ago. Also, in China you don't see half the store filled up with overweight diabetics on disability, riding around on motorized scooters, looking like land-locked Barron Harkonnens, etc.
Corvinus , April 29, 2017 at 2:24 pm GMT \n@Wizard of Oz
Exactly. The doomsday prognosticators keep up with the Fake News about the impending end of the world scenarios and they fail to materialize repeatedly.
Ludwig Von , April 29, 2017 at 3:21 pm GMT \nJust my little thought : in fact China is not going to intervene in a conflict between US-SK-Japan versus NK. It will sit back and just wait until they all are exhausted and then collect . Agent76 , April 29, 2017 at 3:35 pm GMT \n
Mar 25, 2016 Is China Ready to Challenge the Dollar?
Introduction to the report: Is China Ready to Challenge the Dollar? Internationalization of the Renminbi and Its Implications for the United States.
Agent76 , April 29, 2017 at 3:37 pm GMT \nApr 12, 2017 China Russia Move For Gold Against Dollar Makes Them A Target By Trump
In this video we talk about all the latest breaking news regarding the financial quite feud between Russia, China and U.S. Its important to note that this move against Donald Trump and the U.S petro dollar being the world reserve currency was made before Trumps aggressive actions against a mutual ally to Russia and China.
denk , April 29, 2017 at 7:29 pm GMT \nUncle sham, 'Pay up or else !'
hhhhhh
Wizard of Oz , April 29, 2017 at 10:20 pm GMT \n@mp Didn't we fight China for many years in a place called Vietnam?
It was a mixed bag. Primarily Vietnam was more a Soviet ally than Chinese. You must remember that during the '60s the Chinese and Soviets were at odds, and Chinese-Vietnamese relations were not good, either. After the Americans retreated (Nixon-Kissinger's "Peace with Honor"), China and Vietnam fought some skirmishes over Vietnam's Cambodian intrigue.
Amazing, when you think about it, how Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean brothers and cousins can't get along. If they could, it would be very difficult for the Anglo-American-Jewish alliance in the region. Think about it. Chinese are as crafty as Jews, they are patient as hell (they think in long terms), they are every bit as tribal as Jews. Plus, unlike Jews, they have demonstrated an ability to create an indigenous (i.e., non parasitic) culture. Finally, Chinese don't feel any guilt over the Jew's Holocaust Six Million shekel religion, so they can't be whipped into a subservient paroxysm over it. Maybe that makes war with them inevitable. OK until you come to "the Chinese are every bit as tribal as Jews," Whatever you might say about some 12 million Jews who; if in Israel, learn to speak a version of their old tribal language makes little sense when applied to 1.3 billion people speaking many mutually incomprehensible languages (or dialects as some prefer if you think Russian and Polish are two dialects) and with a long history of warlordism and the barbarism of the Cultural Revolution less than two generations behind them. Still I guess that it is wise to protect your IP from a Mandarin speaking Chinese employee who only became an Amrrican citizen yesterday .
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Jul 03, 2017 | www.unz.com
Show Comment Next New Comment July 3, 2017 at 3:09 pm GMTWar for Blair Mountain Show Comment Next New Comment July 3, 2017 at 3:19 pm GMTAnd where did Hitler worship get us?
Blonde hair blue eyed Waffen SS soldiers .I assume baptized Christian .being wasted by beautiful blonde haired Conservative Orthodox Christian Women Russian Snipers. This is what you will always get when you fall for the lies of the worshippers of Franco.
Hitler and Franco .enablers of the Mohammadan Gang Rape Army .Hitler's Waffen SS-Werhrmacht gang rape Army
Short tiny Andrew Anglin doesn't realize how much he has in common with the Jewish Antifas on a fundamental Level ..
History offers up important lessons for the Alt Right
There is a historic precedent for the Alt Right in US History:look no further than the late 19th-early 2oth Century US Labor Movement it was racially xenophobic .isolationist and economically progressive .The late 19th-early 2oth century Labor Movement gave us such wonderfull things such as The Chinese Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act and the Sihk Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act .not bad!!!
And let's honest The Alt Right kiddie brigade that worships Hitler Franco Pinochet .also swims in the sewage of JFK and Ronnie Reagan worship two scoundrels who unleashed race-replacement immigration policy on The Historic Native Born White American Working Class..
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Jun 21, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Adriana I Pena , says: June 20, 2017 at 10:43 am Whether we like it or not, America was built on crony capitalism. Be it Hamilton's policies which set the groundwork for industrialization, or be it the massive land grants for railroads, they made America what it is today.KD , says: June 20, 2017 at 11:47 amIt was called "the American system" and as such was copied by Prussia in the 19th century, with the result that an agricultural backwater turned into an industrial powerhouse that two World Wars could not destroy.
There may be arguments why that model is no longer needed. But to posit a pristine time when none of it happened, and how it was spoiled by crony capitalism, is basically not knowing your history.
Its not the truth that Communism has been tried and failed, its that true Communism has never been tried, erh, I mean true capitalism. [insert post-1789 ideology here.]Nicholas Needlefoot , says: June 20, 2017 at 12:08 pmTo Adriana Pena's comment, I'd add the Homestead Act, the Erie Canal (state government), and pretty much any time government force was used to removed Indians from land, allowing for the widespread distribution of land ownership that did so much to make the U.S. a country of middle-class folks.No to neos , says: June 20, 2017 at 12:23 pmAs others have pointed out, there's a Libertarian vibe to these Crony Capitalism articles. Like there's a "true capitalism" or a "true free market" out there. There isn't.
In my little town, my city council during the past few years has:Adriana I Pena , says: June 20, 2017 at 2:59 pm* pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars of annual "sales tax rebates" to the region's largest car dealer. The reason: He expanded his dealership. The agreement says the total amount of the rebate may not exceed the total amount of the expansion. In other words, taxpayers could pay for every penny he spends. Meanwhile, smaller car dealers in the area pay every penny the local governments can get.
* pledged up to $1 million to a multi-national retailer that no doubt would have opened a store here anyway. That retailer of course is taking business from our smaller independently owned retailers, whose taxes help fund the competitor that is taking business from them.
* bought an office building for $1.1 million, knocked it down, prepared the lot for development, and "sold" it to a real estate developer for $10. Yes, $10. After having spent well over $1 million to buy the property and prepare it for development.
* built a new sewer plant and sent sewer/water rates skyrocketing to pay for it. Then, just weeks before the plant was to go on line, the city set aside 25% of the plant capacity for a real estate developer who announced plans for an industrial park. Technically, on the day the plant opened, it was already beyond capacity. The real estate developer paid exactly $0 for it even as homeowners and businesses around town are paying millions of dollars more for it.
The amazing thing is, many people seem okay with all this (and there are other examples like these I could give). The Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Corporation (which is made up of local economic development directors, mayors, city councilmen, big businesses, etc.), the local newspaper, all tell us these are great moves because it's economic development.
At the same time they tell us these things, many storefronts are empty, people are still walking away from houses that are underwater on their mortgages, property taxes and local sales taxes are going up, etc.
@KD"It is not the truth that _____________ has been tried and failed. It is that ______________ has never been tried"
I think that Chesterton said something like that about Christianity.
Because all ideologies and religions are True Scotsmen.
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Jun 20, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Kurdistan4all / cc Iraqi Kurdistan will hold an independence referendum on September 25, and there is no international support for that:On Monday, the European Union joined the United Nations, the United States, Turkey, and Iraq to discourage Iraqi Kurds from holding an independence referendum on Sept. 25.
That was to be expected, and won't deter regional government authorities in Erbil, said Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government representative in Washington.
The broad international opposition to a Kurdish independence referendum underscores the problem with trying to create an independent Kurdistan: the new state would be immediately isolated, it would lack recognition from most other governments, and would face intense disapproval from all of its new neighbors. Iraqi Kurdistan would forfeit the benefits of its current semi-autonomous status in exchange for a formal independence that would impose numerous costs on it. Iran isn't mentioned in the article, but their government has likewise expressed opposition to the referendum.
Supporters of the referendum say that a vote in favor of independence isn't a declaration of independence, but for the many regional opponents of a Kurdish state it might be taken as one. It is doubtful that the Turkish and Iraqi governments would limit their opposition to rhetoric, so a new Kurdish state would find itself besieged and under attack very early on, and Iran would presumably aid the Baghdad in trying to prevent the separation of the region. The last thing the region needs is even more instability and violence, and a push for Kurdish independence would produce more of both. Contrary to the hopes of Western partition fans, Kurdish independence would spark new conflicts and complicate existing ones. It would resolve none of them.
Pennzy SW , says: June 20, 2017 at 9:34 am"Contrary to the hopes of Western partition fans, Kurdish independence would spark new conflicts and complicate existing ones. It would resolve none of them. "William Dalton , says: June 20, 2017 at 10:49 amYou may be right about the hopes of Western partition fans, but our parasitic "friends" in the region (the Israelis and Saudis in particular) would be overjoyed to see us permanently bogged down in regional conflicts created by an independent Kurdistan.
All the more reason for us to have nothing to do with it.
When I was a student at Chapel Hill in the early 70's I heard a lecture by a professor of Azeri background who predicted that the next great war, one which had the potential to be more than a regional conflict and could become a world war, would be the war for Kurdish independence. I don't believe this is a problem which will go away. The world will have to make room for an independent Kurdistan or conflict in the region will continue.Will Harrington , says: June 20, 2017 at 1:09 pmSee what we let loose with Kosovo! On what basis can the West now deny this and refuse recognition when we stripped Serbia's heartland away from Serbia? If it does come down to war, it might be good for the Kurd's neighbors to remember that Saladin was a Kurd.jk , says: June 20, 2017 at 8:13 pmThe US has enough problems certainly these days with the internal politics in their own country. They sure fail or make worse with neocon social engineering experiments with other countries they don't understand or have no interests in. Negative and long lasting and worse off unintended consequences abound whenever US military acting as the foreign policy arm of US affairs goes into action.
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Jun 19, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
I mentioned the illegality of U.S. actions in Syria in an earlier post , but I wanted to say a bit more on that point. There has never been a Congressional vote authorizing U.S. military operations in Syria against anyone, and there has been scant debate over any of the goals that the U.S. claims to be pursuing there. The U.S. launches attacks inside Syria with no legal authority from the U.N. or Congress, and it strains credulity that any of these operations have anything to do with individual or collective self-defense. The U.S. wages war in Syria simply because it can.Obama expanded the war on ISIS into Syria over two years ago, and the U.S. was arming the opposition for at least more than a year before that. The U.S. has been a party to the war in Syria in one form or another for more than four years, but the underlying assumption that it is in our interest to take part in this war has not been seriously questioned by most members of Congress. The president had no authority to take the U.S. to war in Syria, and the current president still has no such authority. We are so accustomed to illegal warfare that we barely notice that the policy has never really been up for debate and has never been put to a vote. If this illegal warfare eventually leads us into a larger conflict, we will finally notice, but by then it will be too late.
The latest episode with the Syrian jet shows the dangers that come from conducting a foreign policy unmoored from both the national interest and representative government. The Syrian jet was shot down because it was threatening rebels opposed to the Syrian government, and the U.S. is supporting those rebels up to and including destroying regime forces that attack them. The U.S. has no business supporting those rebels, and it has no right to have its military forces operating inside Syria. Shooting down a Syrian plane inside its own country under these circumstances is nothing less than an unprovoked act of war against another state. 14 Responses to Syria and Our Illegal Acts of War
K Street Loiterer , says: June 19, 2017 at 1:02 pm Along with a lot of other people who voted for Trump, I don't want us involved in the Syrian civil war. I have no idea what Trump thinks he's doing over there. Or why he is spending so much of his time and focus (and our money) on these worthless hellholes. He was supposed to get us out of there and focus on America.liberal , says: June 19, 2017 at 1:14 pmYes, Congress should tell him to get out and stay out.
Great, timely post. Tangling with another nuclear-armed power makes anyone with a brain in their head nervous.Chris Chuba , says: June 19, 2017 at 1:19 pmI've seen comments to the effect that "well, the Russian reaction to the cruise missile strike launched by Trump didn't involve much." Or that we ourselves wouldn't launch a nuclear attack over such small stakes, nor would Putin.
Such commentary misses the real danger-slow escalation into a confrontation neither side is willing to back down from.
I have kids, and while I care about (e.g.) the people in Yemen (and am sickened by both Trump's and Obama's actions there), I (like most humans) care even more about my own children. This nonsense puts them directly at risk, which really makes me angry (as if I wasn't angry enough at the blood on my hands with our actions re Yemen, etc).
I know that Larison's point remains unchanged even if the Pentagon's account is 100% accurate but it is worth noting that it is likely fiction.Xenia Grant , says: June 19, 2017 at 2:36 pmThe author of this website does a good job of coalescing sources from other locations to produce a timeline that shows that the Pentagon's account is largely fiction. Try to get over that he calls himself 'Moon of Alabama'
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/syria-summary-us-attack-fails-to-disrupt-push-to-deir-ezzor.htmlOur MSM has not seriously questioned a Pentagon press release in 30yrs, so this gives them license to go further astray. Just look at how many times they revised the simply failed Yemeni raid story.
We are playing a dangerous game here, I believe that our Generals really believe that the Russians will never respond to what we do. I believe that the Russians will eventually conclude that there is no point in showing restraint because it only invites further aggression.
I just watched Oliver Stone's 'Putin' and one thing that I found striking was that Putin maintains that there is very little difference between U.S. Administrations but that he always maintains a little hope. Personally, I agree with his observation and think that he is being naive if he believes that anything will change. If he ever comes to the same conclusion then our military will be in for yet another surprise.
The US is an imperialist country. In the days of the Cold War, the one good thing the USSR did was to be a barrier to American outreach. Too bad we don't have a good enough thorn sticking our paws and saying 'lay off and nation builders your own country!'No to neos , says: June 19, 2017 at 3:19 pmMaybe, to be good sports, the US government will allow the Russians to shoot down an American military plane over the US?No to neos , says: June 19, 2017 at 3:20 pmWhoops, should have written "Syrians to shoot down an American military plane over the US?"John Newman , says: June 19, 2017 at 4:18 pmI eagerly await the Democrat Resistance anti-war march tomorrow! Has anyone heard where it will be?Ken Zaretzke , says: June 19, 2017 at 4:37 pmDoes the Defense Department have any idea of how dangerous this is? Will the ongoing demonization of Russia and Putin in the American media ensure that our military leaders will be blind to the danger? Let's hope Trump follows his Putin-respecting instincts rather than the crazy neocons who populate his administration and the Defense Department.jk , says: June 19, 2017 at 5:43 pmWhere is the "Resistance" now? Are they fighting against this stupid war in Syria? Protesting stupid sanctions against Cuba? Complaining about the record arms sale with Saudi Arabia (home of the 9/11 terrorists?)? Second guessing themselves with the latest bought of Russian sanctions that managed to piss off Germany and Austria and put European energy security at risk? No, they are all on MSNBC or CNN dragging out a stupid investigation all the while pushing Russia to war.Viriato , says: June 19, 2017 at 6:06 pmI'm curious if the US shoots down a Syrian jet inside Syria on behalf of "moderate rebels" it's called self defense, what Orwellian term describes if Syria or Russia shoots down of US jet inside Syria?
Trump's laziness/stupidity delegating all strategic aspects to the military with no higher level executive guidance to his generals along his the neocon push to war with Russia made this event inevitable in some ways.
Russia cannot lose face too much, nor can the US.
What's the point of a congressional vote? What difference would it make? Would Congress vote against war? No. When Congress took its war-making power seriously, did it ever once vote against war? No.KevinS , says: June 19, 2017 at 6:38 pm"I have no idea what Trump thinks he's doing over there."oath? what oath? , says: June 19, 2017 at 7:27 pmAnd I am sure Trump has no idea either. If a knowledgable interviewer quizzed him for more than 10 minutes about the conflict, he would melt into a mishmash of incoherent nonsense.
"Where is the "Resistance" now? Are they fighting against this stupid war in Syria?"philadelphialawyer , says: June 19, 2017 at 8:09 pmThe "resistance" is more concerned with letting men use women's bathrooms and letting foreigners take our jobs than it is about civilians being killed or starved to death, or new waves of terror attacks, or a few more trillion down the toilet as Trump lets these incompetent generals take over US policy in the Middle East.
Trump has even less authority under international law for this latest action than he had for the missile strike after the alleged chemical weapons incident, and much less than he and Obama have for the attacks on ISIS.Anthony Hinds , says: June 19, 2017 at 8:36 pmIn the case of the missile strike, Trump's lawyers could at least point to the the Convention against the use of chemical weapons, and to the UNSC Resolution which threatened the use of force for repeat violations that was passed in 2013 during the first Syrian chemical warfare event. Of course, neither of those rationales really holds water without a specific UNSC Resolution authorizing the use of force, which was absent. But at least there was something.
ISIS presents a case where a terrorist organization is using the territory of a nation, Syria, which is unable to prevent it from doing so. In such a case, the right of self defense does allow for attacks against the terrorist organization in that nation. Also, ISIS uses Syrian territory to attack Iraq, and Iraq has actually specifically "invited" the US to help it resist those attacks. There is also a case to be made, I suppose, that Syria itself has invited the US and other nations to help it defeat ISIS. And there is some UNSC language arguably authorizing such actions as well.
But there is nothing, that I can see, in any UNSC resolution, or international law in general, remotely justifying the US in brazenly waging war against the recognized government of Syria. The Syrian air force was fighting folks in open, military rebellion against its authority. That the US supports these folks, in various ways, does not mean that the US has any kind of international legal case for taking military action against the Syrian air force.
Similarly, Trump has very little authority under domestic US law either for this latest attack either. Both Trump and Obama stretched the AUMFs against Al Qaeda and Saddam to include attacks on ISIS. But neither of those AUMFs even remotely authorizing attacking the Syrian government.
This case really is a new overreach for US presidents.
Syria is not doing anything remotely "wrong," even under new-fangled notions of "R2P" and human rights interventions. No WMD is being used. The Syrian air strikes are against armed rebels, not civilians. There is not even the fake rationale of preventing a "bloodbath" that was ginned up for the UNSC against Libya. On the domestic legal front, Trump has nothing more than a bald, bare assertion of the "national interest," and raw executive authority. He has no Congressional authorization of any kind, that I can see.
It now seems as if the POTUS can simply make war, against whomever he chooses, whenever he chooses
Trump promised to defeat ISIS. He said he would do this and you still voted for him. These are his quotes:"I would bomb the s**t out of 'em. I would just bomb those suckers. I'd blow up the pipes, I'd blow up the refineries, I'd blow up every single inch-there would be nothing left." Then he followed that with saying he'd have Exxon go in there and take the oil, although the Russians and Syrians are currently making good headway toward those oil fields. That may lead to a showdown, but I think we'll end up holding short of stealing the oil.
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families,"
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Jun 17, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
During the Age of Trump, Year One, a single word has emerged to capture the essence of the prevailing cultural mood: resistance . Words matter, and the prominence of this particular term illuminates the moment in which we find ourselves.All presidents, regardless of party or program, face criticism and opposition . Citizens disinclined to support that program protest . Marching, chanting, waving placards, and generally raising a ruckus in front of any available camera, they express dissent . In normal times, such activism testifies to the health of democracy.
Yet these are not normal times. In the eyes of Trump's opponents, his elevation to the pinnacle of American politics constitutes a frontal assault on values that until quite recently appeared fixed and unassailable. In such distressing circumstances, mere criticism, opposition, protest, and dissent will not suffice. By their own lights, anti-Trump forces are fending off the apocalypse. As in November 1860 so too in November 2016, the outcome of a presidential election has placed at risk a way of life.
The very word resistance conjures up memories of the brave souls who during World War II opposed the Nazi occupation of their homelands, with the French maquis the best known example. It carries with it an unmistakable whiff of gunpowder. After resistance comes revolution.
Simply put, Trump's most ardent opponents see him as an existential threat, with the clock ticking. Thus the stakes could hardly be higher. Richard Parker of Harvard has conjured what he calls Resistance School, which in three months has signed up some 30,000 anti-Trump resistors from 49 states and 33 countries. "It is our attempt to begin the long slow process of recovering and rebuilding our democracy," says Parker. Another group styling itself the DJT Resistance declares that Trump represents "Hatred, Bigotry, Xenophobia, Sexism, Racism, and Greed."
This is not language suggesting the possibility of dialogue or compromise. Indeed, in such quarters references to incipient fascism have become commonplace. Comparisons between Trump and Hitler abound. "It takes willful blindness," writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times, "not to see the parallels between the rise of fascism and our current political nightmare." And time is running short. Journalist Chris Hedges says "a last chance for resistance" is already at hand.
In the meantime, in foreign-policy circles at least, a second, less explosive term vies with resistance for Trump-era signature status. This development deserves more attention than it has attracted, especially among those who believe that alongside the question that riles up the resistance-namely, what values define us?-sits another question of comparable importance: "What principles define America's role in the world?"
That second term, now creeping into the vocabulary of foreign-policy specialists, is liberal , often used interchangeably with the phrase rules-based and accompanied by additional modifiers such as open , international , and normative. All of these serve as synonyms for enlightened and good .
So Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, describing what he refers to as the "twilight of the liberal world order," worries about the passing of "the open international economic system the United States created and helped sustain." Donald Trump's misguided emphasis on "America First," Kagan writes, suggests that he has no interest in "attempting to uphold liberal norms in the international system" or in "preserving an open economic order."
Commenting on Trump's Inaugural Address, Nicole Gaouette, CNN national-security reporter, expresses her dismay that it contained "no reference to America's traditional role as a global leader and shaper of international norms." Similarly, a report in the Financial Times bemoans what it sees as "a clear signal about Mr. Trump's disregard for many of the international norms that have governed America as the pillar of the liberal economic order." The historian Jeremi Suri, barely a week into Trump's presidency , charges Trump with "launching a direct attack on the liberal international order that really made America great after the depths of the Great Depression." At the Council on Foreign Relations, Stewart Patrick concurs: Trump's election, he writes, "imperils the liberal international order that America has championed since World War II." Thomas Wright, another Brookings scholar, piles on: Trump "wants to undo the liberal international order the United States built and replace it with a 19th-century model of nationalism and mercantilism."
In Foreign Policy, Colin Kahl and Hal Brands embellish the point: Trump's strategic vision "diverges significantly from-and intentionally subverts-the bipartisan consensus underpinning U.S. foreign policy since World War II." Failing to "subscribe to the long-held belief that 'American exceptionalism' and U.S. leadership are intertwined," Trump is hostile to the "open, rule-based international economy" that his predecessors nurtured and sustained.
Need more? Let Gen. David Petraeus have the last word: "To keep the peace," the soldier-turned-investment-banker writes in an essay entitled "America Must Stand Tall," the United States has established "a system of global alliances and security commitments," thereby nurturing "an open, free and rules-based international economic order." To discard this legacy, he suggests, would be catastrophic.
You get the drift. Liberalism, along with norms, rules, openness, and internationalism: these ostensibly define the postwar and post-Cold War tradition of American statecraft. Allow Trump to scrap that tradition and you can say farewell to what Stewart Patrick refers to as "the global community under the rule of law" that the United States has upheld for decades.
But what does this heartwarming perspective exclude? We can answer that question with a single word: history.
Or, somewhat more expansively, among the items failing to qualify for mention in the liberal internationalist, rules-based version of past U.S. policy are the following: meddling in foreign elections; coups and assassination plots in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, Cuba, South Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, and elsewhere; indiscriminate aerial bombing campaigns in North Korea and throughout Southeast Asia; a nuclear arms race bringing the world to the brink of Armageddon; support for corrupt, authoritarian regimes in Iran, Turkey, Greece, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, Egypt, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and elsewhere-many of them abandoned when deemed inconvenient; the shielding of illegal activities through the use of the Security Council veto; unlawful wars launched under false pretenses; "extraordinary rendition," torture, and the indefinite imprisonment of persons without any semblance of due process.
Granted, for each of these, there was a rationale, rooted in a set of identifiable assumptions, ambitions, and fears. The CIA did not conspire with Britain's MI6 in 1953 to overthrow Iran's democratically elected president just for the hell of it. It did so because shelving Mohammad Mosaddegh seemingly offered the prospect of eliminating an annoying problem. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson did not commit U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam because he was keen to fight a major ground war in Asia but because the consequences of simply allowing events to take their course looked to be even worse. After 9/11, when George W. Bush and his associates authorized the "enhanced interrogation" of those held in secret prisons, panic rather than sadism prompted their actions. Even for the most egregious folly, in other words, there is always some explanation, however inadequate.
Yet collectively, the actions and episodes enumerated above do not suggest a nation committed to liberalism, openness, or the rule of law. What they reveal instead is a pattern of behavior common to all great powers in just about any era: following the rules when it serves their interest to do so; disregarding the rules whenever they become an impediment. Some regimes are nastier than others, but all are law-abiding when the law works to their benefit and not one day longer. Even Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin's USSR punctiliously observed the terms of their non-aggression pact as long as it suited both parties to do so.
My point is not to charge à la Noam Chomsky that every action undertaken by the United States government is inherently nefarious. Rather, I am suggesting that to depict postwar U.S. policy in terms employed by the pundits quoted above is to whitewash the past. Whether their motive is to deceive or merely to evade discomfiting facts is beside the point. What they are peddling belongs to the universe of alt facts. To characterize American statecraft as "liberal internationalism" is akin to describing the business of Hollywood as "artistic excellence."
"Invocations of the 'rules-based international order,'" Politico's Susan Glasser rightly observes, "had never before caused such teary-eyed nostalgia." Whence comes this sudden nostalgia for something that never actually existed? The answer is self-evident: it's a response to Donald Trump.
Prior to Trump's arrival on the scene, few members of the foreign-policy elite, now apparently smitten with norms, fancied that the United States was engaged in creating any such order. America's purpose was not to promulgate rules but to police an informal empire that during the Cold War encompassed the "Free World" and became more expansive still once the Cold War ended. The pre-Trump Kagan, writing in 2012, neatly summarizes that view:
The existence of the American hegemon has forced all other powers to exercise unusual restraint, curb normal ambitions, and avoid actions that might lead to the formation of a U.S.-led coalition of the kind that defeated Germany twice, Japan once, and the Soviet Union, more peacefully, in the Cold War.
Leave aside the dubious assertions and half-truths contained within that sentence and focus on its central claim: the United States as a hegemon that forces other nations to bend to its will. Strip away the blather about rules and norms and here you come to the essence of what troubles Kagan and others who purport to worry about the passing of "liberal internationalism." Their concern is not that Trump won't show adequate respect for rules and norms. What has them all in a lather is that he appears disinclined to perpetuate American hegemony.
More fundamentally, Trump's conception of a usable past differs radically from that favored in establishment quarters. Put simply, the 45th president does not subscribe to the imperative of sustaining American hegemony because he does not subscribe to the establishment's narrative of 20th-century history. According to that canonical narrative, exertions by the United States in a sequence of conflicts dating from 1914 and ending in 1989 enabled good to triumph over evil. Absent these American efforts, evil would have prevailed. Contained within that parable-like story, members of the establishment believe, are the lessons that should guide U.S. policy in the 21st century.
Trump doesn't see it that way, as his appropriation of the historically loaded phrase "America First" attests. In his view, what might have occurred had the United States not waged war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and had it not subsequently confronted the Soviet Union matters less than what did occur when the assertion of hegemonic prerogatives found the United States invading Iraq in 2003 with disastrous results.
In effect, Trump dismisses the lessons of the 20th century as irrelevant to the 21st. Crucially, he goes a step further by questioning the moral basis for past U.S. actions. Thus, his extraordinary response to a TV host's charge that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a killer. "There are a lot of killers," Trump retorted. "We've got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?" In offering this one brief remark, Trump thereby committed the ultimate heresy. Of course, no serious person believes that the United States is literally innocent. What members of the foreign-policy establishment-including past commanders-in-chief-have insisted is that the United States act as if it were innocent, with prior sins expunged and America's slate wiped clean. This describes the ultimate U.S. perquisite and explains why, in the eyes of Robert Kagan et al., Russian actions in Crimea, Ukraine, or Syria count for so much while American actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya count for so little.
The desperate exercise in historical revisionism that now credits the United States with having sought all along to create a global community under the rule of law represents that establishment's response to the heresies Trump has been spouting (and tweeting) since his famous ride down the escalator at Trump Tower.
Yet in reclassifying yesterday's hegemon as today's promulgator and respecter of norms, members of that establishment perpetrate a fraud. Whether Americans, notably gullible when it comes to history, will fall for this charade remains to be seen. Thus far at least, Trump himself, who probably knows a thing or two about snake-oil salesmen, shows little inclination to take the bait.
Say this for the anti-Trump resistance: while the fascism-just-around-the-corner rhetoric may be overheated and a touch overwrought, it qualifies as forthright and heartfelt. While not sharing the view that Trump will rob Americans of their freedoms, I neither question the sincerity nor doubt the passion of those who believe otherwise. Indeed, I am grateful to them for acting so forcefully on their convictions. They are inspiring.
Not so with those who now wring their hands about the passing of the fictive liberal international order credited to enlightened American statecraft. They are engaged in a great scam, working assiduously to sustain the pretense that the world of 2017 remains essentially what it was in 1937 or 1947 or 1957 when it is not.
Today's Russia is not a reincarnation of the Soviet Union; the People's Republic of China is not Imperial Japan; and the Islamic State in no way compares to Nazi Germany. Most of all, United States in the era of Donald Trump is not the nation that elected Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower, not least of all in the greatly reduced willingness of Americans to serve as instruments of state power, as the failed post-9/11 assertions of hegemony have demonstrated.
The world has changed in fundamental ways. So too has the United States. Those changes require that the principles guiding U.S. policy also change accordingly.
However ill-suited by intellect, temperament, and character for the office he holds, Trump has seemingly intuited the need for such change. In this regard, if in none other, I'm with the Donald. But note the irony. Trump may come closer to full-fledged historical illiteracy than any president since Warren G. Harding. Small wonder then that his rejection of the mythic past long employed to preempt serious debate regarding U.S. policy gives fits to the perpetrators of those myths.
Andrew J. Bacevich is TAC 's writer-at-large.
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Jun 17, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Yes, I voted for Donald Trump. When people confront me and ask me why, I sort of shuffle off, head down, while muttering something about how "he wasn't the war candidate."I even stuck with Trump until he launched cruise missiles at an airbase in Syria and overnight became the establishment favorite, with all the media and most politicians singing his praises for attacking a country with which the United States was not at war over an alleged atrocity that did not involve Americans-and could easily have been attributed to the terrorists that Damascus has been fighting. And then he did it again, using fighter bomber aircraft to attack a column of Syrian government-affiliated militiamen who were allegedly approaching and thereby threatening a position inside Syria where U.S.-supported "good" insurgents, accompanied by American advisers, were apparently hunkered down.
Someone should take out a map and show Trump where Syria is and outline its borders while explaining what "sovereign territory" is supposed to mean. If he could grasp the concept, possibly by relating it to Mexico, it just might suggest to him that we Yanks could actually be foreign invaders who have crossed a national border and are killing local people in gross violation of international law.
And then there is the foreign-policy finesse exhibited on his recent World Tour. It began with his predictable slobbering all over the Saudis and Israelis before stiffing the Palestinians. But then he elevated his game by angering the Pope, whining to the Germans because there are no Chevys on the streets of Berlin, pushing his way past the Montenegran Prime Minister and, finally, insisting on riding in a golf cart and arriving late to the photo-op ending the G7 meeting in Sicily while everyone else walked the 700 yards. His boorishness manifests itself as a nearly complete unwillingness to make even the smallest gesture that would ease the relations with other countries and leaders who are important U.S. partners. I guess he sees doing so as a sign of weakness. Class act all the way, Donald!
But then again, when I am really down on Trump and what he is doing or not doing, I think of Hillary Rodham Clinton. A good friend of mine Joe Lauria, formerly a Wall Street Journal correspondent, has recently introduced, edited, and provided extensive commentary for a book entitled How I Lost By Hillary Clinton . It is an indictment of the Clinton campaign "in her own words" and includes a foreword by Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, who discusses the leaks of Democratic National Committee (DNC) and John Podesta emails that together provide much of the material included in the text.
Lauria uses the source material to describe the Clinton campaign using her own speeches as well as the leaked emails of her close associates, and it really is refreshing to revisit what made the "inevitable" Hillary so unappealing, particularly as she is now trying to rebrand herself without assuming any serious blame for her shortcomings as a candidate. Along the way, documents reveal the road to Russiagate and Clinton's plans for more regime change, as well as expose corruption within the nominally "neutral" DNC, the latter of which led to the deliberate sabotage of the campaign of Bernie Sanders and the de facto anointment of Clinton as president-apparent.
The book is organized around two central themes, Hillary as an elitist and Hillary as a hawk. In his introduction, Lauria describes Clinton as "an economic and political elitist and a foreign-policy hawk divorced from the serious concerns of ordinary Americans-the very people she needed to vote for her." It is a fair assessment and in his introduction Joe also takes aim at Russiagate among other targets, asking why, after more than a year of investigation and assessment, there has been no National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the alleged interference by Moscow in the U.S. election. NIEs are meticulously prepared to provide detailed analysis of an issue, to include sourcing and reliability assessments. They are carefully crafted products of the entire intelligence community and they include dissenting opinions. That there has been no NIE on Russiagate is unfathomable, unless of course such a report would reveal that Russiagate is itself a complete fabrication.
Lauria particularly assails Clinton foreign policy, describing her as a neoliberal interventionist who was the principal driving force behind a series of U.S.-led actions that turned Libya into a failed state while she was also urging tough action against Russia and yet another regime change in Syria. Joe notes that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were arming terrorists in Syria on her watch, which she was aware of from DIA reporting, while also contributing generously to the Clinton Foundation, which notoriously intermingled its ostensibly humanitarian programs together with the political activities of Hillary and Bill. And the Foundation also rewarded the Clintons directly through generous salaries and substantial perks for the whole family, to include foundation-funded travel on executive jets, which totaled $12 million in 2011 alone.
The Clinton sense of entitlement knew no limits, with Bill once accepting a $1 million birthday present from Qatar, the principal funder of al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra. Citing email evidence, the book documents how major foreign donors to the foundation were able to enjoy special access to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary's closest associate Huma Abedin was point person for much of the activity and was paid a $105,000 salary by the State Department, plus an undisclosed amount by a consulting firm linked to the foundation, a double dip arrangement of questionable legality.
Between April 2013 and March 2015, Hillary Clinton gave 91 speeches and earned over $21 million. The three speeches for Goldman-Sachs that she made during that time, for which she was paid $675,000, are the best known, mostly because soon-to-be candidate Clinton refused to release the transcripts. But she also spoke to just about any group who would pay her upwards of a $200,000 fee plus expenses. This included several public universities. In her speeches, she sometimes complained about how awful it was that many Americans had begun to look down on those who have a lot of money, including a comment to Goldman Sachs that "there is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives." She was referring to herself and Bill.
It was rare that Hillary's mask would drop and she would say what she really thought, though it did happen sometimes. A speech at an LGBT fundraiser in New York included the now infamous line: "You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it they are irredeemable but thankfully they are not America." Or at least not an America that she would recognize.
Hillary's speeches and the emails of Podesta and her staff are quoted in extenso in the text and appendices. The most enduring impression is how boring most of what she said really was. Her political experience enabled her to say what her audience wanted to hear-no more, no less. She rarely spoke of actual policy in concrete terms and, for example, when speaking to Goldman Sachs, she was instead full of platitudes and generic praise for the "American way" of democracy promotion combined with good, solid, liberal, and free-market values. She included how the financial-services industry is in the forefront of all the positive changes taking place worldwide. There was nary a critical word about the role of the largely unregulated and predatory big banks in the great crash of 2008, and when she spoke of the suffering caused by that disaster, she was referring to the disruptions experienced by those in financial services and government who were made uncomfortable by being forced to respond to the crisis.
As Joe Lauria observes, Clinton's failure was clearly her inability to comprehend what many mostly white working-class people in the United States were experiencing. Her failure to see or understand inevitably became an inability to empathize with such audiences verbally in a way that would appear to be sincere. She came across as leaden and scripted. Her speeches increasingly became sustained attacks on Trump the man and his admittedly flawed personality, combined with appeals to women to vote for her purely because of her own gender. Her campaign was singularly lacking in any formula for addressing the real problems experienced by many in the country.
Speaking to bankers and other elitists from the Washington-New York axis and Hollywood was a lot easier for Hillary because she was, after all, one of them. She avoided campaign visits to working-class constituencies. And she compounded that with a bellicose world view that considered Washington's ambition to become some kind of benign but resolute global hegemon as both quite practical from a resources point of view and also the right thing to do, something that most Americans failed to relate to as a high priority.
So Hillary portrayed largely in her own words is well worth a read. Unfortunately for our country, there are a lot of Hillary clones still out there who have not learned the lesson of her defeat. Fortunately for conservatives, quite a few of them are still in charge of the Democratic Party.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
Nathan Meyer , says: June 15, 2017 at 11:39 pm I have little to argue with there; though the lack of a public NIE assessment on a subject does not mean that none exist? The tragic thing is that, bad as she is, Mrs. Clinton would have been better at performing the duties of the office than Mr. Trump. It was always a choice between flogged by Clinton or flayed by Trump. You can often survive a flogging, being flayed, not so much.EliteComInc. , says: June 16, 2017 at 12:15 amExoneration is supposed to be freeing and yet,Fran Macadam , says: June 16, 2017 at 1:53 amthere's the sickening sense that there's a lot of trench-work to be done and it won't be pretty.
"Fortunately for conservatives, quite a few of them are still in charge of the Democratic Party."
it's where the rest are which should be disconcerting.
I share your view about the voting choices and what was surely our last, worst hope for change.Jim Swarthout , says: June 16, 2017 at 3:32 amBut you know, causing disaffection among the "allies" who bear increasing resemblance to high maintenance satrapies making entreaties to the "benign hegemon" imperial court could be a good thing – the discontented gongs of divorce, breaking up that old gang o' mine.
Hope this book made you feel better about your Dear Leader Donald! While I continue to dislike Hillary, and voted for her without any relish, the character, history, idiocy, and absurdity of DJT could make the most abject of politicians seem like Honest Abe. Even if you really, actually think 'Russiagate' is a "vast left-wing conspiracy," does that make you feel any better about this president? That's pretty cold comfort . . .Brandon Zicha , says: June 16, 2017 at 5:05 am. because conservatives have been such beneficiaries of the loss of the democratic opposition. Man, the conservative ideals are just going gangbusters!genetuttle , says: June 16, 2017 at 5:16 amOr is this new GOP under Trump Conservatism. That would be news to me.
Reasonable 2016 sentiments might have paraphrased Churchill: Trump was the worst candidate for president, except for all those others.Mickey , says: June 16, 2017 at 6:39 amHe has been narrowing the gap daily since then. Thanks for the reminder that he hasn't yet closed it completely.
The alternative would have been a sane non sociopath adult. Even many conservatives recognize that fact. The white working class would be much better off with good health insurance, and maybe higher wages.Adriana I Pena , says: June 16, 2017 at 7:06 amMr. Giraldi. NOTHING could be worse than putting Moe Howard in charge of U.S. military power.Jim Bovard , says: June 16, 2017 at 8:25 amA fool is much more dangerous than a wicked man (or woman) because a wicked man can be trusted to know when he is cutting his own throat. A fool never.
Excellent piece. The opening chronology of Trump blunders & boneheadedness is an excellent setup for the Hillary demolition.EliteCommInc. , says: June 16, 2017 at 8:45 amThere is no reason under God's blue earth that you should feel embarrassed about voting for Mr. Trump. Not a single one.connecticut farmer , says: June 16, 2017 at 9:15 amAnyone listening to Sec. Clinton, speak she was unleashed over the last couple of weeks would know, exactly what this latest text is saying. Frankly, it's a bit frightening to hear that level of obtuse thinking. But then one listens to her hosts and the audience and its down right chilling.
Whatever tentacles the liberal/republican/libertarian intelligentsia have born is long and deep even in the psyche of the people who benefit the least from such leadership.
There are three articles about what is essential the primacy press concerning the global order and what all three indicate is that those running the show seem to have a common ethic about us poor people, if they could just get the rest of us to accept our lot in life as underlings of sorts all would be well.
There are the clan of MustaphaMond. It is the nihilism of Buddhist, Hindi and other far eastern thought. And while it has been around for quite some time. It has never fully bonded with our politic openly in the US until now.
When they talk about international law, they don't mean law, they mean the use of force to create order. And it should cause one pause as much as the common but ill used phrase "law and order" which stands for my oeder by force if necessary.
No new ground broken here. One nagging question remains: What DID Lynch and Clinton have to say to each other in that airplane hangar?Kurt Gayle , says: June 16, 2017 at 9:21 amPhilip, I share some of your frustrations with President Trump. However, you should have mentioned that Trump (true to his word) has thus far kept us out of any new Middle East war and has (against a braying pack of Democratic, Republican, mainstream media, and deep state conspirator-jackals) continued to push for detente with Russia, the one power on earth with the nuclear weaponry to destroy us.greenbook , says: June 16, 2017 at 9:24 amGiven your foreign policy expertise and concentration, it is understandable that you fail to mention that Trump has brought the burning issues of American jobs, trade deals, illegal immigration, and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure front and center via his America First agenda.
About our voting for Trump, Philip: I don't think there's any need to "sort of shuffle off, head down, while muttering something about how 'he wasn't the war candidate'." On the contrary, we should stand tall for Trump, because against all attempts to stop him, he is still fighting to fulfill his campaign promises.
Just to add: Some of the most dedicated, loyal fighters for good causes that it has been my good fortune to meet could also get a little "boorish" from time to time.
Who cares about Hillary Clinton?collin , says: June 16, 2017 at 10:13 amYou know who still cares about Hillary Clinton, Trump supporters trying to deflect from the obvious incompetence, continual stupidity, overt corruption, scandal genocide (plague is too kind a word), and worthless policy that was supposed to be the new era for conservatism.
So instead of trying to defend the indefensible, it is back to campaign 2016 to make it seem like you had no choice to go for the worst one possible despite the glaring red warning lights everyone was saying. But that's ok. At least Trump isn't a warhawk, even if he undermines the constitutional limitations of power.
You know an administration is struggling when they are comparing themselves to the election loser 8 months after the election. (In reality, I wish HRC would go away for 1 year. She can come back with her husband next year and be popular again.)mrscracker , says: June 16, 2017 at 10:35 amI voted for Mr. Trump, too. I'm not bit ashamed of it. I'd rather we'd had a different GOP nominee, but it was what it was. And I really like VP Pence.Alex (from SF) , says: June 16, 2017 at 11:28 am
Hillary was a dreadful candidate but no matter who the Democrats nominated, I wouldn't be able to vote for them in conscience because of the Democratic platform.
And can you imagine what the Supreme Court might look like after 4-8 years of Democratic administration?
Trump has carried through his promise re. the Supreme Ct. So that's something.But then again, when I am really down on Trump and what he is doing or not doing, I think of Hillary Rodham ClintonDana Pavlick , says: June 16, 2017 at 11:47 amThat's nice, and we all deserve some time in our happy places. But the 2016 election is over, and the guy you voted for is setting new gold standards for both corruption and Saudi boot-licking. How about using the public platform you have here to hold your guy accountable, rather than indulging in a long, self-justifying digression about how HRC would have been worse? Someone with your background probably has a lot of interesting things to say about the blockade of Qatar and Trump's support for it, the status of the Iranian nuclear deal, and why Trump and the foreign policy establishment are so beholden to the Saudis. I'd like to read those pieces.
Excellent précis of the cause of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential win: we voted for the uncertainty of Trump delivering the goods to the American people over the certainty of Hillary Clinton delivering us up to the high priests of Mammonry.TR , says: June 16, 2017 at 12:02 pmThe Establishment might consider that the narrative they sell us that we erred in so voting, is undercut by their arriving at the same conclusion by attempting a coup to remove him from office.
The indictment of Trump in the first several paragraphs depresses me immensely as does the concluding paragraph on Hillary clones.Paul , says: June 16, 2017 at 12:03 pmDidn't read the middle. Mankind can only take so much reality.
A more than interesting piece. I wish you had spelled out the acronym DIA, but not having done so did force me to learn about an agency of whose existence I was ignorant. Apparently, NIE's are ordered up by senior government officials. Couldn't the White House order one and, following your logic, thereby exonerate itself? This is a genuine question? I would be grateful for your opinion.One Man , says: June 16, 2017 at 12:09 pmI know this is a difficult concept to understand, but it's possible to dislike Hillary AND not want Trump to be president. I'm glad Trump is president, but I'm glad he's so incompetent. I laugh at him every day.Dan Green , says: June 16, 2017 at 12:14 pmI thought from the start of that torturous campaign Hillary either isn't all that bright , or possibly she and Bill just live in their own corner of the world, or lastly some influences told her she was a shoe in and just follow the Obama prior agenda.Dave skerry , says: June 16, 2017 at 12:56 pmAs a long-time subscrber to A.C. Giraldi is brightest ,straight shooter aboard. I couldn't vote for the "know-it-all" and had to vote for Bill's spouse. However, to pile- on I have to add that she was a "kiss-ass" Israel firster which made me hold my nose even tighter.Mark Thomason , says: June 16, 2017 at 1:28 pmHillary was awful. That does not make Trump acceptable. Still it was a race to the bottom, and she bottomed out worse.Joe the Plutocrat , says: June 16, 2017 at 4:02 pmWe'd have had a much bigger Syria War. We'd be back in her Libya disaster. We'd have gone into South Sudan. She'd have armed Ukraine and sent Special Forces.
She'd have done that trade deal in the Pacific, her supporters are now clear on that despite her lies during the campaign. That is a symptom of the overall neo-liberal bullet we dodged.
She would not have a scandal about Russia, but she'd have one about Wall Street and open bribery of the Clinton Foundation cash for access and selling her office.
It would have been even worse.
Really? This is rearview mirror stuff. What's next, attempts to indict HRC for "obstruction of justice" because her establishment bona fides – arrogance, incompetence, and greed made the 'alternative establishment' – equally arrogant, incompetent and greedy – candidate more appealing?james , says: June 16, 2017 at 4:32 pmThe reasons why Hillary lost are like sands on the beach, numberless. The reason HRC lost is because she is a woman and this is America. Oh I know too simple, it is, but consider too that McCain lost. hm, ah you're crazy. Could be, but twenty plus years of demonization must have some effect, you think. If you really want to know why Hillary lost read, 'The Destruction of Hillary Clinton' by Susan Bordo. That is if you seriously want to know. Challenge the sands.BobPM , says: June 16, 2017 at 4:45 pmReally! "She would not have a scandal about Russia, but she'd have one about Wall Street and open bribery of the Clinton Foundation cash for access and selling her office."Donald , says: June 16, 2017 at 5:06 pmTalk about weak tea. Most actual investigations found the Clinton Foundation fairly clean and the access amounted to small ball compared to the displays of patronage demanded daily by Trump. Did you read the recent investigation into the purchases of Trump properties by anonymous corporations, have you looked at the Wall Street tycoons in Trumps cabinet, or the number of lobbyists. Please spare me the hand wringing over your hypothetical Clinton administration.
I voted for Clinton as the lesser evil and still think that was right. She and that whole wing of the Democratic Party are awful. But Trump is worse.Hexexis , says: June 16, 2017 at 6:47 pmAnd anyway, it isn't terribly relevant. Your man is in and he might be the dumbest most incompetent blowhard to ever occupy the WH.
Elitist, hawk, sense of entitlement? Gee, who's that sound like?Jake V , says: June 16, 2017 at 7:12 pmMonths after the election (cf. sedition), press still tryna produce a dichotomy betw. Hi-C. & Trump. I never bought it & never will. The two parties tortured us w/ a female impersonator & a male one.
Apparently, it came down to how they got their enormous wealth. But Trump's been "the king of greenmail" (the MCA fiasco, 1988) for lots longer than Frau Clinton's been barking expensive speeches. So, Junior Nutz there more experienced: right?
Trump is turning out to be pretty much what I expected. Far from perfect, but what he's done is far more conservative than any other Republican would have done. Still far better than Hillary.
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Jun 12, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The recent controversy surrounding my colleague and friend, Paul Griffiths, Warren Professor of Catholic Theology in the Duke Divinity School (DDS), has been widely covered. Countless op-ed pieces, fueled by Rod Dreher's online publication of internal memos and public emails at The American Conservative , as well as prominent editorials in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times , have reached many readers.
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Unfortunately, that dialogue remains more elusive than ever. Instead, for quite some time now, the word "diversity" has served two distinct and equally problematic purposes: the magical and the litigious. Some university administrators, particularly those less loyal to the job they have than to the one they covet next, have embraced "diversity" as a professional talisman of sorts, a term that, if wielded frequently and with conspicuous reverence, will magically unlock doors higher up on the professional ladder. Conversely, to faculty members craving moral ascendancy over colleagues whose superior achievements they may regard with a mix of dread, inadequacy and envy, there is no more powerful weapon than to charge the target of their resentment with opposition to diversity, which in the present order of opportune allegations ranks just below that of the child molester. To put it in Platonic terms, contemporary academia has been mirroring our country's deteriorating civic discourse by supplanting knowledge with opinion, and by weaponizing our opinions, rather than understanding them as something for which we bear great responsibility.
1) Is the notion of "diversity" to be understood as a mimetic or compensatory endeavor? That is, is the notion of "diversity" that is being aimed at supposed to replicate among faculty the current demographic breakdown of our country as a whole? Or is the objective to compensate for the extreme dominance of a certain type of faculty-white, Caucasian, male, and (putatively) heterosexual-as it undeniably prevailed well into the 1990s at many institutions of higher learning?
2) Supposing, then, that higher education understands itself to be committed to a mimetic conception of diversity, then what is to serve as our point of reference? Is diversity, as currently affirmed by institutions of higher education, to be modeled on the overall demographic breakdown of the population in the United States-say, as captured by the most recent national census? Or is the university's conception of diversity aimed at some other norm of proportionate representation of minorities, say, one prevalent in academia as a whole or as endemic to specific disciplines?
3) Conversely, if the goal of diversity is compensatory, i.e., seeks to make up for past social injustices and the demographic disequilibrium they have produced, then here too we must be explicit about the point of reference that is to guide our remedial efforts. Is the objective to compensate for a historical lack of diversity that for many decades prevailed inside the academy? And, if so, is diversity pursued under that principle to amount to a retroactive balancing of sorts, an open-ended institutional "reparation" for past injustices and inequities? Here it ought to be kept in mind that, to cast the matter in sacramental terms, there can be no atonement without forgiveness. Hence, if diversity is understood as compensation, then not only must past wrongs in this regard be clearly identified, but any institutional acknowledgment of past injustice must also be met by, and conclude with, an act of comprehensive forgiveness. Otherwise, institutions would remain forever caught up in a downward spiral of moral recrimination and self-abasement, respectively.
4) Assuming that these questions can be openly deliberated and satisfactorily answered (which in the present climate is to assume a great deal indeed), more intractable issues yet will arise. For regardless of whether the modern research university opts for a mimetic or compensatory approach to diversity, it is by definition an inherently selective, elite institution. Thus, one must wonder whether institutions of higher education can balance their highly selective practices of faculty recruitment-practices directly related to the goal of the university as such, viz., advancing knowledge-with a demographically representative notion of "diversity" such as it exists outside of academia?
5) Finally, we should ask why currently prevailing assumptions and practices concerning "diversity" are conceived in such peculiarly narrow, not to say non-diverse ways. We know that empirical demographic studies, including the national census conducted by the U.S. government every decade or so, rely on many categories and descriptors and, consequently, yield a far more inflected and robust conception of our society's diverse composition. That being so, what justifies higher education's conception of "faculty diversity" being mainly restricted to the categories of race and gender? Leaving aside logistical difficulties, to which one may certainly be sympathetic, why exclude any number of other descriptors from our conception of diversity, such as social class, ethnic background, veteran status, political views, religious belief, childhood trauma, aesthetic preferences, dietary philosophy, dance and gardening skills, past struggles with mental disability, etc.?
connecticut farmer, says: June 12, 2017 at 8:18 am
G Harvey , says: June 12, 2017 at 10:12 amNotwithstanding my agreement with the author, this article is very poorly written and filled with academic jargon, each sentence representing the very antithesis of Churchill's observation that there is nothing more powerful in the English language than a simple, objective sentence.
"'Diversity' is turning into idolatrous worship of empty notions"
The above statement is false because the verb tense is wrong. This is not something new. 'Diversity' was always at best a racket and at worst a knowing stage – a mere stage – in the war to replace Western Civilization.
Professor Pfau: Did you stand up and defend the Duke lacrosse team and its head coach? Did you condemn colleagues such as Leftist Houston Baker.
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Jun 11, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The fault line in American politics is no longer Republican vs. Democrat nor conservative vs. liberal but establishment vs. anti-establishment. This is an inevitable result of serial failure in establishment policies. Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the establishment's repeated military interventions abroad in wars against non-state opponents. When such interventions fail in one place-first Somalia, then Iraq, then Afghanistan, then Libya, now Syria-it does the same thing again somewhere else, with the same result.
Why has the establishment allowed itself to be trapped in serial failure? Once we understand how it works, the answer is plain: it cannot do otherwise. On Capitol Hill, the legalization of bribery-"campaign contributions"-means money rules. That puts business as usual in the driver's seat because that is where the money is. If a member of Congress backs, say, the F-35 fighter/bomber, he can count on campaign contributions from its manufacturers and jobs for his state or district. (The Pentagon calls that "strategic contracting.") If instead he calls for reforming our military so it can perform better in Fourth Generation wars, where fighter/bombers are useless, there's no money.
My long-time colleague Paul Weyrich and I both began our Washington careers as Senate staff, Paul in the late 1960s and me in 1973. Shortly before his death in 2008, I said to him, "When we arrived on the Hill, at least half the members of the Senate thought their job had something to do with governing the country. Now that figure is at most 10 percent. All the rest think about is having a successful career as a professional politician and retiring very, very rich." Paul agreed.
Just as money locks in current policy, so does ideology. To be a member of the establishment you must spout the ideology of "democratic capitalism," the notion that America can and should remake the rest of the world in its own image. Other peoples see this, rightly, as an attempt to ram the Brave New World down their throats. Many are willing to fight to prevent it. But if a member of the Washington establishment dares question the ideology and suggests a policy based on realism, he immediately loses his establishment membership.
Over breakfast in Denver several years ago I said to my old boss, Sen. Gary Hart, "If you are a member of the establishment and you suggest more than five degrees rudder change in anything, you cease to be a member of the establishment." He replied, "I'm exhibit A."
Below these factors lies the establishment's bedrock. It is composed overwhelmingly of people who want to be something, not people who want to do something. They have devoted their lives to becoming members of the establishment and enjoying the many privileges thereof. They are not likely to endanger club membership by breaking its rules. Beyond following money and adhering to its ideology, the rules are three.
The first is, don't worry about serial failure. Within the Beltway, the failure of national policies is not important. Career success depends on serving interests and pleasing courtiers above you, not making things work in flyover land. As in 17th-century Spain, the court is dominated by interests that prosper by feeding off the country's decay.
Second, rely on the establishment's wealth and power to insulate its members from the consequences of policy failure. The public schools are wretched, but the establishment's children go to private schools. We lose wars, but the generals who lose them get promoted. The F-35 is a horrible fighter, but no member of the establishment will have to fly it. So long as the money keeps flowing, all is well.
Third and most important, the only thing that really matters is remaining a member of the establishment. This completes the loop in what is a classic closed system, where the outside world does not matter and is not allowed to intrude. Col. John Boyd, America's greatest military theorist, said that all closed systems collapse. The Washington establishment cannot adjust, it cannot adapt, it cannot learn. It cannot escape serial failure.
The public is catching on to all this and, on both sides of the political spectrum, turning to anti-establishment candidates. If we are fortunate, some will win. If the establishment manipulates the rules to hold on to power indefinitely, when it collapses it may take the state with it.
William S. Lind is the author, as "Thomas Hobbes," of Victoria: a Novel of Fourth Generation War .
Christopher Manion , says: February 15, 2016 at 8:02 am Paul Weyrich is still an inspiration, as Bill recounts here. He tried to make that ninety percent do the right thing, appealing to their better natures but threatening their heart's desires. It was, and is, a constant battle.Colorado Jack , says: February 15, 2016 at 8:11 amAs for the closed system – the only way to drain DC's Bipartisan Hot Tub is from the outside. That's where the plug is – no one on the inside can reach it, and none there really wants to.
That's our job.
"To be a member of the establishment you must spout the ideology of "democratic capitalism," the notion that America can and should remake the rest of the world in its own image."TB , says: February 15, 2016 at 9:35 amThey may spout it, but they don't believe it and they don't act on it. They have learned the lesson of Iraq. Here's Donald Rumsfeld in 2015, with the advantage of hindsight: "I'm not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories. The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic."
The establishment cheerfully tolerates and supports Saudi Arabia's regime. No one in the establishment thinks it wise to press for democracy in any serious way. Ditto for Egypt, where our aid violates US law under any fair reading.
Lind has a point but way overstates it.
"If the establishment manipulates the rules to hold on to power indefinitely, when it collapses it may take the state with it."ged2phd , says: February 15, 2016 at 10:45 am
___________________________I agree but, as Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet says, "I spy a kind of hope". I believe a tipping point in our political culture was reached in 2008 when the electorate chose a young and inexperienced black man with a VERY scary name over a mainstream war hero and did so by a wide margin. I expect Bernie to be nominated and then win by margins that make BHO's victory look close.
Great article. It's long been apparent that the "establishment" seems oblivious to the consequences of their wasteful and foolish policies, but when you point out the foolishness has no (immediate) consequences for them, and even a positive impact on their careers, it all makes sense. Long term, though, it's a sure descent into the abyss for all of us. Of course, the "little people" are falling first and faster, so the elites no doubt are calculating they'll land on top of us so we'll cushion their landing.Richard L Harrell , says: February 15, 2016 at 10:57 amThe real definition of the Establishment is clear and simple. They are the scum of the Earth.JohnG , says: February 15, 2016 at 11:26 amAs depressing the picture painted here may be, I actually think it's optimistic.Fran Macadam , says: February 15, 2016 at 12:32 pmTo be a member of the establishment you must spout the ideology of "democratic capitalism," the notion that America can and should remake the rest of the world in its own image.
Now, could someone explain to me how Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo, or Iraq are now more conformant to some American ideal? I believe the truth is much worse than giant corporations having interest in perpetual wars: The establishment has become a vast network of private rackets that uses the American military & economic might as the ultimate extortion tool. Just ask the two worst secretaries of state in history posing (and seeking cover) as ultra-feminists.
It was under Mad Albright's tenure that the US started to support (and bomb on behalf of) the shadiest of the terrorist figures in Kosovo, accused by several UN personnel of butchering Serbian and (traitor) Albanian prisoners to harvest organs for trade. You can't make this stuff up, it's beyond horrific. And, surprise, madam secretary leaves her post to turn into a hedge fund manager with investments and interests in the region. Payback for help, anyone? Who wouldn't want to harness the US Air force for its private goals? And would anybody be surprised if HRC took this model one step beyond to make payments to the Clinton Foundation pretty concurrent with the "services" provided by the State Department? And how is this different (other than organ trafficking) from our senators and congressmen retiring vastly richer than when they went into politics? Just where did that money come from?
In summary, it's NOT just evil corporations, it's the vastly concentrated power of an out of control and overreaching government. Once you have that, you are bound to have individuals and networks trying to harness that power for their private purposes. So yes, let's clean up political financing, but let's also go back to the idea of limited government. And stay vigilant to keep it limited, because, you always end up in trouble otherwise.
It couldn't have been said better or more succinctly – or more truthfully.seydlitz89 , says: February 15, 2016 at 2:08 pmLame article, sorry. Bill Lind seems unable to understand what strategic theory is. Still attempting to make his reified 4GW notions into reality. John Boyd "America's greatest military theorist"? Ok, E-M theory of aerial combat is significant, but that is mathematics-based and has to do with aircraft design (quite limited really) which is not strategic theory at all, is it? But confusion among US (a)strategic thinkers is the norm and has been for some time . . . interests cloud their little heads . . . But then Dick Cheney is Boyd's greatest follower . . . so . . . follow the leader . . .Rossbach , says: February 15, 2016 at 2:41 pmAfter reading Jeffrey Sach's blog post . . . I asked myself "why did I waste my time on this" . . .
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hillary-clinton-and-the-s_b_9231190.html
Given the realities of the 2-party system, with the neocons dominating GOP foreign policy and liberal interventionists controlling the Democratic side, it's not hard to see how this total lack of accountability has persisted for so long. Hopefully, the pushback that the establishment candidates of both parties are experiencing from the voters will have its effect on national policy – if not in this election cycle, perhaps in the next one.connecticut farmer , says: February 15, 2016 at 6:59 pmWell put, JohnG. The system is thoroughly corrupt and given the divisions within American society may well be beyond repair. If so, we are doomed. Maybe the HRC email controversy will expose not only her personal corruption but that of the whole system, though I wouldn't bet on it. She may only be the tip of the iceberg and as such only the worst of a bad lot whose numbers are legion.Fred Bowman , says: February 15, 2016 at 11:43 pmThe LAST thing the Congressional-Military-Industrial Complex want is for ANY War to end, as it cut off their justication for a bloated military budget that continues to enriched them and their cronies for God know how long.Kurt Gayle , says: February 16, 2016 at 12:10 pm@ seydlitz89, who wrote:Frand Liebkind , says: February 16, 2016 at 12:55 pm"Lame article, sorry. Bill Lind seems unable to understand what strategic theory is. Still attempting to make his reified 4GW notions into reality."
From my perspective Bill Lind's 4th Generation War explanation for the long string of US defeats by non-state opponents matches up well with the facts.
To be sure, our taking seriously Lind's "4GW notions" would necessarily lead to (1) a different US foreign policy and (2) a radically scaled-back flow of money to the shadow military-industrial state and their hired politicians.
So might it be, seydlitz89, that your discomfort is less with Lind's "4GW notions" than it is with (1) or (2), or both?
Ironic, isn't it, that many of the late Col Boyd's air combat theories have become establishment doctrine, almost half a century later. I can only assume that Boyd was sharp enough to realize that they have little application to today's fourth generation warfare. But I may be wrong.cdugga , says: February 16, 2016 at 3:25 pmDemocratic government is supposed to be answerable to the people. But there are 2 big problems with that. One, the people have to stay informed and know what the issues are as well as what potential representatives believe. Is there any reason to move on to the second big problem? Okay, just for discussion, the second problem is that the first problem allows for all the following problems forever after amen. Holding our representatives accountable requires that we hold ourselves accountable for electing the correct representative. Ain't gonna happen, simply because the correct representative, the one telling us that we are the ones responsible, is never going to be elected. The one that will get elected is the one that says others, like immigrants, blacks, elites and those who are not true christians, true patriots, or core americans, are the cause of all our policy and economic problems. That's the guy we want to lead us. We may get him. And he might do what we want, but it is unlikely he will do anything we need to have done to bring back america. Bringing back america is our job after all, and who wants that responsibility. The supposed anti-establishment candidates are simply the ones that say they will take care of the problems we allowed to happen. And we already know they won't or can't because we would never demand so much from ourselves.Iowa Scribe , says: February 16, 2016 at 4:56 pmWe are nearning the end of "the rule of political spoilsmen," but are we also nearing the end of the American experiment or, perhaps, even the catastrophic interruption of the progress of human civilization?stephen laudig , says: February 18, 2016 at 1:52 am71:3.10 The ideals of statehood must be attained by evolution, by the slow growth of civic consciousness, the recognition of the obligation and privilege of social service. At first men assume the burdens of government as a duty, following the end of the administration of political spoilsmen, but later on they seek such ministry as a privilege, as the greatest honor. The status of any level of civilization is faithfully portrayed by the caliber of its citizens who volunteer to accept the responsibilities of statehood.
for the US political and military establishments . "there's no success like failure failure's no success at all". There are many, many causes, the one highlighted this year is an electoral law system that only allows for "coke and pepsi" and holds up, in effect bails out or life-supports, the two moribund parties [one may actually die this year, and the other will follow shortly thereafter, extinction of the dinosaurs] by not allowing replacements to grow. cheers.seydlitz89 , says: February 18, 2016 at 8:30 am@ Kurt GayleKurt Gayle , says: February 18, 2016 at 3:29 pmRegarding 4GW I think you putting the wheelless cart before the dead horse. 4GW started as a list of speculations published in an article in the Marine Corps Gazette in 1989, that is there wasn't originally any "theory" at all. In 1991, Martin van Creveld published the "The Transformation of War" (TTW) since he needed to divorce war from politics for political/propaganda reasons (Israel's occupation of Palestinian land). Formerly MvC had promoted Clausewitzian strategic theory, had in fact presented a paper in 1986 entitled "The Eternal Clausewitz". TTW provided 4GW with some actual "theory", although Lind claims that 4GW actually exists (reification) and is not theory at all.
Lind also talks about the "moral being the highest level of war" and claims that's Boyd's view, but according to Chet Richards Boyd never said anything of the kind. We had a long discussion on this back on the sonshi forum about a decade ago.Clausewitz became a problem for Dick Cheney and the Neocons since strategic theory links political purpose (not limited to those of "the state") with military aims achieved through military means. Too often states or other political entities wish to hide their actual involvement (not to mention their goals) in wars and thus 4GW comes in handy as a cover for that, but useless in understanding strategy . . . read the Sachs article . . .
I would also add that 4GW became a useful excuse for US military incompetence since the generals could claim, "How could we have won, it was 4GW!".
As to Boyd, OODA loops don't really provide anything other than a model for friction above the tactical . . .
The Russians don't fall for any of this, following instead Svechin, the great Russian Clausewitzian strategic theorist and understanding the uses and limits of organised violence. They understand the nature of the conflict they are involved in in Syria and are acting strategically, something the US hasn't been able to achieve since the end of the Cold War/First Gulf War . . . that is since the rise of 4GW confusion . . .
Thank you, seydlitz89, for taking the time to give so much background history regarding this discussion of Fourth Generation War, etc.peter connor , says: February 19, 2016 at 6:20 pm
For those of us who find William Lind's 4GW arguments convincing, it's very useful to read counter-positions presented so well by someone as well-versed in the subject as you obviously are. Sincerely. Thank you."Lame article, sorry. Bill Lind seems unable to understand what strategic theory is. Still attempting to make his reified 4GW notions into reality."seydlitz89 , says: February 19, 2016 at 6:44 pm
The reality has been hitting us in the face for more than 60 years but as Lind points out, reality means nothing to Washington insiders, or other devotees of country wrecking military-industrial profiteering.
I will make this very simple for you, seydlitz89. If the people of a country you are trying to occupy or control don't want you there, it will be ruinously expensive for you to stay there, and eventually you will leave. Got it?@ Kurt GayleObiJohn , says: February 21, 2016 at 3:05 amThank you for the kind words. Sadly the Cheneyite rot is so deep at this point that we'll simply have to ride it out . . . Svechin wrote about the corrupting influence of a political elite overwhelmed by its own decadence and delusions that it confuses its own interests with those of the country that it rules . . . 4GW is part of/has become a pawn of that larger phenomenon . . . the greater confusion . . .
The problem here is that our political leaders, by and large, do not understand grand strategy or military strategy, and do not wish to do so and risk opprobrium from other elites. Elite culture insists acceptance to the belief that violence solves nothing, and never can. Unfortunately, our foes disagree, with the backing of history. We lost in Iraq because Obama ceded victory by abandoning the battlefield, as if saying a war was over could possibly end it on favorable terms the same mistake we made in Vietnam. Rather, the problem in the Middle East is that we haven't killed enough extremists the mistake we didn't make in WWII and so the battle-hardened jihadis that remain believe they can win if they only endure. So far, they seem to be right. The real problem here is the creation of an elite that is isolated from ordinary Americans, from the realities of the global economy, from their own failure as leaders due to their dysfunctional worldview based on a life of privilege, freedom from want, and a belief that all of that is deserved istead of the result of winning the birth lottery. Their unconscious embrace of socialist policies is more about their unease of their fortunate privilege, and it stops when the pain starts they call for the elimination of private property but insist their iPads are exempt as 'personal' property rather than private property. They call for equality of opportunity but aren't willing to give up their spot at an Ivy League university. They call for more taxes but incorporate in Ireland, or dock their yacht in Rhode Island to avoid Massachusetts taxes. They no longer support enlightened self-interest but instead push for restrictions on freedom of speech, call for more gun control, and seek to restrict political opposition all in the name of peace and freedom and happiness. They are the modern Marie Antoinettes, and the mob is sharpening the pitchforks.Eric , says: February 24, 2016 at 8:15 amseydlitz89 "The Russians don't fall for any of this, following instead Svechin, the great Russian Clausewitzian strategic theorist and understanding the uses and limits of organised violence"Svechin? Really? Most of his work was borrowed from the pre 1914 Nikolai General Staff Academy. The bigger Soviet thinker at the time was Verhovsky. Someone got very excited about Svechin at Fort Leavenworth in the late 1970s/early 1980s (probably because someone decided to translate him) but in the Russian context he's a relative minor figure – no one follows him.
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Jun 03, 2017 | www.unz.com
Agent76 , June 3, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMT
May 31, 2017 "Men in dark suits" rule the US – Putin on Deep State
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with French publication Le Figaro, has revealed that a US president is more often than not just a figurehead of government.
Mar 6, 2017 Zakharova warns of Orwellian US Media 2.03.17
Have a listen to what Zakharova has to say in relation to "fake news". Is there a deliberate campaign to undermine trust in all traditional media, so that the public can no longer form an opinion?
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Jun 03, 2017 | www.unz.com
Of course, this begs an obvious question. Traitor to what? In an "America" which no longer has a definable culture, language, ethnos , history, identity or rule of law, what is there left to betray?The open celebration of what any other generation would have called "treason" reveals how fully self-discrediting is the Russian "interference" narrative. John Harington famously quipped: "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." The "Russian interference" narrative is false because the fact it can be loudly denounced without being shut down for being the equivalent of "racist" or "xenophobic" shows Russia isn't very powerful within our government and society.
In contrast, our government and media seem to not only tolerate openly subversive or even hostile actions by foreign governments against the United States, but celebrate them.
Consider:
The Mexican government makes open claims to sovereignty over both American citizens and territory and promotes the migration of its nationals in order to chip away at American independence . A seemingly endless flow of Chinese, motivated by racial and national loyalty , are leaking American defense technology to their homeland; the MSM buries the stories out of fear of being called racist. Saudi Arabia funds terrorist groups and networks within the United States and Europe, yet the same American military which the federal government won't use to secure our own border is used to guard the Kingdom . (And of course, Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's close aide, has strong ties to the Saudi government ). Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, has a border wall , and has a powerful lobby in this country which has a huge amount of influence in both political parties. Israel's hold on American foreign policy, and the willingness of many American Jews to vote or oppose certain politicians based on the depth of their support for the Jewish State, is completely understood and taken for granted by the American public [ Indecision 5768 , The Daily Show ]
To criticize any of these countries, or to suggest dual loyalty on the part of their supporters in this country, is political death. Of course, that is because such dual loyalty is sufficiently strong that it is dangerous to broach the topic.
Indeed, for some in our Congress, dual loyalty would be a massive improvement.
Chuck Schumer tells AIPAC he is destined be a "guardian " for the Jewish state, but wants to shut down the government if President Trump builds a wall . Luis Gutierrez allies with foreign governments against the United States and brags his "only loyalty" is to the "immigrant community." Raul Grijalva, a Congressmen from Arizona, is an alumnus of the Mexican secessionist and racialist group MEChA and has spent his entire political career trying to undermine immigration law for the benefit of Latin America.
The only reason we can't call men like these traitors is because there's no evidence they ever considered themselves Americans in any meaningful way. What could be more ridiculous than considering Chuck Schumer "a fellow American" with some imaginary "common interest" he shares with me?
Or take certain Main Stream Media figures. Bill Maher wants to Democrats to ask if you are with "us or the Russians". [ Maher: I want Democrats to say "You're Either With Us Or With The Russians ," by Ian Hanchett, Breitbart, May 12, 2017] Maher naturally delights in Open Borders for America and the replacement of our own population, but has spoken in the past about how "Israel faces the problem of becoming a minority Jewish state within their own country". [ Bill Maher on Israel, uncut and uncensored , by Danielle Berrin, Jewish Journal, November 29, 2017]
It's not double loyalty; that would be giving Maher too much credit. And it's not treason, because Maher just isn't part of my people, by his own standards. When Bill Maher refers to "us," I know that doesn't include me or my readers, and I know "the Russians" hate me a lot less than he does.
I'm with the Russians.
After all, "treason" requires not just providing "aid and comfort" to a foreign nation, but to an enemy. Why exactly is Russia an enemy of the United States ?
It's not Russia which makes claims on our territory . It's not Russia which funds extremist networks. It's not Russia which is deliberately sending terrorists into the West.
Of course, there is a Trump associate who has disturbing ties with a country doing just that. The main focus of the investigation into "Russian collusion" is focusing on former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn . But Flynn's strongest ties to a foreign power seem to be to be increasingly extreme and anti-European Turkey of the autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Incredibly, Flynn even wrote an editorial demanding more support for Turkey on election day itself. [ Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support , by Michael Flynn, The Hill, November 8, 2016]
As Turkey is quite openly facilitating the migrant invasion of Europe and helping ISIS, there's a far better case to claim our NATO "ally" is a threat than Russia. And yet Flynn's ties to Turkey go all but unmentioned outside evangelical Christian websites [ Best-selling author predicted Flynn's departure , WND, February 14, 2017]. The MSM is utterly indifferent to Flynn's ties to Erdogan, even when they seem to be utterly dedicated to destroying General Flynn personally.
Part of it simply could be the defense industry and the "Deep State" need an enemy with a powerful conventional military to justify their wealth and power. As it can't be China (that would be racist), Russia will do.
The real reason Russia is hated is because it is a media threat. Russia is funding, or at least is tied to, several alternative media sources such as RT, possibly Wikileaks, Sputnik etc. Contrary to MSM claims, RT is hardly friendly to the "Alt-Right," instead promoting progressive hosts such as Thom Hartmann. But there is at least a slightly different point of view than the monolithic Narrative promoted on every late night comedy show, network news broadcast, cable news broadcast, newspaper headline, and Establishment website [ The Hard Road For Putin , by Gregory Hood, Radix, July 22, 2014].
There is also an undeniable, and openly articulated , sense of racial hatred expressed against Russians by Jewish members of the media. Russians are hated both as a specific ethnos and as a white nation which does not seem to be fully committed to "our values," which, as defined by Weimerica's journalist class, consists of various forms of degeneracy. [ Welcome to Weimerica , by Ryan Landry, Daily Caller, May 5, 2017]. John Winthrop's "City Upon A Hill" we are not.
It's not just idiotic but obscene that the same journalists gleefully involved in deconstructing the American identity now demand Middle America rally round the flag out of some misplaced Cold War nostalgia. Needless to say, these same journalists loved Russia back when it was Communist and killing millions of Orthodox Christians.
For immigration patriots, it's especially obnoxious because the eradication of the American identity is a result of mass immigration. And immigration is more important than every other issue for two reasons.
First, it affects everything else. You simply can't discuss education , health care , counterterrorism , environmentalism , the class divide or anything else without confronting immigration.
Ignoring immigration ensures no problem can ever be solved; indeed that every problem consistently gets worse.
ORDER IT NOWTo take just one example, Americans are sent all over the world to die because "we have to fight them there so they don't come here"; and then our government goes out of its way to bring terrorists here . And of course, as more problems are imported, the managerial class obtains more power to govern social relations and its own power grows . This is why it is hard to believe those who support Open Borders are actually working to defend the national interest in good faith.
But the second reason is even more important:
Immigration cuts to the heart of what a country is, of who you mean when you say "my people." Are Americans still one people? Indeed, it's hard to claim America is even a geographic expression: referring to the United States shorthand as "America" is now designated as offensive . The replacement of existing American citizens is celebrated by the media and funded by our own government.
And even citizenship means nothing, The MSM constantly promotes Jose Antonio Vargas and his illegal friends or the protesters who parade under foreign flags not just as "Americans" but as people somehow more American than us.
It's a strange definition of patriotism where wanting peaceful relations with Russia is "treason" but banning the American flag in public schools because it might offend Mexicans is government policy .
Naturally, Leftist intellectuals and the reporters who parrot their ideas do have some vague idea of "American" identity-that of a "proposition" or "universal" nation which exists only to fight a global struggle for equality [ Superpowers , by James Kirkpatrick, NPI, June 24, 2013].
But can you betray a "proposition nation?" How exactly does someone turn against a "universal nation?"
Actually, you can. If you are part of the historic American nation, one of those European-Americans who actually think of this country as a real nation with a real culture, you are in a strange way the only people left out of what it means to be a modern "American." To consider America a particular place with a specific culture and history that not everyone in the world can join simply by existing is treason to a "universal nation." Everyone in the world can be an "American," except, you know, actual Americans.
This is why the MSM is insistent that the governing philosophy of " America First ," which should simply be a truism for any rational American government, is instead something subversive and dangerous .
The hard truth is that "our" rulers aren't the guardians of our sovereignty, but the greatest threat to our independence.And this isn't an unprecedented circumstance in history. During the Napoleonic occupation of Prussia, Carl von Clausewitz violated his king's orders to join the invasion of Russia and instead joined the Tsar's forces in the hope of someday liberating his own country. After all, it wasn't Tsar Alexander that was occupying Prussia; it was Napoleon. And in the end, he won, Prussia was restored, and eventually it was Prussia that would unite all of Germany.
The same situation applies today. Today, those actively pursuing the destruction of my people, culture and civilization aren't in Moscow. I don't even concede those are enemies at all.
Our enemies are in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, in "our" own media companies, government bureaucracies and intelligence agencies.
The real America is under occupation – and resistance to collaborators is patriotism to our country. We elected Donald Trump because we thought he could help disrupt and perhaps even end that occupation so we could have a country once again.
The attempt to destroy the President has ripped the mask off the forces behind this occupation . And we owe no loyalty to the collaborators who are trying to destroy his administration, dispossess our people, and destroy our country.
Because in the end, "treason" to the occupation is loyalty to America.
Mulegino1 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 16, 2017 at 7:25 am GMT
Achmed E. Newman , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 16, 2017 at 9:25 am GMTI concur completely. The Russians are not our enemies. The Russians have never been our enemies. The Soviet behemoth may have harnessed the captive Russian bear, but, to paraphrase St. Paul, "Our battle was not with flesh and blood Russians but with the the powers and principalities of international Jewry and its ugly and deadly spawn, Judeo-Communism."
Once it cast off those chains, Russia became a natural ally of the American people, but not, of course, of the Atlanticist Zionist empire which the American deep state serves. Orthodox Christian Russia and the United States had a true compatibility of interests, until the advent of Roosevelt I and his war party of would be empire builders.
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 16, 2017 at 3:02 pm GMTThis kind of purposeful switching of truth for lies and lies for truth, described excellently here by Mr. Kirkpatrick ( of VDare! ) is straight outta the Bible, and that's not a good sign at all. PeakStupidity here is on the search for the passage in question. Anyone, anyone .. Buehler?
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 17, 2017 at 3:00 am GMT"I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University." - Buckley
We'd also be better off governed by names from the Moscow phone book than by the New York Times and Washington Post.
Priss Factor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 4:45 am GMT@Mulegino1 I concur completely. The Russians are not our enemies...
Just a reminder of who made Teddy. Everybody knows by now (a short overview@ http://www.tomatobubble.com/id695.html ):
"It's not merely that [Jacob] Schiff wielded enormous power, but rather the fact that his actions, more so than anyone else's, fundamentally altered the course of American history. Schiff was really the first true Jewish Mega-Mogul of the whole United States (Judah Benjamin had previously run the confederacy). As the first, Schiff, more than anyone who followed him, was able to leverage his power into eternity. That is why the MVZ award must go to him .
Schiff hated Christian Russia with a passion. He worked ceaselessly to overthrow the Romanov Dynasty and replace it with Jewish Reds / Communists. Toward that end, he personally financed, and sold bonds on behalf of, about 50% of the entire Japanese war effort during the Russo-Japanese War. As a result, the war ended with a Japanese victory. Russia's loss was also facilitated by Schiff's boy, President (and also a former New York Governor) Teddy Roosevelt*, whose negotiating intervention clearly favored Japan over Russia
(* Roosevelt became President after the conservative William McKinley was conveniently assassinated by aPolish[?]-American anarchist Leon Czolgosz, Teddy being conveniently Vice-President. Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy when the first false-flag incident of the USS Maine occured, later on followed by the Lusiatania – when FD Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy- and Pearl Harbour).
"Schiff's Jewish agents in Russia skillfully used the humiliating loss of the Russo-Japanese war as an occasion to launch a Communist revolution. The bloody Revolution of 1905 ultimately failed, but the Tsar's regime was left considerably weakened. Many of the returning Russian POW's came home brainwashed after Schiff had arranged for Communist propaganda to be given to them while in Japanese captivity. The final Bolshevik overthrow of Russia in 1917 will owe its success, in large part, to the damage done to Russia by the team of Jacob Schiff & Ted the Red Roosevelt on 1905.
President William H. Taft proved to be a Constitutional Conservative, and not a big government "progressive" like his predecessor Teddy Roosevelt. But what really angered Jacob Schiff most of all was Taft's refusal, told to Schiff in person, to dampen trade relations with Tsarist Russia*. According to Henry Ford's sources, Schiff and his entourage left the White House saying. "This means war .
[*Schiff imposed also the abrogation of the Russian American Trade Treaty of 1832 in 1911, first instance of 'sanctions' motivated by the 'ill-treatement' of Jews in Russia (actually of the Jews emigrated to America returning to Russia holding American passports and engaged in subversive activities)].
"In order to oust the popular Republican Taft in 1912, Schiff and company recruited Teddy Roosevelt to run for President again, as a third party challenger. This maneuver split the Republican vote in two, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to steal the Presidency. Wilson's Jewish owned presidency would turn out to be disastrous for America, and the world (The Fed, World War I, Russian Revolution, Jewish foothold in Palestine, Depression of 1919-1920)
As was the case during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the chaos of World War I enabled the Communists (Bolsheviks) to stage another uprising in 1917. Leading the diabolical efforts was Jacob Schiff's loyal agent, Leon Trotsky, freshly reestablished in Russia after having hidden in Brooklyn for the past decade. The Tsar had been forced to abdicate earlier that same year. The provisional government would then be overthrown by the Jewish-led Bolsheviks.
The following year, Schiff's agents murdered the Tsar and his entire family. The reign of terror that the Soviets then ushered in would plague humanity for decades to come. Scores of millions would be murdered! And it could never have happened without the tireless leadership of Rothschild, Schiff and their Junior partners.
Soon after the Revolution, Schiff removed Russia (now the Soviet Union) from his "do-not-lend list".Just for a little 'piquant'. The granddaughter of Jacob, Dorothy, had a 'relationship' (which detractors called an 'affair') with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
wayfarer , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 4:57 am GMTDeep State should just be called the Sewer. At least a swamp is a natural eco-system. Deep State is a man-made Sewer, the Bowel of Power.
Priss Factor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:14 am GMT"Let's Connect the Dots!" https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/05/17/lets-connect-the-dots/#more-150513
jilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:23 am GMT... No, Jews fell out of love with communism once they became increasingly successful with capitalism. Also, even leftist Jews came to see the failure of communism in Cuba and Vietnam. And when the truth came out about Mao's crimes and the greater success of China under capitalism, most Jews lost faith in communism.
Some still had nostalgia for Old Idealism and did credit USSR for having defeated Nazi Germany, but few Jews were communist by the 80s when Soviet Union entered into its death throes. Also, the New Left of the 60s was more about drugs and rock n roll than revolution.Also, the Soviet Union became gentile-dominated by the late 30s, and after WWII, especially as Zionists in Israel chose US over USSR, Jews came under increasing suspicion and even discrimination in the communist world. Initially, Stalin installed many Jewish communists in Eastern European nations, but after the fallout over Israel, many were purged as 'Zionists'.
So, most Jews welcomed the fall of the USSR. If anything, Jews used finance-capitalism to amass control of much of Russian resources.
And in the 90s, most powerful Jews did everything in their power to make sure the Russian Communist Party would not be come to power. They pulled every dirty trick in the book to ensure Yeltsin winning another term.Those were the good ole days for Jews in Russia. And if they had been less greedy, they may have kept the power. But they grabbed too much loot and turned a blind eye to all the suffering, and this gave an opening to the Russian nationalists(mild though they may be). Mild nationalists like Putin didn't purge Jews, but he sent a message that Russia would no longer be a 'vacationland for Jewish lawyers in love'.
So, Jews tried various means to crack Russian nationalism, neo-traditionalism, and sovereignty. They used Pussy Riot and Homomania. They didn't work.
So, the main reason for anti-Russianism has nothing to do with communism. The problem for Jews is that Russia rejects globalism or at least globalist domination. Jewish power is centered on globalism. Nationalism is anathema to Jews because it means that the national elites should represent, defend, and serve their national masses. All nations except Israel is majority gentile. So, nationalism makes national gentile elites grow closer to national gentile masses. This accounts for mass support for Putin in Russia.
In contrast, under globalism, the national elites serve globalist elites than their national people, and that means national leaders serve Soros and his ilk than their own folk.
Now, you'd think that the masses would rebel against the leaders if for treason, but Public Education and Pop Culture have brainwashed tons of masses too. Look at all the white dummies in the US who support globalism that is actually hurting them. And they would rather side with Diversity(invasion) than with their own hurting kind.
These whites attack Trump for opposing mass invasion of the US by More Diversity. Why would they want to invaded and be made into a minority people? They've been mentally-colonized by the Glob Virus.
FKA Max , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:44 am GMTMany USA jews, and rabbis, were against Zionism because the USA was the new Zion. Henry Ford around 1918 began to see the increase of jewish power in the USA, and began resistance.
Around 1933 world jewry accomplished a world wide boycott of Ford cars, and Ford gave up. Trump, though he has many close jewish contacts, is not the puppet of the neocons. Hillary is. So Deep State wants to get rid of Trump,in order to continue their plans to subjugate the whole world, the globalised world, where all cultures have disappeared, the whole world one big USA clone.
Wally , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 7:30 am GMTHigh-quality TV with Victor Davis Hanson and Tucker Carlson:
Inside Dems' 'big lie' about Trump and Russia
Published on May 18, 2017
Historian dissects 'boogeyman of Russian collusion' that Democrats and the media cling to in quest to get Pres. Trump out of office #Tucker
This is a very welcome new development for the Alt Right:
Tucker Carlson's Reinvention
[...]
We've become fans of the show in this household even though we consume far more more information from the internet than cable television. He's reaching an audience which normally doesn't watch FOX News.Hillary's Neoliberals
http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/hillarys-neoliberals/
Apart from opportunistic careerism, the subtext to this realignment is a larger issue of culture, education, and class. A mostly urban, highly educated, and high-income globalized elite often shares more cultural and political affinities with their counterparts on the other side of the aisle than they do with the lower-middle and working classes of their own countries.
Just as Hillary Clinton may feel more comfortable with the old neoconservatives, Trump supporters have little in common with either Clintonites or neocons.
Clinton versus Trump is a war of NPR, CBS, and the New York Times against the National Enquirer, conservative talk radio, and the Drudge Report. Clinton supporters such as former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, onetime Bush officials Hank Paulson and Brent Scowcroft, and billionaire Meg Whitman certainly have nothing in common with Republican Trump supporters such as Mike Huckabee and Rush Limbaugh.
Culture, not just politics, is rapidly destroying - but also rebuilding - traditional political parties.
Zogby , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 9:44 am GMTMoscow has 92 synagogues for less than a thousand practicing Jews – they are staffed and manned by the imported American Rabbis of Habad. Best and the choicest pieces of Russian municipal land are given to synagogues and Jewish cultural centres for free. http://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-russian-scare/
Jewish groups get up to 97% of grants from the Homeland Security
PiltdownMan , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 10:18 am GMTI believe Trump when he says he's not a Russian agent. The Russians would never employ such an erratic and unpredictable individual as an agent!
The Russians were against Hillary, not for Trump. They couldn't be sure what Trump would do anymore than anyone else could. With Hillary they could be sure, and they had every reason to be against her.
Take a recent incident The NYT publishes a smear story accusing Trump of revealing classified information to Lavrov. McMaster and other American officials present in the meeting rush to deny that Trump reveal classified information, and only mentioned things about the laptop scare that had already been public for weeks. Putin follows by offering to send Congress the Russian transcript of the meeting to show Trump didn't reveal any classified information. Then Trump goes on Twitter: Of course I revealed classified information! I'm the President and it's my right! Go help somebody like that
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:24 am GMTWhat Putin said yesterday.
"What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans," Mr. Putin said. "Either they don't understand the damage they're doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt."
Achmed E. Newman , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:25 am GMT@Wally Moscow has 92 synagogues for less than a thousand practicing Jews ....
Jewish groups get up to 97% of grants from the Homeland Security
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/islamophobia-shmislamophobia-97-of-homeland-security-security-grants-go-to-jewish-orgs Shamir is an inveterate liar and the figure of 90+ synagogues in Moscow is fraudulent.Serg Derbst , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:52 am GMT@Sebastian Puettmann Don't kid youselves.
The Russians hate you more than Keith Olberman.
He is just confused.The Russians hate you more than Keith Olberman.
We all hate Keith Olberman, but the Russians don't get the same cable channels. Why would they hate Keith Olberman when he doesn't even come on TV there?
Che Guava , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:55 am GMTI agree with the sentiment, but disagree with the idea that America had ever once been "one people". It was always a divided, segregated, even deeply racist society and its elites have always propagated that division as much as they have always waged war against whom ever.
There have been lynch mobs and progroms not just against the usual suspects (blacks and jews), but also against Germans, Irish, Polish, Italians etc.
I think there might be Anglo-American, Irish-American, Italian-American or African-American identities, but there never was a true American identity similar to what Germans, French, Russians or even Canadians have.
The reason is first the divide and conquer managed by the elites and second that American society is a dog eat dog society of constant competition. Also Americans see "freedom" as being independent as individual or family, while Europeans consider "freedom" as a form of being part of and embedded in a social group, so that people tended to remain within their ethnicity. It was always more patchwork than melting pot. Historically I'm sure the Civil War with its massive massacres did its part as well.
There has always been American patriotism based on the flag, the constitution and the army – but that is too superficial and too little to form a cultural identity. The American Dream has always just been a dream, an imagination, something unreal, and the American way of life? Consumerism, materialism, hedonism – an identity based on stuffing yourself with food and buying as many material goods as you can? Nah, that's a form of behavior formed by advertisement, but not an identity either.
There never has been a true, culturally ingrained and psychologically deep American identity. I don't see it. But maybe the coming massive crisis with possible famines and even civil war will create exactly that. Nothing binds people together more than common sorrow. Ask the Russians or the Germans.
neutral , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 12:07 pm GMT@Authenticjazzman " The real reason Russia is hated is because it is a media threat"
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The "real" reason Russia is hated is because it has rejected Communism, and it does not cater to gays.
Communist Russia had been , since the thirties, mecca and utopia for the US leftists and they are now out of their collective mind because their vision of world Marxism with Russia running the show have been obliterated by the likes of the anti-communist VP.
The Democrats were convinced that they had the election in the bag , and therefore the accomplishment of eternal one-party government. They would have legalized the illegals as a gigantic voting block, and the huge upset dealt to them by the deplorables has driven them off the cliff and into total madness.
"Media threat" is such a vague non-descript concept that I don't have the energy or patience to even elaborate thereon.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.
PS off subject but relevant : Russia has a thriving Jazz scene, and the are some monster American-style Jazz players coming out of Russia. You are making several good points, but I won't hit the 'agree' button, because I agree with the Priss Factor's reply to your main points.
Again, it is amusing that you post the same potted description of you on every post.
If you post under a pseudonym and won't identify your 'authentic jazz', you may be wiser to drop the claims.
Just leave the occasional incidental.
Nice to see you making a post that makes much sense, though.
Anonymous , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 12:15 pm GMT@Sean The Russian ambassador was begging, begging for an audience with Obama in the Oval office, but didn't get it because Russia had annexed Crimea and waged a semi conventional war on Ukraine. The the Russians did not keep their idiot Assad under control.Trump granted the ambassador's request, but only did so the day after the US had bombed a Syrian airfield that the Russian expeditionary force regularly use.
Unfortunately Trump will have to kill some Russians now . Send the delta force into Syria disguised as rebels , they may be there already, because the Trump administration has stopped announcing what troop deployments he in making in Syria and Iraq. A typical cuckservative response, how about you respond to what this article is about. The facts are absolutely clear the greatest enemies are those that exist in America, they have been mentioned in this article, your obsession with Russia is not going to deflect from this fact.
Its rather simple, Ukraine is not American, despite all your stupid domino theories yourwill no doubt bring up, on the other hand extremists like Olberman openly support mass non white immigration into the USA, what would any reasonable nationalist think is the bigger issue.
neutral , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 12:20 pm GMT@Mulegino1 I concur completely. The Russians are not our enemies. The Russians have never been our enemies. The Soviet behemoth may have harnessed the captive Russian bear, but, to paraphrase St. Paul, "Our battle was not with flesh and blood Russians but with the the powers and principalities of international Jewry and its ugly and deadly spawn, Judeo-Communism." Once it cast off those chains, Russia became a natural ally of the American people, but not, of course, of the Atlanticist Zionist empire which the American deep state serves.
Orthodox Christian Russia and the United States had a true compatibility of interests, until the advent of Roosevelt I and his war party of would be empire builders. Here's a 1200-page read for you. It's from a traditionalist Catholic perspective.
The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History by E. Michael Jones, Ph.D. [20 mb PDF file]d
Che Guava , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 12:29 pm GMT@Serg Derbst I agree with the sentiment, but disagree with the idea that America had ever once been "one people". It was always a divided, segregated, even deeply racist society and its elites have always propagated that division as much as they have always waged war against whom ever. There have been lynch mobs and progroms not just against the usual suspects (blacks and jews), but also against Germans, Irish, Polish, Italians etc. I think there might be Anglo-American, Irish-American, Italian-American or African-American identities, but there never was a true American identity similar to what Germans, French, Russians or even Canadians have. The reason is first the divide and conquer managed by the elites and second that American society is a dog eat dog society of constant competition. Also Americans see "freedom" as being independent as individual or family, while Europeans consider "freedom" as a form of being part of and embedded in a social group, so that people tended to remain within their ethnicity. It was always more patchwork than melting pot. Historically I'm sure the Civil War with its massive massacres did its part as well.
There has always been American patriotism based on the flag, the constitution and the army - but that is too superficial and too little to form a cultural identity. The American Dream has always just been a dream, an imagination, something unreal, and the American way of life? Consumerism, materialism, hedonism - an identity based on stuffing yourself with food and buying as many material goods as you can? Nah, that's a form of behavior formed by advertisement, but not an identity either.
There never has been a true, culturally ingrained and psychologically deep American identity. I don't see it. But maybe the coming massive crisis with possible famines and even civil war will create exactly that. Nothing binds people together more than common sorrow. Ask the Russians or the Germans. I partially agree with you on the identity thing, but on the other hand the American identity (I say this as a non American) was based on being white. There was the notable exception of the blacks, but they did not make up the majority of the population and their acceptance as being American was the exception more than the rule, their distinct culture added some spice to what was America, but nobody can seriously believe that if the USA was 90% black it would still be America.
You also now have the situation that people arrive off planes from places like India, China or Somalia and are declared American, I find that ridiculous. Sadly this is no longer a problem only in America, its the same in Sweden, France, Germany, UK, etc, they all have made what being a people is completely meaningless.
Achmed E. Newman , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 12:47 pm GMT@Sean Assad keeps treating his people like bugs, by gassing them. There were dead aplenty Russians in Afghanistan. It would not take much to get them out of Syria, which as you may recall, they only dispatched their expeditionary force to once the US had declined to get involved in. General Dempsey never thought of the effect that the US staying out would have in emboldening Russia.
There was a program about Putin's Russia the other year in which a reporter visited the main Russia WW2 memorial museum, and to his bewilderment found the the music accompanying the Great Patriotic War presentation was the theme to the US series Dallas .
Assad keeps treating his people like bugs, by gassing them.
That is a very strange assertion, as are many of your others. Strong evidence has been widely reported about the gas attack while Obama was Prex of the USA having had a Turkish connection.
Erdogan imprisoned many reporters on this and other ties with al Qaeda and the Islamic state.
It is easy to look up.
Assad is an idiot.
He was a respected opthalmolagist in London for years, testimonials from former (British) patients are not hard to find. Opthalmology may not be the most demanding medical speciality, but it is up there, and is not a nest of idiots.
If you want to see an idiot, you may try the mirror.
Agent76 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 12:54 pm GMT@Serg Derbst I agree with the sentiment, but disagree with the idea that America had ever once been "one people". It was always a divided, segregated, even deeply racist society and its elites have always propagated that division as much as they have always waged war against whom ever. There have been lynch mobs and progroms not just against the usual suspects (blacks and jews), but also against Germans, Irish, Polish, Italians etc. I think there might be Anglo-American, Irish-American, Italian-American or African-American identities, but there never was a true American identity similar to what Germans, French, Russians or even Canadians have. The reason is first the divide and conquer managed by the elites and second that American society is a dog eat dog society of constant competition. Also Americans see "freedom" as being independent as individual or family, while Europeans consider "freedom" as a form of being part of and embedded in a social group, so that people tended to remain within their ethnicity. It was always more patchwork than melting pot. Historically I'm sure the Civil War with its massive massacres did its part as well.
There has always been American patriotism based on the flag, the constitution and the army - but that is too superficial and too little to form a cultural identity. The American Dream has always just been a dream, an imagination, something unreal, and the American way of life? Consumerism, materialism, hedonism - an identity based on stuffing yourself with food and buying as many material goods as you can? Nah, that's a form of behavior formed by advertisement, but not an identity either.
There never has been a true, culturally ingrained and psychologically deep American identity. I don't see it. But maybe the coming massive crisis with possible famines and even civil war will create exactly that. Nothing binds people together more than common sorrow. Ask the Russians or the Germans.
There never has been a true, culturally ingrained and psychologically deep American identity. I don't see it.
and, with a name like Serb, I can see why. Why are you writing about something that you obviously (from your racism drivel in the 1st paragraph) know not a damn thing about?
You are an prime example of the data points we at PeakStupidity use to prove that America and the West has arrived at a global maximum.
jilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 1:35 pm GMTApr 6, 2016 Fascism, American Style
The United States of America, that dream of what a democratic republic ought to be, has become the Fascist States of America. As the 2016 elections have more than revealed, we have moved beyond the era of representative government and have entered into a new age. You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Either way, argues John W. Whitehead, we are being played for fools.
jilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 1:38 pm GMT@Mulegino1 I concur completely. The Russians are not our enemies. ....
Orthodox Christian Russia and the United States had a true compatibility of interests, until the advent of Roosevelt I and his war party of would be empire builders. Stalin was our enemy, a Roosevelt creation.
He died in 1953, probably murdered.
Then the threat was over, those that did nog believe it should have realised it when Chrustjow removed his rockets and atomic warheads from Cuba.
But the USA went on with the madness of possible mutual destruction, I suppose in the hope that the cost of the war effort would cause the collapse of the USSR.countenance , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 2:05 pm GMT@Anonymous Here's a 1200-page read for you. It's from a traditionalist Catholic perspective.
The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History by E. Michael Jones, Ph.D. [20 mb PDF file]d Did you read it ?
If you did, is there the theory that christianity was a Roman invention, brought by Paul, to undermine jewish power ?Che Guava , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 2:34 pm GMTBut can you betray a "proposition nation?" How exactly does someone turn against a "universal nation?"
By disagreeing with the proposition.
Linda Green , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 2:34 pm GMT@Seraphim @the advent of Roosevelt I and his war party of would be empire builders. Just a reminder of who made Teddy. Everybody knows by now (a short overview@http://www.tomatobubble.com/id695.html) ....
I had never heard of that before.
It is irony on at least two levels, the treatment of the Japanese P.o.W.s from Manchuria, 40 years later, included much Communist indoctrination, although that was the time of the nadir of Jewish Bolshevism, I am quite sure that demoted Jewish officials would have been in charge of the Siberian prison camps where P.o.Ws from Japan were.
The other irony is the German High Command's use of Lenin as a kind of human bomb that spectacularly misfired on their intentions.
So, you are saying that Japan tried the same thing 12 years earlier, on a smaller scale?
It is an interesting idea, but foundation of the JCP was later but a joke version "was"founded earlier, perhaps that has a connection.
A comment not connected to this thread, some idiot on another claiming knowledge said that the victory in the Russo-Japanese war is not commemorated here. It is a lie.
The order is, how we were victimised by cruel bombings and having soldiers imprisoned in Manchuria, how we were great to invade China and other places, the technical genius of the Mitsubisi Zero (and I am to fully agreeing with that one), the sadness of the Special Attack Forces, and how clever was Admiral Togo in the Russo-Japanese war (also to agreeing with that, just from a military perspective).
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 2:59 pm GMT@Achmed E. Newman This kind of purposeful switching of truth for lies and lies for truth, described excellently here by Mr. Kirkpatrick ( of VDare! ) is straight outta the Bible, and that's not a good sign at all. PeakStupidity here is on the search for the passage in question. Anyone, anyone ..... Buehler? Isiah 5:20:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
There are similar passages elsewhere but I think this is the most commonly cited.
Agent76 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:21 pm GMT@ThereisaGod You know your history. The people at the top of western power systems are truly diabolical. The moneychangers, the Sanhedrin and complicit gentile degenerates. What has changed in 2000 years? Why are 'Christian' leaders silent on these issues? Are they Christians at all? @What has changed in 2000 years?
A steady Judaization of Christianity. They are no more Christians.
John Gruskos , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:28 pm GMTAug 9, 2016 Kill Russians, kill Iranians, scare Assad! Ex CIA deputy Mike Morell – Aug 8 – Charlie Rose
John Gruskos , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:38 pm GMT@Sean The Russian ambassador was begging, begging for an audience with Obama in the Oval office, but didn't get it because Russia had annexed Crimea and waged a semi conventional war on Ukraine. The the Russians did not keep their idiot Assad under control.Trump granted the ambassador's request, but only did so the day after the US had bombed a Syrian airfield that the Russian expeditionary force regularly use.
Unfortunately Trump will have to kill some Russians now . Send the delta force into Syria disguised as rebels , they may be there already, because the Trump administration has stopped announcing what troop deployments he in making in Syria and Iraq. Trump doesn't "have" to do any such thing.
The Russians in Syria are protecting Christians, and they are fighting against our worst enemies, radical Sunni jihadists such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
In addition to defeating Al-Qaeda and protecting Middle Eastern Christians, Russian-American friendship would have many other benefits – boosting American exports, balancing the rise of China, and cooperating to end the migrant invasion of Europe.
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:48 pm GMT@Sean Assad keeps treating his people like bugs, by gassing them. There were dead aplenty Russians in Afghanistan. It would not take much to get them out of Syria, which as you may recall, they only dispatched their expeditionary force to once the US had declined to get involved in. General Dempsey never thought of the effect that the US staying out would have in emboldening Russia.
There was a program about Putin's Russia the other year in which a reporter visited the main Russia WW2 memorial museum, and to his bewilderment found the the music accompanying the Great Patriotic War presentation was the theme to the US series Dallas . The 1986 amnesty was Reagan's biggest mistake.
His second biggest mistake was arming the mujahedeen. The CIA basically helped create Al-Qaeda.
We need to learn from our mistakes, and stop supporting the radical Sunni jihadists who will commit acts of terrorism against us the first chance they get.
jilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:49 pm GMTToward that end, he personally financed, and sold bonds on behalf of, about 50% of the entire Japanese war effort during the Russo-Japanese War.Much of what you are saying I had read in passing (interesting post), but that is interesting to me. Do you have a pointer to something I could read on it, preferably on the 'net or a book in Japanese (also the below).Schiff had arranged for Communist propaganda to be given to them while in Japanese captivity.I had never heard of that before.
It is irony on at least two levels, the treatment of the Japanese P.o.W.s from Manchuria, 40 years later, included much Communist indoctrination, although that was the time of the nadir of Jewish Bolshevism, I am quite sure that demoted Jewish officials would have been in charge of the Siberian prison camps where P.o.Ws from Japan were.
The other irony is the German High Command's use of Lenin as a kind of human bomb that spectacularly misfired on their intentions.
So, you are saying that Japan tried the same thing 12 years earlier, on a smaller scale?
It is an interesting idea, but foundation of the JCP was later ... but a joke version "was"founded earlier, perhaps that has a connection.
A comment not connected to this thread, some idiot on another claiming knowledge said that the victory in the Russo-Japanese war is not commemorated here. It is a lie.
The order is, how we were victimised by cruel bombings and having soldiers imprisoned in Manchuria, how we were great to invade China and other places, the technical genius of the Mitsubisi Zero (and I am to fully agreeing with that one), the sadness of the Special Attack Forces, and how clever was Admiral Togo in the Russo-Japanese war (also to agreeing with that, just from a military perspective). You will find it in:
Jacob H. Schiff: A Study in American Jewish Leadership
https://books.google.com.au/books?isbn=0874519489
Naomi Wiener Cohen – 1999 , p.137
It actually refers to an article in New York Times of March 24, 1917 – "KENNAN RETELLS HISTORY Relates How Jacob H. Schiff Financed Revolution Propaganda in Czar's Army".
@ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E05E4DB143AE433A25757C2A9659C946696D6CF&legacy=truejilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:51 pm GMT@Agent76 Aug 9, 2016 Kill Russians, kill Iranians, scare Assad!
Ex CIA deputy Mike Morell - Aug 8 - Charlie Rose
https://youtu.be/UZK2FZGKAd0 It is clear to me now that the CIA is a fascist led organisation, my definition of fascism being 'the use of power without any ideology'.
Wally , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:52 pm GMT@John Gruskos The 1986 amnesty was Reagan's biggest mistake.
His second biggest mistake was arming the mujahedeen. The CIA basically helped create Al-Qaeda.
We need to learn from our mistakes, and stop supporting the radical Sunni jihadists who will commit acts of terrorism against us the first chance they get. Raegan never made any mistake: 'he slept through it all'.
Mark Green , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:52 pm GMT@Anon Shamir is an inveterate liar and the figure of 90+ synagogues in Moscow is fraudulent. Still in denial we see.
jilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 3:52 pm GMTThank you, James Kirkpatrick, for another excellent article. Some of the hyperlinks in his essay however seem not to be functioning properly.
It's heartening to see Kirkpatrick finally explore (though gingerly) the Jewish angle to the never-ending chain of Trump-loathing 'experts' and Russia-hating politicians. Indeed, it is the Israel factor that remains the most potent as well as the most sacrosanct element in this fake drama about US secrets and 'compromised' national security.
Indeed, it is the marauding kosher beast–not Russia–that gets to graze unmolested throughout Washington while smaller, non-threatening animals are hunted down and slaughtered.
This top-down smoke and fog and hysteria suggests that America is no longer a sovereign state. This is true. But Russia has nothing to do with our nation's loss of self-rule. All this malarky about Putin's interference in our presidential election is a media-orchestrated farce. America should actually be aligned with Christian Russia, not engaged in damaging the Russian economy via sanctions or marching NATO up to its doorstep. But the warmongering and the deceptions about Russia, as well as the special treatment accorded Israel, continues.
Thus the MSM shrieks endlessly about non-existent Russian subversion but deliberately looks away when Israeli interference in US elections is operating and evident and functioning as designed. It's fake news about what is fast becoming a fake, lobotomized, Zionized nation.
Big media beats its chest over compromised US intelligence, yet it is nuclear Israel–not Russia–that has apparent access to raw US intelligence like no other foreign state.
And it is Israel–not Russia–that routinely steers America into needless conflicts against the foes of Zionism, even though these small, distant counties (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon) seek no war with Washington and pose no threat to the American people.
Trump, for all his subservient, pro-Israel posturing (not to mention his needless attack on Assad's Syria) remains too white, too independent, too 'old America' for his Jewish overlords or for the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. This is why Trump must go.
Just as Mel Gibson will always be radioactive in Hollywood for making accurate remarks about Jews being in the center of most European wars, Trump let the cat out of the bag by suggesting that Washington's serial warfare in the Middle East is "not in our national interest". The truthfulness of his simple observation rendered Trump a long-term threat to Israel's special status in America as well as Israel's unannounced goal of upending and reshaping the Middle East via US military power.
Even though Trump has recently changed course, his patriotic and nationalistic messages linger in the mind. If acted upon, Trump's campaign promises pose a threat to 1) increased (non-white) multiculturalism inside America and 2) more wars against Israel's enemies abroad. The Zions don't like this brand of nativism one bit. That political highway is reserved for Israelis, not Americans.
Most importantly, Israel and crypto-Israelis inside Washington remain committed to smashing the alliance between Iran, Syria and Russia. This requires a subservient president. Trump's erratic conduct and rhetoric endangers this Israeli objective. This animates the anti-Trump coup now underway.
US-based Israelis believe that VP Pence is a far more reliable Christian Zionist than the bombastic and unpredictable 'America First' president. This is why Trump is being targeted with such unceasing venom.
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 4:33 pm GMT@John Gruskos Trump doesn't "have" to do any such thing.
The Russians in Syria are protecting Christians, and they are fighting against our worst enemies, radical Sunni jihadists such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
In addition to defeating Al-Qaeda and protecting Middle Eastern Christians, Russian-American friendship would have many other benefits - boosting American exports, balancing the rise of China, and cooperating to end the migrant invasion of Europe. Your benefits are to Deep State horrible losses.
Achmed E. Newman , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:00 pm GMTThe real reason is that the Russians are a convenient cover-up for Democratic incompetence. It is an alternate reality to convince the base and the sponsors that Hillary lost the election because she was co-opted by the Red Tide.
Dems really think that Trump and Putin colluded to steal the DNC emails and give it to Wikileaks. It really is a mental illness at this point.
They wanted Comey fired, but when Trump did it, it was obstruction. They wanted a Special Prosecutor, but now are worried that he may not find anything. They believe the incessant hysteria is whipping up their base and will guarantee the House in the 2018 election. Hope they crash and burn in 2018.
Achmed E. Newman , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:08 pm GMT@Linda Green Isiah 5:20:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
There are similar passages elsewhere but I think this is the most commonly cited. Thank you very much, Linda! I know there are plenty of search tools and places to search on-line, but I didn't have the wording right.
neutral , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:20 pm GMT@John Gruskos The 1986 amnesty was Reagan's biggest mistake.
His second biggest mistake was arming the mujahedeen. The CIA basically helped create Al-Qaeda.
We need to learn from our mistakes, and stop supporting the radical Sunni jihadists who will commit acts of terrorism against us the first chance they get. I agree with your point, John, but would like to say that Ronald Reagan's mistake with the amnesty of 1986 was in trusting members of the US Congress , not so much what should have been a 1-time deal – though, I grant you, any amnesty was a bad deal for Americans. Here is more regarding Reagan's regrets on that whole fiasco.
Anonymous , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 5:39 pm GMT@John Gruskos The 1986 amnesty was Reagan's biggest mistake.
His second biggest mistake was arming the mujahedeen. The CIA basically helped create Al-Qaeda.
We need to learn from our mistakes, and stop supporting the radical Sunni jihadists who will commit acts of terrorism against us the first chance they get. With that amnesty he could never win any vote California if he existed now, this the problem with all these cuck types, they all want to believe in the magic dirt of America that somehow they will have another Reagan one day, this will never happen and Reagan shares part of the blame.
jilles dykstra , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:06 pm GMT@Agent76 Aug 9, 2016 Kill Russians, kill Iranians, scare Assad!
Ex CIA deputy Mike Morell - Aug 8 - Charlie Rose
https://youtu.be/UZK2FZGKAd0 Do you think think this middling intellect, son of an autoworker from Akron, Ohio with a degree in accounting from U. of Akron, realizes he's only a useful goyim tool and has no real power??
War for Blair Mountain , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:08 pm GMT@Mark Green Thank you, James Kirkpatrick, for another excellent article. Some of the hyperlinks in his essay however seem not to be functioning properly.
It's heartening to see Kirkpatrick finally explore (though gingerly) the Jewish angle to the never-ending chain of Trump-loathing 'experts' and Russia-hating politicians. Indeed, it is the Israel factor that remains the most potent as well as the most sacrosanct element in this fake drama about US secrets and 'compromised' national security.
Indeed, it is the marauding kosher beast--not Russia--that gets to graze unmolested throughout Washington while smaller, non-threatening animals are hunted down and slaughtered.
This top-down smoke and fog and hysteria suggests that America is no longer a sovereign state. This is true. But Russia has nothing to do with our nation's loss of self-rule. All this malarky about Putin's interference in our presidential election is a media-orchestrated farce. America should actually be aligned with Christian Russia, not engaged in damaging the Russian economy via sanctions or marching NATO up to its doorstep. But the warmongering and the deceptions about Russia, as well as the special treatment accorded Israel, continues.
Thus the MSM shrieks endlessly about non-existent Russian subversion but deliberately looks away when Israeli interference in US elections is operating and evident and functioning as designed. It's fake news about what is fast becoming a fake, lobotomized, Zionized nation.
Big media beats its chest over compromised US intelligence, yet it is nuclear Israel--not Russia--that has apparent access to raw US intelligence like no other foreign state.
And it is Israel--not Russia--that routinely steers America into needless conflicts against the foes of Zionism, even though these small, distant counties (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon) seek no war with Washington and pose no threat to the American people.
Trump, for all his subservient, pro-Israel posturing (not to mention his needless attack on Assad's Syria) remains too white, too independent, too 'old America' for his Jewish overlords or for the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. This is why Trump must go.
Just as Mel Gibson will always be radioactive in Hollywood for making accurate remarks about Jews being in the center of most European wars, Trump let the cat out of the bag by suggesting that Washington's serial warfare in the Middle East is "not in our national interest". The truthfulness of his simple observation rendered Trump a long-term threat to Israel's special status in America as well as Israel's unannounced goal of upending and reshaping the Middle East via US military power.
Even though Trump has recently changed course, his patriotic and nationalistic messages linger in the mind. If acted upon, Trump's campaign promises pose a threat to 1) increased (non-white) multiculturalism inside America and 2) more wars against Israel's enemies abroad. The Zions don't like this brand of nativism one bit. That political highway is reserved for Israelis, not Americans.
Most importantly, Israel and crypto-Israelis inside Washington remain committed to smashing the alliance between Iran, Syria and Russia. This requires a subservient president. Trump's erratic conduct and rhetoric endangers this Israeli objective. This animates the anti-Trump coup now underway.
US-based Israelis believe that VP Pence is a far more reliable Christian Zionist than the bombastic and unpredictable 'America First' president. This is why Trump is being targeted with such unceasing venom. If any state in the world is sovereign it is the USA.
USA military power, and political power still enable the USA to do as it pleases.
All other states in the world are less sovereign, just because of USA power.What you write about is USA democracy, is what the USA does what the USA people want ?
The election of Trump, though he did not get the popular vote, means in my opinion that a large part of the USA population is fed up with the establishment politicians.
What USA citizens who did not vote want, I do not know, I wonder if anyone knows.Just now on Belgian tv was a report on USA citizens who are pro Trump, what they mean by 'making America great again', not very clear to me.
A USA commentator stated that many Americans do not recognise the present USA as the USA they knew, or want.
Mentioned was socialism: the welfare state, gays, migrants.
And hostility to establishment politicians.Alden , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:20 pm GMTI have 0 allegiance to the Maxine Waters Negro Democratic Party the party of Negros Sihks .Chinese Koreans MS-13 Mexican Zetas
I believe in strong Native Born White American Christian Solidarity with Euro-Christian Russia
If Donald Trump goes to war against Christian Russia .I will go into battle with Christian Russia ..against the Maxine Waters Negro Democratic Party .
The Civil War was a terrible mistake .the Negro wasn't worth it .
Buzz Mohawk , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT@wayfarer "Let's Connect the Dots!"
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/05/17/lets-connect-the-dots/#more-150513 Leon Czolgosz was not Polish.
He was a Jew whose family lived in Poland for a few generations and then moved to Anerica. He was a follower of Emma Goldberg and Alexander Berkman who thanks be to God were deported back to Russia just in time to participate in the revolution.
Alden , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:28 pm GMT100% Correct! Thanks go to Mr. Kirkpatrick for writing this and to Mr. Unz for putting it here.
Steve Naidamast , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:38 pm GMTId just like to point out that the reason so many Chinese are giving tech and military secrets to China is my personal bete noire affirmative action. Were it not for affirmative action those military and tech secrets would be in the hands of White Americans, not foreign spies whose only qualification that they are not White.
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:43 pm GMTI agree with the basis of the author's complaint but it is full of a lot of holes in its foundations.
To offer the attacks on Trump as some sort of insurgency against a valid, national leader is a bit absurd.
No arguments from me as to who makes up such an insurgency. They are all war mongers and shills for the corporations, elites, and of course, the Israelis, with a few others thrown in for good measure (ie: Saudi Arabia).
Yet, Trump is the personification of the completely corrupt business class in the United States. His appointments to cabinet positions, his elevation of his daughter and son-in-law into governmental positions, his massive conflicts of interests that are still ongoing while in the presidency, his degenerate treatment of many who have worked for him as contractors throwing many into bankruptcy, and his inability comprehend anything that takes longer than 5 minutes to explain, among many other negatives are all severe indications of a person who has no business being the leader of a nation. I don't care who or why he was elected. The fact that such a man was elected at all shows the complete degeneracy of the US electorate.
As for the idea of "American identity", there has only been one; that of the White elite taking what he or she wants from the everything and everyone around them. One good study of American history will provide one with more than enough evidence of this contention.
Since its inception everything has been and still is for sale in the United States and the winners are always the highest bidders.
Just look at who supported the presidencies in past elections going back to after the War for Southern Independence.
America's involvement in both world wars were explicitly the result of presidents lying their way into them after promising the electorate consistently that they would keep the country out of the European conflicts. So much for honor in the presidency. Wilson at least had a reason; he thought he was Jesus Christ. FDR on the other hand simply didn't want a competitor to America in Europe and simply hated everything German in general.
So American identity is a a lot of hogwash as most Americans identity with something that never was. Our "Founding Fathers" certainly did not create a nation that would be just one to all but one to protect the wealthy and their needs.
There is no doubt that the US is undergoing a massive decline in its ability to govern itself while undergoing serious social deterioration. However, the seeds of this destructive, downward spiral were set in stone when a bunch of wealthy guys created a rather flimsy constitution to protect the White privileged classes .
Alden , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:45 pm GMT@Wally Still in denial we see. That's not an argument. You are parroting Shamir, who said something that he never bothered to prove. Can you prove it?
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 6:55 pm GMT@Achmed E. Newman I agree with your point, John, but would like to say that Ronald Reagan's mistake with the amnesty of 1986 was in trusting members of the US Congress , not so much what should have been a 1-time deal - though, I grant you, any amnesty was a bad deal for Americans. Here is more regarding Reagan's regrets on that whole fiasco. A decade before he even ran for governor Reagan was spotted by DART industries and other cut throat capitalists who wanted to reverse every gain the working class made in the 20th century.
Reagan's backers knew that the easiest way to do this was to import millions of legal and illegal immigrants to replace Americans in every job from physician to dishwasher.
So Reagan CLAIMED to regret his amnesty after the damage was done. There is an old French saying.
"Don't listen to what he says, look at what he does."
That's what I do. I look beyond the rehetoric and look at what is done. Reagan betrayed his working and middle class White voters with amnesty and making affirmative action worse.
Alden , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 7:19 pm GMT@Sean The Russian ambassador was begging, begging for an audience with Obama in the Oval office, but didn't get it because Russia had annexed Crimea and waged a semi conventional war on Ukraine. The the Russians did not keep their idiot Assad under control.Trump granted the ambassador's request, but only did so the day after the US had bombed a Syrian airfield that the Russian expeditionary force regularly use.
Unfortunately Trump will have to kill some Russians now . Send the delta force into Syria disguised as rebels , they may be there already, because the Trump administration has stopped announcing what troop deployments he in making in Syria and Iraq. " because Russia had annexed Crimea and waged a semi conventional war on Ukraine"
Since then the UnzReview has become a platform for the Kagans' clan propaganda? The data on three (3) referenda have shown that Crimeans wanted a greater autonomy from Kiev long before the US-sponsored thugs of neo-Nazi leaning followed cookie-carrying Nuland-Kagan towards the "bright future" of today's economic and moral decline in Ukraine. Are not you longing for more auto-da-fe in Odessa, which was conducted by neo-Nazis battalion Azov in 2014? At that time the battalion was financed by an Israeli citizen and pillar of Jewish community of Ukraine Mr. Kolomojsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeguAaPYKU8
It is understandable why Israel-firsters hate Russian federation; the russkies dared to stop the advance of ISIS in a great game for Eretz Israel and other attractive mythological trinkets of supremacist kind.
When the US and EU are hollowed out by your insatiable tribe, where would the "eternal victims" have to go? To Rothschild bunkers?Wally , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 7:33 pm GMT@Zogby I believe Trump when he says he's not a Russian agent. The Russians would never employ such an erratic and unpredictable individual as an agent!
The Russians were against Hillary, not for Trump. They couldn't be sure what Trump would do anymore than anyone else could. With Hillary they could be sure, and they had every reason to be against her.
Take a recent incident...
The NYT publishes a smear story accusing Trump of revealing classified information to Lavrov.
McMaster and other American officials present in the meeting rush to deny that Trump reveal classified information, and only mentioned things about the laptop scare that had already been public for weeks.
Putin follows by offering to send Congress the Russian transcript of the meeting to show Trump didn't reveal any classified information.
Then Trump goes on Twitter: Of course I revealed classified information! I'm the President and it's my right!
Go help somebody like that... Actually it's true. The president, not state or justice and certainly not the liberal press is completely in charge of foreign affairs and the President can classify or not classify any and all information.
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 7:33 pm GMT@Anon That's not an argument. You are parroting Shamir, who said something that he never bothered to prove. Can you prove it? I have.
It's noted that you predictably ignored:
Jewish groups get up to 97% of grants from the Homeland Security
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/islamophobia-shmislamophobia-97-of-homeland-security-security-grants-go-to-jewish-orgsAnd you will most certainly ignore:
Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139189
and:
The Zionist attempt to control language.
The Israel Project's 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY
https://www.transcend.org/tms/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sf-israel-projects-2009-global-language-dictionary.pdf
and:
The commander behind the pro-Israel student troops on U.S. college campuses
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//.premium-1.709014
and:
Israel tech site paying "interns" to covertly plant stories in social media
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-tech-site-paying-interns-covertly-plant-stories-social-media
and:
Israeli students to get $2,000 to spread state propaganda on Facebook
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-students-get-2000-spread-state-propaganda-facebookNot to mention that every US taxpayers "loan" that 'Israel' receives has never been paid back. The Israeli Occupied Congress curiously "forgives" all these huge debts. As if it wasn't assumed at the beginning.
Jame Bamford of Wired subsequently reported that the NSA had hired secretive contractors with extensive ties to Israeli intelligence to establish 10 to 20 wiretapping rooms at key telecommunication points throughout the country."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-impact-of-nsa-domestic-spying-2013-6#ixzz3NxPMujNo
and:
Two Secretive Israeli Companies Reportedly Bugged The US Telecommunications Grid For The NSA
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-bugged-the-us-for-the-nsa-2013-6#ixzz3NxPnnUFg
and:
IDF Unit 8200 Cyberwar Veterans Developed NSA Snooping Technology
Read more: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/06/08/idf-unit-8200-cyberwar-veterans-developed-nsa-snooping-technology/'Join the US army, Fight for Israel
http://68.media.tumblr.com/639563970a638b606f4adb0ef05c778b/tumblr_inline_o7t4eewwJn1r75mb5_500.jpgSvigor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 8:30 pm GMT@Steve Naidamast I agree with the basis of the author's complaint but it is full of a lot of holes in its foundations.
To offer the attacks on Trump as some sort of insurgency against a valid, national leader is a bit absurd.
No arguments from me as to who makes up such an insurgency. They are all war mongers and shills for the corporations, elites, and of course, the Israelis, with a few others thrown in for good measure (ie: Saudi Arabia).
Yet, Trump is the personification of the completely corrupt business class in the United States. His appointments to cabinet positions, his elevation of his daughter and son-in-law into governmental positions, his massive conflicts of interests that are still ongoing while in the presidency, his degenerate treatment of many who have worked for him as contractors throwing many into bankruptcy, and his inability comprehend anything that takes longer than 5 minutes to explain, among many other negatives are all severe indications of a person who has no business being the leader of a nation. I don't care who or why he was elected. The fact that such a man was elected at all shows the complete degeneracy of the US electorate.
As for the idea of "American identity", there has only been one; that of the White elite taking what he or she wants from the everything and everyone around them. One good study of American history will provide one with more than enough evidence of this contention.
Since its inception everything has been and still is for sale in the United States and the winners are always the highest bidders.
Just look at who supported the presidencies in past elections going back to after the War for Southern Independence.
America's involvement in both world wars were explicitly the result of presidents lying their way into them after promising the electorate consistently that they would keep the country out of the European conflicts. So much for honor in the presidency. Wilson at least had a reason; he thought he was Jesus Christ. FDR on the other hand simply didn't want a competitor to America in Europe and simply hated everything German in general.
So American identity is a a lot of hogwash as most Americans identity with something that never was. Our "Founding Fathers" certainly did not create a nation that would be just one to all but one to protect the wealthy and their needs.
There is no doubt that the US is undergoing a massive decline in its ability to govern itself while undergoing serious social deterioration. However, the seeds of this destructive, downward spiral were set in stone when a bunch of wealthy guys created a rather flimsy constitution to protect the White privileged classes....
So American identity is a a lot of hogwash as most Americans identity with something that never was.
As most people understand the term, American identity refers to the racial and cultural characteristics of the people.
American identity has, since the nation's inception, been chiefly European and Christian. Today, the Euro-American Christian majority has been targeted for annihilation through reproductive dysfunction (induced by brainwashing aka state-directed education) and mass replacement immigration.
The American governing elite, plutocracy, criminal conspiracy that is government, call it what you want, seeks to genocide the American people as it urges on the corrupt European elites to do the same to their people.
Svigor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 8:42 pm GMTI just got out of the car after listening to
the vomitoriumNPR's daily short-stroke session with Brooks and Dudiowhocares how the weasel spells his fairy-sounding name. It's interesting, listening to a Jew (I could be wrong, but it's NPR, so probably not) interview a Jew pretending to be an Anglo Conservative, and a goy leftist that I find indistinguishable from a Brooklyn Jew. Anyhoo, between tossing each other off, Brooks (loyalty: Israel, his son serves in the IDF FFS) called Russia our "adversary." You know it's a lie when the media says it. Did NPR's pet "Conservatives" refer to the Soviet Union as our "adversary"?Media = scum. Otherwise, they couldn't get work in that business.
Svigor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 8:59 pm GMTP.S., a giant AMEN to every word of this piece, Kirkpatrick. Bravo.
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 9:43 pm GMTKneel before Zog.
Indeed. Many years ago, I used terms like "ZOG" only with emotional trepidation. That is long since gone. Now the trepidation is entirely practical; it puts off the idiots we need to get through to. It is an entirely accurate term for the regime.
No, Jews fell out of love with communism once they became increasingly successful with capitalism. Also, even leftist Jews came to see the failure of communism in Cuba and Vietnam. And when the truth came out about Mao's crimes and the greater success of China under capitalism, most Jews lost faith in communism.
After Stalin, the Russians removed Jews (and many other aliens) from their former heights of power in the USSR. That didn't win them any (((friends))). More to the point, Putin brought (((the oligarchs))) to heel, and reversed all their (((important work))). That's when the (((hate))) really started for Russia.
It is clear to me now that the CIA is a fascist led organisation, my definition of fascism being 'the use of power without any ideology'.
That's leftism.
Rurik , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 9:43 pm GMT@Wally I have.
It's noted that you predictably ignored:
Jewish groups get up to 97% of grants from the Homeland Security
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/islamophobia-shmislamophobia-97-of-homeland-security-security-grants-go-to-jewish-orgsAnd you will most certainly ignore:
Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139189
and:
The Zionist attempt to control language.
The Israel Project's 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY
https://www.transcend.org/tms/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sf-israel-projects-2009-global-language-dictionary.pdf
and:
The commander behind the pro-Israel student troops on U.S. college campuses
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//.premium-1.709014
and:
Israel tech site paying "interns" to covertly plant stories in social media
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-tech-site-paying-interns-covertly-plant-stories-social-media
and:
Israeli students to get $2,000 to spread state propaganda on Facebook
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-students-get-2000-spread-state-propaganda-facebookNot to mention that every US taxpayers "loan" that 'Israel' receives has never been paid back. The Israeli Occupied Congress curiously "forgives" all these huge debts. As if it wasn't assumed at the beginning.
Jame Bamford of Wired subsequently reported that the NSA had hired secretive contractors with extensive ties to Israeli intelligence to establish 10 to 20 wiretapping rooms at key telecommunication points throughout the country."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-impact-of-nsa-domestic-spying-2013-6#ixzz3NxPMujNo
and:
Two Secretive Israeli Companies Reportedly Bugged The US Telecommunications Grid For The NSA
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-bugged-the-us-for-the-nsa-2013-6#ixzz3NxPnnUFg
and:
IDF Unit 8200 Cyberwar Veterans Developed NSA Snooping Technology
Read more:http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/06/08/idf-unit-8200-cyberwar-veterans-developed-nsa-snooping-technology/'Join the US army, Fight for Israel
http://68.media.tumblr.com/639563970a638b606f4adb0ef05c778b/tumblr_inline_o7t4eewwJn1r75mb5_500.jpg You proved nothing about 90+ synagogues in Moscow. You only parroted Shamir. For all I know the rest of your claim might be right. I don't know one way or the other whether your other links are right, nor do I care. That's why I didn't respond to them, nor am I under any compulsion to.Also, you dodged:
http://www.unz.com/article/the-hazards-of-military-worship/#comment-1874540
Because you're wrong and are too much an intellectual cripple to admit it.
Wally , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:23 pm GMTWhen Bill Maher refers to "us," I know that doesn't include me or my readers, and I know "the Russians" hate me a lot less than he does.
I'm with the Russians.
count me as also with the Russians
Bill Maher is a sewer rat*
great article
enjoyed the comments
.
.
.
.
.
.
*apologies to real sewer rats for the comparisonWally , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:28 pm GMT@Anon You proved nothing about 90+ synagogues in Moscow. You only parroted Shamir. For all I know the rest of your claim might be right. I don't know one way or the other whether your other links are right, nor do I care. That's why I didn't respond to them, nor am I under any compulsion to.
Also, you dodged:
http://www.unz.com/article/the-hazards-of-military-worship/#comment-1874540
Because you're wrong and are too much an intellectual cripple to admit it. And that's why I have beaten you in every debate. The list is rather large as I'm sure you remember.
I dodged nothing because I saw nothing.
How's your "English Literature" class going? LOL!!
KenH , Show Comment Next New Comment May 19, 2017 at 11:31 pm GMT@Anon The real reason is that the Russians are a convenient cover-up for Democratic incompetence. It is an alternate reality to convince the base and the sponsors that Hillary lost the election because she was co-opted by the Red Tide.
Dems really think that Trump and Putin colluded to steal the DNC emails and give it to Wikileaks. It really is a mental illness at this point.
They wanted Comey fired, but when Trump did it, it was obstruction. They wanted a Special Prosecutor, but now are worried that he may not find anything. They believe the incessant hysteria is whipping up their base and will guarantee the House in the 2018 election. Hope they crash and burn in 2018. Exactly, good point.
Like when Zionists claim that scrutiny of the '6M Jews, 5M other & gas chambers' is hateful to Jews.
Forgetting that making such claims in the first place is hateful to Germans and to Gentiles who Jews claim 'let it happen'.Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 12:09 am GMTCount me with the Russians, too. Non self hating whites in America are stateless and behind enemy lines. We are told the nation belongs to every racial and religious group except those of the founding racial stock (Christian or not). We have laws promoting and protecting most non-white racial groups at the expense of the white majority. Our history is being rewritten to cast aspersions on our founding and villainize great white men who built America while lionizing non-whites who did next to nothing.
(((Hollywood))) movies and television shows depict whites as either corrupt, vapid, moronic or untrustworthy compared to non-whites and generally dehumanize us and foment racial hatred against us. The golden rule in politics is that white politicians are strictly forbidden from acknowledging whites as a group let alone show any sympathy or compassion for them or working on their behalf. Donald Trump has only done so half heartedly and implicitly and he's derided as a white supremacist 24/7 and as "un-American" while facing calls to resign simply for enforcing immigration laws and failing to take a wrecking ball to the last vestiges of the old, white America.
This is conquest and occupation, not progress as the (((authors))) of all these trends inform us. With a straight face. Everything most of us loved and held dear has been destroyed by the JOG and remade in their vile image and likeness.
Therefore, if Putin were to invade the U.S. this would be cause for celebration for the embattled and shrinking white majority. We would have nothing to lose. This nation betrayed us long ago and no longer deserves our loyalty, support or affection.
The pot bellied, "race doesn't matter" patriotards and antifa scumbags can have it.
Stonehands , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 2:12 am GMT@Wally And that's why I have beaten you in every debate. The list is rather large as I'm sure you remember.
I dodged nothing because I saw nothing.
How's your "English Literature" class going? LOL!! You clearly have no interest in debate. Challenged on an intellectual debate, you wilt. Enjoy yourself.
Stonehands , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 2:55 am GMT@Priss Factor The "real" reason Russia is hated is because it has rejected Communism, and it does not cater to gays. Cummunist Russia had been , since the thirties, mecca and utopia for the US leftists and they are now out of their collective mind because their vision of world Marxism with Russia running the show have been obliterated by the likes of the anti-communist VP.
No, Jews fell out of love with communism once they became increasingly successful with capitalism. Also, even leftist Jews came to see the failure of communism in Cuba and Vietnam. And when the truth came out about Mao's crimes and the greater success of China under capitalism, most Jews lost faith in communism.
Some still had nostalgia for Old Idealism and did credit USSR for having defeated Nazi Germany, but few Jews were communist by the 80s when Soviet Union entered into its death throes. Also, the New Left of the 60s was more about drugs and rock n roll than revolution.Also, the Soviet Union became gentile-dominated by the late 30s, and after WWII, especially as Zionists in Israel chose US over USSR, Jews came under increasing suspicion and even discrimination in the communist world. Initially, Stalin installed many Jewish communists in Eastern European nations, but after the fallout over Israel, many were purged as 'Zionists'.
So, most Jews welcomed the fall of the USSR. If anything, Jews used finance-capitalism to amass control of much of Russian resources.
And in the 90s, most powerful Jews did everything in their power to make sure the Russian Communist Party would not be come to power. They pulled every dirty trick in the book to ensure Yeltsin winning another term.
Those were the good ole days for Jews in Russia. And if they had been less greedy, they may have kept the power. But they grabbed too much loot and turned a blind eye to all the suffering, and this gave an opening to the Russian nationalists(mild though they may be). Mild nationalists like Putin didn't purge Jews, but he sent a message that Russia would no longer be a 'vacationland for Jewish lawyers in love'.
So, Jews tried various means to crack Russian nationalism, neo-traditionalism, and sovereignty. They used Pussy Riot and Homomania. They didn't work.So, the main reason for anti-Russianism has nothing to do with communism. The problem for Jews is that Russia rejects globalism or at least globalist domination. Jewish power is centered on globalism. Nationalism is anathema to Jews because it means that the national elites should represent, defend, and serve their national masses. All nations except Israel is majority gentile. So, nationalism makes national gentile elites grow closer to national gentile masses. This accounts for mass support for Putin in Russia.
In contrast, under globalism, the national elites serve globalist elites than their national people, and that means national leaders serve Soros and his ilk than their own folk.
Now, you'd think that the masses would rebel against the leaders if for treason, but Public Education and Pop Culture have brainwashed tons of masses too. Look at all the white dummies in the US who support globalism that is actually hurting them. And they would rather side with Diversity(invasion) than with their own hurting kind.
These whites attack Trump for opposing mass invasion of the US by More Diversity.
Why would they want to invaded and be made into a minority people? They've been mentally-colonized by the Glob Virus. 60′s Leftism isn't as innocuous as you make it seem.The likes of Betty Friedan, Susan Sontag and Erica Jong ( assisted by the Pill and legalized abortion) led the charge through the institutions. Economic Marxism was abandoned for " Cultural" Marxism under the guise of New Age or Secular Humanism (the perennial religion e.g. satanism)
Once the God of revealed religion is abandoned ( an all-knowing Judge/Creator) for the God of "me"-then it should come as no surprise that the people- especially the women- will become weak and patheticWeak in Spirit, surrendering to material
desires
Succumbing to Jewish materialism instead of overcoming vice with Christian excellence.Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 4:01 am GMT@ThereisaGod You know your history. The people at the top of western power systems are truly diabolical. The moneychangers, the Sanhedrin and complicit gentile degenerates. What has changed in 2000 years? Why are 'Christian' leaders silent on these issues? Are they Christians at all? "Why are 'Christian' leaders silent on these issues? "
Here we are.
Don't look for leadership from the Whore of Babylon.
All of these "hierarchical" churches are pyramids of power in the Beast System.Authority among men is on a level field; with the Word of God- Jesus of the scriptures- as King.
Wally , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 4:05 am GMTAs most people understand the term, American identity refers to the racial and cultural characteristics of the people.
So American identity is a a lot of hogwash as most Americans identity with something that never was.
American identity has, since the nation's inception, been chiefly European and Christian. Today, the Euro-American Christian majority has been targeted for annihilation through reproductive dysfunction (induced by brainwashing aka state-directed education) and mass replacement immigration.
The American governing elite, plutocracy, criminal conspiracy that is government, call it what you want, seeks to genocide the American people as it urges on the corrupt European elites to do the same to their people. Mr. Kirkpatrick stated "In an "America" which no longer has a definable culture, language, ethnos, history, identity or rule of law, what is there left to betray?"
His proceeding argument is built on a false premise. We clearly have these things. Then, we have you doubling down. The American identity refers to a host of traits that reflect its citizens. Initially, our nation was predicated on several European ethnic groups who held different faiths. Africans were imported. Tribal groups were removed by force for white settlement. Gradually, the Germans, the Irish, the Assyrians, the Mexicans, the Vietnamese, and the Nigerians immersed themselves into what is an American. We are a nation of mutts.
"Today, the Euro-American Christian majority has been targeted for annihilation through reproductive dysfunction (induced by brainwashing aka state-directed education)."
Did it ever occur to you that tens of millions of whites are other than brainwashed, that they created an educational system that represents their beliefs and values?
" mass replacement immigration."
No.
"The American governing elite, plutocracy, criminal conspiracy that is government, call it what you want, seeks to genocide the American people as it urges on the corrupt European elites to do the same to their people."
There is observably no genocide taking place here in the States. Your Alt Right talking point is tiresome to say the least.
Che Guava , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 7:02 am GMT@Anon You clearly have no interest in debate. Challenged on an intellectual debate, you wilt. Enjoy yourself. Problem is that you're not an intellectual. Not in the slightest. Dream on.
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 8:05 am GMT@jilles dykstra If any state in the world is sovereign it is the USA.
USA military power, and political power still enable the USA to do as it pleases.
All other states in the world are less sovereign, just because of USA power.What you write about is USA democracy, is what the USA does what the USA people want ?
The election of Trump, though he did not get the popular vote, means in my opinion that a large part of the USA population is fed up with the establishment politicians.
What USA citizens who did not vote want, I do not know, I wonder if anyone knows.Just now on Belgian tv was a report on USA citizens who are pro Trump, what they mean by 'making America great again', not very clear to me.
A USA commentator stated that many Americans do not recognise the present USA as the USA they knew, or want.
Mentioned was socialism: the welfare state, gays, migrants.
And hostility to establishment politicians. By definition, since the polity of the USA is controlled by the Izzies, it can not be a sovereign state.It is a bizarre colonial posession of Israel. So, by your argument, Israel is the only truly sovereign state.
Eonic , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 8:15 am GMT@Stonehands 60's Leftism isn't as innocuous as you make it seem.
The likes of Betty Friedan, Susan Sontag and Erica Jong ( assisted by the Pill and legalized abortion) led the charge through the institutions. Economic Marxism was abandoned for " Cultural" Marxism under the guise of New Age or Secular Humanism (the perennial religion e.g. satanism)
Once the God of revealed religion is abandoned ( an all-knowing Judge/Creator) for the God of "me"-then it should come as no surprise that the people- especially the women- will become weak and pathetic...Weak in Spirit, surrendering to material
desires...
Succumbing to Jewish materialism instead of overcoming vice with Christian excellence. The likes of Betty Friedan, Susan Sontag and Erica Jong ( assisted by the Pill and legalized abortion) led the charge through the institutions.Not true. The hardline feminists turned on Friedan.
Sontag went her own way and didn't involve herself much with institutions. She was too independent to be academic hack.
Jong was a sexual libertarian, not a PC whore.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 10:22 am GMT@Wally I have.
It's noted that you predictably ignored:
Jewish groups get up to 97% of grants from the Homeland Security
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/islamophobia-shmislamophobia-97-of-homeland-security-security-grants-go-to-jewish-orgsAnd you will most certainly ignore:
Zionist Wikipedia Editing Course
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139189
and:
The Zionist attempt to control language.
The Israel Project's 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY
https://www.transcend.org/tms/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sf-israel-projects-2009-global-language-dictionary.pdf
and:
The commander behind the pro-Israel student troops on U.S. college campuses
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//.premium-1.709014
and:
Israel tech site paying "interns" to covertly plant stories in social media
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-tech-site-paying-interns-covertly-plant-stories-social-media
and:
Israeli students to get $2,000 to spread state propaganda on Facebook
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-students-get-2000-spread-state-propaganda-facebookNot to mention that every US taxpayers "loan" that 'Israel' receives has never been paid back. The Israeli Occupied Congress curiously "forgives" all these huge debts. As if it wasn't assumed at the beginning.
Jame Bamford of Wired subsequently reported that the NSA had hired secretive contractors with extensive ties to Israeli intelligence to establish 10 to 20 wiretapping rooms at key telecommunication points throughout the country."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-impact-of-nsa-domestic-spying-2013-6#ixzz3NxPMujNo
and:
Two Secretive Israeli Companies Reportedly Bugged The US Telecommunications Grid For The NSA
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-bugged-the-us-for-the-nsa-2013-6#ixzz3NxPnnUFg
and:
IDF Unit 8200 Cyberwar Veterans Developed NSA Snooping Technology
Read more:http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/06/08/idf-unit-8200-cyberwar-veterans-developed-nsa-snooping-technology/'Join the US army, Fight for Israel
http://68.media.tumblr.com/639563970a638b606f4adb0ef05c778b/tumblr_inline_o7t4eewwJn1r75mb5_500.jpg In view of the contents of your last link, you may be interested in this : https://eonic1.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/the-dumb-american-poem/Wizard of Oz , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 12:06 pm GMT@Stonehands 60's Leftism isn't as innocuous as you make it seem.
The likes of Betty Friedan, Susan Sontag and Erica Jong ( assisted by the Pill and legalized abortion) led the charge through the institutions. Economic Marxism was abandoned for " Cultural" Marxism under the guise of New Age or Secular Humanism (the perennial religion e.g. satanism)
Once the God of revealed religion is abandoned ( an all-knowing Judge/Creator) for the God of "me"-then it should come as no surprise that the people- especially the women- will become weak and pathetic...Weak in Spirit, surrendering to material
desires...
Succumbing to Jewish materialism instead of overcoming vice with Christian excellence. " An all-knowing judge/creator"Okay so this indicates that your "judge/creator" also knew the future when he created Hitler and Stalin, and he then was fully aware of their future misdeeds, atrocities.
So why did he not rethink and say to himself :
Maybe I will just refrain from creating these two maniacs, and spare their millions of future victims.
Or was their, Hitlers and Stalins "free-will" more important than the lives and"free-will" of the hundreds of millions murdered through theri actions.Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician.
Agent76 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 12:49 pm GMT@Corvinus Mr. Kirkpatrick stated "In an "America" which no longer has a definable culture, language, ethnos, history, identity or rule of law, what is there left to betray?"
His proceeding argument is built on a false premise. We clearly have these things. Then, we have you doubling down. The American identity refers to a host of traits that reflect its citizens. Initially, our nation was predicated on several European ethnic groups who held different faiths. Africans were imported. Tribal groups were removed by force for white settlement. Gradually, the Germans, the Irish, the Assyrians, the Mexicans, the Vietnamese, and the Nigerians immersed themselves into what is an American. We are a nation of mutts.
"Today, the Euro-American Christian majority has been targeted for annihilation through reproductive dysfunction (induced by brainwashing aka state-directed education)."
Did it ever occur to you that tens of millions of whites are other than brainwashed, that they created an educational system that represents their beliefs and values?
"...mass replacement immigration."
No.
"The American governing elite, plutocracy, criminal conspiracy that is government, call it what you want, seeks to genocide the American people as it urges on the corrupt European elites to do the same to their people."
There is observably no genocide taking place here in the States. Your Alt Right talking point is tiresome to say the least. I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture. (A retired judge with a guilty conscious about orphanages for part Aboriginal children did much to raise this controversial interpretation in Australia.)
As I look at the grubby state of Australian politics in which voting for people to take otber people's money for your advantage has become the game I can't help connecting it to the defeat of Communism and the end of ideological battle. Once middle class Protestants and agnostics might have been delighted by the strength of the Catholic Church in politics despite objections to a diminishing range of Papist shibboleths concerning abortion, contraception and euthanasia. Now, quite apart from the debilitating child abuse scandals the Catholic Church is reduced to being a lobbyist for public funds for its school syatems. So ..
Maybe passive cultural suigenocide is what we are seeing as the binding forces of anti-Communism and dogmatic religion have been released and a great mixture of ideas, none of them dominant by importance or by logic, are swirling around to infiltrate the minds of an increasingly large proportion of the population who think the fairly simple rhetoric and ideas they are grabbed by are important. Great times for the Scientologists, New Ageists et al
War for Blair Mountain , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 1:40 pm GMT@jilles dykstra It is clear to me now that the CIA is a fascist led organisation, my definition of fascism being 'the use of power without any ideology'. Just keeping it real from inside the D.C. operations and from folk's in power!
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 1:56 pm GMT@Wizard of Oz I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture. (A retired judge with a guilty conscious about orphanages for part Aboriginal children did much to raise this controversial interpretation in Australia.)
As I look at the grubby state of Australian politics in which voting for people to take otber people's money for your advantage has become the game I can't help connecting it to the defeat of Communism and the end of ideological battle. Once middle class Protestants and agnostics might have been delighted by the strength of the Catholic Church in politics despite objections to a diminishing range of Papist shibboleths concerning abortion, contraception and euthanasia. Now, quite apart from the debilitating child abuse scandals the Catholic Church is reduced to being a lobbyist for public funds for its school syatems. So.....
Maybe passive cultural suigenocide is what we are seeing as the binding forces of anti-Communism and dogmatic religion have been released and a great mixture of ideas, none of them dominant by importance or by logic, are swirling around to infiltrate the minds of an increasingly large proportion of the population who think the fairly simple rhetoric and ideas they are grabbed by are important. Great times for the Scientologists, New Ageists et al ... Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class.
Post-1965 Immigration Policy is demographically and economically genocidal .Corvinus the Cockroach is very well aware of this and likes it
If the Chinese in China had this the of immigration policy imposed on them they would view it as genocide
America is not a proposition nation and the "AMERICA" the dainty old Queen Libertarian Cornivus pines for will be already is Non-white racial identity politics 24 hours a day 365 days a year as Native Born White American Males at US Universities are well aware of
The future for the Native Born White America Working Class .Wichita HS football field gang rape and executions .and Rampage 82
Paul Kersey
Go by Rampage 82 my older late cousin was one of the White Women gang raped on the Infamous Syosset Dinner robbery gang rape by a gang of Brooklyn Jamaican Legal Immigrants..White Wives and White Fiances gang raped in front of their hudbands .my cousin committed suicide three years later .Oh my God what they did to that poor young waitress in the kitchen I know some of the emergency room nurses who had to administer the spermacidal foam into these White Woman's vagina's
John Derbyshire
I was just in Book Review this morning .there is a ten book stack on one of the tables:"Rampage 82 " go by it read it ..
Stonehands , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 2:10 pm GMTThe alleged patriotism of the US Congress (and Olderman, Maddow, and other hysterical "progressives") and the reality of meddling into the US affairs, as documented by the facts:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/19/the-open-secret-of-foreign-lobbying/
"When AIPAC director Morris Amitay was caught red-handed mishandling classified missile secrets in 1975, he could have been prosecuted under FARA. When AIPAC and an Israeli diplomat purloined the entire 300-page book of classified trade secrets compiled from 70 U.S. industry groups opposed to unilateral trade concessions for Israel in 1984, they could have been prosecuted for failing to report their clandestine subversion of due process. When in 2005 [AIPAC officials] Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman met with Israeli diplomats during efforts to pass classified information to the press they thought could trigger a U.S attack on Iran, FARA consequences would have awaited them all. However, because the U.S. Department of Justice has unilaterally abrogated its responsibility to enforce FARA, people, ideas, money and propaganda campaigns continue to secretly slosh freely between Tel Aviv and Israeli fronts in America with taxpayer funds thrown into the toxic brew."
In short, "support the troops" by sending them to fight for Tel Aviv projects.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/05/neocons-protest-us-spying-on-israel/
Meanwhile, the US homeland security is in the Israelis' hands.
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/08/21/homeland-security-made-in-israel/
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/US-Deputy-of-Homeland-Security-US-Israel-to-sign-automated-cyber-information-sharing-agreement-457261War for Blair Mountain , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 2:17 pm GMT@Anon The likes of Betty Friedan, Susan Sontag and Erica Jong ( assisted by the Pill and legalized abortion) led the charge through the institutions.
Not true. The hardline feminists turned on Friedan.
Sontag went her own way and didn't involve herself much with institutions. She was too independent to be academic hack.
Jong was a sexual libertarian, not a PC whore. All 3 women heavily promoted cultural Marxism and were the products of the Jew commie academic system. They were mentored by the dregs of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse and neocon svengali Leo Strauss, and were responsible for the kindling of second wave feminism.
Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 2:48 pm GMTIf you have any doubts about the open genocidal intent of the Democratic Party
Do the following thought experiment ..What would happen if Richard Spencer incessantly in his his US College Tour stated emphatically:"WOULDN'T IT BE WONDERFULL IF YOUNG NATIVE BORN WHITE AMERICAN COUPLES STARTED HAVING LARGE WHITE FAMILIES .so Native Born White Americans can go back to being a 90 racial minority in America again!!!!"
How would Melissa Harris Perry react?
How would Maxine Waters react?
How would the TATA Institute grads react?
How would Ciela Munoz react?
How would the smelly hairy bulldyke Hillary Clinton react?
Paul Kersey
Go buy Rampage 82 .."Oh my God what they did to that waitress" .this is what the Greek owner of the restaurant next to Walt Whitman High School said to me several years ago .the restaurant by the Colonial Era..historic grave yard that the Salvadoran youth trample over disrespectefully every morning on their way to Walt Whitman High School ..West Hills area
Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 2:54 pm GMT@Wizard of Oz I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture. (A retired judge with a guilty conscious about orphanages for part Aboriginal children did much to raise this controversial interpretation in Australia.)
As I look at the grubby state of Australian politics in which voting for people to take otber people's money for your advantage has become the game I can't help connecting it to the defeat of Communism and the end of ideological battle. Once middle class Protestants and agnostics might have been delighted by the strength of the Catholic Church in politics despite objections to a diminishing range of Papist shibboleths concerning abortion, contraception and euthanasia. Now, quite apart from the debilitating child abuse scandals the Catholic Church is reduced to being a lobbyist for public funds for its school syatems. So.....
Maybe passive cultural suigenocide is what we are seeing as the binding forces of anti-Communism and dogmatic religion have been released and a great mixture of ideas, none of them dominant by importance or by logic, are swirling around to infiltrate the minds of an increasingly large proportion of the population who think the fairly simple rhetoric and ideas they are grabbed by are important. Great times for the Scientologists, New Ageists et al ... "I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture."
CanSpeccy employed that term with the intent of bastardizing its use for his own demonic ends.
"As I look at the grubby state of Australian politics in which voting for people to take otber people's money for your advantage has become the game I can't help connecting it to the defeat of Communism and the end of ideological battle. Once middle class Protestants and agnostics might have been delighted by the strength of the Catholic Church in politics despite objections to a diminishing range of Papist shibboleths concerning abortion, contraception and euthanasia. Now, quite apart from the debilitating child abuse scandals the Catholic Church is reduced to being a lobbyist for public funds for its school syatems. So .."
Thank you for your opinion on this matter, even if it is not relevant here.
"Maybe passive cultural suigenocide is "
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Stonehands , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 3:00 pm GMT@War for Blair Mountain Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus...for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class.
Post-1965 Immigration Policy is demographically and economically genocidal....Corvinus the Cockroach is very well aware of this and likes it...
If the Chinese in China had this the of immigration policy imposed on them...they would view it as genocide...America is not a proposition nation...and the "AMERICA" the dainty old Queen Libertarian Cornivus pines for will be...already is Non-white racial identity politics 24 hours a day...365 days a year...as Native Born White American Males at US Universities are well aware of...
The future for the Native Born White America Working Class....Wichita HS football field gang rape and executions....and Rampage 82...
Paul Kersey
Go by Rampage 82...my older late cousin was one of the White Women gang raped on the Infamous Syosset Dinner robbery gang rape by a gang of Brooklyn Jamaican Legal Immigrants..White Wives and White Fiances gang raped in front of their hudbands....my cousin committed suicide three years later....Oh my God...what they did to that poor young waitress in the kitchen...I know some of the emergency room nurses who had to administer the spermacidal foam into these White Woman's vagina's...
John Derbyshire
I was just in Book Review this morning....there is a ten book stack on one of the tables:"Rampage 82..."...go by it read it..... "Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class."The only thing creepy are your numerous sock puppets–Anonym and Anon, for starters.
"America is not a proposition nation "
Regarding posterity, the concept does NOT refer exclusively to one's own children. In particular, "Novus Ordo Seclorum" reflects the intention of the Founding Fathers to install political checks and balances to safeguard against tyranny REGARDLESS of one's racial or ethnic background. It is other than accurate to state that the Founding Fathers sought to exclusively preserve a genetic legacy, i.e. Anglo-America, since there is no racial or gender criteria to adhere to the universal principles of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" which are embedded in our representative form of government. Recall that Congress has the power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization " By definition, naturalization extends citizenship, and all the rights and duties related to it, to those other than the "original" settlers and immigrants. The proposition remains that immigrants must meet the criteria as established by Congress to enter our shores.
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 3:01 pm GMT@War for Blair Mountain Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus...for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class.
Post-1965 Immigration Policy is demographically and economically genocidal....Corvinus the Cockroach is very well aware of this and likes it...
If the Chinese in China had this the of immigration policy imposed on them...they would view it as genocide...America is not a proposition nation...and the "AMERICA" the dainty old Queen Libertarian Cornivus pines for will be...already is Non-white racial identity politics 24 hours a day...365 days a year...as Native Born White American Males at US Universities are well aware of...
The future for the Native Born White America Working Class....Wichita HS football field gang rape and executions....and Rampage 82...
Paul Kersey
Go by Rampage 82...my older late cousin was one of the White Women gang raped on the Infamous Syosset Dinner robbery gang rape by a gang of Brooklyn Jamaican Legal Immigrants..White Wives and White Fiances gang raped in front of their hudbands....my cousin committed suicide three years later....Oh my God...what they did to that poor young waitress in the kitchen...I know some of the emergency room nurses who had to administer the spermacidal foam into these White Woman's vagina's...
John Derbyshire
I was just in Book Review this morning....there is a ten book stack on one of the tables:"Rampage 82..."...go by it read it..... I grew up in Glen Cove, l remember that hideous event- it was life changing
on LI.In addition, there was a mad scramble by restaurants to install windows everywhere; the old style of hospitality featured privacy.
The thought that rampaging niggers would take advantage of these circumstances was beyond anyone's scope of the imagination at the time.Stonehands , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 3:50 pm GMT@Wizard of Oz I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture. (A retired judge with a guilty conscious about orphanages for part Aboriginal children did much to raise this controversial interpretation in Australia.)
As I look at the grubby state of Australian politics in which voting for people to take otber people's money for your advantage has become the game I can't help connecting it to the defeat of Communism and the end of ideological battle. Once middle class Protestants and agnostics might have been delighted by the strength of the Catholic Church in politics despite objections to a diminishing range of Papist shibboleths concerning abortion, contraception and euthanasia. Now, quite apart from the debilitating child abuse scandals the Catholic Church is reduced to being a lobbyist for public funds for its school syatems. So.....
Maybe passive cultural suigenocide is what we are seeing as the binding forces of anti-Communism and dogmatic religion have been released and a great mixture of ideas, none of them dominant by importance or by logic, are swirling around to infiltrate the minds of an increasingly large proportion of the population who think the fairly simple rhetoric and ideas they are grabbed by are important. Great times for the Scientologists, New Ageists et al ...
I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture.
That, certainly. But there is also a deliberate, undeniable, cold-blooded policy aimed at the elimination of a racial group, which only liars for the promotion of genocide or the severely arithmetically challenged, such as Corvinus, deny.
The math is simple: if you have a fertility rate far below replacement (consistent with government directed sex "education," plus no-fault divorce and state-funded mass slaughter of the unborn) as is true of Euro-Americans and Europeans in Europe, and you combine that with a policy of mass immigration, then you have replacement of the original population. Hence the English, for example, are now a minority not only in my father's home town of Leicester where my ancestors lived for at least eight hundred years, but also in London, Luton, Birmingham (England's second city) where English children are not even the largest minority in elementary school, and in many other urban centers throughout Europe and North America.
Aaron8765 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 3:53 pm GMT@Authenticjazzman " An all-knowing judge/creator"
Okay so this indicates that your "judge/creator" also knew the future when he created Hitler and Stalin, and he then was fully aware of their future misdeeds, atrocities.
So why did he not rethink and say to himself :
Maybe I will just refrain from creating these two maniacs, and spare their millions of future victims.
Or was their, Hitlers and Stalins "free-will" more important than the lives and"free-will" of the hundreds of millions murdered through theri actions.Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician. You are correct.
Free will is paramount.
And with that free will we are given autonomy and responsibility for our actions.
Jesus said not to fear the first death.
Accounts will be settled at the final judgement.
Your actions will be tossed into a crucible and will burn like wood, hay or stubble (self- aggrandizement) or they will be refined like Gold if done for Jesus' sake.
Hey man, l am just stonehands. I say crazy, ardent statements that may turn you off to this message.
But please consider the great men of history- such as Bach- who wrote "Jesu Joy of Mans Desire"; who also added the addendum:
"ALL MUSIC is for the greater glory of God and the refreshment of the mind"War for Blair Mountain , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 3:54 pm GMTI agree completely with this article. I am a patriot who loves this country and whose ancestors fought for it in war. The Russians are a natural ally. I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish. There are plenty of us who love America and only America. Will you reject all of us who will fight for this country?
War for Blair Mountain , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 4:01 pm GMT@Stonehands I grew up in Glen Cove, l remember that hideous event- it was life changing
on LI.In addition, there was a mad scramble by restaurants to install windows everywhere; the old style of hospitality featured privacy.
The thought that rampaging niggers would take advantage of these circumstances was beyond anyone's scope of the imagination at the time. As you know Glen Cove has been completely colonized by El Salavodor and MexicoGlen Cove used to be a beautifull North Shore Town
I used to go to that health food store down past the firehouse that used to proudly display the great big Convederate Flag in the firetruck bays .
Interestingly Tom Suozzi's uncle was the Mayor of Glenn Cove and got trashed by Newday for cracking down on the Mexicans and Salvadoran illegals .his nephew Tom the Cockroach is onboard with importing the nonwhite Democratic Party Voting Bloc .and war with Christian Russia
Congressman Tom Suozzi a creepy looking short Italian with cornrows of hairplugs and platforms in his shoes .and speaks with a lisp
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 4:07 pm GMT@Corvinus "Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class."
The only thing creepy are your numerous sock puppets--Anonym and Anon, for starters.
"America is not a proposition nation..."
Regarding posterity, the concept does NOT refer exclusively to one's own children. In particular, "Novus Ordo Seclorum" reflects the intention of the Founding Fathers to install political checks and balances to safeguard against tyranny REGARDLESS of one's racial or ethnic background. It is other than accurate to state that the Founding Fathers sought to exclusively preserve a genetic legacy, i.e. Anglo-America, since there is no racial or gender criteria to adhere to the universal principles of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" which are embedded in our representative form of government. Recall that Congress has the power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..." By definition, naturalization extends citizenship, and all the rights and duties related to it, to those other than the "original" settlers and immigrants. The proposition remains that immigrants must meet the criteria as established by Congress to enter our shores. Oh shut the fuck up you libertarian Cuck as you sit in front of your computer in a white granny gown ..wrinkly and old .the demographic profile of a typical National Review reader these days .
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 4:31 pm GMTMeanwhile, the Zio-propagandists ignore the death of Seth Rich:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/19/seth-rich-craig-murray-and-the-sinister-stewards-of-the-national-security-state/"The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, law enforcement sources told Fox News.
A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC staffer Seth Rich's computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time Okay, so where's the computer? Who's got Rich's computer? Let's do the forensic work and get on with it.
But the Washington Post and the other bogus news organizations aren't interested in such matters because it doesn't fit with their political agenda. They'd rather take pot-shots at Fox for running an article that doesn't square with their goofy Russia hacking story.
Murray should be the government's star witness in the DNC hacking scandal, instead, no one even knows who he is. But if we trust what Murray has to say, then we can see that the Russia hacking story is baloney. The emails were "leaked" by insiders not "hacked" by a foreign government. Here's the scoop from Robert Parry at Consortium News:
"Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, has suggested that the DNC leak came from a "disgruntled" Democrat upset with the DNC's sandbagging of the Sanders campaign and that the Podesta leak came from the U.S. intelligence community .He (Murray) appears to have undertaken a mission for WikiLeaks to contact one of the sources (or a representative) during a Sept. 25 visit to Washington where he says he met with a person in a wooded area of American University.
With all the hullabaloo surrounding the Russia hacking case, you'd think that Murray's eyewitness account would be headline news, but not in Homeland Amerika where the truth is kept as far from the front page as humanly possible. Bottom line: The government has a reliable witness (Murray) who can positively identify the person who hacked the DNC emails and, so far, they've showed no interest in his testimony at all. Doesn't that strike you as a bit weird?"CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMT@PiltdownMan What Putin said yesterday.
What Putin said yesterday:
"What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans," Mr. Putin said. "Either they don't understand the damage they're doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt.""Either they don't understand the damage they're doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt."
Putin was being tactful, obviously.
Clearly, what he meant was that the US is now dominated by dangerously corrupt people. The same is true of virtually all states in all times. What is unusual about America today is the scale of harm that the US plutocracy is in a position to inflict, and is indeed inflicting, on both Americans and the world.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 5:52 pm GMT@War for Blair Mountain Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus...for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class.
Post-1965 Immigration Policy is demographically and economically genocidal....Corvinus the Cockroach is very well aware of this and likes it...
If the Chinese in China had this the of immigration policy imposed on them...they would view it as genocide...America is not a proposition nation...and the "AMERICA" the dainty old Queen Libertarian Cornivus pines for will be...already is Non-white racial identity politics 24 hours a day...365 days a year...as Native Born White American Males at US Universities are well aware of...
The future for the Native Born White America Working Class....Wichita HS football field gang rape and executions....and Rampage 82...
Paul Kersey
Go by Rampage 82...my older late cousin was one of the White Women gang raped on the Infamous Syosset Dinner robbery gang rape by a gang of Brooklyn Jamaican Legal Immigrants..White Wives and White Fiances gang raped in front of their hudbands....my cousin committed suicide three years later....Oh my God...what they did to that poor young waitress in the kitchen...I know some of the emergency room nurses who had to administer the spermacidal foam into these White Woman's vagina's...
John Derbyshire
I was just in Book Review this morning....there is a ten book stack on one of the tables:"Rampage 82..."...go by it read it.....Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus
Yes, there is certainly something weird about Corvy. I have sometimes wondered if he might be an early CIA implementation of an artificially intelligent (sort of) propaganda bot, with the "agent provocateur" function enabled. The AP function would explain the repeated demands to know what someone opposed to European genocide proposes to do about it: bomb throwing being, presumably, the desired response, leading to arrest and incarceration under anti-terrorism laws.
One has to wonder though, whether Corvy's Euro-Holocaust denial should be tolerated. If he were denying the Jewish Holocaust he would be censored here, or if not, probably targeted for some kind of legal sanction, as would only be right. Why then should he be free to spew his anti-European hatred here?
Wizard of Oz , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 5:53 pm GMT@Stonehands You are correct.
Free will is paramount.
And...with that free will we are given autonomy and responsibility for our actions.
Jesus said not to fear the first death.
Accounts will be settled at the final judgement.
Your actions will be tossed into a crucible and will burn like wood, hay or stubble (self- aggrandizement)...or they will be refined like Gold if done for Jesus' sake.
Hey man, l am just stonehands. I say crazy, ardent statements that may turn you off to this message.
But please consider the great men of history- such as Bach- who wrote "Jesu Joy of Mans Desire"; who also added the addendum:
"ALL MUSIC is for the greater glory of God and the refreshment of the mind" First of all, myself a graduate of classical flute study with Bach as a center focus, I am most certainly more versed within his, Bach's, artistic accomplishments than you could probably imagine, and point is : He was trying to survive in an age of absolute enslavement by the aristocratic PTB, therefore he had no choice but to pen his works in a religious vein if he wanted to continue eating, and this holds true for all of the Baroque/classical composers.
Now as to whether he believed the dogma, within which his works were set, this is up for speculation, and you, me or nobody else can state that he was or was not a pious advocate of religious ideas.
And as far as "ALL MUSIC" being for the greater glory of God, and refreshment of the mind : I agree with the "Refreshment of the mind" aspect, however being a confirmed atheist, I am unable to go along with the "Greater glory of God" approach.
I can say this much, when engaged within the action of performing/inprovising music within the jazz idiom, and attempting to create so-called "swinging" solos, there are no thoughts entering my mind regarding the "Greater glory of God, rather my focus is upon the moment and the effort at hand : Making it, the music, swing.Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet and pro jazz artist.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 6:02 pm GMT@Corvinus "I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture."
CanSpeccy employed that term with the intent of bastardizing its use for his own demonic ends.
"As I look at the grubby state of Australian politics in which voting for people to take otber people's money for your advantage has become the game I can't help connecting it to the defeat of Communism and the end of ideological battle. Once middle class Protestants and agnostics might have been delighted by the strength of the Catholic Church in politics despite objections to a diminishing range of Papist shibboleths concerning abortion, contraception and euthanasia. Now, quite apart from the debilitating child abuse scandals the Catholic Church is reduced to being a lobbyist for public funds for its school syatems. So .."
Thank you for your opinion on this matter, even if it is not relevant here.
"Maybe passive cultural suigenocide is..."
Maybe. Or maybe not. "not relevant here". Fair enough unless you are willing to allow in these often discursive conversations an attempt to lead people on a path of thought which will spark tecognition – in this case perhaps of the loss of much that used to bind even if it wasn't an essential eternal part of human existence.
Wizard of Oz , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 6:14 pm GMT@Steve Naidamast I agree with the basis of the author's complaint but it is full of a lot of holes in its foundations.
To offer the attacks on Trump as some sort of insurgency against a valid, national leader is a bit absurd.
No arguments from me as to who makes up such an insurgency. They are all war mongers and shills for the corporations, elites, and of course, the Israelis, with a few others thrown in for good measure (ie: Saudi Arabia).
Yet, Trump is the personification of the completely corrupt business class in the United States. His appointments to cabinet positions, his elevation of his daughter and son-in-law into governmental positions, his massive conflicts of interests that are still ongoing while in the presidency, his degenerate treatment of many who have worked for him as contractors throwing many into bankruptcy, and his inability comprehend anything that takes longer than 5 minutes to explain, among many other negatives are all severe indications of a person who has no business being the leader of a nation. I don't care who or why he was elected. The fact that such a man was elected at all shows the complete degeneracy of the US electorate.
As for the idea of "American identity", there has only been one; that of the White elite taking what he or she wants from the everything and everyone around them. One good study of American history will provide one with more than enough evidence of this contention.
Since its inception everything has been and still is for sale in the United States and the winners are always the highest bidders.
Just look at who supported the presidencies in past elections going back to after the War for Southern Independence.
America's involvement in both world wars were explicitly the result of presidents lying their way into them after promising the electorate consistently that they would keep the country out of the European conflicts. So much for honor in the presidency. Wilson at least had a reason; he thought he was Jesus Christ. FDR on the other hand simply didn't want a competitor to America in Europe and simply hated everything German in general.
So American identity is a a lot of hogwash as most Americans identity with something that never was. Our "Founding Fathers" certainly did not create a nation that would be just one to all but one to protect the wealthy and their needs.
There is no doubt that the US is undergoing a massive decline in its ability to govern itself while undergoing serious social deterioration. However, the seeds of this destructive, downward spiral were set in stone when a bunch of wealthy guys created a rather flimsy constitution to protect the White privileged classes.... "The fact that such a man was elected at all shows the complete degeneracy of th electorate
So you would have prefered BC and HRC, the paragons of decency and integrity back in the white house.
Look friend you are labeling myself, my sister and my upstanding, decent, friends and family who in fact did pull the lever for DT as : Degenerate.
You are the "degenerate" malevolent one here and you have no clue as to what you are blathering about.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa"society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician.
Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 6:19 pm GMTThat, certainly. But there is also a deliberate, undeniable, cold-blooded policy aimed at the elimination of a racial group, which only liars for the promotion of genocide or the severely arithmetically challenged, such as Corvinus, deny.
I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture.
The math is simple: if you have a fertility rate far below replacement (consistent with government directed sex "education," plus no-fault divorce and state-funded mass slaughter of the unborn) as is true of Euro-Americans and Europeans in Europe, and you combine that with a policy of mass immigration, then you have replacement of the original population. Hence the English, for example, are now a minority not only in my father's home town of Leicester where my ancestors lived for at least eight hundred years, but also in London, Luton, Birmingham (England's second city) where English children are not even the largest minority in elementary school, and in many other urban centers throughout Europe and North America. At least Leicester has got a lot of successful Indians has it not (many ex East Africa I believe)? By chance I had dinner tonight at a Two Fat Indians restaurant, not nearly as cheap as in the UK but also no fat Indians but a couple of gorgeous smiling smart young women from Punjab. I wouldn't want all our immigration of the relatively smart to be Chinese, though I welcome them, so it tended to confirm my relatively optimistic view about Australia's population. Clearly native white Australians are breeding almost as dysgenically as outback Aborigines and Lebanese immugrants from 40 yeats ago so I see the Chinese and Indians who have often been educated in Australia as making up for that. It is curious however that our school PISA ranking has declined in the last 10 years or so. I suspect parties of the left and teacher unions though another cause for puzzling over it is that a larger proportion of children get their education in non government schools in Australia than almost anywhere in the First World.
Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 6:23 pm GMTThat, certainly. But there is also a deliberate, undeniable, cold-blooded policy aimed at the elimination of a racial group, which only liars for the promotion of genocide or the severely arithmetically challenged, such as Corvinus, deny.
I think you may be overlooking CanSpeccy's use of "genocide" in the admittedly controversial and tendentious sense of cultural "genocide" which wipes out a people by wiping out its existence as a people with a shared, traditional and coherent culture.
The math is simple: if you have a fertility rate far below replacement (consistent with government directed sex "education," plus no-fault divorce and state-funded mass slaughter of the unborn) as is true of Euro-Americans and Europeans in Europe, and you combine that with a policy of mass immigration, then you have replacement of the original population. Hence the English, for example, are now a minority not only in my father's home town of Leicester where my ancestors lived for at least eight hundred years, but also in London, Luton, Birmingham (England's second city) where English children are not even the largest minority in elementary school, and in many other urban centers throughout Europe and North America. "But there is also a deliberate, undeniable, cold-blooded policy aimed at the elimination of a racial group, which only liars for the promotion of genocide or the severely arithmetically challenged, such as Corvinus, deny."
Clearly your fixation on something that does not observable exist, chiefly the extermination of whites in the "West" by elites and their toadies, is a trait of you as an aspie. I have nothing personal against your affliction. I just find it fascinating that you rinse and repeat this phenomenon.
"The math is simple: if you have a fertility rate far below replacement "
Another one of your obsessions. Modern married white couples rarely look at their situation in this fashion. They have children. They will take care of them as best they are able. Tens of thousands of mothers and fathers assuredly are not going to be badgered by you and your ilk into thinking about ensuring the viability of the "white race" by having more babies. Have you met your obligation here? Do you have at least five white offspring? Have you properly indoctrinated, I mean discussed, of their future duty?
(consistent with government directed sex "education,")
Yes, sex education. A product of our society. The decision made by citizens. A fact of life.
"plus no-fault divorce"
Yes, no-fault divorce. A product of our society. The decision made by citizens. A fact of life.
"and state-funded mass slaughter of the unborn)"
Finally, we agree. This is a big deal.
"as is true of Euro-Americans and Europeans in Europe, and you combine that with a policy of mass immigration, then you have replacement of the original population."
NOT genocide. Mass immigration has been a historical and global phenomenon. Nations sent colonists to explore. The undesired and unwanted left their home countries and, as immigrants, arrived to other parts of the globe. Immigration policies were informal or formal, and they varied from nation to nation. Furthermore, there always has been some level of augmentation in a nation's population. The British helped to found the American colonies; other Europeans, along with Africans and Asians and Latin Americans, arrived there, either voluntarily or by force. The British were "replaced" in the fact they were no longer the dominant group to control the region, and that they increasingly intermarried with non-British. This ethnic "mixing" had been considered taboo in Europe (except among the elite to secure their power and authority), but in America it became the rule.
"Hence the English, for example, are now a minority not only in my father's home town of Leicester where my ancestors lived for at least eight hundred years, but also in London, Luton, Birmingham (England's second city) where English children are not even the largest minority in elementary school, and in many other urban centers throughout Europe and North America."
Tragic. But a fact of life. I suggest you run for political office. Make a difference in England, your home nation. Promote what you believe in.
"Yes, there is certainly something weird about Corvy. I have sometimes wondered if he might be an early CIA implementation of an artificially intelligent (sort of) propaganda bot, with the "agent provocateur" function enabled."
From what I've been told by a good friend who does work for this organization, the CIA has been targeting you since you were eight years old. They have a dossier on you and your family. You have been on notice for decades given your "pro-race is code for anti-humanity" mindset.
"One has to wonder though, whether Corvy's Euro-Holocaust denial should be tolerated."
Of course it should be "tolerated". In fact, it should be relished and replicated by other posters here to expose your lies and propaganda. There is no "Euro-Holocaust". That is Fake News. I'm sure at some point in time the CIA will engage in psycho-ops and reprogram you.
"Why then should he be free to spew his anti-European hatred here?"
False characterization. I am "spewing" my love for the human race. Unfortunately, there are people who are bitter and lost.
bluedog , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 8:20 pm GMT@War for Blair Mountain Oh shut the fuck up you libertarian Cuck......as you sit in front of your computer in a white granny gown .....wrinkly and old....the demographic profile of a typical National Review reader these days.... "Oh shut the fuck up you libertarian Cuck as you sit in front of your computer in a white granny gown ..wrinkly and old .the demographic profile of a typical National Review reader these days ."
Are your sock puppets on eight hour or daily shifts?
Now, regarding my posterity comment, do you have a rebuttal?
geokat62 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 8:56 pm GMT@War for Blair Mountain Stop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus...for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class.
Post-1965 Immigration Policy is demographically and economically genocidal....Corvinus the Cockroach is very well aware of this and likes it...
If the Chinese in China had this the of immigration policy imposed on them...they would view it as genocide...America is not a proposition nation...and the "AMERICA" the dainty old Queen Libertarian Cornivus pines for will be...already is Non-white racial identity politics 24 hours a day...365 days a year...as Native Born White American Males at US Universities are well aware of...
The future for the Native Born White America Working Class....Wichita HS football field gang rape and executions....and Rampage 82...
Paul Kersey
Go by Rampage 82...my older late cousin was one of the White Women gang raped on the Infamous Syosset Dinner robbery gang rape by a gang of Brooklyn Jamaican Legal Immigrants..White Wives and White Fiances gang raped in front of their hudbands....my cousin committed suicide three years later....Oh my God...what they did to that poor young waitress in the kitchen...I know some of the emergency room nurses who had to administer the spermacidal foam into these White Woman's vagina's...
John Derbyshire
I was just in Book Review this morning....there is a ten book stack on one of the tables:"Rampage 82..."...go by it read it..... That's why militias were formed to take care of the wild dogs that roam thru society Join one today..CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 9:18 pm GMT@Aaron8765 I agree completely with this article. I am a patriot who loves this country and whose ancestors fought for it in war. The Russians are a natural ally. I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish. There are plenty of us who love America and only America. Will you reject all of us who will fight for this country?
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section.
Hi, Aaron. Just wanted to take a crack at providing you with an explanation of where I think most people are coming from on the issue you've raised.
While I obviously don't pretend to speak for all goyim, I can speak for myself.
It's not that goyim are expressing "hatred towards the entire Jewish people" for who they are. I think they are probably expressing their anger towards what organized Jewry has been, and is, actually doing.
One case in point is the big push towards diversity led by the ADL. Are you familiar with the following material they've posted on their website:
This is America.This is ADL. (NB – disingenuously referring to 9 pictures of distinct-looking individuals)
The United States is a vibrant mix of cultures, races, religions and ethnic groups. These differences enhance our nation's strength, beauty and collective wisdom. Together, we all weave the fabric of our pluralistic society.
For over 100 years, the Anti-Defamation League has upheld this distinctly American concept by leading the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism. Today, ADL is the nation's premier human relations and civil rights organization.
If your company or organization wants to be recognized as a leader in the fight to promote diversity, we invite you to become a member of ADL's Corporate Leadership Council - the nation's leading corporate diversity initiative. Additional co-branding, diversity training and recognition benefits are available to Corporate Partners.
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/about-adl/corporate-partners.pdf
More and more people have come to realize that the ADL has been behind the push towards diversity. They were the ones to actually coin the phrase "Diversity Is Our Strength."
Given the historically delicate situation of Diaspora Jewry living in host nations- i.e., the perennial risks of pogroms and other forms of repression – promoting a policy of diversity, while damaging to the host nation, made eminent sense, from their perspective.
While this policy had been sustainable before the founding of Israel, it has since become problematic. Let me explain. While there are still goyim who think the ADL is sincere in their promotion of diversity, more and more are beginning to notice the blatant contradiction in Diaspora Jewry's position: while they support the promotion of diversity in their host nations, they fiercely defend the idea of an ethno-state in the ME. This is becoming an untenable position in the eyes of many goyim – i.e., either one favours multiculturalism or one favours mono-culturalism one cannot favour both at the same time.
So if we fast forward this film, what it comes down to is this: Diaspora Jewry must make up their minds and choose one of the following options:
1) sincerely embrace multiculturalism for all nations by insisting that Israel open its doors to all peoples of the world and let them become equal citizens; or
2) sincerely embrace mono-culturalism for all nations (and immediately cease and desist from promoting diversity) by either assimilating or making Aliyah.
If they refuse to choose, because they wish to have their cake and eat it too, I'm afraid this this film will not have a happy ending.
-----
P.S. I, for one, am a big fan of true diversity and sincerely embrace mono-culturalism. That's why I'm in favour of a rainbow of nations. Because, as the saying goes, "variety is the spice of life."
Anon , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 9:23 pm GMT@War for Blair Mountain Oh shut the fuck up you libertarian Cuck......as you sit in front of your computer in a white granny gown .....wrinkly and old....the demographic profile of a typical National Review reader these days.... Waste of time, really, responding to the troll for the replacement of Euro-Americans. It only initiates another spew of hate speech. According to Corvy, there's something wrong with those who are for the survival of their own kith and kin. In fact, being against extinction of your own people is how Corvy seems to define hate speech and racism.
Wiz Oz is not quite so crude about it, but seems to think its fine for the English people of the city of Leicester to be replaced by Hindus, but being English, the nation of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Sam Johnson and many other fine people, I do not.
There are something like a billion Hindus in India, so why should they occupy the tiny homeland of the English? England, it is true, ruled India for a while, no doubt over the objection of the Indian ruling class, but in doing so they merely replaced another and more exploitive alien ruling elite, and at no time attempted to settle India with millions of Europeans. Indeed they set out, from the time of Macaulay's memorandum on Indian Education, dated Feb 2nd, 1835 , to prepare India for self-government as the modern, independent, democratic nation state that it now is.
Rurik , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 10:02 pm GMT@Stonehands All 3 women heavily promoted cultural Marxism and were the products of the Jew commie academic system. They were mentored by the dregs of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse and neocon svengali Leo Strauss, and were responsible for the kindling of second wave feminism. Sontag's main place wasn't in the academia. She was essentially a person of letters.
Friedan is credited with second-wave feminism, but it would have happened anyway without her. The media just needed someone as 'leader'.
Jong was attacked by feminists. I'm not gonna defend her horny crap, but she' s not part of long march through institutions.
Also, these are more the products of capitalism. They have nothing to with Marxism. This term 'cultural marxism' should really be called 'cultural consumerism'.
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 10:02 pm GMTHi, Aaron. Just wanted to take a crack at providing you with an explanation of where I think most people are coming from on the issue you've raised.
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section.
While I obviously don't pretend to speak for all goyim, I can speak for myself.
It's not that goyim are expressing "hatred towards the entire Jewish people" for who they are. I think they are probably expressing their anger towards what organized Jewry has been, and is, actually doing.
One case in point is the big push towards diversity led by the ADL. Are you familiar with the following material they've posted on their website:
More and more people have come to realize that the ADL has been behind the push towards diversity. They were the ones to actually coin the phrase "Diversity Is Our Strength."
This is America.This is ADL. (NB - disingenuously referring to 9 pictures of distinct-looking individuals)The United States is a vibrant mix of cultures, races, religions and ethnic groups. These differences enhance our nation's strength, beauty and collective wisdom. Together, we all weave the fabric of our pluralistic society.
For over 100 years, the Anti-Defamation League has upheld this distinctly American concept by leading the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism. Today, ADL is the nation's premier human relations and civil rights organization.
If your company or organization wants to be recognized as a leader in the fight to promote diversity, we invite you to become a member of ADL's Corporate Leadership Council - the nation's leading corporate diversity initiative. Additional co-branding, diversity training and recognition benefits are available to Corporate Partners.
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/about-adl/corporate-partners.pdf
Given the historically delicate situation of Diaspora Jewry living in host nations- i.e., the perennial risks of pogroms and other forms of repression - promoting a policy of diversity, while damaging to the host nation, made eminent sense, from their perspective.
While this policy had been sustainable before the founding of Israel, it has since become problematic. Let me explain. While there are still goyim who think the ADL is sincere in their promotion of diversity, more and more are beginning to notice the blatant contradiction in Diaspora Jewry's position: while they support the promotion of diversity in their host nations, they fiercely defend the idea of an ethno-state in the ME. This is becoming an untenable position in the eyes of many goyim - i.e., either one favours multiculturalism or one favours mono-culturalism... one cannot favour both at the same time.
So if we fast forward this film, what it comes down to is this: Diaspora Jewry must make up their minds and choose one of the following options:
1) sincerely embrace multiculturalism for all nations by insisting that Israel open its doors to all peoples of the world and let them become equal citizens; or
2) sincerely embrace mono-culturalism for all nations (and immediately cease and desist from promoting diversity) by either assimilating or making Aliyah.
If they refuse to choose, because they wish to have their cake and eat it too, I'm afraid this this film will not have a happy ending.
-------------
P.S. I, for one, am a big fan of true diversity and sincerely embrace mono-culturalism. That's why I'm in favour of a rainbow of nations. Because, as the saying goes, "variety is the spice of life."
while they support the promotion of diversity in their host nations, they fiercely defend the idea of an ethno-state in the ME.
well said Geo,
we've all seen this genocidal hag shilling for the destruction of the West
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ERmOpZrKtw
and we all know by now the consequences of this insanity being foisted by these (often Jewish) netherworld demons
no reasonable person blames all Jews for this evil that only a few of them are perpetrating, (with the eager assistance of many goys [homos and fat, ugly white women and other malcontents] who want the migrants to come for their own reasons, just like corporate/business interests who want to pay lower wages in general)
but the destruction of Europe and N. America by massive and transformational immigration is, at heart- being foisted by Jewish sludge like Sheldon Adelson, who demands open borders for the US, and uses his money to buy cucks in the Republican party to ensure that he gets just that, but then also uses his ill-gotten gains to promote racial purity in Israel, where his newspapers call all non-Jewish immigrants – invaders.
So you're right. It's the raging hypocrisy and demonic, Old Testament hatred for all non-Jewish tribes and the efforts to see all white nations founder under racial and ethnic hatred and strife, while simultaneously advocating for a racially pure state in Israel- that makes a lot of people exasperated with Jewish influence and nefarious intrigues.
There are of course other stuff too. Fomenting and foisting wars, false flag attacks, financial swindles, cultural sewage, etc.. But I suspect one of the main reasons people are losing patience is the psychotic imperative of some Jews to advocate for massive immigration into (only) white countries that outs (some of) them as existential enemies.
Stonehands , Show Comment Next New Comment May 20, 2017 at 10:14 pm GMT@Aaron8765 I agree completely with this article. I am a patriot who loves this country and whose ancestors fought for it in war. The Russians are a natural ally. I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish. There are plenty of us who love America and only America. Will you reject all of us who will fight for this country?
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish.
Most commenters, surely, do not regard "the entire Jewish people" with hatred, and most surely, would acknowledge that most Jews of their acquaintance are good people.
Naturally, however, people react with anger when Jews engage in anti-European genocidal advocacy such as this . Anti-European advocacy, in various forms, in the media and the movie industry, is often associated with Jewish ownership or direction and naturally provokes anger at what appears to be the anti-European racism and indeed genocidal intent toward the European people of many influential Jews.
I do understand your feelings and sympathize with you, but it is surely wrong to infer that because there is push back against what some Jews do, this is evidence of irrational hatred. It is not. The European people are under a concerted assault as racial and cultural entities, a fact that is obvious to any but a propagandist for genocide or an idiot like Corvinus, and that process of European racial and cultural genocide is promoted by many Jewish-controlled or owned companies and institutions under the guise of promoting diversity, multi-culturalism, tolerance, etc. The role of Jews in that process is no doubt a problem for many loyal American and European Jews, but it is a problem that cannot simply be dismissed as evidence of universal or even widely occurring anti-Semitism.
Of course people speak carelessly and with undue inclusiveness when they speak of the actions or beliefs of this or that group. But one has only to hear advocates of diversity, or black-lives-matter, or critics of white privilege, etc. to realize that undifferentiated condemnation of entire groups, black, white, Hispanic, Hindu or whatever is widespread, not merely a problem experienced by Jews.
Bro Methylene , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 2:18 am GMT@Authenticjazzman First of all, myself a graduate of classical flute study with Bach as a center focus, I am most certainly more versed within his, Bach's, artistic accomplishments than you could probably imagine, and point is : He was trying to survive in an age of absolute enslavement by the aristocratic PTB, therefore he had no choice but to pen his works in a religious vein if he wanted to continue eating, and this holds true for all of the Baroque/classical composers.
Now as to whether he believed the dogma, within which his works were set, this is up for speculation, and you, me or nobody else can state that he was or was not a pious advocate of religious ideas.
And as far as "ALL MUSIC" being for the greater glory of God, and refreshment of the mind : I agree with the "Refreshment of the mind" aspect, however being a confirmed atheist, I am unable to go along with the "Greater glory of God" approach.
I can say this much, when engaged within the action of performing/inprovising music within the jazz idiom, and attempting to create so-called "swinging" solos, there are no thoughts entering my mind regarding the "Greater glory of God, rather my focus is upon the moment and the effort at hand : Making it, the music, swing.Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet and pro jazz artist. I own a small restaurant where l occassionally feature solo artists or duets, myself included. I have been playing classical/jazz guitar for 45 years. I recently performed for Jason Vieaux [2016 solo classical Grammy award] and friends, and one of the pieces l played was "Jesu."
He agreed that my original transcription [key of G] and fingering were unique and pleasing to the ear and probably easier to commit to memory then the Rick Foster or Christopher Parkening renditions; we're talking non- stop double and triple stops here!As per Christianity; you may believe there is no God (that's your faith and hope) but you cannot confirm it.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 2:30 am GMT@Sean The Russian ambassador was begging, begging for an audience with Obama in the Oval office, but didn't get it because Russia had annexed Crimea and waged a semi conventional war on Ukraine. The the Russians did not keep their idiot Assad under control.Trump granted the ambassador's request, but only did so the day after the US had bombed a Syrian airfield that the Russian expeditionary force regularly use.
Unfortunately Trump will have to kill some Russians now . Send the delta force into Syria disguised as rebels , they may be there already, because the Trump administration has stopped announcing what troop deployments he in making in Syria and Iraq. What makes you think Assad is an idiot? He seems more intelligent than most politicians, journalists, and politicians in Washington, D.C. (I cringe at having to name the place. It's like speaking Orc-language in Rivendell.)
Millions of Americans, having been raised on TV propaganda, still have a screaming need to feel superior to everyone – except perhaps the Israelis.
The government of the USA has marked Putin for destruction. But I think the rest of the world is rooting for him, and the Russian people, to survive the American onslaught.
dfordoom , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 3:18 am GMTWhile the "progressives" badmouth bad-bad russkies for "destroying our democracy," an obscene spectacle of persecution of the most important whistleblower of our times continues.
"Getting Assange: the Untold Story," by JOHN PILGER
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/19/getting-assange-the-untold-story/
"Hillary Clinton, the destroyer of Libya and, as WikiLeaks revealed last year, the secret supporter and personal beneficiary of forces underwriting ISIS, proposed, "Can't we just drone this guy." According to Australian diplomatic cables, Washington's bid to get Assange is "unprecedented in scale and nature." In Alexandria, Virginia, a secret grand jury has sought for almost seven years to contrive a crime for which Assange can be prosecuted. Assange's ability to defend himself in such a Kafkaesque world has been severely limited by the US declaring his case a state secret. In 2015, a federal court in Washington blocked the release of all information about the "national security" investigation against WikiLeaks, because it was "active and ongoing" and would harm the "pending prosecution" of Assange. The judge, Barbara J. Rothstein, said it was necessary to show "appropriate deference to the executive in matters of national security." This is a kangaroo court."dfordoom , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 3:41 am GMT@Authenticjazzman " The real reason Russia is hated is because it is a media threat"
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The "real" reason Russia is hated is because it has rejected Communism, and it does not cater to gays.
Cummunist Russia had been , since the thirties, mecca and utopia for the US leftists and they are now out of their collective mind because their vision of world Marxism with Russia running the show have been obliterated by the likes of the anti-communist VP.
The Democrats were convinced that they had the election in the bag , and therefore the accomplishment of eternal one-party government. They would have legalized the illegals as a gigantic voting block,
and the huge upset dealt to them by the deplorables has driven them off the cliff and into total
madness."Media threat" is such a vague non-descript concept that I don't have the energy or patience to even elaborate thereon.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.
PS off subject but relevant : Russia has a thriving Jazz scene, and the are some monster American-style Jazz players coming out of Russia.
Cummunist Russia had been , since the thirties, mecca and utopia for the US leftists and they are now out of their collective mind because their vision of world Marxism with Russia running the show
I don't see any evidence that those who call themselves the Left in the US today have any enthusiasm at all for Marxism. They serve the interests of global capitalism. The Russians are hated because they don't want to bow down before global capitalism and international bankers, and because Russia refuses to join in the persecution of Christians. The Russians aren't communists any more but they (quite rightly) recognise that global capitalism is every bit as evil as marxism ever was, if not more so.
I haven't noticed any of these so-called leftists in the modern US calling for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Have you?
It's amazing how many Americans on the right still subscribe to paranoid Cold War delusions about global Marxism.
dfordoom , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 3:50 am GMT@ThereisaGod This comment reflects the mindless nationalism of a person who has spent too much time reading mainstream Zionist propaganda.
The USA INSTIGATED the Syrian "revolution". It armed and funded the rebels (Al Qaeda) and told them we would support them. The Assad government had NO CHOICE but to act as they did or die, handing Syria over to friends of Israel who would then set about dismantling the defences of the Shias in the region who effectively oppose the racist state of Israel.
As this article lays out, American patriots should be supporting Russia and Assad. If these countries fall to international finance (as the entire western world has done) the Washington swamp will turn its full attention to destroying the USA in a similar manner to the Soviets destruction of Christian Russia (it's the same people, folks. The NeoCons are Trotsyists pretending to be Conservatives).Sean. Your comment is, umm ...... confused.
The NeoCons are Trotsyists pretending to be Conservatives
I hear this all the time. I know that many Trotskyists morphed into neocons but that's not quite the same as saying that Trotskyists are neocons are identical. Trotsky may have been a heretical communist but he was still a communist. Are neocons actual communists? In what way are they actual communists?
in the middle , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 4:36 am GMT@ThereisaGod You know your history. The people at the top of western power systems are truly diabolical. The moneychangers, the Sanhedrin and complicit gentile degenerates. What has changed in 2000 years? Why are 'Christian' leaders silent on these issues? Are they Christians at all?
Why are 'Christian' leaders silent on these issues? Are they Christians at all?
In the West Christian leaders are not Christian in any meaningful sense of the word. They're liberals. They're not liberal Christians, they're just liberals.
In Russia they take Christianity a bit more seriously. In Russia Christian leaders actually believe in God (which is extremely rare among western Christian leaders).
The problem with Christianity is that once you take away belief in God what you're left with really is just liberalism.
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 4:37 am GMT@Sean Assad keeps treating his people like bugs, by gassing them. There were dead aplenty Russians in Afghanistan. It would not take much to get them out of Syria, which as you may recall, they only dispatched their expeditionary force to once the US had declined to get involved in. General Dempsey never thought of the effect that the US staying out would have in emboldening Russia.
There was a program about Putin's Russia the other year in which a reporter visited the main Russia WW2 memorial museum, and to his bewilderment found the the music accompanying the Great Patriotic War presentation was the theme to the US series Dallas . Your comment is totally senseless!
in the middle , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 6:15 am GMT@Authenticjazzman " An all-knowing judge/creator"
Okay so this indicates that your "judge/creator" also knew the future when he created Hitler and Stalin, and he then was fully aware of their future misdeeds, atrocities.
So why did he not rethink and say to himself :
Maybe I will just refrain from creating these two maniacs, and spare their millions of future victims.
Or was their, Hitlers and Stalins "free-will" more important than the lives and"free-will" of the hundreds of millions murdered through theri actions.Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician. @why did he not rethink
Did that false 'judge/creator' not know that he would be taken to task by an Authenticjazzman, the 'authentic' judge of what God should or should not do as to not displease his 'Authenticity'? So, he is not all-knowing. QED.
in the middle , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 6:30 am GMT@John Gruskos The 1986 amnesty was Reagan's biggest mistake.
His second biggest mistake was arming the mujahedeen. The CIA basically helped create Al-Qaeda.
We need to learn from our mistakes, and stop supporting the radical Sunni jihadists who will commit acts of terrorism against us the first chance they get. How exactly did Reagan biggest mistake was amnesty? Explain and give some examples, please.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 11:58 am GMT@Alden Id just like to point out that the reason so many Chinese are giving tech and military secrets to China is my personal bete noire affirmative action. Were it not for affirmative action those military and tech secrets would be in the hands of White Americans, not foreign spies whose only qualification that they are not White. Regardless of ethnicity, these spies deserve the death penalty, for treason to the people who gave them the welcome into our land. As for "white christian", Christianity is either underground or dying, thanks to the power of the sons of the devil, as told by Iesous Christos, (greek), (John 8:44-45 King James Version (KJV)
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
So now we know that 'churchianity' has become a den of thieves, and a cave of robbers, teaching that whom Christ called sons of the devil, Churchianity teaches that they are the children of god. What a contradiction by those who profess to represent Christ!
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 12:22 pm GMT@Anon Sontag's main place wasn't in the academia. She was essentially a person of letters.
Friedan is credited with second-wave feminism, but it would have happened anyway without her. The media just needed someone as 'leader'.
Jong was attacked by feminists. I'm not gonna defend her horny crap, but she' s not part of long march through institutions.
Also, these are more the products of capitalism. They have nothing to with Marxism. This term 'cultural marxism' should really be called 'cultural consumerism'. "They have nothing to do with communism"
Bullshit they have everything to do with communism, as all, without exception, all of these characters are hoping and waiting for the transformation of capitalism to marxism, and they, as stupid and naive as they are, they think that they will be running the show thereafter, when fact is they will be the first to be purged.
You simply have no insight, and you are in above your head with these themes.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 12:59 pm GMTI don't see any evidence that those who call themselves the Left in the US today have any enthusiasm at all for Marxism. They serve the interests of global capitalism. The Russians are hated because they don't want to bow down before global capitalism and international bankers, and because Russia refuses to join in the persecution of Christians. The Russians aren't communists any more but they (quite rightly) recognise that global capitalism is every bit as evil as marxism ever was, if not more so.
Cummunist Russia had been , since the thirties, mecca and utopia for the US leftists and they are now out of their collective mind because their vision of world Marxism with Russia running the show
I haven't noticed any of these so-called leftists in the modern US calling for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Have you?
It's amazing how many Americans on the right still subscribe to paranoid Cold War delusions about global Marxism. "I don't see any evidence that those who call themselves the Left in the US today have any enthusiasm at all for Marxism. They serve the interests of global capitalism. The Russians are hated because they don't want to bow down before global capitalism and international bankers, and because Russia refuses to join in the persecution of Christians."
Agree.Svigor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:19 pm GMT@annamaria "I don't see any evidence that those who call themselves the Left in the US today have any enthusiasm at all for Marxism. They serve the interests of global capitalism. The Russians are hated because they don't want to bow down before global capitalism and international bankers, and because Russia refuses to join in the persecution of Christians."
Agree. " They serve the interests of global capitalism"Right and "global capitalism" serves the interests of global marxism, and you are unable to decifer the connections, which is your own shortcoming, and does not change the situation.
Almost all of the honchos involved in big-money are in essence : marxists, and they are plotting and waiting for the shift to collectivism.
Just why did the "moneyed" classes in Russia and in the US support the 1917 revolution, when they could have simply left things are they were.
I know it is very hard for most people to imagine big-time capitalists as communists, but it is fact.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet and pro jazz musician.
Aaron8765 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:21 pm GMTI agree completely with this article. I am a patriot who loves this country and whose ancestors fought for it in war. The Russians are a natural ally. I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish. There are plenty of us who love America and only America. Will you reject all of us who will fight for this country?
No, I won't reject you. That would be actual anti-Semitism, and would make no sense. But if you follow the usual pattern, and spend more time fighting critics of Jewry than you do fighting the Jews who deserve critiquing, then yeah, I've no use for you.
Basically I expect pro-White Jews to join the White Tribe, and put the Jewish Tribe at the back of the bus, or better yet, off the bus altogether (other than some special cases, I don't even see why most of them would even need to announce (or even hold) their Jewish identity; it's not like anyone's going to put you on the rack and force you to confess it – Jewish identity is something you can reject or opt out of).
As for those special cases: the most valuable thing a pro-White Jew can do is go into his own (former?) tribe and fight Whites' enemies there. You guys have a calling of epic importance waiting for you, if you'll have it.
Svigor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:23 pm GMTWe have enemies within and enemies without. Regarding our enemies without: the most dangerous are the Islamic supremacists, and China. The Chinese are a more traditional challenge, and hence more manageable. The Russians are a natural ally- and perhaps a necessary ally- against both of these threats. A traditional geopolitical analysis suggests that we always side with the weaker party- in this case the Russians- against rising/hegemonic states in Eurasia. So our foreign policy is out of joint. Why our foreign policy class insists upon supporting this policy is an interesting question- the policy is clearly in error.
Aaron8765 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:28 pm GMTAs per Christianity; you may believe there is no God (that's your faith and hope) but you cannot confirm it.
Well put, and succinctly. Though I say that as someone who believes there is no God (and does not have any faith or hope that there is not).
Svigor , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:33 pm GMTHi, Aaron. Just wanted to take a crack at providing you with an explanation of where I think most people are coming from on the issue you've raised.
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section.
While I obviously don't pretend to speak for all goyim, I can speak for myself.
It's not that goyim are expressing "hatred towards the entire Jewish people" for who they are. I think they are probably expressing their anger towards what organized Jewry has been, and is, actually doing.
One case in point is the big push towards diversity led by the ADL. Are you familiar with the following material they've posted on their website:
More and more people have come to realize that the ADL has been behind the push towards diversity. They were the ones to actually coin the phrase "Diversity Is Our Strength."
This is America.This is ADL. (NB - disingenuously referring to 9 pictures of distinct-looking individuals)The United States is a vibrant mix of cultures, races, religions and ethnic groups. These differences enhance our nation's strength, beauty and collective wisdom. Together, we all weave the fabric of our pluralistic society.
For over 100 years, the Anti-Defamation League has upheld this distinctly American concept by leading the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism. Today, ADL is the nation's premier human relations and civil rights organization.
If your company or organization wants to be recognized as a leader in the fight to promote diversity, we invite you to become a member of ADL's Corporate Leadership Council - the nation's leading corporate diversity initiative. Additional co-branding, diversity training and recognition benefits are available to Corporate Partners.
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/about-adl/corporate-partners.pdf
Given the historically delicate situation of Diaspora Jewry living in host nations- i.e., the perennial risks of pogroms and other forms of repression - promoting a policy of diversity, while damaging to the host nation, made eminent sense, from their perspective.
While this policy had been sustainable before the founding of Israel, it has since become problematic. Let me explain. While there are still goyim who think the ADL is sincere in their promotion of diversity, more and more are beginning to notice the blatant contradiction in Diaspora Jewry's position: while they support the promotion of diversity in their host nations, they fiercely defend the idea of an ethno-state in the ME. This is becoming an untenable position in the eyes of many goyim - i.e., either one favours multiculturalism or one favours mono-culturalism... one cannot favour both at the same time.
So if we fast forward this film, what it comes down to is this: Diaspora Jewry must make up their minds and choose one of the following options:
1) sincerely embrace multiculturalism for all nations by insisting that Israel open its doors to all peoples of the world and let them become equal citizens; or
2) sincerely embrace mono-culturalism for all nations (and immediately cease and desist from promoting diversity) by either assimilating or making Aliyah.
If they refuse to choose, because they wish to have their cake and eat it too, I'm afraid this this film will not have a happy ending.
-------------
P.S. I, for one, am a big fan of true diversity and sincerely embrace mono-culturalism. That's why I'm in favour of a rainbow of nations. Because, as the saying goes, "variety is the spice of life." I don't agree with everything you say, but thanks for your thoughts on this. If that is what the ADL is supporting- and I have no reason to doubt you- then they have to be opposed vigorously. On a lighter note, assimilated Jewish Americans never call our Christian brethren 'goyim' anymore- it might be a problem, considering that 60% of us, including yours truly, have married outside our religion of birth.
Aaron8765 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:43 pm GMTStop being gentle and delicate with the very creepy Corvinus for it harbors open genocidal intent towards the Historic Native Born White American Working Class.
Agreed. Corvinus is a piece of shit. CanSpeccy makes a great point about his "hi fellow kids!" "yeah but guys where can we buy some dynamite?" federal informant type trolling.
So if we fast forward this film, what it comes down to is this: Diaspora Jewry must make up their minds and choose one of the following options:
1) sincerely embrace multiculturalism for all nations by insisting that Israel open its doors to all peoples of the world and let them become equal citizens; or
2) sincerely embrace mono-culturalism for all nations (and immediately cease and desist from promoting diversity) by either assimilating or making Aliyah.
Shit or get off the pot, as I like to say. If I may be so bold, I would strike "embrace mono-culturalism for all nations" from the list of demands. It would certainly be the right thing for Jews to do, given their embrace of ethnopatriotism for themselves, but I would be satisfied with the demand (which is non-negotiable, I agree) "immediately cease and desist from promoting the anti-ethnopatriotic agenda for non-Jewish Whites" being met.
Aaron8765 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:48 pm GMTMost commenters, surely, do not regard "the entire Jewish people" with hatred, and most surely, would acknowledge that most Jews of their acquaintance are good people.
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish.
Naturally, however, people react with anger when Jews engage in anti-European genocidal advocacy such as this . Anti-European advocacy, in various forms, in the media and the movie industry, is often associated with Jewish ownership or direction and naturally provokes anger at what appears to be the anti-European racism and indeed genocidal intent toward the European people of many influential Jews.
I do understand your feelings and sympathize with you, but it is surely wrong to infer that because there is push back against what some Jews do, this is evidence of irrational hatred. It is not. The European people are under a concerted assault as racial and cultural entities, a fact that is obvious to any but a propagandist for genocide or an idiot like Corvinus, and that process of European racial and cultural genocide is promoted by many Jewish-controlled or owned companies and institutions under the guise of promoting diversity, multi-culturalism, tolerance, etc. The role of Jews in that process is no doubt a problem for many loyal American and European Jews, but it is a problem that cannot simply be dismissed as evidence of universal or even widely occurring anti-Semitism.
Of course people speak carelessly and with undue inclusiveness when they speak of the actions or beliefs of this or that group. But one has only to hear advocates of diversity, or black-lives-matter, or critics of white privilege, etc. to realize that undifferentiated condemnation of entire groups, black, white, Hispanic, Hindu or whatever is widespread, not merely a problem experienced by Jews. I appreciate the sympathy. The whole situation is a complete mess and getting worse. On a historical note, a biography just came out about Ernst Kantorowicz, a Jewish- German medievalist. You might find it interesting. His life was also discussed in a book about the great medievalists of the 20th Century- 'Medieval Lives', by Cantor. It's a fascinating book. Kantorowicz was a wealthy, assimilated Jewish- German who grew up with the Prussian upper class. He was a German officer in World War I, and after the war joined the paramilitary- right Freikorps and fought against the Communists inside Germany. As a medievalist, he was a romantic- nationalist associated with a circle of poets and scholars, and friends with Percy Ernst Schramm, who along with Kantorowicz was one of the great medievalists of his generation. Then the Nazis took power. Kantorowicz was purged from academic life. Some of his friends protected him as best they could, while others sided with the Nazis. He got out, barely, in 1938 and ended up at Berkeley, of all places, and the Institute for Advanced Study. His friend Schramm became the official historian of the Wehrmacht in WWII, and observed Hitler at first hand. After the war Schramm turned to Kantorowicz for help in reentering official, academic life (Kantorowicz helped.) The whole story is a tragic metaphor for the tragedy of the patriotic, assimilated- nationalist German Jews.
Aaron8765 , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 1:56 pm GMTMost commenters, surely, do not regard "the entire Jewish people" with hatred, and most surely, would acknowledge that most Jews of their acquaintance are good people.
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish.
Naturally, however, people react with anger when Jews engage in anti-European genocidal advocacy such as this . Anti-European advocacy, in various forms, in the media and the movie industry, is often associated with Jewish ownership or direction and naturally provokes anger at what appears to be the anti-European racism and indeed genocidal intent toward the European people of many influential Jews.
I do understand your feelings and sympathize with you, but it is surely wrong to infer that because there is push back against what some Jews do, this is evidence of irrational hatred. It is not. The European people are under a concerted assault as racial and cultural entities, a fact that is obvious to any but a propagandist for genocide or an idiot like Corvinus, and that process of European racial and cultural genocide is promoted by many Jewish-controlled or owned companies and institutions under the guise of promoting diversity, multi-culturalism, tolerance, etc. The role of Jews in that process is no doubt a problem for many loyal American and European Jews, but it is a problem that cannot simply be dismissed as evidence of universal or even widely occurring anti-Semitism.
Of course people speak carelessly and with undue inclusiveness when they speak of the actions or beliefs of this or that group. But one has only to hear advocates of diversity, or black-lives-matter, or critics of white privilege, etc. to realize that undifferentiated condemnation of entire groups, black, white, Hispanic, Hindu or whatever is widespread, not merely a problem experienced by Jews. oh btw there was an amusing codicil to the Kantorowicz story. At Berkeley in the 50′s he and the other faculty were called to take an oath before some Govt Commission that they were not communists. Kantorowicz as a matter of principal refused to take the oath, since he believed in academic liberty, and was dismissed. In his explanation for his refusal he stated something to the effect that he was not a communist- in fact, he had shot a bunch in his youth!- but he wouldn't take the oath.
Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 2:24 pm GMT@Aaron8765 oh btw there was an amusing codicil to the Kantorowicz story. At Berkeley in the 50's he and the other faculty were called to take an oath before some Govt Commission that they were not communists. Kantorowicz as a matter of principal refused to take the oath, since he believed in academic liberty, and was dismissed. In his explanation for his refusal he stated something to the effect that he was not a communist- in fact, he had shot a bunch in his youth!- but he wouldn't take the oath. 'principle' (sic)
KenH , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 2:33 pm GMTMost commenters, surely, do not regard "the entire Jewish people" with hatred, and most surely, would acknowledge that most Jews of their acquaintance are good people.
I am disturbed and hurt that there is so much hatred towards the entire Jewish people in the comment section. I am Jewish.
Naturally, however, people react with anger when Jews engage in anti-European genocidal advocacy such as this . Anti-European advocacy, in various forms, in the media and the movie industry, is often associated with Jewish ownership or direction and naturally provokes anger at what appears to be the anti-European racism and indeed genocidal intent toward the European people of many influential Jews.
I do understand your feelings and sympathize with you, but it is surely wrong to infer that because there is push back against what some Jews do, this is evidence of irrational hatred. It is not. The European people are under a concerted assault as racial and cultural entities, a fact that is obvious to any but a propagandist for genocide or an idiot like Corvinus, and that process of European racial and cultural genocide is promoted by many Jewish-controlled or owned companies and institutions under the guise of promoting diversity, multi-culturalism, tolerance, etc. The role of Jews in that process is no doubt a problem for many loyal American and European Jews, but it is a problem that cannot simply be dismissed as evidence of universal or even widely occurring anti-Semitism.
Of course people speak carelessly and with undue inclusiveness when they speak of the actions or beliefs of this or that group. But one has only to hear advocates of diversity, or black-lives-matter, or critics of white privilege, etc. to realize that undifferentiated condemnation of entire groups, black, white, Hispanic, Hindu or whatever is widespread, not merely a problem experienced by Jews. "Naturally, however, people react with anger when Jews engage in anti-European genocidal advocacy such as this."
False characterization.
"I do understand your feelings and sympathize with you, but it is surely wrong to infer that because there is push back against what some Jews do, this is evidence of irrational hatred. It is not."
It is evidence of irrational hatred due to a belief that Jews overall engage in the purposeful destruction of cultures. There is the assumption that diversity/multi-culturalism/tolerance is the bane of existence, that the Jewish propaganda machine serves as an ethnic and societal meat grinder. Unwitting people are being brainwashed into promoting these concepts. Except you are conveniently discounting this important fact human beings have free will. Increasing numbers of people have made decisions of their own accord about these issues. They embrace these philosophies for a host of reasons. You are a snake oil salesman of how Cultural Marxism allegedly is murdering our youth. Let us assume that this Jewish menace would be neutralized. Do you not believe there would be some other group filling in for that void through their own strategies of indoctrination and mind control? Perhaps the philosophies you tout would then be force fed down the throats of the masses.
"According to Corvy, there's something wrong with those who are for the survival of their own kith and kin. In fact, being against extinction of your own people is how Corvy seems to define hate speech and racism."
That's not what I stated. I'm not a fan shall we say of you denigrating wholesale a particular group and characterizing that same group of being a proponent of genocide. You have every liberty to protect "your own kind", just as those individuals from "your own kind" have the freedom to question the reasons why you want those protections as well as how those protections are put in place. Furthermore, don't you realize there is no such thing as "racism" and "hate speech"? It's a ruse.
Pro-race is code for anti-humanity.
Rurik , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 4:30 pm GMTwell said Geo,
while they support the promotion of diversity in their host nations, they fiercely defend the idea of an ethno-state in the ME.
we've all seen this genocidal hag shilling for the destruction of the West
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ERmOpZrKtw
and we all know by now the consequences of this insanity being foisted by these (often Jewish) netherworld demons
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3831991/Wheelchair-bound-woman-gang-raped-six-migrants-Swedish-asylum-centre-asking-use-toilet.html
no reasonable person blames all Jews for this evil that only a few of them are perpetrating, (with the eager assistance of many goys [homos and fat, ugly white women and other malcontents] who want the migrants to come for their own reasons, just like corporate/business interests who want to pay lower wages in general)
but the destruction of Europe and N. America by massive and transformational immigration is, at heart- being foisted by Jewish sludge like Sheldon Adelson, who demands open borders for the US, and uses his money to buy cucks in the Republican party to ensure that he gets just that, but then also uses his ill-gotten gains to promote racial purity in Israel, where his newspapers call all non-Jewish immigrants - invaders.
So you're right. It's the raging hypocrisy and demonic, Old Testament hatred for all non-Jewish tribes and the efforts to see all white nations founder under racial and ethnic hatred and strife, while simultaneously advocating for a racially pure state in Israel- that makes a lot of people exasperated with Jewish influence and nefarious intrigues.
There are of course other stuff too. Fomenting and foisting wars, false flag attacks, financial swindles, cultural sewage, etc.. But I suspect one of the main reasons people are losing patience is the psychotic imperative of some Jews to advocate for massive immigration into (only) white countries that outs (some of) them as existential enemies.
But I suspect one of the main reasons people are losing patience is the psychotic imperative of some Jews to advocate for massive immigration into (only) white countries
Don't be so sure about some . One hundred percent of Jews serving in both chambers of Congress have supported efforts at granting mass amnesty of third world illegal aliens. Seventy to eighty percent consistently vote Democrat no matter how far to the left or anti-white the party becomes. Even so called conservative (or neocon) Jews like Krauthammer, Bernie Goldberg and others have voiced support for amnesty or partial amnesty.
So it certainly seems that, based on the evidence, most of them are on board with America as proposition nation and the race replacement of whites while hypocritically supporting the militant racial nationalism and exclusivity of the Israeli state.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 5:10 pm GMTit certainly seems that, based on the evidence, most of them are on board
I can't argue with that Ken
and you could say the same of all non-white peoples, they're mostly on board for an immigration policy that will eventually rip white nations apart and see the white people trampled under like they were in Zimbabwe, or Haiti when the whites received their comeuppance then.
They all seem to hate us, but none more so than Jews
but it is worth pointing out that certainly not all Jews (or other minorities) want us genocided
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller_(political_advisor)
some can see past their blind racial hatred and envy to the day that whitey is finally ground under the mire of their collective hatred, to what comes next.
what kind of world will it be without Western civilization and the Rule of Law?
Zimbabwe, Palestine, Darfur, the Balkans, Drug cartels and corruption running S. America outright, India and Pakistan cutting each other's throats, cannibalism returning to Africa and Indonesian islands, New Guinea, New Zealand, etc.
And I mention New Zealand, because the only thing protecting the white people (and the meek of all races) in places like Oceana or Latin America or Africa, the Middle East, etc is the fragile, amorphous sense of the law , that permeates the jungles and hinterlands of the planet, where some American expatriate living in Mexico is left unmolested by the cartels and corrupt governments down there. On the day that whitey is unable to protect his own families in the US, that is the day that certain ex-patriots in Mexico will find out just how loved they really are by the Mexicans, who've suffered their arrogance and relative wealth with bitter, quiet, simmering resentment.
If your society has reached the point where your women and children are brutalized by hostile invading armies and there's nothing you can do to protect them, and the courts and authorities will not punish the orcs, then it's only a short distance until the day of Zimbabwe comes and you're run out of your home in terror for your life.
There was a time when the whites of Zimbabwe could count on England and the rule of law to protect them. They discovered too late how wrong they were. It will be the same for all white places when the global system of the Rule of Law breaks down and we return to the law of the jungle with a vengeance.
how well will Israel fare when there's no more white guilt to milk for funding and arms and "moral" sanction?
already Norway and other nations are talking about BDS, in part because of the burgeoning Muslim populations in these countries.
when Europe becomes multicultural, as that Zionist hag insists it must, how well are the Jews of the world going to prosper when the governments of Europe are Islamized?
neutral , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 5:47 pm GMT@Aaron8765 We have enemies within and enemies without. Regarding our enemies without: the most dangerous are the Islamic supremacists, and China. The Chinese are a more traditional challenge, and hence more manageable. The Russians are a natural ally- and perhaps a necessary ally- against both of these threats. A traditional geopolitical analysis suggests that we always side with the weaker party- in this case the Russians- against rising/hegemonic states in Eurasia. So our foreign policy is out of joint. Why our foreign policy class insists upon supporting this policy is an interesting question- the policy is clearly in error. Treason in high places: " Not Remembering the USS Liberty," by Ray McGovern
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/21/not-remembering-the-uss-liberty/"The only investigation worth the name was led by Adm. Moorer, who had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Among the findings announced by the commission on October 2003:
" Unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on the USS Liberty bridge, and fired 30mm cannon and rockets into the ship; survivors estimate 30 or more sorties were flown over the ship by a minimum of 12 attacking Israeli planes.
" The torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes, but machine-gunning of Liberty's firefighters and stretcher-bearers. The Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Liberty's life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded."
"Shortly before he died in February 2004, Adm. Moorer strongly appealed for the truth to be brought out and pointed directly at what he saw as the main obstacle: " I've never seen a President stand up to Israel. If the American people understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would rise up in arms." Echoing Moorer, former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, who served many years in the Middle East, condemned Washington's attitude toward Israel as "obsequious, unctuous subservience at the cost of the lives and morale of our own service members and their families"Sowhat , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 6:31 pm GMT@Aaron8765 I don't agree with everything you say, but thanks for your thoughts on this. If that is what the ADL is supporting- and I have no reason to doubt you- then they have to be opposed vigorously. On a lighter note, assimilated Jewish Americans never call our Christian brethren 'goyim' anymore- it might be a problem, considering that 60% of us, including yours truly, have married outside our religion of birth.
have married outside our religion of birth
That makes no difference, since being jewish is ultimately a racial category not a religious one. You don't have to take my word for it, you can research how the state of Israel defines what a jew is, and it is not on religious grounds. In fact they use the Nuremberg race acts that defined what a jew was as their own criteria, obviously they will claim they are using it for those fleeing oppression, but anyone who is sincere about this knows it is because the Nuremberg race acts were correct in their definitions.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 7:17 pm GMTJimmy, I like reading your but bluing your scripts (doesn't that usually indicate a reference or example) to send me to a VDARE donation page is tacky. JMO
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 7:54 pm GMT@Authenticjazzman "The fact that such a man was elected at all shows the complete degeneracy of th electorate
So you would have prefered BC and HRC, the paragons of decency and integrity back in the white house.
Look friend you are labeling myself, my sister and my upstanding, decent, friends and family who in fact did pull the lever for DT as : Degenerate.
You are the "degenerate" malevolent one here and you have no clue as to what you are blathering about.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa"society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician.
So you would have prefered BC and HRC, the paragons of decency and integrity back in the white house.
Quite.
Conservatives despair to find that Trump scores only a 1.5 or 2 relative to the ideal 10 they had hoped for.
However, Hillary would have been a solid and consistent -8 (MINUS EIGHT) or worse. Every day of Trump – however betrayed Conservatives may feel relative to their ideals – is a day on which the ALL-OUT DESTRUCTION of America does not proceed with the organized, unopposed vigor that it would have done under Hillary. (Also known as Mrs. Vincent Foster #2.)
Of course, the lackey MSM are doing their level best to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) among those opposed to the oligarchy. Their "Russia hacked the election" complex of lies (aka "narrative") would certainly have drawn admiring applause from Joseph Goebbels himself, both for the boldness of the original conception – tapping into old *conservative* mistrust of the USSR, and for the shameless repetitive execution.
Right now, the U.S. still has remnants of the Second Amendment, which alone is the true, long-term measure of a free country. (Various states and their complicit federal judges are working hard to get rid of this final obstacle to billionaire rule and death camps.)
Don't believe that the SECOND Amendment is the true measure of a free country? Spend 6 weeks in Canada or any other advanced country in Europe, Asia, talk to people, see what they say about sensitive subjects. Read and watch their MSM and alternative media. Ask yourself where the subject country was 100 years ago, and where it is likely to be in 100 years.
Has free speech in the subject country been OFFICIALLY curtailed under rubrics such as "hate speech," "incitement," "libel/slander" etc.? What is the extent of INFORMAL censorship, e.g. through publishers' associations, codes of conduct, post-modern J-schools and official "certification" of "journalists," etc.?
What do they/don't the MSM in the subject country report? Secret/informal taboos? Is there REAL criticism of the power structure? Of existing laws and institutions? Are politicians REALLY subject to the rule of law? Do they REALLY lock up corrupt politicians as the U.S. used to do? Are politicians' families exempt from public scrutiny?
Political murder is another indication of the health or otherwise of a free society. Are mysterious deaths of politicians and their staff commonplace in the subject society? Does interest in major incidents die down after 2-3 days? Or persist for years (JFK) despite repeated attempts at whitewashing?
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 8:08 pm GMT@CanSpeccy Waste of time, really, responding to the troll for the replacement of Euro-Americans. It only initiates another spew of hate speech. According to Corvy, there's something wrong with those who are for the survival of their own kith and kin. In fact, being against extinction of your own people is how Corvy seems to define hate speech and racism.
Wiz Oz is not quite so crude about it, but seems to think its fine for the English people of the city of Leicester to be replaced by Hindus, but being English, the nation of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Sam Johnson and many other fine people, I do not.
There are something like a billion Hindus in India, so why should they occupy the tiny homeland of the English? England, it is true, ruled India for a while, no doubt over the objection of the Indian ruling class, but in doing so they merely replaced another and more exploitive alien ruling elite, and at no time attempted to settle India with millions of Europeans. Indeed they set out, from the time of Macaulay's memorandum on Indian Education, dated Feb 2nd, 1835 , to prepare India for self-government as the modern, independent, democratic nation state that it now is.
Wiz Oz seems to think its fine for the English people of the city of Leicester to be replaced by Hindus, but being English, the nation of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Sam Johnson and many other fine people, I do not.
What many modern observers are too shy to say out loud is this:
Cultures are NOT created equal, and it turned out that traditional English cultural notions in politics, economics and religion supplied much of the "magic sauce" that enabled the American experiment to take the world forward as and when it did.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies."
To the soi-disant intellectual, English traditions of tolerance, openness and restraint – vague, semi-feudalistic, determinedly bourgeois, unexciting as they are – are particularly maddening as they leave no room for the concoction of "logical" systems in their own image by gaggles of Nazi-sympathizing, sex-addicted continental "philosophers."
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher." This may be the real reason why "philosophers" writing in English strive so mightily to make their works read like bad translations from ponderous German or Gauloise-reeking French.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 21, 2017 at 9:00 pm GMT@Aaron8765 I appreciate the sympathy. The whole situation is a complete mess and getting worse. On a historical note, a biography just came out about Ernst Kantorowicz, a Jewish- German medievalist. You might find it interesting. His life was also discussed in a book about the great medievalists of the 20th Century- 'Medieval Lives', by Cantor. It's a fascinating book. Kantorowicz was a wealthy, assimilated Jewish- German who grew up with the Prussian upper class. He was a German officer in World War I, and after the war joined the paramilitary- right Freikorps and fought against the Communists inside Germany. As a medievalist, he was a romantic- nationalist associated with a circle of poets and scholars, and friends with Percy Ernst Schramm, who along with Kantorowicz was one of the great medievalists of his generation. Then the Nazis took power. Kantorowicz was purged from academic life. Some of his friends protected him as best they could, while others sided with the Nazis. He got out, barely, in 1938 and ended up at Berkeley, of all places, and the Institute for Advanced Study. His friend Schramm became the official historian of the Wehrmacht in WWII, and observed Hitler at first hand. After the war Schramm turned to Kantorowicz for help in reentering official, academic life (Kantorowicz helped.) The whole story is a tragic metaphor for the tragedy of the patriotic, assimilated- nationalist German Jews. Re: Kantorowicz
Bureaucracies, governmental or academic, hate a non-conformist. I know. I worked (briefly) for three governments and also held academic appointments at three universities, the last, a tenure-track appointment, that I abandoned after three days.
The problem for all groups in a multi-cultural society is that group interests are liable to conflict and thus generate antagonisms that often have a racial or religious aspect. For Jews, it is worse than for most because they are adherents, or associates by descent, of a religion that is fundamentally racist. Yahweh, after all, is the God of the Jews, and urges the Jews to go forth, multiply and rule over the nations of the Earth.
Thus, when Jews succeed as they have done in large numbers in America in gaining positions of great wealth and power, and especially when they exercise that power for specifically Jewish interests such as the defense of the state of Israel, they naturally raise feelings of suspicion, fear and antagonism, as would say a bunch of Russian nationalists if they ran much of Hollywood , were among the principal peddlers of porn in America , had massive media influence , and held many seats in Congress and used their financial clout to determine who holds many of the other seats in Congress .
None of this, of course, alters the fact that it may at times seem tough being a Jew and an American-firster.
dfordoom , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 1:08 am GMT@annamaria Treason in high places: " Not Remembering the USS Liberty," by Ray McGovern
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/21/not-remembering-the-uss-liberty/"The only investigation worth the name was led by Adm. Moorer, who had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Among the findings announced by the commission on October 2003:
" Unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on the USS Liberty bridge, and fired 30mm cannon and rockets into the ship; survivors estimate 30 or more sorties were flown over the ship by a minimum of 12 attacking Israeli planes.
" The torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes, but machine-gunning of Liberty's firefighters and stretcher-bearers. The Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Liberty's life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded."
"Shortly before he died in February 2004, Adm. Moorer strongly appealed for the truth to be brought out and pointed directly at what he saw as the main obstacle: " I've never seen a President stand up to Israel. If the American people understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would rise up in arms." Echoing Moorer, former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, who served many years in the Middle East, condemned Washington's attitude toward Israel as "obsequious, unctuous subservience at the cost of the lives and morale of our own service members and their families" WHY did the Israeli leadership collectively decide to attack the USS Liberty spy ship and risk serious damage to its relationship with its only superpower supporter? What did the Israelis know about the Liberty's activities? Why was this a matter of top-level national importance to Israel?Somehow, endless repetition of the USS Liberty story never gets around to addressing the crucial WHY of the operation.
Without addressing the WHY, any account of the attack itself is little more than beating around the bush. Also, it is remarkable that no consistent U.S. version of the incident has evolved despite several generations of military and secret service officials transitioning to the relative safety and anonymity of retirement since then.
One conventional fake answer can easily be disposed off – it is sometimes claimed that the Israelis hoped to blame the sinking of the Liberty on Egypt, and cause damage to Egypt's relationship with the U.S. This version is wholly untenable.
First, an air attack would have been plainly visible on military radar across the Red Sea. Second, then as now, the U.S. had extensive secret service contacts throughout the Egyptian government. An Egyptian air attack on the USS Liberty would most likely have leaked in advance, and certainly within hours of a putative Egyptian attack which by definition would have to involved hundreds of individuals to propose, prepare and implement.
Achmed E. Newman , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 1:42 am GMT@Authenticjazzman " They serve the interests of global capitalism"
Right and "global capitalism" serves the interests of global marxism, and you are unable to decifer the connections, which is your own shortcoming, and does not change the situation.
Almost all of the honchos involved in big-money are in essence : marxists, and they are plotting and waiting for the shift to collectivism.
Just why did the "moneyed" classes in Russia and in the US support the 1917 revolution, when they could have simply left things are they were.
I know it is very hard for most people to imagine big-time capitalists as communists, but it is fact.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet and pro jazz musician.
Just why did the "moneyed" classes in Russia and in the US support the 1917 revolution, when they could have simply left things are they were.
Because they figured they could make a fast buck out of it. A revolution is a great chance to loot a country (as the Russians discovered to their cost in the 1990s).
The "moneyed" classes do not believe in marxism because they do not believe in any ideology. They believe in money and power. Ideologies are for the rubes.
The US is currently making a massive arms deal with the Saudis. Does this mean that the US moneyed classes have suddenly converted to Islam? No, it means they see a chance to make money.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 2:09 am GMT@Sowhat Jimmy, I like reading your but bluing your scripts (doesn't that usually indicate a reference or example) to send me to a VDARE donation page is tacky. JMO Mr. What, that "bluing" is called a hyperlink *. They've been around for well nigh 25 years now by my recollection. The guy's link is fine, but VDare right now is raising some money, and that "splash" page will appear on anyone's initial visit, so to speak, to the site right now. If you mash that X in the right corner, you will get directly to the article that the guy you're replying to wants you to see.
I hope that helps I would like to AGREE with myself here too, because, as usual, I know I am right. I don't know how to do that though without joining faceboot or some such crap.
* Here is one, just as a random example. It'd be interesting to see what happens when you single-click on it. You might as well now – it'll bug you the rest of the evening if you don't.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 11:17 am GMT@Eagle Eye WHY did the Israeli leadership collectively decide to attack the USS Liberty spy ship and risk serious damage to its relationship with its only superpower supporter? What did the Israelis know about the Liberty's activities? Why was this a matter of top-level national importance to Israel?
Somehow, endless repetition of the USS Liberty story never gets around to addressing the crucial WHY of the operation.
Without addressing the WHY, any account of the attack itself is little more than beating around the bush. Also, it is remarkable that no consistent U.S. version of the incident has evolved despite several generations of military and secret service officials transitioning to the relative safety and anonymity of retirement since then.
One conventional fake answer can easily be disposed off - it is sometimes claimed that the Israelis hoped to blame the sinking of the Liberty on Egypt, and cause damage to Egypt's relationship with the U.S. This version is wholly untenable.
First, an air attack would have been plainly visible on military radar across the Red Sea. Second, then as now, the U.S. had extensive secret service contacts throughout the Egyptian government. An Egyptian air attack on the USS Liberty would most likely have leaked in advance, and certainly within hours of a putative Egyptian attack which by definition would have to involved hundreds of individuals to propose, prepare and implement. "Somehow, endless repetition of the USS Liberty story never gets around to addressing the crucial WHY of the operation."
First, there is no "endless repetition of the USS Liberty story" by MSM: this story has been hushed for many years. Second, apart from disparaging the survivors of USSLiberty, you suggest no viable explanation to the murderous attack.
The USS Liberty story emphasizes inordinate influence of Israel-firsters on the US policies abroad and domestically. Here is a excerpt from a speech of Mr. Dershowitz (the Idiot): "People write a book called the Israel lobby and complain that AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. My response to that is, that's not good enough. We should be the most powerful lobby in Washington. . . . We are entitled to use our power. We have contributed disproportionately to the success of this country. . . . We are a very influential community. We deserve our influence."
"Israel Lobby Pays the Political Piper:" https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/21/israel-lobby-pays-the-political-piper/
Don't you see how the obnoxious kind – that makes the Lobby, ADL, powerful warmongers among the Friends of Israel and such – have been destroying the true safe home for Jewry in the US and EU?Rurik , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 1:09 pm GMTBecause they figured they could make a fast buck out of it. A revolution is a great chance to loot a country (as the Russians discovered to their cost in the 1990s).
Just why did the "moneyed" classes in Russia and in the US support the 1917 revolution, when they could have simply left things are they were.
The "moneyed" classes do not believe in marxism because they do not believe in any ideology. They believe in money and power. Ideologies are for the rubes.
The US is currently making a massive arms deal with the Saudis. Does this mean that the US moneyed classes have suddenly converted to Islam? No, it means they see a chance to make money. " Because they figured they could make a fast buck out of it"
Hogwash, this idea is beyond absurd.
What you are saying is that for the purpose of "Making a fast buck" they will support a political/economic system, namely communism, which has the goal of destroying them , in other words the chickens are voting for Colonel Sanders.
" The monied classes do not believe in marxism" . Again hogwash, and you would be in a state of shock if you were able to engage certain billionaires in conversation regarding this issue.
The motivation behind their fixation upon Marxism is their striving to considered as "Intellectuals", and they are plagued by inferiority complexes regarding their status as "Businessmen", whereas marxists are looked upon as : "Intellectual".
I was never convinced that rich people were exceptionally intelligent, rather to the contrary.
Wall street being a perfect example of stupidity prevailing amongst millionaires and billionaires.Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet and pro jazz artist.
Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 4:10 pm GMT@annamaria "Somehow, endless repetition of the USS Liberty story never gets around to addressing the crucial WHY of the operation."
First, there is no "endless repetition of the USS Liberty story" by MSM: this story has been hushed for many years. Second, apart from disparaging the survivors of USSLiberty, you suggest no viable explanation to the murderous attack.
The USS Liberty story emphasizes inordinate influence of Israel-firsters on the US policies abroad and domestically. Here is a excerpt from a speech of Mr. Dershowitz (the Idiot): "People write a book called the Israel lobby and complain that AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. My response to that is, that's not good enough. We should be the most powerful lobby in Washington. . . . We are entitled to use our power. We have contributed disproportionately to the success of this country. . . . We are a very influential community. We deserve our influence."
"Israel Lobby Pays the Political Piper:" https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/21/israel-lobby-pays-the-political-piper/
Don't you see how the obnoxious kind - that makes the Lobby, ADL, powerful warmongers among the Friends of Israel and such - have been destroying the true safe home for Jewry in the US and EU?First, there is no "endless repetition of the USS Liberty story" by MSM: this story has been hushed for many years.
yep
also as we all know, the attack on the USS Liberty was intended as a false flag attack to be blamed on Egypt in order to get America to fight Israel's wars for them.
As was the Lavon affair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
It is the well-known modus operendi of cowards. Commit crimes and blame them on people you don't like, so that those people will be punished for it. It happens all the time in America with hate "crime" hoaxes. The most egregious example of Israeli's treachery and endemic cowardice was the false flag attack on 9/11 – that is being used even today to get Americans to mass-murder people Israel doesn't like and reduce entire nations and regions into smoking ashes.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 5:38 pm GMTWhat many modern observers are too shy to say out loud is this:
Wiz Oz ... seems to think its fine for the English people of the city of Leicester to be replaced by Hindus, but being English, the nation of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Sam Johnson and many other fine people, I do not.
Cultures are NOT created equal, and it turned out that traditional English cultural notions in politics, economics and religion supplied much of the "magic sauce" that enabled the American experiment to take the world forward as and when it did.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies."
To the soi-disant intellectual, English traditions of tolerance, openness and restraint - vague, semi-feudalistic, determinedly bourgeois, unexciting as they are - are particularly maddening as they leave no room for the concoction of "logical" systems in their own image by gaggles of Nazi-sympathizing, sex-addicted continental "philosophers."
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher." This may be the real reason why "philosophers" writing in English strive so mightily to make their works read like bad translations from ponderous German or Gauloise-reeking French. "and it turned out that traditional English cultural notions in politics, economics and religion supplied much of the "magic sauce" that enabled the American experiment to take the world forward as and when it did."
You do realize that those traditions were a result of the combined efforts of the Britons, the Picts, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxon tribes. Moreover, this "American experiment" was the product of the English, Greek, and Roman ways of governance, as well as the philosophies of the Enlightenment.
"English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies."
Thank you for your opinion on this matter.
"One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher.""
The English language does not prohibit anyone from indicating that their profession is a "philosopher", considering if a person graduates from university with a doctoral degree in philosophy and instructs students in this field.
Authenticjazzman , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 5:42 pm GMT"Support our troops!" in the time of institutionalized treason.
Two ugly siblings or why ISIS is a best friend of both Israel and Saudi Arabia."Israel and Saudi Arabia have always been enemies of secular, Arab nationalist states and federations. Whether an Arab state is Nasserist, Ba'athist, socialist, Marxist-Leninist or in the case of Gaddafi's Libya a practitioner of the post-Nassierist Third Political Theory: Israel and Saudi Arabia have sought to and in large part have succeeded, with western help, at destroying such states.
Unlike Israel's Apartheid military state and Saudi Arabia's human rights free monarchy, the aforementioned Arab styles of government are worthy of the word modern. These are countries which had progressive mixed economies, had secular governments and societies, had full constitutional rights for religious and ethnic minorities, they championed women's rights and engaged in mass literacy programmes and infrastructural projects. ..
Syria is the last secular Arab Ba'athist state in the world. Unlike in Israel, minorities have full constitutional rights and unlike in Saudi Arabia, all religions are tolerated. In Syria, women can act, speak and dress as they wish. Syria's independence has in the past thwarted Israel's ambition to annex Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and additional parts of Syria itself (Israel still occupies Syria's Golan Heights).
Syria remains strongly independent and refuses to surrender its values.
Saudi Arabia and Israel are allies in the material and psychological war against secular, modern Arab countries. It is a war which the United States has been fighting on behalf of Riyadh and Tel Aviv for decades ."Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 6:41 pm GMT" considering if a person graduates from university with a doctoral degree in philosophy and instructs students in this field"
So what you are saying is that holding a "doctoral degree" in philosophy automatically transforms the individual involved into being a "Philsopher"
This is pure unadulterated nonsense, and I personally have had the aquaintance of two persons who did indeed hold doctoral degrees in philosophy and they were both light years away from the qualification of "Philosopher".
Homer was a"Philosopher", Marc Aurel, was a philosopher, Goethe was a philosopher, etc, but none of the BS artists in this day and age holding doctoral degrees in philosophy, could ever with a straight face claim to be a "philosopher".
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz musician.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 6:49 pm GMT@annamaria "Somehow, endless repetition of the USS Liberty story never gets around to addressing the crucial WHY of the operation."
First, there is no "endless repetition of the USS Liberty story" by MSM: this story has been hushed for many years. Second, apart from disparaging the survivors of USSLiberty, you suggest no viable explanation to the murderous attack.
The USS Liberty story emphasizes inordinate influence of Israel-firsters on the US policies abroad and domestically. Here is a excerpt from a speech of Mr. Dershowitz (the Idiot): "People write a book called the Israel lobby and complain that AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. My response to that is, that's not good enough. We should be the most powerful lobby in Washington. . . . We are entitled to use our power. We have contributed disproportionately to the success of this country. . . . We are a very influential community. We deserve our influence."
"Israel Lobby Pays the Political Piper:" https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/21/israel-lobby-pays-the-political-piper/
Don't you see how the obnoxious kind - that makes the Lobby, ADL, powerful warmongers among the Friends of Israel and such - have been destroying the true safe home for Jewry in the US and EU? The basic question – which remains unaddressed in the response – is very simply:What was the Israeli leadership trying to do by launching a combined airborne and naval attack on the USS Liberty during the Six Day War in 1967?
You mention the Lavon affair in 1954. This scandal arose out of an attempted Israeli false-flag operation in Egypt that went spectacularly wrong.
The Suez Crisis in 1956 was another major disaster for Israel, the UK and France.
This experience will have informed Israeli government thinking in 1967.
Moreover, as noted in the original post, radar technology at the time, as well simple visual identification of the attacking jet fighters and vessels precluded even a remote possibility of dressing up the attack as having been perpetrated by Egypt.
Further, the U.S. had plenty of intelligence assets in both Egypt and Israel to find out what actually happened to the USS Liberty within hours. An operation of this magnitude involves at a minimum hundreds of people across different countries and cannot be kept completely secret.
The Lavon affair was intended to involve small anonymous attacks against random civilian targets, but failed to achieve this relatively modest objective.
Are we now to believe that the Israelis thought they could pull off a massive combined air-sea attack against a United States vessel on the high seas (where radar and visual observation is unobstructed) and blame it on Egypt? The very idea is insane.
So why did Israel resort to this desperate gamble?
Barring a collective bout of insanity throughout Israel's civilian and military leadership, the most likely explanation is that the USS Liberty itself was seen as a major and indeed mortal threat to Israel, to such an extent that the Israeli leadership decided to risk a major rift with the U.S. to eliminate the threat.
How would the USS Liberty itself be a threat? Most likely by compiling high-grade military intelligence and passing it to Egypt and the other Arab nations. This could have occurred either pursuant to official directives from the top of the U.S. hierarchy, or perhaps because the local command went rogue.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 9:09 pm GMT@Corvinus "and it turned out that traditional English cultural notions in politics, economics and religion supplied much of the "magic sauce" that enabled the American experiment to take the world forward as and when it did."
You do realize that those traditions were a result of the combined efforts of the Britons, the Picts, the Romans, and the Anglo-Saxon tribes. Moreover, this "American experiment" was the product of the English, Greek, and Roman ways of governance, as well as the philosophies of the Enlightenment.
"English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies."
Thank you for your opinion on this matter.
"One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher.""
The English language does not prohibit anyone from indicating that their profession is a "philosopher", considering if a person graduates from university with a doctoral degree in philosophy and instructs students in this field.
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher."
Try it. Try saying "I am a philosopher."
Notice how ridiculous it sounds?
French does not have the same inbuilt resistance to unreality. "Moi, je suis philosophe" does not sound inherently ridiculous to a French speaker.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 22, 2017 at 9:39 pm GMTyep
First, there is no "endless repetition of the USS Liberty story" by MSM: this story has been hushed for many years.
also as we all know, the attack on the USS Liberty was intended as a false flag attack to be blamed on Egypt in order to get America to fight Israel's wars for them.
As was the Lavon affair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
It is the well-known modus operendi of cowards. Commit crimes and blame them on people you don't like, so that those people will be punished for it. It happens all the time in America with hate "crime" hoaxes. The most egregious example of Israeli's treachery and endemic cowardice was the false flag attack on 9/11 - that is being used even today to get Americans to mass-murder people Israel doesn't like and reduce entire nations and regions into smoking ashes.
as we all know, the attack on the USS Liberty was intended as a false flag attack to be blamed on Egypt in order to get America to fight Israel's wars for them
This suggestion at least makes logical sense.
However, the idea that Israel's entire senior leadership seriously thought they could pin a combined air/sea attack in the middle of the Red Sea on Egypt is quite outlandish, as explained in a separate post above. Given the circumstances, the Israelis must have KNOWN 100% that the attack would be traced back to them within hours at the latest.
In fact, nobody seems to suggest that the U.S. was ACTUALLY DECEIVED for even a split second about who launched the attack.
Reading between the lines of contemporary and later accounts, it appears that Israel took IMMEDIATE action to mitigate the fall-out in DC. This again is inconsistent with trying to pin it on Egypt.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 12:28 am GMT@annamaria "Support our troops!" in the time of institutionalized treason.
Two ugly siblings or why ISIS is a best friend of both Israel and Saudi Arabia.
http://theduran.com/heres-why-saudi-arabia-and-israel-are-allies-in-all-but-name/
"Israel and Saudi Arabia have always been enemies of secular, Arab nationalist states and federations. Whether an Arab state is Nasserist, Ba'athist, socialist, Marxist-Leninist or in the case of Gaddafi's Libya a practitioner of the post-Nassierist Third Political Theory: Israel and Saudi Arabia have sought to and in large part have succeeded, with western help, at destroying such states.
Unlike Israel's Apartheid military state and Saudi Arabia's human rights free monarchy, the aforementioned Arab styles of government are worthy of the word modern. These are countries which had progressive mixed economies, had secular governments and societies, had full constitutional rights for religious and ethnic minorities, they championed women's rights and engaged in mass literacy programmes and infrastructural projects. ..
Syria is the last secular Arab Ba'athist state in the world. Unlike in Israel, minorities have full constitutional rights and unlike in Saudi Arabia, all religions are tolerated. In Syria, women can act, speak and dress as they wish. Syria's independence has in the past thwarted Israel's ambition to annex Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and additional parts of Syria itself (Israel still occupies Syria's Golan Heights). ...
Syria remains strongly independent and refuses to surrender its values.
Saudi Arabia and Israel are allies in the material and psychological war against secular, modern Arab countries. It is a war which the United States has been fighting on behalf of Riyadh and Tel Aviv for decades ."Syria is the last secular Arab Ba'athist state in the world.
Modern, secular Syria TREBLED its population since 1980 even though water and land were already exhausted then.
http://globuspallidusxi.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-real-story-on-syria-forced.html
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 12:30 am GMTModern, secular Syria TREBLED its population since 1980 even though water and land were already exhausted then.
Syria is the last secular Arab Ba'athist state in the world.
http://globuspallidusxi.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-real-story-on-syria-forced.html What is you point, that Syria has no right for her sovereignty?
"Trump and Netanyahu to the world: WE ARE ALL WAHHABISTS NOW!"
http://theduran.com/trump-and-netanyahu-to-the-world-we-are-all-wahhabists-now/Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 1:42 am GMTThis suggestion at least makes logical sense.
as we all know, the attack on the USS Liberty was intended as a false flag attack to be blamed on Egypt in order to get America to fight Israel's wars for them
However, the idea that Israel's entire senior leadership seriously thought they could pin a combined air/sea attack in the middle of the Red Sea on Egypt is quite outlandish, as explained in a separate post above. Given the circumstances, the Israelis must have KNOWN 100% that the attack would be traced back to them within hours at the latest.
In fact, nobody seems to suggest that the U.S. was ACTUALLY DECEIVED for even a split second about who launched the attack.
Reading between the lines of contemporary and later accounts, it appears that Israel took IMMEDIATE action to mitigate the fall-out in DC. This again is inconsistent with trying to pin it on Egypt. " it appears that Israel took IMMEDIATE action to mitigate the fall-out in DC."
This is not true. Try do read the accounts objectively.Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 2:45 am GMT@ "I am a philosopher."
Who is really a philosopher? What is really a philosopher? What is philosophy after all?
At the end of 'Antiquity' (6th Century) an Armenian Christian 'Neo-Platonic' philosopher, David Anhagt (the Invincible), wrote an 'Introduction to philosophy' in which he epitomized all the current definitions of Philosophy, which by logical necessity are only six (according to the object and purpose):
1) 'Philosophy is the knowledge of things that exist as they [really] are'.
2) 'Philosophy is the knowledge of things divine and human'.
3) 'Philosophy is preparation for death'.
4) 'Philosophy is becoming like the God to the best of human abilities.
5) 'Philosophy is the art of arts and science of sciences'.
6) 'Philosophy is love of wisdom' (filia sophias).For David (and all 'philosophers') philosophia is a 'care of the soul'. It starts with 'Gnoti seauton- Know thyself) and ends with 'becoming like God' (theosis) and here it coincides with the purpose of Christianity ('If the Word became a man, It was so men may become gods', 'For the Son of God became man so that we might become God', 'The Word was made flesh in order that we might be made gods. Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life' – the definitions of the Fathers). Christianity is the 'true philosophy'. Jesus answered the Pharisees: "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:34-35)*
*"I have said, Ye are gods; and all [of you] children of the Most High" (Psalm 81:6 – Septuagint).'Know thyself' because 'The Kingdom of God is within you'.
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 2:46 am GMT@annamaria "...it appears that Israel took IMMEDIATE action to mitigate the fall-out in DC."
This is not true. Try do read the accounts objectively. (1) I said that "reading between the lines," one might conclude that Israel IMMEDIATELY set about containing the fall-out in Washington. Of course, such efforts (if they indeed took place) would be hugely embarrassing to Israel and would be kept top secret even years later.(2) You have still not given us any real theory of WHY Israel would launch a combined air/sea attack on the USS Liberty.
The idea that Israel was at this precise moment in the middle of the Six Day War trying to pin the blame on Egypt does not hold water as explained in several posts above.
CONCLUSION: The best working theory at present is that the USS Liberty was providing high-grade intelligence to the Arab countries fighting Israel in the Six Day War.
If you have a better explanation consistent with the known facts, including the use of radar by the USS Liberty and airborne units in the area please share it here.
QUESTION: What is known about LBJ's stated and actual positions vis-a-vis Israel, Egypt, other Arab countries? Post-retirement contacts by LBJ and his family?
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 2:57 am GMTWhat many modern observers are too shy to say out loud is this:
Wiz Oz ... seems to think its fine for the English people of the city of Leicester to be replaced by Hindus, but being English, the nation of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Sam Johnson and many other fine people, I do not.
Cultures are NOT created equal, and it turned out that traditional English cultural notions in politics, economics and religion supplied much of the "magic sauce" that enabled the American experiment to take the world forward as and when it did.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies."
To the soi-disant intellectual, English traditions of tolerance, openness and restraint - vague, semi-feudalistic, determinedly bourgeois, unexciting as they are - are particularly maddening as they leave no room for the concoction of "logical" systems in their own image by gaggles of Nazi-sympathizing, sex-addicted continental "philosophers."
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher." This may be the real reason why "philosophers" writing in English strive so mightily to make their works read like bad translations from ponderous German or Gauloise-reeking French.
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher."
I don't understand why you say that or why Corvinus thinks it would be silly if anyone did say in English "I am a philosopher."
Most significant universities in the English-speaking world have a philosophy department whose faculty members would, in most cases, be prepared to assert that "I am a philosopher."
This may be the real reason why "philosophers" writing in English strive so mightily to make their works read like bad translations from ponderous German or Gauloise-reeking French.
No doubt there are plenty of bad English-speaking philosophers as there are bad English-speaking academics in every other field, but it is simply false to suggest that philosophical works in the English language are characterized by ponderous bad writing. In fact, the great English-speaking philosophers lead the world in the clarity of their analysis: David Hume , for example, or George Berkeley .
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 2:58 am GMT@Seraphim @ "I am a philosopher."
Who is really a philosopher? What is really a philosopher? What is philosophy after all?
At the end of 'Antiquity' (6th Century) an Armenian Christian 'Neo-Platonic' philosopher, David Anhagt (the Invincible), wrote an 'Introduction to philosophy' in which he epitomized all the current definitions of Philosophy, which by logical necessity are only six (according to the object and purpose):
1) 'Philosophy is the knowledge of things that exist as they [really] are'.
2) 'Philosophy is the knowledge of things divine and human'.
3) 'Philosophy is preparation for death'.
4) 'Philosophy is becoming like the God to the best of human abilities.
5) 'Philosophy is the art of arts and science of sciences'.
6) 'Philosophy is love of wisdom' (filia sophias).For David (and all 'philosophers') philosophia is a 'care of the soul'. It starts with 'Gnoti seauton- Know thyself) and ends with 'becoming like God' (theosis) and here it coincides with the purpose of Christianity ('If the Word became a man, It was so men may become gods', 'For the Son of God became man so that we might become God', 'The Word was made flesh in order that we might be made gods. ... Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life' - the definitions of the Fathers). Christianity is the 'true philosophy'. Jesus answered the Pharisees: "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:34-35)*
*"I have said, Ye are gods; and all [of you] children of the Most High" (Psalm 81:6 - Septuagint).'Know thyself' because 'The Kingdom of God is within you'. David Anhagt may have been at the forefront of philosophy at the end of antiquity, but things have moved on a bit since then. Today, surely, the key questions in philosophy are of the following kind:
(1) How do we know what we know, if we know anything at all?
(2) What is the nature of external reality, if there is an external reality, and what can we know of it and how?
(3) If there is an external reality, how come? How did it come to exist?
(4) What is morality?
(5) What is free will, and does it make us morally responsible for our actions?
And much more.
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 5:14 am GMT@annamaria What is you point, that Syria has no right for her sovereignty?
"Trump and Netanyahu to the world: WE ARE ALL WAHHABISTS NOW!"
http://theduran.com/trump-and-netanyahu-to-the-world-we-are-all-wahhabists-now/What is you point, that Syria has no right for her sovereignty?
A country at three times carrying capacity talking about "sovereignty" is like a 600 lb person talking about running a marathon.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 10:51 am GMTWhat many modern observers are too shy to say out loud is this:
Wiz Oz ... seems to think its fine for the English people of the city of Leicester to be replaced by Hindus, but being English, the nation of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Sam Johnson and many other fine people, I do not.
Cultures are NOT created equal, and it turned out that traditional English cultural notions in politics, economics and religion supplied much of the "magic sauce" that enabled the American experiment to take the world forward as and when it did.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies."
To the soi-disant intellectual, English traditions of tolerance, openness and restraint - vague, semi-feudalistic, determinedly bourgeois, unexciting as they are - are particularly maddening as they leave no room for the concoction of "logical" systems in their own image by gaggles of Nazi-sympathizing, sex-addicted continental "philosophers."
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher." This may be the real reason why "philosophers" writing in English strive so mightily to make their works read like bad translations from ponderous German or Gauloise-reeking French.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism
That is probably the exact opposite of the fact. The English sense of tolerance, such as it is (think the burning of witches and heretics, the gaoling of or chemical castration of queers), restraint, such as it is (think football hooliganism and the crass obscenity of some BBC entertainment programming), etc. are probably the result of Britain's unique set of traditions, the common law, the breakdown of serfdom as the result of the crash in population caused by the Black Death, property law, the rights of women dating from pre-Norman times, the King's Courts that provided litigants access to a court presided over by a professional judge, English trust law, that gave rise to so many special purpose clubs and organizations from scientific societies to sporting associations and explains why nearly all the world's most popular sports were invented by the English, and Henry VIII's marital problems that largely freed Britain from the influence of the Catholic church.
As for:
privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies.
LOL
Privacy? The Brits have more surveillance cameras per capita than any country on earth. They even have listening lamp posts.
Secularism? The present archbishop of Canterbury may be of Jewish extraction and experienced as a oil company money man, but until recent times the British were, for the most part, devout, mainly protestant, Christians.
Fads? Well maybe the Brits didn't trust them but they had plenty from rock and roll, flick knives, and ducks arse hair cuts, to mini-skirts, beatlemania, balsa wood airplanes, bellbottom pants, and on and on.
As for philosophies, the British empiricists are clearly among the most important of the modern age as the British who know anything about philosophy are happy to acknowledge.
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 11:06 am GMTA country at three times carrying capacity talking about "sovereignty" is like a 600 lb person talking about running a marathon. as compared to an artificial state that has been squeezing the native population and importing the (allegedly) ethnically-proper economic migrants?
What is you point, that Syria has no right for her sovereignty?
You seem have peculiar explanations to why such formerly functioning states as Iraq, Libya, and Syria should better cease to exist (along with the USSLiberty staff). According to your logic, the ongoing Syrian slaughter is a good deed because it allows for weeding out the excess of population there. The weeding out also works as a rationale for grabbing the Syrian natural resources by the "most moral" apartheid state.
And please don't try at lecturing the readers on Israel's virtues vs the US perfidy, considering the history of betrayal of the US by Israel-firsters. Pollard and more, the despicable PNAC crowd and the ziocons' obnoxious and stupid global games against ethnically-wrong humanity. At the head of the current mess is the Israel-occupied Congress, "conditioned" for guiding the hapless host in a desired direction.Corvinus , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 11:52 am GMT@CanSpeccy David Anhagt may have been at the forefront of philosophy at the end of antiquity, but things have moved on a bit since then. Today, surely, the key questions in philosophy are of the following kind:
(1) How do we know what we know, if we know anything at all?
(2) What is the nature of external reality, if there is an external reality, and what can we know of it and how?
(3) If there is an external reality, how come? How did it come to exist?
(4) What is morality?
(5) What is free will, and does it make us morally responsible for our actions?
And much more. All these 'moves' have been already made long before the end of Antiquity. There were the essential questions of 'philosophy' to which Plato, Aristotle and a score of 'Oriental' philosophers have offered the answers.
Didn't a noted philosopher of the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead, famously said that: 'The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato'?annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 1:15 pm GMTTry it. Try saying "I am a philosopher."
One of the advantages of the English language is that the language itself does not allow a person to identify his profession by saying "I am a philosopher."
Notice how ridiculous it sounds?
French does not have the same inbuilt resistance to unreality. "Moi, je suis philosophe" does not sound inherently ridiculous to a French speaker. "Try it. Try saying "I am a philosopher.""
OK. Doctor of philosophy.
"Notice how ridiculous it sounds?"
No.
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 4:55 pm GMTThe Saker publishes some interesting news re the MH17 tragedy:
"SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] orders to destroy all evidence of the conducted special operation MH17″ http://thesaker.is/sbu-orders-to-destroy-all-evidence-of-the-conducted-special-operation-mh17/
by Scott Humor: " If you want to know my opinion that hasn't changed since 2014. The Boeing flight MH17 was shot down by the Ukrainian air force fighter jets, but not necessarily piloted by Ukrainian pilots. It was a CIA and NATO operation to frame Russia. Most likely the Dutch government was a part of this operation. Now, they are trying to hang all the dogs on Waltzman -Poroshenko, because neither the Dutch monarchs, nor the CIA would fancy to be implicated in this crime."The whole edifice of sanctions against Russian federation was built on the MH17 case. A few people come to mind. First is the Secretary of State John Kerry who had proclaimed that Russians were guilty of the shooting before any investigation took place.
Then there is a Department of War Studies, King's College London, which became famous for inviting Eliot Higgins (an expert in selling ladies underwear) to lecture the College' students on Higgins' specialty – the russophobic stuff, which was debunked on numerous occasions but which is still dear to the hearts at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/aboutkings/principal/Indexnew.aspx https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/professors/rainsborough.aspx
And then there is a circus of Dutch investigation: https://www.rt.com/news/375105-mh17-investigation-dutch-journalist/ and this http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/dutch-prosecutor-does-not-answer-questions-on-russian-supplied-radar-data/
The Dutch/Ukrainian scoundrels are now facing this (which is just a beginning): https://www.rt.com/news/374893-trump-letter-mh17-investigation/ "The open letter, signed by 25 journalists, former civil aviation pilots and researchers from Germany, the Netherlands and Australia, was posted on the website of Joost Niemoller – a Dutch journalist who publicly challenged the current investigation into the ill-fated Flight MH17, which was downed over Ukraine in July 2014. "Rurik , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 6:19 pm GMT"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato"
Newton, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, James Clerk Maxwell, Einstein - Some footnotes.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 7:05 pm GMTThis suggestion at least makes logical sense.
as we all know, the attack on the USS Liberty was intended as a false flag attack to be blamed on Egypt in order to get America to fight Israel's wars for them
However, the idea that Israel's entire senior leadership seriously thought they could pin a combined air/sea attack in the middle of the Red Sea on Egypt is quite outlandish, as explained in a separate post above. Given the circumstances, the Israelis must have KNOWN 100% that the attack would be traced back to them within hours at the latest.
In fact, nobody seems to suggest that the U.S. was ACTUALLY DECEIVED for even a split second about who launched the attack.
Reading between the lines of contemporary and later accounts, it appears that Israel took IMMEDIATE action to mitigate the fall-out in DC. This again is inconsistent with trying to pin it on Egypt.
Given the circumstances, the Israelis must have KNOWN 100% that the attack would be traced back to them within hours at the latest.
then why did they machine gun the lifeboats, eh?
that in itself is a war crime you know, and the ONLY reason they would have done it is to sink the ship with ALL hands. Thereby leaving no survivors to expose the treachery.
and they had the Johnson regime and traitor McNamara on board with their cowardly, murderous treason.
not to mention the controlled kosher msm
Rurik , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 8:12 pm GMT@annamaria as compared to an artificial state that has been squeezing the native population and importing the (allegedly) ethnically-proper economic migrants?
You seem have peculiar explanations to why such formerly functioning states as Iraq, Libya, and Syria should better cease to exist (along with the USSLiberty staff). According to your logic, the ongoing Syrian slaughter is a good deed because it allows for weeding out the excess of population there. The weeding out also works as a rationale for grabbing the Syrian natural resources by the "most moral" apartheid state.
And please don't try at lecturing the readers on Israel's virtues vs the US perfidy, considering the history of betrayal of the US by Israel-firsters. Pollard and more, the despicable PNAC crowd and the ziocons' obnoxious and stupid global games against ethnically-wrong humanity. At the head of the current mess is the Israel-occupied Congress, "conditioned" for guiding the hapless host in a desired direction. You still haven't answered the question:What was the U.S. Liberty doing in the Red Sea in 1967?
As a U.S. citizen, I would quite like to know, even at this late stage, what our military forces were doing far from Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps the answer gives a hint as to what is happening now.
Since you seem obsessed about the "sovereignty" of former Ottoman territories, please also explain how exactly the USS Liberty's presence was supposed to assist the "sovereignty" of Cis-Jordan (i.e. the current sovereign state of Israel).
Thank you.
annamaria , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 10:43 pm GMT@Eagle Eye You still haven't answered the question:
What was the U.S. Liberty doing in the Red Sea in 1967?
As a U.S. citizen, I would quite like to know, even at this late stage, what our military forces were doing far from Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps the answer gives a hint as to what is happening now.
Since you seem obsessed about the "sovereignty" of former Ottoman territories, please also explain how exactly the USS Liberty's presence was supposed to assist the "sovereignty" of Cis-Jordan (i.e. the current sovereign state of Israel).
Thank you. if you (and Annamaria) don't mind, I'll address this..
What was the U.S. Liberty doing in the Red Sea in 1967?
there was a war going on between a US ally and a nation of strategic importance to the US- Israel and Egypt. The USS Liberty was a NSA intelligence ship. It was there to monitor what was going on. Duh.
explain how exactly the USS Liberty's presence was supposed to assist the "sovereignty" of Cis-Jordan (i.e. the current sovereign state of Israel).
unless you an admiral in the US Navy at the time, no one knows for sure. But a lot of people have speculated that the USS Liberty was sent by the Johnson regime to get sunk by Israel and be used as a false flag to take America into war against Egypt.
We already know for a fact that jets were scrambled to assist the USS Liberty and were called back and ordered not to assist by Johnson through Secretary of State McNamara. And not once, but twice.
So obviously Johnson wanted her sunk. Whether or not the ship was sent there for that purpose, or whether Johnson simply decided to let the Israelis sink her once he heard about it, we'll likely never know.
Hope that helps eagle
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 23, 2017 at 11:00 pm GMT@Eagle Eye You still
What was the U.S. Liberty doing in the Red Sea in 1967?As a U.S. citizen, I would quite like to know, even at this late stage, what our military forces were doing far from Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps the answer gives a hint as to what is happening now.
Since you seem obsessed about the "sovereignty" of former Ottoman territories, please also explain how exactly the USS Liberty's presence was supposed to assist the "sovereignty" of Cis-Jordan (i.e. the current sovereign state of Israel).
Thank you. Why don't you look closely into the present to understand the past?
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/05/23/truth-has-become-un-american/"As Israel controls US Middle East policy, Israel uses its control to have Washington eliminate obstacles to Israel's expansion. So far Israel has achieved the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government and chaos in Iraq, Washington's war on Syria, and Washington's demonization of Iran in the hope that sufficient demonization will justify war."
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 24, 2017 at 12:52 am GMTNewton, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, James Clerk Maxwell, Einstein - Some footnotes. There are more, but most of them are sloppy footnotes.
"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato"
Heir Max , Show Comment Next New Comment May 24, 2017 at 3:30 am GMT@Seraphim There are more, but most of them are sloppy footnotes.
but most of them are sloppy footnotes
True. But that's true of most of what passes for thought or scholarship in every field of intellectual endeavor. Still mankind has come a long way since the time of Plato in understanding many things - so far that, in our morally unregenerate state, we appear on the brink of creating Hell on Earth, either as the result of a final global conflagration or the creation of a global slave state.
Seraphim , Show Comment Next New Comment May 24, 2017 at 11:21 am GMTHow does Russia ( read Putin ) embracing Christianity and encouraging it again in Russia factor in the sudden sour attitude of our progressives in the US? The LOVED the USSR.. as it was atheistic, no? But as a non-threat-Russia, and a Christian Russia, eh, not so much; especially since Russia has decided they are not so fond of the Muslim.
Interesting times. Great article.
John Gruskos , Show Comment Next New Comment May 24, 2017 at 3:55 pm GMTTrue. But that's true of most of what passes for thought or scholarship in every field of intellectual endeavor. Still mankind has come a long way since the time of Plato in understanding many things - so far that, in our morally unregenerate state, we appear on the brink of creating Hell on Earth, either as the result of a final global conflagration or the creation of a global slave state. You can see what sloppiness leads to.
but most of them are sloppy footnotes
CanSpeccy , Website Show Comment Next New Comment May 24, 2017 at 5:02 pm GMT@in the middle How exactly did Reagan biggest mistake was amnesty? Explain and give some examples, please. Giving amnesty to the illegal immigrants who were in America in 1986 encouraged more illegal immigrants to come, in hopes of a future amnesty.
In 1986 there were only 1 million illegal immigrants. Now there are at least 11 million.
Eagle Eye , Show Comment Next New Comment May 31, 2017 at 4:10 pm GMT@Seraphim You can see what sloppiness leads to.
You can see what sloppiness leads to.
We need to define "sloppiness" with exactitude.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularismThat is probably the exact opposite of the fact. The English sense of tolerance, such as it is (think the burning of witches and heretics, the gaoling of or chemical castration of queers), restraint, such as it is (think football hooliganism and the crass obscenity of some BBC entertainment programming), etc. are probably the result of Britain's unique set of traditions, the common law, the breakdown of serfdom as the result of the crash in population caused by the Black Death, property law, the rights of women dating from pre-Norman times, the King's Courts that provided litigants access to a court presided over by a professional judge, English trust law, that gave rise to so many special purpose clubs and organizations from scientific societies to sporting associations and explains why nearly all the world's most popular sports were invented by the English, and Henry VIII's marital problems that largely freed Britain from the influence of the Catholic church.As for:
privacy and secularism paired with traditional respect for organically grown institutions balanced by distrust of fads and "philosophies.LOL. Privacy? The Brits have more surveillance cameras per capita than any country on earth. They even have listening lamp posts.Secularism? The present archbishop of Canterbury may be of Jewish extraction and experienced as a oil company money man, but until recent times the British were, for the most part, devout, mainly protestant, Christians. Fads? Well maybe the Brits didn't trust them but they had plenty from rock and roll, flick knives, and ducks arse hair cuts, to mini-skirts, beatlemania, balsa wood airplanes, bellbottom pants, and on and on.
As for philosophies, the British empiricists are clearly among the most important of the modern age as the British who know anything about philosophy are happy to acknowledge.
English traditions achieved unrivaled primacy due to an innate sense of tolerance, restraint, privacy and secularism
It may have escaped you that my earlier post referred to the time of the American Revolution, and in particular to sophisticated British traditions and conventions as they were perceived by the educated class in the colonies.
The sad decline of Britain in the modern era, and its more colorful history in earlier ages, are neither here nor there for these purposes.
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Jun 02, 2017 | www.unz.com
I think that the "Soviet Threat," the basis for the Cold War, was a hoax. It was created by the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us to no effect. The patriotic war movies, the patriotic Memorial Days and July 4ths with emotional thanks to those who died "saving our freedoms," which were never in danger from the Japanese and Germans, only from our own government, succeeded in brainwashing even National Security Advisors. Little wonder the insouciance of the American population today.The Cold War was an orchestration of the military/security complex, and there are many victims. Brzezinski was a victim as the Cold War was his life. JFK was a victim as he lost his life to it. The Vietnamese, who died in the millions, were victims The photo of the naked young Vietnamese girl fleeing down the road in terror from the American napham behind her made us aware that the Cold War had many innocent victims. The Soviet troops sent to Afghanistan were victims as were the Afghans themselves.
The Soviet Threat removed itself when hardline communists arrested Soviet President Gorbachev. This ill-conceived intervention collapsed the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Threat removed, the US military/security complex no longer had a justification for its massive budget.
Treading water while looking for a new justification for bleeding the American taxpayer, the military/security complex had President Clinton declare the US to be the World Policeman and to destroy Yugoslavia in the name of "human rights." With Israeli and neoconservative input, the military/security complex used 9/11 to create the "Muslim Terrorist Threat." This hoax has now murdered, maimed, dispossessed, and displaced millions of Muslims in seven countries.
Despite 16 years of Washington's wars against countries ranging from North Africa to Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, the "Muslim threat" does not suffice to justify the $1.1 trillion US military/security annual budget. Consequently, the Russian Threat has been resurrected.
The Muslim Threat was never a danger to the US. It is only a danger to Washington's European vassal states, who had to accept millions of Muslim refugees from Washington's wars. However, the newly created Russian Threat is a threat to every American as well as to every European.
Russia can bite back. For a quarter century Russia has watched Washington prepare for a paralyzing nuclear strike on Russia. Recently, the Russian High Command announced that the Russian military has concluded that Washington does intend a surprise nuclear strike against Russia.
This dire Russian announcement received no western press coverage. No high official of any Western government, Trump included, called Putin to give reassurances that no such attack on Russia was being planned.
So, what happens next time when a false alarm, such as the one Brzezinski received, is received by his counterpart in Moscow or the National Security Council? Will the animosities resurrected by the evil US military/security complex result in the Russians or the US believing the false signal?
The insouciant populations of the West, including the members of the governments, do not appreciate that they are living on the edge of nuclear destruction.
The very few of us who alert you are dismissed as "Russian agents," "anti-semites," and "conspiracy theorists." When you hear a source called a "Russian agent," an "anti-semite," or a "conspiracy theorist," you had better listen to them. These are those in the know who accept arrow slings in order to tell you the truth.
You will never, ever, get the truth from the Western media or from any Western government. (See: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/06/02/israels-slaughter-us-sailors/ )
The most important truth of our time is that the world lives on the knife-edge of the American military/security complex's need for an enemy in order to keep profits flowing. The brutal fact is this: For the sake of its profits, the American military/security complex has subjected the entire world to the risk of nuclear Armageddon.
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Jun 02, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
By Patrick J. Buchanan • June 1, 2017, 11:41 PM "We are there and we are committed" was the regular retort of Secretary of State Dean Rusk during the war in Vietnam.Whatever you may think of our decision to go in, Rusk was saying, if we walk away, the United States loses the first war in its history, with all that means for Southeast Asia and America's position in the world.
We face a similar moment of decision.
Wednesday, a truck bomb exploded near the diplomatic quarter of Kabul, killing 90 and wounding 460. So terrible was the atrocity that the Taliban denied complicity. It is believed to have been the work of the Haqqani network.
This "horrific and shameful attack demonstrates these terrorists' compete disregard for human life and their nihilistic opposition to the dream of a peaceful future for Afghanistan," said Hugo Llordens, a U.S. diplomat in Kabul.
The message the truck bombers sent to the Afghan people? Not even in the heart of this capital can your government keep civilian workers and its own employees safe.
Message to America: After investing hundreds of billions and 2,000 U.S. lives in the 15 years since 9/11, we are further from victory than we have ever been.
President Obama, believing Afghanistan was the right war, and Iraq the wrong war, ramped up the U.S. presence in 2011 to 100,000 troops. His plan: Cripple the Taliban, train the Afghan army and security forces, stabilize the government, and withdraw American forces by the end of his second term.
Obama fell short, leaving President Trump with 8,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Kabul's control more tenuous than ever. The Taliban hold more territory and are active in more provinces than they have been since being driven from power in 2001. And Afghan forces are suffering casualties at the highest rate of the war.
Stated starkly, the war in Afghanistan is slowly being lost.
Indeed, Trump has inherited what seems to be an unwinnable war, if he is not prepared to send a new U.S. army to block the Taliban from taking power. And it is hard to believe that the American people would approve of any large reintroduction of U.S. forces.
The U.S. commander there, Gen. John Nicholson, has requested at least 3,000 more U.S. troops to train the Afghan army and stabilize the country while seeking a negotiated end to the war.
Trump's conundrum: 3,000 or 5,000 more U.S. troops can at best help the Afghan security forces sustain the present stalemate.
But if we could not defeat the Taliban with 100,000 U.S. troops in country in 2011, we are not going to defeat a stronger Taliban with a U.S. force one-seventh of that size. And if a guerrilla army does not lose, it wins.
Yet it is hard to see how Trump can refuse to send more troops. If he says we have invested enough blood and treasure, the handwriting will be on the wall. Reports that both Russia and Iran are already talking to the Taliban suggest that they see a Taliban takeover as inevitable.
Should Trump announce any timetable for withdrawal, it would send shock waves through the Afghan government, army and society.
Any awareness that their great superpower ally was departing, now or soon, or refusing to invest more after 15 years, would be a psychological blow from which President Ashraf Ghani's government might not recover.
What would a Taliban victory mean?
The Afghan people, especially those who cast their lot with us, could undergo something like what befell the South Vietnamese and Cambodians in 1975. It would be a defeat for us almost as far-reaching as was the defeat for the Soviet Union, when the Red Army was forced to pull out after a decade of war in the 1980s.
For the USSR, that Afghan defeat proved a near-fatal blow.
And if we pulled up stakes and departed, the exodus from Afghanistan would be huge and we would face a moral crisis of how many refugees we would accept, and how many we would leave behind to their fate.
Fifteen years ago, some of us argued that an attempt to remake Afghanistan and Iraq in our image was utopian folly, almost certain, given the history and culture of the entire region, to fail.
Yet we plunged in.
In 2001, it was Afghanistan. In 2003, we invaded and occupied Iraq. Then we attacked Libya and ousted Gadhafi. Then we intervened in Syria. Then we backed the Saudi war to crush the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Given the trillions sunk and lost, and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dead, how have we benefited ourselves, or these peoples?
As Rusk said, "We are there and we are committed."
And the inevitable departure of the United States from the Middle East, which is coming, just as the British, French and Soviet empires had to depart, will likely do lasting damage to the American soul.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book,Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. Read also:
Hide 2 comments 2 Responses to Is Afghanistan a Lost Cause?Adriana I Pena , says: June 2, 2017 at 11:11 am We will exit Afghanistan eventually, as we exited Vietnam. Better to follow Shapespeare's advice "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere welljohn , says: June 2, 2017 at 11:22 am
It were done quickly" The sooner it happens, the sooner we can start recovering.so at best we are playing for a tie. We can't or won't do what is required for a win. This is pure pride in action, we can not lose indefinitely but at huge expense in lives, money and respect.
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Jun 02, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Conservative writer Erick Erickson said he knows one of the White House sources who has leaked information critical of President Trump. Erickson said on FOX News on May 16 that "more and more White House sources are leaking to the press so that the president does get the memo people in the White House are trying to get the president's attention." Erickson said this is "not intentional sabotage." He said the person he knows who is leaking is a Trump supporter who is frustrated with President Trump.Since Erickson said this the leaks from anonymous sources in the White House have, if anything, increased. Now White House communications director Mike Dubke has resigned and it doesn't seem a big leap to assume the issues are related-we shouldn't have to wait long for leaks from the White House to tell us.
At the root of all of this is me-generation, inside-the-beltway-style thinking, as leaks designed to "get the president's attention" don't just publicly showcase a lack of loyalty from White House staff, but they actually expose a complete lack of honor in those doing the leaking. It's hard not to wonder if these leakers even understand what real honor is.
When those on the inside of an embattled administration empower themselves by trying to check their boss (in this case the president of the United States) not from within their chain of command, as they rightly can, but by anonymously leaking information to the media, then what we have is mutinous conduct. That is only honorable in one extreme circumstance.
Before getting to that, it should be said anyone who has spent a good deal of time inside the Beltway has likely been exposed to an unhealthy dose of Machiavellianism. Anyone who has spent a career in Washington, D.C.'s political circus might have a hard time clearly comprehending, much less believing in, real honor. I've even had some who live and work inside the Beltway tell me honor is a quality they can't afford, as others won't play by gentlemanly rules.
Journalists with that point of view can only do so much damage, but officials with that view can sink a presidency.
Now sure, a good argument could even be made that journalists should be circling sharks who feel most emboldened when there is some blood in the water. And that might be a sound basis for an argument if the Washington media went after Democrats with the same zeal it does Republican administrations.
But whatever we think of journalists, any reasonable person will likely agree that when someone takes a staff position in an administration they are agreeing to support the administration. To accomplish this, instead of trashing their boss and hierarchy in the media, those within an administration would be wiser to come to an understanding of what real honor is, or, if they are not happy with what they signed on for, to leave the administration in protest.
So okay, what is honorable? Dictionary.com begins defining "honor" as "honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions." That's a fine start, but honor is much more than those lofty words. For a more practical understanding of honor, it is helps to look at the actions of those who've misunderstood it.
Edward Snowden is a good example of a person who showed he didn't understand honor. Hopefully being stuck in Russia's cold embrace has taught him what he clearly didn't know-though, based on his Tweets, it hasn't.
Some on the right and the left consider what Snowden did to be honorable, even heroic, because they like that he checked Big Brother. I like that, too. (I even have a soon-to-be-released novel coming out called Kill Big Brother that shows how to get it done right.) But the thing is Snowden wasn't courageous enough to do the real honorable thing. If he took his information on government invasions of privacy to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who helped write the Whistleblower Protection Act and is a strong advocate for whistleblowers, or another member of Congress and let the system fight it out on the inside before, as a last resort, possibly leaking some small portion of the data to the media, then he could be called honorable from a certain and very American point of view.
But that's not what he did. According to a bipartisan report by the House Intelligence Committee, Snowden calculatingly tried to trick coworkers, sometimes successfully, into giving him their security credentials so he could access their network drives. He then copied all of the information and, finally, leaked it. According to the report the "vast majority of the documents he stole [had] nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests-they instead pertain to military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries." Snowden soon fled to China and then to Russia-two nations that hardly stand up for the values he was supposed to be fighting for. And he gave those nations this secret U.S. government data.
There is little that is honorable in Snowden's actions. Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning), who delivered nearly three-quarters of a million classified or sensitive military and diplomatic documents to Wikileaks, also acted dishonorably. He/she should have acted as a whistleblower, not a leaker.
Meanwhile, those now in the White House who reportedly decided to check President Trump by leaking information to the media have acted just as dishonorably.
If honor requires them to act, then it also requires them to act in an honorable way. It takes real guts to do that, especially when you realize how the U.S. government's bureaucracy treats whistleblowers-and then realize that even a congressman can't do much to help a whistleblower even as the whistleblower's career is destroyed, often by politically appointed bureaucrats who consider whistleblowers to be traitors.
The honorable, and American, way to check the system is to use its built-in checks and balances, not to hide behind anonymity while muckraking in the media. Going outside the system might be honorable if the checks and balances do not work; checking the entire system like that, however, must be a last resort in a freely elected democracy. (This is arguably what Deep Throat did.)
Those in the current administration who are uncertain about what is honorable should pick up a copy of Herman Wouk's 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny . Or, if they don't have the time, watch the 1954 film version starring Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray.
In the film version Captain Philip Francis Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) shows clear signs of paranoia as he tries to enforce discipline on the Caine 's crew. Communications officer Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray) soon tries to convince executive officer Stephen Maryk (Van Johnson) to consider relieving Captain Queeg on the basis of mental incapacity under Article 184 of Navy Regulations. Maryk refuses, but finally has to do so when the ship is imperiled by a storm and Captain Queeg falls apart under the pressure. The film then turns to a court-martial hearing for Maryk and others for mutiny. They win the case when Captain Queeg falls apart on the witness stand. This leaves them feeling justified, but then, later, their Navy defense attorney (Jose Ferrer), now drunk, confronts them and tells them they were wrong. He tells them they should have helped Captain Queeg along the way instead of mutinously pulling away from him until he collapsed under pressure. The honorable thing to do was to first try to help.
Honor can be a hard, subtle thing like that, especially when the boss doesn't always showcase all the traits of a man of honor.
Frank Miniter is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Ultimate Man's Survival Guide: Recovering the Lost Art of Manhood . He is also the author of This Will Make a Man of You and The Future of the Gun .
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May 29, 2017 | www.unz.com
Headliner of the week was the Muslim terrorist attack on a pop concert in Manchester, England. The bomber blew himself up and took 22 others with him. That's the count as I go to tape here; over a hundred were injured, some critically, so the death count may be higher as you hear this.
The bomber was a 22-year-old Muslim, name of Salman Abedi, born in Britain to parents from Libya. Those parents had been settled in England as refugees from Colonel Gaddafy's government; so that's where the bomber was born, in England, 1994.
In 2011, you'll recall, Barack Obama, prompted by the Three Horsegirls of the Apocalypse - Samantha Power of Obama's National Security Council, his U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice , and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -who in turn were prompted by Britain and France, with an assist from George Soro s- overthrew Colonel Gaddafy.
Salman Abedi's parents thereupon, in 2011, returned to Libya. Salman Abedi, then 17, stayed in the U.K.
So I'll just pause to note here that this is yet another case of absimilation . Here yet again is the relevant passage from We Are Doomed , the one book you need to explain the modern world. Chapter 10, edited quote:
The English word "assimilation" derives from the Latin prefix ad -, which indicates a moving towards something, and the same language's verb simulare, "to cause a person or thing to resemble another." You can make a precisely opposite word using the prefix ab -, which marks a moving away from something. Many immigrants of course assimilate to American society Many others, however, especially in the second and following generations, ab similate.
That's what Salman Abedi did: He absimilated, ending up hating the country that had taken in his parents.
It wasn't just him, either. His younger brother Hashim, 20 years old, and so presumably also born in England, seems to have been an accomplice to the bombing. He was arrested by authorities in Libya on Tuesday. There's also a slightly older brother, 23-year-old Ismail, arrested by British police in Manchester, also on Tuesday.
The father has been arrested, too, also in Libya. The authorities there say he belongs to an extremist sect of Islam.
There's also a sister, 18-year-old Jomana Abedi , also born in Manchester, where she is studying molecular biology with a view to advancing cancer research No, sorry, I got my news stories mixed up there. Ms. Abedi actually works at a mosque, though I haven't been able to discover what she does there.
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John Derbyshire [ email him ] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him. ) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books . He's had two books published by VDARE.com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT ( also available in Kindle ) and From the Dissident Right II: Essays 2013 . His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com .
German_reader , May 27, 2017 at 4:36 am GMT
Swing , May 27, 2017 at 5:15 am GMT@Anon The terrorist bombing was terrible, but the concert was worse.
It was a celebration of open borders, degeneracy, interracism, slut culture for little girls, and jungle fever. It was all about globalist propaganda for kiddies.
https://twitter.com/polNewsForever/status/867105300784066561
British masses seem to welcome this cultural degeneracy and mass invasion by foreigners.
How ironic that an Islamic terrorist who gained entry into UK via globalism threw a monkey wrench at globalism?If Muslims want to bomb every globalist celebration of open borders, degeneracy, Afro-colonization of white wombs, and slut culture for kids, who cares?
Globalism isn't about respect for world cultures and world histories. It is about spreading mono-culture of Afromania, Homomania, and Ziomania all over the world.
This is typical:
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/rapper-and-actress-awkwafina-on-being-a-rare-asian-american-in-hollywood
If Muslims want to attack such degeneracy, they have my blessing.
LauraMR , May 27, 2017 at 5:28 am GMTAnd the bombing of Libya has nothing to do with it. Stop killing Muslims, and they will stop killing u. U killmy brother, I kill yours, u kill my kids I kill yours, simple logic.
Alden , May 27, 2017 at 6:21 am GMTSure, lack of assimilation is the culprit but as a "truther" might say, this could well be an operation carried out by the deep state. Indeed, someone put this kid up to this, supplied explosives and logistics, so perhaps it was an Israeli plot, for certain some Anglo-Zionist one percenter must be behind all of this. Naturally, as it is often published here, white Europeans are superior to all other races so the kid was by virtue of ancestry a lesser, defective human being to begin with
jilles dykstra , May 27, 2017 at 6:48 am GMTManchester police announced where the Abedi family got the tens of thousands of pounds that enabled them to fly back and forth from England to several countries in the Middle East for years.
Welfare fraud and student loans funded the bombing. Apparently the English student loan system does not require class attendance and accumulation of credits to continue receiving loans.BBC radio useful idiot programs claim the Abedi brothers might have been bullied by evil Whites. But they lived on the middle of the Libyan neighborhood so it's unlikely they were bullied by Whites.
Randal , May 27, 2017 at 8:13 am GMTIn 2004 the King of Jordan, the ruling Saud at the time in Saudi Arabia, and Mucharraf in Pakistan all told senator Hollings that the only way to end terrorism was to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Since 2004 the west did nothing for peace, on the contrary, efforts to destabilise the ME, and North Africa continued, an were intensified.
Deradicalisation is making Muslims believe that what they see happening is not happening.
It may succeed in a few cases, but it so me seems impossible in general.
So attacks in the west will continue, it is, as Mearsheimer and Walt write 'the strategy of the weak'.
On top of that, the west needs terrorism, if necessary does it herself, in order to make the western societies more totalitarian all the time 'for our safety'.
The destabilisation in ME and N Africa causes massive migration, the destabilisation of the European countries is welcome, in order to create an Europe, a USA clone.unit472 , May 27, 2017 at 9:49 am GMTThis latest Manchester bombing is the perfect illustration of the twofold nature of the problem of invade the world/invite the world. Furthermore it comes on top of another similarly perfect illustration of that twofold nature, in the Orlando shootings. In both cases a 2nd generation immigrant whose parents were only here because it suited the US/UK regimes to have them here as oppositionist tools for the destabilisation and overthrow of foreign governments, who in each case openly declare the ongoing butchery our governments are responsible for in the ME and North Africa as direct motivating factors for their own violence, was enabled to attack their host nations by immigration.
Derbyshire's piece does a good job of skewering the "invite the world" side of the issue, but ignores "invade the world".
In 2011, you'll recall, Barack Obama, prompted by the Three Horsegirls of the Apocalypse-Samantha Power of Obama's National Security Council, his U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton-who in turn were prompted by Britain and France, with an assist from George Soros-overthrew Colonel Gaddafy.
Salman Abedi's parents thereupon, in 2011, returned to Libya. Salman Abedi, then 17, stayed in the U.K.
That's barely the beginning of the story, with its murky elements of the UK regime's security forces using jihadist terrorism as a weapon for regime change in Libya and Syria, in which this family seem to have been up to their necks. Even the BBC reported on some of these murky aspects in the immediate aftermath of the bombing (though doubtless that line of inquiry will be quietly dropped, or suppressed).
Manchester attack: Who was Salman Abedi?
This was as clear a case of "blowback" as you'll get.
Anonymous Nephew , May 27, 2017 at 10:01 am GMT@Anon The terrorist bombing was terrible, but the concert was worse.
It was a celebration of open borders, degeneracy, interracism, slut culture for little girls, and jungle fever. It was all about globalist propaganda for kiddies.
https://twitter.com/polNewsForever/status/867105300784066561
British masses seem to welcome this cultural degeneracy and mass invasion by foreigners.
How ironic that an Islamic terrorist who gained entry into UK via globalism threw a monkey wrench at globalism?If Muslims want to bomb every globalist celebration of open borders, degeneracy, Afro-colonization of white wombs, and slut culture for kids, who cares?
Globalism isn't about respect for world cultures and world histories. It is about spreading mono-culture of Afromania, Homomania, and Ziomania all over the world.
This is typical:
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/rapper-and-actress-awkwafina-on-being-a-rare-asian-american-in-hollywood
If Muslims want to attack such degeneracy, they have my blessing.
anonymous , May 27, 2017 at 11:53 am GMTGuardian on form today, flushing the patrimony
"Others said he was a bit of a party animal, who drank vodka and smoked weed daily, was popular with girls and "always clubbing or at house parties", listening to rap and grime music. A young man, in other words, like so many others in Manchester: unconcerning, unremarkable . "
This is how the globalist media want us to live.
IIRC the 9/11 bombers liked clubbing, booze and strippers. Lots of jihadists were petty criminals or drug dealers before the gods of their far-off land repossessed their blood – and spilled ours
Jonathan Mason , May 27, 2017 at 12:03 pm GMTSalman's father Ramadan reportedly was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group back in the 90′s which had AQ links. Weren't those people in cahoots with British intelligence back then in schemes to overthrow Khaddafi? This explains his supposed resettlement in Britain; he was connected. Also, Daily Mail has described him as a "former airport security worker in the UK". Think about that one for a while. They were reported to the authorities years ago but apparently they were allowed to go on unencumbered. The son may have gone off and become a loose cannon but otherwise there's a lot of murkiness involved with these people.
DanCT , May 27, 2017 at 12:04 pm GMTLike the author, I grew up in the UK in happier times and am now a US citizen.
It is a pity that free speech no longer exists in England, because prohibiting discussion of ideas skews all political debate. For example, it is pretty obvious that the successful Brexit vote was pretty much a plebiscite on unlimited immigration and loss of sovereignty, except that it would be illegal to say so in a UK publication, as this would be "hate speech."
However I do believe that the well-intended reason for the hate speech laws is to prevent a bad situation getting even worse, rather than to stop people from knowing what they can see with their own eyes.
I am reminded of a court case in the UK a few years ago in which a well-known soap opera star was on trial for the rape of a 6 year old girl several years earlier. Many UK readers were baffled by the story since secrecy laws meant that nearly all the salient details of the case could not be reported upon, nor were the media even allowed to say what they were not allowed to report on.
For example, it was not clear why the girl and the allegist rapist were living under the same roof. Had the public known that the girl in question was the man's own daughter, and that the rape allegations were part of a particularly nasty divorce dispute several years later, they might have been better able to form an opinion of his guilt or innocence.
As it happens, the accused was acquitted, possible because forensic medical evidence showed that the alleged victim was still a virgin at the time of the trial, but it was a close run thing, and the judge directed that jury that medical proof of the girl's virginity did not necessarily mean that she has not been raped. (Whatever!)
When so much of public life and politics cannot be reported upon, it is not surprising that people will arrive at false conclusions, or find ways of protesting that which cannot be discussed.
Like voting for Brexit.
Randal , May 27, 2017 at 1:04 pm GMTWe should be thankful that all these bombers and shooters leave behind what those conspiracy nutcases might call magically indestructible identification so the authorities can go straight to the perp's family and friends. Apparently these imitators hope to outdo the ID that survived 911 among incinerated debris in perfect condition. And we should be doubly thankful that our loyal and patriotic msm have such incredible journalists that they simultaneously uncover the same evidence and reach exactly the same conclusions within minutes of each other.
biz , May 27, 2017 at 2:02 pm GMT@Alden Manchester police announced where the Abedi family got the tens of thousands of pounds that enabled them to fly back and forth from England to several countries in the Middle East for years.
Welfare fraud and student loans funded the bombing. Apparently the English student loan system does not require class attendance and accumulation of credits to continue receiving loans.BBC radio useful idiot programs claim the Abedi brothers might have been bullied by evil Whites. But they lived on the middle of the Libyan neighborhood so it's unlikely they were bullied by Whites.
biz , May 27, 2017 at 2:13 pm GMT@Swing And the bombing of Libya has nothing to do with it. Stop killing Muslims, and they will stop killing u. U killmy brother, I kill yours, u kill my kids I kill yours, simple logic.
Agent76 , May 27, 2017 at 2:36 pm GMT@jilles dykstra In 2004 the King of Jordan, the ruling Saud at the time in Saudi Arabia, and Mucharraf in Pakistan all told senator Hollings that the only way to end terrorism was to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Since 2004 the west did nothing for peace, on the contrary, efforts to destabilise the ME, and North Africa continued, an were intensified.
Deradicalisation is making Muslims believe that what they see happening is not happening.
It may succeed in a few cases, but it so me seems impossible in general.
So attacks in the west will continue, it is, as Mearsheimer and Walt write 'the strategy of the weak'.
On top of that, the west needs terrorism, if necessary does it herself, in order to make the western societies more totalitarian all the time 'for our safety'.
The destabilisation in ME and N Africa causes massive migration, the destabilisation of the European countries is welcome, in order to create an Europe, a USA clone.annamaria , May 27, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMTJun 27, 2016 What Does G4S Know About the Orlando Nightclub Massacre?
Much has been made in recent weeks of Omar Mateen's background. The perpetrator of the Orlando, Fla., massacre was alternately a "radical Islamist," a deeply closeted gay man, a wife abuser, a mental case, everybody's best friend in high school and a loser. The list goes on. But what the mainstream media-and the government, for that matter-have not talked about is the fact that Mateen was employed at the time of his crime by G4S, a London-based company that is one of the largest mercenary firms in the world, with intelligence contractors deployed in war zones and hot spots around the globe.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_does_g4s_know_about_the_orlando_nightclub
Seneca44 , May 27, 2017 at 3:08 pm GMT@Cyrano The west has two faces in regards to the middle east. One is kind, welcoming and accepting refugees and immigrants from the ME. The other face of the west is also supposedly kind – it goes to Muslim counties and helps them get rid of dictators – although nobody asked them to, but I guess kindness cannot be contained. Unfortunately, in the process of helping them reach the pinnacle of human achievement – democracy – the west wrecks country after country in the ME. My point is that both faces of the west are phony. You can't be kind and cruel at the same time. It just doesn't work that way. One overrides the other and can't be counterbalanced by phoniness.
Anon , May 27, 2017 at 3:12 pm GMT@unit472 No doubt the murderer Abedi chose his target well. Western pop culture threatens Islam a helluva of a lot more than democracy or capitalism. It is assimilative and transcends race and national borders. Its not possible to put this genie back in the bottle. That battle was lost with Elvis and the Beatles.
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If I ran the CIA I would put my efforts into creating an Islamic Ariana Grande or forming some 'boy group' Saudi tweens would go crazy over. Let the devout Muslim mom and dad experience the 'generation gap'.
German_reader , May 27, 2017 at 3:18 pm GMT@Corvinus "If Muslims want to attack such degeneracy, they have my blessing."
Exactly what I thought. Justify the murder of people because you oppose the ways they express themselves culturally. Listen, why don't YOU man up and actually do something about the situation rather than be an armchair warrior?
annamaria , May 27, 2017 at 3:20 pm GMT@Randal His comment went too far, perhaps as hyperbole, when he endorsed murder, for certain.
On the other hand, he was not really expressing sympathy for the islamists per se as much as expressing agreement with some of their positions, and that is certainly not unacceptable, treasonous or perverse, unless you think we should allow our opinions to be determined by what (a particular brand of) terrorists think.
That's a common trend in the modern US sphere, unfortunately (we must embrace sexual perversion and general degenerate decadence or we are the same as sunni muslim terrorists), to the ludicrous extent that we are now told that opinions and attitudes that the vast majority of our ancestors up until a couple of generations ago would have regarded as disgusting or contemptible at best and abominations at worst are "British values" or "European" or "western" values that we must defend to the death, and even murder foreigners in order to impose them in their countries.
JoaoAlfaiate , May 27, 2017 at 4:07 pm GMT@LauraMR Sure, lack of assimilation is the culprit but as a "truther" might say, this could well be an operation carried out by the deep state. Indeed, someone put this kid up to this, supplied explosives and logistics, so perhaps it was an Israeli plot, for certain some Anglo-Zionist one percenter must be behind all of this. Naturally, as it is often published here, white Europeans are superior to all other races so the kid was by virtue of ancestry a lesser, defective human being to begin with...
Biff , May 27, 2017 at 4:27 pm GMTWe're bombing them and they're bombing us. Why is that so difficult to understand?
US Sec of State Madeleine Albright said starving or otherwise murdering 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it".
If Mr. Derbyshire can't recognize Manchester and other attacks as blow back, he's blind.
Andrei Martyanov , Website May 27, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMTIn this context of terrorism white people are just like Jews – always the innocent victim.
MBlanc46 , May 27, 2017 at 4:51 pm GMT@Swing And the bombing of Libya has nothing to do with it. Stop killing Muslims, and they will stop killing u. U killmy brother, I kill yours, u kill my kids I kill yours, simple logic.
Anon , May 27, 2017 at 4:56 pm GMTThe terrorist bombing was terrible, but the concert was worse.It was a celebration of open borders, degeneracy, interracism, slut culture for little girls, and jungle fever. It was all about globalist propaganda for kiddies.
https://twitter.com/polNewsForever/status/867105300784066561
British masses seem to welcome this cultural degeneracy and mass invasion by foreigners.
How ironic that an Islamic terrorist who gained entry into UK via globalism threw a monkey wrench at globalism?If Muslims want to bomb every globalist celebration of open borders, degeneracy, Afro-colonization of white wombs, and slut culture for kids, who cares?
Globalism isn't about respect for world cultures and world histories. It is about spreading mono-culture of Afromania, Homomania, and Ziomania all over the world.
This is typical:
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/rapper-and-actress-awkwafina-on-being-a-rare-asian-american-in-hollywood
If Muslims want to attack such degeneracy, they have my blessing.
German_reader , May 27, 2017 at 4:57 pm GMT@Che Guava You may be right about Ariana Grande's shows.
I have no idea of her songs. They are likely crap, as you say.
Checking some photos of her and her fans, it is obvious that both her style and fans were a key in target selection.
You are a moron to compare that sleaze to the murderer.
In the few photos I viewed, she is clearly wearing tights, so not near-nude, as she would like to project.
Your comment is moronic, comparison is evil.
Art , May 27, 2017 at 5:11 pm GMTIs Iran a threat to Europe? Is Indonesia (the largest "Islamic" country in terms of population)?
Islam is a threat,
The real Islamic threat, such as it is, is that propagated by Saudi Arabia, a country which is embraced with open arms by Western governments (and their arms industries). And which for some time now has had a de facto alliance (or "united front" if you like) with Israel.
jilles dykstra , May 27, 2017 at 5:12 pm GMTThe Jew entertainment culture lures 8-year-old girls into concerts – then an enemy of the Jews, kills them. It is called lose – lose!
What are 8-year-old girls doing at a concert where they yell and scream for hours watching some immature adult bump and grind her intimate body parts, singing sex empowerment songs.
Isn't there something very wrong about that scene?
Meanwhile – a 145-year-old venerable institution of Western entertainment – was being closed down forever – Barnum & Bailey Circus. 8-year-olds at the circus are in danger of eating too much cotton candy.
Peace – Art
p.s. Jew entertainment have taken our youth from sugar highs, to sex highs.
p.s. "Lose with the Jews."
p.s. Reject their culture lowering enticements.
jilles dykstra , May 27, 2017 at 5:17 pm GMTjilles dykstra , May 27, 2017 at 5:20 pm GMT@JoaoAlfaiate We're bombing them and they're bombing us. Why is that so difficult to understand?
US Sec of State Madeleine Albright said starving or otherwise murdering 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it".
If Mr. Derbyshire can't recognize Manchester and other attacks as blow back, he's blind.
Bragadocious , May 27, 2017 at 5:23 pm GMT@biz What about the ongoing Islamist terror campaigns in southern Thailand and the Philippines, directed largely at Buddhists and tribal villagers? How about the slow motion genocide of Melanesians in Irian Jaya at the hands of Indonesian Muslims? Al Shabab slaughtering black Kenyans in a mall? Are your 'zio-natos' responsible for those too?
jilles dykstra , May 27, 2017 at 5:26 pm GMTThose states were in worse poverty and similar levels of disorder when the British were there. The British were responsible for a lot of it.
inhabitants of what formerly were British colonies and are now, since the Brits left, failed states sunk in poverty and disorder.
jilles dykstra , May 27, 2017 at 5:34 pm GMT@Diversity Heretic John has in past columns expressed what I interpret as an anti-invasion policy: wall the Middle East off. The wall keeps them out of the west and keeps the west out of the Middle East. I concur. The West is following the worse strategy possible: invade Middle Eastern countries and kill Muslims, then invite Muslims with a grudge (sometimes justifiable) to settle here.
Alden , May 27, 2017 at 6:16 pm GMTRurik , Website May 27, 2017 at 6:34 pm GMTAlden , May 27, 2017 at 6:59 pm GMT@Anon Pop Culture has been weaponized.
madonna as interracist whore and 'pussy march' leader and her ilk have done more harm than a handful of terrorists.
Terrorists kill a few hundred per year.
Weaponized celebrities are globo agents who colonize the minds of 100s of millions of whites into accepting slut culture, interracism, 'diversity', jungle fever, ACOWW, pederasty, 'gay marriage', 'inclusion', cuckery, etc.
Indeed, the reason why Manchester let in all those foreigners and continues to self-hug itself with ugly anti-racist pseudo-virtue is because its people have been mentally colonized by PC and pop culture.
Colonization of minds is more dangerous than killing a few.
Romans defeated the Jews and oppressed the Christians, but Christians colonized Roman minds and Christians won. Romans fed few 100s of Christians to lions, but Christians colonized the minds of millions of Romans. Today's mass media spread not only ideas but idols on a global scale to billions of people.Pop Culture and PC are weaponized globalist jihad. Pop Culture is no longer just for fun or a diversion. It is the MAIN culture for most white kids. Kids worship celebrities as angels of globalism.
Those young white girls at the concert were being mentally colonized and sensually manipulated into open borders for immigrant invaders and open vaginas for black Africans.The concert was a propaganda act of war.
Culture matters. This is why the Progs and Glob tear down Confederate statues in the South. It is why they make movies like GET OUT, which are far more dangerous than terror bombings. Terror kills a few 100. Pop Culture or Prop Culture(as it is propaganda) colonize hundreds of millions of white hearts/minds and EFFECTIVELY MURDER the patriot soul-spirit within them.
Soul-Murder of whites makes whites welcome invasion and their own racial-territorial demise.If you want to know why Manchester welcomed so much invasion and continue to do so after the bombing, it is because white minds have been colonized by PC and Pop Culture.
Indeed, these mentally-colonized whites hate terror bombings not because such attacks are consequences of invasion but because they may strengthen the nationalists who oppose immigrant-invasion.
Why do whites welcome immigrant-invasion? Because they've been mentally colonized by PC and Pop Culture that says being a white woman means to whore out to the world.Suppose Nazis hadn't dropped bombs in UK in WWII but only propaganda material from the air and succeeded in winning over the hearts and minds of millions of Brits. That would have been more damaging.
It's like US took over so many nations with the 'soft power' of media, academia, and entertainment. Take over minds, you take over souls. The mind-colonized become your slaves.
Progs know the true meaning of culture as political instrument. This is why they denounce D.W. Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION. They see it as more than just a movie. They see it as proud statement of white racial consciousness. This is why they wage culture war. Culture is a weapon. And as mass media has access to every home via the TV, the TV is the open gate thru which the globalisys get to attack and colonize your minds.
Why did Jews react so harshly to PASSION OF THE CHRIST? They saw it as Culture War in favor of Christian Pride and Jewish Guilt. Why won't Hollywood make a movie about Nakba or Knoxville Massacre? Because they can be propaganda against Jewish power.How did the West come to accept 'gay marriage'? Colonization of white minds via Pop Culture and PC. PC and Pop Culture are globo-jihad.
They can also be violent. Look at BLM. Look at 'spreading democracy'. Look at destruction of Libya and coup in Ukraine. Look at destruction of Christian businesses for not baking 'gay wedding cake'. Globalism uses both soft jihad and hard jihad. Indeed, even the unleashing of ISIS and Alqaeda is the result of globalism's war on enemies of Israel. Zionist-globalists undermined Arab regimes and let ISIS run riot to mess things up. Thus, Islmic Jihadis are both agents of globalism and its enemy(as Muslims hate western degeneracy).
Anyway, the real shame is that whites acquiesced to defeat at hands of globalists without resitance and violence.
I think part of the reason why white rightists rag on Muslim terrorists is this: Muslims have guts enough to resist globalism(even as they've been enabled by it). In contrast, even white patriots make a lot of noise but are afraid to take real action.There was a time when whites would have used violence against those who'd dare to stick homo flags in churches, push 'gay marriage' and destroy Christian bakers, and tear down Confederate statues.
But whites, even right wing ones, don't fight back but only complain NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY ARE HUMILIATED, ABUSED, AND ATTACKED. Only the Alt Right did some pushing back at Berkeley.
So, when they see the courage of Muslim terrorists, they call them 'losers' and 'cowards'.
Really? The real cowards are whites who do nothing while General Lee statue is torn down. Real cowards are whites who do nothing while Trump reneges on all his promises. Real cowards are white men who raise their girls to whore out to Negroes. Real cowards are white men who let freaks turn big cities into homo celebration centers and invoke homomania as 'western value' that must be defended from Muslims. Real cowards are whites who praise Jewish globalists who are behind homomania, the attack on Confederate culture, open borders, and Afro-colonization of white wombs.Compared to these loser white cowards, at least Muslim terrorists take action against globalist filth.
A Palestinian child with a rock in west Bank has more guts than all white men in the West who cuck out to Jewish globalists, homo freaks, and black thugs.
White fathers who let their girls attend that concert are far worse scum than the terrorist who blew it up.
nsa , May 27, 2017 at 7:08 pm GMTI often call them human urinals
A Palestinian child with a rock in west Bank has more guts than all white men in the West who cuck out to Jewish globalists, homo freaks, and black thugs.White fathers who let their girls attend that concert are far worse scum
white "men" so filled with racial self-loathing that they symbolically allow themselves to be pissed on to mollify their excruciating self-hatred
I condemn the terrorist with all my breath, but I have to admit, he isn't perhaps as morally execrable as the white men who sat by in Rotherham as their daughters were being passed around
Alden , May 27, 2017 at 7:30 pm GMTA symbolic pinprick pipe bomb attack on a slut fest and the Brits are cringing and whining like school girls. At least the muzzies take their losses (100 to 300/day, mostly civilians) like men without all the moralizing and faggy hysteria. It's embarrassing
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May 29, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
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So it is likely that the Kushner story will become just another part of the endless special counsel investigation into the Trump administration's alleged Russian links. Yet the real story should be the "leak" that revealed the details of the Kushner proposal. The leaker, whoever he was, provided highly classified and very restricted access information to the media; it indicated that the Kushner discussions with the Russians took place in Trump Tower and that a report on the proposal was then relayed back to Moscow using Russian diplomatic communications, which were intercepted, decrypted, and retained by the National Security Agency (NSA).It is generally believed, correctly, that the NSA intercepts nearly all diplomatic communications originating from embassies in Washington, which is not to say that it is always successful at decrypting them. Decryption requires an enormous expenditure of time, money, and effort. It is almost always limited to communications of countries that are considered to be adversaries-which these days would include Russia, China, and Iran-or potential sources of information on transnational issues like terrorism or drug trafficking. And even when there is a major effort, the attempt to crack the encryption sometimes fails, particularly when one is dealing with a sophisticated opponent.
It is clear from the Kushner leaker's tale that the Russians were confident that their diplomatic communications were secure. But the NSA had actually broken them and was reading their messages. Now that the Russians know that their communications are not secure, they will take necessary steps to tighten up their procedures and protocols, which means that the United States government will no longer be able to read their message traffic and will start all over with having to break into the new system. This reality will be enormously costly both to Russia and the U.S., and it will mean that a major intelligence advantage that Washington possessed will no longer be viable.
However one feels about the paranoid and reactionary post-9/11 level of global spying carried out by the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, being able to read an adversary's mail provides a huge advantage if one wants to avoid surprises and mitigate factors that could result in unnecessary conflict.
And, to be completely fair, it also gives one an advantage if you are planning on mischief yourself and want to know how an opponent will react. Either way, that ability would have been one of the crown jewels of the intelligence community-and losing that advantage over Russia is an enormous, self-inflicted intelligence failure. Yet the media has chosen to ignore that real disaster because they want the story to be Kushner and Trump, not the leaker who has done tremendous damage to the nation's intelligence collection capability.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
Howard, May 29, 2017 at 12:43 pm
"But the NSA had actually broken them and was reading their messages." Well, *maybe*. There are, of course, a number of alternative possibilities. The information might be intercepted BEFORE it is encrypted, either through technological means or because the Russians have a leak of their own. Or it could be that the alleged NSA discoveries are in fact plausible inventions.
Let's face it: the only information we have access to must come from one of several highly untrustworthy sources. None of these sources consider providing the truth to the American public to be central to their mission. The best we can do is to create Just-So stories that seem to fit the claims made by these untrustworthy sources.
Lefty, May 29, 2017 at 1:14 pm
Mr. Giraldi,
Your thread unravels if it was the Russians who leaked the intelligence. After all, as an operation to discredit the president and his chief advisor, it was flawless.
In this reading Jared stepped into the trap neatly set for him. He provided the powder and the fuse, leaving it to the Russians to light it off when they pleased.
And I guess this doesn't make Flynn's failure to protect Jared and his extensive contacts with the Russians look any better.Hanna Khayyat, May 29, 2017 at 1:25 pm
Call the plumbers at once!
delia ruhe, May 29, 2017 at 3:24 pm
" countries that are considered to be [US] adversaries-which these days would include Russia, China, and Iran "
The very countries Washington should be cultivating, not demonizing. But this kind of irrational behaviour is to be expected of an empire in irreversible decline. Sad.
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jilles dykstra , May 6, 2017 at 6:46 am GMT \nMay 29, 2017 | www.unz.com
If History is "a set of lies agreed upon," as Napoleon is supposed to have said, then American politics has increasingly become a series of induced hysterias by elite agreement.
Thus the Ruling Class's Trayvon Martin , Ferguson and Baltimore frenzies came and went, shamelessly unaffected by repeated Narrative Collapses -- inexplicable, unless you were aware of Left's amoral imperative to incite its black clients against the white American majority.
And the current "Impeach Trump!" frenzy really has nothing to do with Russia or Comey-it's simply the latest expression of the Left's long-brewing refusal to accept defeat in the 2016 election, which it counted on to complete its coup against the Historic American Nation [ Trump Impeachment Talk Started Before He Was Even Nominated , by Peter Hassan, Daily Caller , May 17, 2017].
It's as simple as this: If the Evil Party gets control of the House of Representatives, Trump was always going to be impeached, regardless of what he did. (Conviction, which requires 67 Senate votes, might be more difficult-although Democrats probably assume any Republican President could be guilted into capitulation, like Richard Nixon, unlike Bill Clinton ). The good news: this demystifies impeachment, which VDARE.com has long argued is not a juridical proceeding but an assertion of political control like a no-confidence motion in a Parliamentary system - and should be more broadly applied, by a patriot Congress, not just to Presidents but to bureaucrats and kritarchs .
And the great news: we now have a road map to how a patriot President can survive a Ruling Class induced hysteria- Patrick J. Buchanan's just-published Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Broke A President And Divided America Forever .
Buchanan's book is important and powerful-but somber: he's not joking at all with the last four words of his title, although he doesn't dwell on it. It's a theme that has increasingly appeared in his recent columns, here and here and here .
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Buchanan vividly recreates the MSM-hyped atmosphere of crisis in Washington in the fall of 1969, now completely forgotten but at the time an incipient elite coup even more serious than anything yet seen under Trump:
Directly ahead was the largest antiwar protest in US history, October 15, when hundreds of thousands were expected on the Washington Monument grounds, within sight of the White House. Major media had become propagandists for the antiwar movement and were beating the drums for getting out of Vietnam now. It seemed as though the fate of Lyndon Johnson, his presidency broken by the Tet Offensive in 1968 and his humiliation by Gene McCarthy in New Hampshire, could be ours as well. David Broder of the Washington Post saw President Nixon's situation as did I. "It is becoming more obvious with every passing day that the men and the movement that broke Lyndon Johnson's authority in 1968 are out to break Richard Nixon in 1969," wrote Broder on October 7. "The likelihood is great that they will succeed again."
This was a particularly dangerous situation for Nixon because his Republican Party controlled neither Senate nor House. In theory, the Democrats could have wrested policy from him at any point, although in those days the prestige of the Presidency and respect for its prerogatives, sacralized by years of Democratic dominance, was still a serious inhibition.
Contrary to his current Demon King image, Nixon had responded after his election very much as Trump (notwithstanding his more abrasive rhetoric) has done: appeasement.
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Needless to say, appeasement did not work for either man. Partly this was because both provoked a really peculiar blind personal hatred from the political class -- "for reasons I could not comprehend," says Buchanan in the case of Nixon, "given his centrist politics and even liberal policies "
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Although it's now hard to imagine, the Main Stream Media had been as generally respected as the office of the Presidency itself. Agnew and Buchanan burst that bubble for good.
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What this means in the current situation is clear: Trump must wheel and fight. And he must fight on the issue that elected him, which poses an existential threat to the American nation (and, incidentally, the GOP) that is even more serious than global Communism: mass out-of-control non-traditional immigration, which out-of-control Leftist judicial imperialists have now made unmistakably clear they intend to read into the constitution. Trump must make clear (especially to cowardly Republican Congressman) that the survival of the Historic American Nation is inextricable from his own.
Not for the first time , I agree with Conservative Review 's Daniel Horowitz:
As soon as the president returns home from Europe, he should call in leaders of Congress and demand that they vote on as many of these 20 immigration and homeland security ideas as possible . Specifically, they must:
Block funding for all refugees and visas from the Middle East for the remainder of the fiscal year. Further enforce provisions of the INA that strip the courts of jurisdiction to adjudicate rejections of visas. Pass a supplemental funding bill for the border wall and the construction of a visa exit-entry tracking system, a goal Democrats officially support and that has been passed by Congress numerous times since 1996.
In order to accomplish this or anything else, Congressional Republicans need to modify the filibuster rules. Otherwise, they face electoral oblivion. It's time they actually confront the issues of our time and harness the news cycle to pass common-sense national security bills. The president must use the bully pulpit and his status as leader of the party to craft specific proposals for the do-nothing Congress. Then, place the onus on them to act. He should give a televised address from the Oval Office outlining his response to the growing threat of homegrown terrorism and demanding action from Congress to deal with the courts.
Or we could just use up this once-in-generation electoral mandate on naming post offices and continuing every major Obama policy.
Even after Manchester terror, Congress silent on US problems , May 23 2017. Link in original.
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Peter Brimelow [ Email him ] is the editor of VDARE.com. His best-selling book, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster , is now available in Kindle format.
El Dato , May 28, 2017 at 6:42 pm GMT
Priss Factor , May 29, 2017 at 4:22 am GMTHe continued Johnson's suspension of the bombing of North Vietnam, a disgustingly irresponsible ploy originally designed to shore up Democratic support in the 1968 presidential election campaign at the expense of the Americans troops fighting and dying in great numbers in the South.
Well, start with a Gulf of Tonkin made-up "incident" and you never know how might be dying and for what. My disgust is tempered by the political background history of the whole show where Good Guys were hard to find anywhere.
anon , May 29, 2017 at 4:24 am GMTWSJ's loopy version of 'nationalism' https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-nationalism-can-solve-the-crisis-of-islam-1495830440
Anon , May 29, 2017 at 4:53 am GMTRobert A. Caro's devastating multi-volume biography, eh?
Given all the dirt on Johnson now out there, hagiography might be a better description.
Carlton Meyer , Website May 29, 2017 at 5:48 am GMTNation of Immigrants = Nation of Unassimilable Foreigners
jilles dykstra , May 29, 2017 at 6:37 am GMTPresident Trump could order thousands of American soldiers deployed to existing military bases near our borders to actually defend the USA. This was the primary role of the US Army before World War II. The US Border Patrol didn't even exist until 1924.
This would cost little and could be paid for by existing Army operational and training funding, and could be done in a matter of weeks. Congress would have no say and no permission is required. Anyone who doubts this has been confused by corporate propaganda and can learn from reading this. http://www.g2mil.com/border.htm
LondonBob , May 29, 2017 at 10:00 am GMTDat Trump zichzelf als brexiteer ziet en het anti-Europese populisme aanmoedigt, vormt een breuk met alles waar het naoorlogse Amerika voor staat.
The above is written by a Dutch journalist living in Berlin, Van Baar, a pro EU writer. Translation:
That Trump sees himself as brexiteer and encourages anti European populism, is a rupture with all that post WWII USA has as values.
Van Baar is quite right, Trump wants good relations with Russia, this does not fit in with EU expansion plans, the Ukraine association, an association with a military paragraph.
European queen Merkel sees her chance to improve her position, as she says 'the USA no longer supports us, thus we need a stronger Europe', with Merkel as emperor. Luckily NATO is nothing without the USA military might, and European tax payers in general do not see the need for high military expenses.
Jim Christian , May 29, 2017 at 10:09 am GMT@anon Robert A. Caro's devastating multi-volume biography, eh?
Given all the dirt on Johnson now out there, hagiography might be a better description.
Parsifal , May 29, 2017 at 10:52 am GMTThe last volume is almost finished. Each of those books is a superb piece of research and writing. It's taken him around 35 years in total. The last volume (LBJ 1968-dead) ought to be coming out soon. And his biggest problem? Almost everyone that knew all the players is gone. Especially those who knew of LBJ's ongoing corruptions to his end.
War for Blair Mountain , May 29, 2017 at 11:02 am GMTMy main caveat with Mr. Brimelow's article is his sympathetic view of the Vietnam war. It was an immoral war sold on a lie no smaller than Iraq WMDs. Other than that, it's on the money, Trump really needs to come out swinging.
nsa , May 29, 2017 at 4:33 pm GMTI have always despised the English Foreigner Peter Brimelow. Brimelow is an unrepentant Cold Warrior. The Cold War which imposed the the Civil Rights Act of 1964(Maxine Waters) on us was a high speed highway-Route 1964-to the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act=The Native Born White American Extermination Act.
Donald Trump is not worth defending nor saving .
Immigration to the USA should be severely curtailed ..starting with Brits like Brimmie.
Scratch a Brit and you always come up with an imperialist .and a delusional imperialist at that.
All evidence points to the loss of the Vietnam War on the battlefield, and the complete collapse of the US civilian military. All evidence points to the exceptional stupidity of a land war in Asia.
Evidence is no problem for a Brit imperialist ..just ignore it and assert we were stabbed in the back by an evil cabal in the US Knesset er Congress. As to Nixon and Buchanan ..they are relics from a bygone age when white people were 90% of the population and Americans still worked for a living i.e. growing, building, repairing something. Times change ..the white silent majority has disappeared and so will the ragtag American empire.
[May 28, 2017] Trump Dancing with Wolves on the Titanic - The Unz Review
May 28, 2017 | www.unz.com
With Trump now officially joining this ugly alliance, the US will contribute the military "expertise" of a country which can't even take Mosul, mostly because its forces are hiding, literally, behind the backs of Kurdish and Arab Iraqis. To think that these three want to take on Hezbollah, Iran and Russia would be almost comical if it wasn't for the kind of appalling bloodshed that this will produce.Alas, just look at what the Saudis are doing to Yemen, what the Israelis did to Gaza or Lebanon or what the US did to Iraq and you will immediately get a sense of what the formation of this nefarious alliance will mean for the people of Syria and the rest of the region. The record shows that a military does not need to be skilled at real warfare to be skilled at murdering people: even though the US occupation of Iraq was, in military terms, a total disaster, it did result in almost one and a half million dead people .
What is also clear is who the main target of this evil alliance will be: Iran, the only real democracy in the Middle-East . The pretext? Why – weapons of mass destruction, of course: the (non-existing) chemical weapons of the Syrians and the (non-existing) nuclear weapons of the Iranians. In Trump's own words : " no civilized nation can tolerate the massacre of innocents with chemical weapons " and " The United States is firmly committed to keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and halting their support of terrorists and militias that are causing so much suffering and chaos throughout the Middle East ". Nothing new here. As for how this evil alliance will fight when it does not have any boots worth putting on the ground? Here, again, the solution as simple as it is old: to use the ISIS/al-Qaeda takfiri crazies as cannon fodder for the US, Israel and the KSA. This is just a re-heated version of the "brilliant" Brzezinski plan on how to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Back to the future indeed. And should the "good terrorists" win, by some kind of miracle, in Syria, then turn them loose against against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against the Shias in Iraq and Iran. Who knows, with some (a lot) of luck, the Empire might even be able to re-kindle the "Caucasus Emirate" somewhere on the southern borders of Russia, right?
Wrong.
For one thing, the locals are not impressed. Here is what the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had to say about this :
"The Israelis, are betting on Isis and all this takfiri project in the region but in any case they know, the Israelis, the Americans, and all those who use the takfiris, that this is a project without any future. I tell you, and I also reassure everyone through this interview. This project has no future."
He is right, of course. And the newly re-elected President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, openly says that the Americans are clueless :
The problem is that the Americans do not know our region and those who advise US officials are misleading them
It is pretty clear who these 'advisors' are: the Saudis and the Israelis. Their intentions are also clear: to get the Americans to do their dirty work for them while remaining as far back as possible. You could say that the Saudis and Israelis are trying to get the Americans to do for them what the Americans are trying to get the Kurds to do for them in Iraq: be their cannon fodder. The big difference is that the Kurds at least clearly understand what is going on whereas the Americans are, indeed, clueless.
Not all Americans, of course. Many fully understand what is happening. A good example of this acute awareness is what b had to say on Moon of Alabama after reading the transcript of the press briefing of Secretary of Defense Mattis, General Dunford and Special Envoy McGurk on the Campaign to Defeat ISIS:
My first thought after reading its was: "These people live in a different world. They have no idea how the real word works on the ground. What real people think, say, and are likely to do." There was no strategic thought visible. Presented were only some misguided tactical ideas.
A senior British reporter, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, the President of Iran and a US blogger all seem to agree on one thing: there is no real US "policy" at work here, what we are seeing is a dangerous exercise in pretend-strategy which cannot result in anything but chaos and defeat.
So why is the Trump administration plowing ahead with this nonsense?
The reasons are most likely a combination of internal US politics and a case of " if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail ". The anti-Trump color revolution cum coup d'état which the Neocons and the US deep state started even before Trump actually got into the White House has never stopped and all the signs are that the anti-Trump forces will only rest once Trump is impeached and, possibly, removed from office. In response to this onslaught, all that Trump initially could come up with was to sacrifice his closest allies and friends (Flynn, Bannon) in the vain hope that this would appease the Neocons. Then he began to mindlessly endorse their "policies" . Predictably this has not worked either. Then Trump even tried floating the idea of having Joe Lieberman for FBI director before getting 'cold feet' and chaning his position yet again . And all the while while Trump is desperately trying to appease them, the Neocons are doubling-down, doubling-down again and then doubling-down some more. It is pretty clear by now that Trump does not have what it takes in terms of allies or even personal courage to tackle the swamp he promised to drain. As a result what we are seeing now looks like a repeat of the last couple of years of the Obama administration: a total lack of vision or even a general policy, chaos in the Executive Branch and a foreign policy characterized by a multiple personality disorder which see the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, the CIA and the White House all pursuing completley different policies in pursuit of completely different goals. In turn, each of these actors engages in what (they think) they do best: the Pentagon bombs, the State Department pretends to negotiate, the CIA engages in more or less covert operation in support of more or less "good terrorists" while the White House focuses its efforts on trying to make the President look good or, at least, in control of something.
Truth be told, Trump has nothing at all to show so far:
Russia : according to rumors spread by the US, former corporate executive Rex Tillerson was supposed to go to Moscow to deliver some kind of ultimatum. Thank God that did not happen. Instead Tillerson spent several hours talking to Lavrov and then a couple more talking to Putin. More recently, Lavrov was received by Tillerson in the US and, following that meeting, he also met with Trump. Following all these meetings no tangible results were announced. What does that mean? Does that mean that nothing was achieved? Not at all, what was achieved is that the Russians clearly conveyed to the Americans two basic thing: first, that there were not impressed by their sabre-rattling and, second, that as long as the US was acting as a brain-dead elephant in a porcelain store there was no point for Russian to work with the US. To his credit, Trump apparently backed down and even tried to make a few conciliatory statements. Needless to say, the US Ziomedia crucified him for being "too friendly" with The Enemy. The outcome now is, of course, better than war with Russia, but neither is it some major breakthrough as Trump had promised (and, I believe, sincerely hoped for) during his campaign.
DPRK/PRC : what had to happen did, of course happen: all the sabre-rattling with three aircraft carriers strike groups ended up being a gigantic flop as neither the North Koreans nor the Chinese were very impressed. If anything, this big display of Cold War era hardware was correctly interpreted not as a sign of strength, but a sign of weakness. Trump wasted a lot of money and a lot of time, but he has absolutely nothing to show for it. The DPRK tested yet another intermediate range missile yesterday. Successfully, they say.
The Ukraine : apparently Trump simply does not care about the Ukraine and, frankly, I can't blame him. Right now the situation there is so bad that no outside power can meaningfully influence the events there any more. I would argue that in this case, considering the objective circumstances, Trump did the right thing when he essentially "passed the baby" to Merkel and the EU: let them try to sort out this bloody mess as it is primarily their problem. Karma, you know.
So, all in all, Trump has nothing to show in the foreign policy realm. He made a lot of loud statements, followed by many threats, but at the end of the day somebody apparently told him "we can't do that, Mr President" (and thank God for that anonymous hero!). Once this reality began to sink in all which was left is to create an illusion of foreign policy, a make-believe reality in which the US is still a superpower which can determine the outcome of any conflict. Considering that the AngloZionist Empire is, first and foremost, what Chris Hedges calls an " Empire of Illusions " it only makes sense for its President to focus on creating spectacles and photo opportunities. Alas, the White House is so clueless that it manages to commit major blunders even when trying to ingratiate itself with a close ally. We saw that during the recent Trump trip to Saudi Arabia when both Melania and Ivanka Trump refused to cover their heads while in Riyadh but did so when they visited the Pope in the Vatican . As the French say, this was "worse than a crime, it was a blunder" which speaks a million words about the contempt in which the American elites hold the Muslim world.
There is another sign that the US is really scraping the bottom of the barrel: Rex Tillerson has now declared that " NATO should formally join the anti-Daesh coalition ". In military terms, NATO is worse than useless for the US: the Americans are much better off fighting by themselves than involving a large number of "pretend armies" who could barely protect themselves in a real battlefield. Oh sure, you can probably scrape a halfway decent battalion here, maybe even a regiment there, but all in all NATO forces are useless, especially for ground operations. They, just like the Saudis and Israelis, prefer to strike from the air, preferably protected by USAF AWACs, and never to get involved in the kind of ugly infantry fighting which is taking place in Syria. For all their very real faults and problems, at least the Americans do have a number of truly combat capable units, such as the Marines and some Army units, which are experienced and capable of giving the Takfiris a run for their money. But the Europeans? Forget it!
It is really pathetic to observe the desperate efforts of the Trump Administration to create some kind of halfway credible anti-Daesh coalition while strenuously avoiding to look at the simple fact that the only parties which can field a large number of combat capable units to fight Daesh are the Iranians, Hezbollah and, potentially, the Russians. This is why Iranian President Rouhani recently declared that
"Who fought against the terrorists? It was Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia. But who funded the terrorists? Those who fund terrorists cannot claim they are fighting against them" and "Who can say regional stability can be restored without Iran? Who can say the region will experience total stability without Iran?"
In truth, even the Turks and the Kurds don't really have what it would take to defeat Daesh in Syria. But the worst mistake of the US generals is that they are still pretending as if a large and experienced infantry force like Daesh/ISIS/al-Qaeda/etc could be defeated without a major ground offensive. That won't happen.
So Trump can dance with the Wahabis and stand in prayer at the wailing wall, but all his efforts to determine the outcome of the war in Syria are bound to fail: far from being a superpower, the US has basically become irrelevant, especially in the Middle East. This is why Russia, Iran and Turkey are now attempting to create a trilateral "US free" framework to try to change the conditions on the ground. The very best the US are still capable of is to sabotage those efforts and needlessly prolong the carnage in Syria and Iraq. That is both pathetic and deeply immoral.
* * *When I saw Trump dancing with his Saudi pals I immediately thought of the movies "Dances with Wolves" and "Titanic". Empires often end in violence and chaos, but Trump has apparently decided to add a good measure of ridicule to the mix. The tragedy is that neither the United States nor the rest of the planet can afford that kind of ridicule right now, especially not the kind of ridicule which can very rapidly escalate in an orgy of violence. With the European politicians paralyzed in a state subservient stupor to the Rothschild gang, Latin America ravaged by (mostly US-instigated) crises and the rest of the planet trying to stay clear from the stumbling ex-superpower, the burden to try to contain this slow-motion train wreck falls upon Russia and China.
As for Trump, he made a short speech before NATO leaders today. He spoke about the " threats from Russia and on NATO's eastern and southern borders ". QED.
Avery , May 27, 2017 at 2:35 pm GMT
Avery , May 27, 2017 at 2:44 pm GMT{Tillerson was supposed to go to Moscow to deliver some kind of ultimatum.}
What kind of so-called 'ultimatum' could Tillerson possibly deliver to Moscow? What hasn't Washington already 'ultimatumed' to Russia that has failed to force Russia to submit to Washington's will:
1) Assault on the Ruble: failed.
2) Engineered oil price collapse: failed.
3) Sanctions: failed.
4) Syria: failed.
5) ..{Thank God that did not happen.}
And as Mr. Spock said to Dr. Bones in one of the episodes " ..the Deity had nothing to do with it: it was my cross-linking to B that did it ..": Deity had nothing to do with it. It was thems 8,000 or so nuclear warheads that Russia has that did it. US issues ultimatums only to countries that can't bite back, like telling Saddam he has 48 hours to get, and then promptly invading.
mh505 , May 27, 2017 at 2:59 pm GMT@Avery {Tillerson was supposed to go to Moscow to deliver some kind of ultimatum.}
What kind of so-called 'ultimatum' could Tillerson possibly deliver to Moscow? What hasn't Washington already 'ultimatumed' to Russia that has failed to force Russia to submit to Washington's will:
1) Assault on the Ruble: failed.
2) Engineered oil price collapse: failed.
3) Sanctions: failed.
4) Syria: failed.
5) ........And as Mr. Spock said to Dr. Bones in one of the episodes ".....the Deity had nothing to do with it: it was my cross-linking to B that did it.....": Deity had nothing to do with it. It was thems 8,000 or so nuclear warheads that Russia has that did it. US issues ultimatums only to countries that can't bite back, like telling Saddam he has 48 hours to get,...and then promptly invading.
Si1ver1ock , May 27, 2017 at 3:46 pm GMTJust a little clarification: As far as is known, "b" from Moon of Alabama is not an American, nor does he live there.
Apparently, he is a former officer of the German Bundeswehr.
neutral , May 27, 2017 at 10:39 pm GMTSadly, all too true.
I've been waiting for someone to point out the silliness of asking Russia and China to sanction North Korea, when the US currently has sanctions on Russia and is threatening China in the South China sea. Maybe that is what Lavrov talked about with Trump.
Seems schizophrenic somehow.
krollchem , May 28, 2017 at 1:11 am GMTJohan Nagel , Website May 28, 2017 at 6:31 am GMTHere is Jack Perry's take on the war against ISIS Inc:
"If there's one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree upon, it's war. Both of them never saw a war they didn't like unless the other party started it, it's going badly, and it's an election year."
"They want to declare war this time as opposed to just start bombing and worry about legality later. Okay, but who will they send the declaration of war to? ISIS is a non-state entity. What, will they just Twitter it out and hope ISIS cadre picks it up? In reality, what they better understand is this: When it's a non-state entity, you can't sign a cease-fire with them, either. Therefore, how will the U.S. exit this war, since cease-fires are its preferred route to getting someone else to take over the payments?"
"let's keep in mind the U.S. government has technically been fighting ISIS via an air war for a few years now and we haven't seen the "For Sale" sign up at ISIS, Inc. so far. Let's also not forget the United States government could not find Osama bin Laden for several years, has not defeated al-Qaida for these 15 years plus since 9/11, and didn't even defeat the Taliban over in Afghanistan where the U.S. military still remains today. And now they want to mortgage our future in order to buy the ISIS Boardwalk piece on the World Monopoly board?! Excuse me, but say what?! "
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/05/jack-perry/warning-were-overdue/
The real answer is to stop supporting the fanatical Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf state and shutdown their religious schools that export radical Islam:
See how Ramzan Kadyrov the President of Chechnya successfully reeducates Muslims who lose their way and make the mistake of listening to Wahhabist Imams:
http://thesaker.is/ramzan-kadyrov-on-takfiri-terrorism/
Likewise it is important to stop supporting Israel and their radical Jewish doctrine and close down their concentration camp, eliminate their chemical, biological and radiological weapons stockpiles, and close down their support for Al Qaeda and their allies including ISIS.
Providing an apology to the sailors of the USS Liberty for their sacrifice and abandonment by the US government for the last 50 years is also in order. This shameful treatment of these US military is a major stain on America.
jilles dykstra , May 28, 2017 at 7:11 am GMTA useful article, as is always the case with our fine Saker.
Though I cannot understand why writers continue to follow the trawler like the seagulls waiting for the sardines, (a nod in the direction of King Eric!). Trump has been proven, as Obama was proven, and many before him, to be nominally a script reader, a totem for the masses to look towards as their 'leader' when the reality is that the government of the US especially and most obviously is merely tangible facet of a much bigger group. In short, Trump is a businessman given the chance to make a few extra millions and go down in history as a President. All he has to do is try to keep his mouth shut, make these visits to other countries for effect, make speeches given to him by others and he gets more gold and his place in history. It is all theatre
The real power is so obviously in Israel, alongside old and new money, the military industrial complex which is spearheaded by the US and UK with the mass media another major power group and connected. Pharmaceutical and Agricultural corporations have also risen to huge prominence. Essentially, the 'government' is mainly for show.
Trump has forged no new alliance. The KSa is run by immensely dodgy fiends who might even be Jews themselves. The two countries are an axis or seat of power in the region with the same aims, the same MO, the same funding, arming and support of the same militant groups. Anyway, much of this is outlined by the Saker.
However, as I have seen elsewhere, this idea of the europeans being so weak and offering nothing on the power stage is either very poor reporting or some form of racism. The secret services of the Uk are involved in likely every theatre of war around the globe. They simply do not allow themselves to be so easily seen as the CIA or other military facets of the US death machine.
I suspect the French also are very well connected and hugely involved. Behind the scenes. Mainly the Brits though. Always have been, always will be. Their bread and butter is serving interests well beyond the government, nothing to do with the people. I would also add that some of the special forces at least in the motherland (England to me) are revered as much as feared across the globe this has been confirmed to me by soldiers, not just what I have read.
Also, still on Europe, well at least the UK Unlike the US, which managed to elect a racist, misogynist, bigot, the UK voted in enough numbers for their independence. They also have provided enough support from the people, not the Establishment to present to the world a candidate of decency, purity of heart and integrity, the likes of which have not been seen in the US, at such a high level, not anywhere else a handful of latin american countries, for many moons indeed.
The witch hunt against him from his own party, from the Conservatives, from the mass media, from his so called 'friends' is a disgrace, yet the mere fact the people have caused such a tidal wave to even give such a man a chance, brings me pride and a slither, fast fading as it will prove, of hope
Too many writers generalize Europe too much for me to conclude anything other than their experience of Europe comes from words on a screen rather than practical living in the countries and peoples they write of.
NB. Also, for a bit of fun, I used a couple of introductions of characters from Dostoyevsky's The Devils, as I watched interviews with Corbyn and May last night, and tailored the text to provide Fyodor's analysis of the candidates!>> http://thedissolutefox.com/profiling-the-candidates-uk-elections-corbyn-and-may/ )
animalogic , May 28, 2017 at 9:23 am GMTThe Dutch university professors Laslo Maracs and Wolfferen agree, Trump understands that eight years Obama cannot be continued, leads the USA to political and economic ruin.
China and Russia were driven together, the economic centre of the world moved from the Atlantic to Central Asia.
John Maynard Keynes already knew, 'ideas are the most powerful in the world', even obsolete ideas as the west controlling the world.
This is the obstruction by CNN, Washpost and NYT, they do not understand that their world no longer exists.
Trump, in the view of the mentioned profs, and in mine, is manoevring cautiously in order to change history, as Roosevelt needed some seven years to get the USA people in the mood for war, Trump maybe needs as many years to remove the mood for war from the USA.
Trump has to move cautiously, I do not think he believes the Oswald story about the murder of Kennedy.Sergey Krieger , May 28, 2017 at 10:18 am GMTDanCT , May 28, 2017 at 11:00 am GMTLol, it is more like dancing with jackals.
Seamus Padraig , May 28, 2017 at 12:25 pm GMTTrump may be influenced by the MIC and major industry groups, but they are not the deep state, which should be narrowly defined as Israel itself, its fifth column, and those elements in gov and the media who succeeded in pulling off and covering up 911, without which we wouldn't be dealing with any of this.
What I find alarming is Conservativism Inc's willingness to accept the preposterous official narrative about 911 while "bravely" challenging gov data and narratives in all other respects. Conservatives such as Pat Buchanan on down are willing to throw out over one thousand years of Western development regarding the rational relationship between evidence and conclusion, and not least the scientific method, to support what amounts to fantastical storytelling.
I find it helpful to pull up Google images of these conservative opposition voices, almost invariably cowardly looking little nerds, to understand why we are being neutralized instead of organized to fight the deep state and in our efforts to restore order.
WJ , May 28, 2017 at 1:22 pm GMT@Johan Nagel A useful article, as is always the case with our fine Saker.
Though I cannot understand why writers continue to follow the trawler like the seagulls waiting for the sardines, (a nod in the direction of King Eric!). Trump has been proven, as Obama was proven, and many before him, to be nominally a script reader, a totem for the masses to look towards as their 'leader' when the reality is that the government of the US especially and most obviously is merely tangible facet of a much bigger group. In short, Trump is a businessman given the chance to make a few extra millions and go down in history as a President. All he has to do is try to keep his mouth shut, make these visits to other countries for effect, make speeches given to him by others and he gets more gold and his place in history. It is all theatre...
The real power is so obviously in Israel, alongside old and new money, the military industrial complex which is spearheaded by the US and UK...with the mass media another major power group and connected. Pharmaceutical and Agricultural corporations have also risen to huge prominence. Essentially, the 'government' is mainly for show.
Trump has forged no new alliance. The KSa is run by immensely dodgy fiends who might even be Jews themselves. The two countries are an axis or seat of power in the region with the same aims, the same MO, the same funding, arming and support of the same militant groups. Anyway, much of this is outlined by the Saker.
However, as I have seen elsewhere, this idea of the europeans being so weak and offering nothing on the power stage is either very poor reporting or some form of racism. The secret services of the Uk are involved in likely every theatre of war around the globe. They simply do not allow themselves to be so easily seen as the CIA or other military facets of the US death machine.
I suspect the French also are very well connected and hugely involved. Behind the scenes. Mainly the Brits though. Always have been, always will be. Their bread and butter is serving interests well beyond the government, nothing to do with the people. I would also add that some of the special forces at least in the motherland (England to me) are revered as much as feared across the globe...this has been confirmed to me by soldiers, not just what I have read.
Also, still on Europe, well at least the UK...Unlike the US, which managed to elect a racist, misogynist, bigot, the UK voted in enough numbers for their independence. They also have provided enough support from the people, not the Establishment to present to the world a candidate of decency, purity of heart and integrity, the likes of which have not been seen in the US, at such a high level, not anywhere else a handful of latin american countries, for many moons indeed.
The witch hunt against him from his own party, from the Conservatives, from the mass media, from his so called 'friends' is a disgrace, yet the mere fact the people have caused such a tidal wave to even give such a man a chance, brings me pride and a slither, fast fading as it will prove, of hope...
Too many writers generalize Europe too much for me to conclude anything other than their experience of Europe comes from words on a screen rather than practical living in the countries and peoples they write of.
NB. Also, for a bit of fun, I used a couple of introductions of characters from Dostoyevsky's The Devils, as I watched interviews with Corbyn and May last night, and tailored the text to provide...Fyodor's analysis of the candidates!>> http://thedissolutefox.com/profiling-the-candidates-uk-elections-corbyn-and-may/ )
WJ , May 28, 2017 at 1:27 pm GMTannamaria , May 28, 2017 at 2:26 pm GMTHey AndreiYour beloved Russians are wasting money and resources they don't have propping up a despised dictator in Syria.
This is no doubt causing anti-Russian resentment throughout the Arab world that will last for years.
Hezbollah is also bogged down and bleeding and weakened in this fight. Ditto for their Iranian backers.
There is no end in sight to this war and it seems like it's a bunch of bad guys killing each other off.
Z-man , May 28, 2017 at 3:37 pm GMT
[May 28, 2017] Deep State could be narrowly defined as Israel itself, its fifth column, and those elements in gov and the media who succeeded in pulling off and covering up 911
May 28, 2017 | www.unz.com
DanCT , May 28, 2017 at 11:00 am GMT
Trump may be influenced by the MIC and major industry groups, but they are not the deep state, which should be narrowly defined as Israel itself, its fifth column, and those elements in gov and the media who succeeded in pulling off and covering up 911, without which we wouldn't be dealing with any of this.
What I find alarming is Conservativism Inc's willingness to accept the preposterous official narrative about 911 while "bravely" challenging gov data and narratives in all other respects. Conservatives such as Pat Buchanan on down are willing to throw out over one thousand years of Western development regarding the rational relationship between evidence and conclusion, and not least the scientific method, to support what amounts to fantastical storytelling.
I find it helpful to pull up Google images of these conservative opposition voices, almost invariably cowardly looking little nerds, to understand why we are being neutralized instead of organized to fight the deep state and in our efforts to restore order.
[May 26, 2017] We know what inspired the Manchester attack – we just won't admit it - The Unz Review
May 26, 2017 | www.unz.com
In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by Isis and al-Qaeda clones.This approach of not blaming Muslims in general but targeting "radicalisation" or simply "evil" may appear sensible and moderate, but in practice it makes the motivation of the killers in Manchester or the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015 appear vaguer and less identifiable than it really is. Such generalities have the unfortunate effect of preventing people pointing an accusing finger at the variant of Islam which certainly is responsible for preparing the soil for the beliefs and actions likely to have inspired the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.
The ultimate inspiration for such people is Wahhabism, the puritanical, fanatical and regressive type of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, whose ideology is close to that of al-Qaeda and Isis. This is an exclusive creed, intolerant of all who disagree with it such as secular liberals, members of other Muslim communities such as the Shia or women resisting their chattel-like status.
What has been termed Salafi jihadism, the core beliefs of Isis and al-Qaeda, developed out of Wahhabism, and has carried out its prejudices to what it sees as a logical and violent conclusion. Shia and Yazidis were not just heretics in the eyes of this movement, which was a sort of Islamic Khmer Rouge, but sub-humans who should be massacred or enslaved. Any woman who transgressed against repressive social mores should be savagely punished. Faith should be demonstrated by a public death of the believer, slaughtering the unbelievers, be they the 86 Shia children being evacuated by bus from their homes in Syria on 15 April or the butchery of young fans at a pop concert in Manchester on Monday night.
The real causes of "radicalisation" have long been known, but the government, the BBC and others seldom if ever refer to it because they do not want to offend the Saudis or be accused of anti-Islamic bias. It is much easier to say, piously but quite inaccurately, that Isis and al-Qaeda and their murderous foot soldiers "have nothing to do with Islam". This has been the track record of US and UK governments since 9/11. They will look in any direction except Saudi Arabia when seeking the causes of terrorism. President Trump has been justly denounced and derided in the US for last Sunday accusing Iran and, in effect, the Shia community of responsibility for the wave of terrorism that has engulfed the region when it ultimately emanates from one small but immensely influential Sunni sect. One of the great cultural changes in the world over the last 50 years is the way in which Wahhabism, once an isolated splinter group, has become an increasingly dominant influence over mainstream Sunni Islam, thanks to Saudi financial support.
A further sign of the Salafi-jihadi impact is the choice of targets: the attacks on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, a gay night club in Florida in 2016 and the Manchester Arena this week have one thing in common. They were all frequented by young people enjoying entertainment and a lifestyle which made them an Isis or al-Qaeda target. But these are also events where the mixing of men and women or the very presence of gay people is denounced by puritan Wahhabis and Salafi jihadis alike. They both live in a cultural environment in which the demonisation of such people and activities is the norm, though their response may differ.The culpability of Western governments for terrorist attacks on their own citizens is glaring but is seldom even referred to. Leaders want to have a political and commercial alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil states. They have never held them to account for supporting a repressive and sectarian ideology which is likely to have inspired Salman Abedi. Details of his motivation may be lacking, but the target of his attack and the method of his death is classic al-Qaeda and Isis in its mode of operating.
The reason these two demonic organisations were able to survive and expand despite the billions – perhaps trillions – of dollars spent on "the war on terror" after 9/11 is that those responsible for stopping them deliberately missed the target and have gone on doing so. After 9/11, President Bush portrayed Iraq not Saudi Arabia as the enemy; in a re-run of history President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East. This is the real 9/11 conspiracy, beloved of crackpots worldwide, but there is nothing secret about the deliberate blindness of British and American governments to the source of the beliefs that has inspired the massacres of which Manchester is only the latest – and certainly not the last – horrible example. (Reprinted from The Independent by permission of author or representative)
Godfree Roberts , May 25, 2017 at 3:49 am GMT
The Anti-Gnostic , Website May 25, 2017 at 5:16 am GMTThanks! For a while I thought you might identify their motivation with our having bombed Muslim countries pretty much continuously since 1946.
Nice save!Robert Magill , May 25, 2017 at 9:27 am GMT@Godfree Roberts Thanks! For a while I thought you might identify their motivation with our having bombed Muslim countries pretty much continuously since 1946.
Nice save!LiveFreeOrDie , May 25, 2017 at 9:56 am GMTIn most of the ME countries where the US and UK are persona non grata, China assists, remains a friend and does business. The West is not the future.
Mudpie8 , May 25, 2017 at 10:45 am GMTJihad, which is exactly what these people call what they do, is one of the "five pillars of Islam". It came directly from Muhammed and the Quran.
Why is it so hard to blame the source, instead of saying "this sect or that one is responsible"?
If it were not a core part of Islam to spread their faith violently, they would not do it.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 11:14 am GMTWhy do those responsible deliberately miss the target and have gone on doing so? Because they all profit greatly from it. Who are they? The war industry and its various 'communities', the Jews. the media, you name it, they're all in it for fun and profit. None of them would have an income if it all just stopped, if they actually wanted, you know, peace whatever that is.
They can manufacture an invasion of Iraq based on non-existent WMDs as punishment for 911, when apparently the real culprits were supposed to be Saudis. They can pretend that the conflict in Syria is a 'civil war' rather than a proxy invasion by the US, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. They can manufacture groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS but pretend that these groups arose independently from their own funding, operations and just plain meddling in everybody else's business. They can pretend that Iran is the major sponsor of terrorism in the ME when clearly it isn't. They can bullshit really anything they want and everybody just buys it.
If they can do all this, then 911 ought not be too difficult either. The press and so-called intellectual class just buys into whatever the narrative is supposed to be. Karl Rove's statement that 'the empire can create it's own reality now' is fairly obviously a sly reference to 911. How does the empire get to this level of expertise? Clearly a military industrial complex funded to the tune of a trillion dollars per year that can research any problem and do whatever it wants could run such a project without much difficulty. It can also buy off the press and influence the intellectual classes in all sorts of ways that conform to some manual in some top secret facility that nobody has ever heard of and never will.
The release of the redacted 28 pages shows that Prince Bandar, good friend of the Bush family, funded two the supposed hijackers for a year while they prepared for the 'attack'. This indicates without any doubt that the hijackers were Saudi intelligence assets pretending to be hijackers. (Unless you are wacky enough to believe that Prince Bandar, good friend of the Bush family, secretly sought to stab his good friends in the back by committing a heavy atrocity upon them, or at least didn't tell them about it in advance). So its obvious that the Saudis were running the hijacker side of the 911 operation for their good friends in America because thats what good friends do. That's why the hijackers were Saudi, rather than say Iraqi or Iranian, and thats why America didn't invade the Saudis as punishment for the terrible deed.
Of course we also know that the CIA let these same two hijackers, or rather Saudi intelligence assets, into the United States without telling the FBI about it although it had several occasions to do so. How odd, yet these same two hijackers, or rather Saudi intelligence assets, were known terrorists and the CIA definitely knew all about them.
Please Mr Cockburn can you explain in your own words why believing 911 was an inside job is somehow crackpot?
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 11:24 am GMT@The Anti-Gnostic So how come these attacks only happen in proudly tolerant, liberal countries at venues like teen concerts, coastal promenades, gay nightclubs, rock concert halls? I'd venture to say the victims were probably 90+% opposed to Middle Eastern wars or discrimination against Muslims.
Why don't they attack GOP campaign offices, churches, synagogues, defense contractors, Wall Street, oil companies?
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 11:42 am GMT
We Know What Inspired the Manchester Attack – We Just Won't Admit It
No, you won't, it seems.
You'll happily point to wahhabism as one of the contributory factors. I'd have thought you would be prepared to point to the history of aggressive US sphere military intervention in muslim countries, though you seem a little coy about that in this case, presumably so as not to distract from your case against wahhabism, which so conveniently ties in with your bête noir Trump's recent stupidity in Saudi Arabia.
But you won't ever admit that immigration is one of the prime factors.
So in this case we have a bombing carried out by a 2nd generation immigrant muslim Libyan whose father was admitted to the country for political reasons because he was an active member of the opposition to the Libyan government, which our government sought to encourage, in the context of Libya having recently been effectively destroyed and consigned to brutally murderous, bloody chaos by aggressive UK military action.
And yet for Cockburn and for most of the media and political establishments, it's seemingly vital to pretend that it's nothing to do with either "invade the world" or "invite the world".
Jim Christian , May 25, 2017 at 12:08 pm GMTIt now seems this was a bombing carried out by a 2nd generation immigrant muslim Libyan whose father was admitted to the country for political reasons because he was an active member of the opposition to the Libyan government, which our government sought to encourage, in the context of Libya having recently been effectively destroyed and consigned to brutally murderous, bloody chaos by aggressive UK military action.
Here's the BBC on the tangled web of foreign conflicts our government has enmeshed us in in Libya, by allowing immigration from a country and regime changing its government by aggressive military force:
Manchester attack: The Libya-jihad connection
Sound familiar? It should.
There is a stark similarity here with the recent Orlando nightclub shooting. In that case the attacker was likewise a second generation immigrant muslim from a country (in that case Afghanistan) the US government has destroyed by aggressive military action, whose parents were admitted to the country because his father was part of the opposition to a government the US regime wanted changed. Mateen made online posts calling for revenge on the US for what it had done to ME countries and even called the police in the midst of his shootings to declare it was an act of retaliation for US killings, and yet those with an interest in obfuscation have looked high and low for other motivations to obscure the obvious one.
Invade the world and invite the world. It really is as simple as that. Our governments interfere murderously in other countries whilst importing foreigners from those same countries and related ones, and then act all horrified when it turns out they have imported those wars along with the people.
Tiny Duck , May 25, 2017 at 12:28 pm GMT@The Anti-Gnostic So how come these attacks only happen in proudly tolerant, liberal countries at venues like teen concerts, coastal promenades, gay nightclubs, rock concert halls? I'd venture to say the victims were probably 90+% opposed to Middle Eastern wars or discrimination against Muslims.
Why don't they attack GOP campaign offices, churches, synagogues, defense contractors, Wall Street, oil companies?
Svigor , May 25, 2017 at 3:19 pm GMTWhat is your proposed solution?
Taking punitive action against all Muslims is the strategic goal of these people, widening the gulf between Muslims and non-believers and moving towards some kind of major clash of civilisations. They will not be dissuaded by the West making Islam illegal, shutting mosques and – somehow – exiling their own third-and-fourth generation citizens. As well as not being practical, it stands counter to our values, to whit punishing the actions of the overwhelming majority for the actions of the lunatic fringe few.
Britain endured 300,000 dead to defeat Nazi Germany, France over 700,000 dead. We are simply not going to be intimidated by such measures. If anything, they will strengthen our resolve.
These people are also not part of a centralised campaign being run by ISIS they are lone actors
What we need is more immigration so that Muslims feel more comfortable. As long as white hold any power in any society these attacks will continue
Svigor , May 25, 2017 at 3:23 pm GMTLefties like Cockburn know what made the Manchester attack possible, they just won't admit it.
IMMIGRATION.
MIGRATION.
OPEN BORDERS.
RACE REPLACEMENT OF EUROPEANS.
DEMOGRAPHIC INVASION.
peterike , May 25, 2017 at 4:25 pm GMTWe can't control what goes on in darkies'/non-Europeans' heads. They may hate us and want to kill us, or they may not. They may decide to set off bombs, chop off heads, etc., or they may not.
But if we don't let them into our countries, it doesn't matter if they hate us, want to kill us, want to set off bombs, or want to chop off heads. They won't be able to do any of those things.
See how logic works, lefties? (Please say you do. The matter is very much in doubt.)
In that case the attacker was likewise a second generation immigrant muslim from a country (in that case Afghanistan) the US government has destroyed
Has anyone really made the case that Afghanistan was destroyed, by anyone? I've never seen it done convincingly.
The place has long been a complete dump; there's just never been anything to destroy. Not within living memory, anyway.
Sean , May 25, 2017 at 4:28 pm GMTBeyond the question of Islam, the people from Muslim nations are for the most part lousy human specimens, Islam or not. Does Islam put them into garish track suits? Is Islam commanding them to grift on welfare and other public services? Is it Islam that has them sex grooming young white girls?
Or is this just the behavior one would expect from an invading army that faces no resistance? Indeed, not only are they not resisted, they are feted (but never vetted). They are given MORE RIGHTS by law than the native population. They are encouraged to remain tribal.
In other words, they see their host nations as weak, foolish, cowardly places simply asking to be exploited to the max. For one Mohammed maybe it's welfare fraud. For another it's hanging about in public spaces, threatening the native population. For another, it's bullying the white kids at school. For another, it's strapping on a bomb. These are all the same things, just at different places on a continuum.
And since they are nearly all low IQ with little future time orientation, they will never turn into the doctors and layers and computer programmers of Liberal fantasy.
Sure, it's pretty convenient that Islam is morally OK with any and all of this behavior. But the bottom line is that Europe is importing vast numbers of degenerate human specimens that will never amount to a thing and will be a problem in perpetuity. That is, until they take over and kill or enslave the remaining whites. Then hey, no more problem!
jx37 , May 25, 2017 at 4:35 pm GMT@Svigor We can't control what goes on in darkies'/non-Europeans' heads. They may hate us and want to kill us, or they may not. They may decide to set off bombs, chop off heads, etc., or they may not.
But if we don't let them into our countries, it doesn't matter if they hate us, want to kill us, want to set off bombs, or want to chop off heads. They won't be able to do any of those things.
See how logic works, lefties? (Please say you do. The matter is very much in doubt.)
Has anyone really made the case that Afghanistan was destroyed, by anyone? I've never seen it done convincingly.
In that case the attacker was likewise a second generation immigrant muslim from a country (in that case Afghanistan) the US government has destroyed
The place has long been a complete dump; there's just never been anything to destroy. Not within living memory, anyway.
Talha , May 25, 2017 at 4:59 pm GMTThe real reason is the politically correct genocidal racism and racist colonialism that brought this bomber and his fellow invaders to the West in the first place. Those forces spend a hell of a a lot more money and effort in exterminating the West and its peoples than Wahhabism does promoting Sunni extremism. Stop cucking around the real issue, violent Muslim terrorism and crime in the West is a by-product of white-hating racism so intense and genocidal that its perpetrators will import, embrace, and support Muslims and Muslim terrorists.
Sean , May 25, 2017 at 5:01 pm GMT@Tiny Duck What is your proposed solution?
Taking punitive action against all Muslims is the strategic goal of these people, widening the gulf between Muslims and non-believers and moving towards some kind of major clash of civilisations. They will not be dissuaded by the West making Islam illegal, shutting mosques and - somehow - exiling their own third-and-fourth generation citizens. As well as not being practical, it stands counter to our values, to whit punishing the actions of the overwhelming majority for the actions of the lunatic fringe few.
Britain endured 300,000 dead to defeat Nazi Germany, France over 700,000 dead. We are simply not going to be intimidated by such measures. If anything, they will strengthen our resolve.
These people are also not part of a centralised campaign being run by ISIS they are lone actors
What we need is more immigration so that Muslims feel more comfortable. As long as white hold any power in any society these attacks will continue
Talha , May 25, 2017 at 5:05 pm GMT
In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by Isis and al-Qaeda clones.
Thats a good one . The British are completely helpless against Muslims, the police are trained to punish whites not Muslims. Look at the Rotherham (actually every city in England) scandal. The only immigration that is vulnerable to public opinion is EU immigration.
President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East.
Americans like Trumps defence advisor McMaster way have been rather put off Iran due to them supplying explosively formed penetrator weapons to their Shia proxy terrorist force in Iraq,which used them to kill hundreds of US troops., and leave many others without arms legs or testicles. McMaster was in Iraq at the time and he knows it was the Iranians .
Trump's original pick for McMaster's job, General Flynn, was there in Iraq too and later head of the DIA. By all accounts he was infuriated by Iranians supplying the Explosively formed penetrator weapons to Shia groups so their IEDs could blast though armour on US vehicles in Iraq. They, especially Flynn had access to all the examination of the wrecked vehicles and I suppose autopsies on US soldiers as well. Iran ludicrously took on the US, and now comes the reckoning.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT@Randal Because those are the easy targets that create the most impact.
Of course they don't "mostly happen at venues like teen concerts, coastal promenades, gay nightclubs, rock concert halls", those are just the ones that make the big news splashes.
Nor do they "only happen in proudly tolerant, liberal countries": they mostly happen in the countries destabilised by US sphere military action. The vast, vast majority of all islamist terrorism happens in those countries (Iraq, Libya, Syria) and not "in proudly tolerant, liberal countries" at all.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 6:45 pm GMT@Svigor We can't control what goes on in darkies'/non-Europeans' heads. They may hate us and want to kill us, or they may not. They may decide to set off bombs, chop off heads, etc., or they may not.
But if we don't let them into our countries, it doesn't matter if they hate us, want to kill us, want to set off bombs, or want to chop off heads. They won't be able to do any of those things.
See how logic works, lefties? (Please say you do. The matter is very much in doubt.)
Has anyone really made the case that Afghanistan was destroyed, by anyone? I've never seen it done convincingly.
In that case the attacker was likewise a second generation immigrant muslim from a country (in that case Afghanistan) the US government has destroyed
The place has long been a complete dump; there's just never been anything to destroy. Not within living memory, anyway.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 6:49 pm GMTThats a good one . The British are completely helpless against Muslims, the police are trained to punish whites not Muslims. Look at the Rotherham (actually every city in England) scandal. The only immigration that is vulnerable to public opinion is EU immigration.
In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by Isis and al-Qaeda clones.
Americans like Trumps defence advisor McMaster way have been rather put off Iran due to them supplying explosively formed penetrator weapons to their Shia proxy terrorist force in Iraq,which used them to kill hundreds of US troops., and leave many others without arms legs or testicles. McMaster was in Iraq at the time and he knows it was the Iranians .
President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East.
Trump's original pick for McMaster's job, General Flynn, was there in Iraq too and later head of the DIA. By all accounts he was infuriated by Iranians supplying the Explosively formed penetrator weapons to Shia groups so their IEDs could blast though armour on US vehicles in Iraq. They, especially Flynn had access to all the examination of the wrecked vehicles and I suppose autopsies on US soldiers as well. Iran ludicrously took on the US, and now comes the reckoning.
Reg Cæsar , May 25, 2017 at 7:50 pm GMT@Talha Hey Randal,
Very good posts. Also, as I pointed out in another thread, the security services have two different levels of prioritization when it comes to elites vs proles.
Note that this guy was reported to the police by his own family, acquaintances and security agencies knew he had traveled to Daesh-controlled territory in Libya:
"Two people who knew Salman Abedi are said to have called the police counter-terrorism hotline five years ago to raise concerns that he thought 'being a suicide bomber was OK'.
And a senior US intelligence official has claimed that members of his own family had warned police that he was 'dangerous' It is understood that Abedi was 'known' to the Security Services through his associations to those linked to terrorism in Manchester's Libyan community According to NBC, a senior US intelligence official said Abedi's family had warned police that he was 'dangerous'. He was identified after the attack by his bankcard and had used a 'big and sophisticated bomb' using materials not widely available in Britain."http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4536624/Salman-Abedi-known-security-services-point.html
But when a guy was reported last month by the Muslim community, they picked up on it right away - well, guess what the target was:
"A suspected terrorist attack was foiled after armed police arrested a man who is alleged to have been found carrying knives near the Houses of Parliament.
The Guardian understands the operation was triggered following a tip-off to police by a member of Britain's Muslim community who was concerned about the man's behaviour."https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/27/man-arrested-over-incident-in-whitehall-near-parliament
Is all of this coincidence? Simply incompetence?
Peace.
Bill Jones , May 25, 2017 at 7:52 pm GMTLet us not leave out the good offices of the DNC, from where Hillary and Obama murdered millions collectively. The butcher's bill is still piling up in Syria, Iraq and especially, Libya. Bomb churches, they might get bombed back. And bomb a Synagogue? Not smart unless you want your entire crew invited to a seance with the Mossad. Wall Street and oil companies? Too secure, public venues are the easiest. But we get your point, Anti, you want Republicans, Jews and Christians and money to die, that will make you happy. Too bad for you, everyday gays and women are suffering the most anywhere you have the Muslims in all the Euro-flophouses.. Feminists, gays and Liberals in general are the first to the beheading line when the Caliphate is installed.
Why don't they attack GOP campaign offices, churches, synagogues, defense contractors, Wall Street, oil companies?
Talha , May 25, 2017 at 8:12 pm GMTThats a good one . The British are completely helpless against Muslims, the police are trained to punish whites not Muslims. Look at the Rotherham (actually every city in England) scandal. The only immigration that is vulnerable to public opinion is EU immigration.
In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by Isis and al-Qaeda clones.
Americans like Trumps defence advisor McMaster way have been rather put off Iran due to them supplying explosively formed penetrator weapons to their Shia proxy terrorist force in Iraq,which used them to kill hundreds of US troops., and leave many others without arms legs or testicles. McMaster was in Iraq at the time and he knows it was the Iranians .
President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East.
Trump's original pick for McMaster's job, General Flynn, was there in Iraq too and later head of the DIA. By all accounts he was infuriated by Iranians supplying the Explosively formed penetrator weapons to Shia groups so their IEDs could blast though armour on US vehicles in Iraq. They, especially Flynn had access to all the examination of the wrecked vehicles and I suppose autopsies on US soldiers as well. Iran ludicrously took on the US, and now comes the reckoning.
Talha , May 25, 2017 at 8:16 pm GMTGood question.
Is all of this coincidence? Simply incompetence?
Though in this particular case I doubt they had much to go on with just a report that a teenager was spouting off about suicide bombing - that must be pretty commonplace.
truthtellerAryan , May 25, 2017 at 8:40 pm GMTThen the likes of McMaster need to grow up a bit and recognise that going to war doesn't just mean that Americans get to kill other people without anyone fighting back.
Americans like Trumps defence advisor McMaster way have been rather put off Iran due to them supplying explosively formed penetrator weapons to their Shia proxy terrorist force in Iraq,which used them to kill hundreds of US troops., and leave many others without arms legs or testicles. McMaster was in Iraq at the time and he knows it was the Iranians .
Iran was being menaced and harmed by the US long before - decades before - the US chose to invade its neighbour whilst giving clear signals that if its occupation went well then Iran would be next. A grownup would understand that just as the US killed all the Iraqis it felt were necessary to the success of its policy, so Iran in turn helped kill all the Americans it felt were necessary to prevent that success and prevent the likely subsequent attack on Iran.
Hardball cuts both ways and big boys take their lumps and move on, when (as with the US and Iran) there is nothing the US can gain by coming back for another round and vast opportunities for yet another, worse, disaster.
And, of course, the Iranians weren't the ones supplying the sunni jihadists in Iraq, who killed more than their share of US troops, with money to buy weapons, for that McMaster would need to look closer to home - at the very same foreign interests currently trying to manufacture another confrontation of Iran.
Unlikely, since those who would gain from a confrontation between the US and Iran live in Riyadh and Tel Aviv, and in plush offices in Washington, not in the real America. Most likely the US regime will back away from a full confrontation when it comes down to it, as they have on every previous occasion since they were rightly turfed out of Iran with their tails between their legs in 1979.
Iran ludicrously took on the US, and now comes the reckoning.
And while those people do have the clout to manufacture consent for a war with Iran as they did with Iraq, they obviously (and rightly) fear the consequences for themselves when it all goes bad.
And if they don't back away from it then the consequences will be every bit as costly, and more, as the invasion and occupation of Iraq proved for the region and for the US and for American soldiers, and this time those responsible for it will likely face a lot more than general political embarrassment.
Jonathan Mason , May 25, 2017 at 8:44 pm GMTThe ultimate inspiration for such people is Wahhabism, the puritanical, fanatical and regressive type of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, whose ideology is close to that of al-Qaeda and Isis
Absolutely right. And we just swindled them for out of $110 billion to prop up our war industries so these "sand#@*&#$s" can go and do the dirty job for our masters in Tel-Aviv and their representatives in Washington.
Are we really "friends" with a regime that is only different from N. Korea because of its oil?
Even the Islam they're propagating is exactly what The Prophet Muhammad fought against, until they lost and had to convert. Its Islam, is a cult that follows strict Bedouin traditions, that are typical Semitic. Women and others who rank low in the tribe are considered less human. Orthodox Judaism, and their Bedouin half brothers have had this law of no rights to the above mentioned since time immemorial. Jewish women are forbidden to touch or read the Torah. This is a religious law. If they do it now its only because of progress.
So Arabs who have adopted Wahhabism (they have lots of money to spend) are trying to infuse their culture as part of Islam. Which it is not
Good luck to those who will receive the brunt of our mighty bombs thru the Wahhabisfor-the-record , May 25, 2017 at 8:57 pm GMTYoung men, and occasionally women, from Muslim cultures are particularly prone to turn to a very nasty form of murder suicide when things go wrong in their lives, or they become depressed.
They tend to externalize their own unhappiness and blame others. Often the unhappiness is related to sexual frustration and their inability to form satisfying relationships.
Probably this killer found Ariana Grande sexually desirable, but unobtainable.
Within their cultures there are plenty of other equally embittered individuals willing to encourage and facilitate them and give them material support.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 9:01 pm GMT@Svigor We can't control what goes on in darkies'/non-Europeans' heads. They may hate us and want to kill us, or they may not. They may decide to set off bombs, chop off heads, etc., or they may not.
But if we don't let them into our countries, it doesn't matter if they hate us, want to kill us, want to set off bombs, or want to chop off heads. They won't be able to do any of those things.
See how logic works, lefties? (Please say you do. The matter is very much in doubt.)
Has anyone really made the case that Afghanistan was destroyed, by anyone? I've never seen it done convincingly.
In that case the attacker was likewise a second generation immigrant muslim from a country (in that case Afghanistan) the US government has destroyed
The place has long been a complete dump; there's just never been anything to destroy. Not within living memory, anyway.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 9:05 pm GMT@Talha Hey Randal,
But it's saying the guy's family called him out to the police. And that he was known to security services based on ties to terrorist sympathizers in the Libyan community in Manchester. Furthermore, the article mentions that they knew he went to Libya and what part of Libya - what the hell??!!
Furthermore, at this point - if you have teenager talking smack about suicide bombing - take it seriously.
Peace.
Talha , May 25, 2017 at 9:22 pm GMT@Talha Hey Randal,
Plus, I thought our assassination of some of their nuclear scientists was our response.
Or we could try banging our head against the wall until it breaks...I'll let you figure out what "it" is in this circumstance.
big boys take their lumps and move on
Peace.
Talha , May 25, 2017 at 10:56 pm GMT@Randal I'm not sure it's feasible to take seriously every report of a teenage immigrant (1st or 2nd gen) lad making big talk about suicide bombing or whatever. There are probably thousands of them, most of them just hormoned up boys making themselves feel big or expressing their inadequately controlled emotions.
In this case it was complicated by the fact that his family connections were to "our" terrorists in Libya and Syria. On the one hand that might suggest you should take it more seriously (he clearly had access to dodgy contacts and materials the average teenage wannabee doesn't have), but apart from whatever connections his family undoubtedly had in the UK security forces themselves, how would they be sure he was talking about blowing up people here and not blowing up people our government likes to see blown up in Libya or Syria?
The latter, of course, is an area we will never see honestly reported.
Svigor , May 25, 2017 at 11:54 pm GMTI think this lady has found the solution to stop these guys:
"'Much needs to be done to eradicate this evil. 'But there is one simple step which we can take now: we must bring back the death penalty.'"http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/24/ex-ukip-mep-calls-for-death-penalty-for-suicide-bombers-6658334/
And I agree – death penalty for suicide bombers!!! Give them no quarter!
Peace.
Svigor , May 25, 2017 at 11:57 pm GMT
So long as the Afghan government is aligned with India, as it now is, Pakistan must support the Taliban. The Taliban offers its only option for an alliance with Afghanistan, which it must have for strategic depth vis-a-vis India. Remember, India is Pakistan's number one strategic threat. A pro-India Afghanistan threatens Pakistan with a two-front war, which is intolerable. So Pakistan is tied to the Taliban whether it wants to be or not (my guess is not).
Makes perfect sense.
This is literally stupid, and I have no doubt you know better. You imply that in this context actions have no consequences, but in the real world of course they do.
We can influence those things, but we have no control, and no guarantee. Keeping them out is fully under our control, and is guaranteed to work.
This is true only up to a point
It's far truer and more reliable than treating Muslims nicely.
Actions have consequences.
Yep; open borders leaves us vulnerable to foreign terrorism.
Svigor , May 26, 2017 at 12:00 am GMTReally, I say to the Libertardians/Leftists/Muslim sympathizers, and to the Zionists/Cucked Right/'Murricans, a pox on both your houses. Both of you lie through your teeth on a constant basis. Both groups are fanatically pro-open-borders, for the most part.
Svigor , May 26, 2017 at 12:01 am GMT
This is such an ignorant statement that it almost defies belief. It is the type of statement that, were I from a Muslim nation, would almost make me think that the terrorists were not completely unjustified.
It's beyond your ken that when people talk of the destruction of Afghanistan, some other people point out that there wasn't far to fall?
Keep it to talk of dead Afghans, that works a lot better.
rw95 , May 26, 2017 at 12:29 am GMTI mean, we're talking about people who fuck sheep when they aren't fucking little boys or beating their wives.
aceofspades , May 26, 2017 at 1:36 am GMTAfghanistan is a pawn in the Pakistan-India conflict, just as Syria is caught up in a Arab-Persian quarrel that started at the dawn of recorded history. All this reduction to the variant of Islam promoted by the Saudis Cockburn does leaves you none the wiser.
https://www.traditionalright.com/the-view-from-olympus-strategic-idiocy-and-an-alternative/So long as the Afghan government is aligned with India, as it now is, Pakistan must support the Taliban. The Taliban offers its only option for an alliance with Afghanistan, which it must have for strategic depth vis-a-vis India. Remember, India is Pakistan's number one strategic threat. A pro-India Afghanistan threatens Pakistan with a two-front war, which is intolerable. So Pakistan is tied to the Taliban whether it wants to be or not (my guess is not).
aceofspades , May 26, 2017 at 1:37 am GMTThe irony is that the places that terrorists targeted were the very places that would give the most support to Muslims and refugees. And they still would, too. The very same neighborhood in Paris that suffered from the 2015 attacks rejected Le Pen at an even higher margin than the last election. I suppose these people have a death wish.
The Kid , May 26, 2017 at 2:04 am GMT@Svigor Really, I say to the Libertardians/Leftists/Muslim sympathizers, and to the Zionists/Cucked Right/'Murricans, a pox on both your houses. Both of you lie through your teeth on a constant basis. Both groups are fanatically pro-open-borders, for the most part.
exiled off mainstreet , May 26, 2017 at 3:05 am GMTSorry, but the Wahhabis were happily slaughtering fellow Sunni, Jews, Shia, and anyone else they decided to declare a "pagan" (kaffirun) in order to legitimize raping, robbing, enslaving, and murdering them LONG before the West even considered bothering to colonize the Arabs.
The Wahhabi originated in the one part of Arabia that the Prophet (SAAW) refused to bless – the Najd. He stated that that was the place where fitnah (disorder, chaos) came from.
The preaching of Abdul-Wahhab was very popular among the bedu clan ruled by the Saud family. This practice of takfir, insisting other Muslims were heretics, polytheists, pagans (kaffirun) made robbing pilgrimage and other caravans a *virtue* instead of brigandage. The British put the Sauds in charge of the Arabian peninsula, now known as Saudi Arabia.
The Wahhabis promptly slaughtered those they considered pagan – Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi, Shia – it didn't matter. Unless you believed in their literalist primitive understanding of Islam, you were obviously a pagan. The Wahhabi focus almost entirely on outward conformity from what I have seen. While other Muslims are discussing the attributes of God, the Wahhabis are ordering Hanafi women to "follow the stronger evidence" and cover their *feet.* Seriously. For real.
Go to any Saudi supported masjid in the US, and notice how many have filthy, horrible areas for women to pray, often only accessible by passing through the area outside where the dumpsters are, and note that the women's restroom many be filthier than a porta-potti in Tijuana. This is no accident. Wahhabis think women should be neither seen nor heard. They know more than the Caliph Umar who accepted a correction on Islamic law from a woman – in public – and acknowledged to all present that she was correct, and he was wrong. No danger of that happening in Wahhabi land – a woman's voice is considered part of her awrah or nakedness.
If a religious education program for women even *exists* , it will tend to focus on the importance of wearing a head scarf, and covering one's feet. Sometimes it will stress how a woman's prayer is "better" for her at home – so why are all of you ladies here for Juuma every Friday?
The importance of prayer seems to be limited to having the exact "correct" position of the hands, feet, etc. – and saying the "correct" exact words. Imagine my surprise when I was earnestly informed that I should never, ever pray in sadl – with my arms down – because Imam Malik only did that "because he had been tortured." When I asked a Mauritania Shaykh, a noted religious scholar about this statement, he was rather blunt. It seems that "whoever says that is a liar." And that they really need to fear God.
So, while silly westerners are running around and claiming that Daesh and crew are really upset about colonialism or whatever, the extremists keep telling us all what they really want – and the left of the west is so bigoted and patronizing that it literally insists that the extremists are so backward and stupid that they don't really mean what they say because anyone with half a brain would be irate over *material* issues, not religious matters.
You can find the Daesh English language publication on line. Read it before you continue blathering endless irrelevancies about "colonialism."
Talha , May 26, 2017 at 4:37 am GMTWhile I fully concur the views stated here by Mr. Cockburn on this matter, "western" regimes have a more direct link to the Manchester terrorist act: the fact that the destruction of Libya by Obama and the French, spearheaded in the US by then foreign secretary Hillary Clinton against the advice of Gates, the war minister at the time, and contrary to Obama's instincts was a direct link in the chain leading to this Libyan's terrorist act. There are also rumours published elsewhere that this terrorist underwent training to act as one of the "tame" rebels working to overthrow the Assad government. The support for the Cameron government for the Libya action puts the blood of this event on the hands of the successor tory May government, in its use of this blowback event to gain electoral mileage in its effort to stay in power in Britain.
As indicated, I concur with inferences of the comment by Randal, #8 above that western actions, including the destruction of Libya, played the key role in this attack.
LSWCHP , May 26, 2017 at 8:30 am GMT@The Kid Sorry, but the Wahhabis were happily slaughtering fellow Sunni, Jews, Shia, and anyone else they decided to declare a "pagan" (kaffirun) in order to legitimize raping, robbing, enslaving, and murdering them LONG before the West even considered bothering to colonize the Arabs.
The Wahhabi originated in the one part of Arabia that the Prophet (SAAW) refused to bless - the Najd. He stated that that was the place where fitnah (disorder, chaos) came from.
The preaching of Abdul-Wahhab was very popular among the bedu clan ruled by the Saud family. This practice of takfir, insisting other Muslims were heretics, polytheists, pagans (kaffirun) made robbing pilgrimage and other caravans a *virtue* instead of brigandage. The British put the Sauds in charge of the Arabian peninsula, now known as Saudi Arabia.
The Wahhabis promptly slaughtered those they considered pagan - Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi, Shia - it didn't matter. Unless you believed in their literalist primitive understanding of Islam, you were obviously a pagan. The Wahhabi focus almost entirely on outward conformity from what I have seen. While other Muslims are discussing the attributes of God, the Wahhabis are ordering Hanafi women to "follow the stronger evidence" and cover their *feet.* Seriously. For real.
Go to any Saudi supported masjid in the US, and notice how many have filthy, horrible areas for women to pray, often only accessible by passing through the area outside where the dumpsters are, and note that the women's restroom many be filthier than a porta-potti in Tijuana. This is no accident. Wahhabis think women should be neither seen nor heard. They know more than the Caliph Umar who accepted a correction on Islamic law from a woman - in public - and acknowledged to all present that she was correct, and he was wrong. No danger of that happening in Wahhabi land - a woman's voice is considered part of her awrah or nakedness.
If a religious education program for women even *exists*, it will tend to focus on the importance of wearing a head scarf, and covering one's feet. Sometimes it will stress how a woman's prayer is "better" for her at home - so why are all of you ladies here for Juuma every Friday?
The importance of prayer seems to be limited to having the exact "correct" position of the hands, feet, etc. - and saying the "correct" exact words. Imagine my surprise when I was earnestly informed that I should never, ever pray in sadl - with my arms down - because Imam Malik only did that "because he had been tortured." When I asked a Mauritania Shaykh, a noted religious scholar about this statement, he was rather blunt. It seems that "whoever says that is a liar." And that they really need to fear God.
So, while silly westerners are running around and claiming that Daesh and crew are really upset about colonialism or whatever, the extremists keep telling us all what they really want - and the left of the west is so bigoted and patronizing that it literally insists that the extremists are so backward and stupid that they don't really mean what they say because anyone with half a brain would be irate over *material* issues, not religious matters.
You can find the Daesh English language publication on line. Read it before you continue blathering endless irrelevancies about "colonialism."
Craken , May 26, 2017 at 9:05 am GMT@Godfree Roberts Thanks! For a while I thought you might identify their motivation with our having bombed Muslim countries pretty much continuously since 1946.
Nice save!5371 , May 26, 2017 at 9:07 am GMT@aceofspades The irony is that the places that terrorists targeted were the very places that would give the most support to Muslims and refugees. And they still would, too. The very same neighborhood in Paris that suffered from the 2015 attacks rejected Le Pen at an even higher margin than the last election. I suppose these people have a death wish.
Randal , May 26, 2017 at 10:02 am GMTThats a good one . The British are completely helpless against Muslims, the police are trained to punish whites not Muslims. Look at the Rotherham (actually every city in England) scandal. The only immigration that is vulnerable to public opinion is EU immigration.
In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by Isis and al-Qaeda clones.
Americans like Trumps defence advisor McMaster way have been rather put off Iran due to them supplying explosively formed penetrator weapons to their Shia proxy terrorist force in Iraq,which used them to kill hundreds of US troops., and leave many others without arms legs or testicles. McMaster was in Iraq at the time and he knows it was the Iranians .
President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East.
Trump's original pick for McMaster's job, General Flynn, was there in Iraq too and later head of the DIA. By all accounts he was infuriated by Iranians supplying the Explosively formed penetrator weapons to Shia groups so their IEDs could blast though armour on US vehicles in Iraq. They, especially Flynn had access to all the examination of the wrecked vehicles and I suppose autopsies on US soldiers as well. Iran ludicrously took on the US, and now comes the reckoning.
Joe Wong , May 26, 2017 at 11:57 am GMT@5371 On earth, it was Sunni insurgents who inflicted well over 90% of casualties on US troops. You are stupid and crazy.
Why do those responsible deliberately miss the target and have gone on doing so? Because they all profit greatly from it. Who are they? The war industry and its various 'communities', the Jews. the media, you name it, they're all in it for fun and profit. None of them would have an income if it all just stopped, if they actually wanted, you know, peace whatever that is.They can manufacture an invasion of Iraq based on non-existent WMDs as punishment for 911, when apparently the real culprits were supposed to be Saudis...
[May 25, 2017] International campaign is criminalizing criticism of Israel as antisemitism - The Unz Review
May 25, 2017 | www.unz.com
ReallyAJoke , May 25, 2017 at 4:58 am GMT
Felix Krull , May 25, 2017 at 6:10 am GMT"Where most people would consider "antisemitism" to mean bigotry against Jewish people (and rightly consider it abhorrent)"
This is laughable, the term "anti-semitism" was invented in the first place to silence criticism, this whole surprise about the broadening of the definition to include Israel is nothing.
You know what are other "shut-up" words? Racist, Islamophobic, Homophobic, Xenophobic, Sexist, etc that along with "Anti-Semitic" make up the bulk of the Capital Sins of the new Globalist Religion (of course, made by and for Jews).
I have the right to hate, speak badly and denounce anyone I want. It would be a crime if I infringed one's rights, which means, physical violence – but then again, physical violence alone is enough of a crime without motive, so it doesn't discriminate and doesn't need special snowflake groups and orwellian newspeech laws.
Brewer , May 25, 2017 at 6:54 am GMTI have little patience for Jewish victimization propaganda, but Israel does have a right to exist: there were a substantial number of Jews in the Ottoman Empire, and when it was broken up after WWI, everybody got their own country, except the Kurds and the Jews.
jilles dykstra , May 25, 2017 at 6:54 am GMTAntisemitism is a logical absurdity. It creates an offense that relies solely on the identity of the victim for its definition.
This is an anomaly for it can be committed against only one class of human beings, regardless of their behavior. Thus it differs from prejudice against gender or class.
In actuality, the offense referred to is fully described by the term "racism", for all practical purposes Although many Jews do not claim to be a "race", by claiming antisemitism they are self-identifying as such. Singling out a race for special treatment defines racism.What is being proposed here is a consequence of a greater absurdity – a State that claims special status for one class of human being and that, like the World-bearing Elephants on a Turtle, is dependent on another absurdity – a chosen race. From there, it is turtles (absurdities) all the way down.
animalogic , May 25, 2017 at 9:08 am GMTThe jewish identity is 'eternal innocent victim'. Therefore any criticism of jews, jewry, or the judaic religion, is antisemitism.
It is like the Armenians, their identity is the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman regime...
Likewise, the present German identity is guilt about two world wars, no chance to make them understand that the great majority of Germans never wanted any war.
The USA identity is saviours of the world, that all over the world people have quite other ideas about the USA, they simply are wrong.
Terrorism by Muslims, they must be 'deradicalised', this means make them think that western atrocities against Muslims are for their own good, or caused by bad Muslims.
As John Maynard Keynes long ago already knew, ideas are the most powerful in the world, even if they have no relation with reality whatsoever.
CO2 is a very weak greenhouse gas, yet people all over the world believe that CO2 does great harm to us, despite the simple fact that climate changed as long as the earth exists, when humans had little influence, except when they began agriculture.
Randal , May 25, 2017 at 9:20 am GMTIts unbelievable. Makes the term "Örwellian" look weak. Words that come to mind are " ïnsidious", "sneaky", "fascistic", "devious", ëvil".
Ironically - sadly ? - this "new" antisemitism seems perfectly designed to inspire traditional antisemitism. Such a cynical manipulation of nation states by another state & a particular ethnic/cultural group (often working against the interests of their own citizens/nations) seems perfectly adapted to generating hate & fear in the recipients of this wholly anti-democratic, anti-humanistic program.
Seraphim , May 25, 2017 at 11:27 am GMTInternational Campaign Is Criminalizing Criticism of Israel as 'Antisemitism'
Yes, this is certainly true as a matter of observable fact and personal experience, but this is merely one aspect of a much broader societal trend, exploited in this particular case by the supporters of Israel.
It is not the fact that the enemies of liberty are falsely conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism that is the problem, but the fact that they seek to define antisemitism as inherently evil and illegitimate, to ban the expression of any opinions classed as antisemitism from the public sphere, and wherever possible to criminalise it. The former would not be a problem were it not for the latter.
Spreading the New Definition Under Cover of "Anti-Racism" Movement
In the never-ending war on liberty waged by the powerful, for whom the freedom of ordinary folk to say and do things that annoy or offend them, or that threaten their position, is an eternal impertinence, the most vital front is freedom of speech. To the extent that freedom of speech is restricted, to that same extent is democracy negated. That front is also currently the most active in the war against liberty, and the attempt to separate and suppress "hate speech" is the schwerpunkt of the efforts by the enemies of liberty.
Those who call people or their opinions racist or anti-Semite or homophobic or islamophobic or whatever, and thereby seek to define their opinions as illegitimate per se, are the most dangerous enemies of liberty in the societies of the modern US sphere.
jacques sheete , May 25, 2017 at 11:35 am GMTThe apposition of 'antisemitism' to any 'phobias' has a long history (it was just the list of phobias that grew overtime):
"The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism-or Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l'Antisémitisme (LICRA) in French-was established in 1927, and is opposed to intolerance, xenophobia and exclusion.
In 1927, French journalist Bernard Lecache created "The League Against Pogroms", and launched a media campaign in support of Sholom Schwartzbard who assassinated Symon Petliura on 25 May 1926 in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Schwartzbard viewed Petliura as responsible for numerous pogroms in Ukraine. After Schwartzbard's acquittal, the league evolved into LICA (Ligue internationale contre l'antisémitisme-or international league against anti-semitism). Schwartzbard was a prominent activist in this organization
The LICRA keeps fighting neonazism and Holocaust denial. This was demonstrated when it supported the Klarsfeld couple (Serge and Beate Klarsfeld), and during Klaus Barbie's trial in 1987.
In the last few years, LICRA intensified its international actions by opening sections abroad, in Switzerland, in Belgium, in Luxembourg, in Germany, in Portugal, in Quebec and more recently in Congo Brazzaville and in Austria.
Since 1999, with the arrival of president Patrick Gaubert, LICRA has extended its area of action. It now addresses social issues such as work discrimination, citizenship, and disadvantaged youth".
Svigor , May 25, 2017 at 12:25 pm GMT"Likewise, anti-Semitism is a universally accepted notion, but goy-hatred is not. These are just two amongst many other such 'one-way mental blocks" Friends, this is not a coincidence. This is a *system* designed to make us all stupid and gullible."
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-orlando-massacre-the-lies-the-exploitation-and-unasked-questions/
Not only stupid and gullible but malleable and controllable as well, it seems.
DanCT , May 25, 2017 at 12:29 pm GMTThis is how Jews always get themselves into trouble. They have no "off" switch on advantage-seeking. They can't not press an advantage. Someone needs to tell them that bullying people into assent isn't the same as making them forget – people do tend to remember this stuff.
The mechanism of this crackdown is the redefinition of "antisemitism"[1] to include criticism of Israel, and the insertion of this definition into the bodies of law of various countries.
And what if, as has been the norm at a great many points in history, humanity decides to redefine "anti-semitism" as "good"?
Where most people would consider "antisemitism" to mean bigotry against Jewish people (and rightly consider it abhorrent)
Not if Jews get their way, apparently. I am reminded of a (very memorable) book title: Jews and the State: the Fatal Embrace.
Second, Sharansky declared that it's antisemitic to apply a "double standard" to Israel - in other words, to criticize Israel for actions that other states may also take. However, if one could never criticize, protest or boycott abuses without calling out every single other similar abuse, no one would ever be able to exercise political dissent at all.
If it's bigotry to apply double standards (it's a double standard to limit the conversation to anti-semitism, by the way), then Jews have been the world's greatest bigots beyond living memory. This was a long piece, I hope I have time to read it all closely at some point.
OilcanFloyd , May 25, 2017 at 2:20 pm GMTCriticizing Israel or Jewish organizations is a hate crime because, you see, Israel and Jews acting collectively have never and can never do anything wrong.
This follows from those purported standards of proof being textbook examples of logical fallacies and thinly veiled hate crimes themselves, requiring us to look elsewhere for the implicit justification. Jewish martyrology and absolute goodness, therefore, must become the one, supreme ontological truth before which all peoples, nation states, and religions must genuflect. Maybe Chris Smith has the courage to introduce a new preamble to the Constitution enshrining this as the ultimate law of the land.
TK , May 25, 2017 at 3:04 pm GMT"Where most people would consider "antisemitism" to mean bigotry against Jewish people (and rightly consider it abhorrent), for two decades a campaign has been underway to replace that definition with an Israel-centric definition."
I pretty much wrote this piece off as soon as I read the above quote. Any non-Jew, especially white Christians in America and Europe, who doesn't at least have a prejudiced or bigoted view of Jewish organizations or power is an idiot. If Jews want less antisemitism, then they need to police their own for signs of hostility, bigotry, racism and corruption towards others, but I doubt that will happen, since the hostility, bigotry, racism and corruption seem organic to Jews in general.
Maybe if "activists" like Ms. Weir would concentrate on taking on Jewish power of all kinds, then the West could reform and Israel would be forced to reform, go extinct, or whatever. As it is, they just play a shell game with "Palestinian rights," while going full SJW on the rest of us. I don't give a damn about Israel, neocon Jews, Palestinians or leftist Jews. I care about my people and my country, and Jews of all political stripes are far more of a threat to both than Palestinians or whatever Muslims who are allowed to infiltrate will ever be.
I state everything above understanding full well that Palestinians are the victims of Jewish power and the world-wide Jewish community. Unfortunately, outside of the Israel issue, most Palestinians and Muslims side with the multicult, anti-Western, heavily Jewish (phony) left. In the end, I can't see how Jews will be able to play all the different groups against each other for their own benefit, and I don't care. I just want to be rid of Jewish influence and Jewish power.
Agent76 , May 25, 2017 at 3:22 pm GMTJews always forget basic Newton laws: "For every action there is an equal or opposite reaction". In a long run you can not silence people, it will backfire.
Feb 24, 2017 Israeli Spying in the US: A Brief History
NOTE: This video was produced for BoilingFrogsPost com on April 11, 2012. It is being made available in its entirety here for the first time.
The knowledge that Israeli-connected companies and intelligence agents have been involved in detailed and elaborate spying operations in the US is of course nothing new. The phenomenon has been painstakingly documented over the years by numerous journalists and sources. Indeed, the documented cases of Israeli spying on their supposed ally - the self-same American government that is supplying it with $3 billion in grants each year - are nearly too numerous to document.
[May 25, 2017] The electoral college was put in place to keep the major population centers from determining the vote
May 25, 2017 | www.unz.com
anarchyst , May 22, 2017 at 2:25 pm GMT
geokat62 , May 22, 2017 at 3:31 pm GMTI keep trying to explain this "popular vote" thing: The Electoral College system is essentially mandatory voting: every person casts a vote via the electoral college, whether they actually fill out a ballot or not. Choosing not to fill out a ballot is a vote for "I'll go with the majority's decision."The entire population of the United States of America is represented in this process: everyone is either a proxy (voter), or has his vote cast by a proxy.
The "popular vote" mantra is the scuzzbucket Democrat way of dismissing the legitimacy of the people who vote by proxy. It's Democrats' way of saying these people don't matter. And this from the party that claims to support mandatory voting!
The will of the people is expressed in the Electoral College. And in the 2016 election, that will very much favored Trump over Clinton.
Joe Franklin , May 22, 2017 at 6:47 pm GMTThe electoral college is the "equalizer" which forces the candidates to campaign in all 50 states
That's the theory. The reality is more like:
The electoral college is the "equalizer" which forces the candidates to campaign in all 15 battleground states
or better still:
The electoral college is the "equalizer" which forces the candidates to campaign in all 5 states (CO, FL, NV, OH, VA) that have been truly competitive over the last five presidential elections
utu , May 22, 2017 at 3:32 pm GMT@anarchyst The electoral college was put in place to keep the major population centers from determining the vote. Without the electoral college, the prospective presidential candidates would only have to cater to the major population centers and could safely ignore "flyover country", as the east and west coasts would have enough "clout" to determine the direction of the vote.
The electoral college is the "equalizer" which forces the candidates to campaign in all 50 states...@anarchyst The electoral college was put in place to keep the major population centers from determining the vote. Without the electoral college, the prospective presidential candidates would only have to cater to the major population centers and could safely ignore "flyover country", as the east and west coasts would have enough "clout" to determine the direction of the vote.
The electoral college is the "equalizer" which forces the candidates to campaign in all 50 states...
[May 24, 2017] Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble for Trump by Eric Margolis
Notable quotes:
"... No mention of the 63 millions who voted for him. Trumps enemies will make sure there is no peace until Trump is driven from office. Blowback will insure there is no peace after the coup. ..."
"... Hilllary is of course also widely detested. In many ways, the last election was a contest about who the American people hate more, and Hillary got the award for Most Hated. Both candidates got a large percent of their votes from people who were voting against their opponent. Outside of CA, NY, and MA, more people hated Hillary, ..."
"... So, it turns out that Hillary is detested by the 'wrong' people. Hillary won the vote for most hated. But she's never investigated, the Clinton's are never charged. Bill openly violated election campaigning laws in MA, but no investigation, no charges. The Clintons have become filthy rich during a life of public service, but no investigations, no charges. And if you even want to hear about it, you have to turn off the corporate press and find independent reporters. ..."
May 20, 2017 | www.unz.com
"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
The witches in Macbeth.President Trump's administration is now at a high boil as he faces intense heat from all sides. The Republican Party has backed away from their embattled president. US intelligence agencies are baying for his blood. The US media plays the role of the witches in 'Macbeth' as it plots against Trump.
One increasingly hears whispers about impeachment or the wonderful 1964 film about a military coup in Washington, 'Seven Days in May.'
As in Shakespeare's King Lear, Trump stands almost alone on a blasted heath, howling that he has been betrayed. The world watches on in dismay and shock.
One thing is clear: the US presidency has become too powerful when far-fetched talk of possibly Russian involvement in Trump's campaign could send world financial markets into a crash dive. And when Trump's ill informed, off the cuff remarks can endanger the fragile global balance of power.
Trump has made this huge mess and must now live with it. Yes, he is being treated unfairly by appointment of a special prosecutor when the titanic sleaze of the Clintons was never investigated. But that's what happens when you are widely detested. No mercy for Trump, a man without any mercy for others.
Trump is not a Manchurian candidate put into office by Moscow though his bungling aides and iffy financial deals often made it appear so. His choice of the fanatical Islamophobe Gen. Michael Flynn was an awful blunder. Flynn was revealed to have taken money from Turkey to alter US Mideast policy. Who else paid off Flynn? Disgraceful.
But what about all the politicians and officials who took and take money from the Saudis and Gulf emirates, or Sheldon Adelson, the ardent advocate of Greater Israel? What about political payoffs to the flat-earth Republicans who now act as Israel's amen chorus in Washington?
The growing scandals that are engulfing Trump's presidency seem likely to delay if not defeat the president's laudatory proposals to lower taxes, prune the bureaucracy, clean up intelligence, end America's foreign wars, and impose some sort of peace in the Mideast.
By recklessly proposing these reforms at the same time, Trump earned the hatred of the media, federal government, all intelligence agencies, and the Israel lobby, not to mention ecologists, free-thinkers, cultured people, academia and just about everyone else who does not raise cotton or abuse animals for a living.
No wonder Trump stands almost alone, like Rome's Horatio at the Bridge. One increasingly hears in Washington 'what Trump needs is a little war.'
That would quickly wrong-foot his critics and force the neocon media – Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and CNN – to back him. We already saw this happen when Trump fired salvos of cruise missiles at Syria. It would also provide welcome distraction from the investigations of Trump that are beginning.
Trump has appeared to be pawing the ground in a desire to attack naughty North Korea or Syria, and maybe even Yemen, Somalia or Sudan. A war against any of these small nations would allow the president to don military gear and beat his chest – as did the dunce George W. Bush. Bomb the usual Arabs!
Timur The Lame , May 21, 2017 at 12:02 am GMT
WorkingClass , May 21, 2017 at 2:22 pm GMT' As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents. more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Shee-it! I thought Dubya accomplished this . Apparently the M'urkan public is being defiant and really wants to flaunt it's ignorance. Well, howdee! we got us a real contest goin' on now. Trump is obviously the proverbial monkey with a machine-gun. My inner survival instincts are starting to kick in. Does anyone see this this presidency as leveling out and trying to conduct business like you know as it has been in the last 200 years?
This is too insane. I honestly think that some kind of the fix is in. How? Don't know.
Every (real) man for himself now.
Cheers-
Hunsdon , May 21, 2017 at 9:22 pm GMTBy recklessly proposing these reforms at the same time, Trump earned the hatred of the media, federal government, all intelligence agencies, and the Israel lobby, not to mention ecologists, free-thinkers, cultured people, academia and just about everyone else who does not raise cotton or abuse animals for a living.
No mention of the 63 millions who voted for him. Trumps enemies will make sure there is no peace until Trump is driven from office. Blowback will insure there is no peace after the coup.
Promintory Rider , May 21, 2017 at 11:18 pm GMTEric wrote: His choice of the fanatical Islamophobe Gen. Michael Flynn was an awful blunder. Flynn was revealed to have taken money from Turkey to alter US Mideast policy.
Hunsdon said: The notorious Islamophobe, in pay of the Next Sultan? Too delicious.
Miro23 , May 22, 2017 at 2:16 am GMTHilllary is of course also widely detested. In many ways, the last election was a contest about who the American people hate more, and Hillary got the award for Most Hated. Both candidates got a large percent of their votes from people who were voting against their opponent. Outside of CA, NY, and MA, more people hated Hillary, and the Electoral College was put into place precisely to keep a big state or a couple of big states from dominating the election of a President. Even in the 1780′s, many Americans didn't want NY to have the power to pick a President on their own.
So, it turns out that Hillary is detested by the 'wrong' people. Hillary won the vote for most hated. But she's never investigated, the Clinton's are never charged. Bill openly violated election campaigning laws in MA, but no investigation, no charges. The Clintons have become filthy rich during a life of public service, but no investigations, no charges. And if you even want to hear about it, you have to turn off the corporate press and find independent reporters.
Thus, its not that Trust is simply the most detested. He's not. At worst, the last election said he's the second most detested person in the country. But, the "right" people all detest him. So, a small minority of government insiders and the members of the media want to run him out of town.
There's things he's done since he's been elected that I don't like. I don't like the way that saying he was against regime change and more wars in the middle east has turned out to be a massive lie. But still, this is rapidly getting to the point where the American people are going to need to speak up and tell their representatives and senators, especially the Republicans, that Trump was elected President and they don't want to see a coup remove him.
If not, then CA and NY and the Deep State and the Media millionaires will run this country and everyone will know that elections don't matter.
balderdash , May 23, 2017 at 3:33 pm GMTBut still, this is rapidly getting to the point where the American people are going to need to speak up and tell their representatives and senators, especially the Republicans, that Trump was elected President and they don't want to see a coup remove him.
This is exactly right, and as others have said, the place to do this is a state level by reestablishing a close contact between the public and their representatives and senators on a detailed issue by issue basis.
If their representative is part of the chorus supporting a "Russian Hacking " investigation, or is an advocate of further wars then they have to understand that they are in real political trouble.
"Political Trouble" is a large scale, local, well organized and continuous public attack on their electability.
If the public are to lazy to do this then they'll deserve what they get.
bob balkas , May 23, 2017 at 3:36 pm GMTNo mention of the 63 millions who voted for him. Trumps enemies will make sure there is no peace until Trump is driven from office. Blowback will insure there is no peace after the coup.
By recklessly proposing these reforms at the same time, Trump earned the hatred of the media, federal government, all intelligence agencies, and the Israel lobby, not to mention ecologists, free-thinkers, cultured people, academia and just about everyone else who does not raise cotton or abuse animals for a living.
Eileen Kuch , May 23, 2017 at 9:08 pm GMTFew ruling classes had an opportunity to build an idyllical structure of society and governance over the last four centuries as the two ruling US classes had.
Instead, they created numerous cliquish cliques and with political powers of each clique diminishing from the two top classes down to the last class: prisoners, indigenes, white and black trash.
This is exactly right, and as others have said, the place to do this is a state level by reestablishing a close contact between the public and their representatives and senators on a detailed issue by issue basis.
But still, this is rapidly getting to the point where the American people are going to need to speak up and tell their representatives and senators, especially the Republicans, that Trump was elected President and they don't want to see a coup remove him.
If their representative is part of the chorus supporting a "Russian Hacking " investigation, or is an advocate of further wars then they have to understand that they are in real political trouble.
"Political Trouble" is a large scale, local, well organized and continuous public attack on their electability.
If the public are to lazy to do this then they'll deserve what they get.
[May 24, 2017] Universities serve as finishing schools for the ruling class by Rob Montz •
May 23, 2017
Originally from: Why Colleges Fold to Students' Anti-Intellectual Hysterics The American Conservative
Middlebury College just completed its final round of disciplinary hearings for students involved in March's violent disruption of a lecture by Charles Murray, the influential but controversial social scientist.The punishments to date have been laughably lax. Guilty students have been presented with non-official "probation" letters that'll vanish upon graduation .
This toothless response reflects a deeper rot. Middlebury, like many prestigious colleges, has steadily gravitated away from its core educational mission and now serves primarily as a sort of finishing school for the ruling class. Professors and administrators alike are simply expected to shower students with affirmation-and then hand over a degree securing smooth entry into America's elite. College has become four years of expensive fun. This is what parents and students now demand.
This change-from institutions of learning to institutions of affirming-threatens the nation's future as colleges foster a vicious strain of anti-intellectualism.
At over $60,000 a year, Middlebury's tuition buys much more than books, lodging, and classes. Students also get a campus-wide square dance , dining halls that host culinary " world tours ," lavish fitness facilities, and an annual winter carnival complete with fireworks, a hot chocolate bar, and snow sculptures.
The student body is ultra-affluent. Middlebury is among a small handful of schools with more students from the top one percent of the income distribution than those from the bottom 60 percent . And on graduation, newly christened alums are typically funneled right back into their elite enclaves, taking jobs at places like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Amazon .
... ... ...
Rob Montz is a fellow at the Moving Picture Institute. Find his work at: RobMontz.com. Check out his interview with TAC executive editor Pratik Chougule at Fearless Parent Radio: http://fearlessparent.org/free-speech-controversy-us-elite-universities-episode-104/
[May 23, 2017] Tulsi Gabbard: Citizens United worsened the crisis of dark money influencing our country. We need to get corporate money and lobbyists out of politics.
May 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
L.K , May 23, 2017 at 2:30 am GMT
Tulsi Gabbard on twitter, May 19:
Citizens United worsened the crisis of dark money influencing our country. We need to get corporate money and lobbyists out of politics.
I've decided to stop accepting PAC/lobbyist $$. Bottom line: we can't allow our future to be driven and shaped by special interests.
It always amazes me so few zamericans seem to even discuss these basic themes; with such a completely corrupt political system, there is little chance even a solid, well meaning president could accomplish much.
In fact , such corrupt system hardly produces any good statesmen to begin with
[May 23, 2017] Posted in Rons forum most definitive timeline of Seth Richs death courtesy of Diana West
May 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
Dahlia , May 22, 2017 at 10:47 pm GMT
Posted in Ron's forum most definitive timeline of Seth Rich's death courtesy of Diana West:
She, and Whitney, include the principals (primary sources) and their witness and actions:
Julian Assange -recipient of Democratic emails. Gavin MacFadyen -alleged recipient of Seth Rich's emails according to law enforcement source. Craig Murray -recipient of Democratic emails in a DC park.
Now we have another man claiming to be a principal, Kim Dotcom. Says he was a friend of Seth's and worked on the leak. He has lived in New Zealand since 2010, I believe. The main principal, Julian Assange, just spoke out again on Seth Rich, seemingly in response to Kim, that informants may have spoken to others, but they don't out leakers.
Anyway, as always, keep your eye on the principals.
[May 23, 2017] Clapper intelligence assessment sounds a little bit like the Warren Commission and 9/11 Commission
May 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
Carroll Price , May 22, 2017 at 11:42 pm GMT
.Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained in his testimony that two dozen or so "seasoned experts" were "handpicked" from the contributing agencies" and drafted the ICA "under the aegis of his former office" While Clapper claimed these analysts were given "complete independence" to reach their findings, he added that their conclusions "were thoroughly vetted and then approved by the directors of the three agencies and me."
Sounds a bit like the Warren Commission and 9/11 Commission, with both being presented with the results of what their investigation would uncover prior to any investigation taking place.
[May 23, 2017] The China-US Arms Race
May 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
US Nuclear Weapon Upgrade Program: "CBO estimates that nuclear forces will cost $348 billion between FY 2015 and FY 2024. Three independent estimates put the expected total cost over the next 30 years at as much as $1 trillion."
[aircarft carrier] The Gerald R. Ford, $12.8 billion + $4.7 billion R&D (estimated). The Navy wants ten.
Columbia , the Navy's upcoming new nukey-boomer, formerly ORP, Ohio Replacement Program. "The total lifecycle cost of the entire class is estimated at $347 billion.": Wikipedia
..." Trump's proposed increase in US military spending is almost as big as Russia's entire defense budget."
aceofspades , May 18, 2017 at 8:55 pm GMT
anon , May 19, 2017 at 3:12 am GMTWell, this is very ironic. Back in the 1980′s, the Soviets spent a massive amount of money on their military to keep up with America, and this ended up bankrupting them and causing their collapse. Now the US of A is spending a horrific amount of money on their military, despite the fact we are 20 trillion dollars in debt. Not to mention that fact that we need to rebuild our infrastructure and pay off all the people on welfare and government benefits. 20 trillion will become 30 trillion, which will be 40 trillion ..whats the end game?
athEIst , May 19, 2017 at 5:32 am GMT@aceofspades Well, this is very ironic. Back in the 1980's, the Soviets spent a massive amount of money on their military to keep up with America, and this ended up bankrupting them and causing their collapse. Now the US of A is spending a horrific amount of money on their military, despite the fact we are 20 trillion dollars in debt. Not to mention that fact that we need to rebuild our infrastructure and pay off all the people on welfare and government benefits. 20 trillion will become 30 trillion, which will be 40 trillion.....whats the end game?
dfordoom , Website May 20, 2017 at 2:42 pm GMT@aceofspades Well, this is very ironic. Back in the 1980's, the Soviets spent a massive amount of money on their military to keep up with America, and this ended up bankrupting them and causing their collapse. Now the US of A is spending a horrific amount of money on their military, despite the fact we are 20 trillion dollars in debt. Not to mention that fact that we need to rebuild our infrastructure and pay off all the people on welfare and government benefits. 20 trillion will become 30 trillion, which will be 40 trillion.....whats the end game?
dfordoom , Website May 20, 2017 at 2:51 pm GMT
The aircraft relies on the assumption that, in thirteen years when it enters service, anti-stealth technology will not have reached the point of making it even more obviously useless.
The purpose of this sort of technology is to make lots and lots of money for the right people. Whether it works or not is entirely irrelevant.
Running rabbit , May 23, 2017 at 9:24 am GMT@Sunbeam One thing I'm waiting to see is when non-American culture producers start to beat Americans.
Bollywood is gigantic. And has a huge presence in parts of Asia.
There used to be Hong Kong Cinema. Not sure what happened to it. Successful, but not on the scale of Star Wars or The Fast And The Furious or something.
Brazilian T&A soap operas are spreading around the world.
K-Pop is doing the same.
Japanese Anime and Manga, maybe the odd pop star, is worldwide now as well.
But one day we are going to see that the past year's biggest movie worldwide was made in Bollywood or China.
I'm a nationalist, but I will absolutely cheer as the first nail goes in Hollywood's coffin.
Z-man , May 23, 2017 at 12:40 pm GMTAs someone who has travelled to the US and China (Beijing), I was astounded by how advanced China's infrastructure was to that of the US. Subways, freight trains, highways, airports, bridges you name it. The investment is still on going and only really been going on for 25 or so years. I had the feeling in the US things were being neglected. Also China is almost unbelievably safe walking the streets. Everybody behaved like mature adults. No forty year olds who dressed like teenagers, in fact most of the teenagers dressed like forty year olds should. Infrastructure is critical to a modern society, the military merely protects it. Economy is the source of viable military spending, not the other way around.
Erebus , May 23, 2017 at 12:41 pm GMT
This marvelous revelation from Wikipedia: "In July 2016, the U.S. Air Force stated they would not release the estimated cost for the B-21 contract with Northrop Grumman. The Air Force argued releasing the cost would reveal too much information about the classified project to potential adversaries." As, for example, taxpayers.
Hilarious and unfortunately true.
It will still be good for terrorizing ... sorry ... for policing rogue states like N. Korea, Serbia, Yemen, and Syria.
"The aircraft relies on the assumption that, in thirteen years when it enters service, anti-stealth technology will not have reached the point of making it even more obviously useless."
[May 21, 2017] Keeping communications private in the age of Big Brother (a practical HOWTO) - The Unz Review
Notable quotes:
"... the NSA has to prioritize its efforts: shall they use their supercomputers, translators, analysts, senior officers, etc. to spy after, say, the girlfriend of a senior Chinese diplomat or spy after you? ..."
"... Using sophisticated ComSec technologies only draws unwanted attention to you ..."
"... My advice is simple: never use any form of encryption while at work ..."
"... .If ComSec is important for you, you really ought to ditch your Windows or Mac/Apple machines. They – like anything Google, are basically a subsidiary of the NSA. ..."
"... The real cost of security will always be convenience : the painful reality is that good security is always inconvenient. ..."
"... The key here is "is it worth it?" and that is a personal decision of yours to take. Also, you will also need to factor in the costs of not using high-tech ..."
"... when the General Petraeus sex scandal made news, it was revealed that he communicated with is lover using this method. Since they are both career CIA officers, I guess it works. ..."
"... It's been discussed that the CIA and Deep State promoted Abstract Art as ideological weapon during the Cold War. When will people discuss the fact that Homomania is now the #1 ideological weapon of Globo-Imperialism in the Gold War. ..."
"... And the content of your messages is almost irrelevant. GCHQ doesn't monitor content of UK residents without explicit authority. It hardly needs to. It can monitor who you call, when, how often, how long are the calls, your locations, the receiver's locations, your other contacts, their other contacts. With that much information, the content is almost irrelevant. ..."
"... Re: Peter Principle. Your discussion of the open-source community level of quality made me wonder if there is a mirror image of the Peter Principle, say, the Paul Principle? ..."
"... Does anyone trust Android phones? I was sad that the Ubuntu phone failed. ..."
May 21, 2017 | www.unz.com
Second, both spying and ComSec are cost-driven . Yes, even the NSA has a limited (if huge) budget. And yes, even the NSA has to prioritize its efforts: shall they use their supercomputers, translators, analysts, senior officers, etc. to spy after, say, the girlfriend of a senior Chinese diplomat or spy after you?It is true that all our communications are intercepted and recorded. This is especially true of the 'metadata' (who contacted whom and when and how and how often), but it is also true of our more or less 'secure' communications, be they protected by a very weak encryption algorithm or a military-grade encryption system. Once that data is stored, the NSA has to parse it (mostly looking at the metadata) and take a decision as to how much resources it is willing to allocate to your specific case. No offense intended, but if you are a small pot grower with a history of political activism who emigrated to the USA form, say, Turkey 10 years ago and if you are emailing your friends in Antalya, the NSA would need to decrypt your email. That would take them less than 1 milisecond, but somebody needs to authorize it.
Then they would have to get a machine translation from Turkish into English which will be hopefully good enough (I am quite sure that the few Turkish-language translators they have will not be allocated to you, sorry, you are just not that important). Then some analyst must read that text and decide to pass it on to his boss for follow-up. If the analyst finds your email boring, he will simply send it all into a virtual trash bin. Conclusions: For the bad guys to spy after you must be worth their time as expressed in dollars and cents, including opportunity costs (time spend *not* going after somebody more important) It is exceedingly unlikely that the NSA will put their best and brightest on your case so don't assume they will.
... ... ...
Using sophisticated ComSec technologies only draws unwanted attention to you . This one was very true and is still partially true. But the trend is in the right direction. What this argument says is that in a culture where most people use postcards to communicate using a letter in a sealed envelope makes you look suspicious. Okay, true, but only to the extend that few people are using envelopes. What has changed in the past, say, 20-30 years is that nowadays everybody is expecting some degree of security and protection. For example, many of you might remember that in the past, most Internet addresses began with HTTP whereas now they mostly begin with HTTPS: that "s" at the end stands for "secure" . Even very mainstream applications like Skype or Whatsapp use a very similar technology to the one justifying the "s" at the end of HTTPS. We now live in a world were the number of users of sealed envelopes is growing where the usage of postcards is in free fall. Still, it IS true that in some instances the use of a top-of-the-line encryption scheme will draw somebody's attention to you.
... ... ...
My advice is simple: never use any form of encryption while at work or on the clock. ...Just keep a reasonably low profile. For public consumption, I also recommend using Google's Gmail. Not only does it work very well, but using Gmail makes you look "legit" in the eyes of the idiots. So why not use it?...The US government has many ways to spy on you. You can use the most advanced encryption schemes, but if your computer is running Windows you are *begging* for a backdoor and, in fact, you probably already have many of them in your machine. But even if your operating system is really secure like, say OpenBSD or SEL-Debian, the NSA can spy on you ,,,
...If ComSec is important for you, you really ought to ditch your Windows or Mac/Apple machines. They – like anything Google, are basically a subsidiary of the NSA.
If you use remote servers to provide you with " software as a service " try to use those who have a stake in being peer-reviewed and who only use open source technologies (Silent Circle's Silent Phone is an example). There are public interest and "watchdog" type of organizations out there who will help you make the right choices, such as the Electronic Freedom Foundation .
... ... ...
The real cost of security will always be convenience : the painful reality is that good security is always inconvenient. In theory, security does not need to harm convenience, but in reality it always, always does. For example, to become more or less proficient in ComSec you need to educate yourself, that takes time and energy. Using a key to enter a home takes more time than to open an unlocked door. A retinal scan takes even more time (and costs a lot more). You might always spend a great deal of time trying to convince your friends to adopt your practices, but they will reject your advice for many more or less valid reasons. The key here is "is it worth it?" and that is a personal decision of yours to take. Also, you will also need to factor in the costs of not using high-tech.
... ... ...
Carlton Meyer , Website May 21, 2017 at 3:22 am GMT
Philip Owen , May 21, 2017 at 11:59 am GMTI have read about a simpler method. Open a web mail account with yahoo or whoever and share the username/password. Then compose a message and save the draft. Your partner later opens the draft and adds a response, saves draft, and so on. No e-mail is ever sent, so there is nothing to intercept.
This sounded crafty but I was unsure if it was secure and have no need anyway, but when the General Petraeus sex scandal made news, it was revealed that he communicated with is lover using this method. Since they are both career CIA officers, I guess it works.
Anon , May 21, 2017 at 6:38 pm GMTMedieval methods work best. Surround a large building with guards. In the middle of the large internal space place a circle of (inspected) chairs. Meet in a huddle.
For the poor, nothing beats a walk in the countryside, even a park.
Philip Owen , May 21, 2017 at 7:28 pm GMTIt's been discussed that the CIA and Deep State promoted Abstract Art as ideological weapon during the Cold War. When will people discuss the fact that Homomania is now the #1 ideological weapon of Globo-Imperialism in the Gold War.
Ivy , May 21, 2017 at 8:12 pm GMTAnd the content of your messages is almost irrelevant. GCHQ doesn't monitor content of UK residents without explicit authority. It hardly needs to. It can monitor who you call, when, how often, how long are the calls, your locations, the receiver's locations, your other contacts, their other contacts. With that much information, the content is almost irrelevant.
DaveE , May 21, 2017 at 8:33 pm GMTRe: Peter Principle. Your discussion of the open-source community level of quality made me wonder if there is a mirror image of the Peter Principle, say, the Paul Principle?
Ben Banned , May 21, 2017 at 8:50 pm GMTA great way to keep your cellphone radio-silent is to wrap it in a (2 is better still) metallized mylar potato chip or Doritos bag. (The more silvery looking, the better, in my experience.)
The cell sites will NOT be able to ask your phone for its ID or give up its location, until you take it out of the bag, of course.
It's a great way to take a road trip without the NSA knowing EXACTLY where you are at every point along the way. And generally, you will be able to return your calls when you get home since there will be a record of the calls at your provider, which will come up (in your message box) when the phone is re-enabled.
Be aware though, once the phone is taken out of the bag, it will register with the local cell sites (i.e. your cover will be blown.)
Eagle Eye , May 22, 2017 at 12:54 am GMTDebian with the ssl bug that quietly existed for years – most likely for spying? That OS? That "community" effort? Which is basically derived from (Redhat) which is the DOD? Pffrt. Most of this is nonsense.
The NSA has made people their bitch, in the most obvious ways. In the spirit of security then and being a dutiful patriotic bitch – keep posting on social media given to you by the "truth tellers". They are here to help you right? Tell you all the truthiness because they "were" in the military, and "were" spooks. Keep your iphones close and let your mind do the deep state's thinking.
Johnny F. Ive , May 22, 2017 at 2:00 am GMTFor your emails: Protonmail https://protonmail.com/ (free of charge)
Free of charge? Paid for by whom?
As others have pointed out (if not in so many words), 95% of the spying efforts by the NSA and others are directed at traffic analysis , not analyzing the CONTENT of communications. Who contacted whom, when, for how long, etc. can tell you a lot about what is going on, and is very easy and cheap to do on a massive (humanity-wide) scale using existing computer technology.
The Electronic Frontiers Foundation referred to in the Saker's piece illustrates the point:
• They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don't know what you talked about.
• They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.
• They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don't know what was discussed.
• They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.
• They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood's number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about.https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters
In a similar vein, it is said (almost certainly correctly) that Target can spot whether a shopper is pregnant long before she starts buying obvious baby-related stuff.
I didn't know about the phone apps. They look nice. Does anyone trust Android phones? I was sad that the Ubuntu phone failed. I'd like smart phones to be more like PCs where new operating systems can be installed on them. Is "SEL-Debian," Security Enhanced Linux? The NSA developed that. OpenBSD supposed to be real nice and encrypted. How about systemd? The good thing about open source is that the code is open but does anyone read it?
...
[May 21, 2017] Rich Shared 44,053 Democrat Emails with WikiLeaks: Report
Notable quotes:
"... The exposure of this story takes the mask off the exponents of the Russian conspiracy theory. Their sanity is now in question, as is their loyalty. ..."
May 21, 2017 | www.unz.com
May 16, 2017
• 85 Comments • ReplyFor the past several months, Democrats have based their "Resist 45″ movement on unsubstantiated assertions that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian intelligence officials to undermine the 2016 Presidential Election thereby 'stealing' the White House from Hillary Clinton. Day after day we've all suffered through one anonymously sourced, "shock" story after another from the New York Times and/or The Washington Post with new allegations of the 'wrongdoing'.
But, new evidence surfacing in the Seth Rich murder investigation may just quash the "Russian hacking" conspiracy theory. According to a new report from Fox News , it was former DNC staffer Seth Rich who supplied 44,000 DNC emails to WikiLeaks and not some random Russian cyber terrorist, as we've all been led to believe.
According to Fox News, though admittedly via yet another anonymous FBI source, Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, an American investigative reporter and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time. According to Fox News sources, federal law enforcement investigators found 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments sent between DNC leaders from January 2015 to May 2016 that Rich shared with WikiLeaks before he was gunned down on July 10, 2016.
The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, law enforcement sources told Fox News.
A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC staffer Seth Rich's computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time.
"I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and Wikileaks," the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.
Then, on July 22, just 12 days after Rich was killed, WikiLeaks published internal DNC emails that appeared to show top party officials conspiring to stop Bernie Sanders from becoming the party's presidential nominee. As we've noted before, the DNC's efforts to block Sanders resulted in Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigning as DNC chairperson.
Ivy , May 16, 2017 at 11:21 pm GMT
El Dato , May 16, 2017 at 11:31 pm GMTExpect the Comey-Russia hysteria to escalate as the Seth Rich matter ripens. The DNC is eyeing the 2018 midterm elections and hoping that they can keep the focus off their problems (Hillary, Podesta, ad nauseam). How will they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again? CNN and MSNBC are preparing to levitate over the issues.
exiled off mainstreet , May 16, 2017 at 11:32 pm GMTmade contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter
What did HE die from?
I thought it was ex-ambassador Craig Murray who did the deed? He even confirmed it:
The above-reference tabloid is derided by goodthinking Brits but seems to deliver the dirty underwear.
Tomster , May 17, 2017 at 2:35 am GMTThe exposure of this story takes the mask off the exponents of the Russian conspiracy theory. Their sanity is now in question, as is their loyalty.
SteveRogers42 , May 17, 2017 at 4:39 am GMT@Ivy Expect the Comey-Russia hysteria to escalate as the Seth Rich matter ripens. The DNC is eyeing the 2018 midterm elections and hoping that they can keep the focus off their problems (Hillary, Podesta, ad nauseam). How will they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again? CNN and MSNBC are preparing to levitate over the issues.
jim jones , May 17, 2017 at 6:32 am GMTExcellent point from Anonymous Conservative: Metro DC is probably wired for surveillance to a degree that would astonish most people, and yet the official line is that "ain't nobody seen nuthin".
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/reward-for-seth-richs-murder-up-to-150000/
Even the police who handled the scene wore body cameras, and Rich was conscious when they arrived. Where are the audio/video records?
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/792875315920048128/photo/1
Anon , May 17, 2017 at 7:02 am GMTCredit to The Donald on Reddit for keeping this issue alive, praise Kek.
The Alarmist , May 17, 2017 at 7:50 am GMTDNC Staffer ASSASSINATED for ties to Wikileaks?
Ram , May 17, 2017 at 10:39 am GMTYou heard it here first, nearly a year ago just sayin'!
Anonym , May 17, 2017 at 10:52 am GMTThree days after the Seth Rich murder Comey had the information (IF he didn't already know) gleaned from Rich's laptop that he had been in correspondence with Wikileaks, yet went along with the canard that the DNC was hacked by the Russians till the very end. Assange's confirmation that Russians had no connection to the LEAK was also ignored, because they wanted Assange painted as a criminal.
anonymous , May 17, 2017 at 11:38 am GMT@The Alarmist You heard it here first, nearly a year ago ... just sayin'!
JackOH , May 17, 2017 at 1:21 pm GMTHis murder is very troubling. Nothing was taken so it seems he was targeted. Assassinations taking place in the US should be of great concern to everyone. This shouldn't be allowed to go down the memory hole. Does the trail lead to Clinton or other domestic spook groups?
Anonymous Nephew , May 17, 2017 at 2:39 pm GMTOnly scanned the article quickly, but I'm very confident an untold number of political decisions in America are made by political violence and threats of violence, blackmail, bribery, and so on. There are good people in politics, even in my preternaturally corrupt area, but they have to be tough as nails, and that can wear you out. We may be closer to Tinpot-istan in our political culture than Norman Rockwell, but–Chrissake–where are the mainstream media in this Seth Rich case? I'm just a casual reader of the story, but I'd like to know if this was a political assassination.
The Alarmist , May 17, 2017 at 2:54 pm GMTDidn't Podesta say he wanted "an example made" of leakers, even if only suspected?
Jus' Sayin'... , May 17, 2017 at 4:34 pm GMT@Anonym I think I was one of the first, maybe the first on here. August 6 2016. And I got the lowdown from the_donald.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/2016-election-is-driven-by-large-scale-events-happening-or-not-happening/?highlight=seth+rich#comment-1519430
OutWest , May 17, 2017 at 5:06 pm GMTWhat did HE die from?
made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter
I thought it was ex-ambassador Craig Murray who did the deed? He even confirmed it:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiLeaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html
The above-reference tabloid is derided by goodthinking Brits but seems to deliver the dirty underwear.
Anon , May 17, 2017 at 7:35 pm GMTI suspect there's as much evidence in the Seth Rich matter as there is in The-Russians-Did-It theory. So let's have congress drop all other business and "investigate" this Rich matter.
Anonym , May 17, 2017 at 9:24 pm GMTWheeler is a Negro.. and Negroes are pathological liars.
anon , May 17, 2017 at 9:28 pm GMT@The Alarmist http://www.unz.com/plee/trumputin-and-the-leaks/#comment-1507217
Got you by a few days
Corvinus , May 17, 2017 at 9:54 pm GMT@Anon Wheeler is a Negro.. and Negroes are pathological liars.
Corvinus , May 17, 2017 at 9:56 pm GMT"According to a new report from Fox News, it was former DNC staffer Seth Rich who supplied 44,000 DNC emails to WikiLeaks and not some random Russian cyber terrorist, as we've all been led to believe."
Does it occur to Durden that there may be SEPARATE WikiLeaks, one allegedly from Rich and one from another source?
Alfa158 , May 17, 2017 at 11:57 pm GMT@Anon Wheeler is a Negro.. and Negroes are pathological liars.
Sandy Berger's Socks , May 18, 2017 at 12:09 am GMT@Corvinus "According to a new report from Fox News, it was former DNC staffer Seth Rich who supplied 44,000 DNC emails to WikiLeaks and not some random Russian cyber terrorist, as we've all been led to believe."
Does it occur to Durden that there may be SEPARATE WikiLeaks, one allegedly from Rich and one from another source?
Reg Cæsar , May 18, 2017 at 1:01 am GMTTrump has been thrown a life line with this.
This may well be his last chance to pull back the curtain and show us how the deep state handles leaks/dissent.
APPAF Newsletter 05-18-2017 | APPAF , May 18, 2017 at 1:43 am GMT@SteveRogers42 Excellent point from Anonymous Conservative: Metro DC is probably wired for surveillance to a degree that would astonish most people, and yet the official line is that "ain't nobody seen nuthin".
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/reward-for-seth-richs-murder-up-to-150000/
Even the police who handled the scene wore body cameras, and Rich was conscious when they arrived. Where are the audio/video records?
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/05/developing-seth-rich-alive-police-found-police-camera-video-went-missing/
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/792875315920048128/photo/1
Corvinus , May 18, 2017 at 1:58 am GMT[ ] The Unz Review: Murdered DNC Staffer Seth Rich Shared 44,053 Democrat Emails with WikiLeaks: Report [ ]
Anonymous , May 18, 2017 at 2:08 am GMT@Alfa158 The Wikileaks site shows two batches of leaked e-mails. One is the 44,053 from the DNC and the other 30,000 plus from Hilary's e-mail server. Wikileaks doesn't say on their site specifically what the sources were. They did offer a reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich, which implies, but does not state, that the DNC leaks came from Rich.
The Hillary e-mails could have been hacked by the Russians, any number of other intelligence sources, or even a skilled amateur.
Then on top of all that fog, other conflicting information is that the DNC lost control of the e-mails due to Podesta falling for a phishing probe, even after his IT people warned him not to respond to it.
Yet another journalist claims he was the guy who forwarded the e-mails to Wikileaks and got them from a DNC staffer, but not Rich!
I think I'll go take a nap for about 5 years and you can wake me up after it is all sorted out.Sam McGowan , • Website May 18, 2017 at 2:25 am GMT@SteveRogers42 Excellent point from Anonymous Conservative: Metro DC is probably wired for surveillance to a degree that would astonish most people, and yet the official line is that "ain't nobody seen nuthin".
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/reward-for-seth-richs-murder-up-to-150000/
Even the police who handled the scene wore body cameras, and Rich was conscious when they arrived. Where are the audio/video records?
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/05/developing-seth-rich-alive-police-found-police-camera-video-went-missing/
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/792875315920048128/photo/1
anon , May 18, 2017 at 3:06 am GMTWhat did HE die from?
made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter
I thought it was ex-ambassador Craig Murray who did the deed? He even confirmed it:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiLeaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html
The above-reference tabloid is derided by goodthinking Brits but seems to deliver the dirty underwear.
jim jones , May 18, 2017 at 8:06 am GMTWhy doesn't Assange release at least some of the e-mails from Seth Rich to Wikileaks?
Ronald Thomas West , • Website May 18, 2017 at 9:23 am GMT@anon Is there a specific combination on DNA of Negroes that carries the "pathological liar" trait?
What is that DNA pattern?
Does it appear only on NEGRO DNA or has its presence been noted on non-Negro DNA?A majority of Black callers to C Span declare, with gospel certainty, that "Trump is a liar, has been all his life."
Does that mean that Trump carries Negro DNA?
Or that Trump is a Negro?
Or that the code for lying can be present in non-Negroes?
Or that Negroes, being "pathological liars," lie about Trump being a liar?Is that last statement disproved if it happens that Trump does, indeed, lie?
My but it does get complicated when blanket, prejudiced generalizations are slung about.
Seamus Padraig , May 18, 2017 at 10:30 am GMTI'm not impressed. For quite some time there has been a credible witness to the fact of an insider leaked the DNC mails that doesn't require going through anonymous FBI sources or climbing over a Rich family in denial:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
"I know who leaked them. I've met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it's an insider. It's a leak, not a hack; the two are different things" -wikileaks associate and former British foreign service officer Craig Murray
So why would 'tyler durden' toss all of this doubt inducing crap from the faux news channel into the stew of it? It's been black & white, case closed for quite some time.
Seamus Padraig , May 18, 2017 at 10:36 am GMT@Anon Wheeler is a Negro.. and Negroes are pathological liars.
Joe Franklin , May 18, 2017 at 11:30 am GMT@anon Why doesn't Assange release at least some of the e-mails from Seth Rich to Wikileaks?
Corvinus , May 18, 2017 at 12:26 pm GMT@anon Why doesn't Assange release at least some of the e-mails from Seth Rich to Wikileaks?
Corvinus , May 18, 2017 at 12:34 pm GMT@jim jones I believe the MAOA gene is assumed to be the problem:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933872/
Ronald Thomas West , • Website May 18, 2017 at 1:15 pm GMT@Ronald Thomas West I'm not impressed. For quite some time there has been a credible witness to the fact of an insider leaked the DNC mails that doesn't require going through anonymous FBI sources or climbing over a Rich family in denial:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
"I know who leaked them. I've met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it's an insider. It's a leak, not a hack; the two are different things" -wikileaks associate and former British foreign service officer Craig Murray
So why would 'tyler durden' toss all of this doubt inducing crap from the faux news channel into the stew of it? It's been black & white, case closed for quite some time.
Corvinus , May 18, 2017 at 2:17 pm GMT@Corvinus One can have reasonable doubt that Craig Murray "knows" who leaked them since he has self-interest and self-preservation in mind.
Mr. Murray made this statement--"A little simple logic demolishes the CIA's claims. The CIA claim they "know the individuals" involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks."
Except if the "Deep State" is playing for keeps and is hell-bent on removing Trump, then they are going to play it close to the vest in certain matters and wait until they have the absolute goods to nail him to the cross. So it's not as "simple" as Mr. Murray makes it out to be. Arrests and/or extraditions are most likely made when there is hard-core evidence, which is required in this case given Trump status and popularity among his base. They have ONE bullet in their chamber and have to get the KILL SHOT. The CIA has their attack dogs out en masses to smoke out the culprits. If it is revealed that in the two grand juries that Trump's crew are joined at the hip with the Russians and/or engaged in shenanigans, then Republicans will have to think about cutting their ties to Trump given the importance of the mid-term elections.
Hood Canal Gardner , May 18, 2017 at 2:50 pm GMT@Ronald Thomas West Clearly you're just way too smart for ordinary folk with common sense; kind of like the IQ 180 that believes Jesus will return and straighten everything out. Meanwhile, I'll take Murray at his word.
Agent76 , May 18, 2017 at 3:08 pm GMTJHC .. we do it/have been doing it (eg) meddling in foreign elections, wars, whacking the occasional candidate since the Spanish-American War and say "its okay, it's in the national interest."
What's the point with the supposed Russia-US election bashing? Ie, it's okay and national interest legal for the US to meddle and others not?
Agent76 , May 18, 2017 at 3:14 pm GMTMay 17, 2017 The Seth Rich Story Changes Once Again
Less than 24 hours after Private Investigator Rod Wheeler claimed that "investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks," the story has changed. Wheeler is now claiming that he had no additional evidence to suggest that Seth Rich contacted WikiLeaks prior to his murder.
Ronald Thomas West , • Website May 18, 2017 at 5:49 pm GMT14.05.2017 International Cyber Attack: Roots Traced to US National Security Agency
Over 45,000 ransomware attacks have been tracked in large-scale attacks across Europe and Asia - particularly Russia and China - as well as attacks in the US and South America. There are reports of infections in 99 countries. A string of ransomware attacks appears to have started in the United Kingdom, Spain and the rest of Europe, before striking Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines on May 12. According to Kaspersky Laboratory, Russia, Ukraine, India and Taiwan were hit hardest. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki-based cybersecurity company F-Secure, called the attack "the biggest ransomware outbreak in history". It is not known who exactly was behind it.
Anon , May 18, 2017 at 5:51 pm GMT@Corvinus "Clearly you're just way too smart for ordinary folk with common sense...:
I'm merely offering my analysis from multiple sources.
"kind of like the IQ 180 that believes Jesus will return and straighten everything out."
Exactly. It is faith. One can question that belief, but you nor I actually know.
"Meanwhile, I'll take Murray at his word."
In order to maintain his narrative, absolutely. But you may be missing key things along the way. We'll see how it all plays out. The two grand juries being convened on the Trump Administration will be telling.
Bill Jones , May 18, 2017 at 8:21 pm GMT@Agent76 May 17, 2017 The Seth Rich Story Changes Once Again
Less than 24 hours after Private Investigator Rod Wheeler claimed that "investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks," the story has changed. Wheeler is now claiming that he had no additional evidence to suggest that Seth Rich contacted WikiLeaks prior to his murder.
https://youtu.be/wQRDkppCqNM
El Dato , May 18, 2017 at 10:14 pm GMT@Ram Three days after the Seth Rich murder Comey had the information (IF he didn't already know) gleaned from Rich's laptop that he had been in correspondence with Wikileaks, yet went along with the canard that the DNC was hacked by the Russians till the very end. Assange's confirmation that Russians had no connection to the LEAK was also ignored, because they wanted Assange painted as a criminal.
Sowhat , May 18, 2017 at 11:15 pm GMT@Anonymous I feel the same way about the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 9/11
That must be literally the most surveillance heavy facility on the planet -- yet there is no footage of the crash/aftermath?
The whole system is crooked. Anything that incriminates the power structure simply disappears. And there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to even look into it.
Corvinus , May 18, 2017 at 11:29 pm GMT@Corvinus One can have reasonable doubt that Craig Murray "knows" who leaked them since he has self-interest and self-preservation in mind.
Mr. Murray made this statement--"A little simple logic demolishes the CIA's claims. The CIA claim they "know the individuals" involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks."
Except if the "Deep State" is playing for keeps and is hell-bent on removing Trump, then they are going to play it close to the vest in certain matters and wait until they have the absolute goods to nail him to the cross. So it's not as "simple" as Mr. Murray makes it out to be. Arrests and/or extraditions are most likely made when there is hard-core evidence, which is required in this case given Trump status and popularity among his base. They have ONE bullet in their chamber and have to get the KILL SHOT. The CIA has their attack dogs out en masses to smoke out the culprits. If it is revealed that in the two grand juries that Trump's crew are joined at the hip with the Russians and/or engaged in shenanigans, then Republicans will have to think about cutting their ties to Trump given the importance of the mid-term elections.
Anonym , May 18, 2017 at 11:58 pm GMT@Ronald Thomas West huh. I'd supposed you'd sorted 'faith' with alleles [belly laugh]
Bill Jones , May 19, 2017 at 12:07 am GMT@anon Is there a specific combination on DNA of Negroes that carries the "pathological liar" trait?
What is that DNA pattern?
Does it appear only on NEGRO DNA or has its presence been noted on non-Negro DNA?A majority of Black callers to C Span declare, with gospel certainty, that "Trump is a liar, has been all his life."
Does that mean that Trump carries Negro DNA?
Or that Trump is a Negro?
Or that the code for lying can be present in non-Negroes?
Or that Negroes, being "pathological liars," lie about Trump being a liar?Is that last statement disproved if it happens that Trump does, indeed, lie?
My but it does get complicated when blanket, prejudiced generalizations are slung about.
anon , May 19, 2017 at 12:10 am GMT@El Dato That was in 2001.
Different age. Watch the "X Files" for the tech quality,
Didn't even have mobile phones with cameras.
SteveRogers42 , May 19, 2017 at 3:37 am GMTone of the key elements of this story is the media completely ignoring the Seth Rich angle
Eagle Eye , May 19, 2017 at 6:36 am GMT@Anonymous I feel the same way about the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 9/11
That must be literally the most surveillance heavy facility on the planet -- yet there is no footage of the crash/aftermath?
The whole system is crooked. Anything that incriminates the power structure simply disappears. And there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to even look into it.
Eagle Eye , May 19, 2017 at 6:39 am GMT@Alfa158 The Wikileaks site shows two batches of leaked e-mails. One is the 44,053 from the DNC and the other 30,000 plus from Hilary's e-mail server. Wikileaks doesn't say on their site specifically what the sources were. They did offer a reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich, which implies, but does not state, that the DNC leaks came from Rich.
The Hillary e-mails could have been hacked by the Russians, any number of other intelligence sources, or even a skilled amateur.
Then on top of all that fog, other conflicting information is that the DNC lost control of the e-mails due to Podesta falling for a phishing probe, even after his IT people warned him not to respond to it.
Yet another journalist claims he was the guy who forwarded the e-mails to Wikileaks and got them from a DNC staffer, but not Rich!
I think I'll go take a nap for about 5 years and you can wake me up after it is all sorted out.Don Bass , May 19, 2017 at 9:30 am GMT@anon one of the key elements of this story is the media completely ignoring the Seth Rich angle
Don Bass , May 19, 2017 at 9:42 am GMT@Corvinus "The Wikileaks site shows two batches of leaked e-mails. One is the 44,053 from the DNC and the other 30,000 plus from Hilary's e-mail server. Wikileaks doesn't say on their site specifically what the sources were. The Hillary e-mails could have been hacked by the Russians, any number of other intelligence sources, or even a skilled amateur."
Exactly. So Zerohedge is being a White Knight here for Trump. It is possible that Rich could have supplied those documents, but it is also possible that the Russians was involved. We don't know for sure.
Seamus Padraig , May 19, 2017 at 2:02 pm GMTAccording to the standard version of the story, Rich did not email the pilfered DNC data to Wikileaks. Rather, he met in DC with Craig Murray--a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a personal friend of Julian Assange--and gave him the information on a flashdrive of some type. Murray then flew back to Britain and gave the drive to Assange in person.
Why doesn't Assange release at least some of the e-mails from Seth Rich to Wikileaks?
Corvinus , May 19, 2017 at 3:04 pm GMT@Don Bass ......We don't know for sure.....
Sure, we do. Wikileaks has stated emphatically and categorically the leaks - and they were leaks, not " hacks", were not sourced from the Russians.
What also know - for sure - is that the "Russians hacked our elections" psy-op/misdirect was constructed (workshopped) by the Podesta + David Brookes media matters "team" immediately after the HRC election failure.OutWest , May 19, 2017 at 4:01 pm GMT@Don Bass ......We don't know for sure.....
Sure, we do. Wikileaks has stated emphatically and categorically the leaks - and they were leaks, not " hacks", were not sourced from the Russians.
What also know - for sure - is that the "Russians hacked our elections" psy-op/misdirect was constructed (workshopped) by the Podesta + David Brookes media matters "team" immediately after the HRC election failure.Intelligent Dasein , • Website May 19, 2017 at 5:13 pm GMTWell, it must have been the Russians that hacked into the NY Times and published that damning article about Hil and Libya. It was a rather complete exposé of incompetence and savagery. Note; the New York Times! And where did Trump live? Pretty conclusive; Trump and the Russians victimizing poor Hil and the voice of liberals in one dastardly hack.
Dahlia , May 20, 2017 at 2:08 am GMT@Anonymous I feel the same way about the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 9/11
That must be literally the most surveillance heavy facility on the planet -- yet there is no footage of the crash/aftermath?
The whole system is crooked. Anything that incriminates the power structure simply disappears. And there doesn't seem to be any mechanism to even look into it.
Dahlia , May 20, 2017 at 2:38 am GMTThere's been so much smoke and mirrors on this, that it makes one want to throw his hands up
Before I even start, if anyone reporting on this does not mention Craig Murray, a well-known and respected associate of Julian Assange involved with Wikileaks, and his claim back in December that he personally received the hand-off of the DNC emails from insiders in DC, that person IS A HACK.
I followed it closely when he came out and was shocked and dismayed that barely anybody (nobody?) in the United States followed up with him. They just ignored him. I guess because he couldn't be dismissed as a hack and what he said torpedoed the "Russians did it" narrative, so just hope nobody heard him.
Craig Murray did not mention Seth Rich. What the American MSM's ignoring of him shows, though, is that *anything* that casts doubt on the "Russians did it" narrative will be obfuscated, ignored, etc. Expect to be gaslit.
AnywayOne issue muddying the waters is that the two major "breakthroughs" come from "FOX": a local affiliate and Fox News.
I understand that there are problems with the local affiliate, but I gather, NOT the Fox News story Am I wrong?
If the Fox News reporting is correct, it's huge, and their's was the more substantive to begin with: law enforcement sources said Seth Rich had been in contact with Gavin MacFadyen.
(if the local guy was bluffing in order to have fresh attention and get people to come forward, it was worth it)Gavin MacFadyen seems to have had a relationship with Craig Murray, and both had/have a relationship with Julian Assange. Seth Rich being in contact with Gavin MacFadyen greatly lends credibility to Craig Murray's account.
(Here, both are mentioned together in the book "Ghost Plane: The True Story Story of the CIA Torture Program" https://books.google.com/books?id=NLzB7YXDHNUC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq=gavin+macfadyen+craig+murray+cia&source=bl&ots=KKy1_V2atM&sig=1CYGRZjnOxmcRIGk9RNx1iQhWcA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigk-7br_3TAhXo7oMKHTOrCT0Q6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=gavin%20macfadyen%20craig%20murray%20cia&f=false )Obviously, the answer to our impasse is: Interview Craig Murray
We have two questions:
a. Was Seth Rich involved in leaking to Wikileaks?
b. Who killed Seth Rich?The answer to question "a" greatly changes the odds and focus for question "b". Of course, the DNC could also be the unluckiest organization going in that the guy who destroyed them via leaking had the temerity to go get himself killed by some random thugs who got away!
I see that Mike Whitney has just written about this, including Craig Murray, at Counterpunch:
Dahlia , May 20, 2017 at 2:43 am GMT@Dahlia There's been so much smoke and mirrors on this, that it makes one want to throw his hands up...
Before I even start, if anyone reporting on this does not mention Craig Murray, a well-known and respected associate of Julian Assange involved with Wikileaks, and his claim back in December that he personally received the hand-off of the DNC emails from insiders in DC, that person IS A HACK.
I followed it closely when he came out and was shocked and dismayed that barely anybody (nobody?) in the United States followed up with him. They just ignored him. I guess because he couldn't be dismissed as a hack and what he said torpedoed the "Russians did it" narrative, so just hope nobody heard him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiLeaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html
Craig Murray did not mention Seth Rich. What the American MSM's ignoring of him shows, though, is that *anything* that casts doubt on the "Russians did it" narrative will be obfuscated, ignored, etc. Expect to be gaslit.
Anyway...One issue muddying the waters is that the two major "breakthroughs" come from "FOX": a local affiliate and Fox News.
I understand that there are problems with the local affiliate, but I gather, NOT the Fox News story... Am I wrong?
If the Fox News reporting is correct, it's huge, and their's was the more substantive to begin with: law enforcement sources said Seth Rich had been in contact with Gavin MacFadyen.
(if the local guy was bluffing in order to have fresh attention and get people to come forward, it was worth it)Gavin MacFadyen seems to have had a relationship with Craig Murray, and both had/have a relationship with Julian Assange. Seth Rich being in contact with Gavin MacFadyen greatly lends credibility to Craig Murray's account.
(Here, both are mentioned together in the book "Ghost Plane: The True Story Story of the CIA Torture Program"
https://books.google.com/books?id=NLzB7YXDHNUC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq=gavin+macfadyen+craig+murray+cia&source=bl&ots=KKy1_V2atM&sig=1CYGRZjnOxmcRIGk9RNx1iQhWcA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigk-7br_3TAhXo7oMKHTOrCT0Q6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=gavin%20macfadyen%20craig%20murray%20cia&f=false)We have two questions:
Obviously, the answer to our impasse is: Interview Craig Murray
a. Was Seth Rich involved in leaking to Wikileaks?
b. Who killed Seth Rich?The answer to question "a" greatly changes the odds and focus for question "b". Of course, the DNC could also be the unluckiest organization going in that the guy who destroyed them via leaking had the temerity to go get himself killed by some random thugs who got away!
I see that Mike Whitney has just written about this, including Craig Murray, at Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/19/seth-rich-craig-murray-and-the-sinister-stewards-of-the-national-security-state/Dahlia , May 20, 2017 at 2:55 am GMTCraig Murray on Seth Rich:
In reference to the leak of the DNC emails, Murray noted that "Julian Assange took very close interest in the death of Seth Rich, the Democratic staff member" who had worked for the DNC on voter databases and was shot and killed on July 10 near his Washington, D.C., home.
Murray continued, "WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture of his killers. So, obviously there are suspicions there about what's happening and things are somewhat murky. I'm not saying – don't get me wrong – I'm not saying that he was the source of the [DNC] leaks. What I'm saying is that it's probably not an unfair indication to draw that WikiLeaks believes that he may have been killed by someone who thought he was the source of the leaks whether correctly or incorrectly. "
It may be worth noting that conspiracy theories have sprung up around other Democratic figures, but Julian Assange hasn't brought them up. Just took a strong interest in this one.
Dahlia , May 20, 2017 at 4:14 am GMTFinal comment in this string, so readers can check out Craig Murray's site. Maybe Ron Unz can get a hold of him?
Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
Can't say it enough: Discount anybody who doesn't reference Julian Assange or Craig Murray (and Gavin MacFadyen if the national Fox News stands by its sources and I believe they do) when opining on Seth Rich or the Democratic emails.
RobinG , May 20, 2017 at 6:37 am GMTI saw that Dave Weigel is planning on writing a piece on the Seth Rich conspiracy
The #1 thing fueling it is the Media ignoring Assange and his associates emphatically stating that it was insiders, not Russia, involved with the Democratic leaks. These people received them, and long after the election when they have no possible motive, still vehemently deny that it was Russia. Craig Murray spoke out in December. They have perfect credibility, and at this stage, no motive that could be suspect. But they continue to be utterly, completely, ignored while the Russia circus runs on. So, a bona fide Bernie supporter is murdered and Julian Assange took extreme interest How do people *not* question what is going on?
My spidey sense tells me that Seth Rich was a provider of intelligence to Julian Assange, but he really does not know who killed him. I think Assange holds out some hope that it was a random one-off thug thing, but deep down, suspects it's not. The guilt would be tremendous. But, he doesn't know. Strongly suspects. Tortured with guilt.
SteveRogers42 , May 20, 2017 at 7:44 am GMT@Dahlia There's been so much smoke and mirrors on this, that it makes one want to throw his hands up...
Before I even start, if anyone reporting on this does not mention Craig Murray, a well-known and respected associate of Julian Assange involved with Wikileaks, and his claim back in December that he personally received the hand-off of the DNC emails from insiders in DC, that person IS A HACK.
I followed it closely when he came out and was shocked and dismayed that barely anybody (nobody?) in the United States followed up with him. They just ignored him. I guess because he couldn't be dismissed as a hack and what he said torpedoed the "Russians did it" narrative, so just hope nobody heard him.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiLeaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html
Craig Murray did not mention Seth Rich. What the American MSM's ignoring of him shows, though, is that *anything* that casts doubt on the "Russians did it" narrative will be obfuscated, ignored, etc. Expect to be gaslit.
Anyway...One issue muddying the waters is that the two major "breakthroughs" come from "FOX": a local affiliate and Fox News.
I understand that there are problems with the local affiliate, but I gather, NOT the Fox News story... Am I wrong?
If the Fox News reporting is correct, it's huge, and their's was the more substantive to begin with: law enforcement sources said Seth Rich had been in contact with Gavin MacFadyen.
(if the local guy was bluffing in order to have fresh attention and get people to come forward, it was worth it)Gavin MacFadyen seems to have had a relationship with Craig Murray, and both had/have a relationship with Julian Assange. Seth Rich being in contact with Gavin MacFadyen greatly lends credibility to Craig Murray's account.
(Here, both are mentioned together in the book "Ghost Plane: The True Story Story of the CIA Torture Program"
https://books.google.com/books?id=NLzB7YXDHNUC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq=gavin+macfadyen+craig+murray+cia&source=bl&ots=KKy1_V2atM&sig=1CYGRZjnOxmcRIGk9RNx1iQhWcA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigk-7br_3TAhXo7oMKHTOrCT0Q6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=gavin%20macfadyen%20craig%20murray%20cia&f=false)We have two questions:
Obviously, the answer to our impasse is: Interview Craig Murray
a. Was Seth Rich involved in leaking to Wikileaks?
b. Who killed Seth Rich?The answer to question "a" greatly changes the odds and focus for question "b". Of course, the DNC could also be the unluckiest organization going in that the guy who destroyed them via leaking had the temerity to go get himself killed by some random thugs who got away!
I see that Mike Whitney has just written about this, including Craig Murray, at Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/19/seth-rich-craig-murray-and-the-sinister-stewards-of-the-national-security-state/jim jones , May 20, 2017 at 8:17 am GMTHow common is it for the FBI to seize the computer of a homicide victim and analyze the contents?
SteveRogers42 , May 20, 2017 at 9:57 am GMTIt looks as if the Seth Rich story has destroyed Reddit, all the Trump supporters are moving to Voat.
alexander , May 20, 2017 at 10:19 am GMTCoincidences abound:
http://truthuncensored.net/julian-assanges-lawyer-found-dead-after-being-struck-by-train-video/
JackOH , May 20, 2017 at 10:55 am GMT@Dahlia Final comment in this string, so readers can check out Craig Murray's site. Maybe Ron Unz can get a hold of him?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/
Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.Can't say it enough: Discount anybody who doesn't reference Julian Assange or Craig Murray (and Gavin MacFadyen if the national Fox News stands by its sources and I believe they do) when opining on Seth Rich or the Democratic emails.
Ludwig Watzal , • Website May 20, 2017 at 12:12 pm GMT@SteveRogers42 Coincidences abound:
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/08/shawn-lucas-cause-of-death-still-unknown-as-clintons-campaign-lawyer-tries-to-move-dnc-lawsuit-into-the-weeds/
http://truthuncensored.net/julian-assanges-lawyer-found-dead-after-being-struck-by-train-video/
anon , May 20, 2017 at 3:10 pm GMTIs Seth Rich the only victim on the bloody Clinton trail? The Clinton company is the only one that should be investigated.
Agent76 , May 20, 2017 at 8:10 pm GMT@Eagle Eye Seth Rich was quite young and perhaps not 100% wise to the ways of the world.
Is it conceivable that he passed the DNC emails to Comey's FBI FIRST as evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and THEN handed another copy to Wikileaks as backup?
Perhaps Rich went to Wikileaks only after Comeys' FBI gave him the brush-off?
Eagle Eye , May 20, 2017 at 8:13 pm GMT@Anon Yeah, I had doubts from the start.
Never trust a Negro.
alexander , May 20, 2017 at 9:45 pm GMT@alexander Dahlia,
You have done some really good work here.
Thanks for it.
But I must say something ....Every recent article pertaining to Seth Rich, including Mike's , misses the MEAT of the entire story.
The MEAT of the story is to be found in Seth Rich's JOB.
What did he do, Dahlia ?
He was a VOTER DATA DIRECTOR for the DNC....for gosh sakes!
If the story begins anywhere, it begins HERE.
Seth Rich's story begins when we recognize the high probability that Seth came across SUBSTANTIAL and REPEATED irregularities in the VOTER DATA, tilting the outcomes in favor of Hillary.
This is the crux of the case.
It is also fair to assume that Seth Rich , given his role as "data director" , was able to COLLECT these voter data discrepancies, and collate them into a fool proof evidentiary format.
Its the DATA which Seth found , that is the key... ...its the MEAT of the story.
But the DATA and the repeated systemic irregularities which he became aware of, could have been glitches in the system for all he KNEW.
This is where we get to ......the POTATOES.
What are the potatoes?.....the potatoes are the EMAILS which show an INTENTIONALITY behind the DATA irregularities......and expose them not just as "glitches" in the system,but as potentially deliberate and "treasonous" voter fraud.
A very serious case of multiple felonies by the DNC machine, and its party bosses, could be made if you have both the MEAT (the data)and the POTATOES(the emails) of the case.
But you need BOTH, one without the other is not enough.
Givens Seth's JOB, the high probability he had the DATA in HAND, may well be why he was shot in the back at four in the morning on July 10th, 2016.
If anyone wishes to solve this case..(or prosecute it)..they need to find the DATA CHIP....because
while the emails may show an "intentionality" to usurp the voters say in the DNC nomination , the DATA provides the PROOF.May there be no doubt on this,.... everyone "involved" in these "dirty shenanigans" wants that data "exterminated" for all time, .....and the entire story SHUT DOWN.
ASAP.
FKA Max , May 21, 2017 at 12:23 am GMTThis explanation - that Seth Rich had direct evidence of massive vote fraud - has always seemed most likely to me. The leaks are secondary.
Seth Rich , given his role as "data director" , was able to COLLECT these voter data discrepancies, and collate them into a fool proof evidentiary format.
Again, he most likely went to the FBI and/or the U.S. media FIRST, but was betrayed by them leading to his murder. He ALSO passed the data to Wikileaks.
So let's estimate the NUMBER of fraudulent votes controlled by the DNC. There are several categories:
(1) Illegal aliens registered to vote through La Raza, SEIU and similar DNC fronts.
(2) Other spurious voter registrations, e.g. dead voters, double voting (different addresses), completely fictitious voter registrations concocted by complicit SEIU staff at registrars' offices.
(3) Zombie votes - technically correct voter registration, but the vote is actually cast by the SEIU, e.g. residents of nursing homes, mental hospitals, military votes (which often mysteriously are not delivered to the military voter),
Given the period of time during which this has been operative, and the need to make a serious nation-wide impact, it seems reasonable to estimate that the DNC controls about 3-7 million illegal votes nationwide .
The largest number would be in California. Although California overall is a blue state, there are conservative pockets and some conservative candidates came close to the Democratic candidate in statewide and local races.
JackOH , May 21, 2017 at 2:53 am GMTFrom Vox Day's blog:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAE8tcsW0AANXI7.jpg
DC surgery resident on call the night of Seth Rich's death says Rich's gunshot wounds were non-fatal, access to him by the doctors was blocked by DC police, and no code was called when he died.
That's not fishy, right?
– http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/05/and-yet-still-curiouser.html
FKA Max , May 21, 2017 at 4:33 am GMT@FKA Max From Vox Day's blog:
- http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/05/and-yet-still-curiouser.html
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAE8tcsW0AANXI7.jpgDC surgery resident on call the night of Seth Rich's death says Rich's gunshot wounds were non-fatal, access to him by the doctors was blocked by DC police, and no code was called when he died.
That's not fishy, right?
SteveRogers42 , May 21, 2017 at 4:56 am GMT@JackOH I read the links. My understanding is that some cops will go rogue without instruction and on their own initiative to jump the queue for advancement. There's not much deep-think to it. The political benefactor won't know any more than something like "the problem was taken care of".
Seth Rich. Is there someone in the food chain who can apply pressure to find a credible suspect and, if possible, a motive? Again, I'm just a casual reader, but the failure to get to the truth of the Seth Rich killing seems to empower a whole lot of political mischief.
JackOH , May 21, 2017 at 12:09 pm GMT@JackOH SR42, your references are exactly what I was getting at in my comment #12 above.
I never took seriously the notion that American political decisions are made by violence and other criminal activities until I got a very minor rough-up by a crooked cop for my smalltime local politicking. That cop later got a cushy government job under the influence of a local Mr. Big whom I'd offended. Karma kicked in, and that cop's alcoholism and boorish behavior got him canned. I never quit writing, but I was pretty damn scared for a while.
Eagle Eye , May 21, 2017 at 10:31 pm GMT@SteveRogers42 Until the Clintons came along, LBJ was probably the heavyweight champ of that sort of $#!t:
http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwallaceM.htm
Eagle Eye , May 21, 2017 at 10:43 pm GMT@alexander You may be 100% correct ,Eagle eye,
In all the categories of potential voter fraud you cited.
But I would imagine the vote "switching" from Bernie to Hillary, or the mysterious "disappearance" of a substantial percentage of "Bernie votes" in key districts and perhaps certain states, too, is what caught Seth's eye.
But it could be all of it....and more too...for all we know....Without the data to look at..it's all just speculation.
Dahlia , May 21, 2017 at 11:11 pm GMT@FKA Max From Vox Day's blog:
- http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/05/and-yet-still-curiouser.html
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAE8tcsW0AANXI7.jpgDC surgery resident on call the night of Seth Rich's death says Rich's gunshot wounds were non-fatal, access to him by the doctors was blocked by DC police, and no code was called when he died.
That's not fishy, right?
Dahlia , May 21, 2017 at 11:53 pm GMT@JackOH Thanks, and also to FKA Max.
My own experience, which included a failed blackmail attempt against me, and, possibly, the failed solicitation of a bribe, taught me something about American political process. I asked myself why in the hell are a few important local people getting their knickers in a twist over a not very important guy who's doing no more than writing a lot and doing local radio a lot? The only answer I came up with was they believed, falsely , I was staging a run for political office, that I was reasonably persuasive and therefore a threat of some sort, and they wanted me pre-emptively in the bag. BTW-I did consider legal action against some of these slobs, but effective legal process costs money I didn't have.
FWIW-I'm unhappy, too, about the hair-tearing speculation over the Seth Rich case. The only way I can think of to put much of that speculation to rest is to find the killer and make the case against him.
Dahlia , May 22, 2017 at 12:42 am GMTJust found something that genuinely stuns me, and is important to know in context of "debunking" articles
Ali, a political activist involved with the Anthony Weiner contretemps ,
"How disillusioned would you become if we had and shared evidence with media that #Weiner was after underaged kids and no one acted?"
and
"Most of you will never know the extent to the work we did on the Weiner case from the get-go. Media silenced @AndrewBreitbart's facts."
and
"Weiner's underage child molesting and sexting 'problem' only became a 'problem' when it ran up against Hillary Clinton's coming presidency."
Thread here:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ali/status/866429043595288578
I'd heard something echoing this a couple days ago, but found it so unbelievable. Then, Dave Weigel, et al., knowing for a fact that statements from Julian Assange, Craig Murray, and the late Gavin MacFadyen are the reasons for interest in Seth Rich's murder, completely write them out. They don't exist.
William Binney, arguably one of the best mathematicians ever to work at the National Security Agency, and former CIA officer Ray McGovern, have argued that the emails must have come from a leak because a hack would be traceable by the NSA.
I'd forgotten this so many people including Scott Ritter of "Iraq has no WMD" fame have said similar.
But seriously, if you don't believe Assange or Murray who have firsthand knowledge, William Binney rests the case: leak not hack.
Doesn't mean the murdered DNC operative was involved with leaks or that even if he was, that's why he was killed, but one can't be closed-minded.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/17/seth-rich-murder-case-stirs-russia-doubts/
Scott Ritter on DNC emails
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cia-russia-dnc-hacking_us_584f535ee4b0bd9c3dfe722e
[May 21, 2017] Do High-Level Leaks Suggest a Conspiracy by Philip Giraldi
Notable quotes:
"... I now suspect that there is indeed a group at the top of the U.S. national security system that wants to remove Donald Trump and has wanted to do so for quite some time. ..."
"... Their program is simple: convince the nation that the president and his team colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election in his favor, which, if demonstrable even if not necessarily true, would provide grounds for impeachment. They are motivated by the belief that removing Trump must be done "for the good of the country" and they are willing to do what they consider correcting a mistake made by the American voters. They are assisted in their effort by the mainstream media, which agrees with both the methods employed and the overall objective and is completely on board with the process. ..."
"... Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest. ..."
"... "Perhaps if the man could inspire loyalty in his troops this problem would never exist." Yes–a leader must *inspire* loyalty, not demand it over dinner at the White House. ..."
May 18, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
National-security officials may see themselves as patriots, but their methods set a dangerous precedent.Back in my time in the CIA, there were two places in the headquarters building one could go that were free speech zones-places where it was safe to vent about senior management without necessarily being admonished or even reported. They were the Historical Intelligence Collection room off the library, where no one ever went to look at the books, and the office supplies storage room in the basement. The supplies room had a lot of dark corners and concealing shelves where it was possible to be anonymous and it was completely unsupervised in the belief that true-blue CIA officers would never stoop to taking even a single pencil more than was actually needed to get the job done.
I don't know if those rooms still exist, but I sometimes think of them when the subject of government conspiracies come up. I have this vision of two or three conspirators huddled in the corner behind the staplers back in 1975 discussing how one would go about eliminating the likes of Senator Frank Church, who at that time was heading a major congressional investigation into CIA improprieties.
If there had been such a gathering, I would imagine that the Washington Post would have found out about it on the next day as intelligence officers are gregarious and like to talk. This has been my principal problem with the debate in some quarters about the 9/11 Commission. Their report did indeed miss many important angles in order to protect certain governmental interests, but if there had been a genuine conspiracy involving what must have been hundreds of people to demolish the Twin Towers with explosives, it surely would have leaked long ago.
Two months ago, I would have dismissed as fantasy any thoughts of a conspiracy based in America's national security agencies to bring down Donald Trump. But now I am not so sure. Many of my friends who are former intelligence officers are increasingly asking questions. It is worth pointing out that none of us are fans of what the White House has been doing and saying-quite the contrary. Still, alerting the country to concerns over what might be a developing soft coup orchestrated by the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to nullify the results of a national election in no way equates to trying to protect Donald Trump and his uncouth and ill-informed behavior. It is rather a defense of the Constitution.
Donald Trump said on Wednesday that "This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" He might be right. He was referring to Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein's appointment of the highly-respected Robert Mueller as independent counsel to investigate "any links and/or coordination between Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump, and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
Trump's bombast puts everyone but his most tone-deaf supporters on edge, but there are two points that he has been making repeatedly that are essential to any understanding of what is going on. First, the investigation into Russia and the Trumpsters has been a high priority at FBI and also in Congress for nearly a year. Yet so far no one has produced evidence that anyone broke any law or even that someone did something wrong. Second, and more importantly, the vilification of Trump and Russia has been driven by a series of leaks that come from the very top of the national security apparatus, leaks that appear not to have been seriously investigated.
This involvement of FBI and CIA in the campaign, whether inadvertently or by design, was particularly evident in the various reports that surfaced and were leaked to the press during the campaign and right up to the inauguration. The leaks of that type of information, to include technical intelligence and Special Access Program "codeword" material, require top-level access as well as the ability to arrange clandestine contacts with major players in the media, something far beyond the reach of most employees at CIA or the FBI.
Similar leaks have been appearing since that time. I confess to finding Monday's detailed account of what President Trump discussed with Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, which included corroborating material that likely did more damage than the information that was actually shared, highly suggestive of the possibility that something like a conspiracy is, in fact, functioning. Given the really tight-security control of that transcript after it was determined that it contained sensitive information, one might reasonably assume that the leaks to the media came directly out of Donald Trump's own National Security Council or from the highest levels of the office of the DNI, CIA, or FBI.
Yesterday, the anonymous sources struck again, revealing that "Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump's campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race." That sort of information had to come from the top level of the FBI and would have been accessible to only a few, but even though the leaks of what constitutes highly-classified information have been recurring for many months, no one has been fired or arrested.
The emphasis on Russia derives from the government and media consensus that Moscow was behind the hacking of Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers that led to the exposure of what the DNC was doing to destroy the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. There is also a related consensus that the Russian hacking was intended to damage American democracy and also to help the Trump campaign, a narrative that the president has described as a "made-up thing," a view that I share. All of these assertions are regarded as unquestionably true as measured by inside-the-beltway groupthink, with even the White House now conceding that there was Russian interference in the election.
Sometimes the hysteria over Russia produces over-the-top stories in the mainstream media, including last week's completely speculative piece wondering whether the entourage of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had sought to sneak a recording device into the White House during his White House visit. It was the type of tale that might have been inspired by a leak from someone in the National Security Council who personally observed the context of the meeting and was able to provide corroborating details.
Nevertheless, in spite of the overwhelming groupthink, it has been repeated ad nauseam by people like myself that no actual evidence has been produced to support any of the claims being made about Russia and Trump. There is more evidence that the White House was penetrated by Ankara-through the good services of Michael Flynn-than by Moscow, but Congress has not called for an investigation into Turkey's lobbying . Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA analyst, is even speculating that the Agency might have been the actual hacker into the DNC, leaving a trail behind that would have suggested that it was done by the Russians. His concern arises from the recent WikiLeaks revelation that the CIA had developed cyberwarfare capabilities to do just that.
McGovern, like myself, is also asking why former CIA Director John Brennan has not been summoned by the Senate Committee looking into Russia-gate. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has testified twice, while former FBI Director James Comey, current NSA Director Mike Rogers, and former Justice Department senior official Sally Yates have all appeared once. Brennan's absence is conspicuous as he was the senior national security official most closely tied to the Obama Administration, may have had the tools at hand to fake the Russian connection, and has also been plausibly linked to "encouraging" British Intelligence to provide damaging information on Michael Flynn.
I now suspect that there is indeed a group at the top of the U.S. national security system that wants to remove Donald Trump and has wanted to do so for quite some time. If that is true, I believe that they have been operating with that goal in mind for at least the past year. It is not a traditional conspiracy or cabal in that it does not meet and conspire together, but I suspect the members know what they are doing in a general sense and are intervening whenever they can to keep Trump off balance. Their program is simple: convince the nation that the president and his team colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election in his favor, which, if demonstrable even if not necessarily true, would provide grounds for impeachment. They are motivated by the belief that removing Trump must be done "for the good of the country" and they are willing to do what they consider correcting a mistake made by the American voters. They are assisted in their effort by the mainstream media, which agrees with both the methods employed and the overall objective and is completely on board with the process.
Saving the country from Trump is certainly an attractive notion. I suspect the Comeys, Clappers, and Brennans, together with a host of former senior officers who appear regularly on television, if they were involved, see themselves as great patriots. But they must understand that the blunt instrument they are usingis far more dangerous than the current occupant of the White House. A soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more threatening to our democracy than anything Donald Trump or even the Russians can do.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
Whine Merchant , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:20 pm I suggest that there are too many big egos involved to keep any 'conspiracy' quiet for long. Someone would post a status update on Facebook, with a photo tagging them all in their cloaks, brandishing daggers.Fran Macadam , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:22 pmNothing could be more obvious than that the particular anonymous high level Deep State bureaucrats and the media that quotes them are attempting a coup.John_M , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:38 pmMany of us have suspected we have been progressively disenfranchised, both economically and politically, by elite special interests for some time. If this oligarchy now get the coup they want, they will then have proven to most of us that democracy in America is a sham, no more than a cynical rigged show to deceive us that we the people are in control.
No conspiracy is required. Trump went out of his way to antagonize the staff at CIA headquarters when he visited. We don't need to discuss how the 'Orange Blob' (As I understand he is frequently referred to within the FBI) antagonized the FBI.Marcion , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:38 pmLeaks are endemic in DC. To have gone out of his way to antagonize the intelligence and security apparatus is the sign of a dangerous incompetent.
I expect the agencies to back to their old tricks / policies with respect to senate approvals – providing useful (damaging) background information on candidates they do not approve of to political opponents in the Senate.
But no conspiracy is required at all – just bureaucrats with information using it in what they take to be their organizational interest.
It has been so for a long time. You get less of it with competent leadership – and more with incompetent leadership.
If the President hasn't done anything wrong, what does he have to hide?JLF , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:53 pmProof? Evidence? The absence of proof is proof of nothing.Joe the Plutocrat , says: May 19, 2017 at 12:00 am
So, smoking gun . . . or smoking pipe?fascinating stuff. which begs the question, where is the betting line or over/under for civil servants (especially those employed in the intelligence/national security space), between a sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution (via a 'conspiracy', which could also be described as a necessary and authorized 'operation'), and an a POTUS who despite his similar oath f office, lacks the capacity (legal, intellectual, emotional) ability to honor his oath? frankly, I'll take the "deep state" underdogs and the points.Uzback , says: May 19, 2017 at 12:37 amIf you really are concerned that the Intelligence Agencies are leaking to damage Trump then Trump needs to take advantage of his own resources and be more open about his information to take away their power.DonChi , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:14 am
- He needs to release his tax returns. This is incredibly important, and if he is hiding something then the IC has leverage in circumstantial evidence. If there is nothing there, then they lose power.
- Be in full support of any investigation. Let Flynn and others from the White House speak to Congress. Again, the leaks have no power if you already release information.
- Instead of putting out obvious lies like Spicer did on January 21st or misdirecting information, be as open as possible on basic things. Talk to the American people like the adults they are.
- Stop Tweeting. Full stop. No more, it just leads to bad things.
The leaks work because knowledge is power, and this Administration is thinking that by not giving a straight answer they can control the knowledge, which is completely not true.
Many smart, good, fair people have such a visceral dislike of Trump that they lose their virtues and succumb to hysteria. But it's worse than that. Blindly supporting a soft coup is morally tantamount to treason.Johnny F. Ive , says: May 19, 2017 at 6:35 amI know it's hard to swallow–because you hate Donald Trump so much–but it's true.
"Saving the country from Trump is certainly an attractive notion. I suspect the Comeys, Clappers, and Brennans, together with a host of former senior officers who appear regularly on television, if they were involved, see themselves as great patriots."Centralist , says: May 19, 2017 at 7:18 amThey must be out of touch with reality. If they were patriots they would have got rid of Bush II and Cheney before the Iraq War of 2003! This is just to keep the American Empire on its present course of decline. There is no sign of anything noble going on here.
I think the majority of the so called conspiracies are individuals or small groups operating on their own with a common goal without any active cooperation mainly because they know talking about it will lead to them facing greater problems later on.John S , says: May 19, 2017 at 7:39 amThe majority of the leakers are likely people that honestly believe they are doing the right thing and act on it. It is not like people go into the Intelligence or Law Enforcement because they are anti-authority. They are normally men and women with a dedication to the United States and its principles so when they feel other are violating that they act. For many Trump while he is the President fails to act as such and not only that has called in to question the competency of these people and their loyalty. After having read "The Art of the Deal" I am surprised he has not tried to be more vicious to these people. Trump has a strong streak of personal loyalty and from what I gather only believes in it. The Men and Women that make up the Law Enforcement and Intelligence do not give up personal loyalty to one politician or one faction they are loyal to the United States. This is something a man who has only ever worked in family business does not seem capable to understand. His experience and training always taught him if you work for him you are suppose to be loyal to him. That is not how these organizations operate. The "deep state" is more reflective of our own polarization along party and ideologue lines. The fact an organization can people that work both sides seems crazy to many that only operate in left or right no middle. I in sad to say the longer I am alive the more I think the draft is needed not because of the need for soldiers but rather for the propose of forcing people to work in an organization that is dedicated to a common goal with individuals from all over the nation with different beliefs and experiences. Otherwise we are just going to have people that are stuck and leading to further divisions. As a note I have never served in the military my jr year of college I received an injury that disqualified me from service. I attended though one of the six senior military colleges with the intention of serving.
Is this the same Philip Giraldi who has written odes to Wikileaks? Public has a right to know,etc.?Kurt Gayle , says: May 19, 2017 at 7:53 amPhilip Giraldi "I now suspect that there is indeed a group at the top of the U.S. national security system that wants to remove Donald Trump and has wanted to do so for quite some time. If that is true, I believe that they have been operating with that goal in mind for at least the past year."Chris Chuba , says: May 19, 2017 at 8:20 amDecades-long Princeton/NYU Professor of Russian studies Stephen Cohen agrees with Mr. Giraldi's assessment (May 15, Fox):
If you had asked me a few days ago "What's the number one threat to the United States today?" I would have said, "International terrorism." Today I would say, "It's this assault on President Trump." Because it's been going on a year. And can we be clear? What he's being accused of is treason. This has never happened in America – that there's a Russian agent in the White House. And we've had a whole array of allegations: From Putin helped him get in the White House, to his associates are doing wrong things with Russians, that Flynn did something wrong – his former National Security Advisor – did something wrong in talking to the Russian ambassador. There's no evidence that there was any wrong-doing and, indeed, Flynn should have talked to the Russian ambassador. That was his job. So, this is beyond belief now and has become – by this I mean this assault on Trump and his loyalty – this has become a national security threat to us in-itself There has long been in Washington a powerful – let's call it The Fourth Branch of Government, the intelligence services, who have opposed any rapprochement or cooperation with Russia. Remember, in 2016 President Obama worked out a deal with President Putin for military cooperation in Syria. He said he was going to share intelligence with Russia – just the way Trump and the Russians were supposed to do the other day. Our Department of Defense said it wouldn't share intelligence. And a few days later, they killed Syrian soldiers, violating the agreement, and that was the end of that. So, we can ask: "Who is making our foreign policy in Washington today?" Are there really three branches of government, or is there a fourth branch of government – these intel services? What we know as a fact is that Obama tried – not very hard, but he tried – for a military alliance with Putin in Syria against terrorism, and it was sabotaged by the Department of Defense and its allies in the intelligence services. Trump says, he said on the campaign trail: "Wouldn't it be great to cooperate with Russian?" My answer is: It would be great. And Trump seems to want that to happen. But he's being thwarted. Every time he gets close, we get a new leak, of a story.
I'm certain that everyone who launched a coup in a third world country thought they were patriots as well. The comment 'if he has nothing to hide is chilling' because it ignores the nature of these attacks. These are not really leaks, they are anonymous hit and run attacks designed to leave an impression in a way that is impossible to refute.G Harvey , says: May 19, 2017 at 8:51 amSome examples
1. CIA leak, 'portions of the Russian Dossier have been confirmed'. Perhaps some trivial facts were confirmed but people will think of the sensational parts of the dossier.2. Mattis flat out denies that 'methods and sources' were given to the Russians but the leaker gives specifics to the MSM. Perhaps the leaker, knowing the topic of the meeting went above and beyond knowing that the WH is not going to give out a full transcript of the meeting.
These guys are playing a very dangerous game. This is the same CIA group that is arming rebels in Syria. They know better than us. Anyone who questions them is a traitor in their eyes.
The answer is: Yes.Kurt Gayle , says: May 19, 2017 at 8:53 amPaul Craig Roberts has an article up that I think should be read. As I do not know if this site allows the posting of links or even article names, I will provide neither.
Philip Giraldi "Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA analyst, is even speculating that the Agency might have been the actual hacker into the DNC, leaving a trail behind that would have suggested that it was done by the Russians. His concern arises from the recent Wiki Leaks revelation that the CIA had developed cyber warfare capabilities to do just that. McGovern, like myself, is also asking why former CIA Director John Brennan has not been summoned by the Senate Committee looking into Russia-gate. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has testified twice, while former FBI Director James Comey, current NSA Director Mike Rogers, and former Justice Department senior official Sally Yates have all appeared once. Brennan's absence is conspicuous as he was the senior national security official most closely tied to the Obama Administration, may have had the tools at hand to fake the Russian connection, and has also been plausibly linked to 'encouraging' British Intelligence to provide damaging information on Michael Flynn."Vitaly , says: May 19, 2017 at 9:42 amBrennan was chosen by Obama to head the CIA and was sworn in as Director on March 8, 2013. At the swearing-in ceremony, rather than placing his hand on a Bible, Brennan chose to place his hand on an original draft of the Constitution that had George Washington's personal handwriting and annotations on it, dating from 1787. Somewhat worthy of note is the fact that the 1787 draft of the Constitution does not contain the Bill of Rights.
But Obama White House Press spokesman Josh Earnest said Brennan requested that particular draft of the US Constitution because he "wanted to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law as he took the oath of office as director of the CIA"
"Commitment to the rule of law"? Brennan?
The scandal in Washington, DC is profound to be explained by petty considerations. It requires metaphysical language.p3cop , says: May 19, 2017 at 9:45 amThe sad fact is that We-the-People were unable to keep our Republic as Benjamin Franklin advised us to do. Founding Fathers had tried hard to protect Republic against mob. The last thing they could imagine was that mentality of instant gratification that define mob will morph into top echelon of ruling class. If history provide any lessons the first was given by Moses when he descended from Mount Sinai with 10 commandments. That lesson was repeated multiple times with the same results. History is littered with faded memories of failed empires, which reduced multidimensional colored world to lust for Golden Calf. Under no circumstances the US will be exception for signs of decay are everywhere.
I am also sure that majority of commentators on this "conservative" site are to busy with trivia to comprehend reality they are facing in very near future.How is it that the leakers are not identified, fired and prosecuted? When there are five people in a room when a secret is told, and that secret gets leaked, one of those five people are guilty. If you can't tell which one, fire them all. Are there no detectives in D.C.? It ain't rocket science.Dan Green , says: May 19, 2017 at 10:32 amI think we should be reminded , as we witness this circus. Those thousands who work in the swamp, are experts at what they do. I would admit Trump needs to slack off his rhetoric, but I have to hand it to the Democrats. Getting Trump impeached or to resign is their new platform to get the ruling class back in the saddle.Joe the Plutocrat , says: May 19, 2017 at 11:24 am@Dan Green, maybe so, but the real question is, why did Americans elect a POTUS who is NOT an "expert" at what the POTUS does? Deep State, Establishment, or whatever you title you choose, one does not survive in a swamp without mastering or adapting the skills necessary to this may sound silly, survive in a swamp. This is the difference between fake news and real news. This is the difference between television and reality television. And finally, this is the difference between a true populist, and a self-described 'billionaire' populist – who inherited millions and grew it (sic) to billions via debt and bankruptcy. None of this should surprise Americans, progressive or 'deplorable'. It certainly did not surprise those sworn to defend the Constitution.Adriana I Pena , says: May 19, 2017 at 11:45 amThey say that extraordinary circumstances make bad law.Johann , says: May 19, 2017 at 11:48 amBut extraordinary circumstances have to be addressed.
A man-child with no impulse control in charge of foreign policy and they nuclear arsenal qualifies as extraordinary circumstances.
As Cavafy said "the gods should have bothered"
The leaks are selective dirty trick mountain-out-of-molehill spoil sport partisan cry baby sore loser propaganda. If they are successful in circumventing our democracy, they and all of us will reap the whirlwind.bkh , says: May 19, 2017 at 12:12 pmI hope so! We need a good shake-up in DC to save TV ratings and sell papers. Can also add all the advertising dollars available with media clicks. And the hostility and deadlock has to continue so we can slip through some wonderful legislation to take away more wealth and rights from the dumb sheep on both sides. I am sure NetFlix or Amazon or some other Cable channel can't wait for the rights to this. "Orange is the New Nixon"P Tocco , says: May 19, 2017 at 12:34 pmThey got it figured out to where they can get the SJWs and the left to turn out for the death of the right. They will then turn the guns on "their own" because those sheep are just as deplorable. Burn it down! Tear it apart! Show your true selves for the devils you are.
Today's soft coup plotters may indeed be breaking the law. Didn't American colonial coup plotters also break the law? I.e. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Paine, all committed hanging offenses. We are in their debt.Brian W , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:05 pm14.05.2017 International Cyber Attack: Roots Traced to US National Security AgencyIron Felix , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:20 pmOver 45,000 ransomware attacks have been tracked in large-scale attacks across Europe and Asia - particularly Russia and China - as well as attacks in the US and South America.
The US is effectively an empire, not a republic. Empires are always fighting wars to maintain and expand. Russia is viewed not as just a large influential country, but an obstacle to expansion of the empire. This is the view of the Deep State which defends the interests of the US ruling class, the finance capitalist class. It runs a worldwide imperialist system.Stop the agony , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:33 pmTrump has no interest in empire. Sure, he will go to war against individual countries which he believes are encroaching on US interests, but he defines these interests more narrowly as the republic being cheated or taken advantage of by other states. He has no interest in sitting before a map like Halford Mackinder and moving pieces around the chess board. Trump would probably not be too interested in running off to Myanmar like Obama because it was a pawn on the geopolitical chess board.
This is an intolerable situation for the masters of the empire. Getting rid of Trump is the solution. Pence will be the empire's servant.
The Democrats hold contradictory views here. On the one hand, they are salivating because they believe that anyone who doesn't have Hillary Clinton's baggage they nominate for 2020 would beat Trump, so they want him wounded but still in office. Note that it was reported that some Democrats cautioned against a rush to impeachment. Pence would be a far more formidable opponent in 2020.
The Republicans know this too. The Republican establishment would like to be rid of Trump as it considers him an albatross. They probably believe that Pence would be a stronger candidate. On the other hand, Trump is immensely popular among the Republican base. If Republican Congresspeople and Senators get on the anti-Trump bandwagon, there will be hell to pay. Trump could go around the country packing stadiums, financing primary campaigns, and maybe even run for President in 2020 as an independent or, if he is somehow disallowed because he is an impeached president, he could support a proxy. The establishment, Democrat and Republican, would be making a massive mistake underestimating Donald Trump.
This is pretty elaborate. Occam's razor dictates that the simplest explanation is typically the right one. In this case, Trump clearly treats his staff like rented mules, ritualistically ignoring their recomendations, belittling their capabilities, and throwing them under the bus whenever possible. Is it any wonder that they would leak to whomever will listen? As to the reality of the Russia conspiracy, there is a bit more evidence than Giraldi admits most glaringly in the Administration's repeated and politically inexplicable attempts to treat the Kremlin like a long and trusted ally. Also, it wasn't so much the DNC hack as the wikileaks hack that was problematic in the election. But for all that, I do agree that Flynn was clearly on the payroll of Turkey, and that he should be prosecuted accordingly. I just don't think the rest of the Administration was involved. But there is clearly more than just Flynn eating out of Putin's hand.Chris Chuba , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:41 pmIt's not easy finding who leaked it because it doesn't have to be anyone who was in the room.Brendan Sexton , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:48 pmThe meeting transcript is archived, so who ever records the meeting, has access to the archive of the meeting, or who is in the Intel community and knows that Trump talked to the Russians about airline security could have leaked this to the press. There is also the universe of politicians if they were briefed on the meeting, but I am thinking this to be a long shot in this case.
Crooks and cheats always scream loudest about and direct their most intense anger at the 'squealers' who get them in trouble. (Of course it is their own behavior that gets them in trouble, really, but their egos will not allow admitting that.)Tim D. , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:49 pmBut, any cop will tell you we would have very few successes in the justice system at all if it were not for these 'squealers." Either their direct evidence itself, or the investigative leads their information provides, make most cases, especially the cases in which there is little physical evidence.
So it is here, with Giraldi joining in with the Trump cabal to raise a stink about the leaks and the leakers.
Informants are very rarely seen in a positive light, even by the side using them (the cops, in my analogy), but what turns out to matter is the crime itself. In this case, maybe there is no crime–as Giraldi suggests–but to even find that out we will get there by using the info, or at least starting with the info that these leaks are providing.The U.S. isn't just governed by laws, but by norms too. Trump isn't given the benefit of the doubt not only by institutions housed within the executive branch, but by the judicial branch too. The blunt truth is people's refusal to acknowledge that Trump is unqualified for the presidency, mentally unsound, and a national security liability. What we're seeing now is how aspects of government work when confronted with such a situation.Robert Charron , says: May 19, 2017 at 1:57 pmThe word "conspiracy" literally means breathing together. A conspiracy doesn't require clandestine meetings, but essentially arises from individuals "breathing" together.Aegis , says: May 19, 2017 at 2:05 pmGiven that Trump's administration leaks more in one day than Obama's administration leaked in eight years we must assume that the real problem here is President Trump. Perhaps if the man could inspire loyalty in his troops this problem would never exist. Obviously numerous very powerful and knowledgeable individuals are in a panic over Trump's presidency. That is not a good sign and we all should be very worried about what is really going on in the White House.Brendan Sexton , says: May 19, 2017 at 3:21 pmAegis puts his finger on it: "Perhaps if the man could inspire loyalty in his troops this problem would never exist." Yes–a leader must *inspire* loyalty, not demand it over dinner at the White House.KennethF , says: May 19, 2017 at 3:35 pmTrump inspires, at the best, nervous regard. At the worst, worse. He is not much of a leader–rather a whiner and the like. How much loyalty would YOU pledge to a petulant five-year-old?
Step back for a moment. Trump is a man who, after losing the popular vote by 3 million, suddenly declares there were 3 million illegal votes for Hillary. That statement is so preposterous that it is perfectly reasonable to call it insane (yet the GOP will still form a committee to look into it). He utters many such insane statements.Trump clearly does not understand the Constitution that he's sworn to uphold. His ignorance and ineptitude are on the public record simply by reviewing his speeches and tweets - no mainstream media required.
Are there so-called "Deep Staters" out to get Trump for the wrong reasons? Sure. But there are so many right reasons to get rid of him that it's safe to assume that many of the leakers are Republicans who happen to love their country more than they love their party. Cheers for everyone doing their part to prove how dangerous Trump is to national security. (With luck, someone will dig up the tax returns that he's unconscionably withheld).
As others have said, Trump's problem is of Trump's making.
[May 21, 2017] During the Cold War the story was Democracy versus the Commies, traditional "good versus evil" type of stuff. Once the USSR collapsed a new evil adversary had to be found.
Notable quotes:
"... Global neo-liberal establishment. Say it three times and click your heels. ..."
"... You remember last year as clearly as I do, how, suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, the Putin-Nazi menace materialized, and took the place of the "self-radicalized terrorist" as the primary target for people's hatred and fear. ..."
May 21, 2017 | www.unz.com
Punchie , Website May 18, 2017 at 4:13 am GMT
jilles dykstra , May 18, 2017 at 5:42 am GMTGlobal neo-liberal establishment. Say it three times and click your heels.
Kiza , May 18, 2017 at 6:33 am GMTNeoliberalism, another word for 'money rules the world'. Draghi visited the Dutch parliament, Baudet, FVD, asked him if, since Draghi had warned Italy that leaving the euro would cost them about 100 billion euro, Ittalians debts, the Netherland would get about 100 billion if we left the euro. 100 billion is what we lent, say, Draghi. His 'answer' was that the euro is irreversible. He apparently does not know that within tn years after the dissolution of the Habsburg empire all the new states ahd created their own money.
Since all euo zone members still have their central banks, it is quite easy to leave the euro.
ThereisaGod , May 18, 2017 at 9:50 am GMTNo one ever went bankrupt because he overestimated the stupidity of the US people, especially the liberal/neoliberal half. Yet, it escapes both the author and me why this dumber liberal half of Americans has the propensity to call itself "intellectual". Maybe intellectual is a synonym for stupid in the New US Speak, you know like War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
Idiocracy it truly is.
As to the intellectuals' media it is the usual assortment of The Jew Pork Slimes, The Washington Compost, The Independent from the Truth, The Guardian of the Lies and so on.
jilles dykstra , May 18, 2017 at 10:08 am GMTIt is time to start saying it out loud. The west is occupied territory and our occupiers are, unfortunately, largely Jews whose first loyaly is tribal and NOT to the country in which they reside. http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2017/05/16/fake-jews-deceit-and-double-think-in-britains-hostile-elite/
Agent76 , May 18, 2017 at 2:34 pm GMTRurik , Website May 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm GMTOct 17, 2015 Paul Craig Roberts on the failure of Neoliberalism
Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and was noted as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy.
Anon , May 18, 2017 at 2:58 pm GMTa bevy of former-East German hookers engaging in Odinist sex magick rituals in an FSB-owned bordello in Moscow
yes please! great article
joe webb , May 18, 2017 at 3:32 pm GMTRamzpaul's bare-bones description of deep state.
Jake , May 18, 2017 at 4:11 pm GMT@Agent76 Oct 17, 2015 Paul Craig Roberts on the failure of Neoliberalism
Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and was noted as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy.
Rurik , Website May 18, 2017 at 4:27 pm GMTIf Hopkins continues to write in this vein, he may eventually produce a truly first rate play. Which will mark him forever as a tool of Russia and the mastermind of all EVIL , Putin.
jilles dykstra , May 18, 2017 at 5:14 pm GMT@joe webb one of the characteristic forms of comments here is this: one or two sentences and nothing else. No sustained thought process which can relate X to Y and Z, as in multi-factor analysis, historical parallels, psychology, etc.
Failure of intelligence. There is nothing like intelligence. (or lack thereof)
RadicalCenter , May 18, 2017 at 5:34 pm GMT@Agent76 Mar 18, 2014 US support of violent neo-Nazis in Ukraine: Video Compilation
Shocking and insightful videos detailing the neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, ultra-nationalist movement in Ukraine. The videos examine the ongoing US support of these groups, including the Svoboda party and Right Sector.
Anon , May 18, 2017 at 6:28 pm GMT@Kiza No one ever went bankrupt because he overestimated the stupidity of the US people, especially the liberal/neoliberal half. Yet, it escapes both the author and me why this dumber liberal half of Americans has the propensity to call itself "intellectual". Maybe intellectual is a synonym for stupid in the New US Speak, you know like War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
Idiocracy it truly is.
As to the intellectuals' media it is the usual assortment of The Jew Pork Slimes, The Washington Compost, The Independent from the Truth, The Guardian of the Lies and so on.
RobinG , May 18, 2017 at 10:43 pm GMTThis 'impeachment' thing should really be called JEW COUP. Jews run the media and shape the Narrative. So, the Liberation of Aleppo was called the 'Fall of Aleppo'. So, Alqaeda elements in Syria were called 'moderate rebels'. So, we were fed lies about Libya to have it destroyed. And so much fuss is made about Evil Putin but we hear nothing of what Jewish oligarchs did to Russian economy in the 90s.
Jews are so powerful they can even convince American Morons that marriage = two men buggering one another. This is not about impeachment. Jews hate Trump because he wants better ties with Russia, a nation that freed itself from total Jewish Control.
annamaria , May 19, 2017 at 4:26 am GMT@El Dato So what!
"Intelligence is just a tool to be used toward a goal, and goals are not always chosen intelligently" - Larry Niven from "Protector"
Also,
You remember last year as clearly as I do, how, suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, the Putin-Nazi menace materialized, and took the place of the "self-radicalized terrorist" as the primary target for people's hatred and fear.Not at all. After the awkward "russian reset" attempt by the Clinton-Obama axis of diplomacy, which somehow failed, the intolerance to all things Russian started during Snowden's "Summer of Surveillance" redpilling (i.e. 2013). Systemic shock mode was entered when the Ukraine liberation encountered unsuspected and sudden (and definitely "reactive") pushback in 2014 and Russia started supporting Syria against the ISIS "our temporary friends" clownshow in 2015.
(The other "primary target for people's hatred and fear", the always good to amuse the hoi polloi cardboard cutout Ghaddafi had sadly shuffled of this mortal coil a bit earlier. So sad! And the bullshit of "Iran's gonna have da bomb next week, this time for sure" stuff going on since the 90s didn't get much traction anymore.)
joe webb , May 19, 2017 at 4:42 am GMT@ThereisaGod It is time to start saying it out loud. The west is occupied territory and our occupiers are, unfortunately, largely Jews whose first loyally is tribal and NOT to the country in which they reside.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2017/05/16/fake-jews-deceit-and-double-think-in-britains-hostile-elite/
annamaria , May 19, 2017 at 2:35 pm GMT@Anon single factor analysis. It is not just the jews. The Dems are a coalition of blacks, jews, asians, indians, mexers, and some working class whites who have not left yet for the GOP and Trump, AND White Liberals, mostly professionals, who have sold out to globalism and its One World of Consumers.
Yes, there is a so-called 'Liberal Coalition' of various groups. But are they equal in power and influence?
In truth, Jews dominate. For example, Asians have no agency of their own. They just follow the narratives of other. Mexers are happy to be Guillermos and have no interest apart from tacos. Their only politics is calling whites 'gringos', blacks 'negritos', and Asians 'chinos'. Blacks are loud and vocal, but it's all about blacks. Blacks have no knowledge and interest in the larger world. They are very tribal and provincial.
If not for Jewish Power, NO ONE would be interested in Russia. That is a Jewish thing.
If blacks ran the Democratic Party, they would fixate on some OTHER ISSUE to get at Trump.
Blacks jumped on the Russia bandwagon ONLY BECAUSE Jews set the template and the meme. Since that is the Anti-Trump Meme as chosen by Jews, all anti-Trumpers are parroting the same crap. But Russia became the Key Issue because Jews are obsessed with Russia and what it implies. Jews set the Narrative and others play do the Parrotive.
The Powerful get to decide the Narrative. The less powerful just tag along like dogs and repeat the mantra set by the Powerful. They are parrots with the Parrotive.Also, only Jews have the direct power in media, deep state, and finance(owning all politicians through AIPAC) to pull off what is happening.
Just think. Suppose Asians don't want to go after Trump but Jews want to. What would happen? Jews would decide, and Asians would have choice but to go along.
Now, suppose Asians want to go after Trump, but Jews don't want to. Could Asians push for impeachment without Jewish support? NO way.Or suppose blacks want to go after Trump, but Jews say NO and won't give anti-Trump support in media and Deep State. Would it happen? No.
Or suppose blacks want to work with Trump but Jews want to go after him. Would it happen? Yes, because Jews get to pull all the strings.So, while it is true that there is a Democratic Coalition, Jews have 1000x the power of other groups. I mean consider how most Jews and most Arabs are in the Democratic Camp, but Zionists have far more power than Palestinians/Muslims do.
This is a Jew Coup because Jews are the single-most powerful element in Democratic Party, GOP, Congress(by buying up politicians), FED, Wall Street, and etc.
Agent76 , May 19, 2017 at 3:15 pm GMT@Wally Yeah, sure.
Jewish groups get up to 97% of grants from the Homeland Security
The True Cost of Parasite Israel
Forced US taxpayers money to Israel goes far beyond the official numbers.http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-true-cost-of-israel/
How to Bring Down the Elephant in the Room
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/how-to-bring-down-the-elephant-in-the-room/
El Dato , May 19, 2017 at 3:51 pm GMTSep 9, 2016 US-funded Ukrainian army is terrorizing civilians. Russell Bentley is a former US marine, that now fights for the Donbass, Eastern Ukraine, against the US-funded Ukrainian army.
Ace , May 19, 2017 at 8:57 pm GMT@Ace We are awash in lies: race, racism, white privilege, constitutional America, living Constitution, propositional nation, nation of immigrants, American exceptionalism, responsibility to protect (humanitarian war), Assad the Dictator, Islamism/moderate Muslims, our ally Israel, our ally Saudi Arabia, evilevil Putin, the one and only holocaust, right-wing National Socialism, N"A"TO, evil Serbia, Islam's contribution, the Crusades, patriarchy, gender, homosexual marriage, women's suffrage, diversity, multiculturalism, open borders, welfare state, socialized medicine, objective MSM, Saint Abraham, Saint Ze-dong, Obama the natural born citizen, the administrative state, frustrated ghetto rocket scientists, indispensable nation, Gaddafi the Tyrant, Axis of Evil, Judeo-Christianity, the Three Abrahamic religions, globalism, free trade, immigrant monetary contribution doing jobs Americanswon't do, climate change, agw, alternative energy, reasonable gun control, nation building, the glass ceiling, pay inequality, vote suppression, the evil of segregation, black nationalism, private prison oppression, disparity in sentencing, Roe v. Wade, the innocence of Mumia Jaba Jabu, reparations, BLM, debt ceiling, government shutdowns, unemployment, inflation, the "Federal" Reserve, dual citizenship, the EU, refugees, metissage commercials, homosexuality in commercials, white burglars in commercials, POC in commercials. Mexico our friend, GOP principles, bipartisanship, McCarthy the Indecent, Gulf of Tonkin incident, Israel's mistake re the Liberty, the _________ Commission, St. Martin the Patriot, Robert Mueller the FBI Muslim realist, the neocon patriot, Saint Franklin, the New Deal, the "US" Chamber of Commerce Keynesianism, quantitative easing, and St. Hillary the Incorrupt.
Oh yes. And our desperate need for Nigerians, Syrians, and Somalis. And Hindu software engineers.
I'm out of ideas now at which point one must say, "And I could go on and on."
joe webb , May 20, 2017 at 4:27 am GMT@El Dato This must be the next basic text for an updated Billy Joel's "We didn't Start the Fire" (clip needs to be updated to have Snowden on 24/7 TV and no-one cares)
joe webb , May 20, 2017 at 5:06 am GMT@Agent76 Sorry joe webb I do not partake in any flavor of Kool-aid! DECEMBER 25, 2015 NATO: Seeking Russia's Destruction Since 1949
In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, U.S. president George H. W. Bush through his secretary of state James Baker promised Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that in exchange for Soviet cooperation on German reunification, the Cold War era NATO alliance would not expand "one inch" eastwards towards Russia.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/25/nato-seeking-russias-destruction-since-1949/
@huswa That's a really interesting view about operating on principle vs. on in-group relations. Can you please reply with some relevant articles if you have them?
I've traveled quite a lot and have seen principled people in all parts of the world. Sometimes they are really drowned out by the masses. I do not think that altruism is specific to whites. The "White Man's Burden" wasn't altruism. Colonizers weren't in it to lift up the world. They wanted money and other resources. As an example they crippled local economies t Of course, they did a lot of good
[May 20, 2017] How Roger Ailes Remade Our Reality by Telly Davidson
Notable quotes:
"... He identified a market that wasn't being served-indeed, one that was being almost aggressively ignored-and catered to its every want. When the rest of the media willfully changed the channel on dealing head-on with economic inequality and globalism's fallout when smug media mavens and self-righteous politicians alike deny that America has a class system, even as they exploit class anxieties and ratings demographics for their own benefit .when top pundits from liberals like Peter Birkenhead and David Masciotra to conservatives like Kevin Williamson and JD Vance all adopt a "screw you" posture towards the misfortunes of Red Staters, Rust Belters, and resentful white retirees, what you get is Roger Ailes. ..."
"... Ailes identified an audience to cater to that would bring ratings and the money that follows. He helped himself by helping himself. Also, he went after an audience that no one else wanted. He didn't beat anyone at their game. ..."
May 20, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
In that way, as Karl Rove is rumored to have once said, we each "make our own reality." And that was Ailes' signature insight in a nutshell: to stop pretending that any two people-let alone a diversifying continent of over 300 million Americans and Canadians -would see the exact same news story the exact same way.
But Roger Ailes and Fox News would never have had the footprint they had, or been able to command the audience that they did, were it not for Ailes' other lightbulb-above-the-head moment. Ailes realized from inside the media bubble that during the entire heyday of Fox News, the "mainstream" media (very much including the broadcast Fox Network) had been deliberately throwing Fox News' target audience into the demographic trashcan.
... ... ...
As proudly leftist writer Emmett Rensin noted in Vox last year, during the last 15 years of George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party, "the smug style" of liberal condescension completely took over the must-see media. Of course, from a democratic socialist's (as opposed to a Democrat's) point of view like Rensin's, this was not so much because the media was liberal or leftist but because it was what we late GenXers and early millennials used to call "tragically hip." In other words, not because it wanted to prove a social/religious or economic/racial agenda's actual superiority, but to simply use politically-correct positions to "prove" how much more educated and sophisticated they were as people than the "dumb", "superstitious", "religious fanatical", "intolerant" WWC and lower-middle-class people in flyover country. Those backwards dummies who "cling to their guns and [fundamentalist] religions" as one notable media liberal once said. Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, SNL, "New Atheists," and even Midwestern-raised CBS-stalwart David Letterman didn't bother pretending to have any use for Joe Lunchbucket, other than to sneer at him, or study him the way a hipster anthropologist might microscope an alternate civilization.
... At the end of the day, Roger Ailes did what bottom-line businessmen have done since the beginning of time. He identified a market that wasn't being served-indeed, one that was being almost aggressively ignored-and catered to its every want. When the rest of the media willfully changed the channel on dealing head-on with economic inequality and globalism's fallout when smug media mavens and self-righteous politicians alike deny that America has a class system, even as they exploit class anxieties and ratings demographics for their own benefit .when top pundits from liberals like Peter Birkenhead and David Masciotra to conservatives like Kevin Williamson and JD Vance all adopt a "screw you" posture towards the misfortunes of Red Staters, Rust Belters, and resentful white retirees, what you get is Roger Ailes.
... ... ...
Telly Davidson is the author of a new book on the politics and pop culture of the '90s, Culture War . He has written on culture for FrumForum , All About Jazz , FilmStew , and Guitar Player , and worked on the Emmy-nominated PBS series Pioneers of Television .
ed p, says: May 19, 2017 at 10:57 am
Jon S pretty much nails it. Ailes identified an audience to cater to that would bring ratings and the money that follows. He helped himself by helping himself. Also, he went after an audience that no one else wanted. He didn't beat anyone at their game.Brian W , says: May 19, 2017 at 10:58 amI always return to this speech and if anyone has never heard it before should view and listen. "A Time for Choosing" by Ronald Reagan. Televised Campaign Address for Goldwater Presidential Campaign – 10/27/64.
[May 19, 2017] Removing Trump Wont Solve Americas Crisis by Robert W. Merry,
Notable quotes:
"... America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making-and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it's difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis. ..."
"... Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency, and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn't the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own. ..."
"... The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes. ..."
"... "Elites" are not necessarily truly unique, "brights" are not necessarily truly bright, "gnostics" do not necessarily have true knowledge, "puritans" are not necessarily truly pure, etc. What is being labeled is not what they truly are, but what they would have us believe they are; the reality is often very much the contrary. ..."
"... What characterizes "elites" is not really position or power, very much less intelligence or nobility of heart. The defining characteristic of an "elite" is arrogance. ..."
Bill , May 5, 2017 at 5:40 pm GMT \nMay 19, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making-and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it's difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis.What is it? Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency, and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn't the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own.
When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation's elites, it's a strong signal that the elites are the problem. We're talking here about the elites of both parties. Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee-a woman who sought to avoid accountability as secretary of state by employing a private email server, contrary to propriety and good sense; who attached herself to a vast nonprofit "good works" institution that actually was a corrupt political machine designed to get the Clintons back into the White House while making them rich; who ran for president, and almost won, without addressing the fundamental problems of the nation and while denigrating large numbers of frustrated and beleaguered Americans as "deplorables." The unseemliness in all this was out in plain sight for everyone to see, and yet Democratic elites blithely went about the task of awarding her the nomination, even to the point of employing underhanded techniques to thwart an upstart challenger who was connecting more effectively with Democratic voters.
At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some even attacked him vociferously. But, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended up with the nomination. The Republican elites had to give way. Why? Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar, ill-mannered, tawdry politicians? No, because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it.
The crisis of the elites could be seen everywhere. Take immigration policy. Leave aside for purposes of discussion the debate on the merits of the issue-whether mass immigration is good for America or whether it reaches a point of economic diminishing returns and threatens to erode America's underlying culture. Whatever the merits on either side of that debate, mass immigration, accepted and even fostered by the nation's elites, has driven a powerful wedge through America. Couldn't those elites see that this would happen? Did they care so little about the polity over which they held stewardship that their petty political prejudices were more important than the civic health of their nation?
So now we have some 11 million illegal immigrants in America, a rebuke to territorial sovereignty and to the rule of law upon which our nation was founded, with no reasonable solution-and generating an abundance of political tension. Beyond that, we have fostered an immigration policy that now has foreign-born people in America approaching 14 percent-a proportion unprecedented in American history except for the 1920s, the last time a backlash against mass immigration resulted in curtailment legislation.
And yet the elites never considered the importance to the country's civic health of questions related to assimilation-what's an appropriate inflow for smooth absorption. Some even equated those who raised such questions to racists and xenophobes. Meanwhile, we have "sanctuary cities" throughout Blue State America that are refusing to cooperate with federal officials seeking to enforce the immigration laws-the closest we have come as a nation to "nullification" since the actual nullification crisis of the 1830s, when South Carolina declared its right to ignore federal legislation it didn't like. (Andrew Jackson scotched the movement by threatening to hang from the nearest tree anyone involved in violence stemming from the crisis.)
Then there is the spectacle of the country's financial elites goosing liquidity massively after the Great Recession to benefit themselves while slamming ordinary Americans with a resulting decline in Main Street capitalism. The unprecedented low interest rates over many years, accompanied by massive bond buying called "quantitative easing," proved a boon for Wall Street banks and corporate America while working families lost income from their money market funds and savings accounts. The result, says economic consultant David M. Smick, author of The Great Equalizer , was "the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial interests in the history of mankind." Notice that these post-recession transactions were mostly financial transactions, divorced from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating, and taking risks-the kinds of activities that spur entrepreneurial zest, generate new enterprises, and create jobs. Thus did this economic turn of events reflect the financialization of the U.S. economy-more and more rewards for moving money around and taking a cut and fewer and fewer rewards for building a business and creating jobs.
And, though these policies were designed to boost economic growth, they have failed to do so, as America suffered through one of the longest periods of mediocre growth in its history.
All this contributed significantly to the hollowing out of the American working class-once the central foundation of the country's economic muscle and political stability. Now these are the forgotten Americans, deplorable to Hillary Clinton and her elite followers, left without jobs and increasingly bereft of purpose and hope.
And if they complain they find themselves confronting the forces of political correctness, bent on shutting them up and marginalizing them in the political arena. For all the conservative and mainstream complaints against political correctness over the years, it was never clear just how much civic frustration and anger it was generating across the country until Donald Trump unfurled his attack on the phenomenon in his campaign. Again, it was ordinary Americans against the elites.
The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes.
When Trump, marshaling this anti-elite resentment into a powerful political wave, won the presidential election last November, it was noted that he would be a minority president in the popular vote. But then so was Nixon; so was Clinton; so was Wilson; indeed, so was Lincoln. The Trump victory constituted a political revolution.
Now comes the counterrevolution. The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy-the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America. That's why there is so much talk about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of "high crimes and misdemeanors." That's why the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre." That's why the demonization of Russia has reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and threat.
Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, even suggests the elites of Washington should get rid of Trump through the use of the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president if a majority of the cabinet informs the Congress that he is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" and if a two-thirds vote of Congress confirms that judgment in the face of a presidential challenge. This was written of course for such circumstances of presidential incapacity as ill health or injury, but Douthat's commitment to the counterrevolution is such that he would advocate its use for mere presidential incompetence.
Consider the story of Trump's revelation of classified information to Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to the United States. No one disputes the president's right to declassify governmental information at will, but was it wise in this instance? Certainly, it was reckless if he exposed sources and methods of intelligence gathering. But did he?
The president and his top foreign policy advisers, who were present during the conversation, say he didn't. The media and Trump's political adversaries insist that he did, at least implicitly. We don't know. But we do know that when this story reached the pages of The Washington Post , as a result of leaks from people around Trump who want to see him crushed, it led to a feeding frenzy that probably harmed American interests far more than whatever Trump may have said to those Russians. Instead of Trump's indiscretion being confined to a single conversation with foreign officials, it now is broadcast throughout the world. Instead of, at worst, a hint of where the intelligence came from, everyone now knows it came from the Israelis. Instead of being able to at least pursue a more cooperative relationship with Russia on matters of mutual interest, Trump is once again forced back on his heels on Russian policy by government officials and their media allies-who, unlike Trump, were never elected to anything.
Thus is the Trump crisis now superimposed upon the much broader and deeper crisis of the elites, which spawned the Trump crisis in the first place. Yes, Trump is a disaster as president. He lacks nearly all the qualities and attributes a president should have, and three and a half more years of him raises the specter of more and more unnecessary tumult and deepening civic rancor. It could even prove to be untenable governmentally. But trying to get rid of him before his term expires, absent a clear constitutional justification and a clear assent from the collective electorate, will simply deepen the crisis, driving the wedge further into the raw American heartland and generating growing feelings that the American system has lost its legitimacy.
There is no way out for America at this point. Steady as she goes could prove highly problematic. A push to remove him could prove worse. Perhaps a solution will present itself. But, even if it does, it will rectify, with great societal disquiet and animosity, merely the Trump crisis. The crisis of the elites will continue, all the more intractable and ominous.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is editor of The American Conservative . His next book, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century , is due out from Simon & Schuster in September.
Mary Myers , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:24 pm If you want to know why things are as bad as they are and why Americans are so ignorant and dumbed down, get the video "Agenda" by Curtis Bower. It explains it all.Gregory , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:17 pmI agree with your diagnosis, even if the term "elite" is nebulous (aren't you, Mr. Merry, by virtue of your position as a D.C.-based journalist, an "elite"?). Anyway, Gilens and Page found as much.Chairman Moe , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:37 pmWhat are some solutions?
Yeah this whole "elite" thing is kind of frustrating to hash out in good faith sometimes of course we want "elite" people in charge, in the sense that they're not illiterate imbeciles. The funny thing is how much "democracy" often fails those who are most wont to sing its praises. Those who identify as liberal tend to romanticize the idea of "the people" and their right to have a voice in our government, but then are sorely disappointed when those actual people exercise that voice in the real world. It's why most of the liberal social agenda of the past 50 years has been achieved through the courts, the least democratic institutions in our polity. "The people" wouldn't have voted for most of this stuff.Howard , says: May 19, 2017 at 9:38 amSince a lot of people are obviously having trouble with this concept: "Elites" are not necessarily truly unique, "brights" are not necessarily truly bright, "gnostics" do not necessarily have true knowledge, "puritans" are not necessarily truly pure, etc. What is being labeled is not what they truly are, but what they would have us believe they are; the reality is often very much the contrary.Devinicus , says: May 19, 2017 at 9:43 amWhat characterizes "elites" is not really position or power, very much less intelligence or nobility of heart. The defining characteristic of an "elite" is arrogance.
Saying "elites are the problem" is NOT to say "let us eliminate all elites" (duh). It is instead to say "let us get ourselves different elites".Jon S , says: May 19, 2017 at 10:48 amA good elite is one which uses its talents and power to pursue the common good. A bad elite is one which uses its talents and power to pursue the good of elites alone. After deindustrialization and financialization and the Iraq War and the financial crisis and the Great Recession and the White Death combined with the ever growing wealth and power of what Richard Reeves calls the " dream hoarders ", it's pretty clear that we have bad elites.
This is not to say that the masses are completely off the hook. A republic requires a virtuous elite AND virtuous masses. As Rod Dreher notes endlessly, the American masses aren't too virtuous nowadays, either.
Cheap, imported labor lowers wages and improves profits. Moving manufacturing to China lowers wages and improves profits. Reducing income from savings forces people into the labor force, lowering wages and increasing profits. Labor's share of national income is at a low-point not seen since the 1920's. Corporate profitability is at an historical high point.RRB , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:09 pmI don't understand what "crisis" is being spoken of here. Isn't this exactly the scenario we have been attempting to create since Reagan? There is no crisis. This is the fruition of our conservative economic agenda. Isn't this site called "The American Conservative"?
"Couldn't those elites see that this would happen? Did they care so little about the polity over which they held stewardship that their petty political prejudices were more important than the civic health of their nation?"Devinicus , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:12 pm"Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya."
Good points. Now you may apprehend why we simple people are not so eager to react with panic to the hysteria being drummed up by the same "elite" people and institutions that melt down every time Trump walks out of his office.
Who are these "elites"? This is the central question.Howard , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:13 pmThey seem to be: [1] highly educated [2] in private colleges and universities [3] mainly in the Northeast [4] and as adults [5] employed primarily in professional occupations [6] geographically concentrated in the Boston-Washington corridor, especially in NYC and DC.
The unparalleled expansion of the (mostly white) educated professional class in the DC area over the past generation should occupy center stage in any conservative critique of the American elite.
Michael Saber , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:29 pmif President Donald J Trump IS supremely unfit to hold the office, does that not logically (in the eyes of the author)not make the xx million American people who voted for him supremely unfit to vote?
Not at all. It makes them supremely desperate. The most important part of the election takes place before the first primary, when PACs and party officials determine what choices will be put before voters. Their candidates (from both parties) were likewise supremely unfit. I don't care much for either the Libertarians or Abe Lincoln, but Dead Abe Lincoln got one thing right: "Oh, hey America you just got screwed." Frankly, this has been going on for decades, but it is now reaching levels of abject absurdity.
I'm sorry, who's more elite than our golf club owning, billionaire President and his billionaires and investment bankers filled cabinet?KennethF , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:31 pmWhat Bruce said. In addition: who could possibly be so simple-minded as to believe that the removal of Trump will magically fix government? Bottom line is, Trump is dangerously incompetent. There are no doubt some in gov't who would get rid of Trump for the wrong reasons, but there are many (too many) right reasons for doing so. Some of the so-called Deep Staters will be Republicans who understand that Trump's promise to "drain the swamp" was nothing more than an empty talking point - and more importantly, that he's a threat to national security. Getting rid of Trump would be just one step toward fixing gov't, but would be significant nonetheless.Donald , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:34 pmActually, Bruce, some of us lefties agree with much, though not all of what Merry says. The elites in both parties have failed and if you want names one can go down a long list. On foreign policy, for instance, leaders in both parties like Clinton and McCain have consistently favored more intervention and more war. The only time Trump has been popular with the elites is when he bombed Syria.Concerned Citizen , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:43 pmThis post was already pretty long– if Merry had gone into detail on the financial crisis and foreign policy it would have been ten times longer.
I despise Trump too. The problem is that many of his critics are cynical opportunists.
Thank your for your perspective and sanity in a time of great unrest and paranoia.Sandra , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:46 pm"So tell me, if the down trodden Working class is so distraught by the elites putting them down, why do they celebrate when the GOP House voted to take away their healthcare by removing rules on pre-existing conditions."John D. King , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:53 pmHow you view the policies on pre-existing conditions depends on whether you are looking at premiums or benefits. If you are looking at premiums then removing rules on pre-existing conditions will benefit you. If you are looking at benefits no so much. You can't say that lowering premiums doesn't help working class families. There is also a fairness issue. The pre-existing exclusion only kicks in if there has been a lapse in coverage which encourages some people to not pay into the insurance pool until they get sick. How is that fair to all the folks who paid their premiums even when they didn't avail themselves of healthcare services? The proposed plan only asks those who haven't been paying into the system to pay more to make the system more fair to those who paid all along. It doesn't deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions. They can also avoid the higher payments by making sure their coverage doesn't lapse. Yes there are those who let their coverage lapse due to a financial crisis and we do need to have programs to assist those who truly can't pay.
Bruce's comment is nonsense. The elites are not in the least vague and unnamed, plainly referring to the mainstream "news" media and professoriate and GOP and corporate chiefs eager for cheap labor and GOP renegades (most of them warmongers) displeased by being upstaged. He purports to want "real" solutions but is quick to condemn real limits on immigration and trade deficits and racism in the guise of affirmative action and comparable ornaments of "social justice." Then, those who resent the liberal status quo and don't share Bruce's values are child-like and paranoid.Andy Lord , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:54 pm
Such arrogant and abusive views as his scarcely deserve refutation."The elites" aren't the problem, using the phrase "the elites" in political debate is the problem. What elites, exactly, do NOT include Trump, the nepotistic New York billionaire whose father donated a building to get him into Wharton? "Elites" is the code word used by right wing propagandists when they're trying to induce gullible or resentful citizens into acting against their own interests. Anyone using the term is dishonest.Dave Poteet , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:56 pmIf being elite means wanting a President who isn't a loose cannon and acts with some decorum and respect for the office than count me in I'm an elite.Wes , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:13 pmThis was really excellent and sober. Quite a nice change.Mark Thomason , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:25 pmTrump arose from America's crisis. He is a reaction to it, not the cause.gnirol , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:26 pmThe crisis cause is best displayed by Hillary. She was the problem. Trump just was not the cure, even though he is the reaction we got.
John D. King contends: " corporate chiefs eager for cheap labor " are among the elites voters shunned when voting for Pres. Trump. Um corporate chief? Donald Trump. Eager for cheap labor? Donald Trump. Elite? Donald Trump? Sending his son to an elite school that costs as much as the school that Obama sent his daughters to? Donald Trump. The only thing about Donald Trump that isn't elite is his drunken boor (even though he doesn't drink) rhetoric and social skills which he uses to mask his elitism. If you want no more than symbolic anti-elitism, Donald Trump is your man, and that's what Donald Trump supporters seem to want: the feeling that they are superior to those whom they feel have put them down for years, instead of the skills enabling them to compete with and perhaps surpass the people they deride as elite. Meanwhile the substance of Donald Trump's life has been elitism since he was in business school about a half century ago. No reason to believe that will change, is there?JWJ , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:27 pmBob Halvorsen wrote: "Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise? The only presidents with a minority of the popular vote are JQ Adams, Hayes, Harrison and Bush."MM , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:28 pmThe author wrote "minority in the popular vote". To me that means LESS than 50% of the irrelevant national popular vote total. The author is NOT saying that the presidents listed did not get the most votes in the irrelevant national popular vote, just that they received less than 50% of the total.
Nixon 1968 – 43.4%
Clinton 1992 – 43%
Clinton 1996 – 49.2%
Wilson 1912 – 41.8%
Lincoln 1860 – 39.8%Mueller's appointment sounds promising, all powerful politicians should be investigated if there's smoke, if not fire.Kurt Gayle , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:38 pmBut this discussion of elites conjures up a counter-factual President Hillary, elected President with a Democratically-controlled House, Senate, and solid 5-vote majority on the Supreme Court:
Given her campaign's numerous contacts with the Russian ambassador last year, along with an ongoing FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation, including but not limited to the Russian uranium agreement, State Dept. pressuring Kazakhstan to sign off, after which donations were made, and Bill's speaking fees going up, other pay-to-play allegations involving some very nasty governments in Africa and the Middle East
There would be no DOJ investigation, and no Special Counsel appointed. Even had she fired Comey herself on Day One. Impossible to prove, but none of this would be happening. And I doubt the press at large would be clamoring for investigations, because there wouldn't be any leaking going on.
If elites are good at anything, it's circumventing the rule of law by stonewalling, or burying, all investigations into wrongdoing. The Obama DOJ excelled greatly at that sort of thing
For those of us who elected Donald Trump our President, Mr. Merry, your type of analysis is the most dangerous!San , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:41 pmOn the one hand, you point to the root of the problems: "The elites are the problem."
You correctly identify some of the main reasons why we elected Donald Trump: "[1] The hollowing out of the American working class '[2] the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial interests in the history of mankind' [3] persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya [4] 11 million illegal immigrants in America, a rebuke to territorial sovereignty and to the rule of law upon which our nation was founded."
But then – having admitted that "Removing Trump Won't Solve America's Crisis" – you spout the elites' main talking point in their war to overturn the election results and to get rid of Donald Trump. You trumpet the elites' biggest lie. You say: "These people [the elites] are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job."
You are wrong, Mr. Merry. Totally wrong! President Trump is supremely qualified, and for these reasons:
• He was the only presidential candidate with the courage to stand up and identify the real problems that have been destroying America and
• He was the only candidate with the courage to stand up to the elites and not to back down.
You say, Mr. Merry, that "three and a half more years of [Trump] raises the specter of more and more unnecessary tumult."
You're wrong again. The tumult is entirely necessary. In fact the tumult is inevitable because we Americans have finally elected a President who is not afraid to speak to America's real problems. We have finally elected a President who has the guts to stand up to the powerful elites who created these problems. We have finally elected a President who will fight for us – fight for us and not back down!
The elites don't like what they see. They don't like Trump and they don't like us, because we put Trump in the White House.
Those of us who elected Donald Trump President because he fights for us are willing and able to fight for him!
What the elites do to Trump, they do to us!
"Tumult"? Bring it on!
"The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy-the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America."Steve in Ohio , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:44 pm
I don't agree at all with this assessment of what the "elites" want or expect.
I believe that the strong following Bernie Sanders had–and still has– is indicative of the large numbers of Americans who find the the "status quo" a questionable way to proceed.
This is not an endorsement of Bernie Sanders or a lamentation that he didn't get the nomination, it is just a clarification of terms of "what the elite want" i.e. you're barking up the wrong tree.
Also not sure who you consider an elite; the whole article seems based on flimsy assumptions.YES to what Anti Empire wrote at 10:51 am.Mark , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:02 pmI am thinking more and more that our only hope is partition. If California wants to let half of Mexico in, go for it. Just don't ask Idaho or Montana to send you water when you run out. If New England and New York want to be run by Wall Street capitalists with SJW social views, go for it. Encourage your working class and middle class people to move to the South or the Midwest and you can be just like Brazil! A nice place to vacation run by very rich people, but inhabited by mostly poor people. Another benefit of partition would be that the Ununited States would not have the size or resources to be the world's policeman. Sounds like a win for almost everybody but the neo-cons and the liberal interventionists.
Thanks! This essay was worth the subscription price.EdR , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:20 pmTo be honest, I don't really agree with the thesis of this article. The idea of elite as pejoratives seems out of place with the usage in other contexts and suggests we need a clearer articulation of what exactly it is we are angry about. This being said, regardless of where the problem lies, these so called "elites" have done an amazing job of turning the political machine to their advantage. We elected them – we elected Trump. I guess the thing I come back to is we need to stop seeking evidence of why we are right and start seeking evidence of why we are wrong – especially when it comes to candidates. I honestly don't know what this would look like or if it would be possible – but I feel like we need to change the way we know and evaluate candidates. It feels clear to me that the things we use as yardsticks fail us and warrants a re-imaging of how we determine fitness for public positions.Joe , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:20 pm19 paragraphs not a single solution. Yep, American Conservative.Jeremy , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:40 pm"Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee "MEOW , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:43 pmYou mean 16 million primary voters, largely women and minorities? They're hardly elites. Your whole premise falls apart here.
Remove Trump? No! Push him to keep his basic promises and not grovel to the warmongers and entrenched.Roy Fassel , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:45 pmThe term "elite" might well mean nothing more than "educated and knowledgeable and experienced." We can see what happens when a rich person seems uneducated in world history, uneducated in our form or government and shows no leadership qualities for running a government. He is not an elite. He is a bozo. Michael Jordan was an "elite" basketball player. Do you want anything less in the top ranks of government?Avi Marranazo , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:52 pmThe term "elite" has a negative tone for those who do not understand how difficult issues are. As was said "I never knew how complicated health care was." And this bozo was elected.
The elites who have made it their business to replace the American people, with aliens who'll vote them, are the problem.Nelson , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:05 pmYou can only blame the elites so much in a democracy. We elect presidents who appoint judges that say corporations have a constitutional right to give unlimited campaign contributions to politicians who work for them. We often confuse supporting our troops for supporting whatever war they're sent to. We want to cut taxes but we also want more warplanes. We spend more than any other country on healthcare and complain about costs but we reject systems other countries use that are proven more efficient. We spend much time complaining about elites but, with few exceptions, we keep electing them.One Man , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:09 pmwe Americans have finally elected a President who is not afraid to speak to America's real problems"Argon , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:09 pmLike whining to the Coast Guard about how tough life is!
Kurt Gayle: "You correctly identify some of the main reasons why we elected Donald Trump: "rhine-gold cowboy , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:21 pmPerfectly valid reasons. Unfortunately, a perfectly wrong candidate and a perfectly wrong party to support. For most of the issues cited (excepting immigration), you'd really want a Progressive. Trump and the GOP were never going to 'clean out the swamp' (he opened the gates to the swamp), never going to try reversing the flow of wealth away from the poor & middle classes, never de-escalate military conflict, and never going to wrest control from "financialists".
For that work, Trump is unqualified, slow to learn and has demonstrated a disquieting disinterest in actual details.
I agree with most of the objectives you mention, but Trump was never even close to being right person for the job. Better to wash your hands of this Administration and move on.
@ BruceJohn F LaVoy , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:27 pm" The term "The Deep State" being latest iteration, allowing anybody to speculate and project their own predjudices and paranoias as to these dark and unnamed forces as well comfortably allowing us each to excuse our own failures as being secretly the fault of some vague and unnamed "them"."
Deep State theory originated in the New Left as a response to the Kennedy assassination, for instance with the works of Carl Oglesby and Peter Dale Scott, who was using the phrase "deep politics" decades ago not the only way in which the modern GOP base has started to sound like left-wingers from the old days, but one of the more surprising.
I could pretty readily contradict some of the article's details, but I will skip that in order to agree with the basic premise. Yes, the Trump and Bernie Sanders phenomena signify a dissatisfaction with elitism. However, solutions not only exist, but abound. One in particular presents itself as not only advisable, but as a necessary condition: I will present only that one possibility here.Cash , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:37 pmAs long as big money can buy elections, elitists will rule and the masses will get shafted. The only way to keep that from happening in perpetuity is to establish a system of public funding for elections.
Absent that change, there really is no hope. We might not like it, and we might be forced to revisit principles we thought inviolate, but it is a necessary condition of restoring government of, by, and for the people.
The problem with our elites is they do well when the rest of the country is going down the drain.Alex , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:49 pmMost of the blame attaches to Republican elites but the Dems are not immune.
Since Reagan's election and the start of the libertarian takeover of the Republican party, America has shredded the social contract we have with one another. No more we're-in-this-together. No more we-are-our-brother's-keeper.
Instead of decent middle class jobs with all the benefits, we've moved toward a gig economy where everyone is always hustling for the next job/client. Which the New Yorker recently called the work-until-you-die economy.
Yes, if you're talented and lucky - the Yankees bringing you up from the minors, Paramount pictures distributing the movie you financed with credit cards, your start-up getting acquired by Microsoft - it is easier than before to become successful.
But if you're a temporary receptionist at a law firm or driving for Uber . . .
We've wrecked all the countervailing powers that inhibited capital from overwhelming labor. The share of US income going to capital (dividends, interest, capital gains) versus labor (paychecks) has soared.
Unions are dead. Infrastructure and other public spending is gone. NAFTA was supposed to come with support for workers whose jobs went to Mexico but Bob Dole didn't believe in coddling losers.
For-profit education and soaring tuition with bankruptcy law no longer permitting discharge of student load debt. How are those kids ever going to afford to buy the houses older people are counting on to finance their retirements?
Years without increases in the minimum wage. (Minimum wage is the reference wage for most other wages. Up the minimum wage and everyone earning a paycheck will soon get a raise too.)
That's what libertarians did to the Republican party and then to America. We stopped caring about the well-being of our fellow citizens because everything is a business deal between two self-interested parties. That's how you think on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. (And in 2008-09, when Wall Street drove the economy off a cliff, ordinary Americans bailed out the bankers.)
But if you're an out-of-work steelworker addicted to opiates? Your bad choices are not my problem.
The poster child for elites who no longer care about ordinary Americans is Pete Peterson of Blackstone. Remember his dog and pony show about federal govt's looming fiscal crisis? His solution was to gut entitlement spending that's probably keeping a lot of people alive.
And here's the kicker: nothing about this fiscal crisis was so severe that a solution would require billionaires like Peterson to tighten their belts.
Trump and Sanders picked up on the rage and despair that ordinary citizens feel for our elites and what they're doing to our country. Hillary and the rest of the Republican candidates misread the mood.
Trump is now proposing the same old Republican agenda. Tax cuts for the rich to be financed by gutting Obamacare. More deregulation and less public spending.
Yes, America is in crisis. Support for democratic norms is razor-thin and declining.
This country needs to recommit to a social contract. And a social safety net. We're all in this together. The rich can't do well at the expense of everyone else if this country is to live up to our ideals.
Back in the 1950s, the head of General Motors told a congressional hearing that he always thought that what was good for GM was good for America and what was good for America was good for GM. He got laughed at. But he was right. If he's selling cars, it means people are feeling good about their prospects.
I'm waiting for a presidential candidate who promises that the rich are going to bear the biggest share of the burden when Americans roll up our sleeves to fix our country. He'll win in a landslide.
Finally!PRDoucette , says: May 18, 2017 at 4:06 pm
A writer with critical thinking skills!If wealth equals power then the only way you are going to limit the power of the elites is by massive campaign reform that would curtail the influence the wealth of the elites currently has over the political process. Neither Republicans or Democrats have shown the slightest interest in meaningful campaign reform for the simple reason that it is easier fund a campaign with millions from the elites who donate directly to a campaign and indirectly through a PAC. Without meaningful campaign reform the US will slowly but surely slip from being a democracy to an oligarchy run by the elites for the benefit of the elites. The crisis in the US is that it seems most citizens seem willing to accept that because of their wealth the elites are more likely to know how to govern. Sadly these citizens are having to learn that being a wealthy elite like Trump does not automatically mean that he knows how to govern.Jack Everett , says: May 18, 2017 at 4:32 pmI agree the problem is the elites not Trump he is to stupid and psychotic to do so much damage.Eric R , says: May 18, 2017 at 5:10 pmAs a moderate lifelong Republican, I was a NeverTrumper through the primaries where my guy (Rubio) did well in my state, winning the contest. Only after Trump prevailed did I go off for a few hours on a long walk to contemplate what this meant for me, my party and my nation. I concluded that Trump was a necessary evil if we were serious about giving the 100,000,000 working men and women in this country a fair shake at the American Dream. Someone had to be ballsy enough to reconstruct the Federal Bureacracy and anyone less than a guy like Trump would wilt in the heat generated by the left leaning media and left leaning Federal Bureaucracy.Ed , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:06 pmLet's face it. Had HRC won absolutely nothing would have changed except our acceptance of corruption in our body politic. I still have hope that the Federal Government can be right-sized and the power redistributed to the United States of America not DC.
Therein lies the fight of our time. We can either concede the fight and let DC make all the decisions (including whether to fix the pot holes on my local streets)to we can ask what each citizen can do for his or her country. It's a binary choice really. You either believe that all the power should reside with the Feds and the dictates and mandates that go with power being held 1000 miles away .or you're in favor of 95% of the decisions that impact you locally and in your state.
If you need to find out where someone sits on this issue, ask them 2 simple questions.
1) Who is Joe Biden?2) Name just 2 people from all of the following: Who's your Mayor? City Council? County Commission? School Board? State Senator? State Rep? Lt. Governor? School Board?
The Trump era will be cathartic or emetic. Government operations will be so confused and erratic that people will start to think that maybe elite rule wasn't so bad and will look forward to "the grown-ups" taking over again. Of course, every new administration now claims to be "the grown-ups" reasserting themselves - that's come to be a given - but those pretensions will be taken more seriously when the next administration takes over.Blueshark , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:08 pmSo are the elites to blame? Well, in a way. They have their agenda, and it's not always shared by ordinary Americans. But ordinary Americans don't agree with each other all that often, and depending on what the issue is, some parts of the general public are closer to the governing elites than they are to other parts of the public. It could be that elites manage to get enough support from non-elite voters to stay in office.
But also, competence is a factor. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about elites, but much of the energy of governing elites may go into being just well-informed enough to do a half-way credible job of staying on top of events, rather than into deep-laid plans to thwart popular wishes.
"All this contributed significantly to the hollowing out of the American working class-once the central foundation of the country's economic muscle and political stability. Now these are the forgotten Americans, deplorable to Hillary Clinton and her elite followers, left without jobs and increasingly bereft of purpose and hope."Hyperion , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:08 pmNice try.
Three things led to the "hollowing out" of the American working class, and they have nothing to do with ephemeral vaporings about "divorced from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating, and taking risks."
1. Automation – and there's just no way around that – the semi-skilled and some skilled jobs giving lower-educated workers a strong middle class life are gone.
2. "Reagan Democrats" who've been voting staunchly Republican and stood by watching and nodding while conservatives have eviscerated and vilified union jobs that also supported a middle class lifestyle (see, e.g., "right-to-work" states).
3. Globalization (abetted by both parties) that shipped these jobs overseas – although there's no clear solution to this in an emergent 21st-century global economy.
Look, I grew up outside of Detroit and knew families and friends who didn't go to college, but went to work on the line and could afford a middle class life. For the reasons listed above, those days are gone forever.
Hyperion , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:15 pmDevinicus
Who are these "elites"? This is the central question.
They seem to be: [1] highly educated [2] in private colleges and universities [3] mainly in the Northeast [4] and as adults [5] employed primarily in professional occupations [6] geographically concentrated in the Boston-Washington corridor, especially in NYC and DC.
Using that definition, the author of this post is an elite. But I bet he claims he is not.
The thing is, Mr. Merry is a journalist. I'm hearing a lot about how dastardly THEY are from Trump supporters.
Andy Lord , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:26 pmJohn F LaVoy
As long as big money can buy elections, elitists will rule and the masses will get shafted. The only way to keep that from happening in perpetuity is to establish a system of public funding for elections.
I agree wholeheartedly. Does anyone who is not rich think that money = speech? What other democracy has an election funding system as bizarre as ours?
Trump's "populism" is based on the same old demagogue's standbys: xenophobia, scapegoating, racism, anti-intellectualism, economic anxiety, nationalism, and a yearning for an idealized past that never existed. The idea of Trump as some shirt-sleeved populist warrior who is going to correct the inequities of wealth distribution in the U.S. is too laughable to bother with. I would refer anyone to the two health care bills he has championed so far, which were poorly disguised attempts to enrich the wealthy even further, while robbing tens of millions of their ability to afford health insurance.Hexexis , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:08 pmSorry, but the problem is not the "elite" but the "elitists": them that's curried favor-always monetary-w/ other elitists in exchange for donations at election time. With Clinton & Trump, we had two elitists that thought they deserved the pres'y & were propelled by the elitists running the campaigns & parties that hoped to gain from either of those two in the W.H.Brian W , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:13 pmMeanwhile, the press worked feverishly to turn Clinton & Trump into viable candidates-w/ ancient, useless labels like "liberal," progressive"; "anti-establishment," "populist"-& convinced voters that they were the "best men" for the job.
So I ended up voting for our state's Repo. gov.; who in turn voted for his own father, an 88-yr-old former congressman. That was effect elitists had on some of us.
April 25, 2017 Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishingJeff Fine , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:47 pmIn a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10. He defends himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/25/christopher-steele-admits-dossier-charge-unverifie/
While we may despise elites ( and just who are they?) the decision to vote for Donald Trump as a solution seems to me to be beyond stupid.Ellimist000 , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:00 pm"Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise?"TR , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:29 pmBecause the author is letting his partisanship relive him of his good sense. Or he is as numerically challenged as his president, who knows?
These people won PLURALITIES of the popular vote. So did Hillary Clinton. They all received the most votes in an election with three or more candidates but received less votes than the total that voted for some one else. Everyone on the planet besides third-world dictators and Republicans generally describe this phenomenon as "winning an election".
A plurality is very different from getting a minority of the vote like Trump did. I am sure that Merry knows this. If you don't believe me, go ask the folks who voted Green and Libertarian who they would have voted for as a second choice if they were forced to
Thank you, Nelson, at 3:05 p. m.David Naas , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:34 pmAnd BTW, a lot of those immigrants (to whom I do not object) are here because of America's fascination with foreign wars and intrusions. Think "boat people," for example, or Iranian refugees or Cuban, etc., etc. Our stupidity produces moral obligations.
Contra the demos-fueled hissy-fit over "Elites", I have no problem with Elites running the world. For one thing, they (Elites) always have run the world, and that isn't going to change, except cosmetically.CascadeJoe , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:30 amNor do I have a problem with them reasonably rewarding themselves for their efforts.
Experiments with direct participatory democracy have usually ended in the sort of lynch-mobbing which murdered Socrates.
I have neither time nor interest in attending to every pettyfrogging detail of running a village government, let alone one of 300 million souls. Even with the Internet, "direct democracy" ends up being run by a few (reference Athens, if any doubt).
The current outrage-aholic fixation over "elites" is not because they are Elites, but because they are INCOMPETENT Elites. It is said the Brits lost the Empire because they forgot how to govern, and now, it is our turn.
Eric Hoffer told us how Elites fall back in 1950 (The True Believer), but we were so fat and happy we ignored what he said. Besides, he was a longshoreman, with no credentials. What did he know?
My preference is for Them to fix Their problem, and to get back running affairs properly.
Then I can focus on playing with my grandkids, flirting with my wife, and drinking beer in late afternoon with Old Blue at my feet.
Selah!
Well, he talks and tweets a lot. But NAFTA is still in force (he learned of downsides of ash canning it), Iran sanctions have not been increased (maybe he thought of jobs related to jet sales important), he is talking with Russia (as opposed to talking about it), and has let all know about his aversion to gassing civilians.Argon , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:30 amLet us continue to observe what he does, not what he tweets. I plan to come back in late July and take a look, 100 days just is too short to come to a decision.
Well, at least it wouldn't be a step backwards.Fran Macadam , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:33 amSo true. Another of the few sane voices, with intellectual heft to match that sobriety. Wish Rod Dreher would read and be convinced by your salient analysis, even if against his will. I think too many conservatives genuflect to established hierarchy, whatever its faults, out of a character that is disposed to distrust change, even needed change. I myself do not buy into the reasoning, "better the devil we know." I really think only the relatively well off can sustain such a view, whether in Manhattan or connected to it via the internet in Baton Rouge. The rest of us are too desperate.RomanCandle , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:45 amThe elites truly are the problem. Just like those who blame Russia, they won't take ownership. They will need one heckuva Homeland Security and clampdown on the population they view as intolerable, once they have their coup against democracy. It is certain to be a pyrrhic victory though, as no elites in history ever gave up their power willingly or peacefully, yet in every case they were forcibly removed in paroxysms of violence by angry mobs of citizens who lost faith in a rigged system that would not allow needed peaceful change.
Sad!
VERY well said.Patricus , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:58 amSo Trump lacks all the qualities and attributes of a proper President. What exactly are those qualities beyond getting elected? Who are the great examples Trump should imitate? Let's see, the community organizer? The son of a Bush? The man from Hope? Poppy Bush? I am one who admired Reagan but he did run up the debt. The quality these people share is a ludicrous vanity. Can't understand the notion that Trump is far below the rest of these flawed human beings. He seems to be just another one. What the heck, he might turn out to be effective. It is way too early to know.Mark Christensen , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:43 amVery true. The elites want to turf Trump because he is jeopardising a model that sustains their salaries and prestige, yet of course they can still not offer an alternative to what was there before.Rosita , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:58 amThe elites can't look outside the system, to something beyond the system, because that is, by definition, something they can't control or make false promises about. The deeper problem is they are unwilling to even have this conversation, for fear it would lead to a logical conclusion about the inadequacies of power.
What a bore and a canard; Trump_vs_deep_state has shown itself in capable of competent and capable public policy; quick on the trigger to tear everything down but in coherent and undisciplined to build anything of consequence to replace it. I'll take the elites any day over nihilism and petulance. Trump is the mirror image of his voters and it gives me great satisfaction to see their political fortunes grind to dust Over their own incompetence.Weldon , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:12 amMeh. People keep screaming about a "crisis" but aren't able to actually point to one. The economy is doing well. Crime is at historic lows. There are so few actual problems that people are taking to manufacturing them (e.g. opioids).Frank , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:14 amI think the real issue here is that the politically-powerful Baby Boom is approaching the final years of its narcissistic, navel-gazing existence, and assumes the entire world disappears when they do.
When in the history of mankind were they not?Chris in Appalachia , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:56 amThis article does a good job stitching together much of the Elites' sins. It is apparent to me that the American government can't be reformed from within by electing reform candidates. If reform is possible, it can't come from the Northeast and West Coast. It will never come from a Harvard, or any other Ivy League school, graduate. It won't come from a Boston Catholic person or New York Jewish-American. It won't come from a Baby Boomer who wishes to continue to prop up the social changes they ushered in the 60s and 70s. I would expect actual reform to come from a young person in the American Heartland, which the bi-coastal elites deride as "Flyover Country." Wasn't it the "Rust Belt" who showed us the way in the 2016 election? And if and when reform (i.e. the non-violent neutering of the Elites' power abuses) comes, the reformers had better be prepared with a total package and not just one candidate. It may be a one-time opportunity, and must be executed with the utmost strategy and determination.Paul Roche , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:26 amBut We Trump supporters are quite happy with his actions so far. We know the press is rigged against him. It is distressing to see the elitist Republicans attack him too though. You are right about the divide, but this may be our last best hope of taking the government backAleaJactaEst , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:39 amif President Donald J Trump IS supremely unfit to hold the office, does that not logically (in the eyes of the author)not make the xx million American people who voted for him supremely unfit to vote? Startling hubris if you ask me.C. L. H. Daniels , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:49 amWho's ready to storm the Bastille? Torches, get your torches right here!RRDRRD , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:49 amBasically agree with the author;s position but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, stop calling elitists, elites. They are not "superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities" in fact, they are frequently inferior.Paul Grenier , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:50 amWhen Sen. Schumer announced, on MSNBC, that a president going against the CIA is 'stupid' because 'they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you,' doesn't that scream 'crisis' from the rooftops? Since when does America, allegedly a democratic republic, assume elected presidents are the subordinates of the CIA? Well, de facto, probably for many years, but to actually openly approve of it?Linen42 , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:00 amBut there was no even discussion of his statement! It set off no alarm bells, no demands for reigning in the CIA ('the intelligence "community"'). Why not? Presumably because the short-term interests of too many elites aligned in this case with that of the deep state. The habit of 'whatever works for me, for the moment' won out, once again, further degrading the political culture right at its institutional heart.
And also because Schumer is right. It isn't smart to criticize the CIA It wouldn't be good for your career, you know what I mean? ('What are ya, a Russian commie or something?').
Merry is absolutely right. Removing Trump does nothing. It does less than nothing. It drives the disease even further into the body politic. The only solution is honesty and courage. Can we muster it?
So tell me, if the down trodden Working class is so distraught by the elites putting them down, why do they celebrate when the GOP House voted to take away their healthcare by removing rules on pre-existing conditions.Brian W , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:08 amSay what you will about Obama and his
looking down on the people", but take him on his actions and he has done more to help the lower class through legislation and executive orders than any other president in the past 30 years.But wait, he didn't do anything about immigration. So therefore ignore all the laws, ignore the rules changed, just focus on the revamped Know Nothings afraid of 3% of the population.
Yes indeed so and a very good article.John Gruskos , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:10 amMay 7, 2017 It Wasn't Russia, How Erdogan Bought Trump and His Neocon Gangsters, the Kosher Nostra
Learn who Mike Flynn and Rudy Giuliani really work for and why they are stabbing America in the back while Trump smiles.
Principled opposition to President Trump's character is limited to this magazine and a tiny handful of like minded pundits and politicians.Howard , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:24 amIf Trump had run on Hillary Clinton's platform, and if he were ruling in accordance with that platform, waging a war for regime change in Syria, signing TPP or some equivalent, refusing to enforce the immigration laws, granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, and greatly increasing the number of legal immigrants, the Democrats and neocons would be praising him to the skies and supporting him to the hilt.
If, on the other hand, someone other than Trump, Pat Buchanan for instance, had been elected on Trump's platform, the Democrats and neocons would be attacking him with all the hysterical venom they are now hurling at Trump (remember the brief deranged hysteria that followed Buchanan's 1996 primary win in New Hampshire?) – and I suspect some of those who pass for principled critics of Trump's character would be caught up in this hypothetical anti-Buchanan hysteria, because of their sheer weak-willed yearning for social acceptance.
If you want to really be serious about "fitness to lead", it has been a very long time since the USA has had a president who was fit to lead.Steve Norton , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:24 amThe fact is, though, that the first rumblings of "impeachment" started before the Electoral College even met, back while Democrats were still hoping to nullify what happened on election night through the Electoral College.
The whole Russian angle is simply a pretext. No one is saying that Russia hacked into the voting machines and added or subtracted votes; at most they are accused of having done the kind of thing investigative journalists are praised for having done. When, in the midst of the American election, British parliamentarians discussed banning Trump from the UK, **THAT** was much more serious and overt tampering with our election, yet no one cares about that, because the UK is the land of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, whereas Russia is the bogeyman. Thus we see headlines about Russian jets "buzzing" the coast of Alaska, only to read further down that by "buzzing" we mean they were 20+ miles into international airspace. Apparently it's an outrage that they should come within a thousand miles of American airspace. American spy planes in the Black Sea are a different story: after all, they remained in international air space the whole time!
It is dangerous to cast Russia unnecessarily in the role of villain, but it is even more dangerous to engineer even the softest of coups. Once that is done, there is no going back. Very likely there would be widespread protests, many of them violent, and a large portion of the public would see the de facto government as not merely corrupt and foolish, but completely invalid. The "authorities" would probably be able to crush dissent, but only by going full-on Stalin. What happens after that, who knows, but this story would not have any happy ending.
As usual, Merry's insights are useful and informed.However, Clinton, warts and all, would have more likely eased the pain of many Americans. Her campaign focused too much on aggrieved minorities and not enough on the pain shared by all but her policies would have more likely checked the manic redistribution of wealth from middle class to elite, ended the health care impasse that cruelly toys with people, made education more accessible and enhanced investments in science and technology that could create jobs in the coming years. With regard to immigration, it is true that adding so many immigrants to the population at a time when decent-paying jobs were being eliminated through technology created a bad optic but the ban or removal of millions of immigrants would not really restore middle class stability. Elites in both parties have made mistakes and been entirely too attentive to those who give the most money but let's not legitimize Trump's mixture of exploiting anger with false promises and pushing policies that will make the plight of working people even more desperate. Clinton might not have shaken up an elitist system she helped create but she would not have shaken our democratic institutions and attacked an already fragile polity the way Trump has and will continue to do for another 3 and half years. Like it or not, elites and disenfranchised will eventually have to work together and Trump has set back this inevitable and urgent collaboration years, if not forever.Bob Halvorsen , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:30 amNixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise? The only presidents with a minority of the popular vote are JQ Adams, Hayes, Harrison and Bush.Michael Powe , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:38 amA self-described "publishing executive" who writes magazine/blog articles for a living is a member of the "elite"! Condemned out of his own mouth. By his own vanity, perhaps.mightywhig , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:46 amAnd the case is hardly made by deliberately misstating facts.
65 million people voted for Hillary Clinton for President. Is that 65 million "elites," or 65 million "dupes" too stupid to "see through her"? 65 million irresponsible citizens? Are these 65 million the real "deplorables"?
I don't expect to see any mea culpa statements from the numerous conservative writers and talking heads who made excuses for Trump's selection as candidate prior to the election. Many of those excuses were promulgated through TAC. But a look in the mirror, and a conversation with that "still, small voice" could be therapeutic for many of you.
Not Hillary Clinton, not the Democratic Party, not the 65 million "deplorables," were responsible for conservatives' decision to go with a manifestly unsuitable candidate. Once again, those declaiming most loudly about "personal responsibility" - lack it.
Good piece. Clearly the many leakers aren't concerned about national security consequences. This is only about bringing down Trump. After all, the journalist establishment extolled Snowden for leaking tons of classified information. Trump might help himself by being a little more "political," and learning to fight the right battles.SJB , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:47 amI hope your article gains a large readership that includes the nevertrump cadre. It is probably a pipe dream to hope they would wake up and become aware of how they and their preference for Hillary look to many of the 63 million people who voted for Trump. They knew he was inexperienced, coarse, and a mixed bag. They also know he's only been in office for 4 months and the obstruction, malicious leaks, and malignant hatred of Trump began long before he took office.Trucker46 , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:47 amToo many in the nevertrump cadre come off as self-righteous, smug Pharisees for whom conservatism has become a religion. For some reason, they think their own character, knowledge, and judgement is impeccable with no room for correction by 63 million voters. The vox populi needs the elites to override them. Such hubris. We are well aware that they would rather have had a Hillary presidency. Are they any more mature than the Left in dealing with defeat? Apparently not.
Glenn Reynolds (professor of law) sums up the situation this way: "The childish response of Democrats - and 'NeverTrump' Republicans - to the 2016 election has done more damage to American politics and institutions than any foreign meddling could do." It would behoove the nevertrumpers to consider what they are sowing and reaping. Has their hatred of Trump and smug self-righteousness made them deaf, dumb, and blind?
I think Victor Davis Hanson's article (see link below) has articulated the situation best and is best read as a whole instead of excerpted. The National Review's readership fell greatly prior to the election because of the nevertrumpers pomposity, but not the readership of VDH's articles at the NRO. Perhaps instead of silently disagreeing, the vox populi need to intervene and impeach the nevertrumpers.
The Nightmares and the Realities of Never Trump
http://amgreatness.com/2017/05/17/nightmares-realities-never-trump/You elected a chump over all the obvious reasons not to, and he iS going to go before the end of the summer, either for the reasons already in.front of us or for the new ones he will give us in.the next 60 days. Get your stupid saves out of the way now and allow the republic to recover.Marianna Landrum , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:47 amBtw the "you elected" phrase above is predicated on.the idea that the chump really won.the election, Cuz it's quite clear he may not have.
The problem is not the elite, but a POTUS who is ignorant and arrogant,who is unqualified and inept and who is a man-child trying to be a leader. He makes his own issues by opening his mouth and saying stupid things and insisting they are true, and doing stupid things and insisting they are good. It is obvious he has no plan for anything and doesn't understand much of what is going on around him. He never talks about anything of substance; on health care, Price had to deal with details, and with the tax plan, it was Cohn who revealed that amazing one page initiative. When he does talk, he stupidly gives intel to our enemies. Trump is an idiot with a pen and that is the problem and it is a problem for this country.connecticut farmer , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:56 amExcellent article. Can it be possible that the meritocratic oligarchy which runs this country still doesn't "get it?" Do they really believe that getting rid of Trump solves the problem? Can it be possible that they still can't see that absent proof of actual malfeasance, driving Trump out of office could make things even worse, as if things aren't bad already.Tom , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:57 amAs the days and weeks go by it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer is–yes.
This is, far and away, the best summary of our current situation I have read anywhere. Outstanding!Trucker46 , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:05 amOne area around immigration could, however, be improved to truly capture why there is so much anger at the elites. On immigration, the article states: "Leave aside for purposes of discussion the debate on the merits of the issue-whether mass immigration is good for America or whether it reaches a point of economic diminishing returns and threatens to erode America's underlying culture. Whatever the merits on either side of that debate, mass immigration, accepted and even fostered by the nation's elites, has driven a powerful wedge through America. "
While true, this still misses the main point. The point is that the nation has existing laws to control immigration. Because the elites could not change the law through the democratic process, they opted instead to just ignore the laws, with absolutely no consequences except for those who live in the communities impacted.
In this context, the significance of the Clinton email scandal was magnified as it represented, again, the elites clearly violating the law with no consequences.
The lawlessness aspect is a critical point that needs to be emphasized. The elite backlash is not just about policy disagreements, its about a class of people (elites) violating/ignoring the law for their own benefit and at the expense of others. The very fact that this could happen exposes how broken the system really is.
And btw.. Tho the author here is a smart and good writer, this whole "elites" thing is a stupid argument.I agree that we democrats were too cowardly to nominate Bernie, whose whole message and absolute unlikelihood was most aligned with the spirit of the times. As a party we thought small and thus became small. But Hillary was so vastly superior to any of the republican candidates that the problem has nothing to do with right wing elites and everything to do with that large swath of the right wing which simply is deplorable. They are deplorable and they deserve to know that the nation as a whole knows them to.be such. There wzz a time when they knew their place– way down a hole with the boot of the nation s conscience firmly on.the top of their head. The right let them emerge from.that hole during the advent of the tea party Cuz it liked the fact that those losers were giving their movement breadth and energy.Michael , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:11 amBut don't think for a minute that those millions of prejudiced, disgusting people have been redeemed by the chumps supposed victory, they haven't. Maybe Hillary shouldn't have called them.such, idk, but the fact of their existence being a cancer in.the republic is as correct today as it was 400 years ago and in.every generation.to.follow.
With the absolute control the elites have upon the military industrial complex, the traditional media outlets, the bureaucratic "three-letter" departments of governance, as well as the powerful influence over both the judicial and legislative branches of the governmnet, it seems impossible to me that such a group could be thrown off by its citizenry by violent uprising or otherwise. Just watch some of the video of Chaffets lead intelligence committee trying to access information regarding the Clinton servers and you will begin to see the incredible scope of the problem we face in America and the world today. Just as it was God that delivered a rag-tag band of America patriots from the hands of elite-based tyranny at the founding of our country, it will take an act of God to remove the chains and shackles of the Deep State from off the necks of the American people. Unfortunately a growing number of Americans are turning their back on the only real chance of deliverance we have – He who delivered the Hebrews from the Egyptian elites can delver us also.BillCarson , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:11 amI am more than willing to fight the elites in the streets if necessary to stop them from forcing A duly elected president from officeDon Wiley , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:18 amIn the day when we received our news of national and international goings on via newspapers, there was a space for reflection and contemplation, and even some semblance of reasoned debate.Xenon , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:31 amThat ship has sailed, never to return and we are in the day of "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
It used to take some time and effort to form a proper mob.
What defines this shadowy type – "elite?" Educated? Financially well off? Aren't you an elite? Or does it only apply to liberals and Democrats? How would you define yourself?SJB , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:31 amApologies for a poorly written comment. The vox populi is a reference to a Douthat tweet: "7. But what, in the end, are elites for? What justifies their existence? Some sort of wisdom that the vox populi can lack." Douthat's article, his tweet storm, and the lack of strong repudiation from the nevertrump cadre pretty much ended my patience with all of them. It has become almost impossible to tell the difference between the hysterical Left and the outraged nevertrump cadre. This last week has been such a delightful display of how the media, establishment elites, and nevertrumpers feel about those 63 million unredeemable deplorable Americans who voted for Trump. Thank you for allowing me to comment.No to neos , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:35 amI agree with this. I voted for Trump and told my wife several times before voting, "I don't think Trump will be a good president. I'm voting for him to send a "f- you" to the elites who run this country.jdl51 , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:36 amWhen I say elites, I don't mean only the high and mighty. In my hometown, where I have lived all my life, our city council has handed millions of tax dollars to the region's largest car dealer to expand yet again. They pledged $1 million to lure a Hobby Lobby even though it is in direct competition with a Michael's store that has been here for years. They bought property for $1 million, knocked down the building on it, prepared the site for development, then "sold" it to a developer for $10.
That kind of favoritism has been running wild in my little town - a little town controlled entirely by people who call themselves Republicans.
"When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation's elites, it's a strong signal that the elites are the problem."Bob K. , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:45 amThe problem is the industrialized disinformation machine that continues to spew hatred and lies. One side thinks it's the liberal media, and the other side thinks it's RW talk radio and Fox News. It's easy to figure out which one is the real problem. There are facts and there are internet rumors that are passed off as facts. Both can't be true. And even in the face of clear evidence, primarily one side continues to believe the rumors and lies. Can't argue with delusion.
Thank you, Mr. Merry,Anti-Empire , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:51 amI have been waiting for you to step up to the plate since you took over as editor of "The American Conservative" and you have delivered!
This article makes some good points. Trump was elected fair and square and the case against him is straight out of fantasy land.Sandra , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:54 am
BUT then there is the snotty rhetoric that Trump is "uncouth," the same sort of rhetoric employed by the elite New York Times.
Frankly I do not care about Trump's table manners. I do care that he has sought detente 2.0 with Russia and has killed off the TPP, not only a lousy trade deal but also the economic limb of Hillary's military/economic assault (aka pivot) to China.
So I dismiss charges that Trump is "unfit" or "lacks nearly all the characteristics or attributes that a president should have.". And I have little confidence in a writer who looks at things in such an arrogant way. That he is the new editor of The American Conservative is enough to make me reconsider the contributions I make to this journal. Pat Buchanan and Bill Kauffman, yes. Merry? I wonder.I don't think the abundance of evidence that members of the Trump team met with Russian officials during the campaign can be called "minor infractions against the president". These are certainly serious allegations. It was clear early in the Trump presidency that he was not surrounding himself with people capable of carrying out the vision he articulated in his campaign for restoring America's middle class. He made many picks from the ranks of the elites including his Vice President and Attorney General. His selection seemed to favor loyalty rather than building a team that could make the changes he campaigned on. His Treasury pick is straight from Wall Street and his foreign policy team is praised by the elites. Donald Trump is not the agent for change. You can't differentiate him from the elites because he surrounded himself with them.Vince Hill , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:01 amWhat the elites don't understand is that there are lot more of us than of them. If they try to take the election away from the people who support President Trump. They will have a war on their hands and not a war of words.Anne M Erskine , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:04 amWritten by a Never-Trump, this article is absolute BS concerning the fact that President Trump is "unfit" for the office of the presidency. The article is, however, absolutely correct about the elites who have thrown their middle finger in the face of WE THE PEOPLE of the CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC of the USA, but WE THE PEOPLE elected President Trump to drain the swamp and he will. The true enemy of the USA is the elected class in D.C. and their cronies like Buffet, Steyer, Gates and the Soros Democrat Marxist Party and the utter traitorous actions by Obama. President Trump has to rid us of all Obamaites and has to slam the RINO traitors to the ground. President Trump is perfectly fit to be president and certainly more so than some community organizer who hates the USA and works to destroy her. Merry's hatred of President trump is boundless and shows him to be among the elites of the "media," a terrible curse on the USA. Thank God for President Trump and for FLOTUS Melanie Trump who has returned dignity, grace, class, and beauty to the White House after eight years of hate-filled, resentful, nasty, and cloddish behavior by Michelle Obama who disrespected the American people, spending millions of American posterity hard-earned money on herself and her family. Where was your article about the corruption of Obama and his breaking of our laws and his utter and disgusting spitting on his oath to our Constitution, Merry?Andi Payne , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:07 amI am still confused how a billionaire was NOT considered 'elite' to the working class.. Does this not baffle anyone? OK, I get that America on both sides, left and right, is sick of getting screwed over by the elites. But Trump is no friend to the working man. He is only helping all his billionaire elite friends and creating practices that will hurt the working class who elected him, whether via healthcare reform or promising coal miners they can have their jobs back, when everyone knows that sector is dying. The rest of the world is getting ahead of us, in technology, infrastructure, renewable energy sources, etc. The divide between conservatives and liberals has become so ridiculous that no one cares about making the US a better place. Trump's laughable campaign slogan worked miracles in convincing voters, but I think everyone has sobered up to the dangers that Trump poses in so many ways. We might be tired of politicians in Washington, but if most of us are honest, this 'shake-up' is going to do a lot of damage. Maybe it's what we need in the long run to be able to change things, but all the laws and deregulation have only made the elite stronger. It makes companies bigger, and the working man poorly treated and expendable.Slugger , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:07 amPlease help me understand. What remedies are you recommending? The reason I ask is because these accusations against a class of people, the elites, rather than against specific wrongful acts smack of Mao and the Cultural Revolution to me. I sense that some wish to see professors and newspaper editors working in fields with hand tools. I may have misread this posting, but Fran Macadam's comments sound like a call for at least a sharp turn to me.Argon , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:17 amReflecting further.SDS , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:37 amI'm not buying the "it's the elites" problem. An 'elite', more often than not, is someone who is using power in a way we don't like, along with that person's clique. This is akin to using the term, 'activist judges'.
Ultimately, a democracy always gets the leaders it deserves. Once in a great while, it gets better leaders than it deserves. There will always be facilitators of our worst instincts but ultimately, people have a choice. If a democracy is dysfunctional, it's not because some 'elites' or 'deep state' have taken over everything. It's because the voters kept electing idiots and representatives that didn't truly represent their interests.
Not sure if Trucker46 is serious, or auditioning to write for "the ONION" ..Devinicus , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:38 amRegarding the history of immigration in the United States, the Census Bureau says that the post-1850 peak was in 1890 when 14.8% of residents were foreign born, followed closely by 1910 when 14.7% were foreign born.Omar , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:40 amPew estimates that the US will break these records around 2025. Soon we'll have to go back to the mid-1700s to find a period in American history with a level of immigration we will be experiencing in the near future.
Well written article. Thank you.bkh , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:41 am-Vince Hill said: "What the elites don't understand is that there are lot more of us than of them. If they try to take the election away from the people who support President Trump. They will have a war on their hands and not a war of words."EliteCommInc. , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:44 amThose masses are not relevant to those "Elites" and are cannon fodder. The term "Deplorables" says it all. The masses are not worthy of any consideration. Those "Deplorables" are an obstacle to be eliminated for the greater good. You don't need shadow govt conspiracies to see this kind of stuff anymore. The blatant lies and manipulations from DC and the media originating from Dems and Repubs is there for all to see. The 2016 election cycle was a wake-up call. Neither candidate was fit to be a President. Both are crooked. Yet, the majority of sheep on both sides continue toward their slaughter. Trump may yet get us blown to bits, but I no longer care about saving the status quo. The majority of people have spoken in this this country and we have been broken for many Presidencies. The future of this nation, as is, is ugly, if one exists at all.
Mr. Trump is not the issue. And from what I have come to understand about Washington language from top to bottom, his language isn't the issue either, in my view.EliteCommInc. , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:49 amWhether he is unfit cannot even be addressed though I suspect he is, if one examines the long history of the office. I don't have any doubt that Mr Trump is an effective admin as head of state. As a non-politician, there may be some issues. And his policy and social positions may not square with my own. But that alone would not make him unfit. His temperament would not take unfit either. But having to sift through the emotional tantrums of so many in leadership, influence and power to make that assessment is a very tough slog.
Now we have a secret source that indicates a Mr. Trump did something or other in pressing for an end of needless investigations, as any CEO might, if said investigations were hindering the effectiveness of his tenure. And clearly its a disruptive fire. The seed of which were laid immediately as it became clear that Mr Trump, now Pres Trump was a contender. There was talk of impeachment before the election, and while I appreciated the "heads up", it was disappointing that the agenda for the net four years was to impeachment a man even before he took office.
I once said that Mr Trump was be given the royal "black treatment" and I stand by those comments. Everything he does, says, is a minefield. There are no mines, but there are explosions from multiple corners. I have to say, even some of the authors on TAC are are straining credulity, credibility with their "end of the world", "doom and gloom" commentary. The minefield, once again has not evidence, but rather, so and so said thus. There's nothing documented that Pres Trump has done anything to hinder anything about Russia or Gen Flynn. This type of scrutiny makes it impossible to do one's job.
I have been in communication for a long long time. And while my life is but a wreck at the moment. I have had some successes in competitive speech, and coaching. When I did my master's degree, I was unfit for teaching as a grad assistant. Not because of a lack of skill, knowledge or expertise, but because by every measure I had. What made the post a total disaster was the scrutiny as if I I had never done anything of the kind. If you have been teaching a while, there are things you know that a grad just have a clue about. My adviser attempted to fit my roundness into a nonexistent square peg. The entire graduate program was a disaster and a disaster in every way. They simply had no clue how to manage someone who had long past graduate level knowledge or experience. And much to failure, I did, wouldn't, couldn't communicate that fact, though given the internal politics of the place, I doubt it would have mattered. The behaviors were at best dysfunctional at worst criminal. If I wasn't already highly suspicious, by the time I left, I was certainly distrustful. I was asked if I wanted to pursue legal redress - the idea of that mess has always been a route to be avoided, save for defense. "People are people, and sometimes they just do dumb stuff," was my attitude. I was probably incorrect, dumb, innocent or malicious it was deeply beyond the pail.
Pres. Trump has entered an arena in which he has no respite from the attack or question of every aspect of his being and on every matter. While, a Pres should expect scrutiny, what he has been subjected is over Everest unreasonable and reasoned. The constant hyperbolic crisis mongering from people who supposedly have a better temperament, judiciousness, and higher moral code is a tad bit "funny".
No. Humorous.
What is in play and of deep concern are the repeated manufactured crisis to disrupt his tenure Crisis mongering that began shortly after 9/11 and has progressed with increasing speed, oddly enough when actual crisis have subsided. Aside form the economy, the country faces no "real" threat beyond securing the border.
Given our rather carelessness action in the region of the middle east, we had better obey the security protocols prior to 9/11 any of which would have prevented the attack or severely diminished its success. Checking expired passports would have been helpful – devastating to the attackers.
In Compton, Detroit, NYC, Tallahassee, Birmingham, there are hard working folks trying to figure out how they are going to compete against the immigrant who's labor is cheaper, who doesn't contribute to the community as much as they draw. They are trying to figure out how to be fair to their issues, without starving their own. They are doing everything possible to avoid being "deplorable" and always have. And yet the representatives of their locals are about dealing with muckraking needlessly.
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"Sad!"Boy. it's not a good sign when you are sad. Stay fiesty!
Those in opposition made it clear where they stood before the election. And Mr. Trump has just started to climb this long hill.
There's no reason for the war to turn violent, we are some distance from that turn and even the suggestion is hard to hear.It suggests a state of threat that need not be aired. In many ways, this situation is airing out the problem, for those brave enough to acknowledge it.
Though avoiding confrontation of any kind hasn't aided me much, I admit.
[May 19, 2017] Removing Trump Wont Solve Americas Crisis by Robert W. Merry,
Notable quotes:
"... America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making-and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it's difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis. ..."
"... Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency, and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn't the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own. ..."
"... The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes. ..."
"... "Elites" are not necessarily truly unique, "brights" are not necessarily truly bright, "gnostics" do not necessarily have true knowledge, "puritans" are not necessarily truly pure, etc. What is being labeled is not what they truly are, but what they would have us believe they are; the reality is often very much the contrary. ..."
"... What characterizes "elites" is not really position or power, very much less intelligence or nobility of heart. The defining characteristic of an "elite" is arrogance. ..."
jilles dykstra , May 5, 2017 at 4:55 pm GMT \nMay 19, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making-and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it's difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis.What is it? Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency, and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn't the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own.
When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation's elites, it's a strong signal that the elites are the problem. We're talking here about the elites of both parties. Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee-a woman who sought to avoid accountability as secretary of state by employing a private email server, contrary to propriety and good sense; who attached herself to a vast nonprofit "good works" institution that actually was a corrupt political machine designed to get the Clintons back into the White House while making them rich; who ran for president, and almost won, without addressing the fundamental problems of the nation and while denigrating large numbers of frustrated and beleaguered Americans as "deplorables." The unseemliness in all this was out in plain sight for everyone to see, and yet Democratic elites blithely went about the task of awarding her the nomination, even to the point of employing underhanded techniques to thwart an upstart challenger who was connecting more effectively with Democratic voters.
At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some even attacked him vociferously. But, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended up with the nomination. The Republican elites had to give way. Why? Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar, ill-mannered, tawdry politicians? No, because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it.
The crisis of the elites could be seen everywhere. Take immigration policy. Leave aside for purposes of discussion the debate on the merits of the issue-whether mass immigration is good for America or whether it reaches a point of economic diminishing returns and threatens to erode America's underlying culture. Whatever the merits on either side of that debate, mass immigration, accepted and even fostered by the nation's elites, has driven a powerful wedge through America. Couldn't those elites see that this would happen? Did they care so little about the polity over which they held stewardship that their petty political prejudices were more important than the civic health of their nation?
So now we have some 11 million illegal immigrants in America, a rebuke to territorial sovereignty and to the rule of law upon which our nation was founded, with no reasonable solution-and generating an abundance of political tension. Beyond that, we have fostered an immigration policy that now has foreign-born people in America approaching 14 percent-a proportion unprecedented in American history except for the 1920s, the last time a backlash against mass immigration resulted in curtailment legislation.
And yet the elites never considered the importance to the country's civic health of questions related to assimilation-what's an appropriate inflow for smooth absorption. Some even equated those who raised such questions to racists and xenophobes. Meanwhile, we have "sanctuary cities" throughout Blue State America that are refusing to cooperate with federal officials seeking to enforce the immigration laws-the closest we have come as a nation to "nullification" since the actual nullification crisis of the 1830s, when South Carolina declared its right to ignore federal legislation it didn't like. (Andrew Jackson scotched the movement by threatening to hang from the nearest tree anyone involved in violence stemming from the crisis.)
Then there is the spectacle of the country's financial elites goosing liquidity massively after the Great Recession to benefit themselves while slamming ordinary Americans with a resulting decline in Main Street capitalism. The unprecedented low interest rates over many years, accompanied by massive bond buying called "quantitative easing," proved a boon for Wall Street banks and corporate America while working families lost income from their money market funds and savings accounts. The result, says economic consultant David M. Smick, author of The Great Equalizer , was "the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial interests in the history of mankind." Notice that these post-recession transactions were mostly financial transactions, divorced from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating, and taking risks-the kinds of activities that spur entrepreneurial zest, generate new enterprises, and create jobs. Thus did this economic turn of events reflect the financialization of the U.S. economy-more and more rewards for moving money around and taking a cut and fewer and fewer rewards for building a business and creating jobs.
And, though these policies were designed to boost economic growth, they have failed to do so, as America suffered through one of the longest periods of mediocre growth in its history.
All this contributed significantly to the hollowing out of the American working class-once the central foundation of the country's economic muscle and political stability. Now these are the forgotten Americans, deplorable to Hillary Clinton and her elite followers, left without jobs and increasingly bereft of purpose and hope.
And if they complain they find themselves confronting the forces of political correctness, bent on shutting them up and marginalizing them in the political arena. For all the conservative and mainstream complaints against political correctness over the years, it was never clear just how much civic frustration and anger it was generating across the country until Donald Trump unfurled his attack on the phenomenon in his campaign. Again, it was ordinary Americans against the elites.
The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes.
When Trump, marshaling this anti-elite resentment into a powerful political wave, won the presidential election last November, it was noted that he would be a minority president in the popular vote. But then so was Nixon; so was Clinton; so was Wilson; indeed, so was Lincoln. The Trump victory constituted a political revolution.
Now comes the counterrevolution. The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy-the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America. That's why there is so much talk about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of "high crimes and misdemeanors." That's why the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre." That's why the demonization of Russia has reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and threat.
Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, even suggests the elites of Washington should get rid of Trump through the use of the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president if a majority of the cabinet informs the Congress that he is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" and if a two-thirds vote of Congress confirms that judgment in the face of a presidential challenge. This was written of course for such circumstances of presidential incapacity as ill health or injury, but Douthat's commitment to the counterrevolution is such that he would advocate its use for mere presidential incompetence.
Consider the story of Trump's revelation of classified information to Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to the United States. No one disputes the president's right to declassify governmental information at will, but was it wise in this instance? Certainly, it was reckless if he exposed sources and methods of intelligence gathering. But did he?
The president and his top foreign policy advisers, who were present during the conversation, say he didn't. The media and Trump's political adversaries insist that he did, at least implicitly. We don't know. But we do know that when this story reached the pages of The Washington Post , as a result of leaks from people around Trump who want to see him crushed, it led to a feeding frenzy that probably harmed American interests far more than whatever Trump may have said to those Russians. Instead of Trump's indiscretion being confined to a single conversation with foreign officials, it now is broadcast throughout the world. Instead of, at worst, a hint of where the intelligence came from, everyone now knows it came from the Israelis. Instead of being able to at least pursue a more cooperative relationship with Russia on matters of mutual interest, Trump is once again forced back on his heels on Russian policy by government officials and their media allies-who, unlike Trump, were never elected to anything.
Thus is the Trump crisis now superimposed upon the much broader and deeper crisis of the elites, which spawned the Trump crisis in the first place. Yes, Trump is a disaster as president. He lacks nearly all the qualities and attributes a president should have, and three and a half more years of him raises the specter of more and more unnecessary tumult and deepening civic rancor. It could even prove to be untenable governmentally. But trying to get rid of him before his term expires, absent a clear constitutional justification and a clear assent from the collective electorate, will simply deepen the crisis, driving the wedge further into the raw American heartland and generating growing feelings that the American system has lost its legitimacy.
There is no way out for America at this point. Steady as she goes could prove highly problematic. A push to remove him could prove worse. Perhaps a solution will present itself. But, even if it does, it will rectify, with great societal disquiet and animosity, merely the Trump crisis. The crisis of the elites will continue, all the more intractable and ominous.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is editor of The American Conservative . His next book, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century , is due out from Simon & Schuster in September.
Mary Myers , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:24 pm If you want to know why things are as bad as they are and why Americans are so ignorant and dumbed down, get the video "Agenda" by Curtis Bower. It explains it all.Gregory , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:17 pmI agree with your diagnosis, even if the term "elite" is nebulous (aren't you, Mr. Merry, by virtue of your position as a D.C.-based journalist, an "elite"?). Anyway, Gilens and Page found as much.Chairman Moe , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:37 pmWhat are some solutions?
Yeah this whole "elite" thing is kind of frustrating to hash out in good faith sometimes of course we want "elite" people in charge, in the sense that they're not illiterate imbeciles. The funny thing is how much "democracy" often fails those who are most wont to sing its praises. Those who identify as liberal tend to romanticize the idea of "the people" and their right to have a voice in our government, but then are sorely disappointed when those actual people exercise that voice in the real world. It's why most of the liberal social agenda of the past 50 years has been achieved through the courts, the least democratic institutions in our polity. "The people" wouldn't have voted for most of this stuff.Howard , says: May 19, 2017 at 9:38 amSince a lot of people are obviously having trouble with this concept: "Elites" are not necessarily truly unique, "brights" are not necessarily truly bright, "gnostics" do not necessarily have true knowledge, "puritans" are not necessarily truly pure, etc. What is being labeled is not what they truly are, but what they would have us believe they are; the reality is often very much the contrary.Devinicus , says: May 19, 2017 at 9:43 amWhat characterizes "elites" is not really position or power, very much less intelligence or nobility of heart. The defining characteristic of an "elite" is arrogance.
Saying "elites are the problem" is NOT to say "let us eliminate all elites" (duh). It is instead to say "let us get ourselves different elites".Jon S , says: May 19, 2017 at 10:48 amA good elite is one which uses its talents and power to pursue the common good. A bad elite is one which uses its talents and power to pursue the good of elites alone. After deindustrialization and financialization and the Iraq War and the financial crisis and the Great Recession and the White Death combined with the ever growing wealth and power of what Richard Reeves calls the " dream hoarders ", it's pretty clear that we have bad elites.
This is not to say that the masses are completely off the hook. A republic requires a virtuous elite AND virtuous masses. As Rod Dreher notes endlessly, the American masses aren't too virtuous nowadays, either.
Cheap, imported labor lowers wages and improves profits. Moving manufacturing to China lowers wages and improves profits. Reducing income from savings forces people into the labor force, lowering wages and increasing profits. Labor's share of national income is at a low-point not seen since the 1920's. Corporate profitability is at an historical high point.RRB , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:09 pmI don't understand what "crisis" is being spoken of here. Isn't this exactly the scenario we have been attempting to create since Reagan? There is no crisis. This is the fruition of our conservative economic agenda. Isn't this site called "The American Conservative"?
"Couldn't those elites see that this would happen? Did they care so little about the polity over which they held stewardship that their petty political prejudices were more important than the civic health of their nation?"Devinicus , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:12 pm"Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya."
Good points. Now you may apprehend why we simple people are not so eager to react with panic to the hysteria being drummed up by the same "elite" people and institutions that melt down every time Trump walks out of his office.
Who are these "elites"? This is the central question.Howard , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:13 pmThey seem to be: [1] highly educated [2] in private colleges and universities [3] mainly in the Northeast [4] and as adults [5] employed primarily in professional occupations [6] geographically concentrated in the Boston-Washington corridor, especially in NYC and DC.
The unparalleled expansion of the (mostly white) educated professional class in the DC area over the past generation should occupy center stage in any conservative critique of the American elite.
Michael Saber , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:29 pmif President Donald J Trump IS supremely unfit to hold the office, does that not logically (in the eyes of the author)not make the xx million American people who voted for him supremely unfit to vote?
Not at all. It makes them supremely desperate. The most important part of the election takes place before the first primary, when PACs and party officials determine what choices will be put before voters. Their candidates (from both parties) were likewise supremely unfit. I don't care much for either the Libertarians or Abe Lincoln, but Dead Abe Lincoln got one thing right: "Oh, hey America you just got screwed." Frankly, this has been going on for decades, but it is now reaching levels of abject absurdity.
I'm sorry, who's more elite than our golf club owning, billionaire President and his billionaires and investment bankers filled cabinet?KennethF , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:31 pmWhat Bruce said. In addition: who could possibly be so simple-minded as to believe that the removal of Trump will magically fix government? Bottom line is, Trump is dangerously incompetent. There are no doubt some in gov't who would get rid of Trump for the wrong reasons, but there are many (too many) right reasons for doing so. Some of the so-called Deep Staters will be Republicans who understand that Trump's promise to "drain the swamp" was nothing more than an empty talking point - and more importantly, that he's a threat to national security. Getting rid of Trump would be just one step toward fixing gov't, but would be significant nonetheless.Donald , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:34 pmActually, Bruce, some of us lefties agree with much, though not all of what Merry says. The elites in both parties have failed and if you want names one can go down a long list. On foreign policy, for instance, leaders in both parties like Clinton and McCain have consistently favored more intervention and more war. The only time Trump has been popular with the elites is when he bombed Syria.Concerned Citizen , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:43 pmThis post was already pretty long– if Merry had gone into detail on the financial crisis and foreign policy it would have been ten times longer.
I despise Trump too. The problem is that many of his critics are cynical opportunists.
Thank your for your perspective and sanity in a time of great unrest and paranoia.Sandra , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:46 pm"So tell me, if the down trodden Working class is so distraught by the elites putting them down, why do they celebrate when the GOP House voted to take away their healthcare by removing rules on pre-existing conditions."John D. King , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:53 pmHow you view the policies on pre-existing conditions depends on whether you are looking at premiums or benefits. If you are looking at premiums then removing rules on pre-existing conditions will benefit you. If you are looking at benefits no so much. You can't say that lowering premiums doesn't help working class families. There is also a fairness issue. The pre-existing exclusion only kicks in if there has been a lapse in coverage which encourages some people to not pay into the insurance pool until they get sick. How is that fair to all the folks who paid their premiums even when they didn't avail themselves of healthcare services? The proposed plan only asks those who haven't been paying into the system to pay more to make the system more fair to those who paid all along. It doesn't deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions. They can also avoid the higher payments by making sure their coverage doesn't lapse. Yes there are those who let their coverage lapse due to a financial crisis and we do need to have programs to assist those who truly can't pay.
Bruce's comment is nonsense. The elites are not in the least vague and unnamed, plainly referring to the mainstream "news" media and professoriate and GOP and corporate chiefs eager for cheap labor and GOP renegades (most of them warmongers) displeased by being upstaged. He purports to want "real" solutions but is quick to condemn real limits on immigration and trade deficits and racism in the guise of affirmative action and comparable ornaments of "social justice." Then, those who resent the liberal status quo and don't share Bruce's values are child-like and paranoid.Andy Lord , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:54 pm
Such arrogant and abusive views as his scarcely deserve refutation."The elites" aren't the problem, using the phrase "the elites" in political debate is the problem. What elites, exactly, do NOT include Trump, the nepotistic New York billionaire whose father donated a building to get him into Wharton? "Elites" is the code word used by right wing propagandists when they're trying to induce gullible or resentful citizens into acting against their own interests. Anyone using the term is dishonest.Dave Poteet , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:56 pmIf being elite means wanting a President who isn't a loose cannon and acts with some decorum and respect for the office than count me in I'm an elite.Wes , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:13 pmThis was really excellent and sober. Quite a nice change.Mark Thomason , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:25 pmTrump arose from America's crisis. He is a reaction to it, not the cause.gnirol , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:26 pmThe crisis cause is best displayed by Hillary. She was the problem. Trump just was not the cure, even though he is the reaction we got.
John D. King contends: " corporate chiefs eager for cheap labor " are among the elites voters shunned when voting for Pres. Trump. Um corporate chief? Donald Trump. Eager for cheap labor? Donald Trump. Elite? Donald Trump? Sending his son to an elite school that costs as much as the school that Obama sent his daughters to? Donald Trump. The only thing about Donald Trump that isn't elite is his drunken boor (even though he doesn't drink) rhetoric and social skills which he uses to mask his elitism. If you want no more than symbolic anti-elitism, Donald Trump is your man, and that's what Donald Trump supporters seem to want: the feeling that they are superior to those whom they feel have put them down for years, instead of the skills enabling them to compete with and perhaps surpass the people they deride as elite. Meanwhile the substance of Donald Trump's life has been elitism since he was in business school about a half century ago. No reason to believe that will change, is there?JWJ , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:27 pmBob Halvorsen wrote: "Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise? The only presidents with a minority of the popular vote are JQ Adams, Hayes, Harrison and Bush."MM , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:28 pmThe author wrote "minority in the popular vote". To me that means LESS than 50% of the irrelevant national popular vote total. The author is NOT saying that the presidents listed did not get the most votes in the irrelevant national popular vote, just that they received less than 50% of the total.
Nixon 1968 – 43.4%
Clinton 1992 – 43%
Clinton 1996 – 49.2%
Wilson 1912 – 41.8%
Lincoln 1860 – 39.8%Mueller's appointment sounds promising, all powerful politicians should be investigated if there's smoke, if not fire.Kurt Gayle , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:38 pmBut this discussion of elites conjures up a counter-factual President Hillary, elected President with a Democratically-controlled House, Senate, and solid 5-vote majority on the Supreme Court:
Given her campaign's numerous contacts with the Russian ambassador last year, along with an ongoing FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation, including but not limited to the Russian uranium agreement, State Dept. pressuring Kazakhstan to sign off, after which donations were made, and Bill's speaking fees going up, other pay-to-play allegations involving some very nasty governments in Africa and the Middle East
There would be no DOJ investigation, and no Special Counsel appointed. Even had she fired Comey herself on Day One. Impossible to prove, but none of this would be happening. And I doubt the press at large would be clamoring for investigations, because there wouldn't be any leaking going on.
If elites are good at anything, it's circumventing the rule of law by stonewalling, or burying, all investigations into wrongdoing. The Obama DOJ excelled greatly at that sort of thing
For those of us who elected Donald Trump our President, Mr. Merry, your type of analysis is the most dangerous!San , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:41 pmOn the one hand, you point to the root of the problems: "The elites are the problem."
You correctly identify some of the main reasons why we elected Donald Trump: "[1] The hollowing out of the American working class '[2] the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial interests in the history of mankind' [3] persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya [4] 11 million illegal immigrants in America, a rebuke to territorial sovereignty and to the rule of law upon which our nation was founded."
But then – having admitted that "Removing Trump Won't Solve America's Crisis" – you spout the elites' main talking point in their war to overturn the election results and to get rid of Donald Trump. You trumpet the elites' biggest lie. You say: "These people [the elites] are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job."
You are wrong, Mr. Merry. Totally wrong! President Trump is supremely qualified, and for these reasons:
• He was the only presidential candidate with the courage to stand up and identify the real problems that have been destroying America and
• He was the only candidate with the courage to stand up to the elites and not to back down.
You say, Mr. Merry, that "three and a half more years of [Trump] raises the specter of more and more unnecessary tumult."
You're wrong again. The tumult is entirely necessary. In fact the tumult is inevitable because we Americans have finally elected a President who is not afraid to speak to America's real problems. We have finally elected a President who has the guts to stand up to the powerful elites who created these problems. We have finally elected a President who will fight for us – fight for us and not back down!
The elites don't like what they see. They don't like Trump and they don't like us, because we put Trump in the White House.
Those of us who elected Donald Trump President because he fights for us are willing and able to fight for him!
What the elites do to Trump, they do to us!
"Tumult"? Bring it on!
"The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy-the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America."Steve in Ohio , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:44 pm
I don't agree at all with this assessment of what the "elites" want or expect.
I believe that the strong following Bernie Sanders had–and still has– is indicative of the large numbers of Americans who find the the "status quo" a questionable way to proceed.
This is not an endorsement of Bernie Sanders or a lamentation that he didn't get the nomination, it is just a clarification of terms of "what the elite want" i.e. you're barking up the wrong tree.
Also not sure who you consider an elite; the whole article seems based on flimsy assumptions.YES to what Anti Empire wrote at 10:51 am.Mark , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:02 pmI am thinking more and more that our only hope is partition. If California wants to let half of Mexico in, go for it. Just don't ask Idaho or Montana to send you water when you run out. If New England and New York want to be run by Wall Street capitalists with SJW social views, go for it. Encourage your working class and middle class people to move to the South or the Midwest and you can be just like Brazil! A nice place to vacation run by very rich people, but inhabited by mostly poor people. Another benefit of partition would be that the Ununited States would not have the size or resources to be the world's policeman. Sounds like a win for almost everybody but the neo-cons and the liberal interventionists.
Thanks! This essay was worth the subscription price.EdR , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:20 pmTo be honest, I don't really agree with the thesis of this article. The idea of elite as pejoratives seems out of place with the usage in other contexts and suggests we need a clearer articulation of what exactly it is we are angry about. This being said, regardless of where the problem lies, these so called "elites" have done an amazing job of turning the political machine to their advantage. We elected them – we elected Trump. I guess the thing I come back to is we need to stop seeking evidence of why we are right and start seeking evidence of why we are wrong – especially when it comes to candidates. I honestly don't know what this would look like or if it would be possible – but I feel like we need to change the way we know and evaluate candidates. It feels clear to me that the things we use as yardsticks fail us and warrants a re-imaging of how we determine fitness for public positions.Joe , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:20 pm19 paragraphs not a single solution. Yep, American Conservative.Jeremy , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:40 pm"Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee "MEOW , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:43 pmYou mean 16 million primary voters, largely women and minorities? They're hardly elites. Your whole premise falls apart here.
Remove Trump? No! Push him to keep his basic promises and not grovel to the warmongers and entrenched.Roy Fassel , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:45 pmThe term "elite" might well mean nothing more than "educated and knowledgeable and experienced." We can see what happens when a rich person seems uneducated in world history, uneducated in our form or government and shows no leadership qualities for running a government. He is not an elite. He is a bozo. Michael Jordan was an "elite" basketball player. Do you want anything less in the top ranks of government?Avi Marranazo , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:52 pmThe term "elite" has a negative tone for those who do not understand how difficult issues are. As was said "I never knew how complicated health care was." And this bozo was elected.
The elites who have made it their business to replace the American people, with aliens who'll vote them, are the problem.Nelson , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:05 pmYou can only blame the elites so much in a democracy. We elect presidents who appoint judges that say corporations have a constitutional right to give unlimited campaign contributions to politicians who work for them. We often confuse supporting our troops for supporting whatever war they're sent to. We want to cut taxes but we also want more warplanes. We spend more than any other country on healthcare and complain about costs but we reject systems other countries use that are proven more efficient. We spend much time complaining about elites but, with few exceptions, we keep electing them.One Man , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:09 pmwe Americans have finally elected a President who is not afraid to speak to America's real problems"Argon , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:09 pmLike whining to the Coast Guard about how tough life is!
Kurt Gayle: "You correctly identify some of the main reasons why we elected Donald Trump: "rhine-gold cowboy , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:21 pmPerfectly valid reasons. Unfortunately, a perfectly wrong candidate and a perfectly wrong party to support. For most of the issues cited (excepting immigration), you'd really want a Progressive. Trump and the GOP were never going to 'clean out the swamp' (he opened the gates to the swamp), never going to try reversing the flow of wealth away from the poor & middle classes, never de-escalate military conflict, and never going to wrest control from "financialists".
For that work, Trump is unqualified, slow to learn and has demonstrated a disquieting disinterest in actual details.
I agree with most of the objectives you mention, but Trump was never even close to being right person for the job. Better to wash your hands of this Administration and move on.
@ BruceJohn F LaVoy , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:27 pm" The term "The Deep State" being latest iteration, allowing anybody to speculate and project their own predjudices and paranoias as to these dark and unnamed forces as well comfortably allowing us each to excuse our own failures as being secretly the fault of some vague and unnamed "them"."
Deep State theory originated in the New Left as a response to the Kennedy assassination, for instance with the works of Carl Oglesby and Peter Dale Scott, who was using the phrase "deep politics" decades ago not the only way in which the modern GOP base has started to sound like left-wingers from the old days, but one of the more surprising.
I could pretty readily contradict some of the article's details, but I will skip that in order to agree with the basic premise. Yes, the Trump and Bernie Sanders phenomena signify a dissatisfaction with elitism. However, solutions not only exist, but abound. One in particular presents itself as not only advisable, but as a necessary condition: I will present only that one possibility here.Cash , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:37 pmAs long as big money can buy elections, elitists will rule and the masses will get shafted. The only way to keep that from happening in perpetuity is to establish a system of public funding for elections.
Absent that change, there really is no hope. We might not like it, and we might be forced to revisit principles we thought inviolate, but it is a necessary condition of restoring government of, by, and for the people.
The problem with our elites is they do well when the rest of the country is going down the drain.Alex , says: May 18, 2017 at 3:49 pmMost of the blame attaches to Republican elites but the Dems are not immune.
Since Reagan's election and the start of the libertarian takeover of the Republican party, America has shredded the social contract we have with one another. No more we're-in-this-together. No more we-are-our-brother's-keeper.
Instead of decent middle class jobs with all the benefits, we've moved toward a gig economy where everyone is always hustling for the next job/client. Which the New Yorker recently called the work-until-you-die economy.
Yes, if you're talented and lucky - the Yankees bringing you up from the minors, Paramount pictures distributing the movie you financed with credit cards, your start-up getting acquired by Microsoft - it is easier than before to become successful.
But if you're a temporary receptionist at a law firm or driving for Uber . . .
We've wrecked all the countervailing powers that inhibited capital from overwhelming labor. The share of US income going to capital (dividends, interest, capital gains) versus labor (paychecks) has soared.
Unions are dead. Infrastructure and other public spending is gone. NAFTA was supposed to come with support for workers whose jobs went to Mexico but Bob Dole didn't believe in coddling losers.
For-profit education and soaring tuition with bankruptcy law no longer permitting discharge of student load debt. How are those kids ever going to afford to buy the houses older people are counting on to finance their retirements?
Years without increases in the minimum wage. (Minimum wage is the reference wage for most other wages. Up the minimum wage and everyone earning a paycheck will soon get a raise too.)
That's what libertarians did to the Republican party and then to America. We stopped caring about the well-being of our fellow citizens because everything is a business deal between two self-interested parties. That's how you think on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. (And in 2008-09, when Wall Street drove the economy off a cliff, ordinary Americans bailed out the bankers.)
But if you're an out-of-work steelworker addicted to opiates? Your bad choices are not my problem.
The poster child for elites who no longer care about ordinary Americans is Pete Peterson of Blackstone. Remember his dog and pony show about federal govt's looming fiscal crisis? His solution was to gut entitlement spending that's probably keeping a lot of people alive.
And here's the kicker: nothing about this fiscal crisis was so severe that a solution would require billionaires like Peterson to tighten their belts.
Trump and Sanders picked up on the rage and despair that ordinary citizens feel for our elites and what they're doing to our country. Hillary and the rest of the Republican candidates misread the mood.
Trump is now proposing the same old Republican agenda. Tax cuts for the rich to be financed by gutting Obamacare. More deregulation and less public spending.
Yes, America is in crisis. Support for democratic norms is razor-thin and declining.
This country needs to recommit to a social contract. And a social safety net. We're all in this together. The rich can't do well at the expense of everyone else if this country is to live up to our ideals.
Back in the 1950s, the head of General Motors told a congressional hearing that he always thought that what was good for GM was good for America and what was good for America was good for GM. He got laughed at. But he was right. If he's selling cars, it means people are feeling good about their prospects.
I'm waiting for a presidential candidate who promises that the rich are going to bear the biggest share of the burden when Americans roll up our sleeves to fix our country. He'll win in a landslide.
Finally!PRDoucette , says: May 18, 2017 at 4:06 pm
A writer with critical thinking skills!If wealth equals power then the only way you are going to limit the power of the elites is by massive campaign reform that would curtail the influence the wealth of the elites currently has over the political process. Neither Republicans or Democrats have shown the slightest interest in meaningful campaign reform for the simple reason that it is easier fund a campaign with millions from the elites who donate directly to a campaign and indirectly through a PAC. Without meaningful campaign reform the US will slowly but surely slip from being a democracy to an oligarchy run by the elites for the benefit of the elites. The crisis in the US is that it seems most citizens seem willing to accept that because of their wealth the elites are more likely to know how to govern. Sadly these citizens are having to learn that being a wealthy elite like Trump does not automatically mean that he knows how to govern.Jack Everett , says: May 18, 2017 at 4:32 pmI agree the problem is the elites not Trump he is to stupid and psychotic to do so much damage.Eric R , says: May 18, 2017 at 5:10 pmAs a moderate lifelong Republican, I was a NeverTrumper through the primaries where my guy (Rubio) did well in my state, winning the contest. Only after Trump prevailed did I go off for a few hours on a long walk to contemplate what this meant for me, my party and my nation. I concluded that Trump was a necessary evil if we were serious about giving the 100,000,000 working men and women in this country a fair shake at the American Dream. Someone had to be ballsy enough to reconstruct the Federal Bureacracy and anyone less than a guy like Trump would wilt in the heat generated by the left leaning media and left leaning Federal Bureaucracy.Ed , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:06 pmLet's face it. Had HRC won absolutely nothing would have changed except our acceptance of corruption in our body politic. I still have hope that the Federal Government can be right-sized and the power redistributed to the United States of America not DC.
Therein lies the fight of our time. We can either concede the fight and let DC make all the decisions (including whether to fix the pot holes on my local streets)to we can ask what each citizen can do for his or her country. It's a binary choice really. You either believe that all the power should reside with the Feds and the dictates and mandates that go with power being held 1000 miles away .or you're in favor of 95% of the decisions that impact you locally and in your state.
If you need to find out where someone sits on this issue, ask them 2 simple questions.
1) Who is Joe Biden?2) Name just 2 people from all of the following: Who's your Mayor? City Council? County Commission? School Board? State Senator? State Rep? Lt. Governor? School Board?
The Trump era will be cathartic or emetic. Government operations will be so confused and erratic that people will start to think that maybe elite rule wasn't so bad and will look forward to "the grown-ups" taking over again. Of course, every new administration now claims to be "the grown-ups" reasserting themselves - that's come to be a given - but those pretensions will be taken more seriously when the next administration takes over.Blueshark , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:08 pmSo are the elites to blame? Well, in a way. They have their agenda, and it's not always shared by ordinary Americans. But ordinary Americans don't agree with each other all that often, and depending on what the issue is, some parts of the general public are closer to the governing elites than they are to other parts of the public. It could be that elites manage to get enough support from non-elite voters to stay in office.
But also, competence is a factor. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about elites, but much of the energy of governing elites may go into being just well-informed enough to do a half-way credible job of staying on top of events, rather than into deep-laid plans to thwart popular wishes.
"All this contributed significantly to the hollowing out of the American working class-once the central foundation of the country's economic muscle and political stability. Now these are the forgotten Americans, deplorable to Hillary Clinton and her elite followers, left without jobs and increasingly bereft of purpose and hope."Hyperion , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:08 pmNice try.
Three things led to the "hollowing out" of the American working class, and they have nothing to do with ephemeral vaporings about "divorced from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating, and taking risks."
1. Automation – and there's just no way around that – the semi-skilled and some skilled jobs giving lower-educated workers a strong middle class life are gone.
2. "Reagan Democrats" who've been voting staunchly Republican and stood by watching and nodding while conservatives have eviscerated and vilified union jobs that also supported a middle class lifestyle (see, e.g., "right-to-work" states).
3. Globalization (abetted by both parties) that shipped these jobs overseas – although there's no clear solution to this in an emergent 21st-century global economy.
Look, I grew up outside of Detroit and knew families and friends who didn't go to college, but went to work on the line and could afford a middle class life. For the reasons listed above, those days are gone forever.
Hyperion , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:15 pmDevinicus
Who are these "elites"? This is the central question.
They seem to be: [1] highly educated [2] in private colleges and universities [3] mainly in the Northeast [4] and as adults [5] employed primarily in professional occupations [6] geographically concentrated in the Boston-Washington corridor, especially in NYC and DC.
Using that definition, the author of this post is an elite. But I bet he claims he is not.
The thing is, Mr. Merry is a journalist. I'm hearing a lot about how dastardly THEY are from Trump supporters.
Andy Lord , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:26 pmJohn F LaVoy
As long as big money can buy elections, elitists will rule and the masses will get shafted. The only way to keep that from happening in perpetuity is to establish a system of public funding for elections.
I agree wholeheartedly. Does anyone who is not rich think that money = speech? What other democracy has an election funding system as bizarre as ours?
Trump's "populism" is based on the same old demagogue's standbys: xenophobia, scapegoating, racism, anti-intellectualism, economic anxiety, nationalism, and a yearning for an idealized past that never existed. The idea of Trump as some shirt-sleeved populist warrior who is going to correct the inequities of wealth distribution in the U.S. is too laughable to bother with. I would refer anyone to the two health care bills he has championed so far, which were poorly disguised attempts to enrich the wealthy even further, while robbing tens of millions of their ability to afford health insurance.Hexexis , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:08 pmSorry, but the problem is not the "elite" but the "elitists": them that's curried favor-always monetary-w/ other elitists in exchange for donations at election time. With Clinton & Trump, we had two elitists that thought they deserved the pres'y & were propelled by the elitists running the campaigns & parties that hoped to gain from either of those two in the W.H.Brian W , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:13 pmMeanwhile, the press worked feverishly to turn Clinton & Trump into viable candidates-w/ ancient, useless labels like "liberal," progressive"; "anti-establishment," "populist"-& convinced voters that they were the "best men" for the job.
So I ended up voting for our state's Repo. gov.; who in turn voted for his own father, an 88-yr-old former congressman. That was effect elitists had on some of us.
April 25, 2017 Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishingJeff Fine , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:47 pmIn a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10. He defends himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/25/christopher-steele-admits-dossier-charge-unverifie/
While we may despise elites ( and just who are they?) the decision to vote for Donald Trump as a solution seems to me to be beyond stupid.Ellimist000 , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:00 pm"Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise?"TR , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:29 pmBecause the author is letting his partisanship relive him of his good sense. Or he is as numerically challenged as his president, who knows?
These people won PLURALITIES of the popular vote. So did Hillary Clinton. They all received the most votes in an election with three or more candidates but received less votes than the total that voted for some one else. Everyone on the planet besides third-world dictators and Republicans generally describe this phenomenon as "winning an election".
A plurality is very different from getting a minority of the vote like Trump did. I am sure that Merry knows this. If you don't believe me, go ask the folks who voted Green and Libertarian who they would have voted for as a second choice if they were forced to
Thank you, Nelson, at 3:05 p. m.David Naas , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:34 pmAnd BTW, a lot of those immigrants (to whom I do not object) are here because of America's fascination with foreign wars and intrusions. Think "boat people," for example, or Iranian refugees or Cuban, etc., etc. Our stupidity produces moral obligations.
Contra the demos-fueled hissy-fit over "Elites", I have no problem with Elites running the world. For one thing, they (Elites) always have run the world, and that isn't going to change, except cosmetically.CascadeJoe , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:30 amNor do I have a problem with them reasonably rewarding themselves for their efforts.
Experiments with direct participatory democracy have usually ended in the sort of lynch-mobbing which murdered Socrates.
I have neither time nor interest in attending to every pettyfrogging detail of running a village government, let alone one of 300 million souls. Even with the Internet, "direct democracy" ends up being run by a few (reference Athens, if any doubt).
The current outrage-aholic fixation over "elites" is not because they are Elites, but because they are INCOMPETENT Elites. It is said the Brits lost the Empire because they forgot how to govern, and now, it is our turn.
Eric Hoffer told us how Elites fall back in 1950 (The True Believer), but we were so fat and happy we ignored what he said. Besides, he was a longshoreman, with no credentials. What did he know?
My preference is for Them to fix Their problem, and to get back running affairs properly.
Then I can focus on playing with my grandkids, flirting with my wife, and drinking beer in late afternoon with Old Blue at my feet.
Selah!
Well, he talks and tweets a lot. But NAFTA is still in force (he learned of downsides of ash canning it), Iran sanctions have not been increased (maybe he thought of jobs related to jet sales important), he is talking with Russia (as opposed to talking about it), and has let all know about his aversion to gassing civilians.Argon , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:30 amLet us continue to observe what he does, not what he tweets. I plan to come back in late July and take a look, 100 days just is too short to come to a decision.
Well, at least it wouldn't be a step backwards.Fran Macadam , says: May 18, 2017 at 12:33 amSo true. Another of the few sane voices, with intellectual heft to match that sobriety. Wish Rod Dreher would read and be convinced by your salient analysis, even if against his will. I think too many conservatives genuflect to established hierarchy, whatever its faults, out of a character that is disposed to distrust change, even needed change. I myself do not buy into the reasoning, "better the devil we know." I really think only the relatively well off can sustain such a view, whether in Manhattan or connected to it via the internet in Baton Rouge. The rest of us are too desperate.RomanCandle , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:45 amThe elites truly are the problem. Just like those who blame Russia, they won't take ownership. They will need one heckuva Homeland Security and clampdown on the population they view as intolerable, once they have their coup against democracy. It is certain to be a pyrrhic victory though, as no elites in history ever gave up their power willingly or peacefully, yet in every case they were forcibly removed in paroxysms of violence by angry mobs of citizens who lost faith in a rigged system that would not allow needed peaceful change.
Sad!
VERY well said.Patricus , says: May 18, 2017 at 1:58 amSo Trump lacks all the qualities and attributes of a proper President. What exactly are those qualities beyond getting elected? Who are the great examples Trump should imitate? Let's see, the community organizer? The son of a Bush? The man from Hope? Poppy Bush? I am one who admired Reagan but he did run up the debt. The quality these people share is a ludicrous vanity. Can't understand the notion that Trump is far below the rest of these flawed human beings. He seems to be just another one. What the heck, he might turn out to be effective. It is way too early to know.Mark Christensen , says: May 18, 2017 at 2:43 amVery true. The elites want to turf Trump because he is jeopardising a model that sustains their salaries and prestige, yet of course they can still not offer an alternative to what was there before.Rosita , says: May 18, 2017 at 6:58 amThe elites can't look outside the system, to something beyond the system, because that is, by definition, something they can't control or make false promises about. The deeper problem is they are unwilling to even have this conversation, for fear it would lead to a logical conclusion about the inadequacies of power.
What a bore and a canard; Trump_vs_deep_state has shown itself in capable of competent and capable public policy; quick on the trigger to tear everything down but in coherent and undisciplined to build anything of consequence to replace it. I'll take the elites any day over nihilism and petulance. Trump is the mirror image of his voters and it gives me great satisfaction to see their political fortunes grind to dust Over their own incompetence.Weldon , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:12 amMeh. People keep screaming about a "crisis" but aren't able to actually point to one. The economy is doing well. Crime is at historic lows. There are so few actual problems that people are taking to manufacturing them (e.g. opioids).Frank , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:14 amI think the real issue here is that the politically-powerful Baby Boom is approaching the final years of its narcissistic, navel-gazing existence, and assumes the entire world disappears when they do.
When in the history of mankind were they not?Chris in Appalachia , says: May 18, 2017 at 7:56 amThis article does a good job stitching together much of the Elites' sins. It is apparent to me that the American government can't be reformed from within by electing reform candidates. If reform is possible, it can't come from the Northeast and West Coast. It will never come from a Harvard, or any other Ivy League school, graduate. It won't come from a Boston Catholic person or New York Jewish-American. It won't come from a Baby Boomer who wishes to continue to prop up the social changes they ushered in the 60s and 70s. I would expect actual reform to come from a young person in the American Heartland, which the bi-coastal elites deride as "Flyover Country." Wasn't it the "Rust Belt" who showed us the way in the 2016 election? And if and when reform (i.e. the non-violent neutering of the Elites' power abuses) comes, the reformers had better be prepared with a total package and not just one candidate. It may be a one-time opportunity, and must be executed with the utmost strategy and determination.Paul Roche , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:26 amBut We Trump supporters are quite happy with his actions so far. We know the press is rigged against him. It is distressing to see the elitist Republicans attack him too though. You are right about the divide, but this may be our last best hope of taking the government backAleaJactaEst , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:39 amif President Donald J Trump IS supremely unfit to hold the office, does that not logically (in the eyes of the author)not make the xx million American people who voted for him supremely unfit to vote? Startling hubris if you ask me.C. L. H. Daniels , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:49 amWho's ready to storm the Bastille? Torches, get your torches right here!RRDRRD , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:49 amBasically agree with the author;s position but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, stop calling elitists, elites. They are not "superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities" in fact, they are frequently inferior.Paul Grenier , says: May 18, 2017 at 8:50 amWhen Sen. Schumer announced, on MSNBC, that a president going against the CIA is 'stupid' because 'they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you,' doesn't that scream 'crisis' from the rooftops? Since when does America, allegedly a democratic republic, assume elected presidents are the subordinates of the CIA? Well, de facto, probably for many years, but to actually openly approve of it?Linen42 , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:00 amBut there was no even discussion of his statement! It set off no alarm bells, no demands for reigning in the CIA ('the intelligence "community"'). Why not? Presumably because the short-term interests of too many elites aligned in this case with that of the deep state. The habit of 'whatever works for me, for the moment' won out, once again, further degrading the political culture right at its institutional heart.
And also because Schumer is right. It isn't smart to criticize the CIA It wouldn't be good for your career, you know what I mean? ('What are ya, a Russian commie or something?').
Merry is absolutely right. Removing Trump does nothing. It does less than nothing. It drives the disease even further into the body politic. The only solution is honesty and courage. Can we muster it?
So tell me, if the down trodden Working class is so distraught by the elites putting them down, why do they celebrate when the GOP House voted to take away their healthcare by removing rules on pre-existing conditions.Brian W , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:08 amSay what you will about Obama and his
looking down on the people", but take him on his actions and he has done more to help the lower class through legislation and executive orders than any other president in the past 30 years.But wait, he didn't do anything about immigration. So therefore ignore all the laws, ignore the rules changed, just focus on the revamped Know Nothings afraid of 3% of the population.
Yes indeed so and a very good article.John Gruskos , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:10 amMay 7, 2017 It Wasn't Russia, How Erdogan Bought Trump and His Neocon Gangsters, the Kosher Nostra
Learn who Mike Flynn and Rudy Giuliani really work for and why they are stabbing America in the back while Trump smiles.
Principled opposition to President Trump's character is limited to this magazine and a tiny handful of like minded pundits and politicians.Howard , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:24 amIf Trump had run on Hillary Clinton's platform, and if he were ruling in accordance with that platform, waging a war for regime change in Syria, signing TPP or some equivalent, refusing to enforce the immigration laws, granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, and greatly increasing the number of legal immigrants, the Democrats and neocons would be praising him to the skies and supporting him to the hilt.
If, on the other hand, someone other than Trump, Pat Buchanan for instance, had been elected on Trump's platform, the Democrats and neocons would be attacking him with all the hysterical venom they are now hurling at Trump (remember the brief deranged hysteria that followed Buchanan's 1996 primary win in New Hampshire?) – and I suspect some of those who pass for principled critics of Trump's character would be caught up in this hypothetical anti-Buchanan hysteria, because of their sheer weak-willed yearning for social acceptance.
If you want to really be serious about "fitness to lead", it has been a very long time since the USA has had a president who was fit to lead.Steve Norton , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:24 amThe fact is, though, that the first rumblings of "impeachment" started before the Electoral College even met, back while Democrats were still hoping to nullify what happened on election night through the Electoral College.
The whole Russian angle is simply a pretext. No one is saying that Russia hacked into the voting machines and added or subtracted votes; at most they are accused of having done the kind of thing investigative journalists are praised for having done. When, in the midst of the American election, British parliamentarians discussed banning Trump from the UK, **THAT** was much more serious and overt tampering with our election, yet no one cares about that, because the UK is the land of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, whereas Russia is the bogeyman. Thus we see headlines about Russian jets "buzzing" the coast of Alaska, only to read further down that by "buzzing" we mean they were 20+ miles into international airspace. Apparently it's an outrage that they should come within a thousand miles of American airspace. American spy planes in the Black Sea are a different story: after all, they remained in international air space the whole time!
It is dangerous to cast Russia unnecessarily in the role of villain, but it is even more dangerous to engineer even the softest of coups. Once that is done, there is no going back. Very likely there would be widespread protests, many of them violent, and a large portion of the public would see the de facto government as not merely corrupt and foolish, but completely invalid. The "authorities" would probably be able to crush dissent, but only by going full-on Stalin. What happens after that, who knows, but this story would not have any happy ending.
As usual, Merry's insights are useful and informed.However, Clinton, warts and all, would have more likely eased the pain of many Americans. Her campaign focused too much on aggrieved minorities and not enough on the pain shared by all but her policies would have more likely checked the manic redistribution of wealth from middle class to elite, ended the health care impasse that cruelly toys with people, made education more accessible and enhanced investments in science and technology that could create jobs in the coming years. With regard to immigration, it is true that adding so many immigrants to the population at a time when decent-paying jobs were being eliminated through technology created a bad optic but the ban or removal of millions of immigrants would not really restore middle class stability. Elites in both parties have made mistakes and been entirely too attentive to those who give the most money but let's not legitimize Trump's mixture of exploiting anger with false promises and pushing policies that will make the plight of working people even more desperate. Clinton might not have shaken up an elitist system she helped create but she would not have shaken our democratic institutions and attacked an already fragile polity the way Trump has and will continue to do for another 3 and half years. Like it or not, elites and disenfranchised will eventually have to work together and Trump has set back this inevitable and urgent collaboration years, if not forever.Bob Halvorsen , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:30 amNixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise? The only presidents with a minority of the popular vote are JQ Adams, Hayes, Harrison and Bush.Michael Powe , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:38 amA self-described "publishing executive" who writes magazine/blog articles for a living is a member of the "elite"! Condemned out of his own mouth. By his own vanity, perhaps.mightywhig , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:46 amAnd the case is hardly made by deliberately misstating facts.
65 million people voted for Hillary Clinton for President. Is that 65 million "elites," or 65 million "dupes" too stupid to "see through her"? 65 million irresponsible citizens? Are these 65 million the real "deplorables"?
I don't expect to see any mea culpa statements from the numerous conservative writers and talking heads who made excuses for Trump's selection as candidate prior to the election. Many of those excuses were promulgated through TAC. But a look in the mirror, and a conversation with that "still, small voice" could be therapeutic for many of you.
Not Hillary Clinton, not the Democratic Party, not the 65 million "deplorables," were responsible for conservatives' decision to go with a manifestly unsuitable candidate. Once again, those declaiming most loudly about "personal responsibility" - lack it.
Good piece. Clearly the many leakers aren't concerned about national security consequences. This is only about bringing down Trump. After all, the journalist establishment extolled Snowden for leaking tons of classified information. Trump might help himself by being a little more "political," and learning to fight the right battles.SJB , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:47 amI hope your article gains a large readership that includes the nevertrump cadre. It is probably a pipe dream to hope they would wake up and become aware of how they and their preference for Hillary look to many of the 63 million people who voted for Trump. They knew he was inexperienced, coarse, and a mixed bag. They also know he's only been in office for 4 months and the obstruction, malicious leaks, and malignant hatred of Trump began long before he took office.Trucker46 , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:47 amToo many in the nevertrump cadre come off as self-righteous, smug Pharisees for whom conservatism has become a religion. For some reason, they think their own character, knowledge, and judgement is impeccable with no room for correction by 63 million voters. The vox populi needs the elites to override them. Such hubris. We are well aware that they would rather have had a Hillary presidency. Are they any more mature than the Left in dealing with defeat? Apparently not.
Glenn Reynolds (professor of law) sums up the situation this way: "The childish response of Democrats - and 'NeverTrump' Republicans - to the 2016 election has done more damage to American politics and institutions than any foreign meddling could do." It would behoove the nevertrumpers to consider what they are sowing and reaping. Has their hatred of Trump and smug self-righteousness made them deaf, dumb, and blind?
I think Victor Davis Hanson's article (see link below) has articulated the situation best and is best read as a whole instead of excerpted. The National Review's readership fell greatly prior to the election because of the nevertrumpers pomposity, but not the readership of VDH's articles at the NRO. Perhaps instead of silently disagreeing, the vox populi need to intervene and impeach the nevertrumpers.
The Nightmares and the Realities of Never Trump
http://amgreatness.com/2017/05/17/nightmares-realities-never-trump/You elected a chump over all the obvious reasons not to, and he iS going to go before the end of the summer, either for the reasons already in.front of us or for the new ones he will give us in.the next 60 days. Get your stupid saves out of the way now and allow the republic to recover.Marianna Landrum , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:47 amBtw the "you elected" phrase above is predicated on.the idea that the chump really won.the election, Cuz it's quite clear he may not have.
The problem is not the elite, but a POTUS who is ignorant and arrogant,who is unqualified and inept and who is a man-child trying to be a leader. He makes his own issues by opening his mouth and saying stupid things and insisting they are true, and doing stupid things and insisting they are good. It is obvious he has no plan for anything and doesn't understand much of what is going on around him. He never talks about anything of substance; on health care, Price had to deal with details, and with the tax plan, it was Cohn who revealed that amazing one page initiative. When he does talk, he stupidly gives intel to our enemies. Trump is an idiot with a pen and that is the problem and it is a problem for this country.connecticut farmer , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:56 amExcellent article. Can it be possible that the meritocratic oligarchy which runs this country still doesn't "get it?" Do they really believe that getting rid of Trump solves the problem? Can it be possible that they still can't see that absent proof of actual malfeasance, driving Trump out of office could make things even worse, as if things aren't bad already.Tom , says: May 18, 2017 at 9:57 amAs the days and weeks go by it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer is–yes.
This is, far and away, the best summary of our current situation I have read anywhere. Outstanding!Trucker46 , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:05 amOne area around immigration could, however, be improved to truly capture why there is so much anger at the elites. On immigration, the article states: "Leave aside for purposes of discussion the debate on the merits of the issue-whether mass immigration is good for America or whether it reaches a point of economic diminishing returns and threatens to erode America's underlying culture. Whatever the merits on either side of that debate, mass immigration, accepted and even fostered by the nation's elites, has driven a powerful wedge through America. "
While true, this still misses the main point. The point is that the nation has existing laws to control immigration. Because the elites could not change the law through the democratic process, they opted instead to just ignore the laws, with absolutely no consequences except for those who live in the communities impacted.
In this context, the significance of the Clinton email scandal was magnified as it represented, again, the elites clearly violating the law with no consequences.
The lawlessness aspect is a critical point that needs to be emphasized. The elite backlash is not just about policy disagreements, its about a class of people (elites) violating/ignoring the law for their own benefit and at the expense of others. The very fact that this could happen exposes how broken the system really is.
And btw.. Tho the author here is a smart and good writer, this whole "elites" thing is a stupid argument.I agree that we democrats were too cowardly to nominate Bernie, whose whole message and absolute unlikelihood was most aligned with the spirit of the times. As a party we thought small and thus became small. But Hillary was so vastly superior to any of the republican candidates that the problem has nothing to do with right wing elites and everything to do with that large swath of the right wing which simply is deplorable. They are deplorable and they deserve to know that the nation as a whole knows them to.be such. There wzz a time when they knew their place– way down a hole with the boot of the nation s conscience firmly on.the top of their head. The right let them emerge from.that hole during the advent of the tea party Cuz it liked the fact that those losers were giving their movement breadth and energy.Michael , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:11 amBut don't think for a minute that those millions of prejudiced, disgusting people have been redeemed by the chumps supposed victory, they haven't. Maybe Hillary shouldn't have called them.such, idk, but the fact of their existence being a cancer in.the republic is as correct today as it was 400 years ago and in.every generation.to.follow.
With the absolute control the elites have upon the military industrial complex, the traditional media outlets, the bureaucratic "three-letter" departments of governance, as well as the powerful influence over both the judicial and legislative branches of the governmnet, it seems impossible to me that such a group could be thrown off by its citizenry by violent uprising or otherwise. Just watch some of the video of Chaffets lead intelligence committee trying to access information regarding the Clinton servers and you will begin to see the incredible scope of the problem we face in America and the world today. Just as it was God that delivered a rag-tag band of America patriots from the hands of elite-based tyranny at the founding of our country, it will take an act of God to remove the chains and shackles of the Deep State from off the necks of the American people. Unfortunately a growing number of Americans are turning their back on the only real chance of deliverance we have – He who delivered the Hebrews from the Egyptian elites can delver us also.BillCarson , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:11 amI am more than willing to fight the elites in the streets if necessary to stop them from forcing A duly elected president from officeDon Wiley , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:18 amIn the day when we received our news of national and international goings on via newspapers, there was a space for reflection and contemplation, and even some semblance of reasoned debate.Xenon , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:31 amThat ship has sailed, never to return and we are in the day of "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
It used to take some time and effort to form a proper mob.
What defines this shadowy type – "elite?" Educated? Financially well off? Aren't you an elite? Or does it only apply to liberals and Democrats? How would you define yourself?SJB , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:31 amApologies for a poorly written comment. The vox populi is a reference to a Douthat tweet: "7. But what, in the end, are elites for? What justifies their existence? Some sort of wisdom that the vox populi can lack." Douthat's article, his tweet storm, and the lack of strong repudiation from the nevertrump cadre pretty much ended my patience with all of them. It has become almost impossible to tell the difference between the hysterical Left and the outraged nevertrump cadre. This last week has been such a delightful display of how the media, establishment elites, and nevertrumpers feel about those 63 million unredeemable deplorable Americans who voted for Trump. Thank you for allowing me to comment.No to neos , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:35 amI agree with this. I voted for Trump and told my wife several times before voting, "I don't think Trump will be a good president. I'm voting for him to send a "f- you" to the elites who run this country.jdl51 , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:36 amWhen I say elites, I don't mean only the high and mighty. In my hometown, where I have lived all my life, our city council has handed millions of tax dollars to the region's largest car dealer to expand yet again. They pledged $1 million to lure a Hobby Lobby even though it is in direct competition with a Michael's store that has been here for years. They bought property for $1 million, knocked down the building on it, prepared the site for development, then "sold" it to a developer for $10.
That kind of favoritism has been running wild in my little town - a little town controlled entirely by people who call themselves Republicans.
"When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation's elites, it's a strong signal that the elites are the problem."Bob K. , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:45 amThe problem is the industrialized disinformation machine that continues to spew hatred and lies. One side thinks it's the liberal media, and the other side thinks it's RW talk radio and Fox News. It's easy to figure out which one is the real problem. There are facts and there are internet rumors that are passed off as facts. Both can't be true. And even in the face of clear evidence, primarily one side continues to believe the rumors and lies. Can't argue with delusion.
Thank you, Mr. Merry,Anti-Empire , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:51 amI have been waiting for you to step up to the plate since you took over as editor of "The American Conservative" and you have delivered!
This article makes some good points. Trump was elected fair and square and the case against him is straight out of fantasy land.Sandra , says: May 18, 2017 at 10:54 am
BUT then there is the snotty rhetoric that Trump is "uncouth," the same sort of rhetoric employed by the elite New York Times.
Frankly I do not care about Trump's table manners. I do care that he has sought detente 2.0 with Russia and has killed off the TPP, not only a lousy trade deal but also the economic limb of Hillary's military/economic assault (aka pivot) to China.
So I dismiss charges that Trump is "unfit" or "lacks nearly all the characteristics or attributes that a president should have.". And I have little confidence in a writer who looks at things in such an arrogant way. That he is the new editor of The American Conservative is enough to make me reconsider the contributions I make to this journal. Pat Buchanan and Bill Kauffman, yes. Merry? I wonder.I don't think the abundance of evidence that members of the Trump team met with Russian officials during the campaign can be called "minor infractions against the president". These are certainly serious allegations. It was clear early in the Trump presidency that he was not surrounding himself with people capable of carrying out the vision he articulated in his campaign for restoring America's middle class. He made many picks from the ranks of the elites including his Vice President and Attorney General. His selection seemed to favor loyalty rather than building a team that could make the changes he campaigned on. His Treasury pick is straight from Wall Street and his foreign policy team is praised by the elites. Donald Trump is not the agent for change. You can't differentiate him from the elites because he surrounded himself with them.Vince Hill , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:01 amWhat the elites don't understand is that there are lot more of us than of them. If they try to take the election away from the people who support President Trump. They will have a war on their hands and not a war of words.Anne M Erskine , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:04 amWritten by a Never-Trump, this article is absolute BS concerning the fact that President Trump is "unfit" for the office of the presidency. The article is, however, absolutely correct about the elites who have thrown their middle finger in the face of WE THE PEOPLE of the CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC of the USA, but WE THE PEOPLE elected President Trump to drain the swamp and he will. The true enemy of the USA is the elected class in D.C. and their cronies like Buffet, Steyer, Gates and the Soros Democrat Marxist Party and the utter traitorous actions by Obama. President Trump has to rid us of all Obamaites and has to slam the RINO traitors to the ground. President Trump is perfectly fit to be president and certainly more so than some community organizer who hates the USA and works to destroy her. Merry's hatred of President trump is boundless and shows him to be among the elites of the "media," a terrible curse on the USA. Thank God for President Trump and for FLOTUS Melanie Trump who has returned dignity, grace, class, and beauty to the White House after eight years of hate-filled, resentful, nasty, and cloddish behavior by Michelle Obama who disrespected the American people, spending millions of American posterity hard-earned money on herself and her family. Where was your article about the corruption of Obama and his breaking of our laws and his utter and disgusting spitting on his oath to our Constitution, Merry?Andi Payne , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:07 amI am still confused how a billionaire was NOT considered 'elite' to the working class.. Does this not baffle anyone? OK, I get that America on both sides, left and right, is sick of getting screwed over by the elites. But Trump is no friend to the working man. He is only helping all his billionaire elite friends and creating practices that will hurt the working class who elected him, whether via healthcare reform or promising coal miners they can have their jobs back, when everyone knows that sector is dying. The rest of the world is getting ahead of us, in technology, infrastructure, renewable energy sources, etc. The divide between conservatives and liberals has become so ridiculous that no one cares about making the US a better place. Trump's laughable campaign slogan worked miracles in convincing voters, but I think everyone has sobered up to the dangers that Trump poses in so many ways. We might be tired of politicians in Washington, but if most of us are honest, this 'shake-up' is going to do a lot of damage. Maybe it's what we need in the long run to be able to change things, but all the laws and deregulation have only made the elite stronger. It makes companies bigger, and the working man poorly treated and expendable.Slugger , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:07 amPlease help me understand. What remedies are you recommending? The reason I ask is because these accusations against a class of people, the elites, rather than against specific wrongful acts smack of Mao and the Cultural Revolution to me. I sense that some wish to see professors and newspaper editors working in fields with hand tools. I may have misread this posting, but Fran Macadam's comments sound like a call for at least a sharp turn to me.Argon , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:17 amReflecting further.SDS , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:37 amI'm not buying the "it's the elites" problem. An 'elite', more often than not, is someone who is using power in a way we don't like, along with that person's clique. This is akin to using the term, 'activist judges'.
Ultimately, a democracy always gets the leaders it deserves. Once in a great while, it gets better leaders than it deserves. There will always be facilitators of our worst instincts but ultimately, people have a choice. If a democracy is dysfunctional, it's not because some 'elites' or 'deep state' have taken over everything. It's because the voters kept electing idiots and representatives that didn't truly represent their interests.
Not sure if Trucker46 is serious, or auditioning to write for "the ONION" ..Devinicus , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:38 amRegarding the history of immigration in the United States, the Census Bureau says that the post-1850 peak was in 1890 when 14.8% of residents were foreign born, followed closely by 1910 when 14.7% were foreign born.Omar , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:40 amPew estimates that the US will break these records around 2025. Soon we'll have to go back to the mid-1700s to find a period in American history with a level of immigration we will be experiencing in the near future.
Well written article. Thank you.bkh , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:41 am-Vince Hill said: "What the elites don't understand is that there are lot more of us than of them. If they try to take the election away from the people who support President Trump. They will have a war on their hands and not a war of words."EliteCommInc. , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:44 amThose masses are not relevant to those "Elites" and are cannon fodder. The term "Deplorables" says it all. The masses are not worthy of any consideration. Those "Deplorables" are an obstacle to be eliminated for the greater good. You don't need shadow govt conspiracies to see this kind of stuff anymore. The blatant lies and manipulations from DC and the media originating from Dems and Repubs is there for all to see. The 2016 election cycle was a wake-up call. Neither candidate was fit to be a President. Both are crooked. Yet, the majority of sheep on both sides continue toward their slaughter. Trump may yet get us blown to bits, but I no longer care about saving the status quo. The majority of people have spoken in this this country and we have been broken for many Presidencies. The future of this nation, as is, is ugly, if one exists at all.
Mr. Trump is not the issue. And from what I have come to understand about Washington language from top to bottom, his language isn't the issue either, in my view.EliteCommInc. , says: May 18, 2017 at 11:49 amWhether he is unfit cannot even be addressed though I suspect he is, if one examines the long history of the office. I don't have any doubt that Mr Trump is an effective admin as head of state. As a non-politician, there may be some issues. And his policy and social positions may not square with my own. But that alone would not make him unfit. His temperament would not take unfit either. But having to sift through the emotional tantrums of so many in leadership, influence and power to make that assessment is a very tough slog.
Now we have a secret source that indicates a Mr. Trump did something or other in pressing for an end of needless investigations, as any CEO might, if said investigations were hindering the effectiveness of his tenure. And clearly its a disruptive fire. The seed of which were laid immediately as it became clear that Mr Trump, now Pres Trump was a contender. There was talk of impeachment before the election, and while I appreciated the "heads up", it was disappointing that the agenda for the net four years was to impeachment a man even before he took office.
I once said that Mr Trump was be given the royal "black treatment" and I stand by those comments. Everything he does, says, is a minefield. There are no mines, but there are explosions from multiple corners. I have to say, even some of the authors on TAC are are straining credulity, credibility with their "end of the world", "doom and gloom" commentary. The minefield, once again has not evidence, but rather, so and so said thus. There's nothing documented that Pres Trump has done anything to hinder anything about Russia or Gen Flynn. This type of scrutiny makes it impossible to do one's job.
I have been in communication for a long long time. And while my life is but a wreck at the moment. I have had some successes in competitive speech, and coaching. When I did my master's degree, I was unfit for teaching as a grad assistant. Not because of a lack of skill, knowledge or expertise, but because by every measure I had. What made the post a total disaster was the scrutiny as if I I had never done anything of the kind. If you have been teaching a while, there are things you know that a grad just have a clue about. My adviser attempted to fit my roundness into a nonexistent square peg. The entire graduate program was a disaster and a disaster in every way. They simply had no clue how to manage someone who had long past graduate level knowledge or experience. And much to failure, I did, wouldn't, couldn't communicate that fact, though given the internal politics of the place, I doubt it would have mattered. The behaviors were at best dysfunctional at worst criminal. If I wasn't already highly suspicious, by the time I left, I was certainly distrustful. I was asked if I wanted to pursue legal redress - the idea of that mess has always been a route to be avoided, save for defense. "People are people, and sometimes they just do dumb stuff," was my attitude. I was probably incorrect, dumb, innocent or malicious it was deeply beyond the pail.
Pres. Trump has entered an arena in which he has no respite from the attack or question of every aspect of his being and on every matter. While, a Pres should expect scrutiny, what he has been subjected is over Everest unreasonable and reasoned. The constant hyperbolic crisis mongering from people who supposedly have a better temperament, judiciousness, and higher moral code is a tad bit "funny".
No. Humorous.
What is in play and of deep concern are the repeated manufactured crisis to disrupt his tenure Crisis mongering that began shortly after 9/11 and has progressed with increasing speed, oddly enough when actual crisis have subsided. Aside form the economy, the country faces no "real" threat beyond securing the border.
Given our rather carelessness action in the region of the middle east, we had better obey the security protocols prior to 9/11 any of which would have prevented the attack or severely diminished its success. Checking expired passports would have been helpful – devastating to the attackers.
In Compton, Detroit, NYC, Tallahassee, Birmingham, there are hard working folks trying to figure out how they are going to compete against the immigrant who's labor is cheaper, who doesn't contribute to the community as much as they draw. They are trying to figure out how to be fair to their issues, without starving their own. They are doing everything possible to avoid being "deplorable" and always have. And yet the representatives of their locals are about dealing with muckraking needlessly.
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"Sad!"Boy. it's not a good sign when you are sad. Stay fiesty!
Those in opposition made it clear where they stood before the election. And Mr. Trump has just started to climb this long hill.
There's no reason for the war to turn violent, we are some distance from that turn and even the suggestion is hard to hear.It suggests a state of threat that need not be aired. In many ways, this situation is airing out the problem, for those brave enough to acknowledge it.
Though avoiding confrontation of any kind hasn't aided me much, I admit.
[May 16, 2017] The Hidden Realities of U.S. Incarceration The American Conservative by By Robert VerBruggen
The review of: Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform , John Pfaff, Basic Books, 272 pages
Notable quotes:
"... About 2.4 million people live behind bars in America - the highest number in the world. That's a little more than 0.7% of the population and more than 700 for every 100,000 people. The area of the U.S. is bigger than China, a country that dwarfs the U.S. general population by more than four times. Also note how tiny Canada looks next to the U.S. ..."
"... As a former prosecutor we had a grotesquely unfair advantage It was policy to charge someone with the highest possible charge, knowing that we would plead to something much lower. It was even added to the jacket by screening DA's what was recommended to accept. ..."
"... About this quote I pulled here. What you are talking about is called "charge stacking," and prosecutors do it because they can strong arm everyone into a conviction, then they can build political careers on. Oftentimes, they go to run for AG offices based on their stellar records that the public is duped into thinking actually means something. ..."
May 16, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
When it comes to America's high incarceration rate-now about five times what it was in 1970-there's the Standard Story, and then there's the truth.The Standard Story is the one that has been propagated for years in mainstream-media outlets and by activists. It holds that the War on Drugs is virtually the sole culprit-that incarceration rose merely because America decided to start imprisoning nonviolent, low-level drug offenders for absurd amounts of time. It posits the simple solution of reducing or eliminating the sentences for these victimless crimes.
The truth, by contrast, is that about half of prisoners were convicted of violent offenses, and that some of the others committed violence but pleaded guilty to lesser offenses. Even the fifth of prisoners who are locked up for drugs tend to be mid-level dealers, not users or low-level distributors. And, while decades-long sentences make the news, most prisoners who committed crimes not involving the most serious violence are out within a year or two. In other words, while incarceration has undoubtedly soared-even relative to crime , which has dropped substantially since the early 1990s-our propensity to throw people in prison has simply not reached the heights of ridiculousness that many assume.
There is still "low-hanging fruit" to be had by releasing some drug offenders or subtly redefining crimes (such as changing the dollar-value threshold separating misdemeanor from felony theft), but this will not get America anywhere near the incarceration rate it had decades ago or the rates that prevail elsewhere in the developed world. Bigger reductions would require speeding the release-or declining to imprison-people who committed crimes that left very real victims, which is not so obviously a desirable outcome.
Until recently, few were discussing this reality aside from a handful of conservative commentators such as the Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald . These people typically argued that those in prison mostly deserve to be there, and that dramatic reductions to the incarceration rate run an intolerably high risk of increasing crime. But in the last several years a number of reform-minded scholars and pundits have tried to make a public case for such reductions even in full view of the facts.
The latest entry in this literature is John Pfaff's Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform . It is an excellent overview of where America stands in regard to its prisons, and Pfaff's proposed reforms deserve serious consideration across the political spectrum.
The role of the drug war isn't the only issue on which Pfaff departs from the Standard Story. He also disputes the idea that the typical prisoner is spending much more time behind bars than he used to. In Pfaff's view, the reason for our skyrocketing incarceration rate is that prosecutors have become more likely to file felony charges following an arrest, rather than that those convicted are being locked up for longer periods of time.
This is considerably more contentious among those who study imprisonment; unlike the percentage of prisoners serving time for drugs, it's not something one can simply look up in a Justice Department report. Pfaff is at odds with the prestigious National Academy of Sciences , for instance, when he all but dismisses the role of time served. The debate involves competing data sources and intricate mathematical simulations.
But if prosecutors might not be the sole driver of mass incarceration, no one denies that they are a big one. And Pfaff expertly lays out how this happened so that we can see if it's a process we can live with.
As is well-known, the crime explosion of the late 1960s through the early '90s inspired lawmakers to adopt a get-tough approach, and this entailed reining in judges, for instance through mandatory-minimum laws. The concept is not inherently flawed: there are unique factors at play in each case, but in general, people who commit the same crime should receive similar punishments. The punishment should depend on the law, not the judge's personal sense of justice or his like or dislike of the defendant. But there were two problems with these laws as they actually played out.
First, especially at the federal level, many minimums are so high that no one really thinks they're fair and people are rarely sentenced to them. Instead, prosecutors use them as a threat to get defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges or testify against fellow criminals. (About 95 percent of cases end in plea deals rather than trials today.) In other words, they operate as a roundabout way to gut defendants' constitutional rights: if you make the prosecution prove its case at trial and invoke your right to remain silent about criminal activities you participated in, you receive a patently unfair sentence . Incredibly, the federal prosecutors' lobby has defended the current mandatory minimums explicitly on these grounds .
Second, and relatedly, the minimums didn't eliminate discretion from the system: prosecutors still have plenty. A prosecutor often can decide how much time a defendant should serve and then put together a mix of charges that will require the judge to give a sentence in that ballpark. The law can offer an impressive buffet of overlapping statutes that cover the conduct a defendant is accused of.
And in addition to holding enormous discretion, prosecutors face a number of incentives that are far from ideal. District attorneys are typically elected and want to avoid going easy on a Willie Horton or a Brock Turner. The elections are county-wide, giving conservative suburban areas a lot of say as to how high crime in inner cities is handled, even though suburbanites bear little of the cost of crime or of incarceration. Prosecutors also face little resistance, because judges normally accept plea deals and most defendants rely on public defenders, which are underfunded. In 43 states defendants have to pay at least some of the costs associated with their "state-provided" lawyer.
Moreover, what we call "the justice system" is really a haphazard mashup of city, county, state, and federal agencies. Federal prisons receive a lot of attention but hold just 13 percent of prisoners. In the states, meanwhile, counties generally pay for probation and short jail stays while the state pays for the cost of imprisonment-creating an incentive for prosecutors to overuse the latter.
Reading Pfaff's characterization of who's serving how much time in prison these days-mainly violent offenders, mainly short sentences-one is tempted to wonder what the big deal is. Maybe we should just content ourselves with picking the "low-hanging fruit." Yet it's hard to accept our sky-high incarceration rate knowing it's produced by the dysfunctional system Pfaff describes. Realigning the incentives in that system would be a worthwhile endeavor whether it cut incarceration or not.
Conservatives intuitively understood the need to rein in judges' discretion decades ago; perhaps the same thing could be done for prosecutors today. Pfaff notes that New Jersey has given its prosecutors detailed guidelines as to the plea deals they are allowed to strike, with judges able to invalidate any deals that break the rules; they "look almost exactly like the guidelines that many states use to regulate judicial sentencing." This is a promising idea, though the guidelines would have to be written carefully to avoid unintended results. (The New Jersey guidelines initially made it hard for urban prosecutors to give lighter sentences in "school zone" cases, for example, which was a problem because 76 percent of Newark is considered a school zone.)
Other options: cut mandatory sentences to reduce the threats prosecutors can make to extract plea deals; require prosecutors to disclose the threats they made so that judges can review them; balance out the incentives facing county prosecutors by paying counties to keep people out of state prison; appoint prosecutors instead of electing them; let cities and suburbs choose their prosecutors separately; fund public defenders adequately. Each of these moves would align incentives in a sensible way rather than seeking to cut incarceration per se.
And on a deeper level Pfaff prompts us to consider more carefully the exact tradeoffs we're willing to make between incarceration and crime. One study, for instance, found that between 1978 and 1990, locking up an extra person for a year stopped 2.5 violent crimes and 11.4 property crimes. Thanks to diminishing marginal returns, those numbers fell to 0.3 and 2.7 respectively in the 1991–2004 period. Are the latter numbers worthwhile given the cost to taxpayers, and to offenders and their families? Is the payoff even lower today? And what if, for a given amount of money, you could reduce crime 20 percent more by hiring more cops than by incarcerating more offenders, as a different study contended?
For these reasons, Pfaff suggests we reject the assumption that reforms are worthwhile only if they don't increase crime at all. It's a point worth taking to heart as one considers some of Pfaff's other reforms, the ones more directly targeted at reducing incarceration.
Risk-assessment tools are one promising development. Modern statistics allow us to calculate the chances that a given prisoner will reoffend with a reasonable degree of accuracy, based on various characteristics. There are legitimate complaints about these tools (though Pfaff takes too seriously an allegation of racial bias by the journalism outfit ProPublica), but they hold out the promise of focusing incarceration on the people who really need to be locked up lest they continue to offend. They are a dramatic improvement over the older, cruder tools like "three strikes" laws.
In a somewhat similar vein, pilot programs could experiment with releasing offenders and closely monitoring them, like the Hawaii HOPE program does for drug offenders, giving them repeated drug tests and a "swift, certain, and fair" jail stay for minor lapses.
Not all of the ideas Pfaff explores are home runs; I have trouble imagining an American state in which there's a "cap-and-trade" system for prison capacity. But in general, these are far more serious and considered proposals for cutting incarceration than what we have seen from almost anyone else.
Pfaff's book is targeted primarily at reformers, not skeptics. He believes the reformers misunderstand the problem and hence cannot solve it. He notes, for example, that many efforts to cut sentences for low-level offenders are coupled with increased sentences for those who commit worse crimes-which would address the problem described in the Standard Story but not the reality we actually face.
And in debunking the myth of nonviolent drug offenders haphazardly locked away for long periods of time, of course, he runs the risk of inadvertently convincing his audience there really isn't much of a problem. He's to be commended for taking that risk.
But, by forthrightly explaining the true nature of incarceration in America before laying out his case for reform, Pfaff poses a serious challenge for the skeptics, too. Unlike so many activists and op-ed writers, Pfaff cannot be waved away with a handful of simple statistics demonstrating that, no, our high incarceration rate isn't the result of locking up first-time offenders caught smoking pot. He knows that, and still sees serious problems with the status quo. His ideas deserve a close look.
Tim D., says: May 16, 2017 at 12:18 amKevin Drum (one of the few liberal authors I read) has made a very convincing case about the lead hypothesis, where exposure to lead notable increases in crime. I've always found it a convincing argument. Combined with other factors (e.g., massive job losses in various areas) caused the spike in crime. Apparently, this isn't the first time something like this has happened too. Crime apparently skyrocketed in the late 1800s too.Brian W , says: May 16, 2017 at 10:05 amHighest to Lowest – Prison Population Total GloballyBrian W , says: May 16, 2017 at 10:25 amPlease use drop down menu 1 to choose the category of data you wish to view, and then wait for the page to reload. Once the page has reloaded please choose the continent/region from drop down menu 2 and then press apply.
Ranking – Title – Prison Population Total
1 – United States of America 2 228 424
2 – China 1 701 344
3 – Russian Federation 672 100
4 – Brazil 581 507http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All
JAN. 24, 2014 This World Map Shows The Enormity Of America's Prison Problem
About 2.4 million people live behind bars in America - the highest number in the world. That's a little more than 0.7% of the population and more than 700 for every 100,000 people. The area of the U.S. is bigger than China, a country that dwarfs the U.S. general population by more than four times. Also note how tiny Canada looks next to the U.S.
http://www.businessinsider.com/world-map-of-incarceration-rates-2014-1
October 25, 2016 Prison Food Contractors Funded Efforts To Combat Marijuana LegalizationMikeCLT , says: May 16, 2017 at 11:01 amAll of these organizations have a distinct interest in keeping nonviolent people in jail. So, it should come as no surprise a prison contractor is working to keep marijuana illegal.
"while incarceration has undoubtedly soared-even relative to crime, which has dropped substantially since the early 1990s"Daniel , says: May 16, 2017 at 12:01 pmDo you think the two (higher rates of incarceration/lower crime) are unconnected?
The problem is simple: Sin. The solution is simple: Jesus Christ.GregR , says: May 16, 2017 at 2:06 pmAs a former prosecutor we had a grotesquely unfair advantage It was policy to charge someone with the highest possible charge, knowing that we would plead to something much lower. It was even added to the jacket by screening DA's what was recommended to accept.Nelson, says: May 16, 2017 at 2:57 pmSo someone would be looking at a charge of 'simple possession x4' meaning life in prison without any chance of getting out. If they pled with in 2 months it would be dropped to X1 so 2-4 years. Then ever two months the minimum acceptable time served would basically double.
You had to be an absolute idiot to fail to plead. Which then kicks in multiple offender charges the next time.
Nothing like starting off your career as an attorney sending drug addicts to prison for life.
I like this because it states the problem and makes reasonable suggestions about how to fix it without getting too political.Steven Sailer , says: May 16, 2017 at 3:58 pmOne thing that wasn't mentioned though was lobbying by private contractors that own or service prisons, thus creating a profit motive (and campaign contribution motive) for making more things imprisonable offences.
Beyond that, the few people I've known that have spent time in prison also had substance abuse issues (DUI, theft to support a habit, getting in a fight while drunk, etc ) and a general disposition to not care about the long term consequences of their actions. Perhaps providing counseling and mental health care services could help. Or perhaps not, but it is a question worth exploring.
Up through the turn of the century, prosecutors were extremely stressed dealing with the huge volume of crime so they tried to plea bargain a lot of charges. With the lower crime rates in this century, prosecutors have more time on their hands to get tough.Mia, says: May 16, 2017 at 4:20 pmmrscracker , says: May 16, 2017 at 5:28 pm"Instead, prosecutors use them as a threat to get defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges or testify against fellow criminals. (About 95 percent of cases end in plea deals rather than trials today.)"This post is typically clueless conservative garbage about the real issues in the justice system. There's a few other shills I'd love to call out for their dishonesty as "researchers" because they miraculously can't even find out the most basic facts or controversies on the subject, but it just takes too much energy. However, it just borders on journalistic malpractice, and it needs to stop.
About this quote I pulled here. What you are talking about is called "charge stacking," and prosecutors do it because they can strong arm everyone into a conviction, then they can build political careers on. Oftentimes, they go to run for AG offices based on their stellar records that the public is duped into thinking actually means something.
We have one out our way whose family is reportedly involved in a whole lot of shady business dealings, and he used his job to go after politicians who promised to clean house. I could go on forever about his unbelievably stupid press conferences about irrelevant stuff as if they were a papal announcement. He was pushing to do the AG promotion too. Then again, our former governor was said to be in the mob, so par for the course around here.
Don't even get me started on the judges in our state serving 30 year sentences for bribery where they threw thousands of kids in jail for nothing. I think they made millions in destroying these kids lives. I have heard crickets about that scandal and other even funnier ones on any conservative site. It's like coming to an alternate reality when I see articles like this.
Speaking of funny scandals, how about the kid who was charged with wiretapping who had just used his tablet to record bullies in class after no one in the school administration would do anything about them? Instead of addressing his concerns, they charged him with a felony! This seems rational and totally legal to you? Know what the sheriff or police authorities said when they go called out on that one in the media? No one had any idea how that got in the paperwork .You can't make this sh** up. If they had never made the papers, chances are the kid would have spent time in jail or been forced to plea bargain. Why do you defend things like this? Why is it okay that this and worse goes on and is justified as necessary? Would you feel it was necessary if they did it to you? Heather MacDonald et al needs to take off her rose-colored glasses and see what's really going down.
But anyway, what the prosecutors do (and did in my case) was withhold and/or ignore exculpatory evidence (or perhaps more accurately, reinterpret what evidence they had to come to the opposite conclusions than what the evidence said), then added manufactured evidence to create outrageous charges that the prosecutor even admitted to my lawyer was never meant to go to trial because he couldn't prove anything and everyone would have to even more formally perjure themselves. This would be things like people coming forward saying they knew me for years when they didn't know me at all, the kind of stuff that you see go on and wonder if it's even possible to get a fair trial no matter how innocent you are. But you're good with that, right? That seems like a reasonable thing for witnesses to do?
Better yet, he flipped the case so I ended up in a situation where the burden of proof was legally on me and I wasn't allowed to have any defending witnesses, while the actual law requires the prosecution to prove its case in a courtroom and call a reasonable defense. The one judge in my case was also reprimanded for taking bribes in a different case, and she went really cheap, only a couple of hundred dollars, to drop charges that the AG later reinstated.
MikeCLT"while incarceration has undoubtedly soared-even relative to crime, which has dropped substantially since the early 1990s"
Do you think the two (higher rates of incarceration/lower crime) are unconnected?"
**************
Good point to ponder. I remember back when offenders would be released over & over again to commit the same crimes. They still do to some degree, but people got fed up. And we ended up with the "3 strikes & you're out laws."
Non violent offenders should make restitution &/or be put to work. That especially goes for white collar crime. Why in the world should taxpayers have fed & housed Martha Stewart? Seriously.
I had a family member who worked in a "medium security" prison with rapists, child molesters, organized crime members, etc. Trust me, those folks needed to stay locked up. They all had a story & excuses but deep down they knew they were guilty & were pretty much sociopaths. Very little conscience at work.
[May 13, 2017] What Is Americas Goal in the World by Patrick Buchanan
Notable quotes:
"... Excellent, concise summary of Cold War and post-Cold War military history. I also thought that during the campaign Trump was broadly outlining a less interventionist approach – with the exception of ISIS. It's clear now his only political philosophy is "flexibility" and he surrounds himself with people of all kinds of persuasions, including neocons. ..."
"... Patrick again draws attention to our over commitment around the world. It is time to implode and focus on issues here at home. ..."
www.nakedcapitalism.com
Sebastian , says: May 11, 2017 at 10:56 pmThe root cause of our engagement in the world is to justify our treaty to protect israel no matter what.Mac61 , says: May 12, 2017 at 12:34 amExcellent, concise summary of Cold War and post-Cold War military history. I also thought that during the campaign Trump was broadly outlining a less interventionist approach – with the exception of ISIS. It's clear now his only political philosophy is "flexibility" and he surrounds himself with people of all kinds of persuasions, including neocons. I tend to favor "flexibility" over a all-neocon administration (Geo. W. Bush) but Trump's "flexibility" is in reality "impulsiveness" - let's just hope more stable voices prevail inside the White House of the President of the United States Donald "It's Complicated" Trump, AKA The Apprentice.MEOW , says: May 12, 2017 at 3:11 amPatrick again draws attention to our over commitment around the world. It is time to implode and focus on issues here at home. We still have an immigration problem. The problem of chronic unemployment continues to exist. The people that were displaced by the transfer of our industrial sector overseas continue to haunt us. Student loans are like a millstone around our academic necks. We bailed out the banksters after giving them an open-door policy to near ad infinitum indebt our student body. The Fed not only creates money out of thin air, but it is a price setting entity owned and operated in large foreign bankers; not Federal but Foreign. Does anyone know when setting wages and prices have been successful? We know the Fed has been a dismal and costly failure. Count their made in DC disasters since its inception in 1913. The unemployment stabilizer for the young from the non- elite class is the U.S. military with risk to life and limb. Time to bring back the military draft without any exceptions then designer wars will be challenged by the vast-unwilling when war becomes a reality not something to watch on nightly TV. Is there hope? There was absolutely no hope in the 2016 presidential election. The worst imaginable field of candidates in modern-history and we are now stuck with Trump and family who seem to enjoy wars, but have not participated in U.S. wars.John S , says: May 12, 2017 at 7:07 amIs Mr. Buchanan aware that these "war guarantees" are a two-way street? Is he aware that Latvians and Montenegrans have fought for America? And out of proportion to their size?Liam , says: May 12, 2017 at 8:13 am"seemed"Brian , says: May 12, 2017 at 8:49 amNo, Pat, you just were too eager to believe he understood this.
He never understood this.
And never will.
Pay much more attention to that disturbance you are feeling rather than your hopes.
I believe the question should be more like what is the Pentagons Empire Dreams and Goals?SDS , says: May 12, 2017 at 9:01 amDecember 24, 2013 The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases The Global Deployment of US Military Personnel
The US Military has bases in *63* countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide. These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of *30* million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of *737* bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of *2,202,735 hectares*, which makes the *Pentagon* one of the largest landowners worldwide!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-worldwide-network-of-us-military-bases/5564
"Donald Trump once seemed to understand this. Does he still?"collin , says: May 12, 2017 at 10:56 amIt appears he never did nor cared to ..
P.T. Barnum was right again .
We who clamored for an alternate path stuck our jaws out in desperation and were sucker-punched again .
The Donald laughing all the way as he had no intent to know, care, or understand what he was getting into or what he wanted to do.He just wanted to be the Boss .
SO he is; and floundering by the hour.God help the United States.
May I suggest taking a different course here? Why are the 'Peace' Presidents winners change when in they are in the White House? And for all the complaints of the liberal MSM, why is the MSM so pro-war? Look the peace writers on the Times are the economist, Krugman, and religious one, Douthat.Moi , says: May 12, 2017 at 2:15 pmAnyway, I don't think Trump ever understood this because he believed the big mistake of the Iraq was not winning in 12 months and taking their oil.
Once a nation starts thinking it's exceptional, it's screwed. It's really that simple.Igor , says: May 12, 2017 at 2:41 pmUSA made a strategic mistake in the 1990s, focusing on the destruction and the weakening of Russia after the collapse of communism and the collapse of the USSR.EliteCommInc. , says: May 12, 2017 at 5:57 pm
If the US instead went the other way and supported Russia and strengthened its position in the post-Soviet space and in Eastern Europe, now US would have had a good ally in Eurasia, and not on what the Baltic dregs and torn by civil war fascist Ukraine.
Eurasia under the control of the United States, anyway, will not take place for any scenario, but especially now – with the loss of the state of world hegemony.
Eurasia under the leadership of Germany, Poland or Ukraine is the same scenario from the category of unscientific fantasy.
But Eurasia led by Russia – it was a very real and viable project in the 1990s, the word, alive now only in a different, less responsive to the interests of the United States, form.
By the way, the project more attractive to US than indicated by the perspective of the hegemony of China in Eurasia.
Only now, the US should try very hard to, despite the flaws in his politics in the 1990s, to strengthen the position of Russia, and not any other player as Eurasian leader."Once a nation starts thinking it's exceptional, it's . . ."Nonsense. It's perfectly well and good to be exceptional and think of oneself as such. The issue does one's exceptionalism lead to taking unnecessary risks or needlessly throwing one's weight around.
I think that is the issue. I think we are also being reminded that our exceptionalism does always make us right or intimidate others to do our bidding. That in the long run, it might have been a good idea not to disrupt the lives of others merely because they disagree or live a life different from our own. It fact, needlessly destroying the life of others for the sake of whatever – in unethical, something we used to press for, despite our own imperfections.
Nothing quite so empty as undermining other people to get one's way and then attempting to blackmail with the consequence of your underhanded behavior.
[May 12, 2017] What Is Americas Goal in the World by Patrick Buchanan
Notable quotes:
"... "What Is America's Goal in the World?" Total domination. ..."
"... You're conflating Russia and the Soviet Union. No country has been more hegemonic that the US ..."
"... Any country, family, tribe, organization etc. on the rise is driven by the shared concern of expanding the pie. But once the pie gets big enough, the major concern of most participants is increasing their own personal share of the pie. Thus whether or not America has a goal in the world, the goal of the deep state participants is to enrich themselves – to keep the gravy train rolling. ..."
"... Kosovo, Iraq and the recent symbolic (but still murderous) attack on Syria were all openly in defiance of the established rules, to which the US had voluntarily signed up. For the globalists, the rules only have any force when they serve the purposes of the globalists. ..."
May 12, 2017 | www.unz.com
7 CommentsFor the World War II generation there was clarity.
The attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec 7, 1941, united the nation as it had never been before - in the conviction that Japan must be smashed, no matter how long it took or how many lives it cost.
After the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, however, Americans divided.
Only with the Berlin Blockade of 1948, the fall of China to Mao and Russia's explosion of an atom bomb in 1949, and North Korea's invasion of the South in 1950, did we unite around the proposition that, for our own security, we had to go back to Europe and Asia.
What was called the Cold War consensus - that only America could "contain" Stalin's empire - led to NATO and new U.S. alliances from the Elbe to the East China Sea.
Vietnam, however, shattered that Cold War consensus.
The far left of the Democratic Party that had taken us into Vietnam had repudiated the war by 1968, and switched sides to sympathize with such Third World communists as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and the Sandinistas.
Center-right presidents - JFK, Nixon, Reagan - accepted the need to cooperate with dictators who would side with us in fighting Communism.
And we did. Park Chung-Hee in Korea. The Shah in Iran. President Diem in Saigon. Gen. Franco in Spain. Somoza in Nicaragua. Gen. Mobuto in the Congo. Gen. Pinochet in Chile. Ferdinand Marcos in Manila. The list goes on.
Under Reagan, the Soviet Empire finally fell apart and the USSR then disintegrated in one of the epochal events of history.
The American Century had ended in America's triumph.
Yet, after 1989, no new national consensus emerged over what ought to be our role in the World. What should we stand for? What should we fight for?
What Dean Acheson had said of our cousins in 1962: "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role," was true of us.
What was our role in the world, now that the Cold War was history?
George H.W. Bush took us to war to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Soaring to 90 percent approval, he declared America's new role was to construct a New World Order.
Those who opposed him, Bush acidly dismissed in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1991, the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor:
"We stand here today on the site of a tragedy spawned by isolationism. And it is here we must learn - and this time avoid - the dangers of today's isolationism and its accomplice, protectionism."
Neither Bush nor his New World Order survived the next November.
Then came payback for our sanctions that had brought death to thousands of Iraqis, and for the U.S. bases we had foolishly planted on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia - Sept. 11, 2001.
George W. Bush reacted by launching the two longest wars in our history, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and announced that our new role was to "end tyranny in our world."
The Bush II crusade for global democracy also fizzled out.
Barack Obama tried to extricate us from Afghanistan and Iraq. But he, too, failed, and got us into wars in Yemen and Syria, and then started his own war in Libya, producing yet another failed state.
What does the balance sheet of post-Cold War interventions look like?
Since 1991, we have lost our global preeminence, quadrupled our national debt, and gotten ourselves mired in five Mideast wars, with the neocons clamoring for a sixth, with Iran.
With the New World Order and global democracy having been abandoned as America's great goals, what is the new goal of U.S. foreign policy? What is the strategy to achieve it? Does anyone know?
Globalists say we should stand for a "rules-based world order." Not exactly "Remember the Alamo!" or "Remember Pearl Harbor!" A quarter century after the Cold War, we remain committed to 60-year-old Cold War alliances to defend scores of nations on the other side of the world. Consider some of the places where America collides today with nuclear powers: the DMZ, the Senkakus, Scarborough Shoal, Crimea, the Donbass.
What is vital to us in any of these venues to justify sending an American army to fight, or risking a nuclear war?
We have lost control of our destiny. We have lost the freedom our Founding Fathers implored us to maintain - the freedom to stay out of wars of foreign counties on faraway continents.
Like the British and French empires, the American imperium is not sustainable. We have issued so many war guarantees it is almost assured that we will be dragged into every future great crisis and conflict on the planet.
If we do not review and discard some of these war guarantees, we shall never know peace. Donald Trump once seemed to understand this. Does he still?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, out May 9, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
Realist , May 12, 2017 at 10:13 am GMTRealist, May 12, 2017 at 10:14 am GMT"What Is America's Goal in the World?" Total domination.
@Dave Shanken
"I disagree that only the Republican presidents defeated the Russian goal of world domination. "
You're conflating Russia and the Soviet Union. No country has been more hegemonic that the US
Eustace Tilley (not) , May 12, 2017 at 11:12 am GMT
"The far left of the Democratic Party that had taken us into Vietnam "
"During his term, Eisenhower will greatly increase U.S. military aid to the French in Vietnam to prevent a Communist victory. U.S. military advisors will continue to accompany American supplies sent to Vietnam. To justify America's commitment, Eisenhower will cite a 'Domino Theory' in which a Communist victory in Vietnam would result in surrounding countries falling one after another like a 'falling row of dominoes'. The Domino Theory will be used by a succession of Presidents and their advisors to justify ever-deepening U.S. involvement in Vietnam."
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1945.html
So, in complete honesty, who "took" us to Vietnam?
Pat Buchanan is not an historian. He is a propagandist with an agenda to persuade.
Anonym, May 12, 2017 at 1:11 pm GMT • 100 Words
Any country, family, tribe, organization etc. on the rise is driven by the shared concern of expanding the pie. But once the pie gets big enough, the major concern of most participants is increasing their own personal share of the pie. Thus whether or not America has a goal in the world, the goal of the deep state participants is to enrich themselves – to keep the gravy train rolling. If only one does this, it will not harm the overall much but when most are more problem than solution, the pie starts to shrink.
Corvinus, May 12, 2017 at 3:26 pm GMT • 100 Words
@Realist
"No country has been more hegemonic that the US."
The British up until the 1950′s would have something say about it in light of their vast colonial empire crumbling. Remember, the United States for most of its history has been an isolationist/neutral nation. It was post-World War II that has America employed the "invade the world, invite the world" strategy.
Rurik, May 12, 2017 at 4:09 pm GMT • 200 Words
what is the new goal of U.S. foreign policy? What is the strategy to achieve it? Does anyone know?
to destroy all resistance to global Zionist domination and the Zio/Anglo boot upon the face of humanity for all eternity. Duh. (please note that the Zio/Anglo boot in question -- will stamp on the face of the working class Brits as much as anyone else. The Anglo in the Zio/Anglo boot represents the aristocrat/Royal/pedophile faction of England, [and their like-minded fellow travelers in Hollywood and NYC, DC, Paris, Berlin, etc..) and not the average British man and women on the street, who are slated for hell on earth, just as much as everyone else, perhaps a little more so than others).
~ all of this was foreseeable as soon as Woodrow Wilson handed the keys to the US Treasury to the world's greediest, most treacherous, tribal and ethnocentric men (war pigs) on the planet. In fact it wasn't just foreseeable, but inevitable.
Corvinus, May 12, 2017 at 5:19 pm GMT
"Fair enough. No country is more hegemonic that the US."
No country is more hegemonic than the U.S. post-World War II. Then you could make a legitimate case.
Randal, May 12, 2017 at 8:35 pm GMT • 100 Words
Globalists say we should stand for a "rules-based world order."
Which of course is every bit as dishonest as you'd expect from globalists. Kosovo, Iraq and the recent symbolic (but still murderous) attack on Syria were all openly in defiance of the established rules, to which the US had voluntarily signed up. For the globalists, the rules only have any force when they serve the purposes of the globalists.
Randal, May 12, 2017 at 8:45 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Corvinus
Remember, the United States for most of its history has been an isolationist/neutral nation
LOL! Amazing how an "isolationist/neutral" nation managed to expand continuously from a small collection of remote and backward colonies in 1781 to a globe-bestriding empire with a history of interfering all around the world from South and Central America to the Mediterranean, Russia, China and the Pacific, and Africa, all before 1939.
The US might have been "isolationist/neutral" in the sense that it saw it as being in its own interests to mostly stay out of the wars that were conveniently destroying its British and European rivals, but it was certainly aggressively expansionist and ruthless from the outset in the use of both military and economic power to impose its will on other peoples and countries, often on the other side of the world.
It was hegemonic from the start, albeit starting small. A true heir of the British and European nations which begat it.
What you describe is America's mendacious self-image, not reality.
[May 10, 2017] Why Was Comey Fired by Philip Giraldi
It sounds like Hillary Clinton boxed Comey in – in more ways that just that the meeting Lynch had with Bill Clinton. If that new email is any indication, she very likely coerced him directly, pushing him to play the 'no intent' defense for Clinton and her aides.
Notable quotes:
"... The first is Comey's unprofessional handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, where he first decided not to prosecute her over the mishandling of classified information and then subsequently revealed to the public that the investigation had been reopened shortly before the election, possibly influencing the outcome. This is a serious matter, as Comey broke with precedent by going public with details of bureau investigations that normally are considered confidential. One might argue that it is certainly an odd assertion for the White House to be making, as the reopening of the investigation undoubtedly helped Trump, but it perhaps should be seen as an attempt to create some kind of bipartisan consensus about Comey having overreached by exposing bureau activities that might well have remained secret. ..."
"... As for the Russians, we are still waiting for the evidence demonstrating that Moscow intended to change the course of the U.S. election. Further investigation will likely not produce anything new, though it will undoubtedly result in considerable political spin to explain what we already know. It is unimaginable that Michael Flynn, for all his failings, agreed to work on behalf of Russian interests, while other names that have surfaced as being of interest in the case were hardly in a position to influence what the Trump administration might agree to do. There is no evidence of any Manchurian Candidate here. ..."
"... I am surprised that Dir. Comey didn't resign on his own terms after the election. The only other issue is it would have been less media convulsive and polite to allow him a graceful resignation and some departure time. ..."
May 10, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The statements by the White House and Sessions cite two issues. The first is Comey's unprofessional handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, where he first decided not to prosecute her over the mishandling of classified information and then subsequently revealed to the public that the investigation had been reopened shortly before the election, possibly influencing the outcome. This is a serious matter, as Comey broke with precedent by going public with details of bureau investigations that normally are considered confidential. One might argue that it is certainly an odd assertion for the White House to be making, as the reopening of the investigation undoubtedly helped Trump, but it perhaps should be seen as an attempt to create some kind of bipartisan consensus about Comey having overreached by exposing bureau activities that might well have remained secret.The second issue raised by both Sessions and the White House is Comey's inability to "effectively lead the Bureau" given what has occurred since last summer. That is a legitimate concern. When the Clinton investigation was shelved, there was considerable dissent in the bureau, with many among the rank-and-file believing that the egregious mishandling of classified information should have some consequences even if Comey was correct that a prosecution would not produce a conviction.
And the handling of "Russiagate" also angered some experienced agents who believed that the reliance on electronic surveillance and information derived from intelligence agencies was the wrong way to go. Some called for questioning the Trump-campaign suspects who had surfaced in the initial phases of the investigation, a move that was vetoed by Comey and his team. It would be safe to say that FBI morale plummeted as a result, with many junior and mid-level officers leaving their jobs to exploit their security clearances in the lucrative government contractor business.
There has been considerable smoke about both the Clinton emails and the allegations of Russian interference in last year's election, but I suspect that there is relatively little fire. As Comey asserted, the attempt to convict a former secretary of state on charges of mishandling information without any ability to demonstrate intent would be a mistake and would ultimately fail. No additional investigation will change that reality.
As for the Russians, we are still waiting for the evidence demonstrating that Moscow intended to change the course of the U.S. election. Further investigation will likely not produce anything new, though it will undoubtedly result in considerable political spin to explain what we already know. It is unimaginable that Michael Flynn, for all his failings, agreed to work on behalf of Russian interests, while other names that have surfaced as being of interest in the case were hardly in a position to influence what the Trump administration might agree to do. There is no evidence of any Manchurian Candidate here.
I believe that the simplest explanation for the firing of Comey is the most likely: Donald Trump doesn't like him much and doesn't trust him at all. While it is convenient to believe that the FBI director operates independently from the politicians who run the country, the reality is that he or she works for the attorney general, who in turn works for the president. That is the chain of command, like it or not. Any U.S. president can insist on a national-security team that he is comfortable with, and if Trump is willing to take the heat from Congress and the media over the issue he certainly is entitled to do what he must to have someone he can work with at the FBI.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
Brian, May 10, 2017 at 10:39 am
Jul 7, 2016 Justice Vs. "Just Us": Of Course the FBI Let Hillary off the Hook. The only thing that surprises me is that anyone is surprised by this.
Investment Watch Blog
"Mr. Comey's appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire at the conclusion of the 2016 Annual General Meeting."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-donors-hsbc-swiss-bank
"Clinton foundation received up to $81m from clients of controversial HSBC bank"
It's like a revolving door of money and special projects that the bank and the CF are involved in.
EliteCommInc. May 10, 2017 at 11:38 am
" . . . but there was a certain inevitability about it given the bureau's clear inability to navigate the troubled political waters that developed early last summer and have continued ever since."
I am surprised that Dir. Comey didn't resign on his own terms after the election. The only other issue is it would have been less media convulsive and polite to allow him a graceful resignation and some departure time.
But that he is gone, I think he was surprised only by the manner certainly not the inevitability.
Blind sided by the manner certainly not the course.
Mark Thomason, May 10, 2017 at 12:06 pm
True. But it is also true that NOBODY likes Comey much or trusts him at all. He has no defenders.
Trump has attackers. That is very different. They'd attack him for anything he does, they attack every day. This outrage is only the latest, and will be repeated at every hint of opportunity.
Here they agree the guy needed to be fired and said themselves that Hillary was going to do it. But Trump did it, and that is the problem.
Kurt Gayle, May 10, 2017 at 12:46 pm
Please consider the that the explanation for the Comey firing is simpler:
(1) The Deputy Attorney-General is the FBI Director's boss.
(2) Trump's nominee for the position of Deputy Attorney-General, Rod Rosenstein, although nominated on January 13th, was only confirmed by the Senate on April 25th. Rosenstein took the oath of office the following day, Wednesday, April 26th, two weeks ago today.
(3) Immediately upon assuming his duties as the Justice Department official directly responsible for the FBI, Mr. Rosenstein determined that there were major problems concerning the FBI. Rosenstein reported his finding in a letter to his boss, Attorney-General Sessions:
(4) "Over the past year the FBI's reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens."
(5) "The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General's authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors."
(6) "Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously "
(7) "The goal of a federal criminal investigation is not to announce our thoughts at a press conference. The goal is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a federal criminal prosecution, then allow a federal prosecutor who exercises authority delegated by the Attorney General to make a prosecutorial decision, and then – if prosecution is warranted – let the judge and jury determine the facts."
(8) "Concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether he would 'speak' about the FBI's decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or 'conceal' it. 'Conceal' is a loaded term that misstates the issue. When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context, silence is not concealment."
(9) "My perspective on these issues is shared by former Attorneys General and Deputy Attorneys General from different eras and both political parties."
(10) "I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials. The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions."
With respect to Deputy Attorney-General Rosenstein's heading of the investigation into possible Russian interference in the November election, the fact that Mr. Rosenstein would head the investigation (Attorney-General Sessions having recused himself) was known to the Senate - and the Senate committee questioned him on his views on the matter - for a full week before the Senate confirmed Mr. Rosenstein by a 94-6 vote.
MM, May 10, 2017 at 1:00 pm
I'm pleased to see this vociferous call by high-level Democratic officials for a U.S. Independent Counsel to investigate this matter. It's a relief that these same officials are taking this stance from a position of principled consistency, as they were the loudest in calling for independent investigations of the previous administration's questionable activities.
For example: NSA mass domestic surveillance, gun-running and associated false statements to Congress, IRS targeting of conservative groups, and influence peddling in the State Department under Secretary Clinton, all of which the Justice Department at the time was either directly involved in or responsible for burying any serious inquiries
Ellimist000, May 10, 2017 at 2:55 pm
MM,
"NSA mass domestic surveillance, gun-running and associated false statements to Congress, IRS targeting of conservative groups, and influence peddling in the State Department under Secretary Clinton "
You're not wrong, but the reason nothing happened was that stuff of this nature has gone on from both sides since the Cold War started (different names and techniques, of course). If you really wanted the Dems to suddenly see the light, under the 1st black president no less, then I hope you are awaiting the GOP's ethics censure on Trump with great anticipation
Otto Zeit, May 10, 2017 at 4:02 pm
What baffles me is, why would the Democrats want the "Russiagate" inquiry to be left in the hands of a man who has already shown himself to be blown by the winds of political partisanship?
MM, May 10, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Ellimist000,
I'd love to see any President censured by Congress, for anything, especially by his or her own party. But even that won't cause the Hypocritical Old Party to see the light. The universal philosophy in a 2-party system like this one is to 1) never admit any wrongdoing of one's own nor hold any objective ethical standard of behavior; and 2) declare the other party pure evil, all the time.
[May 10, 2017] How ISIS Evades the CIA by Philip Giraldi
By pushing the envelope CIA essentially armed terrorists is effective techniques of avoiding electronic eavedropping....
Notable quotes:
"... Terrorists now know that using cell phones is dangerous, that transferring money using commercial accounts can be detected, that moving around when a drone is overhead can be fatal, and that communicating by computer is likely to be intercepted and exposed even when encrypted. ..."
"... So they rely on couriers to communicate and move money while also avoiding the use of the vulnerable technologies whenever they can, sometimes using public phones and computers only when they are many miles away from their operational locations, and changing addresses, SIM cards, and telephone numbers frequently to confuse the monitoring. ..."
Jul 23, 2014 | www.theamericanconservative.com
America's high-tech spies aren't equipped to penetrate low-tech terrorist organizationsTerrorists now know that using cell phones is dangerous, that transferring money using commercial accounts can be detected, that moving around when a drone is overhead can be fatal, and that communicating by computer is likely to be intercepted and exposed even when encrypted.
So they rely on couriers to communicate and move money while also avoiding the use of the vulnerable technologies whenever they can, sometimes using public phones and computers only when they are many miles away from their operational locations, and changing addresses, SIM cards, and telephone numbers frequently to confuse the monitoring.
Technical intelligence has another limitation: while it is excellent on picking up bits and pieces and using sophisticated computers to work through the bulk collection of chatter, it is largely unable to learn the intentions of terrorist groups and leaders. To do that you need spies, ideally someone who is placed in the inner circle of an organization and who is therefore privy to decision making.
Since 9/11 U.S. intelligence has had a poor record in recruiting agents to run inside terrorist organizations-or even less toxic groups that are similarly structured-in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Information collected relating to the internal workings of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, dissident Sunni groups in Iraq, and now ISIS has been, to say the least, disappointing. To be fair this is often because security concerns limit the ability of American case officers to operate in areas that are considered too dangerous, which is generally speaking where the terrorist targets are actually located. Also, hostile groups frequently run their operations through franchise arrangements where much of the decision making is both local and funded without large cash transfers from a central organization, making the activity hard to detect.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
[May 10, 2017] How ISIS Evades the CIA by Philip Giraldi
By pushing the envelope CIA essentially armed terrorists is effective techniques of avoiding electronic eavedropping....
Notable quotes:
"... Terrorists now know that using cell phones is dangerous, that transferring money using commercial accounts can be detected, that moving around when a drone is overhead can be fatal, and that communicating by computer is likely to be intercepted and exposed even when encrypted. ..."
"... So they rely on couriers to communicate and move money while also avoiding the use of the vulnerable technologies whenever they can, sometimes using public phones and computers only when they are many miles away from their operational locations, and changing addresses, SIM cards, and telephone numbers frequently to confuse the monitoring. ..."
Jul 23, 2014 | www.theamericanconservative.com
America's high-tech spies aren't equipped to penetrate low-tech terrorist organizationsTerrorists now know that using cell phones is dangerous, that transferring money using commercial accounts can be detected, that moving around when a drone is overhead can be fatal, and that communicating by computer is likely to be intercepted and exposed even when encrypted.
So they rely on couriers to communicate and move money while also avoiding the use of the vulnerable technologies whenever they can, sometimes using public phones and computers only when they are many miles away from their operational locations, and changing addresses, SIM cards, and telephone numbers frequently to confuse the monitoring.
Technical intelligence has another limitation: while it is excellent on picking up bits and pieces and using sophisticated computers to work through the bulk collection of chatter, it is largely unable to learn the intentions of terrorist groups and leaders. To do that you need spies, ideally someone who is placed in the inner circle of an organization and who is therefore privy to decision making.
Since 9/11 U.S. intelligence has had a poor record in recruiting agents to run inside terrorist organizations-or even less toxic groups that are similarly structured-in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Information collected relating to the internal workings of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, dissident Sunni groups in Iraq, and now ISIS has been, to say the least, disappointing. To be fair this is often because security concerns limit the ability of American case officers to operate in areas that are considered too dangerous, which is generally speaking where the terrorist targets are actually located. Also, hostile groups frequently run their operations through franchise arrangements where much of the decision making is both local and funded without large cash transfers from a central organization, making the activity hard to detect.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
[May 08, 2017] Acuckalypse Now! The Budget Betrayal And Trump Derangement Syndrome - The Unz Review
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is another vassal/tool of the power elite. as all Presidents have been for decades. Some unhappily, but all completely. ..."
"... Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators. ..."
"... He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. ..."
"... "EXPANDING" H2B visas ? The mere EXISTENCE of such a visa leaves me mindboggled. A visa to import landscapers, waiters & retail workers ?? In a country of over 320 million & a "real" unemployment rate over 8% ? Oh, give me a break -- ..."
"... Trump's plan was to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Not to hit Congress for the money. If Trump doesn't get Mexico to pay it, he doesn't get his wall. Period. For the rest of the agenda other than the wall – I agree, but Trump was elected as the lesser evil of two. Not because his agenda is supported by a majority. ..."
"... The other 10% that gave Trump an electoral college victory voted because they wanted to keep Hillary away from the levers of power. Not because they care for Trump's agenda. ..."
"... Mission accomplished on dodging the danger of a Hillary presidency. Now Trump is evaluated on his own dangerousness and needs to be reigned in. ..."
"... Nobody here ever thought that. We fully expected the Trump presidency to be even more difficult than the campaign, not less. We are angry because Trump has reversed himself and sold out to the swamp. He is putting zero or negative effort into the core issues that got him elected. ..."
May 08, 2017 | www.unz.com
Realist , May 7, 2017 at 8:05 am GMT
Felix Krull , May 7, 2017 at 1:36 pm GMTTrump is another vassal/tool of the power elite. as all Presidents have been for decades. Some unhappily, but all completely.
Bragadocious , May 7, 2017 at 1:52 pm GMTAnd, I'll say this for President Trump: He's still hated by all the right people. Boy, how they hate him!
That is the smoke-screen that allows him to cuck so hard. They can't very well congratulate him without the Trumpentroopers getting suspicious.
Sean , May 7, 2017 at 8:11 pm GMTStill hoping for the best from this President. But it's apparent he isn't fighting the Democrats, he's fighting the DC Uniparty. I wish him luck.
jilles dykstra , May 8, 2017 at 6:20 am GMTThe Trumpocalypse is already building a wall in the minds of the prospective immigrant.
Amid immigration setbacks, one Trump strategy seems to be working: Fear Most notably, Trump signed an executive order during his first week in office that, among other things, vastly expanded the pool of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants who are deemed priorities for deportation. [...] The most vivid evidence that Trump's tactics have had an effect has come at the southern border with Mexico, where the number of apprehensions made by Customs and Border Patrol agents plummeted from more than 40,000 per month at the end of 2016 to just 12,193 in March, according to federal data.
unit472 , May 8, 2017 at 8:26 am GMTHad a similar story, mutatis mutandis, been written by somone French in France about French immigration, he or she would have been labeled extreme right, or even fascist.
animalogic , May 8, 2017 at 9:15 am GMTAnyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport. Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing their thing it will start to dry up.
humpfuster , May 8, 2017 at 9:34 am GMT"EXPANDING" H2B visas ? The mere EXISTENCE of such a visa leaves me mindboggled. A visa to import landscapers, waiters & retail workers ?? In a country of over 320 million & a "real" unemployment rate over 8% ? Oh, give me a break --
H2B is a clear example that those researchers from Stanford (?) where right: that the views/interests etc of 80-90% of Americans has exactly ZERO influence over government/s policy.reiner Tor , Website May 8, 2017 at 9:35 am GMThow do you people of the list handle the information in these links..
see also the links talked about there ..
Zogby , May 8, 2017 at 9:36 am GMTSounds exactly like all the previous "conservative" parties in US or UK government over the past few decades, then. It's a double sided ratchet process.sedgwick , May 8, 2017 at 10:55 am GMTTrump's plan was to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Not to hit Congress for the money. If Trump doesn't get Mexico to pay it, he doesn't get his wall. Period. For the rest of the agenda other than the wall – I agree, but Trump was elected as the lesser evil of two. Not because his agenda is supported by a majority. The 40% approval rating Trump enjoys – that's how many support his agenda. It's not a majority.
The other 10% that gave Trump an electoral college victory voted because they wanted to keep Hillary away from the levers of power. Not because they care for Trump's agenda.
Mission accomplished on dodging the danger of a Hillary presidency. Now Trump is evaluated on his own dangerousness and needs to be reigned in. His agenda is not particulary popular among people that voted against Hillary, not for Trump. Support for it is soft, and as Trump continues a divisive agenda push that creates too much opposition – soft support withers away.
KenH , May 8, 2017 at 11:02 am GMThe is going to be the same in office as all previous Republican administrations . Worse: Hard to see how the following story can be interpreted as anything up Trump-Kushner selling visas for personal enrichment. This is FILLING the swamp with corrupt Chinese .
Mr. Derbyshire is a very smart guy and is worried about Trump. But I worry Mr. Derbyshire is not worried enough.
fnn , May 8, 2017 at 12:52 pm GMTThere's been all kinds of cucking from Trump. I knew it would happen eventually, but never dreamed it would happen within the first 100 days.
His latest cuck is leaving DACA in place and agreeing to accept the 1250 Muslim refugees who Australia did not want after blustering that Obama made a "stupid deal" and we would not take them. You can't take anything Trump says to the bank as it could change tomorrow or next week and he acts like it's nothing.
bluedog , May 8, 2017 at 1:04 pm GMTPretty good video on how the West failed and "we're all doomed."
Agent76 , May 8, 2017 at 1:08 pm GMT@unit472 Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport. Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing their thing it will start to dry up.
Clark Westwood , May 8, 2017 at 1:20 pm GMTApr 3, 2017 President Trump Could Drain the Swamp in 2 Seconds
Demand that President Trump sign the American Anti-Corruption Executive Order.
Carol , May 8, 2017 at 1:49 pm GMTPlease, someone come up with a better word than "cuck" for describing cowardly or fake conservatives. (Or two words - one for cowards and one for fakes.)
utu , May 8, 2017 at 3:31 pm GMTWhere I live, in Montana, young white guys still work construction and landscaping jobs. It's an amazing oasis, really.
What scares me is that immigration decisions are being made by people who just can't imagine themselves or their family ever working these kinds of jobs or anything close. They're out of touch. They have no right to capitulate like this.
Intelligent Dasein , Website May 8, 2017 at 3:38 pm GMT@unit472 Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport. Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing their thing it will start to dry up.
utu , May 8, 2017 at 3:45 pm GMT@unit472 Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport. Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing their thing it will start to dry up.
Bill , May 8, 2017 at 3:54 pm GMTSounds exactly like all the previous "conservative" parties in US or UK government over the past few decades, then. It's a double sided ratchet process.Joe Hide , May 8, 2017 at 3:57 pm GMT@unit472 Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport. Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing their thing it will start to dry up.
republic , May 8, 2017 at 4:16 pm GMTTrump evolved in the cut throat world of real estate and mega deals big business over decades of time. It took dozens of years of deal making to become powerful, wealthy, and President of the United States. He is in this for the long game. He has to make deals with the worst sort of political, military, and business psychopaths, to play the long game. He has to trade the best outcomes for the people in exchange for not letting the very worst outcomes prevail. His (and our) insane and ruthless opponents still have great power and influence. Attacking them directly in a frontal attack would be political suicide. Always the pretend retreat then flank attack when the enemy loses cohesion and unity.
Delinquent Snail , May 8, 2017 at 4:39 pm GMTThis big Indian newspaper quote a US think tank that there are about 500,000 Indian Nationals
living illegally in the USJT smith , May 8, 2017 at 4:42 pm GMT@ThreeCranes A former psychology professor of mine who also worked as a counselor at a crisis center told our class that he could tell the real suiciders from the wannabes by whether, after the "bang" of the supposed gunshot to the head, he could actually hear the phone dropping onto the floor. If he didn't, then presumably the caller was clinging to some hope, which it was his job to nurture.
Delinquent Snail , May 8, 2017 at 5:37 pm GMTMr. Derbyshire, like you I chuckle whenever Pres. Trump's makes the PC crowd clamor for a safe space. But if you are concerned with the vilification and death of traditional America then snark doesn't cut it. If you voted for Trump, then sorry, the joke' on you, bloke.
We probably both miss the Scranton PA or Binghamton NY of 1955, but Trump or any pol is powerless to bring them back. The best we rubes stuck in the heartland can hope for is that the transfer payments from the costal elites keep coming, and that the dollar remains a reserve currency so that the government can borrow to support us. As I see it, Trumps policies , gutting healthcare, tax cuts for the investor class, will hurt us "badwhites". That is a bad bargain for seing Rosie ODonnell cry, no matter how sweet.
Tipsy , May 8, 2017 at 5:57 pm GMT@Clark Westwood Please, someone come up with a better word than "cuck" for describing cowardly or fake conservatives. (Or two words -- one for cowards and one for fakes.)
Authenticjazzman , May 8, 2017 at 6:41 pm GMTChuck Schumer = Cuck Sooner?
Authenticjazzman , May 8, 2017 at 6:51 pm GMT" How were these reptiles able to get their way on a major issue in the Trump electoral agenda"
Very simple : Because they, the Democrats, own and wield the "Racism" bludgeon, and there is nothing which terrifies a meek, mild-mannered "Fair" Republican politico more than being labeled as a :
RACIST
( not forgetting : " Enemy of women" , Homophobe, etc)
period.
And until these cowards learn to do their duty and persue that which they were elected for, and ignore the tauntings of racism, and until they begin to just throw it back, the racist label, at the crazy democrats, they will be in the losers seat, period.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.
truthtellerAryan , May 8, 2017 at 7:50 pm GMTStraw man, much?Nobody here thinks that, you sanctimonious jerk-store. Nobody here ever thought that. We fully expected the Trump presidency to be even more difficult than the campaign, not less. We are angry because Trump has reversed himself and sold out to the swamp. He is putting zero or negative effort into the core issues that got him elected.
Bill , May 8, 2017 at 8:18 pm GMTWorry not! The vice grip has been tightened , and now it's welded. You think a con man from New York will betray his cabal buddies for a down on his luck, beer chugging, and his world possession of a lifted 4×4, when he has resorts to build and secure his little Zionist grand children that one day will inherit the earth .Keep dreaming!
bluedog , May 8, 2017 at 8:26 pm GMT@Joe Hide Trump evolved in the cut throat world of real estate and mega deals big business over decades of time. It took dozens of years of deal making to become powerful, wealthy, and President of the United States. He is in this for the long game. He has to make deals with the worst sort of political, military, and business psychopaths, to play the long game. He has to trade the best outcomes for the people in exchange for not letting the very worst outcomes prevail. His (and our) insane and ruthless opponents still have great power and influence. Attacking them directly in a frontal attack would be political suicide. Always the pretend retreat then flank attack when the enemy loses cohesion and unity.
Art , May 8, 2017 at 9:28 pm GMT@Wally The alternative was HILLARY.
In First 2 Months in Office – Trump Reduces Debt by $100 Billion – Obama Increased Debt by $400 Billion – Half a Trillion Dollar Difference!
The increased debt incurred under Obama equals approximately $76,000 for every person in the United States who had a full-time job in December, 2016. That debt is far more debt than was accumulated by any previous president. It equals nearly twice as much as the $4,889,100,310,609.44 in additional debt that piled up during the eight years George W. Bush served as president.Trump's 100 Days a Success
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/28/making-america-great-again-donald-trumps-100-day-success/Illegal Immigration Down by Unprecedented 73%
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/29/trump-illegal-immigration-down-by-unprecedented-73/20 Ways Trump Unraveled the Administrative State
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/11/20-ways-trump-unraveled-administrative-state/Bit by bit, Trump methodically undoing Obama policies
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2017-04-03-US--Trump-Undoing%20Obama/id-c4fa9fa659394514aa645a7cfd3c31edIllegal Entrance into U.S. Lowest in 17 Years, Mexicans Too Afraid of Trump
https://www.prisonplanet.com/illegal-entrance-into-u-s-lowest-in-17-years-mexicans-too-afraid-of-trump.html2010 Dems lost the House
The Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats at the federal and state level during Obama's presidency, including 9 Senate seats, 62 House seats, 12 governorships, and a startling 958 state legislative seats.
Fake Law
Realist , May 8, 2017 at 9:31 pm GMTCongress is the problem – not the president. Congress is dysfunctional. Getting reelected is everything to those people. First and foremost, congress people represent themselves – not their voters. Taking campaign money from lobbyists to stop challengers in jerrymandered districts and blue or red states, is paramount.
The last time congress really accomplished something was in the Clinton administration. Newt Gingrich did good things (balancing the budget and changed welfare). Other than open ended war, Bush congresses did nothing. Obama's congress got a disastrously bad healthcare bill passed and nothing else.
For sixteen years, the Bush and Obama congresses just spent more and more money driving up the debt.
Trump is going to show his colors, when in a couple of months – a new long-term spending bill is coming up for a monumental vote.
Will Trump veto the trillion-dollar deficit that congress will send to him or not?
@Wally The alternative was HILLARY.
In First 2 Months in Office – Trump Reduces Debt by $100 Billion – Obama Increased Debt by $400 Billion – Half a Trillion Dollar Difference!
The increased debt incurred under Obama equals approximately $76,000 for every person in the United States who had a full-time job in December, 2016. That debt is far more debt than was accumulated by any previous president. It equals nearly twice as much as the $4,889,100,310,609.44 in additional debt that piled up during the eight years George W. Bush served as president.Trump's 100 Days a Success
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/28/making-america-great-again-donald-trumps-100-day-success/Illegal Immigration Down by Unprecedented 73%
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/29/trump-illegal-immigration-down-by-unprecedented-73/20 Ways Trump Unraveled the Administrative State
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/11/20-ways-trump-unraveled-administrative-state/Bit by bit, Trump methodically undoing Obama policies
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2017-04-03-US--Trump-Undoing%20Obama/id-c4fa9fa659394514aa645a7cfd3c31edIllegal Entrance into U.S. Lowest in 17 Years, Mexicans Too Afraid of Trump
https://www.prisonplanet.com/illegal-entrance-into-u-s-lowest-in-17-years-mexicans-too-afraid-of-trump.html2010 Dems lost the House
The Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats at the federal and state level during Obama's presidency, including 9 Senate seats, 62 House seats, 12 governorships, and a startling 958 state legislative seats.
Fake Law
[May 07, 2017] Breaking Trump Clan Embraces Chinese Immigration The American Conservative
Notable quotes:
"... Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what's known as an investor visa. ..."
"... Mr. Kushner has said that he has stepped back from the day-to-day operations of the family business. But government ethics filings show that he and Ivanka Trump, his wife and the president's daughter, continue to benefit from Kushner Companies' real estate and investment businesses, a stake worth as much as $600 million, and probably much more. ..."
May 07, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
This report from the Washington Post has to be fake news , because there is no way that any entity connected to the administration of President Donald J. Trump would attempt to draw Chinese immigrants into the US for their own personal financial benefit, given the president's strong views on immigration and China. Right? Right?! Excerpts:BEIJING - The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big - and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you.
That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's sister Nicole Kushner Meyer to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors in Beijing.
Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what's known as an investor visa.
The potential investors were advised to invest sooner rather than later in case visa rules change under the Trump administration. "Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules," one speaker said.
The tagline on a brochure for the event: "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States."
More:
And the highlight of the afternoon was Meyer, a principal for the company, who was introduced in promotional materials as Jared's sister.
The event underscores the extent to which Kushner's private business interests have the potential to collide with his powerful role as a top official in his father-in-law's White House, particularly when it comes to China, where Kushner has become a crucial diplomatic channel between Beijing and the new administration.
While Kushner has reported divesting from elements of the family business, including the specific project that his sister pitched in Beijing, the session Saturday demonstrated that the company is perceived as enjoying close ties to the Trump administration. Ethics laws prohibit government officials from profiting personally from their public-sector work.
Watchdogs and ethics experts on Saturday criticized the Beijing event as an attempt to cash in on Kushner's newfound proximity to power.
"It's incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate," said Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in President George W. Bush's administration, who has become a vocal critic of the Trump administration. "They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . They're [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they're going to want to invest."
Read the whole thing. This thing wouldn't pass the smell test even down here in the Banana Republic of Louisiana. Just to get this straight: to the Trump administration, immigration is bad, unless the immigrants come bearing fortunes that stand to benefit to Kushner clan. Some bunch of nationalists this lot is!
What a racket, this administration. It does appear from this that the family is so greedy that it doesn't care that its godfather, Donald Trump, sold himself to the American people as someone who opposes liberal immigration policies and who thinks China is sticking it to the American people on trade matters. And you know what? Why should he care, if Americans who voted for him are content with, "But but but Gorsuch !"?
Look:
I was threatened, harassed and forced to delete recordings and photos of The Kushner family recruiting Chinese investors in US Green cards. https://t.co/8IG5LzjbaU
- Congcong Zhang (@daphnewelkin5) May 6, 2017
Here's a slide shown during Kushner Co. event in Beijing identifying @realDonaldTrump as "key decision maker" on EB-5 investor visa program pic.twitter.com/j1M4E7eGtQ
- Javier C. Hernández (@HernandezJavier) May 6, 2017
UPDATE: It's on to Shanghai for the shameless Kushners, reports the NYTimes :
Posted in China , Immigration , Weimar America , All Things Trump . Tagged China , immigration , Trump , Kushners .Mr. Kushner has said that he has stepped back from the day-to-day operations of the family business. But government ethics filings show that he and Ivanka Trump, his wife and the president's daughter, continue to benefit from Kushner Companies' real estate and investment businesses, a stake worth as much as $600 million, and probably much more.
The Shanghai event, at the opulent Four Seasons Hotel, was patrolled by burly security guards who screened those in attendance and kept journalists outside, in an elevator lobby. The organizers had refused on Saturday to allow late registration as word spread of the Beijing event. One guard at the Shanghai event was heard saying that at least some of the participants would be leaving through a private back exit.
But some who attended described an investor pitch similar to the one in Beijing, and Mr. Trump's political power was palpable at the Shanghai event even if his name went unsaid. As on Saturday in Beijing, one slide presented to the Shanghai audience on Sunday showed a photograph of Mr. Trump when describing who will decide the future of the visa program for foreign investors, according to a snapshot taken by an audience member.
The Kushner Companies' marketing push comes as Mr. Kushner is emerging as a crucial voice on China relations, brokering meetings between his father-in-law and top Chinese government officials.
While the Trump connection piqued the interest of many people in attendance, such events soliciting investors for projects in the United States are not unusual in China. The so-called EB-5 visa program awards foreign investors the right to live in the United States for two years and a path to permanent residency, in exchange for investments of at least $500,000 in American development projects. A bright red line near the top of the posters in the Four Seasons lobby prominently mentioned EB-5 visas.
About three-quarters of the roughly 10,000 investor visas issued last year went to Chinese nationals.
Although the program was created as a way to finance projects in economically troubled neighborhoods, it has instead turned into a form of cheap financing for luxury real estate developers. Applicants are primarily seeking the visa, so they do not seek a significant return on their investment.
MH - Secular Misanthropist , says: May 7, 2017 at 10:10 am I completely understand why engaging in this should be off limits the Kushners. But this sort of thing is big business in Boston for years. It seems a lot Chinese who make a lot of money realize the value of the rule of law. So they invest in projects to move their money to the US, and then immigrate to the US. Many of their children were already going to schools here as well, so it was basically a multi-generation exodus.Oakinhou , says: May 7, 2017 at 10:14 amI wonder if Kushher made it clear that people that invest 500k in any business is entitled to a visa. Investing in Kushner Properties is not a requirement.MikeCA , says: May 7, 2017 at 11:46 amThe brother of one of my best friends is applying for an Investor green card right now. Let's see how fast his is processed compared to those for investors in the Trump and family businesses
You can't feel shame if you have no sense of it. The presidency is nothing but a money making exercise for Trump & Co and of course an ego trip. " I'm President". Yes you are Mr. Trump. Why not try acting like one?EngineerScotty , says: May 7, 2017 at 11:56 am
Trump's die hard base will stick with him;will they be enough to keep the GOP in charge of congress and to reelect him in 2020?But he's rounding up the illegal aliens, and appointed Gorsuch to the court. Who cares if he's hawking real estate to Chinese gazillionaires? Trump is not Hillary, and that's all that really matters.EngineerScotty , says: May 7, 2017 at 11:58 amAs Freddie Trumper (sic) taunted at the end of the musical _Chess_, "you just don't have the instincts of a winner".
At any rate, we should drop the letters A, L, and D from the President's first name, and just call him Don Trump.collin , says: May 7, 2017 at 12:11 pmI am with Josh Barro, I don't think the average Trump voter really cared that much about this stuff and it has not hurt Trump yet. (It was draining the Multicultural swamp!) As long as the economy is growing jobs and health care & Social Security is not taken away, Trump ratings will not lose many supporters. I would argue that Trump simply reached 40% approval ratings in month 3 instead month 18 like most Prez in the past. So this stuff has yet to effect his Presidency and supporters are happy ICE is increasing their deportations. (Even if doesn't bring manufacturing jobs back.)Noah172 , says: May 7, 2017 at 12:44 pmThat if something does go wrong, this stuff, much like HRC e-mail/Foundation/More E-mail/Goldman Sachs/Comey E-mails, could be used a narrative against Trump in 2020. And there a few concerns:
1) If healthcare does not go well. Notice Ds in the MT & GA06 Special Elections are a louder about AHCA.
2) Retail location job loss in an historical long expansion. (We are close to 7 years so it is longer than the Bush Boom.) Not this high paying jobs, but there are a lot people getting by with these jobs and it appears it is going hit the WWC towns the hardest.
3) I am still concerned Trump is gets us into a war.This is disturbing to me, without question. There should be more investigation. Kushner should ideally leave the White House, or at least lose influence (there was also recent news he failed to disclose some other financial interests). Some caveats, however:Noah172 , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:15 pmWe don't know if Trump himself knew about, much less approved, this caper. It is very plausible that people who aren't really personally close to Trump but who can pretend to be would name-drop him without his permission (that would go for any other powerful person).
If I read the WaPo story correctly, Jared Kushner himself sold his interest in the development in question.
The slide showing Trump as a "key decision maker" also shows former (as in, Obama) Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, current Secretary John Kelly, and Senators Grassley and Leahy (latter a Democrat). Are they all in on this scam? Grassley and Leahy, BTW, are opponents , repeat, opponents, of the current EB-5 visa program.
The WaPo story implied that rich foreigners are rushing to get EB-5's because they fear Trump will end the program.
I would ask everyone, Trump fans and haters alike, to consider the possibility that it's these rich and perhaps overeager Chinese who are the ones getting played. The Kushners name-drop Trump to shake down the Chinese, but, golly gee, they don't get their visas because of unforeseen bureaucratic difficulties.
The silver lining to this sordid tale might be more public scrutiny of EB-5 - I repeat, Senators Grassley and Leahy, featured in this very presentation in China, are prominent opponents of the visa - and reform or abolition of the program.
BTW, liberals in the audience:
Go ahead and snicker at this story if you want, but it is YOU - not nationalist deplorables like me - who want Jared to stay in the White House, as he is a major, maybe the major influence on Trump to cave on his nationalist populist campaign pledges. Careful what you wish for.
To clarify my 12:44 comment:Noah172 , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:20 pmI don't trust Trump - or almost any political figure - to do the right thing (according to my policy preferences) without incentive and political pressure to do so. In a way, I am heartened that Jared is getting embarrassing scrutiny, which might force Trump's hand to distance himself from his son-in-law. I would have thought that the liberal (and neocon) press would protect Jared as a check on the influence of Bannon and the nationalists. Maybe there still is actual journalism going on.
Trump's waffling and bad influences are all the more reason for people of my political persuasion, which does not have big money to back it up, to be more active and organized and always demand better of our leaders. In the end, even a corrupt, unprincipled Trump is more likely with the right incentives and pressure to move the needle on nationalist causes than any of his 2016 or likely 2020 opponents.
This thing wouldn't pass the smell test even down here in the Banana Republic of LouisianaAll In The Family , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:21 pmSpeaking of which, you voted for Edwin Edwards because you believed his opponent to be unacceptably dangerous.
Why should he care, if Americans who voted for him are content with, "But but but Gorsuch!"?
Why should Edwards have cared if his voters, including you, were content with, "But but the klucker!"?
(And there's also the obvious whataboutist retort with HRC: "But but Garland!")
Do you really think Trump would betray his voters with an obviously corrupt program like this just to help sustain real estate bubbles in the big coastal cities? NahPhillip , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:33 pmSeriously, the Kushner family is to Trump as the Rodham family and Brother Roger were to Bill Clinton, a continuous source of embarrassment with criminal implications that serves to divert attention from his own embarrassments with criminal implications.
Chinese billionaires who made their fortunes through low wage exports to the United States, which undermined the manufacturing sector and jobs here. Seems like candidate Trump had a few things to say about this issue. But hey, its just business, right?Just Git , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:40 pmUnbelievable
The GOP establishment thinks American citizenship and being American has no deeper meaning than cash on the barrel-head.hb , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:45 pmAnd they'll sell American citizenship to Red Chinese Communists just as soon as anybody else. After all, they sell their own votes to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Korea, whoever. Why shouldn't they sell American citizenship the same way?
Ms. Kushner is exactly right that these corrupt Chinese would be citizens in the same sense as the Kushners themselves. What she doesn't get is that most real Americans want "Americans" of that kind kicked out.
I just emailed my senators and representative in Congress. This so called legal immigration stinks to me like those indulgences the Catholic Church sold at the time of the Reformation.Richard2 , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:52 pmAbout the only good thing I've heard about Trump is a rumored comment that being President has been a lot harder than he expected. One such difficulty is that hordes of greedy relatives may pretend they have Presidential access in order to defraud foreigners. Legally little can be done about this, if the scammers exercise some care, and hinting that embarrassing relatives may be dropped into the Pacific tied to large rocks is itself illegal. Probably President Trump is not personally involved in such schemes, as they add to his own troubles, so citizens should ignore such reports unless evidence surfaces that stealing everything in sight has become official White House policy.Kid Charlemagne , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:01 pmBut isn't this just one of many conflicts of interest we see in the Trump presidency? China, Turkey, the Philippines Trump properties, Ivanka's business etc. etcKid Charlemagne , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:04 pm
See Donald Trump's Conflicts of Interest: A Crib Sheet belowhttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/508382/
As an outsider, what is remarkable is how accepting of all this the American people areCall them like I see them , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:07 pmI cannot believe some of the replies on this article.John Gruskos , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:22 pm
Yes, this is real, yes other corps/families have Chinese investors, but they are not the POTUS's family.
Don't any of you see this is like mixing religion & politics at the very least.
If you are the POTUS you need to reassure the country that your decision-making is based on what's best for the nation and not your family business.
I would expect that from anyone serving in the highest office in the land!
What is wrong with you people? Before you start I am a lifelong Republican, but I am not going to say it is ok for my team when I would never want the other side doing this.If Rand Paul embraces immigration restriction, or if Ted Cruz embraces a non-interventionist foreign policy, Trump could very well lose the 2020 Republican presidential primary.Agnikan , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:37 pmSurly, according to Trump, Seattle–like Korea–was once part of China, so that's no big deal.a foul odor , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:42 pmSo Trump is making it possible for his family members to offer US citizenship to people who buy real estate from them. US citizenship must make a nice, glittering little trinket in the gifting bag at Kushner real estate promotions in China.Lord Help Us , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:50 pmSounds like "swamp" to me. Sounds like Trump is pumping more sewage into the swamp he was supposed to drain.
What could possibly go wrong?Skeptic , says: May 7, 2017 at 3:16 pmhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/eb5-visa-investigation.html
Can someone tell me why Trump hasn't cancelled this corrupt ripoff scheme out of hand? Apparently, as with the H-1B program he has so far failed to stop, the whole country is being put on the block to enrich people the Kushners and their ilk, rich crooks who use government programs to make themselves even richer by importing foreigners.
Surly: Tell me about it. J. Jacobs called it 'catastrophic capital.' It works well for the people who have it. But it destroys cities. Memo to White House: uhm, re-read Death and Life of Great American Cities.George , says: May 7, 2017 at 3:47 pmYour sort right that this is fake news. Jared Kushner and the administration say they had nothing to do with this, and I see no reason to believe that isn't true. His sister is an idiot, but so are many people 's siblings.RS Rogers , says: May 7, 2017 at 4:02 pmNormally, I would not hold any politician accountable for the behavior of his distant relations and extended family. But normally, a politician doesn't employ his extended family in an official capacity; and normally, a politician does not retain direct, personal business investment with his distant relations.That is, I don't care what Billy Carter or Rogers Clinton or Neil Bush get up to, and I don't hold their misbehavior against their brothers or father in the White House. But Bobby Kennedy or the Trump children and the Kushner clan? Their actions do rub off on President Kennedy or Trump, for good or ill.
[May 07, 2017] Going Off the Rails by William S. Lind
Notable quotes:
"... Unfortunately, on the fourth issue, wars of hegemony, it appears his young administration is already going off the rails. Instead of an innovative foreign and defense policy, what we have seen so far is more of the same. Soon after his first appointments in these areas, we saw his officials race around the world to assure our allies that nothing would change. Those allies are holdovers from the Cold War, and their value is now questionable-especially if, as President Trump promised, we are going to seek better relations with Russia. ..."
"... During his campaign, the president also said that most of our allies are freeloaders, which they are. We have committed to go to war for them, but they offer little in return. ..."
"... The key to answering that question is first Russia, then China. Alliances with both are necessary to present an effective front against Fourth Generation War. Unlike our current allies, both have large and capable armed forces. The unique element of candidate Donald Trump's foreign policy was its promise to reach out to Russia, seeking good relations at the least and perhaps even a formal accommodation. Where is that idea now? The Trump administration has taken anti-Russian positions at the UN and elsewhere. The absurd sanctions on Russia over retaking Crimea, historically a part of Russia, continue. ..."
"... None of this adds up to the new foreign and defense policies we were promised but rather to the old counterproductive policies of the Republican establishment. We are to continue the Cold War, regarding Russia and China as rivals; keep on spending and dying in the Middle East, apparently until doomsday; and lay out a trillion dollars a year on a military that usually loses. Both military reform and a new grand strategy aimed at the Fourth Generation threat have died aborning. ..."
May 07, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Four issues got Donald Trump elected president: immigration, free trade, political correctness, and the quest for American world hegemony along with the wars that it spawned. If he is to be reelected, he must deliver on all four.
Unfortunately, on the fourth issue, wars of hegemony, it appears his young administration is already going off the rails. Instead of an innovative foreign and defense policy, what we have seen so far is more of the same. Soon after his first appointments in these areas, we saw his officials race around the world to assure our allies that nothing would change. Those allies are holdovers from the Cold War, and their value is now questionable-especially if, as President Trump promised, we are going to seek better relations with Russia.
During his campaign, the president also said that most of our allies are freeloaders, which they are. We have committed to go to war for them, but they offer little in return. Most of their militaries are suited only to the parade ground, and a small parade ground at that; the entire German Army now has only 225 tanks. It would have trouble taking Luxembourg.
President Trump was the antiwar candidate, but we hear nothing from his White House about ending the wars in Afghanistan or, more broadly, the Middle East. Go ahead and defeat ISIS, at least in the sense of preventing it from holding territory. But what then? Wiser Fourth Generation entities, or non-state forces, such as Hezbollah, will operate within hollowed-out states rather than attempt to become a state. And ISIS, like al-Qaeda, is merely one head of the Fourth Generation hydra. How do we preserve the state system itself in the face of the challenge Fourth Generation War poses?
The key to answering that question is first Russia, then China. Alliances with both are necessary to present an effective front against Fourth Generation War. Unlike our current allies, both have large and capable armed forces. The unique element of candidate Donald Trump's foreign policy was its promise to reach out to Russia, seeking good relations at the least and perhaps even a formal accommodation. Where is that idea now? The Trump administration has taken anti-Russian positions at the UN and elsewhere. The absurd sanctions on Russia over retaking Crimea, historically a part of Russia, continue.
None of this adds up to the new foreign and defense policies we were promised but rather to the old counterproductive policies of the Republican establishment. We are to continue the Cold War, regarding Russia and China as rivals; keep on spending and dying in the Middle East, apparently until doomsday; and lay out a trillion dollars a year on a military that usually loses. Both military reform and a new grand strategy aimed at the Fourth Generation threat have died aborning.
Why? What has led President Trump to surrender to the establishment on foreign policy without even a fight? Several theories are in circulation. One is that the president is less comfortable with foreign-policy and defense issues than with domestic policy, knows he can't do everything, and is tired of media screams that he is going to blow up the world. He has therefore turned foreign and defense policy over to Vice President Pence, who is an establishment thinker, likely under the influence of neoconservatives. One would think that that bunch's spectacular failures under President George W. Bush would have forced them out of town. But that isn't how Washington works. Repeated policy failure is no bar to political success, especially if someone has access to gobs of money, as the neocons do.
Another theory is that the White House has determined that the so-called deep state makes any real policy change impossible. All the Trump people think they can do is try to expose the deep state in a long-term effort to delegitimize it. If this is true, there are some facts behind it. The deep state-a conglomeration of federal employees, contractors, business allies on Wall Street, and essentially anyone who benefits from the status quo-is powerful in both foreign and defense policy circles. To talk about military reform is to threaten the single largest honey pot on earth. The status quo in foreign policy-which is to say a quest for world hegemony, for Jacobin ideas of democracy and "human rights"-has tremendous ideological backing within the State Department and much of the rest of the government, the media, and academia. Even for a president who enjoys saying, "You're fired," these are hard nuts to crack.
But if Mr. Trump is to have a successful presidency, he must find a vise for cracking them. Turning foreign and defense policy over to the Republican establishment guarantees more failures of the kind we know all too well. We will start new wars, then lose them. If those wars are with either Russia or China, the scope of the defeats could be historic. We will pour more trillions of dollars into the sand. And the non-state forces of the Fourth Generation will grow, spread, and win.
At home, by failing to deliver on one of his four most important campaign pledges, President Trump will weaken himself. He won the election because enough people voted against the establishment, both its Republican and Democratic wings, and those voters will not turn out again if he merely puts the Republican establishment in power. To the contrary, those voters will again seek someone who is anti-establishment, this time with the seriousness and persistence to fight the establishment and win. President Trump's success in the 2016 primaries will bring such people into the fray. And the president will, in the end, get trumped.
William S. Lind is the author, with Lt. Col. Gregory A. Thiele, of the 4th Generation Warfare Handbook.
[May 07, 2017] The Conservative Rout and Donald Trump
Notable quotes:
"... Last week, Madame Le Pen declared that 'finance' is a primary enemy of France. Bankers are now lumped with Muslims as dire threats to the republic. ..."
"... With promises to "drain the swamp!" still ringing in our ears, we have watched Trump appoint nothing but Goldman banksters, Soros stooges, neocon war hawks and police state zealots to head his cabinet. ..."
Agent76 , May 5, 2017 at 4:32 pm GMT \nMay 07, 2017 | www.unz.com
TheJester , May 5, 2017 at 2:42 pm GMT \n
200 Words As Ed Margolis comments in his latest piece in the Unz Review," Last week, Madame Le Pen declared that 'finance' is a primary enemy of France. Bankers are now lumped with Muslims as dire threats to the republic. Outgoing President Francois Hollande made the same warning last year, but no one paid him any attention.
Coming from the hard-right Le Pen, it's a bombshell. 'Finance' is really political code for Jews who dominate parts of France's media, banking, and industry. France has Europe's largest Jewish population, followed by Ukraine.
Le Pen's gun sights are trained squarely on the youthful Macron who may, it is rumored, have some Jewish background, and squarely on his former employer, the mighty French Rothschild banking empire."
It seems we have the same problem in the United States with a (((tribal))) faction who dominate parts of media, banking, and industry in the United States also holding our country ransom to their globalist agenda albeit we call them Neocons, which is also a code word for Jews.
Feb 3, 2017 How Trump Filled The SwampWith promises to "drain the swamp!" still ringing in our ears, we have watched Trump appoint nothing but Goldman banksters, Soros stooges, neocon war hawks and police state zealots to head his cabinet.
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@War for Blair Mountain Best comment in this thread!!!
Two Nations..one White...one non-White...occupying and competing for the exact same LIVING AND BREEDING SPACE=VIOLENT RACE WAR...with great international c0nsequences...I personally would like to see China nuked off the map for exporting its population....Trump is an enthusiast for importing Chinese Legal Immigrants into the US...so they can enthusiastically vote his White Male voting bloc...into a violently persecuted racial minority within the borders of America....And while this is going on...Jared Taylor...Richard Spencer....and Steve Sailer want to have eternal discussions about IQ test score psychometrics...and PISA test scores...I despise all three of the aforementioned.... Nothing breathing space, control of oil, gas, mineral resources.
The USA consumes some 40% of those resources on this planet, with some 5% of the world population.100 Words @jilles dykstra In W European eyes the USA does not have political parties.
A USA correspondent long ago explained the mystery of the difference between democrats and conservatives: conservatives is old money, democrats new.
Yet I do see a difference, democrats want war, conservatives are more prudent about war.
So I was quite happy that Hillary was defeated, who I saw, and see, capable of fighting a nuclear war against Russia, far from her home, but destroying ours.
I had hoped that Trump would end USA militarism, what since Roosevelt has been the great evil of this world.
Alas I fear that Deep State still is pursuing its goals, the goals Hillary was expected to attain.
If Trump really wants to end USA militarism, or that Deep State is more powerful than an elected president, for the present it is wait and see.A USA correspondent long ago explained the mystery of the difference between democrats and conservatives: conservatives is old money, democrats new.
That's not it at all. The difference is in the industry they represent. The Republicans represent the state: the energy, defense, and what's left of the manufacturing industries. The Democrats represent the church: finance, high-tech, education, entertainment, social work, and Sillycon Valley (now that the valley is no long about manufacturing).
200 Words @IvyMike mindless anti semitic blind worms wriggling throughout the internet A great war cry, antisemitism, it is supposed, and, I must admit it does most of the time, to silence any criticism of jews.
In the row in Europe between Brussel and Hungary about ending Soros's activities in Hungary this war cry now also has been used.
The Hungarian prime minister Orban had a talk with Brussels bureaucrat Timmermans about throwing Soros out of Hungary, especially his 'prestigious' university, in my view meant to undermine Hungarian nationalism.
Orban in his talk with Timmermans seems to have called Soros a
speculator, what he was, he made his fortune speculating in currencies.
He even was condemned to three months jail by a French court for trading
with foreknowledge.
Soros is hated to this day in Malaysia, they feel he lowered the value of their currency, making their lives more expensive.
But now Timmermans has labeled 'speculator' as 'reeking of antisemitism'.
Hungary now demands that Timmermans be fired.
Brussels wants Hungary to adhere to EU values, this seems to include
allowing Soros to undermine the Hungarian government.
Sean
,
May 6, 2017 at 9:44 pm GMT \n
200 Words
Wellington was aghast at the size of the army Napoleon brought to Waterloo
(and that was after Napoleon had made the fatal error of dividing his
force). Any objective objective observer aware of the correlation of forces
would have given Napoleon a far greater chance of victory at Waterloo that
any expert gave Trump. He risked everything including his fortune, because
it endless investigation by a hostile Hilary administration would have taken
it from him had he lost
Trump is like Peisistratos of Athens–the good tyrant who broke the stranglehold of the aristocracy. A very capable businessman, who relies on the support of the common people, just as the wealthy Peisistratos did. Trump has also mobilised an army of the lower orders to overturn all received wisdom about who rules and who can expect to benefit. Expect him to reward his supporters in the only way that he would want to be rewarded himself: with money. Trump will move left domestically.
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May 04, 2017 | www.unz.com
What the NSA does not tell the FISA court is that its requests for approvals are a sham. That's because the NSA relies on vague language in a 35-year-old executive order, known as EO 12333, as authority to conduct mass surveillance. That's surveillance of everyone - and it does capture the content of every telephone conversation, as well as every keystroke on every computer and all fiber-optic data generated everywhere within, coming to and going from the United States.
This is not only profoundly unlawful but also profoundly deceptive. It is unlawful because it violates the Fourth Amendment. It is deceptive because Congress and the courts and the American people, perhaps even the president, think that the FISA court has been serving as a buffer for the voracious appetite of the NSA. In reality, the NSA, while dispatching lawyers to make sophisticated arguments to the FISA court, has gone behind the court's back by spying on everyone all the time.
In a memo from a now-former NSA director to his agents and vendors, leaked to the public, he advised capturing all data from everyone all the time. This produces information overload, as there is more data than can be analyzed; each year, it produces the equivalent of 27 times the contents of the Library of Congress. Therefore, safety - as well as liberty - is compromised.
The recent mass killings in Boston, San Bernardino and Orlando were all preceded by text messages and cellphone conversations between the killers and their confederates. The NSA had the digital versions of those texts and conversations, but it had not analyzed them until after the killings - because it has and has had too much data to analyze in a critical and timely manner.
So, why did the NSA announce that it is pulling back from its customary uses of Section 702? To give the false impression to members of Congress that it follows the law. Section 702, the great subterfuge, expires at the end of this year, and the NSA, which has spied on Donald Trump since before he was president, fears the debate that will accompany the efforts to renew it - hence its softening public tone.
Eagle Eye , May 6, 2017 at 7:14 pm GMT
Svigor , May 6, 2017 at 7:47 pm GMTDoes anyone seriously think that senior NSA officials do NOT personally ENRICH themselves through stock market manipulation in anticipation of earnings reports, mergers etc. based on illegal NSA intercepts?
Does anyone think that at least NO NSA officer EVER uses illegally intercepted information to blackmail others or otherwise to secure a secret advantage in dealing with others?
Does anyone think that Hillary's and the FBI's access to grossly illegal NSA intercepts was NOT a key factor in the 2016 presidential and Congressional elections?
Svigor , May 6, 2017 at 7:49 pm GMTHere is the back story.
The backstory is that Trump has the power to fire them all, easily and without much in the way of red tape. And that he can't be relied upon not to do so.
So, why did the NSA announce that it is pulling back from its customary uses of Section 702? To give the false impression to members of Congress that it follows the law. Section 702, the great subterfuge, expires at the end of this year, and the NSA, which has spied on Donald Trump since before he was president, fears the debate that will accompany the efforts to renew it - hence its softening public tone.
Oh, and Trump can veto any renewal bill. Too bad he won't.
Eagle Eye May 6, 2017 at 10:25 pm GMTWhat will happen with this privacy thingy is that people with stuff to hide (legitimate or not) will get their hands on strong encryption and the hoi polloi just doesn't care enough.
There needs to be a public movement toward encryption, so that everyone uses it. Then using it won't be prone to the abuse of "probable cause."
@SvigorWhat will happen with this privacy thingy is that people with stuff to hide (legitimate or not) will get their hands on strong encryption and the hoi polloi just doesn't care enough.There needs to be a public movement toward encryption, so that everyone uses it. Then using it won't be prone to the abuse of "probable cause."movement toward encryption
Think of a colleague, a personal enemy, a business partner, a spouse etc. Imagine you have access to their communications logs – a long list of times and other details of each email, text, USPS letter, phone call, wire transfer etc. to or from the subject, including the name of every person with whom she communicated, but NOT including the content of the message.
What conclusions could you draw from the following (with HT to Electronic Frontiers Foundation):
(1) Your business partner called a bankruptcy lawyer last Thursday and spoke for 27 minutes. You do not know what was discussed because the communication was encrypted.
(2) Your spouse made several hours-long phone calls, wired money to a sibling in Brazil on five occasions in 2 days, and contacted an airline. You do not know any details because the communications were encrypted.
(3) The senior dean of admissions at Princeton exchanged 17 encrypted emails with an individual in Saudi Arabia, and two days later received two bank transfers from another individual in Saudi Arabia to her numbered bank account in Moldova. You do not know the content of the emails, nor the amount of the wire transfers, because the communications were encrypted.
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van gogh , May 5, 2017 at 8:09 am GMT \nMay 01, 2017 | www.unz.com
87 CommentsIntroduction: Every day in unimaginable ways, prominent leaders from the left and the right, from bankers to Parisian intellectuals, are fabricating stories and pushing slogans that denigrate presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
They obfuscate her program, substituting the label 'extremist' for her pro-working class and anti-imperialist commitment. Fear and envy over the fact that a new leader heads a popular movement has seeped into Emmanuel "Manny" Macron's champagne-soaked dinner parties. He has good reason to be afraid: Le Pen addresses the fundamental interests of the vast- majority of French workers, farmers, public employees, unemployed and underemployed youth and older workers approaching retirement.
The mass media, political class and judicial as well as street provocateurs savagely assault Le Pen, distorting her domestic and foreign policies. They are incensed that Le Pen pledges to remove France from NATO's integrated command – effectively ending its commitment to US directed global wars. Le Pen rejects the oligarch-dominated European Union and its austerity programs, which have enriched bankers and multi-national corporations. Le Pen promises to convoke a national referendum over the EU – to decide French submission. Le Pen promises to end sanctions against Russia and, instead, increase trade. She will end France's intervention in Syria and establish ties with Iran and Palestine.
Le Pen is committed to Keynesian demand-driven industrial revitalization as opposed to Emmanuel Macron's ultra-neoliberal supply-side agenda.
Le Pen's program will raise taxes on banks and financial transactions while fining capital flight in order to continue funding France's retirement age of 62 for women and 65 for men, keeping the 35 hour work-week, and providing tax free overtime pay. She promises direct state intervention to prevent factories from relocating to low wage EU economies and firing French workers.
Le Pen is committed to increasing public spending for childcare and for the poor and disabled. She has pledged to protect French farmers against subsidized, cheap imports.
Marine Le Pen supports abortion rights and gay rights. She opposes the death penalty. She promises to cut taxes by 10% for low-wage workers. Marine is committed to fighting against sexism and for equal pay for women.
Marine Le Pen will reduce migration to ten thousand people and crack down on immigrants with links to terrorists.
Emmanuel Macron: Macro Billionaire and Micro Worker Programs
Macron has been an investment banker serving the Rothschild and Cie Banque oligarchy, which profited from speculation and the pillage of the public treasury. Macron served in President Hollande's Economy Ministry, in charge of 'Industry and Digital Affairs' from 2014 through 2016. This was when the 'Socialist' Hollande imposed a pro-business agenda, which included a 40 billion-euro tax cut for the rich.
Macron is tied to the Republican Party and its allied banking and business Confederations, whose demands include: raising the retirement age, reducing social spending, firing tens of thousands of public employees and facilitating the outflow of capital and the inflow of cheap imports.
Macron is an unconditional supporter of NATO and the Pentagon. He fully supports the European Union. For their part, the EU oligarchs are thrilled with Macron's embrace of greater austerity for French workers, while the generals can expect total material support for the ongoing and future US-NATO wars on three continents.
Propaganda, Labels and Lies
Macron's pro-war, anti-working class and 'supply-side' economic policies leave us with only one conclusion: Marine Le Pen is the only candidate of the left. Her program and commitments are pro-labor, not 'hard' or 'far' right – and certainly not 'fascist'.
Macron, on the other hand is a committed rightwing extremist, certainly no 'centrist', as the media and the political elite claim! One has only to look at his background in banking, his current supporters among the oligarchs and his ministerial policies when he served Francois Holland.
The 'Macronistas' have accused Marine Le Pen of extreme 'nationalism', 'fascism', 'anti-Semitism' and 'anti-immigrant racism'. 'The French Left', or what remains of it, has blindly swallowed the oligarchs' campaign against Le Pen despite the malodorous source of these libels.
Le Pen is above all a 'sovereigntist': 'France First'. Her fight is against the Brussels oligarchs and for the restoration of sovereignty to the French people. There is an infinite irony in labeling the fight against imperial political power as 'hard right'. It is insulting to debase popular demands for domestic democratic power over basic economic policies, fiscal spending, incomes and prices policies, budgets and deficits as 'extremist and far right'.
Marine Le Pen has systematically transformed the leadership, social, economic program and direction of the National Front Party.
She expelled its anti-Semites, including her own father! She transformed its policy on women's rights, abortion, gays and race. She won the support of young unemployed and employed factory workers, public employees and farmers. Young workers are three times more likely to support her national industrial revitalization program over Macron's 'free market dogma'. Le Pen has drawn support from French farmers as well as the downwardly mobile provincial middle-class, shopkeepers, clerks and tourism-based workers and business owners.
Despite the trends among the French masses against the oligarchs, academics, intellectuals and political journalists have aped the elite's slander against Le Pen because they will not antagonize the prestigious media and their administrators in the universities. They will not acknowledge the profound changes that have occurred within the National Front under Marine Le Pen. They are masters of the 'double discourse' – speaking from the left while working with the right. They confuse the lesser evil with the greater evil.
If Macron wins this election (and nothing is guaranteed!), he will certainly implement his 'hard' and 'extreme' neo-liberal agenda. When the French workers go on strike and demonstrators erect barricades in the streets in response to Macron's austerity, the fake-left will bleat out their inconsequential 'critique' of 'impure reason'. They will claim that they were right all along.
If Le Pen loses this election, Macron will impose his program and ignite popular fury. Marine will make an even stronger candidate in the next election if the French oligarchs' judiciary does not imprison her for the crime of defending sovereignty and social justice.
Altai , May 1, 2017 at 11:55 pm GMT
Carlton Meyer , May 2, 2017 at 4:32 am GMTThis is why all the economic populists will inevitably be labelled right-wing. The 'left' is incapable of dealing with the crisis of neoliberalism, because the most effective tool of neoliberalism, mass immgration, is now held as utterly sacrosanct by them. Thus any salves by the 'left' or 'far-left' (Hi Syriza and your blanket amnesty of illegal immigrants at a time of 40% unemployment in Greece!) will be temporary at best. No amount of welfare will make up for increased unemployment, lowered wages, a lack of housing, a lack of affordable family foundation and ethnic displacement. It makes me sick when I see so-called socialists making energetic campaigns to stop failed asylum seekers being deported.
The modern 'left' is totally anti-working class in every dimension. Only they do adore welfare as a form of charity to dull the effects of mass migration (Though it is likely now more an accelerant of it) and corporatists are fine with it because they pay less from tax increases than they make in outsourcing and insourcing.
And the modern left is like this because it is so thoroughly middle class, there are so many reasons for this, but the reality is what it is. So they get confused and ponder why the working class is 'voting against it's own interests'. It's painful to watch. One's ethnic group having a majority and centrality in it's homeland is the most valuable thing imaginable. The wealthy whites who sneer pay an exorbitant tax to insulate their children and raise them among their own kind, but don't ever seem to realise.
The part that irks me the most is their disdain for native working class for various, often exaggerated, PC defects and then praise newcomers who have even worse pathologies. Maybe they don't recognise it, but they hate the native working class because they are of their society and thus a threat whereas outsiders can be safely brought in like strike breakers. (They think)
wayfarer , May 2, 2017 at 5:31 am GMTLike most Americans, I knew little about Le Pen, but became an admirer after seeing this short video clip of her crushing CNN's famous neocon Christiane Amanpour promoting World War III with Russia. Note Amanpour's propaganda technique of proclaiming falsehoods and then asking for a comment:
jilles dykstra , May 2, 2017 at 6:07 am GMTBrother Nathanael, has Marine Le Pen's back!
jilles dykstra , May 2, 2017 at 6:11 am GMTThe antisemitism of old Le Pen was just two statements:
- the gas chambers are just a footnote in history
- the German occupation was relatively benign.
Both statements are objectively true.
Le Pen's crime is denying the unique holocaust.
He's not the only one, a USA Indian has the same view
Ward Churchill, 'A Little Matter of Genocide, Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present', San Francisco 1997
Ward Churchill, a professor of Boulder university, also fell into disgrace.
Estimates of how many Indians died as a result of the coming of white man go to 100 million.edNels , May 2, 2017 at 6:50 am GMT@Carlton Meyer Like most Americans, I knew little about Le Pen, but became an admirer after seeing this short video clip of her crushing CNN's famous neocon Christiane Amanpour promoting World War III with Russia. Note Amanpour's propaganda technique of proclaiming falsehoods and then asking for a comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=150&v=p_XeQs5n5js
unpc downunder , May 2, 2017 at 7:56 am GMT@Carlton Meyer Like most Americans, I knew little about Le Pen, but became an admirer after seeing this short video clip of her crushing CNN's famous neocon Christiane Amanpour promoting World War III with Russia. Note Amanpour's propaganda technique of proclaiming falsehoods and then asking for a comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=150&v=p_XeQs5n5js
Anonymous , May 2, 2017 at 10:31 am GMTThe big issue is why Le Pen's popularity seems to have tanked, even though opinion polls suggest most French people support immigration restrictionism.
The usual explanation is MSM brainwashing, which no doubt plays a part, but if people are so easily influenced by the media, why haven't they been brainwashed into supporting more immigration?
In my personal experience, people say they won't vote for nationalist candidates like Le Pen for two reasons:
1. they're dejected working class people who distrust all politicians (including nationalists) and can't be persuaded to turn up and vote
2. they're cautious middle-class people who want less immigration but are afraid politically inexperienced outsiders will mess up the economy and social services.
anonymous , May 2, 2017 at 11:47 am GMT"Le Pen rejects the oligarch-dominated European Union and its austerity programs, which have enriched bankers and multi-national corporations. Le Pen promises to convoke a national referendum over the EU – to decide French submission. Le Pen promises to end sanctions against Russia and, instead, increase trade. She will end France's intervention in Syria and establish ties with Iran and Palestine."
Do you remember anybody from recent history who also made similar lofty promises, but found himself neutered by invisible rulers?
France (that hypocrite nation) is a proud part of the western civilisation, which thrives on hegemony. So, LePen-the-cursed will not do anything to change that fundamental world order. Therein lies the rub.
Avery , May 2, 2017 at 1:02 pm GMTEstimates of how many Indians died as a result of the coming of white man go to 100 million.
True but misleading. Most of those deaths were due to accidentally introduced diseases. North America, in particular, was largely emptied out by waves of new diseases that struck down tribes that had never seen or heard of the white man.
Yes, there was some fighting, though much of it was factional rather than racial - eg, the abused slaves of the Aztecs sided with the Spaniards for good reason . the Spaniards, at least, weren't cannibals (except in the transubstantiational sense.) Yes, there were a few cases where - after the vast accidental wipeout - whites noticed the disease vulnerability of the natives and intentionally exploited it (smallpox tainted blankets).
But even if none of the deliberate massacres had been done, the demographics wouldn't look much different - a Europe teeming with starving peasants simply wasn't going to stay put while the recently-emptied North America sat mostly idle. Nature abhors a vacuum and adverse-possession laws exist for a reason.
Today, of course, whites in Europe and America contracept themselves to extinction and then bitch and moan about Moslem and Mexican invasion . silly people. At least the American Indians didn't do it to themselves.
jacques sheete , May 2, 2017 at 2:13 pm GMT@Z-man Amanpour isn't a Neocon, per say, as she isn't genetically a Jew. However since she married and had an offspring with a Jew and from this interview's tone she now qualifies. lol She is also a beast to look at or listen to. (Grin)
jilles dykstra , May 2, 2017 at 2:27 pm GMT@jilles dykstra The antisemitism of old Le Pen was just two statements:
- the gas chambers are just a footnote in history
- the German occupation was relatively benign.
Both statements are objectively true.
Le Pen's crime is denying the unique holocaust.
He's not the only one, a USA Indian has the same view
Ward Churchill, 'A Little Matter of Genocide, Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present', San Francisco 1997
Ward Churchill, a professor of Boulder university, also fell into disgrace.
Estimates of how many Indians died as a result of the coming of white man go to 100 million.@unpc downunder The big issue is why Le Pen's popularity seems to have tanked, even though opinion polls suggest most French people support immigration restrictionism.
The usual explanation is MSM brainwashing, which no doubt plays a part, but if people are so easily influenced by the media, why haven't they been brainwashed into supporting more immigration?
In my personal experience, people say they won't vote for nationalist candidates like Le Pen for two reasons:
1. they're dejected working class people who distrust all politicians (including nationalists) and can't be persuaded to turn up and vote
2. they're cautious middle-class people who want less immigration but are afraid politically inexperienced outsiders will mess up the economy and social services.
[May 06, 2017] Americas Top Scientists Confirm U.S. Goal Now Is to Conquer Russia
Notable quotes:
"... America's NeoCons are a combination of two cultures: Germanic (in Anglo-Saxon form) and Rabbinic Jewish. The cultural Germans always have Gotterdammerrung to fall back on, and the globe nuked would turn that trick. The Jews, even the atheists, always think like Pharisses and assume that if they do something totally insane, that God will send their idea of a messiah to save them. ..."
"... I think the US elites are incapable of such grandiose strategic thinking. Their policies just happen as a result of general guidelines (like, weaken Russia, strengthen US capabilities relative to Russia, push for wars that might benefit Israel or weaken Russia, etc.), without anyone thinking through what would happen later ..."
"... A lot of "decisions" are probably made by institutional inertia, for example I find it possible that the whole anti-Russian thing in the 1990s was the result of such. Why did they feel the need to bomb Serbia, when Russia was ruled by Yeltsin? Obviously, it could only have led to the alienation of the Russian elites, which did happen as a result. Did anyone think it through? I don't think so. ..."
"... Similar thing with immigration. It's obvious that France will be majority nonwhite by the end of the century. It's likely that the UK will be majority nonwhite by that time as well. Germany, probably, too. The US will be minority white by mid-century. Was this policy thought out in terms of how it would affect the power-projection capabilities of these countries? How it would affect their elites? I don't think so. ..."
"... Considering the role of Russian federation in stopping the ziocons from destroying Syria (and therefore from an immediate annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel), the Israelis do indeed feel somewhat unfriendly towards Russians. There is also a much deeper "dissatisfaction" with Russians on a part of Israelis, which takes its roots in the history of the USSR; for this deeper level you need to read "200 years together." ..."
Miro23 , May 5, 2017 at 6:31 am GMT \nMay 06, 2017 | www.unz.com
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a study, on 1 March 2017 , which opened:The US nuclear forces modernization program has been portrayed to the public as an effort to ensure the reliability and safety of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal, rather than to enhance their military capabilities. In reality, however, that program has implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal. This increase in capability is astonishing - boosting the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three - and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.
Because the innovations in the super-fuze appear, to the non-technical eye, to be minor, policymakers outside of the US government (and probably inside the government as well) have completely missed its revolutionary impact on military capabilities and its important implications for global security.
This study was co-authored by America's top three scientists specializing in analysis of weaponry and especially of the geostrategic balance between nations: Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, and Theodore Postol. Their report continues:
This vast increase in US nuclear targeting capability, which has largely been concealed from the general public, has serious implications for strategic stability and perceptions of US nuclear strategy and intentions.
Russian planners will almost surely see the advance in fuzing capability as empowering an increasingly feasible US preemptive nuclear strike capability - a capability that would require Russia to undertake countermeasures that would further increase the already dangerously high readiness of Russian nuclear forces. Tense nuclear postures based on worst-case planning assumptions already pose the possibility of a nuclear response to false warning of attack. The new kill capability created by super-fuzing increases the tension and the risk that US or Russian nuclear forces will be used in response to early warning of an attack - even when an attack has not occurred.The authors explain why an accidental start of World War III or global annihilation would be likeiier from Russia than from the U.S.:
Russia does not have a functioning space-based infrared early warning system but relies primarily on ground-based early warning radars to detect a US missile attack. Since these radars cannot see over the horizon, Russia has less than half as much early-warning time as the United States. (The United States has about 30 minutes, Russia 15 minutes or less.)
In other words: whereas Trump would have about 30 minutes to determine whether Putin had launched a blitz-first-strike attack, Putin would have less than 15 minutes to determine whether Trump had - and if at the end of that period, on either side, there is no certainty that no blitz-first-strike attack had been launched by the other, then that person would be obligated to launch a blitz attack against the other, upon the assumption that not to do so would result not only in a toxic planet with nuclear winter and universal starvation, but also in a humiliating and scandalous absence of retaliation against that perpetrator, which would be a humiliation on top of an annihilation, and thus a sharing of blame along with the actual perpetrator, which sharing, for whatever term might remain during that passive party's continued existence, would probably be an unbearable shame and result quickly in suicide, if that national leader's own surviving countrymen don't execute him before he kills himself.
Inevitably, the strictly personal morality and self-image of a nation's leader in that type of situation are factors other than the very public global consequences that will determine the person's decision; but, with only (at most) 15 minutes to decide on the Russian side, and 30 minutes to decide on the American side, there is an inestimably high chance now, that a nuclear war will terminate the lives of everyone who currently exists and who doesn't soon die from the ordinary causes before then. Even the most dire projections of the dangers from global warming come nowhere close to matching that danger.
The question, now, then, is: How did the world come to this extraordinarily ominous stage? The co-authors repeatedly refer to the secretiveness at the top of the American government as one essential source, such as " which has largely been concealed from the general public " and " policymakers outside of the US government (and probably inside the government as well) have completely missed ," and these passages refer to an ordinary phenomenon in conspiracies at the top of a large criminal operation such as corporate criminality, where only a very small circle of individuals, commonly a half-dozen or even less, are made aware of the operation's chief strategic objective and of the main tactical means that are being put into place so as to execute the plan. In this particular instance, it wouldn't include the head of every Cabinet department, nor anything nearly so broad as that; but, clearly, since the key decision, to implement the "super-fuze" on "all warheads deployed on US ballistic missile submarines" was made by Obama, he is the principal person reasonably to be blamed for this situation. However, Trump as the person who has inherited this situation from his predecessor has, as yet, given no indication at all of reversing and eliminating the now-operative top U.S. strategic objective of conquering Russia. The more time that passes without Trump's announcing to the public that he has inherited this morally repulsive operation from his predecessor and is removing all of the super-fuses, the more that Trump himself is taking ownership of Obama's plan. Typically in such a situation, the leader who has inherited such a plan will be assassinated if he gives any clear indication of an intention to reverse or cancel it (the key insiders are typically obsessive about 'success', especially at so late a stage in it); and, so, if Trump were to try to do that, he would almost certainly try to hide that fact until the inherited plan has already become effectively deactivated and no longer a threat.
The key turning-point that led up to the present crisis was the gradual and increasing acceptance, on the American side, of the concept of using nuclear weapons for conquest instead of only for deterrence - the prior system, for deterrence, having been called "MAD" for Mutually Assured Destruction, the idea that if the two nuclear superpowers were to go to war against each other, then the entire world would be destroyed so catastrophically as to make any idea of a 'winner' and a 'loser' in such a conflict a grotesque distortion of the reality: that reality being mutual annihilation and an unlivable planet. A landmark event in the process of reconceptualizing such a war as being 'winnable', was the publication in 2006 of two articles in the two most prestigious journals of international relations, Foreign Affairs and International Security , both formally introducing the concept of "Nuclear Primacy" or the (alleged) desirability for the U.S. to plan a nuclear conquest of Russia . Until those two articles (both of which were co-authored by the same two authors), any such idea was considered wacky, but since then it has instead been mainstream. As the final link above (the article that's linked-to immediately before) explains, the source even prior to George W. Bush goes all the way back to 24 February 1990 when his father, then also the U.S. President, secretly initiated the operation ultimately to conquer Russia, and within that article are links to the ultimate source-documents about that origin of the path toward world-ending nuclear war; so, getting to the original causes of the steady progression after 24 February 1990 in the direction of a conquest of Russia by the U.S. (assisted by its allies) can now be addressed by historians, even though only now is it finally being revealed to the public as news, though 27 years after it had actually begun in a very fateful decision by George Herbert Walker Bush, which has already cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars for no good purpose and resulting perhaps in the ghastliest ultimate end.
This article is being submitted for publication to all news-media without charge, in the hope that the current U.S. President will comment publicly upon it, even if only to ridicule it so as to avoid being assassinated for referring to it at all. This is an extremely dangerous time in history, and Donald Trump is now on a very hot seat, which any intelligent and accurately informed person recognizes to be the case. If ever the world needed courageous great leadership, now is the time; because, without that, we might all soon be entering hell. To avoid it, starting now 27 years after the U.S. government initiated this path, would be enormously difficult, but not yet totally impossible. This is where we are at the present time; and, ever since the coup in Ukraine in 2014, the purchases of 'nuclear-proof' bunkers have been soaring as a result.
This extreme danger is the new global reality. If the elimination of the threat does not come from the U.S. White House, the culmination of the threat will - regardless of which side strikes first. The decision - either to invade Russia, or else to cancel and condemn America's decade-plus preparation to do so - can be made only by the U.S. President. If he remains silent about the matter, then Putin can reasonably proceed on the assumption that he'll have to be the one to strike first. He didn't place himself in that position; the U.S. regime did. Let's hope that the U.S. will stand down the threat, now.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .
Carlton Meyer , Website May 5, 2017 at 4:21 am GMT \n
100 Words What our media overlooks is that the USA blatantly violated arms agreements with Russia by building missile bases in Poland and Romania with MK-41 launchers, capable of launching nuclear tipped cruise missiles to quickly strike key targets in Russia. The Pentagon promises to only place SM-3 anti-missile missiles in these silos. Trust us, our Generals proclaim! Read MoreIntelligent Dasein , Website May 5, 2017 at 5:16 am GMT \n100 Words I do not doubt that the Deep State's objective is to destroy Russia, but I' skeptical that this "super-fuze" amounts to any kind of decisive step in that direction. The Pentagon's claimed effectiveness for its gosh-wow gadgetry has latterly been orders of magnitude above the reality of the situation. We've just spent the better part of two decades being unable to make meaningful progress in freaking Afghanistan , for crying out loud.Frankly, I do not think that America's transgendered military could so much as conquer Costa Rica, let alone take on a nuclear armed Russia. Read More
300 Words It's hard to disagree with this article but the missing background is the US public.Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000′s of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims. Also keep in mind that young Americans ARE prepared to spend a lot of time on the rights and wrongs of so called campus "micro-aggression" and transgender "toilet rights".
If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same – indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially.
If for example, the public had had to pay a supplementary war tax of $2000 per person for each Middle East war, there would no doubt have been a major outcry, and the wars would probably never have happened, but in the event, the FED was there to quietly provide the funding and unobviously put the public in debt. Their grandchildren will pay the bill, and truthfully, they're not really bothered about that either.
Equally, as an extra precaution, the public is carefully sheltered from the reality of bombed cities and murdered and homeless families. The war party MSM excludes every trace of human interest related to the wanton murder of Arabs – calling them "Terrorists" which the dumb American public accepts while "nuke em" seems to be the even dumber and brainless reaction.
If a nuclear bomb did actually explode on Washington D.C. the public would be as helpless as a crowd of babies, same as after the New Orleans disaster.
It seems that Joseph de Maistre wrote, "toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite". Translated, this means "Every country has the government it deserves" but now it's a true disaster for the whole world, not just America. Read More
I was enjoying the article until I came across the paragraph mentioning "humiliation" as a factor in deciding to launch a nuclear strike. Yeah I can see the point, it's better not to get humiliated but it's okay to destroy the life in our planet in the process. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
200 Words http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/04/trump-nuclear-commanders-237956
A global coalition of former military leaders and diplomats who had responsibility over nuclear weapons is launching a "shadow security council" to offer advice to world leaders on how to reduce what they consider to be the growing danger of a nuclear conflict fueled by the rhetoric of President Donald Trump and destabilizing moves by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
I wonder what these "destabilizing moves" are. Today we have launch-on-warning, precise nukes, stealth delivery services, hacks in hardware and software, weird stuff in orbit, and "missile defense against Iran" in Europe which can be repurposed in a second to attack Russia. Unless the airheads notice that the "destabilizing moves" come from the US, there won't be much progress.
We survived the MAD phase only through tremendous luck, there were more computer errors, brown pants moments and lost nukes than one would like to think possible. Let's not waste this break that God has given us.
Remember that once the missile is out of the silo, it can't be called back. No remote defuse,
sorry. Read More
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100 Words Or rather than have the US destroy Russia, or Russia destroy the US, it would be preferable to root out the activist Jewish Neo Bolshevik war party that is behind it all. They have their own agenda, and regard themselves as above the law.
They gave the US the WMD lies, 9/11 and destroyed the Middle East. They've also taken ownership of the US media to push their war agenda, apart from attacking Anglo America, sowing discord and promoting their financial interest (e.g. forcing the US public to bail out their 2008 loses at full $ while they kept their bonuses).
If the US public can't wake up soon and deal with this cancer they've had it. Read More Agree: Z-man
Nils , May 5, 2017 at 8:39 am GMT \n200 Words If you think the President makes final decisions on all matters, I have a beach front property to sell you in Iowa. He is the public face of career Pentagon, State Department, and other Deep State proxies. Not a capstone critical thinker but a fall man.
Nuclear war isn't a reality, it's a game of chess bluffs and the winner defeats the loser when there is only a logical option of loss. Because when supremacy is achieved, and understood by the opponent, you don't suddenly nuke them – you take its periphery (Ukraine, Baltics and E. Europe, and other color revolution hot-spots), you destabilize it's source of income (oil), you cut her off from the financial world (sanctions), you ostracize them politically (media/hacking), and you deny them future income (Syria) while cementing their future (denying the New Silk Road by local animosity – maritime disputes, arming India, etc).
Real sudden catastrophic loss never materializes because we live in a non-zero sum situation – called living on the same planet – where abrupt destabilization backfires onto you from nuclear fallout and global market failure. It's just a check-mate scenario understood by both parties that begets a slow suffocation due to 'pawn sacrifice'.
Unless you don't have nuclear weapons then your country and lore is up for the taking on a whim. Read More
annamaria , May 5, 2017 at 12:02 pm GMT \n200 Words Well. Now we know what constitutes the true Obama legacy: "The new kill capability created by super-fuzing increases the tension and the risk that US or Russian nuclear forces will be used in response to early warning of an attack - even when an attack has not occurred."
One does not "conquer" anything with nukes. All you can do is destroy. Read More Jake , May 5, 2017 at 12:14 pm GMT \n
100 Words Is the NeoCon foreign policy establishment, which rules both Democrats and Republicans, insane enough to think it can pull of a nuclear first strike against Russia without any significant damage to the US or the world?
Probably. Many of the individuals are bluffing, but mob mentality inside military intelligence is the same basic mess it is on the inner city streets.
America's NeoCons are a combination of two cultures: Germanic (in Anglo-Saxon form) and Rabbinic Jewish. The cultural Germans always have Gotterdammerrung to fall back on, and the globe nuked would turn that trick. The Jews, even the atheists, always think like Pharisses and assume that if they do something totally insane, that God will send their idea of a messiah to save them.
Put that pair together, and the entire world should fear. Read More
Randal , May 5, 2017 at 12:53 pm GMT \n100 Words The other requirement to make a counterforce first strike viable is missile defences which, although not effective enough to see off a full Russian launch, would be very capable of "mopping up" the much smaller numbers of missiles launched in response to an incomplete disarming first strike.
So we don't need to worry too much about this kind of improvement to the US capability so long as we don't see the US regime simultaneously installing missile defences everywhere they can on the pretext, say, of defending against non-existent, propagandist third party regional "threats" Read More
Randal , May 5, 2017 at 12:54 pm GMT \n@Quartermaster One does not "conquer" anything with nukes. All you can do is destroy. Go tell it to the Japanese. Read More MarkU , May 5, 2017 at 1:25 pm GMT \n
200 Words A great article by Eric Zuesse, the best I have seen on the subject. A devastating nuclear war is almost inevitable if the situation is allowed to persist. There were several nearly catastrophic incidents in the last cold war when warning times were much more generous. Similar incidents, in the near future would likely be game over for human civilisation and even the human race itself.
It really doesn't matter whether the US/European oligarchy is really planning to nuke Russia and/or China or not, the situation is just as dangerous either way. The setting up of what is evidently a first strike capability while simultaneously degrading their potential opponents warning times is well nigh suicidal. One could hope that there is someone in the US/NATO military who is not too functionally autistic to see things from the other guys point of view but I doubt it. If such a person existed, they might reflect on the fact that if the roles were reversed, most of their colleagues would be clamouring for a first strike of their own before the missile "defence" is fully operational.
Finally, it doesn't even matter whether the missile "defence" works or not. Unless both sides
know it doesn't work, and can also be sure that the other side knows that it doesn't work, and
also that it can't be made to work, it is just as dangerous.
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@Miro23 It's hard to disagree with this article but the missing background is the US public.
Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000's of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims. Also keep in mind that young Americans ARE prepared to spend a lot of time on the rights and wrongs of so called campus "micro-aggression" and transgender "toilet rights".
If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same - indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially.
If for example, the public had had to pay a supplementary war tax of $2000 per person for each Middle East war, there would no doubt have been a major outcry, and the wars would probably never have happened, but in the event, the FED was there to quietly provide the funding and unobviously put the public in debt. Their grandchildren will pay the bill, and truthfully, they're not really bothered about that either.
Equally, as an extra precaution, the public is carefully sheltered from the reality of bombed cities and murdered and homeless families. The war party MSM excludes every trace of human interest related to the wanton murder of Arabs - calling them "Terrorists" which the dumb American public accepts while "nuke em" seems to be the even dumber and brainless reaction.
If a nuclear bomb did actually explode on Washington D.C. the public would be as helpless as a crowd of babies, same as after the New Orleans disaster.
It seems that Joseph de Maistre wrote, "toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite". Translated,
this means "Every country has the government it deserves" but now it's a true disaster for the
whole world, not just America. Americans, war and mass casualties perfect together. Just keep
their beer, drugs and professional sports . Read More
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annamaria
,
May 5, 2017 at 1:27 pm GMT \n
@Miro23 It's hard to disagree with this article but the missing background is the US public.
Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000's of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims. Also keep in mind that young Americans ARE prepared to spend a lot of time on the rights and wrongs of so called campus "micro-aggression" and transgender "toilet rights".
If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same - indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially.
If for example, the public had had to pay a supplementary war tax of $2000 per person for each Middle East war, there would no doubt have been a major outcry, and the wars would probably never have happened, but in the event, the FED was there to quietly provide the funding and unobviously put the public in debt. Their grandchildren will pay the bill, and truthfully, they're not really bothered about that either.
Equally, as an extra precaution, the public is carefully sheltered from the reality of bombed cities and murdered and homeless families. The war party MSM excludes every trace of human interest related to the wanton murder of Arabs - calling them "Terrorists" which the dumb American public accepts while "nuke em" seems to be the even dumber and brainless reaction.
If a nuclear bomb did actually explode on Washington D.C. the public would be as helpless as a crowd of babies, same as after the New Orleans disaster.
It seems that Joseph de Maistre wrote, "toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite". Translated,
this means "Every country has the government it deserves" but now it's a true disaster for the
whole world, not just America. "The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility,"
– yes, this is a bitter truth.
"Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite," indeed.
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peterike
,
May 5, 2017 at 1:29 pm GMT \n
While I don't doubt that the GloboHomo Zio cabal wants very much to destroy Russia, and is
crazy and blood thirsty enough to use nukes to do it, this hysteria about "ending all life on
earth" is nonsense. Read More Agree:
Alden
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Anonymous ,
May 5, 2017 at 1:36 pm GMT \n
100 Words Frankly, it's about time "compellence" replaced deterrence in dealing with Russia.
For all his faults, Putin seems more or less sane, but he's already 64 years old. When Russia has its next succession crisis (they're good at this stuff), the new incumbent may be much less tractable and dangerous.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists likes its Doomsday Clock, but the actual clock is ticking
and not counting fictitious minutes before midnight.
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100 Words Is this article mis-information or dis-information? I get those two confused.
We have been able to put a nuke in a 100 ft circle anywhere on earth for a long time. The "super-fuze" has nothing to do with the guidance system or speed of delivery but enhances perhaps the yield and the accuracy (elevation of detonation) of an already devastating weapon.
How is this destabilizing? How does this yield a first-strike capability? Read More
Erebus , May 5, 2017 at 1:49 pm GMT \n100 Words
Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!
Thomas S. Power, CIC, Strategic Air Command
Apparently, breathing the cold, dry air of madness takes you to the top of Washington's pyramid of skulls. Read More
Wizard of Oz , May 5, 2017 at 2:11 pm GMT \n@Seraphim Conquest of Russia (the 'Heartland' of the 'World-Island') was the single minded obsession, followed with uncanny determination, of the 'Anglo-Zionist' Empire (supposed successor of the not so mythical 'Arthurian Atlantic British Empire') from its bastard birth in the glorious days of the 'Gloriana', the hideous 'Virgin Queen' witch and her 'Magus' John Dee, to the theories of Mackinder ("Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World."), masked by the 'collateral damages' of the 'colonization' (i.e. conquest) of 'The Indies' (America and India proper), steps towards the encirclement of the 'Heartland'. The 'Great Game' the Viking merchant-adventurers cum pirates (financed by the Jewish money lenders and receivers) played against the Powers that blocked their way to the gold and spices of the Eldorado of East Asia and the inexhaustible source of slaves that was 'East Europe'. That block was the Orthodox Russia since the 'betrayal' of the Baptism of the Viking Vladimir. The 'Vikings' and the receivers of stolen goods never forgave it. They realize that as long as the 'Heartland' is not conquered none of their other conquests is secure. Ah, now some of the stranger things you have said become a little less puzzling as you reveal your romantic Russian mythmaking soul. Read More Pandos , May 5, 2017 at 2:12 pm GMT \n
@Miro23 It's hard to disagree with this article but the missing background is the US public.
Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000's of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims. Also keep in mind that young Americans ARE prepared to spend a lot of time on the rights and wrongs of so called campus "micro-aggression" and transgender "toilet rights".
If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same - indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially.
If for example, the public had had to pay a supplementary war tax of $2000 per person for each Middle East war, there would no doubt have been a major outcry, and the wars would probably never have happened, but in the event, the FED was there to quietly provide the funding and unobviously put the public in debt. Their grandchildren will pay the bill, and truthfully, they're not really bothered about that either.
Equally, as an extra precaution, the public is carefully sheltered from the reality of bombed cities and murdered and homeless families. The war party MSM excludes every trace of human interest related to the wanton murder of Arabs - calling them "Terrorists" which the dumb American public accepts while "nuke em" seems to be the even dumber and brainless reaction.
If a nuclear bomb did actually explode on Washington D.C. the public would be as helpless as a crowd of babies, same as after the New Orleans disaster.
It seems that Joseph de Maistre wrote, "toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite". Translated,
this means "Every country has the government it deserves" but now it's a true disaster for the
whole world, not just America. Miro23 – Brilliant X!
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Pandos
,
May 5, 2017 at 2:16 pm GMT \n
Russia ;and China must target Israel and Saudi as the primary targets in any nuke exchange.
It is their fault.
Russia should release the soviet archives to show the holocaust is a giant exaggeration – a lie. Rip that shield from their hands. Read More
Kiza , May 5, 2017 at 2:22 pm GMT \n200 Words @Intelligent Dasein I do not doubt that the Deep State's objective is to destroy Russia, but I' skeptical that this "super-fuze" amounts to any kind of decisive step in that direction. The Pentagon's claimed effectiveness for its gosh-wow gadgetry has latterly been orders of magnitude above the reality of the situation. We've just spent the better part of two decades being unable to make meaningful progress in freaking Afghanistan , for crying out loud.
Frankly, I do not think that America's transgendered military could so much as conquer Costa Rica, let alone take on a nuclear armed Russia. I was sceptical about super-fuses until I read a detailed explanation of how they work. Then I realised how dangerous this is. It would not be terribly hard for the Russians and the Chinese to replicate this development, however their possession of the same technology would NOT reduce the likelihood of US using it first.
In briefest, super-fusing makes the First Strike much more effective and thus likely. The idea of super-fusing is relatively simple – unlike cruise and hypersonic missiles, the ballistic missiles have one huge weakness – once the rocket fuel is spent the ballistic missiles fly like thrown rocks – there is little trajectory correction. Super-fusing activates explosion within a predefined envelope of optimum destruction for the target, thus increasing the likelyhood of destroying the target several times over. For example, instead of the nuclear bomb overshooting the target, it is activated when the closest to the target. Super-fusing against land based silos and mobile launchers, combined with much better ABMD than exists now, especially against submarine launched ballistic missiles, would enable the First Strike with very low payback – in single digit percent. This means a First Strike that could destroy up to 99% of enemy's retaliatory capability and leaving more than enough missiles to threaten direct strikes on enemy's major cities.
As I explained, ABMD is the weak link in this – it is far from effective yet, but give it unlimited $ printing and another 10 years or so and this scenario could become reality. Read More
Wizard of Oz , May 5, 2017 at 2:27 pm GMT \n100 Words This "investigative historian" confects his bad dream out of very little substance. Quotes from the respectable enough Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists plus a great deal of imagination and major omissions allow him to paint a fantastic picture of raving lunatics thinking of "conquering" or "invading" Russia. (Yes he did use those words despite positing a scenario in which the Dr. Strangeloves would wipe out Rusdia with a first strike! His psychic medium clearly has forgotten to consilt the ghosts of Napoleon and Hitler).
One major omission is to note what a quick search for "super fuze" immediately discloses, namely that the US Navy's upgrade is already old news and largely complete so far as the increase in capacity that Zuesse describes is concerned.
Another gigantic hole is the absence of mention of China. This is kid's journalism.
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@Erebus
Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!
Apparently, breathing the cold, dry air of madness takes you to the top of Washington's pyramid
of skulls. Useless quote without a believable source and still needs to have the context provided.
Read More
Anonymous
White Male ,
May 5, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Miro23 It's hard to disagree with this article but the missing background is the US public.
Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000's of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims. Also keep in mind that young Americans ARE prepared to spend a lot of time on the rights and wrongs of so called campus "micro-aggression" and transgender "toilet rights".
If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same - indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially.
If for example, the public had had to pay a supplementary war tax of $2000 per person for each Middle East war, there would no doubt have been a major outcry, and the wars would probably never have happened, but in the event, the FED was there to quietly provide the funding and unobviously put the public in debt. Their grandchildren will pay the bill, and truthfully, they're not really bothered about that either.
Equally, as an extra precaution, the public is carefully sheltered from the reality of bombed cities and murdered and homeless families. The war party MSM excludes every trace of human interest related to the wanton murder of Arabs - calling them "Terrorists" which the dumb American public accepts while "nuke em" seems to be the even dumber and brainless reaction.
If a nuclear bomb did actually explode on Washington D.C. the public would be as helpless as a crowd of babies, same as after the New Orleans disaster.
It seems that Joseph de Maistre wrote, "toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite". Translated, this means "Every country has the government it deserves" but now it's a true disaster for the whole world, not just America. "If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same – indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially."
Do you actually believe that if the US launched a nuclear strike against Russia that there
would be no US casualties? Wouldn't that "physically affect" the idiot masses that apparently
you are superior to morally? Read More
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@Sebastian Puettmann Well, in their defense, Russia is pretty fascist. And so are we so what's your point? Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
100 Words I don't understand how after 70 years of using "nuclear weapons" as a bludgeon to keep the mindless slaves of the West in line anyone would actually think that there is any real possibility of a nuclear war. The media has been used to induce fear in people that don't think. Start thinking! Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
@Miro23 It's hard to disagree with this article but the missing background is the US public.
Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000's of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims. Also keep in mind that young Americans ARE prepared to spend a lot of time on the rights and wrongs of so called campus "micro-aggression" and transgender "toilet rights".
If Russia was destroyed overnight and 50 million Russians killed, no doubt the reaction would be the same - indifference. The US public has truly disconnected from moral responsibility , and only has interest in things that affect it directly, either physically or financially.
If for example, the public had had to pay a supplementary war tax of $2000 per person for each Middle East war, there would no doubt have been a major outcry, and the wars would probably never have happened, but in the event, the FED was there to quietly provide the funding and unobviously put the public in debt. Their grandchildren will pay the bill, and truthfully, they're not really bothered about that either.
Equally, as an extra precaution, the public is carefully sheltered from the reality of bombed cities and murdered and homeless families. The war party MSM excludes every trace of human interest related to the wanton murder of Arabs - calling them "Terrorists" which the dumb American public accepts while "nuke em" seems to be the even dumber and brainless reaction.
If a nuclear bomb did actually explode on Washington D.C. the public would be as helpless as a crowd of babies, same as after the New Orleans disaster.
It seems that Joseph de Maistre wrote, "toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite". Translated, this means "Every country has the government it deserves" but now it's a true disaster for the whole world, not just America. "Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder "
Apparently you haven't heard of what England, France and other colonial nations had been doing in centuries past, and heck, even up till now (Libya, anyone?).
Americans are simply following the psychopathic instinct from their European forefathers.
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200 Words @another fred Is this article mis-information or dis-information? I get those two confused.
We have been able to put a nuke in a 100 ft circle anywhere on earth for a long time. The "super-fuze" has nothing to do with the guidance system or speed of delivery but enhances perhaps the yield and the accuracy (elevation of detonation) of an already devastating weapon.
How is this destabilizing? How does this yield a first-strike capability? For an explanation, read my previous comment and this one.
START treaties have limited the number of missiles on both sides, at a time when super-fusing did not exist. This means that each side had enough missiles to destroy a percentage of the missiles of the other side (probably around 40-50%), but not all of them, thus MAD. With super-fusing, the side which strikes first can destroy a much higher percentage of retaliatory missiles on fixed and mobile launchers (90-95%) and still have some left over to threaten civilians in large cities, especially if ABMD can destroy all of the remaining 5-10% of retaliatory missiles.
The hardest to destroy will remain the submarine launched missiles, but US military feel confident that they are tracking all Russian nuclear missile submarines with their attack submarines (and all the new and noisy Chinese submarines as well) and they could destroy them all on command.
On top of all this, the US intelligence has been tasked with collecting psychological profiles of all Russian commanders of nuclear missile submarines. The plan is to try convince them not to launch, once the Russian command has been destroyed by the First Strike – once they have no command any more. Read More
Wade , May 5, 2017 at 3:04 pm GMT \n300 Words
In this particular instance, it wouldn't include the head of every Cabinet department, nor anything nearly so broad as that; but, clearly, since the key decision, to implement the "super-fuze" on "all warheads deployed on US ballistic missile submarines" was made by Obama, he is the principal person reasonably to be blamed for this situation. However, Trump as the person who has inherited this situation from his predecessor has, as yet, given no indication at all of reversing and eliminating the now-operative top U.S. strategic objective of conquering Russia. The more time that passes without Trump's announcing to the public that he has inherited this morally repulsive operation from his predecessor and is removing all of the super-fuses, the more that Trump himself is taking ownership of Obama's plan.
Reading statements like this one, and other observations by Philip Giraldi, have reluctantly made me into a conspiracy minded person when it comes to politics. After all, does anyone seriously believe that the pretentious, metro-sexual Barry Obama entertained any such "Dr. Evil" like plots to concur the world prior to being sworn in as POTUS? Of course he didn't. He, even less than Trump, probably had no idea what he was getting himself into by running for president. It must've been a shocker for both of these men when they found out just how much potentially damaging intel that the CIA and NSA has on them through perfectly legal NSA spying. Would the CIA assassinate a president who got in the way of America's interests (as defined by them)? Maybe, but why would they need to?
The Deep State is in complete control of our foreign policy now. Our democracy and freedom
were already largely lost due to giant asymmetries in knowledge between the US Citizenry and elected
officials on the one hand, and the Deep State on the other. "Knowledge is power" as they say.
This state of affairs was gradually imposed on an unsuspecting public through such legislative
gems as the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 and the Patriot Act.
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100 Words @Pandos Russia ;and China must target Israel and Saudi as the primary targets in any nuke exchange. It is their fault.
Russia should release the soviet archives to show the holocaust is a giant exaggeration - a lie. Rip that shield from their hands. You have hit upon something that is extremely important, and studiously avoided by most: the Israeli-Saudi alliance. The worst of the Arabs are Saudi Arabians. The worst of the Sunnis are Saudi Arabians (and on average, Sunnis are worse than Shites). No doubt, the worst ruling caab in the Middle East,. whether royal family or political party (such as Likud), is the House of Saud.
Israel plus the House of Saud, backed by Uncle Sam = potentially endless horrors
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200 Words One of the WWII planners was Frankfurter, also the writer of the Lend Lease Law that enabled Roosevelt to give war aid to any country.
After Hitler began deporting jews to concentration camps, one of them escaped, and was smuggled
tot the USA, the Vichy France, Spain, Portugal route.
This jew told Frankfurter what was going on.
Frankfurter answered 'I do not believe one word you're saying'.
Much later Frankfurter explained 'I did not say he was lying, I said I did not believe him'.
In 1939 Hitler threatened jews with 'ausrottung', the exact meaning of this word then is debated,
'if they again started a world war'.
My interpretation of the Frankfurter statements is that he had not expected Hitler to carry out his threat.
So I am not all convinced that neocons will not start a nuclear war.
As Jimmy Carter said 'those that cause wars, expect not to be hurt by it'.
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100 Words @Jake Is the NeoCon foreign policy establishment, which rules both Democrats and Republicans, insane enough to think it can pull of a nuclear first strike against Russia without any significant damage to the US or the world?
Probably. Many of the individuals are bluffing, but mob mentality inside military intelligence is the same basic mess it is on the inner city streets.
America's NeoCons are a combination of two cultures: Germanic (in Anglo-Saxon form) and Rabbinic Jewish. The cultural Germans always have Gotterdammerrung to fall back on, and the globe nuked would turn that trick. The Jews, even the atheists, always think like Pharisses and assume that if they do something totally insane, that God will send their idea of a messiah to save them.
Put that pair together, and the entire world should fear. This is a long and passionate anti-war
article by Michel Chossudovsky, which includes a nice picture of Bin Laden teaching Brzezinski
how to handle a rifle, Afghanistan:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/reversing-the-tide-of-war-say-no-to-nuclear-war/21866
The neocons used the mujahaddins with great success, particularly on the US soil on 9/11.
In short, "America's biggest foreign policy problem is that the U.S. cannot be trusted."
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-awful-credibility-argument-that-never-dies/
Read More
Kiza
,
May 5, 2017 at 3:38 pm GMT \n
300 Words Here is a simplified First Strike plan by US on Russia and China, in my opinion.
China is more of the same as Russia, just at a lower level of military sophistication right now
(but advancing in leaps and bouts).
The First Strike starts with the launch of nuclear tipped cruise missiles from the "ABMD sites" in Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea and any other new ones in the future. These cruise missiles are launched against Russian military communications, command and control sites, as well as early warning radars. The second wave are the ballistic missiles from the silos in US, which target the Russian silo based missiles and the mobile platforms (truck and train based) discovered by US satellites. Simultaneously, the US bombers with nuclear bombs on board are launched, to target any remaining Russian military infrastructure. Also, a command is issued to destroy any on-duty Russian ballistic and cruise nuclear missile submarines. The ABMD sites on land (at least two in Canada in the future) and on ships now switch to defence to try to destroy any Russian missiles that got launched. At the same time US propaganda to dissuade the commanders of the Russian submarines, not destroyed already by the US attack submarines, fills the radio. Apparently, Russia has only eight nuclear missile submarines, and not more than 4-6 would be on active duty at any given time.
Ok this could be the US plan, but what do Russians have to counter it? The Russians have at least two tools in development. The first is the Bulawa MIRV, which is virtually impossible to shoot down with ABMD. The second are the submarine launched hypersonic cruise missiles, which are also almost impossible to shoot down by ABMD. Neither of these two are ready yet, but nor is the US ABMD. Therefore, the Russian approach is to make ABMD never effective, which would make even a partial retaliatory strike too expensive to US. Read More
annamaria , May 5, 2017 at 4:00 pm GMT \n100 Words @Sebastian Puettmann Well, in their defense, Russia is pretty fascist. "Russia is pretty fascist."
Is this a voice from the Kagans' clan' sinecures (AEI, Brookings) or directly from the land
of the "chosen" handlers?
For your information, even the Israel-occupied US Congress accepted an obvious truth and made
a decision re real fascists: " US Congress ends funding for Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion:"
https://theduran.com/us-congress-ends-funding-for-ukraines-neo-nazi-azov-battalion/
One wonders when the US Congress will finally discover that it was a leader of the Ukrainian Jewish
Community Mr. Kolomojsky who had been financing the Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion when the
Azov's thugs were burning the civilians alive in Odessa:
https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1d0_1462104943&comments=1
Similar to you, The Wall Street Journal (the nest of ziocons) cries in unison with Mrs. Clinton
that "Putin is Hitler." The same WSJ published a fawning article about Mr. Kolomojsky, a Ukrainian/Israeli
citizen and financier of the neo-Nazis:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-secret-weapon-feisty-oligarch-ihor-kolomoisky-1403886665
Read More
@Seraphim Conquest of Russia (the 'Heartland' of the 'World-Island') was the single minded obsession, followed with uncanny determination, of the 'Anglo-Zionist' Empire (supposed successor of the not so mythical 'Arthurian Atlantic British Empire') from its bastard birth in the glorious days of the 'Gloriana', the hideous 'Virgin Queen' witch and her 'Magus' John Dee, to the theories of Mackinder ("Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World."), masked by the 'collateral damages' of the 'colonization' (i.e. conquest) of 'The Indies' (America and India proper), steps towards the encirclement of the 'Heartland'. The 'Great Game' the Viking merchant-adventurers cum pirates (financed by the Jewish money lenders and receivers) played against the Powers that blocked their way to the gold and spices of the Eldorado of East Asia and the inexhaustible source of slaves that was 'East Europe'. That block was the Orthodox Russia since the 'betrayal' of the Baptism of the Viking Vladimir. The 'Vikings' and the receivers of stolen goods never forgave it. They realize that as long as the 'Heartland' is not conquered none of their other conquests is secure. I wish we Brits really were the evil geniuses we are supposed to be. Read More SolontoCroesus , May 5, 2017 at 4:13 pm GMT \n
200 Words Zuesse's very important essay could be improved immeasurably by identifying the authors of these dire policy statements:
Keir Lieber, professor in the Edmund Walsh school at Georgetown, is son of Robert Lieber, also a professor of foreign policy studies at Georgetown - For 2 Professors, Like Father, Like Son
Papa Lieber is one of the driving forces behind creating - rather, demanding that Georgetown agree to create– the department for Jewish Civilizational Studies at Georgetown. https://www.georgetown.edu/center-for-jewish-civilization-launch
Based on a quick review of Robert Lieber's dozen appearances on C Span, the description, Like Father like Son is apt: the senior Lieber is a an unabashed zionist and Israel firster who has operated behind the scenes to implement neoconservative policies that favor Israel, to be carried out at the expense of American blood and treasure, under the mendacious gloss that they are "in America's interest." Those policies date back at least to the Clinton administration bombing of Kosovo https://www.c-span.org/video/?100370-1/bosnia-russia-gulf-beyond ; then the Persian Gulf war to "liberate" Kuwait https://www.c-span.org/video/?23811-1/anniversary-persian-gulf-war and the war in Afghanistan where "Afghanis welcomed our liberation of Afghanis from the Taliban." https://www.c-span.org/video/?168019-4/postcold-war-conflicts Read More
Max Payne , May 5, 2017 at 4:22 pm GMT \n@Kiza I was sceptical about super-fuses until I read a detailed explanation of how they work. Then I realised how dangerous this is. It would not be terribly hard for the Russians and the Chinese to replicate this development, however their possession of the same technology would NOT reduce the likelihood of US using it first.
In briefest, super-fusing makes the First Strike much more effective and thus likely. The idea of super-fusing is relatively simple - unlike cruise and hypersonic missiles, the ballistic missiles have one huge weakness - once the rocket fuel is spent the ballistic missiles fly like thrown rocks - there is little trajectory correction. Super-fusing activates explosion within a predefined envelope of optimum destruction for the target, thus increasing the likelyhood of destroying the target several times over. For example, instead of the nuclear bomb overshooting the target, it is activated when the closest to the target. Super-fusing against land based silos and mobile launchers, combined with much better ABMD than exists now, especially against submarine launched ballistic missiles, would enable the First Strike with very low payback - in single digit percent. This means a First Strike that could destroy up to 99% of enemy's retaliatory capability and leaving more than enough missiles to threaten direct strikes on enemy's major cities.
As I explained, ABMD is the weak link in this - it is far from effective yet, but give it unlimited $ printing and another 10 years or so and this scenario could become reality. This just sounds like an air burst detonation. Is this one of those American things where they relabel something and remarket it? Read More
jilles dykstra , May 5, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMT \n100 Words @Kiza Here is a simplified First Strike plan by US on Russia and China, in my opinion. China is more of the same as Russia, just at a lower level of military sophistication right now (but advancing in leaps and bouts).
The First Strike starts with the launch of nuclear tipped cruise missiles from the "ABMD sites" in Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea and any other new ones in the future. These cruise missiles are launched against Russian military communications, command and control sites, as well as early warning radars. The second wave are the ballistic missiles from the silos in US, which target the Russian silo based missiles and the mobile platforms (truck and train based) discovered by US satellites. Simultaneously, the US bombers with nuclear bombs on board are launched, to target any remaining Russian military infrastructure. Also, a command is issued to destroy any on-duty Russian ballistic and cruise nuclear missile submarines. The ABMD sites on land (at least two in Canada in the future) and on ships now switch to defence to try to destroy any Russian missiles that got launched. At the same time US propaganda to dissuade the commanders of the Russian submarines, not destroyed already by the US attack submarines, fills the radio. Apparently, Russia has only eight nuclear missile submarines, and not more than 4-6 would be on active duty at any given time.
Ok this could be the US plan, but what do Russians have to counter it? The Russians have at least
two tools in development. The first is the Bulawa MIRV, which is virtually impossible to shoot
down with ABMD. The second are the submarine launched hypersonic cruise missiles, which are also
almost impossible to shoot down by ABMD. Neither of these two are ready yet, but nor is the US
ABMD. Therefore, the Russian approach is to make ABMD never effective, which would make even a
partial retaliatory strike too expensive to US. "and the mobile platforms (truck and train based)
discovered by US satellites."
Forget about it, the real ones can be parked in any farm, the inflatable ones cannot be distinghuised
from the real ones.
Even in Saddam's Irak USA planes were unable to find Saddam's mobile V2′s.
Iran's underground silo's are even atomic bomb proof.
Read More
SolontoCroesus
,
May 5, 2017 at 4:45 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Proud_Srbin US goal is conquest and enslavement of mankind.
Adolf shared that goal, humanity will prevail, again.
Russia, China, DPRK are not Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Siria.
US goal is conquest and enslavement of mankind.
Adolf shared that goal
Adolf did NOT "share the goal" of "conquest and enslavement of mankind."
Adolf's goal was nationalistic, not global; the clue is hidden in plain sight:
National sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP)
National Socialist German Workers' Party
US agenda is (among other things) to force other nations to conduct their finances under US-Federal
Reserve/fiat-currency – debt-basis; Germany under NSDAP determined to reject that system and established
control of its own economy and system of finance.
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100 Words @annamaria "Russia is pretty fascist."
Is this a voice from the Kagans' clan' sinecures (AEI, Brookings) or directly from the land
of the "chosen" handlers?
For your information, even the Israel-occupied US Congress accepted an obvious truth and made
a decision re real fascists: " US Congress ends funding for Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion:"
https://theduran.com/us-congress-ends-funding-for-ukraines-neo-nazi-azov-battalion/
One wonders when the US Congress will finally discover that it was a leader of the Ukrainian Jewish
Community Mr. Kolomojsky who had been financing the Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion when the
Azov's thugs were burning the civilians alive in Odessa: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1d0_1462104943&comments=1
Similar to you, The Wall Street Journal (the nest of ziocons) cries in unison with Mrs. Clinton
that "Putin is Hitler." The same WSJ published a fawning article about Mr. Kolomojsky, a Ukrainian/Israeli
citizen and financier of the neo-Nazis: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-secret-weapon-feisty-oligarch-ihor-kolomoisky-1403886665
If you ever need money, you'd make a good Russian propagandist. You seem to have internalized
every of their talking point. May you have the power to investigate the other side as well, once
in a while.
By the way, maybe you have not noticed that Israel is not talking the Russia to joining their Russian Federation. But Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the EU. What could be the reason for this, since Russia, according to your oppinion, is not more fascist than the US? Read More
reiner Tor , Website May 5, 2017 at 5:19 pm GMT \n200 Words @Randal The other requirement to make a counterforce first strike viable is missile defences which, although not effective enough to see off a full Russian launch, would be very capable of "mopping up" the much smaller numbers of missiles launched in response to an incomplete disarming first strike.
So we don't need to worry too much about this kind of improvement to the US capability so long as we don't see the US regime simultaneously installing missile defences everywhere they can on the pretext, say, of defending against non-existent, propagandist third party regional "threats" ...... Even that wouldn't be enough.
Even if the US government was installing a huge global missile system while simultaneously building a potent first-strike capability, we'd only have to worry if they also had a history of attacking many other countries without provocation. Also if their political elite was pushing for military confrontation with Russia, like proposing to implement no-fly zones in Syria where Russian planes are flying missions (legally), with some members of the US establishment (people like Senator McCain) even calling for the downing of Russian planes if needed to accomplish that. Even in that hypothetical scenario it would only be really really dangerous if in the past some random senior US general (someone like General Wesley Clark) had already proposed to attack Russian troops – otherwise we could rely on the sanity of the generals to prevent such insanity.
Fortunately, none of the above ever happened. It's all fantasy, folks. Nothing to see here.
Read More LOL:
Randal
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300 Words I actually think there is no master plan to attack Russia. There is, however, a plan to create capabilities for the US which would enable the US government to attack Russia with the possibility of winning such a war.
I think the US elites are incapable of such grandiose strategic thinking. Their policies just happen as a result of general guidelines (like, weaken Russia, strengthen US capabilities relative to Russia, push for wars that might benefit Israel or weaken Russia, etc.), without anyone thinking through what would happen later , or what would be the logical consequence of the actions which they take. A lot of "decisions" are probably made by institutional inertia, for example I find it possible that the whole anti-Russian thing in the 1990s was the result of such. Why did they feel the need to bomb Serbia, when Russia was ruled by Yeltsin? Obviously, it could only have led to the alienation of the Russian elites, which did happen as a result. Did anyone think it through? I don't think so.
Similar thing with immigration. It's obvious that France will be majority nonwhite by the end of the century. It's likely that the UK will be majority nonwhite by that time as well. Germany, probably, too. The US will be minority white by mid-century. Was this policy thought out in terms of how it would affect the power-projection capabilities of these countries? How it would affect their elites? I don't think so.
The most frightening thought is that they have no idea what they are doing. Read More
annamaria , May 5, 2017 at 5:35 pm GMT \n200 Words "US Congress ends funding for Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion:" https://theduran.com/us-congress-ends-funding-for-ukraines-neo-nazi-azov-battalion/
" Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the
EU. What could be the reason for this, since Russia, according to your oppinion, is not more fascist
than the US?"
Are you serious? Israel has been caught red-handed on cooperating with ISIS. Following your logic,
ISIS is much, much better than Russian Federation. Though in this case you are actually in agreement
with Israeli brass.
" maybe you have not noticed that Israel is not talking the Russia to joining their Russian
Federation."
A truly amazing observation!
Considering the role of Russian federation in stopping the ziocons from destroying Syria (and
therefore from an immediate annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel), the Israelis do indeed
feel somewhat unfriendly towards Russians. There is also a much deeper "dissatisfaction" with
Russians on a part of Israelis, which takes its roots in the history of the USSR; for this deeper
level you need to read "200 years together."
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100 Words I am very much appreciating this article and many comments.
Having some military time, at peace, thankfully, and interest in arcane English words, I am knowing the diff.between material and materiel, fuze and fuse, etc.
What this article and all of the comments are to lacking is a definition of 'super-fuze'.
I am suspecting that it is just a mis-use of the word 'fuze'.
If Mr. Zuess or a commentor could providing a definition, it would be an aid to comprehension.
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@Miro23 Or rather than have the US destroy Russia, or Russia destroy the US, it would be preferable to root out the activist Jewish Neo Bolshevik war party that is behind it all. They have their own agenda, and regard themselves as above the law.
They gave the US the WMD lies, 9/11 and destroyed the Middle East. They've also taken ownership of the US media to push their war agenda, apart from attacking Anglo America, sowing discord and promoting their financial interest (e.g. forcing the US public to bail out their 2008 loses at full $ while they kept their bonuses).
If the US public can't wake up soon and deal with this cancer they've had it. Absolutely right. Read More
SolontoCroesus , May 5, 2017 at 6:37 pm GMT \n
300 Words @22pp22 I wish we Brits really were the evil geniuses we are supposed to be.
I wish we Brits really were the evil geniuses we are supposed to be.
From where do you think many Americans internalized the characteristic that Miro23 pegged:
"Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000′s of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims." http://www.unz.com/article/americas-top-scientists-confirm-u-s-goal-now-is-to-conquer-russia/#comment-1860779
Britain's Lee Child created superhero Jack Reacher. In "Night School" Child locates Reacher in Hamburg, where he beats up young Germans who call out that they are fed up with being occupied by USA; having delivered the characteristic chops to the face then kick to the nuts, Reacher taunts the downed German patriots, er, neo-Nazis, "how does it feel to lose a war?"
When, still in Hamburg, Reacher ultimately confronts the head of a group of Germans attempting to revitalize German identity and culture, Reacher shoots him in the heart and then the head, carrying out the ideals he had learned in West Point Military Academy bull sessions. For Reacher - Child - British propagandists - New York publishers, a German who is not fully on board with USA (Anglo-zionist) demands is, by definition, a Nazi deserving only to be extrajudicially exterminated.
American (Anglo-zionist) popular culture reinforces "lack of remorse" at every turn and by numerous venues –
We'll put a boot in your eye, It's the American way . . .
As Ron Unz and Dr. Stephen Sniegoski revealed on this forum, British propaganda has a long history: it was their efforts that lied the American people into World War II
and
American Pravda: Alexander Cockburn and the British Spies by Ron Unz
I can't think of anything more evil than lying to an entire population in order to induce them to hate, and then kill, another entire population.
"Who sins not with the tongue sins not at all." -
Anonymous , May 5, 2017 at 6:50 pm GMT \n
@annamaria This is a long and passionate anti-war article by Michel Chossudovsky, which includes a nice picture of Bin Laden teaching Brzezinski how to handle a rifle, Afghanistan: http://www.globalresearch.ca/reversing-the-tide-of-war-say-no-to-nuclear-war/21866
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-awful-credibility-argument-that-never-dies/ Do you read the links you put in your posts? Read More
Agent76 , May 5, 2017 at 6:55 pm GMT \n100 Words Nov 29, 2016 The Map That Shows Why Russia Fears War With USA
DECEMBER 25, 2015 NATO: Seeking Russia's Destruction Since 1949
In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, U.S. president George H. W. Bush through his secretary of state James Baker promised Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that in exchange for Soviet cooperation on German reunification, the Cold War era NATO alliance would not expand "one inch" eastwards towards Russia.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/25/nato-seeking-russias-destruction-since-1949/
100 Words @Sebastian Puettmann If you ever need money, you'd make a good Russian propagandist. You seem to have internalized every of their talking point. May you have the power to investigate the other side as well, once in a while.
By the way, maybe you have not noticed that Israel is not talking the Russia to joining their Russian Federation. But Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the EU. What could be the reason for this, since Russia, according to your oppinion, is not more fascist than the US?
But Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the EU.
comedygold.jpg
NATO brings obligations, and Israel already get all the dough they demand directly from the US without going through the "US occupation forces Europe" gentleman's club. In case of integration, imagine that there would be Israeli forces in islamic countries far away from the homeland? That would be awkward.
While Israel would be happy to be in some new model European Trading Zone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_areas_in_Europe ), being "in the EU" is another kettle of fish entirely. First, Israel is not European. And then again, obligations. In particular to stop shooting people held in reservations. Nyet, not happening. Read More
El Dato , May 5, 2017 at 7:32 pm GMT \n@utu Bin Laden teaching Brzezinski ???
Bin Laden 6'5" Brzezinski 5'5"
This is not Bin Laden on this picture with Brzezinski! It looks like a guy with Pakistani or Indian paratrooper markings demonstrating the use of Russian RPD machine gun.
Monsieur Laden would probably only see visitors in one of his construction contractor offices.
No need for actual guns except when striking a pose (he was partial to AKS-74U as I remember)
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@El Dato
comedygold.jpg
But Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the EU.
NATO brings obligations, and Israel already get all the dough they demand directly from the US without going through the "US occupation forces Europe" gentleman's club. In case of integration, imagine that there would be Israeli forces in islamic countries far away from the homeland? That would be awkward.
While Israel would be happy to be in some new model European Trading Zone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_areas_in_Europe),
being "in the EU" is another kettle of fish entirely. First, Israel is not European. And then
again, obligations. In particular to stop shooting people held in reservations. Nyet, not happening.
In fact NATO already trains jointly with Israel, and Israel has narrow ties with the EU.
Israel also participates in the European Song Contest.
El Al uses Schiphol, Amsterdam airport, as its main base in Europe.
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100 Words @Nils If you think the President makes final decisions on all matters, I have a beach front property to sell you in Iowa. He is the public face of career Pentagon, State Department, and other Deep State proxies. Not a capstone critical thinker but a fall man.
Nuclear war isn't a reality, it's a game of chess bluffs and the winner defeats the loser when there is only a logical option of loss. Because when supremacy is achieved, and understood by the opponent, you don't suddenly nuke them - you take its periphery (Ukraine, Baltics and E. Europe, and other color revolution hot-spots), you destabilize it's source of income (oil), you cut her off from the financial world (sanctions), you ostracize them politically (media/hacking), and you deny them future income (Syria) while cementing their future (denying the New Silk Road by local animosity - maritime disputes, arming India, etc).
Real sudden catastrophic loss never materializes because we live in a non-zero sum situation - called living on the same planet - where abrupt destabilization backfires onto you from nuclear fallout and global market failure. It's just a check-mate scenario understood by both parties that begets a slow suffocation due to 'pawn sacrifice'.
Unless you don't have nuclear weapons...then your country and lore is up for the taking on
a whim. US is losing military ground in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan to the Russian, while USA
is losing economic ground in SE Asia, Africa, South America and North America to the Chinese,
are you saying the super-fuze is a fake news? And the American understood they are being check-mated
by the Russian and Chinese? Read More
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100 Words @SolontoCroesus Zuesse's very important essay could be improved immeasurably by identifying the authors of these dire policy statements:
Keir Lieber, professor in the Edmund Walsh school at Georgetown, is son of Robert Lieber, also a professor of foreign policy studies at Georgetown -- For 2 Professors, Like Father, Like Son
Papa Lieber is one of the driving forces behind creating -- rather, demanding that Georgetown agree to create-- the department for Jewish Civilizational Studies at Georgetown. https://www.georgetown.edu/center-for-jewish-civilization-launch
Based on a quick review of Robert Lieber's dozen appearances on C Span, the description, Like
Father like Son is apt: the senior Lieber is a an unabashed zionist and Israel firster who
has operated behind the scenes to implement neoconservative policies that favor Israel, to be
carried out at the expense of American blood and treasure, under the mendacious gloss that they
are "in America's interest." Those policies date back at least to the Clinton administration bombing
of Kosovo https://www.c-span.org/video/?100370-1/bosnia-russia-gulf-beyond ; then the Persian
Gulf war to "liberate" Kuwait https://www.c-span.org/video/?23811-1/anniversary-persian-gulf-war
and the war in Afghanistan where "Afghanis welcomed our liberation of Afghanis from the Taliban."
https://www.c-span.org/video/?168019-4/postcold-war-conflicts Good to know, SolontoCroesus. I'm
sure we'll remember to thank that cuddly pair of parasites when they manage to kill a few tens
of millions of Russians to get their 21st century war groove going. It's really too bad about
Christianity having bred the spirit of vengeance out of the white man. Do Russians thirst for
revenge? Does anyone? Read More
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Randal
,
May 5, 2017 at 8:44 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@reiner Tor I actually think there is no master plan to attack Russia. There is, however,
a plan to create capabilities for the US which would enable the US government to attack
Russia with the possibility of winning such a war.
I think the US elites are incapable of such grandiose strategic thinking. Their policies just happen as a result of general guidelines (like, weaken Russia, strengthen US capabilities relative to Russia, push for wars that might benefit Israel or weaken Russia, etc.), without anyone thinking through what would happen later, or what would be the logical consequence of the actions which they take. A lot of "decisions" are probably made by institutional inertia, for example I find it possible that the whole anti-Russian thing in the 1990s was the result of such. Why did they feel the need to bomb Serbia, when Russia was ruled by Yeltsin? Obviously, it could only have led to the alienation of the Russian elites, which did happen as a result. Did anyone think it through? I don't think so.
Similar thing with immigration. It's obvious that France will be majority nonwhite by the end of the century. It's likely that the UK will be majority nonwhite by that time as well. Germany, probably, too. The US will be minority white by mid-century. Was this policy thought out in terms of how it would affect the power-projection capabilities of these countries? How it would affect their elites? I don't think so.
The most frightening thought is that they have no idea what they are doing. Probably correct, but as the events surrounding Able Archer in 1983 highlight it's not whether the Yanks have such intentions that matters, but whether the Russians think they might have them.
Why did they feel the need to bomb Serbia, when Russia was ruled by Yeltsin? Obviously, it could only have led to the alienation of the Russian elites, which did happen as a result. Did anyone think it through?
The ones who thought it through, like Kissinger, cautioned against it and were proved correct.
Though in truth, when it comes to the neocon types who really knows where the incompetence
ends and the evil begins? Read More
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in 1999 war against Serbia 7 smart bombs hit Bulgaria[ nato nation] why are you guys so sure if instead of Russia USA nukes Ukraine or Poland.
100 Words @Proud_Srbin US goal is conquest and enslavement of mankind.
Adolf shared that goal, humanity will prevail, again.
Where did you hear that?
FYI: "Adolph" faced some real threats, not phony ones like we use as excuses to go to war.
Since yer on a first name basis with the dude, you oughta know the truth.
Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All CommentsHere's a primer.:
" this entire myth, so prevalent then and even now about Hitler, and about the Japanese, is a tissue of fallacies from beginning to end. Every plank in this nightmare evidence is either completely untrue or not entirely the truth.
If people should learn this intellectual fraud about Hitler's Germany, then they will begin to ask questions, and searching questions "- Murray Rothbard 1966
Dec 31, 2013 Edward Bernays called it *PROPAGANDA*
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@SolontoCroesus
From where do you think many Americans internalized the characteristic that Miro23 pegged:
I wish we Brits really were the evil geniuses we are supposed to be.
Britain's Lee Child created superhero Jack Reacher. In "Night School" Child locates Reacher in Hamburg, where he beats up young Germans who call out that they are fed up with being occupied by USA; having delivered the characteristic chops to the face then kick to the nuts, Reacher taunts the downed German patriots, er, neo-Nazis, "how does it feel to lose a war?"
"Americans have shown no remorse whatsoever for the murder of 100.000′s of civilians in the Middle East. They are indifferent to the WMD lies, don't care about the destruction they have caused, and show zero empathy for their victims." http://www.unz.com/article/americas-top-scientists-confirm-u-s-goal-now-is-to-conquer-russia/#comment-1860779
When, still in Hamburg, Reacher ultimately confronts the head of a group of Germans attempting to revitalize German identity and culture, Reacher shoots him in the heart and then the head, carrying out the ideals he had learned in West Point Military Academy bull sessions. For Reacher -- Child -- British propagandists -- New York publishers, a German who is not fully on board with USA (Anglo-zionist) demands is, by definition, a Nazi deserving only to be extrajudicially exterminated.
American (Anglo-zionist) popular culture reinforces "lack of remorse" at every turn and by numerous venues --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9r0haVPDAo
We'll put a boot in your eye, It's the American way . . .
As Ron Unz and Dr. Stephen Sniegoski revealed on this forum, British propaganda has a long history: it was their efforts that lied the American people into World War II
and
American Pravda: Alexander Cockburn and the British Spies by Ron Unz
I can't think of anything more evil than lying to an entire population in order to induce them to hate, and then kill, another entire population.
"Who sins not with the tongue sins not at all." -
As Ron Unz and Dr. Stephen Sniegoski revealed on this forum, British propaganda has a long history: it was their efforts that lied the American people into World War II
WW1 as well. Read More
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@Anonymous Do you read the links you put in your posts? What's wrong with these two links?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/reversing-the-tide-of-war-say-no-to-nuclear-war/21866
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-awful-credibility-argument-that-never-dies/
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200 Words @Sebastian Puettmann If you ever need money, you'd make a good Russian propagandist. You seem to have internalized every of their talking point. May you have the power to investigate the other side as well, once in a while.
By the way, maybe you have not noticed that Israel is not talking the Russia to joining their Russian Federation. But Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the EU. What could be the reason for this, since Russia, according to your oppinion, is not more fascist than the US? This post was intended for you, Sebastian:
"US Congress ends funding for Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion:"
https://theduran.com/us-congress-ends-funding-for-ukraines-neo-nazi-azov-battalion/
Is this "a good Russian propaganda," Sebastian? In his case you need to address your grievances
directly to the US Congress.
" Israel is talking to the Western establishment about the possibility to joining NATO or the
EU. What could be the reason for this, since Russia, according to your oppinion, is not more fascist
than the US?"
Are you serious? Israel has been caught red-handed on cooperating with ISIS. Following your logic,
ISIS is much, much better than Russian Federation. Though in this case you are actually in agreement
with Israeli brass.
http://news.antiwar.com/2016/06/21/israeli-intel-chief-we-dont-want-isis-defeated-in-syria/
" maybe you have not noticed that Israel is not talking the Russia to joining their Russian
Federation."
A truly amazing observation!
Considering the role of Russian federation in stopping the ziocons from destroying Syria (and
therefore from immediate annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel), the Israelis do indeed feel
somewhat unfriendly towards Russians. There is also a much deeper "dissatisfaction" with Russians
on a part of Israelis, which takes its roots in the history of the USSR; for this deeper level
you need to read "200 years together." Read More
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@reiner Tor I actually think there is no master plan to attack Russia. There is, however, a plan to create capabilities for the US which would enable the US government to attack Russia with the possibility of winning such a war.
I think the US elites are incapable of such grandiose strategic thinking. Their policies just happen as a result of general guidelines (like, weaken Russia, strengthen US capabilities relative to Russia, push for wars that might benefit Israel or weaken Russia, etc.), without anyone thinking through what would happen later, or what would be the logical consequence of the actions which they take. A lot of "decisions" are probably made by institutional inertia, for example I find it possible that the whole anti-Russian thing in the 1990s was the result of such. Why did they feel the need to bomb Serbia, when Russia was ruled by Yeltsin? Obviously, it could only have led to the alienation of the Russian elites, which did happen as a result. Did anyone think it through? I don't think so.
Similar thing with immigration. It's obvious that France will be majority nonwhite by the end of the century. It's likely that the UK will be majority nonwhite by that time as well. Germany, probably, too. The US will be minority white by mid-century. Was this policy thought out in terms of how it would affect the power-projection capabilities of these countries? How it would affect their elites? I don't think so.
The most frightening thought is that they have no idea what they are doing. "The most frightening thought is that they have no idea what they are doing."
Their sick psychopathic heads could well contain the "grandiose strategic thinking" for attacking Russia and China with nuclear weaponry, on some opportunistic impulse. Read More
Realist , May 5, 2017 at 10:26 pm GMT \n100 Words @Intelligent Dasein I do not doubt that the Deep State's objective is to destroy Russia, but I' skeptical that this "super-fuze" amounts to any kind of decisive step in that direction. The Pentagon's claimed effectiveness for its gosh-wow gadgetry has latterly been orders of magnitude above the reality of the situation. We've just spent the better part of two decades being unable to make meaningful progress in freaking Afghanistan , for crying out loud.
Frankly, I do not think that America's transgendered military could so much as conquer Costa Rica, let alone take on a nuclear armed Russia. " We've just spent the better part of two decades being unable to make meaningful progress in freaking Afghanistan, for crying out loud."
The idea is not to win the war in Afghanistan, but to prolong it for ever if possible. Thus making billions for the power elite And in this country of dumb bastards it's a snap. Read More
Kiza , May 5, 2017 at 11:00 pm GMT \n100 Words @Max Payne This just sounds like an air burst detonation. Is this one of those American things where they relabel something and remarket it? Not exactly. The super-fuse is an envelope around the target which is underground, in which the explosion results in the destruction of the target even if the missile has not hit the ground within the radius of destruction for its potency. The optimum destruction envelope around the target looks like a church bell, as one would expect. Therefore, it is in air-burst detonation, but this is not the essence of the super-fusing technique. An air-burst too early or too late, still does not destroy the target . The essence is to "save" a missile which would have missed the target and still destroy the underground silo. A computer on-board the missile decides when to detonate the missile for its existing trajectory. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
400 Words @El Dato Is this a plot for a new Spielberg movie.
Is this a plot for a new Spielberg movie.
No, it's the prequel:
Mackinder -> Mahan (who taught the theory to West Pointers)
Walter McDougall on Mahan (among other things - listen to the whole thing (skip the intros)
In this insightful paper, Walter McDougall explores the options and outcomes facing Japan, Germany, Italy, USA, and the British in their interpretations, or misinterpretations, of Mahan's theories.
http://www.fpri.org/article/2011/11/history-and-strategies-grand-maritime-and-american/
The most pertinent quote from McDougall's paper recites that:
"Thus, Germany's naval program might be a weapon designed to overthrow the world order or a tool to help her forge a larger (responsible) stake in that order. But Sir Thomas Sanderson, a brilliant veteran just retired from Whitehall, responded to Crowe with a sigh. He bade him (and by extension his chief, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray) to see world politics from Germany's point of view:
It has sometimes seemed to me that to a foreigner reading our press ** the British Empire must appear in the light of some huge giant sprawling over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every direction, which cannot be approached without eliciting a scream.
In short, Sanderson argued that Britain's empire and its maritime lifelines could be secured better through accommodation of a rising peer competitor than by arrogant outrage and dogged defense of the status quo. The parallels to the United States and China today are obvious."
Finally, in the next-best-thing-to-Spielberg, Frank Capra devotes much of the second film in the 7-part Why We Fight series to projecting upon Germany - and Germany alone - the "militaristic" desire to "control the (Mackinder) World Island." Capra succumbed to the British propaganda dominating the American populace as well as agents of influence and decision-makers; in the clutch of the "huge giant sprawling over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every direction," Capra responded to competition with amped up "arrogant outrage and dogged defense of the status quo," a status quo that was, by the way, ludicrously sanitized in Capra's saccharine portrayal of the unalloyed virtue of American life.
{ ~4 min, Capra claims that Germany seeks control of the World Island.
In the first installment of the Why We Fight series, Capra has Germany plotting the conquest of
the entire world.)
** Once again, the British, masters of propaganda, can't control their tongues – Read More
Kiza , May 5, 2017 at 11:09 pm GMT \n100 Words @Anon
I won't even go into the loony ideas of this article or your understanding of the super fuses.
On top of all this, the US intelligence has been tasked with collecting psychological profiles of all Russian commanders of nuclear missile submarines. The plan is to try convince them not to launch, once the Russian command has been destroyed by the First Strike – once they have no command any more.
How the hell do you know what U.S. intelligence is being "tasked with?" Are these intelligence agencies or your personal informers? Have these "tasks" been reported to the general public? And if so where is the intelligence value in such?
Are you a movie script writer? Have you ever heard of counter-intelligence? Yes, maybe, never?
Who cares if you "won't even go into the loony ideas of this article or your understanding of the super fuses"? You have made zero contribution to the debate on his topic and I recognise a troll who is too ready for personal insults from the peak of his/her superior knowledge which does not exist.
My first and last answer to you, I have no time for pompous trolls currently fighting to overwhelm
unz commenting section with their sewage. Read More
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200 Words @jilles dykstra "and the mobile platforms (truck and train based) discovered by US satellites."
However, the issue is always – how much of "own" damage are the US/NATO leaders ready to accept? Somehow, my feeling is that if the bombs are not falling on Tel Aviv the damage becomes acceptable.
Lately, there has been a very powerful push in the media to disapprove nuclear winter and radiation damage to the population. Some commenters here are trying the same tack. In other words, if you are not killed by the nuclear explosion, you will be ok , so say the warmongers, those who claim the destruction of the planet are fools , again so say the warmongers. I have no doubt that "someone" is trying to sell the advantages of the nuclear war to the population. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
Kiza , May 5, 2017 at 11:37 pm GMT \n
100 Words @annamaria "The most frightening thought is that they have no idea what they are doing."
Their sick psychopathic heads could well contain the "grandiose strategic thinking" for attacking Russia and China with nuclear weaponry, on some opportunistic impulse. Let us look at it this way – MAD was a destruction of the two opponents, were the one which strikes first is destroyed say 60% and the one which was struck first is destroyed 90%. This is looking only at the effect of the explosions, not at any residual effects.
With new technologies, the one which strikes first, under the best case scenario, could be
destroyed only 10% or less whilst the enemy struck first is still destroyed 90%. I believe that
this is the new strategic proposition acceptable to TPTB.
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@Anon
I won't even go into the loony ideas of this article or your understanding of the super fuses. How the hell do you know what U.S. intelligence is being "tasked with?" Are these intelligence agencies or your personal informers? Have these "tasks" been reported to the general public? And if so where is the intelligence value in such?
On top of all this, the US intelligence has been tasked with collecting psychological profiles of all Russian commanders of nuclear missile submarines. The plan is to try convince them not to launch, once the Russian command has been destroyed by the First Strike – once they have no command any more.
Are you a movie script writer? I do not understand the technological side . But nobody has lost
his shirt by underestimating the intelligence and morality of American leadership .
Your question – ' have these talks been reported to the general public' tells me . What does
it tell ? Read More
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Kiza
,
May 6, 2017 at 12:41 am GMT \n
100 Words
@SolontoCroesus
No, it's the prequel:
Is this a plot for a new Spielberg movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRr5GtcczE
Mackinder ---> Mahan (who taught the theory to West Pointers)
Walter McDougall on Mahan (among other things -- listen to the whole thing (skip the intros)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKGSq2rvucQ
In this insightful paper, Walter McDougall explores the options and outcomes facing Japan,
Germany, Italy, USA, and the British in their interpretations, or misinterpretations, of Mahan's
theories.
http://www.fpri.org/article/2011/11/history-and-strategies-grand-maritime-and-american/
The most pertinent quote from McDougall's paper recites that:
"Thus, Germany's naval program might be a weapon designed to overthrow the world order or a tool to help her forge a larger (responsible) stake in that order. But Sir Thomas Sanderson, a brilliant veteran just retired from Whitehall, responded to Crowe with a sigh. He bade him (and by extension his chief, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray) to see world politics from Germany's point of view:Finally, in the next-best-thing-to-Spielberg, Frank Capra devotes much of the second film in the 7-part Why We Fight series to projecting upon Germany -- and Germany alone -- the "militaristic" desire to "control the (Mackinder) World Island." Capra succumbed to the British propaganda dominating the American populace as well as agents of influence and decision-makers; in the clutch of the "huge giant sprawling over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every direction," Capra responded to competition with amped up "arrogant outrage and dogged defense of the status quo," a status quo that was, by the way, ludicrously sanitized in Capra's saccharine portrayal of the unalloyed virtue of American life.It has sometimes seemed to me that to a foreigner reading our press** the British Empire must appear in the light of some huge giant sprawling over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every direction, which cannot be approached without eliciting a scream.In short, Sanderson argued that Britain's empire and its maritime lifelines could be secured better through accommodation of a rising peer competitor than by arrogant outrage and dogged defense of the status quo. The parallels to the United States and China today are obvious."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaiXs_e-ekI
{ ~4 min, Capra claims that Germany seeks control of the World Island.
In the first installment of the Why We Fight series, Capra has Germany plotting the conquest of
the entire world.)
**Once again, the British, masters of propaganda, can't control their tongues -- I would recommend the longest piece of video that you quoted, the one by Walter McDougall. I do not agree with all his explanations of the beginnings of US Imperialism, but it is still a very, very interesting lecture, well worth more than an hour of our time. It helps understand better the non-partisan, non-propagandist US historians and their views.
Great assembly of proofs of your points, thank you for broadening my perspectives. Read More
Seraphim , May 6, 2017 at 12:50 am GMT \n@22pp22 I wish we Brits really were the evil geniuses we are supposed to be. Why would you? They are sufficiently evil as they are. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@Wizard of Oz Ah, now some of the stranger things you have said become a little less puzzling as you reveal your romantic Russian mythmaking soul. Again your ignorance of history tricks you into talking nonsense. Read More Anon 2 , May 6, 2017 at 1:52 am GMT \n
300 Words @Carlton Meyer What our media overlooks is that the USA blatantly violated arms agreements with Russia by building missile bases in Poland and Romania with MK-41 launchers, capable of launching nuclear tipped cruise missiles to quickly strike key targets in Russia. The Pentagon promises to only place SM-3 anti-missile missiles in these silos. Trust us, our Generals proclaim! A little history: Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia refused to withdraw from the Kaliningrad Region in the early 1990s, and to this day it effectively remains a Russian colony. Russia also initially refused to withdraw its troops from western Poland, and finally did so in stages until all troops were withdrawn by 1994-5. The conclusion is: Russia cannot be trusted, which, of course, is something that any child in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine learns based on the Russian behavior in the last 300 years.
The area known today as Kaliningrad Oblast' was conquered by the (predominantly Germanic) Teutonic Knights in the 13th century from Sambians (related to Lithuanians) who were then effectively ethnically cleansed. The upshot is that neither Russia nor Germany can make the original claim to that piece of land (located between Poland and Lithuania). In a sane and rational world the Kaliningrad region would be demilitarized and made into an independent country (with Lithuania perhaps having the greatest claim to the territory) but when was the last time humans behaved rationally in foreign affairs?
The U.S./NATO has over 300 military installations in Germany, incl. nuclear weapons. It makes
little difference whether missiles are in western Poland or eastern Germany. The territory is
so small that Berlin lies right next to the Polish border. Russia correspondingly placed Iskander
missiles in Kaliningrad which are capable of hitting Berlin. So now we have a balance of terror.
This seems to be the highest solution that humans in our current primitive state of consciousness
are capable of. To quote Trump: sad Read More
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@Kiza I was sceptical about super-fuses until I read a detailed explanation of how they work. Then I realised how dangerous this is. It would not be terribly hard for the Russians and the Chinese to replicate this development, however their possession of the same technology would NOT reduce the likelihood of US using it first.
In briefest, super-fusing makes the First Strike much more effective and thus likely. The idea of super-fusing is relatively simple - unlike cruise and hypersonic missiles, the ballistic missiles have one huge weakness - once the rocket fuel is spent the ballistic missiles fly like thrown rocks - there is little trajectory correction. Super-fusing activates explosion within a predefined envelope of optimum destruction for the target, thus increasing the likelyhood of destroying the target several times over. For example, instead of the nuclear bomb overshooting the target, it is activated when the closest to the target. Super-fusing against land based silos and mobile launchers, combined with much better ABMD than exists now, especially against submarine launched ballistic missiles, would enable the First Strike with very low payback - in single digit percent. This means a First Strike that could destroy up to 99% of enemy's retaliatory capability and leaving more than enough missiles to threaten direct strikes on enemy's major cities.
As I explained, ABMD is the weak link in this - it is far from effective yet, but give it unlimited
$ printing and another 10 years or so and this scenario could become reality. I've already read
the spin, thank you. My point was that I do not believe it.
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100 Words @Realist " We've just spent the better part of two decades being unable to make meaningful progress in freaking Afghanistan, for crying out loud."
The idea is not to win the war in Afghanistan, but to prolong it for ever if possible. Thus making billions for the power elite And in this country of dumb bastards...it's a snap. The war in Afghanistan is all about preventing / disrupting Eurasian integration. Afghanistan is a good spot to do that as, in addition to being centrally located it is also militarily weak. It borders the important 'Stans into which disruption could exported, and even offers a corridor to China.
The US saw success there, but it's fleeting. It did temporarily disrupt Eurasian integration, but this is overshadowed by its failure to set up a political structure capable of sustaining, much less expanding the disruption in its absence. Unless the US invests a politically unacceptable amount of resources, it's stuck there playing a spoiler's game and will continue to do so until something happens to oust it. Read More
SolontoCroesus , May 6, 2017 at 2:08 am GMT \n@Kiza I would recommend the longest piece of video that you quoted, the one by Walter McDougall. I do not agree with all his explanations of the beginnings of US Imperialism, but it is still a very, very interesting lecture, well worth more than an hour of our time. It helps understand better the non-partisan, non-propagandist US historians and their views.
Great assembly of proofs of your points, thank you for broadening my perspectives. thank you for reading.
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jacques sheete , January 20, 2017 at 7:57 am GMT \nMay 06, 2017 | www.unz.com
, January 20, 2017 at 7:43 am GMT \n200 WordsMight there be a way for some members of the press to become part of the solution, and no longer part of the problem?
The simple answer would be for an alternative press to gain enough ground to make the MSM irrelevant. The MSM already has some problems.
It made every effort to get Clinton elected but failed, so the public is already not taking everything it says at face value, and seem to agree with Trump in his many speeches when he called them propagandist liars. It can reach a point that the public rejects everything that comes out of the MSM (like the last days of the Soviet Union) and it's interesting to read the WaPo comments section (which gets fairly light censorship) and see the spreading confusion about mass immigration, ME wars, fake WMD , unquestioning support for Israel etc.
I don't think that Loss of Faith is an overnight process. The public (including myself) has to discard their comfortable memories of what the Washington Post used to be and face up to the unwelcome fact that " journalists" like Jennifer Rubin and Anne Applebaum are full on Zionists (same as the management) and have pushed for every single MENA war. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
200 Words
Unfortunately, almost all media-owners have an agenda that overrides truth - they don't obtain the huge funding that's necessary to build audience-share if they aren't backed by big money (billionaire investors, and mega-corporate advertisers) to begin with. Opposing the big money is a sure pathway to obscurity in the field of 'journalism'; and 'journalism' prizes (especially on international-news or other major stories) are pig's lipstick, far more than indications of journalistic competence.
Unfortunately all of that has been pretty much unknown to most folks for a couple of centuries despite it being known to a few. Thomas Jefferson had a low regard for the press, Mark Twain wrote about it ( from an inside perspective), and Upton Sinclair wrote his excellent The Brass Check detailing the corruption of the press, and I think it's still worth a read.
This letter is amazing too.
I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (14 June 1807)
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/amendI_speechs29.html
A quarter of a million Americans buy [The New York Times] every day, and form their whole view of life from its columns. And never a day out of more than ten thousand days that this newspaper has not subtly and cunningly distorted the news of the world in the interest of special privilege.
- UPTON SINCLAIR, THE CRIMES OF THE "TIMES" A Test of Newspaper Decency, 1921 (Pamphlet published by Sinclair)
It's a wonder that corporate media ever had a grain of credibility.
Where do people get their faith?
Read More
jacques sheete
,
January 20, 2017 at 8:12 am GMT \n
100 Words
Oh, a huge Bingo!!!!
If a person isn't skeptical of his own beliefs, then he becomes a waste-dump of falsehoods, instead of an accumulator of truths - a truly (i.e., truthfully) educated person.
On that basis, I estimate there may be 2 or 3 at most, educated people in America, land of the gulls and home of the dupes.
Another Bingo!
Because, to trust 'authority' (note: this refers to fake authorities, not to methodologically careful scientific research)
Here again, there is precious little
honest
methodologically
careful scientific research, and the reporting of it and interpretation of
the results is even more suspect. It, like journalism, is done by
prostitutes for hire. Connect the dots, folks!
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Anon
,
January 20, 2017 at 9:10 am GMT \n
You can't CUCK more than this.
It is hilarious.
https://youtu.be/YLv7KEcNPdY
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Anonymous
,
January 20, 2017 at 10:37 am GMT \n
200 Words
Because, to trust 'authority' (note: this refers to fake authorities, not to methodologically careful scientific research) is to invite fascist rule, aggressive wars, and mass-exploitation.
Getting to the truth, and staying with it, requires constant vigilance and a constantly open mind to the possibility that there are falsehoods in one's own beliefs. If a person isn't skeptical of his own beliefs, then he becomes a waste-dump of falsehoods, instead of an accumulator of truths - a truly (i.e., truthfully) educated person. Democracy is thus virtually impossible in America
In a very well-worded way you clarify how democracy and human nature
aren't compatible, then you conclude that "Democracy is virtually impossible
in America".
No, it is virtually impossible wherever there are humans. Except for brief
periods when the force of opposite teams competing for power are
approximately equal (and then people like "journalists" "intellectuals"
"bankers" and other public-opinion and policy-determiners part equally
between the two sides).
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sebastian puettmann
,
January 20, 2017 at 12:04 pm GMT \n
100 Words
The author makes a good case against the establishment.
To make things short,
Americans must chose now:
Continue the empire and lose their own country.
Or end American hegemony and survive as a culture.
America has given the world great values.
It'd be a shame if they were to lose in one wrong play at the 'great game'.
Get your army home and let the free market provide security in foreign
markets.
Greetings from Frankfurt, Germany!
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Durruti
,
January 20, 2017 at 12:30 pm GMT \n
500 Words
Eric Zuesse:
Nice article – that begins to explain just how completely we American People are Brainwashed. My fellow American Citizens are only beginning to have a clue as to how they are controlled – by means of misinformation and the 'carrot and the stick.'
Zuesse pithily explains – the costs of resistance :
"Journalism - especially about important matters - is not a profession. It's a calling. Or else, if it's not a calling, then it is public relations; it is propaganda, "PR" - done for the purpose of receiving pay, not really for the purpose of conveying truth."
"The employees are purely megaphones for their boss's views. That's what they were hired to be, and that's what they are if they succeed in their profession and rise up the career-ladder in it. Anything that a staff journalist writes (or allows to be published, if that person is an editor) contradicting the owner's views, counts against that employee, and increases his/her likelihood of being eliminated, or at least of being denied a deserved promotion (because not doing the person's job for the employer)."
Even such a wealthy and powerful man as Mel Gibson , is still trying to return to Hollywood (from where he has been banned – under penalty of ???).
Today we will view Hollywood Obomber being replaced by another frontman ("purely megaphones for their boss's views"), as explained by Zuesse; he will be replaced by Casino Trump , who was chosen by the Oligarchs – in preference to a clearly mentally (and physically?) ill Killery Clinton .
A mid level crook is thrown the title of 'President.' An individual who has twice declared bankruptcy, and each time returned to action with more $wealth, than ever, and no political history whatever, attains office in preference to a vicious mass murdering war criminal. Call that progress if you will. However, the scum allowed to become the frontrunners (thanks to the Mainstream Media brainwashing of our American citizens), have never been less human, or morally qualified to represent the people.
This political pattern of the Oligarch controllers , Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Duponts, Soros, et. al., choosing the least moral, the least humans to become their "public relations" tools has continued, without letup, from the hour after the murder of our last Constitutional President, John F.Kennedy , and the Coup D'etat against our beloved American Republic (in the first successful -Modern Arab Spring).
In 2017, the current political pattern reminds one of Roman Emperor Caligula 's placing of his favorite Horse, in the Roman Senate. And the Roman Senators, (possibly all corrupted by AIPAC), continued their deliberations; they even allowrd the Horse to vote. There is no evidence that Caligula's Horse voted any less intelligently than our Prostituted Congress. Indeed, there is no evidence that Caligula descended to the low level of anti-democratic or any anti-human depravity, so common in modern Politics.
Freedom is, indeed, not Free
We either Restore our Beloved Democratic Republic , or we wallow in depraved servility, as slaves, but not as Free Humans.
Respect All! Bow to None!
God Bless!
Inaugural Day!
Durruti, alias Peter J. Antonsen – for the Anarchist Collective
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jacques sheete
,
January 20, 2017 at 1:22 pm GMT \n
"Democracy is virtually impossible in America".
No, it is virtually impossible wherever there are humans. Except for brief periods
True. And for very small groups on an
ad hoc
basis.
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Eric Zuesse
,
Website
January 20, 2017 at 1:23 pm GMT \n
100 Words
NEW!
@jacques sheete
Unfortunately all of that has been pretty much unknown to most folks for a couple of centuries despite it being known to a few. Thomas Jefferson had a low regard for the press, Mark Twain wrote about it ( from an inside perspective), and Upton Sinclair wrote his excellent The Brass Check detailing the corruption of the press, and I think it's still worth a read.
Unfortunately, almost all media-owners have an agenda that overrides truth - they don't obtain the huge funding that's necessary to build audience-share if they aren't backed by big money (billionaire investors, and mega-corporate advertisers) to begin with. Opposing the big money is a sure pathway to obscurity in the field of 'journalism'; and 'journalism' prizes (especially on international-news or other major stories) are pig's lipstick, far more than indications of journalistic competence.
This letter is amazing too.
I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their timeThomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (14 June 1807)
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/amendI_speechs29.html
It's a wonder that corporate media ever had a grain of credibility.
A quarter of a million Americans buy [The New York Times] every day, and form their whole view of life from its columns. And never a day out of more than ten thousand days that this newspaper has not subtly and cunningly distorted the news of the world in the interest of special privilege.- UPTON SINCLAIR, THE CRIMES OF THE "TIMES" A Test of Newspaper Decency, 1921 (Pamphlet published by Sinclair)
Where do people get their faith?
They get it in elementary school, and in the 'news'media (which inundate
their parents). It's continued in subsequent 'education', which doesn't tell
them that what they had learned earlier was the aristocracy's lies about
their country and its history. Especially at the prestigious universities,
the professors occupy seats that are endowed by the aristocracy, for the
aristocracy. In other words: we are surrounded with it, from birth.
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Astuteobservor II
,
January 20, 2017 at 1:30 pm GMT \n
100 Words
the last hurrah was the watergate :/ after that, it was deemed too
dangerous. for profit news = death of journalism. cnn didn't help much.
foxnews was the the original fake news
even 60 minutes became shit. I was a huge fan of charlie rose, but then I
watched the interview with putin.
took the last 3 decades to kill off news, to get to what we have now,
propaganda and pr outlets.
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polistra
,
January 20, 2017 at 2:30 pm GMT \n
100 Words
All journalism is propaganda for one side or another.
The only way to describe a human event without a viewpoint is to write a police report.
"Subject proceeded south on Quincy for 3.7 miles at 83 miles per hour. Subject halted after colliding with parked car at Quincy and 14th. Subject exited car and officer pursued on foot."
This isn't journalism, it's measurement.
The Onion's "autistic reporter" parody also illustrates TV journalism without a human viewpoint.
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Ragno
,
January 20, 2017 at 2:39 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Journalism - especially about important matters - is not a profession. It's a calling. Or else, if it's not a calling, then it is public relations; it is propaganda.
It is none of these.
Journalism is now a tactic
; nothing less, and
nothing more. (H/T to the invaluable Gregory Hood.)
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Quartermaster
,
January 20, 2017 at 3:53 pm GMT \n
200 Words
You lost me at the fake coup news. If the EU association would have cost
Ukraine 160 billion, why didn't Yanokovich simply calla press conference and
detail the problem to the Ukrainian people? The fact is, he didn't. he
simply turned to Russia because he liked the idea of an association with
Russia better because that's where his sympathies lay.
His murderous reaction to the Maidan protesters simply cooked his goose. When he realized he would be brought to book for the killings he ordered, he ran for his buddy Putin's protection. Same with the Berkut that carried out the murders. He was then removed from office by the parliament under a constitutional proceeding.
How do you know Crimea wanted to be a Russian province again? The referendum? That was fake and held under the guns of the Russian Army after thousands had been imported, allowing the Russian Army to vote and suppressing the vote of the natives, particularly of the Crimean Tatars.
You people need to quit spreading Putin's lies.
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guest
,
January 20, 2017 at 5:41 pm GMT \n
One minor quibble:propaganda can 've true, and therefore not "fake news."
You can use truth for the purpose of getting across the bigger lie, of
course.
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Don Bacon
,
January 20, 2017 at 5:53 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Excellent.
Norman Solomon wrote about this problem in his book "War Made Easy, How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death"
from Amazon: In War Made Easy, nationally syndicated columnist, media
critic, and author Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to
probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have
played huge rolls in the promotion of American wars in recent decades.//
It's all about managing and shaping perception, not news.
– The CNN president recently: "One of the things I think this administration
hasn't figured out yet is that there's only one television network that is
seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad, Tehran and
Damascus - and that's CNN," Zucker said. "The perception of Donald Trump in
capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN. Continuing to
have an adversarial relationship with that network is a mistake."
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Inertiller
,
January 20, 2017 at 6:24 pm GMT \n
@Astuteobservor II
the last hurrah was the watergate :/ after that, it was deemed too
dangerous. for profit news = death of journalism. cnn didn't help much.
foxnews was the the original fake news :) even 60 minutes became shit. I was
a huge fan of charlie rose, but then I watched the interview with putin.
took the last 3 decades to kill off news, to get to what we have now,
propaganda and pr outlets.
False – Watergate was at best a distraction, more technically a psyop. The
history of the United States is a press that claims to be free, but is
probably the most effective military weapon available. 1973, otherwise, was
an especially signifigant year.
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Intelligent Dasein
,
Website
January 20, 2017 at 8:04 pm GMT \n
@Don Bacon
Excellent.
Norman Solomon wrote about this problem in his book "War Made Easy, How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death"
from Amazon: In War Made Easy, nationally syndicated columnist, media
critic, and author Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to
probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have
played huge rolls in the promotion of American wars in recent decades.//
It's all about managing and shaping perception, not news.
-- The CNN president recently: "One of the things I think this
administration hasn't figured out yet is that there's only one television
network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad,
Tehran and Damascus - and that's CNN," Zucker said. "The perception of
Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN.
Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a
mistake."
Donald Trump can block CNN's broadcasts, occupy and shut down their studios,
seize their property, and blow their satellites out of the sky if he wants
to. We're playing the game on a new level now, and Zucker can shove up his
megaphone.
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Astuteobservor II
,
January 20, 2017 at 8:12 pm GMT \n
@Inertiller
False - Watergate was at best a distraction, more technically a psyop. The
history of the United States is a press that claims to be free, but is
probably the most effective military weapon available. 1973, otherwise, was
an especially signifigant year.
details man, I need juicy details.
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alexander
,
January 20, 2017 at 10:48 pm GMT \n
@Intelligent Dasein
Donald Trump can block CNN's broadcasts, occupy and shut down their studios,
seize their property, and blow their satellites out of the sky if he wants
to. We're playing the game on a new level now, and Zucker can shove up his
megaphone.
Not to mention the Donald has the power to seize ALL of Zucker's assets and
throw him in Guantanamo Bay.
Justice can be quite nasty at times.
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Anonymous
,
January 20, 2017 at 11:00 pm GMT \n
100 Words
They get it in elementary school, and in the 'news'media (which inundate their parents). It's continued in subsequent 'education', which doesn't tell them that what they had learned earlier was the aristocracy's lies about their country and its history. Especially at the prestigious universities, the professors occupy seats that are endowed by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy. In other words: we are surrounded with it, from birth.
The birth of our species as we use to see it, you mean.
Language and deception were born the same day.
So did power hierarchy and society.
http://www.thecactusland.com/2014/07/the-seven-pillars-of-matrix.html
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jacques sheete
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TG
,
January 20, 2017 at 11:41 pm GMT \n
300 Words
Yes, well said. Some thoughts.
1. Break up the big media/industrial cartels. It was of course Bill Clinton – who gave us NAFTA and the repeal of Glass Steagall, who allowed the news media to consolidate. So now we have the Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, who has many other interests than journalism, and who can easily subsidize the Post from his other enterprises and use the Post to push his own agenda. A newspaper that was not owned by a parent entity with other interests MIGHT possibly be more focused on journalism.
2. In general you can only get honest reporting in a prosperous society
with a tight labor market. Then, if a talented reporter is fired, the
company loses a hard-to-replace talent and the reporter easily finds another
good job, because talented people are in short supply. But with a flooded
labor market, even talented people can be easily replaced, being fired is a
de-facto sentence of lifetime poverty, and only the occasional saint will
take a stand on principle. That's why in poor countries there is always
horrible sycophancy and nepotism. And, aside from the direct profits of
cheap labor, this is another reason that the rich like cheap labor, because
it gives them more social power. If we limited immigration to a more modest
level, and stopped bleeding main street and feeding Wall Street and
pointless foreign wars, and created a tight labor market where companies
were desperate to find qualified people and qualified people had their pick
of jobs, I think a lot of these issues might be reduced.
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anonymous
,
January 21, 2017 at 2:25 am GMT \n
200 Words
his actual actions did nothing to punish) increased economic inequality, flatlined wages, and soaring poverty with lots of new burger-flipping jobs
Listening to NPR today the panelists were cooing that Obama was handing over a greatly improving economy and that unemployment was a mere 4.5% and so on. Huh, that's not what I see daily, homelessness and panhandling like never before all over the place. Service jobs, 'burger-flipping', are pretty much it for a lot of people and don't pay enough for them to pay rent let alone make any plans for the future. What, did Ceausescu's propaganda team find work over here? Ideological blindness or paid to lie, who can tell the difference? It seems the gap between the narratives coming out of the street corner loudspeakers and observed reality is getting more blatant in recent years. It strikes me that it represents something of an end stage of control through deceit and manipulation. Next step will be recourse to coercion and force.
Obama was merely a more-articulate and cunning version of Bush, in blackface
The ventriloquist's dummy gets switched every now and then to fool the
public into thinking they're getting something new.
Read More
utu
,
January 21, 2017 at 3:07 am GMT \n
100 Words
@TG
Yes, well said. Some thoughts.
1. Break up the big media/industrial cartels. It was of course Bill Clinton - who gave us NAFTA and the repeal of Glass Steagall, who allowed the news media to consolidate. So now we have the Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, who has many other interests than journalism, and who can easily subsidize the Post from his other enterprises and use the Post to push his own agenda. A newspaper that was not owned by a parent entity with other interests MIGHT possibly be more focused on journalism.
2. In general you can only get honest reporting in a prosperous society with a tight labor market. Then, if a talented reporter is fired, the company loses a hard-to-replace talent and the reporter easily finds another good job, because talented people are in short supply. But with a flooded labor market, even talented people can be easily replaced, being fired is a de-facto sentence of lifetime poverty, and only the occasional saint will take a stand on principle. That's why in poor countries there is always horrible sycophancy and nepotism. And, aside from the direct profits of cheap labor, this is another reason that the rich like cheap labor, because it gives them more social power. If we limited immigration to a more modest level, and stopped bleeding main street and feeding Wall Street and pointless foreign wars, and created a tight labor market where companies were desperate to find qualified people and qualified people had their pick of jobs, I think a lot of these issues might be reduced. "In general you can only get honest reporting in a prosperous society with a tight labor market."
It is and always was all about power. Honest
reporting? Never existed. Work of "honest" journalists was used when it
served somebody's purpose. Try to figure out who wanted Nixon to go and why
and only then you can admire "honest" reporting of Woodward and Bernstein.
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Eagle Eye
,
January 21, 2017 at 5:58 am GMT \n
Unflagging vigilance
is the chief virtue of the citizen who would be
and remain master of his country.
All other "civic" virtues flow from and lead back to vigilance.
Rights and duties are of no use unless they serve and reinforce the right
and duty of vigilance.
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Anon
,
January 21, 2017 at 11:22 am GMT \n
@Don Bacon
Excellent.
Norman Solomon wrote about this problem in his book "War Made Easy, How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death"
from Amazon: In War Made Easy, nationally syndicated columnist, media
critic, and author Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to
probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have
played huge rolls in the promotion of American wars in recent decades.//
It's all about managing and shaping perception, not news.
-- The CNN president recently: "One of the things I think this
administration hasn't figured out yet is that there's only one television
network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad,
Tehran and Damascus - and that's CNN," Zucker said. "The perception of
Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN.
Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a
mistake."
"One of the things I think this administration hasn't figured out yet is
that there's only one television network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow,
Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus - and that's CNN,"
LOL. Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Baghdad, etc are going to trust CNN?
Damascus will trust CNN? ROTFL
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annamaria
,
January 21, 2017 at 1:23 pm GMT \n
@anonymous
Listening to NPR today the panelists were cooing that Obama was handing over a greatly improving economy and that unemployment was a mere 4.5% and so on. Huh, that's not what I see daily, homelessness and panhandling like never before all over the place. Service jobs, 'burger-flipping', are pretty much it for a lot of people and don't pay enough for them to pay rent let alone make any plans for the future. What, did Ceausescu's propaganda team find work over here? Ideological blindness or paid to lie, who can tell the difference? It seems the gap between the narratives coming out of the street corner loudspeakers and observed reality is getting more blatant in recent years. It strikes me that it represents something of an end stage of control through deceit and manipulation. Next step will be recourse to coercion and force.
his actual actions did nothing to punish) increased economic inequality, flatlined wages, and soaring poverty with lots of new burger-flipping jobs
The ventriloquist's dummy gets switched every now and then to fool the public into thinking they're getting something new. Agree. Obama is a puppet with charms.
Obama was merely a more-articulate and cunning version of Bush, in blackface
200 Words @Eric Zuesse They get it in elementary school, and in the 'news'media (which inundate their parents). It's continued in subsequent 'education', which doesn't tell them that what they had learned earlier was the aristocracy's lies about their country and its history. Especially at the prestigious universities, the professors occupy seats that are endowed by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy. In other words: we are surrounded with it, from birth. Yup, it's the human condition, hence my question regarding faith.
You may find this true today as well.
Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All CommentsAs a 16 year old, with 2 years of formal schooling ending at the age of 10, Benjamin Franklin wrote this. Note the date:
I reflected in my Mind on the extream Folly of those Parents, who, blind to their Childrens Dulness, and insensible of the Solidity of their Skulls, because they think their Purses can afford it, will needs send them to the Temple of Learning, where, for want of a suitable Genius, they learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a Room genteely, (which might as well be acquir'd at a Dancing-School,) and from whence they return, after Abundance of Trouble and Charge, as great Blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited.
I related my Dream with all its Particulars [to a friend], and he, without much Study, presently interpreted it, assuring me, That it was a lively Representation of HARVARD COLLEGE, Etcetera.
I remain, Sir,
Your Humble Servant,
SILENCE DOGOOD.The New-England Courant, May 14, 1722
@Quartermaster You lost me at the fake coup news. If the EU association would have cost Ukraine 160 billion, why didn't Yanokovich simply calla press conference and detail the problem to the Ukrainian people? The fact is, he didn't. he simply turned to Russia because he liked the idea of an association with Russia better because that's where his sympathies lay.
His murderous reaction to the Maidan protesters simply cooked his goose. When he realized he would be brought to book for the killings he ordered, he ran for his buddy Putin's protection. Same with the Berkut that carried out the murders. He was then removed from office by the parliament under a constitutional proceeding.
How do you know Crimea wanted to be a Russian province again? The referendum? That was fake and held under the guns of the Russian Army after thousands had been imported, allowing the Russian Army to vote and suppressing the vote of the natives, particularly of the Crimean Tatars.
You people need to quit spreading Putin's lies.
If protesters had been catapulting fire bombs and taking over government
buildings in this country, they would have been met with prompt and deadly
force. Get real.
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The Scalpel
,
Website
January 21, 2017 at 5:08 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Don Bacon
Excellent.
Norman Solomon wrote about this problem in his book "War Made Easy, How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death"
from Amazon: In War Made Easy, nationally syndicated columnist, media
critic, and author Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to
probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have
played huge rolls in the promotion of American wars in recent decades.//
It's all about managing and shaping perception, not news.
-- The CNN president recently: "One of the things I think this
administration hasn't figured out yet is that there's only one television
network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad,
Tehran and Damascus - and that's CNN," Zucker said. "The perception of
Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN.
Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a
mistake."
I think he meant to say there is only one US network in those countries. The
way he said it, it would be just as easy to say that RT is the only network
in the USA, and that that network is what forms American's perceptions of
Vladimir Putin. Typical news man putting his spin on things. Fake news.
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DB Cooper
,
January 21, 2017 at 6:46 pm GMT \n
This video says it all.
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Mike Zwick
,
January 23, 2017 at 4:28 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Opposing the big money is a sure pathway to obscurity in the field of 'journalism'; and 'journalism' prizes (especially on international-news or other major stories) are pig's lipstick
There used to be a news industry running joke in the early 20th Century
that when a newspaper won a lot of Pulitzers, they would say that their
paper won almost as many Pulitzers as a Pulitzer Paper.
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JMMorgan
,
January 24, 2017 at 7:49 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Quartermaster
You lost me at the fake coup news. If the EU association would have cost
Ukraine 160 billion, why didn't Yanokovich simply calla press conference and
detail the problem to the Ukrainian people? The fact is, he didn't. he
simply turned to Russia because he liked the idea of an association with
Russia better because that's where his sympathies lay.
His murderous reaction to the Maidan protesters simply cooked his goose. When he realized he would be brought to book for the killings he ordered, he ran for his buddy Putin's protection. Same with the Berkut that carried out the murders. He was then removed from office by the parliament under a constitutional proceeding.
How do you know Crimea wanted to be a Russian province again? The referendum? That was fake and held under the guns of the Russian Army after thousands had been imported, allowing the Russian Army to vote and suppressing the vote of the natives, particularly of the Crimean Tatars.
You people need to quit spreading Putin's lies. I believe you are misinformed about the validity of the Crimean referendum.
". . . an interesting study, 'The Socio-Political Sentiments in Crimea,' was released by the Ukrainian branch of GfK, the well-known German social research organization, as part of the Free Crimea initiative. Intriguingly, the primary objectives of this project, launched with the support of the governmental Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, were to "debunk aggressive Russian propaganda" and to 'reintegrate Crimea into Ukraine.' Thus the researchers can hardly be suspected of being Russian sympathizers. So let's take a look at the results."
https://www.newcoldwar.org/german-sociologists-on-crimeas-choice-january-2015/
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Anonymous
,
January 28, 2017 at 5:26 am GMT \n
Great article! Congrats to the Unz Review.
I wonder what the writer thinks of various "conservative" magazines such as National Review.
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May 06, 2017 | www.unz.com
Carlton Meyer , Website January 20, 2017 at 5:37 am GMT \n
600 Words For example, President Obama had several blatant lies in his recent farewell address, to include events in Ukraine.http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-obama-farewell-speech-transcript-20170110-story.html
None of these were exposed via "Fact check" stories afterwards. One Obama lie was this:
"I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran's nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11″
Most experts agree that the Osama Bin Laden killing story is false, but there is no disagreement that OBL was not the 9-11 mastermind. He played no role at all, but was only said to have inspired the attack by our FBI. For those confused by our corporate media and their spokesmen like B. Obama, here is something from my blog:
Here is a summary of events for those confused by American corporate media. Al Qaeda is not an organization. It is a CIA computer database of armed Arab nationalists who violently oppose western domination of the Arab world. (Al Qaeda is Arabic for database.) This database was established by the CIA in the 1980s when our CIA trained and armed Arabs to fight the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden (OBL) was never an official leader since it has never been a real organization, although he did lead a large group of Arab nationalists who lived in Afghanistan.
OBL had nothing to do with 9-11, he didn't even know about it until it was reported in the media. He was never formally accused of the attacks because there is zero evidence. OBL was a wealthy Saudi who is said to have inspired the attacks. Our government blamed a Kuwaiti, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad (pictured), and a dozen Saudis who died in the airplanes. These persons had never been to Afghanistan and are said to have planned and trained for the attacks in the Philippines, Germany, and the USA. Then why was Afghanistan invaded, and later Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen? But we did not invade Saudi Arabia! Instead, recall that days after 9-11 several jets from our federal Justice Department rounded up Saudi suspects in the USA and flew them home before FBI agents could ask them questions.
All this explains why the accused mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, has yet to go to trial almost 16 years since 9-11! He has not been allowed to speak to anyone outside the CIA Even the 9-11 Commission was not allowed to interview him. The U.S. military set up a kangaroo court at Gitmo to hold a trial many years ago, but brave military defense lawyers keep causing delays by insisting on a fair trial. It seems evidence is so "sensitive" that our CIA does not want it revealed. even in a secret military court. Whenever documents are requested by the defense, some are destroyed instead! This included all the CIA interrogations of the accused!
Our media propaganda is so prevalent that nearly all Americans think OBL was the 9-11 mastermind, and since he is dead the case is closed. However, there is zero evidence of his involvement, something our government has long acknowledged. Americans watched thousands of hours of television coverage of the 9-11 attacks. Ask one if they think the accused mastermind of the attacks should be put on trial, and they'll have no idea what you are talking about. More Americans are becoming aware and demanding action, who are demeaned as crazy "truthers", which now include two former members of our government's official 9-11 Commission once tasked with investigating these crimes.
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Apr 30, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
President Trump's tax plan gives those of us with long memories a strong sense of déjà vu. We've seen this play before, and the ending is inevitably modest: a few of the pieces of a horrendously complex, unfair tax system are moved around, victory is declared, and the creatures of the Swamp-those self-serving elites that benefit from the complex, unfair monstrosity-continue raking in their billions of dollars in fees while the rest of us are burdened with billions of dollars in tax-preparation costs.The opening act of this tax-reform play always starts with a claim that by golly, this time we're really going to simplify the tax code. Trump's plan calls for reducing the number of tax brackets and eliminating all deductions other than those for charity and mortgage interest; by way of compensation, the standard deduction will be doubled.
Such changes make for catchy headlines, but the reality is the tax code will still run to thousands of pages. The Tax Foundation explains the three layers of compliance complexity:
- Title 26 of the U.S. Code, the tax statutes enacted by Congress, runs to 2,600 pages.
- The details are left to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), which publishes roughly 9,000 pages of regulations.
- If you end up in tax court, there are around 70,000 pages of case law to pore over to make your case.
Simple changes like reducing the number of tax brackets skirt the core problem with the U.S. tax system: the entire tax code is little more than a clearinghouse of political bribes paid for with tax breaks and a complexity thicket that requires the services of legions of accountants, tax attorneys, software coders, and specialists in tax-avoidance strategies.
This clearinghouse and complexity thicket are intrinsically unfair, as insiders and the super-wealthy can avoid taxes via political influence and offshore tax havens. This systemic unfairness erodes the social contract's key compact: that the playing field will be kept more or less level for all participants.
But the U.S. tax system is anything but level. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) recently published an analysis of the corporate taxes paid by Fortune 500 companies over the past eight years. Consistently profitable companies paid a federal tax rate of around 21 percent, considerably lower than the nominal corporate tax rate of 35 percent. But 18 profitable companies paid no federal taxes over the eight years, and about 50 corporations paid rates of 10 percent or less.
Immensely profitable corporations such as Apple have mastered the offshore tax-avoidance game. Others persuade (impolite term: bribe) members of Congress to include obscure tax breaks tailored to them in legislation.
So the most successful at gaming the system pay near-zero rates (saving tens of billions of dollars) while the chumps pay the top rate.
There's another systemic source of unfairness in the tax code: the gap between the high rates on earned income (wages and salaries) and the much lower rates on unearned income-what we might characterize as income generated by capital rather than labor: rents, capital gains, and so on.
If you manage to earn $500,000 in wages, most of that income is taxed at 33 percent, and the income above $415,000 is taxed at 39.6 percent. (Trump's tax proposal calls for a top rate of 35 percent.) Meanwhile, the top rate for long-term capital gains is 20 percent. Over time, that 15-point difference adds up.
In effect, the rich get richer because most of the lower-tax-rate unearned income flows to them.
The concentration of unearned-income-producing wealth in the U.S. is remarkable. In 2016 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that the top 10 percent of U.S. households held 76 percent of all private wealth. The bulk of the sources of unearned income are owned by the top 10 percent: stocks, bonds, trust funds, business equity, and non-home real estate.
Unearned income also avoids the 15.3 percent Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes (half paid by employers, half by employees). Self-employed taxpayers pay the entire 15.3 percent, and so all their earned income above $37,650 is taxed at a rate of 40.3 percent or higher: 25 percent federal income tax and the 15.3 percent payroll taxes. That 40 percent is double the top tax rate on unearned income.
Those with earnings above $118,500 no longer pay the Social Security tax. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , 80 percent of all households earn less than $117,000 a year, so the vast majority of wage earners pay the full payroll tax rate on all earnings.
So while the top income tiers famously pay most of the federal income taxes (the top 1 percent pony up about 37 percent of the total), the highly progressive income taxes are slightly less than half of all federal tax revenues, while highly regressive payroll taxes make up roughly a third of federal tax receipts.
In this larger context, how much impact will Trump's signature tax cuts on the corporate rate (from 35 percent to 15 percent) or on the top earned-income rate have on the inequities of the tax system?
A lower corporate tax rate that was applied more uniformly would certainly reduce the necessity of costly tax avoidance schemes-but the current Swamp enables some companies to pay near-zero, which is a lot less than 15 percent.
As for the modest reduction in the top earned-income bracket: as we've seen, the bulk of the taxes paid by the bottom 80 percent are payroll taxes on earned income, and the unearned income flowing to the wealthiest 10 percent is taxed at a much lower rate than the combined payroll-income tax burden on wage earners.
This systemic unfairness of the status quo is one reason why Trump was elected: the protected few (to use Peggy Noonan's phrase) are benefiting at the expense of the unprotected many. The only meaningful tax reforms-the elimination of loopholes, offshore tax havens, and the congressional privilege of rewarding cronies with obscure tax breaks buried in legislation; radical simplification of the code and a realignment of the asymmetry between the taxes paid on earned income and unearned income-are a political impossibility, as the protected elites have a stranglehold on the machinery of governance.
That said, it would have been refreshing if Trump's team had called for a massive house-cleaning of a wildly unjust tax code, and a draining of the particularly fetid tax-avoidance swamp.
Charles Hugh Smith is the owner/writer of the oftwominds.com blog and has written 11 books on our economy and society, including A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology & Creating Jobs for All .
Gregory , says: April 27, 2017 at 10:52 pm Good to see Charles having a voice here at TAC.ADC Wonk , says: April 27, 2017 at 11:47 pmThere's another systemic source of unfairness in the tax code: the gap between the high rates on earned income (wages and salaries) and the much lower rates on unearned income-what we might characterize as income generated by capital rather than labor: rents, capital gains, and so on.
This more or less summarizes the state of taxation in America. Working for a living is for suckers.
Sigh . . . same old Trump. After flip-flopping on NAFTA, NATO, Chinese currency, etc., and hiring more top level-appointees from Goldman-Sachs than any other President . . . are we surprised by what they all hurriedly produced because they want something done by the 100th day?Kurt Gayle , says: April 28, 2017 at 9:03 amThank you, Charles Hugh Smith, for writing the plain truth about the President's tax plan.Johann , says: April 28, 2017 at 9:07 amThe tax plan is a bitter pill for those of us who are Trump supporters.
But we need to keep focusing on what is true. And the truth is that the creatures of The Swamp are still very much in control of an unfair tax system.
I agree with much of the article, but disagree with the objection to the capital gains tax rate. Capital investments are at risk of a loss as well as a gain. If the taxes are raised on capital gains, the risk/reward calculations will result in fewer investments. And another thing. Its totally dishonest for the government to tax capital gains on long term holdings of real estate or any other very long term investment without taking inflation into account. Think about it. If you own a home for let say 40 years, when its sold, almost all of the sales price is profit, since what you paid 40 years ago is almost nothing in today's prices. Raising the capital gains tax rate will hurt a lot more than just rich people.SDS , says: April 28, 2017 at 9:32 amIt would have been refreshing; but it appearsSean Nuttall , says: April 28, 2017 at 9:56 am
P.T. BARNUM was right, againMr. Trump apparently had no intention of fulfilling any of the lofty promises he made in campaigning; as he doesn't in his own business dealings .
WE were just too desperate to recognize what was right in front of us ..
SAD!
Amen. However, to think that Trump cares one iota for working people is pure self delusion.Elsie Gilmore , says: April 28, 2017 at 10:24 amIt is good to see that there are actually some real conservatives left in this country. I hope next year's elections reflect the current discontent and the need for more public servants to be elected and fewer politicians.icarusr , says: April 28, 2017 at 10:38 am"This systemic unfairness of the status quo is one reason why Trump was elected: the protected few (to use Peggy Noonan's phrase) are benefiting at the expense of the unprotected many."Paul De Palma , says: April 28, 2017 at 10:57 amStuff and nonsense. The party that nominated Trump is one of the key reasons for the "systemic unfairness". Whatever Trump was elected for, this was not it.
The real question is why does anyone think that Trump meant it when he said he wanted to "drain the swamp" – whatever that means – or that what he might have meant about it (and it is questionable he had any real notion beyond the slogan) is what his supporters thought he meant. What we are seeing from poll after poll is that his supporters CHANGE their positions depending whether Trump holds them; Trump was not elected as an embodiment of an idea, any idea, or a policy, any policy; Trumpism is about the pose of the man, nothing more and nothing less. If he comes up with a tax plan that dumps all of the tax burden on the very voters that elected him, they will find a way to rationalise this just as surely as they would support him if he shot a man in the middle of Fifth Ave.
Trump might not know much; he knows his marks supremely well.
This is the clearest short piece I've ever read on Trump's tax proposal and the current system. Thanks.grumpy realist , says: April 28, 2017 at 11:53 amBravo for this article. We're getting crony capitalism and gaming of the system by rent-seekers on both left and right. Where is a political party that is going to actually stand for those of us who don't have power and aren't trust fund babies?Kevin , says: April 28, 2017 at 11:53 am"Think about it. If you own a home for let say 40 years, when its sold, almost all of the sales price is profit, since what you paid 40 years ago is almost nothing in today's prices. Raising the capital gains tax rate will hurt a lot more than just rich people.One Man , says: April 28, 2017 at 12:19 pm"
For house sales, the first half million are excluded from capital gains taxes. Median house price in the US is 200K. There is no problem here whatsoever. This objection to capital taxes is from the same bag of tricks as "estate taxes kill grandpa's family farm!." They don't unless that family farm is the basis of an agro-industrial empire.
Johann, the first $500,000 of profit on a sale of residence is tax-free for married couples, I believe. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.Edward , says: April 28, 2017 at 12:22 pm"There's another systemic source of unfairness in the tax code: the gap between the high rates on earned income (wages and salaries) and the much lower rates on unearned income-what we might characterize as income generated by capital rather than labor: rents, capital gains, and so on".Student , says: April 28, 2017 at 2:42 pm
No wonder the rate of return on capital has exceeded the rate of growth of GDP since the 1980s (a major cause of inequality).It is not just house prices that inflate. Financial assets do also. Taxing them on theJohann , says: April 28, 2017 at 3:37 pm
nominal gains at ordinary rates, without correcting for inflation, is grossly unfair,as in many cases would mean taxes owed on losses.But the author also fails to observe that the
tax plan provides special treatment for partnerships, those self employed, and for
private companies. For these, the top rate is 15%, essentially dividing people into
wage slaves and the privileged, undertaxed elite.Mnuchin assured that the egregious carried interest loophole would be closed. Great.
Except it will be eliminated by reducing the
taxation of these monies to 15%.This plan, like the RINOcare bill pushed by
Speaker Ryan, is an example of either lax
thinking, or of perhaps of swamp behavior.Thank you those that corrected me on the exemption of capital gains on houses. My experience has been with farmland. I was not aware of the exemption for house sales.George Marshall , says: April 28, 2017 at 3:48 pmOf course, it always depends on whose ox is being gored, but eliminating almost all deductions in return for an increase in the standard deduction, helps me not at all. I usually itemize and last year had: medical, charity, mortgage interest, state income tax, and real estate tax deductions. I expect my taxes to go up under this proposal, unless the details of which there aren't any, are very different. So much for tax relief for the middle class.philadelphialawyer , says: April 28, 2017 at 3:52 pmicarusr:JonF , says: April 28, 2017 at 4:09 pm"The party that nominated Trump is one of the key reasons for the 'systemic unfairness.'"
Yeah, it is great to see the author here calling for what amounts to the Democratic view of progressive taxation. Basically, what Mr. Smith proposes tracks HRC's tax plan issue by issue.
Re: Taxing them on theKen T , says: April 28, 2017 at 5:24 pm
nominal gains at ordinary rates, without correcting for inflationOther than indexing the tax brackets (which applies to all income) we tax wages on inflationary gains too. The government's bills also increase due to inflation so why shouldn't its revenue?
"Capital investments are at risk of a loss as well as a gain."Laualie , says: April 28, 2017 at 5:55 pmI always have to laugh whenever someone trots out this old chestnut. So what? If there is a loss, then there is no taxable gain. And any loss on one investment is subtracted from any other investment gains. And the degree of "risk" in any investment is balanced off by the expected "return" if it does pay off as expected – the greater the risk, the bigger the return. So the risk factor has already been accounted for. The bottom line is, income is income – no matter where it came from.
I have to wonder about the comment made that increased taxes on capital gains will over-stifle investment. An increase will likely have an impact but up to a certain point, it will be less than the current cost to revenue/economy. The question is what point will an increase be too much – and push away those investment dollars to the next best option. Is there something magic about 15% or is there still room above that point?
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May 19, 2015 | mondoweiss.net t
The best thing about this political moment in the U.S. (if not for the good people of Iraq) is that the rise of ISIS and the Republican candidates' embrace of the Iraq war is posing that deep and permanent question to the American public, Why did we invade Iraq ?
Last night Chris Matthews asked that question again and David Corn said it was about the neoconservative desire to protect Israel. Both men deserve kudos for courage. Here's part of the exchange:
Matthews: Why were the people in the administration like [Paul] Wolfowitz and the others talking about going into Iraq from the very beginning, when they got into the white house long before there was a 911 long before there was WMD. It seemed like there was a deeper reason. I don't get it. It seemed like WMD was a cover story.
Corn: I can explain that. For years. Paul Wolfowitz and other members of the neocon movement had talked about getting rid of Iraq and there would be democracy throughout the region that would help Israel and they came to believe actually a very bizarre conspiracy theory that al Qaeda didn't matter, that Saddam Hussein was behind all the acts of violence
Matthews: The reason I go back to that is there's a consistent pattern: the people who wanted that war in the worst ways, neocons so called, Wolfowitz, certainly Cheney.. it's the same crowd of people that want us to overthrow Bashar Assad, .. it's the same group of people that don't want to negotiate at all with the Iranians, don't want any kind of rapprochement with the Iranians, they want to fight that war. They're willing to go in there and bomb. They have a consistent impulsive desire to make war on Arab and Islamic states in a neverending campaign, almost like an Orwellian campaign they will never outlive, that's why I have a problem with that thinking . we've got to get to the bottom of it. Why did they take us to Iraq, because that's the same reason they want to take us into Damascus and why they want to have permanent war with Iran.
What a great exchange. And it shows up Paul Krugman, who mystifies this very issue in the New York Times. (" Errors and Lies ," which poses the same question that Matthews does but concludes that Bush and Cheney "wanted a war," which is just a lie masquerading as a tautology.)
Here are my two cents. We invaded Iraq because a powerful group of pro-Israel ideologues - the neoconservatives - who had mustered forces in Washington over the previous two decades and at last had come into the White House were able to sell a vision of transforming the Middle East that was pure wishful hokum but that they believed: that if Arab countries were converted by force into democracies, the people would embrace the change and would also accept Israel as a great neighbor. It's a variation on a neocolonialist theory that pro-Israel ideologues have believed going back to the 1940s: that Palestinians would accept a Jewish state if you got rid of their corrupt leadership and allowed the people to share in Israel's modern economic miracle.
The evidence for this causation is at every hand.
It is in the Clean Break plan written for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996 by leading neocons Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser - all of whom would go into the Bush administration - calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein and the export of the Palestinian political problem to Jordan.
It is in the Project for a New American Century letters written to Clinton in 1998 telling him that Saddam's WMD were a threat to Israel. (A letter surely regretted by Francis Fukuyama, who later accused the neocons of seeing everything through a pro-Israel lens.)
It is in the PNAC letter written to George W. Bush early in 2002 urging him to "accelerate plans for removign Saddam Hussein from power" for the sake of Israel.
the United States and Israel share a common enemy. We are both targets of what you have correctly called an "Axis of Evil." Israel is targeted in part because it is our friend, and in part because it is an island of liberal, democratic principles - American principles - in a sea of tyranny, intolerance, and hatred.
It is in Netanyahu testifying to Congress in 2002 t hat he promised there would be "enormous positive reverberations" throughout the region if we only removed Saddam.
It is in Wolfowitz saying that the road to peace in the Middle East runs through Baghdad. (Possibly the stupidest thing anyone has ever said in the history of the world, including Douglas Feith.)
It is in all the neocon tracts, from Perle and Frum's An End to Evil, to Kristol and Kaplan's The War Over Saddam, to Berman's Terror and Liberalism, saying that Saddam's support for suicide bombers in Israel was a reason for the U.S. to topple him.
It is in war-supporter Tom Friedman saying that we needed to invade Iraq because of suicide bombers in Tel Aviv - and the importance of conveying to Arabs they couldn't get away with that.
It is in the head of the 9/11 Commission, former Bush aide Philip Zelikow, saying Israel was the reason to take on Iraq back in 2002 even though Iraq was no threat to us:
"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 – it's the threat against Israel," Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002. "And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell."
It is in Friedman saying that "elite" neoconservatives created the war in this interview with Ari Shavit back in 2003:
It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
It is in Tony Judt's statement about the Israel interest in the war back in 2003:
For many in the current US administration, a major strategic consideration was the need to destabilize and then reconfigure the Middle East in a manner thought favorable to Israel.
And yes this goes back to rightwing Zionism. It goes back to Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol launching neoconservatism in the 1970s because they said that the dovish policies of the Democratic Party were a direct threat to Israel– an analysis continued in this day by Norman Braman, Marco Rubio's leading supporter, who says that the U.S. must be a military and economic power in order to "sustain" Israel.
An Economist blogger wrote several years ago that if you leave out the Zionism you won't understand the Iraq war:
Yes, it would be ridiculous, and anti-semitic, to cast the Iraq war as a conspiracy monocausally driven by a cabal of Jewish neocons and the Israeli government. But it's entirely accurate to count neoconservative policy analyses as among the important causes of the war, to point out that the pro-Israeli sympathies of Jewish neoconservatives played a role in these analyses, and to note the support of the Israeli government and public for the invasion. In fact any analysis of the war's causes that didn't take these into account would be deficient.Many writers, including Joe Klein , Jacob Heilbrunn, and Alan Dershowitz , have said the obvious, that neoconservatism came out of the Jewish community. And I have long written that the Jewish community needs to come to terms with the degree to which it has harbored warmongering neoconservatives, for our own sake.
But America needs to come to terms with the extent to which it allowed rightwing Zionists to dominate discussions of going to war.
This matter is now at the heart of the Republican embrace of the war on Iran. There is simply no other constituency in our country for that war besides rightwing Zionists. They should be called out for this role, so that we don't make that terrible mistake again. And yes: this issue is going to play out frankly in the 2016 campaign, thanks in good measure to Matthews.
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Apr 28, 2017 | www.truthdig.com
The ruling class is seriously rattled over its loss of control over the national political narrative-a consequence of capitalism's terminal decay and U.S. imperialism's slipping grip on global hegemony. When the Lords of Capital get rattled, their servants in the political class are tasked with rearranging the picture and reframing the national conversation. In other words, Papa Imperialism needs a new set of lies, or renewed respect for the old ones. Former president Barack Obama, the cool operator who put the U.S. back on the multiple wars track after a forced lull in the wake of George Bush's defeat in Iraq, has eagerly accepted his new assignment as Esteemed Guardian of Official Lies.At this stage of his career, Obama must dedicate much of his time to the maintenance of Official Lies, since they are central to his own "legacy." With the frenzied assistance of his first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, Obama launched a massive military offensive-a rush job to put the New American Century back on schedule. Pivoting to all corners of the planet, and with the general aim of isolating and intimidating Russia and China, the salient feature of Obama's offensive was the naked deployment of Islamic jihadists as foot soldiers of U.S. imperialism in Libya and Syria. It is a strategy that is morally and politically indefensible-unspeakable!-the truth of which would shatter the prevailing order in the imperial heartland, itself.
Thus, from 2011 to when he left the White House for a Tahiti yachting vacation with music mogul David Geffen and assorted movie and media celebrities, Obama orchestrated what the late Saddam Hussein would have called "The Mother of All Lies": that the U.S. was not locked in an alliance with al-Qaida and its terrorist offshoots in Syria, a relationship begun almost 40 years earlier in Afghanistan.
Advertisement Square, Site wide He had all the help he needed from a compliant corporate media, whose loyalty to U.S. foreign policy can always be counted on in times of war. Since the U.S. is constantly in a (self-proclaimed) state of war, corporate media collaboration is guaranteed. Outside the U.S. and European corporate media bubble, the whole world was aware that al-Qaida and the U.S. were comrades in arms. (According to a 2015 poll, 82 percent of Syrians and 85 percent of Iraqis believe the U.S. created ISIS .) When Vladimir Putin told a session of the United Nations General Assembly that satellites showed lines of ISIS tankers stretching from captured Syrian oil fields "to the horizon," bound for U.S.-allied Turkey, yet untouched by American bombers, the Obama administration had no retort. Russian jets destroyed 1,000 of the tankers , forcing the Americans to mount their own, smaller raids. But, the moment soon passed into the corporate media's amnesia hole-another fact that must be shed in order to avoid unspeakable conclusions.Presidential candidate Donald Trump's flirtation with the idea of ending U.S. "regime change" policy in Syria-and, thereby, scuttling the alliance with Islamic jihadists-struck panic in the ruling class and in the imperial political structures that are called the Deep State, which includes the corporate media. When Trump won the general election, the imperial political class went into meltdown, blaming "The Russians"-first, for warlord Hillary Clinton's loss, and soon later for everything under the sun. The latest lie is that Moscow is sending weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the country where the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan spent billions of dollars to create the international jihadist network. Which shows that imperialists have no sense of irony, or shame. (See BAR: " The U.S., Not Russia, Arms Jihadists Worldwide .")
After the election, lame duck President Obama was so consumed by the need to expunge all narratives that ran counter to "The Russians Did It," he twice yammered about " fake news " at a press conference in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama was upset, he said, "Because in an age where there's so much active misinformation and its packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television. If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect."
Although now an ex-president, it is still Obama's job to protect the ruling class, and the Empire, and his role in maintaining the Empire: his legacy. To do that, one must control the narrative-the subject uppermost in his mind when he used Chicago area students as props, this week, for his first public speech since leaving the White House.
"It used to be that everybody kind of had the same information," said Obama, at the University of Chicago affair. "We had different opinions about it, but there was a common base line of facts. The internet has in some ways accelerated this sense of people having entirely separate conversations, and this generation is getting its information through its phones. That you really don't have to confront people who have different opinions or have a different experience or a different outlook."
Obama continued:
"If you're liberal, you're on MSNBC, or conservative, you're on Fox News. You're reading The Wall Street Journal or you're reading The New York Times, or whatever your choices are. Or, maybe you're just looking at cat videos [laughter].
"So, one question I have for all of you is, How do you guys get your information about the news and what's happening out there, and are there ways in which you think we could do a better job of creating a common conversation now that you've got 600 cable stations and you've got all these different news opinions-and, if there are two sets of opinions, then they're just yelling at each other, so you don't get a sense that there's an actual conversation going on. And the internet is worse. It's become more polarized."
Obama's core concern is that there should be a "common base line of facts," which he claims used to exist "20 or 30 years ago." The internet, unregulated and cheaply accessed, is the villain, and the main source of "fake news" (from publications like BAR and the 12 other leftwing sites smeared by the Washington Post, back in November, not long after Obama complained to Merkel about "fake news").
However, Obama tries to dress up his anti-internet "fake news" whine with a phony pitch for diversity of opinions. Is he suggesting that MSNBC viewers also watch Fox News, and that New York Times readers also peruse the Wall Street Journal? Is he saying that most people read a variety of daily newspapers "back in the day"? It is true that, generations ago, there were far more newspapers available to read, reflecting a somewhat wider ideological range of views. But most people read the ones that were closest to their own politics, just as now. Obama is playing his usual game of diversion. Non-corporate news is his target: "...the internet is worse. It's become more and more polarized."
The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and Fox News all share the "common base line of facts" that Obama cherishes. By this, he means a common narrative, with American "exceptionalism" and intrinsic goodness at the center, capitalism and democracy as synonymous, and unity in opposition to the "common" enemy: Soviet Russians; then terrorists; now non-Soviet Russians, again.
Ayanna Watkins, a senior at Chicago's Kenwood Academy High School, clearly understood Obama's emphasis, and eagerly agreed with his thrust. "When it comes to getting information about what's going on in the world, it's way faster on social media than it is on newscasts," she said.
"But, on the other hand, it can be a downfall because, what if you're passing the wrong information, or the information isn't presented the way it should be? So, that causes a clash in our generation, and I think it should go back to the old school. I mean, phones, social media should be eliminated," Ms. Watkins blurted out, provoking laughter from the audience and causing the 18-year-old to "rephrase myself."
What she really meant, she said, was that politicians should "go out to the community" so that "the community will feel more welcome."
If she was trying to agree with Obama, Ms. Watkins had it right the first time: political counter-narratives on the internet have to go, so that Americans can share a "common base line" of information. All of it lies.
Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].
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Apr 25, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
On the morning of April 4, a Syrian Air Force Russian-made Sukhoi-22 fighter bomber dropped or fired something at a target in rebel-held Idlib Governorate. A cloud of some chemical substance subsequently materialized and drifted to the adjacent inhabited village of Khan Shaykhun, where it killed between 50 and 100 people. We also know that the Russians used a "hotline" prior to the attack to alert the United States military that the strike would be taking place against what was apparently described as an arms depot.
We also know about what might be considered collateral damage. The deaths and alleged use of chemical weapons were described by President Donald Trump as a "vital national-security interest" and served as the pretext for a strike by 59 U.S. cruise missiles two days later, which was directed against the Syrian air base at al-Shayrat. The U.S. attack did little damage and the base was soon again operational.
The White House also reversed itself regarding possible Syrian peace talks, declaring that Bashar al-Assad must be removed as a condition for any political settlement of the ongoing crisis. It also described Russia as complicit in protecting the Syrian president. Secretary of State Tillerson declared that bilateral relations with Moscow cannot improve as long as Russia is supporting al-Assad. The relationship with Russia is, according to President Trump , at an "all-time low."
The U.S. government, in support of its narrative justifying the cruise-missile attack, has issued a four-page assessment entitled "The Assad Regime's Use of Chemical Weapons on April 4, 2017." The report was issued by the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, and was authored by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national-security advisor, rather than Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. The provenance suggests that it might not be what it is touted as, a "Summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community's Assessment " It makes a number of claims, some of which might be considered fact-based, while others seem questionable.
Bear in mind that nearly all the information and physical evidence available from the attack site in Syria has come from anti-Assad sources linked to al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra, which controls the area. This includes the so-called White Helmets, who are opposition surrogates . The established narrative derives from this material as well as from bipartisan assertions of Assad's "certain" guilt, even from normally liberal Democrats , which are being presented as fact.
The four-page White House report is supplemented by commentary provided by McMaster and Secretary of Defense James Mattis (also a former general) on the day of the U.S. attack, as well as a more recent interview with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, which describes the decision-making process and the military options. Each official, as well as President Trump, took it as a given that Syria had carried out the attack. Regarding the motive for such an attack, the report claims that Damascus was seeking to halt a rebel advance. Others in the media have claimed that it was done to "test" the United States or intimidate the Syrian population, but some other observers find those explanations elusive. After all, Bashar al-Assad would have had no good reason to stage a chemical attack when he was winning the war, while the rebels theoretically had plenty of motivation to stage a "false flag" attack to alienate Damascus from Western Europe and the Americans.
There is considerable repetition in the White House report describing Syrian involvement, rebel inability to mount a chemical attack, physical remains, and symptoms of the dead and injured. It says that the U.S. government is "confident" that the Syrian government carried out a chemical attack using "a neurotoxic agent like sarin against its own people" on the morning of April 4, and that it would have been impossible for the rebels to fabricate the incident because it would be too complicated for them to do so. The alleged U.S. intelligence relating to understanding the attack included Sigint, geospatial monitoring, and physiological examination. Plus "Credible open source reporting tells a clear and consistent story." This included commercial-satellite imagery, which shows the impact sites of the weapons used, and opinions registered by civilian agencies like Medecins Sans Frontieres and Amnesty International.
The U.S. government report also maintains that Syria has violated its international obligations by retaining chemical-weapons capabilities even though it agreed to destroy all stocks in 2013. The narrative also insists that the still highly controversial attack made on Ghouta in 2013 was, in fact, carried out by Damascus. Syrian chemical-weapons experts were probably "involved in planning the [current] attack." Symptoms of the victims were consistent with exposure to sarin.
Since the attack, per the report, the Russians and Syrians have been spinning out "false narratives" employing "multiple, conflicting accounts [of what took place] in order to create confusion and sow doubt within the international community."
As noted above, beyond the bare bones of the Syrian attack, the U.S. retaliation, and the casualties, there is little in the incidents and the surrounding analysis that can be regarded as hard fact. Little in the National Security Council report is unassailable, and one should note that almost none of it is based on U.S. intelligence resources. The possibility that a Syrian chemical-weapons expert was "probably" involved expresses uncertainty, suggesting that an intercepted telephone call is being generously interpreted. And the geospatial monitoring is either a satellite (or even a drone) overhead, or possibly an AWACS plane operating along the nearby Turkish border, which would register the flight path of the Su-22 and the subsequent explosion(s), hardly conclusive evidence of anything beyond what we already know to be true.
The thinness of the U.S. intelligence came through in an April 13 talk by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who described the pressure from the White House to come up with an "assessment." As a bottom line, he commented that "Everyone saw the open-source photos, so we had reality on our side." One might observe that that reality was derived from Google satellite photography possibly adjusted by the rebels and freely interpreted by the media, not from the $80 billion per year intelligence community.
Observers should also reexamine the assumption that rebels would be unable to either mount a chemical attack or create a "false flag" operation. There have been numerous instances of ISIS and al-Nusra use of chemicals both in Syria and Iraq, the most recent being just this past week in western Mosul. And the similar Ghouta "false flag" in 2013 almost succeeded , apparently aided by Turkish intelligence , stopped only when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper paid a surprise visit to President Obama in the Oval Office to tell him that the case against Damascus was not a "slam dunk."
And the physical evidence that the Syrians launched a chemical attack from the air has been challenged. The only eyewitness to surface , a 14-year-old, has described how she saw a bomb drop from an airplane and hit a nearby building, which produced a mushroom cloud. It is just as the Russians and Syrians described the incident and rules out sarin, which is colorless. And then there is the testimony of Professor Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national-security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Postol has examined the evidence in the photos and concluded that the toxin was fired from the ground, not from the air, adding that no competent analyst would believe otherwise-suggesting that there was a rush to judgment. Postol concluded that "it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the U.S. government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack."
Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has also disputed the findings in the White House report, noting that what evidence there is points to the use of conventional weapons by the Syrians. He also notes that the Su-22's available weapons cannot deliver a chemical or gas attack from the air, something which Donald Trump and his advisers might not have been aware of.
And then there are the victims. The tests confirming the presence of sarin were carried out in Turkish hospitals and Ankara is far from a neutral party, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan having demanded repeatedly that al-Assad be removed.
It is all too easy to forget that the rebels and their associates are killers, with little to differentiate them from the crimes that are being laid at Bashar al-Assad's door. Two recent examples of rebel brutality include the beheading of a child and the recent bombing of Syrian refugees waiting to cross into government-controlled territory. The latter attack killed more people-including women, children, and babies-than the incident at Khan Shaykhun, but it was not so much as mentioned by President Trump. It was only briefly reported in the U.S. media before being dropped down the memory hole, presumably because it did not fit the prevailing narrative.
Other videos and pictures of Khan Shaykhun victims cited by the White House show survivors being assisted by alleged medical personnel, who appear not be wearing any protective garb. If the chemical agent had actually been sarin, they too would have been affected. And the symptoms of sarin are similar to the symptoms experienced with exposure to other toxins, including chlorine and smoke munitions. One survivor noted a smell of rotten food and garlic. Sarin is, in addition to being colorless, odorless.
And then there is the question of al-Assad's chemical-weapons supply. It is now being asserted by the White House that the Syrians retained a significant capability, but that is not what Secretary of State John Kerry said in July 2014, when he claimed everything was destroyed : "We struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out." The United States, working with Russia, was instrumental in destroying the Syrian chemical stockpile.
It certainly appears that there was a rush to judgment on the part of the White House and the top presidential advisors. It is possible that al-Assad did what he has been accused of, but the Trump administration decided to assign guilt to the Syrians before they could have known with any clarity what had happened. As in the case of Iraq, the available intelligence was made to fit the preferred narrative. All that remained was to call a meeting of top advisors to determine exactly how to punish Damascus. The truth about what occurred in Syria on April 4 remains to be discovered, and is almost certainly possessed by many in the U.S. intelligence community. Perhaps someday, someone who understands what happened will feel compelled to reveal what he or she knows.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the incident and the U.S. retaliation is severe and potentially catastrophic. As Princeton Professor Stephen Cohen, America's leading expert on Russia, put it recently :
I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the Cuban missile crisis. And arguably, it's more dangerous, because it's more complex. So the question arises, naturally: Why did Trump launch 50 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian Air Force base, when, God help us, he did kill some people, but was of no military value whatsoever? Was this meant to show 'I'm not a Kremlin agent?' Because, normally, a president would have done the following. You would go to the United Nations and ask for an investigation about what happened with those chemical weapons. And then you would decide what to do. But while having dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the leader of China, who was deeply humiliated, because he's an ally of Russia, they rushed off these Tomahawk missiles.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
EliteCommInc. , says: April 24, 2017 at 10:21 pm
If there's a slam dunk here, it's that the US is constantly being played.MEOW , says: April 24, 2017 at 11:05 pmWho benefits? Not Syria. Not the US?Lee , says: April 24, 2017 at 11:11 pmExactly, when was the last time US Intelligence proved valid on ANYTHING where a high level decision was made?Fran Macadam , says: April 25, 2017 at 3:40 am"Make America Great Again" == "Full Spectrum Dominance"?bacon , says: April 25, 2017 at 3:42 amAnother guy in the WH who prefers his "gut" and thereby believes he creates reality ex nihilo?
But
He was prescient some weeks back when he said he knew it wasn't to his political benefit to get along with Russia and that people would applaud firing on a Russian ship off the east coast, but that it wouldn't be great at all, but terrible.
It does seem true that political survival demanded the about face. The only way to prove in our hysterical political climate engendered by the fury of the Clinton loss, that the President is not a Russian agent, demands a war with Russia.
Since the applause for this is so great across the political spectrum, excluding present company, that is what we will get.
When did US government lying to justify some action come to be seen as unusual? Maybe the Assad government did carry out this chemical attack, but our record of being casual with the truth raises doubts. Maybe the North Vietnamese were responsible for whatever actually happened in the Gulf of Tonkin, eh?Douglas Burton , says: April 25, 2017 at 4:06 amThis is a welcome contribution to the reportage of what appears to be a tragic rush to judgment. Well done!Hassan , says: April 25, 2017 at 7:26 amI was astonished by the speed of the US response given the fact that intel on the ground is notoriously complex. The White House coulda shoulda woulda waited two days to verify. It now may be a case of acute and toxic need to save face.
Great analytical piece that puts the main stream journalists to shame. Let me add one instance of suspicious reports by Al-Qaedhe affiliate: the supposed attack happened at night or early morning, according to rebel reports. "when people slept" , it was repeatedly said. Then, there is talk of "we saw a bomb dropping", or "a mushroom cloud", etc. Obviously, these observations could not happen in dark.Daath , says: April 25, 2017 at 8:07 amThere is no hard proof one way or another, but the circumstantial arguments here for the false flag theory aren't very strong.Joe the Plutocrat , says: April 25, 2017 at 8:32 am1. Assad is winning, so why would he have done this? This is the exact same argument that was repeatedly given after Ghouta attack, and yet the war goes on. The government won an important victory in Aleppo, but most of Syria is outside its control. Its own forces are also weak and often disloyal, so it depends on Russia, Hizbollah and Iran. These allies don't necessarily care that much about total Assad victory.
2. Rebel chemical weapons. ISIS and apparently Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (ex-Nusra) have used chlorine and mustard gas, yes. These are considerably easier to manufacture than nerve agents. In any case, Guardian's Kareem Shaheen's on-ground report referred to meeting with Ahrar al-Sham's officials there, and that's a different bunch of Islamists. They cooperate with other throat cutters, though.
3. Testimonies. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable (was there really a mushroom cloud or just some billowing dust?). Postol's is more interesting, but also seems compatible with air attack not using a dedicated chemical weapon dispersion device. Syrian air force's signature weapon is the barrel bomb, so assuming the use of another improvised device here isn't illogical.
4. First responders not affected. Locals claim they were. AFAIK sarin degrades fast in heat and sunlight, so by the time photos were taken later in the day, the danger would have been much lower. This would have also been a reason to launch the attack in early morning – and the airstrike did indeed happen at 6:30am.
5. Odorless sarin. In theory it is, yes. Impurities can impart strong smells to it, and binary sarin mixed within delivery device doesn't necessarily mix perfectly.
6. Kerry's statement. Well, duh. Of course he said that. It was a somewhat embarrassing episode, and the deal saved face, so of course it had to be 100% successful, even if it wasn't.
as noted in other thread (re: North Korea), this feels like Iraq v2.0, and we all know the 45th POTUS has no problem throwing the CIA and "the generals" under the bus. the phrase 'pressure from the white house' is particularly chilling. then again, when the Commander-in-Chief is a member of the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame, and reality TV game show host, who tweets and yammers incessantly about "fake news" (the ultimate false flag operation), should we not expect him "value" fake intelligence and/or alternative "facts" when it comes to waging war? who could have imagined a person of this ilk would actually be a neocon in populist/anti-establishment clothing? or maybe he is just a patsy being handled deftly by "agents" of the Military-Industrial establishment?Jim Bovard , says: April 25, 2017 at 8:33 amGreat piece – best thing I have seen yet on the latest Syrian uproar.collin , says: April 25, 2017 at 9:28 amDoes this truth really matter in the Trump Presidency?Hanna Khayyat , says: April 25, 2017 at 10:29 amHe got to his sugar bombing of empty fields next to airstrips that the Russian & Syrians knew in advance of the bombing. Cable News got their fireworks show and Trump got be President. It seemed like everybody benefited except Syria.
Remember WMD and Saddam? What did the top papers say after Colin Powell's speech to the UN "proving" that Iraq had WMD?EliteCommInc. , says: April 25, 2017 at 11:46 amNew York Times: "[Powell's speech] may not have produced a 'smoking gun," but it left little question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal one." Wall Street Journal: "The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable. The only question remaining is whether the U.N. is going to have the courage of Mr. Powell's convictions." Washington Post: "To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make "
Different year; different country, but for the msm in the USA, some things never change.
"It does seem true that political survival demanded the about face. The only way to prove in our hysterical political climate engendered by the fury of the Clinton loss, that the President is not a Russian agent, demands a war with Russia."Winston , says: April 25, 2017 at 12:01 pmAnd it was a mistake. A deep mistake. He was winnning the Russia Manchurian candidate issue. The tide was turning even among democrats and it was beginning to sour faster each day. He should have fought it. The short term gain of turning the tables in this manner has now hemmed into the camp of interventionists. And what worse gained him but momentary praise unless he continues to bend.
Further it plays the other edge of that sword, that he is easily turned, cowed frightened and more, he will betray those he befriends for support to so as to avoid criticism by noise makers. The fact, that we should not be in Syria in the first place should have been his foundational stance as it was during the campaign.
That he should have weighed evidence based on disinterested parties. Because what was presented was dubious on its face. We have been down this road before and nothing about this charge made any more sense than the previous attempt to bait US involvement. As for the nonsense about the rebels not having the capabilities - excuse me - but if you have a chemical weapon on a canister all one need do is open it - these arguments are, I agree familiar to the Iraq advances for war - as if developed by a class of high school students. Photos of explosions – you have got to be kidding.
I have some responses to the 6 counters presented.
a. The Syrian government is winning. And the reason there is still war is because the US and others continue to foment and encourage the rebels, Known as terrorists by any other name.
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/2/7963447/syria-control-territory http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/05/30/syria-aleppo-doctors-fight-back-against-us-nato-false-flags-and-terrorism/
b. Rebels and chem weapons, their availability is far wider than suggested. No they could have easily released said chemicals and they didn't have to manufacture them - they were provided (a brief history):
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/0923/Syrian-rebels-and-chemical-weapons-a-disinformation-operation https://www.infowars.com/rebels-admit-responsibility-for-chemical-weapons-attack/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-trained-syrias-al-qaeda-rebels-in-the-use-of-chemical-weapons/5583784 http://theduran.com/was-hillary-clinton-behind-the-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/
c. So the first respondents waited leaving people to die. I don't buy it. In addition, the gas would have spread immediately, not later in the day. As reported in drifted into the communities yet the impact is very slight.
The entire advance here gets thinner with each defense. Oddly no one is putting those blood tests on the table. As for people choking since all bomb munitions are designed to cease life function by direct hit or secondary reaction, I have no doubt that people experienced shortness of breath.
But most importantly, no one is disputing the Russian claim. Because if they were they would accuse Russia of using chemical weapons, after all, it was a Russian mission. That what this charge ought to be, that Russia knowingly used a chemical compound forbidden by international law.
Make that charge and I might begin to take the advance as having some sincerity.
It's pressure not from the white house, but that band of interventionists that the current executive has surrounded himself with. And it may prove his undoing.A cadre of Mr. Wolfitzs and Vice Pres Cheneys.
1. The small crater in an asphalt road which you can find an image of online looks exactly like the craters left by a very common, surface-to-surface (note – NOT air-to-surface) 122mm unguided artillery rocket. 122mm debris is specifically mentioned in reports about the debris left in the crater.Donald , says: April 25, 2017 at 12:20 pm2. The US report makes no mention of the type of munition used while it claims to be certain about the specific type of aircraft used. A 122mm rocket fired from the aircraft would have been extremely obvious for many miles around. WHY no mention of the specific munition type used – rocket or gravity (dumb) bomb? A 122m surface-to-surface artillery missile SOMEHOW fired from an aircraft when a much simpler dumb bomb attack which would have been more appropriate is both unusual and suspicious.
3. Only if the sarin weapon used was of the binary type would an attack on the airbase which launched the supposedly guilty aircraft not released sarin when all of the munition storage bunkers were destroyed as they were. If the US was that certain of even the specific sarin device type used and, therefore, the safety of striking those munition storage bunkers without releasing sarin everywhere, why aren't they more specific about the weapon supposedly released from the aircraft? They say:
"A significant body of pro-opposition social media reports indicate that the chemical attack began in Khan Shaykhun at 6:55 a.m. local time on 4 April. Our information indicates that the chemical agent was delivered by regime Su-22 fixed-wing aircraft that took off from the regime-controlled Shayrat Airfield. These aircraft were in the vicinity of Khan Shaykhun approximately 20 minutes before reports of the chemical attack began and vacated the area shortly after the attack. Additionally, our information indicates personnel historically associated with Syria's chemical weapons program were at Shayrat Airfield in late March making preparations for an upcoming attack in Northern Syria, and they were present at the airfield on the day of the attack."
Delivered HOW, by what kind of weapon? A 122mm rocket made only for surface-to-surface weapons systems? If they are so certain about the chemical weapons personnel at the airbase how would they not know at least that? Did the "pro-opposition" tell them about those personnel, the same people who would be most likely to launch a false flag attack?
Daath–the point is not that we know it was a false flag attack. The point is or should be that we don't know it wasn't. We don't know much of anything besides people dying. And some of your claims are debatable anyway. Could sarin be stolen from an Assad stockpile? Why not? The rebels have done amazingly well, killing at least 100,000 armed opponents (with an amazingly low civilian death count according to the anti-Assad reporters, which as some have pointed out, means the Al Qaeda forces are among the most humane fighters in history.) People who can fight a conventional army with an air force to a standstill over a period of years might have been able to capture a few poison gas munitions along the way. Not saying this happened. I am saying that given our sources of info, most of the time we don't really know what is happening.Bridger , says: April 25, 2017 at 6:37 pm@DAATHDr.Diprospan , says: April 25, 2017 at 11:36 pmISIS and "the rebels" are rumored to be receiving chemical weapons from Turkey and perhaps Saudi Arabia. So their inability to manufacture Sarin or other chemical weapons doesn't vindicate them when they appear to have access to it via state actors.
They have used various chemical agennts 52 times according to the NYT.
As always, a good question from Mr. Giraldi, but I would have looked at the event differently. Did Assad Order the Syrian Gas Attack? I really doubt. Chemical weapons are inefficient, indiscriminate, provocativeEliteCommInc. , says: April 26, 2017 at 2:58 amLet's look at the event in the context of other events of April 2017:
Another Russian American crew flew into space. The Exxon-Mobil oil company is negotiating with Russian partners to explore oil reserves in the Black Sea.
The Russian national currency is rapidly strengthening. Finally, a group of Russian students whom I know well get an American visa without obstacles with the program "work and travel."
For several years in Russia, international competitions in military equipment have been popular. Every year, the Russian military before the competitions in "Tank biathlon" and "Air darts" send an invitation to their American colleagues, but Americans always ignore the invitations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FQdAYM4bOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh6ORlaURso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r55i7Y3MkbEFor the US military there are more interesting contests with the Russians – those that are 90 percent close to real combat conditions.
A good excuse is already available. So 2 destroyers in the Mediterranean are ready to attack the airfield. The US warns Russia 2 hours before the launch of cruise missiles. The first destroyer fires 40 missiles and they fall unexploded in the Syrian deserts. Thus Russia demonstrates new system of EW – "Lever".
Then the Russian military disconnects the device and allows 20 missiles from the 2nd destroyer to hit hangars with decommissioned aircraft.
Why did Xi Jin Pinge smile so good-naturedly, tasting Donald Trump's gorgeous chocolate cake? He probably anticipated that if the Russian EW facilities prove themselves well, then, at the meeting with Putin in Moscow this summer, they will discuss a new multibillion-dollar military order while trying Russian ice cream with tea.
"The White Helmets are among the only humanitarian workers who are able to operate in the region."DedBrian , says: April 26, 2017 at 7:03 amUnfortunately Amnesty International has become an advocacy group or the rebels. They are not neutral. After Iraq, they have abandoned their neutrality for choosing sides.
"Assad used chemical weapons in 2013."
The rebels have been caught with their pants down on the use of chemical weapons. In fact, Turkey arrested rebels with chemical weapons. The cases of 2013 have been thoroughly dissected, fine tooth combed and it leaves advocates wanting and naked.
In the articles I noted its clear that death is no stranger to those who prefer Pres Assad admin. Death camps, battle is always a death camp.
Just a reminder: should advocates desire less death perhaps that y should start by advocating less unnecessary war.
AlexWinston Snith , says: April 26, 2017 at 7:07 am
April 25, 2017 at 5:35 pm
"Scott Ritter is wrong, Su-22 has B-13L rocket pod capable of delivering S-13 or similar 122mm rockets including ones with chemical warheads."Is that an intentional lie? No one ever heard about S-13 with chemical warhead. Not mentioning that there were never any airplane-carried rockets with chemical warheads invented in the USSR or for Soviet planes. And not mentioning that there are no B-13L on Syrian SU-22, they are equipped only with UB-32 pods with 57mm S-5 rockets.
They are beautifully seen on many pictures including the ones from Khan Shaykhun:
https://twitter.com/SyrianMilitary/status/830960348391948288Mary,bill , says: April 26, 2017 at 8:24 amthe "White Helmets" are a known propaganda operation by the British foreign office.
As for your attacks on the Syrian government – "Assad"- why do you repeat your own regime's demonization propaganda ?
The use of poison gas is a characteristic of the American regime under Obama – check the news items – and the Jihadist paramilitaries that work for it.
im pretty sure that its established that the tweets by the Jihadist " doctor"- thats the guy where the case of kidnapping against him was stopped as witnesses had vanished-were made 19 hours BEFORE the alleged attack case closed ..
Where i live i have personal knowledge of 2 people intimately involved 1) the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights often used as a source!! by the BBC is one man who hasnt been to Syria for over a decade for this reason alone anything he says should be treated with real suspicion 2) Rev Andrew Ashdown travelled to Aleppo to see how he could help,and to comfort the ordinary people caught up in this terror- his reports from there ( and he is a friend of the local bishop) show that everything being pushed out by the mainstream media with a few occasional exceptions from Fisk et al is more or less the opposite of what is reported,THAT INDEED SYRIANS support their army,have great regard for Assad and his wife,were imprisoned in Aleppo, suffered great deprivation,torture,murder, theft,rape, kidnapping etc etc from their terrorist captors and are deeply grateful to Russia and Putin for coming to their rescue, and have never heard of the White Helmets who like the SOHR are responsible for much of the propaganda
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Apr 25, 2017 | www.unz.com
Billionaire businessman Marc Cuban insists that the H-1B visa racket is a feature of the vaunted American free market. This is nonsense on stilts. It can't go unchallenged.Another billionaire, our president, has ordered that the H-1B program be reformed. This, too, is disappointing. You'll see why.
First, let's correct Mr. Cuban: America has not a free economy, but a mixed-economy. State and markets are intertwined. Trade, including trade in labor, is not free; it's regulated to the hilt. If anything, the labyrinth of work visas is an example of a fascistic government-business cartel in operation.
The H-1B permit, in particular, is part of that state-sponsored visa system. The primary H-1B hogs-Infosys (and another eight, sister Indian firms), Microsoft, and Intel-import labor with what are grants of government privilege. Duly, the corporations that hog H-1Bs act like incorrigibly corrupt rent seekers. Not only do they get to replace the American worker, but they get to do so at his expense.
Globally, a series of sordid liaisons ensures that American workers are left high and dry. Through the programs of the International Trade Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the International Monetary Fund, and other oink-operations, the taxpaying American worker is forced to subsidize and underwrite the investment risks of the very corporations that have given him the boot.
Domestically, the fascistic partnership with the State amounts to a subsidy to business at the expense of the taxpayer. See, corporations in our democratic welfare state externalize their employment costs onto the taxpayers.
So while public property is property funded by taxpayers through expropriated taxes; belongs to taxpayers; is to be managed for their benefit-at least one million additional immigrants a year, including recipients of the H-1B visa, are allowed the free use of taxpayer-supported infrastructure and amenities. Every new arrival avails himself of public works such as roads, hospitals, parks, libraries, schools, and welfare.
Does this epitomize the classical liberal idea of laissez faire ?
Moreover, chain migration or family unification means every H-1B visa recruit is a ticket for an entire tribe. The initial entrant-the meal ticket-will pay his way. The honor system not being an especially strong value in the Third World, the rest of the clan will be America's problem. More often than not, chain-migration entrants become wards of the American taxpayer.
Spreading like gravy over a tablecloth, this rapid, inorganic population growth is detrimental to all ecosystems: natural, social and political.
Take Seattle and its surrounding counties. Between April 2015 and 2016, the area was inundated with "86,320 new residents, marking it the region's biggest population gains this century. Fueled in large part by the technology industry, an average of 236 people is moving to the Seattle area each day," reported Geekwire.com. (Reporters for our local fish-wrapper-in my case, parrot-cage liner-have discharged their journalistic duties by inviting readers to "share" their traffic-jam stories.)
Never as dumb as the local reporters, the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Cuban are certainly as detached.
Barricaded in their obscenely lavish compounds-from the comfort of their monster mansions-these social engineers don't experience the "environmental impacts of rapid urban expansion"; the destruction of verdant open spaces and farmland; the decrease in the quality of the water we drink and air we breathe, the increase in traffic and traffic accidents, air pollution, the cellblock-like housing erected to accommodate their imported I.T. workers and extended families, the delicate bouquet of amped up waste management and associated seepages.
For locals, this lamentable state means an inability to afford homes in a market in which property prices have been artificially inflated. Young couples lineup to view tiny apartments. They dream of that picket fence no more. (And our "stupid leaders," to quote the president before he joined leadership, wonder why birthrates are so low!)
In a true free market, absent the protectionist state, corporate employers would be accountable to the community, and would be wary of the strife and lowered productivity brought about by a multiethnic and multi-linguistic workforce. All the more so when a foreign workforce moves into residential areas almost overnight as has happened in Seattle and its surrounds.
Alas, since the high-tech traitors can externalize their employment costs on to the community; because corporations are subsidized at every turn by their victims-they need not bring in the best.
Cuban thinks they do. High tech needs to be able to "search the world for the best applicants," he burbled to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Why doesn't the president know that the H-1B visa category is not a special visa for highly skilled individuals, but goes mostly to average workers? "Indian business-process outsourcing companies, which predominantly provide technology support to corporate back offices," by the Economist's accounting.
Overall, the work done by the H1-B intake does not require independent judgment, critical reasoning or higher-order thinking. "Average workers; ordinary talent doing ordinary work," attest the experts who've been studying this intake for years. The master's degree is the exception within the H1-B visa category.
More significant: THERE IS a visa category that is reserved exclusively for individuals with extraordinary abilities and achievement. I know, because the principal sponsor in our family received this visa. I first wrote about the visa that doesn't displace ordinary Americans in 2008 :
"Extraordinary ability in the fields of science, education, business or athletics," states the Department of Homeland Security, "means a level of expertise indicating that the person is one of the small percentage who has risen to the very top of the field of endeavor."
Most significant: There is no cap on the number of O-1 visa entrants allowed. Access to this limited pool of talent is unlimited.
My point vis-à-vis the O-1 visa is this: The H-1B hogs are forever claiming that they are desperate for talent. In reality, they have unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the open-ended O-1 visa program.
There is no limit to the number of geniuses American companies can import.
Theoretically, the H-1B program could be completely abolished and all needed Einsteins imported through the O-1 program. (Why, even future first ladies would stand a chance under the business category of the O-1A visa, as a wealth-generating supermodel could certainly qualify.)
Now you understand my disappointment. In his April 18 Executive Order, President Trump promised to merely reform a program that needs abolishing. That is if "Hire American" means anything to anybody anymore.
ILANA Mercer is the author of The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed (June, 2016) & Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011). Follow her on Twitter & Facebook
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Apr 24, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Recently, with the cruise missile attacks on a Syrian airfield, there has been a considerable loosening of the normal restraints that employees exercise regarding their duties. Even more than the invasion of Iraq, which was viewed skeptically by many in the community, the decision by President Trump to retaliate with force against Damascus has been met with dismay among many of those closest to the action in the Middle East.
Many officers have expressed frustration and anger over what has taken place-not to challenge national-security policy, which they leave up to the politicians, but because they are perceiving a tissue of lies, as in Iraq. They have expressed their concerns in very specific ways to former fellow officers and friends. For the first time, people on the inside of the process are really talking. And we have been listening, astonished at the level of anger.
The insiders note that no evidence has been produced to demonstrate convincingly that Syrian forces dropped a chemical bomb on a civilian area. U.S. monitors, who had been warned by the Russians that an attack was coming, believe they saw from satellite images something close to the Russian account of events, with a bomb hitting the targeted warehouse, which then produced a cloud of gas. They also note that Syria had absolutely no motive for staging a chemical attack. In fact, it was quite the contrary, as Washington had earlier that week backed off from the U.S. position that President Bashar al-Assad should be removed from office. The so-called rebels, however, had plenty of motive. Many intelligence officials have concluded that the White House is lying and concealing what it knows.
Some employees have even expressed a desire that a whistleblower might step forward to demolish the administration's casus belli , though none has yet offered to do so. Most of all, those on the ground are alarmed over ongoing preparations for expanding the war, including seemingly active plans to establish no-fly zones and safe havens. The uncompromising demand that al-Assad must go will lead, in their opinion, to a rapid escalation of military activity that inevitably will result in conflict with Russia.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
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Apr 24, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Speaking of Zen takes, check out my latest column at The Week , which is about how Trump's sloth and incompetence could wind up saving us from war with China:Students of international affairs who take the long view have for some time been worried about the trajectory of U.S.-China relations. While in theory a cooperative relationship would be most beneficial to both parties, in practice dominant powers and rising challengers rarely are able to work out a fruitful accommodation. Instead, most often the two stumble into a conflict that devastates both countries' interests.
Graham Allison calls the underlying theory - detailed in his new book - the Thucydides Trap. So long as both powers rationally assume that the dominant power aims to maintain its supremacy, even accommodative policies will be interpreted as a way to get the rising power to settle for less than it might achieve by revisionist agitations. So if the dominant power is accommodative, the rising power will take advantage, provoking a reversal by the dominant power and a confrontation. But if the dominant power is confrontational and tries to encircle the rising power, it will provoke the rising power to break out - and in the meantime the dominant power will exhaust its resources more quickly than the rising power does, accelerating the power transition.
So how can war be avoided?
Allison's prescription is for robust communication along with a willingness on the part of the dominant power to think big in terms of how the international order will have to change to accommodate the rising power. Rather than try to prevent or limit the power transition, the dominant power has to facilitate it, get the rising power to understand that this is in fact the policy, and thereby forge a cooperative path through the transition that gives both powers an appropriate role to their new relative power position. I've argued in this space before that Korea would be a perfect place to try to achieve those twin goals.
The Obama administration's much-touted but never-completed "pivot" to Asia could be understood as an effort to preserve America's position within the context of partnership with China - or as an effort to contain China and maintain American supremacy. Strengthened alliances with countries like Australia and Vietnam were intended to discourage China from adventurism in its near-abroad, while the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to counter Chinese economic leadership in the region. On the other hand, the TPP did not explicitly exclude China, and it is plausible to think that its ultimate purpose was more to keep America in than to keep China out. Obama clearly saw a value in working with the Chinese rather than merely against them, but he also recognized that China intended to challenge America's interests in the western Pacific and aimed to counter it.
We'll never know whether the Obama strategy would have been a way out of the Thucydides Trap, or whether it would have led us right into it. We'll never know because President Trump has trashed the strategy entirely, pulling out of the TPP , musing about abandoning the one-China policy , threatening unilateral action in Korea , and calling for tariffs on Chinese manufacturers. His initial policy mix looked like it was premised on the assumption that war was inevitable, so we might as well make it happen on our terms.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the battlefield: The Chinese realized we were bluffing.
Our military options in Korea aren't really viable , and Trump has proved that he knows they aren't by his eagerness to get the Chinese to handle the problem - eagerness so overwhelming it has already led him to abandon a core campaign theme, confronting the Chinese on trade . Trump has already reaffirmed the one-China policy. And he has not only gratuitously insulted key allies , but demonstrated tactical incompetence in his communications about the mission of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson . Watching Trump, America's Asian allies surely are questioning our reliability and basic competence, while the Chinese surely are far less worried that America will be able to restrain their rise even if we desire to do so.
Normally, this would provoke the rising power to be more confrontational. But if the Chinese really understand Trump, they'll see that they could get far more by picking his pocket than by mugging him. Trump is transparently eager for a deal - almost any deal. The Chinese could probably ask for the moon and the stars - or control of the South China Sea - in exchange for minor promises - to let their currency rise a bit (which has already happened), to build a few manufacturing plants in Ohio, to get North Korea to restrain itself for a few months. Why wouldn't the Chinese try to get what they want at the table rather than taking the risk of a confrontation?
Of course, normally a political leader would pay a gruesome price for cutting a terrible deal with a key rival. If Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had rolled over for the Chinese, the Republican Party would go ballistic. But Donald Trump's brand is all about making America great again. His most vocal liberal critics, meanwhile, are more concerned that he's going to stumble into World War III than that he is going to be insufficiently firm in defending America's interests. While, as with Syria, they may support any military actions he does take, they are unlikely to provoke him into backing up his blustery threats with actual shows of force.
Paradoxically, Trump could achieve by sloth and incompetence what is very difficult for dominant powers to accept: a transition out of that dominant position.
Read the whole thing there .
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Apr 22, 2017 | www.unz.com
Jump To... Content Top Bottom Section Prev Current Next Bookmark ❌ ◄ ► Toggle All ToC Remove from Library Add to Library BookmarksTurkish President, Recep Erdoğan won his referendum by a narrow margin last weekend, so Turkish politics will move off in the general direction of Venezuela , though with an Islamic flavor- Erdoğan is a devout Muslim.
I respect the Turks for having done a great and remarkable thing in a short time. The old Ottoman Empire was a classic instance of imperial-bureaucratic despotism: a permanent small ruling class enforcing a state religion while they tax-farmed a passive peasantry with no property rights-what Karl Marx called " The Asiatic Mode of Production ."
Then suddenly, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the Turks abandoned that whole model and transformed themselves into a modern, secular, European-style republic. They established a new capital city far from the old imperial metropolis . They scrapped the Arabic alphabet for the Latin one. Men were to wear jackets and pants, women dresses. There were property rights and a free press, a parliament to legislate and so on.
It was a tremendous revolution. And unlike most revolutions, it was revolutionary in a positive direction. It once fired me up with the hope that, if Turkey could accomplish such a transformation, then perhaps other old imperial-despotic nations could too.
China, for example. Back in 1989 I wrote :
Nothing is impossible when History means business. The Turks passed from a very "pure" form of oriental despotism to republican liberty, or a fair approximation of it, in 20 years. No one should think that the Chinese, with their great resources of national pride and historical consciousness, cannot pull off the same trick.
Now, 28 years later, that looks naïvely Whiggish . It turns out that when History means business, the business it means is sometimes a 180-degree turn back to the past.
In the commentary on Turkey's referendum vote, Mark Steyn's column Who Lost Turkey? (Revisited) stands out. Mark returns to the theme he worked over in his 2006 best-seller America Alone , that demography is destiny. He explains that the old despotic-Islamist order was not vanquished-only relegated to the boondocks . The Turks of the cities, especially in the Europe-facing western part of Turkey, were keen to modernize; the peasants of the hinterland, not so much.
But the peasants had an advantage over the urban Turks: their birth-rate. Turkish nationalism simply out-bred globalism. Turkish Islamism out-bred secularism . It took 94 years. But in the long run, yes, demography is destiny.
Mark supports his argument with some very cool maps:
Map 1: The 2014 election–İhsanoğlu, the Kemalist wins the blue metro regions, Erdoğan wins the yellow rural regions, and Kurdish candidate wins the purple Kurdish regions:
Map 2: The birth rate–low in the metropolitan, Europeanized regions, higher as you go east into the heartland. Demography is destiny–especially electoral destiny.
Map 3: The referendum results. Steyn writes "The Kurdish south-east, the old secular Rumelian west – and in between the vast green carpet of a new post-Kemalist caliphate:"
This is probably right. The difference of attitude between city and country , between urbs and rus , is as old as civilization itself.
I caught a flavor of it in its Turkish form twenty years ago. I was working for an investment bank. One of my colleagues was a Jew from Turkey. I thought this was interesting. What's it like, I asked him, being Jewish in Turkey? He said it was all right, he'd never had any trouble.
But then he added: "Mind you, I lived in the city all my life. Out in the countryside, things are way different."
Well, the Turkish countryside voted last weekend. You can wave goodbye to secular, open, tolerant, western-oriented Turkey.
The spirit of an open and tolerant society, free inquiry, the disinterested pursuit of truth, is under mortal threat here as well as in Turkey. The big difference: here, the threat comes from the top, from our elites at places like Pomona College. In Turkey, it comes from below.
What accounts for the difference? My guess would center on two factors.
First factor: religion. Christianity, leaving aside occasional episodes like the Counter-Reformation, has never been much of a hindrance to the development of open societies or modernism. The mid-20th-century United States was very religious; but we put men on the Moon. Heck, even the astronauts were religious .
Islam is a different story . The metaphysics of Islam is occasionalist: Whatever is, is good, because God wills it. Where that kind of thinking takes hold you end up with a stifling obscurantism, hostile to all openness and free inquiry.
Second factor: mass immigration. In Western countries, the hostility of urban elites towards their countries' native Deplorables has expressed itself most noticeably in policies of mass immigration.
In Western countries the elites, rather than have those horrid white proles doing the grunt work for them, have imported great masses of Third Worlders. These immigrants are cheaper; and, in the first generation at least, they are more obedient and harder-working. Their exoticism also plays into the modernist esthetic, which, as Eric Kaufmann says in his book The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America , "values the new and different."
In France, as Christopher Caldwell describes in a brilliant article in the current City Journal , the urban elites have even pushed native proles out of the big public-housing projects built for natives by post-WW2 socialist governments. Those projects are now full of North African Muslims.
Similarly, with the gentrifying big cities of America, although here the native white proles are long gone. Current elite strategy is to push out native blacks to suburbs like Ferguson, Missouri so that elites and their immigrant allies can further colonize prime city real estate .
So we have enstupidation, the killing off of free inquiry, from the top down, urban elites imposing their dogma on the rest of us, in alliance with their Third World clients. Turks are getting it from the bottom up, the underclass in the hinterlands demanding a new Sultanate under institutionalized Islam.
ORDER IT NOWMight it be that Peak Reason has come and gone, reaching its highest point sometime round about 1960? That Atatürk's modern, secular republic was carried aloft on that rising wave, as were our own great achievements through the middle of the last century? And that the tide is now receding?
It might. For the sake of my kids , I hope not.
John Derbyshire [ email him ] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him. ) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books . He's had two books published by VDARE.com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT ( also available in Kindle ) and From the Dissident Right II: Essays 2013 . His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com .
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Apr 19, 2017 | www.unz.com
There is a popular point of view in some of Russia's political circles, especially among those who profess monarchist views and cling to a famous meme of 1913 Tsarist Russia development statistics, that WW I was started by Germany to forestall Russia's industrial development which would inevitably challenge Germany's plans on domination of Europe. A somewhat similar argument could be made for the WW II, but, in general, preventive wars are nothing new in human history. While "preventive" argument may or may not be a valid one regarding WW I, there is no doubt that it could be used, among others, when explaining the origins of a war.A classic example of such "preventive" war is, of course, US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the mayhem which ensued there when US, as was stated then, "prevented" Saddam from obtaining Weapons of Mass Destruction, that is nuclear weapons, which, of course, he never had and wasn't intent on obtaining . It is becoming increasingly clear that "preventive war" has become a preferred instrument in the hands of Washington establishment, be it Iraq, Libya or Syria.
But what about Russia, one may ask, or China. Are "preventive wars" against them possible? Taken at face value the question may seem strange-both China, and especially Russia are nuclear armed states which can defend themselves. They do have deterrents and that supposedly should stop any attempt on any kind of war on them. This all is true but only so far. One may consider the current geopolitical situation in which China has all but created a new alternative economic power pole , and in which the US finds herself increasingly in the position of the still extremely important but second and, eventually, even third place player in Eurasian economic development. The United States doesn't like being in second and doesn't take such a reality kindly.
But for Washington, whose political discourse is based on American exceptionalism and foreign policy now is defined completely in terms of military power, emergence of a "peer" military power is absolutely unacceptable. While China is an economic giant and is now arguably the largest economy in the world, she still has a long way to go until she becomes a true "peer" to the United States militarily. This is not the case with Russia. It becomes also true when one begins to look at doctrinal and technological developments both in the US and Russia. The contrast is startling, even if one considers a very dubious US intelligence analysis on Russia .
Russia's military doctrine and posture are explicitly defensive. Power Projection in Russian strategic considerations is secondary, if not tertiary, to the defense of Russia proper and her immediate geographic vicinity which can roughly be defined as about 80-85% of territory of the former USSR. This is not the case with the United States who is a consummate expeditionary power and fights wars not on own territory, and whose population and political elites are not conditioned by continental warfare.
Arthur J. Alexander in his " Decision Making In Soviet Weapons Procurement " came up with quantification of what he called "classes of forces" (or constants) influencing aggregate defense expenditures for USSR. This quantification remains virtually unchanged for modern day Russia. To quote Alexander, two of the most "heavy" constants he mentions are: "History, culture and values–40-50 percent. International environment, threat and internal capabilities–10-30 percent" . Taken by their maxima, 50+30=80%, we get the picture. 80% of Russia's military expenditures are dictated by real military threats, which were, time after time over centuries, realized for Russia and resulted in the destruction and human losses on a scale incomprehensible for people who write US military doctrines and national security strategies. This is especially true for Neocon "strategists" who have a very vague understanding of the nature and application of military power-expeditionary warfare simply does not provide a proper angle on the issues of actual defense. The nation whose 20 th Century losses due to wars from WW I, to Civil War to WW II number roughly in 40-45 million range, would certainly try to not repeat such ordeals. Even famous Russophobe and falsifier, Richard Pipes, was forced to admit that:
Such figures are beyond the comprehension of most Americans. But clearly a country must define "unacceptable damage" differently from the United States which has known no famines or purges, and whose deaths from all the wars waged since 1775 are estimated at 650,000-fewer casualties than Russia suffered in the 900-day siege of Leningrad in World War II alone. Such a country (Russia) tends also to assess the rewards of defense in much more realistic terms.
In layman's lingo, the United States lacks geographic, historic, cultural, economic and technological pressures to develop and have a coherent defensive military doctrine and weapons which would help to implement it. As Michael Lind writes:
The possibility of military defeat and invasion are usually left out of discussion .in the United states and Britain. The United States, if one discounts Pearl Harbor has not suffered a serious invasion from 1812; Britain, though it has been bombed from the air in the (20th century), has been free from foreign invasion even longer .Elsewhere in the world, political elites cannot as easily separate foreign policy and economics.
Russia lives under these pressures constantly and, in fact, Russians as ethnos were formed and defined by warfare. Russia is also defined by her weapons and it is here where we may start looking for one of the most important rationales for anti-Russian hysteria in Washington which have proceeded unabated sincethe return of Crimea in 2014, in reality even earlier.
The Western analytical and expert community failed utterly in assessing Russia's both economic and, as a consequence, military potential. The problem here is not with Russia, which offers unprecedented access to all kinds of foreigners, from businessmen and tourists to political and intelligence (overt and covert) professionals. The problem is with Western view of Russia which as late as three years ago was completely triumphalist and detached from Russia's economic realities. That is the reality not defined by meaningless Wall Street economic indices.It took a complete and embarrassing failure of the West's economic sanctions on Russia to recognize that the actual size of Russia's economy is about that of Germany, if not larger, and that Russia was defining herself in terms of enclosed technological cycles, localization and manufacturing long before she was forced to engage in the war in Georgia in 2008. Very few people realistically care about Russia's Stock Market, the financial markets of Germany are on the order of magnitude larger, but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can. Germany doesn't have a space industry, Russia does. The same argumentation goes for Russia's microelectronics industry and her military-industrial complex which dwarfs that of any "economic" competitor Western "economists" always try to compare Russia to, with the exception of US and China, and then on bulk, not quality, only. Third or Second World economies do not produce such weapons as Borey-class strategic missile submarines or SU-35 fighter jets, they also do not build space-stations and operate the only global alternative to US GPS, GLONASS system.
Whether this lesson will be learned by the combined West is yet to be seen. So far, the learning process has been slow for US crowd which cheered on US deindustrialization and invented a fairy tale concept of post-industrial, that is non-productive, virtual economy.
The Russian economy is not without problems, far from it-it still tries to break with the "heritage" of robbery and deformities of 1990s and still tries to find its way on a path different from destructive ideology of Russia's "young reformers" who still dominate policy formulation, be it from the positions of power or through such institutions as notorious High School of Economics.
Yet, it seems this economy which was " left in tatters " or was an economy of a " gas station masquerading as a country ", is the only other economy in the world which can produce and does produce the whole spectrum of weapons ranging from small arms to state-of-the-art complex weapon and signal processing systems. No other nation with the exception of the US and Russia, not even China, can produce and procure a cutting edge military technology which has capabilities beyond the reach of everyone else.
Here, the US establishment, also known as the Neocon interventionist cabal, it seems, has begun to wake up to actual reality, not the fictitious one that the US can allegedly create for itself. Such as the fact that Russia, in a planned and well executed manner, without any unnecessary fanfare, launched a complete upgrade of her naval nuclear deterrent with the state of the art SSBNs of Borey-class (Project 955 and 955A). Three submarines of this type are already afloat while other 5 are in a different stages of completion and this is the program which most of US Russia "analysts" were laughing at 10 years ago. They are not laughing anymore.
Today it is US Navy which is in dire need for upgrade of its nuclear deterrent, with the youngest of Ohio-class SSBN, SSBN-743 USS Louisiana, being 20 year old. The future replacement of venerable Ohio-class SSBNs, a Columbia-class is slated to go into production in 2021 that is if the R&D will go smoothly. But one has to consider a feature which became defining of US R&D and weapons procurement practices-delays and astronomical costs of US weapons, which, despite constantly being declared "superior", "unrivaled" and "best in the world" are not such at all, especially for the prices they are offered both domestically and abroad. As in the case with above mentioned Columbia-class SSBN, the GAO expects the cost of the whole program to be slightly above 97 billion dollars and that means that the average cost for each sub of this class will be around 8.1 billion dollars. That is much more than the cost of the whole-8 advanced submarines-program of Russia's naval nuclear deterrent.
And this single example demonstrates well an abyss in fundamental approaches to the war between US and Russia: not only do Russian weapons rival those made in US, they are much-much less expensive and they provide Russia with this proverbial bang for a buck, also known in professional circles which deal with strategy and operation's research as cost/effectiveness ratio. Here, United States is simply no competition to Russia and the gap not only remains, it widens with ever-increasing speed. As Colonel Daniel Davies admitted : " The truth is, the United States is nowhere near as powerful and dominant as many believe ." That brings us to a second issue, of doctrines, operational concepts and weapons themselves.
A complete inability to see the evolution of Russia's Armed Forces is another failure which not only irritated but continues to irritate US military-political establishment since it proved them completely wrong. Economic "blindness" factored in here very strongly-it was inevitable in a system that looks at the world through a grossly distorted Wall Street monetarist spyglass. Many times it was pointed out that direct linear comparison, dollar-for-dollar, of military budgets is wrong and does not reflect real military, in general, and combat, in particular, potentials in the least.
While the US Navy was busy spending 420 million dollars per hull on its 26-ship fleet of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), Russian Navy spent two times less per unit on a frigates whose combat capabilities dwarf those of any LCS in any aspect: ASW, Air Defense and Sensors, including the ability to launch supersonic anti-shipping cruise missiles from 600 kilometers and land-attack missiles from 2500. The same goes to much smaller and even much cheaper missile corvettes of Buyan and Karakurt classes which can engage any US Navy's targets, let alone something of LCS caliber.
Experiences with a technological embarrassment known as F-35 merely confirm the fact that US is being tangled in a bizarre combination of unrealistic doctrinal views, unachievable technological and operational requirements and, in general, a complete failure to follow Sun Tzu's popular dictums of "Know Thy Enemy" and "Know Thy Self". On both counts the US policy makers and doctrine mongers failed miserably.
As late as two years ago a number of US Russia's military "experts" declared that Russia's ground forces return to division structure was merely "symbolic". Symbolic they were not, with Russia resurrecting both divisions and armies as appropriate operational-tactical and operational-strategic units in order for a large scale combined arms operations. While following closely the evolution of US forces within the framework of initially much touted Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), Russia never changed her focus on the large scale combined arms operations. This came as a nasty surprise on 08/08/2008 when the elements of the supposedly "backward" Russian 58 th Army demolished NATO and Israel trained, and partially equipped, Saakashivili's Army in a matter of 96 hours. Nobody celebrated this victory and Russian Army was subjected, somewhat justifiably, to scathing criticism from many quarters. But it was clear already then that combined arms operations of large army units remain a principle method of the war between peer-to-peer state actors. The issue then, in 2008, was that US didn't consider Russia a peer and even near peer "status" was grudgingly afforded due to Russia's nuclear arsenal.
Things changed dramatically after the coup in Kiev and junta unleashing a war in Donbass. Brigade and Division size forces there engaged in a full blown combined arms warfare, including head to head armor clashes, employment, especially for LDNR forces, of full C4ISR capabilities and Net-Centric warfare principles. So much so that it created a cultural shock for US military's COIN crowd , which got used to operate in the environment of total domination over its rag-tag lightly armed guerilla formations in Iraq or Afghanistan.
And it was then, and later, in 2015, demonstrated by Russia's Syria campaign, that the realization of an inability to defeat Russia conventionally began to dawn on many in D.C. establishment. Thus the whole premise of last quarter century "Pax Americana"-alleged conventional military superiority over any adversary-was blown out of the water. American military record of the last quarter century is not impressive for a power which proclaimed herself to be a hyper-power and as having the most powerful military in history. As US Marine Corps Captain Joshua Waddle bitterly admitted :
"Let us first begin with the fundamental underpinnings of this delusion: our measures of performance and effectiveness in recent wars. It is time that we, as professional military officers, accept the fact that we lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Objective analysis of the U.S. military's effectiveness in these wars can only conclude that we were unable to translate tactical victory into operational and strategic success".
Delusion, of course, being the fact of US expecting a decisive tactical and technological superiority on the battlefield. Overwhelming empirical evidence tells a completely different story:
United States military in future conflicts will have to deal, in case of conventional conflict against near-peer, let alone peer, with adversary who will have C4ISR capability either approaching that or on par with that of the US. This adversary will have the ability to counter US military decision cycles (OODA loop) with equal frequency and will be able to produce better tactical, operational and strategic decisions. US real and perceived advantage in electronic means of warfare (EW) will be greatly reduced or completely suppressed by present and future EW means of adversary thus forcing US forces fight under the conditions of partial or complete electronic blindness and with partially or completely suppressed communications and computer networks. US will encounter combat technologies not only on par but often better designed and used , from armor to artillery, to hyper-sonic anti-shipping missiles, than US military ever encountered. Modern air-forces and complex advanced air defense systems will make the main pillar of US military power-its Air Force-much less effective. Last but not least, today the US military will have to deal with a grim reality of its staging areas, rear supply facilities, lines of communications being the target of massive salvos of long-range high subsonic, supersonic and hyper-sonic missiles . The US military has never encountered such paradigm in its history. Moreover, already today, US lower 48 are not immune to a conventional massive missile strike.But above all, if to finally name this "peer", which is Russia, and that is who pre-occupies the minds of former and current Pentagon's and National Security brass, in case of conventional conflict Russians will be fighting in defense of their motherland. Here Russia has a track record without equals in human history. Meanwhile, if the current military trends continue, and there are no reasons for them to stop , the window of opportunities for the Neocon cabal to attack Russia conventionally and unleash a preventive war is closing really fast (if it ever existed). That is what drives to a large extent an aggressive military rhetoric and plans, such as National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster's doctrine and war mongering.
By mid 2020s Russia's rearmament program will be largely complete, which will allow Russia's Armed Forces to field and float a technology which will completely prevent NATO from exercising any illusions about the outcome of any conventional war in Russia's geographic vicinity, including her littoral, and that will mark the end of US designs on Eurasia by military means. It wouldn't matter how many carrier battle groups US will be able to move to forward areas or how many submarines, or how many brigades it will be able to deploy around Russia it will not be able to defeat Russia conventionally. With that, especially when one considers China's growing military potential, comes the end of Pax-Bellum Americana, the one we all hoped for this election cycle.
At this point, the only locality where the US can hope to "defeat" Russia is in Syria, to reassert, even if for a little while longer, itself as "greatest military in history". But even there the window of opportunities is closing fast since the Russian conventional response in Europe would be devastating.
As Colonel Pat Lang's blog noted : "If Russia decides to call our bluff and escalate things Trump will likely preside over a public humiliation that will explode America's military delusions of grandeur".
Today, the United States in general, and her military in particular, still remain a premier geopolitical force, but increasingly they will have to content with the fact that the short-lived era of self-proclaimed superiority in every single facet of modern nation-states' activity is over, if it ever was the case to start with. Will the US "Deep State" unleash a preventive war to prevent Russia from serving US with the pink slip for its position as world's chaos-monger or will it be, rephrasing the magnificent Corelli Barnett: " US Power had quietly vanished amid stupendous events of the 21 st Century, like a ship-of-the-line going down unperceived in the smoke and confusion of battle ". This is the most important question of the 21 st Century so far, but knowing US deep state ignorance of Russia one can never discount its insanity and an acute case of sour grapes.Andrei Martyanov has extensive knowledge of naval issues, and has been published in US Naval Institute Proceedings . Using the handle "SmoothieX12," he has written over 130,000 words of comments at The Unz Review , overwhelmingly on Russian and military matters.
Anonymous , April 17, 2017 at 5:31 am GMT
• 100 Words Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.Intelligent Dasein , • Website April 17, 2017 at 5:40 am GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
•• 400 Words I've come to the conclusion that it is the probable consensus among America's Deep State elites, as exemplified by the truly evil Hillary Clinton, that an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.anon , April 17, 2017 at 5:57 am GMTI also believe that Russia's strategists and state-level actors have come to the same conclusion regarding America's designs. This is the strategic situation that Russia is up against, and this is why Russia has wisely prepared itself to fight a defensive war of astonishing proportions. And for the sake of the human race, for the peace of men of good will everywhere, I would advise Russia that when dealing with a cranky, feeble, delusional, and senile Uncle Sam, it is not possible to be too paranoid. You will not be up against a rational actor if and when this war breaks out. Whatever zany, desperate, and counterproductive gambits you can imagine the USA making, they will not be worse than what these people are capable of.
As an American myself, I would have liked to have been a patriot. If my country must go to war, I would have liked to be on my country's side. But the bitter truth is that my government is something the world would be better off without. Russia has the moral high ground in this conflict. Hopefully that, and the strength of its arms, will be enough.
The great tragedy of the 20th century was that all the wrong people won the major wars. Whether it was Chiang Kai-shek in China or Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, or the Kaiser and the House of Hapsburg before them, the real heroes, the ones who were however ineffectively and confusedly on the side of Right, suffered defeat at the hands of the evil imperialists. We cannot allow that to happen again. I know who I will be supporting if it comes to war.
Long live king and country. God bless the patriots, wherever they be. Hail victory.
• Agree: Amanda , bluedog , Seamus Padraig •• 100 Words "The US lacks a coherent defensive military doctrine"..Art , April 17, 2017 at 7:30 am GMTWhich is hardly surprising since its only two bordering countries are very weak and zero military threat. It is also moated by two huge oceans. The USA could spend virtually nothing on its military and (with a sound immigration policy and secure borders) be perfectly safe. But the American political establishment are not content with this. They seek hegemony. It all started with Woodrow Wilson who refused to mind his business and stay out of war in 1917.
• Agree: Randal •• 100 Words Russia said it was going to bolster Syria's air defenses.animalogic , April 17, 2017 at 7:48 am GMTIf true – what does this mean for Israeli air power over Syria and Lebanon?
Hezbollah has shown, even with its air force behind it that the IDF is a paper tiger.
Without its air forces at 100%, Israel is very vulnerable. A war would be very costly. Many Jews want to leave Israel as it is now.
Peace - Art
•• 100 Words The US – with its NATO dogs contributing their yaps – has driven Russia & China into an economic & strategic partnership. Such a foreign policy must rate in the top ten of historical blunders. Essentially they have given a very helpful shove towards Eurasian unity - not yet, but forseeable, perhaps probable.Z-man , April 17, 2017 at 9:27 am GMT
Russia & China's continuing military advances are just one side of a coin: economic integration & advance is the other.
If or when the US loses this struggle it need look no futher than classic Greek tragedy for the first causes of its decline: HUBRIS. Reply More... This Commenter Display All Comments
Hey 'Neocon Cabal' is my phrase!!!!! (wink)mp , April 17, 2017 at 9:52 am GMT
The S400 is a great example of Russian simplicity that scares the Americans and the Jews to death. I hope the Iranians get as many of those SAM's as they need to defend against the Zionist threat! •• 100 Words It is one thing to let a woman "man" a game console in order to fire a missile, or pilot a killer drone, hundreds (or even thousands) of miles away from the action. But it's another when "boots" hit the ground. I wonder how effective our Americanized, feminized, transgendered, gay friendly, diversified Army and Navy will be when they actually have to storm a beach, somewhere, against a real army–and not some third world outpost. •Verymuchalive , April 17, 2017 at 9:57 am GMT• 200 Words This is a situation that should never have permitted to arise. The US Federal Deficit is approaching $20 trillion, 2016′s Trade Deficit is $0.5 trillion and the Accumulated Trade Deficit over the last 30 years about $10 trillion. The US is to all intents bankrupt, and bankrupt states quickly lose their empires.reiner Tor , • Website April 17, 2017 at 9:58 am GMT
Of course, America's creditors – China, Japan etc – have rigged the financial sector so that America is still able to afford their goods. Herein, lies the solution. The US dollar is a fiat currency and will collapse sooner or later. It is in Russia and China's interests that they precipitate such a collapse ASAP, even if they themselves suffer negative economic consequences.
Faced with an imploding economy, and a choice between minimum social welfare measures and a grotesquely expansive military, there can only be one outcome for America. The Neocons will be defanged.
This form of economic warfare has got to be a lot safer and more effective in achieving its aims than actual warfare. I sincerely hope that the Russians and Chinese have some such plan formulated.
The era of military confrontation should have been over with the end of the Soviet Union. The Neocons have stolen the Peace, and helped themselves to the Peace Dividend. Reply More... This Commenter Display All Comments
I think that while it's a grave mistake for Americans to underestimate Russians, it's also a grave mistake for Russians to underestimate Americans.LondonBob , April 17, 2017 at 10:09 am GMTSince I cannot claim to be an expert in military technology, I always read such articles with great interest, but never know with how much grain of salt I need to take them – none? a little? a lot? a whole salt mine?
•• 100 Words Trump's isolationism and embrace of realpolitik is just a recognition of realities, interestingly this is a viewpoint shared in many European capitals, despite their fulminating over Trump. If Trump isn't co-opted he deserves congratulations for stymieing the traditional imperial overstretch, that is unless recent events in Syria and the Ukraine, perhaps analogous to the Boer War, don't already represent the high points of US power before inevitable decline. Avoiding a WWI type general conflagration will be achievement enough.Anatoly Karlin , • Website April 17, 2017 at 10:28 am GMTWe are both supposed to deride and fear Russia, both can't be true.
•• 400 WordsNEW! Excellent article – and congratulations on your first article here.NoseytheDuke, April 17, 2017 at 11:06 am GMTAgree with the general argument here, having said similar things in some of my articles .
* GDP (PPP) being much more relevant for military comparisons than nominal GDP, let alone stockmarket capitalizations.
* The Russian military technological gap being smaller than what the Western media tends to posit.
* The US having predominance in Syria and MENA generally, but with Russia having the capability to successfully respond horizontally in areas where it has the advantage (in Ukraine or even the Baltics).
* The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit. I think it was Moltke the Younger who said that given a couple of more years Germany would find it much more difficult to fight the Russian Army. That happened to be the date when Russia's military reforms should have come to fruition.
* You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs.More skeptical about:
* " but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can " – Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment.
•
* "The same argumentation goes for Russia's microelectronics industry with the exception of US and China, and then on bulk, not quality, only." Russia is a consistent 5-10 years behind in semiconductor process technology (only recently began to produce 28nm, whereas state of the art is now 10nm).
* It's lagging in the most "futuristic" aspects. It had a huge lag in drones, though it has made that up somewhat with purchases from Israel. Railguns, and associated naval EM systems. In robotics, Boston Dynamics has far more impressive exponents than anything Russia has publicly demonstrated. To be sure this is all pretty irrelevant right now and most likely in 10 years, but not in 20-30 years time.Having read many, many of SmoothieX12′s knowledgable comments and now this article, I would imagine that his many critics have enough egg on their faces to have their eggs any way they want them, except sunny side up of course.AP , April 17, 2017 at 12:06 pm GMTNobody should be surprised by the revelations here nor should they feel disheartened. It is doubtful that Russia has any plans or even thoughts to ever invade or harm the US. The upside could be that the Neocons and the AIPAC crowd might become so disempowered that they will be finally held to account for their many crimes and that would be good for everyone.
@Anonymous Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.Randal , April 17, 2017 at 12:22 pm GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Goods and services in Russia are considerably less expensive than in the West (and this includes the cost of producing fighter jets or rockets), so for such purposes GDP PPP is a better indicator than is nominal GDP. In terms of GDP PPP, Russia is of course not on par with the United States but is considerably higher than Mexico. It is in the same neighborhood as places such as Hungary.
Russia's overall GDP PPP places it slightly below Germany – 6th place in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
@anon "The US lacks a coherent defensive military doctrine"..Lewl42, April 17, 2017 at 12:31 pm GMTWhich is hardly surprising since its only two bordering countries are very weak and zero military threat. It is also moated by two huge oceans. The USA could spend virtually nothing on its military and (with a sound immigration policy and secure borders) be perfectly safe. But the American political establishment are not content with this. They seek hegemony. It all started with Woodrow Wilson who refused to mind his business and stay out of war in 1917. I agreed with the main thrust of your comment, but I would just note that I don't agree with the last sentence:
It all started with Woodrow Wilson who refused to mind his business and stay out of war in 1917.
The essence of the US was always expansion by military and other means, from its settler colonial origins and the Manifest Destiny to the expansionist wars against Mexico and Spain, the Monroe Doctrine, and colonial expansions into Hawaii, the Philippines and central America, all before Wilson, who admittedly took the opportunity handed to him by the self-destructive warring of the European powers to go for the big one.
It's just the nature of the beast.
@Anonymous Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.reiner Tor, Website April 17, 2017 at 12:33 pm GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Russia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita.
But the US GDP is of an different structure. Compared it is overblown with pure financial sales and "hedonistic adjustments". More is blown by the culture. In the US much more everyday things relies on money. In case of case they are all worth nothing. Furthermore, if it comes to conflicts than the whole US Infrastructure has to be "revalued", and i doubt that it can withheld some stress tests.
If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke
No country that relies on oil ( Russia do not) has made substantial improvements. Normally they are problem states where the problems made by oil are solved by money.
So from my point of view the opposite is true. Russia has made the big mistake to open itself to the west and was bitten. Now they readjust (with a border to china). Thank's to the US Oligarchs which thrown away that chance for they're primitive Neanderthal tribe thinking.
@mp It is one thing to let a woman "man" a game console in order to fire a missile, or pilot a killer drone, hundreds (or even thousands) of miles away from the action. But it's another when "boots" hit the ground. I wonder how effective our Americanized, feminized, transgendered, gay friendly, diversified Army and Navy will be when they actually have to storm a beach, somewhere, against a real army--and not some third world outpost. Don't worry, when the going gets tough, suddenly the US military will only send straight white men to die for LGBT and black "equality". •alexander, April 17, 2017 at 12:36 pm GMTThank you Mr Martyanov, for a highly informative article.Erebus, April 17, 2017 at 12:39 pm GMTI am always amazed at the "euphemisms" of our "belligerent war" era, and how they affix themselves, and have affixed themselves, to our mendacious and deceitful behavior.
Take the idea of a "surge", as was used during the Iraq disaster, as a substitute for the word "escalation" because nobody was comfortable with "escalating the war" once the imminent WMD threat had proven to be phony .so our belligerent elites substituted the word "surge" to ram through funding for the escalation.
Or lets look at the "euphemisms" of "pre-emptive war" or "preventive war". Do they not function as substitutes for what is , in reality, the greatest crime any nation on earth can commit "War of Aggression"?
There are other areas too, where we need to take a long, hard look a this " parade of euphemisms" which is constantly inserting itself into the hearts and minds of our citizens .
For example, lets take a look at the word "propaganda", which is a word that, for the most part, stands on its own ,yet, for arguments sake, does it not function as a "euphemism",( in our ongoing global belligerence) for FRAUD ?
As we think about these assorted "euphemistic realities" set upon us in our tragic age..we understand the acute distinction between defining something as "war propaganda" versus "WAR FRAUD".
"War propaganda", however desultory a term, is understood as a legitimate tool within the toolbox of belligerence whereas WAR FRAUD is implicitly understood as a CRIME..which is in need of punishment.
Have not our euphemistic manipulations , like "preemptive war", or "preventive war",overwhelmed the integrity of our national discourse, and paved the way for heinous murderous behavior which would normally not be tolerated ?,
Is not their primary purpose to insulate us from our own awareness of the CRIMES we have committed , and will continue to commit ?.
What a blessing it will be for the whole wide world, once we end this " charade of euphemisms" and start calling things what they truly are.
Yes, thank you for an excellent summation of the situation.reiner Tor, Website April 17, 2017 at 12:42 pm GMTThe owners of the US face an Either/Or moment. Either they abandon their ambitions of Global Hegemony, and retreat to attempt to rule over N. America (with some residual dreams of ruling C. & S. America to sweeten the pot) or they go for broke.
Unlike Dasein, I have no doubt that any dreams of Global Hegemony will come crashing to ground if any sort of a war breaks out. Putin has made it perfectly plain. Russia will never allow itself to be invaded again. That means something, and what it means is that Russia will take the fight to the enemy when it sees its red lines crossed.
The continental US can be thrown into socio-political-economic collapse with 3 dozen Kalibrs aimed at critical nodes in the national electrical grid. With no prospect of electricity being revived, the now largely urban population would find itself instantly transported to 1900 with none of the skills and infrastructure that kept a pre-electrified rural society fed and secure. If the subs and/or TU-160s are in place, that's 45-90 minutes without a single nuke fired.
No mushroom clouds or devastated cities, yet, but the Either/Or moment will become acute indeed. One can hope that we'll be rejoicing that America's owners follow their internationalistic instincts when that moment has passed.
@Anatoly Karlin Excellent article - and congratulations on your first article here.AP, April 17, 2017 at 12:50 pm GMTAgree with the general argument here, having said similar things in some of my articles .
* GDP (PPP) being much more relevant for military comparisons than nominal GDP, let alone stockmarket capitalizations.
* The Russian military technological gap being smaller than what the Western media tends to posit.
* The US having predominance in Syria and MENA generally, but with Russia having the capability to successfully respond horizontally in areas where it has the advantage (in Ukraine or even the Baltics).
* The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit. I think it was Moltke the Younger who said that given a couple of more years Germany would find it much more difficult to fight the Russian Army. That happened to be the date when Russia's military reforms should have come to fruition.
* You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs.More skeptical about:
* " but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can " - Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment.
* "The same argumentation goes for Russia's microelectronics industry ... with the exception of US and China, and then on bulk, not quality, only." Russia is a consistent 5-10 years behind in semiconductor process technology (only recently began to produce 28nm, whereas state of the art is now 10nm).
* It's lagging in the most "futuristic" aspects. It had a huge lag in drones, though it has made that up somewhat with purchases from Israel. Railguns, and associated naval EM systems. In robotics, Boston Dynamics has far more impressive exponents than anything Russia has publicly demonstrated. To be sure this is all pretty irrelevant right now and most likely in 10 years, but not in 20-30 years time.
The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit.
Czar Nicholas II could've simply told the Serbs to comply with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. Actually, that was the first reaction of Russian government circles (harboring terrorists was not looked upon very nicely in Russia where the grandfather of the Czar was murdered by similar terrorists), but then they changed their minds.
In any event, WW1 was a blunder for almost all involved – all countries that participated could've easily stayed out, and with a few exceptions (perhaps Romania and Japan? maybe even China?) none had any significant benefits relative to the enormous costs. Not even the US.
@Anatoly Karlin Excellent article - and congratulations on your first article here.iffen, April 17, 2017 at 1:07 pm GMTAgree with the general argument here, having said similar things in some of my articles .
* GDP (PPP) being much more relevant for military comparisons than nominal GDP, let alone stockmarket capitalizations.
* The Russian military technological gap being smaller than what the Western media tends to posit.
* The US having predominance in Syria and MENA generally, but with Russia having the capability to successfully respond horizontally in areas where it has the advantage (in Ukraine or even the Baltics).
* The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit. I think it was Moltke the Younger who said that given a couple of more years Germany would find it much more difficult to fight the Russian Army. That happened to be the date when Russia's military reforms should have come to fruition.
* You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs.More skeptical about:
* " but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can " - Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment.
* "The same argumentation goes for Russia's microelectronics industry ... with the exception of US and China, and then on bulk, not quality, only." Russia is a consistent 5-10 years behind in semiconductor process technology (only recently began to produce 28nm, whereas state of the art is now 10nm).
* It's lagging in the most "futuristic" aspects. It had a huge lag in drones, though it has made that up somewhat with purchases from Israel. Railguns, and associated naval EM systems. In robotics, Boston Dynamics has far more impressive exponents than anything Russia has publicly demonstrated. To be sure this is all pretty irrelevant right now and most likely in 10 years, but not in 20-30 years time. I generally agree both with Andrei's article and with your responses. But –You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs
Or Russian, on the basis of performance in fighting Georgians or Arabs in Syria. Neither side has really been tested, but a real test would reflect some sort of disaster. US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
"but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can" – Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment
But how long would it take? I suspect, at least two decades.
This is an interesting and informative article.Andrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 1:14 pm GMTCan you give us your opinion of the F-35 program and to a lesser extent the LCS program? I have no doubt that we get good and reliable information in the US, but just in case, a different perspective on whether the projected capabilities are actually being met by the weapons would be nice to consider.
reiner Tor, • Website April 17, 2017 at 1:18 pm GMT@Anatoly Karlin Excellent article - and congratulations on your first article here.
Agree with the general argument here, having said similar things in some of my articles .
* GDP (PPP) being much more relevant for military comparisons than nominal GDP, let alone stockmarket capitalizations.
* The Russian military technological gap being smaller than what the Western media tends to posit.
* The US having predominance in Syria and MENA generally, but with Russia having the capability to successfully respond horizontally in areas where it has the advantage (in Ukraine or even the Baltics).
* The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit. I think it was Moltke the Younger who said that given a couple of more years Germany would find it much more difficult to fight the Russian Army. That happened to be the date when Russia's military reforms should have come to fruition.
* You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs.More skeptical about:
* " but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can " - Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment.
* "The same argumentation goes for Russia's microelectronics industry ... with the exception of US and China, and then on bulk, not quality, only." Russia is a consistent 5-10 years behind in semiconductor process technology (only recently began to produce 28nm, whereas state of the art is now 10nm).
* It's lagging in the most "futuristic" aspects. It had a huge lag in drones, though it has made that up somewhat with purchases from Israel. Railguns, and associated naval EM systems. In robotics, Boston Dynamics has far more impressive exponents than anything Russia has publicly demonstrated. To be sure this is all pretty irrelevant right now and most likely in 10 years, but not in 20-30 years time.Excellent article – and congratulations on your first article here.
Thank you.
Russia is a consistent 5-10 years behind in semiconductor process technology (only recently began to produce 28nm, whereas state of the art is now 10nm).
Processing power in military applications is less dependent on 10 or 28 nm, than on mathematics and algorithms. Both architectures are more than sufficient for the whole spectrum of military tasks, be it signal processing or developing firing solutions.
I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment.
Apples and oranges. Producing a state-of-the-art nuclear sub is on the order of magnitude more complex task than producing even a very good SSK. China now produces very good AIP SSKs of 039A type, she still is not capable to produce a nuke with at least third generation characteristics.
Railguns, and associated naval EM systems
Absolutely useless, other than to impress journalists, in combat paradigm where hyper-sonic missiles with ranges of 1000 kilometers begin to rule the day. I think 3M22 Zircon reaching Mach=8 this weekend on trials is by far more impressive and influential on the tactical and even political level than any rail-gun. Zircon is a change in combat paradigm of such a scale that it is even difficult to completely grasp it at this stage. I may elaborate on it in depth at some point of time.
@AP I generally agree both with Andrei's article and with your responses. But -Avery, April 17, 2017 at 1:24 pm GMTYou can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting ArabsOr Russian, on the basis of performance in fighting Georgians or Arabs in Syria. Neither side has really been tested, but a real test would reflect some sort of disaster. US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey."but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can" – Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investmentBut how long would it take? I suspect, at least two decades.US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
I think Turkey's military is stronger than either Iran's or North Korea's, so it would be a tougher test for Russia to fight Turkey than for the US to fight North Korea or Iran.
@reiner Tor Don't worry, when the going gets tough, suddenly the US military will only send straight white men to die for LGBT and black "equality". { suddenly the US military will only send straight white men to die .}Carlton Meyer, • Website April 17, 2017 at 1:28 pm GMTWhat happens IF straight white men refuse to go and die?
[Stunning Evidence that the Left Has Won its War on White Males]
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/03/stunning_evidence_that_the_left_has_won_its_war_on_white_males__comments.html
{White males, in large numbers, are simply losing their will to live, and as a result, they are dying so prematurely and in such large numbers that a startling demographic gap has emerged. It is not just the "opioid epidemic" that is killing off white working class males, it is a spiritual crisis, and Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have the numbers to sustain this conclusion.}
@Anonymous Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.Andrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 1:45 pm GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Over the years, the Pentagon encouraged Congress to move parts of national security spending out of its budget to the extent that almost half is found outside the DOD. The USA really spends over a trillion dollars a year. For example, nuclear weapons research, testing, procurement, and maintenance is found in the Dept of Energy budget.
And as others have noted, GDP is a measure of activity, not prosperity. For example, mortgage refinancing creates lots of GDP, but no real wealth. Hurricanes and arson are good for GDP too!
@Z-man Hey 'Neocon Cabal' is my phrase!!!!! (wink)Randal , April 17, 2017 at 1:48 pm GMT
The S400 is a great example of Russian simplicity that scares the Americans and the Jews to death. I hope the Iranians get as many of those SAM's as they need to defend against the Zionist threat!The S400 is a great example of Russian simplicity
It is a very complex weapon system, whose actual combat potential is highly classified. From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities". Latest modifications of S-300 seem almost tame in comparison and S-300 (PMU, Favorit) is a superb complex. Once S-500 comes online, well–it is a different game altogether from there.
An excellent and very useful piece, thanks, even if I don't agree with all of it. Certainly many good and important points are made. I would share most of Anatoly Karlin's points above, both in terms of points of agreement and disagreement.mushroom, April 17, 2017 at 2:02 pm GMTBut when it comes down to the big picture, I think focussing on technologies and doctrines and even crystallised military capabilities is a mistake if you are trying to see long term trends. Such things come and go, and are always in any event shrouded in uncertainty and ignorance. Nobody except a very few (and they aren't talking) really knows what our own side has, and even they don't really know what the other side has, and neither side really knows how their own systems will perform, or how each side's systems will interact in the crucible of war.
If we are going to speculate about medium term power trends, then we need to look at the underlying basics, which for military power are economic strength (for which the best, albeit imperfect, measure we have is gdp using ppp) and population. Here are the relevant figures:
Share of world gdp, ppp:
US
2020 14.878%
2015 15.809%
2010 16.846%
2000 20.76%China
2020 19.351%
2015 17.082%
2010 13.822%
2000 7.389%Russia
2020 2.836%
2015 3.275%
2010 3.641%
2000 3.294%Source IMF per economywatch.com
Population (2017):
China: 1,388,232,693
US: 326,474,013
Russia: 143,375,006
These are the basic sinews of world power, at least as far as fully developed countries are concerned (which Russia and the US certainly are, and China nowadays largely is).
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales. That is why China's military capabilities are so far behind their current economic status. It is also why it is all but certain that China's relative military strength will continue to increase dramatically, relative to all rivals, for decades to come.
To compare with past world power levels, when the US dominated and the Soviet Union was its rival in the mid-C20th (1950), the US accounted for 27.3% of world gdp, and the Soviet Union had around a third of that, with Britain in third place. In 1913 just before the European powers and Britain committed their suicide by world war, the US accounted for 18.9% of world gdp, with the British Empire just behind and Germany and Russia on about half as much each, but the US was in the position of China today with its relative military power lagging behind its growing economic strength (in 1870 the US share of world gdp had been less than half that of the British Empire).
The trend of the past decades has been for a steady decline of the US's share of world gdp from its 1950 peak of 27% to only 16% today. There's no reason to expect that trend to halt, so it is just a matter of time before the military balance shifts. In the past, this would likely have been uncovered by a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of a rising power, and that might yet happen, but we now live in the dubious shade of the nuclear peace and so things might be different.
The figures however make it perfectly clear that the only plausible peer rival to the US in the medium term is China, and not Russia, regardless of current military capabilities.
When folks discuss Russia's capabilities they often forget what's blatantly obvious – which is what's not obvious, i.e. what the bear has created and is in it's hidden caves. What happened to that U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea was just a teasing mini-harbinger of this reality!5371, April 17, 2017 at 2:42 pm GMTSo is the genius to create a cavity to eavesdrop, &c If you want to enjoy happy days don't mess with the bear!
@Anonymous Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.anon , April 17, 2017 at 2:45 pm GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Stupid beyond belief. Countries can't go broke doing something, if they control the natural and human resources they need to accomplish it. In addition, you apparently did not read Smoothie's explanation of why just comparing the sums spent is silly. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@Randal I agreed with the main thrust of your comment, but I would just note that I don't agree with the last sentence:5371 , April 17, 2017 at 2:45 pm GMTThe essence of the US was always expansion by military and other means, from its settler colonial origins and the Manifest Destiny to the expansionist wars against Mexico and Spain, the Monroe Doctrine, and colonial expansions into Hawaii, the Philippines and central America, all before Wilson, who admittedly took the opportunity handed to him by the self-destructive warring of the European powers to go for the big one.It all started with Woodrow Wilson who refused to mind his business and stay out of war in 1917.
It's just the nature of the beast. Yes but up until 1898 – the war against Spain – the US actually got something out of its wars. Wars with countries BEYOND the Americas have gained nothing for America. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@reiner TorAgent76 , April 17, 2017 at 2:46 pm GMTI think Turkey's military is stronger than either Iran's or North Korea's, so it would be a tougher test for Russia to fight Turkey than for the US to fight North Korea or Iran. Turkey's military has a decent reputation, but I'm not sure that the reputation corresponds with reality any longer. •
US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
• 100 Words March 19, 2017 Putin Prepares For Invasion of Europe With Massive Cuts to Military SpendingANOSPH , April 17, 2017 at 2:47 pm GMTRussia announces "deepest defense budget cuts since 1990s". Putin must be stopped before it's too late. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity. Long gone are the days of wasteful military expenditures and no-bid contracts to build airplanes and aircraft carriers that neither fly nor float.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46686.htm
Aug 8, 2016 "I want to scare Assad" Mike Morell on Charlie Rose
Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, discusses the need to put pressure on Syria and Russia. The full conversation airs on PBS on August 8th, 2016.
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@Andrei Martyanovanon , April 17, 2017 at 2:51 pm GMTIt is a very complex weapon system, whose actual combat potential is highly classified. From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities". Latest modifications of S-300 seem almost tame in comparison and S-300 (PMU, Favorit) is a superb complex. Once S-500 comes online, well--it is a different game altogether from there. Excellent article. I look forward to many more from you.
The S400 is a great example of Russian simplicity
Re: the S400, for those interested, TASS developed an excellent and visually appealing overview on the system in Russian:
Just keep scrolling down.
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@reiner Tor5371 , April 17, 2017 at 2:55 pm GMTI think Turkey's military is stronger than either Iran's or North Korea's, so it would be a tougher test for Russia to fight Turkey than for the US to fight North Korea or Iran. The real point is that Russia and Turkey are almost neighbors while N.K. is about 8,000 miles from the US. In other words the US could ignore Korea. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
• 100 Words @reiner Toranon , April 17, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMTCzar Nicholas II could've simply told the Serbs to comply with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. Actually, that was the first reaction of Russian government circles (harboring terrorists was not looked upon very nicely in Russia where the grandfather of the Czar was murdered by similar terrorists), but then they changed their minds.
The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit.
In any event, WW1 was a blunder for almost all involved - all countries that participated could've easily stayed out, and with a few exceptions (perhaps Romania and Japan? maybe even China?) none had any significant benefits relative to the enormous costs. Not even the US.
Neither France nor Germany could have stayed out once Russia was in, but then both of them had given their respective allies every encouragement to bring matters to a head. The French had a great increase in self-confidence just in the last two or three years. You are right that Serbia didn't even decide to reject the ultimatum until they heard Russia was already going ahead with pre-mobilisation. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@reiner Tor Don't worry, when the going gets tough, suddenly the US military will only send straight white men to die for LGBT and black "equality". Hopefully at least some of those straight white males will know better. Hopefully.Hunsdon , April 17, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMTThen again people often act contrary to their best interests.
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Thank you, sir. Great article. Reply More... This Commenter Display All CommentsAndrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 3:02 pm GMT
• 300 WordsNEW! @Randal An excellent and very useful piece, thanks, even if I don't agree with all of it. Certainly many good and important points are made. I would share most of Anatoly Karlin's points above, both in terms of points of agreement and disagreement.anon , April 17, 2017 at 3:10 pm GMTBut when it comes down to the big picture, I think focussing on technologies and doctrines and even crystallised military capabilities is a mistake if you are trying to see long term trends. Such things come and go, and are always in any event shrouded in uncertainty and ignorance. Nobody except a very few (and they aren't talking) really knows what our own side has, and even they don't really know what the other side has, and neither side really knows how their own systems will perform, or how each side's systems will interact in the crucible of war.
If we are going to speculate about medium term power trends, then we need to look at the underlying basics, which for military power are economic strength (for which the best, albeit imperfect, measure we have is gdp using ppp) and population. Here are the relevant figures:
Share of world gdp, ppp:
US
2020 14.878%
2015 15.809%
2010 16.846%
2000 20.76%China
2020 19.351%
2015 17.082%
2010 13.822%
2000 7.389%
Russia
2020 2.836%
2015 3.275%
2010 3.641%
2000 3.294%Source IMF per economywatch.com
Population (2017):
China: 1,388,232,693
US: 326,474,013
Russia: 143,375,006
These are the basic sinews of world power, at least as far as fully developed countries are concerned (which Russia and the US certainly are, and China nowadays largely is).
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales. That is why China's military capabilities are so far behind their current economic status. It is also why it is all but certain that China's relative military strength will continue to increase dramatically, relative to all rivals, for decades to come.
To compare with past world power levels, when the US dominated and the Soviet Union was its rival in the mid-C20th (1950), the US accounted for 27.3% of world gdp, and the Soviet Union had around a third of that, with Britain in third place. In 1913 just before the European powers and Britain committed their suicide by world war, the US accounted for 18.9% of world gdp, with the British Empire just behind and Germany and Russia on about half as much each, but the US was in the position of China today with its relative military power lagging behind its growing economic strength (in 1870 the US share of world gdp had been less than half that of the British Empire).
The trend of the past decades has been for a steady decline of the US's share of world gdp from its 1950 peak of 27% to only 16% today. There's no reason to expect that trend to halt, so it is just a matter of time before the military balance shifts. In the past, this would likely have been uncovered by a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of a rising power, and that might yet happen, but we now live in the dubious shade of the nuclear peace and so things might be different.
The figures however make it perfectly clear that the only plausible peer rival to the US in the medium term is China, and not Russia, regardless of current military capabilities.
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales.
Russia is a very special case here–this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about, even when they have almost unrestricted access to sources. The way US "missed" Russia's military transformation which started in earnest in 2008 and completed its first phase by 2012 (4 years, you are talking about decades) is nothing short of astonishing. Combination of ignorance, hubris and downright stupidity are responsible for all that.
P.S. No serious analyst takes US GDP as 18 trillion dollars seriously. A huge part of it is a creative bookkeeping and most of it is financial and service sector. Out of very few good things Vitaly Shlykov left after himself was his "The General Staff And Economics", which addressed the issue of actual US military-industrial potential. Then come strategic, operational and technological dimensions. You want to see operational dimension–look no further than Mosul which is still, after 6 months, being "liberated". Comparisons to Aleppo are not only warranted but irresistible. In general, overall power of the state (nation) is not only in its "economic" indices. I use Barnett's definition of national power constantly, remarkably Lavrov's recent speech in the General Staff Academy uses virtually identical definition.
•• 200 Words @reiner TorTG , April 17, 2017 at 3:10 pm GMTCzar Nicholas II could've simply told the Serbs to comply with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. Actually, that was the first reaction of Russian government circles (harboring terrorists was not looked upon very nicely in Russia where the grandfather of the Czar was murdered by similar terrorists), but then they changed their minds.
The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit.
In any event, WW1 was a blunder for almost all involved - all countries that participated could've easily stayed out, and with a few exceptions (perhaps Romania and Japan? maybe even China?) none had any significant benefits relative to the enormous costs. Not even the US.
That is a point I have often tried to make. Had the Tsar just told the Serbs flat out, "You guys are on your own. Comply. Or fight the Central Powers by yourself. We are out of it.",' there would never have been a 'Great' war (WW1). At most the 'war' would have been a minor brawl between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. History would have recorded it as just another Balkan skirmish. It would have been virtually forgotten today. This was the initial assumption of the Kaiser when he issued his 'blank check' of support. The Tsar would have saved millions of lives, including his own and his family too. Just nine years earlier the Tsar had fought and lost a disastrous war with Japan. That defeat led to a revolution that came within a hair of deposing him. He SHOULD have learned his lesson and avoided any future conflict like the plague. Tsar Nicolas was an incredibly stupid man. He deserves far more vilification then the Kaiser does. •• 300 Words An interesting article. A few random thoughts.Anonymouse , April 17, 2017 at 3:12 pm GMT1. "Preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death" – Otto von Bismarck.
2. In general I agree and wish that the United States military would be more defensive and waste fewer resources attacking irrelevant nations on the other side of the world. But. It is nevertheless true that "defensive" Russia has been invaded and devastated multiple times, and the United States has not. Perhaps creating chaos on the other side of the world is long-term not quite so ineffective as sitting around waiting for an attack?
3. The American elites are simply corrupt and insane/don't care about the long-term. At every level – companies taking out massive loans to buy back their stock to boost CEO bonuses, loading up college students with massive unpayable debt so that university administrators can get paid like CEOs, drug prices going through the roof, etc.etc. Military costs will never be as efficient as civilian, war is expensive, but the US has gotten to the point where there is no financial accountability, it's all about the right people grabbing as much money as possible. To make more money you just add another zero at the end of the price tag. At some point the costs will become so inflated and divorced from reality that we will be unable to afford anything And the right people will take their loot and move to New Zealand and wring their hands at how the lazy Americans were not worthy of their brilliant leadership
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@Art Russia said it was going to bolster Syria's air defenses.Vendetta , April 17, 2017 at 3:16 pm GMTIf true – what does this mean for Israeli air power over Syria and Lebanon?
Hezbollah has shown, even with its air force behind it that the IDF is a paper tiger.
Without its air forces at 100%, Israel is very vulnerable. A war would be very costly. Many Jews want to leave Israel as it is now.
Peace --- Art You're gloating, Art. Many jews have been leaving Israel for many years for fear of their personal safety. Others remain. Gloating this way reflects a mean spirit. •
• 200 Words @reiner Tor5371 , April 17, 2017 at 3:18 pm GMTCzar Nicholas II could've simply told the Serbs to comply with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. Actually, that was the first reaction of Russian government circles (harboring terrorists was not looked upon very nicely in Russia where the grandfather of the Czar was murdered by similar terrorists), but then they changed their minds.
The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit.
In any event, WW1 was a blunder for almost all involved - all countries that participated could've easily stayed out, and with a few exceptions (perhaps Romania and Japan? maybe even China?) none had any significant benefits relative to the enormous costs. Not even the US.
Japan was certainly the greatest beneficiary of the war in economic terms. Their exports ended up tripling to fuel the demand of the wartime European economies and especially to fill in the gap for consumer goods in the East Asian markets whose normal suppliers had redirected their production for the war effort. Shipbuilding in Japan also boomed as a result of wartime demands. Pre-WWI Japan was still importing most of its major warships from Britain; post-WWI Japan was building them all on its own.Romania gained a lot in territory but its doubtful whether these gains were worth it in terms of the lives they cost.
The United States certainly gained in terms of geopolitical power, but that was largely due to the same wartime economic circumstances that had benefited Japan, with the addition of supplanting Britain as the world's leading financial power. These gains, however, would have been won whether or not we'd sent 100,000 of our own to die in France, so their lives ultimately amounted to little more than a sacrifice to Woodrow Wilson's egomaniacal dreams of reshaping the world order into a utopia.
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• 100 Words @Anatoly Karlin Excellent article - and congratulations on your first article here.DannyMarcus , April 17, 2017 at 3:19 pm GMTAgree with the general argument here, having said similar things in some of my articles .
* GDP (PPP) being much more relevant for military comparisons than nominal GDP, let alone stockmarket capitalizations.
* The Russian military technological gap being smaller than what the Western media tends to posit.
* The US having predominance in Syria and MENA generally, but with Russia having the capability to successfully respond horizontally in areas where it has the advantage (in Ukraine or even the Baltics).
* The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit. I think it was Moltke the Younger who said that given a couple of more years Germany would find it much more difficult to fight the Russian Army. That happened to be the date when Russia's military reforms should have come to fruition.
* You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs.More skeptical about:
* " but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can " - Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment.
* "The same argumentation goes for Russia's microelectronics industry ... with the exception of US and China, and then on bulk, not quality, only." Russia is a consistent 5-10 years behind in semiconductor process technology (only recently began to produce 28nm, whereas state of the art is now 10nm).
* It's lagging in the most "futuristic" aspects. It had a huge lag in drones, though it has made that up somewhat with purchases from Israel. Railguns, and associated naval EM systems. In robotics, Boston Dynamics has far more impressive exponents than anything Russia has publicly demonstrated. To be sure this is all pretty irrelevant right now and most likely in 10 years, but not in 20-30 years time. WW1, unlike Barbarossa, didn't start with a German attack on Russia, although in each case the argument was made by some (stronger in retrospective for 1941 than 1914) that Russia would be too strong to take on in a couple of years. The difference is that a number of factors – the ideological conflict, the success of "blitzkrieg", the weak Soviet performance at the start of the Finnish war – created an illusory hope of easy victory for the Germans along with the fear of later defeat. That tipped the balance in favour of attack.
As I understand it, the claimed regular progress to smaller and smaller chip feature sizes has for some time been a matter of marketing, not reality. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 200 Words @Intelligent Dasein I've come to the conclusion that it is the probable consensus among America's Deep State elites, as exemplified by the truly evil Hillary Clinton, that an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.Randal , April 17, 2017 at 3:25 pm GMTI also believe that Russia's strategists and state-level actors have come to the same conclusion regarding America's designs. This is the strategic situation that Russia is up against, and this is why Russia has wisely prepared itself to fight a defensive war of astonishing proportions. And for the sake of the human race, for the peace of men of good will everywhere, I would advise Russia that when dealing with a cranky, feeble, delusional, and senile Uncle Sam, it is not possible to be too paranoid. You will not be up against a rational actor if and when this war breaks out. Whatever zany, desperate, and counterproductive gambits you can imagine the USA making, they will not be worse than what these people are capable of.
As an American myself, I would have liked to have been a patriot. If my country must go to war, I would have liked to be on my country's side. But the bitter truth is that my government is something the world would be better off without. Russia has the moral high ground in this conflict. Hopefully that, and the strength of its arms, will be enough.
The great tragedy of the 20th century was that all the wrong people won the major wars. Whether it was Chiang Kai-shek in China or Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, or the Kaiser and the House of Hapsburg before them, the real heroes, the ones who were however ineffectively and confusedly on the side of Right, suffered defeat at the hands of the evil imperialists. We cannot allow that to happen again. I know who I will be supporting if it comes to war.
Long live king and country. God bless the patriots, wherever they be. Hail victory.
There is a very important and perhaps most decisive aspect of possible US war with Russia or China, which is completely missing in Andrei Martyanov piece and the related comments.
Don't you think European NATO countries, as well as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will loudly resist, when their very well-being and existences is utterly jeopardized by American ambitions for hegemony well beyond its shores?
I imagine and hope that well before a shooting war breaks out with Russia or China, US' present subservient allies will show enough courage to put the brakes on American designs long before any future global wars involving their vital interest is invoked.
The South Koreans, over 10 million of whom are living in Seoul, are most likely right now pressing the Trump Administration hard to avoid any foolhardy military adventures in North Korea.
The Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans and the Taiwanese are the best hope of stopping American adventurism because in the final analysis they will refuse to be the sheep marching willingly to the slaughterhouse of a WWIII. •• 200 Words @AP I generally agree both with Andrei's article and with your responses. But -gwynedd1 , April 17, 2017 at 3:30 pm GMTOr Russian, on the basis of performance in fighting Georgians or Arabs in Syria. Neither side has really been tested, but a real test would reflect some sort of disaster. US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
You can't say much about US (or Israeli) military effectiveness on the basis of their performance in fighting Arabs
But how long would it take? I suspect, at least two decades.
"but Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet, Russia can" – Russia spends 5% of its GDP on the military (esp. once adjusted for hidden spending), Germany just a bit more than 1%. If Germany was to effectively quadruple its real military spending, I have no doubt that the world's second most complex economy would be up to the task. I am sure it will also be able to build world-class nuclear subs (it already has excellent AIP ones) and a global positioning system with that kind of investment
US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
Russia would crush Turkey very quickly in a straight one on one conflict, though it would struggle to physically occupy it. The only reason Turkey would have any capability to resist at all is that Turkey has full US backing, both in terms of the NATO alliance and in terms of the military systems and capabilities it fields. Russia's capabilities, in contrast, are wholly indigenous. Individually, the two countries are not remotely in the same class, militarily.
Likewise for the US versus Iran or NK. The problem would likely not be in defeating the military forces themselves, but in occupying and holding ground longer term, and dealing with problems caused by horizontal escalation.
These are issues not really of military capabilities, but rather of national political will to apply those capabilities ruthlessly and to inflict and to take the losses required for total victory.
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The US is not worried about Russia. They were worried about the EU and Russia with economic links to China. Reply More... This Commenter Display All CommentsVendetta , April 17, 2017 at 3:34 pm GMT
• 200 Words @5371 Turkey's military has a decent reputation, but I'm not sure that the reputation corresponds with reality any longer. Their recent mishaps in Syria certainly cast some doubts on their formidable reputation. However I would hesitate to go so far as to say that Turkey has become a paper tiger.Anon , April 17, 2017 at 3:43 pm GMTI don't know if there's a more professional terminology for this, but I think there is a difference between what you might call weakness the surface level and weakness at the core.
The Winter War, for example, was a humiliating display of weakness from the Red Army – one which the Germans took (mistakenly) as a sign of weakness at the core.
America in the years before it became a permanently mobilized state was also prone to this sort of happening in the initial stages of its wars – see the rout at Kasserine Pass in World War II or the initial defeats it suffered to the North Koreans in 1950. The British made "our Italians" jokes after Kasserine, but these had a short shelf life as US performance picked up very quickly afterwards.
The state of the Turkish military right now seems more likely to be one of surface-level weakness (which would be tempered by exposure to battle) than of core-level weakness (which would be exacerbated by it).
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http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/this-cold-war-is-even-crazier-than-the-last/19689#.WPTiK9QrK4Q Reply More... This Commenter Display All CommentsAstuteobservor II , April 17, 2017 at 3:45 pm GMT
excellent first article on unz. looking forward to more. Reply More... This Commenter Display All Commentsinertial , April 17, 2017 at 3:54 pm GMT
• 100 Words A good informative article. Unfortunately it suffers from the typical poor understanding of the economic and financial realities.Ondrej , April 17, 2017 at 4:10 pm GMTNo, "Wall Street economic indices" are not meaningless. And you do have to care about the Russian stock market. Its small size relative to the economy is a cause for concern. In general, Russian financial system is too weak, too small and shallow for an economy of this size. This is not surprising, as it is very new. Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
Incidentally, Putin and his government seem to understand these things, even if many others don't.
• Agree: Kiza •• 100 Wordsreiner Tor , • Website April 17, 2017 at 4:55 pm GMTThe Winter War, for example, was a humiliating display of weakness from the Red Army – one which the Germans took (mistakenly) as a sign of weakness at the core.
Mannerheim (Finish Commander in Chief)
was stressing how fast Soviet Army learned from their experience, trying to counter claim H. Göring who claimed Winter War as biggest military bluf in history.Gen. Waldemar Erfuth
•
Wermacht Army Attache in Finish General Staff
from book: Fighting in Hell – German Ordeal on Eastern Front@OndrejOndrej , April 17, 2017 at 5:01 pm GMTMannerheim (Finish Commander in Chief)
The Winter War, for example, was a humiliating display of weakness from the Red Army – one which the Germans took (mistakenly) as a sign of weakness at the core.
was stressing how fast Soviet Army learned from their experience, trying to counter claim H. Göring who claimed Winter War as biggest military bluf in history.Gen. Waldemar Erfuth
Wermacht Army Attache in Finish General Staff
from book: Fighting in Hell - German Ordeal on Eastern FrontMannerheim (Finish Commander in Chief) was stressing how fast Soviet Army learned from their experience, trying to counter claim H. Göring who claimed Winter War as biggest military bluf in history.
When was it?
•• 100 Words @inertial A good informative article. Unfortunately it suffers from the typical poor understanding of the economic and financial realities.Ondrej , April 17, 2017 at 5:28 pm GMTNo, "Wall Street economic indices" are not meaningless. And you do have to care about the Russian stock market. Its small size relative to the economy is a cause for concern. In general, Russian financial system is too weak, too small and shallow for an economy of this size. This is not surprising, as it is very new. Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
Incidentally, Putin and his government seem to understand these things, even if many others don't.
No, "Wall Street economic indices" are not meaningless. And you do have to care about the Russian stock market.
Try to make following thought experiment, what would happen with SP100 financial valuation of shares GN a Lockheed in case of conflict and what would be impact on with Suchoi and MIG shares and how this would impact real economy instead of economics?
Luckily there is still plenty of people in Russian companies who were educated in economy instead of economics..
Incidentally, Putin and his government seem to understand these things, even if many others don't.
From seeing some discussions in Russian TV channels, I can say people in Russia are in fact disgusted with part of government still trying to apply Western type of economics..
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@reiner Torbluedog , April 17, 2017 at 5:36 pm GMTWhen was it? according to book 4. March 1943
Mannerheim (Finish Commander in Chief) was stressing how fast Soviet Army learned from their experience, trying to counter claim H. Göring who claimed Winter War as biggest military bluf in history.
Mannerheim in front of German General as reaction to some public speech of H. Göring before.
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@Andrei MartyanovKiza , April 17, 2017 at 6:18 pm GMTRussia is a very special case here--this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about, even when they have almost unrestricted access to sources. The way US "missed" Russia's military transformation which started in earnest in 2008 and completed its first phase by 2012 (4 years, you are talking about decades) is nothing short of astonishing. Combination of ignorance, hubris and downright stupidity are responsible for all that.
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales.
P.S. No serious analyst takes US GDP as 18 trillion dollars seriously. A huge part of it is a creative bookkeeping and most of it is financial and service sector. Out of very few good things Vitaly Shlykov left after himself was his "The General Staff And Economics", which addressed the issue of actual US military-industrial potential. Then come strategic, operational and technological dimensions. You want to see operational dimension--look no further than Mosul which is still, after 6 months, being "liberated". Comparisons to Aleppo are not only warranted but irresistible. In general, overall power of the state (nation) is not only in its "economic" indices. I use Barnett's definition of national power constantly, remarkably Lavrov's recent speech in the General Staff Academy uses virtually identical definition. Very good article and David Stockman says the same thing on our GDP that its do to very creative accounting much like our BLS report . Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 600 Words Congratulations on the article Andrei. As another commenter said – I do not agree with everything in the article, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.Andrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 6:19 pm GMTI also fully support your answers to Karlin, he often barks up a wrong tree.
Now the main issue with your article that I have is the same old issue that I always had with your comments. You start from the right premise and then you blow it up beyond recognition. In other words, you are too optimistic. For example, it is a very good point that the Russian and US perceptions of war are totally different: for a Russian the war is a fight for survival as an individual and as a nation, for a US person war and killing are just another day in the office. Then you start counting weapons and comparing weapons technology specifications and always conclude that Russian is better and cheaper, even when there is no direct comparison of effectiveness in battle.
In other words, if your top level goal is to counter the ubiquitous US MIC propaganda with the Russian MIC propaganda, then you are doing a good job. But never forget the Motke's dictum: no wonderful battle plan survives contact with the enemy. I accept that the mercenairy armies, like the US one, are not very good when dying starts, they totally rely on military superiority which does not exist against Russia and soon will not exist against China. But the new generations of Russians are becoming softer and softer and Russian military has not been tested in a recent conflict against a peer just like the US one has not.
The second major disadvantage of the Russian MIC is that US has a huge market of allies which it ruthlessly milks for weapons procurement, whilst when Russia sells an S300 to Cyprus it lands in the hands of the Israelis to be cracked. Even after such experience Russia engages in an apparently serious discussion to sell S400 to Turkey, straight into NATO hands. To put it mildly – Russia has to nurture the BRICS defense market, although most of the customers are copy artists, China being the master copier.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more. Does Russian MIC operate some underground former mine facilities in which these engineering slaves design all these wonderful military toys and then build them at the cost of sustenance? Lower Russian wages and US MIC's extraordinary greed still cannot fully explain such huge difference. Is it some amazing corruption-free project management skills inherited from Soviet Union?
As someone who has had experience with the weaponry of both sides, I have always been a fan of Russian engineering simplicity and reliability in design. Most people are familiar with this design philosophy through experience with Kalashnikov rifle, but this is a general design principle of all Russian weapons, even the sophisticated ones (probably even S500). Admittedly, the Chinese apply a similar principle in their engineering, although not at the same level – I remember well the shock of my Western colleagues when they realised that the Chinese Long March rockets utilised plywood where they utilised (at that time) very expensive carbon fibre and other composites.
•• 300 WordsNEW! @inertial A good informative article. Unfortunately it suffers from the typical poor understanding of the economic and financial realities.Jonathan Revusky , • Website April 17, 2017 at 6:40 pm GMTNo, "Wall Street economic indices" are not meaningless. And you do have to care about the Russian stock market. Its small size relative to the economy is a cause for concern. In general, Russian financial system is too weak, too small and shallow for an economy of this size. This is not surprising, as it is very new. Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
Incidentally, Putin and his government seem to understand these things, even if many others don't.
Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
So, Facebook's capitalization of 400 billion, that is for company which produces nothing of real value (in fact, is detrimental to mental health of the society) is a true size of economy.
Mind you–this is for a collection of several buildings, servers and about 200-300 pages of code in whatever they wrote it (C++, C whatever–make your pick).
Meanwhile, Gazprom, which is an energy monster is about 10 times less.
https://ycharts.com/companies/OGZPY/market_cap
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products–ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy–of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual–a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services. i am not talking, of course, about stock buybacks. As I already stated, nobody of any serious expertise in actual things that matter, treats this whole US "economic" data seriously. The problem here is that many in US establishment do and that is a clear and present danger to both US and world at large because constant and grotesque overestimation of own capabilities becomes a matter of policy, not a one-off accident.
•• 200 Words I think this is a good article. I say "I think so" because the truth of the matter is that I lack the detailed domain knowledge to be able to evaluate it very well.carlos22 , April 17, 2017 at 6:46 pm GMTThe comment I would make about it (which is not a critique of the article per se ) is that Russia (or the USSR speaking more precisely) did suffer a horrendous defeat from which it is still recovering - I mean, in the Cold War. However, that defeat was not military in nature. It was entirely political/psychological/ideological. (N.B. The complete neocon/zionist takeover of the U.S. and other Western countries also occurred without firing a shot, no?)
Anyway, no grand battles occurred like Stalingrad or Kursk, yet somehow the USSR was as defeated a nation in the 1990′s as Germany was in 1945! In my view, the AngloZionists would be more interested in repeating that feat, than actually getting into a real hot war. That, also, would be their template for defeating China, as opposed to getting into some land war in Asia.
I assume the above, because I have the tendency to think they are crazy, but not that crazy. But that said, I don't know for sure either. Maybe they really are that crazy and I just don't want to believe it. After all, it's really terrifying to think they are insane on that level.
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• 100 Words Russia is in the position to be king maker out of China & US.Ondrej , April 17, 2017 at 6:52 pm GMTThink about it Russia collapses & disintergrates, Siberia goes to China, which with all this land mass, energy reserves and population overtakes the US to become leading superpower. Ask yourself is that what the US wants?
Or
China betrays Russia, Russia then goes on to be US bitch, allows US missile defence to encircle China with US bases. China looses a key friend at the UN, when the SHTF in Tibet, Tywan or Hong Kong China finds its self alone. Is that what China wants?
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• 100 Words @Kiza Congratulations on the article Andrei. As another commenter said - I do not agree with everything in the article, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.Kiza , April 17, 2017 at 7:07 pm GMTI also fully support your answers to Karlin, he often barks up a wrong tree.
Now the main issue with your article that I have is the same old issue that I always had with your comments. You start from the right premise and then you blow it up beyond recognition. In other words, you are too optimistic. For example, it is a very good point that the Russian and US perceptions of war are totally different: for a Russian the war is a fight for survival as an individual and as a nation, for a US person war and killing are just another day in the office. Then you start counting weapons and comparing weapons technology specifications and always conclude that Russian is better and cheaper, even when there is no direct comparison of effectiveness in battle.
In other words, if your top level goal is to counter the ubiquitous US MIC propaganda with the Russian MIC propaganda, then you are doing a good job. But never forget the Motke's dictum: no wonderful battle plan survives contact with the enemy. I accept that the mercenairy armies, like the US one, are not very good when dying starts, they totally rely on military superiority which does not exist against Russia and soon will not exist against China. But the new generations of Russians are becoming softer and softer and Russian military has not been tested in a recent conflict against a peer just like the US one has not.
The second major disadvantage of the Russian MIC is that US has a huge market of allies which it ruthlessly milks for weapons procurement, whilst when Russia sells an S300 to Cyprus it lands in the hands of the Israelis to be cracked. Even after such experience Russia engages in an apparently serious discussion to sell S400 to Turkey, straight into NATO hands. To put it mildly - Russia has to nurture the BRICS defense market, although most of the customers are copy artists, China being the master copier.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more. Does Russian MIC operate some underground former mine facilities in which these engineering slaves design all these wonderful military toys and then build them at the cost of sustenance? Lower Russian wages and US MIC's extraordinary greed still cannot fully explain such huge difference. Is it some amazing corruption-free project management skills inherited from Soviet Union?
As someone who has had experience with the weaponry of both sides, I have always been a fan of Russian engineering simplicity and reliability in design. Most people are familiar with this design philosophy through experience with Kalashnikov rifle, but this is a general design principle of all Russian weapons, even the sophisticated ones (probably even S500). Admittedly, the Chinese apply a similar principle in their engineering, although not at the same level - I remember well the shock of my Western colleagues when they realised that the Chinese Long March rockets utilised plywood where they utilised (at that time) very expensive carbon fibre and other composites.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more.
Superb and efficient educational system of USSR. Last generation is in their forties.
Rules –
1. push what you can into children when they young and train them properly
2. Go fast, finish University in 22 – go to production and learn from olders
3. Go trough Army service (only when you are already extremely good you are exempt)This gives you head start, you are conditioned to design things that work.
Problem with many current – not only military products, that their designers often do not have idea how they are used..
You simply can not take classes of ergonomic design and design even hammer correctly as it is often case with different innovative gadgets nowadays:-)
•• 300 Words @reiner TorSergey Krieger , April 17, 2017 at 7:35 pm GMTCzar Nicholas II could've simply told the Serbs to comply with the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. Actually, that was the first reaction of Russian government circles (harboring terrorists was not looked upon very nicely in Russia where the grandfather of the Czar was murdered by similar terrorists), but then they changed their minds.
The WW1 preemptive war argument does have a lot of merit.
In any event, WW1 was a blunder for almost all involved - all countries that participated could've easily stayed out, and with a few exceptions (perhaps Romania and Japan? maybe even China?) none had any significant benefits relative to the enormous costs. Not even the US.
You and your responders are obviously not Russian, because you exhibit a terribly superficial knowledge of the pre WW1 Europe and Russia. You must have learned your history in US or British schools.The situation in Europe in 1914 was much, much more complicated than your simple minds could comprehend. The key factor was the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire and the power vacuum that this has created in the Balkans. This has encouraged all European powers of the time, from U.K., through Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire, all the way to Russia to have designs for the area. Russia actually cultivated most Serbian nationalistic groups to counter the influence of U.K. and Germany/Austria in the Balkans. Therefore, Russia just did not let its Balkan proxies, the Serbs, down when attacked by Austro-Hungary, but it was involved in what was happening in the Balkans even before the war started. Yes, there was internal opposition in Russia against getting involved in the Balkans, but the non-interventionists lost. The U.K. was trying to prop up the dying Turkish Empire to remain an enemy of Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary were trying to acquire as much new territory and population in the Balkans as possible. Russia just could not allow the Catholic Austro-Hungary to strengthen further after the annexation of Bosnia in 1908. France was on the same side. And so on.
Is it not amazing how most of Western history of WW1 starts with Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo, instead of power vacuum in Southeast Europe and aggressive imperial designs at the turn of the century? It is typical Western bullshit history. Nobody had evil intentions, everybody was just dragged into WW1.
You can observe that today's Russians are blaming the Germans for sending the half-Jewish Lenin with a trainload of gold to foment Bolshevik (Jewish) revolution in Russia and cause Tsar family's deaths, instead of the Serbs who were defending themselves against an expansionist Catholic Empire. It is mainly the British and US "historians", and their Russian liberals who are blaming the Serbs for WW1, the same old, same old Anglo-Zionist bull.
•@Randal An excellent and very useful piece, thanks, even if I don't agree with all of it. Certainly many good and important points are made. I would share most of Anatoly Karlin's points above, both in terms of points of agreement and disagreement.AP , April 17, 2017 at 7:50 pm GMTBut when it comes down to the big picture, I think focussing on technologies and doctrines and even crystallised military capabilities is a mistake if you are trying to see long term trends. Such things come and go, and are always in any event shrouded in uncertainty and ignorance. Nobody except a very few (and they aren't talking) really knows what our own side has, and even they don't really know what the other side has, and neither side really knows how their own systems will perform, or how each side's systems will interact in the crucible of war.
If we are going to speculate about medium term power trends, then we need to look at the underlying basics, which for military power are economic strength (for which the best, albeit imperfect, measure we have is gdp using ppp) and population. Here are the relevant figures:
Share of world gdp, ppp:
US
2020 14.878%
2015 15.809%
2010 16.846%
2000 20.76%China
2020 19.351%
2015 17.082%
2010 13.822%
2000 7.389%
Russia
2020 2.836%
2015 3.275%
2010 3.641%
2000 3.294%Source IMF per economywatch.com
Population (2017):
China: 1,388,232,693
US: 326,474,013
Russia: 143,375,006
These are the basic sinews of world power, at least as far as fully developed countries are concerned (which Russia and the US certainly are, and China nowadays largely is).
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales. That is why China's military capabilities are so far behind their current economic status. It is also why it is all but certain that China's relative military strength will continue to increase dramatically, relative to all rivals, for decades to come.
To compare with past world power levels, when the US dominated and the Soviet Union was its rival in the mid-C20th (1950), the US accounted for 27.3% of world gdp, and the Soviet Union had around a third of that, with Britain in third place. In 1913 just before the European powers and Britain committed their suicide by world war, the US accounted for 18.9% of world gdp, with the British Empire just behind and Germany and Russia on about half as much each, but the US was in the position of China today with its relative military power lagging behind its growing economic strength (in 1870 the US share of world gdp had been less than half that of the British Empire).
The trend of the past decades has been for a steady decline of the US's share of world gdp from its 1950 peak of 27% to only 16% today. There's no reason to expect that trend to halt, so it is just a matter of time before the military balance shifts. In the past, this would likely have been uncovered by a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of a rising power, and that might yet happen, but we now live in the dubious shade of the nuclear peace and so things might be different.
The figures however make it perfectly clear that the only plausible peer rival to the US in the medium term is China, and not Russia, regardless of current military capabilities. Randal, what do you think happens if neutron star approaches red giant? US GDP contains a lot of things that are irrelevant to fighting wars. Is US going to hit Russia with nice shoes, highly apprised real estate or S&P500? Creative accounting is another thing that makes US GDP larger than it really is. •
@Andrei Martyanovsyd.bgd , April 17, 2017 at 7:53 pm GMTSo, Facebook's capitalization of 400 billion, that is for company which produces nothing of real value (in fact, is detrimental to mental health of the society) is a true size of economy.
Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/market_cap
Mind you--this is for a collection of several buildings, servers and about 200-300 pages of code in whatever they wrote it (C++, C whatever--make your pick).
Meanwhile, Gazprom, which is an energy monster is about...10 times less.
https://ycharts.com/companies/OGZPY/market_cap
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products--ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy--of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual--a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services. i am not talking, of course, about stock buybacks. As I already stated, nobody of any serious expertise in actual things that matter, treats this whole US "economic" data seriously. The problem here is that many in US establishment do and that is a clear and present danger to both US and world at large because constant and grotesque overestimation of own capabilities becomes a matter of policy, not a one-off accident.
While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion.
Indeed. And Tesla is now "worth" more than Ford, on paper:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/business/tesla-ford-general-motors-stock-market.html?_r=0
• Agree: Andrei Martyanov •Great article. Thanks. Reply More... This Commenter Display All CommentsJoe Wong , April 17, 2017 at 7:56 pm GMT
• 200 Words @Anonymous Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.Art , April 17, 2017 at 8:02 pm GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures "Russia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita." this is very funny, how about the 20 trillions of US national debt and it is skyrocketing fast? If you only count asset without counting liability US maybe in the top 10 GDP per capita, but if you count net asset the US is in the negative GDP per capita, a broke nation. Perhaps it is American Exceptionalism logic, claiming credit where credit is not due, living in a world detached from reality.
"If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke." this is even funnier, Russian does not use USD in Russia, nor Russian government pay its MIC in USD, meanwhile Russian Central Bank can print Ruble thru the thin air just like the Fed, why does oil price have any relationship with Russian internal spending? Another example of "completely triumphalist and detached from Russia's economic realities" which is defined by meaningless Wall Street economic indices and snakeoil economic theories and rhetoric taught in the western universities.
•• 100 Words @Anonymouse You're gloating, Art. Many jews have been leaving Israel for many years for fear of their personal safety. Others remain. Gloating this way reflects a mean spirit. You're gloating, Art. Many jews have been leaving Israel for many years for fear of their personal safety. Others remain. Gloating this way reflects a mean spirit.Andrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 8:15 pm GMTPointing out the evils of Zionist Israel is not mean – it is crucial.
Exposing Judaism and Zionism for their backward ways is the only path to a peaceful just world.
The Kushner White House is now pushing us to war in N Korea.
Congress must stop this – but they cannot because Jews control them also.
Peace - Art
p.s. Good god – Trump is sending two more carrier groups to Korea!
•• 100 WordsNEW! @APWally , April 17, 2017 at 8:17 pm GMTIndeed. And Tesla is now "worth" more than Ford, on paper:
While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/business/tesla-ford-general-motors-stock-market.html?_r=0
Indeed. And Tesla is now "worth" more than Ford, on paper:
Faced with the choice between most expensive Tesla and new F-150 truck for free–I would choose Tesla, sell it back to dealership or would find some moron from Redmond/Kirkland area and sell Tesla to him and then would go buy F-150 and would use the rest of the money for other useful purposes, such as donating to animal shelter or will help some family in need. I certainly would make sure that I have the access to a bottle or two of really good bourbon to celebrate my new F-150. I wish, though, that Subaru made trucks.
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• 100 Words I seriously doubt the author's statement:Diversity Heretic , April 17, 2017 at 8:25 pm GMTGermany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet
Seriously? The technological & industrial genius of Germany could not produce it's own jet fighter?
After all, they designed & built the world's first fighter jet, the ME 262, 'The Swallow'.Laughable.
Granted, AFAIK, it's current fighters are 'collaborative' with other Europeans.
•
IOW, Germany did the heavy lifting.@anon "The US lacks a coherent defensive military doctrine"..Art , April 17, 2017 at 8:31 pm GMTWhich is hardly surprising since its only two bordering countries are very weak and zero military threat. It is also moated by two huge oceans. The USA could spend virtually nothing on its military and (with a sound immigration policy and secure borders) be perfectly safe. But the American political establishment are not content with this. They seek hegemony. It all started with Woodrow Wilson who refused to mind his business and stay out of war in 1917. The Spanish-American War was completely unnecessary for U.S. security. The acquisition of the Phillipines put us on a collision course with Japan and even today we suffer the burden of strategically useless economic parasite of Puerto Rico. •
• 100 Words @DannyMarcus There is a very important and perhaps most decisive aspect of possible US war with Russia or China, which is completely missing in Andrei Martyanov piece and the related comments.Andrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 8:35 pm GMT
Don't you think European NATO countries, as well as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will loudly resist, when their very well-being and existences is utterly jeopardized by American ambitions for hegemony well beyond its shores?
I imagine and hope that well before a shooting war breaks out with Russia or China, US' present subservient allies will show enough courage to put the brakes on American designs long before any future global wars involving their vital interest is invoked.
The South Koreans, over 10 million of whom are living in Seoul, are most likely right now pressing the Trump Administration hard to avoid any foolhardy military adventures in North Korea.
The Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans and the Taiwanese are the best hope of stopping American adventurism because in the final analysis they will refuse to be the sheep marching willingly to the slaughterhouse of a WWIII. The South Koreans, over 10 million of whom are living in Seoul, are most likely right now pressing the Trump Administration hard to avoid any foolhardy military adventures in North Korea.Too late – Trump is sending in two more carrier groups.
US Deploys Two More Aircraft Carriers Toward Korean Peninsula: Yonhap
According to a report by South Korea's primary news outlet, Yonhap, the Pentagon has directed a total of three US aircraft carriers toward the Korean Peninsula, citing a South Korean government source.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-17/us-deploys-two-more-aircraft-carriers-toward-korean-peninsula-yonhap
This is insane – another preventive war like Iraq – but on China and Russia's doorstep.
Congress must stop this!
Peace - Art
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• 400 WordsNEW! @Kiza Congratulations on the article Andrei. As another commenter said - I do not agree with everything in the article, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.Andrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 8:36 pm GMTI also fully support your answers to Karlin, he often barks up a wrong tree.
Now the main issue with your article that I have is the same old issue that I always had with your comments. You start from the right premise and then you blow it up beyond recognition. In other words, you are too optimistic. For example, it is a very good point that the Russian and US perceptions of war are totally different: for a Russian the war is a fight for survival as an individual and as a nation, for a US person war and killing are just another day in the office. Then you start counting weapons and comparing weapons technology specifications and always conclude that Russian is better and cheaper, even when there is no direct comparison of effectiveness in battle.
In other words, if your top level goal is to counter the ubiquitous US MIC propaganda with the Russian MIC propaganda, then you are doing a good job. But never forget the Motke's dictum: no wonderful battle plan survives contact with the enemy. I accept that the mercenairy armies, like the US one, are not very good when dying starts, they totally rely on military superiority which does not exist against Russia and soon will not exist against China. But the new generations of Russians are becoming softer and softer and Russian military has not been tested in a recent conflict against a peer just like the US one has not.
The second major disadvantage of the Russian MIC is that US has a huge market of allies which it ruthlessly milks for weapons procurement, whilst when Russia sells an S300 to Cyprus it lands in the hands of the Israelis to be cracked. Even after such experience Russia engages in an apparently serious discussion to sell S400 to Turkey, straight into NATO hands. To put it mildly - Russia has to nurture the BRICS defense market, although most of the customers are copy artists, China being the master copier.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more. Does Russian MIC operate some underground former mine facilities in which these engineering slaves design all these wonderful military toys and then build them at the cost of sustenance? Lower Russian wages and US MIC's extraordinary greed still cannot fully explain such huge difference. Is it some amazing corruption-free project management skills inherited from Soviet Union?
As someone who has had experience with the weaponry of both sides, I have always been a fan of Russian engineering simplicity and reliability in design. Most people are familiar with this design philosophy through experience with Kalashnikov rifle, but this is a general design principle of all Russian weapons, even the sophisticated ones (probably even S500). Admittedly, the Chinese apply a similar principle in their engineering, although not at the same level - I remember well the shock of my Western colleagues when they realised that the Chinese Long March rockets utilised plywood where they utilised (at that time) very expensive carbon fibre and other composites.
But the new generations of Russians are becoming softer and softer and Russian military has not been tested in a recent conflict against a peer just like the US one has not.
Generally legitimate point but it will require a very expanded answer. I will, at some point, elaborate on it–there are some serious nuances.
The second major disadvantage of the Russian MIC is that US has a huge market of allies which it ruthlessly milks for weapons procurement, whilst when Russia sells an S300 to Cyprus it lands in the hands of the Israelis to be cracked. Even after such experience Russia engages in an apparently serious discussion to sell S400 to Turkey, straight into NATO hands. To put it mildly – Russia has to nurture the BRICS defense market, although most of the customers are copy artists, China being the master copier.
Largely true. However, in serious signal processing systems such as radar, sonar, combat control (management) systems etc. the main secret are mathematics (algorithms). Just to give you an example, it was impossible for China to copy any software from any Russian-made systems. As an example, Shtil Air Defense complexes which went to China after she bought Project 956 destroyers in 1990s are defended such way that any attempt to tamper with their (and other systems') brains results in a clean slate. It is true today also, actually, especially today. China now is receiving full Russian "version" of SU-35 and of S-400, they still will not be able to copy it. Mimic somewhat? Yes. After all they do have their own S-300 knock offs. Copy? No. They will try, of course but, say, SU-35 engine and avionics is still beyond their reach.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more. Does Russian MIC operate some underground former mine facilities in which these engineering slaves design all these wonderful military toys and then build them at the cost of sustenance?
I believe Ondrej made a good, albeit partial case, for you in his response. Let me put it this way–viewing Russia's public schools' 8-9th grade books on math and physics (and chemistry) may create a state of shock in many, even elite, US schools and not among students only I know.
•NEW! @OndrejSam Shama , April 17, 2017 at 8:39 pm GMTSuperb and efficient educational system of USSR. Last generation is in their forties.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more.
Rules -
1. push what you can into children when they young and train them properly
2. Go fast, finish University in 22 - go to production and learn from olders
3. Go trough Army service (only when you are already extremely good you are exempt)This gives you head start, you are conditioned to design things that work.
Problem with many current - not only military products, that their designers often do not have idea how they are used..
You simply can not take classes of ergonomic design and design even hammer correctly as it is often case with different innovative gadgets nowadays:-) Some very good points you made. •
• 400 Words @Andrei MartyanovAtomAnt , April 17, 2017 at 8:43 pm GMTRussia is a very special case here--this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about, even when they have almost unrestricted access to sources. The way US "missed" Russia's military transformation which started in earnest in 2008 and completed its first phase by 2012 (4 years, you are talking about decades) is nothing short of astonishing. Combination of ignorance, hubris and downright stupidity are responsible for all that.
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales.
P.S. No serious analyst takes US GDP as 18 trillion dollars seriously. A huge part of it is a creative bookkeeping and most of it is financial and service sector. Out of very few good things Vitaly Shlykov left after himself was his "The General Staff And Economics", which addressed the issue of actual US military-industrial potential. Then come strategic, operational and technological dimensions. You want to see operational dimension--look no further than Mosul which is still, after 6 months, being "liberated". Comparisons to Aleppo are not only warranted but irresistible. In general, overall power of the state (nation) is not only in its "economic" indices. I use Barnett's definition of national power constantly, remarkably Lavrov's recent speech in the General Staff Academy uses virtually identical definition.
Russia is a very special case here–this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about,
Hey Smoothie,
Loved this informative piece.On the military aspect, I'll take your assessments without any salt at all, for I do believe the U.S. has been tracking a technologically shallower but cost wise steeper trajectory.
I think Russians are a highly gifted lot, able to do wonders mostly on account of their deep science & mathematics bench.
Yet I also think Randal is mostly right about economic strength playing a vital, even decisive role in overall strength in the longer run. There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
China comes closest to exceeding the overall size of the U.S.economy, based on a combination of sheer population, relentless mercantilism combined with extractive labour policies over the last five decades or more. All of which has also propelled them to achieve technological capabilities not far behind many western European states.
The U.S is eminently capable of really, I mean really increasing military spending without breaking a sweat. But that is not the goal in itself. It needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly. Imagine a U.S. spending an efficient 7-10% of GDP on this, in which case I see its competitors doing little else besides gearing their entire economies to armaments, and then failing to keep up. I am confident if such a race ensued there'd be a global run to purchase U.S. assets, even as capital controls are put into action.
The troubles of the U.S have stemmed from a paucity of far-sighted leaders of late. I am still hoping Mr Trump comes through, and there are signs he will. We should be establishing a truly friendly relationship with Russia and focusing our resources on joint goals of a far loftier nature than besting each other on wartime toys.
•@inertial A good informative article. Unfortunately it suffers from the typical poor understanding of the economic and financial realities.anonHUN , April 17, 2017 at 8:47 pm GMTNo, "Wall Street economic indices" are not meaningless. And you do have to care about the Russian stock market. Its small size relative to the economy is a cause for concern. In general, Russian financial system is too weak, too small and shallow for an economy of this size. This is not surprising, as it is very new. Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
Incidentally, Putin and his government seem to understand these things, even if many others don't. That's just bankster propaganda. In truth, anything past 5% (generously) for the financial sector is just parasitism. The US S&P 500 hovers around 30% financial sector. That's just elites extracting resources from productive people. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 200 Words @Intelligent Dasein I've come to the conclusion that it is the probable consensus among America's Deep State elites, as exemplified by the truly evil Hillary Clinton, that an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.Verymuchalive , April 17, 2017 at 8:49 pm GMTI also believe that Russia's strategists and state-level actors have come to the same conclusion regarding America's designs. This is the strategic situation that Russia is up against, and this is why Russia has wisely prepared itself to fight a defensive war of astonishing proportions. And for the sake of the human race, for the peace of men of good will everywhere, I would advise Russia that when dealing with a cranky, feeble, delusional, and senile Uncle Sam, it is not possible to be too paranoid. You will not be up against a rational actor if and when this war breaks out. Whatever zany, desperate, and counterproductive gambits you can imagine the USA making, they will not be worse than what these people are capable of.
As an American myself, I would have liked to have been a patriot. If my country must go to war, I would have liked to be on my country's side. But the bitter truth is that my government is something the world would be better off without. Russia has the moral high ground in this conflict. Hopefully that, and the strength of its arms, will be enough.
The great tragedy of the 20th century was that all the wrong people won the major wars. Whether it was Chiang Kai-shek in China or Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, or the Kaiser and the House of Hapsburg before them, the real heroes, the ones who were however ineffectively and confusedly on the side of Right, suffered defeat at the hands of the evil imperialists. We cannot allow that to happen again. I know who I will be supporting if it comes to war.
Long live king and country. God bless the patriots, wherever they be. Hail victory.
I think the military and intelligence guys (and the big contractors) need Russia as the enemy, the bogeyman, probably many of them were secretly disappointed back then when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Deep State wants an endless race, a race where America is always leading but not by too much. A Cold War with a worthy opponent, not with tinpot third world dictatorships. Many of them don't even hate Russia, even respects it to some extent. Now they are probably happy that the old days are back.On the other hand there are of course real Russophobes, who really want to win and finish the "job" that was left unfinished in the 90′s according to their view. They want regime change in Russia and preferably break it up, with all the republics of the RF declaring independence etc. Brzezinski, McCain or the neocons are like that. But they don't want WW3 either, they are not nutcases, just they want to settle an account with Russia badly.
Regarding Russian military they are still 20 years behind on average, the gap didn't close since Soviet times, if anything, it widened in many respects.
•
US military might is still unique and unrivaled, on the long run China has the most chance to challenge it. Russia is simply too poor, an economic dwarf compared to China (China is the workshop of the world, Russia mostly exports raw materials), also it's population is probably too small.• 100 Words @Andrei MartyanovAndrei Martyanov [AKA "SmoothieX12"] , • Website April 17, 2017 at 8:52 pm GMTSo, Facebook's capitalization of 400 billion, that is for company which produces nothing of real value (in fact, is detrimental to mental health of the society) is a true size of economy.
Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/market_cap
Mind you--this is for a collection of several buildings, servers and about 200-300 pages of code in whatever they wrote it (C++, C whatever--make your pick).
Meanwhile, Gazprom, which is an energy monster is about...10 times less.
https://ycharts.com/companies/OGZPY/market_cap
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products--ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy--of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual--a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services. i am not talking, of course, about stock buybacks. As I already stated, nobody of any serious expertise in actual things that matter, treats this whole US "economic" data seriously. The problem here is that many in US establishment do and that is a clear and present danger to both US and world at large because constant and grotesque overestimation of own capabilities becomes a matter of policy, not a one-off accident. The financialisation of the economy has been a disaster in most Western countries, especially for manufacturing companies. I had personal dealings with Pilkingtons, a World-leading British glass company. At the first opportunity, the Banks and other corporate investors sold it to a Japanese competitor. Pilkingtons is now a branch operation and has lost its research base.
Mr Putin seems to realise the importance of indigenous manufacturing industry- and not only for defence- related purposes. So the capitalisation of such companies has been treated with great caution, e g Gazprom. I could be wrong, of course.
So I must ask if you think Mr Putin has an Advanced Manufacturing Strategy in place, like Eamonn Fingleton sees in Japan, Korea, Germany etc. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 200 WordsNEW! @Wally I seriously doubt the author's statement:Timur The Lame , April 17, 2017 at 9:08 pm GMTSeriously? The technological & industrial genius of Germany could not produce it's own jet fighter?
Germany cannot design and build from scratch a state of the art fighter jet ...
After all, they designed & built the world's first fighter jet, the ME 262, 'The Swallow'.Laughable.
Granted, AFAIK, it's current fighters are 'collaborative' with other Europeans.
IOW, Germany did the heavy lifting.Germany did the heavy lifting.
Sir, before writing something, at least study subject a bit. Euro Fighter (Typhoon) is a thoroughly British effort initially, with engines being based on Rolls Royce XG-40 and avionics being, for the lack of better word, American, Italian, what have you, but not German. Yes, MTU was involved in some form in developing some Euro Jet EJ200 components but it will take a whole lot of space to explain to you what is "cooperative" effort in military aviation.
After all, they designed & built the world's first fighter jet, the ME 262, 'The Swallow'.
Actually:
Just as the matter of general education, but here is the deal: Chinese invented gun powder, so what? When and if Germany will be able to produce something comparable to MiG-29SMT, forget about SU-35, not to speak of T-50, then we may start looking into German "genius". In order for you to understand what I am trying to convey to you, one has to have understanding of what enclosed technological cycle is. But I am sure, if MTU will be asked they will come up immediately with the fifth generation jet engine, right? After all, it is so simple and I am not talking about such things as designing the air-frames. US has expertise on that on several orders of magnitude than Germany and look where it got US with F-35;)
•• 100 Words ,Ondrej , April 17, 2017 at 9:14 pm GMTThere is wisdom to the old adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Your WW1 rant is lacking in accurate facts and the actual facts that you refer to are misapplied subsequently your logic is flawed and you find yourself in the oft quoted IBM construct of GIGO.
The genesis and the triggers for the eruption of WW1 are broad and complex and could generally be put in the context of the colloquial term " a perfect storm". Your Slavic tinted glasses illuminate only a tip of the tip of the iceberg as it were. I state this in the spirit of constructive criticism.
Cheers-
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• 100 Words @Andrei Martyanov Some very good points you made. Having recent experience in teaching in former socialist country and remembering and comparing with past I must saybluedog , April 17, 2017 at 9:33 pm GMTIt is quite painful to watch horrors of destruction of once functional educational system of your own country which is trying to mimic current trends in western education.
I guess in Russia, given by typical Slavic tendency to extremes, is even more horrible. But it looks like they do get it and they have still chance revert this trend.
First step is always to recognize problem, which is in my opinion given by public discussions such as
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• 100 Words @Sam Shamaanon , April 17, 2017 at 9:35 pm GMTHey Smoothie,
Russia is a very special case here–this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about,
Loved this informative piece.On the military aspect, I'll take your assessments without any salt at all, for I do believe the U.S. has been tracking a technologically shallower but cost wise steeper trajectory.
I think Russians are a highly gifted lot, able to do wonders mostly on account of their deep science & mathematics bench.
Yet I also think Randal is mostly right about economic strength playing a vital, even decisive role in overall strength in the longer run. There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
China comes closest to exceeding the overall size of the U.S.economy, based on a combination of sheer population, relentless mercantilism combined with extractive labour policies over the last five decades or more. All of which has also propelled them to achieve technological capabilities not far behind many western European states.
The U.S is eminently capable of really, I mean really increasing military spending without breaking a sweat. But that is not the goal in itself. It needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly. Imagine a U.S. spending an efficient 7-10% of GDP on this, in which case I see its competitors doing little else besides gearing their entire economies to armaments, and then failing to keep up. I am confident if such a race ensued there'd be a global run to purchase U.S. assets, even as capital controls are put into action.
The troubles of the U.S have stemmed from a paucity of far-sighted leaders of late. I am still hoping Mr Trump comes through, and there are signs he will. We should be establishing a truly friendly relationship with Russia and focusing our resources on joint goals of a far loftier nature than besting each other on wartime toys.
Hmm first we would have to rebuild our manufacturing sector seeing most of our goods including military are outsourced out, and I question the raw economics endowment what ever they are, and then you have to retrain the workers for the old class is gone and the new isn't all that inclined to work, and who would want to invest in a hallowed out economy, trillions in debt more trillions in future liabilities trillions in derivitives little to no natural resources left military projects milked to the bone months years overdue I'm afraid your caught in the light on the hill we are exceptional bit but I presume that's to be expected.. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@DannyMarcus There is a very important and perhaps most decisive aspect of possible US war with Russia or China, which is completely missing in Andrei Martyanov piece and the related comments.Corvinus , April 17, 2017 at 9:35 pm GMT
Don't you think European NATO countries, as well as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will loudly resist, when their very well-being and existences is utterly jeopardized by American ambitions for hegemony well beyond its shores?
I imagine and hope that well before a shooting war breaks out with Russia or China, US' present subservient allies will show enough courage to put the brakes on American designs long before any future global wars involving their vital interest is invoked.
The South Koreans, over 10 million of whom are living in Seoul, are most likely right now pressing the Trump Administration hard to avoid any foolhardy military adventures in North Korea.
The Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans and the Taiwanese are the best hope of stopping American adventurism because in the final analysis they will refuse to be the sheep marching willingly to the slaughterhouse of a WWIII. If these countries really wanted to stop the USA, why not make the American troops leave their countries? Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@Diversity Heretic The Spanish-American War was completely unnecessary for U.S. security. The acquisition of the Phillipines put us on a collision course with Japan and even today we suffer the burden of strategically useless economic parasite of Puerto Rico. "The Spanish-American War was completely unnecessary for U.S. security."colm , April 17, 2017 at 9:36 pm GMTAt the time, yes. In the long run, no.
"The acquisition of the Phillipines put us on a collision course with Japan "
Imperialistic ambitions in the Pacific by the U.S. and Japan put our nations on a path to fight.
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@Intelligent Dasein I've come to the conclusion that it is the probable consensus among America's Deep State elites, as exemplified by the truly evil Hillary Clinton, that an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.anon , April 17, 2017 at 9:43 pm GMTI also believe that Russia's strategists and state-level actors have come to the same conclusion regarding America's designs. This is the strategic situation that Russia is up against, and this is why Russia has wisely prepared itself to fight a defensive war of astonishing proportions. And for the sake of the human race, for the peace of men of good will everywhere, I would advise Russia that when dealing with a cranky, feeble, delusional, and senile Uncle Sam, it is not possible to be too paranoid. You will not be up against a rational actor if and when this war breaks out. Whatever zany, desperate, and counterproductive gambits you can imagine the USA making, they will not be worse than what these people are capable of.
As an American myself, I would have liked to have been a patriot. If my country must go to war, I would have liked to be on my country's side. But the bitter truth is that my government is something the world would be better off without. Russia has the moral high ground in this conflict. Hopefully that, and the strength of its arms, will be enough.
The great tragedy of the 20th century was that all the wrong people won the major wars. Whether it was Chiang Kai-shek in China or Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, or the Kaiser and the House of Hapsburg before them, the real heroes, the ones who were however ineffectively and confusedly on the side of Right, suffered defeat at the hands of the evil imperialists. We cannot allow that to happen again. I know who I will be supporting if it comes to war.
Long live king and country. God bless the patriots, wherever they be. Hail victory.
Those who fought for the Entente in the Great War fought for the sake of the Third World.Veterans Day should be abolished immediately. Memorial Day is enough.
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• 100 Words @Diversity Heretic The Spanish-American War was completely unnecessary for U.S. security. The acquisition of the Phillipines put us on a collision course with Japan and even today we suffer the burden of strategically useless economic parasite of Puerto Rico. Yes of course, you are right. The 1898 war with Spain was 100% a war of choice for America. Without it, it was certainly possible war with Japan could have been avoided. Also agree that Puerto Rico has proven to be utterly worthless to America. Should be given its independence ASAP. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Commentsmartino from barcelona , April 17, 2017 at 9:45 pm GMT
• 100 Words @DannyMarcus There is a very important and perhaps most decisive aspect of possible US war with Russia or China, which is completely missing in Andrei Martyanov piece and the related comments.Timur The Lame , April 17, 2017 at 9:46 pm GMT
Don't you think European NATO countries, as well as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will loudly resist, when their very well-being and existences is utterly jeopardized by American ambitions for hegemony well beyond its shores?
I imagine and hope that well before a shooting war breaks out with Russia or China, US' present subservient allies will show enough courage to put the brakes on American designs long before any future global wars involving their vital interest is invoked.
The South Koreans, over 10 million of whom are living in Seoul, are most likely right now pressing the Trump Administration hard to avoid any foolhardy military adventures in North Korea.
The Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans and the Taiwanese are the best hope of stopping American adventurism because in the final analysis they will refuse to be the sheep marching willingly to the slaughterhouse of a WWIII. Eu, japan, taiwaneses, south koreans Their governements are all puppets, whores of washington, the people doesnt matter, we (I am european) have no voice- All westerns politics are the same whores. Countrys and people have no value. Only globalists are going for bussines. Rusia is the great premium: The major land in the world- Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 300 Words @SmoothieX12The Alarmist , April 17, 2017 at 9:51 pm GMTThe points you make with respect to capitalization of Facebook and other totally worthless social media constructs in comparison to actual entities that produce something, anything that you could stub your foot on, be it good or not is brilliant in that it exposes the sham of GDP and GNP tabulations.
Question: I read about 10 years ago of an incident where an American carrier group was sailing on in it's merry way in waters that I can't now recall when a couple of Sukhois came in undetected and screamed over the actual aircraft carrier at mast level at the maximum speed that the altitude would allow. The carrier group immediately did a 180 and got the hell out of Dodge. The Admiral was supposedly called on the carpet afterwards as to why he altered course without prior approval and he stuck to his guns and said that his responsibility was for the safety of his group first and foremost and that was that.
I have been unable to substantiate this episode. Has it been brushed from the internet or did I fall for a Russian (internet) hoax? I remember mentioning it to some senior Russian officers at a Canadian multi national English language course at an army base close to me and they were non committal in their answers and basically looked guardedly at me as if I were a spook of sorts.
Any knowledge of this supposed incident from you would be much appreciated. By the way the event that I am referring to is not to be mistaken with the relatively recent Black Sea incident (USS Donald Cook).
Cheers-
•• 100 Words @Erebus Yes, thank you for an excellent summation of the situation.Timur The Lame , April 17, 2017 at 9:54 pm GMTThe owners of the US face an Either/Or moment. Either they abandon their ambitions of Global Hegemony, and retreat to attempt to rule over N. America (with some residual dreams of ruling C. & S. America to sweeten the pot) or they go for broke.
Unlike Dasein, I have no doubt that any dreams of Global Hegemony will come crashing to ground if any sort of a war breaks out. Putin has made it perfectly plain. Russia will never allow itself to be invaded again. That means something, and what it means is that Russia will take the fight to the enemy when it sees its red lines crossed.
The continental US can be thrown into socio-political-economic collapse with 3 dozen Kalibrs aimed at critical nodes in the national electrical grid. With no prospect of electricity being revived, the now largely urban population would find itself instantly transported to 1900 with none of the skills and infrastructure that kept a pre-electrified rural society fed and secure. If the subs and/or TU-160s are in place, that's 45-90 minutes without a single nuke fired.No mushroom clouds or devastated cities, yet, but the Either/Or moment will become acute indeed. One can hope that we'll be rejoicing that America's owners follow their internationalistic instincts when that moment has passed.
"The continental US can be thrown into socio-political-economic collapse with 3 dozen Kalibrs aimed at critical nodes in the national electrical grid. With no prospect of electricity being revived, the now largely urban population would find itself instantly transported to 1900 with none of the skills and infrastructure that kept a pre-electrified rural society fed and secure. If the subs and/or TU-160s are in place, that's 45-90 minutes without a single nuke fired."
You have nut-jobs in Congress talking out hacking being an act of war and planners talking about massive NATO reponse as being appropriate can one seriously believe the US would not repond with nukes in the event of such an attack, even though it is non-nuclear?
•My WW1 post was for Kiza. Somehow that got scrubbed Reply More... This Commenter Display All CommentsOndrej , April 17, 2017 at 10:14 pm GMT
• 200 Words @Sam Shamainertial , April 17, 2017 at 10:22 pm GMTHey Smoothie,
Russia is a very special case here–this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about,
Loved this informative piece.On the military aspect, I'll take your assessments without any salt at all, for I do believe the U.S. has been tracking a technologically shallower but cost wise steeper trajectory.
I think Russians are a highly gifted lot, able to do wonders mostly on account of their deep science & mathematics bench.
Yet I also think Randal is mostly right about economic strength playing a vital, even decisive role in overall strength in the longer run. There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
China comes closest to exceeding the overall size of the U.S.economy, based on a combination of sheer population, relentless mercantilism combined with extractive labour policies over the last five decades or more. All of which has also propelled them to achieve technological capabilities not far behind many western European states.
The U.S is eminently capable of really, I mean really increasing military spending without breaking a sweat. But that is not the goal in itself. It needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly. Imagine a U.S. spending an efficient 7-10% of GDP on this, in which case I see its competitors doing little else besides gearing their entire economies to armaments, and then failing to keep up. I am confident if such a race ensued there'd be a global run to purchase U.S. assets, even as capital controls are put into action.
The troubles of the U.S have stemmed from a paucity of far-sighted leaders of late. I am still hoping Mr Trump comes through, and there are signs he will. We should be establishing a truly friendly relationship with Russia and focusing our resources on joint goals of a far loftier nature than besting each other on wartime toys.
There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
I will add bit of Central Europe perspective:-)
Products of US economic endowments which I use in Europe or see some value in them:
a) Military Complex (waste of money)
b) Boeing (OK that is serious, not flying much lately)
c) Hollywod movies (huge industry, some movies are good but mostly rubbish)
d) Coca-Cola (sometimes nice – but can live without it)
e) MacDonald (only in rush for their car ride)
f) Microsoft Windows (I hate it)
g) Apple products (well I have still preference for them, but they are mostly produced in China anyway)
h) Harley-Davidson (not any value for me, but it is as American as it can be:-)To be honest, I am more interested if I have heated home and electricity runnig, provided in form of nuclear, gas or oil fuel from Russia + some Siemens technology provided by Germany for Electrical Grid regulation and function of PowerPlants..
•• 300 Words @Andrei MartyanovZ-man , April 17, 2017 at 10:23 pm GMTSo, Facebook's capitalization of 400 billion, that is for company which produces nothing of real value (in fact, is detrimental to mental health of the society) is a true size of economy.
Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/market_cap
Mind you--this is for a collection of several buildings, servers and about 200-300 pages of code in whatever they wrote it (C++, C whatever--make your pick).
Meanwhile, Gazprom, which is an energy monster is about...10 times less.
https://ycharts.com/companies/OGZPY/market_cap
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products--ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy--of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual--a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services. i am not talking, of course, about stock buybacks. As I already stated, nobody of any serious expertise in actual things that matter, treats this whole US "economic" data seriously. The problem here is that many in US establishment do and that is a clear and present danger to both US and world at large because constant and grotesque overestimation of own capabilities becomes a matter of policy, not a one-off accident. You just illustrated my point. Facebook vs. Gazprom market caps – all that shows is that Facebook has access to vastly larger amounts of capital than Gazprom. Well, duh.
Market capitalization is determined mostly by institutional investors – mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc. – who pool private savings and channel them into various investments. There are massive amounts of such savings available in USA; in Russia, not so much.
In Russia, the government is just about the only major saver and investor. This works fine in areas where the government must play a role, such as weapons manufacture. In other areas, enterprises that need capital to develop must either accumulate it themselves over the years (which puts limit on growth,) or get the government to help them out, or borrow abroad at usurious rates. That's not good. Ideally, Russian enterprises should enter Russian stock or fixed income market and raise as much capital as they need.
As for Boeing, yes it's a gem. But it does have some difficulties in raising capital. It's been balancing on the edge of bankruptcy for years and, unlike Facebook, it has huge liabilities. Incidentally, Boeing very much engages in all that "useless" high finance stuff. The buy and sell and issue bonds and short term paper; I don't know if they issue options but they certainly trade them. They don't believe that they are performing "virtual transactions with virtual money;" on the contrary, they consider this and essential part of the business, as important as building engines or whatever. Perhaps they know something you don't?
Finally, a tip. Any "expert" who doesn't treat US (or other) economic data seriously is an idiot.
•@Andrei MartyanovSergey Krieger , April 17, 2017 at 10:28 pm GMTIt is a very complex weapon system, whose actual combat potential is highly classified. From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities". Latest modifications of S-300 seem almost tame in comparison and S-300 (PMU, Favorit) is a superb complex. Once S-500 comes online, well--it is a different game altogether from there. Well, it shouldn't be that complicated because it has to be used rapidly. Hopefully it is easy for the user to operate it.
The S400 is a great example of Russian simplicity
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@OndrejCyrano , April 17, 2017 at 10:31 pm GMTI will add bit of Central Europe perspective:-)
There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
Products of US economic endowments which I use in Europe or see some value in them:
a) Military Complex (waste of money)
b) Boeing (OK that is serious, not flying much lately)
c) Hollywod movies (huge industry, some movies are good but mostly rubbish)
d) Coca-Cola (sometimes nice - but can live without it)
e) MacDonald (only in rush for their car ride)
f) Microsoft Windows (I hate it)
g) Apple products (well I have still preference for them, but they are mostly produced in China anyway)
h) Harley-Davidson (not any value for me, but it is as American as it can be:-)To be honest, I am more interested if I have heated home and electricity runnig, provided in form of nuclear, gas or oil fuel from Russia + some Siemens technology provided by Germany for Electrical Grid regulation and function of PowerPlants..
You are coming as a very pragmatic sort of a man •• 300 Words Any military conflict between Russia and US is bound to degenerate into nuclear war. That's because only degenerates can plan such event and even try to predict "survivability" of such war. I believe only recently US funded a study to explore the outcome of such conflict. You don't have to be military genius to realize that the odds are in Russia's favor.inertial , April 17, 2017 at 10:32 pm GMTHow so? Simple. More than half of US population lives in 30 major cities. Russia's population is much more dispersed. I think I read somewhere that during the cold war US had enough nukes to destroy every USSR city of 10 000 and more inhabitants. Still, the Russians can inflict far more casualties targeting far fewer cities than US can.
For those who think that western weapons are superior because they are more complicated – perfection is always simple.
One of the most symptomatic examples of what's wrong with American military technology is F35. At the end of the cold war the feeling of omnipotence has spread into their military technology. F35 was supposed to do the job of what previously used to be done by several different planes. It was supposed to be a ground support, vertical takeoff, interceptor, aircraft carrier based, bomber, air superiority fighter plane.
While they were at it, why they didn't include in their specifications ability to fly to the moon, be used as a cargo plane, awacs, fuel refueling tanker and passenger plane. When something is designed to be universally good at different tasks it usually ends not being particularly good at any of them.
Congratulations on your first article Andrei, keep up the good work.
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@Sergey Krieger Randal, what do you think happens if neutron star approaches red giant? US GDP contains a lot of things that are irrelevant to fighting wars. Is US going to hit Russia with nice shoes, highly apprised real estate or S&P500? Creative accounting is another thing that makes US GDP larger than it really is.Z-man , April 17, 2017 at 10:33 pm GMTUS GDP contains a lot of things that are irrelevant to fighting wars.
You say it as though it's a bad thing.
•@Art You're gloating, Art. Many jews have been leaving Israel for many years for fear of their personal safety. Others remain. Gloating this way reflects a mean spirit.Today,s Thought , April 17, 2017 at 10:42 pm GMTPointing out the evils of Zionist Israel is not mean - it is crucial.
Exposing Judaism and Zionism for their backward ways is the only path to a peaceful just world.
The Kushner White House is now pushing us to war in N Korea.
Congress must stop this - but they cannot because Jews control them also.
Peace --- Art
p.s. Good god – Trump is sending two more carrier groups to Korea!
Korea?, no big deal as far as I'm concerned. Let's bomb that fat boy to submission. It's when we blindly support that dirty little country occupying the Holy Land, that's when I get my blood pressure up! •[ ] • 3,200 WORDS • 93 COMMENTS • REPLY [ ]Z-man , April 17, 2017 at 10:43 pm GMT• 100 Words @Andrei MartyanovJoe Wong , April 17, 2017 at 10:53 pm GMTSir, before writing something, at least study subject a bit. Euro Fighter (Typhoon) is a thoroughly British effort initially, with engines being based on Rolls Royce XG-40 and avionics being, for the lack of better word, American, Italian, what have you, but not German. Yes, MTU was involved in some form in developing some Euro Jet EJ200 components but it will take a whole lot of space to explain to you what is "cooperative" effort in military aviation.
Germany did the heavy lifting.
Actually:
After all, they designed & built the world's first fighter jet, the ME 262, 'The Swallow'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhip_Lyulka
Just as the matter of general education, but here is the deal: Chinese invented gun powder, so what? When and if Germany will be able to produce something comparable to MiG-29SMT, forget about SU-35, not to speak of T-50, then we may start looking into German "genius". In order for you to understand what I am trying to convey to you, one has to have understanding of what enclosed technological cycle is. But I am sure, if MTU will be asked they will come up immediately with the fifth generation jet engine, right? After all, it is so simple and I am not talking about such things as designing the air-frames. US has expertise on that on several orders of magnitude than Germany and look where it got US with F-35;) This reminds me of the line from 'Ice Station Zebra' by the Patrick McGoohan played character 'David Jones of MI6′, "The Russians put our (Brits) camera made by *our* German scientists and your (US) film made by *your* German scientists into their satellite made by *their* German scientists." LOL! Exaggeration of course but funny and somewhat true. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 100 Words @DannyMarcus There is a very important and perhaps most decisive aspect of possible US war with Russia or China, which is completely missing in Andrei Martyanov piece and the related comments.Sergey Krieger , April 17, 2017 at 10:58 pm GMT
Don't you think European NATO countries, as well as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan will loudly resist, when their very well-being and existences is utterly jeopardized by American ambitions for hegemony well beyond its shores?
I imagine and hope that well before a shooting war breaks out with Russia or China, US' present subservient allies will show enough courage to put the brakes on American designs long before any future global wars involving their vital interest is invoked.
The South Koreans, over 10 million of whom are living in Seoul, are most likely right now pressing the Trump Administration hard to avoid any foolhardy military adventures in North Korea.
The Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans and the Taiwanese are the best hope of stopping American adventurism because in the final analysis they will refuse to be the sheep marching willingly to the slaughterhouse of a WWIII. There are a lot of nations wanting wars between USA, Russia and China, from top of the list is Japan, India, UK, They believe they will be the next global hegemons standing on the ashes of USA, Russia and China.Taiwanese are mentally colonized Japanese wannabes, they will be happy just returning to the Japanese colony status.
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• 100 Words @inertialJoe Wong , April 17, 2017 at 11:06 pm GMTYou say it as though it's a bad thing. No, I am just trying to look at it from the point of view currently discussed. Namely Russian GDP is being mocked as an inadequate to stand up to USA in military terms.
US GDP contains a lot of things that are irrelevant to fighting wars.
I am just pointing that what GDP consists of is far more important that nominal size of it.
Namely, Italy might have a large share of GDP coming from tourist industry and designers shoes and other garments. . How is it relevant to military power?
US GDP also is full of basically fraudulent valuations. Tesla as it was pointed is just one example and Facebook and others are another. •• 100 Words @anonHUN I think the military and intelligence guys (and the big contractors) need Russia as the enemy, the bogeyman, probably many of them were secretly disappointed back then when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Deep State wants an endless race, a race where America is always leading but not by too much. A Cold War with a worthy opponent, not with tinpot third world dictatorships. Many of them don't even hate Russia, even respects it to some extent. Now they are probably happy that the old days are back.martino from barcelona , April 17, 2017 at 11:08 pm GMTOn the other hand there are of course real Russophobes, who really want to win and finish the "job" that was left unfinished in the 90's according to their view. They want regime change in Russia and preferably break it up, with all the republics of the RF declaring independence etc. Brzezinski, McCain or the neocons are like that. But they don't want WW3 either, they are not nutcases, just they want to settle an account with Russia badly.
Regarding Russian military they are still 20 years behind on average, the gap didn't close since Soviet times, if anything, it widened in many respects.
US military might is still unique and unrivaled, on the long run China has the most chance to challenge it. Russia is simply too poor, an economic dwarf compared to China (China is the workshop of the world, Russia mostly exports raw materials), also it's population is probably too small. "still 20 years behind on average?" since you are fabricating thru the thin air, why did you stop at 20 years? Why didn't you say 30 years behind, 40 years behind, ? You should know fake news is always fake new regardless it is a small fake news or a big fake news. •• 200 Words good post smooty. And good coments also.I have three issues I am thinking some time ago. First: The soviet Union not colapsed, Gorbachev vas not a moron or a traitor. It was 50 years chess-game- The west is in turmoil already. Gorbachev did not do nothing without the approbation of the hundreds of specialists .The same with Trump, as USA has about more than 5 milions of people working in intel or something about. Second misread: Usa did not lost the war in Irak or Afganistan., as is said by journalists. Bush (W) said it in clair: I´ll bring the caos to irak, to stoneage.Anatoly Karlin , • Website April 17, 2017 at 11:17 pm GMT
In Afganistan they are for 16 years for run the caos meantime. If they left , te country could go normaly, They cant afford this. Is for future desestabilization of central asia. Three: In the future war, you can see that the europeens are too sweet for go to war against Russia (Don´t talk about the gays, trans and woman of de USA Army) : What about theese 2 milions of refugees (arabs mens in militar age, all men?) All in Germany. This is not an Army for go to fight with russia? Reply More... This Commenter Display All Comments
• 100 WordsNEW! @Intelligent Dasein I've come to the conclusion that it is the probable consensus among America's Deep State elites, as exemplified by the truly evil Hillary Clinton, that an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.Joe Wong , April 17, 2017 at 11:23 pm GMTI also believe that Russia's strategists and state-level actors have come to the same conclusion regarding America's designs. This is the strategic situation that Russia is up against, and this is why Russia has wisely prepared itself to fight a defensive war of astonishing proportions. And for the sake of the human race, for the peace of men of good will everywhere, I would advise Russia that when dealing with a cranky, feeble, delusional, and senile Uncle Sam, it is not possible to be too paranoid. You will not be up against a rational actor if and when this war breaks out. Whatever zany, desperate, and counterproductive gambits you can imagine the USA making, they will not be worse than what these people are capable of.
As an American myself, I would have liked to have been a patriot. If my country must go to war, I would have liked to be on my country's side. But the bitter truth is that my government is something the world would be better off without. Russia has the moral high ground in this conflict. Hopefully that, and the strength of its arms, will be enough.
The great tragedy of the 20th century was that all the wrong people won the major wars. Whether it was Chiang Kai-shek in China or Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, or the Kaiser and the House of Hapsburg before them, the real heroes, the ones who were however ineffectively and confusedly on the side of Right, suffered defeat at the hands of the evil imperialists. We cannot allow that to happen again. I know who I will be supporting if it comes to war.
Long live king and country. God bless the patriots, wherever they be. Hail victory.
Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Commentsthat an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.
@reiner Tor Don't worry, when the going gets tough, suddenly the US military will only send straight white men to die for LGBT and black "equality".DanC , April 17, 2017 at 11:27 pm GMTUS military will only send straight white men to die for LGBT and black "equality"
That did not happen during the Korean War and Vietnam War. The straight white men stayed behind and played gook hockey games.
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If anyone is interested in the perverse incentives in place in the US military development system, which result in such spectacular failures and misallocation of resources, you could read this:martino from barcelona , April 17, 2017 at 11:29 pm GMThttp://chuckspinney.blogspot.ca/p/the-defense-death-spiral-why-defense.html
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• 100 Words The westerns politics, that works against their own people (starting with Merkel), and are absolute whores or the globalists of washington and elsewere .. (city of London, Rotschilds, Jews,Vatican, , etc) Have learned the trick of the proxys, as they are now in Siria. And conciousness that the european people are against else war, (and dont talk about the gay-trans-woman army of the EEUU) The criminals europeans politics are getting milions of future proxy warriors from muslim countrys. Their job will be the war we are not going. They, the "refugees" will get money, drugs, guns, slave women, alcohol, and will go to war against rusia, and in europe inf they are said. cheers.Wally , April 17, 2017 at 11:43 pm GMT
Ahh!.. They give him the blue pill, also, (Are not than macho men?) Reply More... This Commenter Display All Comments
@Andrei MartyanovZzz , April 17, 2017 at 11:44 pm GMTSir, before writing something, at least study subject a bit. Euro Fighter (Typhoon) is a thoroughly British effort initially, with engines being based on Rolls Royce XG-40 and avionics being, for the lack of better word, American, Italian, what have you, but not German. Yes, MTU was involved in some form in developing some Euro Jet EJ200 components but it will take a whole lot of space to explain to you what is "cooperative" effort in military aviation.
Germany did the heavy lifting.
Actually:
After all, they designed & built the world's first fighter jet, the ME 262, 'The Swallow'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhip_Lyulka
Just as the matter of general education, but here is the deal: Chinese invented gun powder, so what? When and if Germany will be able to produce something comparable to MiG-29SMT, forget about SU-35, not to speak of T-50, then we may start looking into German "genius". In order for you to understand what I am trying to convey to you, one has to have understanding of what enclosed technological cycle is. But I am sure, if MTU will be asked they will come up immediately with the fifth generation jet engine, right? After all, it is so simple and I am not talking about such things as designing the air-frames. US has expertise on that on several orders of magnitude than Germany and look where it got US with F-35;) You really need to know what you are talking about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon
About "Lyulka"?
" In 1945-47 he designed the first Soviet jet engine ".
Hoisted by your own petard.
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@Kiza You and your responders are obviously not Russian, because you exhibit a terribly superficial knowledge of the pre WW1 Europe and Russia. You must have learned your history in US or British schools.inertial , April 17, 2017 at 11:47 pm GMTThe situation in Europe in 1914 was much, much more complicated than your simple minds could comprehend. The key factor was the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire and the power vacuum that this has created in the Balkans. This has encouraged all European powers of the time, from U.K., through Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire, all the way to Russia to have designs for the area. Russia actually cultivated most Serbian nationalistic groups to counter the influence of U.K. and Germany/Austria in the Balkans. Therefore, Russia just did not let its Balkan proxies, the Serbs, down when attacked by Austro-Hungary, but it was involved in what was happening in the Balkans even before the war started. Yes, there was internal opposition in Russia against getting involved in the Balkans, but the non-interventionists lost. The U.K. was trying to prop up the dying Turkish Empire to remain an enemy of Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary were trying to acquire as much new territory and population in the Balkans as possible. Russia just could not allow the Catholic Austro-Hungary to strengthen further after the annexation of Bosnia in 1908. France was on the same side. And so on.
Is it not amazing how most of Western history of WW1 starts with Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo, instead of power vacuum in Southeast Europe and aggressive imperial designs at the turn of the century? It is typical Western bullshit history. Nobody had evil intentions, everybody was just dragged into WW1.
You can observe that today's Russians are blaming the Germans for sending the half-Jewish Lenin with a trainload of gold to foment Bolshevik (Jewish) revolution in Russia and cause Tsar family's deaths, instead of the Serbs who were defending themselves against an expansionist Catholic Empire. It is mainly the British and US "historians", and their Russian liberals who are blaming the Serbs for WW1, the same old, same old Anglo-Zionist bull.
Russians blaming the Germans for sending the half-Jewish Lenin with a trainload of gold to foment Bolshevik (Jewish) revolution
Russian who are blaming the Serbs for WW1
Are the same people.
•@Sergey Krieger No, I am just trying to look at it from the point of view currently discussed. Namely Russian GDP is being mocked as an inadequate to stand up to USA in military terms.DanC , April 17, 2017 at 11:48 pm GMT
I am just pointing that what GDP consists of is far more important that nominal size of it.
Namely, Italy might have a large share of GDP coming from tourist industry and designers shoes and other garments. . How is it relevant to military power?
US GDP also is full of basically fraudulent valuations. Tesla as it was pointed is just one example and Facebook and others are another. I agree with you. I just wish that Russian GDP had a lot more of those non-military components.Incidentally, market cap has nothing to do with GDP. I'm pretty sure that Facebook's contribution to GDP is minuscule.
•• 100 Words One of the most spectacular misallocation of resources has been the US Navy's insistence on building ever-more surface ships of ever-increasing complexity, while allowing their submarine fleet to languish, and neglecting missile & torpedo technology.Sergey Krieger , April 18, 2017 at 12:18 am GMTThe reason is career path incentives in the Navy, and in the defense contractor corporations, not in rational consideration of the directions naval warfare is developing in the rest of the world.
I've said it before, and I'll repeat it here: the first time a surface fleet, no matter how modern, how large, even a carrier group, is attacked by a well-commanded, networked battery of modern missles, like the Moskit, Onyx or BrahMos, there will be debacle of historic proportions.
Thousands of sailors and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of hardware will be headed to the bottom.
•• 100 Words @inertial I agree with you. I just wish that Russian GDP had a lot more of those non-military components.Mark Chapman , • Website April 18, 2017 at 12:18 am GMTIncidentally, market cap has nothing to do with GDP. I'm pretty sure that Facebook's contribution to GDP is minuscule. For this I believe nationalization of what was "privatized" in 90′s is needed and new industrialization drive to become more self sufficient and less dependent upon outsiders. Finances also is a matter of concern. Russia has very good experience in how to do it. Political power will is needed though. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 200 Words Agreed; the US Navy only continues to pursue railgun technology to use up budget dollars – a peculiarity of western defense budgeting is that if you show efficiency by using less than the full amount allocated for your operations, maintenance and R&D, your budget is likely to be cut by that much next cycle. The USN has gone back to the drawing-board on railgun development, but absent a power-supply breakthrough it is unrealistic except as a vanity project.Avery , April 18, 2017 at 12:22 am GMThttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navys-railgun-dream-could-be-denied-by-two-big-problems-17301
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/this-is-why-the-navy-cant-have-nice-railguns
An additional argument in Russia's favour is that many of its systems are built simply to be rugged and easily operated by someone with a minimum of training, like a conscript, although the top end of the air defense systems are still largely operated by specialists. Western systems often are unnecessarily complex – sometimes seemingly just to impress reviewers – and the fiasco of the F-35 nightmare serves as exemplary of what happens when corporatism gets the upper hand on government; any vision of what the F-35 was originally supposed to do has been lost in a blizzard of pork-barreling and design changes.
As far as the navy goes, I made some of the same points myself some years ago, particularly the gross discrepancy in the cost of the USN's Littoral Combat Ships compared with – in this instance – China's missile corvettes.
https://marknesop.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/fall-out-and-secure-for-sea-the-2012-sino-russian-naval-exercises/comment-page-1/
Thanks for a great piece; it was timely, informative, thought-provoking and chock-full of meaty phrases and terminology I cannot wait to borrow.
•• 200 Words @Andrei MartyanovAtomAnt , April 18, 2017 at 12:24 am GMTIt is a very complex weapon system, whose actual combat potential is highly classified. From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities". Latest modifications of S-300 seem almost tame in comparison and S-300 (PMU, Favorit) is a superb complex. Once S-500 comes online, well--it is a different game altogether from there. {From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities".}
The S400 is a great example of Russian simplicity
Until it has proven itself in a real war against a technologically competent adversary, e.g. U.S./NATO, then it's all simulation.
Its "mind boggling capabilities" are nothing more than engineering specifications.
No computer simulation anywhere, anytime has been able to come even close to the chaotic, unpredictable conditions of real war.To wit: the Patriot worked great on paper, but its performance in the Iraq war against ancient Iraqi Scuds was dismal.
To wit2: the misnamed 'Iron Dome', which is a supposedly improved copy of the Patriot and which Israelis claim has a hit rate of 90%+, was proven by Prof. Postol of MIT to have a success rate of ~5% against primitive Hamas rockets.Let's wait and see if the S-400 has "mind boggling capabilities" .
•
I hope it does. (Armenia has 'bought' some S-300s, officially. Maybe Russia gave RoA some S-400s too, unofficially).• 200 Words @anonHUN I think the military and intelligence guys (and the big contractors) need Russia as the enemy, the bogeyman, probably many of them were secretly disappointed back then when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Deep State wants an endless race, a race where America is always leading but not by too much. A Cold War with a worthy opponent, not with tinpot third world dictatorships. Many of them don't even hate Russia, even respects it to some extent. Now they are probably happy that the old days are back.wayfarer , April 18, 2017 at 12:32 am GMTOn the other hand there are of course real Russophobes, who really want to win and finish the "job" that was left unfinished in the 90's according to their view. They want regime change in Russia and preferably break it up, with all the republics of the RF declaring independence etc. Brzezinski, McCain or the neocons are like that. But they don't want WW3 either, they are not nutcases, just they want to settle an account with Russia badly.
Regarding Russian military they are still 20 years behind on average, the gap didn't close since Soviet times, if anything, it widened in many respects.
US military might is still unique and unrivaled, on the long run China has the most chance to challenge it. Russia is simply too poor, an economic dwarf compared to China (China is the workshop of the world, Russia mostly exports raw materials), also it's population is probably too small. "Regarding Russian military they are still 20 years behind on average"Dude, you're delusional. The US military is to a large extent a paper tiger. Example: Aircraft carriers are not survivable against Russian or Chinese missiles and subs. They are good for bombing 3rd world countries only, like 19th century gunboats (plus fattening MIC coffers). Example: A Rand report found the F-35 "can't turn, can't climb, isn't fast enough to run away".
• Agree: Kiza •
I would argue nothing is as important as missile technology. Russia may be leading in that.
Furthermore, the US has lower income and less capital now than 20 years ago. Russia has a central bank focused on rational economics rather than milking the country for billionaires' sake. They insist on positive interest rates so savers get the benefit of their money. That's why Russia is growing albeit slowly while the US regresses.
The US will find fighting Russia is not like fighting Arabs. (Remember what some Israeli general said about fighting Arabs.) The US hasn't fought without air superiority in over 74 years.
Note the moral dimension, also. The US has to pay its military 2X the equivalent private sector wages, because no one wants to die for Lockheed Martin.SAR (search and rescue) versus SAD (search and destroy)NoseytheDuke , April 18, 2017 at 12:53 am GMT"Disaster of the Kursk"
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• 200 Words @Sam ShamaNoseytheDuke , April 18, 2017 at 12:58 am GMTHey Smoothie,
Russia is a very special case here–this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about,
Loved this informative piece.On the military aspect, I'll take your assessments without any salt at all, for I do believe the U.S. has been tracking a technologically shallower but cost wise steeper trajectory.
I think Russians are a highly gifted lot, able to do wonders mostly on account of their deep science & mathematics bench.
Yet I also think Randal is mostly right about economic strength playing a vital, even decisive role in overall strength in the longer run. There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
China comes closest to exceeding the overall size of the U.S.economy, based on a combination of sheer population, relentless mercantilism combined with extractive labour policies over the last five decades or more. All of which has also propelled them to achieve technological capabilities not far behind many western European states.
The U.S is eminently capable of really, I mean really increasing military spending without breaking a sweat. But that is not the goal in itself. It needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly. Imagine a U.S. spending an efficient 7-10% of GDP on this, in which case I see its competitors doing little else besides gearing their entire economies to armaments, and then failing to keep up. I am confident if such a race ensued there'd be a global run to purchase U.S. assets, even as capital controls are put into action.
The troubles of the U.S have stemmed from a paucity of far-sighted leaders of late. I am still hoping Mr Trump comes through, and there are signs he will. We should be establishing a truly friendly relationship with Russia and focusing our resources on joint goals of a far loftier nature than besting each other on wartime toys.
The troubles of the US of late have largely stemmed from having an insatiable parasite on its back sucking all that it can from the military and the economy in general whilst simultaneously plotting to undermine it.The senseless wars in the ME to provide Israel with "security", the billions of dollars in "loans" that will never be repaid, the vast amounts of military hardware worth billions declared as "scrap" and given to Israel, what a great investment it all has been.
No doubt millions of Americans will welcome more degradation of their cities and infrastructure in order to field a larger military since it cares for the fruit of their loins so well AND has accomplished so much good in the world with the trillions already squandered at the behest of the Neocon Israel Firsters.
You sure have your finger on America's pulse Shammy and clearly want nothing but the best for the American people, right? What a tosser!
•@anonHUN I think the military and intelligence guys (and the big contractors) need Russia as the enemy, the bogeyman, probably many of them were secretly disappointed back then when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Deep State wants an endless race, a race where America is always leading but not by too much. A Cold War with a worthy opponent, not with tinpot third world dictatorships. Many of them don't even hate Russia, even respects it to some extent. Now they are probably happy that the old days are back.NoseytheDuke , April 18, 2017 at 1:08 am GMTOn the other hand there are of course real Russophobes, who really want to win and finish the "job" that was left unfinished in the 90's according to their view. They want regime change in Russia and preferably break it up, with all the republics of the RF declaring independence etc. Brzezinski, McCain or the neocons are like that. But they don't want WW3 either, they are not nutcases, just they want to settle an account with Russia badly.
Regarding Russian military they are still 20 years behind on average, the gap didn't close since Soviet times, if anything, it widened in many respects.
US military might is still unique and unrivaled, on the long run China has the most chance to challenge it. Russia is simply too poor, an economic dwarf compared to China (China is the workshop of the world, Russia mostly exports raw materials), also it's population is probably too small. Did you skip the article and go straight to comments? Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 100 Words @Z-man Korea?, no big deal as far as I'm concerned. Let's bomb that fat boy to submission. It's when we blindly support that dirty little country occupying the Holy Land, that's when I get my blood pressure up! What if the fat boy (and the NK people) feel that they need those weapons for defensive purposes? After all, it wasn't too long ago that Korea was invaded by the US (plus a few satraps) and millions of Koreans were killed. Who are we in the west to interfere with NK? •Erebus , April 18, 2017 at 1:27 am GMT• 200 Words @The AlarmistKiza , April 18, 2017 at 1:38 am GMTYou have nut-jobs in Congress talking out hacking being an act of war and planners talking about massive NATO reponse as being appropriate ... can one seriously believe the US would not repond with nukes in the event of such an attack, even though it is non-nuclear? I understand that there would be great hue and cry to take revenge. That is why I wrote (with a correction in bold):
"The continental US can be thrown into socio-political-economic collapse with 3 dozen Kalibrs aimed at critical nodes in the national electrical grid. With no prospect of electricity being revived, the now largely urban population would find itself instantly transported to 1900 with none of the skills and infrastructure that kept a pre-electrified rural society fed and secure. If the subs and/or TU-160s are in place, that's 45-90 minutes without a single nuke fired."
One can hope that we'll be rejoicing that America's owners follow ed their internationalistic instincts when that moment has passed.
America's owners aren't necessarily American. That the civilizational consequences of America's death be limited to the N. American continent is in their interest, and they would make that interest known.
The geo-political consequences of an attack on the grid in response to a US/NATO attack on Russia would be that the US would instantly cease to be a military/economic power for at least several generations. The Great Game would be over. If the US came back with a nuclear response, they know well that Russia's counter-response would simply extend that timeline. Perhaps to infinity. IOW, other than suicidal madness, there is no geo-political reason to respond, and there'd be every reason to take the hit and try to rebuild.Likewise, Russia's politicians would be hard pressed to resist responding to an American nuclear attack in kind, but the fact is that there would be no military purpose to doing so. The US would be finished as a world power. Vaporizing 200M people would be of no military value. Better to keep what's left of your nuclear forces intact so you don't have to rebuild them.
•• 100 Words @ZzzKiza , April 18, 2017 at 1:48 am GMT
Russians blaming the Germans for sending the half-Jewish Lenin with a trainload of gold to foment Bolshevik (Jewish) revolution
Are the same people. I thought I explained that it is the Russian liberals who picked up the Western view of who to blame for WW1, just like they picked up everything else from their Western role models. The Russian nationalists do not blame the Serbs "for dragging them into WW1″ because this is principally a Western idea of how to push discord among Slavic relatives, not that it even matters that it is completely untrue. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
Russian who are blaming the Serbs for WW1
@Z-man Korea?, no big deal as far as I'm concerned. Let's bomb that fat boy to submission. It's when we blindly support that dirty little country occupying the Holy Land, that's when I get my blood pressure up! You are stupid, are you not? •Kiza , April 18, 2017 at 2:04 am GMT• 100 Words @Avery {From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities".}Erebus , April 18, 2017 at 2:16 am GMTUntil it has proven itself in a real war against a technologically competent adversary, e.g. U.S./NATO, then it's all simulation.
Its "mind boggling capabilities" are nothing more than engineering specifications.
No computer simulation anywhere, anytime has been able to come even close to the chaotic, unpredictable conditions of real war.To wit: the Patriot worked great on paper, but its performance in the Iraq war against ancient Iraqi Scuds was dismal.
To wit2: the misnamed 'Iron Dome', which is a supposedly improved copy of the Patriot and which Israelis claim has a hit rate of 90%+, was proven by Prof. Postol of MIT to have a success rate of ~5% against primitive Hamas rockets.Let's wait and see if the S-400 has "mind boggling capabilities" .
Well Scuds were strange beasts. Saddam's Scuds did not have regular ballistic trajectories, probably because they were old and falling apart during flight. Thus, their trajectories became unintentionally unpredictable/random. I agree that the Raytheon's shootdown rate was a boldface lie which professor Postol exposed. But randomised trajectory is the reason why the shootdown rate was so low.
I hope it does. (Armenia has 'bought' some S-300s, officially. Maybe Russia gave RoA some S-400s too, unofficially).The Russian MIRV ICBM Bullawa uses exactly the same approach of randomising trajectory of each vehicle intentionally, small but quick completely random maneuvers, which makes it virtually impossible to shootdown. The US would have to place supercooled computers on its interceptors to destroy those babies. Therefore, another relatively cheap but highly effective countermeasure to US ABMD, a beautiful response.
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• 200 Words @Joe Wong "Russia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita." this is very funny, how about the 20 trillions of US national debt and it is skyrocketing fast? If you only count asset without counting liability US maybe in the top 10 GDP per capita, but if you count net asset the US is in the negative GDP per capita, a broke nation. Perhaps it is American Exceptionalism logic, claiming credit where credit is not due, living in a world detached from reality.Kiza , April 18, 2017 at 2:22 am GMT"If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke." this is even funnier, Russian does not use USD in Russia, nor Russian government pay its MIC in USD, meanwhile Russian Central Bank can print Ruble thru the thin air just like the Fed, why does oil price have any relationship with Russian internal spending? Another example of "completely triumphalist and detached from Russia's economic realities" which is defined by meaningless Wall Street economic indices and snakeoil economic theories and rhetoric taught in the western universities.
Russian Central Bank can print Ruble thru the thin air just like the Fed
No, it cannot.
The Russian Central Bank, like all "emerging market" central banks are treaty bound to print local currency only in a prescribed ratio to their "hard currency" reserves. The latter are the USD, the UKP, the EUR, the JPY, and now the CNY.
As IMF treaties are considered International Treaties, they stand above the law of the land.
These treaties are the instruments whereby the US' IMF-USD $ystem keeps the dollar in demand, and extracts value from the "3rd world" which are thereby forced to sell raw commodities to print enough currency to develop their internal economies. Of course, they can never really sell enough, and so they stay where they are.
So, when the USM buys some insanely expensive aircraft carrier, or fighter aircraft, the rest of the world pays for it. In turn, the US uses that same carrier or aircraft to enforce the treaties. A self-reinforcing arrangement that allows the US and its allies to enjoy all the benefits of thievery over honest toil. "Extraordinary privilege", DeGaulle called it.The Russian Central Bank is doubly constrained by virtue of its (American authored) constitution which all but prohibits its restructuring.
You can read a rather lengthy, but eye opening treatise on this subject here:
http://lit.md/files/nstarikov/rouble_nationalization-the_way_to_russia%27s_freedom.pdf
•• 100 Words OT, here is some education about North Korea for the stupid people and those who are not stupid but lack information. This is truly worth a read, it will open your eyes. Particularly read the comments, and especially the three comments by "b", the zine owner:Mark Chapman , • Website April 18, 2017 at 2:27 am GMThttp://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/04/the-reason-behind-north-koreas-nuclear-program-and-its-offer-to-end-it.html#more
The reality about North Korea is that the South Korean US puppets apply the same technique on NK defectors that the British US puppets apply on Russian "KGB defectors". These poor defecting souls found themselves in a desperate situation in their new country to which they were attracted by stories of street paved in gold. Thus even just for food they have to invent more and more outrageous stories to feed the propaganda machines of their South Korean/British hosts.
This is how Kim Jong Un threw his uncle to the 120 starving dogs and how Putin blew up some Russian apartments in Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, defector's honor!
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• 200 Words @Avery {From people who serve on it, and I quote:"mind boggling capabilities".}Carlton Meyer , • Website April 18, 2017 at 2:31 am GMTUntil it has proven itself in a real war against a technologically competent adversary, e.g. U.S./NATO, then it's all simulation.
Its "mind boggling capabilities" are nothing more than engineering specifications.
No computer simulation anywhere, anytime has been able to come even close to the chaotic, unpredictable conditions of real war.To wit: the Patriot worked great on paper, but its performance in the Iraq war against ancient Iraqi Scuds was dismal.
To wit2: the misnamed 'Iron Dome', which is a supposedly improved copy of the Patriot and which Israelis claim has a hit rate of 90%+, was proven by Prof. Postol of MIT to have a success rate of ~5% against primitive Hamas rockets.Let's wait and see if the S-400 has "mind boggling capabilities" .
In fact, Russia often tests its systems under much more realistic conditions than does the USA and western powers. They want to know if it is going to fail when it is confronted with western jamming, for example, and try to make intercept difficult where the west is obsessed with collecting test data for evaluation, and as a consequence the launch site knows the release time of the target and its initial course and speed, rather than a 'black' release. Not always, but often.
I hope it does. (Armenia has 'bought' some S-300s, officially. Maybe Russia gave RoA some S-400s too, unofficially).http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-russias-s-400-missile-system-in-action-and-heres-1746490022
I guess much of it boils down to how seriously you take Russian accounts of their own tests, but they specify here that the test took place under heavy jamming and yet all four missiles intercepted the target during the midcourse phase. Whatever you believe, the author is correct in pointing out that the S-400 is just a part of a multilayered Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), and it only takes one mobile launcher in an unexpected place to wreck the day for a manned-aircraft element using current tactics.
It is safe to say without further information that western air forces are very wary of the S-400, and confronting Russia's multilayered IADS would be nothing like taking on Gadaffi's eccentric and janky mismatched collection of air-defense weaponry.
•@DanC One of the most spectacular misallocation of resources has been the US Navy's insistence on building ever-more surface ships of ever-increasing complexity, while allowing their submarine fleet to languish, and neglecting missile & torpedo technology.Kiza , April 18, 2017 at 2:42 am GMTThe reason is career path incentives in the Navy, and in the defense contractor corporations, not in rational consideration of the directions naval warfare is developing in the rest of the world.
I've said it before, and I'll repeat it here: the first time a surface fleet, no matter how modern, how large, even a carrier group, is attacked by a well-commanded, networked battery of modern missles, like the Moskit, Onyx or BrahMos, there will be debacle of historic proportions.
Thousands of sailors and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of hardware will be headed to the bottom. If you care to read my detailed explanation of why carrier strike groups are obsolete against a modern navy:
If you prefer to watch a 33 second example:
•• 300 Words @Sam ShamaKiza , April 18, 2017 at 3:04 am GMTHey Smoothie,
Russia is a very special case here–this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about,
Loved this informative piece.On the military aspect, I'll take your assessments without any salt at all, for I do believe the U.S. has been tracking a technologically shallower but cost wise steeper trajectory.
I think Russians are a highly gifted lot, able to do wonders mostly on account of their deep science & mathematics bench.
Yet I also think Randal is mostly right about economic strength playing a vital, even decisive role in overall strength in the longer run. There are no countries which can match the U.S. in the department of raw economic endowments.
China comes closest to exceeding the overall size of the U.S.economy, based on a combination of sheer population, relentless mercantilism combined with extractive labour policies over the last five decades or more. All of which has also propelled them to achieve technological capabilities not far behind many western European states.
The U.S is eminently capable of really, I mean really increasing military spending without breaking a sweat. But that is not the goal in itself. It needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly. Imagine a U.S. spending an efficient 7-10% of GDP on this, in which case I see its competitors doing little else besides gearing their entire economies to armaments, and then failing to keep up. I am confident if such a race ensued there'd be a global run to purchase U.S. assets, even as capital controls are put into action.
The troubles of the U.S have stemmed from a paucity of far-sighted leaders of late. I am still hoping Mr Trump comes through, and there are signs he will. We should be establishing a truly friendly relationship with Russia and focusing our resources on joint goals of a far loftier nature than besting each other on wartime toys.
It [US] needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly.
Gee Sam, you are totally lost in your understanding of US problems.
Firstly, US military budget is significantly more than presented because the whole budget has been divided between different government departments. For example, nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy, the huge ongoing cost of Veterans' health is under Department of Health budget, the free money to Israel is under the Foreign Affairs and so on. Overall, about 40% of the US military budget is hidden, which means that US spends not 2.5% of GDP on the military then probably around 4.5%.
Secondly, if US were to bump up the military budget to 7-10% this could come only either at the expense of money printing machines running even hotter than super hot QE1,QE2,QE3 (what Trump is doing) or by increasing taxes on a quite depressed economy in which retail spending has almost collapsed. I cannot believe that you are suggesting this, maybe you are too close to your Fed buddies.
Thirdly, the idea of "coming down hard on MIC waste" is utterly ridiculous because the "MIC waste" is the Deep State profit and we just had an illustration of what happens with those who oppose the Deep State. In other words, only God could come down on US MIC waste, the Presidents can only pretend.
Since Russia and China started replacing US$ as a reserve and exchange currency, the clock has been ticking for the money printers such as the Fed and Trump. When the amount of US$ returning to US starts exceeding the amount bought by foreigners, then the inflation will explode to the German one of the 1920s. The US$ is still strong, not because of its intrinsic value then thanks to skillful FX market manipulation and thanks to 10-12 aircraft carrier groups.
Trump is now amassing three carrier groups near North Korea, Russia and China. What do you think would happen to US$ if even one of those carriers gets sunk?
•• 200 Words @Andrei MartyanovKiza , April 18, 2017 at 3:48 am GMTGenerally legitimate point but it will require a very expanded answer. I will, at some point, elaborate on it--there are some serious nuances.
But the new generations of Russians are becoming softer and softer and Russian military has not been tested in a recent conflict against a peer just like the US one has not.
Largely true. However, in serious signal processing systems such as radar, sonar, combat control (management) systems etc. the main secret are mathematics (algorithms). Just to give you an example, it was impossible for China to copy any software from any Russian-made systems. As an example, Shtil Air Defense complexes which went to China after she bought Project 956 destroyers in 1990s are defended such way that any attempt to tamper with their (and other systems') brains results in a clean slate. It is true today also, actually, especially today. China now is receiving full Russian "version" of SU-35 and of S-400, they still will not be able to copy it. Mimic somewhat? Yes. After all they do have their own S-300 knock offs. Copy? No. They will try, of course but, say, SU-35 engine and avionics is still beyond their reach.
The second major disadvantage of the Russian MIC is that US has a huge market of allies which it ruthlessly milks for weapons procurement, whilst when Russia sells an S300 to Cyprus it lands in the hands of the Israelis to be cracked. Even after such experience Russia engages in an apparently serious discussion to sell S400 to Turkey, straight into NATO hands. To put it mildly – Russia has to nurture the BRICS defense market, although most of the customers are copy artists, China being the master copier.
I believe Ondrej made a good, albeit partial case, for you in his response. Let me put it this way--viewing Russia's public schools' 8-9th grade books on math and physics (and chemistry) may create a state of shock in many, even elite, US schools and not among students only I know. Ok. so the secret of Russian military project effectiveness is that there are no congressional districts and power plays to divvy up the military budget not based on merit and proven capability than based on the power of the district's Congressional and/or Senatorial whore. Then, there are no MIC billionaires to skim the pie. Then the engineers works for reasonable salaries with a highly respected bonus of patriotism. Then there is an excellent well established educational system (for the whites) which puts accent on physics, maths and real technical building skills, supported by mentorship by experienced engineers, instead of putting accent on lying, financial market wizardry (again manipulation), MBAs, whilst training blacks to become engineers and importing engineers from India. Finally, there is the accumulated project experience and cooperative networks from building good weaponry during the days of Soviet Union, in which Russia quickly and effectively replaced sometimes dysfunctional pieces of network which dropped out, especially the important ones from Ukraine. I am truly amazed how quickly the Russian military manufacturing network compensates and adjusts for the loss of any piece.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more. Does Russian MIC operate some underground former mine facilities in which these engineering slaves design all these wonderful military toys and then build them at the cost of sustenance?
Have I answered my own question of how Russia produces on average 5X more bang for the buck (or more precisely, almost the same bang for five times less buck) than the US MIC? Am I missing any other component of success?
•• 200 Words @Mark Chapman In fact, Russia often tests its systems under much more realistic conditions than does the USA and western powers. They want to know if it is going to fail when it is confronted with western jamming, for example, and try to make intercept difficult where the west is obsessed with collecting test data for evaluation, and as a consequence the launch site knows the release time of the target and its initial course and speed, rather than a 'black' release. Not always, but often.Bayan , April 18, 2017 at 3:51 am GMThttp://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-russias-s-400-missile-system-in-action-and-heres-1746490022
I guess much of it boils down to how seriously you take Russian accounts of their own tests, but they specify here that the test took place under heavy jamming and yet all four missiles intercepted the target during the midcourse phase. Whatever you believe, the author is correct in pointing out that the S-400 is just a part of a multilayered Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), and it only takes one mobile launcher in an unexpected place to wreck the day for a manned-aircraft element using current tactics.
It is safe to say without further information that western air forces are very wary of the S-400, and confronting Russia's multilayered IADS would be nothing like taking on Gadaffi's eccentric and janky mismatched collection of air-defense weaponry. Very good and relevant explanation. I would only add that what Russia has in Syria and what Syria has in Syria are not IADS then stand-alone radars and missiles. What Russia has over Russia is IADS, especially with the new S500 (Russian ABMD). The Russians do not develop separate systems for air-defence and missile-defence, in Russia it is all one integrated multi-sensor system. What is completely unknown is the effectiveness of the Western stealth techniques and jammers against the Russian IADS over Russia. What if, what the Western airforces call the blue line, the entry space which allows you to destroy the airdefense before being detected and destroyed, keeps changing, becomes unpredictable or disappears altogether. What if you cannot overwhelm the airdefense with a barrage of 59 Tomahawks as in Syria, because you would need to fire several hundred or even thousand missiles simultaneously?
If Russia implements IADS over Syria, which may be what was announced after the US cruise missile attack, then the "blue line" for US and Israeli jets and missiles may disappear.
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• 100 Words America and Russia will not go for a direct war.Kiza , April 18, 2017 at 4:09 am GMTThe reason is simple: one is crazy the other is nuts. When crazy meets nuts sanity of both is restored. They 'll go for a drink and head home.
I sort of drove this conclusion from a Russian poem I read years ago.
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• 200 Words @Mark Chapman Agreed; the US Navy only continues to pursue railgun technology to use up budget dollars - a peculiarity of western defense budgeting is that if you show efficiency by using less than the full amount allocated for your operations, maintenance and R&D, your budget is likely to be cut by that much next cycle. The USN has gone back to the drawing-board on railgun development, but absent a power-supply breakthrough it is unrealistic except as a vanity project.2stateshmoostate , April 18, 2017 at 4:38 am GMThttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navys-railgun-dream-could-be-denied-by-two-big-problems-17301
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/this-is-why-the-navy-cant-have-nice-railguns
An additional argument in Russia's favour is that many of its systems are built simply to be rugged and easily operated by someone with a minimum of training, like a conscript, although the top end of the air defense systems are still largely operated by specialists. Western systems often are unnecessarily complex - sometimes seemingly just to impress reviewers - and the fiasco of the F-35 nightmare serves as exemplary of what happens when corporatism gets the upper hand on government; any vision of what the F-35 was originally supposed to do has been lost in a blizzard of pork-barreling and design changes.
As far as the navy goes, I made some of the same points myself some years ago, particularly the gross discrepancy in the cost of the USN's Littoral Combat Ships compared with - in this instance - China's missile corvettes.
https://marknesop.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/fall-out-and-secure-for-sea-the-2012-sino-russian-naval-exercises/comment-page-1/
Thanks for a great piece; it was timely, informative, thought-provoking and chock-full of meaty phrases and terminology I cannot wait to borrow.
Mark, sorry but I have to disagree on the F-35 project. You are right thatany vision of what the F-35 was originally supposed to do has been lost in a blizzard of pork-barreling and design changes
But it appears that even that original concept was a pie in the sky sold to the government by a ruthless military almost-monopolistic corporation.
Firstly, the concept was unrealistic, then also the concept was too ambitious in the wrong direction.
Unrealistic: to create one frame for different airforce roles with very different requirements I describe as similar to creating a tank which can race on the ground, fly and submerge . I wonder why this has never been done successfully before. But this is what LM promised to USAF and on paper it looked fantastic and when greased with a few corrupt bucks the concept won the decision day. The same frame and 70% of shared components between all versions, ha!
Too ambitious: instead of focusing on the firepower and maneuverability, it focused on stealth which is relatively easily defeated with multi-sensor IADS. The designers created the best stealth possible but at the expense of the principal plane performance: the firepower and maneuverability.
LM claims that F-35 is completely new technology and suffers from birthing pains. Although true, this is not the crux of the problem. The whole design is back-to-the-drawing-board level of disaster. Even US & Allies cannot afford a trillion dollars stuff-up and a decade of time lost.
In essence, the F-35 is again a good weapon only against the thirld-world opponents who cannot defeat stealth.
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• 200 Words I could be wrong, but I am inclined to see a parallel between the US now and the Russian Empire pre-1904.Joe Franklin , April 18, 2017 at 4:42 am GMT
After after the surprise attack by the Japanese navy against Port Arthur and ultimate victory by Japan in the Russian-Japanese war that followed back in 1904, the Czarist regime was doomed.
The Russians were arrogantly confident that they could easily beat down the Japanese forces and got the shit kicked out of them.
On paper the Russians should have had the advantage, but because there was so much corruption and incompetence in the Czarist military complex they were defeated.
The result was a the revolution of 1905 and the Czars ultimate demise in 1917.
I think everything about the US government is a lie and has been for a while. Even though billions are spent on the US military I suspect it is a "paper tiger" because of obvious corruption but also because of the traitorous activity of US government officials with allegiances to a foreign powers.
Anyway I'd be surprised that the US would prevail (without destroying the entire world with nukes) in a conflict with a adversary like Russia.
But, I certainly could be wrong. •• 300 Words @mushroom When folks discuss Russia's capabilities they often forget what's blatantly obvious - which is what's not obvious, i.e. what the bear has created and is in it's hidden caves.utu , April 18, 2017 at 4:52 am GMTWhat happened to that U.S. destroyer in the Black Sea was just a teasing mini-harbinger of this reality!
So is the genius to create a cavity to eavesdrop, &c...
If you want to enjoy happy days don't mess with the bear! The USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) is a 4th generation guided missile destroyer whose key weapons are Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers, and capable of carrying nuclear explosives. This ship carries 56 Tomahawk missiles in standard mode, and 96 missiles in attack mode.
The US destroyer is equipped with the most recent Aegis Combat System. It is an integrated naval weapons systems which can link together the missile defense systems of all vessels embedded within the same network, so as to ensure the detection, tracking and destruction of hundreds of targets at the same time. In addition, the USS Donald Cook is equipped with 4 large radars, whose power is comparable to that of several stations. For protection, it carries more than fifty anti-aircraft missiles of various types.
Meanwhile, the Russian Su-24 that buzzed the USS Donald Cook carried neither bombs nor missiles but only a basket mounted under the fuselage, which, according to the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta [2], contained a Russian electronic warfare device called Khibiny .
As the Russian jet approached the US vessel, the electronic device disabled all radars, control circuits, systems, information transmission, etc. on board the US destroyer . In other words, the all-powerful Aegis system, now hooked up – or about to be – with the defense systems installed on NATO's most modern ships was shut down, as turning off the TV set with the remote control.
The Russian Su-24 then simulated a missile attack against the USS Donald Cook, which was left literally deaf and blind. As if carrying out a training exercise, the Russian aircraft – unarmed – repeated the same maneuver 12 times before flying away.
After that, the 4th generation destroyer immediately set sail towards a port in Romania.
Since that incident, which the Atlanticist media have carefully covered up despite the widespread reactions sparked among defense industry experts, no US ship has ever approached Russian territorial waters again.
According to some specialized media, 27 sailors from the USS Donald Cook requested to be relieved from active service.
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• 400 Words The article is not backed up by numbers. There is zero specificity.pogohere , • Website April 18, 2017 at 5:14 am GMTHow many S-300 and S-400 are actually deployed? How many missiles/fighter jets would it take to overwhelm this defensive force? Does US/NATO have that many missiles/fighter jets to do this job?
How many Su-35 were deployed so far and how does this compare to the number of F-22 in service?
How many submarines US and Russia have currently in the seas?
What's wrong with Ohio class subs? They are just there to deliver the punch and are perfectly safe as Russia does not have enough killer subs.
And now this:
Moreover, already today, US lower 48 are not immune to a conventional massive missile strike.
What would be the purpose of such a strike? Wasting expensive missile on delivering just singular 500kg explosive? Anybody seriously in Russia's military would consider such an idiocy?
The bottom line is that Russia is a nuclear power that can annihilate the US. All strategies take this into account. This is the bottom line. Any response or aggression vis a vis Russia must take this into account.
Russia has conventional defensive capabilities but has negligible ability of projecting its power beyond its borders. Circa 4 dozens of planes in Syria with half a dozen of fighter jets to protect them that all are defended by few dozens of S-300/400 tubes is not very impressive. This force could be overwhelmed in just few hours by Israel AF that has over 400 F-15/16 or Turkey AF that has over 200 F-16.
I do not believe anybody really wants a war with Russia but certainly they want to conquer Russia to make it to submit to the Washington consensus. But this will not be done with foreign troops on Russian soil or with bombs falling or Russian cities. It will be done with a soft coup d'etat that will depose Putin and his semi-patriotic faction. It all will be done with Russian hands. The attack on Syria by Trump was perfectly timed with president Xi visit who is very familiar with the Chinese proverb: kill the chicken to scare the monkey. Putin was the chicken and Xi was the monkey in this case. Putin lost face and Xi lost face. With every incident of this nature there will be more and more resentment and plotting among various factions in Russia's Deep State. There is no other choice because certainly Russia will not go to the preemptive nuclear war and apart of nuclear war Russia will be humiliated in every conventional skirmish.
I am taking bets if Putin will be out of power by the end of this summer.
•• 300 Words @ErebusSeraphim , April 18, 2017 at 5:44 am GMTNo, it cannot.
Russian Central Bank can print Ruble thru the thin air just like the Fed
The Russian Central Bank, like all "emerging market" central banks are treaty bound to print local currency only in a prescribed ratio to their "hard currency" reserves. The latter are the USD, the UKP, the EUR, the JPY, and now the CNY.
As IMF treaties are considered International Treaties, they stand above the law of the land.
These treaties are the instruments whereby the US' IMF-USD $ystem keeps the dollar in demand, and extracts value from the "3rd world" which are thereby forced to sell raw commodities to print enough currency to develop their internal economies. Of course, they can never really sell enough, and so they stay where they are.
So, when the USM buys some insanely expensive aircraft carrier, or fighter aircraft, the rest of the world pays for it. In turn, the US uses that same carrier or aircraft to enforce the treaties. A self-reinforcing arrangement that allows the US and its allies to enjoy all the benefits of thievery over honest toil. "Extraordinary privilege", DeGaulle called it.The Russian Central Bank is doubly constrained by virtue of its (American authored) constitution which all but prohibits its restructuring.
You can read a rather lengthy, but eye opening treatise on this subject here:
http://lit.md/files/nstarikov/rouble_nationalization-the_way_to_russia%27s_freedom.pdf What international treaties has the Russian Central Bank entered into, if any?Re: "The Russian Central Bank is doubly constrained by virtue of its (American authored) constitution which all but prohibits its restructuring."
Yours is an odd way of interpreting this provision of the Russian Constitution:
The Constitution of the Russian Federation
Article 75 (Chapter 3)1. The monetary unit in the Russian Federation shall be the rouble. Money issue shall be carried out exclusively by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Introduction and issue of other currencies in Russia shall not be allowed.
2. The protection and ensuring the stability of the rouble shall be the major task of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which it shall fulfil independently of the other bodies of state authority.
3. The system of taxes paid to the federal budget and the general principles of taxation and dues in the Russian Federation shall be fixed by the federal law.
4. State loans shall be issued according to the rules fixed by the federal law and shall be floated on a voluntary basis. [emphasis added]With reference to this @p36 of the treatise cited:
"Laws need to be changed. That means that it is necessary to take the State
Duma under control. That means that a parliamentary majority is required.
And therefore, a party needs to be created that will win the general elections.
A political structure which is currently rather popular starts being created.The majority party in the Duma now has representation sufficient to enable an amendment to the constitution to change the above provisions, not to mention the laws pursuant to same. Whether that is actually politically feasible is another matter.
The treatise you cited appears to be somewhat dated with regard to the constraints, if any, on changes to central banking in Russia.
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• 200 Words @anon That is a point I have often tried to make. Had the Tsar just told the Serbs flat out, "You guys are on your own. Comply. Or fight the Central Powers by yourself. We are out of it.",' there would never have been a 'Great' war (WW1). At most the 'war' would have been a minor brawl between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. History would have recorded it as just another Balkan skirmish. It would have been virtually forgotten today. This was the initial assumption of the Kaiser when he issued his 'blank check' of support. The Tsar would have saved millions of lives, including his own and his family too. Just nine years earlier the Tsar had fought and lost a disastrous war with Japan. That defeat led to a revolution that came within a hair of deposing him. He SHOULD have learned his lesson and avoided any future conflict like the plague. Tsar Nicolas was an incredibly stupid man. He deserves far more vilification then the Kaiser does. Tsar Nicholas was not that stupid to not see that the aggression against Serbia was in fact directed at Russia. The Dual Alliance of 1879, coming immediately after the Berlin Congress was directed squarely against Russia. By the time of Nicholas it evolved in the Triple Alliance and I have no doubts that Russians knew that Romania had adhered in secret in 1882. He could not be unaware of the 'Drang nach Osten' mentality which gripped Germany by the end of the 19th century and that the plans for the partition of Russia were on the drawing board. He could not have been unaware that the rejection of his proposals for disarmament has induced Germany to believe that the proposal reflected the weakness of Russia. He could not been unaware of Moltke's proposal in 1912 for a preventive war against Russia. He could not have been unaware that an external war was a precondition of for the revolution.Blacktail , April 18, 2017 at 6:34 am GMT
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• 200 Words The Russian military is moving in the same direction as the US - toward state-of-the-art obsolescence. While they build tiny numbers of new weapons, many times that number of their predecessors are being retired faster than the new weapons can be built.Ondrej , April 18, 2017 at 6:57 am GMTThat fancy T-14 Armata Russia started building a few years ago? It replaces over 20000 T-55s and T-62s built early in the Cold War, and 6000 T-64s that were all spontaneously retired in the early 2010s and shipped not to the tank graveyards, but straight to the cutting mills.
The Borei class Ballistic Missile Submarines mentioned in the article currently number about 5 boats, most of which aren't finished yet. They replace not only the infinitely more powerful and infamous Typhoon class (retired not because of age, but because Russia couldn't afford them), but also some 50 other Cold War era "Boomers".
And that Su-35 that's all the hype these days? It was back in the mid-1990s as well, and the Su-27 it was meant to replace is being retired faster than Su-35s can be built. The new T-50 isn't much of a threat either, because it's been in development almost as long as the F-35, and it's no closer to being combat-ready.
These are a metaphor for what Russia has become; a nation so insecure about the wrong things (cutting-edge technology rather than enough weapons to defend itself) that they're over-spending to weakness.
•• 100 Words @Sergey Krieger You are coming as a very pragmatic sort of a man ;) Just for your warning – well, bit of cultural and genetical conditioning helps in this case.anonHUN , April 18, 2017 at 7:22 am GMTAs one of my grandfathers was helping in early stages of establishing
Unfortunately, I did not have chance to discuss these issues with him.
Unfortunately, depending on point view, I am not enough pragmatic for current ideologically driven socio-economical society
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• 600 Words @Joe Wong "still 20 years behind on average?" since you are fabricating thru the thin air, why did you stop at 20 years? Why didn't you say 30 years behind, 40 years behind, ... ? You should know fake news is always fake new regardless it is a small fake news or a big fake news. It depends on the area, in some things they are 30 years behind, or even 40. The USSR collapsed in 1991 and for at least 10 years Russia had no money even to pay its soldiers. As the Chechen debacles had shown they were in shambles. Their new projects weren't going much forward, as you can see they resumed their 1980′s projects after 2000 when they had more oil income and Putin made the Russian state working again (well, kind of it is still hindered by corruption, disincentivizes citizens from being entrepreneurial (in a state where the rules can be changed overnight at the ruler's whim (no real rule of law) and you can be a billionaire oligarch but you can't be sure the state doesn't simple take everything from you and throw you in prison overnight, even arranging for your "accidental" death, except the money you siphoned to foreign accounts and real estate abroad etc.) It is mafia state, or a mafia (ex KGB) presenting itself as the state. Of course it is more ore less true everywhere (in the US too of course), deep under the veneer of democracy and rule of law, but in Russia it is almost open and blatant. Also the Russians don't have any traditions of enterpreneurship, private incentive, contrary to China, which is also a very corrupt country with a corrupt and totally nondemocratic regime (contrary to Russia which has token Western-style democratic institutions now), but thanks to the industriousness of the Chinese people they have risen to where they are now. Average Russians still seem to expect the state to provide for them as it was in the USSR, they need a "Father Tsar" which is now Putin, or they are just drinking too much and are in a rut, idk.ondrej , April 18, 2017 at 7:25 am GMTAs for the years it was only an estimate of course, but as I said they first had to make up for the lost decade after 1991, like finishing subs that were left unfinished since 1992 and things like that. First really new gadgets were the Armata (and Kurganets) which is still a newcomer, and T-50, still not an operational fighter. Regarding SAM's I must say the Russians always were the fans of SAM's but they were ineffective in the ME and Vietnam too. Didn't stop the enemy from achieving air superiority. I don't doubt that the S-300 /400 is much more advanced than the SAM systems of the 60′s and 70′s were, but they would have to face a much more advanced opponent too. Like low RCS planes that cannot be detected until they are well within the range of their air-to-surface weapons or dozens of targets flying at 20-3o m coming in from multiple directions.
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The F-35 is derided around here, the US spent a fortune on it, true. It has problems (only known because the US is more open, you usually don't read in the media about problems with the new Chinese or Russian planes, sure you think it is because they don't have any with them?) but it's capabilities are something. Stealth is not some scam as some believe. It is serious business when your SAM's or AAM's cannot lock on the damn thing even if you have a monster longwave radar that can detect it from a few dozen miles
• 200 Words @Kiza Ok. so the secret of Russian military project effectiveness is that there are no congressional districts and power plays to divvy up the military budget not based on merit and proven capability than based on the power of the district's Congressional and/or Senatorial whore. Then, there are no MIC billionaires to skim the pie. Then the engineers works for reasonable salaries with a highly respected bonus of patriotism. Then there is an excellent well established educational system (for the whites) which puts accent on physics, maths and real technical building skills, supported by mentorship by experienced engineers, instead of putting accent on lying, financial market wizardry (again manipulation), MBAs, whilst training blacks to become engineers and importing engineers from India. Finally, there is the accumulated project experience and cooperative networks from building good weaponry during the days of Soviet Union, in which Russia quickly and effectively replaced sometimes dysfunctional pieces of network which dropped out, especially the important ones from Ukraine. I am truly amazed how quickly the Russian military manufacturing network compensates and adjusts for the loss of any piece.anon , April 18, 2017 at 8:18 am GMTHave I answered my own question of how Russia produces on average 5X more bang for the buck (or more precisely, almost the same bang for five times less buck) than the US MIC? Am I missing any other component of success?
Am I missing any other component of success?Just a possibility – or my hypothesis I am playing lately:-)
It can be language according Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
The principle of linguistic relativity that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions. The strong version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, whereas the weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions.and also due to fact that:
Baltic and Slavic show the common trait of never having undergone in the course of their development any sudden systemic upheaval. [ ] there is no indication of a serious dislocation of any part of the linguistic system at any time. The sound structure has in general remained intact to the present. [ ] Baltic and Slavic are consequently the only languages in which certain modern word-forms resemble those reconstructed for Common Indo-European." ( The Indo-European Dialects [Eng. translation of Les dialectes indo-européens (1908)], University of Alabama Press, 1967, pp.
59-60).Which could explain math skills of Russians and Indian:-) because languages are closely related.
+ learning other languages helps one for recognizing other points of view, if you look at current Russian elites Shoigu, Lavrov and others they speak usually one or more foreign languages fluently.
•• 300 Words @Andrei MartyanovDanC , April 18, 2017 at 8:41 am GMTRussia is a very special case here--this is one of the points which is missed completely from "western" discussion. The empirical evidence is in and it overwhelmingly supports my, now academic, contention that "western" metrics for Russia do not work, nor most of the "experts" know what they are talking about, even when they have almost unrestricted access to sources. The way US "missed" Russia's military transformation which started in earnest in 2008 and completed its first phase by 2012 (4 years, you are talking about decades) is nothing short of astonishing. Combination of ignorance, hubris and downright stupidity are responsible for all that.
When relative economic strength is changing, military power lags by decades because many of the systems, technologies and institutions can only be built on such timescales.
P.S. No serious analyst takes US GDP as 18 trillion dollars seriously. A huge part of it is a creative bookkeeping and most of it is financial and service sector. Out of very few good things Vitaly Shlykov left after himself was his "The General Staff And Economics", which addressed the issue of actual US military-industrial potential. Then come strategic, operational and technological dimensions. You want to see operational dimension--look no further than Mosul which is still, after 6 months, being "liberated". Comparisons to Aleppo are not only warranted but irresistible. In general, overall power of the state (nation) is not only in its "economic" indices. I use Barnett's definition of national power constantly, remarkably Lavrov's recent speech in the General Staff Academy uses virtually identical definition. Your main point is well taken. PPP instead of simply GDP captures lower costs in Russia and is a better starting point. Plus, the US military procurement is remarkably inefficient. The combination of the two plus tacit and institutional knowledge regarding spending on military hardware makes analysis based on US spending misleading.
However, the US is remarkably efficient in many other areas and has had the best performing developed economy since 2008.
Regarding access to capital markets, the US over the last decade has developed a massive unconventional oil industry. This was done with capital investment of $3 trillion. Which came from capital markets. Not only was this unplanned, but it was done with grudging support from the Obama administration. And it is of enormous geo strategic value. I wish to hell that our defense doctrine would plug this new fact - US has no need for Middle East oil - into their strategy. Not to totally discount its importance, but the idea fighting and dying for a strategic resource that can be bought or drilled for needs to be thought out.
If we were going to refight WW 2, then we would have some problems with global supply chains, etc. The next major war, if we have one, won't be like WW 2. The logic of a US conventional war with Russia is stupid. Either side with a decisive conventional advantage would simply increase the risk of it going nuclear.
Russia could, if they were so inclined, forcibly take back some of the former USSR. But why would they want to? Even Crimea is expensive. It has taken what seems like forever to build the Kerch Strait Bridge. They have their Naval Base and the border dispute will keep Ukraine out of NATO. Technically, they could try it, but one of the requirements for membership is that the nation is not involved in conflict. It's held in Georgia and Moldova.
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• 400 Words @Carlton Meyer If you care to read my detailed explanation of why carrier strike groups are obsolete against a modern navy:Joey Zaza , April 18, 2017 at 9:48 am GMThttp://www.g2mil.com/navwar.htm
If you prefer to watch a 33 second example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ki2-uyCHOA Great article.
Concerning wastage of resources, here's what John Patch of the USN had to say:
The Soviets debated building a significant carrier fleet in the 1960s but determined that large carriers had no place in the nuclear age, partly because of their vulnerability to missiles with nuclear warheads.2 While later choosing to build larger carriers, Moscow always retained the view that carriers remained vulnerable.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/the-carrier-invulnerability-myth.145678/
It is surely significant that Russia sold or gave away all its cold war-era aircraft carriers and retains only the hybrid aircraft-capable cruiser, Kuznetsov.
They "get" it that the role of capital surface ships is changing,, and diminishing. This is also indicative of why the Russians will shock the first fleet that tries to engage them. They keep their planners and developers focused on what actually matters, and serious war gaming, rather than rigging things to provide the answer they want for careerist reasons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
Note that it took the attacking general about 5 minutes using a swarm of old-generation cruise missiles to sink enough craft to disable the fleet's networked defense and EW capacity, with crew amounting to 20,000 on the ships sunk alone. The remaining ships were sitting ducks for the follow up attacks.
These were subsonic cruise missiles. A bunch of moskits would have wiped everything out.
And still these fools keep spending money on carrier groups. it's noteworthy that they restarted the war game and ordered the opposing general to stop making effective attacks. That sums up exactly why the US keeps wasting money and doing stupid things.
__________________As an aside, note that the CGI from the movie of an aircraft carrier attack is not realistic.
Projectiles travelling at the speeds shown would easily be destroyed or diverted by fleet defense systems.
The new BrahMos adaptation of the Onyx missile travels at 2,800 mph. By comparison a bullet fired from a high compression hunting rifle travels at 1,700 mph.
The ballistic missiles such as the Dong feng being developed by the Chinese, will have incoming speeds as high as 5,000 mph.
The human eye can't actually see objects moving that fast.
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@Anonymous Russia spent almost 5.4% of GDP on military spending. The US last year spent 3.3% and with Trump's proposed increase this number will increase by a few decimal points.Max Steel , April 18, 2017 at 9:53 am GMTRussia is a middle income country while the US is a rich country, in the top 10 of GDP per capita. If oil prices don't substantially improve and Russia continues to spend the way it does on the military it will simply go broke.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita (Russia is between Mexico and Suriname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Hopefully the President of Russia will take on board your succinct and informed analysis. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@reiner Tor I think that while it's a grave mistake for Americans to underestimate Russians, it's also a grave mistake for Russians to underestimate Americans.Max Steel , April 18, 2017 at 9:57 am GMTSince I cannot claim to be an expert in military technology, I always read such articles with great interest, but never know with how much grain of salt I need to take them - none? a little? a lot? a whole salt mine?
Underestimate Americans in what ? Stupidity ? Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@reiner TorSeraphim , April 18, 2017 at 10:39 am GMTI think Turkey's military is stronger than either Iran's or North Korea's, so it would be a tougher test for Russia to fight Turkey than for the US to fight North Korea or Iran. Russians have already defeated Ottomans and Turkey is NOT a tough test for Russia given Turkey invades Russia otheriwse unlike US you don't expect Russia to go launch a war bravado against them. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
US would have a real test in North Korea or Iran, Russia in a war against Turkey.
@2stateshmoostate I could be wrong, but I am inclined to see a parallel between the US now and the Russian Empire pre-1904.Max Steel , April 18, 2017 at 11:34 am GMT
After after the surprise attack by the Japanese navy against Port Arthur and ultimate victory by Japan in the Russian-Japanese war that followed back in 1904, the Czarist regime was doomed.
The Russians were arrogantly confident that they could easily beat down the Japanese forces and got the shit kicked out of them.
On paper the Russians should have had the advantage, but because there was so much corruption and incompetence in the Czarist military complex they were defeated.
The result was a the revolution of 1905 and the Czars ultimate demise in 1917.
I think everything about the US government is a lie and has been for a while. Even though billions are spent on the US military I suspect it is a "paper tiger" because of obvious corruption but also because of the traitorous activity of US government officials with allegiances to a foreign powers.
Anyway I'd be surprised that the US would prevail (without destroying the entire world with nukes) in a conflict with a adversary like Russia.
But, I certainly could be wrong. The war that the Japanese started pushed by the Schiff banking cabal was ended in 1945 by the people they helped to overturn a friend of Japan, the Tsar Nicholas II. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
@utu The article is not backed up by numbers. There is zero specificity.Max Steel , April 18, 2017 at 11:48 am GMTHow many S-300 and S-400 are actually deployed? How many missiles/fighter jets would it take to overwhelm this defensive force? Does US/NATO have that many missiles/fighter jets to do this job?
How many Su-35 were deployed so far and how does this compare to the number of F-22 in service?
How many submarines US and Russia have currently in the seas?
What's wrong with Ohio class subs? They are just there to deliver the punch and are perfectly safe as Russia does not have enough killer subs.
And now this:
What would be the purpose of such a strike? Wasting expensive missile on delivering just singular 500kg explosive? Anybody seriously in Russia's military would consider such an idiocy?
Moreover, already today, US lower 48 are not immune to a conventional massive missile strike.
The bottom line is that Russia is a nuclear power that can annihilate the US. All strategies take this into account. This is the bottom line. Any response or aggression vis a vis Russia must take this into account.
Russia has conventional defensive capabilities but has negligible ability of projecting its power beyond its borders. Circa 4 dozens of planes in Syria with half a dozen of fighter jets to protect them that all are defended by few dozens of S-300/400 tubes is not very impressive. This force could be overwhelmed in just few hours by Israel AF that has over 400 F-15/16 or Turkey AF that has over 200 F-16.
I do not believe anybody really wants a war with Russia but certainly they want to conquer Russia to make it to submit to the Washington consensus. But this will not be done with foreign troops on Russian soil or with bombs falling or Russian cities. It will be done with a soft coup d'etat that will depose Putin and his semi-patriotic faction. It all will be done with Russian hands. The attack on Syria by Trump was perfectly timed with president Xi visit who is very familiar with the Chinese proverb: kill the chicken to scare the monkey. Putin was the chicken and Xi was the monkey in this case. Putin lost face and Xi lost face. With every incident of this nature there will be more and more resentment and plotting among various factions in Russia's Deep State. There is no other choice because certainly Russia will not go to the preemptive nuclear war and apart of nuclear war Russia will be humiliated in every conventional skirmish.
I am taking bets if Putin will be out of power by the end of this summer. S-300 can destroy Israeli warplanes even before they leave their airfields for sky. Do you see Russians doing it ? Why ? Because Russia and Israel have friendly relations and Russia doesn't interfere in Hezbollah and Israelis conflict. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 300 Words @Kiza Congratulations on the article Andrei. As another commenter said - I do not agree with everything in the article, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.bb. , April 18, 2017 at 12:01 pm GMTI also fully support your answers to Karlin, he often barks up a wrong tree.
Now the main issue with your article that I have is the same old issue that I always had with your comments. You start from the right premise and then you blow it up beyond recognition. In other words, you are too optimistic. For example, it is a very good point that the Russian and US perceptions of war are totally different: for a Russian the war is a fight for survival as an individual and as a nation, for a US person war and killing are just another day in the office. Then you start counting weapons and comparing weapons technology specifications and always conclude that Russian is better and cheaper, even when there is no direct comparison of effectiveness in battle.
In other words, if your top level goal is to counter the ubiquitous US MIC propaganda with the Russian MIC propaganda, then you are doing a good job. But never forget the Motke's dictum: no wonderful battle plan survives contact with the enemy. I accept that the mercenairy armies, like the US one, are not very good when dying starts, they totally rely on military superiority which does not exist against Russia and soon will not exist against China. But the new generations of Russians are becoming softer and softer and Russian military has not been tested in a recent conflict against a peer just like the US one has not.
The second major disadvantage of the Russian MIC is that US has a huge market of allies which it ruthlessly milks for weapons procurement, whilst when Russia sells an S300 to Cyprus it lands in the hands of the Israelis to be cracked. Even after such experience Russia engages in an apparently serious discussion to sell S400 to Turkey, straight into NATO hands. To put it mildly - Russia has to nurture the BRICS defense market, although most of the customers are copy artists, China being the master copier.
Having criticised you too much, now I have to admit that I do not understand how Russia can get on average 5X more bang for the buck than US, sometimes more. Does Russian MIC operate some underground former mine facilities in which these engineering slaves design all these wonderful military toys and then build them at the cost of sustenance? Lower Russian wages and US MIC's extraordinary greed still cannot fully explain such huge difference. Is it some amazing corruption-free project management skills inherited from Soviet Union?
As someone who has had experience with the weaponry of both sides, I have always been a fan of Russian engineering simplicity and reliability in design. Most people are familiar with this design philosophy through experience with Kalashnikov rifle, but this is a general design principle of all Russian weapons, even the sophisticated ones (probably even S500). Admittedly, the Chinese apply a similar principle in their engineering, although not at the same level - I remember well the shock of my Western colleagues when they realised that the Chinese Long March rockets utilised plywood where they utilised (at that time) very expensive carbon fibre and other composites.
There is a slight flaw in your comment.Israeli used Greece's S-300 PMU-1 to prepare their F-16I pilots for potential air strikes on Iran .
we still don't know which version went to Iran so if they practice on the S-300PMU-1 and Iran gets the S-300VM it will be like practising on a home cat and then going against a tiger.
Even US and UK had older S-300 models with them. US has S-300PS/PMU systems at Nevada. It has same value as figuring out Turkish F-16 from Egyptian/Pakistan/UAE/Taiwan /Korean.
But yes earlier S-300 models are not completely protected Israel succeeded where many in NATO failed against even an old system like PMU. Regarding S-300PMU, it has been upgraded substantially in previous years.
Its guidance system is literally unjammable unless huge resources are dedicated, ie broadband noise jamming of the most powerful kind.
Though recently Israel announced that it is upgrading its F-16 variants external link to be able to handle the vaunted Russian S-300 anti-aircraft system. Iran is perennially about to receive shipments of the system. But mere intention does not mean they have managed to do so.
It was the middle of the 1990s and money was nonexistent in Russia . They sold components of an S-300V battery to the US likely the oldest model they had that was incomplete.With the money they made they upgraded the whole system to S-300VM or Antei-2500.So in effect the US paid for the next generation to replace the generation that was compromised.And the S-300V was in service in most former Soviet republics so chances were eventually they would get their hands on it anyway at least this way they got their own funding to develop a replacement system.
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• 100 Words @inertial You just illustrated my point. Facebook vs. Gazprom market caps - all that shows is that Facebook has access to vastly larger amounts of capital than Gazprom. Well, duh.AP , April 18, 2017 at 12:40 pm GMTMarket capitalization is determined mostly by institutional investors - mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc. - who pool private savings and channel them into various investments. There are massive amounts of such savings available in USA; in Russia, not so much.
In Russia, the government is just about the only major saver and investor. This works fine in areas where the government must play a role, such as weapons manufacture. In other areas, enterprises that need capital to develop must either accumulate it themselves over the years (which puts limit on growth,) or get the government to help them out, or borrow abroad at usurious rates. That's not good. Ideally, Russian enterprises should enter Russian stock or fixed income market and raise as much capital as they need.
As for Boeing, yes it's a gem. But it does have some difficulties in raising capital. It's been balancing on the edge of bankruptcy for years and, unlike Facebook, it has huge liabilities. Incidentally, Boeing very much engages in all that "useless" high finance stuff. The buy and sell and issue bonds and short term paper; I don't know if they issue options but they certainly trade them. They don't believe that they are performing "virtual transactions with virtual money;" on the contrary, they consider this and essential part of the business, as important as building engines or whatever. Perhaps they know something you don't?
Finally, a tip. Any "expert" who doesn't treat US (or other) economic data seriously is an idiot. not treating US data seriously is obviously hyperbole, but incidentally a very on spot one in this case.
all things being equal, you are right about market formation and capitalization. but these are not normal times. nobody really knows whats going to happen when the shit, which is the US stock market QE fueled ponzi scheme, hits the fan. it is very hard to take the subprime, derivative, QE, buyback economy of the last almost 20 years seriously.
it is also false to say that zuckerbook is useless. it generates way too much money(compared to twitter or tesla) to make that statement. in general, it is hard to estimate the value and effectiveness of marketing expenses and facebook put a decent metric on it, better than google to some extent. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 200 Words @2stateshmoostate I could be wrong, but I am inclined to see a parallel between the US now and the Russian Empire pre-1904.Andrei Martyanov , • Website April 18, 2017 at 12:47 pm GMT
After after the surprise attack by the Japanese navy against Port Arthur and ultimate victory by Japan in the Russian-Japanese war that followed back in 1904, the Czarist regime was doomed.
The Russians were arrogantly confident that they could easily beat down the Japanese forces and got the shit kicked out of them.
On paper the Russians should have had the advantage, but because there was so much corruption and incompetence in the Czarist military complex they were defeated.
The result was a the revolution of 1905 and the Czars ultimate demise in 1917.
I think everything about the US government is a lie and has been for a while. Even though billions are spent on the US military I suspect it is a "paper tiger" because of obvious corruption but also because of the traitorous activity of US government officials with allegiances to a foreign powers.
Anyway I'd be surprised that the US would prevail (without destroying the entire world with nukes) in a conflict with a adversary like Russia.
But, I certainly could be wrong.I could be wrong, but I am inclined to see a parallel between the US now and the Russian Empire pre-1904.
Sorry, that's just completely wrong.
The best rough analogy to Russia of pre-1904 would be China (though China is further along in its development, perhaps it would be Russia of 1914 or later, had Russia not stupidly gotten itself into World War I).
The US would somehow be analogous to the British Empire in its decline. A key difference, however, is the US' massive population (more than double that of Russia), territory and natural resources compared to that of the British mainland. This probably provides some sort of floor to the American decline that Britain didn't have.
Also, keep in mind that western Russophobes plus Bolsheviks exaggerated the Tsars' Russia's weakness and incompetence, while there was nobody to defend it. This makes the picture unrealistically negative. During World War I, Russia defeated two of the three Central Powers (compare Russian vs. British performance vs. the Ottoman Empire) and was able to maintain a stable front vs. the third.
•NEW!Andrei Martyanov , • Website April 18, 2017 at 12:54 pm GMTThey sold components of an S-300V battery to the US
Belarus sold the whole complex to the US, S-300V.
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• 100 WordsNEW! @Blacktail The Russian military is moving in the same direction as the US --- toward state-of-the-art obsolescence. While they build tiny numbers of new weapons, many times that number of their predecessors are being retired faster than the new weapons can be built.Andrei Martyanov , • Website April 18, 2017 at 1:10 pm GMTThat fancy T-14 Armata Russia started building a few years ago? It replaces over 20000 T-55s and T-62s built early in the Cold War, and 6000 T-64s that were all spontaneously retired in the early 2010s and shipped not to the tank graveyards, but straight to the cutting mills.
The Borei class Ballistic Missile Submarines mentioned in the article currently number about 5 boats, most of which aren't finished yet. They replace not only the infinitely more powerful and infamous Typhoon class (retired not because of age, but because Russia couldn't afford them), but also some 50 other Cold War era "Boomers".
And that Su-35 that's all the hype these days? It was back in the mid-1990s as well, and the Su-27 it was meant to replace is being retired faster than Su-35s can be built. The new T-50 isn't much of a threat either, because it's been in development almost as long as the F-35, and it's no closer to being combat-ready.
These are a metaphor for what Russia has become; a nation so insecure about the wrong things (cutting-edge technology rather than enough weapons to defend itself) that they're over-spending to weakness.
They replace not only the infinitely more powerful and infamous Typhoon class (retired not because of age,
Sir, please, don't write things you don't know about. Pacific Fleet's Delta III (Project 667 BDR) SSBNs are in dire need of replacement, while Northern Fleet's SSBNs of Delta IV class (Project 667 BDRM) are nearing the end of life. Remaining Project 941 (Akula-class> not Typhoon) are not even consideration for Borey-class, serving out their lives as test platforms, mostly. Borey (Project 955 and 955A) was created to replace aging Deltas.
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• 200 WordsNEW! @Kiza Ok. so the secret of Russian military project effectiveness is that there are no congressional districts and power plays to divvy up the military budget not based on merit and proven capability than based on the power of the district's Congressional and/or Senatorial whore. Then, there are no MIC billionaires to skim the pie. Then the engineers works for reasonable salaries with a highly respected bonus of patriotism. Then there is an excellent well established educational system (for the whites) which puts accent on physics, maths and real technical building skills, supported by mentorship by experienced engineers, instead of putting accent on lying, financial market wizardry (again manipulation), MBAs, whilst training blacks to become engineers and importing engineers from India. Finally, there is the accumulated project experience and cooperative networks from building good weaponry during the days of Soviet Union, in which Russia quickly and effectively replaced sometimes dysfunctional pieces of network which dropped out, especially the important ones from Ukraine. I am truly amazed how quickly the Russian military manufacturing network compensates and adjusts for the loss of any piece.Z-man , April 18, 2017 at 1:20 pm GMTHave I answered my own question of how Russia produces on average 5X more bang for the buck (or more precisely, almost the same bang for five times less buck) than the US MIC? Am I missing any other component of success?
Then, there are no MIC billionaires to skim the pie.
This is crucial. Sure, Chemezov's or Rahmanov's salaries are huge by Russian standards (well, by Western too) and allows the military-industrial elite to live very comfortably, to put it mildly but the answer is the state's ownership of the whole defense sphere, from industry to doctrinal development. Relationship between Russians and their state are dramatically different from what most Westerners ever experienced in their relations. It was inevitable in the nation with such military history as Russia. As I mentioned Arthur J. Alexander's "spread"–Russia does have this pressure applied to her institutes to, in the end, become this character from Russian anecdote, where he buys a crib for his toddler from one of the former MIC plants and after assembling it at home gets AK-47. Russia is bound to produce (at least mostly) weapons which have to work.
Here is what Russians do, barn, of course, being a representation of Russian State;)
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@NoseytheDuke What if the fat boy (and the NK people) feel that they need those weapons for defensive purposes? After all, it wasn't too long ago that Korea was invaded by the US (plus a few satraps) and millions of Koreans were killed. Who are we in the west to interfere with NK? Fat boy is developing missiles that will hit the USA, nuff said.Sam Shama , April 18, 2017 at 1:23 pm GMT
Ok a little more, he can sell those little nuclear bombs to some terrorist group, now 'nuff said!' Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 100 Words @NoseytheDuke The troubles of the US of late have largely stemmed from having an insatiable parasite on its back sucking all that it can from the military and the economy in general whilst simultaneously plotting to undermine it.Z-man , April 18, 2017 at 1:24 pm GMTThe senseless wars in the ME to provide Israel with "security", the billions of dollars in "loans" that will never be repaid, the vast amounts of military hardware worth billions declared as "scrap" and given to Israel, what a great investment it all has been.
No doubt millions of Americans will welcome more degradation of their cities and infrastructure in order to field a larger military since it cares for the fruit of their loins so well AND has accomplished so much good in the world with the trillions already squandered at the behest of the Neocon Israel Firsters.
You sure have your finger on America's pulse Shammy and clearly want nothing but the best for the American people, right? What a tosser! I shall refrain from returning your predictably dumb insults.
On the topic of foreign aid and loan guarantees, you aren't well-read nor qualified to render any opinion likely to be worth more than the pixels wasted by your fatuous lines.
First, understand the difference between actual loans and loan guarantees.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf [pg 25 - 27]
Second, here is a table for U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel: Total Aid
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-1949-present
It irks you the U.S. sends foreign aid to Israel by an amount which really means not a great deal [average, $1.86b % $310b = 0.006 of GDP], even as U.S. foreign aid finds a much wider set of recipients. That's your emotional prerogative, one which breaches a very, very long tradition observed by powerful nations.
There is little you or I could do about it. Alea iacta est .
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@Kiza You are stupid, are you not? No, I am smarter than you, and probably better looking. Just a guess, but an educated one, lol! •Anon , April 18, 2017 at 2:07 pm GMT• 200 Words @Andrei MartyanovJoe Wong , April 18, 2017 at 2:24 pm GMTSo, Facebook's capitalization of 400 billion, that is for company which produces nothing of real value (in fact, is detrimental to mental health of the society) is a true size of economy.
Hopefully it will grow to its proper dimensions.
https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/market_cap
Mind you--this is for a collection of several buildings, servers and about 200-300 pages of code in whatever they wrote it (C++, C whatever--make your pick).
Meanwhile, Gazprom, which is an energy monster is about...10 times less.
https://ycharts.com/companies/OGZPY/market_cap
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products--ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy--of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual--a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services. i am not talking, of course, about stock buybacks. As I already stated, nobody of any serious expertise in actual things that matter, treats this whole US "economic" data seriously. The problem here is that many in US establishment do and that is a clear and present danger to both US and world at large because constant and grotesque overestimation of own capabilities becomes a matter of policy, not a one-off accident.
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products–ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy–of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual–a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services.
The above is a classic example of elementalism. It is a flawed perspective. Humans do not need much more than clean air, clean shelter, food, water and perhaps some antibiotics to live perfectly well. Every desire is born of the limbic system, which includes the hippocampus and the amygdala.
Don't speak so dismissively of Virtual Reality.
•• 200 Words @ErebusAndrei Martyanov , • Website April 18, 2017 at 2:34 pm GMTNo, it cannot.
Russian Central Bank can print Ruble thru the thin air just like the Fed
The Russian Central Bank, like all "emerging market" central banks are treaty bound to print local currency only in a prescribed ratio to their "hard currency" reserves. The latter are the USD, the UKP, the EUR, the JPY, and now the CNY.
As IMF treaties are considered International Treaties, they stand above the law of the land.
These treaties are the instruments whereby the US' IMF-USD $ystem keeps the dollar in demand, and extracts value from the "3rd world" which are thereby forced to sell raw commodities to print enough currency to develop their internal economies. Of course, they can never really sell enough, and so they stay where they are.
So, when the USM buys some insanely expensive aircraft carrier, or fighter aircraft, the rest of the world pays for it. In turn, the US uses that same carrier or aircraft to enforce the treaties. A self-reinforcing arrangement that allows the US and its allies to enjoy all the benefits of thievery over honest toil. "Extraordinary privilege", DeGaulle called it.The Russian Central Bank is doubly constrained by virtue of its (American authored) constitution which all but prohibits its restructuring.
You can read a rather lengthy, but eye opening treatise on this subject here:
http://lit.md/files/nstarikov/rouble_nationalization-the_way_to_russia%27s_freedom.pdfThe Russian Central Bank, like all "emerging market" central banks are treaty bound to print local currency only in a prescribed ratio to their "hard currency" reserves.
The above is your fabrication, the link is a write out by an over zealous nationalist with half baked truth, and the link is neither a treaty quoted by you to support your claim nor saying there is such IMF treaty.
Most nations hardly have any hard currency reserves, yet the amount of local currency they printed proves your "prescribed ratio" a fake news. Even those nations have hard currency reserves, the amount of local currency they prints makes your "prescribed ratio" a Hollywood fantasy.
Putin has begun de-dollarization Russian economy long time ago, Russian has signed currency SWAP with China, EU and Japan, so that Russian can trade without USD. China also has set up AIIB and Alt-SWIFT for rest of the world to bypass the USD as well. Time has changed, man.
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• 300 WordsNEW! @inertial You just illustrated my point. Facebook vs. Gazprom market caps - all that shows is that Facebook has access to vastly larger amounts of capital than Gazprom. Well, duh.Joe Wong , April 18, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMTMarket capitalization is determined mostly by institutional investors - mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc. - who pool private savings and channel them into various investments. There are massive amounts of such savings available in USA; in Russia, not so much.
In Russia, the government is just about the only major saver and investor. This works fine in areas where the government must play a role, such as weapons manufacture. In other areas, enterprises that need capital to develop must either accumulate it themselves over the years (which puts limit on growth,) or get the government to help them out, or borrow abroad at usurious rates. That's not good. Ideally, Russian enterprises should enter Russian stock or fixed income market and raise as much capital as they need.
As for Boeing, yes it's a gem. But it does have some difficulties in raising capital. It's been balancing on the edge of bankruptcy for years and, unlike Facebook, it has huge liabilities. Incidentally, Boeing very much engages in all that "useless" high finance stuff. The buy and sell and issue bonds and short term paper; I don't know if they issue options but they certainly trade them. They don't believe that they are performing "virtual transactions with virtual money;" on the contrary, they consider this and essential part of the business, as important as building engines or whatever. Perhaps they know something you don't?
Finally, a tip. Any "expert" who doesn't treat US (or other) economic data seriously is an idiot.
Market capitalization is determined mostly by institutional investors – mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc. – who pool private savings and channel them into various investments. There are massive amounts of such savings available in USA; in Russia, not so much.
Sure, and that is why a company which produces nothing of value "commands" the so called "investments" which are several times larger than those of Boeing who is de facto US national treasure and who, as you stated, has problems with raising "capital". That pretty much says it all. Again, I omit here the trick with stock buybacks. But in the end, you seem to miss completely the point–structure of GDP.
You may go here and see for yourself how FIRE overtook manufacturing in US in output. What is "output", of course, remains a complete mystery, same as many other services, once one considers the "quality" of education in US public schools which reflects in the most profound way on US labor force which increasingly begins to look like a third world one.
https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=51&step=1#reqid=51&step=51&isuri=1&5114=a&5102=15
In general, we speak here different languages and I may only refer you back to Michael Lind's quote in my text. Judged in a larger, geopolitical framework, one can observe very clearly the process of US literally running out of resources and no amount of "raised capital" can change it. This is not to speak about the whole house of cards of Pax Americana which rested on US military imperial mythology. Once this mythology is debunked (the process which is ongoing as I type it) the house of cards folds.
• Agree: Sergey Krieger •• 100 Words @AnonOndrej , April 18, 2017 at 3:01 pm GMTThe above is a classic example of elementalism. It is a flawed perspective. Humans do not need much more than clean air, clean shelter, food, water and perhaps some antibiotics to live perfectly well. Every desire is born of the limbic system, which includes the hippocampus and the amygdala.
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products–ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy–of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual–a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services.
Don't speak so dismissively of Virtual Reality. I guess what Andrei Martyanov was trying to say that virtual is not real, intrinsic or tangible, it is fabricated or created thru the thin air, hence the American economy is not real, intrinsic or tangible, it is fabricated or created thru the thin air. Reply More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
• 100 Words @AnonPeripatetic commenter , April 18, 2017 at 3:15 pm GMTThe above is a classic example of elementalism. It is a flawed perspective. Humans do not need much more than clean air, clean shelter, food, water and perhaps some antibiotics to live perfectly well. Every desire is born of the limbic system, which includes the hippocampus and the amygdala.
Here is a dilemma. Gazprom extracts and delivers energy without which Eurasia can not exist. Facebook? Turn it off tomorrow and bar some impressionable teenagers committing suicide, the world will continue on living just fine. But that is just one example. You will not find, however, such a hi-tech monster as Rostec on any financial market. For a corporate giant which employs half-a-million people and produces state of the art weapon systems and civilian products–ask yourself a question whose "capitalization" is more important for economy–of useless Facebook or of the corporation which produces civilian jet engines. But let me add insult to injury. While Facebook "capitalizes" on almost half-trillion, a gem of the American industry, aerospace giant Boeing barely makes it to 109 billion. Most US economic indices are fraud, the same as most of US economy is virtual–a collection of virtual transactions with virtual money and virtual services.
Don't speak so dismissively of Virtual Reality.
It is a flawed perspective. Humans do not need much more than clean air, clean shelter, food, water and perhaps some antibiotics to live perfectly well.
Yes, valid argument which true for GB, Belgium, Holland, with their Gulf Stream protected stable clime, but I would prefer Mediterranean area such as Greece or Balkan for that matter.
Hmm Olive oil, vine, fishing sounds nice, but anything east of Frankfurt and North of let say Berlin in Europe, will add different perspective. Heating for winter, and shorter summer. Just ask people in Archangelsk or Petersburg
+ Virtual reality need quite a lot of electrical power to run, not only on your computer but in cloud as well.
Here you can find nice perspective as well..
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2015/09/you-call-this-progress/
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• 100 Words Strategy page thinks that the S400s in Syria are useless:The Alarmist, April 18, 2017 at 3:43 pm GMThttps://strategypage.com/qnd/russia/articles/20170418.aspx
In reading their article they seem to forget about the Mig-15 and Mig-17 in Korea and Vietnam, respectively, and about the effectiveness of those SAMs in Vietnam as well.
Didn't that traitor, John McCain get downed by a SAM?
https://infogalactic.com/info/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15
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@Erebus I understand that there would be great hue and cry to take revenge. That is why I wrote (with a correction in bold):lastnerve , April 18, 2017 at 3:44 pm GMTOne can hope that we'll be rejoicing that America's owners follow ed their internationalistic instincts when that moment has passed.America's owners aren't necessarily American. That the civilizational consequences of America's death be limited to the N. American continent is in their interest, and they would make that interest known.
The geo-political consequences of an attack on the grid in response to a US/NATO attack on Russia would be that the US would instantly cease to be a military/economic power for at least several generations. The Great Game would be over. If the US came back with a nuclear response, they know well that Russia's counter-response would simply extend that timeline. Perhaps to infinity. IOW, other than suicidal madness, there is no geo-political reason to respond, and there'd be every reason to take the hit and try to rebuild.Likewise, Russia's politicians would be hard pressed to resist responding to an American nuclear attack in kind, but the fact is that there would be no military purpose to doing so. The US would be finished as a world power. Vaporizing 200M people would be of no military value. Better to keep what's left of your nuclear forces intact so you don't have to rebuild them. The more likely scenario is this: Sensing a number of strategic and tactical indicators of an impending attack, the US launches a bolt out of the blue attack to cripple the Russian forces before they can attack. Russian SLBMs and rail-based missiles get off a few MIRVs that take out DC and a few other major cities (counter-force targetting is pointless after the first-strike), but no-harm no-foul since the JEEP was executed at the time of the first-strike, so everybody who matters was saved from harm and that pesky problem of too many idle hands in the major urban centers was finally taken care of.
Alternatively, the Russians use EMP weapons already in orbit to take out the US grid. The US NCA execute the SIOP. Outcome: See above.
Winning move is not to play, but the geniuses running things don't see the extintinction of the little guy as a bug, rather as a feature.
@Intelligent Dasein I've come to the conclusion that it is the probable consensus among America's Deep State elites, as exemplified by the truly evil Hillary Clinton, that an all-out war with Russia which totally devastates Russia but leaves America just barely standing, would, notwithstanding the rivers of blood and the chaos unleashed, be an acceptable outcome as long as the blasted rump of America, namely the Deep State itself, gets to subsequently enthrone itself as the unchallenged world hegemon. The Deep State views the entirety of America's economic and military might, as well as the lives of its citizens, as merely a means to this end.Sam Shama , April 18, 2017 at 3:46 pm GMTI also believe that Russia's strategists and state-level actors have come to the same conclusion regarding America's designs. This is the strategic situation that Russia is up against, and this is why Russia has wisely prepared itself to fight a defensive war of astonishing proportions. And for the sake of the human race, for the peace of men of good will everywhere, I would advise Russia that when dealing with a cranky, feeble, delusional, and senile Uncle Sam, it is not possible to be too paranoid. You will not be up against a rational actor if and when this war breaks out. Whatever zany, desperate, and counterproductive gambits you can imagine the USA making, they will not be worse than what these people are capable of.
As an American myself, I would have liked to have been a patriot. If my country must go to war, I would have liked to be on my country's side. But the bitter truth is that my government is something the world would be better off without. Russia has the moral high ground in this conflict. Hopefully that, and the strength of its arms, will be enough.
The great tragedy of the 20th century was that all the wrong people won the major wars. Whether it was Chiang Kai-shek in China or Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, or the Kaiser and the House of Hapsburg before them, the real heroes, the ones who were however ineffectively and confusedly on the side of Right, suffered defeat at the hands of the evil imperialists. We cannot allow that to happen again. I know who I will be supporting if it comes to war.
Long live king and country. God bless the patriots, wherever they be. Hail victory.
I agree with what you write except that the Deep State is but a part of the Globalist (NWO)
plans for their future world.@KizaAvery, April 18, 2017 at 3:56 pm GMTIt [US] needs to come down hard on MIC waste, which if done successfully can change things around very quickly.Gee Sam, you are totally lost in your understanding of US problems.Firstly, US military budget is significantly more than presented because the whole budget has been divided between different government departments. For example, nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy, the huge ongoing cost of Veterans' health is under Department of Health budget, the free money to Israel is under the Foreign Affairs and so on. Overall, about 40% of the US military budget is hidden, which means that US spends not 2.5% of GDP on the military then probably around 4.5%.
Secondly, if US were to bump up the military budget to 7-10% this could come only either at the expense of money printing machines running even hotter than super hot QE1,QE2,QE3 (what Trump is doing) or by increasing taxes on a quite depressed economy in which retail spending has almost collapsed. I cannot believe that you are suggesting this, maybe you are too close to your Fed buddies.
Thirdly, the idea of "coming down hard on MIC waste" is utterly ridiculous because the "MIC waste" is the Deep State profit and we just had an illustration of what happens with those who oppose the Deep State. In other words, only God could come down on US MIC waste, the Presidents can only pretend.
Since Russia and China started replacing US$ as a reserve and exchange currency, the clock has been ticking for the money printers such as the Fed and Trump. When the amount of US$ returning to US starts exceeding the amount bought by foreigners, then the inflation will explode to the German one of the 1920s. The US$ is still strong, not because of its intrinsic value then thanks to skillful FX market manipulation and thanks to 10-12 aircraft carrier groups.
Trump is now amassing three carrier groups near North Korea, Russia and China. What do you think would happen to US$ if even one of those carriers gets sunk?
Gee Sam, you are totally lost in your understanding of US problems.
Hi Kiza,
I admit I do get lost on occasion, so please feel free to correct me. Are you saying that accounting categorisation, which if reversed might lead to a 2% higher military spending, is an attempt to deceive international bond markets? You clearly think bond investors are stupid. That is an opinion based on what precisely? Experienced results of bond markets? Please enlighten me.
Secondly, if US were to bump up the military budget to 7-10% this could come only either at the expense of money printing machines running even hotter than super hot QE1,QE2,QE3 (what Trump is doing) or by increasing taxes on a quite depressed economy in which retail spending has almost collapsed. I cannot believe that you are suggesting this, maybe you are too close to your Fed buddies.
"Hot", as in inflation? If so, the characterisation is a fail, since U.S. inflation and long bond yields have been doing the opposite.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IRLTLT01USM156N
I have no idea what you mean by "what Trump is doing". Have you noticed the Fed had actually raised short rates? Yet the 10-year bond is at 2.2%?
Please read what I wrote carefully. Nowhere did I recommend the U.S. pursue the path of yet another Reaganesque star wars race. What I said was, of all nations, she is the most capable of doing so, where an escalation would literally push her "competitors" to engage in little else in their economies. That is all. Yes, I understand that MIC waste ends up in the pockets of the least desirable elements. Do you mean to say that other nations are bereft of this virtue?
Since Russia and China started replacing US$ as a reserve and exchange currency, the clock has been ticking for the money printers such as the Fed and Trump.
Gee Kiza, exaggerate much? Replace the USD?
CNY has been added to the SDR basket as a reserve currency, with very limited international use, as of 2016 BIS data, after having doubled over the last year (but currently moving lower), the Yuan comprises 4% of total international reserve currency use.
The United States actually wants the Chinese currency to gain much greater acceptance to aid global growth and relieve the pressure on the U.S, but of late the massive capital flows out of China to the U.S. has badly hindered this objective.
Here is what the Yuan has done: from a managed and swiftly devalued currency pursuant to China's decades-long mercantilist policies (to which the US had given the implicit nod), it rose in value during 2005-2013 as the US/ECB/BoJ/BoC worked in a co-ordinated fashion to modify global savings imbalances, to yet again devalue during 2014-present, mostly as capital outflows gathered force.
The Rouble is not a reserve currency, so the AIB while a worthy development, does not give the Rouble reserve status, somehow "replacing" the USD/EUR/GBP/JPY/KRW. Can it achieve that status? I think it can, given the deep capabilities of the Russian population. International acceptance of such status requires a far more diversified economy.
When the amount of US$ returning to US starts exceeding the amount bought by foreigners, then the inflation will explode to the German one of the 1920s.
Reversing cause and effect. If hyperinflation ever arrives on the shores of the US, you'll have far greater problems globally than worrying about bonds. I've seen this trope play continuously since 2008. I need a date, even an approximate one, or I shall be forced to tell you that I know with certainty that "at some point in the future the Earth will cease to exist".
Best
@Mark Chapman In fact, Russia often tests its systems under much more realistic conditions than does the USA and western powers. They want to know if it is going to fail when it is confronted with western jamming, for example, and try to make intercept difficult where the west is obsessed with collecting test data for evaluation, and as a consequence the launch site knows the release time of the target and its initial course and speed, rather than a 'black' release. Not always, but often.Seamus Padraig, April 18, 2017 at 4:08 pm GMThttp://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-russias-s-400-missile-system-in-action-and-heres-1746490022
I guess much of it boils down to how seriously you take Russian accounts of their own tests, but they specify here that the test took place under heavy jamming and yet all four missiles intercepted the target during the midcourse phase. Whatever you believe, the author is correct in pointing out that the S-400 is just a part of a multilayered Integrated Air Defense System (IADS), and it only takes one mobile launcher in an unexpected place to wreck the day for a manned-aircraft element using current tactics.
It is safe to say without further information that western air forces are very wary of the S-400, and confronting Russia's multilayered IADS would be nothing like taking on Gadaffi's eccentric and janky mismatched collection of air-defense weaponry. {I guess much of it boils down to how seriously you take Russian accounts of their own tests, but they specify here that the test took place under heavy jamming and yet all four missiles intercepted the target during the midcourse phase. }
I don't doubt the veracity of the claim in the article. All I was commenting on was this sentence of the author of the article: {From people who serve on it, and I quote:" mind boggling capabilities".}
Traditionally Soviets/Russians have do spend more of their resources on defense, particularly anti-air. Their anti-air missiles have a solid track record: the highly competent USAF – in personnel, and training, and technology – lost lots and lots of equipment to Soviet SAMs in Viet Nam. Even high-flying B52 were not safe.
Also, Egyptians shot down lots of Israeli jets with Soviet AAs during the Yom Kippur war .
So there is no doubt in my mind that S-300/S-400 are very capable systems. But the phrase 'mind boggling' is a bit of a hyperbole.
What is it based on? engineering specifications and simulated tests.I have a bit of a technical background (commercial, not military).
We'd simulate all sorts real-life conditions in testing the product, but as soon as it was sent out, humans managed to find some sequence that crashed the system. You just can't simulate the randomness of the real world.If and when the S-400 is used in anger, then we'll see if its capabilities are 'mind boggling' . Until then, it's just conjecture.
@LondonBob Trump's isolationism and embrace of realpolitik is just a recognition of realities, interestingly this is a viewpoint shared in many European capitals, despite their fulminating over Trump. If Trump isn't co-opted he deserves congratulations for stymieing the traditional imperial overstretch, that is unless recent events in Syria and the Ukraine, perhaps analogous to the Boer War, don't already represent the high points of US power before inevitable decline. Avoiding a WWI type general conflagration will be achievement enough.iffen, April 18, 2017 at 4:11 pm GMTWe are both supposed to deride and fear Russia, both can't be true.
We are both supposed to deride and fear Russia, both can't be true.
True, but it can be effective as a propaganda technique nevertheless. Orwell referred to it as 'doublethink'.
@Sam ShamaThatDamnGood , April 18, 2017 at 4:35 pm GMTGee Sam, you are totally lost in your understanding of US problems.Hi Kiza,I admit I do get lost on occasion, so please feel free to correct me. Are you saying that accounting categorisation, which if reversed might lead to a 2% higher military spending, is an attempt to deceive international bond markets? You clearly think bond investors are stupid. That is an opinion based on what precisely? Experienced results of bond markets? Please enlighten me.
Secondly, if US were to bump up the military budget to 7-10% this could come only either at the expense of money printing machines running even hotter than super hot QE1,QE2,QE3 (what Trump is doing) or by increasing taxes on a quite depressed economy in which retail spending has almost collapsed. I cannot believe that you are suggesting this, maybe you are too close to your Fed buddies."Hot", as in inflation? If so, the characterisation is a fail, since U.S. inflation and long bond yields have been doing the opposite.I have no idea what you mean by "what Trump is doing". Have you noticed the Fed had actually raised short rates? Yet the 10-year bond is at 2.2%?
Please read what I wrote carefully. Nowhere did I recommend the U.S. pursue the path of yet another Reaganesque star wars race. What I said was, of all nations, she is the most capable of doing so, where an escalation would literally push her "competitors" to engage in little else in their economies. That is all. Yes, I understand that MIC waste ends up in the pockets of the least desirable elements. Do you mean to say that other nations are bereft of this virtue?
Since Russia and China started replacing US$ as a reserve and exchange currency, the clock has been ticking for the money printers such as the Fed and Trump.Gee Kiza, exaggerate much? Replace the USD?CNY has been added to the SDR basket as a reserve currency, with very limited international use, as of 2016 BIS data, after having doubled over the last year (but currently moving lower), the Yuan comprises 4% of total international reserve currency use.
The United States actually wants the Chinese currency to gain much greater acceptance to aid global growth and relieve the pressure on the U.S, but of late the massive capital flows out of China to the U.S. has badly hindered this objective.
Here is what the Yuan has done: from a managed and swiftly devalued currency pursuant to China's decades-long mercantilist policies (to which the US had given the implicit nod), it rose in value during 2005-2013 as the US/ECB/BoJ/BoC worked in a co-ordinated fashion to modify global savings imbalances, to yet again devalue during 2014-present, mostly as capital outflows gathered force.
The Rouble is not a reserve currency, so the AIB while a worthy development, does not give the Rouble reserve status, somehow "replacing" the USD/EUR/GBP/JPY/KRW. Can it achieve that status? I think it can, given the deep capabilities of the Russian population. International acceptance of such status requires a far more diversified economy.
Reversing cause and effect. If hyperinflation ever arrives on the shores of the US, you'll have far greater problems globally than worrying about bonds. I've seen this trope play continuously since 2008. I need a date, even an approximate one, or I shall be forced to tell you that I know with certainty that "at some point in the future the Earth will cease to exist".
When the amount of US$ returning to US starts exceeding the amount bought by foreigners, then the inflation will explode to the German one of the 1920s.
Best Yes, I understand that MIC waste ends up in the pockets of the least desirable elements.
Who gets to define "least desirable"?
I know that you are not talking about IAM members.
A good defense industry is vital. In a capitalist economy, what other model for the MIC do you have in mind?
@Timur The Lame @SmoothieX12in the middle, April 18, 2017 at 4:50 pm GMTThe points you make with respect to capitalization of Facebook and other totally worthless social media constructs in comparison to actual entities that produce something, anything that you could stub your foot on, be it good or not is brilliant in that it exposes the sham of GDP and GNP tabulations.
Question: I read about 10 years ago of an incident where an American carrier group was sailing on in it's merry way in waters that I can't now recall when a couple of Sukhois came in undetected and screamed over the actual aircraft carrier at mast level at the maximum speed that the altitude would allow. The carrier group immediately did a 180 and got the hell out of Dodge. The Admiral was supposedly called on the carpet afterwards as to why he altered course without prior approval and he stuck to his guns and said that his responsibility was for the safety of his group first and foremost and that was that.
I have been unable to substantiate this episode. Has it been brushed from the internet or did I fall for a Russian (internet) hoax? I remember mentioning it to some senior Russian officers at a Canadian multi national English language course at an army base close to me and they were non committal in their answers and basically looked guardedly at me as if I were a spook of sorts.
Any knowledge of this supposed incident from you would be much appreciated. By the way the event that I am referring to is not to be mistaken with the relatively recent Black Sea incident (USS Donald Cook).
Cheers- Kitty Hawk.
@reiner Tor Don't worry, when the going gets tough, suddenly the US military will only send straight white men to die for LGBT and black "equality". Come on! While serving in Africa, I saw the US Marines, and, and, well, not many whites were visible! Mostly minorities, specially Hispanics, and Blacks, so there goes your argument; same for the Army. So Hush! (The AF is the only service with majority whites). The Navy, lots of Philippinos.Andrei Martyanov , • Website April 18, 2017 at 5:40 pm GMT
@Timur The Lame @SmoothieX12Z-man, April 18, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMTThe points you make with respect to capitalization of Facebook and other totally worthless social media constructs in comparison to actual entities that produce something, anything that you could stub your foot on, be it good or not is brilliant in that it exposes the sham of GDP and GNP tabulations.
Question: I read about 10 years ago of an incident where an American carrier group was sailing on in it's merry way in waters that I can't now recall when a couple of Sukhois came in undetected and screamed over the actual aircraft carrier at mast level at the maximum speed that the altitude would allow. The carrier group immediately did a 180 and got the hell out of Dodge. The Admiral was supposedly called on the carpet afterwards as to why he altered course without prior approval and he stuck to his guns and said that his responsibility was for the safety of his group first and foremost and that was that.
I have been unable to substantiate this episode. Has it been brushed from the internet or did I fall for a Russian (internet) hoax? I remember mentioning it to some senior Russian officers at a Canadian multi national English language course at an army base close to me and they were non committal in their answers and basically looked guardedly at me as if I were a spook of sorts.
Any knowledge of this supposed incident from you would be much appreciated. By the way the event that I am referring to is not to be mistaken with the relatively recent Black Sea incident (USS Donald Cook).
Cheers- There were many cases of Russian SU-24, TU-142, Tu-22s flying over one of the US carriers. Here is one such case:
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/two-russian-bombers-buzz-u-s-aircraft-carrier/
Nothing secret about it. Roger Thompson in his seminal work on US Navy gives a recount of number of such cases:
https://www.usni.org/store/books/clear-decks-50-90/lessons-not-learned
There is nothing secret really about it, except for reputational losses. Cases of breaking through US Carrier Battle Groups air defense and ASW screens are very numerous. As per this USS Donald Cook "affair", which continues to dominate many "military" forums–a complete baloney, of course, SU-24 are simply not equipped for alleged "burning of circuits" and "shutting down radars". Here I discuss a little bit the issue.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2016/05/so-much-for-trumps-new-foreign-policy.html
@iffen Nah, you are still the greatest idiot on unzTimur The Lame, April 18, 2017 at 6:52 pm GMTAnd the field of competition is not that weak.
And a weak sister chimes in. •@ Smoothiex12,Seminumerical, April 18, 2017 at 9:59 pm GMTThank you for the information. I shall look up your post regarding the Donald Cook incident. Your take on it would be news to me as it did seem to be disabled, though I only read relatively superficial accounts.
As ThatDamnGood pointed out (thanks) it was indeed the Kitty Hawk incident that escaped my recollection. I know that these type incidents occur but it was something about the aforementioned case that stuck in my mind, the super low altitude I think.
Time for a revisit and a memory tonic. But then again even Kasparov eventually lost to Deep Blue.
Cheers-
@AtomAnt "Regarding Russian military they are still 20 years behind on average"inertial, April 18, 2017 at 11:03 pm GMTDude, you're delusional. The US military is to a large extent a paper tiger. Example: Aircraft carriers are not survivable against Russian or Chinese missiles and subs. They are good for bombing 3rd world countries only, like 19th century gunboats (plus fattening MIC coffers). Example: A Rand report found the F-35 "can't turn, can't climb, isn't fast enough to run away".
I would argue nothing is as important as missile technology. Russia may be leading in that.
Furthermore, the US has lower income and less capital now than 20 years ago. Russia has a central bank focused on rational economics rather than milking the country for billionaires' sake. They insist on positive interest rates so savers get the benefit of their money. That's why Russia is growing albeit slowly while the US regresses.
The US will find fighting Russia is not like fighting Arabs. (Remember what some Israeli general said about fighting Arabs.) The US hasn't fought without air superiority in over 74 years.Note the moral dimension, also. The US has to pay its military 2X the equivalent private sector wages, because no one wants to die for Lockheed Martin. Sure the Aircraft carriers are vulnerable. But the US have a disproportionate response prepared for any country that strikes one with a missile or torpedo. So the carriers get to project power despite their vulnerability. •
@Andrei MartyanovKiza, April 18, 2017 at 11:14 pm GMTMarket capitalization is determined mostly by institutional investors – mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc. – who pool private savings and channel them into various investments. There are massive amounts of such savings available in USA; in Russia, not so much.Sure, and that is why a company which produces nothing of value "commands" the so called "investments" which are several times larger than those of Boeing who is de facto US national treasure and who, as you stated, has problems with raising "capital". That pretty much says it all. Again, I omit here the trick with stock buybacks. But in the end, you seem to miss completely the point--structure of GDP.You may go here and see for yourself how FIRE overtook manufacturing in US in output. What is "output", of course, remains a complete mystery, same as many other services, once one considers the "quality" of education in US public schools which reflects in the most profound way on US labor force which increasingly begins to look like a third world one.
https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=51&step=1#reqid=51&step=51&isuri=1&5114=a&5102=15
In general, we speak here different languages and I may only refer you back to Michael Lind's quote in my text. Judged in a larger, geopolitical framework, one can observe very clearly the process of US literally running out of resources and no amount of "raised capital" can change it. This is not to speak about the whole house of cards of Pax Americana which rested on US military imperial mythology. Once this mythology is debunked (the process which is ongoing as I type it) the house of cards folds. Years ago, I used to make fun of Amazon and later of Google. I learned my lesson. I personally don't have much use for Facebook; I don't have an account there. But I can see that Facebook provides a lot of value both to its users and to its customers (two distinct sets.)
And then there is the potential. Lots of smart people are working at Facebook; they may well come up with a breakthrough in some unexpected area. Google started with search and now they are working on driverless cars, among other things. I doubt GM or Ford would've come up with driverless cars, as it is more of a software challenge than a car design one. So here is an example how an investment into a "virtual" company like Google worked out better than an investment into the "real" economy like GM.
Now as for FIRE, and that brings me back to what I said about Facebook. Just because you personally don't need or don't understand a service it doesn't mean that it's "useless," or "virtual," or "fraudulent," or whatever other epithet is being used. Before you slam the FIRE sector you have to understand what services it provides, who needs these services, and why. Are there problems? Of course there are; there are always problems, that's human condition. Is FIRE sector too big? Perhaps, but with all due respect you are not a person to judge, as you have only the vaguest of ideas of what it actually does. The truth is, financial sector supports the "real" economy, which cannot exist without it. And this makes it as "real" as anything.
Finally. The problem is that you listen to cranks. I used to be there 15-20 years but then I realized that the cranks are full of shit. Sometimes they accidentally may stumble upon a valid point but such cases are few and far between. Mostly they are one note Johnnies. Don't listen to cranks.
@ondrej Am I missing any other component of success?Kiza, April 18, 2017 at 11:27 pm GMTJust a possibility - or my hypothesis I am playing lately:-)
It can be language according Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
The principle of linguistic relativity that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions. The strong version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, whereas the weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions.and also due to fact that:
Baltic and Slavic show the common trait of never having undergone in the course of their development any sudden systemic upheaval. [ ] there is no indication of a serious dislocation of any part of the linguistic system at any time. The sound structure has in general remained intact to the present. [ ] Baltic and Slavic are consequently the only languages in which certain modern word-forms resemble those reconstructed for Common Indo-European." ( The Indo-European Dialects [Eng. translation of Les dialectes indo-européens (1908)], University of Alabama Press, 1967, pp.
59-60).Which could explain math skills of Russians and Indian:-) because languages are closely related.
+ learning other languages helps one for recognizing other points of view, if you look at current Russian elites Shoigu, Lavrov and others they speak usually one or more foreign languages fluently.
learning other languages helps one for recognizing other points of view
I do not know if this has been scientifically established but I can certainly vouch for it personally because learning every new language gives you a different perspective on existing things. After starting to learn a new language I would think – I had no idea that lego could be arranged this way as well! Therefore, learning new languages broadens one's view of the world but whether it also helps recognize other points of view probably depends on the tolerance of the person. Maybe the key word in your statement is "helps".
@Z-man And a weak sister chimes in. I provided a link about North Korea to a blog which could educate you about it. But you still persisted with your original bull. This is a clear characteristic of an idiot, because the uninformed inform and correct themselves. And yes, there is a strong competition here at unz for the title of King of All Idiots.Seraphim, April 19, 2017 at 12:11 am GMTHere it is again, one last time, The Reason for North Korea's Nuclear Program and Its Unrequited Offers to End It : http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/04/the-reason-behind-north-koreas-nuclear-program-and-its-offer-to-end-it.html#more
On North Korea, the US chefs cook up their usual menu of bullshit and bombs , whilst the latest chef being the most prolific on both.
@APNoseytheDuke, April 19, 2017 at 12:28 am GMTI could be wrong, but I am inclined to see a parallel between the US now and the Russian Empire pre-1904.Sorry, that's just completely wrong.The best rough analogy to Russia of pre-1904 would be China (though China is further along in its development, perhaps it would be Russia of 1914 or later, had Russia not stupidly gotten itself into World War I).
The US would somehow be analogous to the British Empire in its decline. A key difference, however, is the US' massive population (more than double that of Russia), territory and natural resources compared to that of the British mainland. This probably provides some sort of floor to the American decline that Britain didn't have.
Also, keep in mind that western Russophobes plus Bolsheviks exaggerated the Tsars' Russia's weakness and incompetence, while there was nobody to defend it. This makes the picture unrealistically negative. During World War I, Russia defeated two of the three Central Powers (compare Russian vs. British performance vs. the Ottoman Empire) and was able to maintain a stable front vs. the third.
Do not forget that Germany made the first declarations of war. It declared war against Russia on the 1st of August 1914 and the next day invades Luxemburg. The declaration of war against France followed on the 3d of August, followed by the violation of Belgium neutrality.
Russia was far from being defeated in 1916-17. •@iffen Yes, I understand that MIC waste ends up in the pockets of the least desirable elements.The Alarmist, April 19, 2017 at 2:51 am GMTWho gets to define "least desirable"?
I know that you are not talking about IAM members.
A good defense industry is vital. In a capitalist economy, what other model for the MIC do you have in mind?
One that focuses on the defence of the nation?@Sam ShamaKiza, April 19, 2017 at 4:12 am GMTGee Sam, you are totally lost in your understanding of US problems.Hi Kiza,I admit I do get lost on occasion, so please feel free to correct me. Are you saying that accounting categorisation, which if reversed might lead to a 2% higher military spending, is an attempt to deceive international bond markets? You clearly think bond investors are stupid. That is an opinion based on what precisely? Experienced results of bond markets? Please enlighten me.
"Hot", as in inflation? If so, the characterisation is a fail, since U.S. inflation and long bond yields have been doing the opposite.
Secondly, if US were to bump up the military budget to 7-10% this could come only either at the expense of money printing machines running even hotter than super hot QE1,QE2,QE3 (what Trump is doing) or by increasing taxes on a quite depressed economy in which retail spending has almost collapsed. I cannot believe that you are suggesting this, maybe you are too close to your Fed buddies.https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IRLTLT01USM156N
I have no idea what you mean by "what Trump is doing". Have you noticed the Fed had actually raised short rates? Yet the 10-year bond is at 2.2%?
Please read what I wrote carefully. Nowhere did I recommend the U.S. pursue the path of yet another Reaganesque star wars race. What I said was, of all nations, she is the most capable of doing so, where an escalation would literally push her "competitors" to engage in little else in their economies. That is all. Yes, I understand that MIC waste ends up in the pockets of the least desirable elements. Do you mean to say that other nations are bereft of this virtue?
Gee Kiza, exaggerate much? Replace the USD?
Since Russia and China started replacing US$ as a reserve and exchange currency, the clock has been ticking for the money printers such as the Fed and Trump.
CNY has been added to the SDR basket as a reserve currency, with very limited international use, as of 2016 BIS data, after having doubled over the last year (but currently moving lower), the Yuan comprises 4% of total international reserve currency use.
The United States actually wants the Chinese currency to gain much greater acceptance to aid global growth and relieve the pressure on the U.S, but of late the massive capital flows out of China to the U.S. has badly hindered this objective.
Here is what the Yuan has done: from a managed and swiftly devalued currency pursuant to China's decades-long mercantilist policies (to which the US had given the implicit nod), it rose in value during 2005-2013 as the US/ECB/BoJ/BoC worked in a co-ordinated fashion to modify global savings imbalances, to yet again devalue during 2014-present, mostly as capital outflows gathered force.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DEXCHUS
The Rouble is not a reserve currency, so the AIB while a worthy development, does not give the Rouble reserve status, somehow "replacing" the USD/EUR/GBP/JPY/KRW. Can it achieve that status? I think it can, given the deep capabilities of the Russian population. International acceptance of such status requires a far more diversified economy.
Reversing cause and effect. If hyperinflation ever arrives on the shores of the US, you'll have far greater problems globally than worrying about bonds. I've seen this trope play continuously since 2008. I need a date, even an approximate one, or I shall be forced to tell you that I know with certainty that "at some point in the future the Earth will cease to exist".
When the amount of US$ returning to US starts exceeding the amount bought by foreigners, then the inflation will explode to the German one of the 1920s.
Best
""Hot", as in inflation? If so, the characterisation is a fail, since U.S. inflation and long bond yields have been doing the opposite."
US inflation as officially reported is significantly understated. Do a little shopping from time to time and tell me what kind of inflation you actually experience. I come back to the US every few months, and it is hard to not notice how expensive many things have become over the past couple of decades.
As for bond yields, there is a bit of a vicious and not-so-virtuous cycle going on, as the borrowed money is used to ramp up military spending, which translates to further aggression abroad, which leads to further international destabilisation, which then leads to money flow into US Treasury bonds and other US assets as a so-called flight-to-safety play. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum.
@The AlarmistOndrej, April 19, 2017 at 5:19 am GMT""Hot", as in inflation? If so, the characterisation is a fail, since U.S. inflation and long bond yields have been doing the opposite."US inflation as officially reported is significantly understated. Do a little shopping from time to time and tell me what kind of inflation you actually experience. I come back to the US every few months, and it is hard to not notice how expensive many things have become over the past couple of decades.As for bond yields, there is a bit of a vicious and not-so-virtuous cycle going on, as the borrowed money is used to ramp up military spending, which translates to further aggression abroad, which leads to further international destabilisation, which then leads to money flow into US Treasury bonds and other US assets as a so-called flight-to-safety play. Lather, rinse, repeat ... ad nauseum.
As for bond yields, there is a bit of a vicious and not-so-virtuous cycle going on, as the borrowed money is used to ramp up military spending, which translates to further aggression abroad, which leads to further international destabilisation, which then leads to money flow into US Treasury bonds and other US assets as a so-called flight-to-safety play. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum.
"Ad nauseum" is only until the whole thing collapses. I have been saying for a long time that most markets in the US, and where they flow over into the international markets, are rigged. The number of people needed to rig a market is not large, because it is the same, about a dozen "banks" which dominate almost all markets. The Western Governments are in on the act and their official statistics on every economic measure are perverted jokes: inflation, unemployment, GDP, any and all.
I lived under socialism/communism as an adult and I remember how my friends and I laughed at government's economic statistics. But this is much worse, this is an entire alternative reality moving on the inertia of the size of its lie .
Sam asks for an approximate date of the collapse, which is almost like asking for the date when a nuclear war will end humanity. His is the principal fallacy that the past is a continuously good predictor of the future, that discrete events do not exist. Sam, imagine for a moment that Trump somehow manages to regime-change Russia and crush China (without causing a global nuclear war). Russia is the largest country on the planet, with vast unused land and resources, mainly because the technology for their exploitation did not exist in the past (inhospitable land). Now imagine adding this almost virgin land to the banking ledgers full of vapor-assets under the so called "mark-to-market". The market riggers and their governments could live happily ever after for another couple of generations of banksters. Like vampire needs blood, the sick system just needs a massive injection of real assets to survive another 100 years or longer. This is why they are so viciously attacking the Russian leadership. But this is a great example why the moment of collapse is unpredictable and it is unfair to ask for (an even approximate) date.
@KizaOndrej, April 19, 2017 at 7:40 am GMTlearning other languages helps one for recognizing other points of viewI do not know if this has been scientifically established but I can certainly vouch for it personally because learning every new language gives you a different perspective on existing things. After starting to learn a new language I would think - I had no idea that lego could be arranged this way as well! Therefore, learning new languages broadens one's view of the world but whether it also helps recognize other points of view probably depends on the tolerance of the person. Maybe the key word in your statement is "helps". One could say that to certain degree it is disadvantage for English to be lingua-franca.In many ways it is also most abused language in world. All speakers bring to English their language frameworks.
One could conclude that English native speakers became more accustomed – to be more tolerant for non-precise meanings or statements of others to certain degree – due to many non-native English speakers. Therefore it is not that obvious for them.
I think, speakers of other languages would often not accept such improper usage of words or grammar in their language – (thinking) because by language we think.
Combine that with euphemisms and political correctness and you have recepy for disaster in communication.
@inertial Years ago, I used to make fun of Amazon and later of Google. I learned my lesson. I personally don't have much use for Facebook; I don't have an account there. But I can see that Facebook provides a lot of value both to its users and to its customers (two distinct sets.)Kiza, April 19, 2017 at 9:04 am GMTAnd then there is the potential. Lots of smart people are working at Facebook; they may well come up with a breakthrough in some unexpected area. Google started with search and now they are working on driverless cars, among other things. I doubt GM or Ford would've come up with driverless cars, as it is more of a software challenge than a car design one. So here is an example how an investment into a "virtual" company like Google worked out better than an investment into the "real" economy like GM.
Now as for FIRE, and that brings me back to what I said about Facebook. Just because you personally don't need or don't understand a service it doesn't mean that it's "useless," or "virtual," or "fraudulent," or whatever other epithet is being used. Before you slam the FIRE sector you have to understand what services it provides, who needs these services, and why. Are there problems? Of course there are; there are always problems, that's human condition. Is FIRE sector too big? Perhaps, but with all due respect you are not a person to judge, as you have only the vaguest of ideas of what it actually does. The truth is, financial sector supports the "real" economy, which cannot exist without it. And this makes it as "real" as anything.
Finally. The problem is that you listen to cranks. I used to be there 15-20 years but then I realized that the cranks are full of shit. Sometimes they accidentally may stumble upon a valid point but such cases are few and far between. Mostly they are one note Johnnies. Don't listen to cranks.
The truth is, financial sector supports the "real" economy, which cannot exist without it.
Obviously false statement. You would need to at least some adjective such as mostly, probably, usually into sentence. Frame it in current prevailing socio-economical system.
Just ask Soviets if they won ww2 due to strong financial system, or put Sputnik into space for that matter.
So there is not at all any correlation in between financial sector and real economy;-)
@OndrejFrederic Bastiat , April 19, 2017 at 10:52 am GMTThe truth is, financial sector supports the "real" economy, which cannot exist without it.Obviously false statement. You would need to at least some adjective such as mostly, probably, usually into sentence. Frame it in current prevailing socio-economical system.Just ask Soviets if they won ww2 due to strong financial system, or put Sputnik into space for that matter.
So there is not at all any correlation in between financial sector and real economy;-) In theory, the financial system is supposed to ensure the efficient allocation of investments, as opposed to central planning. This is how it us supposed to support the real economy. In reality, the Western financial system, and possibly the Chinese one, have turned into a leach draining blood out of the real economy, much worse than central planning. •
@inertial Years ago, I used to make fun of Amazon and later of Google. I learned my lesson. I personally don't have much use for Facebook; I don't have an account there. But I can see that Facebook provides a lot of value both to its users and to its customers (two distinct sets.)Ondrej, April 19, 2017 at 11:36 am GMTAnd then there is the potential. Lots of smart people are working at Facebook; they may well come up with a breakthrough in some unexpected area. Google started with search and now they are working on driverless cars, among other things. I doubt GM or Ford would've come up with driverless cars, as it is more of a software challenge than a car design one. So here is an example how an investment into a "virtual" company like Google worked out better than an investment into the "real" economy like GM.
Now as for FIRE, and that brings me back to what I said about Facebook. Just because you personally don't need or don't understand a service it doesn't mean that it's "useless," or "virtual," or "fraudulent," or whatever other epithet is being used. Before you slam the FIRE sector you have to understand what services it provides, who needs these services, and why. Are there problems? Of course there are; there are always problems, that's human condition. Is FIRE sector too big? Perhaps, but with all due respect you are not a person to judge, as you have only the vaguest of ideas of what it actually does. The truth is, financial sector supports the "real" economy, which cannot exist without it. And this makes it as "real" as anything.
Finally. The problem is that you listen to cranks. I used to be there 15-20 years but then I realized that the cranks are full of shit. Sometimes they accidentally may stumble upon a valid point but such cases are few and far between. Mostly they are one note Johnnies. Don't listen to cranks.
Just because you personally don't need or don't understand a service it doesn't mean that it's "useless," or "virtual," or "fraudulent," or whatever other epithet is being used. Before you slam the FIRE sector you have to understand what services it provides, who needs these services, and why.
The financial sector is a fraud. It is a parasitic industry that only sucks tax payers money in the long run.
Nassim Taleb is spot on regarding the financial industry:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/69813f49-27b1-431f-8edc-ea892aa96d8d
@Kiza In theory, the financial system is supposed to ensure the efficient allocation of investments, as opposed to central planning. This is how it us supposed to support the real economy. In reality, the Western financial system, and possibly the Chinese one, have turned into a leach draining blood out of the real economy, much worse than central planning.Kiza , April 19, 2017 at 12:13 pm GMTIn theory , the financial system is supposed to ensure the efficient allocation of investments, as opposed to central planning.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.
I know theory, but there is empirical evidence that it does not, see Taleb for that matter, or Schumpeter in my comment 165.
Schumpeter is worth to read , as he argues, logically, in case of market equilibrium = fair prices interest would approach to zero, and it ceases to be incentive for financing innovation. And this leads us back to Marx`s theory of simple reproduction as his main argument in Kapital Volume I. which create a problem for system.
As for Central economy, you would be probably surprised – at least I was surprised,
that it was in fact J.V. Stalin who critiqued too much of Central planning. He was warning in 50. that it would block next development of system. in his book Economical problems of socialism.You mention your experience with socialistic system, in case you want to refresh your memory or get better than propagandistic (from right or left) view of Marx . I advise David Harwey lectures on youtube.
@KizaAP, April 19, 2017 at 1:14 pm GMTAs for bond yields, there is a bit of a vicious and not-so-virtuous cycle going on, as the borrowed money is used to ramp up military spending, which translates to further aggression abroad, which leads to further international destabilisation, which then leads to money flow into US Treasury bonds and other US assets as a so-called flight-to-safety play. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum."Ad nauseum" is only until the whole thing collapses. I have been saying for a long time that most markets in the US, and where they flow over into the international markets, are rigged. The number of people needed to rig a market is not large, because it is the same, about a dozen "banks" which dominate almost all markets. The Western Governments are in on the act and their official statistics on every economic measure are perverted jokes: inflation, unemployment, GDP, any and all.
I lived under socialism/communism as an adult and I remember how my friends and I laughed at government's economic statistics. But this is much worse, this is an entire alternative reality moving on the inertia of the size of its lie .
Sam asks for an approximate date of the collapse, which is almost like asking for the date when a nuclear war will end humanity. His is the principal fallacy that the past is a continuously good predictor of the future, that discrete events do not exist. Sam, imagine for a moment that Trump somehow manages to regime-change Russia and crush China (without causing a global nuclear war). Russia is the largest country on the planet, with vast unused land and resources, mainly because the technology for their exploitation did not exist in the past (inhospitable land). Now imagine adding this almost virgin land to the banking ledgers full of vapor-assets under the so called "mark-to-market". The market riggers and their governments could live happily ever after for another couple of generations of banksters. Like vampire needs blood, the sick system just needs a massive injection of real assets to survive another 100 years or longer. This is why they are so viciously attacking the Russian leadership. But this is a great example why the moment of collapse is unpredictable and it is unfair to ask for (an even approximate) date.
Here I quote a funny comment from a guy on zerohedge. This is how the Western economies have been operating:You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.@Seraphim Do not forget that Germany made the first declarations of war. It declared war against Russia on the 1st of August 1914 and the next day invades Luxemburg. The declaration of war against France followed on the 3d of August, followed by the violation of Belgium neutrality.ANOSPH , April 19, 2017 at 2:26 pm GMT
Russia was far from being defeated in 1916-17.Do not forget that Germany made the first declarations of war. It declared war against Russia on the 1st of August 1914 and the next day invades Luxemburg.
It declared war first, after Russia had mobilized and refused to turn back its mobilization. Germany would not and should not have waited until huge masses of Russian troops had actually crossed its border before declaring war.
The sad events of the 20th century in some ways can be seen as a tragic, Old Testament style story of sin and brutal retribution. Serbia committed regicide, and lost 25% of its population in the ensuing war. Nicholas II, a decent but foolish man, supported the regicidal regime and was himself murdered, along with his family. The peoples of the Russian Empire didn't stop that crime, and suffered the millions dead under Bolshevism. Wilhelm sent Lenin to Russia and lost his own throne. The peoples of Central Europe abandoned the Habsburgs and suffered decades of Nazism, Communism and war. Such was the sad fate of the former Holy Alliance.
@Andrei Martyanov There were many cases of Russian SU-24, TU-142, Tu-22s flying over one of the US carriers. Here is one such case:Andrei Martyanov, • Website April 19, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMThttp://freebeacon.com/national-security/two-russian-bombers-buzz-u-s-aircraft-carrier/
Nothing secret about it. Roger Thompson in his seminal work on US Navy gives a recount of number of such cases:
https://www.usni.org/store/books/clear-decks-50-90/lessons-not-learned
There is nothing secret really about it, except for reputational losses. Cases of breaking through US Carrier Battle Groups air defense and ASW screens are very numerous. As per this USS Donald Cook "affair", which continues to dominate many "military" forums--a complete baloney, of course, SU-24 are simply not equipped for alleged "burning of circuits" and "shutting down radars". Here I discuss a little bit the issue.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2016/05/so-much-for-trumps-new-foreign-policy.html Andrei,
Off-topic, but what do you think about Igor Strelkov's opinion that the entire current Russian system is due for a collapse?
Part 1: Part 2:
I realize that he's been saying essentially the same thing for three years, but surely his words are worth at least some consideration given his "contacts in the elites."
@Seminumerical Sure the Aircraft carriers are vulnerable. But the US have a disproportionate response prepared for any country that strikes one with a missile or torpedo. So the carriers get to project power despite their vulnerability.Andrei Martyanov , • Website April 19, 2017 at 2:50 pm GMTBut the US have a disproportionate response prepared for any country that strikes one with a missile or torpedo
Not against peer. Dynamics there is very different than it would have been with some adversary as Iran. Unless the "disproportionate" response becomes nuclear, what is a definition of "disproportionate". I can tell you what may happen if one of the CVNs sunk and this is not my idea but of former Chief Of Naval Operations late Admiral Elmo Zumwalt: the psychological demoralizing impact will be overwhelming and that is what may push a political (and suicidal) decision on nuclear response. In purely conventional framework–the game may become very different. To have some (however disagreeable from purely tactical point of view) primer on one of very many scenarios, you may try Naval War College Newport Papers, especially #20.
https://www.usnwc.edu/Publications/Naval-War-College-Press/-Newport-Papers/Documents/20-pdf.aspx
I am no fan of US military's war gaming but it will give you at least some general idea on how US Navy wanted to think about itself.
@ANOSPH Andrei,Sam Shama, April 19, 2017 at 4:29 pm GMTOff-topic, but what do you think about Igor Strelkov's opinion that the entire current Russian system is due for a collapse?
Part 1: http://strelkov-i-i.livejournal.com/26121.html
Part 2: http://strelkov-i-i.livejournal.com/26458.htmlI realize that he's been saying essentially the same thing for three years, but surely his words are worth at least some consideration given his "contacts in the elites."
Off-topic, but what do you think about Igor Strelkov's opinion that the entire current Russian system is due for a collapse?
My attitude to Strelkov is similar to my attitude to clowns or not-adequate people. Having said all that, Russia does face some serious economic challenges which are of purely domestic origins and I never hid my reserved attitude to Putin (despite all his achievements) because of the fact him being an economic "liberal" and surrounding himself in economic block with a bunch of Gaidar-worshipping hacks. Medvedev's government is an affront to overwhelming majority of Russian people.
@KizaAs for bond yields, there is a bit of a vicious and not-so-virtuous cycle going on, as the borrowed money is used to ramp up military spending, which translates to further aggression abroad, which leads to further international destabilisation, which then leads to money flow into US Treasury bonds and other US assets as a so-called flight-to-safety play. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum."Ad nauseum" is only until the whole thing collapses. I have been saying for a long time that most markets in the US, and where they flow over into the international markets, are rigged. The number of people needed to rig a market is not large, because it is the same, about a dozen "banks" which dominate almost all markets. The Western Governments are in on the act and their official statistics on every economic measure are perverted jokes: inflation, unemployment, GDP, any and all.
I lived under socialism/communism as an adult and I remember how my friends and I laughed at government's economic statistics. But this is much worse, this is an entire alternative reality moving on the inertia of the size of its lie .
Sam asks for an approximate date of the collapse, which is almost like asking for the date when a nuclear war will end humanity. His is the principal fallacy that the past is a continuously good predictor of the future, that discrete events do not exist. Sam, imagine for a moment that Trump somehow manages to regime-change Russia and crush China (without causing a global nuclear war). Russia is the largest country on the planet, with vast unused land and resources, mainly because the technology for their exploitation did not exist in the past (inhospitable land). Now imagine adding this almost virgin land to the banking ledgers full of vapor-assets under the so called "mark-to-market". The market riggers and their governments could live happily ever after for another couple of generations of banksters. Like vampire needs blood, the sick system just needs a massive injection of real assets to survive another 100 years or longer. This is why they are so viciously attacking the Russian leadership. But this is a great example why the moment of collapse is unpredictable and it is unfair to ask for (an even approximate) date.
Hey Kiza,I base my views on data and economic theory generally accepted in the West. If one summarily dismisses these instruments of analyses then, of course, all conclusions derived are rejectable. Which is what you are doing. Fine.
Simply deeming our system fraudulent and built on myth amounts to a meaningless unfalsifiable assertion. Unfalsifiable, since the collapse event dangles always in the undefined "future".
His is the principal fallacy that the past is a continuously good predictor of the future, that discrete events do not exist.
I thought you were using past experience to assert with high confidence that the West is headed for a repeat of Weimar Has there been a total destruction of productive capacity which eluded my reverie?
Data for prediction [at least parameter estimation of any system] is always from the past. I am not aware of any data from the future, is anyone? I don't claim a system superior without subjecting it to out-of-sample and live outcomes. Some Western models have failed recently [pure Rational Expectations models, e.g.]while others have succeeded with flying colours [New Keynesian Models]. What good is any theory or claim without corroborating empirical evidence? To me, claims of our economies headed to a collapse, because because well BIG DEBT! WEIMAR! FALSE STATISTICS! etc are just emotional outbursts devoid of any internally consistent theory, let alone the utter absence of evidence since the whole trope started in 2008.
Alarmist: you stated earlier that inflation stats are misleading. I am perfectly willing to accept that statement if it were supported by facts. If during your visits to supermarkets, shops, online purchases you found your favourite items costing more, that in itself is no reason to conclude inflation is at hand. I do shop, and a great deal in point of fact :-), and I've noticed that prices of computers, e.g. have fallen continuously and dramatically. What about rent inflation? Or transportation? Rent inflation stands at levels much lower than averages from the past 70 years and transportation costs have fallen greatly as well [Air travel as a percentage of median per capita income]. Do you deny these? Trouble arises when people take these things for granted, and only complain about (mostly) food items that have gone up in price ["I hate these prices for eggs! Back in my childhood, a dozen cost only a penny!"]
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SEHA#0 [change the graph to go from 1950 and pick the percentage change option]
If you don't believe in official CPI/Core PCE, look at the MIT Billion Prices Index, which provides one with real-time inflation from literally a billion prices from online markets which operate globally. Those indices substantially tell the same story: inflation has been heading down!
Sam, imagine for a moment that Trump somehow manages to regime-change Russia and crush China (without causing a global nuclear war).
How is he going to regime change Russia? It's a pipe dream. Putin is immensely popular and in my reckoning, he is simply negotiating spheres of influence with USA.
China, well they are joined to the US at the hip!. The U.S. is only looking for China to wean away from its mercantilist stance and start buying our goods and services.
Russia is the largest country on the planet, with vast unused land and resources, mainly because the technology for their exploitation did not exist in the past (inhospitable land). Now imagine adding this almost virgin land to the banking ledgers full of vapor-assets under the so called "mark-to-market". The market riggers and their governments could live happily ever after for another couple of generations of banksters. Like vampire needs blood, the sick system just needs a massive injection of real assets to survive another 100 years or longer.
Russia is a vastly endowed nation with a gifted population. The climate isn't all that balmy, shall we say. Her natural resources are the assets of her citizens to do with them as they deem optimal.
I'll go along with your hypothetical scenario in which Putin is unseated and a new Yeltsin is installed. I would consider that outcome both undesirable and approaching a vanishingly low probability. You'll need to convince me of its plausibility and DT's desire to bring about such an outcome.
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Apr 19, 2017 | www.nytimes.com
Stephen K. Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years.
This prophecy, which is laid out in a 1997 book, "The Fourth Turning," by two amateur historians, makes the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each that can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter.
Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.
But what does the book tell us about how Mr. Bannon is approaching his job as President Trump's chief strategist and what he sees in the country's future? Here are some excerpts from the book, with explanations from The New York Times.
'Winter Is Coming,' and We'd Better Be Prepared
History is seasonal, and winter is coming. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, one commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. The risk of catastrophe will be high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule.
The "Fourth Turning" authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, started using that phrase before it became a pop culture buzzword courtesy of HBO's "Game of Thrones." But, as the authors point out, some winters are mild. And sometimes they arrive late. The best thing to do, they say, is to prepare for what they wrote will be "America's next rendezvous with destiny."
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bannon said, "Everything President Trump is doing - all of it - is to get ahead of or stop any potential crisis." But the magnitude of this crisis - and who is ultimately responsible for it - is an unknown that Mr. Trump can use to his political advantage. This helps explain Mr. Trump's tendency to emphasize crime rates, terrorist attacks and weak border control.
The 'Deconstruction of the Administrative State,' and Much More, Is Inevitable
The Fourth Turning will trigger a political upheaval beyond anything Americans could today imagine. New civic authority will have to take root, quickly and firmly - which won't be easy if the discredited rules and rituals of the old regime remain fully in place. We should shed and simplify the federal government in advance of the Crisis by cutting back sharply on its size and scope but without imperiling its core infrastructure.
The rhythmic, seasonal nature of history that the authors identify foresees an inevitable period of decay and destruction that will tear down existing social and political institutions. Mr. Bannon has famously argued that the overreaching and ineffective federal government - "the administrative state," as he calls it - needs to be dismantled. And Mr. Trump, he said, has just begun the process.
As Mr. Howe said in an interview with The Times: "There has to be a period in which we tear down everything that is no longer functional. And if we don't do that, it's hard to ever renew anything. Forests need fires, and rivers need floods. These happen for a reason."
'The American Dream Is Dead'
James Truslow Adams (wrote) of an 'American Dream' to refer to this civic faith in linear advancement. Time, they suggested, was the natural ally of each successive generation. Thus arose the dogma of an American exceptionalism, the belief that this nation and its people had somehow broken loose from any risk of cyclical regress . Yet the great weakness of linear time is that it obliterates time's recurrence and thus cuts people off from the eternal - whether in nature, in each other, or in ourselves.
One of the authors' major arguments is that Western society - particularly American culture - has denied the significance of cyclical patterns in history in favor of the more palatable and self-serving belief that humans are on an inexorable march toward improvement. They say this allows us to gloss over the flaws in human nature that allow for bad judgment - and bad leaders that drive societies into decline.
Though he probably did not intentionally invoke Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe, Mr. Trump was channeling their thesis when he often said during his campaign, "The American dream is dead." One of the scenarios the book puts forward is one in which leaders who emerge during a crisis can revive and rebuild dead institutions. Mr. Trump clearly saw himself as one of these when he said his goal would be to bring back the American dream.
Conform, or Else
In a Fourth Turning, the nation's core will matter more than its diversity. Team, brand, and standard will be new catchwords. Anyone and anything not describable in those terms could be shunted aside - or worse. Do not isolate yourself from community affairs . If you don't want to be misjudged, don't act in a way that might provoke Crisis-era authority to deem you guilty. If you belong to a racial or ethnic minority, brace for a nativist backlash from an assertive (and possibly authoritarian) majority.
The authors envision a return to a more traditional, conservative social order as one outcome of a crisis. They also see the possibility of retribution and punishment for those who resist or refuse to comply with the new expectations for conformity. Mr. Trump's "with us or against us" attitude raises questions about what kind of leader he would be in such a crisis - and what kind of loyalty his administration might demand.
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Apr 17, 2017 | www.unz.com
TG , April 17, 2017 at 3:10 pm GMT \n
300 Words An interesting article. A few random thoughts.
- "Preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death" – Otto von Bismarck.
- In general I agree and wish that the United States military would be more defensive and waste fewer resources attacking irrelevant nations on the other side of the world. But. It is nevertheless true that "defensive" Russia has been invaded and devastated multiple times, and the United States has not. Perhaps creating chaos on the other side of the world is long-term not quite so ineffective as sitting around waiting for an attack?
- The American elites are simply corrupt and insane/don't care about the long-term. At every level – companies taking out massive loans to buy back their stock to boost CEO bonuses, loading up college students with massive unplayable debt so that university administrators can get paid like CEOs, drug prices going through the roof, etc.etc. Military costs will never be as efficient as civilian, war is expensive, but the US has gotten to the point where there is no financial accountability, it's all about the right people grabbing as much money as possible.
To make more money you just add another zero at the end of the price tag. At some point the costs will become so inflated and divorced from reality that we will be unable to afford anything And the right people will take their loot and move to New Zealand and wring their hands at how the lazy Americans were not worthy of their brilliant leadership
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Apr 17, 2017 | www.unz.com
Avery , April 16, 2017 at 1:59 pm GMT \n
100 Words @dearieme "Funny patriotism where they're most revved up to kill other Koreans". You could say that of the American "patriots" of 1776 who were revved up to kill fellow Britons. {You could say that of the American "patriots" of 1776 who were revved up to kill fellow Britons.}You could also say that about the 4 year long US Civil War.
Both sides considered themselves very patriotic Americans, yet were revved up to kill each other to a total of about 785,000-1,000,000 KIA. Considering US population was about 20-25 million around then, that was huge number of dead.
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Apr 17, 2017 | www.unz.com
nsa , April 16, 2017 at 2:01 pm
@Willem HendrikZero chance of any attack on Korea beyond a prearranged choreographed pinprick. The explanation is simple: nothing in it for the Jooies and Izzies who worked overtime to install a US government of the jooies, by the jooies, for the jooies. Why would they waste their satrap's assets when they could be used on Iran?If there were ever a Just Cause for the Yanks to invade and bring democracy somewhere, it would be North Korea. The horrors that generations of North Koreans in concentration camps are enduring, would even make the holo-jews cringe.
Then again, is Israel ready to take a second row seat on the holocaust narrative and let the North Koreans take the gold medal of international victimhood?
And what do you do with millions of people coping with culture shock, paranoia, etc.? And, last but not least, who would make our clothing for 5 cents a piece?
All in all. I do not think the Israeli's would let the USA attack North Korea.
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Apr 17, 2017 | www.unz.com
Agent76 , April 16, 2017 at 3:19 pm GMT \n
October 18, 1994 Remarks on the Nuclear Agreement With North Korea William J. ClintonGood afternoon. I am pleased that the United States and North Korea yesterday reached agreement on the text of a framework document on North Korea's nuclear program.
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Mao Cheng Ji , April 13, 2017 at 7:58 am GMT \nApr 15, 2017 | www.unz.com
Dear Larry:Diversity Heretic , April 13, 2017 at 7:35 am GMT \nI am responding to your distribution of what I understand is a White House statement claiming intelligence findings about the nerve agent attack on April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria. My understanding from your note is that this White House intelligence summary was released to you sometime on April 11, 2017.
I have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7 a.m. on April 4, 2017.
In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4.
This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment, is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.
However, if one assumes, as does the White House, that the source of the sarin was from this location and that the location was not tampered with, the most plausible conclusion is that the sarin was dispensed by an improvised dispersal device made from a 122 mm section of rocket tube filled with sarin and capped on both sides.
The only undisputable facts stated in the White House report is the claim that a chemical attack using nerve agent occurred in Khan Shaykhun, Syria on that morning. Although the White House statement repeats this point in many places within its report, the report contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft. In fact, the report contains absolutely no evidence that would indicate who was the perpetrator of this atrocity.
The report instead repeats observations of physical effects suffered by victims that with very little doubt indicate nerve agent poisoning.
The only source the document cites as evidence that the attack was by the Syrian government is the crater it claims to have identified on a road in the North of Khan Shaykhun.
I have located this crater using Google Earth and there is absolutely no evidence that the crater was created by a munition designed to disperse sarin after it is dropped from an aircraft.
The Google Earth map shown in Figure 1 at the end of this text section shows the location of that crater on the road in the north of Khan Shaykhun, as described in the White House statement.
The data cited by the White House is more consistent with the possibility that the munition was placed on the ground rather than dropped from a plane. This conclusion assumes that the crater was not tampered with prior to the photographs. However, by referring to the munition in this crater, the White House is indicating that this is the erroneous source of the data it used to conclude that the munition came from a Syrian aircraft.
Analysis of the debris as shown in the photographs cited by the White House clearly indicates that the munition was almost certainly placed on the ground with an external detonating explosive on top of it that crushed the container so as to disperse the alleged load of sarin.
Since time appears to be of the essence here, I have put together the summary of the evidence I have that the White House report contains false and misleading conclusions in a series of figures that follow this discussion. Each of the figures has a description below it, but I will summarize these figures next and wait for further inquiries about the basis of the conclusions I am putting forward herein.
Figure 1 shows a Google Earth image of the northeast corner of Khan Shaykhun where the crater identified as the source of the sarin attack and referred to in the White House intelligence report is located.
Also shown in the Google Earth image is the direction of the wind from the crater. At 3 AM the wind was going directly to the south at a speed of roughly 1.5 to 2.5 m/s. By 6 AM the wind was moving to the southeast at 1 to 2 m/s. The temperature was also low, 50 to 55°F near the ground. These conditions are absolutely ideal for a nerve agent attack.
When the temperature near the ground is low, and there is no sun and very slow winds, the dense cool air stays close to the ground and there is almost no upward motion of the air. This condition causes any particles, droplets, or clouds of dispersed gas to stay close to the ground as the surrounding air moves over the ground. We perceive this motion as a gentle breeze on a calm morning before sunrise.
One can think of a cloud of sarin as much like a cloud of ink generated by an escaping octopus. The ink cloud sits in the water and as the water slowly moves, so does the cloud. As the cloud is moved along by the water, it will slowly spread in all directions as it moves. If the layer of water where the ink is embedded moves so as to stay close to the ocean floor, the cloud will cover objects as it moves with the water.
This is the situation that occurs on a cool night before sunrise when the winds move only gently.
Figures 5 and 6 show tables that summarize the weather at 3 hour intervals in Khan Shaykun on the day of the attack, April 4, the day before the attack, April 3, and the day after the attack, April 5. The striking feature of the weather is that there were relatively high winds in the morning hours on both April 3 and April 5. If the gas attack were executed either the day before or the day after in the early morning, the attack would have been highly ineffective. The much higher winds would have dispersed the cloud of nerve agent and the mixing of winds from higher altitudes would have caused the nerve agent to be carried aloft from the ground. It is therefore absolutely clear that the time and day of the attack was carefully chosen and was no accident.
Figure 2 shows a high quality photograph of the crater identified in the White House report as the source of the sarin attack. Assuming that there was no tampering of evidence at the crater, one can see what the White House is claiming as a dispenser of the nerve agent.
The dispenser looks like a 122 mm pipe like that used in the manufacture of artillery rockets.
As shown in the close-up of the pipe in the crater in Figure 3 , the pipe looks like it was originally sealed at the front end and the back end. Also of note is that the pipe is flattened into the crater, and also has a fractured seam that was created by the brittle failure of the metal skin when the pipe was suddenly crushed inward from above.
Figure 4 shows the possible configuration of an improvised sarin dispersal device that could have been used to create the crater and the crushed carcass of what was originally a cylindrical pipe. A good guess of how this dispersal mechanism worked (again, assuming that the crater and carcass were not staged, as assumed in the White House report) was that a slab of high explosive was placed over one end of the sarin-filled pipe and detonated.
The explosive acted on the pipe as a blunt crushing mallet. It drove the pipe into the ground while at the same time creating the crater. Since the pipe was filled with sarin, which is an incompressible fluid, as the pipe was flattened the sarin acted on the walls and ends of the pipe causing a crack along the length of the pipe and also the failure of the cap on the back end. This mechanism of dispersal is essentially the same as hitting a toothpaste tube with a large mallet, which then results in the tube failing and the toothpaste being blown in many directions depending on the exact way the toothpaste skin ruptures.
If this is in fact the mechanism used to disperse the sarin, this indicates that the sarin tube was placed on the ground by individuals on the ground and not dropped from an airplane.
Figure 8 shows the improvised sarin dispenser along with a typical 122 mm artillery rocket and the modified artillery rocket used in the sarin attack of August 21, 2013 in Damascus.
At that time (August 30, 2013) the Obama White House also issued an intelligence report containing obvious inaccuracies. For example, that report stated without equivocation that the sarin carrying artillery rocket used in Damascus had been fired from Syrian government controlled areas. As it turned out, the particular munition used in that attack could not go further than roughly 2 km, very far short of any boundary controlled by the Syrian government at that time. The White House report at that time also contained other critical and important errors that might properly be described as amateurish. For example, the report claimed that the locations of the launch and impact of points of the artillery rockets were observed by US satellites. This claim was absolutely false and any competent intelligence analyst would have known that. The rockets could be seen from the Space-Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) but the satellite could absolutely not see the impact locations because the impact locations were not accompanied by explosions. These errors were clear indicators that the White House intelligence report had in part been fabricated and had not been vetted by competent intelligence experts.
This same situation appears to be the case with the current White House intelligence report. No competent analyst would assume that the crater cited as the source of the sarin attack was unambiguously an indication that the munition came from an aircraft. No competent analyst would assume that the photograph of the carcass of the sarin canister was in fact a sarin canister. Any competent analyst would have had questions about whether the debris in the crater was staged or real. No competent analyst would miss the fact that the alleged sarin canister was forcefully crushed from above, rather than exploded by a munition within it. All of these highly amateurish mistakes indicate that this White House report, like the earlier Obama White House Report, was not properly vetted by the intelligence community as claimed.
I have worked with the intelligence community in the past, and I have grave concerns about the politicization of intelligence that seems to be occurring with more frequency in recent times – but I know that the intelligence community has highly capable analysts in it. And if those analysts were properly consulted about the claims in the White House document they would have not approved the document going forward.
I am available to expand on these comments substantially. I have only had a few hours to quickly review the alleged White House intelligence report. But a quick perusal shows without a lot of analysis that this report cannot be correct, and it also appears that this report was not properly vetted by the intelligence community.
This is a very serious matter.
President Obama was initially misinformed about supposed intelligence evidence that Syria was the perpetrator of the August 21, 2013 nerve agent attack in Damascus. This is a matter of public record. President Obama stated that his initially false understanding was that the intelligence clearly showed that Syria was the source of the nerve agent attack. This false information was corrected when the then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, interrupted the President while he was in an intelligence briefing. According to President Obama, Mr. Clapper told the President that the intelligence that Syria was the perpetrator of the attack was "not a slamdunk."
The question that needs to be answered by our nation is how was the president initially misled about such a profoundly important intelligence finding? A second equally important question is how did the White House produce an intelligence report that was obviously flawed and amateurish that was then released to the public and never corrected? The same false information in the intelligence report issued by the White House on August 30, 2013 was emphatically provided by Secretary of State John Kerry in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee!
We again have a situation where the White House has issued an obviously false, misleading and amateurish intelligence report.
The Congress and the public have been given reports in the name of the intelligence community about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, technical evidence supposedly collected by satellite systems that any competent scientists would know is false, and now from photographs of the crater that any analyst who has any competent at all would not trust as evidence.
It is late in the evening for me, so I will end my discussion here.
I stand ready to provide the country with any analysis and help that is within my power to supply. What I can say for sure herein is that what the country is now being told by the White House cannot be true and the fact that this information has been provided in this format raises the most serious questions about the handling of our national security.
Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: [email protected]
Cell Phone: 617 543-7646... ... ... ...
A lot of interesting and detailed information omitted
... ... ...
Philippe Lemoine , Website April 13, 2017 at 5:53 am GMT \n
200 Words I was really hoping that Prof. Postol would share his thoughts about the attack in Khan Sheikhoun. If you are interested, I wrote a very detailed blog post , in which I examine the evidence about the recent chemical attack and compare the situation with what happened after the chemical attack in Ghouta in August 2013. I argue that, in the case of the attack in Ghouta, the media narrative had rapidly unravelled and that, for that reason, we should be extremely prudent about the recent attack and not jump to conclusions. Among other things, I discuss the ballistic analysis produced by Postol and Lloyd at the time, which showed that both the much-touted NYT/HRW analysis and the US intelligence were mistaken. I also show that, despite the fact that a lot of evidence came out that undermined the official narrative, the media never changed their stance and continued to talk as if there was no doubt that Assad's regime was responsible for the attack. It's more than 5,000 words long and I provide a source for every single factual claim I make. The post has already been widely shared and some people have criticized it, so I will soon post a follow-up where I reply to critics and say more about the evidence that bears on the attack in Khan Sheikhoun.100 Words This just gets weirder and weirder. Is the position of the Trump Administration and the intelligence community that the Syrian Air Force went through all the trouble to launch an aerial attack and drop one bomb? Handling chemical munitions is inherently dangerous. Syrian Air Force personnel loading the nerve agent into the bomb and then fitting it on the plane would have to wear protective clothing and receive special training, and might even then suffer some exposure casualties. And my recollection is that chemical weapons, even nerve gas, generally have to be used in massive quantities to achieve any military result.The chances that the gassing was as a result of a Syrian Air Force attack are vanishingly small. Other forces are in play here. The American people are being deceived. Read More
100 Words Technical stuff is interesting, but from the layman's perspective it's really straightforward: means, motive, opportunity.
Opportunity: yes.
Means: seems doubtful, due to the 2013-14 OPCW cleanup of the
government-controlled territory.
Motive: not just absent, but manifestly counterproductive, under the
circumstances.
There's also ample evidence of the government desperately trying to
avoid antagonizing the population. In the territories they they liberate,
they routinely – and that's a fact – transport anti-government militants
and their families, and even with their light weapons, into
rebel-controlled territories, that same Idlib province. In
government-supplied buses. Even though they could easily kill them all,
right on the spot. How does it square with with the supposed
indiscriminate gassing?
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Anon
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April 13, 2017 at 8:39 am GMT \n
A courageous and honorable man indeed. This is putting America first!
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The Scalpel
,
Website
April 13, 2017 at 9:20 am GMT \n
100 Words
Much "evidence" can be faked. This is just an example of that fact.
Looking at that tube, it is obvious that it did not explode. If it is
very difficult to determine if evidence is real or faked, then one must
be very careful reaching conclusions based on said evidence. At that
point, motives must be taken into consideration.
The argument that the Syrian government had any motive whatsoever to carry out this attack is very,very weak. Also, I have heard the claim that the US government believes only one chemical weapon was used. Assuming that the Syrian government carried out the attack, which I do not believe, why would they use just one chemical weapon?
So what we have here is very weak evidence, very weak motive, and an
illogical and inefficient proposed mechanism. This does not pass the
smell test at all.
Avery
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April 13, 2017 at 12:37 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Mao Cheng Ji
Technical stuff is interesting, but from the layman's perspective it's
really straightforward: means, motive, opportunity.
Opportunity: yes.
Means: seems doubtful, due to the 2013-14 OPCW cleanup of the
government-controlled territory.
Motive: not just absent, but manifestly counterproductive, under the
circumstances.
There's also ample evidence of the government desperately trying to avoid antagonizing the population. In the territories they they liberate, they routinely - and that's a fact - transport anti-government militants and their families, and even with their light weapons, into rebel-controlled territories, that same Idlib province. In government-supplied buses. Even though they could easily kill them all, right on the spot. How does it square with with the supposed indiscriminate gassing? You make good points.
{How does it square with with the supposed indiscriminate gassing?}
It doesn't.
Particularly a chemical attack, to kill, what, 100 people?
Assad knows very well what that would mean: even Russia would not let it
slide.
As you said, SAA could easily kill hundreds of terrorists and their
sympathizers with conventional bombs if they wanted to kill
indiscriminately.
On the other hand it squares 100% with enemies of Syria.
SAA is winning, albeit at a very slow pace, and Neocons clearly are
panicking and desperate to prevent the breakout of peace in Syria at any
cost.
200 Words I was a demo guy in the Marine Corps, so I am familiar with the effect of explosive charges. There is no question that the photo, if accurate, is consistent with a charge placed above rather than within. There may be other explanations for the compression but definitely not an internal charge. I would note that the diagram in the article suggests some sort of "pipe bomb" type charge on top, but I do not see any sort of fragments from that type of device. If it was a charge on top it would have needed to be a simple explosive charge, probably tamped with dirt or sand. In any case, there would be explosive residue on the outside of the pipe which could easily be identified. Obviously, if this pipe was source of the agent someone should have preserved this evidence and turned it over to the UN or whoever. Ivan , April 13, 2017 at 2:04 pm GMT \n
@Diversity Heretic This just gets weirder and weirder. Is the position of the Trump Administration and the intelligence community that the Syrian Air Force went through all the trouble to launch an aerial attack and drop one bomb? Handling chemical munitions is inherently dangerous. Syrian Air Force personnel loading the nerve agent into the bomb and then fitting it on the plane would have to wear protective clothing and receive special training, and might even then suffer some exposure casualties. And my recollection is that chemical weapons, even nerve gas, generally have to be used in massive quantities to achieve any military result.
The chances that the gassing was as a result of a Syrian Air Force attack
are vanishingly small. Other forces are in play here. The American people
are being deceived.
Gilad Atzmon had another question: if the US really did believe that air
force base had chemical weapons stores then launching a Tomahawk strike
would in all likelihood release those same gases . Duh.
El Dato
,
April 13, 2017 at 3:07 pm GMT \n
@Ivan
Gilad Atzmon had another question: if the US really did believe that air
force base had chemical weapons stores then launching a Tomahawk strike
would in all likelihood release those same gases . Duh.
Which is why
https://www.rt.com/news/384042-shayrat-probe-chemical-weapons/
and also
https://southfront.org/debunking-rumors-about-chemical-weapons-containers-in-syrias-shayrat-airbase/
Anon
,
April 13, 2017 at 3:09 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@Chris Mallory
Yes
Does this mean that Abe Lincoln was a ruthless thug responsible for the deaths of a half a million Americans during our civil war?
Lincoln wins that race in a blowout. Lincoln was one of the most evil monsters to ever walk the earth. Well, President Asad is trying to prevent the destruction of his nation, the probable partitioning of it, the crushing of any institutions reflecting the Arab consensus that has always bound the nation together and made its institutions work, as well as preventing openly genocidal barbarians from achieving victory, erasing Earth's oldest Christian communities and other religious minorities. President Lincoln was facing a foe that just wanted slavery and separatism. The Confederates were not genocidal, although the cruelties of the slave trade and the plantation system often reached the same level of inhumanity. So, overall, from the perspective of a CNN/MSNBC believer, or a Trumpian nouveau-neocon, Asad is much worse worse than Hitler, in fact, as Sean Spicer was trying to say. Here's a tip: Keep it simple, Sean. Don't bring up the Holocaust, just say he's worse than Hitler. Some will question that, but those who matter will let it slide. Agent76 , April 13, 2017 at 3:29 pm GMT \n
Who is worse, Assad or Lincoln?
April 07, 2017 Pentagon Trained Syria's Al Qaeda "Rebels" in the Use of Chemical Weapons
The Western media refutes their own lies.
Apr 9, 2017 No More
utu
,
April 13, 2017 at 4:38 pm GMT \n
500 Words
Where is Russia's propaganda machine? 71 years old, retired American
professors does amateurish analysis using one pict obtained from social
media and Sputnik and Russia Today will publish it, right? But where are
the Russians? What did they do to support the belief that the gas attack
was a false flag? Apparently nothing. Lavrov calls of UN investigation.
That's about all. But what about the assets they have in Syria? Couldn't
they release some information pointing to the real culprits?
Inept, indolent losers!
Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All CommentsWhy Russia's media are so pathetically weak? For some years already I follow some Russian media outfits and I am amazed why they are so inept and indolent. Their approach is totally inadequate when targeted with Anglo-Zio media aggressive anti-Russia narratives.
This time when Russia and Putin were smacked in the face in Syria the best Russia came up with was to claim that it did not hurt that much, that only 23 out of 59 missiles reached the target and that the damage to the airport was minimal. And next day they doubled down on it by having planes taking off from the airport. Whether the claims are factual or not it does not matter. The opposite approach should have be used: exaggerate the pain and loss you have suffered. Keep showing dead bodies and damage even if invented. Do not pretend that it rains when they are spitting in your face. Show your hurt, your weakness. Be more like Anglo-Zio propaganda that will accuse every drop a real rain of aggressive intent or even of being anti-semitic. Be proactive not reactive.
So why Russia's propaganda machine is so weak? Is it because Russians are proud people or that their journalists and propagandists have moral scruples and won't engage in lies and manipulations? Obviously not. They just do not know because they are conditioned by the working of propaganda in the authoritarian regime just like during Tsars and Bolsheviks. In the authoritarian regime the chief objective of propaganda is to convince the subjects of the regime that the regime knows what it is doing and that it is strong. The propaganda is not really directed for the foreign enemies but for the domestic friends. For this reason any setbacks or losses will be hidden from the populace or minimized. No disasters and no catastrophes ever happened in the Soviet Union if you just read Pravda or Izvestia. Towards the end of WWII Goebbels was disappointed with inability of German propaganda to produce sympathy around the world for Germans suffering due to American and British bombing of German civilian population that was killing children women, and elders. But this was a consequence of years of hiding these losses from German population because the regime wanted to project its strengths. And that was a mistake. So if Russia wants to confront Anglo-Zio media they must shape up and change the approach. So far they are failing though I am sure they are doing a wonderful job for people like Smoothie (if you ask him) and other clumsy and ineffective agents of influence on behalf of Russia.
100 Words @reiner Tor Thanks, that's useful to know.
Are you sure it's true of sarin? I read that about sarin specifically. It seems creating the sarin generates either hydrochloric acid or hydrofluoric acid as byproduct (especially the latter is Very Not Good), so keeping sarin even in glass bottles is bound to be fraught with difficulties over the long run (instant expert via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin )
In particular the US had
capabilities to fire sarin precursors in a single shell that are reacting
in-flight to avoid the storage problems. I'm not sure Syria had that, but
even for the Ghouta attack there was talk about "our intelligence
services picked up the order for mixing" (however debatable that is), so
I don't suppose they did.
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Astuteobservor II
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:03 pm GMT \n
just another false flag.
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Alfa158
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:07 pm GMT \n
100 Words
What was the date of the image from Google Earth showing the supposed
bomb crater? Google Earth is not a real time satellite reconnaissance
system. You can get the date of the image from the display options, and
they are usually months or years old.
Is it possible that this crater was already there prior to the gas
attack?
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MarkinLA
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:08 pm GMT \n
100 Words
And on CNN this morning there was a claim that the US intercepted Syrian
military people interacting with chemical weapons specialists or some
garbage like that. Just when the story is about to explode in the US's
face, out comes a convenient claim that doesn't make any sense to people
with IQs above room level. I am sure if there was such a dubious
communication it was created by Mossad or Saudi secret services.
This is like all our intercepted communiques. Like that one just
before we invaded Iraq.
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bjondo
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:15 pm GMT \n
@Carlton Meyer
Let me add that Jimmy Dore made a great point in that video. Many blame
Assad for the half million Syrians who have died in this civil war; yet
it was mostly caused by an invasion of outside Islamic mercs paid for by
the Saudis and Qatar.
Does this mean that Abe Lincoln was a ruthless thug responsible for the deaths of a half a million Americans during our civil war? The confederate rebels weren't even trying to conquer the north, they just wanted to be left to run their own affairs.
Who is worse, Assad or Lincoln?
Wouldnt compare Old Abe to President Assad
Pres Assad doesn't deserve the very questionable "who is worse"
comparison.
Assad is GOOD. Period.
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El Dato
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:34 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Everybody has Sarin Fever, soon there will be Sarin Pokemons, Sarin with
your ice cream, Sarin pillows, a George Lucas movie called "Sarin!" and
voucher for Sarin holidays I'm sure:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/13/asia/north-korea-missiles-japan/
"North Korea may be able to arm missiles with sarin, Japan PM says Abe did not provide any evidence why he felt North Korea had the capability to equip missiles with chemical weapons. "
Well, one might totally suppose the Norks are not total peasants.
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El Dato
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:47 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Alfa158
What was the date of the image from Google Earth showing the supposed
bomb crater? Google Earth is not a real time satellite reconnaissance
system. You can get the date of the image from the display options, and
they are usually months or years old.
Is it possible that this crater was already there prior to the gas
attack?
It's just to show the location:
The Google Earth map shown in Figure 1 at the end of this text section shows the location of that crater on the road in the north of Khan Shaykhun, as described in the White House statement.
That warehouse is a bit bombed-out by now.
See:
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2017/7-april-pentagons-location-of-impact-crater-linked-to-the
It's right here, a lonely crater of a single chemical munition:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/35%C2%B026'59.7%22N+36%C2%B038'55.6%22E/@35.449907,36.6478998,353m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0×0!8m2!3d35.449907!4d36.648767
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JPTravis
,
Website
April 13, 2017 at 5:53 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Sadly, the way these things work, the evidence as it stands will
henceforth be irrelevant. Now that the Trump administration has staked
its reputation on a cruise missile attack to punish Assad for using
chemical warfare, they will NEVER admit they were wrong. Just like Obama
will never admit he royally screwed up Libya and his amateurish
machinations got a U.S. ambassador dragged through the streets like a
dead cat. We seem to live in a world where truth no longer matters. What
matters is whether you can get the idiots in the media to buy your
version of events rather than your political enemy's version of events.
Personally, I never thought Assad was responsible for this atrocity. Why
risk something like that when everybody agreed he was finally winning
this thing?
El Dato
,
April 13, 2017 at 6:32 pm GMT \n
300 Words
Olive branch extension and face-saving in progress?
https://www.rt.com/uk/384592-ambassador-brenton-russia-syria/
Agent76 , April 13, 2017 at 7:00 pm GMT \nRussia 'horrified at chemical attacks' in Syria, says former UK ambassador to Moscow
Russia has been badly mishandled by Western powers, which fail to realize the Kremlin is not fond of the Syrian leadership and is horrified at recent chemical attacks, former British diplomat Tony Brenton has told the BBC.
Speaking to the BBC 'Today' program on Thursday, Brenton, who served as ambassador to Moscow from 2004 to 2008, said it is important to understand Syria from the Russian perspective.
"The Russian view of the situation in Syria is very clear. They don't much like [Syrian President Bashar] Assad and they must be horrified at the chemical weapons attack last week.
But the question they ask themselves is, 'if we get rid of Assad, what comes after?'" Brenton said.
"Their answer to that question is that 'we get some of Islamic fundamentalism which is worse for us than Assad' so we put up with the nasty dictator that we've got rather than admitting fundamentalism which is a direct threat to us."
Asked if the Russians need "help" to move away from Assad, Brenton said: "I think that is exactly it. I think if we can get together with the Russians they have a real interest in moving away from Assad as well."
Understanding the domestic political situation in Russia is also vital in order to grapple with the question of how the country operates in the world, he said.
"They are dealing with a population which doesn't really understand why they are in Syria at all.
"If we could move towards an after-Assad regime in Syria which guaranteed the non-intervention of Islamic fundamentalism, [Russia] would be delighted to work in that direction."
100 Words @Carlton Meyer A Congressman and Iraq war vet suggests an investigation and the Dems denounce her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1oECQ6r6do This is what the Bankster puppet's do when they have been outed!
Dec 8, 2016 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill to Stop Arming Terrorists
December 08, 2016 Bipartisan Bill Would Forbid US Funding ISIS, al-Qaeda Affiliates
Gabbert-Rohrabacher Bill Would Effectively End CIA Program Arming Syrian Rebels. The Stop Arming Terrorists Act (SATA) has been introduced today in the House of Representatives by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D – HI).
http://news.antiwar.com/2016/12/08/bipartisan-bill-would-forbid-us-funding-isis-al-qaeda-affiliates/
Art
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:13 pm GMT \n
100 Words
The Jew keep their eye on the price – a busted up Syria. They have the
Kushner White House, all the rest of Stockholm DC, and their MSM all
pumping out the "Assad did it" lie.
The world's two major nuke powers are at loggerheads – but what the hell – Israel is happy and getting its way.
You Stockholmers must never forget what the Jew terrorists tell you – "Jews are the eternal victims" – so suck it up you 7,000,000,000 fools – you must always defer to us!
Laugh in your face!
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RobinG
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:15 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Ivan
Gilad Atzmon had another question: if the US really did believe that air
force base had chemical weapons stores then launching a Tomahawk strike
would in all likelihood release those same gases . Duh.
Gilad's whole argument is flawed. The US has not said that chem. weapons
were stored there. [If anyone has official statement to contrary, please
correct me.] The US only claimed that chem. attacks were launched from
there.
Then, as to targeting, US said it was targeting below-ground
fuel storage, perhaps munitions also, but not chem. Again, anyone have
better info? Official, not MSM who will say anything.
anon
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:33 pm GMT \n
100 Words
the Wall Street Journal's right wing neocon-in-residence Brett Stephens
loudly called for "regime change" in North Korea two weeks ago.
And then there's Iran, which the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol is once again saying is the ultimate "prize" for regime change, now that Trump is directly bombing Assad's forces.
Weeks ago, Trump's defense secretary James Mattis was reportedly planning a brazen and incredibly dangerous operation to board Iranian ships in international waters. " https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/10/not-just-syria-trump-ratcheting-up-wars-world
One day they or their children will move to Israel or to another
country and use North Korean or Iranian to do terrorism against America
or even use the entire country using this history of what is happening
today to invade America .
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Steve Rendall
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:36 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Carlton Meyer
Let me add that Jimmy Dore made a great point in that video. Many blame
Assad for the half million Syrians who have died in this civil war; yet
it was mostly caused by an invasion of outside Islamic mercs paid for by
the Saudis and Qatar.
Does this mean that Abe Lincoln was a ruthless thug responsible for the deaths of a half a million Americans during our civil war? The confederate rebels weren't even trying to conquer the north, they just wanted to be left to run their own affairs.
Who is worse, Assad or Lincoln? I like Dore, but if he said that he's almost surely wrong.
Assad was bombing Syria for quite a while before Jihadis were much of
a factor. He had the only Air Force and mechanized army in Syria from
2011 to 2014. For all of that time his bombing was the primary driver of
the refugee crisis. It is impossible to say how many refugees Assad is
responsible for, but it's likely he has caused the lion's share.
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anon
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:45 pm GMT \n
100 Words
do not ignore these guys -
"Susannah Sirkin from the Soros-funded Physicians for Human Rights claimed, "We know that sarin has been used before by the Assad regime." But that has NOT been confirmed by any credible organization. On the contrary, the most thorough investigations point to sarin being used by the armed opposition, NOT the Syrian government.
The other guest was Andrew Tabler from the neoconservative Israeli-associated Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His editorial from last fall makes clear what he wants: "The case for (finally) bombing Assad." So, the viewers of the publicly funded network got one of their usual doses of "Assad must go" propaganda"
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/10/how-media-bias-fuels-syrian-escalation/
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m___
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:46 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Higher intelligence individuals, moral integrity, ethical overview,
physical courage.
Since even the detailed and easy language above analysis leaves the world at large clueless, the few with necessary perception within the public, having no trouble understanding as outsiders what is meant, speak about what is the quality of the Washington power structures.
The harnessed 'elites', including universities, are corrupted, cater to superficial riches, the short term, in equivalents of family and clan. Washington is a dump, where high quality individuals that by definition need less structure have no place.
Since the public needs elites, since elites carry responsibility,
"noblesse obligue", the essence of our de facto society can be concluded
rotten to the core.
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Randal
,
April 13, 2017 at 9:29 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Steve Rendall
I like Dore, but if he said that he's almost surely wrong.
Assad was bombing Syria for quite a while before Jihadis were much of a factor. He had the only Air Force and mechanized army in Syria from 2011 to 2014. For all of that time his bombing was the primary driver of the refugee crisis. It is impossible to say how many refugees Assad is responsible for, but it's likely he has caused the lion's share.
Assad was bombing Syria for quite a while before Jihadis were much of a factor. He had the only Air Force and mechanized army in Syria from 2011 to 2014.
You have a rather unrealistically late idea of when foreign groups started backing the terrorists in Syria.
Qatar, to name just one, is on the record as having actively supported the rebels militarily since at least April 2012, and the FT reported in May 2013 it had already spent $1-3 billion backing the rebels:
How Qatar seized control of the Syrian revolution
Turkey started providing support to the "Free Syria Army" in 2011, and jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda were openly calling for volunteers to fight in Syria by February 2012.
This is all information in the public domain. It's likely covert
interference started long before that.
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MarkinLA
,
April 13, 2017 at 9:33 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@RobinG
Gilad's whole argument is flawed. The US has not said that chem. weapons
were stored there. [If anyone has official statement to contrary, please
correct me.] The US only claimed that chem. attacks were launched from
there.
Then, as to targeting, US said it was targeting below-ground fuel storage, perhaps munitions also, but not chem. Again, anyone have better info? Official, not MSM who will say anything. I think you are right about US claims but they really don't make any sense if the aim was to punish someone using chemical weapons. At least Bush pretended to be looking for the WMD even though he likely knew they didn't exist.
Where else would they be stored unless you think Assad
has a secret stash someplace and pulls them out, now and then, to do some
gassing. If that was the case, wouldn't it make more sense to bomb the
stash and prove to the rest of the world Assad had them rather than just
bomb an airfield and leave yourself open to the kind of criticism Trump
is getting? The idea that we can track everything the Syrian military
does but they have a secret chemical weapons store that Mossad, Turkey,
the CIA, FSB, and Saudi intelligence agencies don't know about seems
incredible.
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D Trump
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:33 pm GMT \n
@El Dato
Why is there a neatly printed red panel with a death's head next to the
"incriminating tube"? Do White Helmets (or whoever did the photographing,
maybe our undeclared "boots on the ground"?) carry these with them? My
arabic reading skills are not so good, what does it say?
Ivanka tells me – she does all my reading for me – that it says "Danger.
Unexploded weapon"
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RobinG
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:40 pm GMT \n
@Steve Rendall
I like Dore, but if he said that he's almost surely wrong.
Assad was bombing Syria for quite a while before Jihadis were much of a factor. He had the only Air Force and mechanized army in Syria from 2011 to 2014. For all of that time his bombing was the primary driver of the refugee crisis. It is impossible to say how many refugees Assad is responsible for, but it's likely he has caused the lion's share. "It's likely covert interference started long before that." Yes, Randal. About 2006.
Steve Randall, where do you think all those weapons and
Jihadis went when Ambassador Chris Stevens arranged their passage out of
Libya?
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Anon
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:48 pm GMT \n
300 Words
Considering everything that's been happening recently, I think there is a
strong possibility that this was either a false flag or they were simply
waiting for an excuse to attack Syria – anything would do. In fact,
Mattis had cooked up a plan to illegally board Iranian ships in
international waters as a kind of Gulf of Tonkin provocation. The plan
was only scrapped because it was leaked. Now, these maniacs are sending
more troops to Afghanistan, concealing the numbers of troops they are
deploying to the Middle East, dropping MOABs to scare other nations into
submission, and threatening to attack North Korea.
"Weeks ago, Trump's defense secretary James Mattis was reportedly planning a brazen and incredibly dangerous operation to board Iranian ships in international waters. This would have effectively been an act of war. Apparently, the only reason the Trump administration didn't carry it out was because the plan leaked and they were forced to scuttle it – at least temporarily. But that hasn't stopped the ratcheting up of tensions towards Iran ever since he took office
On top of all this madness, 16 years after America's longest war in
history started, a top general has already testified to Congress that the
military wants more troops in Afghanistan to break the "stalemate" there.
Well before the end of the Trump administration, there will be troops
fighting and dying in Afghanistan who weren't even born when the 9/11
attacks occurred.
To further shield the public from these decisions, the Trump
administration indicated a couple weeks ago they have stopped disclosing
even the amount of additional troops that they are sending overseas to
fight. The numbers were already being downplayed by the Obama
administration and received little attention as the numbers continually
creeped up over the last two years. Now, the public will have virtually
no insight into what its military is doing in those countries."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/10/not-just-syria-trump-ratcheting-up-wars-world
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Steve Rendall
,
April 13, 2017 at 11:20 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Randal
You have a rather unrealistically late idea of when foreign groups started backing the terrorists in Syria.
Assad was bombing Syria for quite a while before Jihadis were much of a factor. He had the only Air Force and mechanized army in Syria from 2011 to 2014.
Qatar, to name just one, is on the record as having actively supported the rebels militarily since at least April 2012, and the FT reported in May 2013 it had already spent $1-3 billion backing the rebels:
How Qatar seized control of the Syrian revolution
Turkey started providing support to the "Free Syria Army" in 2011, and jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda were openly calling for volunteers to fight in Syria by February 2012.
This is all information in the public domain. It's likely covert interference started long before that. Anon does not reposed to my argument. Early on, Jihadi fighters were not much of a factor in driving the flight of refugees. And long term covert machinations, which I agree there was plenty of, don't matter if those it supports are not terrorizing people to leave the country. See how that works?
See how Assad sacked major parts of Homs, with artillery, tanks, and an Air Force, while opposition had little more than mortars to fight back with.
I dare you to find me an independent Syria expert who says the rebels
are responsible for most of the refugee problem.
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Troll:
L.K
JoaoAlfaiate
,
April 13, 2017 at 11:23 pm GMT \n
Am I the only guy who finds it strange that the "bomb" explored exactly
in the middle of a road?
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Contraviews
,
Website
April 13, 2017 at 11:25 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Dear Mr.Postol,
What I did miss in your excellent analysis are comments on White Helmets
and other rescuers handling sarin contaminated victims with bare hands
and no protective clothing. As you know sarin is a highly toxis chemical,
targeting the muscles and nervous system. Rescuers would have been
contaminated themselves and died probably within hours.
It's my take that these images were staged and filmed already before the
"attack". Could you please comment on this aspect?
Also listening to a chemical expert on Rt he stated that delivering sarin
or chlorine from the air would be totally ineffective. Could you possibly
elaborate on this as well?
Tom Van Meurs
New Zealand
I will pubish your article on my Facebook
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anon
,
April 14, 2017 at 12:09 am GMT \n
200 Words
@Steve Rendall
Anon does not reposed to my argument. Early on, Jihadi fighters were not
much of a factor in driving the flight of refugees. And long term covert
machinations, which I agree there was plenty of, don't matter if those it
supports are not terrorizing people to leave the country. See how that
works?
See how Assad sacked major parts of Homs, with artillery, tanks, and an Air Force, while opposition had little more than mortars to fight back with.
I dare you to find me an independent Syria expert who says the rebels are responsible for most of the refugee problem. Refugees s been pouring in Jordan and Turkey before moving to EU. Refugees eas expected by saudi They put barbed wire I think to stop.
Syria initially saw a peaceful demonstration and before government started using arms or ammunition , demonstration got violent with assassination and killing of government forces Soon UK and USA were demanding that Assad needed to surrender. Assad started using air force to stem the tide of the violence .Assad offered amnesty and reconciliation s All were discarded at the behest of Western ad Saudi and Turkey Before that the 'Rat line" from Libya flooded the country with weapons Long before that French FM exposed the plans of destabilizing Syria . in 2007 Cheney was planning with Rice to start a civil war in Syria and western Iraq. Arms were in plenty already
Assad had no choice but use all powers he had .
Why did refugees go to EU?
No one knows.
But one thing is sure that this fallout and aftermath were in-built in
the projects cooked in DC
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Brewer
,
April 14, 2017 at 12:51 am GMT \n
100 Words
@Alfa158
What was the date of the image from Google Earth showing the supposed
bomb crater? Google Earth is not a real time satellite reconnaissance
system. You can get the date of the image from the display options, and
they are usually months or years old.
Is it possible that this crater was already there prior to the gas
attack?
There is a glaring anomaly in that there appears to be a 5-hour time
difference between the gas release and the Syrian air attack – the former
at around 6am, the latter at 11am. This should be easy enough to
ascertain if one has the proper resources. If so it clears the SAA of
responsibility.
Xander USMC
,
April 14, 2017 at 1:10 pm GMT \n
200 Words
White House Explanation of Alleged Syrian Strategy is Utter Nonsense.
I have not really seen much comment on the White House explanation for why the Syrians supposedly did this. The Paper discussed claims that the Syrian government did this attack in "southern Idlib province" in response to a threat "in response to an opposition offensive in northern Hamah province that threatened key infrastructure." This explanation is utterly nonsensical. If key infrastructure is being threatened in one part of the country why did the government have an airstrike in another area of the country–much less an entirely insignificant single rocket attack that does not appear to have accomplished anything militarily. If they were going to use gas why didn't they use it in Hamah where the "key infrastructure" was allegedly being threatened?
Of course, there may be times when you can strike your enemies' supply
lines, (like MacArthur wanted to take out the bridge over the Yalu River)
but in any event I wish someone would ask the White House to explain this
statement. No one has yet to offer any coherent explanation for the
alleged actions of the Syrian government.
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Xander USMC
,
April 14, 2017 at 1:29 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@Brewer
There is a glaring anomaly in that there appears to be a 5-hour time
difference between the gas release and the Syrian air attack - the former
at around 6am, the latter at 11am. This should be easy enough to
ascertain if one has the proper resources. If so it clears the SAA of
responsibility.
If there is a time gap that merely is evidence that it was someone on the
ground. The U.S. claims a Syrian Sukoi-22 (an airplane so old the
Russians don't use it anymore) dropped ordinance (the alleged chemicals)
at the time of the attack. So if there was an airstrike by an Su-22 using
high explosives that could well have damaged chemicals on the ground.
There are also many possible explanations for a delay–we don't really
know very much so its is pure speculation, but for example, if a
warehouse storing chemical weapons by the rebels was damaged they may
have tried to remove the chemicals from the warehouse hours after the
attack and it was the attempt to move the damaged containers that
resulted in an "accident." It is also consistent with a set-up as it
would take time for rebels after the airstrike to engineer a chemical
attack.
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alexander
,
April 14, 2017 at 3:00 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Xander USMC
White House Explanation of Alleged Syrian Strategy is Utter Nonsense.
I have not really seen much comment on the White House explanation for why the Syrians supposedly did this. The Paper discussed claims that the Syrian government did this attack in "southern Idlib province" in response to a threat "in response to an opposition offensive in northern Hamah province that threatened key infrastructure." This explanation is utterly nonsensical. If key infrastructure is being threatened in one part of the country why did the government have an airstrike in another area of the country--much less an entirely insignificant single rocket attack that does not appear to have accomplished anything militarily. If they were going to use gas why didn't they use it in Hamah where the "key infrastructure" was allegedly being threatened?
Of course, there may be times when you can strike your enemies' supply lines, (like MacArthur wanted to take out the bridge over the Yalu River) but in any event I wish someone would ask the White House to explain this statement. No one has yet to offer any coherent explanation for the alleged actions of the Syrian government. Xander,
Let us assume, for arguments sake, you are President Assad.
Over the past year, with the assistance of Russian forces, you have been able to mount decisive, significant victories against ISIS using conventional weapons, and you are on the verge of reclaiming your country from the assorted Jihadist's who are fragmenting it and destroying it.
If you are well aware the ONE action you could take, which might force the hand of the most powerful military on the planet to descend upon you Wouldn't you avoid it like the plague ?
Is there any strategic or tactical value for you to attempt it ?
If there is .What is it ?
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Randal
,
April 14, 2017 at 3:36 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@Steve Rendall
Anon does not reposed to my argument. Early on, Jihadi fighters were not
much of a factor in driving the flight of refugees. And long term covert
machinations, which I agree there was plenty of, don't matter if those it
supports are not terrorizing people to leave the country. See how that
works?
See how Assad sacked major parts of Homs, with artillery, tanks, and an Air Force, while opposition had little more than mortars to fight back with.
I dare you to find me an independent Syria expert who says the rebels are responsible for most of the refugee problem.
Anon does not reposed to my argument. Early on, Jihadi fighters were not much of a factor in driving the flight of refugees.
The comment to which you responded referred to deaths, not refugees.
But with regard to refugees, the UNHCR figures show that the number of registered Syrian refugees was still below 1m at the end of March 2013 (it's now over 5 million), whereas as I pointed out above, the external backing for the rebels that prevented the government restoring order and really ratcheted up the fighting had markedly increased during 2012.
The blame for the devastation in Syria belongs with those who have perpetuated the rebellion and prevented the Syrian government restoring order, as Assad's father restored order following the uprising in 1982. Primarily with the US as the global hegemon, and with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel who have directly or indirectly interfered to seek regime change in Syria regardless of the human cost.
Those who have a genuine humanitarian concern and are not motivated by
ulterior strategic or political interests, should direct their criticism
and their pressure appropriately.
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bluedog
,
April 14, 2017 at 3:37 pm GMT \n
@Steve Rendall
Anon does not reposed to my argument. Early on, Jihadi fighters were not
much of a factor in driving the flight of refugees. And long term covert
machinations, which I agree there was plenty of, don't matter if those it
supports are not terrorizing people to leave the country. See how that
works?
See how Assad sacked major parts of Homs, with artillery, tanks, and an Air Force, while opposition had little more than mortars to fight back with.
I dare you to find me an independent Syria expert who says the rebels are
responsible for most of the refugee problem.
Well one would think it would be who ever started the dance not what
happened after the lights went out..
Xander USMC
,
April 14, 2017 at 8:48 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@alexander
Xander,
Let us assume, for arguments sake, you are President Assad.
Over the past year, with the assistance of Russian forces, you have been able to mount decisive, significant victories against ISIS using conventional weapons, and you are on the verge of reclaiming your country from the assorted Jihadist's who are fragmenting it and destroying it.
If you are well aware the ONE action you could take, which might force the hand of the most powerful military on the planet to descend upon you...Wouldn't you avoid it like the plague ?
Is there any strategic or tactical value for you to attempt it ?
If there is....What is it ?
Right, but that is the strategic lack of sense,
but I'm pointing out the strike would make no
sense tactically either. If something was being
threatened arguably it would make tactical sense
to gas the area under attack–but not a minor
attack 50 miles away that does not appear to have
any relation to the alleged threat elsewhere. I
haven't even seen any confirmation of any threat
to "key infrastructure." Not to mention Syria
retook Aleppo without the need for
chemicals–wasn't that a lot more key than this
unidentified "key infrastructure"?
alexander
,
April 14, 2017 at 10:28 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Xander USMC
Right, but that is the strategic lack of sense, but I'm pointing out the
strike would make no sense tactically either. If something was being
threatened arguably it would make tactical sense to gas the area under
attack--but not a minor attack 50 miles away that does not appear to have
any relation to the alleged threat elsewhere. I haven't even seen any
confirmation of any threat to "key infrastructure." Not to mention Syria
retook Aleppo without the need for chemicals--wasn't that a lot more key
than this unidentified "key infrastructure"?
Yes ,
It would make the most sense were one to use chemical weapons as a TACTIC, to use them in areas and situations where (as you suggest) one would get the most "bang for their buck".
It is very clear to you,based on its location, this chemical attack was almost meaningless tactically.
Right ?
So if this chemical assault was tactically absurd and strategically suicidal, then what would be Assad's thinking by attempting it ?
Is there some "rationale" that escapes us ?
L.K
,
April 14, 2017 at 10:49 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@Steve Rendall
I like Dore, but if he said that he's almost surely wrong.
Assad was bombing Syria for quite a while before Jihadis were much of a factor. He had the only Air Force and mechanized army in Syria from 2011 to 2014. For all of that time his bombing was the primary driver of the refugee crisis. It is impossible to say how many refugees Assad is responsible for, but it's likely he has caused the lion's share. Everything you wrote is pure BS. But I guess that is your purpose here.
Even Robert Fisk admitted there were Salafi jihadis involved from day
one. Al-Ciada in Iraq was involved from day one, etc.
There were and there are NO moderate 'rebels'. This ain't fucking star
wars.
Since early 2012, the Al-Nusra Front & co have been the main fighting
force trying to topple the Syrian government
. They are actually a
more serious threat to Syria than Daesh/is.
Increasingly from 2012 the Jihadis have been ever more heavily armed.
The key Jihadi groups all have armored forces, artillery, ATGMs, the only
thing they don't have is an air-force. Robert Fisk reported from the
front lines in 2013/14/15 re how oftentimes the Syrian army faced
militants that were as well armed and, in some cases, even better armed.
Armored Assault by Al-Nusra in Aleppo, Caught on Nusra Drone Camera
L.K
,
April 14, 2017 at 11:05 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@El Dato
Syria may be an autocratic shithole where women must know their place and
you better kowtow to the friendly state employee (or face a guided tour
of a dungeon) with the Assad family in power (indeed we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre
under daddy already) but
This is just jumping the shark.
I dare you to find me an independent Syria expert who says the rebels are responsible for most of the refugee problem.
People just don't like to stay in warzones and flattened cities, yes. Your view of Syria is a grotesque caricature. Here's what former US marine, Brad Hoff, found in Syria before the war:
A Marine in SyriaDURING MY FIRST WEEKS in Damascus, I was pleasantly shocked. My preconceived notions were shattered: I expected to find a society full of veiled women, mosques on every street corner, religious police looking over shoulders, rabid anti-American sentiment preached to angry crowds, persecuted Christians and crumbling hidden churches, prudish separation of the sexes, and so on. I quickly realized during my first few days and nights in Damascus, that Syria was a far cry from my previous imaginings, which were probably more reflective of Saudi Arabian life and culture. What I actually encountered were mostly unveiled women wearing European fashions and sporting bright makeup - many of them wearing blue jeans and tight fitting clothes that would be commonplace in American shopping malls on a summer day. I saw groups of teenage boys and girls mingling in trendy cafes late into the night, displaying expensive cell phones. There were plenty of mosques, but almost every neighborhood had a large church or two with crosses figured prominently in the Damascus skyline.
https://medium.com/news-politics/a-marine-in-syria-d06ff67c203c
As for the 'Hama massacre', it was actually a battle between the army and a sectarian islamic insurgency.
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WorkingClass , April 12, 2017 at 6:48 pm GMT \nApr 15, 2017 | www.unz.com
contacts in the area have told us this is not what happened. There was no Syrian 'chemical weapons attack.' Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died ..This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and – more important –what they appear to believe happened."
- Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, 20 former members of the US Intelligence Community (names below)
You don't have to be a genius to figure out that the case against Syrian President Bashar al Assad is extremely weak. The chemical weapons attack in Khan Shaykhun, has produced no smoking gun, no damning evidence, in fact, no evidence at all. Similar to the Russia hacking fiasco, (not a shred of evidence so far) the western media and the entire political class has made the case for attacking a sovereign country on the thin gruel of a few videos of an incident that took place in a location that is currently under the control of militant groups connected to al Qaida. That's pretty shaky grounds for a conviction, don't you think?
And it's not up to Assad to prove his innocence either. That's baloney. The burden of proof rests with the prosecution. If Trump and his lieutenants have evidence that the Syrian President used chemical weapons, then– by all means– let's see it and be done with it. If not, we have to assume that Assad is innocent, not because we like Assad, but because these are the legal precedents that one follows to establish the truth. And that's what we want, we want to know what really happened.
Neither Trump nor the media care about the truth, what they care about is regime change, which is the driving force behind Washington's six year-long war on Syria. The fact that Washington has concealed its support by secretly arming-and-training Sunni militias, does not absolve it from responsibility. The US is totally responsible for the mess in Syria. Without Washington's support none of this would have happened. 7 million Syrians wouldn't have fled their homes, 400,000 Syrians wouldn't have been killed, and the country would not be the anarchic wastelands it is today. The United States is entirely is responsible for the death and destruction of Syria. These are Washington's killing fields.
As we said earlier, there is no evidence that Assad used chemical weapons against his people nor has there been any investigation to substantiate the claims. The Trump administration launched its Tomahawk missile barrage before consulting with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons which essentially preempted the organization from doing its job. The administration's rejection of the normal investigative procedures and rush to judgement reinforces the belief that they know they have no case and are just peddling pro-war BS in the mad pursuit of their geopolitical objectives.
Since we don't have an organization like the OPCW to conduct an investigation, we should at least consider the informed opinions of professionals who have some background in intelligence. This doesn't provide us with iron-clad proof one way or another, but at least it gives us an idea of some probable scenarios. Here's a quote from former CIA officer and Director of the Council for the National Interest, Philip Giraldi, who stated last week on the Scott Horton show:
"I am hearing from sources on the ground, in the Middle East, the people who are intimately familiar with the intelligence available are saying that the essential narrative we are all hearing about the Syrian government or the Russians using chemical weapons on innocent civilians is a sham. The intelligence confirms pretty much the account the Russians have been giving since last night which is that they hit a warehouse where al Qaida rebels were storing chemicals of their own and it basically caused an explosion that resulted in the casualties. Apparently the intelligence on this is very clear, and people both in the Agency and in the military who are aware of the intelligence are freaking out about this because essentially Trump completely misrepresented what he should already have known - but maybe didn't–and they're afraid this is moving towards a situation that could easily turn into an armed conflict." (The Impending Clash Between the U.S. and Russia, Counterpunch)
We hear a very similar account from retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was former chief of Staff to General Colin Powell. Here's what he said in a recent interview on the Real News Network:
"I personally think the provocation was a Tonkin Gulf incident .. Most of my sources are telling me, including members of the team that monitors global chemical weapons –including people in Syria, including people in the US Intelligence Community–that what most likely happened was that they hit a warehouse that they had intended to hit and this warehouse was alleged to have to ISIS supplies in it, and some of those supplies were precursors for chemicals .. conventional bombs hit the warehouse, and due to a strong wind, and the explosive power of the bombs, they dispersed these ingredients and killed some people." (" Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump Attack on Syria Driven by Domestic Politics ", Real News Network)
Finally, we have the collective judgement of 20 former members of the US Intelligence Community (names below) the so-called Steering Group of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Here's what they say:
"Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us this is not what happened. There was no Syrian "chemical weapons attack." Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died ..This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and – more important –what they appear to believe happened."
So, why is the administration so eager to jump to conclusions? Why do they want to use such a sketchy incident to justify an attack on sovereign nation that poses no threat to US national security? What's really going on here?
ORDER IT NOWTo answer tha, we need to review an interview with President Trump's new National Security Advisor, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, that took on place on Sunday on Fox News. McMaster– you may recall– recently replaced General Michael Flynn at the same position. Flynn's failing was that he wanted to "normalize" relations with Russia which the behind-the-scenes powerbrokers rejected out-of-hand and worked to have him replaced with far-right wing militarist-neocon McMaster. Now, McMaster is part of the one-two combo that decides US foreign policy around the world. Trump has essentially dumped Syria in the laps of his two favorite generals, McMaster and James "Mad Dog" Mattis who have decided to deepen Washington's military commitment in Syria and intensify the conflict even if it means a direct confrontation with Russia.
In the Fox interview, McMaster was asked a number of questions about Trump's missile attack. Here's part of what he said:
"The objective (of the strikes) was to send a very strong political message to Assad. And this is very significant because . this is the first time the United States has acted directly against the Assad regime, and that should be a strong message to Assad and to his sponsors .
"Russia should ask themselves, what are we doing here? Why are we supporting this murderous regime that is committing mass murder of its own population and using the most heinous weapons available .Right now, I think everyone in the world sees Russia as part of the problem." (Fox News with Chris Wallace)
Can you see what's going on? Trump's missile attack was not retaliatory, not really. It was a message to Putin. McMaster was saying as clearly as possible, that 'the US military is coming for Assad, and you'd better stay out of the way if you know what's good for you.' That's the message. It has nothing to do with chemical weapons or the suffering of innocent people. McMaster was delivering a threat. He was putting Putin 'on notice'.
Like McMaster said, "this is the first time the United States has acted directly against the Assad regime, and that should be a strong message to Assad and to his sponsors ."
In other words, McMaster wants Putin to know that he's prepared to attack the Syrian government and its assets directly and, that, if Putin continues to defend Assad, Russian forces will be targeted as well.
There was some confusion about this in the media because UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson got their talking-points mixed up and botched their interviews. But the Washington Post clarified the policy the next day by stating bluntly:
"Officials in the Trump administration on Sunday demanded that Russia stop supporting the Syrian government or face a further deterioration in its relations with the United States."
Bingo. That's the policy in a nutshell. The issue isn't chemical weapons. The issue is Russia's support for Assad, the leader who remains the target of US regime change plans. We are seeing a fundamental shift in the policy from mainly covert support for CIA-backed Sunni militias to overt military intervention. This is just the first volley in that new war.
The media wants the American people to believe that President Trump impulsively ordered the missile attacks in response to the use of chemical weapons. But there's reason to suspect that the attacks had been planned for some time in advance. As one blogger pointed out:
"In the weeks before the missile strikes, Trump met with the Saudis, the president of Egypt, and the King of Jordan, while Secretary of State met with Turkish President Erdogan. In other words, the administration met with the entire Middle East 'Sunni alliance' just days before ordering the missile strikes. Coincidence?
Probably not. They were probably tipped off and asked for their continued support.
Also, Trump waited until the evening that he was having dinner with President Xi Jinping to launch the attacks. How's that for timing?
Do you think that the announcement that Trump just attacked Syria would have an impact on the two leaders' conversation about North Korea? Do you think Xi might have seen the announcement as a not-so-subtle threat of violence against the North unless China forces its ally to make concessions?
Of course, he did. The man wasn't born yesterday.
It seems unlikely that Trump's attack was a snap decision made by an impulsive man. Instead, it looks like there was a significant amount of planning that went on beforehand, including the deploying of 400 additional Special Ops to Syria and 2,500 combat troops to nearby Kuwait. It appears as though Washington had been building up its troop-strength for some time before it settled on the right pretext for taking things to the next level. As journalist Bill Van Auken noted at the World Socialist Web Site:
"We have been here so many times before that it is hardly worth wasting the time required to refute the official story. It is now 14 years since the US launched its invasion of Iraq over similar lies about weapons of mass destruction, setting into motion a vast slaughter that has claimed the lives of over one million people and turned millions more into refugees ..
Once again, as in the air war against Serbia in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and the attack on Libya in 2011, the United States has concocted a pretext to justify the violation of another country's sovereignty " ("The Bombing of Syria, Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site)
I have no way of knowing whether Assad used chemical weapons or not, but I found Russian President Vladimir Putin's analysis particularly interesting. Reporters asked Putin - "What is your view about the use of chemical weapons in Syria?"
"You all know that the Syrian government has repeatedly asked the international community to come and inspect the sites where the rebels used chemical weapons. But they always ignored those requests. The only time the international community has responded, was to this last incident. So, what do I think?
I think we can figure out what's going on by just using a little common sense. The Syrian army was winning the war, in some places they had the rebels completely surrounded. For them to throw it all away and give their trump card to the people who have been calling for regime change is, frankly, a crock of shit.". ( Russian President Vladimir Putin. )
Putin's response to Trump's missile attack has been subdued to say the least. He did issue a perfunctory presidential press statement on the incident, but the tone of the statement was neither incendiary or belligerent. If anything, it sounded like he found the whole matter irritating, like the man who sits down to a picnic lunch and finds he has to deal with pesky mosquito before he can eat. But, of course, this is the way that Putin handles most matters. He's a master of understatement who is not easily given to emotional outbursts or displays of rage. He's more apt to scratch himself, roll his eyes and give a shrug of the shoulders, than wave his fist and issue threats.
But from a strategic point of view, Putin's measured response makes perfect sense, after all, the real battle isn't going to be won or lost in Syria. It's much bigger than that. Putin is challenging the present world order in which a disproportionate amount of political and economic power has accrued to one unipolar center of authority, a global hegemon that imposes its economic model wherever it goes and topples sovereign states with a wave of the hand. Putin's task is to build resistance among the vassals, form new alliances, and strengthen the collective resolve for a different world where national sovereignty and borders are guaranteed under an impartial set of international laws that protect the weak as well as the strong.
That's Putin's real objective, to rebuild the system of global security based on a solid foundation of respect for the vital interests of each and every country. To accomplish that, Putin must seem like a reasonable and trustworthy ally who honors his commitments and stands by his friends even when they are under attack. That's why Putin won't abandon Assad. It's because he can't.
Syria is the battlefield where competing visions of the future meet head on. It's where the rubber meets the road.
MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition . He can be reached at [email protected] .
Anon , April 12, 2017 at 1:44 pm GMT \n
100 WordsCan you see what's going on? Trump's missile attack was not retaliatory, not really. It was a message to Putin. McMaster was saying as clearly as possible, that 'the US military is coming for Assad, and you'd better stay out of the way if you know what's good for you.' That's the message.
It's not only that. He adds that everyone else in the world sees it that way.
That's an essential element to bully speak, and it's never missing from it.They love to receive validation from their serfs (you could consider this the "alpha's dessert", from a certain anthropological perspective, to be tasted after every meal).
After the missile barrage, European "leaders" all took part in a bowing down competition. The good general's expectations about them didn't go unrealized.
The choir of serfs may be seem a scenic element, nevertheless it is essential scenery. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc.
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Trump attacked Syria because he wants to rule the world by force of arms. He pretended to prefer peace to war in order to get elected. He is not Hitler. He is Dubya and Kushner is his Cheney. FKA Max , April 13, 2017 at 4:06 am GMT \n
You don't have to be a genius to figure out that the case against Syrian President Bashar al Assad is extremely weak.
Maybe you do have to be one
Ann Coulter, whom I believe to be a female genius
– http://www.unz.com/jthompson/iq-does-not-exist-lead-poisoning-aside/#comment-1833752
ANN COULTER FULL ONE-ON-ONE EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TUCKER CARLSON (4/12/2017)
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Anon
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:33 am GMT \n
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Anon
,
April 13, 2017 at 6:19 am GMT \n
Kinzer says 'left' and 'right' are breaking down in foreign policy.
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Diversity Heretic
,
April 13, 2017 at 6:54 am GMT \n
@WorkingClass
Yup. That's what I want. In one of his last books, Around the Cragged Hill , George Kennan advocated the dissolution of the United States in its present form for precisely this reason. You're in good company. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
If you want a world whereby the US lives in perpetual peace you want a world in which the US is too weak to invade other countries.
@nsa Under 2% of the population.....over 50% of the Trump cabinet. The Anglos lack the "genetic" qualification to "serve" the US. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
100 Words
Probably not. [Sunni/Wahabbi/Army of Conquest actors] were probably tipped off and asked for their continued support.
In which case the "accidental release of warehoused chemicals" makes only sense if it was a "lucky strike". Seeing how this went down, so totally perfectly, I would say "fully engineered 'incident' with actors on the ground" is the likely explanation. See also http://www.unz.com/author/theodore-a-postol/ of course.
It's just a matter of degree but the US went from not-too-deadly-to-civilians false flags (some 60′s CIA "communist bombings" in South Vietnam notwithstanding) to do-not-care-about-civilians false flags, and I would say that happened under Obama.
In the long run. these people are all dead of course, but it's still a
hardening of the veins.
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Karl
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:54 am GMT \n
> The US is totally responsible for the mess in Syria
darn, those jolly peaceful people in Syria got pushed off-course of a history of thousands of years without a single internal conflict . by the Americans. Everything by the Americans.
> waited until the evening that he was having dinner with President Xi Jinping to launch the attacks. How's that for timing?
whatever it takes to make sure that Arabella gets good reviews in the
Beijing papers
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KenH
,
April 13, 2017 at 12:21 pm GMT \n
200 Words
I saw a red flag when Trump & the Pentagon inserted troops into Syria
without asking for permission from Bashar Al Assad. It seemed to me that the
regime change writing was on the wall and it was only a matter of time
before they found the right pretext or created a false flag (or fell for one
staged by the "rebels"). And lo and behold they found one straight out of a
Hollywood movie script where a real life Dr. Evil type dictator "gasses"
innocent women and children.
Then it was the usual faux outrage by the president, his cabinet members, Congress and the fake, lapdog media while repeating unfounded allegations 24/7 as established truths.
"In the weeks before the missile strikes, Trump met with the Saudis, the president of Egypt, and the King of Jordan, while Secretary of State met with Turkish President Erdogan.
Those are all the wrong people to consult with since they are Sunni and Assad is a member of the Alawite sect of Shia Islam. Of course they'd like to see Assad deposed and a pliant Sunni stooge in his stead.
As for Israel, they prefer the bad guys not backed by Iran which would be ISIS and other Wahabi cutthroats and who we now seem to be supporting given Trump's radical shift on Syria.
http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328
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Miro23
,
April 13, 2017 at 1:10 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Really a very good article putting beyond doubt that Syria is being set up
for "Regime Change" and the Russians are being warned to keep out.
.. To accomplish that, Putin must seem like a reasonable and trustworthy ally who honors his commitments and stands by his friends even when they are under attack. That's why Putin won't abandon Assad. It's because he can't.
Well, maybe he could, rather than risk was WWIII. And at least the US
public would know for sure that their "No More ME Wars" candidate had
defected to the Neo-cons, with the American Establishment being the War
Party rather than the Russians.
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Robert Magill
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April 13, 2017 at 1:48 pm GMT \n
100 Words
My scenario is a little different. I cannot believe that Donald Trump who
has demonstrated such spot on political instincts has suddenly lost his
touch. Consider: Premier Xi comes to visit. Deals are done. Russia and Syria
are notified during lunch the number of missiles and their intended
destination. This is all a show for Xi and Putin. After lunch the missiles
go off and about half reach the target.
Main runway undamaged, Syrian
planes resume flights next day. Mission accomplished! Target practice for
the Russians. Now we know and they know how many missiles they can scratch
in a cluster.
War hawks salivate. Everybody else has the vapors. Xi goes to Alaska for the
next big thing. Train service from the old world to the new.
http://robertmagill.wordpress.com
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anonymous
,
April 13, 2017 at 2:04 pm GMT \n
200 Words
The world must attack the criminal China by serving the interest of the
imperialism/Zionism and the Trump regime for few petty bones.
China abstained from the UN vote on Syria, where Trump regime bombed Syrian people and frame Assad for the chemical attack where CIA trained terrorists in Syria staged.
{President Donald Trump has praised China for its decision to abstain from voting on a UN Security Council resolution condemning last week's chemical attack on civilians in Syria, terming it an honour for the US.}
China is a criminal state a petty colony. Its leaders are cowards and
cannot be trusted. They are traitors to humanity. Everyone and every country
must BOYCOTT anything Chinese.
You don't want to help petty people.
Long live Russia for time being. China and Russia SOLD Libya and open the
road for the criminal West into Syria. China bears very big responsibility
for the survival of evil for
petty concessions.
Down with China, Down with its petty 'leaders' with mafia hear style. Shame
on China.
Please boycott all goods made in China. Petty Chinese have close relation
with Zionist entity because Chinese are enemies of Muslims as well. Down
with China.
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jacques sheete
,
April 13, 2017 at 2:14 pm GMT \n
@Fran Macadam
I'd say, it's more like "where the rubble meets the road."
I'd say, it's more like "where the rubble meets the road."
Or where the rabble bombed the road.
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Bill
,
April 13, 2017 at 3:11 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Karl
> The US is totally responsible for the mess in Syria
darn, those jolly peaceful people in Syria got pushed off-course of a history of thousands of years without a single internal conflict.... by the Americans. Everything by the Americans.
> waited until the evening that he was having dinner with President Xi Jinping to launch the attacks. How's that for timing?
whatever it takes to make sure that Arabella gets good reviews in the
Beijing papers
darn, those jolly peaceful people in Syria got pushed off-course of a history of thousands of years without a single internal conflict . by the Americans. Everything by the Americans.
Your claim is that the war would have happened even without the US and
its allies starting it? What's the evidence for this claim?
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bluedog
,
April 13, 2017 at 3:21 pm GMT \n
@Miro23
Really a very good article putting beyond doubt that Syria is being set up
for "Regime Change" and the Russians are being warned to keep out.
Well, maybe he could, rather than risk was WWIII. And at least the US public would know for sure that their "No More ME Wars" candidate had defected to the Neo-cons, with the American Establishment being the War Party rather than the Russians. No Putin can't throw away Syria for if he does then the rest of the world would judge him the same as they judge us "everyone knows the word of America is no good" and neither Putin or the Russia people would go for that Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
..... To accomplish that, Putin must seem like a reasonable and trustworthy ally who honors his commitments and stands by his friends even when they are under attack. That's why Putin won't abandon Assad. It's because he can't.
Sep 3, 2013 The Syrian War What You're Not Being Told
What's really going on in Syria? Let's look at the evidence.
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Tom Welsh
,
April 13, 2017 at 3:55 pm GMT \n
100 Words
If the Americans intend to attack Syria, and attack the Russians if they
defend Syria, the Americans are going to get a bloody nose (and perhaps a
broken jaw).
What really annoys me is that the fatuous stuffed shirts in Washington get off scot-free every time their ludicrous adventures go haywire.
Wouldn't it be nice if Congress could pass a law requiring that, whenever
an American military aggression fails, all those responsible must commit
seppuku in the traditional Japanese way?
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Agent76
,
April 13, 2017 at 4:27 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Tom Welsh
If the Americans intend to attack Syria, and attack the Russians if they
defend Syria, the Americans are going to get a bloody nose (and perhaps a
broken jaw).
What really annoys me is that the fatuous stuffed shirts in Washington get off scot-free every time their ludicrous adventures go haywire.
Wouldn't it be nice if Congress could pass a law requiring that, whenever an American military aggression fails, all those responsible must commit seppuku in the traditional Japanese way? It would be better if most of the world knew this instead. *All Wars Are Bankers' Wars*
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.
https://youtu.be/5hfEBupAeo4
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bjondo
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:20 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Can you see what's going on? Trump's missile attack was not retaliatory, not really. It was a message to Putin. McMaster was saying as clearly as possible, that 'the US military is coming for Assad, and you'd better stay out of the way if you know what's good for you.' That's the message. It has nothing to do with chemical weapons or the suffering of innocent people. McMaster was delivering a threat. He was putting Putin 'on notice'.
BS
US will not touch President Assad.
And US not putting President Putin on notice.
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Rurik
,
April 13, 2017 at 5:37 pm GMT \n
at least it wasn't in Damascus
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/afghanistan-isis-moab-bomb/index.html
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El Dato
,
April 13, 2017 at 6:02 pm GMT \n
@Rurik
at least it wasn't in Damascus
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/afghanistan-isis-moab-bomb/index.html
First on CNN: US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan
Yes, I would LOVE it if the largest non-nuclear bomb was dropped first on
CNN. As long as everybody were in the building at that time.
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Sean
,
April 13, 2017 at 6:55 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@Eustace Tilley (not)
How he yearns for Imperial Dawn,
Our doubleplusgood-speaking Sean!
He bleats
and
he chatters
Of "kindly" cruel matters
While playing the Government pawn.
You are much too high minded for this world of filth and worms and lies. But
never mind–
[MORE]
Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All CommentsEvil wings in ether beating;
Vultures at the spirit eating;Things unseen forever fleeting
Black against the leering sky.
Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,
Clawing fiends of future sadness,
Mingle in a cloud of madness
Ever on the soul to lie.Thus the living, lone and sobbing,
In the throes of anguish throbbing,
With the loathsome Furies robbing
Night and noon of peace and rest.
But beyond the groans and grating
Of abhorrent Life, is waiting
Sweet Oblivion, culminating
All the years of fruitless quest.
100 Words @El Dato
In which case the "accidental release of warehoused chemicals" makes only sense if it was a "lucky strike". Seeing how this went down, so totally perfectly, I would say "fully engineered 'incident' with actors on the ground" is the likely explanation. See also http://www.unz.com/author/theodore-a-postol/ of course.
Probably not. [Sunni/Wahabbi/Army of Conquest actors] were probably tipped off and asked for their continued support.
It's just a matter of degree but the US went from not-too-deadly-to-civilians false flags (some 60's CIA "communist bombings" in South Vietnam notwithstanding) to do-not-care-about-civilians false flags, and I would say that happened under Obama.
In the long run. these people are all dead of course, but it's still a hardening of the veins. EXACTLY. From Postol:
"This mechanism of dispersal is essentially the same as hitting a toothpaste tube with a large mallet, which then results in the tube failing and the toothpaste being blown in many directions depending on the exact way the toothpaste skin ruptures.
If this is in fact the mechanism used to disperse the sarin,
this
indicates that the sarin tube was placed on the ground by individuals on the
ground and not dropped from an airplane
."
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utu
,
April 13, 2017 at 8:39 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@RobinG
EXACTLY. From Postol:
"This mechanism of dispersal is essentially the same as hitting a toothpaste tube with a large mallet, which then results in the tube failing and the toothpaste being blown in many directions depending on the exact way the toothpaste skin ruptures.
If this is in fact the mechanism used to disperse the sarin, this indicates that the sarin tube was placed on the ground by individuals on the ground and not dropped from an airplane ." Publishing Postol's article may serves a disinfo purpose that people will start endless discussion how sarin was dispersed and start arguing about wind direction and humidity on that day. The picture of the alleged shell on which Postol's bases his whole analysis has no credibility whatsoever. Is he that naive and stupid not too think about it or is he a tool of those who do not want us think of other alternatives?
Shouldn't we ask ourselves what the head choppers and their sponsors (CIA, MOSSAD, Saudi Arabia, Qatar) are really capable of? Can they kill some civilians they rounded up somewhere by gas or whatever? Sure they can? Do they have priors? Sure they have. Are they media savvy and know how to create the event and report it? Sure they do.
Her is an example of some very media savvy operators in Iraq:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRZyHUr9YWM
Have they done it before (see bad acting 2:37 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p54hHhlLjRk
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paraglider
,
April 13, 2017 at 9:33 pm GMT \n
200 Words
Syria is the battlefield where competing visions of the future meet head on.
It's where the rubber meets the road.
actually syria is now the battlefield where the american neocon vision of the future is dying for all to see irrespective what trump wants or doesn't want.
the war there is, strategically speaking, over, all that remains are the tactical battles needed to finish off whatever the rebels calls themselves this week.
washington/israels neocon vision of the middle east is finished.
the russians do not want a war with the usa but i wager they are preparing for one at all levels as i write this. washington likes to fight but mostly against those who can not fight back and is wholly unprepared to battle a russian enemy every bit as technically advanced as the us military.
the 'real' us military knows fighting russia is suicide and a fools errand and is surely counseling trump on this fact. if he doesn't listen he potentially ends most life on earth or if he stops short of that the us military suffers a humiliating defeat for all the world to see.
his presidency ends forthwith and the integrity of the nation is at risk.
i will wager the syrian showdown between dc and russia goes no further.
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RadicalCenter
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:13 pm GMT \n
@paraglider
Syria is the battlefield where competing visions of the future meet head on.
It's where the rubber meets the road.
actually syria is now the battlefield where the american neocon vision of the future is dying for all to see irrespective what trump wants or doesn't want.
the war there is, strategically speaking, over, all that remains are the tactical battles needed to finish off whatever the rebels calls themselves this week.
washington/israels neocon vision of the middle east is finished.
the russians do not want a war with the usa but i wager they are preparing for one at all levels as i write this. washington likes to fight but mostly against those who can not fight back and is wholly unprepared to battle a russian enemy every bit as technically advanced as the us military.
the 'real' us military knows fighting russia is suicide and a fools errand and is surely counseling trump on this fact. if he doesn't listen he potentially ends most life on earth or if he stops short of that the us military suffers a humiliating defeat for all the world to see.
his presidency ends forthwith and the integrity of the nation is at risk.
i will wager the syrian showdown between dc and russia goes no further.
God I hope you're right.
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Mike Johnson
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:53 pm GMT \n
700 Words
So funny, as Israeli ass licking as Bannon was, it wasn't even an
afterthought to have this nuisance removed from Trump's inner circle by
Kushner. I feel bad for those of you Americans who thought that your Savior
was gonna really pursue some sort of populist agenda once he was elected to
the White House. I know the Breitbart types figured that achieving something
akin to what Israel has achieved for Jews could happen here for white
Americans but the reality is that the Jews who run your country end up not
respecting you for letting them do it, and hoping that they might let you
have a seat at what should be your table is pathetic lol, these people are
your enemies .
"Also, of interest was the ouster of controversial Trump
strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council (NSC), taking
place only days before the administration's dramatic reversal on Syria.
Incidentally, Bannon's fall from grace – which has only accelerated in the
week since his removal from the NSC – was due to his in-fighting with
Kushner, proving that Kushner's influence in his father-in-law's
administration is much more powerful than previously thought. While it
remains unknown exactly why Kushner and Bannon were fighting, the drastic
policy change in "national security" days later seems to speak volumes.
While Bannon is hardly anti-war or anti-Israel, it seems that Kushner's
commitment to radical Zionism and neo-conservative ideas put him at odds
with Bannon – who considers himself a "populist" and is a long-time
conservative, unlike Kushner. Indeed, Kushner – until 2012 – was a key
supporter of Democrats, much like his father, the notoriously corrupt
Charles Kushner, and donated thousands to Democrats like Hillary Clinton and
Charles Schumer.
Israel First
White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, takes his seat to watch Vice
President Mike Pence administer the oath of office to U.S. Ambassador to
Israel David M. Friedman, March 29, 2017. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
However, Kushner had no problem changing parties as his political leanings
have been shown to only change in regard to one issue – Israel. In 2012, it
was Kushner's stalwart support for Israel, particularly Israel's far-right,
that ultimately led him to reject the Democrat Party and support Mitt
Romney's candidacy. "Rather than strengthen the nation's relationship with
Israel as the Arab world imploded, Mr. Obama treated Jerusalem as less a
friend than a burden," said the Kushner-owned New York Observer's
endorsement, summing up Kushner's view on the matter in language that Trump
would later echo.
Kushner's unwavering support for Israel is obvious as any cursory
examination of his background reveals. Kushner was raised in a wealthy
Zionist family and met powerful Israeli politicians including now Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu in his teenage years. As an adult, Kushner has overseen
the finances of his family's "charitable" foundation which has donated
thousands to illegal Israeli settlements as well as thousands more to the
Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
This Oct. 24, 2016 photo, shows part of the Israeli settlement of Beit
El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Tax records show the family of U.S.
president-elect Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has donated tens
of thousands of dollars to Israeli settlement institutions in the West Bank
in recent years. (AP/Nasser Nasser)
Of particular interest among these donations was the $20,000 donation in
2013 to American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva, which supports one of the more
extremist illegal settlements in the West Bank. The chairman of this
organization, David Friedman, has been Trump's real estate lawyer for the
past 15 years and was selected by the Trump administration to serve as the
U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman is noticeable for being against the
two-state solution, a position that Kushner also shares according to
journalist Robert Parry and others.
With Kushner's "Israel first" mentality clear and his commitment to Zionism
obvious, it is hardly surprising that Kushner, and his wife Ivanka, would
push for a different approach to Syria than that promised by Trump during
the 2016 election."
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-prodigal-son-in-law-jared-kushner-and-the-rise-of-the-neo-cons-in-the-trump-admin/226794/
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alexander
,
April 13, 2017 at 10:55 pm GMT \n
200 Words
@paraglider
Syria is the battlefield where competing visions of the future meet head on.
It's where the rubber meets the road.
actually syria is now the battlefield where the american neocon vision of the future is dying for all to see irrespective what trump wants or doesn't want.
the war there is, strategically speaking, over, all that remains are the tactical battles needed to finish off whatever the rebels calls themselves this week.
washington/israels neocon vision of the middle east is finished.
the russians do not want a war with the usa but i wager they are preparing for one at all levels as i write this. washington likes to fight but mostly against those who can not fight back and is wholly unprepared to battle a russian enemy every bit as technically advanced as the us military.
the 'real' us military knows fighting russia is suicide and a fools errand and is surely counseling trump on this fact. if he doesn't listen he potentially ends most life on earth or if he stops short of that the us military suffers a humiliating defeat for all the world to see.
his presidency ends forthwith and the integrity of the nation is at risk.
i will wager the syrian showdown between dc and russia goes no further. Some really good points here, paraglider.
I believe a nations army will always fight hardest to defend itself against an aggressive invasion An entire nation (every man ,woman and child) will rally to the call when an existential threat is upon them
They will make every sacrifice to survive ..
When its balls to the walls do or die .Ordinary people have shown a mountain of courage where none would expect it.
When an aggressor army enter the fray, under false or dubious claims, no matter how well disciplined its soldiers are, the integrity of rationale, or lack there of, impinges on the hearts and minds of its warriors.
How can it not ?
We are human beings, after all ?
Cannot any of us imagine how potent and deadly a warrior Pat Tillman might have been, defending OUR country..from an attacking invader ?
One deadly , vicious , Motherf#cker I can tell you that now .God rest his soul.
There is nothing WORSE for a nation than to engage in aggressive war under false or bogus pretenses..
Nothing WORSE --
It undermines the fighting spirit.. because deep down, every soldier doesn't REALLY believe they have the RIGHT to win ..
and they are right --
They understand, somewhere deep in their belly .there is NO victory in
winning when the very reason they are laying down their lives is a LIE.
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joe webb
,
April 13, 2017 at 11:46 pm GMT \n
100 Words
@FKA Max
Maybe you do have to be one...
You don't have to be a genius to figure out that the case against Syrian President Bashar al Assad is extremely weak.
- http://www.unz.com/jthompson/iq-does-not-exist-lead-poisoning-aside/#comment-1833752
...Ann Coulter, whom I believe to be a female genius...
ANN COULTER FULL ONE-ON-ONE EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TUCKER CARLSON (4/12/2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45c408-s58A It would be so nice if Ann Coulter stopped tossing her hair around and bobbing her head generally, and Smiling all the time .of course, girlie behavior can be forgiven since she is a girl, but
arguably she could be more effective if the skin factor was reduced not necessarily eliminated and she was better prepared with a few facts, numbers, etc. Carlson is great given the need to keep his job, not for his money, but for Fox viewers who are subject to Hannity and O'Reilly emotionalism. The other guy, is not as bad, but he too starts to dance a bit Lou Dobbs.
Thank god for Tucker, his brilliance, his limits-pushing, his skepticism right now about Syria Story per the Usuals. Evidence! he keeps on saying .Yup.
Joe Webb
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KenH
,
April 14, 2017 at 1:13 am GMT \n
400 Words
Eric Bolling is filling in for the great O'Reilly and interviewing the wise
Sebastian Gorka on the Syrian and N. Korea situation. Based on this and
other interviews and coverage over the last week by the neocon smart set
I've learned the following:
1) Assad is evil, almost indescribably so, and he periodically uses chemical weapons against innocent people for pure sport. Don't challenge this or you are condoning evil, stupid, a liberal pussy, or not a true patriot. Besides, our intelligence agencies are second to none and wouldn't lie or mislead us and how dare you question the narrative.
2) Assad and his allies are quaking in their boots. Iran and Russia better think long and hard about supporting Assad. We may use additional force. We may not. We like to keep people guessing and our options open. It's all part of Trump's unpredictability and brilliance.
3) The use of WMD's will not be tolerated by this administration unless we're the ones using them since we are exceptional. If we use them then we have a right to and are killing really evil people who threaten innocent people, Israel and the change of seasons on earth.
4) The Chinese premier thought the tomahawk missile strike before dessert was cool and scary at the same time. Xi Jinpeng was so impressed by Trump's "resolve" and the dessert was so delectable that he will probably invade or nuke N. Korea for us. That's the art of the deal!
5) Our actions are legal and moral even though nobody can say where we derive the power to bomb nations we are not at war with or who don't pose an imminent threat. Trump, Tillerson, Nikki Haley, Israel, CNN, FOX and Rush Limbaugh think we have this power and that's all that matters. If you disagree then you are a traitor or phony patriot and should leave the exceptional American nation NOW (yes, you alt-right, Tulsi Gabbard and Rand Paul).
6) The only thing preventing John McCainiac's permanent man crush on
Trump is the latter's unwillingness to commit 500,000 troops for a ground
invasion. He should also consider invading Iran while we're in the
neighborhood since Assad's evil is only matched by the mullahs. Of course,
if Trump follows through with McCain's wish then Lindsay Graham will fall in
love, too and have a hard on for the ages.
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Ivy
,
April 14, 2017 at 2:02 am GMT \n
@RobinG
EXACTLY. From Postol:
"This mechanism of dispersal is essentially the same as hitting a toothpaste tube with a large mallet, which then results in the tube failing and the toothpaste being blown in many directions depending on the exact way the toothpaste skin ruptures.
If this is in fact the mechanism used to disperse the sarin,
this
indicates that the sarin tube was placed on the ground by individuals on the
ground and not dropped from an airplane
."
The drone delivery theory sounds intriguing. There may be a screenplay in
that.
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krollchem
,
April 14, 2017 at 6:08 am GMT \n
@KenH
Eric Bolling is filling in for the great O'Reilly and interviewing the wise
Sebastian Gorka on the Syrian and N. Korea situation. Based on this and
other interviews and coverage over the last week by the neocon smart set
I've learned the following:
1) Assad is evil, almost indescribably so, and he periodically uses chemical weapons against innocent people for pure sport. Don't challenge this or you are condoning evil, stupid, a liberal pussy, or not a true patriot. Besides, our intelligence agencies are second to none and wouldn't lie or mislead us and how dare you question the narrative.
2) Assad and his allies are quaking in their boots. Iran and Russia better think long and hard about supporting Assad. We may use additional force. We may not. We like to keep people guessing and our options open. It's all part of Trump's unpredictability and brilliance.
3) The use of WMD's will not be tolerated by this administration unless we're the ones using them since we are exceptional. If we use them then we have a right to and are killing really evil people who threaten innocent people, Israel and the change of seasons on earth.
4) The Chinese premier thought the tomahawk missile strike before dessert was cool and scary at the same time. Xi Jinpeng was so impressed by Trump's "resolve" and the dessert was so delectable that he will probably invade or nuke N. Korea for us. That's the art of the deal!
5) Our actions are legal and moral even though nobody can say where we derive the power to bomb nations we are not at war with or who don't pose an imminent threat. Trump, Tillerson, Nikki Haley, Israel, CNN, FOX and Rush Limbaugh think we have this power and that's all that matters. If you disagree then you are a traitor or phony patriot and should leave the exceptional American nation NOW (yes, you alt-right, Tulsi Gabbard and Rand Paul).
6) The only thing preventing John McCainiac's permanent man crush on
Trump is the latter's unwillingness to commit 500,000 troops for a ground
invasion. He should also consider invading Iran while we're in the
neighborhood since Assad's evil is only matched by the mullahs. Of course,
if Trump follows through with McCain's wish then Lindsay Graham will fall in
love, too and have a hard on for the ages.
Your dry humor may not be understood my most readers.
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Rurik
,
April 14, 2017 at 2:42 pm GMT \n
@KenH
Eric Bolling is filling in for the great O'Reilly and interviewing the wise
Sebastian Gorka on the Syrian and N. Korea situation. Based on this and
other interviews and coverage over the last week by the neocon smart set
I've learned the following:
1) Assad is evil, almost indescribably so, and he periodically uses chemical weapons against innocent people for pure sport. Don't challenge this or you are condoning evil, stupid, a liberal pussy, or not a true patriot. Besides, our intelligence agencies are second to none and wouldn't lie or mislead us and how dare you question the narrative.
2) Assad and his allies are quaking in their boots. Iran and Russia better think long and hard about supporting Assad. We may use additional force. We may not. We like to keep people guessing and our options open. It's all part of Trump's unpredictability and brilliance.
3) The use of WMD's will not be tolerated by this administration unless we're the ones using them since we are exceptional. If we use them then we have a right to and are killing really evil people who threaten innocent people, Israel and the change of seasons on earth.
4) The Chinese premier thought the tomahawk missile strike before dessert was cool and scary at the same time. Xi Jinpeng was so impressed by Trump's "resolve" and the dessert was so delectable that he will probably invade or nuke N. Korea for us. That's the art of the deal!
5) Our actions are legal and moral even though nobody can say where we derive the power to bomb nations we are not at war with or who don't pose an imminent threat. Trump, Tillerson, Nikki Haley, Israel, CNN, FOX and Rush Limbaugh think we have this power and that's all that matters. If you disagree then you are a traitor or phony patriot and should leave the exceptional American nation NOW (yes, you alt-right, Tulsi Gabbard and Rand Paul).
6) The only thing preventing John McCainiac's permanent man crush on Trump is the latter's unwillingness to commit 500,000 troops for a ground invasion. He should also consider invading Iran while we're in the neighborhood since Assad's evil is only matched by the mullahs. Of course, if Trump follows through with McCain's wish then Lindsay Graham will fall in love, too and have a hard on for the ages. Eric Bolling called Assad "the butcher of Damascus"
can't get more 'Hitler of the month' than that
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Agent76
,
April 14, 2017 at 5:06 pm GMT \n
100 Words
April 14, 2017 The Trump/Syria conundrum Will Trump deliver Deep State's
world war?
In appearance, Trump's April 6, 2017, missile attack on Syria is the first step towards a regime change, a massive regional conquest, and World War 3. In appearance, the event marked a point of no return for Trump's presidency.
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/20880
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El Dato
,
April 14, 2017 at 5:25 pm GMT \n
@KenH
Eric Bolling is filling in for the great O'Reilly and interviewing the wise
Sebastian Gorka on the Syrian and N. Korea situation. Based on this and
other interviews and coverage over the last week by the neocon smart set
I've learned the following:
1) Assad is evil, almost indescribably so, and he periodically uses chemical weapons against innocent people for pure sport. Don't challenge this or you are condoning evil, stupid, a liberal pussy, or not a true patriot. Besides, our intelligence agencies are second to none and wouldn't lie or mislead us and how dare you question the narrative.
2) Assad and his allies are quaking in their boots. Iran and Russia better think long and hard about supporting Assad. We may use additional force. We may not. We like to keep people guessing and our options open. It's all part of Trump's unpredictability and brilliance.
3) The use of WMD's will not be tolerated by this administration unless we're the ones using them since we are exceptional. If we use them then we have a right to and are killing really evil people who threaten innocent people, Israel and the change of seasons on earth.
4) The Chinese premier thought the tomahawk missile strike before dessert was cool and scary at the same time. Xi Jinpeng was so impressed by Trump's "resolve" and the dessert was so delectable that he will probably invade or nuke N. Korea for us. That's the art of the deal!
5) Our actions are legal and moral even though nobody can say where we derive the power to bomb nations we are not at war with or who don't pose an imminent threat. Trump, Tillerson, Nikki Haley, Israel, CNN, FOX and Rush Limbaugh think we have this power and that's all that matters. If you disagree then you are a traitor or phony patriot and should leave the exceptional American nation NOW (yes, you alt-right, Tulsi Gabbard and Rand Paul).
6) The only thing preventing John McCainiac's permanent man crush on
Trump is the latter's unwillingness to commit 500,000 troops for a ground
invasion. He should also consider invading Iran while we're in the
neighborhood since Assad's evil is only matched by the mullahs. Of course,
if Trump follows through with McCain's wish then Lindsay Graham will fall in
love, too and have a hard on for the ages.
Fukken printed!
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El Dato
,
April 14, 2017 at 5:29 pm GMT \n
@Rurik
Eric Bolling called Assad "the butcher of Damascus"
can't get more 'Hitler of the month' than that
Well, Assad Jr. used to run a halal meat shop when he was not busy learning
the basics of totalitarian governance. It was rather famous throughout
Damascus.
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MEexpert
,
April 14, 2017 at 7:00 pm GMT \n
@El Dato
Well, Assad Jr. used to run a halal meat shop when he was not busy learning
the basics of totalitarian governance. It was rather famous throughout
Damascus.
You are a moron.
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MEexpert
,
April 14, 2017 at 7:07 pm GMT \n
100 Words
Since the neocons are so interested in partitioning every other country, we
should give them a partitioned country right here. We should break up the
United States into several countries. California and Texas already want to
secede. We should make New York as a separate country for the neocons and
the MSM. They can run it to ground anyway they like.
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Miro23
,
April 14, 2017 at 10:01 pm GMT \n
@MEexpert
Since the neocons are so interested in partitioning every other country, we
should give them a partitioned country right here. We should break up the
United States into several countries. California and Texas already want to
secede. We should make New York as a separate country for the neocons and
the MSM. They can run it to ground anyway they like.
There' s already plan for this at red-blue county level:
https://www.amazon.com/Restoring-America-Dr-Michael-Hart/dp/1312875704/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
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jacques sheete
,
April 14, 2017 at 10:08 pm GMT \n
@Agent76
Sep 3, 2013 The Syrian War What You're Not Being Told
What's really going on in Syria? Let's look at the evidence.
https://youtu.be/dkamZg68jpk What's the message?
I pretty much avoid vids because I can read much faster.
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bluedog
,
April 14, 2017 at 11:13 pm GMT \n
@MEexpert
Since the neocons are so interested in partitioning every other country, we
should give them a partitioned country right here. We should break up the
United States into several countries. California and Texas already want to
secede. We should make New York as a separate country for the neocons and
the MSM. They can run it to ground anyway they like.
Wait a second I live in N.Y. AND WE DON'T WANT THE BASTARDS HERE EITHER.
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MEexpert
,
April 15, 2017 at 12:21 am GMT \n
@bluedog
Wait a second I live in N.Y. AND WE DON'T WANT THE BASTARDS HERE EITHER.
I feel sorry for you. You are going to have hard time getting rid of those
cockroaches.
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